Unholy Crusade Read online

  On the Sunday they held hands in the pictures, and had a meal in a café, where Adam stared gooey-eyed at his beloved across the table, hardly able to believe in his good fortune. Then they went out to the park and found a secluded spot sheltered by bushes and, when darkness fell, again made hectic love.

  But when it came to arranging their next meeting, Adam was grievously disappointed. It suddenly emerged that Polly was a member of a large and united family; and that it had been a long-established custom for her to spend two or three evenings a week with aunts, uncles and numerous cousins. Still more surprising, he learned that she was a much cleverer and more earnest girl than he had had reason to suppose. The desire to improve herself had led her to attend courses at evening school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and, after each session, she had to put in two hours or more in private study and writing up her notes, otherwise she could not hope to pass her exams.

  In consequence, he had to wait impatiently until, at last, Saturday came again. They left the N.A.A.F.I. during the supper interval, Polly having assured Adam that her father was an early-to-bed man and would be snoring by ten o’clock. When they reached the backyard garden she pointed to a window on the first floor and said:

  ‘That’s my room. We’ll be much more comfy there. I’m going in by the door and up the stairs; but, deaf as he is, if he’s not yet dropped off he just might hear your heavy tread.’ She then pointed to a folding ladder that was leaning against the side of the shed, and added, ‘If you go up that, you can easily reach my window from the roof of the shed. Soon as I get upstairs, I’ll open it and you can climb in.’

  His heart beating like a hammer, Adam followed her directions. As soon as he was in her room she pulled down the blind, switched on the light and began to undress. She had few clothes on and within a matter of minutes stood before him naked and smiling. It was the first time he had seen a girl in the nude and the sight took his breath away. With trembling hands he ripped off his own clothes and half carricd, half flung her on the bed. They were both healthy, strong and twenty-two years old. Neither of them seemed capable of exhausting the other and, until the small hours, between intervals to whisper endearments, stroke one another, entwine and kiss, they hit the high-spots of ecstasy.

  Apart from the terrible frustration Adam felt at being able to revel with his divinity in her bed so seldom, their affaire continued happily for six weeks. Now and then she let him give her a meal between her evening classes and returning home to study, and on Sundays they could spend from midday until six o’clock together; but after that there was always a family party that he could not persuade her to give up, so it was only on Saturdays that, on returning early from the N.A.A.F.I. dances, he was able to mount the ladder that led to his especial Paradise.

  That she had had other lovers in the past did not unduly trouble him. He had learned from her, much to his surprise, that in these ‘enlightened’ times most girls took it for granted that they were just as much entitled to have fun as were men, and that if one came upon a girl who was eighteen and still a virgin there must be something wrong with her.

  The main ingredient of the spell that Polly cast upon him was her splendidly healthy young body and unfailing willingness to let him assuage his desire upon it. To intelligent conversation she could contribute next to nothing, but she was never cross, difficult or demanding; on the contrary she was placid by nature, warm-hearted, kind and generous, so that he was always happy in her company. He failed to comprehend that she was in fact ignorant, shallow and showed little evidence of the courses she was taking. Indeed, he thought of her as an angel in female form, worthy of worship for the happiness she had brought him.

  His belated introduction to the joys of sexual love so obsessed him that he began to count the hours until Saturdays came round. Then a Saturday came when he was on the roster for duty. A few days before it, he pleaded with her to get out of her Sunday party; but in vain. It happened to coincide with her ‘Auntie Flo’s’ birthday party, so she could not possibly not be with them for that.

  The thought of a whole fortnight having to elapse between his being able to clasp her yielding body in his arms was so devastating that, by Monday morning, exasperation had driven him to decide to pay her a visit that night; and to hell with her being too tired to make love after her evening class and work on her books.

  Impatiently, he waited until well after ten o’clock then made his way to the yard-garden behind Polly’s home. There was no light from her window, so he rather hoped that she was already asleep. Then, if he crept in, he could give her a lovely surprise by waking her with a kiss. The folding ladder was in its usual place; a minute later he was on the roof of the shed. It was a warm, still night. Her window was open and with one easy heave of his strong arms he pulled himself up, got a leg over the sill and, turning sideways, slid inside.

