Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  “We can make something of this, don’t you think, if we work together? Fifty-fifty on our new casino, Trevelyan? The Pine Cone Club. We’ll go halves on everything.”

  And like a fool, I said, “fifty-fifty it is.”

  Wan Booli Camp, July 1945

  Captain Obi backhanded me hard across the mouth, and the wad of tobacco I’d had lodged in my cheek landed on the yellow dirt floor of the camp. That tobacco was worth half a rice ration. Too late now. One of the scavenging French officers raced over to it, claiming it for himself.

  Ah well, it wasn’t as if tobacco was scarce. I had a ton of it in the stock room, alongside thirty-odd cases of Johnnie Walker, several cases of VSOP brandy and a pretty sensational wine cellar. And that was just at the kitchens. The private larder I’d had built onto my quarters looked a bit like the food hall at Harrods.

  But one had to keep up appearances, and I was still a prisoner.

  And so I pretended the guard’s backhander hurt a great deal. I made an exaggerated grunting noise, dropping forward and collapsed into the dust, bowing my head as if the sheer power of this fellow, and by extension his glorious nation, had brought me to my knees. This did not seem to satisfy the tiny Japanese, who stood only five and one quarter feet tall. He dropped back a step, and began to draw his katana from his belt. “Major is obliged by Captain Obi’s constancy and clear thinking in matter,” I barked out in formal Japanese to his shiny leather boots. “Major begs to assure that never again will line of credit be questioned. Major insists on refunding Captain’s losses.”

  Obi’s sword came a further three inches from his scabbard. I thought quickly. “Major begs presence of estimable Captain at special Pine Cone Club event this evening. Free entry to fighting. Special warrior bout dedicated to excellent Captain Obi-san.”

  I did find it very trying talking in this ridiculous way, when all the guards and officers understood English perfectly well, but debasing my own language conferred respect upon them. So far this kind of attitude had kept my head on my shoulders. “Also, for most esteemed Captain in Wan Booli, Major predicts appealing naughty-style kabuki theatre.”

  I’d have to sort those details out later. Thankfully, Obi scowled, jammed the katana back into the scabbard, and gave a curt bow. We’d see him this evening, no doubt, his anger forgotten. He turned on his heels and marched off.

  Cornwall grasped my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Lucky escape Trevelyan,” he murmured ruefully. Cornwall had always been fretful about allowing the camp guards into our casino, but it wasn’t as if we had a choice. Many guards paid their gambling debts as a matter of personal honour, but there were always those tricky situations when a game went sour. A stiff breeze whistling through the bamboo screens flipped over a house card. The wrong elbow was nudged at the craps table. A tense little beetle would race away instead of attacking it’s opponent.

  Unlike any other casino in the world, we, the owners of the Pine Cone Club, had to smile sweetly and write the losses off.

  Or we’d be decapitated.

  As we headed back along the fence to the smartly painted wooden building that housed the Pine Cone, I mused for the thousandth time that it was a shame our profits were diluted this way. It meant that the Major and I were barely sterling millionaires. The riches we defrayed every week were unimaginable, but such was the cost of doing business during the war.

  It had been an astonishing year and a half. We’d interpreted Miyamoto’s order rather differently than he’d imagined. We hadn’t opened a mere supper-club, but a full-service casino. We were doing big business, nightly. In fact, we were now open twenty-four hours a day. We’d provided every single internee with a well-paid job at the Pine Cone Club, and the pallid faces and scrawny frames of our men had been replaced with the grins of men with full bellies. The Japanese military were incorrigible gamblers, and our fame had spread throughout the district. Officers on leave often came straight to our mah-jong and blackjack tables, only leaving when their cash ran out, or they were back on duty.

  We took a little from nearly everyone, and gave a lot back to a few, most often Colonels and above. We’d extended our entertainments into a nightly live show, with dancers and singers to rival Glenn Miller and Vera Lynn. Our food was sublime, and we were the only nightspot in Japan that could guarantee you a wagyu steak and French burgundy with genuine King Edward potatoes – any night of the week. We had cigarette girls who’d give you a kiss for ten dollars, and Glaswegian door staff who’d batter you half to death if they caught you doing so. We’d trained up captured men to become Dorchester-level cocktail barmen, and we’d hired a seamstress who could mend your overcoat while it was in the cloakroom. There was even a rumour that an American submarine crew had run aground off the nearest coast, and surrendered in the hope they might be sent to Camp Wan Booli.

