Short of Glory

by Alan Judd

  Chatsworth was finally roused by Sarah at the third attempt. He was unrepentant. ‘Stopped the riot, you mean,’ he said, ‘not caused it.’

  ‘That’s not what they say.’

  ‘You can’t trust them. They’re policemen. Biased.’

  ‘They’re talking of locking you up again.’

  ‘Typical. Try to help the buggers and that’s what they do to you.’

  ‘You’d better give me a full account before I talk to them again and before the ambassador finds out.’

  They met in an Austrian coffee shop near the embassy. It was run by a morose Viennese who practically never spoke but would leave his customers to sit all day over a newspaper and a coffee. Chatsworth was late. He parked the bakkie half on the pavement and came in wearing Patrick’s corduroy jacket.

  ‘Sarah said she’d never seen you wear it and it’s cooler than mine. I’ll put it back, don’t worry. Found a packet of Durex in the pocket. Is that what you use with “in-due-course”?’

  Patrick could not remember when he had last worn the jacket nor for whom the unopened packet had been intended. This was not how the conversation should have started.

  Chatsworth helped himself to sugar. ‘Can’t use them myself. Instant deflation. It just won’t take them. Sarah had never seen any before.’

  ‘You showed them to her?’

  ‘Filled one with water to demonstrate. She could hardly stand for laughing.’

  Chatsworth’s account of the evening, when it came, was rambling and incomplete. He confessed that his memory might be hampered by the effect of Lion beer, a brand popular with blacks, but insisted that his interpretation of events was correct. He had deliberately gone to Kuweto knowing he was not allowed but assuming, rightly, that the bakkie’s new diplomatic number plate would ensure that he wasn’t stopped. There was, after all, a chance that Whelk might be there; he could’ve gone native. He had known a chap in the Army, chap called Peters, who had gone native in Borneo after an exercise. Turned up three years later with seven wives. Anyway, after driving around for a while without seeing much that looked like action he went into one of the beer halls.

  ‘I was the only white bloke there. They all looked as if they’d never seen one before. Felt a bit out of place, to be honest. I wasn’t going to stay for more than a quick one but then there was a bit of a shindig in one corner and a chap got knifed so I thought I’d stick around. They were still giving me some pretty odd looks so I bought a few drinks. Must say, once they got used to me they were all very friendly. Quite pleasant once you get to know them. I had to keep nipping outside to see if the bakkie was okay and then it occurred to me to get a couple of them to sit in it and guard it, with me keeping them in drink. That worked all right. They were very willing.

  ‘Anyway, I bought a few more drinks – don’t forget I owe you, by the way – and got talking, which was pretty difficult because they don’t all speak English. Most of them aren’t even Lower African. They come from black Africa to work. I didn’t know that. Well, you know how one thing leads to another sometimes – perhaps you don’t – d’you ever get pissed?’ He broke off and looked at Patrick with an air of serious enquiry.

  Patrick remembered going backwards into the restaurant pool. ‘I get a bit tipsy sometimes.’

  ‘That all?’

  ‘Yes. Being drunk is like being ill.’

  Chatsworth looked at him as at one who thinks that Buddhism consists merely in shaving one’s head. ‘Well, I can assure you that one thing does sometimes lead to another and this time I ended up offering lifts home to a few of them. I suppose you’ll say I shouldn’t have but it seemed a good idea at the time. In the end, what with the bakkie guards who’d got some of their mates in and this other lot, there must’ve been about twenty of the buggers crammed into the back, all singing and dancing and what-have-you. There was also a few in the cab with me. It still stinks a bit, actually, but I’ll clean it out.

  ‘So, off we set and I thought to myself, why stick to the roads when you’ve got a cross-country vehicle with good headlights? It does it good to do what it’s designed for now and again, like the rest of us. Also, they lived at every bloody point of the compass so it was handy to cut about a bit. ’Course, it then turned out that they were as clueless as I was about where they lived. Fortunately, we lost a few overboard otherwise I’d still be delivering them. But it was all okay, no problem, until this to-do with the police.’

