Pagoda, page 8
“Good evening.” A short, bald-headed man approached him. A Scottish burr lodged in his throat, and the face looked familiar. Then he remembered; it was MacLendon, the automobile dealer who had refused to sell the cars to him.
“Evening,” said Gall. “I’m new here, and just wanted a quick swim. Is it a private party?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” MacLendon was a trifle oiled; he teetered on his toes. “You’re the American chap, aren’t you?”
“I’m one of them.” Gall started to leave. “I’d better come back another time.”
“Not necess’ry,” said the Scot. “You’re a member of the ruddy club. Sure nobody would mind if you’d just have a dip.”
“Very kind, if you’re sure.” Gall hesitated.
“Certain, old boy. Dressing bungalow over there, you know.” MacLendon waved at a white cottage beyond the trees and tacked on down the walk.
Still a trifle uneasy about his welcome, Gall went into the cottage and put on his trunks. The water was icy cold; he plunged into it and came up gasping, thinking that the pool must be spring-fed. After a few seconds it felt fine, and he did a slow crawl to the far end. Stretching out on the cement walk, he shivered and rubbed his arms. He was lying flat when someone said, “Bit of a swim, eh?”
Twisting around, Gall saw Marino’s hulk, dressed in tropical formais, looming a few feet away. As always, the involuntary spasm of rage hit him, and he did not reply until he was sure his voice would be steady. “Feeling kind of lousy,” he said. “Thought the water might help.”
“Only decent place in Rangoon,” answered the fat man. He waggled his right hand, and servants hastened up with a small woven table and two chairs. “Have a chota peg?” offered Marino affably. He was smiling. Another servant came up with two gimlets, and Gall arose and sat down across from Marino.
“Cheers,” said the fat man, and raised his glass. Gall did the same, but with more restraint, and sat sipping cautiously. “Well,” said Marino, “we got off on the wrong foot, now didn’t we? Rather cheeky of you to roust me out so early, and perhaps I was not very polite.”
“You weren’t,” said Gall.
“But the main thing is, your airway is doing well. The War Office chaps think highly of you.” Marino nodded to a strolling couple, rolls of fat folding and unfolding on his massive neck. “Tomorrow you’re sending three craft to Kalymo,” he said.
Gall did not answer. It was true, but he made no comment.
“You will carry ammunition.” Marino fingered his meaty jowls with one hand, and Gall noticed a huge cat’s-eye glittering on his middle finger. “No radio in Kalymo, no record of delivery. Have your chaps fly the ammunition to Toungoo instead, and it will be worth $20,000 to you. Cash in hand.”
Gall put the glass down. “Whose side are you on?” he asked, and Marino rumbled with laughter.
“Tradesman, you know. Only business. And, after all, it’s such a small, piddling war.”
Joe Gall stared across at the floodlit terrace, where the formally dressed English burra sahibs and their mates were trying to re-create some semblance of a London rout. Their clipped talk and nasal laughter floated to the edge of? the swimming pool.
“Can’t be done,” he said. Marino fondled the big ring and looked at him.
“In a poor position not to do it,” he answered finally. His voice was not affable any more. “You are engaged in operating two fleets of planes in Burma. One for the government, and one for the insurgents. The War Office might consider that a shocking violation of the contract. They might even shoot somebody.”
Gall put his half-finished drink down and got up. “We don’t seem to agree on anything,” he said mildly. “It’s out of the question. Thanks for the drink.”
Marino sat motionless, watching Gall walk back toward the bathhouse. As he combed his hair, Gall’s face was grim. It had gone too patly, Marino had expected him to refuse, but had gone through the motion of asking as part of a plan. When he walked back up the shrubbed path, Gall found his station wagon waiting. The attendant opened the door, salaamed him in, and in a moment the bright lights of the Kokine Club receded behind him.
The next week had a nightmare quality for Gall. First, the planes began to give under the pounding they were taking. The radio equipment started going bad, plugs fouled, and the constant moisture of the monsoon got into the engine harnesses. On many of the breakdowns they lacked the necessary replacement parts and had to fly them in from Hong Kong or Manila.
