"You've got completely the wrong idea. Alright, see, different things happen: a decent person opens it, they die. It might take a long time, because down there they're good at keeping the human body going, sometimes for years. But when you die, you're dead, and you go Home. They can't keep you. That's the Rules. A bad person - Frank's a very good example, thank you - them they can keep. And do. But that isn't how they become. You see, they weren't necessarily bad people, when they were people. If they hadn't opened the box, they probably would have come to us in the end, to comfort. To be one of them, you have to have nothing, but want everything. You have to be so starved of sense and feeling that you begin to love even what they do to you there, purely because you do feel it. Not a wicked person, but a destroyed person - imagine how few those are. Multi sunt vocati, pauci vero electi. Continuing the fine old tradition of quoting scripture for their own ends: 'Indeed many are called, but few are chosen', gouged into an arch of hell-stone where they take them, the chosen, and change them. Make them. They're the most pitiful things that ever there was. Imagine being so broken, so empty, so hungry . . . I know. Believe it of me, I do."
Conversation with The Samaritan, Dart of Michael.Yama-phi army base, Rangoon, Burma, 1927.
The guardsman was not required to be entirely immobile. He cocked his head on one side in curiosity as the taxi pulled up outside the gates he was supposed to be guarding. Not many civilians visited.
And civilians these were. A man of perhaps thirty, blonde hair, light, expensive linen suit, grim expression. He engaged in a brief squabble with the driver over the price of the distance between the railway station and the army camp, extending a hand blindly in the direction of his companion as she climbed out of the rusty cab. She was a girl in her late teens, dark haired and eyed, and watchful. She met the guardsman's gaze almost immediately, returning his gauche, eager grin with a demure half-smile.
The man finished his bickering exchange with an expansive gesture of dismissal that resulted in his spilling more coins than he had intended into the passenger seat. The quarrel started anew. The girl shook her head, and went to the boot of the taxi.
"Oh! Miss, allow me," said the soldier hastily. The hatch required a couple of good hard kicks before it grated open with a noise like the death of an iron foundry.
"Thank you," said the girl, "I hope they're not too heavy?"
The guardsman lifted out the two suitcases. "Nothing like, don't you worry, miss."
"We've come to see Colonel Brown. This is the right place?"
"Of course it's the right place, Milly," the man had curtailed his altercation and stared after the clanking taxi as it juddered off down the road with a look of pure hate. He was irritable and flustered, though he tried to gloss over this as he turned to the soldier. "Good afternoon, corporal. My name is Beckett. Colonel Brown is expecting me."The colonel, as most men of a certain age and station seem to be, was elderly, portly, and moustachioed. It wouldn't have surprised many people if he counted a walrus or other large marine mammal somewhere in his immediate ancestry.
"Ah. Good afternoon indeed, Beckett. Roderick, good fellow that, your . . ?"
"Brother, sir," supplied the blonde man, "I'm Terence. We spoke on the telephone."
"Of course, of course. And . . ?"
"My niece, sir. Millicent Beckett. My brother Roderick's daughter."
"Ah. Lovely, lovely." He extended a hand like a flipper to Milly, most probably smiling under that brush of a moustache. "Do take a seat. I beg your pardon if they're slightly sticky still. I was interviewing Captain Delaney earlier - he's a big man and the weather here is very close. As I'm sure you've noticed."
Milly kept a studiously blank face, and tried to come into contact with as little of the leather armchair as she could.
"Now," continued the colonel, fanning himself briskly with a folded copy of yesterday's Times, "To what do I owe this charming company?"
"Well," Terence Beckett, "I hate to impose at all, colonel - "
"No trouble whatsoever, dear boy." " - we're looking for somebody. A man we knew, some time ago."
"We've been searching for him for more than a year now," chipped in Milly.
"Right," said her young uncle, with the vaguest hint of 'let me handle this,' in his voice. As he spoke, he opened his briefcase and rummaged amongst its papers, "But we last saw him in '22. He got as far as captain in the War, and we know that he re-enlisted the year before last at that rank and was posted here straight away, but we rather lost the scent after that."
He placed a photograph, a group picture that looked like family and friends together, on the desk in front of Brown, tapping to indicate one figure.
"His name was Eliott Spencer."
The colonel picked up the photo and spent perhaps more time than was necessary scrutinising it.
"Yes," he said at length, "Yes, I remember the fellow."
The expression on the round and fuzzy face did not bode well. It more than anything resembled a schoolteacher being reminded of the boy who once bunged him a hornets' nest during rugger practise.
"Is there any possibility of speaking with him?" prompted Terence Beckett.
Colonel Brown's answer, which didn't look to be that promising, was pre-empted however, by a quick knock on his door. "Yes?" he barked.
A young man, a boy really, hardly older to look at than Milly put his head round the door. "Beg pardon, colonel, but Captain Delaney says - "
"Whatever Delaney says . . . er . . ."
"Avaloe, sir."
"Avaloe. Quite. Tell your captain that he should know better than to send me messages when he knows I have guests."
"But sir - "
"That's enough. I'll hear whatever he has to say later on. That will be all."
Chastened, the young lieutenant muttered an apologetic 'Yes sir,' and slunk off.
"I don't know, young men these days . . ." said Brown vaguely, "Now, where were we?"
"Captain Spencer,"
"Spencer, yes."
"May we speak to him?"
"Not a chance," replied the colonel, "Not here any more, you see."
