CHAPTER IV
"SLANT" ALLEN RETIRES AGAIN
Although "Slant" Allen had "retired" to Kai on three or four occasionsprevious to my arrival, his latest sojourn--the one which ended with hisenforced departure on the _Cora Andrews_--began about a month after Itook up my residence there. Two questions which Jackson asked of the manwho told him "Slant" had landed on the beach the night before havealways struck me as especially illuminative. One was: "Did 'e fetch a'awse?" and the other--even more laconic--was: "Gin, Kanak, Jap orChinee this croose?"
And equally illuminative was his comment when told that Allen had comeacross in a catamaran, bringing neither girl nor horse. "Then 'e mustasloped in a 'ell uv a rush," said the old trader with finality.
Kai was frankly disappointed that "Slant" had come without his "stable,"for the "beach race meets" which had made his name a byword throughoutthe Islands were always productive (it was universally agreed) of no endof sport and excitement. Allen, it was claimed, had transported poniesabout the South Seas by every known craft that plied their waters, froma steam packet to a Papuan head-hunting canoe. Once, in Fiji, he hadeven swum a horse across the flooded Rewa in order to get it to Suva intime to run for the "Roku's Cup." Of course he won out. "Slant" alwaysdid that--by hook or by crook--whether with a horse or a woman. ThusKai, in discussing Allen's advent.
It was characteristic of that hard-hit bunch of "gentlemen andsportsmen" (a phrase often on the lips of the post-prandial speakers attheir "race-banquets") that they should hasten to tell me that Allen hadonce owned a Melbourne Cup winner--"came jolly near riding the geldinghimself, too"--while the fact that he had killed more of hisfellow-creatures than any man of twice his age in the South Seas wasonly a matter of casual mention. You had to credit the frank minded andmouthed rascals for running true to form in that touch of naivete,though. To them the Melbourne Cup was the greatest thing in the worldbeyond any possible comparison: a human life was just about the least.But they were quite as careless about their own lives as of those ofothers, and that alone always raised them in my eyes far above thepettiness of lesser if more conventionally moral men.
Although there was not a horse on the island at the time of Allen'sarrival, within a week he had wangled it somehow to have a bunch ofSolomon ponies brought over from Malaite, and at the end of a fortnighthad pulled off the first Kai "Grand National." "Slant" called it that,he said, because, like the great Liverpool classic from which heborrowed the name, it was to be a steeplechase. The half-wild littlebeasts were brought over on the deck of a trading schooner, travellingin such restricted quarters in the waist that they had to be thrown andheld down to let the foreboom go over every time she was put about.
A bit stiff in the knees but uncurbed of spirit, the vicious quartetteclambered out on the beach, shook off the water soaked up during theirswim from the schooner, laid back their ears and stood ready to fightall-comers with tooth and hoof. As a consequence, naturally, thepreliminaries of the "Grand National" were more in the character ofbroncho-busting contests than speed trials, and it was in one of thesethat the mighty Bell had won the plaudits and the respect of the "beach"by breaking the spirit of a wild-eyed lump of a cayuse which had justmanaged to give the momentarily overconfident "Slant" a nasty spill.
The "Grand National" was run round the curve of the beach, with two"water-jumps," the "stonewall" of the quay, and three hurdles in theform of old dugout canoes to be negotiated. Bell declined to accept amount, and, in any event, his weight would have told prohibitivelyagainst him in competition with any one of at least a dozen lighter men,all of whom had had more or less actual racing experience.
Allen was the only one to go the full route at the first running of the"National," all three of his rivals falling out at the water-jumps. Whenone of the defeated riders limped in and started to attribute "Slant's"win to the fact that he had picked the best-broken if not the speediestmount, that imperturbable sportsman cheerfully agreed to ride the raceover mounted on any one of the ponies the judges cared to designate.Again he had a walkaway. It was all a matter of sheer horse-mastership;the speed of the beast had little to do with it.
Finally, just to prove that the running was all on the square, "Slant"rode the race on each of the two remaining ponies, one of which hadstrained a tendon and rasped most of the hide off one side of him intrying to jump _through_ the coral blocks of the quay instead of overthem. We gave the laughing centaur a great ovation when he brought eventhe cripple--dripping blood and sweat it was, but still responsive tothe magic of the hand that imposed its will at the pressure of a bridlerein--under the wire a half-breach-length winner.
