The Moon’s a Balloon

by David Niven

  No evening was complete without ending up in some dive in Harlem. I don’t think I’ll try that today.

  Prices in New York were bloodcurdling but such was the generosity of my new-found friends, that it was just taken for granted that I was never to be allowed to pay for anything. It was made clear that if I attempted to do so, I would no longer be invited. I didn’t feel too bad about this arrangement because there were one or two members of the group who were also financially embarrassed at the time and they too were carried by those in funds. One was a struggling reporter on the Sun, a huge teddy bear of a man, named John McClain, destined to become my friend for life. McClain used to point to a slightly older man on the periphery of the group, always with the prettiest girl, a tall, shy, silent, slightly deaf, and compared to the rest of us, very serious minded citizen. ‘Let that son of a bitch pay for once,’ McClain would rumble. The tall man’s name was Howard Hughes.

  Phil Ammidown had a Pierce Arrow convertible and was leaving for Florida. ‘Come with me, Dave,’ he said, ‘I have a home in St. Augustine, we can spend a couple of days there, take in a party at the girls’ college in Tallahassee, then go down to Palm Beach.’

  The night before we set off, A.C. Blumenthal, the diminutive financial genius—once described by Dorothy Parker as ‘a pony’s ass’—gave a party, just six of us. Blumenthal’s wife, Peggy Fears, and two other glamorous members of the Hollywood scene—Mary Duncan and Bubbles Haynes, Ammidown and myself. Blumenthal arrived bearing a suitcase almost as big as himself, a glorified model of Trubshawe’s dipsomaniac’s delight of beloved memory and the farewell party went on at various places all over town till Phil and I were waved away in the Pierce Arrow en route for Florida.

  First stop, Richmond Virginia, and my eyes now gummed together with tiredness, snapped open with amazement when, just as I was signing the hotel register, I noticed a full sized alligator in a small pool about six feet from the reception desk.

  Phil was a demon driver and the Pierce Arrow was a very fast car—a combination that provoked a movie-style chase by a speed cop from the State Highway Patrol who was gaining on us with siren blaring when we shot across the State line into Florida and safety.

  St. Augustine is the oldest town in the United States, indeed the oldest house in the country is still standing there. Phil’s house nestled peacefully in lush woods just outside and for two or three days, I was able to charge up my batteries after the hectic days of New York. I revelled in the peace and charm of the place and after the frenetic pace of the big city, I sniffed the warm magnolia-scented air, stared at the hibiscus, listened to the cicadas and the lazy drawling voices of the inhabitants and found it hard to believe I was in the same country. The Citadel Barracks, Dover, were every minute receding further and further into their grey clammy and depressing mists.

  The party at Tallahassee took place just before the end of the year. The girls of the college had a tradition that during Leap Year they had the right to ask the men to dance and also to cut in on them. I had witnessed this rather barbaric tribal ritual of cutting in at parties in New York and had many times been highly frustrated having cut in on a beauty only to feel, as she melted in my arms, an ominous pat on the back from the next customer from the stag line, watching and choosing his moment from the middle of the floor. I had also suffered, once or twice, by getting stuck with a comparatively unattractive girl and not receiving that now welcome and relieving tap on the shoulder but I had never sunk so low as to dance round with some poor unprepossessing creature in my arms holding a ten-dollar bill behind her back as bribery to a rescuer. However, having sweated out my first invitation to dance, I kept my ears pricked for the rustling of currency behind my head.

  Through forest and swamp, the arrow-straight U.S. Highway N°1 connects Jacksonville with St. Augustine and half way between the two, Phil and I nearly died. Five o’clock in the morning, and travelling fast, we could see the lights of a car coming towards us at least ten miles away. As we shot past the other headlights and into the dark beyond, there was an almighty crash. We were both knocked unconscious. When we came to we were in the swamp on the ‘left hand side of the road, incredibly, the car was the right side up and we were sitting in it pinned against the high back of the seat by the bronze frame of the now glassless windshield bent hard against our chests. The front of the car had been completely demolished. Water and mud were up to the floor boards and we knew we were covered in warm blood. From the swamp beside us came a terrible grunting and splashing—‘Alligators,’ whispered Phil, ‘don’t make a sound.’ As we sat, cowering and waiting for the foul slavering jaws to come snapping at us through the non-existent front of the car, we felt ourselves all over: the blood could not have come from us, we were unscratched.

