Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  As a counterpoint, Trevelyan dressed as a wounded shark that had been harpooned and had its fins cut off. He played it for laughs, flopping around on the floor, and emitting a bass groan. The General was in hysterics.

  The next course came and went without incident:

  First Meat Course

  – Impotent Chinese Tiger Balls Tempura –

  – with a Sweet Chilli Dip –

  This one couldn’t have been more straightforward. What’s not to like about battered deep-fried tiger testicles? Especially when it took such an emasculating swipe at our guests’ Chinese enemy. This course was as close to a dead cert as we could get. I may have known little about cooking but I knew that there were few foods that couldn’t be improved by the addition of a sweet chilli dip.

  Each course was designed to take our diners further on their culinary journey, and the early signs were promising. The General and his fellow officers seemed to be genuinely enjoying the meal.

  This course was followed by:

  Second Meat Course

  – Arrogant Orangutan Finger Satay –

  – with a Peanut Dip –

  This was served by heavily sedated orangutans dressed as U.S. airmen. It was a risky strategy because orangutans can be unpredictable creatures. We reduced this risk by administering five milligrams of sodium pentothal per ape. Only once did one of them step out of line, violently attacking Trevelyan from behind while he was playing a selection of Chicago jazz standards on an upright piano to the side of the dining table. Fortunately, this just added to the raucous vaudeville feel of it all, and the Japanese High Command was in fits of laughter as Trevelyan’s head was repeatedly smashed onto the keyboard.

  The guests enjoyed their orangutan fingers, which had been lightly seasoned in cayenne pepper and peanut oil.

  The meal was going at a tremendous gallop, and the diners had been drinking heavily with each course. In the kitchen, the mood was also high. We were now metaphorically, and literally, cooking on gas. But next up was the big one.

  Pièce De Résistance

  – Dignified Baby Humpback Whale Kamikaze –

  – with Puy Lentils & Green Salad –

  Because of its huge size, I’d hidden the entire course behind a curtain at the end of the dining room. The curtain would drop to reveal the showstopper, the coup du théâtre.

  We’d painted the humpback whale with the markings of an Aichi D4Y1 Model 33 dive-bomber with Rising Sun livery. We’d arranged it so the whale had dive-bombed out of the sky and crashed head first through the roof of a balsa wood White House, the perfect strike against the American enemy.

  It looked incredible. It was the centrepiece to the meal and although I felt a pang of regret because it wasn’t concealing the commandos I’d hoped for, it was still the course I was most proud of.

  I dropped the curtain. When it was presented to the officers they all rose and applauded enthusiastically. General Miyamoto looked across towards the kitchen door. Our eyes met. He simply nodded his approval. Although I was sad that this meal wouldn’t end in his brutal death and our own liberation, I was grateful for the recognition. Looking back though, I think I may have been briefly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I temporarily began to reappraise him. As well as being a sadistic torturer he was probably also someone’s kind uncle.

  The rest of the meal seemed to go in the blink of an eye. Trevelyan was black and blue after his incident with the glassware and his fight with the orangutan, so spent the rest of the service keeping a low profile and assisting Grimshaw.

  Despite Trevelyan’s injuries it was clear that he was enjoying himself this evening. He was an excitable schoolboy again, full of energy and enthusiasm as he watched Grimshaw’s mastery of the stoves. Trevelyan kept patting him on the back and ruffling his hair and coming out with confidence-boosting phrases like, “good man, that’s excellent!” and “you’re a genius!” It was heartening to see him so generous with his praise. Towards the end of the meal I sat, exhausted, and watched them both. Although there was only about five years between them it seemed that they were almost father and son.

  As the final course went out, a delicate pudding of meringue, raspberries, sponge cake, whipped cream and spun sugar, the entire table gasped:

  Dessert

  – Giant Lizard’s Righteous Destruction –

  – of Egotistical Manhattan –

  It was a depiction of a giant lizard stomping through New York, but rendered in cake, and it provoked an emotion that I had never seen before in the General. He was actually crying.

