While we were hanging about near the water's edge, as sailors
idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour
Office of a great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the
"front" of business houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps.
He attracted my attention because in the movement of figures in
white drill suits on the pavement from which he stepped, his
costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being made of light grey
flannel, made him noticeable.
I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque.
His face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his
nearer approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a
good many white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good
chin. In passing us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with
and smiled.
My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had
known so many queer people in that part of the (more or less)
gorgeous East in the days of his youth. He said: "That's a good
man. I don't mean good in the sense of smart or skilful in his
trade. I mean a really GOOD man."
I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The "really GOOD
man" had a very broad back. I saw him signal a sampan to come
alongside, get into it, and go off in the direction of a cluster of
local steamers anchored close inshore.
I said: "He's a seaman, isn't he?"
"Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: 'Sissie--
Glasgow.' He has never commanded anything else but the 'Sissie--
Glasgow,' only it wasn't always the same Sissie. The first he had
was about half the length of this one, and we used to tell poor
Davidson that she was a size too small for him. Even at that time
Davidson had bulk. We warned him he would get callosities on his
shoulders and elbows because of the tight fit of his command. And
Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us for our chaff. He
made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly Chinaman
resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin
drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how
to be.
"The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such
gentlemanly instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a
straight man, they give you their unbounded confidence. You simply
can't do wrong, then. And they are pretty quick judges of
character, too. Davidson's Chinaman was the first to find out his
worth, on some theoretical principle. One day in his counting-
house, before several white men he was heard to declare: 'Captain
Davidson is a good man.' And that settled it. After that you
couldn't tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or
the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson. It was he who, shortly
before he died, ordered in Glasgow the new Sissie for Davidson to
command."
We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our
elbows on the parapet of the quay.
"She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson," continued Hollis.
"Can you fancy anything more naively touching than this old
mandarin spending several thousand pounds to console his white man?
Well, there she is. The old mandarin's sons have inherited her,
and Davidson with her; and he commands her; and what with his
salary and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; and
everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles--you have seen
it? Well, the smile's the only thing which isn't as before."
"Tell me, Hollis," I asked, "what do you mean by good in this
connection?"
"Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born
witty. What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously
delicate soul had ever lived in such a--a--comfortable envelope.
How we used to laugh at Davidson's fine scruples! In short, he's
thoroughly humane, and I don't imagine there can be much of any
other sort of goodness that counts on this earth. And as he's that
with a shade of particular refinement, I may well call him a
'REALLY good man.'"
I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value
of shades. And I said: "I see"--because I really did see Hollis's
Davidson in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little
while before. But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled
his placid face appeared veiled in melancholy--a sort of spiritual
shadow. I went on.
"Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling his
smile?"
"That's quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you like.
Confound it! It's quite a surprising one, too. Surprising in
every way, but mostly in the way it knocked over poor Davidson--and
apparently only because he is such a good sort. He was telling me
all about it only a few days ago. He said that when he saw these
four fellows with their heads in a bunch over the table, he at once
didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. You mustn't suppose
that Davidson is a soft fool. These men -
"But I had better begin at the beginning. We must go back to the
first time the old dollars had been called in by our Government in
exchange for a new issue. Just about the time when I left these
parts to go home for a long stay. Every trader in the islands was
thinking of getting his old dollars sent up here in time, and the
demand for empty French wine cases--you know the dozen of vermouth
or claret size--was something unprecedented. The custom was to
pack the dollars in little bags of a hundred each. I don't know
how many bags each case would hold. A good lot. Pretty tidy sums
must have been moving afloat just then. But let us get away from
here. Won't do to stay in the sun. Where could we--? I know! let
us go to those tiffin-rooms over there."
We moved over accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty room
at that early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China
boys. But Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the
windows screened by rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled
on the ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of
vacant chairs and tables in a peculiar, stealthy glow.
"All right. We will get something to eat when it's ready," he
said, waving the anxious Chinaman waiter aside. He took his
temples touched with grey between his hands, leaning over the table
to bring his face, his dark, keen eyes, closer to mine.
"Davidson then was commanding the steamer Sissie--the little one
which we used to chaff him about. He ran her alone, with only the
Malay serang for a deck officer. The nearest approach to another
white man on board of her was the engineer, a Portuguese half-
caste, as thin as a lath and quite a youngster at that. For all
practical purposes Davidson was managing that command of his
single-handed; and of course this was known in the port. I am
telling you of it because the fact had its influence on the
developments you shall hear of presently.
