The Fortunes of Fingel Read online

  “It’s meant to.”

  “Then why didn’t you settle straight away for naked dancing? You could have rooked half the Sergeants’ Mess rotten by now.”

  “Get lost, Gladys,” said Fingel. “If you’re a second late on Friday, I’ll clap you in irons.”

  But when I returned on Friday, after a pleasant two days of losing my Ludlow winnings at Le Touquet, I found that Fingel was badly down on his tyre-pressure.

  “Trouble,” he told me. “The Pustule has gone and found out.”

  “The Pustule” was the Regimental sneak. A pimply and undernourished Major, heavily married to a scraggy yet philoprogenitive wife, he got his own back on the human race, and at the same time hoped to further his career, by sniffing out and then reporting “in the line of duty” the private and professional irregularities of his colleagues. He was particularly fond of delating against carefree bachelors, and was to be observed darting in and out of the Colonel’s Office, gnashing his false teeth gleefully, some four or five times every day.

  “He was bound to find out,” I said, “once the Sergeants were allowed in on the act. They’ve all got mouths as big as their bellies – you know that. This is what comes of greed.”

  “Any other helpful comments?”

  “Has the Pustule told the Colonel yet?”

  “Mercifully, no. The Colonel has been summoned to a special briefing at the War Office about how important it is to be kind to niggers when we get to Kenya. These days, I gather, we’re only allowed to fire at them if they’ve positively cut our heads off first.”

  “How long will this briefing take?”

  “I’m not quite sure. But I know there’s a whole squad of experts waiting to nag at him in London. The Colonel is to be interviewed by three generals, two bishops, an ex-missionary and a prominent female socialist. And by a professor of comparative religion from Sheffield University.”

  “All of which will surely give you plenty of time to come to terms with the Pustule.”

  “But how? He’s quite remorseless.”

  “Even the Pustule must have a weak spot somewhere. Perhaps,” I suggested, “we could send him a false message saying his wife is pregnant again.”

  “No,” said Fingel; “she only whelped the last one a fortnight ago. Anyway, what’s the point of telling him that?”

  “He’d want to see her. Since he’s parked her with his mother in Cumberland until he gets back from Kenya, he’d have to get your permission to go up there on compassionate grounds – ”

  “– And I could refuse him unless he promised to shut up about my leave racket?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Do you know,” said Fingel, “you’ve given me an idea. He’d never believe that she’s in the club again already, but I think I see what to do…”

  The next morning at the mess breakfast table the Pustule was handed a telegram. He read it, went yellow, slobbered slightly into his cornflakes.

  “Fingel,” said the Pustule when he had recovered a bit, “a word with you, if you please.”

  “When I’ve finished my breakfast.”

  “Now.”

  “Well, if you really must,” drawled Fingel.

  He followed the Pustule out of the dining-room, winking at me as he went.

  “It worked like a charm,” Fingel told me later that morning. “That telegram I’d sent him purported to be from his mother in Cumberland, and it said ‘MUCH DISTRESSED BY DOREEN’S CONDUCT STRANGE MEN LOCALLY COME AT ONCE LOVE MUMMY’.”

  “How did you know he called his mother ‘mummy’?”

  “It’s the sort of thing the Pustule would do. Anyhow, ‘mummy’ must have been right, because it worked. He wouldn’t let me see the telegram, but he wanted compassionate leave, he said, because something serious was wrong with his wife.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “I said my rate for leave for Majors was fifteen sovs a day. It had been ten, I said, but now we were so close to embarkation I’d had to put it up.”

  “You bloody fool.”

  “Not at all. The wretched fellow was clearly desperate – you saw what he looked like at breakfast. And once he’d used my special service himself do you see, he could never report me to the Colonel.”

  “He accepted your conditions?”

  “On the spot. Two and a half days’ leave he paid for, and here’s seven and a half fivers to prove it. He had to change a cheque with the PRI – I wouldn’t let him go until I’d got the crackly in my hot little hand.”

