Книга - Little God Ben

Little God Ben
J. Jefferson Farjeon


Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific.Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific.Tired of being homeless and down on his luck, the incorrigible Ben has taken a job as a stoker on a cruise ship. But his luck doesn’t last long when they are all shipwrecked in the Pacific. Seen through Ben’s eyes, the uncharted island is a hive of cannibals, mumbo-jumbo, and gals who are more nearly naked than any he has ever seen. And every time he tries to bluff his way out of a situation, he just bluffs himself further in, somehow convincing the natives that he has God-like powers . . .Brought back by popular demand after a gap of three years, Ben the tramp’s reappearance in Little God Ben transported his humour, charm and rare philosophy to a startlingly new setting in this quintessentially 1930s comedy thriller.









J. JEFFERSON FARJEON

Little God Ben

















Copyright (#u57413068-8d84-5c1f-b365-245b5d2d84b1)


COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain for Crime Club by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1935

Copyright © Estate of J. Jefferson Farjeon 1935

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover background images © shutterstock.com (http://shutterstock.com)

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008155971

Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008155988

Version: 2016-06-14


Table of Contents

Cover (#u21a3029e-5d65-5584-b3a8-b0a5fe5c8e6d)

Title Page (#u56c2b1d6-bacb-5a6d-80d5-08ca3f277443)

Copyright (#u285c9d8b-1d1b-5e43-8cf3-6d8ec8e20ec3)

Chapter 1: Mainly About Knuckles (#u8cb77d42-311a-5326-a17d-92cfe3dc9064)

Chapter 2: Something Happens (#u5ea808be-2e9b-5e02-a44d-4ec1559da6ae)



Chapter 3: The Fruits of Panic (#u5a31b97a-cef6-56f0-8bd7-8f39d6db8533)



Chapter 4: What the Dawn Brought (#u9f7dba09-c39b-5d92-bca8-6d396bb7a39c)



Chapter 5: Behaviour of Mr Robert Oakley (#udaf59b00-8064-5a7b-adbb-c3f9c50900d4)



Chapter 6: The Resuscitation of a God (#uf01eec58-2581-5fd8-a8b4-6280748deb1f)



Chapter 7: Alias Oomoo (#ua6f53edf-1d0e-5b8d-9cc1-e03bb524d352)



Chapter 8: The Village of Skulls (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 9: Wooma and Gung (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 10: The Shadow of the High Priest (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 11: A Language Lesson (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 12: Preparations for a Test (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 13: The Misery of Ardentino (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 14: The High Priest Calls (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 15: The High Priest V. Oomoo (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 16: The Transition of Ben (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 17: Noughts and Crosses (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 18: Gold (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 19: A Summons to Oomoo (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 20: To the Priest’s Quarters (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 21: In Conference (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 22: Oakley Goes Scouting (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 23: The Plan (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 24: Blessings Before Battle (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 25: Through the Night (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 26: The Yellow God (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 27: The Flaw in the Plan (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 28: Ben Plays the Joker (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 29: For the Duration (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)



About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)



Also in This Series (#litres_trial_promo)



About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




1 (#u57413068-8d84-5c1f-b365-245b5d2d84b1)

Mainly About Knuckles (#u57413068-8d84-5c1f-b365-245b5d2d84b1)


‘Something’s goin’ ter ’appen,’ said Ben, as the ship rolled.

‘Well, see it don’t ’appen ’ere,’ replied a fellow-stoker apprehensively.

‘I don’t mean that sort of ’appen,’ answered Ben. ‘Yer feels that in yer stummick. I feels this in me knuckles. Whenever me knuckles goes funny, something ’appens.’

The fellow-stoker did not care much for the conversation. But they were off duty together, drawing in a little evening air to mingle with the coal-dust in their throats, and it was Ben or nothing. So he murmured,

‘Wot’s goin’ ter ’appen?’

‘I dunno,’ said Ben. ‘Orl I knows is that it is. It’s a sort of a hitch like. Once it was afore I fell inter a barrel o’ beer.’

‘I wouldn’t mind ticklin’ a bit fer that,’ observed the fellow-stoker.

‘Ah, but it ain’t always so nice. Another time it was afore a nassassinashun. I fergit ’oo was nassassinated. A king or somethin’. And another time I went ter bed and fahnd the cat ’ad ’ad kittens. I slep’ on the floor. Yus, but they never hitched like this. Not the kittens, me knuckles. If somethin’ ’orrerble don’t ’appen afore midnight I’ve never seen a corpse!’

The fellow-stoker’s dislike of the conversation increased. He preferred conversations beginning, ‘Have you heard the one about the lady of Gloucester?’ But Ben was a human anomaly, a man with a dirty face and a clean mind, and some error in his make-up had eliminated all interest in Gloucestershire ladies. It was unnatural.

‘’Ere, that’s enough about corpses,’ growled the fellow-stoker, ‘and I’ll bet you ain’t seen none, neither!’

‘Lumme, I was born among ’em!’ retorted Ben. ‘I spends orl me life tryin’ ter git away from ’em. If there’s a star called Corpse I was born under it! I could tell yer things, mate, as ’d mike yer eyes pop aht o’ their sockets. I seed one in a hempty ’ouse runnin’ abart—oi, look aht!’

The ship gave a violent lurch and threw them together. As they untied themselves Ben continued:

‘It mide me run abart, too.’

‘’Ere, I’ve ’ad enough of you!’ gasped the fellow-stoker, and hurried away to less gruesome climes.

Ben looked after him disappointedly. He hadn’t meant to be gruesome. He had merely been relating history. He didn’t like corpses any better than the next man, but you talked about what you knew about, and there it was. If Ben had lived among buttercups and daisies, he’d have talked about those, and would infinitely have preferred it.

He gazed at his knuckles. ‘Somethin’ orful!’ he muttered. He stretched them, opening and closing his fingers. He shook them. The prophetic itch remained. He tried to forget them, and stared at the heaving grey sea.

It shouldn’t have been grey, and it shouldn’t have been heaving. It should have been blue and calm, like the posters that had advertised this cruise, and stars should be coming out to illuminate sentiment. There was a lot of sentiment on the ship. Ben had spotted some of it, and had envied it in the secret labyrinths of his heart. They would be dancing soon up above. ‘’Ow’d I look in a boiled shirt,’ he wondered, ‘with a gal pasted onter it?’ But the Pacific Ocean often belies its name, and it was belying it drastically at this moment. Waves were sweeping across it in angry white-topped lines, indignantly slapping the ship that impeded them and sending up furies of spray. The wind was in an equally bad temper. It made you want to hold on to things. ‘I didn’t orter’ve come on this ’ere trip,’ decided Ben. ‘I orter’ve tiken a job ’oldin’ ’orses!’ Had he known the job to which the wind and the waves were speeding him, he would probably have shut his eyes tight and dived into them.

But he was spared that knowledge, and meanwhile the rolling ship and his itching knuckles were quite enough to go on with. It wasn’t merely the itching that worried him. It was a vague sense of responsibility that accompanied the inconvenience. When you receive a warning, you ought to pass it on. ‘Course, I couldn’t ’ave stopped the kittens,’ he reflected, ‘but I might ’ave stopped the nassassinashun!’

The Second Engineer staggered into view. He, like the stokers, had come up for a little air, and was getting larger doses than he had bargained for.

‘Whew!’ he exclaimed. ‘Dirty weather!’

‘Yer right, sir,’ answered Ben. ‘Somethin’s goin’ ter ’appen.’

‘Going to happen?’ grinned the Second Engineer, as another fountain of spray shot up and drenched them. ‘It’s happening, ain’t it?’

‘Yus, but I means wuss’n this,’ replied Ben, darkly. ‘Me knuckles is hitchin’.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Second Engineer politely.

‘Knuckles, sir—hitchen’,’ repeated Ben. ‘That’s ’ow I knows. Yer may larf, but yer carn’t git away from it, when me knuckles hitch, things ’appen.’

The Second Engineer was a good-natured man. He could retain an even temperament with the thermometer at 120. He had to. But superstition was one of his bugbears, and he always came down on it, particularly when the atmosphere was a bit nervy. He was aware of its disastrous potentialities.

‘Now, listen, funny-mug!’ he remarked. ‘I know that itches are supposed to mean things. If your right eye itches it’s good luck and if your left eye itches it’s bad luck, and if they both itch it’s damn bad luck—but knuckles are a new one on me! Shall I tell you what all this itching really means?’

‘Somethin’s goin’ ter ’appen,’ blinked Ben.

‘No, you dolt!’ roared the Second Engineer. ‘It means you want a good scratch! So give your knuckles a good scratch and stop talking about ’em! Get me? Because if you don’t, sonny, I’ll give you a taste of my knuckles!’

Then he passed on.

‘Meet yer when the boat goes dahn!’ muttered Ben after him.

His retort increased his depression. It was the first time he had definitely focussed his fears. Of course, that was what his misbehaving knuckles meant—the boat was going down!

‘Well, wot’s it matter?’ he reflected, catching hold of a rail as the ship heaved again. ‘Am I afraid o’ dyin’? Yus!’

The handsome admission completed his depression.

But Ben was never wholly absorbed in his own discomforts. An under-dog himself, he had a fellow feeling for other under-dogs, and the stokehold and engine-room were full of them. If they weren’t particularly nice to him and kicked him about a bit, well, who was nice to him—barring, perhaps, the Second Engineer one time in three—and who didn’t kick him about? He’d been born a football, and it was human to kick anything that bounced. And even the top-dogs did not arouse Ben’s personal enmity. The world had to contain all sorts of people to make it go round, and he was a man of peace, though he found little. It would be a pity, for instance, if that pretty girl in the blue frock—the one the Third Officer had brought down yesterday to have a look at the engine-room—came to any harm. Nice hair, she had. And slim-like. She had smiled at Ben and had said, ‘Don’t you find it terribly hot here?’ And when he had replied, ‘’Ot as ches’nuts,’ she had laughed. Nice laugh, she had. And nice teeth. Yes, it would be a pity.