The pilots were all doing six to ten hours a day, and they began to draw gaunt and fine. They sat in silence next to each other in the station wagons, like dogs ready to snarl, and Hugh Farrell had a rousing fight with Olney over a transferred tachometer. Brittingham, the radio mechanic, was drinking harder than ever, and he was jailed for assaulting a Kin, one of the officious district policemen.
The pressure came from every direction. Gall knew by now that he had malaria, but he crammed atabrine tablets into his mouth all day, and at night he drank until he was able to sleep. In disjointed sequences, he found himself humming through the dark woods to the airport, and several times he awakened with his head on the office desk. There was no word from Lloyd Varley, so Gall kept hammering the flights away. Worst of all, back of the malaria and the snarling pilots was the thought of the other Varley fleet. The War Office knew now that it was flying, but they did not know who was operating it. By all odds, that was the worst pressure of all.
The war itself was going well for the government. With the four planes in constant motion, furnishing vital supply lines, the Karens had been driven out of the Insein area and had even been dislodged from Toungoo. But in the bars of Rangoon the rebel fleet was being whispered about. At the end of the ninth week of operation, Gall walked a pay voucher through the Finance Office to the Bank of Australia. There he received an express telegraph form which meant that the Varley Airways had grossed $1,084,483.00, and that this amount was on deposit in the New York branch.
Back in the suite, Gall sat on the couch and inspected the form carefully. This was about all she wrote, he thought dully. Another week, possibly two. Maybe only another day. How much money does Varley want? And how long can I afford to stick here, with my neck stuck out so far? He was meditating, knuckling his bloodshot eyes, when the phone rang. Brittingham was on the line, calling from the airport, and as usual he was a little loaded.
“Good news,” he said. “Yoke and Victor just in from Bhamo, and the customs blokes found them both loaded with opium.”
“Where was it?” asked Gall.
“People up there gave them a lot of vegetables. Stuff was in the baskets, nearly two hundred kilos of raw opium.”
“Where are Olney and Starrett?”
“Headed for town. Ought to be there by now.”
“Thanks,” said Gall wearily, and dropped the receiver back on the hook. Going down to the next floor, he met Chet Starrett entering his room.
“Any idea on how it happened?” he asked. The lean pilot dropped on the bed, shaking his head.
“Could have been a deal, one of the Filipinos. Everywhere we go, these people give us fruit, vegetables, something. We don’t pay any attention unless it looks too heavy.”
“Could be a plant?” asked Gall, and Starrett blinked at the ceiling.
“Why not? Nobody checks the return loads. Usually light, and we just bang in and out.”
“Thanks, Chet.” Gall went back upstairs and called Major Ferrara, at the War Office. When the young officer was on the line, Gall said that opium had been found on Yoke and Victor, and that the Varley planes would be shut down until a full investigation had been made. Ferrara protested, but the American explained that he could not schedule any more flights under the circumstances.
Marino, he thought, as he hung up. It sounds like his kind of subtlety. As he went to the sideboard for a drink, the room suddenly seemed to go out of focus. He clung to the sideboard, and through the gradually settling mist he heard a knocking at the door. He lurched to it. Davidson, the American Embassy attaché, was standing outside, cool and dapper, a topee under his elbow.
“Come in.” Gall stepped aside, and the red-haired man strolled into the room. Sinking down on the sofa, he surveyed Gall with interest.
“Afraid we have something awkward on our hands,” he announced.
“You mean the opium?” Gall sat down across from him.
“Yes.” Davidson took out a slender ivory holder, fitted a cigarette into it, and lighted up. “No actual protest yet, but the old man wanted me to get the poop on it. Might be messy.”
“Might be a squeeze play, too,” suggested Gall.
“Possible.” Davidson put his head back and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “But still a bad time for American nationals to get involved in this part of the world. Got any enemies here?”
