Esk looked again at Rifkah, but only to see her flushed profile, swaying to the steady ambling of Red Rory. Her eyes were fixed on distance. About the corners was a hint of those lines that could deepen to give her that look of age. He went on: ‘The nearest to perfection most men can get in a love object is in the form of a daughter. But naturally, that’s a very imperfect thing, since it smacks of incest, no matter how innocent. The matter of having scruples about incest is the essential difference between a man and an ape. For perfection, the daughter-object must be unrelated to you. Your proper father was taken from you even before the Nazis murdered him. Your mother, the Shickseh, took him. Your true mother was your Bubbeh, according to what I’ve learnt of your history. You’ve found your true father in Jeremy . . . and he, who never fathered a daughter in the ordinary way, has found his beloved daughter in you.’
When he fell silent, she turned to him, her face still flushed, eyes brilliant, but a certain hardness, shrewdness, to her expression, which he saw and chuckled over. ‘Excuse me for saying it . . . but you look very Jewish, but in a very different way . . . that marvellous prescient way of the Jew sensing trouble with the Goyim.’
She swallowed. ‘You intend to mek trouble for me?’
‘No my dear . . . Why should I?’
‘Vy zen you spik of Jeremy and myself zat vay?’
‘I presumed you wouldn’t be conscious of the implications, and thought you’d be better off for being so.’
There was something of a challenge in the hazel eyes now. ‘So?’
He looked ahead again as he spoke: ‘I presume you know all about my wanting Jeremy to take military command of this region?’ When she didn’t answer, he went on: ‘You’ve heard me talking of the threat to the British Commonwealth and Empire by the Japanese, especially to this part of it. I assure you it’s anything but idle talk. But whether or not you believe it, the patent fact remains that because I do, before long this country’s going to be garrisoned to a degree that’s certain to interfere with those Aboriginal tribes still living in the condition Jeremy wants them kept till it suits them to live otherwise. For the life of me, I can’t see why Jeremy refuses the command I offer him, when the very chance of doing what he wants for the people depends on just that.’
She said shortly, ‘He hate militarism.’
‘I presume you mean military activity for its own sake. Don’t we all, who have any intelligence? I admit I inherited and developed a military career . . . but I remain a soldier only to combat militarism. Armed aggression can be met only with armed defence.’
‘Jeremy believe zat as ze first purpose of any military business is destroy life and endeavour . . . alvays moost it be negative zing.’
Esk sighed: ‘Let’s forget military business as such for the moment, and concentrate on the practical issue I mentioned before. Someone’s going to be given military command of this region. Can’t you see, my dear, that without Jeremy’s co-operation with me in the matter, his cause is lost before it’s embarked on? Even eventual defeat of what he wants to do to make tribal country absolutely inviolate won’t matter so long as he’s able to do enough to bring home to the Australian Nation the true sense of responsibility they must have for these people they’ve dispossessed, without which it will never be much better than the convict settlement it began as. That’s really what his cause is. Well, it’s bound to be defeated, unless he faces this reality.’
When he stopped, she looked again with that seeming challenge. ‘So?’
He drew a deep breath: ‘I’m expecting you to induce him to co-operate with me.’
For a moment she stared, then swung away, to say breathlessly, ‘Zat, I cannot do.’
‘Why not?’
‘You moost know him vell enough to know he vill do only vot he decide himself.’
‘But because he loves you he’ll at least listen to you . . . and see the unescapable logic of what I’m sure I’ve convinced you.’
‘Because I loff him I cannot ask.’
‘Even if you know it will destroy the basis of your love?’
‘Vot is zis?’
‘You love him for his strength and purpose. If he loses hope in his cause he’ll become just an old man, defeated. He’s too honest to cling to your young love to keep him alive.’
She swallowed again. ‘He is best judge of vot vill defeat him. Vot he zink now is zat you are trying to defeat him, in clever English vay.’
Again Esk sighed. ‘I know. That’s the trouble. I’ve told you of his hatreds. One of them is of everything English.’
‘He likes you as Englishman.’
‘Personally . . . but not what I stand for.’
‘Might-be he is right.’
