Jonah

by Louis Stone

  “That was Cassidy; now we shan’t be long.”

  “Wot price Jonah givin’ us the slip?”

  “’Ow’ll Chook perform, if ’e ain’t at Ada’s?”

  It was the Push, who had run their man to earth at the Angel, where he was drinking in the bar, alone. Chook had posted them with the instinct of a general, and then left in hurried search of Jonah. And they watched the swinging doors of the hotel with cruel eyes, their nerves already vibrating with the ancestral desire to kill, the wild beast within them licking his lips at the thought of the coming feast.

  Meanwhile, in Cardigan Street, Chook was arguing with Jonah. When told that the Push was waiting for him, he had listened without interest; the matter seemed foreign and remote. The velvety touch of his son’s frail body still thrilled his nerves; its sweet, delicate odour was still in his nostrils. And he flatly refused to go. Chook was beside himself with excitement; tears stood in his eyes.

  “W’y, y’ain’t goin’ ter turn dawg on me, Jonah, are yer?”

  “No bleedin’ fear,” said Jonah; “but I feel—I dunno ’ow I feel. The blasted kid knocked me endways,” he explained, in confusion.

  As he looked down the street, he caught sight of Mrs Yabsley on the other side. She walked slowly on account of the hill, gasping for air, the weekly load of meat and groceries clutched in her powerful arms. His eyes softened with tenderness. He felt a sudden kinship for this huge, ungainly woman. He wanted to run and meet her, and claim the sweet, straight-limbed child that he had just discovered. Chook, standing at his elbow, like the devil in the old prints, was watching him curiously.

  “Well, I’m off,” cried Chook at last. “Wot’ll I tell the blokes?”

  Jonah was silent for a moment, with a sombre look in his eyes. Then he pulled himself together.

  “Let ’er go,” he cried grimly; “the kid can wait.”

  On the stroke of eleven, as they reached the Angel, the huge lamps were extinguished, the doors swung open and vomited a stream of men on to the footpath, their loud voices bringing the noise and heat of the bar into the quiet street They dispersed slowly, talking immoderately, parting with the regret of lovers from the warm bar with its cheerful light and pleasant clink of glasses. The doors were closed, but the bar was still noisy, and the laggards slipped out cautiously by the side door, where a barman kept watch for the police. Presently the bricklayer came out, alone. He stood on the footpath, slightly fuddled, his giddiness increased by the fresh air. Immediately Chook lurched forward to meet him, with a drunken leer.

  “’Ello, Bill, fancy meetin’ yous!” he mumbled.

  The man, swaying slightly, stared at him in a fog.

  “I dunno you,” he muttered.

  “Wot, yer dunno me, as worked wid yer on that job in Kent Street? Dunno Joe Parsons, as danced wid yer missis at the bricklayers’ picnic?”

  The man stopped to think, trying to remember, but his brain refused the effort.

  “Orl right,” he muttered; “come an’ ’ave a drink.” And he turned to the bar.

  “No fear,” cried Chook, taking him affectionately by the arm, “no more fer me! I’m full up ter the chin, an’ so are yous.”

  “Might’s well ’ave another,” said the man, obstinately.

  Chook pulled him gently away from the hotel, along the street.

  “It’s gittin’ late; ’ow’ll yer ole woman rous w’en yer git ’ome?”

  “Sez anythin’ ter me, break ’er bleedin’ jaw,” muttered the bricklayer. And then his eyes flamed with foolish, drunken anger. “I earn the money, don’ I, an’ I spend it, don’ I?” he inquired. And he refused to move till Chook answered his question.

  The Push closed quietly in.

  “’Oo are these blokes?” he asked uneasily.

  “Pals o’ mine, all good men an’ true,” said Chook, gaily.

  They were near Eveleigh Station, and the street was clear. The red signal-lights, like angry, bloodshot eyes, followed the curve of the line as it swept into the terminus. An engine screamed hoarsely as it swept past with a rattle of jolting metal and the hum of swiftly revolving wheels. The time was come to strike, but the Push hesitated. The show of resistance, the spark to kindle their brutal fury, was wanting.

  “Is this a prayer meetin’?” inquired Waxy Collins, with a sneer. “Biff him on the boko, an’ we’ll finish ’im in one act.”