‘And the Third Orficer ’iself might be wuss,’ decided Ben, now he came to think of it. ‘Corse, the way ’e looked at the gal’d mike a cod sick, but yer carn’t ’elp yer fice when yer feels that way. Mindjer, some of ’em could do with a duckin’. That Lord Wot’s-’is-nime wot’s orl mide in one piece. ’E’d brike if yer bent ’im. And that there greasy bloke I seen torkin’ to ’im. I’ll bet ’e’s a mess fust thing in the mornin’! If ’e was ter go ter the bottom, the bottom ’d git a fright and come up ter the top. But—well, Gawd mide ’im, so there yer are—’

A voice in his ear made him jump. He jumped into the chest of the Chief Engineer. The Chief Engineer’s chest was the size of Ben altogether.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ inquired the Chief Engineer, picking the population off his chest.

‘Oo?’ blinked Ben.

‘Do you feel as green as you look?’ demanded the Chief Engineer.

‘Yus,’ answered Ben.

‘If you can’t stand a bit of weather, why did you come on this trip?’

‘Well, the doctor ses I orter ’ave a bit o’ sunshine.’

‘Don’t be cheeky, my man!’

‘Oo’s wot?’

‘I’ve had my eye on you for some time, and I’m asking you why you came on this trip?’

‘Gawd knows!’

‘Do you call that an answer?’

‘Oh. Well, it was like this, see? Second Engineer engiged me. “Bill’s ill,” ’e ses. “Ben’s ’ere,” I ses. “’Oo’s Ben?” ’e ses. “I am,” I ses. “I shouldn’t ’ave thort you was anything,” ’e ses. “Life’s full o’ surprises,” I ses, “once I fahnd a currant in a bun. Give us a charnce,” I ses, “I’ve walked orl the way from the nearest pub.” Mide ’im larf. That’s the on’y way I can do it. Mike ’em larf. Like Pelligacharchi. You know, the bloke in the hopera. I seed it once. Lumme, them singers fair split yer ears.’

‘Do you know what you’re talking about?’

‘No.’

The Chief Engineer stared at Ben very hard. Like many before him, he couldn’t quite make Ben out.

‘Have you ever seen a louse?’ he asked.

Ben stared back and got ready for it.

‘Not afore I see you,’ he muttered.

The Chief Engineer’s fist on Ben’s chest made a deeper impression than the whole of Ben on the Chief Engineer’s chest. Ben sat down and counted some stars.

‘I sed somethin’ was goin’ ter ’appen,’ he muttered, ‘but it don’t matter, ’cos this ain’t it. You’ll be goin’ dahn, too, in a minit!’

‘Oh! Will I?’

‘Yus. The ’ole boat’s goin’ dahn. I knows ’cos me knuckles is hitchin’.’

‘Of course, this fellow’s mad,’ said the Chief Engineer.

He took a deep breath. He was sorry he had lost his control for a moment, but he couldn’t say so with four stripes on his sleeve. It was the nervy atmosphere. Everybody was nervy. He stretched out his hand and hoiked Ben up again, and something real or imagined in his attitude gave the little stoker a sudden and embarrassing disposition to cry.

‘That’s orl right, sir,’ he mumbled, ‘on’y it’s true, see? I ain’t kiddin’ yer, and some-un orter tell the Captain afore it’s too late.’

‘Tell the Captain?’ frowned the Chief Engineer.

‘Yus.’

‘Tell him what?’

‘That me knuckles is hitchin’.’

The Chief Engineer shook him.

‘If they go on itching, report to the Second Engineer, and ask him if you should report to the Doctor. Meanwhile, get some stuffing into you and remember you’re a bit of the British Empire!’

‘Yus, a lot the British Hempire’s done fer me!’ thought Ben, as the Chief Engineer departed.

Report to the Second Engineer? He had already done that. Report to the Doctor? No, thanks! If you weren’t ill what was the use? And if you were ill you died of fright knowing …! But what about reporting to the Captain?

As Ben stared at his knuckles, which were not even soothed by the portions of ocean that periodically splashed on to them, the audacious idea grew. Report to the Captain—direct! Give him the red light! And then, when the ship had been saved through the warning of a little stoker whom everybody trod on, perhaps people would stop treading on him, and they might even erect a statue of him over the Houses of Parliament.

‘Little Ben on top o’ Big Ben!’ reflected the lesser of the two. ‘Coo, that’d put the hother sights o’ Lunnon in the shide!’

He glanced furtively around him. Nobody about. He glanced towards the companion-way that led for’ard up to the boat deck. He shook his head.

‘No!’ he said.

Then he thought of the pretty girl in the blue frock. ‘Fancy ’er torkin’ ter me!’ he reflected. ‘“Doncher find it ’ot ’ere?” she ses, and then I ses, “’Ot as ches’nuts,” I ses, and then she larfs. Nice larf. It’d be a pity …’

He moved towards the companion-way. It is to be remembered that Ben believed implicitly in his knuckles.




2 (#u57413068-8d84-5c1f-b365-245b5d2d84b1)

Something Happens (#u57413068-8d84-5c1f-b365-245b5d2d84b1)


To walk from a well-deck to a Captain’s quarters is ordinarily quite a simple job, but the difference between a journey you may make and a journey you may not is abysmal. The latter is ten times as long, and ten times as difficult.

Ben’s difficulties were increased by the unusual rolling of the ship. Although he had spent many years in the merchant service he had never permanently discovered his sea legs. Sometimes they obeyed the oceanic instinct, at other times they did not, and this was one of the other times. Twice before he completed the first stage of the journey to the companion-way he shortened his left leg when he ought to have lengthened it, and thrice he lengthened his right leg when he ought to have shortened it. The result was dislocating to joints, and he arrived at the companion-way playing for safety, with both legs shortened.

Then he paused. A hurrying figure appeared on the ladder above him. Still squatting, he watched it descend and materialise into the Doctor.

‘Are you the fellow who’s come out in spots?’ demanded the Doctor brusquely.

‘No, sir,’ replied Ben. ‘That’s Jim—but they ain’t nothing.’

‘How do you know?’

‘’E ’as ’em in ’ealth.’

‘Thanks for the information, my man, but I’ll do my own diagnosing, if you don’t mind.’ Ben didn’t mind. He had no idea what diagnosing was, but it sounded nasty. ‘What are you supposed to be doing?’

‘Eh? Oh! Restin’.’

‘Ah—not practising a Russian dance! Well, take my advice and rest under cover, or you’ll be washed overboard!’

The Doctor proceeded on his way, and Ben proceeded on his. But at the top of the companion-way he shot into another figure. Lord What’s-his-name, the man who found it difficult to bend. As they regained their breath they regarded each other from opposite angles. This was the first, and least strange, of many meetings, although neither of them knew it.

‘You appear in a hurry,’ observed the lordly obstacle, refixing his monocle.

‘Yus, I got a messidge,’ mumbled Ben.

‘In that case I must not detain you,’ replied Lord What’s-his-name. Other people knew him as Lord Cooling. It was a name that had appeared on many glowing company prospectuses, the prospectus usually being more glowing than the company. ‘I trust we may meet again one day in less urgent circumstances. Good-evening.’

Then Ben escaped to the second companion-way leading from the main deck to the saloon deck. The higher he got the more anxious he grew. He was permitted on the main deck, provided he did not linger and merely used it as a passage from the quarters where he slept to the quarters where he worked, but the saloon deck was taboo, and he hoped there would be no more awkward meetings. Fortunately for this hope the weather had driven most of the passengers inside, and apart from slipping on a step, tripping over a rope, hitting a rail, and nearly being shot into a ventilator, he passed safely through the next few seconds. But just as he was about to ascend the third companion-way to the boat deck he heard voices; and, still being near the ventilator that had just failed to suck him down into the unknown region it ventilated, he slipped behind it. The manœuvre was necessary since one of the voices he recognised as the Third Officer’s.

‘You’d better go in, Miss Sheringham,’ the Third Officer was urging.

‘It’s certainly blowy,’ came the response, and then Ben recognised that voice also. It was the voice of the pretty girl in the blue frock. But now she was wearing oilskins.

‘And it’s going to get worse,’ answered the Third Officer. ‘Nothing whatever to worry about, you know, but it’s pleasanter inside.’

‘Why did you say there was nothing to worry about?’ asked the girl.

‘Because there isn’t,’ returned the Third Officer.

‘Or because there is?’

The Third Officer laughed.

‘That’s much too clever for me! I’ve been through gales that make this seem like a sea breeze, but—’

‘But it’s a jolly good sea breeze!’ Now the girl laughed too. ‘Won’t the dancing floor be wobbly tonight? I wonder how many will be on it!’

‘If you’re on it, I expect you’ll be dancing a solo.’

‘I have a higher opinion of British manhood, Mr Haines! I shall certainly be on it. I rather like the idea of trying to do a slow fox-trot up a moving mountain—’

‘Look out!’

Ben accepted the warning as well as the girl, but none of them ducked quickly enough. The sudden fountain drenched all three.

‘Really, Miss Sheringham, I wish you’d go in!’ exclaimed the Third Officer, after the drench. He made no attempt now to hide his anxiety.

‘I think I will!’ gasped the girl. ‘I’m soaked! But how did you know I was out?’

‘Well—I’ve eyes.’

‘Jolly quick ones! I hadn’t been out two minutes before you pounced on me!’

‘We try to look after our passengers.’

‘Beautifully put! Still, you’re quite right—I’d no idea it was so awful … I say, what’s that?’

‘What?’

‘Over there! Towards the horizon—where I’m pointing!’

There came a short silence. The wind rose to a shriek, then died down again. Ben could only hear the voices because the gale was blowing in his direction.

‘I can’t see anything,’ said the Third Officer.

‘Nor can I now. That mist has blotted it out. It was dark—like a whale. If I saw it at all.’

‘And that isn’t mist, it’s rain,’ answered the Third Officer briskly. ‘It’ll be here in a moment and drown you! Go inside at once. It’s not a request this time, it’s an order!’

