Once Again Assembled Here

by Sean O'Brien

  At the gate of Blake’s Sergeant Risman emerged from the Porter’s Lodge, where he and his invisible wife lived. We fell into step. He was wearing a steward’s armband of his own immaculate devising.

  ‘I’m surprised they haven’t sacked you after the other evening, Sergeant.’

  ‘I was acting on instructions, Mr Maxwell. I saved the daft little bugger’s arse, and I expect the Major put in a good word for an old soldier like me. Bad business about the lad, though. Suspended? Stupid little bastard, but at least he’s ready to get stuck in. Will they have him back?’

  ‘Not if Rackham gets his way.’

  Risman sniffed. ‘I see. But you’re still with us, then, I take it, Mr Maxwell?’

  ‘More or less. For the moment.’

  ‘Then it’s not finished, is it, this business?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sergeant.’

  ‘Steady. Say not the struggle naught availeth, sir. That’s Kipling, that.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. But thank you. Is the Memorial Hall set up for the voting?’

  ‘All done last night. I’m just going for another look round. Mind how you go. It’s really not over yet. I can smell it.’

  The plan was that the boys could vote at break or lunchtime, with the results to be declared by the end of school. During morning registration my form exuded an air of studied indifference combined with fevered watchfulness. Everyone would know about Feldberg by now. Someone had chalked odds on the board. The BPP was at evens along with the Conservatives. Someone else had added Feldberg at 1000/1 plus a swastika. I rubbed it out.

  ‘Sir?’ said Arnesen.

  ‘What is it? You’re on very thin ice.’

  ‘Not like Feldberg, though.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ I said, more confidently than I felt.

  ‘My father says the election should be cancelled.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Why does he say that?’

  ‘Because of the situation. You know.’ The others looked on intently.

  ‘Which election are we talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘This one, here, I mean, not the other one outside.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. Anyway, Arnesen, democracy has to be seen to take place.’

  ‘I suppose so, sir. That’s what people say. But actually, why?’

  ‘Because otherwise we would start behaving like wild animals and end up eating each other.’

  The bell rang.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind eating Mrs Rowan,’ he said, sotto voce, but I pretended not to hear.

  ‘Remember to vote,’ I said, as the group dispersed.

  At break I went over to the Memorial Hall to observe the turnout and conduct of the proceedings. I suspected this election would be more popular than the real thing. Boys were already crowding into the covered entrance that led from the field, the quad and the Main Hall, and once through the double doors they were being directed to two voting booths built, with characteristic noises of ill-done-to complaint, by Renwick.

  Inside, Tim Connolly was overseeing events in his anxious, kindly way. The candidates stood about with their rosettes among groups of their supporters. The press had not, of course, been invited. The election was in that sense not really taking place.

  To my discomfort, Maggie and Rackham were also present. They seemed as normal as they ever seemed, though Maggie was very pale. They did not acknowledge me or speak to each other, though they stood side by side.

  Cold, pale light fell on the proceedings through the high windows, faintly tinted by undistinguished religious scenes in stained glass. The Memorial Hall had stood only since 1920, in honour of old boys killed in the First World War, but it had been purpose-built to look Victorian and thus to claim a yet older heritage, as if somehow (and this is the English device) it had always necessarily and rightly been there. A good place to hold a mock election, I thought, sourly. The flats for Ruddigore were finished and in place with their Gothic turrets and shadowy gateways, ready for the cancelled production. The piano had been moved back on to the stage.

  ‘It seems to be going well,’ I said to Connolly. He looked as if he expected disaster at any moment.

  ‘So far, so good,’ he said, without conviction. ‘As long as no one tries to pull some stunt. Those BPP lads of yours, for example.’

  ‘They’re not my lads, thank you very much, Mr Connolly. And I think justice would be summary if anything were to happen.’

  Connolly looked startled at this, perhaps imagining drumhead courts martial and hangings, the thieving Bardolph dancing on the air over the field of slaughter. At that moment, as a group of smirking BPP supporters filed past I could see the appeal of such procedures.

