Riptide

by Lawton, John

  This city now doth, like a garment, wear

  The beauty of the morning; silent, bare.

  Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples

  lie Open to the fields and to the sky.

  Cal took a stab at it. ‘Byron?’

  ‘Wordsworth. Upon Westminster Bridge. 1802. I don’t think he meant “open to the sky” to sound quite so vulnerable as it does today, what?’

  ‘I guess not,’ Cal replied.

  ‘You’re an American?’

  ‘I’m not wearing the uniform for fancy dress.’

  ‘Eh? What? No. I mean, yes. Of course not. Sorry, there are so many uniforms in London these days. ARP, Home Guard, Heavy Rescue, Free French, Free Poles . . .’

  ‘Free Americans?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Just a joke,’ said Cal.

  ‘No but seriously, are you?’

  ‘Am I what?’

  ‘Here. I mean here to fight? “Lafayette nous sommes ici” and all that . . . whatever it was Pershing said?’

  Cal was astounded by the question. Did he think America had quietly and unobtrusively declared war on Germany? What answer did the man want? That he’d seen Gelbroaster unilaterally declare war only last night? That the rest of the nation might take a while to catch up with an old lunatic from Arkansas? Who would believe him? Or was he, a sockless civilian in jimjams, giving Cal, a man in uniform, the white feather? Was age – a man of fifty-five or so addressing a man of twenty-nine – was age the gulf between them, rather than nationality?

  ‘I’m with the embassy,’ he said, and knew it sounded like a cop-out, a truly lame remark.

  ‘The embassy?’

  He paused, looked about him.

  ‘I see,’ he said, with no sense arising in Cal that he saw anything but the devastation of the Mother of Parliaments that was bringing tears to the corner of each eye. He brushed them away and without looking at Cal said, ‘You will excuse me, won’t you,’ and walked slowly back the way he had come, towards the great orange haze south of the Thames, the false dawn of conflagration. London burning.

  § 12

  Reggie slept in on Sunday. He had no curiosity about the raid. Of course it had sounded like a big one, but when you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. He had declined to take advantage of the Savoy’s bomb-proof shelter, had bunged wax ear-plugs into his ears, several shots of malt whisky down his throat, and slept the sleep of the brave, oblivious to the booming guns and falling bombs. He awoke late, took breakfast in bed, soaked leisurely in his bath by cheating on the national bathwater limit and about noon felt ready for a stroll.

  He headed for Chester Street, as he did once in every while, to gaze at the ruins of his house. He had bought the house in 1927 with the last of his inheritance. It was, in a way, his dream house, in that he had dreamt of such a house long before he was in a position to buy one – had dreamt about it when he was away from it, and dreamt about it now he had lost it. It fulfilled, and simultaneously thwarted, a persistent adolescent fantasy – that he would one day find the perfect place and somehow lose it – a bit like the lost domain of Le Grand Meaulnes. That his personal lost domain should turn out to be his own house was irony piled upon irony.

  Now they were using it as an emergency water tank. Civil Defence had dug the rubble of the house out of the basement and flooded it. Of course, he still owned it. The site was his, and once the war was over he could rebuild. How do you rebuild a dream? This house had survived the imaginative flights and dire conformities of both his wives. Up on the first floor he could still make out the pattern of the wallpaper in his bedroom. His second wife had chosen it. It was such a pity. The Luftwaffe had managed to demolish his house and still the bitch’s awful taste was left plastered to the wall for all to see.

  ‘Reggie?’ said a voice behind him.

  It was his next-door neighbour, Clive Powell, a retired cavalry general from the last war. An old fool of the first order, a bow-legged believer in the efficacy of horse against tank who would not have been out of place at the charge of the Light Brigade. And he was wearing a uniform. What lunatic had taken him off the retired list?

  ‘They brought me back, y’know. I’m in the Home Guard now.’

  That explained part of it. The uniform was his old Great War cavalry khaki. His general’s tabs removed and three captain’s pips set in the epaulettes. Shoulder flashes, clumsily sewn on, spelt out Home Guard. Privately, Reggie thought the Home Guard the best place for men like Clive. They could still wear a uniform, they could prance around giving orders to men too old or, in a few cases, too young for the armed services, in the certain knowledge that they could do little harm. They were the front line in a battle that would never happen. The Battle of France had been a pasting for the British, the Battle of Britain the hard-fought, costly victory of the few. There would be no battle of London. All the same, he had to admire the old boy’s modesty. Most generals would have held such a vast drop in rank to be an insufferable indignity and sat out the war in their clubs. Old Clive was doing his bit, at least.

