Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  They were able to go right into the verandah conservatory adjoining the dining-room and see and hear everything. Clem Eaton was at the head of the grand table, Rhoda at the foot, with Martin and Clancy interspersed among the half-dozen or so superior looking guests. Hanno, a stocky figure with a bristly frizz of white hair and clad immaculately in white with tunic buttoned to his chin, stood by a large dinner-waggon, to and from which he moved in attending the diners with such celerity that most of his time was spent standing. A couple of times he glanced into the conservatory as if he knew someone was there behind the ferns and orchids, as indeed was made apparent when at last he made a move in that direction which caused Jumbo to hiss to the others and to withdraw.

  ‘Dere y’are,’ said Jumbo as they went home. ‘Da’s dem bloody white Delacy bastard. Wha’ dey care ’bout you, eh? And close-up you white, too. Spone you tell me ’bout dat Muddrin bijnitch, we mek proper fool dat Clancy long o’ Court . . . eh?’

  Apparently Prindy was quite unaffected in the manner Jumbo had hoped for. Back home, finding Barney and Hoppy there with a couple of bottles of beer, Jumbo gave him up in disgust. But a couple of hours later, while the visitors were still there, and Prindy sleeping on a bed of sacks out on a side verandah with the other smaller kids and he began to sing My Rown Road and the startled kids came running to report the phenomenon, Jumbo hissed, ‘Now we goin’ ’o hear sumpin!’ and went rushing on tiptoe to hear.

  Prindy struggled through the song as usual, but to end as he had that first disturbed night of sleeping in these so different from usual circumstances.

  I find him by’n’by

  Kill dat whiteman, kill-him-die

  My Road, My Road, My Road, My Ro-own Road.

  It was received with the same startled in-breathed exclamation. All who heard it stared at one another, the fearful question in their dark eyes: Kill the whiteman?

  Talking about it afterwards, in voices subdued compared with what they had been, the three men came to the conclusion that what they’d heard was the result of Cock-Eye Bob’s interference with the boy, and the fact that he would not talk was due to the old man’s having Sung him.

  Over at the Hospital, as if the emotional upsurging of the son had communicated itself to the mother, Nell woke from her long sleep, and finding herself not only in strange surroundings but immobilised by the hospital device called the Restraining Sheet, began to whimper, then to yell.

  It happened that the Matron was handy and came hurrying with the Night Charge. Finding no medical evidence for the trouble, Matron snapped: ‘Shut up! There’s nothing wrong with you now. There’s lots sicker people in the place than you. So don’t disturb them . . . Shut up, I tell you!’

  Nell quit yelling, but continued to whimper for her Lil Boy. Matron said, ‘Give her another quarter grain, Sister.’

  The Sister was soon there with the syringe — and soon the whimpering died away — ‘My Lil Boy . . . my Lil Boy . . . Lil . . . Lil . . . Boy . . .’

  Curlews were crying on the Hospital beach, perhaps through having found the tjooloo belonging to that bloody something they’d thrown into the white enamel waste bucket in the hospital theatre earlier on, and were concerned with getting it back to a place of safety. Or were they playing a joke on the whitefeller by deciding to present it to that white lady moaning in delayed parturition over in Maternity? For it happened just then that the lady began to yell again. The Night Charge went racing to see, then leapt to the telephone to call Dr McQuegg.

  Next morning at the Hospital, Nell still under restraint and still whimpering, but softly, suddenly found the cause of all her troubles at her side, with Mr McCusky also there, panama over one eye and a hand on Prindy’s shoulder and a twinkle in his eye. She had eyes for only the one, and as best she could in the contraption restraining her, seized him, hugged him to her, gasping and gurgling of her Lil Boy, completely ignoring the fatherly advice that McCusky at once proceeded to give her concerning her behaviour. When he essayed to take the boy away with him, he had to say it all over again. He told her he intended to have Prindy stay with Jumbo’s family until after what he described as Court business, that he would keep an eye on him himself, and see to it that she saw him every day — so long as she behaved herself. If she would promise him now not to leave the hospital or do any other tulli-tulli thing, he would see Dr McQuegg about getting her out of that thing. Whimpering again, she promised.

