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Men & Matters In the Gorbachev years, a Moscow-based western correspondent may have been tempted to use the buzz-words 'glasnost' or 'perestroika' if he had covered Tuesday's 'Consultation' something like it had been held in the Russian capital. Of course this interesting initiative of the Sri Lankan Opposition leader could not possibly be as newsworthy as any attempt to change the political culture in Lenin's or Stalin's Russia. And that is precisely how Mr. Godfrey Gunatilleke of MARGA described Tuesday's colloquim at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute. Mr. Gunatilleke is the live-wire of PAFFREL - People's Action for Free and Fair Elections - an NGO he launched a few years ago with Kingsley Rodrigo, an Attorney-at-Law, who prefers to introduce himself as 'a small businessman'. PAFFREL, claims, there were at least 1,300 acts of violence at the most recent polls, a direct consequence of party rivalry which knew no bounds. Activists of the ruling party could be held responsible for 800 and the rest associated with the UNP. No longer the 'battle of the ballot'! Landmines Regular readers of this column will recall that it was quite early in this insurgency that we called it 'The Landmine War'. Landmines claimed more lives than fighting in the battlefield. What's more, the land mine claimed more innocent, men, women and children, than combatant. The war was robbed of its glory and romance and the heroism of the young men of both sides fought for a 'cause'. It was in the 1914 First World War dominated by trench warfare that robbed the battlefield of its legendary glory. That war produced two outstanding young poets.... Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg. 'What passing-bells for those who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns....' The landmine is the faceless killer. The landmine dehumanises the engagement. Once President Clinton was persuaded, the United States should join the swelling chorus, it was clear that action would follow. But not even the sole superpower can on its own wipe out this menace. And so the United Nations has placed the item on its agenda. Gentle General The UNDP programme, I gather, includes demining and the rehabilitation of landmine victims. It will also undertake 'a mine awareness campaign'. Two years ago, it was the UN Childrens Fund. Another UN Agency, the UNDP had conducted the initial survey - Jaffna, the starting point. The 'target' or 'the enemy', if you prefer is formidable. Hundreds of thousands of acres 'have been declared out of bounds for civilians and soldiers living in the peninsula as these are believed to be heavily mined.' Peace Talks 'How can this brutal, cold-blooded 'Landmine war' be stopped? The TULF, the most representative spokesman of the Tamil community.... its leaders have been elected by the people of the north and east.... and the UNP, the main Opposition party once again impressed on the PA the need for talks with Mr. Prabhakaran's Liberation Tigers. The LTTE keeps proving in a hundred different ways, that there can be no end to this carnage without a negotiated settlement... talks that is, with the LTTE. The first step however is SLFP-UNP talks. Suggestions to minimise the law's delays
in the original courts The delays in the disposal of cases in the original courts has been a perennial problem that has plagued the administration of justice for several years and these proposals are merely an addition to the numerous methods and considerable discussions proposed not only by members of the judicial fraternity, but also by all categories of people who are interested in the expeditious disposal of litigation. No doubt the popular truism that Justice delayed is Justice denied is a strong incentive to all persons interested in speedy justice to suggest ways and means as to how the problem can be successfully tackled. I have, in this article classified some measures under three heads whereby a speedy disposal of civil and criminal cases may be achieved. A- The establishment of a Judicial Administrative Service and the appointment of a Judicial Administrative Service Commission. B- The expeditious disposal of civil litigation in the original courts and C- The expeditious disposal of criminal cases especially non-summary inquiries in cases of grave crime. A- The establishment of a Judicial Administrative Service and the appointment of a Judicial Administrative Service Commission. 1- This has become an urgent necessity to ensure the satisfactory infrastructure for the work of the Courts and the smooth functioning of the administration of Justice and minimise the extent of bribery and corruption presently prevalent and considerably alleviate the law's delays and ensure satisfaction to all classes of litigants. 