A Handful of Dust

by Evelyn Waugh

  “Is there a name for any of these streams?” he asked Rosa.

  “Macushi people called him Waurupang.”

  “No, not river where we first camped. These rivers.”

  “Yes, Waurupang.”

  “This river here.”

  “Macushi people call him all Waurupang.”

  “It’s hopeless,” said Dr. Messinger.

  When they were near water they forced their way through blind bush; the trail there was grown over and barred by timber; only Indian eyes and Indian memory could trace its course; sometimes they crossed little patches of dry savannah, dun grass growing in tufts from the baked earth; thousands of lizards scampered and darted before their feet and the grass rustled like newspaper; it was burning hot in these enclosed spaces. Sometimes they climbed up into the wind, over loose red pebbles that bruised their feet; after these painful ascents they would lie in the wind till their wet clothes grew cold against their bodies; from these low eminences they could see other hill tops and the belts of bush through which they had traveled, and the file of porters trailing behind them. As each man and woman arrived he sank on to the dry grass and rested against his load; when the last of them came up with the party Dr. Messinger would give the word and they would start off again, descending into the green heart of the forest before them.

  Tony and Dr. Messinger seldom spoke to one another, either when they were marching or at the halts, for they were constantly strained and exhausted. In the evenings after they had washed and changed into dry shirts and flannel trousers, they talked a little, mostly about the number of miles they had done that day, their probable position and the state of their feet. They drank rum and water after their bath; for supper there was usually bully beef stewed with rice and flour dumplings. The Indians ate farina, smoked hog and occasional delicacies picked up by the way—armadillo, iguana, fat white grubs from the palm trees. The women had some dried fish with them that lasted for eight days; the smell grew stronger every day until the stuff was all eaten; then it still hung about them and the stores, but grew fainter until it merged into the general, indefinable smell of the camp.

  There were no Indians living in this country. In the last five days of the march they suffered from lack of water. The streams they came to were mostly dry; they had to reconnoiter up and down their beds in search of tepid, stagnant puddles. But after two weeks they came to a river once more, flowing deep and swift to the South East. This was the border of the Pie-wie country and Dr. Messinger marked the place where they stopped, “Second Base Camp.” The cabouri fly infested this stream in clouds.

  *

  “John, I think it’s time you had a holiday.”

  “A holiday what from, mumsy?”

  “A change… I’m going to California in July. To the Fischbaums—Mrs. Arnold Fischbaum, not the one who lives in Paris. I think it would do you good to come with me.”

  “Yes, mumsy.”

  “You would like it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Me? Yes, I’d like it.”

  “You’ve picked up that way of talking from Brenda. It sounds ridiculous in a man.”

  “Sorry, mumsy.”

  “All right then, that’s settled.”

  *

  At sunset the cabouri fly disappeared. Until then, through the day, it was necessary to keep covered; they settled on any exposed flesh like house flies upon jam; it was only when they were gorged that their bite was perceptible; they left behind a crimson, smarting circle with a black dot at its center. Tony and Dr. Messinger wore cotton gloves which they had brought for the purpose, and muslin veils, hanging down under their hats. Later they employed two women to squat beside their hammocks and fan them with leafy boughs; the slightest breeze was enough to disperse the flies, but as soon as Tony and Dr. Messinger dozed the women would lay aside their work, and they woke instantly, stung in a hundred places. The Indians bore the insects as cows bear horse-flies; passively with occasional fretful outbursts when they would slap their shoulders and thighs.

  After dark there was some relief, for there were few mosquitoes at this camp, but they could hear the vampire bats all night long nuzzling and flapping against their netting.

  The Indians would not go hunting in this forest. They said there was no game, but Dr. Messinger said it was because they were afraid of the evil spirits of the Pie-wie people. Provisions were not lasting as well as Dr. Messinger had calculated. During the march it had been difficult to keep a proper guard over the stores. They were short of a bag of farina, half a bag of sugar and a bag of rice. Dr. Messinger instituted careful rationing; he served them himself, measuring everything strictly in an enamel cup; even so the women managed to get to the sugar behind his back. He and Tony had finished the rum, except for one bottle which was kept in case of emergency.

