Eagles

by Lewis Orde

  Phillips rose unsteadily to his feet, a sharp contrast to the self-assured wheeler dealer of a moment ago. As he passed Albert he said, ‘Carters will be blacked. The shipment will be left to rot in the delivery area.’

  ‘No, not to rot, Mr Phillips,’ Albert corrected him. ‘We’ll want our order eventually. Good morning, you can find your own way out.’

  Phillips returned home to change into his working clothes, understanding only that he had stumbled into something far beyond his own comprehension. He had come away with what he wanted, but he wasn’t certain he knew why.

  *

  Tuesday evening, Roland drove apprehensively to Wilton Crescent to pick up Catarina for their dinner date. She had called him Sunday afternoon at home to tell him how her father and brother had collected her from the party, the meeting that had followed and her father’s decision to allow her to continue seeing Roland, but under very rigid conditions. There would be no more afternoons and no more opportunities for stolen weekends. Only evenings, and then Catarina would have to be home by eleven o’clock.

  It was better than nothing, Roland reasoned. In fact he was surprised that he could see her at all . . . why was Ambassador Menendez making this compromise? Because of his wife? Or because of Catarina? He knew that even the most powerful of men could be twisted around an only daughter’s finger.

  As he drove into Wilton Crescent Roland saw the stout figure of the ambassador standing in the drawing room window, a hand holding back the curtains. Roland reversed gently into a parking space, acting like a man driving a standard family car instead of an XK-120; he didn’t want to give the man any further reason to restrict Catarina.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Eagles, how are you?’ the ambassador greeted Roland when he entered the house.

  ‘Fine, thank you, sir. I must apologize for the other evening—’

  Menendez held up his hand. ‘I have discussed the matter with my daughter and now it is closed. Where are you going this evening?’

  ‘Just out for dinner, sir.’

  Menendez assumed his customary position in front of the fireplace. ‘How is your business?’

  ‘Doing excellently, I’m glad to say.’ Roland wasn’t about to tell him that there was the possibility of a strike the next day – that would be another mark against him – the inability to control his own work force. In fact, Roland was unsure what he would find when he went to the factory the following morning. Bert Phillips had told him that there was to be a union meeting that evening to discuss the situation, and Roland didn’t have much hope.

  Maria Menendez entered the drawing room to tell Roland that Catarina would be ready shortly. She joined her husband in front of the fireplace. ‘My daughter mentioned that your family died during the war, Mr Eagles. I am so terribly sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. A bomber jettisoned its load while trying to escape from a Spitfire. I watched it happen from a mile or two away.’ He wondered why both the ambassador and his wife were keeping him company. Were they scared to leave him alone while he waited for Catarina?

  ‘It must have been awful to live here during the war,’ she continued.

  ‘In the end it was far worse to live in Germany. Too bad that a lot of those responsible for the war escaped.’

  ‘Escaped?’

  ‘Escaped,’ Roland repeated, looking pointedly at Menendez. The ambassador made his feelings clear to Roland; in turn Roland wanted to make his own feelings known to Menendez.

  Menendez had no difficulty in catching the gist of Roland’s comment, and he spread his hands sympathetically. ‘In Argentina we are proud of our German colony just as we are proud of our Italian and Spanish influences. It is impossible for my government to check thoroughly every German refugee who seeks to take advantage of our hospitality. If we know that a certain person is guilty of crimes against humanity we do not grant them sanctuary. But all too often, how are we to know?’

  ‘Please – you don’t have to explain anything. Besides, your government never gave sanctuary to the crew of the aircraft that wiped out my family. They crashed into the sea a mile from where they dropped their bombs.’

  ‘I will see if Catarina is ready yet,’ Señora Menendez cut in quickly. The war and the people responsible for it who now lived peacefully in Argentina were subjects best left alone. Too many Argentinian government officials, close friends of the ambassador, had made themselves wealthy by aiding such people.

