‘Certainly not … what I do want you to do is to sit down with a glass of whisky and ask yourself a few questions.’
‘Such as?’
‘Your age.’
‘I was out on Ginger this morning, rode ten miles. I’m as fit as a man half my age. Which brings me to the other reason I’m ringing. On my ride I found a Newcastle taxi. Its windows were shot out. I’ve informed the police. It had been driven off the road into bushes.’
‘Where was it?’ Sir Charles listened. ‘That close to The Hall? If its driver was the man Marigold says is called Doyle, he’d have a long walk to find a safe haven.’
‘You told me the Irishman came over on the same boat as the Hitler Youth, that they know each other. What safer haven than the Nazis’ campsite?’
‘CB, I do believe you have hit the nail on its head.’
‘Charles, you will put in a word for me?’
4
‘He won’t take no for an answer, sir,’ said Bert. ‘He wants to see the Fuhrer and I for one don’t think he’ll be happy till he does.’
‘And I’m the Fuhrer?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes, sir.’
‘Discombobulated, is he?’
‘He’s been at the magic mushrooms, sir, no doubt about that; keeps pointing at the sun saying, “the moon is hot, ja?” When I left him in the hall, sir, he was looking for Jews behind the tapestries.’
‘Fungal phantasies?’
‘Put it this way, sir, if the “fungal phantasies” were measles he’d have more spots than the leopard.’
‘Aggressive?’
‘More like the weather we’ve been having in the last few days, sir. One minute wet and windy then all sunshine and blue sky. One minute he’s affable and giggly, the next he’s goose stepping through the red-hot pokers … which is where Phyllis spotted him and I was summoned to take control. Phyllis and I may not always see eye to eye, sir but she knows where to turn when she needs help. The Nazi has fair ruined the red-hot pokers.’
‘They’ll pop up again. They did after the storm.’
‘The storm bent them, sir. The Nazi has broken them.’
‘Nothing is irreparable, Bert. It’s just that some repairs take longer than others. If the red-hot pokers are broken, we’ll have to be patient and wait for ‘em to pop up again next year. Hitler has stuffed this young man’s head full of silly notions. When we marched off to war in 1914 … rather too full of ourselves I seem to remember, we had no idea what war was like … the damage a shell can do to a man …’
‘Don’t think about it, sir.’
‘I’m forever telling myself to do just that but sometimes … ‘
‘I know, sir.’
‘If he’s as under the influence as you say he is, I wonder how susceptible he is to suggestion. Any more dead?’
‘Still two, sir; lots very sick and some of those in the hospital very close to getting harps.’
On a piece of paper Bert watched Sir Charles draw the ‘mystery’ masts. The people who worked there kept their mouths shut. They had their own NAAFI and didn’t drink in the local pubs. Even his sister had not found out their purpose. All she knew was that they had their own telephone line and had no need to use her exchange, which she thought a shame. In the village men talked about them as much as they talked about football. According to one theory they were look-out towers. If it came to war some poor bugger would have to sit up there with a pair of binoculars and a cup of tea. Those who knew the force of the prevalent north-east wind said that the tea would be cold in thirty seconds.
‘What do you think, Bert?’
Bert looked at the sketch. He did not care for his employer’s artistic efforts – too often they did not look like the things they were supposed to look like. They were dark and gloomy. Lady Elizabeth was of the same opinion. She always spoke her mind. You knew where you stood with Lady Elizabeth … no knives in the back from her ladyship. She’d once been less than complimentary about one of her husband’s ‘efforts’. He’d never forgotten Sir Charles’ look of dejection. Artists, Bert had concluded, were touchy about criticism.
‘Come on, Bert, what do you think?’
‘You want my opinion, sir?’
‘I want you to tell me if you recognise what I’ve drawn.’
‘The masts on top of the hill, sir.’
