Blunted Lance (23 page)

‘Yes.’

‘But that Uncle Karl was safe in a staff job somewhere else.’

The old man grunted again. He’d read the letter, because Fleur had brought it to him at once. It was good to hear there was little chance of Dabney and Karl-August coming face to face. That would have been too awful, but it was no certainty that a staff job was safe. There had been a great many staff officers killed in France already.

He turned over the letter in his hand. It was from Robert and, like most epistles that came from Robert these days, it immediately gave him a headache.

‘Dear Father,’ Robert wrote, ‘I hope you have been in better health than of late, but of course none of us are getting younger…’

The old man scowled. Robert looked the picture of health and always would, because he never risked his neck at anything.

‘I have been intending to come over and see you for some time,’ the letter continued. ‘In view of the war, there are a great many matters of property that we ought to discuss and one of these days we really must try. Elfrida complains of the problems of getting help. Already the war has affected us and I expect it’s affecting you, too, because I’ve heard Ellis Ackroyd and one or two others have joined the forces. I think Kitchener must have been off his head when he appealed for 100,000 men.’

The old man scowled and adjusted his glasses.

‘Obviously,’ Robert went on, ‘men won’t be able to leave the mines or the steel and munitions works to join up – as I well know, because I have the problem of dealing with them and they are already beginning to demand higher wages – so that the only people free to go are those in other jobs. And this inevitably covers servants. It wasn’t too bad until this stupid retreat from Mons, but now, suddenly, everybody’s rushing to join the colours and we are left short. I was wondering if you couldn’t use your influence with Lord Kitchener, whom I know you know well, to persuade him to put such people in reserved jobs. It isn’t that I’m not patriotic. It’s just that it makes life a lot more difficult for people like me.’

Difficult! The Field Marshal shifted in his chair. Life was even more difficult for the boys in the Regiment who had been mutilated in the stand at Mortigny. It was even more difficult for Chapman who’d been blinded, and more difficult still for Fullerton, who’d been killed. Robert, as usual, was thinking only of Robert. And the Field Marshal
wasn’t
in better health of late. He was in worse health. He was too bloody old and in danger of dying. Bobs was already dead. He’d been visiting the Indian troops in France and had caught a chill which had turned to pleurisy. The Field Marshal grunted. The old ass ought to have known better. In his eighty-third year, he was in no state to go gallivanting round France. The Field Marshal had gone to the state funeral which had been attended by the King and even the German press had not missed the occasion. He had wondered often if Graf von Hartmann hadn’t had a hand in it. He had once met Bobs at Braxby, and the report in the
Lokalanzeiger
which the Field Marshal had been shown at the War Office – ‘There are in war moments when we salute the enemy with the sabre instead of destroying him’ – had the touch of Von Hartmann, who, for all his self-complacency about Prussian superiority, was always a gentleman.

It was a brief flicker of chivalry and the Field Marshal had a suspicion that they wouldn’t see much of it in the future. An invasion scare had brought about a spy neurosis and enemy agents were being seen behind every hedgerow. Income tax was up, beer was up and there were alarming stories of shoddy uniforms and poor army boots – the Field Marshal often wondered how much Robert and young Cosgro were involved! – together with a great deal of shiftiness in the matter of pay and allowances. Bitter public protests had resulted and Kitchener hadn’t helped with his instructions to the police to picket the public houses to make sure that wives didn’t misconduct themselves. As far as the Field Marshal could see, soldiers’ wives couldn’t
afford
to misconduct themselves – but Kitchener was a bachelor and didn’t always show a lot of sense.

He looked down again at Robert’s letter. For God’s sake, he thought sourly, how else did you face up to a nation with over a million men under arms except by calling for volunteers up to the number of a hundred thousand. There’d be a need for a second hundred thousand before long and probably more, and then Robert’s worry about servants might have some meaning. Robert, the Field Marshal considered, had little to complain about.

Josh looked up. ‘Grandpa,’ he said. ‘Why do the Germans kill Belgian babies?’

‘They don’t.’ The old man’s reply was short and to the point. ‘Neither did the Boers. Newspaper talk, boy. That’s all.’

‘Don’t newspapers tell the truth?’

