by Seán Haldane
‘You look as if you’ve run all the way down the island,’ Epstein said, looking at my filthy torn trousers.
‘I was chasing a rabbit through some bushes. Not worth it really.’
‘This war started up over a pig,’ said Epstein. ‘I’m sure glad it didn’t start up again over a rabbit. Tell me the whole story some time, Del.’
‘When I know it all, I shall, Ep. I appreciate your forbearance.’
‘Not at all. Let’s get together soon. I believe Mr Eliot in Friday Harbour is going to invite us both to a luncheon party Sunday week.’
‘Oh good. Then we’ll be able to have a chat.’
The two men saluted each other. ‘So long, then,’ Epstein said with a wry smile at us all. Then he headed back across the grass, his soldiers ambling behind, to the white house where the stars and stripes flew listlessly from the rooftop under the beating sun.
28
The road back to English Camp, farther inland than the way I had come, went dead straight through the forest and past occasional patches of cleared land with farmhouses exactly like those around Victoria. It was mainly in the shade, so the walk was less tiring than I had feared. I felt physically buoyant, although mentally oppressed at the prospect of interrogating Beaumont again, and at having shot him and probably broken his leg.
Pemberton had come along the road with the Marine detachment, and he and Delacombe and I walked back side by side. Once Pemberton had been told what had happened there was little to say. ‘Decent chap, Epstein.’ Delacombe remarked. But he looked cross and grim. Beaumont followed in a stretcher carried by shifts of Marines. He and Delacombe did not look at each other.
At the camp Beaumont was brought to the blockhouse. His leg would be bandaged and splinted by a ‘surgeon’ – a Corporal who specialised in First Aid. After a drink of ale on Delacombe’s verandah, during which little more was said, the three of us walked across the grass to the blockhouse. It was late afternoon, and it had been decided that Pemberton and I would stay overnight.
Beaumont was in a bed in the third floor dormitory of the blockhouse. A small table had been brought in, and a marine secretary, a Corporal, would take notes. The four of us sat around the table on plain wooden chairs, leaving one side open facing Beaumont’s bed. He was half sitting up, propped by a bolster and pillows. His face looked grey in the diffuse but bright light which entered from the embrasures and was reflected from the whitewashed walls.
Delacombe opened the proceedings by warning Beaumont that he should take heed of the fact whatever he said might be used as evidence in any of three possible charges against him: that he was guilty of a civil murder; that he had drawn a weapon on his commanding officer; and that he had fired against an opposing army during a state of truce.
‘I admit to all three,’ Beaumont said in his strange mechanical voice. ‘I killed McCrory. I drew my revolver on you, Sir. I shot at the Americans.’
‘Then we shall have to hear your account of these events,’ Delacombe said coolly.
‘Sir, with respect, I decline to explain why I killed McCrory. It’s a sordid little story which I find utterly undignified. If you pass me a piece of paper, I shall write on it that I killed him, using the Bowie knife which you can find in my quarters, in revenge for a personal insult. But that’s all I shall ever say for the record. I believe it’s all that is necessary for the civil authorities to clear up their case. Not for the record, but for personal reasons, I should appreciate it if I could have a private interview with Mr Hobbes, to whom I shall tell my motives for the crime – to satisfy his curiosity, and to relieve myself of a certain burden. But, to repeat, all I am prepared to do for the record is write a simple confession of the fact. To do more would be humiliating. And I can’t stand humiliation.’
‘Would that be acceptable to you, Commissioner? Delacombe asked Pemberton.
‘It’s in your hands, Captain. You’re the authority in this case. Certainly a signed confession will be enough for me to clear up the civil case at once.’
‘With regard to the murder, Mr Beaumont, I find your proposal acceptable,’ said Delacombe. ‘It would also make procedures simple if you acknowledge in writing that you drew your revolver on me. But I must have your explanation of why you fired on the Americans.’
‘I did so in order to provoke a renewal of hostilities. I hate the Yankees’, Beaumont said drily, ‘and I should like to see the rotters removed at once from this island by force of British arms. That’s all.’
