The Cannibals

by Iain Lawrence

  At first it looked as though the whole jungle was burning. A wall of fire came toward us, bounding through the trees. It rippled across the clearing. It rose to the top of the logs, flowed over, and from end to end the stockade seemed to burst into flames.

  The savages leapt to the ground. Some came straight to the house, pitching the torches against the wooden skirting. Others whirled them round in a rush and roar of fire, then sent them spinning upward. One clattered in through an upstairs window, and the rest thudded on the roof. In moments, coils of smoke were drifting down the stairs. Then the thatching fell in a burning mass.

  Every slit was wreathed in fire. We coughed and spluttered as the smoke thickened.

  Midgely held his hands over his head. Boggis ran to a window. In the center of the room, Mr. Mullock was turning round and round, starting back from each new cloud of sparks and embers. The smoke glowed red and orange at his feet.

  “I won't be burned,” he said. “I'll be burning evermore, I think, and I can wait for Judgment Day. Come on, lads; let's see how many of the devils we can take with us.”

  He went to the door, shielding his eyes from the smoke. Boggis lumbered behind him, but I couldn't see Midgely. He'd moved from his place, and I couldn't see him anywhere. “Midge!” I shouted. “Midge, where are you?”

  If he answered, I didn't hear him. But at last I saw him sitting cross-legged on the floor. He was sucking his thumb, and he rocked back and forth. He looked so tiny sitting all by himself in the smoke. “Oh, Midge,” I cried, and started toward him.

  He seemed to rise from the floor. His legs didn't move, and his arms didn't move, but he lifted straight up nonetheless. I saw the floor itself bubble up, a bulge forming in the planks. Nails popped out; wood splintered, and a huge round head came bursting through the floor.

  Midge screamed. “Help me, Tom!” he shouted.

  Entire planks split and cracked. In the bang of breaking wood, the jarring squeal of torn-out nails, they exploded from their joists, springing out along their lengths. And up through the hole that head kept rising, a monstrous snake battered into the mission.

  Each of its scales seemed as big as my hand, and they rippled and coursed as the head swung around. The eyes were huge and yellow, the tongue a long flicker like the fire of the dragons.

  Midgely tried to scuttle away. But the snake's head writhed in a half circle, rearing above him. The tongue shot out, the great jaws opened, and that beast swallowed Midgely whole. I saw his legs kicking, then one of his shoes go flying, until there was nothing left of him at all.

  The snake eased back, sinking into the hole. The planks began to settle in their places, then suddenly shot in all directions as the creature lunged again. Its head rose three feet, five feet, six feet from the floor. It nearly touched the ceiling, then slowly swung and lowered. A hump of the body came after it, like a sea serpent surfacing, and soon all its length stretched in curls from wall to wall. The tail swept like a whip, smashing the staircase in a cloud of embers. The head came slithering toward me.

  For a moment I was looking straight in the serpent's eyes. I saw its neck ripple as the head drew back only to surge forward and slam against my chest. I flew off my feet, thudding to the floor. The jaws opened again, and they closed around my knees.

  I tried to pull away, but couldn't. I felt its muscles pulsing, sucking me inside.

  Boggis and Mr. Mullock seemed turned to stone. Flames were licking round the edges of the door, and smoke was spouting underneath. The latch and bolt glowed red from the heat.

  “Help!” I shouted. The snake's lips had reached to my thighs.

  Its body arched and rippled. The tail struck the ceiling, slammed on the floor, then coiled around Boggis and Mr. Mullock too. It enveloped them both, then doubled and doubled again as it rolled them up in its coils.

  Mr. Mullock hammered with his axe, but the snake only wrapped another coil around him.

  “Tom!” he cried. “Catch, my boy!”

  He threw the axe to me. It bounced from the floor and landed just beyond my reach. Though I stretched every bone in my arm and my fingers, I couldn't quite touch it.

  I tried to kick the snake. I shook and struggled, but it only swallowed me more quickly, its muscles kneading at my feet and legs. Then with a flick of its head I was swept sideways and pushed along the floor, and I grabbed the axe.

