Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  The old priest tossed off his liquor, drew in his long legs. ‘I say no more, my son, except to advise you to stay here as Priest of der Pipple, if only because zat is your vun chance of staying at all . . . undt I presume zat you vont to go on mit der verk of zis sveet girl, who maybe haf brought you to der true manhood you moost haf to be truly of der pipple. Zis is not to dishonour celibacy. True priest dare not haf vife and family to distract his loff from its catholic dedication. He dare not lif for sexual indulgence . . . moost alvays regard it as veakness. Marriage is Sacrament . . . so also, in parvo, is every sexual act. If you choose to stay, I vood suggest you return to sacerdotal duties, if only to try to discover der beauty of der hocus-pocus undt der visdom behindt it . . . zat is if you haf appreciation of true art in you.’ He rose, easily for an old man, probably from long exercise in the obeisances of his calling, as does a dancer or acrobat who has taken life-long pleasure in graceful movement. He moved to depart without ceremony, stepped off the verandah before looking at Glascock, pausing to say, ‘If you accept my suggestion, come mit me to der beach . . . undt tek leafe of me as normally. If not, I vill go alone, undt tell zem you are putting zings in order and vill vont zem to come get you later.’ He raised a hand, perhaps to bless, or merely to wave farewell. He had to do neither, because Glascock rose and joined him.

  They went a few steps together awkwardly. Then the old man linked his arm with the other’s. Still, it was in silence they went through the casuarinas.

  The pinnace was waiting, now well in with the flowing tide. The blacks were squatting by their humpies, amongst them David, who jumped up when he saw the priests, but did not approach. Then Monsignor Maryzic spoke: ‘May I leave David mit you?’ When Glascock looked at him, he added: ‘He is perfect specimen of der simple man.’

  A moment of slate eyes staring into blue. Then Glascock nodded. ‘Goot!’ exclaimed His Right Reverence. ‘I moost gif him my blessing.’ He beckoned to David, who came racing, but to follow them like a dog when he came up, so that Monsignor Maryzic had to speak to him over his shoulder. ‘You vood like to stay mit Father, David . . . or do you vont to go back to der Protestants as you haf tell me?’

  David breathed out heavily: ‘Oh . . . I want stay very much, Your Right Reverence, Sir.’

  ‘Goot!’ Striding along, the old man murmured to Glascock, ‘Be sure zat I vill tek effery care of my daughter in Gott.’

  ‘Thank you,’ breathed Glascock.

  They reached the pinnace. Sly eyes were watching them, but saw nothing, more than the parting of a young priest with his clerical superior: a handshake, a blessing. A sailor humped the Monsignor aboard dry shod. Then the vessel started up, swung away. David, beside His Reverence, wept openly.

  No sign aboard HMAS Melville of the captive trio — until Monsignor boarded her and for certain demanded freedom of movement for them. Then they were waving: a copper head, a golden head, an inky black one, plain to see in the midday sunshine. Glascock and David waved.

  Then the Melville was under way, with siren whooping: Whoop-whoop-wheeeeeeee! . . . Goodbye to Avalon . . . Mummuk, mummuk . . . Goodbye!

  David and His Reverence waved her out of sight — the former frankly grieving, although for what, for what? — the latter’s face a blue-eyed mask. As they turned away at last, David asked timidly, ‘I get dinner for you, Father? I got him tuttle-hegg for homlette.’

  ‘Thank you, David. But first we’ll go to the church and ask a safe voyage for our friends.’

  II

  HMAS Melville’s voyage to Port Palmeston was eventful only in that it was the first time she had run at full speed for aught but testing or temporary emergency. It was emergency drove her now, the whole way. Certainly emergency was only assumed while the voyage lasted, but proved real enough at the end.

  This state of affairs had nothing to do with the captives aboard her. No one would have taken them for any but very special passengers after they’d settled down. In fact the treatment given them was all that Naval Top Brass could have expected. The girls were bunked in the VIP stateroom. Prindy shared the Captain’s cabin with the skipper himself and Monsignor Maryzic. No one badgered them officially. Even if this had been permitted by Monsignor and Pickles, the conditions of the trip would have dissuaded the officious ones.

