A SONG IN THE MORNING

by Gerald Seymour

  Last year Jack had seen Duggie's photograph, second row in a demonstration in Liverpool. He couldn't think of anywhere else to start.

  Jack had rung the bell and a girl had opened the street door and led him upstairs. It wasn't really a flat. It was a room with a table and some chairs, a baby asleep in one of them, and a line of washing and a paraffin stove and a collapsible cot and an electric cooker. For a bed there was a mattress on the floor with rumpled sheets and blankets.

  Posters on the wall, and Jack fancied they hid the damp.

  They looked at each other and Duggie beamed.

  "Bloody hell, it's priggy Curwen, the refugee from Modern History. What in God's name . . .?"

  "Nice to see you, Duggie."

  "I suppose you want my notes now, and my essays."

  "No."

  "Ditched it all, have you? Come to tell me you've chucked it?"

  "I'll take my degree the year after next, and pass."

  "God, what a crass prig. Do I have to wait till then for my books back?"

  "When I've finished with your books I'll be sending them back to the library."

  Duggie was laughing out loud, Jack was grinning. The student that Jack had hit had been standing in front of Duggie Arkwright. Duggie had said at the time that it didn't matter, the student having his jaw broken, because he was unsound, a revisionist.

  "Come on in, sit yourself down."

  But there wasn't anywhere to sit down. The baby was in the one comfortable chair, and of the two chairs at the table one was deep in washing bags and the other was a book store.

  "Bloody good to see you, Jack bloody Curwen. Jack, this is Anthea."

  The girl stared coldly at Jack. He could measure her dislike. His suit and his raincoat, wasn't it? His hair that was cut every fortnight. She turned away from him, as if she was a bank manager's daughter, as if she detested a reminder of where she had once been.

  "That's Joshua Lenin Arkwright, sleeping thank God . . .

  Don't just stand there, get your bloody coat off. You look like a bloody bailiff."

  Jack grinned. "Your last landlady spoke well of you."

  "Remember that cow, Anthea? Should have had the rent tribunal on her, and the Health and Sanitary . . . You're bloody welcome, if you're not after a loan."

  "I do need some help," Jack said simply.

  Duggie's laughter pealed through the room. His smile was huge and his teeth were awful.

  "You must be in desperate shit if you need my help."

  Anthea snapped that he'd wake the baby.

  Duggie pulled a face. "Come on, if you've the price of two pints."

  They went down the stairs, and were in the street before Jack realised that neither of them had said goodbye to the girl. "One glorious night behind a hedge when we'd gone up to help the miners picket some hideous power station.

  Her daddy said he'd cut her out of his will if we didn't marry. High price to pay for coal, if you ask me, but he's seventy-one next birthday."

  Jack plunged. "Are you still involved in South Africa?"

  "You don't just lose interest because you've left college."

  "It's important to you?"

  "Course it is. Most days I'm at Anti-Apartheid."

  "Do you know people at the A.N.C.?"

  "Conscience hasn't stricken priggy Curwen, has it? You going to make a donation?"

  "It's not a joke, Duggie."

  "I have dealings with the A.N.C., I've been on liaison committees. I know people there."

  "They have a military wing, right?"

  "They've Umkonto we Sizwe - Spear of the Nation -

  that's the military wing."

  Jack stopped him outside the pub.

  "I want an introduction."

  "You're not a bloody spook are you? I mean, you wanting that, it's ridiculous . . ."He tailed away. He saw the seriousness on Jack's face.

  "You have to trust me, Duggie. Trust me when I tell you that I intend nothing that will harm that organisation.

  I have to have an introduction to this Spear of the Nation. I have to know the man I am meeting is able to get things done."

  "They'd kill you if they found you were bent."

  "That's not what they'll find."

  "You didn't tell me what work you were in."

  Jack cracked a thin smile. His mind was made. He was on his road.

  "I'm to do with explosives."