  Finally, it was over. We’d done it. And it had been an unqualified success.

  __________

  The General’s plate had just been cleared when we were called out to parade in front of him. The entire brigade of kitchen staff filed out of the tent and lined up in three rows before the Officers. We stood nervously in the centre of the front row as the General got up and walked around the table to stand before us. “Gentleman,” he said, his implacable countenance betraying nothing. “You have served me well tonight. You have honoured me, and you have honoured my guests. And you have brought honour to your homeland. You should be proud.”

  Trevelyan and I stole a quick sideways glance. I did feel proud and I could tell he did too. The General paced up and down the front row smiling. “It was, without doubt,” he said, “the best meal I have ever had.”

  We had survived this ordeal. I let the air expel from my lungs, and as I did so a sense of peace came upon me. For the first time in weeks my heart stopped racing, and my sphincter unclenched. We hadn’t been liberated, as we’d hoped, but at least we’d live to fight another day. Sometimes that’s a victory in itself.

  “So much so,” the General continued, “that I decree Cornwall and Trevelyan will open a supper club where officers will dine in similar style every night of the week. Let it be so.” Our faces fell. How on earth would we be able to do this every single night?

  “But,” he said, with a subtle change of tone, “you haven’t been completely honest with me, have you?” Abruptly the mood changed. “I know every prisoner at Camp Wan Booli. Every prisoner.”

  He paced up and down the front row. “And that is why I know that one of you is an imposter,” he said, stopping in front of Grimshaw. “Somehow we have found an extra prisoner.”

  Grimshaw was shaking. He turned his head to me and there was fear in his young eyes. I felt completely impotent. The General had one hand on his katana. He stepped towards Grimshaw so their faces were only inches away and said coldly, “I don’t like imposters.”

  “Sir!” Trevelyan suddenly dropped to his knees at the feet of the General, “I beg for your mercifulness in this matter. He is just a boy, great General Miyamoto.”

  The General waved his hand and two officers appeared either side of Trevelyan, and held him by the shoulders, forcing his gaze upwards.

  “Major Trevelyan, it is noble, but,” Miyamoto paused, “foolish. We won’t be seeing you for some time. Take him to the coffin!” The coffin was a tin box in the ground only just big enough to lie down in. It was used as a horrific punishment, a mixture of solitary confinement and extreme discomfort. Trevelyan struggled manfully against the guards, but to no avail, and he was marched away. It would be the last I saw of him for two weeks.

  “Would anyone else like to make a plea for leniency?” the General asked sarcastically. I tried to remain stony-faced but the adrenaline was flowing fast. I couldn’t believe this was happening. “Good,” Miyamoto said, and then, with one sweep of his arm, he unsheathed his sword and decapitated Able Seaman Grimshaw.

  Flecks of blood hit me in the face as Grimshaw’s body crumpled into the dust. I tried to show no emotion, but inside I was broken. Any retaliation at that moment would have meant certain death. There was nothing I could have done.

&nbs
p; The General turned his gaze upon me. “You are alive because of the meal I have just enjoyed. It was sensational. But never insult my intelligence again. Be thankful your head is still attached to your neck Major Cornwall. Goodnight.”

  The General walked away, and the rest of his table turned to follow. As I watched them stagger off, replete with the feast we had given them, I vowed that one day I would kill that man.

  Little did I know that we already had.

  __________

  General Miyamoto, The Wolf of Wan Booli, died two days later after the most vicious bout of food poisoning the camp had ever seen. Three hours after the meal, he and the rest of the High Command were taken ill with unrelenting and intense stomach pains. The General was stretchered to the medical hut, apparently describing his symptoms as “the churning hot magma inside Sakurajima”– an active Japanese volcano.

  Shortly after that the volcano erupted.

  What followed was forty-eight hours of punishing vomiting and diarrhoea. Such was the pain, Miyamoto ordered his own execution several times but each time his subordinates refused. It was said that he was literally begging for death.