Ben heard a little laugh, and then the voices ceased. Footsteps sounded, and faded away. Ben was alone again.

He waited a second or two. The long terror through which he was to reach the strangest salvation he had ever known began to grip him. He didn’t like his memory of the Third Officer’s tone. He had studied tones. He knew whether ‘That’s all right’ meant that it was or it wasn’t and whether ‘Come here’ meant a kiss or a kick. He knew that the Third Officer’s ‘That’s an order’ meant trouble.

This, however, was not the entire cause of Ben’s new anxiety. He had an instinct for the tone of a gale as well as the tone of a human being. The instinct was now informing him that the gale was ‘behaving funny.’ Possibly not another person on board received the warning in precisely the way Ben received it. As though to compensate in some degree for his colossal ignorance, he had been granted an uncomfortable sensitiveness to certain impending occasions. The sensitiveness was variously expressed in various parts of his anatomy. Itching knuckles—that meant general danger. Twitching knee-caps—that meant personal danger. A sort of tickle in his nose—that meant cheese in the vicinity. A violent throbbing of his ear-lobes—that meant the wind was about to behave funny. You couldn’t get away from it.

Well, no matter how one throbbed and tickled and twitched and itched, one could not remain behind a ventilator for ever; and so, creeping from a concealment no longer necessary, he skated—first uphill and then downhill—to the rails. He wanted to know whether he could see what the girl had thought she had seen, and devoutly hoped that he wouldn’t. The hope was so devout that at first he searched with his eyes shut. Then he opened them.

‘Vizerbility nil,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t see nothing!’

Nothing, that was, beyond the most unpleasant ocean he had ever gazed at. It seemed to be in a kind of white fright and to be attempting to escape from the low clouds and the tearing wind, but the wind was chasing it mercilessly, emitting sounds that clearly came from some elemental madhouse; and the rain was in its wake. In a few moments the rain would add its stinging dampness to the starboard bow.

‘Lumme, we’re goin’ ter git it!’ gulped Ben.

He turned to complete his interrupted journey. Perhaps it seemed a little footless now. The Captain on his bridge did not need the information of a fireman that the weather was not fine! But, having started on his ridiculous mission, Ben wanted to finish it. He had detached himself from normal, sensible routine, and he was like a bit of homeless, wind-blown chaff. Things beyond his power were buffetting him about, and he would have to go on being buffetted about until he was buffetted to rest.

He might have hesitated, however, if impulse had not caused him to turn his head for one more glance over the starboard bow, towards the oncoming rain. In that glance he saw what the girl had seen; and because it was closer, and because his eyes were more experienced, he interpreted it before it was wiped into oblivion again.

‘’Eving ’elp us!’ he gasped.

And he sped up the third companion-way to the boat deck.

As he did so the Junior Wireless Officer emerged from the wireless-room aft and began walking hurriedly towards him. The Junior Wireless Officer had a T T T message in his hand—a message which ranks second in importance to an S.O.S.—but Ben did not know this, nor would he have paused if he had. He paid no attention to the approaching officer, or to the notice that warned passengers and unauthorised persons away from the Captain’s deck, or to the unspeakable transgression of mounting the ladder without permission to the bridge. In a flash he was on the Captain’s deck and clambering up the ladder. The Junior Wireless Officer saw him, stopped dead for an instant, and then came forward again at increased speed.

The Captain also saw him. He was standing on the bridge with the First Officer, and he was looking very grim. His grimness increased tenfold as Ben’s head popped amazingly into view below him.

‘What the hell—!’ bawled the First Officer, speaking the Captain’s thoughts.

‘Something ter report, sir!’ Ben bawled back.

As his head rose higher the First Officer seized it and spun it. Ben felt like a top. He had not finished spinning before he received a fresh impetus from below, and found himself projected towards the starboard cab. It was the Junior Wireless Officer, mounting the ladder at express speed.

The Junior Wireless Officer’s voice, however, was contrastingly composed. The wireless-room permits itself pace, but never panic.

‘Navigation Warning, sir,’ said the Junior Wireless Officer, saluting and holding out his envelope.

The Captain took it and opened it.

‘Hallo—floating wreckage,’ he exclaimed, glancing at the First Officer. ‘Latitude—’

‘Lattertood ’Ere and Lojitood ’Ere!’ bellowed Ben. ‘Unner the surface—water-logged—I jest seed it orf the starboard bow!’

Then the starboard bow got it.




3 (#ulink_8b131287-8b77-5a01-b4c4-fc7dcf1fb6f8)

The Fruits of Panic (#ulink_8b131287-8b77-5a01-b4c4-fc7dcf1fb6f8)


Ben never learned what happened immediately after the submerged wreckage struck the ship, for the impact toppled him over to the deck just beneath the bridge, and the suddenly descending rain pinned him there with the effectiveness of a vast moist weight. He never learned that, although water poured through the wound in the ship’s side, flooding it with devastating rapidity, shifting cargo, bursting fresh cracks, and eventually sending the ship to its doom, not a single life was lost. That was another story, not Ben’s; and, incredible though it was, Ben’s story was the more incredible. Indeed, since Ben was destined like the rest to continue life, no one could have predicted the circumstances that coupled his continued existence with such enduring ignorance.

Above him, as he lay on the edge of his biggest adventure, the Captain was staggering to his feet. The Captain, the First Officer, and the Junior Wireless Operator had also been bowled over, and the two former had only one thought in their minds. The Captain was the first to regain himself and act upon it. He staggered towards the lever that worked the water-tight doors. He was too late, however. His half-blinded eyes watched the indicator move to ‘Quarter-shut’ and ‘Half-shut’—and there it stopped. ‘Three-quarters-shut’ and ‘Shut’ were unattainable goals. Something had jammed.

Below, human pandemonium joined the pandemonium of the elements. It is perhaps less discreditable than is popularly imagined by critics in comfortable arm-chairs that certain people should develop panic during the first moments of a wreck. In this case the damage had occurred with nerve-shattering suddenness, and quite a number of folk lost their heads. It was during this preliminary period, which would have spelt complete chaos had it endured, that two incidents occurred beyond the control of a ship’s discipline.

The first incident occurred at one of the boats. There was a mad, unintelligent rush for it. A few people scrambled in. The Third Officer, followed by Ruth Sheringham whom he had been conducting inside when the crash occurred, did his best to stem the rush, and then to organise it. ‘Yes, get in, get in!’ he shouted to the hesitating girl. As she climbed she stumbled, and he lurched forward to her assistance. The mad crowd behind him carried him forward with her. The ship heaved, the boat swung outwards, partly through the violent movement of the ship and partly through the insane work of clumsy, frenzied hands at the davits. Something gave way. The boat slid down, and the ocean rose dizzily to meet it. As the boat smacked the water, and the Third Officer endured the worst moment of his life, he bawled. ‘Unhook! Unhook! Release the hook!’ He was releasing one as he bawled. He told Ruth Sheringham later that she had unhooked the other, but she had no memory of it. The great, wounded ship towered over them. It shot away from them. Somebody was sick …

That incident was noticed, and served as an awesome example to quell the panic on board and substitute a sense of numb discipline. The second incident was not noticed. The same violent lurch that had sent the little boat down also sent Ben down. In perfect, unprotesting obedience to the laws of gravitation, Ben rolled along the sloping deck, bounced, and shot into the Pacific.

He sank like a log. He rose like the Great War. The sudden immersion somewhat anomalously brought him back to life, and his arms and legs worked as arms and legs had never worked before. He was unable to swim but he had an excellent sense of self-protection, and it told him that he would not sink so long as he kept every part of him moving at the same time. Possibly the sea held him on its surface for a while out of sheer interest. It did not often receive such astonishing gifts, and he was passed from crest to crest for moist examination. But at last it wearied of him and began to draw him down. Ben, after all, was very small fry for so large a host.

His mould was not that of the hero who dies but once. He was the coward—and the first to admit it—who dies many times before his death, and he now added another demise to his unfinished record. In the space of five seconds he died, went up to heaven, was thrown, went down to hell, was thrown up, wondered who wanted him, decided to speak to God about it, climbed a golden ladder, told God it wasn’t fair, asked if he were going to receive the same treatment in this new world that he’d received in the last, asked why it was so wet, asked why it was so cold, asked why everything was bobbing up and down, asked whether he were on a blinkin’ dancing floor, thought of the girl in the blue frock—and then found the girl in the blue frock looking at him. Of course, it was impossible!

‘Oi!’ he sputtered. ‘Wot’s ’appenin’?’

‘Sh!’ replied the impossible vision.

‘Yus, but I ain’t ’ere!’ he protested.

Another voice answered him.

‘We picked you up. Stay still, and don’t talk.’

It was the Third Officer’s voice. Quiet and commanding. But a shower of water spilling over a great watery wall was more effective in securing Ben’s obedient silence.

He gave up trying to work things out. He was in a boat. The boat was racing up and down mountains. That was enough to go on with.

Time passed. The boat continued to race up and down mountains. He lost count of both time and the mountains. They seemed endless. He also lost count of himself. He had been through a number of shattering evolutions and his saturated form was full of bumps and bruises. If one detached one’s mind from the past and the future—particularly the future—and regarded oneself as a sort of tree-trunk, it was pleasant to remain inactive and do nothing. Ben’s spirit drifted while his body tossed.

Grey became dark grey. Dark grey became black. In blackness, Ben opened his eyes again.

‘Oi!’ he mumbled. ‘Wot’s ’appenin’?’

‘If you ask that again,’ replied the Third Officer, ‘I’ll scrag you.’

‘Any assistance you desire in that line,’ came another voice, ‘will be gladly offered.’

That was Lord Wot’s-’is-name. So he was in the boat, too, was he?

‘’Oo’s arst wot agine?’ murmured Ben.

‘Every time you open your eyes,’ Lord Cooling informed him, ‘you ask what is happening. This, I think, is the tenth occasion. It becomes slightly monotonous.’

Ben had no recollection of the other nine times.

‘Well, wot is ’appenin’?’ he inquired.

