The Chequer Board

by Nevil Shute

  He stopped on the pavement in the sunlit street and got out his notebook and pencil. “Where is he?” he asked.

  “He’s living at a place called Mandinaung,” she said. “The address is Mandinaung, Irrawaddy, Burma. If you write a letter there, it will get to him all right.”

  He replaced the notebook. “I got that,” he said. “You never know—I might be out there one day, and look him up.” For the moment he had forgotten that his future was not long.

  She said, “Oh.” They walked in silence for a few paces. “In that case, I think I ought to tell you something, Captain Turner. My brother—” she stuck for a moment, and then said, “—my brother’s living in rather a poor way, from what we can make out. He lives entirely with the natives, in this native village, Mandinaung. He is living with a native woman in a small palm shack, and he has two children by her. It practically broke my mother’s heart when we heard that.”

  Mr Turner said quietly, “That’s a bad one,” and walked on in silence for a moment. This, then, was what happened to R.A.F. pilots who could do nothing but fly aeroplanes. They drifted to the East and sank to living with the natives, and were lost, submerged in the vast sea of colour. A word occurred to him. “Beachcombers,” he thought. “That’s what he’d be, a beachcomber.”

  At the corner of the street she stopped and held out her hand. “I’ll say good-bye,” she said. “Let me know if you hear anything of Phillip, will you? But don’t write to my mother, write to me.” She paused, and then she said, “We were good friends, when we were children, and we are still, even after this.” She sighed. “Poor Phillip—he always made a mess of things if it were possible to do so!”

  Mr Turner went back to his home at Watford by underground, for tea. He got there at about five o’clock, tired and depressed. Surprisingly, his wife was there and tea was laid for him.

  “I thought that maybe you’d be back,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on—it won’t be long.” She paused, and then she said, “I got a kipper, if you’d like it.”

  Kippers were his favourite delicacy; in his fatigue and his depression he felt that he could fancy a nice kipper. She cooked him two, and he ate them, and a slice of bread and jam, and two pieces of cherry cake, and drank three cups of tea, and felt a great deal better for it.

  It was not his habit to discuss with his wife what he had been doing during the day; it was a long time since they had been on such terms as that. While she gathered up the tea things and began washing up, he took a chair out in the garden and sat looking at the flowers and smoking, thinking intermittently of what he wanted to do.

  He was rather shocked at what he had heard of Phillip Morgan. He had fully anticipated that the boy would not make a success of life, that he would drift into some little dead-end job at four or five pounds a week; so much he was prepared for. He was not prepared to hear that he had gone completely native in a Burmese village, and he was distressed to hear it. Poverty in England in a little trivial job was one thing. Poverty in the Far East was quite another.

  He stared at the flowers, and smoked cigarette after cigarette. This was what he had suspected, this was what he had set out to find. Of all the three who were in hospital with him in Penzance, Phillip Morgan had seemed least fitted for the battle of life. He had wanted to find out about him in these last months of activity ahead, in order that he might help if help should be required. Help was required all right—the boy would get no help from his mother or his wife, and very little from his sister. There was some sort of job to be done there—Mr Turner did not quite know what. The only thing was, Burma was such a hell of a long way away.

  His wife came out to him presently, and brought another chair with her, and set it up beside him. “I went to the Commercial College and found out about courses,” she said quietly. “I could do six weeks’ shorthand and typing, and brush up the bookkeeping as well, for ten guineas. That’s mornings and afternoons too. The only thing is,” she said, “if I did that, I couldn’t get you dinner in the middle of the day.”

  “I shan’t want that,” he said. “I should get on with it while we’ve still got the salary coming in. Maybe after that you could get a job half time, kind of keep your hand in.”

  “I believe I could do that,” she said thoughtfully. “Mornings only. It’d make a bit more, too.”

  She turned to him. “I been thinking about this,” she said. “Don’t you think you ought to see another doctor, or something? I mean, surely they can do something.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t think that way,” he said. “I mean, you can go on messing and messing about, and it don’t do no good. They done as well as anybody could for me. I’ve had it, and that’s all about it. I don’t want to go on arguing.”

