Serene Falcon

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What were the considerations which induced the Count to disregard superior orders ?
Although we have no notes left by him personally, his chief of operations and his deputy chief of staff, Major Einbeck, have laid down in a memorandum the arguments of the Corps command. An instructive report is also extant from Lieutenant-Colonel von Ahlfen, the chief of staff of 617th Engineers Regiment.
This is the picture that emerges from these reports: On 28th Decem­ber 1941 Lieutenant-General Himer’s 46th Infantry Division, by rally­ing all its reserves, succeeded in smashing the Soviet bridgehead north of Kerch. The Soviets, and above all the Caucasians, had accomplished incredible feats. In spite of its being 20 degrees below zero Centigrade they had waded to the steep coast up to their necks in water, and had gained a foothold there. Without any supplies they had held out for two days. Their wounded had frozen rigid into ice-covered lumps of flesh. Frozen to death. The landings south of Kerch were likewise sealed off. But at that moment Soviet naval units attacked at Feodosiya, 60 miles behind Kerch. A heavy cruiser, two destroyers, and landing-craft entered the harbour under cover of darkness.
Of Army Coastal Artillery Battalion 147, detailed to defend Feo­dosiya, only four 10-5-cm. guns and the headquarters personnel had so far got to their destination. In addition, only one German and one Czech-manufactured field howitzer were in the port. The Soviet war­ships trained their searchlights on to the defender’s gun emplacements and shelled them to smithereens with their heavy naval guns. Then the Russians disembarked.
For infantry engagements the German forces available consisted of the sapper platoon of an assault boat detachment and a Panzerjager platoon with two 3-7-cm. anti-tank guns. Luckily the Engineers Bat­talion 46, en route to the west, had taken up quarters in Feodosiya for the night Count Sponeck put Lieutenant-Colonel von Ahlfen in charge of repulsing the Soviet landing. The lieutenant-colonel mobilized every single man he could find — paymasters, workshop mechanics, the personnel of food stores and field post-offices, a road construction company, and the men of a signals unit. From this motley crew the first covering line was organized outside the town.
At 0730 hours a signal arrived at Count Sponeck’s headquarters at Keneges: “Soviets are also landing north-east of Feodosiya on the open coast.” An entire division was disembarking.
A few minutes later telephone connections with Army and with Feodosiya were cut—just after Count Sponeck had received the mation that Manstein was sending 170th Infantry Division Sevastopol and two Rumanian brigades from the Yayla Mountains Feodosiya.
What were the Soviet intentions ? Their tactical aim, clearly, was cut the narrow neck of land between the Crimea and the Kerch Peninsula, and to annihilate the trapped 46th Infantry Division. But their strategic objective, undoubtedly, was to strike swiftly into the Crimea from their foothold at Feodosiya, to occupy the traffic junctions behind the Sevastopol front, and to cut off Eleventh Army from its supplies.
That the Russians were in fact pursuing this strategic objective, and not just making local raids on the coast, was proved by the fact that their invading forces comprised two Armies — the Fifty-first under General Lvov at Kerch and the Forty-fourth under General Pervushin at Feodosiya. The Forty-fourth Army had already disembarked some; 23,000 men of 63rd and 157th Rifle Divisions.
General Count Sponeck asked himself: Was 46th Infantry Division strong enough to throw the enemy forces back into the sea at Kerch and at the same time hold the Parpach Isthmus against the new landings at Feodosiya? His answer was No.
Major Einbeck records: “Corps command could only regain their initiative by immediately switching the focus of operations to the Feodosiya area. That was the place where the danger of a drive against Dzhankoy or Simferopol, now threatening Eleventh Army, might be averted. This decision involved surrendering the Kerch Peninsula as far as the Parpach line.”
Count Sponeck believed that, in view of the responsibility he had for his 10,000 men, there was no time to be lost. Because of his clearer, local grasp of the situation he felt justified in acting against the order of his Army commander. He realized that he was risking his neck. He knew the iron law of military discipline. But he was also aware of a military commander’s moral duty to put a meaningful order above a formal one. He did not evade the tragic dilemma which must arise whenever a man’s duty to obey clashes with his personal assessment of operational necessity.
At 0800 hours on 29th December Count Sponeck ordered 46th Infantry Division to disengage itself from the enemy at Kerch, to pro­ceed to the Parpach Isthmus by forced marches, and “to attack the enemy at Feodosiya and throw him into the sea”. He sent a signal to Army informing it of his move, and then ordered his wireless station to be dismantled.
So much for Count Sponeck’s strategic and tactical considerations. They made sense, they were sober and courageous. There was not a trace of cowardice, indecision, or guilty conscience.
In a temperature of 40 degrees below zero Centigrade, in an icy blizzard, the battalions of 46th Infantry Division, the anti-aircraft units, the sappers, and the gunners moved off. The distance they had to cover was 75 miles. Only occasionally was a fifteen-minute halt called to issue hot coffee to the troops. They marched for forty-six hours. Many were frost-bitten in their fingertips, toes, and noses. Most of the horses were not shod for the winter and were emaciated. They collapsed exhausted. Guns were abandoned on the icy roads.