  My arms couldn't reach the creature's head, so I had to wait as the thing consumed more of me. Then as I slid into its mouth, up to my waist, up to my ribs, I drove the axe down with both hands onto the creature's head. I struck it hard, and again. I pierced the mound of its nose, wrenched out the blade, and struck again.

  Such a tremor shot through the snake that I thought it would crush me. The lips tightened like a vice, and I could scarcely draw a breath. But I kept jabbing at it, aiming for the eyes, striking again and again and again. And as it swung me in a huge arc, across the width of the room, I pierced its nose. I pierced an eye. Dark blood squirted out. Like the spout of a whale it spewed from the thing. Then, with a last shake and a tremble, the enormous snake fell flat.

  With my legs I pried the jaws apart. I squirmed backward from its mouth.

  I wasted no time. As Mr. Mullock and Boggis freed themselves from the creature's coils, I slashed the belly open. I ripped the axe through scales and skin, and that terrible thing fell open. Out tumbled Midgely. His hands were folded on his face, his elbows pressed at his side. I couldn't hear him breathing; there seemed no life in him at all.

  I picked up his limp body. It was so small and light—so cold. I held him in my arms, and thought I would just sit and hold him until the building burned down upon us. But Mr. Mullock hauled him from me. He held him up, his hands under Midgely's armpits, and shook him furiously. He pulled him close for a moment, then laid him on the floor, raised a hand and slapped him. Three times he hit the boy, hard and fast. “Come on!” he said. “Breathe.”

  Again, he slapped Midgely. His fingers left bright red smears on the cheek. Then Midgely trembled. He coughed; he drew in a whistling breath. “Oh, Midge!” I cried.

  I put my arms around him. I struggled to lift him up. “We have to hurry,” I said.

  “Hurry? Hah!” said Mr. Mullock. “Hurry to where?”

  “If that snake came in,” I said, “we can surely get out.”

  Boggis had taken up the axe and was slashing at the snake. He tore long slices through its belly, and things were falling out: a big, round rock; a coconut; a wooden box and a grotesquely rotted pig; an old umbrella with mere shreds of cloth clinging to its wires; a little pair of spectacles.

  What possessed me I couldn't imagine, but I had to have those things. I picked them up as if they were fallen treasures, or bits of myself. I took the wooden box and the umbrella. I took the spectacles too. I would have taken the rock and the coconut, but I heard the axe ripping through the snake's flesh, and knew that the next thing to spill out would be the corpse of the missionary.

  I came somewhat to my senses then, but not enough to cast off my frivolous finds. I pulled Boggis away. “Let's go,” I said.

  With a crash and searing heat, half the upper floor collapsed. The rest creaked and shifted as we flung ourselves down through the shattered hole in the floor. No sooner had we fallen into the space below the house than the entire structure collapsed on top of itself.

  We fell from thick smoke into clear air. A breeze—a wind—why, half a gale moaned through the space. “The fire's sucking air,” said Mr. Mullock. “There's a passage leading into here.”

  It was easy to find; we crawled into the wind, and the ground sloped down. Our shadows stretched in front of us, vanishing as the firelight faded. In pitch blackness we found ourselves in a vast cellar that smelled of earth, then in a tunnel that led us straight to the sea. We came out through a band of bushes and emerged at the edge of the jungle.

  Ahead was a mangrove swamp, the strange trees marching off into the water. Behind, we could see the mission
burning, the savages watching the flames. I judged that it would be hours before the ashes would give away the secret of our escape. I felt free and happy. But my joy was shortlived.

  “There's no boat,” said Mr. Mullock.

  “There must be.” I looked down at the water as though he might have overlooked a steamboat sitting there. But the glare of flames reached far through the trees, and I had to admit that he was right. If a boat had been floating anywhere near, we would have seen it in the firelight. “What do we do?” I asked.

  “What do you think?” Mr. Mullock held his hands apart, as though to show me the living arches and tangles of the mangroves. “We can't go by sea, and we can't go back. We'll have to make our stand right here.”

  “Maybe the junglies won't come looking,” said Boggis.

  “Hah!”

  Midgely waded into the water, in among the mangroves. He splashed and rubbed himself, cleaning off the slimy wetness from the innards of the snake. “I don't understand none of this,” he said. “The Indians here ain't vicious.”

