Tags
We move again now to Singapore, where the news of the attempted assassination of Tom has halted CARP in its tracks. The delegates have scattered, to mull over the news and their future plans on their own. Harry, who might have kept them together, has retired to his room to pray. Insignificant as was the news of his death to the rest, Dick was his brother. Harry is also upset about Gerry, whom he remembers from before her wedding, long before everyone had begun to go their separate ways.
Grumpy and the two Communists retire to the bar. They are not dissatisfied with what has occurred, though as the two Communists put it, had the Leninist been more up to date in his Marxism he might have got rid of Tom as well. Sneezy and Sleepy, on the other hand are more worried even than before and go up to their rooms to plan for the future. Bashful and Dopey go to their rooms as well, where they both soon fall asleep. Happy and Snow White go to the Coffee Shop to discuss the situation over a banana split, and Veronica and Doc go out, separately, to make further inquiries. Veronica goes to the local offices of Amnesty International. Doc as it happens has a very close friend in Singapore, in the form of Luke’s second cousin’s brother-in-law, who is the First Secretary in charge of Information at the Ceylonese High Commission, a special envoy of the President, and it is to his office that he goes.
Happy and Snow White, in comparing what has happened to the worst excesses of the French Revolution, have just remarked on the wisdom of the government in having proscribed all Communists earlier on, when it suddenly strikes them that at this very point they are closely associated with two of the gentlemen who have been proscribed. It occurs to them that it is going to be very difficult for them to return to Ceylon. Switching on the radio they have brought with them, they hear from the BBC about Luke’s performance on television, and they are even more frightened, for it is interpreted as being a clear call to battle against anyone who could be accused of socialism. It is while they are wondering what they can do to redeem themselves from the taint they have unwittingly incurred that Doc returns, and comes direct to them in the Coffee Shop. He has heard of the massacre in the jail of the Stalinist and the Trotskyist, amongst others, and he has come to them with a plan. Continue reading