The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes (17 page)

             
"Rousing himself after a moment, he seemed to relax, and his chiseled features broke into a pleasant smile as he stared at my father.

             
" 'I fear you think me mad,' he said simply, 'or else ill. But I assure you that I am neither. The Black Formosa Corruption has never touched me, nor yet
Tapanuli
Fever. I am immune, I fancy, to the miasmas of this coast, though I take no credit for the status. In fact, I believe it to be hereditary. If the world would pay more attention to that forgotten Bohemian monk, Mendel, we should be in a position to learn much
...
but I digress.' Once more he stared keenly at my father, then seemed to come to some private decision.

             
" 'Would you, sir, be good enough to place yourself under my orders for the immediate future? I can promise you danger, great danger, little or no reward, but and you have my word, which I may say has never yet been called into question you would be serving your country and indeed all of humanity in aiding me. If what I have learnt is any evidence, the entire world, and I am not given to idle speculation, is in the gravest of perils.' He paused again. 'Moreover, I
can not
at this point take you into my full confidence. It would mean, for the moment, that you would have to follow my instructions without question. Is this prospect of any attraction?'

             
" 'My father was somewhat taken aback by this sudden spate of words. Indeed, he was both irritated and impressed, at
one and the same time, by the masterful way the stranger played upon him.

             
" 'I should be happy, sir, or rather happier, if I had your name,' he said stiffly. To his complete surprise, the other clapped his hands again and fell back on his couch, laughing sof
tl
y.

             
" 'Oh, perfect!' The man was genuinely amused. 'Of course, my name would solve everything.' He ceased laughing and sat up in the bed with a quick motion, and once he did so, all humor left the scene.

             
" 'My name is well, call me Verner. It is the name of a distant connection and bluntly speaking not my own. But it will serve. As to any other bona fides, I fear you will have to forgive me. I simply cannot say more. Again, what do you say to my proposal?'

             
"My father was somewhat disconcerted by his guest's manners, but and I stress this one
cannot realize what the circumstances were unless one had been there."

             
As Ffellowes spoke, and perhaps because he spoke, we were there, in the quiet waters off Sumatra, long, long ago. The silence of the library in the club became the silence of the East. Honking taxis, bawling doormen, straining buses, all the normal New York noises heard through our shuttered windows, were gone. Instead, with quickened b
reathing, we heard the tinkle of
gamilans
and the whine of tropic mosquitoes; the shift of the tide over the reefs, and smelled the pungent scent of frangipani blossoms. I stole one look at Mason Williams and then relaxed. He had his mouth open and was just as hung up as the rest of us. The brigadier continued.

             
" 'I am astounded, sir, at your presumption,' my fathe
r said. 'Here you are a—"

             
" ' veritable castaway and runagate, no doubt the sweepings of some Asian gutter,' finished the other in crisp
tones, putting my father's unspoken words into life. 'Nevertheless, what I have said to you is so deadly in earnest that if you will not agree to aid me, I must ask that you put me afoot at once, on yonder inhospitable shore, from whence, as you must have discerned, I have recently fled.' He stared again at my father's face, his piercing eyes seeming to probe beyond the mere skin. 'Come, man, give me your decision. I cannot idle away the hours in your yacht's saloon, no matter how luxurious. Either aid me, on my terms, mind you, or let me go!'

             
" 'What do you need then?' It was my father's tentative capitulation. I can only say in his defense, if he should need one, that as he told me the story, Verner's manner was such as somehow did not brook any opposition.

             
" 'Hah,' said Verner. 'You are with me. Trust the Bulldog.' My father professed to misunderstand the man, though the unedifying implications were plain.

             
" 'I wish all of your maps, at once, particularly of this coast' was Verner's next remark. "I have not been in these waters at all. I need the very best charts you possess.'

             
"My father bustled about, found all the maps he had, and as he had made something of a study of the area, he had all the best Dutch naval charts and whatnot
.
He brought them down into the big stern cabin. There, he found that in his absence, there had been a palace revolution of sorts. His captain,
Dato
Ali Burung, was on his knees before Mr. Verner, beating his head on the carpet, or rather, the straw matting.

             
"When the Asian arose, sensing my father's arrival, he had no shame on his flat features. 'We are going to help the
Tuan
Vanah
,
Tuan
, are we not
?
' was what the chap said. Really, as my father put it, it wasn't enough that the strange traveler had seduced him: he had also somehow had the same effect on the toughest native skipper in the South China Sea! Whoever and whatever he was, Mr. Verner had, as you fellows put it, 'control.'

             
" 'I am tentatively prepared to assist you in your quest, Mr. Verner,' My Old Man had given his commitment, and beyond 'unbelievable, but utterly true to type
'
, he heard no further particulars from his uninvited guest, who relapsed into silence.

             
"The next morning, they stood in to the coast. Western Sumatra in those days was much as it is today, I expect
.
They were well north of the
Mentawi
isles at the time, and just a bit south of the
Batus
. In there were, and no doubt still are, a thousand little anchorages. My father, or rather, old
Dato
Burung, found one of them. It was a tiny river, flowing into the sea under
nipa
palms, which almost arched over the entrance. It was the sort of place a Westerner wouldn't expect to launch a log canoe, but from which they had been turning out big seagoing vessels since well before the Christian era.

