Little Nelson (11 page)

It was, however, the presence of the acorn as much as of the button that moved her so deeply. It stood out as an emblem, a symbol. Little Nelson had always liked smooth, bright, shiny things and, within that jumble of waste paper, was everything that he had held most precious. It was his treasure chest. If only Little Nelson had learnt to write, she kept thinking, then he could have told me everything. But she realized at once how foolish she was being. The parcel had told her everything. Unsigned and unwritten it said all that there was to say.

It was a message of farewell, a last testament from an absent loved one.

During the next twenty-four hours another minor incident served to divert public attention. A wine merchant in Kilburn was robbed, and twelve cases of champagne were removed overnight. Not that there was anything in itself very remarkable in such a raid. But there was one distinctly unusual feature. The wine merchant was one of the long-established kind who provided his customers with soda in the old-fashioned trigger-operated kind of syphon. As
loot they were practically valueless. Nevertheless, the whole thirty-six of them, stored in the corridor leading to the basement, were removed on that single night. And whereas the champagne, Bolinger NV, was all conveniently crated, the syphons must have been laboriously removed one at a time.

It was the theft of the syphons that revealed the one clue – though it was not yet to emerge publicly – as to the nature of the crime. A stipendiary magistrate, a citizen of the highest possible credentials, returning late from a social gathering with professional colleagues, came upon a remarkable sight in the roadway. Beside a lorry drawn up against the kerb were two of the smallest figures he had ever seen, both wearing stocking masks and both sitting on the pavement squirting each other with jets of soda water.

The magistrate was transfixed. He stood watching in amazement. Then, as a series of shrill whistles from inside the lorry seemed to be urging the combatants on to further violence, he decided that it was his duty to report the matter.

It was not until he had actually got inside the telephone kiosk on the corner that he began to entertain second thoughts about the whole affair. As he lifted the receiver he began to realize that he would find it impossible to prepare a coherent statement of what he was already beginning to doubt he
had just seen. He decided therefore to go straight home to bed.

A couple of days later it would have taken more than the misgivings of a bemused magistrate to keep any news out of the headlines; or, indeed, off the front pages, too. There could no longer be any doubt about it; the gnomes were mobilizing on a national scale. In strict accordance with some deep-laid plan, they were coming together not merely as battalions or regiments, but as brigades and divisions. Up and down the length of the country, whole armies were now in process of formation.

What was chiefly remarkable about this mobilization was that it should have been the historic sites of conflict that were ultimately chosen for engagement. The names Naseby, Culloden, and Bannockburn all figured largely in the headlines; and, further south, Barnet and Blackheath both reappeared. Within the northern and western suburbs of the capital there were purely contemporary forays in Richmond Park, Kew Gardens, Regent's Park and Kenwood. Of these, the three-hour offensive and counter-offensive which raged in front of Kenwood's Regency mansion was the most notable.

Preparations for the confrontation had been under way for the whole of the preceding week. Adjoining woodlands were seen to have been full of small creeping figures and, on the open lawns and meadows, isolated platoons, presumably of shirkers, had been observed at fatigue drill. Nor was the scene of activity limited to Kenwood itself. Overnight, two
lines of extremely narrow trenches had been dug across the whole width of the Heath Extension; hastily constructed landing barges, four foot six inches by six foot, were to be detected tethered to the little jetty on the Boat Pond; and the lower slopes of Parliament Hill were dotted with earthworks, tank traps, and bow and arrow emplacements. At night time the noise of whistling had become intolerable and residents as far away as Holly Lodge and Hampstead Garden Suburb were advised to keep their windows closed.

It is here that the highest possible tribute has to be paid to the Deputy Commissioner. Not for a single moment did he waver. Cancelling all Police leave, he threw a cordon round the whole area, extending from Gospel Oak in the south and Golders Green in the west, and taking in Highgate Village and the Vale of Health on the periphery. Check points were set up, identity cards printed, isolated dwellings evacuated, churches closed and public houses put out of bounds.

