After midday in Medan. The city in its trance of sunlight. The smart native cop on duty at the Kesawan crossroads, with little traffic to direct except for a few leisurely bullock-carts making for the railway station.
I stood with Captain Jhamboo Singh by his jeep, in the shadow of the grim Dutch HQ. He was all concern.
‘Come back to the lines with me, Sergeant. Have a meal, take a rest, or I will drive you to the Field Ambulance and you can enjoy peace and quiet under observation for a day.’
‘I’m fine, Captain Sahib; thank you. I just need a drink.’
‘No, no, you come back to the lines and have a clean up. At present you are in a bad state, especially with regard to your appearance. Get in, get in.’ He tapped the side of the Jeep with one fingernail. He was himself immaculate as usual.
I climbed in behind him and we were driven back to the lines. On the way, I tackled him about my missing revolver: losing it was a chargeable offence. Jhamboo brushed the question aside. He would indent for a new one; no charge would be brought. He was happy that I had come through the incident with my life.
As to what happened, it was best that I spoke to nobody about it, nobody. He would be seeing General Hedley in the morning, when he would report the incident personally. Such events occurred in difficult situations. This was a bad campaign in which nobody had any glory. For the rest, the three killings, that was the business of the Dutch. I must not concern myself. If I had been killed, that was different; then the Division would have been forced to mount retributive action, with a general hotting up of tension all round. Mercifully, we were spared such unpleasantness. All that could be said was that there must be no breaches of discipline. He and I were old campaigners and had survived in difficult theatres of war; now it was peacetime, despite appearances, and both of us were entitled to retire with honour to our peacetime destinies.
‘Peacetime,’ I said, and laughed.
He presented his case and offered me his De Reszkes, pressing them on me when I refused. ‘No, no, Sergeant, take one and smoke later, after your shower. There are different conceptions of wartime and peacetime, as we come now to realise.’
I took a fag and lit up automatically when he did.
‘I let myself be taken by surprise. Asking for trouble … I feel responsible for their deaths.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand, but you must tell yourself that is not so. To survive is not a disgrace, but rather a virtue. Confidentially, give me just one platoon, Sergeant, one platoon, and you and I would wipe out these murdering swine for ever.’
The jeep dropped me before my billet in Djalan Sennal Road. I climbed out, drew myself up, and ripped Jhamboo off a smart salute. He returned it, his expression lamb-like again as he regarded me.
As I peeled off my filthy uniform and climbed into the shower, recent events kept returning vividly before my mental gaze.
After I left the go-down, I had to make my way back through the jungle alone. The Indonesians had removed Jan’s truck from its place of concealment. I walked on through the burnt-out kampong and eventually emerged on a road where a Dutch patrol found me. Good old Dutch, they never gave up!
They drove me straight to their grey Medan HQ, where Ernst Sontrop’s office was. There I was given a cup of coffee, a ham roll, and a cigar, while four officers assembled to question me. One of them was a grey-haired man with mild gold-rimmed spectacles and a brutal mouth. He belonged to PEA Force and introduced himself as a friend of Jackie Tertis.
The room filled with smoke. More coffee was brought. A good deal of phoning went on.
Jhamboo arrived. I greeted him with relief. A friendly face! The Dutch had tried to contact the elusive Boyer, without results. Throughout the interviews, the Dutch – even the villain from PEA Force – were unfailingly courteous, unrolling their faultless English like stair-carpet down each step of the enquiry. All the while, I felt like a prize shit; I knew they thought I should have died with my pals.
From my description, they identified the TRI lieutenant with the scar as a man called Hamil.
‘He’s just returned from Java, we happen to know,’ said PEA Force. ‘He’s not a good man, but we shall get him.’
‘Hamil’s a tough egg,’ agreed one of the other officers, with a cool mastery of English slang.
By not executing me, by refusing even to take me captive, Hamil had avoided a possible confrontation and snubbed both Dutch and British authorities. He showed that he knew we were withdrawing, and that that withdrawal meant the beginning of the end for the Dutch. The TRI wanted us out of the way with as little fuss as possible. Their battle was half won.
