The Red Sailor Read online

  1

  It was warm, so warm, shut in, like the air cut off too; one of those nights that instead of getting cool as the sun goes down, gets warmer and warmer, till you do not think it could be so warm. Lying on a bunk was a sailor, a very low sailor, without even one foot on the bottom rung of the social ladder. The sailor wore only dungaree trousers and lay staring at the white canvas cover on the hammock mattress on the spring on the bunk above, and all the while feeling the sweat come out on his back and his back itching on the blanket, and thinking that it was going to get warmer and warmer and that you could not be worse off shovelling bunkers for Old Nick himself.

  Yes, sir. James Varne thought. The only place worth being on a night like this is in one those boozers down Southsea. Or in one those boozers on Commercial Road. Or…or any place really, so long as it’s a boozer you’re stood in with one elbow on the counter and the other tipping bloody great wets down your neck. And Scotch Annie. Good old Annie. Big Lill too—the Bootnecks delight. Feet go where you like. I’m going home. And slapping those arses lined up along the counter. A grope at Lill too…no, you’d be hard put to grope that. And them looking at you that way when you came in—trying to guess how much you’re worth because it is blank week and there’s not a matelot alive got a bastard light. Give us a feel till Friday. Funny thing about arses. They don’t look it but when you slap them it’s like slapping a cardboard box. They’re not all like that though. Just those wearing stays. It’s the bones in them. You even see the bones poking out the way they stand sometimes. Same with rollons. Take them off and they got funny patterns imprinted all over them. Some those sadist fellows sit there all night with biros doing crosswords. Yes, sir. But you’re not there tonight. No, sir. You forgotten what a wet tastes like. Even Big Lill. Though nobody should ever forget what she looks like. Thirty-nine more nights to go and all you can look forward to is sweating your bastard guts out thinking about boozers and wets and whores with cardboard arses. It’s just your luck that the morning you get out this hole the Russians send along a little airplane to drop a bomb to blow the whores and boozers all to kingdom come before you even set foot on old Commercial Road. The only place left standing would be Aggie Weston’s Rest Home and her stood out front on the top step telling St. Peter how many Three Badge F.A.s signed the pledge the day before. Peace on earth and goodwill to all men. And the same to you with knobs on. Yes, sir. That square of sunlight coming in the window is way up near the ceiling now, just above the door. The more you look at it the more it looks like a lump of red hot iron…ready to flatten Benson when he opens the door. Another inch and that lump of iron is going to touch the ceiling. You count slowly, real slowly, how much could you reach before it touched? You could count a hundred. You could count ten bloody hundred, matey. You could count till Nelson got up and sang Roll on my Doz and it still wouldn’t touch. It’s never touched while you’ve been here. It’s never touched while any other bastard has been here either. No, sir. It gets right up close to the ceiling and the sun snuffs it. They built the bloody dockyard wall too high. That’s what they’ve done. That’s consideration for you. One day they’re going to lock some poor bastard up in here and he’ll go bonkers counting. Yes, sir.

  It was so quiet James Varne could hear himself breathe, and with every breath he breathed the smell of bootpolish and soft-soap and metal-polish; and altogether the whole combination of smells of military cleanliness, and the smell of the water in the dock coming in the window. It is really amazing the impressions you can draw from such a simple thing as a smell. You could get a bad name just through a little smell. Like the Royal Naval Detention Barracks, Portsmouth. It had a bad name. It stank. It stank right down to the last brick. Yes, sir.

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘Huh! What?’ said Telegraphist Parker waking to the words. Varne lay still. Sparky Parker, leaning on one elbow and looking at him from the single bunk the other side of the cell said:

  ‘Hey! What you say, Varney?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m thinking.’

  ‘What you thinking about, Varney?’

  ‘Nothing. Just thinking.’

  ‘You know, this spring’s cutting my arse to ribbons.’ He did not know what it was to give up easy. ‘You hear me, Varney?’

  ‘Yeah, I hear you,’ said Varne staring at the white canvas cover on the hammock mattress on the spring on the bunk above.

