by Weldon, Fay
Okay?
Now it is time to get on with the story, to turn our attention back to the startled group in the hall of the Shrapnel Academy, that shrine to the memory of Henry Shrapnel, who invented the exploding cannonball in 1804. The temperature is dropping slowly but perceptibly. The great basket of logs, chopped and split by Hastings, is all but empty. Joan Lumb wishes she had not been so extravagant with both wood and coal in her early attempts to drive out the unwelcome cooking smells which had plagued the evening, and the reason for which had now become apparent.
‘Dog!’ Victor exclaimed, when Murray appeared pale and trembly from the bathroom. ‘You mean we’ve eaten poor Harry in the sandwiches?’
‘It can’t have been our Trish or Trixie,’ said Muffin, thankfully, ‘because they’re away at the kennels.’
Muffin had prevailed upon Joan Lumb to have the two house dogs sent away for the Wellington Weekend. They were liver spaniels. Although perfectly accustomed to trousers and well-polished shoes, they became over-excited by pale high heels, fine stockings, beige silk shirts and gold bangles, and could, and often did, muddy and score the fronts of the lady guests in the enthusiasm of their welcome. Joan Lumb had resented the necessity of shutting the animals away, while yet recognising it existed.
‘Perhaps they’re not in the kennels at all,’ said Joan Lumb, her courage quite restored by this attack on dumb animals. ‘Perhaps they were in the caribou patty – oh, I could throttle them all with my own hands!’
And so she would, had the servants been rash enough to get their necks in the way. To balance the death, even the possible death, of Joan Lumb’s dogs, at least a dozen men and women would have to die. This is an attitude common to those who feel they have a divine right to power. Only put them in a situation where they can exercise it and they will. My inconvenience, your major misfortune! Caligula of Rome avenging the death of his horse, Heydych of Holland, getting even for his burst tyre, caused the deaths of thousands. Beware of anyone saying ‘I’d like to wring their necks.’ They would if they could.
The General took command, Joan Lumb having been disqualified by those signs of distress and hysteria which earlier had underlined her female state – it is no use being proved right after the event. You have to seem to be right all the time, if you are not to lose credibility – and Victor having disqualified himself by virtue of his decision at the age of twenty-three to go into business, and not the army. Baf was too wild and too young for command, and Sergei and Panza had no gift for leadership, nor claimed to have. Murray was currently too ill to be considered, although his expertise would no doubt come in useful. They were most grateful to have him amongst them. Ivor was a servant. These matters they settled swiftly and easily amongst themselves, some things being said, others thankfully left unsaid. Mew prepared a speech which went ‘But this is sexism. I can see that Joan Lumb is a token man, but you haven’t even mentioned Muffin, Shirley, Bella or me,’ but prudently she didn’t deliver it.
Baf wished to make a battering ram out of a settee in the hall and break down the green baize door, but the General would have none of it. A posse of armed servants might well be waiting on the other side of the door for just such an event. Although those at the top of the stairs would of course have the advantage of height, those below outnumbered those above to an unknown factor—
—at which Joan Lumb interjected, ‘We have thirty-six servants on our pay-roll. Though I think on occasion they do have their friends to stay. But I’m a generous employer. I don’t fuss too much about detail—’
—to which Muffin replied, ‘Joan, if you ask me, there are three thousand down there—’
—and Joan Lumb said, ‘I didn’t ask you.’
