Capricornia. Xavier Herbert

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ man and his kind might love their womenfolk just as much as whitemen do, even though they were not so jealous of their conjugal rights. At the moment he considered the man unutterably base. He said to him huskily, “You’re a dirty dog, old man. Let the lady do her courting for herself.”

      In spite of the contempt in which he had held authority when he left town, Mark was still careful enough to return before the vacation ended. He arrived back in the morning of New Year’s Eve. But he did not go home at once. In wandering drinking round the town with Chook, he came to a disreputable bar where he made the acquaintance of a half-caste Philippino named Ponto, who was employed by Joe Crowe the undertaker, with whom he said he was that afternoon going to bury a destitute Chinaman. The idea of taking part in the simple funeral appealed to Mark. He went off with the corpse and Chook and the undertakers and a bag of bottled beer.

      That night the Government Service Club held a New Year dance. Mark attended, dressed appropriately, but drunk and filled with his experience of the afternoon. Several times he buttonholed acquaintances, saying such things as, “Now warrer y’think—buried a Chow ’safternoon—me’n Joe Crowe—.” The interest of the person buttonholed would draw a group, to whom he would repeat the introduction, then continue, “N’yorter heard the hot clods clompin’ on the coffing—hot clods—n’im stone cold. Course he couldn’t feel ’em—but I did—for him. Planted him. Then we sat’n his grave and waked him with beer. Gawd’ll I ever forget them clompin’ clods! Clamped down with a ton of hot clods! Gawd! D’y’know—shperiences is the milestonesh of life——”

      Oscar joined a group and heard, then led him outside, smiling, telling him that he had a bottle hidden out on the back veranda. In the darkness he fell on him, dragged him to the back gate, and flung him out neck-and-crop. Mark fell in mud. He got up blinking and gasping, to stand waist-deep in dripping grass till Oscar went back into the noisy brilliant hall. Then he turned away, striking at fireflies and mosquitoes that flashed and droned about him, making for the road, sniffing and snivelling, hurt not by the manhandling but by the fact that the manhandler was that best of all men his elder brother.

      He wandered into the middle of the town for the double purpose of getting more drink and showing himself in rumpled and muddy dress-clothes. He met Ponto in the disreputable bar again, and through him again found unusual entertainment. Ponto took him to a party at a Philippino house in the district called The Paddock. He was the only whiteman in the company, the only person wearing a coat, one of the few in shoes. Because the company in general were afraid of whitemen, his appearance checked the revelry till Ponto, speaking Malayan, the language of the district, made it known that he was an associate of wild blacks and a burier of destitute Chinamen and generally a hefty fellow, who was come to them as one of them, bringing six bottles of whiskey and a bag of beer. He was acclaimed. Soon he was out of his mess-jacket and boiled shirt. Before long he shed his shoes. He spent half the night trying to woo a starry-eyed Philippino girl who played a guitar.

      The party went on till peep of day, when by some mischance that no-one stopped to investigate, it suddenly ended in a battle-royal that raged till the coming of the first sun of the year and half the police-force. Most of the rioters were taken to the lock-up. Mark, though found in the thick of the fight, was taken to the hospital, primarily because he was white and of respectable standing, secondarily because the lover of the starry-eyed girl had vented long-restrained jealousy by cracking a bottle on his head.

      Mark spent three terrible days in hospital, tortured by a monster headache, a frightful thirst, a vast craving for hair-of-the-dog, and an overpowering sense of shame. From hour to hour he was visited by noisy bands of half-breed Philippinoes and Malays, who, because they showed no regard for the prescribed hours of visiting, were frequently descended upon and ejected by the tight-lipped nursing staff. He saw Sister Jasmine Poundamore but once. She was now engaged to Oscar. At sight of her he hid his head.

      The first respectable person to discuss the escapade with him was that most respectable of Capricornians, His Honour Colonel Flute. What he said to him when he summoned him upon return to duty Mark did not plainly repeat, though he talked bravely enough of what he had said in reply. Oscar cut his boasting short by telling him in the presence of other officers that but for his own friendship with the Colonel he should have been dismissed.

      His Honour and Oscar had intended to put Mark in his place. They succeeded, and more, showed him exactly what was his place. He learnt that he was a slave, in spite of all the petty airs he might assume, a slave shackled to a yoke, to be scolded when he lagged, flogged when he rebelled with the sjambok of the modern driver, Threat of the Sack. The dogs! thought he. They had learnt their business in the stony-hearted cities of the South, into which it was imported from those slave-camps the cities of Europe. But they could not wield their whips to terrify in this true Australia Felix, Capricornia. No—because the sack meant here not misery and hunger, but freedom to go adventuring in the wilderness or on the Silver Sea.

      He decided to become a waster. But to become a waster in the face of the hard ambitious world, he found, is a strong man’s job, like going down a stair up which a great discourteous crowd is climbing; and he was far from strong; moreover, he was struggling with inhibitions. Sometimes he lived virtuously, more often not, though more through weakness than through wilfulness. Twice again during that Wet Season he was reprimanded by His Honour. Throughout that period Oscar mostly ignored him. Still he was at the head of the stair.

      Wet Season passed. The Shillingsworths completed their first year of service in Capricornia. Then, one day in May, Oscar passed a remark over lunch—or Tiffin, as he called it—that led to Mark’s divining that a plot had been hatched by the Medical and Railway Departments to effect the dismissal of Chook Henn. Oscar did not intend to disclose the plot. He said what he did merely with intent to sting the disreputable Chook Henn’s bosom friend. And Mark would not have divined it had he not known that such a plot was to be expected. Chook was off duty on the spree. Previous attempts by his superiors to catch him had failed because the doctor they had sent to prove his condition had been loath to report the facts. But another doctor had been added to the staff, an officious fellow who did not drink. Mark made a few cunning inquiries at his office that afternoon. As soon as possible he slipped away to warn Chook, who should have been marshalling his train for the trip to Copper Creek.

      Next morning the new doctor had to go to the Yards to find Chook, who was on his engine, shaky of hand and ill of temper. The doctor came with the Loco-Foreman, who ordered Chook to come down from the cab so that the doctor might see if he were fit to do his duty. Chook was prepared. At sight of them he had sent his fireman away to see about coal. He produced a copy of Rules and Regulations and showed the Foreman and the doctor that he was forbidden either to leave his engine unattended or to allow anyone not taking part in his work to enter the cab. He then became abusive. Doctor and Foreman went away amid derisive laughter of a crowd of low fellows.

      Unfortunately for Mark, or perhaps fortunately, Chook in his fuddled state had made known the fact that he had been warned. An Enquiry was held. It was a simple matter to trace the betrayal to Oscar. His Honour sat in judgment. Oscar was accused of that worst of all offences in Civil Service—Blabbing. He looked so bemused and miserable that Mark was smitten to the heart. Mark took the blame, and more, told the Cabinet that he had discovered their paltry plot unaided, that Oscar was the best man in the Service, and the only honest, decent, and intelligent one, and that the faithful service he gave was pearl cast before mean, gutless, brainless, up-jumped swine, chief of which was His Blunny Honour. Mark worked himself into a towering rage. He was still expressing his opinion of his superiors when there was no-one left in His Honour’s sanctum to hear but Oscar and himself. Oscar gripped his hand and said huskily, “Thanks Son, you’re a man.” For less than that, romantic Mark would have gladly gone to jail.

      Mark and Chook were dismissed on the same day. They celebrated by getting drunk with Krater and a man named Harold Howell on some of the £25 that Mark was given to pay his passage home. A few days later Mark and Chook between them bought a twenty-ton СКАЧАТЬ