The Narrow Corner (8 page)

“Its ways are always said to be inscrutable.”

“Don’t I know it? Brought up a Baptist, I was. ‘Not a sparrow shall fall—’ you know ’ow it goes. I seen it come true over and over again. And then after I’d been waitin’ there a bit, a good ’alf hour, a car come along and stops just by me. ‘Jump in,’ says Ryan, and off we go. The roads are terrible bad round Sydney and we was bumpin’ up and down like a cork in the water. Pretty fast he drove.

“ ‘What about stores and all that?’ I says to Ryan.

“ ‘It’s all on board,’ ’e says. ‘You got enough to last you three months.’

“I didn’t know where ’e was goin’. Dark night and I couldn’t see a thing; it must ’ave been gettin’ on for midnight.

“ ‘Here we are,’ ’e says, and stops. ‘Get out.’

“I got out and ’e got out after me. He turns off ’is
lights. I knew we was pretty near the sea, but I couldn’t see a yard in front of me. He ’ad an electric torch.

“ ‘You follow me,’ ’e says, ‘an’ look where you’re goin’.’

“We walked a bit. A sort of pathway there was. I’m pretty nimble on me feet, but I nearly come arse over tip two or three times. ‘Nice thing if I break my bloody leg goin’ down’ ere,’ I says to meself. I wasn’t ’alf sorry when we come to the bottom and I felt the beach under me feet. You could see the water, but you couldn’t see nothin’ else. Ryan gave a whistle. Someone on the water shouted, but low, if you know what I mean, and Ryan flashed his torch to show where we was. Then I ’eard oars splashin’ and in a minute or two a couple of blackfellows rowed up in the dinghy. Ryan and me, we got in, and they pushed off. If I’d ’ad twenty quid on me I wouldn’t ’ave given much for my chances of ever seein’ Australia no more. Australia felix, by gum. We rowed for about ten minutes, I should say, and then we come alongside the ketch.

“ ‘What d’you think of ’er?’ asks Ryan, when we got on board.

“ ‘Can’t see much,’ says I. ‘Tell you more in the morning.’

“ ‘In the morning you got to be well out to sea,’ says Ryan.

“ ‘When’s this poor invalid boy comin’?’ says I.

“ ‘Pretty soon now,’ says Ryan. ‘You go down into the cabin and light the lamp and ’ave a look round. We’ll ’ave a bottle of beer. Here’s a box of matches.’

“ ‘Suits me,’ I says, and down I goes.

“I couldn’t see much, but I knew the way about by instinct. And I didn’t go down so quick I couldn’t ’ave a look behind me. I twigged he was up to somethin’. I see ’im give three or four flashes with the torch. “Ullo,’ I says to meself, ‘someone’s watchin’,’ but if it was ashore or on sea, I couldn’t say. Then Ryan comes down and I ’ad a look round. He fished out a bottle of beer for ’isself and a bottle of beer for me.

“ ‘The moon’ll be gettin’ up soon,’ he says. ‘There’s a nice little breeze.’

“ ‘Startin’ right away, are we?’ I says.

“ ‘Sooner the better, after the boy’s come on board, and just keep goin’, see?’

“ ‘Look ’ere, Ryan,’ I says, ‘I ain’t got so much as a safety razor with me.’

“ ‘Grow a beard then, Bill,’ he answers. ‘The orders is, no landin’ anywhere till you get to New Guinea. If you want to go ashore at Merauke, you can.’

“ ‘Dutch, ain’t it?’ He nods. ‘Look here, Ryan,’ I says. ‘You know I wasn’t born yesterday. I can’t ’elp thinkin’, can I? What’s the good, why don’t you come out with it straight and tell me what it’s all about?’

“ ‘Bill, old boy,’ ’e says very friendly like, ‘you drink
your beer and don’t you ask no questions. I know I can’t ’elp you thinkin’, but you just believe what you’re told or I swear to God I’ll gouge your bloody eyes out meself.’

“ ‘Well, that’s straight enough,’ says I, laughing.

“ ‘Here’s luck,’ says ’e.

“He took a swig of beer and so did I.

“ ‘Plenty of it?’ I asked.

“ ‘Enough to last you. I know you’re not a soaker. I wouldn’t ’ave given you the job if I ’adn’t known that.’

“ ‘No,’ I says, ‘I like me little drop of beer, but I know when I’ve ’ad enough. What about the money?’

“ ‘I got it ’ere,’ ’e says. ‘I’ll give it you before I get off.’

“Well, we sat talkin’ of one thing and another. I ask ’im what crew there was and a lot like that, and he ask me if I’d ’ave a job gettin’ out at night and I says, no, I could sail the boat with me eyes shut, and then suddenly I ’eard something. I got sharp ears, I ’ave, and there ain’t much goin’ on that I miss that way.

