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INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST TABOO

5. THE HERO IS BACK

by Sue

Anna Brandon closed her schoolbooks with relief as the bell sounded for the end of the period. She'd made a fool of herself again in class; the tutor had realised how little study she'd put in in preparation and proceeded to carve up her flimsy arguments before the entire group with a devastating wit she could only describe as cruel.

His gimlet-like eyes had been on her from the moment she walked in; she knew it was no use trying to deceive him about the amount of work she'd done, and had been expecting a tirade of some sort. It was worse, by far, than anything she'd expected, but the worst part of the whole business was that she knew perfectly well he was right.

Resignedly she tucked the books under her arm and left the room while the tutor was still shuffling his papers together. Odd how a man so amiable in other circumstances could become a tyrant in the classroom; she supposed he had worries, which would excuse his wrath to a certain extent. She just wished he didn't always pick on her.

Her uncle was leaning idly against the wall on the far side of the corridor as the stream of relieved pupils left the room and dispersed. Anna went over and kissed his cheek.

"Don't tell me," he suggested, seeing her expression. "I heard. The old goat gave you a hard time, didn't he?"

"The old goat," the tutor said, from the doorway behind Anna, "would like her to do her homework occasionally." The anger had gone from his voice.

Henry Jones stepped from the classroom to join Marcus Brody and his niece in the corridor. Marcus shot him a rueful grin and clapped a friendly hand down on his shoulder.

"You're right, of course, old boy," he admitted, with a smile. "But you remember how much I hated work at the same age - there always seemed to be better things to do with my time."

Henry's expression was pure venom. Marcus's lack of application to his studies was almost fifty years in the past now and had involved, amongst other things, spending a great deal of time introducing Henry to the pleasures of homosexuality. The sly allusion did not improve the tutor's temper.

"Wait a minute, Uncle Marcus," Anna put in, seeing the deterioration in Henry's mood, "he's right. I'm sorry, Uncle Henry, I should have worked and I don't have an excuse. If you'll both promise not to tell Mummy, I'll try to do better."

Henry regarded her over the top of his spectacles. Anna was a wilful little madam who thought she could wrap her pair of elderly guardians round her little finger, but she was genuinely afraid of her mother's disapproval. A threat to let Grace know about her idleness was all it would take to keep the girl nose down in her books for a couple of weeks.

"Well ... " Marcus drawled, thoughtfully, "I wasn't intending to write to your mother for another week. Perhaps by that time we'll have seen some improvement?"

Anna groaned. One week to improve her grades wasn't going to leave a lot of time for entertainment. However, her uncle and his friend had been very good to her and given her a home and an education after the Blitz had destroyed both her home and her school in London, so she felt she owed them something.

"I'll try," she said, linking her arm through Marcus's cajolingly. "I'll work all evening."

"Hrmph!" Henry's grunt of disbelief was calculated to undermine Anna's morale, and it did. "In that case," he added, "we'd better make our way home, hadn't we? Then you can get started."

He set off, striding along the corridor and expecting the pair of them to follow. They did, used to the eccentricities of mood that could turn him from a charming companion into a bad-tempered bear within minutes.

"I'm never going to measure up, am I, Uncle Marcus?" Anna whispered as they pursued Henry out into the crisp, cold winter air.

"Don't try, my dear," he advised, as he had done in the past. "He doesn't expect you to be as clever as Indiana - and he was very hard on him, too, at times, although he remembers it differently of course."

"Do you think he'll ever come back, now?"

"Indiana? I doubt it. Most of the men who survived the War are already home. The work Indiana was doing was so secret that his death will probably never be confirmed. Whatever the circumstances, Anna, it will be a long time before Henry can come to terms with it. Just try not to upset the old fool - we both have to live with him, you know."

"I know."

Marcus drove the battered Ford, with Anna beside him. They'd just acquired their gasoline ration, but it was poor stuff and the engine misfired several times. Henry sat in the back seat, silent, correcting essays submitted earlier in the day by a more senior class than Anna's. His second tutor group, in fact; the ones who would graduate the following summer. He felt extremely sorry for any group of youngsters whose entire secondary education had been conducted against a backdrop of war and austerity. Now that peace had been concluded, he hoped there would again be money for the education program. He'd written Harry Truman on the subject, but he supposed the President had other things on his mind at the moment.

Marcus turned into the driveway of their ugly, grey stone-built residence. It had been the only property large enough for their needs at a price small enough to fit their incomes, and the years of their occupancy had done nothing to reduce the hideousness of its appearance. Marcus had made some half-hearted attempts at gardening, training vines across the facade, but still the building looked like nothing so much as a concrete blockhouse with square, featureless windows. Henry had hated it at first sight, and did so still.

He climbed out of the rear seat deep in thought and gazed with loathing at the house and garden. It shouldn't matter to him - hadn't, at one time - where he lived, but old age was creeping up on him rapidly and he was becoming increasingly irritated with his housemates. It was time to branch out on his own again; younger tutors returned from War service would soon be engaged to replace those, like himself, who were past retirement age. He would find some quiet corner to retreat to and resume his interrupted work on a definitive version of the Grail legends.

At the periphery of his vision the frail figure of a hobo of some description uncurled itself from a seated position on the steps before the front door. The man looked chilled to the bone, and so weak he seemed barely able to stand unaided. He was pale, bearded, obviously ill and hungry, and wrapped in a greatcoat far too large for him. A pack, which presumably contained all his worldly belongings, lay beside him on the ground.

Henry fumbled in his pocket for change. His mood was not so vile that he had no charity to spare for someone less comfortably placed than himself. However he was not running a soup kitchen, and the man would have to move on.

The hobo took a faltering step towards him, unsteady on his feet.

Henry sensed a threat and stopped, something about the movement catching his attention. Out of curiosity he scanned the face, seeing something there he felt he ought to be able to recognise. The man had grey-blue eyes that had seen terrible suffering, he realised, almost at once.

The bundle of papers he carried slid to the ground, unnoticed.