  ‘Who’s that?’ came Polly’s startled voice from the direction of the bed.

  ‘It’s me, Adam,’ he replied in a whisper.

  ‘Then, Adam, whoever-you-are, get the hell out of here,’ a gruff voice said, and, next moment, the bedside light was switched on. It revealed Polly, her eyes wide, her mouth agape, sitting up in bed and, beside her, a hairy-chested Petty Officer whose name Adam knew to be Grimes.

  ‘So it’s you, Viking,’ Grimes said quite amiably. ‘Sorry about your disappointment, but you’ve got your dates wrong. Pretty Polly here always has a queue and I booked her for tonight a fortnight since.’

  ‘I …’ Adam stammered. ‘I didn’t know. I thought she was my girl. I … I love her.’

  Grimes grinned. ‘So she led you up the garden path, eh? I get it. You’re her fancy boy and have your fun for free. Well, you’ve been darned lucky. To the rest of us she’s “Polly up the ladder and two pounds a go”.’

  Polly gave a whimper, covered her face with her hands and, collapsing, buried it in the pillow.

  For a moment Adam’s temper boiled. He was seized with the impulse to grab Grimes by the neck, haul him out of bed and throw him naked out of the window. But the facts were all too terribly clear. Grimes was not to blame for being in Polly’s bed and she made no attempt to deny that she was a whore. In that bed, where he had experienced such unalloyed delight, taking advantage of her father’s deafness, night after night she gave herself to a succession of different men for money. Stifling a sob he turned away, stumbled to the window, got through it, reached the yard and, half blinded by tears, staggered out into the alleyway. Twice unforeseen circumstances had robbed him of his prospects of advancement and now this new world of love had collapsed about his ears.

  Adam went no more to the Saturday dances and shunned his friends, suspecting that any or all of them were Polly’s ‘customers’. For a while his heartache was such that he could settle to nothing and was tortured nightly by visions of his ex-divinity doing with other sailors the things she had done with him: tall, short, young or horny-handed and hairy-chested like Petty Officer Grimes.

  After a fortnight of this misanthropic existence he decided that he must either pull out of it or go mad; so he decided to divert his mind by writing a novel. Once he had forced himself to settle to this new occupation, he found it came easily. Soon he was immersed in his story and spent every free moment in the N.A.A.F.I. library, covering sheet after sheet of paper. The book was about the adventures of a Sea King whom he called Ord the Red-handed, and the knowledge he had acquired through his dreams and the books he had read enabled him to describe the life of those days with uncanny verisimilitude. With feverish absorption he wrote one hundred thousand words in eleven weeks and his finishing the book coincided, within a few days, with his release from National Service.

  Out of his meagre savings he paid for the manuscript to be typed, then sent it to a publisher who, from the advertisements in the Sunday Times, he judged to be the most likely to accept it. But he was now jobless and had, somehow, to support himself.

  Now that he had his B.A., he had little doubt that his f
riends at Marlborough would be able to secure him a post as a master at a good private school; but he had never much fancied the idea of becoming a teacher and the more practice he could get at writing in any form the better for his ambitions as an author; so he made the rounds of the Portsmouth papers seeking an opening as a reporter.

  The result was like a douche of cold water. Overworked and cynical editors told him that reporters were not just taken on because they had been members of the Literary Society of a snob public school; they had to graduate as copy-boys who mixed the paste and ran errands for all and sundry, on a pay-chit that would not keep a grown man in cigarettes and drink.

