Swell Tide Shimmy: To Jamaica with Love

By Wallace Collins

Stanley Dawson is a young Jamaican who volunteers for military service in the Royal Air Force then goes off to Great Britain to fight in World War II. After his arrival in England he becomes a casualty, not from action in combat, but from injuries he sustains during a training exercise. His experience in his weeks of hospitalization, left him determined to overcome the debilitating effects of frost bite he suffered. He recovers enough to justify to himself and his Commanding Officer that he was in Britain to fight in World War II as a Royal Air Force man.

The long term effect of his injury catches up with him, however, soon after his return to Jamaica four years later, where he struggles to maintain himself as the old campaigner of organized combatthe war veteranagainst casual, but a sharp-edged lifestyle of his boyhood friends. It is a way of life that makes him search for a clue to his apparent, irreparable existence. He senses that he is, not only partially incapacitated but spiritually dazed. His illness is made worse by the confusing political trend and the rising tide of emerging differing political opinions and the immediacy of social consciousness then sweeping the island.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 10, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469761411

Wallace Collins

Wallace Collins is the author of twelve books, and now, after some years of writing has completed this journal. Born in Kingston Jamaica, he lived in London and Toronto, before moving to New York, where he is a graduate of Queens College.

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Part One

Gangling Reed

Just like The Innocent and the Damned’, The Gangling Reed that is bristling—so A shackled growth in a mangrove swamp…

Where Stanley stood on deck the old, beaten-up, banana-boat now converted to a troopship, he appeared mesmerized by the slurping sound of the midmorning waves lapping against the side of the ship. The soft, sucking sound of water sidling against the starboard side, contrasted the stridency of voices and other commotions going on below the pier; where, his return to Kingston with its familiar sounds, filled him with nostalgia that temporarily, distracted him. He watched with renewed interest, Swell Tides Shimmy across the harbor; the frilly waves drew his intent stare as he listened to the prudish slaps on streaks of rust that ran from its anchors’ eye, down its face, symbolic tears of wartime neglect and its death-defying, runs at sea, streaking down the bow, greeted by the tranquil, inland sea that made gentle smacking sounds of wet kisses, caressing the ship’s rusty, grey, painted prow as solace, a comfort from weeping for the tragedy it saw in Europe.

The imagery carried for Stanley, a similarity to the reception he envisioned receiving from his waiting family, hurried pecks on his cheeks he anticipates getting from unsuspecting relatives who will embrace him happily, temporarily banishing from their minds, thoughts of any physical disabilities he may have incurred in Europe. They will remain unmindful, he reasoned, of the moral and spiritual deficiencies resulting from the organized hostility of military combat he experienced in Europe. Despite how he felt then, he expected to see his family and friends there to greet him; some of his friends were his age, others were older, most of whom had chosen to stay home in Jamaica because they thought vehemently that the war was Bucra’s war, others, meanwhile declared that they had no reason to leave the island since they had good jobs.

There were those, however, who are as adventurous as he was to see the world, evil and violent though it reportedly was, even before he had left the island, who wanted a job with promises as the recruitment notices had displayed. Stanley envisaged then that some of his friends might be there on the pier along with his family, or they might be somewhere nearby, waiting as everyone else, to greet him heartily, and with similar fervor, though, not as symbolic as those undulating waves that nuzzled against the ship. He looked forward to meeting his mother and his sister, his father and aunt, and Clive his brother, all of whom he knew will be happy to see him return home safely from World War Two, and back To Jamaica with Love.

Stanley observed the city of Kingston where, intermittently, it loomed ominously before him like a mirage, receding in the distance one minute and appearing close up the next, cradling the Blue Caribbean Sea in its harbor like a mother embracing its young; it was that visual imagery that affected him then, as it never had before. Rippling, waves that slapped gently against the stern of the ship had that effect on him also; for that is how it sounded to him, like wet kisses; that is how those waves that cuddled the sides of the old banana boat affected his sense of a peaceful return to his Island home. Then, he felt relieved from his war-weary, ennui that enveloped him earlier; free from the boredom of death and blood and corpses that now, seemed neutralized by shoals that rippled and lapped alongside the converted troop ship, akin to two lips meeting in a peaceful and gentle caress.

