The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt V)

[Part IV here.]

That such a sequence of events, with its particular names and places, should present itself to me in a dream, over 145 years later is not easy to account for with classical cause-and-effect physics.  

My dream, which I had on the morning of Sunday 3 May, was unlike the run-of-the-mill dreams I'll have most nights. The three unities are preserved; time (1880), place (the City of London, Luxembourg) and action (a court case arising from an ambiguity in a telegram). The dream was vivid – the names 'Gormally' (who was Irish) and 'Kuhn' (who was Jewish) came through loud and clear; I could feel the atmosphere of their office in Victorian London; I could see them flicking through maroon-bound books of law in the courtroom. I felt that Gormally's career had taken off very suddenly, and that the commodity that these traders specialised in was salt. The dream also spoke of anarchists, whose actions may or may not have led to the issues that ended up in court.

I had the framework of a story; automatic writing. Not something I'd made up; something that had come to me in a dream. This is the fifth such case. Previous dream-inspired short stories have taken me back to London in 1964, London in the 1950s,  Heathrow Airport in 2023, eastern Poland in 1831 and Moscow in 1952. This phenomenon is fascinating. There is no effort required on my part to devise a story; all I needed to do was to have recognised the significance of the dream on waking and jot down as much as I could remember.

So on Sunday morning (coffee first!) I opened my laptop. I made extensive use of AI (ChatGPT and Google Gemini), cross-checking one against the other to avoid hallucinations or confabulations, grounding the basic points from the dream in historical facts. Yes, said both AIs – the places, the dates, the plot – all were historically plausible. My dream had got them right! I just had to beat the story into shape. I add some details; freemasonry, the Magic Flute. Both plausible, historically accurate. I'm still in the flow.

But where from the dream? The setting – the City of London, Bricktorian Britain, 19th century railways, I can feel the atmosphere. I'm thinking of the opening pages of Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands with its description of London as Imperial capital. The setting is familiar. But the narrative? Did it happen as I dreamt it? 

And here I get metaphysical. In an infinite universe, yes, the events must have unfolded exactly as I described them in some parallel world. Mathematically, infinity would be able to encompass everything that happened.

Did something leak through to my consciousness as I slept?

One writes it down, and one leaves it there.

This time three years ago:
Transitioning from Owl to Lark
[Woke up today at 05:30!]

This time four years ago:
Hills... I gotta have hills

This time five years ago:
Flashback to a Dream - subconsciousness and memory

This time 15 years ago:
'Old school' = pre-war

This time 16 years ago:
Britain chooses a coalition government

This time 17 years ago:
Landing over Ursynów

This time 18 years ago:
On being assertive in Poland

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt IV)

[Part III here.]

The journey to Luxembourg was undertaken in November, after the weather had turned. The days were short, bleak, damp and windy. Nights were getting ever longer. For Gormally, this was his first journey to the Continent. Kuhn, whose forebears hailed from there, felt more at home. The papers were carried in a leather case, tied with tape; Gormally, who had assembled them, knew their order without looking, and could have recited the sequence of messages as one might recite a lesson learned by heart.

A steam packet took them across a choppy sea to Calais, and thence by rail across a country that seemed, to Gormally, somehow strange and familiar at the same time. The train ran through fields already stripped, the hedges bare, the grey villages set close about their churches. At the larger stations there were delays – small ones, nothing that could not be explained – but Kuhn noted them all the same, as though each interruption confirmed something he had long suspected.

“It is the same everywhere,” he said once, as they stood upon a platform waiting for a connection that did not come at the appointed time. “We imagine the system as continuous. It is not so. It is a series of parts, each subject to its own failure.” Gormally thought of the wire, of the way a message travelled without visible interruption, and said nothing.

Kuhn had travelled extensively across Western Europe, but he had never been to Luxembourg. It turned out to be smaller than he had expected. The town, set upon its rock, seemed less a place of trade than of administration, its buildings solid, its streets orderly, its people speaking mainly French, but some German. Their hotel, close to the court, was small and clean.

Kuhn and Gormally were received by a local avocat, engaged by the house that had transmitted the claim. He was a careful man, courteous, precise, who listened more than he spoke and who, when he did speak, chose his words as though each were to be entered into a record.

“You will understand,” he said, as he laid out the papers upon the table in his office, “that the matter will be considered upon the documents. The court will wish to see the sequence, the exact terms, the times at which the communications were made. Oral explanations are of less weight.”

Kuhn inclined his head. “We are prepared,” he said.

The hearing took place two days later, in a room that was neither large nor imposing, but which nevertheless possessed a certain gravity. Three judges sat together at a raised table, the presiding judge in the centre, the others slightly behind. There was no jury. There was no sense of an audience. Those present were there for the purpose of the matter and no other.

The proceedings were conducted in French. Kuhn and Gormally's avocat translated where necessary, though much of what was said could be followed by reference to the papers themselves, which lay before the court in ordered bundles.

The telegrams were read.

It was done slowly, each message taken in turn, the dates and times noted, the words rendered into French with a care that seemed to Gormally to alter them even as it preserved them. Phrases that had been, in their original form, quick and provisional, acquired a different quality when set down in another language, one more accustomed, it seemed, to definition.

Gormally experienced a revelation: while the common law of England might seek the spirit of a bargain, the Continent's code-based system demanded only the letter. It was a machinery of words, and he had been caught in the gears.

“Condition de l’expédition dans quatorze jours, strict,” read the clerk, and Gormally felt the word take on a weight it had not borne in his own hand.

Their avocat rose to speak. He set out the facts as Gormally and Kuhn had understood them: the urgency of the Hamburg request; the customary nature of such terms; the efforts made to secure shipment; the interruption of traffic beyond their control. He referred, without emphasis, to reports of disturbances upon the railway, to delays not of their making. He spoke of good faith.

The other side replied. Their advocat was more emphatic. He spoke of obligation, of the clarity of the condition as expressed, of the reliance placed upon it. He did not dwell upon the cause of the delay. It was, he suggested, irrelevant. What mattered was that the terms had not been met.

One of the judges asked: “At what time was the acceptance received?”

There was a brief consultation. The time was given.

“And the confirmation?” he asked.

The answer followed.

There was a small interval between the two – minutes, no more. It had not seemed significant at the time. Set out now, it formed part of a sequence, each element fixed.

The presiding judge leaned forward slightly.

“In your confirmation,” he said, addressing their avocat, “you repeat the term of fourteen days. Do you not?”

“It is mentioned, yes,” said the avocat.

“And without qualification,” said the judge.

“Our clients understood it as descriptive of the expected period,” said the avocat. “Not as a condition altering the nature of the acceptance.”

The judge nodded, acknowledging the distinction, and made a note.

Gormally sat very still. He watched as the papers were taken up and set down, as the words he had written were traced in another hand, as the meaning he had intended was separated from the meaning that might be drawn.

When it was over, there was no immediate pronouncement. The court would deliver its judgment in due course. They left as they had entered, quietly, the papers gathered, the sequence preserved. That evening, Kuhn had bought two tickets to see Mozart's Magic Flute at the Théâtre des Capucins, which Gormally said was profoundly uplifting.

