Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  All the men, bandsmen and reservists alike, were wearing a big red rose stuck in the chinstrap of their caps, on the right side. The step was short, the drums beating a light fast rhythm so that the reservists had difficulty making their booted feet move quickly enough. They carried rifles at the full length of the right arm, parallel to the ground, held at the point of balance.

  She said, ‘Why are they wearing roses?’

  The constable said, ‘In honour of the battle of Minden, madam. August ist, it was. Six regiments of British infantry got the wrong orders, and marched straight at heaven knows how many French cavalry protected by hundreds of guns. They went through fields and orchards on the way, and picked roses, and put them in their hats. And then they marched right through the Frenchies, out the other side, turned round, and marched back through ’em again. Ever since, in every Minden regiment – that’s what they’re called, madam – every officer and man wears a rose in his hat on August 1st, every year. We learned all that as recruits, before we was allowed off the square.’

  ‘But it’s August 13th, constable.’

  The policeman scratched his ear and said, ‘So it is … well, I don’t know for sure, madam, but I suppose the colonel up at the depot thought it would be a good idea to have the reservists wear the rose, show off to the townspeople, sort of an advertisement, like.’

  ‘And the quick marching?’

  The constable opened his mouth, but Richard answered first. ‘I know that, Susan. They’re Light Infantry. Light Infantry and Rifles were originally used to get out in front of the rest of the army as scouts when advancing, and catch up from behind in retreat, so they had to be able to march faster. My brother commands a company in the 1st Battalion, constable – Major Quentin Rowland.’ He raised his voice to be heard above the band, which was now passing them.

  ‘I was 2nd Battalion, sir, but of course I know the name. You’re Mr Harry Rowland’s son. I thought I recognized you, but I’ve only been on the force here for a few months. Moved from Canterbury in January … my wife died and I couldn’t bear to stay there.’

  At the tail of the parade marched half a dozen sergeants wearing the same bugle and prancing horse cap badge, and the red rose, but also a red sash and, at the left side of their caps, a bunch of coloured silk ribbons. They stopped, waited till the sound of the band was fainter, then one shouted, ‘Who’s for the King’s shilling? Your King and Country need You!’ All the sergeants pointed, each one picking a particular young man in the crowd to point at … ‘Step up, lad! Join your regiment, our regiment, the Weald Light Infantry, and fight the Kaiser Step up, step up!’

  Men, young and not so young, drifted out of the crowd, looking embarrassed. A woman cried in a loud voice, ‘No, you don’t, Charlie Smith! You stay here and work on the allotment!’

  ‘I’ve a right mind to go back myself,’ the constable said. ‘I’m only forty-five. No wife, children grown up …’

  ‘We’re going to need police at home as well as soldiers in France,’ Richard said. ‘May I move on now?’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Rowland. Police Constable Waygood, sir.’ He saluted and Richard engaged gear.

  The three women sat round the table in the morning-room, looking out over the lawn. Alice had set out the croquet hoops, for her father had told her that he’d play a game with her as soon as he’d had his talk with Richard. It would not be as long a conference as it might have been, she thought now, for her mother had told them the secret. So there’d be no trip round the world for her parents, which was a shame; but the effect on Richard would be much more important. Richard would not be happy, at all. Her eldest brother did not readily show his inner feelings; but from nursery days she had known him well, and she knew that he would be hurt and probably obstinate – as obstinate as their father.

  Rose Rowland said, ‘I see in the newspaper that the Germans are advancing on Brussels. The German general’s name there is von Kluck.’

  Alice Rowland said, ‘And it seems that the French advance into Alsace has been stopped … and Liege fell nearly a week ago, we now learn.’

  Rose said, ‘The news is not good, I fear, so far.’

  Susan Rowland cut through the war talk to get to the subject that was uppermost in all their minds. She said, ‘I wonder what Richard will do.’ There were tears in the corners of her violet eyes.

  Rose said, ‘You think he will not want to stay on?’

