Toll for the Brave. Jack Higgins

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and shuddered.

      She sat down at her desk and the door opened again and another woman entered. A different proposition entirely. She was one of those women whose sensuality was so much a part of her that even the rather unflattering tunic and skirt of her uniform, the knee-length leather boots, could not hide it.

      Her hair was jet black, parted in the centre, worn in two plaits wound into a bun at the back in a very Eastern European style, which wasn’t surprising in view of the fact that her mother, as I discovered later, was Russian.

      The face was the face of one of those idols to be seen in temples all over the East. The Earth Mother who destroys all men, great, hooded, calm eyes, wide, sensual mouth. One could strive on her forever, seeking the sum total of all pleasures and finding, in the end, that the pit was bottomless.

      She had only the slightest of accents and her voice was indescribably beautiful. ‘I am Madame Ny. I am to be your instructor.’

      ‘Well, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ I said, ‘But it sounds nice.’

      The old doctor spoke to her in Chinese. Madame Ny nodded. ‘You will undress now, Mr Jackson. The doctor wishes to examine you.’

      I was so tired that undressing was an effort, but I finally made it down to my underpants. The doctor glanced up from a file she was examining, frowned in exasperation.

      Madame Ny said, ‘Everything, please, Mr Jackson.’

      I tried to keep it light. ‘Even the Marine Corps let you keep this much on.’

      ‘You are ashamed to be seen so and by a doctor?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘There is nothing obscene in the human form. A most unhealthy attitude.’

      ‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘Cold showers just never seemed to work.’

      She leaned down to speak to the doctor and again they examined a file between them, presumably mine.

      I peeled off like a good boy and waited. I must have stood there for twenty minutes or more and during that time various individuals, both men and women, came and went with files and papers. A study in conscious humiliation.

      When it had presumably been judged I’d been punished enough, the doctor stood up abruptly and went to work. She gave me a thorough and competent examination, I’ll say that for her, even to the extent of taking blood and urine samples.

      Finally, she pulled forward a chair, sat down and proceeded to examine my genitals with scrupulous efficiency. It was the kind of free-from-infection check that soldiers the world over get every few months. That didn’t make it any easier to take, especially with Madame Ny standing at her shoulder and following every move.

      I squirmed, mainly at the old girl’s rough handling and Madame Ny said softly, ‘You find this disturbing, is it not so, Mr Jackson? A basic, clinical examination carried out by a woman old enough to be your mother and yet you find it shameful.’

      ‘Why don’t you jump off?’ I told her.

      Her eyes widened as if gaining sudden insight. ‘Ah, but I see now. Not shameful, but frightening. You are afraid in such situations.’

      She turned, spoke to the old doctor who nodded and they walked out on me before I could say a word. I wasn’t tired any more but I found it difficult to think straight. I felt as angry and frustrated as any schoolboy, humiliated before the class for no good reason.

      I had just struggled back into my clothes when Madame Ny returned with the young officer. She had a paper in her hand which she placed on the desk.

      She picked up a pen and offered it to me. ‘You will sign this now, please.’

      There were five foolscap pages, closely typed and all in Chinese. ‘You’ll have to read the small print for me,’ I told her. ‘I haven’t got my spectacles with me.’

      ‘Your confession,’ the young officer cut in. ‘A factual account of your time in Vietnam as an English mercenary lured by the Americans.’

      I told him what to do with the paper in an English phrase so vulgar that he obviously didn’t understand. But Madame Ny did.

      She smiled faintly. ‘A physical impossibility, I fear, Mr Jackson. You will sign in the end, I assure you, but we have plenty of time. All the time in the world.’

      She left again and the young officer told me to follow him. We crossed the compound through the rain and entered the monastery itself, a place of endless passages and worn stone steps although, surprisingly, lit by electricity.

      The passage we finally turned into was obviously at the highest level, so long it faded into darkness; and, quite plainly, I heard a guitar.

      As we advanced, the sound became even plainer and then someone started to sing a slow blues in a deep, mellow voice that reached out to touch everything around.

       ‘Now gather round me people, Let me tell you the true facts. That tough luck has struck me And the rats is sleeping in my hat.’

      The door had two guards outside and was of heavy black oak. The young officer produced a key about twelve inches long to unlock it and it took both hands to turn.

      The room was surprisingly large and lit by a single electric bulb. There was a rush mat on the stone floor and two wooden cots. St Claire sat on one of them a guitar across his knees.

      He stopped playing. ‘Welcome to Liberty Hall, Eton. It isn’t much, but it’s the London Hilton compared to most of the accommodation around here.’

      I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see anyone in my life.

      He produced a pack of American cigarettes. ‘You use these things?’

      ‘Officer’s stock?’ I said.

      He shook his head. ‘They’re being nice to me at the moment. They might give me a pack a day for a whole month, or simply cut off the supply from tomorrow morning.’

      ‘Pavlovian conditioning?’

      ‘That’s it exactly. They have one set idea and you better get used to it. To drive you to the edge of insanity, to tear you apart, then they’ll put you together again in their image. Even their psychology is Marxian. They believe each of us has his thesis, his positive side and his antithesis, the dark side of his being. If they can find out what that is, they encourage its growth until it becomes the strongest part of your nature. Once that happens, you begin to doubt every moral or decent worthwhile thing you’ve been taught.’

      ‘They don’t seem to be getting very far with you.’

      ‘You could say I’m inclined to be set in my ways.’ He smiled. ‘But they’re still trying and my instructor is the best. Chen-Kuen himself. That’s just another name for interrogator, by the way.’

      ‘I’ve already met mine,’ I said and told him about Madame Ny and what had happened at the medical centre.

      He listened intently and shook his head when I was finished. ‘I’ve never come across her myself, but then you won’t have contacts with many people at all. I haven’t met another prisoner face-to-face СКАЧАТЬ