The Empire Trilogy Part 40

All this time Joan had been prevented from answering his question by the fact that the moist, pink tip of her tongue was firmly gripped between her strong white teeth, an outer sign of the mental concentration required to tie a bow-tie on the neck of another person, particularly when the tie was of modest length and the neck, like Walter's, resembled the bole of an oak. At last she had finished, however.

'I haven't seen her for some time but I think she's still living there.'

'The point is,' said Walter, going to the mirror to inspect her handiwork, 'that we don't want a young woman of that sort turning up at Mr Webb's hospital bedside. You know how people gossip. If necessary we might have to consider giving her some money to stay out of the way. This, my dear, is a beautiful job!'

8.

Walter slowly descended the stairs, brooding again on Harvey Firestone's skill in engendering male babies. How on earth did he do it? Pausing with his hand on the banister, Walter experienced that unnerving feeling which no other businessman had ever produced in him of being outcla.s.sed. Not three or four, but five! That was luck of a very high order ... or no, not just luck, it was ... how could one put it? ... from the business point of view, correct behaviour correct behaviour, a mixture, very hard to define, of luck, certainly, in large part but also of opportunism, skill and rightness. Walter had been almost overpowered on the occasion of his first visit to Akron, Ohio, by this sensation of the right thing being done the right thing being done at high intensity all around him, and not only in the production of male babies but in that of motor tyres and rims, too. Perhaps it was just as well that he and Firestone were on opposite ends of the rubber business. at high intensity all around him, and not only in the production of male babies but in that of motor tyres and rims, too. Perhaps it was just as well that he and Firestone were on opposite ends of the rubber business.

Walter sank a few more steps and paused again, his mood of self-doubt having pa.s.sed. Rubber these days was in demand in a way it had never been before. This was, to some extent, thanks to the war and to the fact that the British and American governments were trying to acquire reserve stocks against a breakdown in supplies. But above all it was due to the determination of a few men, Walter among them, who had argued that rubber producers could could and and must must agree to limit the amount of rubber they released to the market. There was no other answer (except ruin). His brow, which had furrowed like a stormy sea at the thought of Harvey Firestone, returned to more placid undulations as he recalled how the doubters had argued that it had been tried before (they meant the Stevenson scheme from 19228) and had failed. Walter had not been daunted. The Netherlands East Indies, the only country to come close to Malaya in rubber production, had not agreed to take part in the Stevenson scheme so of course it had failed. This time the NEI must be made to see reason. They had vast areas of rubber smallholdings; n.o.body, not even the Dutch administration knew their extent. With all this rubber about to reach maturity and start flooding the market the entire rubber business could collapse. It was obvious that a reasonable price would have to be maintained artificially by a cartel of producers or rubber would become worthless. So Walter and his allies had argued against the doubters, who included, needless to say, old Solomon Langfield, and in the end they had won. agree to limit the amount of rubber they released to the market. There was no other answer (except ruin). His brow, which had furrowed like a stormy sea at the thought of Harvey Firestone, returned to more placid undulations as he recalled how the doubters had argued that it had been tried before (they meant the Stevenson scheme from 19228) and had failed. Walter had not been daunted. The Netherlands East Indies, the only country to come close to Malaya in rubber production, had not agreed to take part in the Stevenson scheme so of course it had failed. This time the NEI must be made to see reason. They had vast areas of rubber smallholdings; n.o.body, not even the Dutch administration knew their extent. With all this rubber about to reach maturity and start flooding the market the entire rubber business could collapse. It was obvious that a reasonable price would have to be maintained artificially by a cartel of producers or rubber would become worthless. So Walter and his allies had argued against the doubters, who included, needless to say, old Solomon Langfield, and in the end they had won.

Under the new scheme (somehow Langfield had wormed his way on to the a.s.sessment committee despite his earlier opposition) an estimated annual production was established for each country: for Malaya, for the NEI, Indo-China and the other smaller producers. Then an international committee was set up to decide, quarter-yearly, what percentage of the total rubber production of all these countries might be released to the world market without risking a drop in price because there was too much of it about. As a result it had become possible to allot a specific tonnage of rubber to each country and declare that this quarter they might export so much and no more.

Think of this rubber not as the solid elastic sheets resembling bundles of empty flour sacks in which it was actually exported but as the milky latex in which, very slowly, it seeps out of the trees. Walter and his fellow-producers now had a tap in the shape of the restriction scheme with which they could control the flow of latex on to the market. Around this tap were gathered the thirsty manufacturers of the industrial nations, and none more parched than the men from the American motor-tyre industry, the Goodyears, the Goodriches and, of course, the Firestones. Open the tap and they would drink their fill, splashing about as if latex were as worthless as water. Close it, though, and you would soon see their lips begin to crack and their tongues to swell. Let them get thirsty enough and they would not mind what they paid.

Walter had watched the manipulation of the tap with interest. In the years following the Depression demand for rubber had been slack. But by 1936, thanks to an increase in motorcar production and a miserly hand controlling the flow, the price of rubber had begun to rise and there had been a boom in rubber shares. At the end of that year the manufacturers had croaked a request for the producers to release a higher percentage in the coming year. The Restriction Committee had maintained its strict hand on the tap, however, and when criticized by the Americans for the rubber shortage in 1937, had artfully replied that even if it had raised the percentage released there would still not have been any more rubber available. Why not? The manufacturers had been floored by this paradox. Well, because there was a shortage of labour for one thing. For another, from February to April is when the trees are 'wintering' and production always falls. For those who knew the rubber business this was not very convincing but never mind, it would serve.

Walter had now reached the bottom of the stairs and the last traces of scowl had disappeared, giving way to an expression of beat.i.tude. For when the restriction scheme had been set up it had been understood that available rubber stocks should not be allowed to fall below the equivalent of five months' absorption by the manufacturers: this was in order that their businesses, and a possible expansion of demand, should not be put in jeopardy by shortages or delays in supply. And, mind you, the official policy of the Restriction Committee was not to make a killing out of rubber but merely to ensure, in a silky phrase worthy of Solomon Langfield himself, 'a reasonable return to an efficient producer'. It had come as no surprise to anyone in Singapore, least of all to Walter, when stocks fell below the promised five months' absorption and the price began to rise. Presently, the Committee's idea of what represented 'a reasonable return' began to rise, too. Seven pence a pound, eight pence, nine pence ... The scheme was working. Walter had watched, enthralled. Standing at the foot of the stairs he suddenly flourished his fist in the air. That had been one on the nose for the Firestones!

