Post of Honour (75 page)

‘Precisely the same might be said of 1914,’ Franz said. ‘I defer to you when it come to recalling actual conditions on the battlefield but someone like me, a man whose ear has been to the ground for nearly a century, doesn’t have to read history books to know that in August 1914, no one, not even the Junkers, actually willed the war! It simply happened. All but the lunatic fringe were terrified of the actuality by the time the guns started firing themselves.’

‘Aren’t there enough of us to contain him?’ Paul argued. ‘What about Russia and France?’

‘You can write off France! I’ve done business there lately and count myself fortunate I collected fifty per cent of my bad debts. As to Russia, there are plenty of wiseacres who think he’ll turn East and if he did they would encourage him, finance him I don’t doubt, but they would be doing themselves a very poor service. It’s no more than a question of who is first. That man is after world domination.’

It was difficult not to be convinced by the old man, particularly when one looked back on his accurate prophecies of 1906, 1914 and 1929. He had forecast, among lesser catastrophes, the German Naval race, the World War and the Wall Street crash, when those in a position to know, people like James Grenfell for instance, had been hopelessly wrong. Paul said, ‘Isn’t there a way to head it off?’

‘Yes,’ Franz said, ‘but I very much doubt if you English are realistic or ruthless enough to use the means at your disposal! You could blow Mussolini’s transports out of the water when he gobbles up Abyssinia in a week or two. That might convince German financiers and chauvinists that they were playing with fire. The Abyssinians are barbarians, of course, but we might as well confine barbarism to Africa if we can.’ His eyes, usually as bright as a ferret’s, seemed to cloud and he looked across at a portly Dickensian waiter and a couple of clergymen toying with their fish course. ‘You know, Paul,’ he said, ‘it’s your world that’s at stake, not mine! We people, the usurers of this world, learn to come to terms with these things but you never could. Win or lose you’ll sacrifice all you managed to salvage from the last dog-fight—provincial peace and social patterns, a code of decent behaviour and places like this, that are the focal points of your out-dated civilisation. You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose your precious Valley.’

‘How do you suggest I insure against it?’ Paul asked grimly, for it began to dawn on him that Zorndorff’s telephone call and his decision to break his journey, were no more than thinly-disguised manoeuvres to exercise the protectiveness shown towards the son of his old partner, a habit that had coloured their relationship for more than thirty years.

‘I can tell you that, my boy,’ Franz said, cheering up at once, ‘you can act independently of that idiot Baldwin and any windbag who succeeds him, and set course between the present and Doomsday.’

‘Well?’

‘Buy!’
Franz said, earnestly. ‘Lay up the treasure of the fat years against the dearth of the lean! Buy all the pedigree stock you can afford and all the latest machinery. Build a reservoir at a safe distance from the house for reserve fuel, for fuel will be one of the first things to run short. Make yourself as tight and self-contained as Noah, who received his warning from a somewhat more infallible source, but above all, ignore anything you read in the newspapers about pacts and arms agreements and Germany being too poor to wage a war of aggression! Even over there plenty of people old enough to know better are depending on that and more still are falling into the error that they are still in the driver’s seat. I daresay they were until a year or so ago but time doesn’t stand still for people like Adolf Hitler. It’s get on or get out, the same as it is in any competitive business, and nobody seems to have recognised him as that very rare phenomenon indeed!’

‘Come again!’

Franz said, with his familiar, sneering smile, ‘They do not recognise an Austrian who is uniquely free of the taint of
schlamperei
!
I am such a one, and Hitler is another. Dangerous fellows both! Like an Englishman unhindered by tolerance, someone who would even cheat at cricket if there was a sizeable stake on the match! Well, it is time for my train, I think,’ and he stood up, taking out his wallet and putting a five-pound note on top of the two-pound bill.

‘I’ll pay for this, Uncle Franz,’ Paul said but the old man waved his hand.

‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘I doubt if I shall ever have the pleasure of lunching with you again,’ and, to the hovering waiter, ‘The meal was excellent! My compliments to the chef and share the change!’ He swept out, past the two clergymen and the gratified waiter, and Paul reflected that for all his shrewdness he was still as vain as a mongrel who has confounded the judges by winning a first at Cruft’s.

He drove home very slowly, pondering the old man’s Jeremiad and wondering if, in the next year or so, he should plough his reserve (only just replenished after the drain of the slump) into building the fuel-tank and investing in stock and machinery at the County Show. ‘Maybe I will,’ he told himself, ‘the old rascal was right about everything else but I’m not that much impressed, in spite of it all! At the age of fifty-six there’s really no reason why I should be.’ But then, as he looked up and saw the slender silhouette of French Wood on the skyline, he remembered that he had sons and sons-in-law, the eldest thirty-one, the youngest still a baby, and he hurried on, saying, ‘Christ! Not again! Not after what we endured for four years at the hands of boneheads like Haig!’ then, as the park wall began, and he caught the gleam of sun on the shallow river, he compromised, ‘I’ll buy, just as he advised,’ he told himself, ‘but as an investment in sanity not in suicide!’

He swung into the drive and blew his horn to give Claire warning of his approach.

Chapter Eighteen

I

F
ranz did not return to the West for Christmas. In mid-December Stephen wrote to say that the old man had gone into a nursing home and in late January, the week Valley radio sets broadcast news that King George lay dying, Zorndorff died in his sleep.

Paul thought it his duty to travel to London in thick, January murk to attend the cremation at Woking and when he returned to the old man’s home in Sloane Street one of a small army of the solicitors Zorndorff had employed drew him on one side and gave him a letter Franz had dictated, with orders that it be handed to Paul Craddock after his death.

‘He made a number of codicils to his will during the last few months,’ the man said, rather resentfully. ‘All in all it made matters very complicated! Up to that time his dealings with us had been very straightforward.’

‘I daresay you were well paid for it,’ Paul said, shortly, and the solicitor, regretting his unguarded remark, buttoned his lip and said, ‘Oh, I certainly wouldn’t like you to think we objected in any way, Mr Craddock. It was just that—well—we felt some of his last minute changes were rather impulsive!’

‘Since you’ve told me this much you can tell me what they were,’ Paul grunted, for he was always a little edgy in London, particularly when required to go there in winter.

‘I . . . er . . . I think perhaps your sons are better qualified to explain that, sir,’ the man said. ‘After all, we handled his latest will but we were not his exclusive advisers. The Five-Year dispersal of the estate was executed by another firm. He only came to us when the partner of his regular solicitors died.’

Paul relented somewhat, reflecting that Uncle Franz must have been a particularly troublesome client to men whose minds ran along prescribed grooves and when he was alone with Stevie and Andrew he reported his conversation with the lawyer, asking them how much they expected to benefit from the will. The boys were practically strangers to him now. It was getting on for seven years since they had launched themselves into this bizarre world of scrap metal, golf tournaments, mysterious trips up and down the country in bigger and better cars, and hole-in-corner conferences with shady characters who lived, Paul suspected, on their wits, and only just inside the law. Neither Stephen nor Andrew had maintained any real links with the Valley or, as far as he could judge, with any aspect of country life that was not synthetic. They wore Savile Row suits and smoked big cigars but there was still something vaguely flashy about both them and their equally well dressed wives, so that he thought with relief of Rumble Patrick and Mary, in their snug farmhouse, overlooking the Sorrel.

‘There’s not all that much duty to pay,’ Andy explained, with a grin. ‘Uncle Franz saw to that when he split everything up a year or so after we horned in on the racket! It was lucky for us he lived out the span. Stevie and I were made partners, you know, but most of his capital was ploughed back in the Birmingham and Liverpool branches and since then we’ve opened yards in half-a-dozen other places. You might say that what the Old Boy really left us was goodwill, bricks and mortar. Plenty of it but not much cash. About five thou apiece I’d say, wouldn’t you, Stevie?’

