When they arrived, Mrs Barnabas told them that her husband was still alive, and, she thought, conscious, but in such darkness of spirit that he would not open his eyes or speak. He had been carried up on to the roof, on account of the heat in his room, and his gestures had indicated that he would be left alone. ‘But he must not be left alone,’ said Mr Pinmay. ‘We must watch with him through this dark hour. I will prepare him in the first place.’ He climbed the staircase that led through a trapdoor on to the roof. In the shadow of the parapet lay the dying man, coughing gently, and stark naked.
‘Vithobai!’ he cried in amazement.
He opened his eyes and said: ‘Who calls me?’
‘You must have some covering, Barnabas,’ said Mr Pinmay fussily. He looked round, but there was nothing on the roof except a curious skein of blue flowers threaded round a knife. He took them up. But the other said, ‘Do not lay those upon me yet,’ and he refrained, remembering that blue is the colour of despair in that valley, just as red is the colour of love. ‘I’ll get you a shawl,’ he continued. ‘Why, you are not lying upon a mattress, even.’
‘It is my own roof. Or I thought it was until now. My wife and household respected my wishes. They laid me here because it is not the custom of my ancestors to die in a bed.’
‘Mrs Barnabas should have known better. You cannot possibly lie on hard asphalt.’
‘I have found that I can.’
‘Vithobai, Vithobai,’ he cried, more upset then he expected.
‘Who calls me?’
‘You are not going back to your old false gods?’
‘Oh no. So near to the end of my life, why should I make any change? These flowers are only a custom, and they comfort me.’
‘There is only one comforter . . .’ He glanced around the roof, then fell upon his knees. He could save a soul without danger to himself at last. ‘Come to Christ,’ he said, ‘but not in the way that you suppose. The time has come for me to explain. You and I once sinned together, yes, you and your missionary whom you so reverence. You and I must now repent together, yes, such is God’s law.’ And confusedly, and with many changes of emotion and shiftings of his point of view and reservations, he explained the nature of what had happened ten years ago and its present consequences.
The other made a painful effort to follow, but his eyes kept closing. ‘What is all this talk?’ he said at last. ‘And why do you wait until I am ill and you old?’
‘I waited until I could forgive you and ask your forgiveness. It is the hour of your atonement and mine. Put away all despair, forget those wicked flowers. Let us repent and leave the rest to God.’
‘I repent, I do not repent . . . ‘ he wailed.
‘Hush! Think what you say.’
‘I forgive you, I do not forgive, both are the same. I am good I am evil I am pure I am foul, I am this or that, I am Barnabas, I am Vithobai. What difference does it make now? It is my deeds that await me, and I have no strength left to add to them. No strength, no time. I lie here empty, but you fill me up with thoughts, and then press me to speak them that you may have words to remember afterwards . . . But it is deeds, deeds that count, O my lost brother. Mine are this little house instead of my old great one, this valley which other men own, this cough that kills me, those bastards that continue my race; and that deed in the hut, which you say caused all, and which now you call joy, now sin. How can I remember which it was after all these years, and what difference if I could? It was a deed, it has gone before me with the others to be judged.’
‘Vithobai,’ he pleaded, distressed because he himself had been called old.
‘Who calls me the third time?’
‘Kiss me.’
‘My mouth is down here.’
‘Kiss my forehead – no more – as a sign that I am forgiven. Do not misunderstand me this time . . . in perfect purity . . . the holy salutation of Christ. And then say with me: Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .’
‘My mouth is down here,’ he repeated wearily.
Mr Pinmay feared to venture the kiss lest Satan took an advantage. He longed to do something human before he had the sinking man carried down to receive the Holy Communion, but he had forgotten how. ‘You have forgiven me, my poor fellow,’ he worried on. ‘If you do not, how can I continue my vocation, or hope for the forgiveness of God?’
The lips moved.
‘If you forgive me, move your lips once more, as a sign.’
He became rigid, he was dying.
‘You do still love me?’
‘My breast is down here.’
