Theirs Was The Kingdom

by R. F Delderfield

  There came a time, however, as the annual conference date approached in the weeks leading up to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the enterprise, when he had done his thinking, and was about the task of translating conjecture into project. He sometimes spent entire nights at work in his eyrie, so that the watchmen, seeing a light at the Gothic window at four and five in the morning, were troubled, reasoning that only senility would induce a man with a wife, a comfortable country home, and credit at the bank, to work an eighteen-hour stint in a tower overlooking a slum.

  Before the first day of the assembly, however, he was ready for them. Checking and cross-checking were done, and concentrated in the form of a few pages of notes. All that remained now was to decide on the manner it would be put to them and that was a decision that provided him with a good deal of amusement. For, sharp as most of them were, they were not so sharp as he, and it would be a source of enormous satisfaction to demonstrate this once he had them all under his eye at the long trestle table set up in the warehouse where conferences were held.

  He watched them gather from his unique vantage point, looking directly down on the yard, observing how they tended to coalesce into threesomes and foursomes, exchanging chaff, no doubt, but already sounding one another out on the agenda. It seemed to him then that he had been alone up here a long time, an ageing god on a mountain peak, surveying his handiwork and no more than moderately pleased with it. This year's conference was a crossroad. It could lead onward, across a limitless stretch of serene, untroubled country, or shoot off at a tangent into a future as strange and fearsome as they had faced when he called the first managerial conference twenty years ago and told them that they were facing bankruptcy and must sink or swim in convoy.

  To diversify or to vegetate? To dig in, husband accumulated capital and let the enterprise coast along under its considerable momentum? Or to recast the entire structure of the network, dislodging it from its essentially provincial socket and letting it find its own level among the gigantic enterprises on which it had fed and fattened all these years?

  Well, he had made his decision, the most difficult and complex of a lifetime. Now it would be up to them, and he wondered what they would make of it and whether they had the wit, the hardihood, and the nerve to play chuck-farthing with their money instead of his and discover, painfully for sure, that it was one thing to chivvy a man who had made the decisions but another to formulate a policy, disperse to their beats, and put that policy to work.

  So many suggestions and so much advice. So many whys and why-nots. So much couldn’t-we and why-can’t-we. But in the end it all blew through that little Gothic door in the form of pieces of paper and settled on his desk. And after all the clamour came silence, awaiting his gamble, his directive. Over the years most of them had called him reckless. Now a majority was beginning to think him stodgy, as if he hadn’t always known of the enormous potential that awaited them out there, providing they were spry enough to make the leap and wager, as he had always been ready to wager, on the destiny of the tribe to which all of them belonged.

  For this, in essence, was how he had always seen it since the country had turned its back on its past and reached out across the world for bigger and better markets. In a contest of this kind, with one generation leap-frogging the other, there could be no individual destinies. Cohesion was what really counted and the nub of the problem was this: would the British hold on to their lead, and if so, for how long? In the answer to that lay the answer to everything, notwithstanding the powwow that would ensue at this conference or at any other conference. Did they know that? And if they didn’t, would they understand it when he spelled it out for them? For if they didn’t then it was back on course for every manjack of them, with no more whining importunities to expand, to innovate, to diversify! He was done with leading from centre, with younger men like the Godsalls and Rookwoods, tugging him forward, and older ones like the Ratcliffes and Lovells, dragging their feet and muttering that enough was enough.

  They heard his preamble in silence, an uncomfortable silence; he would say, for on all previous occasions he had opened with generalities, spiced with a few jokes, a few grudging compliments, an ironic comment or two concerning the shortcomings of the government or the weather.

  Today he was unequivocal. He said, in effect, that this year all customary procedures would be waived, that the ball was now at their feet, to kick or let lie, and that when every one had said what he had to say he had a single proposal to put to them and that this would do duty for the summing-up, of the kind usually made by Tybalt in the last hour of assembly.

