Click…. Click….
‘For God’s sake call that vet back, and let him——’
‘You minda you biz-ness, hah?’
‘It’s ’is dawg. ’E’s got a right to kill ’is own dawg, ain’t ’e? Provided ’e ain’t cruel. Nah, go easy, Busto, go easy——’
I hunched myself together, with closed eyes.
Click, went the revolver.
‘Last cartridge always goes orf,’ said Mick. ‘Try once agen. ’Old yer gun low-er…. Nah, squeeeeeeze yer trigger——’
I pushed my fingers into my ears and tensed every muscle. The wine had put a raw edge on my sensibilities. I shut my eyes again and waited. I heard nothing but the pulsing of blood in my head. My fingers in my ears felt cold. I thought of the revolver-muzzle, and shuddered. Time stopped. The room spun like a top about me and the Red Lisbon wine, the Lunatic’s Broth, drummed in my head like a boxer with a punching-ball – Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta.
I opened my eyes. Busto was still kneeling by the bed. The revolver, still unfired, remained poised in his hand; but Ouif had ceased to whimper. He lay motionless, the petrified ruins of a dog.
‘Anyway ’e die,’ said Busto.
‘Of ’is own accord,’ said Mick. ‘Bleedn war-profiteers is still alive. So ’e ’as to die, if yer see what I mean.’
‘Some people complain,’ I said, ‘because men die and dogs go on living.’
Busto made an unpleasant noise, with his tongue between his lips: ‘Pthut! Men is rubbish. Dogs is good.’
He drank the last of the wine. Then, pensively raising the revolver, he cocked it and let the hammer fall. The last cartridge exploded with the crash of a cannon; the big bullet smacked into the ceiling, bringing down an avalanche of plaster; the revolver, loosely held, was plucked out of Busto’s hand by the recoil and fell with a tremendous clatter and jingle of broken crockery among the teacups. For a moment we all sat still, stunned with shock. The clean piercing smell of burnt gunpowder cut through the close atmosphere of the underground bedroom. Busto jumped to his feet, kicked over the table, jerked his elbows sideways in an indescribably violent gesture and, raising his fists to the ceiling, yelled:
‘Ah, you! Death! Greedy pig! Wasn’t you a-belly full yet?’
Then he grew calm. He pointed to the body of Ouif and said to Mick: ‘Chucka disaway.’
‘Where?’
‘Dussbin.’
‘Wot, ain’t yer goin’ to bury ’im?’
‘Whagood dat do?’ Busto turned to me, and made a familiar gesture. Raising his eyebrows and sticking out his chin, he pointed with the index finger of his left hand to the palm of his right, and uttered one sound:
‘Hah?’
I remembered; paid him my rent, nine shillings and sixpence, and went up the creaking stairs to bed.
I should say, I suppose, that there was a great deal of good in Pio Busto – that a man who could love his dog must have something fine and generous somewhere in his soul. It may be so, but I doubt it. I said I feared him. That was because he was my landlord, and I had no money and knew that if I failed to pay my rent on Saturday I should be in the street on Sunday as surely as dawn follows night. How I detested him for his avarice, his greed, his little meannesses with soap, paint, and matches! Yet I admit that I felt a queer qualm of pity for him – that grimy, grasping, hateful little man – when he gave away cups of Lizzie Wine that night in the wash-house when the little dog Ouif lay dying in his bed. I don’t know … there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.
I have met many men who inspired me with much more loathing than Busto, several of whom passed as Jolly Good Fellows. It is terrible to think that, after the worst man you know, there must always be somebody still worse.
Then who is the Last Man?
The same applies to places. The insects at Busto’s drove me mad. But, say I had been at Fort Flea? You will not have heard the story of Fort Flea, for it was hushed up. I got it from a man who learned the facts through an account written by a Mr de Pereyra, who knew the Commanding Officer. It went into the official reports under the heading of Fuerte di Pulce, I think.
During the Spanish campaign in North Africa, in the latter years of the Great War, a company of Spanish soldiers occupied a fort. There was the merest handful of Spaniards, surrounded by at least two thousand Kabyles. Yet the tribesmen retreated and let them take the fort. Later, a Kabyle, carrying a flag of truce, approached the soldiers and, screaming with laughter, cried: ‘Scratch! Scratch! Scratch!’ They didn’t know what he meant, but they found out before the day was over.
The Doctor, who had been attending two men who had been wounded, came to the Captain and, in a trembling voice, asked him to come to the improvised hospital. ‘Look‚’ he said. The wounded men were black with fleas – millions of fleas, attracted by the smell of fresh blood. They were coming in dense clouds, even rising out of the earth – countless trillions of fleas, which had their origins in a vast sewage-ditch which, for centuries, had received the filth of the town. They were mad with hunger; attacked everybody, swarming inches deep; drew pints of blood from every man; killed the wounded, devitalised the rest, made eating impossible by pouring into the food as soon as it was uncovered, prevented sleep, made life intolerable. And nothing could be done. The Spaniards had the strictest orders to hold their position. A desperate dispatch was rushed to the General – General Sanjurjo, I believe – who sent a scathing reply. What kind of men were these, he wondered, who could let themselves be driven back by the commonest of vermin? So at last, when reinforcements arrived, there were only twelve men left, all wrecks. The Kabyles hadn’t attacked: they had stood by, enjoying the fun. The rest of the men had been eaten alive; nibbled to death.
And I complained of the polite little insects in the bedrooms at Busto’s.
Thicker than Water
PART ONE
‘YOU always were such a confounded milksop,’ said my uncle. ‘I shall never forget that time when you came down from Cambridge, pure as a lily. I gave you a ten-pound note, and told you: “Here’s a tenner, Rodney – go to the West End, find some lively company; have a good time, make a man of yourself!” And out you went, buttoned up like a blessed parson. And you were back by midnight, all flushed…. What? You’re blushing again, are you? Better watch out, Rodney. You make me think of the little train that used to run between Wittingley and Ambersham – when the driver blew the whistle, the engine lost steam, and stopped. Don’t blush; you can’t spare the blood for it. Oh, you curd, you!’
I said: ‘Oh, Uncle – please!’
But he had no mercy. He was in one of his savage, comic humours. He went right on, in apostrophe, talking to the crystal chandelier: ‘… He comes back by midnight, does this Rodney, all of a glow. I say to myself: “Well, now, at last this bookworm has made a bit of a fool of himself. About time! Let’s have a little vicarious pleasure …” And I ask him to tell me how he has spent his evening – not, mark you, that he can have sowed many wild oats between tea-time and the Devil’s Dancing Hour. “Been dissipating, Rodney, my boy?” I ask him. And: “Oh yes, Uncle Arnold!” says this little nobody. And, as I am a living sinner, he puts down nine pounds-three-and-six, with – Lord help us! – a look of guilt, saying: “Here is the change!”’