by Nevil Shute
That happened in the morning, and if Colonel McCulloch had been able to look in that afternoon before the views of Mr Parsons got around the neighbourhood it would have been a great deal better. Unfortunately he was detained and did not come till the next day.
Ezekiel Parsons was eighty-six years old. He had been a farm labourer in his day, and had never been farther from Trenarth than Penzance. He could not read or write, and he was very deaf. Trenarth was the universe to Mr Parsons; he classed persons from villages ten miles away as foreigners equally with those from foreign countries. His wife was long dead and his family dispersed; he lived in a single attic room on the old age pension and a small allowance from his children, and sat in a corner of the public bar of the White Hart, every day, morning and evening, from opening till closing time. It was his one amusement, to sit there and watch the people. He was the oldest inhabitant, and he had long white side-whiskers.
He was well known to Jerry Bowman, the driver of the brewers’ lorry delivering the casks of beer. That morning Jerry stood the old man a glass of mild, and asked: “What do you think of all these Americans in Trenarth, Mr Parsons?”
The ancient piped in his old quavering voice: “I like them very well, oh, very well indeed. We get on nicely with them here. I don’t like these white ones that are coming in now, though. I hope they don’t send us no more o’ them.”
It was too good not to be repeated; it ran round both whites and blacks that afternoon. It got to Colonel McCulloch as a good story in the evening. He did not think it a good story at all. He thought it was a very bad story indeed, and he thought about it all night.
Bright and early the next morning, he sent for Lieutenant Anderson, chief of his detachment of military police. Lieutenant Anderson came from Little Rock, Arkansas, and had served there in the police; he knew a good deal about niggers. The colonel said:
“Say, Anderson, we’re heading straight for trouble with these goddam niggers. They’ve been here alone too long, and they’ve got the whole darned countryside with them.”
Lieutenant Anderson said: “I guess that’s right, colonel. They been here alone too long, and they’ve got uppity.”
The colonel said: “That’s right. Mind, we got nothing to complain of yet, beyond the fact that they go walking with these darned English girls, giving them ideas. But I know, and you know, what’s the end of that. They get swelled heads, and then we’ll have real trouble.”
“That’s right, colonel.”
“Well now, you got to be strict with them. I don’t mean go hazing them and stirring up trouble, just — strict. We got to get things back the way they should be. Keep them smart, ‘n crack down on them if they’re not dressed right, It won’t hurt any if we make a few examples; if you get anything to go before court martial, for example, I’ll see they get the limit. I had some of this before, one time, and I know what can happen if you let it slide. You want to be just, ‘n give them the square deal. But when you catch them on the hop, then you got to be plenty tough.”
Lieutenant Anderson said: “Okay, colonel. I got the idea.”
The colonel said: “I’m going down right now to sort out this darned saloon keeper, and get that end of it straightened out.”
He drove down in his Command car to see Mr Frobisher, accompanied by Lieutenant Schultz. He found the landlord in his shirtsleeves polishing the glasses in the bar, for it was out of hours and the bar was empty.
He said: “Say, Mr Frobisher, I understand there’s been a mite of disagreement between you and Schultz here over the use of this place by the colored troops. I just stopped off to tell you why we can’t have that any more, so that you’d see it from our point of view.”
Mr Frobisher said: “Aye?”
Colonel McCulloch said: “Yeah. I’ve got to run the war around these parts, and I’ve got to do it with the troops they’ve given me. They’ve given me white troops and colored mixed for my command. I didn’t ask for it that way, but that’s the way it is. Well, when you get a mixed command like that you got to watch out and be mighty careful, Mr Frobisher, or they’ll be fighting and shooting and God knows what.”
Mr Frobisher said: “Aye?”
The colonel said: “You got to be mighty careful with these niggers. Maybe you wouldn’t know about that in this country. You start and treat them like you would whites, before you know it they’ll be thinking they’re as good as white, telling you what to do. Then you get trouble. There’s only one way to deal with this, the way we do it back at home and all through the Army. Separate recreation for the colored and the whites. Keep them apart, and then you don’t get trouble. Give the niggers a place of their own, and keep them in it. That’s the setup I’m going to have here.”
