The Narrow Corner by W. Somerset Maugham
“Go on. Tell the doctor all about it,” said Blake.
Captain Nichols asked nothing better. He proceeded to narrate the history of his malady. He described his symptoms with a scientific accuracy. There was not a revolting detail that he omitted to mention. He enumerated the doctors he had consulted and the patent remedies he had tried. Dr. Saunders listened in silence, an expression of sympathetic interest on his face, and occasionally nodded his head.
“If there’s anyone as can do anythin’ for me it’s you, doc,” said the captain earnestly. “They don’t ’ave to tell me you’re clever, I can see that for meself.”
“I can’t work miracles. You can’t expect anyone to do much in a minute for a chronic condition like yours.”
“No, I don’t ask that, but you can prescribe for me, can’t you? There’s nothin’ I won’t try. What I’d like you to do is to make a thorough examination of me, see?”
“How long are you staying here?”
“Our time’s our own.”
“But we’re pushing off as soon as we’ve got what we want,” said Blake.
A quick look passed between the two men. Dr. Saunders noticed it. He did not know why he had an impression that there was something strange in it.
“What made you put in here?” he asked.
Fred Blake’s face once more grew sullen, and when the doctor put his question he threw him a glance. Dr. Saunders read suspicion in it and perhaps fear. He wondered. It was the captain who replied.
“I’ve known Kim Ching donkey’s years. We wanted some stores, and we thought it wouldn’t do us any ’arm to fill up our tank.”
“Are you trading?”
“In a manner of speakin’. If anythin’ comes along we ain’t goin’ to miss a chance. Who would?”
“What cargo are you carrying?”
“A bit of everything.”
Captain Nichols smiled genially, showing his decayed, discoloured teeth, and he looked strangely shifty and dishonest. It occurred to Dr. Saunders that perhaps they were smuggling opium.
“You’re not going to Macassar by any chance?”
“We might be.”
“What’s that paper?” said Fred Blake suddenly, pointing to one that lay on the counter.
“Oh, that’s three weeks old. We brought it down in the ship I came on.”
“Have they got any Australian papers here?”
“No.”
Dr. Saunders chuckled at the notion.
“Is there any Australian news in that paper?”
“It’s Dutch. I don’t know Dutch. In any case, you’d have had later news than that on Thursday Island.”
Blake frowned a little. The captain grinned craftily.
“This ain’t exactly the hub of the universe, Fred,” he sniggered.
“Don’t you ever have any English papers here at all?” asked Blake.
“Now and then a stray copy of the Hong Kong paper finds its way here or a ‘Straits Times’, but they’re a month old.”
“Don’t they ever get any news?”
“Only what the Dutch ship brings.”
“Haven’t they got a cable or a wireless?”
“No.”
“If a man wanted to keep out of the way of the police I should think he’d be pretty safe here,” said Captain Nichols.
“For some time, anyway,” agreed the doctor.
“Have another bottle of beer, doc?” asked Blake.
“No, I don’t think I will. I’m going back to the rest-house. If you two fellows would like to come and dine there to-night, I can get you some sort of a meal.”
He addressed himself to Blake because he had a feeling that his impulse would be to refuse, but it was Captain Nichols who answered.
“That’d be fine. A change from the lugger.”
“You don’t want to be bothered with us,” said Blake.
“No bother. I’ll meet you here about six. We’ll have a few drinks and then go up.”
The doctor rose, nodded and left.
v
BUT he did not go immediately to the rest-house. The invitation he had so cordially given to these strangers was due to no sudden urge of hospitality, but to a notion that had come into his head while he was talking to them. Now that he had left Fu-chou and his practice, he was in no hurry to get back, and he had made up his mind to make a trip to Java, his first holiday for many years, before he returned to work. It occurred to him that if they would give him a passage on the lugger, if not to Macassar, at least to one of the more frequented islands, he could then find a steamer to take him in the direction he wished to go. He had been resigned to spending another three weeks or so on Takana when it seemed impossible to get away; but Kim Ching needed his services no longer, and now that a chance offered he was seized with an immense eagerness to profit by it. The thought of staying where he was for so long with nothing to do suddenly became intolerable to him. He walked down the broad street, it was less than half a mile long, till he came to the sea. There was no quay. Coconuts grew to the water’s edge, and among them were the huts of the natives of the island. Children were playing about and gaunt pigs rooted among the piles. There was a straight line of silver beach with a few prahus and dug-outs drawn up on it. The coral sand glistened under the fiery sun, and even with shoes on it was hot under the soles of your feet. Hideous crabs scuttled out of your way as you walked. One of the prahus lay bottom up and three dark-skinned Malays in sarongs were working on it. A reef a few hundred yards out formed a lagoon, and in this the water was clear and deep. A small crowd of boys were romping in the shallow. One of Kim Ching’s schooners lay at anchor and not far from it was the strangers’ lugger. She was very shabby beside Kim Ching’s trim craft and badly needed a coat of paint. She seemed very small to rove the trackless ocean, and Dr. Saunders had a moment’s hesitation. He looked up at the sky. It was cloudless. No wind stirred the leaves of the coconut trees. Drawn up on the beach was a squat little dinghy, and he supposed it was in this that the two men had rowed ashore. He could see no crew on the lugger.