  She said, “Did you tell them at the office?”

  He told her what had happened. “I got a month’s leave now,” he said. “After that, I suppose I go back to work, and then go on till I have to start and take sick leave. After that, I got six months on pay, and then finish.”

  She said, “There’d be a war pension, or something.”

  “So there would,” he said. “I better get Dr Worth to write a letter to the Board. Maybe you’ll get something out of it as well. I better see him in the morning.”

  They sat together on the deck chairs in the narrow little strip of garden, and presently he was telling her about Phillip Morgan. “Well, that’s the way of it,” he said heavily at last. “He’s made a bloody muck o’ things, the way I knew he would. If he was in England I’d do what I could to see him, ’n see if one could help. But out in Burma one can’t do that.”

  She said quietly, “Why not?”

  “Too bloody far away,” he said impatiently.

  “I don’t see that,” she said. “You can fly out ever so quick, they say. Three or four days it is.”

  He stared at her. “You mean, fly out to Burma?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t, if you want to go.”

  He said ironically, “Don’t talk so soft. What d’you think it’d cost?”

  “I dunno, Jackie,” she said quietly. “But you’ve got the money.”

  There was a long silence. It was true, he had enough money for anything that he was likely to require in his lifetime, though what he spent now would mean the less for her when he was dead. Actually, he had the time, too; he had a month’s holiday to run before he had to go back to the office. It was possible to go to Burma if he wanted to, and as the thought occurred to him he knew that he wanted to go very badly.

  His wife spoke again. “Look at it this way,” she said. “I been thinking about things a lot. We neither of us had much fun since we got married, with the war and that. Well, I’ve got all my time to go, but you’ve only got a year, or maybe less than that. After you’re dead, if that must happen, I’d not like to think you never had no fun at all, travelling and seeing places and that. Why don’t you take a trip out there, and see if you can find him, Jackie? It’s what you’re interested in, and it won’t cost all that.”

  “Me go to Burma?” he said thoughtfully.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I dunno,” he said.

  There was another silence. He became resolved that he would go on this trip. Whether he found Phillip Morgan or not, whether he could do anything for him if he did find him without encroaching further on the little store of money he could leave his wife, did not weigh greatly with Turner. He wanted to seize this opportunity to leave the office, and leave Watford, and go off to see new places, meet new people, and to sort out his ideas. Abruptly, he was very conscious of the generosity of Mollie in making this suggestion.

  “If I was to go,” he said, “would you come, too?”

  She shook her head. “I did think of that,” she said. “But I’d as soon stay here. I got to brush up at the College, ’n it’d all cost more. I’d like us to have a holiday together sometime—Devonshire or something. But Burma’s too fa
r off.”

  “Be a bit lonely for you, staying on here all alone,” he said.

  “I dunno,” she replied. “I might go and stay with Laura for a bit. She wants help, with the baby coming and all that.”

  “Well,” he said, “it all wants a bit of thinking about.” He searched his mind for something he could do for her to match her generosity in some small measure. “Like to go to the pictures tonight?” he said. “I see there’s Cary Grant on at the Regal.”

  Four days later he left Poole on the flying boat for Rangoon.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MR TURNER enjoyed his journey in the flying boat. For practically the first time in his life comfort wrapped him round, so that it was unnecessary for him to do anything but read and rest. All day the aircraft droned on across the mountains, the deserts, and the seas. He read a little, slept a little, ate a lot, and looked out of the window at the slowly moving panorama of the world. The journey did him a great deal of good; the great wound in his forehead ceased to trouble him with its throbbing, and though he sweated profusely each time they landed, he reached Rangoon rested and refreshed.

  He had not come empty-handed. He brought with him from England a few small packages of Crispy Wheaties, a breakfast cereal that his organisation was marketing in a big way, and he brought some samples of an older product, Mornmeal, which was full of vitamins and roughage. With these gifts from the West to the Far East he landed in Rangoon early in August in monsoon weather, and went to the hotel on the Strand.

