The Subtle Serpent

Noni Braham

This is a story selected from the top of the box of mother’s stories. Judging by the paper written a fair while ago. Probably 1960s or 70s.

Not an easy story. The damages done by war and the debts owed. I can’t say that even having read it a couple of times - mostly concentrating on fixing the OCR - that it is easy to follow. Somebody might have to explain it to me.

See if I have got the gist.

Dr Brown is rescued from the guerrilla fighting in the Pacific Islands by heroic destroyer captain Bill. They bond over music and become friends. After the war our man Dr Brown becomes the doctor - Bill is pretty lost in peacetime. Dr Luber a European who survived the war “uses” Bill in Wyndham. Bill becomes infatuated with Luber’s exotic wife “dangled” in front of him by Luber. Luber is known to have done bad things in his practice - (never said but sexual assault?) but the establishment turns a blind eye. The wife winds up murdered by either Bill or Luber. Our man attends the scene and realises that Luber is planning to frame Bill for the deed. Luber is blackmailed and the case deemed accidental death.

Curiously two endings.

I am intrigued because there was a mysterious man friend of Mothers I thought was called Bill. From my very vague recollections from my teens there was a bloke in the navy or merchant navy who visited once or twice. An ex-boyfriend perhaps? I don’t recall any comment from Dad. More mysterious was that he left his beautiful brass telescope a 3 &1/2-inch refractor - on an equatorial mount with an inverting lens (i.e. the image was right way up). It was a very real thing, and I spent hours looking through it when they were orbiting the moon for landing. It was collected after we had it for many years and is now for me at least only a memory. Freezing cold nights at Nobby!

I would not be surprised if there was some tie up between this bloke and this story. Mother liked to write from real life.

If you pick up any errors let me know in the comments and I can fix them.

See what you make of it. There are lots more which I will try to get to particularly if I get any encouragement.

Noni Braham

The Subtle Serpent

My eye before my hand, confirmed that she was dead. I carried out the usual tests; then, rising, I faced across the body of his beautiful wife, the other doctor in the room; he who, only ten minutes ago, had summoned me by telephone, saying that my friend had shot his wife and that I had better come at once.

He was standing by the wide fireplace, quite still – unusually still, for he was habitually the most restless of men. His eyes, bright and quick, like a snake's, alone betrayed life in the dark mask of his face.

I took a step towards him, away from his wife's yellow hair, spilling across the deep red carpet. “You are the murderer, of course,” I said.

His narrow shoulders lifted. He spread his arms wide, palms upward, in a typical gesture. "My dear Dr. Brown, your friend Bill, here, shot her, very efficiently, as you can see.” His voice was as composed as his face, but his accent was stronger than usual.

“I don't care who pulled the trigger. You murdered her.” My voice was shaking. I took a deep breath, trying to steady the trembling of my lips. The thin mouth lengthened into a smile. “Don't let us get hysterical doctor."

I turned away, knowing I would have to grab him by the throat if I watched him a minute longer and went at last, to the fourth person in the quiet room, my old friend Bill.

He was slumped into his chair, his great frame shrunken, his face covered by his blunt fingered, capable hands. I put my hand on his wide shoulder and for a moment escaped from the luxurious room, clammy with death and the inert body and the tall doctor, to the time when this broken man had saved my sanity and perhaps my life.

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We had been hiding all day in the undergrowth, and, as soon as darkness fell, we shouldered our packs and moved onto the beach.

The gaunt cliff, to the left, was just a blur now, but involuntarily, I glanced above it for sight of the jap plane we had half expected all day.

It was two years now since we had landed on the island and the game we had been playing - keeping a whole regiment of Japs busy with a couple of hundred Australians - had begun to pall. We were waiting to be picked up by a destroyer and taken home. Six weeks ago we had waited on a similar beach, only to see the destroyer draw away after damaging its side on one of the treacherous reefs which surrounded the island.

Generally the morale was good, although we were rotten with malaria and barcoo, and some were wounded. However, I was not too sure of my own. In Moresby I had seen a troppo nurse break away from the attendants who were putting her on the homeward bound plane and race for the jungle, squealing and stripping off her clothes as she went. I knew now how she felt and realised that this time, for my sake at least, the destroyer had better make it.

