The Burning Sky

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was interesting to monitor the undercurrents of the Masons’ dinner, in particular the fact that the two Americans did not conform to what was expected at such a board by Jardine’s fellow Britons. It was an observation he had made many times in his life, that the further you got away from the core of Empire, the more rigid became the adherence to what was considered good form: dressing properly for dinner, eating and drinking, at least in public, with circumspection and, most of all, never saying anything contentious.

Most voluble was Corrie Littleton — dressed in shirt and slacks — who had a trenchant opinion on everything, the more relaxed, loose-suited and middle-aged Alverson being quietly funny with sharp observations that ran counter to the way the conversation was going, which Jardine put down to their occupations: she an academic historian and he a newspaperman. It was only much later he realised they represented two strands of a complex nation, strident East Coast versus laconic West.

Thinking of how to describe her, and she was attractive, Jardine took refuge in the expression ‘rangy’. In some senses she shared the loose body movements of the locals, that is if you excepted her face in argument, which was rigid of jaw when listening — usually in disagreement and impatience to counter — while being highly animated in making her points which, right now, were on her speciality subject, classical Greece, and quite specifically, Sparta.

The similarity was from the shoulders down: expressive arms and hands, a fluid upper body in a shirt through which her pert breasts were visible, given she did not seem to be wearing a brassiere — Lieutenant Grace could barely take his eyes off them — and a tight backside that seemed to have minimal contact with her chair when pressing home an argument.

Alverson was a man who could sit bolt upright and appear to be lounging, his drawling voice hiding the speed of thought and observation that allowed him to amuse. It was as if, to him, human life was moving at the wrong pace, slightly too quickly, and was in need of a gentle application of the brakes. He wore his knowledge of the world lightly and he seemed to have been witness to quite a deal of it — Manchuria was mentioned, as well as Japan and the Balkans — and he clearly had some knowledge of South America, a knowledge Jardine shared but decided to keep to himself.

Captain Archie Peydon was a type Jardine had messed with often: bluff, opinionated with a small ‘o’ and Conservative with a large ‘C’, a career soldier in a peacetime army going nowhere fast. Aside from his views he had half a dozen well-worn anecdotes which, judging by the flash of boredom on the face of his host, he trotted out at every dinner he attended.

His naval counterpart was young and strikingly naive for a seagoing man who must surely, in his service life, have visited a few steamy fleshpots around the globe: Jardine’s memories of Portsmouth were alone quite hairy. If he had, it had not coloured him with sophistication, and, of course, Margery Mason kept putting her foot in it, and large feet they were.

They were well attended to by four servants, all young and handsome Somalis, and it was while watching them go about their tasks that something became evident, that provided by Conrad Mason. While ever the attentive host, seemingly listening to his guests with focus, his eyes kept flicking away to the moving boys as they silently flitted around on their bare feet with that grace Jardine had already noted.

It was not just the look in the eye in these rapid inspections, but the slight parting and wetting of the lips which told Jardine that to Mason these youngsters were possibly more than houseboys, which made clear the reaction to a couple of earlier remarks made by the disingenuous naval lieutenant.

‘The women of Sparta were not like the supine creatures who we have around us today,’ Corrie Littleton insisted. ‘At the beck and call of their menfolk; they ran their own lives-’

‘You know,’ Jardine gently interrupted, ‘I’ve never understood the use of the word “platonic” just to mean a non-carnal human relationship.’

‘Golly gosh,’ exclaimed M, while Peydon harrumphed and Grace blushed, but only after several seconds, when he had figured out what was being alluded to.

‘Sure,’ Alverson said, ‘the guy wrote a blueprint for the likes of Mussolini and Hitler.’

‘Not when it comes to the rights of women, he didn’t.’

‘Corrie, honey, you have such an unbiased world view.’

‘But that’s you men all over, able to read a classical text and only take out the bits that suit you.’

‘Like the Bible, really,’ said Mason, ‘full of stoning and damning and striking down dead for things we think nothing of today.’

‘Which your local episcopalian guy still preaches to the savages, I hear.’

‘They are not savages, Tyler!’

‘They don’t do irony in Boston,’ Alverson responded, as an aside to the whole table. ‘But it is still permissible, I believe, to call an Irishman a barbarian. Your holy man is not too fond of you, Mr Mason.’

‘Thinks I don’t give him the support he needs to turn all the Somalis into good Anglicans.’

‘Shall we be toasting the king?’ Peydon interjected, in a crude attempt to change the subject.

Mason nodded and made a sign his servants obviously understood, since they came to fill up the wine glasses. Corrie Littleton, still on lemonade, was about to protest, her bottom well off her chair, when Alverson cut her off. ‘When in Rome, honey.’

‘Shoot Mussolini,’ Grace responded, adding a silly grin.

