The Island Where Time Stands Still

by Dennis Wheatley

  When the party was half-way along the wharf a door opened in one of the warehouses they had just passed, a man thrust his head out and—evidently in a low voice, as the amah was the only one to turn round—called something to her. Halting uncertainly she hesitated for a moment, then on his beckoning urgently to her, she walked back to join him. When they had exchanged a few sentences he took her by the arm, pulled her into the dark interior of the shed and quickly closed its door.

  Unsuspecting of what had happened, the remainder of the party walked on. When they reached the dragon-prowed junk the Harbour-Master’s two companions disappeared behind it, to emerge a moment later in a small gaily-decorated sampan. The two boys had watched the operation with keen interest, and it was only when they started down the steps to which the sampan had been brought that they missed their nurse. As they turned to the Harbour-Master it was evident from their gestures that they were questioning him about her disappearance, but apparently his answers satisfied them as they allowed themselves to be bowed into the boat without her. One of the men in it hoisted its brightly-coloured sail, and after a single tack it disappeared through the narrow cleft in the cliffs that Gregory knew must lead to the sea. Meanwhile the pompous-looking Harbour-Master, mopping the perspiration from his red face with a handkerchief, had walked back to his office and re-entered it, leaving the harbour once more deserted.

  For a while Gregory ruminated on possible explanations for what he had seen. The most likely seemed to be that the man who had pulled the amah into the shed was a frustrated lover. Perhaps her duties made it impossible for her to meet him in the evenings, or she did not like him enough to do so, and he had seized on this opportunity to get her to himself for an hour or two, counting on her influence with her charges being sufficient to restrain them from giving away to her employer that she had left them during the afternoon. In any case, Gregory felt, it was no business of his and, somnolent from the heat, he soon afterwards dropped off to sleep.

  When he woke the harbour was still deserted, and soon afterwards he went into his room; so he did not see the amah come out of the shed or the two boys return from their afternoon’s sailing trip, and he thought no more of the matter. Neither did he connect it with the fact that Ho-Ping did not come in as usual to see him that evening, nor that on the following day both the doctor and Chung were unusually abrupt in manner and seemed either to have quarrelled or been upset by something.

  After he had been out of bed for a little over a fortnight he slowly became conscious that to his grief there was now added another cause for depression, in that he was virtually a prisoner. It was not that he had ever been a devotee of violent exercise. On the contrary, in normal circumstances he would have been quite content to lounge about on a sunny terrace for a week or two without thought of leaving it; but the fact that he could not do so if he wanted to had begun to rile him.

  He still had no inclination whatever to get back to England and pick up again the threads of his shattered life. In fact he dreaded the ordeal, but he recognised now that there could be no escape from his having to do so sometime; and, irked by his subconscious sense of captivity, he tackled Ho-Ping on how soon he was likely to be able to leave.

  The doctor told him that as the steamer had left the port only a few weeks before his arrival, it was hardly to be expected that it would return, take on its cargo, and be ready to sail again in less than three months.

  Gregory accepted the information with a shrug. ‘That’s all right by me. I’m in no hurry to get home.’ But after a moment he added, ‘All the same, I trust you don’t expect me to remain cooped up here all that time.’

  ‘It would be distressing for us both should you fail to reconcile yourself to doing so,’ Dr. Ping answered placidly.

  ‘Oh, come! All I wish to do is to go for a walk now and again, and see something of the island.’

  ‘That is understandable, but most regretfully out of the question.’

  ‘Why?’ inquired Gregory with a frown.

  ‘It is preferred that our guests should not mingle with our people.’

  ‘What harm do you suppose that I could possibly do them?’

  ‘None. None whatever; but we are great observers of custom in this place and it would be contrary to custom; so I am afraid you must abide by it.’

  ‘Now look here,’ Gregory said firmly. ‘If I were a trader who might corrupt your islanders by selling them unmatured whisky, I could understand your point of view. Even if I were a lusty young fo’c’sle hand who was likely to start a not by seducing one of the village maidens, there might be something to it. But I have neither the means nor desire to create trouble of any kind.’