  He was adaptable, and though the climate in that month was trying, with alternate rain and sun, he did not find it insupportable by any means. He had bought readymade clothing from a tropical outfitter in London, and his suits were adequate. He was a man accustomed to fending for himself and finding his own way around; the Eastern atmosphere did not impede him. He behaved in Rangoon exactly as he would have done in Manchester, and he got along quite well.

  He had an introduction to the agent for his firm, a Mr S. O. Chang; he rang him up from his hotel bedroom on the first morning, and within half an hour Mr Chang was sitting with him in the hotel lounge. Mr Chang was a Chinaman, and he had represented Cereal Products Ltd. for some years in Rangoon. In Rangoon Mr Chang had a finger in every pie that would accept his finger; he was always up to something. His interests ranged from upholstery materials for railway carriages to foundation creams for ladies, from cast-iron sluices suitable for septic tanks to breakfast cereals from England. He lived modestly in a small house up towards the jail behind the Chinese quarter; he may or may not have been wealthy, but he knew everybody in Rangoon.

  They talked cereals for an hour or so. “I come out here on sort of personal business, you might say,” said Mr Turner. “Mr Anderson, he’ll be along to see you in March. But as I was coming here, Mr Sumner said to stop and have a chat with you, and show you these.”

  Mr Chang beamed. “Mr Anderson, he very welcome in Rangoon. My wife, she always ask when Mr Anderson coming. My son Hsu, he asks always also, when Mr Anderson coming. Very nice man, Mr Anderson.”

  “Aye,” said Mr Turner, “he’s a proper card. Tells a good story, don’t he?”

  “Oh yes. Mr Anderson, he very funny man. My wife laugh and laugh.” He explained. “My wife does not know English, so I translate stories for her. She laugh very much.”

  Mr Turner split open one of the little sample packets of Crispy Wheaties on the table, and put two or three flakes in his mouth. “Say, tell me what you think o’ these, Mr Chang. I kind of like them myself, so does my wife. Sort of malty flavour, isn’t it? They’re going very well at home. We’ll have nearly half our whole production on these by next year.”

  An hour later they were finished for the time being. “There’s just one other thing,” said Mr Turner. “I got a friend out here somewhere, chap I used to know back in England in the war, in 1943. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he lives in a place called Mandinaung. Mandinaung, Irrawaddy, that’s the address. Is that far from here?”

  Mr Chang said, “Mandinaung is large village on the Irrawaddy River. It is about hundred, hundred and ten miles. You go by river, past Yandoon. Take two days now in the steamer, because river running very fast. One day to come back. You want to go and see your friend?”

  Mr Turner hesitated. “Is it easy to get there?”

  “Very easy. Steamer all the way, twice each week, Monday, Thursday, all the way up to Henzada. Next Thursday is next steamer. You arrive Mandinaung Friday afternoon.” He looked up at Mr Turner. “I book passage for you—leave to me. You go Thursday?”

  “Hold on a minute.” He had no objection to Mr Chang earning his commission on the passage, but he did not want to be rushed. “This chap doesn’t know I’m coming, and I don’t know how he’s living. Would it be possible to find out anything about him—what he does, or anything?”

  “Sure,” said Mr Chang. “I have good friend who do business in Mandinaung—cheroots. Mandinaung cheroots very good, good as Danubyu. You like cheroots, Burma cheroots?”

  “I wish you’d find out something about this chap,” said Mr Turner. “Phillip Morgan, his name is. I’d like to know what he’s doing, how he’s living, you know, before I write to him or go up there.”

  “I find out for you,” said Mr Chang. “I ask my friend, he go there every month. Phillip Morgan. I find out for you.”