‘You gotta appreciate, Mr Mason,’ Alverson said, with a lopsided grin, ‘that having kicked out one King George we are not too keen on toasting another.’

The response was dry and came with a wry smile. ‘We are drinking to his health, Mr Alverson, not to his territorial ambitions. Captain Peydon?’

‘The king,’ he croaked as he rose, everyone doing likewise.

‘I do not see you passing your wine over the water, Mr Jardine.’

‘I’m Scottish, but not rabidly so.’

‘What the hell are you two talking about?’ Corrie Littleton demanded.

‘You tell her, Mr Alverson.’

‘Well, way back, the Limeys … sorry, force of habit … the Brits fell out over who should have the keys to the palace and they got rid of the guys called Stuarts.’

‘Kings of Scotland and England,’ Mason added, getting for his trouble an arch look from someone who had studied history.

‘So, for some Scots folk, their king is exiled across the water. Caused quite a stir in 1745. Bonnie Prince Charlie …’

‘I know all this, especially that particular guy. Kinda romantic, don’t you think?’

‘Odd, Miss Littleton,’ Jardine said. ‘Everyone has that opinion and everyone sees a romantic loser. No one ever asks what would have happened if he had won.’

‘Inclined to the bottle by all account, Bonnie Prince Charlie,’ grumbled Peydon.

Jardine held up his glass, smiling. ‘A national affliction, perhaps.’

‘An international curse,’ Corrie Littleton snapped, taking a deep drink of lemonade as if that proved her point.

‘A worldwide one, Corrie,’ Alverson replied, for once in serious mien. ‘We drink bourbon, the Japs drink sake and the Chinese glug rice wine. Getting drunk for most folk sure beats the hell out of a clear view of this lousy world.’

‘I say, Mr Alverson!’ M exclaimed.

Alverson reverted to his amused drawl. ‘Sorry, Mrs Mason, we colonials are a little short on sophistication.’

‘Of course you are, poor dears,’ she replied, her cut-glass voice full of sympathetic understanding.

‘Speak for yourself, buster,’ came the Bostonian response, given with such gusto that Grace’s eyes were glued to the front of her dress.

‘A perfect example of my point,’ drawled her fellow American.

About to protest, Corrie Littleton was cut off by Mason. ‘You have been in Japan, Mr Alverson?’

‘I have, and to go back several conversations, they have definitely taken Plato to heart.’

The talk became general on the subject of racial superiority, which was, according to the American, innate in the Japanese, while the Chinese could never comprehend the inability of others to acknowledge their vastly superior civilisation. Hitler and his master race theories were derided, while Mussolini’s posturing provided much amusement.

‘Racial superiority is not something,’ Jardine proffered, ‘to which we British are immune.’

Peydon, more red-faced than previously, due to alcohol, looked deeply offended: he was a mother-of-parliaments, British-fair-play sort of chap, who would not hesitate to stick his polished size tens up the backside of one of his Somali recruits, nor think twice about slipping in some extra leave and a bit of a money present to one who had family problems, unable to see the difference between paternalism and equality.

‘And it is a stance I fear we Americans are only too ready to share,’ Alverson said.

‘Did you not kill off all your own savages, Mr Alverson?’ asked M, in her cawing voice.

‘Not personally, ma’am.’

‘I was not accusing you,’ she insisted, quite missing the irony.

‘We’re pretty damn overbearing in our own backyard.’

‘Don’t you have gardens in America?’

‘I was referring, Mrs Mason, to the lands south of the Panama Canal.’

Jardine wondered why the laconic American was looking so pointedly at him, so he responded. ‘Don’t you mean the Rio Grande?’

‘I stand corrected.’

‘M?’ Mason said, with a slight lift of the brow.

‘Quite; time for we ladies to withdraw.’

‘What for?’

‘To let the men have their cigars and tell risque stories, Miss Littleton.’

‘I like a cigar, and if there are any filthy stories around, count me in.’

‘Truly,’ Jardine joked, in a reference to the tune played by the British troops who surrendered at Yorktown, ‘the world turned upside down.’

That interjection, by the girl from Boston, put paid to any passing round the port and telling jokes: she stayed put and so did Margery Mason. Peydon told a story of being out on exercises in Egypt and setting up a small supply dump — food, petrol and the like — which the troops slept round.

‘They woke up in the morning to find everything gone, with no one, including the pickets doing two-on-four-off guard duty, hearing a thing.’

Jardine topped that by telling of a time in Iraq when the locals, in the course of one night, dismantled and stole a small steam engine from the inside of a camp with only one guarded main gate and with mobile patrols on the perimeter fence.

‘And they did not drive it out either: the rails went through that main gate, so they must have taken it to bits. When it comes to theft the Arabs are peerless.’

