A Future Arrived (7 page)

Christ!

He wasn't a champagne drinker, and God knows he wasn't a cognac-
and
-champagne drinker, and he was feeling the effects of the mixture. He removed his shoes, curled up on the bed, and drew the eiderdown comforter around him. The lamp still burned but he lacked the energy to get up and turn it off. The wind was dying and the rain had stopped. Water dripped from the trees outside the window, plip-plopping to the ground as melancholy as tears.

B
RIGADIER
F
ENTON
W
OOD
-L
ACY
had bitter thoughts.

“Twenty-two years in service to king and country is time enough for any man.”

Major General Sir John Towerside had made that observation with pointed casualness at first light, over tea and biscuits at the conclusion of a night exercise on Salisbury Plain.
“Long and fruitful years, Hawk,”
the general had continued.
“If I were you, I'd pack it in now while you're still a young man, take a directorship with Vickers.”

“Silly old bugger,” Fenton muttered, slumped on the back seat of his car.

The civilian beside him nodded in agreement. “Yes, but it wasn't the worst advice in the world. Most men would jump at the chance of retiring at forty.”

“The man's a bloody fool, Jacob.”

Jacob Golden, owner and publisher of the London
Daily Post
, tugged the brim of his fedora low over his pale, slender face and gazed out the side window at a straggling column of rain-blackened cavalry. The rain had stopped and morning mist clung to the ground, obscuring the more distant shapes of tanks lumbering off across the plain, nose to tail like so many weary elephants. “Oil and water, Fenton. It's as simple as that. Water for horses, oil for tanks. The good Sir John can't get them to mix.”

Fenton swore under his breath and leaned forward to roll up the glass partition, insulating them from the soldier-driver.

“Who the hell can? Towerside's stupidity is that he insists on trying. He claims it's for the good of the service. The perpetuation of the useless bloody cavalry, he means. The fool's been around horses too much—not the brightest animals in the world, I might add.”

“May I quote you on that? Brigadier makes un-English comment, says horses are stupid. Good heavens, you'll be disparaging dogs next.”

The brigadier fished a battered box of cigarettes from one of the many pockets in his oil-splattered black canvas coveralls. The black beret and his own dark, hawklike face gave him a satanic look. “You believe he's right, don't you? Chucking it in, I mean.”

Jacob stifled a yawn. “You know my views by now. Why bother to ask?”

“It would make Winnie happy. And the girls. Pillar to post. No proper home. Odd sort of life for them.”

“Army brats, as the Yanks say.”

“Do you really think Vickers would offer me a directorship?”

“Of course. They love having old soldiers at board meetings. All that talk about the glorious past over cakes and port.”

“Twenty-two years.” He lit a cigarette with a brass lighter of primitive design. Engraved on one side of it were the words
To “The Hawk” in gratitude. The Officers and Men. 8th Btl. The Green Howards. 1/4/19
. An irreverent lot, he recalled dimly.
The Hawk
, indeed! Saucy bastards. But he had been secretly pleased by the sobriquet at the time. Now everyone in the army called him that, except the men of course—at least not to his face. “I've been around a bit in twenty-two years, Jacob.”

“We all have, dear chap.”

“The Coldstreams. Those were the good years. Playing at soldiering. Palace guard … the Marlborough Club … parties every night … bedding Mayfair debutantes right and left. A shame the war came along and mucked it all up.”

“Yes. A pity. But that's the Germans for you. Always ruining a chap's social life.”

“You facetious bastard.” He blew smoke through his nostrils. “If I gave it up now I'm afraid the Tank Corps would suffer the loss. Not that any one man is indispensable, mind you.”

Jacob yawned openly and drew his Burberry closer around his thin body. “You are … at this particular time. They may dread the sight of you at the War Office, but they have to respect your views. And certainly the readers of the
Daily Post
respect them. A fully mechanized army means jobs from Bristol to Leeds. No one derives a living from the cavalry except harness makers. As your oldest friend, I would have liked seeing you out of the service years ago. As a newspaper publisher with the largest daily readership in the world to keep entertained, I find you indispensable in your current role.”

Fenton, Jacob knew, would do what he wanted without any advice from him. What he wanted, of course, was to stay in the army, in his precious Tank Corps, to run it and mold it without interference from mossback generals who did not share his visions. The interference would continue because new concepts had always been resisted—an army tradition—and Fenton would grit his teeth and hang on to fight for his convictions. His intractability was apparent in every line of his handsome, weather-worn face.

Jacob's smile was knowing as he looked at his friend, the tall, whip-lean body now slumped forward with fatigue, head nodding toward his chest. He reached out and took the smoldering cigarette from between the brigadier's fingers and tossed it out of the window.

A long friendship and an unlikely one, he was thinking. They had first met as boys at a preparatory school as renowned for its excellence as it was infamous for its snobbery. Fenton the son of Queen Victoria's favorite architect, and he the son of a Jewish press lord. That his father was the confidant of kings and the savior or destroyer of prime ministers had meant nothing to the boys of that school. He had simply been dismissed as “a detestable little Jew” whose father owned “that common rag, the
Post
,” and every effort had been made to make him feel unwanted. But Fenton, the tallest and strongest boy in the school, had befriended him, though not entirely out of his fierce sense of fair play. The elder Wood-Lacy, who had designed the
Daily Post
building in London, had asked him to do so. It had hardly been a friendship made in heaven, their views on almost all matters being too disparate for that, but Fenton had offered his hand and, over the course of those school years, a bond had been forged. Time had done nothing to diminish it. They had followed widely different paths, but that long ago handshake remained as firm as ever.

Jennifer Wood-Lacy spotted the car as it turned off the Andover road and up the narrow lane leading to the house. She whistled for the dogs who were chasing rabbits through the brambles and began to run across the muddy field, oblivious to the petulant cries of her twin.