That is how he saw the meetings of those shrill waves that undulate and shimmy like ladies of the evening tempting trade. But he is already with a lady who was of that morning, there to disgorge her warriors, despite being hustled by the sea, her perennial suitor of harbor wavelets, or by her everlasting enemy of surging ocean swells, all flowing in a love hate relationship with her majestic, structured hull, guided by men operating inside her steel skin. The sea’s shallow waves continue to fondle the S.S. Onrush, with sounds similar to lovers smooching, kisses from a seducer; then, it was the charming undulation of a sea, unlike the roaring, tumbling waves that badgered the boat in the North Atlantic Ocean and threatened to engulf the ship with its turgid, swells, then swallow it whole into the North Atlantic Ocean on his way home. Although huge waves had rushed over the side of the ship then, it did not frighten him as it might have done years before, since his time in the war had tempered him to face danger— bravely; it did reveal to him, however, the ferocity, the rage and spite of nature, which he saw as superior to the rage he had recently experienced in Europe.

Stanley’s romantic personification of wavelets slurping against the side of the ship is an imagery that betrays the dissonant sounds he has been hearing lately; a sort of turmoil going on in his head that disturbs him, it haunts him.

His bloodshot, eyes narrowed as he gazed at the sea while it lapped gently on the shoreline further away; he observed closer to him, with childish curiosity again, Swell Tides Shimmy and slapped wet kisses on the ship. A thundering murmur suddenly filled his war-weary, ears; it rang out loud into a deafening silence that increased the tumult in his head. It enveloped his mind and temporarily hushed the legacy of his combat, consciousness, where an inordinate silence emerged from the homecoming greetings he perceived came from noisy well wishers below on the pier. He appeared detached as he stood rigidly on deck the one-time banana boat. His image, synonymous to that of a gangling reed nestled in a mangrove swamp with its roots elevated above the muddy fray, made him appear separate and apart from other Royal Air Force Servicemen on the former banana boat.

Again, he watched with awe, Swell Tides Shimmy across the harbor, listening intently to rippling shoals’ yawn, and the look of confidence that had entered his sunburnt face as he waited to go ashore, disappeared. It was as though he was dreaming while he stood dispassionately on deck, experiencing one of his latent nightmares, and not waiting simply for his time to disembark. His full beard glistened in the early morning sun; it intensified his stoic, demeanor as he braced his body on deck the S.S. Onrush with rust marks streaking down its hull. The boat had arrived earlier from Europe and World War Two with volunteers like Stanley who were returning to Jamaica after doing their military service in England. Despite the warm weather in Kingston, he remained cloaked in his blue, air-force uniform, apparently unruffled by the heat. His recent military discipline deems him to swelter under the hot, midmorning sun, although it did not inhibit the quiet enthusiasm he felt gazing with nostalgia at downtown Kingston.

The city appears as close to him then as the gulls that perched on the ship’s capstan nearby. He nodded to confirm the authenticity of what he saw as he looked over the ship’s bow, when, ostensibly, the city soared out of the sea with rippling shoals that reek with putrid crustaceans, as would be an apparition that arose before him, confronting him with the reality of its specter.

Stanley appreciated the quiet autonomy of the city before him, as he did the surefooted pace by people he espied below who reassured him of home as he knew it. He took a deep breath; threw his head back, affecting cognizance of what he saw; green trees resplendent in the distance and buildings with red roofs and yellow painted trim that appeared parallel and in unison with the S.S. Onrush as it nestled quietly in the greenish, blue, Caribbean sea. Meanwhile, the wash and hush from waves surfing gently against the battered-up sides of the old banana boat, epitomized clearly to Stanley, a placid caress, not only to the ship but to his war torn ears—for peace.

