THE SMOKE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16328, 26 August 1913, Page 2

THE SMOKE.

(By JAMES HOPPER.) There was a murmur of voices, a hissing of feot, a bumping of baggage—and Carter stood before us at the head of tho 'wide stairway within tho cooled sala. He was very thin; his red head was dry as rusted wire; and his khaki uniform, desperately washed, threadbare beneath the gloss of many ironings, was gridironed at the left shoulder just beneath tho strap with peculiar darns, close and parallel, each a bit swollen like a welt. Ho stood there a moment, swaying a littlo on his longimpoverished legs, a weak smile upon his wan face; then we rushed upon him with the precision of a football team, and, half helping, half-bearing him, had him stretched in one of the long wicker chairs, a rioky tinkling its ice ut his elbow liko a centlo little bell. We were all shouting together, but

mostly the same question. " How are things down in Samar?" we asked, all together. He waved his hand deprecatmgly. " Fine! We've learned to live on snake and hawk; the Dios-Dios men are looking for another Papa; and I am here for a month —a little bit all in." He sat a while, content, stretched long in his chair to the faint breeze, which, through tho closed shutters, filtered in From the glittering bay; then called 'oudly, " Muchacho I" Tho scratching and the bumping which had been going on meanwhile on the steps below the line of our sight now rose in a series of orescendos —and finally the person called "muchacho" stood in view. He had a camphorwood chest upon his. head, a case upon his shoulder, a roll of blankets across his back; _ a panoply consisting of a sword, a rifle, a shotgun, a belt with two revolvers and a canteen dangled at the end of his left arm. "Where?" asked Garter, his glance passing us in circular question. "Here—in my room," cried Blair. "Right here, first door to the left'"— and to his gesticulations rather than his words the muchacho dived into tho open doorway. A clash and three dull jars told us that he was unburdened, then ho was standing before us at attention. At attention as far as his peculiar physical conformation would permit. For though his little fingers were on the seams of his white pantaloons, his arms, rising away from thftni in two sweeping outward curves, were like tho handles of an urn; and though his heels were together the legs above left between them a perfect ellipse of vacant atmosphere. His head was deep within his shoulders; he was all humps and curves, knots and torsions. v " And you call that a hoy I" breathed Blair, in amused stupefaction. " And he is your muchacho I" " His hair is a littlo grey," admitted Carter. ".But still ho is my boy." " I hope you sleep with_ a revolver under your pillow," said Kent, standing frankly, legs apart, before the object of our scrutiny. "With two revolvers, and three cutlasses, and maybe a little Catling gun I" " Oh, he's all right," protested Car-

ter. "He's pox-marked; he's shaped liko a banyan tree," said Kent severely, still staring hard and unabashed. " Ho has a slash from his right ear to his left neck which curtails his nose and increases his mouth. His eyes are 6mall like a pig's; they are bloodshot. His toes are Tike can-openers." Carter was following tho inventory with soft eyes. " And yet," he said dreamily, " I was touched once by those little pig eyes. And these prehensile toes, liko can-openers—well, for a long moment once they were a tondor sight. Here, muchacho, you vamoose, pronto, dale-dale i' With a start at this sudden roar, followed by a 6iiiilo which no doubt thought itself amiable, but which, confounding as it did ears and mouth in one huge gash, was malevolent, tho muchacho promoted and dale-daled down the stairs, and vanished into the regions where pots were clashing. Then Carter, his tongue itching as will a man's who has ben long in the brush, began to talk. "I got him"—his thumb jerked downward toward the basement—- " over there." His other hand, caroful of the glass it held, waved vaguely south toward Samar. " A lot of prisoners had boon brought in at tho post. Wo had them in the ex-chapel. This had portals and also iron gates. Wo would leave tho portals open and tho gates shut, which made a nicely ventilated gaol. They had been captured here and there doing things with bolos, and were a bad lot of hombres. . " On the day of their arrival I went down to make them all safe and com-

