Short of Glory

by Alan Judd

  Patrick showed his diplomatic identity card. A warder wearing khaki shirt and shorts and a Sam Browne and holster took him through the wire to the main entrance. The warder’s thick pink legs bristled with fair hair. He stamped and saluted in the office of the administrative commandant, Major de Beers, a fat jolly balding man with red cheeks and a smile that was cheerful and complicitous. His small brown eyes shone like his holster.

  They shook hands. ‘Very good of you to find time to visit, Mr Stubbs. Mr Whelk was always very regular. That’s how the prisoners like it and that’s how we like it. Has Mr Whelk gone back or has he moved on to another job? I didn’t know he was leaving.’

  ‘He’s away at the moment. He’ll probably go to another post when he comes back. I’m just a stand-in.’

  Major de Beers smiled. ‘Stand-in or not, you’re very welcome, Mr Stubbs. Please sit down. Coffee?’

  Over the coffee and ginger biscuits Major de Beers went through a typed list of a dozen or so prisoners, commenting on their crimes, lengths of sentences and years left to serve. Some he expanded on, sipping his coffee with his plump little finger tightly curled. The younger and more dangerous of the two psychopaths had been quiet for some time now and was getting on well with his daily therapy sessions. The other had attacked a warder and had lost some remission but was back in his classes and responding well. The rapist was due for release soon. The homosexual thief had had to be put in a cell on his own again. The embezzler, a former liberal journalist, had become even more convinced that everyone was against him and was now a fervent evangelist as well. He refused to work and was unpopular with the other prisoners. He was still refusing to visit the psychiatrist. Major de Beers thought that he should because he was getting worse. He would be grateful for Patrick’s opinion since it would be necessary to force him. The major regretted that the other embezzler had been moved to another prison; they had been good friends and had had some good talks together, but it was necessary to move him in the end. There was one other, a remand prisoner called Chatsworth, recently arrived; he had no details to hand but could get them. Patrick said he would get them himself.

  He was led along cool polished corridors to a visiting room divided by a glass partition from an outer office where there were two more armed warders. The prisoners would arrive at ten-minute intervals although he could have as long as he liked with each man. Except for the psychopaths and the remand prisoner they would be unescorted. The warders could be summoned by a button on the underside of the desk.

  The prisoners looked like soldiers. They wore olive-green overalls, had short hair and were tanned and fit. They worked in the mornings and in the afternoons took exercise, usually football or weight-lifting. Most had no complaints about the prison except that they were in it nor about the food except that it was monotonous. Their mail arrived regularly and they wanted to continue receiving the old British newspapers that Arthur Whelk salvaged from bundles destined for Kuweto. Some had not been in Britain since childhood or infancy. Nearly all were to be deported on release and all wanted to stay in Lower Africa. Most had kept their British passports in order to avoid conscription.

  The unofficial leader was a former corporal of light infantry who had won a Military Medal in Malaya. He spoke of the others more than of himself. They were all well apart from the journalist who complained continually and made life difficult. It was just as well that the major’s embezzler friend has been transferred recently as there were several who very much wanted to meet him again. The man spoke quietly, his manner confident, shrewd and reassuring. When he left Patrick felt he had been talking to a doctor.

  A tall, blond, powerful man had two of a ten-year sentence to run. He had robbed and beaten people whom his prostitute wife lured back to his flat. He sat leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped, talking man to man. He had made trouble earlier in his sentence but realised now that it wasn’t worth it; he wanted out. He had no complaints.

  The elder of the psychopaths was strongly built and formidable looking. He was calm and rational. He regretted his attack on the warder and would try hard not to do it again; it was simply that prison got at you every now and again, knowing that year in year out you’d be eating the same food with the same people, hearing the same voices saying the same things and all in the same place. It was then that the little things got at you. Outside you could always walk away from what made you fed up, here you couldn’t. He would be thirty-eight when he got out.

  The man who had raped two black maids was small, courteous and careful, with mild eyes. He had no complaints and planned that when deported to Britain he would go into the hotel trade. The journalist embezzler complained about the prison administration, the food, the other prisoners, the work and the godless-ness. He was discriminated against because he was British. He would not see a psychiatrist because there was nothing wrong with him.

  The younger psychopath had a fresh complexion, curly brown hair and an attractive, shy smile. He had no comments about prison but spoke of fishing and golf, having come close to winning a competition in the latter. He was near the start of a long sentence for the attempted murder with a shotgun of a girl bank clerk, whom he had blinded. His own glacial blue eyes were disconcertingly wide open as though in perpetual surprise. He said he would like to have been a farmer.

  The last man was the remand prisoner, Chatsworth, escorted by a warder who remained behind the partition. He was tall, fair and gangling. He walked with his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped behind his back and his head nodding like a bird’s. It was a moment before Patrick realised why he was familiar. He was the Army man from his Civil Service Selection Board, the one who had predicted his own failure and Patrick’s success. The habitual grin that then had made him look slightly mad had been replaced by a thoughtful compression of the lips. On his brow were three horizontal lines. His eyebrows were raised as in permanent query. He recognised Patrick and advanced with his hand outstretched.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘I might ask you the same question.’

