The Crescent Moon

by Francis Brett Young

“And then I killed a man.”

He paused, and she felt that his eyes were on her more than ever.

“That’s how I lost my name. The one that I found again the other night. At the time it seemed to me a terrible thing. I’m not so sure that I think it terrible now. If I hadn’t killed him he would have killed me; but for all that the quarrel was of my making. It was in Singapore . . . in Malay Street, Singapore. A street with a bad name. He was a Russian sailor, and he was treating a woman in the way that no woman, whatever her trade might be, should be treated. I didn’t know the woman. I shot him. In a second the place was swarming like an ant’s nest. I had my clothes torn from me, but I got away. I was three weeks hiding in an opium shop in Singapore. The Chinese will do anything for you for money. I didn’t want to be hanged, for in those days I put a higher value on life than I do now . . . a funny thing to say of a man who had just killed another. I hid among the long bunks where Chinese sailors were lying. The place was dark, with a low roof, and full of the heavy smoke of opium. I was used to that; for one of our quartermasters was an opium smoker and the fo’c’sle of the Mary Deans always smelt of it. I spent three weeks thinking of my past sins and watching a pattern of golden dragons on the roof; and I did more thinking there than I had ever done in my life.

“At the end of those three weeks Ah Qui—that was the Chinaman’s name—got me away. I remember the night. We pulled out in a sampan from Tanjong Pagar under the lee of a little island. Pulo . . . Pulo something or other. There was an oily sea lapping round the piles on which the Malays had built their huts and one of those heavy skies that you get in the Straits washed all over with summer lightning. But the taste of clean air after three weeks of opium fumes! They got me on to a junk that was sailing for Batavia, in Java. Old Ah Qui had stripped me of every dollar I possessed. He wouldn’t do it for a cent less. When I found myself on the deck of that junk, breathing free air under the flapping sails, the want of money didn’t trouble me. I stretched out my arms. I filled my lungs. I could have sung for joy . . .

“At Batavia I shipped under the Dutch flag under the name of Charles Hare. It wasn’t a bad name. It came to me in a flash. We landed at Capetown in the year eighteen eighty-five. It was the year after the discovery of gold at De Kaap; Moodie’s farm had just been opened. Everybody was talking of gold. While we lay in Table Bay waiting for cargo they found the Sheba reef. We heard of it, myself and another man named Miles, in a dope shop down by the harbour. We didn’t think twice about it. That very night we set off for the Transvaal on foot.

“I was one of the lucky ones. We had a fair start of the others who came flocking out from Europe. And it wasn’t only luck. I kept my head. That is part of the virtue of being a Scotsman. I kept my head where poor Miles didn’t. I had had my lesson: those three weeks of hard thinking in Ah Qui’s opium shop. And Miles went under. Twice I put him on his feet again, but he didn’t pay for helping. He was never the man that I should have chosen. He just happened to be the only white man aboard that Dutch ship. I couldn’t make a new man of him. I suppose he was a born waster. There were plenty like that on the Rand in eighty-six. I saw scores of them go under. And as for murder . . . that was common enough to make me wonder what all the fuss had been about in Singapore.

“I was lucky, as I told you. I left the Rand in eighty-seven. During the last year, when I had parted with Miles and was working for myself, I had experienced a big reaction. It seemed to me that the adventurous way in which I had been living wasn’t worth while. I’d seen the example of Miles . . . poor fellow . . . and remembered Singapore. Besides, I had a good bit of money banked with the Jews—enough to live on for the rest of my life—and the mere fact of possessing money makes you look at the world in a different way. It’s a bad thing for a young man . . . I’m sure of that. But I was a lot older than my years.

“At any rate, when I left the place where Jo’burg is now I swore that I’d keep what I’d got. I came down to the Cape again, and built a little house out Muizenburg way . . . up above the winter pool they call Zand Vlei . . . a fine little wooden house; and I planted peaches there, and a plumbago hedge round my mealies. It was all my idea of a home. And then, just as the house was beginning to be all that I expected it, I came across a woman. I had never known what it was to be in love before. I was a simple enough lad, for all my money and my pretty house. She was an assistant in one of the stores that stood where Adderley Street is now. An English-woman. She had come out there as ‘mother’s help,’ or whatever they call it, to some Government people; and when they were recalled Mr. Jenkins had asked her if she would come into his store. I fancy they came from the same part of the country. Her home was in Herefordshire. She stayed at Jenkins’, and it was there I found her.

“A beautiful woman . . . beautiful, I mean in every way. But it was for so little, so very little . . .

“I can tell you . . . I feel I can tell you because—if you’ll allow me to be personal—she had much the same colouring as you; the same eyes, the same straight eyebrows, the same sort of hair. I almost fancy her speech was like yours too. But one forgets. It was thirty years ago . . .