fortable. I saw that the windows were all locked, tho walls solid, mid tho iron bars of the gates good and strong. Then, to give thorn company, I placed a sentry there in front. He could look through tho rails, and at tho first sign of trouble pump his Krag—my Macabebees have Krags—into tho tight bunch of thnm. It was then I saw him for tho first time. "The others of tho cheerful company were near tho bars, a bit curious; but he evidently was superior to such frailties. Squatting in tho far right-hand corner of the little chapel, he was contemplating his feet, his remarkable feet. He threw me one glance, quo little, short side glance out of his little, piggish eyes —and I 6aid to myself: "By Jove, amigo, but you are ripe for tho hemp !' " They were, of course, all tor tho hemp. There had had been times when I had thought this a little hard. Ihat is. 1 had thought it hard that the President of tho United States, in his offico so far away, should have declared without consulting any of them that war was over; that in the P. T.'s all was peace, peace, peace; and that hence all those who fought.were not warriors, but murderers. Maybo some of these persons did not know of the President of the United States, or wero unable to grasp his delicate distinctions. I say I had thought so at times. I did not do so now. Not looking at this hombre. His physiog, you see, was so very much against him. . " On my round of inspection the next day I went again as far as the chapel. Everything was well. The walls held, the gate was solid, the sentinel alive, and my ape. man in tho far corner still admire'd his toes. But four or five of my Macabebes were lolling—it was the siesta hour—a little too close to the bars, I thought. I shooed them off, and thought no more of it. The following day, though, it seemed to me that at my approach I had heard a scampering of army shoes. The face of tho (entry was set and serious;—a bit too serious. Tho next day I came earlier, and more quietly—and caught them at :t. " There they wore, a dozen of my worst disreputables—and best fighters, of course—pressing at tho of tho calaboose, tho sentry's smila benign upon their backs. On the other side tho prisoners wero bunched close, so that the two parties were face to face. Some of my worthies were smoking. Inhaling till their cheeks pulled, they blow the smoke in thin, strong jets within the chapel. At each puff I could see tho whole pack of prisoners contort; the wave of desire passed through them liko a breeze through high wheat. " But this was only a part of the game. Others of my men had improved upon it. They held out hands filled with curly tobacco, and brown papers and inviting matches; then at tho very moment that a paw shot like lightning through tho bars they backed away, just fast enough, just far enough, leaving "tho tempting display just beyond reach. "Tho sport had been going on quite a while, I could see. Many of the prisoners, pretty sick at their countless disappointments, would stand long now without moving, a fat cigarette right beneath their nose. But they never seemed able to stand the pressure to the end. Finally as to an epileptic fit, out would go both hands, like those of a child scooped to catch the rain, and this coming after tho long wait, delighted the Macabebes more than anything else. " There was one little fellow, though, who nover made them wait—a little marmoset fellow, twined around one bar, his pointed muzzle through. He would grab right away each time without the least hesitation, as though never in all his life he had been fooled. I suppose ho had grabbed like that a hundred times beforo I came. And before my eyes he did so twenty times more. An innocent little fellow, not made for this world's guile. " But behind this poor little monkey stood my man of the wonderful feet. He wasn't grabbing. He wasn't moving. He was like a stono statuo. His arms hung like two arcs down his sides; his head was deep between his humped shoulders; and he just looked. Just looked from that cavern between his two shoulders—looked out of his small, piggish, red-shot eyes. " I have told you that I was once touched by those piggish eyes. That was the time. There \\**as in them something so wistful, such a desire, such a sad, sad, sad nostalgia of his weed and his vice, that simply at the touch of that look upon me I forgot what I was about to do.

" Instead of dispersing my brown devils, I shuddered through tfiem, and made one of the group. And, going deep into my pocket, without the slightest dignity—l'm but a constabulary captain, anyway—l hauled out in ono big pinch tobacco, papers and matches, and pushed them directly into a hand which, without changing its position, sucked them within itsolf as if it had been a starfish.

