Appleby on Ararat

by Michael Innes

  Hoppo, who had been peering apprehensively into the darkness, turned round. To be let in on the pigeon was more than he had hoped. “Please. And I believe you are right. A display of le sang froid.” He giggled uncertainly. “To keep us from joining Miss Curricle in l’eau chaud.”

  As ceremoniously as the gleanings of a sun-deck café would permit, they continued to dine. The drums, though again nearer, were not so terrifying after all; sophisticate the rhythm ever so slightly and there would result something very like the music to which thousands of civilised persons willingly dined every night. Even the howls – for it was undeniable that now the savages were intermittently howling as well – were not unlike those which the members of a well-trained band will sporadically emit. The experiment of carrying on undisturbed, tentatively and dubiously begun, was well under way.

  “Perhaps,” said Diana, “it hasn’t really anything to do with us. Perhaps they’re just making corroborree on their own. Perhaps, even, later” – she turned serious eyes from one to another of her companions – “we might be able to stroll across and have a look.”

  Glover shook his head decisively. “Certainly not. That sort of thing…most unsuitable. Thoroughly indecent, as often as not. Why, even in India–”

  He stopped – stopped because the drums had suddenly fallen silent. The jungle was very still; on its nearer walls their campfire stirred uncertain shadows; in the undergrowth it was possible to imagine one saw the gleam of eyes. And then something like a shooting star flashed across the vault above. As they looked another passed, and then another and another. Just above their heads was a crisscross of fire. This vanished and there was a moment of darkness; then a single dart of light shot high in air and fell. In the centre of the table before them stood a flaming spear.

  They stared as if their vision had been transfixed by the barbaric, still-quivering thing. Glover reached for his cudgel once more. And as he did so there came a crash from the darkness and into the firelight leapt a naked and coppery body, brandishing a fellow to the weapon in front of them. Another leap and he was in silhouette and gigantic against the fire; beside him a second figure had risen as if from earth; from the darkness beyond rose a single concerted howl.

  It was a moment, thought Appleby, to push a counter-magic to an extreme. He rose and held up his gourd. “Mrs Kittery and gentlemen,” he said, “the King!”

  They stood up as if drilled. The toast was honoured. And now it was the monstrous creatures before them who appeared transfixed, staring at the incomprehensible ritual. For seconds the thing held like a tableau. Then the naked figures yelled, turned, fled. And in the darkness beyond their cowardice precipitated a rout. A yelling and crashing in sharp diminuendo filled the air. Silence followed, in which the diners could hear each other gasp. Only the spear which still smouldered on the table was evidence that the incident had not been dreamed.

  Appleby leant forward and grabbed the weapon, as if only its substantial reality in his hand would suffice. The shaft was of bamboo, the head appeared to be of bone, near it was a charred remnant of some stuff like tow. It was hard to believe in the possibility of meeting such a thing outside a museum. Appleby fingered it, poised it, even sniffed at it like a dog. Then he handed it to Glover. “Booty,” he said; “the foundations of our armoury. Your department, sir.”

  Glover took his eyes from the jungle to examine the spear. He grunted, his professional interest caught. “Dashed ugly thing. Easy to in with and nasty to get out. I remember on the North-West Frontier–”

  Appleby was not attending. But neither did his senses appear to be directed to the still dangerous world without; he was looking at Diana as absently as an overworked tourist confronted with yet another goddess in the Louvre. Glover’s reminiscence remained unuttered, and it was Hoppo who next spoke. “A tree,” he suggested. “I wonder if we could get up a tree?”

  Dubiously balancing the spear, Glover snorted. “Tree? To be reduced to the condition of savages ourselves is about enough, without descending to the damned monkeys. We must stick by the fire until morning and then march out on these fellows and show we’re not afraid of them. You’ve just seen that line work. No shame in being treed by a tiger, sir – but by savages not.”

  “I really don’t think my suggestion unreasonable.” Hoppo was obstinate. “Somebody was talking of The Swiss Family Robinson and, you know, they lived in a tree because of savages. And as for monkeys–”

  “Hoppo’s Hop.” Diana, having discovered this new and brilliant variant on her favourite joke, let her laughter ring through the night.

