by Peter Rimmer
The tusks were huge and heavy on the backs of the packhorses.
Weeks later they rode into Salisbury with their tradable goods only to find the new Southern Rhodesian government under Sir Charles Coughlan had passed a law requiring hunters of big game to have licences. The tusks were confiscated. For the first time in their lives despite all their education and family background, they were unable to purchase goods or pay for a place to stay. They still had their horses and guns. Small game to eat did not require a licence.
They left Salisbury behind on the long journey down Africa, first through the border town of Messina in South Africa from where they journeyed on to Durban, living off their guns and passing through the towns as quickly as possible.
Their eyrie on the Zambezi escarpment where Harry Brigandshaw had first spotted them from his converted Handley Page bomber was as far away as heaven.
“I’ll just have to throw myself on the mercy of my father when we get home,” Ralph had said to Keppel. “What will your father do?”
“Kick me out again. Going back to the Isle of Man just isn’t on my cards. What will your father do?”
“First he’ll gloat. Then tell me I’m useless. He might even just try to box my ears. Then he’ll give me passage to Australia and tell me never to blight his house again.”
“Doesn’t he like you?”
“My father doesn’t like anyone… How about your father?”
“Only when I do what I’m told.”
* * *
An east wind was blowing through their tropical clothes, the bush hats as out of place as themselves. They had yet to see the sun since landing at Bristol from the freighter. Ralph hesitated before pushing into the revolving door. Both could see it was warm inside.
“Why didn’t we go to Barrie?” asked Keppel hunching his shoulders.
“Barrie’s a piano player. Barely enough money to keep himself alive. Inside there is the lion’s den.”
“If he kicks us out?”
“Then we go to Barrie.”
“If we had only brought the guns we could have shot ourselves and had done with it. I’m sure I have frostbite on two of my fingers. I can’t feel them.”
“Here we go, Keppel. Together. We have each other.”
“That’s all I need.”
They both tried to laugh as they crammed into one compartment of the swivel door. Suddenly thrust inside, it was blissfully warm. Both of them stood slightly out of door’s way. They were trying to get warm. Their teeth were chattering. From somewhere in the building came the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread.
“Oh my God. You said it was a shipping company, not a coffee shop. Only Lloyd’s was meant to be a coffee shop.”
“Both the Baltic Exchange and Lloyd’s started in coffee shops. The shop around the corner must be making a delivery to the boardroom. They do that when father has important guests… This is getting worse.”
“Shall we run?”
“Not until I get warm.”
A pretty girl who had pushed through the swivel door took one look at them and giggled. Then she went across to the lift.
“Which floor, miss?” asked the man sitting on the stool inside the lift. Ralph and Keppel could just see his shape.
“Fifth floor, Maxwell.”
The concertina door to the lift clanged shut. The lift clanged into gear and began to move up. They watched the girl’s feet disappear upwards until they were gone.
“Father’s office is on the fifth floor,” said Ralph. “Come on, Kep. They’ve cut the wire. We’re going over the top.”
* * *
Maxwell thought he had seen everything during the war. Were it not for the public school accent, the man’s voice of authority, he would not have allowed them into the lift. The two men wanting to go to the fifth floor, the executive suite, were filthy and dressed in long, cotton trousers and shirts with short sleeves. Neither had a coat. Their smell of unwashed bodies brought back to him the trenches. Then, even the officers looked much like the two standing rigidly, looking up, waiting for what looked like to Maxwell their execution. Maxwell found it difficult to tell their age. Both had full facial hair. The one who had asked to be taken to the fifth floor had the small finger missing from his left hand.
The missing finger had made up Maxwell’s mind. Both men were shivering trying hard to control themselves under scrutiny from another rank. Maxwell was sure both men had been junior officers.
“Here we are, sir. Fifth floor. Executive suite.”
“Thank you, Maxwell. Is Mr Madgwick in his office?”
“Yes, sir. Good luck, sir.”
“We’ll need it.”
Wanting to see more of what was going on, Maxwell refrained from closing the concertina door. He waited to take the cage down again. Miss Prescott, who had come back from ordering the coffee and rolls for the boardroom, was no longer giggling.
“Can I help you two?” she said nastily. Keppel took another look at the girl’s face and decided she was no longer pretty despite the good legs. “You may take the lift down, Maxwell,” she said. The shaft of the lift rode up next to the spiral staircase. A glass-domed roof overhung the lift and the five flights of stairs.
Ralph gave her a cold look. He disliked people who looked down on the less fortunate.
“Yes, you can. I would like to see my father.”
“Do you have an appointment?” Instinctively, Rosie Prescott knew that all was not what it appeared to be. Her answer gave her time to regain her composure. Then she smiled broadly.
“You are Ralph Madgwick, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. This is Captain Keppel Howland. How did you know my name? Now may I see my father?”
“Your missing finger. You lost it during the war. Your father was very proud of you… You don’t know? We’ve been trying to make contact with you for over a year. He’s dead. Your father died of cancer a year ago last week… I’m so sorry.”
“Is my Uncle Wallace in his office?” His father had never been proud of him. He was hallucinating. They were still on the ship, shovelling coal to keep the steam up in the boiler. Keppel had him firmly by the elbow.
