Collected Short Stories Read online

  After a few minutes a private secretary appeared. “Good morning, Sir Ted. The prime minister will see you now.” He accompanied Ted into the Cabinet Room, where Mr. Heath stood to greet him. “How kind of you to come at such short notice, Ted.” Ted had to suppress a smile, because he knew the prime minister knew that it would have taken the scurvy or a local hurricane to stop him from answering such a summons.

  “I’m hoping you can help me with a delicate matter, Ted,” continued the prime minister, a man not known for wasting time on smalltalk. “I’m about to appoint the next governor of St. George’s, and I can’t think of anyone better qualified for the job than you.”

  Ted recalled the day when Mrs. Thompson had asked him to think about running for Parliament. But on this occasion he didn’t require a week to consider his reply—even if he couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that although he’d heard of St. George’s, he certainly couldn’t have located it on a map. Once he’d caught his breath, he simply said, “Thank you, Prime Minister. I’d be honored.”

  During the weeks that followed Sir Ted paid several visits to the Foreign and Colonial Offices to receive briefings on various aspects of his appointment. Thereafter he assiduously read every book, pamphlet, and government paper the mandarins supplied.

  After a few weeks of boning up on his new subject, the governor-in-waiting had discovered that St. George’s was a tiny group of islands in the middle of the North Atlantic. It had been colonized by the British in 1643, and thereafter had a long history of imperial rule, the islanders having scorned every offer of independence. They were one of Her Majesty’s sovereign colonies, and that was how they wished to remain.

  Even before he set out on his adventure, Ted had become used to being addressed as “Your Excellency.” But after being fitted up by Alan Bennett of Savile Row with two different full-dress uniforms, Ted feared that he looked—what was that modern expression?—“over the top.” In winter he was expected to wear an outfit of dark blue doeskin with scarlet collar and cuffs embroidered with silver oakleaves, while in the summer he was to be adorned in white cotton drill with a gold-embroidered collar and gold shoulder cords. The sight of him in either uniform caused Hazel to laugh out loud.

  Ted didn’t laugh when the tailors sent him the bill, especially after he learned that he would be unlikely to wear either uniform more than twice a year. “Still, think what a hit you’ll be at fancy dress parties once you’ve retired,” was Hazel’s only comment.

  The newly appointed governor and commander in chief of St. George’s and his lady flew out to take up their post on January 12, 1971. They were greeted by the prime minister, as the colony’s first citizen, and the chief justice, as the legal representative of the queen. After the new governor had taken the salute from six off-duty policemen standing vaguely to attention, the town band gave a rendering of the national anthem. The Union Jack was raised on the roof of the airport terminal, and a light smattering of applause broke out among the assembled gathering of twenty or thirty local dignitaries.

  Sir Ted and Lady Barker were then driven to the official residence in a spacious but aging Rover that had already served the two previous governors. When they reached Government House, the driver brought the car to a halt and leaped out to open the gates. As they continued up the drive, Ted and Hazel saw their new home for the first time.

  The colonial mansion was magnificent by any standards. Obviously built at the height of the British Empire, it was vastly out of proportion to either the importance of the island or Britain’s current position in the real world. But size, as the governor and his wife were quickly to discover, didn’t necessarily equate with efficiency or comfort.

  The air-conditioning didn’t work, the plumbing was unreliable, Mrs. Rogers, the daily maid, was regularly out sick, and the only thing Ted’s predecessor had left behind was an elderly black Labrador. Worse, the Foreign Office had no funds available to deal with any of these problems, and whenever Ted mentioned them in dispatches, he was met only with suggestions for cutbacks.

  After a few weeks, Ted and Hazel began to think of St. George’s as being rather like a great big parliamentary constituency, split into several islands, the two largest being Suffolk and Edward Islands. This heartened Ted, who even wondered if that was what had given the prime minister the idea of offering him the post in the first place.