  “Really, Mrs Kittery, you are easily diverted. And the Swiss Family Robinson were very sensible people–”

  “Sir,” broke in Glover with vehemence and finality, “the Swiss Family Robinson were Swiss.”

  “They hadn’t a king to toast,” said Diana. “The Swiss are only a – a–”

  “Republican federation on the cantonal system,” supplied Appleby. “Will you all be quiet?”

  They listened. And again something was happening in the jungle; there was a stealthy, almost irresolute movement on the edge of the glade. It ceased and a voice called out – the voice of Miss Curricle–“Mrs Kittery,” it called, “Mrs Kittery, will you please come here?” It rose a pitch. “And only Mrs Kittery, please; I insist on that.”

  It was like a voice from the past – or from the pot. Hoppo appeared even to think of ghosts, for he stood up in agitation. “It may be–” He broke off. “It may be a trap.”

  “Stuff and nonsense.” Glover jumped up too. “Miss Curricle–”

  “Go away, sir.” Miss Curricle’s voice, though issuing from an impenetrable darkness, rose in further sharp agitation. “I have met with a most embarrassing misadventure. Mrs Kittery, please, I must insist.”

  Diana was rummaging by the firelight. “Miss Curricle,” she called out wickedly, “is it your clothes you want? We have them here.”

  “You have them!” The voice was extremely indignant.

  “Only I can’t lay my hands on them. I think, perhaps, that Mr Hoppo–”

  “Mr Hoppo, how dare you perpetrate such an impertinence?” In the blackness branches crackled beneath Miss Curricle’s indignation.

  “Dear lady” – Hoppo’s voice rose in its turn in horrid distress – “I assure you that no offensive jest was designed. The garments appeared abandoned…we are only too relieved…it was much to be feared–”

  Diana had slipped away with the clothes; Glover had retreated tactfully in an opposite direction; Appleby sat wrapped in his own thoughts and waited for this deplorable comedy to play itself out. And presently Miss Curricle, clothed and aggressively in her right mind, was sitting by the fire and eating the remains of dinner.

  “We are dreadfully sorry,” Diana said. “But we did find the clothes and they did seem to be abandoned. We thought you mightn’t need them any more; we thought that – well, that you were beyond clothes.”

  “Beyond clothes!” Miss Curricle’s tones hinted embarrassment as well as indignation.

  “We thought you had been eaten.”

  “Eaten? You must have taken leave of your senses. But it is true that” – she hesitated – “that I did abandon my clothes. In our circumstances, in our circumstances as I then envisaged them–” She broke off. “But I need not enter into that. My resolution has proved to be premature.”

  Appleby studied Miss Curricle in the uncertain light and thought that, indefinably, she had gone angular again – that this, in fact, was once more the Miss Curricle who had presided over the sun-deck café before Mr Hoppo had erroneously announced the appearance of a whale. Not, perhaps, wholly this anterior Miss Curricle, for the lady before him had the air of casting – figuratively – one longing lingering look behind. But as near as made no difference. “Premature?” he prompted gently.

  “Exactly. I
have discovered that our circumstances are not to be so – so near to nature as I had supposed. The island is inhabited.”

  “There!” said Diana. “And that’s why we thought you were a goner. You see, they killed poor Ponto this morning.”

  “Killed Sir Ponto!” Miss Curricle looked alarmed, but obviously not for the reason they might have supposed. She glanced from one to another. “I begin to fear that the privations to which you have been exposed–”

  “Will you tell us” – again Appleby interrupted gently – “just what has been happening to you?”

  “I succeeded in climbing the eastern range and making my way along the crest. And then below, on the edge of a fairly large bay, I saw a building.”

  “Ah!” exclaimed Glover, “the club-house.”

  “The club-house? No, I didn’t see that.”

  “Did you,” asked Diana, “see any canoes?”

  “Or bodies,” said Hoppo, suddenly ghoulish, “–desiccated bodies on poles?” He looked wistfully at the tree-tops faintly silhouetted against the night.

