Exodus - Leon Uris [5]
“You sleep as though you were drugged,” a very British accent said. “I knocked for five minutes. The bellboy let me in. Hope you don’t mind me helping myself to the whisky.”
The voice belonged to Major Fred Caldwell of the British Army. Mark yawned, stretched himself into wakefulness, and checked his watch. It was eight-fifteen. “What the hell are you doing on Cyprus?” Mark asked.
“I believe that is my question.”
Mark lit a cigarette and looked at Caldwell. He didn’t like the major nor did he hate him. “Despise” was the suitable word. They had met before twice. Caldwell had been the aide of Colonel, later Brigadier, Bruce Sutherland, quite a good field officer in the British Army. Their first meeting had been in the lowlands near Holland during the war. In one of his reports Mark had pointed out a British tactical blunder that had caused a regiment of men to get cut to pieces. The second meeting had been at the Nuremberg war crimes trials which Mark was covering for ANS.
Toward the end of the war Bruce Sutherland’s troops were the first to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Both Sutherland and Caldwell had come to Nuremberg to give testimony.
Mark walked to the bathroom, washed his face with icy water, and fished around for a towel. “What can I do for you, Freddie?”
“CID phoned over to our headquarters this afternoon and told us you landed. You haven’t been issued credentials.”
“Christ, you’re a suspicious bunch of bastards. Sorry to disappoint you, Freddie. I’m here on vacation en route to Palestine.”
“This isn’t an official call, Parker,” Caldwell said; “just say we are a bit touchy over past relationships.”
“You have long memories,” Mark said, and began dressing. Caldwell mixed Mark a drink. Mark studied the British officer and wondered why Caldwell always managed to rub him the wrong way. There was that arrogance about him that stamped him as a member of that quaint breed, the Colonizer. Caldwell was a stuffy and narrow-minded bore. A gentleman’s game of tennis, in whites ... a bashing gin and tonic and damn the natives. It was Freddie Caldwell’s conscience or the utter lack of it that bothered Mark. The meaning of right and wrong came to Caldwell through an army manual or an order. “You boys covering up some dirty work on Cyprus?”
“Don’t be a bore, Parker. We own this island and we want to know what you want here.”
“You know ... that’s what I like about you British. A Dutchman would tell me to get the hell out. You fellows always say, ‘please go to hell.’ I said I was on vacation. A reunion with an old friend.”
“Who?”
“A girl named Kitty Fremont.”
“Kitty, the nurse. Yes, smashing woman, smashing. We met at the governor’s a few days back.” Freddie Caldwell’s eyebrows raised questioningly as he looked at the connecting door to Kitty’s room, which stood ajar.
“Go give your filthy mind a bath,” Mark said. “I’ve known her for twenty-five years.”
“Then, as you Americans say—every thing’s on the up and up.”
“That’s right and from this point on your visit becomes social, so get out.”
Freddie Caldwell smiled and set down his glass and tucked the swagger stick under his arm.
“Freddie Caldwell,” Mark said, “I want to see you when that smile is wiped off your face.”
“What in the devil are you talking about?”
“This is 1946, Major. A lot of people read the campaign slogans in the last war and believed them. You’re a dollar short and an hour late. You’re going to lose the whole shooting match ... first it’s going to be India, then Africa, then the Middle East. I’ll be there to watch you lose the Palestine mandate. They’re going to boot you out of even Suez and Trans-Jordan. The sun is setting on the empire, Freddie ... what is your wife going to do without forty little black boys to whip?”
“I read your coverage of the Nuremberg trials, Parker. You have that terrible American tendency towards being overdramatic. Corny is the word, I think. Besides, old boy, I don’t have a wife.”
“You boys