The Yellow Glass

by Claire Ingrams

  “Really, I don’t see how . . .”

  I was still unable to comprehend our captors’ apparent success with distilling uranium from seawater.

  “I know you don’t, Jay. Somebody’s pipped you to the post and that can be hard to take. But this outfit is big; from day one I’ve underestimated how big it is. They’ve got the funds to riddle HQ with moles and the technical wizardry to actually manufacture uranium, melt it into glass and export it around the world to the highest bidders. Just think of that! Which world power wouldn’t give their eye-teeth for that kind of technology?”

  “The glass disturbs me, Tristram.” Perpetual dark had encouraged deeper insight. “In all seriousness, I don’t see how such amounts of uranium could possibly be carried in glass. They tell me it’s so, but I find I cannot believe it any more.”

  He was silent. It was night and I tried to make myself comfortable enough to sleep, but it was hard when my arms now ached so very badly. I closed my eyes beneath the hood, grateful, at least, for the warmth of the padded suit.

  “Who told you so?”

  “I beg your pardon, Tristram?”

  “Who handed you the file on Operation Crystal Clear and instructed you to make dummy glass?”

  I thought about it.

  “Professor Monkington,” I replied.

  “And who do you think handed me the file on Operation Crystal Clear?”

  “Your case officer?”

  “No, not this time. This one came from the very top. It was Hutch.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Think back, Jay. Where was it that we found a crate of innocent, broken, yellow glass stored against a damp wall? More to the point, who still uses that forgotten thoroughfare?”

  Did he mean the slide?

  “But . .” I was struggling to follow his line of argument, “ . . if the case files were a deliberate fabrication and the production of uranium is at the heart of the matter, then that must mean . .”

  “Yes, indeed. Are we, or are we not, dunderheads? It’s Her Majesty’s Government. That’s who’s cooking up uranium. It’s us, Jay.”

  I slept extremely badly and, when I awoke, I sensed a new anger in myself. That Professor Monkington had used my work without my knowledge! That he hadn’t trusted me enough to let me into the government’s secret! I’d worked night and day for the British to the very best of my ability, and this was how they saw fit to reward me! I was forced to conclude that it was my nationality that had made them behave in such a dishonourable way. To them I would forever be the ‘little Chinaman’; a source of curiosity and contempt. As a Tamang, I had experienced such treatment countless times before, but I believed I’d travelled far enough to have escaped it. How foolish of me. There was no escaping. And, though I’d fought to prove myself a worthy man in the West - for every hour that my fellows had worked, I had completed ten more - it all came to nothing. In the eyes of the world, I would never be their equal.

  Anger burned within me when they man-handled me out of the caravan at dawn and, if I’d had the use of my arms, I would have made myself known as a Gorkha. Visions of the kukri danced in my head. Yet, I must crouch like a dog in the grass and, dully, await whatever fate my masters had in store for me. This time, when I crouched, I rolled sideways on the ground, my suit around my shackled ankles.

  “Oy! What’s ‘e doing?”

  They came down hard on me, slapping me round the head before they threw me back into the caravan. I breathed hard in the darkness, my cheeks stinging and my body aching into bruises. But I had not returned empty-handed. I had a sharp stone, pressed tight into the palm of my hand and I would rub it against the ties on my wrist until I was free and no man there could prevent me.

  “Trouble?” Asked Tristram.

  “A few bruises,” I replied. “”They’re worth it.”

  “Worth what?”

  “The sharp stone. I will free myself, then I will free you. The time has come.”

  “Ha!” He said. “Great minds think alike, Jay. I picked up one of my own during toilet duty; this field must be strewn with flints. Race you for it.” I could hear the smile in his voice and it gave me heart.

  We worked away at our leather bindings for hours, until my hand hurt too much to continue, when he suddenly asked:

  “D’you think they’ll sacrifice us to this project?”

  “As you said, it’s a big project.” I had no hope to offer him.