  Susan said, ‘We’ve never discussed it, mother – why should we? He was promised the management, it was all arranged, the date was fixed a year ago, was it not? But he has been talking a great deal of what he intends to do when Rowland’s is under his control. I don’t think he could bear not to have that power and responsibility.’

  ‘I agree,’ Alice said, re-threading her needle.

  ‘I hope they don’t quarrel,’ Rose said.

  ‘If they do, we must not,’ Alice said, ‘Families need unity among themselves in this war. just as Britain does.’

  She put down her sewing and reached out to pat the dachshund bitch at her feet. ‘Be quiet, Freda!’ She pulled the long silky ears. ‘What is the matter?’ The bitch was standing up now, looking towards the door, a low growl faint in her throat. The two male dachshunds, Max, Freda’s mate, and Bismarck, their son, snored in the sunlight by the window.

  The door opened as Freda gave a short sharp bark. A tall man dressed in brown, with pale eyes, a long upper lip and big ears was standing in the door, closing it behind him. ‘Mrs Rowland?’ he asked. ‘Is one of you ladies Mrs Rowland?’ He had a strong Irish brogue.

  Rose put down her sewing. ‘I am Mrs Harry Rowland, and this is Mrs Richard Rowland. But who are you, and how did you get in? Did you not ring? Or ask to see the butler?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ the man said. ‘A lady in Ireland gave me this address, in case I was in trouble.’

  ‘Who was the lady in Ireland?’

  ‘I don’t want to speak her name, except to you, ma’am.’

  Rose signalled briefly to her daughter. ‘Alice, go upstairs and give Carrie immediate work to do on the third floor. Make any excuse you like. In two minutes I will take this man to the QT room.’

  Alice went out without a word. Rose waited, counting the seconds silently. Freda watched, head cocked to one side, Max and Bismarck snored, Susan kept her eyes on the tall stranger, wondering.

  Rose said, ‘Come with me,’ and led out of the room, down the hall and up the wide front stairs. On the first landing she walked past Alice’s bedroom on the left, past Harry’s and hers on the right, then on the left the one that had been used by the elder boys, Richard and John – since called the RJ room – and then, beyond Harry’s dressing-room, to the bedroom that had been Quentin and Tom’s – the QT room – now never used except when the house was full of guests, and that had hot been for fifteen years, that she could remember. The key was at her waist, now in her hand. She opened the door, and went in, followed by the man. She closed the door behind her, and the man said, ‘’Twas Mrs Cate ma’am. I left Ireland three days ago, but someone must have given me away. The police were on my trail as soon as I arrived in Holyhead. I gave them the slip, but they would have had me soon enough. Can you hide me for a while, a short while?’

  ‘I can hide you here for forty-eight hours,’ Rose said briefly, ‘then, at night, I’ll let you out and you must go … No, I don’t want to know what you are doing or have done.’

  ‘The other ladies downstairs …?’

  ‘They will say nothing to anyone,’ Rose said. She made sure there was a chamber-pot under the bed and said, ‘You must use that, and the basin. I will get some paper before I go downstairs. I will clean up after you have gone.’

  ‘I don’t know how …’

  ‘Not a sound, day or night. No movement. If I can bring food, I …’

  ‘My pocket’s full of bread, ma’am. ’Tis enough.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘I have plenty.’

  Rose nodded and went out
. locking the door behind her. After getting a spare roll of toilet paper from the WC at the end of the floor, and giving it to the Irishman, she started downstairs. Alice joined her on the landing, coming down from above. She said, ‘Carrie will be busy for another ten minutes. She said she had nothing more to do on this floor.’

  Rose said, ‘The QT room’s not due to be dusted again till the end of the month … Tell Susan to say nothing to anyone, not even Richard.’

  ‘Very well, mother.’

