Ngaio Marsh - Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh

After breakfast they went to look at the dam. Their pool had swollen up to the top of both banks, but the construction held. A half-grown sapling, torn from its stand, swept downstream, turning and seeming to gesticulate. Beyond their confluence the Wainui, augmented by the creek, thundered down its gorge. The campers were obliged to shout.

“Good thing,” Clive mouthed, “we don’t want to get out. Couldn’t. Marooned. Aren’t we?” He appealed to Wingfield and pointed to the waters. Wingfield made a dismissive gesture. “Not a hope,” he signalled.

“How long?” Susan asked, peering into Wingfield’s face. He shrugged and held up three and then five fingers. “My God!” she was seen to say.

Solomon Gosse patted her arm. “Doesn’t matter. Plenty of grub,” he shouted.

Susan looked at the dam where the sapling had jammed. Its limbs quivered. It rolled, heaved, thrust up a limb, dragged it under and thrust it up again.

It was a human arm with a splayed hand. Stiff as iron, it swung from side to side and pointed at nothing or everything.

Susan Bridgeman screamed. There she stood, with her eyes and mouth open. “Caley!” she screamed. “It’s Caley!”

Wingfield put his arm round her. He and Solomon Gosse stared at each other over her head.

Clive could be heard to say: “It is him, isn’t it? That’s his shirt, isn’t it? He’s drowned, isn’t he?”

As if in affirmation, Caley Bridgeman’s face, foaming and sightless, rose and sank and rose again.

Susan turned to Solomon as if to ask him if it was true. Her knees gave way and she slid to the ground. He knelt and raised her head and shoulders.

Clive made some sort of attempt to replace Solomon, but David Wingfield came across and used the authority of the physically fit. “Better out of this,” he could be heard to say. “I’ll take her.”

He lifted Susan and carried her up to her tent.

Young Clive made an uncertain attempt to follow. Solomon Gosse took him by the arm and walked him away from the river into a clearing in the bush where they could make themselves heard, but when they got there found nothing to say. Clive, looking deadly sick, trembled like a wet dog.

At last Solomon said, “I can’t b-believe this. It simply isn’t true.”

“I ought to go to her. To Mum. It ought to be me with her.”

“David will cope.”

“It ought to be me,” Clive repeated, but made no move.

Presently he said, “It can’t be left there.”

“David will cope,” Solomon repeated. It sounded like a slogan.

“David can’t walk on the troubled waters,” Clive returned on a note of hysteria. He began to laugh.

“Shut up, for God’s sake.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s so grotesque.”

“ Listen. ”

Voices could be heard, the snap of twigs broken underfoot and the thud of boots on soft ground. Into the clearing walked four men in single file. They had packs on their backs and guns under their arms and an air of fitting into their landscape. One was bearded, two clean-shaven, and the last had a couple of days’ growth. When they saw Solomon and Clive they all stopped.

“Hullo, there! Good morning to you,” said the leader. “We saw your tents.” He had an English voice. His clothes, well-worn, had a distinctive look which they would have retained if they had been in rags.

Solomon and Clive made some sort of response. The man looked hard at them. “Hope you don’t mind if we walk through your camp,” he said. “We’ve been deer-stalking up at the head of Welshman’s Creek but looked like getting drowned. So we’ve walked out.”

Solomon said. “He’s—we’ve both had a shock.”

Clive slid to the ground and sat doubled up, his face on his arms.

The second man went to him. The first said, “If it’s illness—I mean, this is Dr. Mark, if we can do anything.”

Solomon said, “I’ll tell you.” And did.

They did not exclaim or overreact. The least talkative of them, the one with the incipient beard, seemed to be regarded by the others as some sort of authority and it turned out, subsequently, that he was their guide: Bob Johnson, a high-country man. When Solomon had finished, this Bob, with a slight jerk of his head, invited him to move away. The doctor had sat down beside Clive, but the others formed a sort of conclave round Solomon, out of Clive’s hearing.

“What about it, Bob?” the Englishman said.

Solomon, too, appealed to the guide. “What’s so appalling,” he said, “is that it’s there. Caught up. Pinned against the dam. The arm jerking to and fro. We don’t know if we can get to it.”

“Better take a look,” said Bob Johnson.

“It’s down there, through the b-bush. If you don’t mind,” said Solomon, “I’d—I’d be glad not to go b-back just yet.”

“She’ll be right,” said Bob Johnson. “Stay where you are.”

He walked off unostentatiously, a person of authority, followed by the Englishman and their bearded mate. The Englishman’s name, they were to learn, was Miles Curtis-Vane. The other was called McHaffey. He was the local schoolmaster in the nearest township downcountry and was of a superior and, it would emerge, cantankerous disposition.

Dr. Mark came over to Solomon. “Your young friend’s pretty badly shocked,” he said. “Were they related?”

“No. It’s his stepfather. His mother’s up at the camp. She fainted.”

“Alone?”

“Dave Wingfield’s with her. He’s the other member of our lot.”

“The boy wants to go to her.”

“So do I, if she’ll see me. I wonder—would you mind taking charge? Professionally, I mean.”

“If there’s anything I can do. I think perhaps I should join the others now. Will you take the boy up? If his mother would like to see me, I’ll come.”

“Yes. All right. Yes, of course.”

“Were they very close?” Dr. Mark asked. “He and his stepfather?”

There was a longish pause. “Not very,” Solomon said. “It’s more the shock. He’s very devoted to his mother. We all are. If you don’t mind, I’ll—”

“No, of course.”

So Solomon went to Clive and they walked together to the camp.

“I reckon,” Bob Johnson said, after a hard stare at the dam, “it can be done.”

Curtis-Vane said, “ They seem to have taken it for granted it’s impossible.”

“They may not have the rope for it.”

“We have.”

“That’s right.”

“By Cripie,” said Bob Johnson, “it’d give you the willies, wouldn’t it? That arm. Like a bloody semaphore.”

“Well,” said Dr. Mark, “what’s the drill, then, Bob? Do we make the offer?”

“Here’s their other bloke,” said Bob Johnson.

David Wingfield came down the bank sideways. He acknowledged Curtis-Vane’s introductions with guarded nods.

“If we can be of any use,” said Curtis-Vane, “just say the word.”

Wingfield said, “It’s going to be tough.” He had not looked at the dam but he jerked his head in that direction.

“What’s the depth?” Bob Johnson asked.

“Near enough five foot.”

“We carry rope.”

“That’ll be good.”

Some kind of reciprocity had been established. The two men withdrew together.

“What would you reckon?” Wingfield asked. “How many on the rope?”

“Five,” Bob Johnson said, “if they’re good. She’s coming down solid.”

“Sol Gosse isn’t all that fit. He’s got a crook knee.”

“The bloke with the stammer?”

“That’s right.”

“What about the young chap?”

“All right normally, but he’s — you know — shaken up.”

“Yeah,” said Bob. “Our mob’s O.K.”