When the old man looked across, the Judge beckoned him. He came, with a black claw of possession on the boy’s shoulder. He came up grinning widely, answered the Judge’s greeting with a nod, gave his slim black claw to meet the extended lumpy ruddy ginger-haired whitefeller hand, but without the ingratiating way he had received this Big Boss Man’s favours formerly. The Judge said, ‘You finish jail now, old-man. I come let you go.’
The grin widened. The Judge blinked. Whether the absurdity of his generosity struck him it would be hard to say. Anyway, he seemed to cover embarrassment by saying hastily, ‘Bottle plendy there for you in car.’
Even then there was none of the old Tahng You, Boss of the mendicant blackfellow. The sunken red coals glowed. The Pookarakka went to the car as if it were his right.
Perhaps the Judge was a simpler man than he appeared to be and very much wanted to show that he had the power to free men as well as imprison them, because he said to O’Dowdy, ‘I’ll have a word with prisoners.’ They went off together, leaving Prindy with Bobwirridirridi.
Again his seeming magnanimity failed. Only the guards were impressed with it. The white prisoners shuffled. The blacks, who should have understood because he talked Murringlitch, were curiously silent. So anticlimactic was it that the Judge’s speech trailed off at the end. No cheers. He turned to Major O’Dowdy and said, ‘I could do with a drink, Pat. Hope you’ve got some.’
Judge and Warden were just settled down on the latter’s front verandah, with a bottle of whisky and a dazzling azure view of the open sea beyond the boom, when Prindy appeared on the steps, and asked if the Pookarakka might have some milk to go with his brandy. The Major told him to take the old fellow round to the kitchen and give him anything he wanted.
Prindy turned to go, but stopped, to cock his ear northward. So evident was his attention, that Judge Bickering asked him what it was. Prindy answered, ‘I hear . . . Boot-boot-boot . . . what that?’
The Major rose, came to the steps and cupped an ear. It came on a faint puff of midday breeze: Boot-boot-boot-boot-boot-boot-boot! He said, ‘That’s the Naval air-raid warning . . . from the Boom Defence. Maybe they’re only practising. They often do.’
‘Queer time to practise after an air-raid,’ remarked the Judge. He also rose. His tic jerked mildly. ‘Perhaps they’ve only just heard of the raid. There does seem to be some disparity in co-ordination between the Services.’
An exclamation by Prindy: ‘Aeroplane . . . big mob!’
Prindy leapt away, for a view of the eastern sky through the ruins of the jail. The two men came running down to join him. Over in the jail there was movement, too. Evidently there had been a line-up at the store.
Prindy jerked his lips towards where the Air Force Base was. High in the sky silver birds flew again in massed flight. An instant later fire began to run in a ragged leaping line along the horizon. Then the sound: Boom-boomble-boom-boom-boomble!
The Major breathed, ‘Japs. They’re tearin’ the Raff ’drome to pieces . . . to stop opposition to a landing, I suppose.’
The line of leaping fire was describing an arc towards the town. The birds were diving. The earth was heaving up beneath. ‘Comin’ this way,’ cried the Major. ‘Better take cover.’ He cupped his mouth and shouted to the milling crowd, ‘Take cover!’ Then he turned to the Judge, ‘Down over the cliff, there, is a search-light post. Sandbagged. Nobody there. Only come nights . . . practise. Machine-guns there, too . . . have a pot at the bastards.’ He started to run.
Boom-boom-booble-boom!
‘In my car,’ said the Judge. He beckoned to Prindy and Bobwirridirridi. All piled in. As they drove across the little flat to the edge of the cliff, the Judge vociferated as on the journey out: ‘Goddammit . . . what’s wrong with us? Did you ever hear of such damned colonial ineptitude? This Jap war’s been going on three months, with the enemy fairly rolling down on us, an enemy we’ve been waiting for for forty years . . . and there isn’t even a trained troop of Boy Scouts to meet them!’
The Major said stiffly, ‘Don’t forget we’ve been fighting a great war on the other side of the world.’
‘Urgh!’
They reached the cliff. Both men went down at once; while the others tarried to watch the fireworks over the town. The six-out-of-thirty-six anti-aircraft guns were in this.
