The Empty House (2013)
“Peter sat on an upturned crate inside the door. Dr. Bishwas perched himself on the edge of the half-floor above him and sat there enthroned and grave, like a teacher preparing to discourse to his disciple.
“I assumed,” he said, “from the length of time you were together this morning, that Colonel Hollingum told you very little.”
“He spent most of the time giving me a number of reasons why he could tell me nothing.”
“He is a good man by his own lights, although his lights are not mine. He sometimes seems to me”—Peter could tell that Dr. Bishwas was smiling in the darkness—”like a master who has been left in charge of a class of children who are cleverer than he is. He wields the physical power, but knows that mentally his charges are beyond him. He is a simple soldier. In so far as he understands what is going on, he disapproves of it, or so I think. But a soldier does what he is told. That is a comfort to him. Also, perhaps, he can persuade himself that what he is doing is not aggressive.
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