He turned slowly to get a composite view of the waterfront, where he observed the entire area basking in the colorful aura of the yellow sunshine, then he gulped on the salty taste of saliva that rushed into his mouth. The emotional effect it had on him just seeing, Kingston again, lit up his still boyish face with a look of pleasant surprise. He shook his head as he continued to view the illusive paradise he had once called home.

Saliva rushed into Stanley’s mouth; it made him gulp again as he swallowed it, along with the scenery he gazed on. The salty taste of his saliva blended with that familiar feeling of nostalgia that enveloped him. His sober recall of his early life in Kingston hugged him. Its embrace elicited his understanding the meaning of it before he left the island of Jamaica for England to serve in World War Two. He had experienced that same yearning for home while he was in Europe, when it surfaced as a need for him to be with his family. Stanley took a blue handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blue air force uniform and whipped the sweat that washed his face. He had to reacquaint himself to the early morning heat, he thought, for it made him felt uncomfortable, just as he did from the glare of the sun that mesmerized his face. Perspiration streaked down his inner arm. His body felt sticky; however, his uneasiness did not put a damper on his expectations, or on his subconscious perspectives about his home coming, since everything appeared distinct in his mind, yet magnified under the glare of his squinting, bloodshot eyes.

The City of Kingston loomed before his eyes like a specter inviting him to come ashore and be honored by its spirit and soul. Like an illusion, his vision of the city coalesced with something inexplicable within him. It was that unspecified, spiritual thing that clicked with his past somewhere deep in his consciousness. It distilled his view of the peripheral environment he had just returned, and how he had once known it. Stanley compared it to what he saw and how he perceived the city to be from where he stood. He detects its underbelly filled with life, arid, yet fertile, juicy and joyous, languishing in time, boldly inviting him to take her, and to come and live with her. And, he felt at home immediately, ready to drink at her fountain. Old and new images reverberate in his mind like a mirage in the bright sunshine. They appear in an oasis one minute, then in an arid desert the next. He gazed at the city as if he were seeing it for the first time— transparent through a dusty window pane.

Where Stanley stood on the deck of the former banana boat, his vantage point gave him a panoramic view of the city. He could see in the distance, past Port Royal Street and across Water Street and up Orange Street, the crowded tram-car as it rumbled down from South Parade. It rocked from side to side, like a man drunk on rum, staggering toward him with young passengers who hitched a ride on its running board—a slice of life in the city, he thought. He watched the crowded street car as it stopped intermittently to let passengers off. The busy mule-drawn, drays, loaded with sacks of sugar, rice and flour overhang their sides, gallops pass the rumbling street cars as they shunt noisily between the busy docks. Immediately below him on the pier, people waited to greet him and his fellow Servicemen returning home from Europe, and World War Two.

Stanley stood rigidly beside his fellow Airmen who lined up on deck, all anxious to go ashore. He appeared singularly removed, yet resplendent in his blue Royal Air Force uniform. He wore his flight hat set jauntily on his bushy hair as he tried to gain control of the nostalgia that ran rampant in him. A blank expression masked his puffed up dark face. It symbolized the uncertainty he felt on returning to Jamaica, just as it hid the thoughts he contemplated. He grew his mustache below the corners of his mouth into a full beard. It highlighted glints of light that glanced off his face as his beard repulsed the hot, midmorning sunshine that struck it.

Stanley observed the scene around the ship, visualizing it through a prism that temporarily distorts his reflection of the city ahead of him. He saw his immediate environment, as far as his inner vision allowed him to view it, as one dimensional, pictured by his conscious detachment from the gathering below on the pier. He struggled with thoughts that interfered with his concentration when he tried to equate his sobering experience in Europe, with the bright, sunny happenings he saw going on below on the pier. It raised doubts in his mind that he could ever get accustomed again to the island of Jamaica that he knew and, yes, loved.