***

Judging by results, therefore, Count Sponeck had been justified. Or was there room for doubt ? Manstein himself, in his memoirs, does not answer the question unequivocally one way or the other. He criticizes Count Sponeck for facing the Army with a fait accompli and making any other solution impossible.
Manstein says: “Such a precipitate withdrawal of 46th Infantry Division was not the way to maintain its combat strength. If the enemy had acted correctly at Feodosiya the division, in the condition in which it arrived at Parpach, would scarcely have been able to fight its way through to the west.” If ! But the enemy did not act correctly, and the outcome alone is what counts. Whichever way one judges the Sponeck affair, the general’s decision sprang neither from dishonourable motives nor from cowardice. His dismissal from his command, decreed by Manstein, can be justified on grounds of principle, as an issue of obedience to superior orders. But this was not all. At the Fuehrer’s Headquarters a court martial was held under the presidency of Reich Marshal Göring which sentenced Lieutenant-General Count von Sponeck, who had been summoned before it, to reduction to the ranks, forfeiture of all orders and decorations, and to death by execution.
Hitler himself must have had some misgivings about this barbarous verdict, for on appeal by the C-in-C Eleventh Army he commuted the death sentence to seven years’ fortress detention. Judged by his later verdicts, this was a remarkable decision, virtually tantamount to acquittal.
But some two and a half years later, after 20th July 1944, one of Himmler’s execution squads amended Hitler’s clemency by brutal murder. Count von Sponeck was shot without cause and without sen­tence.

Paul Carell : Hitler’s War on Russia

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“Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone in
the world, and master of a considerable fortune, including the
estate and mansion of Crome. The beauty and intelligence of his
childhood had survived into his manly age, and, but for his
dwarfish stature, he would have taken his place among the
handsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He was
well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all the
moderns of any merit who had written in English, French, or
Italian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent
performer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass viol,
seated on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To the
music of the harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial,
but the smallness of his hands made it impossible for him ever to
perform upon these instruments. He had a small ivory flute made
for him, on which, whenever he was melancholy, he used to play a
simple country air or jig, affirming that this rustic music had
more power to clear and raise the spirits than the most
artificial productions of the masters. From an early age he
practised the composition of poetry, but, though conscious of his
great powers in this art, he would never publish any specimen of
his writing. ‘My stature,’ he would say, ‘is reflected in my
verses; if the public were to read them it would not be because I
am a poet, but because I am a dwarf.’ Several MS. books of Sir
Hercules’s poems survive. A single specimen will suffice to
illustrate his qualities as a poet.

“‘In ancient days, while yet the world was young,
Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung;
When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire,
And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre;
Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth
And obscene giants trod the shrinking earth,
Till God, impatient of their sinful brood,
Gave rein to wrath and drown’d them in the Flood.
Teeming again, repeopled Tellus bore
The lubber Hero and the Man of War;
Huge towers of Brawn, topp’d with an empty Skull,
Witlessly bold, heroically dull.
Long ages pass’d and Man grown more refin’d,
Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind,
Smiled at his grandsire’s broadsword, bow and bill,
And learn’d to wield the Pencil and the Quill.
The glowing canvas and the written page
Immortaliz’d his name from age to age,
His name emblazon’d on Fame’s temple wall;
For Art grew great as Humankind grew small.
Thus man’s long progress step by step we trace;
The Giant dies, the hero takes his place;
The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block:
At one we shudder and at one we mock.
Man last appears. In him the Soul’s pure flame
Burns brightlier in a not inord’nate frame.
Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed,
Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform’d;
Wearied by leavening so vast a mass,
The spirit slept and all the mind was crass.
The smaller carcase of these later days
Is soon inform’d; the Soul unwearied plays
And like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays.
But can we think that Providence will stay
Man’s footsteps here upon the upward way ?
Mankind in understanding and in grace
Advanc’d so far beyond the Giants’ race ?
Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD’S own Hand,
Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land.
A time will come ( prophetic, I descry
Remoter dawns along the gloomy sky ),
When happy mortals of a Golden Age
Will backward turn the dark historic page,
And in our vaunted race of Men behold
A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold,
As we in Giants see, in warriors of old.
A time will come, wherein the soul shall be
From all superfluous matter wholly free;
When the light body, agile as a fawn’s,
Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns.
Nature’s most delicate and final birth,
Mankind perfected shall possess the earth.
But ah, not yet ! For still the Giants’ race,
Huge, though diminish’d, tramps the Earth’s fair face;
Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud,
Men of their imperfections boast aloud.
Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain
Of giant ugliness absurdly vain;
At all that’s small they point their stupid scorn
And, monsters, think themselves divinely born.
Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed,
The rare precursors of the nobler breed !
Who come man’s golden glory to foretell,
But pointing Heav’nwards live themselves in Hell.‘

“As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about
remodelling his household. For though by no means ashamed of his
deformity–indeed, if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he
regarded himself as being in many ways superior to the ordinary
race of man–he found the presence of full-grown men and women
embarrassing. Realising, too, that he must abandon all ambitions
in the great world, he determined to retire absolutely from it
and to create, as it were, at Crome a private world of his own,
in which all should be proportionable to himself. Accordingly,
he discharged all the old servants of the house and replaced them
gradually, as he was able to find suitable successors, by others
of dwarfish stature. In the course of a few years he had
assembled about himself a numerous household, no member of which
was above four feet high and the smallest among them scarcely two
feet and six inches. His father’s dogs, such as setters,
mastiffs, greyhounds, and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away
as too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them by
pugs and King Charles spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog
were the smallest. His father’s stable was also sold. For his
own use, whether riding or driving, he had six black Shetland
ponies, with four very choice piebald animals of New Forest
breed.

