by Nevil Shute
I cannot describe the grace, and the charm of that small village. It was like nothing I had ever seen before; I shall find nothing like it in this world again.
I suppose there always must be something, or there would be nothing to distinguish places such as that from those that we have been taught to look forward to in the world to come. In this case, it was the physical condition of Connie Shak Lin that began to worry me. As I have said, he had grown very thin. I doubt if he weighed more than about eight stone at that time, and yet he was a big man, five foot ten or eleven in height. When we went bathing together I could see every bone in his body, so it seemed, and I began to get a little worried about him.
He ate fairly well, though nothing like as much as I did. He didn’t smoke or drink; he never had. He was well in himself, at least, when I was there, but he had little energy and spent a good part of each day within his hut, lying upon the charpoy, dozing or asleep. He had a great store of nervous energy that he could call upon, however. It had not distressed him unduly to work most of the night upon the aircraft when it had been there, and he could sit for hours in the evening talking and discussing with the old men. There seemed to be nothing really wrong with him, and certainly nothing that required a doctor. But—well, I was a bit uneasy over him. As I have mentioned, he was very thin.
After a few days of this idyllic life we began to make preparations for the Arab party. It was a bit tricky, because I had to get the permission of the Dutch Governor for the party to come to the island at all, and though I didn’t expect any difficulty it did mean that I had to disclose the fact that they were coming on a pilgrimage five thousand miles or so to see my chief ground engineer, which was unusual, to say the least.
The Governor spoke no English, and in any case he was too high a dignitary for me to approach direct. I went and called on Mr. Bergen, his second in command, who had served with the American Army in the war and spoke English as well as I did.
He was interested to hear that this Arab sheikh and his retinue were coming to visit Bali. He had already had a telegram about them from his headquarters in Batavia, which was quite incomprehensible to him, and he was glad to find somebody who could inform him on the matter. Only the crews of aircraft, people such as myself and my pilots and ground engineers, can move easily about the world these days, and Sheikh Abd el Kadir and Wazir Hussein and all the rest of them had to have passports and visas for their journey. Before I left Captain Morrison had been getting busy with all this, and the Foreign Office in London had requested permission for their visit from the Dutch Ambassador in London as a matter of diplomatic urgency. Morrison must have been very positive with the Resident back in distant Bahrein, because cables had been flying backwards and forwards halfway round the world in English and in Dutch, so that a notification of permission for this visit had come to the Governor of Bali from his immediate superior without any information what the visit was about. Probably the people in Batavia didn’t know themselves.
I suppose I was a coward, but I really didn’t feel equal to explaining to this Dutchman that the Sheikh of Khulal was coming to get Connie’s blessing. I felt that it was better to go softly on the religious side. I stressed the vast wealth of the sheikhs, and their power to indulge their slightest whim. I said that this sheikh and Connie had become great friends during his time at Bahrein, and now that the old man felt his end approaching he wanted very much to see Connie again and say good-bye to him. I said confidentially that to Europeans like us a journey of this sort might appear unreasonable, but that he, of course, was accustomed to Asiatic ways of thought, which were not always quite upon our lines. I said that the desire of the old man to see his friend for the last time had become an obsession with him, and his position in the Persian Gulf was such that the British Government were anxious to oblige him. Hence the permission which had been requested for this visit on the highest level, and which had been granted by the Dutch in Holland.
This went down all right, and Mr. Bergen went out of his way to help me to arrange accommodation for the party. There were few people staying on the island at the time, and the Bali Hotel, built for a considerable tourist trade before the war, was not more than half full. As is common in the Indonesian islands, this hotel was built in bungalow style and spread widely as a number of little suites built around courtyards, somewhat in the manner of a very good American motel. I got a row of six of these rooms for the party, each with two beds and a bathroom and a sitting verandah, and I arranged for two cars for their use.
The Tramp came in to schedule, in the late afternoon. Connie and Phinit and I were there to meet it, of course. We stood in the shade of the hangar and watched it touch down on the strip and run to a standstill; it turned and taxied towards us and I saw the familiar, bearded face of Gujar Singh in the chief pilot’s seat on the port side. He taxied to the hangar and swung it round accurately into position for pulling in; then he stopped the engines, and we went forward to the door.
Tarik opened up from the inside and put down the steps, and Wazir Hussein came down first, grave and dignified in long white skirts, as ever. He told us that the old Sheikh had stood the journey well; he was tired, but not unreasonably so. There were nine of them in the party all told, including the Imam from Baraka and the Sheikh’s personal physician, a French-speaking Arab who came, I think, originally from Tunis. I told him the arrangements I had made, and I showed him the two cars which were at their disposal; then I handed over to Connie, who went up into the machine to greet the old man, and I retired myself into the background.
Gujar Singh came out of the machine in a few minutes, and came over to where I was standing by the bowser, ready to refuel the Tramp. I asked him how the trip had gone. He said it had been normal; the old Sheikh had been interested in the details of the flight, and had followed their journey on the maps with a good deal of intelligence. At every night stop the most elaborate arrangements had been made for them; at Karachi and at Calcutta and at Singapore a fleet of cars had been waiting on the tarmac to meet the aircraft, and suites of rooms had been reserved at the best hotels.