For, though Stanley tried to fathom the celebration going on below in the crowd, he found it difficult to comprehend its joy. He believed that he should be at one with them, and share in their carefree spirit. He thought he had an obligation to understand their sentiments, and he tried to empathize with them. Immediately he realized that it was not long ago that he had shared similar experience, and had felt the same emotional joy that the people below on the pier were exhibiting. He was reassured, however, by the gathering below that his time in Europe was necessary, if not worthwhile to those proud people on the pier who was there to welcome home their local heroes from World War Two.

Intermittently, that feeling of oneness with the people he had left behind four years before for Britain and World War Two would escape him. He could not readily identify with those he saw milling around noisily on the pier. That feeling of being a bonafide Jamaican remained inconclusive. It escaped him, though temporarily, it made him felt alienated. His gaze reached far among the many faces in the crowd as he searched for his family and friends. He could not recognize anyone in the splattering of multicolor dresses and shirts. He saw instead, a host of people waving and cheering in a festive mood, while others stared anxiously at the ship’s deck, trying to recognize sons or brothers like himself.

Stanley felt his earlobe quiver. Apprehension enveloped him of what to expect once he leaves the safety of the ship that had brought him back some five thousand miles from the carnage in Europe. It had brought him back safely to this peaceful little Island with the cheering mob below waiting to hug and kiss him for braving the great war and returning safely back home to Jamaica. Momentarily, a feeling of panic ran through his being, while the dock workers lowered the gangway for him and his fellow servicemen to disembark into the peaceful arms of friends and relatives. Stanley had experienced a similar feeling of anxiety as a paratrooper in training in England. Before each jump he would experience the same vibration of his ear lobe. It would jump up and down like a jack rabbit, until after he made his flight in open space. In his fall he would float like a Candor cruising high in the sky above the world. It was then that the tension in him would cease. He becomes calm again. His entire body becomes relaxed in the eerie nothingness of space that had enveloped him.

Stanley’s brief recall calmed him, and a relaxed expression entered his sunburned, face as that familiar nostalgia seized him again, and he knew immediately that he was home. A broad smile crossed his dark brown face and his gap-tooth clamped down on his thick lip. He nodded in renewed comprehension of where he was, and what he had meant to his family and friends. The poignancy of that realization filled the back of his eyes with tears ready to gush out. He clutched the railing of the ships’ side, then leaned hard against it for support, and the glassy expression in his eyes receded.

Stanley was optimistic then that the converted banana-boat appeared more seaworthy in Kingston’s harbor than it did in a Southampton dock, and definitely not in the vast, Atlantic Ocean. And, as he thought of the Atlantic Ocean he felt even more privileged to be alive after his near death experience on the boat when a huge wave nearly washed him off into the North Sea. It had come clean over the ships’ side with thongs of water like huge fangs that had reached out to seize him and pull him back into the North Sea as a sacrifice to the watery gods. If he wasn’t holding onto the life line along the ship’s side he would have been swept over board and now, he would just be a sad history to his family and friends.

Just thinking about it made him more aware of how his future in Jamaica might be, and it brought home to him a sense of well-being. It gave him a greater appreciation for arriving safely back to Jamaica. He felt safe also, not only from that ghastly and cruel war, but from the near fatal accident he nearly succumbs on his returning from that war. His only conclusion for his being alive then was that God wanted him to return to Jamaica for a purpose.

It was this belief that soothed his anxiety and placated the adverse emotions he had stymied all along. His hope and thrust in the future merged with his consciousness. It enabled him a reality that appears tranquil, if not as placid as the sea that surged from way out in the harbor. Its authenticity was as significant to him as the pelicans that rode high on the swells, bright and glistening in the midmorning sun. Their natural buoyancy on the waves became symbolic, if not emblematic of the image of his life that he sought for himself. He reasoned that God had saved him for a purpose. It was a purpose that immediately regained for him—the one thing that he could think of then—his earliest niche of Jamaica as home.

