Inquisitor 1898: Border by eXternal

eXternal sets the second IQ challenge of March.

The Preamble:

Entries are entirely in the left or right half of the grid, as if divided by a border. Except for the first and last, each across clue contains an extra word; one choice of first or last letters of these words gives a poem title, the other choice gives part of its refrain. A single extra letter to be removed from one down clue per column must be placed in the column’s lowermost cell.
In the initially-filled grid, solvers must represent the continuation of the poem’s refrain by: (i) moving two entries showing the main characters in the poem to overwrite other entries, thereby obliterating thematic words; (ii) adding two words to eight of the vacated cells; and (iii) adding six vertical bars – retaining the reflective symmetry – to demonstrate a titular loss. All final entries are real words or phrases.

As usual, on first reading, the Preamble makes no sense, particularly the reference to the ‘dividing border’, clearly relevant, given the title of the puzzle. We then realised as we looked at the grid and the numbering of the clues that there are a number of bars missing – if they had been included they would cut the grid in two – two puzzles for the price of one!

Having noted that there are extra words in most of the across clues and extra letters in most of the downs, we set about solving – and found that once the extra word or letter had been identified most clues were relatively straightforward. 1ac was our first one in (no extra word though!), followed by 2d, 13ac, 1d, 30ac…. As we progressed we began to see the phrase formed by placing the extra letters in the down clues in the bottom row – we had GOD’S JUDGMENT… but couldn’t figure out the last four letters.

We also began to realise that a selection of the first or last letters of the extra words in the across clues could make THE BALLAD OF ….. with the alternate letters making NEVER THE TWA…. This didn’t ring any bells, but with a little electronic help we found THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST (7d and 6d) by Rudyard Kipling, the first lines of which are:

“Oh, East is east and west is west, and NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at GOD’S great JUDGMENT SEAT

but there is neither EAST nor WEST, BORDER, nor BREED (22d), nor BIRTH (23d),

When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

So, we had the title of the poem and part of it’s refrain, which enabled us to finish filling the grid by working out which were the extra words in the across clues we hadn’t solved and the extra letters in the down clues:

We then moved on to the endgame. We realised that the ‘two strong men’ from the poem are the ‘main characters’ in the preamble – COMMANDER (1d) and CHIEFTAIN (12d), representing WEST and EAST respectively. WEST and EAST are separated by the (invisible) border down the centre of the puzzle, also separating BREED and BIRTH.

For the first instruction, we have to move the two main characters to ‘overwrite other entries, thereby obliterating thematic words’, i.e. move them to the centre so that ‘there is neither WEST nor EAST, border, nor BREED, nor BIRTH’.

For the second instruction we need to ‘add two words to eight of the vacated cells’. This stumped us for some time, as we assumed that the words would both be of four letters, maintaining the mirror symmetry of the grid, and they would have to leave real words in the final grid. We tried all sorts of combinations of letters, to no avail, until Joyce tumbled to the fact that EARTH and SKY appear in the poem, ‘standing presently at God’s Judgment Seat’ – adding these words to the bottom of the first and last column leaves real words (although we had to check a few!)

For the third instruction, we have to ‘add six vertical bars, retaining the reflective symmetry to demonstrate the titular loss’ – the title being ‘Border’ – so we need to remove the (imaginary) border in the grid by identifying words that cross from west to east – the three pairs of vertical bars are added in rows 3, 4 and 8, creating new words or phrases running across the ‘border’ with other new words created in rows 1, 6, 7 and 9 without the need for additional vertical bars:

In the parsings below, definitions are underlined and extra words or letters are in (brackets)