by M. M. Kaye
‘Just as soon as you finish that mango. I told Charles we’d meet him at the Club not later than a quarter to ten, so we’d better get a move on.’
The Chief Commissioner, who had heard nothing of this conversation, folded up the single sheet of paper that had been engrossing his attention, returned it to its envelope and rose from the table: ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said, ‘I have some work to do. By the way, Valerie, do you want the launch this evening?’
‘No thank you, Dad. We’ll catch the six-thirty ferry. We shall have to get back early if Copper and I are to change and then decorate the table and see that everything is set for the party.’
The Chief Commissioner groaned. ‘Good lord, I’d forgotten that we had a dinner party here tonight. I take it this means that I shall not get to bed until after midnight? Oh well, I suppose one cannot avoid one’s social obligations at Christmas time.’
He turned away from the table, and then paused and turned back: ‘By the way, I forgot to mention that I have had a cable from the Captain to say that the Maharaja has been delayed and will not be in until late on Boxing Day.’
‘Oh, Dad! Oh, no! — that means no Christmas mail.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ murmured the Chief Commissioner mildly. ‘Well, it can’t be helped.’ He removed himself from the dining-room, Kioh, the Siamese cat, stalking sedately at his heels. And fifteen minutes later his stepdaughter and her guest left the house and walked down the short, steep, sunlit road to the Club, where Valerie’s fiancé, Charles Corbet-Carr, senior subaltern of the detachment at present occupying the military barracks on Ross, was waiting for them.
Charles, a tall, fair young man of a type frequently described by female novelists as ‘clean-limbed’, possessed a pair of startlingly blue eyes and a sense of humour that was at present prompting him to model his conversation upon the only reading provided by the Calvert Library: an institution that would appear to have been last stocked during the frivolous twenties by a fervent admirer of such characters as Bertie Wooster, Berry and Co., and ‘Bones of the River’.
Apart from this temporary aberration, Copper had no fault to find with him, and she grinned at him affectionately as he came quickly down the Club steps, kissed his betrothed, and spoke in an urgent undertone: ‘There is a slug in our salad, honey. John Shilto, no less. He came over on the lumber boat this morning. I gather he’s staying with old Hurridge for Christmas and wasn’t expected until this evening, but as his host and everyone else is off on this picnic I more or less had to ask the old basket to come along too. You don’t mind, do you? I couldn’t very well leave him here “alone and palely loitering” for the entire day — Christmas Eve and all.’
‘No, of course not, darling. I can bear it. But he’ll have to sit in the back among all the bottles and____ Hello, Mr Shilto.’ She went into the Club ahead of them to greet a heavily built hulk of a man who rose out of a wicker chair at her approach, and Copper, recognizing what she termed ‘Val’s Social-Poise Voice’, realized that Valerie did not like Mr Shilto. Well, she needn’t worry, thought Copper bleakly, I’m the one who will have to sit in the back of the car and make polite conversation with him …
Valerie was saying: ‘It’s been a long time since you were last over here. We never seem to see you at the Club these days. You won’t have met Miss Randal … Copper, this is Mr Shilto. He owns one of the largest coconut plantations in the Islands. You must get him to take you over it one day.’
‘I shall be delighted,’ said Mr Shilto extending a damp, fleshy hand. ‘I hope you mean to make a long stay, Miss Randal? What do you think of our Islands?’
Why must people always ask that question? thought Copper with a touch of exasperation: like reporters! Aloud she said: ‘I think they are beautiful.’