  He leant earnestly across the table and held up his spoon. ‘You may get another story from them but I can’t help that. What I’m telling you is what happened so far as I’m concerned. Now, what they’d done was arrest these blokes for something or other and they’d made a bog-up of it. There was a sort of demo going on outside one of their forts. Demo – riot, really, just beginning. They hadn’t got a grip of it and they weren’t going to, I could see that straight away. Seen a lot of that sort of thing in Belfast. If you don’t get a grip straight away you lose control. Anyway, I’d dropped off or lost all my passengers by then so I thought I’d give the police a hand. I mean, imagine it – fort surrounded by a couple of hundred murderous natives running up and down, all pissed as rats and howling for the blood of the defenders. Rourke’s Drift all over again. And then you pitch up with the cavalry. What do you do? You’d do what I did, wouldn’t you? You’d charge ’em.’ Chatsworth’s thin face was eager and his eyes were bright with the memory. ‘It was a wonderful sight. Solid mass of rioters in the headlights, great black wall because they thought I was going to slow down. Then they were all arms and legs and teeth scrabbling all over the place, trying to get out of the way. Some of them jumped right up in the air like grasshoppers. Must’ve landed behind me. Then I reversed through them, then forward again. Did it four times altogether. Wasn’t anyone left after that so I waved goodbye to the defenders and came home.’ He shook his head. ‘Goes to show you can’t trust the fuzz, doesn’t it? No matter where you are. When you first said they’d reported it I thought you meant they wanted to pass on their thanks. I was ready to let you share the credit, too. Would it help if I went to see them, to sort things out, you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘S’pose you’re right. Don’t know why it is but this sort of thing nearly always happens when I try to be helpful. No gratitude. What’s more, I caught one hanging around the house when I got back.’

  ‘One what?’

  ‘Black. Young chap.’

  ‘That was Stanley, Sarah’s son.’

  ‘Is he supposed to be here?’

  ‘Not really, no. He’s going soon.’

  ‘Just as well, then.’

  ‘What’s just as well?’

  Awkwardness was rare in Chatsworth but it showed clearly this time. ‘Just as well I saw him off.’

  ‘You what?’ Patrick heard the sharpness in his own voice.

  ‘Saw him off. Well, he was skulking around the garage looking as though he was going to nick something. You were still out enjoying yourself with “in-due-course” so there was no one I could ask. I went for him with a shifting spanner but he got away.’

  Patrick did not hide his anger. ‘That was bloody stupid. If you’d stopped to ask him what he was doing there he’d have told you. You’d better apologise to Sarah as soon as you get back.’

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll apologise. I’ve no objection to apologising. Lot of people can vouch for that. But what I’d like to know is what was he doing skulking around there at twenty past one in the morning? I bet Sarah didn’t know he was there. He’d been up to something. I could tell. He was shifty.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising with you chasing him with a spanner.’

  ‘No, no, before that. It was his manner. He was definitely up to something. Also, he’d been boozing more than was good for him. Couldn’t hold it. He’d been sick behind the garage.’

  Patrick was not able to feel wholeheartedly angry. What Chatsworth said about Stanley was worrying because he was the kind of man to kno
w shiftiness when he saw it. He rang Sarah when he got back to the embassy and asked about Stanley. He repeated then that he didn’t mind her son being around but he could tell from her voice that she thought he was complaining. In fact, it was Stanley’s absences rather than his presence that worried him.

  She spoke hesitantly and loudly. ‘On Friday I try to take him to the buses depot, massa. I try but he is bad boy and we are late. It take two and a half hours to get there and we miss the bus.’

  He softened his tone as much as he could. ‘Why did it take so long, Sarah? What was the difficulty?’

  She hesitated again. ‘My fault, massa, I get the wrong bus and then we have to walk and there is no other bus for a long time. But we go again tomorrow afternoon. I get the bus right then, massa.’

  ‘What time does it go?’

  ‘At half past two.’

