Riverslake Read online

  “H’ya,” he greeted them.

  “H’ya, Slim.”

  “Today you not drink, Slim?” Novikowsky inquired, his eyes twinkling. “You not drink, Kerry not drink, me not drink. What’s up?”

  “Don’t want it, Johnny,” Charlesworth said casually.

  “Stefan,” the Pole corrected him gently.

  “Johnny” was the name given to all the foreigners in the kitchen, indiscriminately, just as all Chinese seem to be called Charlie. They accepted it, generally, as one of the petty annoyances that went with their truncated freedom in this new country. Until they came out of their two-year contracts they were not individuals. Whether they were Poles or Czechs or Ukrainians they were all Balts—all Johnnies. They seemed to realize it, and seldom bucked. But Novikowsky was bucking now.

  “Stefan,” he repeated softly, still with a slightly crooked smile that was not all reproof yet not all placatory. “Not Johnny. You know my name, Slim.”

  “I forgot, Stefan.” Charlesworth flushed and shrugged uncomfortably. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “By cripes, you should’a been out at Fairbairn when I was there,” Paramor said. He laughed, slapping his thick thigh. He was a thick, hot, quick-tempered larrikin, with only one thought, and yet he was likeable—everyone in the kitchen was his friend, and the Balts liked him to a man. “We used to call all the Balts in the kitchen Johnny, like here, and they didn’t like it. They got their heads together and started to call all the cooks Jimmy.” He laughed again. “We soon put a stop to it, though.”

  “How?” Charlesworth demanded.

  “Told ’em not to, and when they kept it up, slapped ’em down!” Charlesworth glanced quickly at Novikowsky. A shadow passed over the Pole’s lean, dark face.

  “They came back at us,” Paramor went on, oblivious of the scowling Novikowsky. “Every time any one called out, ‘Johnny!’ every damned kitchenman around the place came running, the whole lot of them. I played cunning—I decided to find out their names, not that it did me much good.”

  “Why?”

  “Four out of six of the beggars was called Peter,” Paramor said, with a grin. “I was right back where I started from.”

  Charlesworth looked quickly out of the corner of his eye at Novikowsky. The Pole’s face, only a moment ago strained and almost menacing, was relaxed. The jetty brown eyes beneath their thick black brows held their customary twinkle. There was something catlike in his look and in the easy slope of his shoulders, and in the indolent swing of his fine hands between his legs. He was playing with Paramor—not as a cat plays with a mouse, but with Paramor’s mind.

  Although Randolph would immediately have recognized it, and would have cursed underneath his breath for shame that Paramor, even so small and insensate a piece of Australia, should be ridiculed, Charlesworth did not see beyond the fact that what he had expected to turn into an argument of some sort had by some miracle been averted. He breathed more easily, and sank on his haunches beside Paramor.

  “Para,” Novikowsky asked casually, “what is Balt, what you think?”

  “A Balt?” Paramor echoed. “You’re a Balt.”

  “I am not,” Novikowsky asserted, with simple pride. “I am Pole. Poland is not Baltic country.”

  “God almighty, what’s the difference? They’re all the same, there—Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, the whole damned caboodle. All mixed up.”

  “The same like Australia and Java,” the Pole said, with a thin smile. “Different people, different speak, different country. But the same.”

  “Oh, pigs!” Paramor took out his tobacco and began to roll himself a cigarette. The other two watched him in silence—it was impossible to tell if he were thinking of the conversation or if his mind were a million miles away. Presently he licked the cigarette and hung it in the corner of his mouth. “Well,” he announced, “here, they’re the same.” He had been thinking of what Novikowsky had said, but had not been able to get round his argument. “You got to treat ’em all the same.”

  “So,” the Pole said gently. “What is correct, then, for treat Balts?”

  “Kind but firm,” Paramor replied, with surprising readiness. “That’s what they told us when we first went into the flamin’ Islands, how to treat the kanakas.” He had seen it on innumerable routine orders, and the phrase was indelibly imprinted on his mind. Kind but firm. He repeated it, nodding his complete agreement with what he suggested. “Don’t let the bastards get on top of you, but don’t knock ’em around too much. Kind but firm.”

