Scruffy - A Diversion (28 page)

The Gunner was as startled as though he had been asked whether he believed in motherhood, the Lord and the Virgin birth. He could hardly credit his ears. That an Englishman, an officer and a gentleman should put such a direct and wholly embarrassing question to him was quite beyond the scope of his experience.

“What—what’s that, sir?” he stammered.

“I asked,” reiterated the Major still softly but with slightly more emphasis, “whether you really loved your country—not only here,” and the Major touched his skull with his forefinger, “but deep down in here,” and the Major placed the same forefinger on his chest indicating the general location of his heart.

Astonished and baffled Lovejoy could do no more than reply, “Why yes, sir, I suppose so!”

“Oh, it’s more than guess,” said the Major, “it’s something you know, something you feel, eh, Lovejoy?” He had lifted his gaze from his glass now and turned it full upon the Gunner, his eyes full of earnestness and quite darkly moist. “They teach us to respect the flag, Lovejoy, don’t they? Stand up! Salute the colours! Bare the head! Eh? It’s a symbol, that’s all, a symbol. What it stands for is up to you!”

“If you say so, sir,” said Lovejoy still bewildered, but beginning to feel most queer.

“I do say so,” replied Major Clyde. “We all carry self-preservation around in our nut, but in here is where England lives”—the location still being just at the left of his wishbone. “The England that to me is a wooded hill in Westmorland, the small farm by a lake-side and mountains in the twilight with the wild geese flying homewards overhead; the grinding of old cartwheels over dirt roads and old men holding the reins and looking out over the rumps of their horses with far-away eyes; children walking hand in hand to school; grey mists of rain blotting out the light like curtains closing; the distant whistle of a train and the glow of yellow light in the night from a far house on a hill-side. That’s my England.”

The Gunner suddenly found himself strangely moved. He didn’t know how drunk the Major was but he knew how drunk he himself was on almost half a bottle of the best Scotch whisky. What moved him was not the Major’s England which was as foreign to him as Timbuctoo, but his own. Beer and the Saturday-night girls were back again, or rather it was the Wanstead of his youth, the crowded pavements; the people shuffling home from work at night; the glare of torchlight over the carts of the barrow boys lined up along the kerb; the smell of frying fish, cheap tobacco, old clothes and tired bodies; housewives with their sleeves rolled back gossiping on the threshold of their houses, and, rolling over all, the beautiful and interminable roar and rattle of London.

“Bonny England,” said the Major who was well away under the influence of his half of the bottle, though no one would have guessed from either his or Lovejoy’s outward appearance that they had had a drink.

“Bonny England,” the Major repeated, “but what are we going to do about it, Lovejoy? She’s under fire! Back to the wall! Things aren’t going too well. Question is do we lie down and quit? Is she worth fighting for?”

“No, sir! Yes, sir!” It was both the alcohol and the inner person that was John C. Lovejoy which was responding to this extraordinary sentimental attack.

“That’s the stuff,” said the Major and looked as though Lovejoy’s reaction had put new life into him too. “That’s the stuff,” he repeated. “England needs that bloody ape and she’s going to have her and blast the filthy Hun.”

“Yes, sir,” Lovejoy said again, and for the first time in his life was hearing trumpets call in his soul. “Blast the filthy Hun.”

“And you’re the one who can do it, Lovejoy,” cried the Major, his voice no longer soft but full of steel and fire. “You are going down to Hope Cove and persuade Miss Constance Boddy to let us have her flipping chimpanzee—you’ll take her back to Gibraltar and you’ll boot old Scruff in the behind until he comes through like a man. If it turns out a boy we’ll name it John C. Lovejoy after the man who saved the whole bloody Empire.”

He was on his feet now and so was the Gunner. “Right, Gunner?”

“Right, sir—if you say so!”

“I do say so,” and the Major touched his heart again. “Here is where you feel it.”

Overflowing with emotion, Lovejoy could only say, “Sir!” and delivered himself of a prodigious salute.

“That’s all then, Gunner, carry on!” and then added the only slightly sour note to the beautiful and emotion-packed scene, “and remember, Lovejoy, if you take another drink until this job is done I’ll have you flayed and your hide nailed to that door.”

