The Ka of Gifford Hillary (31 page)

‘Look,’ he said to them, ‘I know this does not seem a very appropriate moment, but I think we ought to have a chat about the affairs of the Company. That is why I brought Sir Tuke back with me. It was he who raised the matter, and I knew you wouldn’t mind his being present at the reading of the will as he is such an old friend of the family. He rang me up this morning to point out that it is now a week since the Admiralty contract for those two E-boats was handed to him. Normally, if it hadn’t been for Giff’s unexpected opposition, we should have sent an acceptance on Friday. Then this frightful business of his death scotched our having the further board meeting we had planned for yesterday. The people at the Ministry of Supply will think we are beginning to fall down on our job if they don’t hear from us in a day or two now; so I felt that the Admiral was right in his suggestion that, as three of us had to return to the house, anyhow, and he could join us, we ought to take the opportunity to see if we can’t get nearer to a decision.’

Johnny glanced at his watch. ‘I have an appointment in London at six o’clock that I particularly want to keep; but I quite agree with what you say, so I’ll put off starting for half an hour.’

‘Good,’ said James. ‘Then I’ll fetch Sir Tuke. I know that if Lady Ankaret seemed fit enough and Eddie could get her on her own he wanted to give her an idea how she will stand financially. He’ll be glad of the chance to do that while we are talking things over.’

The four men gathered in the half-dismantled dining-room. James took the head of the table and it was decided without argument that at the next full meeting of the board he should be elected to succeed me as Chairman of the Company. Then he said:

‘Well, gentlemen, there is only one matter we have to discuss here and now, and you all know what it is.’

Admiral Waldron followed him up quickly. ‘I trust no discussion will be necessary. I am no believer in mincing
words. Regrettable as it is, we must accept the verdict of the Coroner’s jury—that poor Gifford took his life while the balance of his mind was disturbed. The tragedy occurred on Friday night—only a few hours after he had placed his extraordinary proposal before us. How can we doubt now that for some reason unknown to us he had already become abnormal? All we are called on to do is to expunge from our minds the memory of our last meeting and send an acceptance of the contract.’

James shook his head. ‘I can’t agree with you there. I mean about Giff’s already being out of his mind at the time of our meeting. His proposal raised an unexpected and unprecedented issue; but whatever may have happened afterwards, he was as sane as I am when he made it.’

‘Since you think that, I have no desire to argue the point,’ the Admiral rejoined. ‘I put it forward only because I feel it to be a reasonable explanation of what I considered at the time to be a mental aberration. Anyhow, distressed as I am by Gifford’s death, I sincerely trust that this last crazy idea of his has died with him. What’s your view, Wiltshire?’

‘What, me?’ Bill sat back and thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. ‘Well, we’re all supposed to be business men, aren’t we? To be honest I thought it a bit crazy myself. Anyhow as far as the interests of the firm are concerned, I agree with you that we’d best forget it.’

‘And you, Norton?’ the Admiral—continuing to take the chairmanship out of James’s hands—shot at Johnny.

‘I don’t think it was in the least a crazy idea,’ Johnny replied quietly. ‘Even if I am alone in doing so, when it is put to the meeting I shall again vote for it.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed the Admiral. ‘I might have expected as much. It confirms my belief that you put Gifford up to it.’

The muscles about Johnny’s mouth tightened. ‘You have no right to imply that, Sir! As I have already told you, there is not the slightest foundation for any such belief.’

‘Oh yes there is!’ the Admiral shot back. ‘No mere acquaintance would ever have disclosed to Gifford the matters he used as ammunition in his endeavour to win us over to his point of view.’

‘Then it must have been some old friend who has now
become a high-up, and whom he met recently again in London, I give you my word that I had no hand in it whatsoever.’

‘I suggest, Sir Tuke,’ James put in, ‘that you should accept that, and endeavour to view the question more objectively. As far as the Company is concerned it is neither here nor there where Giff got his information. What does concern us is that it had the ring of truth, and that on account of it he proposed that we should sacrifice the Company’s financial interests in order to make a patriotic gesture. The point still at issue is: are we prepared to do so?’