‘Good man … now, watch this.’ Sir Charles sketched zig-zag flashes of lightning round the masts he’d drawn. ‘That will make them look like transmitters, don’t you think?’ In capital letters at the top of the paper he wrote, BBC World Service. ‘What do you think they might be transmitting, Bert?’
‘Mrs Dale’s Diary, sir.’
‘That’s what we want the Nazi under the influence to think. What’s his name?’
‘Fritz, sir.’
‘When you bring him in, I’ll be watching to see if my drawing catches his eye. You know what they say, Bert, a eunuch can walk down a street full of pretty girls and yawn whereas your heterosexual male, well, think back to when we were both twenty.’
‘The Hitler Youth are interested in the masts, sir? The mystery masts the folk in the village call them. Nobody knows what they are for.’
‘They are indeed a mystery, Bert, but ours not to reason why, what? Wheel the fanatic in, Bert.’
5
‘Fritz of the Hitler Youth, sir.’
‘Welcome to The Hall,’ said Sir Charles.
The young man was tall, fair haired and blue eyed. A ten out of ten Aryan. A much better example of the so-called master-race than Goebbels.
In an attempt to understand why he was plucking the air in front of him like a man trying to catch a fly, Sir Charles said, ‘Have you caught it?’
‘Ja.’
‘What is it?’
‘An edelweiss.’
‘Does it smell nice?’
‘Heil Hitler!’
‘Very pleased to meet you. May I draw your attention to my collection of chamber pots? The provenance of each one you will find written on billy-do’s tied to their handles. One example,’ Sir Charles read out loud, ‘Circa 48BC Excavated Pharsulus. Great Caesar might have pissed in this pot – no evidence, but I like to think he did.’
The proximity of these utilities to the collected works of Shakespeare, Fielding and Smollett amused Sir Charles. The works of Milton and the Lives of the Saints he kept in a bookcase in his wife’s private drawing room.
‘This one might interest you. It’s Meisen, a real work of art, hand painted, no transfers. We call them Jerries.’
‘Why do you not call them Tommies?’
‘Because we don’t.’
‘Heil Hitler!’
‘Absolutely.’
The German opened a violin case.
‘Do you play?’
‘I bang out the odd tune, you know, like Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Ah, the great German detective.’
‘Do you play?’
‘I have the perfect pitch.’
There was something about the way Fritz tuned up, the way he held the fiddle under his chin, how he closed his eyes before bringing down the bow that made Sir Charles anticipate a virtuoso performance. He was not disappointed.
‘The Blue Danube,’ said Sir Charles. ‘Fritz, you have made me feel twenty years younger. You have made me forget that your country has invaded Poland. Let me show you this.’ He picked up a chamber pot, drew the young man’s attention to the floral motif on its sides. ‘You know what they are?’
‘Mushrooms.’
‘Shamrock, my boy, shamrock. Irish shamrock. What do you know about the Irish, Fritz? Chat to them on the Nord, did you?’
‘If I tell you they will shoot me.’
‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll shoot you.’
‘I want only to play th
e fiddle. The man who taught me to play was a Jew. He was a good man. What have the Nazis done to him? I have heard rumours.’
‘Sit down, my boy.’
‘I play the fiddle. When I play I forget.’
‘If you tell me and Bert about the Irish, we’ll let you fiddle all the day long. Isn’t that right, Bert?’
‘Sah!’
‘I play the fiddle.’
‘No, you will not. It’s my fiddle and I want it back. You’ve taken the Sudetenland, Austria and now Poland, but you are not taking my fiddle.’
‘I play the fiddle.’
‘First, you spill the beans.’
‘I play the fiddle.’
‘No, you will not.’
Fritz brought his face close to Sir Charles’ and said, ‘I vill.’
Sir Charles poked him in the eye.
‘I vill! I vill!’ he shouted.
Memories of guests at The Hall’s New Year’s Eve parties using chamber pots as hats gave Bert the idea.
‘Here’s a bowler hat for you, bonny lad,’ said Bert.
To make the chamber fit Bert used force.