  Richard sat in the easy chair to the left of the fireplace in the study, a large well-lit room looking out on the side garden, the high walls lined with leather-bound books, an oil painting of foxhounds over the mantelpiece, and another, a portrait of his father’s father in clerical dress, by the door. The room smelled of cigar smoke. It had smelled of cigar smoke ever since he could remember; and ever since he could remember, whenever he came in, his father had been sitting in the chair on the other side of the grate. He was there now, a cigar between his lips. Sunlight shone through his dense curly white hair and bronzed his already bronzed skin, marked by fine lines. The blue eyes were clear and sharp. Richard waited. His father didn’t like to be asked questions. He had summoned Richard to this meeting last night by telephone, soon after Richard’s return from his week-long visit to Manchester. It must be to do with the handing over of control of Rowland’s; or perhaps what he and mother had decided about their trip round the world. That obviously could not take place now: but Britannia ruled the waves, and after a few weeks, when the navy had had time to clean up the last German commerce raiders at sea, there was no reason why they shouldn’t visit America. Susan’s parents would be very disappointed if they didn’t get at least that far.

  Harry Rowland said, ‘Richard, I’ve been thinking what is the best thing for me to do.’

  Richard said, ‘Wait a month or two, father, and then take your trip. Or some of it.’

  His father was frowning and looking into the fireplace. He said, ‘Your mother and I are not going to take any trip, Richard. I’m going to stay on at Rowland’s.’

  Richard did not speak for a long time, for he felt as though he had run into a wall in a black night, sensing nothing till he was brought up short, winded, a pain in his chest. To gain time he took off his spectacles, polished them with his handkerchief and replaced them. At last he said, ‘You promised that I should take over on September 1st this year.’

  ‘I know, but the war’s changed everything, don’t you see?’

  ‘No, father, I don’t. If I could join up, it might be different, but nobody will want a forty-four-year-old man with bad eyesight.’ He took off his spectacles again, to emphasize what his father already knew perfectly well. His father was now barely more than a shape in dull grey, the colour of the suit he was wearing.

  He heard his father’s voice saying, ‘I’m sorry, Richard. We are entering upon a time of great difficulty. Private motor car manufacture may be shut down, and our factory ordered to make munitions or other war material. On the other hand, if we play our cards right we may be able to obtain substantial government orders for ambulances, motor cars for staff officers, and the like. Lord Kitchener is talking about an army of seventy divisions – and I understand that we now have five. Seventy! Heaven alone knows how many motor cars such an army would need – These are stormy and dangerous waters, Richard, and I believe I am best fitted to steer our ship safely – and profitably – through them.’

  ‘I agree that times are going to be difficult,’ Richard said, striving to keep his voice steady. ‘The problems will be entirely new, whether we make motor cars for the military, or are ordered to turn to something else. It will need a flexible mind to overcome the difficulties, find solutions – perhaps in areas entirely new to all of us. It will be a great strain, day and night. Would you not agree that it is a task for a younger man?’

  ‘No, Richard, I think that it’s no time to be changing horses in midstream.’

  Richard got up suddenly and stood in front of the fireplace. ‘Father, I am forty-four. I have been preparing to take over from you for nineteen years, since I entered as an apprentice in ’95. I’m ready.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Richard.’

  The old man’s obstinate, Richard thought. Kindly, most of the time, but he liked his own way, and all his life he’d had it. His father went on. ‘Bob Stratton has agreed to stay on, too.’

  Ah, Richard thought, that explains why Frank Stratton had suddenly gone off and joined up as a private soldier. He had meant to enquire more deeply into that, but had not yet had time. He said, ‘Lucky for Frank that he can join up. Though I am bound to say that I think you have done a great injustice to him, as well as to me, by forcing him to do so.’

  ‘You are being unreasonable.’

  ‘I could say the same, father, but I won’t … I am resigning from the firm.’

  Now it was his father’s turn to look as though he had walked into a wall. ‘Resign? You can’t do that, my boy! What are you talking about?’

  ‘I mean what I say. I shall not work in Rowland’s unless I am given the position I was promised, that is, managing director, in full control.’

  ‘But … but … what will you do?’

