by Peter Rimmer
“They are the enemy.”
“Don’t talk rubbish. The war’s been over twenty years. Anyway, Daddy said Mr Brigandshaw saved him from his burning aircraft.”
“Erwin says it has just started. Anyway, it was this man who shot down our father before he landed and pulled him out of the wreckage. They were trying to kill each other. They were enemies.”
Gabby remembered her mother telling her about their visit to Hastings Court in England and wondered about the younger boy who was of a similar age to her. The boy she noticed was grinning at her. Gabby smiled back at him, making Melina give her one of those sour looks of disapproval she liked so much. Whether it was because he was a boy or English, Gabby was not sure. The other young man was looking warmly at Melina, as if he saw something he liked. Then they all trooped into the cake shop without Gabby having to ask.
For half an hour, while she happily ate her favourite chocolate cake, Mr Tannenbaum, who Gabby knew had lived many years in America teaching Americans to ski, translated the conversation from German to English and back again. Only when Monsieur Montpellier came back from mooring his boat did they speak French, only some of which Gabby understood.
The boy was still grinning at her. Mr Brigandshaw was also smiling at her when he was not talking to someone else. He was, as her mother and father had always told Gabby, a very nice man, despite he and her father being made to fight each other during the war, something Gabby could still not understand. If they were friends now why had they tried to kill each other up in the sky flying their aeroplanes? Of all the silly things that grown-ups did, killing each other to Gabby was the silliest of them all.
Instead of the four men coming back to the hotel, Ferdinand came along the jetty with his horse and trap, stopping outside the restaurant where they had eaten the cake. Ferdinand took four small suitcases from the buggy and put them down on the wooden pier. Then he turned round the horse that for a moment looked at Gabby through the open window with doleful eyes. The horse and buggy clip-clopped away down the wooden planks of the pier. Gabby had no idea what was going on until the young man left.
From inside what Gabby thought of as the cake shop, she watched another man pick up the cases one by one and climb down with them out of sight. Gabby presumed the man was putting the cases into a boat. Then Mr Brigandshaw was leaving. Meeting him on the pier was a coincidence, like many other things Gabby often did not understand. When all the cases had gone from the pier, everyone began shaking hands. Briefly, Mr Brigandshaw again shook hers. Monsieur Montpellier did not seem to know what had been going on from the time he came back for the girls after tying up the boat.
From the window Gabby watched a rubber dinghy push out from under the pier with the four men on board where she could also see the suitcases. Mr Montpellier had now sat down at their table to watch and eat cake with Herr Tannenbaum, whom Gabby knew was the man from customs. The dinghy moved much faster than a normal rowing boat out to the aeroplane. Further out in the lake, the German patrol boat had come back again. The boy waved to Gabby from the dinghy and Gabby waved back. It was a pity, she thought, the boy could not speak German.
Not long after, they all watched the engines of the big seaplane start up, the German patrol boat this time keeping a better distance. Then the plane taxied round and faced out into the lake and into the wind. The four engines made the big propellers go round so fast they became invisible. Gabby watched the seaplane take off. Then they all left the restaurant to walk back to their hotel. When Gabby turned round, the plane was well on its way to fly over the peaks of the mountains. Smiling sadly, Gabby wondered if the boy was waving. Just in case, she waved herself before following her sister, who had lost all interest in the aeroplane when she found out it was not German.
“What was that all about?” she asked her sister back at the Romanshorn hotel.
“I have no idea. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Why do you say that, Melina?”
“They’re English. You’re too young to understand. They are the enemy.”
“Why?”
“Erwin says we’re going to war with them. Soon. Germany is going to be great again.”
“Why will going to war make any difference?”
“Last time we lost. This time we will win. We will defeat the English and the French. Erwin says we must all be proud to be German. Anyway, why was that boy grinning at you?”
“I really don’t know, but I liked the look of him.”
3
Harry Brigandshaw said to Timothy Kent a week later, when Harry was back at the Air Ministry, that it was like eating soup with a fork.
