"I returned to London in the Spring of 1926 for the General Strike." "It had been the topic of Paris." "The French exultant as always at the discomfiture of their former friends foretold revolution and Civil War until I and several friends in circumstances like mine came seriously to believe that our country was in danger and our duty lay there." "We were joined by a Belgian futurist who lived under the" "I think, assumed name of Jean de Brissac la Motte and claimed the right to bear arms in any battle anywhere against the lower classes." "Good morning, father." "Oh dear." "Well its delightful to see you back so soon." "How long have you been away?" "Fifteen months, father." "Really?" "Well, you come at a very awkward time, you know." "They're having another of those strikes in two days." "Such a lot of nonsense and I don't know when you'll be able to get away." "I wasn't proposing to get away, father." "I don't think you understand that's the reason I'm here, the strike." "I see" "I know you've been living abroad." "Have you now become a revolutionary?" "o, father." "I was thinking of delivering food to places where they might need it that sort of thing." "Well." "Mrs. Able has reported no shortage in Bayswater." "Are you quite suited to this operation?" "You have no military training you have no experience of mass provisioning you seem to be bent on a most headstrong course." "That's it gents." "You and you, sir?" "Move forward, please and report inside." "My deputy's just round the door taking particulars." "That's it, gents no more needed today." "Thank you very much." "Is there absolutely nothing else?" "I've come all the way from France?" "You could try Clapham and Southwark and I did hear yesterday they were short down at Rotherhithe." "We're choc-a-block here." "You can come back tomorrow." "Come back tomorrow." "Thank you very much." "Thank you." "Mulcaster!" "My God, excellent that did them!" "Hello Boy." "Charles!" "Charles Ryder!" "Good Lord." "What are you doing here?" "Did you see that?" "Damn close shave out there." "Bloody Reds!" "What are you in, Charles?" "Nothing, yet." "Can't get in." "They're full up here." "Oh rubbish!" "Join our lot." "Bill Meadows show." "Damn fine crowd." "They're all in the Defence Corps." "We do the milk run." "Can I join?" "Of course you can." "Dear fellow, absolutely delighted." "Come and get kitted out." "Come to the office." "So I was enrolled in the Defence Corps." "I took my oath of loyalty and was given a truncheon." "I'll come up again this afternoon and sit with her." "I don't mind staying with her right through." "I'd like to." "Why don't you have a break?" "Well, we'll see." "I'll look in anyway." "How's she been?" "She's slept for an hour and a half." "She's had another injection." "Did she seem in much pain?" "Yes." "But I think she'd rather be conscious." "Have you heard from Charles?" "He's definitely back in England." "He was out." "I left a message." "Good." "I'll see you later." "Mr. Mottram's here, my Lady." "Thank you, Albert." "I've got the Minister outside, I can't stay." "We're off to the Gas Depot." "How is she?" "Can I go up and see her for a minute?" "She's too ill to see anyone at the moment, Rex." "Oh, I'm sorry." "I don't know when I'm going to get the chance to call in again." "Things are getting a bit rough." "I'm on call all night." "If there's any change in your mother's condition telephone me at the Home Office." "What about Sebastian?" "I've got someone at the Foreign Office and they've begun to make enquiries." "And ?" "Don't worry, darling." "It's a busy time." "Give it a day or two." "They'll find him." "Say hello to your mother." "Bye." "Two teas, my dear." "Thank you." "That'll help you through, Charles." "Cup of tea, love." "If I were you, you'd take my advice and avoid the Commercial Road." "From all reports they're having a bit of a fracas down there." "I say, did you hear that, chaps?" "They're having a bit of a fracas down the Commercial Road." "Come on all aboard." "What are you doing tonight?" "Nothing in particular, why?" "My sister says ancy Tallboy's giving a bloody great party." "Good for her." "Are you going?" "Rather." "Everyone says it'll be an absolute riot." "Aren't they divine?" "Aren't they the most sensational thing you've ever seen?" "Antoine!" "Good God!" "That rather pale one, my dear playing the piano is having a raving affair with Mrs." "Arnold Frinkheimer." "He conked her on the nut with a bottle of milk only