Walter, returning to his senses, now realized that Abdul, his Malay major-domo, had approached silently and was eyeing him with concern.

'What news, Master?'

'Good news, Abdul,' replied Walter conventionally. The fellow clearly wanted to tell him something. He bent an ear.

'A what what, Abdul? A yogi?' Walter stared in amazement at the elderly Malay who had been in his service for some years and for whom he felt a considerable affection and respect.

The major-domo explained. The yogi had come to entertain the guests. It was the idea of the young Tuan Tuan Blackett. Blackett.

'Well, tell the b.l.o.o.d.y man to go away again. It's supposed to be a dinner-party, not a circus.'

'Yes, Tuan Tuan.' The old man smiled faintly for there was a bond of sympathy between him and Walter when it came to the behaviour of the younger generation and it was clear that he, no less than Walter, had found the idea of a yogi at a dinner-party outrageous.

'But no, wait, Abdul. On second thoughts we must let Monty make his own decision about the yogi. He'll never learn if we always have to tell him what's what. I shall let him take charge of the dinner-party this evening. There probably won't be more than a dozen guests or so and they can be served in the breakfast-room. Tell him, will you, that I won't appear until after they've eaten. I've work to do.' And as the old servant was leaving Walter added: 'The boy must learn by his own mistakes, Abdul. There's no other way, I'm afraid, no other way.'

Alone in his study Walter was once more preoccupied with his family, this time with his son. Monty had energy and he worked hard. He had done a good job in reorganizing the administration of their estates when business was expanding again after the Depression. He was doing a good job now of pushing through the replanting, very often against opposition from estate managers who could not see the logic of it when rubber was booming. He even had some business sense which, with experience, might be developed. But the boy was erratic, there was no other word for it. Every now and then he would produce some wild idea that made you wonder whether he had understood anything at all. A yogi to entertain at supper on a day like this! True, he had not known that Mr Webb would collapse, but all the same! And they had barely recovered from the Chinese band he had insisted on having at the garden-party.

Moreover, Monty was no longer, strictly speaking, a boy. He was thirty. If he were ever going to learn by his mistakes it was high time that he started. Walter could not help comparing him, unfavourably, with a photograph he had once seen of the five young Firestones, each one as neatly brushed, as smartly turned out in his identical dark suit as his four brothers. And each one, no doubt, with a perfect command of that day's Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal. You would not catch the young Firestones inviting fakirs to dinner-parties. You would not catch the young Firestones inviting fakirs to dinner-parties.

Monty had certain good qualities but he was seriously lacking in judgement. Perhaps this would not have mattered if it had been merely a question of the occasional bizarre idea for amusing guests, but alas, it was not. In 1936 Monty had been sent to take charge of the London office for a few months to learn the European side of the business and, while he was there, he had got Blackett and Webb involved in something that anyone with common sense would have avoided. Towards the end of that year Monty had lent the authority of the firm to a great wave of speculation which was being generated by the rubber dealers and brokers in Mincing Lane. Mincing Lane's market a.n.a.lysts, peering into the swirling mists of the future, had perceived not only an approaching shortage of rubber but, stretching beyond that shortage, higher prices as far as the eye could see (that is what they said they had perceived, anyway). The brokers' market reports were in little doubt, they declared, but that the Restriction Committee had decided on maintaining higher prices indefinitely; after all, it could make little difference to the manufacturers who would simply pa.s.s the increases on to their customers. And even if the Committee had not not decided on a higher price it was well known, in Mincing Lane if not in Malaya, that not enough rubber could be produced to meet higher percentage rates of release. Besides, there was a shortage of labour. Besides, it was well known that once the native smallholders, who produced almost half of Malaya's rubber, made a little money, as they would with present high prices, they had the amiable habit of downing tools instead of pressing home their advantage, preferring to doze the day away in hammocks. So, one way or another, a shortage of rubber was inevitable. There was a quick fortune to be made. decided on a higher price it was well known, in Mincing Lane if not in Malaya, that not enough rubber could be produced to meet higher percentage rates of release. Besides, there was a shortage of labour. Besides, it was well known that once the native smallholders, who produced almost half of Malaya's rubber, made a little money, as they would with present high prices, they had the amiable habit of downing tools instead of pressing home their advantage, preferring to doze the day away in hammocks. So, one way or another, a shortage of rubber was inevitable. There was a quick fortune to be made.

Well, promotion of this sort, designed to make your mouth water, is what one must expect of a commodity broker. After all, such a fellow has to make a living somehow and Walter was the last person to hold that against him. But a steady market is not much good to a broker: he wants prices to rise or fall (he does not mind which provided they do one or the other). And if the market declines to fluctuate of its own accord it must be encouraged to do so. A cold night in Brazil and frost has wiped out the coffee plantations. A high wind in Jamaica and it's goodbye to bananas. Fair enough. Walter did not expect the commodity broker to emerge clad in different stripes simply because he was dealing in rubber. But for Monty to give Blackett and Webb's support to such devious special pleading struck Walter as so foolish as almost to amount to the work of an imbecile. Perhaps he had made some money for himself from a judicious trading of rubber shares, yes, perhaps even a large amount, though, if so, he had evidently lost it again gambling. But that was not what he was there for. Fluctuating markets do not help producers because an artificial boom brings with it inevitably its dark shadow, a collapse. And a collapse in prices brings for more difficulties for the producer that the boom earlier brought advantages. But what really angered Walter was something different, something even less tangible. It was the damage which had been done to Blackett and Webb's good name.

Walter got to his feet and stretched wearily. A murmur of voices from another part of the house told him that Monty's guests had arrived. He hoped that the boy would behave in a suitably subdued manner, given the circ.u.mstances. Presently, he himself would have to put in a brief appearance. 'Poor old Webb!' he thought as he settled down at his desk and began to read through the bundle of cables which had been steadily collecting on it all afternoon in his absence. But as he sat there, deep below the surface of his working mind, a disturbing thought shifted imperceptibly once or twice. To whom would Mr Webb leave his share of the business?

