Gallions Reach (21 page)

A group of Chinamen below stood bent in appreciation of some cocks, each in its own wicker cage. The cocks stridently challenged each other. One cage was carelessly handled, and the gladiator hustled out. A bystander grabbed at it, but it flustered to the topside of the ship, and another indiscreet clutch at its tail sent it protesting into the sea. For an instant it was a frantic bunch of feathers there, and then an unseen body from below swirled the water ponderously and the cock had gone.

Colet was shocked. This was not in accord with what was familiar. The penalty had come so suddenly, just when he had allowed the motor-car, in spite of its size and appearance, to displace some old conceptions, to occupy with the certainty of a late solid engine the ancient mystery of the East. Yet nobody else seemed affected by the incident. The Chinamen stared indifferently at the place where the water had swirled, but the others might not have been aware that anything had happened. His companion made a humorous reference to the incident, but returned with soft pleasure to some more intimate words on the pleasantries of native ways. Colet, with a divided mind, listened while his eyes still rested absently on the Malay below who had been used to illustrate a little colourful drama of no value except to show to a stranger the delights and simplicity of the things he did not know.

What his fellow-passenger was telling him Colet did not clearly hear, but the narrator was at least cheerful and pert. The heat made one slack. A Chinese cooly was passing the crouching Malay, who rose, and was seized with a sudden convulsion. The Chinaman fell. Colet noticed in disbelief that the man's head was off. Colet did not move. He had not decided yet that the head was dead, for a little cigarette smoke still moved from its nostrils.

The crowd below, which for a pause as long as Colet's incredulity had remained still, began to swirl, as had the sea just before. The Malay was running. Several men vaulted into the water. As though it were not real, Colet watched that trotting figure cut down two more men who also were uncertain of its reality, and then disappear into the forecastle. The deck below was now empty, but for several figures in ungainly postures. There were noises in the forecastle. Colet stared at the dark and empty rectangle of its entrance, fixed his attention to those sounds. The Malay came within that frame, cool and leisured, his blade in his hand, the appearance once more of the principal actor in a play, and stared sullenly at his sole audience of two white men in the gallery. With his gaze on them he trotted for the bridge ladder. Colet discovered, as the man began to run, that now he was alone, and that his two hands which gripped the rail did not know they ought to let go. He desired to run, but was held to the spot by himself. How run from a dream?

A gun-shot released Colet's grip. There below him was the tall figure of an engineer, standing at the foot of the ladder in singlet and trousers, his uniform cap on the back of his head. He was pointing a revolver at the Malay. The gun clicked with a silly inconsequence as the coloured figure reached the ladder, and the engineer crumpled. When Colet got to his cabin door the eyes of the Malay on the ladder stared up at him from the deck planking, and were coming higher. The door shook while he was making it fast, and then the face of the man darkened the open port window. The shadow passed. Colet stood holding the handle of the door till the silence told him his arm was aching with an unnecessary effort.

“What are you standing there for? Do open that door. I'm breathing steam.” Norrie was sitting up, looking sleepy.

“Can't open it. There's a johnny outside knifing everybody.”

“Keep the devil out, then. Is it locked?”

“Yes. It's fast all right, now.”

“I should close the port. He might throw something in.”

Norrie got up, and made the port fast, and then sat listening, on the couch. He stretched himself again.

“Lucky you got here first. Why doesn't someone shoot him?”

Colet looked round for a weapon. There was only the water-bottle. The ship was very quiet. It might have been deserted. Were they left aboard with that lunatic?

“Norrie, have you got a gun?”

“Several, in that trunk under the bunk. But no ammunition, of course. But he'll be downed by some one. Don't worry. They're slow about it, though.”

Once cries broke out in the after-part of the ship. Once feet pattered rapidly past their cabin. Once there was a challenge in a strange language, but nobody answered it. Something warm trickled down his nose. He put his hand to his face quickly. Sweat.

How much more of this? Norrie was a cool customer. Colet peered out of the port. There was nothing to be seen; only the usual patch of deck and the rail. But heading for the ship was a steam launch. He watched its progress. It was bringing four Malay policemen with rifles, and a white officer. The launch reached them and got under the ship, out of sight.

