What Became of the White Savage (14 page)

The next day, they walked all morning, stopping only for a brief pause to let the children rest. The old woman took the two water gourds from him and rationed out the water for the children. Narcisse felt weak and oppressed by the heat in the humid, still air.

And then he saw the sea.

The forest stopped abruptly in a perfect curve, framing a sandy beach, as wide as the beach where he had landed. But it wasn’t the same one. They hadn’t retraced their steps, and many of the features of this bay were different. A lone rock, the reef visible above the water, the slanting trees, and no cliffs. And this bay was completely closed in by an impenetrable reef, broken only by three small islands, covered with scrawny bushes. Waves broke on the reef; it would be impossible for a dinghy to find a passage. No sailor would ever land here. The names ‘North Bay’ and ‘Bay of Abandon’ sprang spontaneously into his mind. How far away from here was the ‘Bay of Abandon’? Two days walk, at the most.

How long now had he been ashore? He counted off the days on his fingers: four days completely alone; two with the old woman; two by the water hole before the fever; five days ill and recovering; two days walk to here. Fifteen days in all on these shores, if his calculations were correct. It would take the
Saint-Paul
a week to sail to Java, then two days to get the sick men ashore and prepare to set sail again, another week to sail back here. Any day now, the
Saint-Paul
, or perhaps another ship sent to rescue him, would weigh anchor in the ‘Bay of Abandon’.

Of course, he couldn’t be sure. The crossing might take longer if they encountered stormy weather. It could take longer than two days to load up with supplies and take on new hands. But with any luck, the rescue ship would make an appearance within a few days. He had to find some food and a water pouch. He had to get away. If he kept to the coast he would eventually arrive at the ‘Bay of Abandon’. He’d be found, naked and exhausted, his ear torn off. He’d be the butt of his shipmates’ jokes, but he would be alive. He remembered the promise he’d made to himself. Whatever happened, he would come out of this ordeal alive.

The tribe stopped at the edge of the forest. The mothers and babies stayed in the shade with the pregnant woman, while the young people assembled branches into shelters and the men went off to hunt. The women waded into the sea to collect white clams and fat, dark green mussels, the children playing in the waves and helping to find the shellfish. Narcisse could not swim and was afraid of the water. But here, on this gently sloping beach, he felt more confident. He waded into the sea, and still feeling self-conscious, walked past the women and children until the water came up to his chest. He was taller and could go well beyond where they were standing without being out of his depth. All around him were rocks covered with shellfish that were out of the reach of the others. He started to pick the shells off the rocks and when he could hold no more, he walked back towards the beach where a woman held out a basket to him. He took the basket, put his crop in it and went back out to the rocks. Before long, he’d filled the basket and given it to the women, who gave him another empty basket to fill. Heedless of the sun beating down on the back of his neck, the dazzling reflections of the sun on the water, he was happy to have something to do. He carried on working industriously, filling a stream of baskets with clams and mussels, the women supplying him with empty baskets as fast as he filled them.

Meanwhile, on the beach a fire had been lit, a large flat stone laid across it supported by a ring of smaller stones. Here and there, shellfish were piled up on the sand. Someone called to the women, who came out of the water and walked over to sit down around the fire. With the last of his baskets filled, Narcisse joined them along with the children.

The women arranged the mussels and clams on the hot stone, picking them off a few moments later to eat the barely cooked flesh. The flat stone, constantly replenished with a supply of uncooked shellfish, soon became the focus of a veritable seafood feast. After watching for a while, Narcisse understood what to do. He tried placing a handful of mussels on the stone. Seeing that this provoked no response, he carried on, picking the cooked mussels off the stone to enjoy his share of the feast. No one seemed to mind. In the noonday sun, with no breeze to cool the air, the intense heat from the fire was overwhelming. The women and children ate their fill, and so too did Narcisse, savouring every mouthful of salty flesh. After so many days of eating only plain unseasoned meat, charred by hot coals, he relished this feast of shellfish with its taste of the sea, and felt reassured by the inexhaustible abundance of the harvest.

