NEW FRIENDS, AND AN ENEMY
The _Francesca_, no slower and no dirtier than most of the other
steamers which ply the inter-island trade routes, had waddled all
night and all day through the Celebes Sea. Afternoon found her
laboring over a becalmed mirror of sea, past rippled reefs, through
clusters of little coral islands from which straggle-plumed palms
raised wry fronds in anemic defiance of inhospitable, root resisting
soil. Mindanao lay to the west and south, vast, mysterious.
Terry stood alone at the forward end of the small promenade deck
watching the third class passengers, who, though still manifesting the
uneasiness of the Malay landsman at sea, were comfortably sprawled
upon the dirty hatch covers enjoying the seven-mile breeze created by
the movement of the vessel through the still atmosphere. Upon the
cooler side of the upper deck the first class passengers had disposed
themselves under the once-white awning. Two natives, a Tagalog planter
named Ledesma and his big-eyed, full-bosomed daughter, had withdrawn
themselves from the whites and were seated in conscious dignity near
the aft rail. Four Americans were grouped up forward, stretched out in
full length steamer chairs in the complete physical comfort born of a
cooling evening after a blistering day.
Lindsey reached out to pull up an extra chair, beckoned Terry to join
them and introduced him to the fourth member of the group, naming him
as Sears.
He was a big man, heavy-set, a bit untidy of dress and beard: his face
was flushed, and he answered Terry's pleasant salutation with a
mattered growl. Lindsey moved in his chair, uneasily.
"Lieutenant," he said, "we want to get acquainted with you. We shall
see much of each other in Davao."
Before Terry could respond a harsh voice broke in: "Yes, none of us
are stuck on ourselves down here!"
The words fell cold. Sensing the purpose to offend, Terry straightened
in his chair to face Sears. He met his surly stare squarely: their
eyes battled, but under the level gaze Sears' bloodshot eyes wavered
and lowered, the flush deepening angrily with his confusion.
Lindsey hastily summoned the deckboy to take their orders and by the
time he returned with the drinks the constraint had abated. Sears, the
only one who had ordered whiskey, settled back in his chair in sullen
relief from a situation not quite to his liking. Lindsey raised his
glass to Terry.
"To your arrival among us," he offered, pleasantly.
"To you all, sir," Terry responded.
"More hemp!" suggested Cochran.
Little Casey attested to his passion: "To breeds and breeders and
breeding!" he grinned: it was his never-failing toast at the Davao
Club.
They waited a moment for Sears, but he had gulped his drink.
It was the enthusiastic Casey who first spoke: "Lieutenant, and when
do you think you can come down to my place? I want you to see my
Berkshire boar and my two American mares!"
Cochran smiled at him, affectionately: everybody liked Casey for his
wild enthusiasms. His latest hobby was the importation of blooded
animals to cross with native stock.
"Casey," said Cochran, "if you would pay half as much attention to
your plantation as you do to your mares and that old grunter, you'd
get somewhere!"
Casey snorted: "Sure, and in about three months I'll have a colt to
show you--then you'll sing another tune! And wait till I get some
half-breed pigs--instead of the hollow-backed scrawny things we've got
now--then you'll admit that Casey was the boy!"
Casey was more or less of a character in the Gulf. His words flew so
fast they overran each other in effort to keep abreast of his racing
ideas. Thoroughly respected for his sterling character, he was made
the target of much good-natured hilarity because of his constant
hobby-riding and the rushing speech that made him almost incoherent.
His mares and boar had cost him money that could better have gone into
plantation improvements.
The conversation, drifting fitfully, touched upon a new stripping
machine which Lindsey had purchased in Manila: he was bringing it down
in the hold of the _Francesca_.
"I watched them load it," he declared. "I took no chances in being shy
a necessary bolt or belt. I'll have it set up in a couple of weeks and
if it works as well in the field as it did in the agent's
warehouse--no more labor troubles for me--no more hemp rotting in the
ground for lack of strippers!"
Cochran was mildly pessimistic. He had seen too many other heralded
inventions which worked well experimentally but failed in the hemp
fields. Of course Casey was hopeful--it was his nature.
Sears broke his long silence: "Labor troubles, labor shortage!
