The Terminators - Berkely Mather

Eleven years after his first appearance in The Pass Beyond Kashmir Idwal Rees is teamed up once more with his bloodthirsty and belligerent Pathan cohort Samaraz in a tale of espionage and derring-do that only Berkely Mather could have written. This time the duo face a band of marauding Tibetan nomads while on the hunt for a missing spy. Oddly enough that spy turns out to be Mather's second series character -- James Wainwright, a hapless and insecure British agent who appeared solo in two previous books by Mather.

The Terminators (1971) begins with a hijacking sequence that is eerily resonant in its detail of airport security systems. I remember the skyjacking paranoia of the 1970s that was largely responsible for the installation of metal detectors throughout the airports of the world but the way the hijackers manage to sneak weapons on board in this novel will be all too familiar to any modern traveller. Once again Mather creates some eyebrow raising scenes that predict criminal behavior yet to come in the real world. The hijacking plants the seed for the hair rising climax that takes place in the final third of the book. Once the prologue is done the story focuses on Rees and Samaraz and their assignments for a covert British secret service agency known as "the Firm".

And for those who are familiar with Rees in his first outing The Terminators will seem like a regular homecoming of characters. In the first recounted escapade of many engaging action scenes the corrupt Indian police office Nadkarni and his Sikh colleague appear briefly only to fall victim to a brutal attack. When Rees receives his assignment to track down Wainwright he learns he will have to travel to the home of the blind General Culverton, father to his old flame Claire, a nurse at the Tibetan refugee hospital. He will also learn that Wainwright and Claire have struck up a relationship that will serve as fuel for a rivalry between the two men. This portion of the book -- a long bickering/arguing sequence -- is the only time where my interest in the story flagged. I could have done without Wainwright's petulance, the juvenile name calling, and his "I'm such a loser" attitude as well. He does, however, step up to the plate in a final heroic act in which he proves himself to be not as self-serving as he at first painted himself.

Mather's unusual sense of humor comes into play throughout the book. We get a variety of awful insults, some translated literally and some left to our imagination, from the foul-mouthed and ill-tempered bigot Samaraz. The humor is a mix of the salty, the vulgar and the oddball. Here are two of my favorites:

...he had about as much chance of pinching my woman as he had of shoving butter up a wildcat's arse with a red hat pin.

What I know about radio, plus a nickel, wouldn't buy the ghost of Gandhi a haircut.

Best not to reveal all the excellent adventure delivered at the hands of this master storyteller. Mather really should have turned to the movie screen more often in his writing career. This book as the other two I have previously reviewed here is both a cinematic wonder of action, an Asian travelogue and a crash course in Indian/Tibetan/Pakistani relations and politics. If you haven't discovered Berkely Mather yet -- what are you waiting for?

The Terminators is now available as part of the library of Top Notch Thrillers, that fine imprint from Ostara Publishing. You can order direct from them (click on the link) or amazon.com (both US and UK versions). Do yourself a favor and introduce yourself to Idwal and crew soon. You won't be disappointed.

Previously discussed on this blog:
The Pass Beyond Kashmir (also available from Top Notch Thrillers)
The Gold of Malabar

FFB: The Gold of Malabar - Berkely Mather

Prison escape! Hidden treasure! A secret map! Villains in pursuit!

Sound like some kind of Indiana Jones movie?  You'd not be far off. These are the plot elements of Berkely Mather's third ripping yarn, The Gold of Malabar (1967), once again set in India but this time dealing with a legendary lost treasure of gold ingots dating back to 1941 in the days of Japanese occupation in the East Indies.

