Good Enough For Nelson (26 page)

‘Yes, it is a bit scruffy, I’m afraid,’ The Bodger said, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘We simply don’t have the metal polish allocation these days to do them more than once a week. That’s all come about because of the cuts of ’59, of course.’

The Bodger was wondering how an ex-ordinary seaman would react when they emerged on the saluting parapet and saw the College divisions drawn up in their full pomp and majesty.

Or rather, not quite, not nearly, in their full pomp and majesty. Perky noticed nothing amiss, but everybody else, including the reporters and photographers from the local South Devon press, reeled back in amazement.

Clearly, some disastrous purge, like one of the plagues of Egypt, had swept through the College overnight. These were a travesty, a shadow, of normal divisions. They were not nearly full strength, they were not half, they were a tenth of their usual numbers. Literally, they had been decimated. A few pitiful squads of OUTs clustered forlornly here and there about the parade ground. Across a great yawning emptiness stood the band, reduced to a small disconsolate party huddled as though for mutual protection around the drummer.

For a few moments, as they began to walk round and inspect the scattered legions, The Bodger wondered whether he might not have overdone the poverty. But he was quickly reassured by Perky’s manner. The man was at once overawed, and excited, and impressed by the College’s remaining splendour. At the same time, he was utterly sure of his own place. It was inconceivable that anyone of his exalted status could be mocked or manipulated. I am a Minister of the Crown, his demeanour said, and what I say and see must be. I am Sir Oracle, thought the Prof., watching him from above, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.

Emaciated though the divisions were, Perky thoroughly enjoyed himself. None of the midshipmen he stopped to address talked back at him with that far-back Dartmouth accent he had expected. They all seemed ordinary young men with ordinary accents. But, Perky had to admit, there did seem an awful lot of coloureds. One platoon had over eighty per cent of black faces.

‘We need their money,’ said The Bodger, after Perky’s comment. ‘It’s all good foreign exchange, Minister.’ Inwardly, The Bodger wondered whether Jerry had perhaps left too high a proportion of Gromboolians on divisions. Charlie Charleshaughton, for instance, had been shouting ‘Bags of go, Jellicoe’ at a front row as black as a Zulu impi. But Perky did not, and could not, press the point further. As a Labour politician he could not appear to be concerned over an unduly high proportion of black officers. In a fit of shuddering premonition, Perky visualised the head-lines, ‘Navy Minister Alarmed At Dartmouth Immigrants!’, ‘Race Relations Probe Naval College!’.

Perky’s visit continued to follow the same carefully judged path of probability, poised above an abyss of incredulity. From time to time, The Bodger was sure they had gone too far. Surely they would be exposed by the empty shelves in the library (‘cut back in book allocations, Minister’), or the lifeless, dark planetarium (‘bulbs come specially from Japan, Minister, six months delivery time’), or the shortage of beds in the sick bay (‘allowance of beds per thousand of naval personnel reduced in ’67, you’ll remember, Minister’). Even when Persimmons came doubling past on bare feet (‘next consignment of Service issue gym shoes has to wait for the April Estimates, as you know, Minister’), Perky only clucked sympathetically.

But after a time, Perky did get out a little black notebook and began to write things down in it. When he saw the folded newspapers in the heads (‘Service restriction on toilet paper issues since last year, Minister’), Perky said ‘I’m sure we can do something about
that
, at least’ with the air of a man bravely about to try and salvage at least something from the wreck of the civilised world.

‘Be glad if you could, Minister,’ somebody murmured, gratefully.

The Bodger had a pang of conscience. This, he foresaw, meant years of correspondence, probably for himself, and certainly for his successors. There would be whole departments of civil servants boiling over like ant-hills about this. Serve them bloody well right, thought The Bodger defiantly.

Perky himself seemed in a turmoil of conflicting opinions and emotions. He had come to the College prepared to exclaim about extravagance and class difference. He had been ready to complain about over-lavish arrangements provided for the sons of the gentry. But all he could see were nice, ordinary young lads, with nice ordinary accents, being deprived of their proper amount of toilet paper.

The most dangerous moment arrived when Perky looked out of a first floor window and said ‘That ensign is only half there!’ He turned to The Bodger. ‘You’ve only got half your ensign, Captain!’ He was plainly overjoyed to have been the first to notice such a thing, without any prompting, and before any of these naval officers.