  ‘Bit of a misunderstanding.’

  Patrick saw the warder looking on in surprise. ‘Better sit down.’

  Chatsworth’s grin returned. ‘You got through, then?’

  ‘Yes, in the end. I’m third secretary here and temporary part-time consul.’

  ‘So you’re Stubbs? Well done.’

  ‘Well, yes. How do you know my name?’

  Chatsworth held up his hand. ‘Don’t worry, no need to act dumb. They can’t hear from out there. I couldn’t hear what you were saying to the last bloke. I’m Mackenzie, the one you sent the money to. L and F, remember?’

  ‘You tried to see me at the embassy?’

  ‘That’s right. I needed some more.’

  ‘So you’re not really Chatsworth?’

  ‘Yes, I am. It’s only Mackenzie that I’m not. Pays to use another name when you’re dealing with kidnappers.’

  Patrick leaned forward. ‘Were you dealing with kidnappers?’

  Chatsworth held up his hand again. ‘Explain later. Main thing is, what’s your plan? No good swapping clothes because they can see us. You’ll just have to take me with you. Bluff your way.’

  Chatsworth looked cheerful now, recovering his former self-confidence. Patrick wondered at first if he’d misunderstood but decided he hadn’t. ‘Look,’ he said slowly, ‘I haven’t come to get you out. I can’t do that. I’ve just come to see who you are and to check that you have no complaints. I didn’t know you were here, you see. That is, I didn’t know it was you.’

  Chatsworth looked aggrieved. ‘I thought that’s what you consul blokes were for. Especially bearing in mind what I’m doing for you.’

  Patrick recalled Chatsworth’s advice about adopting a limp on certain occasions. He also remembered the abrupt laugh and reference to a mysteriously short time spent at Cambridge. He picked up his pen and spoke carefully. ‘You’d better tell me how you came h
ere.’

  ‘No time for all that now. Be more use if you’d tell me how I’m going to get out.’

  ‘I can’t do anything about that until I know what you’re here for.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I know myself, to be honest. All a bit of a cock-up. Not really my fault. Problem of money and identity.’

  ‘What kind of problem?’

  ‘Not enough of either.’ Chatsworth laughed and folded his arms. ‘Pity, ’cos I got off to a good start. Picked up by your car at the airport and all that. Stroke of luck. I liked your ambassador, by the way. Not as stuck-up as some of them. Does he know I’m here?’

  ‘No. Look, unless you tell me why you are here there’s no hope of anyone doing anything. It’s three months before the next consular visit.’ Patrick knew that this tone of calm bureaucratic implacability was one that he could not have adopted six months before. Chatsworth sighed, crossed his legs, refolded his arms, glanced over his shoulder at the warder, shook his head as if at the world’s foolishness, and began in a roundabout way to explain.

  His story was rambling and incomplete. The theme was Chatsworth’s struggle against a corrupt, uncomprehending and ungrateful world. Major events were mentioned in passing while certain details received extravagant attention. It was not clear why he had left the Army. He had decided to ‘chuck it in and let them stew in their own juice’ as a result of persecution. Getting a passport in the name of Mackenzie was glossed over by reference to someone who had died. On the other hand, an angry encounter with a hotel porter was described at length, as were the circumstances of an insult allegedly received at the hands of British Airways in a dispute about the validity of a ticket. He was considering legal action.

  The job with L and F, who employed a lot of ex-Army people, had started well enough but he’d been let down of late. He’d handled a negotiation in Bogota – an old stamping-ground – concerning a kidnapped banker but it had all gone wrong before he got there and the chap had been done in. No one’s fault but the office couldn’t be expected to see that. They’d got even more upset when he’d done the decent thing and stayed on for a few days to comfort the widow.

  He’d been thinking of chucking it all in again when they’d asked him to do the Whelk business. Probably had no one else with the experience, though if he’d known what a dog’s breakfast it was he’d have left them to it. Anyway, having arrived he’d decided to lie low and wait for the kidnappers, if there were any, to make a move. Like the ambassador, he had from the start suspected the Lower African authorities. He suspected them even more now that they’d framed him. Anyway, he’d pushed off down to the coast for a week or two to blow away the cobwebs, get some new ideas and so on and had booked in to what seemed a reasonable sort of hotel. Everything had been okay until L and F had started to get a bit sticky about the expenses and he’d had to ring them a few times. They wouldn’t understand that you can’t expect quick results when you don’t even know whether there’s been a kidnap. The hotel got suspicious – perhaps they’d listened to the calls – and had demanded cash down. That’s why he’d had to telegraph the embassy. He was grateful to Patrick for coughing up so quickly and would see him all right in due course though there wasn’t much he could do from where he was, quite frankly.

