John Le Carré: Three Complete Novels

by John le Carré

  She wanted to say something but it didn’t work. She took a few steps, turned and looked back at him, and he waved—one big flap of the arm. She took a few more and kept going till she was below the line of the hill, but he did hear her shout “Seven, then,” or thought he did. Having watched her out of sight, Jerry returned to the knife-edge, where he sat down for a bit of a breather before the Tarzan stuff. A snatch of John Donne came back to him, one of the few things he had picked up at school, though somehow he never got quotations completely right:On a huge hill

  Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will

  Reach her, about must, and about must go.

  Or something.

  For an hour, deep in thought—two hours—he lay in the lee of the rock and watched the daylight turn to dusk over the Chinese islands a few miles into the sea. Then he pulled off his buckskin boots and re-threaded the laces in a herring-bone, the way he used to thread them for his cricket boots. Then he put them on again and tied them as tight as they would go. It could be Tuscany again, he thought, and the five hills which he used to look at from the hornet field. Except that this time he wasn’t proposing to walk out on anyone. Not the girl. Not Luke. Not himself. Even if it took a lot of footwork.

  “Navy int. has the junk-fleet making around six knots and dead on course,” Murphy announced. “Quit the beds right on one one hundred, just like they were following our projection.”

  From somewhere he had scrounged a set of bakelite toy boats which he could fix to the chart. Standing, he pointed them proudly in a single column at Po Toi island.

  Murphy had returned but his colleague had stayed with Sam Collins and Fawn, so they were four.

  “And Rockhurst has found the girl,” said Guillam quietly, putting down the other phone. His shoulder was acting up and he was extremely pale.

  “Where?” said Smiley.

  Still at the chart, Murphy turned.

  At his desk, where he was keeping a log of events, Martello put down his pen.

  “Picked her up at Aberdeen harbour as she landed,” Guillam went on. “She’d cadged a lift back from Po Toi with a clerk and his wife from the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank.”

  “So what’s the story?” Martello demanded before Smiley could speak. “Where’s Westerby?”

  “She doesn’t know,” said Guillam.

  “Ah, come on!” Martello protested.

  “She says they had a row and left in different boats. Rockhurst says give him another hour with her.”

  Smiley spoke. “And Ko?” he asked. “Where’s he?”

  “His launch is still in Po Toi harbour,” Guillam replied. “Most of the other boats have already left. But Ko’s is where it was this morning. Sitting pretty, Rockhurst says, and everyone below.”

  Smiley peered at the sea chart, then at Guillam, then at the map of Po Toi.

  “If she told Westerby what she told Collins,” he said, “then he’s stayed on the island.”

  “With what in mind?” Martello demanded very loud. “George, for what purpose is that man remaining on that island?”

  An age went by for all of them.

  “He’s waiting,” Smiley said.

  “For what, may I enquire?” Martello persisted in the same determined tone.

  Nobody saw Smiley’s face. It had found its own bit of shadow. They saw his shoulders hunch, they saw his hand rise to his spectacles as if to remove them, they saw it fall back empty in defeat onto the rosewood table.

  “Whatever we do, we must let Nelson land,” he said firmly.

  “And whatever do we do?” Martello demanded, getting up and coming round the table. “Westerby’s not here, George. He never entered the Colony. He can leave by the same damn route!”

  “Please don’t shout at me,” Smiley said.

  Martello ignored him. “Which is it going to be, that’s all? The conspiracy or the fuck-up?”

  Guillam was standing his height, barring the way, and for an extraordinary moment it seemed possible that, broken shoulder notwithstanding, he proposed physically to restrain Martello from coming any closer to where Smiley sat.

  “Peter,” Smiley said quietly. “I see there’s a telephone behind you. Perhaps you’d be good enough to pass it to me.”

  With the full moon, the wind had dropped and the sea settled. Jerry had not descended all the way to the inlet but made a last camp thirty feet above it, in the cover of a shrub, where he had protection. His hands and knees were cut, and a branch had grazed his cheek, but he felt good: hungry and alert. In the sweat and danger of the scramble he had forgotten his pain. The inlet was larger than he had imagined when he looked down on it from higher up, and the granite cliffs at sea-level were pierced with caves. He was trying to guess Ko’s plan. He had been trying all day. What Ko had to do he would do from the sea, because he was not capable of the nightmarish climb down the cliff. Jerry had wondered at first whether Ko might try to intercept Nelson before he landed, but could see no safe way for Nelson to slip the fleet and make a sea-meeting with his brother.