  “Well, thank God we found the gentle ones then,” said Mr. Mullock. His fine new clothes were already filthy.

  “And where's the missionary?” asked Midge. “Why ain't he here to take us away? You don't think his whole book and all was nonsense do you, Tom? You don't think it was all a pack of lies, do you? Maybe he was never here at all.”

  “He was,” I said. “But, Midge, he's gone. He's …” I put the umbrella in his hands. He felt along the wires and along the handle, and his face seemed understanding.

  “I found his spectacles too,” I said. “And this wooden box.”

  It had a small latch of dulled brass. I flicked that aside, raised the lid, and took out a thing like old, squashed parchment. It was nearly transparent. I didn't know what it was, and neither did Mr. Mullock. But Midgely grinned as soon as he touched it.

  “There is a boat here,” he said. “There must be a boat.”

  “He's gone daft,” said Mr. Mullock.

  “Look!” said Midgely. He held up that thing from the box. “It's a caul, ain't it? The reverend, he went back for his caul when the snake got him.”

  I had no idea what he meant. His hands were shaking, and he was hopping up and down in the shallows. “This come off a baby when it was born,” he said. “It covered the face of a baby. Don't you see?”

  “No,” I said.

  “A baby's caul! A man's safe from drowning if he's got a caul,” said Midge. “He wouldn't never go to sea without it, would he? So the boat's still here.”

  With that, he turned and waded through the mangroves. In a few steps he was up to his waist, feeling ahead of himself, and all around, with the shredded old umbrella. He poked it up and poked it down, and swept it side to side. He tapped it on the great roots of the trees. “Come on,” he said, and beckoned us to follow.

  Nothing could be more strange and eerie than a stand of mangroves, except a stand of mangroves lit by fire. The roots soared above us, taking on fantastic shapes. They looked like the arches and domes of a Gothic church, and like the limbs of strange creatures. They seemed to move, to walk, always changing in the shifting light. And the trees creaked and swayed, while every creature in them chattered and clicked and whined.

  Midgely led us left and right, tapping all the way. We tried to stay close to him but struggled to keep up. The trees were so densely spaced, their branches so tangled, that we were soon as blind as he.

  Something hissed above us. Midgely squealed. “No!” he shouted, and threw himself flat in the water.

  I looked up. There was a yellow glow among the branches, a pale shape in the middle, and a white face peering out. Then a person stood up—a person or a phantom; for a moment I wasn't sure—a figure of white emerging from the tangle. I gasped. Arms reached out; clothing fluttered. It seemed impossible, but there was a lady up there, a blondheaded lady in a white bonnet and shawls.

  Mr. Mullock saw her—Boggis too—and we all stared at this lady in white. “Simon,” she hissed. “Simon, are you there?”

  Mr. Mullock pulled off his new hat. He bowed as he greeted the lady. “Mr. Mullock, at your service.”

  An odder scene I could never have imagined. As the old mission burned to the ground, the savages gathered around it, the four of us stood in a half-drowned forest, talking to a lady who seemed to float like an angel in the trees. But she didn't seem put out. “Please come up,” she said. “The lad-der's to your left.”

  “Where is she?” Midgely asked. “Is she up in a tree house, Tom?”

  It seemed that way at first. The ladder was made of sticks nailed to a tree trunk, climbing into a framework of timbers. Halfway up, I thought I saw a shining house of varnished wood tucked among the branches and the leaves. It was not until I reached the top that I saw it was a steamboat.

  It was a grand little boat, polished and bright, its machinery gleaming. Every inch was jammed with lengths of firewood, all precisely sawn and neatly stacked. They lay along the sides, under the seats, and up in the bow, and leaned against the curved dome that covered the paddle wheels. Only a small space was left around the engine, and another at the curved seat in the stern, where a candle was burning in a short silver stick. A Bible lay open beside it. The lady was standing there, reaching over the side to help me.

  The boat sat firm and steady on the timbers. They served both as a cradle and a launching ramp, while a heavy tackle fixed to the tree held the boat in place. As soon as he touched it, Midge knew it was a boat. “You see?” he cried. “I told you it was here.”

