Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  He got out of the car, tugged his already smooth uniform jacket straight, strode briskly up the main steps, and rang the bell. The immaculate uniform, the gleaming Sam Browne belt, the cap with the badge of the UVF, would impress the headmaster more than anything else, he hoped. He remembered how keen the man had been to talk to him last time, when he had come dressed like this with Mrs Cavendish to deliver the boy at the beginning of term.

  The bell echoed away inside the school and there was no response. For an awful moment Simon thought there was no one there, that they had all gone away. Then the door opened slowly and a woman peered out.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

  ‘My name is Simon Fletcher. I’ve come with an important message from Colonel Cavendish, about his son. Is Dr Duncan here?’

  ‘He’s taking prep at the moment. Can you wait half an hour?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. It is very urgent. I have to be back in a couple of hours.’

  The woman sniffed. She was large and formidable, dressed in a long woollen skirt and cardigan. Dr Duncan’s wife, Simon supposed. She looked him up and down; then, seemingly impressed by the uniform and look of dutiful urgency on his face, nodded.

  ‘All right. Come in and sit down there. I’ll see if I can fetch him.’

  Simon sat on a chair in the hall, staring silently for a moment at a moth-eaten tiger’s head above a row of photographs of past cricket and rugby teams. He heard the murmur of voices from far away. A distant door slammed and footsteps approached. Dr Duncan stood before him, in an old brown suit with a row of pens in the top pocket, and a shabby chalk-stained gown. The grey hair and side whiskers stood out more wildly than Simon remembered.

  He stood up and held out his hand. The headmaster shook it brusquely.

  ‘Well, young man? You have an urgent message from young Cavendish’s father, I hear.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s . . . rather serious, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Step in here.’

  Dr Duncan opened a wood panelled door to the right of the tiger’s head and ushered Simon in. There was a large desk, rows of books, several ancient chairs and sofas with cricket bats and pads piled on them, and a rack on the wall with a number of thin, pliable canes. Simon shivered, remembering a similar room in his own school days. Dr Duncan sat behind his desk, indicating a hard, upright chair in front of it.

  ‘Well, what is it? Serious, you say?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the boy’s mother, I’m afraid. She’s very ill.’

  ‘Mrs Cavendish? I’m sorry to hear it. She looked well enough when she came here.’

  ‘Yes. It was an accident. She, er, fell from her horse and hurt her head. The doctors are very concerned. Only a matter of time, they say.’

  Dr Duncan sighed, pursed his lips, and pressed his fingertips together in front of his face. ‘Dear me, how very tragic! Such a pleasant young woman, too. Well, well. You want me to break the news to the boy, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, no sir, it’s not exactly that. Apparently she’s been asking to see him, and Colonel Cavendish has sent me to bring him home.’

  Dr Duncan thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I’m not sure that’s wise, young man. Serious injury and death can have a very traumatic effect on the minds of boys of young Cavendish’s age, you know. They don’t have the maturity to cope with it. In my opinion it might be best to keep him on at school, where he is surrounded by friends and has plenty of work to keep him busy. Take his mind off it, stop him brooding.’

  Simon opened his mouth, closed it again, swallowed. He had thought he had anticipated everything but not this. He had forgotten the stubborn, bloody-minded, stiff-upper-lip attitude schoolmasters of the old style could adopt. He forced his face into a conciliatory smile.

  ‘You’re probably right, sir, of course. But it’s not for me to decide, I’m just here to obey orders. Colonel Cavendish’s express instructions were that I should bring the boy home to see his mother, tonight.’

  Dr Duncan bristled. ‘It’s termtime, and I am in loco parentis. In the absence of the Colonel himself, it’s for me to decide.’

  Simon stared at the man, saying nothing. Outside, there was the sudden thunder of a group of boys rushing upstairs, and a teacher shouting at them to be quiet. Simon felt a surge of all the hatreds and resentments of authority he had felt in his own school days, and thought, irrationally, I could take out my revolver and shoot this old fool in the face if I wanted.

  But that would be no help at all.

