The Love Beach

by Leslie Thomas

  On the afternoon of the third patrol that Davies had joined, a hairless man called Vicary, who had a small plantation and a chemist's shop on the outskirts of Sexagesima, ran back, plunging through the waist‑high growth, and shouted for Mr English. The men had fanned out in their search. Some had tunnelled into the undergrowth and vanished. When Mr Vicary called, heads bobbed up like bathers bobbing out of the sea.

  Davies turned in the clinging growth pulling against it as it sought to retain him. Mr Vicary's red baldness moved through the green excitedly as he called. 'Mr English! Mr English!' The head vanished momentarily as he stumbled. It appeared again over the undergrowth. 'Mr English ‑ !I've found him! I've found him!'

  He reached a plate‑shaped clearing at the same time as Mr English and some of the others. Davies pulled himself from the mass and reached the open space. Mr Vicary, wearing khaki trousers tucked into red socks, panted to the others. 'In there!' he said. 'I've found him in there.'

  They knew what he meant, but his words were such that no one was entirely sure. Mr English said: 'Who?'

  'Who?' repeated Mr Vicary. 'Who? The soldier, of course. The Unknown Soldier.'

  Mr English started forward with determination, Mr Vicary pointing the way. 'This way. Here he is.' The party stopped, up to its necks in jungle tangle. 'There,' said Mr Vicary triumphantly. 'Down there, see.'

  'Machette,' grunted Mr English with authority. Somebody passed a machette and he began to hack away at the stems and fronds on either side. He made a clear area and first looked down and then bent down. 'Pig,' he said.

  'Pardon,' said Mr Vicary, surprised.

  'Bones of a wild pig,' said Mr English. 'Soldiers don't have cloven feet like that. You're a chemist, you should know, Mr Vicary.'

  They trudged back to their survey. Mr Vicary was sullen and hurt all day and did not volunteer for another search party.

  'I can't see why we couldn't have packed up those bones

  in a bag and brought them back and said they were the unknown Soldier,' he grumbled to Davies as they returned in the lessening evening. 'Nobody's going to notice the bloody difference.'

  Davies was in the bar of the Hilton after one of the days in the jungle. He went willingly with the search parties. There was little else for him to do. He was sitting with Conway and Dahlia, George Turtle, and Hassey the planter. The place was all but empty because it was the night for the film at the British Legion. A middle‑aged Frenchman played the piano like an invalid at one end of the bar and Pollet, who was propped against the wall reading a French motor magazine which he had stolen that afternoon from the public library, mimed the song's words from long ago without looking up.

  There was an expansive wall mirror across the room from Davies, a great earthquake crack in it. It had been brought from Sydney thirty years before, gilded with a whorly design at its edges and proclaiming the goodness of Lyons Fruit Pies. Davies, in turning to pass his beer mug up to Seamus at the bar, caught sight of himself in the old glass and stopped. He realized that he hardly knew himself. His face was rough brown, burned red raw at the cheekbones and at one patch above the right eye. His hair was long, matted too; his chin black‑bristled because he had got up early that day to go on the search and he had not shaved. His shirt curled in horns at the collar ends, its white long sunk to grey. Bird sometimes washed his clothes for him because the Chinese laundry made holes in them, but he often forgot to take the things to her.

  He'd been walking in the heat of the afternoon, mostly in the clear because they had searched some of the open highlands too that day, and three quick pints of beer had given him a gassy uplift. Yet, how strange that this should be him. He looked around at the others, talking, heads bent over the table, and he realized that he had come to look like one of them.

  'Wouldn't know you in Newport now,' would they boy?' he said confidentially to himself as he waited for the beer from Seamus. The long Irishman passed it over. Davies took another quick look at himself. Hell, fancy walking along Dock Street looking like that. No, much better to walk down our road like that. They saw plenty of tans in Dock Street, didn't they, straight off the boats? Of course they did. But say he walked down his own road like that ‑ tomorrow ‑ hard like he was now with a good suit on and a white shirt, and shaved of course. Kate would think that was a great thing. She was always going on about how tanned some of the men were at the swimming baths. She liked tanned men. And the kids would jump at him and ask him to tell them stories of his adventures in the horrible jungles. People would stop him in the street and inquire how he liked being back after all that time abroad. Yes, that would be marvellous, now wouldn't it? It was a pity there was no way of getting out of this place.

