There was no intrusion by the guests on the fish-fry. Perhaps Fergus would have tried it, the way he seemed to be yearning towards the kitchen while, with the house redolent of that sweet savour to the Lord, the guests were gathered with their host in the lounge as the ritual was reaching its climax. Indeed, he suggested, with a show of flippancy, that he should do so as a sort of crusade. This was the result of General Esk’s telling the company that story, heard by himself in Palestine, of the angelic instruction behind the fish-fry and the secrecy surrounding it. Fergus said that, apart from the glorious smell, his scruples as a Christian demanded that he investigate. Esk said, ‘I wouldn’t advise it, young man. Your crusade would only end in Christian martyrdom. In her kitchen, a Jewess is a veritable lioness. Isn’t that so, Dr Hoff . . . and Jeremy?’
Rifkah presented herself to the guests for the first time just before the meal, looking so lovely as to cause Fergus’s face to twitch and the General to murmur softly, ‘By George!’ Her natural beauty was probably heightened by the fact of the achievement just wrought in cooking and table-setting and the challenge she now faced to preserve her dignity in that achievement. Dressed in a pretty dirndl and carrying a great tray laden with bits of those canned kosher delicacies to be eaten as hors d’oeuvres, as the men rose, she smiled, saying, ‘I vill not be stayingk. I vill greet you in ze dining-room in proper vay. Anyvay, ve haf already met today . . . yes?’
Only Fergus sniggered, and stopped as soon as the great hazel eyes met his calmly. Smiling, she turned and left them.
The General declared, ‘What a stunner she is . . . and poise, poise!’
Fergus, addressing those nearest him, Denzil and Malters, speaking under his breath and in mock Jewish accent, said, ‘Poy’s . . . vot’s he mean poy’s? Dat loffly vobbly bum ain’t like a poy’s!’
Denzil giggled; but Malters frowned.
Prindy, out looking for the Two Stars, found them, came racing in. The triangle sounded. The guests, and those who had surrendered hostship for the occasion, on going to the dining-room, found him waiting with the temporary hostess to enjoy the dramatic moment with her. With arm about her as she about him, in the golden candlelight looking, as Sir Mark Esk, momentarily halted with the others by the impact, whispered to Jeremy, ‘Biblical . . . the Boy David . . . Esther the Queen!’
The meal, with its bit of ritual so nicely performed by Kurt and the incomparable dishes, went perfectly. Esk remarked, amongst much in praise of it all, ‘There’s no institution to compare with Oneg Shabbat in the simple grace that I believe is the proper expression of man’s compromise between body and soul. I’ve had the honour of partaking of it in divers places, from the camel-hide tents of the Gypsy-Jews of the Russian Steppes, to palaces of multi-millionaires . . . and no matter the difference in fare or service, the same simple beauty was always there.’ He raised his glass, glancing from Rifkah to Kurt: ‘For this great michayeh, toda rabbah!’
Sir Mark was included in the ritual walk that night, with a new Moon to light the way, on account of which he with Rifkah recited a little prayer in Hebrew. Esk translated for Jeremy’s benefit: ‘“The beginning of the month hast thou given unto thy people as a season of expiation for all their generation”. It really means that they’ve adapted the new Moon as substitute for the old burnt offering that expiates sin . . . clever . . . and very beautiful, don’t you think, dear boy?’
Jeremy was delighted. Judaism remained so close to nature, he said, while those who practised it could rise to such heights of human intelligence. Eagerly he told of his discovery, through Rifkah, of the likeness between Jew and Aborigine in refusal to abandon their satisfying oneness with Creation, even under persecution by those who having lost it lived by lies. Esk was very interested, obviously more in Jeremy’s new enthusiasm than in the theme. They talked it all the way.
The same theme dominated the talk in the lounge afterwards, with the word Ethos now flying about like a Seraph or a Maiormu, conjured up by those doctors of the science of man, St Clair and Cootes. The Professor, a gentle, rather nervous type of man, tall and thin and bony-headed, showed great interest in Jeremy’s new theory. Not the Coot, however, who kept on declaring that it was dangerous to liken such diverse ethnic groups. Fergus wanted to know what the danger was; but there was something sly about his question, as if he were trying to catch Cootes on some point; and doubtless the learnt gentleman had been caught by this angler after laughs too often to be drawn.