‘You can write that down too. You know that all three of these crimes are capital offenses.’
‘I am aware of that, Sir.’
Delacombe asked the secretary to give Beaumont pen and paper. We all sat very still as Beaumont scratched out three statements on separate sheets.
When he had finished, the secretary took the sheets to Delacombe, who read them. Then he and Pemberton witnessed them, signing them as in the presence of the secretary and me, and we also signed.
Delacombe stood up, and the others did the same. For a moment, I thought Delacombe might say something to Beaumont, or even shake his hand. Instead he turned away, his face grave. ‘I suggest you stay and have your talk now,’ he said to me, ‘then join us at the house for dinner.’
Everyone left the room except me. I put my notebook and pencil in my pocket, and pulled my chair over to the bed. Beaumont and I looked at each other.
‘I hold no grudge against you, Hobbes,’ said Beaumont calmly. ‘You were merely performing your duty, as I should have in your place. I can see you deduced I was the culprit by a process of elimination. There could have been no evidence that I was on Vancouver Island that day. I’m sure nobody saw me – apart from McCrory. “That Devil George” he said, did he?’ Beaumont paused for reflection. ‘I should say he was the devil. “Shouldst thou see the devil, cast him out!” A favourite quotation of my mother’s. She’s a very religious woman. I’m afraid her heart will be broken by all this. But no. I don’t believe it will. Nothing will break her heart. She will stay alive for ever.’
Beaumont paused for thought, his wavering eyes gone still. Then they began wavering again as he looked at me. ‘Now I shall tell you my story. Please repeat it to no one. Not even Aemilia whom I suppose you will marry some day.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No? Too bad. But I shall tell you because I know you put a lot of thought into the crime – I mean solving it. And of course a short statement on paper is not a satisfactory confession. I believe in confession, don’t you? Such a shame our church has abolished it. I’m not really a bad man, Hobbes. I do my duty. Always have. But I have not been happy. I joined the Marines because my father was a naval man. I should have joined the cavalry. The Marines were a compromise. Never compromise, Hobbes. It’s bad for the soul. Of course the Marines did a superb job at Sebastopol, and their reputation was high when I joined. But since that they have not seen much action. Cavalry have, of course – in India. Most of my career has been spent at sea, actually. I become sea sick easily – unless I am in control of the boat. That’s why I like sailing and rowing. The last two years I’ve been here, and it has been very agreeable. But I couldn’t have asked for a worse commander than Delacombe. He gives a man too much leeway. It may be good for some chaps. But not for me. I have to be kept busy all day long. Otherwise I brood. I become melancholy. And since I don’t like drink much – it can make me ill – I can’t soothe myself that way. Delacombe is of course an excellent soldier. No criticisms there. Brave man. Proved himself in the Crimea. But he’s what the Yankees call “easy going”. Like this whole island. It’s a sort of little terrestrial Paradise, for one thing. Where a bloodless war was started over a pig! There’s nothing much to do except visit among the English settlers and the better sort of Americans. And of course supply and provision the camps, do manoeuvres, and so on. It is, mind you, a jolly well run camp.
‘At any rate, I developed the habit of going across to Victoria. A Herculean trip from here
, but it would spend my energy. I’ve always been possessed with a restless energy for women. I don’t know if you understand that, Hobbes. You seem somewhat of a Laodicean to me – lukewarm, like Aemilia. I like to be with women who have a bit of spice to them – and are vicious, even. I become very excited with prostitutes. Of course many men who have spent time at sea become used to them. But I have always had a difficulty with them, Hobbes. And this is the sort of thing I should find humiliating to make a public statement about. In a word, my virile member lets me down. Or, from their point of view, lets them down. I cannot penetrate a woman.
‘I’ve given much thought to why. At first I assumed it was an organic lack of some kind. But some of the women themselves averted me that it was not. They would ask me if I was upset, or frightened of them. They would make jokes like: “It’s not going to bite you”. I would become very angry. Not that I would show it. The bitches.
