Chapter Sixteen

Out in the jungle, something was creaking. It sounded metallic, like a rusty door-hinge, and had a bit of weight to it too, but that was wrong, there’d be nothing out there like that. He put out his cheroot and crept out of his den and stood up.

It was the hour before dawn. An astounding number of stars were shining, the jungle far less dense than down in the valleys, the canopy patched with holes, letting in chunks of the night sky. Down the ridge slope, in the opposite direction from the makeshift camp in the ghost village, he could just make out something, a great black cape, blocking out the starlight. That was where the creaking was coming from. Creepy, the sound of it. Not a monkey, not a bird. Could be some bloody insect. No, too loud. It did sound like metal, cracking.

A faint reddening of light to the east.

It was metal an’ all. Bloody hell! Realising what he’d found, he stumbled a few feet towards it, but the lianas and stray roots underfoot tripped him. He steadied himself, and pressed on.

They called it The Hump. The Himalayan mountain chain, the roof of the world, an arch over the top of India and Burma to China, above which the transport planes must fly to supply the Chinese with everything, guns, big and little, bullets, shells, grenades, food, drink, medicine, to enable them to keep in the war, to keep the Nationalists fighting the Japanese. Many pilots, the vast majority American volunteers in the Flying Tigers, but some British, Indian and Chinese, perished because their aeroplanes were overloaded and crashed on take-off or iced-up over The Hump or were blown off-course by two hundred mph headwinds or flew head-on into hillsides, blinded by fogs, mist, monsoon rain, snow. There was no radar, no reliable radio, no navigation aids, no night-lights at aerodromes. The pilots were pretty much defenceless, too, against Japanese fighters if they were found by them. But enough planes got through to keep China in the war.

This one hadn’t. Gregory recognised the tiger teeth on the nose of the plane from a photograph he’d seen in the papers months ago, and he knew a dead airman when he saw one: here were two. The transport plane had skimmed the jungle canopy rising from the ridge, its left wing torn off, the right wing bent, twisted into a cloak of silver silhouetting against the sky. That’s what Gregory had seen against the starlight. The cockpit black with fire, the pilots charred skeletons sat in their seats, waiting for an encore that would never come.

The ridge fell precipitously here, the plane wreck suspended twenty feet above the ground by the nose. Getting into the plane to see what he could loot wasn’t going to be easy. A fat liana, tumbling down from a giant teak tree, might be handy. Slashing at it where it met the ground, he hacked away until it came free, and dragged it towards the stump of the left wing and slowly climbed up. The moment he stepped on the wing itself, the whole wreck lurched two feet down, the stressed metal creaking and squeaking, an orchestra in a scrap-metal yard. Funny if he bought it here, inside a smashed plane, after all he’d been through.

In for a penny…

Swinging through an open hatch, perhaps at least one of the crew had managed to bail out, he was inside the fuselage, the metal creaking horribly. The air stank, that sickly, honeyish smell Gregory knew so well. Not much room, the cargo bay piled high with wooden crates, ammo mostly, the calibre of the bullets stencilled on the sides. He squeezed down the aisle, towards the tail. Ah, this was what he was looking for. Prising open a crate with his jungle knife: two Tommy guns, six drums of ammo. Perfect. Could fight a small war with that.

As he worked his way along the cargo bay the coming dawn streaming in through the tail-gunner’s Perspex bubble illuminated the stencils on the crates more clearly, and on a stack Gregory read ‘Strictly for the household of H.E. Chiang Kai-Shek’. Opening the top one, he laughed, exhilarated, finding champagne, posh stuff from the label, tins of caviar, pickled gherkins, a jar of Gentleman’s Relish. A second crate contained sugar, chocolate bars, tea, tins of pate, ham, salmon, a bottle of fine Scottish malt. Gregory opened the malt, put it to his lips, savouring the tang of smoked peat and pure water. Another swig, and a third, then he replaced the cork and put it back in the crate. If he got sloshed here, he’d never get back to his den.

Down at the very tail of the plane the stink clotted the air. The tail-gunner hadn’t survived the landing, his neck jerked backwards at a sickening angle. The dead airman’s flesh was a bluey dark green, not quite black, so dead about a month, the discoloured skin revoltingly bloated, as if it might burst at any second. Gregory slipped his hand into the airman’s breast pocket, stirring a light fizz of flies, and, yes!, helped himself to a packet of Lucky Strikes and a box of matches.

