Indecent Exposure

by Tom Sharpe

  ‘Blue-based baboon,’ he said in a voice that carried his unique blend of Inner Circle County across the heads of the crowd. ‘That damned jockey was pulling.’

  ‘We should organize our own races, Berry,’ said the fat man. ‘There was a car race in Jonah & Co.’

  ‘By Jove, I do believe he’s right,’ said La Marquise who was doubling as Piers, Duke of Padua.

  ‘The cars were called Ping and Pong,’ Major Bloxham said. ‘And the race was from Angoulême to Pau. It was two hundred and twenty miles.’

  Next day the dusty roads of Zululand saw the great race from Weezen to Dagga and back and by nightfall the Colonel, as Berry, had made good his losses of the previous days. Admittedly Weezen was hardly Angoulême and Dagga’s resemblance to Pau was limited to a view of distant mountains but the Club made good these deficiencies in their own imaginations and by driving with a wholly authentic disregard for other road users. Even Berry & Co. could hardly have complained and among other trophies the Colonel collected two goats and a guinea fowl. In the back seat of the Rolls Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon did her best to be Daphne but her heart wasn’t in it. Much the same could be said for the Duke of Padua, who insisted that the fat man stop at Sjambok while she bought an inflatable ring. That night Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon told the Colonel she was going down to Piemburg next morning.

  ‘Another perm, eh?’ said the Colonel. ‘Well don’t overdo things. It’s Berry Puts Off His Manhood night tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes dear,’ said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

  The next day she was up early and on her way to Piemburg. As the great car slid down the Rooi Nek, Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon felt free and strangely youthful. Chin in air, eyebrows raised, lids lowered, the faintest of smiles hovering about her small red mouth, she leaned back with an indescribable air of easy efficiency which was most attractive. Only the parted lips at all betrayed her eagerness …

  She was still in a playful mood when she was shown into the Kommandant’s office by Sergeant Breitenbach.

  ‘My darling,’ she said as soon as the door was shut, and skipped across the room a vision of elegance in mauve silk.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ spluttered the Kommandant, unwinding her arms from his neck.

  ‘I had to come, I couldn’t wait,’ said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

  Kommandant van Heerden looked frantically round his office. Something about shitting on one’s own doorstep was on the tip of his tongue but he managed not to say it. Instead he asked after the Colonel.

  Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon reclined in a chair. ‘He’s absolutely furious with you,’ she said. Kommandant van Heerden went pale.

  ‘You can’t blame him, can you?’ she continued. ‘I mean, think how you’d feel in his position.’

  The Kommandant didn’t have to think how he’d feel. He knew.

  ‘What’s he going to do?’ he asked anxiously, the vision of the cuckold Colonel shooting him looming large in his mind. ‘Has he got a gun?’

  Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon leant back and laughed. ‘Has he got a gun? My dear, he’s got an arsenal,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you seen his armoury?’

  The Kommandant sat down hurriedly and got up almost at once. Coming on top of the terrible position Verkramp had put him in, this new threat not only to his position but to his life was the last straw. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon sensed his feelings.

  ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ she said taking the words out of the Kommandant’s mouth. ‘But I simply had to tell you …’

  ‘As if I hadn’t got enough fucking trouble on my hands without this,’ snarled the Kommandant, his instinct for survival sweeping away what few pretensions he had previously maintained in her company. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon adjusted her language to his mood.

  ‘Doesn’t Doodoo love his mummy any more?’ she cooed.

  With rare good taste the Kommandant shuddered.

  ‘Of course he does,’ he snapped, taking refuge in the third person from the threat of extinction doodoos brought to mind. He was about to say that he had enough on his fucking plate without jealous husbands when there was a knock on the door and Sergeant Breitenbach entered.

  ‘Urgent telegram for Verkramp, sir,’ he said. ‘From BOSS. I thought you’d want to see it.’ The Kommandant snatched the message from him and stared at it.

