The Tiger In the Smoke (14 page)

The only unusual item was a set of miniature medals. He had been due to wear them to the banquet and had remembered to collect them from the jeweller's that morning. Heavy Boots studied these with great interest. It was clear that he understood the history they told, and he touched the purple-and-white ribbon of the M.C. with respect as his frown grew deeper.

He laid them aside with regret and when the dwarf put out a hand for them, cuffed the small man's large head with a force which made him yelp.

Roly fingered his own collection, which were full-sized and included one for a campaign fought well before he was born, but he said nothing, and the rest, although they gathered round, kept well away from the box.

There was no talking whatever. The albino continued his unhurried examination with the dignity which springs from complete authority. The cheque-book and driving licence interested him, but the trophy which turned the day was an unexpected one. The letter which had arrived in the envelope which Geoffrey had given to Duds happened to be a circular begging letter from the Royal Institute for the Relief of the Orphans of East Anglia. It was a dignified appeal, Roneod on fine paper beneath a heading which incorporated a list of patrons, led by royalty. ‘My dear Mr Levett' was neatly matched in at the beginning, and the facsimile signature of Lord Beckenham, the President, who had described himself as both grateful and sincere, was printed in convincing blue ink at the foot. While not actually designed to deceive anybody, the document yet managed to present an impressive front to the uninitiated. The effect which it produced upon Heavy Boots was startling. He removed his dark glasses and held the sheet very close to his red eyes. His lips moved soundlessly as he read the words over and his pallid hand shook a little.

‘'Ere,' he burst out suddenly, swinging round on the company, ‘'ere, what ruddy fool's made this mistake, eh?'

His alarm brought out the full force of the bully in him, and he made a considerable figure, heavier and more vital than the rest, who displayed a wispish raggedy weakness when considered in the mass.

His eyes, terrible without their glasses, were narrowed with fear and anger.

‘I've kept you all out of trouble, haven't I, up till now? I've wet-nursed you, by God I 'ave. Who's got us into it proper this time?'

He was too startled to swear with any conviction and his alarm was infectious. The company swayed away from him. Only Roly showed any truculence.

‘You can talk,' he began, ‘you can talk, Tiddy Doll, you always could. Proper Tiddington man you are. What's the matter, eh? Who is he? A busy?'

‘Busy! P'lice!' Tiddy Doll spat. ‘He's only my dear Mr Levett, friend of Gawd knows 'oo. That's what this 'ere paper shows. This 'ere is from Lord Beckenham. I seed the old gentleman once down at our camp, near Ipswich. This is what some ruddy fool's done while I was blinded by me poor eyes. Come on, step on it. Get the cords orf, can't yer? ‘Oo was so silly as to make the mistake, that's what I want to know?'

‘But he was
with
Duds, Tiddy. We all seed him. They both ran when they saw us, first into the boozer and then down the alley.'

‘Shut up, big mouth. I'll see you get your time to talk.' Doll was having trouble with the rope on Geoffrey's wrist. His breath, warm and odorous, flowed over him as he embarked on a sort of mendicant sing-song of apology. It was urgent and powerful and quite horrible. ‘'Alf a moment, sir, I shan't be long. There's been a mistake in the fog. One of my lot 'ere – you can see they're most of them wanting, pore chaps (the war come very 'ard on some of us, sir) – one of 'em, I don't know who but I will, one of 'em 'as took you for a friend of ours.

He got the knot loose and ripped off the cord with searing speed.

‘I couldn't see meself. My eyes are very bad, ‘ave been from child'ood. They ain't quite like other people's eyes. You can see that if you look.'

He gave Geoffrey an opportunity.

‘I wasn't allowed to do all I wanted to in the dear old Army,' he said. ‘I 'ad to stay in camp doing woman's work when I might have been much more useful if only they'd given me the chance. But I saw service. I saw service same as you, sir. So you'll have to excuse of me being half-blinded and led astray.'

The time had come for the sticking plaster to be removed. The prisoner was putting up a numbed hand towards it and for the life of him, despite all his anxiety and precarious position, Tiddy Doll could not resist the opportunity to hurt. He tore it off so suddenly that the excruciating agony took Geoffrey by surprise and brought a sound from him as tears of pain rushed into his eyes.