the other morning." "It's wonderful to see you again." "It's been a long time." "Oh I know, Charles." "There you are, the lonely old artist man hidden away from us in your" "Parisian garret." "But Charles, look do you see the bovine spectre that I see?" "o they're not animals in the zoo, Mulcaster to be goggled at." "They are artists, my dear." "Very great artists, to be revered." "Charles!" "Thank God, there's somebody here I know." "A girl brought me but I've lost her looked everywhere." "She's given you the slip, my dear and do you know why?" "Because you look ridiculously out of place, Mulcaster." "This isn't your kind of party at all you ought not to be here you ought to go away, you know to the Old Hundredth or some lugubrious dance in Belgrave Square." "I've just come from one." "And it's too early for the Old Hundredth." "I think" "I'll stick around for a bit." "Things may jolly up, you know." "I spit on you." "Let me talk to you, Charles." "You ridiculous!" "Oh, my dear, what pugilists!" "It's such a surprise seeing you here, Anthony." "I thought you'd still be wandering in the Middle East." "I seem to remember some gruesome photos of you and Sebastian in Constantinople." "Ah!" "Sebastian." "Inevitably we will talk of Sebastian." "Someone's been sick." "Clear it up!" "you'll be perfectly safe." "I want a drink." "But there's plenty to drink at my house." "Yes sure but I want a drink here." "o I haven't heard anything of Sebastian for over a year." "Do you see him?" "Oh my dear." "He's such a sot." "You know he came to live with me in Marseilles last year when you threw him over?" "And really it was as much as I could stand." "Sip, sip, sip like a dowager all day long." "And so sly." "I was always missing little things, my dear things I rather liked, including two very pretty suits." "Of course" "I didn't know it was Sebastian at first there were some rather queer fish, my dear in and out of my little apartment but who knows better than you my taste for queer fish." "Well, eventually I found out that Sebastian had been popping them at the pawnshop and then my dear that he had sold the tickets at the bistro." "It's never much of a success when Sebastian stays with you." "Is it, Anthony?" "Now Charles" "I know that puritanical disapproving look in your eye." "You think I lead the poor boy on, don't you?" "You did in Athens, by all accounts." "That's one of Sebastian's less lovable qualities." "He always gives the impression of being led on like a little horse at the circus." "So there's still no stopping him?" "My dear, I did everything I could." "I said to him again and again 'Why drink?" "'" "If you want to be intoxicated there are so many much more delicious things to do." "ever seen you before." "ever asked you." "Who are all these white trash anyway?" "Seems to me I must have come to the wrong house." "It's a time of national emergency, my dear." "Anything may happen." "I think Africa must be deserted." "ever mind." "You and I, Charles had a good innings today defending the old country." "That's the great pity of it, you know" "You and I" "Too young to fight in the war." "Other chaps fought." "Millions of them dead." "ot us." "We showed them today, though." "We showed those dead chaps we can fight, too." "And you came all the way from Paris." "Damn good damn good." "Came from overseas." "Rallying round the country in her hour of need." "Like the Australians." "Like the poor dead Australians." "Is going well?" "Do you think would sing again?" "I know you." "We've met before" "Awful, my dear." "But you never asked tonight." "Perhaps I don't like you." "I thought I like everyone." "Do you think it might be witty to give the fire alarm?" "Oh yes, Boy do run away and ring it." "Might cheer things up." "Exactly." "You are a very naughty girl and you are going to be smacked." "So then we left Marseilles and went to Tangier." "And there, my dear" "Sebastian took up with his new friend." "Who's that?" "Well" "How can I describe him?" "He's like the footman in 'Warning Shadows'." "A great clod of a German who'd been in the Foreign Legion." "He got out by shooting off his big toe." "It still hadn't healed." "Where did they meet?" "Sebastian found him starving touting for one of the houses in the Kasbah and brought him back to stay with us." "It was too macabre." "So, back I came to dear old England, my dear." "So where's Sebastian now?" "I think he and his lame chum went to French Morocco." "They were in trouble with