"Not here?" said Milly, looking amazed, "But - "
Her companion touched her shoulder, "Where was he sent to?"
"Wasn't sent anywhere. Wouldn't surprise me if he'd cut and run. Bad egg, that man. Irredeemable. I'd leave him to it if I were you. Not worth the effort."
The girl tried again, "Oh, but - "
"I'm terribly sorry to have to disappoint you. I do hope you'll join me for dinner tonight? It's terribly difficult to get a decent English meal out here, but cook does his best . . ."A few days sojourn at Colonel Brown's residence and they would have no other option than to return, fruitlessly, home. But right now they took the fresh air on his front lawn.
"I didn't like that at all," said Millicent Beckett.
"You're not the only one," replied her uncle, "Something about this stinks to high heaven."
"I say!"
They both paused and turned at the hissing voice, and found nothing to see.
"Over here!"
Terry was the first to spot him. Peering furtively around the corner of one of the wooden slatted buildings was the young man Avaloe. Slightly spooked by the hunted way in which his head was darting from side to side, the other two inched over.
"Quickly, come here," whispered Avaloe, "Otherwise they might see us from the house!"
They nipped round behind the building.
"Look," said Terry, sounding more than a little irritated, "Is there really any need for all this cloak-and-dagger rubbish?"
"I'm sorry," said the lieutenant, "But I'd get into such trouble . . . You were asking about Captain Spencer?"
"Yes, and your colonel told us next to nothing."
"Are you his family?"
"Whose? The colonel's?"
"Spencer's!"
The uncle and his niece shared a significant glance.
"Almost," said Milly "He was going to be married to my aunt."
Avaloe bit his lower lip, still regarding them in a rabbity sort of way.
Terence Beckett sighed, and took the boy by the shoulder, "Look," he said firmly "We're immensely worried about him, and Brown's infernal evasiveness has done very little for our confidence. If you have the least thing to tell us, do."
There was a long pause.
"Alright," said Avaloe, eventually, "My quarters are over there. Ask anybody and they'll tell you where. Come at eleven. Just one of you. Perhaps you, sir? I'm not sure a lady would - "
"I'll be there," said Terry, ignoring the way Milly pursed her lips.
The boy attempted a smile, managing to get as far as abject relief still tinged with hunted fear. "Jolly good, er - "
"Terry Beckett."
"Mr. Beckett, sir. I can't tell you how . . . I mean, umm - Look, when you come, ask an enlisted man the way, hmm? Not the captain or - or - "
"Enlisted man it is."
Lieutenant Avaloe nodded, hesitated with his eyes towards the out-of-sight colonel's residence, then saluted his apparent allies, turned on his heel and marched off as if nothing had passed between them.
The Becketts' meandered back to the lawn.
"That was very peculiar," said Milly softly.
"I noticed, yes."
"I wonder what it is about his brother officers that frightens him so."
Terry glanced sideways at her. "No way to tell at this stage. You'll just have to watch the ones the old walrus invites to dinner very carefully."
"Me?"
"You're that much better at seeing through people than I am."
The letterbox look that had lingered on her face at being excluded from the single lead they had come across so far slipped a bit. "Right-oh. How about if I wait for the fourth or fifth bottle of wine to circulate and then drop a mention of him into the middle of the conversation? Ever so innocently?"
Terry twisted a smile. "You're a little demon, Millicent."The night was rich with crickets. Or possibly cicadas, Terry wasn't altogether up on tropical entomology. The officers' all had private quarters, though this wasn't as good as it sounds on paper. Each one was basically a little hut with an arched corrugated tin roof and a number on the door.
He hardly had time for a single knock before the door whipped open, barely enough to admit a human body.
"Come in, quickly."
"I don't think I can. You're in the way."
A mutter that sounded like it wanted to be a curse when it grew up, and the block of darkness that approximated Avaloe's body shifted to one side. Terry still had to turn sideways to get in. The room was pitch black, and sweltering hot.
"Just a moment," came the boy's whisper. Terry Beckett stood where he was, orphaned in inky black, until a match flared, revealing Avaloe's gangly figure stooped over an old fashioned oil lamp.
"Do take a seat," said the lieutenant as the light stabilised, taming the wild shadows that had careered briefly round the walls. There was only one chair, that at the rickety desk which stood - permanently at the point of falling over, it seemed - in the opposite corner to the bunk. "That doesn't matter," added Avaloe, reading Terry's querying expression, "I'll take the bed."
Terry moved the chair accordingly to the bunkside and sat, loosening his collar. "Whew. It's like a furnace in here."
Avaloe looked apologetic. "I know, but if there's half a chance of anyone hearing us talking about . . .well. Drink?"
He had unearthed a bottle of whiskey from behind some socks on the top shelf of his locker. "We're not really allowed to have them in our quarters, but nobody dares check up on who has because everybody does."
He poured a toothmug full without waiting for Terry's answer and placed himself facing him, tailor fashion on the green and hairy army blankets.
Pause.
"Why is everybody so nervous to talk about Spencer?" asked Terry eventually.
Another pause. The older man could see an answer was working its way towards Avaloe's lips, so he waited with patience.
"Because - " there we go . . . "Because nobody knows quite what happened. It was a bad business, and it - it left everyone shocked and, I suppose, frightened. No one could for the life of them work out what became of him or where he went so - so they stopped talking about him altogether. As far as I can tell, it seemed easier to pretend that nothing odd happened at all than to wonder about what could have been so ghastly . . ." he trailed off for a moment. "But then," he added, a tremendous note of sadness in his voice "It was only Captain Spencer . . ."