A loud roar went up from the crowd below on the pier as the dock workers lowered the gangway. It usurped Stanley nostalgic reverie of his past, and his hopes for the future. Momentarily, his apprehension grew. It swelled in his head and beat with a tempo in his heart that became synonymous with the sea’s rhythmical lapping around the pylons, and the loud squeaking of sea gulls that buzzed the ship. This maritime scenario, this familiar midmorning tranquility that he had experienced before returned to him in spades.

He sensed, from the murmur in the crowd that something entertaining was going on somewhere. Therein he saw the two boys paddling a canoe as they rowed their little boat from under the pier, and began to shout to the servicemen on board the ship, Give it up soldier-boy, give it up! One boy dived into the water to retrieve coins thrown by some servicemen. The sound of a motorboat engine occasioned his pal to row hastily back under the pier. The boy surfaced and heard his pal shouting, Babylon, Sony, Babylon! He turned, treads water, then saw the police motorboat in the background with its bow high up in the water splitting waves, heading toward him. He swam rapidly, with quick, over head arm strokes, then dived, disappearing from view, amid encouraging shouts from the servicemen on board the ship.

At the foot of the pier, a thin, gaunt, man, apparently the local clown, mimed stealing a bus. He tied a rope to the bumper and looped it over his shoulder. After doing futile antics at pulling the bus, he gave slack on the rope; run a few steps before playfully whip-lashed himself around and took a dive to the ground, and the crowd roared.

Stanley removed his Air Force flight hat, unbuttoned his blue wool jacket and inhaled deeply the cool, sea-air that waft over his body. He breathed easily after that. He became relaxed enough in himself to join in the spirit of the other service men as he leaned over the ship’s side, then smiled confidently at the goings on below him. He nodded as he acknowledges the sincerity of the people below who waved, and shouted exuberantly when some of his fellow service men lined up on deck to disembark.

He believed then that he could relate to the enthusiasm the crowed below showed, and that he could, for the first time since the ship docked two hours before, identify, if not empathize with the boisterous crowd on the pier. He recognized their spirit as part of an innate freedom that once moved him and formed the core, though subdued, of his ultimate existence. It was an existence that served him well in Europe. He wanted to regain that happy care free feeling, to have it surface in him again. He grinned, but felt his upper lip stiffened. His mind worked eagerly as he tried to estimate the people he had returned to, and to be a part of them.

The crowd cheered the Jamaica Military Band as the musicians marched briskly toward a makeshift platform near the foot of the pier. Stanley felt someone tap him on his shoulder. He turned and saw it was Claude, his best Buddy in Britain. Claude, man, can you believe it…good old Jamaica? Just look at those faces down there…this is it. We’re back…on the Rock!

Wait, Stanley, Claude said slowly. Wait till we get off this damn old junk, then you can talk.

Hey, man, don’t cry it down. You should thank God that it brought us all the way.

Yes? Maybe if we swim the Atlantic it would’ve been faster and better. Claude grinned. "It would have been easier and better than this rolling and tumbling we gone through all the way. I’ve never been so goddamn seasick in my life.

This tub rolled over in the North Atlantic like a barrel. I’m still having hiccups!" He laughed at his own joke.

What do you expect, man? It’s war time Claude! Everybody got seasick and threw-up on this ship. Stanley said.

I’m looking back on this goddamn war already as a bad dream, man.

Already? You might be back in England sooner than you expect. Remember, you—we’re navigators, man. Stanley reminded Claude.

No way! Not now or a year after! This is home for me—right here on the ‘Rock.

Stanley knitted his thick eye brows. "You may be right. Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow, or a year from now. Right now, it’s time for us to meet our families…my family.

Oh, hell, my kit…left it on my bunk. Hey, see you on the main deck, Stanley.