  “But surely,” I said, “he can’t have fallen for that telegram. The whole thing’s ridiculous. That wife of his – she’s never looked at another man, and no other man, even in Cumberland, would look at her. And anyway, since she dropped her last brat only two weeks ago…”

  “But that’s just the point, old bean, old bean. Have you never heard of Post-Natal Stupromania?”

  “No.”

  “Neither had anyone else – until yesterday.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Post-Natal Stupromania is a disease of my own invention. It consists, as I describe it, of an erotic frenzy which attacks some women a few days after they have given birth, the simple reason being that they want to make up for all those weeks of not doing it – though I’ve dressed that out in rather more dignified medical terms, like Privatio Clitoris and Furor Jejuni Cunnis. Ladies who suffer from it are also temporarily endowed with enormous physical strength, so that if they want a man they get him, even when they look like the back end of a hippo. ‘In extreme cases, patients have been known to coerce even their own grandfathers’ – or that’s what the circular says.”

  “What circular?”

  “The circular which the Pustule received yesterday evening. Signed by the Director of Army Medical Services, distributed by Order of the Army Council, and headed ‘Confidential Warning for the Perusal of Married Personnel of All Ranks: Digest of Information concerning newly recognised illness, based on recent report of Royal College of Gynaecologists’. I made quite a good job of it, if I do say so myself.”

  “You faked up that circular – ”

  “– And ran it off my duplicator. And then made sure the Pustule got his copy in good time to read it before he went to bed. So that when he received that telegram this morning, about Doreen’s goings-on, he was nicely softened up first.”

  “He’ll soon find out there’s nothing wrong with her. And guess what’s happened.”

  “And do nothing about it because it would mean admitting to the Colonel that he used my Rent-a-Leave facilities.”

  For a little while I said nothing. Then,

  “I suppose,” I enquired, “that the Pustule was the only person to receive that circular?”

  “Oh dear me, no. Even the Pustule has a friend or two, and he might have asked them what they thought about it; so in the interest of consistency I sent a copy to every married man in the battalion. It will be very amusing, as time goes on, to see what they all make of it, particularly the prospective fathers out in Kenya. Compassionate leave home from there will come very expensive, I’m afraid…”

  Fort Fingel

  “Liaison and Intelligence,” the Colonel announced. “We are required to provide one officer who will act as a kind of post office, passing any intelligence we may hear on to the Kenya Police and the Kenya Regiment, and vice versa. Any volunteers?”

  Silence. This was notoriously the kind of job which led to hideous foul-ups, and besides none of us knew the ground. For we were newly arrived in Kenya, in the June of 1955. Our role was to flush the starving and desperate remnants of the Mau-Mau army out of their hidey-holes in the Aberdare jungle, and then to bring them in, alive, for detention and questioning. A delicate operation, in unfamiliar conditions, with the politicians both in Nairobi and in Westminster breathing heavily down our necks: no sane officer would go within a mile of intelligence duties here.

  “It’s a full-time job,” the Col
onel said, “and a very interesting time for somebody, I should hope.” Worse and worse: in the British Army, as in ancient China, to wish anyone an “interesting time” is the most formidable curse in the vernacular. “The incumbent,” said the Colonel, “will also be required to pursue independent investigations, and the post will therefore be on detachment from Battalion.”

  And then Fingel’s eyes began to glint in the way I knew so well.

  “Quarters, Colonel?” he inquired warily.

  “A requisitioned farmhouse near Lake Naivasha. Formerly the property of a rich settler.”

  Fingel’s eyes registered this factor like tabs going up on a cash till.

  “And what sort of staff?”

  “A corporal signaller, a clerk and a batman-driver.” This was generous: Fingel sniffed. “A batman and a driver,” the Colonel conceded.

  “Done,” said Fingel, “provided you put me in cash to engage a native cook and a house-boy. I’m told they come very cheap.”

  “You are a junior Captain,” said the Colonel, showing some spirit at last, “not a Major-General.”

  “I’m the only officer here, sir, who will even look at this job.”

