Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  Steele, Darcy and Fantohm-Waxwell had all been very unlucky indeed. Steele’s time as an assassin for the Long Range Desert Group had ended badly in Plovdiv, when he got drunk and impaled himself on his own poisonous umbrella. The paralysing agent had permanently twisted his face into a rictus grin, and he dribbled a horrid milky substance as a result. Steele remained cheerful until his death from septacaemia in 1953.

  Darcy lost three-quarters of his penis and a testicle escaping from a burning tank in North Africa, and spoke in a voice three octaves higher than his previous mellifluous bass. This did his opera singing career no end of good, and he was lauded as the only mezzo-eunoco in the business. He still had a single ball left, and would pop it out unbidden. Lunk took the unusual step of banning him from the Club’s rooftop barbecue area, as the smell of burning meat made him maudlin.

  Fantohm-Waxwell, a cheery soul, had stepped on a mine just outside the city of Izmir and now hobbled around on a wooden leg, thigh to ankle, but with his real foot sewn back on the end. This was a medical first. And last.

  Of course a lot of chaps, including Ghantti, Shedley and Percy, didn’t come back at all.

  Probably the biggest news was the retirement of Lunk Snr, the man who had recognised my Scoundrel nature, and allowed Trevelyan to tag along as well. He retired the day after D-Day to spend more time in his orchard in Hertfordshire. After more than a quarter of a century as the Club’s liaison with Whitehall, ‘Papa’ Lunk Snr was given the V.C., a knighthood, a professorship at Queens’ College, the George Cross, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Nobel Peace Prize, and the keys to the City of Hull. The New Zealand rugby team also turned up to give him a haka in the Disraeli Room at his leaving party. It was the end of an era.

  Lunk Snr’s boy Tiberius was unanimously voted the new Scoundrels Membership and Operations Secretary. Moments after accepting the position, in a ceremony in the Long Room, his six and a half foot tall frame, impeccable suit and shiny black skin were covered in missiles of tepid rhubarb and tapioca, as custom dictated. Tiberius Lunk wiped his eyes and smiled bashfully. His entire life has led up to this moment, and he knew what a job it was.

  M.O.S. was the closest thing to Sergeant Major of the Club. It was not the most senior role by any means, but definitely the most respected. M.O.S. was the sorter-outer. He was the fellow called in the early hours if Albanian prostitutes kidnapped the Duke of Cumberland. If the Arctic Circle has accidentally been invaded by Iceland, and the Russian outpost needed distracting, M.O.S. would be the one dropping a consignment of vodka and naughty magazines, with a forged note from the Kremlin inviting them to take the night off. M.O.S. knew how to get the President of France to twist the arm of the President of Zanzibar to nudge the Governor of Kasulu District to whisper into the ear of the Mayor of Janda Township to let that strange fellow through the checkpoint because rather a lot was riding on it.

  Lunk Snr was a softly spoken fellow, mostly. His son Tiberius Lunk had a voice that couldn’t whisper if it tried. In the words of his delicate old housemaster at Winstowe, he was a “shitting big bastard.” He’d just finished his doctorate, which finally reconciled the work of the mathematician Von Neumann and the philologist Boissier. Unusually, he’d delivered this thesis in rhyming couplets – and it was later turned into a successful Broadway play, earning him millions of pounds. His mind was first class, and, as things turned out, he’d need every brilliant neuron of it.

  I’d emerged unscathed from the War. I was one of the lucky ones. I was a picture book hero: wealthy, good-looking and undamaged by the horrors of conflict. Trouble was, after years of combat and thinking on my feet, I found myself knocking about London with little to do, trying to work out what my role was in this new world order. Routine was my enemy. I needed excitement, adventure and stimulation.

  I needed a task. A mission. A goal. I found all of these one evening at the Club.