“Having thus settled his household entirely to his own
satisfaction, it only remained for him to find some suitable
companion with whom to share his paradise. Sir Hercules had a
susceptible heart, and had more than once, between the ages of
sixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. But here his
deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, for,
having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his
choice, he had been received with laughter. On his persisting,
she had picked him up and shaken him like an importunate child,
telling him to run away and plague her no more. The story soon
got about–indeed, the young lady herself used to tell it as a
particularly pleasant anecdote–and the taunts and mockery it
occasioned were a source of the most acute distress to Hercules.
From the poems written at this period we gather that he meditated
taking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived down
this humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in love,
and that very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to
those in whom he was interested. After coming to the estate and
finding that he was in a position to create his own world as he
desired it, he saw that, if he was to have a wife — which he very
much desired, being of an affectionate and, indeed, amorous
temper — he must choose her as he had chosen his servants–from
among the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife was, he
found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would marry none who
was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The dwarfish
daughter of Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides
being a pigmy she was hunchbacked; while another young lady, an
orphan belonging to a very good family in Hampshire, was rejected
by him because her face, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizened
and repulsive. Finally, when he was almost despairing of
success, he heard from a reliable source that Count Titimalo, a
Venetian nobleman, possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty and
great accomplishments, who was by three feet in height. Setting
out at once for Venice, he went immediately on his arrival to pay
his respects to the count, whom he found living with his wife and
five children in a very mean apartment in one of the poorer
quarters of the town. Indeed, the count was so far reduced in
his circumstances that he was even then negotiating (so it was
rumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and acrobats, who
had had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for the
sale of his diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived
in time to save her from this untoward fate, for he was so much
charmed by Filomena’s grace and beauty, that at the end of three
days’ courtship he made her a formal offer of marriage, which was
accepted by her no less joyfully than by her father, who
perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and unfailing source of
revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which the English
ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules and his
bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it
proved, to a life of uneventful happiness.

“Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who felt
herself now for the first time to be a free woman living among
her equals in a friendly world. She had many tastes in common
with her husband, especially that of music. She had a beautiful
voice, of a power surprising in one so small, and could touch A
in alt without effort. Accompanied by her husband on his fine
Cremona fiddle, which he played, as we have noted before, as one
plays a bass viol, she would sing all the liveliest and tenderest
airs from the operas and cantatas of her native country. Seated
together at the harpsichord, they found that they could with
their four hands play all the music written for two hands of
ordinary size, a circumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailing
pleasure.

“When they were not making music or reading together, which they
often did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in
healthful outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on
the lake, but more often riding or driving, occupations in which,
because they were entirely new to her, Filomena especially
delighted. When she had become a perfectly proficient rider,
Filomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the park, at
that time very much more extensive than it is now. They hunted
not foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of about thirty
black and fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not
overfed, can course a rabbit as well as any of the smaller
breeds. Four dwarf grooms, dressed in scarlet liveries and
mounted on white Exmoor ponies, hunted the pack, while their
master and mistress, in green habits, followed either on the
black Shetlands or on the piebald New Forest ponies. A picture
of the whole hunt–dogs, horses, grooms, and masters–was painted
by William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired so much that
he invited him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come and
stay at the mansion for the purpose of executing this picture.
Stubbs likewise painted a portrait of Sir Hercules and his lady
driving in their green enamelled calash drawn by four black
Shetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat and
white breeches; Filomena is dressed in flowered muslin and a very
large hat with pink feathers. The two figures in their gay
carriage stand out sharply against a dark background of trees;
but to the left of the picture the trees fall away and disappear,
so that the four black ponies are seen against a pale and
strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown colour of thunder-
clouds lighted up by the sun.

“In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of that
time Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was
overjoyed. ‘If God is good,’ he wrote in his day-book, ‘the name
of Lapith will be preserved and our rarer and more delicate race
transmitted through the generations until in the fullness of time
the world shall recognise the superiority of those beings whom
now it uses to make mock of.’ On his wife’s being brought to bed
of a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. The child was
christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the house.

“With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet began
to invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the child
was growing with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighed
as much as Hercules had weighed when he was three. ‘Ferdinando
goes crescendo,’ wrote Filomena in her diary. ‘It seems not
natural.’ At eighteen months the baby was almost as tall as
their smallest jockey, who was a man of thirty-six. Could it be
that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal,
gigantic dimensions ? It was a thought to which neither of his
parents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of
their respective diaries they brooded over it in terror and
dismay.

“On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother and
not more than a couple of inches short of his father’s height.
‘To-day for the first time‘ wrote Sir Hercules, ‘we discussed the
situation. The hideous truth can be concealed no longer:
Ferdinando is not one of us. On this, his third birthday, a day
when we should have been rejoicing at the health, the strength,
and beauty of our child, we wept together over the ruin of our
happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.’

“At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly
healthy that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him
to school. He was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the
next half. A profound peace settled upon the house. Ferdinando
returned for the summer holidays larger and stronger than ever.
One day he knocked down the butler and broke his arm. ‘He is
rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion,’ wrote his
father. ‘The only thing that will teach him manners is corporal
chastisement.’ Ferdinando, who at this age was already seventeen
inches taller than his father, received no corporal chastisement.

“One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returned
to Crome accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought
it from an old man at Windsor who had found the beast too
expensive to feed. It was a savage, unreliable animal; hardly
had it entered the house when it attacked one of Sir Hercules’s
favourite pugs, seizing the creature in its jaws and shaking it
till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by this occurrence,
Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained up in the
stable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was his,
and he would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing
angry, bade him take the animal out of the house at once, on pain
of his utmost displeasure. Ferdinando refused to move. His
mother at this moment coming into the room, the dog flew at her,
knocked her down, and in a twinkling had very severely mauled her
arm and shoulder; in another instant it must infallibly have had
her by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawn his sword and
stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on his son, he ordered
him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to remain in
the same place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So
awe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one
foot on the carcase of the gigantic dog, his sword drawn and
still bloody, so commanding were his voice, his gestures, and the
expression of his face that Ferdinando slunk out of the room in
terror and behaved himself for all the rest of the vacation in an
entirely exemplary fashion. His mother soon recovered from the
bites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mind of this
adventure was ineradicable; from that time forth she lived always
among imaginary terrors.