  “We can’t go on breaking into tinned stores,” said Dr. Messinger peevishly. “The men must go out and shoot something.”

  But they received the orders with expressionless, downcast faces and remained in camp.

  “No birds, no animals here,” explained Rosa. “All gone. May be they get some fish.”

  But the Indians could not be persuaded to exert themselves. They could see the sacks and bales of food heaped on the bank; it would be plenty of time to start hunting and fishing when that had been exhausted.

  Meanwhile there were canoes to be built.

  “This is clearly Amazon water,” said Dr. Messinger. “It probably flows into the Rio Branco or the Rio Negro. The Pie-wies live along the bank, and the City, from all accounts, must be downstream of us, up one of the tributaries. When we reach the first Pie-wie village we will be able to get guides.”

  The canoes were made of woodskin. Three days were spent in finding trees of suitable age and straightness and in felling them. They cut four trees and worked on them where they lay, clearing the bush for a few feet round them. They stripped the bark with their broad-bladed knives; that took another week. They worked patiently but clumsily; one woodskin was split in getting it off the trunk. There was nothing Tony and Dr. Messinger could do to help. They spent that week guarding the sugar from the women. As the men moved about the camp and the surrounding bush, their steps were soundless; their bare feet seemed never to disturb the fallen leaves, their bare shoulders made no rustle in the tangled undergrowth; their speech was brief and scarcely audible, they never joined in the chatter and laughter of their women; sometimes they gave little grunts as they worked; only once they were merry, when one of them let his knife slip as he was working on the tree trunk and cut deeply into the ball of his thumb. Dr. Messinger dressed the wound with iodine, lint and bandages. After that the women constantly solicited him, showing him little scratches on their arms and legs and asking for iodine.

  Two of the trees were finished on one day, then another next day (that was the one which split) and the fourth two days after that; it was a larger tree than the others. When the last fiber was severed four men got round the trunk and lifted the skin clear. It curled up again at once making a hollow cylinder, which the men carried down to the waterside and set afloat, fastening it to a tree with a loop of vine rope.

  When all the woodskins were ready it was an easy matter to make canoes of them. Four men held them open while two others fixed the struts. The ends were left open, and curled up slightly so as to lift them clear (when the craft was fully laden it drew only an inch or two of water). Then the men set about fashioning some single-bladed paddles; that, too, was an easy matter.

  *

  Every day Dr. Messinger asked Rosa, “When will the boats be ready? Ask the men,” and she replied, “Just now.”

  “How many days—four?—five?—how many?”

  “No, not many. Boats finish just now.”

  At last when it was clear that the work was nearly complete, Dr. Messinger busied himself with arrangements. He sorted out the stores, dividing the necessary freight into two groups; he and Tony were to sit in separate boats and each had with him a rifl
e and ammunition, a camera, tinned rations, trade goods and his own luggage. The third canoe which would be manned solely by Indians was to hold the flour and rice, sugar and farina, and the rations for the men. The canoes would not hold all the stores and an “emergency dump” was made a little way up the bank.

  “We shall take eight men with us. Four can stay behind with the women to guard the camp. Once we are among the Pie-wies everything will be easy. These Macushis can go home then. I don’t think they will rob the stores. There is nothing here that would be much use to them.”

  “Hadn’t we better keep Rosa with us to act as interpreter with the Macushis?”

  “Yes, perhaps we had. I will tell her.”

  That evening everything was finished except the paddles. In the first exhilarating hour of darkness, when Tony and Dr. Messinger were able to discard the gloves and veils that had been irking them all day, they called Rosa across to the part of the camp where they ate and slept.

  “Rosa, we have decided to take you down the river with us. We need you to help us talk to the men. Understand?”

  Rosa said nothing; her face was perfectly blank, lit from below by the storm lantern that stood on a box between them; the shadow of her high cheek bones hid her eyes; lank, ragged hair, a tenuous straggle of tattooing along forehead and lip, rotund body in its filthy cotton gown, bandy brown legs.