‘Can’t someone keep that fellow quiet?’ groaned a man at the other end of the boat. He was a film star, who concealed his modest origin under the name of Richard Ardentino. The public would not have recognised his voice at that moment. In a film of a wreck it had been very different.

‘Don’t excite him, don’t excite him!’ exclaimed another sufferer, who had never attempted to change his own modest name of Smith. ‘If you do, he’ll only upset the boat!’

The reference to excitement produced the condition. Smarting under a sense of the world’s injustice, Ben suddenly became emotional.

‘Why ain’t I ter be told nothin’?’ he cried. ‘One minit I’m on the Captin’s bridge—nex’ minit I’m on the deck—nex’ minit I’m in the sea—nex’ minit I’m ’ere! Corse, that don’t matter! It ain’t int’restin’! And if nex’ minit I find meself on top o’ the Hifle Tower, that’s orl right, I mustn’t arsk no questions, carry on!’

He had raised his head to offer this protest. Now he sank back, coming to roost—though in the dark he did not know this—in the lap of the girl. The Third Officer replied, quietly:

‘Take it easy, sonny. I expect you’ve been through worse than the rest of us, but we’re none of us having a picnic. What’s happened is that the ship has been wrecked and that we have been saved, so let’s all be grateful and leave it at that for the moment, eh? As a member of the crew, you’ll know I’ve got a job on, and that I need discipline to carry it through.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ muttered Ben. ‘Blime the bump on me ’ead.’

The boat slid down into a watery trough, took a dose, climbed to the next crest, shivered, and slid down again. Ben was forgotten.

Then passed a succession of hours that were devastating in their varying hopes and fears. If this were a saga of the sea, each hour would be described in detail. If it were a treatise on psychology, the effect on each separate nerve-centre would be analysed and ticketed. But our tale does not aspire to be a classic or a work of reference. It is merely an amazing adventure, which did not separate itself from other adventures and gain its own individuality until a night and a day and then another night had passed, until storms had been endured (one, during the second night, of special violence), until winds, tides and rain had driven the boat across countless miles of unknown ocean, and until the terrifying monotony of the hazardous voyage came to a conclusion.

It came to a conclusion just before dawn on a dark, unseen beach. Though unseen, the beach was heard, and the Third Officer’s eyes—the only eyes that had never closed—strained fruitlessly to pierce the booming blackness. ‘This is the end!’ he thought. But he did not relinquish his efforts. For thirty-six hours he had kept the boat right side up, and now he steeled himself for the stiffest test of all. He gave a few quiet orders as the boat rushed onwards. A black mass rose and missed them by a few feet. He managed to avoid another by inches. Rock scraped the boat’s bottom. The boat shivered, then lurched forward again. Ahead were more black masses, and a shouting white line. The boat raced through the line, hit something, staggered, swung round, reared and kicked. It could advance no farther, but the kick shot its human contents towards the goal it could not reach …

Ben descended in a shallow, sandy pool. ‘Now I am dead—proper this time!’ he decided, as the pool shrieked around him. Finding that he wasn’t dead, he rose with a bellow and scrambled forward. Did someone pull him along as he went, or did he pull someone along? He did not know. All he knew was that the five oceans were after him, excluding the considerable portions he had swallowed. Those were with him.

Then he tripped over something and fell flat.




4 (#ulink_de8b3d93-ee0d-530a-bf70-717c66cede9a)

What the Dawn Brought (#ulink_de8b3d93-ee0d-530a-bf70-717c66cede9a)


Ben had something of the ostrich in him. When he fell flat he remained flat, hoping that trouble would pass over him. He remained flat now.

Nothing happened. This, in a world where nine-tenths of the happenings were unpleasant, was satisfactory. A condition not to be disturbed. He stayed where he was till he forgot where he was, and drifted into a series of entirely new adventures. The only one he remembered when he returned from them to consciousness was a unique journey in a boat made entirely of cheese. This should have been agreeable, since he liked cheese and was very hungry, but every time he ate the cheese he made a hole in the boat and the sea poured in. It was the sea that woke him up. Dampness slid round his boots and along to his knees. The cheese, on the other hand, vanished, and in its place against his mouth was sand.

He turned over and sat up. Around him were vague forms, enjoying the lethargy from which he had just emerged. In the dim light of dawn he counted them. Six wet little heaps. With himself, seven. He, the seventh, was the most conspicuous but the least complete. Recent rigours had deprived him of all garments above the waist, betraying the tattooings of a regretted youth.

The heap nearest to him was Lord Cooling. His leg was only a few inches away, and the once-immaculate trouser was rucked up, revealing a sodden sock and suspender. Another heap, almost as close, was Ruth Sheringham. She, also, showed more leg than seemed to Ben respectable. He wondered whether he ought to do something about it. The other heaps were not, to him, identifiable; but we may identify them, and compare them with their normal attitudes.

One was the film star, Richard Ardentino; his normal attitude was splendidly erect, with face raised to the light. One was Henry Smith; his favourite attitude was under a suburban rose-arch (he grew the best roses in Wembley), or playing cards in the 8.59 to Broad Street. One was Ernest Medworth, whose more familiar attitude was poring over Stock Exchange figures to discover whether, scrupulously or otherwise, they could be turned to his advantage. And the last was Elsie Noyes. Her attitude was best expressed at the head of a line of girl guides …

‘Yus, but where’s the Third Orficer?’ wondered Ben suddenly.

He should have made an eighth little heap.

The absence of the Third Officer began to worry Ben even more than the absence of skirt over Ruth Sheringham’s leg. He rose slowly to his feet, and peered beyond the heaps.

He could not see much. Just a misty, creepy dimness. A grey veil that screened—what? Away to the east, beyond the wicked breakers and across the heaving sea, faint light began to illuminate the horizon, but here the grey veil still reigned supreme, concealing all but the nearest objects.

‘It’s narsty,’ thought Ben.

Nevertheless, he stole forward, slowly and uneagerly, stepping carefully among the mounds and envying them their immobility. He had been much happier before he had ceased to be a mound himself. But somewhere through that grey veil, Ben decided, was the Third Officer, and if he’d got into trouble—well, somebody would have to find him, wouldn’t they?

As he advanced, turning his back upon the shore, the dimness became more creepy. It seemed to be full of ghostly slits, and he did not know whether the darkness in front of him were cliff, wall, or forest. Something ran over his foot. By insisting it was a crab he just saved himself from screaming. But even crabs weren’t nice. Some of these Pacific blighters had claws that …

‘Wozzat?’ gulped Ben.

He leapt, and then stood stock still, while another panic passed. The new oppression had seemed like a figure. Not the Third Officer’s figure. A figure twice as tall, if not three times; standing motionless. But where was it now? A figure that size couldn’t come and go without a sound! The only sound Ben heard was the thumping of his heart.

‘I better git back,’ thought Ben unsteadily. ‘Yer wants two at this job!’

He turned. The sensation that the giant was now behind him caused him to take a header over a large stone. He dived into two arms. They were the arms of the Third Officer.

‘Lumme!’ gasped Ben.

‘Can’t you stand?’ asked the Third Officer, trying to make him erect.

‘My knees is funny,’ explained Ben.

‘All of you’s funny,’ replied the Third Officer.

‘Well, yer give me a shock!’

‘The shock was mutual.’

‘Oo’s wot?’

‘Never mind. Where are you going?’

‘I ain’t, I’m comin’ back.’

‘Where were you going, then?’

‘Ter look fer you, like.’

‘Very nice of you,’ smiled the Third Officer. ‘Well, now you’ve found me like. Did you find anything else?’

‘Yus,’ answered Ben, with unpleasant recollection.

‘What?’

‘Bloke twen’y foot ’igh.’

‘What are you talking about?’ came the sharp demand.

‘Bloke twen’y foot ’igh,’ replied Ben. Then he added, ‘Mindjer, I ain’t sure wot I seed ’im, but if I seed ’im, that’s wot ’e was.’

The Third Officer frowned, then regarded Ben searchingly.

‘Anything left in the bottle, sonny?’ he inquired.

‘If I ’ad a bottle, there wouldn’t be,’ said Ben.

‘Where did you see this Gargantuan creature?’

‘Oo?’

‘Where did you see this giant?’

‘Be’ind me. ’Ave a look. I’ve ’ad mine, and one’s enuff.’

‘Most kind!’ murmured the Third Officer, and stared over Ben’s shoulder.

Then, Ben gazing east and the Third Officer gazing west, each man saw an interesting sight.

Ben saw the sun rise. It slipped into view over the rim of the world, at first the tiniest curve of gold, then a gradually developing disc. The sea threw off its shroud and woke up. It became a madly dancing expanse of water, with a wide, shimmering path stretching from horizon to shore.

The Third Officer saw what the sun rose on. He saw a forest awaken. He saw the tops of great trees catching the first upward rays. He saw the amber light flow down. He saw Ben’s giant …

‘Wozzer matter?’ jerked Ben suddenly.

The Third Officer did not reply immediately. Then he said:

‘Turn round and see—but take it quietly.’

It has been mentioned that Ben had an instinct for interpreting tones. He knew by the Third Officer’s tone that when he turned he was going to witness a peculiarly unpleasant sight, and for this very sound reason he did not turn immediately. But at last the operation could no longer be postponed with credit to the Merchant Service, and he twisted his neck round, though not his body and his legs. You need those to run with.

The sight that met his anxious eyes was definitely unpleasant. It was, in fact, the giant. Ben had over-estimated the giant’s height, which was nearer ten feet than twenty; even so, it was sufficiently above the average to be impressive. There were, however, other features more disturbing still. The giant’s staring eyes had large white rings painted round them. His great mouth extended almost from ear to ear in a humourless grin. His nose had three nostrils. Ben counted them several times, very rapidly, and there was no mistake about it; he wondered, even in the grip of terror, whether they all functioned.

The one satisfactory thing about the giant was his perfect immobility. He was standing on a pedestal, carved in rock.

‘Coo!’ muttered Ben.