‘Truth’s always the first victim of war. Newspapers are run by a set of cads who make profits out of other people dying. They call it stirring up the war effort. If you were to sit down there and write out a football team for cads, Lord Northcliffe would be the captain.’

‘Would the Kaiser be in a team for cads?’

The old man grinned. ‘Without a doubt. Von Kluck and a few others, too.’

‘What about Lord Cosgro? I heard Mother say he was a bit of a cad.’

‘The Cosgros have always been cads,’ the Field Marshal growled. ‘Without any doubt Cosgro would be in the team. Probably vice-captain in case Northcliffe was unable to play.’

‘How about the Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria? Is he a cad?’

‘Shouldn’t think so. Bit too old. Like me. But you could put him down.’

Josh reached for a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write. ‘How about Joffre? After all, he lost to the Germans.’

‘Why not?’ The old man’s humour began to improve as the boy distracted his attention from the letter in his hand. ‘You could include Henry Wilson, too, for that matter.’

‘Which Henry Wilson?’

‘
General
Wilson. Tall feller. Moustache. Brigade major to Lyttelton at Colenso. Intriguer and mischief-maker. You could perhaps even include John French.’

‘
Sir
John French.’

‘That’s the feller.’

‘I thought he was leading the BEF.’

‘Not so damn well, it seems to me. He’s a bit shifty, anyway. Never liked him.’

Josh looked at what he’d written and lifted his head. ‘We’ve nearly got a team, Grandpa. We only need three more.’

‘How about Lloyd George?’ The old man was thinking less of the war than of the stories he’d heard round Whitehall. ‘And you could shove down that bloody man, Bottomley.’

‘Which bloody man, Bottomley, Grandpa?’

‘Horatio Bottomley.
John Bull.
Goes round spouting about the need for patriotism and draws a fee for doing it.’

‘That’s ten. I can’t think of anybody else.’

For a long time there was silence as they applied their minds to the problem.

‘Better put down Mrs Astor,’ the old man said eventually. ‘She’s always going on about Women’s Rights.’

‘She’s a woman.’

‘She could play in goal.’

Josh grinned. ‘That makes eleven. We’ve got a team.’ There was a silence then he looked up. ‘Grandpa?’

‘Yes, boy?’

‘Is Uncle Robert a cad? Mother said he was. To Father. Just before he went to France.’

The old man knew exactly what they’d been referring to. This blasted business with Lady Balmael. He’d heard rumours and had been wondering for a long time what he ought to do about it.

‘Sometimes,’ he conceded reluctantly.

‘Is it possible for a Goff to be a cad, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. Make no mistake about that. There’s one in every family.’

‘All the same, I don’t like putting a Goff down with the Kaiser and Von Kluck.’

‘Put him down as first reserve then. Then he’s part of the team but he isn’t in it.’

‘That’s a good idea.’ Josh wrote for a while then he handed the list to the old man. He read:

‘L Northcliff (Captain)

Kaser

Von Cluck

Lord Cosgro(vice-captain)

Frans-Joseph

Joffer

H Willson

J French

L George

H Botomly

Mrs Aster.

1st Reserve R Cosgro-Goff.’

‘Good team, that,’ the old man said enthusiastically. ‘Of course, you’ll have to change it as the war goes on. Cads come and go, y’know. Some improve and become non-cads, while other people appear who qualify better. We’d better make a habit of it.’

Tyas Ackroyd appeared with a cup of tea and a muffin. The Field Marshal stared at them indignantly.

‘What’s this, Tyas, for God’s sake?’

‘Your tea, sir.’

‘
One bloody muffin!
’
The old man looked at Josh. ‘One muffin’s no good, is it?’

Ackroyd sniffed. ‘’Er Ladyship says you eat too much and don’t do enough.’

‘Of course I don’t! It’s too bloody cold.
I
’m not going to do a Lord Bobs and go inspecting the army in this weather. I can just imagine the uproar he caused in France. All right, Tyas, shove it down. How’re you today?’

‘Chest hurts when I cough.’

‘Oh, my God, Josh, aren’t we a bunch of old crocks? How’s young Hedley?’

‘They’ve turned him down, sir.’

‘Who’s turned him down?’

‘Flying Corps, sir. They don’t seem to think he’s the right material for a commission as a pilot.’

