Chapter XI I. Blows
Jack managed to escape. When the rooks were fluttered by the sight of that ghostly white starling, he just ran. He ran in disgust from the smell of lavender salts, the tags of mourning patterns, respectable dying, and these awful people. Surely there was something rotten at the bottom of people, he thought, to make them behave as they did. And again came over him the feeling he had often had, that he was a changeling, that he didn’t belong to the so-called “normal” human race. Nor, by Jupiter, did he want to. The “normal” human race filled him with unspeakable repulsion. And he knew they would kill him if they found out what he was. Hence that unconscious dissembling of his innocent face.
He ran, glad to get into a sweat, glad to sweat it all out of himself. Glad to feel the sun hot on his damp hands, and then the afternoon breeze, just starting, cool on his wet skin. When he reached the sand-bagged pool, he took off his clothes and spread them in the sun, while he wallowed in the lukewarm water. Ay! if one could wash off one’s associations! If one could but be alone in the world.
After bathing he sat in the sun awhile to dry, then dressed and walked off to look at the lower dam pump. Tom had said it needed attending to. And anyway it led him away from the house.
The pump was all right. There had been a March shower that had put water in the dam. So after looking round at the sheep, he turned away.
Which way? Not back home. Not yet.
The land breeze had lifted and the sea breeze had come, clearing the hot dry atmosphere as if by magic, and replacing the furnace breath by tender air. Which way?
At the back of his mind was the thought of Monica not home yet from the Reds’ place, and evening coming on, another of the full golden evenings when the light seemed fierce with declaration of another eternity, a different eternity from ours.
Last Sunday, on such an evening, he had kissed her. And much as he wanted to avoid her, the desire to kiss her again drove him as if the great yellowing light were a wind that blew him, as a butterfly is blown twinkling out to sea. He drifted towards the trail from the Reds’ place. He walked slowly, listening to the queer evening noise of the magpies, and the more distant screeching of flying parrots. Someone had disturbed the parrots beyond the Black Barn gums. So as if by intuition he walked that way, slightly off the trail.
And suddenly he heard the sound his spirit expected to hear: Monica crying out in expostulation, anger, and fear. It was the fear in her voice that made his face set. His first instinct was not to intrude on their privacy. Then again came the queer, magpie noise of Monica, this time with an edge of real hatred to her fear. Jack pushed through the bushes. He could smell the warm horses already.
Yes, there was Lucy standing by a tree. And Monica, in a long skirt of pink-sprigged cotton, with a frill at the bottom, trying to get up into the side-saddle. While Easu, in his Sunday black reach-me-downs and white shirt and white rubber-soled cricketing boots, every time she set her foot in the stirrup, put his hand round her waist and spread his fingers on her body, and lifted her down again, lifted her on one hand in a childish and ridiculous fashion, and held her in a moment’s embrace. She, in her long cotton riding-dress with the close-fitting bodice, did indeed look absurd, hung like a child on Easu’s hand, as he lifted her down and held her struggling against him, then let her go once more, to mount her horse. Lucy was shifting uneasily, and Easu’s big black horse, tethered to a tree, was jerking its head with a jingle of the bit. The girth hung loose. Easu had evidently dismounted to adjust it.
Monica was becoming really angry, really afraid, and really blind with dismay, feeling for the first time her absolute powerlessness. To be powerless drove her mad, and she would have killed Easu if she could, without a qualm. But her hate seemed to rouse the big Easu to a passion of desire for her. He put his two big hands round her slender body and compassed her entirely. She gave a loud, strange, uncanny scream. And Jack came out of the bushes, making the black horse plunge. Easu glanced round at the horse, and saw Jack. And at the same time our hero planted a straight, vicious blow on the bearded chin. Easu, unprepared, staggered up against Lucy, who began to jump, while Monica, tangled in her long skirt, fell to her knees on the ground.
