Scruffy - A Diversion Read online

  With the shades pulled down, Timothy and Felicity had been each working upon their company administration papers by the uncertain and flickering lights that threatened to go at any moment, and they had flash-lamps to hand for the emergency.

  There came a really fearful glare of lightning that penetrated into their living-room, accompanied by an ear-splitting crack-of-doom thunderclap, immediately followed by Stygian darkness as all the lights went out. Into their rather stunned silence that followed when the thunder had rolled away there came a knocking at the door of the bungalow. Tim took a torch and opened it. Felicity shone a second torch upon the figure standing in the doorway, the collar of his raincoat turned up, water cascading from it. The light travelled over a figure as tall and gangling as Don Quixote with a droopy red moustache which was now parted by a finger put there in an attitude of secrets and silence.

  Thus he stood there for a moment, the torches shining upon him like spotlights. “Good, what?” he said. “Always hoped for an entrance like that some time. Clyde of the Secret Service.” He crossed the threshold as though he were wearing a cloak. The wind blew the door shut behind him with a satisfying bang. Tim and Felicity dissolved into roars of laughter.

  “Come in,” Tim cried, “and get dry outside and wet inside if we can find something.”

  At that moment the lights came on again, revealing the figure of the Major, and Tim saw that for all the mockery of his entrance his eyes were very shrewd. So this was the famous Major Clyde of M.I.5, already something of a legend in the Service.

  “Good timing, what?” said the Major. “Carry my own lighting effects around with me.” He reintroduced himself, “William Clyde of the Cloak and Dagger. My friends call me Slinker.”

  Felicity went to him and took the dripping raincoat and disposed of it, and for a moment the newcomer stood, his eyes roving about the room, and Tim had the feeling that he was missing nothing, and that in all probability knew all there was to know about him, including the reason for the poor quarters. He said apologetically, “Sorry about the hovel.”

  Major Clyde nodded and said evenly, “Yes, I know. You’ve got the special army Mark VII dog-house. Reserved for chums of our little wild friends. I hope no one saw me come here in case it’s catching.” He went over to the small wireless set on the sideboard, switched it on and at the first note that squawked from it flipped it off again. “Did you hear that broadcast earlier this evening?”

  “Did I!” exclaimed Tim.

  “What did you think?” the Major asked.

  Felicity suddenly had had enough of clowning and said, “I’ll tell you what I think, and you can tell them too. It couldn’t have happened if Tim had been there.”

  The Major turned away from the wireless and regarded her with quiet interest. “No?” he said. “Why?”

  “Because he cared,” Felicity cried passionately. “We both did. We couldn’t help it.”

  “There,” said Major Clyde. “You see, I knew it was catching.”

  “Oh, do be serious,” Felicity said, “can’t you? It’s nearly broken Tim’s heart.”

  The Major smiled at her in a most friendly fashion. “My cover,” he said. “Best tradition of the English detective novel. Sleuth pretends he’s a blithering idiot and all the while the great brain is working. Well, what would have happened if Captain Bailey hadn’t got the sack?”

  “They’d have been looked after properly,” Felicity replied. She wasn’t yet quite sure whether or not she liked the Major or on whose side she might expect to find him. “They’d have had enough to eat. What Lovejoy couldn’t steal or scrounge they used to pay for out of their own pockets. And if they had listened to him there would have been proper cages and shelters built, he’s been at them to have those done ever since he took the job. That’s one reason they got rid of him.”

  Major Clyde raised an eyebrow. “Shelters,” he said. “I thought the blighters were supposed to be able to look after themselves and live out in the open.”

  Another thunder peal as of a thousand guns shook the windows and rattled the dishes in the kitchen. A violent burst of wind slapped a bucketful of rain against the window panes.

  “Would you like to be out with no clothes on on a night like this?” Felicity said furiously. “They’re not all that different from us, you know. Except that they get diseases and die more quickly and wretchedly. What we’ve done is half-domesticated and then abandoned them. If there is sun tomorrow they will probably dry out all right—”

  “And if there isn’t?” queried the Major.

  “More of them will catch cold and probably die,” Felicity said with finality. “This is the dangerous time of year for them when the temperature can drop 15 degrees. Tim has always told them that, and that they ought to have concrete caves built where they can keep warm and dry in the winter, and cages to segregate nursing mothers, and—and,” she trailed off, suddenly feeling ashamed and embarrassed for her outburst, but Tim, who had been watching her with grave affection, merely said, “Go on, Counsellor, you’re doing fine. It’s all gospel only it wouldn’t be becoming for me to be saying it.” He nodded with his head towards the wireless. “The dead ones were mostly females. It wants about eight females to one male for proper breeding in the season. The pack is not only halved but the chances of its coming back to strength are practically nullified.”