  ‘They want to get real mattresses for these bunks. Not make you use the one out your mick. They’re too bleedin’ thin, mate.’

  ‘You got it all worked out.’

  ‘It’s only logical.’

  ‘It’s what?’ said Varne looking at him for the first time.

  ‘Logical.’ Pleased with his command of the language.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, logical,’ said Varne back to staring.

  ‘Another month of this lot and I’ll be round the bleedin’ bend, mate,’ said Sparky sitting up and putting both feet on the floor. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’ll be. Stone bleedin’ bonkers. Number! Number! Left, right! Left, right! Then round and round that bleedin’ assault course till your bastard legs are worn down to your knees.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘Used to it? Like bleedin’ hell. You won’t see me here again. I tell you, mate.’

  ‘No?’ said Varne now looking at him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s what I said. Once.’

  ‘Aaaawh! You’re different. Nobody takes it out on you. It’s fellows like me who get it all. Always they pick on somebody they’re not windy of.’

  ‘It’s only a matter of mind,’ said Varne contemplating one bare foot down the end of the bunk.

  ‘Who you kidding? Mind over matter my arse.’

  Out on the dock the high whoop-whoop-whoop of a destroyer’s siren. The sky pale blue and very high and clean-looking against the steel bars on the window. It seemed twice as quiet with the echoing of the siren stopped.

  James Varne lay looking over his head at the sky between the bars on the window and wondering what it would be to be a bird and fly up there with no one around.

  ‘Where’s the kid?’ Sparky, suddenly.

  Varne, quiet a moment, then flying back from a long long way away:

  ‘You, what?’

  ‘The kid. Should have been back by now.’

  ‘He’ll be all right. Nobody ever escapes from here. England’s Devil’s Island.’

  ‘He should have been back by now,’ said Sparky rising and pacing up and down the narrow space between the bunks on his bare feet. Varne lying quiet and listening to the slap slap slap of the bare feet on the polished wooden floor and thinking somehow of a beach with no one about and the water lapping on yellow sand and blue far out and the sun on it and it blue and gold.

  ‘Hey!’ said Sparky stopping between the bunks and looking down at Varne on the beach in the sun, ‘Hear me?’

  ‘They’ll have him taking the cai round. Now go and lay down before you collapse from exhaustion.’

  ‘Yeah maybe. You know?’ Sparky said going on and beginning the pacing again. ‘He’s funny that kid. When he came in I thought he was snaps.’

  ‘Never thought about it,’ said Varne wiping sweat off his chest with a towel lying alongside of him. ‘Going to be hot again tonight. This hole is not much good without being able to sleep. I once heard a story about a fellow who fell asleep and woke up an old man. It’s literature. Can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Rip Van Twinkle. That’s who it was,’ said Sparky stopped pacing and looking pleased with himself. ‘You know what he got his ninety days for?’

  ‘He got ninety days?’

  ‘Who you talking about?’ Sparky said looking annoyed.

  ‘Rip Van Twinkle.’ Varne without a smile.

  ‘Why don’t you stop arsing around for once? I said: You know what the kid got his ninety days for?’

  ‘Never asked him. Never ask anybody anything.’

  ‘Well, he got it for stopping over leave because his mother was sick. A bleedin’ liberty, that’s what it is.’

  Varne turning on his side to face the open space between the bunks:

  ‘He should have come back and seen the sky pilot.’

  ‘She might have bleedin’ died before the sky pilot did anything.’

  ‘That’s sky pilots for you,’ said Varne, ‘when the time comes you ask a sky pilot for anything you must be in a pretty bad way. Then it probably wouldn’t do much good. I never met anybody back to say what they seen the other side yet. Till that happens sky pilots stay right the bottom of the list.’

  ‘It’s a liberty all the same. Something should be done. Kids like him shouldn’t be locked up in places like this.’

  ‘If your mother had the right man you would have gone a long way,’ said Varne turning on his back.

  ‘What the hell you coming now?’ said Sparky almost aggressive.

  ‘There’s some pretty important people would give their right arms for the gas you got,’ Varne said staring.

