James McCure - The Steam Pig

Zondi entered with his eyes respectfully averted and handed Kramer a slip of paper. On it he had scrawled: “Colonel telling Van that Ferguson can die soon. 2100 hrs.”

This was just what Kramer had been waiting for-and his only way of getting the information without arousing suspicion. Now that Lenny was dead and Jackson had fled, he knew of only five men remaining who had plainly registered something when he had mentioned the Steam Pig. Four already disclaimed any knowledge of the phrase but they had their lives to live. The fifth had not.

Kramer winked his gratitude at a good and faithful servant and then dismissed him.

The drag of the next five minutes was a greater agony than anything Strydom’s clumsy fingers could inflict. In fact it seemed a full hour of missed opportunity before Kramer arrived in the side-ward and began to browbeat the nurse at Ferguson’s bedside into allowing them to be alone. As an only son, he claimed that right.

She was touched and left. There was only the one bed in the room.

“I’m dying,” Ferguson said, looking awed, then giggled.

Kramer could just catch his words by bending low over him. Actually Ferguson did not look all that bad, but he had the right idea if he was going to be of any assistance.

“Remember me?” Kramer asked.

“Hmmmm?”

“Any ideas?”

“Specialish?”

“Try again.”

“Brother-Jack?”

“Shall I tell you?”

Ferguson nodded with the eagerness of a child anticipating avuncular delights.

“I’m from the Steam Pig. Remember?”

This brought a strange smile to the candle-wax lips. It broadened jerkily into a leery grin.

“Give her. My love.”

“Who?”

“Her. Little piggy.”

“I said Steam Pig.”

Ferguson brightened.

“She’s dead,” he observed with satisfaction.

“Who? Peggy is it?”

“You are a bit thick,” Ferguson scoffed, becoming lucid all of a sudden. “We all called her the Pig after Derek said it first. What a laugh! A dirty pig all right-the things she’d let you do. Oh my.”

“Holy jesus.”

“Nobody knew who the Pig was, you see. We could talk about her in the club and nobody knew.”

“But steam? ”

“Very clever. I said Steam Pig. Chuff, chuff, chuff. It was like a steam engine. Chuff-chuff-chuff she’d go in time to the music. We added Steam just for fun. Like a code.”

And Ferguson began to hum Greensleeves with a distinctive locomotive rhythm that Kramer recognised instantly.

“You poor bloody sod,” he said.

“Steam Piggy thought it such a joke!”

“I bet.”

Kramer left abruptly.

“Holy jesus,” he said again, in the passage. The nurse, returning with her cup of tea, stared after him with the utmost sympathy. He looked ill.

He was sick to the stomach to think that of all the types of names he had considered, not once had the idea of a nickname occurred to him. No wonder nobody had ever stopped to explain it before-the topic had always been the girl and they must have supposed he understood what such a trifling thing meant. It had never been important.

Except to Shoe Shoe and he had missed the point as well. Look where that had got him. God, the consequences could be almost as devastating if this ever got into the Colonel’s after-dinner joke book.

Oh sod him. He’d never catch Jackson and so he’d sodding well never know. The sod.

Kramer stepped out into the night heading briskly on foot for the Trekkersburg Tudor Tavern. It had been a lot of trouble to go to for a whore, a steam-driven Coloured whore from Durban at that, but it bought steak.