Terry frowned. "He wasn't well-liked?"
"The men liked him, at least as far as I can tell. But there wasn't a commissioned man who could bear him."
"He had a Reputation . . ."
For the first time, Avaloe looked up. "How well did you know him?"
"Let's say that I've found out rather more than I perhaps would have liked. Go on, please."
The boy said nothing, regarding Beckett with blossoming suspicion. "I'm not sure - "
Terry felt a sudden rush of alarm. He might just lose this source. "Lieutenant, you must understand, I mean him no harm," As he spoke, he took from his inside pocket a photograph, its surface scored deeply where it had been folded and unfolded, over and over again, and offered it to the younger man. "But it's absolutely imperative that I find him."
Avaloe looked warily at Terry, then took the picture and opened it up. He stared at it for a very long time.
"I never saw him like this," he said eventually, "Smiling . . ."
"Lieutenant Avaloe . . ."
"I don't think he ever disobeyed an order, or made a bosh of anything. There was his private life, of course. They could simply have held him in contempt for all of that, and they did, to some extent, but . . . no. It was just something about him. The impression that - that he didn't gave a damn. That's the only way I can think to describe it. He might as well have drawn his pistol and shot his officer in the face as done as he was told, it wouldn't have made the slightest difference to him. But he chose to obey the order. The senior officers, the colonel and the majors, I think they sensed it, and it made them nervous. And the junior officers were nervous because of the way the others behaved around him. Like - like - "
"Like a wolf amongst the hounds."
"You really did know him, then," he licked his lips. "There's a story about Captain Spencer. They say that shortly after he was posted here, before my time, that a group of officers went into town on leave. They ended up in this really rough drinking hole in the poor quarter, right out of the way of their usual haunts. Legend has it that Spencer suggested it in the first place. But they were playing cards with this native bod and his friends, high stakes, that sort of thing. And all of a sudden, one of these Burmese chappies declares that the Englishmen are cheating. Our boys find themselves surrounded by great big fellows with knives drawn and more money than they have due in exchange for their skins.
The only one who doesn't lose his head is Spencer. He keeps his eyes fixed on the leader of these unsavoury characters, pushes his chair back, and takes out his pistol. A terrible silence falls. And when he's sure that he has everybody's attention, Captain Spencer empties the chamber of the revolver of all but one bullet. Then he spins it and, without a word, puts it to his own temple and pulls the trigger. It clicks, and every man in the room starts to breathe again. Then he offers it to the Burmese. You can imagine how all the fellows there felt - our boys as well as the others. This has to be the test of wills to end them all. The Burmese raises the gun to his head, and all Spencer does is to smile. Just smile, for God's sake! And time draws out long, until the other man's hand starts to shake, and everybody can see that he's lost.
Then, as it was told to me, Spencer looks disappointed. And while everyone else is gaping at him, he takes back his gun, shovels the bullets into his pocket, gets up, picks up one of the girls from beside the bar and goes off with her, just like that."
"Staggering," whispered Terry.
"I know. That more or less sums him up: the most self-destructive man I ever heard of."
"But he was your friend."
Lieutenant Avaloe snorted. "Captain Spencer didn't have friends. He didn't want them. But he wasn't a bad chap, though I don't believe many got the opportunity to see that."
"How did you know him?" asked Terry.
The boy drained off his Scotch. "Another?" Terry shook his head. "Oh. I will. It was last year, you see. I had just been sent here. My first post. I knew that captain in Berkshire never liked me. But, at any rate, my first leave came up, and I went into town with Lieutenant Booth. We went to a bar in a hotel, and after a while he went to the gents and never came back. So, there I was, all on my own in a strange city, miles from camp, with a half-past-ten curfew to meet . . ."* * *The barbed wire rattled, and the lieutenant tried to stifle a squeak of alarm. His fellow lieutenant, Booth - damn him damn him! - had said that there was one spot along the fence where the wire was slightly loose, and where curfew dodgers would traditionally sneak back in. But his gesture in its direction had been very vague and Avaloe was starting to wonder, as a cruel point jagged his trousers dangerously far up his inner thigh, whether he had the right place. Not that he was in much of a position to plumb his memory properly; his entire mind was consumed with terror of what would happen if he was caught. It would go on his record. The men would snigger at him behind his back, and the officers would look at him . . .
Before and below him, something in the undergrowth crackled. He whimpered. It probably wasn't anything, he told himself desperately, Again. He had already nearly had a heart attack over a stray dog, a horrible little urchin girl who had pointed at him and giggled, and a monkey that had tried to steal his cap. His nerves were shot - he was jumping at crickets by the time he got as far as the fence.
"Please don't let it be anybody," he muttered, "Please, please don't let it be anybody. Please - waah!"
The wire mesh that was supporting him had suddenly given way, flipping him inwards. He landed upside down in the bushes, toppled slowly sideways so that he landed painfully on the point of his left hip and ended up slithering with no dignity whatsoever out of the brushwood with his cap jammed over his eyes. This was why he blundered as blindly as he did into that pair of legs.
"I say," said a new voice, "Watch where you're crawling."
Avaloe froze. After a long moment, he unsandwiched the offending headgear and found himself staring at a pair of puttees. It took a few seconds for him to steel himself sufficiently to look up at the man they belonged to.
