The brigandshaw chronicl.., p.113
The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set 2, page 113
part #4 of The Brigandshaw Chronicles Series
“To get out some of my money. You can’t just transfer money at will, except to the colonies. There will be ways Sir Jacob Rosenzweig will know about. I don’t want my English money all in one place. You have to think ahead the whole time to hold onto money, Tina. You can’t just stand still or you’ll end up with a rude shock.”
“That’s your job, Harry. Everyone I talk to says a war will never happen. That we learnt our lesson from the last one. I am not taking the children to live in Africa so don’t get any ideas. I’d prefer to take my chances at home than go and live in the jungle.”
“You will if the Germans start bombing London. Anyway, Rhodesia is not in the jungle. It’s the bush. There aren’t so many trees among the waving long grasses that there were in the Congo.”
“We don’t live in London.”
“They’ll be flying right over our heads, there and back. Bombers that haven’t dropped their bomb load on the target will do so on the way back to lighten the aircraft to get home. Do you prefer the idea of living in an air-raid shelter with your children? Why don’t you come with us to South Africa and Elephant Walk?”
“Who’s us, Harry?”
“Tinus. We want to finalise the dam.”
“Isn’t he in London looking for a job?”
“Interviews. He’s not sure what he wants.”
“If war does come he’ll go into the Air Force to join his schoolfriend from Cape Town, André Cloete.”
“Why I want him in Rhodesia for a few months if he doesn’t take a job right away.”
“Even this place is quiet in the week. Imagine that farm in Rhodesia.”
“I do, Tina. Every day of my life.”
“What about the Air Ministry?”
“You and the children will be safe.”
“So you’ll stay. You don’t even have a proper job.”
“I just don’t accept a salary. Anyway, more than half would go in income tax. At the top, we pay sixteen shillings in the pound. On Elephant Walk we don’t need money. The farm feeds itself. And you won’t run out of servants. Even if a world war collapses every economy and makes paper money worthless.”
“Why should our money stop here?”
“It won’t most probably without a total meltdown across the world. There just won’t be anything to buy. Hastings Court will have to go into full production as a farm, which isn’t your style. The food will be distributed by the government. However many eggs we produce we will only be allowed to eat our ration.”
“Let me go and get my shoes…” Returning with her walking shoes, she asked, “How big is the air-raid shelter you talk about?”
“The size of two cars.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’ll show you the plans in my study when we come back from our walk. We’ll have to make the blocks of concrete on site.”
“Now you frighten me, Harry. What’s this to do with this Polish count?”
“When Hitler overruns Poland we want their pilots to get out before they’re captured and come over here to join the RAF. We’re short of pilots. In war, an air force is always short of pilots.”
“There are the dogs with Frank. Why do they always bark at Frank?”
“They don’t like him. He kicks them when I’m not looking.”
“You just don’t like Frank.”
“I try not to show it, Tina. To treat him the same as my four. I’m going to see Robert St Clair in New York. Have you seen Barnaby recently?”
“No, why should I?”
“You can’t shop all the time when you go up to London.”
“Oh yes I can. Anyway, Barnaby lives in his own world surrounded by young girls. He’s said by his total disinterest he will never take any interest in Frank. That Frank must never know Barnaby is his father. Don’t let’s go through all that again, Harry. It’s boring.”
“People change their minds, Tina. I think you will about South Africa and the house in Bishopscourt when war breaks out. Do you ever hear from Albert in Johannesburg?”
“Haven’t heard from Brother Bert in years. Never comes home. When Dad said he didn’t want his money, Bert took umbrage.”
“Your father prefers working for his money.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll get the dogs.”
Mentioning Frank and his wife’s infidelity was never a good idea if he wanted peace in his home. Harry was never sure which was worse for Tina: Barnaby’s rejection of Frank or Barnaby’s rejection of Tina. The aristocratic Barnaby had dismissed the idea of marrying the daughter of the stationmaster at Corfe Castle railway station, preferring to keep Tina as his mistress, as she had been when Harry first took interest in her, getting her pregnant with Anthony.
“You want to walk with us, Frank?” said Harry, trying to make amends.
“No thanks, Dad. The Alsatians always bare their teeth at me. The old Spaniels never do that.”
“Don’t kick Maxwell and he won’t try and bite you.”
Harry ruffled the boy’s hair and watched Frank go off to look at his rabbits. If war did break out, rabbit stew would become a delicacy. Like so many parts of life, it wasn’t the boy’s fault who had fathered him. So long as he was alive and healthy he was the same as the rest of them. There were even some nice parts in Barnaby St Clair’s nature, Harry tried to remember. In a tight corner he would rather have Barnaby around than some of his so-called friends. Barnaby’s trouble was women. Once it had been money. Now at the start of his middle age he had too much of it.
