Multitude and Solitude

by John Masefield

IX

Where be these cannibals, these varlets?
The Shoemaker's Holiday.

The rain ceased before dawn. When the two friends felt strong enough to turn out, the sun was already burning. It was after half-past seven o'clock. The brooks which had washed past them and over them, only three or four hours before, were no longer running. Their tracks were marked on the hillside, in broad, shallow, muddy ruts, and in paths of plastered grass. The river had been over its banks not long before. It was swirling along now, brimful, as red as water from an ironworks. Roger remembered the water running by a road near Portobe, from some ironworks up the hill. It was just that savage colour. He felt a qualm of home-sickness. He turned to blink at the sun for the pleasure of the warmth upon his face.

The camp was a quag of mud. Red splashes plastered the boxes. The tent was half-buried in it. His clothes, and the covering tarpaulin, were smeared with it. He felt that it had been worked, not only into his skin, but into his nature. He had never before known what it is to be really dirty, nor what continued dirt may mean to the character. The site of the camp was trodden and spattered and beslimed, yet the brightness of morning made it hard for him to believe that such a storm had passed over him only a little while before. He noticed the trees which had been blasted by the lightning. It had not all been nightmare.

Up the hill, beyond three small circling walls, no taller than the wall beside him, rose up the great central walls. They stood out clearly in the strong light. They were good, well-built walls, with crenellated courses near the top, in the right artistic place, in the inevitable place. The crenellations shewed Roger that he was not widely removed from the builders, in spirit. They talked the universal language of art. But they were more than talkers, these old men. Their work was splendid. It had style. It had the impress of will upon it. The idea had been thought out to its simplest terms. The walls were solid with that simple strength which the efficient nations of antiquity, not yet corrupted by sentiment, affected, in public building. Though they were not like Roman work, they reminded Roger of walls at Richborough and Caerwent. There was something of the same pagan spirit in them, something strong, and fine, and uncanny. Even with the flowering shrubs and grass clumps on them, these walls were uncanny. He shivered a little. The lonely hill had once been a city, where strong, fine, uncanny brains had lived.

Lionel crawled out. "Where's Merrylegs?" he asked. "Why haven't they brought our tea?"

Roger started. Where were the bearers? He had not seen them since he had noticed them go to cover before the bursting of the storm. They had gone. They had not come back. They had not even lighted a fire. "I don't know where they are," he said. "Where can they be?"

"Haven't you seen them?" said Lionel.

"No," he answered. "They're not here. Merrylegs!" he shouted. "Merrylegs!" No answer came.

Lionel's face changed slightly. He jumped on to the low wall, and looked downhill towards the village. The view over that waste of pale grass, through which the river ran, was very splendid; but Lionel was not looking for landscape. "Give me the glasses," he said. He stared through them for several minutes, sweeping the plain. "Run up into the ruins, Roger," said Lionel. "They may be there."

"Wait one minute," said Roger. "There is smoke in the village. That is too big a fire for the people whom I saw there to have made."

"Wet wood," said Lionel promptly. "Come on. We must get these boys into order."

They hurried up the hill, calling for Merrylegs. After a couple of minutes Roger stopped. "Lionel," he said. "During the storm, or just before it, I saw them go to shelter under the lee of the wall there. Their tracks will be in the mud. We could follow them up in that way."

"Yes," said Lionel. "They're not up here, anyhow."

After some little search, they found where the bearers had sheltered before the storm threatened. A vulture shewed them the exact place. Two other vultures were there already. The storm had killed one of the men.

"It's Eukwo, the lazy one," said Lionel. "I noticed last night that there was something the matter with him. Perhaps you saw how the others fought shy of him. These fellows are like animals, aren't they, in the way they leave their sick?" He looked at the body. "Dysentery and the cold, I suppose," he said. "With Kilemba dead last night, the village full of dead down below us, the storm, then this fellow dying, it has been too much for them. I'm afraid, Roger, that the men have deserted us."

"Gone?" said Roger blankly. It had not occurred to him before as a possibility.

"I'm afraid," said Lionel, moving away. "Here is where they sheltered for the storm. There are their tracks leading downhill. You see? Here. See? Still half full of water. They cleared out in the night during the showers. They've got three or four hours' start of us."

