by Carl Muller
It took Mrs Harridge a week to work this out and then, with an outraged howl that made the school watchman’s hair stand on end, she demanded that the gap in her desk be boarded up. Also, she vowed, every boy who ever bent down to pick anything in her class would be immediately marched to the Principal for a flogging.
When Pottaya stood against the outer edge of his desk there was barely room for another to stand on the rostrum, facing him. ‘You, von Bloss, come here! Here! Stand here in front of me. Not down there! Come up here!’
Carloboy stood on the edge of the rostrum. ‘Sir, haven’t room, Sir, I’ll fall.’
‘Nonsense. Stand still. If you think you’ll fall come closer,’ and Pottaya took up the cane. ‘You know why you were detained? Talking in class. How many times am I telling not to talk in class?’ He seized the boy, pulled him close, clasped him around the shoulders, held him trapped against his body and struck him across the buttocks with the cane. ‘It’s paining?’ he asked.
Carloboy did not speak. His face was pressed into the man’s chest.
‘Put your hands out and hold the desk!’
This was worse. Pressed against the man, arms thrust out around Pottaya’s waist, hands holding the edge of the desk.
‘Ah, that’s good.’ The grip around his shoulders and back tightened and the cane sang again. ‘Now paining?’
‘Y-yes, sir.’
‘Good, good.’ The man was thrusting out with his hips, pushing himself into the boy, gripping him fiercely. Another stroke, very light, and then another which the boy scarcely felt. But something hard and alive was boring into the pit of his stomach and suddenly Pottaya dropped the cane, embraced the boy and heaved against him, once, twice, and stood still, lips quivering. ‘Right,’ he said at length, ‘you can go now. Next time you’ll get six cuts and have to stay till six o’clock. No more nonsense in class, do you hear?’
Carloboy gulped, gingerly stepped down. Was he wrong or was there a patch, a wet patch on Pottaya’s trousers? He collected his books and crept out, and Maxie stuck a cautious head out from the next class and whispered, ‘Hssss! I saw, men. How the way he caned and what he tried to do. Tried to cup6 you, no?’
Tried, I think,’ Carloboy said, ‘but didn’t try to take out my trousers or anything.’
‘Yes, but I saw, no? The way he holding and all. If I were you I’ll go an’ tell my daddy what he did.’
‘You’re mad? You don’t know my daddy. First he’ll catch and hammer me.’
But things got out of hand. Maxie bristled with the news the next day and boys, always blessed with lurid imaginations, spun the tale through the school. Knots of the nastier types would waylay him. ‘That Pottaya cupped you, no? Hoo! You’re Pottaya’s cup boy! Hoo!’ This led to scuffles, torn shirts, bruised knuckles and the attention of priests and lay staff who deplored any sort of unrest in the ranks. Carloboy, hounded by those he used to call friend, grew increasingly belligerent. The tussles were unbelievable. Boys who had suffered the same treatment by Pottaya and had never been witnessed did not sympathize. Rather, they became Carloboy’s worst tormentors. It was on the day that he traded punches with Trevor Wise and dislodged Trevor’s front tooth that things became increasingly unreal. Mrs Wise stormed in and Carloboy was caned and Mrs Wise nearly stunned him with a mean swing of her handbag. Letters were dispatched, and Sonnaboy dragged his son into the hall and wondered whether he should first stripe Carloboy with his army web belt or kick Mrs Wise up and down Hill Street, Dehiwela.
And then the dam broke. Carloboy related, haltingly, all that had happened. Sonnaboy listened, ‘Did you tell all this to the principal?’
The boy gulped. ‘Yes.’
‘So?’
‘He-he said I’m a-a liar.’
‘Stay at home tomorrow.’
Carloboy sniffed and stared at the floor.
‘You heard? No school for you tomorrow. I’ll go and see what all this is about. But if I find that what you said is not true I’ll take your bloody top skin off! Did you hear?’
What happened the next day was quite ordinary as far as Sonnaboy was concerned. He cycled through the gates, got stuck in the sand lot, swore, and wheeled his machine to the office hut. He strode to the outer rim of the quadrangle, peering into each classroom until Pottaya was sighted.
Schoolboys pray earnestly for diversions of any kind. This time there were transports of hysterical joy. Never in their wildest had such a diversion been thrown their way. St Peter’s, Dehiwela, they all agreed, was the victim of a wholly natural disaster!