"His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks and into
shallow bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, collecting
produce, where no other vessel but a native craft would think of
venturing. It is a paying game, often. Davidson was known to
visit in her places that no one else could find and that hardly
anybody had ever heard of.
"The old dollars being called in, Davidson's Chinaman thought that
the Sissie would be just the thing to collect them from small
traders in the less frequented parts of the Archipelago. It's a
good business. Such cases of dollars are dumped aft in the ship's
lazarette, and you get good freight for very little trouble and
space.
"Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together they made
up a list of his calls on his next trip. Then Davidson (he had
naturally the chart of his voyages in his head) remarked that on
his way back he might look in at a certain settlement up a mere
creek, where a poor sort of white man lived in a native village.
Davidson pointed out to his Chinaman that the fellow was certain to
have some rattans to ship.
"'Probably enough to fill her forward,' said Davidson. 'And
that'll be better than bringing her back with empty holds. A day
more or less doesn't matter.'
"This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not but agree.
But if it hadn't been sound it would have been just the same.
Davidson did what he liked. He was a man that could do no wrong.
However, this suggestion of his was not merely a business matter.
There was in it a touch of Davidsonian kindness. For you must know
that the man could not have continued to live quietly up that creek
if it had not been for Davidson's willingness to call there from
time to time. And Davidson's Chinaman knew this perfectly well,
too. So he only smiled his dignified, bland smile, and said: 'All
right, Captain. You do what you like.'
"I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson and
that fellow came about. Now I want to tell you about the part of
this affair which happened here--the preliminaries of it.
"You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we are
sitting now have been in existence for many years. Well, next day
about twelve o'clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something to
eat.
"And here comes the only moment in this story where accident--mere
accident--plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day for
tiffin, there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing
changed in his kindly, placid smile.
"But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this very table
that he remarked to a friend of mine that his next trip was to be a
dollar-collecting trip. He added, laughing, that his wife was
making rather a fuss about it. She had begged him to stay ashore
and get somebody else to take his place for a voyage. She thought
there was some danger on account of the dollars. He told her, he
said, that there were no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in boys'
books. He had laughed at her fears, but he was very sorry, too;
for when she took any notion in her head it was impossible to argue
her out of it. She would be worrying herself all the time he was
away. Well, he couldn't help it. There was no one ashore fit to
take his place for the trip.
"This friend of mine and I went home together in the same mail-
boat, and he mentioned that conversation one evening in the Red Sea
while we were talking over the things and people we had just left,
with more or less regret.
"I can't say that Davidson occupied a very prominent place. Moral
excellence seldom does. He was quietly appreciated by those who
knew him well; but his more obvious distinction consisted in this,
that he was married. Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor crowd;
in spirit anyhow, if not absolutely in fact. There might have been
a few wives in existence, but if so they were invisible, distant,
never alluded to. For what would have been the good? Davidson
alone was visibly married.
"Being married suited him exactly. It fitted him so well that the
wildest of us did not resent the fact when it was disclosed.
Directly he had felt his feet out here, Davidson sent for his wife.
She came out (from West Australia) in the Somerset, under the care
of Captain Ritchie--you know, Monkey-face Ritchie--who couldn't
praise enough her sweetness, her gentleness, and her charm. She
seemed to be the heaven-born mate for Davidson. She found on
arrival a very pretty bungalow on the hill, ready for her and the
little girl they had. Very soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap
and a Burmah pony, and she used to drive down of an evening to pick
up Davidson, on the quay. When Davidson, beaming, got into the
trap, it would become very full all at once.
"We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. It was a girlish
head out of a keepsake. From a distance. We had not many
opportunities for a closer view, because she did not care to give
them to us. We would have been glad to drop in at the Davidson
bungalow, but we were made to feel somehow that we were not very
welcome there. Not that she ever said anything ungracious. She
never had much to say for herself. I was perhaps the one who saw
most of the Davidsons at home. What I noticed under the
superficial aspect of vapid sweetness was her convex, obstinate
forehead, and her small, red, pretty, ungenerous mouth. But then I
am an observer with strong prejudices. Most of us were fetched by
her white, swan-like neck, by that drooping, innocent profile.