‘In Christ, I mean.’ And uncertain of what he ought to do he laid his head hesitatingly upon the poor skeleton. Vithobai shivered, then looked at him with surprise, pity, affection, disdain, with all, but with little of any, for his spirit had mainly departed, and only the ghosts of its activities remained. He was a little pleased. He raised a hand painfully, and stroked the scanty hair, golden no longer. He whispered, ‘Too late,’ but he smiled a little.
‘It is never too late,’ said Mr Pinmay, permitting a slow encircling movement of the body, the last it would ever accomplish. ‘God’s mercy is infinite, and endureth for ever and ever. He will give us other opportunities. We have erred in this life but it will not be so in the life to come.’
The dying man seemed to find comfort at last. ‘The life to come,’ he whispered, but more distinctly. ‘I had forgotten it. You are sure it is coming?’
‘Even your old false religion was sure of that.’
‘And we shall meet in it, you and I?’ he asked, with a tender yet reverent caress.
‘Assuredly, if we keep God’s commandments.’
‘Shall we know one another again?’
‘Yes, with all spiritual knowledge.’
‘And will there be love?’
‘In the real and true sense, there will.’
‘Real and true love! Ah, that would be joyful.’ His voice gained strength, his eyes had an austere beauty as he embraced his friend, parted from him so long by the accidents of earth. Soon God would wipe away all tears. ‘The life to come,’ he shouted. ‘Life, life, eternal life. Wait for me in it.’ And he stabbed the missionary through the heart.
The jerk the knife gave brought his own fate hurrying upon him. He had scarcely the strength to push the body on to the asphalt or to spread the skein of blue flowers. But he survived for a moment longer, and it was the most exquisite he had ever known. For love was conquered at last and he was again a king, he had sent a messenger before him to announce his arrival in the life to come, as a great chief should. ‘I served you for ten years,’ he thought, ‘and your yoke was hard, but mine will be harder and you shall serve me now for ever and ever.’ He dragged himself up, he looked over the parapet. Below him were a horse and cart, beyond, the valley which he had once ruled, the site of the hut, the ruins of his old stockade, the schools, the hospital, the cemetery, the stacks of timber, the polluted stream, all that he had been used to regard as signs of his disgrace. But they signified nothing this morning, they were flying like mist, and beneath them, solid and eternal, stretched the kingdom of the dead. He rejoiced as in boyhood, he was expected there now. Mounting on the corpse, he climbed higher, raised his arms over his head, sunlit, naked, victorious, leaving all disease and humiliation behind him, and he swooped like a falcon from the parapet in pursuit of the terrified shade.
THE OTHER BOAT
I
‘Cocoanut, come and play at soldiers.’
‘I cannot, I am beesy.’
‘But you must, Lion wants you.’
‘Yes, come along, man,’ said Lionel, running up with some paper cocked hats and a sash. It was long long ago, and little boys still went to their deaths stiffly, and dressed in as many clothes as they could find.
‘I cannot, I am beesy,’ repeated Cocoanut.
‘But man, what are you busy about?’
‘I have soh many things to arrange, man.’
‘Let’s leave him and play by ourselves,’ said Olive. ‘We’ve Joan and Noel and Baby and Lieutenant Bodkin. Who wants Cocoanut?’
‘Oh, shut up! I want him. We must have him. He’s the only one who falls down when he’s killed. All you others go on fighting long too long. The battle this morning was a perfect fast. Mother said so.’
‘Well, I’ll die.’
‘So you say beforehand, but when it comes to the point you won’t. Noel won’t. Joan won’t. Baby doesn’t do anything properly – of course he’s too little – and you can’t expect Lieutenant Bodkin to fall down. Cocoanut, man, do.’
‘I – weel – not.’
‘Cocoanut cocoanut cocoanut cocoanut cocoanut cocoanut,’ said Baby.
The little boy rolled on the deck screaming happily. He liked to be pressed by these handsome good-natured children. ‘I must go and see the m’m m’m m’m,’ he said.
‘The what?’
‘The m’m m’m m’m. They live – oh, so many of them – in the thin part of the ship.’
‘He means the bow,’ said Olive. ‘Oh, come along, Lion. He’s hopeless.’
‘What are m’m m’m m’m?’
‘M’m.’ He whirled his arms about, and chalked some marks on the planks.