—anyway, an unknown factor, and although there was no evidence of arms—
—at which Victor interjected, ‘They have the kitchen knives. If they can kill Harry and make us eat him, they can do anything—’
—no evidence of arms, as the General repeated, but lack of evidence was no guarantee they didn’t have them. So the storming of Downstairs was out—
Baf contented himself with aiming a few hefty blows and leaping kicks at the green baize door. Panza pointed out that the servants might erupt up the stairs at any moment with heaven knows what weapons, or what intent. So a party was organised to move a heavy bureau bookcase, which contained a complete set of Samuel’s Military History, 1860–1900, impenetrable volumes if ever there were such things, in front of the door which divided Upstairs from Downstairs. Another party – the egress group – was sent to confirm what already most knew, that snow to the depth of between four and six feet now made all exterior doors unopenable, and that escape from the Shrapnel Academy was impracticable. A further group went up to bring down Shirley and the children, and check that all other rooms in the Shrapnel Academy were empty – all were – and no bands of aggressors hiding in the upstairs territory – none were. Shirley wept a little, and said, ‘If they are capable of leaving innocent children alone and unprotected, they are capable of anything.’
The egress group came back to report that the only access to Downstairs was via a single laundry chute in the extension wing, on the south-west corner of the building. They had listened, but all was quiet. Yes, a person could wriggle up – or down – with difficulty. Ivor was sent to man the chute, and report back at once any signs of activity.
The General then called a Council of War. The Council – which included the female members of the group – sat around that same table where lately they had celebrated the rather indigestible rewards of peace. The ceiling of the dining-room was low, and offered the illusion that it was a little less cold here than anywhere else. They sat in the same order as they had at the Eve-of-Wellington dinner. Joan Lumb thought there was something missing, and presently realised what it was. It was her adoration of Murray, which had been, she now realised, an almost tangible presence at the meal. Now it was as if the spirit of Jesus had abruptly vanished from the Last Supper. She felt bereft, and shivered, not just from cold, but foreseeing that the spirit of love would not touch her again in this world. Her courage had failed: she had turned it away. She had had her chance, and blown it.
Blankets and quilts were brought down from above and the Council wrapped themselves in these. A few nuts and raisins were discovered in cupboards, and the General generously had his bottle of Laphroaig brought down. But all remarked on how the sealing of the green baize door had reversed the normal order of things – now Downstairs had everything – at least in the way of food, drink and warmth – and Upstairs had nothing!
But Joan Lumb said, ‘Hardly nothing! We have brains, expertise, training, discipline, organisation. We are a crack corps, they are an undisciplined rabble!’
Mew had another speech prepared, to the effect that perhaps Murray was in error in believing that the sandwiches were filled with dog meat, that the non-response of the servants to the bell and telephone was coincidental, as was the lack of heat and light, that the green baize door had merely jammed, and that they should all just go to bed and see what things looked like in the morning. But she didn’t deliver it. She didn’t like the way Joan Lumb kept looking at her, and occasionally muttered to the General, behind her hand, rather rudely. Mew had been brought up not to whisper in public. Her mother had been only patchily insane: in the good patches she was an excellent mother.
Joan Lumb said, ‘Did you say something, Miss—er—’
Mew replied, ‘No. Except I suppose it was dog meat.’
Murray retched again; Muffin, with Baf as escort, went to fetch him some Kaolin and Morphine from her bathroom cupboard. They returned promptly – the exigencies of the situation, alas, ensuring it – and when they did Baf was carrying his knife box. Eyes turned towards it: those who knew what it contained, and those who didn’t.
It was late, but no one was tired. Adrenalin trickled out its silver threads of energy and excitement. They had been taken by surprise, when the lights went out. Even Joan L
umb had lost her nerve. Never again! Now their task was to puzzle out, somehow, what was in the enemy mind.
‘We must have information,’ said Baf, ‘because information is power.’
‘To predict their actions,’ Murray said, ‘we must understand their motives.’ The Kaolin and Morphine was making him feel worse, not better.
‘We must know their numbers,’ said Panza, ‘because that will inform their actions.’
Each statement seemed as convincing as the last. If only words were weapons, how strong they would be!
Bella sniffed. ‘What a horrid smell,’ she said. And indeed there was. Trails of black, stinking smoke were beginning to drift under the dining-room door. The party took candles, and traced the smoke back to its source, in the drawing-room. Even in the dim light it could be seen that gusts of the disgusting stuff were billowing back down the now almost cold chimney, and swirling like fog into the room. They were under attack! They were to be choked to death! Suffocated! The women withdrew at once to the foot of the stairs.
