Scruffy - A Diversion (15 page)

For instead of the gigantic ear-splitting thunderclap expected by one and all, there was only a kind of soft “thup” as the top of the blue cardboard cylinder was wafted off, barely missing the nose of old Scruffy who chittered nervously, but showed no other signs of relinquishing his prize.

If there was any black powder in the firework which Ramirez had purchased, it had been limited to an amount just sufficient to displace the lid of the thing and activate a series of powerful springs concealed in the interior.

But when the proprietor of the factory had predicted something of grandeur and nobility, a veritable volcano which would leave none witnessing its eruption the same as they had been before, he had not lied. For, following the soft preliminary pop the thing began to erupt the most diverse and splendid party favours at an heroic rate and in more than generous quantities. To the utter enthralment of the apes and the equally hysterical joy of the crowd below, bon-bons, paper hats, whistles, hooters, horns, small toys, coloured handkerchiefs, and everything conceivable in the line of party delights rained down.

The thing spewed forth clouds of confetti, uncoiled endless ribbons of coloured paper streamers and unloaded miniature parachutes, rubber balloons, gifts in the form of sets of crayons, celluloid dolls and small musical instruments.

As far as the people in the street below were concerned, it was Christmas and the spectators forthwith broke up in a mad scramble for the seemingly unending shower of goodies that fortune, personified by the ugly
magot
perched atop the arch, was pouring forth from his blue cornucopia.

In a moment the square was filled with the braying of party horns, thumping of tin drums, shrilling of whistles and clamour of toy trumpets. Sweets, biscuits and further favours were being battled for. The distinguished guests in the reviewing stand were powdered with confetti, their shoulders festooned with coloured streamers.

Atop the gate it was Yule for the Queen’s Gate pack as well. A good third of the loot erupting from the cylinder fell into their hands. Paper hats were donned, false noses and moustaches applied, whistles were shrilled, horns were blown or banged, packages of sweets, chocs and cakes unwrapped and gorged. Arthur, all thought of vengeance or battle driven from his mind, was wearing the paper shako of a Spanish Grenadier and clutching two hooters, a doll, a small box of plasticine and an assortment of stale goodies. He had never been happier.

But the best had been reserved for the last. The slow match which had been releasing all this bounty finally reached the bottom of the case where it ignited a last half-teaspoonful of black powder, and with a
plop
hardly louder than the first introductory
thup,
propelled into the air a large flag attached to a parachute. The parachute opened, the flag unfurled and showed itself to be the red and yellow ensign of Franco Spain with the rousing slogan “
Viva Espana
” stencilled across one side and “
Arriba Franco
” on the other. There being no wind the ’chute descended in exactly the same line of the ascent, permitting the flag to drape the shoulders of Scruffy upon whom it lay like the mantle of a Cardinal.

Again faced with a dilemma and not at all liking the thing which had fallen upon his shoulders, Scruffy proceeded to solve it in the manner of no ordinary monkey. In one hand he still clutched the blue cylinder which he had no intention of relinquishing and in the other he still had what everyone in the square below recognized as the famous stolen toupée.

He therefore set the remains of the wig upon his head where it gave him the aspect of an infernal golliwog, and with his free hand he now seized the flag from about his shoulders and waved it, though actually he was shaking it at the crowd in the square from whom roars of delighted laughter were now ascending. The two slogans, “
Viva Espana
and “
Arriba Franco
” glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

Down in the reviewers’ stand the Governor turned icily to his
aide
and said loudly enough for all to hear, “I don’t consider that that is funny.”

The atmosphere in the office of Brigadier Gaskell was at one and the same time white-heated fury and cold, glaring icy anger, and Tim knew that he was for it. Whereas before when the Brigadier had chewed him out over the apes it had been part routine bluster and part the Brigadier enjoying himself letting off steam, this time he was genuinely outraged and angry and therefore spoke in curt, controlled tones that were all the more biting for their restraint.

“Captain Bailey.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You realize that full responsibility for this disgraceful affair rests upon your shoulders as O.I.C. Apes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any explanation?”

