The Red Book Magazine/Volume 18/Number 4/Meat

by George Allan England

 

Meat

BY GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND

Author of “Don’t You Remember,” etc.

SO we—aoh—so I brought him in on my howdah, to Bhagalpur,” concluded Colonel Fitzhugh McBride, of His Majesty's Own Punjabi Lancers, “and the bally natives made a tremendous pooja and banged drums and offered up rice and melted butter and generally became extravagant. Most extrawdin'ry! That was the end of the big cat. He'd killed some fifty of the blooming bounders and eaten most of them. Astonishing record; quite incredible! But my .57 express stopped him. No, you may tramp the world straight over, gentlemen, but you'll jolly well find nothing to equal Tiger!'

Came a brief pause, while ice clinked in glasses on the smoke-room table, the North Atlantic gale zoo-oo-ooned among the Hanseatica's stays, and the rudder chains creaked uneasily. From the opposite corner rose an ivory click of poker-chips and a thump of pasteboards flung with quite unnecessary upon the baize. The linen-coated steward yawned as he glanced for the hundredth time at he chronometer above the stairway.

Then the liner wriggled, lurched and slid with a bump down the flank of a solid roller. And Wilson Bates, reaching for the matches, remarked:

“That's your say, is it? Kitty's got 'em all skun?”

The Briton eyed him through his monocle, then nodded gravely:

“If your—oah—your meaning,” replied, “is that the Royal Bengal tiger surpasses any other meat in the world, for hunting, yes.”

Wertheimer stirred and blinked. Behind his thick-lensed glasses his eyes looked very mild and brown and peaceable.

“I disagree,” he remarked gently. “Disagree, absolutely!”

“Eh?” exclaimed the colonel, piqued. It is not nice, now is it, to have a mere commercial traveler question one's prestige as a hunter and seek to discredit one's opinion? “Eh? How so?”

“How so? Vell, I know an animal as is much better hunting-meat, ten times better, one hundert, as any tiger in India or out.”

“Come, come, Wertheimer,” I interposed. “I didn't know you were a hunter—for anything but business!”

“I aint.”

The little German took another sip of Bass.

'My word, but in that case,” puffed the colonel, 'on what authority do you speak, sir?”

“On the authority off what I haf myself seen. Yes, because I haf one time known about the finish of a much bigger hunt as tigers. Tiger-meat? Pfui!”

“What game?” demanded Bates, beginning to inhale his smoke in that detestable manner which always meant he was getting interested. “'What game?”

“Man!” answered Wertheimer.

II

And then he told us.

 

“Yes,” he began, very softly indeed, “when you talk of meat as excites the nerfs, makes the heart hammer and the sweat trickle out, and gets on the mind-hunting as drives a hunter round and round the world to get what he's after, Man is the game of games, the meat of meats. So.

“Rawson was my friend. He is now, to-day. I call him Rawson because it aint his name. Quiet and gentle, a broker in those times, and interested in botany. He would not hurt so much as one fly—but he hunted Man. Three year he hunted. One, two, three, ach, yes!” On his pudgy fingers the drummer counted off the time.

“Why? I tell you. He hunt a man called—vell, no matter—called Schmidt. Schmidt will do for a name. He vant Schmidt to be dead, very much dead. Entirely. But not by proxy. Not to haf him die mit diseases and accidents. No. Mit his own two hands he vant to strangulate Schmidt, so! Yes, he vant to feel him die, in his fingers! Yes, so vas his vish.”

“Pious ambition for a broking gentleman,” admiringly murmured Wilson Bates, through his smoke. “Very appropriate for a lover of botany, nature-student and all that. Grand!”

“Ach, yes, quite so, vas it not? Because, you see, Schmidt vas a Russian, and—vell—”

“Woman in the case, Heinrich?”

The German nodded.

“But of that,” added he, “ve say nothing. Let it pass, entirely. Some things you can't talk about. All vat matter is, that Rawson hunt Schmidt, and Schmidt, having the heart of a rabbit in spite of his black viskers and fat neck, he run avay. Run eferyvhere. Three year. So.