Murray seized a rosewood occasional table, snapped it into pieces and flung it on the embers to restore the fire. The room was evacuated, and the door slammed shut. Joan Lumb ripped one of the best tapestries from the dining-room wall and stuffed it into the gap between door and floor. Muffin was sent to the library to fetch sticky tape – only she knew where it was – and the door was taped firmly around. Fortunately, the door was well made, and a good fit. No trails of escaping gas could be seen: the attack had failed. They were safe!
In fact the smoke had stopped flowing from its source. What had happened was that the stockpot had finally boiled dry, and Harry’s bones had been charring nastily. There is nothing horrider than the acrid, oily smell of burning bones. No wonder the fumes were construed as enemy action! If you had smelt them, you would think the same. The stench had woken Matilda, who had gone to the kitchen to see what was happening. She had moved the pot, and plunged it under cold water – holding her nose – and gone back to bed, not without a quick, nasty pinch of Acorn’s smooth young cheek as she passed. Strait-jacketed and unconscious on the kitchen table, he could do her no harm.
28
The supposed gas attack on Upstairs happened at 2.17 on the Saturday morning. By 3.15 Mew had been stripped naked, had escaped torture and rape by the skin of her teeth, and had been tumbled down the laundry chute to join her ‘friends’. A ferocious discharge of CS gas from Baf’s miniaturised cylinder went after her.
This is the timetable of what happened:
2.20 Mew goes upstairs to change out of her heels and flounces and back into donkey jacket, jeans and boots. She is feeling distinctly unsafe and the atmosphere downstairs is not good.
2.30 Baf recognises Mew as person who refused lift.
2.35 Joan Lumb accuses Mew of being an enemy agent. She refused Baf’s lift because she had a rendezvous with the servants. She had posed as a journalist from The Times; then changed her story when she thought she might be rumbled. Had anyone there read the Woman’s Times? No? Obviously, it did not exist. She had spent time the wrong side of the Green Baize Door.
2.50 Muffin attests that Acorn had been in Mew’s room, and that Mew had been taking photographs, including one of Baf’s knife box.
2.55 Mew is stripped and body-searched – a task delegated to Sergei and Panza, and threatened with rape and torture if she does not reveal the whereabouts of the camera. She has been trying to tell them for some time. Only when Victor appears, tut-tutting, do Sergei and Panza seem able to hear.
3.00 Camera discovered and destroyed. Shirley, weeping, intercedes with Council for Mew’s life, and succeeds. ‘We are not barbarians. We leave that to the enemy.’ Which of them said that? Could have been any of them.
3.05 Mew is frogmarched to the top of the laundry chute and tumbled down.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Ivor, horrified. He has been dozing at his post and escaped war fever. He sees Baf open the knife box, take out the cylinder and, with the General’s approval and that of the entire Council, direct it down the laundry chute after Mew.
‘Keep back,’ says Baf to Ivor. ‘This stuff is really heavy.’ Ivor dives down the chute to save Mew if he can. Baf hesitates. But the General nods, and Baf discharges the cylinder and all retire back to the dining-room to consider their next move.
‘He is obviously one of them,’ says the General to Shirley, who is most upset. ‘Now you must toughen up, my dear. This is war.’
Bella really seems to be enjoying herself. How bright her eyes are, and she has her lipstick with her, so that her mouth becomes darker and more garish hour by hour, and her white skin is almost translucent in the candlelight.
Sometimes weapons work. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they go off with less power than expected; sometimes a great deal more. Baf’s cylinder of CS gas misfired. He was, after all, a salesman, not a technician. He succeeded only in aiming the device, not in actually firing it, but who was to know that? Mew and Ivor ended up a good deal safer in the servants’ quarters than either of them had been Upstairs, Mew tainted as she was by feminism, and Ivor by his membership of the servant classes.
