Your affectionate first born,
Lionel March
PS. Lady Manning asks to be remembered to Olive, nearly forgot.
When Captain March had posted this epistle he rejoined the Big Eight. Although he had spent the entire day with them they were happy to see him, for he exactly suited them. He was what any rising young officer ought to be – clean-cut, athletic, good-looking without being conspicuous. He had had wonderful professional luck, which no one grudged him: he had got into one of the little desert wars that were becoming too rare, had displayed dash and decision, had been wounded, and had been mentioned in despatches and got his captaincy early. Success had not spoiled him, nor was he vain of his personal appearance, although he must have known that thick fairish hair, blue eyes, glowing cheeks and strong white teeth constitute, when broad shoulders support them, a combination irresistible to the fair sex. His hands were clumsier than the rest of him, but bespoke hard honest work, and the springy gleaming hairs on them suggested virility. His voice was quiet, his demeanour assured, his temper equable. Like his brother officers he wore a mess uniform slightly too small for him, which accentuated his physique – the ladies accentuating theirs by wearing their second best frocks and reserving their best ones for India.
Bridge proceeded without a hitch, as his mother had been given to understand it might. She had not been told that on either side of the players, violet darkening into black, rushed the sea, nor would she have been interested. Her son gazed at it occasionally, his forehead furrowed. For despite his outstanding advantages he was a miserable card-player, and he was having wretched luck. As soon as the Normannia entered the Mediterranean he had begun to lose, and the ‘better luck after Port Said, always the case’ that had been humorously promised him had never arrived. Here in the Red Sea he had lost the maximum the Big Eight’s moderate stakes allowed. He couldn’t afford it, he had no private means and he ought to be saving up for the future, also it was humiliating to let down his partner: Lady Manning herself. So he was thankful when play terminated and the usual drinks circulated. They sipped and gulped while the lighthouses on the Arabian coast winked at them and slid northwards. ‘Bedfordshire!’ fell pregnantly from the lips of Mrs Arbuthnot. And they dispersed, with the certainty that the day which was approaching would exactly resemble the one that had died.
In this they were wrong.
Captain March waited until all was quiet, still frowning at the sea. Then with something alert and predatory about him, something disturbing and disturbed, he went down to his cabin.
‘Come een,’ said a sing-song voice.
For it was not a single cabin, as he had given his mother to understand. There were two berths, and the lower one contained Cocoanut. Who was naked. A brightly coloured scarf lay across him and contrasted with his blackish-grayish skin, and an aromatic smell came off him, not at all unpleasant. In ten years he had developed into a personable adolescent, but still had the same funny-shaped head. He had been doing his accounts and now he laid them down and gazed at the British officer adoringly.
‘Man, I thought you was never coming,’ he said, and his eyes filled with tears.
‘It’s only those bloody Arbuthnots and their blasted bridge,’ replied Lionel and closed the cabin door.
‘I thought you was dead.’
‘Well, I’m not.’
‘I thought I should die.’
‘So you will.’ He sat down on the berth, heavily and with deliberate heaviness. The end of the chase was in sight. It had not been a long one. He had always liked the kid, even on that other boat, and now he liked him more than ever. Champagne in an ice-bucket too. An excellent kid. They couldn’t associate on deck with that touch of the tar-brush, but it was a very different business down here, or soon would be. Lowering his voice, he said: ‘The trouble is we’re not supposed to do this sort of thing under any circumstances whatsoever, which you never seem to understand. If we got caught there’d be absolute bloody hell to pay, yourself as well as me, so for God’s sake don’t make a noise.’
‘Lionel, O Lion of the Night, love me.’
‘All right. Stay where you are.’ Then he confronted the magic that had been worrying him on and off the whole evening and had made him inattentive at cards. A tang of sweat spread as he stripped and a muscle thickened up out of gold. When he was ready he shook off old Cocoanut, who was now climbing about like a monkey, and put him where he had to be, and manhandled him, gently, for he feared his own strength and was always gentle, and closed on him, and they did what they both wanted to do.
Wonderful, wonnerful . . .
They lay entwined, Nordic warrior and subtle supple boy, who belonged to no race and always got what he wanted. All his life he had wanted a toy that would not break, and now he was planning how he would play with Lionel for ever. He had longed for him ever since their first meeting, embraced him in dreams when only that was possible, met him again as the omens foretold, and marked him down, spent money to catch him and lime him, and here he lay, caught, and did not know it.
There they lay caught, both of them, and did not know it, while the ship carried them inexorably towards Bombay.
III
It had not always been so wonderful, wonnerful. Indeed the start of the affair had been grotesque and nearly catastrophic. Lionel had stepped on board at Tilbury entirely the simple soldier man, without an inkling of his fate. He had thought it decent of a youth whom he had only known as a child to fix him up with a cabin, but had not expected to find the fellow on board too – still less to have to share the cabin with him. This gave him a nasty shock. British officers are never stabled with dagoes, never, it was too damn awkward for words. However, he could not very well protest under the circumstances, nor did he in his heart want to, for his colour-prejudices were tribal rather than personal, and only worked when an observer was present. The first half-hour together went most pleasantly, they were unpacking and sorting things out before the ship started, he found his childhood’s acquaintance friendly and quaint, exchanged reminiscences, and even started teasing and bossing him as in the old days, and got him giggling delightedly. He sprang up to his berth and sat on its edge, swinging his legs. A hand touched them, and he thought no harm until it approached their junction. Then he became puzzled, scared and disgusted in quick succession, leapt down with a coarse barrackroom oath and a brow of thunder and went straight to the Master at Arms to report an offence against decency. Here he showed the dash and decision that had so advantaged him in desert warfare: in other words he did not know what he was doing.