  ‘I’ll come home for lunch and I’ll take you both to it.’

  ‘That is kind, massa. Thank you.’

  Jim Rissik rang a few minutes later. He had heard about the Chatsworth incident and had talked to his boss about it. Patrick gave Chatsworth’s version, with which Jim did not bother to argue. ‘For Christ’s sake and his, make sure he doesn’t do anything like it again. I had a hell of a job persuading them not to get on to the MFA and make a protest. It was only because of the visit of your minister that they didn’t. You owe me a favour there, Pat.’

  Patrick spoke with forced jocularity. They both laughed at the idea of Chatsworth in the beer hall, then discussed Jim’s so far unsuccessful efforts to discover who had removed Whelk’s effects.

  ‘How’s Joanna?’ asked Jim, with no change of tone.

  Patrick felt himself stiffen. ‘All right, well.’

  ‘Is she at home at the moment?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’

  ‘I rang earlier but there was no answer. I wondered if she was with you.’

  ‘No, no. She might have been shopping.’

  ‘Yes, something like that.’

  He recognised affected unconcern in Jim’s voice, sensing the same in his own. They rang off with cheerful goodbyes.

  He told Sir Wilfrid about Chatsworth. There was a good chance that Clifford would come to hear of it anyway and he did not want to be seen keeping a secret from the ambassador. Sir Wilfrid pursed his lips. ‘It was a bit injudicious of him, I admit, but he’s naturally not aware of diplomatic niceties. It’s up to you to make sure he understands, Patrick. He struck me as a very level-headed sort of chap and I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have done anything like that if he’d had any sort of inkling of the embarrassment he could have caused. It’s your responsibility to make sure he does have inklings in future. Goes to show they’re keeping tabs on him, though, doesn’t it? They must be in it up to their necks.’

  ‘But they thought at first it was me.’

  ‘Of course they did, it’s your car. They’re probably keeping tabs on you, too. Where were you at the time, by the way?’

  ‘I was seeing a friend.’

  ‘Well, why not take Chatsworth along with you in future? He’s probably bored and rather lonely. It’s up to you to take care of him and he’s not the sort of chap to get in the way, I’m sure.’

  The day before the minister was due to arrive his visit was downgraded yet further to a ‘private fact-finding mission’. It was to be announced to the press that the minister was to have no formal contacts with the Lower African government. It was known within chancery, though, that he was to have an informal meeting with his ‘opposite number’. In a lengthy immediate telegram London gave the reason for the downgrading as HMG’s imminent refusal to recognise the so-called independent homelands that Lower Africa had created for large numbers of rural blacks. London’s argument was that if the decision were conveyed during an official visit both countries would be obliged to assume unhelpful public postures, leading to a worsening of bilateral relations. Such relations, though they existed only in the minds of a very small number of officials, were believed by governments to apply to entire peoples, and they were sustained in this belief by the very officials in whose minds such relations existed. The telegram also argued that an unofficial visit might be a more ‘viable’ forum in which to persuade the Lower Africans to be more flexible on the question of the disputed Northern territories.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t believe it,’ said Clifford, tossing the telegram on to Philip’s piled desk, from where it fluttered to the floor. Philip had to pick it up. ‘London have known this all along. Why are they suddenly trotting it out at the last minute? Either because they don’t trust us – for which they have no reason because we haven’t let them down yet – or because someone wants the visit to pass off as quietly as possible so that we don’t get any credit for any success. There’s been plotting, mark my words. It’s that man Formerly again, trying to do us down.’

  ‘He didn’t strike me as a plotter,’ said Patrick. ‘He didn’t seem sufficiently interested.’

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘I’ve only met him once or twice.’

  Clifford shook his head. ‘You’ll find as you go on, Patrick, that the Service is full of plotters and schemers at court, ambitious men who won’t hesitate to do you down. Formerly is one of the worst, a real smiling assassin if ever there was one. Personally, I detest such ambition.’

