Anything For a Quiet Life

by Michael Gilbert

  “Then by letting them get away with it I have lost the fair forty pence. I’ll pay for them.” He produced the money.

  “It isn’t the money, it’s the principle,” said the man. None the less he pocketed the coins. “They get away with it. Others copy them.”

  “No doubt,” said the Admiral. He took the stick from the man and examined it. “That’s much too heavy to hit a boy with. An inch or two higher up and you could easily have broken his back.”

  “Next time maybe I will,” said the man.

  “A real brute,” said the Admiral, when he met Jonas in the town on the following afternoon. “If I hadn’t stopped him I really think he might have killed that boy. Maimed him anyway.”

  “You realise that if he had,” said Jonas, “you would probably have been able to clear them all out.”

  “Thank God I’m not a cold-blooded solicitor,” said the Admiral indignantly. “Did you really think I was going to stand by . . .”

  “I didn’t think it for a moment. I hope I’d have done the same. Did you hear what happened last night?”

  “I heard a lot of shouting.”

  “There was a stand-up fight. Some of the men from the engineering works and the circus people. Quite a few casualties, Queen told me. Including one of his own men.”

  “The Watch Committee aren’t going to like that.”

  “One good thing came of it. They’ve agreed to shut the place at eleven o’clock. Which ought to keep things a bit quieter.”

  “I can tell you something else that will quieten them,” said the Admiral. “It’s going to rain. And rain hard. Not today, perhaps, but certainly tomorrow.”

  “By the way, I hope you enjoyed your ride.”

  “Oh, you heard about that, did you?”

  “Talk of the town.”

  As he walked back to his office, Jonas was thinking about the Admiral. He had heard about his ride on the roundabout from Mrs Rattray who had come to see him about one of her periodical rows with the vicar. “He can get away with it,” she said. “Everyone likes him. He ought to be made Mayor. Permanently.”

  Jonas agreed. He had looked up the old man’s record, starting when he was a young sub-lieutenant in the First World War.

  When he got to his office he telephoned Superintendent Queen, who said, “You heard about it, did you? One more show like that and even the old women on our council might do something.”

  “I’ve had an idea,” said Jonas. He passed on what the Admiral had told him. “Why don’t you find out the name of that stall-keeper and pass it up to Records?”

  “You mean he might have some form,” said Queen thoughtfully. “It’s an idea.”

  During the late afternoon, when some of the heat was out of the day, the Admiral liked to take a walk up the cliff path in the direction of Hove. It was not a good path and few people ventured up it even in summer. It was intersected by steep clefts, each of which involved a slither in and a scramble out. It was at the bottom of one of these that he checked. He smelled something. No question about it. It was the smell of cooking and it came from the far end of the cleft where it turned a sharp corner.

  The Admiral advanced cautiously, picking his way over the boulders. The cleft turned twice, getting narrower at each turn, until it ended in a sort of cave. A fire of driftwood was burning brightly in the mouth of the cave. Suspended over the fire from a tripod of iron rods was a large new-looking saucepan. One of the ingredients in it, if the Admiral was able to trust his nose, was onions.

  Two figures moved at the back of the cave. The Admiral felt no surprise when he recognised them. He had felt that he would run into the boys again somewhere. As they came out into the light he could see that they were twins. Not identical twins. One was darker and had a more sharply cut face. The other was fairer and rounder, but the resemblance was marked. He guessed they were about eleven or twelve.

  The dark one said, “That’s a bit of luck, sir, meeting you. I didn’t know who you were but I certainly thought I ought to thank you. I didn’t feel like stopping.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said the Admiral. “We’d better introduce ourselves properly. My name’s Fairlie.”

  The boy indicated his twin and said with old-fashioned gravity, “David Bourdon. I’m Colin.”

  “Borden? Like Lizzie?”

  The boys looked blank.

  “Lizzie Borden had an axe,” said the Admiral, “hit her mother forty whacks.”

  “She sounds quite a girl,” said Colin, “but no relation that I know of. We spell ours B-O-U-R-D-O-N.”