  The Pine Cone was the place to be in 1945, the Kit Kat Club of the East. You could gamble on anything and everything, and even if you lost all your money, you’d have a bloody good time doing so, and would not bear any grudge to Messrs. Cornwall and Trevelyan, who would shrug you into your coat, hold open the door, and wish you better fortune next time.

  I mulled all this over as I plonked myself down at our new thirty-foot long mahogany bar, and nodded to the seven-foot American airman, Reno, to pick me out a refreshing Damn Yee beer from the ice tub behind him. I grabbed a handful of pre-shelled cashews, and clicked my fingers for one of the Scots Guards to bring me my raw silk kimono and draw me a salt bath. I swiped the newest copy of The Times of London before Cornwall got his paws on it, and disappeared to my quarters at the back of the casino.

  Despite these luxurious surroundings, the eighteen months we’d done at Camp Wan Booli had taken their toll. Yes, we’d created the single most opulent meal in culinary history and caused General Miyamoto to defecate himself to death. Yes we were treated as brothers by many of the camp guards, and as heroes by the other prisoners. Yes, our supper-club casino made the days and nights slide by most agreeably. But when push came to shove, I was desperate to get home.

  __________

  It was a Tuesday evening, but not a normal Tuesday. This was a very, very big night for us.

  I made my usual tour of the gaming tables: blackjack, poker, baccarat. I shook hands, and gave out handfuls of free bets, varnished tokens of mahogany branded with the Pine Cone logo. I called for drinks to Major Xo’s private table, and made sure that Chi-Chi had allocated a couple of girls to flatter him and his entourage. The rule was one hostess fewer than the number of gamblers. Or host, if that was what made the player tick. Whatever. It made the less able players risk more of their money as they tried to attract a little gladeye.

  I moved on, stopping to bow to the Deputy Mayor of the district. Later I’d send him over a bottle of Johnnie Walker, but not the good stuff. He was not a high roller since we’d cleaned him out six weeks back. But still he couldn’t stay away. I stepped into the craps area, and alerted Hamish, one of my Scots Guards, to the fact that Big Soo was rifling pockets again. Hamish clapped Big Soo on the back with such force that his beer bottle smashed one of his front teeth out – and all with nobody noticing. Hamish threw him out of a side door, and closed it gently. Doormen of Hamish’s quality are invariably from Glasgow.

  I wandered back of house, behind the beetle tables, to find Victor and check that everything was going to plan. Victor was in his element, smoking a Tall Dandy Duke in an ivory holder, like a slightly tatty Noël Coward. He was briefing some privates who ran sub-books on our sports bets to trash the chances of Waa Stanley Xian, a journeyman beetle slated for only his second fight later this evening.

  “Remember, any of the chaps who want action on Waa, be quizzical, be incredulous. Yeh sure, you’ll give them the bet, but why are they wasting their money? Waa’s going to lose, they should take the favourite.”

  Later, Waa was up against Hercule, a tw
enty-bout champion rhaetulus crenatus, seventy-five percent bigger, with a mandible reach perhaps three-quarters of an inch longer. Hercule was the son of the undefeated champion Alexander IV, trained by the invincible Mad Jack Churchill, winner of the Military Cross and Legion d’honneur, and the only Allied soldier of the War to have killed a German soldier with a traditional English longbow.

  On paper this was Hercule’s bout for sure. Mad Jack was even now in the warm-up area, whispering in Hercule’s ear, rubbing olive oil onto his shell with a muslin-covered matchstick, and whispering fight-tactics to him as if he were the Brown Bomber himself. Just as we wanted, a lot of early money was going down on Hercule, to take advantage of the generous odds the house had set. But Mad Jack was in for a surprise. Waa Stanley Xian was no ordinary stag beetle.