  The governor’s duties could hardly have been described as onerous: He and Hazel spent most of their time visiting hospitals, delivering speeches at school prize-givings and judging flower shows. The highlight of the year was undoubtedly the queen’s official birthday in June, when the governor held a garden party for local dignitaries at Government House and Suffolk played Edward Island at cricket—an opportunity for most of the colony’s citizens to spend two days getting thoroughly drunk.

  Ted and Hazel accepted the local realpolitik and settled down for five years of relaxed diplomacy among delightful people in a heavenly climate, seeing no cloud on the horizon that could disturb their blissful existence.

  Until the phone call came.

  It was a Thursday morning, and the governor was in his study with that Monday’s Times. He was putting off reading a long article on the summit meeting taking place in Washington until he had finished the crossword, and was just about to fill in the answer to 12 across—“Erring herd twists to create this diversion (3,7)”—when his private secretary, Charles Roberts, came rushing into his office without knocking.

  Ted realized it had to be something important, because he had never known Charles to rush anywhere, and certainly he had never known him to enter the study without the courtesy of a knock.

  “It’s Mountbatten on the line,” Charles blurted out. He could hardly have looked more anxious had he been reporting that the Germans were about to land on the north shore of the island. The governor raised an eyebrow. “Admiral of the Fleet Earl Mountbatten of Burma,” said Charles, as if Ted hadn’t understood,

  “Then put him through,” said Ted quietly, folding up his copy of The Times and placing it on the desk in front of him. He had met Mountbatten three times over the past twenty years but doubted if the great man would recall any of these encounters. Indeed, on the third occasion Ted had found it necessary to slip out of the function the admiral was addressing, as he was feeling a little queasy. He couldn’t imagine what Mountbatten would want to speak to him about, and he had no time to consider the problem, as the phone on his desk was already ringing.

  As Ted picked up the receiver he was still wondering whether to call Mountbatten “My Lord,” since he was an earl, “Commander in Chief,” since he was a former chief of the Defense Staff, or “Admiral,” since Admiral of the Fleet is a life appointment. He settled for “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, Your Excellency. I hope I find you well?”

  “Yes, thank you, sir,” replied Ted.

  “Because if I remember correctly, when we last met you were suffering from a tummy bug.”

  “That’s right, sir,” said the surprised governor. He was reasonably confident that the purpose of Mountbatten’s call wasn’t to inquire about his health after all these years.

  “Governor, you must be curious to know why I am calling.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I am presently in Washington attending the summit, and I had originally planned to return to London tomorrow morning.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Ted, not understanding at all.

  “But I thought I might make a slight detour and drop in to see you. I do enjoy visiting our colonies whenever I get the chance. It gives me the opportunity to brief Her Majesty on what’s happening. I hope that such a visit would not be inconvenient.”

  “Not at all, sir,” said Ted. “We would be delighted to welcome you.”

  “Good,” said Mountbatten. “Then I would be obliged if you could warn the airport authorities to expect my aircraft around four tomorrow afternoon. I would like to stay overnight, but if I’m to k
eep to my schedule I will need to leave you fairly early the following morning.”

  “Of course, sir. Nothing could be easier. My wife and I will be at the airport to welcome you at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’s kind of you, Governor. By the way, I’d rather things were left fairly informal. Please don’t put yourself to any trouble.” The line went dead.

  Once he had replaced the receiver, it was Ted’s turn to run for the first time in several months. He found Charles striding down the long corridor toward him, having obviously listened in on the extension.

  “Find my wife and get yourself a notepad—and then both of you join me in my office immediately. Immediately,” Ted repeated as he scuttled back into his study.

  Hazel arrived a few minutes later, clutching a bunch of dahlias, followed by the breathless private secretary.

  “Why the rush, Ted? What’s the panic?”

  “Mountbatten’s coming.”

  “When?” Hazel asked quietly.