All of which must have been gall for the Dutch, but they just made a few more serious phone calls. The questioning was over. They rose and thanked me for my co-operation, apologised for my misadventure, congratulated me on my escape from death, and hoped that I would return to Medan after the uprising had been quelled, when they would be happy to see I had a pleasant visit and could shoot crocodiles in a more congenial atmosphere. I shook hands all round and left with Jhamboo.
By now, as I stood wearily under the cold shower, an armed escort would be out at the go-down. If the three bodies weren’t collected quickly, the shite-hawks which had feasted on the crocodile would be greedying it in the building. How do you eat people? It’s just like eating crocodiles …
Iwa? No doubt the terrible men in PEA Force would sort out his role in the ambush – to their satisfaction if not to Iwa’s.
When I had dried myself, I stretched luxuriously on my charpoy and reached for my tin of cigarettes. I never made it.
Some maniac, some vaginaphobe, with his hand on my shoulder was asking me if I wanted to buy a battleship.
Groaning, I heaved myself up and looked blearily round.
‘You want to lay off the kyfer before it kills you! I thought you were bloody dead, mate. I’ve brought you a late lunch.’
There was Johnny Mercer; behind him, the Chinese mess servant, standing grinning with a tray of food and a beer.
My Indian watch told me that I had been asleep for only twenty-five minutes. All the same, I felt better. Putting a towel round my middle, I sat on the edge of the bed and began shovelling the food in the top. Johnny took it for granted that I had been with Margey, and proceeded to go into great detail concerning his adventures of the previous evening, which revolved about the twin axes of alcohol and women. It appeared that he had had a good time.
It was impossible to concentrate on what he had to say. Before my eyes floated a picture of three bodies lying against the wall of the go-down, while ants meditatively inspected their life-blood. I wondered how I could behave naturally before my friends, now that this terrible knowledge was in me. Coming back alone through the great forest, with nature at its most luxuriant all round, I had been startled by a chain of monkeys swinging in the branches high overhead, screaming as they went. Perhaps the monkeys knew death. But monkeys were innocent. They did not know Harm. It was Harm that I had discovered, and instinct demanded that I should conceal that discovery from my friends.
‘How about a game of badminton? I’ve been on ration duty all morning.’
‘No thanks, I bloody must go back into town.’ I scraped up the last of my treacle-sponge pudding.
Mercer looked a bit embarrassed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘Did you speak to old Boyer last night? About this problem of yours. You know, about marrying this Chinese girl?’
‘You mean Margey?’
‘Of course.’ He gave his neighing laugh.
‘Then why not fucking say so? You know her, don’t you? You fucking well used to screw her, didn’t you?’
‘Keep your bloody hair on. I only asked if you spoke to Boyer.’
I put my plate down, rose and started to dress.
‘Boyer was pissed as arseholes. His bird’s off on the Van Heutsz this afternoon.’ I checked with the watches; one said twelve-twenty-five, the other one-fifteen.
‘What’s the time?’
‘One-forty.’
‘I’m supposed to be seeing Boyer this afternoon at the company office, three pip emma. Ten to one he won’t turn up.’ I heaved myself into a clean uniform.
‘Look, Horry, for fuck’s sake take the advice of an old mate. Forget this idea of marrying Margey. It’s not on. There are oodles of bits of crumpet back in the Blight, lying around with their legs open and their little twots pulsating, just waiting for handsome young sergeants like us to come home.’
I looked at him. ‘Young? Piss off!’
‘Well, old, then. It’s a bugger, Horry. I was a kid when I joined up – now I feel about fifty. Where have the years gone? Still, I still think you’d be mad to marry old Marge. If I may say so without offence, you don’t have to do it just to impress your mates, you know.’
‘Who’d want to impress you?’
‘Give those gin-palaces back and I’ll tell you.’