  “They never liked me, of course; I was always too much of a wild card for the boys at HQ. They recruited me immediately after the war when the status quo had been shaken about a bit and the smallest of windows opened. Windows of opportunity, I mean . . . Did you know I used to be a thief, Jay?”

  “A thief?!”

  “Mmm. I wondered whether it might have reached the flapping ears of the office gossips; might be a staple of powder-room chat, you know?”

  “No . . I don’t think so. .” I was most surprised by this new information.

  “ . . although I cannot say what they talk about in the powder-room, Tristram. Or anywhere else in the building, for that matter.”

  “Really? Bastards been giving you the silent treatment?”

  “Oh . . not that bad. They talk a bit. They refer to me as the ‘little Chinaman’.”

  “They’ve not taken you to their bosoms, then. Christ almighty, Jay . .” he exclaimed, “ . . why the bloody hell do we do it? I love my country as much as the next man, but I don’t want to live like this any more.”

  “How would you like to live?”

  “How would I like to live? Now, there’s a question! Sounds damn silly, I know but . . Kathleen and I, well, we’ve both always loved engines and mechanics and so forth. I always dreamt that Kathleen and I’d build an airplane from scratch and fly off around the world together. Properly together, as we haven’t been for so long.” His voice had changed and he sounded less like an operative in the field and more like a man who had found a brother with whom he might speak his true mind.” “She and I . . well, she’s the only person who’s ever really understood me and I love her like I could never love another woman, that’s for sure. And now I’ve gone and lost her and nothing else really matters, you know, Jay. Not now I come to think about it. Nothing else really matters at all . . .” he stopped, abruptly and gave an embarrassed little cough; that noise the British make when they try to swallow up their words. To pretend that they’d never allowed such thoughts into the free and open air. “Christ, what’s got into me? I’m sorry, Jay. I must sound bloody ridiculous.”

  “I don’t find this ridiculous, not in any way,” I said, firmly. “To build an airplane, to take to the air like birds; I could think of nothing better! You must do it. Straight away, I mean. As soon as this business is over. You and beautiful Mrs Upshott must take to the air. I will help you build it.”

  “Will you Jay? That makes me happy, you know? Because, if you’re any part of it, it might actually have a hope in hell of happening.”

  “I see no reason why it shouldn’t happen, Tristram.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do. The rest of us see endless reasons why things shouldn’t happen . . .”

  Then we fell silent, because it was really rather difficult to view our present situation with optimism.

  “If you get out, will you promise me one thing, Jay?”

  “Certainly.”

  “There’s a house in a bay nearby, sitting right on the beach itself. St Margaret’s Bay, I’m pretty sure it is. Well, the house is white-washed and they call it something simple, something like Sea House, or Sand House. It belongs to Miss Stone’s family; Rosa Stone being my niece who broke your glass, Kathleen’s sister’s daughter. Go there. They’ll look after you. And . . this is the important bit . . tell Rosa it’s the British Government; that she mustn’t, under any circumstances, meddle with this can of worms. She knows a bit about the op. and she’s tempted to stick her nose in and, well, she just must not do it. Have you
got that?”

  “I have. But what makes you think that I would ever escape and leave you behind, Tristram?”

  “I’ve told you before, don’t be a bloody hero, Jay. If you get out, you run and you don’t look back and those are orders, d’you hear me. I’m the senior officer and I’m telling you to save your own skin. Don’t give me a second thought.”

  “Is this what you would do if you were the first to escape?”

  “Me? None of your damn business what I’d do.”

  It took me two days and almost two nights to saw through the leather that bound my wrists and then I began work on my hood and the bindings around my ankles. This was considerably easier, being merely a matter of working at the knots. It was the middle of the night and I was nearly done, when a man came for Tristram.

  The chain clanked against the caravan door and a voice said:

  “The tall one. He’s the bastard I want.”

  I heard them grasp Tristram and pull him from my side.

  “Hello Joe,” he said, quietly.

