‘Go on!’
‘If you want me to tell you his life story, I can’t—’
‘Leave out wot yer can’t. Wot can yer?’
‘I can tell you this, Ben. There are just two things in his mind at this moment. One’s murder. And the other’s—love. Ugh! Or what a beast like that calls love.’
‘Yer mean, ’e’s got a sweet’eart?’ inquired Ben.
‘He’d like to have one,’ she answered, and suddenly turned her head away.
Round the corner, out of sight, the tipsy man’s voice rose again.
‘Why—if it isn’t Mr Spaniard!’ it cried. ‘Now, lishen, Mr Spaniard—I’ve not got the shoe! Angel from heaven—hic—just snatched it away.’
8
Largely Concerning Ben’s Clothes
For the fourth and last time that memorable evening Ben found himself running. But this time he knew in advance that he would lose the race.
For breath doesn’t last for ever. After forty million miles it gives out, and you need a rest of forty million years to get it back again. The world won’t let you rest, however, so you start borrowing on your prospects; and since lungs object to paying interest the borrowed breath presently gives out, too. Then you become breathrupt. Ben, now, was breathrupt.
Still, with that queer reversal of logic which made him a potential museum exhibit, he managed to run for just a little while. He made strange noises as he ran. One was a sort of dying whistle. Another reminded him of a small boy sucking lemons against time. He ran because he knew that if he didn’t his companion wouldn’t, and her need to run was even greater than his own.
Once, she half-paused, even though their pursuer could be heard quite plainly in the distance, and he had to gasp ‘G’arnm’ere.’ Correctly interpreting this as Ben for ‘Go on, I’m here,’ she went on, oblivious to the fact that Ben would not be here much longer.
Ben, on the other hand, was supremely conscious of the fact. His race was lost. The only question that troubled him was, how could he ensure that he lost it alone?
A couple of seconds later, that question was answered. Molly, a few feet in advance, darted up a side-lane expecting him to follow. He caught a momentary glimpse of her clambering over a stile before a mess of shadows swallowed her up. Then he tottered on, continuing along the main lane out of which she had turned.
The next few seconds were nightmare seconds. This was partly due to the circumstances and partly to his condition. When you are running after you can’t, things get a bit distorted, like.
The lane was distorted. The trees on either side were distorted. The sounds of the pursuit were also distorted. Time itself was distorted.
‘’E’s nearly up ter me,’ thought Ben. ‘I’ll stop now.’
But he didn’t stop. In order to lengthen the chase and to give Molly a longer advantage, he veered off the lane and staggered into a wood. The undergrowth rose up and clawed at him. Branches shot out at him. Each shadow concealed a panting animal. And then he found himself down among the shadows, and one of the animals was panting above him.
It was an animal called Don Diablo.
‘Orl right, let it come,’ said Ben, meekly.
It came in the form of a flashing fist. Don Diablo had no objection to hitting a man when he was down.
The wood vanished. So did Don Diablo and everything else. When the wood reappeared, after a lapse of time that might have been a minute or an hour for all Ben could judge, Don Diablo did not reappear with it.
Where had Don Diablo gone? Why wasn’t he still here? Was he still hunting for Molly. And, if so, would he find her? These and other questions revolved round Ben’s mind; but since he had no possible means of solving them he reverted at last to the question of himself.
Though the Spaniard had gone, probably he would come back again. In that case it would be wise to shift one’s quarters. One couldn’t shift them far, because the shifting process involved too many aches and pains, but by inventing a new dance called the crawl-step one could remove oneself slowly over the undergrowth till one reached a declivity down which one could roll …
It was a longer and a swifter roll than Ben had anticipated. It seemed in the darkness to carry him down a mountainside, and a trickle of water made him fear at one moment that he was going to end in a torrent. But he ended in a prickly bush. Ben was now quite fifty yards from the spot he had started from, and it was exceedingly unlikely that anybody would discover him before sunrise. Thus the prickly bush had its virtue.
