by Ann Michaels
Chapter 6.
Beastly Things and Wartime Secrets
I took the two keys from my pocket, and held them up, showing them to gnome man. I saw his jaw fall open, and he dropped to his knees.
‘Blimey!’ he said, ‘where in the heck did you crib those?
‘One of them’, I replied, ‘I found in a secret drawer in my grandfather’s desk. And the other, was inside a chocolate box’.
‘It did come to me mind before, that, you had the look of him in the eye. Him, that was Phineas Nutters, that is. He was a rare man your grandfather. A rare man. And the key in the chocy box, well now, that one must have belonged to Millie.’
‘Who pray is Millie’, I asked.
‘Ah, well now, Millie is Millie. A right clever filly that one. She was a spy in war time, you know. Infiltrated the enemy back in 1942, when she woz sniffing around for the Die Glocke UFO, a kind of flying saucer, wot was supposed to run on a mercury-like substance. Code-named Xerum 525, or, some such thing. Who’d credit it!’ He laughed uproariously for a moment.
‘But what was my grandfather doing and how was he connected to Millie, and these keys’, I said, holding them up. ‘And who are you?’ I added.
‘Just call me Cogwhistle; it does me. If you please’. He said this with an almost imperial incline of the old scone.
‘Nutters, your oldster, and Millie and me, we woz part of a covert, secret unit, called Operation Bonksproket which woz connected to Operation Double-cross. Cogwhistle looked thoughtful for a moment, then continued. ‘We wos trying to win the war. We wos working on ways to infiltrate the enemy like, and dreaming up many a hair-brained scheme.’
‘I am feeling most confused’. I admitted, as I sat shivering in the dark, in a green plastic tent, in a thicket in Hyde Park, hearing these strange tales.
‘Blimy! Something else just whacked me in the noggin,’ Cogwhistle said, as he thumped his forehead. Millie, she was your grandad’s main squeeze’.
‘What! What, do you mean?’ I fairly shrieked.
‘Keep ya pants on matie. He got hitched up with er when he was dropped into France, in the early part of the war’.
‘You mean my grandmother was his second wife?’
‘Something like it’, he said, scratching his oily head.
‘So Millie is French?’
‘That’s what I said didn’t I? He half growled, then, looked deeply apologetic.
‘It is the first time that I am hearing about all this, so you must excuse me’, I added. I was feeling most discombobulated, I can tell you.
‘Lookie here young gent, the strife is long over, and we won. Now we’re living in the pink. But you got to realise that, you can’t go blabber-mouthing anything about that there downstairs neighbourhood to anyone’. Cogwhistle froze for a moment and then, scampered on his hands and knees, to take a gander outside the tent. He returned and continued, but his eye balls, had not yet retracted fully back to normal; he looked like he had a couple of snooker balls for peepers.
‘The thing is small fry (I was almost twice as tall as him), your pop’s is gone, and Mille, these days, is using her smarts to find missing treasures of the realm… and, she has her fingers in other strange doings.’
The bit about, ‘missing treasures of the realm’, sounded so stately, that I thought I must need my ears cleaning. However, Cogwhistle repeated the phrase and then said, ‘we got to take these keys to Mille, cos it might help her clear your grandad’s name’.
At this very point, I could feel a migraine coming on. There was a low buzz in my head, a stiffness of the neck, a blurring of the vision, and I was beginning to see flashing lights. However, I ploughed on. ‘So what exactly is my grandfather, Phineas, accused of?’
‘I hope you’re not winding me up boy? Your gramps was responsible for some loot worth over three billion pounds. It was sent from Australia on a ship in 1942, and put into a vault for safe keeping. These keys’, he pointed to the keys in my pocket, were held by only five bodies. One woz me’, he held up his key, ‘your pops, Clemy, Millie, and Rupert Bloodworth.’
My head was zinging at this point, but two thoughts crashed together. ‘Why wasn’t my Great Uncle Crispin involved in this business, and who, was Rupert Bloodworth?’
