Theirs Was The Kingdom (47 page)

No one could put his or her finger on the precise cause of the loss of momentum. They only sensed that it stemmed from staleness and self-sufficiency, from too much assurance based on too many customers, from too big a turnover and too solid a reputation. All they could be sure of was that zest and crackle had deserted it, that from being a nonstop adventure, it had become just another solidly grounded business, rolling cumbrously from quarter-day to quarter-day, sticking closely to a charted course and distrusting diversions, even those that did not classify as innovations but were no more than adjustments to the faster, more clamorous beat of the nation.

They told themselves and each other that the Gaffer was feeling his age, that he had too much money, that his old wounds were beginning to ache and sap his patience, that the disinclination of any one of his sons to take the baton from his hand had, to some extent, robbed him of his initiative and would end in his putting on a paunch and spending more and more of his time in that place he maintained on the edge of the Weald. At sixty, they said, he would be growing prize turnips and patronising local charities like all the other city men who had made their mark before reaching middle age.

They were wrong, of course. Adam Swann was not cast in that mould, and in their hearts those whose associations with him went back to the earliest days knew it. But it did not check the swell of discontent in the regions, or close the widening gap between the Diehards and the Thrusters, the men older than Swann and those who were younger or of the new generation.

He knew what they were saying, of course. It did not need an overheard conversation between two of his younger pashas, to the effect that “the Gaffer’s arteries were hardening,” to tell him what some of them were thinking or what the more ambitious among them were talking about. He knew, and in the privacy of his turret would sometimes grin at Frankenstein, assuring that silent monster that he had still a trick or two up his sleeve. But it needed thinking about. It needed more thought than he had ever given any problem, for what he had in mind amounted to abdication. With his sons scattered, and the problem of succession still confused, he needed time to weigh one factor against another before arriving at a decision from which there could be no turning back.

There came a time, however, as the annual conference date approached in the weeks leading up to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the enterprise, when he had done his thinking, and was about the task of translating conjecture into project. He sometimes spent entire nights at work in his eyrie, so that the watchmen, seeing a light at the Gothic window at four and five in the morning, were troubled, reasoning that only senility would induce a man with a wife, a comfortable country home, and credit at the bank, to work an eighteen-hour stint in a tower overlooking a slum.

Before the first day of the assembly, however, he was ready for them. Checking and cross-checking were done, and concentrated in the form of a few pages of notes. All that remained now was to decide on the manner it would be put to them and that was a decision that provided him with a good deal of amusement. For, sharp as most of them were, they were not so sharp as he, and it would be a source of enormous satisfaction to demonstrate this once he had them all under his eye at the long trestle table set up in the warehouse where conferences were held.

He watched them gather from his unique vantage point, looking directly down on the yard, observing how they tended to coalesce into threesomes and foursomes, exchanging chaff, no doubt, but already sounding one another out on the agenda. It seemed to him then that he had been alone up here a long time, an ageing god on a mountain peak, surveying his handiwork and no more than moderately pleased with it. This year’s conference was a crossroad. It could lead onward, across a limitless stretch of serene, untroubled country, or shoot off at a tangent into a future as strange and fearsome as they had faced when he called the first managerial conference twenty years ago and told them that they were facing bankruptcy and must sink or swim in convoy.

To diversify or to vegetate? To dig in, husband accumulated capital and let the enterprise coast along under its considerable momentum? Or to recast the entire structure of the network, dislodging it from its essentially provincial socket and letting it find its own level among the gigantic enterprises on which it had fed and fattened all these years?

Well, he had made his decision, the most difficult and complex of a lifetime. Now it would be up to them, and he wondered what they would make of it and whether they had the wit, the hardihood, and the nerve to play chuck-farthing with their money instead of his and discover, painfully for sure, that it was one thing to chivvy a man who had made the decisions but another to formulate a policy, disperse to their beats, and put that policy to work.

So many suggestions and so much advice. So many whys and why-nots. So much couldn’t-we and why-can’t-we. But in the end it all blew through that little Gothic door in the form of pieces of paper and settled on his desk. And after all the clamour came silence, awaiting
his
gamble,
his
directive. Over the years most of them had called him reckless. Now a majority was beginning to think him stodgy, as if he hadn’t always known of the enormous potential that awaited them out there, providing they were spry enough to make the leap and wager, as he had always been ready to wager, on the destiny of the tribe to which all of them belonged.

For this, in essence, was how he had always seen it since the country had turned its back on its past and reached out across the world for bigger and better markets. In a contest of this kind, with one generation leap-frogging the other, there could be no individual destinies. Cohesion was what really counted and the nub of the problem was this: would the British hold on to their lead, and if so, for how long? In the answer to that lay the answer to everything, notwithstanding the powwow that would ensue at this conference or at any other conference. Did
they
know that? And if they didn’t, would they understand it when he spelled it out for them? For if they didn’t then it was back on course for every manjack of them, with no more whining importunities to expand, to innovate, to diversify! He was done with leading from centre, with younger men like the Godsalls and Rookwoods, tugging him forward, and older ones like the Ratcliffes and Lovells, dragging their feet and muttering that enough was enough.

They heard his preamble in silence, an uncomfortable silence; he would say, for on all previous occasions he had opened with generalities, spiced with a few jokes, a few grudging compliments, an ironic comment or two concerning the shortcomings of the government or the weather.

Today he was unequivocal. He said, in effect, that this year all customary procedures would be waived, that the ball was now at their feet, to kick or let lie, and that when every one had said what he had to say he had a single proposal to put to them and that this would do duty for the summing-up, of the kind usually made by Tybalt in the last hour of assembly.