Charles ordered lemon squashes which arrived in tall, frosted glasses, clinking with ice and borne by a slant-eyed Burmese ‘boy’ who wore a wide length of vivid cerise cloth wound closely about his body, a short white jacket and a headscarf of salmon pink into the folds of which he had tucked a white frangipani flower. But while the others talked, Copper sat silent; sipping her drink and gazing out of the Club windows at the sunlight sparkling and splintering against the glassy surface of the bay, and thinking that she had never before understood the true meaning of colour. Where the water was deepest it was ultramarine, shading to a pure, vivid emerald in the shallows, with bars of lilac and lavender betraying the hidden reefs. And across the bay Mount Harriet rose up from the ranks of coconut palms in a riot of green, every shade of it — rich, tangled, tropical — against a sky like a sapphire shield …
A ship’s hooter sounded twice from the Ross jetty, and Charles said: ‘There goes the five-minutes signal,’ and reached for his sun-helmet. Copper gulped down the icy contents of her glass and stood up, and they went out into the hot, blinding sunlight across the baked lawns under the gold mohur trees and past the little summer-house that is built out from the sea wall of the Club, and whose floor covers half the deep, dim tank where the turtles intended (though seldom used) for Government House dinner parties swim languidly in the gloom, to the small wooden jetty where the little steam-ferry jerked at her moorings as though impatient to be off. But with her foot on the gangplank, Copper checked and turned to stare across the harbour, puzzled and uneasy.
Far out in the bay and moving towards the foot of Mount Harriet, three small white triangles showed bright against the shimmering blue. But it was not the sight of the distant boats that had arrested her attention and brought a sharp return of the strange disquiet that had possessed her earlier that morning.
‘A lousy day for sailing,’ commented Charles, following the direction of her gaze. ‘They must be rowing — there isn’t a breath of wind. Well, rather them than me! What’s up, Coppy? Anything the matter? Got a tummy-ache or something?’
‘The birds…’ said Copper confusedly. ‘Why have the birds all gone? There were none in the garden this morning. And – and look____! There are no gulls in the harbour. There have always been gulls before … and birds … Do you suppose____?’
She shivered suddenly, aware of a curious feeling of tension and foreboding in the hot stillness of the morning and the fact that there were no gulls in the harbour. Though why their absence should worry her she could not have explained. Did birds know things that humans did not? Had the airless, breathless day sent them some warning that grosser senses were unable to comprehend, and had they obeyed it and____
Valerie said from behind her: ‘What are you dithering about, Coppy? Do get a move on, you’re holding everybody up.’
Copper started as though she had been awakened from a dream, and uttering a hasty apology, ran up the gangplank and on to the ferry.
3
‘Caterpillars as big as that? How interesting,’ said Copper; managing with considerable difficulty to turn a yawn into a bright social smile and wishing that Mr Shilto would not talk so much. She wanted to give all her attention to the queer, wild, fascinating country that was flicking past them as the big car whirled along the winding thirty-mile road to Mount Harriet, but there had been no stopping Mr Shilto …
Valerie was sitting beside Charles, who was driving, and Copper and Mr Shilto had been packed into the back of the car among a large assortment of bottles containing gin, beer, cider, gingerbeer, orange squash, soda water, and yet more beer.
The bottles clicked and clinked against each other as the car swung to the sharp bends in the road and John Shilto tried to find a more comfortable position for his feet.
He was a fat man who, had it not been for his height, would have appeared gross, and in spite of the burning suns of many years in the Islands his face had the unpleasantly pasty appearance of some plant that has grown in the dark. His narrow eyes, set between puffs of pale flesh, were too close together and markedly shrewd and calculating, while his conversation (which for the past ten miles had been concerned with the destructive activities of the coconut caterpillars) was as unpr
epossessing as his person.
Copper, who cared little for caterpillars, coconut or otherwise, once again allowed her attention to wander as the car swung into a green tunnel of shade. Giant trees arched overhead, their large, queerly shaped, exotic leaves blocking out every vestige of sunlight, while on either side of the road the dense tropical forest leant forward as though it were only waiting until the breeze of their passing had died away, before slipping forward to close over the road once more.
‘Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade,’ thought Copper: and wondered how Andrew Marvell could have known about tropical forests? Ferns and long-tangled creepers clung to the branches overhead or swung down in looping festoons, the tree trunks were garlanded with sprays of small white orchids, and here and there an occasional Red Bombway tree, its leaves flaming in an autumnal glory of scarlet, patched the shadowed forest with a festive fire and reminded her that this was Christmas Eve …
The car slid suddenly out of cool greenness into the bright sunlight of a small clearing that contained a tiny huddle of palm-thatched native huts, lime trees and banana palms. Here the forest had been forced to retreat a few reluctant paces and stood back — a towering wall of impenetrable shadow that seemed to stare down with hostility at that small, courageous attempt at civilization within its borders. A thin, flashing, emerald flight of parakeets flew screaming across the clearing, and from the edge of the forest a great slate-grey iguana — direct descendant of the dragon of fairy-tale — turned its scaly head as the car swung into a long, straight strip of roadway that ran through the star-patterned shadows of a coconut plantation.
