The Chequer Board (13 page)

“Be a bit lonely for you, staying on here all alone,” he said.

“I dunno,” she replied. “I might go and stay with Laura for a bit. She wants help, with the baby coming and all that.”

“Well,” he said, “it all wants a bit of thinking about.” He searched his mind for something he could do for her to match her generosity in some small measure. “Like to go to the pictures tonight?” he said. “I see there’s Cary Grant on at the Regal.”

Four days later he left Poole on the flying boat for Rangoon.

M
R
T
URNER
enjoyed his journey in the flying boat. For practically the first time in his life comfort wrapped him round, so that it was unnecessary for him to do anything but read and rest. All day the aircraft droned on across the mountains, the deserts, and the seas. He read a little, slept a little, ate a lot, and looked out of the window at the slowly moving panorama of the world. The journey did him a great deal of good; the great wound in his forehead ceased to trouble him with its throbbing, and though he sweated profusely each time they landed, he reached Rangoon rested and refreshed.

He had not come empty-handed. He brought with him from England a few small packages of Crispy Wheaties, a breakfast cereal that his organisation was marketing in a big way, and he brought some samples of an older product, Mornmeal, which was full of vitamins and roughage. With these gifts from the West to the Far East he landed in Rangoon early in August in monsoon weather, and went to the hotel on the Strand.

He was adaptable, and though the climate in that month was trying, with alternate rain and sun, he did not
find it insupportable by any means. He had bought readymade clothing from a tropical outfitter in London, and his suits were adequate. He was a man accustomed to fending for himself and finding his own way around; the Eastern atmosphere did not impede him. He behaved in Rangoon exactly as he would have done in Manchester, and he got along quite well.

He had an introduction to the agent for his firm, a Mr S. O. Chang; he rang him up from his hotel bedroom on the first morning, and within half an hour Mr Chang was sitting with him in the hotel lounge. Mr Chang was a Chinaman, and he had represented Cereal Products Ltd. for some years in Rangoon. In Rangoon Mr Chang had a finger in every pie that would accept his finger; he was always up to something. His interests ranged from upholstery materials for railway carriages to foundation creams for ladies, from cast-iron sluices suitable for septic tanks to breakfast cereals from England. He lived modestly in a small house up towards the jail behind the Chinese quarter; he may or may not have been wealthy, but he knew everybody in Rangoon.

They talked cereals for an hour or so. “I come out here on sort of personal business, you might say,” said Mr Turner. “Mr Anderson, he’ll be along to see you in March. But as I was coming here, Mr Sumner said to stop and have a chat with you, and show you these.”

Mr Chang beamed. “Mr Anderson, he very welcome in Rangoon. My wife, she always ask when Mr Anderson coming. My son Hsu, he asks always also, when Mr Anderson coming. Very nice man, Mr Anderson.”

“Aye,” said Mr Turner, “he’s a proper card. Tells a good story, don’t he?”

“Oh yes. Mr Anderson, he very funny man. My wife laugh and laugh.” He explained. “My wife does not know English, so I translate stories for her. She laugh very much.”

Mr Turner split open one of the little sample packets of Crispy Wheaties on the table, and put two or three flakes in his mouth. “Say, tell me what you think o’ these, Mr Chang. I kind of like them myself, so does my wife. Sort of malty flavour, isn’t it? They’re going very well at home. We’ll have nearly half our whole production on these by next year.”

An hour later they were finished for the time being. “There’s just one other thing,” said Mr Turner. “I got a friend out here somewhere, chap I used to know back in England in the war, in 1943. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he lives in a place called Mandinaung. Mandinaung, Irrawaddy, that’s the address. Is that far from here?”

Mr Chang said, “Mandinaung is large village on the Irrawaddy River. It is about hundred, hundred and ten miles. You go by river, past Yandoon. Take two days now in the steamer, because river running very fast. One day to come back. You want to go and see your friend?”

Mr Turner hesitated. “Is it easy to get there?”

“Very easy. Steamer all the way, twice each week, Monday, Thursday, all the way up to Henzada. Next Thursday is next steamer. You arrive Mandinaung Friday afternoon.” He looked up at Mr Turner. “I book passage for you—leave to me. You go Thursday?”