  __________

  Scoundrels’ annual celebrations of the Battle of Trafalgar is one of the highlights of the social calendar. It usually takes place in the atrium and begins with a skit, a Scoundrels’ tradition dating all the way back to Charles I. Charles would often break the ice at stuffy occasions by making hilarious and uncanny impressions of Oliver Cromwell, and ever since then club members have put on skits to entertain the chaps. These can range from amusing anecdotes to educational lectures, practical demonstrations to fully orchestrated theatre pieces.

  The celebrations of 1947 would go down in club history, but for all the wrong reasons. The evening had started unpromisingly. Trevelyan had put in an energetic but cringeworthy performance of an H.M.S. Victory powder monkey who had lost his hearing. There were a few chuckles around the table but the general consensus was that it was a bit lame. The Scoundrels’ Gazette would later review it, “Major Trevelyan’s ‘Boy Seaman’ gets full marks for commitment and physicality, but weak one-liners and a demanding audience made this an embarrassing night for all.”

  Unfortunately this was to be the highlight of the evening. The low point came during the cheese course, when I somehow contrived to kill a man. Was it my fault? Yes and no.

  Edmund Hendricks Jnr, a pugnacious upstart and younger brother of A.W. Hendricks Snr, repeatedly failed to pass the port, and before I knew it events had spiralled out of control. After admonishing him for not recognising the standard reminders, “do you know the Bishop of Norwich?” and then, “he’s a terribly good chap you know, but he always forgets to pass the port,” the little runt had told me in no uncertain terms to “eff off.”

  Now I am a man with a long fuse but considering the evening was in honour of Nelson’s finest hour I couldn’t ignore such an affront. I threw down my napkin and stood up in protest. I was about to suggest a sconcing as a penalty, but before I could even spit out the traditional Aramaic request, he had stood on his chair and challenged me to a traditional game of Congolese bloodletting. This was something he claimed he’d seen on his travels to the Dark Continent.

  As a man who’s never taken a step backwards in life, I accepted.

  The rules were brutally simple. Two combatants stand in a chalk circle, each taking turn to deliver a single nick with a blade. First one to pass out loses. And dies. It’s my belief that had the older Hendricks been in attendance that evening it would have never happened. He’d have cuffed his younger sibling around the ear and told him to watch his manners. He knew that I was a man to be feared. I’d stared death in the face on a number of occasions, and like so many of my contemporaries who had been through the war, combat was now second nature to me. Hendricks Jnr, on the other hand had left Oxford to go travelling and then joined a merchant bank.

  Predictably the contest was over in seconds. Hendricks Jnr had managed to cut me on the thumb, to little effect, but then I’d opened up a six-inch gash in his carotid artery and he died almost instantly, ruining a rather nice sixteenth-century Persian rug in the process. Shame. It wasn’t the first time I’d killed a man at the club, but it was extremely frowned upon by the committee, and if the consensus went against me, I was in danger of being blackballed. I needed to make amends, and fast.

  I knew there was one thing that could save me. I walked into the centre of the room and hushed the crowd into silence.

  “That young man epitomised all that is good about Scoundrels,” I lied. “He never shirked a challenge. And nor shall I.”

  I now needed to think of a challenge in which I could honour his name. Something that was suitably dangerous, but not too dangerous. The obnoxious brat wasn’t worth dying over. The problem was that most of the easy ones had been done. I was buggered if I was going to the South Pole and I didn’t have time to circumnavigate the world in a dinghy, so I was left with few options. Annoyingly one idea did keep popping into my head, but it was the one idea I was trying to avoid. “In the true spirit of adventure,” I continued, my mouth seemingly working independently of my brain,
“I will now conquer the unconquerable!”

  A hush fell over the room. Bugger.

  Nothing for it: “EVEREST!”

  I stared into the faces of the men around me. They’d already seen one corpse today and now it was as if they were looking at another. Then there was the sound of a single clap, then another, and another, until the entire room was echoing with applause followed by raucous cheering. The members banged their cutlery and stamped their feet in approval. Cornwall was to climb Everest! Bravo!