After an hour he felt hungry and remembered that he had had nothing to eat since mid-day. The clink of cutlery and cheerful conversation came to him faintly from the breakfast-room. It was clear that not everyone was allowing Mr Webb's approaching end to weigh on his spirits. Reluctant to join this cheerful gathering he made his way towards the dining-room, thinking that perhaps there might still be some food set out there.

Entering the dining-room he received a shock, for the servants, evidently uncertain as to the evening's arrangements, had left the room exactly as it was. The long table was still set with eighty places in silver cutlery. Bowls of flowers and silver candlesticks alternated from one end to the other while at each place there stood a little family of wine gla.s.ses in which toasts would have been drunk to Mr Webb on his birthday, to himself, to the firm's future prosperity. But what had given Walter such a shock were the four life-size heads fashioned of cake and icing-sugar, crude but recognizable, which had been set up on side tables, one in each corner of the room. Two of the heads he recognized immediately: one was of himself, benign, dew-lapped, cheeks unnaturally rouged with cochineal, the scalp tonsured with white icing-sugar. The other, more lifelike, represented old Mr Webb's gaunt and dignified features. It seemed to Walter that a cold, almost cynical smile hovered about his former partner's lips, and for a moment he found himself believing that real thoughts might be pa.s.sing through the fruit-cake brain behind those piercing pale-blue eyes of sugar, that he was thinking: 'So! You thought you had got rid of me at last!'

Recovering from his surprise Walter advanced smiling to read a sugar inscription which announced that these cakes had been presented on the occasion of Mr Webb's birthday and the inauguration of the firm's jubilee celebrations by Blackett and Webb's Chinese employees who had collected subscriptions for the purpose, perhaps, Walter surmised, with the tactful encouragement of the publicity department but nevertheless ... This was unexpected and gratifying, given the troubled labour situation in the Colony. And to think that only a few weeks earlier all work in the rubber G.o.downs had come to a halt and Singapore had trembled on the verge of a General Strike! 'Now who are these other chaps?'

One was clearly intended to be Churchill, but a Churchill with slanting eyes and an Oriental look, manifestly the work of a Chinese pastry-cook. It took him a moment longer to recognize the fourth head, thin-featured, high-cheekboned, facing Churchill diagonally across the room but eventually he realized that it must be Chiang Kai-shek. How patriotic the overseas Chinese remained and, considering everything, how well organized!

In the past three years while the Sino-j.a.panese war had continued to boom and crash like a distant thunderstorm here and there over the mainland there had been a great multiplication of so-called 'Anti-Enemy Backing-up Societies', not all of them, alas, controlled by the Kuomintang. Sinister letters by courier from Shanghai to the Malayan Communist Party had been intercepted (according to the Combined Intelligence Summary), declaring that 'a victorious war for China will be the overture for an emanc.i.p.ation movement in the colonies.' A memorandum from the Special Branch of the Straits Settlements Police warned against the influence these patriotic societies might acquire with the Malayan Chinese, thanks to their anti-j.a.panese stand. In appearance, harmlessly engaged in collecting funds to support the Chinese army, many of these 'National Salvation' and 'anti-enemy' organizations were in fact under the control of the Communists.

Finding no other food in the dining-room and unwilling to interrupt his train of thought by summoning one of the 'boys', Walter broke off one of Mr Webb's ears and munched it, pacing up and down. How many of his own employees who had perhaps subscribed to these effigies in cake of hated imperialists were at the same time secret members of, say, the Overseas Chinese Anti-Enemy National Salvation Society or of the even more outlandishly named Youth Blood and Iron Traitor-Exterminating Corps (the latter, to be sure, thought not to be Communist-led and, despite its bloodcurdling t.i.tle, specializing in nothing more violent than the occasional tarring of a shop in the city for selling sc.r.a.p-iron to the j.a.panese), not to mention more conventional gangs like the Heaven and Earth Society? Walter found it disturbing to know so little of where the real allegiance of his employees might lie. 'Not with us, anyway! Or only when it suits them.' The strikes which throughout this summer of 1940 had caused the foundations of the Colony to shake were, moreover, only a local manifestation of an ominous awakening of labour throughout the Far East. Shanghai at this very moment was in the embrace of a transport strike which, as it grew, scattered pollen far and wide. First, the British-owned Shanghai Tramways Company, then the China General Omnibus Company had stopped work. Pollen had been carried on the wind from the International Settlement into the French Concession to fertilize workers of the Compagnie Francaise de Tramways et d'Eclairage Electrique de Shanghai.

'And the next thing you know they're all at it!' One of the cables which Walter had glanced at a few minutes earlier brought news of a meeting organized by the Shanghai General Labour Union on the 27th at which some ninety-odd unions had been represented. The rubber workers' union, the restaurant workers' union, the weaving and spinning workers' union, the bean sauce workers' union, the silk filature workers' union, the ordure coolies' union, the wharf coolies' union ... and so on and so on. Shanghai, despite its almost incredibly precarious political situation, was important to Blackett and Webb. But Walter was more worried by the general implications of the strikes, for where Shanghai led, the rest of the Far East had a habit of following. Admittedly, workers in Shanghai were in real desperation. All the same Walter did not doubt but that the pollen could be carried across the South China Sea to Malaya and Singapore.

Walter halted in his pacing: again he was aware of a cold, cynical, even bitter expression on the icing-sugar features of his former partner, as if that fruit-cake brain were now thinking: 'This would never have happened in my day!' Well, that was true enough. Malaya's gigantic labour force had been docile in the old man's day when there were always ships to be seen anchoring in the roads crammed every available inch with wretched, fermenting, indentured coolies. In those days there was always cheap labour to be had. It had been the Depression which in the end, here as elsewhere, had brought about a change. Faced with great numbers of unemployed among the Chinese the Government had spent some millions of dollars in repatriating them to China: this display of munificence had been generated by the shrewd calculation that the cost of relief would be even greater if they remained in Malaya. But it had not done the employers any good.