  George Turtle was saying ponderously: 'All the values have gone now at home. Everything we fought for, Dunkirk, right through. All down the drain. Place full of blacks and layabouts. That's why I came here. Britain's no country for a civilized, go‑ahead, chap. Or his family either. My brother in Isleworth tells me I'm well off out of it, and the wife. But it wasn't easy, you know, I admit that. I was proud of the old country. I remember in 1940 our evening institute had classes in thatching ‑ you know thatching roofs of houses. In 1940!'

  'S'pose they thought you'd be short of a few roofs,' suggested Conway soberly.

  'Bombs andwhatever you had.'

  Turtle glared at him. 'I tell you what it showed me, Mr Conway. It showed me we had faith in the future. Anyone who wants to learn thatching has to have the confidence to look a long way ahead. That goes without saying. Yes, I was proud of England then. But then it all slid away. All in no time, it seemed. When Dad and my dear mum died a few years ago I thought, "Well, George, now is the time to get out," and so I did ‑ bringing my wife with me of course. But the funny thing was, the real thing that finally decided me was something the undertaker said when they put the old lady away.'

  George paused and seemed to find some mystery in his empty glass. Davies ordered him another beer. 'What was it, Mr Turtle?' he asked.

  'What was what?' asked George. 'A beer, I said.'

  'No, what was it the undertaker said that made you emigrate?'

  'Oh yes, he was standing there talking on the telephone making sure of the times and that sort of thing for the funeral. I was sitting down and he's carrying on just as though he is selling two hundredweight of fertilizer or something. That was bad enough, but then he ended up the conversation by saying, "Right then, Fred" or Harry or Bill, or whoever it was, "Right then, eleven o'clock Wednesday ‑ West London Crem." WEST LONDON CREM! That's what he said, in front of me, the bereaved. WEST LONDON CREM!'

  'Sounds like the name of a drink,' commented Seamus over the bar.

  George was huffed. 'It sounded like a piece of rudeness to me,' he said. 'West London Crematorium doesn't take much saying does it? And how much nicer. What a falling off of standards even in that trade. I walked out and went straight to put my name down to leave the country. That's how I did it. And I'm glad.'

  Mr Hassey nodded agreement. He looked across and slightly up at Dahlia: 'Why did you come here, Miss?' he asked. 'If I'm not being impertinent?'

  Dahlia, who had been holding Conway's thick arm and listening absently, seemed startled. 'Me? Oh, I was travelling, moving about, and the islands just happened to be on my way, that's all. I'll get them out of my way before too long. I'll go back to Wanganui.'

  'New Zealand,' explained Conway.

  And you?' Hassey asked Davies.

  'To sell butter and fats,' shrugged Davies. 'But I didn't.'

  'Ah yes, I remember. And you, Mr Conway.'

  'Just studying,' said Conway cautiously. 'The natives.'

  That's why I came,' said Hassey. 'Thirty‑eight years ago. Just to ascertain the fucking natives ... beg your pardon, Miss. Ah well, I've said it now. Anyway, to ascertain the natives. Been here ever since.'

  'What did you do before, Mr Hassey?' asked George Turtle. Davies noticed how they always called him 'Mr Hassey', never by any
familiarity. 'Go on, Mr Hassey, you've never told us.'

  'Sailor, commercial traveller, general horse thief, you know,' said Mr Hassey blandly. 'Anything really. Had a little business once selling imitation jewellery in Auckland. But it was too up and down.‑Christmas time was all right, but it tailed off terrible at the other end of the year. Nothing to do at all. Could have done with another Baby Jesus about August.'

  Abe came into the bar, straight from his boat, stood and bought himself a beer, rattling his loose change as he paid. 'A leak,' he said turning to the group. 'A great, wet, seeping leak. Took all day to get that plugged.' His arms flailed. about. He swam rather than talked. 'Tomorrow,' he announced, 'is the big day for moving the barges, which you know already7'

  'We know already,' said Conway. 'Dawn at The Love Beach.'