2- In 1994 Mr. J. W. Subasinghe, President's Counsel, who had considerable experience as an administrator in the judicial service published a note on the need for the establishment of a Judicial Administrative Service Commission and a Judicial Administrative Service and he referred to the problem that existed at the time in the following terms - 'The stream of justice in Sri Lanka is polluted and stagnant. The absence of a properly organised Judicial Administrative Service comprised of trained personnel under proper direction, control and supervision is the principal cause of this unhappy state. The resulting inefficiency has been carrying high on its shoulders the twin evils of corruption and dishonesty. Consequently, Justice has been brought into disrepute and many people have almost lost confidence in the courts....' and he called for remedial measures 'to be taken immediately to ensure that the stream of justice once again flows smoothly and gently' 3- Perhaps in no other service is there so much corruption and dishonesty as in the judicial administrative service. Nothing can be achieved by litigants and lawyers without a bribe being offered to most categories of the service from the minor staff upwards. In the interests of their clients, sometimes even busy lawyers have to make payment to obtain some relevant information. Sometimes a fee is charged for the examination of a record, when it should be readily available to a lweyer or litigant if the record keeper does his job well. Corruption has reached such levels that recently even the conduct of a Registrar of a High Court was being investigated by the police for alleged misappropriation of public funds. The intepreter Mudliyar of the Homagama Magistrate's Court was convicted of bribery and his conviction affirmed by the Supreme Court. 4- Apart from the work in the Registry there is sometimes a lack of proper supervision in regard to the court staff and not infrequently the work of the court is disrupted due to the absence of interpreters and stenographers. The Registrar should ensure that the personnel required by the court to carry out its judicial functions should be made available for the smooth functioning of the work of the Court. 5- In December 1982 the Judicial Service Commission published an exhaustive minute on the Scheduled Public Officers' Service relating to the appointment, structure, cadre and salary scales appointed to the Judicial Administrative Service. It was an excellent minute and deals with all aspects of the judicial administrative service including an elementary knowledge of the law and legal procedure. It made the Judicial Administrative Service a closed service and promoted efficiency. If the conditions of service laid down in the minute are properly implemented, it would ensure a satisfactory service to the Judiciary and the public at large. 6- But it is essential for its successful implementation that there should be proper and adequate supervision. This is presently performed by the Judicial Service Commission which consists of the Chief Justice and two other Supreme Court Judges. Perhaps it would be more desirable that the Judicial Service Commission should only deal with appointments, promotions transfers and disciplinary control of judicial officers and that a separate Commission should be appointed to supervise the work of the scheduled public officers in the judicial service. 7- The Judicial Administrative Commission should be presided over by a retired Judge of the Court of Appeal or High Court and should have as its other members a retired District Judge and a member of the Bar appointed by the Bar Council and have as its Secretary a retired Registrar of the Courts. The decisions of the Judicial Administrative Commission should be final and conclusive. B- The expeditious disposal of civil litigation in the original courts. 1- It is essential for the proper administration of justice that a judge should be free to exercise his judicial functions without interruption and not be overburdened with the administrative work of the courts. Several Judges of the original Courts in busy centres such as Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Gampaha and Ratnapura are unable to devote their attention to their judicial functions adequately as much of their work has to deal with what is called 'calling cases'. It is therefore necessary that this work should be undertaken by another officer. 2- A feasible proposition would be the appointment of a judicial officer who can be designated as a Recorder. The Recorder should be a lawyer who aspires for judicial office and should be appointed by the Judicial Service Commission. This will not only help him to be trained later for a permanent judicial appointment, but also relieve the trial judge of a great deal of the administrative work of the court. Except for writ applications and applications for injunctions, pre-trial preliminary inquiries can be heard and determined by the Recorder. Filing of pleadings, written submissions, granting postponement in the cases fixed for trial, filing of accounts in testamentary cases, probate applications and the numerous other functions of an administrative nature can be disposed of by the Recorder if he sits for about an hour before the Judge commences his work and only the cases ready for trial or inquiry can be submitted to the trial judge and the witnesses in the postponed cases released early. 