Gall got up and began mixing two drinks. “I was trying to recall some friends,” he said, and Davidson whinnied with laughter. For the next few minutes they sat discussing the smuggling charge, and Gall told the diplomat all he knew about it. He also related the story of the stolen transmitter and described the attempt to sabotage the planes.
“All right,” Davidson said finally. “I’ll tell it to the old man as it was told to me. But if the thing gets to be an Incident, there won’t be any more polite chin-chin. You understand that?”
“Yes,” said Gall.
“And,” yawned Davidson, “they won’t send a water boy like me to handle it.”
“What do you think?” asked Gall.
The attaché shrugged. “I think somebody is anxious to get you out of Burma. Out of business, deported. And I think they will probably do it.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. One for the road?”
“No, thanks.” Davidson gave him the limp handshake again, and left. Gall had another drink, sitting hunched over on the couch, and then frowned and got up. It was midafternoon, and the sun was setting. It quartered through the bathroom window as he bathed and shaved. When he was dressed, he walked to the sideboard and stood staring at the bottles there. Can I take one more aboard, he wondered, before I talk to the man I’m going to see? And then he thought that probably he would not even get to see the man, so he took the drink. Dressed in his best whites, he went downstairs and got in the station wagon.
The house was a large bungalow, with open verandas running around it. It stood alone in a pleasant meadow, but the meadow was completely encircled by a high fence of barbed wire. At the gateway to the house, there were triple barricades of barbed wire and a frame guardhouse. When the station wagon stopped, one soldier leveled a rifle from the window and another stepped forward toward the car. Gall leaned out the back window.
“Captain Joseph Gall, of Varley Airways,” he said. “To see the prime minister.”
“You have an appointment, sir?” asked the brown guard.
“No. But it is a matter of great urgency.”
The guard was undecided. “You have a card, sir?”
“No card.” Gall’s voice hardened. “Please inform His Excellency that I am waiting.”
The guard turned and walked to the window. While Gall watched, the other soldier lifted a telephone and spoke briefly. Then they all waited. Minutes passed, and the shadows went on lengthening over the wide yard. There was an answer, finally. The road guard came back to the station wagon and searched Eusoof, the driver. He also searched the vehicle, but did not touch Gall. The gates were opened, and the car went down the red brick-dust drive to the porte-cochere of the house.
A tiny skirted man wearing bifocal glasses opened the door, and Gall stepped into a shadowed hallway. “The prime minister did not understand,” the little man said briskly. “I am his secretary.”
“Captain Joseph Gall, operations manager of Varley Airways,” answered the American. “It is urgent.”
“Varley?” The secretary’s head was inclined, in vague perplexity.
“We are under contract to your War Office,” said Gall patiently. “We have been flying your troops for nine weeks.”
“I see.” The secretary was polite, but unimpressed. “It is a question, perhaps, for the military, and not for His Excellency?”
“No.” Gall bowed. “It is necessary that I see the prime minister himself.”
“Ah, yes.” The secretary returned his bow and turned down the hallway. In a few minutes he returned and ushered Gall up to a studio on the second floor. Pushing aside the curtains, Gall went inside and found a leonine little man with graying hair waiting behind a huge desk. Bowing, Gall introduced himself again. As he sat down, he noticed that the prime minister had a mole on his chin, and that several long hairs were growing from the mole. That absurd, irrelevant fact helped him somehow. When he began to speak, the little Burman nodded and listened attentively, his hands clasped together in front of his chin.
An hour later Gall was back at the hotel, undressing. The phone rang, and he glared at it before answering. An oddly accented voice said that it was reported he had just talked with the P. M. Would he care to comment on that rumor, or on the matter of the opium smuggled in from Bhamo on the American planes?
“Who is speaking?”
“Albert Yone, editor of the Mail.” Suddenly Gall remembered; this was the boy who had run the fire-breathing editorial about Varley exploitation.
