Past Imperative [Round One of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

Sir Thomas had offered sherry and biscuits, which were declined. He had thereupon opened the interview with a ten-minute diatribe against the Germans: “Blustering bullies, you know. Always have been. Stand up to them and they crawl, try to be reasonable and they brag and threaten. Absolutely no idea how to handle natives, none at all. Made a botch of their colonies, all of them. Thoroughly hated, everywhere. Southwest Africa, Cameroons, East Africa—it's always the same with the Boche. The Hottentots taught them a thing or two, back in ‘06, you know. Never did get the whole story diere. Now they think they can make a botch of Europe. Might is Right, they say. Well, they've got a surprise coming. Russians'll be in Berlin by Christmas, if the French don't beat them to it."

  And so on.

  When Leatherdale forced the conversation around to his case, Sir Thomas glowered and shivered, listening as his son confirmed the story. Then the father came in again, explaining why he had sent the telegram to Paris ordering Julian home, stressing his vision and common sense in doing so.

  With his companion recalled and the Continent bursting into flames, with the strong possibility that he might be unable to join up with the rest of the party, young Exeter had chosen to return to England also. Any other decision would have demonstrated very bad judgment. Sir Thomas gave no hint, however, that he had offered hospitality to his son's friend, suddenly at a loose end. Had young Julian thought to do so? If not, why not? If he had, why had Exeter chosen the embarrassing alternative of an appeal to the Bodgleys’ charity? While Leatherdale was considering how to ask those questions, he put another:

  "What was Exeter's state of mind?"

  "State of mind, sir?” The boy blinked like an idiot.

  "Was he disappointed?"

  "At first, sir. But eager to get his own back, of course—sir."

  Leatherdale felt the thrill of a hound scenting its prey. “His own back on who?"

  "On the Germans, sir. We're going to enlist together, sir."

  Red herring.

  Sir Thomas uttered a snort of potent scorn.

  "Exeter has broken his leg,” Leatherdale said. “It will be some time..."

  The scorn registered. The lack of invitation clicked into place also. He confirmed some times and dates while he shaped his questions, then turned to the father. “You know Exeter, Sir Thomas?"

  "Believe Julian introduced him last Speech Day."

  There was strong disapproval there. That was the first indication Leatherdale had found that the entire world did not approve wholeheartedly of Edward Exeter. Another quarry had broken cover.

  "How would you judge him, sir?"

  Smedley Senior drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Suddenly he was being cautious. “Can't say I know the boy well enough to pass an opinion, Inspector."

  That might well be true, but it did not mean that Sir Thomas did not have an opinion, and it would be based on something, however inadmissible it might be as evidence.

  "His housemaster speaks very highly of him,” Leatherdale said.

  Sir Thomas made a Hrumph! noise.

  "You thought enough of him to approve him as your son's companion on a trip across Europe."

  Hrumph! again. “Well, they were chums.” Father eyed son with a See-How-Wrong-You-Were? expression. “It was only for a few days, till they joined Dr. Gibbs and the others..."

  Leatherdale waited.

  Again Sir Thomas cleared his throat. “Must admit I have nothing against the boy himself. Deucedly good bowler. He may be straight enough. Guilty until proved innocent, what? I've seen Fallow work wonders. There was a young Jew boy there in my time ... Well, that's another story."

  Another silence. Leatherdale knew the road now.

  "Do you know his family at all, Sir Thomas?"

  "Only by reputation."

  "And that is?"

  "Well the Nyagatha affair, of course."

  "Tragic?"

  "Damned scandal! Read the board of inquiry report, Inspector!"

  "I intend to. Can you give me the main points, though?"

  That was all the encouragement Sir Thomas required. “Shocking! If Exeter had survived, he'd have been drummed out of the Service. Lucky not to be thrown in the clink. A band of malcontents wanders out of the jungle and burns a Government Station? White women raped and murdered! Children! Not a single survivor. Shameful! If Exeter had maintained a proper force of guards as he should, damned business would never have happened. Disgraceful! And there was all sorts of other dirt came out, too."

