Trimblerigg

by Laurence Housman

WHEN Mr. Trimblerigg again woke, he was happy; he had an idea, and the idea was entirely his own. It was not less his own because it had flashed into life during his talk with Davidina, or because it ran on diametrically opposite lines (up to a certain point, at least) from his previous policy of black-and-tan stripes and head-downward reprisals.

The thing which had been ‘absolutely necessary’ the day before and on those grounds had been justified, was now a discarded, if not a discredited device. He had found a better. It was inconsistent, no doubt; for if it could be put into practice now, it could have been put into practice earlier, and the tarrings and the featherings and the rest need never have happened. But it is no good condemning Mr. Trimblerigg for his inconsistencies; they were as much a part of that strangely divided unity, his character, as the extreme notes which give the range of a singer’s voice; and even when he had a divided mind, it served like the divided hoof of the mountain goat which gives nimbleness and elasticity to the tread. Often and often, because of his divided mind, his enemies did not know where to have him, nor sometimes where he would have them.

In these see-saw gymnastics his doctrine of Relative Truth helped him not a little. Mr. Trimblerigg never worried about methods; he judged himself only by results, and expected the world to have as short a memory as his own and to do likewise.

And I cannot deny that if results are a justification for doubtful faith and slippery dealings, results often did justify him; and many of his flashlight successes were won entirely because he had a mind of two parts diametrically opposed, which he never troubled to reconcile. They were there for alternate use and combined effect, just as oil and vinegar are used by a maker of salads—opposites resulting in a balance of flavour.

And undoubtedly, though they produced a mixed record, the tactical advantage was great. For what enemy of sane mind could anticipate attack from such opposite quarters as those chosen by Mr. Trimblerigg when he found himself in a tight place? It was not the simple strategy of a general whose armies came into action simultaneously from north and south; it was rather the conjuration of a wizard able to summon to his aid at the same moment and for a common end the hosts of Heaven and the powers of Hell—or of one who came offering peace, with a dove in one hand and a vulture in the other, undecided up to the last moment which of the two he intended to let go.

So it was when, in all the freshness of his new idea, Mr. Trimblerigg set out to play the god—the god of peace, mercy, and reconciliation to the expropriated natives of Puto-Congo; not because he regarded it as specially true to his character, or as the better hole to fall into—for to fall he did not intend; but because the coming of Davidina had made him realize that a sporting alternative to reprisals did actually exist; and being a sportsman by instinct, where matters of principle were concerned, he saw it adventurously as the obvious game to play.

Having made up his mind to it, he played it with a swift hand, and three days later set off unattended for the upper wilds of Ray River Territory (into which the elusive natives had gradually retired) with nothing to protect him but the safe conduct of one of their chiefs whom he had made captive, and whom he now released handsomely on parole to be his fore-runner and messenger.

And who, seeing him thus set forth, his feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, his loins girt with truth, and having on the shield of faith, and the sword of the spirit, who, seeing him so arrayed, could ever have supposed that at the same time he had planned, swiftly and covertly, a forced march of armed missionaries by night to secure at dawn the ratification of an imposed treaty; and that the signal of their presence was to be—not indeed the dropping of bombs and the rattle of machine-guns (though the bombs and machine-guns were to be all there, primed and ready to let go), but a strain of holy voices setting forth the alternative thus presented, threat and persuasion combined, to the tune of the Puto-Congo love-chant, which from time immemorial the young warriors had sung in spring outside the wigwams of their beloved ones.

It was possible to suppose one or other of two such courses of action: but to imagine them inextricably combined as the single homogeneous plan of a sane mind was altogether beyond reckoning; only Mr. Trimblerigg could have thought of it, only Mr. Trimblerigg could have asked a blessing for it—as he confidently did, in his prayers, and have gone forth to the experiment assured that he had not only the bombs and the machine-guns with him, but the favour of Heaven as well. And though a word from Davidina had prompted it, he was quite right in saying that the idea was entirely his own.

And so at dawn of the third day his idea came to fruition, and Mr. Trimblerigg saw the desire of his soul and was satisfied. He had laboured for long hours in the rough council chamber of the tribe, and his efforts still hovered between success and failure, when the wailing sound of the love-chant arose in the woods without; and all the warriors, struck mute by the wonder of it, stiffened and sat up on their haunches. And as they listened they joined hands, and their faces softened as the growing light of day crept in through the wattled walls. Then Mr. Trimblerigg took up a banjo which he had brought with him, and though no expert as a musician, played his country’s national anthem upon one note; and then ‘Rock of Ages’; and then, in alternate phrases (‘Nothing in my hand I bring, God save our gracious King’), the two tunes combined: a symbolic performance emblematic of the Treaty of Peace which he now called on them to sign. And there he was, still in their hands, confident, resourceful, self-assured, with nothing to save him from death but his calculative understanding of human nature, and the soft drift of the love-chant coming like bird-song from the wood.