Fergus had the last word on the subject as he and the other newcomers were making their way round the upstairs verandah on the way to their rooms: ‘D’you know, fellers . . . we’re going to be lucky to get out of this place with our foreskins.’
It was received in gentlemanly silence by all except Denzil Dickey, who uttering a squeak of suppressed mirth, rushed into his room, where by the sound of it he had a fit of hysterics under a blanket. A little later it sounded as if the Coot who shared with Denzil, was similarly affected. Fergus then said to his roommate, Maltravers, their room being next the other, ‘That pair of poofters must be trying to wear out each other’s foreskins before they lose ’em . . . what d’you think, old top?’
Malters’s reply was a sniff of disapproval. Fergus chuckled as he settled down.
As a matter of fact that second outburst of mirth next door was due to Fabian Cootes’s taking up the joke, although not in the spirit of sheer indecency in which it had been begun, as was hardly likely in such a man, whose even being jocular must be of rare occurrence. When Denzil had recovered from Fergus’s bit, the Coot, or Fabers as Denzil was calling him, murmured that it would have been a good joke to have asked ‘Old DL’ (by whom presumably, he meant Jeremy) whether he thought the fact that Jews and local Aborigines practised ritual circumcision did not suggest an historic link: say Moses had brought the Children of Israel this way, and these were one of the Lost Tribes, or this was the truly Promised Land and the mooted Refugee Settlement the final rehabilitation of the Chosen. Fabers himself was so tickled over it that he had to muffle his mirth in a blanket. Perhaps it was really that which set Denzil off again.
Anyway, when Fabers recovered himself he was the man of science again, warning Denzil against being taken in by what he called Jeremy’s amateurish balderdash: ‘The old goat’s had a couple of theories about how to deal with the Aboriginal question in the short time I’ve known him. This Jew thing’s the result of his falling for the pretty Jew-girl. I only hope the Professor doesn’t take him too seriously. That would ruin everything. There’s the political side to consider first, if we’re to get control. You stick to the books I’ve recommended you, my boy. You can’t go wrong with qualified opinion before you.’
They went on talking quietly for some time, thereby revealing the fact that lately they had become quite pally, and for no such improper purpose as the bawdy Fergus had hinted at, but out of mutual interest in each other’s callings. The subject first was anthropology, but soon became militaristic. Denzil said that his interest in anthropology didn’t mean that he disliked being a soldier: ‘Bred in me, I dare say, from generations of it. But I’d like to be something better than the . . . well, sort of political policeman you are in between wars. Our next war’s sure to be with the Japs. That’ll throw us in with a lot of strange primitive types. I’d like to be able to deal with ’em . . . well, like Lawrence with the Arabs . . . like to go into the military history books as Dickey of the Dacoits, or somethin’ like that . . . eeeeeee! Sure to finish up as top brass . . . family failin’. Just like to be somethin’ better than a Blimp . . . which is really what old Whiskers Eskers is, for all the suavity . . . if you understand what I mean . . .’
Fabers said he understood quite well, and sighed over Denzil’s certainty of eventual generalship, saying that we in our dowdy colonial society had no such system where breeding counted — except in literal terms of peasantry, which after all was the true basis of our bastard society. Brawn was put before breeding and brains in everything. Certain
ly that was so in the selection of soldiers — real career soldiers, that is — as he himself knew only too well, confessing that a military career had been his primary ambition, that in youth he had sat for the competitive examination whereby entrance to the National Military College was achieved — had passed with honours, yet been turned down because he was short of the regulation height. He concluded bitterly, ‘Napoleon also would have been turned down on that score.’
A moment. Then Denzil breathed, evidently with some excitement, ‘By golly, don’t y’know, old boy . . . you’re the spittin’ image of old Nap.’
‘You think so?’
