the ruled. Perhaps that was what the Empire was all about, after a fashion.
“It’s a funny thing,” Cormac continued, ‘but, to tell you the truth, Kalimpong’s not normally a place you’d expect to be set upon. There’s plenty of thievery, of course, but they’ll not knock a man out as a rule. In all my years here, I’ve never come across a case of it. A knockout in an argument, sure. But never in a robbery.
When I saw him bending over you, I felt sure I’d come across a
Thug about to make a sacrifice of you. Cheers! Sldintef
Cormac raised the flask and put its mouth to his lips. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and shivered.
“God, I needed that,” he gasped.
“Just what the doctor ordered.
Mind you,” he went on, replacing the stopper, ‘it’s a bit rough. It’d ; burn your gob off, as my dear departed Da used to say. Can’t be doing me any good.”
“There are no Thugs in India any longer,” muttered Christopher.
“There haven’t been any for nearly a century. That’s almost a hundred years.”
“Ay, I know well enough. But don’t go telling that to your wee friend up on the hill. He’s a firm believer in them.
“The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone” that’s his ‘ favourite song, and he sings it morning, noon, and night. As, no doubt, you know by now.”
“How did you know I was at the orphanage tonight?”
“Ah,” replied Cormac, unscrewing his stopper again.
“There’s ‘ not much that passes unobserved in Kalimpong. Sister Campbell made it her business to find out who you were and what you were I up to. I think she was put out to discover you’d been with the t Carpenters. It’s not often she gets invited there herself. Mind you, it’s even less often I get invited. Unless one of the wee’uns is taken poorly. And what qualifies as “poorly” up there would be next to fatal anywhere else.”
“And just what made you come here tonight to see me?”
Christopher asked. As his faculties were returning, so were his instincts for suspicion.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” said Cormac.
“Maybe if you’d lived up in the Black Hole as long as I have you’d understand. I got back from Peshok earlier this evening. The first thing that confronted me here was Sister Campbell with a face like cold whey telling me about this disreputable-looking character who’d been asking after me. Then I heard a wee rumour that Lady Carpenter hadn’t been all that impressed by your appearance either, but that you’d been extended the supreme honour by her good man. So, to tell you the truth, I was curious. I thought I’d come and have a look at you. Good thing I did. Sldinte.r “You don’t suppose I could have a drop of your “real stuff”, do you?” Christopher asked.
Cormac tried to look medical and severe, but he had lost the knack.
“Ah, well, you’re not supposed to have any strong drink along with those wee pills you’ve taken. But, then, I don’t imagine a wee smidgeon will do you much harm. To tell you the truth, it’ll probably do you more good than the pills. Have you a glass or anything?”
Christopher pointed mutely to one of his bags on the floor. He could see it had been disturbed and subsequently rearranged.
Cormac rummaged in the bag for a bit and finally surfaced brandishing a battered tin mug.
“This it?” he asked triumphantly.
Christopher nodded.
“Not exactly Waterford Crystal, I’m afraid,” he said.
“No,” replied Cormac as he began to pour a small libation into the cup.
“More like Rathgormuck Brass. But then you wouldn’t know Rathgormuck, would you?”
Christopher smiled.
“Is there such a place?”
Cormac nodded sagely.
“Ay, of course there is. It’s a wee village a few miles from
Waterford. Nothing much goes on there: they’re born, they get married, they have lots of kids, they die, and the kids bury them.
That’s all there is to it. Much like anywhere else, I suppose.” He paused.
“I was in London once. It wasn’t any different.”
He paused again and sipped a measure of poteen before continuing.
“So, what brings you to this wee excuse for a boil on the backside of the Himalayas?”
“Business, Dr. Cormac, just business.”
The doctor raised one grey-flecked eyebrow.
“Oh aye? Is that with a capital “B” or a small “B”? I’m just asking. Look, mister, I’ve lived in this place long enough to fart in Bengali, and I knew what you were the minute I wiped your fevered brow and smelt your vomit. You’re no more a box-wallah than I’m a yogi.”
Christopher sighed. First Carpenter and now this man.
“What do you think I am, then?” he asked.
Cormac shrugged.
“Couldn’t say exactly. ICS, IPS .. . Heaven-born, anyway.
You’ve got the look. You’ve got the manner. And you’ve got the voice, even if it is a wee bit on the shaky side at the moment. Do I get a prize?”
Christopher shook his head. It hurt.
“No prizes. Anyway,” he went on, trying to change the subject, “you’re no more a missionary doctor than I’m the Kaiser’s mother.”
The doctor unplugged his fire-water and raised it to his lips. He made a face.
“Inpoteeno veritas, my son. You might be right.. . and then again, you might be wrong. To tell you the truth, sometimes I’m not too sure me self I am a doctor, mind you the real McKay. The Queen’s University, Belfast, then a wee stint in Edinburgh with Daniel Cunningham, the Anatomy Professor. After that I got a post as a Junior House Surgeon in the Royal Infirmary. That’s where I went wrong.” He paused and took more poteen.
“You see, there was a group of Christians in the Infirmary. You know the type: spotty faces, glandular trouble, masturbation, and daily prayer. Medics for Jesus, they called themselves. I won’t tell }’ you what other people called them.
“I’m still not sure if it was Jesus that formed the main attraction or a pretty wee nurse called May Lorimer. He had the power to raise the dead, but she wasn’t short of a few miracles of the same kind herself. Anyway, I put my name down, stopped drinking, started masturbating, and prayed nightly for the love of Jesus Christ and May Lorimer both.
“I was doing all right for a man with religious mania until there was a big convention out at Inverkeithing. Three days of sermons, prayers, and how’s-your-father. On the last day, there was a call for medical missionaries. If we couldn’t save the black man’s soul, we’d save his body for resurrection and eternal torment.
“Anyway, the sublime Miss Lorimer was on the platform calling us to the Lord. I was on the floor and the flesh was calling me to Miss Lorimer. The next thing I knew, I was on the platform. And before I had time to think about what I was doing, I was on a big ship with a copy of the Bible in one hand and a bag of secondhand surgical instruments in the other. Next stop Kalimpong.” He paused.
“That was twenty years ago.”
He unscrewed the top of his flask more slowly than before and swallowed more deliberately.
“What about the divine Miss Lorimer?” asked Christopher, uncertain whether or not to make light of Cormac’s morose tale.
“May Lorimer? I asked her to go with me. I offered her the possibility of serving Jesus together as man and wife. I asked her to marry me. She was very kind about it. She said she thought of me as a brother in the Lord, but not as a husband. I had Jesus, she said, what did I want with her as well? I had no answer for that then though if the chance came my way again, I know exactly what I’d tell her now.
“A year later, I heard she’d run off with a big guardsman from Edinburgh Castle. Black Watch, I believe. Known for their sexual prowess. So I stayed on in Kalimpong without May Lorimer, without Jesus, and without much reason to go back. I took up drinking again, gave up masturbation, and became a sort of scandal. What’s your story?”