  The ideal sailing conditions attending commencement of the voyage lasted only a couple of hours, after which they deteriorated through combination of adverse weather and the fact that the presumed emergency precluded the kind of navigation a good captain would have seen to for the comfort of his passengers. There was no wind, but a downpour of rain such as to be expected anywhere and at any time just now, together with a heavy ground swell rolling from bad weather they must have had away to the North — or could it be to the whole fleets of ships the Japs were sinking? At ordinary speed, the rain would have run off the awnings down the drain-pipes, and the rollers could have been ridden easily with altered course. As it was, the rain was swept into every unbattened corner, along with sheeting spray the bow tore from waves into which often she ploughed deep.

  To anyone used to rough sailing it was even good fun to be tearing along like that. Such, of course, were the captives — but certainly not their captors. While the former stayed on the glassed-in bridge with the captain, enjoying it all till ready for their bunks, those land-lubbers, the Coot, Sigs Sims, Mick Cusky, had been stuffily cabined since it started, puking and groaning in misery. Monsignor was no great sailor, but experienced enough to get out on deck, discreetly spew his dinner, and spend the rest of the night in oilskins riding the pitching and yawing with the ship herself. While Pickles had the party on the bridge he told them how sorry he was to be involved in their capture, saying how he had done his best to warn them by making such a fuss with his siren, much to the annoyance of the Coot. He told Rifkah that he would like her to look up his sister when she got down South, and would be writing immediately to prepare the meeting, also that he very much hoped he might see her when he came home on leave.

  Pickles also gave Rifkah more information about the emergency that was driving them so hard than he had given to the others. These he had simply told that he had received radio orders to make port as soon as possible, because, as he put it, ‘Things look crook.’ Cootes had pressed for more, but less than half-heartedly, being already in the grip of mal de mer. In any case, probably Pickles would have been niggardly in collaboration with the Coot, since it was evident that he didn’t like the man and that already there had been friction between them.

  Pickles told Rifkah that things looked really grim as regards the war hereabouts. The message he had received with orders to make full speed to base included news that while they were at Leopold Island this morning an American cargo ship had been attacked by enemy aircraft not a hundred miles to east’ard of them, that the plane probably came from a carrier, a force of which was known to be steaming this way through the Indies, and also that an aircraft, suspected of being Japanese, had flown high over Port Palmeston. Then he proceeded to assuage her alarm by telling her that the Slant-eyed Bastards would never get past our Navy and Air Force. Nevertheless, he spent the night on the bridge.

  Day dawned sweet and clear. However, as the swell was running higher than ever as they wested to the region of the greater tides, the call to breakfast and the greasy oniony reek of it awafting from the galley only had the effect of laying lower those already stricken. They did not appear till the ship was slowing down to enter harbour. It was then mid-morning. The long haul was surely a record for that region of leisurely sailing, done in less than twenty-four hours.

  Any civilised habitation on those long low shores was hard to spot without special knowledge of the locality. Much difference had been made to the entrance to Port Palmeston lately, but not obviously, in keeping with the circumstances. In fact it had become a fortress. Still, the eastern headland, where most of the fortification was concentrated, looked much the same as when used simply by canoodling couples. A su
bmarine-boom, strung from point to point, blocked entrance except as controlled by those on watch, but might have been taken for a string of flotsam streaming out on a king tide. Hence, anyone who really knew the place, looking through to glimpse the ghostly blue of the Jail above Blue Mud Bay and to see Rainbow Head reared in a mirage to many times its actual height so as to appear to the superstitious very much like the Old One on the lookout, should recognise it at once.

  Perhaps poor Cootes was still confused from his night of horror. After all, he had come out of this same place only a couple of days ago, and as the bushman he boasted, if not completely familiar with a place he would be returning to, would have done what any bushman worthy of the name would, that is take a look backward, since landmarks have as many aspects as approaches. Still, his silliness could have been due simply to that essentially simply little-boy’s way so often in evidence. Anyway, as the vessel swung suddenly to make directly for the boom-gate, from standing just below the bridge, grasping a stanchion as if still he didn’t have his sea-legs, first he looked up at the bridge, then climbed up to it. On the bridge were Pickles and a couple of members of his crew, and also the three captives.

