Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  The Bamboo Forests of Sichuan, the next day

  Don’t let anyone tell you that the panda is a vegetarian. That’s like saying dolphins are friendly. Dolphins use their high-pitched squeaks and happy faces to fool the world into thinking they are somehow on our side. But tell that to young Randolph Pirbright, who met his maker raped by a bottlenose off the Florida Keys. In similar fashion, the panda has used its cuddly reputation to lull the world into a false sense of security. Everyone forgets their claws, and their serrated, bamboo-shredding teeth.

  I had been so bladdered on the excellent cellar at the Palace that hoisting Major Cornwall onto his special back harness had been tough that morning. The dinner with Pu-Yi had got a bit messy, and we’d spent too much time at the piano. Finally he’d rung for one of his acolytes to order a seven o’clock alarm call.

  Bowing low, the man said, “forgive my impertinence Emperor, but it is five past seven now.”

  As a result, I was still sozzled when we lost our first hunter. A bunch of teenage noblemen, desperate to prove themselves to Pu-Yi, as well as a great many ill-conditioned court advisors, had joined us. One of the young hunters heard a suspicious noise, and steamed into the undergrowth of the forest, keen to make a name for himself. After a few moments we heard a series of bloodcurdling screams and a weird snorting sound. We burst onto the scene, to find a silky male panda sitting on its fat bottom with its legs apart, like a great big teddy bear.

  A teddy bear that had hollowed out the teenager’s skull and was licking the insides like Oliver Twist with a soup bowl. The panda’s watery eyes widened as it investigated the boy’s ribcage. “What’s this?” it seemed to be saying, like a puppy with a shoe. Seeing us, it levered itself slowly off its comical bottom, as if to shamble away. Then it launched itself, claws first, at the boy’s distraught uncle, screeching. Even Pu-Yi, a pretty emotionally reserved chap, was undone by the panda’s sheer loveliness, before he blasted it to death with his blunderbuss.

  It was a bad start. I had new respect for our enemy.

  We stalked through the forest on high alert. Every creak could have been the creak of a panda lowering itself, vampire-like from an overhanging bamboo. Every rustle could have been the rustle of a half-tonne male, shadowing our hunting party through the dense foliage. The human eye can differentiate between three hundred shades of green, a skill developed in the prehistoric jungles of our ancestors. We should have been concentrating on black and white.

  Suddenly, three pandas came at us in formation, like armoured cars made of fluff. They cannoned into a tubby courtier, eviscerating his abdomen so his bowels flopped out onto the forest floor. A young panda began to feast on his guts. Too late, we realised this was only a devious trap! Another three pandas had outflanked us and were even now stealing up to launch a ferocious and adorable attack; their doe-eyes blazing with blood-frenzy. Then a third wave: four more pandas this time, razoring through the teenage hunters with their scythe-like claws covered in tufty fur. I forgot myself, and smiled at one young female with a drop of scarlet viscera right on the end of her button nose, only narrowly evading her snapping teeth.

  There was a sudden lull in the action. The alpha-panda bashfully wiped his foe-smeared chops on an oversized leaf and blinked his limpid eyes at me, before springing for my jugular. I blasted him through his evil heart with the blunderbuss and thankfully he fell. The other pandas crowded round him, mewling and cooing for their brutal overlord.

  Then, with unbelievable speed and cunning, the surviving pandas rounded on us again. Pu-Yi and I stood on a mound of slaughtered hunters, circled by snarling bears, and settled into an uneasy standoff. Cornwall, ramrod straight as ever, was still strapped to my back. Pu-Yi remarked that his face betrayed no hint of strain at the panda onslaught, and that he was a brave and impassive warrior.

  Before we could react, two pandas leapt at us from opposing sides. I felt knife-like claws slash past me, but I ducked and weaved. Then I caught a huge furry haymaker to my temple and saw Pu-Yi fall as well.

  Everything went black.

