Scruffy - A Diversion (23 page)

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” the Major agreed. He said to Tim, “How is the new work going?”

“Capital,” Tim replied. “We’re waiting on a shipment of cement and wire for the big cages and shelters, but I’ve got two small cages up and some fair enough shelters at both Middle Hill and Queen’s Gate from what the Gunner and I could liberate.”

“Splendid,” said the Major. “That leaves then only—”

“The new stuff,” Tim concluded, and got out his maps.

There were different coloured marks and notations on his map of North Africa, checks, circles, crosses, triangles, marking such cities as Tangiers, Rabat, Ceuta and Casablanca, and even such more remote towns as Fee and Ouida. “You see, sir,” he explained to Major Clyde, to whom although he was the same rank as Tim now and not much older, he accorded the same respect that he would have a headmaster or a genuine operating wizard, “the trouble is that these are all now more than eighteen months old and we don’t actually know the real situation with regard to available beasts in more than one or two of them. When the Gunner and I” (the Gunner looked pleased and flattered at being included) “were on the job what we tried to do was get some reserve in depth. You never know with apes. They’re tough brutes who can survive the worst kind of mauling, or they can keel over quick as a wink from some silly bug in the chest or a pain in the tummy. It takes a year or two usually to get a new beast acclimated to the Rock and we wanted to know at all times where we could lay our hands on some if it looked as though we might be going to need them.”

Major Clyde murmured, “Son, you’ll wind up at Staff College if you’re not careful.”

“But, as I say, that was almost two years ago and the picture may all be changed now. The only one I’m at all reasonably certain about because of a chap I know who is a pal of this Spanish fellow, is over in Ceuta.”

They all bent their heads over the map to see the town and its location which Tim had marked not only with a cross, but with the female symbol.

“What’s the gen?” Major Clyde asked.

“Spaniard,” Tim replied, “fellow by the name of Blasco Iran. Bachelor, top-heavy with ducats. Has a female, and he’s short of whisky. Chap I know was over there not more than a month ago. And this Blasco fellow was feeling him out on what the chances were of getting his hands on some real Scotch. He sounded thirsty enough to make a deal.”

McPherson said, “Why don’t we start with the Señor then?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Tim said. “It’s females we need. He’s got one. We’ve got the kind of currency he wants, and in the meantime if we can buy up enough apes to make up the twenty-four the P.M. wants, we can send him a signal and keep him happy, and if the majority of them are females, with the new cages, we might get them breeding this Christmas. By next spring—”

“You make it all sound so simple,” commented Major Clyde, “and how do we get the lady over here?”

“I thought perhaps you might be able to use your influence with Group Captain Cranch. He’s here now supervising the building of the air-strip.”

“Howard Cranch,” Major Clyde said meditatively, “it’s an idea,” but he didn’t add that something inside him whispered faintly, “
But not a very good one.
” It was not that Group Captain Cranch was not a fine flyer; it was merely that Major Clyde had a certain distrust of all Air Force types. They were not stable people. Stable people didn’t depart from the earth in contraptions made, of all things, of steel. Still, even though he disliked and distrusted it as a means of transport, the Major had to concede that the aeroplane had come to stay and that if Cranch was willing it was a cheap and expeditious way to get their first ape in a hurry. “I’ll have a word with Howard,” he said. “O.K., lads, let’s get cracking.”

Group Captain Howard Cranch, in command of the collection of dodos passing for aircraft and assigned to the defence of Gibraltar, was a burly man almost as broad as he was long. His head was planted on his shoulders, the neck having been practically omitted. The ends of his R.A.F. moustache stuck out from either side of a small but full mouth, which any physiognomist would have told you indicated a love of pleasure, unrestricted and unconfined, and he had the small, twinkling, merry eyes of the confirmed party-thrower and life of same.

Group Captain Howard Cranch’s parties and his routines at them were well known on the Rock. They took place in his house down near the apology for an air-strip, usually every Saturday night. There was liquor, there was food, and there were Group Captain Cranch’s routines, unfailing and unvarying.

The Group Captain kept a small supply of costumes in a side bedroom, and from time to time he would vanish from the general merriment, to reappear as an Arab, a toreador, an African hunter, a sailor, or Lady Maude opening a garden fête.