“Hold on a minute.” He had no objection to Mr Chang
earning his commission on the passage, but he did not want to be rushed. “This chap doesn’t know I’m coming, and I don’t know how he’s living. Would it be possible to find out anything about him—what he does, or anything?”

“Sure,” said Mr Chang. “I have good friend who do business in Mandinaung—cheroots. Mandinaung cheroots very good, good as Danubyu. You like cheroots, Burma cheroots?”

“I wish you’d find out something about this chap,” said Mr Turner. “Phillip Morgan, his name is. I’d like to know what he’s doing, how he’s living, you know, before I write to him or go up there.”

“I find out for you,” said Mr Chang. “I ask my friend, he go there every month. Phillip Morgan. I find out for you.”

He insisted that Mr Turner should dine with him the following evening at his home, and would take no refusal. They arranged that he should fetch Mr Turner from the hotel at half-past six, and then he went away. Turner sat down and wrote a cable to his wife in Watford to tell her of his safe arrival, and then, most unusual, he sat down and wrote her a long letter. He was not very good at writing, and much of his letter was concerned with a description of the plot of the detective story he had read in the aircraft on the way out; but it pleased her when she got it.

He went out presently and walked along the streets at a very slow pace, keeping well in the shade. He bought a solar topee for twice its value in a Chinese shop, and he bought a guidebook for three times its English price from a very black Chittagonian who kept a stall, and he bought
a bunch of bananas in the fruit market for almost its proper price, because he smiled and was friendly to the young Burmese woman who sold them. Then he was tired, and his head was beginning to throb; so he went back to his hotel and lay down on his bed to read the guidebook. Presently he went to sleep, and when he woke up, it was afternoon. He got up and had a shower and ate some of the bananas, and went down and had a cup of tea in the hotel lounge. He spent the evening sitting in a long chair in the shade, watching the native life of the city as it moved by in the street.

Next day he went to the great shrine that dominates the city, the Shwe Dagon, and walked around the pagoda in his stockinged feet, mystified at the profusion of strange images.

That evening Mr Chang came in a very decrepit old open motor car to fetch him to dine. They bounced erratically along to the other end of the town, with Mr Chang clinging to the wheel in grim concentration and changing the worn gears with more ferocity than skill.

Mr Chang lived in a small suburban house, that stood in a garden that was unkempt, by Mr Turner’s Watford standards. It was suffering from the peculiarity that it had few walls, and those were constructed only of Venetian-blind material. Outside, the jungle rats, that Mr Turner knew as squirrels, played in the trees, and sometimes came into the rooms.

In the main living room there was a long table; one end was laid with a white cloth for the meal; on the other end was a jumble of well-worn Mah Jongg ivories. Mrs Chang came forward to meet them, a little woman, with
a wide, smiling face. She was dressed in sandals, black satin trousers, and a very beautifully embroidered white silk shirt that reached down almost to the knees. She said something, smiling.

“My wife speaks no English,” said Mr Chang. “She very pleased you come to our house.”

Mr Turner, in the course of a varied business life, had acquired some experience with wives who could speak no English. He had no knowledge of any language but his own, but he had made himself pleasant in the past to French wives, German wives, Dutch wives, Polish wives, Hungarian wives, and many others; a Chinese wife presented him with no problem. He worked on the theory that all foreign wives were exactly and precisely similar to English wives, and that if you got someone to translate exactly what you would have said in Watford it worked out all right. Certainly he had always given satisfaction. Within ten minutes Mrs Chang had produced her seven-year-old son and five-year-old daughter and Mr Turner was playing “Paper wraps stone, scissors cuts paper” with the little boy.

Dinner came presently, served by a Chinese Burman girl; a curry which Mrs Chang ate with her fingers, Mr Chang with chopsticks, and Mr Turner with a spoon and fork. Mr Chang produced a bottle of rice spirit flavoured with burnt sugar, which he called Black Cat whiskey; in support of that statement he showed the black cat on the label. A glass of this set Mr Turner’s head throbbing and buzzing; he refused another with some difficulty, and told them all about his head wound. Then Mrs Chang told him all about her operation for appendicitis, Mr
Chang translating, so that by the end of the meal they might have been nextdoor neighbours in Watford.

