Read The Gale of the World for Free Online

hard life, that’s a soldier’s end. You know it, too, Phil. Everything is money now! You can sell old rope in Bond Street. A faked Picasso was bought by Gillian’s colonel, ha! ha! Sold to him by Archie Plugge, for a thousand dollars in cash. I left Archie, dead drunk on the sitting-room carpet, plugged full of surgical spirit. Remember Archie? He’s a major, or was; fought the war at desks all over India and Ceylon, never without a glass in his hand. Good old Archie, he has an infallible instinct for where the going’s good. I wasn’t back in my flat an hour, with one call at the Medicean before unlocking my door, when Archie turned up. Fatter than ever. After the collapse of Germany he got a job as British Gauleiter in some Rhineland town or other, was sacked after a week—dead drunk most of the time, when he wasn’t fraternising with the enemy. Monty was hot on fraternising, so Archie got the push. He got as far as Southampton with a camouflaged B.M.W. motorcar he’d looted, left it there before questions were asked. Don’t tell him about your shepherd’s hut on Exmoor, or he’ll smell you out. Tells me he may get a job aspublic relations to an American Doctor of sorts, called Schwenkfelder, who hangs out at Oldstone Castle, near Lynton. A new religion, I gather, based on a sort of psychology of the psychic mind, plus vegetarianism. That won’t suit Archie, I fancy. God, look at all the tarts. Is there a decent woman left in London?”
    Laura looked unhappy, Phillip saw. Had Piers forgotten the good Samaritan who had picked him up from the gutter?
    “What’s happened to that tommy gun, Piers?”
    “The police took it. In fact I asked them to take it. Taxi!”
    On the way down the Cromwell Road he said, “I may be arrested as soon as they find out who Bombardier Tofield is. I jumped a troopship when I got Gillian’s letter saying she wanted to marry her American hero, so I’m now posted as a deserter. I suppose you saw the evening papers?”
    “Yes.”
    “They’ve got my photograph now, and will be able to check up. So I can’t very well go back to the flat.”
    “You can sleep on my floor if you like,” said Laura.
    “Ah, back on the old rug! No promotion for bombardiers, I see!”
    Phillip felt relief that his old friend was present. He was afraid of Laura: he feared to put himself into a situation of courting betrayal.
    *
    The Medicean still had a possibility of life. Rows of lighted candles, faces. Ginger-moustached Commando lieutenant-colonel still upright by the bar, reading his book. Pianist playing Paganini theme. Thank you, sir. Your health sir! Glad to see you back, sir. Did the drummer say that to everyone?
    O’Callogan asked them to have a drink.
    “Coffee please,” said Laura.
    “I’m not drinking any more fusil spirit just now, thanks all the same, O’Callogan,” said Piers.
    “Right you are, my boyo. Have brandy. What’s for you, Phillip?”
    “Oh, brandy, please.”
    “I think they’re rather hungry,” said Laura.
    “How about eggs and bacon?”
    “Sounds good to me, ‘old boy’, as Archie Plugge would say.”
    Sitting at one of the small tables along the wall, Phillip glanced towards the longer bar. The Commando colonel smiled. Laura went to him.
    “Go and talk to ‘Buster’‚” said Piers. “I’m going to have a nap.” He closed his eyes.
    “Phillip,” said Laura Wissilcraft, “do you know my friend ‘Buster’ Cloudesley?”
    “Yes, indeed,” replied Phillip recognising a suggestion in the face of the soldier from the Battle School who had come to apologise for the unannounced use of live ammunition on the farm meadows during the war.
    “You came to see me when I was in hospital, I remember.”
    “I do indeed, sir. You became a legend of chivalry in the Battle School.”
    “An accident of an accident, Colonel.”
    “May I offer you a drink, sir?”
    *
    After the brandies Piers collapsed. No food. O’Callogan told Phillip that he would put up