This narrative should have ended at London Airport, with a welcome back by the Chairman of the Company, who by the felicitous phrase "we Directors" would announce the wanderer's elevation to the Board. Unaccountably this did not happen. The Export Director had transferred himself from his bar in the City to the Cocktail Lounge at the Airport, but he almost missed me. Overlooking the fact that two excuses are less convincing than one, he explained that he had not heard the announcement of my 'plane's arrival, and that he had not wished to intrude on the welcome of my family. There was no mention of a directorship. Instead, before parting he said:
"You're going to want time to sort yourself out and let your family see something of you. But next week there's a Convention we'd like you to attend. It just means a couple of days in Harrogate. You'll find it a bit dull after places like Bangkok, but someone has to go and as you're already disorganised, it's better than disrupting anyone else. At any rate you'll find it a nice dull way of unwinding after your travels. You can't get into trouble in Harrogate."
This sort of statement offers a direct challenge to Fate, and inevitably I found myself a week later on a remote Yorkshire moor, beneath a cold drizzle, wondering how on earth the loss of a Company car could be explained without leading to the inference that I had taken leave of my senses.
It had started innocently enough. I had a two-hour break between Conference Papers and rather than returning to my hotel for lunch, decided on a quick sandwich and a drive to Ilkley Moor. It seemed a pity to miss the chance of standing on this famous moor "ba t'at." The road, according to the map, was secondary with a short middle section in dual dotted lines which I took to mean an unmetalled road.
It turned out to be a rough track which unexpectedly ran down a steep hill and turned itself into a stream where the car became bogged. I looked again at the map and noticed a peculiar symbol which, on reference to the key, I now learned indicated a swamp. Yes, this was it. For miles I had driven across desolate moorland, bare of human or animal life, and help was a long way from me, but if I could get the car on to the heather at the side, I could drive back up the hill to firm track.
The underside of the chassis rested on the ground, and only under the rear bumper-bracket was there space for the jack. At first the base of the jack would disappear into the mud as I twisted the handle, in conformity with the law of mechanics which says that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and only after repeated packing with stones was a base provided, firm enough to allow the car to be raised.
Surprisingly, loose stones were scarce, and I had to waste time searching the heather for enough to pack under the wheels. After an hour-and-a-half of hand-blistering, back-breaking work, the car was raised on stone piles but as soon as I tried to drive to firm ground, all the stones shot from beneath the spinning wheels and the car settled down once more in the mud.
It required two more attempts and over two hours of labour before the car stood high and dry on the heather, but now it refused to climb the steep gradient. The engine was firing on three cylinders only, because a plug lead had broken loose, but I was by then incapable of rational thought and did not discover till next day the reason for the loss of power. The only alternative seemed to be to drive on as the track or stream should shortly link up with a metalled road on the other side of this Slough of Despond. It was dark and I had to reconnoitre on foot, setting up the jack-handle with a handkerchief tied to it, as a mark, every few dozen yards ahead of the car, so that I could drive to it, but after a few repetitions of this manoeuvre I realised that there was no way through for a car. All around were ditches and boggy streamlets. After reversing to a safe position on dry heather, I meticulously locked the car and set out to walk the eight or nine miles to Ilkley, whose lights were just visible. But now my Guardian Angel suddenly awoke to my predicament, stopped the rain, drew back the clouds obscuring the moon and stood by for further action.
At one point I walked towards a road, shining in the moonlight, only to find it a river, but the detour this forced on me brought me out on a road close to a petrol-station, and though no taxi was locally available, the last 'bus from Ilkley to Harrogate obligingly rolled up within minutes and soon I was back at my hotel, plastered with mud, too weary to eat, too weary to sleep and wondering if the car could ever be recovered.
Next morning, with a breakdown-lorry from a Harrogate garage, I retraced my steps. Though not feeling in a very strong position to give advice to the driver, I said, with a deprecating laugh: "Better watch it down here. There's my car at the bottom, and this track is just mud down below." He nodded wisely, drove down and became bogged. Slowly he got out, slowly unloaded a shovel and passed it to his youthful mate. While he was poking around with it in a half-hearted fashion, I discovered the stray plug-lead in my car, fixed it, and then suggested to the breakdown gang that they prepared to give me a push while I tried to drive up. This time it worked. It was a hair-raising experience because I stayed on the heather and had to dodge small boulders which could have wrecked the suspension or steering.
We were now mobile and I drove our party several miles to a telephone so that the driver could speak to his garage and explain why he needed a bigger lorry and some help. He emerged disconsolate from the telephone box. I understood from his few laconic words in Yorkshire dialect that his equally Yorkshire boss had, in effect, told him not to be such an idle swine, but to get himself out with the equipment on his lorry. We were conveniently to an inn, and after drinks we returned. At their suggestion I left them after paying the break-down fee, and over-tipping them from feelings of guilt. But they had company, and the sun which had followed me on my travels broke through as they walked down to their stranded lorry.
There I left them, and in the words of the old story- books: "for aught that 1 know, they are there to this very day."