Renaldo (68 page)

be a position with the Marine High Command at Whitehall. As it turned out,

the elder Russell was owed a few favors by Her Majesty’s warlords. With their

great killing machine being dismantled, there were thousands of young men

in a similar position to that of Reginald Russell. But his family’s long-standing

service to the Royal Marines, not to mention the timely prewar tendering of the

Canary Wharf lands to the Ministry by his father, were the salient points that

made a difference. Elliott Russell managed to secure a posting as an intelligence

liaison officer to the Ministry of Defense for his almost totally recovered son.

Reggie would have preferred a more active field commission where he

might have been in charge of an actual team of commandos, but he had no

delusions concerning his physical limitations. He resigned himself to the fact

that he would likely be desk-bound for the rest of his tenure with Her Majesty’s

Royal Marines. If the truth be known, he did consider himself fortunate to be

alive and able to work at all.

One astonished visitor near the end of Captain Russell’s convalescence

was Corporal Archibald Monteith, the medic who had saved Reggie’s life. The

young man had never forgotten the fallen commando who sang football fight

songs to keep himself alive. Canary Wharf fight songs at that!

Monteith had made a point of keeping track of the captain’s medical

progress, and swore an oath that if he were spared during the conflict, he

would look up this astonishing bloke when he was back safe ‘over ome.’ The

reunion of the aristocratic officer and gentleman from the upper strata of

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London society, and the Cockney corporal from Cubitt Town, Isle of Dogs,

was emotional and poignant. When asked his plans for the future, Monteith

simply shrugged. Instantly he was offered a position as the captain’s adjutant to

help him out in his new assignment. Reggie Russell never forgot a good deed,

especially if that deed had been responsible for saving his life. After thankfully

accepting the captain’s offer, Monteith related that he could not believe his new

employer’s progress, particularly his ability to walk unassisted. At that point,

Miss Ladbrooke entered the room, and after introductions had been made,

the captain expressed that he held Emily Ladbrooke personally responsible for

making him whole again. It was the first time he had ever seen her blush.

Their relationship had always been platonic, one of patient-therapist. But

after Reggie had said his farewells and taken his leave of the Seaman’s Hospital

and Emily Ladbrooke, he realized that he longed for her company, for her

forceful encouragement, and especially her ribald sense of humor. He had never

met a woman like Emily Ladbrooke. In fact, he had never met any woman that

induced the confusing mix of emotions that she inflicted upon him. The former

patient found himself thinking of his therapist constantly and finally decided

to take the bull by the horns.

Captain Russell subsequently moved into a small flat on Burney Street

in Greenwich, only a few blocks from the Dreadnought Seaman’s Hospital.

He began to watch his obsession from afar at first, on her tea breaks in the

garden, and as she entered and left the hospital. Always hidden, always from a

distance.

Reggie was mortally afraid of unrequited love, afraid that she would find

him humorous, but at the same time, physically hideous because of his head

wound. He had found the perfect hair piece that was not only military regulation

style and length, but also one that entirely covered up the nasty scar on the top

of his crown. It was impossible to tell that there was any disfiguration at all

under his new rug. But when it came to affairs of the heart, he felt less than

whole and feared Emily Ladbrooke’s rebuff more than anything in the world.

The SBS man became an expert skulker in the areas bordering the

hospital. He knew from exactly which hidden vantage point he would be able

to see Emily come and go, as well as observe her performing her daily tasks.

Finally, the frustration and heartache became more than he could bear, and

he arranged a chance meeting under the guise of a visit to his surgeon at the

Seaman’s Hospital.

Emily seemed profoundly happy to see him again and accepted his offer to

join him for tea after her shift finished that evening. Tea turned into a full-scale

dinner, then a cab ride to Whitehall to show her his new office and take in the

moonlit wonders of Westminster and Big Ben. It was a thoroughly enchanting

evening, and Emily’s confession that she missed their naughty wagers allowed

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him the opening to proclaim that he wished he had not recovered with such

haste.

He would have preferred, he admitted with great candor, to have her still

inflicting her terrible tortures on his lower extremities, just so he could be

near her again. Reggie delivered Emily home by cab just after midnight, and

humbly asked if she would be willing to be his consort again. Her response was

the sweetest, most tender kiss that any man could ever imagine.

There had been nothing in the commando’s psychological training that

could have prepared him for the totally foreign state of euphoric infatuation

he was now experiencing. So distracted was Captain Russell over the next few

days, that his co-workers at the Defense Department thought he had suffered

some sort of mental setback until he joyously announced his engagement one

week after that fateful moonlit night.

The nuptials took place on Christmas Eve 1945, and it turned out to

be the social event of the early postwar era. The merging of two well-known

entrepreneurial families was the talk of the town. The event itself, which took

place in the chapel of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, spared no cost,

nor overlooked any detail of military pomp and circumstance.

A month-long honeymoon cruise to Nassau in the Bahamas allowed the

newlyweds to escape to warmer, quieter climes, where they heartily went about

consummating their new partnership. The result of their efforts was the birth

of Nigel Arthur Thomas Russell in September of 1946.

