The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy (74 page)

As, during our meal, dish followed dish, so adventure followed adventure. Katie and John were completely lost. At one time, they remained many months in a country where the people were so impoverished that they lived off dried apricots and small birds caught during annual migrations. In another place, John performed simple conjuring tricks which so alarmed the inhabitants that they presented him and Katie Chae with their one means of transport, the ancient village yak, on condition that John left immediately and never returned.

They rode the yak for a period which could have been two years, forging ever eastwards until, one bitter night, the animal died. They passed days beside its carcass, drying strips of its meat, curing the hide to make themselves warmer clothes, and eating the brains and more tender parts. By now, Katie spoke fairly fluent English and could recite those parts of
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
which John remembered.

As they were leaving the bones of the yak, they were attacked by two savage brothers, one of whom had had his tongue cut out by Chinese soldiers. Both of them had their way with Katie, who was now possibly fifteen. After that, they proved friendly, promising to escort John and Katie towards the fabulous city of Peking. That haven was still a thousand miles away over impossible territory.

The incidents in the story multiplied richly. There is delight in hearing tales of starvation whilst tucking into great bowls of fried rice, crab, octopus, sea cucumber, and nameless things. Katie and I refilled each other's glasses with a poisonous wine while I goaded her on with her story. I came to the conclusion that she had invented all of it, just as one of my first loves, Virginia, had invented a more desirable version of her past. Such tactics seemed to me then, and still do, a recipe for misery – except, of course, for the listener, and even he has to have a special taste for such inventions.

Among other highlights in her imaginary career, Katie claimed that she and the mysterious Englishman, John,
were captured at a Customs post ruled over by a luxurious customs official called Ha Ha Bum, a name not lightly forgotten. Attracted by Katie's youth and beauty, Ha Ha Bum made her his favourite concubine. John was imprisoned, and each one of Ha Ha Bum's fornications was scored upon John's back with a leather whip.

One day in spring, the customs post was attacked by a party of men from the hills. They claimed they were not bandits but revolutionaries. Their conduct was not easy to distinguish from banditry, since they killed Ha Ha Bum, took John prisoner, set fire to the customs post, and raped Katie, although they read passages from Karl Marx while so doing.

The revolutionaries formed a small communist army. They numbered some two hundred men. They had a stronghold in the hills, together with a very old armoured car which had to be pushed everywhere. Women and children lived among them. The communists were suspicious of all foreigners. After a mock-trial, they decided to execute John as an Imperialist before the entire company; they heard him recite passages from Omar Khayyam, and that was enough. Katie, however, discovered their plans from one of the women, and persuaded the leaders that John could be exchanged for another armoured car, or possibly for petrol, when they reached civilisation. Katie gave birth to a child in this camp. A little girl with fair hair who was put to death after another mock-trial.

‘You must have wept!' I exclaimed.

Katie Chae laughed. ‘I wanted to weep a lot,' she said, ‘but the climate was plenty dry.'

A plate full of
satie
came along. As we tucked in, she continued her saga.

Leaving the hills behind, the ragged army entered a terrible barren area, destitute of grass, destitute even of a single stone. It was a frigid desert of rock, in which some of the revolutionaries went mad from drinking their own urine.

In the middle of a dust storm, they stumbled upon an amazing city, built of white marble and totally uninhabited.
The city was constructed in the shape of a great square, with sixty-four buildings to a side. The outermost buildings facing the desert were modest, but each succeeding row of buildings as they progressed towards the centre became larger and more grand.

Finally, in the centre of the four thousand and ninety-six buildings, they came across a gigantic structure where the centremost four buildings merged into one. This structure towered to the heavens. Its ante-chambers were panelled with gold.

The army crouched in the golden ante-chambers and slept until the sandstorm passed. Such were the resonances the buildings set up with the wind currents that by morning the whole city was swept clear of sand. In this way, the city could never be buried.

