Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Wash ’em some more,” said Andrew.

  The Sikh set his teeth. They plunged his feet back in the pan. He breathed hard through his nose.

  “Andrew, the man’s in agony! Be a bit merciful!”

  “All right, Elsa, all right! Leave this to me! There’s nothing else to be done.”

  Andrew himself took the soap. His strong hands were far more gentle than the Tibetans’ had been. The woman, staring pop-eyed between two of Andrew’s men, crooned as she watched the relaxation of relief on Bulah Singh’s face.

  “Blood poison’s the thing to guard against. We’ll save your feet,” said Andrew.

  “You might have saved me this indignity!” Bulah Singh retorted.

  “Yeah — I might have.” Andrew washed steadily. “But I was wise to your game. I boomeranged you. Know what that means?”

  “Gunning, you’re mad!”

  “No, no, no. I’m easy-minded. Not mad in the least.”

  “Don’t you understand that your safety depends on me?”

  Andrew smiled. “Here’s a towel. Dry your own feet. After that, I’ll dust em with iodoform and then bandage ’em. Next time you hit the trail, wear walking boots. Those things you had on weren’t even fit to ride in.”

  The Tibetans relaxed their hold. Tenderly the Sikh dried his own feet, until suddenly he caught sight of the woman’s face. He tossed the towel to her. At a gesture from Andrew the Tibetans let her pass. The boy followed her. The woman squatted and took the Sikh’s feet in her lap; she and the boy worked gently, each using an end of the one towel.

  “You see,” said Andrew, “I spotted your plan to have Elsa and me do the Jesus foot-wash act in the presence of all these people. Smart stuff! For a man in a mean fix you’ve got presence of mind. It was subtle. That would have fixed us, in their minds, as your inferiors.”

  “My feet are dry,” said Bulah Singh.

  “You won’t walk on ’em for quite a while,” said Andrew. He handed the iodoform to the woman — showed her how to dust it on, watched her do it, went on talking: “I suppose you expect to stay here until your feet get well.”

  “I am coming with you,” the Sikh answered. “I and this child, and the woman.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “You will also say it. You will very gladly say it! You will beg me to come with you — when you have heard my news!”

  “Bandages!” said Andrew.

  Elsa wanted to do the bandaging, but Andrew wouldn’t let her. He did it himself, smiling:

  “Elsa, we owe that woman nothing. Get back the towel, soap and iodoform, quick, now, before she hides ’em! If she won’t give ’em up, Bompo Tsering shall give her the works.”

  Bompo Tsering heard. He followed Elsa. The woman surrendered the towel ungraciously, as if to reclaim it were meanness, but she had passed the bottle of iodoform to the boy, who had slunk away with it, and with the soap too. She pretended to know nothing of anything else, until the boy’s cries brought her to her senses. Bompo Tsering had caught the boy hiding among the ponies. He was beating him. The woman screamed, jumped up and ran to the rescue. Bompo Tsering slapped her and threw her down among the ponies; then came back with the soap and iodoform. Andrew made mental note of the fact that Bulah Singh’s weapons had been stowed away in Bompo Tsering’s voluminous bokkus but he didn’t choose to humiliate his own man at that moment.

  Bulah Singh spoke angrily: “Andrew Gunning! Listen well and remember! It is safe to punish the woman. She is only a tart. But beware of the boy!”

  “You kicked him!” said Elsa. “I saw you kick him in the face when he was trying to pull your boots off.”

  Bulah Singh sneered: “But don’t you do it! I own him, body and soul! If you injure him — if you insult him — and if I will it, the men of this village will spread your pieces on the burial mound for the dogs and vultures to come and finish. What they will do to you fir — Ah!”

  “Damn you, don’t—”

  Andrew gripped the Sikh’s shoulder so hard that he bit a word in halves. “Those bandages,” he said, “will do until this time tomorrow. Don’t try to stand on ’em. My men shall set a box against the wall and sit you on it. After that, you shall talk.”

  “And you,” the Sikh answered, “you — both of you — had better listen to me — and remember!”

