When McCabe handed him a bowl of gin, Parrish choked it down.
“Get to work,” he coughed. “But you might have aged the stuff.”
Fever and delirium followed that crude surgery. During the worst of it, McCabe had to help Lydia hold her father on the palm leaf pallet they had made in one of the deserted huts. But finally Parrish’s vitality won, and then McCabe had nothing to do but forage for food.
At night, he spread nut meat on hot rocks, to trick the robber crabs from their homes in the rocks. Later, by torchlight, he returned to catch them as they snapped at the savory bait. He lacked the native’s skill in snatching the savage creatures. They had claws strong enough to cut coconuts open. This was their customary diet, but they seemed to relish bites of his hands and forearms. Whenever he returned with his catch, he was bleeding from elbows to finger nails.
Every so often, during the days following the crisis, McCabe would say, “Anything I can do?”
Lydia’s toneless “No” meant, “Yes, get out!”
Then he would pace up and down the beach, or sit on the headland to look for the trading boat that was not due for some months. He ended by burning coral rock to make lime. When this was done, he set to work on the foundations of the permanent house that Parrish had started. Wrestling the cut stones into place, sweating and straining as the increasing height of the courses made his labor harder, kept him from being sorry for himself.
The wall was shoulder high when Lydia asked, “What’s that for?”
McCabe reddened under his tan. Parrish cut in. “A man needs exercise. I wish I could join him.”
Lydia smiled for the first time in two weeks and said, “I don’t think you really intended for Nikusa’s clique to go wild the way they did.”
“I didn’t, but I never had the nerve to tell you that.”
Parrish chuckled. “You don’t have to do that work to square yourself. When the natives are good and homesick, as they will be, they’ll return and finish the job.”
McCabe squinted out into the blistering sun, and chewed on a smoked flying-fish. When he went back to work, he felt a little more like a white man.
* * * *
A few nights later, Lydia joined McCabe as he sat up on the headland, staring out to sea. She smiled at his startled expression, and seated herself on the rock beside him.
“Why did you come to Pakalafa in the first place?”
He regarded her for a moment. She was ragged, and her hair was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck, and there was not a trace of the wave she had brought from Papeete. But if Lydia had ever been high-nosed, she did not look it now; so he answered, “My old man staked me to some dough. Most of what he’d salted down. So I could get a start out here, like you folks. Well, I lost the roll, in Papeete.”
“I guess a girl was to blame?”
“Huh! I don’t blame her. I was a chump and I asked for it.”
“So you came out here to hide, and resented us?”
He met her gaze, squarely. Once he could not have done that, but having faced the ruin his resentment had brought on Parrish and his daughter, having been unable to dodge the issue, McCabe had gained courage.
“That’s it. I didn’t have the guts to tell the old man I’d shot the roll, he’d taken a long time saving it up. I guess he thinks I’m drowned or something. Anyway, I hoped he would, when I went over the side and swam to this island. And I didn’t want you people crabbing my hideout.”
The moon made Lydia’s hair a twist of gold and its glow modeled her cheek and the graceful line of throat and shoulder. She was lithe and supple, sitting there with her arms clasped about her knees. Her eyes were friendly, and so was her smile; he wondered what had become of the frozen-faced, haggard girl who had watched him tend delirious Parrish.
“But why this interest?” he asked, after a moment during which his heart beat seemed to shake him, and he fought a crazy urge to take her in his arms and hold her closer than he ever had Malia. “I played the devil with you folks, even if I didn’t mean to go so far.”
“Because you faced the music, Barney. It’s not as hard as it seems. You might even go home and face things. Don’t you think so?”
The softness of her voice was the last touch. In a flash, he had both arms about her, and he sought her lips; he found them, and his kiss cut off her little cry of surprise. For a moment, she yielded, and he could feel her heartbeat, the warm pressure against his chest.
Then a gasp, a sudden wrench, and she was jerking free.
“Don’t—” Her voice was cold. She rearranged the skirt which had crept up to her knees, and pulled her blouse into shape. “Do you have to paw me the first time I’m friendly?”