  “Firm?” Novikowsky raised his eyebrows, looking at Charlesworth. “Kind I know, but firm———”

  “Well,” Charlesworth volunteered hesitantly, “you know, strong, sort of.”

  “Ah!” Novikowsky transferred his gaze back to Paramor. “You say at Fairbairn, Para, you slap down some Balt man, for call you Jimmy when you call him Johnny.” His voice was still mildly inquiring, his half-smile still gently mocking. “What is this, then—is kind, or is strong?”

  “You’re having a piece of me, you bastard,” Paramor said. He looked up with a grin. There was no guile in Paramor, and no viciousness. He was perfectly typical of his kind, easy-going, ignorant, shrewd, and a man. He might have been hurt with a pick-handle, or by depriving him of his girls or his form-guide, but that his words might hurt Novikowsky, or that the Pole might have resented being classed with kanakas, would never have occurred to him.

  “A man ought to do you,” he said pleasantly, flicking a match at Novikowsky.

  At that moment Carmichael walked round the end of the mess and approached them. He stopped close to them, and his eyes ran over them swiftly as the thought ran over his mind. What a trio—wouldn’t find three men less alike in the whole camp—and yet, all good blokes.

  “Hullo, chaps,” he said easily, “sunning off?”

  “Yeah,” Paramor said. “Takin’ it easy.”

  Novikowsky rose to his feet, respectfully, followed a moment later by Charlesworth. Paramor remained seated.

  “Nice day,” the Pole volunteered. “If not wind come.”

  “Yeah, the wind cruels it,” Carmichael answered. “Still, soon be summer! Anyone seen Randolph around?” He swung his gaze round the three of them inquiringly.

  “Gone out,” Charlesworth told him. “Visiting. Why, you want to see him?” He felt vaguely uncomfortable—not that the Bastard had ever done anything to him, or even that he didn’t like him, but it didn’t do to be seen batting the breeze with one of the bosses.

  “Yes, I just wanted to———”

  Carmichael ducked involuntarily and covered his head with his arms; the other three did the same. A high, thin scream seemed to develop somewhere above them. It ripped the bowels out of the clear, cloudless sky and sprinkled the world with shattered fragments of sound that fell like invisible rain. While the four outside the kitchen crouched momentarily under the shelter of their raised arms, three black dots rocketed across the valley from horizon to horizon. They drew behind them the shuddering threads of their own hideous din and left a vacuum of soundlessness.

  “God almighty!” Charlesworth breathed softly, his eyes still dark with awe. “What’s that, in God’s name?”

  Carmichael laughed, shortly and with embarrassment. “The shape of things to come,” he said. “I forgot, there’s a demonstration on out at Fairbairn today. They were the jet-fighters.”

  “Jet-fighters!” Charlesworth breathed. “Holy cow, can they move!”

  “They don’t dawdle,” Carmichael admitted dryly, and the three Australians laughed.

  “It gives you a good feeling,” Paramor said. “If we’ve got them babies, maybe they’ll think twice about having a lash at us.”

  “Who?” Charlesworth demanded.

  “Well, Russia, it looks like.”

  “Very nice plane,” Novikowsky observed casually. “How
many Australia have, this plane?”

  “Oh, I duno—not many,” Paramor said.

  “Maybe half a dozen,” Carmichael hazarded. “No more.”

  “Very nice plane,” Novikowsky said again, casually as before. “But if Australia have six, then Russia have six thousand.” He shrugged and threw a wry glance at the Australians.

  “How d’you know?” Charlesworth demanded, almost with hostility. Another war lurked like a bogey-man behind his thoughts most of the time, and the three black dots that moved almost as fast as the sound they made had for a moment seemed like an insuperable wall against any aggressor. It dissolved into air at Novikowsky’s mention of six thousand black dots that might come against it.

  “I don’ know—I guess, maybe. But I know Russia—long time, I know Russia.”

  “You reckon it’ll be on again?” Carmichael asked, looking keenly at the Pole.

  “Pardon?”

  “You think there will be another war soon?”

  “I think so, maybe,” Novikowsky shrugged. “What else?”

  “By God, if there is, you Balts’ll be in the front line,” Paramor said grimly. “You’ll be there, Stefan!”