“Rawson used to be a good all-round athlete, one time. Schmidt vas strong, too, all except in the heart. I think his muscles vas even more strong as Rawson's; but still, Rawson know if he can get him, he can strangulate him, in spite of Schmidt's being a crackingjack pistol-shot, like you call it—much better shot as Rawson, who could shoot only so-so, like you, or me, or the Colonel here.”

Wertheimer nodded at Fitzhugh McBride, who reddened very much about the gills and opened his mustached lips to speak, then closed them with a snap.

“Vell, so the hunting begin. Rawson, he gif notice to Schmidt he vill not try to shoot him. It was too good, shooting vas, even mit dum-dum bullets. And as for getting shot, himself, he say he haf no timidity. No; he look out for that. He promise to take Schmidt some night, some dark night, ven he think himself most safe, and squeeze his neck. So Schmidt's nerfs get bad, very bad, and he go avay quick. Quick.

“Now, I aint a gazetteer, gentlemen, and I vont try to tell you all the places Schmidt run to, to lose Rawson. But in a general vay the hunt go westward, efer westward.

“Schmidt bury himself in Circle City; but comes a letter and it says Rawson vill be soon on hand. So Schmidt go right over to Shanghai. Again, pretty soon, a cable-despatch arrive, saying: 'I know. I come.' From Shanghai, Schmidt beat it to Achin, a lost place on the north-west tip of Sumatra. Dis time he lie in peace and hope about a month; but at last a coolie visper in his ear a message he say he get from a white man in Batavia. And Schmidt, he skip on the next steamer, not knowing where it is bound for and not caring at all.”

Wertheimer finished his ale and thought a minute, then continued, even more gently than before:

“Rawson, you see, did not vant to get him too quick. It vould haf spoiled the fun of the hunting. No. He prefer to wear Schmidt down, and file his nerfs to a leetle thin wire, and then break that wire, yes? And reduce him to not sleeping, not eating, not knowing what night the end might come. Ach, some hunting, vat? So!”

“You bet!” snuffed Bates, striking another match. At the card-table, the game had been suspended. The poker-players were listening, now. Even the steward had forgotten to be bored. Under the bright, white glare of the incandescents in the coffered ceiling, Wertheimer's face wrinkled into a faint smile. On his nose he adjusted his glasses carefully. We waited.

“Schmidt, sweating blood, his hand losing its cunning, ducks off the steamer at Rangoon. Just where he go, for a year after, it vould be hard to trace on the map. He take a kiràn, a river-boat, up-country. It is a big place, Burmah. Also, easy to get lost in. But Rawson, he neffer lose him for very long. Wherever the Russian, claiming to be a naturalist, go to, Rawson, who say he is a tourist, keep finding him. A pretty game—and long, long. Ach, so!

“Schmidt, he double on his track and get into Borneo. Yes, he know about the head-hunters, and so on; but he prefer them to Rawson. It is nicer to haf the head flop right off, zip! mit one good cut, as to haf it twisted slow. Yes? Gewiss! So he go to Borneo.

“After all, Schmidt is not so much a coward. He must haf been as brave as the average man, at times—like you, or me, or the Colonel here.” Wertheimer glanced shrewdly at the puffy, pompous face of His Majesty's Own Punjabi Lancer. “But he vant to die in the daylight, mit a good chance for a fight. He vould haf given effery dollar vat he got—and he was rich, too—for a stand-up mit Rawson, sword to sword, gun to gun, hatchet to hatchet, any old vay, even mit the bare claws, and settle it so. But—not so did Rawson desire. And the hunt go on.

“Vell, I make it short, gentlemen. Rawson hunt him through India, into Afghanistan, across Persia and Arabia and der Desert of El Khali into Yemen. There, at Mokha, the two men is now only about a fortnight apart. Schmidt is clever, very. Instead of running down the east coast of Africa, like anybody vould, he turn again, now, toward civilization and try to make his get-avay through Port Said and so to Gibraltar and home to New York. He leave fake news to throw Rawson off the trail and send him to Zanzibar; but when Schmidt reach Gib., a wireless tell him Rawson is at Naples and has a pressing business mit him-—very pressing—in the neckwear line. And Schmidt does not even change his ticket. He go ashore and let the steamer sail avay mitout him; and then he stow avay on a British collier bound for Cape Town.