  “Joe?” The man enquired, in an unpleasant, sneering tone. “Do we know one another?”

  “Have we been properly introduced, d’you mean? Or run into one another on the bloody polo field? Not as such, no.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “But you’re Joe Bloggs, whatever name you go under. You’re one of Hutch’s little shadows, aren’t you? One of his special boys.”

  Then Tristram said no more because I heard the man punch him.

  “Oomph!”

  “Get him out on the field,” the man ordered. “I need more space to deal with this bastard.”

  I counted to three and then I leapt up, tossing off the hood and charging after them while they had their backs to me and the caravan door was still hanging open. The two men who had been holding Tristram turned when they heard me. One, I kicked in the face and the other, an enormous, sluggish-moving type of person, dropped his captive and advanced upon me with his bare knuckles up. I slipped beneath his armpit and began to run.

  “Stop”, cried the young man, who had been ahead of the group and had been slow to notice what was happening. “Stop or I shoot!”

  I hesitated, but my senior officer’s orders were loud in my head; I was to run and I was not to look back. So this I did. He let fly a shot, but the moon was on the wane and he had so little light to aim by. More shots, but, by then I was running from one caravan to another, each looming out of the dark to shelter me from his bullets. Cries went up and, all the way down the field, lights flickered on inside the caravans, as if to guide me to the exit. I ran past a herd of horses, who rolled the whites of their eyes and swished their long tails and then I reached the field gate, and I vaulted up and over and into a narrow, country lane, just wide enough for a tractor. I ran on, despite not knowing the direction I should go, my legs pumping hard and a sharp wind against my face. I had never run so fast in my entire life.

  Eventually, I stopped, cocking my head to listen for my pursuers. Only the movements of the sea, somewhere very close, could be heard, nothing more. It shifted and sighed and it seemed as if it whispered encouraging words that only I could hear. I smiled in the dark, unexpectedly heartened. In that moment, it was as if the sea and I were brothers.

  25. The New Elizabethan Age

  I dreamt that I heard my mother in the hall downstairs.

  “Let her sleep,” she said.

  But when I awoke, I discovered it hadn’t been a dream at all. She knocked on my door at first light and came in.

  “Rosa! Time to wake up Rosa. A visitor arrived for you in the middle of the night.”

  I moaned in protest and squinted through my hair at her.

  “Mr Tamang needs to talk to you, urgently. He says he’s from HQ.”

  I closed my eyes again. Not another grey spy, please. I had nothing more for them. But she shook my shoulder.

  “Listen Rosa. Your Uncle Tristram is in mortal danger and I called the police in the night and . .”

  Uncle Tristram in mortal danger! Why hadn’t she said so in the first place? I leapt out of bed, grabbed my scarlet dressing-gown and took the stairs, two at a time. When I flung open the door to the dining-room, it was to find the spy eating steak and fried tomatoes and chatting to my father, who was wearing his stupid beret with his striped pyjamas.

  “Isn’t it unusual in that part of the world?” My father was saying.

  “Certainly the Tamangs have suffered through their propensity to eat beef,” replied the spy. “But we have suffered many . .” He caught sight of me and dropped his fork.

  “Ah, Rosa, there you are. This is Mr Tamang. He’s come to see you.”

  “Jayagaon Tamang.” The young man jumped up and held out his hand. I couldn’t help noticing that he was drowning in my father’s blue fisherman’s sweater and a rolled up pair of his trousers. “So pleased to meet you at last.”

  “Tell me . . ” I asked, shaking his hand, but my breath coming in fits and starts, so alarmed was I, “ . . exactly what’s happened to my uncle?”

  He glanced at my father and at my mother (she’d followed me into the room in her silk kimono and fluffy slippers, two big curlers, like horns, on top of her head).

  “Sorry,” she said, “but we’ve had enough of being kept in the dark. Anything you say to our daughter, you say to us, too. Those are my rules, I’m afraid.”