‘In the language of Shakespeare,’ answered the Third Officer, ‘you have said it.’

Then Ben made another discovery. The giant was merely one member of a little family party. The other members—there were four in all, but there surely should have been five, since a fifth pedestal was empty—were of varying sizes. They were all equal in ugliness, however, and they were all staring unblinkingly towards the rising sun, standing out with uncanny brilliance against their background of dense foliage. The points that stood out most brilliantly were the staring optics themselves. They were not of rock. They were gold.

Ben did the only obvious thing. He shut his own eyes very tight, counted ten, and then opened them again. The family party was still there.

‘Yes, I tried that,’ murmured the Third Officer. ‘It doesn’t work.’

‘Lumme!’ whispered Ben. ‘’Ave they come dahn ter ’ave a bathe?’

A voice behind him made him start.

‘Excuse me,’ said the voice, ‘but do you both see what I see?’

A sadly shrunken Lord Cooling stood behind them.

‘We do,’ replied the Third Officer, ‘and we are just discussing theories. My friend here suggests that they have appeared for their morning dip.’

‘Well, tastes vary,’ commented Lord Cooling. ‘Personally, I have lost my enthusiasm for the water. What is the alternative theory?’

‘Fairly obvious, I think,’ said the Third Officer.

‘Yus, Guy Forks fact’ry,’ suggested Ben.

‘These flashes of rare intelligence are a little overpowering,’ observed Lord Cooling, attempting to preserve his dignity by screwing in his monocle. He had saved his monocle, though he had lost nearly all else. ‘May I have your own thought, Mr Haines?’

‘Well, sir—the island’s inhabited,’ answered Haines.

‘Ah! And would you call that an advantage, now—or not?’

‘It does rather depend, sir, on the inhabitants.’

‘Exactly. But are you sure? These examples of art may belong to a pre-Epstein Age? For instance, I understand they exist on Easter Island, which is no longer cannibalistic?’

‘’Ere! Wot’s that?’ jerked Ben.

Haines threw Lord Cooling a warning glance.

‘I haven’t suggested that these inhabitants are cannibalistic,’ he said.

‘I will accept that, with a private reservation,’ smiled Lord Cooling. ‘Perhaps my mind moves rather fast, but I agree that, in any case, one must fit one’s words to one’s company.’

‘Just as well, sir,’ nodded Haines. ‘All the company isn’t present, either.’

‘True, Mr Haines. While I was trying hard not to wake up a few minutes ago, I thought I missed your own company?’

‘I dare say, sir.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Mouching around.’

‘Have you done any mouching in that unpleasant forest?’

‘Not yet. Our stoker is the real pioneer—though he returned from his pioneering rather hurriedly. I was trying to find bits of the boat.’

‘Any luck?’

Haines shook his head gravely.

‘The bits I did find were quite useless. It’s the provisions we want.’

‘Very true. We may not quite appreciate the—er—native fare. Which brings us back to the natives. You’ve not seen any, of course?’

‘No.’

‘Then let us assume the race is extinct.’

‘We can’t, sir. I came upon a footprint or two—and that’s why I’m not too keen on those things!’ He jerked his head towards the statues. ‘Still, we’ll get through this all right. I—I hope, sir, I can count on you for optimism?’

‘I am a company promoter, Mr Haines,’ replied Lord Cooling. ‘You can count on my optimism implicitly.’

But Haines had suddenly ceased to listen. His eyes gazed beyond Lord Cooling towards the beach. The other little heaps were stirring, and the heap he was most interested in had risen and was coming towards them.

As Ruth Sheringham approached, her sodden blue dress clinging to her pathetically but in no way, Haines considered, detracting from her charm, her lithe body stiffened, and she stopped. But she only paused for a few seconds. She came on again without any visible signs of panic.

‘Well done, Miss Sheringham,’ said Haines.

‘Did you think I was the fainting kind?’ she retorted. ‘Aren’t they pretty?’

‘Go on!’ muttered Ben in astonishment.

Lord Cooling regarded Ben with growing disapproval.

‘Historians of the future may deduce that Miss Sheringham did not quite mean what she said,’ he suggested with frigid sarcasm, ‘and they may also record that a stoker who talked too much was presented as a peace offering to a cannibal chief!’

‘Well, ain’t you torkin’ too much?’ retorted Ben, with a boldness he would never have shown on the ship. ‘We sed we was goin’ ter keep mum abart them cannerbuls!’

‘Cannibals?’ repeated Ruth.

‘Will you shut up?’ Haines exclaimed to Ben.

‘Well, why does heverybody sit on me?’ answered Ben. ‘I was born sat on, and I’m fair sick of it, that’s a fack!’

Lord Cooling sighed.

‘If you will give me your name and permanent address,’ he said, ‘I will write you a letter of apology and post it in the nearest pillar-box. Meanwhile, here come the others. It appears to be a tortoise race—with, I notice, our film star an easy winner. Well, perhaps their voices will be a little more useful than our own—’

He stopped abruptly, gazed at something on the ground, stooped, and picked it up. It was a small white object.

‘What’s that?’ inquired Haines, arrested by the other’s rather ominous interest.

‘I hope a beef-bone,’ murmured Lord Cooling.

Haines stepped nearer Ruth. In spite of her tight hold on herself, she had given a little shiver.

‘Cold, isn’t it?’ she smiled. The sunlight, gaining in intensity every minute, gave her the lie. ‘In these wet things, you know.’

‘Yes, I know, Miss Sheringham,’ Haines smiled back, reassuringly. ‘And I know something else—there’s nothing whatever to be worried about.’

‘Course not,’ nodded the girl. ‘Everything’s just too lovely to believe!’

Then the four other little heaps drew up and stared at the hideous statuary. It was Elsie Noyes who, forgetful of the discipline of a girl guide captain, expressed the common emotion by exclaiming:

‘Oh, my God!’

If she forgot her part, so did Ardentino and Henry Smith, whose faces would not have been recognised in Elstree or Wembley Park. Ernest Medworth, on the other hand, soon reverted to type. He found himself staring at the golden eyes, and wondering what they were worth.

‘Someone’s been busy here!’ he commented.

‘Yes, I don’t imagine these things came up from seed,’ answered Cooling.

‘Ha, ha, very funny!’ laughed Smith, uneasily. ‘That’s good, that is! They’re not exactly roses!’

He laughed alone. The fact depressed and annoyed him. Dash it all, did they think he felt like laughing? But one had to try to put a cheerful face on things—one had to be British, and all that. Pity there weren’t a few of his train companions here to help keep the old flag flying.

He tried again. ‘Well, you’ve got to say it’s pretty here,’ he remarked. ‘Take away the waxworks, and it’s a bit like Rottingdean before they spoilt it.’

‘Don’t make us home-sick, Mr Smith,’ pleaded Lord Cooling, cynically.

‘The fellow’s an idiot!’ grunted Medworth.

Smith’s cheeks flamed. ‘What’s the matter with everybody?’ he snapped. ‘Can’t one make a passing remark?’

‘The sooner your remarks pass, the better!’ retorted Medworth, rudely. ‘This isn’t the time for reminiscences!’

‘Now, now, we mustn’t lose one’s temper, that’s the first thing one mustn’t do!’ cried Miss Noyes, quoting from her book of rules. ‘If these—these heathen gods or whatever they are mean that the place is inhabited, well, we know where we are, that’s something, and we must organise against them—organise!’

She was hardly the best tonic for frayed nerves. Smith was the only member who was grateful to her. She had at least diverted attention from himself.

‘I suppose that is what they mean?’ inquired Ardentino, glancing towards the Third Officer.

‘That this island’s inhabited?’ replied Haines. ‘Yes, there’s not much doubt about that.’

‘Well—er—we want it to be inhabited, don’t we?’

‘Depends upon the inhabitants,’ answered Medworth.

‘Yes, we only move among the best people,’ added Ruth. ‘What happens if they’re not in Debrett?’

The question was not answered. Somewhere in the forest, a twig snapped.

Personal differences were forgotten. For ten seconds eight people stood motionless. The gods themselves were not more still. Then another twig snapped.

‘I think,’ suggested Lord Cooling quietly, ‘we swallow pride—momentarily—and take cover?’

‘I don’t think—I know!’ muttered Medworth.

‘Nah fer the runnin’ race!’ said Ben.

And led it.




5 (#ulink_ad5d9338-90de-5ee8-bc8d-cd2faa0f83f0)

Behaviour of Mr Robert Oakley (#ulink_ad5d9338-90de-5ee8-bc8d-cd2faa0f83f0)


Ben led the race at the start, but he had to share honours at the end. The result was a dead heat between himself and four others, and there was considerable crowding at the large rock of concealment that formed the winning-post.

The losers were Ruth Sheringham, Tom Haines, and Lord Cooling. They had started late, and with a little diffidence. Lord Cooling, although he had been the first to suggest retreat, did not like turning his back on an enemy. Many charges would be brought against him when he met his Maker, but not that of cowardice. An ancestor of his had fought at Crecy. Haines shared his distaste for running away, and was by no means certain that it was good strategy; but the sight of Ruth, standing beside him and waiting for her cue, had made him gulp down his pride, and he had suddenly seized her arm and rushed her to the rock. Lord Cooling, bringing up the rear, had endeavoured to mingle dignity with haste until a new sound had urged him to shed the dignity. ‘After all,’ he reflected, as his feet sped faster than they had sped since Eton, ‘if one is going to run, one may as well run.’

The new sound certainly provided plenty of excuse. It was a mournful chanting.

At first the chanting was wholly eerie. It drifted forward from the forest, a depressing dirge that lacked the slightest gleam of hope. ‘Sahnds like a corpse singin’!’ thought Ben, and it was not a bad description. The slowness of the corpse’s approach added to the painful tension.

But, before the chanter appeared, the sharpest brains—not Ben’s—became conscious of a curious psychology. There was something elusive in the chanting, something vaguely at war with itself. Did it represent religious fervour, or sheer boredom, or a combination of both? The words, when at last they became decipherable, afforded no clue. They were, as far as could be determined:

‘Waa—lala,

Waa—lala,

Oli O li,

Waa—lala.’

