Читать книгу A Woman Involved - John Davis Gordon - Страница 16

When Jonathan Morgan, nicknamed Jack, was eight years old, his mother, for whom everything British was unquestionably best, had insisted that he learn boxing, though the family could ill afford the additional cost on top of the exorbitant fees for the excellent public school she insisted he attend. It was essential, she said, that an English gentleman could put up his dukes and defend himself in an efficient and sportsmanlike manner. So, every Wednesday and Saturday, Jonathan Morgan went along to the school gymnasium to get himself terrorized by other little boys whose demented mothers felt the same as his. He had little natural aptitude for fisticuffs, but this biweekly ordeal soon developed a certain cunning in the unhappy young sportsman, a strategy that went like this: Come charging murderously out of your corner like a bull at a gate and knock the living shit out of the other little boy before he hurts you. Render him hors de combat, then he can’t hit you. This strategy back-fired because he won all his bouts, he was put on the school team, and term after term, year after year, he had to be terrorized by boys from other good public schools at boxing tournaments, extravaganzas of bloodshed and brain-damage which the mothers attended with great pride. By the time he left school he had been unbeaten champion for two years, had hated every minute of it, and he vowed never to fight again. But he brought the same bull-at-a-gate strategy to his university days. Jack Morgan was not a born sportsman, but he earned his rugby blue with suicidal tackling and fanatical fitness, and his cricket blue with sledge-hammer batting. He was brighter than most, certainly, but not sufficiently so to explain his sparkling results: he earned his Bachelor of Science degree cum laude only by unrelenting hard, hard work. And when he chose the Royal Navy as his career, he tackled the gruelling Marine training courses with the same grim determination, and passed with flying colours; but when it came to settling down in the service he knew that he was not a warrior at heart: he was an academic, and he applied to join Submarines. It is more restful down there. It was nice to use just his head, and no brawn. And when, at the age of thirty-five, he was thrown out of the Royal Navy, or ‘compulsorily retired’, as a result of The Cocaine Affair, he had refused a commission in the Sultan of Oman’s navy and declined to join the lucrative company of former SAS and Special Boat boys who undertake contracts for highly paid derring-do for which they have been so well trained by Her Majesty, even though he badly needed the money. Instead he sold his house, commuted his pension, bought a second-hand freight-ship and doggedly began a precarious civilian career in merchant shipping.

It was a small freighter, only six thousand tons, in good condition but only profitable because Jack Morgan was both owner and master and he lived permanently aboard, ate from the ship’s stores and had no wife. The only other asset he owned was a little farm in the mountains of France which he had never even seen and which he had been forced to accept as payment of Makepeace’s debts when that scatterbrain had decided that being a shipping tycoon was dead boring after the Special Boat Service and decided to join the shady company of the ex-SAS and SBS boys. ‘They make such good money,’ Makepeace had cajoled, his triangular face all plaintive. ‘Let’s sell the ship and both go.’

‘No way.’

‘But it’s not necessarily killing people,’ Makepeace appealed ‘– it’s looking after people. Like bodyguard work for these Arab guys. There’s a fortune to be made in security work in Europe – all these high-ups coming here. And training their armies. And arranging arms and ammunition, all that good stuff – pay a fortune, they do. It’s mostly official, you know.’

‘I’m a seaman, Makepeace, not a hired gun. If you don’t like the merchant marine, pay your debts and go.’

‘But how do I pay the money I owe you?’

‘In cash.’

‘That’s the difficulty,’ Makepeace mused. ‘Look, there’s this little place I’ve got in France. Lovely spot, bought it from my brother-in-law for my old age …’

‘Sell it. If you’re joining Danziger and the boys, you’re not going to have any old age.’

‘I wondered if you’d take it as payment –’

‘No way.’

So he took the rock-farm in France, because that was the only way he’d ever get anything from Makepeace, and he had not seen it to this day because he was so busy surviving, He was doing carpentry on his bridge when the Navy car drew up on the quay in Plymouth and the ensign scrambled out. He came clattering up the companionway to the bridge. He was a red-headed young man with a white, earnest face. He saluted and panted:

‘Captain S/M’s compliments, sir, he wants to see you immediately, this moment, sir.’