  Major Brand appeared, accompanied by Sergeant Risman, and stood giving off his (I now felt) endearing air of myopic goodwill.

  ‘So where’s Gammon?’ I asked.

  ‘Called away, apparently,’ Connolly replied. ‘Probably just as well. The other day he looked as if he was going to have a stroke. So. Let’s just try to get through the day unscathed, shall we?’

  ‘Let’s keep it moving there, chaps,’ said the Major to the queuing boys. ‘Make your mark and don’t hang about. Not long to the bell.’

  Arnesen was in the queue. ‘Not very democratic, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t want to overdo it, do we, Private Arnesen?’ said the Major. Arnesen smiled.

  I am not sure who was the first to notice when the piano burst into flames. Certainly there was a pause while everyone looked at this unexpected development. Then Risman was shouting, ‘Fire! Evacuate the building now!’ He hit the alarm by the door. The bell began to sound, and the boys began, at first slightly unwillingly, to exit the hall. Connolly had got hold of a fire extinguisher and was trying to make it work. Risman seized it from him and mounted the stage.

  I seemed unable to move. I wondered if somehow I had known that this would happen. I watched Risman aiming foam at the piano, while the flames ran swiftly up the blackout curtains over the stage and began at appalling speed to scurry for the wings and the ceiling. Now there was thickening smoke. Rackham stared at the blaze critically, as though to satisfy himself that it met the requirements of the occasion.

  ‘I said OUT!’ shouted Risman. ‘All of you. Mrs Rowan, Mr Rackham and the rest – get going.’ Connolly passed Risman a second extinguisher but it was too late. The fire had spread hungrily and ignited the painted flats. I took Maggie by the arm. She looked as if she barely recognized me.

  ‘Come on, old girl!’ said Rackham. ‘Time we were gone.’ He pulled her away from me. I turned back. Now I could hardly see.

  ‘Leave it, Sergeant!’ I yelled from the door.

  ‘I’ll be right behind you. Now fook off out it and pardon my French. Is there anyone backstage?’ he yelled. ‘If anyone’s in there, get yourself out now. The place is going up!’ For a moment I saw Risman as he lingered on the stage and gestured fiercely at me to go.

  When I got into the entranceway smoke was running along the ceiling. It became difficult to breathe. I heard panes of glass bursting nearby.

  Outside, the crowd of voters had spilled on to the field, swelled by the rest of the boys still milling about at the end of break, while masters struggled to get them into form groups in the correct fire-assembly positions along the Spion Kop try-line. Rackham and Maggie were nowhere to be seen. Renwick, in his brown carpenter’s overall, stood hands on hips on the parterre outside the Headmaster’s office, staring and purple-faced as smoke appeared through the roof of the Memorial Hall.

  ‘So one of your little conchie communist bastards has set fire to my piano,’ he said. ‘I wonder which one? I hope you’re pleased with yourself, Maxwell. Resign, man. Do it today. And why not shoot yourself while you’re at it? I said you’d be nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Renwick, no one who played your damned piano thought it was any good,’ I said. ‘Like playing a piece of two-by-four, according to Feldberg.’

  ‘Feldberg? What do you expect from
his sort?’ Renwick wandered away, still chuntering.

  Sirens approached, and two fire engines appeared on the field to ragged cheers from the watching boys.

  ‘Maxwell,’ said Gammon, materializing out of the air at my side, ‘what have you done now?’

  ‘Me, Headmaster? Nothing. But someone seems to have set fire to the Reichstag. Risman’s still in there.’

  ‘Then why have you left him behind?’

  ‘That’s not what happened.’

  Gammon looked as if he was about to start stamping his feet.

  Firemen were moving the watching crowds to a safer distance. Water began to play over the smoking roof of the hall, and mechanical ladders were extended.

  ‘Well, is everybody else safely out of the building?’ Gammon asked.

  ‘We should know in a minute,’ I said. ‘As I was about to say, Sergeant Risman stayed behind to check.’

  ‘Of course he did. Of course he did. That’s what Risman would do.’ Gammon was beginning to jabber. I realized that he was on the brink of hysteria. Major Brand approached.