  The sky darkened, the stars came, and the path of the moon grew brighter. And Westerby? he thought. What does A do now? A was one hell of a long way from the syndicate solutions of Sarratt, that was for sure.

  Ko would also be a fool to attempt to bring his launch to this side of the island, he decided. She was unwieldy and drew too much water to come inshore on a windward coast. A small boat was better, and a sampan or a rubber dinghy best. Clambering down the cliff till his boots hit pebbles, Jerry huddled against the rock, watching the breakers thump and the sparks of phosphorus riding with the spume.

  She’ll be back by now, he thought. With any luck, she’s talked her way into someone’s house and is charming the kids and wrapping herself round a cup of Bovril. “Tell him I kept faith,” she said.

  The moon lifted and still Jerry waited, training his eyes on the darkest spots in an effort to improve his vision. Then, over the clatter of the sea, he could have sworn he heard the awkward slap of water on a wooden hull and the short grumble of an engine switched on and off again. He saw no light. Edging his way along the shadowed rock, he crept as close to the water’s edge as he dared and once more crouched, waiting. As a wave of surf soaked him to the thighs, he saw what he was waiting for: against the moon path, not twenty yards from him, the arched cabin and curled prow of a single sampan rocking on its anchor. He heard a splash and a muffled order, and as he sank as low as the slope allowed, he picked out the unmistakeable shape of Drake Ko, in his Anglo-French beret, wading cautiously ashore, followed by Tiu carrying an M-16 across both arms. So there you are, thought Jerry. End of the long trail. Luke’s killer, Frostie’s killer—whether by proxy or in the flesh is immaterial—Lizzie’s lover, Nelson’s father, Nelson’s brother. Welcome to the man who never broke a deal in his life.

  Ko also had a burden but it was less ferocious, and Jerry knew long before he made it out that it was a lamp and a power pack, pretty much like those he had used in the Circus water games on the Helford Estuary, except that the Circus favoured ultraviolet, and shoddy wire-framed spectacles which were useless in rain or spray.

  Reaching the beach, the two men made their way over the shingle until they reached the highest point; then, like Jerry, they merged against the black rock. He reckoned they were sixty feet from him. He heard a grunt and saw the flame of a cigarette lighter, then the red glow of two cigarettes followed by the murmur of Chinese voices. Wouldn’t mind one myself, thought Jerry. Stooping, he spread out one large hand and began loading it with pebbles until it was full, then padded as stealthily as he could manage along the base of the rock toward the two red embers. By his calculation he was eight paces from them. He had the pistol in his left hand and the pebbles in his right, and he was listening to the clump of the waves, how they gathered, tottered, and fell, and he was thinking that it was going to be a lot easier to have a chat with Drake once Tiu was out of the way.

  Very slowly, in the classic posture of th
e outfielder, he leaned back, raised his left elbow in front of him, and crooked his right arm behind him, prepared for a throw at full stretch. A wave fell, he heard the shuffle of the undertow, the grumble as another gathered. Still he waited, right arm back, palm sweating as he clasped the pebbles. Then as the wave reached its height he hurled the pebbles high up the cliff, using all his strength, before ducking to a crouch, gaze fixed upon the embers of the two cigarettes. He waited, then heard the pebbles patter against the rock above him and the hailstorm gather as they tumbled down. In the next instant he heard Tiu’s short curse and saw one red ember fly into the air as he leapt to his feet, M-16 in hand, barrel lifted to the cliff and his back to Jerry. Ko was scrambling for cover.