The search-light post was a gap in the cliff, built amongst a tumble of yellow rock that had been cemented into a platform. It was the perfect military botch. A good storm would have swept it away in an hour. It was protected from human assault from the sea by a thick wall of sandbags. From the air it would be a sitting shot, especially at night with the light on. The big light stood in the middle, shrouded in camouflaged canvas that made it stand distinctly against the rock. Into the cliff was built a shed for the power-plant. It was locked with a great padlock, but with the key hanging from a nail above with a big tin tag so that no one could miss it. The Major opened up.
There were two machine-guns. Watching what the Major did, the Judge assembled one, ignoring the Major’s disputing the legality of his bearing arms since not a sworn soldier, saying, ‘Balls! These bastards’re out to kill us. Bugger your rules of war . . . there never were any except in theory . . . there never will be. Help me set the bloody thing up.’ Then when he got it on its stand, under the Major’s direction he fired a short burst into the sky, and cried, ‘Lord, send one of those slant-eyed Sons of Heaven down close enough for me to blast him into Hell!’
As the echoes of the gun died away, the sounds of combat over the town came to them strongly: Boom, boom . . . boom-boom . . . boom!
Then Prindy came flying down, crying, ‘Aeroplane come!’
A roar like an approaching storm. Then shattering flattening din as the flight swept overhead, so close that the exhaust flames could be seen as little red darting tongues and the oil streaks striping silver bellies and those red spots that were the insignia of the Sons of Heaven, looking down like malevolent suns in drought. But they weren’t close enough. Although the machine-guns poked back fiery tongues, apparently their spite went even unnoticed. The flight was rising, heading out to sea, home to the conquered Spice Isles, where these mere captains now lived as kings.
But no!
One aircraft was breaking formation, banking to port to return, in a moment running past them, over the sea, out of range, but close enough for them to see the helmeted pilot looking at them through his perspex. They swung to watch him, saw him bank to port again somewhere off Shelly Beach, then vanish. It was hard to follow the sound of his going with the roar of the departing flight still beating on cliff and sea.
Then they heard him, coming at them from the back — the rising roar.
Then there he was — with his phosphorescent storm of death rushing ahead of him. They opened up their guns to meet him. Only for a moment could they be heard — BRAAAAAAAAAAAAHP! — before he overwhelmed them — WHAAAAAAAHM!
He was gone over — climbing to the Glory of Dai Nippon.
The Major, his khaki torn to shreds and dyed with blood, staggered from his gun to the tattered sandbags, to cling to them, watching the departing foe, while his blood ran with the flowing sand, counting the seconds of his life remaining. The Judge seemed welded to his gun with blood and guts and white rag — but watched. Prindy watched from the shelter of the concrete wall, unscathed. The Pookarakka was still invisible.
Over the boom the foeman swept, out of the stricken South Land. What would he call it when he came to conquer it? Could any sweeter name be found than Australia? But what would it matter, if after sullying it with his brutality, he despoiled it with stupidity?
Out over the sea he flew — climbing to the Glory of Dai Nippon.
But he lurched. He rolled. He spun. He hit the sea — Splash!
So big a splash — but no sound to it. No sound in all the world now, it seemed, but the drip-drip-drip of blood.
The Major turned his head to look at his comrade. Blood was running from
his mouth. Yet he smiled. The Judge could answer only with his tic, which after a violent spasm froze into a wink, in which it stayed as he slid down the gun into his entrails. The Major sighed, fell, to let the spilling sand bury him.
A sound out of the silence — Tcht! — Aboriginal signal for attention. Prindy looked up at the cliff, to see materialise out of the yellowness the khaki-clad Pookarakka, much as he had seen him do as grey out of greyness that first time of setting eyes on him long ago. Bobwirridirridi signed for him to come up. Prindy hesitated, turned to look at the dead men, stared a moment, then Signed them with the Cross. The Pookarakka saw, but said nothing when he came up.
Over at the remains of the Jail there was scurrying as of a nest of yellow ants. Some of the khaki-clad figures were already in flight, heading for the scrub across the golf links behind. A few were to be seen at guards’ quarters, rushing downstairs with packed baggage. A car was being loaded out in the road.