  ‘INSTANT EXPLANATION SAB STROKE SUBV PIEMBURG STOP URGENT CARR STROKE INTERRO COMBLIBS STOP DETAIL ACTION STOP SAB STROKE SUBV BOSS TEAM FOLLOWING.’ he read and stared at the Sergeant uncomprehendingly. ‘What the hell does it mean?’ he asked.

  Sergeant Breitenbach glanced meaningfully at Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

  ‘Never mind her,’ shouted the Kommandant, ‘tell me what the thing means.’

  Sergeant Breitenbach looked at the telegram.

  ‘Instant explication sabotage subversion Piemburg stop Urgent arrest interrogation Communists and Liberals stop Detail action taken stop Sabotage subversion team from Bureau of State Security following.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ moaned the Kommandant for whom the news that a team of investigators from BOSS was on its way came as the final death knell. ‘Now what do we do?’

  In her chair Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon sat listening with a sense of being at the heart of the action, where decisions of far-reaching moment were made and real men made up real minds to do real things. It was a strangely exhilarating experience. The gulf between fantasy and fact which years of reading Dornford Yates and playing Daphne to the Colonel’s Berry across the dark continent had created in her mind suddenly closed. This was it, whatever it was, and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, so long excluded from It, wanted to be part of It.

  ‘If only I could help you,’ she said melodramatically as the door closed behind Sergeant Breitenbach, who had just admitted he couldn’t.

  ‘How?’ said the Kommandant who wanted to be left alone to think of someone he could arrest before the BOSS team arrived.

  ‘I could be your glamorous spy,’ she said.

  ‘We’re not short of glamorous spies,’ said the Kommandant shortly, ‘what we need are suspects.’

  ‘What sort of suspects?’

  ‘Eleven bloody lunatics who know how to use high explosive and hate Afrikanerdom enough to want to put the clock back a thousand years,’ said the Kommandant morosely, and was surprised to see Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon tilt back her lovely head and laugh.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ he asked feeling pretty hysterical himself.

  ‘Oh how frightfully funny,’ Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon shrieked. ‘How absolutely priceless. Do you realize what you’ve just said?’

  ‘No,’ said the Kommandant as the tinted curls tossed delightfully.

  ‘Don’t you see? The Club. Eleven lunatics. Boy, Berry, Jonah … Oh it’s too gorgeous.’

  Kommandant van Heerden sat down at his desk, the light of understanding glazing his bloodshot eyes. As Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s laughter amazed Sergeant Breitenbach in the next room and awoke in Konstabel Els memories of other days and other places, Kommandant van Heerden knew that his troubles were over.

  ‘Two birds with one stone,’ he muttered and pressed the bell for Sergeant Breitenbach.

  Twenty minutes later Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, somewhat astonished by her rapid dismissal from the Kommandant’s office but still chortling over her joke, was at the hairdresser’s.

  ‘I think I’ll have a black rinse for a change,’ she told the assistant with an intuitive sense of occasion.

  15

  In the Drill Hall, so recently the scene of sexual conversion, Kommandant van Heerden briefed his men.

  ‘The saboteurs are based on a house called White Ladies near Weezen,’ he told the assembled officers. ‘They are led by an ex-Colonel in the British secret service, one of their top men who served in the inner circle of the underground during the war. His second-in-command is a Major Bloxham and the sabotage group has used as its cover a club organized ostensibly for literary purposes. They are in possession of a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition and I anticipa
te fierce resistance when we surround the house.’

  ‘How do we know they are the men we are after?’ Sergeant Scheepers of the Security Branch asked.

  ‘I realize that this may come as something of a surprise to you, Sergeant,’ the Kommandant answered with a smile. ‘But we of the uniformed police also have our agents in the field. You Security Branch fellows aren’t the only ones to work undercover.’ He paused to let this information sink in. ‘For the past year Konstabel Els has been working in the Weezen area at considerable risk to himself and disguised as a convict.’ Standing to one side of the Kommandant Konstabel Els blushed modestly. ‘Thanks to his efforts we were able to infiltrate the Communist organization. Furthermore,’ he added before anyone could point out that Konstabel Els was hardly a reliable witness, ‘over the past two weeks I have investigated the matter personally and on the spot. I have confirmed Konstabel Els’ findings and can vouch for the fact that these people are all avowed enemies of the Republic, maintain unquestioning loyalty to Britain and are utterly ruthless. An attempt was made to kill me while out riding.’

