Gallions Reach (25 page)

“Very likely, very likely.” Mr. Parsell spoke with decision, and a hint of asperity. He was unwell and a little crabbed. Nor did he promise to be the kind of man who would listen at any time to the warnings of common sense, not when he was mounted on his hobby.

Norrie, tactfully, tried to draw from him confessions about his supplies, his guide, his men, and the time he had estimated would be necessary for the journey. But these to Mr. Parsell were only negligible details, of small account compared with the pursuit of truth. He was vague about them; he himself was barely concerned. The Chinaman came to them with dishes, Norrie polished his pipe thoughtfully, and Mr. Parsell addressed himself to food in an attitude of abstraction which allowed him but fitfully to acknowledge the nearness of nourishment. Indeed he would pause with entire detachment, fork held loaded and upright but forgotten, to seek, with the cool and disarming inconsequence of a barrister who knew his case, a betrayal of their own
notions of the natives they had met. Had they seen any Sekais or Semangs?

Norrie humoured him. More than once Mr. Parsell sat round to look at Norrie squarely and with the unaffected curiosity of a pundit who is surprised by a suspicion that a layman may be not so ignorant as in fairness could be assumed. Yet, when the subject was not his own, he was, despite his bald head, a ragged and helpless infant one would have been prompted to nurse and cherish, if one had known but the way to hold it. The lifted appeal of his fearless but innocent blue eyes moved the paternal instinct in a man. It was not safe for him to be about.

Then, with talk and food, his nervous energy flagged; would they excuse him? He thought he would rest. He would have to make an early start in the morning. Norrie led him to the hammock, which would be easier for his bad shoulder than the floor, and tended him as carefully as though their guest were a wilful but royal orphan. When Mr. Parsell was out of the way, Norrie stood, for a time, staring into the night; then he turned to Colet with a wry smile.

“We shall have to stop this,” he whispered. “There's enough hantus here.”

Mr. Parsell did not make an early start. He found their Malays and the situation of the camp too attractive. The awe of the Malays for this eager and energetic little man, who mystified them with his ease among their secrets, was manifest; no doubt they thought he was mad, and the favoured of God. He knew things which were hidden even from Tuan Norrie, and wizards should be carefully reconciled. Norrie watched the play about the hut of his men with amused concern.

“Colet, he knows more, about those fellows than they know themselves. He has scared them. He isn't aware of it, but he could order them to heel like dogs. I wish I could.”

“You've heard of the old boy before, Norrie?”

“But naturally. Who hasn't? I knew his work before I could play dominoes. And we meet him here at last. That's how the surprises are sorted for us.”

“What about this journey of his? Can it be done?”

“Yes. Almost anything can be done, by the right people. What do you think?”

“That he won't go far.”

“No, he won't. Not if I can stop it. We can't afford to lose men like Parsell.”

“You won't stop that man.”

“Then he will die. You or I might manage that traverse, with any luck, but Parsell—it would be as reasonable to expect a kitten with a brick to come home after being dropped in the river. He'd never be heard of again.”

“You won't stop him.”

“You don't think he can be frightened into going back with us?”

“Frightened? I say Norrie, did you see his eyes? When they are fixed on what he thinks may be the truth he wouldn't see Apollyon in his path.”

“Eh?” Norrie became alert, and turned to his friend, frowning, as if a new thought troubled him. He shook his head sadly. “Colet, you think so? But of course you do. There are such fools in the world. I rather fancy you're another, and that's how you know.”

Colet lit his pipe. Norrie, devising with resourcefulness fancies in the macabre which pictured that region as the portal to every horror of the soul, wondered whether a selection would be useful when arguing with Parsell, to warn him off. Colet smiled, but did not answer. At the end of the recital he explained that, as far as he could see, the only way to head off a man like Parsell was to give him an injection. That man would not go forward only if he could not move. Then, indifferently, he asked some questions of Gunong Berching and the country beyond; but Norrie ignored them.

