Читать книгу Fort in the Jungle - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 19

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It proved an immeasurably bad thing for De-Nha, and broke him completely, mind, body and soul.

Had I not witnessed the results of this sudden deprivation of opium, I should never have believed that they could have been so drastic and comprehensive—in fact, fatal; for had he not received a pipe of opium when he did, undoubtedly he would have died.

That there might be no possibility of bribery and corruption, Captain Deleuze placed De-Nha in my charge, with the Doi to assist me, he selecting a couple of other Tirailleurs Tonkinois, relatives of his, who, in the first place, could be trusted to obey his orders absolutely, and who, in the second place, would have no opportunity of disobeying them.

Ordinary guards and sentries, about the hut in which he was confined, would prevent De-Nha’s escape; my particular business was to prevent his purchasing opium from anybody, a thing he would certainly endeavour to do, and be in a position to do, if not watched and prevented.

Subtle and cunning as he was, the Doi was a match for him; and, as De-Nha’s condition soon proved, our arrangements were efficacious.

His prison was a room provided with one barred window, some eight feet from the ground, and a strong door, in which there was a grill, opening into an outer room.

Beneath the window was not only the sentry on duty, but one of the Doi’s followers; while I myself—or, in my absence, the Doi—always occupied the outer room into which De-Nha’s cell opened.

In the verandah of this outer room squatted another of the Doi’s Annamese, and very frequently, at irregular intervals, I would bid him go and change places with the colleague who was on duty with the sentry beneath the window.

My strict instructions to the Doi and his men were to the effect that, whenever De-Nha begged for a pipe of opium, the reply should invariably be,

“Certainly. As much as you like of the finest chandu—provided you answer the Ong-Quang-Ba’s questions truthfully.”

I doubt whether anybody who has had no experience of the amazingly strong hold that opium-smoking gets upon its addicts, can visualize or imagine the horrible sufferings that deprivation causes these poor wretches.

De-Nha, at certain times in the day, suffered real torture; acute agony so obviously terrible that I would certainly have alleviated it, had it not been my duty to do otherwise. Badly as he suffered throughout the day, the torture reached its climax at the times at which he was wont to indulge in his horrible vice. It was quite clear that midday and sunset were the hours when he “drank the black smoke”.

Toward noon he would begin to yawn, the yawning increasing in length and strength until it became prodigious. This phase would be followed by one of a jerking of the limbs, a spasmodic and violent starting and jumping, a sudden rictus of nervous twitching. This would only cease when he burst into the most profuse perspiration that I had ever seen. The man did not sweat. It was as though he were a great sponge suddenly wrung by a giant hand. He spurted water from every pore.

And he wept like a child and,

Albeit unused to the melting mood

Dropped tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum.

And then, even by the second day, he would literally pray to be given a pipe of opium, one tiny pellet; and he would swear by everything he held sacred, and with obvious sincerity, that he would pay for the opium with a diamond bigger than the pellet itself.

I was present, both at noon and evening, on the second day; and found it very painful to witness this man’s sufferings, and to hear his desperate prayers. I was glad when the praying gave place to swearing.

There was nothing pathetic, pitiful or pitiable about this phase, this truly amazing stream of violent malediction and filthy invective. It was really remarkable, something new even to me, who had heard the worst efforts of drunken sailors; of stevedores and wharf rats; of blue-nose Captains and bucko Mates who were artists; of angry Life-Guardsmen; of enraged Arabs, who are no mean performers, and—of comrades in the Legion.

Never before, and never since, have I heard anything to equal De-Nha’s range, violence and fluency.

The next stage was collapse. Words would fail him, and then, quite literally foaming at the mouth, he would fall back on his frame-and-string couch and into a shuddering rigor distressing to witness, his sunken eyes staring blindly from their darkened sockets, his face a yellow death-mask.

And there he would lie and gasp, fighting for breath and, apparently, for life.

At the end of about an hour from the beginning of the attack, he would be still and, seemingly, dead. From this state of coma, he would, later, emerge, weak, miserable, and ill.

I was surprised that such a seizure, occuring twice a day, did not have fatal consequences; but Captain Deleuze, a man of wide experience in this and all other matters pertaining to Indo-China, concerning which he was even then writing his famous book, Notes Cambodgiennes, was quite certain that nothing of the sort would occur.

“He’ll suffer all right, poor devil; but he won’t die,” he said. “What remains to be seen is whether his opium-smoking has left him with enough guts to withstand deprivation for long. Personally I doubt it.”

He was right. The attacks grew worse and, after bearing his agony for a week, De-Nha gave in, offered to answer any one question Captain Deleuze liked to ask, in return for one pipe of opium; and to give him all the information that lay in his power, if he would give him the daily allowance to which he was accustomed.

Accordingly, just before noon, the yawning and trembling De-Nha was again brought before the Captain as on the previous occasion.

“I’m going to ask you a question, and you are going to answer it. I shall then give you one pipe of opium,” pronounced Captain Deleuze.

His shaking hands clasped, his black eyes almost starting from his head, De-Nha profusely thanked his captor, swore to tell the truth, and begged him to ask quickly and give him the pipe.

“I shall do that at midday and evening, until I find out whether you have told me the truth. If you have, you will get a pipe for each question, until I know all I want to know; and, thereafter, the daily allowance to which you are accustomed. If I find you have not told me the truth, you will get no more opium from that moment. Also you will be brought to trial for armed rebellion in a pacified zone, making war on the French Republic, and for murder—for the brutal torture and murder of French subjects.”

“The question! The question! .. and the pipe,” begged De-Nha.

“Bien! The question. Now then, speak the truth. What is the name of the European whom the Chinese Government has sent to help General De-Nam’s Pavilions Noirs?”

“Kar-Ling.”

