But Harry, who had travelled alone before, though not in this part of the country, knew exactly the difficulties. He knew exactly that it was reckless, that it was almost impossible. The events of the last weeks, culminating in the tragedy, had made the impossible exquisite in its fascination.
‘I don’t think you need worry,’ he said persuasively.
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘I don’t think about it much. There is always something to do.’
‘But if the Indians took you, if you had no water, there’s snake bite and everything that could happen.’
‘There is generally something to do.’
He was impervious.
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Gilbert paused and frowned, strained by doubt.
‘No,’ he said again emphatically, ‘it’s final. I’m sorry. I’m probably a coward. But I’m not going.’
‘I think you would find that you take a mistaken view of yourself,’ said Harry. ‘You would find that it would suit you very well. Sensitive people think they are afraid when they are not really.’
They left each other and Gilbert went off alone. He sat by the river and the flies pestered in hundreds like a mist about his head. He moved on from place to place tormented by them. He went off astonished by Harry’s words about himself. He was astonished that Harry should even thing about him. He was curiously flattered.
But he was wretched. He had gone romantically out and he had failed. The crisis came, and he could not rise to it. ‘It is like this in all my life. I back out. I drop low. I talk round it and get out of it.’
He thought that there are crises in one’s life and that it is not until after they have passed and one has taken one’s decision that one realises they were crises that have decided important things. Now it would have established for ever that in everything he was a coward—unfairly established.
When they were alone together Phillips said:
‘When are you going to give the order?’
‘What order?’
‘Going back.’
‘They can go tomorrow.’
‘We, all of us?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve told you I’m not going.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Harry. ‘I understand your point of view. You would be surprised to see how good it was if you changed your mind. I’ll go on.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes, I think I’ll go.’
Phillips’ heart jumped. He looked at the reddened face of Johnson. He had grown a scrubby beard and his hair was clotted over his ears. The beard curled absurdly from his face. He looked fantastic in his seriousness.
‘You can’t go.’
‘You can’t stop me.’
‘What about Lucy? You’ve no right to kill yourself. What about her? Do you want to die? You’ll never come back.’
‘Lucy,’ said Harry, sulking suddenly, ‘has no claim on me.’
‘Yes she has.’
‘What?’ said Harry roughly.
‘She loves you.’
‘Leave her out of it.’ Harry’s roughness subsided. ‘I shall be all right.’
‘She’s lost her father, you know.’
‘This hasn’t got anything to do with it. It’s easy. It’ll make us a month late, that’s all.’
‘It has everything to do with it,’ said Gilbert.
‘There have been no letters from her,’ said Harry. ‘It’s all over.’
‘There was no time for letters,’ said Gilbert. ‘I had no letters from England.’
‘But Wright had.’
‘Harry, you’re run down and in no state to make up your mind about anything.’
‘I can’t see,’ said Harry, appearing to weaken, ‘what you’ve got against my going.’
‘I don’t want your life on my conscience. If anything happens to you I should never forgive myself.’
Then Harry said a revealing thing.
‘I’ll never forgive myself about Wright. He needn’t have died.’
Gilbert could see under his determination the gnawing of this agony. He saw that it eclipsed everything else, distorting a whole vision of the world. And so now, as the talk continued, he humoured Harry and spoke with sympathy, trying to learn the whole of what was on Harry’s mind. But shyness on Gilbert’s part and the fact that Harry was so imperfectly expressive of his feelings, so that he was like a big animal who can only make meaningless grunts and moans, made revelation impossible.
Before daylight went Harry called him to the list of stores and ammunition and showed him the map and the notes he had made. He worked out the distances and the time. A week on the river and four weeks overland. The ground rose to flat-topped mountains and bush. ‘If we discover anything certain about my father I promise you I will return this way and I am going to leave the boat. Hide it.’ His meditative voice became eager, but he was indifferent to any of Phillips’ arguments and talked to him in a friendly, polite way, casual but not pressing.