“Oh, wait for me, can't you!” Victoria was shouting, burdened by a pair of rubber boots too large for her feet. “Do slow up! Oh, don't be beastly!”

Jennifer ran on unheeding, a tall thirteen-year-old, leggy as a colt. Both she and her wailing counterpart had their father's looks … the dark, aquiline features, the black hair, but she was more daughter to the man than her sister. Was, she had always liked to think, the brigadier's son, riding by his right side into battle. Budding breasts had shattered the dream. Victoria was in ecstasy over hers. Simply drooling at her femininity. It was enough to make one physically sick. She ran faster, leaving her sister far behind, vaulted a low hedge and reached the lane just as the car turned the bend. The driver slowed to a halt as she jumped the ditch and stood in the center of the road waving her arms.

“Good morning, Lance Corporal Ryan,” she called out cheerfully.

“Good morning, Miss … Jennifer?”

“Of course Jennifer,” she snapped. It was irritating to be confused with Victoria. Identical twins, but she would never have it so. She thought of her sister in the bathroom that morning, reverentially massaging her tiny mammary glands with some dreadful cold cream she had bought at Boots. Her fury almost choked her, but dissipated instantly as she opened the side door.

“Good morning, Daddy … Uncle Jacob.” She climbed into the car and sprawled onto the seat between them, closing the door as she did so. The two muddy Airedales started barking and running up and down the road. “Drive on, Lance Corporal Ryan!”

“The window's up,” her father said. “And besides, I give the orders here. We'll wait for Vicky.”

“She
wants
to walk,” she said hurriedly. “She
insists
on walking
five
miles every day. She's quite dotty about it.”

Jacob could see the girl far off across the field, stumbling, waving her arms. “She doesn't walk very well, does she?”

“She couldn't find her Wellingtons this morning so she had to wear Mother's.”

Fenton scowled. “I wonder how that happened.” He tapped on the glass partition and the driver put the car in gear. “This childish behavior toward your sister has to cease at once. You were always the best of pals. I won't scold you in front of Vicky, so let this be the final word on the subject.”

“Yes, Daddy. I shall love her as dearly as I love Kate. You'll see.” She snuggled against him, eyes closed, breathing in his essence, the manly odors of tobacco, petrol, and motor oil, luxuriating in his presence as the car swept on up the lane toward the house a half mile away.

“You smell more than usual like an armored car,” Winifred said as she came into the bedroom in her robe, her long brown hair still damp from her bath. She was thirty-four, six years younger than her husband, tall and full bosomed with a roses-and-cream skin that had never known makeup paints or powders.

Fenton grunted as he took off his coveralls and tossed them into a corner. Even his long underwear was oil stained and he peeled that off also.

“Not an armored car, Winnie, a bloody abomination of an experimental command tank … the Hercules Mark Two. Oil and petrol lines leaky as sieves. A wonder we didn't go up like a ruddy bomb. The exercise, needless to say, was another comedy of errors. Dragoons floundering about … bolting in front of the tanks. Came damn close to squashing half the king's horses. I'm not in a human mood just now.”

“Sorry. You look human enough to me. The basic model of a naked male—Mark One.”

Fenton strode to the closet and wrapped himself in a frayed silk dressing gown. “Not a total loss, though, I suppose. At least it gave Jacob a good look at the folly of trying to wed cavalry to tanks. He's planning an editorial on the subject to coincide with the War Office budget meetings next month.” He sat on the edge of the bed and glared at his toes. “Not that it'll do much good. Whitehall is gaga over horse soldiers. Regimental elite … high social tone. Christ, they believe the charge of the Light Brigade was a glorious British victory! Bad form to get drunk before noon, I suppose.”

“What you need is sleep.” She sat beside him and rubbed his shoulder. “Hanna telephoned this morning. Coatsworth passed away yesterday … and Anthony had a minor attack.”

He looked at her in concern. “What kind of attack?”

“Angina. Nothing serious, but they're sending him up to London this afternoon for tests at Guy's. He'll be there a week or so.”

“He won't like that, poor chap.”

“No, I don't imagine he will. Coatsworth's funeral is Saturday. Hanna would like us to come.”

“Of course.” He shook his head, smiling with faint sadness. “Coatsworth dead. Hardly seems possible. I was ten when I first met him.
Ten!
Good Lord.”

“He must have been close to ninety, I imagine.”

“Easily, an elderly man even then. Roger and I had been invited to the Pryory to spend the summer. Father had been engaged to remodel the house and the east wing was covered with scaffolding. He warned us to stay off it, but it was too irresistible. Roger was eight, the same age as Charles. They looked to me for leadership and oh! did I lead them! Up those rickety towers and along narrow catwalks, climbing about like ruddy apes. Coatsworth would bellow at us to come down before we broke our necks.”

She rubbed his back, kneading the taut muscles. “And did you obey the poor man?”

“Of course, but we took our sweet time doing so. A noble gentleman, Coatsworth. He never told my father or the earl what we were up to.”

“Hanna would like us to stay over for a week and keep her company. That is if the army can spare you.”

His laugh was sardonic. “If I ask General bloody Towerside for a week's leave he'd urge me to take a few
years!
You can call Hanna and tell her she has house guests.” He turned to her, parting her robe and resting the side of his face against her breasts. “God, you smell wonderful.”

“Lavender soap.”

“No. Inner loveliness. The perfume of the soul. I'd make love to you, my sweet, but I feel like a corpse.”

She kissed the top of his head. “You're making love to me now.”

He rolled over on the bed and was asleep instantly. Like a cat, Winifred was thinking as she covered him with a blanket. He would snap awake in three or four hours, springing up as refreshed as though he had enjoyed a full night's rest.