by John Gardner
The hard-boiled yellows in blue were not gentle. Boysie’s ear struck a bar as they pushed him into the open cage. A dismal attempt to stop his arms from being raised and locked into the handcuffs proved fruitless. The door clanged shut with an echo. A sound effect from some documentary movie on life in jail. For the first five minutes Boysie thought the strain from wrists to shoulders would drag his arms from their joints. Slowly, numbness set in. Gazpacho and the guards left, the sound of their boots clicking over the stone floor, then ending abruptly, like ghosts, as they went out on to the grass.
Boysie could see nothing. The glare from the huge lights blocked out all view, heat on the eyeballs devouring the retinas. The music blared on, all part of the psychological torture. The sense of time vanished; then, suddenly, the music stopped. The silence was unnerving, yet, in spite of utter discomfort, Boysie found it an immediate stimulant to his senses. More alert. Less conscious of pain. From the right Warren’s heavy breathing wheezed like a death rattle. Then came a hoarse whisper.
‘Who are you?’
‘Oakes. L. Special Security.’
Warren’s words were faint; it was obviously difficult for him to speak at all. ‘Told me the Russians had got you. You’re a fake. Bloody fake.’
‘Russians let me go. These boys have just given me a session. The teeth. Want to know how much I’m concerned in your business.’
‘Makes no difference now. No chance here. Done for. Makes no difference. Madrigal. Madrigal’s the man. The source. The stirrer. Madrigal. Strikes. Mad...’ The voice trailed off into a wheeze. A second later the music blared out again.
Boysie started to droop, handcuffs playing hell with his arms. Oddly, he thought, the usual profound fear had gone. Weakness? The aftermath of torture? The impossible circumstances? Had they banished anxiety? Swept out the inbred cowardice. Time slipped away in a montage of silly mixed thoughts.
The music cut out as though someone had snipped the tape recording with cutter’s shears. He was alert once more. Footsteps. Boysie’s natural inclination was to feign unconsciousness. ‘Lie doggo,’ as the Chief would say. He let all weight go on to his arms. Traces of searing pain from wrists down to feet, knees bent, the body swinging. The footsteps came nearer.
Warbler was the first to speak. ‘Warren is on the left, Oakes right. We have had two days on Warren. K’u’s taken him to the limit. Nothing, Madrigal, nothing at all.’
The following voice was new, containing elements which once heard could not be forgotten. ‘Wh-wh-what about Oa-Oakes?’
He sounded young, a cultured, smooth English accent. Nothing sinister; if anything, there was a studied charm coupled with a definitive, even attractive, stutter. It crossed Boysie’s mind that if he were young and good-looking he would be a wow with the birds.
Gazpacho answered the man called Madrigal. ‘Gave him a pretty high work-out and the tooth technique. He’s a deceptive bastard. Took more than I thought. Nothing there though.’
‘L-looks in a bad way. B-both of them. B-b-bad,’ said Madrigal.
‘Don’t fancy the chances with either.’ Gazpacho, respect peeping through. ‘Not in the available time.’
‘Is it really so short, Madrigal, sir?’ Warbler’s undertone was of complete veneration.
Madrigal’s reply was not entirely audible. It sounded like, ‘I must leave for Hong Kong tonight.’ Boysie certainly got the words ‘I must leave’ and ‘Hong Kong.’ The rest was indistinct. ‘This sh-shop has t-t-to be clo-s-sed up by dawn.’
‘As soon as that, sir?’
‘As s-s-soon as that. Im-per-ative.’
Boysie, still dangling in simulated insensibility, with muscles racked, locked in on Madrigal’s voice. He had to remember that voice.
Gazpacho rapidly took over. ‘Orders then, sir. I can get cleared in a couple of hours. What about these two?’
Endless silence. Then Madrigal’s voice.
‘K-kill th-em.’ As though talking of greenfly on his prize roses. ‘I mu-ust go. Ju-just get everything t-tied up. There’s st-still a great d-deal to do and we must n-not fail. Remember wh-what has been said by the wo-workers of China.’ For the next sentence his stammer disappeared, so did the charm. ‘The cunning fox cannot escape the hunter’s eyes; the sinister gang cannot deceive people armed with Mao Tse-tung’s thought.’
