The Sins of the Father

1939 - 1941

1

'MY NAME IS HARRY CLIFTON.'

'Sure, and I'm Babe Ruth,' said Detective Kolowski as he lit a cigarette.

'No,' said Harry, 'you don't understand, there's been a terrible mistake. I'm Harry Clifton, an Englishman from Bristol. I served on the same ship as Tom Bradshaw.'

'Save it for your lawyer,' said the detective, exhaling deeply and filling the small cell with a cloud of smoke.

'I don't have a lawyer,' protested Harry.

'If I was in the trouble you're in, kid, I'd consider having Sefton Jelks on my side to be about my only hope.'

'Who's Sefton Jelks?'

'You may not have heard of the sharpest lawyer in New York,' said the detective as he blew out another plume of smoke, 'but he has an appointment to see you at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, and Jelks don't leave his office unless his bill has been paid in advance.'

'But - ' began Harry, as Kolowski banged the palm of his hand on the cell door.

'So when Jelks turns up tomorrow morning,' Kolowski continued, ignoring Harry's interruption, 'you'd better come up with a more convincing story than we've arrested the wrong man. You told the immigration officer that you were Tom Bradshaw, and if it was good enough for him, it's going to be good enough for the judge.'

The cell door swung open, but not before the detective had exhaled another plume of smoke that made Harry cough. Kolowski stepped out into the corridor without another word and slammed the door behind him. Harry collapsed on to a bunk that was attached to the wall and rested his head on a brick-hard pillow. He looked up at the ceiling and began to think about how he'd ended up in a police cell on the other side of the world on a murder charge.

The Sins of the Father

The door opened long before the morning light could creep through the bars of the window and into the cell. Despite the early hour, Harry was wide awake.

A warder strolled in carrying a tray of food that the Salvation Army wouldn't have considered offering a penniless hobo. Once he'd placed the tray on the little wooden table, he left without a word.

Harry took one look at the food before beginning to pace up and down. With each step, he grew more confident that once he explained to Mr Jelks the reason he'd exchanged his name with Tom Bradshaw, the matter would quickly be sorted out. Surely the worst punishment they could exact would be to deport him, and as he'd always intended to return to England and join the navy, it all fitted in with his original plan.

At 8.55 a.m., Harry was sitting on the end of the bunk, impatient for Mr Jelks to appear. The massive iron door didn't swing open until twelve minutes past nine. Harry leapt up as a prison guard stood to one side and allowed a tall, elegant man with silver grey hair to enter. Harry thought he must have been about the same age as Grandpa. Mr Jelks wore a dark blue pinstripe, double-breasted suit, a white shirt and a striped tie. The weary look on his face suggested that little would surprise him.

'Good morning,' he said, giving Harry a faint smile. 'My name is Sefton Jelks. I am the senior partner of Jelks, Myers and Abernathy, and my clients, Mr and Mrs Bradshaw, have asked me to represent you in your upcoming trial.'

Harry offered Jelks the only chair in his cell, as if he was an old friend who had dropped in to his study at Oxford for a cup of tea. He perched on the bunk and watched the lawyer as he opened his briefcase, extracted a yellow pad and placed it on the table.

Jelks took a pen from an inside pocket and said, 'Perhaps you might begin by telling me who you are, as we both know you're not Lieutenant Bradshaw.'

If the lawyer was surprised by Harry's story he showed no sign of it. Head bowed, he wrote copious notes on his yellow pad while Harry explained how he'd ended up spending the night in jail. Once he'd finished, Harry assumed his problems must surely be over, as he had such a senior lawyer on his side  -  that was, until he heard Jelks's first question.

'You say that you wrote a letter to your mother while you were on board the Kansas Star, explaining why you had assumed Tom Bradshaw's identity?'

'That's correct, sir. I didn't want my mother to suffer unnecessarily, but at the same time I needed her to understand why I'd made such a drastic decision.'

'Yes, I can understand why you might have considered that changing your identity would solve all your immediate problems, while not appreciating that it could involve you in a series of even more complicated ones,' said Jelks. His next question surprised Harry even more. 'Do you recall the contents of that letter?'

'Of course. I wrote and rewrote it so many times I could reproduce it almost verbatim.'

'Then allow me to test your memory,' Jelks said and, without another word, tore off a sheet from his yellow pad and handed it and his fountain pen to Harry.

Harry spent some time recalling the exact words, before he set about rewriting the letter.

My dearest mother,

I have done everything in my power to make sure you receive this letter before anyone can tell you that I died at sea. As the date on this letter shows, I did not perish when the Devonian was sunk on September 4th. In fact, I was plucked out of the sea by a sailor from an American ship and thanks to him, I'm still very much alive. However, an unexpected opportunity arose for me to assume another man's identity, and I did so willingly, in the hope it would release Emma from the many problems I seem to have unwittingly caused her and her family over the years.

It is important that you realize my love for Emma has in no way diminished; far from it. I cannot believe I shall ever experience such love again. But I do not feel I have the right to expect her to spend the rest of her life clinging on to the vain hope that at some time in the future I might be able to prove that Hugo Barrington is not my father, and that I am, in fact, the son of Arthur Clifton. At least this way, she can consider a future with someone else. I envy that man.

I plan to return to England on the first available ship, so should you receive any communication from a Tom Bradshaw, you can assume it's me. I'll be in touch with you the moment I set foot in Bristol, but in the meantime, I must beg you to keep my secret as steadfastly as you kept your own for so many years.

Your loving son,

Harry

When Jelks had finished reading the letter, he once again took Harry by surprise. 'Did you post the letter yourself, Mr Clifton,' he asked, 'or did you give that responsibility to someone else?'

For the first time Harry felt suspicious, and decided not to mention that he'd asked Dr Wallace to deliver the letter to his mother when he returned to Bristol in a fortnight's time. He feared that Jelks might persuade Dr Wallace to hand over the letter and then his mother would have no way of knowing he was still alive.

'I posted the letter when I came ashore,' he said.

The elderly lawyer took his time before he responded. 'Do you have any proof that you are Harry Clifton, and not Thomas Bradshaw?'

'No, sir, I do not,' said Harry without hesitation, painfully aware that no one on board the Kansas Star had any reason to believe he wasn't Tom Bradshaw, and the only people who could verify his story were on the other side of the ocean, more than three thousand miles away, and it would not be long before they were all informed that Harry Clifton had been buried at sea.