‘I expect Comrade Wong Kek Fui will go with you. I have not been warned.’
‘That is not in my hands but in Comrade Law’s.’
‘And what nationality is this ugly man with you?’
‘English. He is a hidden comrade.’
The Hakka made a moue of disapproval. ‘All red-haired devils are smelly and unkempt. I don’t like them at all.’
Ah Fat grinned back at that remark. ‘Some are worse than others.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me but I know that even if this running dog with you is one of us, Comrade Sobolev hates all non-Russians and will try to trick him into confidences with drink. Looking at this ugly lout I would be happy to see him drown himself in drink, better still in rat’s piss.’
Jason grinned inside himself. Turning towards the Hakka he said, ‘Why not pig’s piss. Better if you were drowned in it but not with me. You uncouth Fei Toh.’
The effect was one of open-mouthed disbelief. Clearly he did not like being called a bandit. ‘But why did you not start with our language, although you only talk another dialect?’
‘Paan chue sek lo foo,’ feigning to be a pig, I conquer tigers, said Jason. ‘and if I have any more rudeness from you I’ll tell Comrade Sobolev to have you castrated, that is if you have anything at all down there.’
There was an awkward silence then Jason said to his friend, in English, ‘Let’s walk away proudly, saying nothing at all.’ And that is what they did.
As they made their way back towards the main road they looked up when they heard the clatter of wings as a skein of wild duck circled overhead as it flew towards the lower reaches of the Hooghly.
The Hakka, Cheng Fan Tek, incensed at being spoken to in such a fashion and not having been briefed of anyone other than a Chinese from Malaya needing to be taken to the Soviet consulate, was also deeply suspicious. He felt he ought to check so he picked up the phone in his office and asked the exchange to put him through to the Purser’s Office in the SS Eastern Queen. The operator, presumably a new man, did not know that the boat could be rung up but, having been given the number, made the connection. After several rings the purser answered, in English, giving his job and the name of the boat.
‘Law Chu Hoi, it’s Cheng Fan Tek speaking.’
‘Is this wise?’
‘I must speak to you. You can tell me if it is wise or not.’
‘What’s the trouble? Make it short. We never know who’s listening, even here.’
‘You know the comrade from Malaya who has to be taken to a certain place?’
‘Yes, of course I do. I took him there yesterday.’
‘Well, he came back today with a gwai lo. A gwai lo who speaks our language.’
‘I can’t think who you mean. There is a gwai lo on board but he speaks only English and Loi Pai Yi Wa, the same as the Goo K’a bing speak. I have never seen him speak with the comrade from Malaya. No, it must be someone different.’
‘Thank you, Comrade. It is always wise to check up.’
‘Yes. I’ll ring off now. It’s safer.’
Cheng Fan Tek put his phone back on its stand. Who can he be?
This was what your author was told by the Guard Commander when he was at the Transit Camp at that time. ↵
5
Friday 28 November 1952, Calcutta, India: Ah Fat had done a good job with the bottle and tea. Despite the tea/brandy ploy, both of them felt that in case liquor was forced on Jason to an extent he could not decently refuse, it was prudent to get enough butter for three large spoonfuls and a small jug of milk as ‘absorbers’ to be consumed before they left the boat. At three o’clock Jason ate the butter and nearly choking on it, washed it down with the milk. The tea-filled brandy bottle looked like a new one with its neck neatly stuck up with something that looked enough like the real one at a cursory glance. Putting it in a Nepalese bag that he hung from his shoulder, the two of them moved out of the dock area, telling the superintendent at the gate who they were and they might not return until after dark.
They found a taxi and were driven to Alipore Park Road, arriving at the Soviet consulate just on four o’clock. They rang the doorbell and the door was opened by a non-smiling, pressed-lipped man who took them to the visitors’ room, complete with the compulsory large picture of Lenin. They were soon joined by two Russians. One introduced himself as Leonid Pavlovich Sobolev, the First Secretary, Political, not as the Rezident, and the other, a burly, uncouth-looking man who introduced himself as Dmitry Tsarkov ‘another member of this consulate’. Being a wartime casualty, his gait was ungainly, having had his left leg amputated below the knee. No one outside his unit ever knew that his CO had said he looked like a lavatory brush draped with a discoloured flannel. Ah Fat, who had not met Tsarkov when he had first visited the consulate, was not introduced. A mere Chinaman … why bother?
Gritting his teeth, it was now Ah Fat’s turn. ‘Comrade Sobolev, let me introduce Comrade Jason Rance. I won’t tell you his real name because, like you, he guards it well.’ Sobolev took Jason by complete surprise by stepping over to him and giving him three kisses, right, left, right. He had enough sense to try and emulate the Russian, hoping his disdain for such a greeting wasn’t too obvious. He merely made a formal bow to Dmitry Tsarkov and kept silent. Tsarkov mumbled something in passable, albeit guttural, English.
‘I am expecting another guest,’ said Sobolev, glancing at his watch. He had never owned one before being able to buy one in Calcutta and was inordinately proud of it. ‘But we can have a drink and a toast before he comes.’
Jason and Ah Fat were told to sit down. Vodka and glasses were brought in and put on small tables only in front of the two Europeans. Jason took the brandy bottle out of his bag and said, ‘Comrade. I don’t have many weaknesses but one I do have is that vodka upsets my stomach so, against normal Russian habits, I have taken the risk of bringing my own drink. I nearly brought you a bottle of vodka but I did not know what your favourite kind was but even if I had known I would not have found a bottle as this place is dry.’
The two Russians glanced at each other. ‘You think you will be poisoned, then?’ asked Sobolev, in a nasty bullying tone of voice. It was clear that he had already had quite a lot to drink.
