The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

by Evelyn Waugh

  *

  It was not the first time in the Caliban that noon had brought an illusion of shadowless commonplace.

  The change of cabin was not the tactical triumph Mr. Pinfold briefly supposed. He was like a commander whose attack “hit air.” The post he had captured, which had seemed the key of the enemy’s position, proved to be empty, a mere piece of deception masking an elaborate and strongly held system; the force he supposed routed was reinforced and ready for the counter-attack.

  Mr. Pinfold discovered, before he went down to his first lonely luncheon, that Angel’s range of action was not limited to the original cabin and the corner of the lounge. From some mobile point of control he could speak, and listen in every part of the ship and in the following days Mr. Pinfold, wherever he stood, could hear, could not keep himself from hearing, everything that was said in Angel’s headquarters. Living and moving and eating now quite alone, barely nodding to Glover or Mrs. Scarfield, Mr. Pinfold listened and spoke only to his enemies and hour by hour, day by day, night by night, carefully assembled the intricate pieces of a plot altogether more modern and horrific than anything in the classic fictions of murder.

  Mr. Pinfold’s change of cabin had momentarily disconcerted Angel and his staff (there were about half a dozen of them, male and female, all young, basically identical with the three-eight orchestra); moreover it seemed likely that the scare of the day before, when it was put about the ship that he had gone overboard, was genuine enough. At any rate Angel’s first concern was that Mr. Pinfold should be kept under continual observation. Immediate reports were made to headquarters of his every move. These reports were concise and factual.

  “Gilbert has sat down at his table… He’s reading the menu… He’s ordering wine… He’s ordered a plate of cold ham.”

  When he moved he was passed on to relays of observers.

  “Gilbert coming up to main deck. Take over, B.”

  “O.K., A. Gilbert now approaching door on port side, going out on to deck. Take over, C.”

  “O.K., B. Gilbert walking the deck anti-clockwise. He’s approaching the main door, starboard side. Over to you B.”

  “He’s sitting down with a book.”

  “O.K., B. Stay on duty in the lounge. Report any move. I’ll have you relieved at three.”

  Mr. Pinfold, looking from one to another of the occupants of the lounge, wondered which was B. Later it transpired that about half the passengers had been recruited by Angel for observation duties. They considered it an innocuous parlor game. Of the rest some knew nothing of what was afoot—this group included Glover and the Scarfields—others thought the whole thing silly. The inner circle manned the staff office where reports were collated and inquiries instigated. Every few hours a conference was held at which Angel collected and discussed the notes of his observers, drafted them into a coherent report and gave them to a girl to be typed. He maintained a rollicking good humor and zest.

  “Great stuff. Splendid… My word, Gilbert’s given himself away here… Most valuable… We could do with a little more detail on these points…”

  Anything Mr. Pinfold had said or done or thought, that day or in his past life, seemed significant. Angel was mocking, but appreciative. At intervals two older men—not the generals, but men more akin to them than to the boisterous youngsters—subjected Mr. Pinfold to direct questioning. This inquisition, it appeared, was the essence of the enterprise. It was prosecuted whenever Mr. Pinfold sat in the lounge or lay in his cabin, and so curious was he about the motives and mechanics of the thing that for the first twenty-four hours he, to some extent, collaborated. The inquisitors, it seemed, possessed a huge but incomplete and wildly inaccurate dossier covering the whole of Mr. Pinfold’s private life. It was their task to fill the gaps. In manner they were part barristers, part bureaucrats.

  “Where were you in January 1929, Pinfold?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Perhaps I can refresh your memory. I have here a letter from you written at Mena House Hotel, Cairo. Were you in Egypt in 1929?”

  “Yes, I believe I was.”

  “And what were you doing there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? That won’t do, Pinfold. I want a better answer than that.”

  “I was just travelling.”

  “Of course you were travelling. You could hardly get to Egypt without travelling, could you? I want the truth, Pinfold. What were you doing in Egypt in 1929?”