  Roland was relieved when Catarina appeared a minute later. The conversation between himself and Menendez was strained, artificial, and he knew he was there only under sufferance. The ambassador obviously was accepting him for his daughter’s or his wife’s sake, and hoped, in time, that Catarina would find another man. There was no way he could know that such optimism was completely baseless.

  They dined at a French restaurant in Soho. Over dessert, Roland removed a small package from his jacket. ‘I have something for you.’

  ‘And I have something for you,’ Catarina answered. She pulled a flat narrow box from her bag and set it on the table.

  ‘Open mine first,’ Roland said.

  Catarina undid the package to find a gold charm bracelet with a single charm, a four-leaf clover with a minute inscription: the names of Fat Fanny, Boring Dora and Jealous Nat. She laughed delightedly and gestured for Roland to open her gift. Inside the box he found a gold watch; inscribed on the back were the same three names.

  ‘And your father hopes to keep us apart?’ Roland asked. he removed his own watch and replaced it with the gift, while Catarina slipped the gold charm bracelet onto her wrist, jangling it merrily.

  ‘Rollie, please give my father time. He is of a different generation.’

  ‘I should have told him how drunk Juan was the other night, how he came within a shade of being arrested.’

  ‘It would have made no difference. Juan can do whatever he pleases. He is a man,’ she said, the anger in her voice rising. ‘Oh how I hate him, you cannot believe how much I hate my brother for what he did.’

  ‘He did what he thought was right for you,’ Roland told her. ‘You can’t hate him for that. Just appreciate the fact that you’ve got a brother who’s that concerned about you.’ He didn’t mean a word of it, but he refused to turn Catarina against anyone in her family. He had lost his, and he wouldn’t rob Catarina of hers.

  *

  Roland’s worst fears about the factory were confirmed the next morning. Five minutes after the Carters delivery was made, Bert Phillips knocked on the door of his office to announce that it was being blacked. Roland went out to the delivery area and saw for himself that the merchandise was untouched. He called a meeting of the men on the factory floor.

  ‘None of you has any argument with Mar-Cross.’ Roland stood on a workbench, looking down at the employees in their blue overalls. ‘If you feel sympathy for the workers at Carters that’s your privilege, but I won’t allow it to interfere with the operation of this business. Now I’m asking you to get on with the work for which you’re paid, bring in the Carters shipment and get it ready for assembly.’ He looked around the circle of faces, finishing with Bert Phillips.

  ‘Mr Eagles, if we touch that delivery we’ll be stabbing our fellow workers in the back,’ the shop steward replied, and there was a rumble of approval around him. ‘Carters’ management will think they can get away with grinding down their employees.’

  ‘And if you don’t handle that shipment you’ll all be out of work by Christmas because there will be no business here to pay your wages!’ Roland shot back. ‘Can’t any of you understand that?’ He knew he was overstating the position, but a dramatic approach might get through some of the union-loyalty hogwash with which Phillips had been filling their heads. “What about you, Len?’ Roland pointed to a young man with black hair and soft brown eyes. ‘Your wife’s just had a baby. Now what’s more important to you – Carters’ people or the money to support your family?’

  The man shifted uncomfortably. Two weeks earlier, w
hen his wife had given birth, Mar-Cross had sent a bunch of flowers to the hospital, a policy Roland had initiated to help the worker-management relationship. ‘We took a vote on it, Mr Eagles,’ the man answered lamely.

  ‘A vote? Did you know you were all voting to put yourselves on the unemployment line?’ Roland turned to another man. ‘How are you going to keep up your mortgage payments on the house you just bought, Bill? Dole won’t cover it.’

  ‘We’re solidly behind the Carters strikers,’ Phillips butted in.

  “Fine. You all stick by your principles and see what happens!’ Roland snapped as he jumped down from the workbench. ‘I’m not prepared to lose business. If you don’t straighten this out by tonight, I’ll get people in here who will.’

  ‘Mr Eagles!’ Phillips’ voice rang out as Roland started to walk toward his office. ‘If you did that we’d be forced to protect our jobs.’