"Well," said Roger. "Come on. We'd better eat as we go. Otherwise we may never catch them up."

"They'll have gone in the boat," said Lionel. "With this flood they'll be a day's march downstream. There's no trace of the boat in the lagoon there."

"She may have been swept away," said Roger, after a glance through the glasses. "The stores are there still." By this time they were hurrying downhill towards the village. Both were thinking how fiercely they would thrash Merrylegs and how little chance there was of finding any Merrylegs to thrash. Anger burned up in hot bursts, and the cold water of despair put it out again. Roger felt it more keenly than Lionel. He was less used to the shocks of travel. He wondered, as he hurried, what stores had been left in the boat, and what had been piled on the bank to be carried up next day. He had been ill; he had never noticed. The men had done as they pleased. He reproached himself so bitterly that he hardly dared look at his friend. He wondered whether the men had taken anything of supreme importance. He feared the worst. If they had taken anything important he would be to blame. It was his fault. He ought to have guarded against this. He ought to have taken the paddles. He ought to have ordered the men to bring everything up to camp, where it would have been under his own eyes. Lionel looked at him quizzically.

"Don't cross the river till you reach the water," he said. "We may catch them. They may not have gone."

On their way they looked through the village. The bearers were not there. Lionel tried to make the villagers understand him by signs; but they were too strongly infected to understand a difficult thing. He had to give them up. He bade Roger fill his pockets with some bruised corn which they found in one of the pots of an empty hut. They munched this as they went. Their next task was to run out the trail.

By the village drinking-place the river had overflowed the bank. It had torn up a couple of trees, which now lay branches downward in the water, arresting wreckage. It had surged strongly against the boxes, driving them from their place, but not destroying them. It had heaped them with drift, and coloured them a yellowish red. The footmarks of the bearers were thickly printed in the mud there. They must have arrived there in the early morning, when the waters were beginning to fall.

"They've been busy," said Roger. All the boxes had been broken open. Their contents were tumbled in the mud in all directions.

"Look here," said Lionel. "What do you make of these marks?" In one place the mud had been planed smooth in a long plastering smear, ending in a notch or narrow groove.

"That was made by the boat," said Roger.

"Yes," said Lionel. "That was the boat. You can see the puncture in the mud there. That was made by the projecting screw in the false nose. You remember the screw we put in at Malakoto? They shoved off here."

"Yes. No doubt. That is the screw. So they've sampled the goods and gone."

"That is so. They've robbed us and run away."

"And we are stranded in the heart of the wilderness?"

"We are alone, three hundred miles from any white man."

"Yes. Then we are alone," said Roger. "We are alone here." The words thrilled him. They were meaning words.

"We can't go after them," said Lionel. "They've got too big a start."

"We've got no boat to go in."

"I wish," said Lionel, "I wish these riverine negroes used canoes."

"They don't."

"No," said Lionel. "They don't. Well. It's no good moping."

"We could follow downstream," said Roger, "and perhaps catch them at Malakoto."

Lionel shook his head. "There are the swamps," he said. "And we've both got fever on us. I doubt if we could get through. We might."

"We shall have to try it in the end, if we are to get away at all."

"I was thinking that," said Lionel. "But when we try it, it will be the end of the dry season, when the swamps will be passable. The swamps now are as bad as they can be. Honestly, Roger, I don't think we could make Malakoto, carrying our own stores. It's ten days; and those others wouldn't stay at Malakoto, remember. They'd make for Kisa. No. Best give in. They've won the trick."

"And we're to lose all these stores; about a hundred pounds' worth of stores?"

"That's the minimum, I'm afraid."

"It's a bad beginning," said Roger. He walked to and fro, fretting. "Doesn't it make your blood boil?" he continued. "Look at the way the brutes have tossed the things about. I'd give a good deal to have a few of them here."

Lionel sat down on a box and stared meditatively at the wreck. "Roger," he said at length. "Have you any idea what stores were brought up the hill last night?"

"Mostly the bow-stores, I suppose; provisions, bedding, and camp gear."

"That's what I was afraid," said Lionel.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Come on. Let's face it," said Lionel, springing from his perch. "We must get these things out of the mud. We must see how we stand."

"You mean we may be— What do you mean?"