  The name meant something to the Admiral, but he couldn’t place it. He said, “Have you come to live in Shackleton?”

  “Just visits. We’re here for the summer holidays. A lady looks after us. She’s called Mrs Garibaldi. She’s a widow.”

  “We did wonder at first,” said David slowly, “if her father might have been the man who liberated Italy.”

  “I think,” said the Admiral, “that it’s unlikely—” Then he saw that they were laughing at him. He said, “If she’s looking after you I guess she has her hands full.”

  “We don’t give her any trouble,” said Colin. “She gets us our breakfast and a meal when we get back in the evening. We’ve been given money to buy our lunches and teas.”

  “So instead of buying them you cook your own and save the money. What is it, by the way, apart from onions?”

  “It’s a young rabbit. We snare them up on the downs. Once we baked a hedgehog in clay. It tasted most peculiar.” He took a spoon and stirred the contents of the pot. “It’s nearly done. There’s enough for three.”

  “It’s kind of you,” said the Admiral hastily, “but I’ve just had my tea. Do I gather your parents have dumped you down here for the holidays?”

  “We haven’t exactly been dumped,” said Colin. “Dad’s very busy. And Mummy—isn’t.”

  Oddly enough the Admiral understood exactly what Colin meant. But he did not feel they knew each other well enough for him to pursue it at the moment.

  He said, “Having saved the money intended for your daily sustenance, you spend it at the funfair. Saving even more by not troubling to pay your entrance fee.”

  “Only dopes pay,” said David. “Why, the very first day we were here the kids showed us half a dozen ways of getting in. And out again. The trouble was we were in too much of a hurry to look for the right spot, with that bloke after us. We’ve had trouble with him before.”

  “You certainly had trouble that time.”

  “Wham-bam,” said David. “You ought to see the marks. They’re black and blue and turning yellow at the edges already.”

  “It was ten times worse than any whacking at school,” said Colin. “I thought he was going to break me in two. If you hadn’t been there, I believe he would have done.”

  “When you say you’ve had trouble with him before?”

  “Oh, he was cheating with that roll-a-disc thing and we told him what we thought of him. He couldn’t get out at us that time because he was stuck in the middle. He was pretty angry.”

  “They all cheat,” said David.

  “How in particular?”

  “Well there’s the shooting gallery,” said Colin. “That’s a thing a lot of people go for. It’s a complete swizz. To start with, the rifles are sighted all wrong. The one I had shot high and to the right. I found that out by doing a group. Then I aimed low and left and I thought I’d done a jolly good target. When the man brought it back he said, ‘Hard luck, try again.’ Then he explained that shots only counted if they went right into the bull. Right in. You didn’t score by cutting the edge of it. That’s nonsense.”

  “You’ve done a lot of target shooting?”

  “He’s jolly good,” said David. “He’s in the school eight and last term—”

  “Mr Fairlie doesn’t want to know about that,” said Colin severely. “Give the rabbit a stir. The darts are just as bad. If you do happen to get one in the fifty they’ve
a way of shaking the backboard so that it falls off. They said, ‘Throw a little harder, son, then maybe it’ll stick in,’ and grinned all over their silly faces.”

  The Admiral, who had been examining the sky, said, “I can tell you one thing. You’re not going to be very comfortable here tomorrow.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’ve had the best of the weather. We’re in for a good old south coast dowsing. You can always tell, when those mare’s tail clouds start driving up the Channel on the wind. It doesn’t last long, but it’s a shower-bath when it arrives. Would you like to come and have tea with me? I can’t promise you hedgehog or rabbit, but there could be poached eggs.”

  The boys looked at each other. Colin, who was clearly the one who took the lead, said, “We’d like to do that, sir. Could you tell us where . . .”

  “It’s the first house as you come down this path towards the town. You can’t miss it. Let’s say half past four.”

