David genuflected deeply to the altar, and drew Prindy to kneel with him at the communion rail, while he himself prayed in what might be taken for Latin, and the boy stared at the red lamp hanging before the altar, which well might be taken for the unwinking eye of some one-eyed god. Then they went round past the sad-looking Joseph, who it seemed shared fatherhood of the Hanged One along with God, somewhat in blackfellow fashion, followed the Stations back to the porch, where with more genuflexion and stoop-dipping and sign-language back to Jesus on the part of David, they went out.
Next was the Boys’ School, where David said he worked as a teacher. The place was not a bit conventionally equipped. For a start, it was furnished rather like a bush-workers’ camp, with saplings and antbed, and to judge by the eating gear stowed with scholastic materials, also served as dining-room. Books and pictures, slates and children’s abacuses betrayed it as being at infant level. Yet it adjoined another building, a huge barn of a place, fitted out as a workshop, with everything from carpenter’s chisels to oxywelding plant. What appeared most to catch Prindy’s interest was a large garish Sacred Heart picture on the wall behind the teacher’s table. Not only did the heart drip blood, but belched flames from the truncated vena cava, while yet the owner’s face looked utterly benign, with a bleeding hand raised in benediction. David explained what it was, adding that he had one like it in his own quarters behind here, and that every Catholic must have one: to keep the Devil out, he said.
Further back was the boys’ dormitory and playground, looking rather like the old Halfcaste Home back in Town, by reason of the fencing. Naturally it must be fenced, since wild things were being dealt with. Black kids lined the fence to stare. Prindy showed no interest in them. David led him back to the street, and across to the communal kitchen, where the clash of pots and pans and sound of voices told of cleaning up what had gone to cook that awful meal.
Evidently David had no intention of entering the place, and by the sharp looks shot at him as he and Prindy appeared in the doorway, would not have been a bit welcome. But the situation here was out of his hands. Of the several dark female faces that glared the swift hostility, one changed as swiftly to expression of delight, this the lightest complected of them all; and a voice shrieked from it, ‘Prindy . . . Prindy!’ A rush of bare feet. Bare sweaty brown arms enfolded him to an ample bosom. It was Nunji Barbu, spouse of Barbu Ram. She babbled her delight in seeing him, held him off to view his fine outfit, squealed with delight over his report on his being here. There also, chuckling with delight, touching him, was the eldest Barbu daughter, Paddi. They told him that the second, Indimali, had run away with a Malay working with the Japs. But Savitra was here, in the kid girls’ compound. He wanted to see her, insisted on it; although they told him it was impossible. However, they showed him the place through the back door. It was something like that belonging to the boys, or vice versa, as one saw it. They told him that he would have Mother and Sister after him if he went near it. But there suddenly was someone breaking from the knot of girls in blue uniforms playing under the trees behind the high net fence. He broke from the kitchen and ran to meet it.
‘Prindy . . . Prindy!’ squealed Savitra, clutching at him through the netting, shoving her lovely little old-rose mouth and chocolate nose through for him to kiss. They had only a moment of it, when ripped apart by a sharp voice, female, sounding like a hen’s high-pitched cackle of alarm: ‘What’s going on here, I’d loike to know?’
They turned to look. Bustling up on Savitra’s side of the fence was a figure in voluminous white and black. Another of its like was following. Savitra leapt back from the fence. Prindy still stood, staring. The first of the nuns came up, puffing. She was old, with pale face seamed in segments like the belly-hide of a crocodile, the condition probably enhanced by the tight starched barb beneath the black hood. She demanded of Savitra in a voice with a hint of a brogue, ‘And who moight this boy be, Barbara?’
In a tiny voice Savitra called Barbara answered, ‘He my ’usband, Reverend Mother.’
The faded blue eyes widened. The leathery cheeks jerked. The cackle rose: ‘Did I hear roight, choild? Say it again.’
Savrita murmured it to the ground, to a chocolate toe describing an arc in the ruddy dust. The Reverend Mother gasped, turning to her companion as she came up: ‘Her husband she says it is, Sister Dymphna . . . her husband! Did you ever hear the loike?’
