Scruffy - A Diversion Read online

  The Group Captain and his host expended five minutes of embrazios, after which the flyer climbed into his seat, pushed the self-starter button, revved up his engine and took off.

  Since flying was a gift as well as a profession with him, he aviated quite as well with his bloodstream full of alcohol, if not better. His landing on the Gibraltar air-strip before the anxious eyes of Tim Bailey, Major McPherson and Gunner Lovejoy was an absolute masterpiece—a fairy kiss of lightness. When he rolled to a stop the three men were at his side in a utility car. They shouted up to him: “Have you got her? Is she all right, sir? Was there any trouble? It’s O.K., isn’t it?”

  Cranch was at first tempted to launch into a description of how O.K. everything had been, but then something warned him that considering the amount he had imbibed it might be just as well not to engender jealousy in the hearts of his inferiors in rank. Looking down from the officer of the bomber he merely said, “Tickety-boo, lads. Tickety-boo.” And then without realizing it added, “Well!”

  They invaded his aircraft and tenderly lifted the crate containing Ramona and brought it to earth. Major Bailey raised the lid and peered at the ape safely suspended by his brilliant contraption. McPherson also glanced inside with a sigh of relief.

  “Oh good, sir,” Tim said to the Group Captain, who by this time had climbed down out of the aircraft and stood leaning against it in what seemed to be a nonchalant pose but actually expressed a need for support. “Splendid! It all worked out just as I said. She’s still asleep.”

  Into this tender scene of mission accomplished and congratulations cut the harsh voice of Gunner Lovejoy, who was feeling about the same as the Group Captain, having had to stay up all night with the two officers waiting for the aircraft, without recourse to Guinness and lime juice. “Asleep!—my eye and Betty Martin,” he rasped, “she’s dead. She’s deader than Kelcy’s you-know-what,” a phrase he had learned from some American. “I’d say she’s been dead for a couple of hours.”

  The cries of anguish and dismay that rose from the throats of the four men were sincere: “What?— Oh, no!— Oh, I say, not dead?”

  His heart sinking and his conscience already saddened by the necessity for some thumping lies, the Group Captain came over and looked into the box. “Why, the little rascal was alive and kicking when I put her in this morning,” he said. “We had the devil’s own time. Here—you can see the print of her teeth in my thumb. Oh well—it’s worn off by now.” Then, and he hated to do this to a junior officer who was probably not a bad chap, he said, looking at Tim Bailey, “It’s that confounded contraption of yours strangled her to death, I’ll wager. She was just as gentle—I could have brought her over sitting on my shoulder. That’s what did it, that blasted net of yours. Well, sorry, boys. I’m for some shut-eye.” He hoisted his parachute over his shoulder and marched off, leaving young Major Bailey staring aghast into the box at the death-trap he had set for this much-needed female.

  It was to Cranch’s credit that he felt like a thorough rotter—but after all, what else had there been to do? If there was any comfort in the situation, the monkey was dead and couldn’t talk, and nobody would ever find out about the party. The liquor he had brought with him could bide in the aircraft until nightfall, when he could safely remove it.

  This complacent frame of mind lasted just thirty-six hours, when he returned to his office from an observation flight to find an official envelope from the Medical Officer on his desk addressed to himself. It was a carbon copy of an autopsy report on the body of the ape Ramona, conducted by Major Llewellyn Jones, R.A.M.C., and read in part:

  “As a result of an autopsy conducted by me upon the body of a female of the species of African Macaque, or Barbary ape, delivered to me at 0900 hours on the 15th November by Major McPherson, Major Bailey, O.I.C. Apes, and Gunner Lovejoy, it is my conclusion that this specimen died of acute alcoholic poisoning.

  “An analysis of the blood showed the presence of 13 per cent per c.c. of alcohol in the brain and circulatory system, of which 6 per cent may be considered a fatal dose.

  “Analysis of some of the contents of the stomach indicated that this alcohol was Scotch-type whisky.

  “Off the findings, I would deduce unofficially that this ape had consumed from three-quarters to four-fifths of a bottle of Scotch whisky before being embarked.

  “All other indications of death negative.”

  (Signed) Llewellyn Jones,

  M.D., R.A.M.C., etc.

