A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (37 page)

‘It might be useful,’ he said, ‘for us to know just what he’s up to.’

It was typical of Merrick that he should describe Rowan as being ‘up to’ something – and ‘up to’ something that had or might have a bearing on what Merrick himself was up to. It so happened that Nigel was in fact up to something, on the Governor’s behalf, but I wasn’t aware of this until later when Rowan – stung by certain developments – dropped his guard and disclosed that his distrust and dislike of Merrick were almost as great as my own. Discounting what he called an element of doubt, he had cogent reasons but wouldn’t at first say what they were.

But it irritated me that because I now worked with Merrick he thought I could be used to pump an old friend for information which he hinted I not only could but ought to get for him. My polite but thick sergeant act (the
NCO
equivalent of what is known as dumb-insolence in private soldiers) saved me from actually promising something I had no intention of performing. And it may have sufficiently served Merrick’s purpose to observe the effect his suggestion had on me. There was no reason why he shouldn’t ask Rowan himself what brought him to Pankot. He had more opportunity, officially and socially. I discovered later that he and Nigel had both accepted an invitation to dine that night at the Laytons’ and that each knew that the other would be there.

The driver came back; not alone. He had the Red Shadow in tow. The Red Shadow climbed into the back, disposed some parcels (presumably bought for Merrick) and gave me one of his malevolent grins. I never worked out the significance of these grins. More often than not he stared at me unsmiling. But since it was clear that he wished me no good in either case I never gave much thought to the matter, and on this occasion responded as usual with a gaze as blank as I could make it.

The truck was now reversed and we drove back to the hospital. The manoeuvre that had taken me past the hospital, to the bazaar, and now back again, seemed quite pointless, but it was all part of Merrick’s mystification technique and I was becoming used to it. We drove through the gates of the hospital and for a sickening moment I thought that the Red Shadow was to be quartered where he could keep an eye on
me. This suspicion hardened when we stopped outside the medical
NCOS
’ mess and the Red Shadow vaulted over the tailboard and arrived on the asphalt, legs apart, like an acrobat fetching up in a standing position at the end of a sequence of spectacular leaps and somersaults. He was, thank God, only making room for me to make a less agile descent. He climbed back in again directly I was out. But now Merrick also got out. He came round to where I stood dusting my hands.

‘I can’t guarantee transport in the morning, sergeant.’

‘No, of course not, sir.’

‘The Pankot’s adjutant says he can produce two of the men we want to interview by 1030 tomorrow morning. I shall get to the office by ten so if nothing’s come to pick you up by 0930 you’d better get a tonga down to the depot or scrounge some transport from one of the
NCOS
here. Are you quite comfortably situated, by the way?’

I told him very.

‘I ran into one of the medical officers who helps me from time to time with this arm. He said his
NCOS
had a spare billet or two. I thought you’d find it more congenial than any of the alternatives.’

‘It was very thoughtful of you, sir.’

He stared at me for rather longer than seemed necessary. Then he said, ‘Tomorrow will be rather interesting. Goodnight, sergeant.’

I stamped on the asphalt and threw one up. I thought he blinked but couldn’t be sure. A really good salute requires one’s eyes to be fixed fair and square on the bridge of the officer’s nose. He touched the peak of his cap with the tip of his swagger cane. Before the truck had started up I was off down the path past the mess to my quarters feeling in my pocket for the key to the padlocked steel ring that secured my kit-bag. In the bag there was the last of two bottles of Scotch and one of rum: sweeteners from my previous officer – a man whose experience of Poona had in my opinion had a dampening effect on his initiative. Otherwise he would have fought for me.

*

So far I have said nothing about my private life in India and the time has come when it ought perhaps to be dealt with. I should describe it as moderately satisfactory, as achieving its peak (perhaps appropriately) in Agra with the wife of an officer who was having an affair with the wife of another and its nadir in a massage parlour in Bombay which had been recommended and which I had first visited after a rough journey through warm rain on a 500 c.c. Norton, had vowed never to visit again but dropped in on during the afternoon following the inquest on Leonard Purvis, which was the same afternoon Beamish told me I was to go to Delhi to join Merrick. Otherwise the graph of satisfaction, while giving me no cause for smug self-congratulation at the time, does not in retrospect go quite so far as to suggest positive deprivation.