"Sea seems to be making a lot of row." Curly’s white face and cavernous eyes turned towards me. "Slap", went the waves.

"It would be the limit if we got a big blow to-night." Curly's voice shook slightly with the onset of an attack of malaria. Restless gusts of wind whirled the sand into our eyes between intervals of deadly calm, when the sir was like a stifling blanket on top of us. Every time the sea thumped my heart lurched with it and I tried not to listen to the growing roar from the south, where the breakers fell against the coast from the open sea.

“He won't have a chance to get close enough in this swell,” muttered Jim beside me. We dared not hope but as the mosquitoes and sand flies swarmed around us and the wind grew wilder and the sea noisier, we kept straining our eyes for a sign of deliverance from the uneasy darkness. About midnight it came – staccato signals leaping to us from the black night. A ripple of relief ran along the line of men and soon, as we got ready, we could hear the "put-put" of motor boats.

God knows how we managed to get aboard the boats and onto the destroyer but our ordeal was not yet over. Stowed hurriedly into the crew’s quarters we lay huddled and sick and almost despairing as the pitching vessel got under way into what promised to be a night of raging storm.

“Whose skipper?" asked Jim as hours later one of the crew, oilskins dripping, came in and made for a bunk near us.

“Beethoven Bill, we call him," The sailor's face scarlet from the wind, broke into a grin. "He's as mad as they come but if anyone can get us through this blow he can.”

The ship shuddered with a terrific impact, gave a sickening lurch and over and over we slid. The sailor was thrown against the side. We listed further and further. Surely we must turn over. The eyes of the weary men gaped upwards. Miraculously we swung back onto an even keel and the destroyer faced the waves head on again. “See what I mean," said the sailor, struggling up “While old Bill's up there we're O.K. Wavy navy you know. Been at sea since he was weaned. He's seen us through worse blows than this."

I slept then and awoke to full daylight, a quietening sea and the skipper standing in front of us. He looked tremendous in his oilskins, his face craggy and strong as granite, although his eyes were red rimmed and his skin grey with fatigue. "Sorry about the rough trip, boys", he said and smiled with all the comradeship and kindness and strength in the world showing in his open face. I can still remember it.

"Hadn’t you better ring the police doctor?”.

I disregarded Luber's voice. I felt I must go back to the past to try to reconcile the man who saved us that night with the creature whose shoulder shook now beneath my hand.

Through a few technicalities I, alone of my mates, was still on board at Townsville. The sea was a violet blue. The sand gleamed white and along the strand the cocoanut palms waved vivid green in the wind. Magnetic Island loomed up misty and beautiful and everywhere were yanks and with every yank or group of yanks was an Australian girl, her hair piled high in front and cascading to her shoulders at the back, her face caked in paint, her bottom wriggling in a tight skirt.

I could hear their shrill giggling. I thought of Curly in hospital in Darwin and the shallow grave on the island where I'd left my other good mate and of the sore on my leg that would not heal and disillusionment tasted bitter in my mouth. Even the cigarette was tasteless. I tossed it into the water and turned my back on the town.

From the upper deck came the opening bara of Beethoven's Piano Concerto in C. Major. Joyously the notes of the piano - struck out over the heavy air - civilised, ordered and triumphant. Knowing I was out of bounds, I went up until I had my ear against the captain's door from which the music was coming. Suddenly I was sprawling inside as it gave way. “˜What in God's name?" began the skipper, his blue eyes blazing. "The concerto," I mumbled. “I haven't heard it for years." "Come in, my boy. Come in," he said.

The spotless cabin was full of pictures of ships and musicians. “No photos of relatives," he said, "haven’t got any. I'm an orphan." We played record after record, drank beer, smoked cigars and talked and talked; or mostly I listened while Bill talked of the sea, of ships and the men who sailed ships and his words spoken in his deep voice were like poetry.

When he spoke of the men who skippered famous ships he gave them a touch of immortality. Life and human beings were to him magnificent and worth while. The music and his simplicity and grandeur of mind swept away my despondency. "Why don’t you try to do medicine under repat when you're discharged?" he suggested and I clung to the suggestion, feeling that at last I had a purpose in life again.

"Well doctor," Dr. Luber's voice was grating now with impatience, "you Anglo Saxons are such sticklers for form, I am sure you will not let your friendship for this man stop you from carrying out your duties as a medical practitioner."