‘What are those?’
‘M’m.’
‘What’s their name?’
‘They have no name.’
‘What do they do?’
‘They just go so and oh! and so – ever – always——’
‘Flying fish? . . . Fairies? . . . Noughts and crosses?’
‘They have no name.’
‘Mother!’ said Olive to a lady who was promenading with a gentleman, ‘hasn’t everything a name?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Who’s this?’ asked the lady’s companion.
‘He’s always hanging on to my children. I don’t know.’
‘Touch of the-tar-brush, eh?’
‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter on a voyage home. I would never allow it going to India.’ They passed on, Mrs March calling back, ‘Shout as much as you like, boys, but don’t scream, don’t scream.’
‘They must have a name,’ said Lionel, recollecting, ‘because Adam named all the animals when the Bible was beginning.’
‘They weren’t in the Bible, m’m m’m m’m; they were all the time up in the thin part of the sheep, and when you pop out they pop in, so how could Adam have?’
‘Noah’s ark is what he’s got to now.’
Baby said ‘Noah’s ark, Noah’s ark, Noah’s ark,’ and they all bounced up and down and roared. Then, without any compact, they drifted from the saloon deck on to the lower, and from the lower down the staircase that led to the forecastle, much as the weeds and jellies were drifting about outside in the tropical sea. Soldiering was forgotten, though Lionel said, ‘We may as well wear our cocked hats.’ They played with a fox-terrier, who was in the charge of a sailor, and asked the sailor himself if a roving life was a happy one. Then drifting forward again, they climbed into the bows, where the m’m m’m m’m were said to be.
Here opened a glorious country, much the best in the boat. None of the March children had explored there before, but Cocoanut, having few domesticities, knew it well. That bell that hung in the very peak – it was the ship’s bell and if you rang it the ship would stop. Those big ropes were tied into knots – twelve knots an hour. This paint was wet, but only as far as there. Up that hole was coming a Lascar. But of the m’m m’m he said nothing until asked. Then he explained in offhand tones that if you popped out they popped in, so that you couldn’t expect to see them.
What treachery! How disappointing! Yet so ill-balanced were the children’s minds that they never complained. Olive, in whom the instincts of a lady were already awaking, might have said a few well-chosen words, but when she saw her brothers happy she forgot too, and lifted Baby up on to a bollard because he asked her to. They all screamed. Into their midst came the Lascar and laid down a mat for his three-o’clock prayer. He prayed as if he was still in India, facing westward, not knowing that the ship had rounded Arabia so that his holy places now lay behind him. They continued to scream.
Mrs March and her escort remained on the saloon deck, inspecting the approach to Suez. Two continents were converging with great magnificence of mountains and plain. At their junction, nobly placed, could be seen the smoke and the trees of the town. In addition to her more personal problems, she had become anxious about Pharaoh. ‘Where exactly was Pharaoh drowned?’ she asked Captain Armstrong. ‘I shall have to show my boys.’ Captain Armstrong did not know, but he offered to ask Mr Hotblack, the Moravian missionary. Mr Hotblack knew – in fact he knew too much. Somewhat snubbed by the military element in the earlier part of the voyage, he now bounced to the surface, became authoritative and officious, and undertook to wake Mrs March’s little ones when they were passing the exact spot. He spoke of the origins of Christianity in a way that made her look down her nose, saying that the Canal was one long genuine Bible picture gallery, that donkeys could still be seen going down into Egypt carrying Holy Families, and naked Arabs wading into the water to fish; ‘Peter and Andrew by Galilee’s shore, why, it hits the truth plumb.’ A clergyman’s daughter and a soldier’s wife, she could not admit that Christianity had ever been oriental. What good thing can come out of the Levant, and is it likely that the apostles ever had a touch of the tar-brush? Still, she thanked Mr Hotblack (for, having asked a favour of him, she had contracted an obligation towards him), and she resigned herself to greeting him daily until Southampton, when their paths would part.
