Small Island (42 page)

The smoke was getting thicker. Something was going on and I longed to know what. Two men soon appeared through the dark. Running. Guns at the ready. I couldn’t make them out until they got closer.

‘Hold back there,’ I told the coolies.

It was Frenchie and Fido. Puffing like bellows. ‘The
basha
’s on fire,’ they told me. My
basha
. The one that had the meeting in it. The darkened one, stuffed with men over the floor, on the
charpoys
, standing round the walls. The truth is I didn’t even think about it when they shouted, ‘Maxi’s in there. Come on, Pop.’ I just ran.

Forty-one

Bernard

Every inch of the
basha
raged with flame. The men silhouetted against this blazing dazzle looked to be dwarfs feeding a beast. Throwing on buckets of water, barrels of dust that fizzled useless as spittle on a griddle pan. Everyone was yelling. One chap thrust a bucket into my hand, face contorted with panic, his arms flailing towards the inferno. I ran at the flames. The heat hit me like a wall. Eyelids rasping like barbed wire as I blinked against scorching smoke. Suffocating. Doubled up. Had to stop several feet back along with everyone else. Lob the contents from there. Hopeless. But any closer and the beast would have licked me raw.

We needed order. Obvious to me. Elementary. A line. A chain passing buckets one to the other would soon see the flames quelled, then move in closer.

‘A chain,’ I shout. ‘Into a chain.’ No one hears. All running about pell-mell. Headless. ‘Come on, you clots, into a chain.’ I grab a chap with the intention to hold him, to show him my idea. He drops his bucket on my foot. Water gushes round my boots.

‘What you doing? Fuck off,’ he says.

‘A chain,’ I yell, but he’s gone. Next fellow struggles just the same. Somehow I end up on the ground. Nothing for it, I grab someone round the legs. Bring him down. Got his attention. Eye to eye he looks at me. I’m panting, ‘We need to be sensible and make a—’ He punches me in the face, yells at me to get a grip, while the blazing roof on the
basha
collapses with the sound of a gruff sigh, its green afterglow dazzling my eyes. Expected anyone still inside to run out now like the little piggies, hide in another house made of straw.

The walls tumble next, sending out a firework of sparks almost beautiful in the dark night. Skipping on to the roof of another
basha
it flames into life. Still slipshod everyone turns their buckets on that. A chain – Maxi would have got everyone into a chain.

The fire engine arrives. Bumping along the ground. Slow as molasses. Rumour is the men in it aren’t the real operators. Those MT firemen got demobbed months ago. Obvious to all, the idiots working it don’t know what they’re doing. I soon jump up to help them with the hose. Show them how it’s done. Seen it used before hundreds of times on pranged kites. Pull the hose off the truck, start rolling it along the ground. There’s a chap shouting, ‘Leave that – not yet.’ I take no notice. ‘What you doing, you fucking stupid erk?’ But the fool wouldn’t let me show him. Pushed me away. Grabs the hose from me and runs at the flames. Should have listened. Dribble of water comes out of the end with as much force as a baby’s spittle. Scratching their heads (I swear) trying to work out what’s what. While the fire in the
basha
has nearly run out of things to burn.

‘Kink in the pipe,’ I yell at them. Nothing for it – I push my way in. Man on the tap is useless, looking at it confused as if he’d just found it in a Christmas cracker. Won’t budge, though.

I tell him I know what to do, but he just sticks an elbow in my ribs. ‘Get him out of here or I’ll land him one,’ he shouts. Two chaps grab me. Pull me away. One on either side. Won’t listen, just yelling, ‘Leave it, leave it.’

I know what to do, what’s needed. ‘That bit older, you see,’ I tell them. When the water finally starts to pour they point the hose at the wrong
basha
. Absurd. ‘Not that one,’ I shout. I struggle away from the clots bracing me.

‘Turn it on to the one Maxi’s in.’

‘It’s too late for that one,’ one chap yells.

‘Rubbish,’ I tell him. But the imbecile takes no notice. Language as foul as any drain. Pushes me so hard I fall over. Police around me now. One of them’s got a gun. Get to my feet but he’s telling me to stay back or else. Shoving me. Pushing. Not a care that I’m tripping as he jostles me. ‘Get back,’ he says. No more than a raggle-taggle boy. Shut my trap, he wants me to. ‘Stop yelling,’ he tells me. Can’t get him to listen to a word of sense.