  Softly, he tried to insist. ‘She is very ill, sir.’

  ‘So you say.’ Dr Duncan hesitated. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, but in my experience misplaced softness at this point can make matters much worse in the future.’ He glanced at the telephone, hanging in its stand on the right of his desk. ‘Perhaps I should speak to the Colonel myself.’

  Simon was prepared for this. ‘He is extremely distraught, sir. Also, he is very busy with UVF business; he won’t be home until eight this evening. And he gave me express instructions to have the boy home before then. I can’t disobey an order, sir.’

  Dr Duncan frowned at him, then sighed. ‘Well, I understand that. As I say, I think it’s unwise, but we all have to submit to discipline. I’ll write the boy out an exeat for a week, and send for him now. But tell the Colonel what I said now, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’

  Dr Duncan grunted and leaned back to pull a bellrope behind his desk. The woman came in.

  ‘Fetch Cavendish here, will you, my dear. And tell him to bring his coat.’

  When Tom came in, in grey flannel shorts and pullover, with his tie slightly awry and fair untidy hair, Dr Duncan stood up portentously and came from behind his desk to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. That lean, freckled face with the smudge of ink on the cheek, Simon thought bitterly, this is what Charles valued above me. A miniature of himself, an officer and gentlemen in the making. Let’s see how he takes this news.

  ‘I’m afraid I have something unfortunate to tell you, my boy,’ Dr Duncan said. ‘You recognise this young officer?’

  Tom glanced at Simon, eyes wide with wonder. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, he has brought me some unfortunate news. It seems your mother has had a fall from a horse and is seriously ill. Your father feels it is best that you should go home to see her at once.’

  ‘Oh no! But … Mummy?’ Tom glanced about him wildly. ‘She hardly ever rides.’

  ‘That’s just it, Tom,’ Simon said smoothly. ‘She put the side saddle on old Punch, and he shied at something in the hedge. She couldn’t hold him. He reared and came down on top of her, I think.’

  ‘But what happened? Is she badly hurt?’

  ‘Quite badly, yes. She’s hurt her head. That’s why your father sent me to fetch you, now.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course. We’d better go.’

  No tears, Simon noticed. Just wide, dark eyes in a slightly paler face. The freckles stood out more clearly than when he’d come in. Perhaps there was a slight quiver of the lip.

  ‘Here’s your coat, Cavendish.’ Mrs Duncan helped Tom put it on as they went out onto the front steps. Her husband said: ‘I’ve given you an exeat for a week, boy, but tell your father you can come back earlier if he thinks fit. It may be better to be here with your friends and your work to take your mind off things. Also there’s a match next Saturday, we’d like to see you play in that.’

  Tom wasn’t listening. As Simon had anticipated, he was staring at the Daimler.

  ‘That’s not Father’s car. Mr Fletcher, why have you brought that?’

  Simon had his answer ready. ‘The Lancia broke down yesterday, Tom. It needs a new cylinder or something. Couldn’t be fixed overnight, anyway, so your father hired this from a garage in Bangor. The owner’s in the UVF. We have to keep the show on the road, you know. You’ll enjoy riding in it — it’s a dream to drive.’

  Perhaps it was a little too complicated an excuse, but at least it was enough to
overcome the time while Simon opened the front door and installed Tom in the passenger seat. Then Simon sprang round quickly to the front, cranked the handle, and leapt in beside him. They were away.

  As they reached the end of the lane the rain came down. A few large pregnant drops on the windscreen at first, then floods of it, thundering off the canvas roof, swooshing across the windscreen, bouncing off the bonnet in hundreds of tiny fountains. Simon turned up his coat collar to shield himself against a stream trickling through the roof. If it doesn’t stop the engine this could be a bonus, he thought. At least no one will hear us arrive in a downpour like this.

  Beside him on the seat, Tom shivered in the sudden chill caused by the rain. Simon grinned to himself. You’ll be a lot colder than this before the night is over, my boy, he thought. That stiff upper lip of yours might get frozen solid!