  Years later, Trevelyan and I wrote to a camp medic in Fukuyama to find out what had actually happened. This doctor described the General on all fours, naked, and drenched in sweat. He was crying out in agony as he hosed down the walls with high velocity excrement and vomit. General Miyamoto and all his guests shat themselves to death.

  Naturally I was jubilant at his demise but the effect on camp life in the long term was minimal. Miyamoto was simply replaced a few days later with another Camp Commander. We inherited another sadistic General, Ito, who would keep us on our toes.

  I have been asked many times whether I planned the deaths of the General and all the dinner guests. I did not, but perhaps… well, sadly Grimshaw is no longer around to answer the question. After all, we had designed the meal together, but he had actually cooked the food.

  I couldn’t understand how Trevelyan and I, and the rest of our kitchen staff, weren’t slaughtered in retribution. I think it must have been because Miyamoto publically spared us while executing Grimshaw and so our deaths would have been a slur on his memory. But I like to think that our brave cook laced the food with some kind of poison of his own concoction, his own contribution to life on the front line.

  Or maybe hummingbirds aren’t edible after all. I guess we’ll never know.

  So there you are. Of course once the war was over I recommended that Grimshaw receive a V.C. for the ingenious slaughter of those senior Japanese officers, but unfortunately my wish was not granted as the official cause of death was food poisoning.

  You may also be interested to know that I still have Monty’s old copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, although it’s virtually fossilised now. Like a rock. Completely fused together. Also I think it weighs about five times what it did on account of all of the salt that it absorbed. No matter. I use it as a paperweight. It sits on my desk next to Koba’s hand.

  Must dash, my crumpets are ready.

  Best wishes and all of that,

  Major Victor Cornwall

  Nimbu Towers

  Pullen-under-Lyme

  Gloucestershire

  16th November 2016

  Dear Major,

  Hmmm, you took some liberties with the truth there. I designed at least four of those mouthwatering courses myself, and vetoed your desire to include an amuse bouche of Admiral Nimitz in sexual congress with Roosevelt, sculpted entirely from pureed shitaki mushroom.

  Despite your obvious shortcomings as a narrator, the overall effect of that chapter was not too bad. In fact it really took me back to day-to-day life in the camp. The execution of Grimshaw was a terrible waste of a promising chef. It makes me miserable when I imagine what he could have developed into, culinarily speaking. I was planning to recruit him to my house after the War, and make him Bernard-Bernard’s sous. Given time, I believe he could perhaps have been his equal, if that is not sacrilegious.

  I remember that we visited poor Grimshaw’s mother and father after the War to explain the manner of his death. One of the only genuinely decent things you’ve ever done was present them with a Victoria Cross you’d had made at Bentley & Skinner. I suspect they knew it was a fake, but what a comfort.

  I suppose it’s down to me to deal with the rest of our stay at Wan Booli. You’ll remember that after the grisly death of General Miyamoto our cards were marked, but luckily The Pine Cone Club was such an instant success that it was worth keeping us alive to manage the place. We always trod a fine line, didn’t we?

  __________

  CHAPTER 17

  Beetle Fight

  Wan Booli Camp, Japan, July 1944

  I staggered up out of my hole in the ground, my eyes gummed shut with dust and fly leavings. The midday sun fell full on my face, and within moments it was aflame. Two weeks of solitary confinement, sitting on rough wooden logs that scoured every single layer of skin from my body, and heated by the merciless tin panels that formed the walls, had taken its toll. I felt worse than when I tumbled to earth in that damned plastic barrel. This war was going to be the death of me. But at least my head was still on my shoulders. That was more than I could say for Grimshaw.

  I was jabbed in the side by a guard’s rifle-butt. I fell to my knees and vomited into the dust, but I was so dehydrated nothing came out. Then a dark shape blotted out the sun. I was grabbed by my elbows and levered upwards. I staggered to my feet away from the hole.