The Pookarakka gave only a glance that way, then westward, to stare at a speck of blue that surely was Mooragetaghee. As if reading his thoughts, Prindy said, half questioning by his tone, ‘More better we go motor car?’
The old man looked at him, stared a moment, then grinned, laid a claw on the slight shoulder, murmuring, ‘Pro-perly!’
The Judge’s car had been struck, but had suffered slight damage, only a few holes in the roof at the rear and back window shattered. Prindy got in, switched on, started the engine. It ran perfectly. He opened the off-side door for the old man, who entered warily, probably never having ridden in front of any motor vehicle before.
Prindy headed diagonally for the road, townward. No one appeared to notice their going. No one was seen on the road, all the way back to that crossroads, where still cars were heading out, with even more haste now for more devastation around them. Much of the damage was due to the flimsiness of the buildings. Nothing much of the town had been build to last, like a concession to the alienness of those who’d built it, hoping to get out of it as soon as possible, or expecting to be dispossessed of it as a thief of his booty. Not a peculiarity of the place, of course, but of the whole wide land, the so-called Nation, a community without a sense of future, without a right to it.
Where only a few buildings showed signs of direct bomb damage, many had simply been blown apart by blast. Not many were burning, for all the smoke.
They ran into thick smoke as they approached the Catholic Precincts. Prindy slowed down — stopped with a sudden squeal of brakes and a cry, ‘Oh!’
The church was a smouldering heap.
At last that shaky old roof had fallen in, as so often people had declared it must for this or that unholy reason; but no one had thought of one like this. Evidently it had taken a direct hit. Even without the incendiary effects of a bomb it must have caught fire, with all those hazards of candles and sacrumlamps. Apparently it had fallen like a house of cards, then as the timbers burnt, the iron roofing sprung up to fold peaked like praying hands. It smoked like a great censer, every ounce of incense in the sacristy going to feed it in last vast supplication to the Most Merciful who had given it to a grinning heathen to destroy what Faith in Him had raised.
In a moment he knew what had happened, when from the gateway of the half-wrecked Mission House, Rifkah and Savitra came to fling themselves on him, weeping and babbling of him, of him, of Daid-feller. He could no more ask the name than they pronounce it. When they had come up from the landing, they said, he had gone at once to the church to pray. They had been told by the old black gardener, now decamped, that Father Gorgan had gone to the Hospital as usual, but had not come back. Everyone else was gone. They themselves had gone with him to the church. When the alarm sounded announcing the second raid, he had told them to go back to the Mission House and take shelter in the slit trench. He wouldn’t go with them.
Prindy waited for no more, went racing through the wreckage of the presbytery, to get as near to the altar as possible. Some of the shattered blackened marble could be seen. Nothing else. But yes . . . for a moment, through the curling smoke, yet again a nailed hand. The grey eyes blinked rapidly. For a long moment he stood. Then he raised his hand, made the Sign of the Cross, murmured, ‘Requiem Aeternum.’ He was about to turn, but stopped to tear a small branch from a scorched hybiscus, with which to erase his tracks as he backed a yard or two. Then flinging down the branch, he called softly to the smoking ruins, ‘You lie quiet, old-man . . . Mummuk . . . Amen!’ He ran back to the others gaping at him from the street.
He said, ‘Better we go. Might-be Japanee soldier come.’ Savitra howled and would have grabbed him, only he pushed her away. ‘Tucker in Mission House?’ he asked.
Rifkah asked, ‘Vere ve go?’
‘Back to Mission, I reckon.’
Savitra shrilled, ‘How you go Mission you only got motor car?’
Ignoring her, Prindy said to Rifkah, ‘We go down Beatrice way, go find Mullaka, first-time.’ He took a look in at the fuel-gauge of the car, which read very low. He said, ‘Must get benzine. I go look-about, time you get tucker. He added as they turned away, ‘Give Pookarakka milk and brandy.’
He looked all over for gasolene, even went down to the boat-shed; found nothing, but saw dead men running out with a stream of rubbish on the tide. He returned to find the others at the car with a box of food. He said that they would have to try to get fuel down town.