  At ten o’clock next day the rain clouds drove in solidly, bank upon bank, from the south-west. In a matter of minutes the seaward face of Shackleton was changed. The beach parties fled, the stallholders put up their shutters, the ice cream vendors pedalled away, coloured umbrellas came down, deckchairs were stacked, pleasure boats were stripped of their cushions and oars and turned keel uppermost.

  The Admiral saw it from his upstairs window and chuckled. It would not last long, but it was a welcome catharsis. Like hosing-down after coaling.

  His visitors arrived punctually at half past four in dripping blue raincoats with their hair plastered down on their heads. They seemed to be in excellent spirits. During tea they devoted themselves to the business of eating. The Admiral did most of the talking. He explained to them what the authorities thought about the fair, the chances of getting rid of it, and the difficulties in the way of doing so.

  His audience seemed to be listening but were so busy with poached eggs and anchovy toast that it was difficult to be sure.

  When almost everything in sight had been eaten and Mrs Matcham had cleared away the plates and cups, the Admiral’s guests showed no inclination to leave. They removed themselves heavily from the table and sank down on to the sofa.

  Colin said, “We know now. You’re not a mister.”

  “True.”

  “You’re an Admiral.”

  “Long retired.”

  “You fought in the war against the Kaiser.”

  “One of my neighbours has been talking.”

  “Not a neighbour. Dad rings us up every evening to see how we’re getting on. We asked him about you.”

  “It was a terrifically long call,” said David. “It must have cost pounds.”

  “I expect the Admiralty paid,” said Colin.

  “Good Lord,” said the Admiral, “I have been stupid. The penny’s only just dropped. Your father’s Sir David Bourdon, the First Sea Lord.”

  “That’s right,” said David.

  “A month ago he jolly nearly wasn’t,” said Colin.

  The Admiral knew now why the name had rung a bell. It had been in all the papers. Not the details, but the outlines of the story as ferreted out by the defence correspondents. The government had proposed to add to the apparent strength of a diminished navy by reconditioning two obsolete aircraft carriers. The First Lord had insisted that they spend their money – admittedly a much larger sum of money and one which had been earmarked for welfare projects – on the latest types of nuclear submarine. He had not only insisted. He had made it clear that he was prepared to put his own head on the block. The government had given way.

  He remembered something else. A few years ago, Lady Bourdon had been killed in a flying accident. He had guessed then that was what Colin had meant when he said, “Mummy isn’t.”

  David said, “One thing Dad told us about. Is it right about what you did in the war? Q-ships and all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “He said you’d tell us about it.”

  “It’s all in the books.”

  “We haven’t read the books.”

  “I suppose most books nowadays are about the last war. Or the next war.”

  “Or the war in the stars.”

  “I think science fiction’s boring,” said Colin. “I like reading about real wars. Things that actually happened.”

  “All right,” said the Admiral. “It was like this. We fitted out a few merchant ships to look like real old tramps. Mostly they flew Dutch or Norwegian flags. It made no difference. In 1917 the U-boats were sinking everything they set eyes on. We had guns on board, quick-firers and even heavier stuff but it was all hidden.”

  “How?” said Colin.

  “The usual cover was a collapsible deckhouse, made of canvas. You pulled a rope and it all fell apart. But you had to convince the submarine that you were abandoning ship. That was called a panic-party. Dutch skippers did sometimes take their wives along with them. So one of the men would dress up as an old Dutch frau and come on deck with the men and wring her hands and bellow. There was a lot of competition for that part.”

  “I bet,” said David.

  “Then everyone, or apparently everyone, climbed down into the boats. The submarine would have surfaced by this time and be watching. The idea was that they didn’t like taking neutral lives. Bad for world opinion. They simply wanted to sink the ships, because the more tonnage they destroyed the better. As soon as the boats were clear of the ship, they got ready to put a torpedo through her.”

  “And then,” said Colin, “whoosh. Down came the phoney deckhouse. Bang-bang-bang. Goodbye submarine. What a super idea. How you must have laughed.”

