by Jane Gardam
The ferry was no trouble. The sea, hatefully grey, was thank God calm. He stood at the rail watching the submarines of the English Navy busy in the Irish Sea practising the sinking of U-Boats. The West coast of England dwindled behind him.
There were tickets in code on his suitcase, and someone beside him watching the U-Boat exercises said, “You’ll find plenty of them things if you’s away over the water. Stiff with U-Boats.”
On the train towards Londonderry—blank scenery—the idea occurred to him that he should have roused himself to take an interest in what lay ahead. He did not even know the length of the journey. Then it all slid away. He wondered languidly if he’d even find his ship.
But somehow here he was at the dock of a huge bay and some sort of official had his name on a list.
“Travelling alone? No group? Don’t think we’ll tie a label on you” (Eddie towered over him). “All plain sailing up to now?”
“Yes thanks.”
“But no more plain sailing for a while. The convoy’s not ready. She’ll be in harbour at least three weeks.”
“Three weeks?”
“Yes. Here’s your billet address. Don’t worry, we won’t forget you. Can you get there by yourself or do you want a school bus?”
“I’ll find it. I’ve left school.”
The man looked at him curiously as he turned away.
“What’s the bus fare?” he called, but the man was gone.
He found the bus, and the journey was not very expensive and he got out in green mild country to the West of the city and saw that he was to be on a farm where a maidservant greeted him and brought him a glass of buttermilk. He was at present the only lodger.
“Evacuees comes and goes,” she said. “Poor little souls, crying and that, and hung with tickets. See me letting a bairn go where there’s none it knows. Who’s sending yous off, then? You’s old for an evacuee. Or is yous home abroad then? Or is yous not for fighting?”
He hated her.
He walked in the fields, helped on the farm. The empty days followed each other. Time stood still. When the servant girl—she smelled of earth and corn and her eyes were aching and knowing—passed behind his chair at dinner with the tatey stew and the heavy suet puddings she leaned very close over him. Sometimes she ran her warm hands through his hair. One night she came to his room and tried to get into his bed, but he was terrified and threw her out.
Then, after a week and still no ship, he found himself looking for her and when she came over the fields with the buttermilk his heart began to beat so loud he blushed.
“Is there no letters you should be writing? Is there nobody should know?”
He felt her kindness and that night wrote, on scented paper she gave him from her bedroom drawer, to his school. He told them about Oxford and that his aunts had despatched him to Singapore. He thanked old Oils who’d taught him history and asked him to tell Oxford how he’d been powerless to stay and would be back as soon as ever he could. He could not write to Oxford himself. He was too wretched. He felt weak, guilty, a schoolboy, a pathetic child again. And he couldn’t tell Oxford where to reply.
Then he wrote to Sir, but could find nothing to say that mattered. In neither of his letters did he mention Pat Ingoldby. His weakness and self-loathing numbed him. He began to stammer again, and so stopped talking. When he woke one night in his white clean bed, the room full of moonlight, the old closet, the bare floor, the ewer and wash-basin and soap dish on the marble washstand, the pure whiteness of his towel for morning, he turned to the girl and let her do what she wanted.
Which he found was what he wanted. And she made it easy. The next night he was waiting for her and took control. “You’s wonderful,” she said and he said, “Well, I’m good at games,” and she laughed into the pillow. He had a feeling that the farmer and his wife knew. The next night she didn’t come. He was desolate. Desperate. “Where were you?” he said next day, but she stared and went out to do the dairy. She was in his room that night again but he did not enjoy it. As she washed in the soft soapy water in his bowl she said, “How much money is yous going to give me?” and when he said he only had a few pounds she didn’t believe him. “All right then—you can give us yous watch.”
He said, “Never. It was my father’s.”
At breakfast there was a message brought by a farm boy that his ship was near to sailing. He packed and was at the bus stop without breakfast, leaving a shilling on his bedroom mantelpiece. The leaving of the shilling pleased him. A man who knows the rules. A Christ Church man. A man of the world. The buttermilk girl had disappeared.