“I guess the captain work him the limit, ven he find him aboard, for anyvay Schmidt get sick before Table Mountain rise up out of the horizon. And typhoid set in. So he stay in the Prince Albert Hospital, there, a long time. Sick! Ach, extremely so!

“But ven he get better, comes a Kafir mit a note, as he sit trying to breathe on the parade-ground at Fort Nockle, looking across Table Bay at Robben Island. And der note say only: 'Move!'”

Wertheimer peered earnestly into his stein. I beckoned the steward. When this indispensable functionary had done his duty like a good man and true, Wertheimer wiped his lips on the back of his hand, and took a deep breath.

“So he moved again?” queried Wilson.

“Yes. Once more he double on his tracks. Instead of keeping round towards Natal and Delagoa Bay, he change his name again for the hundredth time and jump out on one of the water-steamers plying between Cape Town and Swakopmund, German Sout'-west Africa.”

“'Water-steamers?”

“To carry water, in tanks, of course. Only one river in the whole country, der Kuisseb, and it's salt. All the rest, only dry river-beds—wadys. Desert, sand, salt-beds, ashes of life, mountains like red-hot glass, that's all, clean from Damaraland, to Great Namaqualand. The last place Gott make—and Gott forget it, effer since.”

“But,” asked I, “what could Schmidt possibly do there? Any towns? Any place to live?”

“Two white settlements. Two, at Walfisch Bay. And one a couple o' hundred miles up-country, in the Hinterland—Windhoek, its name is. Germans, efferybody. Military and penal colony. That is to say—Hell. The very last place at the end of the whole, wide world. If such a thing is possible as to bury a man alive, it would be at Windhoek. Schmidt make up his mind it vill be the last stand. Beyond Windhoek he vill not go. Whateffer happen, no further, yet.”

“Aoh—did he?” drawled the colonel, tugging at his long mustaches.

“Vait. I tell you, soon.” And Wertheimer drained his ale, then settled down for the last lap of his singular narrative.

III

“Now, you understand,” said he, his voice growing subtly deeper while outside the winds made wanton music, “now you know, as I haf said before, if there is any such place as Hell, it must be just like the Hinterland of German Sout'-west Africa.

“No trees, no flowers, gentlemen; no jungle; nodding. And all the time, dust-storms and whirlwinds of sand from the baked plains. And water brought in leetle barrels, six marks for one barrel. No baths, vot? Forty soldiers once die there in one month, out of sixty. And as for the convicts—Gott knows, maybe. Enteric fever, and zymotic, and so on. Also they hang the water up in a slimy canvas bag, to cool it. Not one white woman there, not one. Nice, aint it—for a man like Schmidt?

“Nobody go in the sun, between nine and five. If they go, it burn all the skin off, wherever it touch. What vork is done, hauling up supplies to the troops und convicts, mit twenty donkeys and two Kafirs on every vagon, comes by night—by the short, hot night, so hot you can't sleep anyhow.”

“Say, how on earth did you ever happen to blow into such a punk joint?” suddenly exclaimed Bates.

The little traveler squinted at him.

“Dat,” he answered, “is my business—and the Company's.”

Bates nibbled his lip. The story continued:

“Yes, it was Hell, all right. No birds, no life, only sometimes a starved lion, and the camels run by imported Arabians for the transport-trains up-country. Germans can't do nodding mit camels, gentlemen. No white man can do it. The camel balk, and he veep, and he die, and he get up wrong end first und throw you ten feet avay and—but no matter. Not even the camel can live there naturally. Nodding lives, but only a kind of horny bug called spinnekops. Ven he bite you, which he always do if he possibly can, it is good if you haf your vill already made—because you cannot make it at all, after the bite. Also, you turn blackish, which is unpleasant, and you get buried at vunce, on account of der climate.

“You haf to eat horse-meat, while alive; and nodding grow on those mountains of flint but just thorn-bushes, exactly the same like papers of long hat-pins, mit niggers hiding behind it. You cannot go through, but the niggers can, easy. Ach, yes.”

“So, then,” I asked, “the country's really inhabited, after all?”