In 1933 the Aliens Ordinance had dealt another blow to the business community for it gave the Governor the power to limit the number of aliens landed in the Colony. Although the intention had been more to check the arrival of Communist subversives from the mainland than to limit the size of the labour reservoir, this had proved, nevertheless, to be its effect. The cost of recruiting in China plus an increase in shipping fares had made it less expensive to recruit free free workers locally than to ship those cargoes of workers locally than to ship those cargoes of indentured indentured coolies. The Indian Government in the meantime, in the belief that Malayan businessmen were exploiting its subjects, had taken steps to limit the flow of Indian workers into the country. coolies. The Indian Government in the meantime, in the belief that Malayan businessmen were exploiting its subjects, had taken steps to limit the flow of Indian workers into the country.

The result? Strikes had begun to break out in Malaya and the Straits Settlements with increasing frequency. The supply of cheap labour had become finite. Many of the estate workers and squatters on pineapple plantations, hitherto isolated from their fellow-workers, had managed to acquire cheap j.a.panese bicycles: now meetings of widely dispersed workers could be held and collective resistance to low wages had become possible.

'And we didn't even have the wit to sell them the b.l.o.o.d.y bicycles!' reflected Walter with a wry smile at Mr Webb's effigy.

There had been another development, too. Chinese women, deprived of employment by the collapse of the silk industry in China and not subject to the limitation of the Aliens Ordinance, had begun to arrive by the shipload, whereas before the Depression, apart from women imported by brothel-keepers to stock their establishments, there had been few or none. The result was a sudden sinking of roots. Women had begun to take the cooking and buying of food out of the hands of the Chinese labour-contractors. The workers, who had once been easily abused nomads drifting from one estate or tin-mine to another, had started to settle down and demand the rights of citizens. Old Mr Webb's almond-paste lips might well curl in contempt at the way his younger partner had allowed the initiative to pa.s.s to his employees but could he himself have done anything to prevent it?

One of the first strikes, though isolated, had been the most serious of all. In the winter of 1935 Communist miners had taken possession of a coal mine at Batu Arang and set up a soviet to administer it. A soviet in the middle of British Malaya, if you please! Walter had been staggered to hear of it. Of course, it had not lasted long. Even if the Batu Arang mine had not been crucial for electricity and the railway it could not have been allowed to remain as an example to the rest of Malaya's labour force. The police had wasted no time in storming and recapturing it. But the miners' rash action (how naive they must have been to think that they would get away with it!) had been like a sudden gust of wind which fills the air with thistledown and strips the dandelion of its whiskers. In due course, given time for germination, strikes had begun to spring up all around. Next year it had been the turn of the pineapple factories. The year after that they had spread for the first time to the rubber estates. And what could the old man have done to prevent it? Not a thing.

'Times have changed. That's what the old chap never wanted to see. He thought everything should continue the way it always had. But times have changed, for all that.'

Again that shadow stirred in the depths of his mind: to whom would Mr Webb leave his holdings in the business? 'A businessman must move with the times,' said Walter aloud. And breaking off Mr Webb's other ear, in the interests of symmetry as much as of appet.i.te, Walter departed in search of Monty and his guests, crunching it between his strong yellow teeth as he went.

9.

Walter could hear no sound as he made his way along the pa.s.sage to the breakfast-room and his hopes began to rise. The room, indeed, proved to be deserted, although aromatic cigar smoke still hung in the air. Could it be that the guests had taken their leave already, as a mark of respect to old Mr Webb? If that was the case, then so much the better; Walter was weary after the day's difficulties. But one of the 'boys' clearing the table undeceived him. The party had moved outside to watch the yogi demonstrate his talents. Walter followed them, cracking his knuckles. 'Let the young fool learn by his mistakes then!'

Stepping grimly out of the luxuriously refrigerated air of the house into the sweltering night Walter found that a little herd of guests, men in white dinner-jackets, women in long evening dresses, had collected on that same portico from which, earlier in the day, he had surveyed the progress of the garden-party. On each side flights of stone steps, glimmering white in the darkness, dropped in zigzags to the lawn on which, directly beneath the bal.u.s.trade, a platform on wooden trestles had been set up for the yogi's performance. Two powerful floodlights smoking with insects had been directed down on the yogi from above. From behind the lights the guests watched him uneasily. Walter pa.s.sed among them, shaking hands and responding with a few grave words to their expressions of regret over the collapse of Mr Webb. It was true, of course, he muttered, that the old gentleman had had a good innings. Still, one could not help feeling that it was the end of an era. Walter's words, replete with the quiet dignity which the situation demanded, were unfortunately accompanied by a strange descant from below, some monotonous rigmarole in a language no one could understand, spattered from time to time with incomprehensible English. Really, it was perfectly unsuitable and ludicrous.

Monty suddenly came springing up the steps from the lawn where he had evidently been making some final arrangements. He was rubbing his hands together violently and chuckling in antic.i.p.ation. Walter's heart sank at the sight of him: the boy had such a wild look.

'There you are, Father. I was just going to get you. I was afraid you might miss this fellow. He's really a scream. He does the most amazing things.'

Walter drew his son to one side and said quietly: 'I want you to get this over as quickly as possible. I very much doubt whether it was ever a good idea, but to carry on with it this evening in view of what has happened to Mr Webb, really, you must have lost your senses.'

'Oh, look here, Father ...' protested Monty.

But Walter went on, ignoring him: 'I should have thought that the merest common sense would have told you ... And what d'you think the Langfields will say when they hear about it? They'll waste no time in putting it around that the Blacketts have been dancing on Mr Webb's grave while the body is still warm!'

Walter, becoming excited, had spoken louder than he had intended and the bristles on his spine had puffed up beneath his shirt ... One or two of the guests had begun to show signs of concern at this sudden whispered altercation between father and son. Walter realized that even Monty was looking at him oddly. 'Anyway, get rid of the fellow as soon as you can,' he said sharply.

