Au Reservoir by Guy Fraser-Sampson

Author:Guy Fraser-Sampson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909653559
Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

Chapter 14

Major Mapp-Flint arrived home in poor humour, having had a long walk in each direction to no good purpose. Having rung for a restorative pot of tea, he bellowed at directory enquiries for a while until they found the number for Hughes’s Motorworks in Hastings. This process took longer than it should have done as the operator proved unfamiliar with the Major’s standard greeting of ‘Quai-Hai!’, took it to be a Chinese restaurant and asked him to spell it. The Major’s subsequent explanations grew so increasingly irritated that the operator soon pretended there was a fault on the line, and rang off.

He was fortunate that the next time he called, a different operator answered, and by avoiding Hindustani entirely he managed to make himself tolerably well understood. Having dialled the number he was given, he asked for old Mr Hughes.

Unfortunately it turned out that old Mr Hughes was now young Mr Hughes, who seemed to have little idea of the proper respect due to a former officer of the King’s former Indian Army. While happy to accommodate the Major’s request, he stoutly refused to accept the booking without receipt of a ten shilling deposit.

Fuming, the Major sat down and penned a brief note confirming the arrangements (2 p.m. on Saturday at the gun platform), took a lengthy slurp of tea which was really still too hot to drink, jammed his cap back on his head and set off once more.

Arriving in Tilling about half an hour later, he queued at the post office for a stamp for his letter and a ten shilling postal order. Having placed the latter in the envelope, he sealed it, licked the stamp and stuck it on, and deposited it in the letter box. Having done so, he looked around himself with the air of a man who is pleased with a job well done. His gaze chancing upon the King’s Arms, he entered the lounge bar and ordered a large whisky and soda. Since this seemed to disappear with some rapidity, he ordered another.

Some time later he stood up, wiped his moustache and proceeded to Twemlow’s. Approaching the counter, he took from his pocket the postcard with the announcement written upon it and the requisite threepenny bit for one week’s display. The young lady behind the counter glanced at it, as she had been instructed to do by Mr Twemlow, to check that it contained nothing unseemly. There had been an embarrassing incident a year or so earlier when a lady had succeeded in slipping a card offering French lessons past his defences. Fortunately the lady in question had turned out to be a retired governess from Frinton-on-Sea, and a stream of gentleman callers had left her cottage linguistically enhanced, but otherwise uninspired.

A frown creased the youthful face of the shop girl.

‘Surely there must be some mistake, sir?’ she enquired.

‘I don’t think so,’ the Major replied, taking back the card to scan it. ‘No, it’s all in order.’

‘But haven’t you seen the card

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