Sir Reggie and the new Lady Russell settled into one of the several

residences that his family had acquired in London over the years, this particular

one being on Bolton Street in Mayfair. It was a lovely, three-story Georgian

building that was situated just off Picadilly Street, two blocks from the Naval

and Military Club, and in the heart of one of London’s most exclusive shopping

and entertainment districts.

The birth of their son settled the matter of whether or not Emily would

return to her physiotherapist’s job at the hospital. But it was not a contentious

issue, as the Lady was quite content to stay at home and nurture young Nigel

and her new husband. Captain Russell received a promotion to the rank of

major on return from his honeymoon, and settled in to his posting as liaison

officer for the Admiralty Board. Major Russell was certainly walking the

corridors of power, for the Admiralty oversaw all naval operations and personnel,

including the Royal Marines, for the entire Empire. The newlywed major’s first

assignment was to keep the Ministry of Defense informed and up-to-date on

any peculiarities regarding the dismantling of Hitler’s once-proud navy.

Other than his career and family, Reggie Russell allowed himself only

one extracurricular activity, that being the preservation of Canary Wharf

Football Club. The Yellow Bird’s fortunes were sagging badly, and having been

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dislodged from The Bird Cage at the start of the war, the team resembled a

band of gypsies wandering about the London suburbs, trying to find a suitable

location for their home games. As Hitler’s blitz on London intensified, the quest

had become more and more difficult.

Elliott Russell was prepared to let the team disband during the hostilities,

but doing so would mean relinquishing their Football Association charter,

which Reggie opposed strongly. A phone call to the headmaster of his Alma

Mater at Eton secured the temporary use of one of the school’s playing fields,

and it was there, under the shadow of Windsor Castle, that the Canaries home

fixtures were played for the duration of the war.

Even with a semipermanent home base, the team was unable to mount

much of a showing. Most able-bodied men were in the military, and few, if any,

of those who stayed behind were encouraged by the thought of playing football

for a displaced second division team. The end of the war found the yellow

and black languishing perilously close to relegation out of the league second

division into the even lower depths of the third tier.

There was no end to the obstacles blocking the Canaries return to the

once-proud ways of their early days. Not only had the Bird Cage suffered heavy

damage from the Hun’s wrath, but the Defense Ministry had not relinquished

their hold on the wharf and the surrounding lands.

Elliott Russell had taken ill with cancer during the winter of 1943 and

left London to reside on the family estate in Weymouth. The Canary Wharf

Trading Company had virtually ceased to exist as a result. With Reggie in the

Royal Marines and the outcome of the war very much in doubt at the time, it

looked as if the football club was on its last legs.

Only Reginald Russell’s continued interest in salvaging the Canaries

made it possible for them to survive. Without informing his ill father, the

Marine captain had been sending funds from his personal account to outfit

and pay the players. Fortunately, the last draft was sent just before the bloody

mission to Belgium, and that allowed the team to carry on during Reggie’s

convalescence.

The end of the war found the sun once again shining on the family

patriarch. Elliott Russell’s cancer had gone into remission and his spirits were

buoyant again. He was heartened by Reggie’s speedy recovery from his wounds,

as well as the boy’s forthcoming marriage to Emily Ladbrooke. A few months

later, the impending birth of his first grandchild gave Elliott cause to discuss

his long-range future plans with his son. That discussion included the fate of

the Canary Wharf Trading Company and its associated football club.

The corporation had divested itself of nearly all its hard assets at the

outset of the war, and much of the resultant cash from the proceeds had been

invested in foreign banks and real estate. While there was a sizable fortune

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at his disposal, Elliott Russell made it exceedingly clear to his son that he

had no interest in operating a major trading company ever again. Due to the

uncertainty of his physical condition, he preferred passive, liquid investments,

backed by solid real estate holdings.

On the other hand, Elliott would permit his son to use their family

influence with the Defense Ministry to try and obtain a lease for the land where

the remains of The Bird Cage sat. Reggie’s passion for the team and its survival

were overpoweringly evident as father and son tried to map out the future

that day. As a result, Elliott Russell agreed to set aside a certain amount of

money for the refurbishment of the stadium if Reginald could secure favorable

lease terms from the ministry. The younger Russell set about this task like a

man possessed, and in short order, had secured not only a long-term lease for

The Bird Cage, but also an option to purchase the lands outright should the

ministry find that they were no longer of importance in the interest of national

safety.

The Isle of Dogs was experiencing a postwar industrial rebirth with

chemical plants, tea, and flour mills, fertilizer processing, and cement facilities

all being rebuilt or renovated to replace the wartime destruction. Homes were

being constructed for the men and their families who would work in these

plants, and a whole new community seemed to be springing up from the

ashes.

These people would be the next generation of Canary fans,
Reggie Russell thought,

and with this in mind, he set about reconstructing the main grandstand of The

Bird Cage and patching up the adjacent terraces. The major would have liked

to construct an entirely new stadium, but Elliot had made certain that only

enough funds were available to bring The Bird Cage back to its prewar status,

nothing more. The old man still considered the project extremely risky, and

he wanted to be convinced that the continued operation of a football club was

economically viable in postwar London.

The support of the local citizenry made the team’s existence tenable from

the first day they returned to The Bird Cage at the start of the 1947 season. It

mattered little to the Cockney fans that this team was second division, for it