A Matter of Honor Read online

  Adam had decided to wait until he had reached the privacy of his own room before he opened the envelope. Lately the excitement in his life had not been such that he felt he could be blasé about the little ceremony. After all, in a way, he had waited most of his life to discover what could possibly be in the envelope he had now inherited.

  Adam had been told the story of the family tragedy by his father a thousand times—“It’s all a matter of honor, old chap,” his father would repeat, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders. Adam’s father had not realized he had spent a lifetime overhearing the snide comments of lesser men and suffering the sidelong glances from those officers who had made sure they were not seen too regularly in his company. Petty men with petty minds. Adam knew his father far too well to believe, even for a moment, that he could have been involved in such treachery as was whispered. Adam took one hand off the handle bars and fingered the envelope in his inside pocket like a schoolboy the day before his birthday feeling the shape of a present in the hope of discovering some clue as to its contents. He felt certain that whatever it contained would not be to anyone’s advantage now his father was dead, but it did not lessen his curiosity.

  He tried to piece together the few facts he had been told over the years. In 1946, within a year of his fiftieth birthday, his father had resigned his commission from the army. The Times had described Pa as a brilliant tactical officer with a courageous war record. His resignation had been a decision that had surprised the Times correspondent, astonished his immediate family and shocked his regiment, as it had been assumed by all who knew him that it was only a matter of months before crossed swords and a baton would have been sewn on to his epaulette.

  Because of the colonel’s sudden and unexplained departure from the regiment, fact was augmented by fiction. When asked, all the colonel would offer was that he had had enough of war and felt the time had come to make a little money on which Susan and he could retire before it was too late. Even at the time few people found his story credible, and that credibility was not helped when the only job the colonel managed to secure for himself was as secretary of the local golf club.

  It was only through the generosity of Adam’s late grandfather, Gen. Sir Pelham Westlake, that he had been able to remain at Wellington College and thereby be given the opportunity to continue the family tradition and pursue a military career.

  After leaving school Adam was offered a place at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. During his days at the RMA, Adam was to be found diligently studying military history, tactics, and battle procedure, while on weekends he concentrated on rugby and squash. But his greatest success came whenever he ran cross-country races. For two years panting cadets from Cranwell and Dartmouth only saw his mud-spattered back as Adam went on to become the Inter-Services champion. He also became the middleweight boxing champion despite a Nigerian cadet’s breaking his nose in the first round of the final. The Nigerian made the mistake of assuming the fight was already over.

  When Adam graduated Sandhurst in August 1956, he managed ninth place in the academic order of merit, but his leadership and example outside the classroom was such that no one was surprised when he was awarded the Sword of Honor. Adam never doubted from that moment he would follow his father and command the regiment.

  The Royal Wessex Regiment accepted the colonel’s son soon after he had been awarded his regular commission. Adam quickly gained the respect of the soldiers and was popular with those officers whose currency was not to deal in rumor. As a tactical officer he had no equal, and when it came to combat duty it was clear he had inherited his father’s courage. Yet, when six years later, the War Office published in the London Gazette the names of those subalterns who had been promoted to captain, Lt. Adam Scott was not to be found on the list. His contemporaries were genuinely surprised, while senior officers of the regiment remained tightlipped. To Adam it was becoming abundantly clear that he was not to be allowed to atone for whatever it was his father was thought to have done.

  Eventually Adam was promoted to captain, but not before he had distinguished himself in the Malayan jungle in hand-to-hand fighting against the never-ending waves of Chinese soldiers. Having been captured and held prisoner by the Communists, he endured solitude and torture of the kind that no amount of training could have prepared him for. He escaped eight months after his incarceration only to discover on returning to the front line that he had been awarded a posthumous Military Cross. When, at the age of twenty-nine, Captain Scott passed his staff exam but still failed to be offered a regimental place at the staff college, he finally accepted he could never hope to command the regiment. He resigned his commission a few weeks later; there was no need to suggest that the reason he had done so was because he needed to earn more money.

  While he was serving out his last few months with the regiment, Adam learned from his mother that Pa only had weeks to live. Adam made the decision not to inform his father of his resignation. He knew Pa would only blame himself, and he was at least thankful that he had died without being aware of the stigma that had become part of his son’s daily life.

  The sight of the outskirts of London made Adam’s thoughts return, as they had so often lately, to the pressing problem of finding himself gainful employment. In the seven weeks he had been out of work he had already had more interviews with his bank manager than with prospective employers. It was true that he had another meeting lined up with the Foreign Office, but he had been impressed by the standard of the other candidates he had encountered on the way, and Adam was only too aware of his lack of a university qualification. However, he felt the first interview had gone well, and he had been quickly made aware of how many ex-officers had joined the service. When he discovered that the chairman of the selection board had a Military Cross, Adam assumed he wasn’t being considered for desk work.

