CHAPTER XXII
Before this book is done I shall have to speak of Maguire; and it had better be here while there is nothing else to do. Borneo is on one side of us and Celebes on the other, and I don’t know which the Savoe will visit next, for both are at the same distance, and she appears to be heading for neither.
I had heard of Maguire in the most unlikely places. His name would slip into a conversation early and naturally, but, so far as I could see, without occasion. It might have been waiting about, in the air, in the shadows, ready to take any excuse for prolonging its mortality. “Once when I was with Maguire ...” It was always supposed that I must know him. There was never a prelude, no hint of a face or a figure. Everybody ought to know Maguire, I had to suppose, or else lose the richness of the stories about him. But I had never met Maguire, and nothing that I was told of him made me feel that in him something rare had eluded me. For nothing was ever said which made him plain. Yet this man had so impressed himself upon those who knew him that they could not pass a few odd days with a stranger in a coasting steamer or a government rest-house without thinking of him.
When two or three travelers somehow got round to Maguire again, by candle light after dinner in a rest-house, I then began to watch the shadows alter as the silent Malays troubled the darkness beyond us, or gaze into thatch, searching for the rustling lizards I could hear but could not make out. It was not much good listening to what was said about that man. I knew it would be no more than hints, with all the clews left out for me. They seemed to think it was unnecessary to say more.
What was curious was their note of respect. They were not respectful men. Respect out here for an absent wayfarer is certainly strange. The climate and customs of this coast and forest do little to put us in a good light. But even so, I could not glimpse Maguire as a reality. He was an amusing myth, if anything at all. Besides, nobody is expected to take quite seriously much that he is likely to hear in the ships and the coastal towns from Singapore to Zamboanga by way of Borneo. One hears many odd tales, but their chief virtue is that usually one has plenty of time for them. Maguire was like the stories one heard of adventures on unfrequented distant islands, of queer native customs, of accidents in grotesque circumstances which could have reached their perfection of monstrous form only after long usage and polishing in the cabins of many ships and in many random hostels. Perhaps once there had been a man named Maguire, and a few words about him were still being passed round because they could not be stopped, and because nobody really knew whether he was alive or dead, and did not care.
One day a chance companion I found in a village on the coast of Borneo, after mentioning the now familiar legend, said he was going to see Maguire that afternoon. Would I come? The Irishman was staying in the place.
Was that an invitation to add an aspect of veracity to an unsubstantial story? Of course! It was supposed that I would forget it—have something else to do that afternoon; for out East there is rarely a need to see in these invitations more than idle politeness, because conversation, too, in this moist heat, becomes slack and aimless, and therefore easily friendly. So I was greatly surprised, when comfortably reading, to see my friend stroll in and affect reproach that I was not dressed like himself, for an immediate visit to the substance of this familiar legend.
I had to go. There was a large native house built on stilts above the ground, with the usual groups of cocoanut and betel palms about it. We saw an elderly Malay, a lean and dignified figure—a datoh, or chief, I understood—who met us at the foot of a ladder which led up to the door of a great hut. Within the shadow of that door some figures watched us, which we knew were women by the brightness of their dress. Near the chief were several little children staring at us, all of them naked but one tiny girl, who wore a silver leaf pendent from a silver chain round her hips. My friend and the chief conversed apart.
I was told at last that Maguire was not there. “He has been here,” the datoh says, “but he has gone again, and nobody knows where.”
Nobody knew where! Of course not. I looked at the chief, who nodded seriously, and half turned and waved an arm toward the forest. I stared solemnly at an indigo range of hills set far back in the dark unexplored land beyond that clearing, and nodded as sagely as the datoh. The Malay smiled sardonically.
There came a long interval in which I heard no more about him. In fact, we had something else to think about at that time. It was near the beginning of the rainy season—much too near for me, for with yet another chance companion I was at last traversing the forests of the inland mountains. I was not happy about it, for the country was new to me; new to most white men, in fact, for where we were it was unsurveyed. And my companion, who was leading our little party, confessed to difficulties in a way which convinced me that if I did not take charge of an expedition which was no affair of mine, then it might finish up in a ludicrous and unfortunate way, and that it stood a good chance of finishing in such a way even if I did.
I believe the Malays with us divined what was in my mind. We were standing in perplexity and extreme discomfort in a jungle track which had been made by the beasts, listening there to my companion’s confession of despair through being at fault in his quest. The natives must have known what opinion I was forming, because when I looked up they were watching me closely and were paying no attention to the other white man. Some show of resolution and indifference in adversity—which I did not feel in the least—certainly had to be given this business of two Europeans. With a fine display of the use of compass and chart a point was fixed upon, and we took another route.
