by Peter Rimmer
“What are you talking about?” said Glen, putting the clippings aside and changing the subject.
“Oh, that bit is a long story, but all Barnaby had to do was ask Merlin for the money. By the end of the war my brother Merlin had made a fortune out of Vickers shares. The war made Merlin rich, Barnaby a thief, and blew my foot off. Not that Merlin didn’t pay his dues in the trenches. He was in charge of the Vickers machine guns on a long stretch of the front by ’18. If Gregory gets killed the newspapers will send him to heaven by making him a saint. Hollingsworth will make a film. Pearl puts out a bestseller. The papers will make another fortune. Sorry, Glen. Not having a go at you. Life is life. I hate war.”
“I was there with Merlin in France, remember?”
“As a reporter. You lot only came in in 1917.”
“You think America will do that again?”
“They’ve done it. Declared themselves conveniently neutral. Why not? Every country does what’s best for its people. Why, you making such a song and dance about Gregory sells papers. Everyone knows this is a world war that affects everyone. Now with Gregory on his way in a few days people in America, where I now conveniently live with my wife and children, will think America is doing its bit.”
“Sometimes I forget you are English.”
“Well, don’t. We’re a mild lot until we get pissed off. You’ll let us stop the Germans as we did last time and then come and help. If I was Roosevelt I’d do the same damn thing. Any day now the German air force is going to be bombing London. They’ll outflank the Maginot Line. Go round the French army. This time we won’t have time to dig a trench across Europe. Those mechanised divisions are too fast. They’ll stop at the Channel. You watch. And all the French heavy guns in their impregnable redoubts will be pointing the wrong way while the German Army marches into Paris.”
“And the French, what do they do then?”
“They’ll do a deal. Most Englishmen would rather go to war with France than Germany. Remember the Prussians arriving just in time at the Battle of Waterloo saved Wellington’s bacon.”
“Weren’t your ancestors Norman?”
“Stop trying to have a go at me, Glen, to make you feel better. Actually the Normans were Norsemen from Scandinavia. Not French, even though they spoke French. Mostly we English fight alongside our Anglo-Saxon cousins, the Angles and Saxons as they were when they conquered England.”
“And the British Expeditionary Force being sent to France?”
“They’ll have to get out. The Royal Navy will bring them back. Thank God we still have a navy the Germans are too weak to fight. You watch. It won’t be over by Christmas despite sending Britain Gregory L’Amour. Chances are the British Commonwealth will be all on its own with America across the Atlantic watching from a safe distance with a smirk on its collective face remembering their war of independence with England. And if Freya has her way I’ll be watching safely with the rest of you.”
“So Genevieve won’t marry him?”
“Not even to stop him going to war. She’s in love with Harry’s nephew. Has been for years. Luckily he’s safe on the Brigandshaw farm in Rhodesia. Harry’s going to send his wife and children to Cape Town where he bought a house a couple of years ago. Tina hates the African bush. Won’t live on the farm in Rhodesia, but she’ll live in Cape Town. Lovely climate. You see, everyone wants to be safe from war, Glen. And why not? Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
“Is Gregory L’Amour a fool?”
“He’s young.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Oh yes it does. We’re all foolish when we are young. Don’t you remember? Why didn’t you stay in Denver in 1917? Even as a reporter you could have had your head blown off. At that age it’s glamorous. You’re looking at a converted fool in me. War is terrible, you only find out when it happens. That’s the trouble with the world. With writers like me glamorising war. With Hollingsworth putting the same glamour on film. All the kids want to rush off to war and make themselves heroes instead of living their ordinary little lives. You can’t smell it in a book or a film. It’s the smell and the noise. Putrid flesh in no man’s land that no one wants to go out and bury. And it’s happening all over again. Time and time again.”
The bit that pleased William Smythe when the story broke through Glen Hamilton in London, was the real reason for Gregory L’Amour’s heroics: she wouldn’t marry him; Genevieve wouldn’t marry him. That part was never written in the newspapers or the value of the story would have lost its point. Still treasuring what had turned out to be a one-night stand in the Independence Hotel, however William looked at it, Genevieve was still a free woman. Any chance was better than none. Women grow old and lose their power of attraction. Film stars went out of fashion. If Genevieve did not marry he would still be there to soften her fall. Pick up the pieces. Put them back together. Give her a family and make them both happy for the rest of their lives.
They would live in a small cottage in Cornwall, William with his money from freelance journalism writing a book instead of a column, the house and car paid for from his savings. Money invested for the children’s private education. Everything planned to be happy away from the turmoil of modern life, the back-biting, the politics, the bitterness and rivalry. Making money, as William put it to himself, out of some poor sod about to get himself killed. Even their rivalry over Genevieve did not prevent William seeing the truth. All the British headlines: ‘They’re on our side’, ‘He’s coming over’, ‘Look out Adolf here comes Gregory’, were to make money for the newspapers by making their readers feel better while their world collapsed around them in the reality of modern warfare that William, briefly in Warsaw before he ran for his life, had seen with his own eyes. The power of modern guns that could blast their way through anything.
