Static
By Wallace G. West
Charles Markley carried his radio set to darkest Africa, where the natives took it for a god. A native girl learned different, and just as Markley’s life was in extreme danger something happened that changed the outlook on things.
Water slogged heavily against the hull of the Niger packet Lagarto. Close at hand the jungle, waving ghostly arms in the moonlight, seemed to be giving a horrid imitation of great beasts floundering and slobbering at the edge of the river. On the deck of the Lagarto lounged Captain Angus Todd, who in spite of his name, was ending his far journeying and hard-driving life as the master of a clumsy freight boat. He was tall, and lean, with that Scotch type of leanness which can best be understood by pronouncing the name “Sandy” with the “a” broad. He smoked a foul pipe and occasionally spat into the greasy water below.
“You mind, Mac,” he said finally, tapping the dead ash from his pipe on the rail. “You mind that I’m growing a bit older these days, and the more I think on it, the more I feel that Africa’s no the place for any white man.”
“Yes,” came the answer, evidently emanating from a black bundle slumped in a steamer chair under the awning. “I’m thinking I’ve heard that idea expressed before—several times in fact. Maybe you’re right, but you can’t deny that the English make big money here, buying palm oil and rubber for about nothing. And selling geegaws, trade gin and trade cloth for ten times their value—even though the natives are getting wise to traders’ tricks—converting the heathen and making the nigger women wear calico dresses. You’ll admit that’s an accomplishment.”
“Aye, but the price, man. Think on that a bit.” The captain paused and watched a native canoe with its lonely paddler drift softly past the ship and disappear in the moon glow. Then he resumed. “Tell me, Mac, how many men has your company sent out here in the last ten years? I hate to think—twenty, anyway. Great, strappin’ youngsters, most of them, pink and white and blond, brought up to play cricket and football. It fair makes my heart bleed to think how they came out for the bonus—to make enough to marry, perhaps, or to lift the mortgage. And they usually got the bonus, too, but have you noted them at the end of their three years. Sallow and racked with fever. Wishing to Heaven they were dead, many of them, and soaked with booze, a lot. Most of them spent that bonus and a great deal more keeping out of the grave after they went home. I’m glad the company’s making you agent at Maraban at last, Mac.”
“It’s the Scots that keep the Empire running,” grunted Thomas MacAllister, the man in the deck chair. “And me at Maraban as kernel clerk for more years than I care to think on, doing my work and that of the agent, mostly, and not complainin’ overmuch, mind you. Then, when the agent blew up, shipping him down river and holding things together until they sent up another Boy from Home to take his place.”
“Aye, I understand, and the home office scratching its head and wondering what is the matter at Maraban,” replied the captain. “Gosh, they don’t know what this stinkin’ hole is. ‘The White Man’s Graveyard,’ ’tis called, but that’s merely a name outside. At least those fellows in the Scriptures got out of the fiery furnace after a bit. We never do. So it was Timmy Smith you took out this time?”