  His head bloody but unbowed, Adam put his wits to work and his scruples aside. He telephoned an old friend of his, Mrs. Burroughs, the housekeeper at Loudly Hall, and, having learned that His Lordship was not in residence, said that he would come out there to spend a few nights. On Loudly Hall notepaper he then wrote to the editors of the two leading Southampton newspapers. To both he said that he aspired to a career in journalism and that Lord Ruffan had suggested that his connections might enable him to make a useful contribution to the paper’s social column. His salary would be a secondary consideration, provided he was given reasonable expenses, as his main object was to gain experience. With both letters he enclosed the copies of Marlborough College Magazine in which his stories had appeared.

  By return of post both editors said they would be pleased to give him an interview. Having talked with them he settled for a roving assignment on the Hampshire Post. His trouble then was that he knew no-one in Hampshire and only a few families in Somerset and Wiltshire. In each case the ‘County’ maintained its sublime exclusiveness. People ‘belonged’ by right of birth and long-owned estates, or they did not. Many of its members had abandoned their large houses for smaller ones in which they frequently did their own washing-up. But that did not prevent their firmly rejecting the overtures of the nouveau-riche who endeavoured to penetrate their circle. They were not intolerant and willingly accepted people who had distinguished themselves in government, science or the arts, whatever their origins, but they had an extreme dislike of publicity in any form, so, by becoming a newspaper man, Adam had automatically debarred himself from any participation in their activities.

  It was not long before his editor realised that his contributions to the social column were limited to the doings of ‘café society’, who had week-end places in the country. But Adam’s writing was definitely good and his editor was loath to get rid of him. As it happened, the chief crime reporter on the paper had to go into hospital for a serious operation; so the editor asked Adam if he would like to take over as understudy to the number two, who had stepped into the senior man’s shoes.

  Glad to be freed from the position he had obtained for himself on false pretences, and at this chance to gain experience in another branch of journalism, Adam readily agreed.

  Apart from an occasional interesting assignment when his senior was otherwise occupied, he spent most of his time in magistrates’ courts writing up cases that had any unusual features and, where many men would have found boring the long hours spent there listening to trivial misdemeanours, he felt that he was gaining valuable knowledge of human character and frailties which would later be useful for his books. Then, after he had been so employed for some months, he had a letter telling him that his novel Across the Green Seas had been accepted for publication.

  The contract was not a very good one, as it had not even occurred to him to seek out a literary agent; so the publisher was taking twenty-five per cent of all subsidiary rights: serialisation, film, TV and foreign—if any. But several people in the office assured him that he was very lucky to have had a first novel accepted anyhow, before it had been sent to a dozen or more publishers; so he went happily about his work, only at times a little frustrated by the knowledge that it must be many more months before the book appeared in print.

  It was in the following winter that he was suddenly given cause to worry. He was on friendly terms with the police and by then, having his ear well to the ground about crime in Southampton, had been able to give them a tip which led to the arrest and conviction of a scrap dealer who acted as a ‘fence’ for a gang of youths who made a living by stealing lorry-loads of old iron. After the trial he received a letter printed in capitals, which read:

  ‘Us boys know you shopped old Fred. We don’t like your face and won’t have it round these parts. Unless you want it carved you’ll get out of So’ton and quick.’

  He showed it to his editor and the police. Both said in effect, ‘It’s an occupational hazard, chum. But if you keep your eyes skinned and don’t go places late at night you ought to be all right.’

  All went well for three weeks, then, at dusk one evening, as he was coming out of a pub in which he had been trying to get the lowdown on a safe robbery, the gang set upon him.

  His size and strength saved him from the worst. He dealt with two youths who came at him with razor blades in a way that gave them cause to regret for many months that they had attacked him. But the others got him down and kicked him ruthlessly with their heavy boots until some sailors who were in the pub came to his rescue. He was still conscious and had succeeded in protecting his face and head, but his body was black and blue, two of his ribs were cracked and his right knee-cap so badly bashed that water on the knee resulted. For over a fortnight he was in hospital and before he was discharged he received another anonymous note:

  ‘You got off lightly. Next time we’ll do you proper. Get out of So’ton or else …’

  During his vivid dreams when he lived the life of a Viking, Adam was a great fighter. Whirling aloft his mighty double-edged sword, he hewed his way with ferocious delight through groups of long-haired, skin-clad semi-savages striving to protect the coastal villages of Scotland and Ireland, or the better-clad but less warlike peasants of Romanised England. But he regarded these far memories as almost a form of fiction in which he was not responsible for the part he played, any more than a mild-mannered modern author who creates a ruthless secret agent. In his present personality he had inherited the gentle nature of his mother and abhorred all forms of violence. Occasionally his quick temper caused him to snap the heads off people who annoyed him, and once he had knocked down a fellow reporter; but he realised that his great strength could be dangerous and gradually learned to keep his temper under better control.