Chapter Seven
War is a funny thing. It tends to push lots of other little dramas out of focus, making it hard, sometimes, for a chronicler to get things spot on. Take 1943 for instance. The Burghers of Ceylon liked it very much. Oh they were just as bitter as everyone else about shortages and the rationing and having to settle for dehydrated meat which Sonnaboy declared was horseflesh, hooves and all, but this war was certainly the goods!
In gabbing about the days, fifty years ago, one is amazed at how well the war is remembered. They, the Burghers, will still tell you about how Goebbels was the guy who developed the Hitler cult. ‘He was Hitler’s arse-licker,’ a small, bad-tempered Burgher tells the chronicler. (And he said, of course, that Lord Haw Haw was Goebbel’s acolyte!)
Now isn’t that marvellous? We actually remember that there was a Nazi propagandist who went gobble, gobble, gobble! But the times they were a-hectic, so to say, with the Americans in, the Japanese in, and late 1943 saw war swirling to both east and west of the island, making everybody very excited. The Yanks got into the Sicilian campaign and marched into Messina with amphibious attacks by the Third American Division. Colontota would tell Anna: ‘Now going to have a conference.’
‘What for?’
‘To discuss how to invade, men.’
Anna tinkles her rosary. ‘Anyway, now nothing will happen here. Gave, no, whole of Ceylon to the Virgin Mary. Building a basilica also. Have in las’ Sunday’s Messenger.’
‘How, Roosevelt also going for the conference.’
‘So let go anywhere. Why, appa, they can’t finish this? Father Grero also telling we must pray for peace.’
Totoboy meets Eric de Mello at Bambalapitiya. ‘How, how, what, men you’re looking like Good Friday. Elsie gave you a kanay? How the Eight Army? Going like hell, no?’
Eric gives a nervous cackle. ‘Mus’ go, men. Told to buy some candles.’
Totoboy ignores this. ‘Whole bottom of Italy now Fifth Army took. Germans running. Come go to that boutique for a little. Told the man to get a pint for me. You like to put a small shot?’
Eric shudders. ‘No, men. I’ll go, getting late also.’
‘What, about five, no? What late? Sha, must be pukka, no? All bayonet fighting ipseems. Germans running from the trench. Americans and British chasing and landing with the bayonet. Chakass! right through the back!’
Eric flees.
Sonnaboy goes to Florrie da Brea. The old lady beams. Sonnaboy says: ‘Hullo, Ma . . .’ He always calls his mother-in-law ‘ma’.
‘Come, come. Riding in the sun like this. Who, child, is this Clark general chasing Germans in Italy?’ (General Mark Clark was commander of the Fifth Army).
Sonnaboy smiles. ‘Yes, he’s giving that Kesselring fellow guts. But that’s not the thing; you heard? Again have lot of Japanese ships coming round here.’
The old lady is still sorting out things. ‘Clark, Clark. Had some Clarks in Vaverset Lane, no? Nice girl; comes to church; Colleen Clark, I think.’
Sonnaboy snorts. Spinster daughter Millicent June chuckles. ‘What, you’re trying to talk about the war with Ma? Everything she’s mixing up. Real fighting going on, no? Russians are giving the Germans properly also.’
‘Yes, men. But you saw the papers? Daily News said Lord Mountbatten going to tell the Asia Command to attack Burma. Japanese also getting ready for big fight in Malaya and Java and all. And now again lot of Japanese ships roundab
out here. Naturally, no, when put East Indies fleet here and Mountbatten also. Might come and bomb again,’ and Sonnaboy rides away well satisfied that he has raised a scare and that ‘Ma’ will soon be telling the McLeods and the Paulusz’s that Colleen Clark was a general who was going to Italy to bomb Burma!
It was, truly, a fierce turnabout. The Russians were fighting, driving back the Germans with great violence. October 1943 was a bloody month. Japanese planes had been spotted over Brussels, and Eisenhower’s armies put paid to German resistance in Voltuno and Capua. Allied bombers knocked the stuffing out of Yugoslavia and suddenly a smashing Russian tank drive deep into German lines captured everybody’s imagination. The destruction of over a thousand Panzers and tractor-mounted guns near the river Dneiper swung everyone’s attention to the Russian war machine. Montgomery’s capture of Capri was all well and good. The Fifth Army’s advance on Naples was quite exciting even if Leah de Mello was wont to say, ‘Where, child, this, Naples? An’ who is this massina1 they’re bombing?’
