Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (315 page)

He went, insisting far down the staircase that it was throwing away my only chance of looking into the future.

This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peering of hypnotised boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me to that. But I recognised Grish Chunder’s point of view and sympathised with it.

‘What a big black brute that was!’ said Charlie, when I returned to him. ‘Well, look here, I’ve just done a poem; did it instead of playing dominoes after lunch. May I read it?’

‘Let me read it to myself.’

‘Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my things sound as if the rhymes were all wrong.’

‘Read it aloud, then. You’re like the rest of em.

Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much worse than the average of his verses. He had been reading his books faithfully, but he was not pleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with Charlie.

Then we began to go through the MS. line by line, Charlie parrying every objection and correction with:

‘Yes, that may be better, but you don’t catch what I’m driving at.’

Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of poet.

There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper, and ‘What’s that?’ I said.

‘Oh, that’s not poetry at all. It’s some rot I wrote last night before I went to bed, and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it a sort of blank verse instead.

Here is Charlie’s ‘blank verse’: —

‘We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.

      Will you never let us go?

We ate bread and onions when you took towns, or ran aboard quickly when you were beaten back by the foe.

The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing songs, but we were below.

We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we were idle for we still swung to and fro.

      Will you never let us go?

The salt made the oar-handles like shark-skin; our knees were cut to the bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and our lips were cut to our gums, and you whipped us because we could not row.

      Will you never let us go?

But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water runs along the oar-blade, and though you tell the others to row after us you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up the winds in the belly of the sail. Aho!

      Will you never let us go?’

‘H’m. What’s oar-thresh, Charlie?’

‘The water washed up by the oars. That’s the sort of song they might sing in the galley y’ know. Aren’t you ever going to finish that story and give me some of the profits?’

‘It depends on yourself. If you had only told me more about your hero in the first instance it might have been finished by now. You’re so hazy in your notions.’

‘I only want to give you the general notion of it — the knocking about from place to place and the fighting and all that. Can’t you fill in the rest yourself? Make the hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and marry her or do something.’

‘You’re a really helpful collaborator. I suppose the hero went through some few adventures before he married.’

‘Well then, make him a very artful card — a low sort of man — a sort of political man who went about making treaties and breaking them — a black-haired chap who hid behind the Mast when the fighting began.’

‘But you said the other day that he was redhaired.’

‘I couldn’t have. Make him black-haired of course. You’ve no imagination.’

Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles upon which the half-memory falsely called imagination is based, I felt entitled to laugh, but forbore for the sake of the tale.

‘You’re right. You’re the man with imagination. A black-haired chap in a decked ship,’ I said.

‘No, an open ship — like a big boat.’

This was maddening.

‘Your ship has been built and designed, closed and decked in; you said so yourself,’ I protested.

‘No, no, not that ship. That was open or half-decked because — By Jove, you’re right. You made me think of the hero as a red-haired chap. Of course if he were red, the ship would be an open one with painted sails.’

Surely, I thought, he would remember now that he had served in two galleys at least — in a three-decked Greek one under the black-haired ‘political man,’ and again in a Viking’s open sea-serpent under the man ‘red as a red bear’ who went to Markland. The devil prompted me to speak.

‘Why, “of course,” Charlie?’ said I.

‘I don’t know. Are you making fun of me?’

The current was broken for the time being. I took up a note-book and pretended to make many entries in it.

‘It’s a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap like yourself,’ I said, after a pause. ‘The way that you’ve brought out the character of the hero is simply wonderful.’

‘Do you think so?’ he answered, with a pleased flush. ‘I often tell myself that there’s more in me than my mo — than people think.’

‘There’s an enormous amount in you.’

‘Then, won’t you let me send an essay on The Ways of Bank-Clerks to Tit-Bits, and get the guinea prize?’

‘That wasn’t exactly what I meant, old fellow perhaps it would be better to wait a little and go ahead with the galley-story.’

‘Ah, but I sha’n’t get the credit of that. Tit-Bits would publish my name and address if I win. What are you grinning at? They would.’

‘I know it. Suppose you go for a walk. I want to look through my notes about our story.’

Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little hurt and put back, might for aught he or I knew have been one of the crew of the Argo — had been certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. Therefore he was deeply interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what Grish Chunder had said I laughed aloud. The Lords of Life and Death would never allow Charlie Mears to speak with full knowledge of his pasts, and I must even piece out what he had told me with my own poor inventions while Charlie wrote of the ways of bank-clerks.