  ‘As far as we know, everyone’s out,’ he said. ‘Risman did a check in there, thank God. Luckily it seems that no one was having a crafty Woodbine backstage. So anyone missing from the count had been marked absent at morning registration.’

  ‘Thank the Lord for that.’

  Now Risman appeared from the smoking doorway with the two cardboard ballot boxes under his arms. He came and placed them at my feet.

  ‘You’ll be wanting these,’ he said, and bent over to cough.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Risman,’ said Gammon. ‘But clearly the election must be cancelled.’

  ‘Right you are, Mr Gammon. If you say so.’

  ‘We could re-ballot,’ I said, hoping he would reject the idea.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. There are other priorities,’ hissed Gammon.

  ‘It gives a bad impression if we abandon the election,’ I said.

  ‘And a worse one if the place burns down!’ Gammon was shouting now.

  ‘Headmaster,’ said the Major, ‘so do we send the chaps home? We can’t have them just hanging about.’ To close the school would feel like treason for Gammon. But he nodded, and the Major went off to give the instruction. Low, uncertain cheers followed from the boys.

  ‘This is unprecedented,’ said Gammon. Now he seemed distracted.

  ‘I would think so,’ I said.

  ‘Apart from the stray bomb that hit the fives courts during the Blitz, but that doesn’t really count.’

  ‘One for the history books,’ I offered.

  Gammon seemed to wake up at this. ‘The police will have to be called, again.’

  ‘I’m sure Inspector Smales will clear things up to your satisfaction.’

  ‘Get out of my sight,’ said Gammon. ‘As far as I’m concerned, Maxwell, all this leads to your door.’

  I picked up the boxes of ballot papers. ‘It certainly looks that way.’

  Gammon may have wanted me out of his sight, but when he was finally allowed back into the building he summoned the usual members of staff for a post-mortem concerning events in the Memorial Hall.

  ‘I always thought that it was unwise to hold the mock election. But Captain Carson insisted,’ said Gammon. I forbore to point out that Carson was dead. ‘I’ve been on to the newspaper. They’ve agreed to be restrained in their coverage. Fortunately, the damage is not irreparable.’

  ‘Renwick is very upset about the piano,’ said Connolly.

  ‘Perhaps now is his chance to build one worth playing,’ said Rackham. Connolly looked at him in horror. I found myself struggling not to laugh.

  ‘Is there something amusing you, Maxwell?’ asked Gammon. His eyes seemed to bulge unhealthily, as if they might explode from his face. Again I had to suppress my laughter.

  ‘Your Reds did us all a favour,’ said Rackham.

  ‘My Reds,’ I said. ‘Where are they? Who are they?’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? They didn’t put up a candidate, and they decided to wreck the election. Revolutionary tactics.’

  ‘Why go to the trouble?’ I asked. ‘It’s not a real election.’

  ‘It’s a real building that’s just been burnt down,’ said Rackham patiently.

  ‘That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it, Rackham?’ said the Major. ‘I mean, these are our chaps you’re talking about.’

  ‘Our chaps? If you say so. Have you considered that perhaps not all our chaps are really our chaps at heart? Our colleague Maxwell here is certainly compromised by association.’

  Not only was Rackham amused, he was also terribly excited. Disasters and conflagrations, Auden claimed, have a special appeal for poets, and Rackham was living proof. What he lacked in talent he made up for in affinity.

  ‘I’m advised by the authorities that the fire was started deliberately with some kind of timing device attached to a petrol bomb,’ said Gammon, struggling to maintain control of the proceedings.

  ‘Well, whoever it was didn’t learn that in the cadets, I can assure you,’ said the Major. ‘That’s jungle stuff. Or Jerry during the house-fighting in ’forty-five.’

  Rackham shook his head.

  ‘That may be what we are supposed to conclude. Easy enough to find out how to do it if you know where to look, though.’

  ‘Your pals at Vlaminck’s probably have the knowhow,’ I said. ‘Let’s not forget about the firebomb at the medics’ hostel.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Maxwell?’ Gammon shouted.

