Straight on Till Morning Read online

  As the train came to the platform it got an ovation which must have surprised it. The station looked like a flower show and circus combined. Around it sat or stood in the street, many thousands of spectators of all races and colours attired in all conceivable schemes of personal decoration. On a red carpeted dais, under banners and flags and a mile of bunting the Governor…made Their Royal Highnesses welcome. They…then got into a waiting car and drove at foot pace, under triumphal arches and the fluttering of a thousand flags to Government House. The route, roses all the way, was…solid with folk and wild with enthusiasm.31

  For the next few weeks the two princes were feted and entertained in the grand manner with balls at Government House, outdoor supper parties, luncheons, race meetings and private parties at Muthaiga Club and leading night spots. Beryl was constantly present at these social occasions and from the start interested onlookers noted the marked preference that Prince Henry showed for her company.32

  The Prince of Wales had arranged several safaris and although he claimed to be more interested in shooting with his camera than his gun he particularly wanted to bag an elephant and a lion.33 Prince Henry was not so keen to hunt, Bunny Allen stated. ‘He was riding horses a lot, doing trips up into the mountains and thoroughly enjoying himself, but not actually doing a lot of hunting.’ Before leaving civilization both princes spent some time racing at Nairobi. Prince Henry rode well, far better than his brother who was, according to local opinion, ‘a brave though somewhat poor horseman’.34 Significantly the Prince of Wales was always provided with better horses though he only managed a second place riding the Markhams’ best horse Cambrian, a few days after his arrival. At a subsequent meeting the Prince of Wales won a race with his brother a close second. Surely the informant who hinted that the other riders had hung back was being less than generous?

  Bunny Allen first met Beryl on one of the Prince of Wales’s safaris:

  …she was in and out of camp as a friend of His Royal Highness and his aides. It’s history that Prince Henry was very fond of Beryl and that she reciprocated…They were constantly together and they were a very handsome pair. He was tall, slightly arrogant, good looking; a fine figure of a man. She was a magnificent creature, with a beautiful movement, very feline. It was like watching a beautiful golden lioness when she walked across the room, or the green lawns of the Muthaiga Club.

  She was always so beautifully dressed and she had such wonderful legs for a pair of slacks. Slacks were only just coming into vogue at that period – all the dear old ladies who had hunted in the past (which weren’t many) were still wearing voluminous skirts. She was the first girl to bring a good looking pair of legs into a good looking pair of slacks! If one went into the club during the visit of Prince Henry, more often than not Beryl and the Prince were there together having a splendid time with a crowd of friends.35

  Beryl was several times in our camps in the Mount Kenya and Northern Frontier areas, accompanied by Prince Henry on at least one occasion. Whilst camps were being moved from one place to another, the ‘inmates’ hied themselves off to Muthaiga Club, which was the Royal ‘Waiting Room’. One has to remember that in those days safaris moved on slower wheels. A move from one camp to another took about a week to set up and get the champagne chilled.36

  Bunny also felt confident that Beryl had accompanied Prince Henry on at least one safari as a member of his party, where there was ample time for what he termed ‘bushy experiences’.37

  In the authorized biography Prince Henry: Duke of Gloucester the prince’s time in East Africa is reported:

  Prince Henry felt that he had met everyone in Kenya. ‘There are some very nice people,’ he observed, ‘and some very much otherwise.’ Kenya, with its uniquely beautiful scenery, and its rather relaxed European society ranging from the highest quality as represented by Lord Frances Scott…to some of less reliable background, did indeed offer a combination of enjoyments and hazards for two of such eligible status as the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Gloucester. From here they were to take their separate safari routes, Prince Henry travelling to Longido, spending some days in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro…he was in search of big game but he resolved not to shoot more than two of each species unless the need for meat dictated a greater ration.