The decision was given two days later, their fifth day in Luxembourg, by which time a harsh early frost had set in on the city; the anxiety and impotence of their situation adding to a sense of gloom that contrasted with the joy of watching the opera.

The judgment was written, as such decisions are, in a language of reasons. The court found that the acceptance, as expressed, had introduced a condition. No supposition of ill-will, no intent to cheat. But the confirmation, by repeating that condition, had accepted it. The failure to ship within the fourteen days, whether caused by interruption of traffic or not, constituted a breach. Damages were to be assessed accordingly.

Kuhn read the judgment in silence, then folded it and placed it with the others.

“It is as they must decide,” he said. “They have read what was written.”

Gormally did not at once reply. He had followed the reasoning, had seen the line by which the court had moved from one point to the next, each step justified by the one before. It was not unjust. It was, in its way, exact.

“We did not mean it so,” he said at last.

Kuhn looked at him.

“No,” he said. “But we wrote it so.”

They returned to London by the same route, the fields now more bare than before, the days shorter still. The office in Mincing Lane was as they had left it. The ledgers were there, the desks, the steady work of the business continuing, as it must, even in the face of loss.

In the weeks that followed, the figures were set down, the accounts adjusted, the obligations met as far as they could be met. The profit that had once seemed assured was not only gone, but reversed; the sum they were required to pay exceeded it many times. Kuhn bore it with a composure that did not conceal the extent of the blow.

For Gormally, the lesson was of another kind. He had learned to see a margin where others did not, to act when others hesitated. It had served him well. Yet here, in the reading of a few words, it had turned against him.

He continued to work, to reckon, to send and receive the messages upon which the business depended. But there was, from that time, a difference, slight but persistent, in the way he set down a phrase, in the pause before he committed it to paper.

It is a small thing, the placing of a word, the repetition of a term. It passes in a moment, carried by a boy along a street, tapped out upon a wire, received and read elsewhere. Yet it endures, fixed in ink, to be taken up again in another place, in another language, and given a weight it did not possess when first sent.

Kuhn felt obliged to mention the court case at the Lodge; the worshipful brothers expressed their concern at his company's loss, as well as their admiration for his frankness. There, but for the grace of the Great Architect... What happened to Kuhn could have happened to many another trader. A subscription was raised that certainly helped cover the company's immediate cash-flow needs. Kuhn accepted it with grace and gratitude in the spirit it was given.

The coda here.

This time nine years ago:
Have you ever woke up with bullfrogs on your mind?

This time ten years ago:
W-wa Okęcie modernisation

This time 11 years ago:
I buy a Nikon Coolpix A

This time 12 years ago:
More about the Ladder of Authority

This time 13 years ago:
By bike, south of Warsaw

This time 15 years ago:
Functionalist architecture in Warsaw

This time 16 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'to bully'?

This time 17 years ago:
Making plans

This time 18 years ago:
The setting sun stirs my soul

This time 19 years ago:
Rain ends the drought

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt III)

[Part II here.]

The confirmation, once sent, seemed to settle the matter. There were other wires that morning, and more the next; Liverpool responded, and arrangements were set in motion with a satisfactory speed. A vessel was engaged out of the Mersey, not the first choice but adequate; rail carriage was secured for the salt from Cheshire; the papers began to take shape – invoice, draft bill of lading, the financial instruments by which such a trade was given its formal existence. 

For a few days the business ran as expected. The figures held. Gormally allowed himself, in private, the thought that the margin might exceed his first calculation.

It was on the fourth day that the first irregularity appeared.

A telegram from Liverpool, brief and not entirely clear, spoke of delay in loading. Labour, it said, was uncertain. There had been disturbances on the line bringing wagons into the docks. The message was written in a hand not usually employed by their correspondent there, and bore a time mark that suggested it had been transmitted later than it ought.

Kuhn read it and placed it beside the others. “Ask for particulars,” he said.

Gormally did so. The reply, when it came, added little. There had been interference on the railway somewhere to the south; wagons had not arrived in sequence; the docks were crowded. It would, they said, be resolved shortly.

“Everything is shortly,” said Kuhn. “Until it is not.”

Gormally said nothing. He had already begun to reckon the days. Fourteen, from the time of confirmation. They had lost one in the exchange of messages, another in the arrangements. There was still room, but less than he would have liked.

He sent another wire, urging expedition, offering a small consideration for priority in loading. It was agreed to, though not without complaint. Money, he had learned, could hasten most things, though not always enough. He was at the mercy of tide and turn. A swift decision: rather than waiting for a steamer direct to Hamburg, the salt could be dispatched immediately to Ostend, and from there, by express freight rail to its destination. Gormally looked at the ledger, mentally scratching out the profit. This would eat significantly into Kuhn's margin, but would save the deal.

Two days passed. Then came the message that altered the complexion of the affair.

It did not come from Liverpool, but from the Continent, relayed through a line they did not commonly use. The address was that of a house in Luxembourg with which Kuhn had had occasional dealings – an intermediary in matters of credit, rather than of goods.

Gormally broke the seal and read.

RAILWAY INTERRUPTION BELGIAN LINE STOP TRAFFIC DELAYED STOP ADVISE POSITION SHIPMENT STOP

He took it at once to Kuhn.

“Belgium?” said Kuhn. “That is not our route.”

“It may become so,” said Gormally. “If they divert.”

Kuhn frowned. “Or if the information is second-hand. These relays they introduce their own errors.”

“Shall we reply?” said Gormally.

“Yes,” said Kuhn. “But say nothing we do not know.”

Gormally wrote stating that loading was in progress, that dispatch would be made without delay, that further advice would follow. He did not mention the fourteen days.

The days continued to pass. The telegrams from Liverpool grew more frequent, but not more reassuring. Wagons arrived, but not in the numbers required; loading began, halted, began again. There was talk of men refusing to work, of lines blocked, of some disturbance further down the system which had spread, as such things do, beyond its point of origin.

Once, at a Lodge meeting, Gormally had heard the word spoken plainly. “Anarchists,” said a worshipful brother in a tone that was half contempt, half unease. “Blowing rails in the Ardennes, they say. Or threatening to. It amounts to the same thing.”

Gormally pondered that word. Anarchists. It seemed too imprecise to use in a telegram or to note down in the ledger. Yet the effect, whether the cause were as described or not, was real enough. The system upon which Kuhn had depended – the steady, ordered movement of goods and messages – had faltered.

On the twelfth day, the first portion of the cargo cleared the docks.

Gormally marked it in the book, the figures set down with care: tonnage, date, vessel. He felt a momentary relief. If the remainder followed promptly, they might yet meet the term, or come close enough to argue that they had done so in substance, if not in the strict letter.

On the thirteenth day, nothing moved.

On the fourteenth, a further consignment was loaded, but it was clear by then that the whole would not be shipped within the time named.

Kuhn stood at the desk as the figures were entered.

“We shall send what we have,” he said. “And we shall explain.”

Gormally nodded. It was all that could be done.

He drafted the message to Hamburg with more care than any he had yet composed. He set out the facts: the quantity shipped, the dates, the circumstances of delay. He did not use the word anarchists. He wrote instead of “interruption of traffic beyond our control,” and trusted that the phrase would carry what it needed to carry.

The reply came the following day, not from Hamburg directly, but again through the Luxembourg house.

