Bring Larks and Heroes

by Thomas Keneally

  Halloran went up to the old man and said good night.

  ‘Could my friend and I borrow your Bible for a second?’

  ‘Tell me why?’ the sergeant said.

  ‘I want to read to him from the book of Genesis. He’s a Wexford man like me and he’s got more devils than one of the pigs Christ drove into the lake. He came to me since there’s no priest. I want to read to him from Genesis.’

  ‘That’s what you tell me.’

  ‘Sergeant, I’m a respectable soldier, a corporal. I’m Captain Allen’s orderly. I don’t want to sell your book. I don’t want to use it for betting. I just want to read it to poor damned Terry Byrne over there.’

  The sergeant got up and went into his hut, coming back with the book in pale and covetous little hands.

  ‘When will you have it back with me?’ he asked.

  ‘Within an hour.’

  ‘Your friend over there got his coat on him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then leave it here with me.’

  ‘All right.’ Halloran stepped aside and called to Byrne standing in the street. ‘He wants your coat while we have his book. That’s fair enough.’

  Byrne came forward, but slowly, with distrust.

  ‘You wouldn’t sell it on me, would you?’

  ‘No. I’m one of the chosen,’ said the sergeant, ‘like the two of you.’

  He handed the Bible to Halloran, and Byrne took off his coat.

  ‘Better without it on a night like this,’ commented Halloran, and thanked the sergeant.

  They had not gone far along the road when Halloran decided that he could perhaps make out the print by moonlight. He opened the book. Night made the pages a tranquil blue, but the print was the smallest a printer could manage.

  ‘What’s it about?’ asked Byrne.

  ‘Shush! Let me read it first.’

  It was the story of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph, of how Joseph fled from Potiphar’s wife leaving his garment in her hands, of how the woman accused Joseph before her husband, of how the woman was believed and Joseph sent to prison.

  ‘Read it to me?’ asked Byrne.

  Genesis 39 was an accusation by Ewers. It was a hidden accusation, and not meant for Byrne’s ears.

  Halloran turned the pages back and read Byrne something about Jacob and Laban and Rachel, and some dirty work with a second daughter called Leah.

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ said Byrne, ‘except they would have had a time getting some of them old Hebrews into the Carmelites.’

  Halloran agreed.

  ‘Are you going to see him?’ Byrne asked.

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘You’re probably wise,’ said Byrne, pop-eyed and magisterial.

  He said goodnight and went off to get his coat back with the book. Before he’d gone three yards, he turned around laughing.

  ‘Hoy, Corporal darling,’ he said, ‘Ewers probably liked the part where Jacob tumbled the wrong lady.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Halloran. ‘We’ll have to make sure the same never happens to us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, two for the price of one is the type of trade that’s always appealed to Terry Byrne.’

  ‘Go on, you old bull!’ said Halloran.

  But the next afternoon, in the dead of the noon rest, Halloran came to that length of rampart and Empire which Byrne, torpidly, kept safe.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to see the man,’ Byrne complained.

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  ‘I can’t let you see him.’

  ‘Can’t you? Well, I’ve been sent by Captain Allen. Prove I haven’t!’

  ‘You’re a close beggar, Halloran.’

  ‘A person has to be.’

  ‘It’s a shock to a man to find he’s not trusted.’

  ‘Come on, Terry. Be of good heart and so on. I changed my mind, I tell you.’ He pointed his finger at Byrne. ‘Don’t you go listening in now!’

  He climbed the side of the embankment. All that you could see of the magazine was the bolted double door and the vent poking out at the top. The rest of it had been dug into the hill and covered with soil. The vent stood open. There were three drunken blow-flies on the grating. Halloran knelt down, and the sun scalded the nape of his neck, while the earth was so hot to kneel on that you dreaded burial. He peered through the vent and at last could see Ewers’ legs patterned with the shade of the grating. He could not see Ewers’ face.

  ‘It’s Halloran here!’