‘He’s wrong. He’s half aware he’s wrong. He was listening to me till you came along. At least he listened and argued then. Now he’s merely polite, waiting for me to give up. I can’t give up. My cause is the peace of the world, which I’m convinced can be kept only by the strength and growth of the British Commonwealth, the Pax Britannica. We have a ruthless, efficient, treacherous enemy rising to challenge us. The time for action is now. Dear lady . . . I’m not merely asking for your help in what, I do assure you on my honour, is deadly peril to us both . . . I’m begging you.’
When, with eyes on the distance, she didn’t respond, he added, now in a different tone, almost a whip-lash of military command: ‘Madam . . . I’m fairly desperate. If you won’t help me, I shall be moved to use even drastic means to prevent you from hindering me.’
She looked at him swiftly. Their eyes clung for an intense moment, hazel jewels to faded blue, both haggard at the corners now. She swallowed, turned away, paling. He spoke again, more gently, but still with that timbre of authority: ‘Your Jewish Refugee Settlement will ultimately depend on my approval. If that doesn’t move you, then consider your own position. You can’t yet have qualified for British Citizenship . . .’ He broke off when that old bubbeh’s look was cast at him. As it was turning away again, he almost gasped, ‘Dear gal . . . forgive me . . . but I am truly desperate . . . Rifkah, maydle!’
But she had dug her heels into Red Rory’s flanks, flung herself forward on his gold and blue flecked mane. Rory shot away as on his best race days.
Fergus, riding Black Cloud with Jeremy on Elektron, next in the line and doubtless with eyes constantly on the slender form ahead, cried suddenly, ‘That horse’s bolting!’ On the instant he was in the jockey’s crouch and putting his mount in pursuit. The mounts of the self-appointed leader and his aide, already roused by Red Rory’s thunderous passing, also leapt into it. Fabers sat Big Ben for a dozen or so yards, flopping wildly, then fell off, almost under the flailing hoofs of Elektron.
It was a fair test for the prowess of Rory and the Cloud, the first always the slow starter but magnificent finisher, the second the one to overhaul the field and lead till the strain set in. The winning post was the first gate, gleaming so white and solid, six feel of steel piping and mesh, or the six-foot netting fence, either of which Rory would surely have the horse-sense to swing away from. But you never know what a bolting horse will do. He might go over the gate. But whatever he did at that stride, his inexperienced rider, plainly out of control, clinging with hands and heels, must come to grief. It looked as if Rory was going to take the gate, the way he lifted his big head to sight it at barely thirty feet. That was when he became aware of the Cloud coming up on him, rolled an eye. Fergus, initiate in the fine art of what is called Interference in horseracing, somehow got Black Cloud’s shoulder against Red Rory’s flank and turned him to the left, so close to the fence that the wire rang, at the same time getting a grip on Rifkah’s arm that saved her from going overboard, while shouting, ‘Feet forward . . . head back!’
Rory eased up. Fergus grabbed the lost reins and stopped him dead. Rifkah, yellow-faced and shaking, looked at him. He gave her the split-lipped grin. ‘Why don’t you listen to papa? Feet back and head forward only when you’re racing. Otherwise
dead erect or leaning back. Don’t blame the poor old horse. Better get off for a minute, eh?’
He dismounted and helped her, trembling, down, taking full advantage of the situation to embrace her cloosely. He asked, ‘What happened? The old boy put the hard word on you? I thought he was more for the boys.’
But there were the others crowding up, at least those who hadn’t fallen off in the excitement. A babble of sympathetic inquiry, most sympathetic of all the General, patting her hand, murmuring, ‘Dear gal . . . dear gal . . . you’re all right?’
When she was smiling again, if somewhat weakly, Fergus said, ‘You know what they do with ’prentice jockeys who have a buster and haven’t busted anything . . . and young pilots, too? They put ’em right up back again, so’s they don’t lose their nerve. Come on, sweetheart . . . up you go. You and me’s going to have a burn round the race track.’ He pushed her up into the saddle again.