I mention it because, while sitting in my tin tub, drinking whisky, the cool invigorating air of the Pankot hills suddenly hit me and twenty minutes later I was setting off for the mess, turning over in my mind the interesting possibility that the friendly senior
NCO
(whom I shall call Sergeant Potter) might turn out accommodating in regard to whatever arrangements there were to maintain a good relationship with the Eurasian nurses (or even with the less snobbish of the
QAS
). Not caring much for rum I took the bottle with me, to present it to the mess, and arrived there, matily, full of good intentions. These very quickly withered.

To begin with the rum was declined on the grounds that the drinking of anything but beer in the mess was strictly regulated and that mess rules did not allow members, let alone guests, to bring bottles in. Then there turned out to be a non-treating rule which, broken on my first appearance at lunch-time, was now rigidly re-applied and meant that I couldn’t sign a chit to repay earlier hospitality but only for whatever beer I wanted myself. All this was explained by Potter as the others drifted away from the bar to the sitting area. He stayed with me, but less out of friendliness than a determination to protect his colleagues from me, or so it began to seem.

But it wasn’t until Sophie Dixon arrived that I really came to the conclusion that for all practical purposes I was in Coventry. He swept in, came to the bar, ordered a beer, signed
a chit, acknowledged Potter, ignored me and then went over to the others. Then he started.

There was a smell in the room, he said. Had anyone let wind? If not, was it the drains? Or something in the cookhouse? It really was a very peculiar smell. But vaguely familiar. Given time he’d identify it. Meanwhile it quite turned him up. It made him feel very queer. He didn’t think he’d last out. Especially after the day he’d had. Guess whom he’d seen? Her very self. Miss Khyber Pass of 1935. Prancing around like a two year old. Positively cavorting. She’d do herself an injury if she didn’t look out. In fact he wondered how she had the energy considering she had two of them in tow this time. Count Dracula again, but also a new one, Golden Boy. Very superior, Golden Boy. Very posh. In fact you might say regal. But smart. Oh yes, very smart. Full of bull. When he came to attention it fair went through you. In fact you thought yours would drop off and you wondered why his hadn’t. Well you did if you thought he had any in the first place, which you couldn’t take for granted nowadays when they were letting anybody in and not even bothering to say cough.

At dinner, Potter who sat at the head of the table indicated I should sit on his right again but this time the place on my own right and the place opposite were left empty. The others crowded together and talked shop. Potter looked unhappy. Our conversation petered out. The others left the table as and when they’d finished. Eventually I was alone with Potter at our end. Dixon and another corporal remained at the other.

Potter said, ‘Breakfast’s a bit of a moveable feast. You could have yours in your room if you like.’

I said, ‘I will if it’s more convenient and what you’d prefer.’

Dixon muttered something. It sounded like, “ark at ‘
er.
’

Potter, playing with the spoon and fork on his pudding plate, said, ‘Just tell the boy.’ Then he said, ‘There’s not a bad Chinese restaurant in the bazaar. We sometimes go there of an evening.’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’m not awfully keen on Chinese cooking.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ Dixon said, almost loudly.

‘But I suppose they do egg and chips?’ I added. For the first
time Potter met my glance, pitifully grateful. He hated being rude. He said there was a good film on at the Electric Cinema. They’d all seen it themselves and enjoyed it. If I wanted to go tonight I could catch the second house.

*

I didn’t go that night. I went the following night – after eating at the Chinese restaurant. August 15. Sergeant Perron’s lonely
VJ
day celebration. But it
was
a celebration. I began the day by having breakfast in my room, and so heard nothing about Japan’s formal surrender until I arrived at the Pankot Rifles depot by tonga and went to the hut we’d set up the day before. Merrick wasn’t there. I was told about the Japanese by the adjutant, Coley. He assumed that the interviews would be postponed. The depot commandant, Colonel Trehearne, had declared a holiday from all parades. The truck that was to have collected the two men chosen for interview hadn’t yet set off.