Having had a good look, he turned back and strolled along to the rest-house. He changed into the Chinese trousers and silk tunic in which from long habit he felt most at ease, and taking a book went out to sit on the verandah. Fruit trees grew round about the rest-house and opposite, on the other side of the path, was a handsome grove of coconuts. They rose, very tall and straight, in their regular lines, and the bright sun, piercing the leaves, splashed the ground with a fantastic pattern of yellow light. Behind him, in the cook-house, the boy was preparing tiffin.
Dr. Saunders was not a great reader. He seldom opened a novel. Interested in character, he liked books that displayed the oddities of human nature, and he had read over and over again Pepys and Boswell’s Johnson, Florio’s Montaigne and Hazlitt’s essays. He liked old travel books, and he could peruse with pleasure the accounts in Hakluyt of countries he had never been to. He had at home a considerable library of the books written about China by the early missionaries. He read neither for information nor to improve his mind, but sought in books occasion for reverie. He read with a sense of humour peculiar to himself, and was able to get out of the narratives of missionary enterprise an amount of demure fun which would have much surprised the authors. He was a quiet man, of an agreeable discourse, but not one to force his conversation on you and he could enjoy his little joke without feeling a desire to impart it to another.
He held in his hand now a volume of Père Huc’s travels, but he read with divided attention. His thoughts were occupied with the two strangers who had so unexpectedly appeared on the island. Dr. Saunders had known so many thousands of people in his Eastern life that he had no difficulty in placing Captain Nichols. He was a bad hat. By his accent he was English, and if he had knocked about the China seas for so many years it was likely that he had got into some trouble in England. Dishonesty was stamped on his mean and crafty features. He could not have prospered greatly if he was no more now than
Dr. Saunders took an interest in his fellows that was not quite scientific and not quite human. He wanted to receive entertainment from them. He regarded them dispassionately and it gave him just the same amusement to unravel the intricacies of the individual as a mathematician might find in the solution of a problem. He made no use of the knowledge he obtained. The satisfaction he got from it was aesthetic, and if to know and judge men gave him a subtle sense of superiority he was unconscious of it. He had fewer prejudices than most men. The sense of disapproval was left out of him. Many people are indulgent to the vices they practise, and have small patience with those they have no mind to; some, broader minded, can accept them all in a comprehensive toleration, a toleration, however, that is more often theoretical than practical; but few can suffer manners different from their own without distaste. It is seldom that a man is shocked by the thought that someone has seduced another’s wife, and it may be that he preserves his equanimity when he knows that another has cheated at cards or forged a cheque (though this is not easy when you are yourself the victim), but it is hard for him to make a bosom friend of one who drops his aitches and almost impossible if he scoops up gravy with his knife. Dr. Saunders lacked this sensitiveness. Unpleasant table manners affected him as little as a purulent ulcer. Right and wrong were no more to him than good weather and bad weather. He took them as they came. He judged but he did not condemn. He laughed.
He was very easy to get on with. He was much liked. But he had no friends. He was an agreeable companion, but neither sought intimacy nor gave it. There was no one in the world to whom he was not at heart indifferent. He was self-sufficient. His happiness depended not on persons but on himself. He was selfish, but since he was at the same time shrewd and disinterested, few knew it and none was inconvenienced by it. Because he wanted nothing, he was never in anybody’s way. Money meant little to him, and he never much minded whether patients paid him or not. They thought him philanthropic. Since time was as unimportant to him as cash, he was just as willing to doctor them as not. It amused him to see their ailments yield to treatment, and he continued to find entertainment in human nature. He confounded persons and patients. Each was like another page in an interminable book, and that there were so many repetitions oddly added to the interest. It was curious to see how all these people, white, yellow and brown, responded to the critical situations of humanity, but the sight neither touched his heart nor troubled his nerves. Death was, after all, the greatest event in every man’s life, and he never ceased to find interest in the way he faced it. It was with a little thrill that he sought to pierce into a man’s consciousness, looking through the eyes frightened, defiant, sullen or resigned, into the soul confronted for the first time with the knowledge that its race was run, but the thrill was merely one of curiosity. His sensibility was unaffected. He felt neither sorrow nor pity. He only faintly wondered how it was that what was so important to one could matter so little to another. And yet his manner was full of sympathy. He knew exactly what to say to alleviate the terror or pain of the moment, and he left no one but fortified, consoled and encouraged. It was a game that he played, and it gave him satisfaction to play it well. He had great natural kindliness, but it was a kindliness of instinct, which betokened no interest in the recipient: he would come to the rescue if you were in a fix, but if there was no getting you out of it would not bother about you further. He did not like to kill living things, and he would neither shoot nor fish. He went so far, for no reason other than that he felt that every creature had a right to life, that he preferred to brush away a mosquito or a fly than to swat it. Perhaps he was an intensely logical man. It could not be denied that he led a good life (if at least you did not confine goodness to conformity with your own sensual inclinations), for he was charitable and kindly, and he devoted his energies to the alleviation of pain, but if motive counts for righteousness, then he deserved no praise; for he was influenced in his actions neither by love, pity, nor charity.
