Our Man in Camelot Read online

  The wife looked uncertainly at her husband, then at her daughter. The child was hanging out of the car window staring round-eyed at Shirley. As well she might, thought Mosby: Ozymandias himself had nothing on Shirley, with the sculptor not born who could read those passions and the ice-cold heart that fed them.

  Mosby grabbed the moment of uncertainty. “We surely can—nothing easier. It’ud be a pleasure.” He swung towards the man. “Besides, if I know anything about the local garage they’re not going to have anyone to send down here straightaway, it’ll be more like tomorrow morning. And you sure as hell don’t have to worry about leaving the car down here, because no one’s going to drive it away.”

  “Well…” The man paused diffidently “… it’s most awfully kind of you—“

  “—it really is,” echoed the wife gratefully. “I don’t know what we should have done.”

  “Not at all. There’s plenty of room, and like my wife says, it’s right there on our way. No trouble at all.” The fish was hooked: now was the moment to make sure it didn’t escape. He grinned at them both, playing out his assigned role to the last syllable. “Come to that, I reckon you’d be doing us a good turn. We haven’t said a word to anyone since we’ve been down here but ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ and we’re beginning to feel kind of cut off from society.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!” exclaimed Shirley. “It’s been almost as bad as when we got stuck in that village in the middle of nowhere in Spain, and there wasn’t one single breathing person who spoke one word of English. I got so tired of my single Spanish phrase—Hay alguien que hable ingles?—and the answer was always No, which is the same in Spanish as it is in English. Muchas gracias and adios, that’s how I felt.”

  Mosby gave the man a meaningful look, almost a pleading one, and received a guarded flicker of sympathy in return. So Harry’s psychology had been right on the button: the moment of gratitude was also the most vulnerable one. Remember what the Good Samaritan probably said to the guy as he rolled on the bandages: “Going down to Jericho, eh? Say, maybe you could give me an introduction to the Chamber of Commerce there?”

  “I’m afraid we do tend to be rather stand-offish as a people,” admitted the wife apologetically, in an attempt to fill the awkward silence. “It’s a national defect, you know.”

  “I think the language has a lot to answer for,” Mosby grinned at her. “I’ll never forget Shirley’s face when the milkman said he was going to knock her up on Sunday morning. And all he wanted to do was settle the week’s bill, but she thought—“

  “That’ll do, honey,” Shirley cut in quickly, frowning at him. “I’m sure these good people would rather be on their way home than hear about how I pay the milkman—“

  Mosby caught the Englishman’s eye again, saw that the double-entendre had registered, and burst out laughing, “Oh, God, honey—how you pay the milkman—!”

  Shirley sighed helplessly as she turned back to the English couple. “You have to forgive my husband… There are times when he’s just not fit for decent company.”

  This time the Englishwoman laughed. “I have just the same trouble with my husband. It’s the nature of the male animal—‘Slugs and snails and—‘ “

  “‘Puppy-dogs’ tails’”, supplemented her daughter. “ ‘That’s what boys is made of.’”

  That’s right!” Shirley’s good humour returned with the discovery of well-informed allies. “And you are made of sugar and spice and all things nice, I can see that right away. And what’s your name, honey?”

  “Cathy.” The little girl extended a small, dirty hand.

  “Cathy. Why, that’s a lovely name—aren’t you lucky!” Shirley shook the hand formally before turning again to the mother. “And I’m Shirley—Shirley Sheldon. And this is my husband, Mose.”

  “Mosby,” corrected Mosby quickly, bitter for the ten millionth time that he had never been able to escape that hideous diminutive.

  “Mosby,” echoed Shirley, flashing him a malicious smile. “Mosby Singleton Sheldon the Third—he doesn’t like anyone to get the idea that ‘Mose’ is short for ‘Moses’ but he still answers to it if I smile nicely.”

  The Englishwoman smiled. “Well, I’m Faith Audley, and this is my husband David.”

  “Hi, David,” said Shirley.

  “Hullo.” Audley nodded to Mosby. “It’s very kind of you to come to our rescue, Mr Sheldon.”

