Dead Man Leading

by V. S. Pritchett

  Johnson did not answer. His face was heavy, stubborn and inert. Wright persisted and went into the pros and cons of the journey, knowing it to be impossible. He talked a long time slowly coming to the judgement that it would be better to return to the main river. Johnson lived every moment of the deep humiliation of the return. He felt only the humiliation of being trapped, but how trapped or why trapped he did not know. He watched Silva wandering along the river’s edge and thought of the days of freedom and the chains which Wright’s quiet, even voice put upon him. He struggled to remember why it was he had run away from the expedition and could not remember. He would only remain defiant and enclosed, with a growing barrier of resentment against Wright in his heart.

  ‘He used to flirt with young women under his wife’s nose and make her jealous’—this irrelevant thought came into his head.

  ‘Silva!’ called Johnson, ‘Silva!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are both paddles in the boat?’

  ‘Yes.’ To show Silva was his man.

  This interrupted Wright.

  ‘Extra crew will be useful,’ Wright said.

  Johnson’s resentment grew at this appropriation. He got up and surprised Wright by walking away. He walked out of the camp and then out of sight of it, and at once his gloom lifted. His eyes were alert, his face ready and lifted, his body waking into its extraordinary agility. The mad idea of going on alone, just as he was without food or arms, hovered in his head. Suddenly he stood still and, amazed at himself, broke into tears. They came without the feeling and without warning and without meaning and the present moment seemed to melt from him like wax under a flame. Wright’s bearded head appeared and went. His father’s face came. He was, for a powerless moment, a child again and shouting at his father angrily, ‘The next time you cross the level crossing I hope the train comes along and kills you.’ This was a clear memory dislodged from the time when he was six. He had not wept for years and this memory jumped forward with the suddenness of the tears.

  The tears were few. It was as if they had confessed; when his lips had been unable to speak they had spoken for him.

  An air of embarrassment was in the camp. The idle crew sat under the trees gambling and quarrelling mildly and watching the Englishmen. Wright slept and Phillips tried unavailingly to draw out Johnson. Silva, observing everything, imagined that there was a quarrel about the division of the sale of the gold. Or perhaps about its whereabouts. Silva reckoned that if the expedition split, he would have a half-share with Johnson if he stuck to him. This was in Silva’s imagination. In reality he did not believe the expedition was really going in search of gold but his was a mind whose fantasies never rested. He missed—it was the real hardship of the journey—his cigars. Phillips said to himself, ‘If Johnson stays, I shall stay.’ There was no reason for the expedition if Johnson were out of it. Phillips was depressed by the boredom of the daily camps and of this camp in particular. He could feel the slow turning of the earth, the irretrievable passage of time in his life. He thought chiefly of traffic and hot streets and restaurants. He traced the services of buses across the stream. While the others slept he propped up a mirror and shaved off several days of beard, admiring himself as he did this and sighing at the sleepers. He went over to Silva and nodded to them all.

  ‘Crisis,’ he said. ‘Is Johnson mad?’

  Silva shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Oh no,’ Silva said.

  For Wright now the incident of the chase was closed and Johnson’s ‘nerves’ were already written off. Brusquer in speech now he was inactive, Wright was also bluntly decisive. Phillips had noted the change from his English manner of quiet, gay courtesy. Wright had the fever of his adventure but he was not one of those who believe in leading and commanding. If he had had twenty men he would have gone on his own way, leaving the others to imitate his diligence and his persistence. His orders were no more than sly digs, fragments of mockery.

  Before sundown he said to Johnson:

  ‘Let’s try your boat and have a shot at something.’

  They took their guns and got into the boat.

  It was a late afternoon like all the rest, the heat of the sun lessening with every beat, the distant trees softening in tone and hardening in outline. The two paddled with little noise, keeping a look-out for floating trees as they went near the wreckage of the banks. Wright spoke little and Johnson not at all.

  Wright discovered one thing: that Johnson had intended going on. With the silver path of light between the deep shadows of the evening trees tranquil before him, broken only by the rising birds, Wright understood Johnson’s wish. He said:

  ‘I don’t blame you for wanting to leave us. And I’m sorry to have to claim you back.’

  He spoke frankly for the first time; he felt there was no fear of injuring Johnson by the words.

