Scruffy - A Diversion (41 page)

Sir Archibald disentangled himself carefully. “Look here, young man,” he said, “I have handled any number of fathers, but you seem to take the prize. It will be at least another four or five hours before I can deliver Mrs. Bailey, so you had better save some of that for later, hadn’t you?”

At this point a door farther down the corridor marked Room C opened and a young nurse came skimming quickly down the hall. When she reached the group she stood on tiptoes and whispered something into the ear of Sir Archibald which appeared to startle the great man. “Dear me,” he murmured, “you don’t say. Well, well!” He turned to Tim and said, “I’ll just go along now and have a look at Mrs. Bailey. Not to worry.”

Tim put his hands to his head. He felt nervous, drained, exhausted, pleased, anxious, worried, frightened; his was such a turmoil of emotions that he did not see how he could bear the long wait. “Four or five hours,” he groaned, “I won’t be able to stand it.”

“Look here, old man,” Major Clyde said, “you won’t hold it against us, but Mac and I are going to have to pull out—you know—give us the apelets and we’ll do the rest. Well, we’ve got ’em now, all right. Felicity couldn’t be in better hands.”

Lovejoy, who had divested himself of his gown and his new profession, came and stood before Tim, a respectful and affectionate Sergeant again. “Sir, if you like,” he said, “my wife and I will stay with you. We’ve just been through it in a way, so to speak, so we know what it’s like, waiting.”

But it was not four or five hours at all. It was no more than forty-five minutes later when Sir Archibald appeared, his face once more wreathed in his famous another-Cruft-baby-successfully-brought-into-the-world smile.

Tim, who had been hunched down in his chair, his head buried in his hands, looked up miserably for news of more delay.

“A most remarkable woman indeed,” said Sir Archibald. “Never encountered anything like it before in a Prime Ibs. Had her baby quietly and without fuss in twenty minutes. Didn’t even give us time to get to the operating theatre. Didn’t need to. Astonishing girl. Wish they were all like that.”

“Wha—what?” gasped Tim. “Did you say—”

Sir Archibald nodded. “A boy,” he said, “mother and son doing fine. Come along, let’s have a look at them.”

Dazed, Tim followed in the wake of the stately pace of the great man to Room C where Felicity sat propped up in bed looking as fresh and blooming as an English rose, and ten times more beautiful.

At the side of the bed in a bassinet was something red and squealing, which at first glance caused Tim to recoil from shock. It looked so much more like a monkey than a person. The presence of Sir Archibald was embarrassing and that of the red thing completely terrifying.

Felicity called to him, “Oh, my poor darling, you look awful. Have you suffered just terribly?”

There was no point, Tim felt, to hurling himself across the room, taking his wife in his arms and comforting her for the travail she was supposed to have been through. She had never looked better or less in need of sympathy in her life, an unquestioned tribute to the Cruft technique. He turned his attention to the red object in the bassinet and nothing he saw there tended to diminish the panic engendered by the first glimpse. He now looked down into the tiny screwed-up countenance which so very greatly resembled those of the apes who had been his charge.

“But—but,” he stammered, “the faces of the others were so
human.”

Sir Archibald nodded sympathetically. His vast and impressive experience included dealing with an endless procession of disappointed and panic-stricken fathers. It was the first glimpse that did it to them. “I know,” he said, “it’s a bit shaking. However, I can assure you that within a week or so the features of the other little chaps will have turned properly simian while yours will have begun to get over his astonishment at finding himself in our midst and will have commenced, I trust, to resemble his mother. Well, I congratulate you.” He turned and marched from the room.

“Tim,” Felicity cried, “tell me, what has happened?”

Major Bailey was still badly rattled. “You—you have had a boy,” he said, “there—here it is.”

“Oh, my darling,” Felicity said, and voiced all of the tenderness and understanding that women have for the ridiculousness of males. “No. I mean—Amelia.”

“She—she’s had twins! When—when old Crufts came out and announced it I thought—”

“Oh, Tim,” Felicity cried, now thoroughly moved to commiseration, “how perfectly awful for you. You must have gone through absolute hell. Oh, why is it so easy for us and so terrible for you? Come here, my poor darling, sit here on the bed and let me hold you and rub your head, you’ve been through a perfectly frightful time.”

