Indecent Exposure (19 page)

“Have I said something wrong?” the fat man asked.

“I think Mr Evans meant that your family is very interesting,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon explained in a whisper to the Kommandant.

“It didn’t sound like that to me,” said the Kommandant. At the end of the table Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon, who felt that he needed to assert his authority somewhere, ordered the waiters to bring liqueurs. It was not a wise move. Major Bloxham, evidently still piqued by the failure of his Oom Paul Special and Sledge Hammer to render the Kommandant suitable for debagging, offered him some Chartreuse. As his port glass filled with the stuff, the Kommandant looked at it interestedly.

“I’ve never seen a green wine before,” he said finally.

“Made from green grapes, old boy,” said the Major and was delighted at the laugh he got. “Got to drink it all in one go.” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon was not amused.

“How low can you get, Boy?” she asked unpleasantly as the Kommandant swallowed the glassful.

“How high can you get?” said the Major jocularly.

La Marquise added her comment. “High? My dears,” she shrieked, “you should sit here to find out. Absolute Gorgonzola I do assure you,” a remark which led to a misunderstanding with the waiter who brought her the cheese board. Through it all Kommandant van Heerden sat smiling happily at the warmth spreading through him. He decided to apologize to the fat man and was about to when the Major offered him another glass of Chartreuse. The Kommandant accepted graciously in spite of a sharp kick from Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

“I think we should all join the Kommandant,” she said suddenly, “we can’t let him drink by himself. Boy, fill all the port glasses.”

The Major looked at her questioningly. “All?” he asked.

“You heard me,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, looking vindictively from the Major to her husband. “All. I think we should all drink a toast to the South African Police in honour of our guest.”

“I’m damned if I’m going to drink a whole port glass of Chartreuse for anyone,” said the Colonel.

“Have I ever told you how Henry spent the war?” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon asked the table at large. Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon turned pale and raised his glass.

“To the South African Police,” he said hurriedly.

“To the South African Police,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon with more enthusiasm, and watched carefully while the Colonel and Major Bloxham drank their glasses dry.

Happily unaware of the tension around him, the Kommandant sat and smiled. So this was how the English spent their evenings, he thought, and felt thoroughly at home.

In the silence that followed the toast and the realization of what a large glass of Chartreuse could do to the liver, Kommandant van Heerden rose to his feet.

“I should like to say how honoured I feel to be here tonight in this distinguished gathering,” he said, pausing and looking at the faces that gazed glaucously back at him. “What I am going to say may come as something of a surprise to you.” At the end of the table Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon shut his eyes and shuddered. If the Kommandant’s speech was going to be anything like his taste in clothes and wines, he couldn’t imagine what to expect. In the event he was pleasantly surprised.

“I   am,   as   you   know,   an   Afrikaner,”   continued   the Kommandant. “Or as you British say a Boer, but I want you to know that I admire you British very much and I would like to propose a toast to the British Empire.”

It took some time for the Colonel to realize what the Kommandant had just said. He opened his eyes in amazement and was appalled to see that the Kommandant had taken a bottle of Benedictine and was filling everyone’s glass.

“Now, Henry,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said when the Colonel looked imploringly at her, “for the honour of the British Empire.”

“Dear God,” said the Colonel.

The Kommandant finished replenishing the port glasses and raised his own.

“To the British Empire,” he said and drank it down, before staring with sudden belligerence at the Colonel who had taken a sip and was wondering what to do with the rest.

“Now, Henry,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon. The Colonel finished his glass and slumped miserably in his chair.

The Kommandant sat down happily. The sense of disappointment that had so marred the early part of the evening had quite disappeared. So had La Marquise. With a brave attempt at one last “darling” she slid, elegant to the last, beneath the table. As the full effects of Kommandant van Heerden’s devotion to the British Empire began to make themselves felt, the Zulu waiter, evidently anxious to get to bed, hastened the process by producing both the cheese board and the cigars.

Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon tried to correct him.

“Stilton and cigars don’t go toge …” he said before stumbling from the room. Behind him the party broke up. The fat man fell asleep. Major Bloxham was ill. And Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon pressed a great deal more than her leg against the Kommandant. “Take me …” she said before collapsing across his lap. The Kommandant looked fondly down at her blue rinsed curls and with unusual gallantry eased her head off his flies and stood up.

