Collected Short Stories Volume 2 Read online

  'I'm not afraid,' she said.

  'I daresay. But if you have your throat cut I shall get into trouble, and besides, we're so short-handed I don't want to risk losing your help.'

  'Then let Mr Wilson come with me. He knows the natives better than anyone and can speak all their dialects.'

  'Ginger Ted?' The Contrôleur stared at her. 'He's just getting over an attack of DTs.'

  'I know,' she answered.

  'You know a great deal, Miss Jones.'

  Even though the moment was so serious Mr Gruyter could not but smile. He gave her a sharp look, but she met it coolly.

  'There's nothing like responsibility for bringing out what there is in a man, and I think something like this may be the making of him.'

  'Do you think it would be wise to trust yourself for days at a time to a man of such infamous character?' said the missionary.

  'I put my trust in God,' she answered gravely.

  'Do you think he'd be any use?' asked the Contrôleur. 'You know what he is.'

  'I'm convinced of it.' Then she blushed. 'After all, no one knows better than I that he's capable of self-control.'

  The Contrôleur bit his lip.

  'Let's send for him.'

  He gave a message to the sergeant and in a few minutes Ginger Ted stood before them. He looked ill. He had evidently been much shaken by his recent attack and his nerves were all to pieces. He was in rags and he had not shaved for a week. No one could have looked more disreputable.

  'Look here, Ginger,' said the Contrôleur, 'it's about this cholera business. We've got to force the natives to take precautions and we want you to help us.'

  'Why the hell should I?'

  'No reason at all. Except philanthropy.'

  'Nothing doing, Contrôleur. I'm not a philanthropist.'

  'That settles that. That was all. You can go.'

  But as Ginger Ted turned to the door Miss Jones stopped him.

  'It was my suggestion, Mr Wilson. You see, they want me to go to Labobo and Sakunchi, and the natives there are so funny I was afraid to go alone. I thought if you came I should be safer.'

  He gave her a look of extreme distaste.

  'What do you suppose I care if they cut your throat?'

  Miss Jones looked at him and her eyes filled with tears. She began to cry. He stood and watched her stupidly.

  'There's no reason why you should.' She pulled herself together and dried her eyes. 'I'm being silly. I shall be all right. I'll go alone.'

  'It's damned foolishness for a woman to go to Labobo.'

  She gave him a little smile.

  'I daresay it is, but you see, it's my job and I can't help myself. I'm sorry if I offended you by asking you. You must forget about it. I daresay it wasn't quite fair to ask you to take such a risk.'

  For quite a minute Ginger Ted stood and looked at her. He shifted from one foot to the other. His surly face seemed to grow black.

  'Oh, hell, have it your own way,' he said at last. 'I'll come with you. When d'you want to start?'

  They set out next day, with drugs and disinfectants, in the Government launch. Mr Gruyter as soon as he had put the necessary work in order was to start off in a prahu in the other direction. For four months the epidemic raged. Though everything possible was done to localize it, one island after another was attacked. The Contrôleur was busy from morning to night. He had no sooner got back to Baru from one or other of the islands to do what was necessary there than he had to set off again. He distributed food and medicine. He cheered the terrified people. He supervised everything. He worked like a dog. He saw nothing of Ginger Ted, but he heard from Mr Jones that the experiment was working out beyond all hopes. The scamp was behaving himself. He had a way with the natives; and by cajolery, firmness, and on occasion the use of his fist, managed to make them take the steps necessary for their own safety. Miss Jones could congratulate herself on the success of the scheme. But the Contrôleur was too tired to be amused. When the epidemic had run its course he rejoiced because out of a population of eight thousand only six hundred had died.

  Finally he was able to give the district a clean bill of health.

  One evening he was sitting in his sarong on the veranda of his house and he read a French novel with the happy consciousness that once more he could take things easy. His head boy came in and told him that Ginger Ted wished to see him. He got up from his chair and shouted to him to come in. Company was just what he wanted. It had crossed the Contrôleur's mind that it would be pleasant to get drunk that night, but it is dull to get drunk alone, and he had regretfully put the thought aside. And heaven had sent Ginger Ted in the nick of time. By God, they would make a night of it. After four months they deserved a bit of fun. Ginger Ted entered. He was wearing a clean suit of white ducks. He was shaved. He looked another man.

  'Why, Ginger, you look as if you'd been spending a month at a health resort instead of nursing a pack of natives dying of cholera. And look at your clothes. Have you just stepped out of a bandbox?'

  Ginger Ted smiled rather sheepishly. The head boy brought two bottles of beer and poured them out.

  'Help yourself, Ginger,' said the Contrôleur as he took his glass.

  'I don't think I'll have any, thank you.'

  The Contrôleur put down his glass and looked at Ginger Ted with amazement.

  'Why, what's the matter? Aren't you thirsty?'

  'I don't mind having a cup of tea.'

  'A cup of what?'

  'I'm on the wagon. Martha and I are going to be married.'