The Bodger, the Prof., Jerry, Isaiah Nine Smith, the Hon. John, Shiner Wright, and the whole party accompanying Perky’s tour, stopped and peered out of the window. It was true enough. The great White Ensign at the flagstaff had been chopped off beside the edge of the Union Jack, so that the whole of the fly, including the two cantons of white and one arm of the red St George’s cross, was missing. The Bodger and Jerry exchanged meaning glances. This was unauthorised. This was not on the programme. This was not an official ‘economy’. Some person or persons unknown had done this thing.

It would have been better to have said nothing and sent someone to investigate, but Jerry had become so immersed in his programme of deception that he unthinkingly said the first thing that came into his head. ‘The other half’s away being cleaned, Minister.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Perky, while everybody around him blew out in relief.

It was preposterous that any sensible man, and least of all a former naval rating, should accept such an explanation. But Perky had become sealed in a state of acceptance, like a kind of psychological aspic, in which he believed all he was told. Even had he guessed at the truth, he would have shied away from it. To challenge the credibility of any of the events presented to him would mean that he would have then to create a world of his own, of which he would be, literally, the only inhabitant. Because he could see that everybody else around him clearly believed in what was happening, in what he was being told and shown. There was only one other possible explanation: an entire naval college was conspiring to make fun of a Minister of the Crown, and for this particular Minister, that solution was simply unthinkable.

After the ensign, anything was believable, even the spectacle of Tremendous Mackenzie riding one of the College horses carrying a mail-bag slung over his shoulder (‘saves petrol, you know, Minister’). But shortly afterwards, there was another anxious moment and once again it took place at the flagstaff where, as the inspecting party watched, a colour party of three OUTs were bending on a string of flags. As they rose up and fluttered clear, The Bodger recognised with a sick feeling the Colonel’s Own Bloody Flag, and his Other Bloody Flag followed by a hoist of another twelve flags.

‘What’s that?’ Perky asked, jovially, ‘England Expects?’

The Bodger read the flags. Flag Peter, Flag Echo, Flag Roger, Flag King... soon the message flew clear against the blue summer sky... PERK... ‘Perk Off Perky’, it read, but there seemed no advantage in communicating the gist of it to the Minister of State for the Navy. Once more, The Bodger and Jerry exchanged glances: this, too, was an unauthorised addition to the programme.

‘Daily flag hoisting practice, Minister,’ said The Bodger.

‘We used to have flashing exercises, too,’ said Jerry, ‘to help them learn the Morse Code. But we can’t afford the power these days.’

Perky’s little notebook came out again. His hosts’ minds boggled at what could now be in it. ‘Sure we can do something about
that
, at least.’

‘Glad if you would, Minister,’ someone murmured.

Although the incident was safely shuffled off, it left The Bodger with a feeling of growing unease. It was one thing to mobilise the College’s energies in an elaborate programme of deception. It might be quite another to control the anarchic forces which had been stimulated into action. It could well be that the OUTs might take Perky’s visit to lengths the staff neither intended nor welcomed.

Perky was staying the night at the Captain’s House, and that evening The Bodger and Julia gave a carefully-staged dinner party in his honour.

Regular Sunday evening PC-makers would not have recognised the bleak, rather cool, unwelcoming living room in which Julia welcomed Perky when he came down that evening.

‘I hope you’re comfortable,’ said Julia, doubtfully. ‘I’m sorry about the camp-bed ... But you know how it is ...’

‘Of course.’ Perky had already decided that it would do him no harm to rough it for one night or so. But he was glad he was not staying at this College any longer. His socialist puritanism nudged his conscience, but he was finding this spartan establishment too much for his sense of what was fitting for a Minister. The living conditions, the food, the physical regime ... everything he had seen that day... the poor facilities or the complete lack of them... Good God, they had been more comfortable and better looked after as seamen boys at Ganges! Far from shutting the place down, Perky now felt his crusading instincts rising to have the place put right.

Purvis was serving his special medicinal sherry, in minute glasses which he had filled only half-full. The portion was so meagre that in spite of herself Julia felt compelled to apologise. ‘We’ve had to pull in our horns a bit, I’m afraid,’ she said.

