Passage of Arms Read online

  Greg was annoyed. He did not mind about the shuffle-board, which he thought an old man’s game; but he did mind having to apologise to the Doctor.

  Dorothy was very reasonable about it. “I’m sorry, dear, but you didn’t tell me, did you?”

  “I thought you were around on deck.”

  “Well, you were reading and Arlene suggested Scrabble. I know how you hate that, so I didn’t bother you.”

  “Did you have to play down in the cabin?”

  “She’s got a very comfortable cabin. You haven’t seen it. It’s twice the size of ours. Look, dear, I’m sure the Doctor didn’t mind a bit. He understood.”

  “Yes, I know. But all the same …”

  All the same, he was annoyed. That evening, when Arlene and Dorothy began to talk about the shopping they were going to do in Hong Kong, his annoyance returned.

  “The big stores are in Victoria,” Arlene was saying; “that’s on Hong Kong island itself. But for us gals the best places are over in Kowloon. That’s on the mainland. There’s one called Star of Siam in the Peninsular Hotel that’s a must.”

  “Shops in a hotel?” asked Dorothy.

  “That’s right. There are two whole floors of them.”

  “Sounds like a tourist trap to me,” said Greg.

  Arlene smiled at him. “What would you say to a suit in the best English tropical worsted, made to order, for twenty-five dollars?”

  “Oh sure, I know all about that. They just copy a suit you have and it falls to pieces the first time you wear it.”

  Arlene smiled again, very gently. “Is that what happens? I’ve never heard that, not from anyone who’s really been there and bought one.”

  “Why don’t you try, dear?” said Dorothy. “I mean twenty-five dollars for a suit is cheap. And you do need some more summer outfits.”

  “Brooks Brothers is good enough for me.” He knew it was a dull, foolish remark even as he said it.

  “Well, it’s not important.” Dorothy spoke a trifle grimly.

  Arlene’s silence was monumentally tactful.

  It was a Sunday night and there was no dancing after dinner. When Arlene had gone to her cabin, Dorothy suggested a walk round the deck before they went to bed.

  After a while, she said: “Darling, I’m worried. I’m having a good time, a wonderful time. You don’t seem to be.”

  “Because I don’t happen to want to buy a suit in Hong Kong?”

  “Now you’re being tiresome.”

  “All right. That woman gets on my nerves.”

  “Arlene? But she’s really a very nice person.”

  “Well, I don’t like her and I wish she’d get out of our hair.”

  “She’s not in my hair. I think she’s being very sweet and helpful. Can you imagine what it would have been like in Tokyo if we hadn’t been lucky enough to have her to show us around? It couldn’t have been very exciting for her. She’d seen it all before. She went to a lot of trouble for us.”

  “Well, I wish she’d go to a lot of trouble for somebody else. Anyway, if she’s seen it all before, why does she come on the trip?”

  “Greg dear, you’re usually more understanding and tolerant. She’s a very lonely woman.”

  “And for some very good reasons.”

  “That’s an unkind thing to say. It doesn’t sound like you.”

  “Well, it is me. I told you, I don’t like the woman. The chief steward told me she didn’t want to sit with a crowd. Why not if she’s so lonely? Why did she have to pick on us?”

  Dorothy did not reply immediately and they walked once round the deck in silence.

  “Look, darling,” she said finally; “we didn’t come on this trip just for a vacation, but because we wanted to travel and because we wanted to see something of the world outside America. If we were multi-millionaires maybe we could have done it in our own private yacht. As it is, we have to go with other people. We’re not in a position to choose our travelling companions, any more than they’re in a position to choose us. So, we’ve all got to make the best of one another. Isn’t that common sense?”

  Greg chuckled. “It’s a poem, and beautifully delivered.”

  “Greg, I’m serious.”

  “I know you are, dear.” He drew her arm through his. “That’s why you’re so cute.”

  He had recovered his good humour. Dorothy’s homilies usually had that effect on him. Before they were married she had taught at a kindergarten school, and, in moments of stress, traces of the old Montessori manner were still discernible.

  “You’re maddening,” she said.

  “I know it.” He stopped and kissed her cheek. “All right, darling, we’ll be nice, well-behaved American tourists spreading sweetness and light and hard currency wherever we go.”

  “If you’ll just spread a little ofthat sweetness in Arlene’s direction, that’s all I ask.”

  “You said make the best of one another. Okay, I’ll make the best of her, whatever that is.”

  “Thank you, dear.”

  He sighed. “Anyway, I’ll try.”

  And, for some days, try he did.

  II

  The Silver Isle was to be in Hong Kong for forty-eight hours, discharging and taking on cargo, and she docked on the Kowloon side of the harbour by the wharfs on the Canton Road.

  This was convenient for the passengers. They could go ashore any time they wanted, and were within easy walking distance of both the ferry to Victoria and the Peninsular Hotel.

