‘Very good,’ Andrew said, ‘but these surprise me more.’
He indicated the roast potatoes and greens which had also been put on his plate. The vegetables were fresh.
The Governor laughed in his thin voice, and looked at Andrew slyly.
‘Not bad, are they? I never did like tinned stuff.’
‘How do you manage it?’
‘We’ll come to that later. Colonel, my glass is empty again! Get weaving, eh?’
They retired for coffee and brandy to what the Governor called his study. It had probably been the hotel smoking room. Shelves had been fitted and filled with books, a good part of them gaudy paperbacks. A wood fire was burning here, too. They sat in armchairs before it, and the Governor stirred a large dollop of cream into his coffee. He said:
‘All right, Colonel. You can trot along now, eh? I’ll give you a ring if I want you.’
Andrew said, as the door closed: ‘You seem very comfortable here, sir.’
‘Never mind sirring. You can call me Emil. What’s your name, Captain?’
‘Andrew. Andy.’
‘Pour yourself some brandy, Andy.’ He laughed at the rhyme. ‘You can pour me a tot, too. Hine Grande Champagne. I’ve got a few bottles of that laid away, too. You know, it’s not a bad life here. We’re organized. That’s taken some planning, mind.’
‘I’m sure it has.’
‘This island’s a triangle – seven by seven by ten miles. Not much ground, eh? And before the Fratellini Winter we had something like forty-five thousand packed on it. Not much of a proposition, eh?’
‘How many now?’
‘I can tell you to the last one. Five hundred and forty-five. And eighteen kids expected before summer – four of them mine.’
Andrew said: ‘And the other forty-four thousand five hundred? That must have taken some organizing, too.’
‘And without bloodshed. Well, very little. There was a bit of fighting at the start, while we were taking over. But none after that.’
He paused, and Andrew waited for him to go on. The Governor settled into his chair and stared at the fire with reflective satisfaction.
‘We worked it out the island could run to about five hundred. That meant getting rid of the rest. Not easy, eh? Even if we’d wanted to kill ’em off, I doubt if we’d have been able to.’
‘So?’
‘We split ’em up in batches for a starter. The English settlers first, apart from the Colonel. Then the growers, the States deputies, the shopkeepers. Then all the parishes except St Sampson’s and Vale – we were based in St Sampson’s at the time. It worked very well.’
‘What did you do with them once you’d got them in batches.’
The Governor laughed. ‘We deported ’em! That’s something you can do on an island. We didn’t have enough boats to spare, but we got them building rafts on the west coast. We rigged sails on the rafts and put them out when there was a goodish wind from the north-east. They could reckon on making France with a bit of luck, eh?’
‘With a bit of luck. You did this with all of them – the children, too?’
He said with slight and shrill belligerence: ‘What would you have done? We gave them a chance, didn’t we? We had kids, too. It was our kids or theirs.’
‘Yes,’ Andrew said. ‘I see that. They didn’t resist?’
‘Give people something to hope for, and they’ll go when they’re pushed.’ He spoke as though it was something he had learned by heart; Andrew could well believe that both the truism and the strategy had been worked out by someone else. ‘And they went in batches, remember. People thought each batch was the last one, that we were going to let the others stay.’
‘Even with numbers down to five hundred, it can’t be easy to keep things going.’
‘We don’t do badly. In fact, it’s easier than we thought it would be. There’s more fish in these waters now – we only used to get cod here once in a way, but they run in shoals these days. And the seals. And there’s whale, though we haven’t brought one in yet. And then there’s the glass.’
‘Glass?’
‘Guernsey’s full of greenhouses – always has been, for the tomato trade. We get a short summer now, but we can use it. We can’t do much heating, of course, but you can do a lot with cold glass. And where we could, we’ve double-glazed, cannibalizing from the less useful frames. We can grow potatoes, greens, fodder for the cattle. We even keep a few on tomatoes! We don’t do much wheat – people can manage as well on potatoes.’