“The difficulty was to prevent taking on more passengers,” he said, smiling. “It is not possible to keep a journey that concerns Shak Lin a secret. At every stop ten or fifteen engineers came to me, or to Hosein, or to the Wazir, asking if they might join us, to come here to listen to the Teacher. The Wazir consulted me, and I advised him to refuse them all. I think that was the best. Otherwise, there would have been too great a crowd, that would have tired the Sheikh too much.”
“It was like that, was it?” I asked thoughtfully.
“Everywhere people knew about this journey,” he said. “It is the radio operators, of course, talking with each other. Everywhere people wanted to come too. I could have filled the aircraft three times over.”
While we were talking the Arabs were getting out of the aircraft, organized by Connie; there was a bustle of flowing white skirts and black beards, and then the old Sheikh himself appeared, helped down the steep duralumin steps of the Tramp by a couple of his retinue. I went up and said something to welcome him, and he recognized me, and smiled, and Wazir Hussein translated for him. Thanks be to Allah, he said, they had had a safe and an easy journey in the hands of Gujar Singh; he was not tired, and he was grateful to me for the arrangements I had made for his comfort. I replied that anything I had done for him was nothing in comparison with what he had done for me, and he smiled again when that was translated; then he turned away and spoke to the Imam, and said something about sunset prayer.
That didn’t concern me, of course, as a European and an unbeliever, and so I excused myself and went up into the cabin of the Tramp with Gujar to inspect the aircraft and the journey log. Hosein was there tidying up and putting maps and instruments away into their stowages, and I told him that prayer was about to take place and he could go down to it if he wished. Gujar didn’t want to go; he often used to go to Connie’s prayer meetings outside the hangar at Bahrein b
ut not, I think, when there was an Imam conducting the Rakats; perhaps that made the prayers too officially Moslem, so that a good Sikh could not participate.
I stood at the chart table in the Tramp behind the pilots’ seats watching the Arabs through the little navigator’s window. Connie had marked out a small, square area of ground beside the hangar with white stones, and he had had the grass cut here by two Balinese boys so that it made a small, level sward. The square was carefully oriented towards Mecca, and in the northwest side there was the usual semicircular indent. Tarik and the other servants brought three carpets from the Tramp and spread them on the ground inside this square; the Imam took his place in the indent, and they began their devotions. Connie knelt beside the old Sheikh in prayer, motionless, all the time; he did not follow the others in the ritual of Moslem devotions, the standing, the kneeling, the prostrations. He remained kneeling all the time.
The old Sheikh had one of his retinue each side of him, who helped him to his feet each time from the kneeling position. He was evidently getting very feeble.
Phinit was there, praying with them. Like Connie, he remained kneeling all the time, but his position was just outside the square. He was a Buddhist. I think it must have been something quite exceptional that Connie should have prayed inside their prayer ground amongst the Moslems, and yet not go through the ritual of their devotions.
The prayers lasted for about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Then they were over, and I went down and drove with the party into Den Pasar to see them comfortably installed in the hotel. Connie stayed with Phinit at the airstrip to refuel the Tramp; it is better in the tropics to keep fuel tanks always full to prevent condensation troubles. They were not going to work late, however, as the aircraft would be there for a full day and could be serviced normally in working hours.
I stayed that night in the hotel myself, to be on hand to assist the Arabs if they got into any difficulty; I had a room on the far side of the courtyard from them, in order to be near and yet not be obtrusive. They had brought a Moslem cook with them to ensure that no unclean meat was prepared for their food; I took this chap along and introduced him to the kitchen staff, and I arranged for one of the cars with a driver to be permanently on call parked near their rooms. There was nothing else they wanted, so I went and changed and had a bath myself, and had a Bols, and dinner.
They had Phinit up there that evening, but not Connie; from my suite across the courtyard I could see him squatting on the ground talking to the old Sheikh and his Wazir. I found later that Connie had spent: the evening quietly in Pekendang; apparently he was in a position to dictate to these Arab princes who had come six thousand miles to see him, when he would see them and when he would rest. In default of Connie they had got hold of Phinit, and I had little doubt that they were hearing from Phinit heavily embroidered stories of the asceticism of the Teacher. Madé Jasmi would come into this, I thought, but there was nothing I could do about it. Once, talking with the desperate humour of fatigue to Nadezna, I had spoken of the Gospel according to St. Phinit. Perhaps, I thought, as I looked out across the courtyard, the first chapters of that Gospel were already taking shape.
When I got up next: morning soon after dawn, the Arabs were already gone. They met Connie down at the hangar on the airstrip for the sunrise prayer at about six o’clock. They must have stayed there for two hours or so, because when I was ready to go down to the airstrip at about half past eight, they arrived back in the two cars. I waited till the Sheikh was settled back into his room and then went over to see Wazir Hussein, to find out what his plans were. He told me that they were to meet the Teacher again in the cool of the evening, and that they would like to start back for Bahrein next morning, after the sunrise prayer.
