‘Yes, I can tell you how if all started and what happened after we sailed away from Rangoon.’
The Vice Consul leant forward, as if almost literally hanging on Jason’s words. They spoke in Nepali: ‘The cause of the trouble was in the ship’s brig as not being wanted any more in the British Army. It was a matter that gentlemen don’t discuss. However, I managed to have him interviewed by someone he had no suspicions about and it transpired that he had started the rumour because the Communist party had ordered him to do so.’
Mr Basnet, utterly surprised by Jason’s reply, stared at Jason in shock. ‘One of our men did that?’
Jason nodded. ‘But he isn’t a hill man. He’s from Darjeeling.’
The Vice Consul made a sour face of disgust. ‘And now? Where is he?’
‘He was handed over to the Calcutta police who escorted him to the British Depot in Darjeeling. There they will have discharged him by now, having paid him all that he was due. Where he is now I have no idea.’
The Vice Consul mulled that over. ‘Thank you, Rance saheb. You did well to find out all that. It is a disgrace, that’s for sure. I will tell the Consul all about it and he will write a report to His Majesty and I am sure will include how you personally handled everything and I know he will be well pleased.’
Rance thanked him. ‘Please remember me to the Consul saheb and the ladies’ he said as he saw Basnet get ready to go.
‘Of course. I’ll be off now.’ Jason escorted him to the gangway, saluted him and went back to his cabin.[3] Colonel Heron, a quick worker, had his draft ready by the time Jason got back there. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve written. Sit down and listen.’ He read it out.
There were only one or two slight corrections to be made. Satisfied, the Colonel again thanked Rance for a sterling performance and said he’d now go back to the embassy and ‘deal with this properly’. As they passed the Purser’s Office the Attaché said, ‘Jason, I can’t remember hearing you speak Chinese when I was in the battalion. Speak to the purser in it.’
Jason knew the purser was a Hakka but could probably understand Cantonese. Without thinking of any repercussions, he addressed him freely, talking about the difficulties of various dialects.
The purser, normally disconcertingly reticent and graceless, was almost stunned and only stuttered his answers. Jason turned to the Colonel and said, ‘I was speaking in Cantonese. He’s a Hakka, hence the difficulty.
‘It’s all too difficult for me,’ was the rejoinder. ‘So, off we go. I don’t know when we’ll meet up again. One never does in this man’s army.’
‘Colonel, before you go I must tell you that I was called away to meet the Nepali Vice Consul. I told him how the whole mutiny business started and that there was nothing in it as far as Gurkha troops were concerned. He said he’d tell the Consul who would forward the news to His Majesty.’
‘And nothing about Calcutta?’
Jason shook his head. ‘Not a word, except to say the renegade man was handed over to the police there.’
‘So that’s that’, the Colonel said as Jason escorted his visitors to the gangway, shook hands, saluted and waited there until they were out of sight. He went and walked around where the men were lounging or talking then back to his cabin where he told Ah Fat all that had passed – ‘nor did I mention your name once!’
Law Chu Hoi, the purser, was a suspicious man. There was something about that tall Englishman he simply didn’t trust. He had no idea he spoke any language of the Middle Kingdom. That must have been the man Cheng Fan Tek asked me about. I’ll have to ask Comrade Ah Fat if he knows about this, he cursed under his breath.
***
Friday 12 December 1952, Soviet Embassy, New Delhi, India: Vikas Bugga, still with a sore face and a blatant scar on his cheek but now able to talk, wanted to complain to the Soviet Ambassador, Kirill Novikok, about his ill treatment in the Soviet consulate in Calcutta. At the gates the duty guard, an ex-Indian Army soldier, asked him his business. ‘Personal, with the Ambassador,’ Vikas answered, his voice more than difficult to understand.
‘Go inside to the front desk and ask there,’ answered the guard and, opening the gates, let him pass through.
In the room next to the front door the duty security person, at this instant a woman, watched Vikas Bugga walk in. She had brown hair, porcine eyes narrowly set together, rimless glasses and a pink slash where her lips should have been. She wore cheap black shoes, thick stockings and a prim brown dress. The entrant went up to her and, not wanting to speak Russian, asked her in English if he could have an interview with the Ambassador. That shocked her almost beyond belief. In her stuttering English she said ‘no’ and shook her head violently.
At that Vikas Bugga took out his party card and showed it to her. ‘I want to see the Ambassador because,’ he pointed to his face, ‘your Rezident, Sobolev, Leonid Pavlovich, in your Calcutta consulate, drunk, threw a glass at me. I want to complain and have recompense.’
The use of the word ‘Rezident’ without the word ‘comrade’ before it was enough to make her realise that the woe-begotten man standing in front of her was, possibly, someone to listen to. But she had to check. She asked her visitor the Rezident’s name again and Bugga gave it and his junior’s.
