Charley Makes Uebfracmllch

By Bill Gill

IT was the North-West season and the sun blazed down with un relenting fury on the clearing. In the centre of the clearing stood the copra drier.

Sitting with his back to the wall of the building, and in the full glare of the sun, the fireman slept and frizzled.

The air was acrid with the rancid stench of rotten copra; the ground was strewn thickly with coconut shells and piles of the soft, spongy “meringues” from germinated nuts.

Nearby stood a kerosene tin, three parts full of coconut “milk” saved by the fireman to flavour his even ing rice ration. Round the corner of the building strode Charley, his face scarlet with heat and exasperation.

His shirt and slacks were dark with sweat and his peevish eye alighted cn the sleeping figure.

He halted in full stride. The scarlet in his face turned to magenta as he stood momentarily rooted to the spot. Then, with a bitter oath, he sprang forward, seized the kero sene tin and dashed its sticky, oleaginous contents full in the face of the sleeper. As if fired from a gun, the boy sprang straight in the air, eyes and mouth agape. He hit the ground running and vanished round the far end of the building jefore Charley could drop the empty tin.

With most of his wrath still un spent and with no-one on whom to pent it, Charley contented himself with kicking the tin into a shapeless nass, then stamped savagely towards lis bungalow.

On his verandah, Charley flung lis hat to the far corner and slumped on a decrepit cane lounge which groaned in protest. Calling loarsely for some tea, he reached istlessly for a dog-eared, paper jacked novel. Frowning, he riffled hrough the pages then, with an mpatient growl, he hurled the book nto the comer after his hat.

Presently his cookboy padded on o the verandah bearing a tray load •f tea paraphernalia and some soggy cones. This he placed on a small able and stepped backwards await ng further orders. The relation hip of master and servant which lad existed between them for so nany years, did not preclude a real, f undemonstrative, friendship.

“If ever I get my hands on that iamned Simoni I’ll wring his crawny neck,” said Charley with a and of suppressed ferocity. “Found lim sound asleep on the job in the niddle of the afternoon.” *We are aware that liebfraumilch is a ierman hock; but Charley's concoction is the •rauiest tipple yet heard of in these parts.

The cookboy sucked his teeth sympathetically.

“It’s the same all over the place ”

Charley continued, “the whole labour force, bar a few who spotted me first, were lying about loafing in the shade. It’s the heat I guess “It’s six weeks since I’ve had a decent drink, and now my radio’s on the blink; I’ve read every book in the place a dozen times. If something doesn’t happen soon I can see myself cantering up the range to discover a few ‘lost tribes’ or taking a cruise to Denmark and changing my sex.”

The boy waited impassively, un comprehending.

“All right, all right,” cried Charley, impatiently, “on your way ”

The boy vanished but reappeared almost immediately. “Taubada ’e come,” he said, “Taubada Bobo”

And even as he

spoke, a richly unctuous voice hail e d Charley from without. “Hi, Charley, my dear fellah, how are ye?” A great, oval figure crossed the verandah with a heavy sliding motion, hand out stretched.

“Hallo Balbo,” said Charley, “what brings you here?” Then noting the state of hi s visitor, h e added, “would you like a shower be fore you have some tea?”

“A shower?” cried Balbo, “no thanks, o 1 d boy, I’m wet enough without that; had a good sweat walking along those infernal beaches but I’ll tell you what I would like,” he continued, “a n d that’s a brimming glass of cool beer, tea only makes me sweat more.”

“A beer, eh?” said Charley, sardonicall y.

“Wouldn’t we all?

I haven’t had a drink of any kind for six weeks — though it seems more like six months.”

“Don’t tell me you’re dry, too?” cried Balbo, in tones of acute anxiety, “What’s gone wrong with every one? It’s the same all down the coast. Tongues hanging out every where like red ties at a commo’s convention. Hasn’t the coaster been along yet?”

“It has not,” said Charley grimly, “and well you know it. Musta’ broken down again and right in the middle of the hottest, driest nor-west season we’ve had . for years. Have a sipora if you don’t want tea.”

A heavy gloom settled down on the verandah as the two dejected men watched unmoved the glory of the sunset.

Then, suddenly a thin hail, “faint and afar off,” galvanised them to life. “Sail-ho, Taubada,” cried the cookboy appearing with unwonted alacrity.

“Sail-ho!” echoed Charley and Balbo in unison, swinging to their feet and grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats.

“She’ll be here in half an hour,” continued Charley jovially thumping

"Ribald jests passed . .

Balbo on his great, fat shoulders causing them to flinch like a camel’s hump.

“We’ll take a cruise down to the beach and meet her.” Charley linked his hairy, brown arm in the bolster like affair that served as the corre sponding limb on Balbo.

It was dark when they reached the beach. Here they paused and turned expectantly seawards. The sight that met their gaze struck them speechless with dismay. Balbo was the first to recover.

