Glorious Boy, page 27
Behind a camouflage screen on a bluff overlooking Constance Bay, Claire points her antenna due west. Ward and Luke have completed their first trip to the postal drop.
Okojumu, she signals. Medicine man means they’re in business.
And the test now is real. The glossary she spent five years compiling sits for reference in front of Culman in Barrackpore—and simmers in her head. No written keys in the field. Dangerous enough to have it recorded to memory. More dangerous now if memory fails. Birds for guns. Fish for boats. Footed things for land vehicles. Translations upon translations.
For herself she creates a tablet of sandy loam in which she can draw her backward rebus puzzles, from intelligence to transmissible code.
Destroyer anchored off western coast of Bluff Island: shark + Bluff Island + oceanside = LAYE LURUA OTLE
Three major artillery installations on summit above Mayabunder Bay: three + big + hawks + summit + bamboo bay = ONDAFOL ELEOFO CETEL MUKHU RETFER
Japanese troops swim each morning at Rangachang Beach: little cockroaches + swim + morning + long sandy beach + Port Blair = TAAHU LILE AMBIKHIR TOREBURONO DIUTEMEC
After each transmission, Claire erases the sand slate, picturing the words as carrier pigeons and willing their safe passage to Culman. She saves the most important news for last, once she’s gained confidence. According to their informant, the Emperor’s Third Destroyer Squadron is due to arrive in Port Blair in a week.
She taps out ITARAIN JERO DULOTHIRE: third dugong comes next quarter moon.
Every now and then a grumble sounds high above their ceiling of leaves, or a flash of silver crosses overhead. On overcast days it’s impossible to tell if the aircraft are Allied or Japanese, whether they’ll be chased down island by anti-aircraft fire or welcomed on the landing strip that was first bombed when Shep and Claire were still fool enough to believe what they were told.
She pictures her husband, down on one knee beside the unscathed tarmac, cradling a wounded sapling. What did this little fellow ever do to Tojo? Shep’s notion of a joke, though also serious. At times she thought he loved his plants more than he loved her and Ty.
But when the skies are clear they can spot the red, white, and blue bullseyes of the RAF. Ward claims the Headquarters pilots are “keeping the Nips on their toes, monitoring their behavior.”
They’re also providing Balderdash cover. If and when Bolger I’s intelligence translates into action, the history of flyovers could lead the Japanese in Port Blair to think the spies are in the sky.
One morning Hari clutches Claire’s arm and points through the camouflage net at three Flying Fortresses soaring eastward above the ocean. The enormous planes pass over them to the south. A few minutes later, as Claire holds her breath, she can just barely detect a rhythmic concussion, like the dropping of distant coconuts.
Within the hour the same three Fortresses fly back unmolested toward Ceylon. She and Hari hug each other like children, gazing in wonder at those gleaming avenues of cloud.
The next day they spot their first Japanese patrol boat circling the bay. It speeds past their bluff and does not circle back, but it puts them on notice. They’ll need to move the wireless to avoid signal detection.
Claire wants to help Luke scout alternative positions, but Ward preempts her. Their respective roles have solidified. She’s the wireless operator and cryptographer, Hari the cook, generator, and camp guard.
“We play to our strengths,” Ward says. Which makes him and Luke the hunting and reconnaissance team. Period.
She tries appealing to Ward’s ego, asking him to show her on the map where exactly they’ve found evidence of new roads, bunkers, working plantations, and building. She does need to encode this information for transmission, but in the process, she also means to pinpoint any and all barriers between her current location and Behalla.
It would be easier getting these details out of Luke, but Ward sees to it that she never has solo access to his recce partner. So, she hedges her questions. How extensive is the Japanese presence around the settlements? Any sign of refugees fleeing Port Blair? Any more close encounters with the natives?
Pretending to keep it light, she makes Luke promise not to let Ward shoot anyone who’s not Japanese.
The exceptions, the tracker apologizes, must be Ward and himself, since they’ve made a pact to kill each other rather than be taken prisoner.
