Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  They sang many songs, solo as well as in chorus. Daddy-o was pleased to hear some of Sonny Boy’s own, declaring that he would buy him a violin, since that was the instrument he himself liked best: ‘Gets to your very heartstrings, a violin.’

  So they went on, following up the roaring river, but seeing little of it, making good going despite the heavy ground, since, in accordance with good police practice, they didn’t have to spare the horses.

  They looked in at the Rainbow Pool. A rainbow hung in the mist today, the real one, circular, just like a great snake-eye, always to be found there at the end of Wet Season. Prindy gazed with obvious reverence, perhaps not hearing his Daddy-o’s confession that he himself had bathed there and done so out of sheer superstition: ‘I was in a bit o’ strife at the time. They were tryin’ to get rid o’ me . . . after all I’d done for ’em in the ’28 riots. I reckoned I’d beat ’em, accordin’ to the old superstition that if you take a dip here you’re here for keeps. Well, I am y’see . . . me’n me Sonny Boy!’

  At Lily Lagoons the alarm was sounded as usual, but without the usual active response. Invested already, as the Keep was, no point was there in going into bolt-holes. Besides, as it was known already that Coon-Coon was on the way, those with cause to fear him more than just fear of the man himself were gone. Nevertheless, a wary peeping. Then that familiar gasp sounded, in its strange breathed-yet-seemingly-shouted way: ‘Eh, look out!’

  As the cavalcade was passing through, heading for the mango grove, through which Inspector Ballywick and Tracker Tipperary were coming to meet it, Jeremy emerged from the annexe. He stood gaping in obvious surprise. Cahoon grinned across at him, waved a manacled hand, bawled, ‘Day, Boss!’, went riding on.

  Then Jeremy came striding, loping, demanding harshly as he came up, ‘Here . . . what’s this?’ His grey eyes shot from the narrow slits looking down at him with amusement, to those other so much like his own and now wide with inquiry, and back to the slits.

  Evidently it was just the way Dinny had wanted it and anticipated. His horse had stopped, as well-trained beasts of their kind will, knowing that their masters like to meet and chat. But Dinny kicked it on, glancing back with the grin, to ask, ‘What’s what, Boss?’

  Jeremy shouted, ‘This boy on the chain!’

  ‘That’s all’t’s worryin’ you, eh? Come on . . . giddap!’ Cahoon had his eyes on his colleagues now waiting at the edge of the grove, at what might have been a line of demarcation.

  Jeremy, red and panting now, keeping pace with the horse, declared, ‘It’s going to worry you, if you don’t take him off right now.’

  Without turning, Dinny answered, ‘Well, that’ll be my worry, won’t it.’ Then he spoke to Ballywick, ‘Inspector Ballywick, I presume.’

  ‘Are you going to take that boy off the chain?’ roared Jeremy.

  Dinny introduced himself to the Inspector, who stepped up to take his down-reaching hand. ‘Glad you could come,’ said Ballywick, but out of the corner of his mouth, and with policeman’s glances darting at all concerned.

  ‘Always on the spot where the law’s to be upheld,’ said Dinny, dismounting. He turned to his shackled mate, raising his hands to lift him down. But Prindy, with eyes on his grandfather, slid down himself.

  Jeremy got in front of the chained pair, grinding in his speech now. ‘If you’re so concerned with the law, Sergeant . . . what’ve you got that boy on the chain for, when you know it’s against the law?’

  Dinny grinned at him to the limit of the elasticity of his wide mouth. ‘Show me it in the Statute Book, Boss.’ He turned back to the staring Ballywick. ‘Well, Inspector . . . I’ve got the first and most important of the party you’re lookin’ for. Without him, the other’s practically in the bag.’

  ‘Congratulations, Sergeant. You’ve really done a marvellous job . . .’ Jeremy broke in, shouting, ‘You must be mad, Cahoon, after all the trouble you’ve been in through chaining children . . .’

  Completely ignoring him, Cahoon went on talking to Ballywick: ‘But I want you to understand you can’t charge the boy with anything. He’s only been used. He’s officially in my care . . . and stops in it. That clear, Sir?’

  Ballywick eyed him shrewdly for a moment, then nodded. ‘So long’s I get the woman.’

  ‘I’ll have her for you tomorrow.’