  “Of course,” Novikowsky said, a curious remoteness in his voice, as though, unwilling to discuss the matter, he had nevertheless been forced into it. “This now, my country. Poland, my country, now is finish. My people, now finish. Communist kill all. I fight for Poland, my country. Now, I fight for Australia, my country.”

  His words might have sounded melodramatic, but were not. They were a plain statement of his belief. Even Paramor seemed slightly abashed, but said doggedly, “Yeah, that’s you. What about all the others?”

  Novikowsky shrugged. “Many New Australian not want to go for war. Many Australian, too. It is same in all country. Some like, some like not.”

  “Then what makes you so keen to be in it?”

  “I hate Communist,” Novikowsky replied coldly. “They take my country, they kill my people. They kill my father, shoot like dog. He is chief police for my town. Communist not like proper police, so shoot. My mother, too, just like dog. I see.” His voice trembled slightly, but not with sorrow, and his brown eyes glittered, but not with tears. Hate burned beneath his dark skin with almost an incandescent glow, seeming to light his whole body with its intensity. “Me—they catch in street, like dog. Take for Russia, like this.” He crossed his wrists in front of his groin and stared at them. The three Australians, staring with him, saw, as he did, the faint white weals on his dark skin. “With rope. I then have thirteen years.”

  Only thirteen! Charlesworth thought with horror. I was still at school, and he was a prisoner of war!

  “I got a bit of washing to do,” Paramor said, heaving himself up from the concrete. “I tried to talk my sheila into doing it for me, but she bucked. See you later.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be off, too.”

  Carmichael walked away with Paramor. Charlesworth and the Pole were left staring at each other. Charlesworth felt acutely embarrassed, almost miserable, to learn the terrible thing that Novikowsky carried in his heart, and the Pole was equally embarrassed at having exposed it. Neither could think of any thing to say, and the silence between them had become almost unbearable when the door behind them opened slowly. Hughie Mancin’s ravaged face peeped out.

  “Where is he? The Bastard—’s’e gone?”

  “God almighty, Hughie, you frightened the daylights out of me!” Charlesworth grunted, swinging round. “What the hell are you doing in the kitchen this time of the day?”

  The old cook slyly produced a half loaf of bread and a slab of butter from under his soiled apron—he had not changed since the morning. From a side pocket he dragged a large brown onion.

  “Bit o’ tucker,” he mumbled gleefully. He swayed on his feet and reeked with wine. “Got t’ eat! My Gawd, I wen’ in the other flamin’ door, an’ was just comin’ out o’ this one when I heard the Bastard—I was jus’ cornin’ out when he come along!”

  He jerked painfully down the steps and stood by Novikowsky’s tall figure, peering at the corner of the mess where Carmichael had disappeared. He heaved a huge sigh and turned round.

  “You better scram, Hughie,” Charlesworth suggested with unwonted tenderness in his voice. The little man looked forlorn, dirty, and lost as he stood there, blinking his wet eyes, his thin shoulders sagging inside his soiled white coat. “Go on, and watch your step. The Bastard’s still prowling around.”

  “Ar—the Bastard!” Mancin muttered with weak derision. As he spoke, Novikowsky’s eyebrows shot up and he put out a hand arrestingly. He had just seen what Mancin could not see—Carmichael appearing round the corner of the mess, his thick, crepe-soled shoes making no noise on the concrete. Mancin bumbled on, the slab of butter, the bread and the onion clutched against his thin chest.

  “Look at that,” he said. “Verity wouldn’t kick about it, he’s orright. He said to me, ‘Hughie,’ he said, ‘you take what you like out o’ the mess!’ He’s orright, but the Bastard! ‘Mancin,’ he’d say, if he got onto it—‘Mancin,’ he’d say, ‘wha’s the meaning of this? Tha’s ten men’s ration of butter!’ The mis’able cow, you’d think he was paying it hisself, out o’ his own bloody pocket!”

  He stopped speaking, something in the faces of the other two seeping through his muddled consciousness. They were staring over his shoulder at Carmichael, who stood just behind him.

  Mancin turned slowly and met the manager’s grim gaze. He stood petrified, as though moulded out of putty, the butter held aloft, the bread clasped against his sagging stomach. The onion dropped, and rolled across the concrete to Carmichael’s foot. He stooped and picked it up.