“The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, making
the Grand Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents.
But even now the thought of the future haunted them; nor were
they able to solace themselves with all the diversions of their
younger days. The Lady Filomena had lost her voice and Sir
Hercules was grown too rheumatical to play the violin. He, it is
true, still rode after his pugs, but his wife felt herself too
old and, since the episode of the mastiff, too nervous for such
sports. At most, to please her husband, she would follow the
hunt at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and oldest
of the Shetlands.

“The day fixed for Ferdinando’s return came round. Filomena,
sick with vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber
and her bed. Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a
brown travelling-suit entered the room. ‘Welcome home, my son,’
said Sir Hercules in a voice that trembled a little.

“‘I hope I see you well, sir.’ Ferdinando bent down to shake
hands, then straightened himself up again. The top of his
father’s head reached to the level of his hip.

“Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own age
accompanied him, and each of the young men had brought a servant.
Not for thirty years had Crome been desecrated by the presence of
so many members of the common race of men. Sir Hercules was
appalled and indignant, but the laws of hospitality had to be
obeyed. He received the young gentlemen with grave politeness
and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders that they
should be well cared for.

“The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and
dusted ( Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a
small table twenty inches high ). Simon, the aged butler, who
could only just look over the edge of the big table, was helped
at supper by the three servants brought by Ferdinando and his
guests.

“Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a
conversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of
art and nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the
singing of the orphans in the churches of the same city, and on
other topics of a similar nature. The young men were not
particularly attentive to his discourses; they were occupied in
watching the efforts of the butler to change the plates and
replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violent
and repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affected
not to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation to
sport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true,
as he had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of
pug dogs. Sir Hercules replied that it was, and proceeded to
describe the chase in some detail. The young men roared with
laughter.

“When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair
and, giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade
them good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the
stairs. Filomena was not asleep; she had been lying on her bed
listening to the sound of enormous laughter and the tread of
strangely heavy feet on the stairs and along the corridors. Sir
Hercules drew a chair to her bedside and sat there for a long
time in silence, holding his wife’s hand and sometimes gently
squeezing it. At about ten o’clock they were startled by a
violent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of
feet, with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproar
continuing for several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feet
and, in spite of his wife’s entreaties, prepared to go and see
what was happening. There was no light on the staircase, and Sir
Hercules groped his way down cautiously, lowering himself from
stair to stair and standing for a moment on each tread before
adventuring on a new step. The noise was louder here; the
shouting articulated itself into recognisable words and phrases.
A line of light was visible under the dining-room door. Sir
Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as he
approached the door there was another terrific crash of breaking
glass and jangled metal. What could they be doing ? Standing on
tiptoe he managed to look through the keyhole. In the middle of
the ravaged table old Simon, the butler, so primed with drink
that he could scarcely keep his balance, was dancing a jig. His
feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, and his shoes
were wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round,
thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine
bottles, shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants
leaning against the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw
a handful of walnuts at the dancer’s head, which so dazed and
surprised the little man that he staggered and fell down on his
back, upsetting a decanter and several glasses. They raised him
up, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped him on the back. The
old man smiled and hiccoughed. ‘To-morrow,’ said Ferdinando,
‘we’ll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.’ ‘With
father Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,’ added one of his
companions, and all three roared with laughter.

“Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the
hall once more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees
painfully high at each degree. This was the end; there was no
place for him now in the world, no place for him and Ferdinando
together.

“His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered,
‘They are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be our
turn.’ They were silent for a time.

“At last Filomena said, ‘I do not want to see to-morrow.’

“‘It is better not,’ said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet he
wrote in his day-book a full and particular account of all the
events of the evening. While he was still engaged in this task
he rang for a servant and ordered hot water and a bath to be made
ready for him at eleven o’clock. When he had finished writing he
went into his wife’s room, and preparing a dose of opium twenty
times as strong as that which she was accustomed to take when she
could not sleep, he brought it to her, saying, ‘Here is your
sleeping-draught.’

“Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not
drink immediately. The tears came into her eyes. ‘Do you
remember the songs we used to sing, sitting out there sulla
terrazza in the summer-time ?‘ She began singing softly in her
ghost of a cracked voice a few bars from Stradella’s ‘Amor amor,
non dormir piu.’ ‘And you playing on the violin, it seems such a
short time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, amore, a
rivederti.‘ She drank off the draught and, lying back on the
pillow, closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and
tiptoed away, as though he were afraid of waking her. He
returned to his closet, and having recorded his wife’s last words
to him, he poured into his bath the water that had been brought
up in accordance with his orders. The water being too hot for
him to get into the bath at once, he took down from the shelf his
copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died. He
opened the book at random. ‘But dwarfs,’ he read, ‘he held in
abhorrence as being lusus naturae and of evil omen.’ He winced
as though he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered,
had exhibited in the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, of
good family, who was not quite two feet in height and weighed
seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned over the
pages. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of
growing horror. ‘Seneca his preceptor, he forced to kill
himself.’ And there was Petronius, who had called his friends
about him at the last, bidding them talk to him, not of the
consolations of philosophy, but of love and gallantry, while the
life was ebbing away through his opened veins. Dipping his pen
once more in the ink he wrote on the last page of his diary: ‘He
died a Roman death.’ Then, putting the toes of one foot into the
water and finding that it was not too hot, he threw off his
dressing-gown and, taking a razor in his hand, sat down in the
bath. With one deep cut he severed the artery in his left wrist,
then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. The blood
oozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths and
spirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink.
The colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by an
invincible drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to dream.
Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood in his small
body.”