‘Why . . . you’ve even got a way of puttin’ your hand in your shirt when you’re holdin’ forth . . . er, talking, I mean.’
Fabers confessed that he rather thought he resembled Napoleon, and not merely in appearance. He said his grandmother, who doted on him, had harped on this resemblance in his boyhood and bought him several Lives of Bonaparte as presents, which he had read and re-read avidly. He added that of course it was the thing to belittle this Greatest Soldier of History, to sneer at him as a lousy little Dago adventurer. They had to belittle him because his true stature made them all look so puny. ‘Anyway,’ he muttered in the darkness, ‘what’s wrong with being an adventurer? Shouldn’t life be an adventure? That’s what I make of mine. Denied the military career, I took to anthropology because it would give me the chance to go into unknown places . . . not just as a roughneck, but as a scholar as well . . . because I’m that, too . . . and so was Napoleon . . . and Julius Caesar. The adventures I’ve had, man . . . in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, in parts here where no other whiteman has been . . . rubbing shoulders with naked primitive savages, crossing crocodile-infested rivers, finding poison snakes in my bed, and . . . and . . . well, things like that. But I’d rather have been a soldier . . . and a scholar in military science . . . and, as I’ve said, the opportunity may be just around the corner. War with the Japs. They don’t worry about your height in wartime . . . and with your General’s backing, my knowledge of this country, New Guinea, and the rest . . . and what I’m learning from you . . . man, oh, man, I might yet stand beside you as a general!’ He ended breathlessly.
Denzil’s comment was a soft, ‘By jove, old boy . . . as these Australians say, “there’s no doubt about you!”’
Doughty fellow though Cootes claimed to be, and to some degree proved by his tenacity of purpose, he was no sort of horseman. Now, this was something that the time, the place, and the circumstances demanded he must be, since not only was the horseback expedition into the wilderness his idea, but he its self-appointed leader. There’s nothing in history to say that Napoleon Bonaparte was an outstanding horseman; but at least he could sit a horse. The revelation of this lack of Fabers’s was made even brutally next morning, when pretty well the entire male company of Lily Lagoons gathered at the horse-yard for selection of those animals which were to be hired for the expedition. He did say to Jeremy that he would like a quiet horse to start with, not having ridden for quite a while. Jeremy replied that they were all quiet. It was, of course, the statement of a skilled horseman. Anyone knowing horses, as, for instance, Professor St Clair showed he did, would know that what is called a quiet horse by an expert is one that can be expected to behave with tractability when handled properly. The Professor, a natural horseman by his build, and somewhat experienced, having been brought up on a farm as he said, but confessing to being long out of touch with horses, went round the mob, talking to this animal and that, letting them sniff him, patting and stroking, evidently waiting for a horse to choose him rather, and came out leading a rangy aging grey, Smoky. Jeremy said that the horse, despite his age, was a good stayer, and should do the trip nicely.
But big horses for big men, as they say. Fabers chose the biggest of the lot, Big Ben, a heavy-shouldered dark bay. Ben accepted docilely enough. What happened wasn’t his fault. On being given his saddle at the harness-shed, Fabers had shown his knowledgeability by promptly measuring the stirrup-leathers with his arm, and adjusting them to suit his short legs. A wise thing to do if you know what you’re doing. As it was, he made getting into the saddle on so big a horse as Ben by so small a man as himself a job for one of those mounting-blocks they use in riding-schools. With a foot in the high stirrup, straining to heave up his tubby bulk, he pulled hard on the near-side rein, causing the horse to wheel, so that he had to hop round with him, in the process losing a natty concertina-topped riding boot and his balance and sat down heavily in the dungy dust in his nice white riding moleskins. Only Fergus laughed. A look from Jeremy stopped Prindy.
