The Day of the Scorpion Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mohammed Ali Kasim?’ he inquired, as if making a formal identification.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘This way, please.’
    Kasim picked up his suitcase and bedroll. The others stoodaside for him. At the doorway he looked down into the face of the officer whose eye he had held during the night. He said, ‘I’d be grateful if you’d help me with my baggage.’
    Standing below, near by, were two military policemen. The carriage was in a goods yard. A 15-cwt truck was parked at the shuttered entrance to a warehouse. Kasim smelt coal dust. The officer reached up and Kasim nudged the suitcase forward until he felt its weight taken. The bedroll followed. The officer set both down on the cinders. Kasim turned round to face inwards as he climbed down the narrow, perpendicular steps; then stood waiting. The officer with the armband came down. He indicated the luggage.
    ‘This is all your luggage?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Very well. My men will take you to the truck. Go with them, please.’
    ‘May I be told where you are taking me?’
    The officer with the armband hesitated.
    ‘To the Fort,’ he said abruptly.
    ‘The Fort?’
    Again the officer hesitated. Kasim thought he was surprised. ‘You’re in Premanagar,’ he explained.
    ‘Thank you. I didn’t know.’
    He glanced round. One railway siding looked like any other. He had not been in Premanagar since his tour of the province in 1938. He had never visited the Fort, but he had seen it from a distance. He had no clear visual recollection of it. Premanagar, he remembered, was not far from Mirat where his son Ahmed was. If they ever told his family where he was, and allowed him visitors, perhaps he would see Ahmed.

II
    Major Tippit was a small man with very little hair. What was left of it was yellowy white. His face was lined and wrinkled. He had a high complexion. ‘I’m a historian really,’ he explained. ‘I retired from the army in 1938, but they dug me out. It was decent of them to give me the Fort, wasn’t it?’
    Kasim agreed that it was.
    ‘There’s a lot of history in the Fort. I’m writing a monograph. Perhaps you’d like to read some of it and give me an opinion, one day when you have a moment.’
    ‘I have a great number of moments.’
    ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. Let us see, now, how long has it been?’
    Major Tippit glanced at the papers on his desk but did not make any effort to find one in particular.
    Kasim said, ‘Nine days.’
    ‘And you are comfortable?’
    ‘I am comfortable.’
    ‘Have you any complaints?’
    ‘Several.’
    ‘Oh yes. Lieutenant Moran Singh told me he’d made a note of them. It’s here somewhere I expect. I’ll look into them.’
    ‘Can’t you look into them now?’
    Major Tippit had very pale blue eyes. He gazed out of them at Kasim as if he had reasons for not dealing with complaints but couldn’t remember what they were. He clasped his bony little hands together on the desk – the kind of man, Kasim guessed, who, lacking skill, energy or resolution, would make up for them with a mindless, vegetable implacability. The unpleasant young Sikh, nominally under Major Tippit’s command, would know exactly how far he could go, what would be allowed to him by way of license, and what disallowed.
    ‘First of all,’ Kasim said, ‘is it really Government’s intention to keep me in solitary confinement? I understand the Fort has a number of civil prisoners like myself. We are not criminals. We shall probably be here for some time. The others seem to mix quite freely. I can see them in the outer courtyard from the window of my room. But since coming here I’ve been kept isolated and have spoken to no one except my guards and Lieutenant Moran Singh. Is this state of affairs merely temporary or is it to continue?’
    ‘Yes, I see.’
    Kasim waited.
    ‘I am sorry you feel like that. The old zenana house isextremely interesting. I must come over one day and point out some of its more remarkable