“Don’t you think that your being friendly, after all that’s happened, is enough to make a fellow dizzy?” He leaped to his feet. “Keep away from tramps, and thanks for the kind words.”
Lydia snatched his hand and detained him. “Sit down, Barney. You’re not really a bum, you’re merely trying to make one of yourself.”
He pulled loose, but did not leave. She went on, “After all, I couldn’t help but know all about you and Malia. You’re putting me in a rather flattering position, aren’t you? Seconds to a native girl?”
“Oh, high-nosed, huh?” he flared up. “Listen, snooty! Malia’s twice the woman you’ll ever be, and you and your old man can go to hell with your pats on the head, who do you think you are, rooking the natives?” he stalked down the steep path, ignoring whatever she may have said. And as he went, he knew he had played the fool once more, instead of facing the fact that any white girl would have reacted as Lydia had.
Down on the beach, he noticed how cool the wind was, and how brisk; how unnaturally bright the stars were. “This damn place,” he muttered, “is in the hurricane belt. It may be, anyway.”
* * * *
And for the next few days, McCabe gathered coconuts, and breadfruit. Lydia helped him, and her father, now able to get about, stacked the loot in a corner of the coral wall, along with the dried flying fish, and the turtle’s eggs found a mile up the beach. The wind had become stronger; there was never a moment’s cessation of its howling. On the following day, the native huts were stripped of their thatch.
On the fourth night, heavy rain fell, and the wind came in short sharp puffs. It twisted, driving the big drops into every corner of the coral wall which McCabe had built.
Thunder barely made itself heard above the roar. Lightning blazed through the gloom, and touched the water that flowed about the huddled three. And then the full force of the hurricane reached the island. Trees splintered. The wind drove coconuts against the coral wall. He had Lydia in his arms now, but terror kept this from being any triumph.
Speech was impossible. Whatever it was that Lydia screamed into his ear, McCabe could not hear. The skeletons of natives shacks were disjointed and hurled through the doorway openings. Flying splinters probed the corner where they crouched. And at dawn, gray and ghastly, the wind whipped up and scooped wet sand from the beach, rolling it in a solid wave of cutting particles. Some of the upper courses blew out of place, for their mortar was green. Only McCabe’s foresight had kept his companions from being crushed by a fall in one corner.
When sickly daylight filtered through the thick air, McCabe saw the shells and sand that had drifted like snow. Coconut trees, uprooted, lay half buried; others snapped off a few yards from the ground, reached up from earth stripped of vegetation.
For a while, the wind slacked off; in a few hours, it was scarcely more than a stiff breeze. Lydia cried, “Thank God, it’s over!”
She was drenched, shivering, her face and legs slashed by flying sand. And her hair, whipped free, clung in a sodden mass. McCabe said, “This is only the start. I’ll try to find some fresh water at the spring.”
Half an hour later the return trip of the hurricane lash
ed the island. Now it found whatever had been protected from its first lashing. The food cache was buried under tons of sand. McCabe and his companions shivered in a corner until exhaustion finally made them sleep.
The cessation of the uproar awakened McCabe. For a long time, he sat there, cramped and cold, not wanting to disturb Lydia and her father. He wondered if the old man could endure the prolonged exposure. A heavy sea broke over the lagoon, and rolled almost to the foundations of the wall; but all was clear, and the sky was brightening.
There had been no matches on the island since the burning of Parrish’s bungalow. McCabe rigged up a bowstring and spindle, and set to work. The bit of glowing sawdust that rewarded several hours of hand-blistering effort was the biggest triumph of his life.
“Look! Lydia! It’s burning!”
She knelt and blew till her cheeks puffed, and fed bits of fiber while he twirled the spindle. Once a blaze was crackling, she said, “Do you know what I found up the beach?”
“What?”
“A canoe. It isn’t damaged. It must have been hidden in a cove, and washed out by the storm.
Once the fire was crackling, they ran along the sand to inspect the derelict. “What’s wrong?” Lydia asked, seeing him frown. “What’s the matter, Barney?”
