Jeffrey Archer - Twelve Red Herrings

“Find my wife and get yourself a notepad — and then both of you join me in my office immediately. Immediately,” Ted repeated as he scuttled back into his study.

Hazel arrived a few minutes later, clutching a bunch of dahlias, followed by the breathless private secretary.

“Why the rush, Ted? What’s the panic?”

“Mountbatten’s coming.”

“When?” Hazel asked quietly.

“Tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”

“That is a good reason to panic,” Hazel admitted. She dumped the flowers in a vase on the windowsill and took a seat opposite her husband on the other side of his desk. “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to let you know that Mrs Rogers is off sick.”

“You have to admire her timing,” said Ted. “Right, we’ll just have to bluff it.”

“What do you mean, ‘bluff it’?” asked Hazel.

“Well, don’t let’s forget that Mountbatten’s a member of the Royal Family, a former Chief of the Defence Staff and an Admiral of the Fleet. The last colonial post he held was Viceroy of India with three regiments under his command and a personal staff of over a thousand. So I can’t imagine what he’ll expect to find when he turns up here.”

“Then let’s begin by making a list of things that will have to be done,” said Hazel briskly.

Charles removed a pen from his inside pocket, turned over the cover of his pad, and waited to write down his master’s instructions.

“If he’s arriving at the airport, the first thing he will expect is a red carpet,” said Hazel.

“But we don’t have a red carpet,” said Ted.

“Yes we do. There’s the one that leads from the dining room to the drawing room. We’ll have to use that, and hope we can get it back in place before he visits that part of the house. Charles, you will have to roll it up and take it to the airport” — she paused — “and then bring it back.”

Charles scowled, but began writing furiously.

“And Charles, can you also see that it’s cleaned by tomorrow?” interjected the Governor. “I hadn’t even realised it was red. Now, what about a guard of honour?”

“We haven’t got a guard of honour,” said Hazel. “If you remember, when we arrived on the island we were met by the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice and six off-duty policemen.”

“True,” said Ted. “Then we’ll just have to rely on the Territorial Army.”

“You mean Colonel Hodges and his band of hopeful warriors? They don’t even all have matching uniforms. And as for their rifles …”

“Hodges will just have to get them into some sort of shape by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Leave that one to me,” said Ted, making a note on his pad. “I’ll phone him later this morning. Now, what about a band?”

“Well there’s the town band,” said Charles. “And, of course, the police band.”

“On this occasion they’ll have to combine,” said Hazel, “so we don’t offend either of them.”

“But they only know three tunes between them,” said Ted.

“They only need to know one,” said Hazel. “The national anthem.”

“Right,” said the Governor. “As there are sure to be a lot of musical feathers that will need unruffling, I’ll leave you to deal with them, Hazel. Our next problem is how we transport him from the airport to Government House.”

“Certainly not in the old Rover,” said Hazel. “It’s broken down three times in the last month, and it smells like a kennel.”

“Henry Bendall has a Rolls-Royce,” said Ted. “We’ll just have to commandeer that.”

“As long as no one tells Mountbatten that it’s owned by the local undertaker, and what it was used for the morning before he arrived.”

“Mick Flaherty also has an old Rolls,” piped up Charles. “A Silver Shadow, if I remember correctly.”

“But he loathes the British,” said Hazel.

“Agreed,” said Ted, “but he’ll still want to have dinner at Government House when he discovers the guest of honour is a member of the Royal Family.”

“Dinner?” said Hazel, her voice rising in horror.

“Of course we will have to give a dinner in his honour,” said Ted.

“And, worse, everyone who is anyone will expect to be invited. How many can the dining room hold?” He and Hazel turned to the private secretary.

“Sixty if pushed,” replied Charles, looking up from his notes.

“We’re pushed,” said Ted.

“We certainly are,” said Hazel. “Because we don’t have sixty plates, let alone sixty coffee cups, sixty teaspoons, sixty …”

“We still have that Royal Worcester service presented by the late King after his visit in 1947,” said Ted. “How many pieces of that are fit for use?”

“Enough for about fourteen settings, at the last count,” said Hazel.

“Right, then that’s dealt with how many people will be at the top table.”

“What about the menu?” asked Charles.

“And, more important, who is going to cook it?” added Ted.

“We’ll have to ask Dotty Cuthbert if she can spare Mrs Travis for the evening,” said Hazel. “No one on the island is a better cook.”

“And we’ll also need her butler, not to mention the rest of her staff,” added Ted.

By now Charles was onto his third page.

“You’d better deal with Lady Cuthbert, my dear,” said Ted. “I’ll try to square Mick Flaherty.”

“Our next problem will be the drink,” said Hazel. “Don’t forget, the last Governor emptied the cellar a few days before he left.”

“And the Foreign Office refuses to restock it,” Ted reminded her. “Jonathan Fletcher has the best cellar on the island …”

“And, God bless him, he won’t expect to be at the top table,” said Hazel.

“If we’re limited to fourteen places, the top table’s looking awfully crowded already,” said Ted.

“Dotty Cuthbert, the Bendalls, the Flahertys, the Hodges,” said Hazel, writing down the names. “Not to mention the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, plus their wives… Let’s hope that some of them are indisposed or abroad.” She was beginning to sound desperate.

“Where’s he going to sleep?” asked Charles innocently.

“God, I hadn’t thought of him sleeping,” said Ted.

“He’ll have to take our bedroom. It’s the only one with a bed that doesn’t sink in the middle,” said Hazel.

“We’ll move into the Nelson Room for the night, and suffer those dreadful woodwormed beds and their ancient horsehair mattresses.”

“Agreed,” said Hazel. “I’ll make sure all our things are out of the Queen Victoria Room by this evening.”

“And, Charles,” said the Governor, “phone the Foreign Office, would you, and find out Mountbatten’s likes and dislikes. Food, drink, eccentric habits anything you can discover. They’re sure to have a file on him, and this is one gentleman I don’t want to catch me out.”

The private secretary turned over yet another page of his pad, and continued scribbling.

For the next hour, the three of them went over any and every problem that might arise during the visit, and after a self-made sandwich lunch, departed in their different directions to spend the afternoon making begging calls all round the island.

It was Charles’s idea that the Governor should appear on the local television station’s early-evening news programme, to let the citizens know that a member of the Royal Family would be visiting the island the following day. Sir Ted ended his broadcast by saying that he hoped as many people as possible would be at the airport to welcome “the great war leader” when his plane touched down at four the following afternoon.

While Hazel spent the evening cleaning every room that the great war leader might conceivably enter, Charles, with the aid of a torch, tended to the flowerbeds that lined the driveway, and Ted supervised the shuttling of plates, cutlery, food and wine from different parts of the island to Government House.