“ ‘There’s a boat comin’,’ I says.

“ ‘And about time, too,’ ’e says. ‘I got to get back to my missus and the kids to-night.’

“ ‘Better go on deck, ’adn’t we?’ I says.

“ ‘No necessity at all,’ ’e says.

“ ‘All right,’ I says.

“We just sat there listenin’. Sounded like a dinghy. She come up and give a bump on the side. Then someone
come on board. He come down the companion. All dressed up he was, blue serge suit, collar and tie, brown shoes. Not like what ’e is now.

“ ‘This is Fred,’ says Ryan, givin’ me a look.

“ ‘Fred Blake,’ says the young fellow.

“ ‘This is Captain Nichols. First-rate seaman. He’s all right.’

“The kid give me a look and I give ’im one. He didn’t look exactly what you’d call delicate, I must say, picture of ’ealth, I’d ’ave said. Bit jumpy. If you’d asked me I’d ’ave said he was scared.

“ ‘Bad luck your crockin’ up like this,’ I says, very affable like. ‘The sea air’ll pull you together, believe me. Nothin’ like a cruise to build up a young fellow’s constitution.’

“I never see anyone go so red as ’e done when I said that. Ryan looked at ’im an’ ’e looked at me and laughed. Then ’e says ’e’d tip over the dibs and be gettin’ off. He ’ad it in his belt and ’e took it off and paid it over to me, two ’undred golden sovereigns. I ’adn’t seen gold in donkey’s years. Only the banks ’ad it. Seemed to me that whoever it was wanted to get this ’ere boy out of the way, ’e must be pretty high up.

“ ‘Throw in the belt, Ryan,’ I says. ‘I can’t leave a lot of money like that lyin’ about.’

“ ‘All right,’ says ’e, ‘take the belt. Well, good luck.’ And before I could say a word he was out of the cabin
and ’e’d popped over the side and the boat was movin’ away. They wasn’t takin’ no chances of my seein’ who was in it.”

“And what happened then?”

“Well, I put the money back in the belt and strapped it round me.”

“Devil of a weight, isn’t it?”

“When we come to Merauke we bought a couple of boxes and I’ve hid mine away so as nobody knows where it is. But if things go on like they are, I’ll be able to carry all what’s left without so much as feelin’ it.”

“What d’you mean by that?”

“Well, we sailed all the way up the coast, inside the Bank, of course, fine weather and all that, nice breeze, and I said to the kid: ‘What about a game of cribbage?’ Had to pass the time somehow, you know, and I knew ’e’d got a good bit of money. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t ’ave some of it. I’ve played cribbage all me life, and I thought I got a soft thing on. I believe the devil’s in them cards. D’you know, I ’aven’t ’ad a winnin’ day since we left Sydney. I’ve lost a matter of seventy pounds, I ’ave. And it’s not as if ’e could play. It’s the devil’s own luck he’s got.”

“Perhaps he plays better than you think.”

“Don’t you believe it. What I don’t know about cribbage ain’t worth knowin’. D’you think I’d ’ave took him on if I ’adn’t known that? No, it’s luck, and
luck can’t go on for ever. It’s bound to change and then I’ll get back all I’ve lost and all he’s got besides. It’s aggravatin’, of course, but I ain’t worryin’.”

“Has he told you anything about himself?”

“Not a thing. But I’ve put two and two together and I got a pretty shrewd idea what’s at the bottom of it.”

“Oh?”

“There’s politics at the bottom of it or I’ll eat my ’at. If there ’adn’t been Ryan wouldn’t ’ave been mixed up in it. The Government’s pretty rocky in New South Wales. They’re ’angin’ on by their teeth. If there was a scandal they’d go out to-morrow. There’ll ’ave to be an election soon, anyway. They think they’ll get in again, but my belief is it’s a toss-up and I guess they know they can’t take a risk. I shouldn’t be surprised if Fred wasn’t the son of somebody pretty important.”

“Premier, or somebody like that, you mean? Is there one of the Ministers called Blake?”

“Blake’s no more ’is name than it is mine. It’s one of the Ministers all right, and Fred’s ’is son or ’is nephew; and whatever it is, if it come out, he’d lose ’is seat, and my opinion is they all thought it better Fred should be out of the way for a few months.”

“And what d’you think it is he did?”

“Murder, if you ask me.”

“He’s only a kid.”

“Old enough to ’ang.”

“H
ULLOA
, what’s that?” said the skipper. “There’s a boat comin’.”

His hearing was indeed acute, for Dr. Saunders heard nothing. The captain peered into the darkness. He put his hand on the doctor’s arm and getting up noiselessly, slipped down into the cabin. In a moment he came up again and the doctor saw that he carried a revolver.