‘It sounds like a well-run economy.’
‘Not bad, eh, Andy? The others don’t live too badly, and for me and my pals there are a few luxuries. And we’ve no worries. You’re the first lot that’s landed here armed since the crack-up, and we were ready for you, eh? It was a bit lucky I was over on the west coast when you were spotted, but we keep a force over there all the time.’
Andrew said: ‘You took us by surprise.’
‘It was easy.’ He jerked a finger towards the brandy bottle, and Andrew poured more into his glass. ‘That’ll do. That’s a nice job you’ve got, that Hovercraft. I remember seeing them on the telly in the old days. Fuel?’
‘Enough to get us to England. We know of a dump there which we think hasn’t been touched. And they’re sending a tanker up from Nigeria later on.’
‘As it happens, we have a fair load of diesel here. They got stocks in when the first pinch came.’
‘We have enough to get us to England,’ Andrew repeated.
‘There’s nothing on the mainland.’ The Governor spoke decisively. ‘Nothing but a few gangs of yobbos. We’ve had one or two come over in small boats. There’s no civilization left there.’
‘What happened to them – the ones who came in small boats?’
The Governor smiled. ‘We gave them three days’ grace and sent them packing. You’ve got to be really useful to fit in with our scheme of things. Someone like you, Andy.’
‘What makes me useful – the Hovercraft?’
Leaning forward, the Governor spat into the fire. ‘You know the Channel Isles?’ he asked.
‘Not Guernsey. I spent a week on Jersey once.’
‘There’s the four islands worth talking about. Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark. Sark’s no good now – just a bloody frozen plateau. Same’s true of Alderney. No glass worth mentioning. There’s no glass on Jersey, either, but it’s a warmer island. Guernsey slopes away from the sun, Jersey slopes towards it. I reckon you can still grow a little in the valleys – enough, anyway. And there’s boats come out from Jersey, fishing, so they’ve got some kind of organization.’
‘Haven’t you asked them about it?’
The Governor laughed. ‘We didn’t like Jerseymen much to begin with. Less than the English, even, but at least they kept to their own island. Our ships steer clear of theirs, and they steer clear of ours. But there’s going to be trouble one day. Twenty miles of water’s no great distance. That’s what we keep a guard on for – we’re not worried about the Frenchies or the English, but the Jerseymen might try something. Unless we try something first.’
‘And you think the Hovercraft would help?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ the Governor said. ‘When the look-out brought word at Cobo and I looked through the glasses and saw that craft of yours, it put the fear of God up me. It was almost as bad as seeing a battle fleet steaming up the Russell. It wasn’t until you had beached and I saw that handful of black monkeys cavorting about that I began to get my breath back. There’s a dozen ways we could use it against Jersey.’
‘You think it would make you Governor of the two islands?’
‘I think it would put my mind at rest.’ He grinned at Andrew. ‘I’d need a good Deputy on one of them, wouldn’t I? How d’you fancy running your own island? A bit better than living with a treacherous lot of blacks, eh? And we could lay on the necessaries. Can’t offer you virgins, but I can spare you one or two models nicely run in.’
Andrew tried
to weigh up the man without paying too obvious attention to him. The one thing he was sure of was that it would be dangerous, perhaps fatal, to cross him. He said:
‘It sounds very tempting. Can I sleep on it?’
‘Sure you can, Andy! We’ll have another chat in the morning.’
‘My crew?’
‘I’ve told you – I’m against bloodshed. We’re out of raft wood, but we can spare them one of the old fishing smacks. There’s some that aren’t worth keeping. Perhaps they can sail it back to Africa.’
Andrew laughed. ‘Yes. Perhaps they can.’
The Governor wrapped his hands together to make a huge conjoined fist.
‘I like you, Andy,’ he said. ‘You’re the kind of man I can talk to. I like to have somebody to talk to.’
‘What about the Colonel?’