  "Such as?"

  "His overall performance. Aims and motivations. The man had absolutely gone native, Inspector! Tribal barbarities that had been stamped out in other districts had been allowed to persist. Witch doctors and such abominations. Roads that should have been built had not been. Missionaries and developers had been discouraged—virtually thrown out, in some cases. The commissioners were extremely critical. Gave his superiors a very stiff wigging for not having kept a better eye on him."

  In the shadowed room, Sir Thomas's glare was as ferocious as any of the sinister idols'. His son was staring at the floor, fists clenched, saying nothing. His back was still ramrod-stiff.

  So young Exeter had perhaps spent his childhood in unusually primitive surroundings, even by Colonial standards. That was not evidence. But it did help explain a certain curious document that Leatherdale had found in the suspect's luggage.

  "Mr. Smedley?” Leatherdale said gently.

  Julian looked up nervously. “Sir?"

  "Did Edward Exeter ever express any ambition to follow in his father's footsteps? In the Colonial Office, I mean?"

  Sir Thomas snorted. “They wouldn't touch another Exeter with a forty-foot pole."

  "Hardly fair to the boy, sir?"

  The invalid shivered and produced a linen handkerchief to dab his beaded forehead. “There are some names you don't want around on files to remind people, Inspector! Have you any further questions to put to my son?"

  "Just one, I think. What do you think of Edward Exeter, Mr. Smedley?"

  Julian glanced briefly at his father and seemed to make an effort to sit up even straighter, which was not physically possible.

  "He's white!” he said defiantly. “A regular brick!"

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  25

  SLOWER THAN A PLAGUE OF SNAILS CRAWLED THE HOSPItal minutes. Lunch lay in Edward's stomach like a battleship's anchor: pea soup, mutton stew, suet pudding, lumpy custard. He was trying, with very little success, to write a sympathy letter to the Bodgleys.

  Amid his foggy memories of his visit to the Grange, he had a clear vision of old Bagpipe cursing the asthma that would keep him out of the war—and now here he was himself, flat on his back with his bloody leg in pieces. Three months! It would be all over by then, and even if it wasn't, then all his chums would be three months ahead of him. What bloody awful luck!

  Not quite as bloody as Bagpipe's of course.... His birthday present from Alice had been a handsome leather writing case, which fortunately had not been pilfered in Paris. It bore his initials in gold and had pockets for envelopes and stamps and unanswered correspondence. Abandoning the Bodgley letter, he pulled out two well-thumbed sheets that he had stored away in one of those pockets. He knew the text by heart now, but he read it all over again. Then he set to work copying it out, word for word.

  It was dated the day of the Nyagatha massacre, and the writing was his father's.

  My dear Jumbo,

  It was with both surprise and of course delight that Mrs. Exeter and I welcomed Maclean to our abode last night. Although conditions have improved vastly over the last few years, his journey from the Valley of the Kings was as arduous as might be expected. Had he been delayed only another three days at Mombasa, I fear he would have missed us here altogether. Indeed, delivery of this letter cannot precede by more than a week our personal arrival Home. Needless to say, the tidings he brought concerning your own crossing were equally agreeable to us. Without implying that any incenti
ve beyond that of being reunited with our son and adopted daughter is necessary to motivate us to visit the Old Country, your presence there and the resulting prospects of riotous revelry in your company are a joyous prospect!

  Who was Jumbo? Who was Maclean? The casualties of the massacre had included a “Soames Maclean, Esq., of Surrey,” but the board of inquiry report had given no explanation of who he was, or what he had been doing at Nyagatha, except to describe him as a visitor. Just an old friend? Nothing odd about that. But then the letter turned strange.

  Your new interpretation, of which Maclean has advised me, I find very convincing and in no small measure disturbing! You are to be congratulated on perceiving something that should have been perfectly obvious to all of us and me in particular, but of course was not. (He was named after Mrs. Exeter's father!) Unfortunately, in this case insight, which should promote increase in understanding and alleviation of apprehension, has tended rather to promote proliferation of enigmas!