"We must see what stores are left to us."

They set to work together to pick up the wreck. They began with cartridges, which had been scattered broadcast in wantonness. Many were spoiled; many missing. Marks on the grass shewed that others had been carefully emptied, so that the thieves might have the brass shells enclosing the charges. Still, a good many were to be found. The two men recovered about fifty rounds of Winchester, and eighty rounds of revolver ammunition. With what they wore in their belts this amount was reassuring.

"Look here," said Roger. "Here's a box of slides. They're all smashed."

"Was the microscope not brought up?"

"I don't know," said Roger. "It was in a box with a blue stencil."

"I know," said Lionel. "I've been looking out for it. I thought it wasn't here. Look. Over there. There's part of a lid with a blue stencil. Is that the lid for the microscope?"

"No, that's a drugs lid."

"They can't have taken it with them. Surely they wouldn't take a microscope."

"It might be up in the camp all this time."

"Yes. True. Wait. We'll get these things out of the mud, and then we'll go up the hill, and make a list of what is missing. Here's our stationery ruined. All our nice clean temperature charts that I set such store by. I told you life was wasteful out here. All your pressed plants are done for."

"Here are clothes, of sorts. Jaeger underwear."

"Fish them out. We'll wash them afterwards."

They quartered the expanse of red slime. It was a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground, littered with European goods. They worked quickly, racing the sun. From time to time there came hails of "The tool-chest's gone. Here's the lid." "Your small stores won't be much good, the soap's melted or something." "Look at what these brutes have done to the sugar."

Presently Lionel hailed.

"I say. I say. Have you come across any drugs?"

"No. Only the lid of a drugs box."

"Well. It's getting serious. There's no other box here. We must go on back to camp and find out if they are there."

"We shall be done, without drugs," said Roger.

"Don't talk about it, my dear man," said Lionel. "Don't talk about it."

"It would be worth while making a raft," said Roger. "There are a couple of axes in camp. If we worked hard all morning, we could get a sort of a raft built. We could use the tent-ropes for lashings. Then we could easily rig up a sail. We should catch them up by dusk, perhaps."

"There are points about the raft theory," said Lionel, as they set out for camp. "But there are so many creeks and gullies where they could hide, and then there are the crocks."

"We could build a sort of bulwark of boxes."

"We'll find out about the drugs first. No. If we go working hard in the sun we shall get fever again." He wrinkled his brows. He was anxious. "I hope those drugs are all right," he said. "I don't mind the guns; but our drugs are portable life."

Roger glanced uneasily at Lionel. He had got to know him pretty well during the last few months. He had come to know that though he was sometimes irritable, he was very seldom given to despondent speech. Now he was talking anxiously, from the selfish standpoint of "I." Roger thought of the precious bottles of atoxyl, worth a good deal more than a guinea an ounce. Lionel's remark was true. They were portable life. And if the atoxyl were gone, their mission was at an end. No. It was worse than that. If the atoxyl were gone, Lionel was in danger. For suppose the trypanosomes recurred in him, as they might, in this hot climate? Suppose Lionel developed sleeping sickness and died, as the people in the village were dying, before they could win to civilisation? He did not find any answer to the problem. Hoping to distract Lionel, he began gallantly to talk of the Phoenicians, about whom he was sufficiently ignorant to escape attention.

In the camp things were as they had been, except that they were drier. They turned over the boxes, looking eagerly for blue stencil.

"Here's the microscope," said Roger. "Or I think it is." He prized the case open with the jemmy on the end of the peg-maul. "Yes. The microscope's all right. Some of our test-tube things are smashed. Some of the media. There are plenty of those, though, down in the mud. That's one thing to the good. What's in the case there?"

"Anti-scorbutics here."

"And in the long box?"

"Grub of different kinds."

"Here you are, then. Here's a drugs case."

"Saved!"

"Shall I open it?"

"Yes, open it. We did a very foolish thing, Roger. We ought to have packed each box as a miniature equipment, so as to minimise the importance of any losses. It's in my mind that all our atoxyl is in one case."

"No," said Roger. "It was in three cases. One of them, I know, was in the boat. I was sitting on it most of yesterday."

"Well. Open that one, and let's see where we stand."