  Roland swung around. ‘What jobs? You won’t have any. I’ll have gotten rid of you all.’ He stormed back to his office and telephoned Simon Aronson to tell him that the blacking was official. Simon strongly advised caution. Mar-Cross might be able to weather a strike, but it would never outlast a dispute where blood was spilled when strikers and strikebreakers clashed.

  Forcing down his anger, Roland returned to the delivery area. He picked up a crowbar and pried open one of the boxes from Carters. Inside was a layer of black plastic handles for electric kettles. He picked one up and turned to look into the factory. Marching toward him was Bert Phillips, face set in a grim mask.

  ‘Mr Eagles, there’s a very definite line between management’s and employees’ duties. You’ve just crossed it. Unpacking shipments is a job only for union members.’

  Roland knew he had made a mistake and dropped the handle back into the box. ‘I don’t want the shipment left out here. It’s going to rain soon.’

  Phillips looked up at the darkening sky. ‘I’ll see that it’s brought inside.’

  ‘I thought your men were blacking it.’

  ‘We are. But we don’t want to see it ruined, do we?’

  As he walked away, Roland shook his head in confusion.

  By Friday afternoon sales meeting, the situation at Carters was still deadlocked, and the shipment lay just inside the factory door gathering dust. ‘We’re getting dangerously close to delivery dates,’ Roland told Simon. ‘If we get this thing sorted out soon we can squeak through. But it’s got to be damned soon.’

  ‘Have you tried going elsewhere for the parts?’

  Roland handed Simon a sheet of paper. On it were the names of half a dozen suppliers he had contacted. ‘They can give us all the stuff we want. But not when we want it, which is now.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘Wait until the end of next week, then I’m going to start trying to buy us some extra time.’

  ‘When is the order for Adler’s due?’

  ‘Two weeks from Wednesday.’

  ‘How long will it take to complete that order once you begin assembly?’

  Roland turned to Alan Winters, the factory manager. ‘With everyone working flat out, it’ll take about a week.’

  ‘All right, wait until the end of next week,’ Simon agreed. ‘I’ll help you make up the excuses.’

  *

  The following Friday morning, the strike at Carters was still on. The plant was closed down completely. Pickets marched outside, and the Carters shipment gathered more dust.

  Roland debated which of his customers to call first. They all knew about the strike but, like himself, they were hoping that it would be over in time for the completion of their Christmas orders. Now he had to disappoint them. He picked up the telephone and started to make the calls, beginning with the smallest. They were more likely to be sympathetic; their cooperation would give him confidence to tackle the bigger customers.

  By lunchtime he had finished all but one – Adler’s. Instead of simply telephoning Monty Adler with the news, Roland decided to give the old man the respect of telling him personally. He made an appointment to see Monty at two that afternoon, foregoing attendance at the weekly sales meeting. There was no point in even having a meeting; nothing was moving out of the factory, orders was stagnant. At least, Roland thought as he drove the Jaguar toward the West End, all this aggravation was taking his mind off Catarina’s family; he was too angry and frustrated to even think about the Menendezes.

  ‘Let me guess why you’re here,’ Monty Adler growled when Roland was shown into his office. ‘Our order’s late because you can’t control your own staff, and now you’ve come to beg for more time. Am I right?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ Monty’s gruffness didn’t surprise Roland; he accepted it as a reflection of the old man’s no-nonsense manner.

  ‘How long is this unpleasantness going to last?’ Monty raised a handkerchief to his mouth and started to cough, then reached for a glass of water on the desk. ‘Blasted cold I picked up somewhere,’ he muttered.

  Roland waited for the coughing spasm to pass. ‘Difficult to say. It could be over today, and it might drag on into the new year.’

  ‘What have your other customers said, or are we the first you’ve contacted?’

  ‘You’re the last. You top the bill.’

  Monty coughed again, and his craggy face heightened in color. ‘Don’t try to flatter me, sonny. I’ve lived eighty years without ever seeing it work.’