  On another occasion: “How many pairs of shoes do you possess?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “You must know. Would you say a dozen?”

  “Yes, I dare say.”

  “We have you down here as possessing ten.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then why did you tell me a dozen, Pinfold? He did say a dozen, didn’t he?”

  “Quite distinctly.”

  “I don’t like this, Pinfold. You have to be truthful. Only the truth can help you.”

  Sometimes they turned to more immediate topics.

  “On more than one occasion you have complained of suffering from the effects of some gray pills. Where did they come from?”

  “My doctor.”

  “Do you suppose he manufactured them himself?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Well then, answer my question properly. Where did those pills come from?”

  “I really don’t know. Some chemist, I suppose.”

  “Exactly. Would it surprise you to hear they came from Wilcox and Bredworth?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Not particularly, Pinfold? I must warn you to be careful. Don’t you know that Wilcox and Bredworth are one of the most respected firms in the country?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you accuse them of purveying dangerous drugs?”

  “I expect they manufacture great quantities of poison.”

  “You mean you accuse Wilcox and Bredworth of conspiring with your doctor to poison you?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  Sometimes they made in their stern, precise voices accusations as fantastic as those of the hooligans and the gossips. They pressed him for information about the suicide of a staff-officer in the Middle East—a man who to the best of Mr. Pinfold’s knowledge had ended the war healthily and prosperously—which they attributed to Mr. Pinfold’s malice. They brought up the old charges of the eviction of Hill and of Mrs. Pinfold senior’s pauper’s funeral. They examined him about a claim he had never made, to be the nephew of an Anglican bishop.

  Once or twice during these days Angel organized a rag, but since Mr. Pinfold could hear the preparations, he was not dismayed as he had been by the previous exercises.

  Early one morning he heard Angel announce: “We will mount Operation Storm today,” and as soon as the ship came to life and the passengers began their day, all conversation, when they passed Mr. Pinfold, or he them, was about a gale warning. “… The Captain says we’re coming right into it.”

  “One of the worst storms he’s ever known in the Mediterranean…”

  The day was bright and calm, Mr. Pinfold had no fear—if anything he had rather a relish—for rough weather. After an hour of this charade Angel called it off. “No good,” he said, “operation cancelled. Gilbert isn’t scared.”

  “He’s a good sailor,” said Margaret.

  “He doesn’t mind missing his lunch,” said Goneril. “The food isn’t good enough for him.”

  “Operation Stock Exchange,” said Angel.

  This performance was even more fatuous than its predecessor. The method was the same, a series of conversations designed for him to hear. The subject was a financial slump which had suddenly thrown the stock-markets of the world into chaos. As they sauntered past or sat over their knitting the passengers dutifully recounted huge falls in the prices of stocks and shares in the world capital cities, the suicide of financiers, the closin
g of banks and corporations. They quoted figures. They named the companies which had failed. All this, even had he believed it, would have been of very remote interest to Mr. Pinfold.

  “They say Mr. Pinfold’s fortune is entirely wiped out,” said Mrs. Benson to Mrs. Cockson (these ladies had now resumed their mother tongue).

  Mr. Pinfold had no fortune. He owned a few fields, a few pictures, a few valuable books, his own copyrights. At the bank he had a small overdraft. He had never in his life put out a penny at interest. The rudimentary technicalities of finance were Greek to him. It was very odd, he thought, that these people could go to so much trouble to investigate his affairs and know so little about them.

  “Operation cancelled,” announced Angel at length.

  “What went wrong?”

  “I wish I knew. Gilbert is no longer responding to treatment. We had him on the run in the early days. Now he seems punch-drunk.”

  “He’s in a sort of daze.”

  “He’s not sleeping enough.”

  This was indeed true. Since he had finished his sleeping-draught Mr. Pinfold had seldom had more than an hour at a time of uneasy dozing. The nights were a bad time for him. He would sit in the lounge, alone in his dinner jacket, observing his fellow passengers, distracted a little by their activities from the voice of his enemies, trying to decide which were his friends, which were neutral, until the last of them had gone below and the lights were turned down. Then, knowing what to expect, he would go to his cabin and undress. He had given up any attempt at saying his prayers; the familiar, hallowed words provoked a storm of blasphemous parody from Goneril.

