Island of Death

by Barry Letts

  ‘Sorry, Sarah,’ the Doctor had said that morning. ‘I know it seems unfair, but I really think I should go alone. Or maybe with the Brigadier, if he comes back soon.’

  Which had been the reason for her shopping trip.

  ‘You’re all leaving?’ she said to Jeremy. ‘Er... I mean, we’re all leaving, are we? All of us?’

  ‘Oh yes. We’re going to get our rewards, you see.’

  Reward for what? Coughing up twenty grand? Oh no, she remembered now. Devotion to Skang. And he got to love you back. Big deal. So why did they have to sail off into the sunset?

  ‘I’m so glad you decided to join us, Sarah,’ went on Jeremy.

  ‘Fancy coming all this way! They must have been really impressed!’

  ‘Yes, well... they were in an awful hurry, because they’re so busy, packing up and stuff. I mean, I didn’t even catch the password when they told me. But I don’t suppose it matters if we’re leaving.’

  They were strolling down the crowded main pathway under an avenue of palms, with Sarah, even as she talked, keeping a surreptitious eye open for Brother Alex, in case he recognised her.

  ‘Oh, but we’re not sailing yet. They haven’t told us when.

  And you might want to go out to the shops. To be honest...’

  Jeremy lowered his voice and looked round to make sure nobody was listening, ‘...I nipped out only this morning to get some fags. They’re not exactly banned, but everybody looks at you! You know?’

  ‘Mm. There are a few things I need. But I expect I’ll manage.’

  Jeremy casually looked up into the fronds of the trees above their heads. ‘Open your heart!’ he said, without moving his lips.

  ‘What?’

  Jeremy looked at her in irritation. ‘Open your heart!’ he hissed. ‘That’s the password! Or three of them, I suppose. I can’t be too loud. We’re only supposed to say it coming in at the gate, and then we only murmur it.’

  ‘Jeremy, you’re a poppet!’

  It would have been difficult to judge whether Jeremy was more surprised by the epithet, or by the kiss Sarah planted on his cheek.

  After all, Sarah was pretty surprised herself.

  Twenty-one different nationalities, with skin-colours ranging from freckled blush-white to deep brown, and a spectrum of gender identities nearly as diverse. They were unified only by their human shape and the long white robes that marked them out as Skang teachers or organisers. They filled the drawing room of Hilda’s bungalow as if they were the ghosts of the former residents’ cocktail-party guests.

  But there was no chatter, no tittle-tattle, no bemoaning the shortcomings of their Indian servants. They were there for a very serious purpose: the trial (for that’s what it was) of one of their number for just about the most serious offence possible.

  At first things seemed to be going Alex’s way. Having had a metaphorical arm twisted, Dafydd had begged Hilda to be allowed to speak on Alex’s behalf before the charge was heard; and there were three others - including (surprisingly after the row in Rome) Eduardo from Venezuela - who joined Dafydd in expressing their dismay that he should even be under suspicion.

  Alex kept an eye open as they spoke. Many others were nodding. Some even gave him an encouraging smile. He’d been worrying unduly. With any luck, the whole thing would be thrown out without a hearing.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t made clear to his supporters the extent to which the evidence itself condemned him. They’d taken his word that it was political; but when they heard what Will Cabot had to say, they fell silent. In spite of all his efforts to woo them, the faces around the room were grave.

  Many now avoided his eye, like members of a jury who had found a murderer guilty.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said a small dapper man, who, as ex-editor of one of Tokyo’s leading broadsheets, was not likely to find much beyond his comprehension. ‘Why did you not follow the practice of the group? This journalist woman could have been recruited, surely? To make her an enemy was not only foolish, but exposes us all to the utmost danger.’

  Brother Alex found it hard to hide his irritation. The wretched little man had too much influence. He was losing the battle. He’d been stupid even to mention Sarah to Hilda and Cabot, whose account of the story in the The Times of India had already alienated the majority of the group.