He put his heart and soul into these impersonations, and therefore managed to be screamingly funny, even after he had been seen many times by guests who were practically the same week in and week out. The Group Captain could sing—he had a fine, robust baritone voice; he could dance—for all of his bulk of one hundred and ninety pounds, he could move about as gracefully and lightly as a gazelle; he could mimic—his impersonations of certain high personages on the Rock were famous; he could recite bawdy poetry by the hour; he could play the piano, the drums and the cornet; and he could hold his liquor like a gentleman.

Like so many of his kind, however, in the air Group Captain Cranch was quite a different specimen. The other half of definitely a dual personality was a born flyer, and one who could keep a faltering aircraft aloft by sheer will-power and strength of stomach muscles.

In command of a covey of Stirlings, Albatrosses and a pair of lumbering Blackwell Bothas left over from World War I, he flew them all as though they were gliders and managed to imbue his command with something of the grace and elegance of his flying.

It was to this extraordinary person that the mission was entrusted of flying to Ceuta, contacting the mysterious Señor Blasco Irun, delivering to him a case of illicitly-procured Black and White Scotch whisky, and returning in exchange with one female Barbary ape. On this all-important operation Group Captain Cranch was briefed by Major Tim Bailey and Major McPherson.

The briefing took place as usual in Major McPherson’s musty office behind the Colonial Secretariat. Present were Majors Clyde, McPherson and Bailey, the latter looking preoccupied and guarding a large box-shaped mysterious something beneath a cloth.

A shadow shaped somewhat like a bull elephant or a rhino showed up on the opaque glass panelling of the door which now flew open and in exactly the manner of one or the other of those beasts on a charge, Group Captain Howard Cranch burst into the office. It was curious that although the flyer was senior in rank to all those present he seemed the youngest and the most exuberant of the lot. He came in shouting, “Ho, Cads! What’s the gen? I hear I’m supposed to jockey some flipping monkey across the Straits.”

Himself flapping like a giant crane Major Clyde leaped to the door, locked it, flapped to the window and pulled down a shade, shouting, “Security! Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”

“Oh-oh-oh,” said the Group Captain, “sorry,” and went tiptoeing about the room, his hands over his ears and his eyes and his mouth pantomiming, then he said, “Oh hello, Slinker. This your show? I thought you were back in London with the bulging brains. I’ve a feeling I’m not going to like this.”

“Piece of cake,” Clyde said. “How’d you like to save the Empire and win a medal?”

Group Captain Cranch wrinkled his nose and said, “I’ve got a medal. Got it for falling out of an aircraft. There I was at ten thousand feet minding my own business when this Hun, who up to that time had taken no part in the conversation—”

“Yes, yes,” said Major Clyde hastily. “You know all these chaps, I gather? There’s really nothing to it, Howard. There’s a Spaniard lives in a villa five miles out of Ceuta on the road to Casablanca. He’s got a female ape by the name of Ramona which he’s going to sell to us. There’ll be a car and escort waiting for you at the airport. Everything’s laid on. All you do is pick up the ape, fly it back here and earn the undying gratitude of the nation.”

“What, with it in my lap?” asked Cranch.

“Show him, Tim,” Clyde said.

With a gesture filled with the import and drama of a magician climaxing his trick, Tim whipped the cloth off what it was concealing and revealed a small wooden case containing a most marvellous network of straps, webbing and strips of live rubber.

The Group Captain regarded it with fascination. “What the devil is that? And what am I supposed to do with it?”

“It’s for the female, sir,” Tim explained, “so that she won’t get tossed about. You see, her head goes in here, and her body here, and this rubber takes up the strain. She’ll be really almost weightless. I’ve worked it out. The harness will hold her tummy here, and you fit this over her bottom part, and that takes the stress off should you happen to hit any air-pockets.”

The Group Captain marched around this contraption three times with one finger pressed against the side of his nose, and muttering under his breath some kind of unintelligible Air Force jargon. At the end of his tour he said fondly to Tim, “That’s absolutely wizard, my boy. But would you mind telling me who puts the flipping ape inside that thing?”

Tim threw an I-told-you-so look at Major Clyde and said, “There, you see? That’s just what I was saying. I really ought to be going along on this mission.”