  The legs twitched.

  ‘You said you wouldn’t come.’

  ‘There isn’t time to sulk. What did you want to say?’

  ‘Did you read Genesis, Chapter thirty-nine?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘I am Joseph, Halloran. I swear it to you.’

  Halloran squinted down the vent.

  ‘Halloran, don’t you believe me?’

  ‘I’d rather believe you than Mrs Daker. But I’ve heard the story, Ewers. That she had blood all over her.’

  Of course, Ewers wept. Poor damned Ewers.

  ‘She is a goat and a harlot,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘I ran away from her. I was painting a bird for Daker when she came up at my elbow. She breathed like a cow at my elbow.’

  ‘And you made her bleed for breathing like a cow.’

  ‘No! Halloran, I was unable to look at her, let alone make her bleed. I ran away.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell them at the court?’

  ‘I did, and they asked me where the blood came from. They asked me over and over, until I thought that I was mad and had harmed the woman.’

  ‘But you’re Joseph. Hurry up. I’ve got no sort of permission to be here.’

  ‘Halloran, I was brought an envelope yesterday evening. I have it with me now. It contained one green feather. There was no writing on the envelope, but the message was from Mrs Daker, beyond doubt. I had been painting a green kingfisher on that particular day, and when I had run away, Mrs Daker took the kingfisher and mangled it and, no doubt, spread herself with its blood. And being mad, dared to send me this feather.’

  ‘But you can’t know this. You can’t tell Sabian this.’

  ‘Aunt Norris,’ said Ewers. He could barely say the name.

  ‘I’ll write to her,’ Halloran told him. ‘I promise you that.’

  ‘Katherine Norris, near the Newgate, Dumfries, Scotland.’

  ‘Yes. The Newgate.’

  ‘Thank you, Halloran. Thank you, thank you.’

  The bay was luxurious blue, and a small, luxurious breeze came up the embankment to refresh the left side of his face.

  ‘Halloran,’ Ewers said without warning, ‘I am a eunuch.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am a eunuch from childhood.’

  Phelim shook his head.

  ‘Did you tell them in the court?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  Ewers said nothing more for perhaps two minutes. A number of times Halloran asked why as gently as he could. He considered whether he should walk away or, better still, run from Ewers in his pit.

  ‘I was in a dream in court. I thought that they might somehow find out without my telling them. I told myself that there was time, there would be time to tell them even after the trial.’

  ‘My God!’ said Halloran.

  ‘I am very noticeable,’ Ewers explained softly. ‘They would have made a mock of me.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I’ve been made a mock of before this.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Tell Major Sabian.’

  Halloran said nothing.r />
  ‘You believe me, Halloran?’

  ‘What do you think? It’s hard. Didn’t Partridge know?’

  ‘He never did. You’ve no idea what extremes I went to, not to be mocked. Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Don’t ask me that question yet.’

  ‘Can you see me?’

  ‘Waist down,’ said Halloran. He could see quite clearly the sailcloth legs.

  ‘Even from there, you will be able to tell.’

  Ewers made inconsolable noises, while his free arm undid the prison trousers and scraped them down over his hips. As he had promised, he was unmistakably deformed, even at a glance through the grating. He sounded to be beyond himself. Halloran looked away.

  ‘Forgive me, Ewers,’ he said. ‘Don’t go crying.’

  Ewers became even more audibly upset, while Halloran felt sick from the implications of the affair.

  ‘Now listen to me! Don’t go crying! I’ll see Sabian. I will. I promise.’

  Down below, halved and lepered by light and dark, Ewers was not consoled.

  ‘I have to go. But I’ll see Sabian this very day.’

  Four afternoons a week he reported to Sabian’s office, to Sabian’s orderly sergeant. That much was a start.

  ‘Don’t be upset,’ he told Ewers.

  He ran downhill.

  ‘He didn’t do it, Terry.’

