Smiling Willie and the Tiger

by John Harris

  Instant was shocked, too – and relieved at the same time. He had been raised to believe in his betters, and the knowledge that well-brought-up people of good family were at the game, too, made him feel less uneasy about his own misdeeds.

  ‘The fool of the family, I expect,’ Mace said scornfully. ‘We’ll crucify him when we get him. Instant. Crucify him.’

  ‘Yessir.’ Instant grinned. Mace seemed almost his old self again.

  Mace turned to the Dutchman. ‘As for you…’ he said.

  ‘I am to be imprisoned?’

  Mace was just on the point of saying yes, he damn well was, when he paused, thinking. A thing like this needed cunning, and he must not alarm his quarry.

  ‘By God,’ he said, ‘you will be if you say one word about this. To anybody. Even to your wife in bed.’

  ‘Nie, nie, vrachtig, Mynheer Captain. Not vun cheep.’

  When Mace turned to Instant, he was smiling all over his face. ‘I’ll go and see this woman, Poll, tomorrow,’ he said.

  Instant shook his head. ‘Can’t sir,’ he advised. ‘You’ve got the general’s parade and Wooden to deal with. He’s on a charge, remember.’

  ‘On a charge?’ Mace’s step was so light as they left the store, he was almost dancing. ‘Oh, no, he isn’t, Sergeant! On the contrary. Wooden’s just won himself a medal!’

  Two

  ‘I don’t want a sodden medal,’ Wooden said.

  But he got it all the same and to get it he had to spend half a day cleaning his equipment so that he was fit to appear before General Wickover.

  The parade was held on 23 November 1901, in the dusty forecourt of the station at Chichester Junction, while the troops were waiting to entrain. The padre said a prayer and gave a sermon and three soldiers, who the night before had celebrated their imminent departure too enthusiastically on dop brandy, passed out in the sun to hit the ground in puffs of dust. Then Colonel McGuinness, informed by the stationmaster in a whisper that the train was already an hour late in starting, passed on the information to the general, and Wickover screwed up the notes for the speech he’d prepared.

  ‘That bloody parson,’ he snapped. ‘Let’s get it over then.’

  So it was that Mace and Wooden and a few others got their medals flung at them with as little ceremony as if they’d been chits to sleep out of camp, and the general marched on to the platform and the troops were given the order to entrain.

  Back at his hotel in Sinai, Mace tossed the medal indifferently into a drawer. The whole business had irritated him. All it had done was delay him when he was in a fever of eagerness to get on with the job. Now that he was free, he was almost too scared to make a move. Like a lover with the whole night before him, he felt it was unwise to rush. He was terrified some new humiliation would be visited upon him, some rumour of his presence would reach Poll’s.

  That night he wrestled with the problem so long he failed to get any sleep at all but by the following morning he had made up his mind.

  ‘I’m sending you to Poll’s, Instant,’ he announced.

  Instant’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Me, sir?’

  Mace had reached his decision just before breakfast. He had fought with it all night. One glimpse of him at Poll’s, he knew, and the whole scheme would fall apart at the seams. It had to be Instant. Instant was intelligent and, on his own admission he had been in such places before, and if there were to be more humiliations, more disasters, more explosions, more deafenings, more concussions, why the hell shouldn’t Instant take his turn at them?

  Instant was still staring at him, waiting for his orders. It was an intriguing situation and one that hadn’t come within his scope of military experience before.

  ‘You mean I go to Poll’s and – er – ah – well, do what a feller usually does in them places?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean, Sergeant.’

  Instant looked doubtful. ‘Costs money, sir.’

  ‘I will supply the money.’

  Instant almost smiled. Cold champagne and a girl paid for by the army! This was soldiering!

  ‘I will do my duty as directed, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’ll stop you enjoying yourself, too,’ Mace observed. ‘And don’t imagine you’re going just to loaf about. I want you to keep your eyes open for these swine we’re after. Understand?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir. You want me to appear to be a normal customer but to utilise the opportunity for a little espionage.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it into such flowery language myself, but, yes, that is exactly what I mean. Can you lay hands on a civilian suit anywhere?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’ With Prinsloo en route from Johannesburg by slow ox-cart, it seemed reasonable that Instant might borrow his best suit. He’d borrowed it before.