Behind him, Marcus's voice sounded in interrogation.

"Henry?" Henry ignored him. He moved forward cautiously, trying to understand the evidence his senses were providing. Then, with a cry of anguish, he launched himself at the unkempt man and threw both arms around him in a bruising embrace.

"Junior ... Junior ... " The words were forced out with difficulty past an obstruction in his throat, and then without surprise he realised he was weeping copiously, hot tears bathing the rough material of the man's coat.

"God, Henry, I thought you were dead ... " The sentence started off confidently enough, but trailed off into pained silence as the newcomer struggled to speak.

"Is that who I think it is?" Anna had picked up Henry's papers and was standing, arms folded, watching the two men embracing. The look on her face was one of detachment and slight distaste, almost as if she was viewing a movie starring some actor she didn't particularly like.

"It's Indiana." Marcus breathed the words reverently, as though he were in the confessional. "I knew he could escape from just about anything - but oh, Anna, just look at the state he's in."

"He could do with a wash - and a shave," she added, tartly. "Or do beards run in the family?"

Marcus looked down at her sadly; she was a pent-up little bundle of anger and bitterness, her face an ugly mask of hate. "We can't know what he's been through," he reminded her, mildly. "Have a little charity, Anna. Now, come on - we'd better give them some privacy. I expect that wretched hellhound has been tearing the kitchen apart waiting for you to come home. Let's go and give him his tea, shall we?"

Anna glared at him. "Uncle Marcus, I'm nineteen years old and I don't need to be talked down to. Why don't you just say 'go indoors and feed the dog and stay out of the way'?" With these words, Anna stormed past the reunited father and son without sparing them a glance, and let herself into the house. Marcus followed more slowly, unashamedly watching his two friends. They had hardly moved, although their embrace had tightened and there were tears streaming down Indy's grimy face onto Henry's collar, and each pair of hands was constantly in motion patting and caressing the other man's body in an attempt to reassure two stunned sets of wits that both were alive, and whole, and together.

On the top step Marcus turned. "Welcome home, Indiana," he said, almost wistfully. Then, in an altered tone; "Maybe Henry's temper will improve a bit, now you're back."

The two showed no sign whatever of having heard him, or even of acknowledging his existence. He couldn't help smiling; nothing had changed. Henry and his son had been absolutely everything to one another before the War, and no-one else had mattered to either of them. Now Indy was back, and safe, it looked as if this state of affairs was to be resumed.

"You'd be more comfortable indoors, my dears," he murmured, compassionately. "The fire in the study should still be alight. You won't be disturbed."

Henry seemed to regain his senses and to draw back slightly from Indy's crushing hold. "Bless your heart, Marcus," he whispered, hoarsely. "Come along, Junior ... I can see we have a lot to talk about."

Meekly obedient for just about the first time in his life, Indy hauled on the straps of his pack and lifted it onto his shoulder, following Henry into the now-deserted hallway of the unfamiliar house.

"Who's the girl?" he asked, brusquely, as he was shepherded into the downstairs study the two old men shared.

"That's Anna - Grace's daughter. You haven't seen her in fifteen years."

"That little kid? You insisted on taking them out to dinner and she tore up the restaurant - that kid?"

Henry helped him off with his coat and sat him down in an armchair, noting with pain the gauntness of his face and the pitiful thinness of his frame beneath wasted muscle. The son who had once been so strong had returned to him little better than a skeleton - but at least he had returned.

"The same. How on earth do you come to be wearing an R.A.F. greatcoat, boy?" Unaware of what he was doing Henry dropped the garment onto the cluttered surface of the desk.

"A friend of mine - British officer - gave it to me. He was on the boat home from Singapore. I don't know how'n'hell he got there - I last saw him in Jugoslavia in 1943." Henry leaned across in front of Indiana and made a half-hearted attempt to stir the embers of the fire into life. The coals only glowed redder and faded again.

"You and Marcus share this house?" Indy asked, a defensive note entering into his voice.

"With Anna and the dog," supplied his father, smiling down at him.

"What, you've still got Junior? Where the hell is he?" Indy's face altered. "I guess he's not a pup any more, huh?"

"He'll be in the kitchen. Anna feeds him after school. He'd knock you over, Indiana. I imagine he weighs more than you do."

"Right. You know, I'm not an invalid any more, Dad, but I still have a long way to go." There was no self-pity in the words. They were a bleak, emotionless statement of the facts.

"I know. You'll ... let me help, of course?"

"You promise to 'make everything better', Henry? Like you did when I was a kid?" Indy's tone had a bitter edge.

Henry shook his head sadly. "No," he replied. "I can't do that. There aren't any simple remedies any more, my boy. I wish there were."

Indy stared into the sullen coals in the grate; their reluctance to give forth comfort matched his mood entirely.

"I didn't think about you," he said, coldly. "Hardly at all. I did my best to forget you ever existed. Towards the end it was easy enough to believe you and Marcus were dead; the guys in the camp were dying all around me. I stopped caring. When I did think about you - when I was ill, and ... other times ... I thought about coming back to you. Thought about Autana, and that Christmas we had together, and how we'd been really happy ... and I guess I knew then it was never going to be the same."

Henry let the sentences sink slowly into his consciousness, then sighed painfully. "You're right, of course," he conceded. "I'm over seventy, now, son. There are things in Marcus's museum younger than me. You're going to need someone your own age, someone who isn't ... as wrong for you as I am. I won't argue, Indiana - I'm content just to have you alive."

"That wasn't what I meant!" Alarm that was almost panic rose in the tone, and Indy's skeletal hands gripped Henry's wrists like manacles and tightened unbearably. "You have to know, Dad, so I guess you'd better hear it now; a few weeks before Changi was liberated I got caught trying to take care of one of the British guys ... he was just a kid, Dad, twenty-one, but Major Nagayama liked to hurt kids. When the kid died he turned his attention to me. I wasn't the only one he raped, but he really enjoyed himself with me."