‘I don’t keep him to talk to. I keep him to pour my drinks.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet and pressed a bell-push above the fireplace. ‘And take my boots off when I come in from a heavy day.’
The Colonel knocked and came in. The Governor said:
‘My bed ready, Colonel?’
‘Yes, your Excellency.’
‘Bed-warmer in position?’
‘Yes, your Excellency.’
‘You’ve not been touching her up, eh?’ He laughed at his joke, and the Colonel gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Got to watch him, you know, Andy. I owe it to the memsahib. How is the old cow today, Colonel?’
‘She’s a little better, your Excellency.’
‘She doesn’t earn her keep, you know. Still, we’ll discuss that another time. Show the Captain to his room, Colonel. You feel like a bed-warmer, Andy? I can have one sent up for you.’
‘Not tonight, thanks,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m a bit tired.’
‘Nothing like it when you’re tired! Still, suit yourself. See you at breakfast, eh?’
Andrew nodded. ‘Good night, Emil.’
It was the right touch. With a satisfied grin, the Governor said: ‘Nighty-night, Andy,’ and walked clumsily out of the room.
The Colonel escorted Andrew up two flights of stairs in silence. When he opened the door of a bedroom, Andrew said:
‘Abonitu – the man who was with me – where is he?’
‘Floor above, sir. Room 302.’
‘Thank you.’ He glanced round the room. It was a typical hotel bedroom, with a Mediterranean scene in coloured tinfoil on one wall and a hunting scene print on another. The bed was double, with a chintzy bedspread. ‘Very comfortable.’
The Colonel lingered. He said: ‘Would you – might I come in for a couple of minutes?’
Andrew nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
He came in, carefully closing the door after him. ‘May I ask a question?’
‘I should think so.’
‘The Governor assumed you were in charge of the Hovercraft, because you’re the only white man. Is that true?’
‘That I’m in charge? No. There’s no one in charge officially. Abonitu carries most weight.’
The Colonel nodded. ‘I thought so. I used to listen to the African stations on short-wave radio at one time. I got an idea of conditions out there. But, even if you’re not in charge – I take it they might be willing to honour a bargain made by you on their behalf, if it was to their interest?’
‘Go on.’
‘He wants the Hovercraft.’ There was no need to specify the he. ‘He could have taken it by force, of course, but that might have left him without anyone who could operate it. He is not a very intelligent man, but he’s wily.’
‘Since you’re being frank,’ Andrew said, ‘I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been offered the job of Adjutant, with a view to eventually running Jersey as Deputy Governor.’
‘Did you believe the promise?’
‘No. Now tell me why I was right to disbelieve it.’
‘The one talent he has is for using people. When he’s got what he wants from them, he discards them. As an example, he manages to get better crops in the greenhouses by double-glazing a lot of them: it cuts the heat losses. That was the idea of a grower, a man called Grisson. He put him and his family on a raft, all the same.’
‘You think he would discard me, once he’d got what he could about the Hovercraft out of me?’
‘I know he would.’
Andrew laughed. ‘I know practically nothing – nothing at all on servicing.’
‘He thinks you do.’
‘You said he’s wily, but not intelligent. He told me about the deportation scheme. That was quite bright. Someone else’s?’
The Colonel paused. ‘Yes.’
‘It has the flavour of a military mind. Yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘Over forty-four thousand put out to sea in rafts. Including women and children.’
‘The alternative was bloody chaos and starvation for all. There are situations in which one can only choose between different forms of ruthlessness.’
‘And you made your choice. No nightmares?’
‘I have a military mind, as you’ve said. Strong in planning, weak in imagination. I didn’t know what it would be like. I simply didn’t know. Then it was too late. Yes, I have nightmares. I don’t think he does.’
‘No, I don’t think he does. You say he discards people once they’ve served his turn. He didn’t put you on a raft.’