She confronts Ward that night.
“I had a close call,” he admits.
“When?”
“That first night with Pandu. Before I got out, a squad of Nips came into the village.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Figured it was too early in the operation to spook you.” And, he might have said, would you even have heard me after I told you about Shep?
“What happened?”
“They were drunk and horny as toads. Pandu hid me in a silo of rice and covered the thing with gunny sacks. He’d gotten his wife and daughter out to hide in the forest, but the Japs had heard his wife was Burmese—hot stuff—and they went on a rampage searching for her. I could hear them smashing the place up, figured I was done for if they tipped the silo. Instead they stuck it with bayonets.” He rolls up his left sleeve to reveal a smooth patch of skin near the wrist. “Shaved me like a razor. If they’d drawn blood, I’d be dead. But not necessarily right away. After that I made Luke promise to kill me and said I’d do the same for him.”
“You must have ice water in your veins.”
He smiles. “If only it were Dewars.”
“There must be something you care about, Denis.”
“Oh, there is. Right now, I care very much about getting us out of here alive. But we have one more month to take down as many Japs as possible before we go. And I care about that, too.”
When Ward and Luke go out, they keep mobile communication to a minimum, but any failure to contact Claire at the appointed hour is to be construed as a signal to abort the entire operation: she and Hari, theoretically, will retrace their route to the hidden folboats, return to the original landing zone and call for extraction. In actuality, her emergency plan, should Ward vanish, is to head straight for Shep and Ty.
But Denis Ward is never late. And one week after their Flying Fortress sighting, he and Luke return a full hour early with a lengthy note from the safe drop.
“They’ve been rounding up suspected spies.” Ward’s voice breaks. “They’ve reopened the Cellular Jail.”
For once, Luke has to tell what needs telling. Ward’s former deputy, Narayan Rao, has been the nominal superintendent of police in Port Blair since the invasion, but after a whole squadron of destroyers was sunk without warning, Colonel Buco became convinced that there was a mole in the police department. The Japanese have been picking up Bolger I’s wireless transmissions, but they can’t decode them or locate the source. In retaliation, Rao and his associates—all the men who worked most closely with Ward—were accused and tortured, then executed.
Ward weeps as if his own children numbered among the dead.
Allied planes also have bombed several villages where Japanese troops are billeted to the south of Port Blair, and one bright morning, according to Pandu’s report, a submarine surfaced off Rangachang Beach, mowing down several hundred soldiers as they bathed there.
Ward now worries that their informants might be compromised, especially since the Japanese have placed a former convict named Dipak Patel—a notorious liar and schemer—in charge of the roundups. Naila’s former teacher, Sen, is among those reportedly arrested, his accusers some young thugs he expelled from his class who now “serve” as police informants. They’ve also locked up the schools superintendent Dr. Diwan Singh, a Punjabi poet who was held in high esteem by locals and Europeans alike.
Then they learn that Luke’s brother-in-law, a forest officer named Prasad, has also been detained. He is not an informant, could have no idea that Luke has returned to the island. But this is no consolation to Luke. “What difference, whether we pull the trigger ourselves, or signal for the relay to begin?”
Hari ventures that Pandu has too much to lose and nothing to gain by confessing. Hari the company optimist.
“Who says he has to confess?” Ward replies.
Through the tops of the trees, wind drums at the darkness.
Claire says, “We need sources that no one will even notice, much less suspect.”
For once, Ward listens.
New roads being built to the north of Mount Harriet force them to take a circuitous inland route that adds two days to the march. Luke, having calculated Behalla’s location from Claire’s description of the trail she used to take, assumes the lead, but she follows so closely, craning over his shoulder for signs of patrols or the telltale column of smoke, that by the third day her neck has seized into a permanent cramp.
Then, around the sixth noon out, she smells it. The Biya call it the firewood tree, a type of padauk that produces a sweetish smoke, which she’s only ever smelled in Behalla.
An hour on, and they’re there.
