Gweilo

by Martin Booth

  One particular afternoon, I went that way straight from school, hiding my Hong Kong basket full of games kit and homework under a bush a few yards from a boulder with the inscription: 25th. Battn Middlesex Regt. "Tyndareus" Feb. 6th 1917. It was in memory of soldiers who had died when their troopship, bound for Hong Kong, struck a German mine off South Africa.

  Setting off down the road, I had no specific purpose in mind. It had been a bad day at school. I had scored poorly in a maths test, been awarded fifty lines for sucking a wah mui in class ('It helps me concentrate, Miss') and been given a severe ticking off for putting the wire seal on my statutory mid-morning third of a pint of milk ration back in the empty bottle.

  A little way beyond the Tyndareus memorial, I suddenly felt strangely ill at ease. It was not the maths test result nor was it the fact that I would have to own up to getting lines. The feeling was far more primeval, coming from the pit of my soul, from that part of the brain that has no apparent function. I looked back in case I was being followed, yet there was no-one – and no thing – in sight. I could see over a hundred yards in both directions.

  Then, from the undergrowth, a small rodent appeared on the concrete not five paces ahead of me. It stopped, stared at me and then ran directly towards me, skittering between my legs and on down the road. In a few seconds, it was followed by two others which behaved in exactly the same way. I reasoned they were running from a snake and stood quite still. Yet no snake showed itself so, after a few minutes, I went back up the hill, collected my school basket and set off towards the Peak Tram terminus.

  I had gone barely two hundred yards when a muntjak bounded out of the trees and down a steep bank. It stood in the middle of the road then, with one leap, was gone downhill in the direction of the reservoir. I could mark its progress through the forest by the noise it made. To see the creature in albeit by now fading daylight was rare enough. For it to make such a shindig as it fled was quite extraordinary. These were animals which could walk silently over a three-inch-deep layer of fresh cornflakes.

  About fifty yards further on, the road narrowed, the trees growing over to form a tunnel that was always alive with birds. Used to people walking beneath their roosts, the dusk chorus was strident and melodic as I drew near.

  Yet I was a short way into this sylvan subway when, all of a sudden, all the birds fell silent simultaneously. It was as if the current to them had been switched off. It was eerie and I felt apprehensive again, once more looking over my shoulder. There was no-one there. I quickened my pace and was soon at the junction by the Peak Café, heading as fast as I could up the steep road home.

  When I recounted the experience to my mother, she replied that there had probably been a snake in the trees. I was not satisfied. When birds saw snakes they did not fall silent, they took to the wing.

  After supper, my parents listened to the BBC World Service. I went to my room, wrote out my lines and hid them inside a textbook. Around nine o'clock, my father came in demanding to see my maths test paper. I reluctantly handed it to him. His face set as he saw the grade.

  'Is there any point in us paying for you at the Peak School?' he asked in a sullen tone. 'It seems to me you must pass half your day gazing out the bloody window.'

  'I don't understand maths,' I replied.

  'If you don't pay attention, it's no bloody wonder.' He tore the test paper up and dropped the pieces on my bed. 'Pull your bloody socks up or, next September, you'll find yourself boarding at Hilsea College.'

  As soon as he made the threat, I knew I was safe. He could not afford the fees at Hilsea College. Furthermore, my mother would never allow it. He was all bluster and I had seen through him.

  'When's the next test?'

  'Next month,' I admitted.

  'Well, you'd better do a bloody sight better in that one or you know what. . .'

  I knew what. This threat was not bluster. I would be paddled by the flat of my mother's hairbrush or one of my father's slippers.

  I got into bed, pulled up the sheet to cover my stomach, switched off the bedside lamp and turned over to face the wall. I could not understand elementary algebra or fathom the difference between the discriminant and the coefficient and was sure I never would. And why substitute letters for numbers? It seemed particularly obtuse to me and I could see no purpose to it at all.

  The door opened quietly. I knew it was my mother and feigned sleep. She left and I wallowed in my self-pity and fear of the next inevitable paddling. After a while, I drifted off into a troubled sleep.