Malters and Denzil picked up the red-faced hero, brushed him clean, while Jeremy went after Big Ben and brought him back. It was the sort of thing that could have happened to anyone not accustomed to horses. But Ben knew better than that. Deciding that his would-be master was a mungus and most likely to become only a burden to carry, not what a rider should be to a horse, someone to add to his purpose in life, he refused to let Fabers touch him again, snorted, blew, reared. Jeremy saw the symptons and suggested another mount. The Coot agreed with alacrity. Jeremy brought him Black Andy, a much smaller beast, and very amiable the way he stood for the saddling and mounting. In fact Andy just stood. The Coot thumped him with his heels, so hard that Andy obeyed with alacrity, so much that he jerked his clumsy rider into the attitude known as ‘Jockeying’, which means with heels dug in and body leaning forward. Poor Andy, trained to instant response to changes of his rider’s attitudes, would think he was being urged to gallop, which he did from almost a standing start. But there was nowhere to gallop. The gate was shut. Not getting any direction, Andy propped to avoid collision with the gate. Fabers went over his right shoulder, sprawling face down in the dust. Perhaps the most brutal thing about it all was the way Black Andy bent over him, as if out of curiosity, and sniffed his fat behind. There was a general ripple of giggling. Fergus and Prindy had to run away to explode their greater mirth.
Jeremy came to the rescue this time. Obviously the poor pompous fellow had ridden nothing better than jaded livery-stable hacks. But Jeremy didn’t say so. He said that seeing Cootes hadn’t ridden in a while, he’d better get his seat back with a bit of practice riding on a beast they kept specially for that; and he sent a blackboy for Bay Rum Betsy.
After the way the Coot looked at Betsy, as the first Napoleon must have looked at that nag he is eternally riding in the famous painting, Retreat From Moscow, and Betsy’s nasty look at him, it said much for the man that he duly mounted her and suffered himself to be led away by him he called privily Old Goat and Old DL, and despised as that lowest of all orders to a qualified Anthrop, a dabbler in the science without benefit of cap and gown. Jeremy took them away to the race track, and not knowing anything about those private opinions of the miserable-looking little fat man, did not stay to humiliate him, but telling him to take it nice and easy for a while, departed. Later Jeremy sent Prindy over on Golden Bobby to stir old Betsy up to better effort than she was making and tactfully to show the poor fellow a point or two. Soon after that, Betsy was trotting.
Again it said much for the man’s character that he stuck to the trotting, round and round and round the race track, until Jeremy came out in the utility to bring him in to lunch; and when he dismounted stiffly it was to be seen that the seat of his white pants was blood-stained. Jeremy could not have missed seeing, but said nothing. So obvious was it that when Fabers came through the lounge, stiff-gaited and with gaze averted from the others gathered there for a pre-lunch beer, himself heading upstairs, Fergus remarked behind a hand, ‘Looks like it brought on her monthlies.’ Denzil, taken with hysterics again, but checked by a sharp glance from the General, rushed outside.
Hobbling back downstairs, wearing different pants, Cootes held his head high, declared that he was going to have another go this afternoon; although he declined the hard-bottomed chair offered by Fergus, and took his beer standing. In the dining-room he found a d
own cushion on his chair. Still he talked bravely of the expedition, which definitely would be setting out on Tuesday according to schedule. He surely must have messed up his schedule as well as his backside with his bravado, if not saved from it by the tact of Jeremy. When Fergus asked Rifkah to come for a flight with him sometime, and she replied that she would if the children of the place could come along too, and he agreed, Jeremy said, ‘Why not make it this afternoon? All you fresh horsemen need to take it easy the first day . . . and the horses’re sure to play up with the aeroplane flying about. Then you can have uninterrupted training afterwards . . . eh?’ Instead of looking the gratitude he ought to have felt, Fabers actually pouted. Later on, Jeremy as tactfully induced him to come over to the clinic and have a dressing put on his fat, hairy, blistered and excoriated fundament: Sulphanilamide overlarded with the patent ointment and a thick pad of cotton wool. Still Fabers showed no gratitude. Perhaps it was simply shyness. Neither he nor his physician, himself face down on the clinic table, the other concentrated on the vast gluteal blush, realised that they had been peeped at. The peepers, through a slit of louvre, were Fergus and Prindy, in the process of getting the utility truck out, while Rifkah had gone on to muster the crew for the flight. They had to bolt so as not to betray themselves with their mirth.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 128
