Burmese Days

  Flory's heart missed a beat. He had heard Elizabeth's voice in the next room. Mr Macgregor came in at this moment, Ellis and Mr Lackersteen following. This made up the full quota, for the women members of the Club had no votes. Mr Macgregor was already dressed in a silk suit, and was carrying the Club account-books under his arm. He managed to bring a sub-official air even into such petty business as a Club meeting.

  'As we seem to be all here,' he said after the usual greetings, 'shall we-ah-proceed with our labours?'

  'Lead on, Macduff,' said Westfield, sitting down.

  'Call the butler, someone, for Christ's sake,' said Mr Lackersteen. 'I daren't let my missus hear me calling him.'

  'Before we apply ourselves to the agenda,' said Mr Macgregor when he had refused a drink and the others had taken one, 'I expect you will want me to run through the accounts for the half-year?'

  They did not want it particularly, but Mr Macgregor, who enjoyed this kind of thing, ran through the accounts with great thoroughness. Flory's thoughts were wandering. There was going to be such a row in a moment-oh, such a devil of a row! They would be furious when they found that he was proposing the doctor after all. And Elizabeth was in the next room. God send she didn't hear the noise of the row when it came. It would make her despise him all the more to see the others baiting him. Would he see her this evening? Would she speak to him? He gazed across the quarter-mile of gleaming river. By the far bank a knot of men, one of them wearing a green gaungbaung, were waiting beside a sampan. In the channel, by the nearer bank, a huge, clumsy Indian barge struggled with desperate slowness against the racing current. At each stroke the ten rowers, Dravidian starvelings, ran forward and plunged their long primitive oars, with heart-shaped blades, into the water. They braced their meagre bodies, then tugged, writhed, strained backwards like agonised creatures of black rubber, and the ponderous hull crept onwards a yard or two. Then the rowers sprang forward, panting, to plunge their oars again before the current should check her.

  'And now,' said Mr Macgregor more gravely, 'we come to the main point of the agenda. That, of course, is this-ah-distasteful question, which I am afraid must be faced, of electing a native member to this Club. When we discussed the matter before----'

  'What the hell!'

  It was Ellis who had interrupted. He was so excited that he had sprung to his feet.

  'What the hell! Surely we aren't starting that over again? Talk about electing a damned nigger to this Club, after everything that's happened! Good God, I thought even Flory had dropped it by this time!'

  'Our friend Ellis appears surprised. The matter has been discussed before, I believe.'

  'I should think it damned well was discussed before! And we all said what we thought of it. By God----'

  'If our friend Ellis will sit down for a few moments-' said Mr Macgregor tolerantly.

  Ellis threw himself into his chair again, exclaiming, 'Bloody rubbish!' Beyond the river Flory could see the group of Burmans embarking. They were lifting a long, awkward-shaped bundle into the sampan. Mr Macgregor had produced a letter from his file of papers.

  'Perhaps I had better explain how this question arose in the first place. The Commissioner tells me that a circular has been sent round by the Government, suggesting that in those Clubs where there are no native members, one at least shall be co-opted; that is, admitted automatically. The circular says-ah yes! here it is: "It is mistaken policy to offer social affronts to native officials of high standing". I may say that I disagree most emphatically. No doubt we all do. We who have to do the actual work of government see things very differently from these-ah-Paget MPs who interfere with us from above. The Commissioner quite agrees with me. However----'

  'But it's all bloody rot!' broke in Ellis. 'What's it got to do with the Commissioner or anyone else? Surely we can do as we like in our own bloody Club? They've no right to dictate to us when we're off duty.'

  'Quite,' said Westfield.

  'You anticipate me. I told the Commissioner that I should have to put the matter before the other members. And the course he suggests is this. If the idea finds any support in the Club, he thinks it would be better if we co-opted our native member. On the other hand, if the entire Club is against it, it can be dropped. That is, if opinion is quite unanimous.'

  'Well, it damned well is unanimous,' said Ellis.

  'D'you mean,' said Westfield, 'that it depends on ourselves whether we have 'em in here or no?'

  'I fancy we can take it as meaning that.'

  'Well, then, let's say we're against it to a man.'

  'And say it bloody firmly, by God. We want to put our foot down on this idea once and for all.'

  'Hear, hear!' said Mr Lackersteen gruffly. 'Keep the black swabs out of it. Esprit de corps and all that.'