  Some time in the early hours, I woke. The room was in a faint half-light cast through the slats of the Venetian blinds by the glow of the city below my window. Everything looked unreal and colourless. Even the bright cover of the Eagle annual on my table seemed leached of hue.

  Quite suddenly, I heard a deep boom. It was not loud, more like a single peal of thunder far out to sea. I gave it little thought: summer lightning over the distant islands sometimes created a resonant, far off thunderclap.

  Then, the sound fading, the Venetian blinds started to ripple as if an unseen hand was running over them. The Eagle annual began to move across the table. At the same time, my bed edged away from the wall. The air filled with a strange vibrating hum. My model junk slid along the bookshelf. The books were starting to fall.

  Instantly, I conjured up mental visions of the ghosts that inhabited China, the evil gods, the cruel war-lords of heaven and hell to whom I had burnt no joss-sticks or paper money.

  Screaming, I leapt from my bed and grabbed the junk before it could fall and break, putting it on the bed. I was fully awake now yet I was certain this was a dream.

  My bedroom door slammed back. I jumped, the next scream frozen in my mouth. My mother rushed in, snatched me off my feet and ran with me to the front door of the apartment. My father was holding it open. Behind him, the occupants of the apartment across the landing were hurrying for the stairs.

  Then it stopped. All was silent. My mother put me down. I pulled my pyjama trousers up. They had slipped halfway down my thighs and there was a girl my age living in the opposite apartment who was in my class at school.

  Wearing assorted night attire, we joined the residents of the other seven apartments on the drive outside. The servants stood in a group near by talking urgently amongst themselves.

  'Well, that was interesting,' my father commented with as much insouciance as he could muster.

  'What happened?' I asked my mother.

  'It was an earth tremor,' she replied. 'A small earthquake. It's all over now. There may be what they call after-shocks for a few days, but we'll probably not even feel them.'

  It occurred to me that the strange behaviour of the muntjak, the birds and the rodents might have been a premonition. Could the animals have been aware it was coming? Yet, although convinced this was so, I held my peace. My father, I knew, would ridicule the assumption. It was not logical, just another example of the bloody boy's vivid imagination.

  We returned to our apartment to be met by Wong carrying a tray of tea, biscuits and a glass of milk.

  'No p'oblum, master, missee, young master. Happen all time China-side,' he greeted us with a placatory smile.

  My father took a cup of tea and started lecturing us about the earth's crust, the western Pacific earthquake zone, volcanoes and continental drift. It meant as much to me as quadratic equations. I went out into the kitchen to refill my glass of milk. Wong was sweeping up the shattered remains of some rice bowls which had slid off the draining board.

  'What you think make this trouble?' I asked him.

  'Yen Lo,' he said significantly and without any hesitation. 'He ang'wee. No like what man do. Tomowwow, Ah Shun go tempul-side. Maybe burn some money. Make him happy one more time.'

  I preferred Wong's supernatural reasoning to my father's logic. Yen Lo was the chief god of the underworld.

  9

  HIKING TO BUDDHA, SWIMMING

  WITH COLONEL NOMA

  ANOTHER OUTI
NG ORGANIZED BY MR BORRIE PROMISED, FROM the outline sent to my mother, to be a two-phase forced march. My father was once again reluctant to go but, as Mr Borrie was his Old Man, he was more or less faced with a three-line whip. Consequently, one winter's Saturday afternoon at thirteen hundred hours sharp, we and a party of about two dozen set off in a naval launch for the fishing village of Tung Chung on the northern coast of Lan Tau. I was the only child present. The outing guidelines had precluded those under sixteen because a good deal of walking would be involved, but my mother said I was probably fitter than half the adults and won the argument. This inevitably annoyed my father.

  'It states quite clearly in the rules, Joyce—'

  'Bugger the rules!' my mother retorted.

  'Well, if the boy lags behind,' my father declared, 'you'll be the one to stay with him. If the two of you get lost in the mountains, be it on your own head.'