“No ’arm bein’ on the safe side,” he said.

Now the doctor discerned the faint grating of oars turning in rusty rowlocks.

“It’s the schooner’s dinghy,” he said.

“I know it is. But I don’t know what they want. Pretty late to pay a social call.”

The two men waited in silence and listened to the approaching sound. Presently, they not only heard the splash of the water, but saw the vague outline of the boat, a little black mass against the black sea.

“Hullo there,” cried Nichols suddenly. “Boat ahoy.”

“That you, Captain?” a voice travelled over the water.

“Yes, it’s me. What d’you want?”

He stood at the gunwale, the revolver in his hand,
hanging from the end of his loose arm. The Australian rowed on.

“Wait till I come on board,” he said.

“Pretty late, ain’t it?” cried Nichols.

The Australian told the man who was rowing to stop.

“Wake up the doctor, will you? I don’t half like the look of my Jap. Seems to me he’s sinking.”

“The doctor’s ’ere. Come to the side.”

The dinghy came on and Captain Nichols, leaning over, saw that the Australian was alone with a blackfellow.

“D’you want me to come over?” asked Dr. Saunders.

“Sorry to trouble you, doc, but I think he’s pretty bad.”

“I’ll come. Wait till I get my things.”

He stumbled down the companion and picked up a satchel in which he had what was necessary for emergencies. He climbed over the side and let himself down into the dinghy. The blackfellow rowed off quickly.

“You know what it is,” said the Australian, “you can’t get a diver for the asking, not a Jap, and they’re the only ones worth having. There isn’t one in the Arus out of a job now, and if I lose this chap it’s going to queer my pitch good and proper. I mean, I shall have to go all the way to Yokohama, and then the chances
are I shall have to hang around for a month before I get what I want.”

The diver was lying on one of the lower bunks in the crew’s quarters. The air was fetid and the heat fearful. Two blackfellows were asleep and one of them, lying on his back, breathed stertorously. A third, sitting on his haunches on the floor by the sick man’s side, was staring at him with eyes that had no meaning. A hurricane lamp hanging from a beam gave a dim light. The diver was in a state of collapse. He was conscious, but when the doctor went up to him there was no change in the expression of the coal-black Oriental eyes. One might have thought that they gazed already at Eternity and could not be distracted by a transitory object. Dr. Saunders felt his pulse and put his hand on the clammy forehead. He gave him a hypodermic injection. He stood by the side of the bunk and looked reflectively at the recumbent form.

“Let’s go up and get a little air,” he said presently. “Tell this man to come and tell us if there’s any change.”

“Is he for it?” asked the Australian, when they got on deck.

“Looks like it.”

“God, I do have bad luck.”

The doctor chuckled. The Australian asked him to sit down. The night was as still as death. In the calm
water the stars from their vast distances looked at themselves. The two men were silent. Some say that if you believe a thing with sufficient force it becomes true. For that Jap, lying there, dying there, painlessly, it was not the end, but the turning over of a page; he knew, as certainly as he knew that the sun in a few hours would rise, that he was but slipping from one life to another. Karma, the deeds of this as of all the other lives he had passed, would be somehow continued; and perhaps, in his exhaustion, the only emotion that remained to him was curiosity, anxious it might be or amused, to know in what condition he would be reborn. Dr. Saunders dozed off. He was awakened by a blackman’s hand on his shoulder.

“Come quick.”

The dawn was breaking. It was not yet day, but the light of the stars had dwindled and the sky was ghostly. He went below. The diver was sinking fast. His eyes were open still, but his pulse was imperceptible and his body had the coldness of death. Suddenly there was a little rattle, not loud, but deprecating and conciliatory, like the manners of the Japanese, and he was dead. The two sleepers had wakened and one sat on the edge of his bunk, his black naked legs dangling, while the other, as though he wanted to shut away from him what was happening so close, sat crouched on the floor with his back to the dying man, and held his head in his hands.

When the doctor went back on deck, and told the captain, he shrugged his shoulders.

“No physique, these Japs,” he said.

Dawn now was stealing over the water, and the first rays of the sun touched its stillness with cool and delicate colours.

“Well, I’ll be getting back to the
Fenton
,” said the doctor. “I know the captain wants to sail soon after it’s light.”

“You’d better have some breakfast before you go. You must be pretty peckish.”

“Well, I could do with a cup of tea.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ve got some eggs, I was keeping them for the Jap, but he won’t want ’em now, let’s have some bacon and eggs.”

He shouted for the cook.

“I just fancy a plate of bacon and eggs,” he said, rubbing his hands. “They ought to be pretty fresh still.”