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.
22
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, Ma 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 choose 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 bottom 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.
‘Sacred to the memory of John Henry Spagnall, late of the Indian Imperial Police, who was cut down by cholera while in the unremitting exercise of’ etc., etc., etc.
Flory remembered Spagnall dimly. He had died very suddenly in camp after his second go of delirium tremens. In a corner there were some graves of Eurasians, with wooden crosses. The creeping jasmine, with tiny orange-hearted flowers, had overgrown everything. Among the jasmine, large rat-holes led down into the graves.
Mr Macgregor concluded the burial service in a ripe, reverent voice, and led the way out of the cemetery, holding his grey topi–the Eastern equivalent of a top hat–against his stomach. Flory lingered by the gate, hoping that Elizabeth would speak to him, but she passed him without a glance. Everyone had shunned him this morning. He was in disgrace; the murder had made his disloyalty of last night seem somehow horrible. Ellis had caught Westfield by the arm, and they halted at the grave-side, taking out their cigarette-cases. Flory could hear their slangy voices coming across the open grave.
‘My God, Westfield, my God, when I think of that poor little b— lying down there–oh, my God, how my blood does boil! I couldn’t sleep all night, I was so furious.’
‘Pretty bloody, I grant. Never mind, promise you a couple of chaps shall swing for it. Two corpses against their one–best we can do.’
‘Two! It ought to be fifty! We’ve got to raise heaven and hell to get these fellows hanged. Have you got their names yet?’
‘Yes, rather!! Whole blooming district knows who did it. We always do know who’s done it in these cases. Getting the bloody villagers to talk–that’s the only trouble.’
‘Well, for God’s sake get them to talk this time. Never mind the bloody law. Whack it out of them. Torture them–anything. If you want to bribe any witnesses, I’m good for a couple of hundred chips.’
Westfield sighed. ‘Can’t do that sort of thing, I’m afraid. Wish we could. My chaps’d know how to put the screw on a witness if you gave ’em the word. Tie ’em down on an ant-hill. Red peppers. But that won’t do nowadays. Got to keep our own bloody silly laws. But never mind, those fellows’ll swing all right. We’ve got all the evidence we want.’
‘Good! And when you’ve arrested them, if you aren’t sure of getting a conviction, shoot them, jolly well shoot them! Fake up an escape or something. Anything sooner than let those b—s go free.’
‘They won’t go free, don’t you fear. We’ll get ’em. Get somebody, anyhow. Much better hang wrong fellow than no fellow,’ he added, unconsciously quoting.
‘That’s the stuff! I’ll never sleep easy again till I’ve seen them swinging,’ said Ellis as they moved away from the grave. ‘Christ! Let’s get out of this sun! I’m about perishing with thirst.’
Everyone was perishing, more or less, but it seemed hardly decent to go down to the Club for drinks immediately after the funeral. The Europeans scattered for their houses, while four sweepers with mamooties flung the grey, cement-like earth back into the grave, and shaped it into a rough mound.
After breakfast, Ellis was walking down to his office, cane in hand. It was blinding hot. Ellis had bathed and changed back into shirt and shorts, but wearing a thick suit even for an hour had brought on his prickly heat abominably. Westfield had gone out already, in his motor launch, with an Inspector and half a dozen men, to arrest the murderers. He had ordered Verrall to accompany him–not that Verrall was needed, but, as Westfield said, it would do the young swab good to have a spot of work.
Ellis wriggled his shoulders–his prickly heat was almost beyond bearing. The rage was stewing in his body like a bitter juice. He had brooded all night over what had happened. They had killed a white man, killed a white man, the bloody sods, the sneaking, cowardly hounds! Oh, the swine, the swine, how they ought to be made to suffer for it! Why did we make these cursed kid-glove laws? Why did we take everything lying down? Just suppose this had happened in a German colony, before the War! The good old Germans! They knew how to treat the niggers. Reprisals! Rhinoceros hide whips! Raid their villages, kill their cattle, burn their crops, decimate them, blow them from the guns.
Ellis gazed into the horrible cascades of light that poured through the gaps in the trees. His greenish eyes were large and mournful. A mild, middle-aged Burman came by, balancing a huge bamboo, which he shifted from one shoulder to the other with a grunt as he passed Ellis. Ellis’s grip tightened on his stick. If that swine, now, would only attack you! Or even insult you–anything, so that you had the right to smash him! If only these gutless curs would ever show fight in any conceivable way! Instead of just sneaking past you, keeping within the law so that you never had a chance to get back at them. Ah, for a real rebellion–martial law proclaimed and no quarter given! Lovely, sanguinary images moved through his mind. Shrieking mounds of natives, soldiers slaughtering them. Shoot them, ride them down, horses’ hooves trample their guts out, whips cut their faces in slices!
Five High School boys came down the road abreast. Ellis saw them coming, a row of yellow, malicious faces–epicene faces, horribly smooth and young, grinning at him with deliberate insolence. It was in their minds to bait him, as a white man. Probably they had heard of the murder, and–being Nationalists, like all schoolboys–regarded it as a victory. They grinned full in Ellis’s face as they passed him. They were trying openly to provoke him, and they knew that the law was on their side. Ellis felt his breast swell. The look of their faces, jeering at him like a row of yellow images, was maddening. He stopped short.
‘Here! What are you laughing at, you young ticks?’
The boys turned.
‘I said what the bloody hell are you laughing at?’
One of the boys answered, insolently–but perhaps his bad English made him seem more insolent than he intended.
‘Not your business.’
There was about