  First Jerry hit Tiu very hard with the pistol, taking care to keep his fingers inside the guard. Then he hit him again with his closed right hand, a two-knuckle strike at full force, “with the fist turned down and turning,” as they say at Sarratt, and a lot of follow-through at the end. As Tiu went down, Jerry caught his cheek-bone with the whole weight of his swinging right boot and heard the snap of his closing jaw. And as he stooped to pick up the M-16 he smashed the butt of it into Tiu’s kidneys, thinking angrily of both Luke and Frost, but also of the cheap crack Tiu had made about Lizzie not rating more than the journey from Kowloon-side to Hong Kong-side. Greetings from the horse-writer, he thought. Then he looked toward Ko, who, having stepped forward, was still no more than a black shape against the sea: a crooked silhouette with piecrust ears sticking out below the line of his odd beret. A strong wind had risen again, or perhaps Jerry was only now aware of it. It rattled in the rocks behind them and made Ko’s broad trousers billow.

  “That Mr. Westerby, the English newsman?” he enquired, in precisely the deep, harsh tones he had used at Happy Valley.

  “The same,” said Jerry.

  “You’re a very political man, Mr. Westerby. What the hell do you want here?”

  Jerry was recovering his breath, and for a moment he didn’t feel quite ready to answer.

  “Mr. Ricardo tells my people it is your aim to blackmail me. Is money your aim, Mr. Westerby?”

  “Message from your girl,” Jerry said, feeling he should discharge that promise first. “She says she keeps faith. She’s on your side.”

  “I don’t have a side, Mr. Westerby. I’m an army of one. What do you want? Mr. Marshall tells my people you are some kind of hero. Heroes are very political persons, Mr. Westerby. I don’t care for heroes.”

  “I came to warn you. They want Nelson. You mustn’t take him back to Hong Kong. They’ve got him all sewn up. They’ve got plans that will last him the rest of his life. And you as well. They’re queueing up for both of you.”

  “What do you want, Mr. Westerby?”

  “A deal.”

  “Nobody wants a deal. They want a commodity. The deal obtains for them the commodity. What do you want?” Ko repeated, raising his voice in command. “Tell me, please.”

  “You bought yourself the girl with Ricardo’s life,” said Jerry. “I thought I might buy her back with Nelson’s. I’ll speak to them for you. I know what they want. They’ll settle.”

  That’s the last foot in the last door for me, he thought, forever and a day.

  “A political settlement, Mr. Westerby? With your people? I made many political settlements with them. They told me God loved children. Did you ever notice God love an Asian child, Mr. Westerby? They told me God was a kwailo and his mother had yellow hair. They told me God was a peaceful man, but I read once that there have never been so many civil wars as in the kingdom of Christ. They told me—”

  “Your brother’s right behind you, Mr. Ko.”

  Ko swung round. On their left, heading from the east, a dozen or more junks in full sail trembled southward across the moon path in ragged column, lights prickling in the water. Dropping to his knees, Ko began frantically groping for the lamp. Jerry found the tripod, wrenched it open; Ko stood the lamp on it, but his hands were shaking wildly and Jerry had to help him. Jerry seized the wires, struck a match, and clipped the cables to the terminals. They were staring out to sea, side by side. Ko flashed the lamp once, then again, first red then green.

  “Wait,” Jerry said softly. “You’re too soon. Go easy or you’ll muck it all up.”

  Moving him gently aside, Jerry bent to the eyepiece and scanned the line of boats: “Which one?”

  “The last,” said Ko.

  Holding the last junk in view, though it was still only a shadow, Jerry signalled again, one red, one green, and a moment later heard Ko let out a cry of joy as an answering flicker darted back across the water.

  “Can he fix on that?” said Jerry.

  “Sure,” said Ko, still looking out to sea. “Sure. He will fix on that.”

  “Then leave it alone. Don’t do any more.”

  Ko turned to him, and Jerry saw the excitement in his face, and felt his dependence.

  “Mr. Westerby, I am advising you sincerely: if you have played a trick on me for my brother Nelson, your Christian Baptist hell will be a very comfortable place by comparison with what my people do to you. But if you help me I give you everything. That is my contract and I never broke a contract in my life. My brother also made certain contracts.” He looked out to sea. “I am pleased to advise you that he has seen the error of his ways.”

  The forward junks were out of sight. Only the tail-enders remained. From far away Jerry fancied he heard the uneven rumble of an engine, but he knew his mind was all over the place and it could have been the tumble of the waves. The moon passed behind the peak and the shadow of the mountain fell like a black knife-point onto the sea, leaving the far fields silver. Stooped to the lamp, Ko gave another cry of pleasure.