  “Shut yer face,” said Jonah, and he stepped up to the bricklayer.

  “Ever ’ear tell of a copper boiler?” he inquired pleasantly. “Ever meet a bleedin’ bastard as put the cops on a bloke, an’ got ’im three months’ ’ard?” he inquired again.

  The bricklayer stared at him open-mouthed, surprised and alarmed by the appearance of this misshapen devil with the glittering eyes. Then a sudden suspicion ran through the fuddled brain.

  “I niver lagged ’im. S’elp me Gawd, I niver put nobody away to the cops!” he cried.

  “Yer rotten liar, take that!” cried Jonah, and struck him full on the mouth with his fist. The man clapped his hand to his cut lip, and looked at the blood in amazement. The shock cleared his brain, and he remembered with terror the tales of deadly revenge taken by the pushes. He looked wildly for help. He was in a ring of mocking, menacing faces.

  “Let ’im out,” cried Jonah, in a sharp, strident voice. “The swine lives about ’ere; give ’im a run for ’is money.”

  The Push opened out, and the man, sobered by his danger, stood for a moment with bewildered eyes. Then, with the instinct of the hunted, he turned for home and ran. The Push gave chase, with Chook in the lead. Again and again the quarry turned, blindly seeking refuge in the darkest lanes.

  As his pursuers gained on him he gave a hoarse scream—the dolorous cry of a hunted animal.

  But it was the cat playing with the mouse. The bricklayer ran like a cow, his joints stiffened by years of toil; the larrikins, light on their feet as hares, kept the pace with a nimble trot, silent and dangerous, conscious of nothing but the desire and power to kill.

  As he turned into Abercrombie Street, Chook ran level with him, then stooped swiftly and caught his ankle. The bricklayer went sprawling, and in an instant the Push closed in on the fallen man as footballers form a scrum, kicking the struggling body with silent ferocity, drunk with the primeval instinct to destroy.

  “Nit!” cried Jonah; and the Push scattered, disappearing by magic over fences and down lanes.

  The bricklayer had ceased to struggle, and lay in a heap. Five minutes later some stragglers, noticing the huddled mass on the road, crossed the street cautiously and stared. Then a crowd gathered, each asking the other what had happened, each amazed at the other’s ignorance.

  The excitement seemed to penetrate the houses opposite. Heads were thrust out of windows, doors were opened, and a stream of men and women, wearing whatever they could find in the dark, shuffled across the footpath.

  Some still fumbled at their braces; others, draped like Greek statues, held their garments on with both hands. A coarse jest passed round when a tall, bony woman came up, a man’s overcoat, thrown over her shoulders, barely covering her nightdress. They stood shivering in the cold air, greedy to hear what sensation had come to their very doors.

  “It’s only a drunken man.”

  “They say ’e was knocked down in a fight.”

  “No; the Push stoushed ’im, an’ then cleared.”

  Someone struck a match and looked at his face; it was smeared with blood. Then the crowd rendered “first aid” in the street fashion.

  “Wot’s yer name? W’ere d’yer live? ’Ow did it ’appen?”

  And at each question they shook him vigorously, impatient at his silence. The buzz of voices increased.

  “W’ere’s the perlice?”

  “Not w’ere they’re wanted, you may be sure.”

  “It’s my belief they go ’ome an’ sleep it out these cold nights.”

  “Well, I s’pose a p’liceman ’as ter take care of ’imself
, like everybody else,” said one, and laughed.

  “It’s shameful the way these brutes are allowed to knock men about.”

  “An’ the perlice know very well ’oo they are, but they’re afraid of their own skins.”

  The woman in the nightdress had edged nearer, craning her neck over the shoulders of the men to see better. As another match was struck she saw the man’s face.

  “My Gawd, it’s my ’usband!” she screamed. “Bill, Bill, wot ’ave they done ter yer?”

  Her old affection, starved to death by years of neglect, sprang to life for an instant in this cry of agony. She dropped on her knees beside the bruised body, wiping the blood from his face with the sleeve of her nightdress. A dark red stain spread over the coarse, common calico. And she kissed passionately the bleeding lips, heedless of the sour smell of alcohol that tainted his breath. The bricklayer groaned feebly. With a sudden movement she stripped the coat from her shoulders, and covered him as if to protect him from further harm.