  ‘Get on with it, then, Instant. I’m going to bring the whole South African police force in on this. This time there must be no mistake.’

  The following day, dressed in a smart checked tweed which had always fitted him well and wearing across his middle the gold albert Prinsloo liked to wear to church, Instant presented himself to Mace for inspection. He held a hard straw hat under his arm and, with access to money, he had begun to acquire the manner of a gentleman so that Mace stared at him with faint resentment.

  ‘You know what you’ve got to do, Sergeant?’

  ‘Not half, sir.’ Instant coughed. ‘That is, yes, sir.’

  ‘How’re you getting there?’

  ‘Train, sir. Thought I might borrow your gladstone bag, sir, so it’ll look proper. Present meself as a businessman up from the Cape. These salesman fellers are just the type to get up to a bit of mischief.’

  ‘Yes, yes. That sounds a good idea. How about clean shirts and collars?’

  ‘A bit of a problem, sir.’ Instant had hardly been able to borrow spares from Sarie without a lengthy explanation.

  ‘Better borrow one of mine,’ Mace said. ‘And a couple of spare collars.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  Mace laid ten sovereigns and some small change on his desk. ‘That ought to cover you for a day or two,’ he said.

  ‘I think so, sir.’ Instant had a few sovereigns in his pocket from his own small hoard also. He had decided he might just as well make a pig of himself.

  Mace held out his hand. ‘Good luck, Sergeant.’ Then his anguish broke out as Instant took it. ‘And, for God’s sake, Sergeant, bring me some information back!’

  As Instant vanished, Mace stared after him, his mood of exhausted exhilaration giving way once more to gloom. Instant was in civilian clothes and in possession of Mace’s gladstone, one of his shirts, several of his collars and a proportion of his savings. It seemed suddenly to Mace that he’d sold his soul to the devil, because if Instant decided to desert he had everything he needed – even Mace’s assistance.

  Wooden was sitting outside his tent, working his fingers up the seams of his shirt as Instant picked up his belongings.

  ‘Keep an eye on things,’ Instant suggested.

  His head down, Wooden scowled at his task. ‘I’m busy,’ he said.

  ‘Not doing anything important that I can see.’

  ‘I’m killin’ lice,’ Wooden growled. ‘I’m a soldier. I got to kill something.’

  He looked up at last and realised at once he was looking at a new Instant, gorgeous as a peacock in a smart checked suit, a starched collar and a tie held in place with a pearl pin.

  ‘Well, you rotten shocker,’ he accused hotly. ‘You been and got your shockin’ demob!’

  Watched by the envious Wooden, whose soul seethed with the worms of envy and followed by cries of ‘Oh, Mother, look at Dick!’ from his friends, Instant headed from camp to catch the Cape Town–Johannesburg train. There were a great many other smart young men with gladstone bags heading north now that the war was over. They were hard-eyed and hard-faced and Instant pitied the Johannesburgers when they got there.

  As he dropped off at Winifred he decided the place c
hanged every time he visited it. New flat-faced wood-and-tin structures had gone up, he noticed, and work had already started on one or two brick buildings, while the wooden blocks down Nieuwoudt Street allowed the traffic to flow silently over their smooth surface.

  Poll’s Hotel had a new sign blazoned across the front in curlicue letters, and looked smarter than ever with a new coat of paint and fresh potted geraniums to go with the new road surface. There was a young man with sandy-orange hair sitting on the front stoep, reading a paper.

  ‘I say’ – Instant offered his newly acquired culture for inspection – ‘is what I ’ear about this place correct?’

  The young man looked up and blinked his pale lashes. Instant’s eyes widened and he gulped and waited for the young man to hurry away. But he didn’t and Instant realised his disguise was sound.

  ‘Depends if you’ve got any money,’ the young man said.

  As Instant headed up the steps, the dusty mesh door was slammed open in his face by a good-looking youngster with the look of an eager wolf. He hardly noticed Instant and the young man on the stoep looked up at him mournfully.

  ‘Off again?’ he said.

  ‘Sure am,’ Wolf-face said.

