Four-Part Setting

by Ann Bridge

  “Where can they be going, at this time of night?” Rose said.

  “No idea. Come on, sweetheart—we don’t want to get wet.” He pulled at her hand.

  “I can’t think what can have happened to the other two,” said Rose inconsequently, as she followed him. But when they reached the temple it was suddenly clear what had happened. Hungry and eager for supper, they walked into the first courtyard, and came to a dead stop. There, sitting cleaning their rifles beside the four matting-covered corpses were five dirty scrubby Chinese soldiers; the donkey-boys stood looking on in undisguised dismay.

  Chapter Ten

  Anastasia and Hillier had had a rather agitating end to their afternoon. Returning to collect their bathing-suits, they were surprised to find the whole village, so empty and silent on their arrival, filled with excited peasants, feverishly emptying their houses of all their more movable possessions and hastening along the street with them on their backs. On reaching the temple they learned—or rather Anastasia did—the reason for this disturbance: word had come in that the six or seven pings from the next village up the valley were on their way down to Ch’ang T’sao itself. The servants and donkey-boys were gibbering with fright, and Anastasia at once realised that to leave them to themselves would be to lose the donkeys, at least, almost to a certainty. Accordingly she had the animals driven into an inner courtyard, and she and Hillier took up a strategic position on the t’ai, with Rose’s revolver well in evidence. This checked the panic among their own retainers, but nothing could quell it among the unhappy villagers. Sitting on the t’ai, himself in some suspense, Roy Hillier heard for the first time one of the most horrible sounds in the world—the panting breath of a crowd of terrified people, fleeing in such silence that their breathing, and the soft shuffle of their string-soled feet were plainly audible. At intervals a villager, or one of the servants, rushed in with news of the enemy’s progress—“they’re only three li away now!”—“only two li”—“only ONE”—and finally came the horror-struck announcement “They’re here!” One very small dirty ping actually put his head through the door into the courtyard, but seeing two Europeans sitting drinking whisky on the t’ai, retreated again. There they waited, these two people who were almost strangers, united for the time being in a common tension, until, only a few minutes before Mrs. Pelham and Captain Hargreaves turned up, Lydiard at last returned. After copying down the goat-herd’s little air he had turned upstream, crossed the ford, and climbed high into the hill beyond; from there he had looked down on the village emptying itself in all directions, guessed the reason, and hurried back.

  For Roy Hillier it was a curious experience. Not the suspense, nor the possibility of danger—as a mountaineer and a war-correspondent in Latin America he was tolerably familiar with these in themselves. But when climbing or at the front a man was expecting danger and tension; he had as it were gone out to meet them, and his mind was attuned to them from the outset. Here at Ch’ang T’sao it was different—tension and possible danger had so to speak sprung out at them from the roadside when they were unprepared, when they were merely joy-riding—producing something of the effect of a tiger appearing in the middle of a school-treat. And however much he might in theory deride British preparedness and the traditional English protective attitude towards women—had openly derided it that very afternoon—when he in fact found himself sitting on that platform at Ch’ang T’sao with a woman beside him and only one revolver as against five fully-armed men in the next courtyard (a revolver which, but for Miss Lydiard’s deft manœuvres, he would have refused to carry, as he remembered with discomfort), he caught himself first wishing that she wasn’t there, and then being increasingly interested in the effect of the situation on her. Here, he was obliged to admit to himself, he got no change at all. Anastasia was completely businesslike, apparently without any effort. She said she felt like a whisky-and-soda, and ordered it; she wondered audibly how soon Captain Hargreaves and Mrs. Pelham would come back, wished that Antony were there, and speculated as to whether there were anything she herself could do to improve the morale of the servants and donkey-boys. She neither minimised nor exaggerated the situation—that was what impressed Hillier; she just met it as something quite ordinary, like a puncture out motoring. Coming on top of the behaviour of the whole party the previous day and even that morning, it was impressive. China had done something to the Lydiards, clearly—but not what he had thought. What had it done?