‘That's better ain't it?' Doll smiled. He could not control it. The little grimace tugged at his narrow lips even while his alarm froze them. ‘We was only 'aving a game on a friend, sir,' he went on hurriedly. ‘I don't rightly know as how I can ask you to believe that, but as God's my judge, sir, I never had such a shock in all me life as when I see you down here in the light. I knoo at once you wasn't no friend of ours, sir. I can tell. I'm not an ignorant person like some 'ere.'

‘That will do.' The words came softly from Geoffrey's dry mouth. He began to cough, retching and gasping.

‘Give 'im a drink, can't yer? Lord alive, you're all carney, the whole lot of you.' Doll was dancing in his excitement. ‘Poor gentleman, 'e's been treated very rough owing to some loony's stoopidity.'

Geoffrey waved away the enamel cup which the hunchback brought him, and struggled painfully to his feet. He had himself very well in hand.

‘Where's the other man?' he demanded. ‘Where's the man I was with?'

‘There you are, Tiddy.' The elder of the two brothers was eager to justify himself. ‘That's what I said. They was together. Him and Duds was together. Now he's admitted it. They was friends.'

‘I met him for the first time this afternoon.' Geoffrey turned a chilly eye on the speaker and enunciated with the careful clarity he had learned in his adjutant days. ‘I wanted some information from him and I took him into a public-house to get it. Your abominable noise seemed to frighten him and he ran off. Because I still wanted to talk to him I went after him. You mobbed us, and one of you had the infernal impudence to knock me out.'

It was stilted talk, but as he guessed it was the language of authority which they all understood perfectly.

A man he had not noticed before, a wall-eyed, thin-necked figure who still clutched a pair of cymbals, responded at once.

‘It was Tiddy's cosh wot hit you. He don't carry no moosical instrument, Tiddy doesn't.'

‘There's gratitude!' A stream of invective drove the point home. ‘There's gratitude! I got this chap out of the blessed gutter, sir, starvin' he was. A lay-about, nothing but a lay-about. Now he's got a bellyful, that's how he repays me.'

Geoffrey ignored the outburst. He was feeling much better.

‘Where is the man I was with?' he repeated. ‘You knew him. You called him by name.' He took a chance and picked on the elder brother, whose voice he fancied he recognized. ‘You there, what's your name? Roly? You called him a liar.'

‘No, that wasn't me, sir. That was my brother Tom. Young Tom's funny, sir. He got blowed up and 'as never been the same since. That's why we're both on this lark with Tiddy. We come from the same part of the country, sir. We're all Suffolkers, me and Tom and Tiddy. Tom knew Duds. Duds was the corporal, see?'

Geoffrey thought he did. He had a moment of inspiration.

‘And the man you call the Gaffer was the sergeant, I suppose?'

‘That's right, sir.' Doll, the Tiddington man, could not bear to be left out of the centre of the stage for long.

‘Were you under him?'

‘No, sir.' Roly intervened again eagerly. He had the awful innocence of the true countryman. ‘No, Tiddy wasn't with us. Tiddy never saw the Gaffer. There was only me and Tom and Bill who really, as you might say, see the Gaffer in the flesh. We are the only three left who was with him at the time. Tiddy is helping of us, see?'

‘I'm a-leading of you to get your rights, that's what,' said the albino. ‘I'm holding of you up. I'm keeping your minds clear, that's what I'm doing, heart and soul, and I hope no man here has been stoopid enough to muck it all.'

Geoffrey ignored him and spoke to Roly.

‘Well, where is this sergeant?'

‘That's what we want to know, sir.' Roly was delighted to get the ball again. ‘We've been looking for him for close on three years now. It's Tiddy's idea. Tiddy says everyone comes to London who's got the money to enjoy theirselves. Stay in the streets of London long enough, he says, and you'll see everyone you know. Besides, it's a living for us, isn't it? Tom gets his share, and he wouldn't in no other work.'

‘I was right,' cut in Tiddy Doll. ‘I was proved right. We seed Duds, didn't we?'

‘That's right,' said Roly. ‘We see Duds all dressed up in Oxford Street and we lorst 'im. That was three weeks ago. Then today we see 'im again and we followed 'im. I called to 'im but 'e did a bunk and ran down to the railway. Then 'e came out with the busies and went to the police station with them. We knew 'e couldn't say nothing about us, though, if only we kept on movin'. That's the law, that is. They slung 'im out after a bit, as we knew they would. Then you came up to 'im and we followed you both and waited outside the pub. When 'e come out 'e ran right into us and Tom, 'oo 'asn't noticed nothing for years, caught sight of 'im and started after 'im as if 'e'd come to 'imself all of a sudden. When they both went down the path, we started after 'em, naturally. We 'ardly noticed you, sir, to tell you the truth.'

