by Ruskin Bond
While Otto had no rubber on his heels. His heels looked eaten away. He wore a pair of spectacles through which he peered from afar at his neighbour's music-stand, and at the appointed time—not one-tenth of a second too early—down came the drumstick with the long-awaited 'Bang!' So incidental, so contemptible was Otto's part that, in addition to handling the drum he had to turn the pages for the man who played the cymbals. It seemed to her humiliating. It was very wrong that Otto had no music-stand of his own.
He smiled shyly, and she turned away, annoyed. The little modiste walked on, meeting the stream of people who promenaded the path surrounding the bandstand; a man on high heels, three girls with a pinched look, a famous Tyrolese basso with a long ruddy beard, a jeune premier with whiskers and hair like a wig, whose look appeared to imply: 'Here am I.'
Innsbruck looked morose that Sunday morning, and the military band in the park executed music that was tattered, gross, a little common, yet compelling, even like the daily fare of life. Oh, why were there no heroes? Exalted, brimming over with life. These men of the Tyrol! And as for Otto? Why she could have only waved her hand!
She began to wonder whether she had not really better break it of with him. If men would but realise how little was required from them. Only an outward gesture of romance: a touch sufficed, the rest would be supplied by woman's powerful imagination. Not even so much. A mere abstention from the cruder forms of clumsiness, a surface effort to conceal one's feeblest worst. A mere semblance of mastery, a glimpse of a will.
In short, anything at all that would provide the least excuse for loving him as she so wished to do. A minute she stood, thinking. 'A minimum. Hardly as much.' There passed along the man on high heels, the three girls with the pinched look, the Tyrolese basso with the long ruddy beard, the jeune premier with whiskers and hair like a wig, whose look seemed to say, 'Here am I'; then again the man on high heels, the three girls with the pinched look, the Tyrolese singer, and again the jeune premier whose look implied, 'Here am I.' They walked round and round as if the park were a cage and there was nothing to do but walk round—with heads bent lifeless, sullenly resolute. And again there came along the man on high heels. 'The minimum of a minimum….'
The music resumed. She consulted her programme. Item 7. Potpourri from the operette Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. She returned to the stand, prepared to give her fiancé another chance. Otto's part, as before, was contemptible, more contemptible than before. He was inactive. He smiled shyly. She coloured. And, looking at him, she knew. She knew it was no use, her love could not bridge the chasm. He was despised by the rest of the band. A stick-in-the-mud. Not a man. A poor fish. Not for her….
The potpourri, as if suddenly turning the corner, broke out into a resounding march, and behold, the big drum now led the way. Bang! bang! bang! bang! Clearly he whacked, never once missing the chance; and the man with the cymbals, as if one heart and brain operated their limbs, clashed the cymbals in astounding unison, the big drum pounding away, pounding away, without cease or respite.
And the trumpeters smiled, as who might say: 'Good old big drum! You have come into your own at last!' Bang! bang! bang! bang! The big drum had got loud and excited. And all the people standing around looked as though a great joy had come into their lives: and if they had not been a little shy of each other they would have set out and marched in step with the music, taken up any cause and, if only because the music implied that all men were brothers, gone forth if need be and butchered another body of brothers, to the tearing, gladdening strains of the march (since it is not known from what rational cause men could have marched to the war).
And if in the park of the neighbouring town there were just such a band with just such a drum which played this same music, the people of the neighbouring town would have marched to this music and exterminated this town. The conductor, like a driver who, having urged his horse over the hill, leans back and leaves the rest to the horse, conceded the enterprise to the drummer, as if the hard, intricate work were now over and he was taking it easy; his baton moved perfunctorily in the wake of the drum, he looked round and acknowledged the greetings of friends with gay, informal salutes of the left hand, his bland smile freely admitting to all that it was no longer himself but the drum which led them to victory.
Or rather, the hard fight had already been won and these, behold, were the happy results! Bang! bang! bang! bang! Strangers passed smiles of intimate recognition, old men nodded reminiscently, small boys gazed with rapt eyes, women looked sweet and bright-eyed, ready to oblige with a kiss; while the big drum, conscious of his splendid initiative, pounded away without cease or respite.
