Little God Ben
Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific.Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific.Tired of being homeless and down on his luck, the incorrigible Ben has taken a job as a stoker on a cruise ship. But his luck doesn’t last long when they are all shipwrecked in the Pacific. Seen through Ben’s eyes, the uncharted island is a hive of cannibals, mumbo-jumbo, and gals who are more nearly naked than any he has ever seen. And every time he tries to bluff his way out of a situation, he just bluffs himself further in, somehow convincing the natives that he has God-like powers . . .Brought back by popular demand after a gap of three years, Ben the tramp’s reappearance in Little God Ben transported his humour, charm and rare philosophy to a startlingly new setting in this quintessentially 1930s comedy thriller.
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J. JEFFERSON FARJEON
Little God Ben
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain for Crime Club by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1935
Copyright © Estate of J. Jefferson Farjeon 1935
Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover background images © shutterstock.com
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008155971
Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008155988
Version: 2016-06-14
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Mainly About Knuckles
Chapter 3: The Fruits of Panic
Chapter 4: What the Dawn Brought
Chapter 5: Behaviour of Mr Robert Oakley
Chapter 6: The Resuscitation of a God
Chapter 8: The Village of Skulls
Chapter 10: The Shadow of the High Priest
Chapter 12: Preparations for a Test
Chapter 13: The Misery of Ardentino
Chapter 14: The High Priest Calls
Chapter 15: The High Priest V. Oomoo
Chapter 16: The Transition of Ben
Chapter 17: Noughts and Crosses
Chapter 19: A Summons to Oomoo
Chapter 20: To the Priest’s Quarters
Chapter 22: Oakley Goes Scouting
Chapter 24: Blessings Before Battle
Chapter 27: The Flaw in the Plan
‘Something’s goin’ ter ’appen,’ said Ben, as the ship rolled.
‘Well, see it don’t ’appen ’ere,’ replied a fellow-stoker apprehensively.
‘I don’t mean that sort of ’appen,’ answered Ben. ‘Yer feels that in yer stummick. I feels this in me knuckles. Whenever me knuckles goes funny, something ’appens.’
The fellow-stoker did not care much for the conversation. But they were off duty together, drawing in a little evening air to mingle with the coal-dust in their throats, and it was Ben or nothing. So he murmured,
‘Wot’s goin’ ter ’appen?’
‘I dunno,’ said Ben. ‘Orl I knows is that it is. It’s a sort of a hitch like. Once it was afore I fell inter a barrel o’ beer.’
‘I wouldn’t mind ticklin’ a bit fer that,’ observed the fellow-stoker.
‘Ah, but it ain’t always so nice. Another time it was afore a nassassinashun. I fergit ’oo was nassassinated. A king or somethin’. And another time I went ter bed and fahnd the cat ’ad ’ad kittens. I slep’ on the floor. Yus, but they never hitched like this. Not the kittens, me knuckles. If somethin’ ’orrerble don’t ’appen afore midnight I’ve never seen a corpse!’
The fellow-stoker’s dislike of the conversation increased. He preferred conversations beginning, ‘Have you heard the one about the lady of Gloucester?’ But Ben was a human anomaly, a man with a dirty face and a clean mind, and some error in his make-up had eliminated all interest in Gloucestershire ladies. It was unnatural.
‘’Ere, that’s enough about corpses,’ growled the fellow-stoker, ‘and I’ll bet you ain’t seen none, neither!’
‘Lumme, I was born among ’em!’ retorted Ben. ‘I spends orl me life tryin’ ter git away from ’em. If there’s a star called Corpse I was born under it! I could tell yer things, mate, as ’d mike yer eyes pop aht o’ their sockets. I seed one in a hempty ’ouse runnin’ abart—oi, look aht!’
The ship gave a violent lurch and threw them together. As they untied themselves Ben continued:
‘It mide me run abart, too.’
‘’Ere, I’ve ’ad enough of you!’ gasped the fellow-stoker, and hurried away to less gruesome climes.
Ben looked after him disappointedly. He hadn’t meant to be gruesome. He had merely been relating history. He didn’t like corpses any better than the next man, but you talked about what you knew about, and there it was. If Ben had lived among buttercups and daisies, he’d have talked about those, and would infinitely have preferred it.
He gazed at his knuckles. ‘Somethin’ orful!’ he muttered. He stretched them, opening and closing his fingers. He shook them. The prophetic itch remained. He tried to forget them, and stared at the heaving grey sea.
It shouldn’t have been grey, and it shouldn’t have been heaving. It should have been blue and calm, like the posters that had advertised this cruise, and stars should be coming out to illuminate sentiment. There was a lot of sentiment on the ship. Ben had spotted some of it, and had envied it in the secret labyrinths of his heart. They would be dancing soon up above. ‘’Ow’d I look in a boiled shirt,’ he wondered, ‘with a gal pasted onter it?’ But the Pacific Ocean often belies its name, and it was belying it drastically at this moment. Waves were sweeping across it in angry white-topped lines, indignantly slapping the ship that impeded them and sending up furies of spray. The wind was in an equally bad temper. It made you want to hold on to things. ‘I didn’t orter’ve come on this ’ere trip,’ decided Ben. ‘I orter’ve tiken a job ’oldin’ ’orses!’ Had he known the job to which the wind and the waves were speeding him, he would probably have shut his eyes tight and dived into them.
