‘The Tuan has had a good day?’ ventured Trimani politely. Like every other aspect of the ceremony it was a habitual question.
‘Very good, Trimani, thank you very much.’ And Harry dropped a fifty-cent coin into the barman’s silver tray. With a respectful nod, Trimani retired to his usual place behind the bar.
Harry sighed. The truth of the matter was, of course, that it had been a bloody boring sort of day. Most days for him had been bloody boring since he had left the forces; or more accurately, since he had been obliged to leave the forces. He had always felt bitter about that.
Harry was sixty-seven years old, but few people would have thought it. He was a thin wiry individual with not a pound of excess fat on his body. Though iron grey, his hair was thick (and a shade on the long side by forces standards) and his moustache was immaculately trimmed. He was undoubtedly the most popular officer that the regiment had ever possessed, and he was regarded now by the men with a peculiar kind of affection that elevated him almost to the role of a mascot. His connections with the Fourth went back a long way. He had originally served with them as a junior officer in India during the Burma campaign, where he had steadily risen through the ranks. He had come across to Malaya with them in 1948, where he commanded them during the ten-year ‘confrontation’ with the Communist terrorists. He had seen the task through admirably, and had expected to move on with them to Sarawak in 1962 to help quell the Brunei Revolt. But a medical examination had discovered a tricky heart problem and he had been promptly – and rather unceremoniously, he thought – dumped in favour of a younger man. Shortly after that, he had been ‘bowler-hatted’, though he had moved heaven and earth in an attempt to stay in longer. It had been to no avail. He was sixty-three years old and, whatever his views concerning his own health, he must stand aside and give somebody else a chance. And so, reluctantly, he had settled down to enjoy an idyllic, well-pensioned retirement.
And that was where his problems had really begun. A man who had spent his life with energy, authority, and decisiveness did not take very kindly to lazing about on beaches or beside swimming pools, and there was not a great deal more to do in this lonely outpost. Situated in the Dungun district of South Trengganu, on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, the area was little more than several isolated kampongs, the barracks and a few accompanying dwellings, dotted at intervals of a mile or so along the main coast road to Kuala Trengganu, the state capital. All around lay thick and virtually inaccessible jungle. The barracks had been established as a forward grouping point in the campaign against the C.T.s, who had known only too well how to use the jungle to their own advantage. But the emergency had officially ended in 1960, and most of the troops had been dispatched back to the main barracks in Singapore. Now Kuala Hitam was maintained by what amounted to a skeleton crew; worse still, recent rumours of major cutbacks in the Gurkha regiments had become more than just rumours. The numbers were to be whittled down to a mere ten thousand men. For the rest, the prospects were nothing more than a meagre pension or redundancy payment and a one-way ticket back to their homes in India, where they were expected to pick up from where they had left off in 1940. The decision meant inevitable poverty and heartbreak for the majority of men, but, as always, the Gurkhas had accepted their fate with quiet humility. Now it was simply a question of waiting. Harry shared the feelings of regret, but was unable to change anything. His voice, which had once carried so much power in these matters, was now rendered useless; a vague, impotent whimper.
Harry raised the glass of beer to his lips and drank a silent toast to an old adversary, the head of which glowered down at him from above the doorway of the Mess. The taxidermist, as usual, had done a good job, but somehow they were never able to capture that certain look. The tiger’s eyes were blind glass, staring vacantly down at the peaceful crowd below. The expression of feral rage was totally contrived. He had died with a look of complete peace on his face; and, in dying, he had gazed up at Harry, seeming to ask, Why?
‘Because you’re a cattle-killer,’ Harry had answered in his mind, knowing in his soul that this was not really the truth. His words had rung hollow, and after some deliberation, he had had to admit that the months of trailing and tracking and sitting up nights over the stinking carcasses of slain cows and goats had all been done in the name of ‘sport.’ Cattle-killing was merely the excuse, a means to an end. The look in that dying tiger’s eyes had shaken him badly. He could not rid his mind of the image for days afterwards, and he had never gone hunting again. That had been back in 1958. He still cleaned and oiled the rifle regularly, more from force of habit than from any conscious intention to use it again. He had impulsively bequeathed the trophy to his regiment, having no desire to put it in his own home. He had realized too late that the beast would always be there in the Mess, staring down at him in silent accusation. Thus, another little ceremony was born. A toast from one tiger to another. After all, it was the death of this cat and many others like him that had earned Harry his nickname; what more fitting celebration than to drink to the creature in ‘Tiger’ beer, that infamous beverage that was both the delight and the ruin of the armed forces in Malaysia?
The beer was a delicious shock to his dehydrated insides. He set the glass down carefully and tilted back his head a little, allowing the electric fan above him to direct a cooling breeze onto his face and neck. He closed his eyes and gave a small sigh of contentment.
‘Bloody hell, Trim, pour me a big one! I’ve got a mouth like a badger’s bum! Oh no, you don’t, lads, the first round is mine …’
Harry opened his eyes again, the peace and quiet having been rudely shattered by an unfamiliar Australian voice that had all the delicacy of a drum kit falling down a flight of stairs. A small group of young officers had just trooped into the Mess, headed by somebody who was a stranger to Harry. He was a tall athletic fellow, with close-cropped fair hair. Evidently a civilian, judging by his sloppy T-shirt and blue jeans; even out of uniform, military men maintained a certain bearing that was unmistakable.
‘Now, alright, Jim, what’re you having? What? I should bloody well say so! And how about you? Aw, for chrissakes, have whatever you like! No, no, honestly … make that a double, Trim, and make sure it is a bloody double, too! Have one yerself while you’re about it …’
Harry frowned. There was not a man in the world who could call him a racist. After all, he had worked side by side with the Gurkhas for half his life, and he thought them one of the most agreeable races he had ever encountered. Likewise, he loved and respected the Malays, Indians, and Chinese who peopled the Peninsula; the homely Burmese people he had met in the war. He had even come to honour the Japanese nation against whom he had fought for so long. But try as he might to be fair and totally objective, he could not bring himself to like the Australians. He imagined that, somewhere, there must exist an antipodean male that was not loud, boorish, and obsessed with booze and dirty stories. Unfortunately, he had yet to meet this man.
‘Here, this one’ll kill ya! There’s this bloke, see, goes to the doctor cause he can’t get it up anymore. His sheila’s goin’ berserk with ’im, reckons he don’t love her anymore. Anyway, the doctor tells ’im to drop his trousers and when he does, the bloke’s got this great big …’ The rest of the story was obliterated by a burst of raucous laughter from the young officers.
Harry was quietly outraged by this lack of respect. In his day, a certain restraint had always been observed around the Mess; it had been a place where gentlemen congregated. Of course, there had always been room for a certain amount of high-spirits, but the telling of off-colour jokes in a voice loud enough to wake the dead seemed to illustrate just how drastically standards had dropped in the last decade. What seemed most upsetting to Harry was the fact that the young officers were openly encouraging this oaf to do his worst. Well, it was plain that somebody had to draw the line, even if it simply meant removing oneself from the scene of the outrage as quickly as possible. Harry drained his glass, banged it down on the table with just enough force to turn a few heads at the bar. Then he stood up, nodded curtly to Trimani, and strolled