"In your own time, lieutenant," said Captain Spencer.
Avaloe felt about to burst into tears, though whether of despair or relief was yet to be decided. On the one hand, Spencer was an indeterminate bogeyman figure amongst the younger denizens of the army camp, but on the other he wasn't known to be an especially harsh disciplinarian. Anyway, with the frequency with which he was rumoured to sneak out after hours to go to his activities, he would have to have some nerve to come down on a fellow for missing curfew by a scant hour. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Avaloe was terrified. He practically leapt upright and saluted with such violence that he managed to give himself a dead ear.
"Sorry sir! Beg your pardon! I was just - I mean I was - er - "
"Who's that there?"
Avaloe blanched even whiter, and the sardonically amused expression on Spencer's face was wiped away, replaced with faint annoyance.
"Who's there, I say!"
Captain Delaney hove into view. Delaney tended to hove before most normal people; he was a very large man indeed, built along the same lines as a globe of the world. His moustache made him look as if he was perpetually in the act of eating a small dog. He would almost certainly make colonel before the age of fifty. This made him in more respects than one the polar opposite of the slight, sardonic and dark-haired Captain Spencer. Delaney gave his opposite number as brief a glance as he could manage, deeply relieved to find that there was someone else for his eye to light on. "Is that you, there, Avaloe?"
Another dead ear, just as it was getting better, too. "Yes, sir! I was just - um . . ."
"Yes?" the little eyes narrowed in their sea of gelatinous pink flesh. "Little bit late, isn't it?"
Avaloe swallowed, the sheen of sweat that was as much a part of the uniform in this part of the world as the cap badge turning cold on his face. "Well, sir, I - I was just - "
"The lieutenant was on his way to see me."
Avaloe and Delaney both turned to stare at Spencer, the one with the first unlooked-for inklings of relief in his eyes, and the other with deep, deep mistrust.
"I beg your pardon, Spencer?" said Delaney.
"He mentioned earlier on this week that he had some article of literature or other that he'd like translated from the Sanskrit and I volunteered to do it. I told him he might pick it up from me this evening."
"Yes," said Avaloe hastily, "That's right, I - er - only remembered after I returned from leave. Which I did at ten on the dot. Sir."
Delaney regarded the boy with boundless suspicion, then turned his baleful gaze on Spencer. The other captain smiled sweetly, his whole attitude so relaxed and insouciant that it couldn't be anything other than an insult. "You read Sanskrit, do you, Spencer?"
"I get by. Well, if you would excuse us, Delaney . . ."
"Pardon me, sir," muttered Avaloe as Spencer put one hand on his shoulder to steer him away.
"I'll be speaking to you about this in the morning, lieutenant," said Delaney ominously after them.
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
The captain and the lieutenant walked on in silence. Not a word passed between them, in fact, until they arrived at Spencer's quarters.
As soon as the door was shut, it occurred to Avaloe that he might not have put himself in any better a position: missing curfew would get him a slap on the wrist and a stern mention in his report, but being seen to fraternise with Captain Spencer might irreparably damage a man's standing in the mess hall. With this idea percolating swampily in his mind, he stood right by the door, biting his thumbnail, irresolute as to whether he should run for it or attempt to be polite.
Spencer himself paid the vacillating lieutenant no attention at all, carrying on as if nobody was there. He stripped off his jacket and flung it over the back of the spindly chair that seemed to be keeping the desk upright all by itself; his cap ended up hanging on the corner of the same; he shuffled through a sheaf of papers on afore-mentioned desk and sorted them into two piles; he crossed back to his locker and opened the door with a brisk kick to the bottom left-hand corner.
I should say something, thought Avaloe frantically, I should say thank you, then make my excuses and leave . . .
"I'd offer you a drink," said Spencer, cutting into the boy's silent panic sufficiently unexpectedly to make him yelp, then clap his hand over his mouth in mortification. The captain smirked, not unkindly, at the lieutenant's discomfort and carried on, "But I can see that it's more than your good name's worth to dally here with the likes of me."
This more or less made Avaloe's decision for him. Horrified at his own ingratitude, he back-tracked verbally over the physical impression he had given as fast as he could.
"Oh no, sir, you're - you're very kind. I should like a drink very much. Er . . . but I thought we weren't allowed to have alcohol in our quarters . . ."
Spencer smiled dryly. "We're aren't. But nobody dares check up on who has, because everybody does. You don't imagine that decanter on the colonel's desk is full of water, do you?" he was rummaging at the back of the top shelf of the locker, and came up very shortly with a bottle of Irish whiskey. "Sit down, please. You might want to put your jacket down on the chair first, mind you. It's lethal for splinters." he added, pouring a generous amber shot into an old, cracked toothmug that seemed to be the only vessel he had, keeping the bottle for himself and settling comfortably back on the bed.
A pause of perhaps ten seconds ensued, broken at last when Avaloe took a deep breath and crossed the floor of the quansett like a man striding towards his own court-marshal.
"By the way," said Spencer, once the younger man had planted himself on the chair and taken his first sip of whiskey, "If I were you, I'd avail myself of those papers there at your elbow."
"Sorry, sir?" frowning, Avaloe swivelled in his seat and found the papers in question.
"Nothing particularly profound, but it's not in the least pornographic and it's in my handwriting. The original - there, at the bottom of the pile, you see? - is vernacular Burmese rather than Sanskrit, but it's not as if Delaney's going to know the difference, is it? You can show it to him when he badgers you for evidence."