  __________

  I awoke in the forest undergrowth. Some kind of jungle weasel had been snuffling at me, so I strangled it and threw it against a tree. The Emperor was doubled over, bleeding heavily. I patched him up and stuck a syringe of morphine into him. I decided to have a syringe myself, and an extra half-syringe for luck. Then Pu-Yi found us some brandy and a cigarette. That was better. Now I could concentrate.

  It was only now that I realised the dead weight attached to my back was gone! Where the hell was Cornwall? As well as being a close personal friend, he was absolutely irreplaceable as a ventriloquist’s dummy, so it was critical I rescue him alive, or at a pinch retrieve his body. I had several more shows booked in the coming weeks.

  We set off to find him, quick smart. Pu-Yi and I crept through the forest, which got darker and bleaker as we pushed on. Soon we found ourselves deep in panda territory and discovered what a menace these creatures were to the security of China. We found skulls of dead animals strewn all over the place and trees that had been ripped to shreds. We walked for what seemed like hours, then sat and relaxed for a while lunching on a plate of cold cuts and a baguette taken from the knapsack of one of Pu-Yi’s butchered flunkies. I smashed the neck off a rather too warm Bordeaux. In all the kerfuffle I forget exactly what it was, which I know will frustrate the reader no end. We decided to save the Armagnac for later, as we had work to do.

  Fortified, we reached the edge of a clearing. Luckily I’d stopped to urinate against the base of a tree or I would never have heard the low grunting sounds. This meant we did not blunder right into the pandas’ lair. That would have meant a violent death. Instead, we crouched behind some rubber plants to spy Cornwall unconscious in the middle of a heap of slumbering beasts, still covered in the gore of the recent slaughter. His body was, as ever, rigid. One very imposing panda, a female with one eye and one ear who I shall call Water Lily, was stroking him with her épée-like claws.

  It soon became clear that Water Lily had mistaken the paralysed Major for a lover. She cradled him, and grunted what passed for sweet nothings at him, all the while stroking his head with her vicious claws. Then she began huffing coquettishly. She pawed and prodded him in a crude simulacrum of foreplay, although thankfully she had not worked out where his genitals were yet.

  “We’ve got to help him,” Pu-Yi whispered. Quite so, but I stayed his hand. In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I wanted to see exactly where this was going before we mounted a rescue. I’d probably bag a Fellowship of the Royal Society if I wrote these observations up. I am sure nobody had witnessed a panda mating firsthand before, especially such an unnatural one, and I felt that I owed it to science to see what happened next. Cornwall would have never forgiven me if we had lost the opportunity to observe this rare ritual.

  Water Lily began to exude a foul-smelling musk from her nether regions. It was a pale yellow colour, reminiscent of the haddock soufflé that Cacahuete used to make before he was banned from the kitchen at Nimbu. Pints of this glandular substance began running down Water Lily’s furry thighs, until she was covered in it. It looked like she’d been dipped to her waist in raw egg.

  Several of the younger male pandas began to stir, and one developed an absolutely sensational erection. He approached Water Lily, tackle out, doing an odd, shuffling dance. But Water Lily wasn’t interested. She only had eyes for the Major. She raked her claws across the male’s furry bell-end, and he stumbled away howling. With a glint in her eye, Water Lily seized Cornwall’s rigid body, flipped him upside down like a plank of wood, and began rubbing his frozen face into her most private parts.

  The stench of ammonia made me gag, and I was over twenty yards away. How he didn’t simply melt I cannot say. What happened next, however, was even more remarkable.

  It was as if Cornwall had been playing musical statues and his mother
had put the needle back on the gramophone to start the music again. His frozen, incapacitated body suddenly loosened and contracted. Then he shook uncontrollably and stretched back into life, his joints clicking and snapping. Within a few moments he had his full range of movement back. It was miraculous! Something in Water Lily’s love-mucus had reacted with the fugu poison in his muscles, and neutralised it. Cornwall was cured!

  And in the middle of a clutch of murderous pandas.