  The only person Edward knew who had been named after his grandfather was himself, but why should that matter to Jumbo, whoever Jumbo was? The letter then mentioned him directly.

  While friendship, gratitude, and personal respect all incline me to acquiesce, dear Jumbo, the awesome responsibilities of fatherhood dissuade me from permitting a personal interview. The boy is not yet old enough to understand the implications. Rest assured that he will be fully informed before the critical date, and while he will still be very young even then, the decision will be his alone. We have given the Kent group strict instructions not to reveal his whereabouts to anyone at all. You will understand that no personal slight is intended.

  His mother agrees with me wholeheartedly in this. Perhaps we are being overcautious, but we both feel “better safe than sorry"!

  You will be relieved to hear that I am still strongly in favor of breaking the chain. Soapy has been trying to convert me with all his customary eloquence, but so far without success.

  Five days ago, in the middle of the Champs Élysées, Edward had realized that a man named Soames Maclean might very likely be known as “Soapy” behind his back, especially if he were noted for his eloquence.

  I still disapprove of turning a world upside down. The effects of good intentions are well-known and my work here has merely hardened my conviction that paving with better intentions only makes the road descend more slowly. One cannot take away half of a culture and expect the remainder to thrive. I have at least kept out the worst of the busybodies and preserved as many of the indigenous customs as I dare.

  For example, I have not prohibited warfare among the young men of Nyagatha, although all the other districts banned it at once. It is not war as the Europeans understand war, nor is it done for slavery or conquest. It is a ritual combat with shields and clubs that rarely results in serious injury to the men themselves and never harms women and children. It is very little rougher than a county rugby match, and it is the basis of their whole concept of manhood. In neighboring districts, the culture has virtually collapsed without it.

  I doubt that information concerning my irregular activities can much longer be kept from the local powers in London. I shall be severely criticized, but that is of no consequence. I hope and believe that we have softened the inevitable blow.

  As for religion, I need not tell you of the dangers of tampering there! Even a bad faith, if it provides stability, may be better than the turmoil...

  There it stopped, in mid-sentence. His last words.

  Criticized? Oh, guv'nor, how they criticized you! They tore you corpse to shreds in their elegant Whitehall meeting rooms. They hung your parts on bridges for the world to mock.

  Three days after those words had been written, a white-faced boy had been hastily summoned to the Head's study at Fallow, but not before he had seen the morning papers. The telegram from London had arrived a couple of hours later. That had been bad enough. Much worse had been the letters from the dead that had trickled in over the next two months, full of cheerful plans for the journey Home and the family reunion. Every week another ship would dock and the wound would be reopened before it had even had a chance to scab. A year later, when a thin crust had begun to form so that his heart was not always a stone and he could even smile again without feeling guilty—then that awful board of inquiry report had started him bleeding all over again.

  And a couple of months after that, even, some idiot, well-meaning, thoughtless lawyer had forwarded a box of his parents’ possessions that had somehow survived the fire. Fortunately, Holy Roly had forgotten to mention them. They had lain in his attic until a week ago. Edward had stopped a night in Kensington on his way to Paris, dropping off all the gear he had accumulated at Fallow. Only then had he discovered that box, and in it that extraordinary letter.

  What did it all mean? Who was Jumbo? What was the Valley of the Kings? Mr. Oldcastle of the Colonial Office lived in Kent—was he somehow related to the Kent group mentioned? The only person who might be able to answer any of those questions was Mr. Oldcastle himself. Now he had time on his hands, Edward was going to send him a copy of the letter. The original he would keep forever, his father's last words.

  A patter of feet and rush of voices in the corridor announced the start of visiting hours. Alice would be prompt, she always was. Edward put away his writing and crossed his fingers. How exactly did one bait breath?...

