Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  He would have done better to have talked a little while he could with credibility. By next meeting they had their own version of him through their grapevine. They pounced on him: ‘You beat up the German Consul-General!’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For vot?’

  ‘They say you clobbered ’im ’cause he wouldn’t pay you the price you asked for minerals you’ve been sellin’ ’em for armaments.’

  ‘You been sellin’ stuff to Krupp for years?’

  ‘Krupp?’

  ‘Ja, Krupp!’

  ‘Ach! He is Anti-Semitic.’

  ‘He’s National Socialist!’

  ‘He’s a dirty Fascist!’

  ‘Shtum, shtum! He betray us to ze guard.’

  ‘Shtum!’

  They wouldn’t let him run for exercise in the yard because they complained that it distracted them. He complained that he felt the cold. They complained about his running in his cell in his shoes and disturbing their sleep. He had to run in his socks.

  It was on the sixth morning that the guard who used to take him to the exercise yard snapped instead, ‘You’re going out.’ He was marched to the office, given back what had been taken from him, shoved through the Dartmoor door.

  Terra Australis — in a blaze of blue and silver. He stood blinking at it.

  A tram was coming lumbering along that built-up track from southward. Close to the jail was a tram-stop with a shelter shed. He went to it, had time to see that its wood was scored beyond the limits of the surface offering with initials and names, probably cut to celebrate the freedom symbolised by return to the owner of the knife that had done the work. The driver of the tram winked at Jeremy as he pulled up for him. Did it need only six days in the cage to make one look like a jail bird? The other passengers gave him interested looks, while the conductor offered him a cigarette after taking his fare and lounged beside him for a moment as if expecting him to try communication with his fellows in a way perhaps long denied him. Jeremy sat taciturn, watching the scene roll back to seeming chaos of the city centre. He took a taxi back to his flat. Someone had been through his belongings in his absence, and left them in a state to declare the fact. Any policeman might have done it, seeing that they’d had possession of his keys till this morning — but who more likely than Inspector Ballywick?

  Jeremy had not long shaved and bathed when Alfie burst in, in such a state that he had to take her in his arms and sit with her in an armchair petting her like an hysterical little girl. She knew nothing of the circumstances of his sudden release, was interested in nothing but that he should not abandon her and the Cause. Whatever he may have said to Mr Sorbee while in jail, to her sobbing relief he assured her that he would present himself at the meeting tomorrow night. In her state she would not notice the grimness with which he said it.

  He went home with her, and spent the rest of the day there, mostly with his Committee around him. They did most of the talking. They told him that all debts had been paid and his bonds redeemed. Some of this was due to the generosity of a few would-be members of the mooted Party, but largely to that of an anonymous donor, suspected by Alfie and the Banker as being the Chief. Despite the evident pleasure the pair had in naming the unknown one, Jeremy was cold about it although hardly vocal, saying merely, ‘Sounds like we’ve been bought out.’

  In parting with the others in the night, Jeremy said he wanted to be alone tomorrow, to think things out. He would not see anyone until just before the meeting. He also would not let anyone see him home. Alfie clung to him at the last, asking, ‘You won’t let us down, will you, Jeremy, darling?

  He answered shortly, ‘If by us you mean my countrymen, I assure you I’ll give all that’s wanted of me.’

  ‘Bless you, darling!’

  ‘Goodnight!’

  Next morning he ran in the little park for so long that an old fellow who exercised his dogs there asked, ‘What . . . you wound up this morning? Missed your trot the last week, I noticed. Making up for it, eh?’

  This was said as Jeremy passed him. Jeremy called back, ‘Yes . . . I’ve been in jail.’

  The old fellow, staring, made himself scarce before the jail bird came round again.

  But was it the restrictions of the jail behind him or the ordeal before that kept him going? His face was expressionless.

  After breakfast he went into the city, to the Public Library, where he consulted Webster’s International Dictionary. Then he crossed the Harbour again, to Manly, to walk the deserted ocean beach, talking to himself in the way of the bushman on his own and no doubt giving his thoughts away, but having the snatches of revelation drowned in the thunder of the surf. He returned to the city in mid-afternoon, went to a silver grill to eat. He emerged as the great barracoons of commerce were releasing their slaves for the night and the streets were swarming with what goes for humanity in a city but to a countryman looks so much more like communal insects. He walked back to his flat, got into pyjamas, into bed.

  He slept a full hour. It was seven when he rose. The meeting was timed for eight. He made coffee, laced it with brandy, dressed, set out.

  He walked some of the way in the still cold star-glittering night. He stared at those old friends of his, the stars, perhaps as relief from the winter skeletons of imported trees that lined the way, plane and poplar. One thing the immigrants had not been able to do was to pull the Southern Stars down to replace them with replicas of the comparatively mean display of the Northern Hemisphere. Still, it was interesting to see what had been done with the stars. Those first moved to identify themselves with the land had taken the Southern Cross to make their flag of. What happened? John Bull in England, or his agents on the spot, had turned the lovely thing into travesty by sticking the Old Fellow’s waistcoat in the corner.

  He hailed a taxi, arrived at the hall on the tick of time. He found Alfie and the others waiting tense in the foyer. All cried, ‘We thought you’d let us down!’