  ‘I’ve a platoon of railway clerks from Victoria station,’ Clive went on. ‘The odd porter, and a stoker, but mostly clerks. Just finished a morning’s drilling. Absolutely bloody hopeless, but there you are. If the Hun ever make it to Victoria the worst they could do is sell ’em the wrong ticket. Send them to Penzance when they want to go to Preston.’

  He broke into song.

  ‘Oh, Mr Porter, what shall I do? Me Panzers are in Birmingham and me Führer’s stuck in Crewe. Time for a cuppa, Reggie?’

  Why not? thought Reggie. Humour the old bugger. After all, room by room the general-captain’s house was identical to his own. All he had to do was sit with his cuppa, pretend to listen to the old boy’s theories of how to win the war, mentally strip away the mounted heads of wildebeeste and gazelle, ignore the tigerskin rugs and the elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, and paint onto those same rooms the colours of his dream.

  An hour or so later, he had peeled off all his wife’s excrescent wallpaper, redecorated in plain pastels and heard Clive’s latest theory.

  ‘Y’see,’ Clive said, tipping the sugar bowl onto the tablecloth in order to draw an outline map of Europe with the thin end of his teaspoon, breaking up the last ginger biscuit on the plate and using its pieces to represent the capital cities. Rome, Paris, Berlin and Moscow dotted about on the sugar. There wasn’t enough for London. Clive rummaged around in the biscuit barrel, prised out a gooey macaroon stuck to the bottom and plonked it down on England.

  ‘First we take Italy from the Med, come up through the flabby gut of the Continent, knock her right out of the war.’

  A silver teaspoon shot up Italy from the toe with all the savagery of a steel bayonet. Reggie ate Rome.

  ‘We delay any invasion of France until the Russians are on board and winning.’

  Reggie ate Moscow. He’d always wanted to do that.

  ‘Then we land a vast seaborne invasion just where Jerry doesn’t expect it – somewhere like . . . I dunno . . . Normandy . . .’

  A row of determined cake forks hit the sugar near Caen. Reggie ate Paris.

  ‘Then we catch the buggers in a pincer movement between the British and the Russian advances . . .’

  The salt and pepper pots advanced across Europe like great silver tanks. Reggie ate Berlin.

  ‘And that’s exactly what would have happened in the last war if the Bolsheviks hadn’t surrendered – could be we end up racing for Berlin. Of course, the Americans would be jolly useful if . . .’

  Clive waved a hand in the air demonstrating an all too obvious conclusion. Reggie eyed London, the last biscuit on the map. That tantalising crispness, that elusive hint of almonds. Clive ended his gesture with his hand flat on top of it. He wolfed the macaroon before Reggie could make his move.

  ‘Well? Whaddya think?’

  Reggie made a mental note never to mention any of this to anyone in case they thought him as cracked a
s he thought old Clive to be.

  ‘Wizard,’ he said, and brought a smile to the old man’s lips. Pity about the macaroon, he thought.

  Reggie waved bye-bye to Clive and drifted all afternoon. If he ever had to account for his movements that day he could probably have done no better than ‘here and there’. He picked his way through the splendour and devastation of London and found himself oddly unmoved by either. When, he thought, you’ve seen your own house knocked off the face of the planet, you tend to take a bit of bombing in your stride. By six o’clock he was sorely in need of a wee dram and discovered that by pure chance his feet had led him to Pall Mall and to the steps of Pogue’s – a gentleman’s club of which, again by pure chance, he happened to be a member.

  As he went up the steps he bumped into his brother-in-law, Archie Duncan Ross, the elder brother of the first Mrs Ruthven-Greene, coming down.

  ‘Archie, I was just going in for a snifter.’

  Ross was shaking his head sadly.

  ‘Complete washout, old boy – the Hun put one right through the roof, through five ceilings and into the wine cellar last night.’

  ‘The swine! My God, the 1912 Margaux!’

  ‘Broken glass and red puddles, I’m afraid. But there is good news.’

  Reggie felt there could never be good news again. The 1912 Margaux – good God, the Nazis were ruthless. First his house, now the finest drop of claret in the city.