  Then on his last night the hotel staff must’ve taken it into their heads that he wouldn’t be able to pay the remainder, and called the police. Unless it was all a put-up job, of course, and it looked increasingly like one. They said at the time that it was because he’d been doing a bit of entertaining in his room during the previous few days. No harm in that, but as luck would have it there was one with him when they burst in. She happened to be black – dark brown, to be exact. He knew the law, of course, but he’d assumed it was one that everyone broke and that it wasn’t taken too seriously so long as you did it discreetly, like fiddling the income tax. He’d never had a black – or, rather, a dark brown – before and though he could easily have done it in London, it felt safer in Lower Africa. They were friendlier here.

  Anyway, there was the most God Almighty fuss. Room suddenly filled with Keystone cops, the girl screaming and dancing about like a scalded cat, vase of flowers knocked on to yours truly who was flat on his back, naked. Frog-marched out through the hotel lobby at light infantry pace wearing only a blanket and in front of a pack of bloody Nippons, all with cameras whirring. Blanket then got stuck in the swing door and he was left starkers at the top of the steps with all the fuzz inside trying to get out. Absolutely bloody, the whole thing, and all for being friendly.

  The discovery that he had two passports really put the cat among the pigeons. They took that more seriously than anything. Kept asking what he was doing here but he hadn’t told them because he knew from the ambassador that it would embarrass HMG. He damn soon would though if HMG didn’t do something about getting him out. Also, if the police were so worried about hotel bills and who you were and who you had it off with they’d probably say looking for kidnap victims was a hanging offence. As it was they were accusing him of being a terrorist and infiltrating the country in order to stir up the blacks. That would be funny if he weren’t in prison for it. When he’d heard he was going to see the consul from the embassy he’d assumed HMG was playing the white man and was getting him out. What Patrick had said had not cheered him, frankly. On the other hand, he was sure the ambassador would do something. He was a chap who had his head screwed on and his feet firmly on the ground. Also, Patrick knew the background, so everything should be all right. It had to be.

  Patrick was not so sure.

  The warder peered through the partition again. Chatsworth looked glum. He leaned forward and rested his elbow on the desk and his chin on his hand. ‘You’ve got to get me out, you know. I can’t stay here.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘I would if I could but I don’t know how. We’ve no authority. If you’ve broken their law it’s up to them what they do about it.’

  ‘Lock up one of them in London.’

  ‘That works only with diplomats. I’ll try to find out what you’re going to be charged with. You haven’t been charged yet, have you?’

  ‘Not properly. Only some bloody silly thing about impersonating someone else, just so that they can hold me. Though how I’m supposed to be impersonating someone else when both people are me I’m blowed if I know.’

  ‘I’ll try to find out what they’re planning to charge you with and then I’ll speak to the ambassador.’

  ‘But what should I tell them I’m doing here? They keep asking.’

  ‘Say you’re looking for a job – you want to be a mercenary or join the Lower African army or something. If we’re lucky we might be able to persuade them to deport you quietly. I’ll try to come again as soon as I’ve got some news. Anything I can bring you?’

  ‘Nothing I’d be allowed.’

  ‘Any complaints?’

  ‘Only the fact that I’m here.’ Chatsworth sat back in his chair, looked around the room and sighed. ‘It’s a bit like being back at Sandhurst, really, only not as bad. They’re more polite here.’ A truck-load of black prisoners was driven past the window. They all wore standard olive-greens. ‘Working party,’ he continued. ‘We don’t have anything to do with them. Strict segregation.’

  They stood and shook hands again. ‘You didn’t by any chance leave a bullet in the ambassador’s residence, did you?’ asked Patrick.

  Chatsworth’s eyes opened wide and he retained his grip on Patrick’s hand. ‘My little nine-milly, yes. That was my lucky charm. Take it everywhere. Why, has the old boy found it?’

  ‘No. I did.’

  ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘Well, no, but I know where it is. I gave it to someone. I can probably get it back.’

  ‘You must, you must.’ Chatsworth was pulling on Patrick’s arm and the warder was looking suspiciously at them. ‘That’s why it’s all gone wrong, you see, because I lost it. Everything was all right up till then.’

  ‘I’ll
see what I can do.’

  ‘You must get me out.’

  ‘Yes.’ Chatsworth was led away, frowning again, his head nodding like a pigeon’s as he walked. Patrick said nothing about him to Major de Beers, asking only to be kept informed of any charges likely to be made. Major de Beers said it was a police matter but he would pass on the message. They agreed that the journalist should see a psychiatrist and the major undertook to send the report to the embassy. Patrick was shown out with the same punctilious formality as had welcomed him.

  He did not at first realise that it was a police car parked next to the bakkie. The driver sat with the window open and his elbow on the door. He got out as Patrick approached. It was Jim, uniformed, smiling very slightly, his regular features wrinkled against the sun. For a few moments the gleam from his polished belt, the red shine from the bakkie and the bright prison wire behind lent to the scene the detailed unreality of film.

  ‘Seems I can’t go anywhere without stubbing my toe on you,’ he said.

  Patrick forced a grin. On first seeing him he had felt that he was himself about to join Chatsworth. ‘You don’t have to follow me around.’

  Jim pressed down the lower flaps of his jacket. ‘How’s your friend?’

  ‘My friend?’