  “Tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”

  “That is a good reason to panic,” Hazel admitted. She dumped the flowers in a vase on the windowsill and took a seat opposite her husband on the other side of his desk. “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to let you know that Mrs. Rogers is out sick.”

  “You have to admire her timing,” said Ted. “Right, we’ll just have to bluff it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘bluff it’?” asked Hazel.

  “Well, let’s not forget that Mountbatten’s a member of the royal family, a former chief of the Defense Staff, and an Admiral of the Fleet. The last colonial post he held was Viceroy of India, with three regiments under his command and a personal staff of over a thousand. So I can’t imagine what he’ll expect to find when he turns up here.”

  “Then let’s begin by making a list of things that will have to be done,” said Hazel briskly.

  Charles removed a pen from his inside pocket, turned over the cover of his pad, and waited to write down his master’s instructions.

  “If he’s arriving at the airport, the first thing he will expect is a red carpet,” said Hazel.

  “But we don’t have a red carpet,” said Ted.

  “Yes, we do. There’s the one that leads from the dining room to the drawing room. We’ll have to use that, and hope we can get it back in place before he visits that part of the house. Charles, you will have to roll it up and take it to the airport—” she paused “—and then bring it back.”

  Charles scowled, but began writing furiously.

  “And Charles, can you also see that it’s cleaned by tomorrow?” interjected the governor. “I hadn’t even realized it was red. Now, what about an honor guard?”

  “We haven’t got an honor guard,” said Hazel. “If you remember, when we arrived on the island we were met by the prime minister, the chief justice, and six off-duty policemen.”

  “True,” said Ted. “Then we’ll just have to rely on the Territorial Army.”

  “You mean Colonel Hodges and his band of hopeful warriors? They don’t even all have matching uniforms. And as for their rifles …”

  “Hodges will just have to get them into some sort of shape by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Leave that one to me,” said Ted, making a note on his pad. “I’ll phone him later this morning. Now, what about a band?”

  “Well there’s the town band,” said Charles. “And, of course, the police band.”

  “On this occasion they’ll have to combine,” said Hazel, “so we don’t offend either of them.”

  “But they only know three tunes between them,” said Ted.

  “They only need to know one,” said Hazel. “The national anthem.”

  “Right,” said the governor. “Since there are sure to be a lot of musical feathers that will need unruffling, I’ll leave you to deal with them, Hazel. Our next problem is how we transport him from the airport to Government House.”

  “Certainly not in the old Rover,” said Hazel. “It’s broken down three times in the last month, and it smells like a kennel.”

  “Henry Bendall has a Rolls-Royce,” said Ted. “We’ll just have to commandeer that.”

  “As long as no one tells Mountbatten that it’s owned by the local undertaker, and what it was used for the morning before he arrived.”

  “Mick Flaherty also has an old Rolls,” piped up Charles. “A Silver Shadow, if I remember correctly.”

  “But he loathes the British,” said Hazel.

  “Agreed,” said Ted, “but he’ll still want to have dinner at Government House when he discovers the guest of honor is a member of the royal family.”

  “Dinner?” said Hazel, her voice rising in horror.

  “Of course we will have to give a dinner in his honor,” said Ted. “And, worse, everyone who is anyone will expect to be invited. How many can the dining room hold?” He and Hazel turned to the private secretary.

  “Sixty, if pushed,” replied Charles, looking up from his notes.

  “We’re pushed,” said Ted.

  “We certainly are,” said Hazel. “Because we don’t have sixty plates, let alone sixty coffee cups, sixty teaspoons, sixty …”

  “We still have that Royal Worcester service presented by the late king after his visit in 1947,” said Ted. “How many pieces of that are fit for use?”

  “Enough for about fourteen settings, at the last count,” said Hazel.

  “Right, then that’s dealt with how many people will be at the top table.”

  “What about the menu?” asked Charles.

  “And, more important, who is going to cook it?” added Ted.

  “We’ll have to ask Dotty Cuthbert if she can spare Mrs. Travis for the evening,” said Hazel. “No one on the island is a better cook.”

