‘Coffee, if you don’t mind, Uncle Charles.’
‘You are in danger of becoming a European, Harry … Englishmen drink tea.’
‘Not after lunch.’
‘I do.’
‘You belong to a different generation, Uncle. These stories, coming out of Germany … you think they are true?’
‘Yes … dear me, I am being unambiguous today. By the way I’m stocking up on Darjeeling. If there is a war we’ll be reusing tea leaves the way we reupholster chairs. Only in times of peace can tea be transported half way around the world.’
‘I’ve been told I’m going to a Spitfire squadron.’
‘I’m scared for you, Harry. In war men die. I don’t want to lose you. I want no man to do what I did, to see the things I saw. War is hell. The Great War killed too many of my friends. It left me feeling lonely. You are one of the few people who know about my nightmares. A grown man frightened of the dark. I jump when water gurgles in pipes.’
‘To your old regiment you are a hero. Clarkson-Ball is always asking after you.’
‘And still a major, after all these years.’
‘Believe it or not CB wants war, or so I’ve heard on the grapevine.’
‘His daughter, Pruney, tell you?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes. Her mother’s death has left her feeling pretty low … being a widower has hit CB hard. He thinks a war will take his mind off his bereavement. I have a sneaking suspicion he wants to be a hero. He’s always on about your VC … how your winning it was very good for the regiment.’
‘CB is a pompous twit. I once tried telling him a joke. Waste of time. Life in the trenches opened my eyes. Some of the men were much cleverer than me. “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen/And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” I’m surprised CB is still talking to me. He’s not pleased that I’m a member of the Labour Party. Behind my back he calls me a communist. At last year’s Hunt Ball I said to him, “You think I’m the Red under the Bed, don’t you? The squire on fire?” I’d had too many whiskies.’
‘CB does have a point. What about your class? You are not some common working man … like Mike.’
‘Did he upset you this morning?’
‘He kept calling me, “Young Harry”.’
‘That’s because he’s fond of you. I seem to remember that when he was teaching you to fish and shoot you thought he was God.’
‘I’m older now and I don’t like it … he’s a servant. He should call me “Sir”.’
‘He calls me “Charlie” but only when we are alone. He knows the rules.’
‘He made me carry my bag. He winked at Bert.’
‘Oh dear, he really has ruffled your feathers.’
‘Aunt Elizabeth thinks you are too friendly with him. He is not your equal. He is your servant. You employ him. You pay him to do what he does. Without your patronage he would be nothing. You should not let him use your Christian name. He should use your title. You are a knight of the realm. You own a country house and many acres. Aunt Elizabeth is the daughter of a duke.’
‘She is the third daughter of a third rate duke. Everything in England has its pecking order. Mike and I played together as boys. His father taught me all I know about fishing and stalking. His father was my father’s gamekeeper; now he is mine. We are from the same village. I live in the big house everyone calls The Hall, he lives in a cottage belonging to me. He has two bedrooms, I have twenty. He was my batman in Flanders. You learn a lot about a man – and yourself come to that – when you are under fire. We played together as children, we fought together as men.’
‘No matter what you say, Uncle, you know and I know, he is not one of us.’
‘Not one of us … not human, you mean? Neanderthal perhaps? Should he show me deference with a Hitler salute? Or, what about making him swear an oath of allegiance to me … the way every German soldier does to Hitler? “I swear by God this sacred oath that I will render unconditional obedience to Sir Charles, the Fuhrer of The Hall and will be ready as a brave gamekeeper to risk my life at any time for this oath.” He’d fall about laughing and so would I. Can you imagine the British people addressing Mr Chamberlain as “My leader”? Poor Neville wouldn’t know where to look … and all our Members of Parliament snapping up their arms at him like railway signals … terrible, not at all our way of doing things. What poor Neville doesn’t understand is that Hitler is not a gentleman.’
‘Mike is not a gentleman.’
‘I suspect that judgement is based on the fact that my gamekeeper did not go to Eton and Balliol. If only everyone who went to those wonderful institutions was a gentleman, what a wonderful place our England would be. Mike is a gentleman. I will tell you why. He keeps his word. He said he would have you here for lunch and he did. When a chap’s in trouble he puts his shoulder to the wheel. In this coming war England will need men like Mike. I prophesy that you may well end up under the command of a man whose father is a gamekeeper. If you do you will have a better than average chance of coming through. Such a man will have achieved his position on merit, not because he was born like you and me with a silver spoon in his mouth. He will know what he is doing.’
‘There is already talk of sergeant pilots. The chaps I know don’t want to mix with them. We certainly have no intention of messing with them. They’ll probably eat with their fingers.’
‘That is a Nineteen-Twenty attitude … whether we like it or not the Great War shook our class system to its foundations. A second war will almost certainly finish off what the first started. In the coming conflict our dear England will have to put into a cockpit every man who has the brains to fly … and courage. The country will not have a choice. Any fool can be an infantryman. Can you imagine CB flying a Spitfire? Do try to be more like your mother’s side of the family. Americans are so much more relaxed about class.’
