In the afternoon he could not sleep, his head ached miserably, so he took his gun and went for a tramp in the jungle. He shot nothing, but he walked in order to tire himself out. Towards sunset he came back and had two or three drinks, and then it was time to dress for dinner. There wasn't much use in dressing now; he might just as well be comfortable; he put on a loose native jacket and a sarong. That was what he had been accustomed to wear before Doris came. He was barefoot. He ate his dinner listlessly and the boy cleared away and went. He sat down to read the Tatler. The bungalow was very silent. He could not read and let the paper fall on his knees. He was exhausted. He could not think and his mind was strangely vacant. The chik-chak was noisy that night and its hoarse and sudden cry seemed to mock him. You could hardly believe that this reverberating sound came from so small a throat. Presently he heard a discreet cough.
'Who's there?' he cried.
There was a pause. He looked at the door. The chik-chak laughed harshly. A small boy sidled in and stood on the threshold. It was a little half-caste boy in a tattered singlet and a sarong. It was the elder of his two sons.
'What do you want?' said Guy.
The boy came forward into the room and sat down, tucking his legs away under him.
'Who told you to come here?'
'My mother sent me. She says, do you want anything?'
Guy looked at the boy intently. The boy said nothing more. He sat and waited, his eyes cast down shyly. Then Guy in deep and bitter reflection buried his face in his hands. What was the use? It was finished. Finished! He surrendered. He sat back in his chair and sighed deeply.
'Tell your mother to pack up her things and yours. She can come back.'
'When?' asked the boy, impassively.
Hot tears trickled down Guy's funny, round spotty face.
'Tonight.'
Flotsam and Jetsam
Norman Grange was a rubber-planter. He was up before daybreak to take the roll-call of his labour and then walked over the estate to see that the tapping was properly done. This duty performed, he came home, bathed and changed, and now with his wife opposite him he was eating the substantial meal, half breakfast and half luncheon, which in Borneo is called brunch. He read as he ate. The dining-room was dingy. The worn electro-plate, the shabby cruet, the chipped dishes betokened poverty, but a poverty accepted with apathy. A few flowers would have brightened the table, but there was apparently no one to care how things looked. When Grange had finished he belched, filled his pipe and lit it, rose from the table and went out on to the veranda. He took no more notice of his wife than if she had not been there. He lay down in a long rattan chair and went on reading. Mrs Grange reached over for a tin of cigarettes and smoked while she sipped her tea. Suddenly she looked out, for the house boy came up the steps and accompanied by two men went up to her husband. One was a Dyak and the other Chinese. Strangers seldom came and she could not imagine what they wanted. She got up and went to the door to listen. Though she had lived in Borneo for so many years she knew no more Malay than was necessary to get along with the boys, and she only vaguely understood what was said. She gathered from her husband's tone that something had happened to annoy him. He seemed to be asking questions first of the Chink and then of the Dyak; it looked as though they were pressing him to do something he didn't want to do; at length, however, with a frown on his face he raised himself from his chair and followed by the men walked down the steps. Curious to see where he was going she slipped out on to the veranda. He had taken the path that led down to the river. She shrugged her thin shoulders and went to her room. Presently she gave a violent start, for she heard her husband call her.
'Vesta.'
She came out.
'Get a bed ready. There's a white man in a prahu at the landing-stage. He's damned ill.'
'Who is he?'
'How the hell should I know? They're just bringing him up.'
'We can't have anyone to stay here.'
'Shut up and do as I tell you.'
He left her on that and again went down to the river. Mrs Grange called the boy and told him to put sheets on the bed in the spare room. Then she stood at the top of the steps and waited. In a little while she saw her husband coming back and behind him a huddle of Dyaks carrying a man on a mattress. She stood aside to let them pass and caught a glimpse of a white face.
'What shall I do?' she asked her husband.
'Get out and keep quiet.'
'Polite, aren't you?'
The sick man was taken into the room, and in two or three minutes the Dyaks and Grange came out.
'I'm going to see about his kit. I'll have it brought up. His boy's looking after him and there's no cause for you to butt in!'
'What's the matter with him?'
'Malaria. His boatmen are afraid he's going to die and won't take him on. His name's Skelton.'
'He isn't going to die, is he?'
'If he does we'll bury him.'
But Skelton didn't die. He woke next morning to find himself in a room, in bed and under a mosquito-net. He couldn't think where he was. It was a cheap iron bed and the mattress was hard, but to lie on it was a relief after the discomfort of the prahu. He could see nothing of the room but a chest of drawers, roughly made by a native carpenter, and a wooden chair. Opposite was a doorway, with a blind down, and this he guessed led on to a veranda.
'Kong,' he called.
The blind was drawn aside and his boy came in. The Chinaman's face broke into a grin when he saw that his master was free from fever.
'You more better, Tuan. Velly glad.'
'Where the devil am I?'
Kong explained.
'Luggage all right?' asked Skelton.
'Yes, him all light.'
'What's the name of this fellow-the tuan whose house this is?'
'Mr Norman Grange.'
To confirm what he said he showed Skelton a little book in which the owner's name was written. It was Grange. Skelton noticed that the book was Bacon's Essays. It was curious to find it in a planter's house away up a river in Borneo.
'Tell him I'd be glad to see him.'
'Tuan out. Him come presently.'
'What about my having a wash? And by God, I want a shave.'
He tried to get out of bed, but his head swam and with a bewildered cry he sank back. But Kong shaved and washed him, and changed the shorts and singlet in which he had been lying ever since he fell ill for a sarong and a baju. After that he was glad to lie still. But presently Kong came in and said that the
tuan of the house was back. There was a knock on the door and a large stoutish man stepped in.
'I hear you're better,' he said.
'Oh, much. It's terribly kind of you to have taken me in like this. It seems awful, planting myself on you.'
Grange answered a trifle harshly.
'That's all right. You were pretty bad, you know. No wonder those Dyaks wanted to get rid of you.'
'I don't want to impose myself on you longer than I need. If I could hire a launch here, or a prahu, I could get off this afternoon.'
'There's no launch to hire. You'd better stay a bit. You must be as weak as a rat.'
'I'm afraid I shall be a frightful bother.'
'I don't see why. You've got your own boy and he'll look after you.'
Grange had just come in from his round of the estate and wore dirty shorts, a khaki shirt open at the neck, and an old, battered terai hat. He looked as shabby as a beachcomber. He took off his hat to wipe his sweating brow; he had close-cropped grey hair; his face was red, a broad, fleshy face, with a large mouth under a stubble of grey moustache, a short, pugnacious nose and small, mean eyes.
'I wonder if you could let me have something to read,' said Skelton.
'What sort of thing?'
'I don't mind so long as it's lightish.'
'I'm not much of a novel reader myself, but I'll send you in two or three books. My wife can provide you with novels. They'll be trash, because that's all she reads. But it may suit you.'