  “Understand?”

  But still she said nothing; she seemed to be looking over their heads into the dark forest, but her eyes were lost in shadow.

  “Listen, Rosa, all women and four men stay here in camp. Eight men come in boats to Pie-wie village. You come with boats. When we reach Pie-wie village, you and eight men and boats go back to camp to other women and men. Then back to Macushi country. Understand?”

  At last Rosa spoke. “Macushi peoples no go with Pie-wie peoples.”

  “I am not asking you to go with Pie-wie people. You and the men take us as far as Pie-wies, then you go back to Macushi people. Understand?”

  Rosa raised her arm in an embracing circle which covered the camp and the road they had traveled and the broad savannahs behind them. “Macushi peoples there,” she said. Then she raised the other arm and waved it downstream towards the hidden country. “Pie-wie peoples there,” she said. “Macushi peoples no go with Pie-wie peoples.”

  “Now listen, Rosa. You are sensible, civilized woman. You lived two years with black gentleman, Mr. Forbes. You like cigarettes—”

  “Yes, give me cigarettes.”

  “You come with men in boats, I give you plenty, plenty cigarettes.”

  Rosa looked stolidly ahead of her and said nothing.

  “Listen. You will have your man and seven others to protect you. How can we talk with men without you?”

  “Men no go,” said Rosa.

  “Of course the men will go. The only question is, will you come too?”

  “Macushi peoples no go with Pie-wie peoples,” said Rosa.

  “Oh God,” said Dr. Messinger wearily. “All right, we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  “You give me cigarette…”

  “It’s going to be awkward if that woman doesn’t come.”

  “It’s going to be much more awkward if none of them come,” said Tony.

  *

  Next day the boats were ready. By noon they were launched and tied in to the bank. The Indians went silently about the business of preparing their dinner. Tony and Dr. Messinger ate tongue, boiled rice and some tinned peaches.

  “We’re all right for stores,” said Dr. Messinger. “There’s enough for three weeks at the shortest and we are bound to come across the Pie-wies in a day or two. We will start tomorrow.”

  The Indians’ wages, in rifles, fish hooks and rolls of cotton, had been left behind for them at their village. There were still half a dozen boxes of “trade” for use during the later stages of the journey. A leg of bush-pig was worth a handful of shot or twenty gun caps in that currency; a fat game bird cost a necklace.

  When dinner was over, at about one o’clock, Dr. Messinger called Rosa over to them. “We start tomorrow,” he said.

  “Yes, just now.”

  “Tell the men what I told you last night. Eight men to come in boats, others wait here. You come in boats. All these stores stay here. All these stores go in boats. You tell men that.”

  Rosa said nothing.

  “Understand?”

  “No peoples go in boats,” she said. “All peoples go this way,” and she extended her arm towards the trail that they had lately followed. “Tomorrow or next day all people go back to village.”

  There was a long pause; at last Dr. Messinger said, “You tell the men to come here… It’s no use threatening them,” he remarked to Tony when Rosa had waddled back to the fireside. “They are a queer, timid lot. If you threaten them they take fright and disappear leaving you stranded. Don’t worry, I shall be able to persuade them.”

  They could see Rosa talking at the fireside but none of the group moved. Presently, having delivered her message, she was silent and squatted down among them with the head of one of the women between her knees. She had been searching it for lice when Dr. Messinger’s summons had interrupted her.

  “We’d better go across and talk to them.”

  Some of the Indians were in hammocks. The others were squatting on their heels; they had scraped earth over the fire and extinguished it. They gazed at Tony and Dr. Messinger with slit, pig eyes. Only Rosa seemed incurious; her head was averted; all her attention went to her busy fingers as she picked and crunched the lice from her friend’s hair.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Dr. Messinger, “I told you to bring the men here.”

  Rosa said nothing.

  “So Macushi people are cowards. They are afraid of Pie-wie people.”

  “It is the cassava field,” said Rosa. “We must go back to dig the cassava. Otherwise it will be bad.”