  The record of Prince Henry’s trip continues with reports of the races in which the princes rode, with particular note of the race where

  …the Prince of Wales won and Prince Henry was second ‘which was great fun’. Prince Henry was mounted on a horse trained by Captain Clutterbuck, a Kenya notable and the father of Beryl, who won a name for herself on account of her remarkable beauty and also her outstanding feats of airmanship.38 They then dined with the Governor of Kenya and Lady Grigg. This was followed by a municipal ball and then a supper party which the Princes gave at a club. No wonder the Governor, Sir Edward Grigg, described the Princes as ‘indefatigable’. He also noticed ‘what a charming and simple person’ Prince Henry was and he reckoned he would be ‘a great asset when he has gained a little more confidence’…By 20th October, when [the prince] was writing to the Queen under an extension to his tent with a yellow lining on the M’hata Plains near Kilosa in a lovely breeze, ‘the kind of weather you would like’, he was able to tell his mother that he was enjoying himself, had ‘never felt so well’ and that his party was a happy one.39

  On 9 November Tania wrote to her mother of the small dinner party she had given for the Prince of Wales at which Beryl, shortly to leave for England, had been present: ‘[Beryl] looked absolutely ravishing that evening…’40 Karen Blixen’s biographer, Judith Thurman, states:

  Beryl was a sort of Circe…Tania could not have been blind to her allure, and it speaks highly for her dedication as a hostess – and her sense of fairplay generally – that she still invited her to dinner, placed her beside Denys and later reported to her mother that she looked ravishing. It was the evening of Kamante’s [Tania’s cook] greatest triumph, with a meal that began with his famous clear soup and was followed by Mombasa turbot served with hollandaise, ham poached in champagne, partridge with peas, a pasta with cream and truffles, green, pearl onions and tomato salad, wild mushroom croustades, a savarin, strawberries and grenadines from the garden. Denys provided the wines and cigars. Afterward, the guests went out to watch the ngoma [tribal dance]. The chiefs had not let her down, and there was a crowd of enthusiastic dancers around the bonfires. The drive was illuminated with several smaller fires, and Tania hung a pair of old ship’s lanterns – brought back from Denmark for Berkeley Cole – outside the house.41

  The next day the Prince of Wales’s party left on safari. Beryl was now five months into her pregnancy, though ‘no one would have guessed to look at her. She was riding out up to the day she left.’ Some time in mid November she left for England to spend Christmas with her mother-in-law and to have her baby. From the day of her departure her father took over the training of all the horses.

  Within weeks the two princes were made aware of a potential crisis when the king became gravely ill. The Prince of Wales was hunting with Bror Blixen when he received a cabled summons back to England. It said: ‘The King has been attacked with congestion of and pleurisy of the lung due to microbic infection. The condition of the heart makes the immediate future anxious and uncertain. I advise the Prince to get in touch near home. Dawson.’42

  Not unnaturally, after receiving this message, the prince became pensive. ‘At any moment he might have to open a blue and white envelope informing him that he was no longer Prince of Wales.’43 Before he left, the prince remarked to Cockie (Bror Blixen’s second wife), ‘To think that in a few days I may be King of England.’

  The whole nation held its breath. On 27 November, the Prince of Wales who was at Dodoma received the news. His Assistant Private Secretary Captain Alan Lascelles, immediately telegraphed Lord Stamfordham to say that they would stay there to await further developments. He also telegraphed to Captain Howard Kerr at Buckingham Palace to see if
he could contact Prince Henry, whose whereabouts neither he nor the Prince of Wales knew. Then on 1 December at Ndola, Prince Henry got the news. ‘Am so distressed to hear of Papa’s illness,’ he telegraphed to his mother, ‘and am proceeding home as soon as possible via Cape Town.’44

  Owing to the seriousness of the situation, a series of special transport arrangements were laid on for the Prince of Wales’s party and by travelling day and night the prince arrived home only ten days after leaving Dar es Salaam. He drove straight to Buckingham Palace and went to the king’s room. ‘Now,’ commanded his father, ‘tell me about the elephants.’46

  But the king was a desperately sick man and his illness reached a crisis on 11 December, the very day that the Prince of Wales reached London. The king was suffering from pleuropneumonia and a severe case of toxaemia caused by an untreated abscess seated behind the diaphragm. By 12 December he was unconscious and his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn, decided that it was a ‘do or die’ situation. In a daring piece of surgery he located the abscess and drained it. By the end of the month the papers and medical journals were reporting that ‘convalescence is now in sight’.46

  The Times of 27 February 1929 carried the announcement, ‘Markham: On February 25th, at 9 Gerald Road, Eaton Square, to Beryl, wife of Mansfield Markham, a son.’