So he stayed where he was, and listened fearfully to shifting branches and snapping twigs. Twice he believed that, somewhere far above him, a figure was moving. He could not be sure. It is impossible to be certain of anything when you are lying on a prickly bush trying not to protest. He would have betted all his remaining brace-buttons, however, that at one crucial moment he had seen Don Diablo’s eyes gleaming down upon him from the heights.
The moment was crucial because he was trying not to sneeze into a spike …
‘’Allo! Wot’s this?’ thought Ben.
The wood was transformed. It was no longer dark. Grey light filtered through it, revealing for the first time the spot on which Ben lay and had miraculously slept.
The bush which held him was only a part of the way down the slope. The rest of the slope was considerably steeper, and the steeper portion began just a few inches away from his left boot. It was punctuated with rough slabs and jutting points, and as Ben stared down at the precipice, on the edge of which he had passed the night, he realised that the bush had been an even better friend to him than he had imagined. It had saved him from destruction below as well as above.
‘Jest ter think,’ he muttered, ‘I might ’ave woke hup orl hover the plice!’
Then he stopped looking downwards, and looked upwards. There, now, his salvation lay. A poor salvation, certainly, but better than the precipice! Question was, could he climb up and reach it?
He managed, somehow. The bush was considerably less prickly when he left it because he brought most of the prickles up with him. Half-way up the slope he came upon his cap.
‘Well, I’m blowed!’ he murmured. ‘You and me carn’t lose each hother, can we?’
He picked the cap from the branch on which it hung, blew it, and stuck it on his head. Then he completed his laborious journey to the top.
He came over the top cautiously. A small animal got a fright. The fright was shared. But you get over frights quicker in the morning than at night, and a minute later Ben was standing in the lane from which on the previous night he had made his frenzied lurch.
The lane was deserted. Ben stood and puffed. Then a car came round a corner, and the driver pressed on his brake.
It wasn’t a Rolls-Royce, and the driver hadn’t a collar. The driver, in fact, was only a couple of rungs higher up in the social ladder than Ben. That may have been why he applied his brake.
‘Want a lift?’ he called, good-naturedly.
‘Where to?’ replied Ben.
‘Downton and Salisbury,’ said the driver.
‘I’ll ’ave ’em both,’ answered Ben.
For he had been thinking while he had ascended the slope, and his thoughts had run something like this:
‘Corse, it’s nex’ mornin’, ain’t it? Lummy, wot’s ’appened ter me neck? Nex’ mornin’, and if I stays arahnd ’ere I’ll be caught proper. It’s got twisted. If it ain’t the Spaniard, it’ll be the perleece. Where’s me swaller? No good lookin’ fer Molly—she’ll ’ave ’oofed it. Will she? Well, wouldn’t she? That’s funny, one lump’s gorn and another’s come. Oh, no, ’ere’s the old ’un, they’re both ’ere. This is wot she’d do. She’d look fer me, but she’d know she couldn’t find me, and so she’d stop lookin’ fer me, and then she’d say, “’Ow can I find ’im,” sime as I’m now sayin’ ’ow can I find ’er, like. Gawd, me knee-cap’s busted. And then she’d say, “Well, if I goes back ter Southampton and gits that letter, it’ll give the address of that there ’o
use at Wimbledon Common, and p’r’aps ’e’ll remember the address orl of a sudden, like, sime as one does, and then we’ll meet agine, but even if ’e don’t go there,” this is wot she’d say, “I must go there,” she’d say, “’cos I gotter give that there warnin’, see?” Wot’s this in me marth? I must ’ave bin chewin’ leaves in me sleep. Well, orl I can do is ter go ter Lunnon, too, an’ watch the trines come in.’
That was as far as thought had carried him when the car came along.
‘Well, jump in,’ said the good-natured driver, with a grin. ‘You look as if you could do with a sit down. Bin makin’ a night of it, mate?’
Ben climbed in. There was just room for two. The car began to move forward again.
‘Sort of,’ answered Ben.
‘Lookin’ for work?’ came the next question.
Ben wasn’t ready with a reply this time, and the man ran on.
‘Well, there’s plenty of others doin’ the same, mate. I’ve two brothers and an uncle—all out. And so’ll I be nex’ month unless, mebbe, this Medway Bill goes through!’