  It was time to stop trying to placate them and start fighting back.

  ‘Why? She made me lose my temper, that’s why,’ he said.

  ‘She was the usual muck-raking hack who was only interested in stabbing the notorious Alex Whitbread in the back. But she was deprived of the chance. As it happened, we were leaving the next day. We’ll hear no more from her, mark my words.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Thank you, Brother Shunryu,’ said Mother Hilda. ‘I think we have heard enough. Brother Alex, the time has come to...’

  ‘I haven’t finished what I have to say!’

  Hilda clearly wasn’t used to being interrupted. She looked at Alex over the top of her glasses, as if he were an uppity student challenging her views on Wittgenstein. ‘Very well.

  Continue.’

  Alex glanced round the room, looking for his allies. There was Brother Ali from Pakistan, and Igor and... but only Dafydd would catch his eye, and he was frowning. ‘I do not recognise the authority of this kangaroo court. I have made quite clear in the past my belief that the strategy of the present leadership is not assertive enough. Mother Hilda has abrogated any right to...’

  But he could not continue. The murmur of dissent had become a growl, and the growl a clamour that drowned his words. He looked towards Dafydd once more, only to see a little shake of the head, before he too dropped his eyes.

  ‘The sense of the meeting is overwhelmingly apparent,’ said Hilda. ‘Please lock the door, Will.’

  Alex’s aggressive air vanished. ‘No! Please, no! I beg you!’

  Mother Hilda stood up. She looked at him with compassion in her eyes. But then she shook her head.

  ‘It’s too late,’ she said.

  At first, as she travelled through the leafy suburb where the ashram was situated, Sarah rather enjoyed sitting in her bicycle rickshaw, playing at being a memsahib from the days of the Raj, when merely to be British was to be one up on the world. This was the life!

  But when she found herself in the middle of Bombay’s rush-hour - which included double-decker buses that seemed twice the size of London’s, vans and lorries of every description, a multitude of out-of-date cars, three-wheeled taxis, and even an elephant loaded with greenery, all hooting at once (except the elephant, who kept himself to himself) and making for the same gap in the traffic - she began to have second thoughts. And the sight of the pitifully skinny legs in front of her losing their struggle to pedal her up a mildly steep hill finally decided her.

  She paid the owner of the legs the six rupees he had quoted, much to his delight, and walked the rest of the way to the docks.

  On leaving the ashram that morning, Dieter, at the gate, had recognised her at once, in spite of her attempt to change her face by pulling in her cheeks and adopting a sultry pout.

  But, thank goodness, he seemed thoroughly pleased.

  ‘So she has said yes! I wish you very well with us.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she’d said, with a quick glance at Helga’s shop, which, to her relief, had an empty window and a firmly closed door.

  The critical moment would come when she tried to use the password to get back in, she thought to herself as she arrived at the quayside.

  The place was full of ships, of all types and sizes. And quite a number were anchored out in the middle of the big harbour, including, she recognised with a curious pang, a British warship of some sort. Not a destroyer; it was much smaller than that. More a tubby spaniel of the sea than a greyhound. But it was the usual sort of grey and it was flying the White Ensign. Her fling with Sammy had finished nearly five years ago, but the sight of anything to do with the Royal Navy still
gave her a little nostalgic glow.

  How was she ever going to find the Skang ship? She didn’t even know its name.

  And then she saw it. Very modern and streamlined, and painted brilliant white (of course). Not all that large. It would be a bit of a squash if it was going to house the entire community. But it must have cost a bomb, which just showed that there were plenty of other clots like Jeremy. It was flying the Indian flag, and on its bow it proudly bore its name, in big capital letters: SKANG.

  It made a sort of sense. But wasn’t it odd, this mixture of openness and secrecy? Still, if the Doctor’s suspicions were justified - and how could they not be? - that’s exactly how it would appear: the New Age cult open to the world on the one hand; and on the other, the hidden mystery known only to the elect.