HOLD YOU LIABLE LOSSES FAILURE COMPLY STRICT TERMS STOP CLAIM TO FOLLOW STOP

Kuhn read it, and for a long moment said nothing.

Gormally felt, with a clarity that was almost physical, the point at which the matter had turned. It was not the delay; that, though unfortunate, might have been borne. It was the word – strict – now set against them, no longer a part of a hurried exchange, but of a claim.

“They will say we accepted it,” said Kuhn at last.

Gormally did not answer.

Kuhn turned to him.

“You wrote it,” he said, not accusingly, but as one states a fact.

“Yes,” said Gormally.

“And you believed it?”

“I did,” said Gormally. Then, after a moment, “I do.”

Kuhn inclined his head, as though acknowledging the honesty of the reply, if not its substance.

“Then we must see what others will make of it,” he said.

The papers were gathered, the telegrams laid out in order, the bill drawn and accepted, the endorsements noted. Somewhere between London, Hamburg and the small Grand Duchy through which the dispute now ran, the matter would be read again, line by line, in a language not their own, and given a meaning that would bind them more firmly than any they had intended.

Part IV here.

This time last year:
A month on from my heart attack

This time four years ago:
Park+Ride for Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
Decimalisation and determination

This time nine years ago:
God, an Englishman, orders his Eden thus:

This time 11 years ago:
I buy a Nikon Coolpix A

This time 12 years ago:
More about the Ladder of Authority

This time 13 years ago:
By bike, south of Warsaw

This time 15 years ago:
Functionalist architecture in Warsaw

This time 16 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'to bully'?

This time 17 years ago:
Making plans

This time 18 years ago:
The setting sun stirs my soul

This time 19 years ago:
Rain ends the drought
March and April 2026: the driest since records began

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt II)

[Part I here]

It was in the late summer of 1880 that a message arrived from Hamburg which would alter the course of Kuhn’s business – and indeed, his life. 

Gormally had been at his desk since before eight, entering the previous day’s transactions into the ledger, when the boy from Cornhill arrived with the first bundle of telegrams. Most were of the usual kind – small adjustments, enquiries, acknowledgements – but one, marked urgent, he read several times before passing it on.

Kuhn glanced at it and set it aside. He finished with the others first, marking them in pencil, dictating replies without emotion. Only when the bundle was cleared did he return to the Hamburg telegram. “Read it,” he said, passing it back. Gormally did so, this time aloud.

REQUIRE FOUR HUNDRED TONS FINE CHESHIRE IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT FOR CURING STOP REPLY URGENT

“Herring, I'd suppose” said Gormally.  “An unexpectedly large catch for the time of year?”

 “Seems so,” replied Kuhn. “It would spoil quickly in this heat.”

Both men instinctively felt the thing. Hamburg was short. Liverpool had not yet spoken. Between the two there lay a margin, if it could be taken quickly enough. “We could offer,” he said.

Kuhn did not answer at once. He placed the paper on the desk. “At what price?” he asked.

Gormally named a figure. It was not extravagant, but it assumed that Liverpool would not move against them before the answer came back. “And freight?” said Kuhn. “Steady,” said Gormally. “If we move this morning.”

“Very well,” said Kuhn. “We will offer. But you will not bind us beyond what is written.” Gormally nodded. He took up a form and began to write, choosing his words with care. He had done this so many times over his years with Kuhn.

OFFER FOUR HUNDRED TONS FINE CHESHIRE PROMPT SHIPMENT STOP PRICE AS ADVISED LESS TWO PERCENT STOP REPLY IMMEDIATELY STOP

He read it through once, then passed it to Kuhn, who made one alteration – crossing out PROMPT and writing EARLY above it – before handing it back. “Send it,” he said. Gormally folded the form and gave it to the office boy, who was gone at once, down the stairs and into the street, running as Gormally himself had run not so long before.

The room settled again into its quiet rhythm. A broker called, stayed a few minutes, and went. A letter was brought in and answered. The clock on the mantelpiece marked the quarter hours with soft chimes. It was a little after ten when the reply came.

The boy entered without knocking as was the custom in their firm, breathless. Gormally thanked him graciously, took the paper and read it.

ACCEPT YOUR OFFER CONDITION SHIPMENT WITHIN  FOURTEEN DAYS STRICT STOP

The words were few, but they carried more than they said.

He handed it to Kuhn who read it once, then again. “They add a condition,” he said.

Gormally did not immediately reply. The phrase lay between them: condition shipment within fourteen days strict. Was it a qualification, or merely a statement of what was in any case expected? Fourteen days was customary in a trade of this kind.

“They accept,” said Gormally at last. Kuhn looked at him.

“They accept,” Gormally repeated, more firmly. “And state their requirement.”

“They make their acceptance dependent upon it,” said Kuhn. “That is not the same thing.”

Gormally hesitated. He could see, as Kuhn saw, the other reading; but he could also see the market closing, the margin narrowing even as they spoke. If they treated this as a counter-offer, and replied again, time would be lost. Hamburg might go elsewhere. Liverpool might move.

“If we delay, we lose it," said Gormally.

Kuhn said nothing.

Gormally pressed the point. “Fourteen days is achievable. If we secure loading at once.”

“And if we do not?” said Kuhn. Gormally did not answer. Finally, Kuhn set the paper down. “You will answer...” he said “...With caution.”

Gormally took up another form. For a moment his pen hovered, as though the words might choose themselves. Then he wrote:

CONFIRMED AS AGREED STOP SHIPMENT WITHIN FOURTEEN DAYS STOP

He omitted the term 'STRICT'. 

Kuhn read it out aloud; for a moment it seemed he might object. Then he nodded once.“Send it.” There was the slightest hesitancy in Kuhn's voice that hinted at some vague misgiving he might have harboured about this transaction. Gormally felt it too, though what it was, neither man could not tell.

The boy was gone again, the paper in his hand.

Part III tomorrow.

This time two years ago:
More from Świnoujście

This time three years ago:
Corporate profits – better than Bolshevism.

This time three years ago:
Intimations of Immortality, revisited.

This time six years ago:
Things will never be the same Pt II

This time seven years ago:
Up to my waist

This time eight years ago:
Luton Airport's never-ending modernisation works

This time 11 years ago:
Another office move

This time 12 years ago:
Workhorse of the Free World's Air Forces over Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Looking for The Zone, in and around Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
I awake to snow, on 4 May
[Today's top temperature was 29°C]

This time 19 years ago:
This is not America. No?

The Terms of Trade – a short story (Pt I)

[Based on a dream I had this morning, set in the City of London in 1880.]

Joseph Gormally came to London as a young man in 1870 from the rural poverty of Co. Tyrone, finding employment as a telegraph courier for a commodities merchant named Kuhn. Gormally was fleet of foot, sharp of mind and usually of good cheer. His employer noted the speed with which the Irish youth picked up the basics of the business, despite a lack of formal education. Kuhn has been intermediating in the commodities trade between London and the continent, an enterprise set up by his late father nearly 40 years earlier. The firm specialised in salt – buying salt wholesale from Cheshire and selling it to the fish-briners of Antwerp and Hamburg. Kuhn & Co., Merchants and Commission Agents, it said on the brass plaque outside the office. Telegraphy had revolutionised the business, something the young Gormally quickly came to understand as he rushed from Kuhn's office on Mincing Lane to the telegraph office on Cornhill bearing confirmation of prices for orders for hundreds of tons of salt.

