The Isle of Incentive

by Ralph Stock

THE ISLE OF
INCENTIVE

By RALPH STOCK

AT ten p.m. the lights were extinguished, and the "glory hole" went stumbling and grumbling to bed.

The gramophone continued to bray into the darkness until the needle rasped its way into virgin celluloid and came to a shrieking full-stop. The "crown and anchor" soirée in a far corner was entirely blotted out until one of the players struck a match, revealing the banker's hand still guarding the upturned dice-box. The inevitable altercation ensued. The poker party had surrendered at discretion, and was now haggling over profit and loss by candle-light.

William Santon lay in his bunk with closed eyes, mysteriously motionless under the coarse blanket that covered his short, thick-set body from chin to heel. He was listening to the familiar sounds about him. They were the same as on a hundred other occasions, but to-night they had an added meaning for Bill. With luck, he would never hear them again, and for that reason they produced in him a certain wistfulness. He had had good times as well as bad in the "glory hole" of the old Dynamic.

Lying fully dressed, in a bath of perspiration, he reviewed the inventory of his possessions for the twentieth time. The canvas kit-bag, standing ready packed at the head of his bunk, contained one complete blue serge suit, with fancy vest, a selection of plain and viciously-striped shirts for work-days and festivals respectively, a pair of white buckskin shoes (stolen), three pairs of imitation silk socks with clocks, four celluloid collars, and as many ready-made ties of various design, a mouth-organ, a thing called a revolver by the firm that made it, and enough food for a week. Not such a bad trousseau. Bill flattered himself. Then there was——

"Wot's got yer, Bill?"

It was Horace, the second cabin smoke-room steward, and a "nosey" individual, if ever there was one.

Bill opened his eyes and blinked.

"Can't yer see when you're not wanted?" he muttered.

"Oh, I can see all right," said Horace, and in the semi-darkness Bill fancied he could feel the other's hawk-like eyes devouring the bulging kit-bag, even penetrating the blanket to his tell-tale boots.

"Then leave me alone," he snapped.

"Oh, I'll leave you alone all right," murmured the obliging Horace; "trust me. But you'll be creasing that fancy waistcoat of yours something crool if you don't watch it."

Bill leant over the edge of his bunk, regardless of exposed raiment, an ugly glint in his eyes.

"Look 'ere, 'Orace," he threatened, with quiet emphasis, "do you want yer faice pushed in? "

Seemingly, Horace did not. He slowly removed as many clothes as was his custom before retiring, and whistled "Keep the Home Fires Burning." Just before climbing in, he thrust his lean visage over the edge of Bill's bunk.

"Wait for Sydney," he urged in a hoarse undertone, "I am. Sydney's the place."

"Wot, with you?" said Bill, in eloquent contempt. "I'd sooner be hung!"

Horace went to bed, still whistling. He was one of those individuals it is impossible to insult.

The Dynamic was alongside the wharf at Sonomo. The portholes of the "glory hole" were open wide, admitting the haunting, indescribable smell of the tropics. Bill breathed it through wide nostrils, the very air of mystery and freedom.

At three o'clock by the luminous hands of his nickel wrist-watch he slid from the bunk and approached the nearest porthole. The kit-bag had been packed to pass neatly through it, which it did, falling on the wharf with a thud that it seemed must wake the dead. Bill waited in suspense for upwards of a minute, then followed his trousseau, shouldered it, and made off down the landing—past the copra sheds, past the customs house, out on to the beach road. Even here he never paused, but crossed it and plunged into the bush.

He walked, stumbled, fought his way through palm grove and jungle, streaming with perspiration, until even his stocky legs ached to the marrow. Then he sat down on a fallen palm trunk, with throbbing pulses, to think.

He was free. He looked about him into the steaming darkness. A tree fungus glowed here and there with a ghostly green light. There were strange, unaccountable sounds. Mosquitoes feasted on his face and ankles and hands. He was free, and these were the South Sea Islands.

"Blimey!" muttered Bill.

It would have been interesting to hear the South Sea Islands' opinion of Bill Santon; but only a land-crab saw him at that moment, and retired, seemingly quite unimpressed by the vision of a Cockney in blue clothes, a rakish Panama hat, an impervious collar, and pointed boots, enthroned on a palm trunk in the primeval jungle of Sonomo.

At the first hint of dawn Bill struggled on, and presently, catching the glint of water through trees, emerged on the shore of a mist-shrouded lagoon.

A crane flew low over the water. The sun rose. Bill sat in the sand at the edge of a reed-brake, munching a sausage-roll and watching things that he bad never watched before. The palms fringing the further shore caught fire, or so it seemed, until the sun rode clear of their feathery tops and bathed the world in golden light. Myriads of minute crabs crackled and scuttled in and out of their holes in the wet sand. The mist was lifting from the lagoon.