  But he didn’t care about that. He was apoplectic with joy at regaining control of his body. The emotion of the moment was too much for him. His brows darkened, his face went a deeper shade of purple, and he screamed so loudly that Water Lily and the other pandas lumbered off in fear.

  Cornwall looked about him, searching for a weapon to frighten the pandas with, but there were no pandas with this dervish on the loose. With his smeared makeup, the hideous residue from the punishing frottage, and wearing the ragged Neapolitan clown outfit that was his stage gear, he was easily the most fearsome thing in this jungle.

  “TREVELYAN!” he screamed, as he picked up an ebony log, and tested its heft. “Big Black-White Bear is coming for you!” I could see he was suffering from an excess of emotion, but thankfully he had not yet spied us hiding in the rubber plants. I hoped he wasn’t about to make an embarrassing scene in front of the Last Emperor of China. I couldn’t have that. We are Scoundrels, after all.

  “Emperor, thank you for a most rewarding hunt,” I called, sprinting off into the undergrowth to avoid Cornwall’s public display of affection, “I think it has done the Major a power of good.”

  I think that just about covers it, don’t you? I trust it is broadly in line with what you were going to write anyway, and therefore I have saved you some bother. If you remember, you finally caught up with me at the palace, and it took seven Imperial Guardsmen to restrain you. I swear, Cornwall, I had no idea you had taken against the show so badly, or I would never have put you through it. Believe me.

  I must say that I’ve never been one to go on about myself, but it’s rather energising to re-engage with old times. I hadn’t thought about the panda hunt for years, but the whole thing came back to me as if it were yesterday. What’s the word? Cathartic. I think I may have judged your idea too harshly. Perhaps this memoirs lark bears further investigation.

  Yours sincerely,

  Major Arthur St. John Trevelyan

  Hellcat Manor

  Great Trundleford

  Devon

  7th September 2016

  Dear Major,

  That was unexpectedly harrowing.

  Thankfully I can now look back on that time and smile, although it’s a fake smile that masks a terrible trauma. It’s a humbling experience to be molested by a giant panda. But you may be surprised to know that the scene you describe wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me that day. Prior to your arrival, I’d been mistaken for a newborn cub, and so it wasn’t the molestation that woke me from my locked-in state, it was the five pints of breast milk I’d been force-fed minutes before you arrived.

  Did you know pandas have four nipples? I wish I didn’t.

  Yes, the act you witnessed was unpleasant. But perhaps it was necessary. For as I was dunked head first into the soft folds of Water Lily’s wet gusset, I thought I’d die. And yet somehow I didn’t. Somehow I emerged alive, thrashing around and gasping for air, covered in viscous panda batter. I was like a sticky new-born cub. I was re-born. The old me washed away, and the new me set free from my locked-in prison.

  I must say you have an uncanny eye for horrific detail and I admit to feeling shaken by reading your account. But now I have had time to reflect, I wonder if it would make sense for us to collaborate on one volume of memoirs rather than two. The tale of the most prolific adventurers of the 20th Century. Surely we can agree on that.

  Besides, this is our opportunity to set the record straight and let the world know about what happened all those years ago.

  Yours sincerely,

  Major Victor Montgomery Cornwall

  Nimbu Towers

  Pullen-under-Lyme

  Gloucestershire

  9th September 2016

  Dear Major,

  I hate to admit that you might be right, for once.

  Occasionally, late at night in the library, after Cacahuete has brought me my evening bottle, I will find myself staring at the fire and wondering if my story will survive me.

  Obviously I am wary of entering into any more joint projects with you, as history has taught me how that goes, but perhaps the bigger risk is that I might be forgotten.

  Yesterday I put a call into Massingberd Q.C., and he told me that the Official Secrets Act isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. He also says hullo to you, but nothing more.

  So, it’s with some trepidation that I agree to your proposal. Let’s give it a go. One chapter each, in turn. What do you wish to tackle next?