  Waa was a gamechanger. He’d cost ten thousand pounds to smuggle into Wan Booli inside a tree stump of mushroom spores we said we needed to improve the boeuf bourguignon. Waa was the best of a clutch of lucanus swinhoei – the most vicious species of stag beetle to ever stalk the forest floor, and hitherto unknown at Wan Booli. When we cut him loose, it would be like pitting Jack Dempsey against Louis Armstrong. Our first training session with Waa had been very promising indeed. Cornwall had called me into the training gallery, and bid me watch something. He rested his entire hand on Waa’s body, and let it go slack. Waa bench-pressed Cornwall’s hand five times. The next week, Waa killed a rat by thrusting his left mandible into its anus. Then he lifted the rat’s body off the ground, and bench-pressed it fifteen times.

  Waa was an abomination. He’d eat his own faeces, even when there was plenty of much better food right next to him. He’d even found a way to masturbate himself with his own horns. There was so much testosterone coursing through his tiny veins we had to whittle him a crude simulacrum of a lady stag beetle from a lump of wood, which he dry-humped twice an hour. Only yesterday, Victor had shown Waa his own reflection in a pocket-shaving mirror. Waa had instantly charged the mirror, cracking it in seven places. Then he had wrestled the pieces of mirror out of Victor’s hand, and stamped on them until his feet bled.

  We had kept his potency an absolute secret. Cornwall and I were the only two people in the camp who knew how Waa v Hercule was going to go down.

  What’s more, chaps were so confident in Hercule that this beetle fight was generating the sort of juice that would make every bookie in the world sit up and listen. When Waa was triumphant, Victor and I could have made a small fortune. But tonight was not about money. It was about survival.

  As we’d spent more and more time at Wan Booli, we came to understand the Japanese concept of honour. Being a prisoner is inherently dishonourable for a Japanese military man, who would rather suffer death, even if he had to self-administer it. This, I thought, was an admirably single-minded quality. The trouble was they had no respect for men who were prepared to live as prisoners, and by extension felt the world would have no respect for them if their camps were found to exist at all. It was clear Japan was going to lose the war in the Pacific eventually, and we knew that was when all prisoners would be ruthlessly put to the sword. We had to escape.

  We now had about half a million quid in various currencies and nearly ten pounds of gold stashed around the camp. Our future was assured, if only we could win our freedom. Waa Stanley Xian was our ticket out of Camp Wan Booli, away from Japan, and home. What we needed, desperately, was for General Ito to appear, and to be in a gambling mood.

  Three hours later

  The big fight was overdue, and the crowd was beginning to wind themselves up. But there was no sign of the General. He should be here by now! I was despairing.

  I was pacing the length of the bar over and over again, hoping against hope, until Cornwall caught my elbow and whispered in my ear that unless I calmed myself someone would twig the fight was fixed.

  The General needed to come to the Club. He really, really, really needed to be here.

  The bamboo door opened. Could it be?

  YES! It was the General’s Chief of Staff, Captain Asahi. He stood at the door, surveying the scene. Then he shouted for attention.

  General Ito, a thug in an officer’s uniform who was almost as broad as he was tall, burst through the door and threw his gloves at the coat boy’s feet. The coat boy wearily bent down to pick them up, and Ito kicked him in the face, knocking him out cold. Asahi burst out laughing, which was the signal for everyone else to burst out laughing too. What a hilarious fellow General Ito was.

  Cornwall and I moved smoothly towards him. We had talked for hours about how to engineer the situation. Cornwall bowed low to Ito, and held out a stack of betting chips which Ito took without thanks or acknowledgement. “Good evening, estimable General,” I said. “Perhaps excellent Ito will play blackjack this evening?”

  He was a surly, contrary bastard. We were banking on him doing the opposite of what we suggested. “No, no, idiot buffoon Trevelyan,” said Cornwall. “Surely the heroic General will play craps tonight. New moon augurs well for dice.”

  “I will play baccarat. Then beetle fight.”

  That’ll do.

