‘Then I take it that you are all agreed?’ he said. ‘If so, I will inform the Commissioner. Otherwise, we must begin discussing the candidate for election.’
Flory stood up. He had got to say his say. His heart seemed to have risen into his throat and to be choking him. From what Mr Macgregor had said, it was clear that it was in his power to secure the doctor’s election by speaking the word. But oh, what a bore, what a nuisance it was! What an infernal uproar there would be! How he wished he had never given the doctor that promise! No matter, he had given it, and he could not break it. So short a time ago he would have broken it, en bon pukka sahib, how easily! But not now. He had got to see this thing through. He turned himself sidelong so that his birthmark was away from the others. Already he could feel his voice going flat and guilty.
‘Our friend Flory has something to suggest?’
‘Yes. I propose Dr Veraswami as a member of this Club.’
There was such a yell of dismay from three of the others that Mr Macgregor had to rap sharply on the table and remind them that the ladies were in the next room. Ellis took not the smallest notice. He had sprung to his feet again, and the skin round his nose had gone quite grey. He and Flory remained facing one another, as though on the point of blows.
‘Now, you damned swab, will you take that back?’
‘No, I will not.’
‘You oily swine! You nigger’s Nancy Boy! You crawling, sneaking, f——bloody bastard!’
‘Order!’ exclaimed Mr Macgregor.
‘But look at him, look at him!’ cried Ellis almost tearfully. ‘Letting us all down for the sake of a pot-bellied nigger! After all we’ve said to him! When we’ve only got to hang together and we can keep the stink of garlic out of this Club for ever. My God, wouldn’t it make you spew your guts up to see anyone behaving like such a——?’
‘Take it back, Flory, old man!’ said Westfield. ‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’
‘Downright Bolshevism, dammit!’ said Mr Lackersteen.
‘Do you think I care what you say? What business is it of yours? It’s for Macgregor to decide.’
‘Then do you–ah–adhere to your decision?’ said Mr Macgregor gloomily.
‘Yes.’
Mr Macgregor sighed. ‘A pity! Well, in that case I suppose I have no choice–’
‘No, no, no!’ cried Ellis, dancing about in his rage. ‘Don’t give in to him! Put it to the vote. And if that son of a bitch doesn’t put in a black ball like the rest of us, we’ll first turf him out of the Club himself, and then–well! Butler!’
‘Sahib!’ said the butler, appearing.
‘Bring the ballot box and the balls. Now clear out!’ he added roughly when the butler had obeyed.
The air had gone very stagnant; for some reason the punkah had stopped working. Mr Macgregor stood up with a disapproving but judicial mien, taking the two drawers of black and white balls out of the ballot box.
‘We must proceed in order. Mr Flory proposes Dr Veraswami, the Civil Surgeon, as a member of this Club. Mistaken, in my opinion, greatly mistaken; however–! Before putting the matter to the vote–’
‘Oh, why make a song and dance about it?’ said Ellis. ‘Here’s my contribution! And another for Maxwell.’ He plumped two black balls into the box. Then one of his sudden spasms of rage seized him, and he took the drawer of white balls and pitched them across the floor. They went flying in all directions. ‘There! Now pick one up if you want to use it!’
‘You damned fool! What good do you think that does?’
‘Sahib!’
They all started and looked around. The chokra was goggling at them over the veranda rail, having climbed up from below. With one skinny arm he clung to the rail and with the other gesticulated towards the river.
‘Sahib! Sahib!’
‘What’s up?’ said Westfield.
They all moved for the window. The sampan that Flory had seen across the river was lying under the bank at the foot of the lawn, one of the men clinging to a bush to steady it. The Burman in the green gaungbaung was climbing out.
‘That’s one of Maxwell’s Forest Rangers!’ said Ellis in quite a different voice. ‘By God! something’s happened!’
