The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coat

The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coat

By Chaz Brenchley (excerpt)

Our unannounced visitor, the uninvited, the unknown: he was tall even by Martian standards, and the shortest of us would overtop an average Earthman. Mr Holland must have been tall in his own generation, six foot three or thereabouts; here he was no more than commonplace. In his strength, in his pride I thought he would have resented that. Perhaps he still did. Years of detention and disgrace might have diminished him in body and spirit both, but something must survive yet, unbroken, undismayed. He could never have made this journey else. Nor sat with us. Every tree holds a memory of the forest.

The stranger was in his middle years, an established man, confident in himself and his position. That he held authority in some kind was not, could not be in question. It was written in his assumptions, as clearly as in the way he stood, the way he waited; the way he had taken charge so effortlessly, making my own display seem feeble, sullen, nugatory.

Mr Holland apparently saw the same. He said, “I don’t believe we were introduced, sir. If I might venture a guess, I should say you have a look of the Guards about you.” Or perhaps he said the guards, and meant something entirely different.

“I don’t believe any of us have been introduced,” I said, as rudely as I knew how. “You are…?”

Even his smile was weighty with that same settled certainty. “Gregory Durand, late of the King’s Own’” with a little nod to Mr Holland: the one true regiment to any man pf Mars, Guards in all but name,”and currently of the Colonial Service.”

He didn’t offer a title, not even a department. I could hear the doubt in my own voice as I tried to pin him down. “The police?”

The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coat. Photo by Elena

“On occasion,” he said. “Not tonight.”

If that was meant reassuring, it fell short. By some distance. If we were casting about for our coats, half-inclined not to wait for those drinks, it was not because we were urgent to follow him into the conservatory. Rather, our eyes were on the door and the street beyond.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “be easy.” He was almost laughing at us. “Tonight I dress as you do,” overcoat and hat, “and share everything and nothing, one great secret and nothing personal or private, nothing prejudicial. I will not say “nothing perilous,” but the peril is mutual and assured. We stand or fall together, if at all. Will you come? For the Queen Empress if not for the Empire?”

The Empire had given us little enough reason to love it, which he knew. An appeal to the Widow, though, will always carry weight. There is something irresistible in that blend of sentimentality and strength beyond measure, endurance beyond imagination: we had cried for her, we would die for her. We were on our feet almost before we knew it. I took that so much for granted, it needed a moment for me to realise that Mr Holland was still struggling to rise. Unless he was simply slower to commit himself, he whose reasons – whose scars – were freshest on his body and raw yet on his soul.

Still, I reached out my hand to help him and he took it resolutely, quick of thought and quick to choose. Quick to go along. A lesson learned, perhaps. I was almost sad to see it, in a man who used to disregard protocol and convention so heedlessly; but it was sheer wisdom now to keep his head down and follow the crowd. Even where that crowd was disreputable and blind itself, leading none knew where.

Being led, I should say. Through a door beside the hearth, that was almost never open this time of year. Beyond lay the unshielded conservatory, like an open invitation to the night.

An invitation that Mr Holland balked at, and rightly. He said, “You gentlemen are dressed for this, but I have a room here, and had not expected to need my coat tonight.”

“You’ll freeze without it. Perhaps you should stay in the warm.” Perhaps we all should, but it was too late for that. Our company was following Durand like sheep, trusting where they should have been most wary. Tempted where they should have been most strong.

And yet, and yet. Dubious and resentful as I was, I too would give myself over to this man – for the mystery or for the adventure, something. For something to do that was different, original, unforeseen. I was weary of the same faces, the same drinks, the same conversations. We all were: which was why Mr Holland had been so welcome, one reason why.

This, though: I thought he of all men should keep out of this. I thought I should keep him out, if I could.

Here came Durand to prevent me: stepping through the door again, reaching for his elbow, light and persuasive and yielding nothing.

“Here’s the boy come handily now, just when we need him. I’ll take that, lad,” lifting the tray of refreshments as though he had been host all along. “You run up to Mr Holland’s room and fetch down his overcoat. And his hat too, we’ll need to keep that great head warm. Meanwhile, Mr Holland, we’ve a chair for you hard by the stove…”