  'I'll take that risk,' my mother retorted. 'It's hardly the Himalayas. We're not likely to get caught out by a blizzard.'

  Progress had passed the village of Tung Chung by. The low buildings, most well over a century old, looked out across a valley of rice paddies, banyan, paper bark and lychee trees. Behind every house or farmstead was a stand of huge yellow, green-striped bamboos, some of the stems as thick as my thigh. These, I discovered, had been deliberately planted in times past to attract snakes. When I first heard it, this information astounded me. I asked if the snakes were there to be caught for the pot, but was told that the occupants of the houses were farmers who stored their rice in the settlement. And rats ate rice. And snakes ate rats.

  Stepping from our naval launch on to a rickety wooden pier, we congregated on dry land to be addressed by Mr Borrie.

  'Now, have you all your maps and directions?' he asked. 'After we leave the paddyfields, there are only two places where you might get lost. One is at the nunnery, the other as you reach the pass. Be sure to consult your maps at these points. Needless to say, do not enter the nunnery.'

  'What's a nunnery?' I whispered to my mother.

  'Another word for a convent.'

  'Why can't we enter it?' I wanted to know. Such adamant exclusion had aroused my curiosity.

  'The nuns don't like men entering their houses.'

  'I'm not a man,' I argued. 'I'm a boy. Neither are you. Can't we go in?'

  My father, overhearing this conversation, said, 'Don't ask so many damn questions. You can't go in and that's an end to it.'

  As he spoke, he fought with the straps of a military knapsack. Unaccustomed to anything larger or more complicated than an attaché case, my father was finding it hard knowing which strap went where. My mother, who had already slipped hers on, watched impassively.

  'Well don't just stand there, Joyce,' he muttered under his breath. 'Help me get this benighted thing on.'

  'Didn't they show you how in the war?' she replied genially.

  'I wasn't in the bloody Army.'

  'Nor the bloody Navy,' she responded and set about untangling him.

  'Where exactly are we going?' I asked my mother as my father tried to ease his shoulders and settle his pack.

  'Ngong Ping,' my mother answered.

  'What's at Ngong Ping?'

  'Wait and see.'

  'Where is it?'

  She pointed two thousand feet or more up the mountainside and said, 'See that little dip to the left of that ridge? It's a mile the other side of that.'

  We crossed a tidal creek on an uneven timber footbridge and went through the little village of Ma Wan Chung. The houses were ancient, their roofs covered with black glazed tiles. Dogs barked half-heartedly at us and chickens scattered under our feet. A large sway-backed pig lay in a patch of dust in front of a small temple, suckling a copious litter of squealing piglets. Out of the village, we set off along a wide, well-beaten track surrounded by fallow paddyfields. In another half a mile, we arrived in front of a small, derelict, grey-stone fortress covered in creepers. One of our party, armed with a kukri, sliced a path through to the battlements on which stood six cannon dating to the early nineteenth century. A short lecture by the kukri wielder informed us that the fortress was erected about 1830 in the Q'ing dynasty. It was not actually a fort per se but a yamen and centre for the administration of a number of other forts in the area. My mother whispered to me that, had my father been Chinese and alive then, he might have been posted here as a civil servant to supply war junks. At this notion, we broke out into giggles which my father attempted unsuccessfully to stifle with narrowed eyes.

  We walked indian file across more paddyfields, keeping to the paths that ran along the tops of the narrow dykes dividing the fields. On either side, rice stubble projected from hardened mud into which the hoof- and footprints of buffalo and humans had been impressed. Coming to the end of the valley, the path started to rise into the mountains, rough rocks making the going hard.

  I left my parents and moved to the head of the line where Mr Borrie was making good progress.

  'Hello, young Booth,' he addressed me. 'Full of beans?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Being held up by the old fogeys?'

  I was not quite sure how to respond but he saved me the effort.

  'Go on ahead,' he invited. 'Scout out the way. But,' he paused for effect, 'when the path branches at a Y-shaped junction, the right-hand path consisting of steps, you stop and wait for the rest of us. You savvy?'

