The Male Response

by Brian Aldiss

  When they finally emerged from the kraal, Soames was trembling. He tried to dismiss the notion as nonsensical, but could not avoid feeling that something vital had just happened to him, oddly transforming him. That anonymous, transcendent appetite still rumbled inside him; he could not tell what it was, or what it was doing. He wanted to stop and think, to puzzle things out, as a pack of cards must do when, having been reshuffled, every value lies against a new value, but Eekee still pressed voicelessly on and Soames was compelled to follow.

  A plump moon was now rising. Soames recognised their whereabouts. They had made a wide arc round the outskirts of Umbalathorp and were now at the top end of the market place. An electric light burned in a window of the hospital opposite, native butchers slept on their slabs, a beggar rested by the central well. Somewhere afar, a hyena urged a pack of jackals into hysterics.

  Halfway down one side of the wide square, Eekee stopped, turned for the first time, and beckoned Soames. Between two wooden buildings, a small fifteen-hundredweight truck was parked. This was the ‘lorry’ de Duidos had promised. They climbed in, Eekee taking the driving seat, Soames the other. The noise of the engine starting cut through the stillness like sharks’ teeth through vellum. As Eekee crashingly sorted out gears, they began to move. They rattled down the market place, turning right towards the station.

  Soares’ warehouse, in which de Duidos’ emissaries reported the stolen parts to be hidden, was a large building standing next to the station. It had been intended originally as an engine shed, until the supply of railway lines had given out. Indeed, had they given out any sooner, they would not have stretched to the end of the station platform. Making the best of a bad job, the construction gangs erected buffers where the line tailed off, filled up the open end of the engine shed, and sold it cheaply to Soares as a warehouse.

  Outside it, blocking the doorway with an ancient charpoy which looked as if it had been dragged all the way from Simla, lay an ancient Sikh. A small lantern stood on one post of his bed, a burning stick of agarbatti was wedged in another. Eekee reversed the truck and drove it backwards, stopping it within ten yards of the Sikh.

  Soames and Eekee here changed places, so that Soames climbed out of the driver’s seat and stood by the open cab door. He called to the Sikh, asking him the time, the way to Uiuibursam, the date of the next eclipse of the sun. The Sikh appeared to be very deaf and very stupid. It took considerable prompting on Soames’ part before he lowered his feet to the ground, took up his lantern and shuffled forward.

  As he reached the rear of the truck, Eekee materialised round the tailboard, slipping a scarf over the old man’s head and across his mouth, so that he could not cry out. With four leather thongs he was bound and then stretched quietly beside the truck. Soames had insisted on this harmless procedure rather than the more reliable and colourful cosh on the skull favoured by de Duidos.

  Running forward, Soames pushed the charpoy out of the way, and unbolted the large door set in the front of the store. With Eekee at the wheel again, the truck was backed down until its canopy was just inside the entrance. Having switched off the engine, the negro now hurried forward some yards to take up his post as look-out, as prearranged.

  Flashing the gigantic torch de Duidos had lent him, Soames crossed the obstructed floor of the warehouse, piled high with miscellaneous lumber. This was where his own private arrangements came in, and he was momentarily glad that the Portuguese was not man enough to be present at his own operations. Reaching the only window in the building, he found the catch and opened it. He was facing down the length of Goya’s solitary railroad; the tracks glinted in the moonlight. As Soames’ head appeared in the opening, a shadow moved from the shadow of the station platform and Deal Jimpo came quietly forward. Climbing on to the buffers he was able, with Soames’ aid, to clamber into the window. He paused, gripping the flimsy frame, swung his plaster-encased leg stiffly over the sill, and dropped into the warehouse.

  ‘Everything all right with you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Fine,’ Soames replied, clapping Jimpo’s shoulder. He was still gripped by the kind of exultation which had seized him in the kraal. ‘Have you seen anyone hanging about who looks as if he might be an assistant of de Duidos that he did not bother to tell me about?’

