by Alec Waugh
He paused, he looked towards the towers of the cracking plants. If that were blown up tonight, would he know again a moment’s peace of mind? If lives were lost tonight could he forgive himself? He remembered the question which no man was supposed to be able to answer honestly. If by lifting up a letter-weight on your desk, you can become a millionaire at the cost of a million unknown Chinese men dying instantly in China, how many men would hesitate to lift that weight? Yes, but these were not unknown yellow men fifteen thousand miles away. They were his friends and his associates; disaster would happen on his doorstep. He knew what he ought to do. Lift up that telephone receiver on his desk, call through to Forrester, say, ‘I believe that something subversive may be attempted at the camp tonight at seven thirty. I don’t know what. I don’t know where, but I think a watch should be kept on the gate at Dempsey Avenue.’
That’s what he ought to do. Yes, but if he did, what trouble might he not lay up for himself? How could he explain himself away? What a fool he’d feel if nothing happened. He would be expelled from Pearl; what a disgrace for Julia. He would have to tell her; he couldn’t live a lie with her. She might forgive him; but she would despise him. What future could there be for them? He could not run that risk.
He went back to his desk, picked up the file. In two weeks’ time he’d be in Trinidad; he’d be out of danger; but with heaven only knew what load upon his conscience. Twenty-five to three. If only the clock’s hands would hurry. If only it were in five hours’ time.
3
The four o’clock hooter went. He put away his files and locked them up. In what state of mind would he unlock them tomorrow morning? If only it were tomorrow morning. As he walked to the car park he passed Barbara. It was the first time that they had met since the evening of the play. She stopped at the sight of him. She stood straight in his way. She looked straight at him. On her face was an expression of contempt and hatred. She did not speak. She did not move. He had to step round her to get to his car. She stood there looking at him. He had never seen such an expression before. That anyone should look at him like that; that he should deserve to be looked at like that; and he had deserved it. Blackmail. Was there a dirtier word? Scarcely; but by tomorrow, within three and a half hours he might have earned a dirtier word. In every face he met he might see that expression. For the rest of his life, that might be his lot. It was more than he could risk. He turned, he hurried back into his office; he picked up the telephone.
‘Get me the C.I.D.’
The call went through at once.
‘Can I speak to Colonel Forrester?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, Colonel Forrester is out.’
‘Do you know where I can reach him?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t, sir.’
It was the opportunity for a reprieve, but he did not take it.
‘Then will you take a message. It is most important; try to find him somewhere. If you can’t find him within half an hour give this message to his second-in-command. This is the message. …’
And that is that, he thought later. Now the consequences.
4
The cocktail party was at half past six. With a last-time feeling he escorted Julia there. This might be his last party in Kassaya. By this time tomorrow he might have ceased to be the kind of person that people wanted at their parties. He might not even be at liberty. How could he hope to survive the cross-examination to which he would be subjected. The whole pitiful story would be exposed. What a fool he’d been. It was dramatically ironic that an occasion that should have such a last-time feeling for him, should also have, in an altogether different content, a last-time feeling for the guests. The news that he had been posted to Trinidad had got round the camp. Friend after friend came up to congratulate him and to wish him luck. To all of them he made the same reply, ‘You’ll look after Julia, won’t you?’ Most of the men gave the same facetious answer, ‘That’s what we’ve been wanting to do for the last two years, only you’ve been around.’
A clock stood on a low book case. He watched the minute hand move round, five to seven, seven, five past, ten past. At a quarter past he took his leave. He put his arm round Julia’s shoulder.
‘I’m terribly sorry about this. I’ll be back within an hour.’
He pressed her to him; would he ever again hold her to him, in acknowledged and accepted ownership. What an ass he’d been, just when his innings were about to start.
He made a detour, driving to a higher level from which he could see the whole panorama of the refinery, with its blaze of lights and the dark cloud of smoke blowing out over the sea. It looked so ominous but so secure. How could he have imagined that it was threatened? Why had he called up Forrester? There had been no need. Nothing was going to happen. But once Forrester had been alerted. … He shrugged. He had done it now. He pressed the accelerator; drove back towards Dempsey Avenue.
He stopped the car fifty yards from the gate, so that he could walk towards his rendezvous. He wanted to take in everything that happened. It was a dark night but the lights from the refinery threw shadows across the roadway. He detected no sign of movement at the gate. Nothing suggested drama. He looked at the luminous dial on his watch. Seven twenty-seven.
As he neared the gate, a figure came towards him from the shadow. ‘Good evening Mr. Hallett.’
The Indian was holding out an envelope. ‘Here are your signatures.’
Basil took the envelope.
‘I should look inside if I were you; make sure they are correct.’
In his left hand the Indian held an electric torch. He flashed it on the envelope. Basil looked inside. Yes, there were his three signatures. The first one for fifty pounds; how light-heartedly he had signed it. The light switched off. Basil replaced the evidence of his stupid weakness, his treachery if you chose to call it that; put the envelope into his breast pocket. He should be free; he would be free if that look in Barbara’s eyes had not goaded him into quixotic action.