  To be attacked by a gang was a different matter and he had the natural dislike of most men to exposing himself to injury if it could be avoided. So he went to his editor and said:

  ‘This isn’t good enough. I’m not prepared to remain here as a sitting duck for these young swine.’ Then he handed in his resignation.

  The editor endeavoured to persuade him to stay on in some other capacity, but he replied. ‘No. They wouldn’t know that I’ve ceased to be a crime reporter, and I like my face. So I’m quitting.’

  While in hospital, his dreams had become more frequent and had all been of Mexico, so he was now eager to spend even a short time in that country. To go there as a passenger was far beyond his means, but he decided to work his way there and made the rounds of the shipping offices. His time in the Navy qualified him to go as a seaman, but he knew that would mean a rough life in the fo’c’s’le and hoped, as an educated man, to get something better.

  His enquiries were at first disappointing, as he found that no lines sailed direct from Southampton to Mexico. Then after a while he was offered a post as supercargo in a tramp that was sailing to Lisbon, the Canaries, Buenos Aires, then up to Rio, Recife, Caracas, Kingston Jamaica, Vera Cruz and New Orleans. The pay was modest and the ship shortly due to sail, so it was agreed that he should sign on only as far as Vera Cruz. From there he could pay his rail fare up to Mexico City and have enough money over to live modestly in the capital for a few weeks, or stay on longer if he could find a job. Two days later he had taken over the ship’s manifest and was on his way.

  The
voyage proved a pleasant change; the ship’s officers were a tough lot but friendly, and his duties of superintending the unloading and reloading of cargo in the ports light. In preparation for his stay in Mexico he had made up his mind to learn Spanish, so he had taken with him a small tape-recorder with a set of Spanish-teaching tapes, a Spanish grammar, a Spanish-English dictionary and copies of a novel by Ibañez in both English and Spanish. While at sea he was virtually a passenger, so he was able to spend many hours each day with his records and books, and by the time the ship reached Recife was confident that he knew enough of the language to converse, on simple matters.

  But at Recife, in Brazil, again the hammer of Fate fell. On going ashore the Captain was informed by the Company’s agents that it had gone bankrupt. There was not even enough money to pay off the ship’s company. Adam was left stranded, with only a little over fifty pounds in cash, no job and thousands of miles from either Mexico or home.

  His weeks in Recife were some of the worst Adam had ever experienced. The shoddy port lies only eight degrees south of the equator. The moist heat is so terrible that a clean shirt is soaked with perspiration within a few minutes. People habitually carry towels with which to mop the sweat from their faces. The town is dreary beyond belief, its inhabitants Indians, the better-off having a dash of Portuguese blood, the majority ragged, dirty and half starving. After a week there Adam would willingly have signed on as a seaman in any ship bound for Mexico or England, to get away, but the agents had said that funds to pay off the ship’s company were being sent out, he had ten weeks’ wages owing to him and he was loath to forgo the best part of two hundred pounds; so he stayed on.

  Meanwhile, he lived uncomfortably in a squalid seamen’s hostel, eking out his own money. That due from the Company still failed to arrive and, as time went on, he had to look at every cruzeiro twice.

  He was near despair when one day he came upon an English newspaper. In it there was a review of Across the Green Seas, and it predicted a great success for the book. Realising that now his book had been published, he was due for the advance royalty on it, Adam used a good part of his remaining funds to send a cable to his publisher.