This doleful sound was repeated, with occasional pauses, until the chanter emerged from the forest through a narrow track and came into sight.

His appearance was even more arresting than his song. He was a complete anachronism. On his head was a wreath of feathers. In his hand was a gruesome receptacle formed out of a painted skull suspended from three short chains. But, instead of the nakedness or partial nakedness that should have accompanied these primitive indications, soiled ducks encased the chanter’s rather stout body. Soiled? Let us be frank and admit that they were filthy. Even Ben’s low standard of cleanliness was startled.

Obviously British—his atmosphere of dry resignation was characteristic of his race—he appeared to have ‘gone native’ through local necessity rather than through any acquired enthusiasm for native ways. His bored expression indicated quite plainly that he was merely performing a duty forced upon him.

The duty itself carried on the strange story. Reaching the first of the effigies, the chanter stopped his chanting, took from his pocket a handkerchief that matched his ducks, dusted the effigy, and knelt before it. Then, with bowed head, he repeated:

‘Waa—lala,

Waa—lala,

Oli O li,

Waa—lala.’

Rising, he glanced back towards the forest, took out his handkerchief again, blew his nose, moved to the second effigy, and repeated the whole performance, but with a slight variation. This time the dirge ran:

‘Waa—lala,

Snowden and Bala,

Ochy Och-aye,

Waa—lala.’

This version stamped him so definitely as a Briton that Haines made a movement to leave his concealment; but Lord Cooling stretched out a detaining hand. ‘Let us hear the rest of the performance,’ he whispered. ‘One only learns a bird’s habits while it is unconscious.’ Haines nodded.

But the rest of the performance was mere repetition, adding nothing to their knowledge until the fifth pedestal was reached. The one that was empty.

Then, for the first time, the chanter’s face registered something akin to emotion. He stared at the pedestal, rubbed his eyes, stared again, and exclaimed:

‘Purple blazes!’

He stooped. His hands groped in the tangled undergrowth. They brought up the head and shoulders of a fifth statue. The fifth statue looked, even allowing for distance, the smallest of the group, and it was obviously broken.

‘Now I’m for it!’ said the chanter, as he dropped the portion back into the undergrowth. ‘Orate pro anima Oakley!’

He smiled rather sadly. He was taking the situation well. But he took the next situation even better, for when he raised his eyes and saw eight figures emerging from behind a rock, he might have been reasonably excused for leaping out of his skin. Instead, he merely stood quite still and counted them.

‘That the lot?’ he inquired politely.

The absurdity and inadequacy of the greeting delayed the response. The shipwrecked party had yet to learn the peculiar mood and temperament of Mr Robert Oakley. His next remark was even more unexpected.

‘Who won the last Cup Tie?’ he asked. ‘Dear old Arsenal?’

Then Ben became practical.

‘Look aht!’ he exclaimed. ‘’E’s looney!’

Ben’s curiosity, which often got him into difficulties, had drawn him a little ahead of the rest. He had a remarkable faculty for rapid movement, retreating in a straight line and advancing in a curve. He wondered now, as their queer host’s eyes fastened on him, whether the moment had not arrived for another straight line. The eyes gave him a very odd sensation. He had likened Oakley’s chanting to that of a corpse, although strictly speaking he had never heard a corpse sing. These eyes, also, looked somehow dead, and in their solemnity lay a defunct smile …

‘Looney?’ repeated the subject of the theory. ‘Shouldn’t wonder. I’ve no means of tellin’. It’s so long since I had anything sane to compare myself with. But quite harmless, believe me—quite harmless. Despite old Yorick!’

He swung the skull he was carrying towards Ben, and Ben retreated into the chest of Lord Cooling. Lord Cooling cleared his chest and then his throat.

‘When you have finished babbling, sir,’ he said, ‘would you mind informing us who the devil you are?’

‘I asked my question first,’ replied Oakley. ‘Did Arsenal win the Cup?’

‘What the deuce does that matter?’ rasped Cooling. ‘Do you play football here?’

‘Not matter?’ blinked Oakley incredulously. ‘Not matter? You are English, aren’t you?’

Haines and Ruth exchanged smiling glances. Terror lay behind them, and more terror lay ahead of them, but for the moment life was almost amusing.

‘Derby County,’ said Haines. ‘Jolly good match.’

‘Thank you, brother,’ answered Oakley, and then repeated, as though he were repeating the name of his sweetheart, ‘Derby County!’

Ernest Medworth swore.

‘How much more rope are we going to give this fellow?’ he demanded. ‘Enough to hang himself I don’t mind, but is this delay going to hang us?’

‘Would you like me to try to deal with him?’ suggested Smith.

‘What he needs is discipline!’ declared Miss Noyes.

‘Or a charge of gun-powder,’ proposed the film star.

‘I can tell you what you all need,’ observed Oakley unruffled. ‘Patience and calmness. It’s the only thing that gets you anywhere on this island. I’ve had three years of it, so I know. What is going to happen is going to happen, and no amount of agitation will alter it.’

‘Yus, but wot’s goin’ ter ’appen?’ asked Ben.

‘That,’ returned Oakley, waving a hand towards the statues, ‘is literally in the lap of the gods. By the way, one’s got knocked over. Did you do it, by any chance?’

‘Wot, me?’ exclaimed Ben.

‘Yes, in a fit of jealousy. Oomoo looks something like you.’

‘’Oo ’oo?’

‘Oomoo. Our little God of Storms. I rather like Oomoo. Something almost human about him. But the others—the larger ones—well, let me introduce you. Hojak.’ He waved towards the tallest. ‘He’s the God of Fire. I’ve never quite got over my distaste for the feller. Mooane. The chap with the toothache. God of Water. Kook. God of Earth. Gug. Both g’s pronounced hard, as in chewing-gum. God of Eatables. H’m.’ He paused. ‘We don’t much care for Gug. And, finally, Oomoo, who appears to have been demolished last night by one of his own storms.’

The introductions did not have a soothing effect.

‘And who are you?’ inquired Lord Cooling. ‘Not for the first time of asking?’

‘Who am I? Oh, yes. Well, I was Bob Oakley before I got washed up here three years ago. What I am now I’ve never quite found out. I think it’s a sort of Low Priest. If that sounds good, forget it. A Low Priest is an office boy to a High Priest. You must meet our High Priest—he’s a dear chap. One of my duties, as you may have noticed, is to do the Caruso stuff to the Ugly-Mugs and dust ’em on Fête Days—’

‘Fite Dyes?’ interposed Ben inquiringly.

‘Same thing,’ nodded Oakley. ‘I’m supposed to sprinkle ’em, too, with the contents of Yorick, but there’s been so much rain during the past forty-eight hours—has it been the same in London?—that I gave the wash a miss. No one was looking—apart, of course, from yourselves.’

‘No doubt about it,’ growled Medworth, ‘the fellow’s stark staring mad.’

‘That is my devout hope,’ Lord Cooling admitted. ‘I am hoping that Mr Oakley got such a bump when he arrived here three years ago that he has been suffering from delusions ever since. But in any case, Mr Medworth, we have no other source of information at present, so—with your permission—?’

‘Carry on, my lord,’ grunted Medworth. ‘You’re the spokesman.’

‘Thank you.’ Cooling turned back to Oakley. ‘You mentioned a Fête Day. Is this one?’

‘Always, after a storm,’ answered Oakley.

‘What happens on Fête Days, in addition to the—spring cleaning of the gods?’

‘We eat and thanksgive.’

‘Eat?’

‘Eat.’

‘What do you eat?’

‘Well,’ said Oakley, ‘you haven’t been thrown up on a Eustace Miles Restaurant.’

‘Ah,’ murmured Lord Cooling, dropping the little white object he had till now retained. ‘Not a beef-bone!’

As a good girl guide, Miss Noyes attempted to quell certain signs of panic.

‘Now then, my man!’ she exclaimed sharply. ‘Don’t try to frighten us with any nonsense!’

Oakley gave one of his rare faint smiles.

‘You needn’t be frightened, ma’am,’ he assured her. ‘They don’t care for Cochran Young Ladies. Prefer ’em round and Victorian. I say,’ he added suddenly, ‘are there still Cochran Young Ladies?’

Miss Noyes having failed in her mission, Haines now made an effort.

‘Mr Oakley,’ he said, ‘we are trying to bear with you, but please realise that—in your sense—we are novices. Are you really and truly serious in all you’re saying?’

‘And what about Noel Coward?’ asked Oakley. ‘Has he written anything since Private Lives? Dashed good! Oh, and is the Income Tax still five bob? That’s one thing you’ll be spared here.’

‘Damn it!’ exploded Medworth. ‘We’ve been wrecked!’

‘Well, I didn’t suppose it was a train accident. Did somebody ask me something?’

‘Yes, I asked you whether you were really and truly serious,’ repeated Haines.

‘Abart the grub,’ explained Ben, ‘’cos if yer are, I’m tikin’ the next boat ’ome!’

‘I like you, Little Tich, ’pon my soul, I do,’ said Oakley. ‘Oh, yes, quite, quite serious. I’ve come to believe this last month or two that I’m being quietly fattened.’ He held out an arm and regarded it. ‘Getting a bit too meaty for my pleasure. But they’re not bad fellers, really. Not comic opera villains, you know. Real pukka chaps. There’s one little girl …’ He stopped and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Treat ’em right, and—according to their religion—they’ll treat you right.’

‘They sound perfectly delightful!’ observed Ruth.

Oakley looked at her. He appeared to be noticing her definitely for the first time. Something crept into his eyes. Haines was quick to remark it. But he also remarked that the something was instantly quelled, and that Oakley’s eyes had resumed their protective moodiness when he replied.

‘That’s the idea,’ he nodded. ‘Just simple and primitive. Never known any different—poor blighters.’

‘Tha’s right,’ said Ben.

