Hashish

by Henry De Monfreid

  I had some difficulty in keeping my face straight as the Commissioner gravely laid forth this official version which had been adopted. But he did not look at me as he spoke, perhaps because he was tempted to smile too.

  ‘Anyhow,’ he concluded, ‘in spite of the trouble you might have got into, since you had fired on Italian soldiers –’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I interrupted quickly, ‘the first shot was fired in the air to alarm a native whom I had no means of recognizing as a soldier.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, and His Excellency fully recognized this point. All the same, if the minister at Rome had known about it, our Government might have been obliged to take measures, whose severity would have been justified by the fact that we are at war. His Excellency found it preferable to take no notice whatever of your letter, on condition that for your part you kept silent about the whole business.’

  ‘You can be sure, sir, that I had already guessed how His Excellency would look at the matter, and I came to Massawa especially to assure him of my absolute discretion about an incident due to the carelessness and lack of discipline of one of his subordinates.’

  ‘It is to your interest to be silent, at any rate,’ added the Commissioner, just to indicate that his delicate courtesy, if not understood, would be backed up by threats.

  ‘Let’s say “our interest” if you like, ‘I corrected smilingly, ‘and I shall be much obliged to you. Please convey to His Excellency my profound respects, and assure him of the friendliness and admiration I feel for his beautiful Italy, our Latin sister, etc’

  And off we went into a regular lyrical duet, assuring each other of the cordial friendliness our two countries had felt for each other since the beginning of time, as everyone knows.

  I had still time before lunch to go on board the liner to see Ternel. I asked everybody I met where Captain Ternel was to be found, but the white-gloved stewards and the courteous head steward searched for him in vain. Nevertheless, he was somewhere on the ship. At last a Chinese boy, to whom as a last resource I put the question, grinned ironically all over his wrinkled face and replied:

  ‘Monsieur and Madame have been shut up together in the bathroom the last hour.’

  The head steward raised shocked eyes to heaven. I sent the Chinese boy, since he was so well informed, to tell the young couple that the Trench gentleman’ was waiting for them in the smoking-room. Ternel appeared at last, rather confused at having kept me waiting so long. His wife followed. He felt obliged to explain this prolonged bath on sporting grounds, but at the same time he took a certain pleasure in giving me to understand that it was a very creole sport he had been indulging in. Madame simpered and blushed and nudged him in the ribs, crying affectedly:

  ‘Oh, Edward, how can you!’

  I was afraid they were going to begin again right there in the smoking-room, but luckily the barman appeared and saved me.

  ‘Cocktail?’ asked Ternel.

  ‘No, thank you; I know it is the American fashion, but I prefer a glass of port.’

  He settled into an arm-chair opposite me, near enough for confidences, and said:

  ‘I could see you did not recognize me when I said good morning to you. No doubt you were much astonished to see me here. But I had never forgotten you, and something told me that one day my lucky star would bring you across my path. Ah, lucky dog of a Monfreid, you.’

  And he slapped me familiarly on the shoulders. In three minutes we were as thick as thieves.

  ‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘you have the devil’s own hick. You wonder why I am saying that? Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve been trying to see you, or at least to get in touch with you, for a long time. Not long ago I was at Aden, and I asked Besse where you were, but he shrugged his shoulders and said he was no longer interested in you. Did you quarrel with him?’

  ‘Not exactly; I’m surprised you don’t know Besse yet. I simply ran through the usual cycle of the friendships of Monsieur Besse. One begins by being his inseparable friend and collaborator, and one ends up by being considered as a boring idiot. That’s what happened in my case. But what are you doing on this liner? Are you leaving India, and why do you say I am so lucky at meet you, setting aside the pleasure I feel at seeing you again?’

  ‘It’s quite simple; I have just started a wonderful business. It’s not public yet, but you are a friend and I can trust you.’

  He looked warily round the empty room, then continued:

  ‘Don’t let’s stay here, let’s go up on deck. These smoking-rooms have very strange acoustic properties sometimes; one must be on one’s guard. Once I heard a whole conversation, although it was carried on in whispers; I heard every single word.’

  ‘Perhaps you have very acute hearing. You wouldn’t like anyone to play the same trick on you. You are right, one should always beware of inquisitive and indiscreet people.’

  He laughed as if the veiled insolence I had just uttered were the rarest of compliments. We were now alone on the quarter-deck, but in spite of this fact Temel spoke in a whisper.

  ‘I resigned from my shipping company in order to launch a big business, as I told you. Along with some friends I formed a limited liability company. You must know that in India there is a big trade done in something which grows in the country, and which no one has hitherto thought of exploiting for export. People try to make money in the most complicated ways, when fortune is there in a coster’s barrow.’

  What did this wretched creole mean? Surely he wasn’t thinking of the same thing as Stavro had suggested to me? Was he going to spoil everything by blundering into this delicate question I had resolved to study to my advantage? I had beads of apprehension on my brow.

  ‘But what is this product of the country which the people use, you seem to suggest?’