Kuhn's business had become a major player in the market after the Franco-Prussian War began; the German side, mobilising their armies, suddenly needed five hundred tons of salt to preserve fish with which to provision their troops; Kuhn had acted quickly and managed to ensure that the ships carrying the salt reached Hamburg before the French navy imposed their blockade of the North German coast. The bill of exchange was settled at Kuhn's merchant bank in good time; he made an exceptional windfall profit of £200 on that single trade.

The money went to extend his business, set up by the senior Mr Kuhn who had emigrated to London from Hamburg at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The younger Kuhn took over the company on his father's death just as the British government was about to nationalise the telegraph services. He understood the importance of this technology to profitable commodity trading; it gave his business the edge over rivals who relied more on long-standing contacts. It was around this time that Kuhn offered employment to Gormally. 

The young Irishman was regularly in the Cornhill telegraph office, making himself memorable to its employees thanks to his propensity to offer kind words and humour. He was well liked. Kuhn soon promoted the runner to clerk. Entering the texts of messages into the ledger, Gormally quickly came to understand the business; he could foresee a margin, a spread, a profit that could be made if a decision was made swiftly. His perspicacity did not go unnoticed.

Kuhn's wife, Margarite, was instrumental in Gormally's rise. She was often in the office, helping her husband. Noticing the Irish lad and his quick wit, she suggested that he be sent to night school to pick up commercial skills. 

One evening Gormally had been invited to dinner at the Kuhns' house in St John's Wood, bringing with him his fiancée, Helen, whom he'd met at the telegraph office, where she worked. The dinner was going well. Helen and Joseph shared a sense of humour, and Margarite liked her too. After the servants had cleared the table, Kuhn took Gormally into the drawing room, offered him a cigar and casually asked whether he believed in God. Gormally, who had been educated by the Sisters of Charity, replied that since coming to London he had stopped attending Holy Mass on a regular basis but still believed in a Supreme Being. 

The discussion led to Gormally being introduced by Kuhn to Freemasonry. As an outsider, more connected to the Continent than to London's cliquey networks, the younger Kuhn had been persuaded by his father to join the Freemasons, which proved a canny business move. And now Gormally – another outsider – was about to become one.

Part II tomorrow...

This time last year:
In town and around

This time three years ago:
Return to the Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings

This time seven years ago:
A review of the second part of Hillier's Betjeman biog.

This time eight years ago:
New roads and rails

This time eight years ago:
The Gold Train shoot – lessons learned

This time 12 years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time 13 years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 14 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 15 years ago:
Snow on 3 May

This time 16 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 17 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 18 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 19 years ago:
Flag day

Strike a blow against impertinence – a short story

Based on a dream I had on the morning of Friday 10 April 2026...

{{ London, October 1964, late evening. A sudden and intense shower. The Rolls-Royce/Bentley showroom by St James's Park Underground station, round the corner from Victoria Street. Four men are sheltering from the pouring rain just inside the entrance to an exclusive gallery of shops next to the showroom. Pride of place on the showroom floor that month happened to be an immaculately restored 1938 Rolls-Royce 25/30 Shooting Brake with coachwork by Hooper & Co. of London. A man in his 40s is admiring it through the curved plate-glass window. He'd been in the pub for much of the evening and was heading home, waiting at a nearby bus stop when he was forced to seek shelter from the downpour. Still staring at the distinguished lines of the vehicle, he says out loud to no one in particular: "Cor – any of you chaps see your way clear to extending me a loan for that beauty?" 

Image generated by Google Gemini

Totally unexpectedly, he receives a blow to the side of his head followed by a punch in the gut. As he doubles over, a knee comes up to meet his face with a hard crack. He falls to the ground. His assailant is joined by two other men, who clearly knew each other though had hitherto not been speaking among themselves. Lying on the pavement, he feels a well-polished leather shoe pressing lightly on his cheek, turning this way and that.

"Let this be the very last time you address your social betters with vulgar impertinence," said a calm voice above him. "May this be a lesson to you"  said another upper-class voice, kicking him hard in the stomach. Another shoe is aimed at his groin. Someone treads on his hand. The beating suddenly stops as the three men walk briskly away, hail a passing black cab, and leave the man to slowly get to his feet. }}

[At this point the dream fades. What follows is a fictional follow-up, partially imagined  drifting in and out of my hypnopompic state before I finally woke up.]

He staggered across Parliament Square and went to New Scotland Yard to report the assault. The desk sergeant noted that the man standing in front of him with a bloodied face had been drinking. Not the first of the night and far from the last. Yet when the victim mentioned the name of the pub, the Two Chairmen on Old Queen Street, the sergeant recalled a phone call from the landlord reporting a disturbance earlier the same evening and requesting the presence of a police officer. However, it was not until after the assault had been reported did a constable finally turn up at the pub, just after last orders had been called. The PC took a statement from the publican, who gave detailed descriptions of the three men suspected of the bus-stop assault, as well as corroborating the presence of the assaulted man in his pub for much of the evening.

It turns out that the three assailants were all aristocrats. Landed gentry. Among them, their ring-leader, the eldest son of the 8th Earl of Malmeseley. They had been drinking heavily, round after round, getting increasingly vociferously aggressive. 

Earlier that day, Harold Wilson had been to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen had asked him to form a government. This followed the Labour Party winning the previous day's general election by the tightest of margins – a majority of four seats. The news had brought the three men to boiling point, all convinced of the existential threat to their way of life posed by a new Labour government. 

"I evaded capture by the Japanese in Malaya in 1941. Fought alongside local guerillas. Survived disease and constant risk of betrayal in the jungle. Returned to London in late 1945. My family home, used to billet American airmen, you see, had been bulldozed to extend the runway of the nearby air base. Three hundred years of history reduced to a pile of rubble." 

He had spent the next 19 years in a mounting state of anger. Anger at how the natural order of the world had suddenly changed. Increasingly he was finding himself being disobeyed, disrespected, ignored. A bunch of insolent nobodies were in charge of Britain.  Men who'd not cut the mustard managing the branch office of a provincial building society are taking decisions that determine the direction of government policy! And now with Wilson at Number Ten, they'll back – in force – emboldened. Back in the ministries. Back in the county halls. "NOBODIES!" he screamed at the saloon bar. "UTTER NOBODIES!" When asked by the landlord to keep their voices down, they turned on him denouncing him as an undercover socialist and a tool of Wilsonite Labourism.

"Grammar-school interlektuals. Jumped-up mediocrities who hadn't even come across Thucydides or Ovid let alone read them in the original. Look at those despicable graspers in their gabardine raincoats checking their football pools in the Daily Express. Ready to open the floodgates to West Indians and Asians who by way of gratitude would vote Labour for generations." 

The aristocrat's son was in full flow, all restraint washed away by glass after glass of claret which followed the initial gin-and-tonics.