The huts have been thatched recently, and Claire can see sleeping mats and cooking utensils, but only Kuli comes forward. He looks unchanged, though he seems to be here all alone.
“Maia,” she says, barely breathing as she weeps and embraces herself in greeting.
Despite everything, Kuli is smiling, upright, strong and steady. Smiling. He hardly even seems surprised as, nodding, he takes her in.
She scans the empty camp again. And then she realizes. Friend in the forest. Of course, he’s not surprised. Smiling. He’s smiling.
But where are they?
Kuli pats his heart. Wherever they are, they’re safe.
She reins herself in and reaches into her rucksack, walking herself through the rules. The first thing the Biya do when greeting an old friend is to exchange gifts. She’s planned for this and brings out a Punjabstick jackknife that’s served her well.
As the men of Bolger I look on, the Biya chief holds the knife to his nose as if it were a fine cigar. Then he glances to his left.
A small shape detaches from the main hut, and Claire lurches. She sobs as she opens her arms, but after a split second of suspension, she catches herself.
The approaching figure is not Shep or Ty, but a rail-thin figure with bloodshot eyes—the port vagrant Porubi.
Kuli trades the jackknife for an object cupped in Porubi’s palms. Then he presses this gift on Claire: Naila’s gold chain with the moonstone globe.
She stares in confusion. The clasp is broken. Another charm has been added, a star so dirty that she can’t see what’s embossed in the metal.
Kuli nods for her to look closer, so she rubs it on her pants until the surface comes up. A ring in the circle is inscribed, Shanghai Volunteer Corps.
She searches Kuli’s face until he reaches up and lays his hands on her shoulders. “Ty Babu,” he says, and grins with unmistakable reassurance. “Naila.”
Alive, his grin insists. Ty and Naila. Alive.
Overwhelmed by gratitude and dread, she touches the star and braces herself. She must speak the words. She must ask. “Bo eboe tiko?” And my husband?
The old man looks away to Porubi. Both of them lower their gaze.
Over the next hour, conferring separately and together, Kuli and Porubi rejuvenate Operation Balderdash and force Claire to shutter half her heart so she can go on. The camp where Naila, Leyo, and Ty are hiding—she assumes for safety—is due north. Kuli gives them precise directions, and Luke pinpoints the spot on his geologic map. Perhaps a week’s trek.
Take the children across the water. This is Kuli’s instruction, as if they were gods with the power to come and go as they pleased. No questions asked. No doubt.
Claire wants to throw herself at his feet like a supplicant. Instead, she clasps his weathered hands and bows her head.
Porubi, meanwhile, delivers to Ward and Hari a trove of new information—delivered in near perfect English—about Japanese naval stations, barracks, gun emplacements, and weapons caches around the south islands.
At one point, Ward looks up at Claire with an expression that Shep most definitely would describe as gobsmacked.
Shep—
She clutches the stone and the star to stop herself. Grief is a luxury she cannot afford.
Ty is alive. She has to go on.
Ward’s saying, “You’re the perfect spy.” Porubi bulges his eyes and slobbers his tongue in agreement. And laughs.
The world, Claire thinks with desperate hope, has turned inside out. In twelve days, the O-24 is scheduled to retrieve them on the far side of Constance Bay, and they will meet it with treasure.
IX
March 1943
Dawn is flickering behind a wall of dark purple clouds. Naila yawns and rolls over, reluctant to leave the cool openness of the ledge, but she can feel the threat of rain. She opens her eyes. Leyo has risen already.
“Yulu!” He beckons from the front of the round house. “Ty Babu,” he says.
Only then does she hear the moaning.
Leyo tells her he was mopping the sweat from Ty’s face when the child vomited. Naila kneels beside the boy, touches his chest. Ty’s eyes open, but they are empty. His skin is hot and wet, his breathing shallow. She covers him with her sarong, bunches her blouse into a pillow for his head. When Leyo brings her the medicine bag, she locates the serum Doctor saab instructed them to use for fever.
Ty doesn’t react as she measures the dose onto his tongue and drips water into his mouth, but a minute later he gasps. His body goes rigid. Then he begins to shake.