While serving time in a prison in Goa Mike O'Reilly strikes up an acquaintance with a dying old Dutch prisoner named Rokkjer. He entrusts to O'Reilly a gold medal and tells him to take it to a Buddhist monk named Nu Pau in Bombay. He is convinced that O'Reilly will be able to escape and get this done.  when he meets the monk he is to tell him, "Rokkjer said to keep faith." He makes O'Reilly swear to do this and just as he is about to die manages to get out the following cryptic last words: "Pythagoras, northeast, and the word is try, try, try..."  Rokkjer's body is buried in the cemetery conveniently located just outside the prison walls near an even more convenient cliff.  O'Reilly is on burial duty.  Guess who manages to dig a grave, bury the corpse and take flight by bravely and stupidly  jumping off the cliff in the ocean?  O'Reilly survives the jump, a barrage of bullets, and near drowning. Luckily he is rescued by some peasant fisherman and the boat he ends up in just happens to be headed for Bombay.  His luck is soon to run out though his adventure leds him into a treacherous world of greedy looters all looking for the map that will lead to the hidden cache of gold

UK 1st edition ( Collins, 1967)

Once again Mather provides a medley of eccentric outsiders and crooks. Among O'Reilly's allies are Claudette, a lovely brothel madame and Anne Haytor, a sharp witted nurse, and a variety of fishermen, tradesmen and beggars. O'Reilly accidentally becomes a sort of male incarnation of Blanche DuBois as he comes to depend on the many kindnesses from strangers. As for the numerous villains there is a duplicitous ex-pat British colonel, a corrupt Indian police inspector, and a sinister Arab and his gang of goons who subject our hero to a gruesome torture sequence. Above all there is the brilliant character of Nu Pau, the defrocked Buddhist monk who holds the key to location of the map, and has more than a few secrets of his own. The oddball pairing of O'Reilly and Nu Pau make this adventure thriller at times seem like one of those unevenly matched "buddy pictures." They work marvelously well together -- both as adversaries and collaborators.

O'Reilly at first seems like he wants the partnership but the danger escalates and he risks his life multiple times, endures horrible injuries, and is finally burdened with a mortally wounded Nu Pau. He begins to think all would be easier if he dumped Nu Pau in a village and went for the treasure by himself. The story takes on the essence of Traven's Treasure of the Sierra Madre as everyone seems to want the all the gold for himself. Will O'Reilly get his hands on the gold? Or will his conscience get the better of him?  The ending is something of a surprise and was more than satisfying.

Entertaining, educational (more insight into Indian history and culture) and enlivening The Gold of Malabar is one of the best real adventure novels from the late 1960s.  I enthusiastically recommend this one to all devotees of the rousing ripping yarn.

Previously reviewed on this blog The Pass Beyond the Kashmir also by Berkely Mather.

The Pass Beyond Kashmir - Berkely Mather

The P.R. materials I received with my copy of the recent reprint of The Pass Beyond the Kashmir (1960) call it a "ripping yarn." While that is a perfect marketing catchphrase it is something of a disservice to this remarkable novel by John Weston-Davies, former military man who served in both Australia and India. Writing as "Berkely Mather" Weston-Davies created three series characters Peter Feltham, British spy Jack Wainwright, and Idwal Rees who debuts in this book. Amazingly, this action packed story is Mather's second novel. It's a masterfully balanced story that blends literate prose, spirited characters, cultural insights and suspenseful action. So impressively done The Pass Beyond the Kashmir is practically a textbook on how to write the perfect adventure page-turner.

The story takes our hero Idwal Rees through a rugged adventure marked by multiple pursuits, captures and escapes as he and an Australian opportunist named Smedley try to make their way from Bombay to Kashmir. There they plan to meet George Polson, a retired British major, who will lead them to the location of documents that may reveal the source of a hidden oil reserve. Aided by Rees' servant Samaraz, a strong-willed Pathan, the two men get off to a bad start when the major vanishes from his home where his wife has been brutally attacked. The local police begin to show an interest in the major's disappearance and based on the probing questions Rees suspects that it may have something to do with the documents. As the three continue eluding and escaping a variety of villains it is clear everyone wants the major and/or the documents. At one point Rees quotes an Indian proverb which aptly sums up the seemingly endless chases: "The Indian night is blind for the watched, but has a thousand eyes for the watcher."