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“Unless the Tolandses pay premiums more regularly than they pay him, which I doubt. Mind you, they’ll be in breach if they didn’t, and so we could wash our hands of them. Theoretically.”
“I can see it now in the News of the World: ‘Housing Association refuses to rehome Brave Family burnt out by Vicious Thugs’.”
He shuddered violently.
“So the point is I can’t proceed unless we are definitely not going to go to court willingly against anyone. If the Tolands go the estate will fall into the hands of the Hartleys. Which is pretty ghastly in itself; but then they’d come to go head-first against Neill sooner rather than later, especially since they don’t like him that much. I’d put money on Andra winning, but it would mean whatever the outcome the estate degeneration would accelerate massively.”
“Oh sod. I know, I know.” he acceded.
“Even if they didn’t run to some idiot young New Labour councillor, that crew would still enquire enough to possibly queer our pitch in buying that old motor track down at Sunwick from them, and they are delaying that long enough at any rate for us to up the price. If we can’t afford it that’s a hideous new set of 2 & 3-bedroomed undesirable residencies we won’t be able to spoil the view with.”
He started to stiffen, possibly at the split infinitive, and possibly at her unique and unkind beliefs on architecture, which he like most was never quite able to come to terms with; but then he just sighed.
“It’s up to you and Jimmie, and Jimmie’ll go along with what’s best, won’t he ?”
“All right, all right. I won’t contact the police with any suspicions: I wasn’t going to against Andra anyway; and I’ll back them up in whatever wild tale they can invent consistent with the Fire Service report. Andra’s men wouldn’t have used petrol anyway, and the cops were very snippy about the fact most of them were fully dressed. Some of them claimed they’d been to clubs, or staying with friends. I suppose they’ll have a story pretty soon. Even the women were dead schtumm just then, but that could be from shock I guess. Not a chip-pan confession: though they eat nothing else. But they’ll probably claim a cigarette was left burning somewhere.”
“If you see old Ian Toland, you might mention that one of his foul brats could have pulled some wires from the walls, if they inherit the full feeblemindedness of their maniac forebears.” Juli said meditatively. “Not in so many words of course.”
“Right.”
“The cops will be just as glad if you keep quiet… ”
“W’who-are-the-Tolandses,-an’-who-are-the-Hartleys,-an’-who-is-Andra ?” Lucy got out in a rush.
They glanced at each other.
“Lucy, remember I told you not to speak on any call from that place ? Just to hand it over to anybody who already knows it ?”
She nodded.
“One of the reasons is that some nasty people live there, and you may get a load of abuse. Really bad abuse.” Russell blew out his cheeks, wholly agreeing. “These people are not as bad as some,” — “Andra is.” he interposed — “Um, yeah, he is, but the Tolands and the Hartley are just two clans who have a hereditary hatred dating back as far, according to legend, as the 1950’s. Which is when the estate was created, I think. Andra is that Mr. Neill, I mentioned, and he runs a few of the rackets, mainly drugs, but a bit of fencing, around this area. He has friends everywhere, including the police, the local legal crew, local Councillors, and, according to some, providence, since no one can get anything on him. You will never meet him. I met him twice, both times with Russell here, and as Russell will tell you, while he wouldn’t do you harm, or anyone harm outside his rackets, he is a very annoying character.”
“B’but why don’t the police arrest all these people ?”
Russell laughed gurglingly.
“Three things: evidence, expedience, and they’ll be let out anyway.” stated Juli soothingly. “One day Andra will bop a policeman or something, or not pay someone, and then the police will bang him up for a few years, and he’ll come back and start as usual, or go mad, or someone else will take over.”
Lucy considered “But you jus’ said he took revenge ‘cos he was owed: he’d pay his own debts, woun’t he, to protect himself. If he owed another criminal.”
It was Juli’s turn to look shocked, just before she and Russell again exchanged certain looks. “Lucy, kid, never call anyone a criminal unless they’ve been convicted. And even then, after all it might have been wrongful or unsafe.”
“But,” indignantly, “You called him a, a… “
“He is that, but that’s my opinion. The other is libellous, and, don’t you think, a little hurtful ?”
Lucy got faintly pink, but before she could recover from this rebuke, Juli went on. “Anyway, firstly I don’t think Andra considers debts he owes have the same priority as stuff owed to him. Most of us feel this way; him more than most. Secondly, I wasn’t saying he wouldn’t pay a real debt in the underworld. That would be too important, I guess.”
“Who else then ?”
“I was thinkin’ about when he’s at the golf club.” demurely.
Russell got up, “Thanks for the coffee, Lucy. And Juli, I would be very grateful if you’d make those calls. It would be a god-send.”
He moved away more happily to off-load the insurance worry on a colleague. And to make a phone-call of his own to the Jaggers Posthouse, where already the travelling salesmen and adulterous couples had made clear their disgust and horror at the incursion of Tolandses, particularly the youth, the quieter element of which were playing footie in the corridors.
Since no-one had actually been hurt, Juli was more amused at another instance of human folly than saddened as she should have been. A drawback occurred for one who wanted to get through about 50 form letters, mainly boiler-plating, so that she could resume a glance at her book on Danton. Undoubtedly he was unspeakable, but she couldn’t really say he was the worst of the revolutionaries, he wasn’t a Girondin after all. If it had been a useful introduction to the perils of the urban proletariat for her young friend, it would have been something better digested in silence rather than a topic for squeaking.
Lucy asked lots of questions. Juli patiently explained that people are as they are. Further she refused to condemn. To her mind there was nothing wrong in clan warfare if you like that sort of thing. She also never condemned where there was no possibility of sending thunder-bolts oneself: since this was useless. Most situations are of this nature. She thought it would be quite nice if Mr. Neill would be shot or stabbed by some aggrieved citizen who believed in the individual’s right to choose, but didn’t feel strongly enough about him or his ilk to care either way. If all the world’s oppressors, public and private, were slain in a twinkling, their places would be filled in a few hours.
“If he’s boss, does he sort-of roam about with hench­men ?” enquired the romantic Lucy.
“Andra doesn’t live on the estate,” Juli said horrified, “got a neat little bungalow complex — well, bloody awful place actually — two miles out, you can see it from the bus, on the way to Crewe. Patio and swimming pool, though I doubt if he swims much. Must have cost about 400 K, probably double after the improvements.”
“Improvements ?”
Juli paused. “People like that have a lot of incidental expenses.”
“Oh.”
“On the other hand, I’m quite sure they allow enough to cover every little thing.” she added briskly. “And he’s certainly got cronies, but they roam about by themselves doing little errands. He sits back and awaits their return. Probably doing endless accounts. Which reminds me, buzz off and let me finish this rotten spread-sheet.” Regarding the screen with marked disfavour.
“So has he got a gang or not then ?”
Juli sighed. “More a collection of like-minded indivi­duals. They don’t go out on jobs all together. The jobs just happen to benefit him most of all. He doesn’t deal mano-a-mano with the thugs of Medellin; I daresay he’d describe himself as an entrepreneur. He’s got a gang when they go to a pub, if that’s enough: and chaps don’t throw up near him or nick his wallet. Mind you, I think he’s got a consigliare, Quent Bartholemew, as well, but he’s basically a dull little accountant rather than an Organiser of Victories. Talking of which… “
“OK, OK, I’m goin’.” But it was evident Lucy was in a slight quandary: “Can I pinch one of your tea-bags ? Run out self.”
“Sure. Oh, if I’m doing these calls, I can’t come out at the lunch break, Lucy. You go off and enjoy yourself.”
“OK, can I get you anythin’ ?”
“Na.”
The wait till lunchtime seemed to go slowly for Lucy, not that it was any of her business. Still, she was wondering what sort of mysterious calls Juli would make that Russell seemed loath to embark on himself. Since Juli did not possess any especial influence with anyone, it just appeared to be recognised that she had a knack for finding stuff out, and utilising it: apart from being persuasive with morons. Or that portion of the human race she decided were such. Definitely more than half, unfortunately.
The girl herself put the matter outside her mind until 12:30, when those around began their exodus, her staring at the slowcoaches. One or two noticed she was waiting, not noticibly patiently, and asked what was up.
She explained she had to make a few calls for the Association’s good. And why in the lunch-hour ? One’s a local businessman. Really ? scepti­­cally. When she mentioned Mr. Neill’s name they vanished. She glanced around, alone at last. She hadn’t even had to shoo Lucy away, disappointed as she was that Juli wouldn’t be coming along. Actually, Lucy had hung about until the others left, then disappeared herself.