  It was interesting, he thought, to watch their reactions to that. In a curious way they seemed to draw closer together, as for mutual support, as though he was threatening them instead of liberating them from the restraints of protocol. It reminded him sharply of a grey December day twenty years ago, when he had done the same thing from the standpoint of a suppliant and seen them falter and then rally on him. Would the same thing happen again? He sat down, relit his cheroot, and waited, already laying bets with himself as to who would be the first to speak.

  He lost his wager. The Thrusters—Godsall and Young Rookwood—held their fire, making room for a comparatively trivial issue, as Markby of Crescent North, aired his annual demand for “iceboxes,” a term that had already passed into network slang to define waggons fitted with refrigerated crates for inland fish haulage. Markby put his case well, Adam thought, particularly as the Crescents were now under the overall command of Tom Wickstead, based on Peterborough.

  Markby wanted iceboxes and Markby meant to have them. Fish, he declared, constituted his bread-and-butter runs, and no one who had ever operated in Crescent North had solved the problem of converting a standard pinnace or frigate into a vehicle capable of making a scheduled delivery to inland markets. He was sorry to harp on this point. He knew it was of small concern to anyone here but himself. But nothing had been done to implement a request made around this table last year and the year before that. That was why he had come prepared. That was why he had gone to the trouble of providing his own design for the kind of vehicle he had in mind.

  He produced his plan with a conjuror's flourish and passed it the length of the table until it stopped short at Tybalt; it would have foundered there for Tybalt, having glanced at the estimated cost of a prototype, cried out as though stung by a wasp. Adam leaned forward and took the sketch, saying, mildly, “Markby seems to have got the general idea but accidentally. This is what I want and this is what I’m looking for this year. Your grudges. Your remedies. Your ideas. Not mine, or Keate's or Tybalt's, but yours, however revolutionary. Think of it this way if you like. For years now suggestions like Markby's have been reaching Headquarters through the post, but now, as you’ll see, these decisions must be taken collectively.” He addressed the flustered Markby directly, “It's a good design, Markby. I’ll vote for it for one. Who's next, gentlemen?”

  It was the phrase “vote for it” that rattled them. Already, as he glanced the length of the table, he could see the sharper minds sheering out of line, as if anxious to commune with themselves. What did the Gaffer mean, exactly? He would vote for it! It wasn’t his business to “vote” for anything. He listened and decided. That was how it had always been in the past and if something fresh was afoot, some startling deviation from protocol, why the devil did he keep hinting instead of getting up on his wooden leg and spitting it out like a man?

  Rookwood was on his feet now, asking this question outright. Not bluntly, as Godsall or Fraser might have done, but deviously, in the manner acquired, no doubt, among the city fathers of Salisbury, of which he was said to be one.

  “On a point of order, sir… Wouldn’t it help if the air was cleared at the outset…? If the chairman has a proposition that is to govern all other propositions…” and so on, until Adam cut him short, harshly but unrepentantly, for Rookwood had touched on the very heart of the problem. His proposition did indeed govern all other proposition
s, but what validity would those decisions have if every man present could walk out of here his own master, providing he had sufficient nerve?

  He said, gruffly, “I rule from the chair, Rookwood. At this stage we’re concerned with regions and regions only. I tried hard to make that clear. Follow Markby if you like, but stay on his line. Keep to the particular, not the general.”

  Rookwood sat down, glowering, and Lawyer Stock took the cue, coming to everyone's rescue and not before time, Adam thought.

  “I think I can help,” he began, mildly, “and with the Chairman's permission I will. Do I have that permission, sir?”

  “You do indeed,” said Adam. “It seems I’ve lost the knack of expressing myself clearly.”