  ‘It is a good river,’ said Johnson.

  After a while Wright said:

  ‘Why did you want to leave us?’

  Johnson’s heart seemed to ring like a bell at this. He was touched by the delicacy and nearness of Wright, though he resented the intrusion.

  ‘I wanted,’ he said, ‘to try this along because my father came this way. I wanted to see.’

  Johnson was too simple to notice how this new motive had displaced the old haunting one.

  ‘I would like to know what happened to my father.’

  ‘He was a good way beyond this.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Wright saw the father in the thick-shouldered, shaggy-haired figure of the son. He respected Johnson’s motive, but he was instinctively shy of investigating such a curiosity any more. To Wright the emotions must be protected by convention. The rippling shadows of the trees and the strips of light between them passed under the boat like a silent moving cloth.

  The first shot was Wright’s. It sounded like a dropped plank and its echoes went hard against the trees and leapt back. The birds rose black in thousands against the sky. Swiftly Johnson paddled to the fallen bird before it sank. Time passed and Johnson got his shot. An excitement possessed them both. The trees had given place to a scattered scrub which grew thicker in the distance. The rays of the sun lengthened in it. They chose a good landmark, tied up the boat and went ashore. The mosquitoes and flies clouded round their hats.

  They had landed at the entrance of a densely overgrown creek and were walking along the thick bush of the bank above it. They saw the droppings of four-footed animals. They trod down a procession of great ants. The land smelled dry and pungent and clean to the nostrils. The grasses were browned by the sun.

  A mile up the creek the banks were lower and the water had dried out of it leaving only a bed of caked mud pocked with holes of dirty water. This water was often alive with movement whirling round and bubbling like a simmering stew. Wright cut a stick and sharpened it, saying there would be fish in these potholes left behind by the drying water of the creek, and they went down into the mud. The movement of the water was made by the whirling of innumerable small electric eels but beneath them were fish. Johnson watched Wright stabbing the pool with his spear. ‘Mustn’t,’ thought Wright. ‘Mustn’t stir up trouble.’ There was no sun in the bed of the creek. Johnson still carried his gun but Wright’s lay on the bank. They were too engrossed, concentrated on the luck of each dip into the black water, to speak or to notice any other sounds and the failing of the sun.

  Presently a scattering of birds and scampering of feet in the bushes twenty yards away where the creek-bed gave a sharp bend and went out of sight, made Johnson turn. An extraordinary movement of alarm was in the creek. Johnson moved to the firmer high bank alert for what was happening there. He thought the noise might be caused by wild pigs. He whispered quietly to Wright and went four or five yards nearer to the bend and was standing waist-deep in the bush. And now the confusion and rustling alarm the flying up of birds spread down the opposite bank of the creek towards them. Wright stood shin-deep in the mud, looked up when Johnson called. H
e turned round to step out of the mud instinctively going for his gun. As his back was turned, the tall grasses on the bank opposite to him were broken down and the paws and head and shoulders of a jaguar appeared. It pulled up noiselessly at the bank’s edge. In the grass its head was soft and marked with the greyish golden dustiness of an enormous moth; as suddenly and softly as the whirr of a moth the animal had appeared. It stood still, amazed, one paw on the top of the bank and one raised cat-fashion in wonder, arrested in its intent of running down the bank to its drinking place. Its eyes were like pits of gleaming honey. They had not seen Johnson.

  ‘Tiger!’ shouted Johnson. ‘Keep still! Don’t shoot!’ ‘Get the hell out of this,’ he yelled at the creature. With light guns like theirs the only hope was to startle the beast away. The jaguar had been considering in these seconds the figure of Wright heaving himself by a bush-stump out of the creek-bed. The air popped out of the pits of his heel-marks. He looked like a scrambling animal, though he was unaware of his danger until Johnson called. The shout from Johnson startled the creature. It gave a swift turn of the head, crouching as if to leap upon the new voice, and then in panic swept round in the breaking grasses to rush swiftly away. Johnson’s gun was raised by instinct though his shot was too light for such an animal. He knew it was fatal to fire and wound. But now he could hear the beast breaking the bushes in flight he jumped into the mud and scrambled up the opposite bank to get a sight of it. Wright now aware of his escape shouted, ‘Don’t shoot!’ in his turn. Excitedly he was picking up his gun and turning to warn Johnson as he did so. Johnson stopped. His gun was pushed over the bank and he himself was half-lying on it, struggling to get up. In his hurry the gun went off and Wright shouted. Johnson lay still for a second in consternation at his accidental shot and then he realised that it was not his gun that had fired. He turned round and slithered comically down the bank, the dust pouring on to his head and shoulders, the thorns cutting his hands. He leaned staring against the bank at the end of his slide. There he saw Wright lying face downwards over his gun. Johnson blinked his eyes wondering why Wright was lying down. ‘Why is he lying down to sleep? Is he tired?’ Then he saw the nails of Wright’s right boot and the toe twisted under a loop of root. Then the blood from his chest spreading under the arm of his khaki tunic.