‘Uncle Charles, I do believe Aunt Elizabeth is right … you’ve gone native. You need to get out of Northumberland more.’
‘And you are too much under her influence … and your father’s. I know my dear wife means well but she is living in the past. Your father should set you a better example. He knows the Great War changed everything. Mark my words, Hitler is not a gentleman. What the man with the funny moustache says does not square with what he does. It’s what people do, my boy, that counts, not what they promise. He’s torn up the Versailles Treaty.’
‘Mr Greenwood, the deputy leader of your Labour Party, says Hitler is sincere.’
‘It is not “my Labour Party”.’
‘Greenwood says Hitler is holding out an olive branch, that he is sincere in wanting peace.’
‘The only branch Hitler is holding out, he’s taken from a holly bush. More tea? It’s Darjeeling.’
‘I know, Uncle, you’ve told me. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m drinking coffee.’
5
Marigold paused for breath under the Tyne Bridge. Its huge girders increased her sense of insecurity; made her feel she was having one of those dreams where everything is bigger than oneself.
The Pied Piper was giving chase; such was his urgency to get to her he was knocking over big men like skittles. Why didn’t those guys do something? Were Geordies soft? If he’d spun a guy round like that in Chicago the Irish ape would now be lying flat on his back in a pool of his own blood. How she wished she were armed. One shot, that’s all she would need. Any injury she’d done him had not slowed him down.
She ran close to the quay’s edge. One slip and she’d be in the stinking water. She didn’t care. She had nothing to lose. She was fleeing for her life. She hurdled mooring rings, coils of rope, burst open crates of oranges; nothing was going to stop her escaping. She heard wolf whistles, was subliminally aware that people were looking at her.
She ran up steps and found herself on a bridge. For some reason its traffic wasn’t moving. The pede
strians on its sidewalks were standing still. The Brits were weird. She’d heard about their love affair with queuing but this was ridiculous. A ship in the middle of the river blew three long blasts on its hooter. Like the cars and pedestrians it too seemed in limbo. Why didn’t the cars find an alternative route? The pedestrians swim? By American standards the river was barely wide enough to be a named tributary of the Mississippi. And these people were in charge of an Empire!
In between breathing in gulps of air, in an attempt to get her breath back, she watched the taxi driven by Doyle join the line of cars waiting to cross the bridge. Looking over the bridge’s parapet she saw the Pied Piper charging down the quayside like an angry orang-utan.
At the front of the traffic jam she spotted a man leaning against a red and white striped pole suspended at waist height across the road. She assumed him to be somehow responsible for bringing everything to a standstill and now to be in charge of the ensuing stasis. She ran towards him.
‘Excuse me?’
The man in charge of the barrier knew he was attractive to women. It was one of those things, wasn’t it? Some blokes had it, some didn’t. It was like keeping your own teeth. Some of his mates had dentures, he didn’t. To show he knew he was talking to a lady, he removed his cap.
‘What can I dee for yuh, pet?’
‘Why are the cars not moving? Why can’t I cross? You see, it’s important that I cross now.’
The expression on his face changed to one she’d seen many times on the faces of her brothers when she’d not known something they thought everyone but an idiot must know … like the probability of getting a full house in poker was six-hundred and ninety-three to one. By way of explanation she added, ‘I’m American.’
He found it ‘thrilling’ that he was talking to a native of the country that made ‘cowboy pictures’. Here was someone from the land of milk and honey. He’d never met an American before. And she was good looking. What a pair of legs. She looked posh. He sniffed expensive perfume. She might have met Walt Disney, shaken John Wayne’s hand … and he knew something she didn’t … well, well, well.
‘It’s a swing bridge, yuh see,’ he explained, ‘so that big fella doon there (pointing at the ship which had hooted three times) can gan up to the staithes at Dunston. If I didn’t put the barrier doon the cars would fall in the watta … and if I didn’t shut the gates folk would fall in the watta … and we wouldn’t want that, would we? It’ll be moving soon. It’s like my missus, it takes a while to get gannin.’
‘You have an important job.’
‘Aye, I suppose I do … it’s the biggest swing bridge in the world, yuh nar. Lord Armstrong, a local lad made good, built it … hydraulics do the work … eighteen-seventy-six and still going strong, opens and shuts like … aye, well, never mind that.’
He’d bet a monkey the man she kept looking at over her shoulder was a boyfriend. He’d never had a ‘domestic’ on the bridge … first time for everything though, wasn’t there?
‘It’s moving,’ he told her.
‘Where?’
‘Come on the road, if you want, you’ll see better from there.’
‘Can I?’
‘Climb over the girder, howay, give’s your hand.’
‘Would that not be dangerous?’
‘Not when you are with me.’
If saving her life meant showing this lecherous artisan the colour of her pantyhose, then, he had a deal. At the ‘flash’ he grinned like a waiter receiving a large tip.
Wonder of wonders the road was indeed moving. It reminded her of the earthquake she’d once experienced in Kathmandu, six on the Richter scale, only now there was no shaking; everything being smooth and controlled. Also the kittiwakes were still screaming. In the real thing the birds had gone quiet.