  ‘I hear,’ said Ross, ‘That there is Krug ’20 to be had at the Dorchester.’

  § 13

  Champagne always gave Reggie insomnia. Hence he had lived much of his adult life with insomnia. If it had ever crossed his mind that there was cause and effect operating between the two, then he might well have regarded it as a poor choice. Between booze and no booze, no booze was on a hiding to nothing. He had long ago learnt to while away the hours with a good book or, failing the availability of a good book, any book, preferably taken with a light snack and a cup of cocoa. His chosen snack was one of his favourites – cheddar cheese with Kep sauce. His chosen book was The Flying Visit by this chap Peter Fleming. He had been given the book by the author’s brother, Ian Fleming – a colleague in the spook trade (Navy, mind, arrogant shits the lot of ’em, senior service as they always managed to remind you), and he had to admit, it was a bit of a hoot. You see, Hitler gets it into his head to fly over to Britain and bale out . . .

  Reggie slept. Reggie dreamt.

  He was in the middle of a large field. He was sitting behind the wood and glass partition of a railway-station booking office gazing out upon a railway designed very much after the fashion of Heath Robinson, involving a lot of gear wheels of varying size, a few hydrogen-filled balloons, several sets of bellows and an awful lot of much-knotted string – indeed, string seemed to be far and away the most common material in this technology. The single-line tracks stretched away to meet at infinity. A line of washing hung between the signals, a lazy Jersey cow munched grass between the tracks, a painted brown and white sign read ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ and was everywhere abbreviated GWR – it was even woven as a crest into his uniform, stamped in gold leaf on his pencil, wrought in iron into the legs of the platform benches, passengers for the use of. And high above it all a lone figure, gesticulating wildly, descended on a parachute. He landed with a bump on the wooden platform, his chute wrapped around the down signal, his backside flat on the planks and his legs splayed in front of him. He looked around him – the cow approached and proceeded to eat his hat. Then he noticed Reggie. Reggie couldn’t help the feeling that they’d met somewhere before. Little moustache, bit like Charlie Chaplin, piggy little eyes and a great cowlick of hair across the forehead.

  ‘Eigentlich wollte ich nach Birmingham, aber Sie haben mich nach Crewe geschickt.’

  Reggie struggled with this. His dream-German was so rusty.

  ‘Sorry old chap. Could you say that again a bit slower? Y’know, langsamer.’

  The little man sloughed off the parachute, came across the platform and banged on the glass. For a foreigner he certainly knew a thing or two about complaining.

  ‘Dumkopf!’ Well, that needed no translation. ‘Eigentlich wollte ich nach Birmingham, aber Sie haben mich nach Crewe geschickt!’ he said painfully slowly, and just as painfully and slowly Reggie worked it out.

  ‘I wanted to go to Birmingham and they sent me on to Crewe.’ Crewe? Where did the fool think he was?

  ‘GWR, old chap. Exeter and all stations west. You know, Cornish Riviera Express. Torbay, Plymouth, the Saltash bridge – all the way to Penzance. Can’t get to Crewe from here. You want the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Evercreech Junction or Shepton Mallet. You’d have to change at –’

  A fist crashed down on the counter.

  ‘Trottel!’ – which Reggie vaguely thought might mean ‘idiot’.

  Then the gun came out and the irate visitor banged off shots in all directions. Reggie ducked. The wall behind him splintered. The little man plugged a fat bloke capering across a beach on a railway poster bearing the cheery slogan ‘Skegness Can Be So Bracing’. Reggie silently wished he was in Skegness right now, bracing or not. He felt no pain but wondered if he’d been hit when a ringing started in his ears. A persistent ringing that just would not stop.

  Reggie woke. A creamy white telephone on the bedside table jumped about as though it had swallowed a Mexican bean. Reggie picked it up, ready to slam it down if it was Hitler calling.

  ‘Reggie?’

  This bloke certainly didn’t sound German.

  ‘Yes,’ said Reggie.

  ‘It’s me. Charlie.’

  Charlie? Charlie Leigh-Hunt – Reggie’s right-hand man and a captain in the Irish Guards.

  ‘Reggie? Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course. I . . . I was just . . . sleeping.’

  ‘Look. There’s a flap on. I’m in the foyer downstairs. I’m coming up right away.’

  ‘A flap?’