  ‘Everyone else promised to be elastic, leave it until the last minute. Then, if our problem isn’t solved, they’ll fill in their inventory from other suppliers.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Monty said. ‘We’ll do the same. That deadline you’ve got for a week from Wednesday – keep as close to it as you can and we’ll work with you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Roland felt like hugging the old man. He left the office with a massive weight lifted from his shoulders. In the corridor leading toward the elevator he passed Albert Adler talking to Bruce Simpkins. Albert nodded a cool greeting but Simpkins turned his head away quickly. Roland didn’t even notice; he was too full of the reprieve he’d just been given.

  *

  The blacking of the Carters shipment lasted another ten days, then Bert Phillips came to see Roland. ‘We’ve just had a meeting, Mr Eagles, and the men have decided to handle Carters.’

  ‘Why the change of mind? The strike at Carters is still on.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter anymore. Carters’ management has got the message. Their latest offer is a big jump from their original position.’

  ‘Your men are prepared to resume work immediately?’ Roland was already figuring out schedules. The Adler’s order was due in two days. Maybe they could get it finished by the end of the week, then start on the others. He would call his customers, give them the good news, thank them again for being so considerate.

  ‘The men are willing to work overtime, Mr Eagles.’

  Yes, I bet they are, Roland thought. And they’ll probably think Phillips is some kind of genius for getting them overtime to do work that should have been completed during regular hours. ‘Whatever it takes, Mr Phillips, whatever it takes.’ He would have to find a way to get rid of Phillips . . . Roland had little doubt that this entire affair could have been averted if he had let Simon have his way and bribe the man. But he refused to run a company on that basis. A day’s pay for a day’s work was the only fair rule.

  Phillips returned to the factory floor to tell his members about the meeting. As he spoke he couldn’t help thinking about a conversation he’d had the previous day. Albert Adler had telephoned him at home and told him to call off the strike . . . Phillips was still unable to make head or tails of what was going on.

  In the office, Roland drew up a list of whom to call. He started with Monty Adler. The old man sounded terrible, wheezing and coughing over the telephone, complaining about how difficult it was to shake even a simple cold when you reached old age. Roland was sympathetic and asked Monty why he didn’t stay at home un
til he felt better. The old man grumbled about refusing to let a cold keep him away from his business. As he hung up and checked the number of the next customer, Roland was grinning broadly.

  By Wednesday afternoon, Roland was once again accustomed to the sound of the factory in full production. The pile of completed appliances near the loading dock grew steadily larger, and he finally allowed himself to focus on a different source of anxiety – Catarina’s family. Ambassador Menendez continued to watch Roland carefully; on his last two dates with Catarina, her brother and a friend – by sheer coincidence, they claimed – had turned up at the same restaurant.

  That night he left the factory early to go home and change for his date with Catarina. As he was about to leave home the telephone rang; for a moment he considered ignoring it. Conscience got the better of him. The call was from Lawrence Chivers at the office.

  ‘Albert Adler was just on, Roland. He wants to speak to you.’

  Roland glanced at the gold watch Catarina had given him. He was late already and he didn’t want to get stuck talking business now. ‘Can’t it wait until morning, Lawrence?’

  ‘Albert said it’s urgent. He wants you to call him at the store.’

  ‘Damn’, Roland muttered as he dialed the number.

  ‘Mr Eagles, your company has caused our receiving department a tremendous amount of trouble,’ Albert began.

  ‘In what way?’ Roland checked his watch again and wondered how long he would be stuck listening to whatever complaint Albert had.

  ‘We’ve been waiting all day for our order to arrange for its distribution to our other stores. Our receiving department closed fifteen minutes ago and the order still hadn’t arrived.’ Before Roland could say anything, Albert continued: ‘Don’t bother to ship it at all now. This conversation is our notice of cancellation.’

  Roland exploded. ‘What in God’s name are you talking about? Your father and I had an agreement about the delivery being a few days late. You’d better talk to him about it.’

  ‘My father is away sick, Mr Eagles. I am running Adler’s.’

  ‘But we had an agreement!’