I almost retorted, "you should speak of medical ethics," but desisted returning again to my memories.

After my discharge and when I was doing my course in medicine I had a minute flat at Rushcutters Bay, overlooking the green park and the rows of boats beyond and whenever I saw the sleek destroyer nosing in through the glistening blue of the harbour, I would prepare from a visit from Bill.

I was usually thick-headed and tired next morning and my neighbours gave me dirty looks, for we would play records and smoke and drink into the early hours of the morning. I remembered the seaman's splendid enthusiasm for living, his belief in humanity, his extraordinary simplicity; I remembered one of his officers telling me "You know I would rather sail with Bill than anyone. You can always depend on him to get you there in the end"; and one of his A.B.s skiting in a pub "why our old man can turn that tub on a threepence", launching into one story after another of his exploits and I remembered too the evening when I felt somehow that I let my old friend down.

Life had begun to close in on me little. I became engaged, interested in getting established in the world. Bill's anchorless existence began to worry me. Money and possessions apart from his records and books meant nothing to him. He was without ambition and I wondered how he would get on as he grew older (he was then 40 odd). “Why don't you get married and settled down?” I asked him one evening when he was in port and peace was drawing near, "Who’d have me?" he asked ruefully. "Anyhow the only girls I ever meet are bar maids."

Jane my fiancé was with us that evening. She really did not approve of him and he could sense it and grew ill at ease and drifted off early taking his records with him unplayed.

From my window I saw him turn up the collar of his coat as the rain began to fall and drift off aimlessly down the dark wet street. I opened the window and called after him but he did not hear. That was the last I saw or heard of him until we met again in this same room.

That was a night I will never forget. I was doing a locum for Dr. Webster in one of the outer suburbs of Melbourne and was calling on Dr. Luber, a confederate of his. The face revealed to me in the half light of the entrance was startling. “Mephistopheles,” I thought. The great, almost triangular head, bushy eyebrows twisted in the centre, like twin frames, beaked nose and saturnine mouth almost made me twitch my nose for the smell of fire and brimstone. "The dear young Doctor," his voice was deep and guttural, “Do come in.”

"How delightful it is to see one so young and so full of high ideals" he said as he settled me into a chair with a drink. Alas! How fast those ideals will vanish as the fat income and the big car etc. beckon to you." He was a charming host. His breadth of knowledge was overwhelming. He was witty too but all his comments were destructive and his mind seamed to dart from subject to subject while physically he was never still as if possessed by some demon of restlessness. “If he were a patient of mine," I thought, "I would sedate him.”

Suddenly he grew still as an image as the far door opened. He lifted his great head and for a moment his dark eyes glowed red. “My wife" he announced flatly.

The woman who moved or rather flowed into the room was of outstanding beauty. Once only before I had seen a woman walk as she did - a young Palestinian pianist who enraptured her audience even before she sat at the piano as she glided across the stage with all the provocation that women have ever learnt, in her walk. Mrs. Luber was blond but she had like the pianist, the sad faultless beauty of an age-old race. "Lilith" I thought.

“This is of Lilith by her Hebrew name Lady of night.”

For a moment overcome by the great liquid eyes and the husky voice murmuring a greeting I did not recognise the shambling figure behind her.

“And this" said the doctor, his voice an insult “is our famous mariner home from the sea.”

"Good Heavens Bill". I was shaking his band. "This is wonderful." But even as I said it I knew it was not wonderful at all. It was awful. He was a wreck, sodden with drink, his head held low, his blue eyes blood shot and vacant, his hair unkempt and streaked with white.

“How touching for old friends to meet “The doctor's voice was high with derision. “We were immured for some years, due to your quaint regulations concerning foreign doctors, in a hell hole called Wyndham. Your friend Bill here quite saved my wife's sanity by his endearing presence. Now let us have some music and no doubt we will be honoured and enlightened by some brilliant and so original comments from our seaman.”

I scarcely heard the record, one of Beethoven's. Bill roused himself to mumble “The master. Incomparable.”

"Did you hear him?” the doctor turned to me. "What penetrating criticism! What originality! And I’m quite sure I have only heard him say it fifty times before."