Avaloe blinked. This wasn't the sort of thing he'd been led to expect from the infamous Captain Spencer at all.
"Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Do you really read Burmese, sir?"
"Not as well as I'd like."
"And Sanskrit?"
"Amongst other things. So, Mr. Avaloe, what exactly was it that led to your bucking curfew this evening? You were far too white and terrified to have been out enjoying yourself." He took a breathtakingly long draft of liquor as though it was water and carried on speaking without a hint of discomfort. "In fact, didn't I see you leaving the premises with the fleshly Booth earlier on?"
"Yes, and the rotter marooned me in the middle of Rangoon," growled the boy, without stopping to think what he was saying. Of course, once he had said it, he went a bit green. "Oh, sir, I didn't really mean that - "
"I don't particularly care if you did. Bad show on Booth's part, is all I can say. Then again, you did have the misfortune to pick a Friday to go into town with him."
"How do you mean, sir?"
"Well, Booth's spent the last year conducting a passionate affair with a respectable gentleman who lives on the far side of the city. Friday's their assignation day, you see, so no wonder he crept off and left you."
Avaloe's eyes bulged. "You can't be serious! Er - sir."
"I'm entirely serious. But, look, don't go spreading that about. I'm keeping it in reserve for a special occasion."
"If you don't mind my asking, sir, how do you know about that?"
One glittering blue eye, wreathed in fluid shadows, fixed on the lieutenant. "Same way as I know that Captain Delaney couldn't pick a clean girl to save his life, or that Major Soame's been servicing the colonel's wife for longer than I've been here. I watch, I listen, and they all seem under the impression that I wouldn't dare spill their beans for fear of them taking me up on the things I get up to in my spare time. Though, funnily enough, none of them seem quite clear on what those things actually are," the captain laughed mirthlessly and knocked back another mighty gulp of whiskey.
It struck lieutenant Avaloe that this was indeed the case. He had heard from multitudinous sources that Captain Spencer was a debauched and degenerate person, but couldn't think of more than one or two specific examples of debauchery or degeneracy that went with the rumours.
"Hmm," went Spencer, regarding the bottle, fully one third of which had gone the way of all flesh since he began speaking, "You must need a top-up."
"Umm, well - " too late. The cracked toothmug was filled to the brim, while the captain took another long slug.
"Then again, we all have skeletons in our closets, don't we. Except, I should think, for you - you've only been here a month, and you're not old enough to have accumulated any in England, eh?" That humourless chuckle again.
Avaloe sipped his drink, deciding that he was never going to catch up with his superior officer in that respect. Strangely, though, he found himself starting to like the captain. He was an odd soul, but not the demonised sinner he had been told all about. He was starting to see something terribly sad about him.
"What are you doing here, boy?" said Spencer after a while. "Where did it all go wrong?"
"Oh, I'm not sure that it's gone wrong, exactly, sir. It's only my first post, after all . . ."
Time dripped on, and it felt like an age later that Avaloe realised that he had been the only one really participating in the conversation. "Sir? Sir?" he ventured.
"I'm listening," replied Spencer. As if to prove he was still with the land of the living, he swigged back another unhealthily large dose of whiskey.
"Um, sir, forgive me for saying so, but doesn't that at least make you feel a bit dizzy?"
"Not at all," and, yes, his voice was as strong and clear as it had been before consumption of a pint and an eighth of 40% by vol. malt liquor. "Actually, I find this faintly worrying. Open that drawer, would you, lieutenant? Bottom right-hand."
Avaloe did as he was asked, and immediately came across a globular green glass bottle that was roughly stoppered with a piece of wood.
"That's the one," said Spencer, "Help yourself and then chuck it over here."
Avaloe uncorked it, and recoiled with a terrible grimace. "Good grief! What is it?"
"Largely rice, I believe. Possibly cobra venom as well. Have you finished with it?"
The lieutenant handed it over without a word, pulling a face.
"Thank you." Spencer took it and necked it just as before, except that this time he gave an animal growl as he lowered it from his lips. "That's better."
"Can't be good for your health, sir . . ."
"Possibly fatal?" said the captain, in a peculiarly strained tone of voice.
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Forget it." Spencer stretched voluptuously and settled back, the bottle nestled in the crook of his arm.
"What about you, captain?" asked Avaloe, the drawing-out of the silence starting to make him uncomfortable, "Why are you here?"
"I've got nothing better to do," answered Spencer, slugging again from the poisonous stuff. The fumes were making the younger man's eyes water from five feet away. "Talk to me more, my dear chap. I don't often have company. Sometimes I miss it. Carry on."
"What should I talk to you about, sir?"
"Anything - your family, that's a possibility. Were they happy for you to join the forces? Was your father a soldier? Is there a girl somewhere?"
Avaloe coughed and blushed. "Well, captain, my old father used to be a bombardier, and . . ."
He rattled on as best he could, while Spencer proceeded to consume a good half of the revolting stuff in the crude bottle. He was very quiet the whole time. After a short time Avaloe thought he must have fallen asleep, which was a bit of a relief, since he had somehow - in spite of his personal determination to avoid it at all costs - got onto the topic of this girl who had jilted him, back home in Surrey. Gratefully, he stopped mid-flow.
I suppose I had better leave, he thought once he had made sure that Spencer was still breathing, Seems a shame. But I had better finish this first.