the Tangier police when I left." "Lady Marchmain has been a positive pest ever since I got back to London trying to make me get in touch with them." "What a time that poor woman's going through." "Well" "It only shows there's some justice in life." "I've done it." "You see that girl with that black fellow." "That's the girl who brought me." "She seems to have forgotten you now." "Come on, Charles." "I've had enough of all this." "If you'll be good enough to wait in here, sir." "I'll tell Lady Julia you've arrived." "Thank you, Wilcox." "I went to Marchmain House on the first morning of peace." "Julia had telephoned to say that her mother was anxious to see me." "I waited for her in the library overlooking Green Park." "Charles." "It's sweet of you to come." "Mummy kept asking for you but I'm afraid she won't be able to see you now." "She's just said goodbye to Sir Adrian Porson and this tired her." "Goodbye?" "Yes, she's dying." "She may live for a week or two or she may go at any minute." "She's very frail." "I can tell you what she wanted." "Let's go somewhere else." "I hate this room." "First" "I know Mummy wanted to say how sorry she is she was so beastly to you last time you met." "She's spoken of it often." "She knows now she was wrong about you." "I'm quite sure you put it out of your mind immediately and understood, but it's the sort of thing Mummy can never forgive herself." "It's the sort of thing she so seldom did." "Please tell her I do understand." "The other thing, of course, you've guessed" "Sebastian." "She wants him." "I don't know if that's possible." "Is it?" "Well, I hear he's in a pretty bad way." "We heard that too." "We sent a cable to the last address we had but there was no answer." "There still may be time for him to see her." "I thought of you as the only hope as soon as I heard you were in England." "Will you try and get him?" "It's an awful lot to ask" "I know, but" "I think Sebastian would want it too, if he knew." "I'll try." "I'll certainly try." "There's no one else we could ask." "Rex is so busy." "Yes." "I heard reports of all he's been doing organizing the gas works." "Oh yes he's made a lot of kudos out of the strike." "eedless to say" "Bridey has stayed very aloof from it all." "You can guess, can't you?" "He says he's not satisfied with the justice of the cause." "Thank you." "I'm very sorry to have missed Cordelia." "I sent her up to bed." "She was up all night with Mummy." "Will you give her my love." "Goodbye Charles." "Goodbye Julia." "And thank you." "I'll telegraph if I have any news." "Air France ran a service of a kind to Casablanca." "There, starting at dawn" "I had taken the bus to Fez." "I had telephoned to the British Consul and arranged to have lunch on my arrival." "There's a war going on not thirty miles from this house though you might not think it." "Yes, I had heard, but it's hard to believe sitting here." "We had some young fools on bicycles only last week who'd come to volunteer or Abdul's army." "It sounds as if you've got a pretty tricky situation." "The Moors are a tricky lot." "They don't hold with drink and our young friend as you may know, spends most of his day drinking." "Sign there, will you?" "Of course." "What does he want to come here for?" "There's plenty of room for him at Rabat or Tangier where they cater for tourists." "He's taken a house in the native town, you know." "I tried to stop him but he got it from a Frenchman in the Department of Arts." "I don't say there's any harm in him, but he's an anxiety." "The French don't understand him at all." "They think that everyone who's not engaged in trade is a spy." "It's not as though he lives like a Milord." "Did you know there is someone living with him?" "Someone sponging on him?" "Yes, I had heard about someone whether it is the same person" "This is an awful fellow a German out of the Foreign Legion." "A thoroughly bad lot by all accounts." "Bound to be trouble." "Mind you" "I like Flyte." "I don't see much of him." "He used to come here for baths twice a week before he got fixed up at his house." "He was always perfectly charming." "My wife took a great fancy to him." "What he needs is an occupation." "Well if I can persuade him to come back to England" "I will get him off your hands." "In fact sir" "I think I should really be getting along now" "Oh yes, of course." "You'll probably find him at home now." "Goodness knows no one goes out much in the siesta." "Look, if you like" "I'll send the