The Ordinary Man’s Story, being The Pipes of Death “Any of you know Burma?” asked the Ordinary Man, putting out his hand for the tobacco-jar.
“I’ve been there,” grunted the Soldier. “Shooting. Years ago. West of the Irawadi from Rangoon.”
“It’s years since I was there, too,” said the Ordinary Man. “More than a score. And if I wasn’t so beastly fat and lazy I’d like to go back for a visit. Only a visit, mind you. I’ve got to the time of life when I find that London is quite good enough for my needs. But the story which I propose to inflict on you fellows to-night concerns Burma, and delving into the past to get the details right has brought the fascination of the place back to me.
“I was about thirty-five at the time—and my benevolent Aunt Jane had not then expired and endowed me with all her worldly goods. I was working for a City firm who had considerable interests out there—chiefly teak, with a strong side-line in rubies.
“At that time, as you may know, the ruby mines in the Mandalay area were second to none, and it was principally to give my employers a report on the many clashing interests in those mines that I went back to England after a few months in the country. And it was in their office that I met a youngster, who had just joined the firm, and who, it turned out, was going out to Burma on the same boat as myself. Jack Manderby was his name, and I suppose he must have been ten or eleven years younger than I. He was coming to my district, and somewhat naturally I was a bit curious to see what sort of a fellow he was.
“I took to him from the very first moment, and after we’d lunched together a couple of times my first impression was strengthened. He was a real good fellow—extraordinarily good-looking and straight as a die, without being in the least degree a prig.
“We ran into a good south-westerly gale the instant we were clear of the Isle of Wight, which necessitated a period of seclusion on my part. In fact, my next appearance in public was at Gibraltar.
“And the first person I saw as I came on deck was Jack Manderby. He was leaning over the side bargaining with some infernal robber below, and at his side was a girl. In the intervals of haggling he turned to her, and they both laughed; and as I stood for a few minutes watching them, it struck me that Master Jack had made good use of the four days since we left England. Then I strolled over and joined them.
“?‘Hullo, old man!’ he cried, with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Is the rumour correct that you’ve been engaged in research work below, and had given orders not to be disturbed?’
“?‘Your vulgar jests leave me unmoved,’ I answered with dignity. ‘At any rate, I appear to have arrived in time to save you being robbed. That man is a thief and the son of a thief, and all his children are thieves.’
“Jack laughed; then he swung round to the girl.
“?‘By the way, you haven’t met Mr. Walton, have you? This is Miss Felsted, old boy, who is going out to Rangoon.’
“We shook hands, and no more was said at the time. But one thing was definitely certain. Whatever the girl was going to Rangoon for, the gain was Rangoon’s. She was an absolute fizzer—looked you straight in the face with the bluest of eyes that seemed to have a permanent smile lurking in them. And then, suddenly, I noticed her left hand. On the third finger was a diamond ring. It couldn’t be Jack she was engaged to, and I wondered idly who the lucky man was. Because he was lucky—infernally lucky.
“I think,” continued the Ordinary Man, pulling thoughtfully at his pipe, “that I first began to scent complications at Malta. We landed there for a few hours, and the idea was that Miss Felsted, Jack, and I should explore Valetta. Now, I don’t quite know how, but we got separated. I spent a pleasant two hours with a naval pal in the union Club, while Jack and the girl apparently went up by the narrow-gauge railway to Citta Vecchia, in the centre of the island. And since no one in the full possession of their senses would go on that line for fun, I wondered. I wondered still more when they came back to the ship. Jack was far too open and above-board to be very skilful at hiding his feelings. And something had happened that day.
“Of course, it was no concern of mine. Jack’s affairs were entirely his own; so were the girl’s. But a ship is a dangerous place sometimes—it affords unequalled and unending opportunities for what in those days were known as flirtations, and to-day, I believe, are known as ‘pashes.’ And to get monkeying round with another fellow’s fiancée—well, it leads to complications generally. However, as I said, it was no concern of mine, until it suddenly became so the evening before we reached Port Said.