  As he swung the motorbike into King’s Road Adam once again fingered the envelope in his inside jacket pocket hoping, uncharitably, that Lawrence would not yet have returned from the bank. Not that he could complain: his old school friend had been extremely generous in offering him such a pleasant room in his spacious flat for only four pounds a week.

  “You can start paying more when they make you an ambassador,” Lawrence had told him.

  “You’re beginning to sound like a slumlord,” Adam had retorted, grinning at the man he had so admired during their days at Wellington. For Lawrence—in direct contrast to Adam—everything seemed to come so easily—exams, jobs, sports and women, especially women. When he had won his place at Balliol and then gone on to take a first in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, no one was surprised. But when Lawrence chose banking as a profession, his contemporaries could not hide their disbelief. It seemed to be the first time he had embarked on anything that might be described as mundane.

  Adam parked his motorbike just off Ifield Road, aware that like his mother’s old Morris it would have to be sold if the Foreign Office job didn’t materialize. As he strolled toward the flat a girl who passed gave him a second look, he didn’t notice. He took the stairs in threes and had reached the fifth floor and was pushing his Yale key into the lock when a voice from inside shouted, “It’s on the latch.”

  “Damn,” said Adam under his breath.

  “How did it go?” were Lawrence’s first words as Adam entered the drawing room.

  “Very well, considering,” Adam replied, not quite sure what else he could say as he smiled at his flatmate. Lawrence had already changed from his city clothes into a blazer and gray flannels. He was slightly shorter and stockier than Adam with a head of wavy fair hair and gray thoughtful eyes that always seemed to be inquiring.

  “I admired your father so much,” he added. “He always assumed one had the same standards as he did.” Adam could still remember nervously introducing Lawrence to his father one Speech Day. They had become friends immediately. But then Lawrence was not a man who dealt in rumors.

  “Able to retire on the family fortune, are w
e?” asked Lawrence in a lighter vein.

  “Only if that dubious bank you work for has found a way of converting five hundred pounds into five thousand in a matter of days.”

  “Can’t manage it at the present time, old chum—not now that Harold Wilson has announced a standstill in wages and prices.”

  Adam smiled as he looked across at his friend. Although taller than Lawrence now, he could still recall those days when Lawrence seemed like a giant.

  “Late again, Scott,” he would say as Adam scampered past him in the corridor. Adam had looked forward to the day when he could do everything in the same relaxed superior style, or was it just that Lawrence was superior? His suits always seemed to be well pressed, his shoes always shone, and he never had a hair out of place. Adam still hadn’t mastered how he did it all so effortlessly.

  Adam heard the bathroom door open. He glanced interrogatively toward Lawrence.

  “It’s Carolyn,” whispered Lawrence. “She’ll be staying the night … I think.”

  When Carolyn entered the room Adam smiled shyly at the tall, beautiful woman. Her long, blond hair bounced on her shoulders as she walked toward them, but it was the faultless figure that most men couldn’t take their eyes off. How did Lawrence manage it?

  “Care to join us for a meal?” asked Lawrence, putting his arm round Carolyn’s shoulder, his voice suddenly sounding a little too enthusiastic. “I’ve discovered this Italian restaurant that’s just opened on Fulham Road.”

  “I might join you later,” said Adam, “but I still have one or two papers left over from this afternoon that I ought to check through.”

  “Forget the finer details of your inheritance, my boy. Why not join us and spend the entire windfall in one wild spaghetti fling?”

  “Oh, have you been left lots of lovely lolly?” asked Carolyn, in a voice so shrill and high-pitched that nobody would have been surprised to learn that she had recently been Deb of the Year.

  “Not,” said Adam, “when considered against my present overdraft.”

  Lawrence laughed. “Well, come along later if you discover there’s enough left over for a plate of pasta.” He winked at Adam—his customary sign for “Be sure you’re out of the flat by the time when we get back. Or at least stay in your own room and pretend to be asleep.”

  “Yes, do come,” cooed Carolyn, sounding as if she meant it—her hazel eyes remained fixed on Adam as Lawrence guided her firmly toward the door.

  Adam didn’t move until he was sure he could no longer hear her penetrating voice echoing on the staircase. Satisfied, he retreated to his bedroom and locked himself in. Adam sat down on the one comfortable chair he possessed and pulled his father’s envelope out of his inside pocket. It was the heavy, expensive type of stationery Pa had always used, purchasing it at Smythson of Bond Street for almost twice the price he could have obtained it for at the local W. H. Smith’s. “Captain Adam Scott, M.C.” was written in his father’s copperplate hand.

  Adam opened the envelope carefully, his hand shaking slightly, and extracted the contents: a letter in his father’s unmistakable hand and a smaller envelope that was clearly old, as it was faded with time. Written on the old envelope in an unfamiliar hand were the words “Colonel Gerald Scott” in faded ink of indeterminate color. Adam placed the old envelope on the little table by his side and, unfolding his father’s letter, began to read. It was undated.