‘Not by you, Comrade, ever, ‘Jason said, and Ah Fat added, ‘True, Comrade, it really does have a bad effect on him.’
Before the First Secretary proposed a toast to their meeting Jason said, ‘as comrades, all four of us must have a toast at the same time. My friend here is under doctor’s orders not to touch liquor as he has a duodenal ulcer. Please bring him a soft drink.’
The Rezident didn’t argue but the look of disdain on his face was indicative of his dislike of drinking with a non-white person.
All four of them stood, toasted British and Russian solidarity with the Russians tossing off their drinks in one and Jason merely ‘going through the motions’. An attendant poured another lot into the Russians’ glasses and Jason poured a little more into his own from his own bottle. Ah Fat, with glass still half full, did nothing. Nobody noticed that the attendant, feigning uninterest in the proceedings, unobtrusively stayed within earshot, with a deceptively bland look on his face.
Then Dmitry Tsarkov proposed a toast to Soviet and British amity, followed by Jason’s toast to the victors of the Great Patriotic War and so it went on, without stop, turn by turn. Jason, who only pretended to finish off what was still in his glass, had a hard time thinking of something new to toast.
The door opened. Everyone turned to see who it was. They saw a Bengali, dressed in a shantung suit and wearing a ‘Bombay bowler’ pith helmet, even indoors. He looked about thirty years of age, was heavily hirsute, had a slight ‘outward’ squint, a puffy face and pock-marked cheeks. He had pendant ears, with a heart-shaped birthmark under the right one. He wore a long moustache to cover a slight hair lip which made his labial consonants awkward to understand. He looked round and smiled. ‘I am thinking you are drinking, are you as drunk as a skunk? A “drunken Russen”? As one spy to another I say, introduce me, you MGB drunkard.’ It was not the type of opening greeting any of them expected.
Sobolev, by now near his limit, took violent exception to such an opening gambit, even in supposed fun. His face contorted with rage and the two men glared at each other. Then the Russian calmed down enough to say, ‘This is Mr Bugga, Vikas Bugga, one of us in India, a black man. He is the one in charge of the mutinying Gurkhas. Let him have a glass of vodka. Oh yes, these two here are a Captain Rance, or so he says, and Comrade Ah Fat, or so he also says.’
Mr Bugga with his glass of vodka moved over to where Jason was standing. The urge to toast Sobolov overtook him again and he proposed another one to the mutinying Gurkhas.
Jason, his world, for the fraction of a second, dropping a dimension and becoming paper thin. had concentrated on Vikas Bugga’s accent. Pretending a certain unsteadiness, he leant over the Indian and, in Hindi, said, ‘I am a friend of Padamsing’s. He is doing a great job. You chose him well and there’s no need to bother about him and the others. He says that without doubling their pay the coolies will stop shouting, so please do so. As it is, with so little incentive, they are now shouting so they can’t be heard in the Gurkha camp.’
Vikas Bugga knew that there were no extra funds but he could not say so. He merely thanked Jason for his information.
Sobolev didn’t understand what was being said. Intolerable! His temper snapped and in Russian he shouted ‘i̯a ne ponimái̯u, chto govorít ètot chórnomazyi̯ ubli̯údok.’
Vikas, who had some Russian, understood that to mean ‘I don’t understand what that nigger bastard is saying’ which naturally infuriated him but, sensing a golden opportunity, before he could answer, Jason leant over towards him and, using his ventriloquism, made him say, ‘You Russian bastard. You are black inside. I am like Queen Victoria, all pink inside.’
In his fury the Rezident answered in Russian. ‘Ty nazyvái̯esh’ meni̯á chórnym vnutrí?’ Vikas understood that to mean ‘You call me black inside?’ Then another outburst, ‘Ty nichtózhnai̯a málen’kai̯a chórnai̯a svin’i̯á.’ You insignificant little black pig. The Rezident’s notion of consular diplomacy was injudiciously elastic.
The two angry men flickered their eyes at each other like lizards’ tongues.
Vikas Bugga opened his mouth but Jason was quicker to answer. ‘Oh, go to hell, you worthless piece of dog shit.’ Jason’s accent would not have passed muster were the tension in the room not so strained. The effect was electric: the Rezident stuttered, glared, took a pace towards the equally surprised Indian who, although without any alcohol inside him, had been unbalanced at what he thought he had heard himself say. ‘Call me black, you black bastard? You insignificant little pig. How dare you talk to one such as me like that?’
The enraged Russian looked at the Indian with fanatical, bent-on-one-thing-only eyes and threw his glass hard at him, hitting him on the nose, actually bending it, and on one cheek, making him bleed copiously. Sobolev turned back automatically to the vodka bottle on a table beside him, picked it up and drank from it in one long gulp. The bottle fell from his hand as his rage and drunken state got the better of him, causing him to lose his balance. He had reached his tipping point and, gasping, collapsed onto the floor with a thump and passed out.
For Ah Fat time stopped like a broken clock as he witnessed such gross and unimaginable drunken behaviour.
Tsarkov had also been drinking toast for toast but had stayed silent and relatively sober. Now he suddenly realised what had happened and sobered up: a trusted Indian ally – and there were no other Indians like him – who had been so insulted he’d most likely have a grudge against the Soviets for the rest of his life. With the Rezident so disgraced in front of the Indian with a bleeding face and the new English comrade by his insensitive and unnecessary conduct, there could scarcely be any trust in any further collaboration. Before he could call for someone to look after Vikas Bugga’s face the attendant had dashed away and brought back a first-aid box and had started to repair what damage he could. The face was in a mess and needed stitching and the nose needed straightening.