  Beryl’s son was called Gervase. According to the birth certificate, the birth was not registered for sixteen months, which delay actually rendered the mother liable to prosecution. None the less, an adequate explanation for the delay was given to the registrar general. who personally approved the certificate.47

  The precise date of the child’s birth is of obvious importance, for it completely invalidates the theory that Prince Henry could have been the father of the boy. This theory, which has been given much credence in Kenya and was never denied by Beryl, was even believed by members of the Markham family. However, it was almost a year before Gervase’s birth that Beryl had embarked on her voyage to Kenya with her husband. On arrival in Kenya her whereabouts are well documented. Prince Henry’s movements too are well documented. He was in England and his diary crammed with formal duties at the time when, even allowing for an unusually long or short pregnancy, Gervase was conceived. Beryl had been in Kenya for some time before she conceived her child, and it is therefore impossible that Prince Henry could have been the father. One wonders why Beryl did not deny the speculation during the years which followed – perhaps she enjoyed the notoriety, though this seems out of character. Much more likely is the theory that she didn’t care what people thought.48 Tania Blixen, writing to her mother of the child’s birth, said, ‘They are probably not coming out here again for the time being. The Duke of Gloucester, who was out here, is said to be very attentive and attending on [Beryl] day and night, and I think everyone in Kenya was counting on their fingers like Corfitz in The Lying-in Room49 to see if the child could be reckoned to have royal blood, but unfortunately it doesn’t work out.’50

  The name chosen for the baby was an old family name, and in view of his mother’s background at least, it was highly appropriate. Gervase Markham, his ancestor and namesake, wrote a book on horses and training as long ago as 1599:

  The secrets and arte of trayning and dietting the horse for a course: which we commonly call running Horses.

  Touching the day in which your horse must runne for your wager, thus shall you use him; First, the night before, you shall gui him but a verie little supper, so that he may be passing empty in the morning, when you are to haue him out and ayre him an howre or two before day, taking great care that he empty himself thorowly while he is abroade, then bring him in; and after you have well rubd all his four legges, and annoynted them thorowly either with Neates-foot oyle, Treame oyle, Sheepes-foote oyle, or Linceed-oyle, all which may be the most excellent oyles that may be had for a horse, then give him this food: Take a good bigge penny white loafe and cut the same into toastes, and toaste them against the fire, then steep them in Muskadine, and laye them betweene hot cloathes, and dry them, and so give them to your horse…This be so comforting and pleasant that your horse’s empties shall little aggreive him. When he hath eaten this, put on his mussell, give him great store of lytter, unloose his sursingle that his cloathes may hang loosely upon him, and so let him stand to take his reste till the howre in which he must be led forth to runne, not suffering any man to come within your stable, for fear of disquieting your horse. When the howre has come for you to lead him out, gyrd on his cloathes handsomely, bridle him up and then take your mouth ful of strong vinegar and spirt it into your horse’s nosethrils, whereof it will search and open his pypes, making them apt for the receite of wind. This done, lead him to the race, and when you come at the end therfor where you must uncloathe him, having the vinegar carried after you, doo the like there, and so bequeath him and yourself to God, and good fortune.51

  Beryl and Prince Henry took up their friendship surprisingly soon after Gervase’s birth, and this is given by those interviewed as the reason that the prince ‘tried to wriggle out of going to Japan’. That the prince was not keen to go on this Garter Mission is a well-recorded fact.

