by Alec Waugh
“Jumping up on the platform, shouting abuse at me, at them. No wonder they got out of hand. You know what a West Indian crowd is like. A man was killed in Trinidad last Carnival.”
“It was you who pushed Fleury off the platform.”
“He asked for it.”
“How so?”
“Shouting out all that abuse.”
“And then whispering that insult.”
“I’ll say so.”
“What was that insult by the way?”
“What insult?”
“The one he whispered, when he put up his face close to yours.”
“He didn’t whisper anything.”
“But you’ve just said he did.”
“I didn’t.”
“Now listen, David, this is serious. I won’t say your life depends upon it, but your next five years may. It’s very important that you should tell me what Fleury whispered to you?”
“Why should it be?”
“I shan’t tell you that. But the whole case might turn on it.”
Boyeur did not reply. He was a little frightened. He respected his future brother-in-law and was in awe of him. Grainger was not the man to bluff. Grainger would not say a thing like that unless he meant it. He ought to tell him what Fleury had whispered to him. But he still hesitated. To stand up in open court and admit that anyone had dared say a thing like that to him, even though the man had paid for it. How would Muriel feel? She couldn’t think of him with the same respect again.
He heard the lawyer standing up in court and saying, “And now will you tell his Honor and the jury the exact words that Maxwell Fleury used.” He could hear the titter in the court when he repeated them. No, he could not face that. Why should he? It could not be all that serious. Grainger was bluffing. If he found himself in real difficulties later on, then he could tell the whole story. But until then—no, he couldn’t face the shame of confessing that an insult of that nature had made him lose his temper.
“He didn’t say anything in particular. I can’t remember exactly what he did say. I saw that silly face of his, gibbering up under mine. I pushed it and he lost his balance.”
“And that’s what you are going to tell the jury.”
“Precisely.”
“Then I’ve no more to say.”
Grainger took his leave so abruptly that Boyeur was more than disconcerted. He was close to being frightened. There was something ominous and final about the closing of that door. He had the sense of a last chance gone. A constable tapped him on the shoulder.
“You must go back now,” he said.
Boyeur followed him meekly to his cell. He sat on the iron bed with its rough straw mattress. This can’t happen to me, he thought. I’m David Boyeur.
6
It was close on eight o’clock when Grainger returned to his father’s house. Muriel was waiting for him with the same look of questioning anxiety upon her face.
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I’ve no news for you.”
His parents were obviously embarrassed. They wanted to discuss the case, but did not know how to begin.
“I’ve kept you a hot plate,” his mother told him.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. “I’ll make myself a sandwich.”
He could not bear his family’s company and questions. He went on to the veranda.
“I want to think things out,” he said.
He was tired by the strain of a long day: he felt himself ill-used by fate. It was unjust that his first important case should have been involved with family consideration. H.E. had been right. He would be judged on his conduct in this case and he would be criticized whatever he decided. If only he could have had to deal the first time with a straightforward issue. He had never felt lonelier in his life. If only he had someone to talk it over with: if only he had here some of the friends that he had made in England: the men he had played football with, the men with whom he had thrashed out the problems of the universe long into the night at Balliol; friendships that had been proved. He had no such friends here. If only there was one person in the island to whom he could speak openly: one person.
The telephone was ringing in the hall. “It’s for you Grainger.”
He rose wearily. Was he never to be allowed a moment’s peace.
But it was not the official masculine voice he had expected.
“I shouldn’t be bothering you now, but I wanted you to know that you have all my sympathy, that I know how difficult it must be for you.”
The voice was quick, a little breathless.
Mavis Norman. And only a second earlier he had been thinking that there was not a person in the island to whom he could speak openly.
“Are you busy?” he asked.
“Busy?”
“I mean now, this moment.”
“We’ve just finished dinner. No I don’t think I am. Why?”
“In that case I’ll be round within ten minutes. I’ll take you for a drive.”
The servant who opened the door was surprised to see him.
“Miss Mavis. Yes. I go tell her.”
The maid did not ask him in. He was kept waiting several minutes.
“I’m sorry,” Mavis said. “I had to change.”
He drove her to the Morne St. James, above the fort. With his arms crossed over the wheel, he leant forward looking across the sea.
“At the moment you rang up,” he said, “I was thinking there wasn’t a person in the island to whom I could explain myself, to whom …” he checked. He was afraid that he might say too much. He changed his tack.
“H.E. said to me this morning that whatever I do now, I shall be criticized. If I prosecute, they’ll say I’ve turned against my own people, that I’ve taken the white man’s bribe: and if I don’t prosecute, they’ll say that I’ve let family interests influence me. But whichever way I decide, I don’t want you to misjudge me. I’ve not yet made up my mind, but I want you to realize this, that it would be far easier for me to do what looks the more difficult to do. If I prosecute Boyeur, if I put him behind bars, within a year colored people will be saying, ‘That’s an honest man. He puts justice first. He’s not afraid of ruining his sister’s future in the cause of justice.’ I’d be established for ever as a man of integrity, but if on the other hand I feel there isn’t a real case against Boyeur, as well I may, they’ll say in the long run, ‘He put his sister first.’ Do you see what I mean. It’s much easier for me to do the harder thing.”