And when he reached the dock this time, he felt jaunty and no longer worried that he’d be herded into a group of small children and weeping parents. He presented his papers to an office on the quay. A whole fleet now lay at anchor. A mammoth fish tank of troop-ships, battle-cruisers, destroyers, freighters, cargo boats, awaiting release.
An old-time tar spat over the rail of his own ship.
“Is this the Breath o’Dunoon?”
“It is, so. Step aboard.”
“Am I the only one?—the only evacuee?”
“Not at all, there’s one other. He’s below.”
Eddie clambered with his case down three metal ladders into smelly darkness and walked along a narrow passage that dipped towards the middle. It was way below the water line. Les Girls had not been interested in classes of cabin on the Breath o’Dunoon.
Nobody was to be seen. The sound of the sea slopped about. There was a dry, clicking noise coming from behind a cabin door.
He opened the door and found two bunks at right angles to each other, so narrow that they looked like shelves, each covered with a grey blanket. On the better bunk, seated cross-legged, was a boy, busy with a pack of cards. One of his very small hands he held high in the air above his head, the other cupped in his lap, and between the two, arrested in mid-air, hung an arc of coloured playing cards, held beautifully in space. As Eddie watched, the arc collapsed with lovely precision and became a solid pack again in the cupped hand.
“OK, how’s that?” said the boy. “Find the lady.”
He was an Oriental and appeared to be about ten-years old. His body, however, seemed to have been borrowed to fit the cabin and was that of a child of six. The crossed legs looked very short, the feet dainty. The features, when you looked carefully, were interesting for they were not Chinese though the eyes were narrow and tilted. He was not Indian and certainly not Malay. After thirteen years, Eddie still knew a Malay. The boy’s skin was not ivory or the so-called “yellow” but robust and ruddy red.
“OK then,” said the boy, “don’t find the lady. Just pick a card. Any card. OK?”
“I have to settle in.”
“You’ll have months for that. We’re in this rat hole for twelve weeks.”
“What! I hope not. I’m only going to Singapore.”
“Me too. Via Sierra Leone. Didn’t you know? We change ship at Freetown, if one turns up. Choose a card.”
Eddie sat on the other end of the bunk.
“Go on. Pick a card. No, don’t show me. Very good. Nine of diamonds. Right?”
It was the nine of diamonds.
“Are you some sort of professional?”
“Professional what?”
“Card-sharp.”
“Yes,” said the boy. “You could look at it that way. I’m Albert Loss. I’d be Albert Ross—I have Scottish blood—but I can’t say my Rs, being also Hakka Chinese. Right?”
“Why can’t other people call you Albert Ross?”
“You can, if you want. They did at school. And they called me Coleridge. ‘Albat Ross.’ Right? Ancient Mariner. They like having me on board ships, sailors. Albatrosses bring them luck.”
“Are you a professional sailor, too?”
“I’ve been around,” said Loss. “D’you play Crib?”
“No.”
“I’ll teach you Crib.”
“Are there going to be some mo
re of us on the ship?”
“More what?”
“Well—” (with shame) “—evacuees.”
“No idea. I think it’s just the pair of us. OK? Pick another card.”
“I’m going back on deck,” said Eddie.
“OK. I’ll come with you. Watch them loading. It’s corned beef. We unload at Freetown and she’ll sail full of bananas.”
“Bananas? To the Far East?”
“Don’t be stupid. We change ship at Freetown, hang about. The bananas get taken Home by the Breath o’Dunoon for the Black Market and the Commandos.”
“I’ve not seen any bananas in three years.”
“Well, you’re not in the know. You can eat plenty in Freetown. Flat on your back. Nothing moves in Freetown. There’s RAF there, and they’ve all gone mad. Talking to monkeys. Mating with monkeys.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Common knowledge. I’ve done this trip before. Often.”
“How old are you?”
The boy looked outraged. Eddie saw the long eyes go cold. Then soft and sad. “That’s a question I don’t often answer, but I’ll tell you. I’m fourteen,” and he took from his pocket a black cigarette with a gold tip, and lit it.