Corrie Littleton was on a mission to persuade her mother to leave Abyssinia. Engaged in writing a treatise on comparative religions, Littleton mere was in the old Ethiopian capital of Gondar, digging around in the archives for connections to Judaism and Christianity. She also knew that in nearby Aksum, the fabled home of the Queen of Sheba, was supposed to reside the Ark of the Covenant. The trouble was, for her daughter, that Ethiopia was, right now, for non-natives, a hard place to get into.

‘If the guineas are going to invade, it’s not a good place for Mother to be.’

‘For “guineas” read “Italians”,’ Alverson explained.

‘Gangsters,’ cried Grace, as though it were an accolade. ‘Little Caesar.’

‘And what, Mr Alverson, are your reasons for being hereabouts?’

‘Chasing stories, Mr Jardine, which is what I do. I wanted to get into Abyssinia without going through the normal channels or to where everyone is being sent.’ Responding to a raised eyebrow, he added, ‘Right now there are correspondents from all over the world sitting in Addis Ababa drinking on their employer’s tab and filing nothing of interest. They ask to go up to the north where the Italians are massed and they are told no; they ask to have a look-see at the borderlands with Italian Somaliland, same answer. So, I decided on a little wandering in the hope of having something to tell my readers back home, but your Limey governor stopped me.’

‘And your newspaper is?’

‘Syndicated, Mr Jardine. I am reporting for half the papers in the States.’

‘Which grants you a rather large budget, I am given to understand,’ Mason remarked.

‘It does, but that has yet to translate into any hard news. The Ethiopians are sitting on everything, because they think if we report on the Italian military we will also report on them.’

‘A reasonable assumption?’ asked Jardine.

‘It is, but they are not really helping their cause. This is David versus Goliath, and the more that is stated the better the chance of some of the Western powers ganging up to stop Mussolini.’

‘You’re in the know, Mr Jardine,’ said Grace. ‘Any chance of that?’

‘I think you overrate my position, Lieutenant.’

‘Just what is your position, Mr Jardine?’ Alverson asked, with his deceptive drawl. There was nothing indolent about his look now.

‘No shop talk, Mr Alverson,’ Mason said quickly. ‘It is a rule we British tend towards imposing on our guests. Time for coffee, I think. Tell me, Miss Littleton, why are you here in our bailiwick if you need to get to Ethiopia to find your mother?’

‘Well, I figure you will be less stuffy than the French.’

‘No problem in that regard,’ boomed Peydon. ‘Damned Frogs, begging your pardon Mrs Mason, and, of course, you, young lady.’

‘They would not let me cross the border,’ she continued in that rather fetching cracked voice, giving the captain a look that wondered what was wrong with the odd damnation. ‘And there is no point, no point at all, in trying to get into Abyssinia through Eritrea.’ She rolled her eyes then. ‘The Italians won’t even take a bribe, my God, so worried are they that little old me might tell the world about their silly dispositions.’

‘And you hope to make your way from here?’

‘I do.’

Mason pulled a face. ‘I think I might have to disappoint you as well. The governor has instructions from Whitehall to keep the border sealed, as, no doubt, Mr Alverson has already informed you. Odd, you two fellow countrymen ending up here at the same time.’

‘Country folk will do, Mr Mason. I am not a man.’

That got a look that rendered the statement questionable. ‘Where will you go now, Mr Alverson?’

It was a delight to Jardine the way the American responded: he very likely had a plan but he was not about to let on. ‘Mr Mason, I will go to Aden, if I go anywhere.’

‘Thank you, Mason, for a splendid evening,’ said the army captain, standing up. ‘But reveille is at six and I have to be sharp eyes or the men won’t polish their boots.’

‘But they are barefoot, Captain Peydon,’ said his hostess, on her face a look that could only be described as gormless.

‘Figure of speech, Mrs M.’

‘Oh!’

It was a signal for the break-up of the evening and, in truth, Jardine was pleased: he had been travelling and was bushed. On top of that, he needed to make a quick trip up the coast to Zeila and have a look before Grace headed that way in his patrol boat. Everyone was on their feet now, saying their goodbyes, not that they were going far, only to one of the other hilltop bungalows. Jardine was therefore a little surprised when Alverson got in between him and the other guests and spoke to him softly.

‘I wonder if we could have a little stroll, clear the head before hitting the sack?’ Jardine picked up immediately it was not so much a request as a requirement, which made him wary. ‘There’s a couple of things I think we could talk about to advantage.’

‘Whose advantage?’

‘Let’s start with mutual.’

‘I’m pretty tired.’

‘If I said “Chaco War”, would that give you a boost?’

‘You coming, Tyler?’ Corrie Littleton called, which had Jardine give him an enquiring look.

‘When she turned up here I offered her a room,’ he said softly, before calling back, ‘I’m going to take some air, honey, and Mr Jardine is going to join me, I hope.’

‘Certainly,’ Jardine responded.

