The Broken Sword

by R. Mingo Sweeney

  She looked into her mirror and was not entirely reassured. The countess had kept the nicest package of face powder, thought Brenda, for all the good it would do her. Her jewellery was scattered on the bureau. She stripped and walked into her small bathroom, holding a silk housecoat over her arm and impatiently took a warm shower. I hope he doesn’t get too drunk, she thought. I really need that young man right now.

  With her hair piled on the top of her head in a little towel, Brenda kicked open the door and emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, holding her bath towel under each armpit. She wanted a cigarette. There was Patrick, sitting on a bedroom chair with a drink in his hand. He had discarded his jacket and unstudded his collar. A lock of brown hair curled over his forehead; he looked like a juvenile satyr. His French cuffs were folded back, and his high-waisted trousers were held up by maroon braces. He wore Half Wellington boots with Cuban heels, which he didn’t like, because they couldn’t come together with a click.

  “So, Canada plans to conquer the Empire?” asked Brenda.

  Patrick rose to offer her a cigarette. She reached for it, and the towel fell, and then Patrick’s shirt was all wet as they locked together.

  “Oh God!” said Brenda desperately. “Take those clothes off and come to bed!”

  Patrick tore off his shirt, unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them off over his boots. He wore thin, creased white naval shorts, in contrast to the faded tan of his skin. A fuzz of hair had appeared on his chest, and he steadied himself to remove the calf-high boots.

  Brenda watched him with some amusement, leaning on the pale lemon pillows stacked against a studded headboard. “Wait,” said Brenda. “Just stand there for a moment.”

  Patrick stood and looked at her. The reading lamp behind her head threw a halo around her hair: she looked like one of Raphael’s Madonnas. In fact, she looked like two Madonnas, as his vision was slightly blurred.

  “I had almost forgotten what a real man looks like,” said Brenda softly. “You are David, the slayer of giants….”

  “I am Alaric,” said Patrick, swaying slightly. “I am king of the Visigoths! You, maiden, are the Empress, and I throw my kingdom at your feet.”

  The theatrical performance over, Patrick climbed into the wide bed. Brenda switched off the light, but the mirror of the ajar bathroom door reflected the scene. The sirens started to wail again, and an anti-aircraft gun below the window hammered into the night sky. It all became one to Patrick, as plaster showered the bed and every light went out…. While all things split asunder, nature encourages life with a fury that matches the destruction, and then everything goes back to sleep exhaustedly.

  “It is just insanity!” said Brenda. She had slipped out of the bed, donned her blue housecoat, and fetched The Times from the hallway. She had pulled the curtains open to a grey London morning, and then she boiled a kettle and brewed a pot of tea. Patrick leaned against the headboard and accepted the cup and saucer with a hand that was none too steady. The exclamation came from Brenda after she had rejoined him in the bed and spread out the newspaper. The headlines read:

  USAF FIREBOMBS HAMBURG.

  RAF FOLLOWS UP FOR KILL.

  “My God,” continued Brenda. “We killed a hundred thousand people in one night! We have all become savages—and it’s really too much! I just can’t stand it. Just think of it, Patrick: while we were making love all of those people were dying.” She started to cry and thrust the newspaper away. “I’m going to have a whisky for breakfast,” she sobbed. “It doesn’t matter—I’ll be an old hag…but what difference does that make?”

  “I’ll get you a whisky,” said Patrick, “if you’ll drink it in a glass of milk.”

  “I don’t care,” said Brenda. “Poison me! It doesn’t matter.”

  Patrick pulled on his white shorts and went to the bar in his bare feet. It was in the expensive but strangely forbidding dining room. A chandelier hung over the table and the carpet was bright red. The furniture looked like it was black-lacquered First Empire, with golden corners and eagle claw feet. A harsh oil painting by Modigliani hung on the stark white wall. It resembled the inside of a pagan temple, he thought.

  “They bombed London,” said Patrick. He passed the glass of whisky and milk to Brenda. He had also poured one for himself.