‘A piss pot for an arsehole, sir.’
‘I can’t see,’ said Fritz.
‘A jerry on a Jerry,’ said Sir Charles. ‘Well done, Bert.’
6
Bert phoned for an ambulance.
‘Not another one,’ said the ambulance driver.
‘The poorly Germans are keeping you busy?’ said Sir Charles.
‘I was meaning, sir, not another one with a pisspot stuck on his head. Last week it was Mrs Hall’s son.’
‘It is a common occurrence?’
‘More common this time of year, don’t ask me why. Now then, young man.’
‘Me, Fritz. Fritz play the fiddle,’ said Fritz.
‘Your voice not half echoes, Fritz, sounds as if you’re talking through a loud hailer.’
‘I want fiddle.’
‘If we don’t get you to hospital and get that “gusunder” off your head you won’t be able to see where you’re piddling and then we’ll all be paddling, won’t we?’
‘He’s under the influence,’ said Sir Charles.
‘In that case there’s nothing for it but Bertha.’
‘I want fiddle.’
7
With the sense of a job well done, Sir Charles and Bert watched the ambulance set off down The Hall’s drive.
‘I wonder what the medic gave him,’ said Sir Charles.
‘I don’t know, sir, but the needle looked big.’
‘And to call it Bertha. Never liked needles myself. I’ve seen big men faint at the sight of one. It did the trick though, it got Fritz into the blood wagon. I do hope they won’t have to break the chamber pot to get it off his head. It’s not one of my more valuable collectables but, still, in many ways it’s a niche item. I wonder if Crozier has done a chamberpotectomy before.’
‘As we both know, sir, Mr Crozier has a long history of medical experience. When he removed half of my left testicle …’
‘When you were hit by a cricket ball bowled by the Reverend Fraser?’
‘Yes, sir, when Mr Crozier removed half of my, as he put it, starboard propeller and told me I’d still be able to do thirty knots, his stories of the other lives he’s lived scared me. If the gas hadn’t knocked me out quick as it did I’d have been off that operating table quicker than a slice of tripe. And, I do wonder, sir, if he was ever in the navy. It’s my port testicle he had a go at. I did try to correct him but he’d none of it … insisted on calling it my starboard propeller.’
‘Be grateful he was not amputating one of your legs.’
‘If he was in charge of a ship, sir, he’d end up on rocks … getting his port and starboard muddled. What will happen to Fritz, sir?’
‘Lord Frederick’s men will find out what game he’s playing.’
‘The rack, sir? Thumb screw? Or one of them coffins with nails in its lid?’
‘Au contraire, Bert … five star treatment in a nice room with his other sick pals. It’s a funny old room because everything the Nazis say, we’ll be able to hear. I’ll tell you about it later. Now that war looks all but certain, I think it time your name was put on the list of people who need to know. I spy with my little eye, Bashful approaching at speed; watch out!’
To avoid been knocked down the two men retreated up steps.
8
Lady Elizabeth’s driving made Phyllis, sitting beside her ladyship in Bashful’s front passenger seat, think the dangers of the kitchen – things like spitting fat and hot pan handles – to be as harmless as fairy cakes. She prepared for the anticipated abrupt stop by placing the basket she was holding between her bosom and Bashful’s dashboard.
Both women were curious about the ambulance they’d seen leaving The Hall.
‘Who is poorly, Charles? Has there been an accident?’
‘One of the Hitler Youth has a chamber pot stuck on his head.’
‘What!’
‘One of the Hitler Youth has a chamber pot stuck on his head.’
‘I heard the first time. How?’
Sir Charles gave an abridged explanation. He did not mention George and Jack’s probable involvement, a time and place for everything, what?
‘And, by the way, have you heard … Germany’s invaded Poland?’
‘The world is going mad. Phyllis, tell Sir Charles what you saw in the hospital.’
‘Lord Frederick, sir, has lost his marbles.’