‘Maybe I should join you,’ she said. Alverson swung round slowly; he did not say anything, but whatever he imparted had to be in the look, as her face altered, showing doubt bordering on hurt. ‘Maybe not, I’m worn out.’

Mason touched Jardine’s arm. ‘Before you go to your slumbers, there’s something I need you to do. In my study.’

Jardine nodded, then passing the boys clearing up, he said goodnight to M and went out onto the veranda with Alverson. The night was cool and would get more so as the clear sky sucked the heat up into the atmosphere, but right now it was pleasant. Alverson walked away from the house, taking his time in lighting a cigar so that they were out of earshot before he spoke.

‘First thing I’d like to say, Mr Jardine, is that I am no peace lover, but then nor am I too fond of war, having seen the consequences from time to time.’

‘In Paraguay?’

‘And Bolivia — I covered both sides. I also know that there was a League of Nations arms embargo, though that proved to be pretty porous.’

‘It might be advantageous to get to the point, Mr Alverson.’

That got a smile, which was picked up by the moon and starlight, because there was no anger in Jardine’s voice: it was even and controlled.

‘Let’s just say your name rings a bell, shall we, and it occurs that, since we are on the edge of a country with another of these League embargoes in place, it might turn out to be just as porous.’

‘And if it was, what would you do about it?’

‘Why, take advantage, Mr Jardine, what else? I am looking for a story.’

‘I might not be one.’

‘And I might be Al Jolson without make-up. Let me level with you. I want not just to get into Abyssinia, but to get to where the action is.’

‘And you think I can take you there?’

‘I am guessing you can. I could get back to Addis, and quick as that through the Sudan.’ He clicked his fingers and drew deeply on his cigar. ‘But sitting on my ass drinking whisky is not my style. You are a man who runs guns and I picked up on what you did in South America.’

‘I could be acting on behalf of the British Government.’

‘You’re not, and the way Mason changed the subject was like semaphore. All I am asking is to come along with whatever it is you are up to, at my own risk and on my own dollar.’

‘What do I get out of it?’

‘Good company.’

Jardine laughed. Alverson would not say he might blow the gaff on the whole thing, but he could with one telegram, and it was not malice. He was a reporter and they reported, while no appeal to his better nature was likely to cut much ice.

‘Let me think about it. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’

‘Suits me,’ came the reply. Alverson knew ‘yes’ when he heard it.

Mason was, as he said, in his study, the only jarring note that one of his boys was there too.

‘Don’t worry about Rani, he speaks little English.’ He pointed to his desk, on which lay a piece of paper with the Colonial Office crest, really the British crown with the necessary departmental embellishments.

‘I have forged for you a set of orders from London, instructions to me to give you every cooperation. It has at the bottom the name of one of the undersecretaries who is a new appointment, so I would not know his signature. Please sign it in his name so that, should things go wrong, I am covered. I have no desire to lose my post.’

Mason could not help looking at his boy and that said everything. He was a homosexual, probably with a preference for the young, and out here he was safe to indulge his tastes, with the added advantage that his paramours were damned attractive and, given his position, no doubt numerous. It had been in those fleeting glances at the dinner table and, once realised, in the man’s gestures, which were slightly fastidious.

It was possible that his proclivities were the spur to make him act as he was doing, sympathy for the natives overriding his sense of duty to his office. Jardine was not bothered, nor was he in the least bit disgusted: what people did in the privacy of their own bedroom was no concern of his.

What revolted him was hating people for their colour or their bloodline, torturing them and depriving them of the right to a decent life because of their race. The Jews of Hamburg, with their mordant humour, would loudly proclaim their thanks to the Lord they were not homosexual, Gypsies, Communists or mad, for life would be intolerable: the Nazi state hated them more than Semites.

‘Of course,’ he said, looked at the name, picked up the pen and signed with a flourish.

The noise that woke him was slight, but a life of danger makes any such disturbance a matter of concern, doubly so given he was in what should be a safe place. There was a zephyr of breeze as his mosquito net was pulled aside and the bed dropped as another body got in. About to hit out, he was stopped as a hand searched for his cock, the untoward thought that it might be Mason unavoidable. Yet his own hand touching flesh, looking for the throat, brushed a breast, and that told him the body was female and a vision of Corrie Littleton filled his mind at the same time as blood filled his tugged-at penis.

That outstretched hand, the size of the mammary, plus a sort of snuffling sound gave him the first intimation he was mistaken, that and the sheer force with which he was dragged into full body contact. Part of his mind was telling him to resist, to insist Margery Mason get out of his bed, but her incessant tugging and the fact that an erect cock had no conscience overrode his scruples. Their coupling was swift, grunting, and for her, judging by her rising then choked-off whimpering, deeply satisfying.

Cal Jardine could not deny he was pleasured too, but when she was gone and he lay back to go to sleep, he also felt like a Boy Scout who had performed his good deed for the day.