  “Oh,” said the Major and wrinkled his nose in an expression of distaste. “That’s one I wasn’t aware of; they didn’t tell me. I wonder why the Jerries haven’t latched on to that?” Then he asked, “What about that dreg who’s supposed to be looking after them?”

  Tim started to say, “You mean Lovejoy? The Gunner’s a hundred per—”

  “No, I don’t mean Lovejoy,” Clyde interrupted, “I mean that clot they’ve put in as O.I.C. Apes.”

  Felicity looked at the Major with a new interest. Perhaps he was going to turn out to be on the side of the angels. She was about to say something when she caught a signal from Tim to be quiet.

  “Oh, you mean Lieutenant Barton,” Tim said. “He’s all right.”

  The Major regarded Tim quizzically. “Judgement of men: nought, Captain Bailey,” he said, “if you’re serious, which I don’t believe you are. I’ve had a chat with him. Utter dim bulb. Furthermore I detected a look of beagles in his eye. When the old Brig. put him in there he told him that if he ever heard a single word about apes or a line of bumph passed his desk he’d stay Lieutenant for the rest of his life. He hasn’t dared open his mouth since. And as for the apes, he hasn’t been near them. He caught Lovejoy scrounging some food for them and ran him in. Lovejoy got seven days’ field punishment and his source of supply was shut off. What’s all right about a midden like that?”

  Felicity’s eyes were suddenly filled with tenderness. “Oh, Major Clyde,” she said, “I do apologize.”

  “Eh?” said Clyde. “For what?”

  “Things I’ve been thinking,” Felicity said simply. The two smiled cheerfully at one another.

  Tim said tentatively, “We’ve got a bit of gin.”

  The Major made a deprecating gesture, “As long as it’s fire water.”

  The doors rattled again as the thunder banged. Felicity went and got the gin bottle and some glasses and they sat round the table and sipped. The Major asked, “What about this Lovejoy?”

  “Right arm in the fire,” said Tim. “Bet anything you like on Lovejoy. First-rate chap, the Gunner.”

  “Hangs out at the Admiral Nelson, doesn’t he? Talkative bloke.”

  Tim dipped his head again in the direction of the wireless and said, “You mean—”

  “Not to worry,” the Major said. “There are some ten thousand other possible sources, security being what it is around here.” Then he added, “What about food? What do they take?”

  “About two pounds a day,” Tim replied. “They’re supposed to get sweet potatoes, groundnuts, carrots, lettuces, oranges or pomegranates and bananas of course. They’re potty about b
ananas.”

  “Are they getting it?”

  Tim shrugged. “You’ve looked through my record, haven’t you?” Major Clyde nodded. “And saw the bit about the row I had with the Government of Sierra Leone over the blackguards raising the price of groundnuts due to the war.”

  Major Clyde nodded again and said, “And ever since then?”

  Tim shrugged again.

  Major Clyde grunted and then asked, “Where do the blighters come from?”

  “North Africa,” Tim replied. “The Moors consider them a nuisance. They gang up and raid their farms. Why, would you like one?”

  “How would I go about acquiring one if I did?”

  Tim grinned, “As of a year ago when I was sacked, the price for one around Ceuta, Tangier and Rabat was half a case of whisky per specimen. It’s probably a case by now.”

  “That’s an interesting piece of information. What else do you know?”

  Tim got up, went over to a cupboard from whence he produced a black loose-leaf notebook, two inches thick with pages. “Care for a dekko at this?” he asked. “It’s all here. My life and times with Macaca Silvanus. Some day I thought I’d make a book of it.”

  The Major’s eyes glittered. “With a special chapter devoted no doubt to an old bastard by the name of Scruffy.” To Tim’s surprise he didn’t turn the book down, but said, “May I have this for a time? I’ll let you have it back when I’m finished.” He bundled it under his arm as though it was the secret plans of a new weapon, climbed into his raincoat, said “Cheerio! Who knows, better days may lie ahead,” waited for an appropriate flash of lightning and clap of thunder and spirited himself out of the door.