  Left to themselves, Greg and Dorothy would probably have taken the ferry straight away and gone across to see Hong Kong itself; but Arlene led them first to the hotel.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for sight-seeing later,” she told them. “Let’s get organised first. I suppose you’ve heard that these Chinese can make anything from a pair of ear-rings to a man’s tuxedo overnight. Well, it just is not true. If you want anything properly made you have to give them at least thirty-six hours. So let’s do our shopping first, and then we don’t have to worry.”

  They window-shopped for a while in the hotel ; and then the girls left Greg with a tailor named Mr. Yu, and went back to the Star of Siam to order Thai silk skirts. They had arranged to meet in the hotel lobby. When Greg had chosen his suit materials and had his measurements taken, he made his way down there.

  He knew that he had at least half an hour to wait. It was too early for a drink. There was a row of travel agents’ booths in the lobby, most of them offering sightseeing tours. It might be a good idea, he thought, to see about renting a car and driver.

  The moment that thought came into his head another one followed it: “Maybe I’d better check with Arlene first.”

  It was enough. He said “God dammit” between his teeth, and went over to the nearest booth.

  A Chinese in a black business suit came forward.

  “Good morning, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “I want to rent a limousine with a driver to take us around. Do you have cars?”

  “We do not have our own cars, but we can arrange that for you, sir. An American car if you wish. When and for how long would you want it?”

  “Well, we only have two days. We’d like to see as much as we can. We could start right after lunch from here.”

  “Then I would suggest, sir, that this afternoon you go across on the car ferry to Hong Kong and drive up to the Peak. There is a magnificent view from there. After that I would suggest a drive to Deep Water Bay and Repulse Bay with tea at the hotel there. Tomorrow you could tour Kowloon and the New Territories.”

  “Would that take us as far as the Red Chinese border?”

  “Certainly, sir. And you could lunch at Shatin. But I will get you a good driver who will know all these things and make helpful suggestions.”

  “How much would it cost?”

  By the time Arlene and Dorothy arrived it was all settled.

  Arlene clearly resented having the arrangements taken out of her hands in this fashion, but ha
d difficulty in finding anything in them to criticise. She did the best she could, however.

  “We didn’t have to have a car this afternoon,” she said. “We could have gone across to the island by the Star ferry and taken a. cab the other side.”

  “In all this humidity?” said Dorothy. “It’s worse than August in New York.”

  “Humidity?” Arlene smiled knowingly. “You wait until we get to Singapore.”

  Greg congratulated himself on this small rift in the female alliance ; but his satisfaction was short-lived. They went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and Arlene insisted on their all using chop-sticks. It was considered discourteous, she said, to use a fork. Dorothy thought it great fun; but Greg, who liked Chinese food and was hungry, became impatient and dropped some of the food on his tie.

  After lunch they went back to the Peninsular Hotel to pick up the car and driver.

  The car proved to be a three-year-old Chevrolet Bel-Air and Arlene looked at it disdainfully. The driver was a young Chinese wearing grey flannel trousers, a dark blue blazer and a chauffeur’s cap. He took off the cap and stood respectfully at attention as he held the rear door open for the ladies.

  “Want me to go in front with you?” Greg asked him.

  “If you do not object, sir, I think you will be more comfortable.”

  “Okay.”

  When they were in the car the driver turned to him.

  “I see you have a camera, sir. There are certain places on the road up to the Peak where particularly good shots can be obtained. Would you like me to stop at those places?”

  “That’d be fine. By the way, what’s your name?”

  “My Chinese name is Khoo Ah Au, sir.” The driver smiled. “American clients find it easier to call me Jimmy.”

  III

  Khoo Ah Au liked American tourists. He found them, on the whole, generous, easy-going and completely predictable. They were rarely ill-tempered, as the British often were, or eccentric in their demands, as were the French. They did not harass him with questions he had not been asked before, and listened politely, if sometimes inattentively, to the information he had to impart. They used their light meters conscientiously before taking photographs and bought their souvenirs dutifully at the shops which paid him commission. Above all, he found their personal relationships very easy to read. It was probably a matter of race, he thought. His own people were always very careful not to give themselves away, to expose crude feelings about one another. Americans seemed not to care how much was understood by strangers. It was almost as if they enjoyed being transparent.

  This American and these two women, for example. You had only to listen for a few minutes to what they said and how they said it, and everything was clear. The woman called Arlene was attracted to the wife and the husband was jealous. Possibly, he had no cause; possibly, the two women had done no more than exchange confidences or touch each other’s hands; but he was jealous. And the hungry woman was jealous of him. Only the wife, personable but middle-aged, seemed unconcerned. She did not appear flattered by the situation, or even aware of it. Perhaps she was more subtle than she sounded. When he had listened a little more, he would be able to decide.

  They were on the car ferry when he heard something that interested him keenly. “If we’d gone across by the passenger ferry,” the Arlene woman was saying, “you’d have been able to get a beautiful shot of the boat in dock.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll do that tomorrow,” the American said. “Anyway there’ll be plenty of chances of seeing her in dock.”

  It was the word ‘boat’ that had interested him. He had assumed that the trio were staying at the Peninsular Hotel because he had been engaged from there. The possibility of their being transit passengers off a boat had not occurred to him.