  ‘Ah, that’s the question. You would never guess.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ I returned crossly, ‘since I don’t know India.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you; it’s fresh coco-nuts.’

  I thought I was not hearing properly.

  ‘Yes, fresh coco-nuts,’ he went on. They are sold as refreshments in every street in Bombay. The merchant cuts off the end of a fresh nut and you drink the milk, which is a sparkling, delicious and refreshing beverage. My idea, and you’ll see how clever it is, is to launch this fashion in Paris. You can just imagine the success it will have on the boulevards and in the public gardens. I thought of having dainty little hand-carts brightly painted with designs based on the foliage of the coco-palm, and with the merchant dressed in native fashion, of course. If the nuts were sold at a franc each, I should have a net profit of ten centimes, and in Paris alone I could sell ten thousand a day. Pretty good, that, a thousand francs profit a day. And when you add all the other towns in France…’

  Ternel went off into a dream of millions. The whole of Europe would soon be rolling along on coco-nuts. I wondered if he were pulling my leg, or if he had organized this grotesque business as a screen for something else. But no, he was perfectly serious.

  ‘We are putting up our shares for sale,’ he went on, delighted with my thunderstruck air, which he mistook for admiration; ‘oh, a very small capital – only fifty thousand francs to start with. I have thought of a name for our company, very simple, once you’ve thought of it. I would call it “The Coco-nut”.’

  The relief I felt when I realized he was serious helped me to keep from laughing outright. This fellow was a typical creóle, credulous as a child, seeing everything through the rosy mist of his imagination, and utterly incapable of managing a business. However, these people can become cynical, immoral and dangerous with disconcerting lack of conscience; Ternel was to furnish yet another proof of this later on. This comes from their admixture of Negro blood, perhaps, which no prejudice of caste is strong enough to counteract many generations after it took place.

  Ternel went on raving for a little longer, then got round to trying to sell me shares in ‘The Coco-nut’. I gave an evasive reply, favourable en
ough to let him keep his illusions and be disposed to answer the questions I wanted to ask. In my turn, by various detours I arrived at what I wanted to know.

  ‘Do you know what the Indians smoke?’ I asked. ‘What is this product that the sepoys get every week as our soldiers get their allowance of tobacco?’

  ‘H’m… I don’t know; I really never noticed, unless you mean charas or ganja? One is a sort of paste, and the other consists of dried leaves. It is hemp, I think. These products have to be sold as opium is sold in India, in shops which have a special licence.’

  What the Coco-nut King had just told me revealed the truth to me in a blinding flash. What the whole world calls ‘hashish’ is officially called ‘charas’ in the Indian Empire. I saw how useful this name would be to me, for I could use it in all circumstances where the name ‘hashish’ would raise insurmountable difficulties. Ternel was right: I had been very lucky to meet him. The word ‘charas’ which he had just uttered decided my future. The vague idea of going to India which I had conceived after my last conversation with Stavro became an unshakable resolution.

  That very evening Ternel departed on his luxurious liner. He had played his part as the puppet of destiny which was to engage me on what turned out to be the most extraordinary adventure in my whole life. I kept his address in Bombay. Perhaps it would be useful to me when he returned there, not after making his fortune, but after losing his illusions about the success of tropical drinks in the Tuileries Gardens.

  FORTY-ONE

  The Tortures of Doubt

  At last I put to sea en route for Djibouti. The summer was nearly over, and for three months I had had no news of my family. So this adventure so audaciously begun was ended. It had succeeded probably just because it was so crazy. I had braved dangers because I did not suspect their existence. The extraordinary self-possession which this ignorance had given me had routed all logical forecasts as to the result, and had kept me from falling under suspicion. I had had confidence in the natural following of effects from causes, all the time I had felt I was going towards success. The single example of the finding of the empty packing-case before I reached Kosseir was enough to make me muse on the reality of free will. After so many years of barren struggle, here was success at last. I was homeward bound with a tidy sum of money and with my head humming with plans for increasing it and so realizing the dream of my life – complete independence.

  I should have been merry as a sand-boy. I should have been dancing and singing to express my satisfaction. But, no, I felt no joy; I was in a vague condition of mind in which I felt bored, and tried to cheer myself up by thinking of the dangers of the future. We carry our Wandering Jew in our own hearts. No rest, never a halt on the burning road beside the bubbling spring; only a hasty mouthful of water drunk from cupped hands, and forward again along the dusty path.

  It is as if our souls had the power to produce each feeling from its opposite. Joy develops fear and adversity hope. These reactions give a sort of negative state, or rather a neutral state into which we always fall after a short spell of violent emotion. This was how I explained to myself my anxiety and absence of joy after the realization of my dreams. I was unconsciously getting ready to face the dangers before me.

  The day after we left Massawa, just as twilight was merging into night, we met a boutre coming up from the south. She passed less than a cable’s length from us, and we recognized a large zaroug from Tajura. As usual we shouted any news we had to each other. The nacouda had been asleep, but he awoke and I saw his tall form in the stern when we had already passed each other and were rapidly separating. He cried:

  ‘Your son – the white boutre – Obock — not found…’

  And then the distance became too great, and I heard no more.