The other was much younger, and even beautiful, again with enhancement of her looks probably due to the constriction of her face. Her eyes, grey as Prindy’s, met his in an astonished stare. The Reverend Mother looked back at the children. ‘What haythen business is this?’ When Prindy only continued to stare at her, at all of her, including the Hanged God in silver hanging from her waist on a string of great black beads, she demanded, ‘Answer me, boy! Who are you? Where do you come from?’
But David was now there to answer, to explain, with cringing verbosity, evidently having learnt the facts from the kitchen. The old nun silenced him: ‘Hold your whisht, man!’ She turned to Sister Dymphna, to catch her smiling at Prindy, and frowning disapproval that instantly obliterated the smile, said, ‘The doings of that black old divil, Ali Barba.’ She swung back on the children. ‘We’ll have no such haythen business here. You, Barbara, back to the other girls.’ Savitra, no doubt renamed to exorcise her heathen origins, with a swift under-browed glance at Prindy, obeyed. The Reverend Mother clapped her hands sharply to disperse the black and tan mob in blue who had been gradually converging. Then she turned to Prindy. ‘You, boy, go back to your Gineral . . . and don’t let me catch you hanging round here again.’
David placed an arm about Prindy’s shoulders, turned him round. Prindy shot a last glance at Sister Dymphna, who being unwatched, smiled again. He let his lips move ever so slightly in response.
At the Presbytery they were up and yawning over tea Father Glascock had made, as he said, ‘To be sure we’ve had a real cup of tea before they start serving that pale green piss of theirs they call cha.’
General Esk chuckled over the remark, but said, ‘From what I understand of them, they’re very fussy over their cha, even revering it somewhat . . . isn’t that so, Fergus? I’m afraid, Father, we are in many ways the Hairy Barbarians they’re supposed to call us behind our backs.’
‘Hairy barbarian or not, General, I like my cup of tea my own way. Anyway, here they come.’
Hand in hand, like a couple of schoolgirls, two stockily diminutive men were emerging from the casuarinas. They wore spotless white singlets and khaki shorts and small towels wrapped about their heads, so that the bristly black hair stuck up like the tips of brushes, this the only hair apparent on their brassy bodies. Apparently they had no English, or as Humble Men could not use it in the circumstances. They merely hissed and bowed, then fell in behind the party as it went towards the beach, looking only confused when their superiors tried to have them with them. Thus out to a row-boat rolling on the edge of the now incoming tide. At the last moment the humble ones raced ahead to drag the boat in so that the others might enter it dry shod, then with strength amazing in men so small, put it afloat and leapt in to row.
No admiral’s barge could have been more ceremoniously received than the row-boat when it reached the big lugger of Captain Okada, who, dressed in white kimono but wearing a little black peaked nautical cap, bowed to the horizontal. To Esk, the first to mount the scrubbed-white little boarding ladder, he said, ‘’Werracoming, Generar Sir, in my poor humber ship-o.’ He bowed to the other guests less formally. Sakamura and another small man, also in kimonos, but without the cap, also bowed. The rest of the ship’s complement appeared to be standing at stations. The confessed poverty and humbleness of the ship was expressed with perfection of order and cleanliness. The visitors were bowed to a snowy awning slung amidships, to canvas chairs ranged about the hatch. When they were seated, the Captain and his aides stepped onto the hatch and sank down to squat on mats. Captain Okada clapped his large squar
e brown hands, raised his harsh voice in what sounded like military command. In a moment two small men, wearing what appeared to be the uniform of crewmen, the singlet and shorts, but also in aprons, were there with laden trays and bottles, which they set on the hatch. There was Japanese beer and spirits and odd-looking bits in small bowls.
The Captain filled glasses with beer, had them handed round, then raising his glass, said, ‘To great Hempirer of Japan and great Hempirer of British Hempirer!’ The response came from the whole ship’s company in a shout: Banzai! The guests, looking at a loss, merely raised their glasses.