It was interesting, he thought, to watch their reactions to that. In a curious way they seemed to draw closer together, as for mutual support, as though he was threatening them instead of liberating them from the restraints of protocol. It reminded him sharply of a grey December day twenty years ago, when he had done the same thing from the standpoint of a suppliant and seen them falter and then rally on him. Would the same thing happen again? He sat down, relit his cheroot, and waited, already laying bets with himself as to who would be the first to speak.

He lost his wager. The Thrusters—Godsall and Young Rookwood—held their fire, making room for a comparatively trivial issue, as Markby of Crescent North, aired his annual demand for “iceboxes,” a term that had already passed into network slang to define waggons fitted with refrigerated crates for inland fish haulage. Markby put his case well, Adam thought, particularly as the Crescents were now under the overall command of Tom Wickstead, based on Peterborough.

Markby wanted iceboxes and Markby meant to have them. Fish, he declared, constituted his bread-and-butter runs, and no one who had ever operated in Crescent North had solved the problem of converting a standard pinnace or frigate into a vehicle capable of making a scheduled delivery to inland markets. He was sorry to harp on this point. He knew it was of small concern to anyone here but himself. But nothing had been done to implement a request made around this table last year and the year before that. That was why he had come prepared. That was why he had gone to the trouble of providing his own design for the kind of vehicle he had in mind.

He produced his plan with a conjuror’s flourish and passed it the length of the table until it stopped short at Tybalt; it would have foundered there for Tybalt, having glanced at the estimated cost of a prototype, cried out as though stung by a wasp. Adam leaned forward and took the sketch, saying, mildly, “Markby seems to have got the general idea but accidentally. This is what I want and this is what I’m looking for this year.
Your
grudges.
Your
remedies.
Your
ideas. Not mine, or Keate’s or Tybalt’s, but
yours
, however revolutionary. Think of it this way if you like. For years now suggestions like Markby’s have been reaching Headquarters through the post, but now, as you’ll see, these decisions must be taken collectively.” He addressed the flustered Markby directly, “It’s a good design, Markby. I’ll vote for it for one. Who’s next, gentlemen?”

It was the phrase “vote for it” that rattled them. Already, as he glanced the length of the table, he could see the sharper minds sheering out of line, as if anxious to commune with themselves. What did the Gaffer mean, exactly? He would vote for it! It wasn’t his business to “vote” for anything. He listened and decided. That was how it had always been in the past and if something fresh was afoot, some startling deviation from protocol, why the devil did he keep hinting instead of getting up on his wooden leg and spitting it out like a man?

Rookwood was on his feet now, asking this question outright. Not bluntly, as Godsall or Fraser might have done, but deviously, in the manner acquired, no doubt, among the city fathers of Salisbury, of which he was said to be one.

“On a point of order, sir… Wouldn’t it help if the air was cleared at the outset…? If the chairman has a proposition that is to govern all other propositions…” and so on, until Adam cut him short, harshly but unrepentantly, for Rookwood had touched on the very heart of the problem. His proposition did indeed govern all other propositions, but what validity would those decisions have if every man present could walk out of here his own master, providing he had sufficient nerve?

He said, gruffly, “I rule from the chair, Rookwood. At this stage we’re concerned with regions and regions only. I tried hard to make that clear. Follow Markby if you like, but stay on his line. Keep to the particular, not the general.”

Rookwood sat down, glowering, and Lawyer Stock took the cue, coming to everyone’s rescue and not before time, Adam thought.

“I think I can help,” he began, mildly, “and with the Chairman’s permission I will. Do I have that permission, sir?”

“You do indeed,” said Adam. “It seems I’ve lost the knack of expressing myself clearly.”

“Very good,” said Stock, as if this admission merited general congratulation. “Then, here it is, and there’s no call for anyone to get ruffled over it. Mr. Swann’s intention is that everyone here should speak his mind on the future of the firm
as he sees it within his area.
Not as you imagine Mr. Swann sees it, but as
you
see it. In terms of expansion, innovation, and capital investment. Why put the cart before the horse in that way? Gentlemen, I confess I don’t know why, for Mr. Swann hasn’t taken me into his confidence. It was he who drew up the terms of reference for this year’s conference, so we can assume he knows what he’s about. Speak your mind, all of you, and let us get it down on paper. Then, I imagine, Mr. Swann will take it from there. Is that what you had in mind, sir?”

“Precisely,” said Adam with a curt nod, and at that Stock sat down and Godsall, Rookwood, and Morris rose in unison, each hoping to catch the Chairman’s eye.

“One at a time, gentlemen,” Adam said. “I’ll take you, Godsall.”

It was a lucky choice. Godsall, a volatile man but a forceful speaker, had advantages over every other manager in the network: a first-class education and a term at University before joining the army. In a few crisp sentences he set the tone of the conference and did a good deal more than Stock to clear the air.

“As to the particular—my patch—I’ll come to that in sixty seconds. I crave that much grace from the chair. Do I get it, sir?” And when Adam nodded, “Here, then, as I see it, is what we want to decide once and for all at this year’s conference. Do we diversify or don’t we? Do we stand still, when every other concern about us is moving forward, or do we make a clean breakthrough into fields we’ve been too timid or too muddle-headed to prospect and exploit these ten years or more? I don’t have to tell you where I stand in that respect. My views on diversification were laid on the table last year, and the year before that, and since, praise God, I’ve made converts around this table. But it won’t do, to my mind, to make the advances I have in mind in odd sectors up and down the network. If we advance at all we must do it on a broad, united front and there’s an end to it!”