  ‘That sounds like the wild accusation of a desperate man,’ said Rackham. He didn’t want it to stop. As far as he was concerned this was life.

  ‘What’s this about Vlaminck’s?’ said Connolly. ‘It’s out of bounds to the boys.’

  ‘Enough!’ Gammon said. ‘We need a clear view and a course of action.’

  ‘What does Inspector Smales have to say?’ I asked.

  ‘Investigations are continuing,’ Gammon replied, as if it were not my business.

  ‘Well, I know where I’d look,’ said Rackham.

  ‘I’m sure the Inspector knows what he’s doing,’ Gammon snapped. ‘He will also be keeping me informed about the Feldberg situation.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Rackham. ‘People will think Blake’s is going to pieces. The eyes of the city are upon us.’

  ‘Surely, Acting Headmaster, there’s no reason to associate Feldberg with the fire. He wasn’t even here,’ I said.

  ‘Well, exactly,’ said Rackham. ‘He wouldn’t be, would he?’

  ‘Maxwell, if there is anything you want to say that would help the investigation into this serious threat to life and property,’ Gammon said, ‘it behoves you to own up to it now.’

  ‘If I knew anything, Acting Headmaster, I assure you I would certainly feel beholden.’

  Gammon was pale and sweating despite the chill in the office. He sat down and turned the chair to look out of the window. A fire engine was turning, leaving ruts on one of the rugby pitches. ‘You may go, all of you,’ he said.

  ‘What about Feldberg?’ I asked.

  ‘I have heard enough about him,’ said Gammon.

  ‘How long is he to be suspended?’

  ‘Indefinitely.’

  At the gates later on I found Arnesen hanging about.

  ‘Have you got a lift?’ I asked him.

  ‘They let me ring from the office, thanks, sir. My mum’s coming in a bit.’

  ‘Good. Don’t forget there’s still homework. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Will that be when we start eating each other, sir?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

  ‘Yum yum.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Somebody could have been killed.’

  ‘That’s war, though, isn’t it, sir?’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Low down on page six, the evening paper reported a small fire in the grounds at Blake’s.

  The CLOSED sign was showing but Mr Fel
dberg was there in the shop. He seemed to have aged in the exertion of self-control.

  ‘You are too late,’ he said. ‘David is not here. He’s gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘If I knew that I would go there. That policeman, Smales, was here again asking for David. He said it was in connection with a fire at the school.’ Mr Feldberg held up the newspaper. ‘He stood there as though I should abase myself to him.’

  ‘What did you tell Smales?’ I asked.

  ‘Only what I knew. That David is not here. I told this Smales, but he didn’t believe me. In fact I wondered if he would find a way to arrest me too. David went out this morning and hasn’t come back. It is not like David to do that. I invited Smales to look around the shop and the flat. He asked for a list of other places where David might have gone. It was a short list – the library, the record shop where he works on Saturday mornings, and the home of Rachel’s parents. They’ve been on the telephone three times now. She cannot be found either. Her mother is terrified. She has rung the police but they say she has not yet been missing for long enough to investigate.’

  ‘Why would David run away?’ I asked.

  ‘How can you ask that? He would not run away.’

  ‘What if he were to feel threatened?’

  ‘Then I believe he would try to meet the threat face to face. You saw yourself what happened at Allingham’s meeting. He’s not a coward.’

  ‘No, but discretion might be wiser sometimes. In any case, his enemies won’t meet him head on.’

  ‘I don’t understand why he should have enemies of this kind.’

  ‘You told me yourself that his presence would itself be a provocation.’

  ‘Yes, but a provocation to insult. To whispers. To the petty resentments of cowards. Like men at golf clubs. Like your policeman Smales. This Smales said that it seemed to him David had been looking for trouble and that he’d found it. If ever Smales acts in this matter, I think it will mean it is too late.’

  ‘Smales is not my policeman. He suspects me in the death of Captain Carson. He sees what he wants to see. And, like a lot of people here, he wants a quiet life.’