The crates were too heavy for him to handle as he struggled down the liana, so he dropped them from the hatch. If they smashed open, who cared? The crates landed on the soggy mulch of the jungle floor, pretty much intact. The loot was heavy, and by the time he’d hefted it back to his den he was sweating profusely. Still, it was bloody good going: two tommy guns, six drums of ammo, caviar, pate, champagne, chocolate. The bubbly wouldn’t be chilled, but you couldn’t ask for everything.

Eyes cast down, submissive, miserable, Emily was waiting for him, kneeling, her weight on her haunches, her hands on her knees.

Sullen bitch. He wanted to slap her, hard, teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget. He was about to strike her, to shake her up a bit, when her eyes slid sideways and in the half-light of the den he made out a leather satchel. Good girl. He didn’t care what they thought, so long as they did what he said. Old Mosley had once spoken about some Roman git, who’d said: ‘Let them hate, so long as they fear’. Very true, that.

Lowering the crates to the ground, swinging the two tommy guns off his shoulder, he took off a lid, wiped his brow and said: ‘I’ve brought you some caviar and champagne, courtesy of the USA, darling.’ The ‘darling’ was a sneer but, pleased to see the satchel, he worked the cork out of the champagne bottle.

The pop, when it came, was such a surreal sound in the jungle, it made him half-smile. A swig, a belch, not so polite, and he handed her the bottle while he stabbed a tin of caviar with his knife and scooped out a handful of eggs. Salty and black, he couldn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. He’d never tasted caviar before.

He passed the tin to Emily who, despite looking famished, only pecked at it, as if it was beneath her. Something about the way her body moved, her frock riding an inch up her thigh as she leant over to scoop up the caviar, aroused him. That, and the very fact of her sullenness, that she was behaving as though having given her body to him she had suddenly seen through his angel looks, that she loathed the very sight of him, that she didn’t want to be near him. That aroused him too. Time enough for her, later.

Inside the satchel was a knife with funny designs on the blade, a couple of books – he tossed them to one side – a fading sepia tint of some old tart, not bad-looking, blow me, a medal, the Military Cross, and a thick buff envelope. Inside, he found a series of smaller, hand-addressed envelopes. He opened one and read the contents.

Began to whistle a cheap tune.

‘What’s that?’ asked Emily.

‘“Lili Marlene”. A song old Jerry likes.’

Taking out one of the tail-gunner’s Lucky Strikes, he offered one to Emily, but she declined with a slight shake of her head. He lit up, breathed in the smoke, and read on by the light of the coming dawn. Inhaling deeply, thinking, thinking hard.

These letters could be worth a bob or two, in the right hands. The British wouldn’t give him much for them, just a pat on the back, if that.

Who’d have thought it, eh? No wonder the Jemadar and his tart the schoolmarm were whispering about it. What a snake in the grass the Jemadar had turned out to be, eh? He dismissed the stuff about him changing his mind and all, the crucifixion of the British officer, handing the satchel over to Grace. That wasn’t going anywhere, that story. Nor was the bloody schoolmarm. She wasn’t going to India, full bloody stop, he’d make damn sure of that.

Stroking the snout of the tommy gun, he considered the angles, this way and that. Did he owe His Majesty’s Government any favours? No. They’d locked him up, thrown away the key, then sent him off to fight a war in a bloody jungle. It was only down to him that he’d survived. True enough, the old Jemadar’s letters would be worth something to the British. But they might be worth much, much more in someone else’s hands, and that was a fact. Once he got to India, he could make copies, stash them in a hotel, then get in touch with some of these posh Indians, suggest that if the right amount of money – nah, diamonds – came his way, then no one would hear any more about it. But if they didn’t hand over the money, then the Old Bill would get to hear about their treachery and he’d have made copies. They swung for treason in India, same as they did in England. It was risky, but then what way of making money fast wasn’t?

Slugging more champagne, he eyed Emily.

‘What’s happening at the camp?’

Reproach, dressed up to try and make him feel sorry for her. He hated it. Why couldn’t the bitch stand up for herself, say something. What had got into her?

‘You heard me. What’s happening back at the camp?’

More silence. He groped towards Emily, and he slapped her twice, hard, on the cheek, and grabbed the worn, dirty fabric of her frock, which tore easily in his hands, revealing her half-naked. Covering her nipples with her hands, she dared not look at him.