To his surprise Tim found himself sitting exactly where he had been directed and letting it happen to him. It was good; he had been horribly harassed; it was soothing.

But after a while positions were reversed and Felicity was nestled in his arms where she sighed and said, “Oh, Tim, I’m so happy. I never thought it could happen to me, but it has. I have a real Cruft baby. It’s absolutely perfect.”

A spark stirred within Tim and was fanned to a sudden glow. “Damn it,” he said, “it’s mine. All old Crufts did was—”

“Wave his magic wand,” Felicity concluded for him. “It’s a Bailey baby.”

“Yes, yes,” said Tim with sudden and strange fierceness. “That’s it.” He got up and went and looked down in the bassinet. Was it his imagination or had the red object in it already begun to look slightly more human? And had it smiled?

“And thus,” Felicity murmured to herself, “thank God, are fathers born as well.”

2 2
Epitaph for Two Apes

T
he British Flag still flies over the Fortress, the cruise ships and passenger liners calling there discharge their quota of tourists with cameras slung about their necks, others arrive by air, touching down on the concrete strip that juts out into the blue bay of Algeciras, others still come by road down the winding coastline of Spain or burst from the folds of the brown hills to cross the border at La Linea.

By car and on foot they spread out over the Rock, to find it an engaging backwater outpost of an Empire which the processes of history have turned into a Commonwealth, with charming people, the best rate of currency exchange in Europe, cheap goods and some breathtaking views.

Dry-docks and dockyards are still busy; O’Hara’s Battery at the pinnacle of the Rock, its cannon as obsolete as Nelson’s twelve-pounders and carronades, still pretends to menace the Straits. The ruins of the Moorish Castle and the caves are worth a visit; the service and accommodation of the Rock Hotel are first class and no tour of Gibraltar is complete, of course, without a visit to the famous Barbary apes and their village on the Upper Rock.

They haven’t changed. They still pry into pockets for monkey-nuts, sit on shoulders, pull hair, nip fingers, remove windscreen wipers from cars and make off with handbags, cameras, binoculars or anything one might be so incautious as to leave around unattended.

Another Artilleryman—Bombardier Bychurch—is Keeper of the Apes, guide and Cicerone to the tourists who come to watch him feed them, and he has a tip-earning patter satisfying enough to the visitors, part of which runs:

“They’re greedy little beggars, always on the scrounge. Mind you don’t move too quick, Ma’am, with him on your shoulders. They’re nervous like and don’t like quick movements. The apes have been here since 1763, looked after by the Royal Artillery. There’s twenty-six of them here which is known as the Queen’s Gate pack, and twenty-two around on the other side of the Rock called the Middle Hill pack. During the war when their numbers was reduced through sickness and privation the Prime Minister sent a special message saying they was to be kept up to strength and accordingly a number of them was sent over from Africa where they bred with the apes remaining on the Rock and them here is their descendants.”

This is as far as Bombardier Bychurch’s knowledge goes; he has, of course, no idea of the means by which this was achieved and the astonishing success scored by the counter-intelligence intrigue of one Major “Slinker” Clyde in the long-ago of almost two decades past, a success far greater than he or any of the others connected with the affair had envisaged.

For when in June 1943 the announcement of the birth of twin apelets to a Gibraltar Rock ape was made, the impact was a double one. Not only did it attest that ape-wise all was normal on the Rock, but it shook the scientific world as well, and, carried over the international Press wire, caused as great a stir as had the birth of the Dionne quintuplets.

The effect Upon the Germans was exactly what Major Clyde had foreseen. They gave up. And themselves worshippers of science they actually carried the story in their own newspapers. The propaganda broadcasts with regard to the apes ceased immediately, as did their operation of buying up available Barbary apes in North Africa.

But this again had further unexpected and welcome repercussions. For the Germans had caused a boom in the Macaque market and Arabs along the entire coastline from Marakesh to Oran had been scraping them off the rocks and hauling them down out of trees to cart off and sell to the German agents who were paying practically anything asked for the brutes.