  ‘What?’ I shrieked in my turn, ‘what’s that you’re saying?’

  But it was no use: we were too far apart; the wind carried off the sound of human voices and left us isolated in the darkness. I wanted to veer round and go after the boutre, to learn the truth about the awful suspicion which had just entered my mind. But they were already more than a mile away. The zaroug had a larger spread of sail than we had, and I risked wasting a whole night before finding her. And, after all, perhaps I had misunderstood. I asked my men, but none of them had heard anything exact. I went on towards the south. For a week those few disjointed words hummed in my ears, and I kept trying to think what they could mean. At last I was within the reef of the roads of Obock, where I met a houri out line-fishing.

  ‘What news?’ I cried as we passed.

  ‘Your son was drowned a month ago. Didn’t you know?’

  The brutal phrase struck me to the heart, but I wasn’t surprised. These seven days of anguished worry had already prepared me for the shock. The fisherman told me how it happened.

  He had set out with a friend, a young soldier of about his own age, attached to the Wireless Service at Djibouti, on board the Ibn-el-Bahar, which I had left at Djibouti. They intended to go and spend Sunday at Obock.

  I had strictly forbidden Lucien, my adopted son, to take out this boutre, no matter what the weather was like. I was afraid of the sudden gusts of wind so frequent in the hot season, which would be fatal to so light a vessel in inexperienced hands. I hardly dare, admit it, but I could not help thinking that this ship had been marked out for a tragic destiny. I remembered the shipwreck, which had been attributed to the presence of the bad-luck-bringer Djobel on board.

  Neither my son nor his friend was a sailor, and they did not realize the very real danger of going out to sea in this season of unsettled weather. They thought I had forbidden them to touch the boutre just to show my parental authority, and keep them from enjoying themselves. One of my old sailors, whom I had had to leave behind at Djibouti for matrimonial reasons, helped them to rig up a mast and a sail, and all three set off one Saturday for Obock. The night wind blew them safely along, and they arrived on Sunday morning.

  At this season the khamsin rises on the Dankali coast about four in the afternoon, and blows with extreme violence. They meant to leave the same evening, and thought with this favouring wind to reach Djibouti in a few hours. On that particular day the khamsin had been heralded by abnormal sand-clouds, and soon it threw itself on the Gulf with the fury of a hurricane. When my son saw the clouds and whirlwinds of sand he realized that the boutre would never hold the sea in such a wind, but the young soldier had come without leave, and he was afraid of being punished if he were not back by Monday morning. He insisted on starting. What had they to fear with a following wind? The Somali sailor made some objections, but the insistence of this European and the indecision of my son overcame them, and he agreed with fatalistic calm to try their luck.

  At five o’clock the rash trio set sail taking with them three sacks of coal for the mess kitchen at Djibouti. They had hardly rounded the point of the reef when the storm burst upon them. The sail, though it had been hauled half-way down the mast, bore them onward at delirious speed, and in a flash the boutre disappeared into the sandy fog. Less than a mile from shore the sea got very rough, a roll set the ship off her course, and a gust caught her broadside and sent her staggering. Abruptly she turned over. The unlucky soldier could not swim, and instinctively he remained clinging to the boutre, whose hull floated on the surface of the water. My son and the Somali foolishly abandoned the wreck, hoping to be able to reach the coast and give the alarm, so that help could be sent to the unfortunate boy who was drifting out to sea. Each of them took a sack of coal to hold on to, and they began to struggle against wind and wave. In spite of their efforts the whirlwind would have borne them off beyond possibility of return, but a few hours later it died away. The two shipwrecked men swam towards the land; which was about two miles off. For four hours they struggled on, calling to each other at intervals so that they could remain together. At last, just as dawn was breaking, the Somali reached the coastal reef. He called my son a last time, but there was no answer. He then saw the sharks swarming
round, and he understood… If he had been one moment longer in the water, nobody would have been left to tell the tale.

  In the early morning this sole survivor reached the Residency at Obock, half dead. He dared not at once admit that he had abandoned the soldier clinging to the wreck. He could not have done anything else, and he had acted in the hope of bringing help. However, the fear of questionings by Europeans is so great that the natives seldom dare to tell the whole truth. Perhaps he was ashamed of being alive when his two companions were dead. Perhaps he had other reasons; nobody will ever know. When at last the truth had been wrested from him, many hours had passed, the western monsoon had been blowing violently for a long time, and the wreck to which the unfortunate soldier had been clinging was far out to sea. For three days the two coastguard ships cruised out at sea, but in vain. The sea never gave up what she had taken.

  Later, I received a heart-broken letter from a poor old man, postman in a village in Limousin. He still hoped that his only son would be found, since the Administration had written to him merely that he had disappeared. I replied with intentional vagueness, so that hope could die slowly and naturally in the old father’s heart.

  Now, when the khamsin blows, the waves seem to me to be rolling the exhausted body of this poor boy along, and I hear his last cry coming from a swirl of blood-stained foam.