  The princeling shook his head, and Soames began at once to search for the computer spares, flashing his torch industriously among the bales and boxes. He was still hunting when the drums started. They sounded close, beating against the ear like moth wings.

  ‘What is that?’ Soames asked. ‘Not anything to do with us, is it?’

  ‘No. It is drums from the other side of the river,’ Jimpo answered. ‘A party of hunters celebrates killing a leopard.’

  The sound was as thick and warm as a bloodstream. Soames stood where he was, listening. Now, added to the ensnaring thud of hand against skin, came the chant of voices. Insistently the words were reiterated, coming clear across the Uiui:

  I kumma jum

  Kumma jum

  Kumma wumma jum

  I kumma jum

  Kumma jum

  Kumma wumma jum …

  ‘What does it mean?’ Soames asked.

  ‘The warriors sing that the old man had lost his gourd,’ Jimpo explained, limping back to the window. ‘The black leaves fall from the blue-gum tree and his gourd is gone beyond the river where no man may go. The river is deep and one becomes exceedingly wet in it. The old man is sad and beats his smallest son because the gourd contained a month’s supply of mepacrine tablets. Now the old man beats his head in sorrow against the blue-gum tree.’

  The first box of spare parts was discovered beneath a stiff and stinking lion skin, the transistors neatly embedded in moss and grass. Soames set it gently into the back of the truck. He then found that the rest of the contents of the original five crates were cached in a formidable number of cardboard boxes labelled ‘Slazenger Tennis Balls’. Removing his jacket which was already soaked in sweat, he commenced to load these boxes into the truck. He worked automatically, inundated by the stifling heat in the store and the plud-plud of the drums.

  An urgent call from Jimpo, keeping a watch by the window, interrupted Soames. Hurrying over to the princeling, he stared into the darkness where a dark finger pointed.

  ‘Something going on down there,’ Jimpo muttered, ‘down at the slums end of the town. A new fire burning, and people crossing it.’

  Soames found it hard to see anything distinctly. The moon had shaken its cloak loose off the hills and rode high, calling a meaningless pattern of glints and shadows from the earth. Soames was unimpressed.

  ‘Call me if anything exciting happens,’ he said, returning down the length of the store to his loading. They could be away in a few minutes now. When the truck was stacked with all the parts, he would whistle to Eekee, who would return to receive at Jimpo’s hands what he had previously meted out to the Sikh. Jimpo and Soames would then drive like hell and in triumph back to the palace with the booty, de Duidos and Soares would both be discomfited.

  The scheme was simple, workable. Soames’ spirits rose under the extra dash of adrenalin supplied by his glands for the venture. The diminishing pile of Slazenger boxes twinkled into the truck to the rhythm of the chant.

  I kumma jum

  Kumma jum

  Kumma wumma jum

  ‘Soames, man!’ Jimpo bellowed.

  Surprised, Soames dropped a box. He turned in his friend’s direction – and the reason for the shout was apparent to him from where he stood. Soames remained transfixed, staring through the square of window framed in the blackness of the warehouse.

  The railway engine was speeding up the single line, speeding towards the station. It pulled no carriages, and appeared to be going flat out. The close-standing houses near the track were illuminated one by one by the ruddy glow from its firebox, as it flashed past them, trailing smoke. Now the clamour of its progress was audible above the sound of drums.

  Something f
righteningly unlikely hovered about the spectacle of that little iron demon hurtling up the dark track; it was as if Turner’s ‘Wind, Air and Steam’ had been repainted by Francis Bacon. Soames was reminded of an old play called The Ghost Train. He thought, ‘If it doesn’t slow down, it’ll overshoot the station,’ before realising that whoever rode the footplate had no intention of stopping.

  ‘Run, Jimpo, it’s coming!’ he yelled.

  Over the charging engine rode a great sock of smoke, transformed to orange just above the cab. As Soames called out, a piercing scream came from the whistle, enough to rouse all Goya and the lands beyond. Jimpo, who had stared from the window petrified at the sight, turned to run. His plaster cast snagged him even as he swung round, and he fell full length.