  “What difference does that make?” asked Brenda, shaking her head in exasperation. “We won’t let them surrender—and now we’re going to kill them all. Europe is committing suicide, and the Americans and the Russians are only too eager to help! We are all crazy. The whole world is crazy! All those mothers and children and dismembered old men! Oh God!” She lowered her face into her hands. Patrick thought of his friend the wing commander, and all those pink-cheeked boys with their coloured scarves from the old school. The navy wears white scarves, he thought, which signifies nothing.

  “I’m going to Dublin,” said Brenda suddenly. “I’ve been invited to the horse show and I’m going today. Come with me, Patrick. They’re not in the war—the lights are all on and we can get out of this snakepit for a few days. You can go back to your ship and I’ll join my husband or go somewhere. Please do….”

  “Sounds great,” said Patrick. “But I’ll have to borrow one of your husband’s suits.”

  73

  They stood together at the railing of the old ferryboat crossing the Irish Sea, and Patrick was dressed in a grey flannel suit. He was bare-headed and wore his blue Burberry. Brenda wore a tweed suit and brown leather Oxfords with little flaps over the lacings. The horn of the ship blew at regular intervals as they proceeded at half speed. The fog was dense, and it brought out the peaches and cream in her cheeks. The grey sea rolled past them in long heaving waves, and the seagulls cartwheeled through the thick air like dark birds of passage. Patrick’s uniform was packed in a suitcase in their small cabin below.

  Their departure from London had been almost furtive, but Patrick paid a last visit to the countess before leaving. He left most of the remaining cosmetics with her, and she had an overnight guest—the old relic that had been flirting with the lieutenant commander at the nightclub.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her,” whispered the countess as she greeted Patrick. “She tried to bring a sailor home last night and it was a dreadful scene.”

  The lady in question appeared in a doorway in her bare feet, wearing a long nightie held up by thin straps. She was gaunt and looked like a cadaver, with her dyed-blonde hair falling thinly to her shoulders and large black circles under her eyes.

  “God, what a hangover!” said the countess’ venerable guest. She padded down the hallway and nestled against Patrick, placing her balding head against his arm. “Oh, give me some youth,” she moaned. “Give me some of your future.”

  “This is Mrs. Woodland-Bager,” said the countess, embarrassed. “Dora, this is the son of my dear friend Eva MacQueen from Bermuda.”

  “Oh God, you’re so young!” said Mrs. Woodland-Bager. “What time did I get home?”

  “It was four o’clock,” snapped the countess, with unusual severity. “You should go back to bed.”

  “I want a drink,” croaked her guest. She wore none of her jewels now; the party price tag was getting astronomical.

  Patrick left and promised to return. He pocketed a shopping list that she gave him, along with a fat bundle of five-pound notes. It was a bad investment.

  “I know her well,” said Brenda on the ferry. “I remember her from when I was a little girl. I was in love with a tall young man in a pink hunting coat, and she rolled up the driveway in a Bentley and swept him away. I’ve hated her ever since, but give her top marks as a warrior.”

  The Irish Free State was neutral during the war, although it was in the British Commonwealth and possessed a Governor General. All of the great powers maintained embassies in Dublin, including Germany and Japan. The West Nova Scotia Regiment was poised in Italy, and the Germans never recovered from their defeat at Stalingrad. The Waffen-SS were recruiti
ng foreign volunteers, and the United States was pouring supplies into the Soviet Union through Iran, Vladivostok, and Murmansk. The Second Front in Europe was still ten months away, but the bombers flew around the clock. Lord Haw-Haw, broadcasting from Germany, predicted the imminent downfall of the decadent capitalists and their communist allies. HMCS Fleur-de-Lis was being chipped and painted, and the captain idly wondered what was happening to his gunnery officer. At heart, the captain was a romantic too, and he felt a certain uneasiness about having two romantics on one small ship. He rather admired General U. S. Grant, who had conquered his romanticism with whisky.

