Wheels within Wheels Read online

  WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

  By

  ALEC WAUGH

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Wheels Within Wheels

  I

  “I Want to be. I want to be.”

  The radio crackled wheezily. “I want to be back home in Dixie. Where the children play in the….”

  There was a clatter; a succession of short, sharp reports; then a steady buzz, through which, across twelve hundred miles of water to a bungalow in the French West Indies, droned faintly the accents relayed from Station XYZ, New York.

  “These mountains,” muttered Maitland.

  From his long wicker chair he eyed the instrument with disfavour. He had been a fool to get the thing. Two thousand francs. You could buy a hundred litres of rum with that. Radio. You couldn’t expect to get decent results in a place like Santa Marta. Mountains, electricity, typhoons, volcanoes. You thought you had got to something, then found you hadn’t. Teasing; that’s what it was; teasing.

  The mahogany box crackled like a damp catherine wheel. There was a moment of clear-struck chords; then once again the atmospheric confusion tautened.

  “It’s no use,” he said, and leant over to the switch.

  He was a large man, clumsy, broad-shouldered, heavy-bellied; his joints stiffened by malaria and middle-age. The exertion brought a film of moisture to his forehead, that gathering above his temple, ran a thin thread of sweat, past a cauliflower ear over lined and sunburnt cheeks, into the dark stubble of an unshaved chin. A fretful frown pouted his loose-lipped mouth as he settled himself back into the creaking wicker chair.

  “Josephine!” he called out. “Josephine!”

  Bare feet moved soundlessly along the bare boards of the veranda. A tall negress stood beside him.

  With straight back and high-held head, she was handsome after the fashion of French West Indians; picturesque in the traditional native costume of Santa Marta; long, loose skirt hanging to the ankles, handkerchief twisted in the hair, madras knotted about the shoulders, pendants hanging from the ears. Her eyes were fine. Her smile wide and friendly.

  “You can take that away,” he said, pointing to the coffee cup, the crumbled crust, the rind of pawpaw that were the relics of his breakfast.

  “Hot water? I fetch?”

  “Yes. No. Well….”

  He hesitated. He ought to shave. He hadn’t shaved yesterday. An Englishman should shave every day. That was the first thing they had told him when he came out to Trinidad. Shave every day. Dinner-jacket in the evening. Otherwise the natives would not respect you. Otherwise you would go to bits. If you relaxed an inch in the tropics, you might as well relax a mile. They had told him that. And he had believed them. He had shaved every day; worn a stiff shirt for dinner; changed his collars three or four times a night at those interminable dances at the Queen’s Park. A pukka Sahib. But that was in Trinidad. This was Santa Marta. The French didn’t bother about those things; or rather, they didn’t bother about his doing them. Mad Englishman, they thought, and left it there.

  He ought to shave. But since he’d missed one day, he might as well miss two. Sheep as a lamb; it was grand the way his hair would come off to-morrow. There were few things quite so satisfying as the shaving of a third day’s growth. The way it crunched. You felt new-made afterwards. His mouth watered at the prospect. How he would enjoy his shave to-morrow. Much better to wait. Besides, there was his work.

  Looking into the main room of his bungalow he was appalled at its accumulation. A whole shelf was lined with squat grey bags. The calendar upon which he recorded his analyses hung from its rusty nail, rebukingly. January 1929. It was February now. And not a date red-inked since the eleventh. Over three weeks since he had done any solid work. And all the time little “Humper” Heppell over at Quatre Iles was drilling in the heat, silting out the mud, sending exhibits, querulous to know how soon he could sink a serious shaft, what chance there was of finding oil, what danger there was of his having to call the thing a day and go back to Trinidad.

  Maitland had never known “The Humper” so anxious about anything before; nor any other driller, for that matter. Oil drillers tended to be philosophic, taking life as it came; since it came to the same thing more or less whether they were drilling in California, Oklahoma or the Caribbean. “The Humper” must have got himself mixed up with some girl or other. He usually had. It was by the speed and frequency of his adventures that he had earned his nick-name. But his conquests were usually as casual as they were complete. If he was serious now it would be for the first time.

  Pensively, Maitland eyed the row of bags. He would be glad to put the little man out of his anxiety. And it might well be that one of those bags held the answer.

  It might.

  Unquestionably, there was a reasonable chance of finding oil. Oil was the fountain of Trinidad’s prosperity. The rock formation in the southern section of Santa Marta was not dissimilar. His opinion had been invited by a group of international financiers. He had considered the experiment worth while. That was three months ago. Through the hot tropic autumn Heppell had drilled into the stubborn, secret soil. And there were signs of oil. Manifestly; but whether in quantities sufficient to justify the taking up of an option, and the forming of a syndicate, Maitland could not say: not yet. He had hoped to give definite information earlier. He had promised to; he had expected to. And time was passing. And time meant money. But even so, apart from “The Humper,” it was hard to see where the need for hurry lay.

