The Speedicut Papers Book 8 (1895-1900) by Christopher Joll

Author:Christopher Joll [Joll, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781524682057
Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
Published: 2017-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: DISHING THE DERVISHES

This latest duty for Queen, Country and the Brotherhood, did at least get off to rather a good start. For the umpteenth time in my life I found myself at Brindisi waiting for two days, with Fahran, for the Royal Navy steam sloop that was whisk us to Alexandria from where we were to take Kitchener’s new railway all the way to the front. How times had changed since I’d first set foot in the land of the Pharaohs all those years ago: the Canal, the railway… but I digress.

Instead, I need to record an encounter I had with a certain Mrs Holland, who was the sole adornment of the run-down Pensione Putana where we were staying at the Admiralty’s (scant) expense. She and her great oaf of husband, a City stockjobber called Lionel, were on the last leg of their Italian honeymoon prior to embarking on a steamer to take them home via Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay.

The Hollands and I (plus Fahran, of course) were the only English people in the run-down hotel so, in the way that one does, we rather fell into each other’s company. I’d met them in the hall on my arrival – they were trundling off to look at churches - but Mrs Holland, a tiny woman with large eyes, a throaty voice and a ‘come hither’ look, was seated in the saloon on her own when, on the first night, I came down for a pre-dinner glass of the local infuriator: the hotel didn’t run to fizz, which gives a good indication of the dump in which I’d been lodged by the parsimonious Lords of the Admiralty. From the bored expression on her pretty phiz, the religious sites – and probably the honeymoon - appeared to have disappointed her.

“Good evenin’, Mrs Holland. How did you find the Roman Church and the Cathedral?”

“Oh,” she said, “if I have to see one more Adoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary I will scream – and my knees ache from an excess of genuflecting.”

“That bad, eh?”

“Not bad, Colonel: awful. We’ve been in Italy for a month now and all I’ve seen are churches: Milan, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples and now here. Churches, churches, churches! And I was so looking forward to browsing in the Italian shops. Why don’t you join me? Lionel won’t be down for ages.”

“My sympathies, ma’am – about the churches, I mean,” I said as I lowered myself into an armchair opposite her. “Personally, I find that church visits should be restricted to weddin’s, baptisms and funerals. M’wife, on the other hand, has her own chapel in the house.”

“Good heavens why, Colonel?”

“Some years ago she succumbed to the teachin’s of the Russian Church.”

“How very unorthodox of her.”

“That’s a fair understatement with which her family would agree: they’re all staunch Protestants despite bein’ descended from Charles II and one of his Frog mistresses. She, of course, must have been a Left Footer - and I think the Merry Monarch converted on his death bed.

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