“They haven’t got a row of medals for gallantry, I agree.”
“I’m not talking about gallantry. I’m talking about guts. A few years ago, we wouldn’t have allowed a crowd of half-educated Chinese reds to jump us. But then, at that time the war machine was being run by Churchill. Not by a long-haired Lithuanian pimp.”
“What do you think Churchill would have done?”
“What I’m going to do. Hit them first, and hit them for keeps. And no-one is stopping me. I take it you can see this.”
Mr. Calder said, sadly, “Yes, General, I can see it. A .415 automatic. In my opinion, the best weapon the British army ever produced.”
“You’re on top-secret Defence Ministry premises. You got in here by telling lies. I should be entirely justified in shooting you. And I will if I have to. You understand?”
“Perfectly, General.”
“Then proceed. You say I’ve been worrying my superiors. How?”
“It wasn’t only you. Your military secretary, Captain Russel has been under arrest since midday. He has already admitted that some weeks ago, he communicated to an acquaintance in the City, a Mr. Grover Lambert of Interstock, the view that this country would be at war with Communist China before the end of July.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s been confirmed by Mr. Lambert. He—er—happened to let it out after a very good dinner at my club.”
“Why would anyone listen to what a captain said?”
“In the ordinary way, of course, they wouldn’t. But Captain Russel was able to quote certain facts and figures in a private memorandum you had written for the Cabinet. Written, but not, I think, yet delivered. You really should have been more careful with such a potentially inflammatory document.”
“Continue,” said the General. He was smiling in a way which Mr. Calder found disturbing.
“What happened then, might have been funny if it hadn’t been so bloody dangerous. In the eighteenth century, I understand, this country went to war because a Captain Jenkins had his ear cut off. We very nearly went to war because Captain Russel wanted to get married. He was innocent enough to think that his communication to Lambert would cause a sharp, but temporary fall in the market. His naive scheme was to buy at the low point and then revive the market by telling Lambert that it was all nonsense, when he could sell at a handsome profit. I think he rather fancied himself as a financier. In fact, he was a babe-in-arms playing with high explosives. He had started a chain reaction, which he had no hope of stopping.
“What happened then, is that the Chinese took fright. They don’t understand a free press. When a senior war minister’s wife foretold war in July, and the big boys started selling their British holdings, they reckoned they could read the signs. They got frightened, and they got angry. They still didn’t really believe we would attack them, but if we did, they are going to be ready to hit back.”
“I’ve always been told that you chaps had vivid imaginations,” said the General. “You’ve made up a very good story. It might even convince a weak-kneed pacifist like Litman. But it doesn’t convince me. You’re completely wrong. This whole business started in China. It was worked out by them, from beginning to end, like a game of chess. Move and countermove. I’m not a chess player. That’s why I’m going to kick the board over, before we get to check-mate. Do you think you can stop me?”
Mr. Calder was trying to do three things at once. He was keeping the whole of his apparent attention on the General, whilst watching the door which had started to open very slowly, and trying to work out certain angles and possibilities.
The General had picked up the telephone. Still keeping Mr. Calder carefully covered, he lifted the receiver, and spoke into it. “Counterstrike Headquarters. General Garnet speaking, Code-word ‘Cromwell’. Action immediate. Full scale. I’ll give you the count-down. Ten-nine-eight—”
The door was open now and the sergeant-major was inside the room. He knew exactly what to do, because Mr. Calder had written it all down on the paper he had given him and he had now had time to counter-check it by telephone.
“Seven-six-five-four—”
Mr. Calder noticed that sensibly, he had taken his shoes off, and was moving in stockinged feet. The overhead strip-lighting would throw no shadow.
“Three-two-one.”
The sergeant-major whipped one arm round the General’s throat from behind. As his gun went up, Mr. Calder went forward in a dive for his knees.
They could neither of them have done it by themselves, but together they managed it. When they had lashed his hands and feet, the General spat in Mr. Calder’s face, and said genially, “It must be a comfort to you to know that you’re too late. Nothing can stop it now.”
“Do you think,” said Mr. Fortescue, “that he realised that the telephone had been disconnected?”
“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Calder. “But it’s always difficult to know what a madman does grasp and what he doesn’t.”
“When did you realise he was mad?”
“In 1942,” said Mr. Calder. “But I didn’t realise how far it had gone. However, I’m very glad he didn’t shoot me at that particular moment.”
“Why at that moment?”
“I had an urgent telephone call to make to my stockbroker. You remember what you told us. There’s a good deal of money to be made on a falling market if you happen to be the only person who knows that it’s going to stop falling.”
6
The African Tree Beavers
Like many practical and unimaginative men, Mr. Calder believed in certain private superstitions. He would never take a train which left at one minute to the hour, distrusted the number twenty-nine, and refused to open any parcel or letter on which the stamp had been fixed upside down. This, incidentally, saved his life when he refused to open an innocent-looking parcel bearing the imprint of a book-seller from whom he had made many purchases in the past but which proved, on this occasion, to contain three ounces of tri-toluene and a contact fuse. Mr. Behrens sneered at the superstition, but agreed that his friend was lucky.