There was a lot of latent devotion to Davidson's wife hereabouts,
at that time, I can tell you. But my idea was that she repaid it
by a profound suspicion of the sort of men we were; a mistrust
which extended--I fancied--to her very husband at times. And I
thought then she was jealous of him in a way; though there were no
women that she could be jealous about. She had no women's society.
It's difficult for a shipmaster's wife unless there are other
shipmasters' wives about, and there were none here then. I know
that the dock manager's wife called on her; but that was all. The
fellows here formed the opinion that Mrs. Davidson was a meek, shy
little thing. She looked it, I must say. And this opinion was so
universal that the friend I have been telling you of remembered his
conversation with Davidson simply because of the statement about
Davidson's wife. He even wondered to me: 'Fancy Mrs. Davidson
making a fuss to that extent. She didn't seem to me the sort of
woman that would know how to make a fuss about anything.'
"I wondered, too--but not so much. That bumpy forehead--eh? I had
always suspected her of being silly. And I observed that Davidson
must have been vexed by this display of wifely anxiety.
"My friend said: 'No. He seemed rather touched and distressed.
There really was no one he could ask to relieve him; mainly because
he intended to make a call in some God-forsaken creek, to look up a
fellow of the name of Bamtz who apparently had settled there.'
"And again my friend wondered. 'Tell me,' he cried, 'what
connection can there be between Davidson and such a creature as
Bamtz?'
"I don't remember now what answer I made. A sufficient one could
have been given in two words: 'Davidson's goodness.' THAT never
boggled at unworthiness if there was the slightest reason for
compassion. I don't want you to think that Davidson had no
discrimination at all. Bamtz could not have imposed on him.
Moreover, everybody knew what Bamtz was. He was a loafer with a
beard. When I think of Bamtz, the first thing I see is that long
black beard and a lot of propitiatory wrinkles at the corners of
two little eyes. There was no such beard from here to Polynesia,
where a beard is a valuable property in itself. Bamtz's beard was
valuable to him in another way. You know how impressed Orientals
are by a fine beard. Years and years ago, I remember, the grave
Abdullah, the great trader of Sambir, unable to repress signs of
astonishment and admiration at the first sight of that imposing
beard. And it's very well known that Bamtz lived on Abdullah off
and on for several years. It was a unique beard, and so was the
bearer of the same. A unique loafer. He made a fine art of it, or
rather a sort of craft and mystery. One can understand a fellow
living by cadging and small swindles in towns, in large communities
of people; but Bamtz managed to do that trick in the wilderness, to
loaf on the outskirts of the virgin forest.
"He understood how to ingratiate himself with the natives. He
would arrive in some settlement up a river, make a present of a
cheap carbine or a pair of shoddy binoculars, or something of that
sort, to the Rajah, or the head-man, or the principal trader; and
on the strength of that gift, ask for a house, posing mysteriously
as a very special trader. He would spin them no end of yarns, live
on the fat of the land, for a while, and then do some mean swindle
or other--or else they would get tired of him and ask him to quit.
And he would go off meekly with an air of injured innocence. Funny
life. Yet, he never got hurt somehow. I've heard of the Rajah of
Dongala giving him fifty dollars' worth of trade goods and paying
his passage in a prau only to get rid of him. Fact. And observe
that nothing prevented the old fellow having Bamtz's throat cut and
the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on
earth would have inquired after Bamtz?
"He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far north
as the Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of
civilisation from time to time. And it was while loafing and
cadging in Saigon, bearded and dignified (he gave himself out there
as a bookkeeper), that he came across Laughing Anne.
"The less said of her early history the better, but something must
be said. We may safely suppose there was very little heart left in
her famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first to her in some low cafe.
She was stranded in Saigon with precious little money and in great
trouble about a kid she had, a boy of five or six.
"A fellow I just remember, whom they called Pearler Harry, brought
her out first into these parts--from Australia, I believe. He
brought her out and then dropped her, and she remained knocking
about here and there, known to most of us by sight, at any rate.
Everybody in the Archipelago had heard of Laughing Anne. She had
really a pleasant silvery laugh always at her disposal, so to
speak, but it wasn't enough apparently to make her fortune. The
poor creature was ready to stick to any half-decent man if he would
only let her, but she always got dropped, as it might have been
expected.