  Philip looked pained and weary. ‘Is that really so, though? I know I haven’t been in the Office as long as you but I honestly haven’t found it thick with assassins. Most people are conscientious and on the whole decent. Perhaps Formerly is a little more relaxed than he should be but he’s not dishonest and when he does do something he does it rather well. You must admit, his drafting—’

  Clifford waved his hand. ‘Oh, his drafting, yes, his drafting’s very good. But we can all draft well or we wouldn’t be here, would we?’ He waited for a response. ‘No, it’s his integrity I worry about. It’s corrupted by his passion for self-advancement.’

  When Clifford had gone Philip picked up his pen again. ‘Scribo ergo sum. Other men need enemies.’

  Sir Wilfrid had a different explanation. He tapped his copy of the telegram with one of his longer pipes. ‘I detect the Prime Minister’s hand in this. No doubt just been reminded that the visit is taking place, can’t trust a junior minister like Ray Collier to get anything right so it’s turned into a damage-limitation exercise to try to stop him doing anything at all. Collier would be quite incapable of introducing such subtlety into one of his own visits. I heard from Hugo Loveless in Cairo that his trip there a few months ago was devastating: export orders cancelled, Arab money withdrawn from London, Middle East peace hopes set back, all that sort of thing. Ever met the man?’

  ‘No.’ said Patrick. This was the third time in two days that Sir Wilfrid had asked the question.

  ‘The least internationally-minded of anyone I’ve met in government, which is saying a great deal. I hope his plane crashes.’ He smoothed his hair. ‘Actually, we don’t need knowledgeable ministers. We just need ministers with real political determination – “boot” or “bottle”, I believe the phrase is now. It’s our job to know about foreign countries. All they need is to know what the national interest is and then to tell us to get on with it. As a Service we often reflect the interests of the countries we deal with rather than our own. We achieve reasonable relations, negotiations or whatever when it might actually be in the national interest to be unreasonable. It’s up to the ministers to see that. We can’t help it, we’re diplomats.’ He paused again. ‘You’d better not repeat this, Patrick.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Ray Collier, his private secretary and his wife Sheila were to arrive at six-thirty in the morning. They were to be met by Sir Wilfrid, Clifford and Philip and not, now that the visit was unofficial, by any Lower African representatives. The afternoon before, though, Philip was taken ill once more with the unspecified virus infection. He had worked on his brief throughout the weekend and during t
he evenings, manning his desk through dizziness and nausea. He cared a great deal about getting it right whereas Clifford cared only about the inconvenience of not having Philip do it.

  As Philip was helped from the office, pale and shaking, Clifford said that Patrick would have to take his place at the airport the following morning. Philip shook his head weakly. ‘It’ll be all right by tomorrow. I’ll go. No need for Patrick.’

  ‘Rubbish. It’s no good meeting the minister looking like death warmed up. Anyway, supposing you didn’t last the night – if we hadn’t made other arrangements we’d be left high and dry. Patrick must come.’ The redeeming feature of Clifford’s insensibility was that it was so obviously impersonal. ‘And even if you did make it you might infect the minister and then where would we be? Old Formerly would be cock-a-hoop. It would be round the Service in no time. Better Patrick than you with the plague.’ Clifford turned to Patrick. ‘We’d better have another meeting on transport arrangements. We’ll need a big car for tomorrow morning. Draft proposals and come to my office at four.’

  ‘We’ll only need one car, won’t we?’

  ‘That’s as maybe but it still needs to be properly organised. Do a memo.’

  ‘A big one?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll bring it at four.’

  The parked aeroplanes were sharp and bright in the early morning sun. A few cleaners and mechanics wandered contentedly about; nothing was happening.

  Besides Sir Wilfrid, Clifford and Patrick there were two other waiting groups in the VIP lounge. They comprised dark-suited men, official and quiet. Each group kept as far away as possible from the other two. Sir Wilfrid sat in an armchair in the sun. He fidgeted for a while, then turned to Clifford. ‘D’you know Harry Potts?’

  ‘Head of Southern European Department?’