  Yelling with all the power of his lungs, as if in an attempt to quell that paralysing whistle, Soames ran back to the princeling. It was like running at a charging rhino, for the front of the engine was clearly framed in the window now. He snatched Jimpo’s forearms, pulling him frenziedly to one side; the walls were only lath: if he could break through them –

  But the terrible monster had breasted the final rise, was clattering through the shuttered station. At the last moment, two maniac figures, golden for an instant, flung themselves off the footplate towards the platform. Then their charge, screaming still like a dying boar, flattened the buffers as if they were dough and burst insanely into the warehouse. It ploughed into crates and cartons, grinding into the concrete floor, belching smoke, sparks, and steam. Everything flew. Noise was like chopper blows on the ear.

  Fighting its way blindly ahead, the engine struck de Duidos’ truck and mangled to a catastrophic halt. Flames instantly burst out, engulfed the truck canopy, sprang to the roof, flooded the interior. Smoke filled the building, illuminated as if it too were burning.

  Soames, who was hit and knocked down by a flying plank of wood directly the iron monster burst in almost on top of him, scrambled up dazedly. In the growing brightness of the flames, he could see Jimpo a few feet away, tossed into a crazy attitude over a pile of broken timbers. With a last splurge of strength, he got the princeling on to his back and dragged him out the only possible way: through the gaping hole by which the engine had entered.

  Outside, his knees buckled and he went down. When they were discovered, they were lying there together, unconscious.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘For summer has o’erbrimmed their clammy cells.’

  Of all the miscellaneous structures in Umbalathorp, the one which most closely obeyed the architectural precept that the appearance of a building shall be related to its function was the prison. It could be mistaken for nothing but what in the States is called colloquially ‘the jug’. A low, one-storey erection of brick, with nothing but bars to enliven its façade, it seemed to wear its roof like an exceptionally low brow, so that written all over it was the same look of miserable stupidity as might be found on most of the countenances of its inmates.

  Another American phrase applicable to such institutions, ‘the clink’, fitted Umbalathorp’s jail excellently. Perched perpetually on its roof were a half dozen white, bloated, carrion-consuming birds with scarlet wattles like turkeys, who sharpened their beaks with nicking, clinking sounds against the ridge of the roof, or rolled the gritty pellets of their droppings down the runways in the corrugated iron.

  Only the slang term ‘the cooler’ would have been inappropriate here. Under the iron roof, the cells twanged with heat. Soames lay miserably on a board bed, holding his forehead. Tenants of nearby cells were singing convivially, but he did not join in. He counted out his life in beads of sweat.

  It was well after noon, when Soames had been locked in his cell for seven hours, with only a jar of stale water smelling like urine for company, that his door was unlocked and two negroes entered. One was a handsome young Samburu of the flashy tie brigade, clad in a grey and yellow lounge suit with impossible shoulders; the other was an older, tired man, with a wise, monkey face, dressed in crumpled reach-me-downs.

  The younger man bowed and introduced himself in fluent English.

  ‘I am appointed your defending lawyer, Mr Noyes,’ he said. ‘I shall handle your case with great ability, that I promise. Having been a resident for some long years in South Africa, I am proficient in all legal matters. My name is Assidawa Obendsi, at your service, and here allow me to present my first assistant, Ladies Only, who is fluent in Afrikaans but not English.’

  ‘An unusual name,’ commented Soames grumpily.

  ‘Surely not, Mr Noyes, in your country? My assistant, being a Christian, chose this name especially for he understands that before it white men fall away; he is hoping to create a similarly immense impression on the world.’

  The older man, knowing himself to be talked about, said ‘Laaa – dee sonli,’ and laughed sadly and silently, his mouth open, his head nodding.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re soon going to get me out of here, Mr Obendsi,’ Soames said. ‘Just what is the situation? Hasn’t Deal Jimpo been able to explain what happened last night to his father yet? Once that’s done, I should be able to walk out of here a free man. I’ve done nothing.’