Monty stiffened. The chanting had stopped. 'OK, Father. Yeah, OK!' he muttered and slid away swiftly towards the bal.u.s.trade beneath which the yogi was now beginning to demonstrate his powers. Walter continued to pa.s.s among the guests, conversing gravely with them as if something unsuitable were not happening, or about to happen, just out of sight beneath the portico. And while he conversed he mused grimly again on the damage done to the firm by Monty's erratic hand in its affairs, for was it not fair to say that the labour trouble on the estates in 1937 had stemmed, indirectly at least, from that great speculative rubber boom which Monty and the London office, in concert with certain unscrupulous brokers of Mincing Lane, had whipped up in the autumn of 1936 with their predictions of a rubber scarcity lasting as far as the eye could see?

Well, the truth of the matter was simple: the swift rise in the price of rubber, and of the employers' profits, had not, unfortunately, gone unnoticed by the Chinese work-force. There had been complaints about low wages in Selangor and Negri Sembilan. On the Bangi estate in Ulu Langat the manager had tried to get rid of his Chinese workers and replace them with Javanese. In no time the workers on half a dozen estates had downed tools. Moreover, other districts soon began to join because the workers from the Connemara estate, who had drawn up a list of demands for the Protector of Chinese, were fanning out on bicycles, those same cheap j.a.p bicycles which Blackett and Webb had not, until too late, thought of importing instead of the more costly products of Birmingham and Coventry, spreading the news far and wide. Presently twenty thousand or more Chinese had stopped work.

And it had all been perfectly unnecessary. The peaceful atmosphere of Malaya had been riven for no purpose. Ugly scenes had developed. Chinese detectives sent to look for Communists among the strikers, that idee fixe idee fixe of the Chinese Protectorate, had been roughed up. Heads had been broken. In due course over a hundred workers had found themselves behind bars and, to their original demand for a ten cents a day increase in wages, the strikers were now adding two more: the release of the arrested men and compensation for injuries, bound in the end to involve a loss of face for the Government. of the Chinese Protectorate, had been roughed up. Heads had been broken. In due course over a hundred workers had found themselves behind bars and, to their original demand for a ten cents a day increase in wages, the strikers were now adding two more: the release of the arrested men and compensation for injuries, bound in the end to involve a loss of face for the Government.

And why had it been unneccessary? Beceause that 'almost permanent' rubber boom which Monty and the market a.n.a.lysts had seen trembling in their telescopes at the end of 1936 had proved to be a mirage, as anyone in Malaya or the Netherlands East Indies could have told you it would. The price of rubber, ridiculously inflated by brokers' claims, had collapsed, aided by a recession in America. Sales of cars had declined and by the spring of 1938 the price of rubber had plummeted to about five pence a pound. Hardly had the strikers had their pay increased from sixty to seventy-five cents a day as a result of bitter struggles up and down the country, when workers were being laid off and wages reduced once more. But Monty, the young fool, impervious to the effects on Malaya's estate workers (on Malaya's social fabric even, for once this sort of thing started ...!) of these wild fluctuations in price generated by the London market, had been unable to see further than the chance of a quick profit. Instead of squashing the brokers' claims he had egged them on. And that, thought Walter more grimly than ever, was another example of the changing times. 'Young men these days have no sense of responsibility to the country!'

The yogi, Walter discovered, gazing down at him with distaste, was a tall, cadaverous individual, evidently a Punjabi. He was clad only in a white dhoti dhoti and gold turban. In the middle of the turban a large white gem, perhaps a diamond but more likely a piece of cut gla.s.s, flared in the floodlights. Thin as he was his naked chest was nevertheless disturbingly equipped with a pair of well-formed female b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Some distance to the right of the improvised stage the Blacketts' and gold turban. In the middle of the turban a large white gem, perhaps a diamond but more likely a piece of cut gla.s.s, flared in the floodlights. Thin as he was his naked chest was nevertheless disturbingly equipped with a pair of well-formed female b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Some distance to the right of the improvised stage the Blacketts' kebun kebun could be seen tending a blazing bonfire. could be seen tending a blazing bonfire.

Meanwhile, the yogi's a.s.sistant, a sallow, gold-toothed Eurasian in tattered black evening dress was following in Walter's wake among the guests, proffering for their inspection a box of tin-tacks and a cheap china tea-cup. The guests fingered them uncertainly. When they had satisfied themselves that no deception was being practised on them the Eurasian threw the box of tacks down to the yogi who caught it, opened it and began, rather gloomily, popping them into his mouth one by one and swallowing them. The guests continued to watch him uneasily. The only sound was the impatient cracking of Walter's knuckles.

The box of tacks was a large one and the yogi seemed to be in no hurry, as if anxious to savour each one. Presently the guests began to exchange glances, as if to say that it was dreadfully hot out here and would this go on much longer? Certain of the men, particularly those who considered their time valuable, glanced at their watches with a preoccupied air; one of them, whom Walter recognized as an influential executive of one of the big tyre companies in Singapore, even turned away from the bal.u.s.trade altogether.

'Yes,' agreed Walter, swiftly taking him by the arm and compelling him to saunter up and down along the same path which he himself had been pacing earlier in the day, 'it's bound to come as a shock to those who, like you and I, knew him as a younger man. But then, at his time of life ...' Walter shrugged sadly.

'Some time may elapse, I'm afraid, before we see his like again,' declared the man from the tyre company with an air of rather sepulchral piety, but again sneaking a look at his watch.

They began to discuss, in a desultory fashion while the yogi went on stolidly swallowing tacks, the mysterious latex-drinking snails which were said to have appeared on certain isolated estates. Neither of them was inclined to take these snails very seriously. 'Still,' said Walter, 'we'd better not let Mincing Lane get to hear of them or they'll be using the wretched creatures to fuel another round of speculation.' He paused sombrely, having reminded himself of the results of the last speculative boom. These speculators were playing the game of those who, like the Communists, wanted to foment trouble in the Colony. What a lot of strikes Singapore had seen this year already! The Harbour Board dockers had been on strike for three months ... at a time when shipment of rubber and tin was vital, not only for profits but for the War Effort as well. Hardly had that collapsed when, amid violent riots, another one had started at the Firestone factory and then trouble had spread all over the place with rubber immobilized everywhere, a disastrous pile-up of fruit at the height of the season caused by a go-slow of pineapple cutters at the canning factories, and to cap it all, pitched battles between police trying to arrest trouble-makers at the Tai Thong factory and the labour force armed with staves, stones and soda-water bottles.

