The Doomsday Carrier

by Victor Canning

  “But you can’t do that, Horace. It would be too risky!”

  “Not at all. I shall just slip the envelope into their letter box and walk away. No risk. I’ll do it in the late afternoon and be back here in time for dinner. All the big dailies will carry the story of the coming rally on Wednesday morning. Then we’ll post another lot on the Thursday repeating the call to the tally to make the early editions of the evening papers and television and radio on Friday and the dailies on Saturday—and that should do it. What’s that now? Friday the—”

  “Ninth,” said Lady Cynthia. “Then on Saturday we can rent a van to drive Charlie to London on Sunday. Splendid!”

  Friday, the ninth of July, was the earliest day on which Charlie could become infective. Charlie, himself, as the two talked on the terrace was swinging idly by one hand and one foot high up on a climbing rope and beating an intermittent tattoo on the stout roof netting with the old tennis racket, enjoying the noise he was making. Then, tiring of this, he linked his fingers through the strong mesh and, feet dangling, worked his way across the full length of the room hand over hand and dropped to the ground near the closed door. He stood up and twisted idly at the heavy, round bronze handle. Many a time he had played with door handles and catches and knew that sometimes the doors would open. But no amount of twisting and shaking opened this door because it was secured by a strong padlock and hasp on the other side. Bored after a while with twisting the door knob Charlie turned, gave a scream, and then rolled himself in a series of somersaults across the floor and into the straw of his sleeping pen. Picking up a newspaper which had been left there after the last photographic session, he tore it in half and began to chew some of the pages into a soft wad, his forehead furrowing with ridges as he worked his big jaws slowly.

  That afternoon Horace drove by himself to Southampton and posted the new photographs and the message. The first editions of the evening papers carried them the next morning and both radio and television were soon following them with the news.

  While Grandison was reading the papers that morning the Minister walked into his room, a surprising event, but even more surprising to Grandison were his first words.

  “Well, I think you’re right. God and the devil are working against us. What’s the answer?”

  Grandison picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and handed it to the Minister. “This. For radio and television presentation not later than midday on this coming Thursday—if not sooner. That’s the last day before Charlie may become infective.”

  The Minister read the announcement which Grandison had drafted earlier that day. When he had finished, he asked, “And who’s to read this?”

  “You, Minister—or the Prime Minister.” His face expressionless, he added, “Since you now accept that the powers against us are so high ranking it would be courtesy, of course, for it to be the Prime Minister.”

  Deciding to make no comment on this point the Minister asked, “Haven’t your people been able to pick up anything from the photos or the letters?”

  “Fingerprints on the envelope and the writing paper. The guard’s, those of the man who opened the letter at the agency and on the letter some others—all identifiable as agency people except one set. The unknown set are not known at Scotland Yard. And I didn’t expect them to be. We’re dealing with cranks and/or God-fearing people, not criminals. All we have is a short, plump, well-dressed man wearing gloves—a bit late in the day since he forgot to wear them when writing the letter, if he did write it. And, for my money, wearing a false moustache and beard.”

  “Where the hell would anyone be able to hide a chimpanzee for any length of time?”

  “Plenty of places, particularly as it isn’t for any length of time. To do a house to house search over an area with a fifty-mile radius based on Fadledean would take weeks and—like it or not—unless you declare a state of emergency, you need search warrants.” He nodded at the paper which the Minister still held. “That’s the only answer. The truth.”

  Giving way to a rare moment of emotion, the Minister said, “For God’s sake, what a mess!” Then with a shrug of his shoulders he said bitterly, “Well, if it’s agreed I know who it will be reading this to the country. And that’ll be the end of me. I shall have to resign.”

  Quietly Grandison said, “It’s no less than I expected to hear from you. Even so, it’s an honourable move which, sadly, has long been out of fashion with other Ministers in recent years.”