Somehow the Gunner found himself on the street below, looking up at the Union Jack which floated over the building. The feeling in his heart still lingered, but the nut was beginning to take over somewhat. Depression began to set in.

1 7
. . . Where He Encounters Innocence

W
ith pubs interdicted, the girls at war and London a pool of darkness illuminated only by the fingers of the searchlights groping the sky for German aircraft, Gunner Lovejoy was almost pleased to find himself on a train for the West Country, although once he had settled into his compartment all his old fears and worries over his mission returned.

His interview with the Major, which had been diluted with strong drink, had left him with addled thoughts and confused memory. Somewhere in a fishing hamlet he must contact a virginal spinster, the proprietor of an equally virginal magot, an ape of most repulsive appearance, and persuade the former to surrender the person of the latter to an equally revolting ape by the name of Scruffy situated on the Rock and the last of its clan. Upon his success or failure the course of the war might turn. Besides which the Gunner found his mind befuddled by what now in hazy retrospect seemed to have been a fuzzy plea by the Major to him, John C. Lovejoy, to save Westmorland from the Hun.

He was also sweating out the fact that he did not have the faintest notion where to begin. Major Clyde had deemed it better that he should not be supplied with an introduction to Miss Boddy since preliminary contact with the lady had not gone too well, and had judged it best to let Lovejoy spend a day scouting the situation and decide upon the best method of attack.

The war not only had failed to touch Hope Cove, it had not even noticed this little village. Except for blackouts and ration cards it was as though no international strife existed. The village was snuggled up inside the sheltering arm of the promontory of Bolt Tail thrusting out into the Atlantic. To the right lay the pierced rock of Thurlstone and the golf links high on the cliff now dotted with sheep, and as the Gunner, carrying his bag past the enchanting little square of thatched cottages, trudged on to the tiny harbour he saw two fishing boats drawn up on the sandy beach and above on the bluff, the Victorian pile of Cooks Hotel with its towers and scroll-work and dormer windows. He wondered how long it would be before he would see Miss Boddy, where she kept the ape, how he would get to know her.

Entering the hotel, Gunner Lovejoy presented himself at the desk and gave his name to an angular but pleasant-faced woman, a Miss Neville, who said at once in a most agreeable and sympathetic fashion, “Oh yes, how do you do, Mr. Lovejoy, your reservation has been made. We have been expecting you. You have been wounded, haven’t you? We do hope you will be fit again soon. The air is wonderful down here and it’s very quiet. May I show you to your room?”

Silently the Gunner cursed the machinations of Major Clyde who obviously had pinned the false heroism of a non-existent wound upon him which he would have to live up to. On the other hand, Lovejoy reflected, as he mounted the stairs to the first floor, perhaps the Major was not as crazy as he seemed. To provide him with a fictitious war-wound would earn him the sympathy of females and since Miss Boddy was anti-war it was perhaps best to present himself as a victim of the holocaust.

The Gunner found his room clean and pleasant. The window looked out upon the bit of beach protected by a stone jetty. Two small children were paddling in the shallows and on the horizon was a curl of smoke.

Overhead Lovejoy heard footsteps moving back and forth and since he knew that Miss Boddy had taken the entire second floor of the hotel, that would be she.

He listened to the sounds. Then there came a scraping, shuffling sound. That would be Amelia. Here he was, the hunter, and above him, separated by one thin floor, his quarry.

He hoped to have a glimpse of Miss Boddy at dinner, one which would perhaps provide him with some clue as to how to begin, but in this he was disappointed. There was only one other couple in this small dining-room. However, he did manage to glean some useful and preliminary intelligence.

Miss Neville also waited on table since servants were unobtainable and brought him a chop in a covered dish, whispering, “It isn’t chop night, but we must do something for our wounded men to make them well and strong, mustn’t we?”

Gunner Lovejoy felt like a dog, but he also liked the look of the chop and to cover his embarrassment he said, “Not many people here, are there?”

