Chorus Endings

by David Warwick

  ‘Peter’s right.’ Giles shrugged apologetically. ‘Parents deferred to Father’s every wish. It was what they were brought up to expect – a way of life.’ I remembered the obsequious ‘thank you’ letters I’d been forced to write following each of my visits to the Hall; part of the invisible barrier that stood between our two worlds, excluding me from entry into his just as it barred him full membership of ours.

  ‘But not Jimmy,’ he was saying. ‘He always stood up for what he believed. My father respected him for it. Not that it cut much ice when it came to Stapleton’s leadership style. Which was when Jimmy went on the attack, retaliated in the only way he knew how. Here, let me show you.’

  He leant over and, flicking through the pages, indicated various entries, some complete in themselves, others no more than a single sentence or afterthought. Complaints had begun to be heard over Jimmy’s stories, isolated but persistent, and dismissed by the Squire in a sentence or two.

  •Stapleton upset regarding Jimmy’s interference with the current-affairs homework he’d set – thought that had died out with the Quintock regime.

  •Amusement at Major Grant’s references to Jimmy’s bolshie ideas.

  •Danny Earl, worried over the content – unspecified in the diary – of Jimmy’s latest offerings. The man’s got his wires crossed?

  •Then, in quick succession, Joe Wickbourne and Thomas Carter – had he heard Jimmy’s latest and what did he intend to do about it? Might help if I knew what they were talking about. Stop beating about the bush and come right out with it!

  Later, an enigmatic entry, singled out by Giles for our special attention:

  1st October

  …beginning to add up once you hear the stories as a whole. Twisting history, religion even, to make his point. Threatening me – all of us – in this way. I can’t believe it of him. The man must have taken leave of his senses.

  And, finally:

  3rd October

  Jimmy refuses to come clean. Claims my information incorrect. Nothing more than adventure yarns. Same as he’s always told. So why my sudden interest? I give no ground. Not the version taught at any school I know; so where his ideas coming from? Archaeological evidence according to J. And legend. None that I or the family heard before. Fantasy more like, I tell him. ‘Fabricated to suit your own ends, so don’t play the innocent.’ Both of us aware what we’re getting at; suggests he comes clean. Blank face. ‘Or what?’ he asks. And each of us knows what he means by that.

  The Jutes, it must have been, or the stories Jimmy told about them. All that business of social equality, freedom of land-hold, pagan worship, used by him to get back at Stapleton for the way he ran the school. Suggesting there was a type of ancestral proto-communist blood coursing through our veins, the same as had inspired his captors. Encouraging us to follow suit. ‘Stop putting the fear of God into the children, if you want the stories to stop. You’re not the only one to twist history for their own ends. And if it’s a competition, guess which one of us will win!’ BadEgg must have hated it. Not so Tom, Joe, Alf and the rest of the bell-ringers; they’d never previously complained of Jimmy’s tales, but here they were doing so. As was the Squire who, up to this point, had enjoyed them as much as the rest of us, despite their plot-lines. So why now?

  ‘Fits in with everything else we’ve heard, though, doesn’t it?’ Helen glanced across at Giles for confirmation. ‘Feeding the children disinformation the way your father encouraged him to in time of war, keeping them clear of the woods so that the unit’s activities could remain secret. Except this time he used the same weapon for rather a different purpose: targeting the teacher for the way he conducted his lessons, before he won your father over completely with his anti-communist rituals.’

  ‘Brought out the worst in both of them.’ Giles pushed the diary aside. ‘My father persuaded to Stapleton’s way of thinking; Jimmy acting like a spoilt child, with BadEgg living up to the name we gave him. Took advantage of my father’s military background, his interest in how warfare had changed. Acting for the good of the community, so he claimed, and perhaps he meant it – to begin with at least. After which…’

  The Squire himself appears to have been unaware of the manipulation, so that it took us quite a bit of back-tracking before any sort of a pattern emerged. ‘A gradual process,’ Giles told us. ‘A chance remark here, the answer to a question there, the old man led one innocent step after another. Idle curiosity in the early days I should imagine. Ex-soldiers comparing very different forms of warfare. Relief for my father that here at last was someone with whom to share his secrets.’

