Infernal Revolutions (4 page)

I spluttered in my coffee. How mistaken I'd been to label Mr Axelrod a brainless rake! Rake he might be, but a rake with a credo. How simple it all was, for surely his argument was irrefutable. With my own Predicament in mind I sought to clarify the process.

‘So when you have a problem that needs acting on, how do you decide which course to take?'

‘I briefly consider the facts before me – briefly mind – and I always find that one particular course of action strongly suggests itself to me as being the right one, though of course I would be unable to postulate scientifically this intuition. A fuzzy picture appears of the result of the projected events, accompanied by a nice warm flutter of my heart, and then I know I am on the right track provided everything goes successfully. It does not always go successfully, of course, but I lay the blame for that on myself rather than my intuition.'

‘Do morals ever come into the process?'

‘Never. I am true to myself, and believe everyone else should be too.'

I was beginning to feel uneasy at the drift the conversation was taking; ‘twas clear I was conversing with an outlaw.

‘So you'd have no qualms about murdering someone, for example?'

‘None at all.'

The answer was no surprise. Beneath the Philip Sidney Young-Man-Of-Adventure look was sometimes discernable a criminal glimmer in the eye. I could easily imagine him as an adroit deliverer of a flashing blade in the kidneys, or a gunpowder blast in the face.

‘Morals,' he went on, ‘are implanted in man to serve as a kind of abatis for the weak to hide behind. They want to break out and live life, but they daren't, they have not the courage or the honesty. I, and a few others, have.'

These were the sort of glib words highwaymen used to romanticize their exploits; honesty in this case meaning true to basic instincts, however loathsome, destructive or anti-social.

Mr Axelrod started laughing.

‘Don't look at me like that, Mr Oysterman. I've just had my dinner. I'm not going to eat you.'

There was no doubt who had the upper hand in our relationship, and I did not like it. Indeed, my initial love for him was being eroded by acid shafts of unworthy jealousy. Despite being two years younger than me, he was already more confident and more experienced than I would be at fifty. Worse, he was better looking than me and he could quite clearly outdrink, outeat, outfight and – obviously, since I was a virgin – outroger me. Added to this was a nagging internal dispute: one side of me saying I should ignore his call to worldly hence frivolous actions; another side saying I was just as good as him, and should compete manfully for my share of pleasure and excitement. Confused, there was nothing for it but to drain off another glass of wine.

‘That's right. Drink, drink. It can't hurt you, and I'll bet…' he leaned forward to place his elbow on the table and wag a forefinger at me, ‘…I'll bet your thinking won't be half so gloomy when you leave here.'

‘You're probably right,' I said carelessly, lightening a little as the alcohol started working beneficially again. Indeed, Mr Axelrod seemed to be experiencing the same internal sensations, for he suddenly became very loquacious, and began to divulge all of the things I had been too scared to ask about.

He was a boxer, a foxhunter, a gentleman of intrigue and a gambler, and had already notched up an impressive number of conquests and kills. He was a member of several London clubs, including the Hell Fire Club and the Roaring Boys Club, but he was thinking of letting his memberships lapse because none of them provided him with the level of danger and excitement he craved. As proof of his sincerity on this matter, he told me that he did not expect to see his thirtieth birthday. However, if through bad luck or excessive prudence he did, he was determined to make amends by putting a pistol to his head and blowing his brains out at midnight on the fifth of April, 1787, whatever the size of the cake his friends had baked for him.