  Pause. Then, “You may engage an African house-boy, Fingel.”

  “And a cook, Colonel. After all, the chap who gives the best dinners gets the best intelligence.”

  “Then have your bloody cook. And that’s an end of it.”

  “I think,” said Fingel to the assembled officers, “that I shall call the place Fort Fingel…”

  And so Fingel removed fifty-odd miles to the shores of Lake Naivasha and set himself up in his farmhouse as “coordinator of Jungle Intelligence (Aberdare Mountains)”. Two weeks later I was sent to pay him a visit.

  “The Colonel,” I said, “is rather hurt because you haven’t sent him any intelligence.”

  “I haven’t heard any,” said Fingel: “I’ve been far too busy settling in, old bean. Come and see.”

  Fingel had done himself proud. His chosen sleeping quarters and private bathroom were palatial, his dining-room-designate tall and nobly proportioned. His kitchen, presided over by an African cook who had once served in the Nairobi Club itself, contained a huge refrigerator which was crammed with, among other things, two sides of smoked salmon and a 32-ounce tin of Beluga caviar. His wine-room was cool and munificently stocked; and what he styled his Grand Salon would have housed with ease a Whig duchess’ soirée. Only the so-called Operations Room was rather less than adequate, having barely enough space for the corporal signaller and his transmitter, and certainly none for Fingel.

  “I’m afraid there was nowhere else left,” said Fingel when I commented on this, “so I shall sit out on the verandah, and the chappie can always call me if ever I’m wanted.”

  “I see. And when do you start work? As I’ve told you, the Colonel’s getting restive.”

  “All systems set to go from now on,” said Fingel reassuringly; “so tonight I’m giving a little house-warming to let the local people know I’m in business. I hope you can stay for it.”

  The guests consisted of four loud settlers and their boozy wives, three uncommitted females of a certain age, and a Sergeant in the Kenya Regiment. He at least, I thought, might be there for purposes of liaison, but – “Name of Dalgety,” said Fingel when I asked about him, “big name in these parts – big name and big money.”

  The relevance of this remark became clear immediately after dinner, when Fingel led the way into the Grand Salon and showed us all, with some pride, a long table immaculately appointed for roulette. The corporal signaller, in a dinner jacket, was sitting ready with a rake and stacks of neatly piled counters. The house-boy was presiding over a phalanx of bottles enough to refresh the party till Doomsday.

  “Just in case anyone fancies a little flutter,” said Fingel. “Two-shilling minimums. Buy your chips from the croupier – he can fix you up with blank cheque forms if you’re short of cash.”

  As Fingel well knew, there is (or was then) nowhere in Kenya where gamey settlers could go gaming. There was an instant and strong response to his invitation, especially from the unattached women.

  “I’ve been training that Corporal for a week,” Fingel told me on the side, “and he has the makings of a first-class croupier. But I shall take over myself if they start playing high.”

  Which, later on, they did. At four in the morning, as the last coup was called and the last bottle emptied, Fingel’s bank was ahead by something over £400.

  “Are you going to keep this up?” I said, as Fingel saw me to my room in the dawn.

  “I hope so.”

  “And if the bank turns sour on you?”

  “It seems I’m entitled to special funds,” said Fingel, “for paying informers. The accounting system, as always in such circumstances, is crude. So you see, old bean, I have capital. Where did you suppose all that food and drink came from?”

  After another month had passed I was again dispatched by the Colonel to remonstrate with Fingel.

  “You’ve sent us nothing,” I said.

  “Much better that way, old bean. If I did find out any information, it would mean action, and action would mean trouble for all of us.”

  “Well, at least you could liaise with the Kenya Police a bit and make the right sort of noises. They tell us you’ve hardly made contact with them.”

  “The Kenya Police,” said Fingel, “don’t like the cut of my jib. And I don’t want ’em here, nosing about. I’m running a bit near the rim, old bean, what with all this roulette and the rest of it. Some of those women that come actually tip the soldiery for their services, if you see what I mean. So no policemen in Casa Fingel, thank you all the same.”

