Patrick White - Voss

May 28th. Jackie returned at night with cattle, one head short. Before retiring, rewarded the boy with a ration of damper. He was quite pleased.

About this time there occurred also the incident of the mustard and cress.

Turner had been expressing himself in something like the following strain:

‘What would I not give for a nice dish of greens, cabbage, or spinach, or even turnip-tops at a pinch, with the water pressed out, and a lump of fresh butter slapped on like, or marrer from a good bone. But as long as there was greens.’

Greens they had had in small quantity, a kind of fat-hen that they would boil down occasionally, but in spite of this addition to their diet, Turner had become a scurvy mess, loathsome to see, and to smell, too.

Mr Palfreyman, who had overheard the fellow’s remark, remembered amongst his belongings some seeds of mustard and cress, which drought at first had prevented him from sowing, and which he had forgotten long before the weather broke.

Now, Turner was most repulsive to the rather fastidious Palfreyman, who, in normal circumstances, would have attended carefully to his hands, and changed his linen every day. In this he had been encouraged by his sister, whose clear, old-woman’s skin smelled habitually of lavender water or an essence of roses that she distilled herself, and whose tables were conspicuous for their little bowls of potpourri, and presses filled with the dry sheaves of lavender or yellow, crackling verbena leaves. It was, however, this same sister from whom he had run, at least, from her passionate, consuming nature, with the result that he was never finished wondering how he might atone for his degrading attitude, the constant fear of becoming dirtied, whether morally or physically, by some human being. Until the atrocious Turner, with greenish scabs at the roots of his patchy beard, and vague record of vice, seemed to offer him a means of expiation.

Once, in the cave that smelled of ashes and sickness, the ornithologist had suggested to the man that he should shave him.

‘To clean up your face and give it an opportunity of healing.’

Turner laughed.

‘I can see you shaving me , Mr Palfreyman, in the days before we lost our way.’

‘Do you not think we have found it?’ Palfreyman asked.

Turner made a noise, but submitted to being shaved.

It was a terrible operation.

When it was over, Palfreyman was sweating.

‘Seeing as it is Saturday night,’ Turner threatened, ‘I must make haste to find some moll, to lay with me on the wet grass and catch the rheumatics.’

Palfreyman flung the muck of soap and hair into the fire, where it proceeded to sizzle. His sister’s virgin soul winced; or was it his own?

Then, on this later occasion, Turner had confessed to his craving for greens. Miss Palfreyman, who preferred mignonette, was also in the habit of nursing up pots of mustard and cress, her brother remembered, and that he had those seeds in his pack, in an old japanned spectacle-case. At once he conceived the idea of sowing a bed for Turner and Le Mesurier, and went out on the very same day, into the rain, to look for a suitable site, and found one in a bed of silt, in a pocket of rock, some hundred yards from the eternal cave.

Here Palfreyman sowed, and the miraculous seeds germinated, standing up on pale threads, then unfolding. It was very simple and very quick. Several times on the crucial day, the man emerged from the cave to assist at the act, the importance of which was enormous.

So that, when he found that something had cut almost half his precious seedlings, Palfreyman’s eardrums were thundering. He began to watch for birds, or animals, and would hang about in the grey rain. His feet made sucking sounds as they changed position in the mud, while those seedlings which had not been cut continued to thrive in spite of the abominable conditions, and were growing even coarse.

But the ornithologist could not bring himself to cut. Curiosity and rancour prevented him. Until one day, as he watched from close by, Voss approached the vegetable bed, took a knife from his pocket, bent down, and cut a liberal tuft against the ball of his thumb. There he stood, stuffing the greenstuff into his mouth, like an animal.

Palfreyman was stunned.

‘Mr Voss,’ he said at last, coming forward.

‘ Ach! Mr Palfreyman!’ said Voss, or mumbled greenly.

So a sleepwalker is caught, but will not understand.

‘Do you not realize how this greenstuff comes to be growing here?’ Palfreyman began.

‘It is good,’ said the German, stooping and reaping again, ‘but in such small quantities, it cannot give the greatest pleasure.’

Palfreyman was on the point of asking whether the leader knew that the seed had been sown by hand of man, but desisted. He felt that he did not wish to hear his suspicions confirmed.

When Voss was finished, he cleaned the knife of any traces of green by drawing the blade between his forefinger and thumb. Then he closed it, and put it away.

‘Tell me, Palfreyman,’ he asked, ‘are you very distressed at the loss of the specimens in the river?’

‘They were immaterial,’ shrugged the ornithologist.

‘They were the object of your joining the expedition,’ corrected Voss.

‘I am inclined to think there were other reasons,’ Palfreyman replied. ‘And we have not yet reached the most important.’

He was sorely tried, but would not yield to the impulse to believe that his leader’s behaviour or the loss of his specimens could be the ultimate in tests.

Voss was watching him.

‘Shall we walk back to the cave?’ Palfreyman asked.

He was determined to like this man.

Voss agreed that they could not benefit by continuing to stand about in the rain.

As they were nearing the cave he turned to Palfreyman and said:

‘I want you to be candid with me. Are you of Judd’s party?’

‘Of judd’s party ?’

‘Yes. Judd is forming a party, which will split off from me sooner or later.’

‘I will not split off,’ said Palfreyman, sadly. ‘I am not of any party.’

‘ Ach , you cannot afford to stand aloof.’

‘Perhaps I expressed myself badly. Shall we say: I am of all parties?’

‘That is worse,’ cried Voss. ‘You will be torn in pieces.’

‘If it is necessary,’ Palfreyman replied.

Voss, Palfreyman, and Laura continued to walk towards the cave. The selflessness of the other two was a terrible temptation to the German. At times he could have touched their gentle devotion, which had the soft, glossy coat of a dog. At other moments, they were folded inside him, wing to wing, waiting for him to soar with them. But he would not be tempted.

‘I will not consider the personal appeals of love,’ he said, ‘or deviate in any way from my intention to cross this country.’

Then Voss entered the cave, and Palfreyman followed, looking distressed.

As the rain continued, the prisoners were submitted to further trials, but it was still only trial by minutiae.

Whenever they remained long in any one camp, Judd invariably came into his own. He immediately found — or invented, his leader would have said — many important jobs that needed doing. He became the master of objects. So that, after they had settled into their quarters in the cave, it was not long before he decided to inspect all the leather equipment they possessed; saddles, bridles, saddle-bags, and so forth. He could be seen stitching and patching beside the slow fire, upon which a dusty yellow light descended through the shaft that served them as chimney; or else he would be mending a shirt; or he was making a series of small bags in oiled cloth for the safekeeping of their reduced stock of medicines during the interminable wet.