Bond Plays: 5: The Bundle; Human Cannon; Jackets; In the Company of Men (Contemporary Dramatists) by Bond Edward

Author:Bond, Edward [Bond, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

Eight

(a)

FERRYMAN’s house. Night.

BASHO and the FIRST SOLDIER have just come in.

The FERRYMAN rises from his bow.

His WIFE stares from the chair.

FERRYMAN. Sir.

BASHO. You did not come to see me.

FERRYMAN. I had nothing to tell.

BASHO. No one has used your ferry?

FERRYMAN. They were silent.

BASHO. When did you see your son?

FERRYMAN. Not since he left the service of the reverend –

FIRST SOLDIER (calm disgust). Tch.

FERRYMAN. The soldier accuses me? I humbly beg to be believed –

The FIRST SOLDIER makes a short sound of anger and disgust.

BASHO. You had the chance to clear yourself. You might have acted from fear. But you speak this to my face. I see how your son was taught.

The FIRST SOLDIER goes to the door, opens it, briefly looks out, and turns back to the room, leaving the door open.

You carry rifles over the river.

FERRYMAN (bows slightly, shaking his head, not looking at the open door). People denounce their neighbours out of fear. Or spite.

The SECOND and THIRD SOLDIERS come through the open door. They support TIGER between them – though he can walk unaided. His hair and face are covered with several patchy layers of dry, faded blood. The upper part of his body is knotted in a sheet.

BASHO. You meet your son at night. You take the rifles over the water in the bottom of your boat. Then they’re taken into the villages. You meet him again tonight. (To the FIRST SOLDIER.) I’ll be by the window.

BASHO goes out. The FIRST SOLDIER speaks and acts without salacious violence. He is calm, almost courteous. The SOLDIERS are used to their work and too bored with it to enjoy it. Really they act out of fear – amateur mountain climbers: a show of calm, hollow inside.

FIRST SOLDIER. Once Tiger roared. The roaring got on our nerves. We’re only human. We like working conditions to be as good as circumstances allow. After all, a prison’s not a zoo. Now Tiger does farmyard imitations. He’s lost his tongue. (Points to the THIRD SOLDIER.) He’s a real tearaway. (To TIGER.) Do chicken.

TIGER imitates a chicken: a residual noise in the back of his throat.

Chicken with twisted neck. Now sheep.

TIGER makes the same sound.

Good. Now the big one. Do pig.

TIGER makes the same sound.

(Reasonably.) He’s not trying. Someone show him.

The THIRD SOLDIER lifts his foot from the ground and lowers it. TIGER goes down on all fours. The WIFE quietly covers her head with the cover.

That’s the right posture for well brought up pig. Tiger told a great story – how he lost his hand. A lie, of course. Lost it for pick-pocketing. No more stories. Pity. (Imitation.) ‘Tiger has true story tell now. How Tiger lost other hand.’ (Points to the THIRD SOLDIER.) He collects memos of the departed. It was like chopping branches off a tree. I thought he’d get to the roots.

THIRD SOLDIER (laughs flatly at the bad joke).

FIRST SOLDIER. As for the present: you take out the boat. Meet the enemy. We lie in the bottom. I look round this room to find something valuable enough to break.

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