The Admiral’s cheeks went a shade deeper red. ‘Patriotic gesture, my foot! On the contrary, if I hadn’t known Gifford for what he was I’d have believed that the Communists had got at him. His proposal was nothing less than sabotage.’

‘I don’t agree,’ James replied firmly. ‘Since last Friday I’ve thought a lot about all Giff said, and I am more convinced than ever that he was right.’

Finding himself up against much greater opposition than he had expected, the Admiral quickly shifted his ground, and said in a much milder tone: ‘Are you quite sure, Compton, that you are not being influenced by sentiment? I mean, in view of your life-long association with Gifford and affection for him, it would be quite understandable if you felt a moral obligation to carry out his last wishes regarding the interests of the Company.’

James shook his head. ‘No; it’s not that. If you remember, it was I who suggested that we should take the week-end to think it over. I went home full of it and stayed up very late on Friday night milling over the pros and cons with myself. When I woke up on Saturday morning I no longer had any doubts. I had already taken the decision to vote with Giff when the board met again on Monday, and that was some hours before I knew that he was dead.’

After pausing for a moment, James went on. ‘But since you have raised the question of moral obligations, there is one that I feel we should consider. As you know, Norton and myself have been appointed executors of Giff’s will and trustees of his estate. Under the will Lady Ankaret comes into a life-interest in his holdings in Hillary-Comptons, so for all practical purposes she is now the largest individual shareholder in the Company. As her trustees Norton and I have the
legal right to decide what shall be done without consulting her. But if we reject this Admiralty contract it may well have an adverse effect on the value of our shares and in due course on the dividends she will receive from her holding. Therefore, in my view, we have anyhow a moral obligation to put the matter to her and hear what she has to say before taking a final decision. Do you agree, Norton?’

‘I do,’ replied Johnny promptly. ‘Each of us is free to risk the depreciation of our own shares if we wish; but as trustees it would not be right for us to jeopardise her sole source of income without her being a party to it.’

‘I entirely agree,’ the Admiral supplemented. ‘Since you are responsible to her it is clearly your duty to obtain her views. The trouble is, though, that we ought to send a reply to the Ministry of Supply by tomorrow at the latest; and with Gifford’s body scarcely an hour out of the house we can’t possibly ask her to join us. It simply wouldn’t be decent at such a time to involve her in our controversy, or submit her to lengthy explanations about an intricate subject of which she knows nothing.’

‘Oh but she does,’ Johnny informed him. ‘She knows all about it. I was talking to her about it on Friday night.’

‘What!’ Sir Tuke’s blue eyes popped with angry amazement. ‘And you have the face to sit there and admit it! You must have taken leave of your senses. How can you possibly deny any longer that it was you who briefed Gifford, when you openly confess to such a breach of security as having discussed Top Secret matters with his wife?’

Johnny held up a hand in protest. ‘No, no, Sir. You’ve got me all wrong. I’m afraid I expressed myself badly. When I got back from dining with you on Friday night I found Ankaret downstairs. She told me that Giff was up in the laboratory with Evans and had left word that they were not to be disturbed. I had wanted to ask him to ring you up first thing in the morning and give you his personal assurance that I had had nothing to do with his proposal to reject the contract. As I looked so glum when I learned that I could not see him, she asked me what was worrying me, and I told her that I had had a row with you over a proposition that Giff had put up to the board that afternoon. I assure you I said no more than that. It was then she said that she knew all about
it; and that from what Giff had told her, I could hardly be surprised that you had taken umbrage at our wanting to scrap the Navy.’

‘There!’ barked the Admiral, glancing at the others. ‘You see; while trying to explain away his talk with Ankaret he inadvertently admits that he was associated with Gifford’s proposal.’

‘Damn it, I did not!’ retorted Johnny angrily. ‘All I did was to back it after he had made it, and I still do. If you have seen the morning papers, you’ll know that after months of arguing that great, hulking, useless battleship
Vanguard
is to be laid up, and …’

‘How dare you!’ roared the Admiral.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ protested James; but Johnny would not now be stopped.