  The Group Captain sat staring down at the document. He rested one finger on the side of his nose and said, “Whish,” but this time with no tiptoeing about the room, only with infinite sadness, to which he added an “Oh dear, oh dear”. He knew now what had become of the missing bottle of Scotch.

  The final disaster took place a month after the return of Group Captain Cranch to the Rock with the remains of the female Macaque and sent the Majors Bailey, McPherson and Clyde and Gunner Lovejoy into an anxious and worried huddle in McPherson’s office which Clyde was using as a base.

  Towards the end of August there had been another violent thunderstorm of shattering intensity, accompanied by torrential rain, high winds and destructive lightning which had worked considerable damage to installations on the Rock. On its heels instead of a warm, dry period, had followed a Levanter, the first and fatal harbinger of summer’s end, a cold damp cloud that clamped itself upon the up-jutting Rock and had maintained its grip for seventy-two hours, at the end of which time half of the inhabitants of the Rock were down with influenza, colds, bronchitis, or Gibraltar fever, and most of the ape pack were dead. It was all the more tragic because construction of the shelters had begun. If they had been ready for use practically all of the beasts would have survived.

  “All right, Lovejoy,” Clyde said, “let’s have it.”

  “There ain’t too much to ’ave,” Lovejoy replied. “It’s like Major Bailey said, there’s old Scruffy and four hapelets. Three of them sick. We might pull one through—”

  “So to all intents and purposes,” suggested Major Clyde.

  “There’s only old Scruff,” concluded the Gunner, “and if he wasn’t so tough we’d be at rock bottom and on the way to being cleaned out.”

  “If we can keep the Germans from finding out—”

  “We can keep them from knowing,” Major Clyde said, “but not from guessing. I could write the next German broadcast for you: ‘As a result of the severe electrical storm followed by a dangerous Levanter, further deaths have occurred in the ranks of the Barbary apes located on Gibraltar, diminishing the pack to the point where panic is about to set in among the British stationed there,’ and so on and so on.”

  “I suppose we ought to keep Scruffy under lock and key. But how can we when we haven’t even—”

  “That’s just what we don’t do,” Clyde contradicted. “We are going to have to rely on Scruffy to show the flag for us—or rather show the monkey.”

  It was Lovejoy who twigged first. “Spread him around town, eh sir?” he said.

  “That’s it. We will have to take a chance. He’s tough and that’s a fact. The more places he’s seen—”

  “He can do enough mischief by hisself for a whole pack of monkeys,” the Gunner observed.

  “That’s the purpose of the exercise. We need a breather. Tim, what have you got to report?”

  Tim produced a folder of correspondence. His expression was glum.

  “I’ve cabled some and written others,” he said. “We’ve drawn nothing but blanks. Some moved away, some no have apes, several no reply at all, but most of them had ape but sold recently. It’s almost like a pattern developing.”

  Major Clyde had his lank form wrapped around an office chair, and was regarding Tim quizzically. “Well, what did you expect?”

  “Why I— Good Lord, Bill, you don’t mean—”

  “Oh yes,” Clyde said. “They’ve been buying them up like stink. We have had chaps out. They’ve been scouring North Africa. The Germans
are always ahead of us. Thorough bastards when they think they’re on to something. We’ve got lines out to trap some wild ones, but so far no go. They may even have some men up in the hills scaring them off. And anyway they wouldn’t do us much good for rebuilding the pack. You’ve said they want to be at least half domesticated before they’ll breed.”

  “Particularly with old Scruff,” Tim said, “he’d be apt to kill a wild one.”

  “In that case,” Major Clyde said, “I think I had better be off to London.” They all looked at him. Clyde said, “Whatever in the world anyone might want, the chances are that at least one of it can be found in London.”