  ‘Like all the other fellers who were ever hanged,’ said Byrne.

  ‘Maybe.’

  What an immense hatred arose in Halloran when, seconds later, drums and a bugle cawed at whoever was sleeping in that two o’clock town.

  ‘Anything for me?’ Halloran asked the orderly-sergeant through the door.

  ‘That’s not the way to ask.’

  Halloran marched in quickly.

  ‘Anything for me, Sergeant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Here’s the returns from Allen’s company.’

  Halloran put down a paper on the table. His face had a broiled look.

  ‘You been running?’

  ‘I have. I’ve got sweat all over the returns. Where’s Major Sabian?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was here for a second this morning. I think he’s at home.’

  Home for Major Sabian was on the other side of the bay, across the Brook and past Blythes’.

  ‘Damn it,’ said Halloran. He let his arms go limp. He had already run half a mile to make time for an interview. It was beyond him to find the time to go across the town and call on Sabian like a brother officer. ‘Don’t they do any work, these officers?’

  ‘Sergeants down do all the work,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Will he be here at all this afternoon?’

  ‘Not likely at all.’

  Outside, Halloran felt tired and hollow. He sat down in shade, not looking first for spiders and ants. Below him some rusty saplings lived out their harsh youth without a hint of growth or expectations. They did not yield any piece of the useless hill; they grew in tribal obstinacy down to the very lip of the bay.

  ‘I wish I had an axe,’ said Halloran aloud. He ground his teeth in hatred of the place. ‘If I had an axe!’

  He would have to speak to Captain Allen about Ewers. Whether Ewers would survive handling by Allen was another question. But a corporal is able to move only through given channels; through given straits they were, rather than channels. Conscience can make outright demands on a man. But human affairs were not carried on in an outright manner.

  ‘What can I do?’ he had asked Ewers.

  ‘Tell Major Sabian.’

  And if you were a Major yourself, you could.

  When he was cool again, he moved in numbed peace back towards the hutments. Yet the rancorous afternoon turned on him. Below the road, on the edge of the parade-ground, some Marines were playing cricket. For some reason, Sabian was on the road and had stopped, in his boredom, to watch the game. His adjutant stood by him. Both rumbled and clapped when the batsman flogged the ball far out across the parade-ground.

  Halloran was bound to stand and wait in the corner of their vision. Sabian half looked at him. Pride of place fluttered the eyelids. Yet the man was nearly fifty. Didn’t he feel the worm of death at all, that he could flutter his eyes as imperially as that? At last, somebody bowled that entertaining batsman. Sabian, turning towards Halloran, growled his aloof amusement at his adjutant. Halloran saluted. Sabian came up to him.

  ‘Corporal Halloran, sir. Captain Allen’s orderly.’

  Sabian nodded.

  ‘Sir, that Thomas Ewers who was –’

  ‘I know Ewers.’

  Halloran coughed. He could hear his tongue sticking to parts of his mouth as he tried for a second to work up some spit.

  ‘That Ewers, sir, there was something he failed to tell you in court.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a eunuch, sir. Very much a eunuch.’

  Sabian laughed.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen him, sir.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Sabian piquantly to the adjutant. No one could have told how Halloran hated him; screwing up his hands in hatred of this substantial man and figure and officer.

  ‘He was afraid that he would be made a mock of, sir.’

  ‘He has made a mock of you, Corporal. Who injured Mrs Daker, if he didn’t?’

  ‘He has explanations for that, sir. I’d be willing to take an oath, sir –’

  Sabian lifted his hand above his head and held it there for some seconds, as if the gesture had come to its natural end there, as if he were hailing Caesar. Then he struck Halloran across the jaw. The forests leapt, and over the hill jumped a liquid arc of sun.

  ‘You waste my time, Corporal. Every ravisher from ancient times to this has blamed the ravished woman.’

  ‘They gain authority from Joseph and Potiphar’s wife,’ the adjutant muttered.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Sabian. ‘I suppose he says that Mrs Daker injured herself.’