  Duggie pulled an old envelope out of his pocket. On it Jack wrote his home number and his office number.

  In the pub they had three pints each, paid for by Jack, and they talked about college days and laughed too much.

  They laughed too loud because Jack had said he worked with explosives and Duggie had heard him.

  6

  "I see the world's looking up on you."

  Nicholas Villiers noted the change in Jack.

  "Sorry about the snap. I was a bit under the weather. The problem's sorted out."

  "Glad to hear it."

  Janice and Lucille heard the satisfaction in Villiers' voice.

  The girls liked Jack for his apology.

  Jack told Villiers that he was going straight out to do his elms, that he'd be back in after lunch. He asked Lucille to mind his telephone. He said that a Mr Arkwright might phone him, and to be sure to get the message exactly.

  He drove down to Dorking, then came off the main road and took a winding tree-lined route to Ockley. He reached a remote farm, far up a lane, with post and rail fencing for the hunters. Hell of a backwoods place for thirty miles from London. The owner had looked as though he'd had a death in the family when he'd first had Jack down, when the elms were toppled on their sides, felled but waiting to be cut up and carted away. Taking out the stumps was small business to Jack, but he'd had to work for the contract because the owner seemed hesitant to uproot his final memories of the elm avenue.

  For once George had beaten Jack to the site. Just the two of them. The JCBs and the lorries would come in the owner's own time. Jack had asked that the horses be kept well clear and there was no sign of them. Some beef bullocks watched them. They'd take plenty to be frightened.

  George had already dug neat holes at the side of each of the stumps.

  By his small unmarked van was the wooden crate that held the nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate based dynamite, and also the metal box in which he carried his no. 6 detonators, and also a drum of Cordtex and a drum of safety fuse.

  "Are you going to sit on your arse, or are you going to help?"

  "I'd like to help, Mr Hawkins."

  They worked together. Jack at George's shoulder as the old blaster stowed the 4 oz cartridges of explosive down under the arches of the roots. Jack didn't speak, didn't interrupt. He watched as George slid the aluminium tubed detonators into the cartridges. He saw him crimp the Cordtex to the open ends of the detonators. He was learning. He was watching a master at work.

  "Set 'em off all together," George muttered. "Cordtex and safety fuse are cheaper than my time."

  Jack had many times witnessed the routine. He had seen the laying of the explosive, the insertion of the detonators, the crimping in of the Cordtex, the linking of the Cordtex to the safety fuse, the unwinding of the safety fuse back to the van and the charger box.

  "You're bloody quiet this morning, Jack boy."

  Jack didn't answer, just watched. A long job with thirty-two stumps to be taken out.

  * * *

  If Sandham was nervous then he was good at hiding it.

  A secretary had come up to the South Africa desk to collect him.

  Furneaux had been in the open plan area, he had seen Sandham summoned, and known who the secretary worked for, and wondered what in hell's name was going on. Sandham, Grade 2, having an audience without it going through the Assistant Secretary running his desk.

  Sandham came into the hush of the outer office, where the girls' fingers whispered over the electric typewriters. He thought a funeral parlour might have been more cheerful. />
  The Permanent Under Secretary was waiting in front of the closed inner door, ill at ease. Sandham understood. When a Grade 2 man requests a personal meeting with the Foreign Secretary on a matter concerning national security then the fat cats would be wetting themselves, one and all. There had been some exquisite moments in Jimmy Sandham's life. He reckoned this would knock spots off les affaires Bangkok, Teheran and Amman.

  The P.U.S. opened the inner door, waved Sandham inside.

  It was the first time that he had been inside the Foreign Secretary's office. He was too far down the ladder to take part in the South Africa policy meetings, where strategy was hammered over. He thought the Foreign Secretary's wife must have had a hand in the decor. It was seven years since his own wife had left him, shouting from the pile of suitcases at the front door that she couldn't endure one more day with a man so pompous and self-opinionated. And nor had she.