  ‘Is there any other evidence that these men are responsible for the sabotage attacks in Piemburg?’ Sergeant Breitenbach asked.

  The Kommandant nodded. ‘A very good question, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘In the first place Konstable Els will go into the witness box and give evidence that he frequently heard the Colonel and his associates discussing the need for a change of government in South Africa. Secondly Els will swear that on the nights the attacks took place the group left the house early and didn’t get to bed until dawn. Thirdly and most significantly, a member of the group has turned State’s witness and will give evidence that these allegations are all correct. Does that satisfy you, Sergeant?’

  ‘It all seems rather circumstantial, sir,’ said Sergeant Breitenbach doubtfully. ‘I mean is there any hard evidence?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Kommandant emphatically and rummaging in his pocket produced a small object. ‘Have any of you seen one of these?’ he asked. It was clear that everyone in the room had seen a police detonator. ‘Good,’ continued the Kommandant. ‘Well, this was found in the stables at White Ladies.’

  ‘By Konstabel Els?’ Sergeant Breitenbach enquired.

  ‘By me,’ said the Kommandant, and made a mental note to send Els ahead with a police van filled to the roof with gelignite, fuses, detonators and contraceptives to ensure that enough hard evidence to satisfy Sergeant Breitenbach was there when the rest of the force arrived. In the meantime he explained the layout of the house and garden and ordered a full force of Saracen armoured cars, two hundred policemen armed with Sterling machine guns, German guard dogs and Dobermann pinschers to be deployed.

  ‘Remember we are dealing with professional killers,’ he said finally. ‘These fellows aren’t amateurs.’

  *

  By the time Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon emerged suitably washed, set and permed from the hairdressers she was just in time to see the convoy led by five Saracen armoured cars grinding through the main street. She stood for a moment gazing at the policemen crowding the lorries and admiration for the Kommandant’s obvious efficiency swelled in her breast. As the last lorry containing German guard dogs disappeared round the corner she turned and walked back to the police station to tell him once again how much she had missed him, an opinion confirmed by the Sergeant at the Duty desk.

  ‘But where has he gone?’ she asked plaintively.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’

  ‘But isn’t there any way I can find out?’

  ‘Well if you follow that convoy, I daresay you’ll find him,’ said the Sergeant and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon went out into the street disappointed and rather hungry. To console herself she went into Lorna’s Causerie in Dirk’s Arcade and had a pot of tea and some cup cakes.

  I’ll try again later, she thought. He can’t have gone far. But when an hour later she went round to the police station again it was to learn that the Kommandant wouldn’t be returning until the following day.

  ‘How extraordinary, you’d think he would have told me,’ she said exuding an aura of middle-class charm that had subdued stronger men than the Duty Sergeant.

  ‘This mustn’t go any further,’ he told her confidingly, ‘but they’ve gone up to Weezen.’

  ‘On manoeuvres?’ asked Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon hopefully.

  ‘To get those saboteurs,’ said the Sergeant.

  ‘In Weezen?’

  ‘That’s right,’ the Sergeant said, ‘but don’t tell anyone I told you.’

  Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said she certainly wouldn’t and went out into the street astonished by this new turn of events. She was half-way back to the Rolls when the full realization of what she had done dawned on her.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she wailed and ran the rest of the way to the Rolls only to find that she’d left the keys somewhere. She searched her bag but the keys weren’t there. In a state of utter distraction she ran back to the hairdressers and came out five minutes later empty-handed. As she stood in the street despairingly a taxi drew up.

  Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon jumped in. ‘To Weezen and fast,’ she said. The driver turned round and shook his head.

