Storyteller - Colin & Anne Brookfield (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📗

fountain. His outfit was beautiful and his beard was gleaming white. I remember thinking how clever this Santa dressed to impress the children, and wondered which expensive departmental store he worked in.

Santa however, was no living statue, and asked all the children around to sit next to him and tell them what they most wanted for Christmas. He was never lonely of course, there were plenty of children, mine included. I stood back and watched whilst they snuggled close and told him their little secret wishes. It was a lovely, almost Victorian scene, after which, two little pairs of legs came skipping back to me with their small faces flushed with delight.

Dusk had now fallen as we traipsed back via the Underground to our home. It was dark when we arrived, so after a light tea, the children went to bed. Fred disappeared to the sitting room to read his paper in his favourite armchair, whilst I finished the preparation of the vegetables for the following morning.

Feeling absolutely worn out after our day in London and looking forward to a fairly early night, I wended my way to bed after first looking in on the children, only to discover Fred arranging the presents and stockings around their beds. He was wearing his Santa Claus outfit, which, in the half light of the doorway, looked rather splendid. He must have thoughtfully borrowed it just for this Christmas Eve in case the children woke up.

Fred was such a sweet man really, although when I saw him nodding off in the armchair earlier in the evening, I had thought that he couldn’t have cared less about Christmas. So I quietly went over to him and hugged and kissed him on the cheek. Then I tip-toed out quickly and hurried along the hallway to our room so that I could get straight to bed.

I was astonished when I saw that my husband was already in bed fast asleep snoring and there was no sign of his outfit!

Ménage à Trois

Miriam Fenton spat out angrily, “The coin has flipped! Love and anger are indeed the opposite sides of the same coin. That treacherous man has destroyed our marriage, the reputation of his parents and is despised by friends and countrymen alike.”

Major George Fenton sat forlornly in his cell working page by page through the charges made against him, whilst serving with his regiment in Africa during the Second World War.

He had been accused of consorting with the enemy for monetary gain; an act that had brought about the deaths of six of his men. His guilt had been compounded by the two thousand American dollars paid into his bank account in cash, for which he had denied all knowledge.

“I hear your wife’s dumped you for someone else,” chuckled the guard as he opened the cell door.

“Thanks,” replied George, “got any more knives you want to stick in?” When the guard had left, he lay back on the cell mattress and searched his mind for clues that might throw some light on how he had been made the fall guy for someone else’s crime.

 

Major George Fenton’s Story

Leading up to the event for which I was accused, I had been in the North African Western Desert Campaign, and my unit had just ousted a group of enemy soldiers from some isolated desert buildings. One of the first oddities I’d noticed, was that the detritus normally found scattered within these unwanted places had been collected up, and deposited in the centre of one room. It invited investigation, but wary of booby-traps, I had ordered my men out of the building whilst I lobbed a grenade into the rubbish and took to my heels. It was followed by the standard grenade detonation, proving there had been no explosive device concealed in the rubbish.

I had then ordered my men to check for any arms that might have been concealed beneath the heap. There was no ordinance but, they discovered a concealed trap-door covering a shallow pit, packed to the top with sturdy boxes. Each box was crammed full with carefully stacked American dollars. I remembered how I rounded on my avaricious men; it had been all too easy to read their minds by the grins of anticipation on their faces. I had been about to say more, when we heard the sound of approaching vehicles.

One of my men had rushed out to investigate and was followed back in by six British soldiers and an officer they referred to as ‘Colonel’, but whose face was mostly concealed by the Arab wrap-around scarf he was wearing.

“Hands above your heads all of you,” the colonel barked. Nobody was going to argue with seven gun barrels pointing at them. “Take these men into another room and guard them,” he ordered. “Not you Major! We need to talk. There are things that I need to know about you, beyond what is here in your pay book.”

I knew from the colonel’s demeanour that there was something even more sinister about this situation, especially with his following demand.

“Firstly, I would like to have the bank details to go with your cheque book; a bit remiss of you carting this stuff about on active service, it could fall into the wrong hands.” He paused for a moment. “Now Major – your details?”

“Burn in Hell! You’ll get nothing out of me,” I’d replied angrily.

“Sorry to hear that Major. Bring his sergeant in,” he shouted.

