A Fine Night for Dying

glance up at the painted sign above the door. It was obviously very old and showed a man running, apparently some kind of fugitive, a pack of hounds at his heels. A pleasant sight indeed, the terror in the poor wretch’s eyes frozen into place for all eternity.

Inside was a large square room with a low-beamed ceiling and a tiled floor. There was a scattering of chairs and tables, a large open hearth in which a fire burned and a marble-topped bar.

Jacaud had gone behind it and was pouring himself a large cognac. He rammed the cork into the bottle and Chavasse dropped his case. “I’ll join you.”

“Like hell you will. Let’s see the color of your money.”

“Rossiter’s got it all, you know that.”

“Then you can go thirsty.” He replaced the bottle on the shelf and raised his voice. “Hey, Mercier, where are you?”

A door at the back of the bar opened and a small, worried-looking man of forty or so came in. He wore a fisherman’s patched trousers and was wiping his hands on a grimy towel.

“Yes, monsieur, what is it?”

“Another passenger for the Leopard. Take him upstairs. He can share with Jones.”

Jacaud glared at Chavasse like some wild animal, turned and, kicking open the door, vanished into the kitchen.

“Quite a show,” Chavasse said. “Is he always like this or is today something special?”

Mercier picked up the suitcase. “This way, monsieur.”

They mounted some stairs to the first floor and moved along a narrow whitewashed corridor past several doors. Mercier knocked on the one at the far end. There was no reply and he opened it.

The room was small and bare, with whitewashed walls, two narrow truckle beds standing side by side. There was a crucifix on one wall, a cheap color reproduction of St. Francis on the other. It was clean-but only just.

Mercier put down the case. “Monsieur Jones will probably be back shortly. He is, by the way, Jamaican. A meal will be served at twelve-thirty. If there is anything else you wish to know, you must see Monsieur Rossiter.”

“And who does Monsieur Rossiter have to see?”

Mercier frowned, looking genuinely bewildered. “I don’t understand, monsieur.”

“Let it go,” Chavasse told him.

Mercier shrugged and went out. Chavasse put his suitcase on one of the beds, moved to the window and looked out. So this was the Running Man? Not a very prepossessing sight.

Behind him, someone said, “Welcome to Liberty Hall, man.”

A gull cried high in the sky and skimmed the sand dunes. Down by the water’s edge, he threw stones into the sea. He turned and moved back toward Chavasse, tall, handsome, the strong angular face and startling blue eyes evidence of that mixture of blood so common in the West Indies. Jack Jones? Well, that was as reasonable a name as any. He had the shoulders of a prizefighter and looked good for ten rounds any day of the week, or Chavasse was no judge.

He flung himself down on the sand, produced a packet of Gauloise and lit one. “So you’re from Australia?”

“That’s it-Sydney.”

“They tell me that’s quite a town.”

“The best. You should try it some time.”

The Jamaican stared at him blankly. “You must be joking. They wouldn’t even let me off the boat. They like their immigrants to be the pale variety, or hadn’t you noticed?”

It was a plain statement of fact, without any kind of rancor in it, and Chavasse shrugged. “I don’t make the laws, sport. Too busy breaking them.”

The Jamaican was immediately interested. “Now that explains a lot. I was wondering why a free, white, upstanding Protestant like you was having to use the back door into the old country like the rest of us.”

“Catholic,” Chavasse said. “Free, white, upstanding Catholic-just for the record.”

Jones grinned, produced his packet of Gauloises for the second time and offered him one. “And just how badly does the law back home want you?”

“About ten years’ worth. That’s if I’m lucky and the judge isn’t feeling too liverish on the great day.”

Jones whistled softly. “Man, you must be a real tiger when you get going.”

“A weakness for other people’s money, that’s my trouble.” Chavasse looked across the sand dunes to the small harbor and the sea beyond. “This is all right; about the nicest beach I’ve touched since Bondi.”

“That’s what I thought five days ago-now it’s just a drag. I want to get moving.”

“What are you going to do when you get over the Channel?”

Jones shrugged. “I’ve got friends. They’ll fix me up with something.”

“But for how long?”

“As long as I need. Once I hit London, I can’t go wrong. I’ll just merge into the scenery. After all, one black face is the same as another, or hadn’t you noticed?”

Chavasse refused to be drawn. “What about the rest of the clientele?”

“If you turn your head a couple of points to starboard, you’ll see them now.”

The old man who appeared over a sand dune a few yards away wore a blue overcoat two sizes too large, which gave him a strangely shrunken look, and his brown, wrinkled skin was drawn tightly over the bones of his face. He wasn’t too steady on his feet, either. Chavasse got the distinct impression that if it hadn’t been for the woman who supported him with a hand under his left elbow and an arm around his shoulders, he might well have fallen down.

“Old Hamid is seventy-two,” Jones said. “A Pakistani. He’s hoping to join his son in Bradford.”

“And the woman?”

“Mrs. Campbell? Anglo-Indian-a half-and-half. What they used to call chi-chi in the good old days of Empire. A fine Scots name, but she can no more get away from the color of her skin than I can. Her husband died last year and her only relative is a sister who married an English doctor years ago and went to live in Harrogate, of all places. Mrs. Campbell tried to get an entry permit to join her, but they turned her down.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t qualify as a dependent under the Immigration Act, she’s an Indian national and she’s got tuberculosis. She was born in India, never been to England in her life and yet she talks about it as if going home. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Not particularly.”

Mrs. Campbell was about fifty, with sad dark eyes and skin that was darker than usually found amongst Eurasians. She seemed cold and wore a shabby fur coat, a heavy woolen scarf wrapped about her neck and head.

They paused, the old man gasping for breath. “A cold day, Mr. Jones, don’t you agree?”

Jones and Chavasse stood up and Jones nodded. “This is Mr. Chavasse, a new arrival. He’ll be going with us.”

The old man showed no surprise. “Ah, yes, Miss Nadeem spoke of you.”

“You’ve met her?” Chavasse said.

“Just before we left for our walk,” Mrs. Campbell put in.

Hamid held out a soft, boneless hand, which Chavasse touched briefly before it slipped from his grasp as easily as life would slip from the frail old body before very much longer.

Mrs. Campbell seemed curiously embarrassed and tugged at the old man’s sleeve. “Come now, Mr. Hamid, we mustn’t dawdle. Lunch soon. So nice, Mr. Chavasse.” Her English was quaint in its preciseness, and the way in which she spoke was an echo of a bygone age. Chavasse watched them stumble away across the sand dunes, strange, shadowy creatures with no substance to them, adrift in an alien world, and was conscious of an indescribable feeling of bitterness. Men made laws to protect themselves, but someone always suffered- always.

He turned and found Jones watching him enigmatically. “You look sorry for them, too sorry for any Sydney duck with the law on his tail.”