  ‘We didn’t hit the other car,’ I whispered, ‘We were past it when it happened.’

  The awesome noises continued for a long time then just as the first grey light of dawn was beginning to silhouette the moss-festooned trees, they stopped. The light grew stronger and we saw what had happened.

  In that split second when we were blinded by the tooquickly turned up headlights of the other car, two large black mules had emerged from the swamp and we had hit them broadside. Poor brutes, one must have been flung up in the air and over our heads. Its body had bashed us against the high soft seat-back knocking us out, but, by a miracle, not breaking our necks. The noises had come from the wretched animals dying in the swamp. The Sun Life Insurance Company used a photograph of what was left of the car as a warning and a reminder.

  Phil Ammidown, if not a man of great means was certainly a man of style—he bought a new car that same day, and in the afternoon, we continued south to Palm Beach.

  Phil found us rooms in a small hotel and got busy on the telephone. Soon, the days were flying by, girls everywhere, glorious golden ones, and golf, tennis, fishing in the blue Gulf Stream for marlin, dancing in roofless restaurants—‘How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?’ Parties, love-making, kindness and overwhelming generosity on all sides. Lili Damita, a gorgeous French actress, paraded about with a leopard on a leash and Winston Guest put a shark in his mother’s swimming pool. I hoped it would never end but, suddenly, it was Pumpkin Time.

  One of the glorious golden girls sidetracked me and I missed the last plane that would carry me north to catch my ship for home. I despatched a cable to Colonel TelferSmollett:

  DEAR COLONEL MAGNIFICENT OPPORTUNITY BIG GAME HUNTING WHALE FISHING FLORIDA REQUEST ONE WEEK EXTENDED LEAVE.

  This would give me ample time to catch the German ship Europa but if permission was not granted I would be in deep trouble overstaying my leave.

  The answer came back—

  NO WHALES OR BIG GAME WITHIN A THOUSAND MILES STOP TAKE TWO SMOLLET.

  The parties and the hospitality reached a crescendo till finally, deafened and petrified by flying for fourteen hours in a non-sound proofed. Tri-Motor Ford through the most hideous weather, I crawled on board the Europa and made for another rabbit hutch of a cabin in the bowels of the ship. As I unpacked I realised with a tinge of guilt that I had hardly thought about my mother…oh! the callousness of youth!

  The Great American Kindness went on all the way across the Atlantic. The little cabin was full of goodbye telegrams and Barbara had arranged for a most welcome delivery of champagne. McClain had alerted a friend of his that I was on board and one night I was invited to a dinner in the First Class given by ‘Jock’ Whitney, a wonderfully intelligent and witty man who can light up a room and who quite lately was one of the most popular and successful U.S. Ambassadors to the Court of St. James.

  On another occasion, I was asked to dine in the First Class and my host insisted, after dinner, in cutting me in on his syndicate that was bidding for a number in the ship’s sweep. My contribution was minimal, a fiver, I think, all I could afford anyway. I don’t know how my host arrived at the result but when his number won, he told me my share was £160.

  Thanks to t
his wonderful and, I am ashamed to say, now nameless man, I arrived back at the Citadel Barracks with more money than when I had left. I had tasted the fleshpots, in fact I had stuck all my trotters in the trough and had gorged myself: it had all been too rich for my blood, and in a welter of false values, I knew that one day, somehow, I would go back to America.

  Trubshawe was on his last legs militarily. ‘Can’t go on much longer, old man. It’s getting too much like the Army…it’s hunting four days a week and checking on the young pheasants for me.’

  I soon noticed the change myself. Telfer-Smollett was determined to shake the battalion out of its Maltese malaise and bring it to a peak of efficiency and this meant first of all a great sharpening up of the officers.