“Mr. Yone,” he answered, “you are a good newspaperman. I could not comment on your questions, however. It would not be proper.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Yone, and hung up. Gall’s hand was still on the instrument when the phone rang again. The hotel switchboard operator said she had two calls waiting, one from Mr. Marino and the other from Major Ferrara.
“Marino, no. I’ll talk to Major Ferrara.” Gall sat down on the bed. There was a click, and he said, “Yes, Major?”
“You are a magician, Captain.” Ferrara’s voice was jovial. “General Tha Din, the commander in chief, just rang through to me and said that the smuggling charge was dismissed, and that I was to furnish security guards for your planes in the future, to prevent any repetition. But how can I do that in towns where they have no radio?”
“It’s a tough assignment, Major.” Gall squinted toward the darkening balcony; he felt very tired.
“We will manage it, though.” Ferrara sounded very pleased. “You know, it is the first time I ever spoke to General Tha Din personally.”
In spite of his tiredness, Gall laughed. “Do we have a schedule for tomorrow?” he asked.
“A few minutes only. So many branches want to use the planes, but I will send a messenger in less than an hour.”
“Fine. Good night, Major.” Gall put the phone down, then cranked it again. “No more calls,” he said. “Only the War Office.”
The switchboard girl said, “Right you are, Captain,” and added that she had a brother who spoke perfect English and was well trained in handling stores. Perhaps the captain could offer her brother employment? Gall said he would talk to her about it tomorrow, and cut her effusive thanks short by hanging up.
He got off the bed and started toward the sideboard in the living room. It was his intention to get just one more drink, but without warning his knees jellied and he floundered to the floor. I’m drunk, he thought; I’ve been living on Scotch for a week. And then he thought, No, it’s this damned fever. He raised his head and tried to focus his gaze, but all he could make out was a wavering patch of twilit sky beyond the balcony. His head fell to the marble floor, and he lay still.
William woke him up; the servant was trying to drag him into an upright position. “Get me to the bed,” whispered Gall, and the dark man took him under the armpits and strained again. It was no use; the bearer did not weigh enough. Turning him loose, William went pattering out of the room. In a few minutes Gall felt two people trying to drag him across the floor. His head lolled around, and he saw Ugette’s face very near his.
“You are sick,” she said, her face muscles straining as she pulled. Grinding his teeth together, Gall heaved himself to a sitting position.
“My bones ache,” he moaned. “Just—get me—”
Then he blacked out again. Hours later he heard a roaring spiral through his ears, and his hands flexed against the cool sheets of the bed. The mosquito net encased him like a translucent coffin; the glare of the overhead light filtered through it and stung his eyes. Ugette was on one side of the bed, and a dark, dapper little man wearing European clothes and a turban was on the other side. The dark man raised the net and felt Gall’s brow and wrist.
“Ah, yes,” he chortled. “A sick American. Nothing is sicker than a sick American. They are very strong people, but they chase after money until they are exhausted.”
Gall stared dully, through half-opened eyes. As he watched, the little man went capering across the room, almost dancing.
“And they made a great mistake,” shouted the dark man gaily. “They sent for Dr. Sakalin. I shall certainly kill him, because I hate white men.”
It’s a dream, thought Gall wearily, some scrap of nightmare in my mind. Reaching out, he attempted to touch Ugette, but the net was in the way. She looked down on him from a great height, freed the entanglement of the net, and put her warm hand over his.
The little doctor was humming, bent over his bag. “I will poison the fellow,” he announced liltingly, and nodded, as if this was a wise decision.
When he turned back to the bed, he was holding a hypodermic needle. The bubbled tip of it glittered, and the doctor did a brief, antic time step, holding the needle carefully. This guy’s crazy, thought Gall. He heaved in the bed like a mired animal. But Ugette was smiling down at him. “It’s all right,” she said.
“Went to school in Edinburgh,” announced the doctor, still humming his words. “With honors, you know.” He lifted the net and stared across Gall at the girl. “Then I visited America, to see the splendors of that place. In Atlanta, in one of the provinces, they put me off a street car. Said I was a colored man, but did not specify what color. Very curious.”