It was at this point that Copper was abruptly awakened to a renewed sense of social shortcoming by the fact that Mr Shilto had at last fallen silent. She had the uncomfortable impression that he had stopped rather suddenly and in the middle of a sentence, and she turned hurriedly towards him with a bright smile which she hoped might be taken for intelligent interest. But Mr Shilto was no longer aware of her …
He was staring at the road ahead with an expression that was as plainly readable as it was startling. Rage, fury and fear were written large across his pallid features, and Copper had barely assimilated this surprising fact when he shrank into the extreme corner of the seat, pressing himself back until his head touched the hood, as though he were trying to keep out of sight.
I wonder who he thinks might see him and why it should matter if they did? thought Copper, intrigued by this peculiar manoeuvre. She said without thinking: ‘Is this your plantation, Mr Shilto?’ — and almost immediately remembered that Valerie had once pointed out the vast acres of palms beyond East Point as the Shilto plantation.
Mr Shilto did not reply and it was obvious that he did not even know that she had spoken. His eyes were warily intent on the white road and the straggling ranks of palm trees, and Copper saw him pass the tip of his tongue over his thick lips as though they were dry. She was about to repeat her question when her attention was suddenly diverted by a favourite and forcible oath from Charles: ‘Godfrey-and-Daniels-blast-iron-furnaces-from-Hull!’ howled Charles passionately; and jerked the car to a sudden stop.
‘Anything the matter? Or are you just tired of driving?’ inquired Copper.
‘Engine’s red hot,’ replied Charles briefly, climbing out into the road and stretching his long legs. He threw up the sides of the bonnet and gingerly unscrewed the radiator cap, and pushing back his sun-helmet drew the back of his hand across his damp forehead and swore fervently.
‘What’s up, darling?’ asked Valerie, joining him in the road.
‘Believe it or not,’ said Charles bitterly, ‘those sinkminded saboteurs at the garage have apparently omitted the trifling precaution of filling her up with water. Mea culpa! — I should have checked up. She’s bone-dry, and we shall have to push the brute. Thank God we’re on a bit of a slope here and Ferrers’s bungalow is only about a quarter of a mile further on. We’ll be able to get water there.’
Mr Shilto, who had not yet spoken, shot out of his seat at speed of light, and stumbling into the road stood in the harsh sunlight, his pasty face no longer pale but patched with a rich shade of puce, and spoke shrilly and with inexplicable violence: ‘Oh no you don’t! I’m damned if I’ll____’
He checked abruptly and appeared to recollect himself. The angry flush faded from his cheeks and he licked his dry lips again and spoke as though speech had become an effort: ‘I mean — what I mean is — well, surely it would be simpler to walk back and fetch water from that spring we passed a few moments ago?’
‘Using what for a bucket?’ demanded Charles reasonably. ‘And anyway that was over a mile back, and it shouldn’t take us more than five minutes to roll this wretched vehicle down to Ferrers’s bungalow. There’s no need for you to go in.’
Valerie laid a hand on John Shilto’s arm and said in a placatory voice: ‘Charles is right, you know. It’s the only thing to do. We’re late as it is, and everyone else has probably arrived at Harriet by now. They’ll be madly thirsty in this heat, and we’ve got all the drinks!’
The big man’s flickering gaze shifted from Valerie to Charles and back again, and he forced a smile: ‘Yes – yes, of course. I had only thought that it might be easier if — I mean…’ He appeared to be unable to finish the sentence and Charles turned away and released the brake.
After the first few yards the car rolled along with comparatively little propulsion, gathering momentum until it was hardly necessary to do more than guide it, and presently they reached a wooden bridge over a muddy tidal stream fringed with mangrove, where Charles brought it to a stop.