And still more wildly we cheered him when "Quill" Partington--abroken-down and broken-out (from jail, I mean) newspaper writer, late ofMelbourne and formerly of Calcutta and London--chivvied up an ancienttortoise that Jackson used to keep around his shop as a pet, and,mounting "Slant" on the ridge of its shell, offered to back the pair atcatch-weights against anything on the island. "Quill," a most engagingcharacter, was the poet and minstrel of Kai. He did not, however, figurein the _Cora Andrews_ affair, save that he later wrote some ratherspirited verses in celebration of it, or rather of what little he knewof it.
If the feeling in Kai had been one of disappointment when it was firstreported Allen had landed without a horse, that awakened by the stillmore astonishing intelligence that he did not have a girl with him wassomewhat different--rather more akin to apprehension, it seemed to me."Slant" was no more of a laggard on the love-path than the race-track,and the gay gossip of his amazing _amours_ was sipped with the tea ofeffete Apia and Papeete with scarcely less gusto than when it sauced thesalt-horse of the pearling fleets of Port Darwin and Thursday Island.The lightning of his love was likely to strike anywhere, you were told,sometimes in the most unexpected places. There was that vixen of a_gin_--a straight Australian aboriginal black--whom he had risked hislife for in cutting across a corner of the "Never-Never" when he ranaway with her, only to have her turn and knife him later in Deli out ofjealousy of a half-caste Portugee Timorese who had caught his ficklefancy. And--to take the other extreme--there was that littlegolden-haired doll of a niece of the Governor of Fiji, who fell heelsover head in love with "Slant" after seeing him play polo in Suva, andwho, when they packed her off for home to break up the disgracefulaffair, made what was described as a really sincere attempt to go overthe rail of the Auckland-bound Union packet. Then there was "Slant's"affair with that notorious pearl-pirate "Squid" Saunders' girl--the onethe missionaries adopted and tried to reclaim, and who promised for awhile to be such a credit to their teaching--with its ghastly sequel.And so it went.
It was said that "Slant" boasted of having a son (he never kept track ofgirls, he said) and a saddle in every group west of the "hundred andeightieth." I daresay this was true, though those who put it _island_instead of group doubtless exaggerated. I had landed at several islandsmyself where I had been unable to borrow a saddle.
Most of the little unpleasantnesses that disturbed the _dolce farniente_ atmosphere of Kai had their roots in the fact that the malepopulation of the island was always a good jump ahead of the female,that there were not, in short, enough girls to go round. Under theseconditions the advent of so notorious a "feminist" as Allen could notbut be provocative of a certain anxiety, especially on the part of thosewho were (to use Jackson's terse if inelegant expression) "'arborin''igh-class 'ens."
"Don't you coves make no mistake," Jackson was quoted as saying;"'Slant' 'll be tykin' a myte stryght aw'y. Only question is 'oo's myte'e's goin' to tyke. If it was any bloke but that squar'-jawed Yank w'at'ad 'is grapplin' 'ooks slung into the plumage uv that perky peacockpullet, I'd 'ave no doubt w'at bird 'Slant' ud be baggin' an' draggin''ome to broil. But--layin' low as 'e is fer a bit--I'm thinkin' it ain't_that_ presarve 'e'll be gunnin' in just yet aw'ile."
"Stryght dope" again from old "Jack." Allen had his own reasons for notwishing his presence in Kai to be
called too forcibly to the attentionof the authorities in the British Solomons, where his latest escapade(something to do with the forcible recruiting of blacks) came prettynear the line where they were likely to ask for a gunboat from theSydney station to aid in bringing him to book. Allen was by no meansinadept of his fellow men, and he must have known that a showdown with aman of Bell's stamp--even though he had the best of it and copped themost desirable thing he ever set eyes on for his very own--could hardlyfail to prove a clash that men would like to talk about, the inspirationof a tale that would shudder itself from Yap to Tasmania in deliriousbeach-comber jargon, setting tongues wagging about him at a time whenpublicity was quite the last thing that he wanted.
Pipped as he was by the pullet's pulchritude (his own expression--headmitted as much to Jackson offhand) the cool-headed if hot-bloodedAllen evidently decided to ride a waiting race for at least the firsthalf or three-quarters, and so have something to draw on for thestraightaway. "Easy starter but a hell of a finisher," was the popularappraisal of "Slant's" way of winning with a horse, and it was butnatural that he should pin his faith to similar tactics where a womanwas in the running. There's a lot in common between the two, and it israrely indeed that a man who has a way with the one comes a cropper withthe other.