  'And why not?' said Abe. 'Tell me, friend, how often do you get a chance to build something sacred? I'll be there too, boy. As a matter of fact I've arranged for the heavy hauling equipment ‑ it's coming from Tahiti tonight. It'll be at the beach tomorrow, fwished tomorrow night, and back

  on the freighter by the next day. It's very steep this stuff is to hire, you know. But just managed to hear this little item was on its way from Papetta to Honoraria, where they are building a bowling rink and where I have already done business concerning a harmonium.' He bowed towards Conway and then to Davies.

  'Which fell to bits on St Paul's,' said Conway.

  'Act of God, cargo damaged in shipment,' said Abe, opening out his hands. 'What the hell. The way those boys sang over there, can you wonder the Almighty tried to destroy the harmonium before it got to them. He was the one who put it together and played it.' He pointed dramatically at Davies. 'Going against the Will of God.'

  'You got your money,' Davies pointed out. He was surprised now, how easily he entered into these island arguments.

  'I'm glad to assist in moving the barges,' said Abe, leaning forward on the counter, looking at Seamus and at the rest of them in the mirror. 'After all it's an inter‑denominational affair ain't it. An Unknown Soldier is an Unknown Soldier, boy. Those bones you bury could be those of a Jewish lad.'

  'Or an Arab,' said Conway.

  'My friend,' Abe pleaded. 'Don't never mix me up with those greedy little quarrels across the world. This is the Pacific. These are the islands of the Apostles. I would be glad, proud even, to bury Arab bones.'

  They made an early start at The Love Beach, the sun just brimming the sea sending an orange flood over it, making the island claim its contours once again from the dark, making the trees have shapen leaves, the mountains form, and giving the people life.

  Fifty white volunteers were on the beach before breakfast and a hundred Melanesians who were to be paid, just after. They stood around looking at the invasion barges with the interest of those who have seen something for a long time but only just noticed it. They wandered about in their shirts and shorts and sandals, probing at each barge like subur‑ban men probe around an old or a new car, looking beneath and above, touching and talking. They talked about how the barges were made, how they must have come at a certain tide, how well the metal had stood the years of sea and sun and wind. and how they didn't make craft like that any longer.

  The arrival of Mr English in Pollet's car stopped the activity. All the men stood about in the early sun.

  English looked up at the tall prow of one of the barges. 'Gi'e a hand tae us, lads,' he said. Two men moved forward and hoisted the little leader to the metal nose. Today he was wearing a bush shirt and flappy shorts, but there was a tam o' shanter bulging on his small head and he wore his thick Highland stockings and heavy shoes. He surveyed them, black men and white, as a clan chief would have looked upon his warriors before battle.

  'Taeday,' he began, wheeling a dramatic half circle so that he took them all in. 'Taeday we are goin' tae shift these wee monsters, friends. We're going to make a chapel o' them to receive the bones of the Unknown Soldier. When we find him. It's no' goin' tae be a simple matter, ye'll understan', but by nightfall we'll ha' done it, ye see.' He paused and looked around at the patches of upturned faces. He thrust his tammy back from his yellowed forehead. 'Unfortunately,' he continued, 'I ha' tae gi'e ye some puir news. The liftin' gear which our friend and colleague Abe had arranged for this day won't be here.' There was a groan from the men. Davies watched them about him in their shirts, hands on their hips, clerks and shopkeepers in the attitudes of lumberers.

  'Why not?' asked Mr Kendrick, the cycle‑shop owner.

  It was Abe who thickly shouted the answer. 'Let down. friends. I was let down. I arranged for the ship to call, but that captain did the dirty on me. He's sailed right past on his way to Honoraria. We watched him go.'

  'Sue him, Abe,' shouted someone.

  'Can't,' admitted Abe. 'It wasn't that sort of contract.' He dropped his voice and directed it at the man. 'Very difficult to prove,' he confided.

  Mr English threw his arms wide. 'So we move these wee craft oursells, friends,' he announced. There was a dissenting noise from the men. 'Like the Egyptians and the pyra. mids,' said Mr English encouragingly. 'What they can do, we can do.'

  'In a day?' called someone.

