The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard Page B

brought, scented with sandalwood. Hendriks offered cigars from Havana and maraschino in a pudgy bottle: 'You shall have a glass.' His hair, mouse-brown perhaps on a cool day, was dark with sweat and from some shiny unguent.
    He said, 'This Jap,' pronouncing it 'chap' — 'This Jap of ours looks normal enough, would you say? Yes. Has been a cadet, privileged. So he goes to war, he ties prisoners to trees for bayonet practice, he eats human flesh, by preference the liver. Touch a nerve, the primitive is there.' Hendriks chose a cigar and, with a small blade, clipped the tip. 'You've been at war yourself, you've seen that.'
    Exley said, 'I make a distinction between combat and perversion. Between soldiering and sadism. You may think that naif.'
    'No, of course, I too wish to do so. There is cruelty beyond even that of battle. You look the man in the eye, then coolly kill him. You drop a bomb and dissociate yourself from the consequences. Is it murder or is it war? Is war in any case murder? That is what your commission pretends to decide.'
    'You think it mere pretence, then?'
    'Excuse me, I use the word prétendre, "to claim." ' The Dutchman sucked on his cigar, crossed foot over knee. 'Yes. I was in a freighter, off the coast of France, when Holland was overrun. Mid-May, that was, of 1940. We were unarmed. Our captain was a small man, smaller than I, bow-legged. Ugly. We were bound for Rotterdam, when we had the news on our radio.' Long wheeze of cigar. 'The next morning, a U-boat surfaced across our bows.
    'The captain of the U-boat — they are young in the submarines — the young captain stood out on deck with the megaphone. Two sailors at his side with the machine gun. We would be taken prisoner. This was the decent German, young man but old school. Unless we resisted, we would not be sunk. No. He would force us to an occupied port — perhaps to Rotterdam itself — turn us over, and take our ship and cargo as his prize.'
    Hendriks pressed the towel to mouth, to eyes, and sighed.
    'Well, we had our lives to save, we had families. Our skipper had four children. He stood on the bridge talking terms, reasonable, while the U-boat drifted closer. When she was right under our bows, he suddenly gave the order: Full speed ahead. And we ploughed through the U-boat, we ripped her in two, the submarine and the young man, and all the rest of them. They went down like skittles — you know how that is. We kept going, we didn't look back for survivors, we didn't stop until we reached Plymouth with the gash in our bow. At Plymouth we drank up, we laughed, we were proud.' From his chair, Hendriks turned his soft-nosed profile towards Exley. 'I suppose that's all right?'
    'Not all right, how could it be? But it was war, you defended yourselves.'
    'So we said, exactly. And our Jap — would he not also produce his justification: reprisal for horrors witnessed or undergone? You say he took pleasure in the cruelty. And we too, we rejoiced in it, I assure you. Never so happy, perhaps, before or again. That mild, pious, ugly man of ours turned murderer in a second, and was overjoyed with the result. Of course we were happy that our skins were saved, and happy with our victory. But we were happy those men were dead and that we had killed them.'
    Hendriks knocked away a block of ash. 'In any case, I took ship again, got to Portland, went on to Jakarta, and ended up in prison all the same. Prisoner of war — that was a Western concept Japan wished to follow. In their emulation of the West, they allowed some of us to survive. Had they known my parentage, they might have despatched me at the start.' Peering into Peter Exley's eyes. 'I'm part Javanese. You realised it?'
    Exley stared.
    'Yes. Grandmother East Indian. You didn't guess it? The tiny feet, the hands, the nose.' Dispassionately indicating these, gesturing to the white shoe cocked on his knee as if it were disembodied. 'In Holland they know it, or in Java. With us it was not as with the