I took care to keep alert to my surroundings, for there had been something threatening in Maastricht’s warning to George. What or whom were we likely to meet?
This strip of the island had little to offer, apart from the singular virtue of being terra firma. The rock to our right hand, sculptured as if by water at some earlier period of history, harboured many scuttling things, though probably nothing more exotic than birds and lizards. Bamboos were all about us, growing from cavities in the rock and from the ground, which was littered with stones and large shells. They grew thickly enough to obstruct our passage, though thinly enough for a pattern of sunlight and shadow to be cast where we walked. Occasionally we caught glimpses of the bright sea to our left, through a trellis of leaves.
At one point, I almost tripped over one of the large shells. Kicking it aside, I observed that it was the whitened carapace of a tortoise. We seemed almost to be walking through a tortoise graveyard, so thick did the shells lie; there was never a sign of a live one.
Boulders lay close on either side, some of them as tall as we were. Then we had to thread our way between them, and George came uncomfortably close to my vulnerable neck. Two of these big boulders virtually formed a gateway; beyond them more of George’s uncouth breed of native were lurking.
I saw them among the thickets ahead and halted despite myself.
Turning to George, I said, ‘Why are they in hiding? What’s the matter with them?’
With a crafty look, at once furtive and menacing, George said, ‘Four Limbs Long – Wrong Kind of Song … Four Limbs Short – Right Kind of Sport!’ His feet began a kind of shuffle in the dust. His eyes would not meet mine.
There was no point in trying to make conversation with him. Now that his own kind were close, he looked more dangerous than ever.
‘George, you take me straight to HQ, savvy? You no stop, you no cause trouble, you no let anybody cause trouble, OK? You savvy?’
He began to pant in a doggy way, his tongue hanging out. ‘You no got carbine, Cal—.’ Perhaps he struggled to recall my surname; if so he failed, and his use of my given name carried an unwelcome familiarity.
I was remembering what Maastricht had said: ‘Master got carbine!’
He moved one burly shoulder at me, looking away, mumbling, ‘Yes, savvy Master got carbine …’
‘Come on, then!’ Advancing between the boulders, I called, ‘Stand back ahead. We are in a hurry.’
An amazing array of faces peered out of the bushes at me. They bore a family resemblance to George, although there was great variety in their deformity. Here were snouts that turned up and proboscises that turned down; mouths with no lips, mouths with serrated lips; hairless faces and faces covered almost completely with hair or stubble; eyes that glared with no visible lids, eyes that dreamed under heavy lids like horses’. All these faces were turned suspiciously towards me, noses twitching in my direction, and all managed to avoid my direct gaze by a hair’s breadth.
From some eyes in the deeper shadows, I caught the red or green blank glare of iridescence, as if I were confronted by animals from a ludicrous fairy tale.
Indeed, I recalled series of drawings by artists like Charles Le Brun and Thomas Rowlandson, in which the physiognomies of men and women merged through several transformations into the physiognomies of animals – bulls, lions, leopards, dogs, oxen and pigs. The effect was ludicrous as well as alarming. I moved forward, clapping my hands slowly, and slowly they gave way.
But they were calling to George, who still followed me.
‘Has he not Four Limbs Long?’
‘Is he from the Lab’raty?’
‘Where is the one with the bottle?’
‘Has he a carbine?’
And other things I could not understand, for I was soon to learn that George’s diction was a marvel of distinctness among his friends, and he a creature of genius among morons. He still followed stubbornly behind me, saying, or rather chanting – most of their sentences were in singsong – ‘He find in big water. He Four Limbs Long. He Five Fingers Long – Not Wise or Strong. No stop, no cause trouble. Plenty beat at HQ.’
He chanted. I staggered beside him. They fell back or hopped back, letting us through – but hands with maimed stubs of fingers, hands more like paws or hooves, reached out and touched me as I went by.
Now I caught a strong rank smell, like the whiff of a tiger cage in a zoo. The trees and bushes thinned, the sun beat down more strongly, and we came to the native village.
Near the first houses a rock on my right hand rose in a high wall. Climbers and vines, some brilliantly flowering, hung down the rock face, and among them fell a slender waterfall, splashing from shelf to shelf of the rock. It filled a small pool, where it had been muddied and fouled. But I ran to the rock, and let the blessed stuff fall direct on to my face, my lips, my parched tongue, my throat! Ah, that moment! In truth, the waterfall was not much more than a drip, but Niagara itself could not have been more welcome.
After a while I had to rest dizzily against the rock, letting the water patter on the back of my neck. I could hear the natives stealthily gather about me. But I offered a prayer of thanks for my deliverance before I turned to face them.
Their ungainly bodies were hidden under the same overalls that George wore; many an unseemly bulk was thus concealed from the world. One or two of them wore boots; most went barefoot. Some had made barbaric attempts to decorate themselves with shells or bits of bone in their hair or round their necks. Only later did I realize that these were the females of this wonderfully miscegenous tribe.
Fascinated as I was with them, I believe they were far more fascinated with me.
‘He laps water,’ one said, sidling up and addressing me without meeting my gaze.
‘I drink water, as I guess you must,’ I said. I was torn between curiosity and apprehension, not knowing whether to try to establish communication or make a break for it, but at least this creature who came forward looked as harmless as any of them. George resembled an outré blend of boar and hyena; this creature looked like a kind of dog. He had the fawning aspect of a mongrel which one sometimes notices in human beings even in more favoured parts of the world.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked, pointing at him to get the message home.
He slunk back a pace. ‘The Master’s is the Hand that Maims. The Master’s is the Voice that Names …’
‘What is your name?’
It touched its pouting chest humbly. ‘Your name Bernie. Good man, good boy.’
‘Yes, you’re a good man, Bernie.’ Weakness and a touch of hysteria overcame me. To find a Bernie here in this miserable patch of jungle on some forgotten rock in the Pacific – a Bernie looking so much like a stray pooch – was suddenly funny. Why, I thought, Bernie as in St Bernard! I began helplessly to laugh, collapsing against the rock. I still laughed when I found myself sitting in the mud. When they clustered nearer to me, staring down in a bovine way, I covered my face and laughed and wept.
I scarcely heard the whistle blow.
They heard. ‘The Master Knows! The Master Blows!’ They milled about uneasily. I looked up, afraid of being trampled on. Then one started to run and they all followed, stampeding as if they were a herd of cattle. George stood till last, looking at me with a great puzzlement from under his hat, muttering to himself. Then he too tried to flee.
He was too late. The Master appeared. George sank to the ground, covering his head with a humble slavish gesture. A whip cracked across his shoulders and then the Master passed him and strode towards me.
Climbing slowly to my feet, I stood with my back to the rock. I was tempted to imitate the natives and take to my heels.
The so-called Master was tremendously tall: I reckoned he was at least three metres high, impossibly