  'Two days,' replied Mr English. 'Let's get on with it.' Davies could see that the little man had been sizing up the leap to the ground from his oratorial position on the landing barge. His eyes had measured the distance carefully during his final sentences. Now, like a theatre midget, he leapt, crashing violently into the sand, his knees reaching it fractionally before his face. Davies, Conway, and some others helped to pull him from the depression he had made. He blew sand from his mouth and dug it from the hollows of his eyes. 'Let's get on with it,' he repeated gallantly.

  They needed 'to move two of the barges. The back of the chapel was already conveniently formed by one muscular landing craft which had slewed sideways as it struck the beach on that dawn in 1944 and had remained in the same place. Two other craft had to be dragged into position to flank it.

  The men dug first, burrowing under the soles of the steel ships, undermining them, then laying out steel netting, and finally wooden rollers made from the fibrous trunks of the palms.

  They worked heavily while the swollen sun hurried up over the island, the Mlelanesians sawing and cutting the palms needed for the rollers, the white men getting their spades beneath the barges. The task went surprisingly well and by sunset one of the barges was mounted on its rollers and ready to move. Everyone had a break for beer and sandwiches, brought from the British Legion Club where the wives were busy buttering and spreading. Then they fixed the ropes to the barge and were ready to pull.

  Davies had gone into town with Pollet in the car to fetch additional hawsers from the jetty. They returned just as the men were beginning to heave. It was a strange scene, a sight like an ancient frieze. Davies stopped with Pollet where the trees concluded and the beach began and looked at it. He felt Pollet stop alongside him and heard him drop the first coil of hawsers to the soft ground.

  The sun had just left with its usual evening flamboyance, flinging violet and red across the lower sky, making the ribbed sea like the coloured wings of a marvellous butterfly, fiery at the centre then subduing to purple and fringed with aquamarine and, in the end, a spilling of sombre grey. Against th‑is, all silhouettes, the black men and the whites pulled on the ropes that stiffened out from the prow of the landing barge. On the prow the little leader, Rob Roy English, stood, tiny legs astride, bent forward like a mighty slave driver, calling out the time of their pulling. 'One, two, three, Now! One, two, three, Now! One, two, three, Now!'

  One hundred and fifty men bent against the ropes, becoming shaped like notes of music against the lines of the sea. The sight was outlined in black, against the brilliantly fading sky and the reflecting ocean.

  'One, two, three, Now! One, two, three, Now!'

  The gangs hung on to the ropes, tugged, relaxed, tugged again. ‑Pull, pull, pull. Miraculously the barge, with its undersiz
ed rider, began to nuzzle forward, like an old dry lizard come to life.

  'It's moving,' whispered Davies to Pollet. The beauty of the beach, and the sky and the labouring men had filled his throat. 'What a strange sight.'

  Pollet nodded. 'All the time, in the islands as nowhere else, you find unexpected things to cause you wonder. Sometimes they're nature gone mad, sometimes men gone mad. Often they are very, what you would call stunning, perhaps. Things are strange here, monsieur. Every day they are strange. You will learn.'

  Davies felt himself involuntarily wanting to protest. 'I won't learn. I won't be here. I'm going away. Home.' But something choked the words, stopped them, and he simply gazed again out on to the beach and saw the barge moving inches only, as the men strained and the hooting high voice of Mr English encouraged them from his steel perch.

  trees concluded and the beach began and looked at it. He felt Pollet stop alongside him and heard him drop the first coil of hawsers to the soft ground.

  The sun had just left with its usual evening flamboyance, flinging violet and red across the lower sky, making the ribbed sea like the coloured wings of a marvellous butterfly, fiery at the centre then subduing to purple and fringed with aquamarine and, in the end, a spilling of sombre grey. Against this, all silhouettes, the black men and the whites pulled on the ropes that stiffened out from the prow of the landing barge. On the prow the little leader, Rob Roy English, stood, tiny legs astride, bent forward like a mighty slave driver, calling out the time of their pulling. 'One, two, three, Now! One, two, three, Now! One, two, three, Now!'

  One hundred and fifty men bent against the ropes, becoming shaped like notes of music against the lines of the sea. The sight was outlined in black, against the brilliantly fading sky and the reflecting ocean.