“Yes, if you be so foolish as to think der Hereros, black and yellow, and able to drink alkali water, haf human souls. They lay right in der bush, behind rocks, and catch the Germans and take avay their rifles. Sometimes they take avay field-guns, too. Use 'em? You bet they use 'em, all right, ven they got 'em! They sometimes catch some missionaries, sometimes some soldiers, and gif them to the women. Also the Herero women haf bad manners. They cut up white men by leetle inches, mit stone knifes. That is why at Swakopmund you vill see hunderts of Herero women kept in a thorn-bush kraal, guarded by soldiers and made to vork hard, mit whips, and a dozen or two dying effery day. Good feeling on both sides, vat? Good ground for der missionaries. And ven a punishing expedition chases the free Hereros in the mountains, they push down big rocks on the troops and smear 'em—flat.

“Nice boys, the Hereros, mit thin cheeks and high face-bones, and a language all clicks mit the tongue. Also, they shoot you mit a blowing-tube and darts, or mit a pfeil und bogen—a bow and arrows, eh?—having poison arrows, so if you get even one leetle scratch, you say your prayers—if you got any to say, which mostly you aint. Because it can do no good, there. Because it is too far to make up any connection mit, from anywhere.

“Vell, such is the place where Schmidt at last take refuge. He think, now, he is surely safe. For how can Rawson go there and find him? Who effer hear of Swakopmund? How can Rawson track him? And also, moreover, Schmidt don't stay on the coast. No, he trek mit a camel train, two hundert miles inland from Walfisch Bay, to Windhoek, which is on der east slope off the mountains, beyond which is nodding but one thousand miles of sand, white-hot—Bechuanaland and der Kalahari Desert. It is marked. 'Unexplored' on the maps, and not even a camel crosses it. Because camels must drink every eight days, and there is no water at all—only here, there, a leetle vlei, a salt-spring, you understand. So, Windhoek is the end of the world.

“And Schmidt, he expect to curry favor mit the officers and to stay there one year, two year maybe, then slip out again and be free—perhaps. But it is not to be. No. Not at all.”

He paused, seemingly in thought. Then he passed a hand over his eyes, and slowly said:

“Now, gentlemen, I explain you the finish. And ven I get through, I ask the Colonel, here, one question: Only one.”

“Aoh, yes?” murmured Fitzhugh McBride, while Bates forgot to smoke, and at the table in the other corner a thick silence reigned.

IV

“Schmidt stay at Windhoek, pretending to collect spinnekops, one veek. Then comes an Arabian mit a camel by his tent, and hand to him a letter. It say—it say—well, I show you, here, myself.”

Wertheimer produced from an inner pocket a bill-fold, puffy and well-worn. He opened it, while we all stared. From one compartment he extracted a much-creased bit of paper, cheap, blue-lined and dirty, with a singular brown stain blotching one corner.

This he spread flat upon the table. Eagerly I read, in a cramped hand, German words which said:

Go on, further still. This is the last week. The coast trail is covered. You are penned. Strike east. Go!

With a shiver, Bates broke out:

“But—but how on earth did—you—”

“Did I get it?” smiled the German. “Ach! Is not that an interesting question, though? No, it was not given to me. But vait, vait—soon you understand all, maybe.”

“Blood?” I queried, tapping the stain.

He nodded; then, refolding the paper, he put it back in his pocket. After a moment's pause he went on:

“So Schmidt, he move. He try for one day, for two days, to stand his ground and meet it among men; but his nerf is not good any more. So he go—go light. Hoping, of course, to swing back around to the south through the Auas Mountains and maybe reach Port Ilheo and get avay to the sea in a canoe, and try to be picked up by a steamer. It is a slim chance, but it is better as sitting still and not daring ever to sleep—vaiting for hands to get you by der neck, at night, and squeeze.

“Rawson, he follow. By the tracks in der sand, he come after, by the tracks in the burning sand. One day behind, he trek. Schmidt, he hurt his left foot, twisting it in some rocks. He limp, and Rawson see he limp, by the tracks. And Rawson smile.

“So, on the second day out from Windhoek, Rawson he find Schmidt.”

Another long pause.

“Well?” breathed I.