  There was a goodly crowd; surely more than the most optimistic would have expected. The Committee bore their champion to the rostrum. There the Five-starred flag draped the speakers’ table, but so arranged that John Bull’s Waistcoat was out of sight and it looked as if, indeed, there were an Australian Flag. The Judge was there as Chairman. He rose to take Jeremy’s hand and seated him beside him.

  But though those who would be described officially as Disloyalists might play dirty little tricks with the flag to assert a semblance of independence, there was no getting round the obligation to acknowledge true ownership of the land as embodied in the playing of the British National Anthem. It was the law that the proceedings of all organised public gatherings be preceded by the musical rendition of this piece. A lady sat at the piano on the rostrum for this very purpose. A sergeant of police and several constables stood at the rear to see that it was done. In Britain they play it after such proceedings, as a mark of respect for their Monarch. Likewise had it been done in this lesser part His Britannic Majesty’s Realm — until, during the War of 1914–18 and the troubles that beset the so-called Commonwealth because of it, notably that a large part of the population refused to sacrifice their lives for the Absentee Landlord under compulsion, it was remarked by a certain potentate of the period and of doubtful nationality himself — Cockney, Welsh, Australian, take your pick — that large sections of audiences showed so little respect for the Annointed One as to walk out while the Anthem was being played or sung, instead of standing to attention, as convention demanded. So convention was made law and in procedure reversed. The curious thing was that there appeared to be no legal obligation to stand. Perhaps it was because of a legal loophole. One could always claim physical disability.

  When everyone was seated and the appropriate solemnity assumed, the pianist struck the opening roll of notes. Quite a large number of the audience did not rise, amongst them, en masse two sections occupying the front of the hall for a dozen or so rows of seats on either side of the aisle. Likewise on the rostrum, Jeremy and
most of the Committee remained seated. The Judge rose and stood rigid. That was one of the valuable things about having him on any committee, his ability to be in everything without giving offence to anyone. A few who had stood, as it were automatically, sat down again upon seeing how things were.

  Send him victorious, happy and glorious,

  Long to reign over us,

  God save the King!

  The Judge stood risen to open proceedings. He didn’t say much. That was another virtue of his as a Chairman. He spoke of the need for greater national awareness in Australia, but also of the dangers of nationalism. He even said, ‘You can be national without being nationalistic.’ This brought solid applause from that front section sitting on the left, their choice of position doubtless made through Leftist tendency in politics by the look of them. There was no applause at all from those on the right, but rather something that sounded like snickering. No doubt about their leanings, with the Bloke sitting in their midst looking very much Der Führer, arms folded, face wooden with a scowl under the Hitlerian cowlick. The Judge in his social wisdom threw the ball to the Right: ‘At the same time, great things are done in nationalistic resurgence. There was the foundation of the United States of America. The greatness of Ancient Rome, whose institutions probably had more advancing effect on mankind than any other human movement, was based on the pride of the Romans’ being Roman . . .’ A burst of applause now from the Right. But some fool spoilt it by yelling, ‘Viva Mussolini!’ which others took up. The Left glared. Some shouted, ‘Fascists!’ The Judge was quick with his play: ‘And although every modern Russian is an Internationalist, his first thought is for Mother Russia.’ Thunderous applause from the Left, not merely of hands and voices, but of heavy boots. Then with nice discretion he brought Jeremy into it: ‘A man of deep patriotism, uninvolved in the factionalism that tends to spoil the good intentions of us who live too close together, a man who because he lives so close to this good earth of ours that he can inspire us with the proper love of it which we’ve tended to lose by smothering it with concrete and steel and ideas brought from too far away . . a man of the deepest integrity, a true man . . . Jeremy Delacy!’

  The Judge always got a good hand, no matter whom or what he talked about.

  Jeremy rose, to strong applause from the body of the hall, some from the right-hand block, including a contribution from the Bloke, but none from the left at all.

  He bowed. His voice came grating through the amplifiers, the voice of an angry man: ‘Fellow-countrymen . . .’

  The effect was the same as when first he had used those words in public, only so much more so because of the much greater crowd. The applause became a veritable storm. Only those on the left were unmoved, many sitting back with arms folded as if locked against applause of any sort.

  Jeremy himself was moved. Even had he not admitted it as he proceeded, it was evident in the softening of his tone: ‘I’ll confess that I came here tonight with intentions other than expected of me by those concerned with this bid to form a political party with the purpose of making this country of ours not a Commonwealth merely in name but in face . . . a True Commonwealth . . .’

  Loud applause from the main body. He stopped it with an impatient gesture. ‘I was telling you that I came with other intentions. They were to decry the thing, not support it.’

  Silence. After a moment he resumed: ‘My experience since coming into what, from a practical point of view, one must admit is the Real Australia, has done anything but change my opinion that such a party, if a possibility, is an absolute necessity. It is concerning this matter of possibility where my opinion has changed. The effect of the experience has been to make me feel that it is too late, much too late, to realise the dream of Australia Felix . . . that the rottenness the whole thing started with has become gangrenous, cancerous . . . is impossible to stop . . .’

