The Chequerboard by Nevil Shute

Author:Nevil Shute [Shute, Nevil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Published: 2023-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The first raindrops of the storm plashed on the path below the veranda; a cool breeze drifted around Mr Turner as he sat with Morgan in the darkness. The latter stirred. "Be time for supper in a minute," he said. "I told Nay Htohn we'd have an English meal."

Mr Turner said, "You come back here pretty soon, then?"

"Lord, yes. I shot back to England and out here again like a scalded cat." He smiled. "I had an advantage, of course, because I knew everybody in Transport Command. I saw the AVM in Calcutta and told him I wanted to take my discharge in Burma, and about the landing craft and everything. I got flown to England in a Liberator and back to Calcutta again in a York, as part of the aircrew. I was only seventeen days in England."

"Fixed up your divorce, then?"

"Yes. There wasn't much difficulty about that. I got the solicitor cracking on it before I left England. It wasn't legal for about two years, but we didn't wait for that, I got back to Henzada in seven weeks, seven weeks to the day from the time I left, and we got married right away. Our first kid was nearly a year old before we could get married properly, but we did it then."

Mr Turner grinned; it was all very deplorable, but in the circles that he moved in in England he had heard of similar doings. "What about the boats?" he asked.

Morgan said, "That turned out pretty well. Nay Htohn had seen to that." He turned to Turner. "You know, Burmese girls are very good business women, better than the men. There's no flies on any of them. Nay Htohn had got all the boats pulled up out of the water, seven of them, some of them pretty badly shot up. Maung Shway Than gave them to us as a wedding present. One down by Zalun was practically undamaged and I got that going in a week. I got another going a month later, and the third sometime after that. That's all we salvaged, just the three of them."

"What happened to them?"

"I ran them for two years," the pilot said. "We ran a regular service from Rangoon right up to Prome, and made a packet of money out of it. You see, the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company was short of vessels and it was some time before there was much competition; we got in on the ground floor." He mused for a moment. "God, they've done some work, those boats."

"Are you still running them, then?"

"No, I sold out last year. They're still running – you'll see one of them go down tomorrow about midday. But I sold out." He turned to Turner. "I'm in the civil service now. I stayed out for some time, because I thought an Englishman wouldn't be very welcome – Burma for the Burmans, and all that, you know. But I got mixed up in a lot of local things. Then last year

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