Mr. Calder also believed in coincidences. To be more precise, he believed in a specific law of coincidence. If you heard a new name, or a hitherto unknown fact, twice within twelve hours you would hear it again before a further twelve hours was up. Not all the schoolmasterly logic of Mr. Behrens would shake him in this belief. If challenged to produce an example he will cite the case of the Reverend Francis Osbaldestone. The first time he heard the name was at eleven o’clock at night, at the Old Comrades Reunion of the Infantry Regiment with which he had fought for a memorable eight months in the Western Desert in 1942. He attended these reunions once every three years. His real interest was not in reminiscence of the war, but in observation of what had taken place since. It delighted him to see that a motor transport corporal, whom he remembered slouching round in a pair of oily denims, should have become a prosperous garage proprietor and that the orderly room clerk, who had sold places on the leave roster, had developed his talents, first as a bookmaker’s runner and now as a bookmaker; and that the God-like company sergeant-major should have risen no higher than commissionaire in a block of flats at Putney, who would be forced, if he met him in ordinary life, to call his former clerk ‘sir’.
Several very old friends were there. Freddie Faulkner, who had stayed on in the army and had risen to command the battalion, surged through the crowd and pressed a large whiskey into his hand. Mr. Calder accepted it gratefully. One of the penalties of growing old, he had found, was a weak bladder for beer. Colonel Faulkner shouted, above the roar of conversation, “When are you going to keep your promise?”
“What promise?” said Mr. Calder. “How many whiskeys is this? Three or four?”
“I thought I’d get you a fairly large one. It’s difficult to get near the bar. Have you forgotten? You promised to come and look me up.”
“I hadn’t forgotten. It’s difficult to get away.”
“Nonsense. You�
��re a bachelor. You can up-sticks whenever you like.”
“It’s difficult to leave Rasselas behind.”
“That dog of yours? For God’s sake. Where do you think I live? In Hampstead Garden Suburb? Bring him with you. He’ll have the time of his life. He can chase anything that moves, except my pheasants.”
“He’s a very well-behaved dog,” said Mr. Calder, “and does exactly what I tell him. If you really want me—”
“Certainly I do. Moreover I can introduce Rasselas to another animal-lover. Our Rector. Francis Osbaldestone. A remarkable chap. Now get your diary out, and fix a date—”
It was at ten o’clock on the following morning when the name cropped up next. Mr. Calder was stretched in one chair in front of the fire, his eyes shut, nursing the lingering remains of a not disagreeable hangover. Mr. Behrens was in the other chair, reading the Sunday newspapers. Rasselas occupied most of the space between them.
Mr. Behrens said, “Have you read this? It’s very interesting. There’s a clergyman who performs miracles.”
“The biggest miracle any clergyman can perform nowadays,” said Mr. Calder sleepily, “is to get people to come to church.”
“Oh, they come to his church, all right. Full house, every Sunday. Standing room only.”
“How does he do it?”
“Personal attraction. He’s equally successful with animals. However savage or shy they are, he can make them come to him, and behave themselves.”
“He ought to try it on a bull.”
“He has. Listen to this:
On one occasion a bull got loose and threatened some children who were picnicking in a field. The Rector, who happened to be passing, quelled the bull with a few well-chosen words. The children were soon taking rides on the bull’s back.”
“Animal magnetism.”
“I suppose if you’d met St. Francis of Assisi you’d have sniffed and said ‘animal magnetism’.”
“He was a saint.”
“How do you know this man isn’t?”
“He may be. But it would need more than a few tricks with animals to convince me.”
“Then what about miracles?
On another occasion the Rector was woken on a night of storm by an alarm of fire. The verger ran down to the rectory to tell the Rector that a barn had been struck by lightning. The telephone line to the nearest village with a fire brigade was down. The Rector said, ‘Not a moment to lose. The bells must be rung.’ As he spoke the bells started to ring themselves.”
Mr. Calder snorted.
“It’s gospel truth. Mr. Penny, the verger, vouches for it. He says that by the time he got back to his cottage, where the only key of the bell chamber is kept, and got across with it to the church, the bells had stopped ringing. He went up into the belfry. There was no-one there. The ropes were on their hooks. Everything was in perfect order. At that moment the brigade arrived. They had heard the bells, and were in time to save the barn.”
Mr. Calder said, “It sounds like a tall story to me. What do you think, Rasselas?” The dog showed his long white teeth in a smile. “He agrees with me. What is the name of this paragon?”
“He is the Reverend Francis Osbaldestone.”
“Rector of Hedgeborn, in the heart of rural Norfolk.”
“Do you know him?”
“I heard his name for the first time at about ten o’clock last night.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Behrens, “according to the fantastic rules propounded and believed in by you, you will hear it again before ten o’clock this evening.”
It was at this precise moment that the telephone rang.
Since Mr. Calder’s telephone number was not only ex-directory but was changed every six months, his incoming calls were likely to be matters of business. He was not surprised, therefore, to recognise the voice of Mr. Fortescue, Manager of the Westminster Branch of the London and Home Counties Bank, and other things besides.
