A Twist in the Tale (15 page)

“I wonder if
you could do mesa
favour
, old
boy?
”

“I will if I
can,” said Christopher, who still had not fully recovered from their last
encounter.

“It’s simple
enough,” said Kendall-Hume.

“The old girl
and I have brought back far too many presents and I wondered if you could take
one of them through customs. Otherwise we’re likely to be held up all night.”

Melody,
standing behind an already laden trolley, smiled at the two men benignly.

“You would
still have to pay any duty that was due on it,” said Christopher firmly.

“I wouldn’t
dream of doing otherwise,” said Kendall-Hume, struggling with a massive package
before pushing it on the Roberts’ trolley. Christopher wanted to protest as
Kendall-Hume peeled off two thousand pounds and handed the money and the
receipt over to the schoolmaster.

“What do we do
if they claim your carpet is worth a lot more than ten thousand pounds?” asked
Margaret anxiously, coming to stand by her husband’s side.

“Pay the
difference and I’ll refund you immediately. But I assure you it’s most unlikely
to arise.”

“I hope you’re
right.”

“Of course I’m
right,” said Kendall-Hume.

“Don’t
worry,
I’ve done this sort of thing before. And I won’t
forget your help when it comes to the next school appeal,” he added, leaving
them with the huge parcel.

Once
Christopher and Margaret had located their own bags, they collected the second
trolley and took their place in the red “Something to Declare” queue.

“Are you in
possession of any items over five hundred pounds in value?” asked the young
customs official politely.

“Yes,” said
Christopher. “We purchased two carpets when we were on holiday in Turkey.”

He handed over
the two bills.

The customs
official studied the receipts carefully,
then
asked if
he might be allowed to see the carpets for himself.

“Certainly,”
said Christopher, and began the task of undoing the larger package while
Margaret worked on the smaller one.

“I shall need
to have these looked at by an expert,” said the official once the parcels were
unwrapped. “It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” The carpets were soon
taken away.

The “few
minutes” turned out to be over fifteen and Christopher and Margaret were soon
regretting their decision to assist the Kendall-
Humes
,
whatever the needs of the school appeal. They began to indulge in irrelevant
small-talk that wouldn’t have fooled the most amateur of sleuths.

At last the
customs official returned.

“I wonder if you
would be kind enough to have a word with my colleague in private?” he asked.

“Is that really
necessary?” asked Christopher, reddening.

“I’m afraid so,
sir.”

“We shouldn’t
have agreed to it in the first place,” whispered Margaret. “We’ve never been in
any trouble with the authorities before.”

“Don’t fret,
dear. It will be all over in a few minutes, you’ll see,” said Christopher, not
sure that he believed his own words. They followed the young man out through
the back and into a small room.

“Good
afternoon, sir,” said a white-haired man with several gold rings around the
cuff of his sleeve. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting but we have had your
carpets looked at by our expert and he feels sure a mistake must have been
made.”

Christopher
wanted to protest but he couldn’t get a word out.

“A mistake?”
managed Margaret.

“Yes, madam.
The bills you presented don’t make any sense to
him.”

“Don’t make any
sense?”

“No, madam,”
said the senior customs officer. “I repeat
,
we feel
certain a mistake has been made.”

“What kind of
mistake?” asked Christopher, at last finding his
voice.

“Well, you have
come forward and declared two carpets, one at a price of ten thousand pounds
and one at a price of five hundred pounds, according to these receipts.”

“Yes?”

“Every year
hundreds of people return to England with Turkish carpets, so we have some
experience in these matters. Our adviser feels certain that the bills have been
incorrectly made out.”

“I don’t begin
to understand . . .” said Christopher.

“Well,” explained
the senior officer, “the large carpet, we are assured, has been spun with a
crude distaff and has only two hundred
ghiordes
, or
knots, per square inch.

Despite its
size we estimate it to be valued around five thousand pounds. The small carpet,
on the other hand, we estimate to have nine hundred knots per square inch and
is
a fine example of a silk hand-woven tradition-al
Hereke
and undoubtedly would have been a bargain at five
thousand pounds. As both carpets come from the same shop, we assume it must be
a clerical error.”

The Roberts
remained speechless.

“It doesn’t
make any difference to the duty you will have to pay, but we felt sure you
would want to know, for insurance purposes.”

Still the
Roberts said nothing.

“As you’re
allowed five hundred pounds before paying any duty, the excise will still be
two thousand pounds.”

Christopher
quickly handed over the Kendall-
Humes
’ wad of notes.
The senior officer counted them while his junior carefully re-wrapped the two
carpets.

“Thank you,”
said Christopher, as they were handed back the parcels and a receipt for the
two thousand pounds.

The Roberts
quickly bundled the large package on to its trolley before wheeling it through
the concourse and on to the pave-
ment
outside where
the Kendall-
Humes
impatiently awaited them.

“You were in
there a long time,” said Kendall-Hume.
“Any problems?”

“No, they were
just assessing the value of the carpets.”

“Any extra charge?”
Kendall-Hume asked apprehensively.

“No, your two
thousand pounds covered everything,” said Christopher, passing over the
receipt.

“Then we got
away with it, old fellow. Well done.
One hell of a bargain to
add to my collection.”
Kendall-Hume turned to bundle the large package
into the boot of his
Mer
-cedes before locking it and
taking his place behind the steering wheel. “Well done,” he repeated through
the open window, as the car drove off. “I won’t forget the school appeal.”

The Roberts
stood and watched as the silver grey car joined a line of traffic leaving the
airport.

“Why didn’t you
tell
Mr
Kendall-Hume the real value of his carpet?”
asked Margaret once they were seated in the bus.

“I did give it
some considerable thought but I came to the conclusion that the troth was the
last thing Kendall-Hume wanted to be told.”