“Steady, old chap.”
“My father is dead!”
“Yes, sir. Do you want to sit down on the couch? The delivery boy from the shop just brought coffee up to the boardroom. I’ll go and get some for you both. Oh, dear me.”
“And the fresh bread,” said Keppel taking control. “We haven’t eaten for a couple of days. Uncle Wallace can wait… Goodness, I rather think I can feel my fingers again… What is your name?”
“Rosie Prescott.”
“Rosie Prescott, you are a saint… Now, a dash of speed, my dear.”
“Of course… Take Mr Madgwick to the couch.”
Only then did Maxwell put the lift into gear to take it back to the ground floor. He had been right. He always liked being right. Officers, the pair of them.
“You all right, Ralph?” whispered Keppel.
“Poor dad. My poor mother. Now we’ll have to go down to Ashtead.” To his own great surprise, Ralph Madgwick began to sob: he had never even liked his father, let alone loved him. A boy told to call his father ‘sir’ was not inclined to affection to Ralph Madgwick’s way of thinking.
* * *
They wolfed down the hot rolls and butter. The girl with the good legs had come back quicker than either could have hoped. They both now thought she was pretty, especially when they drank the hot coffee that had been spooned liberally with sugar. After the second cup of coffee from the pot, they stopped shivering. They told Rosie Prescott their story. She went for more hot rolls and coffee. The rolls were wrapped in a white napkin to keep them warm.
“Come this way,” she said, smiling. Ralph took her age at around about thirty.
* * *
In front of Uncle Wallace, on the Jacobean desk in the mahogany panelled office that before had been Ralph’s father’s, was a balloon glass full of brand
y. The small antique clock over the mantelpiece said five minutes to ten in the morning.
Uncle Wallace had a smooth face with bright red cheeks and a monocle that covered his left, glass eye. Uncle Wallace had been a full colonel during the war. The day he quite unnecessarily led his regiment over the top waving a swagger stick at the German trench some hundred yards away, he was drunk, or so the less friendly witnesses were heard to say afterwards. The brigadier, appalled at so senior an officer leading an infantry counter-attack, had put the colonel up for the Victoria Cross. Uncle Wallace and his regiment had chased the Huns out of their front-line trench. The living then rested eating German sausage that hung on the walls of the enemy entrenchment. Everyone said it was a pleasant change from tinned baked beans and bully beef. The colonel, now only seeing out of one eye and ignoring the blood oozing from his left socket, looked for and found the German officers’ dugout where he opened a bottle of good German hock. By the time they got him back to the British lines, he was gibbering.
The brigadier sent him back to England and settled with the War Office for a Military Cross. Uncle Wallace was immensely pleased. He was equally pleased with the glass eye and the desk job at the War Office. Going back on active duty was never mentioned again.
“Come in my dear nephew. And you must be Mr Howland? Please sit down. My word you are a sight for one sore eye… Ah, still the pinkie missing. Well, it would be. Like my left eye, they don’t grow again, what…! Come and sit down nephew, and let me have a look at you… Miss Prescott has told me about your predicament… Will the Savoy do? My tailor will be told to call on you. Splendid tailor. The Grill Room in the Savoy is excellent. My driver will take you to the hotel… Your poor father. Why I’m in his office, of course. Senior partner now. Barrington, I’m afraid is up at the Dale Street office in Liverpool… Wasn’t I meant to be in a meeting, Miss Prescott? Never mind. They don’t want to see me anyway. Postlethwaite will cope. Jolly good chap, Postlethwaite. Fact is, I don’t know a damn thing about shipping. As the grandson of the owner, there never seemed any point… What are you going to do for a job, young nephew…? Ah. Good. You’ll work for me. I’m sure we can find you a desk.”
“What’s Barrie doing in Liverpool?” asked Ralph alarmed.
“Works for us now after your poor father died. Grooming him for senior partner so I can get out of this office… Want a drink? Suppose it is early.”
“So he sold his soul to the devil?”
“Only half his soul. Queer chap, Barrington. Still lives in an attic and plays the piano at night in an appalling supper club. Wouldn’t be seen there dead. Writing a musical. Damnedest thing. It’s Barrington who says he only sold half his soul to the devil. With you, young Ralph, back in the living he may have a new chance to buy back the other half. He’ll like that. Now off with you.”
Uncle Wallace, at ten in the morning, was more than slightly drunk.
Working on the principle that it never paid to argue with a drunk or a fool, they followed Miss Prescott out of the senior partner’s office. Ralph was smiling.
Even in the brief moment of the cold outside as they dashed across the road to the senior partner’s Rolls-Royce, neither of them shivered.
“Barrie and I underestimated that old fox,” said Ralph resting luxuriously on the leather seat at the back of the car. It was blissfully warm in the sealed compartment.
The chauffeur slid back the glass window above the driver’s seat and smiled at them.
“Where to, sir?”
Ralph gave the driver the address of his brother’s attic room off Shaftesbury Avenue. Miss Prescott had been politely told to leave off telephoning the Savoy and the tailor. They both thanked her for the coffee and bread rolls and sending for the car.