  It was possibly the stupidest thing I’d ever said. Everest had already claimed a number of lives since the first botched attempt in 1922 and since then it had consistently been the rock upon which men’s dreams, as well as bodies, had shattered. Climbing five and a half miles was a formidable task back then, and yet in the drawing rooms of polite society it had become the elephant in the room. London clubs played host to a number of ‘heroes’ who dare not mention the name Sagarmatha in case they suddenly found themselves on a cargo plane to Nepal carrying little more than an ice axe and a map with an arrow pointing upwards. Few men were brave enough to take it on. It had even become a matter of national pride. As Great Britain had already buggered up missions to the North and South Poles there was a consensus among chaps that we needed a result to go our way, and Everest, the Third Pole, provided the opportunity.

  “You’re a mad bugger Cornwall,” Jefferson said as he shook my hand, “but if you pull this off you’ll be a bloody national hero.”

  “That’s what I’m banking on,” I said, grinning, “Sir Victor Cornwall has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Although I was lapping up the adulation I was secretly shitting myself. I knew nothing about mountaineering other than an alarming statistic I’d read in The Times, one in six people who attempted Everest died.

  I called Trevelyan first.

  __________

  We met the following day in the Disraeli room for Afternoon Tea. “Don’t ask me Cornwall,” he said immediately, “not interested.”

  I arched my eyebrows and tapped out a Vertiginous Drop, a special blend of tobacco, peppermint and a mild hallucinogen I’d had the Scoundrels tobacconist whip up for my ascent of the world’s highest and most dangerous mountain. “You’re the only one I can trust, big man,” I said offering him a smoke.

  “Forget it Cornwall, I didn’t survive the war to be killed by an avalanche. I’ve got a lot of making up to do – if you take my meaning. A. LOT.”

  “Imagine the making up you’ll do after this though,” I said, “think of how popular you’ll be…” There was a pause while he took a draw from his cigarette and mulled it over.

  “It’ll never happen. You’ll be killed,” he said finally.

  “Bollocks. All I need is an expedition leader who knows about mountain conditions, and a party of capable men who can follow instructions. Who do we know who’s got mountaineering experience?”

  “Von Ricthofen?”

  I shook my head. “He’ll never agree to it. Let’s just say his wife is a former acquaintance of mine.”

  Trevelyan’s eyes narrowed through the smoke. “How about Umlaut?”

  “’Fraid not. Same reason.”

  “Bloody hell Cornwall.” Trevelyan took another drag on his cigarette.

  “How about old Colonel Khumba? He spent time in Nepal, didn’t he?” I didn’t need to answer. My face said it all.

  “But Khumba had five wives!” he said incredulously.

  “Exactly.”

  Just then Stradivarius Periford walked in. He was the current club secretary and a slimy bastard who I loathed.

  “I heard about what happened to the young Hendricks,” he said, approaching our table. “Shame. He was a good Scoundrel. I for one will miss him around here.” He absent-mindedly picked at his manicured fingernail.

  “Yes,” I replied, “but if you’re going to bring back ancient games from far-flung corners of the world you should know how to play them.”

  Periford ran a hand through his white blonde hair. He was trying to get me to bite. He would have loved to see me blackballed and thrown out of the club. “Quick thinking of you to honour his name with an ascent of Everest. Difficult to blackball a man if he pulls that one off.” His words dripped with contempt.

  “Oh,” I said feigning surprise, “I hadn’t thought of that.” I took a tiny bite of a rectangular cucumber sandwich.

  “Well if the mountain doesn’t kill you his brother probably will. I’ve heard he’s not best pleased. I’d keep looking over my shoulder if I were you.” Periford picked up a scone from the silver tiered tray and winked at me before walking off.

  __________

  Next morning I woke up in a strange bed with a thumping headache and a nasty taste in my mouth. My eyes adjusted to the morning sun streaming in through the window. I knew exactly where I was.

  Soho.

  Ouch.