  “Right at the beginning,” said the Admiral, “almost the first time out, before the Germans got suspicious, it was even funnier than that. The submarine came right alongside. I think the commander wanted to assure the Dutch captain personally that no harm was intended to him or his crew. They would all be allowed to get safely away in their boats before the ship was sunk. Whilst they were parleying his wife came on deck screaming and crying with a baby in her arms. She rushed over to the rail and tossed the baby clean down the conning tower of the U-boat.”

  The boys stared at him wide-eyed.

  “The baby was a bomb with a very short time fuse,” said the Admiral. “But those were early days. Afterwards the U-boats got a lot more cautious and stood well away and then it wasn’t always such fun.”

  He told them about other engagements, in some of which he himself had been involved. Outside the rain poured down in a steady stream. The Admiral said, “Heavens, it’s past six. Mrs Garibaldi will think you’ve been drowned.”

  The boys got up reluctantly from the sofa.

  The Admiral said, “Look. If you’re bored, or it’s too wet or cold outside for sitting around, you can use this place. If I’m not here the back door key’s under a tile in the outhouse. I’ll show you where.”

  When they were going they both said, “Thank you,” politely and marched off into the rain.

  I hope I didn’t bore them, thought the Admiral. They certainly hadn’t bored him. He realised more strongly than ever before what he had lost by having no grandchildren of his own. Both his sons had been killed in the last war. His only daughter had married an ambitious politician who had been too busy in all-night sittings in the House to waste his time presenting her with children.

  There was refreshment in children. Even his most cynical married friends admitted it. Children might be a nuisance when they were small and a problem in their teens, but there was a period between six and twelve when they were an unmixed delight. They had a sort of innocence. They might do wrong out of thoughtlessness but they would not plan it. Nor would they think wrong of anyone, until he had proved himself a brute.

  The boys he had been talking to had something more. Some of the spirit of their mother who, the Admiral recollected, had been French; and more than a little of the toughness and initiative which had taken their father to the top of his profession. T
hese were the sort of youngsters into whose hands the governance of the country would fall when the last of the present generation had passed on.

  It was going to be a perilously difficult world as, one after another, the old bastions went down: religion, family life, the rule of law. Stormy seas which were going to need clear heads to chart the course and strong hands on the tiller.

  The Admiral woke with a start from a daydream which had nearly turned into a nightmare. He stumped off to see what Mrs Matcham had put out for his supper.

  All next day, which was a Thursday, the rain bucketed down. On Thursday night the wind swung round to the south, and by lunchtime on Friday the sun was shining strongly as though to make up for its previous lapse. The holidaymakers, especially the ones who were due to go home that weekend, crowded back on to the beaches; the housewives made a concerted rush for the shops to lay in stores for the weekend.

  On the Saturday morning, after breakfast, the Admiral walked down to pass on to Jonas the latest news from the council. He said, “They had a meeting yesterday afternoon. It was a close thing. They couldn’t bring themselves to turn out the whole show, which was what Rattray proposed. Someone pointed out that if they did, they’d have to refund at least part of the licence fee which had been paid, and all the money men looked glum. The furthest they would go was to say they’d consider the matter again next year.”

  At this moment the telephone rang. Jonas listened for a moment, said, “Yes, he’s here with me,” and to the Admiral, “It’s Queen. He wants to talk to you.”

  The talk was one-sided. The Admiral said nothing but “I see” and “Yes”. As he replaced the receiver he said, “It’s trouble, at the council offices. He wants me to come along and pour a little oil on troubled waters.”

  “What’s up? A riot?”

  “Something of the sort. Are you coming?”

  “Try and stop me,” said Jonas.

  The streets were empty, but they could hear the swelling noise ahead of them.

  “It’s the families from the new estate. It seems their wives went shopping yesterday afternoon and a lot of them left their doors on the latch. A silly thing to do, but they’d never had any trouble before and didn’t bother about locking up. When they got back they found someone had been through the unlocked houses and taken a lot of stuff. And they reckon they know where the thief came from. They’re really worked up about it. Had a meeting when the men got home last night and decided that if no one would deal with the circus they’d attend to it themselves.”