He elaborated the point. She did not interrupt. She sat listening, curled in a corner of the car, looking at his face in profile. There was a ring of sincerity in his voice that she had never heard in any man’s before. She had been often wooed; and often her blood had responded to the deepening tones in a man’s voice; but no man’s voice had moved her in the way that his did now, when he was talking not of herself and him, but of abstract concepts, duty, honor, justice, the individual’s obligation to the state.
“I can’t tell you what it means to me, being able to talk to you like this,” he said. “You’re the only person in the whole island that I could talk to.”
She had the sensation of something under her heart going round and over. Yet at the same time she thought Unless I’d rung him up, he’d never have thought of that. In part it irritated her, it should have been he, the man, who did the ringing up, who took the initiative. Yet at the same time the fact that he hadn’t, made him special for her, made her special for him. He was not timid and bashful. It was because of his colored blood, because of his social separation from her that he had not called, that in five weeks now she had not talked to him. It would always have to be she who took the first step. Always.
7
Next morning Grainger again went round to Whittingham.
“I’ve no clue as to what really happened,” he said, “or why it happened.”
He had asked Mavis the same question that he had asked Julian Fleury with the same result. She knew no reason.
&nb
sp; “Boyeur’s lying,” he went on. “And if I know him at all he’ll lie in court and the jury won’t believe him. He’s sticking to the story that he only pushed Maxwell. We’ve got the constable as a witness that he punched him. I could get a conviction, I’m sure of that. At the same time I’m not certain. I’ve got a hunch. I don’t know how. I may be fanciful. It may all be moonshine. But I can’t help suspecting that Maxwell deliberately planned this thing, that he wanted something like this to happen. I can’t tell you why I think it, but I’m convinced that that’s what did happen. It was the final scene in some feud between them. He goaded Boyeur on to do just that: he didn’t expect to be killed, of course not; but he wanted to have something so shocking happen that Boyeur would be finished. I can think of no other explanation of his behavior. Why on earth should he behave so ridiculously, with such little dignity. It was unlike him. How do you feel about it? Is everything that I’ve been saying nonsense?”
Whittingham shook his head.
“It isn’t nonsense at all. Maxwell Fleury was a very peculiar man. I’ve seen quite a lot of him one way and another during these last weeks. His behavior is, as you say, on the surface inexplicable. There must be some cause for it. People don’t behave unreasonably without a reason; I don’t say that you’re right in your diagnosis, in concluding it’s the last stage in a feud, that it was an act of vengeance, but at the same time, yes it does seem more than likely that he deliberately provoked Boyeur; that whatever he whispered was in the nature of a challenge, that knowing Boyeur as he did, he must have known that Boyeur would strike out at him.”
“If you think that, it’s good enough for me.”
Grainger called on the Governor that evening. “I’ve come to hand in my resignation, sir.”
He stated his reasons.
“I believe,” he said, “that a prosecution against Boyeur would succeed. Boyeur would behave stupidly in court, and the jury would not believe him; which is what the other members of the Council want. They are demanding an example. They want to frighten the populace. They want to break the peasants’ faith in Trades Union leadership. They want to convince the world that there is a strong government in Santa Marta, so that tourists can say ‘There was trouble there once. But that’s been all stamped out and there’s no safer place than the one that’s solved its difficulties. The reformed rake makes the best husband.’ That’s what they think, sir; and I believe that that’s what you think too.”
“And why do you think they’re wrong.”
“Because an injustice would have been done. And an injustice always results in a reciprocal injustice. Boyeur would come out of prison, eventually, full of hatred. The injustice that had been done to him would convince other young men that they cannot expect justice in our courts, that they would be smart to take the law into their own hands. A heritage of hate would be created. That has been the root cause of all the trouble in these islands. One crime begets another. Violence leads to violence. In my opinion, sir, there’s only one cure for the maladies that afflict this whole area; an impartial justice, respect for the law, a belief in the mind of every single peasant that he will get square dealing before the bench.”
“That is what you genuinely believe.”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I genuinely believe.”
“Then I’m not going to accept your resignation. You’re the right man for the job. I’ve learnt to trust my own judgment where men are concerned. As a platoon commander I made very few mistakes in the privates I picked out for stripes. And as a brigadier, I can only say that I shouldn’t have been given a division if I hadn’t had the right men on my staff. I knew I’d picked a winner when I picked you. I’ll back you up, my boy. I don’t say you’re right, but you stand for the right things. That’s more important.”
Chapter Thirty
1
Boyeur was released from prison on the day that Bradshaw’s article was published.
On the following afternoon Bradshaw’s siesta in Virginia was disturbed by a call from Baltimore.