‘Crispy wasn’t involved cos he was an intelligence fella, who woz sent out to Singapore. It’s funny ya know, the allies easily outnumbered the Japs, but our fellas didn’t know squat about fighting in jungles. Crispy, he was nabbed as a prisoner of war and landed in Changi Prison. Then after, he and a load of other geezers were sent on a train out to Thailand. They couldn’t even get a kip or take forty winks on that jaunt, cos there was not enough room to swing a cat. Phiny, did tell me that, Crispy had to leg it, for 200 miles through the jungle, with the wet stuff falling 24/7 and only a handful of rice to peck at’.
I was feeling seriously disorientated. ‘I knew nothing about any of this’, I moaned, half from the pain in my head, and half from the pain in my heart. I didn’t know that Uncle Crispy had been through so much. He certainly had never told me any of this. And my brain, stuck in the world of today, could hardly conceive of such a thing as war.
‘Now getting to old Rupert Bloodworth, he was some plant from Whitehall. A real snooty geezer, he was….is. He also went out to Frogland during the war, banished like, after some geezer fingered him as trying to kidnap The Regals and send em to the enemy. They never found anything on him, though, and so, Whitehall sent him to us, after. To keep an eye on him, like. I still sees him about now and then. Though, these days he is right matey.’
I got up and said, ‘I’m expected at home, could we continue this conversation at some other time?’
Cogwhistle’s face and body became immobile, like he wasn’t sure what to do. Then, he scampered outside, and held the flap open for me, whilst he scanned the environment.
I bid Cogwhistle goodbye and I scurried home, as my head was full and ready to explode. It felt like the world was pressing in upon me, and I still had to get past Mrs Pollard.
Sure enough, old Polly was in battle mode, insisting that I eat my dinner and feed Esmeralda before I escaped to my room. I pretended to eat a few spoonful’s of stew and then, grabbed the cat biscuits and went outside (from the laundry) to call Esmeralda. The sound of cars in the distance, mumbled an indistinct message, but she did not come. Then I remembered that she was probably somewhere underground. I did not worry, as she was probably having a wonderful time, with London’s rat population.
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It took me a few days to recover from my migraine. They are such beastly things; like having a squeezing vice on your head. However, by Tuesday, I was much better, but then, I had to work full-throttle to catch up with the school work that, I had missed. I almost managed another migraine, when I found out that my tutor, Mr Osbourne, wanted me to read the Metamorphoses, by the Roman poet, Ovid, which comprises about fifteen books. It is a great epic; something between myth and history, which tells us how everything changes….except, his poetry of course. Not even the devouring ages can destroy that! A wee bit conceited, I thought.
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If you peeped in the window, of my uncle’s Bayswater house, late on the following Friday night, you would have seen me, lounging in The Fainting Room, on a rose-pink, chaise lounge, reading a book that, my dad had sent me, called, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Dad said that, I needed to read this book, as the next one to be published in the series, would be very important, indeed. Luckily, the book was first-class. I was just up to that part, when Harry finds out that he is famous, when I became aware of a scratching noise, outside the window.
I got up and padded over to the window, and peered out. A few flakes of snow were swirling about in the yellow light of the street lamp, and it looked cold. I retr
eated and went back near the fireplace, where a cheerful little flame was burning in the grate. I was just popping a pink marshmallow into my mouth, from a box that Mrs Pollard had received from one of her secret admirers, when I saw a face rise up in front of me, from the window.
I was about to scream, like an alarmed hamster, until, I realised that; it was just Cogwhisitle, beckoning me from a branch of the Slippery Elm Tree, in the front garden.
Racing back over to the window, I was just in time to see Cogwhistle, slip down the elm and fall into a heap on the ground, and land in a pile of slushy leaves.
Hurtling outside like a freight train with an urgent delivery, I helped Cogwhistle out of the leaf pile and into The Fainting Room, where he sat perched upon the pink velvet, chaise lounge. This was a sight which played strangely with the old brain cells.
‘Sorry to drop in on you unannounced like, but I set it up with Mille that, we’ll drop on her tomorrow, early bright’. Cogwhistle said, as lay down and made himself comfortable with a small patchwork rug; pulling it up to his chin.