  Mr Lackersteen could always be relied upon for sound sentiments in a case like this. In his heart he did not care and never had cared a damn for the British Raj, and he was as happy drinking with an Oriental as with a white man; but he was always ready with a loud 'Hear, hear!' when anyone suggested the bamboo for disrespectful servants or boiling oil for Nationalists. He prided himself that though he might booze a bit and all that, dammit, he was loyal. It was his form of respectability. Mr Macgregor was secretly rather relieved by the general agreement. If any Oriental member were co-opted, that member would have to be Dr Veraswami, and he had had the deepest distrust of the doctor ever since Nga Shwe O's suspicious escape from the jail.

  'Then I take it that you are all agreed?' he said. 'If so, I will inform the Commissioner. Otherwise, we must begin discussing the candidate for election.'

  Flory stood up. He had got to say his say. His heart seemed to have risen into his throat and to be choking him. From what Mr Macgregor had said, it was clear that it was in his power to secure the doctor's election by speaking the word. But oh, what a bore, what a nuisance it was! What an infernal uproar there would be! How he wished he had never given the doctor that promise! No matter, he had given it, and he could not break it. So short a time ago he would have broken it, en bon pukka sahib, how easily! But not now. He had got to see this thing through. He turned himself sidelong so that his birthmark was away from the others. Already he could feel his voice going flat and guilty.

  'Our friend Flory has something to suggest?'

  'Yes. I propose Dr Veraswami as a member of this Club.'

  There was such a yell of dismay from three of the others that Mr Macgregor had to rap sharply on the table and remind them that the ladies were in the next room. Ellis took not the smallest notice. He had sprung to his feet again, and the skin round his nose had gone quite grey. He and Flory remained facing one another, as though on the point of blows.

  'Now, you damned swab, will you take that back?'

  'No, I will not.'

  'You oily swine! You nigger's Nancy Boy! You crawling, sneaking, f----bloody bastard!'

  'Order!' exclaimed Mr Macgregor.

  'But look at him, look at him!' cried Ellis almost tearfully. 'Letting us all down for the sake of a pot-bellied nigger! After all we've said to him! When we've only got to hang together and we can keep the stink of garlic out of this Club for ever. My God, wouldn't it make you spew your guts up to see anyone behaving like such a----?'

  'Take it back, Flory, old man!' said Westfield. 'Don't be a bloody fool!'

  'Downright Bolshevism, dammit!' said Mr Lackersteen.

  'Do you think I care what you say? What business is it of yours? It's for Macgregor to decide.'

  'Then do you-ah-adhere to your decision?' said Mr Macgregor gloomily.

  'Yes.'

  Mr Macgregor sighed. 'A pity! Well, in that case I suppose I have no choice-'

  'No, no, no!' cried Ellis, dancing about in his rage. 'Don't give in to him! Put it to the vote. And if that son of a bitch doesn't put in a black ball like the rest of us, we'll first turf him out of the Club himself, and then-well! Butler!'

  'Sahib!' said the butler, appearing.

  'B
ring the ballot box and the balls. Now clear out!' he added roughly when the butler had obeyed.

  The air had gone very stagnant; for some reason the punkah had stopped working. Mr Macgregor stood up with a disapproving but judicial mien, taking the two drawers of black and white balls out of the ballot box.

  'We must proceed in order. Mr Flory proposes Dr Veraswami, the Civil Surgeon, as a member of this Club. Mistaken, in my opinion, greatly mistaken; however-! Before putting the matter to the vote-'

  'Oh, why make a song and dance about it?' said Ellis. 'Here's my contribution! And another for Maxwell.' He plumped two black balls into the box. Then one of his sudden spasms of rage seized him, and he took the drawer of white balls and pitched them across the floor. They went flying in all directions. 'There! Now pick one up if you want to use it!'

  'You damned fool! What good do you think that does?'

  'Sahib!'

  They all started and looked around. The chokra was goggling at them over the veranda rail, having climbed up from below. With one skinny arm he clung to the rail and with the other gesticulated towards the river.

  'Sahib! Sahib!'

  'What's up?' said Westfield.

  They all moved for the window. The sampan that Flory had seen across the river was lying under the bank at the foot of the lawn, one of the men clinging to a bush to steady it. The Burman in the green gaungbaung was climbing out.