Katie Chae had been pressed into military service as a nurse. She was tending the sick when scouts came in and reported that this magnificent token of human life in the midst of the death of nature was nothing more nor less than a mortuary. The thousands of houses were but glorified tombs, each enshrining a mummified corpse. The central building enshrined the king of this lost nation. In alarm, the revolutionaries rapidly quitted this megapolis of death and shrine of capitalism. They forged eastward again.

Eventually, they entered the Inner Kingdom through a break in the Great Wall. John had by now been elected a leader of the revolutionaries. His manner became remote and dedicated. Katie went through a form of marriage with one of the other leaders, bearing him two more children, both boys. Somewhere in the north of Shansi, the main body of the army was ambushed in a pass and had to fight. John was slain. Katie was captured and, of course, raped. Some time later, they arrived by boat at a port on the Gulf of Chihli. Katie fell desperately ill. Some Spanish nuns looked after her and with one of them, Maria, Katie had a lesbian affair which aided her convalescence.

In the town, she met a Chinese journalist and fell in love with him – her first real love affair – only to find that he was
one of her older brothers, who had long ago left Sinkiang for the cities. The Japanese armies were advancing; she and this brother were the last to escape from the port, both disguised as nuns. Following many travels, they found sanctuary in Sumatra. After a year, the Japanese entered Medan, and there was no further escape. She showed me a photograph of her brother over a last glass of wine. It was the journalist Chae, who called himself Tiger Balm. Perhaps her incredible story was partially true.

We staggered back to her flat, arm in arm. I spent the night with her, lying in her spotless arms, embracing history, geography, as well as a tender female body. She woke me just before dawn, and I made my way grudgingly back to our lines with my revolver ready in my fist.

I owed her fifteen hundred cigarettes.

It was one of those mornings. Sunday. Heat. Guilt. At least I had written to Addy; that was a decent act. Even shits act decently on occasion, since doing good is as tempting as doing harm.

The incipient sores on my prick were nothing to the sores on my conscience. I had spent the night with Margey's enemy, the hated Katie Chae. Margey would be bound to find out, or Katie would see to it that she found out. The sooner I got away from Medan the better.

That was the other worry. I had to tell Margey properly that marriage was off, had never been on the cards, that I'd been mad. Maybe she already knew – as scores of girls in her position had found out – that necessity rules, despite all protestations of love. Yesterday's killings had persuaded me – working on my cowardice and my age – that Sumatra was no place for Europeans. Ernst's and Jan's fate would be mine if I stayed. Medan was under the curse of change.

So I should steel myself to inform Margey that I was yellow. No, that was the wrong expression in the circumstances. That I was scared. That way, she would keep her self-respect. She would survive.

Bloody Margey, what a pain in the neck she was, making
me feel so bad, just because we went to bed together. And separately. All the things I had given her … Guilt, guilt …

If I got rid of her smartly enough today, then maybe I could have another look in at Katie Chae. Christ, what a fantastic gift Katie Chae had! Her gift was no less than the gift of being a poet, musician, or philosopher. While that radiance shone on me, I must bloody well bask in it. Margey could go to hell if it allowed me one more session with Katie Chae, that slender, elegant creature.

Older now and wiser, I can see that there was something in Katie's make-up which encouraged full response. Everywhere, there are women like that, who instinctively fan the great masculine fire – just as there are women who instinctively quell it.

I fell into an intense erotic daze. Tomorrow, the plane … There were things to be done, if I could exert myself to do them. Somehow or other, I must face Margey this morning; she would be back from Brastagi. Then this afternoon was the funeral of Sontrop, de Zwaan, and Nieuwenhuis, to which I had volunteered to go. After that, Katie Chae.

From the canteen I bought fifteen hundred Players in thirty round tins of fifty each.

Katie, you understand. You want no promises, you utter no promises. You would never regret that I was leaving tomorrow; you are always on good terms with men, and so another man will always come along to treat you well, to worship your gift. You are truly fortunate, Katie – even war only brings you more profit. You don't piss around with marriage and security arrangements. You're a priestess of the world's oldest religion …

Or maybe I should shoot myself.