I punched him lightly on the chest. ‘Come down the bazaar and I’ll buy you a drink with the ill-gotten gains.’
At the canteen, I bought five hundred Blighty Players, a tin of Colman’s Mustard, a packet of Edwards’ Desiccated Soup, a bar of chocolate, and some Branston’s Sweet Pickle. At the company stores, I left a note for Captain Boyer telling him where I would be. At the office, I collected a green slip from Jhamboo, which I handed to the Armourer-Havildar at the armoury. He was an enormous man with handlebar moustaches. He issued me with a new revolver and made me sign without comment. Pistol, Revolver, Webley .38 in MK. 4.
As I emerged into the sunshine, Mercer rolled up in the mess Jeep. I climbed in beside him.
‘Bloody Tertis has just gone tear-assing by on his bike. Business as usual.’
‘They’ll get him one day.’
‘Today, I hope.’
We drove past the grey fortress of the Dutch HQ. Poor Jan de Zwaan would never catch the Van Heutsz, on which many of his countrymen and women were even now embarking. I could not get over the sight of his face in death, with the absurd Jap helmet still on his head. The memory came between me and the outer world. Death followed me like the speeding bird which had shadowed our launch back to harbour.
I’d have to write to Addy about Ernst.
A thunderstorm was building up, with high vivid clouds the shape of anvils piling above the rooftops. Sunshine became a searchlight.
We pulled into Margey’s alley and stopped. I saw that something was pinned to her door. Bright objects glittered among what was faded and grey. We drew near. Elaborate Chinese characters had been cut out of red and gold card and attached to the entrance. Strings of little white flowers, painstakingly threaded together, hung wilting on the old blistered doorway. I put my hand against the stone to study them better. They conveyed a meaning, but not to me. The door stood ajar. Mercer pushed in and I followed. Of course, he’d been here long before I had …
The room was transformed. It was draped in white. Dozens of small candles in tin holders burned about a coffin, which occupied the centre of the space. The coffin itself was smothered in little foil decorations which gleamed in the candlelight. A heavy scent hung about the room, languorous yet threatening. For a crazy moment, I thought they must have collected Sontrop.
Many people stood by the coffin in their best clothes. They kept their deep Chinese gaze away from Johnny and me. Some of the old women clutched flowers in their weathered hands. Daisy was there, carrying her baby; she glanced at us, then away.
As we paused, someone hurried from the rear of the throng and blocked our path, raising his hands before him. It was the Chinese journalist, Tiger Balm, immaculate as ever.
‘You may not come in here today, sir. It is not convenient.’
‘I am in, mush. I’m not going to cause any trouble. What’s going on?’
He shook head and hands. ‘You must depart quietly, please, sir. Buddhist ceremonies are in progress, following the death, so we have to require you to leave. This is not a place for British soldiers. Go, please.’
‘The old lady’s dead? I’m sorry – she was a nice old girl.’ I tried to push forward as I spoke, but Tiger Balm remained unmoving.
‘Yes, old Auntie’s spirit has departed, and you must not interrupt the ceremonies. The military have no business with mourning.’
‘Look, chum, I’m not going to break up your bloody ceremonies. I just want Margey. Where is she?’
‘Let’s sod off, Stubby,’ Mercer suggested. ‘We can come back later. Let’s go and have a drink.’
While I hesitated, Tiger Balm said, ‘Good idea, Sgt Stubbs. Go and have a drink or two. It’s in your line.’
Margey’s brother-in-law came panting up from the shadows, shaking his head, tutting, waving his plump paws.
‘Ah, Missa Stuss, poh Auntie pinnish. You no come, you go, I give cigalet.’
‘I don’t want your fucking cigarettes, chum. Where’s Margey?’
More waving of hands. ‘Margey no here. Margey go Brastagi.’
‘Brastagi? What the fuck’s she gone to Brastagi for? Why didn’t she tell me she was going?’
‘Keep your voice low, sir, if you please,’ said Tiger Balm, edging Johnny and me towards the door. ‘Acts of devotion are in progress and must continue during two days. Such is our form of worship to the dead. Margey will return tomorrow, escorting some relations.’
