Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  I entered, to embark on a sexual odyssey that was genre-defining, and which I’ve heard influenced infamous swordsmen like Ernest Hemingway, Oliver Reed and Errol Flynn.

  Several of my close friends – Johncocktosen, Sing-Singh, Claude Vunculus – were waiting for me in the Great Hall, as arranged. I gave them a few minutes to gather and freshen their morning brandies, and we passed the time of day. Chaps stopped to say hullo. Before too long I had an expectant audience of twenty or thirty Scoundrels – not too bad for a morning skit. I cleared my throat, softly. That was all it took. There was silence.

  “Gentlemen,” I exclaimed as I took off my topcoat. “I present for you this morning, an odyssey based on the original version of Mr Julian Verne’s adventurer, Phileas Fogg.” From the audience, a few semi-interested murmurs, a couple of sighs. It was a weak and unpromising start. Good. Let them discover this themselves. That’s what I wanted.

  A military brass band, smuggled into Scoundrels by Stuffinch, burst from the cloakroom and struck up The Galloping Major. This was the cue for my first stop-off.

  From the lower service door emerged a delectable blonde beauty, Mary, playing the part of London and dressed as a Victorian match girl. She bowed to her audience, and flung off her shawl to reveal herself in all her nakedness. She had a delectable hourglass body with fabulous bouncing breasts. She expertly removed my trousers, and, obscured by the bust of Napoleon III, began to bring me gently to a fully tumescent state, which owing to my extreme tautness took less than five seconds. There was a smattering of applause, and I smiled politely, although I tried not to look any of the chaps in the eye.

  After bowing to Mary, and presenting her with a bouquet of winter blooms, I strolled past the glass case containing the corpse of the Unknown Frenchman in the Long Hall. I sat down at a prop Parisian café table, where the best chef in Christendom, my own Bernard-Bernard Amandine De Cabernet, was waiting with a steaming fricassée de grenouille. Presently, I was joined at the table by a glorious little French piece, Mademoiselle Quiss-Quill, playing the part of Paris. We began a simulated argument, of the type you’ll have seen in every French café you’ve been in: I said something impolite to her, and she slapped me across the face, before bursting into tears. After a few moments of earnest sweet nothings, Q-Q passionately swept all the crockery from the table, lay down, and let me have at her on the white tablecloth. Soon she was crying out in ecstasy, but I, still unspent, tipped my hat to her, on my way again.

  My old chap at full attention, I sidled into the Outer Cloakroom and rapped hard on the sideboard with my cane top. Instantly Joan the Coat-Girl rushed out, done up as Cleopatra. She dropped to her haunches, chalked her hands, and performed upon me a service I knew first-hand was readily available in Suez as a speciality of the charming Egyptian port. It was not really my cup of tea, but I put a brave face on it. “Oh I say, that’s disgraceful,” remarked Johncocktosen, a well respected Scoundrel most noted for swimming the length of the Thames chasing a swan that had stolen his meat-paste sandwich.

  Waving Joan goodbye, I leapt onto the polished walnut dining table of the Hall and, sprinting along it to gather speed, skidded straight into the waiting embrace of an elegantly elderly seamstress named Rupinder, as Bombay. We embraced tenderly. During our gentle coupling, Rupinder generously allowed me to pour chicken jalfrezi down the cleft of her spine, as if it were some kind of perverse gravy boat, until it mixed with her own downstairs spices. This glorious sauce was caught and spirited away by Bernard-Bernard, back to the kitchen to become a non-too-subtle deglaze for my main course: Tandoori Vulgaris.

  More applause. Tackle out, I nonchalantly climbed the Grand Staircase, no hurry at all. By this time, one or two passing chaps were noticing something newsworthy was afoot, and stuck around to see what would happen next.