  ‘Oughf! You got no feelings. That’s your trouble,’ said Sparky. ‘You got nothing here,’ touching his head. ‘It’s all there,’ bending his arm and gripping his bicep.

  Outside was the sound of footsteps coming along the landing, the scuffing of canvas shoes and the clipping of steel-tipped boots. Varne and Parker grabbed buckets from under their bunks and began polishing them with cloths. Chief Regulating Petty Officer Benson unlocked the door, crashed it back on its hinges, hurling the boy inside and slamming the door on the re
bound.

  ‘Jesus Christ! What they done to you?’ said Sparky dropping his bucket.

  The boy came back off the end of the double bunk, his face in his hands and blood on them, not a great deal, but enough. Varne and Parker looking at him and him taking the towel off the end of his bunk and holding it to his mouth.

  ‘Christ Almighty!’ said Sparky. ‘See his mouth?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Varne.

  ‘But Jesus Christ—’

  ‘Shut up I said,’ said Varne nodding towards the door and starting to polish again.

  Outside was the clipping of boots coming back along the landing, then stopping outside the door and an eye at the peephole. ‘Worrall! Get mobile!’ said the voice outside of the door.

  Benson. Always it was Benson. Benson, said Varne, was a curse on the human race. Varne was a fellow pretty near always right in his judgement too. Anyhow, everyone agreed with what he said about Benson.

  The boy put the towel back and took a mess fanny out from under Varne’s bunk.

  ‘That’s right, Worrall. That’s dead right. Now get mobile,’ said the voice outside of the door.

  Almost the moment the eye disappeared from the peephole a whistle blew downstairs signalling the end of the evening task period. Varne put the bucket under his bunk and without looking at the boy said: ‘Put it back now. Just get up and lay on your bunk a while.’

  Outside it was quiet and the boy on his bunk sobbing quietly, and him only a few months over eighteen and happily not forgotten how it is to cry. Too many people grow too quickly beyond the joy of crying. Fears on one’s face is to be joyful and not ashamed. It goes almost to the soul. James Varne, even if he wished, could not have remembered when last he cried.

  Through the small high window was the faraway sound of someone shouting through a loud hailer.

  Yes, sir, James Varne thought. Pigs. A cutter come to take pigs and their pushers out to a cocktail party (in some cruiser lying midstream. That’s all most pigs are good for, soaking up pink gin and trunking pushers in their cabins. Yes, sir.

  Outside the day-shift patrolmen were walking across the barrack yard, one of them laughing and their boots crunching on the grit on the tarmac.

  ‘Lucky bastards!’ said Sparky. ‘They’re going out to get pissed now. Then they’ll go shacking-up with some pusher up Fratton way and come back in the morning thumping everybody in sight and running them in afterwards. The bastards. I hope they get clap.’

  Down in the hall someone blew a whistle, the noise echoing round and round the empty landings. Varne got up and took the mugs off the shelf under the window.

  ‘Here!’ he said and threw Sparky a mug.

  He caught it and jumped off his bunk, his heel slipping and him going down on his back and his head hitting the floor.

  ‘Now you gone and woke up,’ said Varne grinning.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Sparky said sitting up and rubbing the back of his head, ‘Mind over matter. That’s all. Who else but this lot could have thought of polishing the floor with bastard boot-polish?’

  Suddenly the door was open and Benson looking at the two low sailors on their feet and the other on his bunk. ‘On your feet, Worrall. You’re not dead yet.’

  ‘Why don’t you lay off for a while, Benson?’ said Varne, standing very large between the bunks, sweat glistening on his chest and shoulders.

  ‘That’s enough out of you, Varne. You’re too bloody big for your boots. One day I’ll have you—proper,’ Benson said, very confident outside of the door. And to Worrall: ‘When I say: “On your feet,” you’re on your feet. Quick! And you better be on them when the officer of the day comes round.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy at attention in front of Varne, and Varne standing easily and those eyes, very blue, on Benson.

  ‘Why don’t you go out and get knocked down by a bus?’ said Varne, the eyes never moving.

