UNDER WHICH KING?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 470, 25 June 1948, Page 19

UNDER WHICH KING?

Written for "The Listener"

by

S .P.

L.

HEN you start to live your life on a new plan you can’t afford to overlook details, because the beginning of every plan is mostly small stuff. So when I decided to stop being the bighearted mug, the world’s easy mark, I knew I must make sure that from then on it ‘was never me who bought that last round two minutes to closing time, never me who was first to feel for his tobacco when somebody said: "I’ve left mine at home." . 5 I hadn’t much weed, anyhow. To land on the job with enough to see me through until payday I’d had to do some

close figuring, and the dollar left over didn’t seem a lot when I remembered that I'd come out of the army with something like 400 notes. Now you can see why I'd decided on a fresh beginning and why I was down at Camp 90 among the lakes in the snow. So when he asked me, bringing his face close to mine, if payday was really a week -Tuesday, I said to myself: "Here it comes, boy, and this is where you start." We were feeding shingle to a concrete mixer,,and for three days now, 10 hours a day, I’d been seeing that face (raw and peaked under.a mass of red hair) on the far side of the hopper,’ and I wasn’t getting any fonder of it. Already it had had several of my cigarettes stuck in its mouth. "A week Tuesday," he said, eyeing my tobacco tin, ‘That’s a long time without a smoke," "Yes," I said, and it sounded shorter than that. : : , "When I came here I thought they’d fix me up, see, I thought I wouldn't need anything, see." "If you smoke," I said, "you need tobacco." The hopper came down with a bang and we had to start shovelling,, but he was off again the moment we stopped. "Cappy’ll fix me," he said. "All I got to do is write down to Cappy and he sends up what I want, see. If I

write to-night I get it what-Friday? Jeeze, Cappy’s a nice bloke." He was shouting togdrown the mixer, but he didn’t sound as though he’d convinced: even himself, "Ginger," I said, "you write to Cappy." We did the next. three mixes in silence, The job-filling the hopper from a bank of shingle-didn’t need any of my attention, so I let my mind wander, I’d save 12 pounds a fortnight and by Christmas I’d have a hundred notes. I’d get a suit, some shoes, a white-collar job. Maybe I’d find a girl I ‘could take to the pictures evenings, Maybe we’d start buying things we'd need later: a radio, one of those electric

irons,,a tea-set. One day we'd be in line for~a State house. "No stamps," he shouted, "What’s stamps worth?" "What you want stamps for?" I was angry at being pulled out of my dream and brought back to the shingle. "Write to Cappy." "Hell!" I said, "I got stamps." "What hut you in?" "Tll give you one teatime," I said, not wanting him to know my hut number, _ Shorty Stevenson, the little Scotty in charge of the mixer, gave me a quick wink. I. didn’t like Shorty (I was sore and I didn’t like any-

one in Camp 90) but I had a feeling that he was a man I could learn from. He was a smart, clean-looking chap, and all I knew about him was that he lived in the married quarters, ran a double chart, and never missed a penny’s overtime. They said he was all set to buy a truck business. I don’t know why-maybe it was Shorty’s wink, understanding and con-gratulatory-but I couldn’t get back to my dream about the girl and the State house. Shorty and I: the two shrewdies. Hell! The hooter went soon afterwards, for ten o’clock smoko and I wanted a smoke badly, but I hadn’t got yet so that I could bring out the makings in front of Ginger and not offer them to him-and that I wouldn’t do. It wasn’t the tobacco, of course, or anything I’d got against Ginger. (Hell, he was only about 19!) It was this idea in my head; if I gave in now I might as well pack up, I'd be in Camp 90 or some other damned camp all my days-useless to myself, useless to overyone else, BS a * T tea that night I was opposite Irish, I didn’t know many of the chaps in Camp 90 even by sight, but I knew him. In my present mood it seemed to me he- was there for my special benefita warning and an example. He was six feet five and had a face he might have

slapped out of brown mud, using only his own pick and shovel. It was full of a sort of wild charity, but no good because disorganised, because, (if that’s the word) disintegrated. No truck business for Irish-no approving winks from Shorty. "He'd give you," I heard someone say, "his sweaty socks," Yes, and what had it made him? Only drunk and a nuisance to anyone who cared about him, if anyone did still. He’d lent me his mug my first day in camp, pushing it over as soon as he’d had his own drink, and at breakfast that morning he’d roared at me accusingly (he roared always): "You: got no butter," He slung me a chunk wrapped in dirty brown paper but I couldn’t take any of course-not after my new rule, not after the way I’d treated Ginger. * ‘* DIDN’T want Irish as a friend-I didn’t want anyone in Camp 90 as a friend: I was there to make money-but he went out of his way to speak to me next morning. I had a feeling he liked me, but I didn’t want that either. I wasn’t on his side any more. I’d never (continued on next page)

Under Which King?

(continued from previous page) been on his side in my heart-only through cussedness. "Nice large morning," he said. There was fresh snow on the hills and a mean wind blowing from the west and I was as cold as a frog. "There’s plenty of it," I said, and pretended to be busy with the mixer, making it quite plain that I wasn’t one of

the boys-not one of his boys anyway"Look," he said. "Me and a couple or three mates is getting a little five Friday. Maybe a little ten. Want to be in, Mack: you're new, see. You don’t know anyone." "Thanks, Irish," I said, "but I don’t drink." "Like me," he said. "Like me old Granny. Old Granny | was always losing her glasses. Now we pick ’em up = as

she empties ’em." And he went away roaring with laughter. I gave Ginger a smoke at ten and another at lunchtime. I wasn’t weakening. It was the thought of Shorty’s prim mouth when he'd said to me earlier, after knocking Ginger back heavily: "Our young friend a bit. on the bludge, eh?" Certainly we were on the same side, Shorty and I, but Hell ...a man has to live with himself. At three it. was Shorty who gave Ginger his smoke. He looked in his packet of tailor-mades and there was one left. Then he looked at Ginger, pressed his lips together in a sort of

smile, and threw the packet at Ginger’s feet. It was the coldest thing I’ve ever seen done. Ginger sucked away greedily, but I was glad he hadn't said thank you. The mixer broke down soon afterwards and in the sudden silence I heard myself saying: "Look, Ginger. I just remembered I got a spare tin of tobacco. Hut 39. I'll give it you Before tea."

"Ta," said Ginger. "Til fix you up when that © stuff comes from Cappy." I was mad with myself, but I didn’t feel any longer that Shorty and I were on the same side. _ we * * RISH was opposite me at tea and he leant over and winked. ‘ "Granny’s glasses," he said, roaring with laughter.

"Itil be Grannys glasses ali rignt Friday," I told him. "You and that little five." ! "So you won’t be in, Mack?" "It’s not that," I said. "I got a touch of the shorts. No sugar." : "She's right, boy. She's as right as rain. I said be in... not put in." "Thanks, Lofty," I said. Inside I was cursing everyone-Irish, Ginger, Shorty Stevenson, and myself most of all. He pushed himself up from the table and under those big hands with the black nails was my house, the girl in the pictures, the electric iron, every damned thing. I knew I should be there Friday.