I got a car and went down to the airstrip to see what was happening to the Tramp. I found Connie and Phinit working to give her the routine check over, with Gujar and Hosein helping them; they had got the cowlings open and they were checking the filters, changing the sparking plugs and examining contact breakers; there was a defective directional gyro to be changed. Nothing indicated that there was anything unusual about my party at all; it was just a large aeroplane being serviced by a good crowd of Asiatics.
I found that Connie already knew about the plan to start back for Bahrein next day, and he was working through the heat of the day to get the servicing of the aircraft finished by midafternoon. There was nothing much that I could do to help them. I told Connie that I would move back to my hut in Pekendang for that last night, for I was going back to Bahrein with the Sheikh’s party. I wanted to spend the last night of my holiday in Pekendang rather than in the civilized luxury of Den Pasar.
My car was waiting for me at the small airport bungalow, and I walked from the hangar to it across the sun-drenched tarmac. As I got near the bungalow another car drove up, one of the two allocated to the Arabs. It had only two people in, the Sheikh’s personal physician and the Wazir Hussein.
I went up to their car as it came to a standstill, and spoke to the Wazir. I told him that I was just going back to the hotel to check out, and said that if he wished I would settle the bill for their party and invoice him for it in Bahrein; I told him that I was going to spend the night myself in Pekendang, and that I would join them for the return flight at the airstrip in the morning. We talked about these matters for a few moments, and then he said,
“I am glad that we have met you here, Mr. Cutter. There is another matter which I came here to discuss with you, if I could find you.” He turned to introduce his companion. “This is Dr. Khaled.”
I bowed and said something or other. The doctor was dressed in a grey European suit and a Panama hat. He had a short black beard trimmed to a neat point; he might have been forty-five or fifty years old. Conversation with him was difficult because he could only speak French and Arabic; I know hardly any French and my Arabic, at that time, although adequate for the hangar and the direction of casual labour, wasn’t good enough for a prolonged conversation on any subject but aircraft.
The Wazir said, “Dr. Khaled is worried about the health of El Amin, Mr. Cutter. He would like to ask you a few questions, and perhaps talk also to the Teacher.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m not too happy myself.” I took them through into the small verandah with a few chairs and tables that served for an airport restaurant; it was a shady place where we could talk quietly, looking out over the strip. I ordered coffee, but that was difficult, so we drank fresh lime squashes. “I’ll tell you anything I can,” I said.
The Wazir had to translate for us; I think Dr. Khaled understood a little English though he could not speak it. He wanted to know at once what Connie weighed, but I could not tell him that. He asked if his emaciation was a recent matter. I told him that Connie had certainly been heavier when he had joined me nearly three years before, but that I had not noticed any very sudden change. He asked if he had been ill, and I said that he had never had any time off. He asked if he was eating well, and here I was able to give him some definite information about Connie’s habits of life, having lived with him for ten days. He was interested in his lassitude when there was no work to be done, and asked several questions about that. He asked about women.
After a quarter of an hour of this the Wazir asked if I thought Connie would permit the doctor to make an examination of him. I said I thought that was a very good idea, and that Connie should certainly take this opportunity to be checked over. I indicated as politely as I could that though Connie might be a prophet to them, he was an employee to me, and that if I said he’d got to have a medical examination he’d bloody well have one.
We walked back to the hangar, and I got Connie down off the machine and introduced him to Dr. Khaled. Connie spoke fluent Arabic, of course, and he knew Dr. Khaled well from his visits to the Sheikh’s palace at Baraka. He made no objection to a medical examination, and they went off together to the workshop, Dr. Khaled carrying a black case in his hand. I took Wazir Hussein back
to the restaurant and sat with him there till the doctor joined us.
He came after about three-quarters of an hour; Connie had gone back to work upon the Tramp. The Wazir questioned him at once, and translated his replies to me. The examination had revealed nothing particularly wrong, beyond the obvious fact that Connie was exceedingly thin and had only small reserves of physical energy. In general, he was careful with his health, apart from the fact that throughout his life he had been in the habit of eating what the native peoples of the countries that he lived in ate, and drinking what they drank. He had had malaria, of course, but it had not troubled him recently, perhaps because I always issued ample supplies of Paludrine to any of my party who were travelling away from Bahrein. That’s an economy measure, of course, because if an aircraft gets delayed because the crew are ill you can lose hundreds and hundreds of pounds, easy as wink. I always made the money side of illness clear to everybody, and my pilots and my engineers appreciated that, and took far more care over my money than they would ever have done over their own health. Connie had taken Paludrine regularly while he had been in Bali, and his malaria had not recurred.
The doctor said that he had taken samples of sputum, blood, and urine, and he had these in test tubes in his case. There were no facilities in Bali for an analysis of these samples. He had good connections with hospitals in Karachi and in Cairo where such things could be investigated, and since the aircraft would be passing through Karachi in three days’ time he proposed to put his test tubes in a thermos jar full of ice, and stop off in Karachi while the analysis was carried out, and come on to Bahrein by airline as soon as he had the report. He wanted to know if the Wazir would agree to this, or if he would prefer him just to leave the samples and travel to Bahrein with the old Sheikh, in which case the report from the Karachi hospital would come on by post.