Читать книгу Peter & Co. - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 5

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MR. GARFIELD let me run the boat for a while when we left the wharves and went exploring up the western end of the harbour. But he wouldn’t let me take her at any speed, because he said that unfortunately he was already too well known to the water police, and if they caught him with a person of my age in control he would probably be shot at dawn. So we went quietly, and I loved every minute of it. I had never handled anything but launches before, big family ones. It was a revelation to me to see how the Watersprite answered to every touch—like riding a thoroughbred after you’ve been used to a cart-horse. I resolved that I would not tell Dad this, for he thinks our Albatross is the best launch ever built, and he scorns and despises speed-boats.

Mr. Garfield took the wheel again when we came back to the Bridge, and we had one more spin right round the Harbour. There was a little breeze now, and the water was rather choppy. We seemed to skim over the surface of the waves, barely touching them, throwing great sheets of spray from the bow as we raced ahead: sometimes we met a slightly bigger wave at the wrong moment, and then we became rather damp. But it was a gorgeous feeling—almost like flying, and yet with more excitement than flying. So far as my experience goes, at any rate, but then it hasn’t gone very far. I asked Mr. Garfield, and he grinned in a queer way and said it depended entirely on what you happened to be doing in the ’plane. I expect he was remembering the War.

We were both very hungry when we landed, so we drove back to town and had a huge meal at a restaurant in George Street. I realized as I was finishing my last ice that I hadn’t eaten such a meal since before my smash. Mr. Garfield looked pleased when I told him so, and asked how my leg was feeling. I’d hardly thought about it all the afternoon. It was starting to ache a little—nothing to what it usually was, but just enough to remind me that I had a leg.

“Well, would it stand a cinema?” he asked. “There’s a pretty good film at the Plaza, I hear.”

I said in a hurry, yes, he could bet it would. I hadn’t seen a show since the Christmas hols, and I’d taken it for granted that I’d be going back to school when we’d finished tea. But this had not been Mr. Garfield’s idea at all. So we went. It was a ripping film, and there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon that made us both rock with laughter. We came out feeling ready for more food, and after that he drove me to school. At least, we ended at school, but we went miles and miles out of our way in going there, right out into the country again. There was a full moon, and everything looked wonderful: we went along slowly, just yarning. No one can yarn better than Mr. Garfield: he is just full of queer stories. At the last we pulled up in a quiet place and he began to talk about my leg.

I don’t know how he managed it, but somehow he got out of me all about the beastly time I had had with it, and how deadly scared I had been that I was going to be a cripple for keeps. And how my temper had got simply foul, so that I felt I hated everybody. He just listened and asked a question now and then, and nodded. It was rather a relief to tell him, once I got started, because I’d had to bottle up everything from my own people, and you do get so sick of feeling bottled up. And I knew he understood.

“I’m glad you told me, old chap,” he said when I’d finished—and I hadn’t spared myself. “Nobody can keep all that shut up inside him without paying for it: it’s always better to get it off your chest. Now you listen to me. I want you to realize that it’s all perfectly natural, and not to waste time by bothering your head about it. We’re none of us quite normal when pain and fear get hold of us. Fear is a deadly thing. I know all about it, Peter: I’ve been through the mill myself, and there were times when I felt like a terrified kid—and I was older than you, by a long way. But I found myself again, thanks to old Watty Morgan; and so will you.”

“I thought you’d think I was an awful rotter,” I mumbled.

“It would be the pot calling the kettle black if I did. Sheer waste of time, too, Peter; and to go on worrying about what’s past only shows you haven’t beaten fear yet. I can guess the sort of thing Watty has been saying to you; carry on with his advice, and never look back. And we’ll make the next holidays the best ever. More plans are buzzing in my head—I’ll let you into them when the swarm settles.”