Stanley nodded. He thrust both hands deep in his trousers’ pocket. He felt bored, perplexed even, with Claude’s pessimism of the war effort and his Jamaican patriotism. Not that he wasn’t just as loyal a Jamaican as Claude was, but he felt he wasn’t giving him a chance to assert his loyalty. He was looking forward to life in Jamaica again with his family. It wouldn’t be the same as before, Stanley knew that. He was a different person now. He knew that too. He was not the youth of four years ago, not after wartime events had dragged him into maturity in Europe under severe hostile conditions. Besides, lately, a morbid fear haunts him that he is seriously ill. He’s been apprehensive ever since his parachute mishap in Folkestone in the South of England.

He’d ignored the cramps and needle-like stabbing pain he felt in his legs. He felt a similar pain as he walked gingerly toward midship. He flinched as he felt the numbness in his foot, and the sharp, stabbing pain that knifes his flesh intermittently. The noisy, upbeat reception his fellow Jamaicans were throwing for him and his fellow comrades on the pier, neutralized his discomfort and made him felt encouraged to be back home. He looked down at the happy smiling faces with a deep sense of admiration. He listened to the loud innocent laughter of the people he had left behind. He had no idea he would have missed their carefree laughter and happy faces till then. This bittersweet emotion made him felt strangely, inadequate and unprepared to continue where he had left off.

Stanley experienced a similar uncertainty four years before when he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He had no idea then why he felt that way again, except that now he was on home ground, everything appeared unchanged, except him. The spirit of the crowd appeared untouched by the calamities he’d seen in Europe. He had gained a new understanding of people and things because of it.

It enabled him to visualize the East London he had been, where only shells of buildings remained, hanging haphazardly in the blackened night. Those buildings that posed a safety hazard to the civilian population after the previous night’s ferocious Nazi bombings were knocked down by volunteers, which was in stark contrast with his parent’s sand-dashed board house, where the flower beds bordering the front lawn with the lilies, croutons and odoriferous jasmine vines entwined the blue bells, and bloomed as one. And that familiar squat almond tree shading the gateway, raised doubts in his mind. Because, this, he thought, might have been the equivalent of home for some of those men who knew and understood what they fought for in Europe. He was on the home front and seeing everything, where everyone appeared happy and smiling, doubts crept up in his mind whether it was necessary for him to have gone to help to protect this unchallenged way of life with his own, or whether it was just a benevolent act on his part.

He recalled the reality of life before he left for Europe, how the scarcity of imported goods—food stuff for sure—how it had affected many people. His need to work then, and the lack of jobs among young people his age became a glaring reality that influenced him and many others to volunteer for the War-effort. A common saying then within his peer group was that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel by joining-up—if only they could survive to reach the end of that unfounded, combatant’s tunnel. He reasoned, from a point of necessity that, joining the Air Force and then to go off to war be regarded then as simply a job opportunity. His conclusion was that an opening existed in the British Armed Forces for him to make a career for himself. He saw it as a perfect way out of being unemployed; to doing something constructive with his young life, however macabre and life threatening it might be to himself or to the enemy, and he accepted the risks involved.

Stanley hesitates from thinking any further. He looked tentatively at the crowd, as he, along with the other servicemen descended the gangway. He observed quietly the excitable ones in the crowd who shouted and shoved against the police roped-off area. They had gained little yardage, but their enthusiasm apparently sustained them by the moist salty air, and the welcome sight of the uniformed men. The Military Band struck up and began to play, and the mood of the crowd became more festive as they sang and cheered and waved, and blew kisses at the service men coming down the gangway.

The band played ‘Sly Mongoose’ in that inimitable, lilting style of the Jamaica Military Band, as it had marched with Island Mento rhythms and strut with Calypso songs, comments and messages in the Victoria Park band-shell on previous Sunday evenings. The band played with a relaxed, cohesive sound, interspersed with brassy lead horns, tinted the general exuberance of the crowd and the color around them with an official ceremonial air. The calm expression on the musicians’ faces conveyed the professional ease with which they played their instruments. Even the unobtrusive pause as the percussionist raised a pair of gleaming brass cymbals aloft in the bright sunlight, then the resounding clang! The timpanist, who took his cue to play short scintillating drum rolls, reflected their awareness that their significance to the impatient crowd, was not only their dutiful presence, but their niche in Jamaican lore.