Quite a picture! Jack said it himself. Even he saw himself standing there, like Jack the Giant-killer. And of course he saw Monica on her knees, with tumbled hair and scarlet cheeks, unspeakably furious at being caught, angrily hitching herself out of her long cotton riding-skirt and pressing her cheeks to make them less red. She was silent, with averted face, and she seemed small. He saw Easu in the Sunday white shirt and rather tight Sunday breeches, facing round in unspeakable disgust and fury. He saw himself in a ready-made cotton suit and cheap brown canvas shoes, bought at the local store, standing awaiting an onslaught.
The onslaught did not come. Instead, Easu said, in a tone of unutterable contempt:
“Why, what’s up with you, you little sod!”
Jack turned to Monica. She had got on to her feet, and was pushing her hair under her hat.
“Monica,” he said, “you’d better get home. Gran’s dying.”
She looked at him, and a slow, wicked smile of amusement came over her face. Then she broke into a queer, hollow laugh, at the bottom of which was rage and frustration. Then her laugh rose higher.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she laughed. “Ah ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha! Ah!! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha! Ah!!! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah! ha-ha! Ha! Ah! Gran’s dying! Ha-ha-ha! Is she really? Oh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! No, I don’t mean it. But it seems so funny! Ah! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah! ha-ha-ha!”
She smothered herself into a confused bubbling. The two men stood aghast, shuddering at the strange, hysterical woman’s laughter that went shrilling through the bush. They were horrified lest someone else should hear.
Monica, in her cotton frock and long sweeping skirt, stood pushing her handkerchief in her mouth, and trying in vain to stifle the hysterical laughter that still shook her slender body. Occasionally a strange peal, like mad bells, would break out. And then she ended with a passionate sobbing.
“I know! I know!” she sobbed, like a child. “Gran’s dying, and you won’t let me go home.”
“You can go home,” Jack said. “You can go home. But don’t go with your face all puffed up with crying.”
She gradually gained control of herself, and turned away to her horse. Jack went to help her mount. She got into the saddle, and he gave her the reins. She kept her face averted, and Lucy began to move away slowly, towards the home track.
Easu still stood there, planted with his feet apart, his head a little dropped, and a furious, contemptuous, revengeful hate of the other two in his light blue eyes. He had his head down, ready for an attack. Jack saw this, and waited.
“Going to take your punishment?” said Easu, in a nasty voice.
“Ready when you are,” said Jack.
Ugh! How he hated Easu’s ugly, jeering, evil eyes, how he would love to smash them out of his head. In the long run, hate was an even keener ecstasy than love, and the battle of hate, the fight with blood in the eyes, an orgasm of deadly gratification keener than any passionate orgasm of love.
Easu slowly threw his hat on the ground. Jack did the same, and started to pull off his coat. Easu glanced round to see if Monica was going. She was. Her back was already turned, and Lucy was stepping gingerly through the bushes. He lifted his chin, unknotted his tie, and threw it in his hat. Then he unbuttoned his shirt-cuffs, and pulled off his shirt, and hitched his belt. He was now naked to the waist. He had a very white skin with reddish hair at the breast, and an angular kind of force. His reddish-haired brawny arms were burnt brown-red, as was his neck. For the rest his skin was pure white, with the dazzle of absolute health. Yet he was ugly rather than beautiful. The queer angularity of his brawn, the sense of hostile mechanical power. The sense of the mechanism of power in him made him like some devil fallen into a lower grade.
Jack’s torso was rather absurdly marked by the sun-burnt scallops of his vest-lines, for he worked a good deal in a vest. Easu always wore a shirt and no vest. And Jack, in spite of the thinness of youth, seemed to have softer lines and a more human proportion, more grace. And there was a warmth in his white skin, making it much less conspicuous than the really dazzling brilliance of Easu. Easu was a good deal bigger, but Jack was more concentrated, and a born fighter. He fought with all his soul.