  The Colonel was wonderful to me and the off-duty golf games were as frequent as ever. There was nothing I could not discuss with him. His good advice was boundless. He understood perfectly the itchy feet I had contracted during my flying visit to the United States. He also saw the limited possibilities in the Army for an impatient young man of very slender means. We discussed the possibility of my following Trubshawe’s example and resigning my commission, and he counselled caution. ‘Give it a few more months’, he said, ‘don’t rush it.’ I could become a good soldier but I had seen that grass on the other side of the fence and oh! Brother! was it green!

  Trubshawe helped me find an old car. ‘A man must have wheels.’ We settled for a 19273-litre sports Bentley. It had done over a hundred and twenty thousand miles, had a strap over the bonnet, a handbrake outside, a compass, an altimeter, and a pressure pump on the dashboard, a cut-out that made the exhaust roar like an aeroplane and a three-tone horn. With a car like that one could only wear a chequered cap. It was the complete cad’s car. It was cheap, because it was about to fall apart and the terms of payment were long. When I had handed over the down payment, I didn’t have enough to pay for the licence—L25. Luckily the colour of the licence for 1932 was a light fawn so it was a simple matter to put a Guinness label in the licence holder. Guinness labels at that time were numbered, so from five yards my home-made licence was indistinguishable froth the real McCoy. Although I kept my promise to Telfer-Smollett and worked hard, I also used my wheels to good effect and London saw almost as much of me as Dover. Ann Todd’s career was booming and because of my friendship with her, I began to get a little stage-struck. She introduced me to a strikingly good-looking young actor who was even then electric on the stage. Since then, he has two major claims to fame—he is godfather to one of my children and has become the first in his profession to be made a Baron…Laurence Olivier. One day in the spring, I received a letter from Tommy. I had not seen him since my mother died. He suggested a Sunday luncheon at the Carlton Club and thinking that perhaps we were about to find some kind of rapprochement after three years of hostility, I went. I gave my name to the porter and was led through several gloomy rooms. My stepfather rose from a chair, ignored my outstretched hand and said, ‘The solicitors tell me that, so far, you have paid nothing towards the grave.’ I did not stay for luncheon and I never saw him again.

  Trubshawe decided to leave the Army and get married. Although I had been given plenty of warning of this impending, as it turned out, disaster, I was shattered by the news.

  ‘I’ll wait for the Levee and the Caledonian Ball, old man, but I’ve come to the end of the Tartan Trail.’

  The prospect of soldiering on without my friend was horrendous and my thoughts turned even more towards taking the plunge into the unknown civilian life.

  The Levee took place at St. James’s Palace in June. Officers of all arms holding the King’s Commission were supposed to present themselves to their Sovereign once or twice during their careers. Many people in the battalion were due for this ceremony and Telfer-Stftollett entered wholeheartedly into the arrangements. The biggest problem was where to find regimental full dress. Some of the older officers had their own, but the rest of us, with few exceptions, had no wish to go into the hole for one morning of peacock glory, so we hired from costumiers.

  About ten of us attended the Levee and everyone seemed to have everything on and everything right. The smell of mothballs made our eyes water but we were, I thought, quite an imposing sight as we strode down St. James’s Street in the June sunshine, shakos on our heads, McKenzie tartan plaids over our silver-buttoned scarlet doublets, claymores flashing and dirks at our sides. Sir Arthur Balfour was the Colonel of the Regiment and as we followed in his wake, for he was technically there to present us to the King, Trubshawe remarked that we looked like ‘a gaggle of Highland Postmen’.

  Inside St. James’s Palace was most impressive; two large ante-rooms were filled with several hundred officers from all branches of the three services. It was a blaze of colour—Highlanders, Hussars, Greenjackets, Gentlemen at Arms, Indian cavalry officers in turbans, Gurkhas and Maharajas.

  There was a suppressed bonhomie in the first ante-room and many old friends were recognised, some from Sandhurst days. The second ante-room into which we were later directed was quiet and one sensed a certain nervousness. In all it took about two hours to percolate through the two ante-rooms and into the Throne Room where we were to pay our respects to King George V. Finally, my turn came. I was ushered through the door and remembering my minute instructions from Colonel Balfour, I handed my calling card to the Gentleman-at-Arms. Ahead of me was a slowly moving single line of officers, inching forward towards the dais at the end of the long beautiful room. About twelve men were in front of me and as I, in turn, began to move forward, I had plenty of time to take in the scene.