  Man and boy went off hand in hand, the man in his jaunty way hailing everybody he passed, the boy taking in everything with wide grey-eyed interest. Getting into McCusky’s car, Prindy settled with ease. McCusky headed for town, talking all the while, mostly of the wonderful things he was going to do for all halfcaste kids in the near future, and especially for him he called his mate. He put his hand on the bare golden-brown knee as they pulled in at the Government Offices, saying, ‘You and me proper mates . . . ain’t we?’ Prindy nodded, but without responding to the wide grin. ‘Right,’ added McCusky. ‘Let’s get inside and fix things up for you. You like that new name I’ve got for you, eh? Well, I’ll show you what it looks like in writing . . . and in no time you’ll be writing it yourself.’

  As they entered McCusky’s office, the man said to the two people who looked up from desks at their entry, ‘Well, here he is . . . Prendegast Alroy.’ They smiled. McCusky went to his own desk and took up an official folder. The name was printed in a corner. He pointed it out to Prindy, saying, ‘There it is. I’ll spell it to you.’ He did so, then said, ‘Say it.’

  ‘Prendegast Alroy.’ So perfect was the delivery that it must have been well rehearsed. The clerk laughed and the typist giggled. Prindy joined in the mirth. But not McCusky, who asked somewhat shortly, ‘What’s funny about it? That’s the best name I’ve thought up yet.’ Red-faced, his subordinates concentrated on their work. But he had their attention again in a moment, saying ‘You know, that’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh. Maybe it’s a talisman. Yes, by jings! Maybe he’ll talk now . . .’

  He broke off when Prindy looked quickly towards the doorway of an inner room, and turned, to see Dr Cobbity standing staring — literally staring — with those intense blue eyes out of the brick-red face. Prindy’s grey eyes, meeting the stare, widened visibly, as in alarm. The doctor transferred the stare to McCusky, whom he addressed in what sounded like a mocking tone and with a grin: ‘Well, let’s see the talisman work . . . Bring him in.’ He turned back into his sanctum.

  McCusky, whose usual bossy manner had changed on the instant, bent to Prindy, saying softly, ‘Come on . . . don’t be fright.’ He put an arm about the small shoulders. Prindy went readily enough.

  By the time they got in, Dr Cobbity was seated behind his big barish glass-topped table, leaning back in a swivel chair, elbows on the arm rests, hands clasped to support his chin. Again he fixed Prindy with the glassy stare, but was evidently addressing McCusky when he spoke: ‘Well, what’s the latest?’

  McCusky said, ‘I reckon he’s been hypnotised, Doc.’

  The grin started, but was quickly sucked in by the ruddy cheeks. The eyes swung on McCusky, who had read the signs of mockery, and reddening, began to expostulate: ‘Dinkum, Doc . . . Jumbo and Barney heard him singing in his sleep last night . . .’

  ‘How’s that prove hypnosis?’

  ‘They reckon he’s been Sung.’

  This time the doctor erased the grin by altering his pose to reach onto the table for his pipe. McCusky said with haste, ‘These old koornungs’ve got strange powers.’

  Addressing his pipe as he stuffed it from the pouch, Dr Cobbity said, ‘There’s nothing strange about hypnosis.’

  ‘That’s what I mean, Doc. The old feller had him hypnotised. He won’t talk, because he was told not to.’

  Cobbity lit the pipe and hid behind the smoke. He said, ‘And your ground for this theory is that Jumbo and Barney heard him singing in his sleep. Any kid could sing in his sleep. If he were hypnotised he’d only sing what he was instructe
d to.’

  McCusky said quickly, ‘Ah . . . that’s just what he did do, Doc!’

  The half-mockery fled in a flash: ‘What’d he sing?’