Then Captain Okada gave another command, which caused a shining brass bell to be rung loudly. The result of this was the almost immediate approach of other small boats each bringing a white-clad figure dressed in European style. There were about ten of them, the Diver-divers, as Okada described them, or Chief Divers, as Father Glascock translated in a whisper to his fellows. The Diver-divers, although each as punctilious in acknowledgement of the visitors as the Captain had been, were not introduced, but having paid their elaborate respects, stepped onto the hatch to range themselves behind their chief and, except for whispered asides between themselves, remained silent throughout the whole odd procedure. In fact, Captain Okada did practically all the talking for his side, but about what was anybody’s guess, that is when he spoke in what seemed to be English, which was most of the time. The translating dictionary and Fergus’s small knowledge and Sakamura’s caste limitations did little to help. However, it would appear that the chief topic of conversation was The Great East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which Okada seemed to regard as something religious rather than political. Thus while the tipple was swigged and the dainties consumed. Twice the Captain, who was drinking a lot of beer, rose, and with a bow to his guests, went to the rail and piddled over the side. No one else of his tribe appeared to have the right to do so, or at any rate the need. None of the others dared it, till at last Prindy did. Fergus then leapt up to follow him, and while peeing, whispered to him. As they came back, Prindy bowed to the Captain, and said, ‘O mi o shobi, Sensei San.’ The Captain grinned, then slapped his thigh and uttered a guffaw, then slapped his other thigh and roared with laughter, with all his men joining in, and the guests as well, even though Esk kept asking what the joke was. Fergus eventually was able to explain that what Prindy had said in literal translation: Very honourable pissing, Captain Sir. At least it had the effect of attracting a lot of attention to the boy. In asides to his companions, Fergus said that from what he could make out from asides of the others, there was debate about whose son Prindy was and that opinion favoured Father Glascock. But he could have been up to his tricks.
Thus till sunset, and the young Moon swinging in lilac. Then on a raucous order from the Captain a great meal appeared, consisting of all sorts of odd things, together with wooden buckets of steaming rice and pots of that beverage called variously O Cha and Green Piss. Prindy appeared to be fascinated by the way the hosts were able to drink the honourable green stuff off their chopsticks!
It was quite dark, except for the hanging Moon and the stars and the hissing pressure lantern that had been lit and the littler lights of the rest of the fleet, when with much bowing and hissing the party broke up, at least to the extent of the departure of the Diver-divers. What was to ensue was unexplained. Bowing, the kimonoed hosts went below. Father Glascock remarked on the lateness of the hour, the need of his getting ashore to conduct Vespers. ‘Mother Mathias’ll be ramping,’ he said. ‘She’s an awful stickler for time. She missed her vocation, I think. She ought’ve been running a railway.’ Although the others laughed, he looked troubled, adding: ‘May the Good Lord forgive me for saying it, but not the least of the crosses I have to bear is the Reverend Mother.’
General Esk said, ‘You’re probably too cloosely confined together. It’s a pity we couldn’t have had the Jewish lady. The Reverend Mother seemed very keen on the idea . . . change, eh what?’
‘Another woman to gang up on me,’ growled the priest.
Esk chuckled, ‘Actually, I’ve found the old lady very pleasant . . . a heart of gold, in fact, hidden beneath that stiff-starched habit.’
‘Altar gold . . . which is largely brass. Besides, you’re giving a gift of a hundred pounds to her convent.’
But there were Captain Okada and Engineer Sakamura back on deck, rigged out again in whites as earlier in the day, evidently for going ashore. Okada was carrying something, which in the light of the lantern was revealed to be a marine growth, a form of coral, looking rather like a small tree, having no particular colour, just a greenish brown, its attractiveness being in the extreme delicacy of its appendages. Okada bowed, saying, ‘Present for Generah Sir.’ He presented it to the General with both hands.
Evidently surprised, Esk took the thing as handed, murmuring, ‘By jove, now!’ His nose was seen to wrinkle slightly; and small wonder, when the thing smelt like a long-dead fish.
Okada said, ‘Dry, you paint.’
‘Oh, yes,’ murmured the General, looking quite ill at ease, balancing the dainty thing, which was all of three feet in height, with a lump of rough coral at the bottom.
The rasping voice went on, ‘Hithy hathom, that one.’
Esk rolled his eyes at Fergus, who said: ‘They have difficulty with F’s as well as L’s. Might be Fifty Fathoms . . . the depth it was taken at, eh?’
Okada nodded and repeated the abomination, adding: ‘Too dear.’