  “Jez’ wep’!” Mancin muttered.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Carmichael observed grimly. “Put that stuff back in the kitchen, Mancin—we’re not running a blasted bun-rush here, you know.” He handed the onion back to the cook. “Are you on duty tonight at tea?”

  Mancin nodded in silence. He seemed incapable of speaking—Carmichael looked at his watch.

  “Then you’ve got almost an hour to sober up. Come on drunk tonight, and it’s curtains. Understand?”

  Mancin nodded again, his streaming eyes fixed owlishly on the manager’s face. Carmichael turned to Charlesworth.

  “I came back to tell you, Slim, that if Randolph comes in for tea, tell him I’d like to see him, will you?”

  “O.K.,” Charlesworth said, jerking his eyes away from Mancin. “But I don’t think he’ll be in.”

  “That’s all right. If he’s not, then I’ll see him tomorrow. Thanks.” Without looking again at Mancin, Carmichael turned abruptly and stalked away. The three by the kitchen door followed him with their eyes until he rounded the corner of the mess.

  “Holy cow, was he steamed up!” Charlesworth let out his breath slowly in a great puff. “You’d better scram, Hughie, an’ have a few powders. If you come in tanked at tea-time, he’ll tramp you, sure as your ring points to the ground!”

  Mancin dropped his hand to his side, and the butter fell to the ground. The bread was still clasped against his stomach, his dirty fingers buried deep in its soggy mass.

  “Sober up?” he quavered, his voice shaken with weak indignation. “Sober up, the hooer says! I haven’ had a drink since las’ night—’m I drunk, Slim?”

  He turned his piteous glance on Charlesworth, silently pleading for the right reply.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have noticed it, Uncle.”

  “’M I drunk, Johnny?”

  “A little, but not much. Maybe you more tired, I think?”

  “The bastard! I w’s a chef when he was still smellin of his mammy’s milk, an’ he tells me t’ sober up!” Mancin began to sob brokenly, and Charlesworth looked at Novikowsky with a wry twist on his lips. “You ever seen me drunk on the job, Slim?”


  “No, never.”

  “You, Johnny?”

  “I not think so.” Novikowsky pretended to ponder. “No, Hughie, never.”

  “No, an’ nobody else has, neither,” Mancin wept softly. I never—never been———”

  “Come on, Uncle, come and lie down.” Charlesworth picked up the butter, and took the bread and the onion. The old cook let them go without a murmur. Charlesworth grasped one of his pipe-stem arms and motioned the Pole to take the other. “You have a bit of a lie down and a couple of powders,” he suggested, “and you’ll be O.K. by tea-time, eh?”

  Mancin mumbled brokenly in reply, still protesting his sobriety. They led him away—between them, he looked like a sagging rag doll, his thin shoulders hunched and his tired old feet hobbling on the rough gravel of the path.

  Chapter Seven

  On that same afternoon Randolph visited the Spains. When he walked through the front gate Paul Spain was sitting on a cane lounge on the veranda. At the first click of the latch the rough-haired little dog that had been dozing at Spain’s feet trundled down the path, barking lustily. When she recognized the visitor she began to dance round him. Randolph stooped to pet her.

  “No, Tossle!” he said, seeking with his finger tips the ticklish spot behind the animal’s ear. “What’s the matter with you—don’t you know me yet?”

  She should, Paul thought, watching them from the veranda. God, even the dog!

  He put down his book and waited until Randolph was climbing the steps before he said anything. He wore reading glasses, which made his face even more ascetic and scholarly, yet Randolph’s eyes, falling momentarily to the book that lay face-downwards on the arm of the lounge, encountered the title of a trashy detective story.

  “Hullo, Bob.” Spain never used Randolph’s nick-name, and Randolph never suggested that he should. “Admiring my taste in literature? It’s a damned sight better than the last one I read—I’m half-way through it, and I still haven’t worked out if it’s the butler, the lawyer, or the gardener. I’ve even got a sneaking suspicion that it might be the old girl’s pet monkey, playing round with her medicine bottles. A bit of a teaser. How are you?”