"Nowhere's safe!" he yelled. "Nowhere to hide from the county planner's office or from the taxman's rapacious claws! Housing estates and orbital roads, television aerials, electricity pylons, new towns and airports springing up everywhere, blighting our once-beautiful island. Motor-cars for all? By-passes, lay-bys and rights-of-way? Television and cake! Egalitarian FILTH! I SAY LEAVE ENGLAND AS SHE IS! I cannot tolerate change! Nazis? Brownshirts? Jumped-up lower-middle class scum! Bolsheviks? Communists? Even worse – common labourers! Peasants! Illiterate hordes! BUT THE WORST OF ALL ARE THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL EGALITARIAN SOCIALISTS FRESH FROM SOME MIDLANDS UNIVERSITY! THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO APTITUDE TO RULE! IT IS UNNATURAL FOR THEM TO RULE! It takes four years at prep school, seven years at Harrow or Eton and three years at Oxford or Cambridge to know how to RULE! Above all, it takes generations to know how to RULE! IT IS INNATE!" roared the son of the 8th Earl of Malmeseley, somewhat contradicting himself. "They must know their place! They must DEFER to their BETTERS!" 

It was at this point that the landlord phoned for the police. The complaint was duly noted down; no action, however, was taken.

The subject of the beating, Kenneth Snoddy, 48 of Chalk Farm, London NW3, had also spent that Friday evening drinking, with several of his colleagues from the Colonial Office. There was much chatter about their ministry being merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office, maybe even with the Foreign Office itself! Rumours, of course, but with a new Labour government in power, far more likely to go ahead. How would this play out? Lots of talk of internal politics. Who would rise to permanent under-secretary of state in a merged department? Would jobs be lost? Would there be promotion opportunities? Ken Snoddy supped up his fifth pint, bade farewell to his colleagues and set off to catch the bus home. Three pairs of eyes watched him go.

The case did not make it into the papers. Lord Malmesley had a quiet word at the club with Lord Camrose; the Press Association's court reporter assigned to cover the 8th Earl's son's appearance at the magistrate's court was given another case to cover at the last minute, and the story of his acquittal didn't make the day's agency wire feeds.

This time two years ago:
Early blossom, Jakubowizna
(Early indeed! Currently. no sign of apple or cherry blossom, let alone dandelions!)

This time seven years ago:
Ealing under blue skies

This time 12 years ago:
Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel

This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw 1935: a 3D depiction of a city that's no longer with us

This time 14 years ago:
Cats and awareness

This time 16 years ago:
Why did this happen?

This time 17 years ago:
Britain's grey squirrels turning red

Stand by for take-off

{{ Jet powered, swept wings, Mach numbers. Century series fighters. Guided missiles. Time over target. Congress. Rocket-launch tests. Telemetry. Research and development budgets. Fire-control radar. Computers. Transistors. Bell Labs. Air defense systems. Guided missiles. House Defense Appropriation Committee. RAND Corporation. 

{{ This, ladies and gentlemen, is the future speaking. And I am receiving it loud and clear.

{{ Black midwinter sky, Greenland. "When will we be ready? Will we ever be ready?" New equipment's coming into service, we're constantly unpacking large wooden crates. Sleds. Bitter cold.

Then the warmth of the officers' mess, and a beer. Esquire magazines lying around on the coffee tables. Viscose rayon threads. A continuous pipeline of innovation. All over the place, everywhere you look! Defending the free world, shopping at Macy's. Best standard of living in the world. Buick or Olds? Few years ago, it was easy. Now – there's so much choice. 

{{ That sky. Soon the sun will rise to shine so briefly, no clouds. Dawn and dusk together – beautiful. Kodachrome. Built-in light-meter?  Uh-huh. Bought it in the PX in Yokota. Another beer, buddy? Sure thing. Saratoga Springs. Ever been? Nope – but I'd like to go. "Hey! Haiti! Been to Port-au-Prince? I have! Show-off. Newfoundland, man, yeah, and a trip to Europe. Squeeze in some business. Defense procurement. Show off some new gadgets to the budget-holders. We have the edge. Europe's all bomb-damaged, from England to the Iron Curtain. They'll buy from us. Malenkov and Khrushchev are the threat. Technology. Thermal imaging. Transistors. That's the future. Russia's way behind". "There's a whole world out there – and who better to see it with than the U.S.A.F."! "Drink to that, bud!"

{{ We stood outside in awe of the Northern Lights. "Was that a...? That, sir, was a meteor. Seen 'em before. Russia wouldn't dare, would they? Well, they have the bomb, they have the bombers. We have radar-guided supersonic interceptors. They'd stand no chance of getting through. Chicago's safe. My baby's safe. Kentucky's safer. Damn that's another beer – nope, some still left in the bottle. Rolling Rock. Reminds me of home. Bowl of potato chips and peanuts. Remember those Japanese snacks? Yup. Kinda miss them. Good with a beer! Seen the Republic XF-103? They say it can fly at Mach 3 and will fire nuclear guided missiles. Nah. It's political. Convair will get it. }}

This time last year:
Touched by Boris

This time two years ago
Clinging on and letting go

This time five years ago:
Out in the mid-September heat

This time six years ago:
Poland's ugliest building?

This time 11 years ago:
Weekend cookery - prawns in couscous

This time 13 years ago:
Draining Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Early autumn moods

This time 15 years ago:
The Battle of Britain, 70 years on

This time 16 years ago:
Thoughts about TV, Polish and British

This time 17 years ago:
Time to abandon driving to work!

This time 18 years ago:
Crappy roads take their toll

Kanalisierungszeit

 What's going to happen now? Let's see...

{{ Sweet snaps of the Rhine, pressed trousers, polished shoes, you're representing the U.S.A., remember. These people all around us were our enemy just ten years ago. Today, they've bought into our dream. Automobiles, neon and jazz. Television sets and sport. Frauleins remind me of home. But you stare into the dead eyes of some older guy, and you know, you see hate. Hatred, resentment. I last saw that gaze fixed on me in Alabama. Losers and winners. But here, they know who beat them. They know if it weren't for us, if it weren't for our military presence, they'd be under a different boot. Some of those older guys had had a taste of that. No Marshall Plan, no dream, no Auto, no neon, no jazz; just grayness and the lash.

Demonstration flight 0530 tomorrow morning. I'll be part-engineer, part-salesman. Talk them through the features, answer the technical questions. Handling their objections. They're think they're good engineers – but heck, we're better. Better science, better universities, that's why. They see only detail; we get the bigger picture. We're Can Do. We Think Big. 

So – tomorrow. The guy who takes the decisions – he's from the Ministry. He has the budget. So it's a good thing most of that budget comes from Uncle Sam. That's why our people from the Embassy in Bonn are here too. We're here to sell.

Smell of rubber and kerosene, men working round the clock to get everything working perfectly for that early morning flight. Calibration, control, last-minute tweaks. Weather forecast isn't perfect but it'll do for the demo flight. Hangar doors are wide open; inside bright lights and the sound of engines being warmed up. Step ladders, crates and trolleys. Busy.