  ‘That is self-evident,’ Ho-Ping hastening to assure him. ‘Indeed, it was apparent from the first that you are a most superior person. It is for that reason I have honoured myself by seeking your company with more frequency than my medical duties demanded. Although you are now fully recovered, with your permission, I shall continue to devote such of my time as I can to you in the hope that my visits may help a little to alleviate your boredom.’

  Gregory smiled. ‘Thanks, Doctor. You have been very kind to me. I think, this offer too, of yours might be the means of overcoming our difficulty. Whatever the objections to my leaving the compound on my own, there can surely be none to my going for an occasional walk in your company.’

  ‘Ah, if that were only possible, how pleasant it would be.’ The doctor shook his head sadly. ‘But most unfortunately I suffer from a weak heart, and all unnecessary exertion is forbidden to me.’

  Since Dr. Ping walked up the zigzag path in the steep cliff-face on his daily visits and had never appeared to be unduly affected when he reached the terrace, Gregory felt quite certain that he was lying. However, apart from politely commiserating with the doctor on his disability, he forbore to comment. Neither did he suggest that he should be accompanied on walks by Chung, or someone else, in order to ensure his good behaviour. It had been made unmistakably clear that whatever he might say, he was not going to be allowed out of the cage.

  That didn’t worry him particularly, as he still lacked sufficient interest in things to care whether he left it or not. But during the week that followed he could not help wondering from time to time what could be going on in the island that its inhabitants were so anxious to prevent strangers from finding out.

  One morning, soon after dawn, he woke with the same question in mind. Having pondered it for some ten minutes he decided to get up and investigate; so he dressed and went out on to the terrace. Below him the harbour lay veiled in mist and one great rocky promontory still threw a heavy shadow, but soon the mounting sun would glare down into every corner of it through another long tropical day.

  As far as Gregory knew, no one except himself and Chung lived in the block, but he thought he would first make certain of that. A few days earlier he had taken a cursory look at the empty cubicles and at the big dormitory. Now he tiptoed through the latter to the far end of the building, where the kitchen quarters were situated. Long practice had enabled him to move as silently as a cat, and a swift examination showed him that the door to the galley was not locked. Very gently he eased it open and looked in. With a domestic economy typical of the East, Chung, being a servant, had no room of his own, but lay sleeping soundly on a mat that he had unrolled along the floor. Through a gauze screen door on the far side of the galley Gregory could see the scullery, and a window in its wall. As that wall formed the far end of the block it was clear that there were no other rooms further on, and no one else sleeping in it.

  Soundlessly, Gregory re-closed the door, tiptoed back the way he came, and again went out on to the terrace. Advancing to its edge, he peered over. It dropped sheer for about twenty feet, then came a much narrower terrace barely two yards wide. Along its outer edge ran the high wire-mesh fence; so even if he had been able to scramble down to the lower ledge he would still have been inside the cage.

  Turning, he walked quietly roun
d to the back of the block, but he had already guessed what he would find. As he expected, the fence was there too, barring the way to any prospect of climbing the last fifty feet of cliff. Unbroken, except for the gate at the north end of the terrace, it entirely surrounded the building.

  Being methodical by habit Gregory next made a careful examination of the gate. He was now not at all suprised to find that its lock would defy anyone not equipped with a cracksman’s kit; and his knowledge of electrical fences was sufficient to tell him that without proper implements it would be impossible to cut off or short circuit the current, as it was laid on from a generating plant housed in a small concrete structure outside the compound.

  Nothing of the least importance hung on the result of his reconnaissance, so he felt little disappointment at having failed to find an easy way out of his prison. For some time past he had recognised that the real prison in which he was confined lay not in any fence, but in his own mind. Freedom to explore the island could not break down the barriers of sorrow that now walled him in from the joys of life, and with the grim thought that it did not really matter to him how he spent the next three months—or the next ten years—he went back to bed.