The episode at Fort York in 1813 was one of those memorable ones, when there’s a far bigger bang than anyone expects.
Fort York today stands on what must be one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Canada. It is an open, flat, grassed square, in the centre of Toronto. It has agreeable Georgian proportions, and is surrounded by a wooden palisade. Here tourists, visitors to the city, and school parties go to discover what the past was like and how their antecedents lived. They can taste turkey pie and flummery in the cook-house, served by wenches in low-cut dresses, look over the officers’ living quarters, admire the still ticking grandfather clocks, and have demonstrated to them just how this and that worked by lolloping, healthy, tall young Canadians dressed in the uniform of the York Queen Rangers or of the 16 US Infantry, it seems now to make little difference. The War of Independence is all long ago, and quite who was fighting whom, and why, is best forgotten by adult and child alike. For are we not all now at peace? This place, pleasant enough in sunlight, becomes quite grim and haunted when the sun goes behind a cloud. It is a phenomenon observable at the sites of other spectacular disasters: Juhu Beach, outside Bombay, where the first 707 crashed: the sports stadium at Brussels; the Firth of Tay, where the bridge collapsed – places don’t seem to recover; it is the human race which just goes blithely on.
Now what happened at Fort York was this. The American army, under the command of Brigadier Zebudon Montgomery Pike, invaded the Fort. They sailed across the harbour towards the fort clearing, in a formidable force. The British commander eventually ordered the retreat: the garrison was to be abandoned: the men were to blow up the arsenal. A fuse was set, lighted, the men withdrew, the expected explosion happened. The York magazine went up. But they had underestimated what was in there. The whole ground shook for miles around; a cloud rose, in a most majestic manner, assuming the shape of a vast balloon. It was the nearest thing to a nuclear explosion the world had seen before Big Boy in New Mexico in 1945. Timber, stones, debris, rained down from the sky upon British and American alike. Pike was killed, so were 368 of his men, and 222 were injured, many later to die. A party of forty British regulars was killed outright. Both sides sat down together and wept. This was not what they had meant at all. Officers fell in the same way as soldiers: it was not war, it was disaster. It was not planned, it was an accident. But all that’s another story.
It was now time for the Council of War to look at the situation in the light of the timeless verities of combat. Joan Lumb thought this showed cold feet, a retreat from action into theory; and shivered and sulked a little when they took no notice. The snow had begun again: it beat with such ferocity against the window panes the glass seemed to tremble and there was a kind of disagreeable, inexorable beat in the wind, a thud, thud, thud. Was it quickening, building to some kind of climax? She couldn’t bear
it. She wanted to cry, but how could she? She, Joan Lumb.
These were the headings the General and his team worked to:
No. 1 Offensive action is essential to positive combat results.
Exactly! Pumping CS gas down the laundry chute had been exactly that. Now the strategy had to be followed through. The plan was to pierce the Green Baize Door, and lob Baf’s grenades down, thus destroying the enemy outright.
No. 2 Defensive strength is greater than offensive strength.
True: and Downstairs are certainly superior in numbers. But not in weapons! The servants still lived in the Age of Muscle: thanks to the Knife Box, Upstairs is in the Age of Technology. (Doubts as to the morality of Baf’s Knife Box had simply evaporated. It was as if they had never been.)
No. 3 Defensive posture is necessary when successful offence is impossible.
Should the offence fail for any reason, fall-back positions would be on the stairs. The Academy would be defended floor by floor, to the death, if necessary.
No. 4 Flank or rear attack is more likely to succeed than frontal attack.
Since the gas attack had been down the laundry chute, and that would be seen by the enemy as frontal, the next attack should be down the stairs. That was what the Council had in mind.
No. 5 Initiative permits application of preponderant combat power.
One gas attack had equalled another, but now the Council wrested the initiative out of the hands of the enemy.
No. 6 Defenders’ chance of success is directly proportional to fortification strength.