Leyo holds the boy’s head and instructs her to add a drop of the amber oil that stops convulsions.
Instead of daylight, lightning cracks over the forest. Thunder heaves in waves. The child’s eyes roll back in his head, his arms and legs go limp. Naila’s clothes swim around him, and his sleeping mat soon is soaked through.
“The fever will break,” Leyo says, and their vigil begins.
Through the next days and nights, they take turns, one bathing Ty’s head and body while the other rests and eats from their dwindling food supplies. The skies clear, but Naila and Leyo do not leave to hunt or forage. They do not touch one another.
On the third morning Leyo shakes Naila awake. A crusty rash, like a red sea dotted with white islands, covers Ty’s upper body. He’s begun to bleed from the nose and mouth and is uttering sounds that seem eerily coherent—not quite words, but as if some spirit were trying to speak through him.
This near speech frightens Naila even more than the sickness. Doctor Shep gave her no warning of such symptoms, and she is afraid to experiment with the few remaining remedies in his case.
Leyo says, “Hurry and get him ready. Kuli will know what to do.”
Half the sky is still blue-black. He’s filling her gathering basket with their tools and the last of their food.
“But what about the Japanese? Behalla will be too dangerous for Ty.”
“Then we go somewhere else.” He points out past the ledge to the west. A tendril of white smoke rises from the forest less than a mile away. “Maybe it is Jarawa. Maybe Japanese. But we cannot stay here.”
As Bolger I plunges toward the island’s center, Claire focuses on the top of Luke’s pack, bobbing like a cork in front of her. Make the best, Shep counsels her. A bad situation, yes, but—
His voice rises in bursts, filling her throat. Is gumption your strong suit?
It wraps like a hand around her heart. Steady, old girl. A boy needs his mum.
You’re right, she thinks. All we have now is Ty. But a full year has passed.
How much do you s’pose he’s grown?
And how much has he suffered? Kuli says Ty’s happy and well. She has to believe this still is true.
If it is, we owe Naila and Leyo more than we can ever repay them.
A troubling thought occurs, and she combs her fingers through her shorn hair. Her skin is the color of cordovan. Until today her appearance had evaporated, of no more interest than the reek of her body or the men’s matted beards—like grief, the less attention paid to it the better. But now it seems a different kind of liability.
Be still my soul, Shep’s voice persists so that she nearly snaps aloud, But will Ty even recognize me?
She stumbles, puts a hand to Luke’s back, and both of them jerk in alarm. Luke half turns and meets her eyes. She shakes her head.
A fraction of a second and they go on.
The whipping cry of a serpent eagle now softens with Shep’s accent. If Viv’s right, and Ty can talk, what language will he speak? And Claire finds herself trying to suppress the questions that trump his. What words could any son find to greet a mother he no longer knows? To defend himself from a mother who, for all he knows, abandoned him?
Naila and Leyo are Ty’s family now. Take the children across the water. There are no words for the distance that divides them. All of them.
Ward issues a low hoopoe’s cry, and everyone freezes. They shrink into the undergrowth.
Below, perhaps two hundred feet away, a small river snakes east. Claire scans the banks, the rotting trees, the tapestry of growth. Each flare of brightness reads as a threat, the most familiar yellow and orange bromeliads imbued with danger. Above, the canopy shifts and sways. This must be, she thinks, how a kelp bed looks to a small fish hiding from a passing shark.
When she finally spots their shark, though, it already has its kill. Across the river, four Japanese in combat gear flank four local men in dingy sarongs who carry between them on bamboo poles two large dead pigs. The officer at the head of the line takes off his cap and swats the mosquitoes that fog the slow-moving water. Then he reaches into his pocket and brings his hand down to the muzzles of two beagles. In a frenzy, the dogs begin barking and jerking at their leads.
Claire stinks. The days without washing, the beat of her blood, her running nose and seeping welts, every pore betrays her. The pigs, she wills the man to think. A frenzy over the pigs.