“I was talking to Jack on deck just before turning in. We were strolling up and down—the sea like a mill-pond, and almost dazzling with its phosphorescence.
“?‘Is Miss Felsted going out to get married?’ I asked him casually.
“?‘Yes,’ he answered abruptly. ‘She’s engaged to a man called Morrison.’
“?‘Morrison,’ I repeated, stopping and staring at him. ‘Not Rupert Morrison, by any chance?’
“?‘Yes. Rupert is his name. Do you know him?’
“I’d pulled myself together by this time, and we resumed our stroll.
“?‘I know Rupert Morrison quite well,’ I answered. ‘As distance goes in that country, Jack, he’s a near neighbour of ours’; and I heard him catch his breath a little quickly.
“?‘What sort of a fellow is he?’ asked Jack quietly, and then he went on, which saved me the trouble of a reply: ‘She hasn’t seen him for four years. They got engaged before he left England, and now she’s going out to marry him.’
“?‘I see,’ I murmured non-committally, and shortly afterwards I made my excuse and left him.
“I didn’t turn in at once when I got to my cabin, I wanted to try and get things sorted out in my mind. The first point, which was as obvious as the electric light over the bunk, was that if Jack Manderby was not in love with Molly Felsted he was as near to it as made no odds. The second and far more important point was one on which I was in the dark—was the girl in love with him? If so, it simplified matters considerably; but if not, if she was only playing the fool, there was going to be trouble when we got to Burma. And the trouble would take the form of Rupert Morrison. For the more I thought of it the more amazed did I become that such a girl could ever have become engaged to such a man.
“Of course, four years is a long time, especially when they are passed in comparative solitude. I had no idea what sort of fellow Morrison had been when first he arrived in the country, but I had a very shrewd idea what manner of man he was now. Perhaps it had been the loneliness—loneliness takes some men worse than others—but, whatever the cause, Morrison, after four years in Burma, was no fit mate for such a girl as Molly Felsted. A brooding, sullen man, given to fierce fits of almost animal rage, a heavy drinker of the type who is never drunk, and——”
The Ordinary Man paused and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, it’s unfair to mention the last point. After all, most of us did that without thinking; but the actual arrival of an English girl—a wife—who was to step, blindly ignorant, into her predecessor’s shoes, so to speak, made one pause to think. Anyway, that was neither here nor there. What frightened me was the prospect of the girl marrying the Morrison of her imagination and discovering, too late, the Morrison of reality. When that happened, with Jack Manderby not five miles away, the fat was going to be in the fire with a vengeance.
“It was after Colombo that matters came to a head. We left the P. & O. there, and got into another boat going direct to Rangoon. The weather was glorious—hot as blazes by day, and just right at night. And it was after dinner one evening a couple of days before we were due in, that quite inadvertently I butted into the pair of them in a secluded spot on deck. His arms were round her, and they both sounded a bit incoherent. Of course, there was no use pretending I hadn’t seen—they both looked up at me. I could only mutter my apology and withdraw. But I determined, even at the risk of being told to go to hell, to have a word with young Jack that night.
“?‘Look here, old man,’ I said to him a bit later, ‘you’ve got a perfect right to request me to mind my own business, but I’m going to risk that. I saw you two to-night, kissing to beat the band—confound it all, there wasn’t a dog’s earthly of not seeing you—and what I want to know is where Morrison comes in, or if he’s gone out?’
“He looked at me a bit shamefacedly, then he lit a cigarette.
“?‘Hugh,’ he said, with a twisted sort of smile, ‘I just worship the ground that girl walks on.’
“?‘Maybe you do, Jack,’ I answered. ‘But the point is, what are her feelings on the matter?’
“He didn’t answer, and after a while I went on.
“?‘This show is not my palaver,’ I said ordering two whisky pegs from the bartender. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, except that you and I are going to share the same bungalow, which is within easy calling distance of Morrison’s. Now, Morrison is a funny-tempered fellow, but, apart from that altogether, the situation seems strained to me. If she breaks off her engagement with him and marries you, well and good. But if she isn’t going to do that, if she still intends to marry Morrison—well, then, old man, although I hold no brief for him, you’re not playing the game. I’m no sky pilot, but do one thing or the other. Things are apt to happen, you know, Jack, when one’s at the back of beyond and a fellow gets playing around with another fellow’s wife—things which might make an English court of justice sit up and scratch its head.’