Narcisse and the women slept for a while in the shade of the trees. He’d seen these same trees everywhere he went, but he still couldn’t identify them. After his nap, he went back into the sea to bathe and cool off. The little boy who’d watched him for so long two evenings ago came with him, playing next to him, jumping up and down, turning round and splashing him, shrieking with laughter, then running away and coming back again. This was the first time since Narcisse had been with the tribe that any of them had shown any interest in him. He thought of his cousins and his playmates from school, the hours they’d spent playing in the river or at the village wash house. How far away it all seemed.

With one final leap, the child stopped and stood, gazing intently at Narcisse. Placing his hand to his chest, a serious look on his face, he said: “Waiakh.” Then, extending his right hand, his palm turned towards Narcisse, he added: “Amglo.”

Narcisse decided to go along with this new game: “Waiakh? That’s your name? Waiakh. Amglo. Waiakh. Amglo. And my name is Narcisse.”

The child seemed stunned to hear his own words coming out of Narcisse’s mouth. “Waiakh,” he said again, repeating it several times, before running off to tell his mother and some of the other children about this exchange.

Late that afternoon, the shellfish collecting resumed. The young men emerged gradually from the forest each carrying one or two fine looking fish, placing them on the hot stone over the still burning fire. At dusk, the hunters returned bearing lizards, birds, bats and small furry animals that looked vaguely like cats.

This time, the meal was eaten with no regard for the customary formalities, all the members of the tribe serving themselves as and when they pleased, without waiting their turn as they usually did. Narcisse walked over to the fire and helped himself to one of the fish, a blue specimen with large scales and a prominent snout. No one made any attempt to stop him. He went to sit down a little way away from the group, savoured half of the fish, and hid the rest in some dry leaves. He went back over to the fire and ate his fill of shellfish, and then tried what looked like a pigeon with rather greasy meat. The last of the hunters had arrived and placed their kills on the stone. The old woman provided some water gourds that were passed around from one person to the next. Where had they found the water to fill them? When Narcisse was handed one that was almost full, he took a small sip and went to hide it with the uneaten half of his fish. No one paid any attention and he resumed his place by the fire to eat his fill of shellfish. He managed to sneak away a lizard that he took to hide with the rest of his supplies.

The copious meal raised the spirits of the whole tribe. He’d never heard them laughing and singing like this before, their talk so animated. One couple after another drifted off to walk on the beach. As the last glimmers of light faded into darkness, Narcisse glimpsed two black figures tumbling down to frolic on the sand.

He awoke before dawn. The sky was black, but the darkness was no longer impenetrable. He could see depth and texture in the void. At sea he’d spent many an hour on watch, gazing at the night sky waiting for daybreak. He knew that this quality of translucence heralded the dawn; the first glimmers of light would soon pierce the darkness to the east.

He got up and groped around to find his cache of supplies, and stumbled off into the forest, tripping on unseen obstacles. The tribe were all still sleeping.

When he estimated he was far enough away, he stopped and ate the piece of fish, struggling to keep it from slipping through his fingers. To get to the Bay of Abandon he’d have to follow the coastline. Rather than walking along the beaches and having to negotiate all the inlets, he thought it might be better to climb up on the plateau that rose to a height of about twenty metres and ran parallel to the sea. He could make out individual trees now as the forest became gradually suffused with daylight.

He set out at a good pace, the water pouch in one hand, in the other, the lizard. Beneath him, North Bay gave way to a rocky ridge and then a flooded plain, and then another bay where blocks of coral studded the beach. He had chosen his route well, even without a path to follow. Walking was easier now that there was more light. The tribe would be waking up, they must have noticed that he was not there. He wondered what they would do. Would they realise that he wanted to go back to the spot where he had first set foot in their world. Kermarec, Wanderer and Scarface were probably fast runners. Would they go to the trouble of trying to recapture him? Would they punish him for running away? And what kind of barbaric punishment would they inflict on him?