Bill shrugged and turned almost pettishly in his chair. Mrs. Luber fastened me with her huge shiny eyes. "Too beautiful, no?" she asked in her throaty voice. She leaned voluptuously back on the divan. "Get me a drink, Bill” she commanded. He leapt up like a well trained poodle dog. As she took the glass her hand lingered on his and a fatuous bemused expression came on his face. “So that is how it is,” I thought.

“What a pretty picture” Dr. Leber's voice cut in. "Beauty and the Beast.” What we would do without our sea faring man I really don't know. I am so busy - my wife so bored and Bill fills the breech so admirably as well of course as being quite handy in other ways. He does the garden, the shopping and all the little odd jobs." “Surely Bill must hit him.” I thought but he only hunched his shoulders and glowered.

“What a menage!” I escaped as soon as I could and reread a letter I had received from Dr. Webster. “You'd better call on Dr. Luber early in the piece," He wrote, "He does quite a bit of surgery for me - a brilliant fellow but he needs watching. I very nearly reported him to the B.M.A. last year. The evidence is quite clear in my files, but I decided against - it would ruin him - might even mean gaol and after all he's been through an awful lot - concentration camp and all that; I suppose they get a different way of looking at things from us and anyhow he's a darn good surgeon. However I thought you had better know what sort of a bird he is.”

Bill stirred and lifted a ravaged face to me "Honest to God Jack," his voice came hoarsely, "I don't know what happened. I just don't know.”

I patted him reassuringly and turned to the doctor who looked now like an animal ready to spring. "You ring the police, doctor and tell them that your wife committed suicide," He began to laugh. “If Bill is involved in any way I’ll report full details to the B.M.A. of the Mary Creen case." He ceased to laugh then but I’ll swear I could feel physically the hate which his eyes poured on me.

Well the blackmail worked. The verdict was suicide, which it may even have been. Certainly Bill did not know what happened. Luber left town and I have never heard of him since. Bill is on the China coast, drinking himself to death, so I believe.

OR

Bill stirred and lifted a ravaged face to me “She said she was sick of me, She had another lover. The two of them jeered at me, I don't know what happened then. Honest to Gos Jo I don't know what happened."

I pressed his arm, debated with myself for a moment only, then turned to the doctor who was now in frenzy of impatience, "You ring the police, doctor, not me. You ring and tell them there has been an accident."

He flung out his hands in protest but I continued, "If Bill is involved in any way I’ll turn over to the B.M.A. details of a certain case in Dr Webster's files. You know the one I mean. It will be de-registration and possibly goal for you if I do.”

He came at me then, his face twisted with rage - an animal baulked of its prey. I stepped back but he stopped and turned.

"You've lost doctor” I said, or at least you have only partly won. “Bill won't go to goal. I think I have saved my old friend from that, but,”

I glanced at Bill who seemed stupefied and oblivious to everything,” you’ve robbed him of every decent thing. He was finished even before tonight.

Why did you do it? Not because he stole your wife, You never loved her and I believe you connived at bringing them together because through her you could make him as rotten as yourself. Tell me, "I felt I must have an answer” “Why did you do it?"

He faced me then looking old and haunted, "You wouldn't understand you pious prig. Have you ever rotted for years in a concentration camp?”

His hands were clenched, his lips down drawn and tight across his teeth: "We lived like beasts. Self respect, belief in ourselves or in anything were luxuries we could not afford, while your complacent friend here” - He broke off, sighed, shrugged his shoulders and went to the phone,

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well Bill is on the China coast drinking himself to death I believe. I have not seen Luber since the inquest when the coroner returned a verdict of accidental death. But often in the cold grey hours of early morn I find myself back in that room with the smell of gunpowder in my nostrils and my thoughts race round like mice in a tread mill, trying to find a solution to it all and a justification for the part I played in the tragedy.

Did Luber really hate Bill and want to ruin him because he represented all the idealism and faith that had been stripped from him by the fascists? Or was he a second Iago, motivelessly and mischievously malignant? 0r was he the unhappy instrument of that serpent “more subtle than any beast of the field?” Was it old fashioned Satan, continuing on his predestined path of corrupting good, who used the warped and embittered nature of the foreign to destroy the simple nature of my friend? And then I wonder as the cocks begin to crow what effect that night had upon me and whose was really the victory.

East Wind.

48 CURZON STREET

TOOWOOMBA

QUEENSLAND

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