Scruffy - A Diversion (6 page)

At first it appeared as though Tim were about to make progress by leaps and bounds through sheer shock and surprise and the Brigadier’s unfamiliarity with the whole subject. Confronted with letters on his desk in the proper form and headed,
APES; NECESSITY OF CAGES FOR,
or
APES FEMALE; STRAW FOR COMFORT OF,
or even
APES; SUGGESTIONS FOR SALT WATER COOLING SYSTEM FOR CAGES WHEN CONSTRUCTED
, and which all began properly with “May I respectfully call to your attention, sir, the need . . .” or “It is respectfully requested in the interests of the ape colony, Gibraltar, that . . .” the Brigadier, who had other problems on his mind, and assuming that this was normal procedure for a new O.I.C. taking over, ordered these requests stamped “Approved” and forwarded on to the Colonial Secretariat.

This department not wishing to stir up a rather notoriously cantankerous Brigadier likewise put on an “Approved” seal and sent them along out of their ken, the damage ultimately winding up in the Controller’s office.

One immediate result was that the menus of the monkeys were augmented with imports of fresh foodstuffs until they offered almost the variety to be found
à la carte
at the Savoy. The apes grew fat and almost contented, and Lovejoy as the Santa Claus who distributed all this largesse was in his element. Tim looked forward to the day when the men and material he had ordered would arrive and begin the construction of dens, rockeries, cages and proper shelter for his charges.

This idyll persisted until a yell emanated from Whitehall which could have been heard on the Rock without benefit of cable or wireless: Who the devil was Captain Timothy L. Bailey, O.I.C. Apes, and what in blazes was he trying to do—bankrupt the Empire?

Like seismographic impulses, shock waves went forth from London and crashed up against the Rock. They brought about a series of recriminations which washed down from the Governor to the Colonial Secretary, the Assistant Colonial Secretary, the Brigadier, and finally Tim, who was treated to his first course of Brigade Headquarters fizzing blue temper, of which the details remained vague but the upshot definite. All the bloody nonsense was to stop, the apes were to go back on their original rations. No new building was to be undertaken, and Captain Timothy Bailey was to watch himself if he did not wish suddenly to find himself assigned to the hottest station in India or Aden.

Only one exchange remained vivid in Tim’s memory, for it had blown the Brigadier to new altitudes of choler never before scaled by man. It had come when the C.R.A. had demanded, “Can you give me any reason for your actions? Can you give me one single, solitary reason for this senseless and wasteful expenditure of Government funds on a pack of filthy, verminous, ill-tempered brutes, the lot of which ought to be shot and dumped into the sea?”

It was a challenge which could not go unanswered, but unfortunately nothing came into the Captain’s head at that moment but the tale of the superstition connected with the British being driven from Gibraltar should the apes ever die out and leave the Rock.

“The British leave the Rock! The British be driven from Gibraltar if—if—!”

“Yes, sir,” said Tim.

It was at this point that the Brigadier’s temper made its celebrated ascent into the stratosphere. So tremendous was the blow-up that word of it reached the ears of Lovejoy even before Tim arrived back at the office to impart the news.

“I say, sir,” said the Gunner, “I hear it was a snorter.”

“It was that, Lovejoy,” Tim assented. “We’re going to have to lie low for a while, but at least we’ve got them thinking apes. How much groundnuts have we on hand?”

“About a hundredweight, sir.”

“Well, that will last a couple of months, anyway,” said Tim philosophically, “and by that time they’ll have cooled off.”

“Then you’re not quitting, sir?” Lovejoy asked in amazement.

“Hell, no,” said Tim, “we’ve just begun.”

The Gunner was so impressed by this that he could do no more than raise his right hand to his forehead in the snappiest salute he had rendered in the last twenty years and reverently breathe the word, “sir!”

But with the eventual giving out of the monkey-nuts and other fancy greens and silage, and Tim’s immediate failure to wangle more out of the authorities, began the intransigence of Scruffy.

It was Scruffy who was the stumbling-block to Tim’s far-reaching and grandiose plans for the apes. Often when he had some little improvement in the set-up arranged for them, Scruffy would go on a raid and ruin the pitch, and there was even a time when Tim found himself fighting tooth and nail and lobbying day and night against the-ape-Scruffy-ought-to-be-shot movement which had powerful adherents in Army, Navy and Civil circles. Then surely it had only been precedent that had saved Scruffy. The shooting of an ape was something which had never been done before.