  With the return of Lydiard and Captain Hargreaves the situation changed again, for him. Or rather his status changed—he lost his sense of personal responsibility, and acquired the less flattering one of being a passenger. Hargreaves, Lydiard and Anastasia discussed the situation, while he and Mrs. Pelham listened. As a result, Lydiard went out into the courtyard to speak to the t’ao-pings, with a view to finding out their intentions and frame of mind—but found that they had gone. Wu, trembling slightly, was then sent off with one of Lydiard’s cards (which bore his style and title in the Posts in Chinese characters on the back) to seek them out and invite them to an interview; he returned with the information that they had left the temple, were sleeping just up the street, and had no wish to speak with the Ying-kuo Jen. They added, Wu said, that the valley was full of soldiers, and that the foreigners would do well to return to Toli at once. How far this last piece of advice really came from the t’ao-pings, and how far it was merely what Anastasia called “Wu’s wish-fulfilment” it was not possible to ascertain—anyhow it was highly discouraging, and on it the party sat down to a gloomy supper.

  The supper itself surprised Hillier rather. For the last hour-and-a-half the servants had shown every sign of demoralisation, and he expected a meal of bread and cheese at the best. Not at all. Pings or no pings, the ch’u-t’zu had his reputation to sustain, the Great Men must be fed—and on Lydiard’s shouting “K’ai fan!” there appeared in succession soup, maize on the cob, broiled chicken with potatoes and beans and—with a truly Chinese touch of macabre cheerfulness—a Fortnum and Mason Christmas pudding out of a tin! The Lydiards’ cook had been in European service twenty years, and knew all about Christmas pudding—to serve it that evening was just his contribution to the general morale, as Hillier learned from the delighted comments of his employers. During coffee the priest appeared with some request—Lydiard gave what was evidently an affirmative, and the priest vanished, only to reappear a moment later with a dismal little procession in his wake: two cripples, an old man and a young girl with terribly red-rimmed eyes, obviously cases of acute ophthalmia, and three or four others—a selection of the village sick who had been left behind in the general exodus, and had come, as Chinese villagers always do come at the advent of white travellers, in the touching hope of getting medical help and advice. Lydiard meanwhile had dived into his tent and emerged with a fair-sized tin box, which he set on a rough wooden bench, borrowed from the priest, down in the yard, along with a candle-lantern. There for the next hour he toiled in the gathering dusk—asking questions, examining diseased bodies, and doling out rose-water, boracic, castor oil, quinine, aspirin, bismuth and disinfectant tablets. In reply to Hillier’s questions Anastasia explained that this was a normal feature of travel up-country in China, where doctors, hospitals and chemists’ shops were alike non-existent.

  “But does he know anything about doctoring?” Hillier asked.

  “He knows what we all know about dysentery and constipation and pink-eye and boils and so on.”

  “Can he cure them, though, just in one go, like that?” Rose asked.

  “Some of the simple things, if he leaves them some stuff. Others he can’t, of course—the surgical cases are hopeless, and a good many of the others would really need weeks of treatment.”

  “Then is it much good, actually?” Hillier pursued. “I should have thought it was hardly worth while just patching a few of them up.” He spoke without any offensive intention, out of his usual detached desire to get at the facts. Anastasia turned and examined his fa
ce with a long enquiring stare before she answered.

  “They like it,” she said then. “It makes them feel that they are being helped, and that in itself does them a certain amount of good. It does to most people, doesn’t it?” She spoke with extreme mildness, but Hillier felt himself, for some reason, slightly rebuked.

  “Actually, you know, I believe it does improve them even physically,” Hargreaves put in unexpectedly. “That fellow Rogers at the Rockefeller Institute told me that these coolie chaps are so jolly simple that if you just give them the once-over, and a glass of water with lemon-juice in it, it brings their temperature down like binko. No bed or anything. Sort of faith, you know.”