‘I was about to say that in Lord Mountbatten we at last have a First Sea Lord who is capable of viewing our strategic requirements as a whole; and that there are many younger officers in the Navy who, without being in the least disloyal to their Service, realise the necessity for its conversion into mainly a land-based Air Arm; and that it is people like you, many of whom are still serving, who, with their ill-informed conceptions and out-worn prejudices by opposing all change, are endangering the future of the country.’

The putting into moth-balls of H.M.S.
Vanguard
was one of the many matters that Sir Charles had mentioned to me during our long talk. Apparently Lord Mountbatten had been pressing to be allowed to effect this great economy, and secure her complement of sixteen hundred odd officers and men for more essential purposes, ever since he had become Chief of Naval Staff; but so great had the opposition been that a huge sum had been expended on her complete reconditioning before he could get his way.

At the time I had been endeavouring to absorb so many facts and figures that I had thought no more about it. But it struck me now that perhaps Mountbatten might be the one man who could effect some satisfactory compromise which would make the New Look acceptable to his own Service.

In view of the tradition he had inherited from his great sailor father and his own life-long devotion to the Navy, it seemed, on the face of things, unthinkable that he would even
listen to any proposal for disestablishing it. On the other hand as Chief of Combined Operations he had been created a Vice-Admiral, a Lieutenant-General, and an Air Marshal in the same Gazette. And later, as Supreme Commander South East Asia, he had directed the combined operations of great sea, land and air forces until they achieved a brilliant victory in the vastest of all our theatres of war.

Because he had fought to disencumber his Service of this hugely expensive strategically obsolete vessel, it did not follow that he would be prepared to scrap the aircraft carriers and smaller ships; but it did show practical good sense and considerable moral courage, and it could at least be taken as an indication that he would give reasonable consideration to any proposals for further readjustments of our war potential to greater advantage.

Whether Sir Charles had approached him direct on the proposal to merge the three Services I had, of course, no idea. But even if they had had preliminary talks and he had not shown himself entirely averse to it, enormous opposition remained to be encountered and to overcome it by ordinary methods would mean the loss of invaluable time. In any case, it was obvious that Sir Charles’s object in making use of me had been to save that time by provoking a crisis which would force the Navy to a show-down; and naturally he would never have placed Mountbatten in a false position by informing him of his intention to do that.

But the fact remained that the new First Sea Lord had more experience than any other Service Chief of the operational needs of all three Services, and should be able to adjudicate between them with a greater degree of fairness. So there did seem some hope that, whether the rejection of the E-boat contract played any part in the matter or not, he might prove the keystone in the building of the bridge upon which our new and better structure of defence could be based.

While these thoughts had been racing through my brain, James and Bill had succeeded in quelling the outbursts of the enraged sailor and airman. Johnny had been induced to apologise to the Admiral, and the Admiral had been told that his aspersions on Johnny’s integrity were quite unwarrantable. The two of them subsided into hostile silence when James said:

‘We are all agreed that it would be most unfitting to drag Lady Ankaret into our discussions here and now; but that she should be consulted. The point we have to settle is, bearing in mind that the matter is now urgent, when can that be done?’

It was Bill who for once put forth a constructive idea and solved their difficulty. ‘As three clear days have now elapsed since Giff’s death,’ he said, ‘she is over the worst of the shock. Naturally she did not feel like exchanging platitudes with Giff’s first wife and those awful children of his, but she is quite up to having this thing put before her and taking a decision. As you know, I voted with Giff for his proposal on Friday and against it this morning. I still feel there is a lot to be said for both sides; so you can trust me to put both to her fairly. How about my having a chat with her this evening, giving her the night to think it over, then letting you know tomorrow morning what she feels about it?’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ James nodded. ‘In that case I’ll call a formal meeting of the board in our offices, and when you have made your report we will decide on our reply to the Ministry of Supply. What time shall we make it?’