  Yet BadEgg was persistent till there was little that Eric could not have known about the auxiliary units and their mission. And, once in possession of all the facts, had no scruples in using them for his own ends. Persuading, blackmailing even, the Squire to join his fantasy.

  Everything became clear in an entry some nine months later. Here, for the first time Squire Desmond writes openly of such matters. Having taken the headteacher into his confidence, unwittingly at first, drawn in and, almost before he knew it, too deeply compromised to retract, he confides in his diary, sharing his secret with us also:

  5th December

  Eric with his usual flattery about the units. Compares our times with those of wartime Bereden. Speaks of us as ‘heroes’; wonders if current generation has it in them. Conventional weapons for the most part things of past. Claims McArthur up for atomic retaliation in Korea. The Russians also? And who knows about Chinese? But what about next time? Before and after the bomb falls. He’s frustrated at my refusal to sanction cadet training in such matters. Reckons current methods as useless today as Home Guard in Hitler’s. Suggests something more effective required, along lines of the Auxiliaries. Working locally, but underground against Soviet invasion/infiltration. Cites Burgess/McClean scandal. We agree. A sickening display of incompetence. Which I can vouch for, having known several of those involved.

  8th December

  ‘Times’ report on parliamentary debate. Preparedness of country for worst outcome nil. As Eric says, we’ve learnt nothing. Korea a dress rehearsal for Third World War, just as Spain and Sudetenland were for Second. Makes one think. Network established; we have experience, those that are left. Nothing illegal. Private citizens acting in own interest. Together with extension of cadet training. Eric a splendid 2nd i/c. Sounded the others out. Jimmy persisting in his nonsense. Will need to be short-circuited somehow, or God knows how it will end.

  Nor did we.

  Helen, storming at Giles: ‘“Nothing illegal”? “Private citizens” running their own army in time of peace? A kind of treason surely. Bound, as they probably were by the Official Secrets Act. In wartime a hanging offence.’

  Myself unconvinced: ‘The Jutish stories some form of “blackmail”? An egalitarian threat to topple “the Squirarchy and all it stood for”? Not his way at all. The Jimmy that I knew would have said what he meant and have done with it.’

  And Giles, shaking his head in mock consternation: ‘An academic and a librarian. The truth staring them in the face and all they do is bicker over the details.’ Glancing from one of us to the other. ‘And they still don’t get it.’ He sighed. ‘Forget the ultra-democratic sentiments, Jimmy’s tilts at the hierarchy and religion. Minor issues, small beer compared with what he was really doing. From the moment he started telling those stories about the Jutes. With those in the know realising what he was up to. Which is the reason he became so incredibly unpopular. And why, eventually, one way or another, he had to go.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Dangerous Edge

  ‘You still don’t get it, do you? An academic and a librarian.’

  ‘And neither of us a mind-reader,’ Peter growled back. ‘So why not just tell us what you know?’

  But Giles was not letting go that easily. ‘It’s all there in fr
ont of you. Forget any deeper purpose Jimmy might have had: the egalitarian, anti-authority overview. Concentrate on the broad outline, the characters especially, and those most upset by the stories. The first to complain for example. Remember who they were?’

  ‘How should I know? There were so many of them.’

  ‘Okay, let’s take it a bit at a time. Go back to this morning. The route to the elephant trap. Stoyan showed us the way, right? From Mappa Mundi to its exact location. But he wasn’t alone on that journey. There were his companions, each with a special talent, which came in handy at the crucial moment, just when the quest seemed doomed.’ Giles had produced his sketch-map and was identifying the landmarks we had followed. ‘Just like the super-heroes we read about in comics: Batman, the Incredible Hulk, Spiderman and the like. Puts you in mind of nothing closer to home? Queuing up to have our bikes mended or penknives sharpened? Along with those from miles around, bringing in their tools?’

  ‘Joe Wickbourne?’

  ‘A dab-hand at producing gadgets or labour-saving devices as well. Silencers, commando knives, garrotting wire would have been child’s play. Quite something when combined with the man’s strength. Remind you of someone? More of a blacksmith than a farrier?’

  Peter, eloquent in his stubbornness, made no reply.