The Master at Arms could not be found, and during the delay Lionel’s rage abated somewhat, and he reflected that if he lodged a formal complaint he would have to prove it, which he could not do, and might have to answer questions, at which he was never good. So he went to the Purser instead, and he demanded to be given alternative accommodation, without stating any reason for the change. The Purser stared: the boat was chockablock full already, as Captain March must have known. ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ Lionel stormed, and shouldered his way to the gunwale to see England recede. Here was the worst thing in the world, the thing for which Tommies got given the maximum, and here was he bottled up with it for a fortnight. What the hell was he to do? Go forward with the charge or blow his own brains out or what?
On to him thus desperately situated the Arbuthnots descended. They were slight acquaintances, their presence calmed him, and before long his light military guffaw rang out as if nothing had happened. They were pleased to see him, for they were hurriedly forming a group of sahibs who would hang together during the voyage and exclude outsiders. With his help the Big Eight came into being, soon to be the envy of less happy passengers; introductions; drinks; jokes; difficulties of securing a berth. At this point Lionel made a shrewd move: everything gets known on a boat and he had better anticipate discovery. ‘I got a passage all right,’ he brayed, ‘but at the cost of sharing my cabin with a wog.’ All condoled, and Colonel
Arbuthnot in the merriest of moods exclaimed, ‘Let’s hope the blacks don’t come off on the sheets,’ and Mrs Arbuthnot, wittier still, cried, ‘Of course they won’t, dear, if it’s a wog it’ll be the coffees.’ Everyone shouted with laughter, the good lady basked in the applause, and Lionel could not understand why he suddenly wanted to throw himself into the sea. It was so unfair, he was the aggrieved party, yet he felt himself in the wrong and almost a cad. If only he had found out the fellow’s tastes in England he would never have touched him, no, not with tongs. But could he have found out? You couldn’t tell by just looking. Or could you? Dimly, after ten years’ forgetfulness, something stirred in that faraway boat of his childhood and he saw his mother . . . Well, she was always objecting to something or other, the poor Mater. No, he couldn’t possibly have known.
The Big Eight promptly reserved tables for lunch and all future meals, and Cocoanut and his set were relegated to a second sitting – for it became evident that he too was in a set: the tagrag and coloured bobtail stuff that accumulates in corners and titters and whispers, and may well be influential, but who cares? Lionel regarded it with distaste and looked for a touch of the hangdog in his unspeakable cabin-mate, but he was skipping and gibbering on the promenade deck as if nothing had occurred. He himself was safe for the moment, eating curry by the side of Lady Manning, and amusing her by his joke about the various names which the cook would give the same curry on successive days. Again something stabbed him and he thought: ‘But what shall I do, do, when night comes? There will have to be some sort of showdown.’ After lunch the weather deteriorated. England said farewell to her children with her choppiest seas, her gustiest winds, and the banging of invisible pots and pans in the empyrean. Lady Manning thought she might do better in a deckchair. He squired her to it and then collapsed and re-entered his cabin as rapidly as he had left it a couple of hours earlier.
It now seemed full of darkies, who rose to their feet as he retched, assisted him up to his berth and loosened his collar, after which the gong summoned them to their lunch. Presently Cocoanut and his elderly Parsee secretary looked in to inquire and were civil and helpful and he could not but thank them. The showdown must be postponed. Later in the day he felt better and less inclined for it, and the night did not bring its dreaded perils or indeed anything at all. It was almost as if nothing had happened – almost but not quite. Master Cocoanut had learned his lesson, for he pestered no more, yet he skilfully implied that the lesson was an unimportant one. He was like someone who has been refused a loan and indicates that he will not apply again. He seemed positively not to mind his disgrace – incomprehensibly to Lionel, who expected either repentance or terror. Could it be that he himself had made too much fuss?
In this uneventful atmosphere the voyage across the Bay of Biscay proceeded. It was clear that his favours would not again be asked, and he could not help wondering what would have happened if he had granted them. Propriety was reestablished, almost monotonously; if he and Cocoanut ever overlapped in the cabin and had to settle (for instance) who should wash first, they solved the problem with mutual tact.
And then the ship entered the Mediterranean.
Resistance weakened under the balmier sky, curiosity increased. It was an exquisite afternoon – their first decent weather. Cocoanut was leaning out of the porthole to see the sunlit rock of Gibraltar. Lionel leant against him to look too and permitted a slight, a very slight familiarity with his person. The ship did not sink nor did the heavens fall. The contact started something whirling about inside his head and all over him, he could not concentrate on after-dinner bridge, he felt excited, frightened and powerful all at once and kept looking at the stars. Cocoa, who said weird things sometimes, declared that the stars were moving into a good place and could be kept there.