  “Excellent choice General,” said Cornwall, and led the way to the baccarat area. He kicked a few of the chaps off the table, and asked one of the camp guards if he minded relinquishing play to Ito. The guard bowed low, and moved away. We didn’t need to tell the dealer, notable cardsharp Joey Ropes, to make sure Ito started winning big. We wanted him feeling like King Midas. For the next half an hour, Ito wouldn’t lose a hand.

  __________

  The General was sitting on $64,500 when I appeared at his side, with a bottle of Johnny Walker Black thirty-year-old, “to celebrate excellent and continued success, House presents exceptional whisky to shrewd and fortune-favoured General.”

  Ito clapped me on the back. He was in a giving mood. It was now or never. “Does General wish to hear odds for premium quality beetle-fight, due to commence in few minutes time? Fortune is smiling on challenger Waa Stanley Xian.”

  “What odds?”

  “Waa Stanley Xian is available, with special deal for Generals only, at seven to one.”

  The General guffawed, and took a great pull of his whisky. “You must think me a fool, Trevelyan.”

  “Trevelyan honoured to be addressed by name, great General,” I said, head bowed. “Please forgive appalling insult of poorly educated casino lackey. If General prefers bet on Champion Hercule, son of Alexander IV, then special odds can be arranged.”

  “What odds?”

  As we’d agreed, Cornwall cut in, “Two to one for Hercule to emerge victorious once more, General.” This was a ludicrously good deal and the General knew it. But he was greedy. “You will give me four to one, and I will bet $60,000.”

  “It is so,” said Cornwall, “except…”

  General Ito, the blubber in his face pulsating, turned to face Cornwall, who ensured he was looking down at the floor instead of meeting Ito’s gaze. “Except what, prisoner Cornwall?”

  Cornwall looked up, and right into Ito’s eyes. “Except how about we stop fannying about General, and have a real bet like gentlemen?” It is probable that nobody had ever spoken to Ito like Cornwall just had. If Ito were going to lop Cornwall’s head off, it would be now. I took a very slow step back. No point getting in the way of his sword arc.

  Ito burst out laughing. “Prisoner Cornwall, Prisoner Trevelyan, you have big English balls,” laughed General Ito. “Let us hear what you have to say.”

  I pitched it to him. “You back the favourite. If he wins you take the casino and all its profits, and we will manage it for you until the end of the war. If Hercule loses, you grant us two free passes out of Camp Wan Booli, and transport away from Japan. That’s the bet.” Ito thought for a moment, clicking a couple of $1000 dollar chips between his pudgy fingers. “I have an alternative bet for you…” Oh.
Clearly our plan had not survived first contact with the enemy. “…this camp is mine, and so this casino is already mine. If your beetle wins, I will give you a motorboat, and allow you to leave the Camp. But if Hercule wins you will be executed at dawn. Do you accept this bet, as gentlemen?”

  Well, we didn’t have a choice. I for one was thoroughly sick of being offered death or this, death or that. This absolutely took the biscuit. So I took a deep breath, and was about to tell the General what I thought of him and his stinking dump of a camp, when – “The General is more than fair,” said Cornwall graciously. “We will let the fates decide our destiny.”

  __________

  News of our bet spread like soft butter on a warm teacake. No prisoner had ever been given the chance to win their freedom before. Chaps could scarcely believe what they were hearing. Life wasn’t too shabby at Wan Booli. Why would Cornwall and Trevelyan give up the luxurious casino-owning lifestyle they had built up from nothing? Were they mad?

  No, just hungry for their liberty, and undesiring of a bullet between the eyes the moment the war was over.

  __________

  General Ito seated himself ringside. The tiny dohyō was freshly drawn on the baize table. Hundreds of spectators were baying with excitement, and our sports-bet boys were doing a roaring trade. For once, I didn’t give a toss about the profit margin. I felt distinctly green around the gills, and looking at Cornwall I could see he was feeling the pinch as well. On one side of the dohyō was snarling Mad Jack. He was goading his veteran champion with a selection of Highland war ditties. On the other side, the smaller, unimpressive Waa Stanley Xian was scuttling about his pen, looking to escape. The odds on a Waa victory were now out as far as eleven to one.