"She had been left in Saigon by the skipper of a German ship with
whom she had been going up and down the China coast as far as
Vladivostok for near upon two years. The German said to her:
'This is all over, mein Taubchen. I am going home now to get
married to the girl I got engaged to before coming out here.' And
Anne said: 'All right, I'm ready to go. We part friends, don't
we?'
"She was always anxious to part friends. The German told her that
of course they were parting friends. He looked rather glum at the
moment of parting. She laughed and went ashore.
"But it was no laughing matter for her. She had some notion that
this would be her last chance. What frightened her most was the
future of her child. She had left her boy in Saigon before going
off with the German, in the care of an elderly French couple. The
husband was a doorkeeper in some Government office, but his time
was up, and they were returning to France. She had to take the boy
back from them; and after she had got him back, she did not like to
part with him any more.
"That was the situation when she and Bamtz got acquainted casually.
She could not have had any illusions about that fellow. To pick up
with Bamtz was coming down pretty low in the world, even from a
material point of view. She had always been decent, in her way;
whereas Bamtz was, not to mince words, an abject sort of creature.
On the other hand, that bearded loafer, who looked much more like a
pirate than a bookkeeper, was not a brute. He was gentle--rather--
even in his cups. And then, despair, like misfortune, makes us
acquainted with strange bed-fellows. For she may well have
despaired. She was no longer young--you know.
"On the man's side this conjunction is more difficult to explain,
perhaps. One thing, however, must be said of Bamtz; he had always
kept clear of native women. As one can't suspect him of moral
delicacy, I surmise that it must have been from prudence. And he,
too, was no longer young. There were many white hairs in his
valuable black beard by then. He may have simply longed for some
kind of companionship in his queer, degraded existence. Whatever
their motives, they vanished from Saigon together. And of course
nobody cared what had become of them.
"Six months later Davidson came into the Mirrah Settlement. It was
the very first time he had been up that creek, where no European
vessel had ever been seen before. A Javanese passenger he had on
board offered him fifty dollars to call in there--it must have been
some very particular business--and Davidson consented to try.
Fifty dollars, he told me, were neither here nor there; but he was
curious to see the place, and the little Sissie could go anywhere
where there was water enough to float a soup-plate.
"Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to wait a
couple of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch his
legs.
"It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, most of them built
on piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; the
usual pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and
smothering what there might have been of air into a dead, hot
stagnation.
"All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, as
Malays will do, at the Sissie anchored in the stream. She was
almost as wonderful to them as an angel's visit. Many of the old
people had only heard vaguely of fire-ships, and not many of the
younger generation had seen one. On the back path Davidson
strolled in perfect solitude. But he became aware of a bad smell
and concluded he would go no farther.
"While he stood wiping his forehead, he heard from somewhere the
exclamation: 'My God! It's Davy!'
"Davidson's lower jaw, as he expressed it, came unhooked at the
crying of this excited voice. Davy was the name used by the
associates of his young days; he hadn't heard it for many years.
He stared about with his mouth open and saw a white woman issue
from the long grass in which a small hut stood buried nearly up to
the roof.
"Try to imagine the shock: in that wild place that you couldn't
find on a map, and more squalid than the most poverty-stricken
Malay settlement had a right to be, this European woman coming
swishing out of the long grass in a fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy
pink satin, with a long train and frayed lace trimmings; her eyes
like black coals in a pasty-white face. Davidson thought that he
was asleep, that he was delirious. From the offensive village
mudhole (it was what Davidson had sniffed just before) a couple of
filthy buffaloes uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off crashing
through the bushes, panic-struck by this apparition.
"The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands on
Davidson's shoulders, exclaiming: 'Why! You have hardly changed
at all. The same good Davy.' And she laughed a little wildly.
"This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a corpse. He
started in every muscle. 'Laughing Anne,' he said in an awe-struck
voice.
"'All that's left of her, Davy. All that's left of her.'
"Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen no balloon
from which she could have fallen on that spot. When he brought his
distracted gaze down, it rested on a child holding on with a brown
little paw to the pink satin gown. He had run out of the grass
after her. Had Davidson seen a real hobgoblin his eyes could not
have bulged more than at this small boy in a dirty white blouse and
ragged knickers. He had a round head of tight chestnut curls, very
sunburnt legs, a freckled face, and merry eyes. Admonished by his
mother to greet the gentleman, he finished off Davidson by
addressing him in French.