‘He was the greatest subversive of them all, Madrigal.’ Adoration in Warbler’s tone. ‘Come, sir, we will see you off. Fu and Lee Fook can look after these two, can’t they?’
‘Sure.’ Gazpacho was very near Boysie’s cage; you could hear his breathing close. ‘Oakes here is out. He won’t be able to move far.’ Footsteps crossing to the Rabbit enclosure. ‘I’m not sure, but I guess Warren has nearly had it. Fu and Lee Fook can drag ’em over to the sand pit, finish ’em there, and dig ’em in. Okay?’
‘That is best.’ Either Warbler or Madrigal was grating the toe of a shoe irritatingly on the floor. It set Boysie’s damaged mouth singing with anguish.
Gazpacho snapped out brief orders in Chinese and got a reply from one of the two guards.
‘Okay, we can go. Nothing to worry about.’
‘G-good.’
The hesitant voice of Madrigal was followed by the sound of retreating feet. Then the noise of the guards, Fu and Lee Fook, walking across the hangar. Boysie remained in the unconscious position. Who was to be the first? They were heading for Warren. The echo of locks being drawn, the click of a key, the handcuffs coming off. Then the horrible collapsing bumping of Warren’s unconscious body tumbling to the ground. Muttered words in Chinese, then the dragging sound as they heaved Warren to the door. No noise. Chatter in Chinese, sounding as though one of the men was telling the other he could manage by himself. The dragging noise once more, receding out of the door, and one pair of footsteps approaching Boysie’s cage.
Be ready. This is where it’s going to count, and he would be fighting blind through the brilliance of the floodlights. Boysie allowed his eyelids to open a fraction. The Chinese was at the cage door, luckily silhouetted against one of the floods. Small but broad-shouldered. He had to unsling his sub-machine gun, if that was what it was, place it on the ground, to deal with the cage door. Door open. Strong hands gripping Boysie’s wrist as the key was inserted into the left handcuff. Boysie let the hand droop, then, as the cuff unlocked, allowed his hand to flop down swinging. Little yellow bonce must have thought it was a cinch.
The key clicked in the second handcuff. Boysie, acting on sense of direction, let his whole body fall forwards towards the Chinese. Not slack this time but with force, willing strength and springing from his heels. The guard was taken off balance. Boysie summoned every ounce of weight and pushed forward. The Chinese toppled backwards. There was no noise. He did not even cry out.
Boysie’s hands shot up in the direction of his opponent’s throat. The man was stunned, but the pain suffered at the hands of these inhuman humourless bastards had triggered rage in the hidden black spots of Boysie’s unusually anti-violent mind. Automatic training was all that was necessary. His thumbs slid up the semi-conscious man’s neck, expertly seeking the vital pressure points—the neck arteries, which carry blood to the brain. It was a trick used as far back as Roman times. Death in a matter of three seconds, and not a sound.
Boysie stood up, easing his aching limbs and lightly trying out his tongue against the raw patches of his mouth; the gaping hole where the third upper molar had been felt like the crater of Vesuvius. He took a deep breath and realised it was no good standing about like a spare what’sit at a wedding. Bending down, he scrabbled on the floor for the late lamented guard’s gun. He picked it up and hurried to the light for a quick check. Easy. A French MAT 49. Bet that’s been through Vietnam, thought Boysie. Compact, simple to handle, with a telescopic stock. Loaded with one magazine. Set on safe. One magazine—about twenty rounds of ammunition. Careful. Boysie set the weapon to single shot and started to edge from the hangar. The main gate, he knew, lay somewhere to th
e right along the barbed-wire fence. He moved quietly in the darkness, a group of lights round the gates acting as a guide. Better not try straight over the wire—it could be electrified or at least wired to an alarm system. He pulled the coolie hat forward from the back of his neck on to his head. Somehow even the straw gave a feeling of protection. There was a lot of activity coming from the main group of buildings on the far side of the gate. As he drew near, with joy, Boysie saw the gates were open. Two heavy trucks were drawing out, and no sign of a guard under the amber fluorescent lights which glowed round the exit area. By this time he had reached the back of one of the huts flanking the gates; another truck was rattling through. Should he risk running for it? There were lights in the hut on the far side. Lights meant guards and guns. Should really have tried to strip the strangled Chinese and squeeze into his uniform. Time. Soon they would find out. From far off, across the fields, beyond the runway, a muffled rapid burst of machine-gun fire. Boysie closed his eyes. That would be from the sand pit. Rabbit gone.