Clyde said sternly, “No you don’t, laddie. What’s the good of the Grouper bringing the bitch over if in the meantime someone does old Scruffy in?”

Tim sighed and said, “I know. I was afraid of that.” Then turning to the flyer, he said, “But I’ve provided for it.” He produced an envelope which he handed to the Group Captain, who regarded it suspiciously, and then looked inside at what appeared to be some white powder.

He said, “What do I do—put some of that on its tail?”

Tim said, “It’s to be administered internally an hour before take-off. Got it from the Medical Officer. He’s worked out the proportions. Once you get her off to sleep you’ll have no trouble putting her into her harness in the box.”

The Group Captain said, “I’m going to love this. And how am I supposed to get this stuff inside her?”

Tim had an answer to that too. “If I might suggest,” he said, “I should wear gloves.” He reached into his pocket and produced a pair of heavy leather ones. “The teeth rarely go through these,” he promised.

The Group Captain regarded him admiringly. “You think of everything, don’t you, Junior?”

“We try,” Major Clyde said modestly.

Major McPherson now spoke, and said, “Look here, Howard, I know it’s all pretty silly, but this one really is hush-hush and we want all the security we can get. Someone’s been tipping the Hun about what’s been going on in Tim’s department. You’ve heard the broadcasts, haven’t you? People are getting windy. We haven’t been able to locate it yet. It’s an inside job, that’s all we know.”

“Probably the clot who looks after them. What’s his name—Lovejoy?” said the Group Captain, and knew not how close he had come to hitting the nail on the head.

Tim flared in hot protest, forgetting that Group Captain Cranch was equal to a Colonel in rank.

“God dammit, that’s not true. Gunner Lovejoy would die before he’d leak anything.”

Cranch suddenly went stepping about the room on tiptoes as though walking on eggs, and saying, “Oh-oh-oh. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No offence intended. Probably old Scruff himself got on the blower to the Germans. I hear he’s a prime stinker.”

Major McPherson said, “We can fill you in later on this. The point is the Brigadier wants the apes kept up to strength. Tim here has located this Spanish chap with a female of the right age. We’ve got the price the fellow wants, but by tomorrow the Hun might get on to him and double it. We are depending on you.”

Cranch looked wise. “I get it,” he said. “What do I pay?”

Major Clyde and Tim exchanged glances, after which the Major opened the door of a cupboard, revealing a nailed-down case of Black and White Scotch whisky.

A look of sheer horror settled upon the countenance of the Group Captain as the implications of the situation became clear. “What?” he shouted, forgetting security. “You’re asking me to ferry a case of Scotch whisky
off
the Rock and bring back a seeping chimp in return? Ho now, come on, you trio of middens, there’s a limit to what you can ask a man to do even in a war!”

McPherson, being a Scot, had no difficulty looking properly sympathetic. “I know,” he said, “it’s a shocking waste, but there it is. That’s what he wants.”

Cranch growled, “Where the devil did you get it? I didn’t know there was any more of this stuff about. We’ve been drinking anti-freeze the last six weeks.”

“It was the Governor’s,” Major Clyde explained, his long face sad and grave. “Tim stole it. The police are looking for him now. The sooner you get this hot cargo out of here—”

For a moment Cranch had the air of a man who was out of his depth and ready to admit it. He said, “And they say the Air Force is crackers. O.K. What’s this dog-stealer’s name I’m supposed to contact?”

Tim consulted some papers from his file. “His name is Blasco Irun. Supposed to be loaded with pesetas. But what he hasn’t got is whisky. He knows you’re coming.”

The Group Captain was regarding the case of Scotch with a finger again pressed to the side of his nose, and he again suddenly went into his little walking-on-eggs dance about the room. “Whish,” he said, “whish, whish. Maybe the blighter mightn’t be so bad if he knows a good drink of Scotch whisky. O.K., lads, I’m your man.”

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Ramona

T
he Group Captain took off in an old Albatross on this mission, since there was not room in the cockpit of his personal Hawker Fury for the case of Scotch or the contraption in which his prize was to be returned.

However, he flew without a co-pilot for the sake of security, and the case of Scotch rested upon the seat next to him.