The brown girl came and cleared the table, and Mr Chang produced a large paper packet of cheroots. They were very black, and Mr Turner took one with some apprehension; unexpectedly it turned out very mild.

“You like my cheroots?” asked Mr Chang.

“Aye,” said Mr Turner with appreciation. “Makes a nice smoke.”

“From Mandinaung, where your friend lives. Mandinaung cheroot.”

“It’s very nice,” said Mr Turner. “Did you find out anything about Phillip Morgan?”

“Oh yes, I find out for you. Mr Morgan very important man in Mandinaung. He just made Sub-divisional Officer.”

Mr Turner stared at him in astonishment. “What’s that—Sub-divisional Officer? What does that mean?”

Mr Chang said, “Sub-divisional Officer, he is Government official. Like Judge and Tax Collector and Registrar. Mr Morgan is Sub-divisional Officer for five villages, but he live in Mandinaung.”

Turner said, bewildered, “I thought he was quite poor.”

Mr Chang smiled tolerantly. “Oh no, Mr Morgan never poor. Mr Morgan, he is owner of three motor boats, trade up and down the Irrawaddy, carry passengers and goods. Now he sold those boats, and now he is Sub-divisional Officer.”

Mr Turner stared at the Chinaman. “Is he a well-known man, then?”

“Oh yes—Mr Morgan very well known in the Irrawaddy; people like him very much. He marry nice girl, Ma Nay
Htohn, daughter to Maung Shway Than. Maung Shway Than is important man in Rangoon. His brother, Nga Myah, is Minister for Education in the Burma Government. All very good people.”

“Well, I’m damned,” said Mr Turner. He sat in silence for a minute, trying to re-adjust his ideas. “This girl he married,” he said presently, “—Ma something, you said—is she a native? I mean, a Burmese girl?”

“Oh yes,” said Mr Chang. “Ma Nay Htohn educated at Rangoon High School; she speak very good English. Very nice girl, very clever. She have two children now, one boy, one girl. They very happy.”

Mr Turner said mechanically, “That’s fine,” and sat trying to think out what this meant to him. It was not in the least what he had been led to expect.

Mr Chang went on to add to his information. “Ma Nay Htohn has brother, colonel in the Burma Army, Burma Independence Army in the war. His name, Utt Nee. Utt Nee, he fight against the British in 1942 to make Burma independent. Later he fight against the Japanese also to make Burma independent, but he fight more against Japanese than against the British. He very important man also, colonel in the Burma Army.”

He grinned at Turner. “You want to go up river to Mandinaung to see your friend? I arrange it for you, very easy.”

Mr Turner said slowly, “Yes, I think I do want to go. I’d better write him a letter first, though. How long does a letter take to get there?”

“One week to get answer. Why not send telegram?”

“Can one send telegrams to Mandinaung?”

“Oh yes. I go to Danubyu, and then boy run with the message. You get answer same day. I send it for you.”

Mr Turner said, “Got a piece of paper?”

He thought for a moment, and then wrote:

He got an answer the next day at his hotel:

Mr Turner stood looking at this thoughtfully, in front of the mirror in his bedroom. “Made a bloody fool of yourself,” he said to his reflection. “Come all this way for nothing. He don’t want your help.”

He hesitated, half minded to abandon the adventure and go downstairs and book a passage back to England on the next aircraft. This young man that he had thought of as a beachcomber was a government official, and one with very good connections in the country. Out here, where white faces were few, the fact that he was married to a Burmese girl did not seem quite so shattering as it had seemed in England; Mr Turner had already seen a number of girls in the street that he would not have minded being married to, himself.

“Might as well go straight back home,” he said disconsolately. “He’s all right.”

He did not go. The fascination of a strange scene was upon him; he had never been to the East before, and though the purpose that had brought him there was obviously void, he might as well see everything there was to see before going home. He had said nothing to anybody, fortunately, of his desire to help Phillip Morgan make his life anew; he had described himself as on a business trip, and he could stick to that story. This journey up the river to this Burmese village would be interesting, an out-of-the-way adventure, something to tell Mollie about when he got back to Watford, something to tell buyers from the Provinces when he lunched with them at the Strand Palace Hotel. He decided that he would go, and spent some time in thinking up corroborative lies about his business in Rangoon to tell to Morgan if he showed much interest in his presence in Burma.