  The Minister smiled wearily and said, “And all because Miss Blackwell fainted at the shock of discovering that her lover had gone to bed with another woman. God and the devil. I presume that was the devil’s contribution?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  * * * *

  At lunchtime that same day Horace left Deanfinch Hall to drive to London with the third batch of photographs and the letter announcing the rally in Regent’s Park. Horace, no fool when it came to protecting himself—he had operated many times just outside the fringes of the law without being caught—had decided that there might just have been a watch set up outside the agency building to catch him. After all, despite the false moustache and beard (which the police could well assume to be false), the train guard had given a fair description of him. So, in his own interests and approving his impartiality, he chose a different agency just off Fleet Street and pushed the large envelope into their brass letter box. In order that its importance should not be overlooked he had written in red ink on the cover—Urgent. Charlie photos and message.

  He drove back to Deanfinch, reaching it in time for dinner. After taking their coffee and liqueurs on the terrace, the weather still set fine, the great blaze of the June heat-wave moving unchanged into these early days of July, Lady Cynthia and Horace took a stroll through the gardens, the aromatic trails of Lady Cynthia’s cigar smoke coiling lazily in the air behind them. As they moved alongside the lake, the long skirts of her evening gown brushing the tall grasses and picking up their seeds, Lady Cynthia stumbled a little on the rough path. Horace instinctively put out a hand and steadied her by the elbow. Casually, though his intent was deliberate since Horace never was slow to improve on any opportunity, he kept his hand on her arm and, since she was chattering away about her plans for the mass rally, he slipped his arm through hers and they walked on linked together. Just as, Horace now was certain, they would soon be moving through life, linked together. Love is the link that binds us together . . . Uncorrodible, sun-bright, no matter the weather . . . He frowned a little at the odd memory of a snatch of bad verse from his publishing days. If he remembered rightly it had been written by a bank clerk from Glasgow.

  Moving away from the lake through thick shrubberies they came out on to a weedy stretch of drive that ran up to the front of the family chapel. A mass of Virginia creeper covered the front of the chapel and reached in a thick, overhanging growth almost to the top of the high square bell-tower.

  A little bored with Lady Cynthia’s talk about the mass rally, Horace nodded towards the chapel and said, “Do you ever use the chapel now, dear Cynthia?”

  She shook her head. “Not very often. But Lily keeps it clean and in order. Generations of Ghickleys are buried there in the family vaults. One day I shall rest there too. We are an old family, you know, Horace, and although I will admit to being somewhat unorthodox in many ways I still cherish the family traditions. We came over, you know, with the Normans.”

  “How wonderful to have such a lineage,” said Horace, not really caring a button about lineage at all since he had been brought up in an orphanage, never knowing who were his parents or ever being able to stir up any great curiosity about them. Still, one day, when he became master here he decided that he would have to invent a good family background for himself. And what was more, if eventually he was going to take his place in one of the family vaults, he’d make sure that all that damned creeper stuff which was rotting away the stone work was cleared and the place generally tidied up. Ah, death . . . he checked the emerging mem
ory of another snatch of bad verse, and said solicitously, “I think it’s growing a little late, my love, and I can see that the midges are worrying you. Let’s go back and I would suggest—” he beamed at her through the gloaming, “—a leisurely nightcap to settle our excited minds before bed.”

  Lady Cynthia patted his hand on her arm and said, “A good idea, Horace, and we shall drink a toast to Charlie and to the success of our venture. I can see the rally now . . . a great spread of people and there I am, standing on the platform with Charlie at my side, his hand in mine and my voice ringing out . . . Oh, what a moment!”

  “I can’t wait for it, my love,” said Horace, though he had a poor opinion of the ringing tones of her voice. High-pitched, yes, and loud, but without magic or music in it to charm crowds. Still. . .

  Charlie lay on his back, chewing at the handle of his tennis racket and staring up at the glass roof of the billiard room. The moon, now full in its first quarter, was within a few hours of setting. Hidden by the trees low in the west, its light still flooded the sky. Charlie watched the owl which nightly came to roost for a while on the roof.