Whistling up the dogs whilst waiting for Tina, Harry wondered how different his life would have been if Barnaby’s sister Lucinda had not been killed when pregnant with their child. Anthony, Beth, Dorian and Kim would not be alive, which was a strange thing to think about. The chances of life for all of them were so slim, a mathematician would never produce an equation to show a person’s likelihood of ever coming into the world. And all for such a short time, he had always thought when looking up at the night sky in Africa showing him the limitless universe.
She was coming out of the house to cross the lawn towards him, her mere presence what some would say was the result of an accident, their meeting on the SS Corfe Castle when both of them were going out to Africa. Whether it was an accident, he had never been quite sure. Anyway, there she was walking across the lawn, the mother of his four children, none of whom he would have swapped for the world. Maybe one day, Frank would go to Barnaby. Life took strange turns on its way to the grave. “Shut up, Harry, you’re getting morbid,” he castigated himself.
Putting out his hand, Harry took Tina’s, something he had not done for some time. The pigeons were calling into the still evening from the trees all around Hastings Court. The air was scented with flowers. Insects went about their business while the flowers were still open to them during the last of the day. Small white clouds stood motionless, the way clouds were in the sky in Rhodesia, making the pang of missing Elephant Walk a sudden and physical feeling. Silly of him, he thought. What could be wrong with what he had? A rare evening of summer in England in the home of his ancestors who had fought their own way through life to give him this wonderful one, any mistake of theirs eliminating him in the chain of life, making him never happen. Trying to imagine the world without himself was impossible. Nothing was there. Nothing had ever been there. Without him being alive the world could never had existed… Better to forget Barnaby, and Mervyn Braithwaite who had shot Lucinda to get back at him for something that had never happened. Better to enjoy what they had and let the future take care of itself.
“Those dogs do so love a walk,” she said, her small hand in his. “Why don’t they ever go on their own?”
“They think we might not be here when they come back. No, going for a walk with someone you love is far more fun than going alone.”
“I love the dogs too. Do you think dogs love humans the way we love each other? You can’t just ask them. Are we all right, Harry?”
“I just worry about all of us the whole time. Never stop. If I ever did I’m convinced there would be a catastrophe. I always have to be there. To be one jump ahead of events. Outthinking the problems for you and the five children.”
“I was talking about you and me.”
“So was I, in a roundabout way. Men have to look at life further than the home. You look after our home and I’ll look after the family outside of the home. We’re luckier than most. Always count your blessings rather than want what can’t be had without tearing others apart. That’s why Barnaby keeps away. You can’t have us both, Tina, and neither can he. You’ll take your memories of growing up close to Barnaby as a child to your grave. And your growing up together to become adults and lovers. He didn’t want to get married. Probably never will, now. Some men are like that. They don’t need other people. Happy with their own company. The thought of growing old alone a pleasure, not a threat. Too often we only look the same from the outside. You can never tell what’s in the back of another person’s mind. Often, the less complicated a mind, the happier the person. Barnaby is selfish, Tina. Always was from the time I met him as a teenager while I was up at Oxford with Robert.”
“Where did Frank go?” Tina said with a faraway look.
“To look at his rabbits.”
“Does he feel there’s something different from the others?”
“Probably. Just don’t ask him. It’ll make it worse. He tells me Maxwell wants to bite him and he can’t see why. What a beautiful summer’s evening. The reason you love England. England only gives us a few days like this a year for our memories to treasure and look forward to again. There must always be something to look forward to.”
“When are you going to America?”
“After next weekend. We have seats on the plane on Wednesday.”
“I’ll miss you, Harry.”
“I’ll miss you too, Tina. We should both try and remember that more often.”
“What’s going to become of us?”
“Only God knows.”
“Is there a God?”
“Only God knows, Tina. Only God knows, not us. People prefer to believe. Stretching the mind too far can make it break.”
“There is so much more of you here, yet you still hanker for Africa?”
“Africa has its own strange pull that can be stronger than blood. I think it’s the animals. There are so many more of them. Walk the bush and look down into the Zambezi Valley and everywhere you look you see herds grazing the long grass, browsing the leaves on the trees. The bush is so full of life and not just humans trying to get their own way. Herds of animals grazing look so peaceful. As if that was what life was about, not building a mansion or building an aeroplane to get away. Nature at its best. Life at its best. In Africa I feel so much part of it, so much more alive. In London I’m just another rabbit in the warren, deep underground so to speak, not knowing what is really going on. Here I’m submerged. There I’m floating above it, a spectator to peace and happiness, light of heart.”
“Don’t the animals kill each other?”
“Only to eat. The lion only kills what the pride can eat. Then they sit in the sun and digest their food, animals grazing around them no longer in fear of their lives knowing the lion has fed. Only man accumulates more than he can spend. Surrounds himself at great expense with useless manifestations of his apparent success. Man by his nature has to show off. Has to be appreciated. Envied. Better than the rest. The lion just wants a good meal when he’s hungry and then he’s content. Africa is free. Here we are prisoners of ourselves. Of all the rules and regulations that keep us away from each other’s throats. From doing what Europe is about to do as the same rules don’t bind nations to behave themselves the way laws frighten us with the threat of jail. Oh, no. Africa is real freedom. The African bush. One among the animals. Ask Tinus. He knows what I’m saying. Why I think he won’t take one of those careers offered him in London. He’s an African who just happens to have a white skin that the bush doesn’t see. Only humans see that kind of colour to make themselves seem bigger and better than the rest of them.”