Naturally the Deputy Commissioner had his critics.

His whole handling of the Emergency was regarded by many as weak and indecisive. And when he set up a special departmental Public Relations office for the issue of passes to reporters from television, radio and the Press, it was seen by his enemies
as no more than a device by a publicity-seeking public servant anxious to achieve personal notoriety.

The media, however, had good reason to be grateful to him. All that mattered to the great organs of information was that they should be there and at full strength. Indeed, when it finally became clear that the battle was to be fought on the lawn below the House, television cameras stretched, tripod to tripod, down the whole length of the terrace. Moreover, because of the exceptional demands on the local power supply, two mobile generators were brought in and installed in the sunken courtyard outside what had once been the old mansion's great kitchen.

By the Tuesday evening it was clear that the time for hostilities could not be far off. The whole day had been occupied by the bringing-up of reinforcements – one army using the imitation wooden footbridge over by the lake, and the other the disused carriage drive beside The Spaniard's Inn. Throughout the whole of that night the glow of campfires lit up the surrounding northern heights, and the sound of whistling continued unabated.

Wednesday, the day of battle, dawned crisp and clear. The call of bugles was carried on the autumn air, mingled with the noise of pedal motors being furiously revved up in readiness. Even so it was not until 1700 hours precisely that hostilities finally began.

Oddly enough, the cause of the delay was civilian rather than military. With both sides fully equipped and ready to begin fighting, hostilities were held up by a commonplace industrial dispute. Special danger money rather than overtime demand was at the bottom of it. The gunners, archery divisions, and boomerang throwers had all been in position for hours but the night gear – mattresses, blankets, candles, alarm clocks and so forth – had failed to arrive. These goods were in the hands of gnome commercial contractors and, worse, of gnome commercial sub-contractors. These were an uncouth, rough-looking lot, mostly with thick striped mufflers and shapeless duffle coats. Having approached within a few hundred yards of the battle zone, they resolutely refused to draw nearer. Leaving their loads in the wheelbarrows, Super-market trolleys and push carts in which they had brought them, they simply stood around, hands thrust into their pockets, mooching. Not that they were by any means altogether without organization or discipline. They had their local representatives with them. Two soberly dressed figures, both with Persil-white shirts and a row of ball points and propelling pencils in their outside breast pockets, duly stepped forward. The others gathered round and, after a unanimous show of small pink hands, the two representatives marched off in the direction of the nearby Field Office.

The officer in charge was a gnome of the old
school, fierce and unapproachable. Face to face meetings began, only to be broken off again. Re-started, the atmostphere became even more tense; chairs were over-turned and a water carafe – purely symbolic – was upset down the entire length of the green baize table-top.

Lunch break was taken in separate tents and, apart from some noticeably strident whistling, in total silence. There was no sign of movement from either party. Deadlock was complete.

Then a pale diffident-looking figure, obviously a conciliator, appeared. He was carrying a briefcase. His companion was of a different sort, half-chauffeur, half-assistant. But it was obvious that he knew his stuff. Without hesitation he marched up to the door of the Field Office and announced his master's arrival. The unapproachable officer immediately became polite, even welcoming. The officer, the local representatives and the conciliator remained together for nearly half an hour. Then the conciliator went across to the contractors' men and there was the sound of muffled whistling. But all was well. By four o'clock some kind of settlement must have been reached because conciliator and representatives trudged off to see the army authorities again.

This was the longest session of all. It occupied a full sixty-five minutes. The outcome, however, was evidently satisfactory. The soldier gnome, his ribbons ablaze in their distinctive colours, and the
representatives with their shining ball points, all emerged into the open and shook hands with the pale, diffident-looking one. Immediately, wheelbarrows, Super-market trolleys and push carts began being laboriously trundled up to the very edge of the battlefield itself.