Juli called. One to Andra. Both very courteous.
“Mr. Neill ? This is Miss Sanders from Killegway Housing Association.”
“Ah ken you fine. Doin’ well ?”
“Fine, better than the Tolands indeed. I daresay you may not know their house went up this morning.”
“Oh, Ah heard. Turrible business. But no-one hurt thank goad.”
“Aye.” Juli found as others that it was easy and tempting to slip into the idioms of those spoken to, without intending parody. “I hope their pets were OK, though.”
“I doubt if that bunch ever had a goldfish since the awld granda’s dawg passed away. But no, I think they had enough notice to get the important things oot.”
“Blessings be.”
“Eh ?”
“They will have to be rehoused as innocent victims of fortune. I’m wondering, would it be suitable anywhere on Robert Owen ? I don’t think they want to make a great trek anywhere.”
Silence. Then: “Sure, I guess so. I wasn’t thinkin’ masel’ they’d be goin’ far.”
“I expect they’ll regard it as one of life’s little learning lessons; and be as right as rain in a few months.”
“Mebbe.” he agreed understandingly.
“I want to be sure they won’t be as careless again.”
“Aye well, Ah’m quite sure o’ that. I promise.”
“I expect the police will be looking into the matter; but as far as we’re concerned, we’ll just be pursuing their insurance company if I can find the right documents, and they make no… untoward statements.”
He breathed very deeply.
“Ah’m a grateful man, ah care about the people on the estate.” Slightly uncertainly.
“Yes well, all I want is your advice, ken ? And they’d better be more careful.”
“Umm.”
“And that they’ll be polite to Mr. Pumpkiss when he comes to sort them out. And no more breaking into other tenant’s houses.”
“That seems fair. You know,” deploying the age-old get-out “I never like that sort of thing masel’”
“Yeah.” Politely accepting this exculpation, while not denying it’s validity, scarcely considering it a valid excuse for other modes of behaviour. “Anyway, I’m sure they’ll take your concern more seriously than they would mine or Mr. Pumpkiss’s. Let alone the cops.”
“Oh, the polis do a wonderful job considering.” A near rebuke, since Andra was a devout conservative, certainly as regarding his own property values.
“Considering they’re not B-Specials ?” meanly, as Andra was rumoured to have Orange connections.
There was a distinct silence; but undoubtedly fortunately Neill either decided high spirits were in order, or prudently felt it was not worth taking offence.
“Whatever. But I shall use my best endeavours to quieten things down on the estate, most certainly.”
“Well, thank you very much. I hope you and Mrs. Neill are both keeping well; I shall call you to mention where the Tolands will be offered a new house.”
“We are both well, thank you. Ah’ll take that as a kindness. I should reckon they’ll be needin’ a bigger hoose, ah was told a couple of the wimmin appeared to be expectin’” which was a genuine gift of generosity to those he so readily had injured.
Juli made a note: ‘Tolands in pod.’ “Goodness, I’ll remember that. Perhaps we should send one of those mobile Family Planning Units around the estate.”
“They’d probably eat anythin’ they gave out.”
“And the Family Planning Ladies too.” agreed Juli resignedly. There was a slight bleep on the line, and she wondered if he somehow had made or purchased a system for recording his mobile phone calls, not that she cared. “Well, goodbye. and be careful with the chip-pan won’t you ? Very easy things to forget, chips. I’ve had accidents myself.”
“I doubt that lassie.” and he chuckled not unkindly. “Goodbye, yoursel’.”