'Wonderful! Beautiful!' said the public surrounding them. And thought: 'Noise is a good thing.'
The band had described the first circle and was repeating it with added gusto and deliberation. The big drum and the cymbals were pounding, pounding their due through the wholly inadequate blazing of brass. But these did not mind: 'Every dog has his day'—and they followed the lead of the drum. He led them. He—Otto! Her Otto was leading them. God! Merciful Virgin! What had she done to deserve such happiness? Otto!… And she had doubted him, thought there was no 'go' in him. No go!
She burnt red with shame at the mere thought of it. He was all 'go.' And didn't he make them go, too, the whole lot of them? How he led them! Puffing, the sweat streaming down their purple faces, they blazed away till their cheeks seemed ready to burst but Otto out-drummed them—annihilated their efforts.
He—Otto! O, God! Watching him, people could hardly keep still. But that none of them stirred and all of them wanted to, added piquancy to the illusion of motion. They stood rooted—while the drum carried on for them. Bang! bang! bang! bang!
'Marvellous!' sighed the public around them.
Her Otto—cock of the walk! She could scarcely believe her eyes. Standing in front of the crowd, only a few paces from his side and raising herself on her toes ever so gently in rhythm with the music, so that by the very tininess of her movements she seemed to be sending added impetus into the band, as if, indeed, she were pressing with her little feet some invisible pump, she scanned his face with tenderness, in dumb adoration.
And Otto at the drum must have felt it, for, at this turn, he put knew life into his thundering whacks: Bang! bang! bang! bang! he toiled, and the conductor, as if divining what was afoot, at that moment accelerated the pace of the march.
'Bravo, bravo!' said the people surrounding them.
There was no doubt about it. This was Art. The unerring precision. The wonderful touch. Otto!… Otto, as never before, whacked the big drum, whacked it in excitement, in a frenzy, in transcending exaltation. Thundering bangs! And now she knew—what she couldn't have dreamed—she knew it by his face. Otto was a hero. A leader of men. Something fluttered in her breast, as though a bird had flown in, ready to fly out.
'Now it's all over,' though the people, 'and we are going home to lunch.' And everyone smiled and felt very happy and gay. A sort of prolonged accelerated thundering of the big drum, and then one tremendous BANG!
The thing was over. The conductor raised a bent hand to the peak of his cap, acknowledging the applause. The bird in her fluttered more wildly than ever. She wanted to cry out, but her throat would not obey. She clutched at her heaving breast with trembling fingers. 'My love.' she thought. 'My king! My captain!——'
THAT WHICH REMAINED
BARTIMEUS
I
Oddly enough, no record exists of the origin of his nickname. 'Periwinkle' he had been all through crammer and Britannia days. As senior signal midshipman of the Mediterranean flagship, he was still 'The Periwinkle', small for his years, skinny as a weasel, with straight black hair, and grey eyes set wide apart in a brown face; the eyelashes, black and short, grew very close together, which gave him the perpetual appearance of having recently coaled ship and neglected to clean the dust from his eyes.
The signal midshipmen of a fleet, especially the Mediterranean Fleet
, of those days, were essentially keen on their 'job'. The nature of the work and intership rivalry provided for that. But with the Periwinkle, signals were more than a mere 'job'. They formed his creed and recreation: the flag-lockers were tarpaulin-covered shrines; the semaphores spoke oracles by day as did the flashing lamps by night. And the high priest of these mysteries was the flag-lieutenant, a Rugby International and right good fellow withal, but, to the Periwinkle, a very god who walked among men.
To understand something of his hero-worship you would need to have been on the bridge when the fleet put out to sea for tactics. It was sufficient for the Periwinkle to watch this immaculate, imperturbable being snap out a string of signals apparently from memory, as he so often did, while hoist after hoist of flags leaped from the lockers and sped skywards, and the bridge was a whirl of bunting. Even the admiral, who spoke so little and saw so much, was in danger of becoming a mere puppet in the boy's sight.