Mr. Fortescue said, “I’d like to see you and Behrens, as soon as possible. Shall we say, tomorrow afternoon?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Calder. “Can you give me any idea what it’s about?”
“You’ll find it all in your Observer. An article is about a clergyman who performs miracles. Francis Osbaldestone.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Calder.
“You sound pleased about something,” said Mr. Fortescue suspiciously.
Mr. Calder said, “You’ve just proved a theory.”
“I understand,” said Mr. Fortescue, “that you knew Colonel Faulkner quite well, in the army.”
“He was my company commander,” said Mr. Calder.
“Would you say he was an imaginative man?”
“I should think he’s got about as much imagination as a No. 11 bus.”
“Or a man who would be easily deluded?”
“I’d hate to try.”
Mr. Fortescue pursed his lips primly, and said, “That was my impression, too. Do you know Hedgeborn?”
“Not the village. But I know that part of Norfolk. It’s fairly primitive. The army had a battle school near there during the war. They were a bit slow about handing it back, too.”
“I seem to remember,” said Mr. Behrens, “that there was a row about it. Questions in Parliament. Did they give it back in the end?”
“Most of it. They kept Snelsham Manor, with its park. After all the trouble at Porton Experimental Station they moved the gas section down to Cornwall, and transferred the Bacterial Warfare Establishment to Snelsham, which is less than two miles from Hedgeborn.”
“I can understand,” said Mr. Calder, “that Security would keep a careful eye on an establishment like Snelsham. But why should they be alarmed by a saintly vicar two miles down the valley?”
“You are not aware of what happened last week?”
“Ought we to be?”
“It has been kept out of the press. It’s bound to leak out sooner or later. Your saintly vicar led what I can only describe as a village task force. It was composed of the members of the Parochial Church Council, and a couple of dozen of the villagers and farmers. They broke into Snelsham Manor.”
“But, good God,” said Calder, “the security arrangements must have been pretty ropy.”
“The security was adequate. A double wire fence, patrolling guards and dogs. The village blacksmith cut the fence in two places. A farm tractor dragged it clear. They had no trouble with guards, who were armed with truncheons. The farmers had shotguns.”
“And the dogs?”
“They made such a fuss of the vicar that he was, I understand, in some danger of being licked to death.”
“What did they do when they got in?” said Behrens.
“They broke into the experimental wing, and liberated twenty rabbits, a dozen guinea-pigs and nearly fifty rats.”
Mr. Behrens started to laugh, and managed to turn it into a cough when he observed Mr. Fortescue’s eyes on him.
“I hope you don’t think it was funny, Behrens. A number of the rats had been infected with Asiatic plague. They hope that they recaptured or destroyed the whole of that batch.”
“Has no action been taken against the vicar?”
“Naturally. The police were informed. An inspector and a sergeant drove over from Thetford to see the vicar. They were refused access.”
“Refused?”
“They were told,” said Mr. Fortescue gently, “that if they attempted to lay hands on the vicar they would be resisted – by force.”
“But surely—” said Mr. Behrens. And stopped.
“Yes,” said Mr. Fortescue. “Do think before you say anything. Try to visualise the unparalleled propaganda value to our friends in the various CND and peace groups if an armed force had to be despatched to seize a village clergyman.”
Mr. Behrens said, “I’m visualising it. Do you think one of the more enterprising bodies – the International Brotherhood Group occurs to me as a possibility – might have planted someone in Hedgehorn. Someone
who is using the Rector’s exceptional influence—”
“It’s a possibility. You must remember that the Bacterial Warfare Wing has only been there for two years. If anyone has been planted, it has been done comparatively recently.”
“How long has the Rector been there?” said Mr. Calder.
“For eighteen months.”
“I see.”
“The situation is full of possibilities, I agree. I suggest you tackle it from both ends. I should suppose, Behrens, that there are few people who know more about the IBG and its ramifications than you do. Can you find out whether they have been active in this area recently?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“We can none of us do more than our best,” agreed Mr. Fortescue. “And you, Calder, must go down to Hedgeborn immediately. I imagine that Colonel Faulkner would invite you?”
“I have a standing invitation,” said Mr. Calder. “For the shooting.”
Hedgeborn has changed in the last four hundred years, but not very much. The church was built in the reign of Charles the Martyr and the Manor in the reign of Anne the Good. There is a village smithy, where a farmer can still get his horses shoed. He can also buy diesel oil for his tractor. The cottages have thatched roofs, and television aerials.
Mr. Calder leaned out of his bedroom window at the Manor and surveyed the village, asleep under a full moon. He could see the church, at the far end of the village street, perched on a slight rise, its bell-tower outlined against the sky. There was a huddle of cottages round it. The one with a light in it would belong to Mr. Penny, the verger, who had come running down the street to tell the Rector that Farmer Alsop’s farm was on fire. If he leaned out of the window Mr. Calder could just see the roof of the rectory, at the far end of the street, masked by trees. Could there be any truth in the story of the bells? It had seemed fantastic in London. It seemed less so in this forgotten backwater.
A soft knock at the door heralded the arrival of Stokes, once the colonel’s batman, now his factotum.
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