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Authors: C S Forester
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us.”
“Won’t be able—! Don’t talk silly, Miss. They’ll ’ave rifles. Some of them machine guns, p’raps. Cannon p’raps. The river ain’t more than ’alf a mile wide.”
“Let’s go past at night, then.”
“That won’t do, neither. ’Cause the rapids start just below Shona. That ’ill Shona stands on is the beginning of the cliffs the river runs between. If we was to go past Shona in the dark we’d ’ave to go on darn the rapids in the dark. An’ I ain’t goin’ darn no rapids in the dark, neither. An’ I ain’t goin’ darn no rapids at all, neither, neither. We didn’t ought to ’ave come darn as far as this. It’s all dambloody barmy. They might find us ’ere, if they was to come out in a canoe from Shona. I’m goin’ back to-morrer up to that other backwater we was in yesterdye. That’s the sifest plice for us.”
Allnutt had shaken off all shame and false modesty. He preferred appearing a coward in Rose’s eyes to risking going under fire at Shona, or to attempting the impossible descent of the gorges of the Ulanga. There was not going to be any more hankypanky about it. He drank neat gin to set the seal on his resolution.
Rose was white with angry disappointment. She tried to keep her temper, to plead, to cajole, but Allnutt was in no mood for argument. For a while he was silent now, and made no attempt to combat Rose’s urgings, merely opposing to them a stolid inertia. Only when, in the growing darkness, Rose called him a liar and a coward—and Rose in her sedate upbringing had never used those words to anyone before—did he reply.
“Coward yerself,” he said. “You ain’t no lady. No, Miss. That’s what my poor ole mother would ’ave said to you . If my mother was to ’ear you—”
When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument, as Rose began to suspect. She drew herself stiffly together in the sternsheets while Allnutt’s small orgy continued. She was alone in a small boat with a drunken man—a most dreadful situation. She sat tense in the darkness, ready to battle for her life or her virtue, and quite certain that one or the other would be imperiled before morning. Every one of Allnutt’s blundering movements in the darkness put her on the qui vive . When Allnutt knocked over his mug or poured himself out another drink she sat with clenched fists, convinced that he was preparing for an assault. There was a frightful period of time, while Allnutt was in muddled fashion reaching beneath the bench for the case of gin to find another bottle, during which she thought he was crawling towards her.
But Allnutt was neither amorous nor violent in his cups. His mention of his mother brought tears into his eyes. He wept at his mother’s memory, and then he wept over the fate of Carrie, which was his name for the brawny Swahili-speaking Negress who had been his mistress at the mine, and who was now heaven knew where in the train of Von Hanneken’s army. Then he mourned over his own expatriation, and he sobbed through his hiccups at the thought of his boyhood friends in London. He began to sing, with a tunelessness which was almost unbelievable, a song which suited his mood—
“Gimmy regards ter Leicester Square,
Sweet Piccadilly an’ Myefair.
Remember me to the folks darn there;
They’ll understa-and.”
He dragged out the last note to such a length that he forgot what he was singing, and he made two or three unavailing attempts to recapture the first fine careless rapture before he ceased from song. Then in his mutterings he began to discuss the question of sleep, and, sure enough, the sound of his snores came before long through the darkness to Rose’s straining ears. She had almost relaxed, when a thump and a clatter from Allnutt’s direction brought her up to full tension again. But his peevish exclamations told her that he had only fallen from the seat of the floor boards, mugs, bottle and all, and in two
“Won’t be able—! Don’t talk silly, Miss. They’ll ’ave rifles. Some of them machine guns, p’raps. Cannon p’raps. The river ain’t more than ’alf a mile wide.”
“Let’s go past at night, then.”
“That won’t do, neither. ’Cause the rapids start just below Shona. That ’ill Shona stands on is the beginning of the cliffs the river runs between. If we was to go past Shona in the dark we’d ’ave to go on darn the rapids in the dark. An’ I ain’t goin’ darn no rapids in the dark, neither. An’ I ain’t goin’ darn no rapids at all, neither, neither. We didn’t ought to ’ave come darn as far as this. It’s all dambloody barmy. They might find us ’ere, if they was to come out in a canoe from Shona. I’m goin’ back to-morrer up to that other backwater we was in yesterdye. That’s the sifest plice for us.”
Allnutt had shaken off all shame and false modesty. He preferred appearing a coward in Rose’s eyes to risking going under fire at Shona, or to attempting the impossible descent of the gorges of the Ulanga. There was not going to be any more hankypanky about it. He drank neat gin to set the seal on his resolution.
Rose was white with angry disappointment. She tried to keep her temper, to plead, to cajole, but Allnutt was in no mood for argument. For a while he was silent now, and made no attempt to combat Rose’s urgings, merely opposing to them a stolid inertia. Only when, in the growing darkness, Rose called him a liar and a coward—and Rose in her sedate upbringing had never used those words to anyone before—did he reply.
“Coward yerself,” he said. “You ain’t no lady. No, Miss. That’s what my poor ole mother would ’ave said to you . If my mother was to ’ear you—”
When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument, as Rose began to suspect. She drew herself stiffly together in the sternsheets while Allnutt’s small orgy continued. She was alone in a small boat with a drunken man—a most dreadful situation. She sat tense in the darkness, ready to battle for her life or her virtue, and quite certain that one or the other would be imperiled before morning. Every one of Allnutt’s blundering movements in the darkness put her on the qui vive . When Allnutt knocked over his mug or poured himself out another drink she sat with clenched fists, convinced that he was preparing for an assault. There was a frightful period of time, while Allnutt was in muddled fashion reaching beneath the bench for the case of gin to find another bottle, during which she thought he was crawling towards her.
But Allnutt was neither amorous nor violent in his cups. His mention of his mother brought tears into his eyes. He wept at his mother’s memory, and then he wept over the fate of Carrie, which was his name for the brawny Swahili-speaking Negress who had been his mistress at the mine, and who was now heaven knew where in the train of Von Hanneken’s army. Then he mourned over his own expatriation, and he sobbed through his hiccups at the thought of his boyhood friends in London. He began to sing, with a tunelessness which was almost unbelievable, a song which suited his mood—
“Gimmy regards ter Leicester Square,
Sweet Piccadilly an’ Myefair.
Remember me to the folks darn there;
They’ll understa-and.”
He dragged out the last note to such a length that he forgot what he was singing, and he made two or three unavailing attempts to recapture the first fine careless rapture before he ceased from song. Then in his mutterings he began to discuss the question of sleep, and, sure enough, the sound of his snores came before long through the darkness to Rose’s straining ears. She had almost relaxed, when a thump and a clatter from Allnutt’s direction brought her up to full tension again. But his peevish exclamations told her that he had only fallen from the seat of the floor boards, mugs, bottle and all, and in two
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