The Indian held out his hand.
‘And now, Mr. Hallett, I think we should say good-bye. We shall not meet again. Try not to think too badly of me.’
Basil hesitated, then took the proffered hand. Its fingers closed tightly about his in a curious manner. He tried to pull his hand away but found it held. There was a report; a thud against his chest; looking down as his knees sagged, he saw that the Indian’s left hand in his coat pocket had lifted a projecting object. There was another report, a second thud and he was on his knees; in his ears there was a sound of shouting, the rattle of machine-gun fire; the grasp on his hand loosened as he fell foward. His eyes were dazzled by an explosion inside the fence; darkness fell about him.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Through a fog of nightmare Basil Hallett fought his way back to consciousness. Then having achieved consciousness, he tried to fight back into oblivion. He was aware of pain; a dull heavy throbbing, a numbing lassitude. He kept his eyelids closed. Where was he, what had happened? To what was he awakening, to what was he returning? He had had this feeling as a schoolboy on the eve of a major row when he expected to be summoned that morning to the headmaster’s study; dreading what the morning held, wishing he could escape again into the unreality of dream, with each waking second heightening the weight of omen.
In his last dream he had relived in a series of brief episodes the last few months; he had seen himself at the race meeting, with hope sinking to despair; had seen himself sitting in the barber’s chair; taking the bottom copy of A Woman of Bangkok from the book pile in the supermarket, working out chess problems in his office; in the intervals of these high-lighted moments he had seen himself living the day-to-day life of the camp, working on his files, driving home to lunch, playing golf; and always, no matter what he was doing, conscious in the back of his mind of a disquiet, of a concern that became hourly more acute; all the time while he was reliving the past, he had been aware that he was reliving it, had known that he had done all this before; side by side with this c
onsciousness of repetition had been the belief that this time it would end up differently, that in some way he would break the inexorable cycle of cause and of effect; he was living two lives, identified with the old life that he was reliving, at the same time watching that life from the outside, knowing what was to happen next; praying, believing that it would not reach the self-same climax; saying to himself as he drove away from the cocktail party, as he saw from the heights behind the refinery the Doré-esque panorama of fire and smoke, as he got out of his car, as he walked to meet the Indian. ‘It’ll be different this time. I’ll wake up in a different life, beyond all that.’
But was he? He lay in a coma of numbed sensation, ignorant of where he was, trying to fight back into his dream, so that he could reach beyond this pattern of causation; where was he, to what was he awakening? He remembered the two reports, the thuds against his chest; the shouting, the volley of machine-gun fire, the explosion; after that what? He half-opened his eyes to a darkened room, to bare walls, to the smell of iodoform, and closed them again. A bedroom in a hospital; what kind of a hospital? Was it a prison hospital; was he alone here, was he in a ward? How ill was he? Was he being nursed back to health so that he might be tried for treason? Why hadn’t they let him die? Was he alone? He listened carefully; no talking, no sound of feet. Solitary confinement? He was aware of a hand’s pressure upon his; a hand with a soft palm and gentle fingers. His nostrils were aware of a faint scent stealing through the pervading iodoform. The scent of jasmine; Julia’s scent. He tried to turn his head, but the movement sent a spasm of pain, from his forehead to his toes. Wincing he lay back, with his eyes closed. The soft palm pressed against his knuckles, the fingers folded about his.
‘Don’t move, darling; you’re all right,’ she said. ‘Oh, darling, we’re all so proud of you.’
Proud of him. Then the miracle had happened; his prayer had been granted, he had woken to another life.
2
As Julia stepped out of the hospital, Charles drew up his car against the curb.
‘How’s the patient?’ he called out.
‘Fine. In three days he’ll be seeing visitors.’
‘In that case, I won’t get out. Tell him I called.’
She walked across to him. ‘Will this affect his transfer to Trinidad?’
Charles shook his head.
‘All the more reason for his going. There might be trouble for him if he stayed. I suppose you guessed there was a danger of this happening.’
‘Me? I’d not the foggiest idea.’
‘Then why did you put up such a desperate campaign to get him moved?’
‘Me, a desperate campaign? It’s the first I’ve heard of it. I knew Basil wanted to be moved. He wis worried about something. I asked Barbara to test the ground. She told me that there wasn’t a hope. Then there was that dinner, when you asked up just the two of us? I thought you’d straightened the matter out with Basil then.’
‘And he hasn’t been worrying about the matter since?’
‘Not as far as I know. He certainly hasn’t talked to me about it.’
Charles laughed. ‘I’ll have to get a hearing aid. I don’t catch consonants. Because I hear the vowel sounds, I fancy that I’m all right. But I keep getting on to the wrong subject. I keep on thinking that people are talking about something or somebody they aren’t. I’ll take this as a warning.’
He waved as he drove off.
Barbara was in the sitting-room, alone. ‘How is he?’ she asked.
‘Fine, so Julia said.’