  To the people who had sent him out, the small bare strip of land in a distant island was one link in a long chain of interests. They would be pleased if he struck oil. But they would not be perturbed particularly if he failed. The whole enterprise was a very minor sideshow. As likely as not they had already half-forgotten it. One day one of them would remember it, would say: “Now, what’s happening about that oil business in Santa Marta?” A cable would be sent. Then he would have to stir himself. That day had yet to come, however. And in the meantime….

  Maitland stirred lazily in his chair. His hands hung limply along its sides. It was very hot. His stomach under the thin cotton of his pyjama coat rose and fell in regular and heavy breathing. Out of a sky of watered cobalt the sun beat on to the bungalow. Heat and glare struck up at him from the dusty roadway. A faint breeze from the hills ruffled the plantains that overhung the long veranda. But the room behind was ovenlike beneath the corrugated iron roof. If you moved you broke into a bath of sweat. He ought to go back to his table, his balances, the row of bags. But it was so much pleasanter to lie out in the cool, watching the trailed purple of the bougainvillea sway slowly against the deep green of palm and plantain frond; while the tall negresses with their baskets of fish and fruit upon their heads swung with long even strides down the mountain pathway into Port au Roi. Much, much pleasanter.

  The cable had not yet come. They could not be worrying in New York and London. Time was of little matter. If you learnt nothing else in the tropics, you learnt that. Things happened soon enough without one’s hurrying to meet them. Oil wouldn’t cease to be in Quatre Iles because he was too lazy to analyse a few ounces of sifted mud. If it was not there, nothing he could do with a microscope and balance could conjure it between the strata of clay and stone. As for “The Humper” and his girl, did not the unce
rtainty of possession make that possession the more dear? You valued most what you were afraid to lose. Anxiety was enriching the one rich experience of “The Humper’s” life.

  Maitland chuckled to himself. It was not only pleasanter but wiser to lie out on the veranda quietly reading a story in The Saturday Evening Post; waiting for lobster salad that Josephine would prepare at noon.

  She would serve it the way he liked; with fried bread and cucumber, and the drained milk of a green coconut. He would sleep a little after lunch. It would be cool when he awoke. He’d shave, maybe. Then walk down slowly into Port au Roi. A ship had come in that morning: a large Transatlantique. It would be anchored in the bay, dwarfing the little schooners that were moored along the jetty. The harbour-side would be thronged. Boat day was an occasion for bright dresses; music would be playing. It would be gay in the little cafés that skirted the Savane. At the club there would be a bridge table to cut in at. Or perhaps he would just sit in the cool of the balcony round a table, gossiping about the price of sugar, the price of rum, and when the next ship was due and who’d be on it. He would drink his couple of rum punches. Not more. Temperate, the French; they knew what was what; they hadn’t that silly English idea that you couldn’t stand a man a drink without having one stood back to you the selfsame evening. In Trinidad you couldn’t take one drink without having another five forced on you. Sensible, the French.

  He’d sit there for an hour or so; till night had fallen. As likely as not there would be an English tourist to take dinner with. They’d crack a bottle, comparing memories, talking of London; what it was and what it had been; the Empire promenade; the horse buses; the faint stable smell of Piccadilly. Nice friendly talk; till he would feel sleepy and know that it was time to climb the hill again.

  That was the way to live when it was as hot as this. The little grey bags could wait.

  • • • • •

  Idling away the sunsoaked winter Maitland pictured himself as a prisoner on parole. Sooner or later a summoning cablegram would come.

  He awaited its arrival philosophically, living in the moment, letting the next day guard itself. On the morning when a fat, black, cotton-coated facteur with a mushroom-shaped toppee presented himself, and his charge of a small green envelope, Maitland shrugged his shoulders.

  “Nothing lasts for ever,” he thought as he smoothed out the telegram. “Here goes. Let’s know the worst.”

  He expected it to be the worst; a virtual if not an actual recall. It was not, however.

  “Does possibility success justify continued excavation?” the cable ran. It was signed: NEWTON, 21 EASTON SQUARE, LONDON.

  Maitland whistled. It was not at all what he had expected.

  “No,” he told the facteur. “No. There’s not any answer.”

  He stared ruminatively at the message. He was puzzled, definitely. He had expected a direct order “Cease operations,” or “If no oil found within a month cease operations.” That was the kind of cable an oil prospector had the right to expect. But this….

  He scratched his head. It was silly. How could he send an answer to that kind of question? He could report on his actual findings. He could contrast possibilities with probabilities. But he wasn’t a magician; he wasn’t a prophet. Why should he have to assume the responsibility of a decision of that kind; particularly when he did not know what importance was to be attached to his decision? Frank Newton was the big noise. If a company were to be formed, he would be its chairman. Had he sent the cable out of curiosity, or as the first step towards the forming of a syndicate? There was no means of knowing. Maitland’s fingers as they scratched his head, pressed irritably into his scalp.

  In the room behind him were the rows of mud-grey bags that he should have been working on for the last fortnight. What an arrears of work! Too formidable an arrears to be tackled at this late hour. Slowly he lifted himself to his feet and turned his back upon their silent accusation. The past was always best committed to itself. Letters answered, maladies cured themselves if they were given time. Most things settled themselves somehow, if they were let alone. At the time when he had received those bags there would have been sense in considering their contents. They would have been signposts. Now, at the best they could be no more than landmarks.