I took my revolver out and placed it on my little green table next to the envelope addressed to Leiden. My gaze went to it as I dressed, as I sat and put on my boots and puttees. A compact, business-like machine. I weighed it in my hand, pressed the muzzle against my temple, holstered it, and went downstairs into the bright, the burning sunshine.

‘Cushy for some,' said a deep voice, and Wallace from the orderly room, mess tins dangling at the end of his simian arm, ambled by.

‘That man,' I shouted in my sergeant's voice. ‘Get your back up! Walk like a man, not a ruptured fucking dromedary!'

He looked back, grinned, offered me two fingers. One of bloody Corporal Kyle's men, of course.

The sergeants' mess was regularly full of walking wounded at breakfast time. I was late. Five bods remained there – Ron Dyer, sitting alone on one side of the table, resting his hairy belly on its edge, and
RSM
Payne, Jock Ferguson, Scubber, and Charlie Meadows in a desolate huddle at the top end.

‘Watch your vehicles,' Dyer called as I entered. The others just twitched.

‘Get knotted,' I responded pleasantly, taking a seat opposite Dyer.

Our dining room was undistinguished, painted in a pale lime green calculated to make anyone entering with a hangover feel ten times worse. Only a year before, Jap officers had lodged here. They had filled the room with grotesquely heavy gothic furniture looted from the Dutch. Eagles, bears, and corpulent rosettes studded this menacing woodwork. There was also a large coloured print of Fujiyama, which Dickie Payne had insisted should not be removed.

The Chinese orderly appeared to tell me that breakfast was all pinnish. I cut him off with a request for coffee. A neglected piece of toast lay on the table. As I scoffed it, I inspected the quartet on my right. Payne had eyes like pissholes in the snow; Jock was no better; Charlie somewhat worse. Wally Scubber looked like a ghost.

‘Ever tried Black Tartan Wombat?' I asked.

Charlie answered in a frail husk of a voice, conveying as much information as possible in as few words as possible. ‘Malacca Refined Palm Spirit. Death.'

‘You lads never learn.'

Dyer belched. ‘Looking pale yourself, Stubbs. What have you been up to?'

I contemplated one of the eagles, perched stiffly high behind his head. ‘I've been wondering whether to shoot myself, if you must know.'

‘Don't waste the ammunition. We might need it for a better cause. I suppose you realise that the
BORS
held a party for you last night, only you didn't show up. Discourtesy. Bad for relationships between
NCOS
and Other Ranks, wouldn't you say? Or I suppose you couldn't care less, like everyone else in this shower.'

‘Fuck the
BORS
. I've no doubt they managed to get blind drunk without me, as on every other Saturday night.'

The orderly brought coffee and poured me a cup. Dyer reluctantly pushed the sugar across and relaxed his inquisitorial act as he lit a cigarette.

‘Ah, first of the day – always the best! Yes, they were really going at it last night. A bacchanalia. Disgusting.'

‘Don't mention drink,' Payne whispered, clutching his head. ‘Never again …'

Ron Dyer blew smoke into the air and continued as if he had not heard. ‘Mind you, they had provocation, give them that. The Jap stores delivered them a whole crate of
crème de menthe
yesterday afternoon. You know
crème de menthe
? That green muck Windmill Street whores drink in the bar of the Regent Palace.'

‘You'd know more about that than I would.'

The coffee was almost cold. I swigged it with distaste, watching Charlie light a fag with trembling hand and half listening to Dyer. The Jap officers must have indulged in similar conversations, while the same waiters served the same lousy coffee. I had a sad feeling that here I was involved in this sordid affair of drink, spunk, and shoot-ups, and all the while there was another Horatio – a saner, kinder man – who had become lost amid the machinery of alternatives which proliferate in time of war; I wondered if I would ever find him again.

‘But a whole crate. That's forty-eight bottles! The silly
so-and-so's were going at it like nobody's business, all clutching pint glasses full of the stuff. How'd you fancy a nice fresh pint of
crème de menthe
right now, Jock?'

‘Away with ye,' husked Jock Ferguson, coughing fruitily into a handkerchief.