Look – at heart, I'm a mechanic, not an engineer – and sure as hell I'm not a scientist. I can take a carburettor apart, immediately see what the problem is, fix it, put it back together, and replace the unit so the engine works good. I'm handy with spanners and screwdrivers – real handy. That's what kept me out of the meat grinder in the Pacific, I was too useful to the Marines fixing F4U Corsair engines. But today my job calls on me to pretend I'm a scientist, using fancy words I don't entirely understand. Why am I here? I often wonder! Talking to real scientists, real engineers, and the budget boys from the air force and the ministry, I can tell a good story, from real life, from actually having handled the kit inside an RB-36 at 35,000ft with Red fighters climbing towards our ship for the intercept. I'm one of a handful of aircrew who have actually been over Soviet territory – though officially, I can only imply that, and if asked openly, I must deny it.

Night time in Wiesbaden. The Aral neon over the gas station, the milchbar across the road, wet cobblestones, Volkswagen Beetles, shiny black Mercedes-Benz sedans. Here and there a gap between the buildings, a reminder of wartime destruction, but the people are well-dressed and well fed; this isn't Guatemala or Honduras. Been there too, selling military hardware. Didn't like that. Just selling them redundant airplanes that they'll use fighting between themselves or killing their own folk. Candy from a baby. Still, taught me a thing or two about diplomacy. West Germany – a different matter. Just across the border to the east lies a massive foe, well armed and dangerous. Technologically not our match across the board, but here and there they have surprises up their sleeves. We have to be prepared for those surprises. And our allies too, holding the line here in Europe with us. Some stuff we can share – some we can't. Never know whom to trust, who'll sell our secrets to the Reds.

Ideologically the Ruskis are the enemies of freedom. Seen those cartoons they publish about us? See how they try to mock us? Given half the chance, how many of those Red assholes would rather to be living in the free world? 

Tanker trucks are driving into the hangar, the plane's being fueled up. Black German crosses freshly painted on the wings and fuselages. Different to those wartime ones. More like World War One and the Red Baron's flying circus. Checklists. Inspect everything. No smoking within 100 feet. Cigars tomorrow, I hope. And beers. They remind me of home too. 

[AI-generated image]

I think back to America and our office park. A beautiful place to work. I see the sense of what I'm doing. Strategic defense. Not messing around – projects designed to make the world safer through the application of military technology. We won in 1945 because of air power. We'll beat back the Ruskis in space. Burbank, El Segundo, San Diego – I work with them all, Bethpage too, especially around Navy contracts. Keep in with the boys. Best way of life in the whole world. Our German customers – they'll need all our help to keep the Reds out. Not just the hardware, but the promise of better life. A Frigidaire full. That is all. }}

This time last year:
Świnoujście out of season

This time two years ago:

New York City really has it all

This time three years ago:
Where the two contracts end

This time four years ago:
In praise of the Nikon D3500

This time five years ago:
Agnieszka Holland's Mr Jones reviewed

This time six years ago:
The Earth is flat

This time seven years ago:
Fiftieth anniversary of the Polski Fiat 125

This time nine years ago:
Wojtek the Bear in Edinburgh

This time 12 years ago:
Red tape and travel
[A reminder of how bad things once were!]

This time 14 years ago:
How much education does a country need?

This time 15 years ago:
Between Sarabandy and Farbiarska

This time 17 years ago:
Lights in the night sky

Ten grand a year

What was that? Something has guided me away what I was doing; I'd started watching a documentary about an American WW2 fighter aircraft (the Curtiss P-40) and I'm being told... write. OK then, I close YouTube and open Blogger. What will happen? I wait; the conduit is open.

{{ Nonsense. I'm tugged back. It doesn't work every time, but looking up, the desert sky says "yes". Yup. Nodding my head. Thirty-three palm trees, shimmering heat. Thin, wispy clouds, and a feeling of betrayal? A dog barks in the distance, I stand up and brush the sand off my trousers. Gripping the rail I climb back up into the hot cab. I don't really want to. But the exercise is over, time to move. Can't be any better though? Thirty-three palm trees – nah! Didn't count 'em. It's what they say. C'mon, move. Start the truck. A bottle of gin for the officers' mess? Procurement procedures? Forget about that. Use the money from the crap game. Who snitched on me? WHO? Pete?

Night falls as I reach my destination. I park the truck and head straight for the Schlitz neon. An ice-cold beer. TV. Some laughs with Jack Benny. Aw hell, I forgot about that gin. "Sir! A bottle of gin with my compliments!" About turn, quick march. Back to my next beer. Dollars. Yeah, dollars. Many of them. Parked. Parking. A parking lot. A vacant lot. Parking – two bucks a day. Fifty cars. I pay my man ten bucks a day to look after 'em, I pay City Hall fifty bucks a day for the lot, that's forty bucks profit. Two hundred a week, ten grand a year. 

Another beer, bowl of salted peanuts some olives! Yeah ten grand a year. Jack Benny. Swell guy, huh? Always makes me laugh. Ten grand a year? Whaddya say? Keep City Hall sweet, that's all there is to it. Veteran of the Pacific War, Korean War – who's gonna say no? Invest the profits, build up a chain of parking lots right across the Midwest. A man can dream. Big dreams. Soon as I'm outta uniform. 

Thirty-three palm trees. Why's that coming back to me? Anticipation; another mission looming. No, nothing dangerous this time. Ferry flight south as flight engineer. Senioritas. Americano. Few dollars go a long way. Should be good. Bottle green, bar-room lights through bottle green. ZTILHCS. Reminds me of a movie I once watched.

A time, a place, an industry. Yes, we are all one. Scattered here and there, each with our own stories to tell, except – who wants to hear them? Lost in a muffled cacophony of voices, of stories, some stand out, others are just, well, plain ordinary, just the kind of stories that most folk have to tell. You wanna listen? You're rare. Most folk are in too much of a rush to listen. Me? I wanna get on. No time to listen to you. But you – I want you to listen to me. A life interrupted, trying to get it back together after too much trouble. 

A better man? A worse man? Who can judge, padre? That's how it was. Twentieth Century Fox and United Artists. Did they get it right, or did we play out the stories they showed us?

Another beer, then the long drive back. At least the night's still warm. }}

This time last year:

The ephemeral pleasures of materialism

This time two years ago:
W-wa Zachodnia modernisation – a long way to go
(Two years on: still a long way to go)

This time three years ago:

The Wilderness and the Garden 

This time four years ago:
Back in Aviation Valley

This time five years ago:
My flight to Rzeszów – delayed

This time eight years ago:
English as she is used in Europe

This time nine years ago:
Where asphalt is needed – Nowy Podolszyn to Zgorzala

This time 14 years ago:
I cycle to work along the cyclepath along ul. Rosoła

This time 16 years ago:
First apple 

Mikorski's Trainset – a short story

 [Based on a dream I had on the morning of Wednesday 27 February 2024. Note to railway enthusiasts – this isn't a work of fiction, nor is it a work of history. It's the retelling of a dream; I've done zero research on the topic, so please – no comments saying that this or that isn't authentic.]

Mieczysław Mikorski (1889-1970) was the engineer-general of Polish state railways (PKP) before World War II, a position he held from 1936 to the outbreak of war. Deported by the NKVD to the far north of Russia in 1940, he was put to work by the Soviets on designing and building a railway network inside the Arctic Circle. He was released as part of the 'amnesty' negotiated between Churchill and Stalin after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, though after his wife and both daughters died of typhoid fever, a tragedy that stayed with him always.