3- In Colombo there are presently nine District Courts and one court is designated the Roll Court. Perhaps this would be too heavy a burden for a single judge to deal with the large volume of litigation that has to be dealt with daily and perhaps three Recorders can be appointed to deal with all preliminary matters and their work distributed according to the classification of the work of the Court-probate, divorce and admiralty cases, commercial cases, land work and other divisions. 4- In most of the other provincial Courts where the work is heavy there are at most three Courts which deal with civil litigation and a single Recorder can be appointed to these Courts. In some Courts the permanent Judge may be able to tackle the judicial and administrative work satisfactorily without the need for the appointment of a Recorder. 5- Sometime previously the Minister of Justice considered a proposal for retired Judges to continue in service as Associate Judges of the court drawing the same salaries and emoluments, in which case they would lose the right to private practice. The Associate Judge can be called to function in the appropriate court to ease the workload of that court, to act for the permanent Judge when on leave and to hear special cases that the permanent Judge does not wish to hear. The country will greatly benefit by the experience and maturity of these officers. It is not desirable that practicing lawyers in a particular court should act as an Acting Judge in the absence of the permanent Judge. 6- Service of summons should be by registered post to avoid corruption in the Fiscal's Department and ensuring the presence of witnesses in Court and thereby not disrupting the work of the court and 7- Leading lawyers in heavy and complicated cases arrange with their juniors for the conduct of cases in court. This is a healthy practice which will enable Juniors to conduct proceedings in Court and ensure that there are no unnecessary postponement of cases. Postponement of cases on personal grounds should be the exception rather than the rule. In England and America it is the usual practice for the Juniors to carry on with the case in the absence of their Senior, and cases are rarely postponed in the absence of senior counsel. This assists in the disposal of the cases fixed for trial on the particular day. C- Expeditious disposal of criminal cases 1- No comment is necessary in regard to the disposal of summary cases. No doubt every conscientious Magistrate will endeavour to dispose of as many cases as possible that are fixed for trial particularly in the interests of the accused. 2- It was reported recently in the media that there were 4000 non-summary inquiries in cases of grave crime pending and that the Attorney General contemplated the appointment of temporary state counsel to deal with the backlog. This is an alarming situation and must be a matter of serious concern to all persons interested in the administration of justice. 3- It has been reported that non-summary inquiries are postponed for such trivial reasons as the absence of the reports of the medical officer or the Government Analyst. It has also been reported that in many courts lawyers charge a lump sum for appearances in non-summary cases which the poor litigant has to provide with considerable financial difficulty. This lump sum will cover a certain period of time and a number of appearances in court but very often further lump sums are demanded which result in a considerable strain on the funds of the poor litigant. 4- Former Minsiter of Justice, Mr. Felix Dias Bandaranaike, under the repealed Administration of Justice Law 44 of 1973 provided considerable's relief to litigants in non-summary inquiries. This was a progressive piece of legislation which ensured speedy justice in cases of grave crime. Under this law, a Director of Public Prosecutions was appointed under the Attorney General, who had overall supervision over all non-summary inquiries and considerably assisted in their swift disaposal. 