Stanley was in that middle group of servicemen who came down the gangway. Except him, most of them appeared alert and enthusiastic. Some wore a broad smile, while others grinned from ear to ear as they tramped down the gangway lugging blue kitbag on their shoulders. Few, in expressing their joy to be back home, reacted to the ruckus call from individuals by throwing their arms up, and shouting in reply, ‘j-a-ans. !

There he is Mom…waving…hey Stanley!

Where is he, Clive?

…Where the military band is playing. Hey, Stanley!

See him? He’s over there, Mom, where the band is playing…Stanley… over here!

Clive ducked under arms and pushed against sweaty bodies until he was up front, where a tall, wiry, black man pushed him aside, Wait, boy! What’s the matter with you?…you just bumping and boring against me like you’re a big man.

Sorry, Mister ‘B.’

That’s better.

Just look at him! Gertrude said. Her light brown face sprinkled with perspiration as she looked proudly at her son.

Mom, how’d you get here? Clive said, a look of surprise on his youthful face.

Gertrude chuckled mockingly, …Same as you boy…you think I was born big? She had put on weight, and the more plump she got the more characteristic she became. Henry, who savored her humorous remarks just as he relished her girth, mentioned to Sonia and Clive, in jest that the more weight their mother put on the sharper her wit is. Everyone in her family knew, including Stanley before he went away, that Gertrude, their loving mother, could be a character all to herself.

The wiry, black man turned to Gertrude and said, respectfully, Miss ‘B, ‘ is this your little boy?

Gertrude smiled. Her pointed chin appeared out of proportion with her thick, salmon-colored lips, Yes, and one out there too…just coming back from the war.

The man smiled, his broken, tobacco stained teeth gave him an eerie look. That’s why him nearly push me over the rope…Want to get to front line!

Gertrude put her hand on Clive’s thick hair, He didn’t mean any harm sir.

Hey, Stanley…Stan! Clive shouted, waving vigorously.

Unlike Stanley, Clive was a rubber stamp of his mother. His orange tinted colored hair was wiry like hers, and he had the same pointed chin and thick salmon colored lips like her, except that he was a skinny, sixteen year old.

"Hey…Clive?

Stanley walked briskly over to where his mother and brother stood. He gave his kit bag to Clive with a pat on the head, then hugged his mother, It’s great to be back Mom…it’s great to be back…home!

She kissed him, Stanley, oh my baby—‘watch you pocket’, she whispered. She felt him stiffen, Oh my son, God sends you back to us—‘the pick pockets swarm over the place like flies’, she whispered again.

Cho, everything is all right Mom, it’s just great to be home…really good. He nodded. It sure is good to see you Mom. He nodded again with approval and he held her away from him and looked at her. You don’t look a day older, Mom.

She kissed him on the cheek again and began to cry.

It’s all right, Mom, it’s all right. I’m home! He turned and hugged Clive around the shoulder. Clive tightened his grip on Stanley’s kitbag before him.

The wiry, black man patted Stanley on the shoulder, Glad you come back brother, but no matter what them do, ‘Babylon’ must fall.

He looked earnestly at the man. He fixed his eyes on the bearded figure before him, blocking his way. He gazed at the man’s drawn, emaciated face with his long, scraggly beard. The fierce look Stanley saw in the man’s bloodshot eyes alarmed him, temporarily. He could not think of anything to do or say, except to offer the man a tired grin then walk away from the scene with his family. They struggled to get out of the melee on the pier and onto the street outside. A girl wearing a white cotton dress and fashionable broad-brim, straw, hat, pushed her way up to Stanley and threw her arms around his shoulders, embracing him as if he were her long lost love.

Young boy, you uniform fit you so much—you know what, soldier boy, first thing you need is a drink of the good old Jamaica rum! A bar’s right across the street!