‘I’d never been in love. But when I met the Somerville girls, at St Mark’s church, I believe I fell in love with all of them! At least I thought they were wonderful. They all have an ethereal quality, don’t you think?’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘You see when you’re deeply excited by a fricatrice – a woman of spice, so to say – but the final pleasure, the consummation, is denied to you, you become very angry with women. Not that I ever hurt one. But I sometimes thought I might. A very distressing feeling. Not that they are ladies, the fricatrices. On the other hand I have never been drawn to them if they were not ladylike. I never wanted to, as they say in Victoria, “hump squaws”. Forgive my language, Hobbes, I can see it disturbs you. But we’re both men, after all.
‘At any rate, I fancied myself in love with each Somerville girl in turn. And it was very diverting. Last summer I was as near to being happy as ever in my life. The mother is common, of course, and some of her little mannerisms have rubbed off on the daughters. But the father must certainly have been a gentleman. They all have a streak of refinement. God, I loved those Sunday afternoons!’
For the first time, I saw signs of emotion in Beaumont: his face was briefly animated by an expression of grief and longing, then it became wooden again.
‘Then that beast McCrory appeared on the scene. Every Sunday. Showing off to the girls. Always trying to make them giggle. Not a gentleman, I assure you. But he seemed to take an intense interest in me. He told me, very seriously, man to man, as we walked down the road one evening, that he wanted to be my friend. Well, dash it, Hobbes. It’s not the sort of thing one chap says to another. Sort of thing girls say. But I have such restless energy that when he proposed we meet in town the following Saturday night, I accepted.
‘When we did meet we went to a few taverns for drinks – although I don’t drink more than a glass of ale, and he drank very little. And he became very intimate in his way of speaking to me, asking me about my home, my mother, my childhood, my aspirations. I must admit it was new to me to have a man ask me such things. It’s the sort of thing a woman might do to pass the time in bed when the other thing had not worked. But I felt flattered, I suppose. We ended up going to the Windsor Rooms – which of course I knew already – but where he was doing what he insisted on calling “field work”. This consisted, I believe, in his asking the girls all sorts of indecent questions. He didn’t do this at the same table as me, of course. But we enjoyed ourselves, dancing with the girls, and so forth. Then he asked me if I was going to have a girl for the night. I opened up to him and said I didn’t want to, because it would lead to the same old failure. At this, he whisked me out of the Windsor Rooms, and back to his house for what he called “a good talk”. He had a way of worming information out of a man. As I say, I realize I have needed confession in my life. I have always been too shy to confess my thoughts to friends. Besides, among Englishmen, it just isn’t done, is it? My father was very remote, and usually away at sea, so we hardly ever talked. With my mother the talk was mainly about scripture. So I’m afraid the dam burst, so to say, with McCrory, and all of my thoughts came out in a flood. The man was a swine, at bottom, but awfully good at listening.
‘So when I would come into Victoria every week or so, I would go out with McCrory on his “field work”, and stay the night in his spare bedroom. Then the next morning he would do private treatments with me. Animal magnetism, universal fluid, and so forth. This had what he called “paradoxical results” in me. I would become filled with the most unpleasant sensations – creepy crawly feelings, tingling, and pains in my muscles. At the same time I would get into a funk and break out into a stinking sweat. This interested McCrory very much. He said it smelt of sulphur and brimstone. I say! Can you imagine: sulphur and brimstone. As if I were Old Nick himself! I suppose that’s why he called me a “devil”.’
Beaumont paused as if in awe at this, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then it resumed its usual rictus, and he began talking again in his thin, flat tone.
‘He saw I didn’t like his saying this, so he explained that I was suffering from “stagnant humours”. The universal fluid had become too still, as if in a swamp, so to say, and although it would be the devil’s own job to get it flowing again, he and I should “work on it together”, and eventually I should get better.
‘But I was not exactly his patient. He said, in his rather over-candid way, that he preferred to have me as a friend. He did, however, accept some financial contributions from me, to buy medical supplies and equipment. A new phrenological head, for instance, which he sent for from San Francisco.
