The Persimmon Tree (10 page)

‘Take it easy, mate; sip at it slowly, that way you won’t throw it up.’

He took a sip and then another, gasping, bent double, his hands resting on his knees after each sip. ‘C’mon, sir, let’s get going, you can drink on the way,’ I said unreasonably, anxious to get back to the Magpie Crow. In my mind’s eye I could see the condensation forming on the sides of the butterfly jar.

He brought the bottle down. ‘You got a warrant?’ he demanded.

I sighed again, somewhat showing my exasperation. Using language I thought might get through to him and affecting an American accent, something I’d learned as a child at the American School in Tokyo, I said, ‘Listen up, sailor! We are surrounded by Japs. We’re deep inside enemy territory! We gotta get the fuck outa here and back to the boat pronto or you and me, we’re dead meat, sailor!’

To my surprise he sprang to attention and saluted me, the water bottle held stiffly to his side. ‘Yessir! Right away, sir!’

In his hallucinatory state I was no longer a cop but now a naval officer. He was no longer a tough guy but a sailor responding to an order.

‘Let’s go!’ I said, turning away and starting to walk back in the direction of the beach, hoping he’d follow.

Understandably the poor bugger wasn’t in great shape and we were forced to stop several times. On each occasion I made him sip from the water bottle. Not wanting to chance my luck and have him fall back into the cop-and-delinquent routine, except for my crisp command ‘Drink!’ each time we stopped, I remained silent until we’d regained the beach. ‘Take a rest, sailor!’ I said in the peremptory manner I’d adopted.

The little bloke collapsed gratefully onto the beach as I ran towards where I’d left the killing jar in the shade of a low-hanging bush. A merciful angel on duty in heaven must have decided that I’d had enough trouble for one day. The beautiful butterfly rested in the tissue paper in the centre of the jar, completely intact.

My field kit lay where I’d left it in the sun, the jar of ethyl acetate still open, the contents all but evaporated. It was careless in the extreme and I should have reprimanded myself — meticulous attention to detail makes a successful butterfly collector. But for once I didn’t care. Game, set and match! I’d finally snared my quarry.

From my paraphernalia box I withdrew a small triangular envelope, one of several I’d prepared two months previously at the onset of my (
hooray!
) now not entirely disastrous expedition. Using a pair of tweezers I extracted the Magpie Crow from the jar and carefully placed it in the specially folded envelope and then into a sleeve in the box where it would be protected from being damaged. Now all I had to do was to get it home. Get
us
home! I can’t say I felt ashamed or remorseful for my behaviour. I know I should have, but I didn’t. The two things were separate, the butterfly and the sailor. As long as I can remember I’ve possessed the capacity to keeps things in separate compartments. My mother’s death when I was five, my father’s stoic and bewildering silence afterwards, the loneliness of a Caucasian child growing up in Japan, my father turning from a cold academic into an equally passionless missionary where God was always angry and redemption was more punishment than joy, the shock of going to school in Australia and the cruelty of the kids who referred to me as ‘the Jap’ or as ‘Yellow Belly’, the constant derision when they heard I collected butterflies. All these things, I had told myself as a child, must be kept separate, so they did not collectively overpower me. Now it had become a habit.

I turned to where I’d left the little bloke. We hadn’t been formally introduced and so I still didn’t know his Christian name. He now sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his head hanging forlornly, chin on his chest, his nose dripping. My water bottle rested on the sand beside him.

Deciding to abandon the superior officer routine and the phoney Yank accent I squatted down beside him. ‘Mr Judge?’ At the sound of my voice he glanced briefly up at me, then returned to looking down at the sand between his knees. ‘My name is Nick… Nick Duncan. And yours is… ?’ I asked softly. His fingers fumbled for one of the dog tags around his neck and, stretching the bootlace that attached it to its extremity, he held it out to me. ‘No, no, Mr Judge,’ I laughed. ‘Your Christian name?’

‘I ain’t telling you nuthin’, sonny boy!’ he snarled, reverting back to being a hard arse.