vi
DR. SAUNDERS sat down to tiffin and having finished went into the bedroom and threw himself on his bed. But it was very hot and he could not sleep. He wondered what the connection was between Captain Nichols and Fred Blake. Notwithstanding his grimy dungarees, the young man did not give the impression of being a sailor; the doctor did not quite know why, and for want of a better reason surmised that it was because he had not got the sea in his eyes. He was hard to place. He spoke with something of an Australian accent, but he was evidently not a rough-neck, and he might have had some education: his manners seemed quite good. Perhaps his people had a business of sorts in Sydney, and he was used to a comfortable home and decent surroundings. But why he was sailing these lonely seas on a pearling lugger with a scoundrel like Captain Nichols was mysterious. Of course the pair of them might be in partnership, but what traffic they were engaged in remained to be seen. Dr. Saunders was inclined to believe that it was not a very honest one, and whatever it was, that Fred Blake would get the thin end of the stick.
Though Dr. Saunders was stark naked, the sweat poured off him. Between his legs was a Dutch wife. This is the bolster which they use in those parts for coolness’ sake, and many grow so accustomed to it that even in temperate climes they cannot sleep without it; but it was strange to the doctor and it irked him. He threw it aside and rolled over on his back. In the garden round the rest-house, in the coconut grove opposite, a myriad insects were making noise and the insistent din, which generally fell unheard on ears benumbed, now throbbed on his nerves with a racket to awake the dead. He gave up the attempt to sleep, and wrapping a sarong round him, went out again on to the verandah. It was as hot there as within and as airless. He was weary. His mind was restless, but it worked perversely, and thoughts jerked through his brain like the misfirings of a defective carburettor. He tried to cool himself with a bath, but it brought no refreshment to his spirit. It remained hot, listless and uneasy. The verandah was intolerable, and he threw himself once more on his bed. The air under the mosquito curtains seemed to stand still. He could not read, he could not think, he could not rest. The hours were leaden-footed.
He was aroused at last by a voice on the steps, and going out he found there a messenger from Kim Ching, who asked him to go and see him. The doctor had paid his patient a professional visit that morning, and there was nothing much more he could do for him, but he put on his clothes and sallied forth. Kim Ching had heard of the lugger’s arrival, and was curious to know what the strangers wanted. He had been told that the doctor had spent an hour with them that morning. He did not much care for unknown persons to come to the island, so much of which belonged to him. Captain Nichols had sent a message asking to see him, but the Chinese had replied that he was too sick to receive anyone. The captain claimed acquaintance with him, but Kim Ching had no recollection of him. An accurate description of the man had already reached him, and the doctor’s account added nothing to help him. It appeared that they were staying two or three days.
“They told me they
“They’ve got nothing in the lugger but ballast,” said Kim Ching. “Stones.”
“No cargo at all?”
“Nothing.”
“Opium?”
Kim Ching shook his head. The doctor smiled.
“Perhaps it’s just a pleasure trip. The skipper’s got stomach trouble. He wants me to do something for him.”
Kim Ching gave an exclamation. That gave him the clue. He remembered. He had had Captain Nichols on one of his schooners, eight or ten years before, and had fired him. There had been some dispute, but Kim Ching did not go into any detail.
“He’s a bad man,” said Kim Ching. “I could have had him put in prison.”
Dr. Saunders guessed that the transaction, whatever it was, had been far from straight, and it might well be that Captain Nichols, knowing Kim Ching would not venture to prosecute, had taken more than his fair share of the profits. There was an ugly look in the Chinaman’s face. He knew all about Captain Nichols now. He had lost his certificate, there had been some trouble with an insurance company, and since then he had been glad to take employment with owners who were not particular about such things. He had been a heavy drinker till his stomach went back on him. He picked up a living as best he could. He was often on the beach. But he was a first-rate seaman, and he got jobs. He did not keep them long, because it was impossible for him to go straight.
“You tell him he more better get out of here pletty damn quick,” said Kim Ching, to finish, breaking into English.
vii
NIGHT had fallen when Dr. Saunders sauntered down once more to Kim Ching’s store. Nichols and Blake were sitting there drinking beer. He took them up to the rest-house. The sailor was full of small talk, of a facetious nature, but Fred remained sullen and silent. Dr. Saunders was conscious that he came against his will. When he entered the living-room of the bungalow he gave a quick, suspicious look round as though he awaited he did not quite know what, and when the house ghekko gave its sudden harsh cry he started suddenly.