  Instant watched the exchange, then he nodded thoughtfully to himself and went inside.

  Poll herself was sitting at a roll-top desk near the visitors’ book, checking her accounts. She glanced up at Instant standing before the desk with his gladstone bag, then she nudged the young man sitting next to her.

  The young man turned. ‘Room?’ he asked and, as he swung his wide warm smile on to Instant, the sergeant almost swooned and his carefully cultivated poise slipped for a moment.

  The whole bleeding lot were there!

  ‘All of them?’ Mace stared at his sergeant, his eyes bright.

  ‘Every manjack, sir,’ Instant said. ‘I saw ’em the minute I arrived. They’re doing odd jobs and seem pretty hard up and I reckon they’re ready to try their ’and at something else any moment. It’s time we moved in.’

  Mace nodded, then he looked up at Instant. ‘You were a long time making your report,’ he said. ‘Five days!’

  Instant’s face remained blank. He had been enjoying himself and had seen no reason to hurry back. ‘There was a fight, sir,’ he explained. ‘Two miners. Took a bit of time to settle down.’

  He was unperturbed for, although the occasional aitch still eluded him, he had discovered that the grand manner suited him and he was busily adapting to it.

  Mace decided some credit had to be given for effort. ‘Well, good man, Instant, anyway,’ he said. ‘We’ll get busy at once.’

  Instant coughed. ‘If I may make a suggestion, sir…’

  ‘Yes. Go on.’

  ‘I would suggest, sir, that I go back to Winifred. They all think I’m a corset salesman from Cape Town sounding out the district, sir.’

  Mace gaped. ‘What the hell do you know about corsets?’ he demanded.

  ‘Used to walk out with a young lady from that department in the store where I worked afore I joined up, sir. Picked up a bit of the patter. The young ladies at Poll’s are keen on stays. They come and talk to me and drop titbits of information occasionally, sir. If these fellers was thinking of doing a bunk – as they might – I could find out where they were heading and we’d be on their tails at once.’

  Mace’s eyes narrowed. Instant somehow managed to flaunt his civilian clothes as a symbol of affluence that made Mace feel ashamed of his own poverty. ‘I expect you’re spent up?’ he said.

  ‘That is a difficulty, sir.’

  Mace fished in his pocket and produced a five-pound note. It was proving an expensive business but he was hoping it would be worth it in the end.

  ‘All right, Instant,’ he said. ‘You hop it back to Winifred. I’ll be on the same train to see the inspector of police. In mufti, of course.’

  There were three hours before the train to Johannesburg was due through Chichester Junction and, watched by the seething Wooden, Instant sauntered off to see Sarie Prinsloo. He’d brought her back a bottle of scent scrounged from one of Polly’s girls and as Sarie had never had a bottle of scent in her life, she felt obliged to return the gesture in kind.

  When he boarded the Johannesburg train that evening, complete with Mace’s gladstone bag and another of his shirts and two more collars, Instant was on top of the world. Mace himself climbed aboard after him. In his bleak concept of duty he had taken the disguise of a farmer looking for stolen cattle, and wore a dirty jacket, rumpled moleskin trousers and a battered felt hat. They ignored each other, each satisfied his disguise was perfect.

  ‘Hey, Sarge!’ As Instant lowered the window of his compartment, he heard Wooden’s harsh voice yelling at him. ‘What are you and Macey up to in them duds?’

  Instant tried to ignore him, but Wooden, on station picket duty, stood staring in at the window, frowning and puzzled. As the train pulled out and Mace’s compartment passed, he shuffled to an untidy salute.

  ‘Stupid idiot,’ Mace muttered savagely.

  As he climbed from the train at Winifred, he saw Instant flip a shilling to an idling soldier to call him a cab and decided he had underestimated his sergeant and picked the wrong disguise. Dressed as he was, he could hardly call a cab himself, and he had to walk through the evening heat to the police station on his own two feet.

  The man behind the desk was a very different kettle of fish from the Boer zarp who had arrested him the previous year. He was one of Baden-Powell’s young heroes from Mafeking, full of energy and imagination and brisk enough to be ambitious. With his British instinct for minding other people’s business, he was proving a great success as a policeman and it was going to his head a little. He didn’t consider the tall thin farmer who was shown in to him to be worthy of much attention.