  ‘That’s seventy miles,’ he said, ‘Can’t do it.’

  ‘I’ll pay you double fare,’ Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said frantically and opened her bag. ‘That’ll pay you for the return journey.’

  ‘All right,’ said the driver.

  ‘For God’s sake hurry,’ she told him, ‘it’s a matter of life and death.’

  The taxi moved off and was soon bucketing over the corrugations on the road into the mountains. Far ahead forked lightning on the horizon heralded the approach of a storm.

  *

  As the lighting flickered around him and the hailstones rattled on the roof of his van Konstabel Els switched on the windshield wipers and peered into the gloom. Driving with his usual disregard for other traffic on the road, his own life and that of anyone living within half a mile of the van should it explode, Els was looking forward to the evening’s entertainment. It would compensate him for the tone of voice Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon had used to address him in the past. ‘I’ll Harbinger him,’ Els thought with relish. By the time he reached Weezen night had fallen. Els drove on and turned up the drive to White Ladies. With a show of bravado occasioned by his knowledge of the drinking habits of the household he drove the van into the yard at the back of the house and switched off the engine. A black face peered into the van. It was Fox.

  ‘Harbinger,’ he said. ‘You’ve come back.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Els, ‘I’ve come back.’

  Konstabel Els climbed out of the van and went round to the back and opened the doors. Then he turned back and called, ‘Fox, you kaffir, come here.’ But there was no answer. Responding to the same instinct for self-preservation which marked his namesake he was off across the garden and into the trees and putting as much ground between him and the man in the uniform of the South African Police whom he knew by the name of Harbinger. Fox knew death when he saw it.

  Inside the house Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon and his guests were less discerning.

  ‘Wonder what’s happened to Daphne,’ the Colonel thought as he dressed for the party. ‘Typical of her to be late tonight.’ He peered into the mirror, and was mollified. A frock of pale pink georgette, with long bell-shaped sleeves and a black velvet girdle knotted at one side, fitted him seemingly like a glove. A large Leghorn hat, its black velvet streamers fastened beneath his chin, heavily weighted with a full-blown rose over one eye, threatened to hide his rebellious mop of hair. White silk stockings and a pair of ordinary pumps completed his attire. A miniature apron, bearing the stencilled legend ‘An English Rose’ upon its muslin, left no doubt about his identity.

  ‘Berry to the life,’ he murmured and consulted Jonah & Co. Chapter XI to see if there was anything he had left out. Then picking up his bead bag he went downstairs where t
he others had gathered waiting for revels to begin.

  ‘I’m an Incroyable,’ Major Bloxham told La Marquise who had come as Sycamore Tight.

  ‘Absolutely, darling,’ she shrieked shrilly.

  Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon’s entrance as Berry as An English Rose was greeted with rapturous applause. The Colonel waited for the laughter to die down before addressing his guests.

  ‘As you all know,’ he said, ‘every year we celebrate our annual meeting with a final re-enactment of one of the great episodes in the life of Berry & Co. Tonight it is Chapter XI of Jonah & Co., Berry Puts Off His Manhood. I’m glad to see there has been such a good turn-out this year.’

  After a few more words about the necessity of keeping the flag flying in foreign parts which La Marquise took as a compliment, the Colonel told Major Bloxham to switch the record player on and presently was dancing a Tango with him.

  ‘These step-ins of Daphne’s are damned tight,’ he said as they went into a reverse turn.

  ‘So’s La Marquise,’ said the Major.

  In the darkness outside the window Konstabel Els watched the proceedings with interest. ‘I always wondered why he was so keen on roses,’ he thought, eyeing the Colonel with new appreciation.

  He went back to the van and began to carry the evidence of the Colonel’s attempt to overthrow the government of South Africa into the harness room. By the time he had packed several hundred pounds of gelignite onto shelves that had previously held nothing more incriminating than saddle soap, he had begun to regret letting Fox escape. Finally when the last carton of Durex Featherlites had been safely installed, Els lit a cigarette and sat back in the darkness to consider what other measures to take.