Читать книгу Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch - Brian Penton - Страница 16

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"Yes?" he urged gently at the end of a long silence.

Cabell roused himself, and as though reluctant to meet McGovern's eyes, glanced nervously about the hut. It was the prompting of a desperate inspiration that made him turn quickly and glance over McGovern's head at the figures moving about the yard in the light of the dingo fires.

Still dazed, the boy Pete was staggering around in a drunken fashion after Mickey, helping him.

McGovern craned his neck. "Pete?" he disparaged. "Pete murder me? Why, he's just a go-along." He called, "Hey, Pete, you dog, come here."

Pete looked round doubtfully, then came across the yard. He stopped in the doorway, and the light from the slush lamp played grotesque tricks with his sickly, emasculate face.

Cabell gazed at him intently. He looked a pathetic figure hunched up against the background of night, stars and smoky fires.

"Come along in, Pete," McGovern coaxed him. "Come and tell me what they did to you, the dirty swine."

The lad shuffled forward a few inches, but kept one foot out ready to jump away from the kick he was expecting.

"Hurt your little Nancy, did they, Pete?" McGovern mocked him. "Well, that's rotten. You won't be getting any extra bits out of the lags' tucker this week, will you?"

The boy hung his head.

As he talked McGovern edged slowly along the table till he was within a yard of the door. Then with a heavy spring he leapt on the lad and fastened a hand in his collar. "Got him!" he shouted.

Pete cried out with the pain of wounds reopened. In an instant drops of sweat were channelling the down of his cheek.

McGovern chuckled. "Why do you tremble, my little bird? Maybe you don't like me, eh? Maybe you'd like to flap your wings and fly away? But jailbirds don't have no wings, Pete. And birds that don't have no wings get boned mighty quick and brought back and skinned and served up with raspberry jelly. Yes, raspberry jelly." He laughed at his joke, a vast, good-natured laugh that blotted out the silence of the night and the little noises of sheep and men.

The boy covered one dirty foot with the other and shuddered.

"Aha, my little canary-bird, so the cat has been scratching you, has it? Is that what you're chirping about? And while the cat was crawling up your back didn't a little thought come into your head? Didn't you think it would be nice to murder the sod that sooled the cat on you, eh? Yes, yes, I know all the little notions in canary-birds' heads."

McGovern kept his eyes fixed on Cabell, and his words took a special meaning from them.

"Listen here, Pete," he said, drawing the boy closer but talking straight at Cabell. "Why don't you do it?" He pointed to the door of the room, divided off by a slab wall from the rest of the humpy, where he slept. "When he shakes down in there he goes right off to sleep and he doesn't know nothing again till sun-up. It's a drummond, Pete. You get out of your bunk about midnight; creep across the yard; come in here (don't be frightened Mr Cabell'll see you); take this knife"--he let Pete go and picked up the jack-knife--"(don't use a pistol--you can't trust them); sneak into his room; listen (he snores like a dog); you bend over him; pull the blanket back, softly, softly, and you stick the blade into him here, like this," and he dug the knife up to its handle in the table. "But be careful, Pete," he whispered to Cabell; "be sure and slit his throat after, just to be on the safe side."

Cabell's interest was riveted on Pete, who showed signs of extraordinary excitement. As McGovern described how he should enter the room and listen, Pete held his breath and listened. When McGovern told him how to bend over and feel for the heart, he sucked his lips together and shadows of fear and hatred and triumph chased vividly across his face; and as McGovern plunged the knife into the table a choking, animal cry gurgled up his throat. For a moment he stood quivering on tiptoe, his long neck stretched out, his mouth open, one hand raised, then suddenly his features went lax, as though a spring in them had snapped. He turned his bloodshot eyes slowly, sullenly towards Cabell and a look of ghastly alarm came into them. "I didn't," he muttered. "I didn't."

McGovern nodded shrewdly at Cabell. "Well, you'd better," he said. "If you don't get him he might get you."

The boy shook his head in a dazed way, then, becoming aware that McGovern was not holding him, he stumbled out of the door, tripped over something and sprawled into the darkness.

McGovern picked up a piece of wood from the floor and flung it after him. They heard the boy fall heavily again.

Cabell watched him rise and disappear on the other side of the fires.

He was roused from deep thought by McGovern speaking close to his ear.

"I got to thank you for that. I was beginning to think I only had a kitten there." McGovern closed one eye and scratched the tip of his flat nose. "So much the better, my lad. So much the better." He began to sing softly.