But first, I had a few things I wanted to ask.
‘So, where does Millie live then and why is it that, Uncle Crispy has never mentioned her?
‘Lookie my young sir, this is not really my yarn to spill..…but I will.’ He yawned widely, took a deep breath, and tucked the rug more tightly around him.
‘Mostly, things woz going along tickety boo, until old Phiny went and disappeared himself in Africa back in 1989. Phiny, ya see, woz the oldest twin by a small bite, so he scored the ancestral pile, when his oldies dropped off the perch, back in the 1950s. But Phiny, he woz not interested in being lord of the manor, like. He and Crispy had long had the notion that, they would bring the wild plants and animals back to old Blighty and that’s what Crispy was doing on the lands of Blackstock Hall, while Phiny was off looking at old bits of bones, around the globe. But then, Phiny goes and drops off the map, and Mille, who had nipped back to Frogland after the war, turned up again. And it turned out that, she was Phiny’s legal wife, not Clemy, like we all believed. And so, the family shed fell into Millie’s lap. And let me tell you: Crispy wasn’t right pleased. He felt he got shafted.’
I did not say anything for the moment, because, there was so much to take in. ‘But what about the missing loot?’ I asked, feeling mightily confused.
‘Ah well, the matter of the missing lolly, woz a tricky one. No one woz charged, but a dark cloud hung over Phiny, all the same. And the pickle of it woz that, when the lolly arrived in the Old Smoke, it woz just as the Krauts launched the Vengeance weapons. These woz pilotless bombs, and believe you me, everything woz a right shambles. The lolly woz in the vault. And then it wasn’t’.
Uncle Crispy walked into the room and he spoke out as though making a speech in the town square. ‘We wanted to bring back the nightingales, the kingfishes, the robins, the Purple Monarch butterflies, the beavers, the water birds and the red squirrels. We wanted to be part of restoring Britain’s ecology. Now, Millie is the owner of Blackstock Hall, and our plans have come to nought. And let us not forget, dear Clementine, your grandmother, Benedict’. Uncle Crispy glared at me, as though I was to blame for the whole shambles. ‘She married Phineas in good faith. Then, when he disappeared, Clementine, found out that she was never really his wife in the first place. Phineas had earlier been married in France, and so, she lost her home. Clementine had to come and live here, as her own family couldn’t bear the shame. Or, so they said’. He snorted with disgust.
I really didn’t know what to say at this point, so I remained quiet. Uncle Crispy, however, continued. ‘Millie claims that she is engaged in trying to clear my brother’s name, but she is also mixed up in some very blackish business. Developing things like remotely controlled armed, flying robots; cyber hacking, and even invisibility cloaks for nefarious purposes. I baulk at the idea of seeing her, and I cannot approve of her actions.
Mrs Pollard steamed into The Fainting Room, like a ship in full sail. She was pushing a tea trolley laden with piles of sandwiches, and a large tea pot with a cosy, embellished with lots of colourful pom poms.
‘Put down those marshmallows young man’, Polly ordered, like a general on the battle field, without even laying her eyeballs upon me. Not that this was unusual; Uncle Crispy and I had already agreed that, Polly had eyes in the back of her head, disguised under her iron, grey hair. Then, Polly appeared to become frozen in time and space. And Cogwhistle sat up, as if propelled by rocket fuel. What was going on?
‘Bertha is that you luv?’
‘Oh, I can’t believe it! Bevis Cogwhistle, in the flesh!’ Polly fairly swooned, causing Cogwhistle to leap up like a deer in springtime, and gently lower Polly onto the chaise lounge.
‘So, how do you two characters know each other?’ asked Uncle Crispy in a bewildered manner.
‘Well, back afore the war, we woz stepping out together’, Said Cogwhistle in a shy and pained kind of way. ‘I wanted to hook up the ball and chain with this here dish, but her old man didn’t think too highly of me’.
‘I was only 16 at the time, and so, my pappy put the stopper on me, seeing Bevis’. Tears were spilling from Polly’s eyes, as the pair spontaneously sought each other’s hand.