Hell!--there's plenty of labor in the Gulf--if only the Government
wasn't always hornin' in on us!"
Terry knew the remark was aimed at him but refrained from comment.
Sears mistook his silence.
"But no meddlin' government is goin' to interfere with me! I'm goin'
to run my own place from now on--and get my labor where I please--and
how I please!"
As this elicited no response from the patient officer he continued
despite Lindsey's distressed signals. Emboldened, he turned directly
to Terry.
"I suppose," he snarled, "that you were sent down to be the little
fairy god-father to the Bogobos--to protect the poor heathen from the
awful planters who want to make them work. No?"
Terry stirred. "Mr. Sears, I am instructed to protect the Bogobos from
any oppression--and to aid the planters in every legitimate way. I
hope to do both."
Sears' passion seemed fed by the conciliatory tone. Terry studied the
convulsed face and through the thick veil of rage saw the lines of
worry that had aged him prematurely: the black hair was streaked with
gray and his hands were thickened and stained with toil. Moved by a
quick sympathy Terry spoke again:
"Mr. Sears, this is no time to discuss the matter. In a week or so I
will come to see you and--"
Sears interrupted in a voice hoarse with anger: "Terry, if any
government man comes--snoopin' round my place--I'll--I'll--he will
never snoop again!"
In the tense silence that followed the challenge Lindsey bit clean
through his cigar. Terry's answer was so long in coming that the trio
of Americans who listened experienced something of the faint qualm
which sickens a man when he witnesses another's backing-down. Finally
he spoke, slowly, his measured words scarcely audible above the
muffled beat of the propeller.
"Sears, I am coming to your place first. I will come within a week."
Sears jumped to his feet, shaking with the hatred he had conceived for
the young officer. Terry rose easily, looking frail in comparison with
the burly figure opposing him, but he surveyed Sears steadily,
unafraid, and not unfriendly.
Cochran coughed loudly, and again. Casey nervously undid a shoelace,
retieing it with meticulous care. Lindsey rose with studied
leisureliness and stood at the rail near Sears, ready.
But the ship's bell rang out the dinner hour, a waiting Visayan
steward stepped out on the deck hammering a Chinese dinner gong, and
in the strident din the crisis passed. Lindsey lingered to speak with
Terry after the others had passed below.
"I'm very sorry, Lieutenant. Sears is a rough fellow, but he is
half-crazed with worry. He's really not a bad _hombre_."
Terry nodded: "I can see that he is worried about something."
"It's his plantation. He has invested what little money he had in it,
has worked hard for three years, and now that he has his first big
crop he can't harvest it--the Bogobos won't work for him. He is pretty
rough with them, I guess--but if he doesn't harvest this crop he's
ruined. He's in debt--and pretty desperate."
He paused, a deeper concern crept into his face: "Lieutenant," he said
earnestly, "can't you stay away from his place--a while--till he gets
his hemp cut and stripped? He is really desperate--and always packs a
gun."
Terry smiled his gratitude. "Lindsey, I am much obliged to you. You
need not worry about it."
* * * * *
Neither Sears nor Lindsey were of the group which assembled on deck
after dinner to enjoy the brilliancy of the swift sunset. The ship had
swung through Sarangani Channel and was paralleling the west coast due
north toward Davao. The red glory of the dying sun tinted the waters
of the Gulf to the line of palm-fringed beach which edged the distant
shoreline. From the shore the land sloped gently to the west and
north, mile after mile of primeval jungle broken here and there where
brush and thorn and creeper had yielded to man's demand for more and
more hemp. Far inland the steady rise persisted, grew more abrupt and
more heavily timbered, terminating in the far interior in a dim and
mighty mountain whose dark-wooded slopes and misted crest dominated
the Gulf: the red orb of the sun had dropped behind this towering
summit.
Cochran pointed up at the distant mountain: "Mount Apo."
Terry nodded: "Where the Hill People live?"
"Yes,--where they are supposed to live: no one really knows ... you
will hear all sorts of stories."
The shadows which lurked upon Mount Apo descended over the lower
slopes, then enfolded the Gulf. The lights on the steamer shone
murkily. The three lay back watching the stars brighten overhead. For
a long time nothing was heard but the querulous mutterings of the old
boat as she waddled on her way.