  Jeremy, breathing heavily, spoke to Prindy, who was still questioning him with his eyes: ‘It’s all right, sonny. I’ll get you out of it. I’ll get you out of it. I’ll radio Town right away . . .’ He was about to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder, when it was jerked by the chain out of his reach.

  Cahoon snapped, in the official tone now, ‘No talking to prisoners.’ Then he addressed Ballywick: ‘There’s a doctor here to see your man that’s injured. I want him to take a look at the boy!

  ‘He’s over with my Sergeant.’ Ballywick nodded towards the annexe. Cahoon snapped at Tipperary, ‘Go’n’ tell the doctor I want him, boy.’ Jeremy demanded, ‘What’s wrong with the boy?’

  Cahoon spoke to Ballywick: ‘I presume that in accordance with the famous hospitality of this here place, you’re campin’ in the harness-shed?’

  Ballywick answered with official crispness, ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Okay . . . well, let’s adjourn to our quarters. Go’n, boy . . . go and get Dr Fox, before I boot you up the bloody black arse!’

  Casting a sidelong glance at Jeremy, Tipperary trotted away. Jeremy didn’t look at him, was eyeing Prindy, whom he asked, ‘What’s wrong with you, sonny?’

  That long-sought question of the grey eyes was voiced now: ‘You been hear him?’

  Jeremy blinked before the intense stare, swallowed before he could answer, ‘No . . . not yet.’

  The expression of the stare changed to blankness, as if the man before him had suddenly ceased to exist, so that it was with obvious indifference that he turned away when the chain was jerked again and the official snap repeated, ‘I said no talking to prisoners!’

  The policemen and Prindy set out for the harness-shed, while Jinbul, all but riding Jeremy down, took charge of the horses. Jeremy dodged clear, to find Dr Fox approaching. ‘What’s up?’ asked Fox.

  ‘Cahoon wants you to look at the boy.’

  ‘What boy?’

  Jeremy swallowed on it. ‘My grandson. He’s got him on the chain again.’ Fox whistled, then went on after the retreating group. Jeremy went, with what looked like faltering in his steps, back to the annexe, through to the radio-room.

  Dr Fox was back well before Jeremy could do any radio-calling. He reported that there appeared to be nothing wrong with Prindy. Evidently he was being well treated, and content. He related what Cahoon had told him of the boy’s arrest, which sounded rather like a piece of rashness in which kindly policemen had intervened to the great good fortune of the rash one. It seemed that the boy was on the chain simply to prevent him from doing something similarly rash again. As to making an official protest, it would be useless, because Dinny had written authority from Professor St Clair, assigning him complete guardianship of the boy. Jeremy said nothing, simply stared at the doctor to begin with, perhaps because he sounded very much like another policeman sticking up for a colleague, then dropped his eyes. Fox concluded: ‘Ballywick asked if he could come over and sit with his man, now there’s no hope for him. I told him I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Jeremy looked up at that, to meet the doctor’s doubtful gaze, then nodded, and with a sigh turned and went off to his den. He found Nan awaiting him.

  At dusk Nan herself went with food and clothing for Prindy. She came back to report to Jeremy, who was sitting, hunched, in his den: ‘He all right. On’y too quiet. Like before . . . when he first come. Coon-Coon reckon he going to adopt him. Got it all fix up. What you going to do ’bout dat?’

  Jeremy shook his head. ‘I just don’t know what to do about anything at the moment. He’s rejected us, I’m afraid . . . me, anyway. I couldn’t help Rifkah . . . and stopped him, when he though
t he could. Now I can’t do anything even to help him.’

  ‘Come for dinner.’

  ‘No, thanks. I just couldn’t stand Fox . . . with his know-all doctor’s manner. Hitler might be a certifiable lunatic . . . but why didn’t the German doctors, the best mental specialists in the world, certify him while they had the chance, instead of running away from him? Why doesn’t Fox certify Cahoon? Tell him I don’t like leaving Bugsby till he can get back.’

  ‘Bugsby going to die, eh?’

  ‘Fox says he’ll die tonight.’

  Nan clicked her tongue in sympathy. Jeremy added: ‘Yes, there’s a sad side to it. Ballywick tells me he has five young children, the eldest just entered university to do law . . . and he’s very much attached to them. Ballywick’s almost crying. It’s just too much of a bloody puzzle . . . their humanness and inhumanity all mixed up together.’ He sighed into cupped hands.