  On the dais and standing at the back were about forty very impressive gentlemen—the, most senior in the Royal Household and Services. At the centre, on a gold throne, sat the King in Field Marshal’s uniform, and standing immediately behind him to right and left, his four sons—the Prince of Wales in the uniform of the Welsh Guards, the Duke of York in naval uniform, the Duke of Gloucester in his Hussar uniform and the Duke of Kent in the sky blue of the Royal Air Force.

  I found myself filled with great emotion. When I reached the end of the line, my calling card had miraculously arrived at the same instant and was being handed to a senior official who glanced at it and announced…’Mr. David Niven—The Highland Light Infantry’. I turned to the right, my shako under my arm, praying I would not trip over my claymore and marched the regulation number of steps that would bring me opposite the King, then a smart left turn and I was face to face with my monarch. I bowed. He acknowledged me with a slight inclination of the head. A smart right turn and I marched out into another ante-room. It had been an unexpectedly moving experience for me and for the others too. We gathered in silence till Sir Arthur Balfour joined us and told us that the Colonel-in-Chief of our Regiment, the elderly uncle of the King, the Duke of Connaught, wished to receive us in his apartments behind the Palace.

  During the short walk I was brought down to earth by Trubshawe who said, ‘I hope the poor old sod doesn’t get gassed by all this camphor.’ Standing in a line in his dining room, we were presented to the Duke. He seemed a very old man and his German accent was most pronounced.

  ‘It’s good to see the old uniform again,’ he intoned, peering at us over a white moustache and a huge beak of a nose.

  ‘Jesus!’ whispered Trubshawe, standing next to me. ‘Somebody’s got one of his old ones on.’

  The next night was the Caledonian Ball held at Grosvenor House, a most colourful spectacle awaited us. Scots from all over the world were present in full regalia and the piece de resistance was always the set reels. The huge ballroom was cleared and in the middle the Duke of Atholl’s private sixteensome took up position, then around it were placed the eightsomes of the six Highland Regiments, the Black Watch, ourselves, the Gordons, the Camerons, the Seaforths and Argylls.

  Trubshawe and I with, luckily, two very special friends, Keith Swettenham and Michael Bell, were the four subalterns selected by Telfer-Smollett to represent the Light In
fantry. The four girls we were to partner wore the sashes of their clans and had been carefully selected by the Ball Committee for their territorial connections with the Regiment and not, we noticed, with some alarm, for their good looks. However, we had just arrived from a riotous dinner in a private room at the Mayfair Hotel which Brian Franks had arranged, so we were not too unnerved when introduced to our horse—faced partners from far-away glens. Also, the dinner party was there to cheer us on, headed by Margie Macdougall, Celia Tower, David Kelburn, Anthony Pleydell-Bouverie and Brian Franks.

  The Pipe Major had been polishing up our dancing for days before the big night and we were quietly confident of holding up the good name of the regiment in front of hundreds of pairs of critical eyes.

  Now, in an eightsome reel, it doesn’t matter how well the individuals dance the steps if the whole eightsome fails to stay in its allotted position. The unknown girls were expert dancers and it was the dawning look of horror on their faces that alerted me to a very nasty situation…somehow our entire eightsome performing perhaps with too much verve and abandon, had started to creep slowly down the ballroom floor towards tfie Gordons. A crash was imminent. The ‘Gay’ Gordons turned rather nasty, and hissed oaths came our way. We recoiled and began travelling inexorably in the direction of the Camerons who tried to avoid us and got into a really horrible mix-up with the Seaforths. Having started the rot and cleared a large portion of the floor for our own use, our eightsome settled down beautifully and never moved again. The other eightsomes were left cannoning into each other and generally behaving like goods trains at Clapham junction often ricocheting off the Duke of Atholls’s sixteensome in the centre. Trubshawe observed the Argylls trying to ignore a couple from the Black Watch who were now dancing dazedly in their midst and summed up things—‘Bit of a fuck-up at the other end of the room, old man.’