This Was a Man (The Clifton Chronicles 7)

The choir of St. Mary Redcliffe, where Harry had been a chorister, sang Rejoice that the Lord has risen!

Sebastian, as the new head of the Clifton family, walked slowly up to the north lectern to read the second lesson, Revelation 21 to 37, and only just managed to get the words out.

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea…” When he returned to his place in the front pew, Giles couldn’t help noticing that his nephew’s hair was starting to gray at the temples—which was only appropriate, he reflected, for a man who had recently been elected to the court of the Bank of England.

The congregation rose to join all those outside the cathedral in singing Harry’s favorite song from Guys and Dolls, “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” Perhaps for the first time in the cathedral’s history, cries of “Encore” rang out both inside and out; inside, where the Salvation Army were led by Miss Adelaide representing Emma, while outside were a thousand Sky Mastersons playing Harry.

The dean nodded, and the choirmaster raised his baton once again. Giles was probably the only person who didn’t join in when the congregation began to sing, And did those feet in ancient times … Becoming more nervous by the minute, he placed the order of service by his side and clung on to the pew, in the hope that no one would see his hands were shaking.

When the congregation reached, Till we have built Jerusalem … Giles turned to see the dean standing by his side. He bowed. It must be 11:41.

Giles stood, stepped out into the aisle, and followed the dean to the pulpit steps, where he bowed again, before leaving him with In England’s green and pleasant land echoing in his ears. As Giles turned to climb the thirteen steps, he could hear Harry saying, Good luck, old chap, rather you than me.

When he reached the pulpit, Giles placed his script on the small brass lectern and looked down on the packed congregation. Only one seat was empty. The last line of Blake’s masterpiece having been rendered, the congregation resumed their places. Giles glanced to his left to see the statue of Nelson, his one eye staring directly at him, and waited for the audience to settle before he delivered his opening line.

“This was the noblest Roman of them all.

“Many people over the years have asked me if it was obvious, when I first met Harry Clifton, that I was in the presence of a truly remarkable individual, and I have to say no, it wasn’t. In fact, only chance brought us together, or to be more accurate, the alphabet. Because my name was Barrington, I ended up in the next bed to Clifton in the dormitory on our first day at St. Bede’s, and from that random chance was born a lifelong friendship.

“It was clear to me from the outset that I was the superior human being. After all, the boy who had been placed next to me not only cried all night, but also wet his bed.”

The roar of laughter that came from outside quickly spread to those inside the cathedral, helping Giles to relax.

“This natural superiority continued to manifest itself when he crept into the washroom. Clifton had neither a toothbrush nor toothpaste, and had to borrow from me. The following morning, when we joined the other boys for breakfast, my superiority was even more apparent when it became clear that Clifton had never been introduced to a spoon, because he licked his porridge bowl clean. It seemed a good idea to me at the time, so I did the same. After breakfast, we all trooped off to the Great Hall for our first assembly, to be addressed by the headmaster. Although Clifton clearly wasn’t my equal—after all, he was the son of a docker, and my father owned the docks, while his mother was a waitress, and my mother was Lady Barrington. How could we possibly be equals? However, I still allowed him to sit next to me.

“Once assembly was over, we went off to the classroom for our first lesson, where yet again Clifton was sitting next to Barrington. Unfortunately, by the time the bell sounded for break, my mythical superiority had evaporated more quickly than the morning mist once the sun has risen. It didn’t take me much longer to realize that I would walk in Harry’s shadow for the rest of my life, for he was destined to prove, far beyond the tiny world we then occupied, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

“This state of affairs continued after we left St. Bede’s and progressed to Bristol Grammar School, when I was placed next to my friend once again—but I must admit that I only gained a place at the school because they needed a new

cricket pavilion, and my father paid for it.”

While those outside St. Paul’s laughed and applauded, decorum allowed only polite laughter inside the cathedral.

“I went on to captain the school’s first eleven, while Harry won the prize for English and an exhibition to Oxford. I also managed to scrape into Oxford, but only after I’d scored a century at Lord’s for Young MCC.”

Giles waited for the laughter to die down before he continued.

“And then something happened that I hadn’t been prepared for. Harry fell in love with my sister Emma. I confess that at the time I felt he could have done better. In my defense, I wasn’t to know that she would win the top scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, become the first female chairman of a public company, chairman of an NHS hospital, and a minister of the Crown. Not for the first time, or the last, Harry was to prove me wrong. I wasn’t even the superior Barrington any more. This is perhaps not the time to mention my little sister Grace, then still at school, who went on to become Professor of English at Cambridge. Now I am relegated to third place in the Barrington hierarchy.

“By now I had accepted that Harry was superior, so I made sure that we shared tutorials, as I had planned that he would write my essays, while I practiced my cover drive. However, Adolf Hitler, a man who never played a game of cricket in his life, put a stop to that, and caused us to go our separate ways.

“All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.”

Harry shamed me by leaving Oxford and joining up even before war had been declared, and by the time I followed him, his ship had been sunk by a German U-boat. Everyone assumed he’d been lost at sea. But you can’t get rid of Harry Clifton quite that easily. He was rescued by the Americans, and spent the rest of his war behind enemy lines, while I ended up in a German prisoner-of-war camp. I have a feeling that if Lieutenant Clifton had been in the next bunk to me at Weinsberg, I would have escaped a lot sooner.

“Harry never talked to me or anyone else about his war, despite his having been awarded the prestigious Silver Star for his service as a young captain in the US Army. But if you read his citation, as I did when I first visited Washington as a foreign minister, you’d discover that with the help of an Irish corporal, a jeep, and two pistols, he convinced Field Marshal Kertel, the commanding officer of a crack panzer division, to order his men to lay down their arms and surrender. Shortly afterward, Harry’s jeep was blown up by a land mine while he was traveling back to his battalion. His driver was killed, and Harry was flown to the Bristol Royal Infirmary, not expected to survive the journey. However, the gods had other plans for Harry Clifton that even I would not have thought possible.

“Once the war was over and Harry had fully recovered, he and Emma were married and moved into the house next door, although I confess a few acres still divided us. Back in the real world, I wanted to be a politician, while Harry had plans to be a writer, so once again we set out on our separate paths.

“When I became a Member of Parliament, I felt that at last we were equals, until I discovered that more people were reading Harry’s books than were voting for me. My only consolation was that Harry’s fictional hero, William Warwick, the son of an earl, good-looking, highly intelligent, and a heroic figure, was obviously based on me.”

More laughter followed, as Giles turned to his next page.

“But it got worse. With every new book Harry wrote, more and more readers joined his legion of fans, while every time I stood for election, I got fewer and fewer votes.

“He only in a general honest thought