I went back to school feeling on top of the world. Mr. Denison—he’s our House Master—met me in the corridor and said, “Hullo, Forsyth—you look very fit,” and he is a dreamy sort of man, a frightful swot at maths, but renowned for never noticing anything. All the people in my dorm were asleep. I got undressed with as little row as possible, and when I was in bed I made myself go slack all over and started telling my leg it was getting better, like Watty had said.

It’s not so easy as it sounds. Before I knew where I was every muscle in my body had gone tight again, and I was saying, “You’re getting better—you’re getting better,” with my teeth clenched as if I was trying to knock somebody out. And the boy in the next bed woke up and growled, “What on earth’s the matter, Forsyth?—are you having a blooming nightmare?” So I unclenched myself, and went to sleep without knowing I was going.

.....

I worked very hard at that business until I realized that one doesn’t need to work hard at all, but just to go limp and feel peaceful and talk to a leg just as one would talk to a scared puppy. And it certainly paid. It made me feel better right away to think that I had part of the job to do myself, not just screwing myself up all the time to stand being lame and to hide being afraid. Of course I didn’t really believe at first that I could do the leg any good, but whether I believed it or not, I had promised Watty to do it, so I just carried on as an experiment. It was like acting a part at first, trying to feel it was real. After a bit I didn’t need to act—I knew it was helping. I felt different all over, and the wish to bite people’s heads off had quite departed. This must have been a great relief to the fellows in my dorm, but they never said anything.

It was splendid fun going to Watty. That man had been all over the world, mostly in sailing-ships; he had been shipwrecked five times, and some of the fights he’d had with Chinese pirates were simply hair-raising. He knew the South Sea Islands and all the sea inside the Barrier Reef: there was a big glass-fronted cupboard in his front room full of gorgeous coral and every sort of shell I’d ever heard of, and lots that I hadn’t; and sea-snakes and queer fish in bottles of spirit. All his cottage was full of curios he’d picked up in different countries, and he could spin yarns about them all. I used to get there as quickly as I could after school so that I could look at them, and hear him talk. I learned such a lot about the sea from Watty that there were times when I wondered if being a sailor wouldn’t be even better than helping Dad to run the station when I left school. However, you can’t have horses and Hereford cattle at sea, so I decided that I’d have to stick to the land.

Watty never talked when he was working at my leg. Every bit of him was concentrated on it from the moment I was on the table; I soon learned not to say a word. I liked watching him; those keen old eyes of his looked as if they were seeing right inside the leg. He always wore a low-cut sleeveless singlet, and his chest and arms were wonderfully tattooed. Each arm had a sort of dragon-headed snake winding round it, with a fierce red and blue head near the wrist, and there were more dragons twining and coiling on his chest. It was beautiful work: I never got tired of looking at it. And when he was handling me and his great muscles moved and rippled, so did the dragons. You’d have sworn they were alive.

When my treatment was over we used to go out to his kitchen and have a cup of tea. That was some kitchen: Watty called it the galley, and it was like Watty himself and everything in his house—as clean as a new pin. It was a tiny room, really like a ship’s galley; there was a certain place for each pot and pan, and they were all polished like silver. We’d brew tea and eat ship’s biscuits with cheese and lots of butter, and Watty would yarn about his adventures. I asked him there where he’d got his tattooing done.

“Oh, that was in Burma, bo’,” he said. “Silly thing to spend money on, of course: but when we were young we reckoned we weren’t real sailor-men until we’d got a bit of tattooing. Most of us had ships, an’ a good few had their girls’ names branded on ’em—that’s foolish, if you like, ’cause once you’re tattooed it’s there for life, an’ how’s a young chap to know he’s goin’ to find his girl waitin’ for him at the end of a long voyage? An’ if she was, he mightn’t be so keen on her himself by that time. An’ if a poor sailor marries a girl called Jenny an’ she finds ‘Alice’ tattooed over his heart there’s apt to be trouble.” He chuckled. “I knew a native in Rangoon that made no end of money altering tattooed names. Clever, he was. A pal of mine had ‘Mabel’ on his chest, that he was desperate anxious to get rid of, an’ this native worked it all into the body of a dolphin. But it cost him a month’s pay, poor chap!”