Thirty-six hours later there were signs that the huge herd of ships might be thinking of sailing. Eddie asked again if they were the only passengers.
“Four months. Just you and I.”
“I suppose so.” Loss spat black shag at the seagulls. “Shag to shags,” he said. “I am also rather witty. I’m a master of languages as well. I could teach you Malay.”
“I speak Malay,” said Eddie. “I was born there.”
“Mandarin, then? Hindi. All one. Nice watch.”
“It was my father’s.”
Days, it seemed, later they saw the last of Ireland sink into the sea. The prow of the ship seemed to be seeking the sunset, such as it was, rainy and pale. Great grey sea-coloured ships like lead pencils stood about the ocean and smaller brisker ships nosed about them. The Breath o’Dunoon looked like a tramp at a ball. The Atlantic lay still beneath its skin.
“We’re in a convoy.”
“Well, of course, we’re in a convoy,” said Loss. “We can’t go sailing off to Africa alone. We’re not a fishing boat. It’s a widespread War.
“Mind you,” he added, “we’d probably get there faster if we were a fishing boat. The convoy always goes the speed of the slowest ship. And we’re headed out to the West for days on end, to get clear of the U-Boats. Nearly to America, zig-zagging all the way.
“Am I right?” he condescendingly enquired of the Captain at whose none too clean table they were dining. The Captain ignored him and spooned up treacle pudding.
“Is that all we’re going to do all the time? I’ve brought no books. I thought it would be just a few days.”
“You can do the cooking if you like,” said the Engineer Officer. “You couldn’t do worse than this duff. It’s made of lead shot. Can you cook, Mr. Feathers?”
“No, not at all.”
“I can cook,” said Loss, “but only French cuisine.”
“You can both peel spuds,” said the Captain, “but remember to take that watch off, Feathers.”
“And keep it away from him,” said the Engineer Officer, pointing at Loss. “Ask me, he’s escaped from a reformatory school for delinquents.”
“It was Eton,” said Loss. “I was about to go to Eton. Do you play Crib?”
“Not now,” said the Sparks, “but I’ll thrash you when I do.”
They left the rickety Breath o’Dunoon at Freetown for a blazing beach where the air throbbed like petrol fumes. The jungle hung black. Black people were immobile under palm trees. Nobody seemed to know what should happen next. After a shabby attempt at examination by the customs, where interest was taken in the watch, the two of them stood about, waiting for instructions. There were none. The crew of the Breath o’Dunoon were taking their ease before the unloading of the cans of meat, and the Captain had disappeared. There was a suggestion that they should give up their passports which they ignored.
Heat such as Eddie had never known blasted land and sea. The smell of Africa was like chloroform. Inland from the port were dancing-hot tin sheds, one with a red cross on it, asphalt, some apologies for shops, and RAF personnel in vests and shorts. More black people stood about in the shadows beneath the trees.
Beyond the white strip of beach the mango forests began and Albert Loss sat down neatly under a palm tree and ate one, first peeling off the skin with a little knife from his pocket, then sucking. He took out a notebook and began to make calculations. Eddie ate bananas and thought about the buttermilk girl, with some satisfaction.
He watched the rollers of the Atlantic. “I think I’ll bathe,” he said. “Get rid of the banana juice.” He licked his fingers and ran down to the sea and was immediately flung back on the beach. He tried again and was again spat out. He lay with a ricked back and a badly grazed knee as the waves slopped over him with contempt.
“The sun’s dangerous,” Loss announced from the edge of the jungle.
But Eddie, exalted to be free, warm, deflowered and full of bananas, lay on in the sand. The dangerous part of the journey was over. They had seen no U-Boats, and there would be none on the next ship for they were out of range now. They were taking the Long Route down Africa to the Cape, and out to Colombo to refuel. Then Singapore and safety. And the next ship might be better. Even comfortable. A Sunderland flying boat suddenly roared from beyond the mangoes and came towards him along the sea, bouncing like a loose parcel chucked from hand to hand. It blundered to an uncertain lopsided stop some way out. Bloody planes, thought Eddie. I want to sleep. He was sated, different—happy.