  “And we’ll also need her butler, not to mention the rest of her staff,” added Ted.

  By now Charles was on his third page.

  “You’d better deal with Lady Cuthbert, my dear,” said Ted. “I’ll try to square Mick Flaherty.”

  “Our next problem will be the drinks,” said Hazel. “Don’t forget, the last governor emptied the cellar a few days before he left.”

  “And the Foreign Office refuses to restock it,” Ted reminded her. “Jonathan Fletcher has the best cellar on the island …”

  “And, God bless him, he won’t expect to be at the top table,” said Hazel.

  “If we’re limited to fourteen places, the top table’s looking awfully crowded already,” said Ted.

  “Dotty Cuthbert, the Bendalls, the Flahertys, the Hodgeses,” said Hazel, writing down the names. “Not to mention the prime minister, the chief justice, the mayor, the chief of police, plus their wives—let’s hope that some of them are indisposed or abroad.” She was beginning to sound desperate.

  “Where’s he going to sleep?” asked Charles innocently.

  “God, I hadn’t thought of him sleeping,” said Ted.

  “He’ll have to take our bedroom. It’s the only one with a bed that doesn’t sink in the middle,” said Hazel.

  “We’ll move into the Nelson Room for the night, and suffer those dreadful woodwormed beds and their ancient horsehair mattresses.”

  “Agreed,” said Hazel. “I’ll make sure all our things are out of the Queen Victoria Room by this evening.”

  “And Charles,” said the governor, “phone the Foreign Office, would you, and find out Mountbatten’s likes and dislikes. Food, drink, eccentric habits—anything you can discover. They’re sure to have a file on him, and this is one gentleman I don’t want to catch me making a mistake.”

  The private secretary turned over yet another page of his pad, and continued scribbling.

  For the next hour, the three of them went over any and every problem that might arise during the visit, and after a sandwich lunch, departed in their different directions to spend the afternoon making begging calls all around the island.

  It was Charles’s idea that the governor should appear on
the local television station’s early-evening news, to let the citizens know that a member of the royal family would be visiting the island the following day. Sir Ted ended his broadcast by saying that he hoped as many people as possible would be at the airport to welcome “the great war leader” when his plane touched down at four the following afternoon.

  While Hazel spent the evening cleaning every room the great war leader might conceivably enter, Charles, with the aid of a flashlight, tended to the flower beds that lined the driveway, and Ted supervised the shuttling of plates, cutlery, food, and wine from different parts of the island to Government House.

  “Now, what have we forgotten?” said Ted, as he climbed into bed at two o’clock that morning.

  “Heaven only knows,” Hazel said wearily before turning out the light. “But whatever it is, let’s hope Mountbatten never finds out.”

  The governor, dressed in his summer uniform, with gold piping down the sides of his white trousers, decorations and campaign medals across his chest, and an old-fashioned Wolseley helmet with a plume of red-over-white swan’s feathers on his head, walked out onto the landing to join his wife. Hazel was wearing the green summer frock she had bought for the governor’s garden party two years earlier, and was checking the flowers in the entrance hall.

  “Too late for that,” said Ted, as she rearranged a sprig that had strayed half an inch. “It’s time we left for the airport.”

  They descended the steps of Government House to find two Rolls-Royces, one black, one white, and their old Rover standing in line. Charles followed closely behind them, carrying the red carpet, which he dropped into the trunk of the Rover as his master stepped into the back of the leading Rolls-Royce.

  The first thing the governor needed to check was the chauffeur’s name.

  “Bill Simmons,” he was informed.

  “All you have to remember, Bill, is to look as if you’ve been doing this job all your life.”

  “Right, Guv.”

  “No,” said Ted firmly. “In front of the admiral, you must address me as ‘Your Excellency,’ and Lord Mountbatten as ‘My Lord.’ If in any doubt, say nothing.”