“How do they do it, Watty?” I asked. “Does it hurt much?”

Watty said, “It looks the simplest thing ever ye saw, bo’, but I’d hate to try it on anyone myself. I got mine done one time when my ship was lying in the Rangoon River, loading rice. The bosun put me on to a real artist, Maung Thit was the nearest I can get to his name. Queer little chap—he didn’t seem to have joints like a white man’s. He’d make me lie on the floor, an’ he’d squat on his heels beside me an’ hold my arm down with his toes. You try doing that with a pal, an’ see how easy you find it!”

“Did he jab a needle into you, or what?”

“A needle, d’ye say, bo’?” Watty screwed up his face. “Bunches of ’em was what he used. He had a little brass tube about ten inches long; there’s a heavy plug of lead in one end, and into the other he sticks a plug holding needles: two needles for fine lines, more for broad ones. He’d a whole lot of those needle plugs laid out, just like those different instruments of torture a dentist has to stick into his drill. An’ he’d little pots of paint, red and blue an’ green, that he dipped the needles into. An’ there he squats beside you, jabbing in the business end, an’ the weight of the lead plug drives it home.”

“It doesn’t sound much fun,” I said.

“It’s not,” said Watty grimly. “Not that I’d say it was severe, but it’s a nasty, nagging little pain, and ... well, you get tired of it. An’ if he gets on a nerve he gives you a jab that ’ud make you jump—if you didn’t know that jumping ’ud only drive it deeper. So you keep on lying still, wondering why you were such a fool as to let him start on you at all.”

I asked if the tattooer painted the design on him first. Watty shook his head.

“Some do, but my old Maung Thit was an artist. He never drew a line on me. Didn’t want any design—he was just painting a picture with needles. He couldn’t do it all in one go, of course. The time varies—some victims can’t stand as much as others. It took him more than a week to decorate me, a bit every night. It wasn’t too good goin’ on loading rice every day; the place swells up a bit an’ gets pretty sore.”

“Doesn’t the paint poison you?”

“They’re too careful for that. Everything’s very clean: they only use vegetable dyes, an’ they’re mighty particular. What they do to customers like us is only a circumstance to their own tattooing. Every Burmese man is tattooed in a solid pattern from his waist to his knees—looks like a pair of shorts. An’ on his chest he has all sorts of queer designs done in red. Talismans they are—charms against poison or wounds or devils. I don’t know how it works against the devils an’ things, but there’s one thing it beats, an’ that’s rheumatism—our bosun was stiff with the rheumatics, an’ he reckoned he’d have to give up the sea. Old Maung Thit told him that a big tattooing would cure him. Bosun didn’t believe him, but being fair desperate, he was willing to try anything once. So he let Maung Thit do him solid, the Burmese way, an’ long before it was done he wished very hearty that he’d just stuck to his own aches an’ pains.”

“But did they go away?” I asked.

“You bet they did, bo’. Bosun never had another twinge o’ rheumatics as long as I knew him. Counter-irritation I suppose: I’ve heard you can cure rheumatics by letting bees sting you, an’ I expect that’s much the same thing. Anyhow, there was Bosun, tattooed shorts an’ talismans an’ all, for the rest of his days.” Watty grinned. “I don’t know how he got on about devils an’ wounds, but the talismans didn’t save him from poison—he got a rare old go of ptomaine on the voyage home, along of a bad tin of sardines.”

I said, “Perhaps it wasn’t that sort of poisoning that old Maung Thit reckoned on.”

“I don’t expect it was, bo’,” said Watty. “More like poisoned arrows and snake-bite an’ such: those ideas go back thousands of years, an’ they’d never be allowing for tinned fish. But Bosun was pretty sour over it—once his rheumatics went he believed he was safe for the whole issue. Anyhow, it’s just another example that there’s more ways of healing than the doctors know about. But don’t you go carrying that idea too far, bo’—you call in a good doctor quick an’ lively if ever you get anything really wrong with you.”

