‘If you get something to eat,’ he said, ‘I’ll run you down to Glengariff siding till the goods comes along. It’s cooler there than here, you see.’
I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose feet were set in sands of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured sea. At either horn of the bay the railway line, cut just above high water mark, ran round a shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
‘You see, there’s always a breeze here,’ said Hooper, opening the door as the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter buffeting under Elsie’s Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned from a long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged rolling-stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my eyelids; the song of it under the car-roof, and high up among the rocks; the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper’s file, and the presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our couplings.
‘Stop that!’ snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work. ‘It’s those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they’re always playing with the trucks…’
‘Don’t be hard on ’em. The railway’s a general refuge in Africa,’ I replied.
“Tis – up-country at any rate. That reminds me,’ he felt in his waistcoat-pocket. ‘I’ve got a curiosity for you from Wankies-beyond Bulawayo. It’s more of a souvenir perhaps than —‘
‘The old hotel’s inhabited,’ cried a voice. ‘White men, from the language. Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here’s your Belmont. Wha – i – i!’
The last word dragged like a rope as Mr Pyecroft ran round to the open door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous sergeant of marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously from his fingers.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘I thought the Hierophant was down the coast?’
‘We came in last Tuesday – from Tristan d’Acunha – for overhaul and we shall be in dockyard ‘ands for two months, with boiler-seatings.’
‘Come and sit down.’ Hooper put away the file.
‘This is Mr Hooper of the Railway,’ I explained, as Pyecroft turned to haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
‘This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the Agaric, an old shipmate,’ said he. ‘We were strollin’ on the beach.’ The monster blushed and nodded. He filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
‘And this is my friend, Mr Pyecroft,’ I added to Hooper, already busy with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
‘Moi aussi,’ quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled quart bottle.
‘Why, it’s Bass!’ cried Hooper.
‘It was Pritchard,’ said Pyecroft. ‘They can’t resist him.’
‘That’s not so,’ said Pritchard mildly.
‘Not verbatim per’aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing.’
‘Where was it?’ I demanded.
‘Just on beyond here – at Kalk Bay. She was slappin’ a rug in a back veranda. Pritch ’adn’t more than brought his batteries to bear, before she stepped indoors an’ sent it flyin’ over the wall.’
Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
‘It was all a mistake,’ said Pritchard. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if she mistook me for Maclean. We’re about of a size.’
I had heard householders of Muizenberg, St James, and Kalk Bay complain of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
‘It’s the uniform that fetches ’em, an’ they fetch it,’ said Pyecroft. ‘My simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin’. Now Pritch in ‘is Number One rig is always “purr Mary, on the terrace” – ex officio as you might say.’
‘She took me for Maclean, I tell you,’ Pritchard insisted. ‘Why-why – to listen to him you wouldn’t think that only yesterday —‘
‘Pritch,’ said Pyecroft, ‘be warned in time. If we begin tellin’ what we know about each other we’ll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention aggravated desertion on several occasions —‘
‘Never anything more than absence without leaf – I defy you to prove it,’ said the sergeant hotly. ‘An’ if it comes to that, how about Vancouver in ‘87?’
‘How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy Niven…?’
‘Surely you were court-martialled for that?’ I said. The story of Boy Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
‘Yes, we were court-martialled to rights,’ said Pritchard, ‘but we should have been tried for murder if Boy Niven ’adn’t been unusually tough. He told us he had an uncle Oo’d give us land to farm. ’E said he was born at the back o’ Vancouver Island, and all the time the beggar was a barmy Barnado orphan!’
‘But we believed him,’ said Pyecroft. ‘I did – you did – Paterson did – an’ ‘oo was the marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards – him with the mouth?’
‘Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I ‘aven’t thought of ’im in years,’ said Pritchard. ‘Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an’ George Anstey and Moon. We were very young an’ very curious.’
‘But lovin’ an’ trustful to a degree,’ said Pyecroft.
‘Remember when ’e told us to walk in single file for fear o’ bears? Remember, Pye, when ’e ’opped about in that bog full o’ ferns an’ sniffed an’ said ’e could smell the smoke of ‘is uncle’s farm? an’ all the time it was a dirty little outlyin’ uninhabited island. We walked round it in a day, an’ come back to our boat lyin’ on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven kept us walkin’ in circles lookin’ for ‘is uncle’s farm! He said his uncle was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!’
‘Don’t get hot, Pritch. We believed,’ said Pyecroft.
‘He’d been readin’ books. He only did it to get a run ashore an’ have himself talked of. A day an’ a night – eight of us – followin’ Boy Niven round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket came for us an’ a nice pack o’ idiots we looked!’
‘What did you get for it?’ Hooper asked.