Someone seizes my arm. ‘Come on, Pop. Leave them to it.’ It’s Curly. Curly the doorman at the meeting. Curly from the
basha
. He was out. He got out. I’m so pleased to see him I hug him. He flinches back. Face wincing with obvious pain. Shows me the burn on the back of his shoulder. I ask about Maxi. Did he get out? ‘Don’t think so,’ he says. Tells me the fire started outside the door. He got out in time by running through the flames along with some others. But it spread all around in the blink of his eye. ‘There were about eight, ten I don’t know. I thought they’d follow but . . .’

‘Perhaps they got out a back way,’ I say.

‘What back way, Pop?’

The fire truck (useless) trains its water on the
basha
just in time to turn smoking cinders to mud. We weren’t allowed in close. Held back by RAF police. Horror seared into the smutty faces of all the onlookers. Men stripped to the waist. Chests still heaving from exertion. Sweat running down them like shower water. All looking on helpless. Except those coolies. Those camp followers stood jabbering calm as if this was market day. They hadn’t run with buckets. Not one of them. Did anyone see them trying to help? Not me. Some of them were smiling now it was over. One even found something funny enough to make him giggle. ‘What do you know, what do you know?’ I confronted him. This coolie backs away from me like a cringing dog. But I’m after him. I can see it on his face. Guilt. He probably set the fire – thought it was a joke. Grabbed the blighter by his filthy
dhoti
. Stinking rag comes away in my hand. ‘Who did this? What do you know?’

‘Please, sahib, nothing, sahib. Please.’

But I’m having none of it. Not fooled by their craven act. Probably part of some dacoit gang. Murdering thugs would strangle their own mother for money. Shoot us, run us through, and not the first to go up in smoke. Worse than the Japs. All us chaps knew it. Bloody coolies. Wanting us out of India dead or alive. This wretched, simpering little wog was cowering like a girl. But someone held me back. Grabbed my fist with both his hands. Silly coolie is on his knees in front of me, weeping. But I’m pulled off him. Dragged away by three chaps. Bloody fools, I tell them, what were they doing? Stopped me just when the cunning little bugger was about to talk.

Forty-two

Bernard

‘You’re in trouble, Bligh,’ the sergeant told me. I thought he meant for striking a coolie. ‘No. You were meant to be on guard duty.’

Asked his permission to explain. Thought it would be best. ‘Just ran to help, Sergeant. My
basha
, you see. Knew the men in it.’

Nothing for it, I was ready to take my punishment. Deserting my post. Should never have left it, no matter what the circumstance. The CO would need to be told. But it was worse than that.

The sergeant asked me, ‘Where’s your rifle?’

My gun. The rifle. I’d fixed the bayonet, I remember, when I heard running. I’d pointed it thinking, Last time I shot one of these off was at basic training. Five rounds that had left my ears ringing. Hoped I wouldn’t need a bullet this time because I wasn’t sure if it had any. Rested it down when I realised it was Frenchie and Fido. Then what? Then I ran. I remember the buckets, the hose. Their urgency still itched my fingers. But the rifle?

‘My rifle, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, Bligh. Your rifle. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your weapon too?’

I was brought straight before Flight Lieutenant Moon on the charge. Stood to attention in front of him. Sergeant on one side and a guard at my other. Arun and Ashok were marched in. No, they said. My gun had not been left behind when I deserted my post. They had not seen my rifle except when it was in my hands. In fact, Ashok remembered helpfully, I took the gun with me. Eyes to the front, head erect, he told the CO about the bayonet. He worried, he said, that in my agitation to help my friends I might hurt someone accidentally with it. Impertinent blighter added that tradesmen are not very good with guns. The CO seemed to agree. Didn’t question him. Didn’t ask him what he knew. Whether he was in league with them. Had hidden the gun to sell it later for a good price to some scruffy countryman who’d end up piercing the belly of a Muslim with it. Just nodded. He was too young, this CO. Fresh out from Blighty. He’d missed the war altogether. A boy when it started. And still unable to thicken his blond moustache by the time it had finished. Hadn’t been out east long enough to get used to the heat. Knees chalk white and skin rashed as pink as bully beef. He dismissed Arun and Ashok without a hint of misgiving. They marched out swinging their arms. Smartly. Their backs as straight as tin soldiers. Their legs rigid as wood. Too smartly. Only the experienced would realise these two scoundrels were poking fun at His Majesty’s Services.