  “Very good,” said Stock, as if this admission merited general congratulation. “Then, here it is, and there's no call for anyone to get ruffled over it. Mr. Swann's intention is that everyone here should speak his mind on the future of the firm as he sees it within his area. Not as you imagine Mr. Swann sees it, but as you see it. In terms of expansion, innovation, and capital investment. Why put the cart before the horse in that way? Gentlemen, I confess I don’t know why, for Mr. Swann hasn’t taken me into his confidence. It was he who drew up the terms of reference for this year's conference, so we can assume he knows what he's about. Speak your mind, all of you, and let us get it down on paper. Then, I imagine, Mr. Swann will take it from there. Is that what you had in mind, sir?”

  “Precisely,” said Adam with a curt nod, and at that Stock sat down and Godsall, Rookwood, and Morris rose in unison, each hoping to catch the Chairman's eye.

  “One at a time, gentlemen,” Adam said. “I’ll take you, Godsall.”

  It was a lucky choice. Godsall, a volatile man but a forceful speaker, had advantages over every other manager in the network: a first-class education and a term at University before joining the army. In a few crisp sentences he set the tone of the conference and did a good deal more than Stock to clear the air.

  “As to the particular—my patch—I’ll come to that in sixty seconds. I crave that much grace from the chair. Do I get it, sir?” And when Adam nodded, “Here, then, as I see it, is what we want to decide once and for all at this year's conference. Do we diversify or don’t we? Do we stand still, when every other concern about us is moving forward, or do we make a clean breakthrough into fields we’ve been too timid or too muddle-headed to prospect and exploit these ten years or more? I don’t have to tell you where I stand in that respect. My views on diversification were laid on the table last year, and the year before that, and since, praise God, I’ve made converts around this table. But it won’t do, to my mind, to make the advances I have in mind in odd sectors up and down the network. If we advance at all we must do it on a broad, united front and there's an end to it!”

  From his seat at the end of the long table Adam could sense a clear-cut division in the nods of Godsall's allies and the grunts of Hamlet Ratcliffe and Tybalt, the latter already wearing his “don’t-ask-me-for-money” look.

  Godsall went straight on to restate his policy of buying up defunct public transport companies, of moving out into the short-haul passenger field to gather in the pennies and twopences that were there for the taking if Swann-on-Wheels showed the enterprise of earlier sorties into the world of wheels. He spoke for forty-five minutes and when he sat down, amidst a scatter of applause from his allies, Adam thought, “By God, if I was out looking for a successor there he is. Nobody here, least of all me, could convince him he’ll bite off more than he can chew at that counter! The omnibus field is already strewn with bankruptcies…”

  But then Morris was on his feet, pressing home the attack, and after Morris, Rookwood, and after Rookwood, Jake Higson, who was not even qualified to speak as an independent manager, although it was clear he had Fraser's backing, so that Adam thought, “I would have wagered a pound to a penny Fraser would stand with the Diehards… Time was when all the man craved was to go back to peddling from his cart…” But then he reflected that that was twenty years ago, before Fraser had stormed into the Lowlands and captured Edinburgh. Success changed a man. Sometimes it made him canny and cautious, but occasionally, as in Fraser's case, it made him reckless; and Adam wondered at the source of the accord between his Scottish viceroys, one in his early sixties, the other thirty years his junior…

  That was Monday, the first day of the conference, and the talk continued through two long sessions, with a break for beer and hot meat pies at the George, where Adam went out of his way to avoid becoming embroiled in conversation with any one of them.

  Tuesday was Tom Wickstead's day and Tom emerged as a progressive who had thought his theories through in a way that made some kind of appeal to men who opposed all change except changes proposed by themselves.

  Like Markby of the Crescents, Wickstead was pleading for special purpose vehicles, this time for cattle transport. It was not only inconvenient to adapt men-o’-war and frigates for moving cows, horses, pigs, and sheep over limited distances but wasteful of time, money, and materials. A small fleet of waggons, specially built for this traffic, could be made to pay for itself in a single season in an agricultural region. And how many of Swann's regions did not look to farmers for their bread and salt the whole year round?