Still following his advantage, Fergus, while walking her home after leaving the horses at the yard, asked again if he might have her alone on the evening walk, stressing the facts, when she refused, that this was his last night with her for some time, that he had something terrifically privately important to discuss with her, that, well, hadn’t he saved her life or something? But to no avail. She even wouldn’t tarry with him in the comparative seclusion of the mango grove, for ‘just one little kiss’, as he begged, but slipped out of the grip he tried to get on her, and finished the rest of the way at a run. Watching her shapely bottom wobbling in the tight pants to her going, he bit his cleft lip under the bit of hair then sighed. ‘But I’ll get you yet, Georgette!’
Fergus compromised again by sharing Rifkah on the walk, and seemed happy enough, by his talkativeness. He set out to tell a comical tale of how in boyhood he’d aspired to become a great writer: ‘Lonely kid . . . stuffy parents and one priggish older sister. Remember I told you I was brought up in Randwick, Sydney, near the Racecourse. I could watch the races from a cubby I had up in a big Moreton Bay fig. I liked horses and horsey people, because I used to see ’em of early mornings exercising . . . and probably because the rest of the family thought it vulgar. Watching the big races, I’d identify myself with the winning jockeys, vice-regal handshakes and all, and when I got old enough to think about it, winning the girl who’d previously knocked me back, I took to writing it, as stories . . . eventually made it into a book, called Wild Will Willnot, King of the Turf. I was fourteen then. There were as many females of my own species in it as horses. My sister found it, gave it to my old man, who burnt it. It was after that I ran off to Brisbane, and got a job as a stable boy. I tried telling my yarns to my colt-brained colleagues. The result was useful. I learnt that you can escape from life by writing romances about it, just as you can by reading ’em. Those kids in the stables really did live. But when you came to think of it, what record did they leave of what they did . . . except in police headquarters? When the old man tracked me down and brought me home and I got back to proper schooling, I started reading about the really great adventurers, who’d written about what they did themselves . . . Richard Burton, Charles Darwin, Casanova. That’s what led me into anthropology. I’d be all three. My trouble was in being born too late. You can fly over the Chilean Andes now in ten minutes . . . and take a bus to Mecca . . . and you don’t have to get over the walls of convents or harems any more . . . and as for adventuring in the Australoid wilds, the fact is you can’t get a grant for an anthrop survey without a letter from your local clergyman, like. The Coot and the Saint are perfect examples of the latterday bravos who face the perils of the untrod wilderness. I thought then that the Winged Horse would carry me to Parnassus. But Bert Hinkler, Lindberg, Kingsford-Smith, even Amy Johnson, beat me to it by a long way. Nothing left but to run guns to the Dyaks of Borneo to start a revolt against the Dutch and English . . .’
Jeremy asked, ‘You’re not seriously thinking of that, are you?’
‘No one’s asked me, more’s the pity. All I get’s an offer to spot uncharted shell-banks for Japs illegally pearl-fishing in Australian waters, and to keep an eye on the movements of the Coast Patrol boat. Might be something to write about that later especially if I can get to the Jap Mandated Islands, which they’re supposed to be fortifying. Outsiders have been disappearing, it seems, for discovering too much of what’s going on . . .’
Rifkah cried, ‘And you vill disappear, too!’
‘Maybe to the relief of a lot of people,’ said Fergus. When they’d done laughing, he added: ‘Meantime my literary career’s limited to more or less compulsory service to Australia Free.’
Jeremy asked, ‘Compulsory service?’
‘Financially involved with the Chief . . . old Claudius, who owns if all. I’m working it out.’
‘Can’t say I recall reading anything of yours.’
‘Rather feeble nom de plume . . . Phil de Terra.’
‘Ah . . . that you, eh? Quite good stuff, though, I thought . . . best in the rag.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I thought it was done by an Italian. I saw some objection to you as one, in letters published.’
Fergus chuckled. ‘Yes . . . that was from the Eureka Stockade thing . . . about the chief rebel’s being an Italian, and not Peter Lalor, the Irish Australian, who got all the kudos and finished up swearing allegiance to the Queen of England to get into Parliament. A number of people wrote, calling me a Dirty Insulting Dago, a Fascist Beast, Go Back to your Garlic, Giuseppe.’