Then she observed, against the advancing land, her children playing in the bows without their topis on. The sun in those far-off days was a mighty power and hostile to the Ruling Race. Officers staggered at a touch of it, Tommies collapsed. When the regiment was under canvas, it wore helmets at tiffin, lest the rays penetrated the tent. She shouted at her doomed offspring, she gesticulated, Captain Armstrong and Mr Hotblack shouted, but the wind blew their cries backwards. Refusing company, she hurried forward alone; the children were far too excited and covered with paint.
‘Lionel! Olive! Olive! What are you doing?’
‘M’m m’m m’m, mummy – it’s a new game.’
‘Go back and play properly under the awning at once – it’s far too hot. You’ll have sunstroke every one of you. Come Baby!’
‘M’m m’m m’m.’
‘Now, you won’t want me to carry a great boy like you, surely.’
Baby flung himself round the bollard and burst into tears.
‘It always ends like this,’ said Mrs March as she detached him. ‘You all behave foolishly and selfishly and then Baby cries. No, Olive – don’t help me. Mother would rather do everything herself.’
‘Sorry,’ said Lionel gruffly. Baby’s shrieks rent the air. Thoroughly naughty, he remained clasping an invisible bollard. As she bent him into a portable shape, another mishap occurred. A sailor – an Englishman – leapt out of the hatchway with a piece of chalk and drew a little circle round her where she stood. Cocoanut screamed, ‘He’s caught you. He’s come.’
‘You’re on dangerous ground, lady,’ said the sailor respectfully. ‘Men’s quarters. Of course we leave it to your generosity.’
Tired with the voyage and the noise of the children, worried by what she had left in India and might find in England, Mrs March fell into a sort of trance. She stared at the circle stupidly, unable to move out of it, while Cocoanut danced round her and gibbered.
‘Men’s quarters – just to keep up the old custom.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Passengers are often kind enough to pay their footing,’ he said, feeling awkward; though rapacious he was independent. ‘But of course there’s no compulsion, lady. Ladies and gentlemen do as they feel.’
‘I will certainly do what is customary – Baby, be quiet.’
‘Thank you, lady. We divide whatever you give among the crew.
Of course not those chaps.’ He indicated the Lascar.
‘The money shall be sent to you. I have no purse.’
He touched his forelock cynically. He did not believe her. She stepped out of the circle and as she did so Cocoanut sprang into it and squatted grinning.
‘You’re a silly little boy and I shall complain to the stewardess about you,’ she told him with unusual heat. ‘You never will play any game properly and you stop the others. You’re a silly idle useless unmanly little boy.’
II
S.S. Normannia
Red Sea
October, 191–
Hullo the Mater!
You may be thinking it is about time I wrote you a line, so here goes, however you should have got my wire sent before leaving Tilbury with the glad news that I got a last minute passage on this boat when it seemed quite impossible I should do so. The Arbuthnots are on it too all right, so is a Lady Manning who claims acquaintance with Olive, not to mention several remarkably cheery subalterns, poor devils, don’t know what they are in for in the tropics. We make up two Bridge tables every night besides hanging together at other times, and get called the Big Eight, which I suppose must be regarded as a compliment. How I got my passage is curious. I was coming away from the S.S. office after my final try in absolute despair when I ran into an individual whom you may or may not remember – he was a kid on that other boat when we cleared all out of India on that unlikely occasion over ten years ago – got called Cocoanut because of his peculiar shaped head. He has now turned into an equally weird youth, who has however managed to become influential in shipping circles, I can’t think how some people manage to do things. He duly recognized me – dagoes sometimes have marvellous memories – and on learning my sad plight fixed me up with a (single berth) cabin, so all is well. He is on board too, but our paths seldom cross. He has more than a touch of the tar-brush, so consorts with his own dusky fraternity, no doubt to their mutual satisfaction.
The heat is awful and I fear this is but a dull letter in consequence. Bridge I have already mentioned, and there are the usual deck games, betting on the ship’s log, etc., still I think everyone will be glad to reach Bombay and get into harness. Colonel and Mrs Arbuthnot are very friendly, and speaking confidentially I don’t think it will do my prospects any harm having got to know them better. Well I will now conclude this screed and I will write again when I have rejoined the regiment and contacted Isabel. Best love to all which naturally includes yourself from
The New Collected Short Stories Page 26