The coffin and the mourners confused me. Existence suddenly appeared threadbare, and I was inclined to be pugnacious about it. ‘She didn’t tell me she was going to be away. What’s going on?’
‘Margey could not speak with you because you did not come here this morning as you promised. Please leave without further high spirits.’
Fat echoed the suggestion. ‘Yessah, Missa Stussa, prease lee, see Margey ’moller.’
So did Johnny. ‘Let’s go and get a bloody drink. Coming or not?’
‘Okay, okay.’ I looked angrily at the Chinese. Tiger Balm bowed slightly, Fat bowed and smiled, showing gold teeth. Behind them, Daisy’s baby uttered one brief cry. The room was stuffed with sweet and sour smells. I pushed the things I had brought for Margey into Fat’s arms, and left with Johnny.
Almost opposite the Deli cinema was a little Malayan bar where we sat and drank carioca and Red Fox. No sooner had we arrived than rain fell in great gusts, filling the streets with noise. Thunder pealed morosely overhead.
‘Brastagi’s miles away,’ Johnny said, wiping his lips. I could guess what he was thinking: ‘If the bitch just keeps out of the way for two more days, Stubbs will be safely on his way home.’
It grew dark inside the tiled room. A number of Sumatrans dashed in to shelter in the doorway, the main source of light. The manager greeted Johnny like an old friend and summoned his wife from the back parlour. The wife’s name was Che Jah or something similar. She spoke some English, having worked in the British Consulate in pre-war days. She sat at our table and talked, pleased to air her knowledge of the language.
Che Jah wore a sarong and a smart white muslim jacket fitting tightly about her generous breasts. Dark hair pulled back from a handsome olive face with broad cheekbones. Sitting talking to Johnny with controlled ease, she leaned forward across the table, smoking a cigarette, smiling as she spoke. Her teeth were perfect. Her wrists, her smooth hands, her fingers, one adorned with a silver ring, moved with delicate precision as she lifted the cigarette to and from her broad lips. The fabric of her tightly buttoned sleeves, chafing against her arms, made a faint sound, as of thigh moving against thigh.
How magnificent women were! Life’s answer to death! What an experience it would be to share the existence of such a vivid creature. In her was the spirit of Sumatra incarnate, rather than in my pale Margey …
Brastagi was a long drive from Medan, approximately fifty miles. Margey had spoken of some distant relations there, whom she had once visited with the old Auntie. It was an agreeable mountain village with a cool climate. I had driven through it early one morning as a sea-grey dawn was breaking. I remembered long houses on stilts by the roadside and three women standing in a striking monumental group, dressed in tight black clothes, wearing heavy turbans. We could have been in Tibet, rather than on the equator.
That had been during the momentous drive overland from Padang, that arse-breaking unforgettable trip. The day before reaching Brastagi, we stopped at a village called Prapat, on the shores of Lake Toba. It seemed one of the remotest places in the world. Lake Toba itself must be all of seventy miles long – you could heave the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg into it and leave but a splash – yet only the Dutch have ever heard of the place.
It’s beautiful, cool and high. The lake itself is formed out of one crater of a string of volcanoes which blew themselves out long before man emerged on the planet. In the middle of the lake lies an island, Samosir. You couldn’t miss Samosir from Prapat; its malachite cliffs rise sheer across a narrow stretch of water. I had stood on the bank, looking across at it. There were people on that island. Then one of my mates called to me and we had to move on.
In my mind’s eye, I still saw Samosir, its peak crowned with jungle. I had resolved that one day I would return to Prapat and go across to the island. Now I knew that was impossible. People died, men were shot like crocodiles. There was no place for the Dutch and British on Sumatra. The events of the morning made it clear that if I was going to marry Margey, we were going to have to live somewhere else. And wasn’t it the spirit of Sumatra itself I really wished to embrace?