In the little silence that ensued, while apprehensive glances were directed toward the silent forest, Ben wondered why he had said it. He did not know that it was the dawning of an instinct destined to determine vital issues on the island and to bear astonishing fruit. Were they poor blighters? If they’d never known any different, well, there you were, weren’t you? And that little girl—she’d probably be black, like the rest—but he’d like a squint at her. He’d seen a picture of a little black girl once in a magazine. She hadn’t looked so bad. Of course, she had been black. But she’d been smiling. What did black girls smile at? Same things as white girls? Had the photographer said, ‘Now, then, when I say “Three,” watch out for the little mouse’ …

Miss Noyes’s voice, thin and precise, brought him out of his reverie.

‘But, surely,’ she was saying, ‘there have been some missionaries?’

‘What for?’ inquired Oakley. ‘To teach them about the jolly old slums?’

‘Tha’s wot I calls a good ’un!’ grinned Ben.

‘You like it?’ inquired Oakley, regarding him with interest.

Before Ben could reply, Lord Cooling froze him through his monocle.

‘We are intensely interested in what you like and what you do not like,’ he said, ‘but I think we can exist without this information!’ Then, turning to Oakley, he continued, ‘But your own information, Mr Oakley, is more important. Before I finally rid myself of the hope that you are a raving lunatic, will you kindly explain to me how it is that you can talk of—of being fattened as though you were merely discussing the weather—how you can speak of football and Cochran and Noel Coward at a moment like this—and—’

‘Yes, and why you weren’t surprised to see us!’ interrupted Smith, deeming it time for Wembley to get in a word. ‘That wasn’t natural, was it? Why, if you meet a pal in the tube, you say, “By Jove,” or something!’

‘Quite right,’ agreed Medworth.

‘There you are!’ cried Smith, warming under this approval. ‘Shall I tell you what I call it? Fishy! I believe the whole story’s spoof! Where are these cannibals? Yes, and what’s more, I believe he made these damn statues himself! Now, then, sir, no more lies—let’s have the truth, this time!’

He was not used to making speeches. He turned, flushed, to Miss Noyes. She nodded in agreement. He turned to the Third Officer.

‘I am quite sure Mr Oakley did not carve these statues,’ said Haines rather shortly.

‘And I don’t know what Mr Smith means by fishy,’ added Ruth. ‘Does he mean that Mr Oakley wasn’t surprised because he arranged the wreck and expected us?’

‘Let us confine the present charge to lunacy,’ interrupted Lord Cooling frigidly as Smith subsided, ‘and suggest that three years alone on this island have—slightly?—turned Mr Oakley’s head!’

Oakley maintained the uncanny composure that was being complained of till the voices ceased. Then he looked at Lord Cooling thoughtfully and remarked:

‘My reactions disturb you?’

‘You don’t appear to react at all,’ answered Lord Cooling.

‘I see. Well, might this explain it? For the last three years I have lived on a cannibal island where the Chief has twenty-one wives—God help him—where the High Priest drinks out of his predecessor’s skull, where twins are sacrificed, when they occur, to the new moon—fortunately, they occur less often than the new moon—where the word “Holalulala” means “Take his eyes out” and “Lungoo” means “Fried knuckles,” and where there is a Temple of Gold that would make the Bank of England’s mouth water.’

‘What’s that?’ exclaimed Medworth sharply.

‘So, after all, perhaps it is natural that my bump of surprise has got a little blunted,’ went on Oakley. ‘And you can take it from me. I have done everything in my power to assist the blunting process. If that sounds good, forget it. There are two ways of going mad. You can get raw and feel everything, or you can get numb and feel nothing. I’ve got numb. As soon as I begin to feel anything, I knock it on the head. Course, one gets caught a bit sometimes.’ He paused and glanced towards Ruth, then turned to Lord Cooling again. ‘It would give me the greatest pleasure, sir, to smash that monocle out of your blasted eye. I wouldn’t mind squashin’ the feller who called me fishy under my foot, though I’ve a notion he’d feel slimy. If I kissed that pretty girl over there—first I’ve seen of my own race for three years—I would probably recall a very pleasant sensation. But I only allow little emotions. The infants in arms. Big ’uns—taboo. So you’re safe from me, the whole damn lot of you. Note—from me. As for t’others, why worry? Think of yourselves, and then compare yourselves with the stars. Millions. Billions. Trillions. It’s just amusin’.’

One man, at least, was uninterested in the philosophy of Mr Robert Oakley.

‘Pardon me,’ said Medworth, ‘but would you mind repeating that about a Temple of Gold?’

The next moment everybody was uninterested in Mr Ernest Medworth. A faint sound was beginning to disturb the silence of the forest. The slow and distant beating of a drum.

‘The Campbells are coming, hurrah, hurrah,’ observed Oakley unemotionally. ‘Well, good luck, chaps.’

He turned to go, but Medworth seized his arm.

‘Wait a minute—where are you off to?’ he demanded. Medworth’s voice contained plenty of emotion.

‘Pity about your complexion,’ answered Oakley. ‘Try and do something about it.’

‘Shut up, you fool, and answer my question!’

‘Certainly. I’m off to report.’

‘Do you mean you’re going to tell them about—us?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean. The presence of you and the absence of Oomoo. They’re apt to be a bit over-excitable when they’re not prepared for surprises.’

Medworth let his arm go and turned to the others.

‘What do you think about it?’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you think he ought to stay?’

‘It doesn’t matter what they think about it, old chap,’ replied Oakley, as the distant drumming grew louder. ‘I’ve got to go. I’m part of the Lord Mayor’s Show. Of course—if any of you would like to come with me?’

There were no volunteers.

‘Just one final question, Mr Oakley,’ said Lord Cooling. ‘When the—er—Lord Mayor’s Show arrives, what attitude do you advise?’

‘Don’t start hitting about,’ answered Oakley. ‘Just be nice and obliging. Like me.’

Then he turned again, and a few seconds later had disappeared like an impossible dream into the forest.

‘Oi!’ muttered Ben, with a gulp. ‘Me knuckles is hitchin’!’




6 (#ulink_cabd2052-e9f6-583d-998d-b6dbd58e5e56)

The Resuscitation of a God (#ulink_cabd2052-e9f6-583d-998d-b6dbd58e5e56)


‘Well, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Lord Cooling, after a few moments of silence broken only by the distant beating of the drum. The fact that it was still distant was the sole bright spot in the situation. ‘Do we adopt Mr Oakley’s advice, and wait?’

‘I don’t see any alternative,’ answered Haines.

‘Nor do I,’ added Ruth.

‘No, not now that the fool’s gone off to tell ’em,’ muttered Smith, nervily. ‘Who let him go? We ought to have kept him, the blasted idiot!’

‘Well, I do see an alternative,’ exclaimed Ardentino. ‘At least we can put the ladies into safety!’

‘Where’s that?’ inquired Ben.

Lord Cooling smiled acidly.

‘Yes, where is your safe spot?’ he asked. ‘Find it, Mr Ardentino, and I have an idea the ladies will not be the only occupants. Yourself, for example?’

‘Are you insinuating anything?’ demanded Ardentino angrily.

‘No—suggesting,’ replied Lord Cooling. ‘I am suggesting that the only reason we don’t all climb trees is because we don’t see any with convenient branches low enough. Personally, I think this is just as well. Eight representatives of King George found by a band of naked savages at the tops of eight trees would not be the best advertisement for the Union Jack.’

Ruth gave a little shriek of laughter. Smith looked scared, and Ardentino frowned.

‘You may think this the moment for humour!’ he snapped.

‘It is certainly not the moment for panic,’ responded Cooling.

‘Who mentioned panic? Or trees, for that matter? Well, I’m going to have a look round, anyway—’

‘And I’ll join you,’ interposed Miss Noyes, with sudden efficiency. ‘You’re quite right. What we need is to organise a base. And then someone can come out from it to—to parley with them. Don’t you agree, Mr Smith?’

‘Eh? Yes! I must say that sounds sensible,’ answered Smith. ‘Now, then. Base. Let’s find one.’

He ran towards a mass of rocks, like a lost dog. The film star and the girl guide captain followed him with only a fraction less dignity. The drum was growing considerably nearer.

‘Let them go, let them go!’ grunted Medworth. ‘They’ll be caught with the rest of us, and meanwhile we’ve got something more important to talk about!’

‘And the whole day, of course, to talk about it,’ commented Lord Cooling.

‘Well, we’ve got a minute, haven’t we?… Hallo! What’s that?’

The drum had abruptly ceased. The cessation was even more unnerving than the sound.

‘I expect Oakley’s met the Lord Mayor’s Show,’ said Haines, ‘and is telling them the good news.’

‘So now is our last chance to hear yours,’ suggested Cooling, to Medworth. ‘What is this important thing we have to talk about?’

Medworth glanced towards the forest, then drew close to the others.

‘That Temple of Gold,’ he answered, in a low voice. ‘Rather—interesting, eh?’

Lord Cooling readjusted his eye-glass and stared through it fixedly.

‘This is a time for statements, not hints, Medworth,’ he said.

‘Then here’s my statement,’ replied Medworth. ‘If there’s gold on this confounded island, let’s see that we leave with a little!’

‘Why a little?’ inquired Lord Cooling. ‘Why not a lot?’

‘Your idea’s even better than mine,’ grinned Medworth.

Ruth and Haines frowned at each other. It was Ben, however, who put their thought into words.

‘Wouldn’t that be stealin’?’ he blinked.

‘Oh, shut your mouth!’ exclaimed Medworth. ‘No one’s asked your opinion!’

‘No, but yer gettin’ it, see?’ retorted Ben. ‘I bin in quod once, but it wasn’t fer stealin’, it was fer ’ittin’ a copper wot ’it me fust!’

‘Would you mind not wasting valuable time—?’ began Lord Cooling.

‘I ain’t wastin’ vallerble time, you are,’ interrupted Ben, with desperate boldness, ‘torkin’ abart carryin’ away gold pillars when they’ll be ’ere any minit! Wot’s the good o’ that? I gotter nidea better’n your’n. Put this ’ere Oomoo back, see? Tha’s where the trouble’s goin’ ter be. Yer could tell that by wot that bloke sed. Pick up the blinkin’ bits, and when they comes and finds ’e’s ’ere agine it’ll put ’em in a good ’umer. ’Ow’s that fer sense?’