Mr Frobisher said: “Aye?”
“That’s right. From Thursday next the niggers use the refreshment room up at the station. They won’t be coming in here after Wednesday night.”
Mr Frobisher said: “I was thinking, how would it be if your whites used the parlour of an evening, and let the blacks go on in the public bar as they’ve been doing?”
He led the way and showed them the parlour. It was a small room, rather dingy, with a few texts on the walls. The officers thought nothing of it. “Can’t put the boys in a dump like this,” said Schultz. Mr Frobisher did not like to hear his sitting-room referred to as a dump, but he said nothing.
“That won’t do,” said the colonel. “They’d have to use the same passage and the same door. No, from Thursday next the niggers go to the refreshment room.”
“How are you going to keep them out of here?” asked Mr Frobisher.
The colonel said: “I’m hoping we’ll get your co-operation, Mr Frobisher. If not, I’ll have to put this place off limits to the colored troops, and put a policeman outside in the street.”
He went away, leaving Mr Frobisher uneasy and resentful. That evening Sergeant Lorimer, the big Negro who had mended the electric iron for the landlord’s daughter, called for Bessie to take her for a walk. They had fallen into the habit of doing this once or twice a week, after which he would return with her to tea in the parlour of the pub, finishing up the evening in the bar, playing darts.
Outside the pub they met a military policeman. Lieutenant Anderson had his own ways of putting niggers in their place, and he had been genuinely shocked to see so many walking out with English girls. The MP said: “See your pass, sergeant.”
He stared at the pass. “Let’s see your dog tag.”
The Negro expostulated. “Say, what’s that for?”
“So’s I’ll know this pass is made out for you, ‘n not some other nigger,” said the policeman. “Come on, step on it.”
To get at his identity disk, slung round his neck next to his skin, Lorimer had to undo coat and muffler, disarrange his collar and tie, open his shirt and pull out the disc from beneath his undervest. Then, while Bessie waited for him, he had to dress up again.
Twenty yards on they met another military policeman. “C’m on, sergeant — pass and dog tag.” Again Lorimer had to undress upon the pavement.
All up and down the street, Negro soldiers walking with English girls were undressing on the pavement, while the girls stood giggling or irritated, and the Negroes struggled with their clothes in sullen fury. After the fourth encounter Lorimer and Bessie gave up their walk, thus fulfilling the intention of Lieutenant Anderson, and returned to the pub. The girl told her father all about it over tea.
“Jim here, he was ever so patient,” she said. “They was just doing it to be nasty, seemed to me.”
“I guess they don’t like to see colored people walking with English girls,” the Negro said quietly. “They wasn’t doing it to nobody except couples.”
Mr Frobisher sucked his pipe in thoughtful silence. “I dunno,” he said at last. “Funny sort of way o’ going on.”
He was genuinely concerned at the turn that events were taking in Trenarth. He was the unofficial leader of the community; the village had a de
crepit village hall, an army hut of the last war put up by the British Legion, but the main meeting place and forum for discussion was the bar of the White Hart. Mr Frobisher had run that bar for very many years, and so had presided over most of the meetings of the village upon topics that concerned them all. He felt, inarticulate, that it was up to him to take a lead in this distressing matter that was agitating the place. He was waiting upon events to show him what that lead should be.
Corporal Stanislaus Oszwiecki showed him, that same night. The bar was filled with sullen, irritated Negroes mixed with white soldiers. Corporal Oszwiecki thought this was a good time and place to give his views on the association of white girls with coloured men.
“Say,” he said, “you hear what the Snowdrops have been doing up ‘n down the street?” He told his companions in a loud tone what had been going on. “Teach these English bitches to go walking with a nigger,” he said.