‘The Havildar, he…’ Quiet, he could barely hear a word. ‘…he left last night, to try and find the missing elephants.’

‘Who’s in charge?’

He slapped her again, with all his strength, so powerfully that she fell onto her side.

Piteously soft, the name came out.

He hadn’t heard something that funny in years. Alone in charge of a bunch of schoolkids, bloody Grace.

Too bloody funny for words. Grabbing a fistful of Emily’s long dark hair, he pulled her down towards him.

Muscle and mind, boys. Muscle and mind would always win through in the end. Right?

Thunder, the scraping of heaven’s chairs, crackled, heavy and low. You could cut the humidity with a knife. The monsoon would come any day now.

‘Emily? Emily?’ Grace, alone, out beyond the abandoned village, down the slope of the ridge, called for her missing pupil, not too loud, not wanting the whole camp to know the girl had gone missing. She wanted to find Emily herself before sounding the general alarm.

‘Emily? Where are you?’

Holding a tommy gun in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other, Gregory emerged from behind a stand of teak. Hanging from his shoulder was the Jemadar’s satchel. The black snout of the tommy gun motioned to Grace that she should come with him.

There was no point in screaming, she quickly saw. They were too far away from the camp and besides the thickness of the jungle obscured the two of them from the children. With Sam and the Havildar gone, there was little they could do, anyway. But if she went with him now…

Again, he motioned with the gun, for her to follow him.

She stood her ground.

Swigging the champagne – the bubbles left an acrid dryness in his throat, but hell, he hadn’t had a drink in ages – he burped and weighed the satchel in his free hand, taunting her.

‘That does not belong to you.’

His mouth creased into a grim smile. ‘The nigger’s, eh?’

She repeated what she had just said.

‘Cheeky bitch. He was a traitor, your nigger.’

‘There’s no argument about it.’ His left hand scrabbled in the satchel and came out with a fistful of envelopes. ‘Look at these. Carrying them, he was.’ Reading, he listed some of the addressees, ‘All Indians, all traitors. Officers, police chiefs, ooh, look, here’s the Chief Prison Officer in Delhi.’

He opened that one, just for the hell of it. The paper was thick to the touch, creamy, expensive. Smoothing out the page, he took in the swastika at the head of the letter, underneath, in English, was written, Office of the Netaji of a Free All-India.

Gregory read out loud: ‘The Netaji is calling on his trusted supporters, Indians in high positions in the Raj, to overthrow the British on September 3^rd, the anniversary of the start of the war. As Chief Prison Officer, the Netaji instructs you to prepare for a mass prison break-out on the day, and in the chaos, to make sure that a list of twenty high security prisoners, all men who have sworn an oath of loyalty to the Netaji, can escape. The Netaji knows he can trust in the honour, blah blah bloody blah, to free India of its hated British oppressors, blah bloody blah.’

A clap of thunder, softened by distance.

‘Your boyfriend, it turns out, was carrying letters for the leader of the Jiffs, the Netaji. Your boyfriend, bitch, was a traitor.’

‘Do you know where the old Netaji is?’

‘Here’s a clue.’ A few bars of ‘Lili Marlene’, the haunting melody surreal in the baking sun of High Burma. ‘Got it?’

‘Thirty-three Prinz-Albrecht Strasse, Berlin,’ he read. ‘Ber-lin. That proves it. The boyfriend, a traitor, right?’

Above their heads, a gap in the jungle canopy down which sunlight streamed, igniting motes of dust, spiralling diamonds suspended above the earth. Behind him, in the cave created by the darkness of the black-green shade, was… what? Something moving?

‘Know what happens to traitors?’ Gregory swayed slightly, and wetted his lips with the champagne.

Nothing, just a trick of the light, a fern rising and falling, ruffled by the light breeze.

‘They hang.’

No, again, it moved. Something…

‘I shot the traitor, so they’ll give me a medal. They’ll lock you up, for aiding and abetting the King’s enemies.’

‘You are quite wrong about that, Sergeant. The Jemadar was no traitor.’ She needed, desperately, to keep on talking, to keep his attention, to stop him from turning around. ‘He told me to tell the British that the Netaji was in Berlin. What’s more, he told me how he got there in the spring of 1941, escaping from house arrest, through Peshawar and Swat, and on to Afghanistan, to Kabul where the Abwehr disguised him as an Italian count. This was when Russia was still on Hitler’s side, when Stalin was sending millions of tons of wheat and oil to Germany. Stalin, back then, would do anything for Hitler. The Italian count went by limousine to the north of Afghanistan, across the Oxus by ferry, and on to Dushanbe in Soviet Russia. Then by Siberian Express across half of Russia to Moscow, where he was met by the German Ambassador. From Moscow, a Luftwaffe plane flew him directly to Berlin. He was very special, this Italian count. That’s how the Jemadar put it.’