He took a sip from the toothmug, which was still nearly half full, looked at the mostly-empty whiskey bottle and thought about the ease with which the captain had polished it off.
No, It can't possibly be as strong as all that. He gazed speculatively into the golden depths of his own drink, shrugged, and swigged it. After that, he nearly choked up a week's worth of meals. Bloody hell . . .
Being a conscientious soul, he made sure that he put the whiskey and, having carefully extricated it from Spencer's grasp, green glass bottles away in the drawer. Then, with the papers under his arm, he crept to the door.
"Goodnight, sir," he whispered, one hand on the latch.
"And somehow . . ."
Avaloe stopped where he was, looking over his shoulder.
"Somehow, all the brightness leached from life with the dimming of her eyes, and my heart can't keep time anymore without the other beat."
"Captain Spencer?"
"And any hope that I might have been a good man, starved to death in absence of her faith in me . . ."* * *"It sounded like he was quoting a poem," said the lieutenant, shaking his head, "But I was never able to find it afterwards. I had this awful feeling of a tragedy playing out right in front of me, but I couldn't grasp it properly."
"What happened next?" asked Terry. His head was resting in one hand, that elbow propped on his knee.
"I beg your pardon," said Avaloe quickly, "I've bored you - "
"No. Tell me what happened next."
The younger man was a little taken aback at his companion's curtness. "Well, er, I asked him if he was quite alright, but all he answered was "Where did you leave the green bottle?" "In the drawer where I found it," I replied. Then he said, "Just as long as I know it's there," and that's all. Either he went back to sleep, or he didn't want to speak any more, so I left him. Whenever I saw him afterwards, he was just the same as always - withdrawn, quiet. I wondered, though - "
Terry Beckett suddenly stood up, drawing a long, loud breath through his nostrils at the same time. "Lieutenant, I'm very sorry, but I think we should continue this discussion tomorrow. I suddenly have a fearful headache, and besides, I think that my niece ought to be privy to the rest of the story as well."
"I'm not sure, Mr. Beckett . . ."
"I'm certain. Please forgive me - "
"One moment, Mr. Beckett."
Terry stopped at the door.
"You forgot your photograph," said Avaloe, standing and proffering it.
The other man blinked a couple of times, then returned to the other end of the hut. "Thank you, Lieutenant Avaloe. I am sorry, don't know what's come over me . . ."
"Perfectly alright. One thing, though - her?"
He met Terry's slightly reddened eyes. There was a Moment.
"My sister," said Terence Beckett shortly. "Lieutenant, we will see you tomorrow night."
"Indeed. Goodnight."Milly was already sitting up in bed when the door opened a crack.
"I'm awake," she said softly.
The sliver of deep blue from the unlit landing expanded briefly and was split into facets of blue and black as Terry slipped in.
"Sorry to be so long," he whispered, crossing the room in a careful, shuffling gait to guard against cracking his shins on anything.
"I should think so - I had to make all sorts of excuses for you. Come in under the netting, but take care. There's been an absolute brute of a mosquito the size of an albatross humming about all night."
Her uncle made himself comfortable on the end of the bed. "Sorry. But you do make such a good excuse, just like your mother."
She regarded his desperately poor attempt at good cheer with concern. "Uncle T?"
Terry's mock animation was fragile enough for this little enquiry to buckle it. He gave up, shoulders slumping.
"Very sad, Milly, very sad."
"So that boy did know Mr. Spencer?" she asked, with that odd trick of perspective that enables young females to happily refer to members of the opposite sex some years their senior as 'boys'.
Terry nodded. "But by cripes, Milly, the man he knew was a wreck. Worse even than we heard."
"Gosh. And where did he go?"
"Haven't the foggiest yet. I couldn't listen any more. It's not easy hearing the story of a fellow's spirit breaking."
"No, of course not."
"And he still loved her, that's the worst bit of all."Lieutenant Avaloe's paranoia ensured that it was the small hours of the morning before the Becketts stole to his quansett and were almost bundled in.
"Good evening, sir. Good evening, miss Beckett. Nobody saw you on your way here?"
"Not that we noticed," reported Terry.
"Good-oh. I can't imagine that you wouldn't if they were there."
"Heavens, yes," said Milly, "Imagine that Captain Delaney trying to sneak anywhere . . ."
The young man seemed to find this a pleasing thought. But the smile only lasted a second. "I apologise for the sub rosa activity, but the colonel had a personal word with some of us this very day and said we were to keep stum. He's nervous anybody might find out he runs the sort of place where officers can just disappear into thin air. If he found all my notes and things - "
He didn't actually make a throat-cutting gesture, but the tone of his voice was suggestive enough of one.
"Disappear into thin air?" said Milly, her brow creasing.
Avaloe bit his lip and looked to one side, not avoiding their eyes exactly, but almost as if he was watching for something. "Well, not quite into thin air, not without leaving a mark, at any rate. Sit down. I'll tell you all about it," he hesitated, "Though I don't like to think of upsetting a lady."
"Believe you me, she's as tough as old boots," Terry assured him.
A pause, then,
"If you say so," he licked his lips, composed himself. "Fourteen months ago, that was it. Dry season, terrible heat. It had gone on for much longer than it should have done. Spencer had become more distant and vague than ever before," he paused, "But then, perhaps he really hadn't. Maybe the fact was that I took notice of him these days. I thought perhaps I ought to try speaking to him. But, luck being what it is, I couldn't ever seem to find him."
