“It sounds like everyone should have seen that coming,” Peter said.
“With hindsight, yes,” Edgar said. “But in 1940 we were focused on the war with Germany. No one thought the Japanese would sweep through Asia as they did. The very idea of Singapore falling was unthinkable. And a famine is not like a riot or a battle. There are no burning cities or marching armies, no shouts of warning. It crept up on us. India is a poor nation, and death is common currency. One day, death simply overwhelmed the province, rolling across it like a tidal wave.”
“Don’t they grow enough food to feed themselves?” David asked.
“No,” Edgar said. “Not everywhere in India, anyway. Each province is very protective of its own food sources. The British governor of Madras banned exports of rice from his province to make sure there was enough for his own people. Then the other provinces followed suit. It was every man for himself.”
“It sounds like madness,” Kaz said.
“More than you know, Baron,” Edgar said, his eyes focusing on something far away. “I went to Bengal, to see for myself. It was ghastly. People were dropping dead in the streets, their arms outstretched as they begged to the last gasp. Those still walking about were emaciated and weak from disease. The worst part was that some speculators had kept their rice stocks locked up for so long that they had spoiled. Moldy bags ripped open by rats were stacked six feet high in one warehouse I visited.”
“Couldn’t the government have done something? Or the army?” David asked.
“The army had orders not to use their limited supply for famine relief,” Edgar said. “If they had, it would have disappeared in a matter of days. Soldiers of all ranks gave food when they could, but it only postponed the inevitable. Others were quite callous. Bengal is mainly Muslim, and as you know Muslims do not eat pork. I saw a convoy of trucks pass through Durgapur, our soldiers throwing pieces of bacon at the starving wretches lining the road, laughing as they did so.”
“Why have we never heard of this?” Peter asked.
“Because it would reflect badly on the British government, that’s why,” Edgar said. “Are all Americans as naïve as you?”
“Don’t take it out on Peter,” I said. “There are plenty of people in this country who would never believe their government would cover up the starvation of millions.” I didn’t add that I was not one of them. My Irish ancestors had starved at the hands of the English in the last century, so dying Muslim subjects in this decade came as no surprise.
“Sorry,” Edgar said. “I sometimes lose my head over this. It was hard to leave it all behind and return to England, where people complain about rationing, for God’s sake.”
“But why did you return?” David asked.
“I was sacked. I’d given information to a journalist, Ian Stephens, from the Calcutta Statesman. He published two accounts of the famine before the censors clamped down.”
“How did they know it was you?” I asked.
“No proof, really, other than I was always out of step with the other officials. ‘In danger of going native,’ one of my colleagues said. And some of the information Stephens had could only have come from a few people, and I was the most likely candidate.”
“Meredith must not have been pleased,” David said.
“She accused me of throwing away a splendid opportunity,” Edgar said. “The Sutcliffe predilection for sacred opportunity seems to have been successfully passed down from father to daughter.” He looked into his glass, wrinkling his brow as if he was trying to figure out why it was empty. “The funny thing is, I did manage to make money there, aside from my salary. I followed Sir Rupert’s advice and contacted a businessman friend of his. I put what money I had into rice futures, not realizing what was about to happen. Made a bundle.” He held out his glass, and I filled it up.
“But not enough to live on, I assume?” David said. “Which is why you’re here.”
“Of course. Meredith insisted we give it another go with dear Papa. Useless, in my opinion, since what I did goes against everything he believes in. So, that’s our dirty little family secret.”
“What was it you told the journalist, exactly?” Kaz asked. “The information that gave you away, I mean.”
“I gave him the reply from Winston Churchill to a cable sent to him by Viceroy Wavell last year. Wavell had asked Churchill for more food to be shipped in. Churchill’s reply was, ‘If food is so scarce in India, why has Gandhi not yet died?’ He did not care one whit about starving Indians.”
“Was it really so brazen?” Peter asked. “At the risk of sounding naïve again, it seems incredible.”
“Your Canadian neighbors offered to ship one hundred thousand tons of wheat to India,” Edgar said, sitting forward in his chair, his indignation still fresh. “Churchill turned them down. He didn’t want to divert shipping from the war effort. All along I had thought saving lives was what this war was all about. So you see, my American friend, I was the most naïve of all.”
“What will you do?” I asked.
“When we’ve worn out our welcome, you mean?” Edgar said. “I can probably find a job teaching again. That was the only work I actually enjoyed.”
“What did you teach?” Kaz asked.
“English literature. Elizabethan studies, that sort of thing. I’d rather read and teach Shakespeare than anything else.”
“And your wife, how does she feel about that sort of career?” I asked.
“Are you married, Captain Boyle?” Edgar asked in reply. I shook my head. “Then you wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“ ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind,’ ” Kaz said.
“Ah, Hamlet,” Edgar said, nodding in agreement.
He and Kaz began to talk about plays. David drifted away and Peter yawned. I went to bed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I lay awake, the brandy sitting dully in my gut. I hadn’t drunk enough of it to forget the foreboding I’d felt when the BBC announcer had reported the raid on the Gestapo headquarters. Or prison. One and the same, in any case.
A lot has happened to me in this war, mostly things I never would have expected. Like falling in love with an Englishwoman, for one. Lady Diana Seaton, to be exact. I often wonder what it would be like to bring an English aristocrat home to meet my Irish family in South Boston. Then I remember Diana is in the Special Operations Executive, and making it to the end of the war might not be in the cards for her. The last time I’d seen her was a few weeks ago, before she was whisked away to an SOE training camp in Scotland. Or so they told me. For all I knew, she could be parachuting into occupied France at this very moment. Maybe even in the hands of the Gestapo, or on the run from them.
Diana felt she had to do her bit, as the English are fond of saying. The only problem with that comes when you fail to realize your bit has had a good long run of luck, and nothing lasts forever. I imagined Diana in the Scottish Highlands, sleeping in a tent and being awakened before dawn by a nasty sergeant major to endure morning calisthenics in the cold rain. That made me feel better, and sleep eventually overcame worry.
In the morning, Kaz was irritatingly chipper. We went down to breakfast and found Peter Wiley drinking tea and eating toast. As a trained detective, I observed him rubbing his temples and deduced he had a hangover, and that he wasn’t used to drinking to excess. Good for him.
David seemed none the worse for wear, and I wondered if serious amounts of liquor on the ground were frequently deployed against the horror of combat in the air. Or if ample doses of gin helped the Guinea Pig Club face the terror of surgeries. Either way, he had an immunity that I envied on that bright and sunny morning. Meredith and Edgar were absent. When I had finished eating, having managed to do justice to eggs, toast, and heaps of marmalade, I stepped out onto the veranda to try some of that fresh air. Sir Rupert was standing on the stone steps leading down to the expansive lawn, hands stuffed in the pockets of his wool suit coat.