  Smiles all round, ice broken, small talk in the afternoon sunshine: Hi, David—call me Shirley… Hi, Faith—call me Mosby.

  Meet your friendly neighbours from the CIA.

  They rode in silence for a few moments, while Mosby manoeuvred the big car round the worst of the pot-holes to reach the beginning of the track. But silence was okay at this point; the hook was well and truly fixed, only the fish was a big one and needed careful handling still or it might break the line and get clear away. This was the time to let a sense of obligation and good manners combine to override that self-confessed national defect and force one of them to make the running.

  “Mosby?” Naturally it was Faith who spoke first. “That’s an unusual Christian name—obviously a family name.”

  “Yes, ma’am. At least, it’s become one.”

  Shirley gave a short laugh, half derisive and half affectionate. “Actually it’s a piece of genuine American history. But you’ll never have heard of the original Mosby, I’ll bet.”

  She was good, she was real good, thought Mosby with admiration. Good and quick to turn an opportunity into an opening the subject would find irresistible. Even that last ‘I’ll bet’ was a shrewd piece of psychology aimed at the target.

  “American history?” The challenge roused Audley.

  “Uh-huh, American history,” she led him on lightly.

  “Mosby… Mosby…” Audley repeated the name, frowning. “I seem to remember there was a Mosby—in fact a John S. Mosby. If that ‘S’ stood for ‘Singleton’ that would be the one, I take it?”

  “Why, you’re absolutely right!” Shirley clapped her hands in admiration. “Well, fancy your having heard of him. Isn’t that something, Mose? You’re famous even over here.”

  Faith Audley turned towards her husband. “And who was John Mosby, darling?”

  “Colonel John S. Mosby.” Audley looked at Mosby with obvious interest. “American Civil War. He was a celebrated Confederate guerrilla leader. Played merry hell with General Grant’s lines of communication. That right, Mr Sheldon?”

  Mosby grimaced. “Well, not a guerrilla leader—that’s damn Yankee propaganda. He was a regular horse soldier, 1st Virginia Cavalry, and then a scout to old Jeb Stuart himself. And what the Yankees called guerrillas were Mosby’s Rangers— 43rd Battalion of the Virginia Cavalry.”

  “I do beg your pardon.” Audley’s eyes lit with pleasure. “And the 43rd’s pardon too.”

  “Aw, honey, they were guerrillas,” exclaimed Shirley, coming to Audley’s rescue. “Why, the Yankees even hanged some of them. And they put a price on Mosby’s head too—what was it, $5,000?” She grinned at Audley. “So he wasn’t all that expensive.”

  “Honey, five thousand bucks was good money in those days,” Mosby disagreed. “Come to that, I could use five thousand bucks now… But that doesn’t make him a guerrilla, anyway—it’s like David said: he played hell with Yankee communications. Burnt their bridges, blew up their trains, grabbed their payrolls—“

  “Huh!” Shirley goaded him, entering the spirit of the game with more than a suggestion of sincerity.

  “—which he sent back to Richmond, every last dollar accounted for,” Mosby overrode her scorn. “And no one ever collected on him either, I can tell you. Not one dollar.”

  “And he was your ancestor?” Faith Audley inquired quickly, as though trying to nip a new historical-marital discord in the bud.

  “Well, not exactly. My great-grandfather rode with him, and later on he married a Singleton from Virginia. So he called his son Mosby Singleton in their hono
ur. And after that it got to be a habit.”

  Faith nodded. “And you’re the third. How fascinating—don’t you think so, David?”

  “I do. The Confederacy produced some remarkable cavalry commanders. J. E. B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest were in the Murat class. And there was Morgan and the Lees, and Wade Hampton and Joe Wheeler.” He bowed towards Mosby.

  “And John Singleton Mosby, of course.”

  Shirley gave him her most dazzling Scarlett O’Hara smile. “Well, I sure have lost my bet, and that’s a fact. I can see you’re a real expert, David—and I can see your heart’s in the right place too.”

  “With the South, you mean?” Audley took the implied question seriously, ignoring the charm. “I wouldn’t say my heart was involved on either side, to be honest. But it was an extremely interesting war certainly.”