The well-fixed screws were drawn. The box lay open to the sun, exuding a faint, cleanly smell of camphor.

Lionel looked over the drug pots, muttering the names: "Mercury bi-chlor, sodium carb, sodium chlor, sodium cit, corrosive sublimate, quinine, quinine, quinine, potassium bromide—we shan't want much of that—absolute alcohol, carbolic, first-aid dressings, chlorodyne, morphia, camphorated chalk for the teeth, what's this?—digitalis. What the devil did they send that for? There's no atoxyl here."

"Nor that other stuff, the dye, trypanroth?"

"No. We didn't order any. It wasn't altogether a success with me, and it wasn't being so well spoken of."

"That's unfortunate. But wait a minute. I see another drug case. Over there, against the wall. Isn't that a drug case?"

"It is. Chuck the jemmy over." He did not wait to draw the screws. He prized the lid off with two quick wrenches of the jemmy. He looked inside.

"A quaker," he said grimly, after one look. "It's a quaker case."

"What's a quaker?"

"This case here is what we call a quaker. Why? Because it makes one quake. Look at these bottles. They're full of paper and sawdust. Look at this one. Old rags. Here's a 2-lb. atoxyl bottle, for which we paid twenty-eight pounds, not to speak of the duty. It's full of dust like the rest."

"But, good Lord, Lionel! Where could it have been done? Who could have done it? We got these direct from the very best London house."

"There were rats on the way," said Lionel. "You remember we stopped off a day at that place Kwasi Bembo, where we hired Merrylegs? Well. This was probably done at Kwasi Bembo by one of those foreign storekeepers. An easy way of making money for them."

"I don't see how he did it."

"Oh, he could have done it easily enough, while we were having our siestas. It doesn't matter much, though, where it was done, does it?"

"Don't despair yet," said Roger. "There must be another box somewhere. Here. Open this one. The stencil is ground off. What's inside this one?"

"It looks promising," said Lionel. "It's screwed; it isn't nailed. Off, now." He thrust the lid away with a violent heave. Roger peered in anxiously.

"Nothing but stones in this one," said Lionel. "Not even our bottles left. We'd better open all our cases, and find out what else has been taken. I suppose that's our last box of chemicals?"

"It's the last here."

"Never mind," said Roger. "We won't despair. Let's see what is left to us." They examined the other cases. They made out an inventory of their possessions. They learned that they were left in the heart of Africa with provisions for three months, forty pounds' weight of anti-scorbutics, a quantity of clothing, a moderate supply of ammunition, two rifles, two revolvers, a shotgun, many disinfectants, an assortment of choice drugs, some medical instruments, and a microscope. Of medical comforts they had sparklets, tobacco, soap, matches, and two bottles of brandy. Of quaker cases they found, in all, five, all of them purporting to be either chemicals or cartridges. Of utensils they had a tin basin, plates, and pannikins. For shelter they had a tent with a broken pole.

"Lionel," said Roger, when they had checked their list. "Look here. We've been up here a good hour and a half. The water will have fallen a foot or more. By the time we have cooked and eaten breakfast it will have fallen another foot. It is quite possible that by that time there will be some more goods, perhaps, even, some more cases, left high and dry on the bank. We won't worry about our loss till we know it. If we breakfast now we shall be strong enough to bear whatever may be coming to us. Let's get a fire started. We'll brew some tea and sacrifice a tin of soup. Let's be extravagant and enjoy ourselves."

They were sufficiently extravagant over breakfast, but they got little enjoyment out of it. They had rankling anger in them, against their enemies, known and unknown. When their anger gave them leave, they felt, low down, a chilling, sinking fear that their plans for the saving of life would come to nothing, that, in short, their expedition was a failure.

"Lionel," said Roger. "Do you think that the fraud of the atoxyl was done in London? Surely Morris and Henslow wouldn't do a thing like that?"

"Who knows what they won't do?" said Lionel gloomily. "I know that some contractor or other always supplies shoddy of some kind to an expedition to one of the Poles. Why not to us? There is always the chance that the expedition won't return. And even if it does return, the fraud is quite likely not to become known to the public. And even if the case comes on in a law court, who can prove it? There are too many loopholes. It is almost impossible to bring the guilt really home. The contractor practically never gets found out. As for a contractor being punished, I don't suppose it has ever happened. It makes one believe in hell."