The Forest Ranger saw Mr Macgregor, shikoed in a hurried, preoccupied way and turned back to the sampan. Four other men, peasants, climbed out after him, and with difficulty lifted ashore the strange bundle that Flory had seen in the distance. It was six feet long, swathed in cloths, like a mummy. Something happened in everybody’s entrails. The Forest Ranger glanced at the veranda, saw that there was no way up, and led the peasants round the path to the front of the Club. They had hoisted the bundle onto their shoulders as funeral bearers hoist a coffin. The butler had flitted into the lounge again, and even his face was pale after its fashion–that is, grey.
‘Butler!’ said Mr Macgregor sharply.
‘Sir!’
‘Go quickly and shut the door of the card-room. Keep it shut. Don’t let the memsahibs see.’
‘Yes, sir!’
The Burmans, with their burden, came heavily down the passage. As they entered the leading man staggered and almost fell; he had trodden on one of the white balls that were scattered about the floor. The Burmans knelt down, lowered their burden to the floor and stood over it with a strange reverent air, slightly bowing, their hands together in a shiko. Westfield had fallen on his knees, and he pulled back the cloth.
‘Christ! Just look at him!’ he said, but without much surprise. ‘Just look at the poor little b——!’
Mr Lackersteen had retreated to the other end of the room, with a bleating noise. From the moment when the bundle was lifted ashore they had all known what it contained. It was the body of Maxwell, cut almost to pieces with dahs by two relatives of the man whom he had shot.
XXII
Maxwell’s death had caused a profound shock in Kyauktada. It would cause a shock throughout the whole of Burma, and the case–‘the Kyauktada case, do you remember?’–would still be talked of years after the wretched youth’s name was forgotten. But in a purely personal way no one was much distressed. Maxwell had been almost a nonentity–just a ‘good fellow’ like any other of the ten thousand ex colore good fellows of Burma–and with no close friends. No one among the Europeans genuinely mourned for him. But that is not to say that they were not angry. On the contrary, for the moment they were almost mad with rage. For the unforgivable had happened–a white man had been killed. When that happens, a sort of shudder runs through the English of the East. Eight hundred people, possibly, are murdered every year in Burma; they matter nothing; but the murder of a white man is a monstrosity, a sacrilege. Poor Maxwell would be avenged, that was certain. But only a servant or two, and the Forest Ranger who had brought in his body, and who had been fond of him, shed any tears for his death.
On the other hand, no one was actually pleased, except U Po Kyin.
‘This is a positive gift from heaven!’ he told Ma Kin. ‘I could not have arranged it better myself. The one thing I needed to make them take my rebellion seriously was a little bloodshed. And here it is! I tell you Kin Kin, every day I grow more certain that some higher power is working on my behalf.’
‘Ko Po Kyin, truly you are without shame! I do not know how you dare to say such things. Do you not shudder to have murder upon your soul?’
‘What! I? Murder upon my soul? What are you talking about? I have never killed so much as a chicken in my life.’
‘But you are profiting by this poor boy’s death.’
‘Profiting by it! Of course I am profiting by it! And why not, indeed? Am I to blame if somebody else chooses to commit murder? The fisherman catches fish, and he is damned for it. But are we damned for eating the fish? Certainly not. Why not eat the fish, once it is dead? You should study the scriptures more carefully, my dear Kin Kin.’
The funeral took place next morning, before breakfast. All the Europeans were present, except Verrall, who was careering about the maidan quite as usual, almost opposite the cemetery. Mr Macgregor read the burial service. The little group of Englishmen stood round the grave, their topis in their hands, sweating into the dark suits that they had dug out from the bottoms of their boxes. The harsh morning light beat without mercy upon their faces, yellower than ever against the ugly, shabby clothes. Every face except Elizabeth’s looked lined and old. Dr Veraswami and half a dozen other Orientals were present, but they kept themselves decently in the background. There were sixteen gravestones in the little cemetery; assistants of timber firms, officials, soldiers killed in forgotten skirmishes.