“He find him, but not like he hope. No; he come across him in a leetle bush place, a ravine, on the other side off a kopje.

“Schmidt, he is laying on the rocks. And all around, squatting on their hams, is five Hereros. And in Schmidt is sticking the poison arrows and darts. The Hereros is taking off his watch and money and clothes—efferything vat he got. Und he is dead. Quite so.

“Vell, when Rawson see it, he grow sick and almost fainting, and his heart die. He yell. The Hereros, scared, jump up and run off in der bush. In one minute, not a Herero you can see. Rawson, he stumble to the body, and he veep. He look at the neck, and at the black beard; he observe der face, which have suffered much, but not yet enough. He see the eyes, which is half-closed—peaceful. He know Schmidt die quite sudden, mit the curaré quick poison, and not have suffered long. And so he veep, bitter, bitter. Three years' work, such work, gentlemen, and get cheated at last—vould you not veep, also?”

“Go on! What then!” snapped Bates.

“Then? Ach, then, Rawson, he sit down. He wait. For he know the Hereros aint gone far away. He know they hide in the bush and rocks, and maybe shoot him, too. So he tie up his handkerchief on a branch of the thorn-tree, and hold it up. And loud he talk to them and tell them they haf kill his enemy, and say he is exceedingly grateful, all in German. They know a leetle German. So after a long time, they creep back again.

“Yes, after a vhile, all five of them come back. And they squat around and vait for the presents. And Rawson he gif them things. Much money, and tobacco, and two pipes, and knifes and—and all vot he got—except the automatic Browning revolver.

“No, he keep the revolver. And all the time he is giving the presents and making the thankful talk, he is getting the revolver right where he vant it. It has six shots in it. Also, it shoots very fast.

“So, just at the right minute, he let it go, and he shoot all of the Hereros. Yes, bing! bing! bing! bing! bing! Five times, right close up, blank-point. So they all fall over. Yes, before they can do anything, they can't do nodding. And one shot is left. Rawson, he use that one shot, also.”

“How?” demanded I, aghast. “For Heaven's sake, he didn't—”

Wertheimer smiled.

“No,” he made answer. “There is still one more man alive there, remember.”

“You mean—?”

“Of course. He put the Browning by his own head. He is cheated so he can't stand it. Bing! He fall. He tip over among the Hereros, right beside Schmidt. But he is not dead, yet.”

“Not dead?”

“No. His hand shake, mit the excitement. And his skull, his frontal bones, is thick. Ach, very. So the bullet does not go all through, but shoot off somewhere else, in the desert. So, after two days more, some soldiers find him.

“And he tell how brafe he and the odder man fight the Hereros and how they kill five and the rest run avay. And his story go. They don't suspect nodding. So the soldiers leave the Hereros to dry up on the rocks, but they bury Schmidt, right there, black viskers und all. Then they pile a big lot of rocks on him. And he is there—now. So.

“And Rawson, he go avay from there mit the soldiers carrying him, and he still alive. That is aboudt der finish of the story, gentlemen.”

“But—how the devil do you happen to know all this?” exclaimed the Punjabi Lancer. “Deuced odd, y'know, and—aoh—most extrawd'niry.”'

“You answer my question, Colonel, if I answer yours?”

“Indeed I will!”

“All right. How I know all this? Look!”

With his pudgy hand Wertheimer pushed back the curling hair from his right temple.

There, clearly standing out against the brownish-yellow skin, burned an ugly, jagged weal.

“Now, Colonel, my question, please?”

“Aoh—?”

“Did you effer know a man to hunt a tiger three year, and then kill five men because they get to it first, and then try to shoot himself fer the same reason, also? No? All right. For excitement, and sweat, and the heart-beatings and the racking of the soul, it is not, then, the biggest hunting-meat, tiger aint. And as I say before, Man is. Good-night!”

The little German got up, yawned noisily, and shuffled away down the stairs to his cabin.

In the silence that followed, I went out on deck, out on the cold, clean, dark and windswept deck. Refreshing was the salt drive of the gale; and very good to me the vague white seeth of foam, astern, as for a while I stood beside the rail and thought long thoughts and gazed upon the mystery of night, of sea, and of the passionless stars.