by Gerald Kersh
It was to be noted that while Sam Yudenow was hurling all the invective and doing a species of belligerent tap dance, Copper Baldwin was throwing most of the punches. Then, when I attacked from the rear with what was left of the telephone, Miss Noel came out—something to haunt your dreams—crying drunk and swinging that three-legged piano stool that was raised and lowered by means of a wooden screw.
At this, we all fell back, friends and enemies alike; and Inspector Dench came in, followed by a sergeant and four constables. “Any trouble here?” he asked.
Sam Yudenow said, with irony, “Trouble? Don’t make me laugh, I got a cvacked Up. This ain’t trouble, it’s a rehearsal. Tvouble! Tickle me under the arms, I want to giggle.”
“Isn’t that blood I see on the floor?” asked Inspector Dench.
Sam Yudenow started to say “Sherlock Holmes—” but Copper Baldwin interposed, “What the ‘ell would blood be doing on the floor? Tomato ketchup!”
The Inspector asked, “And what would tomato ketchup be doing on the floor of the lobby?”
“Vestibule!” said Sam Yudenow.
“Taste it and see,” I said.
Frowning at me, Sam Yudenow said, “I’m serving a high-class brand nourishing snack—Greenburgers! So they need a bit tomato sauce? A crime? Try one; see! Lavendorpf, half a dozen special Greenburgers, miv! ... What d’you mean, miv what? Miv a slice ham, miv a slice cheese, miv tomato sauce.... Copper, wipe up.... Where’s that bloody boy?”
He was referring to Johnny Headlong, who had disappeared. Copper Baldwin looked sad. His expression said, I did not think young Johnny would have turned yellow....
Inspector Dench said to me, “Your mouth’s bleeding. So are your knuckles. What’s the cause of that?”
I said, hastily improvising, “I’ve got what they call ‘The Blood Disease.’”
He said, keenly, “It doesn’t, by any chance, get caused by a beetle? Does it attack potatoes?”
“The Bourbons and the ruling houses of Spain and Russia have it,” I said.
“Paint it with iodine. What are you doing with that telephone receiver?”
“It came loose in my hand.”
“Under what circumstances?”
“Something must have been wrong with the line.”
“Isn’t that blood I see on your cuff?”
Copper Baldwin rushed out, scooped up a fingerful of it, which he held under the Inspector’s nose, saying, “Tomato—taste it.” When the Inspector declined, Copper Baldwin seemed to lick it himself—that is to say, he offered himself the forefinger but sucked the third finger—and said, “Lovely, tell your mum.”
Now Godbolt came in, struggling for breath, crying, “Police! Inspector! I’m a leaseholder, a freeholder, and a copyholder; I’m a ratepayer and a taxpayer; and I demand—”
“Now I’ll tell you what,” said the Inspector. “Better be careful how you interrupt an investigation: I’ve got my eye on you!”
Then there was brought in a tray of Greenburgers. Reinforced with everything that could be found to put in them, they were more than doubly repulsive. The Inspector took a bite, and said, “Not bad at all.”
He took another bite. “Might go better with a mustard pickle.”
“Thank you for this advice,” said Yudenow. “This I got to remember.... Laveridge, make a note—mustard pickle!... Maybe, Inspector, a bit chuntney?”
Everything was going well, but then that boy Headlong had to choose this moment to dash into the vestibule, hard put to it to breathe, gasping, “Okay, Mr. Laverock. I run to Ullage. The Ullage mob’s on the way, and oh Jesus, will we do ‘em! Jack Palmtree’s got a Woolworth’s chopper an’ ‘e swore on ‘is muwer’s grave ‘e’d chop O’Toole’s—” Then he saw the Inspector and said, in an unnaturally casual voice, “Ahem. Just thought I’d warn you, Mr. Laverock. Better get up to the rewinding room now.... ‘Ave a cigar, Inspector?” Inspector Dench said, “No.”
Headlong had to explain in a rasping whisper: “I’m sorry if I done somethink wrong, Mr. Laverock. But if you play one side orf against the other, ain’t there a rule o’war?”
Sam Yudenow said to him, “Upstairs!” Then, to the Inspector, obsequiously, “Another Greenburger, just a little one?... Copper, get mustard pickles....”
So it came to pass that just as the ambulance came to pick up O’Toole and one or two of his friends, the Ullage boys turned up with war whoops, armed to the teeth with homemade weapons, and found themselves confronted by Inspector Dench, a sergeant, and four constables, all smelling strongly of Greenburgers.
The invaders were dragged away with imprecations. Then “Laid in Lavender” came to an end; and we played “God Save the King.”
“It’s me for the high seas,” said Copper Baldwin.
“Me, too,” said I.
EPILOGUE
“WELL, CHEER up, cocko,” Copper Baldwin said. “You got your passage and you got your papers. Now work it out this way: for a lousy twenty-pound note you travel like a gentleman; and for a dirty ten-pound note you got your papers. We all got our money back, and to spare. Cheer up, young ‘un, cheer up.”
But I kept looking one way and another, mostly at the receding coast line, which, I believed, I should never see again. Before me lay the great gray sea. I put my forehead on the rail and wept.
I did not know why, because we had given up love of country in those years—love of anything. But it was as if I saw before me something like homesickness in perspective.
Copper Baldwin said, almost in a whisper, “I know ‘ow it is, son, but you’ve got to face it. Face it, ‘old on to your cash. Only face it. And now I must get below.”