  The lady looked at him. She was younger and prettier than I'd ever known my mother to be, but the expression was one my mother had worn many times in the years before her madness. It was a look at once of loving and worry and care, and I felt instantly heartsick.

  She put her hand on Midgely, but spoke to Mr. Mullock. Her voice was very lovely. “Tell me,” she said. “What of Mr. Collins?”

  “Your husband, missus?” he asked.

  “The Reverend Collins,” said she. “Oh, please tell me; have you seen him?”

  Mr. Mullock stood bare-headed before her, the rev-erend's own hat turning in his hands. “Not hexactly, missus,” he said. “But I believe he's …Well, he's gone to his maker, missus.”

  She sighed. Delicately, she sank to the seat. Her hand was still on Midgely's shoulder, and she pulled him with her, so that they sat side by side. “I feared as much,” she said. “I begged him not to go back. But he wouldn't leave without his silly caul.”

  Midge looked up with a triumphant smile. “Is it the same Simon Collins what wrote a book, mum?” he asked.

  She uttered a funny little laugh that was half a sob. “Oh, his book,” she said. “How I came to loathe it. Do you know it was the book that brought him to the islands?”

  Midgely looked puzzled. “But he wrote it. How …”

  She stroked Midgely's arm. “We'll talk of it later, child. Tell me, can one of you operate a steamboat?”

  Mr. Mullock bowed again. “You're haddressing a dab hand with the steamboats, missus. Hah! It's a fortunate day indeed.”

  How quickly he could change. Not an hour before, he'd been preparing for his end. Now he was all charm. With a wink and a smile, he took her candle and held it to the engine, peering at all the polished pipes and other bits, giving each one a poke and a studious “hmmm.”

  “The boiler's full,” he pronounced. “The firebox too. I can 'ave her steam up in a moment. Here, you muggins, give me a 'and.”

  It was me he meant. He got me kneeling beside him, at the door of the firebox. “You'll tend to it,” he said. “Keep it stuffed, boy; we'll need every inch of steam.”

  He touched the candle to the wood. The sticks were tinder dry, and the flames spread quickly along them. I threw in some more wood and closed the door. A small window let me watch the fire.

  “We've only an hour till dawn,” said Mr. Mullock. “We'll 'ave to 'urry.”

  He and Bog
gis launched the boat, easing it down the rails. They pushed and pulled it through the mangroves, then came aboard when we were clear of the trees and the ocean was empty before us. Mr. Mullock held his candle to a little gauge where a needle quivered on a dial. He tapped a small lever, then pushed on a larger one. With a thump and a hiss, the engine went to its work.

  A piston moved. A crank swung round. Below the curved hood, paddle wheels were turning, and with a splash of water the boat moved forward. It all seemed too loud to me—a clicking, clacking din that was bound to alert the natives. But the boat chugged along, and what wind there was blew from behind us, gusting our smoke ahead.

  There was a tiller in the stern, and Mr. Mullock sat by it. He steered us from the island, and I stuffed the firebox full, then raised my head and looked back.

  Where the mission had been was a great glow of embers, a fountain of sparks that shot glittering rockets into the air. Among the trees, the smaller fires of the savages winked and blinked like many red eyes. It was all I could see. Not even the loom of the land was visible, and the sky was solid black.

  nineteen

  NEWS OF REDMAN TIN

  In the daylight our boat was a beautiful thing. Inside and out it was varnished and polished, and it chugged along at a good clip. The missionary's island, only a slit of green at dawn, had vanished soon after. But a pall of smoke stretched behind us, for the wind had fallen calm.

  The engine puffed and rattled. The paddle wheels thumped, and the water foamed along the hull. I watched the sea split at the bow, the bubbles rushing by, and guessed that a cantering horse wouldn't have gone any faster.

  I was the only one with a chore. The fire demanded endless work, and I carried wood—and bent and straightened—until my every muscle ached. Each time I opened the firebox, the heat was a sweltering blow to my face. Oh, how I loathed Mr. Mullock then, sprawled as he was on the big seat in the stern. He was so lazy that he lay back and steered with his foot, and now and then dipped a hand into the sea to sprinkle cooling dribbles on his neck and hair.