"Wrath of the Lion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

CHAPTER EIGHT

through the French windows the lawn shimmered palely and the great beeches were silhouetted against the evening sky. Beyond was the timeless sad sough of the sea.

Inside, the room was warm and comfortable, the light softly diffused and a log hissed and spluttered on the hearthstone. There was a grand piano in one corner, two old comfortable couches drawn to the fire and a print or two on the walls.

It was a room that was lived in, a quiet, comfortable place, and the five people gathered loosely about the fire talked quietly to each other, Fiona Grant’s occasional laugh breaking to the surface like a bubble of air in a quiet pool.

De Beaumont and his host wore dinner jackets and the Frenchman looked elegant, completely at his ease as he talked to Anne Grant and the General.

Fiona was wearing a simple green dress in some heavy silk material and sat on the arm of an old tapestry chair. Guyon stood beside her smoking a cigarette, one hand on the high mantelpiece. He was not in evening dress, but a well-cut suit of dark blue fitted his wiry figure to perfection, giving him a touch of distinction.

He leaned close to Fiona, muttered something in her ear, and she chuckled and stood up. “Raoul and I are going for a little walk. Anyone feel like joining us?”

“And what would you do if we said yes?” her father demanded.

“Brain you!” She kissed him affectionately and moved to the door. “I’ll get a coat, Raoul. It could turn chilly.”

Raoul smiled at de Beaumont. “Will I see you again before you leave, Colonel?”

De Beaumont shook his head. “Unlikely, I’m afraid. I keep early hours these days. Strict instructions from my doctor.”

Guyon held out his hand. “For the present, then.”

“And don’t forget about that portrait,” de Beaumont reminded him. “I meant what I said.”

The young Frenchman nodded to the others and walked across to the door quickly as Fiona called from the hall.

“Seems a nice enough young chap,” the General observed.

“Fiona obviously thinks so,” Anne said. “And he’s certainly talented. He was in the army in Algeria for several years before he took up painting.”

“He’s remarkably talented,” de Beaumont said. “He’ll make a name for himself with little difficulty.”

The General turned his head as Jagbir came in and handed round drinks from a tray. “Any sign of Mr. Mallory yet?”

“No, General.”

The General opened a silver box at his elbow and took out a long black cheroot. “I wonder what’s happened to him?”

“Probably something to do with the boat,” Anne said. “And he is walking, remember.”

De Beaumont fitted a cigarette into a silver holder and said carefully, “Have you known him long?”

Hamish Grant shook his head. “Anne picked him up in Southampton. As a matter of fact, he got her out of a rather nasty scrape.”

“And this is the basis upon which you hired him?”

“His papers were all in order. He’d only just signed off a tanker from Tampico a day or so before. Why do you ask?”

De Beaumont stood up, paced restlessly across to the French windows and turned. “This is really most difficult for me. I don’t want you to think that I am interfering, yet on the other hand I feel that I should speak.”

“You know something about him?” the General said. “Something to his discredit?”

De Beaumont came back to his chair and sat down. "You’re aware, of course, that during the latter part of my army career I was commanding officer of a parachute regiment in Algeria. During the first few months of 1959 I was seconded to the general staff in Algiers and placed in charge of military security.”

“How does this concern Mallory?”

“We kept a special file on people who were thought to be working for the F.L.N. or the various other nationalist organisations. Neil Mallory was in that file. He was captain of a sea-going motor-yacht berthed in Tangiers. He was a smuggler, engaged in the extremely profitable business of running contraband tobacco into Spain and Italy. He was also thought to be running guns for the F.L.N.”

Hamish Grant emptied his glass, placed it carefully down on the table at his elbow and shrugged. “In other words he was a tough, rather unscrupulous young man who’d make a pound wherever there was one to be made. You’ve told me nothing I hadn’t already worked out for myself.” He pushed his glass across to Anne. Tour me another, my dear.”

“It was the years before Tangiers I found most interesting when I read this file,” de Beaumont said. “That’s why I recalled him so easily. Remember a book you loaned me about a year ago? A War Office manual entitled A New Concept of Revolutionary Warfare? You told me it had been written by a brilliant young officer in 1953 during the months following his release from a Chinese prison camp in Korea. I believe it caused quite a stir at the time.”

The General stiffened, one hand tightening on the handle of his walking-stick. “God in heaven,” he said, “Mallory! Lieutenant-Colonel Neil Mallory.”

“What was it they called him after that unpleasantness in Malaya?” de Beaumont said gently. “The Butcher of Perak?”

The glass into which Anne Grant was at that moment pouring whisky splintered sharply against the floor. She stood gazing fixedly at de Beaumont, a puzzled expression on her face, then crossed quickly to her father-in-law.

“What does he mean?”

Hamish Grant patted her hand.*You’re sure it’s the same man?”

De Beaumont shrugged. “The circumstances can hardly be coincidental, Admittedly, until today I had only seen his photograph, but it’s a distinctive face. Not the sort one forgets easily.”

“But what is it, Hamish?” Anne demanded.

De Beaumont was clearly embarrassed. “Perhaps it would be better if I went. Forgive me for having cast a shadow on what otherwise has been a truly delightful evening, but as a friend I felt that I had no choice but to tell you what I knew of this man.” *You were quite right.” Hamish Grant got to his feet. “I’m very grateful to you. We’ll see you again soon, I hope?”

“But of course.”

The General sat down again and de Beaumont and Anne moved into the hall. “I’ll get Jagbir to run you down to the jetty in the station wagon,” she said.

De Beaumont shook his head. "No need. A fine evening. The walk will do me good.”

When he raised her hand to his lips it was limp and unresponsive. He picked up his coat, opened the door and smiled. “Good night, Anne.”