‘’Oo’s ’e?’ asked Ben, not in the least interested. He did not know that he was making the acquaintance of a name soon to be intimately interwoven with his own.
‘What’s that?’ exclaimed the driver.
‘Medway Bill,’ repeated Ben. ‘I’ve on’y ’eard o’ Buffalo.’
‘Medway! Joseph Medway—the bill ’e’s bringin’ in this week!’ answered the driver. ‘The bill that’s goin’ to make England what she was and all the other countries what they used to be!’
‘Never ’eard of it.’
‘Never heard—?’ The driver stared at Ben incredulously. ‘Where’ve you been lately, mate?’
‘Eh?’
‘Jest come out of a Rip Van Winkle sleep or something?’
‘Oh! I git yer. I’m jest orf a boat.’
‘Oh, I see! Sailor?’
‘That’s right.’
This was a mistake. A sailor was being sought in Southampton! But the driver did not make any disturbing comment.
‘And ’ow long ’ave you been on the briny, mate?’ he inquired.
‘More’n ’arf-a-minit,’ replied Ben, relieved but cautious.
‘You must of. Why, Medway’s the big noise. Of course, there’s some say he goes too far, but there’s others say he don’t go far enough. Regler war on about it. Well, let ’em fight it out—all I care about is my own little bit of bread and cheese.’
‘You ’aven’t got a bit on yer, ’ave yer?’ asked Ben.
‘Well, I don’t carry it about in my pocket!’ retorted the driver, and suddenly stared at Ben in the growing morning light. ‘Say, who’s been knocking you about?’
‘That ain’t a knock, that’s nacheral,’ answered Ben.
After this, conversation dragged. Ben wasn’t interested in politics, and he was reticent about himself; and the driver did not appear to be interested in any other subjects.
Perhaps the driver was a little disappointed in his passenger. The driver was a talkative soul, and Ben was somewhat monosyllabic. You can’t expect to pick plums from the roadside, however, before breakfast, and there was some consolation at least in getting the daily Good Act over so early. One can always recognise a good act by the discomfort it causes.
Ben, on his side, was glad of the silence. He wanted to go on thinking. He wanted to convince himself that he was not moving in the wrong direction and that he should not really be moving towards Southampton instead of away from it. He might have changed his policy, asked the driver to stop, got out, and walked back, but for the practical certainty that Molly would have left Southampton if she’d been there before Ben reached it if he got there.
‘Corse, I ain’t really got a brine,’ he told himself, miserably. ‘It’s jest a bit o’ cotton.’
That was what it felt like.
The driver made two more essays at conversation. The first essay was,
‘Is Salisbury where you live, mate?’
‘’Oo?’ answered Ben.
The driver considered this a rotten answer. He did not know that he had struck Ben at a bad moment. Ben’s mind was now absorbed in Ways and Means, and he was feeling for the Means. In other words, he was feeling for the pound note the dead man had given him, and the note seemed to be as dead as the donor. His fingers, fumbling in his best pocket, could not find it.
But Ben’s garments were as full of holes as gruyere, and after some intensely anxious moments the fumbling fingers discovered that even a best pocket can err. He found a hole he had not suspected. It brought the total up to forty-nine. The fingers slipped through, and touched two bits of paper. And the driver chose this instant for his second essay at conversation.
‘What part have you come from, mate?’ he asked. ‘Ameriky?’
This time he was even more unlucky, for Ben did not reply at all. For one of the bits of paper he had brought out of his latest hole was twenty shillingsworth of green, white and pale blue, with a red ‘L82 714067’ in the top right-hand corner, and it makes you a bit emotional when you find a pound you thought you have lost.
And the other bit of paper was something else he thought he had lost. A bit of paper on which was written: ‘Greystones, North Lane.’
’Strewth! ’E ’adn’t lorst it …
‘Oi! Where’s this we’re comin’ ter?’ he asked, suddenly.
‘Downton,’ the driver told him.
‘Is there a stishun?’
‘You’re lookin’ at it.’