Henry's gaze didn't waver. He watched his son's tortured face with an expression of nothing less than awe at his impassivity.

"After we were liberated there was a Doctor - psychiatrist, I guess. He made me face what had happened. I can't escape from it, Dad - it's part of my life, now. If it hadn't been for that guy Caldwell - and then meeting Mallory on the boat - I'd never have come back. I couldn't. I'm just not the same person I was when I set off."

"Now, Colonel Barnsby," the Doctor said, giving the American his arm and assisting him a few steps across the room to a low wicker chair. The hum of the ceiling fan above them punctuated the conversation. "As you know, you are of particular interest to your Government. They've asked me to have a little - chat - with you about your experiences in Changi. I realise it's all rather recent and you'd probably prefer to forget about it, but perhaps if we have this talk now and then you go off and get some sleep it will make things easier for you in the long run, eh?" The question was flung rhetorically across a broad expanse of mahogany desktop. The Englishman didn't really expect an answer; he was looking at a thoroughly broken man, one with no willpower whatsoever of his own. He tried a different tactic.

"Look, Barnsby, I'm sure you could do with a drink, eh? There have to be some advantages to taking over a place like Raffles Hotel, after all. Let me order you something, and then maybe we'll both be able to relax a bit. I know this isn't easy for you," he added, dropping the bantering tone he'd used at first.

The change made it all the way through the shields the American had erected around his consciousness.

"No ... it isn't." The voice was deep, the tone bitter and exhausted. The patient didn't raise his eyes to the Doctor, but at least it had been a response.

"Good lad!" The jovial manner was back as the Doctor slapped the man's shoulder, and instantly regretted it. Barnsby looked as if a good puff of wind would blow him over; tragic, in someone who'd obviously been extremely fit and strong not too many years before.

"What's your poison?" he asked. "Gin sling? Jack Daniels?"

A contortion passed across Barnsby's face that might have been the first attempt at a smile; the effect was a wistful twisting of the thin lips and a sudden, sad gleam in the dull eyes. "Scotch," he said, cautiously, as though the word had been absent from his vocabulary far too long. "Straight," he added, more forcefully. "No ice, no lemon, nothing."

"Sounds just about right to me," the Doctor responded. He hauled open the rattan screen door and gave orders to the youthful British Tommy who stood guard outside. The man snapped to attention smartly, nodded his understanding, and set off to locate a waiter. "Ever been to Scotland, Barnsby? No? You should, some time, you know. Beautiful, green country - well, most of it, anyway. Fishing, shooting, golf courses ... used to be plenty of golf here, before the war, I believe. Favourite pastime of mine, as a matter of fact ... "

The arrival of the waiter stemmed the flow of smalltalk. The man was Chinese and didn't look a day under ninety; his hand shook as he put the bottle and the two glasses down on the desk.

The Doctor poured the drinks. He more or less had to hand Barnsby his glass and wrap his fingers around it before he would accept it, but then he raised it to his lips and tasted with extreme caution as if he didn't quite believe it could really be Scotch. When he did allow himself to believe, he threw back the glassful in one long, throat-scorching swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Smiling, the Doctor dragged out scrip money enough to pay the waiter, and as the man sidled out he, also, sampled the spirit.

"That isn't bad, is it, old boy?" he asked. "Help yourself to more." Barnsby obeyed.

"Now then." The Briton's tone became more serious, and he lifted a fountain pen from the desk tray and unscrewed the cap with deliberation. "I'll try to make this easy on you, Barnsby, but you know it really is a question of looking the facts squarely in the face and dealing with them on equal terms - for your own sake.

"As you know, the reason your boys wanted me to take a look at you was because of my qualifications; I'm not just a general practitioner, in other words. I'm a bit of a psychologist, too. Well, rather a lot of one, actually." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"Colonel Caldwell, let me save you a little time, here." The American poured a third slug of the whisky. "I know all about your qualifications and I know what you want. It's no secret, Colonel - Nagayama liked to humiliate prisoners and get his own thrills at the same time. What he did to me he did in front of an audience. There were four other Japs there, and a dozen or so prisoners - most of whom are still alive. I don't have anything to hide; there's no need for me to be ashamed."

Caldwell stroked his moustache thoughtfully, his left hand toying with the fountain pen on the blotter in front of him.

"Barnsby, your attitude does you credit - but I must confess it makes me a little uneasy. If there were any possibility of prosecuting Nagayama, of exposing him to the consequences of his actions ... Well, you don't need me to tell you that the man's certifiably insane and probably has been for most of his life."

"Yeah, I figured that," Barnsby told him, laconically, sipping at the third Scotch.

"What I need now, you see ... " continued the Englishman, uneasily, "are a few details. I need to know precisely what happened, exactly what he did to you. You'll need further medical examination, of course, but that'll have to wait until you get home I'm afraid. The facilities here are overstretched as it is. However if you can give me a full account of his actions I'll get a rough idea whether or not there's likely to be any damage ... inside."

"There's no damage," the American told him, calmly.

"Well, I hope not, old boy - but we've got to check, just the same."

"There's no damage," Barnsby insisted. "I know."

"How can you possibly know? Look, Barnsby, you were sodomised repeatedly by a sadistic bloody Jap! You've got the bruises, old thing. If there are bruises on the outside, Christ knows what damage he did to the rest of you!"

Barnsby slammed the shotglass down on the desk. Three glasses of Scotch had brought about a momentary return of at least a small portion of his will.

"Why don't you read whatever the State Department wired you about me?" he said, a dangerously calm tone to his voice. "Maybe it'll tell you I had a male lover before the war. What Nagayama did to me was pretty violent, sure, but it was nothing I wasn't used to."

Caldwell flipped the file cover thoughtfully. "I knew about your lover," he said, looking Barnsby straight in the eye, "though it doesn't give any details. That's a private matter, you understand. I'm sure, though, that whatever happened between you and this other man was a great deal gentler than anything Nagayama could manage. Perhaps we could approach the subject from a different angle? Would you like to talk about your relationship with your lover? This is all strictly confidential, of course," he added, putting away the fountain pen resolutely. "All that needs to go in the file are the details of the assault, but the State Department needs my opinion on your mental and emotional condition, so I'm afraid you will have to talk to me at some stage."