  Alice had been the first good thing he had seen in England, come to Southampton to meet him, a poised young lady of fifteen standing on the docks with her aunt Griselda—Roland had been too busy to leave town. Edward had met him that evening and they had disliked each other on sight. Dislike had flowered rapidly to mutual contempt. Alice and Griselda had probably kept the frightened twelve-year-old from madness or suicide in his first few weeks of that strangely green, soggy, solid England, full of mists and pale faces.

  He had gone up to Fallow in the autumn, and what had been a nightmare of alienation and homesickness for all the other new boys had been a blessed release for him. That winter Griselda had faded away altogether, a mousy, kindly woman unable to withstand her famous, fanatical, power-crazy husband. Roland had grown steadily worse ever since, shriller, more eccentric, more bigoted.

  Alice had been an absent relation, rarely seen, but her letters and Edward's had flashed across England in a single day, not to be compared to the twelve-week round trip to Kenya, and he had been grateful for her and to her. Whenever the loneliness had overflowed, he had written to Alice, and two days later her replies had arrived, full of stern comfort and practical advice.

  The years had crept by. In retrospect, he should have informed his parents how things stood between him and the Reverend Roland, but it would have seemed like tattling, so he never had. He had given no thought to words like tragedy, probate, executor.... Plans for the family reunion had been seeded, nourished, cultivated—and ultimately blasted by that inexplicable massacre just days before the Exeters were due to leave Nyagatha. The ship that should have brought them Home had brought details of their deaths.

  Even before the disaster, Roland Exeter had displayed a driving ambition to convert his niece and nephew to his own brand of religious fervor. His brother's will had named him guardian of the orphaned boy and the twice-orphaned girl, and he had reacted like a missionary given a personal gift of two cannibals to win from the darkness.

  Alice had left school by then. Her uncle had expected her to remain and keep house in the dread Kensington mausoleum which was home to both him and his Lighthouse Missionary Society. When she had moved out and set up her own establishment, he had denounced her as a scarlet woman, damned to hellfire for eternity. That was Roly's standard way of expressing disapproval.

  Edward had remained at Fallow, but there he had raised the banner of liberty and manned the barricades, a staunch upholder of his father's skepticism, fighting his guerrilla war at long distance. He had not set foot in a church since the Nyagatha memorial service.

  The corridors had gone q
uiet again. Was she not coming? Had she been forced to return to London, or had he merely dreamed her presence yesterday?

  Were I a praying man, I should pray now.

  Most girls made him squirm and shuffle and stutter. With Alice he could just stand and smile for hours. His face ached after being with her, just from smiling.

  He had not seen her since her birthday. He had obtained a somewhat irregular exeat to attend the celebration—irregular in that his guardian had neither requested it nor known of it. Ginger Jones had stuck his neck out there, but the shrewd old housemaster had known for years how the wind blew.

  The three years’ age difference had dwindled now. In Africa it had represented the gulf between big child and small child. In England between boy and young woman. Now she was twenty-one, but he was a man in all but legal status. He was five feet, eleven and three-quarters inches tall.

  In the spring he had even grown a mustache. It had not been wholly satisfactory, and Alice had obviously not thought much of it, so he had shaved it off when he got back to Fallow. The principle was what mattered.

  Feminine heels clicked in the now-silent corridor. He held his breath.

  Alice walked in. The sun came out and birds sang. She could always do that to rooms now, even drab brown hospital rooms.

  She walked straight to the bed and for an intoxicating moment he wondered if she would kiss him, but she raised her eyebrows archly and handed him a string shopping bag full of books. He laid them on the bed.

  She dressed very well, considering her limited means. She was wearing dove gray, to match her eyes—masses of striped cotton, from wrists to ankles, with a broad sash around her waist. Heaven knew what else ladies wore underneath. She must be cooked on a day like this, and yet she did not seem so. She removed her rose-bedecked hat, laying it and her parasol on the foot of the bed. Then she pulled up the chair. Her eyes were assessing him.

  He realized that he had been staring at her like a stuffed stag. “Thank you for coming."

  "I had to promise we will not discuss the case.” She flicked a thumb at the open door and mimed someone writing. “You are much better!” She smiled. “I'm glad."