He shaped up to Easu, and Easu made ready, when they were interrupted by a cry from Monica, in a high, hysterical voice. They looked up. She had reined in her horse among the bushes, and was looking round at them with a queer sharp, terrified face, from the distance. Her shrill voice cried:
“Don’t forget he saved Herbert’s life.”
Both men faced round and looked at her as if she had committed an indecency. She quailed in her saddle. Easu, with a queer jerk of the head, motioned to her to go. She sank a little forward in her saddle, and hurriedly urged her horse through the bush, out of sight, without ever looking round, leaving the men, as she knew, to their heart’s desire.
They waited for a while. Then they lifted their fists again, and drew near. Jack began the light, subtle, harmonious dancing which preceded his attack. He always attacked, no matter whom he fought. He could not fight unless he took the initiative. So now he danced warily, subtly before Easu, and Easu stood ready to side-step. Easu was bigger, harder, much more powerful than Jack, and built in hard mechanical lines: the kind that is difficult to knock out, if you have not much weight behind your blow.
“Are y’ insured?” sneered Easu.
But Jack did not listen. He had always fought with people bigger and older than himself. But he had never before had this strange lust dancing in his blood, the lust of rage dancing for its consummation in blows. He had known it before, as a sort of game. But now the lust bit into his very soul, and he was quivering with accumulated desire, the desire to hit Easu hard, hit him till he knocked him out. He wanted to hit him till he knocked him out.
And he knew himself deficient in brute power. So he must make up in quickness and skill and concentration. When he did strike it must be a fine keen blow that went deep. He had confidence in his power to do it. Only—and this was the disturbing element—he knew there was not much time. And he would rather be knocked out himself than have the fight spoiled in the middle.
He moved lightly and led Easu on, ducked, bobbed up again, and began to be consummately happy. Easu could not get at him.
“Come on!” said Easu thickly.
So suddenly he came on, and bang! bang! went his knuckles against that insulting chin. And he felt joy spring in his bowels.
But he did not escape without punishment. Pat!—butt! Pat!—butt! went Easu’s swinging blows down over his back. But Jack got in two more: Bang! Bang! He knew by the exquisite pain of his knuckles that he had struck deep, pierced the marrow of the other with pain of defeat.
Pat—butt! Pat—butt! came the punishment.
But Jack was out again, dancing softly, electric joy in his bowels. Then suddenly he sprang back at Easu, his arms swinging in strange, vindictive sideways swoops. Ping! Pong! Ping! Pong! rapid as lightning. Easu fell back a little dazed before this sudden rain of white blows, but Jack followed, followed, followed, nimbly, warily, but with deadly, flickering intent.
Crash! Easu went down, but caught Jack a heavy smash in the face with his right as he fell. Jack reeled away.
And then, posed, waiting, watching, with blood running from bruised cuts on his swelling face, one eye rapidly closing, he stood well forward, fists in true boxing trim, and a deep gratification of joy in his dark belly.
Easu rose slowly, foaming at the mouth; then getting to his feet rushed head down, in a convulsion, at his adversary. Jack stepped aside, but not quite quick enough. He caught Easu a blow with his left under the ear, but not in time to stop the impact. Easu’s head butted right where he wanted it to—into his enemy’s stomach; though not full in the pit. Jack fell back winded, and Red also fell again, giving Jack time to throw back his head and whoop for a few mouthfuls of air. So that when Red rushed in again, he was able feebly to fence and stall him off, stepping aside and hitting again, but wofully clipping, smacking only...
“Foul! He’s winded! Foul!” yelled someone from the bushes. “Time!”
“Not for mine,” roared Easu.
He sprang and dashed at his gasping, gulping adversary, whirling his arms like iron piston-rods. Jack dodged the propelled whirl, but stumbled over one of the big feet stuck out to trip him. Easu hit as he fell, and swung a crashing left-right about the sinking, unprotected head. And when Jack was down, kicked the prostrate body in an orgasm of fury.