‘The miracle of the moving road,’ said her ad hoc guide, puffing out his chest. She did her best to look impressed. Nothing touchier than local pride. She knew from bitter experience that you never told a mother her baby was ugly. She needed this oaf’s protection. With him around the Pied Piper wouldn’t dare try anything.
The fellow was tall and wiry, an oil stained version of Gary Cooper. To let him know she was mightily impressed by the ‘miracle of the moving road’ she shot him a ‘come-on’ smile. The grin he shot back showed brown teeth.
He could tell she liked him. He knew a lot about women. Emboldened by his assessment of the way their relationship was developing he winked, nodded his head in the direction of the Pied Piper, all to let her know he knew there was something going on between them.
The real Pied Piper had attracted children and rats – well, she was neither. She was an American. Americans were a ‘can-do’ people. When a wheel fell off a wagon they put it back on.
A yard from where she was standing, on the other side of the red and white pole, she watched the moving bridge reveal more and more of the River Tyne’s stinking, black water. Every second she dithered there was less road for her to jump onto.
‘Look out!’ she said, pointing at an imaginary ‘something’ behind the Geordie’s back.
As soon as he turned to look, she ducked under the red and white pole and walked onto the moving part of the road as easily as if stepping onto an escalator at Macy’s.
‘Hoy! You can’t do that.’
For the moment she was safe.
In four hours’ time she was due to give a lecture to the great and good of Durham University on ‘Anglo-American Relations 1861-1865’. Present circumstances made this as likely as the United States begging to be made part of the British Empire.
From too much running in the wrong type of shoes her feet hurt. Her Boston chiropodist would be appalled. She watched with awe the steamer – for which the bridge had swung – sail through the opened channel. In ballast it towered as high above her as a New York skyscraper, or gave that impression. Its proximity made it seem to be moving faster than it was.
All too soon the apparent movement of the castle, a fixed point, made her aware the bridge was closing. In minutes it would be open to traffic. To put as much distance as possible between herself and her pursuers she walked to its opposite side.
The man in charge on the Gateshead side shook his head. He’d had his eye on her for quite a while. This happened about twice a year. The daft things folk did.
‘Where’ve you come from then, bonnie lass? You’re not a mermaid, are yuh?’
‘I’m an American.’
A head poking out of a car shouted, ‘Lift the bloody barrier, will you. I don’t want to be here when the war starts.’
This side of the river was less busy, its narrow lanes offering plenty of cover to slit her throat. The thought of ending up in a gutter next to a used condom made her shudder. Stairs zigzagging up a grassy escarpment caught her eye. They led to the underbelly of another bridge. Its bottom span supported a road, its top a railway. She took them two at a time.
Half way up she paused for breath. The smoky air made her cough. Looking down onto the road below, she saw the Pied Piper jump out of the taxi driven by Doyle.
She’d learnt the skill of pitching a baseball from her brothers. They’d taught her every trick they knew. At the time she’d thought it a chore, something she had to do to stop them pulling her pigtails. Now she began to think it the most useful skill she’d ever mastered, better than her perfect German or esoteric knowledge of the battles of the American Civil War.
Looking around she saw lots of ammunition for what she had in mind. On a landing, where the steps changed direction, she began collecting pieces of broken brick as close as possible in weight and shape to a baseball. The Pied Piper had made her bite her tongue; she was going to make him bite the dirt. Her skewering of his privates, it would seem, had done little damage. How far would he be able to run if she took his head off? Decapitated chickens managed no more than a couple of yards.
What in the name of Jesus Christ Our Saviour was she doing? He’d never seen an American baseball match, had no idea of the stance a pitcher adopts prior to delivery. He did not understand the theatrical arm swinging, the important part played by the leading leg and the way the body twists, all in one smooth action, before letting the ball, in this case a lump of brick, fly.
The improvised baseball hit him between his eyes.
It was with a sense of relief and righteous justification that – as if a great weight had been taken off her shoulders – she watched him fall onto his knees, as if in prayer.
Ever so slowly her breathing began to return to normal. She was safe. At the top of the stairs she walked through a dripping tunnel.
In its walls were niches, bolt holes for pedestrians when vehicles passed. It was from one of these that Doyle watched her pass. He crossed himself for his cause was a holy one. He raised the Luger, a present from his German friends, a much better weapon than the Webley carried by the late Byker-Harrison.
6
‘Let’s take a stroll, Harry, but not too far, Freddy’s told me to stay close to the phone.’
‘Freddy? Lord Frederick?’
‘The very same.’
‘But he’s in charge of MI5.’
‘I know.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m your Uncle Charles, His Majesty’s eyes and ears in the North. Now, about that letter you gave me from your American aunt, the one who bought you the Puss Moth. I’ve given it the once over. The information she’s given me about the American guests I’m expecting is most helpful. Does this aunt talk a lot?’
‘Rather.’
Spies on Bikes Page 5