  He insisted that Mr Turner should dine with him the following evening at his home, and would take no refusal. They arranged that he should fetch Mr Turner from the hotel at half-past six, and then he went away. Turner sat down and wrote a cable to his wife in Watford to tell her of his safe arrival, and then, most unusual, he sat down and wrote her a long letter. He was not very good at writing, and much of his letter was concerned with a description of the plot of the detective story he had read in the aircraft on the way out; but it pleased her when she got it.

  He went out presently and walked along the streets at a very slow pace, keeping well in the shade. He bought a solar topee for twice its value in a Chinese shop, and he bought a guidebook for three times its English price from a very black Chittagonian who kept a stall, and he bought a bunch of bananas in the fruit market for almost its proper price, because he smiled and was friendly to the young Burmese woman who sold them. Then he was tired, and his head was beginning to throb; so he went back to his hotel and lay down on his bed to read the guidebook. Presently he went to sleep, and when he woke up, it was afternoon. He got up and had a shower and ate some of the bananas, and went down and had a cup of tea in the hotel lounge. He spent the evening sitting in a long chair in the shade, watching the native life of the city as it moved by in the street.

  Next day he went to the great shrine that dominates the city, the Shwe Dagon, and walked around the pagoda in his stockinged feet, mystified at the profusion of strange images.

  That evening Mr Chang came in a very decrepit old open motor car to fetch him to dine. They bounced erratically along to the other end of the town, with Mr Chang clinging to the wheel in grim concentration and changing the worn gears with more ferocity than skill.

  Mr Chang lived in a small suburban house, that stood in a garden that was unkempt, by Mr Turner’s Watford standards. It was suffering from the peculiarity that it had few walls, and those were constructed only of Venetian-blind material. Outside, the jungle rats, that Mr Turner knew as squirrels, played in the trees, and sometimes came into the rooms.

  In the main living room there was a long table; one end was laid with a white cloth for the meal; on the other end was a jumble of well-worn Mah Jongg ivories. Mrs Chang came forward to meet them, a little woman, with a wide, smiling face. She was dressed in sandals, black satin trousers, and a very beautifully embroidered white silk shirt that reached down almost to the knees. She said something, smiling.

  “My wife speaks no English,” said Mr Chang. “She very pleased you come to our house.”

  Mr Turner, in the course of a varied business life, had acquired some experienc
e with wives who could speak no English. He had no knowledge of any language but his own, but he had made himself pleasant in the past to French wives, German wives, Dutch wives, Polish wives, Hungarian wives, and many others; a Chinese wife presented him with no problem. He worked on the theory that all foreign wives were exactly and precisely similar to English wives, and that if you got someone to translate exactly what you would have said in Watford it worked out all right. Certainly he had always given satisfaction. Within ten minutes Mrs Chang had produced her seven-year-old son and five-year-old daughter and Mr Turner was playing “Paper wraps stone, scissors cuts paper” with the little boy.

  Dinner came presently, served by a Chinese Burman girl; a curry which Mrs Chang ate with her fingers, Mr Chang with chopsticks, and Mr Turner with a spoon and fork. Mr Chang produced a bottle of rice spirit flavoured with burnt sugar, which he called Black Cat whiskey; in support of that statement he showed the black cat on the label. A glass of this set Mr Turner’s head throbbing and buzzing; he refused another with some difficulty, and told them all about his head wound. Then Mrs Chang told him all about her operation for appendicitis, Mr Chang translating, so that by the end of the meal they might have been nextdoor neighbours in Watford.

  The brown girl came and cleared the table, and Mr Chang produced a large paper packet of cheroots. They were very black, and Mr Turner took one with some apprehension; unexpectedly it turned out very mild.

  “You like my cheroots?” asked Mr Chang.

  “Aye,” said Mr Turner with appreciation. “Makes a nice smoke.”

  “From Mandinaung, where your friend lives. Mandinaung cheroot.”

  “It’s very nice,” said Mr Turner. “Did you find out anything about Phillip Morgan?”

  “Oh yes, I find out for you. Mr Morgan very important man in Mandinaung. He just made Sub-divisional Officer.”