5- No prejudice was caused to the prosecution or the defence under this law and Counsel who had access to the notes of the police investigation made their submissions to the DPP who decided whether a case has been made out for the forwarding of an indictment to the High Court and 6- It would be a salutary measure if the provisions under the repealed law can be re-introduced and the DPP with an adequate staff attend to the disposal of non-summary inquiries expeditiously. The necessity for recruiting temporary State counsel suggested by the Attorney General to deal with the backlog of non summary inquiries would then not be necessary. Most of these suggestions have been forwarded to the present Minister of Justice, Professor Peiris for his favourable consideration. Vajpayee to accept DMK support? NEW DELHI, September 16: Clearly fed up with his principal ally Jayaram Jayalalitha's unending tantrums and threats, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today indicated that he is prepared to accept support to his six-month-old coalition government from Muthuvel Karunanidhi, her bitter political foe and Tamil Nadu chief minister. Asked at a press conference in Chennai (Madras) this morning if he will accept support from Karunanidhi's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Vajpayee declared: 'We will be very happy to...We will not say no if support is offered to us.' He was in the Tamil Nadu capital to attend a massive rally, organised last night by his ally MDMK to celebrate the 90th birth day of DMK founder CN Annadurai. He has since returned here. This is the first time that a senior leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has publicly announced that the party is not unwilling to accept support from the DMK-an arch rival of Jayalalitha's All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu politics. Ally Jayalalitha is extremely unhappy with the BJP government for many reasons. One of them is that it has not sacked Karunanidhi as chief minister in despite a promise she claims the BJP had made to her. But the BJP denies that it ever made such a promise, and is refusing to dismiss Karunanidhi just because the AIADMK supremo claims that law and order has broken down in the southern state. This promptly sent Jayalalitha into a sulk because it has washed out her dream of recapturing power in Tamil Nadu and becoming its chief minister in a mid-term election that would have inevitably followed Karunanidhi's dismissal. For over three months now, Jayalalitha has been trying to bully Vajpayee by threatening to withdraw support to his government. She has not been able to execute this threat so far because three of her electoral allies have declared that they will not ditch the BJP government even if Jayalalitha does so. These three have eight deputies in parliament's lower house. The other reason is that Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi is refusing to do business with her and form an alternative government by toppling Vajpayee. Speculation Implication However, the prime minister made it clear that no discussions took place so far between the BJP and the DMK in this regard. The DMK has only six members in the Lok Sabha. Their support alone will not save the government if the AIADMK decides to pull the rug from Vajpay's feet. Incidentally, even though Jayalalitha has piped down her criticism of the BJP government in the recent past, she could not resist the temptation of attacking Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani yet again. Speaking at a rally in another city in Tamil Nadu yesterday, she lambasted Advani for forgetting his own pre-election announcement that he would sack Karunanidhi if voted to power. Advani apparently said this in the wake of blasts at an election rally he was to address in Coim-batore. He escaped death because the flight carrying him from Chennai never took off on time, but several innocents were killed in that blast. Jayalalitha chose to be away from Chennai yesterday, clearly to avoid meeting Vajpayee. When a reporter asked the prime minister if he planned to meet Jayalalitha, he bluntly said no. However, he avoided making any harsh comments on her. Reliability? Meanwhile, BJP spokesman Venkaiah Naidu appealed to Jayalalitha to avoid airing 'perceptional differences' in public. Analysts here say Vajpayee's visit to Chennai and his comments on accepting the DMK's support are meant to convey to Jayalalitha that his government's survival does not depend on her goodwill alone, and that the BJP will not hesitate to garner the necessary support from other parties to keep its government going in case she pulls out. From the book 'The Palm of His
Hand' by E.C.T. Candappa
Continued from yesterday The enormous giant of the Clarion had an intricate web of communication systems even then, before computers, faxes, satellites and television. The spine and the other bones and flesh were all one - the telephone. For the two thousand staff there were eleven lines, sixty-three direct connections and six hundred and twenty-two extensions. To monitor all this there were only six female telephone operators and two male night staff working on alternate weekly shifts. They were grossly inadequate to meet the mammoth demand caused by the staff of three morning newspapers, two afternoon papers, three Sunday papers, and about twenty-five weeklies, monthlies, periodicals and annuals. The exchange had to cope with the calls for advertising in all these publications, all the correspondents telephoning news into the news rooms all other enquiries, and all the outgoing calls from the