The Field Marshal almost dropped his muffin. ‘Jesus Christ and all His pink angels! I’d have said he was
perfect
material. Didn’t he tell ’em where he came from? That I’ve known him all his life? That—’ the old man looked up, a malicious twinkle in his eye ‘—that he’s chasing me granddaughter?’

‘Is he, sir?’ Ackroyd looked the picture of innocence.

‘You know damn well he is, Tyas, you bloody old rogue, and I know damn well he’s been meeting her at your cottage. Who was this idiot who turned him down?’

‘A Major-General George Assheton-Smith, sir.’

‘Do I know him, Tyas?’

‘You once told me a story about him and rat droppings at an inspection, sir.’

The Field Marshal searched his mind. Generals all had inspection phobias. Some were concerned with cookhouses, some with latrines, some with such trivialities as bootlaces. He remembered that George Assheton-Smith was a fodder-chewer and had always considered it his duty to sample the horses’ food until a roughrider sergeant, irritated by his fussiness, had warned him to look out for the little black bits. ‘Them little black bits,’ he had said, ‘is rat shit.’

The Field Marshal grinned. ‘I’ll give him Major-General George Assheton-Smith,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Mr Major-General Assheton-Bloody-Smith next time I’m in London and give him a piece of my mind. For the mean time, you can tell Hedley he’ll be a pilot all right. I’ll see to it.’

As Ackroyd disappeared, the old man settled back in his chair. The football team they had selected and the exchange with Tyas Ackroyd had cheered him up but he was still a bit bored and itching to do something for the war effort. Then his eye fell on Robert’s letter again.

‘There are matters about property that we ought to discuss,’ he saw. The Field Marshal knew exactly what that meant. Robert had always had his eye on Braxby Manor. It wasn’t the most beautiful of places and had draughts that could suck a cat up the chimney in a high wind, but it had a hell of a lot more dignity than that monstrous great pile the first Lord Cosgro had built when he’d been made a baron. Robert was after a title for himself and he was seeing Braxby Manor as his seat.

He glared at the letter again, his good temper gone once more. ‘The war has affected us.’ But not that damn much! Not with the horde of servants they employed. And if he knew Robert he’d be pulling strings like a puppet-master to prove that everybody he employed was in a necessary occupation and making it very clear to his underlings that any who volunteered needn’t expect their jobs back when the war was over. ‘This stupid retreat from Mons.’ For God’s sake – the Field Marshal’s blood pressure rose – to Robert, Mons was only an inconvenience! To fifty-seven men of the Regiment it had meant the end of joy and laughter and love, the disappearance for ever into the cold and the comfortlessness and the dark. Robert was a selfish idiot. He’d always been a little that way, of course, a little dubious, a little uncertain, but since he’d joined the Cosgros, allying himself quite clearly with a family which had
always
raised the Field Marshal’s blood pressure, he’d grown worse. His stupidity had become bone-headedness, his selfishness plain greed, while unfortunately his uncertainty had changed to certainty because he now knew what he wanted out of life and, as a Cosgro, was going all out to get it.

The old man swallowed his tea, burned his tongue, swore, and in disgust, almost choked on the muffin.

He stared at the letter again, feeling suddenly old and ill, then he pulled forward a pad of paper, took out his fountain pen and began to write.

‘Dear Robert,’ he wrote.

‘Why in the name of God do you always appear to be so bloody useless? If you had one ounce of sense in that thick head of yours, you would be aware that we are in danger of losing this war and that K’s demand for 100,000 men is one of the few things that are likely to save us. You can be very certain that there’ll be another 100,000 and probably many more afterwards, and if this has the effect of reducing the legion of servants you keep to run errands for yourself and your fat and unhealthy family, so much the better for all of you. If I hear one more word of complaint from you I will personally inform the Prime Minister of the profits I suspect you and Cosgro are making on the side and the fact that you are undermining the war effort with treasonable dissension. As for this business of property you wish to talk about, I am fully aware what that means. You wish to add Braxby Manor to your not inconsiderable possessions and, to do so, you are quite happy to snatch away your brother Dabney’s birthright while he is not here to argue about it but is fighting to save your useless skin. Believe me, your getting this house will happen only over my dead body and, if I have anything to do with it, not even then. I wouldn’t leave you a brass farthing to add to the fortune of the Cosgros.’