Chance it. A quick dash. He clicked the gun to automatic. If it meant a run and exchange of fire, it would be safer to do it fast with a rapid rate. His right foot moved forward, ready, when another engine note approached from the direction of the main complex. A car with lights dipped. A Red Flag. Probably the one that had brought him from the aircraft. Instead of going straight through, the car stopped short of the huts. Crouching low, Boysie watched. Only one occupant, the driver, climbed out and headed towards the lighted hut, leaving the engine still running. Opportunity golden as the Midas touch. The driver, in civilian clothes, moved without hurry, mounting the wooden steps and entering the hut. Boysie ran softly to the car and heaved the door open, ready to slide over into the driving seat.
The door was easy, and he already had one foot inside the car when the snarl came from directly behind. He wheeled round, gun to the hip. The puma was about twenty yards away, beginning its run for the spring, teeth bared, coming at speed. One of the watch cats Warbler had warned about: Seconds seemed to be reduced by seven-eighths. The cat was big and heavy, about eight feet long. Boysie’s finger did not make the trigger before the animal sprang. Violently Boysie twisted to the right. The puma tried to alter course in mid-air, failed, and landed heavily on the car’s passenger seat. Immediately turned with an angry, frustrated, violent growl, to leap out and spring again.
It was so close Boysie could smell the beast, now out of the car and a few feet from him. The smell of childhood circuses. This time the trigger finger was ready, though still not fast enough for the vicious cat. The animal reared up, jaws open and claws extended, reddish-brown mane turned luminously yellow by the lights. Boysie pressed the trigger in two bursts of five, felt the kick, smelt the burning charge, and saw the puma’s abdomen rip open. The cat was pushed backwards, though its forepaws still dropped in Boysie’s direction. He sidestepped an inch too late. The dying puma’s left paw fell, scratching down his shoulder and arm, the thin yellow material rending, claws ploughing three deep furrows nearly to the elbow. To begin with Boysie felt no pain. The puma fell, a thud of finality, rolling over and kicking once at his feet.
A shout from the hut. Boysie’s one thought was the car. Propelled by fear and purpose he dived for the door, scrabbling into the driving seat, conscious of figures appearing on the porch of the hut. Pedals. Feet searching in the dark, hands feeling for brake and the gear lever, hoping to hell it operated in the normal H pattern. Foot down on clutch, the other on accelerator. In gear, then out of clutch, gunning the engine. The Red Flag hopped and bounced forward, into second, crack and bump. They were shooting. Crash of glass as the rear window smashed. The car slewed, hit in the back by a quick burst of fire. Then he was through the gate, foot hard on the accelerator, holding the car in a wild skidding turn, tyres squealing, agonised. Into third and top gears, foot hard down, other toes searching for the dip switch to give him full beam. He was travelling, estimating sixty-five...seventy...seventy-five. Glance into the mirror, nothing coming up behind. At last the foot on the dip switch. The lights spread ahead, giving full visibility just in time to correct for an unexpected sharp bend. Bump brake, change down, accelerate. The back swung but he was round in a wild turn.
Boysie settled at the wheel. Must try to relax. Pain began to emerge. Not simply the wound from the puma, but the whole body ache and the dragon-fire mouth. Weakness. He must have lost a lot of blood. Constantly. Christ, he was driving on the left, wrong side of the road. Another bend coming up. Boysie edged over to the right and took the turn around sixty. Lights ahead. Some kind of village. Then, as he drew nearer, more lights. Another vehicle. But on the wrong side, heading straight for him. The oncoming car winked its lights hysterically. Collision course. Boysie began to pump the brakes and wrench the wheel over. It was a large lorry refusing to give way. In the dazzle he caught sight of a massive wheel bearing down on the rear of the car. Jumble, glass and metal giving way, rending, buffeting. Boysie could not hold her. The car spun, slowed, hit the shoulder, and bolted through some kind of hedge. Spasm in his arm as the machine rolled over. A swipe to the head, then silence except for the lorry’s engine, still grinding, going away from him. The driver did not want trouble.