  The thought produced a shudder of sudden fear. For surely, somewhere in the bowels of this shining vessel, concealed from all but the chosen few, must be the Skang itself. And what would it be living on?

  Hilda Hutchens had experienced many different types of meditation. Even before going to university, where her introduction to the rigour of philosophical thinking led her to lose her rich Anglo-Catholic faith, she had practised a deep contemplation that was surely first cousin to her later experience of Hindu Samadhi.

  But now, as she sat in focused concentration, observing the feelings that had arisen in her breast at the sight of the limp body of Brother Alex being carried out, she recognised that she no longer identified with them in any way. Compassion was there, yes, and an iron determination that the project should not be jeopardised, but they were not her feelings. It was not even Mother Hilda, herself, who was concentrating on them. What had to be done, was done. What had to be felt, was felt. And that was all.

  ‘Mother Hilda...’ The rough voice of Brother Will brought her back to the bungalow.

  ‘Where is Doctor Smith now?’ she said, after she had scanned the note he handed her with a wryly raised eyebrow.

  ‘At the main gate. Brother Dieter was concerned that...’

  ‘Of course I must see him.’

  ‘But Mother, are you sure that’s wise? We’ve been so careful not to let anybody get a sniff of...’

  ‘He would think it very strange if I refused. At this time of all times, we can’t allow the slightest suspicion. Show him in at once.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dame Hilda glanced at the note in her hand. She smiled.

  ‘How could I resist, Doctor? It reminded me at once of our delicious arguments in Oxford. Do you think I shall end up thumping the table this time?’

  ‘One or two emphatic taps, perhaps, or would even that be beneath the dignity of an emeritus professor? Not to mention a Dame of the British Empire.’

  Hilda’s laugh was a delicious gurgle, like the bubbling of a mountain beck. ‘Oh, I’ve dropped all that nonsense,’ she said.

  ‘It would hardly go with the teachings of the Skang. That is why we wear white, you see. As I’m sure you know, it’s the colour they wear at funerals in India. We are celebrating the death of the personal self.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘So I’ve gathered,’ he said. He’d filled the time he’d spent fruitlessly waiting for the return of the Brigadier by absorbing the information in the book that Sarah had given him. ‘It must have been nigh impossible not to have been blown away by the winds of change that have swept through the universities, I can see that,’ he continued.

  ‘It is, after all, the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the New Age. But Hilda Hutchens of all people! I had to come and ask why.’

  ‘You’re not the first, Doctor,’ said Hilda. ‘Most of my friends have expressed their astonishment.’

  ‘It seems a world away from the logical positivism of the young don who published Empirical Epistemology - twenty years ago, was it?’

  ‘Twenty-two. No, twenty-three. And not so young, I’m afraid. Are you sure you won’t have a drink? A small sundowner, as they used to say out here?’

  ‘Thank you, no,’ replied the Doctor. It would be wise to avoid drinking anything that could contain the substance he’d found in Sarah’s aspirin bottle. If its effect was anything like her description...

  ‘And it hardly ties in with the rigorous approach of Quantum Qualia’, he continued.

  ‘You never came across my subsequent study of consciousness, then,’ said Hilda.

  ‘Indeed I did,’ replied the Doctor. ‘ The Emptiness of the Busy Mind.’

  ‘Something of a pop title, I must admit,’ she said with a chuckle.

  ‘If it wouldn’t be considered too sexist a way of putting it for the modern ear, I’d say it was masterly!’

  She smiled and gave a little bow of her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. ‘If you read between the lines, you’ll find the Skang on every page,’ she said.

  She looked down at the paper in her hand, the note that Will had brought from the Doctor. ‘If I should meet the Skang on the path, should I kill him?’ she read out. ‘You are asking me whether the way of the Skang is a paradigm of the Buddha’s way... Or even whether, in the last analysis, he can be essentially equated to the Buddhanature?’ she said, looking up.

  ‘Or Tillich’s “Ground of Being”. I am.’