“He heard me out in silence, then he nodded his head.
“?‘I know it must seem to you that I wasn’t playing the game,’ he said quietly. ‘But, believe me, it’s not for want of asking on my part that Molly won’t marry me. And I believe that she’s as fond of me—almost—as I am of her.’
“?‘Then why the——?’ I began, but he stopped me with a weary little gesture of his hand.
“?‘She feels that she’s bound to him in honour,’ he went on. ‘I’ve told her that there can’t be much question of honour if she doesn’t love him any more, but she seems to think that, as he has waited four years for her, she can’t break her bargain. And she’s very fond of him; if it hadn’t been for fate chucking us together she would never have thought of not marrying him. To-night we both forgot ourselves, I suppose; it won’t occur again.’
“He sat back staring out of the port-hole. The smoke-room was empty, and I fairly let myself go.
“?‘You very silly idiot,’ I exploded, ‘do you imagine I’ve been delivering a homily on the sins of kissing another man’s fiancée. What I want to get into your fat head is this. You’re going to a place where the only white woman you’ll see from year’s end to year’s end is that girl, if she marries Morrison. You can prattle about honour, and forgetting yourselves, and not letting it occur again, and it’s worth the value of that used match. Sooner or later it will occur again, and it won’t stop at kissing next time. And then Morrison will probably kill you, or you’ll kill him, and there’ll be the devil to pay. For Heaven’s sake, man, look the thing square in the face. Either marry the girl, or cut her right out of your life. And you can only do that by cabling the firm—or I’ll cable them for you from Rangoon—asking to be posted to another district. I shall be sorry, but I’d far rather lose you than sit on the edge of a young volcano.’
“I left him to chew over what I’d said and went to bed, feeling infernally sorry for both of them. But the one fact over which there was no doubt whatever in my mind was that if Morrison married Molly Felsted, then Jack Manderby would have to be removed as far as geographically possible from temptation.
“My remarks apparently had some effect, because the next day Jack buttonholed me on deck.
“?‘I’ve told Molly what you said last night, old man, and we’ve been talking it over. Morrison is meeting her apparently at Rangoon, and she has agreed to tell him what has happened. And when he knows how the land lies it’s bound to be all right. Of course, I’m sorry for him, poor devil, but——’ and he went babbling on in a way common to those in love.
“I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention; I was thinking of Morrison and wondering whether Jack’s optimism was justified. Apart from his moroseness and drinking, there were other stories about the man—stories which are not good to hear about a white man. I’d never paid any heed to them before, but now they came back to me—those rumours of strange things, which only the ignorant sceptic pretends to scorn; strange things done in secret with native priests and holy men; strange things it is not well for the white man to dabble in. And someone had it that Rupert Morrison did more than dabble.”
The Ordinary Man paused and sipped his whisky.
“He met the boat at Rangoon,” he continued after a while, “and came on board. Evidently the girl wasted no time in telling him what had occurred, because it was barely ten minutes before I saw him coming towards Jack and myself. There was a smouldering look in his eyes, but outwardly he seemed quite calm. He gave me a curt nod, then he addressed himself exclusively to Jack.
“?‘Miss Felsted has just made a somewhat unexpected announcement to me,’ he remarked.
“Jack bowed gravely. ‘I am more than sorry, Mr. Morrison,’ he said, ‘if it should appear to you that I have acted in any way caddishly.’ He paused a little constrainedly and I moved away. The presence of a third person at such an interview helps nobody. But once or twice I glanced at them during the next quarter of an hour, and it seemed to me that, though he was trying to mask it, the look of smouldering fury in Morrison’s eyes was growing more pronounced. From their attitude it struck me that Jack was protesting against some course of action on which the other was insisting, and I turned out to be right.