“This is Nikusa’s boat. I can tell from the carving. It must have been blown adrift, from whatever island they found. If they went to the atoll, they’ve all drowned, with the water breaking over it, and no shelter.”
“Afraid Malia is finished?”
“If you’re trying to rib me, you’re wasting time. She checked out, didn’t she, with the others?”
“She did,” Lydia said, very slowly. “And you could have.”
“I couldn’t.” He caught her by both arms. “Listen, I’ve got enough to think about now. Without you rubbing anything in.”
“Why—Barney—” She frowned, perplexedly. “What do you mean?”
“Those poor devils drowned on some low atoll, where they didn’t have our chance. My fault, too.”
* * * *
That evening, McCabe told Parrish that the canoe was seaworthy; that rigging a sail and steering by the stars for Papeete would not be difficult.
“I’m sure it could be done,” the planter said. “But if any of the natives return, I want to be here. To tell them that they are quite safe, even though the hurricane did not drown me. There are enough palms and taro in the sheltered ravines to feed the whole crowd if they come back.”
“That’s right.”
“So if you want to leave, the boat is all yours.”
“I could make it alone, easily enough.” McCabe tried to get Lydia’s eye, but she was looking the other way. “I’ll think it over.” He went across the rubbish strewn beach, and climbed the headland that overlooked the reef. Moonlight and calm water tempted him. The thing to do was to get out. He was so firmly established as a tramp that he could not redeem himself in Lydia’s eyes.
He heard pebbles clatter down the slope, and turned. A brown girl with gleaming legs and arms came up the path; a shapely girl whose oiled body peeped through rents in her bedraggled calico dress. It was Malia; he rose, and exclaimed, “Where’d you come from? I thought you were dead!”
She ran to him, arms extended. Breathless, she clung to him, kissing him. Her eagerness nearly crowded him off his feet, and he seated himself on the rock, drawing her to his side. Finally Malia explained, “I came back in my father’s canoe, we are all going far away—”
He shook her loose. “What about the storm?”
“Oh, the storm?” She laughed. “It missed us, the way hurricanes do. We were safe, we planned to go far away, so we’d not be punished for killing the white trader, but I came back for you, you’ll go with us.”
Warm and lovely in his arm, Malia was the final argument. A shapely temptation, looking up at him, eyes misted, lips half parted. He wanted to go native, and now a tribal immigration was waiting for him.
Then he remembered how the childlike natives had turned against him; how he had managed a painful shave so that Lydia would not look so sorry for him. It had never occurred to him to wonder what Malia thought. It only mattered what his own people thought.
He said to the brown girl, “Go tell your father and his people to come back home. Parrish won’t make any trouble. I doctored him and cured his wounds, and there are no grudges.”
She eyed him dubiously.
“I mean it,” McCabe insisted. “Parrish is a fine fellow. You can come home, all of you.”
Malia brightened. “Oh, then you and I won’t have to go to the atoll!”
Her arms tightened about him, and she pressed closer, until he wondered how much longer he could resist her ardent invitation. Suddenly, he broke her grip, and said, “Listen, Malia—you and I can’t go to any atoll—or anywhere else—I have to go home—to see if my father has forgiven me—for a foolish thing I did—I won’t ever come back—now go and tell your people that Parrish wants them back.”
She rose, and looked at him as though dazed. “I understand, Barney. You ran away, now you are brave again, and you go back. Or maybe the yellow haired girl has taken you from me.”
She turned and went down the path. Moments later, he saw the canoe dart out across the lagoon. McCabe was glad that he was not going native. He was thrilled at the thought of going home to face the music, like a man.
He had scarcely come down to the beach when he saw Lydia step from the shadow of a rock. “I didn’t know who it was,” she began, breathlessly. “I thought perhaps they had come back to finish us. The natives, I mean. Finish us to keep us from mailing a report. And then—”
“Then you got an eyeful?”
Her chin rose, defiantly. “Yes. I looked, and tried to hear as much as I could.”