She wrote something down, beckoned to a man who had suddenly appeared, and Vikas understood her to tell him to take her note to the Ambassador’s office. The Indian was asked to go and sit in the visitors’ room. In a surprisingly short time the messenger who took the note appeared in the doorway and beckoned him forward. They went upstairs and once more the Indian was asked to wait, this time in a room next door to the Ambassador’s office. After a short wait he was joined by two men, one of whom said he was the Ambassador. Both were middle-aged and intelligent looking, with pleasant faces. No Soviet ambassador was ever allowed to interview a stranger without an MGB representative accompanying him: that was what the second man was. Kirill Novikok’s English was as good as Bugga’s. He asked what the trouble was and why, he, the Ambassador rather than a secretary, should be bothered.
Vikas Bugga, angered at the implied rebuke, ‘jumped in at the deep end’ with a full and unstoppable complaint of what had happened. Both Russians listened without interrupting. ‘Your Excellency, I have been a card-carrying party member for many years.’ Mr Bugga concluded his relentless monologue. ‘I have even been told that Comrade Colonel General Zdhanov has mentioned my name to the Politburo. I have always trusted the Russians to behave properly even though vodka toasts are a permanent feature of your hospitality. But never this,’ pointing to his injured face. ‘My trust in you and your party has been damaged for ever. Likewise when he said to me “i̯a ne ponimái̯u, chto govorít ètot chórnomazyi̯ ubli̯údok” and “Ty nichtózhnai̯a málen’kai̯a chórnai̯a svin’i̯á” I was deeply and permanently insulted.’ He stood up, picked up his party card from the table where he had put it down and said, ‘Here you are. Send it back to your Politburo where I know my name is known. I am no longer a member. Now no glamour of hammer and your sickle is fickle. Good bye.’
What the Ambassador tried to say merely gurgled in his throat as both men watched their furious visitor leave the room.
Outside, near the gate, the duty security woman saw him spit: she did not know it was in disgust. Whatever repercussions took place after that was not his concern, then or ever.
***
Friday 12 December 1952, Singapore: The SS Eastern Queen tied up. Jason went into his friend’s cabin. ‘We must say good bye here. Tradecraft! It has been wonderful to have had so long together. Where will you go after you disembark?’
‘I think you know Reggie Hutton from 1948?’
‘Yes, I met him then.’
‘I must brief him on everything that has happened and give him the copy of that letter, the one you’ll give to a Gurkha that will be picked up. After that I’ll go to KL, have a couple of days with my family, pick up my Bear, talk to C C Too and, with a straight face, report back to the Politburo.’
‘What will you tell them?’
‘I am a master at feeding them false news with a straight face. I don’t know quite how I’ll tackle it but have no doubts, I’ll manage.’
‘Where is that letter?’
‘In my pocket. Do you want it?
‘I think I’ll take it to the Captain myself when I go and thank him for his help with the dead child on the way out. I’ll tell him I found it on my bed.’
‘So long as the purser doesn’t see you give it to him!’
They smiled at each other as they shook hands before parting.
As soon as the gangways were in place, the Movements Warrant Officer came on board to meet the OC Troops. ‘Good voyage, sir? No problems?’
‘Apart from the ill girl dying and being buried at sea, none except the ship pitching, tossing or rolling, whichever it is that the experts call it’ Jason answered with a grin. ‘Here are the regimental nominal rolls’ and he handed them over.
The two Red Caps came up, saluted Jason, who thanked them for their work, and gave the prisoner’s hand-over receipt to the Movements Warrant Officer. They drove off in a Provost vehicle that turned up to fetch them.
‘Right you are, sir. They are mine now. You are free to move off.’ He looked at his clip board. ‘Yes, here is a warrant for your train journey to Seremban, but an open ticket for a sleeper. We couldn’t book a sleeper because we didn’t know timings so no berth has been booked.’
‘No worry. My thanks for thinking of me.’
‘Let’s go to the Purser’s Office and you can tell the men the order of disembarkation.’
Off they went. Jason asked the sulky purser for the Tannoy. ‘This is your OC Troops speaking,’ he announced. ‘I am handing over to the Movements Warrant Officer. I want to say good bye to you. It has been pleasant being with you. Now this is the order of getting off this boat …’
At last all were off. The cabin steward brought Jason’s luggage down to where he was in the lounge. Jason had some Malayan currency on him and gave him a decent tip. From the way the man smiled it must have been a deal more than normal.
‘Keep an eye on my luggage for a few minutes, will you?’ he said to him. ‘I have a job to do.’ Smartly dressed in uniform, he made his way to the bridge, telling those who tried to stop him that he was duty bound to say farewell to the Captain. The Captain was in his cabin with some Port Authorities and Jason had to wait a while till he was free. He was then invited in.
‘Captain Lam Wai Lim. I have come to thank you for all your help when we had that burial at sea on the way out. I don’t think I thanked you properly then.’