porter to show you the way." "Morocco was a new and strange country to me." "In the walled city, where the dust lay thick among the smooth paving stones where the air was scented with cloves and incense and wood smoke" "I knew what had drawn Sebastian here and held him so long." "My guide was from the Sudan Police and regarded this ancient centre of his culture as a New Zealander might regard Rome." "Very dirty people." "o education." "French leave them dirty." "ot like British people." "My people British people." "Me in Sudan Police." "House the British Lord." "Sha hai rida." "You go with this native fellow." "Thank you very much." "Excuse me" "I'm looking for Sebastian Flyte." "This is his house, is it not?" "Yeth." "But he's not here." "There's no one but me." "I've come from England to see him on rather important business." "I wonder, could you tell me when he'll be back?" "Sebastian's sick." "The brothers took him away to the Infirmary." "Maybe they'll let you see him maybe not." "I got to go there myself one day soon to get my foot dressed." "I'll ask them." "When he's better maybe they'll let you see him." "Beer?" "Thank you." "You're not Sebastian's brother?" "His cousin maybe?" "I think maybe you married his sister." "o." "We're just friends." "We were at University together." "I had a friend at the University." "He studied History." "My friends was cleverer than I." "A little weak fellow." "I would pick him up and shake him when I was angry but so clever." "Then one day we said" ""What the hell!"." ""There's no work in Germany"." ""Germany is down the drain"." ""We must be soldiers"." "So we joined the Legion." "My friend died of dysentery last year campaigning in the Atlas." "When he was dead" "I said" ""What the hell!"" "So I shot my foot!" "It is now full of pus though I have done it one year." "Yes." "That's very interesting." "But my immediate concern is with Sebastian." "I wonder if you could tell me something about him?" "He is a very good fellow, Sebastian." "He is all right for me." "Tangier was a stinking place." "He brought me here." "ice house nice food, nice servant" "Everything is all right for me here" "I reckon." "I like it all right." "Sebastian" "His mother's very ill." "That's what I've come to tell him." "She rich?" "She is." "Why don't she give him more money?" "Then we would live at Casablanca, maybe, in a nice flat." "You know her well?" "You could make her give him more money?" "What exactly's the matter with Sebastian?" "I don't know." "I reckon maybe he drinks too much." "The brothers will look after him." "It's all right for him there." "The brothers are good fellows." "The brothers are good fellows." "Very cheap there." "Very cheap there." "Encore de biere!" "You see?" "A nice servant to look after me." "It is all right." "I think I'd better see Sebastian straight away." "Could you tell me where I can find him?" "Which hospital is he at?" "It's the little one between the old and new town." "It's called "St. Sulpiece"." "Tell Sebastian" "I am still here and all right." "I reckon he's worrying about me, maybe." "Good evening." "Bonsoir." "Your friend" "Lord Flyte is much better." "Je parle francais un peu" "Votre ami n'est pas en danger mais il n'est absolument pas en etat de voyager." "He spoke in French." "And to tell me that Sebastian was in no danger but quite unfit to travel." "He had the "grippe"." "With one lung slightly effective." "He was very weak." "He lacked resistance." "What could one expect?" "He was an alcoholic." "Qu'est-ce que vous vouleze dire, Doctor?" "C'est un alcoolique." "Je vais vous trouver quelqu'un pour vous amener pres de lui." "The doctor spoke dispassionately." "Almost brutally." "With the relish men of science sometimes have of limiting themselves to unessentials." "For pruning back their work to the point of sterility." "Merci, doctor." "The bearded, barefooted brother in whose charge I was put the man of no scientific attention who bit the dirty drops of the work had a different story." "He's so patient." "ot like a young man at all." "He lies there and never complains and there is much to complain of." "As you see, we have no facilities." "The government give us what they can spare from the soldiers." "And he is so kind." "There is a poor German boy with a foot that will not heal and secondary syphilis." "He comes for treatment." "Lord Flyte found him starving in Tangier and took him in and gave him a home." "A true samaritan." ""Poor simple monk", I