  Plans for his Garter Mission to Japan had by now for some months been the subject of exchanges between the Foreign Office in London and the British Embassy in Tokyo. The decision, however, rested with the King, or such as in his grave illness, could speak for him. On the morning of 8 January 1929 the Prince of Wales summoned into his almost regal presence at St James’s Palace Mr F.G. Gwatkin of the Foreign Office. He said that although the King was somewhat better he would be unable to undertake any public engagements before the summer. The Duke of Gloucester, the Prince of Wales therefore explained, could not be spared for the Garter Mission to Japan. Perhaps, the Prince suggested, some non-royal eminence could be spared to take his place or perhaps the Japanese could wait until 1930. By that time, the Prince of Wales thought, Prince Henry would be serving with his Regiment in India and therefore might the more easily visit Japan. The British Ambassador, Sir John Tilley, was to be consulted. And so, in these senses the matter was ventilated in the Foreign Office with Sir John Tilley in Tokyo until on 21 January Lord Stamfordham put the issue beyond doubt. He then told the Foreign Office that the matter was not for the Prince of Wales but for the Queen ‘who alone’, he boldly asserted, ‘I regard as the mouthpiece of the King. Her Majesty’, he continued, ‘told me that the previous evening she had explained to the Prince of Wales that what had been arranged by the King could not be changed and that His Royal Highness understood that it must now be settled that the Duke of Gloucester goes as previously, arranged with the Garter Mission’.52

  So, despite the Prince of Wales’s assistance it was decided that the Garter Mission would depart at the end of March, and in the meantime Prince Henry officially, according to his biographer, ‘kept up his spirits by galloping up and down steep hills at Melton Mowbray and then, when hard frosts made hunting impossible, by coming up to Buckingham Palace and skating on the lake’. Many years later when Prince Henry was told of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he retorted, ‘To think they made me travel ten thousand miles to give the Garter to that damned Mikado!’53 In fact Prince Henry spent much of his time with Beryl. She was a frequent visitor to his apartments at Buckingham Palace where, James Fox says, ‘She ran about the palatial corridors, barefoot, like a Nandi warrior.’54 Beryl confirmed her visits to the palace and told a close friend of an incident when the prince’s mother, Queen Mary, paid an unexpected call on her son. Beryl hid in a cupboard until the visit was over.

  Until his father’s illness Prince Edward had had no state role or responsibilities. Now, for the first time, he was given the feel of the reins of power, serving on the council which temporarily absorbed the power of the monarch. For many years Prince Edward had hunted and steeplechased in defiance of his parents’ fears and wishes. But following a visit to the coal fields in the bitterest winter Europe has known this century, he decided to sell his string of horses. On
the evening before the sale in late February the stablehands were astonished to receive a visit from the prince, exquisite in evening clothes. Sadly and all alone, he visited each horse in turn, with a pat and a whispered goodbye. In his autobiography the prince recalled this event as a reluctant abandonment of the only pursuit which gave an outlet to his competitive spirit.

  Between the birth of Gervase and Prince Henry’s departure for Japan, Beryl and Henry had only a few short weeks to enjoy each other’s company. On the eve of his departure Beryl gave him a small silver cigarette case. Inside, engraved in her own handwriting, was the message ‘28th March 1929. From Beryl. A sad day after many happy times.’55

  When Gervase was only months old, Beryl and Mansfield separated and Beryl left the baby with her mother-in-law, Lady Markham. This incident followed a tremendous row between Beryl and Mansfield, which reportedly erupted after Mansfield found some love letters from Prince Henry addressed to Beryl in her writing table. Beryl was more annoyed that her privacy had been breached than that her royal liaison was discovered. Indeed, if Mansfield had not known about the affair until that time, he must have been the last person in London and Kenya to find out. Gervase was subsequently raised by his grandmother; he saw very little of his mother during his entire childhood.56 A close friend said, ‘It wasn’t an entirely selfish action. She knew she would make a hopeless mother and thought the baby would be better off with the wealthy Markham family, who could give him far more than she could provide.’57 My own belief is that because of her own peculiar childhood, when she was abandoned by her mother and – because of his work – received insufficient attention from her father, she had no understanding of normal family life and any maternal feelings she might have developed were submerged in her love for animals. One must not, either, overlook the fact that a baby would have been a distinct hindrance to the continuance of her liaison with Prince Henry.