“It's no good talking about it. You know what this land is like. It has nothing to do with the case. It's like talking of walking the waves. The man can't do it. He simply can't.”

Mr. Parsell came towards them quickly and nervously, his head thrust forward.

“You see,” said Norrie; “he doesn't know even enough to regulate his speed in this climate. He oughtn't to have been allowed out.”

“How interesting your men are, gentlemen. Most useful to me.” Mr. Parsell chuckled with a little vanity. “They will be wondering how I knew what part of the country they came from, and I'd never seen them before. Simple, simple. They tell you themselves, but don't know it. Perhaps you have guessed it already, but they dislike this locality. What
they had to say about it was a little mine to me. You'll excuse me, but I think you will lose them soon. You ought to know that.”

“I know it, Mr. Parsell. We're turning back here. We're returning to the coast. You will find our company helpful, if you would care to travel with us.”

“My dear sir. My dear sir. I go on, of course. My work is far from finished.”

There was a brief silence, and then Colet turned to him, with deference.

“I don't think you understand, sir, what lies ahead. There are very few natives above this point. The main range of the peninsula will have to be crossed, and that has not been done from here. On the other side of it you will be in the unknown till you get to the middle reaches of the Perak river. What we fear is, sir, that you will die.”

“Young man, it is very good of you. But I have considered that.”

“Sorry, sir, but you speak as if that did not matter.”

Mr. Parsell made a gesture, glanced round as though for a more interesting subject, and walked away to the hut.

“Well, Norrie, this ethnologist's strong point isn't humour, is it?”

“Of course it isn't. It never is with these fanatics. In the Middle Ages he'd have been a holy martyr, but now he is only a scientist, offering his life for a ha'porth of facts.”

“What are we to do?”

“What is there to do? Damn the man. Why did he turn up? Isn't life complicated enough? We can't go doddering across Malaya behind an inspired crackpot following the Holy Grail, can we? Got something else to do. I wish he hadn't come. There's quite enough worries in life, without wondering what one ought to do.”

The two partners were sitting together, pulling on their marching boots. They were returning east, to the China Sea coast, and Mr. Parsell would set out for an Indian Ocean beach. Their Chinaman placed beside them their breakfast. Parsell was over with the Malays. He preferred their circle. The last Colet had seen of him the night before was his back against the firelight of the men's hut, with the Malays about him. The men knew he was different. An odd character; his simplicity had an importunity which compelled you to defer your own affairs, as though it were the appeal of an innocence which, so you guessed, knew more than its blue eyes rumoured. To Colet then the man was an intimidation which could not be ignored, however much he pretended that it was not really there. Something would have to be done. Parsell certainly had recovered. The respite of a few days, and Norrie's careful feeding, had so changed the man that occasionally he had intervals of jocosity, elfish phases of erudition which, when the other two men had recovered from their start, caused them to laugh a little awkwardly. Norrie, though, said the benefit would only help Parsell into a further and deeper slough; but the idea that he could be persuaded out of his alarming project was abandoned. It was not worth trying. It was an immovable resolution. The man was going.

Norrie stretched his legs; looked round.

“Colet, not a word from you all the morning. Some worm feeding on your bearded damask? Not worrying over the ill we can't prevent?”

“No. No. Not now. I've just given that up. I've been thinking it over. Now there's no option, I think. It seems to me I ought to go with him.”

Norrie drew his legs up. He tapped with his foot for a time before speaking again.

“Say it once more; perhaps I got it wrong.”

“I'm going with him. Put it like that.”

“Not coming my way?”

“I wish I could.”

Norrie did not move. He smiled, for a spell, at the fire. Then he rose, kicked a box out of his way, walked a little distance, and stood with his back to the hut, considering the forest. Colet went over to him.

“What else is there for me to do? You help me out of this.”

“You could let old destiny takes its course.”

“I don't know destiny when I see it. What is it like?”

Norrie did not answer that. The forest appeared to absorb his attention.