‘Of course we noticed the gentleman,' protested Tiddy with exasperation. ‘We see 'im and we thought that 'e was the Gaffer, that's the long and short of it.'

‘What happened to the coporal?'

‘Tom 'it 'im by mistake.' Roly looked at his brother. The tall youngster was standing at the back of the group and his heavy eyes had no light in them. He seemed both morose and vacant, and there was no way of telling if he followed the proceedings. ‘Tom 'it 'im,' Roly repeated, ‘by mistake. Tom's very strong still, but 'e don't never use it now. Then Tiddy come up and we set on you, sir, and then Tiddy went back to Duds.'

There was a moment's silence, due mainly to puzzlement at their own foolishness at concentrating on the wrong man.

‘You come back laughing, Tiddy, saying you give 'im something to go on with,' put in the man with the cymbals unexpectedly. ‘That's what you said, Tiddy. That was when you got the idea of putting this bloke in the chair.'

Tiddy Doll resumed his glasses. Their black patches gave him a secret look. Much of his impressiveness lay in that concealing half-mask.

‘He was setting snivelling with ‘is nose bleeding,' he said in disgust. ‘I only give 'im a little one to 'elp 'im on 'is way, and then I come back to get on with the job. I thought we'd got the Gaffer.'

‘You didn't, Tiddy, you didn't, because I told you 'e weren't the Gaffer.' Roly was speaking with passion, his mouth ugly.

‘Tiddy thought we'd got the orficer.' It was the high flat voice of the hunchback and he giggled.

The remark was so obviously true that it took the whole company by surprise. For a fleeting second Geoffrey saw them in a sombre static group, like faces caught in paint. It was Tom, the young brother who had never been the same, who spoke first. He lifted his head and looked steadily at the stranger with eyes which betrayed a fleeting reawakening.

‘Major Elginbrodde,' he said in a slow Suffolk speech, ‘that's who you are.'

‘'E ain't!' Roly was startled and protesting. ‘Why, Tom, you're all at sea, boy. Major Elginbrodde were a little dark fellow. Besides, 'e's gone, poor chap. No one knows that better than you.'

The young man shook his head. ‘'E don't look like 'im and 'e don't speak like 'im, but I reckon 'e's the same.'

‘'Ere, Tom, you set down.' Roly led his brother to a soapbox. ‘'E's strange. 'E's wonderfully strange at times,' he explained over his shoulder. ‘Major Elginbrodde and Tom was together when they trod on the mine. That was on the beach in Normandy, four months after our own little job. We'd had our leave since then and the Gaffer and Duds were A.W.O.L. so they weren't with us that time. The Major were wiped right out but Tom wasn't touched, or so we thought until we found out he'd gone strange. Never told anybody anything, Tom didn't, except me, and that was one night two years after we were back in civvy street.'

Geoffrey brushed through the group. His chin stuck out. He had forgotten the present and was back in a world of sweat, petroleum, and khaki.

‘Tom,' he said, his voice sharp with authority, ‘pull yourself together, man. Is Major Elginbrodde dead?'

The boy lumbered to his feet. It was as though a chunk of Suffolk soil, long suffering and eternal, had stirred itself.

‘I thought so, sir.' The gentle sing-song of the coast rolled out the terrible pronouncement like pebbles under a wave. ‘I see 'im go. I see 'is 'and and 'alf 'is 'ead come by me. But now I'm a-listenin' to you I'm a-wonderin' if 'e ain't got 'imself some new body, like. Ain't you he?'

‘No. My name is Levett. I'm another major.'

‘So you say, sir.' He sounded humble but unconvinced and presently sat down again. His brother was embarrassed and inclined to be angry.

‘Don't take no notice of 'im,' he begged. ‘He's a proper fool Tom is, now. He weren't at one time. When 'e were a young ‘un he was proper smart, Tom was. We ‘ad our own boat in my Dad's time. That's why we was chosen, you see, sir. That's why the Gaffer picked us. The Gaffer found the men for the raid.'