" I remembered then to be angry. I turned upon the tormentors, cussed them to their barracks, replaced the sentry, and put him to grass cutting. When I had done I gave a last look into the calaboose before going on. " Mv Ufjly man was back at his usual place in the far right-hand corner. He sat there, cuddled in tho angle, his back round, his head deep within his shoulders, his chin upon his knees. But he wasn't looking at his feet. He was looking at nothing. His eyes -wore closed; he smoked a cigarette. He smoked it religiously. I could see each time his great chest distend, and, swollen, holding long tho smoke; then slowly, lingeringly, shiveringly collapse. From his thick lips a thick grey spiral poured forth; it mingled with the thin bine wisp from the butt, rose heavily, and made a halo about his head. A halo about that head! The other prisoners stood around him in half a circle. Their nostrils twitched. " Now, you see, in my action there was a good deal of caprice. Mostly caprice. For those other poor devils —the little marmoset man of simple trust, all the others—wanted their tobacco just as badly. In my little cot that night I wondered if they would not kill the pet, tho teacher's yellowhaired boy. By morning, though, I found my responsibility detached. The commandant had received orders from the colonel down-river. The prisoners wore to bo sent there to be sentenced. " So at nine o'clock we piled them all into four long bancas. With them wo threw in some thirty odd womenawful old hags suspected of—well, experiments—on our dead and w-ouuded. Wo had been terribly embarrassed as to what wo should do with them,6o it was with joy that at about ten o'clock wo shoved the long craft out into the stream. They took the current swiftly. Tho escort, under Minton, had been divided in four squads, each at tho stern of a boat; tho prisoners did their own paddling, the guns at their backs. The paddles flashed, tho long canoes purred; they disappeared around a curvo behind tho palms. " I turned away, feeling as if it-were a Sunday morning at home. And within an hour I was again facing the commandant and another job. It was the colonel again. This time ho watched me down tho river—me and my Macabebes. " By noon wo wore all on the Q.M. launch and its trailing yawl—a hundred and twenty-five of us—churning down the river. I took out my watch. With tho current, wo were maKiiig an easy fourteen miles an hour; the bancas must be making seven. They had two hours the start of us; wo must pass them in just about two hours. Pass them, and as we passed give a little hollo to Minton, disgruntled with his detail. , „ ' , " But I didn't say hello to Minton. Tho two hours had not *ju>~ qr-w* wlssa wo hear'i « pestering Tire off to our loft. The river makes there a largo I curve; the firing was on the river. For

a moment I debated landing WJ cutting across to it. But, looking at she time, I saw that we must catch tho bancas in about ten minutes—sooner if they had stopped. Tho firing, perhaps, was mainly from them, chough it was mighty hot for that, and there wero in it somo dull detonations ivhieh were not from Krags. Or it was an attack from the shore, which they could ' run ' successfully and which I would Gin-prise and punish.

" 1 yelled down to '.ho Tagal engineer. Ho grinned back broadly—wo wero going as fast as we could go. Wo slid on down tho river, tho sound of firing getting closer, and tho thurnpings in our chests harder; we turned a tight loop—and debouched into a long stretch and slap-bang upon the scene. "An ugly .scene. Tho river hero was a long, smooth stretch. On the left wero high banks, a plateau at the top; on tho right tho shoro was low, a wet jungle. And on the high bank to the loft a party of Dios-Dios men, seaming the cliff, was shooting down into the river, while to the right with my glass I could see tho high grass alive with bolomcn. The smooth surfaco of the river between, what with the bullets, sparkled aiid flashed as with leaping trout. And beyond 1 saw the four bancas drifting lazily, bottoms up. " Not only the bancas. Nearer, on tho surfnee of tho water, wero a few 6mall, dark spots—Macabebes, immersed to the neck, shooting upward at the high bank. Even as I looked one after tho other the littlo dots seemed to crack like nuts—and I saw them floating down, bigger, yet more indistinct, filing after the bancas in a loam that was not white.

" I reconstructed later what had occurred from the slim survivors. Just as the bancas had reached the place beneath tho high bank tho women they carried—the villainous crones !-'-had set them a-rocking. Minton, chivalrous young idiot, had not ordered (ire right away, for the reason that these witches might, after all, be womun. He was beginning to chide them as if they had been babes when over went those long, narrow canoes, spilling escort, prisoners, women neck-high into tho stream. " At tho same time from the high bank down pattered the Dios-Dios men's first volley. Tho prisoners and tho women had immediately taken to the low bank to tho right; most of the Macabebes had followed, to bo hacked to pieces by the bolomen waiting there in the grass; but some, who had kept their rifles dry, had stood up in the. water, firing upward at tho high bank —till happened to them what I had 6een.

