Roscoe Bevington: Tenth Tattersby

The Folly

Tattersby

Roscoe Bevington

I feel cheated. Yes, cheated, in a profound and unexpected way

You won’t like crediting Roscoe Bevington with profundity

Not least because, educated as you’ve been

You no doubt cherish philosophy as franchise

Don’t much take to it, a wrong’un like myself

Waxing Aristotelian on the theme of man’s demise

I missed the war. As, of course, did you…ergo, sirrah, you understand me

When I say those boys of Kitchener’s brigade

Had the easier time of it

How I’d have thrived as a flying ace

What reward for ramming Tattersby mid-air

What medal pinned upon my breast?

Or such as filled my casket

His precious Tiger Moth, you know

Ha, ha! That also his unimaginative pet name for Lucille

Handy little aviatrix, our Lady Gimple

Now, I am a rather blunt-looking chap

Not one of your equine aristocracy

Makes one cynical of one’s elders, a bit

This inconstant family visage

And what is my brother Anselm today? A plodder

Embalmed behind a company desk

You don’t know, do you…you can’t tell me, my young squire

If he sent his man Walker in the dear old Chickadee

to carry it up to Morpeth

I mean that neatly severed hand of mine

The papers were all so kind as to mention

Roscoe Bevington

Awful Rivalry: Eleventh Tattersby

(2017, Stephanie Foster)