He had, it seemed, already been to Oxford and Middle Temple, confirming my earlier assumption that money had played a large part in the moulding of his carefree character; but law, naturally enough, had soon bored him, and his parents had bought him a commission in the King's Dragoon Guards (a cornet, I was freely told without detecting any signs of patronization, being a standard bearer, and hence a sure participant in any action that was going). So far his regiment had been training at a camp near Hove, but they were due to set sail for America at the end of the month, to fight the uprising colonists there. His duties to date mainly consisted of throwing lavish dinner parties for the other commissioned officers, one of whom was a fifteen-year-old boy nicknamed Pubescent Pete. When I expressed surprise at this, Mr Axelrod said a wealthy dog could buy himself a commission in the army, so rotten was it, and this was either disgraceful or funny, depending on your own particular attitude to life. It didn't seem to bother Mr Axelrod much, for he said the incompetent ones would soon be found out anyway, and as long as you won what did it matter? Warming to his theme, he then went on to describe the great victories of the British Army, banging his fists on the table to underscore such glorious names as Blenheim, Malplaquet, Dettingen, Culloden, Plassey and Quebec. I knew about these as well, of course, being a keen follower of world events, but I could not muster up the same passion for them as Mr Axelrod. Being a strategist rather than a tactician, I regarded them as increasing evidence of Britain's pervasive influence in the world, and thought little of all the blood that must have been spilt to win them. Mr Axelrod, on the other hand, thought of nothing else but the blood. There was a passing interest in battle tactics, for these directly affected the amount of blood on offer, but what really animated him was the grunting, screaming and groaning of actual combat. Without regard for other diners, he would act out vivid cameos, such as Frenchman Being Disembowelled, or Scotchman Spitted To Cottage Door, though how he knew about all these horrors was another matter, unless the Middle Temple was a completely different establishment to what I'd imagined. All in all, I gained the impression that the Hove barracks represented to him a prolonged Christmas Eve, a time of anticipatory torment before the wonderful day dawned when at last he would set foot on American soil, and begin the greatest, bloodiest foxhunt known to man.

While all this wish-fulfilment was going on, I had been draining glass after glass of wine, until I too became infected by the stirring descriptions and blood-curdling cries. Whilst not being keen to face Mr Axelrod even with my blood up, I wouldn't have minded slaying a pieman or two. I almost began to envy his imminent departure to America, where no doubt the whole colonist rabble were nothing better than piemen, if the newspaper reports I'd read were true. I must admit that about the time of his fifth lurid description of a gargling throat-slashed Frenchman, I fell into a reverie of my own, in which I enlisted in the army, sailed to America, proved my manhood beyond all doubt with astonishing bravery and keen military intelligence, won the heart and admiration of a beautiful local girl, and finally brought her back to live in Sussex ever happily and ever after. The alcohol, in its keenness to outline the grand plan, had left out niggling little details like Amanda Philpott and my dream of becoming a famous poet, but the mere fact that such baggage could be jettisoned so easily made me suddenly laugh out loud.

‘Good lad, good lad,' roared Mr Axelrod. ‘That's the spirit. There's nothing like it, is there?'

With effort I focused on his head, and gushingly agreed with him. Nothing finer, nothing finer. And off I went babbling, telling him of my wasted, cocooned life, my ambitions as a poet, and my problems with Amanda Philpott. This latter item particularly interested him, for it seemed to strike a chord, and he consoled me with an elegant soliloquy on the wiles and pettiness of women, and of female society in general.

‘Women, Harry, are for one thing, and one thing only – any honest man will admit that. The rest of your time with them is just putting up with their moods and waiting for their headaches to clear. Where's the fun in that? Therefore you need to rotate your crops so as to maximize reaping and minimize sowing. Have as many wenches on the go as you can; that way one at least will always be in the mood for rogering, and you will have a safety net if one falls ill or pregnant, or gets swiped by another man. Tell them all you love them, of course, whatever you really think of them, because then they will work better for you in bed, and spend their time fretting over you when you are away. ‘Tis what most of them want anyway – just a man they can see occasionally for relief of their frustration, isolation and boredom.'

I was still pondering this revolutionary advice – and getting over the shock of being called Harry – when Mr Axelrod came out with a
non sequitur
that disorientated me further.

‘You're a brave and honest man, Harry. I am honoured to have made your acquaintance. A toast, Sir.'

One final flush veneered my face as these words, from such a man, reached my heart. Solemnly and unsteadily we rose and drank a toast to each other. Then, spent, I sat down and let my eyes roll slowly over the debris in front of me. Apart from the dirty plates and piles of half-eaten food on the table, there was also much broken glass in evidence, perhaps as a result of the energetic battle demonstrations. I was staring at the various colours in the shards when I became aware that the heat in the place had risen tremendously; moments later I also became aware that within the hour I would be spraying out the contents of my stomach to the furthest corners of the dining room. Determined to get away before that happened, I sank into silence in the hope that Mr Axelrod, finding his new friend tired and uncommunicative, would realize the entertainment was over, and provide me with a carriage home. Instead, to my horror, Mr Axelrod called for more wine and a pack of cards.