“Good night, Colonel de Beaumont,” she said formally, and the door closed.

He stood on the top step, a slight smile on his face. She was annoyed because he had brought to light something discreditable in Mallory’s past and that annoyance could only be the automatic reaction of a woman already deeply involved, which was interesting.

He moved down the steps towards the main gate and Jacaud stepped out of the bushes. “What happened?”

De Beaumont shrugged. “Patience, my dear Jacaud. I have set things in motion. Now we must await developments.”

A foot crunched on gravel and Jacaud pulled him quickly into the shadows. A moment later Mallory walked by and went towards the house.

“What do we do now?” Jacaud whispered. “Return to St. Pierre?”

De Beaumont shook his head. “The night is young and interesting things have yet to happen. I think we will go down to the hotel and sample some of our good friend Owens contraband brandy. We can await developments there.”

He chuckled gently and led the way out through the gates to the narrow dirt road, white in the gloaming.

“Who was he, Hamish?” Anne said calmly. “I want to know.”

“Neil Mallory?” Hamish shrugged. “An outstanding paratroop officer. First-rate war record, decorated several times. Afterwards, Palestine, Malaya, a different kind of war. He went to Korea in “51 was wounded and captured somewhere on the Imjin. Prisoner for two years.”

“And then what?”

“From what one can make out he was the sort of man people were rather afraid of, especially his superiors. A little like Lawrence or Orde Wingate, God rest his soul. The sort of desperate eccentric who doesn’t really fit in where peacetime soldiering's concerned.”

“De Beaumont said he was a colonel? He must have been very young.”

“Probably the youngest in the army at the time. He wrote this book A New Concept of Revolutionary Warfare for the War Office in 1953. It aroused a lot of talk at the time. Most people seemed to think he’d turned Communist. Kept quoting from Mao Tse-tung's book on guerrilla warfare as if the damned thing were a bible.”

“What happened?”

“He’d been promoted lieutenant-colonel after the Korean business. They had to find him something to do so they sent him to Malaya. Things weren’t too good at that time. In some areas the Communist guerrillas virtually controlled everything. They gave Mallory command of some local troops. It wasn’t really a regiment. Not much more than a hundred men. Recruiting was bad at the time. Little stocky Malayan peasants straight out of the rice fields. I know the type.”

“Did they make good soldiers?”

“In three months they were probably the most formidable jungle troops in Malaya. Within six they’d proved themselves so efficient in the field they’d earned a nickname: "Mallory’s Tigers".”

“What happened in Perak?”

“The climax of the drama, or the tragedy, if you like, because that’s what it was. At that time Perak was rotten with Communist guerrillas, especially on the border with Thailand. The powers-that-be told Mallory to go in and clean them out once and for all.”

“And did he?”

“I think you could say that, but when he’d finished he’d earned himself a new name.”

“The Butcher of Perak?”

That’s right. A man who’d ordered the shooting of many prisoners, who had interrogated and tortured captives in custody. A man who was proved to have acted with a single-minded and quite cold-blooded ferocity.”

“And he was cashiered?”

The General shook his head. “I should imagine that would have involved others. No, they simply retired him. Gave the usual sort of story to the newspapers. Took the line that he’d never really recovered from his experiences in Chinese hands and so on. Nobody could argue with that and the whole thing simply faded away.”

She sat staring into the fire for several moments, then shook her head. “The man you describe must have been a monster, and Neil Mallory isn’t that, I’m sure.”

He stretched out a hand and covered hers. "You’re attracted to him, aren’t you?” She made no reply and he sighed. “God knows it was bound to happen. A long time since Angus went, Anne. A long, long time.”

The door opened and Jagbir appeared, Mallory at his shoulder. “Mr. Mallory is here, General.”

Hamish Grant straightened in his chair, shoulders squared, and said calmly, “Show Colonel Mallory in, Jagbir.”

Mallory paused just inside the room, his face very white in the soft light, the strange dark eyes showing nothing. “Who told you?”

“De Beaumont,” the General said. “When he was head of French Military Intelligence in Algiers in “59 they had a general file on people like you. I understand you were running guns out of Tangiers to the F.L.N. Is that correct?”

For the moment Mallory was aware only of a feeling of profound relief. That de Beaumont should recognise him from the North African days was unfortunate, but at least the front he had used in Tangiers had obviously been accepted and that was the main thing.

“Does it matter?” he said. “My past, I mean?”

“Good heavens, man, I’m not interested in what you got up to in Tangiers. It’s what happened in Perak that I want to know about.”

“And suppose I say that’s none of your damned business?”

The old man stayed surprisingly calm, but Anne moved forward and touched Mallory on the sleeve. “Please, Neil, I must know.”

Her eyes seemed very large as she gazed up at him, and he turned abruptly, crossed to the French window and went down the steps of the terrace outside.

He stood at the wall above the inlet in the desolate light of gloaming, and, below, the lights of a ship out to sea seemed very far away.

He was tired, drained of all emotion, aware out of some strange inner knowledge that whatever a man did came to nothing in the final analysis.

A step sounded on gravel behind him. When he turned, Hamish Grant and his daughter-in-law were standing at the bottom of the steps. They moved to the table, the old man lowered himself into one of the chairs and Anne Grant approached Mallory.

For a long time she stood peering at him, her face in shadow, and then she swayed forward, burying her face against his chest, and his arms went round her instinctively.

The old man was silhouetted sharply against the pale night sky and the sea, hands crossed on top of his stick, rooted into the ground like some ancient statue.

“Right, Colonel Mallory,” he said in a voice that would brook no denial, “I’m ready when you are.”