It all seemed unreal to Bill—the fabric of dreams. The nearest approach to it that he could recollect was a transformation scene at a pantomime. He felt it could not go on. The curtain would be rung down, and he would find himself on the seething pavement of the Lambeth Road.

The far-off hoot of a ship's siren filtered through the trees. Bill stirred uneasily, then smiled and lit a cigarette. Twice it was repeated at long intervals; then Bill lay back against the reed-brake, tilted his Panama over his eyes, and chuckled aloud in the ecstasy of his content. The Dynamic had sailed—sailed with the same old pyramids of plates in the galley, the same old steam and clatter and smell, but with a new entry in the ship's books—

Name.	Age.	Rating.
William Santon	26	Assistant Steward

Birthplace.	Deserter
London

And the Army? The Army was on the other side of the world, under his feet. William Santon slept.

In a little while a light native canoe stole out from some cove on the far side of the lagoon, paddled by a diminutive white figure half hidden under the wide brim of a solar topee. It was a girl, and a white girl; so much was evident when presently she scrambled forward and leant over the gunwale, staring fixedly down into the crystal-clear water. She knelt motionless in this position for a time, the canoe drifting idly, then dexterously lowered over the side, in turn, a piece of good red meat impaled on a vicious-looking hook, a short length of dog-chain, and perhaps five fathoms of stout line. The end of this she made fast to a thwart, and waited expectant.

In a surprisingly short time there was commotion on the surface of the lagoon. The line had tautened like a bowstring, and was cutting a clean semicircle in the water. The canoe commenced to move, gained way, and was soon skimming over the lagoon, with the girl paddling frenziedly to keep it bow on. It was soon evident that some fatal mistake had been made. The instant she ceased to paddle, the canoe turned broadside on. She had made the line fast amidships instead of for'ard, and it was too late to do anything but paddle madly until the canoe upset, which it did, promptly and effectually, a hundred yards from shore.

The solar topee floated away on a voyage of its own; the canoe continued its erratic progress over the lagoon; the girl came to the surface and struck out sturdily for shore. On the way she saw a head approaching her. It was close-cropped and bullet-shaped, but undoubtedly a head.

"Turn on yer back," it said peremptorily, when quite close, and, more from surprise than anything else, the girl obeyed. She felt a powerful support under her arms, a convulsive movement of legs, and a few minutes later she crawled, dripping, up the sand.

"The canoe!" she exclaimed, almost before gaining her feet.

"Over there," said the owner of the head, jerking a stubby thumb in the direction of some overhanging mangroves.

"And it's caught fast!" cried the girl exultantly. "I wonder—do you think—it's much the biggest I've ever seen—sea, not river, and it's my first, alone—if the line hasn't parted—— Do you think——?"

These disjointed utterances became even less intelligible as she hurried, still dripping, along the beach.

For upwards of half an hour these two fought in silence side by side on the edge of the lagoon. The line was taut and at rest when they reached it, but soon commenced to perform weird gyrations in the water, sometimes giving, sometimes snatching away a few feet of its length as they pulled on it steadily.

"This may go on for hours," panted the girl, with every appearance of pleasure at the prospect. "They're the best fighters in the world."

Her companion was hardly as enthusiastic. With his feet braced against a mangrove root, he tried his utmost to end the struggle at the earliest possible moment. By sheer brawn he dragged the line in foot by foot, until there was a mighty splashing a few yards from shore, the glimpse of a shining black carcase that suddenly turned to white, and a seven-foot shark lay writhing and snapping in the shallows.

"Blimey!" he observed, and flicked the perspiration from his brow.

"Knife, quick!" snapped the girl, and he watched her wonderingly as she stood ankle-deep in the water, waiting her opportunity for the coup de grâce, not a yard from the hideous jaws. A swift movement, and it was done. The girl returned to his side frankly triumphant.

"I thought I could do it," she said. "Selini makes such a tremendous fuss about it, you'd think it was difficult. It's only a matter of the right place, and——"

She broke off abruptly, seemingly just aware of the other's presence. Her frank grey eyes passed over him in rapid but all-embracing review—the homely, good-natured face, the viciously-striped shirt with sleeves rolled back over a muscular forearm.

"You must be very strong," she said admiringly.

"Middlin'," confessed the object of her attention, rolling down his sleeves.

The girl took an abrupt seat in the sand, and laughed merrily at the lagoon.

"Don't you think it's rather funny?" she said. "Here we've been struggling together at one thing and another for hours, and don't know who each other is—are—is—I never know which is right. My name's Miss Trenchard."