‘You didn’t see him then?’
‘No visitors for at least three days, but he’s not on the danger list. I suppose Julia must have known that there was a danger of something like this happening.’
‘I suppose she must.’
‘Otherwise she wouldn’t have begged you to get him transferred.’
‘I don’t suppose she would.’
But it wasn’t Julia who had waged that desperate campaign. Why should Julia have denied it, if she had? And since it wasn’t Julia, who else could it have been but Basil? Why had Barbara told him that it was Julia? Why had Basil approached Barbara? How had he managed to persuade Barbara to plead in his defence? Why had Barbara pleaded in his defence so desperately? She had been on the verge of hysteria. Why should she care so much for Basil’s welfare? Why hadn’t she wanted to break the news herself? Why, why, why! There were so many ‘whys’, so many ‘hows’. He changed the subject.
Seated at his desk that afternoon, he recalled detail by detail, the scene when Barbara had startled him with her violent persistence. He recalled it in terms of its environment; of the performance of Rose Without a Thorn; of the scene between Harry and the Sinclairs; of the talk they had had afterwards about the play, he and Barbara, Shelagh and young Fyreman; they had talked then about jealousy; who was it who had said that it was better to be kept in the dark, better for certain things to be kept in the dark, better for certain things to remain unsaid, let secrets remain secrets? Might he not be wise to take to heart the lesson of that talk on jealousy? Better remain in ignorance.
Somehow Basil had been able to persuade Barbara to intercede on his behalf, with such powerful arguments that Barbara had reached the border of hysteria, arguments so powerful that Barbara had lied to him on their account? Better not learn those arguments; better that Barbara should never know he knew of their existence. If she did there would be awkwardness between them, ‘never glad confident morning again’. Even if his suspicions—and he did not want to look in his own mind and ask what those suspicions were—even if they were unfounded, it was better that he should be fretted by them, than that their nature should be brought into the open. Maybe the whole thing was moonshine. But she had lied to him. Most people were forced, sooner or later to lie to one another, for their own sake or for someone else’s, but when they did … it could not be the same again, not quite.
Was this the end of a honeymoon, was this the start of marriage? If he was not to lose her, and he recognized now that this hold on her was not as strong as he had fancied, should not their relationship be cemented in the foundations on which marriages were the most part based: a family and a home? He would be retiring soon, or at least would be posted back to England in a few years’ time; wouldn’t their home together there need ballast for a woman as young as Barbara. He had been reluctant before to start a family because he had been desperately anxious to prolong to the last moment possible, this Indian summer of the heart and senses. Today he had felt the first chill wind of autumn. Better face the fact; accept what was inevitable. He was in the later forties. High time to take his leave of the illusion of being young.
3
Forrester looked down thoughtfully at Basil.
‘You’d better tell me the whole thing from the start,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose that you’ll be telling me much that I don’t know, but I’m curious to know how much you do know.’
He listened carefully, nodding from time to time, interjecting little grunts that seemed to say, ‘Yes, that’s so, go on.’
It did not take Basil long to tell his story.
‘And now,’ said Forrester, ‘I imagine that you would like to know what actually took place.’
‘I should say I would.’
‘It’s a very simple story, in essentials. There is a strong group of military men and industrialists who want to take over the country, maintaining the throne as long as the old King lives, establishing a Republic when he dies; they want to nationalize the oil. They have backing in New York and also, I believe, in London. They believed that the best way to seize power was by creating a Communist bogy; there is no real Communist party in Karak, though there are a few disaffected elements who would join one if it were properly organized. Your Indian friend acted on behalf of the Nationalists as an agent provocateur to this small group. You were useful to him in three ways. You gave him information about Pearl, you introduced his friends into Pearl, and thirdly, he had you
up his sleeve as a kind of joker. When the showdown came your affiliation with the Communistic world would prove conclusively that the Red menace did exist. Yours was not, you see, a very pleasant fate.’
‘But I don’t see …’
‘I am coming to that. Various events hastened the plot. The Nationalists had to move quicker than they had planned. Last Thursday there was to be an attempted sabotage at the refinery. The Nationalists would intervene and force the King to declare an emergency. You, my friend, were to be found dead with those cheques in your pocket; cheques issued by a Communist and endorsed by you: they also planned to shoot a Communist. Your two dead bodies would have been ample evidence of a plot. The Nazis had far less evidence when they burnt the Reichstag. It was a plot that would have succeeded nine times in ten.’
‘What happened this tenth time?’
‘Because of your warning I was able to forestall the Nationalists. The attempt at sabotage took place. Not much damage was done. It was not intended that there should be much damage. The Nationalists only wanted an excuse to intervene. Because we were there first, we were able to clear up the attempt at sabotage, and to attribute it to the Nationalists. All their leaders have been arrested. Your Indian friend, by the way, is dead.’
‘When you sent me that chess problem, did you know what its message was?’
‘That is a question that I prefer not to answer.’
‘Did you know there was to be this attempt on Thursday evening?’