  “Certainly not. I tell you I saw a building. A real building. And it said something on the roof.”

  “On the roof?” Hoppo giggled feebly. “Said something?” Miss Curricle nodded, angular and defeated. “In big white letters. Hotel.”

  9

  Dawn on the island came like a blind going up on a prospect of hot-houses, like a cover being removed from a crowded birdcage, like a lid lifted from a crate of monkeys. At one moment the palms slumbered, propped against the stars; the jungle was lonely, dark and void; only the ocean sounded, murmuring ceaselessly into the ear of night. And the next moment there was rustle and chatter and the stealing of sunbeams everywhere; curled and crumpled green-coverletted flowers unfolded their blue and scarlet with the measured speed of a man turning over and stretching himself in bed; lizards lumbered out of holes and exercised their darting tongues; parrots squandered a pandemonium of cries amid the tunnels and colonnades of fern. From the recesses of the place there came a brief stirring of innumerable scents, as if some subtly aromatic creature had begun to breathe again, and through the moss of tiny rides and brief green bottoms runnels and freshets trickled as if at the turning of a master tap. The total sensation was of something primeval and pristine at once. Down the tall trees the light ran as if in a first embrace. And up to the sky one could raise one’s arms like Adam and cry Morning! to a novel world.

  Colonel Glover, sentinel by the dying fire, contrived something not unlike this. “Dashed fine,” he said. “Bright and early’s the best time in most parts of the world. And bright and early’s the tip for us today. Civilisation’s round the corner unless that woman’s clean crazed. And with luck we’ll make it by noon.”

  Appleby, who had been prowling in search of such tracks as savages in flight might be supposed to leave, fell to preparing breakfast on the embers. “I don’t think she’s crazed. The process is rather the other way. I believe in that hotel. A slender draught of tropic isle intoxicated the brain. And now, when we reach the pub, drinking largely will sober us again.” He laughed – partly because the joke gained excellence from the morning, partly because Glover looked bewildered and unamused. “But it doesn’t alter the fact of what happened last night, nor yet yesterday morning. I’m sorry they got that black man before we contacted the world. He interested me.”

  “Unumunu was a bit of a queer fish, if you ask my opinion.” Glover shook his head doubtfully. “All the instincts of a gentleman, as far as one could see. And his father can have been no more than a savage beating his tom-tom in the jungle. Not natural, sir. And – talking of tom-toms – we haven’t contacted the world yet. Lord knows what ambush may be waiting for us. Hard on these women.” He coughed. “Fine creatures, Appleby; stood up to a lot. That Mrs Kittery – a bit of a filly, of course, as you know.” He coughed again. “As you may guess, I mean. But a courageous woman. And comes from some Godawful hole in the Bush, as like as not. Makes one proud of the Empire.” Glover, thus unveiling his soul under the influence of dawn, concealed embarrassment by scowling ferociously at the jungle. “And Miss Curricle too…awkward moments, of course – but difficult age, you know…gallant creature.” He rose abruptly. “Baked eggs? Delicious. Better be rousing them up. Never quite know the civil way to do it, though. Can’t knock at the door.”

  “Wake Hoppo and send him.”

  “Good. He’ll tell them to get on their garments.” Glover gave a rare chuckle. “Good fellow, though, Hoppo. Sound views, unless thrown off his balance. We’ve been lucky, when you come to think of it. Might have been landed with some awful bounders, just pitched into the sea like that.” He paused in his stride, a new thought striking him. “Foreigners, even.” He marched off.

  Appleby continued to get breakfast, knitting his brows over it more than the simple operations involved required. The black of Unumunu and the copper of last night’s savage visitors made sombre compositions in his head. Unumunu they were leaving behind – leaving behind, if Miss Curricle’s story was true, in another world. Exchange the desert-island presumption for even the slenderest outpost of civilisation, and the outlandish Sir Ponto and his fate would tumble into the past. Appleby, for whom no homicide was complete without a sequel in the criminal court, felt that it was necessary to adjust his habits of mind to local conditions. Raiding savages were, presumably, accountable to somebody for deeds of violence, but a bird of passage from Scotland Yard was scarcely involved… He set out the breakfast and walked rapidly into the jungle.

