Fate Knocks at the Door. Will Levington Comfort

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СКАЧАТЬ a tea-cup. The natives had filed the tip of the lead, so that it accumulated destruction in the ugly way. It was like some one putting a stone in a snow-ball—so vicious. You can't blame the natives—but the war-game——"

      Boss Healy growled at them to go to sleep.

      * * * * *

      Cairns remained with the Pack-train after that until the Rains. Never did a boy have more to write about in three months. Every phase and angle of that service, now half-forgotten, unfolded for his eyes. And the impossible theme running through it all, was the carabao—the great horned sponge that pulls vastly like an elephant and dies easily like a rabbit—when the water is out. … They make no noise about their dying, these mountains of flesh, merely droop farther and farther forward against the yoke, when their skins crack from dryness; the whites of their eyes become wider and wider—until they lay their tongues upon the sand. The Chinese call them "cow-cows" and understand them better than the Tagals, as they understand better the rice and the paddies.

      Once Thirteen was yanked out of Healy's hand—as no volley of native shots had ever disordered. The mules were in a gorge trotting into the town of Indang. Natives in the high places about, were waiting for the Train to debouch upon the river-bank—so as to take a few shots at the outfit. Every one expected this, but just as the Train broke out of the gorge into the open, at the edge of the river-bed—there was a great sucking transfiguration from the shallows, a hideous sort of giving birth from the mud.

      It was just a soaked carabao rising from his deep wallow in the stream, but that she-devil, the gray bell-mare, tried to climb the cliffs about it. The mules felt her panic, as if an electrode ran from her to the quick of every hide of them. When the fragments of the Train were finally gathered together in Indang, they formed an undone, hysterical mess. The packers were too tired to eat, but sat around dazed, softly cursing, and smoking cigarettes; as they did one day after a big fight, in which one of their number, Jimmy the Tough, was shot through the brain. For days the mules were nervous over the delicate condition of the bell.

      Study of Andrew Bedient and weeks in which he learned, past the waver of a doubt, that his friend was knit with a glistening and imperishable fabric of courage, brought David Cairns to that high astonishing point, where he could say impatiently, "Rot!"—as his former ideals of manhood rose to mind. It was good for him to get this so young. … One morning something went wrong with Benton, the farrier. He had been silent for days. Bedient had sensed some trouble in the little man's heart, and had often left Cairns to ride with him. Then came the evening when the farrier was missed. It was in the mountains near Naig. At length, just as the sun went down, the Train saw him gain a high cliff—and stand there for a moment against the red sky. Bedient reached over and gripped Cairns' arm. Turning, the latter saw that his friend's eyes were closed. The remarkable thing was that not one of the packers called to Benton—but all observed the lean tough little figure of one of the neatest men that ever lived afield—regarded in silence the hard handsome profile. Finally Benton drew out his pistol and looked at it, as if to see that the oil had kept out the dust from the hard day on the trail. Then he looked into the muzzle and fired—going over the cliff, as he had intended, and burying himself.

      "Some awful inner hunger," Bedient whispered hours afterward. "You see, he couldn't talk—as you and I do. … I've noticed it so long—that these men can't talk to one another—only swear and joke."

      Early the next morning Cairns awoke, doubtless missing Bedient subconsciously. It was in the first gray, an hour before Healy kicked his outfit awake. Bedient was back in camp in time to start breakfast, having made a big detour to reach the base of the gorge. It wasn't a thing to speak about, but he had made a pilgrimage to the pit where the farrier had fallen. … Another time, Cairns awoke in the same way. It was the absence of Bedient, not the actual leaving, that aroused him. The Train had camped in a little nameless town. Cairns, this time, found his companion playing with a child, at the doorway of one of the shacks of the village. Inside, was an old man sick with beri-beri—swollen, features erased, unconscious; and an old woman who also had been too weak to flee before the American party. These two, the child, and a few pariah dogs were all that remained. You could have put the tiny one in a haversack comfortably. A poor little mongrel head that shone bare and scabby in places, but big black eyes, full of puzzles and wonderings; and upon his arms and legs, those deep humors which come from scratching in the night. The infant sat upon a banana leaf—brown and naked and wonderful as possible—and Bedient knelt before him smiling happily, and feeding hard-tack that had been softened in bacon-gravy.

      Cairns saw the old woman's face. It was sullen, haggard. The eyes were no strangers to hunger nor hatred. She watched the two Americans, as might a crippled tigress, that had learned at last how weak was her fury against chains. He saw that same look many times afterward in the eyes of these women of the riverbanks—as the white troops moved past. There was not even a sex-interest to complicate their hatred.

      One day Thirteen overtook a big infantry column making a wide ford in the river before Bamban. It was high noon, but they found during the hold-up, a bit of shade and breeze on a commanding hill. Cairns and Bedient kicked off their shoes into the tall, moist grass, and luxuriously poked their feet into the coolness; and presently they were watching unfold a really pretty bit of action.

      A thin glittering cloud of smoke across the river showed where the trenches of the natives were. The Americans in the river, held their rifles and ammunition-belts high, and wriggled their hips against the butting force of the stream. It all became very business-like. The battalion first across, set out to flank the native works; a rapid-fire gun started to boom from an opposite eminence, and the infantry took to firing at the emptying trenches. The Tagals were poked out of their positions, and in a sure leisurely way that held the essence of attraction.

      After all, it was less the actual bits of fighting that cleared into memories of permanence, than certain subtleties of the campaign: a particular instant of one swift twilight, as in the plaza at Alphonso; a certain moment of a furious mid-day, when the sun was a python pressure, so that the scalp prickled with the congested blood in the brain, and men lifted their hats an inch or two as they rode, preserving the shade, but permitting the air to circulate; some guttural curse from a packer who could not lift his voice in the heat, nor think, but only curse, and grin in sickly fashion. …

      There were moments, reminders of which awoke Cairns in a sweat for many nights afterward: One day when he was badly in need of a fresh mount, he saw just ahead of the Train—a perfect little sorrel stallion fastened to the edge of the trail. He dismounted to change saddles. The Train was straggling along under an occasional fire. Cairns found that the pony was held by a tough wire, that led into the jungle. Such was the braiding at the throat, that only a sapper could have handled it. The correspondent started to follow the wire into the thicket—when Bedient caught him by the shoulder and half-lifted him from the ground. There was strength in that slim tanned hand that had nothing to do with the ordinary force of men. The cook smiled, but disdained explanation. It all dawned upon Cairns a second later. He would have followed the wire to the end in the jungle—where the trap of knives would spring. … The bolo-men need but a moment. … It was only two or three days later that one of the packers dropped behind the Train to tighten a cinch. No one had noticed, and Thirteen filed on.

      "For Christ's sake—don't!" they heard from behind.

      Wheeling, they found that the man had seen the end—as he had called out in that horrible echoing voice. He was not more than fifty yards behind the rear packer—and pinned to the trail. A bolo had been hammered with a stone—through the upper lip and the base of the brain, two or three inches into the earth. … He had been butchered besides.

      At the end of a terrific ten days, Thirteen was crawling at nightfall into the large garrison at Lipa. Men and mules had been lost in the recent gruelling service. The trails and the miles had been long and hard; much hunger and thirst, СКАЧАТЬ