“?‘Morrison has made the following proposal,’ he said irritably to me when their conversation had finished. ‘That Molly should be left here in Rangoon with the English chaplain and his wife—apparently he’d fixed that already—and that we—he and I—should both go up country for a month or six weeks. Neither of us to see her during that time, and at the end of it she to be free to choose. As he pointed out, I suppose quite rightly, he had been engaged to her for more than four years, and it was rather rough on him to upset everything for what might prove only a passing fancy, induced by being thrown together on board ship. Of course, I pointed out to him that this was no question of a passing fancy—but he insisted.’
“?‘And you agreed?’ I asked.
“?‘What else could I do?’ he cried. ‘Heaven knows I didn’t want to—it’s such awful rot and waste of time. But I suppose it is rather rough luck on the poor devil, and if it makes it any easier for him to have the agony prolonged a few weeks, it’s up to me to give him that satisfaction.’
“He went off to talk to the girl, leaving me smoking a cigarette thoughtfully; for, try as I would, I could not rid my mind of the suspicion that there was something behind this suggestion of Morrison’s—something sinister. Fortunately, Jack would be under my eye—in my bungalow; but even so, I felt uneasy. Morrison had been too quiet for safety, bearing in mind what manner of man he was.
“We landed shortly after and I went round to the club. I didn’t see Morrison—he seemed to have disappeared shortly after his interview with Jack; but he had given the girl full directions as to how to get to the chaplain’s house. Jack took her there, and I’d arranged with him that he should come round after and join me.
“The first man I ran into was McAndrew—a leather-faced Scotsman from up my part of the country—who was down in Rangoon on business.
“?‘Seen the bridegroom?’ he grunted as soon as he saw me.
“?‘Travelled out with the bride,’ I said briefly, not over-anxious to discuss the matter.
“?‘And what sort of a lassie is she?’ he asked curiously.
“?‘Perfectly charming,’ I answered, ringing the bell for a waiter.
“?‘Is that so?’ he said slowly, and our eyes met. ‘Man,’ he added still more slowly, ‘it should not be, it should not be. Poor lassie! Poor lassie!’
“And then Jack Manderby came in, and I introduced him to two or three other fellows. I’d arranged to go up country that evening—train to Mandalay, and ride from there the following morning—and Jack, of course, was coming with me. He had said good-bye to the girl; he wasn’t going to see her again before he went up country, and we spent the latter part of the afternoon pottering round Rangoon. And it was as we were strolling down one of the native bazaars that he suddenly caught my arm.
“?‘Look—there’s Morrison!’ he muttered. ‘I distinctly saw his face peering out of that shop.’
“I looked in the direction he was pointing. It was an ordinary native shop where one could buy ornaments and musical instruments and trash like that—but of Morrison I could see no sign.
“?‘I don’t see him,’ I said; ‘and anyway there is no reason why he shouldn’t be in the shop if he wants to.’
“?‘But he suddenly vanished,’ persisted Jack, ‘as if he didn’t want to be seen.’ He walked on with me slowly. ‘I don’t like that man, Hugh; I hate the swine. And it’s not because of Molly, either.’
“He shut up at that, and I did not pursue the topic. It struck me that we should have quite enough of Morrison in the next few weeks.”
The Ordinary Man paused and lit a cigarette; then he smiled a little grimly.
“I don’t know what I expected,” he continued thoughtfully: “I certainly never said a word to Jack as to my vague suspicions. But all the time during the first fortnight, while he was settling down into the job, I had the feeling that there was danger in the air. And then, when nothing happened, my misgivings began to go.
“After all, I said to myself, what could happen, anyway? And perhaps I had misjudged Rupert Morrison. On the two or three occasions that we met him he seemed perfectly normal; and though, somewhat naturally, he was not over effusive to Jack, that was hardly to be wondered at.
“And then one morning Jack came to breakfast looking as if he hadn’t slept very well. I glanced at him curiously, but made no allusion to his appearance.
