A Matter of Honor Read online

  Adam had decided to wait until he had reached the privacy of his own room before he opened the envelope. Lately the excitement in his life had not been such that he felt he could be blasé about the little ceremony. After all, in a way, he had waited most of his life to discover what could possibly be in the envelope he had now inherited.

  Adam had been told the story of the family tragedy by his father a thousand times—“It’s all a matter of honor, old chap,” his father would repeat, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders. Adam’s father had not realized he had spent a lifetime overhearing the snide comments of lesser men and suffering the sidelong glances from those officers who had made sure they were not seen too regularly in his company. Petty men with petty minds. Adam knew his father far too well to believe, even for a moment, that he could have been involved in such treachery as was whispered. Adam took one hand off the handle bars and fingered the envelope in his inside pocket like a schoolboy the day before his birthday feeling the shape of a present in the hope of discovering some clue as to its contents. He felt certain that whatever it contained would not be to anyone’s advantage now his father was dead, but it did not lessen his curiosity.

  He tried to piece together the few facts he had been told over the years. In 1946, within a year of his fiftieth birthday, his father had resigned his commission from the army. The Times had described Pa as a brilliant tactical officer with a courageous war record. His resignation had been a decision that had surprised the Times correspondent, astonished his immediate family and shocked his regiment, as it had been assumed by all who knew him that it was only a matter of months before crossed swords and a baton would have been sewn on to his epaulette.

  Because of the colonel’s sudden and unexplained departure from the regiment, fact was augmented by fiction. When asked, all the colonel would offer was that he had had enough of war and felt the time had come to make a little money on which Susan and he could retire before it was too late. Even at the time few people found his story credible, and that credibility was not helped when the only job the colonel managed to secure for himself was as secretary of the local golf club.

  It was only through the generosity of Adam’s late grandfather, Gen. Sir Pelham Westlake, that he had been able to remain at Wellington College and thereby be given the opportunity to continue the family tradition and pursue a military career.

  After leaving school Adam was offered a place at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. During his days at the RMA, Adam was to be found diligently studying military history, tactics, and battle procedure, while on weekends he concentrated on rugby and squash. But his greatest success came whenever he ran cross-country races. For two years panting cadets from Cranwell and Dartmouth only saw his mud-spattered back as Adam went on to become the Inter-Services champion. He also became the middleweight boxing champion despite a Nigerian cadet’s breaking his nose in the first round of the final. The Nigerian made the mistake of assuming the fight was already over.

  When Adam graduated Sandhurst in August 1956, he managed ninth place in the academic order of merit, but his leadership and example outside the classroom was such that no one was surprised when he was awarded the Sword of Honor. Adam never doubted from that moment he would follow his father and command the regiment.

  The Royal Wessex Regiment accepted the colonel’s son soon after he had been awarded his regular commission. Adam quickly gained the respect of the soldiers and was popular with those officers whose currency was not to deal in rumor. As a tactical officer he had no equal, and when it came to combat duty it was clear he had inherited his father’s courage. Yet, when six years later, the War Office published in the London Gazette the names of those subalterns who had been promoted to captain, Lt. Adam Scott was not to be found on the list. His contemporaries were genuinely surprised, while senior officers of the regiment remained tightlipped. To Adam it was becoming abundantly clear that he was not to be allowed to atone for whatever it was his father was thought to have done.

  Eventually Adam was promoted to captain, but not before he had distinguished himself in the Malayan jungle in hand-to-hand fighting against the never-ending waves of Chinese soldiers. Having been captured and held prisoner by the Communists, he endured solitude and torture of the kind that no amount of training could have prepared him for. He escaped eight months after his incarceration only to discover on returning to the front line that he had been awarded a posthumous Military Cross. When, at the age of twenty-nine, Captain Scott passed his staff exam but still failed to be offered a regimental place at the staff college, he finally accepted he could never hope to command the regiment. He resigned his commission a few weeks later; there was no need to suggest that the reason he had done so was because he needed to earn more money.

  While he was serving out his last few months with the regiment, Adam learned from his mother that Pa only had weeks to live. Adam made the decision not to inform his father of his resignation. He knew Pa would only blame himself, and he was at least thankful that he had died without being aware of the stigma that had become part of his son’s daily life.

  The sight of the outskirts of London made Adam’s thoughts return, as they had so often lately, to the pressing problem of finding himself gainful employment. In the seven weeks he had been out of work he had already had more interviews with his bank manager than with prospective employers. It was true that he had another meeting lined up with the Foreign Office, but he had been impressed by the standard of the other candidates he had encountered on the way, and Adam was only too aware of his lack of a university qualification. However, he felt the first interview had gone well, and he had been quickly made aware of how many ex-officers had joined the service. When he discovered that the chairman of the selection board had a Military Cross, Adam assumed he wasn’t being considered for desk work.

  As he swung the motorbike into King’s Road Adam once again fingered the envelope in his inside jacket pocket hoping, uncharitably, that Lawrence would not yet have returned from the bank. Not that he could complain: his old school friend had been extremely generous in offering him such a pleasant room in his spacious flat for only four pounds a week.

  “You can start paying more when they make you an ambassador,” Lawrence had told him.

  “You’re beginning to sound like a slumlord,” Adam had retorted, grinning at the man he had so admired during their days at Wellington. For Lawrence—in direct contrast to Adam—everything seemed to come so easily—exams, jobs, sports and women, especially women. When he had won his place at Balliol and then gone on to take a first in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, no one was surprised. But when Lawrence chose banking as a profession, his contemporaries could not hide their disbelief. It seemed to be the first time he had embarked on anything that might be described as mundane.

  Adam parked his motorbike just off Ifield Road, aware that like his mother’s old Morris it would have to be sold if the Foreign Office job didn’t materialize. As he strolled toward the flat a girl who passed gave him a second look, he didn’t notice. He took the stairs in threes and had reached the fifth floor and was pushing his Yale key into the lock when a voice from inside shouted, “It’s on the latch.”

  “Damn,” said Adam under his breath.

  “How did it go?” were Lawrence’s first words as Adam entered the drawing room.

  “Very well, considering,” Adam replied, not quite sure what else he could say as he smiled at his flatmate. Lawrence had already changed from his city clothes into a blazer and gray flannels. He was slightly shorter and stockier than Adam with a head of wavy fair hair and gray thoughtful eyes that always seemed to be inquiring.

  “I admired your father so much,” he added. “He always assumed one had the same standards as he did.” Adam could still remember nervously introducing Lawrence to his father one Speech Day. They had become friends immediately. But then Lawrence was not a man who dealt in rumors.

  “Able to retire on the family fortune, are w