             
"There was even a small village, a
kampong
, as they say in those parts. The people thought they were pirates, my father said, and turned out the town for the ship. But Mr. Verner wanted nothing from them. He had ascertained that my father had a number of Martini-Henry rifles aboard, perhaps from old Burung. Even in those days, this was hardly the latest thing, but in any of the backwaters of Asia, a breech-loading rifle, even the old Martini, was a thing of rare worth. At any rate, Verner had taken control of the arms locker and twelve of the skipper's prize thugs were armed and standing guard on the beach.

             
"I daresay you wonder what my father was doing, to let himself and his ship be commandeered in this casual way. All I can give you is the story he told me. Verner, whoever he was, had simply 'taken over.' Dad told me that he violently resented everything the man suggested, but could not raise any objection, at least beyond commonplaces. He simply was no longer in charge, and somehow he had come to accept it
.

             
" 'Where are we going?' said Verner in answer to a question. 'Where I tell you, which is, as the crow is supposed to reckon matters, some twenty miles due north. There, hopefully, we will find a certain ship. This latter, we may or may not board. In any case, my orders are final. Is that quite understood?'

             
"The fellow's commands to the natives were delivered, I may say, in excellent Coast Malay. The timid folk of the local village came out and gave everyone garlands of flowers. No doubt, it was not the first time it had happened, but invaders who wanted nothing beyond food, and even paid for that, were something new. Yet, in retrospect, there may have been other reasons
...

             
" Verner, as if he had nothing to do with it at all, stood on the beach among the mangroves, waiting for my father to give all the orders. Finally, Dad asked him what he wanted next. He confessed to me in after years, that the man was so much in charge, that if he had said 'jump in the river,' the crew would have done so despite the abundant knobs of salt-water crocodiles, imitating tree stumps on every shallow bank and bar.

             
"The guest of the sea was now wearing one of my father's linen suits although he refused a
Solah
Topee
and went hatless. His ruined boots had been replaced by sandals, but the fact was, as Dad put it, Verner could have worn a loincloth, or some sort of sarong, and still have been as much in charge as if he had been the supreme Rajah of Bandung. One simply gave up arguing when around him. You tolerated his presence because the only alternative was killing him!

             
" 'We must have food for two days and two nights,' said Verner to my father. 'We shall be going north along the coast for about that distance. Would you be good enough to order your
remaining ship's people to remain in these parts for some four days. No, better five. Some mischance may delay us. After that, they may head north, until they either meet us or do not.'

             
"Since the orders appeared already to have been given,
and since the twelve toughest members of the crew of my father's
prau
, all armed to the teeth with not only their native cutlery but with rifles from my father's arms locker as well, were waiting, this latter would appear to have been only courtesy. But it was not. Verner himself made that plain.

             
" 'Captain Ffellowes, I much regret the outward appearance of these matters,' he told my father. 'While I personally have no doubt of your trustworthiness, the simple folk you command feel rather more strongly concerning my mission. In fact, though you might attempt to divert them from their purpose, and, be it said, mine as well, you would do little more than present them with your carcass as a species of local signpost. Possibly, indeed, probably, impaled as well, on bamboo shoots. Should you desire this new impalement on your coat of arms (ghastly pun, really), you have only to urge my immediate arrest.'

             
"Frankly, as my father put it to me, the man was becoming an incubus, and he seemed to have no sense at all of what was due a fellow Englishman. Although my father was allowed his pistols, Colt
'
s matched
Bisleys
as it happens, on his belt, two of the twelve hearties from the crew flanked him at all times. It was more than clear that he was along on sufferance. Twice, Verner came to a halt as they crawled through the vile coastal scrub behind the mangroves, but it was not my father whom he consulted, but rather old Burung, the skipper of the
prau
. The man himself seemed to feel somewhat abashed by this insolent favoritism of a native, and at one of the rest stops, he actually spoke to my father in some terms of apology. 'See here, Captain,' he said, 'it is a capital mistake not to accept the best local information one can get.' My father was by this time too affronted by Verner's behavior to pay him much heed. Yet the man, by his very presence, somehow brooked no interference. Dad simply nodded. He felt, he told me later, it was as if he were in a dream, or suspended in space. The whole thing, from the arrival on board his vessel of Verner
and all that had happened subsequently, seemed to be a walking nightmare. He wondered, how could all this be happening? The only rock in a failing world was his personal man, Umpa, who trudged sturdily along beside him. He, at least, seemed faithful to his master.

             
"Have I failed to mention the heat? It was bad enough at sea, off the coast, but here it was almost unbearable. The party was following a winding trail along the shore, though somewhat back from it, which wound through green coco palms, jackfruit plantations gone wild,
rambutan
and pure jungle. Sometimes they were under dank shade, with great tropical hardwoods towering overhead, shutting off the sun; the next moment they would break out into heavy yellowish rattan and lantana brush growth and the s
aber-edged grasses of the coast.
This would be hacked through by the advance guard with their myriad steel weapons. The next instant they would be in slippery mud under the giant trees again. Leeches and ticks fell upon their necks at every instant; gnats and mosquitoes assaulted them continuously, but they kept moving through innumerable muddy bogs and across many small tidal creeks as well.