He grinned ruefully. Surf makes too much noise, but you could sure see plenty, with us up there against the moon. “She said they were afraid to come home, and they were migrating.”
“She came back for you?”
“She did, and I told her they didn’t have to migrate, that they could all come back home, that I was going to the states to face my music. I had to face you and your father after the dirt I did, unintentionally. Well, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, not when it was over. So I’m going to tell my old man. I think I’ve learned how to look things in the eye.”
“Facing me, and hurricanes—” Lydia’s laugh was unconvincing, and he thought her fingers would sink all the way into his shoulders. “And native sweethearts—you can face anything now, Barney—”
It did not take him long to understand that. “The devil I can!” he said hoarsely, and caught her in his arms. “The idea of leaving, when I’d rather have you around; when I’d rather help your father build up this island—”
Neither could speak for a moment, but Lydia’s arms and hungry lips told him that she would agree to anything rather than parting. Dawn was touching her hair, and pearling the lagoon. Far out, McCabe saw a black speck. He said, “Look, way out there. The trading boat. See the smoke? I’ll be gone by evening, I guess.”
“You don’t have to leave! You’ve found yourself right here, facing us was harder than facing your own father, you silly. You don’t have to prove yourself any further, do you?”
So she wanted him to stay. He had to believe that now. He said, “I’ll be back, when I’ve squared things up.”
“Do that here, right here. I know dad needs help. A partner.”
“How do you know?”
She looked up through drooping lashes. “Do you think I’ve not asked him?”
“You had your nerve, asking him how he’d like an island bum for a partner. Can’t believe it, honey.”
She tugged at his arm. “Come on, you ask him then.”
“Nuh-uh! It’s too early.” He sat down and drew her toward him
. “Way too early. Let’s sit here and watch the boat come in.”
“It’ll take an hour or more,” Lydia decided, and snuggled closer to the island bum. She sighed contentedly. “We’ll have lots of hours all to ourselves, but this will be the best of them all.”
YOU CAN’T EAT GLORY
Originally published in Short Stories, October 1946.
Cartridges cost one rupee apiece, and all a man got for burning them was honor, if he lived to get home again. Gul Mast Khudayar fingered the loops of his crossed bandoliers and groaned in his dusty beard. A slug spattered to bits against the smoking-hot sandstone ledge.
He hitched himself a little further back into cover, squinted along the barrel of his Mauser, and for a moment, he had the reckless sniper lined up for a bull’s-eye.
But he held his fire; Afghan volunteers furnished their own weapons, and rupees did not grow on bushes.
Shir Dil, the fool, was blazing away on the right, and Wali Dad’s old Martini-Henry roared from the left. Then a machine-gun opened up, spitting out rupees at a rate that sickened Gul Mast, even though the king did pay for its cartridges, and for the 75 millimeter shells for the field gun whose shrapnel made white puff balls of smoke high above the rebel lines.
This continued all day, while Gul Mast, safely under cover, considered the worn soles of his campaign boots. Hardly a hob-nail was left. They would have lasted years, but for this accursed campaign; little food, and less loot, for the rebels sacked every town in their deliberate retreat into the mountains.
By noon, the skirmish became a battle. An enfilading shot drilled Gul Mast’s goat-skin canteen. This infuriated him, so he leveled the Mauser, squeezed the trigger on a whole rupee, and sent the sniper to the mercy of Allah. Then, as the sun blazed down, and the nitrous fumes thickened on both sides, Gul Mast settled down to calculating the interest on one rupee at fifteen percent per month; he was no longer certain just who had been hurt the most in that moment of uncontrolled wrath.
Later, the Sardar rode up, his wiry horse agleam with sweat, foaming and puffing as it scrambled over the rocks. His medals and gilded saber made him conspicuous. The shaggy mountaineers cheered when he deliberately focused his field glasses, and ignored the slugs that crackled past him. The staff officer at his heels tried to look unconcerned, but he was glad when the Sardar took cover, and began to address the volunteers.
E. Hoffmann Price's Exotic Adventures Page 20
