Len Deighton - MAMista

The peer pushed his coffee away and, remembering Lucas’ remark said, ‘Not one healthy native? None of us would last twenty-four hours in the jungle, Colonel, and you know it. Are we healthy?’

‘You are talking about adaptation,’ said Lucas.

‘I agree with Colonel Lucas,’ said the lawyer. ‘During my time in Malaya I saw young soldiers from industrial cities like Leeds adapt to hellish conditions.’

The research trustee groaned. There were too many people with war experiences on this damned board. If the lawyer started talking about the way he’d won his Military Cross in ‘the Malayan emergency’ they would never get away. He coughed. ‘Can we get back to the question again …?’

The peer would not tolerate such interruptions. ‘The real question is: one …’ he raised a finger. ‘… Is this board indifferent to the political implications that might later arise …’

Lucas did not wait for two. ‘Surely the question is entirely medical …’

The lawyer held up his gold pencil in a cautionary gesture. It irritated him that Lucas should come here in tweed sports jacket, and canary-coloured sweater, when everyone else wore dark suits. ‘It is not entirely medical. We could lay this board open to charges of financing a highly organized and disciplined army that has the declared aim of overthrowing by force the legal government of Spanish Guiana.’

There was a shocked silence as they digested this. Then the investments man stopped doodling on his notepad to wave a hand. His voice was toneless and bored. ‘If, on the other hand, we refuse to send medical supplies to these starving people in the south, we could be described as suppressing that popular movement by means of disease.’

‘I’m going to ask you to withdraw that,’ said the peer, losing his studied calm. ‘I won’t allow that to go on the minutes of this meeting.’

Without looking up from his doodling the investment man calmly said, ‘Well, I don’t withdraw it and you can go to hell and take the minutes with you.’

‘If the army in the south have money enough for guns and bombs, they have money enough for medical supplies,’ said the man from Birmingham.

‘Ten divisions complete with tanks and aircraft,’ said the secretary.

‘Who told you that?’ asked Lucas.

‘It was a documentary on BBC Television,’ said the secretary.

‘What about all the money they are getting from growing drugs?’ said the man from Birmingham.

‘I saw the same TV programme,’ said the lawyer. ‘Are you sure that was Spanish Guiana? I thought that was Peru.’

‘You can’t believe all that BBC propaganda,’ said the investments man. ‘That TV programme was a repeat. If my memory serves me, it was originally shown back in the Eighties before the Wall came down.’

The chairman watched them but said nothing.

What a circus! If it was always like this, thought Lucas, it would be worth the journey up to town every month.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the lawyer in a tone he normally reserved for consulting counsel. ‘While I wouldn’t agree with Colonel Lucas that this is entirely a medical question, I believe we are all beginning to see that we need more medical information before we can make a decision. After all’ – he looked at them and smiled archly before reminding them how important they were – ‘we are dealing with a great deal of money.’

Clever the way he can do that, thought Lucas. They were clucking away happily now, like a lot of contented hens.

‘What’s the form then?’ said the man from Birmingham in an effort to move things along.

‘An on-the-spot report,’ said the lawyer. He had the infinite patience that the law’s bounty and unhurried pace provide. He gave no sign that this was the fourth time he’d said it.

‘In any case, we all agreed that the antibiotics should be sent,’ said the investments man, although no one had agreed to it, and someone had specifically advised against that course of action. ‘Let’s send that immediately, shall we?’

The lawyer did not respond to the suggestion, knowing that putting it to the vote would start new arguments. Thankful that the dispute about the anonymous donor now seemed to have faded, he picked up a pile of paper and tapped it on the table to align the edges. He did it to attract their attention: it was a trick he’d learned from his partner. As they looked round he said, ‘Getting someone to Guiana and back shouldn’t delay us more than a week or two. Then, if we decide to go ahead, we can airfreight the urgent supplies.’

‘If we decide to go ahead,’ said the peer. The lawyer smiled and nodded.

The secretary said, ‘I think I might be able to arrange the air freight at cost or even free through one of our benefactors.’

‘Excellent,’ said the research man.

Bloody fool, thought Lucas, but he modified the thought: ‘Much better to buy locally whenever possible. Cash transfer. Ship it from Florida perhaps.’

The lawyer gave an audible exhalation. ‘We must be careful. Graft is second nature in these countries.’

‘Easier to protect money than stop pilfering of drugs and medicines,’ said Lucas. ‘In fact we should look at the idea of flying it right down to the southern provinces where it’s needed.’

‘And of course there will be customs and duty and tariffs,’ said the lawyer. It would be a nightmare and he was determined to dump it into someone else’s lap if he could.

‘That should be arranged in advance,’ said Lucas. ‘World Health Organization people must put the pressure on the central government. It would be absurd to pay duty on medical supplies that are a gift to their own people.’

‘Well, that will be your problem,’ said the lawyer.

Lucas looked at him and eventually nodded.

The chairman picked up the agenda and said, ‘Item four …’

‘Hold on. I don’t understand exactly what we have decided,’ said the investments man.

The lawyer said, ‘Colonel Lucas will fly out to Spanish Guiana to decide what medical aid should be given to people in the southern provinces.’

‘The Marxist guerrillas,’ said the man from Birmingham.

‘The people in the southern provinces,’ repeated the chairman firmly. He didn’t say much but he knew what he wanted the minutes to record.

The lawyer said, ‘The donor has offered to arrange for a guide, interpreter and all expenses.’

They looked at Lucas and it amused him to see in their faces how pleased they were to be rid of him. It was not true to say that Lucas nodded without thinking about it. He had no great desire to visit Spanish Guiana, but the medical implications of a large organized community living isolated deep in the jungle could be far-reaching. There was no telling what he might learn: and Lucas loved to learn. More immediately; he was the medical adviser to the board. They’d expect him to go. It would give him a change of scenery and he had no family responsibilities to consider. And there was the unarguable fact that he could report on the situation better than any man round this table. In fact better than any man they could get hold of at short notice.

Lucas nodded.

‘Bravo, Colonel,’ said the man from Birmingham.

The peer smiled. The jungle was the best place for the little Australian peasant.

‘Item four then,’ said the chairman. ‘This is the grant for the inoculation scheme in Zambia. We now have the estimates for the serum …’

Lucas remembered that he was supposed to meet his daughter next week. Perhaps his sister would meet her instead. He’d drop in on her as soon as this meeting ended. She’d question him about his trip to South America and then claim to have divined it in the stars. Oh well. Perhaps it would have been better if she had got married, but she’d chosen instead to look after his ailing parents. He felt guilty about that. He’d never given any of the family anything to compare with the love and devotion they had given him. Too late now: he’d take his guilt to the grave.