Nothing could be heard. Two of the little noiseless policemen, with their officer, went by the cabin. Then they heard the white man's voice calling some orders at the head of the ladder. They opened the door and went out. All the police were there, and were beginning to descend to the fore-deck. The men advanced cautiously towards the empty forecastle entrance, and one of the policemen chanted to that vacant door words which sounded like taunts. There came the Malay again. He was still cool and leisured, and answered the taunting with dignity. The police halted. The white officer talked quietly to that figure in the doorway and signed for him to drop his parang. But the fellow jumped for the police, toppled into a sliding heap, and was still.

One day on the China Sea side, well up the coast from Singapore, they reached a hut. It was night, and it rained. Here they would begin their inland journey. It was somewhere near a beach. It had no other description. When coming up from the landing-place Colet had no faith that any roof could have resisted that abrupt smash of rain, even if a roof once had graced that outlandish shore, which did not seem likely. Yet Norrie moved as though he used to believe it, and knew of no reason yet to give up the idea. There was a sleeping-place, cavernous and bare, partly discovered by a mournful lamp; and one of its shadows, and a large one, did not behave normally like the rest. The lamp set it going. It gyrated ceaselessly amid the stationary shadows. Colet was satisfied that it was a bat. It might have been a black cloth circulated about by silent magic.

Then came morning, and the morning when they were to start for the interior of the land. Colet, on the verandah of the house, with the packs for travel about him, did not share Norrie's annoyance over the delay. Any later time would do to start from there. Don't let a good thing go too soon. It was folly to hurry from a place like Kuala something or other. By the map, these coastal hamlets were nearly always kualas, or river mouths, and he was not quite sure which one this was. But Norrie knew. There was Norrie now, outside the chief's house, gossiping with a bunch of men as though he had lived in that kampong for years. Perhaps he had. A character of that place. If anything, Norrie knew too much—more than was good for him. He seemed to be
amusing those informal Malays, who somehow gave themselves an air of distinction and good mettle, though Norrie was a head taller. They certainly accepted Norrie as an equal. The village headman was smiling knowingly. Now and then one of the men in the group would glance his way, as though he too had been accepted. A quiet and understanding people. Norrie himself could not hurry them, though from the ease of his manner he did not appear to be attempting it. Women, slight and limber, who walked slowly in a way you had to watch, strolled past the group of gossiping men, but pretended to be unaware even of Norrie's prevailing shape.

Why fidget over a delay in getting out of that village? It was not likely to come twice in a lifetime. Let's have the full taste of it, at leisure. We resurrect from the dead only in odd moments—might as well let the moment live itself out. Wasteful to hurry over a sudden flavour of the richness of the earth, as though it were the invasion of a licentious and inappropriate thought. It would take about a week for him to make sure that he was really there. He had had no time to ascertain that. The fact then seemed doubtful. In an unusual fancy dress which anticipated, when its wearer did not, an unaccustomed mode of living, Colet was uncertain of his own identity. This was just a bit absurd. He was only a self-conscious character in an unusual theatrical setting—round about Drury Lane—and the limelight was too bright. A mass of rigid metallic fronds shadowed the house, and formed motionless crenated black patterns on the road. There was a glimpse of the China Sea at the end of the street, a name which suited it. Too much like the China Sea. One could have guessed its name. The Chinese shopkeepers opposite were waiting for custom beside wares which would have been useless, without descriptions, in a museum. Not easy to believe all this. The sun now was full on the street, and Colet began to wonder how he would shape, marching in that white intensity. But he could sit and look at it for ever.

Norrie left the men and strolled over to Colet, affecting a complete faith in the outcome of eternity.

“No carriers yet. We've got to pay for that entertainment on the ship coming round. We were expected by the last steamer.”

“Shall we get away this morning?”

“We may, as you don't happen to be able to tell them all about the amok. It's such a juicy story. They don't often get one, and they're so sorry you can't tell 'em about it. All. Every crimson wound.”

“So am I.”

“They can't bear to lose us so soon. That's what it is. We've brought bright news—all about a butchery. They've no newspapers. Don't you think we ought to be kind to them?”

“You could make it better for them than it was, Norrie. Let yourself go. You couldn't make it worse than it was. Give it a little art.”