“Time for bed,” he said and lifting Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon gently from her seat carried her to her room closely followed by the Zulu butler who suspected his motives.

As he laid her on her bed Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon smiled in her sleep. “Not now, darling,” she murmured, evidently dreaming. “Not now. Tomorrow.”

The Kommandant tiptoed from the room and went to thank his host for a lovely evening. There was no sign of the Colonel in the dining-room where the Dornford Yates Club lay inertly on or under the table. Only Major Bloxham showed any signs of activity and these were such as to prevent any conversation.

“Totsiens,” said the Kommandant and was rewarded for his Afrikaans farewell by a fresh eructation from the Major. As the Kommandant glanced round the room he noticed a movement under the table. Someone was evidently trying to revive La Marquise though why this should require the removal of her trousers the Kommandant couldn’t imagine. Lifting the table cloth he peered underneath. A face peered back at him. The Kommandant suddenly felt unwell. “I’ve had too much,” he thought recalling what he had heard about
DTS
and dropping the cloth hurriedly he rushed from the room. In the darkness of the garden the click of the cicadas was joined erratically by the sound of the Colonel’s secateurs but Kommandant van Heerden had no ear for them. His mind was on the two eyes that had peered back at him from beneath the table cloth – two beady eyes and a horrid face and the face was the face of Els. But Konstabel Els was dead. “I’ll be seeing pink elephants next,” he thought in horror as he got into his car and drove dangerously back to the Spa where presently he was trying to purge his system by drinking the filthy water in his room.

Kommandant van Heerden was not alone in suffering from the illusion that he was having hallucinations. In Piemburg Luitenant Verkramp’s efforts to extirpate subversive elements in the body politic were resulting in the appearance of a new and bizarre outbreak of sabotage, this time in the streets of the city. Once again the violence had its origins in the devious nature of the Security chief’s line of communication with his agents.

628461’s “drop” for Thursday was in the Bird Sanctuary. To be precise it was in a garbage can outside the Ostrich Enclosure, a convenient spot from everybody’s point of view because it was a perfectly logical place to drop things into, and just the sort of place for a Security cop disguised as a hobo to get things out of. Every Thursday morning 628461 sauntered through the Bird Sanctuary, bought an ice cream from the vendor and wrapped his message in sticky silver paper and deposited it in the garbage can while ostensibly observing the habits of the ostriches. Every Thursday afternoon Security Konstabel van Rooyen, dressed authentically in rags and clutching an empty sherry bottle, arrived at the Bird Sanctuary and peered hopefully into the garbage can only to find it empty. The fact that the message had been deposited and then removed by an intermediary never occurred to anyone. 628461 didn’t know that Konstabel van Rooyen hadn’t collected his message and Konstabel van Rooyen had no idea that agent 628461 even existed. All he knew was that Luitenant Verkramp had told him to collect sticky pieces of ice-cream paper from the bin and there weren’t any.

On the Thursday following the Kommandant’s departure, 628461 coded an important message informing Verkramp that he had persuaded the other saboteurs to act in concert for once, with a view to facilitating their arrest while on a job for which they could all be hanged. He had suggested the destruction of the Hluwe Dam which supplied water for all of Piemburg and half Zululand, and, since no one could blow a dam by himself, he had urged that they all take part. Much to his surprise all eleven seconded his proposal and went home to code messages to Verkramp warning him to have his men at the dam on Friday night. It was with a sense of considerable relief that he was finally going to get some sleep that 628461 walked to the Bird Sanctuary on Thursday morning to deposit his message. It was with genuine alarm that he observed 378550 following him and with positive consternation became aware as he was buying his ice cream that 885974 was watching him from the bushes on the other side. 628461 ate his ice cream outside the hoopoe cage to avoid drawing attention to the garbage can by the Ostrich enclosure. He ate a second ice cream half an hour later staring wearily at the peacocks. Finally after an hour he bought a third Eskimo Pie and walked casually over to the Ostriches. Behind him 378550 and 885974 watched his movements with intense curiosity. So did the ostriches. 628461 finished his Eskimo Pie and dropped the silver paper in the garbage can and was just about to leave when he became aware that all his surreptitious efforts had been in vain. With an avidity that came from their having been kept waiting for an hour the ostriches rushed to the fence and poked their heads into the garbage can and one lucky bird swallowed the ice-cream wrapper. 628461 forgot himself.