The depot lines had a look of a Sunday morning make and mend. The air was bright. Things sparkled. The hills were in clear definition. There had been no rain for a day or two. Depot sweepers were sprinkling water to lay the dust on the road outside the hut and on the earthen floor of the verandah. The young subaltern arrived and was chatty. We walked up and down in the sunshine and he confided in me his intention to stay in India as long as he could. By eleven o’clock the truck still hadn’t left and Merrick still hadn’t appeared. Maintaining my policy of initiating nothing I hung round, talking to whoever turned up.

Merrick arrived at mid-day. He saw the adjutant first and then came out to talk to me. As a result of Japan’s surrender Merrick had been recalled. He was to fly that evening from Ranpur to Delhi and thence to Ceylon – from where, providing the Japanese forces in Malaya laid down their arms, he would fly on to Singapore where he would be busy with the initial sifting of blacks, greys and whites among the
INA
men who had co-operated with the enemy. I never discovered how hard he had tried on the phone that morning to persuade Delhi to order me to accompany him. I’m sure he did try
because his attitude was unmistakably begrudging. He didn’t want to leave me behind in Pankot. Delhi must have told him to. Another officer would be sent to replace him. Meanwhile I was to stay and get the interviews started with an interviewing board of a couple of Pankot Rifles officers and myself with a watching brief.

You will understand my euphoria. It became difficult to sustain my dumb-insolence act. This did not escape Merrick’s notice. The unblemished side of his face acquired, just under the skin, a tremor.

‘I may send for you in Singapore,’ he said. He was about to take his leave. We were strolling up and down the road outside the hut where the truck was parked. He was giving me instructions about the conduct of the interviews and the importance of keeping them strictly within the terms of reference and not letting the Pankot officers get lost in irrelevancies. Then he stopped, and said, ‘I suppose that is all.’ We were by the truck. The Red Shadow was in the back, grinning. I affected not to notice him.

‘Incidentally,’ Merrick said. ‘I saw Captain Rowan last night. We dined at Colonel Layton’s house. Has he contacted you at all?’

I said he had not.

‘I’m sure he will. So be careful what you say if he raises the subject of Mr Kasim’s
INA
son. He was pumping me rather. I’d have liked to be more forthcoming because it was rather a special evening, but the department isn’t so sure now that it would be at all helpful, whatever Government says, so I didn’t want to raise his hopes. It would be better if you pretended to know nothing.’

He was back on form. I told him it wouldn’t be difficult to pretend I knew nothing because I didn’t.

‘But you’ve read the file on Sayed Kasim.’

‘No, sir.’

‘I thought you would have done. I told you in Bombay it was one of our most interesting cases.’

I didn’t answer.

He said, ‘Perhaps it’s just as well you didn’t, though. Otherwise your old school-friend might have cross-examined you more successfully than he did me. He’s been well trained
to find out a lot and give little away. But so have I. Although in a different school.’

The time had come to say goodbye. Had he been about to offer his good hand? Was he aware of the possibility that we would not meet again? I gave myself no chance to find out. Smart step back. Stamp. One two three, up. The combination of muscular tension and emotional relief caused me to grunt. He smiled, tipped his cap peak with the cane and got in.

As he did so – and as I took in this
mise en scène
– the skin on the back of my neck and above my ears seemed to contract. Perhaps the hair stood up. Whatever the effect the cause was that I had apprehended not only the significance of Sophie Dixon’s monologue of the evening before but the significance of the back-to-the-hospital-via-the-bazaar routine. In a different setting we had just re-enacted the end of that seemingly pointless journey. But it had been far from pointless. We had gone first to the bazaar because he wanted the Red Shadow in on the act. We had then driven to the hospital and into the grounds and stopped in view of the
NCOS
’ mess because Merrick wished us – if possible – all to be seen together by the members of that mess. And obviously we had been. The three of us. Count Dracula, Miss Khyber Pass of 1935 and Golden Boy. Dracula and Miss Khyber Pass were known figures. Golden Boy was new. Accepted for myself on my first appearance – once identified as belonging to Merrick and the Red Shadow and transformed by some sinister magic flowing from them into Golden Boy, I was at once rejected. I did not know why. All I knew was that this rejection had been deliberately engineered by Merrick. He had sent me, unidentified and unaccompanied, into a nest of his enemies. And having established me there he had with meticulous attention to detail arranged to have me exposed as an enemy too. Nothing has ever convinced me otherwise.