  Hilda’s smile disappeared. The Doctor stroked his chin with the back of his forefinger. He must be careful. She was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t just making conversation.

  ‘Relatively speaking, it’s more like the collective unconscious of Jung - or of Assagioli. In ultimate terms, I should have tended towards a comparison with the Beloved of the Sufis.’

  The Doctor nodded. It was as he’d thought. ‘But that would mean that you are equating the divinity of your Skang with God!’

  Hilda looked at him over the top of her glasses. ‘And would you have the intellectual arrogance to tell me that I am wrong?’

  They were getting into very deep waters here. A change of course. ‘What about the physical aspect?’

  Dame Hilda frowned slightly. ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘What is the significance of its... or should I say, his demonic appearance?’

  Now Hilda was taking him very seriously. ‘The word Skang is a shortening - a simplification - of his Indian name. And like many Indian Gods, he must first and foremost be a destroyer.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Shiva - and his wife Kali, with her necklace of skulls.’

  ‘The Skang in the fierceness of his embrace pierces the very heart and mind - and the fire of his sublime love burns away the egotistical dross it finds there. And with that purification, the devotee vanishes forever in the ecstasy of divine union.’

  The Doctor looked at her in amazement. Where had the severely rational philosopher, the supreme sceptic of her generation, disappeared to? The fervour in her voice, and the glow in her eyes made it abundantly clear. She actually believed it all to be true!

  ‘Mm... And how is this unity made manifest to your devoted followers?’ The Doctor was doing his best to sound no more than mildly interested; the implication being that this was nothing but the idle curiosity of an old academic acquaintance.

  But the attempt was in vain. Hilda’s expression changed from paradoxical absorbed openness to a stiff normality. ‘We have our rituals, our ceremonies... Now, Doctor, I’m sure you’ll understand...’

  Had he given away too much?

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, getting to his feet.

  Mother Hilda watched as the bearer showed him out, platitudes of empty politeness hanging in the air. Her social smile faded, leaving a slight frown. A moment later, a decision made, she rose and hurried inside the bungalow.

  ‘Will!’ she called. ‘Where are you?’

  He appeared at the door of his office.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now listen carefully. There’s been a change of plan.’

  Were the crew all members of the cult? It might make a difference, thought Sarah, as she watched them swarming about the quayside, loading crates and box
es of all sorts and sizes onto wooden pallets, which were then hoisted aboard by crane-things; derricks weren’t they called? The crew were all wearing white, certainly, but then so did sailors the world over when they were in the sunnier climes. White uniforms, like the Navy, or one of the posh cruise lines. This was no tramp steamer.

  So far, so good. At least she’d managed to get into the dock area. Sarah’s experience in an earlier trip to the East (tracking down the Brewster boy to Bangkok, after he’d staged an unconvincing suicide) had taught her the universal way of getting what you wanted. A hundred rupee note, judiciously folded and surreptitiously slipped into the hand of the security guard on the gate, had done the trick, just as she’d expected.

  But now what? She wanted to find out two things - when the Skang was sailing, and where to. She took a deep breath and marched out of the shadow of the customs shed to the gangway, and straight up it, as confidently as she could manage.

  Nobody seemed to be on guard; and the few people she could see on this deck, down nearer the bow, were far too busy to notice her. Now then... she needed to find the central hub of all this activity - the purser’s office, perhaps? There’d bound to be all the info she needed there.

  Where would it be? For’d, probably, in the area underneath the bridge... or might it be amidships, where the passengers would congregate? Feeling a little smug about her nautical expertise, she turned into the first doorway she came to, which was in fact about halfway down the deck.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

  She swung round, her heart thumping. The speaker, a large female with close-cropped hair and a clipboard, who looked as if she’d be more at home in a prison than a luxury yacht, stood behind the open door at a table covered with papers.

  ‘How did you get on board?’

  ‘I... I just walked up the gangway. I’ve... I’ve come from the ashram.’