There was a momentary pause. Mr Frobisher broke it, from behind the bar. “Not so much o’ that language, if you please,” he said. “If you can’t talk clean, you can get outside.”
Jim Dakers said: “Say, what kind of a place is this, anyway? It makes me sick these English floosies go around with niggers. I seen them hugging and kissing in dark corners — think o’ that, man, hugging and kissing with a nigger.” He turned to Mr Frobisher. “Say, mister, this town stinks. Stinks of nigger.”
Three white American soldiers got up and walked out in silence.
Mr Frobisher slammed down a jug upon the counter; in the silence that followed the sharp rap he said: “If that’s the way of it, I’ll clear the bloody bar. Outside all the lot of you — white and black. Outside — every American soldier out of this house, unless you want the military police called in. Outside, all the lot of you!”
Corporal Oszwiecki said: “Say, what is this? We don’t have to go.”
Mr Frobisher left the bar and walked out into the street. Before the inn he found a couple of American military police. “There’s trouble with your soldiers in my bar,” he said. “You’d better get every American out of my house, white and black. They’ll be fighting with each other in a minute.”
The military police swung their truncheons and went in; in a few minutes the house was clear, but for a few civilians and old Ezekiel Parsons sitting in a corner. In the quiet that followed the departure of the Americans the old man piped: “Nasty fellows, they white ones. I can’t a-bear them.”
Behind the bar Mr Frobisher sat grim and silent, writing the large letters of a placard on white cardboard with a paintbrush dipped in ink.
It appeared in the bar window next morning. It read:
THIS HOUSE IS FOR ENGLISHMEN AND
COLOURED AMERICAN TROOPS ONLY
Two military policemen strolled up and looked at it. “Say,” said one, “that’s not right. The colonel’s going to put out an order that the niggers use the refreshment room. This place is for whites.”
They stared at it in silence for a moment. “I guess it’s a mistake,” the other said. “The landlord’s a bit dumb. Look, he spelt ‘colored’ wrong.”
When Colonel McCulloch heard about the notice he knew that it was no mistake. He was down at the White Hart within half an hour; outside the inn he paused and read the notice before going in. He found Mr Frobisher in his parlour, seated at the table making out his orders.
“Say, Mr Frobisher,” he said, “I hear that you had some trouble down here last night.”
“Aye,” said the landlord.
The colonel said: “Well, that’s just too bad. It’s as I said, we’ve got to fix up separate accommodation. The only thing is, I want the white boys to use this place, as we settled yesterday.”
“Aye?” said Mr Frobisher. “Well, I don’t.”
“Say, what’s the matter with the white boys?”
The landlord thought deeply for a minute. “There’s nothing wrong with most o’ them,” he said at last. “Nine out of ten are quiet, decent lads, remarkable like us. The rest of them are kind of quarrelsome and always making trouble. You can’t say you’ll have one lot o’ white soldiers, and not the others, though — it’s all or none. I never had no trouble with the coloured boys, of any sort at all.”
The colonel said: “When you say the white boys, ten per cent of them, make trouble, Mr Frobisher, what do you mean? What sort of trouble?”
The landlord said: “Last night they was picking on the coloured boys — saying nasty things about niggers in their hearing, and that. It was all the whites doing it, never the black boys. I think they was out to make a fight, that’s why I cleared the lot o’ them out.” He turned to the colonel. “Some of the whites with foreign names don’t seem to like anything — nothing you can do will please ’em. They don’t like our girls, they don’t like Negroes, they don’t like the beer, they don’t like the lavatories, ‘n they don’t like the English people, either, I don’t think. And they don’t mind telling you about it . . .”
“Some of them may have a lot to learn,” said Colonel McCulloch. “Quite a few of them have never been outside the States before.” He had not himself, but he did not say so.
“Aye,” said Mr Frobisher. “Well, they can go and do their learning up at the refreshment room, ‘n come back to this house when they’ve learned how to behave.”
“Now that’s what I’ve come down to talk about,” the colonel said. “We can’t have that. We can’t give this place over to the colored boys and let the white boys go up to the station. That’s giving the best accommodation to the niggers. You must see that we can’t do that.”
