Bones Part 36

THE MAN WHO DID NOT SLEEP

No doubt whatever but that Lieutenant Tibbetts of the Houssas had a pretty taste for romance. It led him to exercise certain latent powers of imagination and to garnish his voluminous correspondence with details of happenings which had no very solid foundation in fact.

On one occasion he had called down the heavy sarcasm of his superior officer by a reference to lions--a reference which Hamilton's sister had seen and, in the innocence of her heart, had referred to in a letter to her brother.

Whereupon Bones swore to himself that he would carefully avoid corresponding with any person who might have the remotest acquaintance with the remotest of Hamilton's relatives.

Every mail night Captain Hamilton underwent a cross-examination which at once baffled and annoyed him.

Picture a great room, the walls of varnished match-boarding, the bare floor covered in patches by skins. There are twelve windows covered with fine mesh wire and looking out to the broad verandah which runs round the bungalow. The furniture is mainly wicker work, a table or two bearing framed photographs (one has been cleared for the huge gramophone which Bones has introduced to the peaceful life of headquarters). There are no pictures on the walls save the inevitable five--Queen Victoria, King Edward, Queen Alexandra, and in a place of honour above the door the King and his Consort.

A great oil lamp hangs from the centre of the boarded ceiling, and under this the big solid table at either side of which two officers write silently and industriously, for the morrow brings the mail boat.

Silent until Bones looked up thoughtfully.

"Do you know the Gripps, of Beckstead, dear old fellow?"

"No."

"None of your people know 'em?" hopefully.

"No--how the d.i.c.kens do I know?"

"Don't get chuffy, dear old chap."

Then would follow another silence, until----

"Do you happen to be acquainted with the Lomands of Fife?"

"No."

"I suppose none of your people know 'em?"

Hamilton would put down his pen, resignation on his face.

"I have never heard of the Lomands--unless you refer to the Loch Lomonds; nor to the best of my knowledge and belief are any of my relations in blood or in law in any way acquainted with them."

"Cheer oh!" said Bones, gratefully.

Another ten minutes, and then:

"You don't know the Adamses of Oxford, do you, sir?"

Hamilton, in the midst of his weekly report, chucked down his pen.

"No; nor the Eves of Cambridge, nor the Serpents of Eton, nor the Angels of Harrow."

"I suppose----" began Bones.

"Nor are my relations on speaking terms with them. They don't know the Adamses, nor the Cains, nor the Abels, nor the Moseses, nor the Noahs."

"That's all I wanted to know, sir," said an injured Bones. "There's no need to peeve, sir."

Step by step Bones was compiling a directory of people to whom he might write without restraint, providing he avoided mythical lion hunts and confined himself to anecdotes which were suggestively complimentary to himself.

Thus he wrote to one pal of his at Biggestow to the effect that he was known to the natives as "The-Man-Who-Never-Sleeps," meaning thereby that he was a most vigilant and relentless officer, and the recipients of this information, fired with a sort of local patriotism, sent the remarkable statement to the _Biggestow Herald and Observer and Hindhead Guardian_, thereby upsetting all Bones' artful calculations.

"What the devil does 'Man-Who-Never-Sleeps' mean?" asked a puzzled Hamilton.

"Dear old fellow," said Bones, incoherently, "don't let's discuss it ...

I can't understand how these things get into the bally papers."

"If," said Hamilton, turning the cutting over in his hand, "if they called you 'The-Man-Who-Jaws-So-Much-That-n.o.body-Can-Sleep,' I'd understand it, or if they called you 'The-Man-Sleeps-With-His-Mouth-Open-Emitting-Hideous-Noises,' I could understand it."

"The fact is, sir," said Bones, in a moment of inspiration, "I'm an awfully light sleeper--in fact, sir, I'm one of those chaps who can get along with a couple of hours' sleep--I can sleep anywhere at any time--dear old Wellin'ton was similarly gifted--in fact, sir, there are one or two points of resemblance between Wellington and I, which you might have noticed, sir."

"Speak no ill of the dead," reproved Hamilton; "beyond your eccentric noses I see no points of resemblance."

It was on a morning following the dispatch of the mail that Hamilton took a turn along the firm sands to settle in his mind the problem of a certain Middle Island.

Middle Islands, that is to say the innumerable patches of land which sprinkle the river in its broad places, were a never-ending problem to Sanders and his successor. Upon these Middle Islands the dead were laid to rest--from the river you saw the graves with fluttering ragged flags of white cloth planted about them--and the right of burial was a matter of dispute when the mainland at one side of the river was Isisi land, and Akasava the other. Also some of the larger Middle Islands were colonized.

Hamilton had news of a coming palaver in relation to one of these.

Now, on the river, it is customary for all who desire inter-tribal palavers to announce their intention loudly and insistently. And if Sanders had no objection he made no move, if he did not think the palaver desirable he stopped it. It was a simple arrangement, and it worked.

Hamilton came back from his four-mile const.i.tutional satisfied in his mind that the palaver should be held. Moreover, they had, on this occasion, asked permission. He could grant this with an easy mind, being due in the neighbourhood of the disputed territory in the course of a week.

It seemed that an Isisi fisherman had been spearing in Akasava waters, and had, moreover, settled, he and his family to the number of forty, on Akasava territory. Whereupon an Akasava fis.h.i.+ng community, whose rights the intruder had violated, rose up in its wrath and beat Issmeri with sticks.

Then the king of the Isisi sent a messenger to the king of Akasava begging him to stay his hand "against my lawful people, for know this, Iberi, that I have a thousand spears and young men eager for fire."

And Iberi replied with marked unpleasantness that there were in the Akasava territory two thousand spears no less inclined to slaughter.

In a moment of admirable moderation, significant of the change which Mr.

Commissioner Sanders had wrought in these warlike peoples, they accepted Hamilton's suggestion--sent by special envoy--and held a "small palaver," agreeing that the question of the disputed fis.h.i.+ng ground should be settled by a third person.

And they chose Bosambo, paramount and magnificent chief of the Ochori, as arbitrator. Now, it was singularly unfortunate that the question was ever debatable. And yet it was, for the fis.h.i.+ng ground in question was off one of the many Middle Islands. In this case the island was occupied by Akasava fishermen on the one sh.o.r.e and by the intruding Isisi on the other. If you can imagine a big "Y" and over it a little "o" and over that again an inverted "Y" thus "+" and drawing this you prolong the four p.r.o.ngs of the Y's, you have a rough idea of the topography of the place. To the left of the lower "Y" mark the word "Isisi," to the right the word "Akasava" until you reach a place where the two right hand p.r.o.ngs meet, and here you draw a line and call all above it "Ochori."

The "o" in the centre is the middle island--set in a shallow lake through which the river (the stalk, of the Y's) runs.

Bosambo came down in state with ten canoes filled with counsellors and bodyguard. He camped on the disputed ground, and was met thereon by the chiefs affected.

"O, Iberi and T'lingi!" said he, as he stepped ash.o.r.e, "I come in peace, bringing all my wonderful counsellors, that I may make you as brothers, for as you know I have a white man's way of knowing all their magic, and being a brother in blood to our Lord Tibbetti, Moon-in-the-Eye."

"This we know, Bosambo," said Iberi, looking askance at the size of Bosambo's retinue, "and my stomach is proud that you bring so vast an army of high men to us, for I see that you have brought rich food for them."

He saw nothing of the sort, but he wanted things made plain at the beginning.