‘Losing your gun and deserting your guard post. What have you got to say, Airman?’

The sergeant spoke up for me. ‘Sir, it was Bligh’s
basha
that got burnt down.’

‘Are you saying there are extenuating circ-circ-circ—’ Took me by surprise – he was stammering. Eyes batting as if adjusting to bright light. Put his hand up to cover his mouth. Then looked down at his desk twisting a pen through his fingers, still trying to cough up the word. I looked at the sergeant, who flicked his head for me to eyes-forward again. ‘Reasons,’ the CO finally said. ‘Are you saying there are extenuating reasons for this neglect of duty?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Not you, Sergeant, I want to hear it from Bligh.’

‘Knew the chaps in the
basha
, sir. But should have stayed at my post, sir.’

‘And the gu– the gu– the rifle?’

‘Should have kept it with me at all times, sir. My responsibility.’

‘Losing a weapon is a court-martial offence. You do know that, don’t you, Bligh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Were you in your
basha
just before you went on guard duty?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘With other chaps. Men you’d chummed up with?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Bad business. But you left not long before the fire started?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What were you in Civvy Street, Bligh, before the war?’

‘Before the war, sir? Bank clerk.’

‘Bank clerk. Responsible position.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you got plans to go back to it? Being a bank – bank – bank clerk?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’ll need a good service record, then, I would think? You won’t want to . . . blot your copybook.’The CO grinned to himself, as if this was a joke that pleased him. He looked at the sergeant, who obliged him with a whiff of a smile. ‘Well, Bligh?’

‘Sir?’

Seemed to have lost his train of thought. Fiddled with his pen while he pulled his face straight. ‘The RAF can’t have you erks losing weapons. Very delicate time. Could end up in anyone’s hands.’ He barely paused before asking, ‘What can you tell me about the men in the
basha
last night?’

‘George Maximillian was in there, sir. He was killed along with seven . . .’ my turn to stammer now ‘. . . along with seven others.’

‘What was he doing?’

‘Who, sir?’

‘This Max . . . this airman.’ He didn’t stutter over Maxi’s name, just couldn’t be bothered to remember it.

‘He had a wife and two sons. Probably writing a letter home, sir.’

‘A letter home. So you men weren’t having a . . .’ He hadn’t started a word. Just the blinking and quick breaths. Knew he was searching. ‘. . . meeting?’

The word had me startled (I admit). Wasn’t expecting that.

‘Meeting, sir?’

‘Come on, there was a meeting, wasn’t there, going on in that
basha
?’

‘I don’t know about a meeting, sir.’ Any one of the chaps would have said the same. Part of a team, you see.

‘You’re in very serious . . . tr-tr-tr-trouble, Bligh. You do know that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Are you taking me for a fool? Eight men die in a fire in a
basha
. How do you explain that?’

Wasn’t sure if he wanted an answer but for Maxi’s sake it was time to give it. ‘Sabotage, sir. The dacoits, the coolies.’

‘Are you saying that someone deliberately started that fire?’

‘Indians, sir. They want us out of their country. Fire started at the door. No chance of escape. Sir.’

‘No, Bligh. Things are delicate enough. No one here says the fire was started on purpose. Do you understand me? It was an unfortunate accident. Everyone here agrees. What was it, Bligh?’

‘Sir?’

‘The fire, what was it?’

‘An accident, sir.’

‘An unfortunate accident, Bligh.’

‘Unfortunate. Yes, sir.’

‘Good, that’s cleared that up. However, what does interest me is the meeting that was going on in that
basha
at the time.’

An unfortunate accident – they were burned alive! ‘I know nothing about a meeting, sir.’

‘You’ll lose your Burma star if you’re court-martialled, Bligh.’

‘Sir?’

‘Come on, Bligh, what was going on?’ He was agitated. Threw down the pen. Thumped his fist on the desk. Eyes swivelled in his head as he searched for something large to throw at me. ‘You lost a rifle after deserting your guard post. It’s a court-martial. Almost certainly prison, man. Unless you can help me out. Top brass don’t want a repeat of last time. We can’t have strikes. I won’t have a strike. Discipline must be maintained.’