  Her slim dark hand touched his thick grey hair lightly. ‘I send you over dinner.’

  ‘Only a little bit. I’m not hungry.’ As the hand withdrew he caught it, squeezed it. The dark eyes flashed a smile at him. Then she was gone.

  Sergeant Bugsby died in the early hours of Friday, while Igulgul was taking a lopsided look at him through a window. Igulgul had every right to be in it, since according to some, the phenomenon of death was initiated by him, only he reserved the right to resurrection — that is, of course, until Jesus Christ came along.

  Bugsby’s dying was simple business, as should be for one whose Shade had virtually left him some five days before, at that moment of his sighting and trying to apprehend what someone less sterilised by civilisation of the marvel of imagination might well have left alone. He relinquished his slight hold on it with a shuddering sigh, as of resignation, conceding that the Unknowable had won. His eyes, so long shut tight, opened, just a little, but enough to seem by their stare to be trying to tell his superior officer something. Inspector Ballywick was alone with him at the time. He went to rouse the doctor, since death is an official thing, unless concerned with animals or blacks. Left alone again with the remains of him he’d described as friend and comrade, he answered what he must have supposed was the message of the eyes, as gently he closed them with finger-tips, saying huskily, ‘All right, Bill, old feller . . . I’ll see they’re looked after.’ He then put his hand on the waxen brow, leaving it there for a moment, as if in court and swearing as so often he must have, even if slanting things somewhat to see that Justice was served, to Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth, So Help Me God!

  Over at the harness-shed, the Inspector found his fellow-residents there already astir, packing up by the light of a hurricane lantern. Cahoon, still linked to his bed-mate, looked up from what he was doing. ‘How’s your mate?’

  ‘Dead,’ Ballywick said flatly, then added, as if to confirm it to himself: ‘Yes . . . poor old Bill’s dead.’

  ‘Bad luck!’

  ‘Yes . . . he was a good officer.’

  Cahoon resumed his packing. After a little silence, during which Ballywick stood blankly watching the others, Dinny asked, ‘Will you be coming with us, now? We want to get away as soon as possible.’

  Ballywick cleared his throat: ‘Er . . . no, I don’t think so. As you said, it isn’t really necessary . . . and I . . . want to bury Bill.’ He swallowed on the last of it.

  ‘Where you goin’ to bury him?’

  ‘Certainly not at this place. I only wish I could get him away somewhere he’d have a proper funeral . . . police honours. He’s been a police officer since he was twenty-one.’

  ‘Pity you couldn’t’a’ got him to Town. If the road’d been right you could’a caught this mornin’s train. But you’d have to take a dray . . . and that’d take all day . . . Corpses go off here pretty quick.’

  Ballywick swallowed on that. ‘There’s a cemetery at Beatrice River township?’

  ‘Yeah . . . quite a nice one . . . War Memorial and all. You could prob’ly make a bit of a police show out of it, too, by getting the officers down from the Caroline and up from the Charlotte . . . fettlers’ trolley . . . and there’s Herb Stunke, o’ course.’

  ‘Yes . . . I’ll do something like that. Old Bill’d’a’ liked it.’ Ballywick’s voice became husky: ‘Always said he wanted to die with his boots on, doing the job . . . and have the boys take a noggin or two farewelling him . . .’

  Dinny came to the rescue: ‘That’s how I’d like it meself.’ Then he said, ‘Well, we’d better be seeing about a bite of breakfast. You, Tipperary . . . over the Big House.’ As the tracker went, Dinny said, ‘I’ll leave that boong with you, Inspector. He’s not much use to us. He’s got the wind up about devils and things now. The Big Brain here,’ he jerked his head towards Jinbul, ‘told him that Splinter’s dyin’, too. When they get like that they’re worse’n useless. But he may be some use to you . . . save you lowerin’ yourself askin’ for help off his Nibs across the way. I guess you’d rather be independent.’

  ‘You’re right. I hold Delacy largely responsible for the whole thing . . . along with this one here.’ Ballywick nodded at Prindy.

  Cahoon bridled at that. ‘Eh, go easy! He’s only a kid. He was used, as I said.’