‘He hates me too much for that. In the old days … he’s always had a good opinion of himself. I’ve told you, I used to employ him. He was a good worker when he put his mind to it, but he let himself be distracted too easily. And he was a boozer even then. I used to have to set him to rights. In the end I sacked him for drunkenness and incompetence. It was in the winter and there was no work going, except road relief work for the States. He came and begged me to keep him on, and I kept him. He won’t forget that, you know, in twenty years. I need have no fears for my safety. Nor of my wife’s. He has me while she lives.’
There was a silence. Andrew said:
‘You spoke of a bargain.’
‘If I got you out of here,’ the Colonel said, ‘and down to your Hovercraft – could you make a break for it? With a reasonable chance of success?’
‘What precautions has he taken?’
‘Four men on the Hovercraft itself, watching your blacks. A detachment above it, on the front. And he blocked the harbour mouth with three old boats at high tide.’
‘The last item’s a tricky one.’
‘Tide would be out. They’d be grounded. The ebb will have pulled at least one of them over to expose her flank. You can take a ramp in those things?’
‘Yes,’ Andrew nodded. ‘It might work.’
‘If it doesn’t, nothing else will. There’s something else: they can do fifty or sixty knots flat out, can’t they?’
‘A little more. He doesn’t know that?’
‘No.’ The Colonel smiled painfully. ‘I used to follow the technical press. I spotted that you kept her speed down on the way round the island. If you let rip you’ll shake those boys on board. After that, well, there’s ten of you against the four of them.’ He paused slightly. ‘Or eleven.’
‘Have we reached the bargain?’
‘I get you off here – you take me and my wife with you. Fair enough?’
‘I gather,’ Andrew said, ‘that your wife is a sick woman. What’s the trouble?’
‘Rheumatism. I could get her down there. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could do it. Well?’
Andrew shook his head. ‘No. I’m sorry. Even if it were just you, I couldn’t promise anything. But this is an expedition and a sick woman would be an impossibility. You ought to be able to see that.’
‘You won’t get down there without me.’
‘We’ll have to try. I take it you’re not going to denounce me to the Governor.’
‘I could do.’
‘No, I don’t think you could.’
Their eyes met. The Colonel said wearily:
‘No. I c
ould plan slow death for all those thousands of people, many of them people I’d known, some of them my friends, but I couldn’t denounce you to him. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’
Andrew said: ‘It was a wild idea, anyway. She’s better off here.’
‘He humiliates her, too. If it was only myself, I wouldn’t mind, but he humiliates her, and in front of his women.’
‘But who suffers more from that? She? Or you, because it hurts your pride that you can’t protect your wife from insult? Would you want to risk her life to make yourself feel better?’
The Colonel was silent for a moment. ‘I would kill him – there have been opportunities. But the others would finish me off – he’s popular enough with them – and then who would look after her? They would kill her, too, I think. There are no standards left.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Andrew said. ‘There’s nothing I can do, though, is there?’ He offered his hand. ‘Good luck.’
The Colonel said: ‘Get into the bed, but don’t undress. Don’t go up to your Negro friend, either. I’ll see to him. It might be dangerous to wander around just now. I’ll come for you about three.’
Andrew looked at him. ‘Why?’
The Colonel shook his head. ‘Not decency. Not even a desire to help a fellow human being against the savages. I’m one of them now. Shall we say simple hatred?’
‘Is it worth running this kind of risk for? You’ll have to stay here.’
‘It’s worth it. Good-bye for now.’
On their own they would probably have got past the guard on the front door; there were several ways out of the hotel and the only danger after that was of being seen crossing the narrow street. They could have made it down to the front, too, through the maze of narrow alleys and flights of granite steps, coated with frozen snow. But they would have got no further. From the window of what had been a department store, the Colonel pointed things out to them. There were clouds in the night sky, but at this moment they did not obscure the moon, which was three-quarters full and high. Its light clearly showed the empty stretch of the front beneath them, the harbour drained by the tide, on the other side, and the patrolling figures between.
The World in Winter Page 17