' Well, here was the end of it before mo now—the river, again lustrous and smooth, with its floating bancas, its smaller flaccid driftings. In vision I saw Minton going down to the sea with his men, asleep, still smiling and chivalrous, between the green waters. " I jerked my hand, and tho launch, looping about, churned up the river as if turning tail. .But as soon as it had whisked out of sight around the curve it ran its noso deep, with eagerness, into the left bank, on the same sido as the main body of Dios-Dios men. "The shore hero was lower, and a sort of trail zig-zagged up the side. Wo ayalanched out and simply dug''up that trail. When wo had gotten above we deployed, still in the bush, advanced thus in open order, and broke out suddenly upon the wide, bare plateau, not a hundred yards from the Dios-Dios men.

" They wore more than I had expected—about six hundred, I should say. All of tho time on our way to them, on the launch, landing, up tho trail, we had had but one thought—to get to them; we had had but one fear —that they might be gone. All of us, in our minds, we had already tho vision of the charge—how we would shoot and cut and hack, how we would splinter arms, and cave in chests, and burst open heads. But now, as wo came into sight, rather to our own astonishment, it was they that charged us first.

" They came at us, believo me, without hesitation. They dropped their guns, and came at _ us with bolos, bounding liko goats in a tight whirl. They had red crosses painted in blood across their hearts, and their eyes popped out of their heads. " Immediately we folt like a clever boxer with long reach who finds himself up against some bull-like fellow who gets in under his guard. Our arms felt too long! W© liad time, I think, for two volleys. They did good work, but not apparently, for those fanatics were so wedged that the dead kept on coming with the living, their heads rolling on their shoulders. There was a little individual potting—and they weTe on us. "To my right and my left I knew that some of my men had broken like a d'am, but also that there was a closer cuddling of tho others about me. Then it was like a football game —that's tho only way I can describe the thing—the milling confusion of it; efforts, heaves and grunts; the loathsome heat of bodies, the smell of sweat, the deadly closeness; and then its weariness, the paralysing weariness coming from that ceaseless avalanching of flesh, tons and tons of flesh, upon one, upon one's numb arms, trembling legs, and straining back. "I couldn't kill fast enough to free myself, to got one good gulp of fresh free air. I couldn't kill fast enough, that's all. I had emptied' my Krag from the beginning of the charge. Then I pumped.away with my repeating shot-gun—fine at short range!— till I had emptied that. Then came my two automatic revolvers, and I was emptying those. But without the slightest apparent effect. They came and came, and came. " My red head must have been their rallying point. A bolo would flash before my eyes; I'd shoot; a limp body would drop across my thighs—and thero'd be another bolo flashing up there. I was killing them one after the other as they came;- but they were coming so hard that each, dead, finished his gesture before dropping. Each as lie fell drew his bolo down across my left shoulder—see the parallel welts on my uniform there—each _ one, by some queer post-mortem precision, exacting in the same way, at the same f>lace. The wounds afterward looked ike the w-ork of a zealous cook with cleaver who had mistaken my shoulder for a. round steak, and zealously had tried to transform it to hamburg. "My rifle was empty; my shotgun was empty; my first revolver was empty; t was shooting with tho second—and still thoy came one after the other, each as he died giving me his sharp little parting pat. " Finally I had only one shot left. I lot the nearest man havo it right in tho belly, and, with profound interest saw him coming on as if nothing at all were the matter. Then, I think less from loss of blood than sheer disgust at tho heat, at the smell, and especially at tho unfair result of my last shot, I collapsed. I seemed to drop, drop, drop down a big, black, soft hole. " I remained there a while. But lci% and less peacefully. I would have slept, but I was being bothered by an aggravating noise. Someone above me was sharpening a knife- It was tho butcher, that's what it was—the butcher back home, standing a« his marble table, and whetting his knife upon his long steel. Then » fresh pattering of water came down ■, upon my head. '"Thank God I' I murmured,, w ' alc " ing. ' Thank God—it is raining' . 71 1 don't know why 1 should' have thanked God even if it had been raining. But it wasn't raining. , The c f ° ol drip came from tho wet clothes or a man standing above- me, strandim;, K bodes. I could see hti jotted i legs, bare to tho kneos-frw" 1 m >, ?£ sition they looked immense—ana nib