  But he still recognised a woman's hand. The Foreign Secretary, tepid and small, wouldn't have had the wit to choose the colours and the fabrics and the gentle hidden lighting.

  The Foreign Secretary had his nose into a paper-covered desk.

  There was a second man in the room. He sat in a low chair with his back to the door, the bald crown of his head just visible over the chair's back.

  The P.U.S. announced Sandham. He pointed to a plain, upright chair and Sandham went to it, and sat. Sandham wondered if they had any inkling of what was about to drop into their laps.

  The Foreign Secretary raised his head. He had pale skin and owl spectacles.

  "Ah, Sandham. Thank you for coming. You wanted to alert us to a matter of national security, I think. I have asked the Director General to sit in. You know P.U.S., of course, who will make any notes that may be r e q u i r e d . . . The floor is yours."

  The Foreign Secretary had his elbows on his papers, his chin in his hands. The P.U.S. lounged back on a short settee, a pad on his knee. The Director General gazed with frank hostility into Sandham's face because he had read the wretch's file. J. Sandham, Grade 2 man, given the moment could be mischievous or impertinent, but he needed a deep breath. He had expected that the P.U.S. would sit in with the Foreign Secretary. He had not expected that the Director General would have been summoned across the Thames from his Century tower. The Director General as the man in place in the Secret Intelligence Service had responsibility for Jack's father. The Director General was the employer of Jeez Carew, alias James Curwen. A hell of a deep breath before launching into his accusation.

  "Thank you for seeing me, sir. I t h o u g h t there was a matter that you should be aware of. It is a question of life and death and that is why I have requested this personal meeting with you . . . "

  The P.U.S.'s propelling pencil was poised.

  "In South Africa, in about three weeks time, a man called James Curwen, but who goes under the name of James Carew in that country, is going to hang . . . "

  Sandham saw the muscles tighten under the pug dog chin of the Director General.

  "I'll call him Carew because that's the only name that the South Africans have for him. Carew was convicted of driving the getaway car used by African National Congress guerrillas in their escape from the Supreme Court bombing in Johannesburg fourteen months ago. At the time that Carew drove the vehicle he was a full-time operative of the Secret Intelligence Service . . . "

  He saw the eyebrows of the P.U.S. flicker upwards, he saw him begin to write.

  "A situation has arisen where a man working for his country is going to hang because the British Government has not chosen to exercise its influence, first to secure clemency and second to win Mr Carew's release . . ."

  There was a cloud of surprise on the Foreign Secretary's face. Sandham wondered what had surprised him.

  The allegation, or the fact that a Grade 2 man knew the history.

  "If you'll forgive me, sir, I think it's unacceptable that a man doing his job should be abandoned . . . "

  The P.U.S. closed his notepad, pocketed his gold pencil.

  "What's your source?" The Director General beaded Sandham with his eyes.

  "I saw a file that I was not entitled by rank to see, sir."

  "Have you passed on this allegation to any other person?"

  The Foreign Secretary spoke through closed teetth

  "No, sir." It was Sandham's second instinctive lie. With it clear of his tongue he thought of the earnest, sincere, concerned face of young Jack Curwen.

  "And that's all that you wanted to tell the Foreign Secretary?" The P.U.S. seemed to make a trifle of Sandham's statement.

  "Yes, sir."

  The P.U.S. shone Sandham an affectionate smile. "We're very grateful to you for drawing this matter to our attention.

  If it's not inconvenient for you, would you mind waiting a few minutes in my office?"

  The Foreign Secretary had twisted in his chair to look down from his window and into the park. The Director General stared at the tapestry screen that masked the open fireplace. The P.U.S. ushered Sandham towards the door.

  They wanted him out. They wanted to thrash it round. It had been bloody good entertainment. He would have liked to dance a bit, and shout.

  "No problem, sir," Sandham said easily.

  "I'll get someone to take you down to my room. You won't be kept long."