‘Don’t you get a Captain’s entertainment allowance?’

Julia thought this hardly a fit subject to discuss with a guest, but she said ‘Oh yes, but it hasn’t been increased for quite a while.’

‘Never mind, I’m an optimist.’ When Julia looked puzzled, Perky went on, ‘An optimist says his glass is half full. A pessimist says it’s half empty.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Perky appeared to recognise Purvis. ‘Don’t I remember you?’ he said.

Purvis had been waiting to be recognised. ‘You do, sir,’ he said, at once. ‘We’re old ships. You was on the old
Superb
with me.’

‘That’s right! Old ships! It’s always good to meet old ships again!’

‘I was Chief Bosun’s Mate,’ continued Purvis, ‘and you was an OD. First ship, you was. Green as grass you was, sir.’

‘So I was.’ Perky visibly shrivelled. ‘So I was indeed,’ he said, much less enthusiastically. He slid adroitly away, and began to talk to Polly.

‘I’ve seen you on television,’ said Polly.

‘Have you really?’ Perky preened himself. ‘Yes, they do ask me to appear quite a lot.’

‘Every time there are defence cuts,’ said Polly.

‘Ah well, yes,’ said Perky, much less confidently.

Purvis whispered to Julia. Perky wondered what they were saying about him.

‘Dinner’s ready. Shall we go in?’

Julia’s dinner parties were already famous in the College for their warmth and food and company. She was recognised, albeit grudgingly in some wives’ quarters, to be one of the best hostesses the College had ever seen. But that night, when Julia’s guests went into the dining room for the dinner in Perky’s honour, they could see at once that this evening was going to be different.

The Captain’s dining room, always a somewhat large and forbidding compartment, was now positively chilling. One single very bright light shone above the table. Some cartoons of the old
Superb
belonging to The Bodger had been taken down from the walls, together with a rather pleasant nineteenth-century painting of a Blackwall frigate beating out past the Needles, which had hung above the fireplace and which many guests had admired; in its place was a small hand-printed notice, which read ‘Defence Cuts 1966’. The giant cheese platter on the side-board, normally crammed with cheeses of various nationalities and colours jostling each other shoulder to shoulder, now had as many ominous gaps as divisions that morning. The glasses on the table were not of the same size or pattern and the side-plates looked as though Purvis had bought them at Dartmouth British Legion Summer Jumble Sale for the Glorious First of June. Some were white, some blue, some green, and Perky’s had a seaside scene, a Souvenir of Polperro.

They sat down ten to dinner. Julia was at the head of the table at one end, with Perky on her right and Jerry on her left. The Bodger sat at the other end opposite her, with Hilda on his left and Lady Molly Willoughby-Morton-Prior on his right.

Lady Moll was a very well-known local personality. Generations of College cross-country runners, beagle followers, and Roughexers had panted across her land. Smaller and more select parties of cadets had been to her house for tea and sympathy and, in some even more select cases, a good deal more than sympathy. Lady Moll’s love for the Navy, for young men, and especially for young naval men, was legendary. The initials of her surname, WMP, were a traditional naval signalese abbreviation when accepting an invitation, meaning ‘With Much Pleasure’, and Lady Moll had always believed that it was as blessed to give as to receive. Everyone assumed that at some distant time in the past there must have existed a Sir WMP, but like the Knights of the Round Table he was now lost in the mists of local mythology. Meanwhile, for years Lady Moll went her own libidinous way, parading at the County Show as freely with her lovers as with her heifers. The Bodger had known her for years and was devoted to her. She still had a certain formidable charm but she was growing absent-minded and somewhat deaf in her late middle age. She had never heard of Perky before, never even seen him on television. She had only barely listened to the nature of his job and was under the vague impression that he was the under-secretary of a bacon company. She was still wondering whether she could have heard it aright. It seemed to her an astonishing, though doubtless very necessary, profession but Lady Moll did wonder still what such a man was doing dining at the Captain’s table.

In the two other places on each side were Polly and Lionel Tinkle, and Lucy and Isaiah Nine Smith, all four invited and placed so, under Julia’s all-seeing eye. All four were delighted to be invited and so placed and they formed a happy, contented centre for the party. Their contentment was soon put to the test.