  He lay down expecting little rest. Angel had in his headquarters an electric instrument which showed Mr. Pinfold’s precise state of consciousness. It consisted, Mr. Pinfold surmised, of a glass tube containing two parallel lines of red light which continually drew together or moved apart like telegraph wires seen from a train. They approached one another as he grew drowsy and, when he fell asleep, crossed. A duty officer followed their fluctuations.

  “… Wide awake… now he’s getting sleepy… they’re almost touching… a single line… they’re going to cross… no, wide awake again…” And when he awoke after his brief spells of insensibility, his first sensation was always the voice of the observer: “Gilbert’s awake again. Fifty-one minutes.”

  “That’s better than the time before.”

  “But it isn’t enough.”

  One night they tried to soothe him by playing a record specially made by Swiss scientists for the purpose. These savants had decided from experiments made in a sanatorium for neurotic industrial workers that the most soporific noises were those of a factory. Mr. Pinfold’s cabin resounded to the roar and clang of machinery.

  “You bloody fools,” he cried in exasperation, “I’m not a factory worker. You’re driving me mad.”

  “No, no, Gilbert, you are mad already,” said the duty-officer. “We’re driving you insane.”

  The hubbub continued until Angel came on his round of inspection.

  “Gilbert not asleep yet? Let me see the log. “0312 hours. You bloody fools, I’m not a factory worker.” Well nor he is. “You’re driving me mad.” I believe we are. Turn off that record. Give him something rural.”

  From then for a long time nightingales sang to Mr. Pinfold but still he did not sleep. He stepped out on deck and leaned on the rail.

  “Go on, Gilbert. Jump. In you go,” said Goneril. Mr. Pinfold did not feel the smallest temptation to obey. “Water-funk.”

  “I know all about that actor, you know,” said Mr. Pinfold. “The one who was a friend of Angel’s and hanged himself in his dressing-room.”

  This was the first time that he disclosed his knowledge of Angel’s identity. The effect was immediate. All Angel’s assumed good humor was dispelled. “Why do you call me Angel?” he asked fiercely. “What the devil do you mean by it?”

  “It’s your name. I know exactly what you are doing for the B.B.C.”—this was bluff—“I know exactly what you did to Cedric Thorne. I know exactly what you are trying to do to me.”

  “Liar. You don’t know anything.”

  “Liar,” said Goneril.

  “I told you,” said Margaret, “Gilbert’s no fool.”

  Silence fell on the headquarters. Mr. Pinfold returned to his bunk, lay down, and slept until the steward came in with his tea. Angel spoke to him at once. He was in a chastened mood. “Look here, Gilbert, you’ve got us all wrong. What we’re doing is nothing to do with the B.B.C. It’s a private enterprise entirely. And as for Cedric—that wasn’t our fault. He came to us too late. We did everything we could for him. He was a hopeless case. Why don’t you answer? Can’t you hear me, Gilbert? Why don’t you answer?”

  Mr. Pinfold held his peace. He was getting near to a full explanation.

  *

  Mr. Pinfold was never able to give a completely coherent account either to himself or to anyone else of how he finally unraveled the mystery. He heard so much, directly and indirectly; he reasoned so closely; he followed so many false clues and reached so many absurd conclusions; but at length he was satisfied that he knew the truth. He then sat down and wrote about it at length to his wife.

  Darling,

  As I said in my telegram I am quite cured of my aches and pains. In that way the trip has been a success but this has not proved a happy ship and I have decided to get off at Port Said and go on by aeroplane.