  'That's one of Maxwell's Forest Rangers!' said Ellis in quite a different voice. 'By God! something's happened!'

  The Forest Ranger saw Mr Macgregor, shikoed in a hurried, preoccupied way and turned back to the sampan. Four other men, peasants, climbed out after him, and with difficulty lifted ashore the strange bundle that Flory had seen in the distance. It was six feet long, swathed in cloths, like a mummy. Something happened in everybody's entrails. The Forest Ranger glanced at the veranda, saw that there was no way up, and led the peasants round the path to the front of the Club. They had hoisted the bundle onto their shoulders as funeral bearers hoist a coffin. The butler had flitted into the lounge again, and even his face was pale after its fashion-that is, grey.

  'Butler!' said Mr Macgregor sharply.

  'Sir!'

  'Go quickly and shut the door of the card-room. Keep it shut. Don't let the memsahibs see.'

  'Yes, sir!'

  The Burmans, with their burden, came heavily down the passage. As they entered the leading man staggered and almost fell; he had trodden on one of the white balls that were scattered about the floor. The Burmans knelt down, lowered their burden to the floor and stood over it with a strange reverent air, slightly bowing, their hands together in a shiko. Westfield had fallen on his knees, and he pulled back the cloth.

  'Christ! Just look at him!' he said, but without much surprise. 'Just look at the poor little b----!'

  Mr Lackersteen had retreated to the other end of the room, with a bleating noise. From the moment when the bundle was lifted ashore they had all known what it contained. It was the body of Maxwell, cut almost to pieces with dahs by two relatives of the man whom he had shot.

  XXII

  Maxwell's death had caused a profound shock in Kyauktada. It would cause a shock throughout the whole of Burma, and the case-'the Kyauktada case, do you remember?'-would still be talked of years after the wretched youth's name was forgotten. But in a purely personal way no one was much distressed. Maxwell had been almost a nonentity-just a 'good fellow' like any other of the ten thousand ex colore good fellows of Burma-and with no close friends. No one among the Europeans genuinely mourned for him. But that is not to say that they were not angry. On the contrary, for the moment they were almost mad with rage. For the unforgivable had happened-a white man had been killed. When that happens, a sort of shudder runs through the English of the East. Eight hundred people, possibly, are murdered every year in Burma; they matter nothing; but the murder of a white man is a monstrosity, a sacrilege. Poor Maxwell would be avenged, that was certain. But only a servant or two, and the Forest Ranger who had brought in his body, and who had been fond of him, shed any tears for his death.

  On the other hand, no one was actually pleased, except U Po Kyin.

  'This is a positive gift from heaven!' he told Ma Kin. 'I could not have arranged it better myself. The one thing I needed to make them take my rebellion seriously was a little bloodshed. And here it is! I tell you Kin Kin, every day I grow more certain that some higher power is working on my behalf.'

  'Ko Po Kyin, truly you are without shame! I do not know how you dare to say such things. Do you not shudder to have murder upon your soul?'

  'What! I? Murder upon my soul? What are you talking about? I have never killed so much as a chicken in my life.'

  'But you are profiting by this poor boy's death.'

  'Profiting by it! Of course I am profiting by it! And why not, indeed? Am I to blame if somebody else chooses to commit murder? The fisherman catches fish, and he is damned for it. But are we damned for eating the fish? Certainly not. Why not eat the fish, once it is dead? You should study the scriptures more carefully, my dear Kin Kin.'

  The funeral took place next morning, before breakfast. All the Europeans were present, except Verrall, who was careering about the maidan quite as usual, almost opposite the cemetery. Mr Macgregor read the burial service. The little group of Englishmen stood round the grave, their topis in their hands, sweating into the dark suits that they had dug out from the bottoms of their boxes. The harsh morning light beat without mercy upon their faces, yellower than ever against the ugly, shabby clothes. Every face except Elizabeth's looked lined and old. Dr Veraswami and half a dozen other Orientals were present, but they kept themselves decently in the background. There were sixteen gravestones in the little cemetery; assistants of timber firms, officials, soldiers killed in forgotten skirmishes.

  'Sacred to the memory of John Henry Spagnall, late of the Indian Imperial Police, who was cut down by cholera while in the unremitting exercise of' etc. etc. etc.