“?‘Did you hear that music all through the night?’ he said irritably, half-way through the meal. ‘Some infernal native playing a pipe or something just outside my window.’
“?‘Why didn’t you shout at him to stop?’ I asked.
“?‘I did. And I got up and looked.’ He took a gulp of tea; then he looked at me as if he were puzzled.
“?‘There was no one there that I could see. Only something black that moved over the compound, about the size of a kitten.’
“?‘He was probably just inside the jungle beyond the clearing,’ I said. ‘Heave half a brick at him if you hear it again.’
“We said no more, and I dismissed the matter from my mind. I was on the opposite side of the bungalow, and it would take more than a native playing on a pipe to keep me awake. But the following night the same thing happened—and the next, and the next.
“?‘What sort of a noise is it?’ I asked him. ‘Surely to Heaven you’re sufficiently young and healthy not to be awakened by a bally fellow whistling?’
“?‘It isn’t that that wakes me, Hugh,’ he answered slowly. ‘I wake before it starts. Each night about the same time I suddenly find myself wide awake—listening. Sometimes it’s ten minutes before it starts—sometimes almost at once; but it always comes. A faint, sweet whistle—three or four notes, going on and on—until I think I’ll go mad. It seems to be calling me.’
“?‘But why the devil don’t you go and see what it is?’ I cried peevishly.
“?‘Because’—and he stared at me with a shamefaced expression in his eyes—‘because I daren’t.’
“?‘Rot!’ I said angrily. ‘Look here, young fellow, nerves are bad things anywhere—here they’re especially bad. You pull yourself together.’
“He flushed all over his face, and shut up like an oyster, which made me rather sorry I’d spoke so sharply. But one does hear funny noises in the jungle, and it doesn’t do to become fanciful.
“And then one evening McAndrew came over to dinner. It was during the meal that I mentioned Jack’s nocturnal serenader, expecting that Mac would treat it as lightly as I did.
“?‘Seven times you’ve heard him, Jack, haven’t you,’ I said, ‘and always the same tune?’
“?‘Always the same tune,’ he answered quietly.
“?‘Can you whistle it now?’ asked McAndrew, laying down his knife and fork and staring at Jack.
“?‘Easily,’ said Jack. ‘It goes like this’—and he whistled about six notes. ‘On and on it goes—never varying——Why, McAndrew, what the devil is the matter?’
“I glanced at McAndrew in amazement; then out of the corner of my eye I saw the native servant, who was shivering like a jelly.
“?‘Man—are you sure?’ said Mac, and his face was white.
“?‘Of course I’m sure,’ answered Jack quietly. ‘Why?’
“?‘That tune you whistled—is not good for a white man to hear.’ The Scotsman seemed strangely uneasy. ‘And ye’ve heard it seven nights? Do you know it, Walton?’
“?‘I do not,’ I said grimly. ‘What’s the mystery?’
“But McAndrew was shaking his head dourly, and for a while he did not answer.
“?‘Mind ye,’ he said at length, ‘I’m not saying there’s anything in it at all, but I would not care to hear that whistled outside my window. I heard it once—years ago—when I was ’way up in the Arakan Mountains. Soft and sweet it was—rising and falling in the night air, and going on ceaselessly. ’Way up above me was a monastery, one into which no white man has ever been. And the noise was coming from there. I had to go; my servants wouldn’t stop. And when I asked them why, they told me that the priests were calling for a sacrifice. If they stopped, they told me, it might be one of us. That no one could tell how Death would come, or to whom, but come it must—when the Pipes of Death were heard. And the tune you whistled, Manderby, was the tune the Pipes of Death were playing.’
“?‘But that’s all bunkum, Mac,’ I said angrily. ‘We’re not in the Arakans here.’
“?‘Maybe,’ he answered doggedly. ‘But I’m a Highlander, and—I would not care to hear that tune.’
“I could see Jack was impressed; as a matter of fact I was myself—more than I cared to admit. Sounds rot here, I know, but out there, with the dim-lit forest around one, it was different.
