THE CHUMMERY
The chummery to which Douglas Shafto had been introduced was a rambling
old bungalow, and the edge of the Cantonment, sufficiently close to
offices and work. Although by no means modern, it boasted both electric
light and fans, and the rent was fairly moderate; the landlord, Ah Kin,
a Chinaman, called for it punctually on the first of every month, but
closed his slits of eyes to various necessary repairs.
Among the three chums already established was Roscoe, a dark, well-set
up man of five or six and thirty, with a clean-shaven, eager face,
artistic hands, and a pair of clever eyes. Roscoe had been in turn a
junior master, a journalist and actor. Dissatisfied and unsatisfactory
in these situations, his friends had found him an opening where he
would be at too great a distance to trouble them—in short, a billet in
a Burma oil company in Rangoon. Amazing to relate, the post suited him
and the rolling stone came to a standstill; well educated and
intellectual, endowed with a curious eye and a critical mind, he was
anxious to see, mark and learn the life of his present surroundings.
Out of business hours, Roscoe devoted himself to this task with such
whole-souled enthusiasm, that at times he actually imagined that he had
his finger upon the pulse of this strange, new world. The oldest and
least prosperous of the fraternity, his companions liked him and spoke
of Roscoe as “a queer fish, but a rare good sort.”
Patrick Ormond FitzGerald, police officer, a genial native of County
Cork, was about thirty years of age, handsome, generous and hot-headed,
who enjoyed every kind of scrap and sport—including chasing dacoits and
smugglers. He diffused an atmosphere of good humour and confidence, was
universally popular and invariably in debt. Chum number three, James
MacNab, hailed from “Bonnie Scotland”—a spare, sandy, canny individual,
who, far from being in debt, was carefully amassing large savings. He
had a pretty fiancée in Crieff, who sent him weekly budgets and the
_Scotsman_. He owned a sound, steady ambition, and seldom made an
unconsidered remark. “Mac” was an employé in the Irrawaddy Flotilla
Company, where he was rapidly rising, so to speak, to the surface.
Each “chum” had a room to himself, but they took their meals together
in a wide, open veranda, and were catered for by a fat Madrassi butler,
who did not rob them unduly, seeing that his accounts had to be
inspected and passed by thrifty “Mac,” who ruthlessly eliminated all
imaginative items.
In their large compound their cook kept game fowl—long-legged fighting
cocks from Shanghai—and other poultry, including the curly feathered
freaks of Aracan. Here FitzGerald stabled his horses—a capital pair,
trust an Irishman for that!—and Roscoe, a stout elderly Shan,
ironically nicknamed “Later On.” MacNab rode a bicycle; a useful mount
that required neither oats nor groom.
The three chums soon made Shafto feel at ease and at home; they were
lively companions, too. Roscoe was a capital mimic, and kept his
company in roars of laughter. FitzGerald drew notable caricatures and
could tell a story with the best. “The MacNab,” who had a certain dry
wit, took the stranger firmly in hand with regard to finance—namely,
the furnishing of his room and other expenditure.
“Bide a wee; go slow at first,” he advised. “Just hire a few sticks
from Whiteway and Laidlaw, and wait your chance for picking up bargains
at Balthasar’s auction rooms; anyway, you don’t want much. A bed, a
couple of chairs, table, washstand and tub. I have a chest of drawers I
can let you have cheap. In the rains the pictures fall out of their
frames, the glue melts, rugs are eaten by white ants in a few hours—and
your boots grow mushrooms.”
“That’s a cheerful look out!” exclaimed Shafto. “Well, I have nothing
to tempt the white ants.”
Shafto was adaptable and soon found his feet. At first his entire time
and energies were concentrated on his new job and learning an
unaccustomed task; he spent hours on the wharves along the Strand, or
across the river at Dallah, standing about in the glare, and dust and
blazing sun, amongst struggling, sweating coolies and swinging cranes.
He had also to supervise his Eurasian subordinates, see paddy shipped,
and keep a sharp look out for their delinquencies, such as receiving
“palm oil,” or overlooking damages.
In the midst of his daily work Shafto was not insensible to his
surroundings, but, on the contrary, acutely alive to the strange
bewildering glamour of the East, where life dwells radiantly. He was
interested in the ever-changing shipping, the crowds of strange craft
lying by the wharves or moored to buoys in the great impetuous
Irrawaddy, and the swarms of sampans darting in all directions.
Overhead was the hot blue sky, blazing upon a motley crowd, which
included the smiling faces of the idle, insouciant, gaily-clad
Burmans—most genial and most engaging of nations.
Down by the _godowns_, where Shafto worked, the stir and press of
commercial life was tremendous; on every side roared and dashed trams,
motor-lorries, traction engines and—curious anachronism—long strings of
heavily-laden bullock carts. Here was trade from the ends and corners
of the earth; out of her abundance this rich country was shipping to
the nations wood, oil, rice, metals, cotton, tea, silken stuffs, ivory,
jade, and precious stones; masses of cargo lay piled on the wharves,
amid which a multitude of noisy coolies, busy as ants, went to and fro
incessantly, whilst in the distance the saw-mills screamed, the steam
dredgers clanked, and tall factory chimneys blackened the heavens.