Terry broke the silence: "Where is Lindsey?"
Cochran answered quickly to head off the more explicit Casey: "Oh,
he's busy--busy with Sears."
Terry understood. Cochran sparred for an opening in the silence his
friendship for Sears made embarrassing.
"Lieutenant, you are likely to have work for your soldiers pretty
soon. There's a rough outfit gathering down here in the Gulf--though
I imagine Bronner told you all about it."
"He told me something of it, but I would like to hear more."
"Well, I don't know much about it, excepting that a score or more of
tough characters have come down in the past two months. They settled
on a mangy plantation up the coast, north of Davao, but they aren't
working: just loafing around all day. They seem to be waiting for
something--or somebody. The natives are scared, and the whites don't
feel any too good about it either! You know we are scattered all over
the Gulf--everybody a mile or more away from his neighbors--and that
means a mile of jungle."
Casey flared up: "We ought to run 'em out--they're no good, probably
carabao thieves or worse--"
"How worse?" grinned Cochran. "Horse thieves--or pig thieves?"
Casey did not mind being ragged by his friends. He persisted:
"Lieutenant, you ought to run 'em out as undesirables or under the
vagabond law! They're no good--they won't work--and they're the
toughest lookin' lot I ever did see! Sure and if I had my way I'd toss
the lot into Sears' crocodile hole--the dirty, low-lived, shiftless
lot of 'em!"
Terry was interested: "Sears' crocodile hole?" he asked.
Cochran laughingly explained: "It's more or less of a joke between
Sears and Lindsey: each has a hoodoo on his place that makes it harder
to get laborers. The Bogobos fear a great snake they swear haunts
Lindsey's woods, and none of them wants to go near a pool on Sears'
places just below the ford--they claim it is the home of a monstrous
crocodile, thirty feet long. No white man has ever seen either; it's a
big joke in a way--but a costly one for them as it makes the wild men
give their places a wide berth."
"What have they done about it?"
"Everything. Got up hunting parties--stalked the places for hours and
days, tried to convince the natives that it is all bosh. But they
insist it's all true, and stay away--and loss of man power means loss
of money they both need this year. Both of them think the stories are
just the usual Bogobo exaggerations."
Terry thought Cochran not quite convinced: "What do you think?"
"I? Oh, I don't know. It's hard to swallow the stories--man-eating
snakes and crocodiles sound all right on the lips of the old Spaniards
but where our flag flies things seem to sober down. Yet I've usually
found that back of all these Bogobo tales there is an element of
truth: and two years ago when I was clearing my place I shot an
eighteen-foot python. Stumbled on it sleeping--glad it was!"
The evening monsoon had set in, rippling the surface of the sea and
humming its cooling refrain through the rigging. Casey yawned heavily
and went below to seek the planter's early sleep. Cochran remained
with Terry for a half-hour, enlightening him with a running talk of
the problems confronting the planters. He was well educated,
progressive, and backed by ample family means had developed the best
holding in the Gulf. He told Terry that on this trip he had succeeded
in persuading thirty timid Visayan families to settle upon his
plantation despite their native fear of all things Mindanaoan, and
that his profits for the year would return him sixty per cent of the
capital he had invested in his place.
"You will soon understand conditions, Lieutenant," he declared as he
rose to go below. "Most of the planters need labor, and they need
capital." He threw his cigar butt over the rail, debating the ethics
of uttering what might be thought a criticism of his associates. "And
they need farming intelligence most--too many of them were army men or
government men before coming down here, yet they tackle a highly
specialized form of tropical agriculture with utter confidence! They
aren't farmers--they're just heroes!"
He half-turned to go, hesitated: "Lieutenant, you're going to like it
down here--because we're going to like you. Now, of course it's none
of my business, but if I were you I would keep away from Sears'
place--he will make his threat good. He has it in him to become a
pretty bad man--but as I say, it's none of my business. Goodnight,
sir."
After Cochran had gone, Terry, sleepless, slowly walked the gently
rolling deck. Ledesma stood at the rail near the forward lifeboat
gazing into the soft shadows which shrouded the muttering ship. At
Terry's quiet approach he turned to address him abstractedly in the
liquid Spanish of cultured Filipinos.
