J. Farjeon - Little God Ben

‘I am a company promoter, Mr Haines,’ replied Lord Cooling. ‘You can count on my optimism implicitly.’

But Haines had suddenly ceased to listen. His eyes gazed beyond Lord Cooling towards the beach. The other little heaps were stirring, and the heap he was most interested in had risen and was coming towards them.

As Ruth Sheringham approached, her sodden blue dress clinging to her pathetically but in no way, Haines considered, detracting from her charm, her lithe body stiffened, and she stopped. But she only paused for a few seconds. She came on again without any visible signs of panic.

‘Well done, Miss Sheringham,’ said Haines.

‘Did you think I was the fainting kind?’ she retorted. ‘Aren’t they pretty?’

‘Go on!’ muttered Ben in astonishment.

Lord Cooling regarded Ben with growing disapproval.

‘Historians of the future may deduce that Miss Sheringham did not quite mean what she said,’ he suggested with frigid sarcasm, ‘and they may also record that a stoker who talked too much was presented as a peace offering to a cannibal chief!’

‘Well, ain’t you torkin’ too much?’ retorted Ben, with a boldness he would never have shown on the ship. ‘We sed we was goin’ ter keep mum abart them cannerbuls!’

‘Cannibals?’ repeated Ruth.

‘ Will you shut up?’ Haines exclaimed to Ben.

‘Well, why does heverybody sit on me?’ answered Ben. ‘I was born sat on, and I’m fair sick of it, that’s a fack!’

Lord Cooling sighed.

‘If you will give me your name and permanent address,’ he said, ‘I will write you a letter of apology and post it in the nearest pillar-box. Meanwhile, here come the others. It appears to be a tortoise race—with, I notice, our film star an easy winner. Well, perhaps their voices will be a little more useful than our own—’

He stopped abruptly, gazed at something on the ground, stooped, and picked it up. It was a small white object.

‘What’s that?’ inquired Haines, arrested by the other’s rather ominous interest.

‘I hope a beef-bone,’ murmured Lord Cooling.

Haines stepped nearer Ruth. In spite of her tight hold on herself, she had given a little shiver.

‘Cold, isn’t it?’ she smiled. The sunlight, gaining in intensity every minute, gave her the lie. ‘In these wet things, you know.’

‘Yes, I know, Miss Sheringham,’ Haines smiled back, reassuringly. ‘And I know something else—there’s nothing whatever to be worried about.’

‘Course not,’ nodded the girl. ‘Everything’s just too lovely to believe!’

Then the four other little heaps drew up and stared at the hideous statuary. It was Elsie Noyes who, forgetful of the discipline of a girl guide captain, expressed the common emotion by exclaiming:

‘Oh, my God!’

If she forgot her part, so did Ardentino and Henry Smith, whose faces would not have been recognised in Elstree or Wembley Park. Ernest Medworth, on the other hand, soon reverted to type. He found himself staring at the golden eyes, and wondering what they were worth.

‘Someone’s been busy here!’ he commented.

‘Yes, I don’t imagine these things came up from seed,’ answered Cooling.

‘Ha, ha, very funny!’ laughed Smith, uneasily. ‘That’s good, that is! They’re not exactly roses!’

He laughed alone. The fact depressed and annoyed him. Dash it all, did they think he felt like laughing? But one had to try to put a cheerful face on things—one had to be British, and all that. Pity there weren’t a few of his train companions here to help keep the old flag flying.

He tried again. ‘Well, you’ve got to say it’s pretty here,’ he remarked. ‘Take away the waxworks, and it’s a bit like Rottingdean before they spoilt it.’

‘Don’t make us home-sick, Mr Smith,’ pleaded Lord Cooling, cynically.

‘The fellow’s an idiot!’ grunted Medworth.

Smith’s cheeks flamed. ‘What’s the matter with everybody?’ he snapped. ‘Can’t one make a passing remark?’

‘The sooner your remarks pass, the better!’ retorted Medworth, rudely. ‘This isn’t the time for reminiscences!’

‘Now, now, we mustn’t lose one’s temper, that’s the first thing one mustn’t do!’ cried Miss Noyes, quoting from her book of rules. ‘If these—these heathen gods or whatever they are mean that the place is inhabited, well, we know where we are, that’s something, and we must organise against them—organise!’

She was hardly the best tonic for frayed nerves. Smith was the only member who was grateful to her. She had at least diverted attention from himself.

‘I suppose that is what they mean?’ inquired Ardentino, glancing towards the Third Officer.

‘That this island’s inhabited?’ replied Haines. ‘Yes, there’s not much doubt about that.’

‘Well—er—we want it to be inhabited, don’t we?’

‘Depends upon the inhabitants,’ answered Medworth.

‘Yes, we only move among the best people,’ added Ruth. ‘What happens if they’re not in Debrett?’

The question was not answered. Somewhere in the forest, a twig snapped.

Personal differences were forgotten. For ten seconds eight people stood motionless. The gods themselves were not more still. Then another twig snapped.

‘I think,’ suggested Lord Cooling quietly, ‘we swallow pride—momentarily—and take cover?’

‘I don’t think—I know !’ muttered Medworth.

‘Nah fer the runnin’ race!’ said Ben.

And led it.

Ben led the race at the start, but he had to share honours at the end. The result was a dead heat between himself and four others, and there was considerable crowding at the large rock of concealment that formed the winning-post.

The losers were Ruth Sheringham, Tom Haines, and Lord Cooling. They had started late, and with a little diffidence. Lord Cooling, although he had been the first to suggest retreat, did not like turning his back on an enemy. Many charges would be brought against him when he met his Maker, but not that of cowardice. An ancestor of his had fought at Crecy. Haines shared his distaste for running away, and was by no means certain that it was good strategy; but the sight of Ruth, standing beside him and waiting for her cue, had made him gulp down his pride, and he had suddenly seized her arm and rushed her to the rock. Lord Cooling, bringing up the rear, had endeavoured to mingle dignity with haste until a new sound had urged him to shed the dignity. ‘After all,’ he reflected, as his feet sped faster than they had sped since Eton, ‘if one is going to run, one may as well run.’

The new sound certainly provided plenty of excuse. It was a mournful chanting.

At first the chanting was wholly eerie. It drifted forward from the forest, a depressing dirge that lacked the slightest gleam of hope. ‘Sahnds like a corpse singin’!’ thought Ben, and it was not a bad description. The slowness of the corpse’s approach added to the painful tension.

But, before the chanter appeared, the sharpest brains—not Ben’s—became conscious of a curious psychology. There was something elusive in the chanting, something vaguely at war with itself. Did it represent religious fervour, or sheer boredom, or a combination of both? The words, when at last they became decipherable, afforded no clue. They were, as far as could be determined:

‘Waa—lala,

Waa—lala,

Oli O li,

Waa—lala.’

This doleful sound was repeated, with occasional pauses, until the chanter emerged from the forest through a narrow track and came into sight.