We camped for the night. There were sandflies, a mug of coffee, and nothing to eat. It would certainly rain. Our wet clothes were blotched with blood because of leech bites. I cursed that night the folly of my impulse to a new experience. I had found an adventure now, without doubt. “If we could only meet Maguire,” groaned my despairing companion. That was the only bit of fun of the day.
We continued our journey next morning through a forest and up a shrouded declivity, which was so gloomy and fantastic that I could not help glancing apprehensively into its silent and heated shadows. But we saw nothing, of course, except the tracks of animals. We plowed up to the knees through horrible bogs and then stopped to disconnect from our bodies the leeches which we had picked up in them. We paused for a rest by a clear stream in the woods, across which the trail we were to follow went up still more into the shades. Our men stood about, their packs on the ground, picking off the beastly worms from their brown limbs. The columns of great trees inclosed us in a wreckage of vines. The trunks mounted into a silent darkness. These tropical forests are not so friendly as English woods.
I was waiting for my companion to own up to a disposition to start again, and was gazing up the track we were to follow, when two terriers appeared. They were not native dogs. They were much too independent and truculent for that. They stopped when they saw us, cocked their ears, barked, and looked back to somebody. A slight but lively figure appeared, making long, energetic strides over the forest litter. Its face was hidden by the broad brim of a felt hat. It wore a neat khaki tunic, riding breeches, and puttees. It was a soldierly figure in that dress, with a rifle under its arm. “Why, there’s Maguire!” exclaimed my surprised companion to himself.
The figure stopped a few paces off and surveyed our most unbusiness-like outfit. It did not seem to notice me at all. But I knew at a glance who now would take over our little affair. This man, Maguire, was going to take charge of us,—that is to say, if he lived. The translucent pallor of his shrunken and hairless face was ghastly. The eyes were alive, however. They were restless, abrupt, and intent. Their instant bright regard seemed to penetrate. I was impressed, but a little repelled also, for somehow the pallor and the intensity of force suggested by this slender figure gave a hint of coldness and cruelty.
“Been sick?” he was asked.
“Fever, and nothing but durians to eat for a fortnight.”
While the two of them were talking, I undid one of the packs and got out a bottle of whisky.
“If you’ve lived on durians for a fortnight, what about a drop of this?”
Our new friend stared at the bottle, then smiled a slow and beautiful smile. “This saves my life,” he said.
Maguire decided for us. I did not hear what the decision was, and did not trouble to find out. I was far from sure that I should like the man, but I was quite sure that his was the only word worth having in that place. One only had to look at him. I should go where he led. He and his rifle started off with decision enough, quickening our pace, somehow giving more activity to the Malays and inspiring my despondent companion with an ardor from Heaven knows what source. I put away my chart. We forded unknown rivers continually, waded through swamps, climbed hills, and swung down through the jungle on the other side; and all at a pace and without a rest which would have caused some of us to complain bitterly a few hours before. Our leader never looked back and never stopped. He expected us to manage difficulties in his own way. If a man with fever, who had starved for a fortnight, could go like that on a mouthful of whisky, I wondered what he could do when he was at his best.
He shot a wild pig, and got us to a small hut at last, where, with the right kind of fire, which had been impossible in the dank forest, we had what must have been the most enjoyable dinner ever spread on a floor. That hut was on the slope of a clearing, in a narrow valley, and below us a river was turbulent over rocks with the first impulse of the rains. We sat on a log, he and I, looking across and yawning, and watching vast storm clouds gather about the sunset. A respect, at least, began to form for that strange man, perhaps because he gave a comfortable feeling of security where there had been none before. His speech was ironical, yet in such short, quick sentences that the unwary might have thought the man was a simpleton. For a very brief time I myself thought so, till I got from him a shaft which was no accident, but was aimed to hit me where I felt it. But Maguire did not smile, though I laughed aloud. He had my bearings before I had got his. Did he know London? He smiled.
“You can keep your great cities,” he said. He was whittling a stick, and held it away from him while he shut one eye to scrutinize its straightness. “One day in Singapore, when I have to go, is enough for me,” he remarked. “It’s better here.”
“Why, what’s the matter with the cities? I’ve been wishing lately I was back in one.”
“I guess you have been. You would. But I never do. This is all right for me. I know what things are here.”
“We know what they are in the cities, I suppose.”
Across the river, a mile away, as it fell dark a local storm thundered and flashed.
“Another sector catching it to-night,” said the man in the dark beside me.