All this amazing restless activity seemed strangely out of its natural
perspective; the scene should have been laid in Liverpool or Glasgow,
instead of displaying a background of palms, tropical trees, gilded
pagodas, and a circle of gaily-dressed, idle natives.
Although the British and German residents did not assimilate, Shafto
saw a good deal of their mercantile element. At ten o’clock every
morning hundreds of Teuton clerks poured into Rangoon from the
surrounding neighbourhood, and he could not but admire their
indefatigable business activity, tireless industry, and world-wide
radius of action. Long, long after British firms had closed for the
day, and their employés had rushed off to amuse themselves at football,
golf, or boating, the German was still sticking to it and hard at work.
But there was another feature of which Shafto was aware and could not
applaud; this was the “spy” system. There were rumours of an active
gang (manipulated from Berlin), whose business it was to discover what
English firms were doing in the way of large contracts, and
subsequently to enter into competition, cut out, and undersell. It was
said that their methods were both prompt and ruthless. It was also
hinted that one or two firms winked at contraband, offered irresistible
bribes, and made fabulous profits.
The individual characteristics of his fellow-inmates were soon
impressed upon Shafto, and the interest they evinced in him—a mere
stranger—was undeniably agreeable to his _amour propre_. MacNab, who
was sincerely concerned about his financial affairs, instructed him in
many clever economies, and the localities of the cheapest shops; he was
also emphatic on the subject of cautious outlay—and full of warning
against the horrors of “a rainy day.”
FitzGerald, on the contrary, was eloquent in favour of “the best that
was going, and hang the expense!”
“You’ll want two horses, my boy,” he announced, “if you’re going in for
paper-chasing and the gymkhana; you might chance on a bargain, too. I
heard of a fellow who got a wonder for three hundred rupees, an ugly
ewe-necked brute, but he carried off the Gold Cup and every blessed
thing he was entered for. On the other hand, such a windfall is a very
outside chance; then you must have a small car for the rains—I believe
you would get a nice little Ford for six hundred rupees.”
Shafto received this advice with a shout of laughter.
“A racer and a car on four hundred rupees a month! FitzGerald, you are
raving mad. If I followed your advice——” he paused.
“You would soon be shunted out of Gregory’s,” supplemented MacNab, who,
with impassive face, was lolling in a long chair, a silent but
attentive listener.
“Ah, don’t be minding that fellow!” protested FitzGerald. “Shure, he’d
sell his father’s gravestone, if he ever had the heart to put it up.”
“Well, I pay my way, Fitz, and can walk down Phayre Street at my case,
whilst you——” he paused significantly.
“Oh, well, I own a few bills, I know—six hundred rupees a month goes no
way here, but it’ll be all right when my ship comes in; anyhow, I’ll
have had a good time—I’ll have _that_ to look back upon when I’m an old
fellow upon the shelf. Now you,” suddenly turning to stare at MacNab,
“never spend a rupee; you wouldn’t take a taxi to save your life, never
go to a cinema or a concert, nothing that costs money; you just bicycle
and drink lemon squashes and write home.”
“Oh, if you want to ride in taxis and go to cinemas, you might as well
be in London,” put in Roscoe, who had joined them.
“I wish to the Lord I was!” declared FitzGerald; “standing at the
corner of Piccadilly Circus this blessed minute, and making up my mind
whether to go to the Criterion grill or to Prince’s?”
“But as you happen to be in Rangoon, and _not_ Piccadilly Circus, why
don’t you open your eyes and see the place, and enjoy it?”
“_Enjoy_!” repeated FitzGerald with a dramatic gesture; “see it? I see
a deal too much of it; while you fellows are snoozing in bed, I’m
turning out filthy liquor shops, drug stores, tea houses, and stopping
Chinese fights, smuggling and murder.”
“Yes, we know all that,” rejoined Roscoe; “you look into the dark,
Shafto and I see the bright side of this country.”
“Oh, yes, you’re a bright pair, and here, I’m off!” exclaimed the
police officer, as he suddenly caught sight of a mounted orderly and
thundered down the stairs.
Roscoe was neither economical, nor yet extravagant; he patronised the
theatres and shows, made expeditions into the country on “Later On,”
read many books, and occasionally took a trip up the river in a cargo
boat.
Shafto and Roscoe had one taste in common—a craving to see, know,
understand and, as it were, get under the skin of this wonderful land.