  'Ginger!'

  The Contrôleur's eyes popped out of his head. He scratched his shaven pate.

  'You can't marry Miss Jones,' he said. 'No one could marry Miss Jones.'

  'Well, I'm going to. That's what I've come to see you about. Owen's going to marry us in chapel, but we want to be married by Dutch law as well.'

  'A joke's a joke, Ginger. What's the idea?'

  'She wanted it. She fell for me that night we spent on the island when the propeller broke. She's not a bad old girl when you get to know her. It's her last chance, if you understand what I mean, and I'd like to do something to oblige her. And she wants someone to take care of her, there's no doubt about that.'

  'Ginger, Ginger, before you can say knife she'll make you into a damned missionary.'

  'I don't know that I'd mind that so much if we had a little mission of our own. She says I'm a bloody marvel with the natives. She says I can do more with a native in five minutes than Owen can do in a year. She says she's never known anyone with the magnetism I have. It seems a pity to waste a gift like that.'

  The Contrôleur looked at him without speaking and slowly nodded his head three or four times. She'd nobbled him all right.

  'I've converted seventeen already,' said Ginger Ted.

  'You? I didn't know you believed in Christianity.'

  'Well, I don't know that I did exactly, but when I talked to 'em and they just came into the fold like a lot of blasted sheep, well, it gave me quite a turn. Blimey, I said, I daresay there's something in it after all.'

  'You should have raped her, Ginger. I wouldn't have been hard on you. I wouldn't have given you more than three years' and three years' is soon over.'

  'Look here, Contrôleur, don't you ever let on that the thought never entered my head. Women are touchy, you know, and she'd be as sore as hell if she knew that.'

  'I guessed she'd got her eye on you, but I never thought it would come to this.' The Contrôleur in an agitated manner walked up and down the veranda. 'Listen to me, old boy, he said after an interval of reflection, 'we've had some grand times together and a friend's a friend. I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll lend you the launch and you can go and hide on one of the islands till the next ship comes along and then I'll get 'em to slow down and take you on board. You've only got one chance now and that's to cut and run.'

  Ginger Ted shook his head.

  'It's no good, Contrôleur, I know you mean well, but I'm going to
marry the blasted woman, and that's that. You don't know the joy of bringing all them bleeding sinners to repentance, and Christ! that girl can make a treacle pudding. I haven't eaten a better one since I was a kid.'

  The Contrôleur was very much disturbed. The drunken scamp was his only companion on the islands and he did not want to lose him. He discovered that he had even a certain affection for him. Next day he went to see the missionary.

  'What's this I hear about your sister marrying Ginger Ted?' he asked him. 'It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard in my life.'

  'It's true nevertheless.'

  'You must do something about it. It's madness.'

  'My sister is of full age and entitled to do as she pleases.'

  'But you don't mean to tell me you approve of it. You know Ginger Ted. He's a bum and there are no two ways about it. Have you told her the risk she's running? I mean, bringing sinners to repentance and all that sort of thing's all right, but there are limits. And does the leopard ever change his spots?'

  Then for the first time in his life the Contrôleur saw a twinkle in the missionary's eye.

  'My sister is a very determined woman, Mr Gruyter,' he replied. 'From that night they spent on the island he never had a chance.'

  The Contrôleur gasped. He was as surprised as the prophet when the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? Perhaps Mr Jones was human after all.

  'Allejezus!' muttered the Contrôleur.

  Before anything more could be said Miss Jones swept into the room. She was radiant. She looked ten years younger. Her cheeks were flushed and her nose was hardly red at all.

  'Have you come to congratulate me, Mr Gruyter?' she cried, and her manner was sprightly and girlish. 'You see, I was right after all. Everyone has some good in them. You don't know how splendid Edward has been all through this terrible time. He's a hero. He's a saint. Even I was surprised.'

  'I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Jones.'

  'I know I shall. Oh, it would be wicked of me to doubt it. For it is the Lord who has brought us together.'

  'Do you think so?'

  'I know it. Don't you see? Except for the cholera Edward would never have found himself. Except for the cholera we should never have learnt to know one another. I have never seen the hand of God more plainly manifest.'

  The Contrôleur could not but think that it was rather a clumsy device to bring those two together that necessitated the death of six hundred innocent persons, but not being well versed in the ways of omnipotence he made no remark.

  'You'll never guess where we're going for our honeymoon,' said Miss Jones, perhaps a trifle archly.

  'Java.'

  'No, if you'll lend us the launch, we're going to that island where we were marooned. It has very tender recollections for both of us. It was there that I first guessed how fine and good Edward was. It's there I want him to have his reward.'

  The Contrôleur caught his breath. He left quickly, for he thought that unless he had a bottle of beer at once he would have a fit. He was never so shocked in his life.