  Wickstead's proposals interested Adam but not so much, perhaps, as the look in Edith's face while her husband was putting his case. Towards the end of Tom's speech, Adam found his attention wandering a little as he reflected on the relationship between two people he numbered as friends as well as employees. Working partnerships between a man and woman had always intrigued him but none more so than that of Edith Wadsworth and Tom Wickstead, sometime highwayman and footpad. He wondered, as he watched her, what had touched it off, and then he knew. It was Wickstead's animal magnetism and Edith's desperate physical hunger at the time, for she had never, as he well knew, resigned herself to spinsterhood. He thought, with an inward chuckle, “By George, I was lucky as well as Wickstead when she made her grab. If he had let her down, and it had come to a straight choice between the network and Tom Wickstead's neck I know damned well what would have happened to my interests! Once he had got her to bed she would have held up a train for him…!”

  Wednesday, and the ding-dong battle continued. Markby and Wickstead won majorities on their proposals and Godsall, with more difficulty, forced through a pilot scheme for a short-haul passenger service. The network already sported men-o’-war, frigates, pinnaces, box-waggons, and holiday brakes. Now they were lumbered with iceboxes and cattle-transport vans for which Wickstead had already coined a slang phrase, “four-footers.” Nor was that all. On Thursday Catesby declared himself for diversification, proposing, and getting accepted, a six-horse dray with a central shaft as thick as a cottage beam designed for transporting heavy machinery in the Polygon where, he declared, railway companies were still shortchanging one another to the profit of the road haulier. No Swann waggon could take the road without a slang christening. By the time the lunch break was announced they were already referring to Catesby's six-horse drays as “Goliaths.”

  By then it was time for the Diehards’ counterattack but when it came it was little more than a disgruntled sally. A spirit of resurgent optimism had invaded the warehouse and only a rump of veterans were prepared to advocate a policy of letting well alone. Hamlet Ratcliffe was one of them and brought a welcome whiff of humour into proceedings when he declared, in his buzz-saw brogue, that most of the previous speakers were “bliddy well mazed.” Undaunted by the roar of laughter this produced, he went on to state as his opinion that “they talked as though the Gaffer had vallen arse over tip into a goldmine.” The summing up was received with renewed laughter but Tybalt tut-tutted, partly because he was one of the few present who agreed with Hamlet but also, Adam suspected, because he disapproved of that kind of talk in front of a lady. He need not have bothered. Edith, catching Adam's eye, chirped up, “Don’t mind me! I once drove waggons and I’m well used t
o it,” and everybody laughed, even the solemn Keate, who had maintained a basilisk expression throughout the four-day discussion.

  Vicary of The Bonus, reckoned the laziest of the managers, and Bryn Lovell, of Mountain Square, had their say in support of Ratcliffe. Vicary took a restrained line, saying the network was doing well enough without meddling in passenger transport, but Lovell was more emphatic. “Down on my patch,” he muttered, “folk are used to walking to and from work on the feet God gave ’em. I see no call to meddle with omnibuses, when we’ve a good living out o’ freight haulage these twenty years. As for this avalanche of special purpose vehicles, what are the carpenters for? We’ve been hauling high-grade china in waggons my men adapted inside twenty-four hours once I sketched out what was needed in the way o’ racks and springing!”

  It was getting dusk then and Adam suggested putting off his own statement until Friday, the final day of the conference, but at this there was a growl of protest and Stock said, spiritedly, “Take a vote, Mr. Chairman: Do we prolong this session until dinnertime, or do we adjourn until tomorrow and try and cram everything into the final day?” Adam took the vote. Unanimously the conference decided to sit.

  3

  He was slow getting to his feet. For four days now he had sat with his gammy leg thrust alongside the centreboard of the table, where it got some protection from the draught from the warehouse double doors. The twinge in his stump caused him to curse under his breath but for all that he was glad he had held his peace until now, for there was not a man among them who had not, to a greater or lesser degree, committed himself.