“Every time I thought I’d got something it fell off. The Swiss are inscrutable. Playing both sides without favours. Soon after the girls got off their yacht the German patrol boat was back. It can take hours to make a person to person call from Hastings Court. I think the Germans and the Swiss have a direct line to their police stations. Never once did Herr Krock say a word. Everything came from the bumbling Herr Tannenbaum, who I don’t think was quite so bumbling after all. Sometimes it is impossible to do friends a favour, so we left when the suitcases suddenly appeared with the patrol boat in the Swiss water far too close to the flying boat for my liking… Coastal Command will love her. Easy to fly. Easy to land. Quick to launch a rubber boat from the big hatch low down on the hull three feet above the waterline. Even in rolling seas they’ll be able to get out and back with stranded pilots. Positioned along the south coast and connected by phone from our radar stations, we’ll be able to hit Jerry bombers over the Channel with Fighter Command and pick up any of our chaps shot down in the sea with the flying boats. Coastal Command can be on the way to shadow the dogfights and pick up downed pilots. They’ll be in the right place at the right time. Better than patrol boats looking for pilots in the drink from sea-level, especially when there’s a swell. Any German aircrew picked up in the sea will be incarcerated and out of the war for its duration, an even more valuable prize than shooting down their aircraft.”
“I’ll pass it on.”
“They’ve got Klaus, I’m sure. The older girl knew something, the way she looked at me. Same brainwashing as the brother. They were close those two. Bergit said Melina hero-worshipped her older brother. I think she knew what was going on from young Erwin. Get them young enough and you can make them do anything. We were politely told by the Swiss to bugger off after Tannenbaum spoke to Bergit on the phone in Germany to find out who we were. Poor girl. Poor Germany. Poor Europe. Anyone who doesn’t agree with Hitler and his Party get their arse kicked. This isn’t just about the Jews. It’s about anyone who challenges the power of the Nazi Party. You only need a few evil men to turn a nation rotten. If you ask me, everyone is scared shitless including Bergit, worrying about what they will do to her family if she gets in the way. When Tannenbaum said he’d spoken to Bergit on the phone I thought I was getting somewhere, especially when the man said the girls were on one of the yachts on the lake and Bergit wanted me to see them. Then it all fell apart when Melina and Gabby came ashore. One minute we were told we could stay one night only, the next our suitcases appear on the jetty. So that’s it, Tim. I’ve done my best. All we can do for Klaus and Germany is hope. Why is it always the right royal sods in life are the ones who win?”
“They don’t have a conscience. Only a purpose. Megalomaniacs don’t think like you and me. Just because a man has similar outward features doesn’t mean his brain is wired the same way as yours. Even what they say doesn’t correspond to what’s in their head. They have no scruples killing people so long as it is not themselves, they’ll sacrifice an army to save their own skin. Make a bloody army fight for them, telling them so persuasively it’s in everyone’s best interest who’s doing the fighting, the fault only found out when the tyrant takes power and keeps the spoils for himself and his cronies. We’ve had them all the way down history under different guises, people wanting power. Some use national pride. Some use religion. Many plain
fear. Some, the promise of plenty. Most somewhere appeal to man’s inherent greed. Rape and pillage are part of all of us, Harry. The chances of any of us coming down through history without being the product of rape is nil. We’re all a direct product of the rapist and the raped. Who we are running through our veins, those of us who survived. Meek and mild people don’t last very long whatever the Christians will have us think. Nice idea. Just goes against human nature. You did your best, Harry. Nothing to look back on and regret, whatever horror comes out of it. Just makes me even more determined to defend England against tyranny.”
“We’re going to have to fight them aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are. Why don’t you send a full report to Coastal Command? Glad to have you back, sir. Sorry about the diatribe. All this wasted effort of mankind gets me wound up and that’s a mistake. Never take it personal. Better still, get right out of the way which, looking at the future, is not going to be possible.”