“Oh, no,” the woman said. “It’s the war, of course. There’s only Mr. and Mrs. Carwood over there and then, of course, there’s Miss Boddy, but she doesn’t come down to dinner ever. She has it in her room. Because of the monkey, you know. Oh, but I suppose you don’t know about that, she has a pet monkey. We don’t mind it coming into the dining-room for lunch—it’s really good as gold, but some of the guests might object in the evening, so she has her tray in her room. But I expect you will be meeting her at lunch. She always takes her monkey for a walk on the beach in the morning. If you want to lie in bed in the morning and rest we can send you up a tray. I don’t doubt but what we can manage an egg for you.”

Not flippin’ likely, the Gunner thought to himself. Not when she finds out what I’m after and the only wound I ever had was skinning my knuckle on a ruddy breech block. Still he was grateful for the intelligence. He now had a line on the enemy’s movements. He too would be walking on the beach in the morning.

The Gunner slept well, enjoyed his egg, bathed and shaved and made himself presentable and went out on to the beach ostensibly examining it for sea-shells and other flotsam and jetsam and strolling about with a casual air until he saw the door of Cooks Hotel open and the buxom figure of Miss Constance Boddy appear. On her shoulder perched a large and mature female Macaque. The two of them came down the pathway across the motor road and descended on to the beach where the magot leaped from her shoulder to the sand. Gunner Lovejoy saw that the monkey wore a collar and was attached to Miss Boddy by a long thin chain which, however, gave them both leeway to walk.

If Miss Boddy was even more prepossessing in countenance than her photograph, round faced, dimpled and sunny with light-blue and friendly eyes which had not registered in the picture, Amelia was uglier than her likeness conveyed. Her eyes were more severely crossed than he had thought possible and her expression miserable.

Miss Boddy and her monkey now approached from one direction and the Gunner was rapidly closing the distance from the other. He was in a sweat again wondering what he should do and how, whether it was too soon to say “Good day,” whether the sight of his uniform would frighten or anger her, whether he should await a formal introduction by the woman of the hotel, or what.

He found himself within a few yards of the two and in an absolute panic when the solution to his difficulties was supplied in miraculous fashion by none other than Amelia. As the Gunner was about to pass, the ape who had been loping along at the end of her chain, halted, looked up at him, gave the most extraordinary screech of joy denoting what could only have been love at sight and leaped for him.

Quite naturally, the Gunner halted and opened his arms wide to receive the ugliest of all magots who threw her arms about his neck in an ecstasy of adoration and kissed him full upon the lips.

“Hello there, old girl,” the Gunner said when the loving greeting had somewhat subsided. “Ain’t you the one.”

There was no explanation for what Amelia had done—was doing, except that she had looked upon the Gunner and loved him. The result was that all of the preliminary obstacles the Gunner had feared were cleared away and he was provided with the best possible introduction to Miss Constance Boddy.

That lady approached the loving pair with a most beatific smile upon her round countenance. Amelia tightened the grip of her arms around his neck, leaned her cheek against his and kissed him again.

“My good man,” said Miss Boddy, “I don’t know who you are but you must have a very beautiful soul!”

Almost overcome, Lovejoy replied, “I don’t know, I tries me best, Ma’am.”

“Oh yes you have,” Miss Boddy reiterated. “Otherwise Amelia would not love you!”

“Maybe they know,” the Gunner said, “I’ve been around them kind of apes for the last twenty years.” He fondled Amelia who went into an ecstasy of chittering and cooing and then as if to show her mistress that although someone new had come into her life she was not prepared to abandon everything for him, she leaped from Lovejoy’s arms back to Miss Boddy’s shoulder, gave her a peck and grinned at the Gunner who decided that while Amelia might be most unprepossessing physically she appeared to have a most amiable disposition.

“Why, how wonderful,” exclaimed Miss Boddy. “You must tell me all about it sometime.” Then she took him in with her gaze, his features, his uniform, his presence and said, “Oh, of course, you must be the wounded soldier Miss Neville has been expecting. Oh, you poor man. Is it very bad? How you must be suffering!”

In a flash Gunner Lovejoy saw how very clever Major Clyde had been to supply him with this automatic entree into sympathetic feminine hearts. And in an equal flash he tumbled the Major’s carefully built edifice to the ground. For he looked into the gentle eyes of Miss Boddy, now filled with genuine pity for him, and for the first time in any female encountered that innocence of which the Major had spoken to him at such length.