  Ballywick, staring at Prindy, who was as boldly staring at him, drew a deep breath: ‘He’s something more than a kid as I see him. You can have him as far as I’m concerned, Sergeant . . . and good luck to you!’ With that he turned away sharply, went out, to stand staring at the marvel of the dawn; or perhaps more truly at what surely would have attracted his attention more, the shadowy figures of a man and a horse running side by side round the distant race track.

  II

  So confident was Sergeant Cahoon of a quick capture, that he was taking along with his small party, comprising himself, his Sonny Boy, his Man Friday, a spare horse for the captive. As he said to Sonny Boy when they set out, ‘Can’t have her tailin’ along behind like a black gin . . . pretty girl like that, even if she is a Jew.’

  He had every reason to be confident. First of all he was the complete egotist, lacking that faculty which makes the more humble warier of the likely opposition of chance. Then again, he supposed he had a fair idea of where his quarry was laying up, from having, in his own shrewd way, quizzed the only one who knew. Why should the boy lie to him, when the Jew-woman could mean nothing to him while himself everything? ‘A lousy Commo Jewess,’ he said. ‘Y’ought’o see what they got about her in that paper Alfie Candlemas runs now!’

  Anyway, from the bits that Sonny Boy had given away, it was plain that the Yiddisher Piece was over in the Limestone, not in the Sandstone, as these Federal Mugs had been led to believe, in one of those caves, maybe the same one where they had taken Cock-Eye Bob that time. Thus did he deliver himself privily to his Man Friday, concluding: ‘Smart little bastard, y’know. No chance leavin’ tracks in the Limestone in weather like they been havin’ down this way. He’s goin’ ’o put you out o’ business as Number-one Tracker one these fine days . . . you know that, boy?’

  Jinbul readily agreed to everything his master said. That was only the kuttabah’s due from a blackfellow. Or so it might seem to the kuttabah. Perhaps from a blackfellow’s point of view it was only what any fool might expect from someone he didn’t know. To the blackfellow, what others would condemn as treachery would be considered only the due of whoever was mungus enough to be taken in. What’s wrong with approaching an enemy with a smile and a spear in your toes with which to kill him? If he’s smart enough he’ll have one, too, and beat you to the throw. What’s wrong with sending a pretty kweeai to distract the kuttabah who’s despoiling your country and intimidating you with a rifle, then while he’s in the clip, shoving a spear up his bobbing loonga? It was wrong enough for the blackfellow to earn the arsenic-spiced gift of flour from those who condemned such ways, the poisoned waterhole, the punitive expedition that shot the tribe out to the last piccaninny. But did he ever complain? No, he just took it as part of the danger
ous game he called Muddrin’ Bijnitch, a normal diversion of humankind, if not generally admitted; took it till at last he saw he could not win against the kuttabah, and either kept out of his way as much as possible, or if inclined to keep on with the game, joined him in it like Jinbul and his ilk, or if madmen like Bobwirridirridi, play it to extermination. That was all understandable to blacks and whites who knew each other as much as it is possible to know. But what of that odd creature, for whose existence there was no more explanation according to the blackman’s logic (and who would believe a whiteman?) than for such monstrosities as twins, pigs, buffaloes — the Yeller-feller? Some said he was part whiteman. No true blackfellow ever said that. To such he was a Bloody Nutching . . . Brrrp!

  All Yeller-fellers? What of this kid who had been adopted by the cleverest koornung in the land? Could you wipe him off as Bloody Nutching? There seemed to be doubt about it in the mind of Jinbul, judging by the way he revealed himself to his master as they went their way to this supposedly so easy capture that the master was talking of being back to go to Bugsby’s funeral. He made bold to warn his master to look out for tricks.

  When they came to that wide expanse of water, the merging of all the streams flowing from out of the Limestone and Sandstone Country, into the vast tide-like sweep towards the Rainbow Pool, Jinbul reminded Coon-Coon that it was in crossing here that Bobwirridirridi had tried that trick which might have drowned some of them. Prindy had led them to the crossing, the easiest means of reaching the limestone caves, the long shelf of marble above which were the treacherous shallows and below the murderous deeps, but itself completely safe, as distinctly delineated as a weir — unless someone tried tricks. Coon-Coon only scoffed at first: ‘But old Cock-Eye Bob didn’t get away with it, did he?’