“Say that again,” said Captain Deleuze, putting his hand to his ear and listening with the utmost care.

“Kar-Ling,” repeated De-Nha.

“Again.”

“Kar-Ling.”

“Now,” said Deleuze, turning to me. “Think of an English name that sounds like Kar-Ling.”

“Well, there’s Carling. I’ve never actually met the name, but it sounds English.”

“Yes, now shorten the ‘a’ which they always lengthen.”

“Kolling,” I said. “That might be English, but I don’t know the name. Oh, there’s Colin, though; but that’s a Christian name in my country.”

“Yes, now put on the ‘s’ which these people always drop.”

“Oh, Collins! Yes, Collins. That’s quite a common English and Irish name. Or, possibly, an Irish name that is quite common in England. I don’t know which ...”

“That’s it,” said Deleuze, a note of triumph in his voice. “Collins. An English and Irish name. That there is such a man, and that his name is Collins, accords with my previous information.... De-Nha, I think you are speaking the truth. You shall have one opium-pipe, and I will see you again at sunset.”

And at Retreat, De-Nha was again brought before Captain Deleuze and questioned.

“Are the Chinese Generals who are helping General De-Nam and the Black Flags, named Ba-Ky and Luong-Tam-Ky?”

“Yes, they are,” was the prompt reply.

And again De-Nha was given a pipe of opium.

Day after day, the broken man was questioned, and on each occasion he gave a piece of information in return for a pipe.

But one pipe, to a man accustomed to a score, was the merest palliative, and only served partially to tide him over the worst of his awful nerve storms.

Before long, he was only too willing to tell everything he knew, in return for five pipes of opium at midday and five at sunset.

It occurred to Captain Deleuze, that, by raising the opium reward from five pipes to seven, De-Nha might be induced not only to tell everything he knew, but to suggest everything helpful to the French that he could; and the Doi accordingly received instructions to change his attitude, or, rather, his manner, toward the rebel.

He and his followers were to do their utmost to cultivate his friendship. So far was this to be carried, that the Doi was, on his own account, to give De-Nha an extra pipe of opium. This was to be done in pure kindliness and bonhomie, though if De-Nha chose to reward the Doi, there would be no harm in that.

To me, Deleuze explained that he really saw no reason why De-Nha should not be won over to the French side, especially if he had some experience of the benefits that had undeniably accrued to those leading Annamese who had accepted French protection and friendship, and who had remained loyal to their new allies.

If he contrasted this with the fate of those who proved disloyal, he might draw a moral and learn a lesson, an object lesson sufficiently striking to impress the said moral deeply upon his mind.

And apart from this, there was the question as to whether he might not consider life, in the rôle of a well-rewarded and faithful friend of the French, as being vastly superior to that of a hunted jungle-dacoit, whose ultimate end must, at very best, be exile from Cambodia to China or elsewhere.

“Anyway,” decided Deleuze, “it’s worth trying.”

And there again opium was to play its part.

This does not mean that it was to be suggested to De-Nha that he would get more or better opium by joining the French; but that Deleuze the Psychologist was going to use De-Nha’s opium craving, first to introduce to his mind, and then make it something of an idée fixe therein, that his welfare and his life depended on fidelity to the French.

“Now then, Sinbad the Bad Sinner,” said Deleuze to me, one day, as I reported at his room, which was the Intelligence Bureau of the garrison. “I’ve got absolutely everything out of De-Nha, both in the way of information and advice. From information to sound advice was a short step under the opium urge. Let’s see how long a step it will be from good advice to active assistance; and from that to the turning of the coat.

“Yes, that turning of the coat, which the conqueror calls loyalty—to him,” he added cynically. “Now look. Cut down his pipes by two a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, until he begins to get desperate again. Then let Doi Linh Nghi be a friend in need, the true friend in sore need. Let him give him one, unknown to you, and say to him, as he does so, the first time,

“ ‘Why don’t you join us—and have plenty?’ And again in the evening, the second time,

“ ‘What a fool is the man who lives like a beast in the jungle, when he can live like a mandarin in a town, protected by the French flag.’

“To-morrow when he has got De-Nha begging on his knees for the extra one, let him say,

“ ‘Why don’t you join us? Look at me—wife, house, rations, pay, pension. Nothing would induce me to go back and be a jungle dog.’

“Then in the evening,

“ ‘I wish I were you, De-Nha. The French would make you an officer, a civil official, a judge, a rich man, a mandarin.’ That sort of thing. Understand?”

I assured Captain Deleuze that I quite understood.

“Then, at the end of about a week, take a hand yourself—along the same lines, until you think the time is ripe for making him a fair offer—and we’ll see how he reacts to it.”

“But could you trust him, Sir?” I asked. “He strikes me as being a most awful scoundrel.”

“It is because he’s a most awful scoundrel that I trust him,” smiled Captain Deleuze.

And, doubtless noting my look of puzzled bewilderment, added,

“It is only because he’s a most awful scoundrel that I can get him to betray his side—in return for a handful of opium. It is only because he’s a most awful scoundrel that I can appeal to a scoundrel’s self-interest—that being his only ideal.... When the time comes, I shall promise him that, if he joins us, his past sins will be forgiven him. He shall have rank and pay as an agent—in the Intelligence Service. And, after the war, a civil job proportionate to his ability and usefulness. All this, provided he proves his good faith by undertaking a certain job I have in mind.

“And you’ll be in on that, my lad,” he added, giving me one of his straight, piercing glances.

“And, meanwhile, I think we’ll stage an execution for his benefit; or, at any rate, let him witness one, at a moment when he’s not feeling too good—somewhere about midday or sunset, eh?”

That struck me as definitely cruel; but I reflected that inasmuch as De-Nha was a notorious past-master in the art of cruelty, there would be a certain amount of poetic justice about it.