  “You mean you don’t have sympathy for Dixie? But I thought Britishers always favoured the underdog, no matter what.”

  Audley looked at her over his spectacles, aware at last that he was being gently needled. Then he smiled slowly. “Madam, anyone who had to contend with generals like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, not to mention Stuart and Forrest— and with someone like John S. Mosby at his back—cannot have felt very much like an overdog. My sympathies are distributed evenly, if not my admiration.”

  They were both playing parts now.

  “But you just have to admit the South was more romantic. Everybody admits that, even the Yankees do now.”

  Audley considered the proposition gravely. “Ye-ess. I’ll give you romantic. Wrong, but romantic—and the North was right, but repulsive… It’s just like our own civil war, Mrs Sheldon. The Cavaliers were romantic and the Parliamentarians were right. Our Prince Rupert would have made an absolutely splendid Confederate. And if Oliver Cromwell would have disapproved of Grant’s drinking habits he would certainly have respected Abraham Lincoln, no doubt about it… Though if he resembles anyone in your war—Cromwell, that is—I rather think it would be Stonewall Jackson.” He pursed his lips and nodded at Shirley.

  “Gee!” Shirley breathed out admiringly, allowing her mouth to drop open rather as the child’s had done earlier. “Now I know why I lost my bet. You’ve just got to be a professor of history. I’ll bet that instead.”

  Audley smiled his slow smile again, obviously rather taken with her despite himself.

  “What are you betting?”

  “David!” Faith Audley chided him. “You—“

  “I’ll bet—“ Shirley overrode the warning heatedly. “I’ll bet drinks and dinner at our house tonight against drinks and dinner at your house. That’s what I’ll bet.”

  “David,” Faith repeated urgently. “You are the limit, really.” She turned to Shirley helplessly. “He isn’t a professor of history, Mrs Sheldon.”

  “He isn’t?” Shirley laughed happily, obviously in no way put out by losing her bet again.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs Sheldon,” said Audley.

  “Shirley’s the name, please—and you don’t disappoint me at all. You interest me. You know all about John S. Mosby—and Oliver Cromwell—but you’re not a professor… and you sure don’t look like a schoolteacher.”

  “I don’t?” Audley’s eye flickered. “And what does a schoolteacher look like?”

  “Kind of mild, at least deep down. You don’t look mild.”

  True, thought Mosby. It was like being on the foothills of a mountain range: things still grew and blossomed there, but you only had to scrape away the thin covering of soil to reach the same hard rock as that which towered into the clouds ahead. There was a line there where civilisation and savagery overlapped, a no-man’s-land. And that, for all his fine culture, was this man’s land.

  “Indeed?” Audley’s amusement was evident. “Then what do I look like?”

  “A professional confidence trickster,” said Faith drily, “who is this time not going to be allowed to escape with his ill-gotten gains. If anyone’s dining with anyone tonight, then you must both come to us.”

  Mission accomplished.

  “Shucks, no!” Shirley protested. “I lost.”

  “Not at all,” replied Faith firmly. “My husband isn’t a history professor. As a matter of fact, he works for the Government. But he is a historian too.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

  “And you weren’t going to say you were.” She shook her head in despair at Shirley. “We’re actually down here so that he can put the finishing touches to a book.”

  “A book?” Shirley echoed the words reverently. “A history book?”

  She was out-running the script, but with things going so well it was the right thing to do.

  Audley grunted modestly.

  “On Oliver Cromwell, maybe?”

  “No. Someone a bit earlier.”

  “Who would that be—if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Not at all. I’m writing a biography of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. But I don’t expect you’ve ever heard of him.”

  “I’m afraid not. I guess he was before Sir Walter Raleigh and John Smith founded Virginia, huh?”

  Mosby recognised his feed-line and acknowledged it with a snort of derision. The corner where the road to St Veryan’s branched to the left was just ahead now, so he had just enough time to whet Audley’s appetite.

  “Some, honey, some. Four hundred years, give or take a few.” He glanced sidelong over his shoulder at Audley. “Right?”

  There was a moment’s pause, during which Audley was no doubt wondering whether he’d hit the button by guess or by God.