She smiled nicely to herself, a trifle unkindly. Then she picked up the phone again.
“Mrs. Fos ?”
“Yes.” with a timidity.
“This is Juli Sanders from the Association, I’ve had tea at your house a couple of times.”
“Oo’er ?”
It was evident that Mrs. Fos was quite hard of hearing, Juli had to speak up very intensely, which was another reason she had waited until the lunch-hour, Lucy didn’t have to be on an extension to hear at least one of the parties.
“Oh yes, dear, how are you ?”
“Very well, thanks. I’m calling about the Tolands, you’ll have heard… “
“Oh yes dear. Awful, but no creature hurt, I think. What awful things go on.”
“Awful things happen, particularly if Andra Neill’s anywhere about.”
“What, dear ?”
“Nuthin, tell me something, I’ve got to find another place to put them,”
“Back here ?” with horror.
“‘Fraid so. Personally I’d put them in Alaska, but there’s no real choice. They’ve always been there.”
“That’s not quite true, dear.” with the lust for instruction that overcomes everybody, “Me and my husband were among the first in 1953, when the estate was built; oh, it was such a nice place then,” she lamented, ‘I bet.’ thought Juli as sceptical as ever, “there weren’t none of these drugs about, and you could walk about on a summer night, and everyone was working. You should have seen it: when we moved in, it was like a dream come true after our old house, we didn’t have that nasty old landlord, he used to live right above us, such a tiny place it was, and so difficult to keep clean, he used to keep banging on the ceiling if the baby cried, that was Jackie, she was such a little love, very fat and bonny, but she would keep screaming, well, children will won’t they ?”
“Er… ”
“And George was so glad to have a garden, and when he came back from Korea, he was in the Air-Force, you know, I think I showed you his medals, he got a job immediately making machine-parts for lawn-mowers, that was before he went on and became foreman at Lewises, of course… ”
If she was unwittingly determined to make her auditor suffer just a little bit for bringing bad news, she succeeded. Juli never minded listening amiably, having found out early in life that it was one of the most important aspects of the absolute. And it happens even if you don’t like it. And also she had a fair interest in finding out. But one thing she could never get used to was rambling. That, and repetition, got on her nerves terribly. Hearing this over tea, sipped slowly if awful, on a friendly visit was one thing. She was always determined on the phone to get to the point as expeditiously as possible. After another four minutes she succeeded.
“Oh, the Tolandses, dear, well they came in 1957. Old Thom Toland wasn’t too bad, really. Very respectable old gentleman, worked on the railway all his life, and always wore a watch-chain in his waistcoat, don’t suppose you’ve ever seen one, have you, dear ? I can see him now, one of those frockcoats, which people didn’t wear much, even then, used to stroke his white moustache when he was talking to people, and he became a church-warden at St. Dominic’s. It was his son Ian who was a bad lot… ”
“Listen.” ruthlessly, “I’ve got to place them somewhere. I hope you can tell me all about them when I come over; but just now I want to ask you about which part of the estate will be most suitable.”
Mrs. Fos shut up immediately. Then she and Juli spoke more quietly and urgently Regarding the least desirable persons on the estate, with particular reference to dislike of animals, wife-beating, and dementia. Drug-taking, being commonplace, if one included draw; political vagaries; and car-theft, were not included in their consideration.
Every now and then massive waves of pale golden hair drifted down to tickle the desktop as Juli wrote a note down on her pad. Being of a neatly cast mind; and even if the information could not be utilised in this instance, it would be urgent material for persecution at some later date.
There were about 15 possibilities after a while, and as Mrs. Fos spoke Juli scanned an open map to get a feel for the ground.
“Geoff Makepiece, who turned his hose on the cat, was it a one-off, d’you think ?” she interrupted, with scrupulous fairness.
“Ooh no, dear. He’s often told Mrs. Tibbens that if she didn’t keep her Shelley out of his garden, he would strangle her.”
“Errm. Trouble is, don’t the people opposite have an autistic son ?”
“That’s right. Simon. I think perhaps not then, dear.”
“Karyn Potter chucked the hedgehog back, or her boyfriend ?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t make any difference, you said. Poor little thing.”
“Oh I know, but it’s nice to get it straight. If he’s living with her, I can set our legal lot on her for suspicion of taking rent.”
They cursorily glanced at each person once more, then Juli rang off, not before Mrs. Fos had exacted a promise to keep her word regarding coming over for tea again, within a week or so. It is probable that being consulted had improved her day, as since her husband died, time hung rather heavy.