‘Not massina, men, Messina,’ George would grunt, ‘you women don’ know anything!’
Two thousand sorties a day to pound German tanks to a pulp was nice to know of, but Sonnaboy, who bought a squat Ferranti radio and spent a lot of time between wavelengths, raising whines and squawks of protest, found the near-crazed determination of a vicious Russian onslaught as beautiful as a sonata. When Stalin issued a battle order which was printed in the Daily News, he clipped out the item and waved it proudly under Georgie Ferreira’s nose. ‘See what Stalin sent to Rokoss-Rokoss-bloody jawbreakers, these Russian names. Yes, Rokossovsky. And how? Named the battalion with the name of the town they captured.’
Georgie Ferriera would raise an eyebrow. Together they would read and reread the news item while Mrs Ferriera would titter and tell Beryl. ‘If have any battle here or there or anywhere enough for them.’
Our forces on the Central Front today, after two days of stiff fighting captured the town and important railway junction of Nezhin—a most important centre of the enemy’s resistance on the road to Kiev.
In honour of the victory won, the units which distinguished themselves in the liberation of Nezhin will in future bear the name of the town.
‘See, I told you. And read the rest—’
Tonight, Moscow, in the name of the motherland, will salute our victorious troops by twelve salvoes from 124 guns.
I thank the forces under their command for their courage and devotion to duty, which resulted in the liberation of Nezhin.
Everlasting glory to the heroes fallen in battle! Death to the German invaders!
‘My God, men, 124 guns twelve shots each. For the noise alone Germans will run summore.’
Beryl says: ‘Can you hear? That’s all they want. If fire like that whole of Russia will get a headache!’
Every day, in thousands of homes, cheers were raised. Every action of a war that was thousands of miles away in any direction was a ready excuse to sit around a bottle, clink glasses and hold forth. Greek soldiers have entered Samos and chasing the Germans up and down the beach . . . cheers! Russia’s General Vatutin is routing the Krauts down the river Dneiper . . . cheers! Have another drink! What? German stukas are pounding the British in Greece? What’s wrong with these British, men? Can’t send some buggers to blow up the German bombers in Rhodes? Here, fill your glass, men. Don’t worry, can get some more arrack. Anyway, Bomber Command is not so bad, no?’
‘That’s the ticket,’ a three-parts-inebriated Totoboy tells Carlo Wouterz in the Brown’s Bar in the Fort. This is a favourite ‘watering hole’ and there was a Union Jack draped behind the bar and, depending on the degree of being sozzled, one could hear such robust renderings such as and everybody would become most maudlin and sing it again until Aubrey van der Bona, who doesn’t like music, throws a chair and the resultant uproar has all patrons of Brown’s Bar staggering out quite red, white, black and blue.
Bless ’em all,
Bless ’em all,
The lean and the short an’ th’ tall,
You’ll get no promotion
This side of the ocean
So come on my lads, bless them all!
Sometimes, Royal Marines and off-watch sailors from the H.M.S. Highflyer shore station in Galle Buck would also drift in and get crying drunk and sing brokenly of home and how London’s children were being evacuated and how they missed their wives and sweethearts and their mummies. A great favourite was a sentimental song by Vera Lynn who was a forces favourite.
When you hear Big Ben
You’re home again,
Home is where you belong,
Though you’re far away,
Each night and day,
You’ll sigh when you hear this song.
He stands by the river that leads to the sea,
His hands are together, like ours used to be
When you hear Big Ben you’re home again
Home in my arms, sweetheart.
The scene also had this unnerving quality of shifting mercurially. December 1943 saw the bombing of Formosa, the American invasion of Bougainville and the battles of Empress Augusta Bay. And suddenly everybody went quite British and revelled in the way English pilots were carrying their bombs to Berlin. Carloboy and gangs of small fry knew all about the Mosquitoes and the Luftwaffe and how German Commander von Manstein was considering how to run. In churches, too, Catholic priests urged prayers for the safety of the Pope and bells were rung when the allies began their drive for Rome. Discussions at home became quite exciting. Sonnaboy would point to the dining table. ‘Here the Moro river,’ then to the dinner wagon, ‘this is the Foro river. No place to go. Only forward between the rivers. In front German tanks, guns and here Montgomery coming. How the fight?’