‘I shall list to you some of the treatments. They were mostly suggestions of things I could do on my own or with a fricatrice. They are too embarrassing to explore in detail. One was onanism into a lambskin sheath. The idea was that this imitated the woman’s sheath, and that I should become habituated to the sensations of confinement of the member, and so forth.
‘Another was that I extend the breathing down into my abdomen. He said my diaphragm did not move adequately. But this “breathing down” as he put it, made me dizzy.
‘Another was that I should always lie with a fricatrice from behind. The girls themselves call this “spooning”. The idea was that this would make me less shy than I might be face to face, and more “comfortable at being an animal”. I objected to being thought an animal, of course, but he soothed me by pointing out that “animal” meant “animated” by spirit. I should let my spirit move my body. Here the breathing usually came in too, since he pointed out that “spirit” meant “breath”. He would come out with such etymologies as if they were magic, forgetting, I suppose, that every Englishman of breeding has had years of Latin and Greek at school.
‘I am avoiding the question of spooning in this digression. It was actually a promising suggestion, though I’m not sure if this was for the reasons he suggested. I achieved a sort of onanism, once or twice, with a girl. An improvement – in retrospect. I could not see it at the time. I was becoming ruled by my difficulty, and obsessed with it. All the attention McCrory brought to it, so much a relief at first, made it more important – fanned the flames.
‘Then McCrory made a new suggestion. Playfully. He had adopted a manner with me which I would normally permit no one, a sort of bantering. He suggested that perhaps what I really wanted was to sleep with a boy. To behave like a Greek. On other words, that I was a pathic. In favour of this idea he instanced the comparative success of the “spooning”. Ridiculous! I said at first. After all, there are some rather notable differences between a woman, even a girl, and a boy. The girls from the Windsor Rooms, at any rate, are rather voluptuous. Anything less like a boy I cannot imagine, even when embracing them from behind. Besides, as I assured McCrory, and I’m afraid most Englishmen of breeding might, I had occasionally shared a bed with another boy at school and indulged in the sort of practices which are not at all uncommon. Even then, at school, I had never desired a boy, in the sense – all too painfully – I now desire a woman.
‘He jumped on this! He was most
interested. Said it was fascinating that I had no fear of boys, as I had of women. I said, why would I ever fear boys? I had been one myself, after all. But I thought I feared women – by then he had convinced me I feared women – precisely because I desired them so much yet at the same time felt, as I supposed, somewhat awkward about defiling them. I am merely guessing: for me these things are unbearably complicated. But McCrory then said that there are things about ourselves that we do not wish to know, and that we put them into recesses of our mind and forget them, but they are still there as part of us. It is just like putting an object we don’t like in a disused room of a house or in the cellar, and pretending to forget it. We know it’s still in our house, but we pretend it is not.
‘I said I found that a rather fanciful idea, and at any rate logically impossible to prove.
‘He said, “It’s a great idea and it came from an Englishman, Francis Galton. It means that in each person there are things put aside and buried, whose existence is denied. You, George, have put away your desire for boys but it’s there all the same.”’
‘“Rubbish!”, I said, and reiterated that I most decidedly preferred women to boys, even though they made me nervous. But he wasn’t listening. Then in his usual way of jumping from one simple idea to another, he said suddenly: “A berdache! What you need is a berdache!” And he explained to me something unutterably vile: he said that in certain Indian tribes, boys who were pathics were allowed to dress and behave as women, even to the extent of becoming the concubine of a man!
‘Now, at that time, which was not more than five or six weeks ago, McCrory had Indians on the brain. The Tsimshian had arrived and set up camp at Cormorant Point. McCrory was full of the idea of going to see them and buy medicines from them and learn “ancient methods of healing” as he put it. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, he had given me several very expensive medicines – which of course I paid for – for my “condition” as it was coming to be known. Powdered rhinocerous horn, reindeer horns, bull’s testicles, concentrated oysters – all obtained through his Celestial servant, Lee. None of it did the least good. He said he felt sure the Indians would know the kind of herbs and medicines which would be found in the woods here, and given fresh – which would make all the difference.