Walter, despite those heads of cake, began to suffer misgivings about the loyalty of his workers. What if the Blackett and Webb jubilee should be chosen for propaganda purposes not only by the Government to demonstrate 'Continuity in Prosperity' under British rule, but also by the Communists by the Communists to demonstrate the exploitation and disaffection of the workers! The thought of a jubilee procession up the hill to Government House in the teeth of a howling mob was alarming. How the Langfields would laugh! to demonstrate the exploitation and disaffection of the workers! The thought of a jubilee procession up the hill to Government House in the teeth of a howling mob was alarming. How the Langfields would laugh!

'Where are they taking Margaret?' demanded Walter's companion suddenly, for the yogi's Eurasian a.s.sistant, gold teeth gleaming, had selected his wife from the little herd of guests and with much polishing of hands was leading her down the steps to where the yogi, his meal of tin-tacks finished, was waiting glumly on the platform. Half-way down the steps she baulked and would have returned had not Monty come hurrying down to rea.s.sure her. The bristles on Walter's spine began to stir beneath his dress shirt.

All the lady was required for, explained the Eurasian in an ingratiating tone, was to inspect the mouth of the yogi. The yogi, recognizing the signal, opened his mouth wide. The Eurasian promptly grasped the lady's shrinking fingers and stuffed them into the yogi's open mouth. She s.n.a.t.c.hed them out again quickly. No tin-tacks had been discovered. Monty, beside himself with delight, beamed up at the bal.u.s.trade. In the strong lights he looked wilder than ever.

Meanwhile, the yogi, his appet.i.te returning, had bitten the handle off the tea-cup which had been pa.s.sed round for inspection earlier and was crunching it noisily between his teeth. When he had devoured the handle he smashed the rest of the cup by rapping it sharply against his own skull, then popped the broken pieces of china into his mouth, crunching them up too. Monty was invited this time to inspect his mouth and was soon able to confirm that the cup had been eaten up entirely. A slight delay followed while the yogi and his a.s.sistant peered at something in a cardboard box full of straw, evidently trying to decide how best to deal with it. Walter leaned over the bal.u.s.trade and beckoned to Monty impatiently.

'Just a moment, Father.'

The yogi dipped his hand quickly into the box and withdrew a thrashing, apple-green snake, holding it up by the tail as it twisted this way and that trying to bite him. He quickly slid his other hand down the body and gripped the reptile firmly behind its head. The a.s.sistant began to hammer with his palms on a grimy drum. The guests gazed down at him apprehensively from the bal.u.s.trade, afraid that something disagreeable might be about to happen. The yogi had opened his mouth and was slowly bringing the snake's head towards it while the rest of its body continued to thrash and flail against his wrists and forearms. 'Oh no!' cried one of the ladies in dismay. Hissing, the snake's head came nearer and nearer the yogi's mouth, its tongue flickering. Abruptly the yogi took the snake into his mouth and bit off its head. There was an audible cracking of bone, a working of the yogi's jaws as he masticated and swallowed it. Then the tip of a pink tongue appeared and licked a few scarlet drops from his lips. Walter stared down at the headless body of the snake which continued to thrash by itself on the platform, smearing glistening red marks on the pale wood which, just for a moment, seemed to resemble Chinese ideographs, as if the snake were trying to make some last furious communication. One or two of the ladies had turned pale and even Walter himself was shaken. He announced loudly: 'If you would like to move inside, coffee and brandy will be served in the drawing-room where it's cooler.'

'But Father, he hasn't finished yet!' exclaimed Monty, dashing up the steps again as Walter began shepherding the guests back into the house. 'He drinks nitric acid. It's amazing. I've seen him do it. He dissolves a copper penny in it first and then he just swigs it! And he's going to walk barefoot through that bonfire before he drinks the acid ... Look, I mean ... since we've got the blighter here!'

Walter stared at his son for a moment, tight-lipped. Then he turned and strode back into the house. Presently, the yogi, left to his own devices, took off his sandals and began to trudge barefoot back and forth through the glowing embers of the bonfire while, at a little distance, his a.s.sistant discussed money matters with Monty in a high-pitched voice.

10.

Another hour elapsed before Walter had said goodbye to the last of the guests, some of whom had a stricken look. One of the ladies, so Abdul informed him, had been overcome by nausea and had been obliged to lie down: it was that ghastly business with the snake that had done it. He must remember to write a note of apology in the morning. He must also give Monty a dressing-down but that too would have to wait until morning for Monty had prudently disappeared.

Walter climbed the stairs wearily. It was some time since he had given his wife a thought and now he remembered that she had retired with a headache and was doubtless upset by the outcome of the garden-party. Could it still be the same day? That garden-party now seemed to have taken place weeks ago. He found her awake, lying as if stunned against a mound of pillows. She said she was feeling a little better and asked him where everyone was, it seemed very quiet.

'Search me. The only person who seems to be still here is young Ehrendorf. He's in the sitting-room smoking cigarettes. As for the others ...' Walter shrugged. All the guests had gone. Monty had gone. Joan had gone. The yogi had gone, full of china.

'You mean, full of china tea?'

'No, not really, no, I don't,' replied Walter in an edgy sort of tone.

Mrs Blackett sighed but felt too weak to pursue the matter.

'Well, I suppose I should go to the hospital to see how old Webb is getting on.'