I picked up the water bottle and shook it. It was empty. There was no choice, I decided. I had to revert to an American accent so he would understand me and go back to the peremptory manner I’d previously affected. ‘Okay, Mr Judge, this is how I see our situation.’ I picked up the water bottle and shook it. ‘We’re fresh out of water. If you remain here you’ll die of dehydration. You may as well give me one of your dog tags so I can report you dead. Your ship has gone down. You’ve been shipwrecked. The Japs are coming to get you. If they don’t get you, the savages will.’ With the reference to savages he looked up quickly with a frightened expression. Seeing his sudden fear I added, ‘You’ll be soup by tonight: big black three-legged soup pot and you in it stewing and boiling, plop, plop, plop!’ I was letting my imagination get carried away. The threat of being eaten would, I hoped, penetrate his confused mind. ‘Now, listen, Mr Judge, I’m here to save your ass! Come with me and we may escape. Stay here and you are certain to die. Dehydration! Japs! Terrible torture! Or soup for savages! You choose, because I’m not hanging around any longer. I’ve got to try and save my own sweet ass!’ I concluded, deliberately using the American ‘ass’ and not ‘arse’.

K. Judge didn’t react and kept staring, snot dripping, the cannibal threat — or any other — evidently not getting through to him. I sighed and got to my feet, slung the water bottle strap over my head and walked over to my knapsack and lifted it onto my back. ‘Coming or not?’ I said, as I started to walk away, not glancing back. The empty water bottle bounced on my hip, making a muffled tinny sound.

I hadn’t gone more than ten yards when I heard him shout, ‘Sir! Sir!’ I waited without turning to look at him. I could hear the squeak his feet made in the dry beach sand as he stumbled towards me. When he reached me he fell onto his knees at my feet, gripping the top of my right boot in both hands and in a frightened child’s voice implored me, ‘Please, sir, don’t let them turn me into savages’ soup!’ Then he started to bawl.

The experience of having grown men bawling at my feet was becoming all too familiar, although the little bloke was probably close to my own age but I couldn’t really tell with all the oil covering him.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked gently.

‘Kevin, sir!’ he sobbed.

‘How old are you, Kevin?’

‘Six, sir.’

‘Righto, you get up now and take my hand.’ I held out my hand for him; he took it and I helped him to his feet. ‘Now don’t let go of me. It’s very important if we’re going to escape.’ I pointed to the strip of green, the mangroves at the far end of the beach. ‘I’ve got a boat hidden in there. We’ve got to get there as fast as we can to escape the terrible human-flesh-eating savages,’ I said, laying it on thick.

‘Yes, sir,’ he choked, still blubbing, his hand gripping even tighter around my own. I looked down at his legs and feet to see that they were scratched and bleeding from when he’d previously gone bush.

Poor little bastard; I wondered how much longer he could keep going. I had to get him onto the cutter and attend to his head wound. The water he’d swallowed would have helped a bit, but he would still be pretty dehydrated. I walked him down to the edge of the surf where the wet sand was harder and it would be easier going, while the salt water washing in from the spent waves would help the cuts. I reasoned our footprints would be washed away fairly quickly. I decided I’d have to carry him across the short stretch of mangrove forest when we got there. The creek hadn’t been more than four feet deep when I’d previously waded across it. With the tide now fully in, it might be somewhat higher. The little bloke wouldn’t have been much taller than five feet and couldn’t swim.

‘Okay, you can stop crying now, Kevin. I reckon we’ll be just fine. You hang onto my hand — don’t let go no matter what — and we’ll be safe,’ I cautioned. We continued at a fairly steady pace, mostly in silence as all the time I was trying to listen for any sound of native activity. I also didn’t want to say too much lest I trigger a different Kevin Judge, a persona from the past who might be more difficult to handle than the compliant ‘six-year-old’ I was leading to the boat.

When we reached the mangroves the incoming tide had hidden the roots and, in particular, the smaller shoots that pierce the mud at low tide. These are hard, with sharp tips, and can cut badly if you step on them; the cuts not as bad as coral cuts but liable to fester and become quite nasty. I made Kevin shoulder my knapsack and then climb up to sit on my shoulders where I thought he’d be easier to carry than if I piggybacked him. We proceeded through the muddy waist-high water, stumbling once or twice against hidden roots but finally arriving unscathed at the edge of the creek.

‘Now, Kevin, I want you to take off the knapsack from your back. Whatever you do, don’t drop it.’ The thought of the knapsack falling into the water and damaging my precious specimen was unimaginable.