The children grow just as excited.
‘And they whacked the Germans. Christmas and all. Took almost six thousand prisoners also. Canada soldiers also came to help.’
With all this, one could forgive the population of Sri Lanka for not chalking up the famous battle of St Peter’s, Dehiwela, although it did make Father Paul very hysterical and the entire student population cheering and shouting ‘mad parent! mad parent!’ in high glee.
Pottaya was seized by the top of his oversized coat and the seat of his trousers, shaken until his eyeballs corrected themselves, and then hurled out with an accompanying roar that blew holes in the cadjan (coconut leaf thatch). The man, trying to rise, was grabbed, smacked and pushed, mouth open, into the sand lot, raised half-choking and smacked again because Sonnaboy did remember that a choking man required a thump to get various internal tubes in working order. Trying to run he received the Order of the Boot, which propelled him to the gate and to this he hung, terrible to behold.
‘My godfather,’ squeaked Mrs Harridge, ‘who is that?’
‘Von Bloss boy’s father. Killing Pillai, no? Why the watchman even won’t run and tell to the police!’
Why not? Pillai was obviously dying. He drooled horribly and looked like an abominable sandman. ‘Bloody bastard!’ Sonnaboy was roaring while sundry priests and masters hung on to him and the parish priest scuttled in, puffing and waving his hands. Sonnaboy turned on Father Dominic. ‘Taking my son to the police!’ he growled. ‘When he told about this bastard what you did? Said liar and caned him, no? One boy said he saw what he did. Did you ask? What about this bugger? Because your master anything to the boys he can do?’
Boys knotted round, agape. This was a spectacle. This was more. It was justice for all who had been Pottaya’s victims. It started suddenly. Someone flung a handful of sand at the bleeding man. Hundreds followed. It was a struggle to dislodge Pottaya from the gate, drag him through a crowd of murderous children and into the office where the door was shut and hundreds of boy milled around, chanting very vile slogans. The parish priest clung to Sonnaboy in a long process of pacification. Father Dominic was summoned, Maxie Perera was dragged in. Other boys said their piece. Several little devils who had never
passed the time of day or shared a rostrum with Pottaya also volunteered the most amazing information, no doubt culled from homosexual encounters at other times, other places. Mrs Harridge too ventured that one can never trust a man who is ‘Colombo looking Galle going’ and there was something ‘funny’ about the man. Clearly he was a monster of depravity.
Carloboy was told by a father who returned home in a most sunny mood: ‘Tomorrow you go to school. Anyone try anymore nonsense you come straight and tell, you hear!’ Carloboy heard.
He also heard that, whatever scratch solutions had been reached, his father had taken a grave dislike to St Peter’s. Also, there were school fees to be paid and although the boy had been given a hero’s welcome and Pottaya had disappeared, the Royal College in Colombo was a very good school, very big, was also a government school and levied no fees whatsoever. Problem was that there was a very strict, public entrance examination. Sonnaboy determined that Carloboy should have a shot at it. ‘You study well and pass the exam and go to Royal and I’ll buy you a bicycle,’ he said. It was all the incentive that an eight-year-old boy needed. A quiet time descended. So quiet, in fact, that even Victor Ratnayake told his son, ‘See that Carloboy. Learning nicely and not up to any nonsense anymore. Going to put in Royal also next year. What are you doing? Only know to pour ink on the cat!’
It was not really so. Carloboy was one of those Burgher children who had this uncanny knack of contributing to adult discomfort. The less strait-laced Burgher way of life abetted enormously. Naturally one would always hear a mother say: ‘Very quiet the children. Don’ know what devilish thing they’re up to.’ But one could also hear—and more often, too—‘Why you are so quiet today? You’re feeling sick or something?’ A quiet Burgher child was a source of worry, both up and down the scale. Parents, teachers, Sunday School teachers, all adults in whatever position of authority, lived with the knowledge that these Burghers may be ever so seemingly angelic, ever so seemingly attentive, ever so seemingly amenable or tractable, but nothing, absolutely nothing, could be assured. In each, a demon of chaos resided, popping out at the most disadvantageous times.