  Reggie looked around. The room regained its old familiarity. There were his trousers hanging off the back of a chair by his braces. He knew where he was again. Imagine the disturbing effect if you woke up and spotted another bloke’s braces. Didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘A flap? Coming up? What’s the matter? Hitler not landed in person, has he?’

  ‘Oh God, you’ve already heard.’ Charlie hung up. Reggie sat clutching the phone no longer quite able to say what was dream and what reality.

  Reggie flung on his dressing gown and paced the floor. The minutes could not pass quickly enough before Charlie knocked upon his door. He flung the door wide, the question bursting from his lips.

  ‘Hitler’s here? Where?’

  Charlie kicked the door to.

  ‘Not so loud. Do you want everyone to hear?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Charlie – just tell me!’

  ‘It isn’t Hitler, it’s Hess.’

  ‘Hess?’

  ‘Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. He took off from Germany late on Saturday in a Messerschmitt and baled out over Scotland around midnight. He was picked up at once and – you won’t believe this – he asked for the Duke of Hamilton.’

  ‘Hamilton? Hess? Picked up? By whom?’

  ‘The Home Guard.’

  Reggie was only seconds away from forswearing champagne for ever. He’d certainly think twice before finishing the day with a cheese sandwich again.

  ‘The Home Guard? The Home bloody Guard?! What did they do?’

  ‘Well . . . they sent for Hamilton actually.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. I do not bloody believe it!’

  ‘You’d better. It’s completely pukkah. And you’d better get dressed too. It’s past nine and McKendrick wants to see us in thirty minutes. He sent me over to get you. He doesn’t trust the phone at all where this is concerned.’

  McKendrick was Gordon McKendrick, an Argyll and Sutherland Brigadier in a plain-clothes world where rank was all but invisible next to power – Reggie and Charlie answ
ered to McKendrick, McKendrick answered to Churchill.

  It was a fifteen-minute walk to McKendrick’s office in Broadway – all the same they took a cab, across Trafalgar Square, along the bottom end of St James’ Park and up Birdcage Walk into that corner of London that was inescapably Royal, military and, occasionally, secret. Palaces, barracks and spooks. Reggie sat in the back still fiddling with his collar studs and cufflinks, and still muttering, ‘I don’t bloody believe it’, more to himself than to Charlie.

  McKendrick looked as though he had lost a night’s sleep – while Reggie had slept and snored and dreamed, Gordon had worked – his eyes watery, his little white moustache looking droopy, every vein in his large hands standing out as he locked them together on his desk. He spoke quietly in his soft Highland accent, as though he were trying not to wake someone in the next room. But that was Gordon’s manner – he had long seemed to Reggie to subscribe to Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum ‘speak softly and carry a big stick.’

  ‘It turns out that Hamilton had met Hess at some do or other in Germany. He’s positive the man is Rudolf Hess, not some imposter or doppelgänger. And he is, to put it mildly, somewhat annoyed that Hess should think he’d have any pro-Nazi sympathies whatsoever. He got through to the Foreign Office yesterday afternoon. So happens the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary Jock Colville was there at the time. The FO put Hamilton onto Jock, and Jock relayed the message straight to the PM down in Dytchley. I gather the PM was rather cool about the whole matter. Told Jock to get Hamilton flown down as soon as possible and he’d see him there. In the meantime he’d got a new Marx Brothers film he wanted to watch, and he wasn’t going to let any Hess, real or fake, make him miss it.’

  ‘Oh really,’ said Reggie. ‘They’re awfully good. Is there a new one?’

  McKendrick unlocked his hands, pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and ignored the question.

  ‘Hamilton and the PM are on their way up to London now. Later today the Foreign Office are sending Ivone Kirkpatrick up to Scotland to interrogate Hess. Kirkpatrick also met him in Berlin, so he can further identify Hess or not as the case may be. Hamilton’ll go with him. This is where you two come in. You’re to follow Kirkpatrick and watch. Do not tread on the FO’s toes, just listen to everything that’s said and be ready to step in when they get nowhere. Personally I think Hess will run circles round them, and the PM is of like mind. However protocol is being observed. We will give them their chance. But be ready – think of yourselves as . . . the watchers. Better still, the guardians. We’ll use “guardians” as your codename if necessary. Hess is “Mr Briggs” from now on. Be ready by seven o’clock, a car will pick you up at your hotel and drive you out to Hendon aerodrome for the flight to Scotland. Now – any questions?’