In a broken voice I said, “But my papers. They’re in a silly name.”
“What’s in a name? I got to get below. See you.”
I settled myself to look at the wake that fanned out in foam to the coast of England, with which, in spite of all it had done to me, I found myself in love. Now I wanted to go back, to starve for her if need be. But somebody took me by the shoulder and spun me round.
He was a gigantic man with a fiery face and icy eyes: John Williams, Master, better known as “Kicking Jack” Williams. “Admiring the scenery?” he asked.
“Kind of pretty,” I said.
He shouted, “Keep your bloody mouth shut when you speak to me! Get below, you little bastard!” “I paid my passage,” I said.
“Passage? What passage? I’ve got your papers. What d’ye mean, passage? You’re one of my crew, and your name is Frank Mudd. Bugger off before I flatten you.”
“You took twenty pounds off me—” I began.
“This,” he said, “I have never heard of. Your papers say Frank Mudd, trimmer. Got it? Trim coal, or tough as you think you are—” and he hit me with a right hook to the jaw, knocking me down.
I saw his right foot describe a little circle, poising itself; then he let it down lightly and shrugged gently as if to say, Where’s the sense in smashing up a hand?
“Get up,” he said wearily. “Off your arse, you, and this is the last time I’ll be lenient with you. Get below!” I struck him with all my force on the side of the head, and hurt my hand.
He said, “Be sensible. I could stand a week of playing patty-hands. Now will you get below, or shall I put you there?”
There must have been some trace of sympathy in his nature because, seeing me cast a last glance at the land, he said, “Gets you like that at first. Pity.”
And then he kicked me—scientifically, not to maim me—so that I sprawled six feet away.
So I went below.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gerald Kersh wrote his first book at the age of seven and published it privately in a limited edition of one copy, bound in his fathers brocade waistcoat. He tore up his second and third literary efforts but, at twenty-three, found a publisher for his fourth, a novel. Unhappily, he was sued by four uncles and a cousin who had seen the manuscript, and the book was withdrawn. But Mr. Kersh persevered,
to the tune of five thousand magazine articles, three thousand short stories, and twenty-three books, including the bestselling Night and the City, which was made into a film, and Fowlers End, his latest. He is also the author of the famous World War II poem “A Soldier: His Prayer,” an excerpt of which can be found in Bartlett’s Quotations, woundingly attributed to Anonymous.
Mr. Kersh was born in 1909, in Teddington-onThames. He was, he says, a morose and tearful child but uncommonly hardy. He first gave evidence of his iron constitution at the age of four, when, after being declared dead of lung congestion, he sat up in his coffin. During the London blitz, he was bombed. Later, serving as a war correspondent attached to SHAEF, he was buried alive three times without ill effect.
He has lived in England, France, South America, the Barbados, and Italy. He is married and now a resident of New York City, where his military bearing (a token of service with Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards), his sartorial splendor (waistcoat, walking stick, and fedora), his powerful frame (he was once a professional wrestler), his compelling voice (he is a raconteur in the spellbinder tradition), and his handsome beard (he will not discuss it) make him an extravagant delight to his friends and an astonishment to strangers.
85 The American Express $13.95
The New Traveller's Companion Series, #85
ISBN: 1-59654-207-1
FORMAT: 5x8, Perfectbound
Author: Gregory Corso
About: Beat poet Corso's only novel. Inspired by his days in Europe, anxiously waiting for royalty checks and advances that were slow to appear, this freewheeling and farcical tale is the account of a birth in AmEx, and what came of it. With illustrations by the author. First published 1961 as No. 85 in the Traveller's Companion Series. Never reprinted.
66 Tender Was My Flesh $11.95
The New Traveller's Companion Series #66
ISBN: 1-59654-164-4
Book Type: 5x8 Perfect Bound
Author: Winifred Drake, actually Denny Bryant, for a while the spouse of Baird Bryant, who at one point had a fling with ace Olympia translator Austryn Wainhouse.
About: Perhaps no title so sums up Olympia. This particular book has been referenced in dozens of articles on the firm, generally in a condescending manner. It doesn't seem to have been pirated as much as other Traveller's Companion titles.
Whatever. Tender Was My Flesh is the coming of age story about a girl, Susan Holiday, who lives in a cold and rural place, surviving the harsh winters with help from the fire that burns in her loins. Susan feeds this fire, first with the family dog, later with men, and finally her desires take her to the big city after high school, where she finds work as a dancer.
48 The Young and The Evil $11.95
Author: Charles Henri Ford, the famed imagist poet, editor, critic, and Parker Tyler.
About: A stunning work, first published in 1933 by Obelisk Press (Jack Kahane's legacy), The Young and the Evil is a non-judgemental depiction of gay life and men who earn their living there, told through characters like Julian (modeled on Ford) and Karel (based on Tyler). With the added interracial connotations (book was set in Harlem and Greenwich), err, anyone surprised that this title didn't clear customs across the Channel or the Pond?
92 Count Palmiro Vicarion's Grand Grimoire of Bawdy Ballads and Limericks. $13.95 The New Traveller's Companion Series, # 92
ISBN: 1-59654-321-3
FORMAT: 6x9, Perfectbound
Author: Count Palmiro Vicarion (poet and Homer savant Christopher Logue, part of the Merlinois.)
About: Complete in one volume, Bawdy Ballads (published 1955) and Limericks (published 1956.) With Index of first lines.
Table of Contents
Front Cover
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Epilogue