"Cecil Desmond, at your service," announced the other, with a grave inclination of his bullet head.

The girl looked up at him and smiled.

"Well, Mr. Desmond, you've certainly been of service, and I'm—— Thanks ever so much," she added impulsively. "I don't know what I should have done——"

"Oo, that's all right," said Mr. Desmond diffidently. "I didn't know you could swim like that, or——"

"Or you wouldn't have come in," laughed the girl.

Mr. Desmond had nothing to say to this. In fact, he had very little to say at any time, the girl noticed, and rather liked it; it added to the mysteries of who he was, what he was doing on Sonomo, and where he had come from. His accent baffled her.

"It's very hot," she said, for the simple reason that she could think of nothing else to say.

This somewhat trite observation—considering the thermometer registered ninety degrees in the shade—had the surprising effect of causing Mr. Desmond to burst into speech.

"Ain't it? " he agreed heartily. "I've never been so 'ot in me life."

"That's because you're from a cold climate, I expect."

"P'r'aps, though London can be warmish in the summer."

"London!" The girl sat bolt upright. "Have you come all the way from London?"

"All the wye," admitted Mr. Desmond.

"You know it well?"

The girl's hands were tightly clasped about her knees. Her eyes shone.

"Born and bred there. Camberwell. D'you know it?"

"I?" The girl laughed softly, wistfully, looking out across the lagoon. "I know nothing except this."

"And good enough, I should say."

She looked round at him with a little perplexed frown.

"You don't mean that—now?"

"Now?"

"Yes, when your country's at war."

Mr. Desmond winced—it was as though someone had struck him a physical blow—but he recovered himself instantly.

"You wouldn't think there was a war on, 'ere," he observed pleasantly.

"No, that's just it," said the girl bitterly. "And there is. That's why I hate Sonomo more than ever—the peace and quiet and pretty-prettiness of it, when others are going through everything that's horrible. Oh, it isn't right! It isn't fair!" she ended vehemently.

"Oo, I dunno," mused Mr. Desmond, staring thoughtfully before him.

"You couldn't say that if you hadn't been through it all," the girl went on quietly. "It's easy to say then. But how do you suppose I feel, knitting socks in Sonomo when I ought to be in France, nursing?"

Apparently Mr. Desmond was unable to offer an opinion on the subject. A pause ensued, broken with almost startling abruptness by the girl's clear, quiet voice—

"What was your regiment, Mr. Desmond?"

"Thirty-second London," he answered promptly.

"Good old Londoners!" mused the girl. "I've read about them, and read about them, until I could almost see them—and now I can see one," she added, turning her frankly admiring gaze on Mr. Desmond, who studied the toe of a waterlogged but pointed boot. "You mustn't mind," she laughed, "and you'll have to go through a lot more with father. We don't often get a chance of seeing the men who have done things, here on Sonomo. Won't you come up to the bungalow for breakfast, and get it over?"

Mr. Desmond dug his heels into the sand.

"Fact is," he said uncertainly, "I came 'ere to get awye from all that. If you don't mind——"

"Of course you did," said the girl, scrambling to her feet, "and I won't pester you another minute. But if you could put up with just one evening, you don't know how it'd please father. He's a Londoner, and if I told him——"

"I'd rather you didn't," said Mr. Desmond hurriedly. "That is, not for a bit, any wye."

"Very well," agreed the girl, with a delightfully intimate nod of the head. "It's our secret—the Mystery of Sonomo! But where are you going to stay?"

"I 'ardly know yet."

Again the little frown of perplexity clouded the girl's face.

"Anyway, you'll be fishing in the lagoon," she suggested, "and I promise not to talk shop—war, that is."

Mr. Desmond grinned knowingly.

"Oo, I'll be 'ere all right," he assured her.

But the grin faded abruptly when the girl had waved him good-bye and disappeared, like some sprite of health and lightness, among the trees.

"'Struth!" murmured Mr. Desmond, and turned thoughtfully in the direction of a bulging kit-bag lying near a reed-brake.

That, afternoon the inhabitants of Sonomo lagoon, including a venerable tree lobster and a family of pigeon, were treated to the spectacle of what at first sight resembled a perambulating cistern. In reality it was Mr. Cecil Desmond struggling under the burden of four sheets of corrugated iron and a sack of camp paraphernalia.

Up to a late hour the silence of the place was shattered by strange sounds, and that night Mr. Desmond slept under his own roof. Trust a Cockney.