"It's not the crime itself," said Roger. "Not knowing the criminal, I cannot judge the crime; but it's the state of mind which sickens me. The state of mind which could prompt such a thing."

"It's a common enough state of mind," said Lionel. "In business it's common enough. Business men, even of good standing, will do queer things when the shoe begins to pinch. You may say what you like about war. Business is the real curse of a nation. Business, and the business brain, and, oh, my God, the business man! Swine. Fatted, vulpine swine."

"Well," said Roger. "It is very important not to take these things into the mind, even to condemn them."

"And I say it is nothing of the sort," said Lionel. "I believe in strangling ideas as I believe in strangling people. You writers, when you are really good at your job, don't condemn half enough."

"Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner."

"Intellectually, not morally. Come on. We are not going to argue. We are going to work. We've got to bury that bearer. Where's the spade?"

They dug a grave for Kukwo, and buried him, and heaped a cairn of stones from the wall on top of him. It was burning midday when they had finished. They had leisure then to think again of the loss of their atoxyl.

"We may not have any at all?" said Roger. Lionel produced a small screw-top bottle from his pocket. It had once contained tabloids of anti-pyrin. It was now about half full of a white powder.

"I've a few doses here," he said. He looked at it carefully. "With luck," he said, "we could cure two or three cases with this."

"But suppose you have a relapse yourself, Lionel? You must keep some, in case you should relapse."

"I shan't relapse," he said carelessly. "Relapses aren't common."

"But you might. And you are more important than a village-full of negroes. More important than all the blacks put together and multiplied by ten."

"I don't see it. Look here. I tell you one thing which is pretty plain to me. We've got to set to work to find an anti-toxin. First, though, we'll go down and grope in the mud for anything which may be left. I don't give up hope of finding some atoxyl even now."

They told each other as they went that they didn't expect to find anything. Really their hearts beat high with expectation. They were sure of finding what they sought.

They went down to the mud so sure that their disappointment almost unmanned them. For they were disappointed. An hour of broiling work only added two cartridges to their store. Out in the river, caught in a snag with other drift, they saw a floating packing-case, marked with a blue stencil. By the manner of its floating they judged it to be empty, or nearly empty. It had probably floated off shortly after being opened. It had been caught in a snag. It had then ducked and sidled to get away. Lastly, it had turned upside down and emptied its contents into the river. So they judged the tragedy, viewing the victim through their glasses, from a distance of a hundred yards.

"That settles it, I think," said Lionel. A projecting snout rose at the box, tilting it over. It fell back, lipping under, so that it filled. In another instant it was gone from sight. The glasses showed a slight swirl in the water. The swirl passed at once, under the drive of the spate. Their last hope of atoxyl was at an end.

"Well," said Roger hopelessly. "It's as well to know the worst. The box was empty, don't you think?"

"I don't know," said Lionel. "I couldn't be sure."

"We might find some things in the water when the river sinks a little further," said Roger, without much conviction. "It'll be drying up very soon now. Then we shall find whatever is in it."

Lionel sat down despondently, resting his chin on one hand. He was letting his disappointment work itself off silently. His heart had been set so long on this first great medical field-day that he could not look Roger in the face. The loss of the atoxyl was less hard to bear than the loss of all the interesting cases over which he would have been bending at that minute had this ghastly thing not happened. And, being an old campaigner, and therefore forethoughtful, it was bitter to him to find himself thwarted unexpectedly by a trick so simple. He had thought that he had guarded against all the known dodges. He had been on his guard all through. In London he had sampled the food, the clothes, the cartridges, rejecting everything which seemed even faulty. He had been surprised at his own strictness. All the way up from the coast he had watched his stores so jealously that he had thought himself safe. He had been vain of his success. He had never lost so little in any previous expedition. Now an attack of fever, a storm, and a bearer's sudden death had let him in for this. He was not forgetting the chemist's share. He cursed himself for having trusted the chemist. Then he decided that it was not the chemist. The fraud had been committed in Africa. He had not been careful enough. He himself was to blame. "Guns and grub I could understand," he cried. "But for them to take drugs! Who would have thought of their taking drugs? Why didn't I see that Africa is getting civilised? Roger, I want to kill somebody."