I watched worriedly as the colonel picked up my own pistol from the heap of captured weapons and pointed it at my regimental sergeant. Even as I screamed out, “OK, I’ll give you what you want,” the pistol bucked, and the sergeant collapsed to the floor – dead.

“As you can see, I really do mean business Major, and perhaps you noticed that I wore a glove on the pistol hand.”

There were several of my photos and letters amongst the things being rummaged from my wallet by the colonel and subsequently discarded amongst the rubbish. From that point I was bound, then deposited in the back of the colonel’s lorry. This was followed by machine gunfire, and I knew that my men had been executed. The next thing I heard was the colonel giving our position co-ordinates and asking immediate back-up from base; moreover, he was using my radio and wearing gloves. After that the money was loaded and the colonel’s men boarded.

I then heard them speaking for the first time; it was in German. They were obviously doing a deal with a corrupt British officer. I discovered later that these people had been running a mutual profit business for some time. In this case they had needed a kosher British vehicle to transport this large cache to a safer place, away from the patrolled areas.

The vehicle travelled on for about a day and a half before it finally jolted to a halt in the courtyard of a large building. It was to be my place of imprisonment for the next five months, but at least I was fed, watered and given some rudimentary facilities to remain clean and tidy. Then my life took another twist.

I woke up one morning with a searing headache, on a comfortable bed in a luxurious hotel suite and began to wonder if I had died and gone to a better place, especially when two beautiful young ladies welcomed me back to the land of the hedonistic living – or so it seemed.

“Come on George,” one of them chimed, “we’re going down to the pool. Put your bathing costume on and join us.” At the same moment there was a loud knock at the door, so I staggered over to open it. Two well dressed men stood there as I eased the door open.

“Major George Fenton?” enquired the older of the two men as he cast his eyes over the young women and the half consumed glasses of wine on the table. “I have a British passport for you and a ship’s passage has been arranged to get you back to England. It leaves in two hours from Casablanca.”

“What the hell am I doing in Morocco?” I’d gasped. All that I got in return was a disparaging look and an instruction not to discuss such matters. The other man was opening doors, drawers and cupboards. In one drawer he found 2,000 American dollars and my pay book.

 

The Court Martial

Major Fenton’s next accommodation was by courtesy of the British military prison authorities; it was a cold cell. He heard later that a back-up force from his regiment had arrived in answer to the request made on his radio. So, the massacre of his men was subsequently discovered, as well as several hundred American dollars scattered about, as though dropped during the hurried removal of a much larger cache. The finger of suspicion was then pointing at the missing British officer – Major George Fenton – but before they could complete their search, they came under enemy fire and had to withdraw.

George had searched his mind for clues that might help him. There may have been some evidence left with his pictures and letters that the British colonel had discarded amongst the rubbish, but that place was now in enemy hands.

There were very few other clues, except that he had judged the colonel to be about six feet four inches in height, had looked slim and fit, and noticed that the man’s hair was red when the scarf had moved slightly. He had also wondered why the man never took the glove off his left hand in his presence, but in terms of his defence, those details amounted to nothing. There was of course, the British army vehicle. They never go missing without raising a fuss, and he had been unable to identify it because he was bundled into the back. Its divisional markings would have been clear to see on the tailgate had it not been lowered for loading purposes. His thoughts were interrupted by the gruff voice of the military police warder.

“Out you come Fenton, you have a visitor in the briefing room. I didn’t know you had any friends left.” The visitor was his old chum Ralph.

“How did you manage to swing this visit?” George asked. “You must have some very influential friends.”

“I’ve known you a long time, and you are a trusted friend,” he replied. “I know you can’t possibly be guilty as charged. Unofficially I’m on your case. Tell me everything you know that might steer me in the right direction.”

Once George had passed on all that he knew and suspected, Ralph mentioned tentatively, “You know of course, about your wife’s infidelity.”

“Yes, I’m coming to terms with it, but having said that, she’d been cold shouldering me for quite some time prior to my military disgrace.”

“Perhaps I can throw some light on that,” added Ralph. “You were no doubt aware that the divisional lecher Lt. Harold Brooks, had been sniffing around in your wife’s direction and – I might add – with some success. More to the point, he and your wife are now openly cohabitating, much to the fury of your friends that are secretly working on your behalf.”

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