“Damnation and fuck,” he said. “They’ve got it. The bloody things’ll eat anything.”

“Got what?” asked 378550 who thought that he was being addressed and was glad of the chance to drop his role as shadow.

628461 pulled himself together and looked at 378550 suspiciously.

“You said ‘They’ve got it’,” 378550 repeated.

628461 tried to extricate himself from the situation. “I said, ‘I’ve got it’,” he explained. “‘I’ve got it. They’ll eat anything.’”

378550 was still puzzled. “I still don’t see it,” he said.

“Well,” said 628461 desperately trying to explain what the omnivorousness of ostriches had to do with his devotion to the cause of world Communism, “I was just thinking that we could get them to eat gelly and let them loose and they’d blow up all over the place.”

378550 looked at him with admiration. “That’s brilliant,” he said. “Absolutely brilliant.”

“Of course,” 628461 told him, “we’d have to put the explosive in something watertight first. Get them to swallow it. Fix a fuse and bingo, you’ve got the perfect sabotage weapon.”

885974 who didn’t want to be left out of things in the bushes came over and joined them.

“French letters,” he suggested when the scheme was put to him. “Put the gelignite in French letters and tie the ends, that’d keep it watertight.”

An hour later in Florian’s café they were discussing the plan with the rest of the saboteurs. 745396 objected on the grounds that ostriches might eat anything but he doubted if even they would be foolish enough to swallow a contraceptive filled with gelignite.

“We’ll try it out this afternoon,” said 628461 who felt that 745396 was somehow impugning his loyalty to Marxist Leninism and the motion was put to the vote. Only 745396 still objected and he was voted down.

While the rest of the group spent the lunch hour coding messages to Verkramp to warn him that the Hluwe Dam project was cancelled and that he might expect an onslaught of detonating ostriches. 885974 who had thought of French letters in the first place, was deputed to purchase twelve dozen of the best.

“Get Crêpe de Chine,” said 378550, who had had an unfortunate experience with another brand, “they’re guaranteed.”

885974 went into a large chemists’ on Market Street and asked the young man behind the photographic counter for twelve dozen Crêpe de Chine.

“Crêpe de Chine?” asked the assistant, who was obviously new to the job. “We don’t sell Crêpe de Chine. You need a haberdashers’ for that. This is a chemist shop.”

885974 who was already embarrassed by the quantity he had to ask for turned very red.

“I know that,” he muttered. “You know what I mean. In packets of three.”

The assistant shook his head. “They sell it in yards,” he said, “but I’ll ask if we have it,” and before 885974 could stop him had shouted across the shop to a girl who was serving some customers at the counter there.

“This gentleman wants twelve dozen Crêpe de Chine, Sally. We don’t sell stuff like that do we?” he asked, and 885974 found himself the object of considerable interest to twelve middle-aged women who knew precisely what he wanted even if the assistant didn’t and were amazed at the virility suggested by the number he required.

“Oh for God’s sake, never mind,” he muttered and hurried from the shop. In the end he managed to get what he wanted by buying six toothbrushes and two tubes of hair cream at other chemist shops and asking for Durex Fetherlites.

“They seemed more suitable,” he explained when he met the other agents outside the Ostrich enclosure in the afternoon. With a unity of purpose noticeably absent from their previous gatherings the agents applied themselves to the business of getting an ostrich to consume high-explosive concealed in a rubber sheath.

“Better try one with sand first,” 628461 suggested, and was presently scooping each into a Durex Fetherlite, an occupation which caused some disgust to a lady who was feeding the ducks on a nearby pond. He waited until she had moved off before offering the contraceptive to the ostrich. The bird took the sheath and spat it out. 628461 got a stick and managed to retrieve the thing from the enclosure. A second attempt was equally unsuccessful and when a third try to introduce half a pound of latex-covered earth into the bird’s digestive system failed, 628461 suggested coating the thing with ice cream.