That night champagne appeared in the cabin, and he was seduced. He never could resist champagne. Curse, oh curse! How on earth had it happened? Never again. More happened off the coast of Sicily, more, much more at Port Said, and here in the Red Sea they slept together as a matter of course.
IV
And this particular night they lay motionless for longer than usual, as though something in the fall of their bodies had enchanted them. They had never been so content with each other before, and only one of them realized that nothing lasts, that they might be more happy or less happy in the future, but would never again be exactly thus. He tried not to stir, not to breathe, not to live even, but life was too strong for him and he sighed.
‘All right?’ whispered Lionel.
‘Yes.’
‘Did I hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Why?’
‘Can I have a drink?’
‘You can have the whole world.’
‘Lie still and I’ll get you one too, not that you deserve it after making such a noise.’
‘Was I again a noise?’
‘You were indeed. Never mind, you shall have a nice drink.’ Half Ganymede, half Goth, he jerked a bottle out of the ice-bucket. Pop went a cork and hit the partition wall. Sounds of feminine protest became audible, and they both laughed. ‘Here, hurry up, scuttle up and drink.’ He offered the goblet, received it back, drained it, refilled. His eyes shone, any depths through which he might have passed were forgotten. ‘Let’s make a night of it,’ he suggested. For he was of the conventional type who once the conventions are broken breaks them into little pieces, and for an hour or two there was nothing he wouldn’t say or do.
Meanwhile the other one, the deep one, watched. To him the moment of ecstasy was sometimes the moment of vision, and his cry of delight when they closed had wavered into fear. The fear passed before he could understand what it meant or against what it warned him, against nothing perhaps. Still, it seemed wiser to watch. As in business, so in love, precautions are desirable, insurances must be effected. ‘Man, shall we now perhaps have our cigarette?’ he asked.
This was an established ritual, an assertion deeper than speech that they belonged to each other and in their own way. Lionel assented and lit the thing, pushed it between dusky lips, pulled it out, pulled at it, replaced it, and they smoked it alternately with their faces touching. When it was finished Cocoa refused to extinguish the butt in an ashtray but consigned it through the porthole into the flying waters with incomprehensible words. He thought the words might protect them, though he could not explain how, or what they were.
‘That reminds me . . . ‘ said Lionel, and stopped. He had been reminded, and for no reason, of his mother. He did not want to mention her in his present state, the poor old Mater, especially after all the lies she had been told.
‘Yes, of what did it remind you, our cigarette? Yes and please? I should know.’
‘Nothing.’ And he stretched himself, flawless except for a scar down in the groin.
‘Who gave you that?’
‘One of your fuzzy-wuzzy cousins.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘No.’ It was a trophy from the little desert war. An assegai had nearly unmanned him, nearly but not quite, which Cocoa said was a good thing. A dervish, a very holy man, had once told him that what nearly destroys may bring strength and can be summoned in the hour of revenge. ‘I’ve no use for revenge,’ Lionel said.
‘Oh Lion, why not when it can be so sweet?’
He shook his head and reached up for his pyjamas, a sultan’s gift. It was presents all the time in these days. His gambling debts were settled through the secretary, and if he needed anything, or was thought to need it, something or other appeared. He had ceased to protest and now accepted indiscriminately. He could trade away the worst of the junk later on – some impossible jewelry for instance which one couldn’t be seen dead in. He did wish, though, that he could have given presents in return, for he was anything but a sponger. He had made an attempt two nights previously, with dubious results. ‘I seem always taking and never giving,’ he had said. ‘Is there nothing of mine you’d fancy? I’d be s
o glad if there was.’ To receive the reply: ‘Yes. Your hairbrush’ – ‘My hairbrush?’ – and he was not keen on parting with this particular object, for it had been a coming-of-age gift from Isabel. His hesitation brought tears to the eyes, so he had to give in. ‘You’re welcome to my humble brush if you want it, of course. I’ll just comb it out for you first’ – ‘No, no, as it is uncombed,’ and it was snatched away fanatically. Almost like a vulture snatching. Odd little things like this did happen occasionally, m’m m’m m’ms he called them, for they reminded him of oddities on the other boat. They did no one any harm, so why worry? Enjoy yourself while you can. He lolled at his ease and let the gifts rain on him as they would – a Viking at a Byzantine court, spoiled, adored and not yet bored.
This was certainly the life, and sitting on one chair with his feet on another he prepared for their usual talk, which might be long or short but was certainly the life. When Cocoanut got going it was fascinating. For all the day he had slipped around the ship, discovering people’s weaknesses. More than that, he and his cronies were cognizant of financial possibilities that do not appear in the City columns, and could teach one how to get rich if one thought it worth while. More than that, he had a vein of fantasy. In the midst of something ribald and scandalous – the discovery of Lady Manning, for instance: Lady Manning of all people in the cabin of the Second Engineer – he imagined the discovery being made by a flying fish who had popped through the Engineer’s porthole, and he indicated the expression on the fish’s face.