James Dalton
Murray CMG was born in Edinburgh in 1911 and educated at the Edinburgh Academy
until his family left Scotland after his father died. He went to Stowe School
in Buckinghamshire in 1924, a year after it was established. A keen
sportsman and an enthusiastic member of the amateur dramatic society, he
decided to be a diplomat before he went up to Cambridge, where he read modern
languages at Magdalene.
He was sent
to Hollywood early in his career, where he occasionally played for the Brits
against the Rest of the World at the Hollywood Cricket Club with David Niven,
another Old Stoic. Boris Karloff and Errol Flynn were on the same team. It
wasn't really Dalton's game, but he was madly in love with Merle
Oberon, who was a regular spectator.
When
the war began he was posted to Washington.
Ode to Dalton
Dalton, thou
shouldst be working at this hour,
War trade has need of thee; Helm has a den
Of untouched papers. Pencil, fountain-pen,
Red ink, those noble tools of consular power
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of giving happiness. We are selfish men;
Rise up, rise up, return to us again;
And stop that golf and riding by the hour.
Thy minutes shone like stars; they dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a touch with every N.V.C.
Slick as the tempo of Gypsy Rose Lee.
So didst thou work, in some uncommon way,
In cheerful hopelessness: while yet your heart
Was absent, making holes in one all day. |
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Written by
a colleague in 1940 when he was in Washington DC, to which he replied as
follows:
On a basis
of full and complete reciprocity,
I do hope you will truly enjoy Mexicocity.
I havn't a doubt you'll endeavour to snooker
The German 5th Column in Sunny Toluca,
Ensure that the outlook gets darker and darker
For all Sons of Heaven around Cuernevaca,
And see, if you can, that an end permanent is
Put to those guys in Agua Calientes.
With Chimica Schering you'll be overbearing,
With Bayer and Richter do not be too gentle.
You must see Telefunken is properly sunken,
And tell Mr. Merk he is not ornamental.
All the time you are there you must honestly labour
To see that our Ally becomes a good neighbour
And if at the end of it your name still smells
Tell Avila Comacho to blame Sumner Wells.
So this is my counsel, querido amigo,
And I do hope that next time the boss will let me go.
Ode to Whiskers,
which was composed by someone else, was far more
serious.
Dear Arfar
Chez Prodrome, I speed news to you
This 5th of December Re: "Nako Maru".
She sailed from this haven at 2008,
Today in the morning, towards Golden Gate.
She had
come from Valparaiso in the South Pacific Seas
And had taken cargo on there purchased by the Japanese.
She was laden down with copper, both the ore and concentrates,
All supplied by shady dealers the Black List designates.
She will take it on to Kobe and tranship it to Darien
And we think that Adolf Hitler knows what happens to it then.
She had put into Callao, there to load molybdenite
To be shipped to Yokohama, and we don't think that's all right.
She had wool from Louis Lamas; she had spato flour in sacks;
She had roller steel from Philips, which Herman Goring lacks.
She had berthed at Manzanillo and had loaded fluorspar
And the Credito Minero had assembled from afar
Sixteen flasks of mercury - we think you know these chaps;
They want to buy up every drop, to make percussion caps.
I sign this now as Consul and that's all that I can do
But just for once, please stop her and I'll bless you, Mr.
M.E.W. |