Juli then made another, slightly more secretive phone-call to a sort of friend of her own age, a Jimmy Stanhope, who lived on the estate. Of studious habit, since he was on the dole, and had been since leaving school, he would have gladly prolonged the call, but the time was nearly up and the others would soon return, so she rang off apologetically. Then she began matching her jottings with a map of the estate, and a list of vacant properties, until she found a juncture that suited all things well. Tearing off a new sheet recklessly, pleased at having worked out a neat solution, she wrote down her conclusion and was gazing at it admiringly when the phone rang back. By two minutes, Andra had forestalled her.
“I was wondering lassie, how you got ma mobile number ? Ah’m no complainin’ mind, but it is meant to be off fra’ the listings.”
“Mr. Neill, just about to call you back myself.” Pleasedly. “Oh the mobile.” she thought a moment considering whom to nominate, “Well, I can’t be sure, and you won’t be saying I told you this ? Just between us ?”
“Aye. Don’ fash.”
“I think it was Ritchie Hartley who was kind enough to let me have it. The 19-yr-old, you know ? I happened to say I wanted to contact you over some rent arrears of your cousin, and he gave it out very generously; but that was ages ago, and the Association’s got your home-phone anyway. Well they would have.”
“Aye, they would.”
“Well.” she babbled on, “But he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I mean he let everyone have it. He’s very proud of being associated with… well you know what I mean.”
“Yes.” a bleak sough came rifting down the ether.
“Still, you won’t say I told you will you ? I don’t want to worry him.”
“No. But he shouldn’t have done it. Anyway Ah’m no blamin you. Anyway ye were sayin’ ?”
“Oh yes, Holland Road: there’s a vacant house. On one side a Mr. Open who joins in badger baiting with the Hartleys, of course the Tolands not being a major part of the Hartley fan-club, he may get some stick from them, but we needn’t worry about that.”
“Badger-baiting.” Even Neill had some ethics.
“Ouum, and on the other side there’s quite a respectable little family the Pakenhams, I would take it as a favour if you could indicate to the Tolands,” and getting a bit reckless, “before you next you give them a house-warming,” long pause “gift, that they might lay off the poor Pakenhams and not keep them awake at night. Their other new neighbour can take his chances.”
He broke out laughing, almost uncontrolled. “Ach aye. Ye’re a card, yung leddie. I’ll guarantee that. But this fella Open, badgers ye say ?”
“Um. Horribly cruel. But let’s hope he turns over a new leaf.”
“Aah well lassie, ah can tell you he may do an’ he may not. But one day he’ll regret sich cruelty. Ye see, ah always say whatever goes around comes around, Kharma you see.”
“Is that what you call it ?”
“Aye.” complacently as any Buddhist.
“Anyway there’s a lot of bad stuff on the estate if you like animals. I’ve just made a list of some offences, Open’s pretty nasty, but there are others.”
“Oh aye. Ah’m no an animal lover like you, but that stuff’s always unpleasant.” A pause. “I wouldn’t min’ seeing the list if you like.”
“Why certainly. I’ll send it along.”
“Ye can fax it now, sweetheart.” He read out the number “Since ye ha’ ma mobile.” dryly.
“OK, well see you about then.”
“Goodbye y’sel.” agreeably. And the matter had been concluded to mutual satisfaction; excepting Juli’s edited report for Jimmie and what records would be kept. Jimmie would certainly agree to any recommendation, even more because it swiftly disposed of an upsetting occurrence. What was good was that nothing had to be sold, since selling, as distinct from logical persuasion, wasn’t one of her skills.
Lucy considered Juli dangerously indiscreet regarding the mobile number. Even she, and she felt a little faint at talking to nasty people like these, would have had more sense than that. Couldn’t she have just said it happened to be in the address book ? Still, dismissing it from her mind, she was mainly concerned with how she could tag along to the next putative cup of tea at Mrs. Fos’s.

***

Later…

Just now her small friend had been divulging some of her family history and had proudly revealed Percy’s grandfather seemed to have been a Captain in the merchant marine; dad having said he ran a single ship from Cardiff, but not seeming to want to talk about it much. Juli had spluttered a little and said her coffee had gone the wrong way: brushing her soft pink skirt reflectively she had instantly vowed never to reveal that the venerable old sod would have been a bucket-shop promoter; Lucy seemed so romantic in her briny illusion, now staring out of the window thoughtfully. Later she thought it would probably be best, truth being the sweetest thing, and it not being that much worse than a regular job in the City. Juli’s musings on her putative gift were interrupted by Lucy enquiring how that clan-warfare thing worked out, were the Tolands homed now ?
“Like happy little felons in prison.” declared Juli, glad of the outcome. But Lucy spoilt it by casually asking if the person who flung a hedgehog on to a bonfire ( in this case rescued by another, who had kicked the thrower in the hip fortunately ) was still about the estate. Juli couldn’t recall mentioning any such thing to Lucy and a little fuzzy about what her new pal knew, cautiously told her that direct use of housing to punish was wicked as an abuse of power. Although it could be argued looking for a loop-hole to persecute someone for ill-treating either children or hedgehogs could be an infringement of that doctrine. No doubt what she meant was that depriving the wretch of their home, because one could, would be a step too far: making their lives more thoughtful was acceptable. Had the Tolands done in this instance, in her perview, something unforgivable, they might not have been so quickly rehoused. As it was, it was true, they were displaying their usual unquenchable thirst for living.
As to the Pakenhams, if they didn’t like their new neighbours, they gave no indication there was any cause for complaint, apart from noise, for which abatement the Council was responsible and sent around several vans for the monitoring thereof. The sound-levels created by the youngest offspring on seeing these kill-joys was enough in itself to warrant action. Unfortunately, as one of the Tolands remarked, music-centres may easily be confiscated: kids, although not replaceable within the hour, or any time less than ten months, cannot be. For the unfortunate Mr. Open, the few weeks before he was hit by a souped-up Ford were a living hell, and he was a frequent, and increasingly frantic, visitor to Hoggward House, where Juli always appeared to be the person who regretfully could not help. Which took the strain off her colleagues, as well as amusing her in her Teutonic-fun-sense; when he didn’t turn up for a few days running, they, very nearly most of them, felt almost concerned, as well as relieved: but he had something else to think about. Although, as Juli remarked to them all, not to any apparent disagreement, it was almost worth being in a hospital bed with a broken spleen and 3/4 limbs amending, if a Toland wasn’t in the next couch.

Juli posted a card with a drawing of a Badger sweeping her set, over-dressed in a pinnie and pearl necklace, to Mr. Open for when he regained consciousness. As she said, despite the fact she neither appended her nor the Association’s identity, beforehand kindly showing it to Jimmie, who did not, since she confided things on a need to know basis, get the joke, how would a Badger afford pearls ? And later on she determined a paperback copy of ‘The Cold Moons’ might cheer him up when able to sit up and realise the Hospital reading stock in Britain is never up to much. Following the truest of all injunctions, this charity too would claim no credit at all.

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