“I don’t know nothing about that,” said Mr Frobisher. “You’ve got your troubles, and I’ve got mine. I got my licence to think of, that’s what I’ve got. My licence. If I have fights and that, where do you think I’ll be?”
“Why,” he said, “I bloody near had a fight with one of your white boys myself last night, when he calls my Bessie a bitch. If I’d been twenty years younger I would ha’ done, licence or no licence.” He thought for a moment. “I’m sorry for the rest of your white boys,” he said, “the quiet easy ones that don’t feel badly about your black lads. But they just got to keep out of this house, along with the others. I can’t separate them out.”
“How would it be, though, if the whites came here and send the blacks up to the station? That’s the way we want it,” said the colonel.
“Have that corporal with the foreign name in my house again? Not likely,” said the landlord. “I’ll take the blacks.”
Colonel McCulloch could not make him alter that decision and returned ruefully to the camp up on the hill to take the matter up in correspondence with his general; the notice stayed in the window. That evening Mr Frobisher refused to serve white soldiers at all; as the bar-room was crowded with pleased and jubilant Negroes there was not the trouble that he had anticipated. The White Hart became firmly established as the recreation centre of the coloured soldiers, the white troops had to go to the small, ill-lit, badly furnished waiting-room, and relations between white and black deteriorated rapidly.
It was at this time of tension that Dave Lesurier made his pass at Grace Trefusis. For some time now he had thought of little else but Grace. It was clear to all the Negroes that they would not be much longer in Trenarth; the strip was made and paved and the airplanes were flying from it, and most of the roads were finished. If Dave were ever to consolidate with Grace he would have to get on with it; he had no time for the long courtship that he knew, instinctively, would be the right approach. He had been courting Grace now for a month, and he had still got no further than: “Ten Player’s, please.”
For a week he had been trying to advance to his next stage, which was “Say, Miss Grace, would you care to take a lil’ walk one evening?” But he had been unfortunate; each time the shop had been full of other people and the girl had herself been busy, though not too busy to smile as she handed him his cigarettes. He knew that she would not agree to walk out with him if oth
er people were in hearing; he would have to wait his chance to say his piece until they were alone together. And he got no chance.
She lived with her parents at a cottage near the railway; her father was a signalman at the junction box. Standing about in the square one evening at about six o’clock, hoping for a glimpse of her, he saw her going with a friend down to the Village Hall; she recognized him, and smiled at him as she passed. It was sufficient to keep him rooted there for four hours till, in the moonlight at about ten o’clock in the evening, she came out on her way home. And she came alone.
He crossed the road, and met her in a quiet corner by the gate that led into the yard of the White Hart. He was repeating his line to himself as he crossed the road, because he was very nervous— “Say, Miss Grace, would you care to take a lil’ walk one evening?” But when he was face to face with her at the quiet corner he forgot his words.
He stood in front of her, and said: “Say, Miss Grace.” And then he stopped.
She said: “Oh, it’s you.” She smiled at him, a little nervously.
He said again: “Say, Miss Grace . . .” And then he stopped again, because it suddenly seemed silly to ask her to take a little walk with him one evening, at ten o’clock at night. And because he was uncertain what to do, and because he had to do something, he put his arms round her and kissed her. It was very naughty of him to do that.
For a moment she yielded, too surprised to do anything else; for a moment he thought that he was going to get away with it. Then fear came to her, irrational, stark fear. When she was a little child somebody had given her a golliwog, a black doll with staring white eyes and black curly hair, dressed in a blue coat with red trousers. It had terrified her; whenever she saw it she had screamed with fright so that it had been given to a less sensitive child. Now at the age of seventeen the same stark fear came back to her. What she had been subconsciously afraid of all her life had happened. The golliwog had got her.
She started to struggle madly in his arms to free herself. She cried: “Let me go, you beast. Let me go.” And she cried quite loud.