Whilst speaking, he had gone down on his knees, reached under his bunk and dragged forth an unbattered trunk with J.W. AVALOE on the lid in white paint.
"You see, by his own regular routine he was either out in town, and combing the rough areas of Rangoon on your own is a very silly thing to do indeed, or barricaded in his quarters. He wouldn't let anybody in. Wouldn't let me in, rather, since I was the only one who tried."
The trunk was shortly followed by a blocky oilcloth-wrapped package that turned out to be a radio. The glass that covered the dial was cracked right across, and the walnut casing was stained dark.
"I almost gave up on him. Him and his infernal, frustrating solitude. Then, one day, the weather suddenly broke, and I was hurrying from the parade ground getting absolutely saturated when, purely by chance, I spotted him arriving at the gates. He must have been out all night. He paid no attention to the lieutenant on duty, who I think must have bleated something at him, and went straight for his own hut. He was carrying something, as well. Something small, and he had it shielded by his hand, like that - " the lieutenant hooded his own hand around nothing as a demonstration, "I can't think why I recall that, but there you are. That was the last time I ever saw him."
A short silence, Avaloe appearing to be marshalling his thoughts, then,
"I couldn't get Spencer out of my head that day, for some reason. His whole attitude bothered me, it wasn't quite right. He was a bit too eager. I got the vague impression that he was dead-set on something, very keen. It was wildly out of character.
It got to the mid-day hours, where work has to stop because it's simply too hot to bear. The rain only made it worse - you could have cut the atmosphere with a shovel. It was a Sunday, as well, so the place was dreadfully still and oppressed. But I couldn't settle my mind enough to rest, so I had a go at writing my letters. Found I couldn't concentrate on those, either. I remember that siesta or whatever they call it in this beastly country was nearly over with, and that this fact rather relieved me. My own company was driving me mad by this stage. - "
He said no more for quite some time. The last sentence had had an oddly truncated feel to it.
"Lieutenant Avaloe," began Milly, but her uncle motioned her firmly into silence. He said nothing himself, but there was a gimlet quality in the enquiring stare he directed at Avaloe.
The boy swallowed nervously, trying to appear defiant and only really achieving a look rather like a puppy-dog that won't let go of the stick. He cleared his throat. "Er, this was a mistake, I think . . ."
"What on earth do you mean by that?" demanded Terry.
"I - this story can't be of any use to you, I - "
"Dash it all, man! You can't leave it there, not when you've started telling us - "
"It's not as simple as that!" exploded Avaloe, paling. "None of this was normal! If I tell you everything I think - damn it! - everything I know took place, you'll think I'm insane! You have no idea - "
"How dare you! My poor sister's immortal soul may be in danger!"
For a moment, Terry Beckett positively shook with fury. Then he seemed to sag, sighed and ran his hand through his yellow hair. Yellow, going white here and there around the parting.
"Not to mention Eliott's," he said, in weary tones, "He was hers, you see, and she died. And he vanished. Three years. And yet sometimes we sensed her, the children, and their dreams and - and then little more than a year ago, in one horrible, horrible moment, it was all taken away. Or went, I'm not sure."
"Taken," whispered Milly.
"If you say so," Terry found Avaloe's fascinated eyes and held their gaze steadily, "Now who's to call whom insane?"
"One horrible moment," said Avaloe after a bit, "Yes. A sense of the most chill, unspeakable terror descended on me. The sound of the rain was distorted until it might have been marching feet or a deep, fast church bell. Sound of my own blood in my ears. I felt like a little boy again. I was convinced I was having some sort of attack. And I swear, I swear before God, that it was only after that the screaming started."
"Screaming?"
"A frightful, heartwrenching noise. It was nearly as dreadful as the feeling that came before it. I heard, afterwards, that several of the other chaps who heard it, mostly fellows who'd been in the War, and had a bad time, became ill with hearing it. I know for certain that Sergeant-Major Fellowes actually passed out. I bolted from my desk, knowing by instinct that it was coming from Spencer.
There was a veritable pack of men around his quansett when I got there. Major Soames was beating on the door and shouting out. I shoved my way through the crowd yelling to batter down the door. By the time I got there, Soames already had. But when we got in - "
"No Spencer?"
"Knocked it on the head. But look at these," he had opened the trunk, and handed Terry a swatch of photographs. "I took them all myself. I used to snap an awful lot when I was still in England, and I still have the camera."
Milly leaned in while Terry scrutinised them. "My word," she said.
"I was going to go for 'ye gods' myself," said Terry, confession apparently having steered him towards his natural equilibrium, "But the sympathy is about the same."
"It's like an abattoir," said Milly, with some slight morbid fascination, "When a pig or something has it's throat slit. You know . . . spray. But more . . ."
"What in the name of God . . ?" Terry asked.
"I couldn't tell you," said Avaloe, "But there's more," he booted the stained radio, "I salvaged this thing, but it never worked again, no matter what was done with it. Just crackled and squealed fit to wake the dead. And there was this." More photos came Terry's way.
"What is it?"
"You've got me again. But it was the only thing in the room not covered in blood, bar one, and I have a feeling, from the size it was - I apologise that you can't define it on the pictures - that it was the thing that Spencer was trying to hide in the morning. It was a peculiar thing, like a puzzle box. At first, I was intrigued with it."
"At first?"