  The force of circumstance

  She was sitting on the veranda waiting for her husband to come in for luncheon. The Malay boy had drawn the blinds when the morning lost its freshness, but she had partly raised one of them so that she could look at the river. Under the breathless sun of midday it had the white pallor of death. A native was paddling along in a dug-out so small that it hardly showed above the surface of the water. The colours of the day were ashy and wan. They were but the various tones of the heat. (It was like an Eastern melody, in the minor key, which exacerbates the nerves by its ambiguous monotony; and the ear awaits impatiently a resolution, but waits in vain.) The cicadas sang their grating song with a frenzied energy; it was as continual and monotonous as the rustling of a brook over the stones; but on a sudden it was drowned by the loud singing of a bird, mellifluous and rich; and for an instant, with a catch at her heart, she thought of the English blackbird.

  Then she heard her husband's step on the gravel path behind the bungalow, the path that led to the court-house in which he had been working, and she rose from her chair to greet him. He ran up the short flight of steps, for the bungalow was built on piles, and at the door the boy was waiting to take his topee. He came into the room which served them as a dining-room and parlour, and his eyes lit up with pleasure as he saw her.

  'Hulloa, Doris. Hungry?'

  'Ravenous.'

  'It'll only take me a minute to have a bath and then I'm ready.'

  'Be quick,' she smiled.

  He disappeared into his dressing-room and she heard him whistling cheerily while, with the carelessness with which she was always remonstrating, he tore off his clothes and flung them on the floor. He was twenty-nine, but he was still a school-boy; he would never grow up. That was why she had fallen in love with him, perhaps, for no amount of affection could persuade her that he was good-looking. He was a little round man, with a red face like the full moon, and blue eyes. He was rather pimply. She had examined him carefully and had been forced to confess to him that he had not a single feature which she could praise. She had told him often that he wasn't her type at all.

  'I never said I was a beauty,' he laughed.

  'I can't think what it is I see in you.'

  But of course she knew perfectly well. He was a gay, jolly little man, who took nothing very solemnly, and he was constantly laughing. He made her laugh too. He found life an amusing rather than a serious business, and he had a charming smile. When she was with him she felt happy and good-tempered. And the deep affection which she saw in those merry blue eyes of his touched her. It was very satisfactory to be loved like that. Once, sitting on his knees, during their honeymoon she had taken his face in her hands and said to him:

  'You're an ugly, little fat man, Guy, but you've got charm. I can't help loving you.'

  A wave of emotion swept over her and her eyes filled with tears. She saw his face contorted for a moment with the extremity of his feeling and his voice was a little shaky when he answered.

  'It's a terrible thing for me to have married a woman who's mentally deficient,' he said.

  She chuckled. It was the characteristic answer which she would have liked him to make.

  It was hard to realize that nine months ago she had never even heard of him. She had met him at a small place by the seaside where she was spending a month's holiday with her mother. Doris was a secretary to a member of parliament. Guy was home on leave. They were staying at the same hotel, and he quickly told her all about himself. He was born in Sembulu, where his father had served for thirty years under the second Sultan, and on leaving school he had entered the same service. He was devoted to the country.

  'After all, England's a foreign land to me,' he told her. 'My home's Sembulu.'

  And now it was her home too. He asked her to marry him at the end of the month's holiday. She had known he was going to, and had decided to refuse him. She was her widowed mother's only child and she could not go so far away from her, but when the moment came she did not quite know what happened to her, she was carried off her feet by an unexpected emotion, and she accepted him. They had been settled now for four months in the little outstation of which he was in charge. She was very happy.

  She told him once that she had quite made up her mind to refuse him.

  'Are you sorry you didn't?' he asked, with a merry smile in his twinkling blue eyes.

  'I should have been a perfect fool if I had. What a bit of luck that fate or chance or whatever it was stepped in and took the matter entirely out of my hands!'

  Now she heard Guy clatter down the steps to the bathhouse. He was a noisy fellow and even with bare feet he could not be quiet. But he uttered an exclamation. He said two or three words in the local dialect and she could not understand. Then she heard someone speaking to him, not aloud, but in a sibilant whisper. Really it was too bad of peopl
e to waylay him when he was going to have his bath. He spoke again and though his voice was low she could hear that he was vexed. The other voice was raised now; it was a woman's. Doris supposed it was someone who had a complaint to make. It was like a Malay woman to come in that surreptitious way. But she was evidently getting very little from Guy, for she heard him say: Get out. That at all events she understood, and then she heard him bolt the door. There was a sound of the water he was throwing over himself (the bathing arrangements still amused her, the bath-houses were under the bedrooms, on the ground; you had a large tub of water and you sluiced yourself with a little tin pail) and in a couple of minutes he was back again in the dining-room. His hair was still wet. They sat down to luncheon.

  'It's lucky I'm not a suspicious or a jealous person,' she laughed. 'I don't know that I should altogether approve of your having animated conversations with ladies while you're having your bath.'

  His face, usually so cheerful, had borne a sullen look when he came in, but now it brightened.

  'I wasn't exactly pleased to see her.'

  'So I judged by the tone of your voice. In fact, I thought you were rather short with the young person.'