  Pickles looked at Cootes suspiciously. Cootes asked, ‘Why’re we going in here?’

  Suspicion turned to surprise. ‘Why the hell shouldn’t we?’

  Cootes blinked, asked now with curtness, ‘What place is this?’

  Pickles’s face changed again, to narrow-eyed meanness. ‘Thought you knew this country like the back of your ’and?’

  The Coot saw his mistake, flushed slightly, but kept his dignity and curtness. ‘Not being of the nautical persuasion, I don’t know it so well from the sea.’

  Pickles blinked on it, but in a moment saw a way to score, looked sly, cast a glance to see if Rifkah might overhear, then put a hand to his mouth to say it softly as he could, ‘Naughty-cal persuasion, eh? Sounds like puttin’ the ’ard word on a sheilah . . . ahaaaaa!’

  How the Coot would have dealt with that, beyond a momentary widening of black eyes in what might be taken for horror of such vulgarity, was not to be discovered, because at the moment, a sailor standing with a signal-lamp in the port wing of the bridge, called, ‘Urgent signal, Sir.’ Pickles swung to him.

  Amongst the innocent-seeming yellow rocks a bright light was winking. All watched it. When the message was spelt out, Pickles himself took the lamp to answer. He then swung away to the engine-room telegraph, which indicated Slow Ahead, and jerked it over to ready Full. Almost instantly the ship leapt into her stride again, causing the unsteady Cootes to stagger close to Pickles, of whom he asked, ‘What’d they say?’

  Pickles snapped impatiently, ‘Who?’

  ‘People ashore.’

  ‘Can’t you read? That was given clear.’

  ‘I can’t . . .’ But Cootes corrected himself, to add stiffly: ‘I don’t read Morse. I leave it to my sigs men.’

  ‘Then more fool you. They probably play you for the mug you are.’

  The plump face assumed the Napoleonic scowl. ‘I’ve warned you before, Mr Pickles, that I’ve a mind to report you for gross insolence.’

  Pickles leered now: ‘Go right ahead, snoozer . . . and add this to it . . .’ with voice rising to a nautical bellow, ‘. . . get off my bridge!’

  He did not bother to watch the dignified if somewhat waddling retirement, but swinging to his chart-table, snatched up the phone from it, and while waiting for an answer, remarked to the others, ‘Looks like a Red.’ When a voice was heard cackling in the receiver, he asked, ‘What’s cookin’, Sparks?’

  The answer could be plainly heard: ‘Furphys flyin’ round like seagulls after breakfast, Chief. Nothin’ Navy yet . . . but R Tok from Apsley Island started to report large flight unidentified aircraft, then went off air like jammed. Air Force took it up, reckons must be Yanks who went North rekky this mornin’ comin’ home . . . but I heard the Yanks quite a while back natterin’ as they come in to land.’

  ‘Well, see’f you can wake Navy up. Just got a signal from Port War. Reads like a Red Warning to me. They must’a’ got it from somewhere.’

  They swept through the boom, leaving bow-waves that sent the floats bobbing as if Old Tchamala himself were caught in the net.

  Speaking of the Old One (or thinking of him, as Prindy must be by the intense darting of those grey eyes) there was the Jail abeam now. No winking light from there. But do magicians need outward and visible signs for intercommunication? Surely the Pookarakka would know that his Mekullikulli was passing by.

  The others were concentrated on the scene as more and more of the inner harbour was revealed. Pickles remarked, ‘Christ . . . look at that shippin’! Twice as much as when we left. What a sittin’ bloody shot, eh? Why the hell don’t they disperse more?’

  Probably it was fear of Rainbow Reef that was the cause of the shipping congestion. A number of ships even lay moored in couples, evidently to obviate fouling each other’s anchorage with the swing of the tide. West of the Reef, where was quite deep water had they known it, there was no ship at all. There as ever beyond the headland was the Delacy place showing up as a wobbly bit of red and white.

  Prindy looked as if he would be staring the Jail out of sight. However, as they were coming abeam Shelly Beach, he turned suddenly, to look up into the sky eastward. No one else heard the sound for seconds, above the roar of the ship’s engines, and then as likely as not looked only because of the intensity of his staring — to see breaking through the whisps of silver cloud, all silvery themselves in slanting sunshine, looking rather like a great flight of migrating white ibis, which invariably fly high on such excursions. A moment of staring. Then Pickles cried heartily, ‘Thank Christ for that! At last we’ll have proper air cover.’