‘Plus legacies in trust for the kids,’ Stevie said. ‘They won’t have to bother, I can tell you that, Gov, so if you ever think of making a will you can cut us out and no hard feelings.’

It was impossible not to respond towards the sheer impudence of The Pair, Paul thought, and he could readily understand how the old buccaneer had taken them to his heart.

‘I’m not at the will-making stage yet,’ he told them, ‘but I should be interested to know how the old fellow disposed of his cash. He had hordes of Austrian relatives, most of whom sponged on him for years, but somehow I don’t think the hangers-on will benefit. The lawyer I spoke to seemed to imply he had had all manner of second thoughts after his trip abroad.’

‘Yes he did,’ Andy said, ‘and he was damned cagey about them but from what I can gather he left a hell of a dollop to the Zionist Movement. He was very needled about what was happening to the Jews over there but, aside from that, I hope he didn’t overlook you, Gov! You mightn’t believe it, but he had a lot of time for you, even though, privately, he thought you were a bit . . . well . . . a bit set in your ways, if you follow me.’

‘I follow you,’ Paul said, ‘and it’s about the politest way either of you have ever put it! He left me a letter to be read after his death and I’ve got it here. I purposely didn’t open it until I could share it with you,’ and he thumbed open the stiff, parchment envelope, extracting a single, folded sheet, with an antedated cheque attached to it by a paper-clip. The cheque was for ten thousand pounds.

‘Good God!’ Paul exclaimed, ‘this is absolute nonsense! I parted with what interests I retained in the firm during the slump!’

The letter was brief and very much to the point. ‘My dear Paul,’ it ran. ‘I enclose this because, knowing lawyers, I realise that it might be a year before you get your hands on it. You can draw on this almost at once and, as I warned you, there isn’t that much time! I don’t suppose you followed my advice and stocked up but this may prompt you to begin. You ought to be a rich man in your own right but I know very well that you are not. You still might be, in spite of yourself, if you ever approach my age! It’s my guess that in the years ahead land and property will skyrocket as never before and for all manner of reasons, among them over-population and slum-clearance by bombing squadrons. However, I found on getting back here, that I was in a very small minority. Few people take that little rascal any more seriously than you did. That’s why I made some last-minute alterations in my will and left the bulk of my pile to those who are going to need a refuge few of them deserve! Despite your holier-than-thou judgment of me, my boy, I never really had much use for money
as
money. It was making it, beating them all at it, that was the breath of life to me, even in your father’s time! One small thing; I had someone do a little digging in Somerset House after our last meeting and uncovered a little that explains your life-long obsession with mud, red necks, thatch, well-water and hairy forearms! Your mother’s maiden name was ‘Endicott’ and she came from a Somerset village, either Curry Rivel or Chard, I was unable to determine which, although I daresay you could find out by checking parish records. She was born in 1848 but I couldn’t get a copy of the birth certificate as there were hordes of Endicotts thereabouts. All I wanted to
prove to myself was that you did, after all, revert to type! Good luck always, dear ploughboy—affectionately, Franz Zorndorff.’

He read the letter aloud and the twins listened respectfully. Andy said, finally, ‘Well what do you know? He was an amazing old bird, wasn’t he? But I can’t help feeling that last trip of his threw him off balance a bit. After all, who cares about a bloody little whipper-snapper who used to hang wallpaper and bites carpets whenever he gets stoked up? Someone will bump him off sooner or later!’

‘As a matter of fact the cheque isn’t all that much of a surprise to me,’ Stevie admitted. ‘The last time I talked to the Old Boy he launched into a diatribe about the submarine fleet Hitler is building and how we should all be starved out in war. Damned funny the bats that start whizzing around in your belfry when you get to that age! There was that final instruction we found on his desk, the day the ambulance called for him.’

‘What was that?’ Paul asked sharply, not sure that he cared for their flippancy.

‘He asked us to scatter his ashes in the boneyard,’ Andy said. ‘Can you beat that? Down among the scrap! Ashes to ashes you might say.’

‘That’s a revolting idea!’ Paul protested, ‘and if it was left to me I should ignore it.’