  CHAPTER 33

  Bulah Singh sat back to the wall, like a war casualty, on a pony load of canned provisions, with his bandaged feet stretched out. Bompo Tsering, wary of Andrew’s mood, and shrewdly aware of the safe way to keep on terms, unpacked a canvas chair for Elsa. He arranged it fussily, moving it to and fro, partly to draw attention to his thoughtfulness and partly to show off to the other Tibetans, who felt inferior because of his wonderful manners. Andrew ordered the load dragged up that the man in spectacles had wanted. He sat on it, beside Elsa; they faced Bulah Singh, with a semicircle of Tibetans behind them and the red firelight on their faces. The woman and boy were pushed out in the cold. She tried to force her way to the fireside, but Bulah Singh spoke to her sharply. Then she led the boy away and there was a gust of bitter wind as she opened the door. When the door slammed shut behind them Andrew got up and fastened it. He came back and sat down without saying a word. Bulah Singh broke the silence:

  “Andrew—”

  “My name’s Gunning.”

  “Oh. On our dignity. You damned snob! See here, Gunning! If I hadn’t guaranteed to Lan-dor-ling in Sikkim, and to the magician Lung-gom-pa, who owns this village, that you’d carry this opium safely to its destination — I said, to its destination! — either of two things inevitably must have happened to you. Arrest, in Sikkim — or death, here. Die here if you want to. Sign your warrant tonight.” He glanced at Elsa. “And leave her to her fate.”

  “Not on your word,” Andrew answered. He didn’t glance at Elsa. He was hardly conscious of her sitting beside him. He was undergoing what was almost a new experience. He went on speaking, staring at Bulah Singh, through him and beyond him: “You were stopped at the village gate by a man you’d never seen before. A man with a beard who wore an Afghan turban. He scared you. But you got past him by boasting you can manage me. That man gave you until nine tonight. It leaves you twenty minutes. I’m calling your bluff.”

  “I’m not bluffing,” the Sikh answered.

  Elsa spoke unexpectedly: “What you really mean is that Mr. Gunning is telling the truth and you can’t deny it!”

  Something — perhaps the falling fire, or it might be a pony’s snort — something concrete brought Andrew back to his five senses. Things were suddenly normal. He saw the Sikh as he was, now, with his back to the wall; not as he had been, in the village gate at sunset. But it was a second more before it occurred to him that Elsa had been seeing things. He had seen Elsa’s vision. He tried to repeat. He couldn’t. He wanted another glimpse of that man at the gate; he was someone much more important than Bulah Singh. He had a face like Lenin of Russia, only that the beard hid his chin.

  “Don’t!” said Elsa. “Andrew, don’t!”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t try! You only break the image. It’s like reflections on still water! Let it happen!”

  Bulah Singh laughed. “Our Gunnigun becomes a god! That’s what a woman does to us! Gunning, save your neck and make your fortune! You lucky devil, if I’d died on the mountain these villagers would have simply shot you and divided the loot. This is a stupid village. Fools are dangerous. It’s thanks to me you’re alive.”

  Andrew felt only contempt for him. He answered with a curt laugh: “Are they such fools as to fear a fugitive from justice who has lost his followers?”

  It was Bulah Singh’s turn to be contemptuous: “Justice? You believe in that stuff? Justice, I suppose, slew my men, eh? Divine justice! Oh well, perhaps you’re right. Fear and treachery are two ponies that drag one tonga. My men were scared. They would have turned on me sooner or later. I’m well rid of them.”

  “And you’ve lost
your baggage.”

  “That’s nothing either. You can fit me out with what I need. If these villagers kill you, I’ll take everything.” He looked hard at Elsa again.

  Andrew bridled at that. He consulted his watch: “Bulah Singh, you’ve about fifteen minutes. I’ve never actually killed a man. Unless you use your fifteen minutes more wisely than I’ve seen you do anything yet, you’ll be Number One.”

  “Kill me? You?”

  “Yes.”