Sorry young, lady, my son don’t need no drink of rum, Gertrude said, hastily, a fierce look in her light gray eyes.

Eh, Eh! Excuse me mother—him still is you little boy? said the girl as she turned away abruptly to greet another service man.

Jesus, them brazen! Gertrude shook her head slowly.

…Mom, where is Sonia and Dad?

They’re in the back there somewhere…come Stanley, let’s get away from this place…that woman, in broad daylight, and before this innocent little boy! She looked askance at Clive, then moved her head as she rolled her large eyes to the heavens.

Meanwhile, an unruly segment of the crowd, youths who obviously were unattached to the returning service men, got aboard the ship and began to wave and shout to their friends below on the pier. Harbor police interrupted them and they scattered on the deck of the ship. The crowd booed and jeered, Down with Babylon as the police chased them of the boat. Hey! Big man! Sonia called out to Stanley as she approached him. A sardonic grin stretched her full brown lips as she nudged him affectionately.

Who’s this? Sonia? He looked wide-eyed at her, up and down at the blue cotton dress and the open toe sandals she wore, then back to her smiling face, and her ever present front bang hair style. He could not forget that, not even if he wanted to. It was her signature appearance every time he recalled her presence while he was in Europe. He has always been attracted by the way she combed her hair, especially then how she wore it combed neatly into a white head-kerchief, then tied it in a sack to the back of her head.

Yes, big head! She hugged him around his shoulders and kissed him.

You’re right up to my shoulders, Sonia, almost even with me, Stanley commented, a good-natured look on his face.

She pushed his head playfully, My kingdom, Stanley, what did they do to you over there? I’ve always been head to head with you.

He laughed. It was a hearty, throaty cackle. He then turned to his father, as if a second thought and said, directly, Hello Dad! They shook hands heartily. He could never remember embracing his father. It seemed out of place to him. Not even four years away and returning from the war, seemingly unscathed, could induce him to hug his father on his return home.

Welcome! Welcome! Henry grasped his son’s hand again and shook it firmly. I’m proud of you, Stan. We’re all proud of you.

Stanley looked compassionately into his father’s sun, burnt, face, then smiled impishly. You look fit Dad. The two men eyed each other, each trying to appear strong and not show any emotion about their meeting. Yet, both men knew that something was amiss in their greeting of each other.

Henry observed calmly, the look of resignation in his son’s eyes. It caused him to utter words of reassurance, You did your duty!

Stanley nodded and replied ruefully, Europe is a mess, Dad.

What did I tell you, what did I just say to you? said a heavyset man who wore khaki shorts and a green T, shirt, to his bearded companion. Young boy, is you we want on this island. You know the score, you know what’s got to happen! ‘Babylon’ must fall!

Stanley smiled sympathetically with the man. Right man, right—see you.

Master, said the burley man, looking sternly at Stanley, give me a cigarette man.

He took an unopened pack from his breast pocket and gave it to the man.The man took the pack of cigarettes and looked at it, then at Stanley, English yes! A pleased look brightened his face and he nodded in approval, Peace and love brother!

Stanley felt heartened by the man’s greeting, though it had cost him a pack of cigarettes.

Henry took hold of his arm, It doesn’t matter son! A faint smile disturbed his thin lips. You’re here. That’s all that matters now. He put both arms firmly on Stanley’s shoulders, Again, welcome! We’re proud of you!

Stanley hugged his father, It’s O.K. Dad. Everything is all right. He turned to Clive, and said, finally, Man, oh man, you surely grow. What’re you feeding him on Mom?

Stan, he eats like a horse—that boy!

Hey Stanley! Claude waved as he walked hastily toward him. He appeared agitated; his light tanned face was animated with expressions that conveyed both grief and outrage.

What happen Claude, man? I thought you were gone by now.

No, man! They stole my kitbag! He looked distressed.

What?…No!… Stanley groaned.

Oh, my God! Gertrude said, looking suspiciously around her.