Ann was sleeping with her head pillowed on Kenyon's knee; Gregory sat, hunched between his escort, with Rudd beside him, their backs against the fore part of the wagon. The wretched Major sank down beside Kenyon.
'Veronica's crazy!' he snapped, as the lorry started off again.
'Always was,' replied Kenyon lightly.
'First of all she tells me she's picked up a husband, and then she wants me to let this blackguard escape who tried to march off with the troops.'
'Tried?' Kenyon's voice was cold. 'Did, you mean, and he's a damn' fine sportsman. I'd rather serve under him than any of you hidebound professional warriors any day when there's real trouble about.'
'Oh, shut up! I know my job as well as most people.'
For a time they fell silent. The lorry rattled and clanged through the narrow lanes to the west of Colchester, Hay Symple having decided that it would be quicker to avoid the towns. The driver was getting every ounce out of his engine, and there was little danger that they would run into other vehicles as these were still almost non existent.
'What was it really like in London?' Kenyon asked after a while.
'Bloody!' replied the soldier tersely 'absolutely bloody! but the troops put up a first class performance.'
'What really happened?'
'God knows! I don't. Each of us only saw our own little bit of it, and personally, I thought the whole lot of us were for the high jump a week ago; but H.R.H. has been quite marvellous. It seems he had the whole party taped before it even started.'
'It's wonderful the hold he has on the affections of the people.'
'Well, he's earned it.'
'He has, but what's going to happen now?'
'Ask me another. All sorts of rumours are flying about; the banks are to be taken over by the state they say, and anybody who can prove their bona fides will be able to get loans, to develop property or business, on fantastically easy terms.'
Kenyon grunted. 'That sounds all right, but what about private overdrafts? My people have always treated me damn well but I bet I'd never get a penny from the state without security when I'm hard up!'
'That's true, anyhow, it's only a rumour, and another is that the great Industrialists have sunk their differences and are to pool the interests of their own trades in the future, rather like the old City Guilds did centuries ago I gather, each bunch to supervise and foster their interests for the common good. There is one bit of good news I'm pretty certain about though, I had it from a chap who is on the Prince's staff; He means to kill D.O.R.A. as dead as mutton, and the liberty of the individual is to be restored. Even our seaside places may be worth a visit in a year or two, and the tax is to be taken slap off beer!'
'Yo Ho for Merrie England!' Kenyon laughed. 'Come on Alistair, tell me more.'
'The whisky duty is to be reduced as well, and gin to somewhere about the old standard. They say it will bring in a far greater revenue and support home industries to boot. Overboard with all these fool restrictions, Empire Free Trade at last, and protection of the things we make ourselves, seems to be the line of country they mean to take.'
'And Government by Mandarins,' added Kenyon.
'Yea, like China, but the devil of it is they're so apt to be corrupt.'
'You won't find that here, and it's the finest form of Government in the world when they are straight.'
For another hour they discussed rumours and possibilities while the lorry bumped and jolted its way towards London. Here and there figures stepped out into the road, begging a, lift and food or, if they had heard the news of the re-established Government, giving a cheer at the sight of the soldiers. Abandoned cars, tradesmen's vans, and every sort of conveyance littered the sides of the roads as they drew nearer to the capital.
Silas, on the box beside Veronica, was holding her hand in his, almost oblivious of the journey as he told her of his favourite home in Georgia, and his orange grove spread among the lakes and lagoons on the Florida coast above Miami.
At last they entered the Southend by pass, and a few miles further on came to Camden Town; here they met the first crowds. In type they were the same mixed multitude who would have kicked them to death a month ago, but now their whole bearing was absolutely different. Laughing and waving to the Tommies, they made way for the lorry with ready cheerfulness.
'Ever been to the Zoo, darling?' Veronica asked as they passed the North End of Regent's Park, 'if not I'll take you one day.'
'I've been,' he smiled, 'and it's a poor show to what I'll take you to see in Central Park.'
'That's quite enough from you, my boy. You've got to learn from now on that England has the largest and best of everything, and also that little something that others haven't got!'
'I'll bet they haven't got the largest Zoo,' grinned Silas; can you hear any little lions a roaring now, or the dog faced apes chattering on Monkey Hill?'
'Now you speak of it I can't,' she confessed.
'Of course you can't, honey they've all been eaten long ago!'
'Silas you idiot, of course you're right, but if you call me honey again I'll eat you get that? eat you alive!'
'Eat on, honey,' he squeezed her hand. 'It would be a marvellous death.'
At the top of Baker Street they met a long column of sailors.
People were lining the pavements eight and ten deep to watch them pass, and the naval men seemed to be the heroes of the hour; but as they advanced they realised how terribly the upheaval had stricken London. Smashed shop windows, now temporarily boarded over, showed on every side. On one corner of Portman Square a whole great block of flats had been burnt right out, and only the twisted girders showed clear against the sky. The streets were dark and strangely mysterious, not a single standard threw its arc of brightness in the dim half light of the summer night. Only the principal cross roads boasted flares relics of an orderly London when special precautions were taken against fog.
Selfridges’s windows lay gutted and empty, but a small army of men were already clearing away the wreckage preparatory to refitting at the earliest possible moment. In Oxford Street a vast crowd overflowed the pavements and spread across the roadway. The traffic was still practically nil only an occasional car carrying a Government official on urgent business or a line of vehicles loaded with sailors, police, Greyshirts or troops, crawled through the crowds who made way for them with cheerful badinage.
On the west side of Grosvenor Square Hay Symple halted the lorry and, getting down, walked round to Veronica. 'Want to get down?' he inquired, but she shook her head.
'No, ducky; I want to see the fireworks so you may as well take us with you. Half a minute Silas and I will come in the back now, then we shall all be together.' Her rancour at the guardsman's determination that Gregory should pay the penalty of his exploits had subsided. Old friend as, he was, she realised now that it would have been easier for him to cut his throat than to grant her request.
Ann had woken up, and smiled with some of her old merriment as Silas lifted Veronica bodily over the side. 'Do you remember the dinner we cooked in the kitchen?' she laughed, nodding her head towards the east side of the square as the lorry moved on again.
'The night you slid down the drainpipe? Do I not, my dear! We'll all go back and cook another in an hour or two.'
'If there's anything left to cook,' laughed Kenyon.
'Oh, we'll find something but darlings, I'd forgotten.'
'Forgotten what?'
'Why, it's Ann's job to say if she'll have us now I'
'What the deuce do you mean?' Hay Symple cast a curious glance at Ann, whom up to that moment he had hardly noticed.
'Let me present you, Alistair, to my lovely sister in law Major Hay Symple Lady Fane.'