There was an immense distance between them. Phillips was convinced at last that Johnson was asking him because he felt it unjust to deny him the adventure and because there was nothing to do but ask him since he was there. Johnson was being polite and, really, patronising. Phillips’ vanity rose up.
In the morning they packed, but still Phillips did not believe in Johnson’s intention. Phillips worked hesitantly; he saw Johnson had divided the stores.
‘Damn him, I can’t leave him. He’s mad. I shall have to go. I shall have to die too and I don’t want to.’
‘God!’ exclaimed Phillips in a burst of rage. ‘You’re not going. I tell you you’re not.’
He shouted out before all the others. The men stopped and stared. Johnson said gently:
‘Don’t be unreasonable, Gilbert. You’re taking this all the wrong way.’ He put down the sack he was tying.
‘Silva, what do you say?’ called Phillips.
Silva came up.
‘I am not going,’ he said.
‘But he mustn’t go, must he? Two people, one person, even the whole lot of us—it’s impossible.’
Immediately Phillips felt foolish, sunk in cowardice. Silva shrugged his shoulders.
‘The Indians will eat you,’ he mocked with a gentle teasing sadness that was so pretty that it was ridiculous. Harry laughed and the men laughed too.
The men looked ironically and nonchalantly at Johnson. They were eager to be gone. They considered him as good as dead.
Chapter Twelve
In the kitchen of Calcott’s house, in the brothels and bars down at the quays, women were saying that José Silva had come back. He was not dead. He had returned. He was a fool to trust the foreigners. There was no money. They had discovered no mines. José Silva had come back without a penny. There was a rumour that he was dead, but he had appeared, the miracle, shining like a ring.
‘And the Englishmen?’
‘They are still there. I left them. The journey was beginning to bore me.’ He waved to the river.
The gendarmes poured a little dry tobacco in their hands and tilted it into their cigarette papers, listening. One of the Englishmen dead? They put their cagarettes into their mouths, lit them and looked at the forest breaking up to the river’s edge, the desolate place where the rubber trade had once flourished. It surprised nobody that one of the Englishmen had died. Hundreds of people died, and very young. Hundreds also were born.
‘The old one? With the beard?’
‘Accidentally, with the gun.’
‘Had they the permit for the gun?’
A point of law was more interesting.
Silva went to Calcott’s house. Calcott received him with aggrieved sarcasm.
‘Had a nice holiday?’ asked Calcott. ‘Been having a bit of a joy-ride, haven’t you?’
But Calcott was overjoyed at Silva’s return. He had been lonely and bad-tempered for weeks.
When Silva had gone, and then Wright and Phillips, Calcott had shut himself u
p for days, staring at the open Bible and drinking some whisky which he had removed from Wright’s possessions. He had wandered about the place, sulking and querulous. He had had a serious quarrel at one of the brothels and had been turned out. When he came back he had beaten his wife. After this his emotion passed and he lived through the torpid weeks like one waking heavily from a dream.
‘The missus has given me another little birthday present,’ said Calcott to Silva, relenting, eager for friendship. ‘A girl. That makes three girls. This country’s no place for children. I’m going to take them to England. They’ve never seen England. That’s funny when you come to think of it.’
He preferred the earlier bastards to the later ones born in wedlock.
Calcott took Silva to see his new child. Mrs Calcott was sitting on the doorstep in the late afternoon sun, suckling the child whose eyes were like big, gleaming apple pips. The mother was singing and her face brightened when she saw the man of her own race.
‘Ay!’ cried Silva with delight. ‘The little beauty.’ The other children gathered round the delighted, cooing, dancing little man. Presently he changed.
‘Wait,’ he said to Calcott. He patted his pockets. ‘Come inside. I have letters.’
The letters were two: one from Johnson and one from Phillips. Silva, Phillips said, would tell him more fully about what had occurred. Johnson asked that Calcott should pay the men as arranged with the emergency sum which Wright had left. Wright had unfortunately shot himself and had died. They were sending Wright’s effects, his letters and his money by Silva, to be sent to England, as they themselves were going on. There were letters for Mrs Wright. He was to send any letters to Rio. They thanked him. Phillip’s letter gave a fuller account of the death of Wright.