  Obendsi smiled, sitting down by Soames and interposing his briefcase between them. Ladies Only leant against the wall, beginning to bite his nails with melancholy vigour.

  ‘That is not quite so, Mr Noyes,’ Obendsi said gently. ‘The matter is not really simple. Deal Jimpo, the President’s son, lies still in the hospital senseless, and in consequence, ipso facto, cannot say anything to anybody. When you will walk out of here a free man I cannot commit myself to say exactly. There are three grave charges brought against you by three different parties.’

  ‘How absolutely absurd!’ Soames exclaimed. ‘What are these three charges?’

  The lawyer ticked them off on flexible fingers; Ladies Only nodded his head to keep time with the ticking.

  ‘First, the Portuguese de Duidos brings action against you for theft and total damagement of one fifteen-hundredweight lorry valued at twelve hundred doimores, plus value extra of four new tyres to be decided later. Second, the Portuguese Soares brings action against you for total destruction of one warehouse by means of deliberately aimed railway express engine, said warehouse containing goods valued at one hundred thousand doimores. Third and last, the Royal Umbalathorp to Umbalathorp State Railway Company brings action against you for the theft and ruination of one 0-4-0 tank engine named “M’Grassi Thunderbird”.’

  ‘That’s absolutely crazy!’ Soames exclaimed, jumping up. ‘Complete nonsense, the lot of it!’

  ‘On paper it looks quite sensible and formidable, Mr Noyes.’

  ‘It’s crazy, I tell you!’ Soames said agitatedly. ‘All three charges are perfectly ridiculous. If you’re going to defend me, you’d better know what really happened last night.’

  He told Obendsi the whole story behind the night’s activities, ending by saying, ‘Whoever set that engine on to Jimpo and me, it was neither of the Portuguese concerned, since they stood to lose by the smash-up. Has anyone questioned the driver and fireman yet? de Duidos, of course, is framing me; that’s obvious enough. If you could find this man Eekee, the driver of the truck, and get him to talk, that would squash the first charge.’

  ‘I will certainly look for this man,’ Obendsi said doubtfully, making notes. ‘As to the fireman and driver of the engine, the Chief of Police, more suo, has already asked questions of these unhappy men. It is their custom to drive the engine at night, when the railway closes down, to the slum end of the track, whereby they have their place of habitation. During the last night, they were set upon in their rest by persons unknown, who tied them and then stole the engine.’

  ‘Well, that proves it wasn’t me, surely. Did they see these attackers?’

  ‘One attacker was observed to wear a white face and an English bowler hat,’ Obendsi explained. ‘He was presumed therefore to be you.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I haven’t go
t a bowler hat!’

  ‘You suggest someone impersonated you in a cunning disguise?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Soames replied. ‘If only Jimpo would come round … was he badly injured?’

  ‘Very badly; he is senseless all the time.’ The lawyer rose, handing his notes to Ladies Only, who during the conversation had been staring boredly at the roof. ‘We will do our very best for you, Mr Noyes,’ he said, ‘and hope your truth will prevail over the other. Tomorrow I come early to see you again. Sit tight in your comfortable cell and do not despair.’

  ‘Wait! Will you let me write a note to be delivered to President Landor? Will you see it gets to him?’

  When Obendsi agreed and produced paper and pencil, Soames wrote: ‘As British subject, I demand reliable lawyer from London, who will perhaps impress the court, though I doubt anyone could be more efficient than Mr Assidawa Obendsi. Also beseech personal interview with you, to convince you that British justice and Goyese injustice lead the world. Noyes.’

  Obendsi scanned the message, beamed at the passage inserted especially for his benefit and pocketed it.

  ‘You know I can pay appropriately for your very best services?’ Soames asked, anxious to detain Obendsi as long as possible.