That animated face only three feet away, with those moulded lips, those liquid eyes, those fine eyebrows, and that clear skin, was still talking to Johnny Mercer. A Batak woman. Orang Batak. Cannibals, ferocious people, said Margey. In her face dwelt a sort of fire. Yet it was difficult to see her clearly, so sharp was that dusty image of de Zwaan lying against Sontrop and Nieuwenhuis in a spreading pool of blood.
Che Jah turned and darted me a direct look. My eyes flicked away from hers, lest she saw the dead bodies. She said, as if we were long familiar with each other, ‘You will go back to England next week, and that is best.’
I met her gaze, and then looked down at the cane tabletop. ‘I shall never forget Sumatra.’
‘Is best for all mens go back to the land where they belong.’
Only a day earlier, I might have interpreted her words as consolatory. Now I wondered if they concealed a threat; perhaps she and all the other inhabitants of Medan had already heard of the TRI’S coup that morning. In any case, the good simple sense she appeared to speak was meaningless upon examination. Not everyone had places to go.
This was Ernst Sontrop’s country as much as hers. Margey would not be welcomed in her dreamed-of Shantung Province. What rude awakening was I in for when I returned to the Blight?
Leaving the table, I went to peer out of the doorway at the rain, which hit the pavements so hard that it sent up a knee-high mist. There were displacements for the whole damned lot of us in the pitcher of time. I recalled fragments of old ABCA lectures, passages from history books. Both the English and Dutch were of that Indo-European stock whose origins lay in the sub-continent from which the British Raj was now being expelled. Come to that, the Bataks were descendants of nations driven south from Indo-China by Mongolian invaders. Despite all territorial claims, nobody belonged in Che Jah’s sense to any particular land, only to the globe itself. There was no real settling down.
They called me back to the table. Coffee had arrived, bitter and black. I smoked a cigar while the others talked. I was trying to work out how bad I felt, and whether I felt bad because I’d been nearly shot, or because I’d not been shot.
The woman and her husband were coaxing us to go behind the shop and eat with them. Johnny was all for it and wanted my company; but restlessness forced me to excuse myself. It was a good moment to leave the café – the rain had suddenly tapered away and died.
In the street, compulsive anxiety took over. Supposing Lieutenant Hamil appeared, walking casually down the road, should I shoot him? Would he perhaps shoot me? And why in hell had I not told Johnny what had happened? I hated the vein of self-protective secrecy in my character.
De Zwaan lay dead before my eyes, slumped in his ridiculous helmet, while ants investigated the liquids draining from his body. Shooting people is like shooting crocodiles.
Tertis went roaring by on his motor-bike. He called to me, a savage shout whose meaning I could not determine.
It was the hottest time of day. Evidence of the recent downpour was vanishing rapidly and the streets steamed. Red and green lights danced across my retinas. When nausea moved in my throat and stomach, I tried to amuse myself by thinking of Raddle being sick, but the exercise was too dangerous. There was a shop to my right. I lurched through its open door and sat down on a wicker stool inside. Weakness made me rest my head on the counter. Although I became aware of shuffling noises near me, I was unable to look up.
The dizziness slowly cleared. Still I kept my head down. Fear of death, fear of fear, fear of spewing – they gradually gave way to a fear of social embarrassment. I felt a right cunt sitting there.
At last I lifted my head and tipped my bush-hat straight. A thin old man with a little fat lady beside him stood regarding me perplexedly. The shop contained so little stock that it was hard to decide what kind of a shop it was. A cardboard box shop, judging by the evidence. On the other hand, a few hats – six or seven – lay in his small window, together with a bolt of cloth and a bowl containing yellow beads. It was a bead shop. Or a hat shop. Or a bolt shop.
The old man said something excitedly in Malay, pointing to the door.
‘Thik-hai, thik-hai’ I said, ‘I’m going, don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you or your girl friend.’
He still kept pointing, first at me, then at the street, letting off a stream of Malay. The little fat lady joined in.