Even so, things were not yet quite ready. All eyes were now turned towards the gnome chaplains. And about time, too. The pair of them – one for each side – were furious at having been kept waiting. They were stamping up and down indignantly. But, as soon as they were called upon, they subdued their resentment. Dignified and calm-looking they stepped forward, their white vestments trailing. These surplices were of the simplest; merely surgical overalls of the kind that do up at the back, leaving not so much as a single button showing. They had come out of the go-cart ambulance field-sets and fitted the part perfectly. Because of the lateness of the hour the services were, by mutual agreement, cut down to the permitted minimum. But there was no scimping of the Battle Hymn. In identical versions it was whistled simultaneously by both sides. The wind at the time was from the north west and the last verse, the
ff
one, was reported as clearly audible as far away as South Kentish Town and Chalk Farm.

As so often happens in military matters, the opening was marred by a complete fiasco. From the Hampstead side a single helicopter suddenly rose up
engine spluttering like a machine-gun, hovered for a moment a full thirty feet above the empty ground and then sank slowly down again in the middle of No Man's Land, its blades gradually coming to rest. At once, a breakdown rescue vehicle, complete with hand-operated crane, tore through a gap in the front line defence beside the launching pad and bumped its way over the intervening turf. But it was too late. Already a commando contingent on fairy cycles, armed with sacks of golf balls – a sports shop in Thames Ditton had been raided only a week before – had reached the stranded machine and began pelting it. They were a specialized branch, these commandos, trained in sabotage and destruction. Leaping from their saddles they climbed up on the stationary rotors and seesaw-ed up and down on them, snapping them off like celery. The rescue vehicle came to a halt, the driver, regardless of all risk, standing up to survey the spectacle through a pair of plastic binoculars. He then turned his truck around, and the wrecked helicopter was left where it had landed, merely one more tragic piece of detritus in the indiscriminate rubbish heap and wasteland of modern war.

Faced by this morale-destroying setback, the High Command changed tactics. Instead of reserving the full strength of its air force to support the coming advance, it brought them forth as an initial challenge. Suddenly a couple of miniature World War II
Hurricanes and a Spitfire came into view over the ranks of massed infantry, and began performing aerial acrobatics in front of the house.

It seems doubtful whether these acrobatics were exactly what the High Command had intended; and, a moment later, when the three aircraft roared, flat-out, down the length of the terrace scattering reporters, cameramen, sound engineers and personal assistants, it was evident that all was not well. A peremptory order must have reached the three airmen. Before they had time to make a second run, they peeled off and made straight for the enemy.

It was now that the Highgate army showed its true fighting quality. As soon as the attackers were in range, they were met by a formidable barrage. A cloud of upwards of a hundred and fifty toy balloons of all colours were simultaneously released, and a series of startling pops and wheezes marked the inevitable collisions. This balloon barrage, however, was no more than the first of the prepared defences. By the time the planes had returned for their second sortie the anti-aircraft battery was ready. And its fire power was impressive. No fewer than twelve archery units were involved. The arrows were heavy, high calibre missiles, all with round rubber suckers on the tip. The first of the Hurricanes, flying fast and very low, ran into a hail of them. The result was inevitable. With a whole cluster of these harpoon-like objects clinging to the fuselage, the plane faltered,
dipped, plunged to earth and went cart-wheeling away in the direction of the makeshift field hospital and row of waiting go-cart ambulances.

Hilda was still asleep while this was happening. Because of her illness her sleep nowadays was much disturbed. Absent for hours on end during the night, the need for it became uncontrollably pressing in the afternoon, and it was a sudden and alarming blast of noise that woke her. Here it was the Vicar who was at fault. In the ordinary way no great lover of television, he had slunk downstairs to take a quick peep and get back to his room again before Hilda was around. What he saw, however, held him fascinated. And, in the hope that he might be able to see even more, he began fiddling with the controls. Without his reading glasses, however, it was a gamble; and it was a gamble that he lost. Mistaking ‘Volume' for ‘Brightness' he had the set suddenly roaring and bellowing at him.