‘Now to make enough money to pay for the meal,' he confided, with a crafty wink. ‘With perhaps a little to spare for the ladies afterwards, eh, Harry?'

I managed a weak and sickly smile, then watched wretchedly as a waiter, not Jeremy this time, appeared with the goods. He then cleared and wiped the table, and left the scene set for my continued misery.

Brag was the game, and five other players were quickly roped in, though in my effort to keep my rolling head down all I saw of them were their hard, grimy hands on the table. I was invited to play but declined, even though Mr Axelrod was willing to loan me stake money.

‘Then I insist that he sits next to Mr Axelrod,' said a harsh voice. ‘We do not want him spying for his master.'

A murmur of agreement went up, so I dutifully shifted round like a little lapdog. Everyone now satisfied, the game began, but though it may have progressed smoothly for others, the action all seemed mightily staccato to me. Episodic scenes flitted before my drooping eyes: the sixpenny stake being shoved out onto the table by the dealer at the start of every round; others betting or capitulating; Mr Axelrod's funds quickly diminishing until he was down to his last sixpence; the faint hypnotic beat of a drum; the incredible number of braggers that started to appear in Mr Axelrod's every hand; the disbelieving mutterings of his opponents; the swelling pile of bounty in front of beaming Mr Axelrod. ‘Twas just at this point, when tempers were becoming so ugly I was sure a fight would break out, that the drumbeat I thought ethereal became an insistent reality, and curiosity jolted me back into consciousness.

Tdllutt, tdllutt, tdllutt – three awful dreary monotonous beats repeated over and over , coming from somewhere out on the Front. There was the sudden scraping of many chairs around the table. Hands were thrown in rapidly. Players stood up, scooped their winnings together and quickly departed without thanks or goodbyes. Then there seemed to be a lull in the proceedings, with just Mr Axelrod and myself remaining. The drumbeat got louder, then stopped. Thank God, I thought, it is all over, and I can sleep.

But no. Soon three more pairs of hands sat down, and took up the cards. They exchanged greetings with Mr Axelrod, then began to discuss something. But they could talk all they liked, it was sleep I wanted. The trouble was, closing my eyes only made matters worse, and then it was that I knew a prodigious spew was not many minutes away. All that wine, all that food, all my problems with poetry and Amanda – ‘twas a dire combination, and now I was about to pay for my over-indulgence with my stomach lining.

Then, and the insensitivity of it astonished me, a shilling was thrust in my hand by one of the newcomers. Was he blind as well as stupid?

‘Awublundswelloopid?' I exclaimed, clutching the coin and staring at it in my fist. ‘Nostaylaybrag.'

‘All right, you don't have to play brag with it if you don't want to,' said the newcomer mildly. ‘You can do whatever you want with it, because it's yours.'

‘Thanyouverrmuh.'

I had to get out; sickness was about five strides away. I rose quickly, shuddering with the effort. Still clutching the shilling, I made for the door. I got no further than two inches before a hefty hand pinned my arm to the table.

‘Welcome to His Majesty George the Third's army,' said the newcomer. ‘You've accepted the King's Shilling, so where do you think you're going without permission?'

I stared at him blankly, vaguely aware that something was wrong but too ill to think beyond the rising gorge in my throat. Then it happened – a jet of vomit shot out of me at prodigious speed and splashed noisily all over the table, the cards and the players. There were groans of disgust and anger, but I was too far gone to care. I staggered backwards, fell over a chair and crashed into a wall, which I slid down like a bayoneted Frenchman, tongue lolling and eyes crossed. The last thing I saw before Oblivion descended was the chief bragger himself, the Knave of Clubs, lying next to me with most of his clothes covered in a sort of wine-coloured porridge, as if a casualty of an attack by the Scotch.