  ‘Redwald?’ I volunteered.

  ‘Right! The “blacksmith from hell”, transported from his real-life forge into the world of make-believe. Not the only one either. Remember Alfred Thomas, down at the Jugged Hare? Wonderful cook, could turn his hand to most ingredients; roots and grubs from the soil, cactus if needs be. Knew everyone in the village, everything that was going on as well, all of it discussed over his bar. Jimmy might have been the expert in disinformation, but when it came to the daily goings-on around Bereden, Alf was your man. A genuine bell-ringer, down at St Matthias with the rest of them, revelling in folk history but among the first to complain when it came to the Jutes. Then there was Thomas Carter, another of Jimmy’s fans who kicked up a fuss according to the diary. Always fresh trout or bass at the Fish-Fry Delight on a Saturday night. Knew every inch of the Meon. No scruples about blowing his catch out of the water, either. As useful an addition to my father’s unit as Tonbert was to Stoyan.’

  So that was it: the truth about the auxiliary unit revealed through the Jutish Chronicle. Their Robin Hood existence in the woods – snipers in the tree-tops, secret caches of weapons, underground escape tunnels – identical to the guerrilla tactics the Squire’s secret army had been trained to employ. No wonder they’d objected so strongly to Jimmy’s reinterpretation of history.

  ‘And Alric, the nobleman. Your father, presumably?’ Peter, sarcastic, but all attention now he knew what Giles was driving at.

  ‘Not so. Alric had a far more important part to play in the story. There was no compass or direction-finding device at the time of the Jutes, remember. Nor did the map they’d been given take them the whole way. Leaving them dependent on Saba up there above the trees whispering the way forward in her master’s ear. Rather like the crystal-sets we bought in kit-form from Danny Earl down at Sound Business, don’t you think? Terrible reception, but signals of all sorts reaching us from miles away. More to the point, the ham radio he kept up in the attic, sending and receiving messages from all over the world. Making him another valuable member of the unit.’

  ‘But they’re archetypes: blacksmith, innkeeper, fisherman, nobleman – the lot of them. It’s what Jimmy did all the time: taking characters or events from real life and weaving stories around them. Everyone knew that.’

  ‘Then what was it got my father so worked-up about the Jutish Chronicle when he found the rest of Jimmy’s stories so amusing?’

  I’d always known there was something suspicious about those stories, but never anything like this. ‘Think it through, Peter,’ I said, ensuring I’d got it straight in my own mind. ‘Day after day that so-called teacher putting the fear of God into the children. Your brother’s breakdown might never have happened but for the Stapleton approach. To say nothing of his influence on Giles’s father. The auxiliary unit top secret, not a word breathed about it. Till that man appeared on the scene, inciting him to treason almost. With Jimmy in the know – caught on the “dangerous edge”, as friend Browning put it. Obliged to remain silent to save his companions’ reputation, yet aware of the consequences if he didn’t.’

  ‘Creating a whole mythology, dreaming up legends, picturing it out.’ Peter was distant, myopic almost, putting it together for himself. ‘Just what Jimmy would have done.’ He lapsed into silence.

  ‘Stalemate,’ Giles continued, ‘a battle of wills. Each knowing the truth about the Jutish tales, knowing that the other knew, yet both of them denying that they knew what they knew. Comic if it had not been so serious. Hilarious on the stage or part of a comedy routine. Heaven knows how long they’d have kept it up, or which of them would have backed down first. Jimmy turning threat to reality, coming out into the open, telling all he knew. Or if my father had swallowed his pride and sent BadEgg packing. As it turned out, neither of the two outcomes was required.’

  Reaching across, he opened the diary at a fresh page.

  22nd March

  S. at Hall again yesterday. Greatly excited. Recalls my mentioning Operations Base. Thinks it suitable for Fallout Shelter. Badgers me to show him. Agreed, if only to keep the man quiet. Up there this pm. S. with binoculars, measuring tape and book of words. Place just about inhabitable, but access dangerous. He prances around, making calculations, noting down figures. Pronounces it perfect. Concrete, bricks + earth all protect against gamma rays, so he says; whole thing below ground; entrance at right-angles (g. rays again!) but walls need strengthening (no longer blast-proof). Ventilation a problem. Filters and hand-cranked blower will suffice, he promises. Shows me diagram. The man’s certainly done his homework.