  Her hair, fastened in an untidy knot, slipped from the hairpins, and fell, grey and scanty, over her neck; her bony shoulders, barely covered by the thin garment, moved convulsively.

  “’Ere, missis, take this, or you’ll ketch cold,” said a man kindly, pulling off his coat.

  Then, with the quick sympathy of the people, they began to make light of the matter, trying to persuade her that his injuries were not serious. A friendly rivalry sprang up among them as they related stories of wonderful recoveries made by men whose bodies had been beaten to a jelly. One, carried away by enthusiasm, declared that it did a man good to be shattered like glass, for the doctors, with satanic cunning, seized the opportunity to knead the broken limbs like putty into a more desirable shape. But their words fell on deaf ears. The woman crouched over the prostrate man, stroking the bruised limbs with a stupid, mechanical movement as an animal licks its wounded mate.

  The crowd divided as a policeman came up with an important air. Brisk and cheerful, he made a few inquiries, enchanted with this incident that broke the monotony of the night’s dreary round. The crowd breathed freely, feeling that the responsibility had shifted on to the official shoulders. He blew shrilly on his whistle, and demanded a cab.

  “Cab this time o’ night? No chance,” was the common opinion.

  But by great good luck a cab was heard rattling along the next street. Two men ran to intercept it.

  The woman clung desperately to the crippled body as they lifted it into the cab, impeding the men in their efforts, imploring them to carry him to his own house, with the distrust of the ignorant for the hospitals, where the doctors amuse themselves by cutting and carving the bodies of their helpless patients. The policeman, a young man, embarrassed by the sight of this half-dressed woman, swore softly to himself.

  “’Ere, missis, you’d better get ’ome; you can’t do any good ’ere,” he said, kindly. “Don’t you worry; I’ve seen worse cases than this go ’ome to breakfast the next day.”

  As the cab drove off, some neighbours led her away, her thin, angular body shaken with sobs.

  The street was quiet again, but some groups still lingered, discussing with relish the details of the outrage, searching their memories for stories of brutal stoushings that had ended in the death of the victim.

  6

  THE BABY DISCOVERS JONAH

  An hour later Jonah and Chook, picking the most roundabout way, reached home. The family was in bed, and the house in darkness. The two mates dropped silently over the fence, and, with the stealthy movements of cats, clambered through the window of the room which they shared, for Jonah believed that secrets were kept best by those who had none to tell.

  “Gawd, I’m dry,” said Chook, yawning. “I could do a beer.”

  “That comes of runnin’ along the street so ’ard,” said Jonah, grinning. “It must ’ave bin a fire by the way I see yer run. W’y was yer runnin’ so ’ard?” Then his face darkened. “I wonder ’ow the poor bloke feels, that fell down an’ ’urt ’imself?”

  “D’ye think ’e knows enough ter give us away?” asked Chook, anxiously.

  “No fear,” said Jonah. “I make the Ivy Street Push a present of that little lot.”

  “Well, I s’pose a sleep’s the next best thing,” replied Chook, and in a minute was snoring.

  Jonah finished undressing slowly. As he unlaced his boots, he noticed a dark patch on one toe. It looked as if he had kicked something wet. He examined the stain without repugnance, and thought of the bricklayer.

  “Serve the cow right,” he thought. “’Ope it stiffens ’im!”

  Again he examined the patch of blood attentively, wondering if it would leave a mark on his tan boots, of which he was very proud. Dipping a piece of rag in water, he washed it off carefully. And, as he rubbed, the whole scenes passed through his brain in rapid succession—the Angel, bright and alluring with the sinister gleam of its powerful lamps, the swaying man in the midst of the Push, the wild-beast chase, and the fallen body that ceased to struggle as they kicked.

  He lit a cigarette and stared at the candle, smiling with the pride of a good workman at the thought of his plan that had worked so neatly. The Push was secure, and the blame would fall on the Ivy Street gang, the terror of Darlington. For a moment he regretted the active part he had taken in the stoushing, as his hunchback made him conspicuous. He wondered carelessly what had happened after the Push bolted. These affairs were so uncertain. Sometimes the victim could limp home, mottled with bruises; just as often he was taken to the hospital in a cab, and a magistrate was called in to take down his dying words. In this case the chances were in favour of the victim recovering, as the Push had been interrupted in dealing it out through Jonah’s excessive caution. Still, they had no intention of killing the man; they merely wished to teach him a lesson.