Morgan looked at him angrily. Ensign Phillips, who thought he dined with kings because he was a four-ring captain’s flunky … ‘The Captain of Submarines wants to see me immediately, does he, Phillips?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This moment, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Morgan breathed deep. ‘What about?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

Morgan took another angry breath.

‘Phillips,’ he said, ‘please do not convey my compliments to the Captain S/M. But do remind him that I am no longer in Her Majesty’s Navy. And that if for some extraordinary reason he wants to see me, he can bloody well come here! And request permission to come aboard first!’

‘Sir –’

‘Do you think you can remember all that, Phillips?’

Ensign Phillips blinked. ‘But please, sir –’

‘Thank you, Phillips, that will be all.’

Morgan picked up his saw elaborately. Phillips blinked, then saluted worriedly and turned and clattered down off the bridge.

Twenty minutes later Morgan saw the car coming back along the jetty. It stopped opposite the freighter. He had been wondering what all this was about, but he studiously ignored the car. Two minutes later the Captain of Submarines clambered up onto the bridge. ‘Permission to come aboard?’

Morgan straightened, and glared at him.

‘You’re already aboard, Carrington. You can go back and holler from the jetty.’

Carrington looked thoroughly peeved. He was tall, aristocratic, immaculate in his uniform; the man did not move, he flowed. ‘Now look here, Jack – this is top priority.’

Morgan put down his saw.

‘I’ll never understand the Navy. Or you. You know I hate your guts. And yet, when for some extraordinary reason you want to see me, you send a flunky with a curt message. “This moment”, quote, unquote.’ He frowned in wonder. ‘You’re so puffed up with your own importance that you don’t even know that’s dumb behaviour – it seems perfectly normal to you to wave your wand and command.’

‘Have you quite finished?’

‘No. You can go and get fucked, Carrington!’

Carrington enquired: ‘The whole Navy as well?’

‘Yes! Because not one of you bastards stood by me!’

Carrington said, ‘We haven’t got time to go over all that again, but let me say that I didn’t ruin your career, Jack – you did. You shouldn’t have been fooling around with a married woman. Indeed, I saved your bacon. You could have been court-martialled on the story we were given about that cocaine. Instead you were quietly retired.’

‘Because you believed my version?’

‘Of course. We wouldn’t let a man we believed guilty of such a serious offence walk free.’

‘Then if you believed me you should have stood by me! But, no. The Navy couldn’t stand a whiff of scandal. Oh dear me no, we can’t have the public saying there’s no smoke without fire, et cetera, can we? So, to save your precious image you sacrifice an innocent man!’

Carrington said, ‘If you play with fire you must expect to get your fingers burnt. And married women are fire. You can’t expect the Navy to pull you out of that soup. Now, we’ve got a very important job for you to do.’

Morgan wondered if he had heard right.

‘The Navy’s got a job for me?’

‘And it’s very urgent. So will you please be so kind as to accompany me back to Headquarters?’

Morgan almost wanted to laugh. ‘This moment? And what on earth makes the Navy think I’ll do a job for them?’

Carrington said: ‘I could hand you your Call-up papers. As a retired officer you’re still subject to call-up and the Naval Discipline Act.’

Morgan held out his hand angrily. ‘So? Hand me my Call-up papers.’

Carrington said crisply, ‘We want this to be unofficial.’

Morgan was completely taken aback.

‘Unofficial?’ he said. You mean, “Deniable”?’

‘Exactly.’

Morgan stared. Jesus Christ. ‘I repeat, what makes the Navy think I’ll do an unofficial and deniable job for them?’

‘Money,’ Carrington said.

Morgan could hardly believe this. He picked up his saw again. ‘Carrington, please tell the Navy to stick their money right up their arse.’

‘Big money, in this case.’

‘The Navy’s got a big arse. Particularly in its Captain of Submarines!’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘How very perspicacious.’

Carrington sighed. ‘Then I must tell you, Jack, that the Navy will reconsider legal proceedings in respect of that cocaine report.’ He added: ‘I’ll deny I ever said that.’

Morgan wondered if he had heard right.

‘Jesus Christ … Not only does the Navy submit to blackmail, it now practises blackmail! … Jesus Christ,’ he said again. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’