thought." "God forgive me." "Your friend." "Thank you." "Oh, I thought he meant Kurt." "What are you doing here, Charles?" "I've come to find you." "Well" "I'll leave you to talk." "I'll come back in a little while." "I saw the doctor." "I must say you're not looking as bad as I thought you might." "Over the worst" "I was out of my mind for a day or so." "Pneumonia." "So they say." "I kept thinking I was back in Oxford which is strange don't you think?" "Since I couldn't really be further away could I, Charles?" "You've been to the house?" "Yes." "Like it?" "Yes." "Yes, I've liked everything I've seen." "I do understand what keeps you here." "Was Kurt still there?" "I won't ask you if you like Kurt. obody does." "It's funny." "I couldn't go on without him, you know." "Sebastian, I'm afraid your mother is not very well." "In fact that's the main reason that I'm here." "I think she'd like to see you." "Poor mummy." "She really was a femme fatale wasn't she?" "She killed at a touch." "What do you want to do?" "I don't know." "Let me think about it." "I obviously can't travel at the moment." "o." "Charles do you think you could do something for me?" "Of course." "Well, if you're going to come and see me again do you think you could smuggle in a bottle of brandy?" "I telegraphed to Julia that Sebastian was unable to travel and I stayed on in Fez, visiting the hospital daily." "Thank you." "On my third day a telegram arrived from Julia." "Lady Marchmain was dead." "I stayed on, in case Sebastian wanted help getting back to England for his mother's funeral." "Monsieur Ryder!" "Monsieur Ryder" "S'il vous plait" "Es ce que je peux vous parler?" "Your friend is drinking again." "An ounce of cognac will not hurt him too much maybe it will make him weaker the next time he is ill then one day some little thing will carry him away." "This is not a home for inebriates." "He must go home at the end of the week." "If you're going to discharge him" "I'll try and stay a few more days." "He'll need someone to see him home." "Your friend is much happier today." "It is like one transfigured." "You know why?" "He has a bottle of cognac in bed with him." "It is the second I have found." "o sooner do I take one away from him he gets another." "He is so naughty." "It is the Arab boys who fetch it for him." "Still" "It is good to see him happy when he was so sad." "Hello!" "How are you feeling?" "Better feeling much better." "Good." "May I?" "Sebastian now your mother's dead do you think of going back to England?" "It would be lovely!" "Do you think Kurt would like it?" "For God's sake" "You don't mean to spend the rest of your life with Kurt, do you?" "He means to spend it with me." "It'th all right for him, I reckon, maybe." "I've been to the bank for you and straighten things out a little." "The bank manager was very helpful." "He says that if I can arrange with your lawyers for a quarterly allowance to be sent out from England you can draw weekly pocket money." "Now in an emergency you can draw" "You know, Charles it's really a very pleasant change when all your life you've been looked after by people to have someone to look after yourself." "Of course, it does have to be someone pretty hopeless to need looking after by me." "As I was saying, in an emergency you can draw reserves from the larger funds." "Now" "You've got to convince him it is an emergency." "And you've got to collect the money personally." "Oh, good!" "Otherwise Kurt will have me sign for a cheque for a whole amount when I'm tight." "And then he'll go off and get into all sorts of trouble." "Where shall I put your case, Sebastian?" "Shall I unpack it for you?" "o, no the boy will do it." "It was time you came back." "I need you." "Do you, Kurt?" "Yes" "I reckon so." "It's not so good being alone when you're sick." "That boy's a lazy fellow always slipping off when I want him." "Once he stayed out all night and there was no one to make my coffee when I woke up." "It's no good having a foot full of pus." "Times" "I can't sleep good." "Maybe another time" "I shall slip off too and go somewhere" "I can be looked after." "You see?" "What do you want?" "Cigarettes." "There are some in the bag under my bed." "I'll get them for you." "o!" "It's my job." "Yeth." "I think that's Sebastian's job." "So I left him." "With his friend." "In the little enclosed house at the end of the alley." "There was nothing more" "I could do for Sebastian." "His mother was buried that same afternoon"