“But don’t you
feel any guilt? After all, we’ve stolen “

“Not at all, my dear.
We haven’t stolen anything. But we did
get one hell of a ‘steal’.”

T
HERE is one cathedral in England that has never found it necessary
to launch a national appeal.

When the
Colonel woke he found himself tied to a stake where the ambush had taken place.
He could feel a numb sensation in his leg. The last thing he could recall was
the bayonet entering his thigh. All he was aware of now were ants crawling up
the leg on an endless march towards the wound.

It would have
been better to have remained unconscious, he decided.

Then someone
undid the knots and he collapsed head first into the mud. It would be better
still to be dead, he concluded. The Colonel somehow got to his knees and
crawled over to the stake next to him. Tied to it was a corporal who must have
been dead for several hours. Ants were crawling into his mouth.

The Colonel
tore off a strip from the man’s shirt, washed it in a large puddle nearby and
cleaned the wound in his leg as best he could before binding it tightly.

That was
February 1 7th, 1943, a date that would be etched on the Colonel’s memory for
the rest of his life.

That same
morning the Japanese received orders that the newly captured Allied prisoners
were to be moved at dawn. Many were to die on the march and even more had per-
ished
before the trek began. Colonel Richard Moore was
determined not to be counted among them.

Twenty-nine
days later, one hundred and seventeen of the original seven hundred and
thirty-two Allied troops reached
Tonchan
.

Any man whose
travels had previously not taken him beyond Rome could hardly have been
prepared for such an experience as
Tonchan
. This
heavily guarded prisoner-of-war camp, some three hundred miles north of
Singapore and hidden in the deepest equatorial jungle, offered no possibility
of freedom. Anyone who contemplated escape could not hope to survive in the
jungle for more than a few days, while those who remained discovered the odds
were not a lot shorter.

When the
Colonel first arrived, Major Sakata, the camp commandant, informed him that he
was the senior ranking officer and would therefore be held responsible for the
welfare of all Allied troops.

Colonel Moore
had stared down at the Japanese officer. Sakata must have been a foot shorter
than himself but after that twenty-eight-day march the British soldier couldn’t
have weighed much more than the diminutive Major.

Moore’s first
act on leaving the commandant’s office was to call together all the Allied
officers. He discovered there was a good cross-section from Britain, Australia,
New Zealand and America but few could have been described as fit. Men were
dying daily from malaria, dysentery and
malnutri-tion
.
He was suddenly aware what the expression “dying like flies” meant.

The Colonel
learned from his staff of ricers that for the previous two years of the camp’s
existence they had been ordered to build bamboo huts for the Japanese officers.
These had had to be completed before they had been allowed to start on a
hospital for their own men and only recently huts for themselves. Many
prisoners had died during those two years, not from illness but from the
atrocities some Japanese perpetrated on a daily basis. Major Sakata, known
because of his skinny arms as “Chopsticks”, was, however, not considered to be
the villain. His second-in-command, Lieutenant Takasaki (the Undertaker), and
Sergeant
Ayut
(the Pig) were of a different
mould
and to be avoided at all cost, his men warned him.

It took the
Colonel only a few days to discover why.

He decided his
first task was to try to raise the battered morale of his troops. As there was
no padre among those of ricers who had been captured he began each day by
conducting a short service of prayer. Once the service was over the men would
start work on the railway that ran alongside the camp.

Each arduous
day consisted of laying tracks to help Japanese soldiers get to the front more
quickly so they could in turn kill and capture more
Allied
troops. Any prisoner suspected of undermining this work was found guilty of
sabotage and put to death without trial. Lieutenant Takasaki considered taking
an unscheduled five-minute break to be sabotage.

At lunch
prisoners were allowed twenty minutes off to share a bowl of rice – usually
with maggots -and, if they were lucky, a mug of water. Although the men
returned to the camp each night exhausted, the Colonel still set about
organising
squads to be responsible for the cleanliness of
their huts and the state of the latrines.

After only a
few months, the Colonel was able to
organise
a
football match between the British and the Americans, and following its success
even set up a camp league. But he was even more delighted when the men turned
up for karate lessons under Sergeant Hawke, a thick-set Australian, who had a
Black Belt and for good measure also played the mouth-organ. The tiny
instrument had survived the march through the jungle but everyone assumed it
would be discovered before long and confiscated.

Each day Moore
renewed his determination not to allow the Japanese to believe for one moment
that the Allies were beaten – despite the fact that while he was at
Tonchan
he lost another twenty pounds in weight, and at
least one man under his command every day.

To the
Colonel’s surprise the camp commandant, despite the Japanese national belief
that any soldier who allowed
himself
to be captured
ought to be treated as a deserter, did not place too many unnecessary obstacles
in his path.

“You are like the
British Bullfrog,” Major Sakata suggested one evening as he watched the Colonel
carving cricket bails out of bamboo. It was one of the rare occasions when the
Colonel managed a smile.

His real
problems continued to come from Lieutenant Takasaki and his henchmen, who
considered captured Allied prisoners fit only to be considered as traitors.
Takasaki was always careful how he treated the Colonel personally, but felt no
such reservations when dealing with the other ranks, with the result that
Allied soldiers often ended up with their
meagre
rations confiscated, a rifle butt in the stomach, or even left bound to a tree
for days on end.

Whenever the
Colonel made an official complaint to the commandant, Major Sakata listened
sympathetically and even made an effort to weed out the main offenders.

Moore’s
happiest moment at
Tonchan
was to witness the
Undertaker and the Pig boarding the train for the front line. No one attempted
to sabotage that journey. The commandant replaced them with Sergeant
Akida
and Corporal Sushi, known by the prisoners almost
affectionately as “Sweet and Sour Pork”.