Uncle Crispy’s eyes rolled upward toward the pearly gates, and he muttered, ‘please save me from the virus of love’.
However, I was still mightily puzzled. ‘So Uncle Crispy, how come you didn’t know that my grandfather was married to Millie? You were in France, were you not?’
I didn’t know, because, Phineas stayed in France on assignment longer than me. I completed my mission and returned back to England. In early 1942, I was sent out the Pacific. I did not return until 1945,’ explained Uncle Crispy, in a very clipped and dry manner, which was unlike his usual self. ‘And Phineas never mentioned Millie to me, and neither did anyone else. Indeed, I did not meet Millie until after the disappearance of my brother, when she claimed our ancestral home.’
He continued.
‘I had inherited this place in Bayswater, when I was a young whip of 18, from a relative who favoured me, dear Benedict’, my uncle waved his hands about. ‘Phineas had been living here with me, and as I related to you, we had both been involved in code breaking. However, after I was sent out to Singapore and Phineas stayed in France, he became involved with Millie, who was a member of the French Resistance. Phineas, supposedly brought Millie back to England with him, but she left soon after the war finished. Phineas never said that he was leg-shackled with the girl, in my hearing!’
‘But, Uncle Crispy, did you not know what work my grandfather, your brother, was involved in, during the war?’
‘We did not speak much about it Benedict. You see, I do know that, Phineas was responsible for a fair load of valuable loot, which had been designated for various undercover operations. This loot disappeared. Your grandfather was never charged. No evidence was found against him, but much suspicion remained. We did not speak directly of these things, and Phineas became immersed in his anthropology research, later. He spent many years out of the country, whilst I was concerned with rewilding Blackstock Manor ’.
My mind was spinning like a merry go round, but I turned to Cogwhistle. ‘How did you come to be involved with my grandfather and Operation Double-cross?’
Cogwhisle looked taken aback. ‘Now you young tadpole, don’t go speaking that name aloud.’ He swallowed and continued. ‘It was like this: I was drafted with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939, cos for the start, it woz just a Phoney War. But later, I chanced on Phiny, at Dunkirk, when Operation Dynamo was happening.’ He closed his eyes briefly, as he cast his mind back into the past. ‘There we woz…. surrounded by the Fritz, and bailing out of there fast, when I stumbled across Phiny and Millie; they woz trying to get a report back to HQ, quick sticks. I saved their necks that day, when I took the bullets meant for them. Later on, Phiny came looking for me personally, as he thought I’d be up to snuff for the
job, he woz to set up in the Old Dart’.
‘Are you saying, Mr Cogwhistle, that, you actually willing put yourself in the line of fire’, I gasped.
‘Probably wasn’t the brightest thing I eva done, but when I saw that geezer aiming his burner at them there lovebirds, me body didn’t listen to me brains. Of course, I woz in the sick bay for months. But then, afterwards, Phiny he came looking for me specially.’
‘So’, I said, ‘what shall we do about tomorrow and seeing Millie?’
‘We’ll all go’, pronounced Uncle Crispy, ’Cogwhistle you can kip down in the Potter Room on the second floor. We’ll leave at sparrow fart’.
At first, I was confused by the name Potter Room, and I looked down at the book I was holding, confused. Then, I realised that, the Potter Room on the second floor, housed another taxidermy collection, which Uncle Crispy had also inherited with the house. However, these stuffed animals were set in various dioramas, engaged in normal human pursuits. There were anthropomorphised kittens, dressed in gowns celebrating a wedding; there was a school room of toads at their desks, attending to their slates, and a band of hamsters playing some instruments. It was fairly ghastly. I would have a nightmare in that room, for sure. However, as my mind churned over Cogwhistle’s tent in that dank corner of Hyde Park, I decided that the Potter Room was, perhaps, a step up.
We drank our tea, and nibbled our sandwiches and then, said our good nights. Cogwhistle and Polly held hand for a moment, and then drew apart, like Heathcliff and Cathy, on the Yorkshire Moors.
‘Until tomorrow then’, declared Cogwhistle, most poetically. We separated, as we repaired to our respective bedchambers, wondering what the morrow would bring.