“They could send ten thousand Gregory L’Amours and it wouldn't make any difference,” William said to Betty Townsend, putting down the newspaper. “It’s all bullshit. The bugger can’t even fly. You remember all that twaddle at RAF Benson when Harry Brigandshaw got them to open the Bomber Station and invite the press? Well, they got what they wanted.”
“Maybe he did too. Making play play is not the real thing. Why do kids run around with tomahawks yelling like Red Indians on the warpath? They want to be part of a fight. Are you going to take me out to dinner? It’s eight o’clock and I’m hungry. Why don’t you be nice to me? Men should be nice to their secretaries. Especially when there are only two in the office. What are you going to do, Will?”
“Get drunk, I suppose. You need a man much younger, Betty.”
“They’re all running off into the army now the regular army is going to France. That chap André Cloete we met at Uxbridge is already there.”
“How do you know?”
“He writes to me. Not all men are like you, Will.”
“Betty, please. You’re my secretary. You know the rules. I can’t afford the time to train a new secretary. There’s a war on. And there goes that bloody siren again.”
“They’re coming, Will. It’ll soon be too late. Can’t I at least get drunk with you in the great tradition of the Fourth Estate?”
“I’ll buy you a drink in the pub.”
“That’s better.”
“So’s that. It’s the all clear siren. Must be testing again.”
“When Gregory does arrive London won’t take any notice of the bloody siren. You can buy me a sandwich in the pub.”
“They’ve got pickled eggs in jars. Shit, I’m tired.”
“Do you still love her?”
“Of course I do. Doesn’t everyone love Genevieve?”
It surprised William how quickly the feeling of comparative normalcy came back to him. The Green Man looked the same. Horatio Wakefield was at the end of the bar and waved. So many faces were familiar, men from the world of newspapers chewing the day’s cud in case they missed something. Often the reason, William supposed, that the London papers had an un
canny habit of telling the same stories.
Two of the men gave him a glare. He had given Horatio the exclusive when Glen Hamilton phoned from Denver saying Gregory L’Amour was trying to break his film contract to join the RAF. If the boy had seen what William had seen in Warsaw he would have been more careful to avoid a fight.
Just a few days ago the dreadful feeling of extreme panic, gut-wrenching fear, and here he was walking into the pub with a pretty girl on his arm and only the occasional practice siren telling him a war was going on. That England, again, was at war with Germany.
It had almost become inevitable the moment the French went into the Ruhr to attack the coalfields when the Germans had defaulted on war reparations stipulated in the Versailles Agreement. Now, barely two decades on, the monster had grown another head and invaded Poland, Hitler and the Germans having bided their time to build up their strength.
From dive-bombers and strafed trains, the threat of German Panzers just down the road and the full power of Blitzkrieg, to the familiar smells and smiles of the Green Man, a pub that William knew could have been anywhere in England at that moment.
“Glad you got out in time,” said Horatio putting out his hand. “And thanks again for the story. Mr Glass was delighted to pay you handsomely for the story and put one over Arthur Bumley at the Mirror. They all picked up the story quickly but that’s journalism. Our sales went up twenty per cent the first morning I broke the story, made the public feel closer to the people who are going to fight this war. Is he really coming over?”
“I don’t know.”
“What made him make such a public display? Hello, Betty. Now this is nice, bringing your secretary, William. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” said Betty. “Though it’s not for the lack of trying. I’ll have a small shandy, Horatio. How’s Janet?”
“You said you wanted to get drunk with me. Genevieve won’t marry him but don’t put that in the paper. I still have some hope.”
“You see what I mean?” said Betty.
“Looking around you’d never think there’s a war on,” said William. “They’re all pissed off with me for giving you the L’Amour story and not them.”
“What are friends for?”
“Give her a gin and tonic. I hate getting drunk with a sober drinking companion who remembers what I said the next day. I was on the train, Warsaw to Bromberg the day the Germans crossed the border. Arrived at Danzig when the German air force was dive-bombing the docks. Boat to Copenhagen and a flight to Croydon.”
“You were lucky.”
“Luckier than you, Horatio, getting out of Berlin in ’34. I’m still shaking despite everything staying the same in London. Give me that drink. I need it… To Gregory L’Amour, gentlemen,” William said raising his voice. “The Yanks are coming. God bless the Yanks.” Then he smiled at Horatio. “Nothing like rubbing it in. Next time I have in my possession such juicy information I will start a bidding war. Life’s all about money, they say. There they are, Betty, in that big glass jar on the counter. Help yourself to a pickled egg. The girl’s hungry, Horatio. Still growing?”
“Why don’t you just resign, Betty, and seduce the bastard? Janet’s fine. She had a letter yesterday from Germany. Her patient Henning von Lieberman. Posted in Berlin before the war broke out. Took longer than usual to reach London.”