  Yours sincerely,

  Major Arthur St. John Trevelyan

  Hellcat Manor

  Great Trundleford

  Devon

  12th September 2016

  Dear Major,

  Good, that’s settled then. A bit slow on the uptake, as usual, but no surprises there. I’m glad you’ve seen sense.

  The following chapter takes me back to a seminal moment in my life, and perhaps goes someway to explain how I was shaped into the man I still am today: ruthless, professional and utterly pragmatic.

  My love life has always been enviable, as you know. Parades of gorgeous women have thrown themselves at me, perhaps because of my emotional unavailability. I’ve never had to deal with outmoded concepts like ‘children’ and ‘family’, and I’m bloody grateful for it. Perhaps this chapter goes some way to explaining the real me, if that’s even possible. If, as you mention, writing an autobiography is a cathartic experience, let the healing begin.

  __________

  CHAPTER 3

  Fuffy, Dear Fuffy

  I was born on 4th October 1921 by emergency caesarean section, amongst the branches of a large oak tree in the grounds of our family estate. My mother, a fiercely independent woman, had smashed her hang-glider into it after losing control in high winds. She was mortally wounded, but with only a pocketknife and her own true grit managed to save her unborn child.

  I was raised by my father.

  Brigadier Maximillian Shackleton Cornwall was a man of few words. The son of wealthy landowners, he was an officer in the Scots Guards before resigning his commission at the age of forty to live off his considerable inheritance. He was a man’s man, a disciplinarian with a stern countenance. Despite having a son, Brigadier Cornwall had no time for children. He was not a perfect father, but he was the only one I had.

  My early life was fairly typical of most English boys of the 1930s. I had no friends and would spend hours exploring the gardens of our enormous Jacobean manor house.

  I was often left to my own devices. I remember stealing my father’s uncontrollable Brown Bess musket so that I could fire at the herds of deer that lived in the grounds. I was kept upstairs for a full year after this incident as punishment for the groundskeeper’s lost ear. Jennings was very kind about it, but my father felt I needed punishing properly. He was always very keen that I take responsibility.

  Unlike some men of his generation, my father was not averse to playing games. He used to challenge me to take a piece of classical Norse poetry and translate it into English while he went to Monte Carlo for the weekend. If I were able to do it before his return I would avoid a thrashing.

  Saturdays and Sundays were my favourite days of the week because they were the days I was allowed to speak to him – albeit only between midday and luncheon, which was at quarter past twelve. So it was no wonder that I was always trying to spend time with him by sneaking up and eavesdropping on his
conversations. It was a habit I acquired at an early age that continued into my teens. It was how I came to find myself standing outside the drawing room door aged sixteen listening to him talking about me.

  Bluebell Manor, August 1938

  “I’d be happy to be shot of him Cecil but between you and me I’m not sure the boy is made of the right stuff – he thinks he’s artistic, and is obsessed with his appearance. He’s a dandy, a fop, a bloody libertine. Let’s face it – he’s a ponce.”

  “Clearly Winstowe isn’t what it used to be,” the Air Marshall cleared his fat, toad-like throat, “not like it was in our day. But there’s another war coming Maximillian, mark my words. And we’ll need every able man, particularly those who know how to shoot straight.” The Air Marshall tapped out his pipe and pulled out a tin of shag cut, Black Cherry Nubian Queen, his favourite blend of tobacco. To characterise him as a toad is a cliché but that’s exactly what he was, a bloody great, fat toad with a big hairy moustache.

  I was home for half term and this was the second time in a week that the Air Marshall had come to the house. For over a year now he had been trying to persuade me that I should take up a military career, specifically that I should join the R.A.F. This was mostly on account of my physical abilities as I was a natural athlete who had grown to a height of nearly six foot two inches tall. I was broad and graceful, with bags of stamina and a handsome, rugged face that, I was beginning to notice, made women go quiet and breathy.

  “I’ll put it to him again,” my father continued, “But don’t count on anything Cecil. I doubt he has the stomach for war, and there’s something else you should know.”