“What’s the game?” I asked. “A local raid?”
Maguire chuckled. Then he said: “The Somme told me all I wanted to know of Europe—that and the Vimy Ridge and some odd corners. If you smart city people arrange a show like that again, don’t worry about me. I shall be fine here with the orang-utans.”
My now invisible partner said more, which would have been allusive except for the easy derision which his fun did not sufficiently moderate. I got the idea that I was included in his mockery. Then he began to chant softly a very indecorous song, a specialty of the Australian soldiers when they felt most hilarious on the march. I knew it and joined in. Maguire thereupon broke loose, and together we bawled the offensive words at the mute desolation of central Borneo, just as once they had been shouted in defiance of the nightmare in France.
For some time after that he took care of us, and what otherwise would have been a region where men like myself most likely would have died, he turned into an attractive and adventurous prospect. The Malays, wherever we met them, greeted our leader as though he were good fortune. Certainly we never found a difficulty—though sometimes I thought they were insuperable—which did not vanish as soon as Maguire went to it.
I lost count of the days, and often could not have guessed within a score of miles of our place on the map. That did not matter. It is something like a miracle that another human soul, without knowing what it is doing, should change the look of the world to us, turn a steaming forest full of unknown dangers into an exhilarating pleasure, and make even the loathsome leeches, hunger, and the thought of fever only the jokes of the place.
The rains, rather before they were due, began in almost continual seriousness. We had to plunge into and half swim some of the streams. The leeches increased by myriads. Darkness settled down on the hills, penetrated, like something palpable, into the everlasting woods, and remained there, a settled gloom. We were never dry. Maguire was working round to the hut by the river where we had spent the first night with him.
But something had gone wrong with that country. The hills had become morasses and the low ground was water. The jungle was flooded for miles. But Maguire was concerned about a Chinaman he had left in that hut, and he was going to reach it. To me it seemed impossible. We were thwarted at every approach. And it still rained, as though the solid earth were doomed and there would never be dry land any more. Maguire at first was comical at any new check, with eloquent outbursts against Chinamen and their entire uselessness and inconsequence. Let the beggar die. Then we would turn back as if he had abandoned his quest. Soon, though, we found he was only trying another device.
At length the man became silent and serious. We had no more of his fun; and for twenty hours he and I alone toiled through that inferno of water, mud, and trees, in a menacing silence and twilight of the earth. That fellow’s energy and his tireless and intense mind took me along, indifferent to anything that could happen now, as though his body and spirit were sufficient for two men, for any number of men.
Within an hour of night we came to a vantage above our hut, and that river, once so low and picturesque, was now a swollen power destroying the country. It had no confines. It was driving irresistibly through the jungle of the lower slopes, carrying acres of trees with it. Its deep roar shook the soul. A patch of land near us, which yet was unsubmerged, was alive with pigs and deer.
Our hut, though it had been high above the river, now had the water around its walls. A hundred yards of eddying but quieter river separated us from it. Beyond it again our canoe was tugging violently at its tether, which was attached to a tree. In a few minutes its nose would be pulled under. And the Chinaman was sitting on the roof of the hut. When he saw us he raised a melancholy howl.
Maguire undid his puttees, took off his boots, waded in, and off he went. It was lunacy, and I could not help him. I could not help myself, after almost a day in that forest. The swimmer passed the hut and reached the canoe. He got in, cut its mooring rattan, and presently had the Chinaman off the roof and beside me. The man sprawled at our feet, shivering and moaning. Maguire kicked him and loudly demanded to know why he had no food cooked. Had he been smoking opium all the time, to let the river rise like that? He could take his money and go. The Irishman pushed off again, called out that there was a rifle and map in the hut and he must get them. When he reached the miserable structure I saw that entrance to it was impossible; the water had almost reached the eaves of the thatch. But a figure in the last light of that day appeared on the ridge of the thatch and began hacking it desperately, casting the palm leaves into the stream; and presently it lowered itself through the hole it had made and disappeared within.
I watched for the silhouette of Maguire to reappear on the ridge of that precarious vantage in the waters. The Chinaman beside me continued to moan, and in frantic desperation I could have kicked him myself. It grew darker. The hut suddenly went oblique and continued slowly to decrease. Maguire’s head appeared above it like a black chimney pot. He began to chant aloud his ribald song. Then the flimsy structure flattened on the water, flattened and spread, with the Irishman in the midst of the vague rubbish, and hurried downstream, missed a headland of trees, tossed in the waves of a cataract, and all I could see of it went on and vanished at a place where some giant bamboos were stretching and rocking on the flood like slender rushes.