A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) Read Free

atmosphere of near-hysteria. ‘Bring ’er on,’ the same voice cried, and the room then resounded to whistling and the stamping of hundreds of ammunition boots – a noise that greeted the Welfare Officer as he arrived to see how Sergeant Perron was getting on and which seemed to encourage him in a belief that such lectures were a good thing; a belief of which Sergeant Perron did not disabuse him because he had decided quite early in his military service that for life to be supportable officers had to be protected from anything that might shatter their illusion that they knew what the men were thinking.
    Knowing himself incapable of reaching the required standard of self-deception in this, and other matters that came under the heading ‘Leadership’, and believing that life in the ranks would provide him with a far greater measure of freedom and better opportunities to study in depth human behaviour during an interesting period of history, he had politely but stubbornly resisted every attempt made to commission him. Only one set of the batch of uncles and aunts who had taken it in turns to bring him up thought this short-sighted. The others approved of his decision. They thought it agreeably eccentric, quite in keeping with the radical upper-class tradition which they liked to feel distinguished them as a family.
    ‘It obviously went down well,’ the Welfare Officer said, toning down his North Country accent and matily accompanying Perron from the lecture hall. ‘I must say I had doubts, but a chap who really knows his subject is more likely to pass some of his enthusiasm on than not. You must do some more, sergeant.’
    ‘A good idea, sir.’
    ‘These waiting periods are damned difficult. There’s abatch of airborne blokes due in soon. Now that the show in Germany’s over they’ll be itching to get started and give the Jap a knock. They’ll be a handful to keep occupied and entertained. I know you’ve got your own special security job to do but I’d be grateful if you’d spare half-an-hour to talk to them one morning on this Indian history thing of yours. I’ll try and come myself. Learn a bit too. Extend my range beyond the Black Hole. Never too late for that, eh?’
    Perron said, ‘Actually, if you don’t mind, sir, I think they’re more relaxed without an officer present.’
    Captain Strang looked relieved. To reassure the officer that his interest was appreciated but that his friendliness would not be taken advantage of and made an excuse for slack behaviour, Perron slapped up a particularly smart one when they parted and would have stamped his feet had they not been standing in a puddle. Perron had cultivated a formidable parade-ground style and soldierly manner not only to preserve that encouraging image of discipline and efficiency which heartened officers but also (after a tiresome experience with a Seaforth Highlander captain in the map-room of a camp on Salisbury Plain) to minimize the risk of his BBC accent (as fellow- NCOS called it) and his cultural interests giving them the impression that he was a pansy.
    *
    The sight of the armada gathering off Bombay – a city to which Sergeant Perron’s field security duties now began to take him fairly regularly – appearing, disappearing and reappearing as the curtains of monsoon rain and mist rose and fell with sinister effect, did not usually depress him. In four years of service he had learned to look upon the entire war as an under-rehearsed and over-directed amateur production badly in need of cutting. In this light the low grey shapes of the troopships and escorts could be seen as figments of the imagination of an unknown but persistent operational planning staff whose directives had caused them to appear. The same imagination could just as easily dispel them. Nothing in the army was absolutely sure until it happened and he did notintend to worry about Zipper or the danger he might be in until the ships weighed anchor with himself on one of