  He smiled to himself at his joke, and felt no pity at all . . .

  On the way back to Glenfee Tom said little. Once, when the rain had slackened and they could hear themselves speak, he tried to ask about his mother, but Simon did not encourage conversation.

  ‘I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it myself,’ he said. ‘You’ll find out soon enough when we get you home.’

  As planned, Werner was waiting for them in Dundonald. He had a black bag in his hand and was standing outside the hospital. When he got into the back seat of the car, Simon said: ‘This is Dr Marcus, a specialist in head injuries. Dr Robinson has called him in for a second opinion, and your father asked me to pick him up here on the way back.’

  Tom said little then, either. He seemed cold and stunned more than anything else. Shivering, with his arms folded across his chest for warmth and his wide dark eyes staring earnestly forward through the rain as though to will them onwards. Not until they came to the walls around the park at Glenfee and turned right instead of continuing straight on along the side of the Lough, did he turn to Simon in alarm.

  ‘Where are you going? This is the wrong way!’

  Simon had an answer for that too. ‘There’s a tree down in the drive. We have to get in round the back.’

  It was an unlikely answer, because there had been no wind, only rain, and anyway, the road to the back of the estate would still leave them with a ten minute’s walk across sodden grass to get to the house, but it kept Tom quiet for another couple of minutes until they turned left along a muddy track that led into the woods at the top of the hill.

  Then he said: ‘But this is stupid!’

  Simon drove round a bend out of sight of the road, stopped the car, leaned over, and seized Tom’s arms, pressing them against his sides so that he couldn’t move. At the same time Werner reached from behind with a damp sponge which h pressed over the boy’s nose and mouth. For a few moments Tom struggled, wriggling and kicking frantically, but it was no use.

  The squeaking under the sponge faded, and the little body in Simon’s hands relaxed. The reek of chloroform filled the car. For a few moments longer Werner held the sponge in place, then slowly, cautiously, he took it off. Tom’s body flopped feebly to one side on the front seat, head lolling. He lay there, eyes closed, breathing quietly and slowly.

  Simon put the car in gear, and drove on slowly up the muddy track into the woods.

  For a long time Werner had been unable to work out what it was that annoyed him about English country houses.

  After all, there were plenty of fine castles in Germany, providing a similar lifestyle. Werner himself had spent part of his youth in one. They were the birthplaces of the aristocracy - the von Moltkes, the Falkenhayns, the leaders of the Empire. Despite their occasional stupidity they had a place in the world — there were very few of them, and they were born to lead. He accepted their way of life as odd, but natural. He was impressed by his visits to the homes of his father’s friends, and enjoyed them.

  So why did their English and Irish counterparts annoy him so much? He had visited several as a boy, when his father was planning to send him to Eton; and many more since he had returned to the country, to work as a newspaper man.

  It had taken him several years to realise that they annoyed him precisely because they were not counterparts of the German schlosses. There were far more of them, for a start — nearly everyone he had met at Eton seemed to have a country house. And then, when he went to them in anticipation, they were so much scruffier than he expected. Many of them stank of cats and dogs; they would have a few decent rooms and the rest would be cold and draughty, with thunderous plumbing and stuffed lion’s heads presiding over faded wallpaper and peeling paint. Shamefully neglected, in fact.

  But it was the inhabitants that really annoyed him. Even the poorest of them acted as though his rural slum really was a castle, and he himself entitled to rule the world from it. As, indeed, the wretched people did. While Germany was penned into the centre of Europe, the confounded English went out from these country houses of theirs, full of icy draughts and dogs and sjambok heads and photos of cricket teams at Allahabad, and ruled an empire on which the sun never set.

  If it ever rose, that is, Werner thought. His thick Ulster coat had become thoroughly sodden waiting for Simon outside the hospital in Dundonald, and the car itself, the new Daimler that he had bought earlier this week, had leaked in half a dozen places so that he wondered how long it would be before mould and mushrooms started to grow in it. As he drove up the long drive between the dripping trees he tried to imagine what mental aberration could possibly have persuaded Charles Cavendish to return from India and the Sudan to fight to keep control of such a miserable place as this.