By the time Harry Brigandshaw took the train from Waterloo to Leatherhead and home, Timothy Kent’s diatribe had sunk in. On a pleasant summer’s evening the car at the station started first time. Other city slickers, as Anthony liked to call them, were walking home, distinct in bowler hats and carrying rolled umbrellas. Some peeled off at the Horse and Hound to prepare themselves better for family life. If it did not rain so often in England, Harry would have enjoyed the morning and nightly exercise walking all the way to Mickleham and the house that had been in the maternal side of his family for centuries.
If there was one thing about money that he had learnt in his life, Harry told himself as he drove past the hedgerows and fields, it was keeping hold of wealth was more difficult than making it the hard way in the first place. If a man or country had something of value there was a line of not so lucky trying to get their hands on it by fair means or foul, something his paternal grandfather, whom some called the Pirate, knew all about. Whether the man was a pirate in name or practice, Grandfather Brigandshaw had founded a shipping line, coming up from the ranks in the Merchant Navy, that was the foundation of Harry’s English money and the reason his family lived at Hastings Court. Harry’s maternal grandfather, Sir Henry Manderville, had done a deal with the devil and sold his only daughter and Hastings Court to the Pirate to relieve himself of the family debt.
“You’re right, Tim. We’re all a mix of the good and the bad. I wonder what the old Pirate was really like, God bless his soul in heaven or hell.”
After badly singing himself a couple of songs to which he neither knew properly the tune or the words, Harry turned the car into the long driveway that led up to his ancestral home. Anthony was back at boarding school. Beth was away on her first term at a small private school in Bournemouth where Tina hoped they would teach her to behave like a young lady, something Harry rather doubted and secretly hoped would not spoil the rebel in his child. Tinus, footloose and fancy-free, was Harry’s problem along with what to do with his money to keep it out of reach of the current predators thrashing around in Europe.
Leaving the car in the driveway in front of the old house, Harry found everything surprisingly quiet. Neither dogs nor the younger children had rushed out of the house to greet him on his return from London as usual.
“They’ve all gone off with Aunt Tina and the chauffeur,” said Tinus, appearing on the long terrace that faced out from the front of the house. Above, the false turrets and battlements looked down silently on the summer evening.
“Including the dogs?”
“They all piled in. I watched them. How was your day, Uncle Harry?”
“Interesting but not for the right reasons, Tinus. Do you fancy a trip?”
“To the Running Horses?”
“I was thinking of somewhere further.”
“You’re coming back to Africa?” Tinus, taken out of his lethargy, walked quickly to the balustrade and looked down at his uncle.
“First, we are going to America, ostensibly to see Robert and Freya St Clair. I’m worried having so much of my money in British bonds. I’ve never been to America… I think Coastal Command will go for the Short Sunderland. I’m to put in a memo. How was your day?”
“Boring, I’m afraid. I need something to do other than loafing around.”
“Your new degree will be put to use in New York. I want to diversify my investments. I thought we’d first visit Sir Jacob Rosenzweig at the Rosenzweig Bank. You can assure him his daughter and grandchildren are doing fine on Elephant Walk. He’ll want a full report having never seen his grandchildren. Why does religion so often get in the way, instead of helping people’s lives?”
“She and Ralph are very happy. So are the kids.”
“That’s all that matters. The old man must be awfully lonely all on his own in New York. Robert’s in New York with his publisher for a month, the children in Denver with Freya.”
“When do we leave, Uncle Harry?”
“I thought on Monday. Being a volunteer civil servant gives me some leeway I suppose. I don’t have any job description. They seem to ask my opinion when it suits them. Tim does the real work. If they don’t pay you they can’t very well order you around. I thought we’d fly to America.”
“Ourselves?”
“No, Tinus. A scheduled airline this time. You want to go to the Running Horses?”
“Not a bad idea with no one around.”
“Come on then. You don’t need a coat. It’s the new barmaid, I suppose.”