white pantaloons, soaked as if for a month they had lain at tho bottom of tho Gandara. But I could not see above the crotch, and above the crotch up there somewhere was it that the busy knife sharpening was going on. Why was that butcher sharpening his knifeP I sudd'enly went to sleep again. " When I awoke a second time 1 seemed more conscious of my position. The shower man was still above mo; still above me the busy music of his sharpening knife. I was in a little niche behind a barricade. The barricade was made up of twined bodies. Over this barricade a Dios-Dios man was climbing. Right beneath my band was a gun—a Dios-Dios gun. I can still see the red string with which the poor thing was all tied up. I placed the muzzle of the gun against the belly of tho man who was climbing— I had a weakness for abdomens that day—and pulled the trigger. There was a noise as of thunder—and the man kept on climbing. I passed away again, what with chagrin at this new proof of divine injustice and queerness of Dios-Dios anatomy. " But tho click-clack-click still went on above me. I could not rest. I cursed the butcher—and woke. He was still over me, his wondrous legs arching me like a bridge. They were mightily busy, these legs. The one against my chest was planted firmly, but higher I could see the kneo giving and straightening, muscles relaxing and then whipping tense like cab'es mooring a boat; while tho other leg, behind mo, I could feel rubbing against my back, tho foot shifting constantly in" search of new base. The knife would not be still; zip-zip-clash, zip-sip-Clash, it went on the big steel. I mumbled curses at the butcher again. "It was an odd way to be fighting, wasn't it—to lie there, doze and wake, wake and doze? But that is what I was doing. I came to once more. This time my posture had changed. I was lying farther over on my left sido, my nose nearer to the ground. I could not see above me, but I knew by sound that the butcher had not changed his mind about his knife; he was going to have it sharp. My interest, though, drew away from it to settle on an object on the ground there close to my left eye, so close that I seemed to look at it through a microscope. "It was a toe ? a monstrous toe. It was hinged sinuously to a foot, a monstrous foot. For a moment my eye wandered over the foot; its heel, projecting backward like the stern of a torpedo boat, its scales, its sole, thick and elastic, like an elephant hoof; irresistibly it returned to the toe. ' "After this I seemed to have reacquired a new zest in life; I had an occupation which made living worth while. It was this: I must discover an exact simile for that wonderful toe. So from now on each time that I awakened with my eye close to the subject of my brooding I found a new name for it. "They seemed very admirable then. Each came in a fever of enthusiasm; each filled me with a sense of felicity. I've had to change my mind since. They wero not so good, alter all. My inspiration was a little short. _ "The first time I called 'it a can opener. Then, with more fervour, a scimitar. Successively a scythe, a sector, the claw of a crab, the thumb of a baboon. And finally, with passion, the crescent of a young moon. "This last success finished me. I went to sleep for good. I awakened once in the launch. Minten was standing over me. Without showing the least surprise at his presence,' I looked up at him sweetly, and said, in a baby's voice: ' The butcher has stopped sharpening his knife.' Which he took as a piece of tremendous irony. When I awoke again I was in a whit© cot of the post hospital. '' It seems that Minton had not been dead at all. Instead of dying, ho had swum. With the last of his men gone, he had swum under water to one of the overturned bancas, and had drifted, ■hidden beneath it, till out of sight. Then he had climbed tho bank, and, following it up, had made his cool appearance in time to take command from my sergeant, by now a pretty much bewildered sergeant. Rallying a-little party, he had made a flank charge with it—and had cleaned out the Dios-Dios crew. He had 6pent one-third of my Macabes doing it, though. " It was three weeks before they let me out, my shoulder taking that time to begin healing,. But one morning before the sun was too hot I was up in a sweet little breeze that blew from the river. It seemed years since I had seen the pueblo and the post, and they looked good to me. I hopped about, stretching to the feel of having nothing to do, my mind deliciously blank. I went around tho plaza, rolling a cigarette once in a while, put my headl'm at the cuartel, sat at Tionko's sipping a nzz and found mvself finally at the old chapel where- the prisoners were Kept. "Everything was just as it had been three weeks before. A sentry paced in front The portals wero open, the gates shut. A new batch of prisoners /was within. A new batch—no, by Jove, 'not altogether! , , "I rubbed my eyes, I felt ot my head, I pinched my arm. eyes were in their sockets, my head was on my shoulders, my arm felt a, ninch sure enough. Things were what they seemed. And that man was what ho seemed. • " There he crouched in the far righthand corner of the little chapel, his head deep between his shoulders, his knees drawn up apelike; there he sat, cuddled in the angle, viewing ms feet —the man I had see there three weeks ago, the pox-marked, evil-eyed villain to whom I had given tobacco. "I made just three jumps to the commandant's office. 'Major,' I gasped, ' major, do you know that in the chapel there with the other prisoners vou havo one of the leaders of the river affair, one of the devils who upset the bancas and butchered our men?' " ' Who?' asked the major, without excitement. 'Do you mean tho old fellow who looks liko a banyan tree?' "'Yes, sir,' I panted. ' Pox-mark-cd. With a gash.' " The major looked long at the little glass ball which held together the loose papers of his desk. He looked dreamily out of the window towards the palms lining the river. He seemed to forget me. When ho remembered ho said hesitatingly: ' Yes, I know. We've got him in there because we don't know what to do with him——' "' Do with him !' I screeched. 'Do with him! Isn't there any tree — isn't there any rope—in this confounded villageP' "Tho major smiled gently. 'Fact is,' he murmured, ' there is a difficulty. The fellow rendered you a servico—quito a service—from all I can hear. Yon don't recall much of the fight, do you?' " ' No, sir,' T admitted, though oven now I was beginning to feel the clouds shifting in my head as if about to break.