That night, Gert van Heerden took them to Clara’s to wash dishes. They were both by then wearing Barrie’s clothes. Clara paid them by letting them eat as much as they wanted standing up in the kitchen at the end of their shift. Ralph had told Keppel free stays at the Savoy came at a price.
* * *
Three days later, weary and cold, Christopher Marlowe let himself into his attic room. It was Saturday evening. Clerks at Madgwick and Madgwick did not travel on company time. Christopher had left the Dale Street office with his suitcase and gone directly to the Liverpool railway station. The company worked until one o’clock on Saturdays. At first, his mind did not register the change. He was too late to go to Clara’s. Christopher wished to climb into bed, get warm and go to sleep. He had had to stand in the third-class corridor all the way to London.
Realising something was wrong he walked out again and banged on Gert van Heerden’s box room. Gert was the only other person with a key to his room. So Gert could boil up the vegetable soup on the one ring gas stove. There was no reply to his banging.
Back in his attic, Christopher found the source of the new smell. The room smelled of paraffin. Behind the old couch he had picked up in a second-hand shop for five shillings, he found a cylindrical paraffin heater that was two feet high and giving out heat. The curtains in his room were drawn. The room was warm. Christopher opened his cupboard to put away his overcoat to find his clothes gone. Not only his clothes, his two spare pairs of shoes that were necessary to change into as most nights coming home his shoes were wet and took two days to dry out. He pulled open the two lower drawers. His shirts were gone. Instead, he found a strange outfit neatly folded. He pulled it out. The outfit of shirt and long trousers was made from lightweight linen. The colour was khaki. There were bad stains under the armpit but the shirt had been washed. Under the first outfit in the drawer was another exactly the same. On the hat rack next to the cupboard hung two large hats with wide brims.
Christopher picked one off the hook. The inside of the hat was stained black from sweat. Below the hats on the ground were two pairs of old boots. There was someone else living in his room. Banging around in the drawers, Christopher found nothing else missing.
Hunger was dominating his wish to get into bed and sleep. The matches were still in their place on the shelf above the large pot that stood on the gas ring. Christopher pulled off the heavy iron top and looked inside, fearful he was going to have to go to bed hungry. The pot was full. Christopher put his finger in the rich stew. The stew was still warm. When he licked his finger, he could taste the meat. Taking a plate from the shelf, he helped himself. There was just the right amount of herbs and salt. He ate a second plate of stew, got into his bed in his pyjamas and fell asleep, too tired to fathom out his new predicament.
* * *
Christopher was half woken from a bad dream at three o’clock in the morning by someone opening his door: it was never good to sleep. The dream and reality were still part of each other. The German bombardment had stopped, bringing him wide-awake. The German infantry was about to attack his trench. In his dream, he jumped out of bed and was looking for his tin hat when the single light bulb in the attic room came on. Two men with long hair down to their shoulders were grinning at him. All Christopher could see, other than facial hair, were eyes, dirty foreheads and noses. Behind them grinning was Gert van Heerden.
“I let them in a couple of days ago,” said Gert. It was said as if Gert had done him a big favour.
The two men in front of Gert were wearing his clothes. The one with familiar eyes was carrying a full bottle of whisky.
“It’s the prodigal bloody son,” said Christopher throwing back the blankets to find his room still warm.
The other man was looking in the stewing pot.
“He had a go at my stew,” said Keppel Howland with satisfaction.
“Don’t I know you?”
“You should. Spent two summer holidays at Ashtead.”
“Keppel Howland!”
“Have a drink, Barrie,” said Ralph offering the bottle of whisky.
“Christopher.”
“Christopher…? Uncle Wallace said you were working for the old firm. I assumed…”
Keppel Howland, w
ith a cold plate of stew in his hand, watch the brothers hug each other, something neither of them would have done to each other before the war. The war that had changed everything in all their lives. Keppel Howland wondered how much different their lives would have been without the Great War… There were many things he wondered about.
* * *
Keppel and Ralph were sleeping on the thin carpet on the floor. It was one thing to borrow a man’s clothes. Quite another to sleep in his bed. They had bought blankets and the paraffin heater with the fifty pounds delivered to the attic by Rosie Prescott. The driver of the Rolls-Royce had known where to go. Inside the envelope she handed Ralph on their first day in the attic was a note from Uncle Wallace and ten, white, five-pound notes. None of them had ever seen a five-pound note before. They were very large and had to be folded in four to fit in Ralph’s wallet. The message was simple. No questions. No threats. No arguments at him turning down the Savoy and the best tailor in Savile Row.
From one soldier to another.
There was no signature. Just the note and the money. Rosie was looking around the cold, bare room. The curtains of the one big window were open. On the outside ledges of the small, book-size windowpanes, snow was half an inch high.
“He lives like this?”
Being nosy and with specific instructions from Uncle Wallace, she took the lid off the pot of the one ring gas stove.
“Just vegetable,” she said in disgust.
“What about the strings attached?”
“There are none. He made me go to his bank for the money. Something about a finger being worth more than fifty pounds.”