  They watched him leave. They waited for the door to close behind him.

  The Foreign Secretary spoke with a squeaking, nervous voice. "You knew about this, Director General."

  'I did not."

  "Your department, your man."

  "I'll be making it my business to find out, Foreign Secretary."

  "If this Sandham is to be believed . . . "

  The P.U.S. swirled his hand above his knee, cut the Foreign Secretary short. "He's to be believed. Our Mr Sandham is always to be believed. More important, he's a difficult man, that's his history."

  "What's to be done with him?"

  The Director General looked up. "He should go home, Foreign Secretary, that's best. He should be at home where he can commit no damage. I'll have a man take him home."

  "If this allegation were to become public property . . . "

  "It won't," the Director General said quietly.

  "You can guarantee that?"

  "Foreign Secretary, leave it in my hands. You give me that authority?"

  "Whatever authority you want."

  "Thank you, Foreign Secretary, just the authority to isolate him."

  • * *

  They had the hard hats on, and they were crouched one hundred and fifty yards from the nearest stump, and they were sheltered by the van. George always crouched, didn't matter what protection he had. They'd done the checks together.

  Jack had watched each step. He reckoned he could have gone through all the procedures himself.

  "Well, don't hang about all day, lad."

  Jack thought he'd die old waiting for a bit of politeness from George.

  "What's so bloody funny?"

  "Nothing's funny, Mr Hawkins."

  "Get on with it."

  Jack rested the palm of his hand over the bar of the plunger.

  "Don't stab it, ease it."

  He closed his fist on the bar. He looked at George, warts and wrinkles and thinned out hair protruding from under the garish orange rim of his helmet. George winked. Jack pressed the charger bar slowly, steadily down.

  There was the clap thunder of the detonations. There was the rich loam soil spurting up, the shuddering climb of the tree stumps, the thumping patter of earth and roots landing, the furious croaking of rooks.

  Jack gazed fascinated at what they had achieved. Away beyond the line of uprooted stumps the bullocks were in flight.

  George studied the scene. His face was closed. Jack looked into George's face. One thing to know a man and work with him, another thing to trust him. He thought he could trust George Hawkins, but what he thought didn't really matter because he had to trust the man.

  "Get on
with it, Jack," George said tersely.

  "Was it that obvious?"

  "Say what you've got to say."

  He told George that his father had disappeared from his life when he was two years old, before he could remember.

  He told him that he had been brought up to believe that his father was cruelty incarnate. He told him that there was not even a photograph of his father that had been kept by his mother when she had cleared out her husband's possessions.

  He told George of the letter, how the missing James Curwen had been resurrected as James Carew, under sentence of death. He told him that his father had been working for the government, an agent in place, that his life was not going to be pleaded for.

  "That's the history, Mr Hawkins."

  George's was a low gravel voice. "You could have spoken to your M.P., a journalist, one of those lads on television.

  Why didn't you cry on their shoulders? Why do you talk to me, a blaster?"

  "Had to be you."

  " You didn't have to come today and watch me lift a few Moody tree stumps."

  "Right."

  "You want some know-how?"

  jack nodded.

  George said softly, "Where are the targets?"

  "Not here, waste of time in London. I know where the target is, I don't know what it'll take."

  "Explosives?"

  "Has to be."

  George was striding fast to his van.

  "Hope you're not asking me for explosives. Every last cartridge of mine has to be accounted for. You're going to South Africa? Even if you could get them here you can't just put them in your bloody suitcase and fly out of London.

  Don't think the x-rays and the sniffers would miss it. You wouldn't get as far as the 'plane."

  "I'll get the explosives there."

  "You got the right friends?"

  "I'm finding them." There was the obstinate thrust to Jack's chin.

  God, he was racing ahead. He hadn't the targets, he hadn't the explosives, he hadn't the friends. So bloody innocent, and talking as though he could just snap his fingers and achieve them.