sprawling bureaucratic monster that energised the institution. The internal calls left the exchange untouched, except when transfers had to be made. Of all the noises that were produced in the publication of newspapers, including the roar of the Rotary machines at printing times, perhaps the one that caused in sum the greatest volume in decibels was the sound of about fifty reporters tapping on the cradles of the telephones to attract the attention of the harried telephonists. All calls, save those that went through the sixty-three direct telephones, went through the exchange. The six female operators, often five through absenteeism, had to grapple with over 700 to 800 calls per hour, both incoming and outgoing, and had to be ultra courteous from nine to five regardless of any provocation. The method of contacting the exchange was to lift the receiver and wait for a response from the girl at the exchange. If she did not have any other caller on her line, she would respond: ‘Hello, Exchange,’ or ‘What number, please?’ One chubby number with a velvet voice used to say ‘Hello, Yes?’ If she was busy, of course, she could not talk to two at the same time, so she placed the other call on hold. Some people who were either not too busy or who were courteous, waited. Others, especially reporters fighting deadlines and snarling news editors, tapped on the cradle and tapped incessantly until an operator answered. And then she was subjected to some offensive flippancy or complaint. It must have been a physical and mental torture first to endure that battering on the eardrums unjustly and then be unable to retort or defend oneself. It was open to them to apologise and even then the boors were not satisfied. Of course, the operators knew the worst offenders and they punished them in their own way. When they were fairly certain from which extension the worst offenders called they took a demonic delight in keeping them waiting. For all this torture and for all this superhuman burden the telephone exchange was situated in a suffocatingly tiny room with little ventilation and close to the huge transport section of the organisation from which there emanated without ceasing, the nerve jangling sounds of brakes being tested, of cars being revved up for tuning engines, or the sounds of cars starting or screeching to a halt and to the noxious fumes of carbon monoxide. In contrast on the seven floors above there were the air-conditioned offices of the top management with flowers in vases, the large airy rooms of the editors with flunkeys at the door, and the quite presentable work areas of other staff. Raj never ceased to wonder why these members of the same organisation, the telephone operators, were condemned to work in such miserable conditions. Until it struck him in all clarity. Hardly anyone, and certainly not top management, had ever seen or cared to find out where these people who kept the institution functioning, without whom the place would not move for two minutes, worked. They were the invisible, forgotten people. Raj also never ceased to marvel that it was also this institution which paraded as the conscience of the nation, as the custodian of public morality, as the champions of the underdog (if the name underdog matched the colour of their own political affiliations and private profit). Raj in the very early days of his working there asked one of the women for the location of the exchange and went down to see them. He needed, and needed badly, to match their voices with their faces. He had to make a few trips into the depths to meet them all but in the end it was a comfort to him to be able to visualise the person who helped him to make the connection with the outside world, to make a living, make a name with those who channelled the news to him, who gave him a line, a life-line sometimes to keep in touch. He came in time to know their names, their lives, their joys and sorrows. He was amazed to find that the lady with the voice of an elderly matron was a slim spinster who was ever on the look-out for a friendly fellow to share the future; that the girl with the velvet voice did indeed look a matron and was continually mending wrongs - a very gentle lady who was wooed and won on the wires by a young reporter with one foot on the political ladder, who later wronged her grievously by having very little time for this cuddly, gregarious wife of his. A few years later she gassed herself to death. Raj was particularly friendly with a young lady who belonged to the Burgher community, a community which resulted from the intermarriage of the colonial westerners, the Portuguese and the Dutch, with the natives. Those who resulted from unions with the British were known as Eurasians. All such progeny inherited a light skin and light eyes, and such were the people who were favoured for immigration into Australia under the White Australia policy. This Burgher telephonist was called April for the simple reason that she was born