  Naturally they would be ours, coming from sou’east’ard.

  But, as swiftly they swept in to cross harbour and town, what was that odd streaking-down to be seen against the high white wall of cloud above the southern horizon — surely not rain?

  Suddenly the answer was given in the most wondrous sight a devotee of Tchamala could hope to see this side of that hole to mystery in the Milky Way. It was as if, in fact, the Old One had been baffled by the submarine-net, as in the Dream Time he had been when they tried to trap him with the Southern Cross, and now was back in the inner harbour venting terrible rage. For the green sea heaved up, spouting sky-high, spouting not only water, but fire, smoke, great chunks of ships, and what by their wild spinning might have been puny men.

  WHAM!

  The shock-wave keeled the sloop over to port rails, sending her complement sliding, staggering, sprawling, all silent with astonishment.

  Then as she righted — BA-HOOM!

  To port abaft, the country formerly known as the Compound Gully, between the New Hospital and the Garrison, erupted in a cloud of smoke and flame and dust and debris, a scattering of the latter of which almost reached them, whipping the smooth silver of the inflowing tide — as if a giant hand were pelting them.

  Then Bam! and Boom! a mile or two further back — and flecks of white amongst the black and red upward billowing, that surely must be the whitewashed iron of the Jail wall. Hadn’t the Pookarakka declared he would have the old wall down someday?

  Prindy’s attention, from what the intent staring suggested went beyond the reality of sight into the magical, was torn back by the harsh clamour of the ship’s alarm bells: Brangarangarangarangarangarangarang! Crewmen on the bridge were snatching life-jackets and steel helmets from racks. All over there was a racing to action stations. Prindy looked further, to see ahead the awful results of the leviathan’s strike at the harbour.

  The nearest ship, a large squat merchantman with four gantrymasts and flying the Stars and Stripes, was leaning towards them so that they could almost see down her belching funnel. Nor was it only her funnel that was smoking, but many other parts of her, along with savage licks of flame that were also tonguing the water in which a horde of men struggled
like tossed ants. Just ahead of her another smaller vessel was lifting her stern like a duck about to dive, while smoke and fire bubbled from her vanished bow — then she was gone, leaving a water-borne hell of fire on which burning men seemed to be dancing. How many ships in that ill-fated roadstead sinking or ablaze? All, it seemed — all. Nor the shipping alone stricken. A pall of black smoke limned with red dust was rising from the promontory on which the town stood, unseen from here.

  Pickles leapt from his alarm button to the telegraph and rang for Slow. Then snatching up his loud-hailer he bellowed, ‘Pinnaces away . . . two men to each . . . foam extinguishers . . . pick up survivors!’

  Survivors? In that Hell where even the sea burnt — from whence came the wailing of the doomed in hideous chorus — Ohhhhhh . . . ahhhhhh . . . ohhhhhh . . . ohhhhhh . . . ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!

  Slim efficient-looking little guns with a seat for the gunner to ride in and an arched butt for his shoulder were mounted fore and aft. Atop the bridge was a heavy machine-gun on a column. All before had looked of no more account than covered winches and the like, strait-jacketed in canvas as they had been while all was sanity about them; but now in a flash they were unleashed and revealed bristling with the purpose for which this very ship and crew existed, namely, to deal out death to any other fellow spoiling for the reckless game of war. Two men were on the machine-gun, one on the trigger and the big round sights, the other with a coil of cartridges, neat-patterned as a carpet-snake, ready for feeding the spiteful apparatus when the fun began. There were two approaches to the bridge-top, one by steep steel ladder from the front on the starboard side, a short one running up from the rear of the bridge decking. Prindy shinned up the latter to watch the unlimbering of the machine-gun. As the gunner lifted the barrel to the vertical the boy’s eyes went aloft with it. Then he saw something beyond, stared a moment, then slid back to the bridge, yelling to Pickles who was seeing off his pinnaces, ‘More aeroplane come!’