“How many bananas have you eaten?” asked Loss.
“Thirty-six.”
“You are intemperate. I wouldn’t have thought it.”
“They’re miniature bananas. They’re nothing.”
“They’re very over-ripe. Where did you get them?”
“Off a heap. Under a tree. Any objection?”
Loss watched him.
“No. I am glad you have some powers of enjoyment. D’you want a game of Patience?”
“It’s about a hundred and five degrees. I want a beer.”
Eddie stumbled up the beach, to a stall under the trees where a massive lady in orange appeared to be in a trance but took his English money into her pink palm.
“You’ve left your watch lying on the sand,” called Loss.
“Look after it,” Eddie shouted. “D’you want a beer?”
“Certainly not. Not that stuff. And don’t touch the bottled water. I’ve been here before.”
Eddie lay back in the sand and went to sleep.
Waking he felt about him, sat up and began to swig from a dark bottle. His head began to swim deliciously. He lifted his legs in the air. Loss observed him.
“You are behaving quite out of character,” he said. “I have known you six weeks, but I know this to be out of character.”
“I like this character.”
“I am amazed. You have a rational mind.”
“I’ve slept with a woman,” said Eddie. “Yippee.”
Loss chose not to comment.
After a pause for thought Eddie said, “Have you been here before?”
“Somewhere like it. Down the coast.”
“Oh, I’ve been somewhere like it. Plenty of this. Worse.”
“When?”
“When I was five. When I came over to England with a missionary. Auntie May, she was called. To live in England on my own.”
“On your own?”
“No. With a woman called Ma Didds. Professional foster mother. Me and two vague cousins I’d never heard of. It wasn’t safe for Raj brats to stay in Malaya. We died off after five. And before five in hundreds. I felt pretty well in the East but I hadn’t a say in the matter. ‘Terrible for the parents,’ everyone says but I hadn’t a mother and
my father lived in a world of his own. Anyway, all Raj Orphans forgot their parents. Some of them attached themselves to the foster parents for life.”
“Not you?”
“No.”
“Where did you go?”
“Wales. It was Wales or Norfolk. Wales was cheaper.”
Suddenly he knew that it must have been his aunts who had chosen it. “What about you, Loss?”
“Something of a mystery, my parents. They didn’t send me to England until I was ten. And they didn’t call it ‘Home.’ They weren’t Raj.”
“What did you do in the holidays?”
“Oh, I always went to Singapore.”
“You couldn’t have done. There wasn’t time.”
Loss continued to play Patience with a cloth over his head.
“Well,” he said vaguely. “I got humped about. I am a natural traveller. We are of Hakkar stock.”
“So you keep telling me. Were there many Hakkars going to Eton?”
“I beseech you, Feathers. You may have found your tongue at last and it is all very interesting, but do not drink any more of the beer. And leave off the bananas.”
“Why?”
“I shall have to look after you. I can see the fruit moving. It will be a humiliation.”
“For me or for you?” shouted Eddie, tight as a tick, flat on his back, feet in the air, peeling a thirty-seventh banana.
“Both of us,” said Loss. “Here. Cover yourself. Here is your shirt. You are calling attention to us.”
“Not true,” yelled Eddie. “They’re all drunk here. Look at the beer cans everywhere. Or they’re drugged—look at them all just standing staring. All des-o-late. All the best ones dead. We’re going to lose this War so we may as well drink and die.”
Another flying boat split the air with sound. “Bundle of spare parts,” shouted Eddie. “Won’t make it back. Torpedo boats bang bang—down. England won’t last six months against Germany. Churchill’s a buffoon. Ham actor. Country’s finished. Europe’s finished. Thank God I’m going away.”
Someone from the Red Cross hut came down the beach and took him off, Loss walking thoughtfully behind.