“Why, blow me down,” he said, glaring wrathfully at the approach ing navigation lights, “that isn’t the coaster, it’s only some miserable launch.”

“Looks like Skinner’s launch, and he doesn’t worry much about the grog.”

They sat down on a coral outcrop and glowered resentfully as the small launch surged through the break in the reef, rounded up smartly and sent the anchor splashing over.

Then Skinner’s cheerful voice hailed them: “Got a bag of mail for you, Charley, I’ll duck ashore with it,” and he sprang nimbly into the tiny dinghy and was pulled to the beach. As soon as the dinghy touched the hard, the two were on him. “Never mind the mail,” roared Charley. “Where’s the coaster?

Where’s my beer?”

“She’s had engine trouble,” ex plained Skinner cheerfully, “Won’t be round for a week yet. What’s the hurry anyway?”

“Don’t you realise that there’s a drought on? That Europeans along the coast are dying like flies for lack of a swig of honest liquor?”

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” grinned Skinner, who knew more about the coastal Europeans than anyone. “But seeing it’s so serious, I’ll lend you a case of rum. I’m taking a couple along for some fossickers up behind my place. You can replace it when the coaster comes next week.” ♦ * * AN hour later, Skinner was over the horizon to northward and Charley and his guest were seated on the verandah, with a table between them; on the table stood a rum bottle and a milk jug. Both vessels were empty. “More rum,” shouted Charley, “and more milk.”

“Rum and milk,” rhapsodised

Balbo, “Ambrosia! Incomparable!

It’s the milk that does it, old boy, the rum merely flavours it, makes it more palatable. Without milk, rum is not worth drinking.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” answered Charley, cautiously. “Many a time I’ve been thankful for a rum and water. Aye, and even a rum neat, if driven to it. OP at that.”

The boy reappeared with a fresh bottle of rum and the milkjug, this time only half full. He wore a

worried frown. “No plenty milk, Taubada,” he said apprehensively.

“That’s all right,” hiccoughed Balbo, “don’t worry, you got plenty more goats, haven’t you?”

But the boy was worried, having already stripped every goat on the plantation. He cast an appealing glance at Charley, who must have sensed his difficulty for, staring hard at the boy, he said, “Have you tried the married quarters in the labour compound? Or over in the village?”

The boy studied his master’s face attentively then, “Orright, Taubada,” he said and vanished.

Soon the milk jug was empty again and Balbo bawling for more.

This time the boy entered promptly and, with something of a flourish, placed a full quart of milk on the table.

Now it was Charley’s turn to study the impassive face of his servant. He said, “I think I’ll switch to water. I’ve had enough milk for one night.”

“Right,” wheezed Balbo, “suit your self, my dear fellah,” and he splashed a nip of rum into his glass, filled it to the brim with milk and downed it in one prodigious swallow, watched with a kind of fascinated horror by Charley, the cook and (judging by the hissing intake of breath from the darkened back verandah) an unknown number of unseen ad mirers.

Charley knew that his cook had not failed him: He could imagine the ribald jests which passed be tween his cook and the various nurs ing mothers as they yielded up their surplus lactic juices (for an ex orbitant fee in trade tobacco), He shuddered. * * * By the time the quart of milk, with an appropriate ration of rum, had been consumed, the drinkers were all in. Charley was becoming

argumentative, and Balbo sleepy..' “I think I’ll totter off to beo muttered the latter, and suiting hi actions to his words he rose, and wove his way towards tl: visitor’s bedroom, overshot his targ§ and fetched up in the bathrooic where he collapsed into the bath.

“Rum!” he shouted, “fetch me au other rum an’ milk.”

“There’s no more milk, I tell you said Charley, his patience at an era “Of course, there’s milk,” Ball insisted, “the place is stiff with goa j fetch me in a goat and I’ll soon gs all the milk you want.”

“Right!” said Charley, grimly, au staggered downstairs to reappears few minutes later with a wildly pn testing nanny in his arms. “Here' he cried, standing over the prostras figure in the bath, “you want a gOD —cop this,” and he dropped the ui happy ruminant into the bath wir Balbo.

There ensued a wild shemozzle screams and bleats, of flailing le and tossing horns, then the go succeeded in securing a toe-ho with her sharp, stabbing hooves a:i soared out of the bath and ov the verandah rail to disappear the darkness.

After Balbo’s wounds had bea bathed and bandaged by the n« contrite Charley, the latter said a husky voice: “Now just take it easy, Balbo, n boy, and I’ll see if can rustle a drop of rum and milk for yoi( “Not for me,” interposed Bal quickly through a slot in the bam ages which concealed his eve feature. “Never again! I intend 1 devote the remainder of my life,, I survive, to the destruction of goas I’ll shoot everyone of the breedfc come across. As for the rum—ll already said rum is only drinkah because of the milk in it—so forg' it.”

And he turned his face to the ws-

“The goat soared out of the bath."