  Suddenly, Calcutta pushed through the crowd of men, dressed like a Banjara gypsy. Calcutta’s part was played by a gal named Janine, who I’d met through Victor Cornwall. She was probably the most famous post-war harlot in London, rivalling Lily Langtree for her sordid antics. I mounted Janine stylus canus on the lower part of the Grand Staircase. As I had at her, she sang a terrifically bawdy number about Calcutta Docks, in perfect Hindi, to ringing applause. I slapped a coded dismissal on her dimpled buttocks. Janine sprang away from my member, which I immediately draped with an ironed copy of The Times, for modesty’s sake. The front-page headline was clearly visible: Stocks Up! Several chaps liked that comical touch, and many still misremember that headline to this day.

  Time to heat things up a little. A terrific scream ripped the room in two, followed by another scream at an identical pitch. Right on time, twin Hong-Kong hoochees materialised on the top step of the Grand Staircase, dressed in silken fighting robes.

  These raven-haired twins, Suu and Si, were a pair of Wu-Shu black belts. They bulleted down the stairs and attacked me with sharp knees and elbows. They were very effective fighters, and I took a couple of solid blows for the sake of my audience, and then a few more I hadn’t counted on, as I had underestimated them. Reeling from Si’s kapo-ken strike to the temple, I was forced to switch fighting styles, and pushed hard at them using a bouldering thuggee technique. Not pretty, but pragmatic.

  I fought them back up the stairs and into the King’s Gallery. An ever-increasing crowd of Scoundrels was now watching my every move, and Bitty Dacre called into the Club Room that “something special is up.” More chaps turned out to see what was going on.

  I had instructed the twins to genuinely try to kill me, just to keep my energy levels up, and they brought out their belt daggers. I had drastically underestimated their skill with these weapons as well, and I sustained a nasty nick across the right tricep, which I hurriedly bound with the cord from one of the Antoinette curtains, while dodging further slashes and stabs. Periford later fined me an outlandish sum for this. Things were hairy for a second and I’m afraid we lost a rather good Rubens to their blades. At which point, the lunch gong sounded. Bernard-Bernard announced that my main course was ready. The Hong-Kong twins bowed, and vanished like ninja. I must say I was relieved.

  I slid down the grand banisters, wearing nothing but a white silk scarf and my copy of The Times. I sat and ate in the Grey Drawing Room – directly from the poised body of Lian, playing the part of Yokohama; the tandoori flavours harmonising with the aromatic herbs of Japan that she’d rubbed all over her business.

  To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of Asian fusion cuisine, so I departed after just a few mouthfuls, and moved onto my next destination in the Lower Library: a beautiful, buxom redhead named Julia, as San Francisco. Julia was all done up like a Wild West filly from the 1880s and looked a proper sort. She did a fantastic rodeo-riding impression on top of me. Midway through our fiendish coupling she pulled out a pair of six-shooter Colts and began to fire. She caught old Monty Patterson in the ear, but it passed harmlessly through his lobe, and he shrugged it off, keen not to miss anything. Another round shattered a gilded mirror above the Sebastopol fireplace. This expense made the Antoinette curtains costs look like pocket change.

  By now, every single Club Member in the building was clamouring for a better view. Fellows could not stop grinning at my audacity, and I was within spitting distance of pulling off the greatest skit in Scoundrels history.

  I had recruited for the role of New York a glorious little jezebel called Toots McWeather. We danced an energetic number to a Glenn Miller tune that my brass band struck up. I threw Toots six feet up into the air, and as she came back down I put my hands behind my back and caught her on the end of my old chap.

  Mahatma Blaze, normally such an inscrutable man, burst into applause that spread around the room like wildfire. I directed this applause to the superb athleticism of Toots, bowed to her, and took my leave for the final act.

  Phileas Fogg was nearly back home! At this point in the published story, Fogg is in a hurry to make the
eighty-day deadline, so I raced back through the dining room to dock back in London, for Mary was now dressed as Britannia, complete with helmet and trident. Nothing fancy was needed here, just a simple, shuddering missionary coupling that everyone recognised for its emotional integrity. It was quintessentially British, and hearts were afire with patriotic fervour.

  And then I scooped a jam roly-poly from Bernard-Bernard’s silver salver for pudding, to a standing ovation from the entire club. I shrugged this off as casually as I shrugged on my dressing gown made from Union Jack Liberty fabric.

  My journey around the sexual globe was complete. I was absolutely besieged by congratulations. Even Cornwall slapped me on the back. The applause rang in my ears, and still rings to this day.