“This is the Chief. Carl, I don’t want to spoil your holiday. We’ll take care of that later on. But I need you back at once. You won’t have heard it, but that young colored agitator, the brash young man whom I met at the Governor’s party, has been let out of jail. Your hunch proved right. And that’s the second time. You’ve made a hit. The Time-Life boys have just been on the line. They want to feature you. They’re giving you a cover, by Artzibasheff. Hit while the iron’s hot. I shouldn’t be surprised if you got hold of a Pulitzer. Fine thing for the paper if you could. I want to arrange for you to speak at the Dutch Treat Club. Come back here right away: hop the first plane and think out another article; it’ll have to be the last one. Give it a big punch. Congratulations, Carl. It’s great.”
Bradshaw’s hand was trembling as he hung the receiver back. His picture on a cover of Time, a guest of honor at the Dutch Treat Club. A Pulitzer award. He thought fast, searching for a telling title for his final article. The wind was at his back. An idea struck him. “It isn’t cricket.” Templeton, a soldier sent out to the West Indies for his cricket’s sake, Grainger an Oxford Blue, Boyeur using cricket as a step to power. An Empire run on cricket. That was the precise type of satire to tickle the American sense of the ridiculous. He had only had ten minutes sleep in place of his usual thirty, but the divan with its dented cushions offered no temptations. He unpacked his typewriter.
2
The cable from Santa Marta announcing Boyeur’s release reached Westminster on the morning before the arrival there of Bradshaw’s article. The Minister read it with concern. There would be questions in the House on this. It could not have happened at an unluckier time. Kenya, Malaya, and now Santa Marta; British subjects being-shot and no reprisals taken. The British Public was getting restive. So was the Opposition. So for that matter were his colleagues. He had thought he was safe with Templeton. The usual trouble about generals in that kind of post was their tendency to rely on the musket as an instrument of discipline. He had raised his eyebrows when he had read Templeton’s first cable: martial law and Boyeur behind bars. That was moving fast. But he had read the cable with relief. Action like this had come at the right time. But now this second cable …
He sat with it in his hand. Why this change of plan? It was so bare, the facts and nothing else. He felt helpless, sitting here at his London desk on a bleak September morning three thousand miles away from the scene of the events. The cable had been sent last night. Dawn had barely broken there. He had never been to the West Indies. He could not visualize the scene. He remembered in the war, in a foxhole in the Western Desert, how impatiently he had read the orders drafted in Cairo by staff officers who divided their days between the Gehzira Club and Shepheard’s. What did they know about the desert; the freezing nights, the scorching days, the lack of water.
How could he, shivering a little in his unheated office—it was too early yet for a fire; he must put on heavier underclothes tomorrow—how could he in such a different setting appreciate the tempo and temper of existence in that remote, humid island, onto which at any moment now a hurricane might unleash its force. Yet sitting here, looking out over the roofs and chimney stacks of London, he had to make decisions, to arbitrate in the future of men and women alien to him in race and blood, in training and environment. He felt lost and lonely. If only there was someone with whom he could talk the matter over; someone whom he could meet on equal terms, who was neither his superior nor his junior. Was Marjorie lunching anywhere he wondered.
He called her on his private line.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I wish I could. But I’m playing bridge with Nora. Is it anything of desperate importance?”
“No, no. It’s nothing desperate.”
Playing bridge with Nora. That was what she was doing now three afternoons a week: or seemed to be. Was she? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. As long as he kept in office, she would play along with him. She was loyal. She wouldn’
t hit where he was vulnerable. He read the cable again. To impress his colleagues, he must make a show of strength. Templeton might have to go: but he must not be sacked. Templeton was too good a chap. He called his opposite number at the War Office.
“Can you at almost a moment’s notice if it’s necessary find Templeton a job that would look a promotion after being Governor of a West Indian island? It must look above board. Whatever he may feel himself, it must look well on paper.”
“O. K. I’ll look around.”
Two days later the minister received the last article that Bradshaw had written in Santa Marta. He read it with stupefaction. This was worse, much worse than he had feared. How could Templeton have been so blind. He’d got to come back. He couldn’t be left there any longer. Himself he wouldn’t know a moment’s peace. He rang the War Office. “Have you thought of anything that’s at all suitable for Templeton?”
“As a matter of fact we have. Commandant at Sandhurst. Archie Waldron’s been trying to get away for months. It’s right up your man’s street. He’ll jump at it. It’s a Major General’s appointment that confirms his temporary rank. That makes it a promotion.”
“You’ve saved me from a fate worse than death. I’ll get the P.M.’s confirmation.”
The P.M. was in Paris on a conference. He could not be disturbed. The minister talked to his private secretary. The private secretary assured him that the P.M. had complete faith in the judgment of his appointees on routine matters such as this. The minister closed his eyes with relief. He was out of the wood. A lucky escape. He’d be on his guard another time. How could one tell, though. There were so many irons in this fire.
3
On the following morning Lord Templeton received two cables from London. The one he opened first was from the War Office. It offered him the appointment of Commandant at Sandhurst. It informed him that permission from the Colonial Office had been obtained. It hoped that in the interests of the service he would accept.