  Tim shook his head, “I doubt if you will turn one up in the Zoo. Not according to our records. We haven’t sent a female to England since 1924. Look here, Bill, maybe if I went to Africa—”

  Major Clyde shook his head, “Nothing doing. The place for an O.I.C. Apes is with his apes, whether he’s got any or not. Look here, lads! Here’s the plot.” Major Clyde unwound himself from his chair and reached for a pencil and pad on which to doodle while he talked. “We’re in a damn bad spot and there’s no use our not admitting it. The Germans know we’ve lost the bulk of our apes and that it’s the kind of thing likely to put the wind up, but fortunately they don’t know how near the bottom of the barrel we are. And it’s up to us to keep them from finding out. That’s where you and Lovejoy come in, Tim. Everything normal on the Rock, food supplies go out to Prince Ferdinand’s Battery as usual, even if you have to eat it yourselves. Apes seen around town. Scruffy tears up the Chaplain’s garden. We’ll get the local rag to print another editorial about the apes fouling the water catchments, and Something Must Be Done About It. If the Jerries put a real hot spy in here, a chap who knows his onions as well as his apes, Mac will turn him up and land him in the cooler, so they’ll have to rely upon information which will be both inexpert and inaccurate. In the meantime I’ll beetle off to London—”

  “You would,” commented McPherson.

  “We have the organization there,” Clyde said. “If there’s a lady Barbarian in the British Isles we’ll turn her up. We’ll fly her over here. She and old Scruff get matey. Apelet is born on the Rock. An heir to the throne! All hail the crown prince! The line of succession is preserved.”

  “One ruddy ape,” Bailey said unconvinced, “and say we still have three, three and one makes four. The P.M. said twenty-four—”

  “The thing you don’t appreciate, my boy, and what is going to get us out of the bloody mess all of us are in, and I mean the Empire as well as just the four of us, is that while the Jerry is highly efficient and capable and a nasty fellow in a war, he is also a supreme fathead, which is something you can give odds on. He’s also a great front runner, but if you look him in the eye in the stretch he’s likely to curl and head for the outside.”

  McPherson said, “I don’t get the point, Bill.”

  “The point, my dear fellow, is that if we can produce an ape on the Rock and the chaps in Berlin get the idea that their bloke in Algeciras has been feeding them a lot of duff gen they’re quite likely to drop it, call off their ape buyers and forget the whole business.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?” Tim asked. “If we don’t get the crown prince?”

  Major Clyde stopped his doodling and looked up at them, and they saw that he had gone quite serious, the usual light-hearted gaiety missing from his expression. “Why, we just must, mates,” he replied, “if for no other reason than that people are so damn silly you never know what they’re going to do. They’re supposed to have brains and judgement, but it takes no more than a feather to tip the scales one way or another. A lot of Greeks lost a battle because some birds flew in the wrong direction. The Romans were smart enough to use omens and entrails for political purposes, but the point is the foot soldiers believed in them. And if a sheep or a lamb happened to be liverish when cut open, it could turn a brave man into a coward, eh? Right now we don’t know which way the Spaniard is going to jump. Maybe he’s looking for an omen. Maybe he isn’t. The point is either way we don’t give him one, and if we do it is one he doesn’t like. One can’t win a war like that, but you can damn well keep from losing one. I wouldn’t tell this to anyone but you blokes or the P.M.” He arose. “You handle this end, Tim. When I’ve found a prospective bride I’ll let you know.”

  1 6

  Lovejoy to Hope Cove via London

  “Lovejoy,” Timothy said, “you’re to go to London.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Gunner replied automatically and then did what his opposite number in the American Army would have described as a triple take plus one. He stared at Tim simply pop-eyed. His mouth flew wide open. He shut it, and opened it again quickly and came close to losing his balance. “What? What did you say, sir?”

  “I said you were to go to London,” Timothy repeated. “Special orders. You’re to be flown out tomorrow morning at six, they’ve even detached a Wellington for you. Simmonds is writing your orders now.”

  Gunner Lovejoy was breathless with delight and could only try to stiffen his spine to attention repeatedly, in the manner of a puppy compelled to wag his entire rear end because of a too stumpy tail, and he murmured as he did so, “Oh, I say, sir.” At the moment far-off London seemed like the Persian poet’s dream of paradise.

  For he was remembering, of course; the London of his youth, left behind some twenty-five years ago, Wanstead with its rows of old, ugly, comfortable houses one exactly like the other, its corner pubs fragrant with spilled bitters and the reek of pipe and cigarettes and the delectable girls who dressed themselves up and went out a-walking on Saturday nights.