“No, sir. Someone must have been playing a practical joke.”

“Brilliant, Captain Bailey. I was able to deduce that myself. Have you any idea who?”

“No, sir.”

“There will be an investigation. In the meantime you are no longer Officer in Charge of Apes and if I had my way you would not be officer in charge of anything. You would no longer be an officer at all. I intend to confer with the Judge Advocate to see what charges, if any, can be preferred against you for this humiliating incident. In the meantime you will return to your duties. That is all, Captain Bailey. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tim numbly and almost by now from habit.

1 0
Felicity’s Return

I
t didn’t take Tim long to find out in Army terms what it meant to displease the boss, though in fact the Brigadier was not a vindictive man and had no time to spend hounding a Captain of Artillery. There actually had been no charge which could be brought against Captain Bailey which would stand up in a Court Martial, nor had anyone really wanted to investigate what had seemed like a very bad practical joke, for fear of who it might turn up. Likewise, since Scruffy had made off with the container of the firework and it was never seen again, there wasn’t even an adequate clue upon which to base a probe.

But the fact that the General was furious communicated itself down the ranks and his subordinates took it upon themselves to make things as uncomfortable as possible for young Bailey.

To begin with Tim found himself ousted from his comfortable quarters and banished to Outer Siberia, which were the stark unfinished bungalows out near Point Europa where the unmarried Second Lieutenants were housed. Every unpleasant chore and duty that could be visited upon one who was still an officer was handed to him, in addition to his guns, so that he was kept working from seven in the morning until eleven o’clock at night in order to keep up.

Worst of all, it had been made plain to him that he was not welcome anywhere on the Upper Rock near the apes’ village. A new O.I.C. Apes had been appointed, a young subaltern by the name of Barton who had come to the Army from civilian life and arrived on the Rock with a recent draft, a pink-cheeked, rabbity young man whom Tim was not even allowed to meet or contact to act as the link in the chain of handing on an office, instructions and bumph connected therewith.

Apparently the General himself had supplied these instructions and from what Lovejoy had been able to tell Tim in a brief encounter on the Library steps, they had been short and to the point.

“ ’E seemed very put out, the young subaltern did,” Lovejoy confided to Tim, “and said I was to carry on and look after them as before and not to worry if I didn’t see much of him. Ha, ha,” Lovejoy laughed, “See much of him! That’s a good one. Not ’ide nor ’air nor so much as a shadow you might say, sir. I gather the Brigadier told him if he ever ’eard of him going near the apes he’d ’ave his scalp off. He wasn’t even to be seen talking to me beyond getting a monthly report, and as for talking to you, sir—” Lovejoy suddenly looked around to see if anyone was near by.

“I know, I know,” Tim had said hastily. “Unclean! I’m contagious.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Lovejoy said, “but you know how it is. They’ll miss you terribly. I’ll do me best for ’em, but it’s best to lay low while the ’eat is on, don’t you think so?”

“That’s it, Lovejoy,” Tim had said. “If they take you off as well I don’t know what will happen to the poor creatures. We’d best not be seen speaking together any more. Good luck and look after them, Gunner.” The Gunner watched the Captain hurrying off and felt curiously choked, even though life was to be happily unsupervised from then on. It had been a pleasure to work with a man like Bailey.

If one lives for a long time in a dog-house one becomes eventually dog-house-minded. One tends to see all life as through the small, low-down archway of the kennel, and by the time he had news of Felicity’s imminent arrival Tim had all but managed to convince himself that he had lost out on this front as well.

The wall of the grey transport helped by the tugs pushing against her port side loomed massively over the dock, closing the gap of open water. Her rails were lined with troops of every kind, and top side in their dark-blue uniform and circular or tricorn hats was a group of some twenty Wrens. Standing on the pier below in the crowd Tim Bailey gazed upwards looking for Felicity amongst them and failed to find her.

He felt a momentary stab of panic. Had he then so completely forgotten what she looked like? He brought into the focus of his mind the framed photograph of her he had on his desk, the rather plain-looking, stoutish girl with the round chubby face, merry quizzical eyes and gentle, kind expression. It had never been her looks, so to speak, but the entity, the wholeness of her, the girl within, who blended with her exterior that had penetrated and reached to his heart.