‘They’re going to look for Mr Johnson’s father,’ Silva said. ‘Mr Phillips did not want to go. He was very angry. I thought they were going to kill each other. Mr Phillips was afraid.’
‘Bloody snob,’ said Calcott. ‘I thought he was yellow.’
‘He said they would be killed by Indians,’ Silva said.
‘So they will,’ said Calcott.
The Englishmen had become remote in his mind; only slowly was he recovering his memory of them. But when Silva described the journey, Johnson’s flight and then the death of Wright, Calcott began to realise what had happened.
‘How long have you been coming?’ he asked.
‘Three weeks,’ said Silva.
‘Three weeks,’ he said. ‘What’s the good of that. The whole bloody issue’s dead by now. Would they listen to me? Oh no! I’m nobody. I’ve lived in this country thirty years but I’m nobody, see? Not good enough. Not a bloody gentleman.’
Calcott cooled down and murmured to himself:
‘The poor bloody old fellow. I thought he had more sense. Fancy coming out here to shoot yourself with your own gun.’
Again Silva had to tell the story of the death of Wright and answer Calcott’s questions. He became gloomier.
‘He was in this very room,’ Calcott said. And he went on saying things of this kind, such as ‘If it’s meant, it’s meant.’ ‘He didn’t know when he said, “So long, ol’ man,” that it was the last. I’ve seen men go out of this room smiling and the next thing they’re still. Eh, Silva?’
Calcott’s eyeballs began to protrude and his manner became more dramatic as the death of Wright became clearer to him. He seemed to see it standing in the room.
‘I’m sorry he’s dead,’ said Calcott. He stood up at the table. ‘I’m damn sorry. He was a gentleman, Silva. Do you hear that? I’m not a gentleman, Silva. I’m nobody. Say what you like, Silva, he was a bloody gentleman
‘He was very sympathetic,’ Silva interposed.
Calcott paused, before adding:
‘If I had those two young bastards here who let him do it, I’d wring their blasted necks. Side! La-di-da, that’s what did it. Damn lot they care. Go on. Hadn’t the decency to come back. If I was to say something to the police they’d want to know more about it.’
The sight of the letters on the table made him take them up again and read through the instructions. He ran his finger along the items. He went over to a small wooden box which stood in the corner.
‘They don’t say anything about this,’ he said in a different, quieter voice. He read the letters which were in his hand.
‘What is it?’
‘Fetch me a hammer,’ Calcott said.
The room had originally been Wright’s. The case contained three bottles of whisky which had been left behind. When Silva brought the hammer and Calcott, wrenching off the lid of the box, discovered this, he took out a bottle.
‘I remember,’ said Calcott, riding down Silva’s look with a hard, whipping stare. ‘He was a damn decent sort. “A little present”, he said. And it’s been lying here ever since. Here, Silva! I’ll drink the old chap’s health.’
When they had got glasses he filled them and very gravely handed one to Silva.
‘To Charlie Wright,’ said Calcott.
Silva unexpectedly made the sign of the Cross.
‘Eh?’ said Calcott. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Drink up,’ said Calcott, made aggressive by the first bite of the liquor. ‘“Charlie Wright,” I said.’
He drank down his glass, gave a gasp of excitement and sucked his lips.
‘That man had a heart,’ said Calcott. ‘You dagoes don’t have men like that, Silva. If it wasn’t for chaps like Charlie Wright where’d your country be? You wouldn’t know you’d got a country. Take Johnson. He’s another. And his father.’ Calcott at his second glass had warmed to fervour for the men whose necks he had wanted to wring a few minutes earlier. ‘They’ve got hearts. You can say what you like, Silva, a gentleman’s a gentleman. If they die they’ll die like gentlemen.’