He would have to pick up his pace if he wanted to get to the Bay of Abandon in time to be there when his rescuers arrived. He knew it was a long way, but how long exactly? The low ridge he’d been following since he left had flattened out and gradually disappeared, to be replaced by the same flat, colourless forest where it was all too easy to get lost. The sea, visible through the trees, was his only means of orienting himself. Cautiously, he made his way towards the coast.

He kept cutting his feet on the blocks of coral that littered the ground. The heat intensified, bringing with it the clouds of flies. He allowed himself a brief pause, drank sparingly and set off once again. How many more hours of walking were ahead of him? And what would he do when he arrived at his destination?

After the interminable forest, he came to a bare, white limestone hill, shaped like the back of a giant tortoise. Looking out from the top of the hill, he saw an unchanging landscape in every direction, indistinguishable from the path he’d just trod. Creeks, low ridges, sunken forests, and far off on the horizon, towards the interior, a line of low blue ridges snaking parallel to the sea and marking the boundary of the coastal plateau.

Not knowing whether he was chasing an illusion or a realistic hope, Narcisse walked on valiantly. The sun was still climbing in the sky when he reached the top of another hill, this one higher and well covered with trees. With mixed emotions he recognised the Bay of Abandon in the distance, with the rock-strewn cliff to the north. No sign of a ship, no sail to be seen either in the bay or out to sea.

The
Saint-Paul
, or any other rescue ship should have been there by now. Had he miscalculated the time it would take them to get to Java and back? Or the amount of time spent preparing for the new crossing? Or had they already come and gone the day before?

He ran to the beach and paced up and down, turning this way and that. Nothing had been left there, no message, no sign of any kind.

Think. He had to think. In the shade of a tree – the same tree that had sheltered him that first day – he forced himself to eat the lizard and drink some water. Should he wait there? He could hold out for three or four days. But if no ship appeared, he would have to go back to North Bay. Would he have the strength to make his way back there? And what if the tribe had left and gone off somewhere else, God knows where.

Should he just go straight back? The two bays were closer than he had imagined. He could be back by nightfall, eating fish, clams and mussels, pigeons. And drinking, drinking, drinking his fill of water. All day, he’d seen no sign of fresh water; the old woman hadn’t shown him where she’d filled the gourds. But what if his shipmates arrived tomorrow? He had to leave a message. The savages were a long way off, they wouldn’t see it, and they wouldn’t be tempted to come and destroy it as they had his giant stone arrow. There was a large boulder in the middle of the beach. It was a prominent landmark, well above the line of high tide. That was where he would need to write his message. He’d use pebbles this time; he’d write his initials, N. P., and the date. That way, his shipmates would know he’d survived. What day was it now? He’d been abandoned here on the 5th November. He worked out the number of days since then and used pebbles to form a second line of writing: 21st November, followed by an arrow pointing towards the north.

Perhaps they’d see this message tomorrow. They’d know it was only recently written and they would set off to look for him. The
Saint-Paul
would patrol up and down the coast. He would see the sails, he’d light a fire in the forest to signal to them where he was.

When he’d finished his message he started on his route back. He walked for six gruelling hours, the sun high in the sky. He arrived exhausted, parched, not knowing whether he’d made the right decision, wondering how he would be greeted.

No one took any interest in him. He ate some mussels and small fish to replenish his strength and went into the sea to relax. Waiakh followed him, frolicking at his side. That evening the meal was less gargantuan than the previous night’s feast, but he managed to grab a large fat pigeon and two bats. He finished eating and within an instant was overcome by sleep.

The
Strathmore
at sea, 12th July 1861

Monsieur le Président,

Little did I imagine that I would pen my next letter to you aboard ship, but I must now tell you of our crossing from Sydney as passengers on the
Strathmore
. True to his word, the governor, who was only too happy to be relieved of his responsibility towards Narcisse and me, purchased two tickets for the voyage to London. At my insistence, Narcisse was to travel with me in first class, and not, as the officials, ever mindful of making economies, would have had it, in third class.