An impossible achievement! From the first they had been drawn together;
they were searching in an eager way for the same object; they had both
been at a public school and once, when Shafto dropped a word about
Sandhurst, Roscoe said:
“I was intended for the Army, but I couldn’t pass the doctor—rather a
facer after scraping through the exam.; when that was knocked on the
head, I got a post as assistant-master, but I couldn’t stick it for
more than a couple of years; after that, I was in a newspaper office;
then I got badly stage-struck and went on the boards. Unfortunately, I
was not a success; I never could do the love parts—I neither bellowed
nor whined; at last my people got fairly sick of me, I was so often
‘resting,’ and they made a combined effort and hustled me out here into
the oil business, and here I am in my element.”
“I can’t say you look particularly oily,” observed his companion.
“Perhaps not, but I dare say to lots of young fellows I seem a dry old
stick—anyhow, I _was_ a stick in ‘the Profession.’”
Occasionally Roscoe invited Shafto to accompany him of an evening, and
introduced him to strange and wonderful sights—wrestling,
cock-fighting, puppet _pwes_, or plays in the Burmese character. These
were acted by little figures wonderfully manipulated by strings behind
the scenes; the holder of the string also supplied any amount of
dialogue (not always of the most decorous description), and also all
the latest and coarsest jokes from the bazaar. To the Europeans these
entertainments offered scanty amusement, but to natives they proved
enthralling. An audience would sit spell-bound and motionless for a
whole night, soothed and cheered by the strains of the Burmese
band—that unique and original collection of sounds and instruments.
“In former days,” explained Roscoe, as he and his companion sat staring
at the bedizened actors and shrill little figures on a long, low stage,
“these plays took place in the open air, on a _midan_; all the world
was welcome, and as there was no charge, naturally all the world was
present! They were usually given by some rich Burman, or widow, in
honour of some offering or anniversary. An uncle of mine was quartered
here years ago, and I remember him saying that he suffered sorely from
these _pwes_; one play lasted for three consecutive days and nights—the
Burmese brought their bedding. The great _midan_ outside his bungalow
was a seething mass of people; whose families were encamped—the place
resembled a huge fair. Some were bartering, gambling, or eating
horrible-looking refreshment, and altogether thoroughly enjoying
themselves; rows and rows squatted motionless on the ground in front of
the stage; of course, sleep, with such a fiendish commotion, was out of
the question, and so my uncle was obliged to get up and wander about
among the masses until daybreak; he said he never could make head or
tail of the play, but one of his brother officers loved it; he engaged
an interpreter and squatted for hours in front of the stage, enjoying
what he considered ‘a priceless treat.’”
Shafto, like Roscoe’s uncle, failed to appreciate _pwes_, which were
now held within stated bounds; he preferred out-of-door entertainments,
as the heat, the smoke, the smell of raw plantain skins, the band, and
the jabber were too much for him.
Roscoe, his cicerone, had contrived to learn a little of the difficult
Burmese language, and knew the town to a certain extent—including
something of the vast underworld, and even FitzGerald admitted that
“old man Roscoe” could tell a thing or two, if he liked.
Before he had been long in Rangoon Shafto had also a glimpse into its
depths. One night, returning from a “sing-song,” as he reached the
bottom of the outer stairs, he was startled by a voice from the pitch
dark space beneath the house—a voice which said in a husky whisper:
“Is that you, Joe? Joe, for God’s sake stop and give me a couple of
rupees.”
“It’s not Roscoe,” said Shafto, striking a match; “who are you?”
The flickering and uncertain light discovered a gaunt and unshaven
European in the shabbiest of clothes.
“Roscoe’s out; what do you want?” he brusquely demanded.
“Only a couple of rupees,” was the hoarse reply. “I’m ashamed for you
to see me; I’m down and under, as you may guess.”
“Drink?” suggested Shafto, lighting another match.
“No; drugs—two devils: cocaine and morphia.”
“I say, that’s bad; can’t you take a pull at yourself?”
“Too late now.”
“Nothing’s too late,” declared Shafto; “believe that and buck up. Well,
here are four rupees for you.”
As he put them into a shaking hand the match went out, and the loafer
noiselessly melted away into the soft and impenetrable darkness.
Next morning Shafto informed Roscoe of this strange encounter.
“Such a water-logged derelict was never seen! One of your underworld
friends, I take it?”
“Worse than that,” rejoined Roscoe; “he’s my own first cousin.”
In reply to Shafto’s exclamation he added: “His father was the officer
I told you about, who was so terribly worried by the plays. This chap
was erratic, but a clever fellow and great at languages; he passed into
the Woods and Forests out here, and enjoyed the wild jungle life for a
good many years; now you see what he is—a wild man of the bazaars.”
“But I say, Roscoe; can you do nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing; a cocaine case is hopeless. Opium you might
tackle; the other is beyond the power of man or woman.”
“But how does the fellow live?”
“God knows!” replied Roscoe. “Most of these chaps keep body and soul
together by stealing; there’s a lot of smuggling going on in Burma, and
I shouldn’t be the least surprised if my cousin Richard had a hand in
that!”