This time it was Father Glascock who came to the rescue of the rolling blue eyes: ‘Pijin . . . meaning it’s very valuable.’
‘Oh, oh . . . thank you very much, Captain,’ said Esk. ‘I’m much obliged. I assure you I’ll treasure it.’ Still, he could not hide that English look of distaste at an alien oddity or keep his nose from wrinkling.
‘We go, yes?’ rasped the Captain, and called an order.
It was a bigger boat this time. Okada took the coral tree again as the General was handed aboard by the crewmen and placed in the stern sheets, where he himself joined him. Now Sakamura took the coral and went forward to the small thwart there. Father Glascock and Fergus were seated amidships, with Prindy between them. The crewmen took their positions just ahead of the midships thwart, standing to row, murmuring some Nipponese fishermen’s chant in measure with their long strong sweeping strokes, following the silver wake of the Moon. Phosphorescence trailed behind them, glowed around them with the struggles going on below. Prindy craned to look. Captain Okada sighed gustily, remarked, ‘Like Inrand Sea, Japan.’ Perhaps he was harking back, smelling again the scent of true jasmine, of cherry blossom, the hot sulphurous breath of that symbol of Nippon, that combination of beauty and menace, Fuji San, because he seemed to be looking far away, far beyond the dark line of the shore. Esk’s eyes, looking troubled, were fixed on the silvery gossamer, as it was now against the Moon, of the coral tree, as if things he’d believed he understood had suddenly become deep mysteries. It might have been that everybody aboard felt like that through some magic of the night. The rowers fell silent, their only sounds now their steady breathing and the faint creak of rollocks and gentle splash of oars.
Prindy broke the spell by turning suddenly between his companions to cock an ear towards the shore. ‘What’s the matter, mate?’ Fergus murmured.
Listening, Prindy took a moment to answer, ‘Music.’
The others craned to listen. Fergus said, ‘You can be pretty sure he’s right. He’s got the keenest hearing I ever struck.’
The priest grunted, ‘I don’t doubt he’s right. I’ve also got a fair idea what it is too . . . a reception committee . . . for me.’
‘How’s that?’ asked Fergus.
‘The convent choir. The Reverend Ladies’ little birdies never sing so sweet as when put to it for the purpose of reminding me of a neglected duty . . . rising late for early Mass, or otherwise not running to Mother Mathias’s time-table. It is singing, boy?’
Prindy nodded, and began to sing
softly to himself: ‘Ah-ah-ah-ah . . . ah-ah . . .’
‘Schubert’s Ave Maria,’ said the priest. ‘You’ve certainly got good ears, sonny.’
Okada asked, ‘What’s matter you?’
‘Children singing ashore, Captain.’
Okada stilled his rowers, cupped an ear: ‘Must my ear no good. Too much deep dive, I stink.’
But only one pair of ears could hear it as yet; while the voice repeated the hearing in a whisper. It wasn’t easy hearing, with the breeze rolling inshore with the tide.
Then there it was for everybody’s ears, rising, as the breeze waned, waning as it waxed, faint as far bird-calling to begin with, at length to become that sweetest of all sounds on earth, and surely in the universe, the singing of children in harmony, sweeter because it is always somewhat sad, as if children know deeply that it is expression of their innocence, of a loveliness that cannot last: Santa Maria, Maria, Maria . . . ora pro nobis . . . ora, ora, ora pro no-obis . . . ave, ave, ave . . . Ave Mar-ee-ee-ah!
Tears glistened in the eyes of Captain Okada. Father Glascock saw them and drooped his dark shaggy head. Esk also drooped his silvery head, murmuring, ‘How unutterably sweet!’
Okada muttered thickly, ‘Hive rirra one I have at home.’
The crewmen pulled softly to the beat that seemed to come dancing in sparkling leaps across the sea, to strike against the small golden face now fully turned to it and drinking it in with silent-moving lips: Ave, ave, ave Mar-ee-ee-ah!
As the boat neared the shore, with the Moon now in the casuarinas, the choir was to be seen only as a darker patch in dappled shadow reaching almost to the water’s edge — except for her of the white habit, whose silver hands controlled the singing and brought it to the final softly fading note — Ah — vay!
Poor Fellow My Country Page 141