‘Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter sleet-squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion o’ cruise,’ said Pyecroft. ‘It was only what we expected, but what we felt – an’ I assure you, Mr Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart to break – was bein’ told that we able seamen an’ promisin’ marines ‘ad misled Boy Niven. Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was supposed to ‘ave misled him! He rounded on us, o’ course, an’ got off easy.’
‘Excep’ for what we gave him in the steerin’-flat when we came out o’ cells. ’eard anything of ’im lately, Pye?’
‘Signal boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe – Mr L.L. Niven is.’
‘An’ Anstey died o’ fever in Benin,’ Pritchard mused. ‘What come to Moon? Spit-Kid we know about.’
‘Moon – Moon! Now where did I last…? Oh yes, when I was in the Palladium. I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon ‘ad run when the Astrild sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years back. He alwa
ys showed signs o’ bein’ a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he slipped off quietly an’ they ’adn’t time to chase ’im round the islands even if the navigatin’ officer ‘ad been equal to the job.’
‘Wasn’t he?’ said Hooper.
‘Not so. Accordin’ to Quigley the Astrild spent half her commission rompin’ up the beach like a she-turtle, an’ the other half hatching turtles’ eggs on the top o’ numerous reefs. When she was docked at Sydney her copper looked like Aunt Maria’s washing on the line – an’ her ‘midship frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard ‘ad done it haulin’ the pore thing on to the slips. They do do strange things at sea, Mr Hooper.’
‘Ah! I’m not a taxpayer,’ said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
‘How it all comes back, don’t it?’ he said. ‘Why, Moon must ‘ave ‘ad sixteen yeors’ service before he ran.’
‘It takes ’em at all ages. Look at – you know,’ said Pyecroft.
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘A service man within eighteen months of his pension is the party you’re thinkin’ of,’ said Pritchard. ‘A warrant ‘oo’s name begins with a V, isn’t it?’
‘But, in a way o’ puttin’ it, we can’t say that he actually did desert,’ Pyecroft suggested.
‘Oh no,’ said Pritchard. ‘It was only permanent absence up-country without leaf. That was all.’
‘Up-country?’ said Hooper. ‘Did they circulate his description?’
‘What for?’ said Pritchard, most impolitely.
‘Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don’t move away from the line, you see. I’ve known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin’ to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o’ course I don’t know, that they don’t ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I’ve heard of a P and O quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there.’
‘Do you think Click ’ud ha’ gone up that way?’ Pritchard asked.
‘There’s no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the trucks. Then there was no more Click – then or thereafter. Four months ago it transpired, and thus the casus belli stands at present,’ said Pyecroft.
‘What were his marks?’ said Hooper again.
‘Does the Railway get a reward for returnin’ ’em, then?’ said Pritchard.
‘If I did d’you suppose I’d talk about it?’ Hooper retorted angrily.
‘You seemed so very interested,’ said Pritchard with equal crispness.
‘Why was he called Click?’ I asked, to tide over an uneasy little break in the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
‘Because of an ammunition hoist carryin’ away,’ said Pyecroft. ‘And it carried away four of ‘is teeth – on the lower port side, wasn’t it, Pritch? The substitutes which he bought weren’t screwed home, in a manner o’ sayin’. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the bedplate. ‘Ence, “Click”. They called ’im a superior man, which is what we’d call a long, black-’aired, genteelly speakin’, ‘alf-bred beggar on the lower deck.’
‘Four false teeth in the lower left jaw,’ said Hooper, his hand in his waistcoat-pocket. ‘What tattoo marks?’
‘Look here,’ began Pritchard, half-rising. ‘I’m sure we’re very grateful to you as a gentleman for your, orspitality, but per’aps we may ‘ave made an error in —‘
I looked at Pyecroft for aid – Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
If the fat marine now occupying the foc’sle will kindly bring ‘is status quo to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like gentlemen – not to say friends,’ said Pyecroft. ‘He regards you, Mr Hooper, as a emissary of the law.’
‘I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar, or I should rather say, such a bloomin’ curiosity in identification marks as our friend here —‘
‘Mr Pritchard,’ I interposed, ‘I’ll take all the responsibility for Mr Hooper.’
‘An’ you’ll apologize all round,’ said Pyecroft. ‘You’re a rude little man, Pritch.’
‘But how was I —‘ he began, wavering.
‘I don’t know an’ I don’t care. Apologize!’
The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast grip, one by one.
‘I was wrong,’ he said meekly as a sheep. ‘My suspicions were unfounded. Mr Hooper, I apologize.’
‘You did quite right to look out for your own end o’ the line,’ said Hooper. ‘I’d ha’ done the same with a gentleman I didn’t know, you see. If you don’t mind I’d like to hear a little more o’ your Mr Vickery. It’s safe with me, you see.’