  Major, I hope you don’t think this is overly sentimental? It took a great deal of choreography and self-control to pull that stunt off, and I am misty-eyed as I remember the Silver Cup I was awarded at the Members’ Dinner that year to celebrate my magnificent feat. It’s still here at Nimbu, in pride of place on my mantelpiece.

  Didn’t you have a bit of a lark on that Commonwealth Tour around this time? You’ve probably forgotten all about it, but I remember you came back much altered. Why not dust off your memories of that, and write it up? I’m sure it will make a sensational chapter.

  Yours sincerely,

  Major St. John Trevelyan

  Hellcat Manor

  Great Trundleford

  Devon

  1st December 2016

  Dear Major

  Credit where it’s due. That was one of the finest skits in the history of the club. Of course you chose not to mention the furore that followed. The failed drugs test and accusations of doping. Were you clean that day or did chemicals enable you to maintain such levels of stamina and alertness? I don’t expect you to answer.

  Either way it was a wonderfully realised piece of sexual theatre, executed with aplomb. In fact, such was my admiration for Dirty Globe that it led me to make one of the worst decisions of my life.

  Six months later, I received a call to take part in a state-sponsored sexual odyssey that damn well near killed me.

  __________

  CHAPTER 20

  The Commonwealth Games

  London, 1949

  My stock had never been lower at the Club, the day I got the call. I should have read the signs, but my bruised ego needed a massage and this time it was hoping for the full service.

  London remained shackled by austerity and the mood on the streets was gloomy. Yet behind the closed doors and plush velvet curtains of Scoundrels Club, it was party time. Perhaps because we needed an escape from recent tragedies, or because we were always blissfully unaffected by recessions and downturns, the Club was at its hedonistic best. That meant an endless series of events featuring loud jazz music, experimental sex, powerful opiates, excellent food and the finest vintages.

  Members were determined to have a good time. Wilberforce captured the mood perfectly when he returned from his unsuccessful stint with the Foreign Office in Russia. Despite having his cover blown as a double agent and narrowly escaping with his life, he returned with a spring in his step, a charming new boyfriend and an entire shipping container full of caviar. While the rest of the country struggled by with ration cards and bartered for eggs, we feasted on the finest Black Gold from the Caspian Sea.

  I caroused and stuffed myself nightly with the rest of the chaps, but beneath my clubbable exterior a dark mood prevailed in the house of Cornwall. I needed a fillip to regain my status after the disaster in Nepal two years earlier. I was still within a whisker of being blackballed. Words like ‘failure’, ‘fiasco’ and ‘blunder’ followed me around like whispers on the breeze. And chaps started to regard me with fear and trepidation. My presence was said to bring bad luck. I was a Jonah. A bad omen. A bit of a duffer.

  Trevelyan on the other hand was the talk of the town. His skit was still being admired, and there was a prevailing theory that it would never be bettered. It certainly made my decorative vegetable chopping demonstration seem poor by comparison, and I was kicking myself for not setting the bar higher. Which is why I didn’t hesitate when I received the call from the Prime Minister.

  It came just in time. I was drinking alone, absent-mindedly watching Trevelyan entertain a group of chaps with one of his tall stories about the War. He was animated and enjoying the sound of his own voice. Sing-Singh turned and asked me to join in. “Hey Cornwall! St. John is telling us about the time you climbed into that German sewer pipe! I hear you caused a bit of a stink.” I smiled thinly and raised my glass to his superb sense of humour.

  “Phone call for you sir,” said Stuffinch. I put down my drink and took the receiver. My spirits lifted immediately. It was the Prime Minister. He had a job for me. He said it was important. He said I was perfect for it. Something right up my alley. The timing was exquisite.

  I gave the receiver back to Stuffinch, drained my glass and left. Perhaps today would be a good day after all, I thought.

  __________

  As I approached Number Ten the policeman on the gate recognised me and waved me through. “Morning Major Cornwall,” he said with a nod of his head. I was let in through the front door and continued down the hall to his office.