‘Relax, will you, fuck it? Tida bagoose. How do you know I don’t want to buy one of your sodding hats?’
‘Has? Sodding has?’ he asked. I made a putting-on-head gesture, which he imitated. Fetching a blue felt thing from his window, he attempted to fit it on my head.
‘It’s not for me, you old cunt! Blue isn’t my colour!’ I started laughing.
The little old man joined in without looking any less anxious. It occurred to me that I ought to buy the hat for Margey, just to please him. She had said she wanted one. But the bitch was in Brastagi – probably plying her trade, for all I knew, flogging her flesh, hawking her hole.
A desultory haggle began from which I could not see how to extricate myself. The old man was writing down prices in Dutch guilders (absurd), Jap guilders (possible), and cigarettes (reasonable), when a shadow fell across the threshold and a young lad entered, leading Katie Chae. She looked as if she had changed only a minute earlier into crisp new pyjamas.
‘Oh, Miss Chae, hello.’ I was as sweaty as she was damp-proof.
‘Hello, big boy. This shopkeeper send along his son fetch me, case you die in his shop. He know you fren’ of me.’
‘I thought he was trying to tell me to get out of his shop.’
‘Why you should think that? This is very nice old man, I know long time since before war. He send along his son fetch me. Son he say you no well, so I come along lend a hand.’
I stood holding the blue hat, feeling more than somewhat of a prick. ‘I’m fine, thanks, just a touch of the sun. Please thank the old man and tell him that I do not want to buy the hat.’
She and the old man exchanged short bursts of Malay. Miss Chae stood there very calm and collected; the old man appeared somewhat apologetic. She turned back to me, arching her eyebrows.
‘This shobkeeper he say you to take the hat as presen’. If you no can afford to buy, he give.’
‘Christ, I don’t want him to give it to me. I’ve got no use for the fucking hat.’
She rapped something at the old man and he replied.
‘He say it very good hat, made special in Paris. He like give to you.’
‘Fuck it, look, Miss Chae, tell him I’m very grateful but –’
‘Why you not call me Katie? That my name. All people call me Katie. I call you Horry, same your fren’ Rosey, okay? All be friends till the las’ moment. You take the hat.’
‘Look, I don’t want the fucking hat.’
‘You no say “fucking” too much, is rude, Horry, be kind boy. Please take the hat, is pretty, this kind old man be plenty insult.’ Quick exchange of Malay with the old man again.
‘All right, Katie, tell the old man I will buy the hat at his price. Jap guilders, okay?’
More Malay.
‘Okay, Horry, he say four hun’red Jap guilders.’
‘He say three hundred before.’
‘I tell you is a bargain at four hun’red.’
‘Not for something I don’t shagging well want, it isn’t.’
‘Please you no say that again, Horry. You plen’y difficult guy.’
As I paid up, the old man, smiling now – as well he might – produced cigarettes for Katie Chae and me. His fat little wife parcelled up the hat in sheets of newspaper. Finally, I bowed my way out of the shop, with hat and Katie Chae, who strolled elegantly beside me.
‘Jesus, do you wonder I feel ill …’
She gave me a look of concern down her long nose. ‘Honnes’ to god, you look plen’y ill. My place just round the next corner. You better come in and take the weight off your feet. I give you a cup of cool tea, okay?’
‘No, I’ll get back to the billet. I need a beer.’ I took a last drag at my cigarette, which had been made of used coffee grounds, and flung the stub into a gutter.
She tutted and waved a finger at me. ‘Is no good for you drinking beer when sun is up. I take charge of you just one hour, make you feel plen’y better.’
Relishing the implications of the conversation, through my exhaustion I said, ‘You really are a lovely girl, Katie, and don’t think I think otherwise, but it’s better if I don’t come to your place, not even for an hour.’
She looked hurt. A frown creased that beautiful forehead.
‘I come to see if you sick, I help you buy hat, now you no trus’ me anyhow! You must be awful man, Horry, to hate me like that when I only want help you.’