  Cries from the main body, and from some of the Committee on the rostrum, amongst them startled Alfie: ‘No . . . no . . . no!’

  He took a sip of water. ‘You are so used to it that you don’t see it as I, a stranger to it, do. You’re like people who live in slums, compared with someone who happens into what the slumites at least find tolerable but that revolts the stranger . . .’

  ‘We don’t find it tolerable!’ shouted someone in the body.

  ‘Hear, hear!’

  ‘We ain’t goin’ ’o tolerate it!’ came from the left-block, to be followed by the first enthusiasm from there, stamping of feet added to the clapping.

  Jeremy continued: ‘But it’s what has happened to me lately that has . . . or I should say had, in view of what I’m going to add . . . stifled the hope in me. You’ll most of you know that I’ve just come out of prison.’ It caused a murmur all round. ‘What I was imprisoned for no one bothered to tell me. I know I hit a man who first hit me. Probably it was against the law . . . but surely not more serious than to have cost me more than a few minutes’ wigging by a magistrate and a small fine. I faced no magistrate. I was simply handcuffed, dragged to prison, chucked into a cell, and left incommunicado, except for occasional visits from a little lawyer, whose contribution to my condition was to tell me that he’d soon have me out, while at the same time warning me that Commonwealth law was something that could be manipulated to pretty well any ends that those who had control of it chose. I was, I must tell you, a prisoner of the Commonwealth, not of the State . . . our Glorious Commonwealth, which we believe is the freest institution in the world! The only difference between the treatment meted out to me and what I might have expected under absolute autocracy like that of Germany or Russia . . .’

  Someone on the left yelled, ‘They don’t do things like that in Russia!’

  ‘’Ear, ’ear!’

  A burst of heckling from all over the place, and particularly from the right. Jeremy raised his voice above it: ‘I say the only difference was that I was as summarily chucked out of the place as into it . . .’

  Someone in the body of the hall called, ‘You could sue!’

  ‘Maybe I could . . . but to what end? Such a system would only become more oppressive for being thwarted. It either has to be accepted . . . or overthrown . . .’

  ‘Overthrown!’ yelled a leftist.

  ‘But not by National Socialism!’ yelled another.

  ‘’Ear, ’ear!’

  Stamping, clapping, cheering on the left. Hooting on the right. Savage exchange of glances between the factions. The Chairman rapped and called for Order. The police sergeant was coming down the aisle.

  When order was restored, Jeremy said, ‘What I set out to say is that I came here in a spirit of utter pessimism, dejection, even contempt, that I addressed my first words to you in that spirit . . . but that your response to being called Fellow-countrymen, instead of the usual Fellow-Australians, renewed my hope . . .’

  Loud applause from the main body.

  ‘The enormous difference that word Countryman makes!’

  ‘Wha’ dufference?’ a Scottish voice demanded from the left.

  Jeremy turned that way. ‘You wouldn’t understand, Jock.’

  Laughter from other quarters than the left.

  ‘Wha would nae I oonderstan’?’ the same voice demanded.

  ‘Because you’re not a fellow-countryman of ours.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ from the main body and the rightists.

  ‘Ye nae a blackmon!’ the voice went on.

  Jeremy raised his voice: ‘Oh, shove your sporran in it! When I used the term Fellow-countrymen I was addressing only the native-born. What I have to say will be of no interest to others . . . except perhaps negatively. You others kindly keep your negativism to yourselves.’

  Boos from the left, with yells of Fascist, National Socialist, Nazi! People of the main body were yelling, ‘Shut up . . . shut up, give him a fair go!’ The Chairman was hammering, the sergeant bawling.

  When silence was got, Jeremy said, ‘An interesting interlude, because it highlights what is perhaps our g
reatest trouble . . . the resentment of outsiders to our pride in being native born . . .’

  Applause and abuse again. Now the other policeman joined the sergeant. Abuse was being hurled across the aisle between right and left.

  Jeremy was red now and somewhat hoarse as he resumed: ‘This is anything but new. That resentment started back in the days of the Currency Lads and Lasses . . . remember?’ He swung on the still-muttering restless left, leaned towards them, flinging out a finger to where the invisible Scot had spoken from. ‘You, Jock . . . do you know who the Currency Lads and Lasses were?’ Silence. He looked the block over, about a hundred of them, all tight-faced in watching him. ‘How many of the rest of you know? Hands up those who do?’ About ten hands came up, and these reluctantly. Jeremy shouted now, ‘There! That shows how little you know of the country you’ve got the cheek to come into throwing your weight about, telling us how to run it . . . and you can’t even speak our language!’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ from the mass.

  Turning to the body of the crowd again, he went on: ‘There was a deliberate policy of disparaging the Currency Lads . . . as a sort of bastard breed . . . and it still goes on . . .’

  Applause.

  ‘Natural enough, I suppose, from the immigrant colonists . . . as from the immigrants here . . .’ He flung a hand to indicate the leftists, ‘. . . natural enough to react on finding themselves regarded as somehow inferior when they’d thought themselves god-almighty superior . . .’

  A burst of anger from the left that had to be quelled by threats of ejection from the police.