“Is there anything else for me to do? He can't be allowed to go alone. It is impossible for you to go. I'm free.”

“So is he free, free not to go.”

“I don't think he is. He's obsessed.”

“And you are free.”

“Of course. I know what I'm doing.”

“Nothing to argue about?”

“Not that I can see.”

“Who made you his keeper?”

Colet waited, without an answer. The men were beginning to pack. In the woods the bird that whistled like an idle boy was having no success with the tune. The dissolving of the mist uncovered areas of the distant forested hill-tops to the young sun; green islands were floating high in the blue. Norrie was contemplating that daily miracle of the morning, the late descent from heaven of the hilltops to join the earth. Then he addressed the hill-tops:

“Of all the blether. Of all the sacred, predestined and inevitable Gothamites. Isn't one enough? What is he going to do? Leave his luck, turn the other way, and toddle after a crank searching for what people won't look at when it is found.”

“That isn't it.”

“Then what the devil is it?”

Colet had no answer. Norrie strode farther away, but after a while he turned about as though some of his heat had gone, and faced Colet.

“I might have expected this. I suppose you're bound to follow your selfish conscience, which is thinking only of its own comfort?”

“I suppose so.”

“Your sort always do. They're an infernal nuisance to the world. No good talking sense to a noble conscience. That will find all the reasons there are for pleasing itself. You're as bad as the old fool himself. But don't forget I've got my follies. As it happens, I prefer you to the other loony's books. And do you know that when you go this morning that will be the last of you? Your enemies will never see you again.”

“Leave that to me. I'll bear it in mind.”

“I know. But it won't be enough. You'll learn that a pure intention is of no special value in a cataract. It won't even keep off amoebic dysentery or blow-flies. You'll never get that man over the range—and if you do you'll regret it. Let him be. He'll fall sick again soon, and the Malays will bring him down to the coast. I've reckoned on that.”

“It isn't their job. We can't reckon on it. Would you reckon on that in my case?”

“All right. All right. But this is what will happen. You'll carry him to a place where you can't get him forward and can't get him back. Your good intention will do him harm.”

“I'll watch it. I'll put it down in the diary when the child is to be kidnapped.”

Norrie began to pace to and fro. He did not look at his friend. He kept up his patrol for so long that Colet began to weaken. One thing was certain. It was impossible to be fair to everybody. Doing the right thing meant that some man would get hurt. But at last, when about to pass him again, Norrie paused behind him, and rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment. Colet, touched, turned about quickly. But Norrie was not looking at him. He was watching Parsell and the Malays.

“I'll call this destiny; and there you are. That's what it means for you. Just look at the fellow. There's his view of the job in front of him. He's reciting the mantras to the men, the runes for a safe journey. They think he's a pawang, a sorcerer … and confound him, so he is. He's conjured something out of me.”

They both watched the play for some minutes. It afforded a composing interval. Norrie then began to move towards the hut again.

“Come along, Colet. No good mooning here, listening to a shaman averting malaria and crocodiles. I've got some things to say to you. In any case; we must be off.”

When they had entered the shelter Norrie selected a gun. “Just once more,” he said, “I suppose it is no good talking to you?”

“I don't want to be persuaded. I might be easily persuaded.”

“Then, you take this gun along, for one thing. I'm pretty sure the ethnologist has got nothing but callipers. That would stop an elephant … if you stop the old shaman with it, when his antics look dangerous, you won't hear a word from this admirer of his. I've still got one or two of his books to read—I've got some of him untouched, in store—so don't hesitate on my account.”

He was examining the gun. “I don't like to lose it, but I suppose it must go. Another little matter, Colet. Parsell isn't
aware of it, but his packs already hold some of our supplies. His medicine chest wasn't fit to apply to a village dog, and his grub was sketchy. His Malay guide knows where the stuff is. And now that there are two imbeciles instead of one, I've got to waste more time over it … but perhaps I ought to show some gratitude to you for offering to nurse one of my pets.”