  Johnson crossed over to him and knelt beside him.

  ‘Wright, what’s happened?’

  There was no movement and no reply. Carefully he turned Wright over and as he turned a murmur came from Wright’s open mouth and the eyes quivered. His face was bloodless, red only in the faint fine veins on the cheek bones.

  Johnson had no knowledge of what ought to be done for a man in Wright’s case. His mind was a chaos. He undid the coat and saw now the burned hole in it and the tear in the blood-soaked cotton shirt. The charge had evidently entered the lung and Wright’s faint breath was stertorous. Flies, the blown motuca, came in dozens at the smell of blood. They settled thickly on Wright’s still face if Johnson for a moment ceased to drive them off. There was no drinkable water in the creek, only a black ooze, and neither carried any brandy. Johnson took off his coat and his shirt and the biting flies blackened on his bare skin, humming and whining, blowing into his face like a stinging, humming grit, as he tore his shirt to get long strips for bandages. He sickened as he wiped the wound and contrived to bind the strips round Wright’s chest, putting a pad on the wound to staunch the thick drip of the blood. Wright’s eyes opened in the middle of this and his lips moved twisting with pain. ‘What happened?’ Johnson said.

  Wright could not answer.

  To carry Wright on to the bank and leave him lying there to be tormented by the flies and by thirst and in the darkness a prey to any animal, while he got help? It would take two hours and he might be dead. The pulse was not strong. To carry him down to the river? That was a mile, a rough mile. The camp was a good three miles away, yet perhaps it was nearer across the bush. Hoping that in the quietness of the evening the sounds of shooting might attract attention, he went up the bank and fired ten shots in quick succession. He had only three left. But when the quietness had settled down again after the shots, the futility of the signal left him in despair. He was frightened by the silence. He shouted, knowing too that that was futile. He remembered his father had died in this country.

  Wright moaned below on the bank.

  All that anxiety to know how: to reconstruct what had happened in those already hazed seconds when the jaguar had appeared and then fled, fought in Johnson’s mind with this picture of his father’s death and the agony of not knowing what to do. He went down the bank. Wright’s eyes were still open. His lips tried to speak. His breath when it came roared like gas in a burner.

  ‘I’m going to get you up to the top. Can you move?’ There was no answer but a closing of the eyes.

  The evening sky was becoming green and darker, the bush soundless and black. It seemed to Johnson he must get Wright down to the river where there was water and the boat. But when he put his arms under Wright, he could not move him. Three times he tried and the sweat poured down his face and chest. He was maddened by the flies. Then a brutality came into him and, cursing, he put his arms round the drunk, will-less body and lugged it up. Stumbling, falling, sprawling on top of Wright, straining until he felt his heart and stomach would burst, he got him half-way up the bank. There was a clear way here and he wedged Wright’s feet against a bush. Wright’s arms moved in agony. Johnson sat there gasping, swallowing his sweat, looking down like a hunted animal upon the wounded man, with pity and ferocity. There enters with the handling of the sick a kind of hatred, a rising of life to repel the assault of evil.

  ‘The poor bloody fellow. The poor bloody fellow,’ gasped Johnson.

  Then once more he struggled till he got Wright over his shoulder and tottered with him to the top. The blood came on to Johnson’s skin.

