here were the scrapings of many pious shelves at home. The Poems of John Oxenham, Fishers of Men. He took a book at random out of the shelf and returned to the
rest-house. Mrs Bowles was in her dispensary mixing medicines.
‘Found something?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are safe with any of those books,’ Mrs Bowles said. ‘They are censored by the committee before they come out. Sometimes people try to send the most
unsuitable books. We are not teaching the children here to read in order that they shall read -well, novels.’ ‘No, I suppose not.’ ‘Let me see what you’ve chosen.’
He looked at the title himself for the first time: A Bishop among the Bantus.
‘That should be interesting,’ Mrs Bowles said. He agreed doubtfully.
‘You blow where to find him. You can read to him for a quarter of an hour - not more.’
The old lady had been moved into the innermost room where the child had died, the man with the bottle-nose had been shifted into what Mrs Bowles now called the convalescence ward, so that the middle room could be given up to the boy and Mrs Rolt. Mrs Rolt lay facing the wall with her eyes closed. They had apparently succeeded in removing the album from her clutch and it lay on a chair beside the bed. The boy watched Scobie with the bright intelligent gaze of fever.
‘My name’s Scobie. What’s yours?’
‘Fisher.’
Scobie said nervously, ‘Mrs Bowles asked me to read to you.’
‘What are you? A soldier?’
‘No, a policeman.’
‘Is it a murder story?’
‘No. I don’t think it is.’ He opened the book at random and came on a photograph of the bishop sitting in his robes on a hard drawing-room chair outside a little tin-roofed church: he was surrounded by Bantus, who grinned at the camera.
‘I’d like a murder story. Have you ever been in a murder?’
‘Not what you’d call a real murder with clues and a chase.’
‘What sort of a murder then?’
‘Well, people get stabbed sometimes fighting.’ He spoke in a low voice so as not to disturb Mrs Rolt. She lay with her fist clenched on the sheet - a fist not much bigger than a tennis ball.
‘What’s the name of the book you’ve brought? Perhaps I’ve read it. I read Treasure Island on the boat. I wouldn’t mind a pirate story. What’s it called?’
Scobie said dubiously, ‘A Bishop among the Bantus’, ‘What does that mean?’
Scobie drew a long breath. ‘Well, you see, Bishop is the name of the hero.’
‘But you said a Bishop.’
‘Yes. His name was Arthur.’
‘It’s a soppy name.’
‘Yes, but he’s a soppy hero.’ Suddenly, avoiding the boy’s eyes, he noticed that Mrs Rolt was not asleep: she was staring at the wall, listening. He went wildly on, ‘The real heroes are the Bantus.’
‘What are Bantus?’
‘They were a peculiarly ferocious lot of pirates who haunted the West Indies and preyed on all the shipping in that part of the Atlantic.’
‘Does Arthur Bishop pursue them?’
‘Yes. It’s a kind of detective story too because he’s a secret agent of the British Government. He dresses up as an ordinary seaman and sails on a merchantman so that he can be captured by the Bantus. You know they always give the ordinary seamen a chance to join them. If he’d been an officer they would have made him walk the plank. Then he discovers all their secret passwords and hiding-places and their plans of raids, of course, so that he can betray them when the time is ripe.’
‘He sounds a bit of a swine,’ the boy said.
‘Yes, and he falls in love with the daughter of the captain of the Bantus and that’s when he turns soppy. But that comes near the end and we won’t get as far as that. There are a lot of fights and murders before then.’
‘It sounds all right. Let’s begin.’
‘Well, you see, Mrs Bowles told me I was only to stay a short time today, so I’ve just told you about the book, and we can start it tomorrow.’
‘You may not be here tomorrow. There may be a murder or something.’
‘But the book will be here. I’ll leave it with Mrs Bowles. It’s her book. Of course it may sound a bit different when she reads it’
‘Just begin it,’ the boy pleaded.
‘Yes, begin it,’ said a low voice from the other bed, so low ‘ that he would have discounted it as an illusion if he hadn’t looked up and seen her watching him, the eyes large as a child’s in the starved face. Scobie said, ‘I’m a very bad reader.’
‘Go on,’ the boy said impatiently. ‘Anyone can read aloud.’
Scobie found his eyes fixed on an opening paragraph which stated, I shall never forget my first glimpse of the continent where I was to labour for thirty of the best years of my life. He said slowly, ‘From the moment that they left Bermuda the low lean rakehelly craft had followed in their wake. The captain was evidently worried, for he watched the strange ship continually through his spyglass. When night fell it was still on their trail, and at dawn it was the first sight that met their eyes. Can it be, Arthur Bishop wondered, that I am about to meet the object of my quest, Blackboard, the leader of the Bantus himself, or his blood-thirsty lieutenant ...’ He turned a page and was temporarily put out by a portrait of the bishop in whites with a clerical collar and a topee, standing before a wicket and blocking a ball a Bantu had just bowled him.
‘Go on,’ the boy said.
‘... Batty Davis, so called because of his insane rages when he would send a whole ship’s crew to the plank? It was evident that Captain Duller feared the worst, for he crowded on all canvas and it seemed for a time that he would show the strange ship a clean pair of heels. Suddenly over the water came the boom of a gun, and a cannon-ball struck the water twenty yards ahead of them. Captain Buller had his glass to his eye and called down from the bridge to Arthur Bishop, ‘The jolly Roger, by God.’ He was the only one of the ship’s company who knew the secret of Arthur’s strange quest.’
Mrs Bowles came briskly in. ‘There, that will do. Quite enough for the day. And what’s he been reading you, Jimmy?’
‘Bishop among the Bantus.’
‘I hope you enjoyed it’
‘It’s wizard.’
‘You’re a very sensible boy,’ Mrs Bowles said approvingly.
‘Thank you,’ a voice said from the other bed and Scobie turned again reluctantly to take in the young devastated face. ‘Will you read again tomorrow?’
‘Don’t worry Major Scobie, Helen,’ Mrs Bowles rebuked her. ‘He’s got to get back to the port. They’ll all be murdering each other without him.’
‘You a policeman?’
‘Yes.’
‘I knew a policeman once - in our town -’ the voice trailed off into sleep. He stood a minute looking down at her face. Like a fortune-teller’s cards it showed unmistakably the past -a voyage, a loss, a sickness. In the next deal perhaps it would be possible to see the future. He took up the stamp-album and opened it at the flyleaf: it was inscribed, ‘Helen, from her loving father on her fourteenth birthday.’ Then it fell open at Paraguay, full of the decorative images of parakeets - the kind of picture stamps a child collects. ‘Well have to find her some new stamps,’ he said sadly.
Wilson was waiting for him outside. He said, ‘I’ve been looking for you, Major Scobie, ever since the funeral.’
‘I’ve been doing good works,’ Scobie said.
‘How’s Mrs Rolt?’
‘They think she’ll pull through - and the boy too.’
‘Oh yes, the boy.’ Wilson kicked a loose stone in the path and said, ‘I want your advice, Major Scobie. I’m a bit worried.’
‘Yes?’
‘You know I’ve been down here checking up on our store. Well, I find that our manager has been buying military stuff. There’s a lot of tinned food that never came from our exporters.’
‘Isn’t the answer fairly simple - sack him?’