It has occurred to me, too, that a very wholesome respect for Bell as aman may have had a good deal to do with Allen's failure to force therunning at the start in the matter of Rona. The steel of his own hardpurposefulness could not have but struck sparks on the flint beneath theAmerican's mask of suave reserve at their first meeting, and theAustralian was far too intelligent not to sense that in Bell's Jovianspirit there was a force more compelling than anything in his own.Moreover, at riding, fighting and shooting--all that carried much weightwhen they judged a man in the Islands--Allen must have known that if thebalance inclined either way, it was in the American's favour.
It may well have been the sheer rugged, manly forcefulness of Bell thatgave Allen pause, at least in those early weeks before the Australian'sinfatuation for the girl became an obsession in which his reason had nopart. For years he had been taking life and property out of downrightcontempt for his victims. "I'm the better man, and therefore the moredeserving," was sufficient excuse in his own mind for his mosthigh-handed outrages. But in Bell--for almost the first time perhaps--hehad met a man who had an "edge" on him--even his soaring ego could notprevent his recognizing that. This must have been plain to him even whenhe measured the Yankee with the yardstick of his own primitive code.Yes, I really think that Allen, in his innermost mind, rated Bell as aman who, like himself, had a "right" to the best of everything. I ameven convinced that, for a while at least, he even tried to respectBell's right to Rona.
But do not let me leave the impression that there was one iota ofphysical fear of Bell in this attitude of Allen's. From what I had seen,and was to see, of the cool-eyed Antipodean that was unthinkable, eventhough he knew that the powerful ex-athlete could come pretty near tostaving in his ribs with a single punch, and though he may havesuspected that the Yankee was the deadlier man on the draw. I honestlybelieve that "Slant" Allen had no fear in his heart of anyone oranything under heaven. At that time, I mean; what came to him later isanother matter.
"Slant" ran true to Jackson's "dope sheet" in the matter of "tykin' amyte," though, but it was done quite decently and in order--that is, assuch things go in the Islands. He put up with "Quill" Partington (an oldpal) for a fortnight, and then, when "Quill's" lyric spirit led him torun over to Malaite in search of a queer native banjo that someone hadtold him the bush niggers of the interior of that island made, stringsand all, from the wild boar, "Slant" simply stayed on to "look after thepigs and chickens" (as he told them at Jackson's) and, incidentally,Mary Regan. Mary came from Norfolk Island, and claimed lineal descentfrom the mutineers of the "Bounty." Certainly she looked the part--of adescendant of mutineers, I mean. She had specialized in unhappy loveaffairs, and showed it. She had a thin, bony, angular frame, a voicelike the wail of a cracked fog-horn, and a temper "calid enough forcooking purposes," as "Quill" described it. "Quill," who had developed ataste for curries and hot seasonings while living in India, claimed thatthe reason he had put up with Mary for so long was because of the savingshe enabled him to effect in _paprika_.
How "Slant"--straight meat-eating and unpampered of palate as hewas--hit it off with the mercurial Mary no one seemed to know. At anyrate, I feel sure that he found her "condimental" disposition useful asa counter-irritant against the rising fever of his passion for Rona,something which, though he kept it under astonishingly good outwardcontrol, had been burning with increasing heat from the very first timehe saw her. He confessed that to me later. Curbed passion, like woundedpride, if it cannot find outward expression, bites inward. With all hisdespicable record well in mind, I still cannot help thinking with acertain admiration of the game bluff the rascal put up during those sixor eight weeks that the enchantment of Rona worked within him, of thegay, devil-may-care smile that so successfully masked the writhings ofhis racked spirit. First and last, there was something about thefellow--I think it must have been his flaming courage--that attracted mestrongly in spite of all that I knew, and all that I came to hold,against him.
Since Kai held no regular intercourse with any of the surroundingislands, the news that the plague--a pernicious form of bubonic--hadbroken out and was making terrible ravages among both the bush andsaltwater niggers of the Solomons was received with no especial intereston the beach, save perhaps by those who were wont now and then to take aflyer in "black ivory." The labour-recruiting trade--itself almost theonly medium through which the pest had been spread--was hard hit ofcourse; indeed, had there been anything like adequate control of thepernicious traffic at this time, it would have been suspended entirelyuntil all of the islands from which blacks were being taken, or to whichthey were being returned, were able to present something approximatingclean bills of health.