“I haven't got the cosy love for it. The story would be prettier if your friend the ass in the eyeglass was one of the coloured exhibits. But it is tame without him.”

“Queer. I've been watching them. These villagers don't seem to be made of the stuff which goes off with a bang, like that Malay on the ship. They're sane enough.”

“Of course they are. So are you. So was he. We're all fine, till some button is touched. That Malay was all right. He only wanted to commit suicide, but his God said no to it. So what's the poor beggar to do? Only one thing in reason, Colet. You can see that yourself. Make others do the dirty work. But don't let us talk about it any more. It's such a fine morning. If we begin to chin over the springs of human conduct we should be here when Gabriel tootled, and so intent with enjoyment that we shouldn't hear him. We'll surprise God Himself on the Judgment Day. He thinks He knows us, but does He, Colet, does He?”

The sun was lord of that country when at last they got going. Beyond the village they entered level rice-fields, and
moved towards a dark escarpment of trees, low with distance, which in that torrid light suggested the unapproachable. Norrie led the way, solidly, at an enduring gait; the Malay carriers followed him, and Colet marched at the end of the line, behind the Chinese cook. They had to walk indirectly across that half-dried marsh, one step behind the other arduously along the ridges which parcelled the expanse into square aqueous areas. Some of the ridges were as hard as rock, and others sank under them into a black sludge with a stink of its own. Colet occasionally glanced in hope towards the trees. They took their time over getting higher and plainer. A buffalo bull ahead, broad and black as a rhinoceros, with horns as lengthy as a ship's yard, snorted at Norrie. Colet heard him, and knew that he must pass the same way. He would be the beast's last opportunity. The bull had its nose up, waiting, sunk to its belly in mud, just aside from the ridge along which they were looking for a sound patch for each step. If that brute attacked he was done. It snorted again when Colet was level with its nose, and heaved its bulk impatiently. Colet saw the bubbles stir in the mire about it, and realised what moral control is required, at times, for even so simple an act as putting your foot in the right place with care.

The cliff of trees rose over them. There was a clear deep stream bridged by a fallen trunk. When Colet removed his strict attention from a difficult poise over that greasy bole he saw that the rest of the party, even the Chinaman, had disappeared. There was a portal of two great tree trunks, and gloom beyond it. He saw it was the gate to the stuff of the legends. That must be the door through which the party had gone. He entered it, too, and at once relished the coolness of the forest. The track ascended. It was sandy. The twilight was green. Once he was assured by a glimpse of a man ahead that he was not alone in the silence, for the quiet had quickened his pace; the anxious thought had moved him that he would be comforted there by a contiguous human
creature. He foresaw that solitude in the jungle might plumb to an unexpected deep in the soul. Only fellowship would keep him buoyed above that dark pit. Well, he would go anywhere with Norrie, over any pit, perhaps into it.

The track was often unmistakable; usually it was compulsory; there could be no divergence. A riot of green cordage as repellent as flourishing cusps, antlers, spines and bodkins, was piled between the trees on either hand; hooked fronds were suspended to catch in the neck and the helmet; the track was reduced to a loose tunnel meandering through edged foliage. Sometimes a prone giant had to be mounted, for it had fallen across the path, a tree that was a hilly jungle in itself, to be climbed, its vegetation forced, and a descent discovered through its bastions to the other side. Roots like low easy walls, or coiled like pythons, made a maze of the track. It descended into a morass where, apparently, monsters had floundered, leaving wallows and pits which compelled Colet into the trees to find a way; and there he paused, while avoiding the taloned raffle, to pick a sound out of the heavy quiet to get the direction of his friends. Nothing moved there but themselves, except flies which hovered and flashed wherever a beam of sunlight fell through a hole in the roof. They waded across streams, and picked leeches off their bodies; as if clothes were meant to be kept constantly wet, and bodies were the normal feeding-ground for worms. Colet compelled his mind to fight against the desire for cleanliness and dryness, and to regard without surprise a bloated and pendant black parasite taking the blood from a white limb. But he was surprised, nevertheless. That worm was the emblem of a world which was new, potent, inimical, and besieging; and not very particular. It waited silently, without respite, for its chances. You couldn't be always on your guard. It had you, whenever you were not. Colet became wary even of trifles. They stung.