Boysie had no idea how long he had been lying in the wrecked car. All senses were shrouded in a weak, throbbing ache. Here and there a rapier stab of hurt. There was blood around. Finally he hauled himself up, reaching for the door handle above him. Topsy-turvy land. The lock worked, and he had enough strength to push up and climb out, sliding down on to damp grass. Cold drenched him, bloody freezing, he thought, hanging on to the remains of the car. Dizzy. The clump of lights was quite near, to the right. A village. What was the use? He knew it was impossible even to exist. A strange land. They would be out looking for him. The tattered yellow prison costume. Mostyn, or Khavichev, or Madrigal, Warbler, Gazpacho, the Department had won. If he had the guts he would search the car for the gun and blow his head off. Somewhere near Peking. Injured. No money. The saga of Boysie Oakes had ended. Drunkenly he staggered away from the savage scrap heap until he reached the road, slowly weaving towards the lights. You never knew, the people there might be friendly; might give him warmth, food even, before they handed him in and the authorities plastered lead across his chest and dug the remains into the sand pit next to old Rabbit.
The village had a familiar look. A mirage? Perhaps death had already overtaken him. Familiar. Lights glinted through partly drawn curtains. Laughter, and a piano, from the first building. Boysie collided with the brick work. Fun was happening inside, you could hear it. He felt his way along the wall. A door. Knock? No need to be polite. Boysie turned the handle and stumbled into warmth thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of beer. Blurred familiar faces. White men, leather-skinned, cloth caps, glass mugs, a bar, and a red-faced man in shirt sleeves, wide red braces. Silence as all heads turned towards him. The man behind the bar opened his mouth.
‘What the ’ell we got ’ere then?’
Accent? Accent? Indian? No, Welsh. Wales Welsh. ‘What the ’ell we got ’ere then? Bloody Fu Man Chu?’
The black curtain partly rang down as Boysie felt his knees buckle. Sprawled on the floor, he was still alive and could hear. Voices dovetailed. ‘Brandy, bach. Evan bach, get the brandy.’
‘For God’s sake, someone fetch Jones the police.’
‘Come on, boys, on to the couch with him.’
A glass touching sore lips. The liquor stung.
Boysie heard his own voice as from the bottom of a well. ‘Where am I? Where? Peking?’
‘Come on now, boyo. Don’ you worry.’ the man said a word which was unmistakably Welsh but unpronounceable. ‘You know,’ he continued, ‘near Borth. On the Aberystwyth Road. Lie back, bach. They’ll be getting an ambulance. You’ll be all right, boyo. Just rest.’
The hum of conversation got softer and softer until it disappeared altogether. Floating, then no feeling but the drift over dark seas.
Chapt
er Seven: Owl
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots
and wonders
At our quaint spirits.
Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
‘Damned idiot’s turned up in Bath?’ the Chief thundered behind his desk at Mostyn.
‘Borth, Chief.’
‘Borth? Oakes in Borth? Where the hell’s that? Bulgaria?’
‘Wales.’
‘Wales. Might ’ave known it. Send him on a blisterin’ mission to Berlin and he turns up in Wales with a posse of chip-eaters and Methodist ministers all singing “Sospan Fach” or the “Hallelujah Chorus.”’
As soon as Mostyn had heard the news of Boysie’s reappearance, he dashed as though pursued by a hurricane to the Chief’s office, entering unannounced, an unprecedented act, which caught the old devil, feet on desk, thumbing through the current issue of a colourful girlie magazine. The Chief’s spate about Wales stopped abruptly as he noticed Mostyn’s interest in the sexy periodical.
‘Her-humph,’ he croaked, slipping the magazine into the desk drawer. ‘Always go through the lot, Mostyn. Faces y’know, faces. Never sure whose picture might turn up in one of these. Borth in Wales, eh? Where? And what was he up to? Breaking all Ten Commandments with some Gwyneth or Megan? St. Patrick should never have driven all those snakes out of the place to. begin with.’