  I savvied and set off up the mountain. The path grew steeper but I swung my arms, measured my breathing and was soon several hundred yards ahead of the party. It was not long before I came to the Y junction. A small rill tumbled down the mountainside and I wet my face in it but did not drink. One never knew if the water had already served a multitude of purposes in a settlement at a higher altitude. I crossed the path and sat on the steps to let the rest of the party catch up. Behind me stood a small group of buildings from which, when the breeze temporarily shifted direction, I could smell joss-sticks.

  There came a soft shuffling sound from over my shoulder. I turned to find myself being observed by two Buddhist nuns. They wore grey, long-sleeved, ankle-length habits and their heads were shaven, so it was quite impossible to judge their ages. Around their necks hung simple necklaces of wooden beads. Not sure what to do, and heedful of Mr Borrie's warning, I stood up and stepped back on to the path. They watched me go, impassive looks upon their faces. I sensed that perhaps they were young and wanted to talk to me, this strange, small gweilo from the other world of which they occasionally heard talk but had not seen for many years, nor perhaps ever would again.

  The remainder of the party arrived and I rejoined my parents to find my father in a mood.

  'What do you think you were doing, you blithering little idiot?' my father demanded to know.

  'Let him be, Ken,' my mother remonstrated.

  'That's rich, coming from someone who took him swimming at night with the tide going out.'

  'He's come to no harm.'

  My father ignored these entreaties and directed his full attention to me. Keeping his voice, which was breathless from the climb, low he said, 'Where were you? Your mother and I were worried stiff.'

  'No, I wasn't,' my mother chimed in. 'If Martin can find his way through the streets of Kowloon, he can sure as eggs is eggs find his way on a mountainside with only one path on it.'

  'And if he had fallen?' my father replied.

  'He has the run of the Peak, Ken, for God's sake,' my mother said with a hint of exasperation. 'I think he's intelligent enough to know a sheer drop when he sees one. Besides, do you notice any precipices, Ken? Cliffs? The worst he can do is slip on the path and slide down on his bum.'

  She looked at me pointedly then at the rear of my father's trousers. They were covered in dust and I regretted having gone ahead. My father sliding downhill on his arse must have been a sight to behold.

  'I had permission. I was asked to scout ahead as far as the nunnery.'

  'By whom?' my father answered, in the to
ne of voice that suggested he was convinced I was lying.

  'Ken—'

  'No, Joyce, I'm getting to the bottom of this . . .'

  At that moment, Mr Borrie called back from the head of the line, 'Hello, Ken, Joyce. Well, young Booth, ready for some more scouting?'

  My father gave me a thunderous look. I had not been lying. My mother gave me a smile and a sly wink.

  The path grew steeper as it approached the high flanks of Lan Tau Peak. I started to get breathless, my head spinning with the exertion, and was about to pause for a rest when the path levelled out and I could see, some way ahead, a ceremonial archway, or pi lau. Curiosity overcame exhaustion.

  The pi lau was made of stone and stood silhouetted against the sky. The Chinese characters engraved over its span had once been painted red but the mountain wind had all but wiped them clean. From the pi lau, the path followed the contours of a hill to a plateau of neatly tended vegetable fields. I was surprised to find any agriculture going on at such an altitude but what really amazed me were the number of pagoda-like structures that dotted the landscape. They too were made of stone, about twelve feet high, painted white and resembling several iced doughnuts placed one on top of the other, getting consecutively smaller as the structure got higher. On the top was a finial painted imperial Chinese yellow.

  'What are they, sir?' I asked Mr Borrie who had caught up with me.

  The remainder of the party was strung out behind him. The rearguard, which consisted of my father, had only just reached the pi lau.

  'I believe they're either the graves of abbots,' Mr Borrie replied, 'or receptacles for holy scriptures. This is Ngong Ping, our destination. You've done very well getting up the mountain. Put the rest of us to shame.' He glanced back. My father was leaning against the pi lau. 'Your poor old dad's a bit out of shape.'