  ‘Yes?’ he snapped. ‘What do you want?’

  Mace flushed as he placed his hat on the desk. ‘I’m Captain Mace,’ he said.

  ‘And I’m Inspector Berkeley.’

  ‘And I’m here on official business. I’m officer i/c the Provost Department for this area at Sinai and Chichester Junction.’

  The inspector stared. His own rank had been only lieutenant. ‘What the devil are you doing in that get-up then?’ he said stiffly.

  Mace suddenly felt a fool before the smart young man behind the desk. ‘I adopted it because my orders are to apprehend three men I know to be in this town and I have no wish to be identified.’ His narrow honest face was indignant. ‘They’ve dodged me more than once.’ And landed him in gaol, he thought, given him concussion and a slight case of deafness, to say nothing of humiliation, bitterness and anger.

  ‘These men are tricky,’ he said. ‘I want your help.’

  The inspector pushed aside his papers. He had decided to have no nonsense from Mace. ‘I haven’t time to chase up deserters,’ he snapped.

  Mace glared at him. ‘These men aren’t just deserters,’ he snapped. ‘These are the men who stole Wickover’s divisional pay over a year ago.’

  The inspector’s face changed. ‘Ah!’ he said, nodding as if the daily appearance of payroll robbers was the bane of his life. ‘That’s different.’ Then suddenly Mace’s name struck a chord. His expression looked as if the tumblers of a lock had fallen into place. ‘Of course,’ he said, a grin spreading across his face. ‘You’re the Mace. I’ve heard about you.’

  Mace prayed that thunderbolts would descend and that lightning would paralyse the inspector. ‘I am that Mace,’ he agreed. ‘And I’ve sworn to lay my hands on the man who lifted that money if it’s the last thing I do. I want to set up a raid on Poll’s Hotel.’

  The inspector smiled. ‘I’m setting up a raid on Poll’s myself,’ he said. ‘There’s a whore house at the back.’

  ‘I know,’ Mace said. ‘I’ve got one of my men in there.’

  Berkeley regarded him with new respect. He obviously wasn’t as stupid as people said.

  ‘There’s a lot of fuss going
on about the place,’ he went on. ‘Winifred’s not a frontier town any longer and now the troops have gone the churches want it closing. The Dutch Reform predikant even got together with the Church of England and the Roman Catholic mob. They disapprove and so do I. I just want a good excuse. Now I’ve got one.’

  ‘My pay robbers?’ Mace asked.

  The inspector smiled. ‘They’ll help,’ he agreed. ‘But there’s more than that. I’ve got wind from a Kaffir waiter who’s one of my spies that a bunch of IDBs are due in town. I want ’em.’

  Mace’s nostrils twitched. He’d heard about illicit diamond buying, and how men were caught with planted stones.

  ‘Feller from Kimberley. Coming in on Christmas Eve. For a party. There’ll be stones changing hands and I plan to break in on ’em while they’re at it. The waiter’s going to tip me the wink through the window when they’re got the stuff on the table. I’ve got a woman detective coming down from Jo’burg.’

  Mace frowned. He didn’t want women in the operation.

  ‘These fellows do things in style,’ Berkeley explained. ‘They’ll have their lady friends with them and they’re pretty sharp at passing the stuff around if there’s trouble. They stick the klips in their hair, up their jumpers, between their tits. You’d be surprised.’

  Mace was. ‘And you’re going to search ’em?’

  Berkeley grinned. ‘They’ve even been known to put it where a man couldn’t search without getting sunburned. But I’ll have the little beauties stripped to the buff if necessary. I shall go in as soon as they’ve got it laid out, and that’s usually after the food’s been cleared. Don’t trust each other, see. Been known to slip it in the turkey stuffing, even into a dumpling and swallow it. I’ve heard of ’em shoving it in a piece of meat and giving it to their dogs, then taking the poor bloody beast home and shooting it. There’ll be none of that, though. Not with me. I’ll have a cordon round the place and go through it with a fine-tooth comb. Dogs and women, too, if necessary.’