‘Why did Vickery run?’ I began, but Pyecroft’s smile made me turn my question to ‘Who was she?’
‘She kep’ a little hotel at Hauraki – near Auckland,’ said Pyecroft.
‘By Gawd!’ roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. ‘Not Mrs Bathurst!’
Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the sergeant called all the powers of darkness to witness his bewilderment.
‘So far as I could get at it, Mrs B was the lady in question.’
‘But Click was married,’ cried Pritchard.
‘An’ ‘ad a fifteen-year-old daughter. ‘E’s shown me her photograph. Settin’ that aside, so to say, ‘ave you ever found these little things make much difference? Because I haven’t.’
‘Good Lord Alive an’ Watchin’!…Mrs Bathurst…’ Then with another roar: ‘You can say what you please, Pye, but you don’t make me believe it was any of ’er fault. She wasn’t that!
‘If I was going to say what I please, I’d begin by callin’ you a silly ox an’ work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I’m trying to say solely what transpired. M’rover, for once you’re right. It wasn’t her fault.’ ‘You couldn’t ‘aven’t made me believe it if it ‘ad been,’ was the answer.
Such faith in a sergeant of marines interested me greatly. ‘Never mind about that,’ I cried. ‘Tell me what she was like.’
‘She was a widow,’ said Pyecroft. ‘Left so very young and never re-spliced. She kep’ a little hotel for warrants and noncoms close to Auckland, an’ she always wore black silk, and ’er neck —‘
‘You ask what she was like,’ Pritchard broke in. ‘Let me give you an instance. I was at Auckland first in ‘97, at the end o’ the Marroquin’s commission, an’ as I’d been promoted I went up with the others. She used to look after us all, an’ she never lost by it – not a penny! “Pay me now,” she’d say, “or settle later. I know you won’t let me suffer. Send the money from home if you like.” Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I’ve seen that lady take her own gold watch an’ chain off her neck in the bar an’ pass it to a bosun ‘oo’d come ashore without ‘is ticker an’ ‘ad to catch the last boat. “I don’t know your name,” she said, “but when you’ve done with it, you’ll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one o’ them” And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth ‘arf-a-crown. The little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was sayin’, in those days she kep’ a beer that agreed with me – Slits it was called. One way an’ another I must ‘ave punished a good few bottles of it while we was in the bay – comin’ ashore every night or so. Chaffin’ across the bar like, once when we were alone, “Mrs B,” I said, “when next I call I want you to remember that this is my particular – just as you’re my particular.” (She’d let you go that far!) “Just as you’re my particular,” I said. “Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,” she says, an’ put ’er hand up to the curl be’ind ’er ear. Remember that way she had, Pye?’
‘I think so,’ said the sailor.
‘Yes. “Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,” she says. “The least I can do is to mark it for you in case you change your mind. There’s no great demand for it in the Fleet,” she says, “but to make sure I’ll put it at the back o�
�� the shelf,” an’ she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old dolphin cigar-cutter on the bar – remember it, Pye? – an’ she tied a bow round what was left – just four bottles. That was ‘97 – no, ‘96. In ‘98 I was in the Resilient – China station – full commission. In Nineteen One, mark you, I was in the Carthusian, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course I went up to Mrs B’s with the rest of us to see how things were goin’. They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin’ in special (there was too many of us talkin’ to her), but she saw me at once.’
‘That wasn’t difficult?’ I ventured.
‘Ah, but wait. I was comin’ up to the bar, when, “Ada,” she says to her niece, “get me Sergeant Pritchard’s particular,” and, gentlemen all, I tell you before I could shake ‘ands with the lady, there were those four bottles o’ Slits, with ’er ’air-ribbon in a bow round each o’ their necks, set down in front o’ me, an’ as she drew the cork she looked at me under her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o’ lookin’, an’, “Sergeant Pritchard,” she says, “I do ‘ope you ‘aven’t changed your mind about your particulars.” That’s the kind o’ woman she was – after five years!’
‘I don’t see her yet somehow,’ said Hooper, but with sympathy.
‘She – she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set ’er foot on a scorpion at any time of ’er life,’ Pritchard added valiantly.
‘That don’t help me either. My mother’s like that for one.’
The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof. Said Pyecroft suddenly:
‘How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?’
Pritchard blushed plum-colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch neck.
“Undreds,’ said Pyecroft. ‘So’ve I. How many of ’em can you remember in your own mind, settin’ aside the first – an’ per’aps the last – and one more?’
‘Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself,’ said Sergeant Pritchard relievedly.
‘An’ how many times might you ‘ave been at Auckland?’
The Wish House and Other Stories Page 38