But there was more than this to encourage his ardour. The flag-lieutenant, recognising the material of a signalman of unusual promise, would invite the Periwinkle to his cabin after dinner and unfold, with the aid of printed diagrams and little brass oblongs representing ships, the tactical and strategical mysteries of his craft. There was one unforgettable evening, too, when the Periwinkle was bidden to dinner ashore at the Malta Club. The dinner was followed by a dance, whereat, in further token of esteem, the flag-lieutenant introduced him to a lady of surpassing loveliness—the fairest (the Periwinkle was given to understand) of all the Pippins.
The spring gave place to summer, and the island became a glaring wilderness of sun-baked rock. For obscure reasons of policy the fleet remained at Malta instead of departing on its usual cruise, and week after week the sun blazed pitilessly down on the awnings of the anchored ships. Week by week the Periwinkle grew more brown and angular, and lost a little more of his wiry activity. The frequent stampedes up and down ladders with signals for the admiral sent him into a lather like a nervous horse; at the end of a watch his hair was wet with perspiration and his whites hung clammily on his meagre limbs. After a while, too, he began to find the glare tell, and to ease the aching of his eyes, had sometimes to shift the telescope from one eye to the other in the middle of a signal. As a matter of fact, there was no necessity for him to read signals at all: that was part of the signalman's duty. And if he had chosen to be more leisurely in his ascent and descent of ladders, no one would have called him to account. But his zeal was a flame within him, and terror lest he earned a rebuke from the flag-lieutenant for lack of smartness, lent wings to his tired heels.
It was August when the flag-lieutenant sought out the fleet surgeon in the wardroom after dinner, and broached the subject of the Periwinkle.
'P.M.O., I wish you'd have a look at that shrimp; he's knocking himself up in this heat. He swears he's all right, but he looks fit for nothing but hospital.'
So the Periwinkle was summoned to the fleet surgeon's cabin. Vehemently he asserted that he had never felt better in his life, and the most the fatherly old Irishman could extort from him was the admission that he had not been sleeping particularly well. As a matter of fact he had not slept for three nights past; but fear lest he should be 'put on the list' forbade his admitting either this or the shooting pain behind his eyes, which by now was almost continual. The outcome of the interview, however, was an order to turn in forthwith. Next morning the Periwinkle was ignominiously hoisted over the side in a cot—loudly protesting at the indignity of not even being allowed to walk—en route for Bighi hospital as a fever patient.
II
The news of the world is transmitted to naval stations abroad by cable, and promulgated by means of wirelless telegraphy to ships cruising or out of reach of visual signalling. At Malta the news is distributed to ships present in harbour by semaphore from the Castile, an eminence above the town of Valetta, commanding the grand harbour and nearly opposite the naval hospital.
One morning a group of convalescents were sunning themselves on the balcony of the hospital, and one, watching the life of the harbour through a telescope, suddenly exclaimed, 'Stand by! They're going to make the Reuter telegram. I wonder how the Navy got on at Lord's.'
'It's hopeless trying to read it,' said another, 'they make it at such a beastly rate.'
The Periwinkle, fuming in bed in an adjacent ward, overheard the speaker. In a second he was on his feet and at the open window, a tousled-haired object in striped pyjamas, crinkling his eyes in the glare. 'I can read it, sir, lend me the glass.'
'You ought to be in bed, my son. Haven't you got Malta Fever?'
'It's very slight,' replied the Periwinkle—as indeed it was,—'and I'm quite as warm out here as in bed. May I borrow your glass?'
He took the telescope and steadied it against a pillar. The distant semaphore began waving, and the group of convalescents settled down to listen. But no sound came from the boy. He was standing with the eye-piece held to his right eye, motionless as a statue. A light wind fluttered the gaudy pyjamas, and their owner lowered the glass with a little frown, half-puzzled, half-irritated.