‘I liked them,’ Silva said. ‘But it was too far where they wanted to go. I said to him, “Why do this? You will never find you father.”’
‘Silva,’ said Calcott, struck by this speech and an idea that it prompted, and in some way feeling in his warmth for them that he was helping them if he did this, ‘shall we have a turn at the table—see if we get anything? The table’ll tell us.’
It had been one of the pains of Silva’s absence for Calcott that he had not been able to try the table. He had made his wife try one night but when her heavy hands leaned on it, the table had remained still. Now he begged Silva eagerly and Silva, agreeing to this as he agreed with everything, brought the table out. They closed the shutters, shut out the cries of the children and the shouts from the street. Then they sat down, Calcott’s bony hands, with their split nails, spread out like claws on the table, his eyes half lifted to the ceiling, his head on one side listening. Silva, with his eyes lowered, sat still on the edge of his chair, like a modest pianist considering the keys before he flies away into sudden improvisation.
The results of this seance were at first confusing. Calcott said he feared Hamlet was trying to get through and he didn’t want him. Not tonight, he said, when they wanted something more important. But presently the unsatisfactory fooleries of the table ceased. A bolder motion began.
‘Who are you?’
‘Yes,’ came the reply.
‘What’s your name? Here, Silver, ask him his name.’
‘Would you be so kind as to tell us your name?’
‘Wait a jiffy,’ said Calcott, ‘I’ve dropped my pencil. Now!’
But the spirit hesitated. Wounded, he said. How? Gun he said. Pain. Where? On river, he said. How did you get it? Gun went off. Shot. Want help.’
‘Funny,’ said Calcott. ‘Who is it?’
‘Maybe it’s Wright,’ said Silva.
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Calcott.
‘Is your n . . . Ask him what his name is, Silver.’
‘Perhaps if you would be so good as to tell us your name we could help you,’ Silva said.
‘Yes,’ the spirit said. Then faded.
‘Is it Wright?’ a
sked Calcott.
‘Yes, the spirit said. His name was Right. R–I–G–H–T.’
‘Something wrong there,’ said Calcott. ‘Does he mean we’ve got it right?’
Confusion followed about the name. Silva himself was surprised that Wright’s name was spelt with a ‘W’.
But once this difficulty was overcome the spirit became voluble and he told them an extraordinary story. He had not shot himself, he had been murdered. ‘Hear that, Silver?’ Calcott said.
One evening, the spirit said, he had gone out on a river. He and his companion had discovered gold in the bed of a stream. His companion, he said, had seduced his wife, and wanted the gold for himself so that he might be rich and give the woman presents. They quarrelled. Seeing his opportunity the companion had murdered the speaker.
Calcott’s arms were dragged mechanically back and forth. He was gaping at the story.
‘Ask him who did it.’
A friend, the spirit said. Was the friend there? No. Where was he? Escaped, the spirit said.
The friend’s name, the spirit said, was Johnson.
The table stopped. Silva relaxed. It had taken nearly two hours for his fantasy to appear.
‘Funny,’ said Calcott. ‘Open the shutters.’
‘What’s he mean, he was murdered by Johnson? By young Johnson?’
Silva sat back and considered the work of his fancy with a mingled disinterestedness and admiration.
‘Oh, maybe he was telling lies,’ he said. ‘Like Hamlet.’
‘After all,’ Calcott meditated, ‘we’ve only Johnson’s word.’
‘That is what I think,’ Silva said.
It is difficulty to say how much Calcott or Silva believed in any of their spirit messages. Sometimes Calcott’s readings of the Scriptures warned him that it was the devil’s work to attempt to communicate with the dead; when he felt this he said to himself that he did not believe a word. He just liked someone to talk to, he said. It broke the loneliness talking to the dead. At other times he believed fanatically, because he did not know what other explanation to give the phenomena. As for Silva—had Johnson really murdered Wright? Probably not, but the Johnson and the Wright of the spirit messages had ceased from the moment of creation to be the originals on which they were modelled. They had become characters in fiction.
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