‘No, I don’t hate you. I admire you, if you want to know. I just think I should be getting back to the billet.’
She stopped, so that I had to stop as well.
‘Why you no come my place one hour, take weight off your feet? Maybe you afraid Rosey?’
‘Margey.’
‘Maybe you afraid Margey find out you come my place, eh? I no tell Margey, honnis’ to god. Anyway, that girl go away Medan this morning.’
‘I know, Katie, but that’s not the reason …’
‘Okay, you tell me reason.’
Katie Chae’s place was grander than Margey’s. She had two rooms over a small shop, and a lavatory and washing-cooking place behind the shop on the ground floor. Of her two rooms, the front one was a lounge with sofas and tables, the rear a bedroom with a big bed, a mirror, and a desk used as a dressing-table.
She watched me as I prowled about.
I sat down on one of the sofas, still clutching the blue hat, while she went to pour us some tea. As soon as I began to drink it, I felt desperately ill.
Excusing myself, I staggered downstairs to have a shit, shutting myself in Katie’s little earth closet. As I crouched there with my trousers round my ankles, arms wrapped round the cold sweating flanks of my belly, the murders came rushing back. Blood leaked irretrievably on a concrete floor. My bowels fell out of my body. Shaking violently, I had to crouch there for a while before I summoned enough strength to use the paper provided.
As I wiped my arse, good feelings poured into me. Fuck it, not being shot was more fun than being shot; England held all sorts of excitements I knew not of; and so on. Even world peace can’t stop hope from springing eternal. The massive bowel movement had literally taken a weight off my mind.
Christ, here I was with the mysterious Katie Chae. This was hardly a moment for grief. Even illness could be fended off awhile. Whatever her game was, two could profitably play it. I dragged my trousers up and buckled my belt, reflecting on the mystical aspects of a good crap.
Tottering out of the crapper, I almost collided with Katie. She had followed me downstairs. I was embarrassed by the ripe old stink that followed me out of the closet, but she took my arm and said, ‘You kinda sick, big boy. Come, I give China bath, then you feel much better. This punk climate no good. No, no, don’t worry, your Katie plenty useful girl, one time work as nurse, know how take care soldiers …’
I did not protest much. If there was one thing I already guessed about Katie Chae, it was that she knew how to take care of soldiers. Once again, she got her way.
Well, I was feeling weak.
In no time, she stripped my clothes off and I was squatting in a stone stoup, trying to look like walking wounded. She ladled water over me with a bowl and, when I climbed out, she dried my flesh from head to foot. Then we went back upstairs. I lay on the bed while Katie painted me with potassium permanganate – a favourite whore’s trick.
At this point, I was all anticipation, and showed it, yet I let Katie play her little game. She arranged a light cover over me. Lying beside me, she began to massage my neck and temples with supple fingers. How innocent, even childlike, she looked, that long face on a level with mine, her almond eyes serious upon me. She whispered gently in an alien tongue. Against my own intentions, drowsiness descended upon me like a fog. My lids would not stay open. Lazily, I put an arm about her and sank into deep sleep.
It was not at all an ordinary awakening. It seemed as if I was taking up some old favourite conversation. Katie Chae was naked against me and I was already screwing her. God knows what witchcraft it was, but I swear that for the one and only time in my life I had begun to fuck someone whilst in a complete sleep. Not only that, but I was about to come, the first faint foghorns of orgasm were already sounding through the mist, and her unprecedented body was telling me that it was high time I came. It gathered from my scalp and from the purple-painted soles of my feet, and tossed us, yards up the beach from the ocean, at the very moment when I believed myself drowning.
‘Oh, oh … oh, oh, Katie, Katie, you incredible … oh …’
She held me. I held her. I drifted back into sleep, smiling as blissfully, as perpetually, as a dolphin.
When I roused again, Katie appeared to be lightly asleep in my arms. A few beads of sweat lay on her upper lip. I gazed at that loaded oriental face with gratitude and delight; as I gazed, I felt with joy that my prick was rising up again. She sensed it against her, stirred, opened her eyes. For a moment, while we stared at each other, her expression did not change. Then she gave me a conspiratorial smile, slipped her hand down the bed, took my prick, and guided it into her luscious body.
