Scruffy - A Diversion by Paul Gallico Read Free Book Online

And the reason he probably loved and admired Scruffy so greatly was that the monkey got away with it all.
    From the time of the sheer accident by which the Gunner as a boy of twenty had been commanded to feed and take on the responsibility of the two packs of apes resident on the Rock, known as the Middle Hill and the Queen’s Gate packs, Lovejoy had seen at once his opportunity for avoiding all the onerous duties connected with servicing His Majesty’s hardware, as well as indulging in his preference for animals over the human species. As a result, whenever the question of his transfer to other climes had come up in accordance with army bureaucracy and custom, the screams of the resident O.I.C. Apes who leaned upon him had always served to postpone such transfer.
    Tim remembered that after his first meeting with the Gunner there had followed a period of cautious eyeing of and sparring with one another, during which time Lovejoy, as he became aware of Tim’s interest in the apes, gradually warmed to him. But it was when he discovered in Tim the growing affection approaching his own for the intractable Scruffy, that the Gunner had relaxed, let down his hair and become Tim’s staunch friend and ally.
    And it was during this period that Tim discovered that Lovejoy, far from being the racketeer he had suspected who would pocket the Government’s food allowance for his charges or steal and sell their rations, frequently spent his own pence in monkey-nuts and fruits for his own favourites. To further their feeding and well-being he stole rapaciously from both the Sergeants’ and Officers’ Messes. He pinched medical supplies from the infirmary and straw, hay and an occasional blanket from Stores, all this to his direct and simple mind being less complicated than going through channels. He was in fact, Tim concluded, a kind of Robin Hood who stole from the people to give to the monkeys.
    Eventually Tim was to establish the Gunner as the most sensitive, sympathetic and logical of all the bolsheviks. Lovejoy went one step farther in his concept of carrying on the class warfare and started with the apes entrusted to his care.
    This cleared up the mystery of small peculations which had encumbered Tim’s records, accounts and supplies, but also opened his eyes to the needs of the apes. It did not matter that Tim’s was the Tory and feudal approach, the aims of himself and Gunner Lovejoy were identical, and the alliance was formed.
    With it Tim cheerfully took on all of the Gunner’s liabilities—his disinterest in matters military, his slovenliness and partiality to strong beers. None of this mattered in the face of the Gunner’s genuine devotion to these beasts. This was what counted with Tim.
    As for Lovejoy, it was all just too good to be true. He had found not only a kindred soul who understood him but also a powerful patron to stand as a buffer between himself and the Powers when his failings had brewed up a mess of trouble. Twenty-four hours after the Entente Cordiale had been closed between them, the Captain had secured the Gunner his Lance-Bombardier’s stripes. The further fact that the Gunner had lost them twenty-four hours afterwards, owing to the magnitude of the celebration he had staged, was beside the point. No one could expect miracles.
    Part of the treaty read that the Gunner should give up his pilfering even in a good cause, while Captain Bailey would inaugurate a campaign to acquire all that was necessary for the comfort, if not a bit of luxury, of the apes by means of appeals to the authorities through proper channels. That these might fail, and that eventually both of them would return to the logic and efficiency of the Sherwood Forest method they could not foresee. But thus began the unprecedented bombardment of the Government of the United Kingdom with correspondence from the O.I.C. Apes, Gibraltar.
    At first it appeared as though Tim were about to make progress by leaps and bounds through sheer shock