" Well, that fellow stood over you for about five minutes—five bad miti•.itj"—txnd rr.r.do hash of some umpteen Dins-Dies men. They seemed to have a wild yearning to get at you, those Dios-Dios men.'

" The clouds were breaking.- ' Have the man brought here, major, please, 1 I cried excitedly. ' Have him brought here to me, major!' "In a few minutes he came in, with his pox marks, his scars, his humps, and his curves; and as if in a deep salaam I threw myself to the ground at his remarkable feet.

"I was not salaaming, though. I had merely taken a position I remembered. Stretched on my side, I brought my left eyo close—-and there it was. " Memory, confirmation flooded me at once.' There it was, close to my left eye, magnified to generous proportions; there it was, the object of my only moment of poetic flight. It wiggled, prehensile, monstrous, but a littleabashed—the can opener, the scimitar, the crab claw, the baboon thumb, tm crescent of a young moon, the sector, the scythe. There it was—tho toe! " I rose. • I remember, major,' I said. 'No mistake about it. He it Was. He stood over me—when I couldn't stand—and plied a bolo. It 6ounded like the butcher back homo sharpening his knife.' "The major had been looking.at ma with a vague hope. Tho hope pulsed out. He grew suddenly very illhumoured. ' Well, that's just it,' ha growled. 'That just it I Now, what in H-H-Hades are we going to do with the man?' ■ ■

" I thought a moment—not too long. ' Maybe he can learn to unfold a cot,' I said. ' And maybe fry an egg.. ' I'll take him for my muchacho, major dear!'

"I've-not regretted it since. He's so ugly I use him as a shield. I shove him in front of me, and thus I can, march single-handed from one end to the other of Samar."

Having thus talked his fill, Garter very promptly fainted. We put him in Blair's bed. His convalescence was not quito firm; he remained there three days. - ..;

These three days were a nuisance. For from the very first Carter's new muchacho rose from the nether regions, and camped himself at his' master's door. During the day he squatted and smoked countless cigarettes. He w;asn't very careful about the butts t either. During the night it was worse. He laid them across the sill. And when you straddled him, thinking you would enter without disturbance, he rose abruptly between your legs, and lit a match that burned j?our nose—to see if you were all right. We tried to him. We were a littlo curious to know just how much ho had had to do with the plotting of the river ambush. . Our poor Visayan broke upon his iron impassability. And never did we find out, cither, with what intention—after the bancas were overturned—he had toiled, dripping, up tha bank. Nor which ho meant to join—us or the Dios-Dios men—till, reaching tho plateau, he saw -the capitan fall, and ran to him to pay him for his smoke.