Civilization: Tales of the Orient

by Ellen N. La Motte

VI

PRISONERS[ToC]

Mercier was writing his report for the day. He sat at a rattan table, covered with a disorderly array of papers, ledgers and note books of various sorts, and from time to time made calculations on the back of an old envelope. He finally finished his work, and pushing back his chair, lighted a cigarette. Unconsciously, he measured time by cigarettes. One cigarette, and he would begin work. One cigarette and he would start on the first paragraph. One cigarette, to rest after the first paragraph before beginning the second, and so on. It was early in the morning, but not early for a morning in the Tropics. Already the sun was creeping over the edge of the deep, palm-shaded verandah, making its way slowly across the wooden floor, till it would reach him, at his table, in a very short time. And as it slowly crept along, a brilliant line of light, so the heat increased, the moist, stagnant heat, from which there was no escape. Outside some one was pulling the punkah rope, and the great leaves of linen, attached to heavy teak poles, swayed back and forth over his head, stirring slightly the dense, humid atmosphere.

Mercier was a young man, not over thirty. He had come out to the East three years ago, to a minor official post in the Penal Settlement, glad of a soft position, of easy work, of an opportunity to see life in the Tropics. At a port on the mainland, he transshipped from the liner to a little steamer, which two days later dropped anchor in the blue bay of his future home. At that time, he was conscious of being intensely pleased at the picture spread before him. Long ago, in boyhood, he had cherished romantic dreams of the Tropics, of islands in southern seas, of unknown, mysterious life set in gorgeous, remote setting. It had all appealed to his fancy, and then suddenly, after many long years, sordid, difficult years, the opportunity had come for the realisation of his dreams. He had obtained a post as minor official in one of the colonies of his country—overseas in the Far East—and he gladly gave up his dull, routine life at home, and came out to the adventures that awaited him. The island, as he saw it for the first time, was beautiful. Steep hills, rocky and mountainous, rose precipitately out of the blue waters, and the rising sun glinted upon the topmost peaks of the hills and threw their deep shadows down upon the bay, and upon the group of yellow stucco bungalows that clustered together upon the edge of the water, upon the narrow strip of land lying between the sea and the sheer sides of the backing mountains. The bay was a crescent, almost closed, and a coral reef ran in an encircling sweep from the headland beyond, and the translucent, sparkling waters of the harbour seemed beautiful beyond belief. His heart beat wildly when for the first time he beheld his new home—it exceeded in beauty anything that he had ever dreamed of. What mattered it whether or no it was a Penal Settlement for one of the great, outlying colonies of his mother country, two days' sail from the nearest port on the mainland, the port itself ten thousand miles from home. It was beautiful to look upon—glorious to look upon, and it was glorious to think that the next few years of his life would be spent amidst such surroundings. The captain of the coasting steamer told him it would be lonely—he laughed at the idea. How could one be lonely amidst such beauty as that! His thirsty soul craved beauty, and here it was before him, marvellous, complete, the island a gem sparkling in the sunlight, veiled in the shadow of an early morning. Lying somewhere, all this beauty, one degree north or south of the Equator!

No, assuredly, he would not be lonely! Were there not many families on the island, the officials and their families, a good ten or fifteen of them? Besides, there was his work. He knew nothing of his work, of his duties. But in connection with the prisoners, of course—and there were fifteen hundred prisoners, they told him, concentrated on those few square miles of island, off somewhere in the Southern Seas, a few miles north or south of the Equator. He was anxious to see the prisoners, the unruly ones of the colony. Strange types they would appear to his conventional, sophisticated eyes. He saw them in imagination—yellow skins, brown skins, black skins, picturesque, daring, desperate perhaps. The anchor splashed overboard into the shallow water, and the small steamer drifted on the end of the chain, waiting for a boat to come out from shore. With the cessation of the steamer's movement, he felt the heat radiate round him, in an overpowering wave, making him feel rather sick and giddy. Yet it was only six o'clock in the morning. Before the boat arrived from shore, the sun had passed over the highest peak of the mountains and was glaring down with full power upon the cluster of hidden bungalows, the edges and ends of which bungalows protruded a little from the shelter of vines and palm trees. White clad men came down to the beach, and a woman or two appeared on the verandahs, and then disappeared back into the verandahs, while the men came down to the water's edge alone. The rowboat was pulled ashore by strong rowers, dark skinned, brawny men, and as the boat neared the beach, other dark skinned brawny men took a carrying chair and splashed out to meet the boat, inviting him by gestures to step into the chair and be carried ashore. He forgot the heat in the novelty of this new sensation—being carried ashore in a chair, with the clear, transparent water beneath him, and wavy sands, shell studded, over which the bearers walked slowly, with precision. And then came his first hours on shore. How calmly they had welcomed him, those white faced, pale men, with the deep circles beneath their eyes. They looked at him with envy, it seems, as a being newly come from contact with civilization, and they looked upon him with pity, as a being who had deliberately chosen to shut himself off from civilization, for a period of many years. He was taking the place of one who was going home—and the man was in a desperate hurry to get away. He looked ill, withal he was so fat, for he was very fat and flabby, extraordinarily white, with circles beneath his puffy eyes blacker and more marked than those on the other faces. The departing official shook hands hurriedly with Mercier, and kissed his old companions good-bye hurriedly upon both cheeks, and then hastened into the chair, to get to the rowboat, to get to the steamer as soon as possible. The other officials on the beach commented volubly on his good fortune—ah, but he had the chance! What chance! What luck! What fortune! They themselves had no luck, they must remain here how long, ah, who knew how long! They all stood there upon the beach watching the departing one until he reached the steamer, drifting idly at the length of her anchor chain.