Since this was not done, however, the only check on the movement ofblacks--infected or otherwise--was the possible reluctance of themasters of ships engaged in the trade to take the risk of carrying them.And since the average black-birding skipper lived as a matter of coursewith a gun in one hand, his life in the other, and the devil's tow-linebetween his teeth, it was hardly to be expected that a little thing likethe spectre of the "Black Death" looming up on the windward horizon wasgoing to make him reef much canvas. The "Black Death" in another formwould ambush him sooner or later anyhow. With niggers waiting to settleaccounts with him in every bay it was only a matter of time at the best.Why worry about a few cases of a disease that might not kill him even ifhe did get it? Heave in and get under way! That was about the way theblack-birder looked at it, and he went right on scattering infectedniggers around the South Seas like a cook stirring raisins into apudding.
But in the secluded and peaceful haven of Kai lagoon they reckoned thatthey had little to fear from the epidemic whatever happened elsewhere.Let the plague and the heathen rage for all they cared. They were theirown quarantine officers, and, until the "Black Death" ceased to stalk inthe neighbouring islands, "No Visitors" was the order of the day. Allvery simple and efficient--in theory. Covered every possiblecontingency--just about.
I had spent several colourful days once--getting about from island toisland in the New Hebrides--with red-haired old Mike Grogan on the _CoraAndrews_, and had heard from that hard-fisted giant's own lips somethingof the grim balances checked against his life in practically everyblack-birding island of Melanesia. A black's home bay holds alabour-recruiting skipper responsible for the man's safe return at theend of his contract time, and if he does not come back they figure thatthe only fair way to even up the score is by killing the captain of theship which took him away. Grogan calculated that he would have to bekilled something like one hundred and forty times to make a clean sheetof all the accounts thus reckoned against him. He took a sort of grimpleasure in running over the items of the various tallies, but alway
sended with: "B'gorra, the devils'll be gittin' me yit!" He was convincedthat it would be a "cutting-out" party that would do for him in the end,and I have no doubt that he fought over in his mind that final bloodyshowdown every night he stood the "graveyard" watch alone. A suddenvolley from the bush, his whaleboat caught in a swarming rush of blacks,his crew disabled or deserting, and himself alone battling it outsingle-handed with the niggers at the last.... It was something likethat he expected for a grand finale, and all the "fighting Irish" in himyearned for it as a sunflower turns to the setting sun.
"An' it ain't as if I won't be givin' the spalpeens a run for theirmoney, me bhoy," he had cried one afternoon, clapping me on the shoulderwhere I swayed with him to the plungings of the _Cora_ in a nastycross-swell. "An', b'gorra, it's a way to die after a man's ownheart--shootin' an' clubbin' into a mob o' niggers out under God's ownsky!"
Full as my mind was of other things on that accursed day of which I amabout to write, I could not help but think of these words when they toldme at Jackson's that old Mike's fighting spirit had passed on a windlessmidnight, and while Mike himself was jack-knifed over the _Cora's_wheel, spitting blood and curses, and imploring the devil to quit tyingknots in his tortured guts with a red-hot pitchfork.
What little we heard of how things came to go wrong with the _Cora_ inthe first place fell from the blackening lips of her "Agent" (as therecruiter is called), who managed to reach the beach of Kai in awhaleboat, and who did not go into a delirium until a half-hour beforehe died that evening. She was packed to the hatches with "return" boysfrom Samoa. Although the plague had been claiming a very heavy tollamong the Melanesian blacks of the coco plantations of Upolou, Grogandecided to take a chance at making the Solomons with a load which, onaccount of the risk, was offered him at double rates. They would havemade it all right, the Agent thought, had not the southerly gale whichblew them a long way out of their course been followed by many days ofcalms and alternating winds. Grogan's softness in trying to doctor thefirst case of plague--instead of following the customary practice, cruelbut effective, of shooting the infected black (doomed anyhow) andthrowing the body to the sharks--was probably responsible for theghastly sequel. The blacks fell sick by dozens, until at last theSkipper--doubtless already in the first throes of the diseasehimself--ordered every living man except the surviving members of thecrew driven below and battened under hatch. Grogan died that night andthe mate the following morning.
The only white man remaining was the Agent, and he, obsessed with alife-long horror of being buried at sea, steered the best course hecould for the nearest island. The _Cora_, luckily heading into thetreacherous reef-beset passage at the turn of the tide, dropped her hookin Kai lagoon in the first flush of the dawning of the next day.
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