  Do you remember the tick with a beard who came to Lychpole from the B.B.C. He is on board with a team bound for Aden. They are going to make recordings of Arab dance music. The tick is called Angel. He has shaved his beard. That is why I didn’t spot him at first. He has some of his family with him—rather a nice sister—travelling I suppose for pleasure. They seem to be cousins of a lot of our neighbors. You might inquire. These B.B.C. people have made themselves a great nuisance to me on board. They have got a lot of apparatus with them, most of it new and experimental. They have something which is really a glorified form of Reggie Upton’s Box. I shall never laugh at the poor Bruiser again. There is a great deal in it. More in fact than he imagines. Angel’s Box is able to speak and to hear. In fact I spend most of my days and nights carrying on conversations with people I never see. They are trying to psycho-analyze me. I know this sounds absurd. The Germans at the end of the war were developing this Box for the examination of prisoners. The Russians have perfected it. They don’t need any of the old physical means of persuasion. They can see into the minds of the most obdurate. The Existentialists in Paris first started using it for psycho-analyzing people who would not voluntarily submit to treatment. They first break the patient’s nerve by acting all sorts of violent scenes which he thinks are really happening. They confuse him until he doesn’t distinguish between natural sounds and those they induce. They make all kinds of preposterous accusations against him. Then when they get him in a receptive mood they start on their psycho-analysis. As you can imagine it’s a hellish invention in the wrong hands. Angel’s are very much the wrong hands. He’s an amateur and a conceited ass. That young man who came to the hotel with my tickets was there to measure my “life-waves.” I should have thought they could equally well have got them on board. Perhaps there is some particular gadget they have to get in London for each person. I don’t know. There is still a good deal about the whole business I don’t know. When I get back I will make inquiries. I’m not the first person they’ve tried it on. They drove an actor to suicide. I rather suspect they’ve been at work on poor Roger Stillingfleet. In fact I think we shall find a number of our friends who have behaved oddly lately have suffered from Angel.

  Anyway they have had no success with me. I’ve seen through them. All they have done is to stop my working. So I am leaving them. I shall go straight to the Galleface in Colombo and look round from there for a quiet place in the hills. I’ll telegraph when I arrive which should be about the time you get this letter.

  All love

  G.<
br />
  “Gilbert,” said Angel, “you can’t send that letter.”

  “I am certainly going to—by air mail from Port Said.”

  “It’s going to make trouble.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You don’t understand the importance of the work we’re doing. Did you see the Cocktail Party? Do you remember the second act? We are like the people in that, a little band doing good, sworn to secrecy, working behind the scenes everywhere—”

  “You’re a pretentious busy-body.”

  “Look here, Gilbert—”

  “And who the devil said you might use my Christian name?”

  “Gilbert.”

  “Mr. Pinfold to you.”

  “Mr. Pinfold, I admit we’ve not handled your case properly. We’ll leave you in peace if you’ll destroy that letter.”

  “I am leaving you, my good Angel. The question does not arise.”

  Goneril cut in: “We’ll give you hell for this, Gilbert. We’ll get you and you know it. We’ll never let you go. We’ve got you.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Mr. Pinfold.

  He felt himself master of the field: caught unawares, with unfamiliar barbarous weapons, treacherously ambushed when, as it were, he was under the cover of the Red Cross, he had rallied and routed the enemy. Their grand strategy had been utterly frustrated. All they could do now was snipe.

  This they did continuously during the last twenty-four hours of the voyage. Mr. Pinfold went about his business in a babble of jeering, threatening, cajoling voices. He gave notice to the purser of his intention of leaving the ship and sent a message by wireless engaging an air passage to Colombo.

  “You can’t go, Gilbert. They won’t let you off the ship. The doctor has you under observation. He’ll keep you in a home because you’re mad, Gilbert… You haven’t the money. You can’t hire a car… Your passport expired last week… They won’t take traveler’s checks in Egypt…” “He’s got dollars the beast.” “Well, that’s criminal. He ought to have declared them. They’ll get him for that.” “They won’t let you through the military zone, Gilbert” (this was in 1954). “The army will turn you back. Egyptian terrorists are bombing private cars on the canal road.”