  McCusky was himself again. He answered slowly and with full dramatic effect, ‘“Kill that whiteman die.”’

  Cobbity looked at Prindy, stared at him, was stared out by the grey eyes, gave his attention again to McCusky, who was awaiting it posed in all his cock-sureness, and promptly said, ‘Don’t forget Cock-Eye Bob’s dedicated to wiping out the whiteman.’

  The doctor puffed his pipe, said out of the smoke, ‘Cock-Eye Bob’s insane.’

  ‘According to our standards.’

  The mockery was in the voice again: ‘What others do you propose we should conform to?’

  McCusky was deflated again: ‘But . . . but if it proves the old man’s interfered with the boy’s mind.’

  ‘Where’s it going to get you?’

  ‘Well, now the Prosecution’s conceded him as our witness, and we can’t make him talk, we’ve got an excuse for his silence.’

  ‘What excuse?’

  ‘Tribal matter. He was under the influence of an elder putting him through an initiation, in which the halfcaste mother and so-called father interfered to the point of threatening the life of the elder, who did the killing in self-defence.’

  Dr Cobbity blew out a great cloud of smoke: ‘I told you the self-defence plea’ll only make things worse by working the Prosecution up and prolonging the case.’

  ‘But you said you won’t want the Protection of Native Races mob and their Anthropologists poking their noses into it.’

  ‘They’re already into it. I’m informed that Dr Fabian Cootes’ll be honouring us with his presence again.’

  ‘That boofhead!’

  ‘Boofhead or not, he’s out to get us. I’m Public Enemy Number One to him.’

  ‘That means we’ve got to fight like hell for the Defence so they’ve got nothing on us.’

  ‘Whatever we did they’d break it down so as to stop me going on with my ideas for integration. They want menageries for their Stone Age Men, with mission stations next door so that as the savages come out of the Stone Age they walk into the arms of Jesus. I’ve given too much bloody work to what I want to do with the boongs, to be kicked out now. I pulled the bloody thing out of Nineteenth Century slavery. I’ve got everybody against me, black and white. I’m not going to be beaten now. The bigger the case, the more the publicity. That’s what the Anthrops and the bible-bashers want. We’ve got to defend ourselves first . . . and the only way to do that is to have no case at all.’

  McCusky gaped: ‘No case?’

  The grin widened. The smoke puffed. The mocking voice said, ‘We’ll plead insanity. Not even Cootes would call the old man sane. He’s always been considered mad. He had a special corner in the Jail. If we’d had a madhouse, he’d’ve been in that instead of jail. He shouldn’t have been released under the Amnesty. They only did it because they wanted to get rid of him and his bread and milk diet, and that mad judge making a mate of him. What’s he do when he’s released? Goes and lures away a little half-wit boy, gets a crazy notion to initiate him, scares the local mob into compliance. Just naturally kills the half-wit’s father for interfering. No anthropology. No sociology. No criminology. Just plain unadulterated lunacy, for which myself and McQuegg will issue a certificate for presentation to the judge.’

  McCusky swallowed: ‘You think the boy’s a half-wit?’

  Cobbity fixed his blue stare on the grey, held it for a while, then raised a smoke screen, as if to ease the strain on himself, and said, ‘I think it’s obvious. Nobody can get a squeak out of him, except that laugh just now . . . and he only laughed because someone else did. Sign of insanity. Say something, anything . . . and laugh . . . and you’ll see . . . go on!’

  Eddy McCusky swallowed again, said weakly, ‘I can’t.’

  The grin, the puffing pipe. Then fixing the grey eyes again, the doctor asked, ‘What’s your name, boy?’

  The grey eyes blinked once. Cobbity waited, keeping up the smokescreen, asked, ‘Where you come from?’