Downstairs, Walter found that there was another guest who had not yet departed though now, daunted by the empty echoing rooms, he seemed to be in the process of doing so: this was Dr Brownley, their family doctor. Dr Brownley frequently visited the Blacketts, but more often for social than for professional reasons. Indeed, he was always invited to the Blacketts' parties, always came, was always the first to arrive and usually the last to leave. The Doctor, however, was troubled by the knowledge that he was always going to the Blacketts' but never invited them back never invited them back! Someone less addicted than the Doctor to the grand social occasions in which the Blacketts specialized, where inevitably one found oneself cheek by jowl with the people who mattered in the Straits, might have preferred to soothe his inflamed conscience, or at least to limit the spread of further inflammation, by not accepting any more invitations. Such a remedy, alas, was out of reach of the good Doctor. Though his inflammation throbbed more painfully on each new occasion he simply could not but accept. Now, at the sight of Walter on the stairs he winced visibly, thinking: 'This makes it twelve times in a row and they haven't once been invited to my house!' He had been hoping to slip out of the house while no one was about, thus avoiding the awkwardness of a leave-taking. Indeed, the reason Walter had not seen him earlier was that the Doctor had dodged behind a bookcase to avoid detection. But this time there was no escape and he called out heartily: 'Ah, there you are, Walter. I was looking for you to thank you and, of course, Mrs Blackett for a delightful ... mind you, one of many such ... I'm just off now. Must be going. Look here, you must come to my place one of these days...Can I give you a lift? No, of course, this is where you live, isn't it? Ha, ha, well, hm ... You must come to ...' His voice trailed off into a mutter as he prepared to plunge into the friendly darkness outside. Issuing invitations, the Doctor had found, provided a little welcome relief in awkward situations like this ... but you felt correspondingly worse later when faced with the prospect of redeeming them!

'What's that?' demanded Walter, puzzled by the Doctor's habit of muttering to himself before departure. The Doctor flinched. 'I was just saying that you must come to my place one of these days,' he was obliged to state in a clear and unequivocal tone.

'Oh, all right. Why not?' said Walter. 'Good night, Doctor.' And with that he returned to the drawing-room.

Walter, who had a horror of hospitals, had been contemplating a quiet stengah stengah before paying a visit to old Mr Webb. He had forgotten that young Ehrendorf was still there and was not altogether pleased to find the room full of cigarette smoke. 'These days you really have to winkle out your guests one by one,' he thought as Ehrendorf stood up politely, trailing a newspaper from his fingers. However, on the whole he had a good opinion of Ehrendorf and even felt, as one male to another, some sympathy for him in his predicament with Joan. But there it was, women were peculiar and there was not very much one could do about it. If some woman had thrown wine in Walter's face as a young man he would have fetched her a clout. Ah, but then he had never pretended to have the exquisite manners of an Ehrendorf and could very well see that, equipped with polished manners, one could not go about clouting women at garden-parties. before paying a visit to old Mr Webb. He had forgotten that young Ehrendorf was still there and was not altogether pleased to find the room full of cigarette smoke. 'These days you really have to winkle out your guests one by one,' he thought as Ehrendorf stood up politely, trailing a newspaper from his fingers. However, on the whole he had a good opinion of Ehrendorf and even felt, as one male to another, some sympathy for him in his predicament with Joan. But there it was, women were peculiar and there was not very much one could do about it. If some woman had thrown wine in Walter's face as a young man he would have fetched her a clout. Ah, but then he had never pretended to have the exquisite manners of an Ehrendorf and could very well see that, equipped with polished manners, one could not go about clouting women at garden-parties.

'You haven't seen Joan, have you?' Ehrendorf enquired, resuming his seat but sitting, Walter was glad to perceive, on the edge of his chair as if ready to stand again.

'Not for some time. I have an idea that she may have gone out for the evening.'

'Well, in that case it seems,' said Ehrendorf with a rather strained smile, 'that I've been stood up. Well, never mind, it's not for the first time. I'll just finish my drink if you don't mind and then I'll be on my way.'

'No hurry.'

Walter called for his stengah stengah and sank back in his chair, glad enough after all to have Ehrendorf's company and to delay his visit to the hospital for a little while. Walter did not greatly care for Americans these days: the acrimony aroused over the Rubber Restriction scheme and the subsequent counter-attack by the American consumers had left its mark. But when one day Captain Ehrendorf, posted to the US military attache's office in Singapore and armed with an introduction to the Blacketts, had presented himself at their house, neither Walter nor the rest of his family had been able to find fault with him. This had been partly because his introduction had come from none other than Matthew Webb and the Blacketts were curious to learn more about Matthew and the way he lived (incidentally, he must soon do something about sending the poor boy a telegram about his father's illness), but most of all because Ehrendorf himself was unusually charming and good-looking. He might, indeed, have been specially constructed to topple all Walter's prejudices about Americans. and sank back in his chair, glad enough after all to have Ehrendorf's company and to delay his visit to the hospital for a little while. Walter did not greatly care for Americans these days: the acrimony aroused over the Rubber Restriction scheme and the subsequent counter-attack by the American consumers had left its mark. But when one day Captain Ehrendorf, posted to the US military attache's office in Singapore and armed with an introduction to the Blacketts, had presented himself at their house, neither Walter nor the rest of his family had been able to find fault with him. This had been partly because his introduction had come from none other than Matthew Webb and the Blacketts were curious to learn more about Matthew and the way he lived (incidentally, he must soon do something about sending the poor boy a telegram about his father's illness), but most of all because Ehrendorf himself was unusually charming and good-looking. He might, indeed, have been specially constructed to topple all Walter's prejudices about Americans.

Americans, thought Walter, are vulgar: but no one had better taste than Ehrendorf. They are loud: no one more soft-spoken. They have no culture: Walter had yet to meet anyone more cultured, better educated, better mannered, more tactful and well-informed. The fellow, amazing though it might seem to Walter's jaundiced eye, was quite simply a gentleman. Walter had found it hard to think of him as an American at all. Why, he even spoke English like a civilized person.

Ehrendorf had wasted no time in telling the Blacketts what he knew of Matthew, whom he had first met at Oxford. He himself had been a Rhodes scholar at the university (here he paused for a moment but the Blacketts had stared at him blankly) for a couple of years. Then, five or six years later, they had b.u.mped into each other again, this time in Geneva in 1932 where he himself had been posted as a very junior military a.s.sistant to Mr Norman Davis in the long, tortuous and exhausting discussions on the Disarmament Conference. Matthew had not been working for the League Secretariat itself but for some other organization whose name escaped him, connected with it in some way. There were so many! Was it the International Peace Bureau, or the Red Cross Committee? Was it the Permanent Secretariat for War Veterans and War Victims? Or the Union for the a.s.sistance of Calamity-Stricken Populations? Of one thing he was pretty sure, he laughed: it was not the International Humanitarian Bureau for Lovers of Animals, whose rather odd programme was 'to extend to the animal kingdom the sentiments and duties of humane justice'. He had a suspicion that it might well have been the International League for the Protection of Native Peoples; that was certainly the field he was interested in, anyway. But no matter! How glad they had been to meet each other again!