“I’ll jolly well call in you if it’s a crocked leg,” I said in a hurry, and old Watty looked rather pleased.

We had lots of yarns like that, sitting in the galley after my treatments. Sometimes we sat in the back garden—it was just as well kept as the front, and there were ripping chairs Watty had made out of old barrels. But generally it was too cold. It was a bad winter, easterly gales nearly all the time, and Sydney can be chilly enough then for anything. As a rule I never give a hoot about bad weather, but that’s easy enough when you can keep going hard all the time, playing games and all that: I found it was very different when I had to go slow. And even though my leg was steadily getting better Watty wouldn’t let me take any chances with it. I had to watch out all the time for fear of a rick or a stumble.

You can bet I watched out, but it didn’t suit the rest of me. I kept getting colds, things I never used to have, and often I felt as stupid as a boiled owl with them, and my work in school wasn’t anything to write home about. Watty could always make me feel better with his queer healing—I used to wish I could go to him every day. Those afternoons with him were the best of the whole week: I did look forward to them. And quite often when we were sitting in the galley Mr. Garfield would walk in and have tea with us and join in the talk. I could stay later when he came, because he always drove me back to school.

Then a day came when Watty said after he’d worked over me a bit, “I’m very pleased with this old leg o’ yours, bo’—so pleased that I’m going to hurt ye a bit. It won’t be too bad, an’ it’ll be over in a jiffy—hang on to the table.”

That was all, and I had hardly time to grip the edges of the table and what pluck I had, before his hands were hard round my leg and he gave it a queer wrench. It hurt all right; I believe I’d have yelled if he hadn’t warned me. Something gave inside the leg: nothing much, but whatever it was, it satisfied Watty. He stood back, looking down at me with his eyes dancing.

“That’s what I’ve been after all the time, bo’—but I had to get the leg to a certain point before I tried it. An’ it came off easier than I’d hoped. Mightn’t have been so easy if you hadn’t worked with me all the time. The Major’s was a worse job, but you had youth on your side. Well, now—two more visits, just to soothe everything down, an’ then you can say good-bye to old Watty.”

“But I don’t want to!” I exclaimed. “I say, can’t I come to see you apart from treatments?”

He looked pleased at that.

“Sure ye can bo’. There’ll always be a cup of tea going, an’ a yarn in the galley after working hours. An’ don’t forget you’ve promised me an invitation to the sports at that school of yours—I’ll be there to see ye run. Not that I hold much with school just now for ye at all; if I had the say, I’d have ye running wild this winter, not sitting at a desk. But then, I’m only an old sailor-man, an’ no great shakes on edication. Lie back, now, and we’ll finish up before we put on the kettle.”

I’d never felt such power as there was that time in Watty’s hands when he did the sweeping movements—it was like electric currents running down me. Perhaps it was because he was feeling extra happy at having brought off what he wanted. And when I got off the table I knew something big had been done, for a dragging sort of feeling that had always bothered me had completely gone out of my leg. We went into the galley, and I opened my eyes at the sight of the table. There was a white cloth on it, a thing Watty and I never had usually; and besides the tin of biscuits and the butter and cheese there was a whopping great fruit-cake with almonds all over the top.

“I say, you are going it, Watty!” I remarked.

“I am that,” he said, chuckling. “Ever seen a cake like that before, bo’?”

“Well, I have, at home,” I admitted. “Mother and Miss Tarrant make ’em like that—it’s the only sort of cake Dad thinks worth eating.”

Watty chuckled more deeply as he put on the kettle.

“I reckoned ye’d know the brand. Came this morning, that did, in a great little hamper from a place called Weeroona——”

“Mother sent it——?” I yelled.