“How is Herr von Lieberman?” asked William sarcastically.
“Wanted to tell my wife how much easier he speaks. I thought it was rather nice.”
“Man’s a Nazi. Spouting his mouth off with Janet’s help.”
“They probably all are now,” said Horatio, ignoring the jibe at his wife. Janet was convinced Herr von Lieberman was a ‘perfectly nice man’. “Arthur Bumley says that if the French had kept their hands off the Ruhr we wouldn’t be in this mess now. The French still haven’t forgotten the Franco-Prussian War.”
“We English have a long history of blaming the French for our ills.”
“What was wrong with his speech?” asked Betty without much interest, her mind concentrating on the idea of seducing William.
“He had a stutter. My wife’s a speech therapist. Makes more money than I do.”
5
While Betty Townsend was listening to the conversation of William and Horatio, getting bored at being ignored, across town in Holland Park, Rodney Hirst-Brown, one-time Chief Clerk of Rosenzweigs Bank in London, was walking into the Crown, smiling all over his face. Rodney, having spent most of the day pleasantly wandering around the London docks taking photographs with his Leica camera, was feeling pleased with himself.
“Double whisky, Henry,” he said to the publican, one of the few people Rodney hoped was his friend.
“Your new business must be going well, Rodney.”
“Never better, Henry. A man has to work for himself to make money. All these years at the bank were a waste of my time. Photography. That’s my business. Make it a Chivas Regal.”
“We are chipper. Doesn’t the war dampen your spirits?”
“War is always good for business.”
“Never asked, but what kind of photographs do you take?”
“That’s my big secret, Henry. Never divulge the secret of making money or one of those chaps down the bar will copy the idea and put you out of business.”
“Must be nude girls with that smile on your face. Cat got the cream.”
“How did you guess? After all the years coming in here, you know me, Henry.”
“Not calling you up this time, I suppose? Didn’t you say you were a lieutenant in the last war fighting the Turks in Palestine?”
“In the desert. Past it now. Can’t use me this time. Did you ever hear of the Honourable Barnaby St Clair? Self-made millionaire. Sponsors West End shows and female singers. All young girls. Brother’s Lord St Clair. Same officers’ mess in Cairo. Chap was nearly cashiered. Should have been, according to my information. The CO paid in for him. Stole fifty pounds. Just shows how the thieves of this world stick together. Now just look at him. All the money he wants and all the young girls.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Quite the man about town.”
“How’s Mrs Leadman?”
“Much more civil since I rented a second room next to mine.”
“What for, Rodney?”
“A dark room.”
“You develop your own photographs! I am impressed.”
“All top rate photographers develop their own photographs,” said Rodney, giving the landlord of the Crown what he hoped looked like a lewd wink.
“Suppose so. If the chemist did the developing they’d have you arrested. You’ve turned into a real card. Same again? That one went down quick enough. Must be thirsty business photographing all those women. Well, I never.”
Only when he had sold the second double whisky from his most expensive brand did Henry move down the bar. It always paid him to talk to the customers. Make them feel important. Make them feel at home in a public house. Most of them were lonely, the ones that came in on their own.
‘Wonder what he’s stealing this time?’ he asked himself. Everyone in the bar knew Rodney had been fired by the bank for stealing, though no one ever said so to his face. ‘Everyone has something to hide.’
“What’s he into, Henry?” whispered the next man down leaning over the bar.
“Nude photographs.”
“Bugger me.”
They were all smiling, including Rodney Hirst-Brown. The letter from Berlin with the money had been stuffed under his door the previous day. There was no postage or postage mark. Clean, one pound notes. A list of instructions. Each time there was a drop, the man waited for Mrs Leadman to leave the house before letting himself in through the front door with Rodney’s duplicate key and putting the letters under the door to Rodney’s small room at the top of the stairs.
All Rodney had to do was take the photographs, develop them in his dark room and give them to the man who brought him the money.
Rodney never met the man. There was an address in Putney where Rodney pushed his envelope through the letter box in the front door, not even ringing the bell. The same way he had given the man the key to Mrs Leadman’s front door.
“Like taking candy from a kid,” he said to himself, raising his glass. “What harm could ever come from taking photographs of ships?”
Meeting Herr Henning von Lieberman when the German was in London having therapy for his stutter had been nothing else but a pleasure. In many ways getting his own back on Aaron Rosenzweig and the Jews for Rodney being fired for stealing one pound and twelve shillings from the bank was even more motivation for Rodney than the money.
After nearly two decades’ loyal service at the bank, reaching the height of chief clerk for his hard work, they had never tried to listen to his story of why he was forced to borrow the money to pay back his bookmaker before the man carried out his threat to break both his legs. So little money when a man had it in his pocket. So much when there was no way to turn. Something wrong with a system that paid the chief clerk five pounds a week while the directors lived in mansions with access to millions. Every time he thought about his last conversation with Aaron Rosenzweig his blood boiled.