  Mr Tamang muttered something about the Official Secrets Act, but I could have told him that wouldn’t cut the mustard with my mother.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” she responded. “Tristram and I’ve had our ups and downs in the past, but he’s family and that’s that. I won’t have spies turning up at all hours of the night and telling me what I can and can’t know about my own family. Not in my own house, I won’t.”

  “I am not a spy,” he shook his head. “I work in the technical department.”

  “Well, that settles it,” she sat down at the dining-room table and reached for the teapot. “More tea, anyone?”

  So Mr Tamang told us the utterly dreadful news that the Arkonnens’ had captured Uncle Tristram nearly a week earlier and were keeping him tied up in a gypsy caravan, several miles away. My father had also sat down by this time and he nodded his head, sagely:

  “The field above Crab Bay,” he said. “ . . almost bound to be. It’s the only Gypsy stopping-place I know of between here and Dover.”

  “That’s what I told the police,” my mother added.

  Our visitor shook his head again, in a worried sort of way.

  “I’m not convinced that involving the police was . . ”

  “I know you’re not,” she leant over the table and patted his hand, kindly. “But I am.”

  At which point, he took a deep breath and let fly the most astonishing news yet; the news about the British Government being at the heart of things and actually manufacturing it’s own uranium from seawater. My mouth fell open and I gulped, several times.

  “Are you quite sure about that, Mr Tamang?”

  “I’m afraid it is undeniable, Miss Stone.”

  Silence fell upon the table, broken only by my father muttering, darkly:

  “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “Because . . to employ a thug like Reg Arkonnen . .” I stuttered in disbelief.

  “Not just a thug, but a murderer,” my mother added, sadly.

  I was deeply, deeply shocked; to the depths of my soul and beyond.

  “It is the Death of Innocence,” my father proclaimed and, for once, I couldn’t feel that he’d overdone it.

  “Well,” my mother got to her feet and began to clear the table, shaking her curlers. “The uranium is beyond me, I admit it. But at least the police know where that murderer is now. All I ask is that they catch him and bring him to justice. For the sake of our dear Albert.”

  My father put his arm around her shoulder and stroked her cheek in a tender way that made me avert my eyes, before he gathered up
the pile of plates and they both disappeared into the kitchen.

  Mr Tamang and I remained at table, lost in our various thoughts. I was thinking about his position in the technical department of HQ when something occurred to me.

  “Mr Tamang,” I said. “May I show you my Encyclopaedia Britannica?”

  He jumped up and followed me to the stairs.

  “It’s in my bedroom, I’m afraid.” He stopped in his tracks and blinked. “Please don’t mind the mess.”

  He looked like he had no objection to mess, whatsoever.

  I tipped a pile of clothes off my bedroom chair to make space for him and went to find the two volumes of Britannica that I’d consulted previously: the one about glass and the one that contained the atlas of the world. Then I sat down on the bed with them.

  “I don’t know whether my uncle told you how involved I’ve been with Operation Crystal Clear, Mr Tamang?”

  “Ah. Yes, he did, Miss Stone. He has given me strict orders to convey to you that you must not involve yourself further in any way.”

  The usual piffle, of course. I ignored him.

  “In fact, HQ employed me to work undercover at one point and I, too, have signed the Official Secrets Act of 1939.”

  He nodded his head, slowly:

  “I am aware of this. Actually, Miss Stone, I have a bone to pick with you. Because you broke my glass, you see.”

  “Oh. Crumbs. You made that, did you? Well, I have to say, you made a jolly good job of it. It looked just like the real thing.”

  “Thank you.” He had a rather delightful smile.

  “Not that there is a real thing . . which brings me to my Encyclopaedia Britannica.” I handed it over to him, open on the relevant page. “Now you read this and then you tell me how on earth an inert product like glass could possibly be made to carry gargantuan amounts of uranium.”

  He laughed, clapping his hands with glee and it struck me how handsome he was.