‘I enjoyed it very much. Australians’ Ten-minute Stands for Liberty. Great title. Wonderful crack at how supine Australians really are, despite the everlasting boasts of love of liberty.’
‘Glad you liked it. The crazy name had no connexion with the Italian thing, though. It’s actually a feeble pun on the ideas of Son of the Soil and Enfant Terrible. I’d’ve liked to drop it, seeing it doesn’t get me anywhere personally, only old Claudius, the Chief, was too pleased with the row it caused . . . and so I’m stuck with it, so long as I’ve got the old boy on my back.’
‘What would you mean by that?’
‘Well, it was through him I got in with the Junkers crowd. Naturally, as in the case of the Japs, the Huns’ve given the Free Australia Movement their blessing. Why shouldn’t they, when the Bloke even wears his hair and mo like Uncle Adolf? The Junkers mob are flat out trying to make friends in aviation here. I understand it’s the same in England, everywhere there might be opposition . . . trying to sell the invincibility of their new Luftwaffe and the nobility of its intentions, rather than their kites. Personally, I regard military aviation as the worst form of murder. I think any natural-born airman does. Even the so-called knightly personal combat business. Dog-fighting’s a good name for it. It’s just murdering your mate. Anyway, I played up to the Junks. They didn’t want money, I found, only . . . well, again a sort of letter from your local clergyman. That happened to be old Claudius . . . as far as they were concerned. He’d got to like me. He’s a sardonic old bugger himself, and . . . well, he likes the dry wit . . . ahem!’
Another laugh. He went on: ‘So I got my lovely kite on what’s virtually a gent’s agreement, to use for an unspecified period . . . of course on the understanding that I advertise the invincibility and nobility of the Luftwaffe and say a Heil Hitler instead of a Hail Mary every hour. A gift from the gods. But you can’t run even such an aeroplane on air alone. I had to put the hard word on the Chief. I offered him a partnership in my charter work. But he’s shrewd. Nailed me down to what I could guarantee in such work. The result was another gentleman’s agreement. He put up the money estimated to keep the kite flying for a year, put it in a bank, actually, fixing things so that only my creditors in the matter of flying expenses could draw on it . . . the condition in this case being that I write him a Phil de Terra piece for every issue of the rag for the period, and hand out copies wherever I go. I can say I’ve scrupulously stuck to the contract. You’ll find copies of Australia Free hanging in every bush dunny in
the land.’
When Jeremy chuckled, Rifkah asked, ‘Vot is bush dunny?’
Fergus looked at Jeremy: ‘You tell her.’
‘No fear . . . you brought up the subject.’
‘Vot is?’ demanded Rifkah.
‘Well,’ said Fergus, ‘you might describe the dunny as the intellectual centre of the average bush homestead . . . as the library, is, in a properly constituted residence. It’s there the average bush Australian does his reading, broadens his mind.’
‘He mek joke?’ Rifkah asked of Jeremy.
‘Not entirely.’ Jeremy added to Fergus: ‘I’ll have to get back some of those copies of the paper I’ve lately been giving away without reading ’em, to bring myself up to date with this Phil the Terror.’
‘What put you off the rag . . . the anti-semitism?’
‘Partly. But there’s that general air of insanity about it . . . stuff like yours excepted.’
‘Why don’t you contribute something of the kind yourself, and so improve the sanity?’
‘I’m no sort of writer.’
‘You express yourself very well . . . and writing’s only a form of speech. You’ve certainly got the right ideas. You could tackle them on anti-semitism, for a start. No one’s done it in an intelligent article yet . . . only in wild letters from frantic Sons of Shem themselves, published for the fun of it.’
‘Would they publish anything serious?’
‘I’m sure the Chief would. The Bloke’s the one who introduced the anti-semitism, along with all else he’s borrowed from Der Führer. Old Claudius himself regards it only as a sardonic joke. He’s told me he admires Jews, had lots of friends among them, till he got mixed up with the Bloke. He says he enjoys annoying ’em, especially the rich and intellectual ones he knows. They come to his office screaming abuse. Several times they’ve put bricks through his windows. He reckons they ought to have more sense.’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 132