  It was therefore very probable that but for a false move by Dr. Ping, Gregory’s mental indifference to the world about him would have led to his resigning himself to remaining in the cage until the steamer could take him to San Francisco. As it was, soon after the doctor arrived that afternoon he came out to Gregory and said with an asperity quite unusual in him:

  ‘Honoured Sir. Chung tells me that when getting up this morning, he saw you through the window of the kitchen making close examination of the gate in the fence. Already I have courteously intimated to you that it is contrary to our custom to allow our guests outside this cage. I have now to inform you that any attempt to get out is definitely forbidden. Moreover, it would be highly dangerous, as the fence carries an electric charge strong enough to inflict serious injury.’

  Something of Gregory’s old belligerence stirred within him. The muscles of his lean face tightened, and he said, ‘If I wanted to get out of this place I should get out. It would take more than an electric fence to stop me.’

  Ho-Ping bowed, ‘That may be true. Therefore I must ask you to give me your word that you will not try to escape, but accept the very mild form of captivity imposed, for as long as you must remain here.’

  ‘What if I refuse?’

  ‘That would imply an intention on your part to assault Chung with the object of gaining possession of the gate key which he carries, or to steal it while he is asleep. As a precaution against either I should be compelled to place guards over you.’

  Gregory’s firm chin jutted out aggressively, and he retorted with sudden sharpness, ‘I don’t know what you are trying to hide, and I don’t care. But I have committed no crime and you have no right whatever to hold me as a prisoner. I will give you no undertaking of any kind, and you can do as you damn well please.’

  ‘I find your attitude both regrettable and unbecoming,’ the doctor remarked. Then he added as he turned away, ‘You will have only yourself to blame for the additional restrictions placed on your liberty.’

  The ‘additional restrictions’ arrived an hour later in the form of three stalwart men all dressed similarly and carrying long staves. They wore broad-brimmed straw hats, belts and gaiters of brown leather, their blue blouses were embroidered both back and front with a large complicated Chinese character in red, and it seemed obvious that they were part of the local police force. After depositing in the dormitory the bundles they carried, two of them made themselves comfortable with Chung in his kitchen, while the third went and squatted by the gate. At intervals of two hours they relieved one another of gate guard. Then, as a further precaution against Gregory’s attempting to get away, shortly after sundown all three of them came to his cabin and, having salaamed politely, locked him in. It was little more than a gesture, as the door was a flimsy one and egress through the window prevented only by a permanently fixed wire mosquito screen; but had he forced either he would have had to risk attracting the attention of the guards by the sound of his breaking out.

  At the time he was just finishing his evening meal. When he had toyed for a few minutes longer with the highly-spiced contents of the dozen or more little bowls that Chung had brought him, he pushed the tray away and, for the first time since he had arrived in the island, began deliberately to set his wits to work.

  In the past there had been occasions when his life, and sometimes more than his life, had depended on his regaining his freedom. Now, there was no more to be gained than the satisfaction of an idle curiosity. But, quite unconsciously and in blissful ignorance of the type of man with whom he was dealing, Ho-Ping had, most ill-advisedly, provoked him with a challenge. Gregory had always been a lone wolf. He did not take kindly to any form of discipline. He had never allowed anyone to dictate to him, and he was much too accustomed to doing what he pleased to start submitting to that sort of thing now.

  Presently the door was unlocked by one of the guards for Chung to retrieve the dishes, and Gregory smiled at the elderly Chinaman. Dr. Ping’s fears that he might attack his servant were quite unfounded. He might have stolen the key to the gate while the man was sleeping, but he would never have used brute force on anyone who had cared for him kindly while ill. All the same he realised that having had a watch set on him was going to make it much more difficult to get hold of the key by any means, and now even that would be only half the battle; for, having got it, how would he be able to evade the vigilance of his guards in order to use it unchallenged?