'I—it's—there's something wrong——' he began, and abruptly put the glass to his left eye. 'Ah, that's better…' He commenced reading, but in a minute or two his voice faltered and trailed off into silence. He changed the glass to his right, and back to his left eye. Then, lowering it, turned a white scared face to the seated group. 'I'm afraid I can't read any more,' he said in a curiously dry voice; 'I—it hurts my eyes.'
He returned the glass to its owner and hopped back into bed, where he sat with the clothes drawn up under his chin, sweating lightly.
After a while he closed his left eye and looked cautiously round the room. The tops of objects appeared indistinctly out of a grey mist. It was like looking at a partly fogged negative. He closed his right eye and repeated the process with the other. His field of vision was clear then, except for a speck of grey fog that hung threateningly in the upper left-hand corner.
By dinner-time he could see nothing with the right eye, and the fog had closed on half the left eye's vision.
At tea-time he called the sister on duty:
'My eyes—hurt…frightfully.' Thus the Periwinkle, striving to hedge with destiny.
'Do they?' sympathised the sister. 'I'll tell the surgeon when he comes round to-night, and he'll give you something for them. I shouldn't read for the present if I were you.'
The Periwinkle smiled grimly, as if she had made a joke, and lay back, every nerve in his body strung to breaking-point.
'Can't see, eh?' The visiting surgeon who leaned over his bed a few hours later looked at him from under puzzled brows. 'Can't see—d'you mean…' He picked up an illustrated paper, holding it about a yard away, and pointed to a word block type: 'What's this word?'
The Periwinkle stared past him with a face like a flint. 'I can't see the paper. I can't see you…or the room, or—or—anything… I'm blind.' His voice trembled.
To the terror by night that followed was added physical pain past anything he had experienced or imagined in his short life. It almost amazed him that anything could hurt so much and not rob him of consciousness. The next room held a sufferer who raved in delirium: cursing, praying, and shrieking alternately. The tortured voice rose in the stillness of the night to a howl, and the Periwinkle set his teeth grimly. He was not alone in torment, but his was still the power to meet it like a man.
By the end of a week the pain had left him. At intervals during this period he was guided to a dark room—for the matter of that, all rooms were dark to him—and unseen beings bandied strange technicalities about his ears. 'Optic neuritis… retrobulbar… atrophy.' The words meant nothing to the boy, and their meaning mattered less. For nothing, they told him, could give him back his sight. After that they left him alone, to wait with what patience he might until the next P. & O. steamer passed through.
His first visitor was the chaplain, the most well-meaning of men, whose voice quavered with pi
ty as he spoke at some length of resignation and the beauty of cheerfulness in affliction. On his departure, the Periwinkle caught the rustle of the sister's dress.
'Sister,' said the boy, 'will you please go away for a few minutes. I'm afraid I have to swear—out loud.'
'But you mustn't' she expostulated, slightly taken aback. 'It's very wicked.'
'Can't help that,' replied the Periwinkle austerely. 'Please go at once; I'm going to begin.'
Scandalised and offended—as well she might be—she left the Periwinkle to his godless self, and he swore aloud—satisfying, unintelligible, senseless lowerdeckese. But when she brought him his tea an hour later she found he had the grace to look ashamed of himself, and forgave him. They subsequently became great friends, and at the Periwinkle's dictation she wrote long cheerful letters that began: 'My dear Mother,' and generally ended in suspicious-looking smudges.
Everyone visited the Periwinkle. His brethren from the fleet arrived, bearing as gifts strange and awful delicacies that usually had to be confiscated, sympathising with the queer, clumsy tenderness of boyhood. The flag-lieutenant came often, always cheerful and optimistic, forbearing to voice a word of pity: for this the Periwinkle was inexpressibly grateful. He even brought the Fairest of All the Pippins, but the boy shrank a little from the tell-tale tremor she could never quite keep out of her voice. Her parting gift was an armful of roses, and on leaving she bent over till he could smell the faint scent of her hair. 'Good-bye,' she whispered; 'go on being brave,' and, to his wrathful astonishment, kissed him lightly on the mouth.