  In that moment of revelation the Gunner was hard put to decide which of the visions conjured up was the most attractive, the beer flowing unlimited or the Saturday-night girls. And then with a thrill the Gunner realized that there was nothing to stop him from having both—all the girls he could walk with, all the beer he could drink and once more all the old sights, sounds, smells and haunts.

  London, London, London! Tubes and buses and flicks that weren’t three years old, busy shops and proper tobacconists, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, and the good honest, thick yellow London fog that a man could draw into his lungs with all the gratifying agony of cheap shag.

  Poor Lovejoy! Had he only known it the London to which he was bound was only a delusion of his own fantasy. The city was under siege, the lights were out, the beer diluted, food, what there was of it, practically inedible, and all the pretty Saturday-night girls hustled away into the land army or women’s auxiliaries, factories or monopolized by open-handed American soldiers with large pay packets and no inhibitions.

  Still the name London rang in the Gunner’s ears like a trumpet call. He asked, “What’s the gen, sir?”

  Tim said, “Major Clyde has come across an ape, a female. You are to fly back there, collect it and bring it here. I won’t even impress upon you the importance of the mission or what it means if it fails.”

  For the first time the Gunner, with his marvellous instinct for trouble a-cooking somewhere, felt some of the shine rubbed off from his beautiful fantasy. “But why me, sir?” he asked. “Why not you? After all, the responsibility—”

  Tim sailed the half-sheet of the message which Felicity herself had decoded less than an hour ago across his desk to the Gunner saying, “You see what it says across the top.”

  Lovejoy did indeed for it was stamped “Top Secret” and read:

  “SUITABLE FEMALE APE SIX YEARS OLD VIRGIN GUARANTEED MACAQUE SYLVANUS AFRICANUS IN PRIVATE HANDS PET OWNER PROVING TROUBLESOME EXPERT APE HANDLER OF CHARM AND PERSUASIVENESS WANTED CANNOT SPARE YOU FROM ROCK SUGGEST SEND LOVEJOY BUT CLEAN HIM UP STOP ALSO PHOTOGRAPHS WANTED REMEMBER ANNE OF CLEVES IF NO LOCAL HOLBEIN AVAILABLE SUGGEST GOOD RETOUCHING JOB OR BETTER STILL SUBSTITUTE PICTURE OF MORE AMIABLE SPECIMEN EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON MAKING GOOD IMPRESSION P.M.’S PRIVATE WELLINGTON ON AIR-STRIP 6 AM TOMORROW.”

  Lovejoy read it through twice,
pushing back his cap and scratching his head. Alarm bells were going off again. He didn’t like obscurantism, obfuscation, mystery or hanky-panky, he liked everything straightforward. Who was this owner who was proving difficult, and why? What was the meaning of the nasty crack in the signal about cleaning him up?

  “I don’t like it, sir,” he said.

  “Don’t like what?”

  “About cleaning me up, sir. What—”

  “Oh,” said Tim. “That’s just Major Clyde’s way of putting the situation without using a lot of words. You know we’re pretty relaxed here on the Rock in the matter of dress. Probably a lot of spit and polish around H.Q. in London. Get your hair cut and I’ve arranged to have a new uniform issued to you which I’ll thank you to keep buttoned.”

  “And what’s all that about charm and persuasiveness, sir—?”

  Undoubtedly, Tim thought, Major Clyde had his reasons for being mysterious but he wished he had been a little more explicit if he expected him to cope. He said, “I shouldn’t let that worry you, Lovejoy. I’ve known you to charm a whole pack of apes down from the trees, and as for powers of persuasion if there is a better man on the Rock for talking a supply man out of Government property—”

  But the Gunner was still regarding the dispatch with an unresolved frown. “I don’t quite get the picture, sir.”

  “Oh, come on, man,” Tim said, tapping the signal, “it’s not all that difficult. Major Clyde has located an ape but the owner is proving sticky. You go back there and win the confidence of the beast, which you will be able to do at the drop of a hat, the owner withdraws objections and Bob’s your uncle. And besides, it’s a trip back home to London, isn’t it?”

  The Gunner brightened again. “That’s right, sir,” he said, “I’ll do me best.”

  Major “Slinker” Clyde didn’t exactly cause the welkin to resound with whoops of joy when Gunner John Lovejoy was ushered into his presence in the cubby-hole that served him as his office in the M.I.5 section near Whitehall.