A small side road, barely more than a rough track, branched off to the left among the columns of the palm trunks and led to a long, low, island-built bungalow which presented a forlorn and dilapidated appearance, as though it were slowly rotting from neglect, and a slovenly Burmese servant came down the pathway from the house and spoke in the vernacular to Charles, who said: ‘Here, Val — you understand a bit of this language, don’t you? What’s he saying?’
‘He says that Ferrers isn’t here,’ translated Valerie.
‘What’s that?’ Mr Shilto, who had been keeping to the far side of the car, came out of hiding and addressed the servant in his own tongue, and after a moment turned to his companions with an expression of sullen ill-temper and said brusquely: ‘Yes, that’s right. This is one of the house-boys. He says that the Stocks stopped off here half an hour ago and that they’ve taken Ferrers on with them to Mount Harriet. Well if that’s the case, you can count me out of this damned picnic, and that’s flat.’ He sat down abruptly on the dusty running-board, and pushing back his hat, leaned against the car door with the air of one who does not intend to move for some considerable time.
Copper, a bewildered spectator of the scene, saw Charles’s mouth tighten and realized that he was keeping his temper with difficulty. His voice, however, remained calm and unruffled: ‘Please yourself, of course. But I don’t know how you propose to get back. I doubt if there’ll be anyone passing here in the right direction to give you a lift. And Val and Copper and I have to get on; and that right speedily.’
‘Of course,’ put in Valerie sweetly, ‘you can always walk. It can’t be more than ten or twelve miles back to Rungal, and you could probably get a lift in a lorry from there.’
Mr Shilto appeared to digest the truth of these statements with considerable distaste, and after a moment or two he rose reluctantly from the running-board and said he would go up to the house and write a chit that one of the servants could take to the nearest telephone, asking for a call to be put through for a taxi: observing in conclusion that if Ferrers had gone to Mount Harriet for the day, he could wait here until it arrived.
‘Good idea,’ approved Valerie. ‘Do hurry and get that water, Charles darling.’
The two men turned and went up the path to the bungalow, followed by the house-boy, and Copper said explosively: ‘Well I’m____! What on ea
rth was all that about, Val? Construe, please.’
‘Guilty conscience, I imagine,’ said Valerie with a short laugh. ‘I don’t suppose he ever uses this road himself, so he’d probably forgotten that our shortest way to Mount Harriet is through Ferrers’s plantation. If he had thought of it, he’d never have agreed to come.’
‘But why, for heaven’s sake? Come on, Val — tell!’
‘Possibly for fear that Ferrers might take a pot-shot at him as he passed? — he’s quite capable of it! In fact he’s publicly announced his intention of murdering John Shilto on more than one occasion.’
Valerie sat down on the low rail of the bridge and Copper perched alongside her. A sour smell of mangrove mud hung on the humid air and below them huge, gaudily coloured butterflies dipped and drifted lazily over the slimy banks and the ugly, crawling, tentacle-like roots of the mangrove trees that the receding tide from the mile-distant sea had left uncovered.
‘It’s a longish story,’ began Valerie, tilting her hat over her freckled nose to shade her eyes from the glare, ‘and no one really knows the true ins and outs of it. The local gossips have collected the odd fact here and there and averaged the rest, so I don’t swear by all of it. Anyway, Ferrers Shilto — the owner of that decrepit shack over there — is John Shilto’s first cousin and only living relative, and a good many years ago, John, who was doing fairly well with a coconut plantation out here, apparently needed some ready-money badly and couldn’t lay his hands on it.
‘He eventually hit on the brilliant scheme of persuading Ferrers, who was living in some peaceful spot like Ponder’s End on the interest of a smallish capital, to come out to the Andamans and make a fortune. He wrote home to say that there was a super plantation going dirt cheap in the Islands, its owner having made his pile and wishing to retire, and that he would have bought it himself except for the fact that he was already making such a packet on his own that he had decided to be magnanimous and let dear cousin Ferrers in on the ground floor.’
