wet dream was nothing to worry about. Don't sleep on your back, though. On this simple routine he had proceeded since puberty. And during the past few months he had proceeded even further. Learning that he was to be posted to India, where he would contact Isabel, he had disciplined himself more severely and practised chastity even in thought. It was the least he could do for the girl he hoped to marry. Sex had entirely receded?only to come charging back like a bull. That infernal Cocoa?the mischief he had done. He had woken up so much that might have slept.
For Isabel's sake, as for his profession's, their foolish relationship must stop at once. He could not think how he had yielded to it, or why it had involved him so deeply. It would have ended at Bombay, it would have to end now, and Cocoanut must cry his eyes out if he thought it worth while. So far all was clear. But behind Isabel, behind the Army, was another power, whom he could not consider calmly; his mother, blind-eyed in the midst of the enormous web she had spun?filaments drifting everywhere, strands catching. There was no reasoning with her or about her, she understood nothing and controlled everything. She had suffered too much and was too high-minded to be judged like
4. Curved Asian sword.
.
2078 / E. M. FORSTER
other people, she was outside carnality and incapable of pardoning it. Earlier in the evening, when Cocoa mentioned her, he had tried to imagine her with his father, enjoying the sensations he was beginning to find so pleasant, but the attempt was sacrilegious and he was shocked at himself. From the great blank country she inhabited came a voice condemning him and all her children for sin, but condemning him most. There was no parleying5 with her?she was a voice. God had not granted her ears?nor could she see, mercifully: the sight of him stripping6 would have killed her. He, her first-born, set apart for the redemption of the family name. His surviving brother was too much a bookworm to be of any use, and the other two were girls.
He spat into the sea. He promised her 'Never again'. The words went out into the night like other enchantments. He said them aloud, and Colonel Arbuthnot, who was a light sleeper, woke up and switched on his torch.
'Hullo, who's that, what's there?'
'March, sir, Lionel March. I'm afraid I've disturbed you.'
'No, no, Lionel, that's all right, I wasn't asleep. Ye gods, what gorgeous pyjamas the fellow's wearing. What's he going about like a lone wolf for? Eh?' 'Too hot in my cabin, sir. Nothing sinister.' 'How goes the resident wog?' 'The resident wog he sleeps.' 'By the way, what's his name?' 'Moraes, I believe.' 'Exactly. Mr Moraes is in for trouble.' 'Oh. What for, sir?' 'For being on board. Lady Manning has just heard the story. It turns out
that he gave someone in the London office a fat bribe to get him a passage though the boat was full, and as an easy way out they put him into your cabin. I don't care who gives or takes bribes. Doesn't interest me. But if the Company thinks it can treat a British officer like that it's very much mistaken. I'm going to raise hell at Bombay.'
'He's not been any particular nuisance,' said Lionel after a pause.
'I daresay not. It's the question of our prestige in the East, and it is also very hard luck on you, very hard. Why don't you come and sleep on deck like the rest of the gang?'
'Sound idea, I will.' 'We've managed to cordon off this section of the deck, and woe betide anything black that walks this way, if it's only a beetle. Good night.' 'Good night, sir.' Then something snapped and he heard himself shouting, 'Bloody rubbish, leave the kid alone.'
'Wh?what's that, didn't catch,' said the puzzled Colonel.
'Nothing sir, sorry sir.' And he was back in the cabin.
Why on earth had he nearly betrayed himself just as everything was going right? There seemed a sort of devil around. At the beginning of the voyage he had tempted him to throw himself overboard for no reason, but this was something more serious. 'When you come back to the cabin you will not be you,' Cocoa had said; and was it so?
However, the lower berth was empty, that was something, the boy must have gone to the lav, and he slipped out of his effeminate pyjamas and prepared
5. Mutual conversation. 6. Forster's substitution for his original phrase, 'topping a dago.' 'Topping': copulating with.
.
THE OTHER BOAT / 2079
to finish the night where he belonged?a good sleep there would steady him. His forearm was already along the rail, his foot poised for the upspring, when he saw what had happened.
'Hullo, Cocoanut, up in my berth for a change?' he said in clipped officer- tones, for it was dangerous to get angry. 'Stay there if you want to, I've just decided to sleep on deck.' There was no reply, but his own remarks pleased him and he decided to go further. 'As a matter of fact I shan't be using our cabin again except when it is absolutely necessary,' he continued. 'It's scarcely three days to Bombay, so I can easily manage, and I shan't, we shan't be meeting again after disembarkation. As I said earlier on, the whole thing has been a bit of a mistake. I wish we . . . ' He stopped. If only it wasn't so difficult to be kind! But his talk with the Colonel and his communion with the Mater prevented it. He must keep with his own people, or he would perish. He added, 'Sorry to have to say all this.'
'Kiss me.'
The words fell quietly after his brassiness and vulgarity and he could not answer them. The face was close to his now, the body curved away seductively into darkness.
'Kiss me.'
'No.'
'Noah? No? Then I kiss you.' And he lowered his mouth on to the muscular forearm and bit it. Lionel yelped with the pain. 'Bloody bitch, wait till I . . . ' Blood oozed between the gold-bright hairs.