“Foul, you swine!” screamed Rackett, springing in like a tiger. Easu, absolutely blind with rage and hate, stared hellish and unseeing. Jack lay crumpled on the floor. Dr. Rackett stooped down to him, as Tom and Lennie and Alec Rice ran in. Easu went and dropped on a fallen log, sitting blowing to get his wind and his consciousness back. He was unconscious with fury, like some awful Thing, not like a man.
“My God, Easu!” screamed Rackett, who had lifted the dead head of Jack on to his knees. “If you’ve done for him I’ll have you indicted.”
And Easu, slowly, heavily coming back to consciousness, lifted his head, and the blue pupils of his red eyes went ugly with evil fear, his bruised face seemed to have dropped with fear. He waited, vacant, empty with fear.
At length Jack stirred. There was life in him. And at once the bully Easu began to talk wide.
“Bloody little sod came at me bashing me jaw, when I’d never touched him. Had to fight to defend myself. Bloody little sod!”
Jack opened his eyes and struggled to rise.
“Anybody counting?” he said stupidly. But he could not get up.
“It was a foul,” said Rackett.
“Foul be blithered!” shouted Easu. “It was a free fight and no blasted umpires asked for. If that bloody bastard wants some more, let him get up. I’m goin’ to teach him to come crowin’ from England, crowin’ over an Australian.”
But Jack was on his unsteady feet. He would fight now if he died for it.
“Teach me!” he said vaguely, and sprang like a cat out of a bag on the astonished and rather frightened Easu.
But something was very wrong. When his left fist rang home, it caused such an agony that a sheer scream of pain tore from him, clearing the mists from his brain in a strange white light. He was now fully conscious again, super-conscious. He knew he must hit with his right, and hit hard. He heard nothing, and saw nothing. But with a kind of trance vision he was super-awake.
Man is like this. He has various levels of consciousness. When he is broken, killed at one level of consciousness, his very death leaves him on a higher level. And this is the soul in its entirety, being conscious, super-conscious, far beyond mentality. It hardly needs eyes or ears. It is clairvoyant and clair-audient. And man’s divinity, and his ultimate power, is in this super-consciousness of the whole soul. Not in brute force, not in skill or intelligence alone. But in the soul’s extreme power of knowing and then willing. On this alone hangs the destiny of all mankind.
Jack, uncertain on his feet, incorporate, wounded to horrible pain in his left hand, was now in the second state of consciousness and power. Meanwhile the doctor was warning Easu to play fair. Jack heard absolutely without hearing. But Easu was bothered by it.
He was flustered by Jack’s unexpected uprising. He was weary and wavering, the paroxysm of his ungovernable fury had left him, and he had a desire to escape. His rage was dull and sullen.
Jack was softly swaying. Easu shaped up and waited. And suddenly Jack sprang, with all the weight of his nine stone behind him, and all the mystery of his soul’s deadly will, and planted a blow on Easu’s astonished chin with his granite right fist. Before there was any recovery he got in a second blow, and it was a knockout. Easu crashed, and Jack crashed after him, and both lay still.
Dr. Rackett, watch in hand, counted. Easu stared at the darkening blue, and sat up. An oath came out of his disfigured mouth. Dr. Rackett put the watch in his pocket as Easu got to his feet. But Jack did not move. He lay in a dead faint.
Lennie, the emotional, began to cry when he saw Jack’s bruised, greenish-looking face. Dr. Rackett was feeling the pulse and the heart.
“Take the horse, and fetch some whiskey and some water, Tom,” he said.
Tom turned to Easu, who stood with his head down and his mouth all cut, watching, waiting to depart, undecided.
“I’ll borrow your horse a minute, Easu,” he said. And Easu did not answer. He was getting into his shirt again, and for the moment none of him was visible save the belt of white skin round the waist. Tom pulled up the girth of the black horse, and jumped into the saddle. Lennie slipped up behind him, his face still wet with tears. Easu’s face emerged, disfigured, out of his white shirt, and watched them go. Rackett attended to Jack, who still gave no signs of life. Alec Rice stood beside the kneeling doctor, silent and impassive.