  The stars had not yet appeared and this night the moon was late in rising. The one pleasure of running through the rough and broken mile to the river’s edge was the freedom from the flies. Bats were flying out of the bushes and the moths were tossing over the thorns. Johnson ran. He was exhausted when he got to the shore and lay breathless for a moment. Then he pulled in the boat and sluiced his hot body and his head with water from the bailing can. He filled it with water and wedging his hat over it to stop the water from spilling, he went back. He could not run now because of the water. But now in the dark the country was so changed that it was hard to find his way. He began to think he had gone too far and wandered back. He shouted. He turned again and at last the moans of Wright brought him to the place.

  I must get you moved before it is dark. I’ll move you soon. Can you hear me? We’ll soon be moving.’

  The water had revived Wright. He looked into Johnson’s face and nodded.

  What shall I tell them if he dies? What shall I say to his wife and to Lucy? It is my fault, coming up this river. No, it might have happened anyway. It was an accident. What was he doing? I didn’t see. I was half-way up when I heard a shot. On what river? That was not the river you were going by. Why were you on the wrong river? My father died in this country. He went by this place. He might have died in this very place. No one knows where he died. The Indians come here. There are fires of Indians tonight and no bloody moon. If it could have happened on a moonlight night. If I had been up further, this would not have happened, he wouldn’t have found me today. This is Lucy. This is the ruin Lucy has brought on me. No, it was an accident. . .

  ‘Can you put an arm round my shoulder? I say, can you put an arm round?’ He hasn’t strength in his arm. Shall we stay here? Shall I light a fire and the others are bound to come if we do not go back. How is it? He can’t say anything.

  There’s a stupidity in the pitiable helplessness of the wounded. Wright moaned.

  It is better if he moans. The flies have done. I wonder where the tiger is.

  He went down to the creek, into the strange place which was nearl
y dark now, empty and without sound, where less than an hour before they had been poking in the mud-holes. A fish Wright had speared lay by the guns. The scene was not to be believed. Johnson found himself picking up the dead fish and bringing it back with the guns. He and Wright had seen it flap under the stick but had not even glanced to see it die.

  Johnson hated the sight of the two idle guns now and they encumbered him; but he grimly made up his mind that if it killed him and it killed Wright he must carry Wright down to the river. If they waited Wright, for all he knew might die. He remade the bandages. The bleeding, he thought, had slackened. As he was putting on his coat Wright spoke and Johnson dropped to his knees to hear.

  ‘Come here . . .’ the voice faded.

  ‘I am here. It’s Harry. You’re all right. I’m here. I’m going to get you down to the river.’

  (The wrong river.)

  ‘Lucy . . .’ said Wright.

  ‘It’s me, Harry. Not Lucy,’ said Johnson.

  God, he’s dying. He’s dying and he’s talking about Lucy, telling me he knows about Lucy. Would you deceive a man who is dying? Johnson knelt, with his face close to Wright’s. The eyes were closed as if he were asleep and he stopped speaking.

  I must get him back, dead or alive. I must carry him. Somehow he propped up Wright’s body and, kneeling, got it on his shoulder, grasping him by the legs. He was strong now. He staggered up and stumbled forward in the thickening darkness under the first stars. He stumbled over roots, he tore his clothes on bushes, fanatically he followed the familiar bush of the creek bank. His shoulders were aching, his tongue out of his open mouth sucked in his sweat. Twice he rested and groped in the bush for sight or sound of the creek.

  The stars were brilliant and clear. They shone with miraculous clarity, mapped clearly in their constellations. They placed a definite order before the eyes and one walked in the most marked and munificent light. But this order was in contrast to the confusion of the bush. Each tree where it touched the sky was like a bunch of black spears—each bush, each mass of grasses had this marked black head, clear and dramatic. And a voice seemed to come out of it, saying, ‘This is the way. You remember this bush, and then the five trees together and the scrub you skirted. You counted the bends and the rises.’ Each one stood distinct and black and certain. Johnson hesitated. Crouching under the groaning man, he turned round. Behind him, as before him, was the same array of definite shapes, a multitude of motionless caped figures. He swung round, but it was the same on either side of him. The definite things near by, the stars like tears in the branches, cold and brilliant, the heavens immaculate and lucid in their complexity. He listened for the sound of the river. There was no sound. The sweat went cold in his body. He lowered Wright gently to the ground and, turning with superstition at every pace to keep him in sight, stepped into the gap in the scrub where the creek was. He put his hat down on the gap and walked through.