“She did—an’ there was a roast fowl in that hamper, an’ home-made jam an’ pickles an’ all the corners filled up with fruit—yes, an’ a bottle of something that I’d reckon your dad put in. An’ a letter I’ll not forget, ’cause when she wrote it your mother didn’t know for certain I could cure your leg. But she wrote as if she did, bless her heart. Well, I’ll have something to tell her to-night when I write back. So I put a cloth on, bo’, just to be respectful to the cake. An’ I telephoned to the Major, an’ if he’s not here soon he ought to be: I was pretty sure I’d have good news for him this evening. He’s a good friend to have, is the Major, eh, bo’?”

“He’s all that,” I said. “I’ll never forget how he’s stuck to me ever since I was hurt.”

“An’ to me,” said Watty. “Lots of men would have given me a cheque an’ forgotten all about me, once they were out of my hands. Not him: I’m a well-off man this day because of all the people he’s sent to me, but that’s not what I think of most—it’s the way he’s come to see me an’ been my friend. You’d hardly believe the nights we’ve sat talking here, or at his flat, an’ the times we’ve had in his boats. Though I tell him I could sometimes wish he hadn’t talked so much about me—I’d have easier week-ends if half the footballers round Sydney didn’t fill up the place getting cured of all that comes to them in Saturday matches!”

“By jove, do they really, Watty?” I said, greatly interested. “Tell me about them.”

“They’re a mixed lot,” he said. “Nice boys, when they get to know you. They started making hay of the house an’ garden at first, while they were waiting their turns, an’ whatever I said didn’t make any difference you’d notice. An’ I couldn’t use violence to them, what with each of ’em having some sort of a strain or rick, an’ me being fond of football. So I got me an umpire’s whistle; an’ next Saturday night when two gay lads started playin’ catches with a bit of my best coral, I blew my whistle. An’ then I sat down an’ filled my pipe.”

I yelled with laughter at the dreamy way he said it. “What happened, Watty?”

“Well, the boy on the table sang out, ‘Hey, what are you getting at? You haven’t finished with me!’ An’ that was true, for I’d hardly begun. An’ they all gathered round, for it’s wonderful what an effect an umpire’s whistle has on them. They fired about fifty questions at me, but I never answered one of ’em until I’d lit my pipe an’ had it well going. So then I told ’em, very peaceable an’ friendly, that whenever any of ’em got above himself I’d blow my whistle; an’ whenever I blew my whistle I’d sit down an’ have a quiet pipe before I went on workin’. An’ I smoked that pipe right through while they argued an’ pleaded with me, an’ their Saturday night slipping away. Meek as lambs they’ve been ever since—you’d be surprised. Nice boys, but a little headstrong with an old man like me—until they sized me up. But they sent me a turkey last Christmas.”

“Gosh, I wish I’d seen them!” I said. “What about new ones, Watty? Do they have to learn the whistle?”

“It’s only been used that once, bo’. They passed the word round. There was one evening when a new one got playing the fool, but the rest of ’em were on to him like the pack after the ball. Regular Sunday-school class they are, now.” He filled the tea-pot. “There’s the Major coming up the path, I believe.”

Mr. Garfield came in, hurrying.

“I was afraid I was late and you two might have eaten all the biscuits,” he said. He stared at the table. “Hullo, Watty! is it a party?”

“Just us three,” Watty said placidly. “But it’s a party all right, Major, what with a cake from Weeroona an’ the best news yet. I’ve got that leg where I wanted it—this chap won’t need me after next week.”

I’ll always remember how Mr. Garfield looked then. He thumped me on the back, and Watty too, and we shook hands all round; and then we had an enormous tea. I went back to school hardly able to believe my luck.

The worst part was saying good-bye to Watty after my last treatment. The leg felt as good as the other by that time, but I liked old Watty so much that I could have put up with a few more aches to have more visits to him. But I hadn’t time to feel blue about it for long, because three days after that I got a letter from Binkie that sent me just sky-high.