  “Then you go and see them.”

  “You know how it is, old bean. The days slip by and somehow I never find the time.”

  A car drew up under Fingel’s verandah. A large and bronze bwana-female swam out of it, displaying an acre of thigh as she did so, and grinned up at Fingel.

  “There you are, you see,” Fingel said, “Get yourself a drink in the Salon, Daphne,” he called: “I’ll be with you in two ticks.”

  “Look, Fingel,” I said: “the Colonel says that if you don’t come up with something in a very short time, he’ll recall you to Battalion. Either you find us some intelligence, or you’ll lose Casa Fingel.”

  “I thought he might say that sooner or later,” said Fingel, “so I have a contingency plan ready. I’m going to say I’ve found an informer, and then invent some intelligence (Mau-Mau gangs at such and such a place, for example), and then say it came from him. That should keep you all happy.”

  “But if we start acting on fictitious intelligence, anything might happen.”

  “Rubbish,” said Fingel. “Nothing at all will happen because there’ll be nothing there to make it happen. You’ll just draw a blank, and I shall simply say that you got there too late. Then my informer will come up with another location (which, by the way, will cost my special fund a good deal), and you’ll be too late once again, and so on, and so on. All quite harmless but it’ll keep the Colonel nice and busy, as that’s what he seems to want. Now you be a good bean and leave me to cope with Daphne; and tell the Colonel that I’m working on a new line and I’ll send him a red-hot report within two days…”

  So for some weeks thereafter Platoons and Companies, and on occasion the entire Battalion, fagged round the Aberdare jungle hunting non-existent gangs of Mau-Mau in order that Fingel might stay in his Casa and prosper. How long he would be able to sustain his bluff I found a nice question for private conjecture; but alas, I was never to know the answer. For in the event, when Fingel was finally rumbled, it was not for disseminating false intelligence, nor even for keeping a disorderly house or promoting illicit roulette; it was for the mere dowdy misdemeanour of employing a servant who was a security risk. His much-vaunted chef from the Nairobi Club turned out to have been dismissed thence because one of his brothers had a history of minor
political subversion. The Kenya Police, detesting Fingel and “the cut of his jib”, had checked on the blacks in his establishment; Fingel, typically had not. A coordinator of Intelligence who omits to check his servants for security is not to be borne with. Fingel came back to us to be Assistant Motor Transport Officer (his very worst thing). Casa Fingel was wished by the Colonel on to some conscientious sycophant, who dismantled the roulette table and renamed the place after the GOC.

  Fingel’s Benefit

  “The coffee is always cold,” proclaimed Fingel to the assembled Mess Meeting, “the beer is always hot; the eggs hard, the toast soft, the tea thick, the wines thin, the salt damp, the meat dry, the soup sweet, the milk sour – ”

  “– Enough,” cried the Mess Secretary, trembling violently. “Let’s see if you can do better. I propose,” he announced to the Meeting, “that Captain Fingel be appointed Food and Wines Member of the Mess Committee forthwith. Seconder, please.”

  “With pleasure,” said the Commandant. “Fingel is always boasting of his gastronomic expertise. Let us have it put to the test.”

  “Thank you, sir. All in favour, please show,” yelped the Mess Secretary.

  All raised their hands, including (insolently) Fingel.

  “I’ll show them,” he said to me later that day. “I regard it as a challenge, old bean. The food in the Officers’ Mess at this Depot has been a squalid joke, all over the county, for the last ten years. Visiting generals writhe in agony and think they have developed ulcers after every meal; newly joined subalterns weep into their pillows all night long and write home to their mummies for tuck-boxes. I feel as if God himself had sent me to set the matter to rights. After all, it’s time I did something positive for the Regiment – ”

  “– Amen to that,” I said.

  “– And reforming the food in this Mess would be a major benefaction. Fingel,” he apostrophised himself; “the man who turned the Depot Mess into a place fit for Lucullus to eat in.”

  “It’ll be time enough for boasting,” I said, “when you’ve actually done it.”