  Across the room Heavy Betsy was putting her bra on in front of a full-length mirror. I was about to say something but Betsy beat me to it. It was as if she’d read my mind. “No need to apologise Cornwall, you’re welcome love.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Nuffin’ much. You were feeling a little low and in need of a cuddle. I gave you one. But you might want to get yerself checked out.”

  It felt like she’d given me more than a cuddle. My ribs hurt. I felt like I’d been worked over by Aram-Atsi. Betsy was the madam of the finest speakeasy in London, but I’d never heard of her taking on a client herself. I knew her reasonably well but not like this. She was a big woman, which probably accounted for the pain I was in. For the first time I noticed she had a tattoo of a man’s face on her left breast, perhaps an ex-lover. I would have tried to identify him but time and gravity had stretched it beyond recognition. It now resembled Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

  “You talk in your sleep,” she said.

  “Really? I wasn’t aware of – ”

  “You said you’re looking for a Sherpa, a mountain guide.” My eyes narrowed as I listened.

  “Well I fink I’ve found yer one. He lives in the flat next door. Girls tell me he’s got a lot of stamina. Real mountaineer he is.”

  I nodded slowly and smiled. Nothing got past Betsy.

  __________

  Over the next few days my anxiety was replaced with a steely pragmatism about how to get the job done.

  Betsy had put me in contact with Fonzi Spriggenhorn, a stocky Swiss fellow with a mountaineer beard down to his waist. We met at a fondue restaurant in Swiss Cottage where I discussed the mission with him over some veau à la zurichoise and rösti.

  I had my concerns. For a start he wasn’t a Scoundrel – but I’d burnt my bridges on that front. All he talked about for the first hour were the girls at Heavy Betsy’s. By all accounts he virtually lived there. He was an angry little fellow too, barking out orders to the staff in his nasty guttural language and hoovering up his food with no manners. Eating fondue with bearded men is not for the squeamish.

  I heard his biog. He’d been involved in five expeditions to the world’s highest mountains: Nanga Parbat, K2, Kangchenjunga, and some others I didn’t know. He seemed keen, until he heard I was mounting an expedition to Everest, and then, over a Bündner Nusstorte of surprising freshness, he tried to cry off. Everest, he said, was too rich for even his highly oxygenated blood.

  But once I’d offered him a six-figure sum, with another one payable upon our safe return, he cracked and shook my hand. During the rest of the meal I learnt a lot from this remarkable Swiss goat as we made route plans for our ascent – which he illustrated with the help of a Toblerone.

  Over the coming days the team took shape. The expedition party would be myself, Spriggenhorn, Jefferson, Rosewater, Bertram-Watts, ‘Belter’ Dagg-Wallace, Ravenscroft, Meekins, and of course Trevel
yan, who might prove himself useful as a porter if nothing else. We celebrated in the Disraeli Room by drinking gin and shooting a pig’s head with a blunderbuss.

  We would leave in two weeks.

  __________

  It turns out that two weeks is not enough time to prepare for something like this.

  It is now thought best practice to take on a slightly smaller mountain as a warm-up, to ensure one has a good understanding of mountain conditions and altitude. The 6,962-metre Argentinean peak of Aconcagua is a good example. It’s on these expeditions that valuable climbing experience is acquired, tactics are agreed, and possible tensions revealed and resolved. Unfortunately we had no time for any of that. Our preparation consisted of a bracing Sunday walk in the Cotswolds. A walk that sadly ended in tragedy.

  The Red Lion pub just outside the village of Draycott is in a lovely spot, but it also fronts out onto a dangerously quiet road. Under normal circumstances Bertram-Watts and Rosewater would have seen the vehicle coming. But with the pressure of the expedition building, and their high blood-alcohol levels, the only explanation is that they were disorientated and thought they were already in the gents, instead of the middle of the road. They didn’t stand a chance.

  Anyone who has ever lost a comrade on the field of battle or a Sunday walk will know how dark it gets in the aftermath. Tough questions are asked about leadership, and whether anything could have been done differently. The days that followed were some of the darkest I’d ever know.