  Mrs. Pelham glanced at him in surprise, and then continued to watch Lydiard. There is something rather moving to most people about even the abstract idea of ministering to sickness and pain; and the sight of it, if it is not too horrible, is more moving still. Rose was moved now. From where they sat on the t’ai the scene in the court below had an almost biblical simplicity and force—the dark shapes of the tents, the shadowy rustling background of the kaoliang, the yellow glow of the lantern, and in its light Lydiard’s dark intent face and purposeful hands moving along the group of Chinese who surrounded him, on their faces that expression of meek and confident hope which is one of humanity’s most touching aspects. She had a curious feeling that those trusting yellow faces were turned to an Antony she did not know; an essential Antony, who was always there, but whom she had never found or realised. And for some reason she found that idea frightening.

  The night at Ch’ang T’sao was not comfortable. Corpses in the next courtyard and armed men up the street are not really conducive to repose. Also, about an hour after everyone was in bed it came on to rain heavily; the tents of Captain Hargreaves’ procuring began to leak, and leaked more in some parts than in others, which necessitated a general reshuffling of the positions of the camp-beds. (Hillier, who had refused to bring a camp-bed at all and slept in a flea-bag on the ground, was in the worst case of all.) Everyone who has experienced this sort of thing in camp after a fairish day’s march will remember the despairing exasperation which it produces. However, at last peace of a sort reigned once more, and t’ao-pings or no t’ao-pings, the party for the most part slept.

  Not for very long, however. About 2 A.M. Mrs. Pelham was awakened by a very curious noise, as of a hen clucking, close outside the tent. Hens do not cluck in the middle of a wet night; and besides, when she had wakened thoroughly, looked at her wrist-watch by the light of her torch inside her sleeping-bag, and propped herself on her elbow to listen with both ears, it didn’t sound so exactly like a hen—it was more like a cat, and there was a human note in it, at once desolate and horrible. She tried to ignore it, and go to sleep again, but it persisted, and she lay wondering what it could be. At last, to her relief, Anastasia woke too. She also looked at her watch—Rose could see the faint glow proceeding from the end of the sleeping-bag.

  “Asta, what do you suppose that noise is?” she asked cautiously—the men’s tent was only a few feet away.

  “Can’t imagine.” She too listened. “It’s quite close, any-how—hit the tent and shoo it.”

  Rose hit and shooed. There was a very light noise of movement outside, but in a moment or so the sound began again, from further away this time.

  “It sounds like a kid bleating,” said Anastasia. “No, it doesn’t though—not exactly.”

  “What can it be?” Rose asked after a few moments—the half-human, half-animal quality about the sound was exceedingly disagreeable. It was louder, too, now, though more distant.

  “I can’t think. Anyhow it can’t be anything to bother about. Go to sleep, Rose.”

  But Mrs. Pelham couldn’t go to sleep; and after a time it appeared that Miss Lydiard couldn’t either. The noise was getting steadily louder, how hen-like, now goat-like, and it was extraordinarily persistent. Anastasia sat up.

  “It’s no good staying awake all night for the wretched thing,” she observed, still in an undertone—“I shall go out and see.” She wriggled out of her sleeping-bag as she spoke. Rose switched on her torch to give her cousin light. By mutual consent the two women had slept that night in short and shirts instead of nightgowns, in case of a sudden alarm—Anastasia threw a Burberry over this gear, and prepared to set out into the rain.

  “Aren’t you going to take your torch?” Rose asked.

  “No—better not show a light. I’ll just poke round—I think it’s in that little shed thing.” She vanished. Rose lay listening intently. The sound stopped. In a moment Anastasia came padding back.

  “What was it?”

  “Couldn’t see a thing. It’s as black as the pit’s mouth. I poked into the shed, but of course it had stopped then.” She took off her Burberry and shook it, shook the raindrops out of her black hair, wiped her bare muddied feet on the outside of her sleeping-bag and crawled into it again. “Blast!” she exclaimed, as a distinct mewing came once more. Rose giggled.