  “You’ve come by boat, sir?” he inquired diffidently.

  “Yes, the Silver Isle. Know her?”

  “Oh yes, sir. And are you staying here?”

  “No, we’re going on in her. Manila, Saigon, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta. My wife and I are on a world trip.”

  “Ah, that is very nice.”

  They were coming in to the landing ramp now and his passengers had plenty to engage their attention. It gave him time to think.

  Almost two months had elapsed since his wife’s uncle had visited them, and, so far, all his attempts to find an American who would meet Mr. Tan’s specifications had failed. Moreover, his last attempt had been a frightening failure. The American, a department store executive from Cleveland, had accused him of trying to work a confidence trick, and threatened to go to the police. After that, he had made up his mind to do nothing further in the matter. Unfortunately, Mr. Tan was a highly respected member of his wife’s family, and she had begun nagging him about it; not in an angry way, but reproachfully, intimating that his failure to do what her uncle wanted would cause her to lose face. There was also the money to be considered. With the five hundred dollars (Hong Kong) that Mr. Tan had offered for the service, he could go to Cheong Ming and Co. and buy a hi-fi set. But was it worth the risk?

  He began to study the American beside him.

  He was tall and thin with loose-fitting clothes and short, greying hair. He spoke quietly and with a slight smile in one corner of his mouth. His eyes were watchful and shrewd; but there might be innocence there, too. Not an easy man to deceive; but one who might sometimes deceive himself.

  Ah Au drove up towards the Peak. Near the lower cable-car station he stopped so that they could admire the view of the port from the road. The American took his camera and got out of the car.

  The Arlene woman said: “There’s a much better view from the top.”

  She and the wife stayed in the car.

  Ah Au went over to the American and began pointing out various landmarks in the panorama below them.

  “Yes, it’s a great place,” the American said. “By the way, Jimmy, is the view better from up top?”

  “There is a fine view there, too, sir, which I will show you in a minute, but this is better for photography. From the Peak there is more haze.”

  “I see.” He was winding the camera.

  “Are you using Kodachrome, sir?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “From here, sir, at f 8 with a haze filter you will get a very good picture.”

  “Thanks. You take many pictures?”

  “No, sir, but I have such information for my clients.”

  The camera whirred. As they were walking back to the car, the American said: “Is this your car or do you just drive for someone else?”

  “It is my car, sir. I like to give personal service to clients.”

  “I expect you make more money working for yourself, too.”

  Ah Au smiled. “There is also that, sir.”

  The American smiled back.

  Ah Au drove on up to the peak. Some progress had been made, he thought. They had established a personal relationship.

  The tour continued. His passengers had tea at the Repulse Bay Hotel. Then, he drove them on to the fishing village of Aberdeen and showed them the floating Chinese restaurants. At the Arlene woman’s suggestion, it was decided that he should drive them out there to dine the following night. It was on the way back to the ferry that Jimmy had the glimpse of his client’s mind that he had been hoping for.

  He was driving along Connaught Road, by the long quay where the junks tied up for unloading, when the American turned to him.

  “Jimmy, what are all those barges lined up along there? I mean the green painted ones with the yellow stars on them.”

  “They are junks from Canton, sir.”

  “But that’s in Red China.”

  “Yes, sir. Canton is only ninety miles away.”

  “Stop the car. I’ve got to have some shots of this.”

  Ah Au parked the car, and, leaving the women sitting in it, walked back along the quay with the American. The man seemed curiously excited and was almost tripping over himself in his eagerness to
get a closer look at the junks.

  “What are they doing here?” he asked.

  “They come and go all the time, sir.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Carrying cargo.” Ah Au was puzzled. He could not understand why the man was so interested.

  “What sort of cargo?”

  “Any sort of cargo, sir. That is rattan cane they are unloading. It is made into chairs and baskets here.”

  “But I don’t see any police about. Do you mean they’re allowed just to come and go as they please?”

  “They are ordinary people. They make no trouble, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll be …”

  He began to take pictures. When they got back to the car, Ah Au listened thoughtfully as the American told his wife and her friend what he had found out.

  The women were interested, and the Arlene one said that it showed what the British had come to when they didn’t worry about Communists going in and out of one of their colonies; but they were not interested the way the man was. As they drove on towards the ferry, Ah Au saw him looking about him intently, as if he were discovering a new meaning in everything he saw.

  By the time they reached the mainland Ah Au had decided to take matters a stage further. As he drove them back along the Canton Road to the ship, he asked a question.

  “Tomorrow morning, sir, for your tour of the New Territories, do you wish me to go to the Peninsular Hotel, or shall I take the car to the ship?”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Oh yes, sir. If I have your name to give at the dock gate.”

  “My name’s Nilsen. Would ten o’clock be okay?”

  “Perfectly, sir.” He frowned as if making an effort of memory. “Mr. Nilsen, there was another Mr. Nilsen here last year. He was in the textile business. He had a big plant at a place called Dayton, I think. Perhaps you know him.”