  He wondered if Charles Cavendish would remember him. If he did not he would find out soon enough.

  Through the rain and evening gloom he could make out that Glenfee was a moderately large three-storey building with an imposing pillared porch, and what looked like a stable block and several coach houses around the back. There were lights shining dimly through the rain from several of the downstairs rooms, none of which appeared to have curtains drawn. He parked his car on the drive at the front of the house, and hurried up the steps to the front door.

  After a pause, a butler opened it. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I have come to see Colonel Cavendish.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Then you had better come in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Werner stepped gratefully into the hall, his coat dripping on the floor. He noticed that the hall was, as he had expected, large, dimly lit from some hissing oil lamps in the corners, and featured several vast oil paintings of ancestors on the walls.

  ‘Is the Colonel expecting you, sir?’

  Werner grinned, the pale blue eyes in the thin wolfish face laughing at the man. ‘No, but what I have to say is very important to him. It’s a message about the UVF. He will see me, I’m sure.’

  ‘No doubt, sir. Do you have a card?’

  ‘Of course.’ Werner fumbled in the pockets of his coat. Damn the English and their wretched formality, he thought. At least in Prussia we have something worth being formal about! He produced the card and was left to stand dripping in the hall. He heard a piano somewhere to his left, and a woman singing softly. After a moment the butler returned.

  ‘If you would follow me, sir. And perhaps I could take your coat?’

  A trace more warmth, perhaps? If so, why? Had Charles recognised the name on the card he had sent in? If so, what did he feel? Guilt, after all these years? Or amusement, that a man he had abused as a child should care enough to seek him out? Werner followed the butler along a narrow, dark corridor to a door at the end. The man stood back, showed him in.

  ‘Mr von Weichsaker, sir.’

  It was a small room, about twenty feet long by about ten square. There were ledgers and box files on shelves all along one wall, and two filing cabinets in a corner next to a typewriter on a table. A few pictures here and there — of Carson, addressing a rally under a huge Union Flag, and another of some young men in regimental uniform in a hot country — India perhaps. To Werner’s relief
there was a warm coal fire blazing in the grate, but there were no curtains in the window, and rain rattled against the glass out of the blackness of the night. Most of the floorboards were bare, but there was a thin, worn rug in front of the fire. At the far end of the room, near the window, Charles Cavendish sat at a desk facing the wall under a lamp, reading.

  It’s as drab as his study at Eton, Werner thought suddenly. In all these years he hasn’t changed at all.

  As Werner came in Charles looked up. The face was the same — thin, sharp, with that proud hooked nose and thin firm mouth. Older, that was all. With receding temples and hair that was greying rather than black. And an air of natural authority that had increased, if anything, since he was head of house at school. Not a man to be trifled with.

  And what about me? Werner wondered. Do I look the same to him?

  Apparently he did not. No recognition flashed in the cool grey eyes. Just a frown, a polite puzzled glance. Charles stood up, held out his hand.

  ‘Good evening, Mr … von Weichsaker, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, that’s my name.’ Deliberately, Werner peeled back the glove from his crippled right hand before holding it out. All the time he watched Charles’s face. The look of cool, polite disinterest persisted for longer than he had expected, almost, in fact, to the point where Charles was about to take the hand and shake it. But then, he froze. Looked down at the hand, then up, searchingly, into Werner’s face.

  ‘Good Lord! So it is you?’

  ‘Yes, Charles. It is me.’

  Werner had been prepared, to an extent, to feel anger, but not this sudden wave of red fury. Perhaps it was the callous, calm voice in which Charles announced his surprise, as though it was a matter of minor interest which need not detain him long. Perhaps it was the arrogance, the untouchable sense of superiority which cocooned the man even in this old, damp house at the end of the world. Or perhaps it was the way Charles avoided his hand as though it was diseased . . . He stepped back, as though now he had decided Werner was not a gentleman, not even a person to be welcomed into the house at all.