"Buenas Noches, Señor Teniente."
Terry answered in the same tongue: "Good Evening, Señor Ledesma. A
fine night."
The natives' vague fear of the dark--wrought into instinct by a
thousand generations of ancestors who crouched at night around
flickering campfires in jungles through which crept hostile men and
marauding beasts--had fastened upon him, stripping him of the thin
veneer of civilization the Spaniards had laid but lightly over the
Malayan barbarism. He shifted uneasily, looked out over the starlit
sea.
"Teniente," he murmured, "I like not the night. The dead rise ... some
sing ... some complain ... drift through the black mists searching for
those they have long lost ... the vampires seek for unprotected
children.... I like not the night...."
Lost in the ghastly realms of native ghostlore, he ignored the
American. Terry rounded the deck once and when he came again to where
Ledesma had stood he found him gone to seek the cheer of lighted
cabin. Terry stopped at the forward rail, his face upturned to the big
stars which burned in the soft depths of the warm sky: the Southern
Cross poised just over the crest of Apo. Below, on the black sea, the
thrust of the vessel threw up a great welt which bordered the wedge of
disturbed waters: phosphorescence gleamed like great wet stars. The
tips of cigarettes glowed on the forward deck where members of the
crew lay prone, exchanging occasional words in the hushed voices races
not far from nature use in the still hours of the night.
The morning would find him in a strange place, among strangers ... he
leaned upon the rail in a sudden excess of yearning for those whom he
loved, summoned the spirits of those who loved him. They came to him
through the night--Susan fretting, Ellis affectionately gruff, Enrico
boisterously cheerful, Father Jennings wise, patient, watchful.
Another, fairer, unutterably dear, hovered near him: he strove, as of
old, to bridge the gap--and was baffled, as of old.
The eight bells of midnight roused him from his dejected reverie: he
straightened from the rail. The Cross had dipped into the clouded
crest: miles to the west a shorefire bit into the black mantle that
draped the Gulf. The low wailing of an infant and the guttural
endeavors of the mother to soothe it came up from the forward deck
where the native passengers lay sprawled in the profound slumber of
the Malay: pacified, it slept again, then the night was still but for
the soft sounds of displaced waters and the creakings of the ship's
old joints.
* * * * *
As he passed along the narrow, ill-lighted passage toward his cabin he
heard a voice raised in ugly imprecation:
"I'll get him if he comes, the ---- upstart! Just let him show his
face on my place, by ----, I'll fix him!"
It was Sears' voice. As he felt his way down the dark corridor, he
heard Lindsey's low tones, reproachful, conciliatory.
A few steps further brought him near Sears' door. Suddenly he
distinguished a figure outlined against the door, listening. As a
match flared in Terry's fingers, the native whirled.
It was Matak. He followed Terry to his cabin, unabashed.
"Master," he said simply, "he talk about you. He make fight talk--kill
talk--so I listen."
The seed of his loyalty fell on ground furrowed by the lonely hours on
deck. Shame at having given way to a great depression swept over
Terry--friends were in the making, this splendid friend already made
... and he had come to serve, not to seek.... He smiled into the
worshiping black eyes.
"It's all right, Matak. You do not understand. You go to your quarters
and get some sleep."
The Moro lingered. "Anything more, master?"
"Yes, Matak. Don't call me 'master': call me 'lieutenant.'
"Yes, master." He left the cabin.
Terry, always a light sleeper, was awakened toward morning by a slight
sound outside his door. Looking out into the dim corridor he saw that
Matak was standing guard over his slumbers, armed with a big bolo
whose naked length gleamed viciously in the semi-darkness.
Touched by the devotion and realizing the futility of trying to drive
him from his vigil, Terry lay back on the pillow, the rhythmic beat of
the propeller in his ears. Asleep, he dreamed, and the chug of the
screw became the beat of an engine bearing him away from the home of
his fathers.
The Moro heard the restless tossing and stepped silently into the
little stateroom, his young-old eyes fastened upon the wistful lines
that marked the competent young face. While he stood brooding over his
young master the dawn streaked through the open porthole, and a soft
splash sounded from up forward as the ship dropped her roped anchor.
They were off Davao.
Terry had come into port.