  I rapped on the Prime Minister’s door. “Come in.” Attlee was sitting behind his desk smoking a pipe. He was a pretty uninspiring man but quietly effective in his own way. I didn’t have a lot of time for him but was keen to keep him onside in case he offered me something interesting. I needed this one to go my way, whatever it was. I pulled out a packet of The Jolly Navajo Number 2, Fine Cut that I’d had the Scoundrel’s tobacconist whip up for important meetings with Heads of State. I slid it across the desk and into his hand. “I hope you’ve dragged me over here for good reason Clement,” I said bullishly. “If this is another one of your circle jerks with Daphne then forget it, I have bigger fish to fry.”

  Attlee bristled at this and for good reason. Daphne was behind me. She gingerly placed a tray of fresh tea and coffee. “Sorry Daphne, I didn’t see you there,” I said with an apologetic smile. Daphne blushed and went to leave. Attlee waited until she’d closed the door before he spoke.

  “Sit down Cornwall,” he said. His voice was quiet but assured. Not as bombastic as Churchill’s but it still carried the weight of power.

  He passed me a sheet of paper. It was a list of countries. I scanned it for a few seconds. “It’s the Commonwealth – what of it?”

  “You’ve been brought here for a rather strange request Cornwall. I’m very confu–” There was a hard knock at the door… “– come in.”

  A man entered the room carrying a briefcase. I recognised him immediately and felt a sudden rising unease. He smiled, shook Attlee’s hand and then extended the gesture to me. He had a firm grip and made good eye contact. Attlee motioned for us all to sit down. “Good,” he said “Major Cornwall, this is Gruber Hansclapp, from the Commonwealth Secretariat.”

  Hearing the name still came as a shock to me. “Yes,” I said. “We’ve met before.”

  Gruber smiled at me, “How are you Major Cornwall? It’s been a few years.” His question came naturally. Despite my awkwardness, Hansclapp was completely at ease.

  Until now Atlee hadn’t realised that we already knew each other, and I wondered how much else he was aware of. Did he even know that Gruber had once been a Nazi officer?

  Hansclapp spoke. “We’ve actually known each other since school.” Atlee nodded his approval. “And we’ve bumped into each other once or twice, over the years.” He said this lightly as if we were chums. I felt like cringing but I detected no edge to his voice. His accent was odd. I couldn’t tell if he’d spent time in the U.S or maybe Australia.

  “Perhaps it would be best if you explained to Major Cornwall why you’re here, Mr Hansclapp.” Attlee said stuffin
g his pipe with tobacco.

  I pinched one of Attlee’s Navajos, settled back and gave him my full attention. I couldn’t imagine what he was about to say.

  Hansclapp had more reason than most to hate me. At Winstowe I’d been partly responsible for the death of his pet bull and then years later had lied to him over a promise of Scoundrels membership. In my defence the guy was a Nazi at the time and Scoundrels tend to take a dim view of such things.

  Gruber spoke for the next twenty minutes. I listened diligently, perhaps even suspiciously, yet he was an engaging speaker and I must say that I warmed to him. He betrayed no sign of holding a grudge over my broken promise, and if he had managed to put his dubious past behind him and move on, then why shouldn’t I? I resolved to let bygones be bygones.

  He talked about the Commonwealth Nations and something called the London Declaration. He spoke about a proposed celebration to re-establish each member state’s identity, something to help them define themselves and help the entire Commonwealth bond with each other.

  On the surface it sounded reasonable, but the devil was in the detail. I could barely believe what I was hearing. Each Commonwealth nation was to put forward a single national hero, a character that embodied all the strengths of that nation. Each hero would visit every country in the Commonwealth, and pass on their unique knowledge. For instance, Australia’s hero was Nash MacGrew, a scientist and lepidopterist who had had his leg bitten off by a crocodile in the middle of the bush. Instead of lying down to die he had built himself a hang-glider from bits of wood and the crocodile’s skin, and flown himself to Adelaide General Hospital, making a perfect landing on the roof. He was going to travel all over the Commonwealth to meet with various inventors and transport experts to develop the field of self-powered aeronautics.

  I listened carefully to see where I would fit in.