  Another blink. Cobbity blew out a great puff that caused the grey eyes to blink rapidly, and turned from them to McCusky. ‘Obviously non compos mentis. From what I’ve been hearing from the Hospital, the mother’s a borderline case of insanity, too. Maybe after the business is over, we’ll certify ’em both and get rid of ’em . . .’ Evidently noting the scary look in McCusky’s eyes, Cobbity added: ‘You don’t want to start off your new Settlement by including a loony bin in it, do you? Anyway, the Estimates are too tight as they are . . . and speaking of bloody Estimates . . .’ He reached for a pile of papers on the desk.

  McCusky took the hint, put a hand on Prindy’s shoulder, turned him towards the door. As he was opening it, Cobbity said, with the grin, ‘Sorry to cramp your style in forensic histrionics, Eddy . . . but maybe you can put on something of a show with the insanity plea.’

  McCusky went red, but answered with a weak grin, went out.

  In the other office, clerk and typist looked up with what appeared to be routine expectancy. McCusky addressed them without looking at them, out of the side of the mouth: ‘No doubt about him . . . our Cuthbert’s a brainy bastard.’ He added: ‘Off to the Compound. See you later.’

  When they were back in the car, McCusky turned and stared at Prindy, who stared back in the usual way. After a moment McCusky asked, ‘Are you really as dumb as you make out to be . . . or are you havin’ us on? Funny if you were, wouldn’t it . . . heeee . . . haaaa? . . . Oh no!’ For Prindy was echoing the laugh. McCusky turned away, started up, drove off in silence. He dropped Prindy off at Jumbo’s. Jumbo himself was absent. While Prindy went off looking for the children, McCusky told Possum that he and Dr Cobbity had come to the conclusion that Prindy wasn’t what he called all-there, tapping his head. Possum clicked her tongue, as if in sympathy. But ready response of the kind was typically Aboriginal and more expression of courtesy than emotion. She might as well have been showing sympathy for Messrs Cobbity and McCusky for having a half-wit to deal with when they needed someone really smart. The Aboriginal attitude to such a person was much less sympathetic than indulgent.

  McCusky went on to the Compound and reported the matter to Turkney, who promptly said he’d guessed it all along: ‘That stare of his . . . and that mad bloody mother. Do I have to have her back here?’

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t trust her with the boy alone. She’d do a bolt, I reckon . . . and we want her for the trial.’

  ‘When’ll that be?’

  ‘Christ knows . . . when Judge Bickering makes up his mind that he’s had enough of the Law Vacation. The Inquest’ll be next week. I’ll keep the mother in hospital till then. Now, don’t forget. Barney’s to pick the kid up every day and take him to his mother when he calls at the Hospital, and see he gets home to Jumbo’s every night.’

  That’s the way it went, except that Prindy soon learnt to find his own way home. He spent his time by no means mostly at his mother’s bedside. In fact the nursing staff discouraged him from hanging about her; and it was obvious that he didn’t need much discouragement. He was sent to eat with the halfcaste domestic staff, male and female, on the back verandah of the kitchen. All treated him with special kindness, perhaps from having heard that he was what locally was called jitty. Being used to helping in a kitchen, he soon made friends with the Greek cook, who took him down to a nearby beach and introduced him to the Greek boat-builders. Apart from the boat-building, which appeared to interest him greatly, there was the fascination of the seashore. A small creek ran into the sea there with a bit of mud and mangroves and the odd things that live in such places: the red-armed fiddler crabs and mud-skippers. Then there was the Pharmacist, who besides having bottles of medicines on his shelves, had a fine collection of zoological specimens of medical interest; snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and the like, and venomous sea creatures. Finding Prindy peeping one day, he offered
him a closer look. Prindy was wary to begin with, but soon showed marked interest. The Pharmacist also got him to take a peep into his microscope, to the boy’s evident wonder, especially when he saw what one of the golden hairs of his own head looked like, and a drop of his blood produced with a pin-prick. He was there one day when Dr Cobbity came in. Prindy promptly ran out. On Cobbity’s inquiring what he was doing there, the Pharmacist told him of the boy’s interest in things, adding: ‘He doesn’t seem anything like a half-wit to me.’