"Well. I snaffled it off the floor without thinking just why before anybody spotted it. It sat in my office in the main building until Captain Spencer's quarters had been cleaned up and I'd gathered everything I could from them, and then I started to pay it attention. You couldn't understand what I mean, no matter how hard you tried. For no good reason, it was an infernal temptation. I put it in my desk drawer and tried to ignore it, but I simply couldn't. It as good as compelled you to hold it. I did. It was the most utterly absorbing thing I had ever come across, intricate to the tenth power, but once I had started . . . after a while, it seemed almost to guide me to its solution. I forgot all the rest of the world was there. If I tried to leave it, and I tell you I did, I felt incredibly claustrophobic. So I returned to it. I mean to say, it was only a puzzle box! And the next thing I knew, the wretched thing was batted right out of my hand. I felt almost as if I had been struck myself. The horrible box bounced across the floor of my office and just sat there. I swear, it seemed for a moment like it was actually watching me, like a nasty little thwarted animal."
"Who rescued you?" asked Milly.
Odd, that, thought Terry, Use of the word 'rescue'. And wasn't I just thinking the same thing myself.
"Corporal Pandy," said Avaloe. "Thoroughly good man. He caught yellow fever shortly afterwards and they sent him home to Blighty, lucky chap. I regret that, I really do."
"Wasn't that something along the lines of striking a superior?" asked Terry.
"Never," said the lieutenant firmly, "He saw the thing for what it was," he took a deep breath, "In fact, I think he saved my life."
"How so?"
"Well, once it was out of my hands, something was in some way derailed. I still desperately wanted to pick it up and carry on with it, solve it at all costs. But at the same time, I could as good as taste the malevolence of it. I know it sounds a bit fatuous, the idea that a thing like that, a toy really, could give out an evil vibration but I promise you that was what intuition told me. And Pandy sensed it from the corridor outside. He told me later on that when he saw me bent over it, he suddenly had the impression he might have had seeing a child playing with loaded gun. I'm not sure I appreciated the comparison, but still. He hated it from the moment he laid eyes on it. We sat down to talk about the thing and the very first words that passed his lips were 'we should kill it'."
"Kill it?"
"He never spoke of it as if it were anything other than a living thing. I got to think of it in that sense as well. Surprisingly easily. Spent the best part of a week trying to work out what in the name of heaven it was."
"It wasn't a puzzle box?"
"No, it was. But it was something else as well. Other. And it was the last thing that Captain Spencer ever held. If I could have tinkered physically with it . . ." he sighed, "Pandy simply wouldn't let me, though. I could see his point. I'm not sure what he prevented when he knocked it out of my hands, but I knew I couldn't afford to find out, never mind how much I itched to. The more I longed to delve into its secrets, the more flesh-crawling and, I suppose, attentive it seemed. In the end, Pandy came to me and positively begged me to get rid of it, for the sake of my own safety. Destroy it, he said, there was a bonfire outside right now.
I stared at it. I had almost forgotten, you know, about Spencer. The box and the box alone filled my mind. This dawned on me, and so I agreed with him. We took the box to the fire. There had been some sort of disease among the stray dogs and cats that haunt the camp, you see, and the bonfire was the best way to dispose of the carcasses. It was outside the periphery of the fence so the smell didn't bother us too much. Roper and Simms - er - Privates Roper and Simms - were in charge of it. They always seem to be doing some ghastly job, the pair of them - which was a jolly good thing in most respects, because they never ask awkward questions. Pandy jammed the box into the red heart of the fire, and pushed it further in with a stick.
We stood watching for hours, literally hours. Both of us wanted to be completely certain that the foul article was ashes. There was no way that it couldn't be, of course. Not in a blazing conflag like that. That was why our jaws practically hit the floor when it burned down enough for us to see that it was still there, as good as untouched. Unbelievable. And that's not the worst of it. There was a small collection of native children clustering round the fire for warmth - poor little emaciated things in rags. And there was one, I think a girl but it tends to be hard to tell, who seemed to creep from the darkness in amongst them, trying to be the closest of all. None of us paid her the least bit of attention until she reached into the flames, grabbed the thing and pulled it out."
Terry gasped, in spite of himself. "You have to be joking!"
"I wish I was. She hugged it to her chest and laughed - laughed! Like she was playing a game! And then she was off with it," he sighed hugely, "We lost her somewhere in the backstreets. And that's that. Nothing about the box, nothing about Spencer. Nothing worth a fig. I'm afraid all this time I've spent talking to you has been nothing more than a personal exorcism. Forgive me."
"Don't talk trash, old chap," replied Terry Beckett. "True, we still don't know where our Eliott Q. has been spirited away to, but we found out rather more about what we don't know. We owe you thanks."
"You're leaving tomorrow?" the boy seemed crestfallen.
"I'm afraid so."
"And you'll keep looking?"
"Certainly we will."
"Well . . ." he teetered on the edge of the sentence, then let fall, "I don't imagine that we might correspond? I could tell you where to find Corporal Pandy - he might have some other insight. And you could tell me how he is, and what - what you find out."
Terry raised an eyebrow.
"I think it's a terrific idea," cut in Milly quickly, "The more of us that search, the more we'll find. Don't you think, Terry?"Lieutenant Avaloe was present, though not to the fore, when the rattle-bang taxi left the camp the following morning, washed in sun.
"We'll never find him, shall we?" said Milly at length.
"Never say never," replied her uncle firmly.