  “The violent thunderstorm which took place between nine and ten o’clock in the Gibraltar—La Linea—Algeciras areas last Tuesday night,” said the smarmy voice of Gloomy Gustave from the radios on the Rock and to which Gibraltarians tuned, “caused considerable damage to installations at Gibraltar. Lightning struck the main power house, plunging the Rock into darkness, and several churches were hit. Mrs. Antonio Morales, returning with her husband from a visit to her sister, was injured by stones and flying debris when lightning struck the steeple of the Church of the Ascension. High winds blew down cables and power lines and work in the naval machine shops had to be suspended. Some workers were sent home. This is expected to delay completion of repairs to the destroyer Proteus now at the Mole which had been due to sail on Thursday.”

  “Clever boy,” said Major Clyde moodily, and pulled at his lower lip. He and Major McPherson were listening to the wireless in McPherson’s office. A male stenographer was taking down the broadcast in shorthand. “That’s stuff anyone could sweep up off the floor.”

  “Still—” McPherson began with doubt in his voice, “it’s a nasty feeling having them looking over your shoulder to see whether you had eggs for breakfast.”

  The announcer continued his listing of further minor damage by the thunderstorm. “I wish I had his job,” Major Clyde said.

  “Whose? Gloomy Gustave’s?”

  “No. The bloke who’s getting paid for collecting this intelligence. He probably works all of ten minutes a day.”

  Gloomy Gustave returned to a now not unfamiliar topic in his broadcasts.

  “More damaging to the morale of citizens of Gibraltar and their British masters was the death of four more of the rapidly diminishing number of the Barbary apes, three of them females, due to the storm which did great harm to the already demoralized apes. The three females were sheltering in an acacia tree near the apes’ village, which was apparently struck by lightning. Their burned bodies were found in the morning. The fourth, a young male, succumbed to galloping pneumonia. Gibraltarians who have long complained of the depredations practised by these unruly beasts kept as mascots by the British to show their contempt for the natives as well as to insure themselves against the prophecy of the legend connected with them, will rejoice that with the elimination of a further quartet of these nuisances the day of their total liberation would seem to be moving closer.”

  Major Clyde looked at McPherson over the head of the stenographer and said, “I don’t care much for that.”

  McPherson nodded. “There’s been talk.”

  Major Clyde lifted an interrogatory eyebrow.

  “In bars and shops and my wife says at her hairdressers. It’s a joke now, of course—”

  “If I had my way every Intelligence officer would have to take a course in hairdressing. Best listening post in the world.” He pulled at his lower lip again. “But it might not be a joke tomorrow. We’ve got to put a stop to this pattern. What are the chances of getting Captain Bailey restored as O.I.C. Apes?”

  The reply of Major McPherson was succinct. “None! And I shouldn’t even try. You might consult Tim on the Q.T., but the Brigadier is fed up. Furthermore, the old man never could stand the apes and he’d be tickled to death to be rid of them. He doesn’t dare order them shot or exterminated because he’s a stickler for tradition, but if nature would just take its course and eliminate them he’d be delighted.”

  Major Clyde nodded, but there was an expression almost of sympathy on his face. He said, “It’s not his fault. It’s his upbringing. They’ve taught him that war is what comes out of the mouth of a cannon. He hasn’t learned that the boffins have taken over and that war can likewise be—” he nodded his head in the direction of the wireless set from which issued the nightly sign-off of Gloomy Gustave.

  “And now, dear friends, we wish you good night and good sleep in the knowledge that you are twenty-four hours nearer to your liberation. Tomorrow night at the same time we will be back on the air with more interesting news and comment about happenings in Gibraltar and the world at large which your British rulers have kept from you.”

  Music replaced the smarmy voice. Major Clyde stood regarding the wireless set, his lower lip characteristically between his fingers, his red moustache drooping. “Thank goodness,” he said.

  Major McPherson stared at him, “Thank goodness for what?”

  “The P.M. believes in us. I think I’d better have a word with John.”

  Major William Clyde’s second visit to the quarters of Captain Bailey was less dramatic than his first. He had telephoned and asked if he could come by for a moment around seven, had been invited to come for dinner and had accepted.

  He turned up this time unenveloped in any clouds of fire and brimstone, but with a file under one arm and a package shaped suspiciously like a bottle under the other. This suspicion was confirmed when he unveiled the parcel and revealed it as a bottle of King William Scotch Whisky.