Kevin didn’t reply and I held my breath as I felt him trying to wriggle free, to get the straps over his arms. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got your legs, you won’t fall, I promise.’ I then castigated myself silently. I should have left the knapsack on the beach before we entered the mangroves, and returned for it when I had him safely on board. He eventually managed to get the knapsack off and held it out, with one arm still clutched around my forehead.

‘Now, Kevin, I want you to hook it over a mangrove branch, this one next to us. Make sure it’s secure, very secure!’ I fought back the panic as he struggled to do as he was told. All I needed was for the knapsack to slip from his grasp and the Magpie Crow… I couldn’t bring myself to complete the thought. I heard the rustle of leaves, then silence, then Kevin pushing away from the branch and all the while I hadn’t taken a breath. ‘Okay, Kevin, is it safe?’

‘Yes, sir, I think so, sir.’

Oh God, please let it be!
I thought to myself.

I still wasn’t sure how far the incoming tide had managed to raise the level of the creek, but reckoned from the depth of the water in the mangroves I should be able to walk across to the boat with Kevin sitting on my shoulders.

‘Can you swim, Kevin?’ I asked, just in case I’d underestimated the depth.

‘I ain’t learned yet, sir. Only when we’re eight,’ he replied.

‘Righto, you stay on my back; it’s not deep — about five feet, perhaps a bit more — so hang on while I walk us through.’ I stepped into the deeper water and I could feel him shaking, his hands clasped around my forehead as he hung on for dear life. At its deepest the water came to just under my chin. I made for the bronze mooring post on the starboard quarter of the deck and by the time I’d reached the cutter the creek level was just above my navel. ‘Righto, Kevin, hop aboard,’ I instructed.

‘I’ll fall, sir,’ he said in a small voice.

‘No you won’t, I’ve got you. Just loosen your grip on my head and grab that post in front of you, then climb onto my shoulders. Here, I’ll push you up.’ His arms left my head and I let go of his legs as he wriggled frantically. Placing one foot on my shoulder he managed to scramble aboard, lying on the deck gasping furiously just as a young kid might. ‘Well done!’ I called and waited until he sat up and had pulled himself well clear of the edge of the deck. ‘Now, Kevin, wait for me. I’m going back to get the knapsack. Just sit, don’t move. Okay?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied meekly. Wherever the little bloke had been brought up as a child, it hadn’t been easy. His tone of voice carried all the hallmarks of regularly enforced obedience.

I returned to my knapsack, then recrossed the creek, holding it well above my head and finally depositing it onto the deck. I heaved myself aboard and started to remove my clobber. ‘Everything off, Kevin,’ I called cheerily. ‘Time to clean you up, mate,’ I said, reverting to my normal accent.

I expected the little bloke at any moment to return to his ‘Lissen, sonny boy’ adult personality. We were safely on the boat and I told myself I could deal with a recalcitrant sailor when he had nowhere to go. If it came to a fight, I was too big for him to take on and hope to win. But he remained a small kid, anxious to cooperate for fear of the dreaded cooking pot.

I got out the kero and some of the cleaning rags Anna had stowed for the voyage together with a couple of worn towels. Kevin ‘ouched’ and ‘aahed’ and winced a fair bit, the kerosene stinging and uncomfortable on his skin. When it was all over I scooped a bucket of water from the creek and soaped him down, rinsing and repeating the soaping three times, each time making him do the same over his pubic area and bum. Finally, I reckoned he was almost good as new.

The cleaned-up version of Kevin Judge, aka ‘the little bloke’, was no metamorphosis from chimp to prince. His eyes, the whites still very bloodshot, were a tawny hazel colour. His crew-cut hair was mousy brown and his ears appeared too large for his sharp little face. His front teeth overlapped slightly and were somewhat crooked, the sign of early dental neglect. I wasn’t sure how his nose had started out in life because it had been broken, perhaps more than once, and was flattened like a lump of dough pressed into his face. His legs were thin and bandy, an indication that rickets had probably been present in childhood. In appearance his type is often referred to derogatively as ‘bog Irish’, an undernourished look that was common enough among the working class in post-Depression Australia and that stamps itself indelibly on the adult who evolves from the neglected child. I guessed it was much the same in America.