  True, the lesson sometimes went too far; and he thought with anxiety of the Surry Hills affair, in which, through an accident, a neighbouring push had disappeared like rats into a hole, branded with murder. The ugly word hung on his tongue and paralysed his thoughts. His mind recoiled with terror as he saw where his lawless ways had carried him, feeling already branded with the mark of Cain, which the instinct of the people has singled out as the unpardonable crime, destroying the life that cannot be renewed. And suddenly he began to persuade himself that the man’s injuries were not serious, that he would soon recover; for it was wonderful the knocking about a man could stand.

  He turned on himself with amazement. Why was he twittering like an old woman? Quarrels, fights, and bloodshed were as familiar to him as his daily bread. With a sudden cry of astonishment he remembered the baby. The affair of the bricklayer had driven it completely out of his mind. His thoughts returned to Cardigan Street. He remembered the quiet room dimly lit with a candle, the dolorous cry of the infant, and the intoxicating touch of its frail body in his arms.

  His amazement increased. What had possessed him to take the brat in his arms and nurse it? His lips contracted in a cynical grin as he remembered the figure he cut when Chook appeared. He decided to look on the affair as a joke. But again his thoughts returned to the child, and he was surprised with a vibration of tenderness sweet as honey in his veins. A strange yearning came over him like a physical weakness for the touch of his son’s body.

  His eye caught his shadow on the wall, grotesque and forbidding; the large head, bunched beneath the square shoulders, thrust outwards in a hideous lump. Monster and outcast was he? Well, he would show them that only an accident separated the hunchback from his fellows. He thought with a fierce joy of his son’s straight back and shapely limbs. This was his child, that he could claim and exhibit to the world. Then his delight changed to a vague terror—the fear of an animal that dreads a trap, and finds itself caught. He blew out the candle and fell asleep, to dream of enemies that fled and mocked at him, embarrassed with an infant that hung like a millstone round his neck.

  Within a month the affair of the bricklayer had blown over.
The police made inquiries, and arrested some of the Ivy Street Push, but released them for want of evidence. In the hospital the bricklayer professed a complete ignorance of his assailants and their motive. It was understood that he was too drunk to recognize anyone.

  But it was his knowledge of Push methods that sealed his tongue. No one would risk his skin by giving evidence. If the police had brought the offenders to book, the magistrates, who seemed to regard these outrages as the playful excesses of wanton blood, would have let them off with a light punishment, and the streets would never have been safe for him again. So he held his tongue, thankful to have escaped so easily.

  But burnt on his brain was the vision of a misshapen devil, who struck at him, with snarling lips, and a desperate flight through avenues of silent, impassive streets that heard with indifference his cry for help. In six weeks he was back at work, with no mark of his misadventure but a broken nose, caused by a clumsy boot.

  So the Push took to the streets again, and Jonah resumed his visits to Cardigan Street on Saturday nights. He had concealed his adventure with the baby from Ada and her mother, feeling ashamed, as if he had discovered an unmanly taste for mud pies and dolls. But the imperious instinct was aroused, and he gratified it in secret, caressing the child by stealth as a miser runs to his hoard. In the women’s presence he ignored its existence, but he soon discovered that Ada shared none of his novel sensations. And he grew indignant at her indifference, feeling that his child was neglected.

  Mrs Yabsley, for ever on the alert, felt some change in his manner, and one Sunday morning received a shock. She was chopping wood in the yard. She swung the axe with a grunt, and the billet, split in two, left the axe wedged in the block. As she was wrenching it out, Jonah dropped his cigarette and cried:

  “’Ere, missis, gimme that axe; I niver like ter see a woman chop wood.”

  She looked at him in amazement. Times without number he had watched her grunt and sweat without stirring a finger. Bitten with her one idea, she watched him curiously.

  It was the baby that betrayed him at last. Ada was carrying it past him in furtive haste, when it caught sight of his familiar features. Jonah, off his guard, smiled. The child laughed joyously, and leaned out of Ada’s arms towards him.