  25th March

  Good to see Funk Hole again. Always intended restoring to wartime condition. Open to public once story can be told. A tangible reminder of what we went through. St. taken idea on board; two birds with one stone. Has sent me ground plan + costing according to latest USA figures. Let him get on with it, but stress secrecy. Auxiliary Units, ops centre included, still under official embargo. Imagine fuss if word got out about its new purpose! Employ only those can trust. Interview them personally myself. We concoct cover story also. Hide/underground hunting lodge, constructed on site of an old air raid shelter. Thin, I tell him. A hide for viewing earthworms? Reinforced walls to keep out moles? St. seems confident enough.

  Despite his misgivings, the Squire continued to record happy memories of the funk hole, Stapleton to urge him on. The cadets were occupied with their march and counter-marching, their teacher pestering both pupils and parents concerning the dangers they were in. Steady progress was reported on the operation centre/fallout-shelter/hunting lodge front. Until the project was brought to a sudden and dramatic conclusion. Hardly surprising – the reconstruction was no simple matter. Several outsiders must have been brought in and sworn to secrecy but, sooner or later, the story was bound to have leaked. The wonder is they’d kept it under wraps that long.

  Hints there’d been. Incidents. Trivial at the time and seemingly unconnected. Until one looked back and realised their significance as part of a larger pattern.

  21st July

  … telephone a.m.; questions regarding renovations up at Hall; to whom estimate sent? Wrong number, presumably.

  25th July

  Gerrard from local rag; calls himself ‘Editor’ these days. Wants to run story about bomb damage & repairs; to outhouses somewhere in grounds, he’s heard. Ten years too late, even for ‘Argos’ I tell him, and then all raids other side Portsdown, not even near misses.

  (undated entry)

  … builder’s van arrives, wanting measure up + cost. Sent away with flea in ear. Practical joke…?r />
  28th July

  …Rushton, out at Meonstock Cottage. Excavations in progress near his property. Worried over security of tenancy. Telephone company responsible? Gas, electricity? Promise him I’ll check it out. Tell St. to be more circumspect.

  30th July

  Jimmy, pig-headed as ever, still playing the innocent, but guarded queries about Funk Hole. Fed him cover story; he accepts what I say – but you never can tell with him. Sly references to success of Jutish stories; but ‘what’s the use of a story without pictures’? Leaves without clarifying matters further. What’s he up to this time?

  2nd August

  … estimates back from Kennedy’s; S. signature insufficient for specialist materials… Those in know aware of Jimmy’s game. He’s fast becoming a pariah. Nothing new from him on Jutish front; can’t get anything out of him. Said to be painting. In secret. Subject matter unknown!!!!

  5th August

  … Gerrard on phone again. Confirmation of story re hunting lodge required. Where? Open all season? What type of game? Available for public hire? Send photographer? Told him stay off Estate; dogs and mantraps. Rang off on him.

  And, at that point, the entries cease. A few pages are left blank. All mention of funk hole, auxiliary units, ‘duck and cover’ or cadet corps forgotten. Fortunately Giles was on hand to supply the details.

  ‘Must have been the next day, 6th August, or soon after. Reporters, columnists, photographers descend on the village. With Gerrard leading the pack. Not only editor of the Argos but stringer for a national daily as well. The “builder” father had dismissed with “a flea in the ear” one of his cronies. Some take themselves up to the Hall, others start banging on Jimmy’s door, the rest swarm off into the forest. There’s no stopping them till the old man gets on the ‘phone, which is when the fleet of shiny cars arrive, as does PC Granger. Men in grey suits pile out, reporters are rounded up, photographs confiscated, the lot of them sent packing. Got it at last, Peter? That’s the real reason they were there. The press I mean. Nothing to do with your having blown the gaff about Jimmy’s prowess as an artist. If anyone’s to blame it’s my father, who doesn’t emerge with much credit, I’m afraid – you can understand my holding back on it.’ He paused, expecting some response – absolution, perhaps. Realised that Peter was not yet ready, or too far absorbed, and hurried on.