A few days later, the Major, who had sat throughout his dinner in
gloomy silence, said: "I've had a telegram from Templeton. He says
Adams left Dao five days ago on a three-day hunting pass, and he
hasn't returned. He says Adams has had it in his head all along to
visit Guindulman, and he is sure now that he must have tried to get
across, a mad man's undertaking! And of course he didn't make it, or
we should have heard from him. Brentwood," blaming the Adjutant, as he
always did when he was disturbed, "why hadn't Adams been transferred?"
"I can't recall your saying anything about it, sir," Brentwood
pacifically replied.
"If he tried to come here there's a reason for his being so long
on the way, and he'll be court-martialled for his pains. Even with
a map this wilderness is hard to wade through. But if he actually
went hunting, he has met with foul play. Hunting in this country
alone! What judgment Templeton ever had is dissolved in whiskey,
and Adams has gone stark mad."
"Adams has been in Dao for nearly two years, seeing only an occasional
Spanish launch captain, and a dipsomaniac," Mrs. Smith remarked.
The Major was too deeply worried to challenge this. "We have no way
of knowing what he did do. I have telegraphed O'Brien to take out
some men."
Julie who had sat listening, with staring eyes and a fevered face,
gazed in fright at the Major. Adams had enjoined absolute secrecy
concerning his dash in and out of Guindulman. If she were to disclose
his adventure, she would expose him to military trial. If she did not--
She gazed round the anxiety-weighted table, and tried with palpitating
heart to come to a decision.
After dinner, walking agonizedly down the hill, she tried again to
think what to do. Adams had said it might take him two or three days
to get back. If he should arrive back, safely, it might appear that he
had been lost on his deer hunt; how could she dare to subject him to
court-martial? How, on the other hand, could she dare risk his life
by another hour's loss of time in telling what she knew? His safety
came first of all.
She retraced her way, and knocked timidly at the Major's door.
He opened it himself, looking at her rather strangely, she thought.
"I want to speak to you, Major!" she faltered distressfully.
He flung away his cigar, and invited her in.
"If you weren't the Commanding Officer, it wouldn't be so hard. There
must be moments when you are not; couldn't I claim one of those?"
The Major deliberated. "Perhaps I'd better tell you that I have just
become acquainted with what I believe you have come to disclose."
"You mean about Mr. Adams?" she cried. "Oh, nobody knew that he was
here, but me--and I have not breathed it to a soul."
"One other person knew, for he has just reported to me the exact
time that Adams left the village, and with whom he spent his time
while here."
"He spent it with me," Julie doggedly declared. "He was lonely,
going mad under that monster at Dao. He wanted to see civilization
again. This was what meant civilization to him. Doesn't that seem
awful, after what he has stuck through?"
"But would he risk his life, to say nothing of his commission, for such
an impulse?" Some thought, some intimation that projected from the
mind of the unknown person who had seen Adams and herself, stretched
back of the Major's words. Julie's unpleasant experiences of late had
commenced to sharpen her wits. The Major's informant, it was clear,
had had something horrid to say. The kiss! The disappearing figure of
that man--who could he have been! She began to be frightened. Glancing
up, she saw that the Major perceived photographically all that was
in her mind.
She cast about desperately in her thought. The Major's conservatism
must be won over, if one of her spirit's company were to be saved
from disgrace. It was useless to try to penetrate the understanding of
this grim, practical man with the things Adams had poured out to her
on the log that evening in the thicket; idle to deal in symbols with
the soldier before her. Well, there was always the final, smashing
conventional fact!
"Mr. Adams and I," she faltered, groping for the word, "had an
understanding. It was for that that he risked his life--for me. I
met him at Dao, and we had corresponded. Oh, please try to find
him!" she cried.
"He has probably got on the wrong trail," the Major reassured her,
"and will turn up in Dao yet."
"And you will do nothing awful to him?" she pleaded.
"We will do the best we can within the scope of the regulations,
of course. He's had a tough time of it, and the fact of your being
here just swept him out of his senses, probably."
Julie walked dazedly to the door. There she paused, and asked almost
fiercely: "May I ask, Major, who your informant in this matter was?"
"I am sorry"--the Major appeared troubled--"but I promised not to say."
Adams's danger swept Julie's mind of every other thought. She was
aware, nevertheless, of how fearfully, on the spur of the moment,
she had complicated, the situation that she had attempted to save.
She knew very little about military trials, but she was sure that in
a time like this, actually one of war, an officer who had deliberately
left his post in violation of orders, or in wilful misconstruction of
permission, to travel through a hostile country, was in for a bad time
of it, and possibly for disgrace. Any extenuating circumstances that
she could advance it seemed her duty to offer, at whatever personal
cost. But what of their future relations--of a bond cemented like
this? In casting herself away, characteristically, on the instant,
to save Adams, she had never given a thought to the issue.
Terry with his detachment of men was sent out from Tarlac in search of
Adams. The Major also dispatched a force from his own garrison over the
route that Adams had probably taken on his return. The country was wild
and inaccessible, and it was hoped that he had merely gotten lost. For
several days nothing was heard from the searching parties. The Major's
suspense, together with that of the whole garrison, grew painful. It
was about the time of the atrocities in Negros and Samar, and the
Americans knew not what each dark day might bring forth.
Several days later both parties came into Guindulman bringing Terry,
dangerously wounded, and the body of Adams. He had been murdered in
the hills--had lost his life in the new country that he had served.
After turning the country upside down, Terry had discovered Adams's
horse in one of the dark little villages, and had forced the populace
to disclose what had become of Adams. He found that Adams had come
through the village very tired and hungry, and had asked for some
food and a place to sleep for a few hours. He had a fine horse, a good
pistol, and obviously some money; so the presidente had proffered him
a dinner of hot chicken and had led him to a room. While he slept
the presidente and his accomplices had strangled him with a rope,
and thrown his body in a hole on the river bank.
After administering summary justice to these villains, Terry had
started back, only to be caught himself in a bamboo trap laid in a
nipa hut, into which he had stepped after reading a placard on the
outside addressed to the Americans and promising that information of
value could be obtained inside. Terry had fallen through the false
floor which had been laid over sharpened bamboo poles planted below.
The priest refused to allow Adams's body even temporary sepulture
in the cemetery of Guindulman, declaring that, since he was not a
catholic, Adams could not be admitted to consecrated ground. The
Major refused to take the priest's objections seriously, and pointed
out the fact that, in default of sepulture tax, the bones of those
interred were unceremoniously thrown out of the graveyard. However
over-crowded the cemetery might be, room for the present, the Major
declared, must be made for the remains of the dead officer. It was
a note-worthy fact that in Nahal there had never been sufficient
accommodation for either the living or the dead.
The quarrel ended in the annexation to the cemetery of a bit of
outside territory. So it was in unconsecrated ground, in a lonely
corner of alien forests, that Adams was put to rest.
The sun beat down on the open grave, and on the rude box. A strange
hush lay over the tropical atmosphere. Adams's horse, with his
master's boots reversed against the saddle, stood arching his neck
with sad pride.
The Major read the burial service. His harsh voice broke as he spoke
of the good soldier Adams had been, and a tear stole down his stern
cheek. The men pulled their hats down over their eyes, while Julie
stole forward weeping and sprinkled flowers over the friend who had
stepped out forever from the problem of the East.