"Yeah, well, that could be difficult. I haven't thought about the man in years. I guess he's dead by now, anyway." Barnsby got up, taking the empty shotglass with him, and stood in front of the window. The hotel was still fortified with sandbags and corrugated iron as though the war might resume at any moment. Barnsby stared sightlessly at the building's defences, and tried not to imagine the face he loved in death.

"A serviceman? Your lover, I mean?"

"No. Too old."

"Hmmm. That's a little unusual. How old were you when you met?"

Barnsby's back quivered slightly. Caldwell interpreted the movement as a shrug, but it could just as easily have been a suppressed outburst of ironic laughter.

"He was around from the time I was born," he said, painfully. "Kind of ... a friend of the family. Yeah, I guess you'd say that."

"And what age were you when he became your lover?"

Barnsby turned back to face him, his features twisted into a bitter mask. "Thirty-eight," he supplied. "Would you believe, he waited until I was thirty-eight. Talk about wasted time. I guess he must be dead," he went on, resuming his seat wearily. "I'd know if he was alive."

"I can make enquiries for you, if you like. Just give me his name and address, and I'll have the Red Cross check it through. Or the State Department, since they seem so concerned about you. Or don't they know his identity?"

"Yeah, they know. You ask too many damned questions, Caldwell!"

"I'm sorry. Well, is there anyone at all you'd like us to trace for you? Do you have any family?"

"No." The word held savage connotations of self-wounding; there might well be family, but Barnsby was determined to deny them.

"I see. Well, look, old boy, I'm sorry to press it but I have to ask you again ... will you give me a full account of what happened with Major Nagayama?"

"Yessir, I will. But I want a bath and a meal and some sleep first. And maybe some clean clothes?"

"I'll see to it, Barnsby." Relief was audible in Caldwell's tone. "You get Corporal Tomkins out there to show you up to your room, and come back and see me tomorrow morning. Oh, and Barnsby - one more thing."

The American paused in the doorway, almost in the act of opening the door. Caldwell reached out and shook the other man's hand, then thrust the bottle of Scotch into it. Washed-out grey-blue eyes in the American's tired face sparkled. "Welcome back to civilisation, old boy."

Barnsby blinked back tears. "Thank you, Colonel," he said, unevenly. "It's a pleasure to be back."

"Do I detect a certain hostility, Anna?"

Marcus's tone was carefully neutral, but his look pierced her right through. She busied herself preparing the dog's evening meal and tried to not meet her uncle's gaze directly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, sullenly.

"Towards our ... 'returning hero'." Deliberately he introduced a note of sarcasm into his words, hoping a pretence of being unimpressed by Indiana would draw her out. During the time that she had lived here with Henry and himself, the subject of Indiana's adventurous second career had barely been mentioned - she knew of him only as a gifted academic and scholar, an especially-beloved family member whose return was likely to prove an inconvenience to herself, and had no conception of just how appropriate Marcus's phrase had been. "You scarcely know the man - what could he possibly have done to upset you?"

There was no reply. His question was ignored as Anna set the dog's bowl down on the floor beneath the table and watched as Junior began to dispose of the meat and biscuit mixture as if he hadn't eaten in a year.

"Anna? Please, my dear, if there's something troubling you ... I'd like to help ... "

"Well, you can't, so just leave it at that." Her tone was harsh, self-destructive. There was pain behind it, but it was a pain she wanted to hold onto.

Wearily Marcus seated himself in the wooden chair at the foot of the table. "Anna," he began again, with caution, "as I reminded you earlier we all have to share this house, at least for the time being. Frankly now that Indiana's home I'm just not certain any more whether it will be possible to stay here. I'm tired of having to referee arguments between you and Henry. If you're going to take a dislike to Indiana, too, then I'm going to have to give serious consideration to sending you back to your mother. Either that, or you and I will have to look for somewhere else to live."

Abruptly Anna sat down in a chair opposite him. Between them, under the table, the Alsatian concentrated on its dinner and ignored them utterly.

"I don't dislike him. I don't know him," she said, bleakly. Her chin dropped onto upraised palms, and briefly she looked closer to ninety years old than nineteen. A burden of grief seemed to fall like a cloak about her slender shoulders, and in that moment Marcus began to understand what it was that ailed her.

"But ... ?" he prompted.

"Well, he's ... After all that's happened, he's still ... " She couldn't bring herself to say it. Marcus supplied the word for her.

"Alive?"

"Well, yes ... "

"And ... John isn't?"

The grimace of pain that crossed Anna's face told Marcus his aim had been true. John Morell - his nephew, her cousin - had drowned two years earlier when his ship, a convoy escort vessel, had been torpedoed off Iceland. Of a ship's company numbering over eighty, only eleven men had survived. Anna had been deeply affected by the tragedy, but Marcus had believed that her grief, like his own, had begun to ease with the passing of time. Obviously there had been some element in the relationship between the two young people that he had missed. Although remarkably acute in many ways, there were some aspects of human interaction that just seemed to pass him by; this had apparently been a case in point.

"I had no idea there was anything ... special ... between you and John," he said, carefully.

"There wasn't. Not on his side, anyway - he couldn't take his eyes off Elaine. I knew he should never have married her, Uncle Marcus, but nobody listened to me. I was only fifteen - what did a kid like me know, anyway?"

"We all hoped he would change his mind about her, Anna," said her uncle. "However he was old enough to make the decision for himself, and no-one had any right to interfere."

"Not even you? You more or less brought him up, after all."

"Me least of all, my dear. Don't you understand that we had to let John have his own way? Your mother and I knew it wasn't a wise choice - I'm sure it was no secret even at the time that Elaine's moral character was, shall we say, suspect. However, you just can't stop a young man getting married as long as he's old enough - and he was. We just had to grit our teeth and wish him well."