Without realizing it Tim had fallen victim to that mischief inevitably worked by a long separation where affection and desire has not yet changed into the love and familiarity of mind and body that comes with intimacy.

Felicity was a framed picture, a mop of unruly hair surmounting the black and white contrast by which a photograph defines a face. She was a particular kind of bubbling laugh, a manner of walking, ways and tricks of speaking and the memory of a soft, yielding mouth and kisses in the shadow of the wistaria-covered trellis of the Mount. And all this had begun increasingly to fade, had become more and more difficult to recall, until sometimes Tim would spend a morning trying to recapture a sound, an image, a look, and pinion once more who and what it was he loved.

Thus it was with all kinds of doubts, anxieties and trepidations that Tim found himself on the dock that morning, fearful of not seeing Felicity, equally fearful of seeing her.

What would she be like? Would she still remember him? Would she want to see him? Or would her brief romance with an unknown and penniless Artillery officer be a burden and an embarrassment to her? She was almost two years older now and in that time must have encountered dozens of men more attractive, important and eligible than he.

True she had written him that she had succeeded in being posted to Gibraltar in command of the detachment of Wrens being sent out to lighten some of the load in the Navy Yard, but under the restrictions of censorship she had not been able to write exactly when she would be arriving on the Rock, or by what means, but only that it would be soon. It had been rather an impersonal and diffident letter, Tim felt, and never guessed that she was suffering from the same doubts and qualms resulting from the erosions of time.

She didn’t wish to tie him to the memory of an instant. She was aware that he was a bachelor officer in wartime and that although the women had been evacuated from the Rock there was no dearth of them crossing the line each day and returning at night. Tim well could have found someone far more attractive than she.

The grape-vine had it that when next the Transport
Dart
docked she would have a contingent of W.R.N.S. aboard. Hence Tim’s presence to meet it. Yet he didn’t make himself conspicuous upon the pier, but hung back on the fringe at the far side.

No Felicity it seemed. Tim raised his field-glasses again and swept the row of girls lining the rail at the centre of the boat deck. Faces under tricorn hats, faces under little funny round sailor caps. There were two stunners amongst them, a small girl with dark, glossy hair and sombre, smouldering kind of looks, and a slender blonde with beautifully chiselled features and exquisite complexion. Her hair was lemon-gold in colour, burnished and gleaming from beneath her hat. They were both rare types and Tim thought with a half-smile of the chaos they would create on the Rock. Each had a naval officer on one side and an army officer on the other. The naval officer attending the blonde had the gold-leaf of a commander on his cap and was being solicitous and attentive. Tim half smiled to himself; the chap looked like a man in love. That kind of beauty frightened Tim. He had never pursued it. It made him feel inadequate. Once more he swept the ranks of the twenty or so Wrens looking for Felicity.

There then occurred one of those strange and dramatic silences which are so often encountered during a docking, when for no known reason all sound and cries suddenly die away. One can hear the rushing of water from one of the bilge holes in the side, the chuffing of the pushing tugs and the ring of the engine-room telegraph from the bridge. This silence was shattered by Felicity’s laugh.

Unmistakably the bubbling, pealing laughter came from Felicity, and it at once evoked her living, vibrant, desirable, as she always had been in Tim’s mind.

Once more with eagerness he turned his glasses top-side. He heard the laugh again; he was focused upon the slender, petite, exquisite blonde next to the tall, handsome Commander. Felicity’s laugh was coming from her throat. And then Tim saw that it
was
Felicity.

Felicity! But how changed! And not
his
Felicity, this ravishing beauty. It was a Felicity thinned down by hard work and discipline, her hair groomed and shining. But the greatest change had taken place in her features, which had been marred, or rather disguised by the baby fat about which she had never bothered. It had melted away to leave a classic loveliness, finely sculptured nose and lips and a movingly enchanting line of jaw sweeping from ear to chin.