  If he had any desire for freedom, or felt any resentment at being caged once more, he showed no obvious signs of this. To be caged had been his lot for so long that he probably experienced some kind of comfort and a sense of security from it. He was well-fed, well-groomed by Lady Cynthia with an old hair brush, his quarters were kept clean and fresh straw brought in by Paget —who had taken a fancy to him and chatted to him as he worked—and he had plenty of room for exercise on his climbing ropes and the long length of old tree trunk. When the owl had gone he heard the sound of a mouse scutter across the floor and saw it move up the tree trunk. Charlie knew the mouse. He had watched it on previous nights and once or twice had chased after it but never been able to catch it. He lay there watching it and then suddenly called loudly waa-waa-wah and threw the racket at it. The mouse ran up the trunk to the wire netting and disappeared along it. Charlie walked over to his drinking trough and drank. When it had first been placed in the room he had amused himself by tipping it over, but now it had been securely screwed to the floor by Paget. The immovability of the trough frustrated Charlie. He sat by it now, gripping its edges, pulling and tugging at it, his lips drawn back to expose his strong teeth in a vigorous grin. But Paget had done his work well and the trough would not budge.

  At that moment in London, the newspaper presses were rolling, leafing out the morning papers and on the front pages of all of them the face of Charlie, grimacing vigorously, as he did now, was featured.

  The next day, Wednesday, the seventh of July, and the seventeenth day of Charlie’s freedom, the daily papers carried the story of the rally. A Charlie fever began to spread through the country. It was a great story, a comic story, a sad story, a crusading story and a cock-snooking-at-authority story. Slogans appeared on walls and hoardings. Save Charlie Now! Good old Charlie! Freedom not Fadledean for Charlie! Who’s Making a Charlie of Whom?—this dauber a grammatical purist from the London School of Economics, a rarity. All Out Regents Park Sunday. Charlie is Our Darling. . . . Charlie for Prime Minister (and under it Why? We’ve got one already!) . . .

  Dozens of organizations began to make preparations for their members to attend the rally. Discussion groups were quickly organized for television appearances. Gag writers went into action for the comedians they serviced. Newspaper editorials varied from the light-hearted to the over-pompous. Various Save-Charlie-Funds were started, not all of them altruistic. The habitual letter-writers to the newspaper correspondence columns took again to pen and typewriter. Some Churchmen scrapped the tired old sermons they were going to use on Sunday and took up the theme of Charlie and man’s inhumanity to animals, and—since it was the season of summer fetes—scores of mothers began making Charlie outfits for their children in the hope of winning first prizes at the fancy-dress parades. Manufacturers rushed to the stores their first consignment of Charlie sweat shirts.

  Harold Swinton, doing his commercial round, felt like committing suicide and consoled himself with drink to the extent that he was picked up that evening for drunken driving and, subsequently, had his licence suspended for a year. Captain Stevens had long kissed his chance of winning the Charlie sweepstake goodbye. The young married couple whom Charlie had assaulted in their tent were signed up to appear as celebrity guests on a television show.

  In the Whitehall corridors of power and the beehive of New Scotland Yard the reaction was different. Charlie was no joke.

  Under conditions of the utmost secrecy the Minister of Defence recorded for television and radio an address of national importance to be held ready for release at the moment when the Prime Minister became finally convinced that the Almighty (or His temporary partner) was not going to vouchsafe any miracle to save his well-known, rather puffy Honest Joe face. The statement would be made at midday on Thursday, the eighteenth day of Charlie’s freedom, giving the full facts and urging the people who held Charlie for their own and the country’s safety to report their whereabouts immediately to the nearest police station.

  That day Horace posted another batch of photographs to London from Portsmouth. With them was a message from Charlie which read:

  DEAR FRIENDS I AM GLAD TO SAY I AM FIT AND WELL AND HOPE IT FINDS YOU THE SAME AND LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING YOU ALL ON SUNDAY WHERE I KNOW YOU WILL ALL BAND TOGETHER TO SAVE ME FROM GOING BACK TO FADLEDEAN. LOVE CHARLIE.