  There was that hovering suggestion of land at sunset. He reached the edge of the lagoon and stared out to sea. Westward, visibility would never be better than at this hour, but to all his scanning the horizon presented an unbroken line of blue once more. And it had done this from the summit of Ararat, though then atmospheric conditions had been less satisfactory. He turned back to the loose, dry sand, already hot from the sun, and to the jungle-fringe beyond. He plunged into the undergrowth and, in imagination, took the weight of Unumunu’s dead body in his arms. And then he looked at the beach below. The riddle of the sands.

  The riddle of the sands, he repeated to himself – and suddenly shaded his eyes to stare intently into distance. For at the farthest tip of the long sickle of beach below him there had appeared something like an enormous turtle. But a gaily hued turtle, rather like a vast version of a tortoise in an Oxford quadrangle, or Maryland’s terrapin, sportively painted with the colours of its college. The creature showed quarterings of red and green, and it moved forward, invisibly propelled, by the edge of the sea. For a moment Appleby thought of the savages producing some new device of surprise. And then he saw that he was looking at an umbrella – at an umbrella something between the outsize employed by golfers and the yet larger variety commonly met with at seaside resorts. Beneath this there was presently visible a pair of white-flannelled legs. Trotting by the legs was a Sealyham dog. And the whole advanced through the emptiness of the morning with a mild purposiveness and an even pace.

  Appleby again thought of the Swiss Family. In that immortal book the good pastor showed no surprise when his sons brought him word now of lions and penguins, now of tigers and polar bears. Here too one would quickly lose the sense of the incongruous: hotels and savages in the jungle, black corpses and white flannels on the beach. But unique among all these was the fact that the approaching figure could be interrogated. Appleby scrambled down and hurried forward.

  The flannelled legs halted. The Sealyham halted too. And a voice from beneath the umbrella called out: “Don’t be alarmed. George is a very quiet dog.”

  Appleby, to whom it had not occurred that George might be among the hazards of island life, continued his progress. And now the umbrella tilted and revealed a comfortable figure, dark glasses and an immaculate panama hat. The hat came off and the voice said courteously: “How do you do?” The phrase, instead of being given th
e faintly threatening inflection which standard English requires, was uttered as a genuine query, so that Appleby found himself obliged to reply that he was very well. The stranger smiled, as if really pleased. And George wagged his tail.

  There was a pause and Appleby thought he might try a question of his own. “Are you from the hotel?”

  George growled. The stranger’s brow discernibly clouded. “No,” he said, “I am not – I ought to say we are not” – and he stooped to pat George – “in any way connected with the hotel. Except in the merest and most occasional social duty… I ought to say my name is Hailstone – Gregory Hailstone.” He paused, obscurely expectant. “I suppose,” he added wistfully, “you don’t happen to be a digging man?”

  Appleby, without precisely understanding what was implied, thought it safe to reply that he was not. There had, of course, been the troublesome business of burying Unumunu, but the stranger could scarcely be referring to that sort of thing. “My name is John Appleby,” he said. “I am a police officer from London.”

  “Ah. One does occasionally long so for professional contacts. And, of course, it is possible that we have a common interest in bones.” Hailstone smiled. His smile seemed achieved with effort, so that Appleby wondered if the muscles involved were habitually unexercised. “Though not, perhaps, of the same vintage.” And Hailstone smiled again, but patently with more effort than before. Appleby looked at George, who had sunk very gently down on his stomach. The point about a smile, he saw, was that a certain quantum of physical impulsion was required. And on the island one learnt to be economical in such expenditures.

  “If you are unconnected with the hotel,” said Appleby, “perhaps you have something to do with the savages?”

  George lifted his black nose just sufficiently to give his lower jaw room to drop. He yawned. And Hailstone looked as if he might almost yawn too. “Dear me, no. The natives are uninteresting – quite uninteresting. They have been quite devoid of interest for several centuries. I would positively prefer the folk in the hotel.”