  “In the words of Gunner Lovejoy,” Tim said, “Gord luv you.”

  Felicity was more simple. “Our benefactor,” she beamed.

  “Currency,” said Major Clyde. They both looked at him not catching the allusion. “One twelfth of a Barbary ape, C.O.D., Tangier, Rabat or Ceuta. Your quotation,” the Major explained. “Plenty more where that came from.” Then he added, “It’s a more reliable conversational drink. Gin always makes me think I’m more clever than I am.”

  Tim and Felicity exchanged a glance. Apes in the wind. They sat down to dinner. Felicity had made a stew to which she had added a number of exotic but available vegetables and spices, as the best way of expanding their ration. It was savoury and delicious, leading the Major to comment, “They didn’t teach you that in the W.R.N.S., did they?”

  “Oh no,” said Felicity, “my father taught me that.”

  It was Major Clyde who was caught by surprise, “Good God,” he said, “the Admiral? Oh, I say, I do beg your pardon. I didn’t mean—”

  “Daddy is a wonderful cook,” Felicity said. “He loves it. It’s his hobby. When he commanded H.M.S. Unconquerable he had his own galley built next to his quarters. All the Captains used to like to be asked to his little dinners.”

  Major Clyde said, “I suppose God will permit us to survive as long as we continue to amuse Him.” But there were more words and phra
ses than amuse in his mind, thinking of the British, words he would never dream of using, such as staunch and gallant and true to themselves, and not giving a damn for what anybody thought. For here was the daughter of a Vice-Admiral married to a penniless Captain because she loved him, sharing the doghouse into which her husband had got himself through zeal which was likewise unique and British. He found himself pleased with their company.

  After dinner was over and the Major had produced two cigars which Felicity had eyed with suspicion, they being such a rarity on the Rock, Clyde got down to business.

  From his folder he produced the thick loose-leaf notebook he had borrowed from Tim, along with a batch of material, notes and statistics apparently filched from the files. “I’ve been through your stuff,” the Major began, leafing through the notebook, “and the odd thing, you know, which will probably surprise your native modesty is that it will make a book some day which can be read with considerable profit by the high-domes who have to hook everything up to a machine before they believe it. I’ll be dining out on it when I get back to London. Would you believe it, my dear Duchess, that the gestation period of Macaca Silvana is one hundred and eighty days, or just three months less than ours? That the male reaches his adult stage at the age of five? That the females have their heats only between 15th December and 15th January of each year, and consequently the offspring are born in June and July? That young apes are breast fed for six months and have their milk teeth at about five months? Gospel, Ma’am. Personal observation of a friend of mine. I have also,” the Major continued, “been through the files, which are instructive, if not horrifying. If I were the German High Command I would simply concentrate upon capturing these documents and publishing them.”

  The Major fingered through some of the bumph out of his case and continued, “I have here indisputable and documentary evidence that the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Governor of Gibraltar once exchanged official telegrams regarding the subsistence allowance of the ape population; that the Crown Surveyor and Engineer has complained to the Honourable Colonial Secretary that the apes have been dribbling into the fresh-water supplies; that a Senior Medical Officer performed a post mortem operation on the body of a young ape, found a total collapse of the left lung and so reported to the Brigadier; that another Brigadier was politely turned down when he proposed to wish some of his apes on to the Regents Park Zoo; that one of your harassed predecessors had the honour to request of the authorities that he might dispose of two recalcitrant male apes known as Abraham and Wilfred; that after a brawl amongst the apes the Brigadier Commander of the Royal Artillery paid a visit to the scene of battle, possibly to count the pieces of fur that had flown, and interview the O.I.C. Rock Apes, thereafter corresponding on the subject with the Colonial Secretary; that the Revenue Inspector from the Revenue Department used up good Government stationery to advise the Financial Secretary that the peanuts in the two bins at Queen’s Gate on the upper Rock were of a very inferior quality; that the demise of a Rock ape named Judy was reported with all the clinical detail accorded to the passing of a film star or a demi-mondaine and that further bumph shows graduates from Sandhurst who have reached Brigade rank corresponding with their Excellencies the Governors, Colonial Secretaries, Foreign Office chaps and Members of Parliament, on subjects concerning the apes, from the proper age for copulation to the vendetta staged between two males named Antonio and Patrick for exclusive rights to a harem of ten females amongst whom appeared the attractive names of Beatrice, Mona, Maureen, Mary and Kathleen.”