  “Here! Here! Take a look, Mr. Westerby.”

  Through the eyepiece Jerry made out a single phantom junk, unlit except for three pale lamps, two green ones on the mast and a red one to starboard, making its way toward them. It passed from the silver into the blackness and he lost it. From behind him, he heard a groan from Tiu. Ignoring it, Ko remained stooped to the eyepiece, one arm held wide like a Victorian photographer while he began calling softly in Chinese. Running up the shingle, Jerry pulled the pistol from Tiu’s belt, picked up the M-16 again, and, taking both to the sea’s edge, chucked them in. Ko was preparing to repeat the signal but mercifully he couldn’t find the button and Jerry was in time to stop him.

  Once more Jerry thought he heard the rumble, not of one engine but two. Running out onto the headland, he peered anxiously north and south in search of a patrol boat, but again he saw nothing and again he blamed the surf and his strained imagination. The junk was nearer, beating in toward the island, her brown batwing sail suddenly tall and terribly conspicuous against the sky. Ko had run to the water’s edge and was waving and yelling across the sea.

  “Keep your voice down!” Jerry whispered from beside him.

  But Jerry had become an irrelevance: Drake Ko’s whole life was for Nelson. From the shelter of the near headland, the sampan tottered alongside the rocking junk. The moon came out of hiding, and for a moment Jerry forgot his anxiety as a little grey-clad figure, small and sturdy, in stature Drake’s antithesis, in a kapok coat and bulging proletarian cap, lowered himself over the side and leapt for the waiting arms of the sampan’s crew. Drake Ko gave another cry; the junk filled its sails and slid behind the headland till only the green lights on its mast-head remained visible above the rocks, and then they too vanished. The sampan was making for the beach, and Jerry could see Nelson’s stocky frame as he stood on the bow waving with both hands and Drake Ko in his beret wild on the beach, dancing like a madman, waving back.

  The throb of engines grew steadily louder, but still Jerry couldn’t place them. The sea was empty, and when he looked upwards he saw only the hammer-head cliff and its peak black against the stars. The brothers met and embraced and stayed locked in each other’s arms, not moving.

  In a burst of realisation Jerr
y seized hold of both of them, began pummelling them, and cried out for all his life, “Get back in the boat! Hurry!”

  They saw no one but each other. Running back to the water’s edge, Jerry grabbed the sampan’s prow and held it, still calling to them as he saw the sky behind the peak turn yellow, then quickly brighten as the throb of the engines swelled to a roar and three blinding searchlights burst on them from blackened helicopters. The rocks danced to the whirl of landing lights, the sea furrowed, pebbles bounced and flew around in storms. For a fraction of a second Jerry saw Drake Ko’s face turn to him beseeching help, as if too late he had recognised where help lay. He mouthed something but the din drowned it.

  Jerry hurled himself forward, not for Nelson’s sake, still less for Drake’s; but for what linked them, and for what linked him to Lizzie. But long before he reached them a dark swarm closed on the two men, tore them apart, and bundled the baggy shape of Nelson into the hold of one of the helicopters. In the mayhem Jerry had drawn his gun and held it in his hand. He was screaming, though he could not hear himself above the hurricanes of war. The helicopter was lifting. A single figure remained in the open doorway, looking down, and perhaps it was Fawn, for he looked dark and mad. Then an orange flash broke from in front of him, then a second and a third, and after that Jerry wasn’t calling any more. In fury he threw up his hands, his mouth still open, his face still silently imploring. Then he fell and lay there. Soon there was once more no sound but the surf flopping on the beach and Drake Ko’s hopeless, choking grief against the victorious armadas of the West, which had stolen his brother and left their hard-pressed soldier dead at his feet.

  22

  Born Again

  In the Circus a mood of wild triumph broke out when the grand news came through from the Cousins. Nelson landed, Nelson bagged! Not a hair of his head injured! For two days there was speculation about medals, knighthoods, and promotions. They must do something for George at last, they must! Not so, said Connie shrewdly from the touch-line. They would never forgive him for raking up Bill Haydon.