  “Listen. I want the men for one, two weeks. No more. After that, all finish. They can go home.”

  “It is the time to dig the cassava. Macushi people dig cassava before the big rains. All people go home just now.”

  “It’s pure blackmail,” said Dr. Messinger. “Let’s get out some trade goods.”

  He and Tony together prized open one of the cases and began to spread out the contents on a blanket. They had chosen these things together at a cheap store in Oxford Street. The Indians watched the display in unbroken silence. There were bottles of scent and pills, bright celluloid combs set with glass jewels, mirrors, pocket knives with embossed aluminum handles, ribbons and necklaces and barter of more solid worth in the form of ax heads, brass cartridge cases and flat, red flasks of gunpowder.

  “You give me this,” said Rosa picking out a pale blue rosette, that had been made as a boat race favor. “Give me this,” she repeated, rubbing some drops of scent into the palm of her hands and inhaling deeply.

  “Each man can choose three things from this box if he comes in the boats.”

  But Rosa replied monotonously, “Macushi peoples dig cassava field just now.”

  “It’s no good,” said Dr. Messinger after half an hour’s fruitless negotiation. “We shall have to try with the mice. I wanted to keep them till we reached the Pie-wies. It’s a pity. But they’ll fall for the mice, you see. I know the Indian mind.”

  These mice were comparatively expensive articles; they had cost three and sixpence each, and Tony remembered vividly the embarrassment with which he had witnessed their demonstration on the floor of the toy department.

  They were of German manufacture; the size of large rats but conspicuously painted in spots of green and white; they had large glass eyes, stiff whiskers and green-and-white-ringed tails; they ran on hidden wheels, and inside them were little bells that jingled as they moved. Dr. Messinger took one out of their box, unwrapped the tissue paper and held it up to general scrutiny. There was no doubt that he had captured his audience’s interest. Then he wound it up. T
he Indians stirred apprehensively at the sound.

  The ground where they were camping was hard mud, inundated at flood time. Dr. Messinger put the toy down at his feet and set it going; tinkling merrily it ran towards the group of Indians. For a moment Tony was afraid that it would turn over, or become stuck against a root but the mechanism was unimpaired and by good chance there was a clear course. The effect exceeded anything that he had expected. There was a loud intake of breath, a series of horrified, small grunts, a high wail of terror from the women, and a sudden stampede; a faint patter of bare brown feet among the fallen leaves, bare limbs, quiet as bats, pushed through the undergrowth, ragged cotton gowns caught and tore in the thorn bushes. Before the toy had run down, before it had jingled its way to the place where the nearest Indian had been squatting, the camp was empty.

  “Well, I’m damned,” said Dr. Messinger, “that’s better than I expected.”

  “More than you expected anyway.”

  “Oh it’s all right. They’ll come back. I know them.”

  But by sundown there was still no sign. Throughout the hot afternoon Tony and Dr. Messinger, shrouded from cabouri fly, sprawled in their hammocks. The empty canoes lay in the river; the mechanical mouse had been put away. At sundown Dr. Messinger said, “We’d better make a fire. They’ll come back when it is dark.”

  They brushed the earth away from the old embers, brought new wood and made a fire; they lit the storm lantern.

  “We’d better get some supper,” said Tony.

  They boiled water and made some cocoa, opened a tin of salmon and finished the peaches that were left over from midday. They lit their pipes and drew the sheaths of mosquito netting across their hammocks. Most of this time they were silent. Presently they decided to go to sleep.

  “We shall find them all here in the morning,” said Dr. Messinger. “They’re an odd bunch.”

  All round them the voices of the bush whistled and croaked, changing with the hours as the night wore on to morning.

  *

  Dawn broke in London, clear and sweet, dove gray and honey, with promise of good weather; the lamps in the streets paled and disappeared; the empty streets ran with water, and the rising sun caught it as it bubbled round the hydrants; the men in overalls swung the nozzles of their hoses from side to side and the water jetted and cascaded in a sparkle of light.