"And then he joined the Navy and got himself killed," she added, almost hysterically.

"I don't know if it was because of Elaine," conceded Marcus, thoughtfully, "but I suppose it could have been."

"It was," she insisted. "I know."

"And that's the problem with Indy, is it?" Her uncle made a determined effort to get the discussion back onto the right track. "It's the fact that he survived, while John didn't?"

"I don't want to be jealous, Uncle Marcus," she assured him, on the edge of tears. "It wouldn't have given me any pleasure to know that Indiana wasn't coming back. Only he had something that made him want to come back, didn't he? John just gave up. I'm sure if things had been the other way around Uncle Henry would have felt just the same way about John."

There was a great deal of truth in what the girl said, Marcus realised. Henry would have contained his jealousy better than she had done, but then he was older and far more accustomed to the ways of the world. However now that she had expressed herself so openly, it would be possible to try and assuage the guilt she was feeling for a quite natural emotion. Her honesty demanded, in its turn, complete trust.

He walked around the table and crouched beside her chair, looking up into dim, watery eyes. "You're right, Anna, he would - and for much the same reason. You're old enough to understand by now that sometimes men prefer each other's company to the company of women. Indy and Henry have that kind of relationship, my dear. Henry loves Indy every bit as much as you loved John, and I'm sure if the situation had been reversed he'd have suffered just the way you're suffering now. There's no need to be ashamed of what you feel, Anna - love just happens to people; very often it can't be controlled. I can't say how things would have turned out if John had lived - perhaps it's better not to think about it - but I'm sure he'd have been deeply honoured to know how you felt." It was cold comfort, he knew, but it was the best he could offer.

Anna nodded her head slowly, to show that she understood what he was trying to say.

"I'll do my best not to make things difficult," she told him. "I don't want to be the spectre at the feast. When I saw the way they threw their arms around each other it just made me feel ... lonely. Do they do that a lot?" Marcus couldn't help but smile at the innocence of the question.

"Quite a lot. They're lovers, Anna - or they were, before the War."

"I didn't think you could have meant that," she confessed, with an embarrassed look. "Uncle Henry seems so ... ordinary."

Delighted by this remark, Marcus chuckled. "There's nothing very ordinary about Henry, Anna," he said. "I've know him half a century, and he's never been ordinary - no more has Indiana."

The girl, too, managed a smile. "Oh well," she said, thoughtfully, "it makes things much less complicated for me, anyway."

"In what way?" "I was wondering where on earth he was going to sleep," she confessed, with a laugh that was close to a sob. "Does my mother know about them?"

"Not the least idea," was the proud reply. "It's none of her business ... like your feelings for John, Anna, it's a private matter."

"You won't tell her about me?"

"Wouldn't dream of it. Not unless you want me to." "No. Not yet." Anna hauled herself to her feet. "I suppose we ought to try and get some sort of meal going, Uncle Marcus," she suggested, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Indiana looked in need of a good feed, but he'll have to make do with my cooking instead."

"Good idea," he told her briskly. "Just tell me how I can help."

Her rapid swing in mood was disconcerting; he knew he was going to have to watch her carefully from now on. Clearly there were tears still to be shed for her cousin, and Marcus was determined to be around to console her when she was ready to shed them. He knew, after all what it was like to lose a first love - and to lose him twice. She had lost John first to a flighty wife, then to Death; he had lost Henry just as irrevocably - to Olivia, and then to Indy. The difference was that he had had many years to get used to the fact, and her bereavement was still raw and painful. Indy and Henry would understand; they had enough compassion to spare for her. They would help him get her through the pain of her loss - and somehow, in the process, forge this strange and extraneous little clique of interlocking relationships into a strong and dependable family unit. Anna was young enough to be Indy's daughter, and grand-daughter to the two older men, but she already had more of grief and pain in her life than anyone should be asked to bear. Together, the three of them would have to help her through it.

The meal Marcus brought on a tray was simple enough; necessarily so, since he and Anna between them barely added up to a passable cook. Henry, whose culinary skills were greater, didn't stir from the study except to show his son to the bathroom and to pace the hallway with exaggerated anxiety until he returned. Indy picked at his food, eating only the blandest items such as the bread and the apples provided as sweet, but hardly tasting the stew which was Anna's proudest creation. If the younger man's emaciated condition had not already spoken volumes about the diet he had suffered as a prisoner of the Japanese, these actions would have told the tale just as well. He knew already, from the days at Raffles Hotel and the slow passage home on the boat, that it would be several months before his digestive system could return to normal - if it ever did - and wisdom dictated a careful introduction of each new food item to allow his stomach plenty of time to get used again to an enriched American diet. He'd never exactly been a glutton, but had rarely been known to refuse food in the past.

Henry, his own stomach feeling as though tied in knots from excitement at this long dreamed-of reunion, was unable to fare much better. He ate without enjoyment, scarcely noticing what he was doing, and gave up more or less out of boredom.

"I'm sorry," Indy said, pushing the plate away across Marcus's desk, at which he had been sitting. "I guess I'm too tired to eat. And you get used to not having much."

"Of course. If you're tired - do you want to go to bed now?" It was difficult to make the question sound neutral, a suggestion in Indy's own interests, rather than a predatory demand. Henry didn't feel he'd succeeded.

"Depends," was the maddening reply. "Where am I going to sleep?"

"You can have my bed - our bed, from the old house. I'll stay with you, if you like."

"I don't know. I'd like to have you near, but I don't know if I can stand to ... start up all that craziness again."

"Craziness?" Henry's features, already pale, became ashen with distress as he heard the hard edge of bitterness in his son's tone. "What craziness? We made promises to each other, Indiana. I took you at your word."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't. I'd only hurt you, Dad - one way or another. Like you said, you're not a young man any more. Doesn't mean I've stopped loving you ... that way. Just that we ought to try not to let it happen again."

Fortunately Henry was already seated, as he felt this statement could very well have knocked him over. Indy was afraid of 'hurting' him, yet he'd inflicted more injury already with a few words than Henry had ever known he could endure.