in April. April Jansz had blue eyes and a light complexion with a light sprinkling of what Raj considered becoming freckles on her cheeks and hands. Her face was radiant when she smiled and she had a voice like thick, brown treacle. She had a younger brother, Lindsay, who had already emigrated to Australia. She came from a small family and had one younger brother, and both were smothered with parental affection and concern. It was the dream of all Burghers, then their exclusive dream, to migrate to Australia, the legendary promised land of peace and plenty and great cricket, that bourne from which some travellers returned at Christmas laden with the bounty of the fields: apples and cheeses, cakes and puddings, and a myriad other things not available in Sri Lanka or only to the affluent. And the Burgher community carried the burden of many poor relations. Chapter 22 It did not mean, however, that they did not pine for him or worry themselves nearly sick over him or bruise their knees with praying for his well-being. Raj was often at the listening end to tales of his progress on that foreign strand. Raj never had any difficulty getting telephone calls through the exchange. Every operator knew that he did not tap importunately and annoyingly on the cradle when he needed a line. So whenever he called from his own extension they explained courteously to him that the lines were blocked; then within a couple of minutes gave him his call giving his the highest priority. Miguel always sneered that he had ‘buttered up the girls’ or worse, that he had probably bribed them with sweets. Raj took such banter in the best humour. He always had time to greet the exchange girls, and at the end of the day he had gleaned some information about their concerns. And so it was that some while after Bill had been in Sri Lanka, it occurred to Raj that the Jansz family would be consoled by a visit from one who lived in the same State, Victoria, and as it turned out, in the identical suburb, Malvern. He put the proposition to Bill and he agreed most willingly. It was Bill’s desire to meet as wide a spectrum of Ceylonese society as possible in the year that he planned to stay there. There was just one consideration, although in the circumstances, a minor one. There was a curfew in force form six in the evening until six in the morning. A fairly strict curfew which placed major restrictions on people, especially those travelling some distance to work as they were usually terrified of not being able to get home before the appointed hour. But Raj chose a Saturday afternoon when traffic would be greatly diminished and he arranged an hour’s visit to a suburb just eight kilometres away from the Pettah where Bill lived, and ten from Raj’s home. Bill was not unduly worried about the curfew. In fact, it could not be said that he worried at all. His entire visit to Ceylon was in the nature of an adventure, and what was an adventure if there was no danger at all? He had already savoured a bit of it but danger in the form of sudden confrontations with the military, of the possibility of sudden death, or of incarceration, did not occur to him. Aussies had experienced two wars, but except for the Japanese attacks in Darwin in the northern extremity, war had not touched the land. They had not known food rationing, blackouts, air raid drill and shelters and the attendant fears. Nothing seemed to squelch his cheerful outlook. He now translated ‘No worries,’ into the Sinhalese bohoma hondai, or ‘very good,’ to cover any risky situation. The visit was a resounding success. The host, Mr Jansz, a man in his sixties, tall, with a nearly European complexion, a thinning thatch of grey hair, and a stoop which he had passed on to his daughter, was nearly ecstatic. He had dressed to display affluence. It was a colonial legacy to look up to white people and a social visit by them really elevated their status in the neighbourhood. It was something they brought up in conversations for years to come. He and his wife Gail had prepared a feast for the afternoon tea surpassing the customary Ceylonese hospitality to all guests. The fare was meant to please as well as to impress. Thus it was predominantly western in appearance and taste. If Bill was of a mind to notice such things, he would have favoured some native fare. Tea was served in the pocket-handkerchief lawn outside. The boundary wall was bordered with flowering plants which gave out a mild perfume. There were neatly cut sandwiches, filled with corned beef, cucumber, egg and cheese, three-tiered colourful vegetable sandwiches, fragrant hot pastries filled with salmon and beef, beef fricadels, a good range of cakes, iced drinks if the gentleman preferred it, or exquisitely well brewed tea on a silver service, with a jug of milk and a Jacobean glass container of sugar. In the Ceylonese way of hospitality the guest is coaxed to the point of embarrassment and filled to the bulge of satiety. Bill did not need much