  “Well, I insist on sleeping,” said Anastasia. “Löschen, will you, Rose?”

  Mrs. Pelham obediently switched off her torch. But sleep was not to come yet. The mewing or bleating went on, louder and louder, and presently fresh sounds of disturbance arose—steps in the courtyard; the noise of sticks on wood and stone, like beaters in a copse; shouts. Anastasia sat up to listen—“That’s Wu,” she said, with a note of relief in her voice, as someone called out in Chinese close to the tent. The noise rose in a crescendo like that of a battle, suddenly mixed with sharp and horrible screams—then gradually it all died away. “Asta, what can it be?” Rose asked urgently.

  “Find out in the morning.” Anastasia had cuddled down in her sleeping-bag again. Mrs. Pelham lay down too. Now there was, at last, silence; and in that silence eventually she fell asleep.

  They were called at 5.30, and rose, not sorry to leave their unquiet beds. In the morning things looked brighter—the rain had stopped, and the last clouds were lifting from the mountain-tops. All but Lydiard went down to the river to bathe, and swam upstream for a quarter of a mile, out of their depth, under those marvellous cliffs, to drift down again in the clear blue water. They climbed the hill to breakfast in an undefinable exhilaration; the sun was up now, raindrops glittered from every leaf and twig, overhead the poplars chattered in a light breeze, and the path was bordered with an astonishing show of huge blue morning-glories. Good news met them on their return: the t’ao-pings had already left, the donkey-boys’ morale had revived, and it had been decided to push on one more stage up the valley, “and then see”. Lydiard furnished an explanation of the noise in the night. The mewing had been made by a fen-ti, or mad person, the wretched wife of one of the murdered men, who had been driven out of her wits by the cruelties of the bandits the day before—when disturbed by Mrs. Pelham outside the tent she must have crept into the little shed, where she was eventually found by the servants, headed by Wu, when they set out to find what was causing the sound.

  “What did they do with her?” Rose asked a little bleakly.

  “Took her away and shut her up somewhere.”

  “But what will they do about her?”

  “Nothing. What can they do? If she gets better she gets better, but if not, she’ll just stay mad. They won’t ill-treat her,” said Antony—“they don’t.”

  That day’s march was uneventful except for the flowers. They were fairly deep in the mountains now; the gorge was narrower, the hills on either side higher—villages were fewer and there was less cultivation. The track, never much of a thing, dwindled away to a mere thread of path, now among the stones of the river-bed, now among the bushes on the banks. But what bushes! Nearly all of them either were covered with blossom, or smelt strongly sweet, or both. There were small shrubby loniceras, with glossy tiny leaves and equally tiny but intensely fragrant blossoms; there was a low-growing pink daphne, of which Hargreaves said that to pass through a patch of it was like walking into Floris’s shop; most ab
undant of all, there was a big shrub covered with pale-pink and deep purple pea-flowers, growing four or five feet high. For Mrs. Pelham, to whom all the various peculiarities of Far Eastern travel were alike new, it was fascinating to be almost swept off her donkey’s back by the flower-laden branches of bushes when she was riding along what the donkey-boys described as a Ta Lu, or Great Road. Then there were the begonias. The first time they came on these each member of the party in turn stopped dead, almost speechless and almost incredulous. They were crossing the mouth of a narrow ravine, down the centre of which ran a trickle of water; the high rocky walls of it were damp and covered with moss, and these green walls were festooned with long trailing sprays of a small wild begonia with shell-pink flowers and coral-red stalks, very much like the one which gardeners sling in moss-filled baskets from the roofs of English conservatories. Some of the sprays were as much as a yard in length. This pink-wreathed cleft in the rocks was a breath-taking sight in itself, but when you considered its implications, as Anastasia said, it became stupendous. In England begonias will not pass the winter out of doors, and live for the most part in gentle heat, winter and summer alike—but this terrific display occurred at a height of nearly 3000 feet, in a climate which has sub-zero temperatures in winter for weeks on end.