  The cricketers below had begun to watch.

  ‘That she got the blood of an animal,’ Halloran amended quietly. ‘Sir, couldn’t you –’

  The Major barely managed to hold his anger in shaking hamfists.

  ‘No I couldn’t, Corporal. You had better go.’

  Before he had gone far though, feeling damned because he had not said all that might have been said, feeling in a panic of damnation, Sabian called him back.

  ‘Corporal,’ he said leniently, ‘Ewers, if he is a eunuch, would not be the first eunuch to give his master a nasty shock.’

  On the morning of the second day, Ewers was ceremonially hanged; but by then Halloran had begun to see that he himself had done what he could, given the circumstances. Like all men of rigid conscience, he tended to discount any tragedy if he had done all that conscience demanded to prevent it. But he could not, despite this, discount the tragedy and the pity of Ewers. It disaffected him in part, it took all the starch out of his soldierliness.

  He was able to stay away from the hanging, but Terry Byrne saw it. As Byrne told it, it was the worst of hangings, a long stifling, when, in the muscular agony, the ravaged animal spills dirt and water down its legs.

  10

  One Sunday, Ann seemed feverish and possessed by a type of haunted gaiety. Her face looked a little sere, somehow, despite her breeziness, making one aware of the odds against fruition. They spent their afternoon on a narrow beach well within the bay. Autumn had begun. They sat on the sand, facing into an amenable sun.

  There was no conversation to speak of, until Ann said unrelatedly,

  ‘I think I have a child.’

  She did not glance at him, she looked straight ahead, mildly frowning. Halloran watched her stra
ight, brittle neck, and the brittle joy, against all reason, sustaining her mouth and the corner of the eye that he could see.

  ‘How do you know, Ann love? How could you know?’

  ‘Don’t you know how, Halloran? Are you really that unschooled?’

  ‘Something to do with bleeding, isn’t it?’ he asked softly. ‘The bleeding stops.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I don’t like to think of you bleeding.’

  ‘It’s the way of things.’

  ‘You weren’t made for the way of things. You’re a queen amongst women.’

  ‘Queens and all bleed. It’s you who wasn’t made for the way of things, Halloran darling.’

  ‘There are some things I get the way of very quick,’ he said as gaily as she could have hoped. He took a rowdy bite of her neck and slapped her on the bottom.

  ‘It would be your child.’

  ‘Of course it would. Whose else? Terry Byrne’s?’

  She laughed.

  ‘Mr Blythe’s?’

  She pulled a face.

  ‘You don’t seem to mind,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. He’ll be the star of the south end of the world.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be up against much,’ said Ann.

  Halloran put his hand on her stomach and leant down.

  ‘You’ll be onto some pretty fine nipples in this household, lad,’ he told the maybe-child loudly. ‘Take your father’s word for it.’

  He did not know with what manner of hope the child grew in the womb, but his thin girl would not have the milk for it afterwards. At the back of his throat lay tears for the bud of flesh, bud of man.

  Ann hit him on the shoulder and laughed at him and proudly said that he was an evil man.

  Yet Halloran’s gaiety too was coming unstrung now. He retold the difficulties to himself. They could not marry before Mr Calverley without damning themselves before God. They could not omit to marry before Mr Calverley without damning themselves before the colony. Every society, however rotten, has members whom it considers the arbiters, the standard-makers of its morality. Halloran and his secret bride were unlucky enough to be the moral paragons of their community. If they fell, they became stumbling-blocks, even to the most errant feet, even to such feet as Byrne’s. And the question was, how would Mrs Blythe jump, as the saying is? Would she cast Ann out of the house to live with the other women and be pestered by every woman-fancier in the garrison? Or would she lock Ann up and undertake her salvation? And the old agony recurred of how, if he married Ann publicly, the Governor would no doubt pardon her in time and send her home with him, free passage, when the garrison was relieved.