coaxing, considering his frugal and even ascetic fare of bread and bananas at the YCW headquarters. Raj enjoyed the spread as well. He also enjoyed being in April’s company and savoured the joy of being able to see her in addition to hearing her velvety voice. While Bill was engaged in animated conversation with April’s parents, Raj drank in the soft, blue eyes and freckles. He felt supremely content. After almost an hour and a half Bill had, to the great satisfaction of the Jansz family, agreed to look up Lindsay on his return to Melbourne and keep a fraternal eye on the lad. He gave a vivid description not only of the suburb but of the Australian urban landscape in general and reassured them that the lad would be quite happy in the land of his hopes. Mr Jansz, who exposed the limits of his gums when he smiled, could not have smiled any broader without dislocating his jaws. Raj reminded them of the need to leave early giving them both sufficient time to get to their abodes before the fall of the curfew. By the time they got a bus and reached the Pettah, where Bill got off, it was a quarter past five, leaving Raj three quarters of an hour to reach his home. They parted in good spirits and Bill immediately looked out of the window, but as it happened, in the wrong direction. If he had looked the other way he would have noticed the dramatic situation that led to the gravest risk to which Bill was exposed moments later. Apparently, just half an hour earlier, (Bill explained to Raj later) a bomb had exploded in a shop a few metres away from the YCW headquarters. High Tension The shop where the bomb had exploded belonged to a Tamil from the North and adjoined a fireworks shop. It was a well-known outlet for locally manufactured firecrackers and other pyrotechnics, and was stocked from basement to roof with the inflammable merchandise. If that caught fire an entire row of shops would have been ablaze. Bill took all this in blandly for a while, then decided he’d better get in to the YCW building before the curfew was imposed. So he stepped out towards that building and in an instant a Naval rating charged at him, bayonet at the ready, and asked him where he was going, in serviceable English. Bill at this stage would have negotiated that enquiry even in Sinhalese. ‘I’m going home,’ he said, grinning. Grinning, apparently, is not something to which Service personnel pointing bayonets take kindly. ‘Where’s that?’ he barked, not quite touching Bill’s person with the point of the bayonet, but coming perilously close to doing so. Bill, still casual, gestured in the general direction of the YCW. The navy man had immediately taken it to signify the Tamil boutique where the explosion had taken place. The next thing Bill knew, he was being jostled at the end of a bayonet to a brick wall along which already a dozen or so quite disreputable characters of the Pettah had been lined up, with their hands behind their heads. Bill, needless to say, provided a striking contrast with his ruddy complexion, bright yellow shirt, white slacks and short spiky red hair standing on end, not through fright but the way he cut it. And there he stood for what seemed a long time wondering vaguely what would happen next. By now he was a bit apprehensive and the difficulty of not being able to communicate in the local tongue was significant. While he waited the light failed rapidly and dusk began to darken the scene. If what happened next had not occurred in the next few minutes the story might have taken a different and more unpleasant turn. The Commander of the Navy himself, Rear Admiral Royce de Mel, a truly commanding figure and a magnificent specimen of naval brass happened to be passing by. Undoubtedly his attention was drawn to the evident incongruity. He might have missed it a few minutes later when it was dark. He ordered his chauffeur to halt the car. Foreigners and tourists, he knew, could cause complications if they were involved in local events. Rifle butts clattered to the ground and feet clicked and arms flew in salute as he entered the scene. He walked straight up to the foreigner and tapped him on the shoulder. Within minutes the explanations were offered, and accepted. The rear admiral was a prominent Catholic and had a brother as a popular priest and other highly influential ecclesiastical connections. He certainly did not want a guest of the Church maltreated by his men. He summoned a naval rating and ordered him to lead the highly relieved Bill to his own quarters. ‘There was I,’ Bill said grinning, ‘one moment frog-marched and placed against a wall, waiting to be shot, and the next moment led ceremoniously by a naval escort to my abode. Oh, what an experience. I wrote a long letter to my brother that evening. Oh, that was something to write home about, I can tell you.’ * Hoppers, a term derived from the Sinhala aapper, no relative of the jumping species! Continued tomorrow |
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