  Horace returned from this mission in a rising state of confidence as he considered his future. He basked in a climate of bliss which had only one small cloud on its horizon. He realized that the moment the rally was held his and Lady Cynthia’s names would be nationally known and they would be swept up into a round of public appearances and demonstrations, feted, lionized, elected to dozens of committees, wooed and courted by all sorts of organizations, and sought after and taken up by many famous and well-connected people. He was not against that—but he could see the danger it held. Inevitably Lady Cynthia would have so many distractions, and be so pleased with herself and her achievements, that she would be in no mood to consider a marriage proposal. He was fast beginning to realize that to be absolutely certain of his future he should ensure it before the rally by asking her to marry him. He considered the pros and cons of this as he drove back to Deanfinch Hall and finally decided that he must strike while the iron was hot, while dear Cynthia, welling over with gratitude and affection for him, was his to handle without the complications and distractions of fame. He made the decision to do this, but knew that the moment and the mood must be right. And, being the man he was, he felt well capable of creating the mood which would give birth to the moment. And he did—that evening after dinner.

  They dined well by candlelight in a room where time-darkened oil paintings of past Chickleys looked down on them. The food was excellent for Mrs Paget was a first-class cook. They had an excellent bottle of Meursault-Charmes with their Dover sole, almost the whole of a bottle of Chateau Latour 1965 with their roast leg of lamb and some glasses of excellent port before moving to the terrace for coffee and liqueurs. The two of them, Horace, with his arm through Lady Cynthia’s, paused for a moment to inhale the cooling air of the growing evening, air heavy with the heady scent of the phlox which filled the terrace beds.

  “Dear Horace, dear Horace,” said Lady Cynthia, “how happy I am. I look forward to Sunday as I’ve never looked forward to anything before.”

  “The future, my love,” said Horace expansively, “glows with a golden promise. How happy I am to have been able to act as your humble squire in this great crusade.” He led her to the wrought-iron table on which rested their coffee and liqueurs, held the chair for her to sit down, and then lightly touched the side of her cheek with the back of his hand as she looked up at him and smiled and nodded her thanks. Sitting with her he served her coffee and a glass of Grand Marnier and then did the same for himself. His natural euphoria enriched by wines and her tender regard promoted in him the
thought that surely now, trembling on the lip of the immediate future, was coming the moment when he could elevate himself from squire to knight and claim the right to ride into the great tourney of the future wearing the silk of her colours knotted around his arm. Although he hated bad verse, drink always evoked from him highly coloured but somewhat tarnished romantic speech forms, but never dimmed his appreciation of the right moment to make an approach of importance. He identified it now unerringly as the moment when she should have finished her second glass of liqueur. While waiting for it, he lightly held her hand, talking easily and enduring the drift of her cigar smoke into his face.

  Then, as Lady Cynthia finished her second glass of liqueur, as though it were a sign from the gods that they were on his side, she gave him the perfect opening.

  Sighing and leaning back in her chair, her long legs thrust inelegantly out before her, drawing at her cigar and, momentarily, with her free hand scratching the top of her head to ease the mild irritation of the biting midges, she said, “Horace, my love, what would I have done without you? You have been my mainstay and my prop. I can think of no other man I know who could have served me so well and so truly. I cannot imagine what I would have done without you. I repeat it and I mean it.”

  Bracing himself, emboldened by hope and drink, Horace went in at the deep end. When the moment was right there was no profit in shilly-shallying.

  He said gently, “How generous of you to say that, Cynthia, my love. But what I have done is nothing beside what I would like to have the privilege of still doing for you . . . that is to make you as happy as you are now for the rest of your life. We have both known our sorrows and our joys. Fate brought us together and Fate has joined us in this enterprise. But when that is won there still lies before us the great enterprise of life . . . of a full, rich and rewarding life which we could make together. I feel for you, my dear Cynthia, a closeness which Elizabeth Barrett Browning spoke of when she wrote—What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes. Do I need say more?”