  Flory remembered Spagnall dimly. He had died very suddenly in camp after his second go of delirium tremens. In a corner there were some graves of Eurasians, with wooden crosses. The creeping jasmine, with tiny orange-hearted flowers, had overgrown everything. Among the jasmine, large rat-holes led down into the graves.

  Mr Macgregor concluded the burial service in a ripe, reverent voice, and led the way out of the cemetery, holding his grey topi-the eastern equivalent of a top hat-against his stomach. Flory lingered by the gate, hoping that Elizabeth would speak to him, but she passed him without a glance. Everyone had shunned him this morning. He was in disgrace; the murder had made his disloyalty of last night seem somehow horrible. Ellis had caught Westfield by the arm, and they halted at the grave-side, taking out their cigarette-cases. Flory could hear their slangy voices coming across the open grave.

  'My God, Westfield, my God, when I think of that poor little b---- lying down there-oh, my God, how my blood does boil! I couldn't sleep all night, I was so furious.'

  'Pretty bloody, I grant. Never mind, promise you a couple of chaps shall swing for it. Two corpses against their one-best we can do.'

  'Two! It ought to be fifty! We've got to raise heaven and hell to get these fellows hanged. Have you got their names yet?'

  'Yes, rather!! Whole blooming district knows who did it. We always do know who's done it in these cases. Getting the bloody villagers to talk-that's the only trouble.'

  'Well, for God's sake get them to talk this time. Never mind the bloody law. Whack it out of them. Torture them-anything. If you want to bribe any witnesses I'm good for a couple of hundred chips.'

  Westfield sighed. 'Can't do that sort of thing, I'm afraid. Wish we could. My chaps'd know how to put the screw on a witness if you gave 'em the word. Tie 'em down on an ant-hill. Red peppers. But that won't do nowadays. Got to keep our own bloody silly laws. But never mind, those fellows'll swing all right. We've got all the evidence we want.'

  'Good! And when you've arrested them
, if you aren't sure of getting a conviction, shoot them, jolly well shoot them! Fake up an escape or something. Anything sooner than let those b----s go free.'

  'They won't go free, don't you fear. We'll get 'em. Get somebody, anyhow. Much better hang wrong fellow than no fellow,' he added, unconsciously quoting.

  'That's the stuff! I'll never sleep easy again till I've seen them swinging,' said Ellis as they moved away from the grave. 'Christ! Let's get out of this sun! I'm about perishing with thirst.'

  Everyone was perishing, more or less, but it seemed hardly decent to go down to the Club for drinks immediately after the funeral. The Europeans scattered for their houses, while four sweepers with mamooties flung the grey, cement-like earth back into the grave, and shaped it into a rough mound.

  After breakfast, Ellis was walking down to his office, cane in hand. It was blinding hot. Ellis had bathed and changed back into shirt and shorts, but wearing a thick suit even for an hour had brought on his prickly heat abominably. Westfield had gone out already, in his motor launch, with an Inspector and half a dozen men, to arrest the murderers. He had ordered Verrall to accompany him-not that Verrall was needed, but, as Westfield said, it would do the young swab good to have a spot of work.

  Ellis wriggled his shoulders-his prickly heat was almost beyond bearing. The rage was stewing in his body like a bitter juice. He had brooded all night over what had happened. They had killed a white man, killed a white man, the bloody sods, the sneaking cowardly hounds! Oh, the swine, the swine, how they ought to be made to suffer for it! Why did we make these cursed kid-glove laws? Why did we take everything lying down? Just suppose this had happened in a German colony, before the War! The good old Germans! They knew how to treat the niggers. Reprisals! Rhinoceros hide whips! Raid their villages, kill their cattle, burn their crops, decimate them, blow them from the guns.

  Ellis gazed into the horrible cascades of light that poured through the gaps in the trees. His greenish eyes were large and mournful. A mild, middle-aged Burman came by, balancing a huge bamboo, which he shifted from one shoulder to the other with a grunt as he passed Ellis. Ellis's grip tightened on his stick. If that swine, now, would only attack you! Or even insult you-anything, so that you had the right to smash him! If only these gutless curs would ever show fight in any conceivable way! Instead of just sneaking past you, keeping within the law so that you never had a chance to get back on them. Ah, for a real rebellion-martial law proclaimed and no quarter given! Lovely, sanguinary images moved through his mind. Shrieking mounds of natives, soldiers slaughtering them. Shoot them, ride them down, horses' hooves trample their guts out, whips cut their faces in slices!