Well, there’s no use going on about it after all these years. After all, enough good things have happened since. But, oh my darling Katie Chae, there really was something you had that nobody else ever did. You really were some sort of a witch, one of those delicious succubi that men are not supposed to go with if they are to retain their souls, or keep any of the marrow in their spinal cords. That really was communication of a high order.
We finally staggered out of bed and got dressed. I felt pretty delirious – fit but delirious. Because of a kind of awe of her, I found little to say. She brought beer. We sat and drank it as the world grew dark outside. Beyond all the changes of the light is something permanent, rarely glimpsed.
In no time, I imagined myself in love with Katie Chae, and presented her with the felt hat.
If you have ever seen an Englishwoman lumping about in a cheongsam, you will know how silly Katie looked in a blue felt hat. Silly but cute. She herself was amused, but she held both sides of the brim and bent almost double, laughing – with delight as well as amusement – so that I saw the ridges on the roof of her mouth and felt lustful all over again. Again that primaeval stirring in the trousers, reminiscent of a conger eel preparing to belt back to the Sargasso Sea where it belongs.
There was a call from the bottom of the stairs, and Katie leaned over the banister to answer. The spell was broken. I thought back over the events of the day. Again the three figures appeared on the concrete floor of the go-down. Poor old Sontrop – but after all, he was only a fucking queer, and they were soldiers the same as I was, and it’s a soldier’s duty to get himself shot occasionally. It was none of my business. I’d come through the incident, just as I’d come through all the hell of Kohima and Burma. That was war – now here were the spoils of war, in the shape of Katie Chae.
I sidled up behind her and ran a hand lightly across her thigh. Katie Chae took firm hold of my wrist, and continued shouting angrily at the man below. Looking down, I admired her slender arm, the beautiful line of her breast. Margey had always said Katie was a whore. Of course. It was natural to think of Katie as a whore; with her talents, what else could she be? War, with its scuttling morals, was her natural element.
Grateful thoughts of Captain Jhamboo Singh arose. There was a way in which I could show gratitude: I could introduce Jhamboo to Katie Chae. He could enjoy himself before returning to India and the scrap heap.
Katie got rid of the intruder and turned her miraculous laughing face into mine, still wearing the silly hat. ‘Oh, you lovely sexy Briddish boy, do you have a Briddish cigarette for your o’ fren’ Katie?’
I produced cigarettes and we lit up. I grasped her bottom.
‘Katie, you are the most gorgeous bit of goods I ever came across. Just fantastic.’
She looked at me with almost closed eyes, very Chinese, very sexy, blowing smoke from her lungs.
‘Mm, your little Margey warn you ’bout me, I think. She know the genuine hunnerd per cent quality item, take my word.’
This was not a moment at which I particularly wished to discuss Margey. I said, ‘I’m feeling better. Let’s get back on the bed, Katie. Astonish me again.’
‘You give me present. This hat not enough.’
‘Anything.’
‘Oh, you bring me five hunnerd Player cigarette.’
I was dismayed at the demand but dared not argue. I said I would deliver as soon as possible if we could get back to bed.
‘No, I must smoke now, rest. Cigarettes first, then more bed. You unnerstand?’
‘Um.’
That subject was dismissed. She stood up. ‘Now you not feel punk. You like something to eat?’
With visions of the way Margey cooked for me, I thought, if she cooks like she fucks … and agreed it would be a good idea. Judging by my watches, I estimated that it must be seven o’clock.
‘You take me somewhere? I know good place we go. You strong enough? Oh, you so strong man, Horry, you take me good place eat!’ She clapped her hands and looked very pleasantly at me.
She deflected a further attempt to return to bed. Almost before I knew what was what, we were going down her stairs, with Katie Chae clutching my arm in the friendliest way. At least she left the felt hat behind.