  Patrick checked into the Royal Hibernian Hotel on Dawson Street while Brenda took a bus to a friend’s house in Kildare. The network of landed English families in Ireland was like a spider’s web, and they permitted anything so long as decorum was maintained. That evening she brought her friend to dinner at the hotel; the friend was escorted by a retired commander of the Royal Navy with the unlikely name of Godfrey Bohomund de Lallythrope. He was a Knight of the Order of St. Lazarus and liked to be called Chevalier. The lady whom he escorted was his sister, Kathy Leinster, who was an “Honourable”, and whose husband was with the British cavalry in Ethiopia. The Chevalier wore a dinner jacket and a monocle. He was as lean and erect as a toothpick, whereas his sister was muscular and hearty. The ladies wore evening gowns, and Brenda looked stunning. They stepped down three steps, into the dining room, and the Irish head waiter bowed them effusively to a table in a corner that was illuminated by candles in hurricane lamps. They ordered Irish whisky, which tasted smoky, and rare roti de boeuf. The Chevalier had danced with a Murat princess, and he had known a Canadian colonel by the name of Boyle in Bulgaria. He spoke six languages and was supported by his sister, who had married well. They raised hunters, and she even looked like a horse.

  “My ancestor was a crusader and my father was an admiral,” said the Chevalier, placing one of Patrick’s Lucky Strikes into a long black holder.

  “Godfrey is only interested in human bloodlines,” complained Kathy. “It’s such a bore!”

  A gentleman never travels without a dinner jacket, and Patrick felt self-conscious in the flannel suit that hung on him like a sack. However, he was a belligerent and unauthorized to be in Ireland, so he couldn’t wear his uniform. Some aircrew had been interned for the duration of the war when their aircraft had strayed over this neutral country, although escape would be easy, if one was so inclined. Patrick didn’t dwell on this point of international etiquette, but he knew that this neutrality deprived the navy of valuable bases facing the Atlantic. Ireland, like Portugal, was a hotbed of intrigue; both countries tolerated this, up to a certain point. The English ascendancy class, as represented by Patrick’s guests, were not popular with the natives, but they were preferable to Gauleiters from the Third Reich.

  “What time do we go to the horse show?” asked Patrick.

  “Come to us in the morning for sherry,” said Kathy. “Just take the bus and we’ll have you met in a pony-trap. We have a car, but our driver joined the British army, and Godfrey always dents the fenders on our gates.”

  “I can drive,” said Brenda. “It’s stupid to hire cars or bang around on those terrible buses when you have a perfectly good chauffeur right here.”

  “I’d wreck it,” said Patrick. “I’ve driven bicycles on the left but not cars.”

  “It’s only an old Rolls,” complained the Chevalier.

  “There we are now,” said the headwaiter as he presented the main course. “It’s piping hot and oozing blood and you’ll love it. We’ll have a little claret now.”

  “Permit me,” said the Chevalier. He ordered a bottle of 1929 Mouton Rothschild, and he recommended Cockburn port with Stilton cheese to polish things off. Patrick sent a prayer to heaven in gratitude for the countess’ foresight prepaying, and he tasted the best roast beef in the world.

  “I think the Borgia family are very exciting,” said the Chevalier. He wore a little green rosette in his satin lapel, which was not quite correct, but it focused attention. “I would like to see inscribed on the tombs of Pope Alexander’s victims: ‘We slew thee for love’.”

  “Godfrey, make sense!” scolded his sister.

  The champagne cork popped and the headwaiter caught the bubbling foam with a white cloth. “There we go,” said the headwaiter, “Pour that down and see what happens!” A freckled busboy caught some of the foam with his finger, licked it, and winked at Patrick. Other diners in the long room glanced from the corners of their eyes.

  “Patrick admires the Visigoths,” said Brenda.

  “They were a bit uncouth,” said the Chevalier.

  “I hear that Freda Lemonton is in town,” said Kathy. “She’s been run out of England.”

  Patrick nearly choked on his champagne.