  It was five days since any samples had been sent down to him from the drillings. If in any of those bags there was proof of oil, there should be added proof in more recent ones. The non-existence of such proof there, would not prevent its presence in some later findings. Instead of spending a long hot morning with balances and microscopes, he could motor over to Quatre Iles and bring back with him the latest samples. More sensible, more pleasant. There was a twinkle in his eye as he surveyed the row of bags. They would never be opened now. He had the feeling that he had fooled them; properly.

  “Josephine!” he shouted. “You go Savane; you fetch me car.”

  Shortly before ten he started off.

  • • • • •

  It was one of those tropic mornings for which the traveller returned to his northern latitudes is forever a little lonely. The sky was blue, a faint hyacinth blue; with large dove-coloured clouds drifting casually across it. There was rain in the air. Over the high hills of the interior curved the brief brilliance of a rainbow. A wind was blowing; not in fitful gusts; but with a steady gentleness before which the tall green spears of cane bent their tapered heads. The negroes sang as they cut at the stiff stalks with their curved sabres. The negresses with the high-piled baskets on their heads smiled as they strode by with their long swinging gait. The world wore a happy face. As it should do, Maitland thought. Santa Marta was a happy place; a happy and a casual place; where no one bothered over much; where you didn’t need to shave or wear stiff collars; where coloured people could belong to clubs; where you could have a native girl to keep house for you without making your name mud. Not that he wanted to keep a coloured mistress. He was past that kind of thing. But it was nice to feel that if he wanted to, he could. He would not want to live here always; he’d miss before very long the formalities of English life; all that routine of clubs and calling cards in which he had his roots. It was the change that he appreciated; and the nature of the change. But he could understand why “The Humper” was loath to leave. “The Humper” must be painting his quarter of the island a very savage red.

  • • • • •

  “The Humper” was a little man; little and thin; with a face so full of sharp corners that he invariably cut himself when shaving. The presence of a rough gash on chin or cheek was out of keeping with the habitual dapperness of his appearance. His shirts were clean and his trousers pressed. He was in fact as unlike as well could be the average oil driller.

  As a group, the oil driller has much in common with the sailor. He is strong-shouldered. He has no home. He belongs nowhere. He is happiest with other drillers. His work entails long periods of isolation from the normal amenities of life. Of the countries to which chance carries him he sees nothing but the familiar derricks of the oil fields, and the equally familiar bars in which he drinks away his wages. He is American-born for the greater part. And Maitland had often wondered how Humper Heppell, who was little, and a Bavarian, had come to be allied with this rough brotherhood. Dirty work in the village, he supposed. An irate parent, brother, husband; the hurried signing of a shiphand’s papers, the falling into friendship with some large-boned unfortunate who, in the first place taking pity on his weakness, had come later to rely on the mental resourcefulness that compensated for a lack of strength and stature.

  All round the world, Maitland figured it, strong men had thought of “The Humper” as a joke; as someone to be pitied and protected; then, to their surprise, had found themselves turning to him for advice and for encouragement; drawing strength from his greater strength in the various crises that bestrode their lives. His frailness contained a greater electric vitality than their bulk; a vitality that women instantly recognized. His success in gallantry was phenom
enal. His nickname had been well earned. In Trinidad one had to mind one’s p’s and q’s. Even the oil drillers; and they were as déclassés as any white group could be. But even there “The Humper” had managed to get away with “murder.” Maitland was curious to see the manner in which he was employing the facilities of Santa Marta.

  There was, to his surprise, however, no sign of any recent triumph in the small corrugated iron hut by the high wooden derrick. It was a one-roomed cabin, with a veranda running along one side of it. It contained a couple of wooden chairs, a camp bed, a wash-hand stand. A corner was curtained off; that, presumably, was “The Humper’s” wardrobe. At the back there was a shed; that, presumably, was “The Humper’s” kitchen. On the veranda was one long chair. It was all scrupulously neat. Razor, comb, hair-brush, tooth-brush, sponge, set out in a row upon the wash-hand stand. The floor swept, the bed made. It was neat as “The Humper” himself was neat. But it was a masculine neatness. There were no flowers on the table. Maitland made no comment on this, however. He went straight to the business in hand. He handed Heppell the cablegram. The little man read it with a steady face; then returned it.

  “How are you answering?”

  “I’ve got to see another sample or two first.”

  “There was nothing in what I sent?”

  “Nothing conclusive.”

  “Let’s go across, then.”

  The shaft was only a few yards away. It was a simple enough construction, a few yards wide, fifty feet or so in height, with a grey-black stream trickling from its base. It was hard to realize that the long needle digging its way into the earth might be the key to a golden fountain.

  The two white men stood silent while a couple of negroes scooped the wet mud up into canvas bags.

  It was a matter of a few minutes.

  “You’ll stay and have some grub?” “The Humper” asked.

  Maitland shook his head.

  “Thanks, but I must get back.”