In the Middle East with General Anders' army, Mikorski's talents were deployed by Allied forces there and later in Italy; he was engaged with the Royal Engineers supervising the laying of narrow-gauge tracks laid up towards the front lines to deliver ammunition and supplies. He was promoted and decorated. He ended up in London after the war, on a decent War Office pension, and with the gold coins he'd smuggled in from Egypt, he managed to buy himself a large apartment on the second floor in Hepton Mansions, just off High Street Kensington.

Unable to find suitable full-time employment because of his age, he accepted work as a waiter in an exclusive French restaurant in Knightsbridge. He was perfect at the job. With some customers, he'd silently and efficiently take orders and deliver the meals and the wine; with others, he'd shine with affected bonhomie and wit. The tips were always significant. British aristocrats and nouveau riche alike loved his pre-war mannerisms; he became a permanent fixture at the restaurant.

One Christmas, walking home, he passed the shop window of Derry & Tom's, and paused to look at a model railway, a miniature steam engine pulling carriages across a snowy model landscape. The next day, he popped in and spent an inordinate amount of money (tips were good in the run-up to Christmas) buying track, a transformer, a couple of engines, some passenger carriages and goods wagons.

He was hooked. This was the first day of the rest of his life. 

Mikorski's flat consisted of a kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms, one large, one small, a large sitting room and an equally large dining room. Over the years, the three large rooms became filled with three large model railway layouts. The three represented the major projects on which he was working in 1939; the development of the port of Gdynia, the rebuilding of the railway junction at Kępno, near the German border, and the modernisation of Wilno station. Mikorski didn't recognise the post-war Polish borders, and his work, he believed, would be useful to Poland after Stalin dies and his homeland would once again be free.

Mikorski was a stickler for accuracy. After a while, the 'toy trains', as he called them, were of no value to him; immersing himself in the hobbyists' literature, he'd order precision high-end models from the best manufacturers, particularly from Switzerland. Money no object – no mortgage to pay off, no family. He'd photograph his growing layouts with an Exakta camera, sending the prints to fellow enthusiasts worldwide with whom he would correspond. His photos and articles would end up in small-circulation mimeographed newsletters, eagerly subscribed to by wealthy railway modellers from Tokyo to Cape Town, from Buenos Aires to Calgary. Not particularly good with his own modelling skills, Mikorski formed a small group of model-makers whose talents matched his demanding requirements for precision in HO/OO scale, and to them he'd outsource the actual crafting of model buildings and landscape elements, as well as the rolling stock that he'd design himself.

Post-war London had several interesting private model-train layouts; one such was located at the headquarters of the railwaymen's trade union, used for labour tribunal cases. Signal boxes, points, junctions and sidings were accurately modelled here to demonstrate to the members of the tribunal the exact circumstances surrounding the incident that had led to the unfair dismissal of a driver or signalman. Mikorski, via his well-connected network, had a chance to see this layout several times, which left a strong impression on him.

Over the years, Mikorski's flat filled out with models of locomotives hauling passenger express trains or shunting rakes of goods wagons. Visitors were 'by appointment only' and rare; a great treat for a knowledgeable and enthusiastic father bringing his son to see something absolutely exclusive. Rank-and-file hobbyists with their Hornby-Triang Dublo sets wouldn't appreciate the extreme commitment and precision that had gone into these layouts. Mikorski had his standards. A total of 450 square feet of his apartment were given over to his passion.

And over the years, the layouts would evolve. Keeping up with the latest trends, Mikorski replaced steam motive power with electric and diesel locos; these he would design these himself – or imagine himself ordering real rolling stock from America, France or Britain (never West Germany!) for a free Poland. He would also design liveries for such engines in PKP service, and have model-makers paint the little trains for him to his exact specifications. By 1955, his vision of a free Poland's state railway network consisted of modern electric locos and comfortable carriages, whisking passengers from Warsaw to Lwów or Wilno in a couple of hours, and freight trains connecting the coalfields of Upper Silesia and the industrial district around Kielce to the port of Gdynia, and thence on to global markets.

Mikorski also took seriously his post as Minister of Railways in the Polish Government-in-Exile, a post he held for many years despite the comings and goings of the various Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Second Republic. Whenever railways were on the government's agenda, he'd invite the various ministers and secretaries of state to his flat for long lectures about the needs for modern infrastructure, demonstrated with the aid of his train sets (AI-generated image below), followed by vodka and herring in his (somewhat cramped) kitchen.

He died in December 1970 of a heart attack following news of the protests against Poland's communist leadership that broke out in the coastal cities; the emotion was too much for him. An executor's sale followed. Because the layouts could not be removed nor sold in situ, the models were carefully removed and boxed and auctioned off in small lots; and thus ended the story of Mikorski's trainset. And my dream. 

Back to Lenten posting later today.

This time five years ago:
Heathrow then and now

This time eight years ago:
Radom line modernisation will change the face of Jeziorki

This time nine years ago:
How do we perceive good and evil?

This time ten years ago:
Civilisation and a civil society

This time 12 years ago:
Strong, late-winter sunshine

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki's wetlands freeze over

This time 15 years ago
Kensington, a London village

This time 15 years ago:
Lenten recipies

This time 16 years ago:
A walk through Sadyba

Dave – an Emissary

 { based on a dream I had on the night of Friday 4th to Saturday 5th of August 2023 }

Dave is around 70. He was born in Jamaica and emigrated to England with his parents as a teenager in the 1960s. Small in stature, short, slim, spry, Dave's light-brown skin tells of some British great-grandparent. Thinning white hair and full white beard. Yet his most notable characteristic is his ineffable cheerfulness and sparkling eyes.

Dave spent all of his working life – literally every working day – at Heathrow Airport. London Airport as it used to be called back in the day. Manual work – cleaning, carrying. Never said much, but always seeming happy, Dave was popular with his co-workers, even though very few got to know him well. "Lives alone." "Has nine kids by four women." "Six kids, two wives." "Used to race Formula 3 cars at the weekend. Won 12 races!" "Played bass with Black Slate." All conjecture. "Does Dave do drugs?" "Acts like a toker – but never seen him blowing weed..." "Never heard him talk of it, neither..." Dave did nothing to unravel nor to promote the mystery of his personal life; he'd dismiss direct questions with a chuckle and a shrug of his shoulders.

He worked on beyond his state pension age – with good workers in short supply, his last boss was more than happy to keep him on, that is, until Covid and lockdown. Then the firm let go of Dave, his boss, and many of his mates. As soon as the lockdown was over, Dave would return to the airport, now no longer as a worker, but as a visitor. He'd catch the 36 bus down from Sipson to Heathrow Central and would spend the afternoon wandering around from terminal to terminal, groundside only – no longer did he have that security badge – smiling benignly at holidaymakers and business travellers alike, nodding to them as though he's known them for years.

There's the metaphysical effect of Dave's smile. People who see it immediately feel better; travel anxieties subside, replaced with a sense of peace and joy. Bickering families, hassled executives, burdened airport workers, all noticed a magical easing of negative emotions after making eye contact with smiling Dave. For most, it was a subconscious experience. For some, it was an encounter with a man, a most unremarkably remarkable man that stayed with them for a while, to return in memory flashbacks. All who had reported it noted a wave of kindness wash through them.