  “That’s right,” said Audley, with the merest touch of surprise in his voice.

  “ ‘The best knight that ever was’,” quoted Mosby. “It was Archbishop Langton who said that, wasn’t it?”

  The pause was a fraction longer this time, while Audley tried for the first time to place Mosby in anything narrower than the ‘Tourist, male, American’ classification. And with reason, because the odds against casually meeting an American familiar with twelfth-century William Marshall were about as long as those against meeting an Englishman who’d ever heard of John Singleton Mosby.

  “That’s right, it was Langton.” Audley controlled his third-degree surprise well. “Are you a mediaevalist, then?”

  “Heck—no. But I was reading about him just a few days ago… Well, actually I was reading up Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter—and Chretien de Troyes…” He trailed off.

  “Chretien—?” Audley had difficulty in keeping the disbelief out of his voice. “And you’re not a mediaevalist?”

  Mosby was relieved to see the thatch of the old cottage just ahead. The narrow English country roads, meandering between high banks, required just too much concentration for comfort.

  “Far from it.” He laughed.

  “Say—“ Shirley leant forward excitedly “—is this William Marshall one of your Round Table guys?”

  “It was Wace added the Round Table, honey—I told you,” he replied patiently. “Chretien de Troyes added Lancelot. But I guess William Marshall could have doubled for Lancelot okay any time.”

  He braked to a standstill under a roaring jungle of honeysuckle alongside the cottage. Sandcastles and honeysuckle and thatched cottages; Confederate colonels and mediaeval heroes—and now even Sir Lancelot du Lac himself.

  For a moment he saw Mosby and Lancelot galloping down the runway at Wodden, plumes flying in the wind, Navy Colt and lance against the SRAMs of General Ellsworth’s F-llls. And if that was mind-boggling it was hardly more so than some of his recent reading; if the Agency accountants ever studied the slush fund in detail they might have difficulty swallowing Gilda’s De Excidio Britanniae and the Venerable Bede’s History of the English Church and People.

  Faith Audley shook the sleeping child in her arms gently. “Come on, sleepy head—wake up.” She smiled at Mosby. “No problem about bedtime this evening… I’m sorry Mr Sheldon—“
/>   “Mosby. It may sound odd, but it’s easy to remember.”

  “Mosby—I don’t think it’s odd. My husband’s second Christian name is Longsdon, anyway—“ Good manners struggled with her desire to break up the conversation and get the tired child out of the car. “But I’m beginning to lose track of the conversation. You’re not a historian—?”

  “No,” cut in Audley decisively. “An Arthurian.”

  The change in inflexion was small, almost unnoticeable. But it was there and it was significant, Mosby sensed instantly. And it reminded him of something which momentarily eluded him: with most Britishers you had to multiply any sign of emotion by ten to get the real message, even among friends. Among strangers the factor was considerably higher, so that minute distinction could mean—

  He had it.

  Scorn, contempt and disdain—in an American that Arthurian would have been a sneer of unconcealed derision: to Audley Arthurians were flat-earthers, UFO watchers, Bible Belt ignoramuses, kooks and weirdos of no account.

  “Tintagel,” said Audley coolly. “That’s why you’re here— to see Tintagel.”

  Yes, that had to be it, thought Mosby, remembering Tintagel’s clear dedication to the separation of money from the crowds of perspiring tourists who had come to pay homage to King Arthur—but a King Arthur who obviously owed more to Walt Disney and Camelot than to history.

  “Gee, how did you guess?” For once Shirley had missed the warning signs, but Mosby could see a Grand Canyon opening up between them. In another moment Audley would be remembering a previous engagement for tonight, and all their good work would have gone down for nothing.

  “Tintagel—yuk!” He flogged his brain to separate the legends from the facts. The trouble was that in forty-eight hours of concentrated study he had encountered damn few facts, far too few with which to cross swords with an expert.

  “I didn’t dig Tintagel too much,” he observed cautiously, playing for time.

  “Too many tea shops and souvenirs?” Faith nodded under-standingly. “David positively refuses to go there. But then he doesn’t believe in King Arthur anyway, do you darling?”