  “Don’t fall again, or the guards will think you’re done for. Come on Trevelyan, raise your game. You were a Dunce. Hold your head up high. There’s nothing these bastards can do that’s as bad as a drubbing from Deranged Agony.”

  “Cornwall? Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me, you pillock. Now come on, I’ve something to show you.”

  “I can’t see.”

  “Wait a second then.”

  Cornwall faffed around for a moment, and handed me a napkin doused with a cool liquid, which swabbed my eyes. They began to unstick. Some of the liquid ran down my cheeks and into the corners of my cracked lips. The taste was familiar. “Cornwall, what is this? Is this Krug?”

  “The ’28. Nothing but the best for you. Now get moving and you can have a proper glass. The restaurant supplies have started to arrive. The Pine Cone Club opens in three days.”

  I could now make out shapes, including the semi-circular corrugated roof of the American and Canadian lodging block. Once we were through the door, I knew I’d be OK. Cornwall handed me a beaker with another splash of Krug in it. “Welcome back,” he said, and patted me on the shoulder. “Things have moved on a bit since you’ve been in the hole.”

  I blinked, and got my bearings. The large dormitory building was far better appointed than the British and French quarters. Rows of sprung bunks, even a few real pillows. Blankets and eiderdowns, neatly stowed. I would have given my eyeteeth for a lie down in a proper bunk, but Cornwall kept me busy.

  “Just in time. Look at that.”

  Every single internee was focussed on some sort of event that was taking place on a table in the middle of the room. What was going on? Chess? Arm-wrestling? Bridge? Victor stood on an old crate, and hauled me up too. My eyes were still having trouble adjusting to the light, but what I saw made me open them wide.

  Together we beheld a sight that would change our fortunes forever.

  On the baize-covered table, two stag beetles were circling each other in a tiny chalk-drawn dohyō, like little sumo wrestlers. All eyes were fixed on the table. Wads of currency were stacked up precariously, and a cigar-chomping American sailor was taking everyone’s action. The slightly larger beetle, Augustus IV, was odds-on to overcome Memphis Maggie in this death match. True to form, it took under five minutes for the favourite to impale Memphis Maggie
on his brutal horns. A lot of money changed hands, and a lot of cigarettes, and a lot of rice. And all for a fight between insects.

  Victor Cornwall shares an important and rare skill with me. We are both consummate opportunists. As we stood on that upturned crate, surveying the scene, a slender smile played below his moustaches. I returned it with a hard stare. “Since the meal, and Miyamoto’s death, I’ve been keeping a low profile. That’s why I’m bunking with the Yanks presently. Bloody good fellows too. They seem to have so much of everything. And all they do, from the moment they wake to the moment they sleep, is gamble, gamble, gamble. They’ll wager on anything.”

  I admit, I was slow on the uptake. Two weeks of solitary confinement in a box in the ground will do that to a chap. “What the bloody hell are you on about?” I said. “Let’s just go back to the Quartier and be done with this. I’m exhausted.”

  “But look!”

  I looked. Amongst the airmen and sailors were several Japanese guards. Off duty for sure, but still guards. “What are they doing here?”

  “It’s the same every day. The gambling brings them here. It does not seem to matter a jot that they’d be put to death if caught… the guards love a flutter. The Yanks love a flutter. Bloody hell, everyone in this place loves a flutter.”

  “So?”

  “Miyamoto ordered us to open a supper-club. We aren’t just going to do that. We’re opening a casino.”

  As I recall his next words, time slows down for me, as their effect echoes down the decades. Cornwall had caught me at my lowest ebb, freshly hauled from the baked earth. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have responded more carefully. Even now, seventy years later, I can replay what he said as if it were a clip from a Hollywood movie on a screen of light. I can remember the glint in his eye, but why the hell did I agree to what he said? This moment has dogged me ever since, and represents the worst deal I have ever struck as it bound me to Cornwall forever.