Suddenly and without warning the boom collapsed, the German agents with their gold, whisky, cigarettes, dollars or whatever was demanded, disappeared leaving the traders stuck with whole crates full of the animals. It was now they remembered the primary British interest in the purchase of these beasts and legitimate commerce being anti-no-one they returned at once to their original channels of this trade.

In a fortnight, and upon wings supplied by a chastened Group Captain Cranch, twenty of the finest specimens, male and female, of Barbary apes had been flown to the Rock to establish the quota solicited by the Prime Minister. He was informed that his orders had been carried out, and the newcomers soon adjusted themselves to the life of ease and luxury provided by His Majesty’s Royal Artillery. The crisis was at an end and never again threatened.

As always when looking back over a war there are many turning points where one can say, “Here, if this had not happened and so-and-so had not arrived in the nick of time, all might have ended disastrously.” What actually would have occurred had the Barbary apes been wiped out will never be known, but at least the prospect appeared of sufficient importance and danger to the leader of the British Empire to engage his attention.

But all this happened nineteen years ago. Gibraltar today is moulded into the somnolent blessings of peace, and all those involved in the affair scattered far and wide.

Major William “Slinker” Clyde returned to Christchurch immediately he was demobilized, where he was received by a grateful Master who asked him, “Well, how was it, Bill?” to which the ex-Major replied, “Pretty silly, sir,” and that was the last he ever referred to his wartime experiences. He attained a Professorship at his College and in recent years has turned to writing brilliant and erudite detective novels under a pseudonym which bring him a small fortune.

Felicity has never regretted her choice of mate for her husband is the youngest Colonel at Staff College and a brilliant future is predicted for him. He can write C.B.E., D.S.O. after his name and he is used constantly on the Rock when some new officer is to be stuck with the post, as an example that even such a doubtful office as O.I.C. Apes can be a springboard to greatness.

Felicity, it might be added, has worn extremely well and at forty-two looks no more than thirty. She has put on a little weight, but Tim always liked her better that way. Her first-born, the boy Anthony Bailey, is about to go up to Oxford to pursue his studies under the eye of his godfather, Professor Clyde. He has elected science over the Army or the Navy and as a Crufter is certain to make his mark in that field. He has two sisters and a younger brother, also Cruft products.

Five years after the end of the war Sergeant Lovejoy reached the age of retirement and with his wife bade farewell to the Army, Gibraltar and the Barbary apes. They returned to England and on a holiday visit to Hope Cove where they had first met they found that the Guest House where they had stayed was up for sale. The combined savings of the Sergeant and the competence left his wife by her relatives enabled them to buy this property, carry out the necessary improvements and decorations and bring it back as a successful year-round holiday hotel.

With Tim Bailey’s extraordinary services being recognized with the C.B.E., it is only natural that his right-hand man Lovejoy should win the lower order of B.E.M., and this dignity was conferred upon the ex-Keeper of Apes in a subsequent Honours List and celebrated in all the newspapers with extravagant stories and suitable photographs.

But John Lovejoy achieved far greater rewards in a pleasant and contented existence with his wife. They like and respect one another and he has made her a good, kind husband, and for this he has had a most astonishing and unexpected return.

It will be remembered that spinster Constance Boddy had made total abstinence on the part of the Gunner a condition of her yielding to him, and outside of the one rousing wing-ding, the last jamboree at the Admiral Nelson, Lovejoy kept his pledge.

Well, in these late and approaching twilight years Mrs. Lovejoy closes an eye. On Saturday nights Mr. Lovejoy steals away to The Crown and Anchor and has himself a couple with the boys. He takes Guinness and lime for old time’s sake. And on his return home, even though his steps be slightly unsteady, Mrs. Lovejoy sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil—a truly remarkable and loving woman.

Howard Cranch is Air Marshal Cranch, solid with gold braid, medals, years, dignity and the problems of the jet age. Packed away in a trunk are his costumes, his Chinaman’s wig, his minstrel make-up and his musical instruments with which he used to entertain. Memories, however, cannot be tucked away as easily as old clothes, and often he will look back to his days upon the Rock and the monkey flights, and at such times he is quite likely to substitute “well” for “good” and when asked how things are, reply, “Well, well” in the manner of a certain Spanish Señor Blasco Irun of long, long ago.