He did not wait for an answer, but dashed to the vacant pedestal. As he began groping in the undergrowth, the drum sounded once more.

The minute that followed was one of the most confused—and also, as matters transpired, one of the most vital—in Ben’s bewildering experience. He was never able to sort out the details afterwards. The closeness of the drum filled him with a terror that would have sent him leaping towards the sea if he had not been on his hands and knees among the tall, coarse grasses. He did make one jump, but was unnerved by the discovery that he had the god’s head in his hands, and when he dropped the head he lost his own, and fell down flat on top of it. There he lay for a few horrible seconds, while the drumming from the forest grew nearer and nearer. He was doing the ostrich trick again, praying that trouble would pass over him. The grasses were high enough to conceal him temporarily. But as he lay, communicating his palpitations to the foliage, a new thought struck him. Struck him with such force that it brought him to his feet. There was no concealment for him here. The procession would stop at this very spot, and if he were found among the broken pieces of the god he might be held responsible for the catastrophe, and reduced to broken pieces himself. He tried to run. The panic he had striven valiantly to avoid had got him by the throat. It had also got him by the feet. They felt weighted with nightmare lead.

Vaguely he saw the figures of his companions. Four were stationary. Three were running. Whether towards him or away from him he could not say, and he certainly did not care. The drum was now shouting in his ear, and other sounds came out of the forest. Murmurs. Chanting. Tramping. He felt like a caught mouse, and waited for huge heads to peer and leer at him.

Then suddenly out of the chaos came to him his mad, insane idea. He acted upon it before he knew that he had got it. He leapt on to the vacant pedestal and, staring heavenwards, struck a godlike attitude.

The murmurs increased. The chanting rose. The tramping thudded. The drum beat with the force of a sledge-hammer. Then, all at once, every sound ceased. The world seemed to have stopped rotating.

‘Wot’s ’appenin’?’ wondered Ben, his eyes still fixed glassily on the tree-tops.

The next instant a great voice rose, a voice charged with stupendous emotion.

‘Oomoo! Oomoo! Oomoo!’

There was a sound as of an army crashing. A hundred natives fell flat on their faces before the human representation of their Little God.




7 (#ulink_36d2040a-c534-5a88-8a46-18161edbc266)

Alias Oomoo (#ulink_36d2040a-c534-5a88-8a46-18161edbc266)


The success of Ben’s ruse was not merely startling. It was terrifying. For the moment he had duped these natives and was being taken for the God of Storms. The dusky, prostrate backs glimpsed out of the corners of his motionless eyes, the strange chorus of awed murmurings that rose from the ground, and the constant repetition of the word ‘Oomoo,’ proved that. He was receiving the island’s worship! But what would happen when the moment passed? When it was discovered that he was not a god but a miserable scared-stiff mortal? When he sneezed, say—he felt the desire rising as the alarming thought occurred—or when his knees gave way and he wobbled from the pedestal?

Then the worship would be transformed to wrath! He would be seized and torn to bits, and these humble murmurings would change to howls of primitive rage! Ben pictured himself being torn to bits and, in his too lively imagination, watched his limbs being tossed high into the air.

‘Well, wot’s goin’ ter ’appen is goin’ ter ’appen,’ he thought, ‘on’y I ’opes it ’appens quick!’

In spite of the hope, he did nothing to expedite the happening, but continued earnestly to emulate a Madame Tussaud waxwork.

The moments slipped by. The murmurings continued. The dawning sneeze was wrestled with and temporarily conquered. But Ben’s limbs began to ache. His pose, not unlike that of Eros, was difficult to hold.

‘’Ow long’s this goin’ on?’ he wondered.

Then the native nearest to him rose to his feet. His head, large and perspiring and not in the least attractive, loomed up into view from a black hell. Two arms, also large, rose above the head, and two black thick lips spoke.

‘Vooloo? Vooloo, Oomoo? Vooloo?’

‘Wot the ’ell does that mean?’ thought Ben.

‘’Ad I better answer ’im, or pertend I ain’t int’rested?’

He pretended he wasn’t interested, and while the native waited for the answer that did not come, the unresponsive god noticed another figure edging quietly towards him. It was Oakley.

Now the native, evidently a man of some authority, turned his body, and waved his arms towards Ben’s companions. Four of them—Ruth, Haines, Cooling and Medworth—had not moved since the appearance of the natives, and were awaiting the end of the astonishing episode with tense curiosity. The other three, having failed in their unheroic attempt to escape, were being closely watched by half a dozen giants with spears.

‘Holalulala?’ cried the native spokesman.

Only by the upward inflexion did Ben gather that this was not a statement but a question. Hadn’t he heard the word before? Memory stirred uneasily.

‘Moose?’

He knew he hadn’t heard that one.

‘Lungoo?’

Ben remembered Lungoo. Oakley had mentioned that it meant ‘Fried knuckles.’ Was this fellow inquiring whether Ben, alias Oomoo, would like his companions’ knuckles to be fried? ‘Lumme, I can’t git away from knuckles!’ thought Ben. Then, in a sudden flash, he remembered Oakley’s interpretation of Holalulala: ‘Take his eyes out.’

‘Nah, then, I must do somethink!’ reflected Ben, hoping that gods were permitted to perspire. ‘Orl I gotter decide is, wot?’

Oakley evidently shared Ben’s opinion that something must be done. He had been quietly edging closer and closer, and now he stood only a few feet away. His lips moved softly, as though still urged by prayer, and the prayer ran:

‘Waa—lala, Make-a-sign lala,

Holdi-tongue, li,

Waa—lala.’

If this was the strangest injunction Ben had ever received, it was also the most welcome. It was, in fact, exactly what he needed, providing him with a method of postponing further the dreaded moment of discovery. Yes, of course, that was it! Make a sign! Gods didn’t speak—not, anyway, in Ben’s voice—but they did make signs, and Ben knew a lot of signs. Which one should he choose? A slow, solemn wink? One of these new-fangled continental salutes? Something in the thumb line? Or could he kill two birds with one stone by bringing his nose into it and settling a tickle?

While these alternatives were flashing through Ben’s mind, the decision was taken out of his hands by the spokesman.

‘Chehaka!’ he roared, like a despairing animal, and his great arms once more shot upwards.

Startled into activity, and misinterpreting the intention of the arms, Ben raised his own arms to ward off an expected blow. The effect was instantaneous. Instead of attacking Ben, the spokesman clasped his fingers together and bellowed seraphically:

‘Oomoo poopoo! Oomoo poopoo!’

‘I’ve pooped,’ thought Ben.

Then another silence fell, faintly broken a second later by Oakley’s low chanting again:

‘Waa—lala, Wave-your-arms lala,

Hurry O li,

Waa—lala!’

Ben waved his arms. He waved them slowly and solemnly, like a windmill in a gentle breeze. His impulse was for quicker motion, which would have been more in keeping with the beating of his heart, but the intelligence of Oakley was having an effect upon him, and he was doing his best to emulate it. Oakley’s mind working to save Ben’s skin supplied the one faint ray of hope.

The spokesman—he was, as Ben learned later, the Chief of the tribe, though not the actual ruling spirit—stared intently at the godly motions, trying to interpret them. Failing, he turned to Oakley and muttered:

‘Kwee? Kwee?’

It was the moment Oakley had played for. He realised before Ben did that immediate danger was past, and with the realisation came a totally novel sense of power. The sense would have elated another. It might have produced a feeling of drunken joy, but Oakley remained calm. He was beyond joy or misery. He accepted what came with the same passive exterior and almost the same emotion, or lack of it. All he experienced now, as he found the Chief’s inquiring eyes upon him, was a feeling of vague comfort.

The comfort was not shared by the other white folk. The three who had attempted escape were too near six sharp spears, and Ardentino was wondering whether to make a second attempt; while the four who had stood firm were perilously near the snapping point. Ruth’s fingers were gripping Haines’s sleeve, though only he of the two knew it, and Medworth was in ripe condition to shriek. Cooling, unhampered by the altruistic anxiety infused into Haines by the pressure on his sleeve, was the least mentally perturbed. He disliked pain intensely, and was ready to go to considerable lengths to avoid it, but even if his knuckles were destined to be fried, he would not lose his sense of superiority. He even smiled when he found that Oakley was looking towards him.

Medworth, on the other hand, rebelled.

‘What the hell are you staring at us for?’ shouted Medworth suddenly bursting. ‘If you think—’

Oakley raised his head sharply. Ben followed suit. The Chief’s expression grew as black as his skin. Medworth subsided. Then Oakley turned to the Chief again, made a little gesture towards Ben, and gave his interpretation of slowly-moving arms when revolved by the will of a heathen god.

‘Sula,’ said Oakley.

The Chief nodded eagerly.

‘Domo,’ went on Oakley.

The Chief nodded again.

‘Toree,’ concluded the interpreter.

The Chief nodded a third time. Then he fell on his face at the feet of Ben and muttered with reverence, ‘Hya! Hyaya, Oomoo! Hya!’ Then he leapt up again—for a large and fleshy man he had wonderful agility—swung round, and screamed to his people, ‘Oomoo poopoo! Sula! Domo! Toree!’ Then he made a sign, and two of the natives jumped to their feet and disappeared into the forest.

The rest of the natives now also rose from the ground and began softly murmuring to each other. Their voices made an eerie buzz. A pause had evidently been reached in the proceedings, and Lord Cooling, after a glance at Haines, cleared his throat and ventured an inquiry.

‘Of course, Mr Oakley,’ he said with ironic politeness, ‘all this is intensely interesting and instructive, but personally I have always objected to studying a language without a key. May we know—with all due deference to the great god Oomoo, on whose rise from the coal-dust to fame let me be the first to congratulate him—may we know what precise bearing the entertaining conversation we have just heard has upon—us?





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