I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and the net result was not cheering. I read them a second time. There was nothing that might not have been compiled at second-hand from other people’s books — except, perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbour. The adventures of a Viking had been written many times before; the history of a Greek galley-slave was no new thing, and though I wrote both, who could challenge or confirm the accuracy of my details? I might as well tell a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of Life and Death were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow nothing to escape that might trouble or make easy the minds of men. Though I was convinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltation followed reaction, not once, but twenty times in the next few weeks. My moods varied with the March sunlight and flying clouds. By night or in the beauty of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet windy afternoons, I saw that the tale might indeed be written, but would be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work in the end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways — though it was no fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize competitions, and I saw less and less of him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and grew ripe to spring, and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not care to read or talk of what he had read, and there was a new ring of self-assertion in his voice. I hardly cared to remind him of the galley when we met; but Charlie alluded to it on every occasion, always as a story from which money was to be made.

‘I think I deserve twenty-five per cent, don’t I, at least?’ he said, with beautiful frankness. ‘I supplied all the ideas, didn’t I?’

This greediness for silver was a new side in his nature. I assumed that it had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up the curious nasal drawl of the underbred City man.

‘When the thing’s done we’ll talk about it. I can’t make anything of it at present. Red-haired or black-haired heroes are equally difficult.’

He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. ‘I can’t understand what you find so difficult. It’s all as clear as mud to me,’ he replied. A jet of gas puffed out between the bars, took light, and whistled softly. ‘Suppose we take the red-haired hero’s adventures first, from the time that he came south to my galley and captured it and sailed to the Beaches.’

I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was out of reach of pen and paper, and dared not move to get them lest I should break the current. The gas jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley to Furdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seen under the curve of the one sail evening after evening when the galley’s beak was notched into the centre of the sinking disc, and ‘we sailed by that for we had no other guide,’ quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three men whom they found asleep under the pines. Their ghosts, Charlie said, followed the galley, swimming and choking in the water, and the crew cast lots and threw one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to the strange gods whom they had offended. Then they ate sea-weed when their provisions failed, and their legs swelled, and their leader, the red-haired man, killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a year spent among the woods they set sail for their own country, and a wind that never failed carried them back so safely that they all slept at night. This, and much more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low that I could not catch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He spoke of their leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his God; for it was he who cheered them and slew them impartially as he thought best for their needs; and it was he who steered them for three days among floating ice, each floe crowded with strange beasts that ‘tried to sail with us,’ said Charlie, ‘and we beat them back with the handles of the oars.’

The gas jet went out, a burnt coal gave way, and the fire settled with a tiny crash to the bottom of the grate. Charlie ceased speaking, and I said no word.

‘By Jove!’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘I’ve been staring at the fire till I’m dizzy. What was I going to say?’

‘Something about the galley-book.’

‘I remember now. It’s twenty-five per cent of the profits, isn’t it?’

‘It’s anything you like when I’ve done the tale.’

‘I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. I’ve — I’ve an appointment.’ And he left me.

Had not my eyes been held I might have known that that broken muttering over the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the prelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the Lords of Life and Death!

When next Charlie came to me I received him with rapture. He was nervous and embarrassed, but his eyes were very full of light, and his lips a little parted.

‘I’ve done a poem,’ he said; and then, quicklv: ‘It’s the best I’ve ever done. Read it.’ He thrust it into my hand and retreated to the window.

I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an hour to criticise — that is to say, praise — the poem sufficiently to please Charlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his favourite centipede metres had launched into shorter and choppier verse, and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is what I read:

‘The day is most fair, the cheery wind

    Halloos behind the hill.

Where he bends the wood as seemeth good.

    And the sapling to his will

Riot, O wind; there is that in my blood

    That would not have thee still!

‘She gave me herself, O Earth, O Sky;

    Gray sea, she is mine alone!

Let the sullen boulders hear my cry.

    And rejoice tho’ they be but stone!

‘Mine! I have won her, O good brown earth.

    Make merry! ‘Tis hard on Spring;

Make merry; my love is doubly worth

    All worship your fields can bring!

Let the hind that tills you feel my mirth

    At the early harrowing!’

‘Yes, it’s the early harrowing, past a doubt,’ I said, with a dread at my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not answer.

‘Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad;

    I am victor. Greet me, O Sun.

Dominant master and absolute lord

    Over the soul of one!’

‘Well?’ said Charlie, looking over my shoulder.

I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid a photograph on the paper — the photograph of a girl with a curly head and a foolish slack mouth.

‘Isn’t it — isn’t it wonderful?’ he whispered, pink to the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. ‘I didn’t know; I didn’t think — it came like a thunderclap.’

‘Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?’

‘My God — she — she loves me!’ He sat down repeating the last words to himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders already bowed by desk-work,’ and wondered when, where, and how he had loved in his past lives.

‘What will your mother say?’ I asked cheerfully.

‘I don’t care a damn what she says!’

At twenty the things for which one does not care a damn should, properly, be many, but one must not include mothers in the list. I told him this gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have described to the newly-named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve. Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist’s assistant with a weakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times already that She had never been kissed by a man before.

Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated from him by thousands of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now I understood why the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully behind us. It is that we may not remember our first and most beautiful wooings. Were this not so, our world would be without inhabitants in a hundred years.