4
Felicity

S
o had run the thoughts and recollections of young Captain Bailey as he stood leaning on the rail and looking out over the town shimmering in the summer heat haze. He became aware of a slight movement next to him, turned and saw the object of his deliberations seated on a rock near by regarding him malevolently.

“Oh, it’s you, you clot,” said Captain Bailey, for at that moment his thoughts had managed to put him out of sorts with the beast who was messing up his plans to create the best of all possible worlds for the worst of all possible monkeys. “Why the hell don’t you behave yourself? Don’t you realize you’re spoiling it for everyone? What I ought to do is catch you and give you a dam’ good hiding.”

Scruffy said nothing, but kept regarding Tim balefully. And, as always when he became angry with this creature, Tim grew repentant. He said, “Sorry, old boy, I didn’t mean it. I oughtn’t to have said that. Had a trying session with the old Brig. Forget it, will you?”

As always, the concentrated fury and hatred in Scruffy’s eyes moved Tim to do something to win him. He reached into a side pocket and produced a peanut, a small supply of which he always carried, held it up and said, “All right then, come over here and have one on me.”

The animal lifted his head slightly to make sure what it was Tim was holding out to him, then rose and with deliberation he marched over to Tim on all fours, reached up with his left paw and took the peanut. With his right paw he seized hold of Tim’s wrist and quietly and firmly bit him in the hand. The blood spurted forth, Scruffy gave a tremendous leap which moved him ten yards away, where he turned his immediate attention to the monkey-nut. Tim let out a yell and a rich army curse which was topped by a feminine scream.

“Oh! The nasty thing! I saw him do it.”

Startled, Tim looked up and saw a small car drawn up by the concrete platform, with a stout girl at the wheel.

She wasn’t really fat, Tim observed upon second glance, but only rather plump, as though the baby fat had not yet entirely been melted away. The tanned arms at the steering wheel had dimples at both the elbows and the wrists and there was somewhat too much flesh on the oval of her face. Tim’s thought was that if she were to thin down she might possibly be quite good-looking. Even so, he was struck by the clarity and brilliance of her eyes which were the colour of aquamarine, and were now filled with sympathy. The roundness of her face made her nose seem slightly too small, if delectable, but the mouth was firm and full of character. All this was surmounted by a twist of short-cut, unruly hair the colour of wild honey.

“Oh,” said Tim, “I didn’t know—I do beg your pardon.”

“That’s quite all right,” said the girl, and hers was a soft voice that fell pleasantly upon the ears. “I should have said worse myself. He did it deliberately. Why don’t you go and give him a kick?”

It was almost automatic for Tim to spring to Scruffy’s defence. He said, “It wasn’t his fault.”

The girl said severely, “Oh, yes it was. He planned it. I saw him making up his mind to do it two minutes ago. Look at your poor hand!”

Tim did. His life’s gore was welling from two holes and dripping to the ground.

“Shall I do it up for you?” she asked.

Tim felt embarrassed at having a fuss made over him. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s nothing. It stops after a bit.”

Ten yards away Scruffy was jumping up and down on all fours and coughing, which meant that he was delighted with what he had accomplished and felt he ought to be rewarded with more monkey-nuts. So habitual was the performance that before Tim knew what he was doing he plunged his uninjured hand into his pocket, withdrew a half-dozen or so nuts and threw them to the ape, who collected them and bared his fangs once more.

“Oh, you men!” said the girl, and got out of her car, opening her handbag and shaking her head. She produced a clean handkerchief and said, “I do it very well. I’ve had First Aid training. And then you ought to have it cauterized. I’m sure that thing is poisonous.”

As she came over Tim thought she must be twenty-one or two. A girl that old ought not to be quite so chubby, and yet once one had been caught up in her eyes it did not seem to matter—in fact, one quite forgot everything else, everything except, of course, one’s problems. Her touch was gentle, her hair and clothes smelled of fresh air and sunlight. She wiped away the blood, examined the two holes with clinical and enthusiastic interest, and then deftly and efficiently bound his wounds.

