The Green Gauntlet by R. F. Delderfield Read Free Book Online Page B

(both former scrap merchants), a Cabinet Minister, and a nameless millionaire allegedly responsible for the flow of aluminium into every aircraft factory in the country. The result was more encouraging than she had hoped. At the stroke of a pen and the rustle of a few papers Stephen could walk out of the R.A.F. camp in the time it took him to get his clearance chit, and become a civilian with prospects of not only making money but scooping up post-war honours. When she had things nicely arranged she went to him with her plan.
    To her amazement and disgust he turned it down flat, and even laughed at her for making such a grotesque proposal.
    He had never realised that the quietly-spoken Archdeacon’s daughter he had married back in 1934 could bring herself to utter the words and phrases she used with such fluency when she had recovered from the shock of being brushed aside like a child offering a bankrupt father the contents of her piggy-bank.
    He had just returned from what, in his ridiculous language, he described as ‘circuits-and-bumps’, and had apparently acquitted himself well for he bawled naughty R.A.F. ditties as he soaped himself in the bath. She went in and sat on a cork-topped stool looking down at what, once again, struck her as a captain of football tubbing himself after a successful match. He did not look his age, or anywhere near his age, which she knew to be old for flying duties. He said, in the irritating fashion of his clodhopping father, ‘Hullo, old girl? Spruce yourself up. Big do tonight! Chaps from Four-One-Eleven coming over for a binge. Foregathering at The Mitre. The popsie behind the bar has laid on off-the-ration wallop!’
    ‘You’ll be far too busy for that,’ she said, and handed him a towel and two letters. One letter bore the House of Commons imprint. He glanced at them casually and then, half-leaping out of the water, with a squint of dismay.
    It was clear from his expression that he only half understood the portent of the documents. He said at length, ‘What the blazes is this, old girl? Put me in the picture, will you?’ and she said the letters, presented in the right quarters, would result in his immediate discharge to industry.
    He looked at her as if she had said something obscene, saying ‘Come again?’ and when she shrugged, ‘But where did you get them? How did they arrive?’
    She said, still patiently, ‘They didn’t arrive, Stevie. I did the rounds, saw the right people, and there they are!’
    He was being, she thought, extraordinarily obtuse. He looked at the papers again, then at her and finally said, ‘But this is crazy! I couldn’t go along with this! What gave you the idea that I might?’
    He looked very foolish squatting there naked, half in and half out of the bath, his extravagant moustache bisecting his sunburned face, his mouth slightly open. She felt like a mother who had just informed a thirteen-year-old son of the consequence of some juvenile folly, raiding a neighbour’s orchard perhaps, or breaking somebody’s greenhouse with a cricket ball. She said, quietly, ‘Well, it’s done now, so you’ll just have to make the best of it. In the end you’ll thank me for it, for at least you’ll stay alive. It’s a pity some the others haven’t got wives to take the necessary steps!’
    He put the letters aside and continued to gape at her. ‘But you’re off your chump, old girl! You must be! Clean off your chump!’
    It might have been the ‘old girl’ that did it. Only since he had moved into this magic circle had he reverted to the patronising form of address, borrowed from his father. In the past he had used slang phrases when addressing her but they had been more flattering. ‘Glam’ was one, and ‘Kid’ was another. She had never liked them but had put up with them for they signified nothing worse than delayed adolescence. Now she snapped, ‘For Jesus Christ’s sake stop calling me “old girl”! I’ve told you before and I’ll not