Dave – a quiet miracle worker, going about his way, unproclaimed. You might not have even noticed him as you rushed through Heathrow from check-in to security to gate. Maybe I didn't consciously notice him either, but I did have that dream, and the title of this post was from that dream too. 

Dave – an Emissary... but from whom?

This time last year:
Fifty years with Virginia Plain

This time two years ago:
The Curve (and one's place on it)

This time four years ago:
Fifty years on, my last kolonia

This time ten years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki's pretty station

This time 11 years ago:
Exorcism outside the President's Palace

This time 12 years ago:
The raging footsoldier - a story about anger

This time 13 years ago:
Graffiti and street art 

The Lie of the Land - a short story

Barry Himmoll, mathematician. A singular gentleman, given to talking to himself on his long strolls. A genius. He had already earned his PhD from Caltech at the age of 21 when most young men were just completing their Bachelor's degrees. His theoretical talents had attracted the attention of the aeronautical industry soon after the war broke out. He had spent most of the war calculating the trajectories of air-launched rockets, working for one of America's largest manufacturers of propellant.

Shortly after the Pacific war ended, his employer transferred him to a new project, based on the East Coast, where he'd find himself working on submarine-launched missiles. Soon, he'd find himself facing the Atlantic, rather than the Pacific. To be more accurate, his new office, and his brand-new bungalow nearby were somewhat inland, but a short enough drive from the shore.

But Barry was disappointed by the lie of the land. The ocean's swell, its roar, he knew. The Atlantic Coastal Plain, however, was flat. There were no distant mountains to gaze upon. His daily walks, accompanied by notepad and mechanical pencil, were spent theorizing the pressing practical problems of rocketry in the form of calculus. With a new dog for companionship, Barry would stroll around his neighborhood, stopping every now and then to jot down some formulae as ideas came to him. 

One bright morning, it had occurred to him while out walking his dog, that having been raised in Oregon and with all of his adult life spent in California, being without a mountainous horizon was something new and almost unsettling for him. He wondered why it must be thus. His regular routes were flat - the walk to the lab - flat. The two dog-walks - flat. Flat meant no new vistas to behold as he rounded a corner, no scenery to admire from afar. And no vantage points from which to survey the land laid out in front.  As a child, he'd gaze up at the Cascade Mountains and wonder about the forests rising to the tree line, remote logging settlements, wooden cabins, smoke rising from chimneys, wolves, snow-covered peaks... Pasadena had a mountain range too; not as high but much closer to hand. Now he'd be sorely missing those sierras and hiking in them.

It bugged him. Barry's mind set to work on the topology and trigonometry of how an ideal landscape of the Atlantic Coastal Plain should look. Even a modest range of hills, he considered, could ripple up to offer some delight, some relief. And between those hills, shallow valleys, guiding rivers toward the ocean... To be able to stand on a ridge and behold another ridge, separated by ten or more miles... 

Day after day, his only choice when setting out from home to walk his dog in the early morning or after work was to turn left or turn right. The road on which he lived was straight and flat - yielding no differential in elevation. Well, maybe one foot's rise in half a mile. Maybe 18 inches. One day, he stopped and put on his driving glasses. Got right down to the ground, then lay down prostrate on the sidewalk, gazing into the distance. Yes - there was a gentle rise ahead, entirely clear. He noted the gatepost marking a high point, then stood up and walked towards it, turned around and looked back. Indeed, he found himself looking down, ever so slightly. One day, at the local library, he perused maps of the area. He'd have to drive 300 miles west towards the Tennessee border to get some glimpses of peaks. But Barry wanted those mountains right here, where he was, not as a weekend destination.

Was it him or was that hump near the crossroads a bit more pronounced today? Changes would be coming. Change is what one wants. With a merrier step he'd set off on his walks. Could it be that he really felt he was walking uphill? One day, he bought himself a pair of war-surplus binoculars in town. Pointless, he thought at first, but then he'd start discerning landmarks along the horizon through them, increasingly clearly. A new way at looking at land. Winter was best - he could see further than in summer when his line of sight was blocked by trees in leaf. With each winter, it seemed to him that the land was indeed - slightly hillier.

Topology and topography. Orthogonal vectors in Riemannian geometry for work, and in daily life the  imagining of 3D maps of the terrain, land forms, twisted, buckled, pulled, pushed, distorted - shapes, forms - all calculable. But the pure math of flat terrain suggested that somehow more varied landscape was an innately desirable characteristic.

Ever so slowly, Barry had subconsciously trained himself to raise the land by willing it to do so - even though he wasn't aware that he was doing so. His shoes would depress low-lying land, pushing it ever so slightly closer to the center of the earth. And when traversing higher ground, it would seem attracted to his body and rise up fractionally to meet it.. Where the land was not inhabited, it would jump an inch or so in height from one second to the next, a move accompanied by a sudden bright flash of a line of light along a forest floor. But no one saw it happen. Where people live on the land, its rise would be gradual, unnoticed.

Yet there was no sign on any maps that the land was rising inexorably; they would redraw themselves as though they were such when they left the printers, with ever-higher contours. If an observer placed any one of these maps of the area under a time-lapse camera for a few years, he would see the numerals '80ft' on a contour line morph into '85ft' then '90ft' then '95ft', leaving not a trace on the paper of their former value. But of course no one locally did that - they weren't even aware that their land was rising gently beneath their feet. Or who was causing it to happen Or what they could really remember about where they lived.

Some places rose more than others, some rose faster than others. Some dips and valleys lost height, as if sucked imperceptibly by the earth's core. Barry never noticed. But as the years passed, he grew familiar with his surroundings, he felt happier there, he felt his mind was - once again - more fertile, more productive, new ideas seemed to spring out, unbidden, one after the other. Mountains became distant memories.

After 20 years of Barry's presence, the difference was distinct - but no one remembered the landscape as it was before he settled there. Maybe it had always been hilly, rolling countryside. Only local folk who had grown up there as children with unusually acute powers of observation, returning after many years' absence would scratch their heads and would say to themselves: "I can't recall it being quite so hilly back then! Maybe it's a trick of memory - maybe my eyesight's not what it once was. Maybe as a kid I never noticed them rises as I ran for the groceries. Now, they tire me." They'd say such things to themselves and then they'd move on to another thought about the old radio store on Main Street or whether the soda fountain used to be on this side or the other side of the road.

And so, after 20 years in his daily routine, walking to work, walking home again, taking his dog for a walk, in the morning, and again after he'd got home, Barry Himmoll felt a personal satisfaction with where he lived and worked; the undulating landscape somehow suited him just as it was. 

As he approached his 50th birthday, he was called in to the personnel department. He was being offered a new and exciting job. A mathematician with his particular skill-set was needed to work on the moonshot project; his employer had won a contract to provide services to NASA. He'd be moving to Texas. Houston. Damn. Flat as a pancake.

[And then full stops start moving themselves around this story.]

This time last year:
A Future Like This

This time two years ago:
Qualia memories: rural Gloucestershire, 1973

This time three years ago:
Lent 2020 - the summing up

This time four years ago:
Strength in numbers

This time seven years ago:
Cultural differences: distance to power

This time 11 years ago:
Painting the Forum Orange

This time 14 years ago:
That's what I like about the North