  “Andrew Gunning, you have sentimental morals and grotesque scruples. They won’t work. On this side of the border the prevailing sentiment is more natural. It resembles the Christly compassion of German concentration camps, Italian islands, French penal settlements and Russian labor colonies. Good standard stuff with no hypocrisy about it. You may have seen the Japs use some of it near Shanghai — or didn’t you? These people, like the Japs, have adopted the little wooden testicle crusher that Mussolini borrowed from the Holy Roman Inquisition and taught the Nazis how to use. It beats anything the Chinese ever thought of — because, you see, the Chinese aren’t really religious; they can’t understand there’s a space-time equation of pain — a limit beyond which the tortured can’t feel. These Tibetans are religious; they don’t waste torture; like Hitler’s and Mussolini’s and Franco’s specialists, they can keep you alive for a couple of months, if need be, while you tell them all you know! You’ll be surprised how much you know that you didn’t know you knew.”

  “You’ve considerably less than fifteen minutes now,” Andrew remarked.

  “Bah. I doubt you’d shoot. You’re fundamentally sentimental. That means you’re cruel, and that at bottom you’re a coward. Your indignation is an emotion, caused by fear of reality. Understand this, Andrew Gunning: either you agree to be my partner and we’ll play this game together from now on — or else shoot me now and play your own game. Choose! Be quick about it! If you don’t I guarantee you shall be tortured to death, and they’ll make Elsa look on, just to educate her.”

  Andrew was seeing again — seeing Elsa’s visions. He wished Elsa would let up. It made him angry to feel she could make him see. But anger banished the vision. He craved it back — couldn’t see it — had to reach out mentally to her. Then there it was again, and along with it a revolting sensation that Bulah Singh could also see what they saw.

  All the Tibetans were silent, almost motionless, except that Bompo Tsering kept steadily spinning a prayer wheel.

  “Time’s on the wing,” said Andrew. “You have until nine sharp, by this watch, to plead your—”

  “Huh! You mean to tell what I know! If I talk, do you promise to—”

  “I promise nothing.”

  “Put it this way: if I promise to—”

  “No. Your promise would be worthless. I wouldn’t depend on it for a second. I will form my own opinion of whatever you say and will treat you accordingly. Now go ahead.”

  They stared at each other. Bulah Singh looked as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes and ears or believe Andrew’s eyes and lips. Andrew didn’t understand his own reaction. He was disturbed and he wasn’t. He felt like two people; one was at a masthead, the other on deck at the wheel. The one on deck didn’t quite trust or understand the other, but the other seemed to know, fading away, however, when the one on deck grew angry. So he kept trying to adjust two images, like a range finder laying a gun. The target was not Bulah Singh; it was something, within himself, that he couldn’t clearly define through a cloud of anger. He knew Bulah Singh was talking again, but he only partially listened, without deep attention.

  “Gunning, you damned idiot, in that bag you’re sitting on there’s enough opium to paralyze the brains of Tibet — the way the Japs are drugging the Chinese. It comes cheaper than money, because the addicts stay bought. It’s better than soldiers. It’s more efficient. It can’t mutiny or run away. Drug the right man and you need no artillery. If you’d opened your bag you’d have found your own things have been thrown out. Lan-dor-ling did that. I ordered it. He filled your bag with opium. I picked up your stuff when I reached the border. It was on one of my ponies. It’s down on the crags now along with all my dead men. That bag you’re sitting on holds opium — nothing else. Opium. New. Fresh. Ten times stronger than the adulterated morphine and cocaine and hashish that the Japs are forcing on the Chinese.”

  He paused to make sure whether Andrew was listening, decided that he was, and continued:

  “Now I’ll tell you about that woman. And by the way, don’t give her opium unless you want hell in your lap. That woman was my gift to the charlatan who owns this village. It was a gift with strings to it. She’s a whore of hell. I said whore. I don’t mean prostitute. Prostitution implies at least a trace of intention to keep a bargain. You can’t prostitute whoredom. Below the minus sign there’s nothing.”

  “You should know about that,” said Andrew.

  “Yes. It has been my business to find out. She is only a brood bitch and no longer any good even for that. I had her sterilized. It’s the boy I wish to speak of. He annoyed you because you are prissy. But did you study him?”

  Andrew thought about the boy. He didn’t answer.

  “Did Elsa study him? What did she think?”

  “Her name is Mrs. Grayne,” Andrew said pointedly. “Go on talking about your brat.”