  My dear Adam,

  Over the years, you will have heard many explanations for my sudden departure from the regiment. Most of them will have been farcical, and a few of them slanderous, but I always considered it better for all concerned to keep my own counsel. I feel, however, that I owe you a fuller explanation, and that is what this letter will set out to do.

  As you know, my last posting before I resigned my commission was at Nuremberg from February 1945 to October 1946. After four years of almost continuous action in the field I was given the task of commanding the British section that had responsibility for those senior-ranking Nazis who were awaiting trial for war crimes. Although the Americans had overall responsibility, I came to know the imprisoned officers quite well, and after a year or so I had even grown to tolerate some of them, Hess, Doenitz and Speer in particular, and I often wondered how the Germans would have treated us had the situation been reversed. Such views were considered unacceptable at the time. “Fraternization” was often on the lips of those men who are never given to second thoughts.

  Among the senior Nazis with whom I came into daily contact was Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, but unlike the three other officers I have previously mentioned, here was a man I detested from the first moment I came across him. I found him arrogant, overbearing and totally without shame about the barbaric role he had played in the war. And I never once found any reason to change my opinion of him. In fact I sometimes wondered how I didn’t end up on several occasions hitting him.

  The night before Goering was due to be executed, he requested a private meeting with me. It was a Monday, and I can still recall every detail of that encounter as if it were only yesterday. I received the request when I took over the Russian watch from Major Vladimir Kosky. In fact Kosky personally handed me the written request. As soon as I had inspected the guard and dealt with the usual paperwork I went along with the duty corporal to see the Reichsmarschall in his cell. Goering stood to attention by his small low bed and saluted as I entered the room. The sparse, gray-painted brick cell always made me shudder.

  “You asked to see me?” I said. I never could get myself to address him by his name or rank.

  “Yes,” he replied. “It was kind of you to come in person, Colonel. I simply wish to make the last request of a man condemned to death. Would it be possible for the corporal to leave us?”

  Imagining it was something highly personal, I asked the corporal to wait outside. I confess I had no idea what could be so private when the man only had hours to live, but as the door closed he saluted again and then passed over the envelope you now have in your possession. As I took it all he said was, “Would you be kind enough not to open this until after my execution tomorrow.” He then added, “I can only hope it will compensate for any blame that might later be placed on your shoulders.” I had no idea what he could be alluding to at the time and presumed some form of mental instability had overtaken him. Many of the prisoners confided in me during their last few days, and toward the end some of them were undoubtedly on the verge of madness.

  Adam stopped to consider what he would have done in the same circumstances, and decided to read on to discover whether father and son would have taken the same course.

  However, Goering’s final words to me as I left his cell seemed hardly those of a madman. He said quite simply: “Be assured it is a masterpiece; do not underestimate its value.” Then he lit up a cigar as if he was relaxing at his club after a rather good dinner. We all had different theories as to who smuggled the cigars in for him, and equally wondered what might also have been smuggled out from time to time.

  I placed the envelope in my jacket pocket and left him to join the corporal in the corridor. We then checked the other cells to see that all the prisoners were locked up for the night. The inspection completed, I returned to my office. As I was satisfied that there were no more immediate duties, I settled down to make out my report. I left the envelope in the jacket pocket of my uniform with every intention of opening it immediately after Goering’s execution had been carried out the following morning. I was checking over the orders of the day when the corporal rushed into my office without knocking. “It’s Goering, sir, it’s Goering,” he said frantically. From the panic on the man’s face, I didn’t need to ask for any details. We both ran all the way back to the Reichsmarschall’s cell.

  I found Goering lying face downward on his bunk. I turned him over to find he was already dead. In the commotion that immediately followed I quite forgot Goering’s letter. An autopsy a few days later showed that he had died from poisoning; the court came to
the conclusion that the cyanide capsule that had been found in his body must have been implanted in one of his cigars.

  As I had been the last to see him alone, it took only a few whispers before my name was linked with his death. There was, of course, no truth in the accusation; indeed I never doubted for one moment that the court had delivered the correct verdict in his case and that he justly deserved to be hanged for the part he had played in the war.

  So stung was I by the continual behind-the-back accusations that I might have helped Goering to an easy death by smuggling in the cigars that I felt the only thing to do in the circumstances was to resign my commission immediately for fear of bringing further dishonor to the regiment. When I returned to England later that year and finally decided to throw out my old uniform I came across the envelope again. When I explained to your mother the details of the incident she begged me to destroy the envelope, as she considered it had brought enough dishonor to our family already, and even if it did point to whoever had been responsible for helping Goering to his suicide, in her opinion such knowledge could no longer do anyone any good. I agreed to comply with her wishes, and although I never opened the envelope I could never get myself to destroy it, remembering that last sentence Goering had uttered about it being a masterpiece. And so finally I hid it among my personal papers.

  However, since the imagined sins of the father are inevitably visited upon the next generation I feel no such qualms should influence you. If there is there for anything to be gained from the contents of this envelope, I make only one request, namely that your mother should be the first to benefit from it without ever being allowed to know how such good fortune came about.