  Richard’s mind had been racing, since he had said that he would resign. He had only just made the announcement; but he recognized that he must have been thinking about this problem before he knew it would exist. Something the American Stephen Merritt had said at Henley had been fermenting in his brain, almost unnoticed, and unacknowledged, but now bubbling out … commercial road vehicles! There was a manufacture eminently suited to Mr Ford’s mass production methods, much more so than the passenger-car field; more suited to wartime conditions, too, for if the army would require x ambulances, they would certainly require a hundred times x load-carrying lorries; vehicles that could distribute soldiers and all their requirements from railheads forward in any war zone of the world; and, where there were no railways, from the ports all the way to the fighting line, far faster than horse-drawn transport.

  He said, ‘I shall make commercial vehicles. Lorries.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here in Hedlington. I know the labour, the craftsmen, the banks …’

  ‘You know the banks, but which one of them’s going to lend you the money to start such an enterprise?’

  Richard said, ‘I don’t know … I shall get advice from Stephen Merritt. He offered to give it.’

  ‘Merritt? Merritt? … Do you mean the American?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what if he is not interested in your proposal?’

  ‘I don’t know, father, but I shall succeed. After Mr Merritt, I shall probably go to Lord Cantley at Toledano’s. He’s known me all his life. He knows what I have done … and what I could do, on my own.’

  His father got up stiffly. ‘I am sorry that you should desert me at this time. And even more sorry that you should plan to set up in Hedlington in competition with me for the available workmen – who will become scarce as more men go to the war – and for materials. Perhaps if we were to enter into some sort of partnership, we …’

  ‘I’m sorry, father. It’s too late. You have forced me to consider something which I now realize I have wanted to do for many years. My mind is made up.’

  They were driving out of Hedlington, heading east on the direct road to Beighton, Beighton Down rising in short sere grass to its long clean skyline on their left, sun-parched fields to the right, the spire of Hedlington Church piercing the golden bowl of late morning behind them.

  ‘Will Toledano’s take the risk?’ Susan said. ‘I’m sure Lord Cantley will recommend it, but he’s not in charge, is he?’

  ‘No, old Isaac is still alive and very much in charge, I believe. But I know his son David quite well – and if I can get David to speak for me, the old man will agree. There’s a very strong attachment between Jewish fathers and sons. A Jew would never have done what father did to me. Or Bob Stratton to Fran
k.’

  ‘Frank’s left, too? I’ve heard nothing, while you were away. No one came near me. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I suppose they knew, or some did.’

  ‘Frank joined up. My first hope for financing is not Toledano’s, but Mr Merritt. I told father I’d start my business in Hedlington, but I was very angry then. I’ll start it where we can, and depending on what advice Mr Merritt gives, or what conditions he puts on providing the money. There might be some sort of partnership … but he’ll probably suggest the formation of a private limited company in England, with his bank holding a majority of the common stock, and the rest of the shares distributed between me, as managing director, and a British merchant bank – I’d recommend Toledano’s.’

  ‘How are you going to approach him?’

  ‘I must find out where he is first. I believe he and the son went home about ten days after Henley. Stella said something about being invited to a ball in London but being unable to go, and they were sailing two days later … I’ll send a cable to him at his bank in New York. I really think he will respond favourably. I believe he recognized, at Henley, that he and I think the same way, follow the same principles, about manufacturing motor vehicles, or as he would say, automobiles.’

  She said, ‘What are you going to call your lorries?’

  He had thought about that desultorily, since the meeting with his father, to no result. He thought of the town – Hedlington? A set of initials such as RAC, for Rowland Automotive Company? He was going to make big, powerful vehicles to carry scores of men, tons of equipment, shells, food … Vulcan? It was already used.

  ‘Jupiter,’ he said, ‘the Jupiter Motor Company.’

  He repeated the name to himself: Jupiter … Richard Rowland’s Jupiter lorries, the best. No, that was not to be his aim: Jupiter lorries, simple and economical to build, drive, maintain, and repair … standardized designs and interchangeable parts … parts available anywhere in the country … the world …