Geneva in winter was the most depressing town on earth, the international community was cliquish and segregated grimly by nationalities, the Genevese burgher himself was the most narrow and xenophobic animal on two legs. He and Matthew, whom he considered 'the most wonderful person in the world' and 'a wonderful human being' (young Kate t.i.ttered when he said this and clasped a hand over her mouth), casting aside the depressing and Jesuitical, even Jansenist, shackles of Disarmament had resumed their own much more interesting discussions on art, s.e.x, Freud, the existence or otherwise of G.o.d, chattering away, as young men will, he added with a smile, about the causes of the Thirty Years War and whether the Defenestration of Prague was instrumental in the downfall of the Palatinate and of the Bohemian church, and countless other matters of this kind which they had been unable to settle to their own satisfaction during the time they had spent together at Oxford. Matthew, 'a very delightful person', had been the ideal companion in this dull and provincial Swiss town. They had even managed to make a quick trip to London that winter to see Gielgud's production of Rodney Ackland's magnificent play, Strange Orchestra Strange Orchestra at the St Martin's Theatre. Then, alas, all too soon, the call of their respective duties had caused their paths to diverge once more. In the years that followed they had only managed to meet again once or twice, for a hurried meal in the nearest restaurant to this or that railway station in some European city where the threads which each was unreeling behind him on his way through Life's maze had happened briefly to intersect. But they had at least kept in touch by letter, just about. at the St Martin's Theatre. Then, alas, all too soon, the call of their respective duties had caused their paths to diverge once more. In the years that followed they had only managed to meet again once or twice, for a hurried meal in the nearest restaurant to this or that railway station in some European city where the threads which each was unreeling behind him on his way through Life's maze had happened briefly to intersect. But they had at least kept in touch by letter, just about.

Walter was sufficiently accustomed to American hyperbole to realize that Ehrendorf might not literally consider Matthew to be 'the most wonderful person in the world'. Americans, he knew, were inclined to use such expressions about any acquaintance they found moderately inoffensive. Still, it was encouraging. The poor boy's bizarre education might not have completely ruined him, after all. Mrs Blackett had reacted more cautiously: gossiping about the Defenestration of Prague, whatever that was, did not seem to her such a good sign. As for Ehrendorf, he really was delightful. The Blacketts were charmed by him. Not even young Kate, who was pa.s.sing then through a stage when she detested all men, could quite resist him.

Ehrendorf had become a frequent visitor at the Blacketts' house and he would call without performing any of the preliminary social manoeuvres which were still customary among the older Singapore families. Instead of making use of the box fitted to the gate with a tiny slit for visiting cards, and then retiring, as the ritual required, to wait for an invitation, he would have his staff car drive him boldly up to the front door and wander in unannounced. He never stayed for long, though. He was always on his way somewhere...to Government House, perhaps; the Blacketts would not have been surprised to learn, such was Ehrendorf's disarming ease of manner, that he wandered in on the Governor and Lady Thomas as casually as he did on them, and he was certainly on friendly terms with the Governor's ADC and staff ('the servants' hall' as it was known at Government House) ... or to a reception at some legation, or further afield, to a conference in Manila, or Saigon, or Batavia. Sometimes, if he were going to a party nearby and Joan was at a loose end, he would courteously invite her to join him and together they would be whisked away in the staff car to some elaborate reception or beach party. It was clear, of course, that Ehrendorf, despite his accomplishment, was a long way from being an ideal, or even a possible, suitor for Joan. But his manifest good-nature inhibited the elder Blacketts from objecting for a time to the attentions that he was paying to their daughter and, in any case, it very soon became clear to Walter that no objections were likely to be needed. Her delicate appearance notwithstanding, Joan's tender womanhood was clad in a tough hide. The distressing day which this young man seated opposite him had evidently just experienced would have been further proof of it, if he had needed proof.

'Perhaps you would tell Joan that I waited for her,' Ehrendorf said calmly and without resentment as both men got to their feet. 'I guess it slipped her mind that she had a date with me.'

'I expect so,' agreed Walter blandly. 'Well, I must be on my way over to Outram Road. I could drop you off in Market Street if you like?' But Ehrendorf had a car waiting and each went his separate way.

The night was very hot and still, but clear. Walter found it refreshing to sit there in the back of the open car beneath the stars, surging through the empty streets. And how peaceful the low, tiled roofs of the shophouses along Orchard Road looked in the starlight! Noticing that the California Sandwich Shoppe on the right-hand side was still open he remembered that he had eaten nothing, apart from Mr Webb's ears, for some hours. For a moment he considered telling the syce syce to stop, but no ... he no longer felt hungry. The heat and weariness had robbed him of his appet.i.te. At the bottom of Orchard Road the Bentley turned to the right into Hill Street, past the white Moorish facade of the Oriental Telephone and Telegraph Company trembling in the starlight like a vision from the Arabian Nights, and then glided on its way south-west under the looming blue-black shadow of the police barracks, over the river (Walter, holding his breath against the stench, briefly glimpsed the silhouette of Blackett and Webb's G.o.down at the bend of the river and closer at hand on the water itself the huddled lighters and to stop, but no ... he no longer felt hungry. The heat and weariness had robbed him of his appet.i.te. At the bottom of Orchard Road the Bentley turned to the right into Hill Street, past the white Moorish facade of the Oriental Telephone and Telegraph Company trembling in the starlight like a vision from the Arabian Nights, and then glided on its way south-west under the looming blue-black shadow of the police barracks, over the river (Walter, holding his breath against the stench, briefly glimpsed the silhouette of Blackett and Webb's G.o.down at the bend of the river and closer at hand on the water itself the huddled lighters and sampans sampans where prodigious numbers of Chinese were fated to live out their lives), and then on along New Bridge Road towards the General Hospital, Walter brooding now about the Chinese once more. where prodigious numbers of Chinese were fated to live out their lives), and then on along New Bridge Road towards the General Hospital, Walter brooding now about the Chinese once more.

'We in Singapore may have our share of overcrowding and child-labour and slums, but at least it's not like Shanghai!'