  Sleeping on this problem brought no answer to it, and next morning he paced the terrace with considerably more vigour than usual. Taking long strides, his arms hanging loosely and his head thrust slightly forward, he walked quickly up and down while his mind worked with equal swiftness. A dozen embryo plans started to take shape in it but he rejected them all, either because of the difficulty of purloining the key from Chung in daylight, or because at night he was locked in his cubicle and could think of no way of getting out unheard and unseen; or again, because he felt that in view of what he owed to Ho-Ping, decency dictated that he should rule out any plan entailing violence against the doctor’s henchmen. Nevertheless, long before midday he had hit on an idea, and during the heat of the afternoon, while all but one of his guards was sleeping, he made a preliminary investigation which satisfied him that the first stage of his plan was practical.

  That night, after he had been locked in, he gave the guard and Chung a couple of hours to settle down. At the end of that time he removed the curtains from his window, tore them into strips, knotted them together to form a rope, and in one end of it wrapped and tied securely a heavy stone that he had brought in from the terrace. He then stood on a chair and set to work on the ceiling. His examination of it during the afternoon had shown him that it was only a flimsy affair of sun-baked mud on a foundation on thin, split bamboo canes strung together with string. Within half an hour he had torn an oval hole in it as wide as his shoulders. Taking his stone-weighted rope in one hand, he scrambled through the hole on to the roof.

  Cautiously now he crawled to its front edge and peered over. The starlight was just sufficient for him to make out the line of the fence beyond the kitchen end of the building and the dark splodge of a figure squatting near the gate. As he expected, a watch was being kept by night as well as by day, in case he managed to get out of his cubicle unheard and attempted to pick the lock. But he had no intention of trying. For his purpose all that mattered was that the man was sufficiently far away to be out of ear-shot. It seemed probable that he was dozing; in any case it was unlikely that he would look up to the roof unless his attention was attracted by sounds of movement on it.

  Turning away, Gregory crawled to the back of the roof, then stood up beneath the overhanging tree that gave it partial shade from the midday sun. Its lowest branch was about four feet above his head, so we
ll out of his reach. Holding his home-made rope near its weighted end, he whirled the weight round and round then threw it up into the foliage. The cotton-wrapped stone failed to find a lodgement but he deftly caught it as it fell back, and tried again. Like the spider watched by Robert the Bruce, success required patience. Sometimes the stone caught but came away at a sharp tug, more often it just fell back at once; but at last it twisted twice round a medium-sized branch and Gregory was able to pull the branch down until with his left hand he could clutch its nearest twigs. Letting go the rope, he seized another handful, then risked a little jump and grabbed the branch itself. Praying that it would not snap, he jumped again and clung on higher up. As the bough gave under the strain his toes scraped the roof but the branch did not snap and it was now taking most of his weight. With a final heave he got a grip on the main bough, then hand over hand swung himself along it until he passed over the electrified fence; but he gave it only a glance as he sought for further good holds, and cautiously lowered himself to the cleft in the rocks from which the tree was growing.

  That afternoon he had spent some time memorising the face of the fifty-foot cliff at the back of his prison. It was fairly steep but frequently broken by cracks and ledges on which grew scrub, and in some cases smaller trees of the same kind as the one down which he had just clambered. After a brief rest he set out up the route he had planned to take, and found it comparatively easy going. Ten minutes later he was standing on the top of the cliff, a free man again.

  Sadly he realised that his freedom did not really mean much to him. Perhaps that was partly because his escape had been so easy, and partly because, unlike his escapes in the past, there had been no threat of death to spur him to it. In fact he had every intention of returning to his prison before dawn by the way he had left it. He would not even have bothered to outwit Ho-Ping, but for his resentment at being arbitrarily confined, and a vague temptation to derive cynical amusement from the doctor’s face next day, when he learned that during a midnight prowl his prisoner had discovered the secret of the island.