‘Then, if yer don’t mind,’ said Ben, ‘I’ll git out.’
‘I don’t mind a bit,’ answered the driver.
The car stopped. Ben got out. It occurred to him he ought to make a speech.
‘Thank yer,’ he said.
‘It’s been a pleasure,’ replied the driver. ‘I ain’t enjoyed a conversation more for years. Hey! Don’t you want your cap?’
9
‘Where’s the Sailor?’
At ten minutes past eleven a train drew in at Waterloo station, and at fourteen minutes past a porter prodded the only passenger who had so far shown no inclination to leave it.
‘Going to stay there all day?’ inquired the porter.
‘Git orf me!’ murmured the passenger.
The passenger looked not unlike a sleeping scarecrow. His face was dirty, his hair—or what could be seen of it beneath a capacious cap—was tangled, and bits of countryside were sticking to his clothes. In the circumstances, this was not the way for him to speak to a respectable London porter.
‘Now, then, now, then, wake up!’ said the respectable London porter.
To assist the operation the porter laid his hand upon the scarecrow’s shoulder, and the effect was as though he had pressed an electric button. The scarecrow left his seat with a bound.
‘Hi! What’s the matter with you?’ cried the porter, backing indignantly.
‘’Oo?’ replied the scarecrow.
By which response we recognise the scarecrow as Ben. For this was Ben’s most frequent remark on earth, and would form his most appropriate epitaph when under it.
The porter, lacking our advantages, did not recognise the scarecrow, and regarded him merely as an annoyance in the daily round. Consequently his attitude became a trifle menacing, and as Ben had had enough of menace during the past eighteen hours, he removed himself hastily from the porter’s daily round, slid from the compartment to the platform—the porter swore subsequently that he slid through his legs—and, so to speak, shuffled shorewards.
The shore was the barrier. The barrier is a station’s tide-mark where collect the flosam and jetsam cast up by the line. Until you have passed the barrier you are still under control of the official tide; only when you have passed it are you a free entity again.
Ben had some little difficulty in becoming a free entity. The official at the barrier insisted on seeing his ticket. Ben knew he had bought a ticket, because another official at Downton had made him do
so just as the up-train was coming in. In his pocket was the eight-and-sixpence he had received at the Downton booking-office in change for his pound note. At least, the sixpence was in his sock, having travelled thither via the perforated tunnel of his trouser-leg, but the rest was in his pocket … No, was it? Now a shilling, rendered mobile through agitation, suddenly slid coldly down Ben’s thigh to join the sixpence.
One-and-six below and seven bob above. The sock was gaining!
‘Where’ve you come from?’ barked the ticket collector, as Ben fumbled.
Being busy, Ben did not reply.
‘What class?’ came the collector’s next sarcastic inquiry.
‘Pullman,’ answered Ben.
He answered two inches from the ground, for he was peering at the bottom of his trousers to see whether they had a turn-up. He remembered that the last trousers he had possessed, ten years ago, had had a turn-up, because he had once found a black-beetle in it. These trousers, however, didn’t have a turn-up. They concluded their descent thinly.
The search, nevertheless, proved productive. As Ben stooped his cap fell off, and the little ticket suddenly winked up at him from a convenient crevice of the cap’s material. He quickly brought his boot down on the ticket, lest it should run away, and a moment later he was triumphantly handing it to the collector.
‘Think I was aht ter cheat yer?’ he demanded, secure in his righteousness.
‘Well, I’ve known it happen,’ returned the collector, dryly.
‘Yus, but not with me,’ retorted Ben. ‘I never cheats the railway hor the hincome tax.’
Then he was permitted to pass the barrier, and became once more a free man. As free, at least, as Ben could ever be.
He stood for a few moments in the vast, grey space fed by its platform tributaries. He looked for a clock. Seventeen minutes past eleven. How long did it take to get from Waterloo to Wimbledon Common?
People moved about him. He didn’t matter to any of them, and none of them mattered to him. Funny, how one mattered to oneself! Smoke hung about. Or was it fog? He wouldn’t know till he got outside. Stations hatch their own atmosphere.
Ben Sees It Through Page 6