"Son, there hasn't been a day in seven years that I've thought of it as crazy, or regretted a single moment of the things we did. On the contrary, it's sustained me. All the time you've been away, I've had a wonderful pool of memories to dip into whenever I chose. I've thought of you so much and so often ... " His voice trailed off. No need to elaborate on all the wakeful nights when memories of their lovemaking had tortured him with both loneliness and sexual frustration - or to enumerate the moments when, teaching Indy's students, he had suddenly found a note in his son's handwriting on some textbook and seen the peaceful, sleepy face of his lover in his mind's eye.

"I had memories, too, Dad. Autana, remember? You and me and the birds and the sky; watching the sunrise together in the cave-mouth. That was the first time you did it to me. That was the most wonderful memory I had - but I destroyed it."

"I don't understand."

"I'm a coward, Henry, that's all. I knew what Nagayama was going to do to me - I'd seen him do it before, to the younger guys. Only with me it wasn't so much pleasure he wanted as revenge. I only had one weapon to use against him, and that was you. If I didn't struggle, didn't try to resist, I knew he couldn't do too much damage. And he didn't know it had happened to me before. He figured I'd be humiliated and want to commit suicide afterwards. A lot of them did." Henry felt he ought to speak, but couldn't force words past the blockage in his throat. He reached out and took his son's hand and squeezed it tight, but Indy pulled away from him angrily. "Listen, this is important! He had one guy holding my head down and two more with rifles pointed at me, and about a dozen of the British and Australian prisoners standing at attention watching. That guy could perform under any conditions; he must've had a permanent hard-on. Soon as they stripped me I knew how I was going to survive it, but I figured you'd never speak to me again afterwards."

"What ... what do you mean?"

"Autana, Dad. I remembered Autana - that beautiful place and the beautiful thing that happened there. I closed my eyes and saw Autana, and tried to convince myself it was you doing that to me. Tried to enjoy it - or to remember enjoying it. I never told you how much that meant to me, and I promised myself I'd do that if I ever got back."

"I knew it. I'd had a very similar experience myself in a hotel in New York City, if you can remember that far back." There was gentle rebuke in the tone.

"Yeah ... Anyway, it only made things worse for me. Nagayama was sure I would break the next time, or the time after that, so he kept on sending for me whenever he felt like a little 'entertainment'. I lost count after six or seven, but it could have been a dozen or more in all, over a period of about five weeks. The last time was only a couple of days before the British liberated the prison. After that it was really strange," he added, reflectively. "They got me out straight away - most of the guys had to stay there, with the Japs still guarding the place, because the British didn't have enough people to run the island. Only they took me out the same night and drove me to Raffles Hotel and handed me over to this Doctor who seemed to be there just to look after me. So somebody had to have known what was happening to me well before Singapore was liberated - but I don't know who or how."

Caldwell was better prepared for his second meeting with the American; he'd made a telephone call to a friend in Military Intelligence, and learned - amongst other things - that Barnsby had had no existence whatsoever before the beginning of 1939. Not that he had any intention of revealing that he had acquired this little gem of information, of course; it was Barnsby's duty to maintain his cover, and Caldwell's duty not to pry. Mallory, on the other hand, seemed to know a great deal more about Barnsby than might have been expected.

The thought dawned slowly on Caldwell that the impetus for Barnsby's sudden removal from Changi had come from Mallory and his people rather than the State Department. The additional thought followed that possibly the liberation of Singapore would not have happened at that precise time had word of Barnsby's plight not reached Mallory and his colleagues in the War Office. Who was Barnsby, then, and why was his welfare of such over-riding importance to so many eminent people? The American still looked pale and weak as he entered the tiny office. Caldwell had deliberately chosen a time of day when the sun was on the far side of the building, and for once the room was cool. The whisky bottle and glasses were prominently placed on the desk.

"Help yourself, Barnsby," he said, informally. "You're looking much fitter this morning - slept well?" "Yes - thank you." This time the other man partook sparingly of the alcohol. That, in Caldwell's opinion, was a good sign. "See you got your clean clothes, too - decided to keep the beard?"

"For the time being."

Useless, Barnsby thought, to try to explain why. He'd been all ready to shave it off, and then he'd taken a good long look at himself in the mirror. The face of his father had stared back at him from the glass. It would have been like cutting the old man's throat. He just plain didn't dare to do it.

Caldwell cleared his throat. "Now, Barnsby, there's something I feel you ought to be told immediately, before we go into any further detail about your experiences. Major Nagayama is dead."

Barnsby's face leached of colour. The hand holding the drink trembled perceptibly, but with an effort he managed to bring his emotions under control. "Dead? How?"

"I'm not sure how it happened, but someone smuggled a sword into his cell. He committed 'harry-carry'."

"Seppuku. He didn't deserve it; that's an honourable death."

"So I understand. However it does get him out of the way rather satisfactorily - I'm sure you'll realise how much of an embarrassment he could have been to us."

"Who gave him the sword?"

Caldwell shrugged. Amongst the many things he was not prepared to reveal to Barnsby as a result of Mallory's orders was the surprising ease with which he'd been able to introduce the sword into Nagayama's mysteriously unguarded cell, and then tip the unbalanced man onto his final descent into madness. Persuading him to commit suicide had been a kindness, really. Having to watch him do so would haunt Caldwell's nightmares for years.

"Who knows?" he said, lightly. "It happened late last night, apparently. He was found first thing this morning. I don't suppose we'll ever know the truth of it. But it frees you, of course, to tell me more about him."

The unsubtle hint caught Barnsby like a hammer-blow. Briefly he entertained the suspicion that Nagayama had been removed specifically for that purpose; then he dismissed the unworthy thought. The British just didn't do things like that. His father had been British - he knew all about their much-vaunted code of honour; it was nearly as complex and demanding as that of the Japanese.

"Yeah," he agreed, slowly, having nowhere left to run. "Where d'you want me to start?"