Although for the most part the town was under a pall of smoke, there was a clear view down this street that even gave a glimpse of the innermost arm of the harbour and the mangroves beyond, looking much as usual. Even the big Shell sign at the Queen’s Service Station was to be seen, although no hint of anyone in the vicinity. He said they’d go to the Queen’s, and asked Rifkah if she had money. She said she had. The place was opposite the Queen Victoria Hotel.
They got in, Prindy to drive again, with the Pookarakka beside him, the girls in the back. They set off, past the oldest and most substantial houses of the town, mostly unharmed, but all abandoned.
However, that not all the citizens were lily-livered was soon startlingly revealed to them. They reached the service station without seeing any more sign of life than one poor crying cat, suddenly to find at least one important institution fairly bursting with it: the Queen Victoria Hotel. Often enough a lively place, never, never had it been like this. In fact, it far less resembled a tavern at the height of a carouse than a beehive in the uproar of swarming. The furore was not only in the packed bars, all three of which could be seen into through their half-doors. The old place simply rocked with it from top to bottom. It couldn’t be seen what was going on upstairs, because the verandahs were latticed. Nor could it be guessed, except as destruction to the accompaniment of wild hilarity. Such was the din, of shouting, smashing, stamping, laughing, that the arrival of the car across the street had not been noticed.
It was not noticed even from upstairs when someone opened a louvre in the lattice and a couple of men presented themselves at it, soldiers by their hats, struggling to shove out something large. Soon the thing the two men strove with with much laughter was seen to be the drawer out of a wardrobe or other large clothes-closet and was bulging with clothing of a sort, a scattering of which preceded it before it came hurtling down to strike the footpath — Crash! — and splinter, scattering its odd contents widely.
Men came bursting from the swing-doors of the bars, soldiers and civilians in about equal number, all staggering drunk, gawping, burbling, ‘Wha’s matter . . . chrissake!’
A whoop of laughter from above. The others looked up. One of the soldiers up there shouted, ‘Help yourselves to stays . . . millions of ’em.’
The other heaved out an armful. ‘More of ’em . . . ho, ho, ho!’
Then the booze-witted ones below grasped the fun in it, pounced on the pile of corsets, which must have included every style invented, from the steel and whalebone armour of the beginnings of this cult in feminine falsity combined with masochism to the kinder elastic girdle
s of the day, all well shaped through having been worn by a form that had stretched them to the limit. One soldier stepped into one of the more primitive devices, which another proceeded to lace him into while pressing a boot into his behind, causing much mirth and a scramble to do likewise. Others tore the things apart, shooting slips of springy steel aloft, assaulting one another with lengths of stretched elastic. A civilian amongst them was hopping about in a purple girdle, yelling, ‘Old Mum Morgan’s . . . always trussed up like a flamin’ old chook . . . too bloody mean to chuck ’em away, eh? Ho, ho, ha!’
Another civilian shouted, ‘Always drippin’ with di’monds, too . . . thievin’ old bitch.’ He looked aloft, shouted to the grinning faces there, ‘Find any ’er jewelry . . . she ’ad ’ole bloody jeweller’s shop?’
Nods from above.
Crash! of splintered glass — and again Crash! — of china now, as a chamberpot that had been hurled through a bar-room window struck the other side of the road. A burst of foam — a spreading of dark seething liquor. The mob howled with mirth. Evidently someone had been drinking beer out of the pot.
Then the mob became aware of the car and those in it. Savitra was particularly noticeable, hanging right out of her window, all darkly shiny bright with curiosity. Someone yelled, ‘Young gin!’
It was taken up by many: ‘Yeah . . . gins . . . creamies!’
Perhaps they took Prindy for a girl. They surged forward.
Rifkah, too well used to ramping satyrs, leaned forward and struck Prindy on the shoulder, crying, ‘Qvick . . . go!’
A yell: ‘Red-’eaded moll!’
Prindy was instantly alert, slipped into gear.
But the mob was on them, pawing at shrinking Savitra, grabbing at the car as it moved, babbling, ‘Don’ go . . . don’ go, girls!’
Prindy trod on the accelerator, so that the engine roared. But the car only crept forward, now in the grip of the mob.
‘Don’ go, girls . . . stay’n’ave good time!’
‘Plen’y money . . . plen’y booze!’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 234