Then they remembered Mercier again, and surrounded him, not eagerly, listlessly, and asked him to the office of the Administrator, to have a cup of champagne. A cup of champagne, at a little after six in the morning. As they walked slowly up the beach, Mercier spoke of the beauty of the place, the extraordinary beauty of the island. They seemed not to heed him. They smiled, and reminded him that he was a newcomer, and that such was the feeling of all newcomers and that it would soon pass. And in a body, ten of them, they conducted Mercier to the bureau of the Administrator, a tired, middle aged men, who shook hands without cordiality, and ordered a boy to bring a tray with a bottle and glasses and mouldy biscuits, and they all sat together and drank without merriment. It was dark in the Administrator's office, for the surrounding verandah was very wide and deep, and tall bamboos grew close against the edges of the railing, and a little way behind the bamboos grew banana trees and travellers' palms, all reaching high into the air and making a thick defence against the sunlight. The stone floor had been freshly sprinkled with water, and the ceiling was high, made of dark teak wood, and it was very dark inside, and damp and rather cool. There was a punkah hanging from the ceiling, but it stood at rest. Its movement had come to make the Administrator nervous. He was very nervous and restless, turning his head from side to side in quick, sharp jerks, first over one shoulder and then the other, and now and then suddenly bending down to glance under the table. Later on, some one explained to Mercier that the Administrator had a profound fear of insects, the fierce, crawling, stinging things that lived outside under the bamboos, and that crept in sometimes across the stone paved floor, and bit. Only last week, one of the paroled convicts, working in the settlement, had been bitten by some venomous evil thing, and had died a few hours later. Such accidents were common—one must always be on guard. Most people became used to being on guard, but with the Administrator, the thing had become a nightmare. He had been out too long—his nerves were tortured. It was the heat, of course—the stifling, enervating heat. Few could stand it for very long, and the authorities back home must have forgotten to relieve the old man—he was such a good executive, perhaps they had forgotten on purpose. The sub-officials were changed from time to time, but the old man seemed to have been forgotten. He could not stand it much longer—that was obvious.

Mercier went thoughtfully to the bungalow assigned to him, installed his few meagre possessions, and entered without zest upon his work. Somehow, the keenness had been taken out of him by that hour's conversation in the darkened bureau of the Chief. The weeks passed slowly, but Mercier never regained his enthusiasm. The physical atmosphere took all initiative away. His comrades were listless beings, always tired, dragging slowly to their daily rounds, and finishing their work early in the morning before the heat became intolerable. Then for hours they rested—retired to their bungalows or that of a comrade, and rested, to escape the intense heat which never varied, winter or summer, although it was a farce to speak of the seasons as winter or summer, except in memory of home. Mercier soon fell in with their ways. He drank a great deal, beginning very early in the morning, and measured time by cigarettes, postponing his duties, such that claimed him, till he had just finished another cigarette. They were cheap and bad, but there was a solace in them, and they whiled away the time. The only joviality about the place came in the evenings, after many cigarettes, which made him nervous, and after very many little glasses of brandy, which unfitted him for work but which were necessary to stimulate him for what work he had to do.

Near the group of bungalows belonging to the officials and to the prison guards, stood the prison building itself, a large, rambling, one storeyed structure, with many windows fitted with iron bars. Here the newcomers were kept, about eight hundred of them, and nearby, in an adjacent compound, were quarters for about seven hundred prisoners out on parole, by reason of good conduct. The confined prisoners did not work, being merely confined, but those out on parole, on good conduct, and whose terms would soon come to an end, were trusted to work about the island in various capacities. They made the roads—such few as there were. The island was so small that many roads were not required, and since there was no traffic, but little labour was required to keep the roads in repair. They also worked in the rice fields, but, again, there were not many rice fields. It was easier to bring rice from the mainland. There was a herd of water buffaloes, used for ploughing during the season, and the buffaloes needed some attention, but not much. So the paroled convicts were employed in other ways about the island, in cooking for the prisoners, in cleaning the various buildings, and as servants in the households of the officials. Only the most trusted, however, were given such posts as that. Yet it was necessary to trust many of them, and each official had a large retinue of servants, for there was little settlement work to be done, and something must be done with the men on parole, since the prison itself was too small to hold fifteen hundred men under lock and key at the same time. Moreover, these trusted ones were rather necessary. In the Tropics, work is always done in a small, half-hearted way, by reason of the heat which so soon exhausts the vitality, consequently many people are required to perform the smallest task.

Mercier, therefore, was obliged to accept the life as he found it, and he found it different from the romantic conception which he had formed at home. And he became very listless and demoralised, and the lack of interests of all sorts bored him intolerably. He was not one to find solace in an intellectual life. The bi-monthly call of the supply ship with its stocks of provisions, the unloading of which he must oversee, was the sole outside interest he had to look forward to. Old newspapers and magazines came with the supply ship, and these were eagerly read, and soon abandoned, and nothing was left but cigarettes and brandy to sustain him between whiles.

On a certain morning, when he had been at the settlement for over a year, he finished his daily report and strolled over to lay it upon the desk in the office of the Administrator. The supply ship was due in that day, and he wandered down to the beach to look for her. There she was, just dropping anchor. His heart beat a little faster, and he hastened his steps. It was cattle day. Bullocks from the mainland, several hundred miles away, which came once a month for food. He took his boat and rowed, out to the ship, and then directed the work of removing the bullocks.