Easu slowly buttoned his shirt cuffs and shirt-collar, with numb fingers. The pain was just beginning to come out, and he made queer slight grimaces with his distorted face. Slowly he got his black tie, and holding up his chin, fastened it round his throat, clumsily. He was not the same Easu that had set off so huge and assertive, with Monica.
Lennie came running with a tin of water. He had slipped off the horse at the lower dam, and found the tin which he kept secreted there. Dr. Rackett put a wet handkerchief on Jack’s still, dead face. Under the livid skin the bruises and the blood showed terrifying, one eye already swollen up. The queer mask of a face looked as if the soul, or the life, had retreated from it in weariness or disgust. It looked like somebody else’s altogether.
“He ain’t dead, is he?” whimpered Lennie, terrified most of all because Jack, with his swollen face and puffed eye, looked like somebody else.
“No! But I wish Tom would come with that whiskey.”
As he spoke, they heard the crashing sound of the horse through the bushes, and Tom’s red, anxious face appeared. He swung out of the saddle and dropped the reins on the ground.
Dr. Rackett pressed the bruised chin, pressed the mouth open, and poured a little liquor down Jack’s throat. There was no response. He poured a little more whiskey. There came a slight choking sound, and then the one dark-blue eye opened vacant. It stared in vacancy for some moments, while everybody stood with held breath. Then the whiskey began to have effect. Life seemed to give a movement of itself, in the boy’s body, and the wide-open eye took a conscious direction. It stared straight into the eyes of Easu, who stood there looking down, detached, in humiliation, derision, and uneasiness. It stared with a queer, natural recognition, and a faint jeering, uneasy grin was the reflex on Easu’s disfigured mask.
“Guess he’s had enough for once,” said Easu, and turning, he picked up his horse’s reins, dropped into the saddle, and rode straight away.
“Feel bad?” Dr. Rackett asked.
“Rotten!” said Jack.
And at last Lennie recognised the voice. He could not recognise the face, especially with that bunged-up eye peering gruesomely through a gradually diminished slit, Hun-like.
Dr. Rackett smiled slightly.
“Where’s your pain?” he asked.
Jack thought about it. Then he looked into Rackett’s eyes without answering.
“Think you can stand?” said Rackett.
“Try me.”
They got him to his feet. Everything began to swim again. Rackett’s arm came round him.
“Did he knock me out?” Jack asked. The question came from his half-consciousness: from a feeling that the battle with Easu was not yet finished.
“No, you knocked him out. Let’s get your coat on.”
But as he shoved his arm into his coat he knew he was fainting again, and he almost wept, feeling his consciousness and his control going. He thought it was just his stiff, swollen, unnatural face that caused it.
“Can y’ walk?” asked Tom anxiously.
“Don’t walk on my face, do I?” came the words. But as they came, so did the reeling, nauseous oblivion. He fainted again, and was carried home like a sack over Tom’s back.
When he came to, he was on his bed, Lennie was feverishly pulling off his shoes, and Dr. Rackett was feeling him all over. Dr. Rackett smelt of drugs. But now Rackett’s face was earnest and attentive, he looked a nice man, only weak.
Jack thought at once of Gran.
“How’s Gran?” he asked.
“She’s picked up again. The relations put her in a wax, so she came to life again.”
“You’re the one now, you look an awful sight,” said Len.
“Did anybody see me?” asked Jack, dim and anxious.
“Only Grace so far.”
Rackett, who was busy bandaging, saw the fever of anxiety coming into the one live eye.
“Don’t talk,” he said. “Len, he mustn’t talk at all. He’s got to go to sleep.”
After they had got his nightshirt on, they gave him something to drink, and he went to sleep.