“There,” said the girl. “Now,” and she motioned with a bob of her sunny head in the direction of Scruffy, who was gorging himself, “aren’t you going to do anything about him?”

“No,” Tim replied. “Thank you.” And then suddenly, as a wholly new idea came in answer to this question of Scruffy’s behaviour which had so long been plaguing him, he said, “I say, do you know what? I’ve just had a thought—do you suppose it could be because he hasn’t any tail?”

This query, if one wanted to make something out of it, could go to show how a single sentence carelessly uttered can sometimes change entire lives, and even the course of history, for the young girl had already begun to wend her way back to her vehicle, convinced that there was no present, and certainly no future, in any young man so tame and spiritless as to let himself be shredded by an ungrateful beast upon whom he had just conferred a favour, without offering so much as a cuff, pinch or tweak in retaliation. He had seemed a nice-looking boy, but she was not in the habit of collecting saints. However, his remark stopped her in mid-air, so to speak, with her foot on the running-board. “What?” she said. “Because who hasn’t got a tail?”

“Old Scruff over there. By Jove, do you know, I think I’ve got it.”

She came walking back slowly. “Hasn’t he one?” she asked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Tim said, “No? I’ll show you.” He then called out, “Hoy—Scruffy. Come here, old boy,” knowing full well that the animal would do just the opposite, which indeed he did, turning his back at the summons and elevating his buttocks into their faces.

“There you are,” said Tim.

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” the girl said, “or why it should make him bite you just after you had presented him with a lovely monkey-nut.”

Tim already saw himself preparing a monograph upon the subject and submitting it to the Zoological Society and being possibly rewarded with an F.Z.S. after his name. “Frustration,” he said. “Disappointment. Frightful feeling of inferiority. Not one thing or the other, don’t you see. Social and physical liability. Bound to prey on his mind and cause him to have a bilious outlook on the world. Every other monkey has a tail. Uses it to swing from or pick up small objects. Rounds him out. Dogs have tails; cats have tails—and here’s poor old Scruff going around without one. Debasing and humiliating. The kind of thing you can’t get away from. Always imagining people are talking behind their hands even when they’re not.”

It was not so much the theory as the earnestness and satisfaction of the young man with his idea which now began to interest the girl. She had returned all the way from her car and stood beside him, not quite reaching up to his shoulder, and looking at Scruffy who, having shown his contempt for them, had now reversed his position and was sitting with his canines bared.

“How did he lose it?” she asked. “Caught it in a door—or did someone cut it off to get even?”

“No, no—of course not. He simply hasn’t got one—none of them have. It’s that kind of monkey. They are known as Macaques, but those are the only tail-less ones.”

The girl frowned in slight bewilderment. “You mean, none of them have any tails?— Are they all then as nasty as that one?”

“Oh, no,” said Tim, again swift to spring to the defence of his charge, “only old Scruff there is something special in that department.”

A look of triumph fired the charmingly chubby countenance of the girl. “Oh-ho,” she cried, “so then it’s not because he hasn’t a tail. If the others haven’t got one either and are sweet about it; it’s just because he’s a nasty, surly, bad-tempered, mean old—”

She stopped suddenly in mid-description. “Oh dear,” the girl continued in genuine sympathy and contrition, “I’ve spoiled your perfectly beautiful idea, haven’t I?”

“That’s quite all right,” Tim said, even though his F.Z.S. had gone a-glimmering.

“Oh dear,” the girl repeated, “you care about him, don’t you?”

Tim nodded and said, “One can’t help it. He’s so extraordinarily and consistently wicked. It’s something like having a very naughty child—you feel that somewhere there must be a little bit of good in it, if only you could get at it. Nothing on this earth ought to be that absolutely and completely useless and destructive. There must be some reason—”

The girl shook her head slowly and said, “He’s just plain bad—”

A female ape appeared out of a tree with an apelet clinging to her back. Scruffy gave a cough of rage and let fly a cuff that swept the apelet off the mother’s back and into the dust of the road. He then took a bite at the female’s flank, sending her shrieking down the road.

The girl watched the performance with her grave eyes and murmured, “Sweet.”

Tim said, “He’s never cared for her a great deal.”