buff?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ I replied, reluctant to admit that
Cromwell, Our Chief of Men
was as far as my historical researches had advanced.
‘By the time he got to Borodino, he’d lost the plot. Sleepwalking at Smolensk, gaga by the time he got to Borodino, fucked at forty. Couldn’t piss, couldn’t think straight. Gives me three more years. How about you?’
‘Well, twelve actually,’ I replied, privately marvelling that a man with no French should appoint Napoleon his rôle model.
‘It’s a quickie. Anderson tell you that?’ He ran on, not waiting for my answer. ‘We tiptoe in, talk to a few Congolese chaps, cut a deal with ’em, get their signatures on a contract, tiptoe out. We’ve got ’em for six hours tops. Each of ’em has said yes separately, now we’ve got to get ’em to say yes to each other. Officially they’re somewhere else, and that’s where they’ve got to be by the time the clock chimes midnight. With me?’
‘With you, Skipper.’
‘This is your first gig, right?’
‘I’m afraid it is. My baptism of fire, you might say,’ I conceded, with a rueful smile to indicate that I was alive to my drawbacks. And, unable to restrain my curiosity: ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me where we’re going, would you, sir?’
‘Little island up north where no one will disturb us. Less you know now, better you’ll sleep later.’ He allowed himself a slight softening of his features. ‘Every time the same with these jobs. “Hurry up and wait”, then “Where the fuck are you?” Next thing you know, there are ten other arseholes in the race, your chaps are scattered across the globe and your back tyre’s got a puncture.’
His restless gaze lighted on a column of suitcase-style boxes, black-painted and of uniform size, tethered to a grid beside the cabin door. At their base, curled up on his mattress like a newborn calf, lay a gnomic man in a flat cloth cap and quilted waistcoat, to all appearances as sound asleep as his comrades.
‘Any of that junk actually
work
, Spider?’ Maxie demanded, raising his voice to carry across the width of the fuselage.
The gnome, no sooner addressed, vaulted to his feet acrobat-style, and stood comically to attention before us.
‘Shouldn’t think so, Skip. Load of old rubbish, by the looks of it,’ he replied cheerfully, in what my top interpreter’s ear instantly identified as a Welsh intonation. ‘With twelve hours to cobble it together, what do you expect for your money?’
‘What have we got to eat?’
‘Well now, Skip, since you ask, an anonymous donor has very kindly sent this Fortnum’s hamper, you see. Or I think he’s anonymous, because search where you will regardless, there’s not a sender’s name to be found anywhere, not so much as a card.’
‘Anything inside it?’
‘Not a lot, frankly, no. A whole York ham, I suppose. About a kilo of foie gras. A couple of sides of smoked salmon, a fillet of cold roast beef, cheesy Cheddar biscuits, magnum of champagne. Nothing to whet the appetite, not really. I thought of sending it back.’
‘Have it on the way home,’ Maxie ordered, cutting him short. ‘What else is on the menu?’
‘Chow mein. Luton’s best. Should be nice and cold by now.’
‘Dish it up, Spider. And say hello to the languages here. Name of Brian. On loan from the Chat Room.’
‘The Chat Room, eh? Well, that takes me back, I will say. Mr Anderson’s sweat shop. He’s still a baritone, is he? Not castrated or anything?’
Spider, as I now knew him, smiled down on me with his boot-button eyes and I smiled back at him in the confidence of having another friend in our great enterprise.
‘And you can do military,’ Maxie announced, extracting from his gas-mask case an old tin flask clad in khaki cloth and a packet of Bath Oliver biscuits. The flask, I later learned, contained Malvern water.
‘What military were we thinking of, Skipper?’ I countered.
My chow mein was cold and
‘Well, not exactly,’ I replied, reluctant to admit that
Cromwell, Our Chief of Men
was as far as my historical researches had advanced.
‘By the time he got to Borodino, he’d lost the plot. Sleepwalking at Smolensk, gaga by the time he got to Borodino, fucked at forty. Couldn’t piss, couldn’t think straight. Gives me three more years. How about you?’
‘Well, twelve actually,’ I replied, privately marvelling that a man with no French should appoint Napoleon his rôle model.
‘It’s a quickie. Anderson tell you that?’ He ran on, not waiting for my answer. ‘We tiptoe in, talk to a few Congolese chaps, cut a deal with ’em, get their signatures on a contract, tiptoe out. We’ve got ’em for six hours tops. Each of ’em has said yes separately, now we’ve got to get ’em to say yes to each other. Officially they’re somewhere else, and that’s where they’ve got to be by the time the clock chimes midnight. With me?’
‘With you, Skipper.’
‘This is your first gig, right?’
‘I’m afraid it is. My baptism of fire, you might say,’ I conceded, with a rueful smile to indicate that I was alive to my drawbacks. And, unable to restrain my curiosity: ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me where we’re going, would you, sir?’
‘Little island up north where no one will disturb us. Less you know now, better you’ll sleep later.’ He allowed himself a slight softening of his features. ‘Every time the same with these jobs. “Hurry up and wait”, then “Where the fuck are you?” Next thing you know, there are ten other arseholes in the race, your chaps are scattered across the globe and your back tyre’s got a puncture.’
His restless gaze lighted on a column of suitcase-style boxes, black-painted and of uniform size, tethered to a grid beside the cabin door. At their base, curled up on his mattress like a newborn calf, lay a gnomic man in a flat cloth cap and quilted waistcoat, to all appearances as sound asleep as his comrades.
‘Any of that junk actually
work
, Spider?’ Maxie demanded, raising his voice to carry across the width of the fuselage.
The gnome, no sooner addressed, vaulted to his feet acrobat-style, and stood comically to attention before us.
‘Shouldn’t think so, Skip. Load of old rubbish, by the looks of it,’ he replied cheerfully, in what my top interpreter’s ear instantly identified as a Welsh intonation. ‘With twelve hours to cobble it together, what do you expect for your money?’
‘What have we got to eat?’
‘Well now, Skip, since you ask, an anonymous donor has very kindly sent this Fortnum’s hamper, you see. Or I think he’s anonymous, because search where you will regardless, there’s not a sender’s name to be found anywhere, not so much as a card.’
‘Anything inside it?’
‘Not a lot, frankly, no. A whole York ham, I suppose. About a kilo of foie gras. A couple of sides of smoked salmon, a fillet of cold roast beef, cheesy Cheddar biscuits, magnum of champagne. Nothing to whet the appetite, not really. I thought of sending it back.’
‘Have it on the way home,’ Maxie ordered, cutting him short. ‘What else is on the menu?’
‘Chow mein. Luton’s best. Should be nice and cold by now.’
‘Dish it up, Spider. And say hello to the languages here. Name of Brian. On loan from the Chat Room.’
‘The Chat Room, eh? Well, that takes me back, I will say. Mr Anderson’s sweat shop. He’s still a baritone, is he? Not castrated or anything?’
Spider, as I now knew him, smiled down on me with his boot-button eyes and I smiled back at him in the confidence of having another friend in our great enterprise.
‘And you can do military,’ Maxie announced, extracting from his gas-mask case an old tin flask clad in khaki cloth and a packet of Bath Oliver biscuits. The flask, I later learned, contained Malvern water.
‘What military were we thinking of, Skipper?’ I countered.
My chow mein was cold and
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