“McAndrew was stopping with us that night. Jack, with the stubbornness of the young, had flatly refused to change his room, and turned in early, while Mac and I sat up talking. And it was not till we went to bed ourselves that I again alluded to the whistle.
“?‘You don’t really think it meant anything, Mac, do you?’ I asked him, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“?‘Maybe it is just a native who has heard it,’ he said guardedly, and further than that he refused to commit himself.
“I suppose it was about two o’clock when I was awakened by a hand being thrust through my mosquito curtains.
“?‘Walton, come at once!’ It was McAndrew’s voice, and it was shaking. ‘There’s devil’s work going on, I tell you—devil’s work.’
“I was up in a flash, and together we crept along the passage towards Jack’s room. Almost instinctively I’d picked up a gun, and I held it ready as we paused by the door.
“?‘Do you hear it?’ whispered Mac a little fearfully, and I nodded. Sweet and clear the notes rose and fell, on and on and on in the same cadence. Sometimes the whistler seemed to be far away, at others almost in the room.
“?‘It’s the tune,’ muttered McAndrew, as we tiptoed towards the bed. ‘The Pipes of Death. Are ye awake, boy?’
“And then he gave a little cry and gripped my arm.
“?‘In God’s name,’ he whispered, ‘what’s that on the pillow beside his head?’
“For a while in the dim light I couldn’t make out. There was something big and black and motionless on the white pillow, and I crept nearer to see what it was. And then suddenly seemed to stand still. I saw two beady, unwinking eyes staring at Jack’s face close by; I saw Jack’s eyes wide open and sick with terror, staring at the thing which shared his bed. And still the music went on outside.
“?‘What is it?’ I muttered through dry lips.
“?‘Give me your gun, man,’ whispered McAndrew hoarsely. ‘If the pipes stop, the boy’s doomed.’
“Slowly he raised the gun an inch at a time, pushing the muzzle forward with infinite care towards the malignant, glowing eyes, until at last the gun was almost touching its head. And at that moment the music died away and stopped altogether. I had the momentary glimpse of two black feelers shooting out towards Jack’s face—then came the crack of the gun. And with a little sob Jack rolled out of bed and lay on the floor half-fainting, while the black mass on the pillow writhed and writhed and then grew still.
“We struck a light, and stared at what was left of the thing in silence. And it was Jack who spoke first.
“?‘I woke,’ he said unsteadily, ‘to feel something crawling over me on the bed. Outside that infernal whistling was going on, and at last I made out what was—what was——My God!’ he cried thickly, ‘what was it, Mac—what was it?’
“?‘Steady, boy!’ said McAndrew. ‘It’s dead now, anyway. But it was touch and go. I’ve seen ’em bigger than that up in the Arakans. It’s a bloodsucking, poisonous spider. They’re sacred to some of the sects.’
“Suddenly out of the jungle came one dreadful, piercing cry.
“?‘What was that?’ Jack muttered, and McAndrew shook his head.
“?‘Well find out to-morrow,’ he said. ‘There are strange things abroad to-night.’
“We saw the darkness out—the three of us—round a bottle of whisky.
“?‘They’ve been trying to get you for a week, Manderby,’ said the Scotsman. ‘To-night they very near succeeded.’
“?‘But why?’ cried Jack. ‘I’ve never done ’em any harm.’
“McAndrew shrugged his shoulders.
“?‘Don’t ask me that,’ he answered. ‘Their ways are not our ways.’
“?‘Has that brute been in my room every night?’ the boy asked.
“?‘Every night,’ answered McAndrew gravely. ‘Probably two of them. They hunt them in pairs. They starve ’em, and then, when the music stops, they feed.’ He thoughtfully poured out some more whisky.
“And then at last came the dawn, and we went out to investigate. It was Jack who found him. The face was puffed and horrible, and as we approached, something black, about the size of a big kitten, moved away from the body and shambled sluggishly into the undergrowth.
“?‘You’re safe, boy,’ said McAndrew slowly. ‘It was not the priests at all. Just murder—plain murder.’
“And with that he took his handkerchief and covered the dreadful, staring eyes of Rupert Morrison.”