  ‘You got a lot to learn yet, Worrall,’ said Benson not looking at Varne.

  A prisoner from one of the cells down the landing came and poured cocoa into the mugs from a steel fanny shined till it looked silver-plated.

  ‘Close the door, Varne,’ said Benson looking at him that way with his mouth all up at one side and down at the other.

  Yes, sir, James Varne thought. One day I’ll fix your mouth for you. Fix it right. One day I’ll put your kisser where it suits you, Benson. Yes, sir.

  ‘What you waiting for? Close it,’ said Benson now stood out on the landing with his back against the rail and still looking at Varne that way.

  Varne went across and kicked the door shut, then gave the boy his mug. The boy was trembling and his top lip swollen right out and cut one corner.

  ‘Forget about him. Try hard enough you forget about everything in time,’ said Varne sat on the edge of his bunk sipping the cocoa.

  ‘Cai!’ said Sparky. ‘Call this bleedin’ cai? Piss! That’s what it is, mate.’

  ‘You were born with a drip on,’ said Varne.

  ‘What I’d give for a couple of wets up the Albany right now. You ever drink there, Varney?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said staring at the floor.

  ‘You got done for scrapping with the patrol in one of those boozers on the Road, didn’t you?’

  ‘That was down Southsea,’ he said paying no particular attention.

  ‘The Flaming Arsehole?’

  ‘No. Down on the front.’

  ‘That place where you go down steps? By the dance-hall?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it.’

  ‘Isn’t that funny now. I once picked up this pusher in there. About forty-five she was. Had a pair of tits out here,’ Sparky said putting his hands way out front of his chest and forgetting about how bad the cocoa was. ‘I trunked her in the doorway of this pie and eel shop behind the boozer. Not a bad rattle either, mate. Told me later she had seven sprogs and her old man played the big drum in the Bootneck band. You wouldn’t have knowed it. The sprogs, I mean.’

  The boy laughed: ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true. You think I’m a Three Badge F.A.?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ said the boy quietly and not looking at either of the sailors.

  ‘I bet a quid you never even seen the glossy glass, mate.’ Sparky lying on his bunk said.

  ‘The what?’ said the boy sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bunk.

  ‘You hear that, Varney? Never heard of it. He doesn’t even know what it’s like.’

  ‘You tell me then.’

  ‘Ask Varney. He knows it all. He studs the Duchess of Kent’s Cow Palace.’

  ‘The what?’ said the boy.

  ‘The Cow Palace—Wren’s Barracks. Across the road from the Ranch House. That’s the N.A.A.F.I.’

  ‘You tell me then, Varney,’ said the boy. The mouth almost a grin.

  ‘Sparky’ll tell you. He’s got the clap medal and bar.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sparky all condescendingly, ‘Sometimes it’s like a jar of worms and sometimes it’s like standing in a lobby with the door open.’

  The boy lay on his bunk laughing.

  ‘You thinking of trying it when you get out?’ said Sparky. I’ll tell you a couple of good boozers where you can’t go wrong.’

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  ‘Don’t drink. You hear that, Varney? He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t go with pushers and always back aboard by midnight. In that case you better go down Southsea Fun Fair and buy the little girls candy floss.’

  ‘Candy floss,’ said the boy. ‘What for?’

  ‘Different values,’ said Varne. ‘Different pushers have different values. Sometimes it’s clothes. Sometimes it’s gin. Sometimes it’s only money. Candy floss even.’

  ‘I thought it was for love,’ the boy said looking down at him.

  ‘You been reading too many books,’ said Varne. ‘Every pusher’s got a value. Of course, sometimes you get one who does it just for friends. They haven’t got an enemy in the whole bastard world.’ And to Sparky, ‘Tell him about the Med, Sparky.’

  ‘The Gut, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah, tell him about the Gut.’

  ‘You been out the Med yet?’ Sparky said.

  ‘I haven’t been to sea yet,’ the boy said finding the bottom of his mug awfully interesting. ‘I only just came down from Royal Arthur’

  ‘How long you sign on for?’ Varne asked.