"You were captured about eighteen months ago?" Caldwell asked, rhetorically. "You survived a whole year on the railway, and were then shipped down here. Did you ever discover why?"

"We moved with Nagayama when he was posted here," Barnsby told him. "About thirty of us; three Americans, the rest Brits and Aussies. I guess the old slave transports were about the same sort of thing; no food, no water, suffocating heat. That was the first time I was really ill; probably dysentery. After we got to Changi it cleared up. I never really found out why they brought us here."

"The Germans had a similar policy of concentrating prominent prisoners in one place," the Doctor commented. "Only they made a special effort to treat them with care."

Barnsby nodded. He took the identification of himself as a prominent prisoner without argument. One of these days, Caldwell was determined to find out just who this man was and why two Governments were so concerned about him. "Up on the railway Nagayama was only a Captain, so he didn't get away with an awful lot," the American resumed, sipping thoughtfully at the whisky and staring back into memories that were melting like snow-crystals in sunshine. "Down here, he was in charge of a whole block. The guys he'd brought with him were like playthings to him; he didn't seem to have a lot to do but amuse himself with us all day. I got quite friendly with Wilson; poor guy came to me for help when Nagayama started on him. That was when I took a good long look at the other prisoners and figured none of them had any idea what it was like to have that happen."

"But you did?"

"As you know."

"And you deliberately provoked Major Nagayama's interest in you, to distract him from Wilson and the others? You imagined that you could take that kind of treatment, whereas it might have broken other men? Wasn't that rather arrogant?"

"Was it? It worked, didn't it? After Wilson died he turned on me and left the other guys alone."

"Sexually, yes - although the regular routine of tortures didn't end."

Barnsby's head lowered. "Hey, Colonel, I'm only one guy. I did what I could. At least he didn't get to add to their suffering."

"Does it worry you? That you couldn't mitigate the horrors of captivity for your friends?"

"It used to. Not any more. I did what I could - I don't care whether or not it was enough. It doesn't make any difference, because I had nothing else to give. Take a look at me, Colonel - I weigh less than a ten-year-old kid. There's no muscle left; it'll take years to build up to the kind of strength I used to have. I just gave what I had left."

"You used the fact that you were accustomed to anal intercourse to save not only your own life but those of your friends?"

Barnsby winced. "I never thought of it like that," he said, despising the clinical term that didn't do anything like justice to the wonder of the experience. With his lover it had been beautiful, a way of giving himself completely. With Nagayama, he'd just been using his worn-out body in the only way remaining - to shield his fellow-prisoners from the Japanese officer's depredations.

"Was there anything noble or gallant about what you did?" The question was barbed, and Barnsby could see the hook dangling before him.

"Not a thing," he replied, dispiritedly. "I was saving my own life, too, wasn't I? I just feel like I betrayed ... "

"Your lover? Yes, I can see that. But perhaps if you ever got the chance to explain it to him, he'd understand? Don't you think he'd see it as an act of heroism?"

Barnsby's laugh was bitter. "He was sort of prejudiced in my favour," he commented, wryly. "I couldn't do a thing wrong in his eyes. Well, not after 1938, anyway."

"And if he were alive now? Would he forgive you?"

Barnsby's answer was a long time in coming, and was filled with misery. "Yeah, he'd forgive me - but I wouldn't deserve it."

Like the rest of the house, the bedroom was completely unfamiliar to Indy. Arriving on Henry's arm, most of his weight supported by his father, he paused in the doorway to glance around at its decor. The old-fashioned wooden bedstead from his house on campus was there, and the worn red carpet woven by Faiyeh and her brothers so many years ago and given to him by Sallah at their first meeting. The drapes were new, cream and gold in a geometric pattern that matched the bedcover. The scratched oak dressing-table seemed to have been restored to its earlier sheen, and the heavy wardrobe had been accommodated in a recess which made its presence in this room less of an intrusion than it had been before. Beside the window, the chest-of-drawers stood crowned by the Chinese pot-pourri jar; all Indy's favourite possessions were here, ranged around the walls. Even his books had managed to find a place, some of the best of them lined up on two low shelves beneath the window.

"You took a lot of care with this." He was sparing with the words; weariness had stolen the strength from his voice and he was afraid to say more.

"It's many years since I had the pleasure of making a home for you, my boy. Besides which - I always felt that you had only left the room for a moment, and would soon be back."

"This is just how I would have arranged it myself," was the quiet response.

"I know." Henry assisted his son across the room and helped him down onto the bed. Physically the man was as weak as a kitten; mentally his fortitude was astonishing.

Without comment, almost without noticing what he was doing, he began to remove Indy's clothes, undressing him as years ago he had undressed the small boy his son had been. His actions were parental, caring, holding nothing of the secretive passion he'd nurtured in silence for so many years. He was uncertain whether it was the father or the lover who noticed with regret the terrible scarring on Indy's back and shoulders, nor which of them caught back a gasp of pain at the sight of a horrendous cluster of purple bruises fading from the now-sunken chest. The need for rest was closing in on Indy rapidly, his eyes heavy and his head nodding as Henry swung him round efficiently, and slid him beneath the cool, soft bedcovers.

"Stay and talk," Indy demanded, sounding ten years old again.

That had been what he needed after Olivia died; at a time when Henry would far rather have suffered alone and hidden from the world, Indy - Junior - had needed to talk about her every night until he fell asleep.

Henry seated himself in the bedside chair and stroked his son's hair. "First thing in the morning, my boy, you can shave that appalling mess from your chin," he said, sounding unnecessarily critical to his own ears.

Indy was sleepily amused. "Oh yeah? What if I wanted to keep it?"

"It doesn't suit you. It's extremely untidy, at least four different colours ... and your face is the wrong shape."

"Can't stand the competition, huh? One beard in the family is enough?"

"More than enough." Henry's tone managed to find a level somewhere between annoyance and indulgence. "And if you don't do it, I'll do it for you while you sleep," he threatened, archly.