"'Bonjour.'
"Davidson, overcome, looked up at the woman in silence. She sent
the child back to the hut, and when he had disappeared in the
grass, she turned to Davidson, tried to speak, but after getting
out the words, 'That's my Tony,' burst into a long fit of crying.
She had to lean on Davidson's shoulder. He, distressed in the
goodness of his heart, stood rooted to the spot where she had come
upon him.
"What a meeting--eh? Bamtz had sent her out to see what white man
it was who had landed. And she had recognised him from that time
when Davidson, who had been pearling himself in his youth, had been
associating with Harry the Pearler and others, the quietest of a
rather rowdy set.
"Before Davidson retraced his steps to go on board the steamer, he
had heard much of Laughing Anne's story, and had even had an
interview, on the path, with Bamtz himself. She ran back to the
hut to fetch him, and he came out lounging, with his hands in his
pockets, with the detached, casual manner under which he concealed
his propensity to cringe. Ya-a-as-as. He thought he would settle
here permanently--with her. This with a nod at Laughing Anne, who
stood by, a haggard, tragically anxious figure, her black hair
hanging over her shoulders.
"'No more paint and dyes for me, Davy,' she struck in, 'if only you
will do what he wants you to do. You know that I was always ready
to stand by my men--if they had only let me.'
"Davidson had no doubt of her earnestness. It was of Bamtz's good
faith that he was not at all sure. Bamtz wanted Davidson to
promise to call at Mirrah more or less regularly. He thought he
saw an opening to do business with rattans there, if only he could
depend on some craft to bring out trading goods and take away his
produce.
"'I have a few dollars to make a start on. The people are all
right.'
"He had come there, where he was not known, in a native prau, and
had managed, with his sedate manner and the exactly right kind of
yarn he knew how to tell to the natives, to ingratiate himself with
the chief man.
"'The Orang Kaya has given me that empty house there to live in as
long as I will stay,' added Bamtz.
"'Do it, Davy,' cried the woman suddenly. 'Think of that poor
kid.'
"'Seen him? 'Cute little customer,' said the reformed loafer in
such a tone of interest as to surprise Davidson into a kindly
glance.
"'I certainly can do it,' he declared. He thought of at first
making some stipulation as to Bamtz behaving decently to the woman,
but his exaggerated delicacy and also the conviction that such a
fellow's promises were worth nothing restrained him. Anne went a
little distance down the path with him talking anxiously.
"'It's for the kid. How could I have kept him with me if I had to
knock about in towns? Here he will never know that his mother was
a painted woman. And this Bamtz likes him. He's real fond of him.
I suppose I ought to thank God for that.'
"Davidson shuddered at any human creature being brought so low as
to have to thank God for the favours or affection of a Bamtz.
"'And do you think that you can make out to live here?' he asked
gently.
"'Can't I? You know I have always stuck to men through thick and
thin till they had enough of me. And now look at me! But inside I
am as I always was. I have acted on the square to them all one
after another. Only they do get tired somehow. Oh, Davy! Harry
ought not to have cast me off. It was he that led me astray.'
"Davidson mentioned to her that Harry the Pearler had been dead now
for some years. Perhaps she had heard?
"She made a sign that she had heard; and walked by the side of
Davidson in silence nearly to the bank. Then she told him that her
meeting with him had brought back the old times to her mind. She
had not cried for years. She was not a crying woman either. It
was hearing herself called Laughing Anne that had started her
sobbing like a fool. Harry was the only man she had loved. The
others -
"She shrugged her shoulders. But she prided herself on her loyalty
to the successive partners of her dismal adventures. She had never
played any tricks in her life. She was a pal worth having. But
men did get tired. They did not understand women. She supposed it
had to be.
"Davidson was attempting a veiled warning as to Bamtz, but she
interrupted him. She knew what men were. She knew what this man
was like. But he had taken wonderfully to the kid. And Davidson
desisted willingly, saying to himself that surely poor Laughing
Anne could have no illusions by this time. She wrung his hand hard
at parting.
"'It's for the kid, Davy--it's for the kid. Isn't he a bright
little chap?'