  74

  Following directions from the garrulous concierge, Patrick stepped down to Dawson Street, acknowledged the doorman’s greeting, and inhaled fresh, damp Irish air. Ahead of him was a short street towards the National Library, where the parliamentarians gathered; to his left he could see the walls of Trinity College. He turned towards the right, to St. Stephen’s Green Park, and waited there for the bus under a spreading oak tree. Everything seemed scrubbed and cheerful, and not a uniform was in sight. He recalled that his father had been here on leave after the first war, and he had visited a castle called Malahide.

  Patrick mounted a red double-deck bus, heard the ting as his ticket was punched, and settled down to view the sights. It was nine A.M., and he was en route to have sherry and fruitcake at a country estate in Ireland with a lady who smelled of luxurious Yardley soap. The war has its compensations, thought Patrick ruefully, despite the fire-bombing of Hamburg. He saw Lord Nelson standing on a tall column on O’Connell Street, and he thought of the hotel in Halifax and the dinner he had had with Bill Cyples and his newlywed brother.

  He changed to a smaller bus in front of the Municipal Art Gallery and felt pleased that Dublin seemed so substantial and spacious. They crossed the famous Liffey River and passed the post office where the martyrs of the Easter Rebellion had been besieged in 1916. The countryside was mostly rolling hills and great spreading trees, with the stubs of old castles jutting from pastures surrounded by cows or horses. A variety of greenery framed vast gateposts outside silent little stone villages. The narrow road and stone walls everywhere appealed to him with a sense of urgency. If the bombers don’t finally get all of this, thought Patrick sadly, then progress will.

  Brenda sat sideways in the little pony-trap and Patrick sat across from her. They jogged through the village, and a man tipped his cap inside the large wrought iron gates. The little beast trotted nimbly up a long straight driveway lined with trees. At the top of the driveway sat a large Regency building with a wide stairway cascading like a waterfall out of its front door.

  Godfrey stood on the steps and waved. He was wearing a blazer with a knotted silk scarf and grey flannels. “Nice to see you again,” he said, as though Patrick had just returned from a safari. “It’s humble, but thank God servants are cheap.” A small boy ran out of the gate in the wall that enclosed the stables and took the reins from Brenda. They stepped from the rear of the wickerwork trap onto the fine white gravel of the drive. Patrick produced his last bottle of navy rum.

  “Nelson’s blood!” exclaimed the Chevalier. “You are too kind, old man, really….” He held the bottle and, through his monocle, looked at the White Ensign on the label. “I say, it’s been a long time!” he said.

  They were shown through a cluttered hall that contained a billiard table, then into a three-storey drawing room whose walls were covered with gilt-framed portraits from top to bottom. Large French windows looked out over meadowland where horses were grazing in the gentle mist. Kathy sat erectly beside a blazing fire with a decanter of sherry and a freshly cut fruitcake on a small table. Maids with little hats on their heads peeked through doors and giggled, and then they quickly withdrew
.

  A man in shabby riding boots stood by the door and said, “Well, I must be goin’ ma’am.” He put a cloth cap on his head and walked past them. “Good marnin’ to you, sir,” he said to Patrick as he passed.

  “Do come in,” said Kathy. “Stand by the fire and warm your bum—all men do that, for some reason. Welcome to Ballydoo, young man.”

  “Kathy’s family got it from Charles II—after the Restoration, y’know,” said the Chevalier. “The Leinsters own a lot of Ireland.”

  The talk drifted to the subject of horses, and the Chevalier drifted towards the French window. He stood there in an elegant pose, with one hand in his blazer pocket and another holding the sherry and a long Russian cigarette. His nose was thin and prominent, like one of the Borgias.

  “Damn!” exclaimed the Chevalier. “That fellow is here again! It’s the German first secretary! He leased a place nearby and he is always showing people our old gallowglass castle in the orchard. I’m going to send him off.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Patrick.

  “Be careful!” warned Brenda. “It’s neutral territory.”

  “He’s such a nuisance,” said Kathy. “We are Irish, so he can’t be the enemy, I suppose, but it all makes things difficult, and he is so disagreeable.”