Over the course of these densely packed 190 pages the reader will also be tutored in all things Indian and Asian. Mather is especially adept at interspersing into the action a series of lessons in everything from the Indian caste system to the making of Tibetan butter tea. Below are a few more of the numerous tidbits picked up:

• In India it is not the Express train that will get you to your destination the fastest, it is the Mail train. The express is actually a local.
• Speakers of Urdu cannot pronounce an initial S sound with first adding an additional vowel sound. Therefore, Smedley becomes Ish-medley.
• Only Muslims who have made the arduous journey to Mecca and paid their respects to Mohammed there have earned the right to wear a green turban.  (this may not be so true now apparently)
• A Pathan is an upper caste Muslim. In the story Samaraz is a particularly intolerant, in fact intensely hateful, of anyone not of his caste.
• You apparently cannot do anything in India without the help of baksheesh. Rees and friends are lucky to have the wads of rupees with them as they are constantly passing out money to everyone they meet.

The characters are alive and human and so unexpected in how they behave. Along the way Rees will meet a mysterious Sikh of unknown allegiance; Yev Shalom, "seller and buyer of anything" especially information, who is eerily omniscient in how he obtains that information; a tenacious and very clever British nurse who sees through one of the many disguises Rees and Smedley must adopt; a blind brigadier general who helps guide them to Kashmir; and the requisite master criminal who will turn out to have a surprisingly close connection to Rees. These and several others make for a even more entertaining "ripping yarn."

Humor is also abundant amidst the more serious aspects of the story's violence and politics. Smedley becomes the object of Rees' anger several times and Rees deals with his frustrations and sublimated rage when he chooses to give Smedley a variety of humiliating disguises. He at first shaves his hair and eyebrows, uses shoe polish to darken his skin, and passes him off as a lower caste servant. Pathan insults Smedley further by saying he looks like a dung seller. Later, Smedley is forced to wear a burkah and pretend to be a woman. When he takes advantage of this disguise by attempting to board one of the women only passenger cars on a train all hell breaks loose. It seems his physique and gait give him away immediately.

The Pass Beyond Kashmir is one of the many reissued adventure thrillers released by Top Notch Thrillers, that fine imprint of Ostara Publishing. Mike Ripley, editor of the series, has once again uncovered a whopper of a tale, an exciting page turner to rival anything published today. In fact, I prefer something like this book over the padded doorstop tomes we have nowadays. Mather's story not only has the ring of truth and authenticity thanks to his many years of living in India he tells his tale with hardly one diversion into the Land of Backstory and limits himself with psychological character explanations. As I mentioned before this book is a wonderful primer on how to write a thriller, how first and foremost in this genre it is how action can reveal character better than long drawn out explanations of past life experience. An adventure tale more than any other genre should have immediacy and should take place first and foremost in the present. The Pass Beyond Kashmir is as immediate as they come.

The Espionage and Adventure Novels of Berkely Mather

Idwal Rees and Samaraz appear in:

Berkely Mather as he appears on
the DJ of one of his early books

The Pass Beyond Kashmir (1960)
The Terminators (1971)
Snowline (1973)

Jack Wainwright, British spy appears in:
The Springers (1968) aka A Spy for a Spy
The Break in the Line (1970) aka The Break
The Terminators (1971)

Peter Feltham appears in:
The Achilles Affair (1959)
With Extreme Prejudice (1975)

Non-Series Thrillers
Geth Straker (1962) (based on radio scripts of an adventure serial)
The Gold of Malabar (1967)
The White Dacoit (1974)

Mather has also written historical fiction, TV scripts and was the screenwriter for Dr. No and The Long Ships, an unintentionally campy sword and sandal feature about Vikings and Moors in search of a legendary golden bell.  I may write up a review of that movie which he co-wrote with Beverley Cross.