“Something like that.”
“Do you know this one’s name?
“Not yet, Uncle Harry.”
To his surprise, the face that came to mind was not that of the barmaid at the Running Horses. Instantly, and not for the first time since leaving Lake Constance, Tinus saw the young face of Melina von Lieberman looking at him in a way that said she would like to do something to him, the stare was so intense. Someone had once told him the line between love and hatred was thin, the strong emotion easily going one way or the other. Looks from girls, however young, said more to him than any words, even if thinking of a girl not turned sixteen would be construed by many as cradle-snatching.
Whether the girl’s thrusting look when Tinus glanced up from the dinghy when they came out from the shadow of the pier was meant to show him interest or hatred he was not sure. What Tinus did know was their eyes locked for a considerable time until the dinghy was far enough out in the lake to break the eye contact by distance, neither of them finding it possible to look away.
Not for the first time, Tinus had found girls to be strange creatures he doubted he would ever understand, other than that thrust from deep behind the eyes that spoke to him of primal lust and made his hormones react strongly when he saw deep inside what he wanted from a girl.
Half listening to his Uncle Harry as the car made its way through the evening sun along the English lanes, all he could think of was Melina von Lieberman and what her look at him in the boat had really meant.
Being a Friday night the carpark of the Running Horses was nearly full. A typical English country pub, the Running Horses was part of many locals’ lives. Everyone seemed to know each other enough to nod and wave. After that the groups kept to themselves with, to Tinus, that strange habit he was told was British reserve.
When they reached the bar, the new barmaid was being patronised by three young men. His uncle bought the pints and they went outside.
“So, what are you going to do, young Tinus?”
“At this moment I don’t have a clue.”
“Do you want to farm in Rhodesia? I never used my geology degree, remember. Schooling is to teach us how to think. An educated man does not have to follow his degree. In a productive life we should study many subjects in a wide spectrum.”
“I’m not sure.”
“A nice young wife and family on a farm is a good way of life. Similar, year after year, but a good life. You could play some cricket in Salisbury. Go into the bush. Take up wildlife photography instead of shooting the poor
animals. Why is it some men like to kill big game just for sport? My father began hunting ivory for a living and an elephant killed him in the end.”
“Part of me would do that. Build the dam. Put in the rest of the infrastructure to make the irrigated crops viable. Yes, water at home is the key to farming success. But I’m not sure whether in the end I would find myself bored with not enough of interest to feed my mind. It seems so silly not to know now what to do with my life.”
“America first. Then Rhodesia. It is time I went home before it becomes impossible.”
“When is it going to happen? You really think it’s going to be war?”
“Months. Maybe a year. The Americans will sit on the fence and make a fortune. A war in Europe would finally put the end to their depression. Why I want to go and see first-hand where to put some of my money. With your degree in economics you’ll know what questions to ask. In wartime, people make fortunes. We can fly to Africa after the trip to New York and take a look at Elephant Walk in the light of a pending war… So you don’t want to join Anglo-American and become a corporate man? They’d fall over themselves to employ a young Rhodes Scholar who played cricket for Oxford.” Harry sat on a bench and lifted his pint glass. “Cheers, Tinus. Good having you at Hastings Court. I miss a good conversation when you are not here. Anything slightly cerebral makes my wife change the subject. She likes to talk about our children, not the tale of the world. Can’t blame her. Probably better with her head buried in the sand. Mostly, there’s nothing the individual can do about it anyway. Tina says what’s the point of worrying… She’s not as nice as the last one.”
“Who?” said Tinus, startled, thinking he was referring to his uncle’s murdered first wife, who was born Lucinda St Clair.
“The barmaid.” For a moment they smiled at each other and drank from their beers.
“Why didn’t you pursue geology?” asked Tinus.
“I never found the diamonds. Your father and I went together and searched the Skeleton Coast. Then we went our separate ways. Prospecting is much more fun when you find what you are looking for.”