  The Sikh answered with barbed malice: “The boy is a bastard who happened to live! You are a lawyer, and you’ll happen to die unless you use your brains. Do you remember a couple of young murderers — they were rich people’s sons — they made the headlines in all the newspapers in the world about twenty years ago? Or are you too young to remember that? One of your famous American lawyers saved them from the electric chair. All the police authorities and psychologists in the world studied those two young criminals. The priests who spoke of devils weren’t so blindly stupid as the self-styled scientists who prattled about behaviorism and environment and heredity and glands and God knows what else. There never was worse pile than they’ve talked and written about those two young perverts. Everyone seemed to miss the point, except me. This boy of mine is younger than they were. You wouldn’t believe how young he is. Physically, mentally and biologically super-precocious. Those young Americans were amateurs. My boy Chet is the perfect criminal!”

  “You’re too long-winded,” said Andrew. “Time’s almost up.”

  “I’m telling you, and I’m in no hurry,” the Sikh answered. “My accomplishment took years. Be patient. I have used that woman as an instrument, for a specific purpose. I trained her, after she left the woman’s jail in Darjeeling, where she was imprisoned for contributing to the delinquency of minors — plural — many minors. She had made a business of it. She was refractory — difficult — willful. She had to be starved — whipped — disciplined. Finally I made her what she is now. It’s her limit. There’s no more there. She can go into a trance and reveal all secrets, though she herself can seldom understand what she reveals. As a medium she is ne plus ultra, if you know what that means. She is the ideal subject for hypnosis. No inhibitions, no moral restraints — no scruples! She can be made to do anything! Do you understand — anything!”

  He paused, stared at Andrew, at Elsa, then spoke with the pride of a street astronomer who owns a homemade telescope that shows the dark deeps of the Milky Way:

  “She was made to conceive, and to bring forth, and suckle, and wean, that boy, who — as I told you — is the perfect criminal! He is clairvoyant, clairaudient, hypnotic, a trance medium, a waking medium — a pervert, a homosexual — an intellectual, vicious in all imaginable ways, by all imaginable means. You couldn’t possibly imagine how vicious he is; you haven’t enough imagination. He has intelligently cynical and incorruptible contempt for anything and everything whatever except his own desires and my will. I control him. He will always obey me. I am his God.”

  Elsa breathed quietly. Her eyes were closed and her hands were relaxed on the knobs of the chair-arms. Bompo Tsering was pop-eyed.
He came forward and put fuel on the fire. The flame leaped and the ponies’ eyes shone in the dark. Bulah Singh went on talking, attentively watching Elsa’s face as if he doubted those closed eyes.

  “You two have probably talked with Nancy Strong about the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus. You’d be surprised how many criminals believe that yarn — I mean the immaculate conception part of it. They pretend not to. But they do. Hypnotize ’em and they confess what they believe. It was as a student of criminology that I was interested; you can’t possibly understand any criminal without a deep study of comparative superstitions — which is to say religions. Nancy Strong, if I understood her correctly when she tried to convert me, believes that such purity of spiritual love inspired Mary the Mother of Jesus that she conceived and became the mother of the greatest spiritual hero the world has ever known. Is that your understanding of her thought about it?”

  “It’s near enough,” said Andrew. “But what are you driving at? Time’s up.”

  “I don’t have to drive at anything,” said Bulah Singh. “I’m telling you. All things, and all ideas, have opposites. The opposites are equal, each to each. Black — white. Plus — minus. Above — below. Good — evil. Light — dark. Spirit — matter. God — devil. Jesus — and my bastard son Chet. Chet’s mother’s thought, at his conception, was as free from what is known as virtue as if it had been surgically sterilized. She was under full hypnosis. She had been commanded to conceive the perfect devil in human form. And she obeyed.”

  “Time’s up,” said Andrew, glancing at Elsa. He scowled, but his voice didn’t betray emotion.

  Bulah Singh began to speak faster: “As I told you in Darjeeling, I and my cooperators mean to capture the infant Dalai Lama — the uncontaminated infant Dalai Lama — who is being raised as a saint, poor little devil! I did not tell you, because I trusted you no more then than now — and you might have betrayed me then, but you can’t now — that we will substitute my son Chet, who is a genuine devil, for the infant Dalai Lama, who is only a tinhorn saint. Do you see the significance? Your Christian pope may take a back seat. We will control the world’s thought at its source!”