‘Those letters are proof that the Jemadar was no such thing.’

His face darkened. ‘Bitch. You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh yes I have. When the Intelligence people read the letters, they will arrest all the recipients and the Jiff uprising will never happen, thanks to the Jem. But also, now that we know the leader of the Jiffs is in Berlin, we must promise India her independence. He gave those letters to me to give to the British. You stole them. The Jem was no traitor.’

‘You would say that. You were fucking him. Traitor’s bitch, ain’t ya? Little bird told me all about it.’

Not the obscenity, but that he knew the truth of it shocked her, revolted her. That he should know that she had made love with the Jemadar, the most precious memory of her whole life, was to be defiled, utterly, unutterably.

Who had told him? How did he know? Who had betrayed her?

It was he could read her mind.

‘Little, sweet Emily told me all about it. She heard you and him, heard every last word. There’s nothing I don’t know about you and him.’

Life – her life – depended on self-discipline, on keeping her mind level and focused, on keeping him talking for as long as possible. In boasting about Emily’s betrayal of her and the Jemadar, she knew he was playing with her mind, she knew he wanted her to explode at him, and as she did so, she knew that she was falling into the trap with eyes wide open. But she could not bear to hold back, not bear to dissemble with him, for a second longer.

‘You were not there.’ She spat out each syllable, righteous anger in every word. ‘You were not there. How dare you speak ill of the Jemadar? You, sir, are a common thief and a common murderer. You shot him in cold blood. You didn’t know him. He was a better man than you will ever be. No traitor. He wasn’t loyal to nations, to flags. He was loyal to people, loyal to the children, loyal, God help him, to me. He wasn’t a traitor. You are.’

He waved the tommy gun at her.

‘Don’t give me cheek, traitor’s bitch. Dance.’

She did not move.

The champagne bottle fell to the ground with a soft clunk, liquid slopping from its lip. Making a great show of cocking his finger, he placed it on the trigger of the tommy gun and pointed the snout directly at Grace.

She did not move.

‘Dance, bitch, or you’re dead.’

She did not move.

‘I’ll count to three. One.’

She did not move.

She did not move.

In the sky above, circling a vulture.

Exactly as Gregory’s finger locked on to the trigger, the champagne bottle whacked him on the side of his head.

Emily’s throw was weak. She stood in the grass, ten feet from him, half-dead with self-loathing. Groggy, Gregory rubbed his head with his free hand, recovered his balance, and aimed the tommy gun, first at Emily, then at Grace, back to Emily and hovered in between.

‘Dance, bitch, or I’ll kill her.’

‘Miss, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to tell him. I’m so sorry.’

‘Shut it, you tart.’

A simple killer, Grace realised, would have shot them both dead by now but there was something sick about Gregory, the way he found his pleasure in the tension suffered by the dead-to-be. He meant to kill them – of that she had absolutely no doubt – but all in his own time, after his enjoyment.

A slow waltz, the loneliest dance in the whole world, her bedraggled blonde hair, sweaty body and grimy frock, once cream, illuminated in the falling sunbeams. Ten seconds, twenty, an agony of humiliation.

‘Take your clothes off.’

The snout of the gun pointed directly at her; behind his back, coming up the slope…

‘I’ll shoot her.’

‘You like killing, don’t you?’

‘Take your clothes off.’

‘And prove what? That a man with a gun can terrify an unarmed girl?’

A shudder of bass, thunder.

‘Does it excite you, two women at your mercy, helpless? You’re going to kill us, aren’t you? I can dance for you, make love to you, but still, the killing is the real pleasure for you, isn’t it? You’ll kill me, kill her, kill the rest of them, won’t you? Just like you killed him.’

A school of monkeys chattered to one another, heedless.

‘Shut it. Take your clothes off.’

Closing her eyes, Grace waited for the inevitable.

A single shot from the tommy gun, and a ruby petal grew between the eyes of Gregory’s victim. She sank to the ground, stone dead.