"I never had a valet," was the yawning response. "Could be fun."

"I doubt it, somehow," laughed his father, soothingly. "I've had this beard for almost fifty years, boy - it would be like trusting yourself to Sweeney Todd."

"Well, I didn't drag myself back halfway around the world to have you cut my throat for me, Henry. First thing in the morning, I promise, I'll do something about it."

Hands descended on his bared shoulders; awkwardly, with inexperienced movements, Henry sought out knots of tension in his son's wasted muscles and massaged them away.

"You sound more contented than you did," he said, his voice soft and smooth in the half-dark. Indy cast himself adrift on the voice as on a friendly sea.

"I'm home," was the simple reply. "I thought you'd have changed, Dad, but you haven't. It's just me."

"We've all changed, Indiana. Everyone has changed. I have no idea how it's going to be from now on, either with us or the world. I don't know how much time you are I are likely to have together ... I'm an old man, boy ... but I don't want to waste any of it. Just let me be close to you. I still love you; that will never change."

It was a plea from the heart, a rehearsal of the fears that had filled Henry since his son had expressed his unwillingness to resume their sexual relationship. He knew how badly Indy had been hurt; despite the somewhat sheltered life he had led, he had a rough idea of the indignities heaped on his son by the Japanese and the cruelty he had endured as Nagayama's prisoner. That sort of injury was mental and emotional rather than physical; no simple salve would cure it, or even ease the pain. Only love - devotion - could heal his son's wounds. If he was not to be allowed to resume his role of lover, then he would return to that of father for however much of his life was left to him. It would make no difference whatsoever to his feelings for Indy, but if that was easier for his son to accept then so be it.

Indy's breathing had steadied. He was asleep. Henry glanced once at the unoccupied half of the bed beside his son, and then settled for the armchair. He'd done this before, countless times; sat beside the boy's bed and watched him while he slept. All those times merged together in his memory now; all those long nights of vigil. He had learned the hard way about the dedication of those Grail Knights of long ago and their single-minded adherence to their cause. He had found his very own Holy Grail, the object of his life-long quest, not in some remote desert fastness but closer to home; in finding Indiana, he had found illumination.

Henry leaned forward over the sleeping figure of the younger man and bent carefully to kiss the back of his neck.

"Sleep well, my boy," he whispered softly. "And welcome home."

"Henry?" The discreet knock at the door and the sound of Marcus's voice brought the older Jones out of his doze rapidly and jolted his son awake, shocked and watchful. Soothingly, Henry patted Indy's shoulder.

"It's only Marcus," he muttered, reaching out for his spectacles and putting them on to glare myopically at the clock-face. "It's almost eight-thirty," he commented, a note of surprise in his voice.

"Henry, are you awake?"

"Yes, Marcus; I hadn't realised what time it was."

"No reason why you should, old love. I'll tell the powers-that-be you're indisposed, shall I?"

Relief sagged Henry's shoulders. "Thank you, Marcus, I'd appreciate that."

"My pleasure. I'll be back at lunchtime to take the bloody dog for its constitutional. Do you reckon that son of yours might be in a fit state to talk to me then?"

Henry glanced down at the untidy remnant of humanity stretched out on the bed in front of him and noted with intense pleasure that some of the haggardness had vanished already from the thin face.

"I guarantee it," he promised, heart lighter than it had been for years.

"Then I'll see you both later. Goodbye, now." Without further ado Marcus took his departure, and they listened to his footsteps on the stairs and the slamming of the front door behind him. Moments later they heard him coax the Ford's engine into life and ease it out onto the road.

When the sound of the car had died away and the barking of the dog from the direction of the kitchen had dropped to a tolerable level, Henry extracted himself from armchair with some difficulty and threw open the drapes, allowing winter sunshine to flood the room.

"I imagine you'd like some breakfast?" he asked, casually.

"In bed?" The response was scandalised; breakfast in bed seemed like the ultimate in decadence after all he had endured.

"Where else? Coffee and toast, perhaps? I think there's some honey ... "

Indy laughed softly. "Henry, you amaze me. No, you overwhelm me, sometimes. You go to such a lot of trouble for me, and all I ever do is hurt you."

"Not true," was the gruff response. "And as to taking care of you - it's a privilege, I assure you. Humour an old man, son. I've been without you for too long - let me pamper you a little now you're home. I think you deserve it."

Indy's grin was tolerant. "You'll never be old, Henry - not while you've got that glint in your eye. And as for making a fuss of me - hell, I'm not complaining. I just don't want to get too used to it."

Henry accepted the words with grave consideration. "Then I'll try not to overdo the cosseting, my boy. Just tell me if you feel you're being smothered."

"I will. And you know you make the best coffee in the whole damn' world."

Henry bowed slightly, reaching out for the doorhandle. "And after breakfast ... ?" he asked, unsubtly.

Ruefully Indy raised a hand to his stubbled chin. "Yeah, I promise." The broken, emotional, exhausted Indiana of the previous evening had retreated into the background again; some vestige of the former, confident hero had returned.

"Good. It'll be a great joy to me to have you home again, son."

"In spite of what I said last night? You don't mind if we don't get involved again ... ?"

"I didn't say that," corrected his father, sternly. "In fact, I hope eventually to persuade you to change your mind."

He crossed the room, bent to place a swift kiss on his son's forehead, and retreated before Indy had a chance to react. "Junior, dear boy, we have a great deal of time together ahead of us. There's no need to be in a hurry ... about anything. Have something to eat, have a bath, make yourself comfortable, and then ... we have the place to ourselves for almost five hours."

"Is that a proposition?" Laughter filled Indy's eyes and twisted his pale features into something like a smile.

Henry stood in the doorway, his deep brown eyes fixed firmly on his son's face and his heart thudding like a trip-hammer. He took a deep breath, forcing words out past a tightness in his chest that hadn't been there before. Suddenly, with the sunlight, he had begun to perceive the shy presence of hope once more.

"Yes, my son," he said, softly. "That's precisely what it is."

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