‘Freddy was singing – Charles, you’ll never believe this – he was singing “Forty Years On”.’
‘What?’
‘He was singing, Charles, the Harrow song.’
‘But he went to Eton.’
‘When he was singing it, sir, he winked at me,’ said Phyllis, ‘that is, when he thought no one was looking.’
‘That knock on the head has certainly affected him. Did you see Mr Crozier, Phyllis?’
‘The doctor? Yes, sir. He gave Lord Frederick tablets but his Lordship only pretended to take them. When Mr Crozier wasn’t looking his Lordship gave them to me. I have them here.’ She produced a handkerchief. ‘They’re a bit soggy because they’ve been in his Lordship’s mouth.’
‘And when I was waiting outside in Bashful, Charles, I saw an ambulance bring in poorly Hitler Youth. When I made enquiries I was told they were victims of mushroom poisoning. Whatever made them eat poisonous mushrooms? Don’t they know anything?’
‘Mr Crozier, sir,’ said Phyllis, ‘didn’t like it when the Hitler Youth were taken to the new ward. He said he didn’t like army doctors taking over his hospital.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t but we are on the brink of war. When that happens those young Germans will be our enemy.’
‘Mr Crozier, sir, kept asking me questions about the new ward.’
‘Curious about it, was he?’
‘Like a cat at a mousehole, sir. When I said to him, “Why do you think a cook should know something about your hospital that you don’t know?” he said, “I thought you might have heard rumours at The Hall”. I told him if I had I wouldn’t tell him, but in any case, I hadn’t.’
‘Sir.’
‘Yes, Bert?’
‘A policeman on a bicycle is approaching at a wobble, sir.’
‘Sergeant Belt, sir, Kielder Police Station, temporally on special duties.’
‘Bert, please show the sergeant into the study.’
‘Very wise, sir,’ said Sergeant Belt, ‘a public place is not for the likes of what I have to tell you.’
9
‘Do have a seat, Sergeant.’
‘I’d rather stand, sir, if you don’t mind. Since my secondment to the post office I’ve been horizontal too much.’
‘You need a cha
nge?’
‘I need a rest, sir.’
‘What about a drink? Tea or something stronger?’ Sir Charles took the hint. ‘Bert, a whisky for the Sergeant.’
‘That’s very kind, sir. Emily’s a lovely woman but she takes a lot out of a man.’
‘I must caution you, Sergeant.’
‘Caution? I’m the one what does that, sir.’
‘I didn’t mean “caution” in the legal sense. Before you proceed with further revelations concerning Emily, I think it best you know that Bert here is her brother.’
‘Your balls aching, Sergeant?’ said Bert. ‘I’ve given you a treble. My sister’s a passionate woman. I love my sister but she’s a terror for the men. It’s my view “passion” killed her first husband, the Post Master. I well remember what he told me when I was in the post office buying one of those tubes of sherbet with a liquorice straw. I know they are for children, sir but I like them.’
‘What did he tell you?’ said Sergeant Belt.
‘I remember his very words: “Bert, she’s too much for me”. Do you understand what I’m saying, Sergeant?’
‘I do. I do. And I’ll tell you this, riding a bicycle doesn’t help.’
‘You should have phoned,’ said Sir Charles.
‘I would have, sir, but it was for reasons of security that I wanted to tell you face to face what the Gaelic speaker said. And, if I’m honest, I wanted time away from Emily. Even in the police force you get a day off.’
‘Are you sure you won’t sit?’
‘I think I will, sir, if you don’t mind. I’m not standing for Parliament so I don’t have to pretend I’ve had a change of mind. A soft seat, if you have one.’
‘Another whisky?’
‘I shouldn’t, sir.’
‘But you will?’
‘Think of it as ointment,’ said Bert. ‘May I?’
‘The Garlic speaker, sir … ‘
‘The Gaelic speaker,’ said Sir Charles.
‘That’s what I said, sir, the Gaelic speaker.’
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