"It's my turn to lecture now," said Roger. "We'll carry these things up to camp. I've an idea about camp."

"What is your idea?"

"To build a house out of the loose stones of the wall. We could use the wall itself for one wall, build up three others and roof it with the tent. It would be better than having another night like last night."

"It might be done," said Lionel, mechanically filling his pockets with cartridges. "But I don't know what good we're going to do here if we haven't any atoxyl. I wish I knew who it was. If ever I touch at Kwasi Bembo again, I'll have that atoxyl out of his liver."

They passed a broiling afternoon carrying their gear to camp. They became irritable at about four o'clock. After that time they worked apart, avoiding each other. At six Roger made tea, over which they made friends. At seven they set about the building of their house. They laboured by moonlight far into the night, laying the mortarless stones together. When they knocked off for bed it was nearly midnight, and the house was far from perfect. They could not do more to it. They were too tired. After flogging their blankets against the walls to get rid of mud and "bichos," they turned in, bone-weary, and slept the stupid sleep of sailors for nearly eleven hours.

They finished their house in the afternoon. It was not a very good house, but they judged that it would be safer and drier than their tent had proved. After they had finished it, they felt it to be structurally weak. They went at it again. They strengthened the roof with saplings, and laid great stones upon the edges of the canvas cover, so that it should not blow from its place. With great cunning Roger arranged an outer roof of a rough thatch which he himself made from the osiers used by the natives. He thought that a double roof would be cooler. He explained to Lionel an ambitious scheme for a thatched verandah; but this had to be abandoned from want of encouragement. Inside, the house was about twelve feet square. When the two beds, the table, the chairs, and the boxes were all within doors, it seemed very cramped and poky. They were in some doubt about a name for it. Lionel was for "Phoenician Villa," Roger for "The Laurels" or "Oak Drive." Finally they decided on "Portobe," which they smeared over the door in blacking. They had not thought much of Portobe on their way up country. Portobe. Roger going out that night, after supper, to wash the plates in a bucket, sat by the fire for many minutes, "thinking long" about Portobe. Something made him turn his head, and look out into the night north-north-westward,

for there dwelt love, and all love's loving parts,
And all the friends.

It was a dim expanse, mothlike and silver in the moonlight, reaching on in forest and river to the desert. To reach Portobe he would have to go beyond the desert, over the sea, over Spain, over France. He paused. He was not sure whether France would be in the direct line. If it were not, then there would only be the sea to cross, past Land's End, past Carnsore, past Braichy, past all the headlands. Then on to the Waters of Moyle, which never cease to call to the heart who hears them. He remembered the poem of the calling of the Waters of Moyle. He knew it by heart. It was a true poem. The vastness and silence of the night were over him. The great stars burned out above. They seemed to wheel and deploy above him, rank upon rank, helm on gleaming helm, an army, a power. There were no birds, no noise of beasts, no lights. Only the earth, strange in the moon; the great continent, measureless in her excess. She was all savage, all untamed, a black and cruel continent, a lustful old queen, smeared with bloody oils. She frightened him. He thought of one night at Portobe three years before, when he had come out "to look at the night" with Ottalie. He could still see some of the stars seen then. He could still, in the sharpened fancy of the home-sick, smell the spray of honeysuckle which had gone trailing and trailing, drenching wet, across the little-used iron gate which led to the beach. He longed to be going up the beach, up the loaning overhung with old willows, as he had gone that night with Ottalie. He longed to be going through the little town, past the fruitman's, past the butcher's, past the R.I.C. barracks, to the little churchyard by the stream. Ottalie lay there. Here he was in Africa, trying to do something for Ottalie's sake. He drew in his breath sharply. It was all useless. It was not going to be done. The atoxyl was lost. They might just as well have stayed in England. He sighed. To do something very difficult, which would tax all his powers, that was his task. When that was done he would feel that he had won his bride. A strange, choking voice came from the house.

"Roger! Roger! Come in. Where are you?" Lionel had been asleep in his chair.

"What is it? What is it?" said Roger.

"Nothing. Nothing," said Lionel. "I dreamed I was fast by the leg. You don't know how beastly it was."