Bernard Knight - Dead in the Dog

‘Both are improving, they should pull through well enough,’ he ended.

This is how the meeting went for the next fifteen minutes, with the gimlet eyes of the colonel transfixing each officer in turn, demanding to know what he had been up to during the last day. He left the pathologist until last.

‘Well, Howden, any problems in the laboratory?’

‘Nossir, just settling in,’ answered Tom cautiously, as in fact he had yet to set foot in the place.

‘Better be up to speed by tomorrow, you’ve had almost a day here already!’

He stood up suddenly, the signal for everyone to lumber to their feet, put on their caps and salute, before filing out in silence.

As the door closed behind them, Tom heard Major Martin comment to Peter Bright. ‘The old man was very benign this morning, his few days’ leave must have mellowed him.’

Bloody hell, thought the new boy, what’s he like when he’s in a bad mood?

It was past noon before the news first reached the Officers’ Mess. Most of the residents had drifted back there for their pre-lunch drink and even some of the married officers had forsaken their domestic gin and tonics for a gossip with their colleagues. The table just inside the open doors of the anteroom was scattered with caps and webbing belts, as mess rules demanded that they were not worn inside. Most of the chairs were occupied and Number One was padding about with beers and fresh lime drinks, the drinking of hard liquor being frowned upon in the middle of the day. A couple of doctors were hidden behind newspapers or magazines, but most were lying back, letting the ceiling fans blow some of the sweat off them.

‘The damned Engineers in Garrison have installed air conditioning in their mess,’ complained Eddie Rosen, another Short-Service captain who worked in the surgical wards under Peter Bright. A small Jewish doctor from London, he had done a year’s ‘midder and gynae’, so was the nearest they had to a woman’s specialist, though a senior gynaecologist could be flown in at short notice from BMH Kinrara, near Kuala Lumpur.

‘Well they would, wouldn’t they,’ drawled Clarence Bottomley, a National Service lieutenant, known to all as ‘Montmorency’ for some obscure reason. He was a rather posh young man who, when in civvies, always wore a Marlborough tie and let everyone know that he was a Cambridge graduate. Though he seemed an amiable enough chap, Tom classed him amongst the ‘chinless wonders’ and the garrulous Percy had already reported that Montmorency was only marking time in BMH, until he was posted out to one of the more elite Guards’ battalions as a Regimental Medical Officer. He said they always wanted doctors who knew which fish knives to use at Mess Dinners and the correct direction in which to pass the port.

Before the ventilation iniquities of the Garrison Mess could be debated further, there was an interruption from near the door. Alfred Morris had arrived and after dropping his cap on to the table, rapped on it with his short swagger stick.

‘Chaps, listen a moment, please!’

The blunt authority of his voice was a reminder that he had once been a Regimental Sergeant Major. ‘The Commanding Officer wants me to tell you that more vigilance is required regarding security, especially outside the camp.’

There was a silence, as this was a new one, even given the eccentricities of their colonel.

‘What’s all this about, Alf?’ demanded the physician, John Martin.

‘Looks as if the lull in CT activity around these parts may be over,’ replied Morris. ‘There was an attack on one of the estates last night, only a few miles from here.’

A buzz of interest and concern went around the anteroom. If the area was returned to being a Black Area, it would interfere with their travelling, which meant problems with golf and weekend trips, to say nothing of the possibility of being shot. There was a clamour for more details as the members got up and advanced on the Admin Officer, who held up his hands for some quiet.

‘It seems that in the early hours of this morning, shots were fired at both bungalows and the workers’ lines at Gunong Besar. No one was hurt, but they drilled a few holes in the walls again, smashed the windscreen of Diane Robertson’s car and scared the shit out of some of the Indian labourers.’

Alf forgot his own swear-box penalty in the babble that followed his announcement.

‘Is that all that happened?’ demanded Percy Loosemore, who had been in TT the longest and remembered the previous more serious terrorist attacks.

‘Seems to be! Couple of dozen shots fired, then they melted away into the ulu .’ Tom had already gathered that this was the common name for the dense secondary vegetation around the edge of the jungle.

‘James Robertson and Douglas Mackay rolled out of their beds and grabbed their guns, but it was all over by then.’

‘The state James was in, in The Dog last night, it’s a wonder he even woke up at a mere few dozen gunshots!’ observed Peter Bright, sarcastically.

‘Where were you in the early hours, Pete?’ asked Percy provocatively, but no one laughed.

‘Did our lot find the bandits?’ asked David Meredith, his dark eyes brooding over the rim of his tankard.

‘Not a sign of anyone by the time the police got there, just ahead of a squad from the garrison. Douglas rang them and they were there within twenty minutes.’

‘Odd, that!’ ruminated Percy Loosemore. ‘The CTs usually cut the phone wires before they go on the rampage. They did last time they hit Gunong Besar, about six months ago.’

Peter Bright looked desperately worried. ‘Alf, are you sure no one was hurt?’

‘The lovely Diane must be OK, or we’ve had heard,’ said Percy, with a look of innocence, as he slipped in what all the others were thinking. With her husband at home, poor Peter would be unable to ring up the estate to see how his beloved was bearing up. The way Diane had reacted after the last attack, when she had been miles away in Singapore, suggested that she would be frantic now that she had actually been on the wrong end of gunfire.

The Admin Officer slumped into the last vacant chair and signalled to Number One for a beer, as the others settled back to listen and debate.

‘We’ll hear all about it endlessly tonight at The Dog,’ he said. ‘No doubt James Robertson will be there, playing the hero.’

In spite of the heat, the atmosphere in the Robertsons’ lounge that afternoon was decidedly frosty. The ice was provided in full measure by the two women present, the wives of the owner and his manager.

Rosa Mackay sat stiffly on the edge of one of the rattan easy chairs, with Diane slumped on the settee as far away as possible on the other side of the room. Douglas Mackay hovered uneasily in front of one of the verandah doors, while James stood with his back to the rear wall, his hands clasped behind him. The third man in the room thought whimsically that if the climate had allowed for a large fireplace, James Robertson would have stood like this in front of it, to emphasize his dominance as squire of the household.

Steven Blackwell was the Superintendent of Police, based at Tanah Timah, but responsible for a huge tract of country, much of it uninhabited. He was a burly, short-necked man of forty-five, almost completely bald above a rim of iron-grey hair running horizontally around the back of his head. Steven suffered severely from the sun, his face, head and neck always bright pink above his crisply starched khaki uniform. He wore shirt and shorts, with long black socks, black shoes and black peaked cap, which now lay on the piano, along with his leather-covered stick. A black ‘Sam Brown’ belt and diagonal cross-strap supported a holstered revolver.