“How long will you be in Africa?”
“That trip will take longer than America. Why I want you and the children to come too.”
“They’re in school.”
“Sometimes schools teach them the wrong way to live. So they miss a term, take the books with them and work harder when they get back to catch up.”
“When you talk like this I don’t understand you one bit. What’s wrong with Hastings Court?”
“It’s not Africa. What I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“So the threat of war is an excuse.”
“Part of it, I suppose.”
“Let’s just wait and see. Maxwell’s seen something. Just look at him run.”
6
In the end they caught the boat, Horatio Wakefield not prepared to take his chances and travel through Germany to Moscow on the train. They sailed from the Pool of London on what William called a rust bucket up the North Sea, round the Baltic Sea and into the Gulf of Finland reaching Leningrad in the USSR the same day Janusz and Ingrid arrived at Hastings Court for their weekend. The boat trip had amused Horatio after Gordon Stark asked the captain if he could photograph the cargo.
“Lucky to get on board. What’s in them crates is the owner’s business. We bring back timber from Finland and I mind my own business.”
“The markings on the crates suggest military equipment.”
“I’m not going to look inside and neither are you.”
The rest of the trip had been pleasant, Horatio remarking to Gordon Stark, who had raised the ire of the captain, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend. Whatever we think of communism, pragmatism comes first.”
Then they landed at the Port of Leningrad and life had never appeared so different. Everyone looked exactly the same. Dressed precisely the same, one big mass of humanity milling around at the railway station waiting patiently, mostly without a word. Horatio had never before seen people drilled into submission, only the start of the process in Berlin after Adolf Hitler proclaimed himself Führer of Germany. It was difficult for the three of them to see if the people were happy, as the faces were inscrutable under the cloth caps that made everyone equal, every one of the caps the same dull grey.
Without any Russian and no one speaking English, they used the one word ‘Moscow’ pronounced like a cow at the end and hoped the packed train they climbed into was the one they wanted. The rail passes had been given to them by the Russian Embassy in London, the words and alphabet unintelligible to any of them. Trying to find a seat proved impossible. They were going to stand in the corridor packed with the rest of them, not even with a battered tin box of sandwiches, Russian trains only travelling one class in a classless society that had crushed all privilege.
“They are all so grey,” said Gordon Stark, hugging the bag that contained his camera. “There is no colour. Even the landscape has less colour than England. Do you think they have to pay for their train tickets?”
“If the state considers they have a reason to travel, like us they are given a free pass,” said William Smythe. “Everything is given according to their needs. An apartment. Heating. Schooling. Mostly everything that we have to earn in a competitive society and pay for out of our own pockets. Everything here is owned by the state. Everyone has a job to do. Everyone is told what to do by someone else and God help you if you think for yourself or step out of line.”
“Everything you need free sounds good,” said Stark looking around at the faces to see if anyone was listening, whether anyone understood the three obvious foreigners in their midst. “Do you notice no one takes the blindest bit of notice? How did we end up on a ship running guns?”
“What else would they want in Russia?” asked Horatio, nervously looking around, his memories of Berlin five years earlier alive in his mind and making butterflies in his stomach.
“Does it remind you two of Germany?” asked Gordon.
“Not really,” said William. “So far they don’t look frightened. More like a herd of cows content to chew the cud and let someone else worry about the state of the world.”
“I wish we’d brought some food. Why didn’t the captain warn us?”
“He didn’t like us, Gordon. After you wanted to take pictures of his machine gun crates.”
“How did you know it was machine guns?”
“The name Vickers on the crates. Vickers make machine guns.”
“They make a lot of other things.”
“Not long and slim. The Red Army must be getting ready for Hitler like the rest of us. So this is the utopian state where the lust for materialism doesn’t officially exist.”
“At least in Russia you don’t have to worry about where your next meal comes from.”
“If you behave yourself.”
“In a British factory, if you misbehave yourself you get fired.”
“The unions would have something to say.”
“There are more ways than one of kicking an unwanted element out on the street.”
“So this is better?”
“It would be, if my few kopecks could buy me lunch. How long does it take to get to Moscow?”
“I’m not even sure we’re even on the right train. Can either of you read the station signs?”
“The man nodded and smiled when we got on the train at Leningrad. I think he was the conductor, anyway he wore a uniform and was behaving importantly.”
“Smiling at sending three Englishmen to hell, maybe. Do the Russians even like us?”
“We were all on the same side against Germany in the last war until the Russian Revolution in ’17. Then they had more of their own problems to sort out and stopped the war against Germany. I never found out what really happened to the Eastern Front. I think they just shot their officers and buggered off. Maybe we should all have done the same.”