‘Well, it was a special request,’ Andy said, ‘we’ve got it in black and white.’

‘Have you told the solicitors?’

‘No,’ they said together, obviously awaiting a lead.

‘Well don’t!’ Paul said. ‘He was a wonderful friend to me, and although we seldom saw eye to eye, I had more respect for him that you seem to have! I’ll take care of his ashes and I’ll do what he advised about stocking up.’

‘You mean you really fell for that stuff about war?’ Steve asked and Paul said, no, he didn’t, but he wasn’t going to be caught off balance by another slump and it amounted to the same thing! Then they all took a drink, and felt better for it and the twins drove him to Waterloo in time for the five o’clock train. It was not until he had shaken them off that he could laugh at them, and as the train gathered speed, and the yellow-brick labyrinth was left behind, he re-read Franz’s letter, finding that the old man’s quixotic search for his mother’s antecedents touched him more than the legacy. He thought, ‘I’ll drive over to Curry Rivel and Chard in the spring and take a look at those parish records. It’s odd that I never thought of contacting Somerset House myself but had to leave it to him!’ Then his mind conjured with expansion on the basis of the money. One could do a very great deal with ten thousand and it seemed disloyal to spend it in any other way, or simply invest it against a repetition of 1929-31. Two thousand would cover all the stock and machinery he could house at Home Farm and perhaps another thousand would provide a fuel-storage tank and pumping equipment, housed in the hollow on the western edge of Big Paddock. What could he do with the remaining seven? Some of it, he supposed, could be used to foster the co-operative that he had been nibbling at for years, a couple of heavy lorries, a combined harvester for the use of every farm on the estate, perhaps improved outbuildings, Dutch barns and modern byres at places like Deepdene, Low Coombe and Four Winds. That French Canadian, Brissot, and young Eveleigh could do with some help—he didn’t know about Francis Willoughby and Henry Pitts, who had always preferred to solve their own problems but they were tenants and he was entitled to improve his own property if he wished. Periwinkle was the exception. It was being bought by Rumble Patrick over a period and already a third of the money had been paid over. Then, as the train glided into Salisbury, he had an idea, and as it took shape it appealed to his sense of humour. He explored it for flaws and could find none and by the time he had finished dinner, and the train was rattling into Paxtonbury, he was resolved on it and made up his mind that he would confide in no one but Claire.

He left the train and made his way in driving sleet to his car, setting the windscreen wipers threshing and settling himself for the sixteen-mile trip over the moor. It was fortunate, he reflected, that he knew every bend in the road for there were patches of fog wherever the trees fell away and his eyes were not as keen as they had been when he drove up to the artillery positions behind Vimy nearly twenty years ago. He was relieved when the gradient told him he was over the crest and dropping down to the river where the elms behind the park wall kept the mist high and comparatively thin. ‘Tomorrow,’ he told himself, shivering, ‘providing Claire doesn’t head me off, I’ll ride to Hermitage with the news. Rain or no rain it’s always a damned sight warmer with a horse between one’s thighs!’

Claire did not head him off. All she did was laugh and say that she supposed he was interpreting the spirit of Uncle Franz’s implied conditions. She did suggest, however, that Simon and Whiz should benefit to some extent, pooh-poohing his argument that he was pledged to Rachel never to give Simon money, even supposing he was willing to accept any.

‘Nonsense,’ she scoffed, ‘Rachel has had time to outlive those high-minded notions! You offer her a little and see! As for Whiz and Ian, they don’t really need any, but I won’t have any of them saying we’re showing favouritism. I know you always have done as regards Mary and that I did towards little Claire, but never as regards money. That’s the one sure way to split a family.’

‘You’re right about that,’ he said. ‘Suppose we send them £500 apiece?’

‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ she said. ‘Rumble won’t accept a penny if he thinks it’s a gift. You’ll have to make it appear a direct legacy from Uncle Franz to Mary. Get one of the twins to forge a letter of confirmation and produce it in a day or so.’