The Yellow Glass (31 page)

I considered the reason for his
hatred.
 
Was it the beating that he had
undergone?
 
No man would enjoy that.
 
Yet, I didn’t think brave Mr Upshott would
remark upon a mere beating.
 
Not in those
terms.
 
I thought beyond the beating.

“The field?”
 
I enquired.

“The field, the cows and the
entire, bloody, farm.”

 
That was the first
of many interesting conversations that Mr Upshott and I had during this
time.
 
They kept us hooded and bound for
five days, feeding us bread and watery soup and taking us out to relieve
ourselves on the field early in the morning and late at night, as if we were
dogs.
 
Apart from that, they left us
completely to ourselves.
 
It was a most
peculiar time in our lives and, I’m sure that I speak for Mr Upshott, too, when
I say that the effect it had
 
upon us was
deeply unnerving.
 
We waited for the
forthcoming interrogation, expecting it to happen at any minute and yet, day
after day, we did no more than wait.
 
Even our nights were fragmented; pierced through with the expectation of
sudden violation from forces beyond the intimate darkness that we, two, had
come to share.
 
Yet nothing happened.
 
We agreed that they seemed to be waiting for
something, or somebody.
 
(How much later
would ‘later’ be?
 
We asked one another.)

“So, we think it’s a gypsy camp,
yes?”

“The caravans would suggest so,
Tristram.”

“These foul, leather bindings,
too; I’ve worked out what
they
are,
Jay.
 
I knew they reminded me of
something.
 
They’re horse leather; cut
lengths of bridle and rein.
 
There are a
hell of a lot of Gypsies and travelling people in Kent, of course.
 
They pick the hops and fruit in season . .
with a nice side-line in the manufacture of home-grown uranium, apparently.”

“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.”