When the girl came again to the lagoon, as she did in the afternoon of the next day, she stood amazed at the edge of the bush before handing her pony's reins to a native servant. Not twenty paces distant a weird but homelike structure had reared itself under the palms that fringed the water. Its roof was of glittering corrugated iron, supported on palm-trunk corner posts; the walls were of loosely-plaited reed. A pair of blue serge trousers and a viciously-striped shirt lay drying in the sun. A pot steamed over a camp fire, and, as though to complete the domestic scene, Mr. Desmond sat before his home, playing softly on the mouth-organ.

"Please don't stop!" pleaded the girl. But he lowered the instrument at sight of her, and some minah birds that had been strutting inquisitively a few yards distant flew off into the trees.

She stood for a moment—a dainty white figure against the dark-green background of the bush—and looked down on this strange little man with a smile on her lips and pained surprise in her eyes. She had just made a rather startling discovery—Mr. Desmond was anything but pleased to see her! The knowledge was intuitive, the sensation sufficiently novel to be at first painful, then interesting. For the first time in her short, inexperienced life she felt her company was not wanted, and already she longed to know why.

"This is simply splendid!" she exclaimed, to cover her embarrassment, and looking round on her father's property, disfigured by human habitation.

"Glad you like it," beamed Mr. Desmond. "I rather fancy it myself." But the girl knew that what he would like to have said was: "I don't want you; go away."

She seated herself in the grass and flicked stones with her riding-crop.

"No wonder you wouldn't tell me where you were going to stay," she said. "This is much better than the Settlement and the dirty old 'George.'"

"That's wot I thought," agreed Mr. Desmond—"more 'omely like. And I must 'ave quiet."

The girl looked at him under her long, dark lashes.

"You must have been through a lot," she said. "I've never met anyone from the real Front before. Won't you tell me about it? Not if it upsets you," she added quickly. "But I do so long to hear about it, and I won't worry you again."

Her voice was softly persuasive. Mr. Desmond regarded her appraisingly for a moment, then, apparently satisfied, took the deep breath of a diver before the plunge.

"It was like this 'ere, if yer want to know," he said suddenly, and with an unexpectedly dramatic gesture. "We was going over the top for the umpteenth time. No Man's Land was a marsh of shell-'oles, covered with mist. And they was sending some over, too, I give yer my word. But we went on, smoking and chatting, just like I am now. Some of us was dribbling a football, just to keep our minds orf it, like."

"I remember reading about that," murmured the girl.

Mr. Desmond paused and gazed out over the lagoon with the expression of one who recalls painful memories. The girl sat motionless, with wide eyes and parted lips.

"We got to the Boche parapet orl right—or some of us did, me amongst 'em—and then we was up against it. The trench was lou—full of 'em, great meaty blokes with bombs and bay'nets. I don't know wot 'appened then, until I found meself up against one of 'em—bay'net, 'and to 'and. 'E jabbed at me, and I dodged—pretty nippy on me feet, I am. Then I jabbed 'im—right in the middle of 'is faice——"

The girl gave a little cry and covered her eyes with her hands.

"Yer wanted to 'ear about it," said Mr. Desmond reproachfully.

"I do, I do!" pleaded the girl, recovering herself with alacrity. "Please don't stop."

"I got to," said Mr. Desmond. "That's all."

"All?"

"Yes. Someone chucked a bomb."

"Yes?"

"And I copped most of it—in the back. One bit went into me 'and."

He glanced carelessly at the injured member, and the girl's eyes followed, resting with awed veneration on an ugly but completely-healed scar.

"May I?" she asked timorously, and her cool fingers touched it lightly.

There is no telling what had been in Mr. Desmond's mind up to that moment, but whatever it was came suddenly to fruition. He leant forward and kissed the girl on the lips.

"Oh!" she gasped, and drew back, flushing prettily.

Mr. Desmond seemed no less startled at the event. The girl was the first to recover.

"Then—then you don't hate me?" she faltered.

"'Ate yer!" exploded Mr. Desmond.

And they sat in the grass, saying the things that have been said from the beginning, and presumably will be to the end.

When she had gone, Mr. Desmond lit a cigarette and gave himself up to reflections which, from his expression, were entirely pleasant.

One golden day succeeded another on Sonomo lagoon. This strangely assorted pair fished, shot pigeon with a lady's "22," and cooked what they killed, with laughter and song, over the camp fire. From the very divergence of their experience and upbringing they found each other entertaining to a degree. The girl, Mr. Desmond soon discovered, knew rather less of the ways of the world—especially his world—than the average cage-bird. At times her innocence almost frightened him. It always awed him. He was more careful of what he did and said in her presence than he had ever been in his life. And the girl? She regarded this strange man as the fount of all wisdom, humour, and courage—an inexhaustible well of information and quaint anecdote.

Then came the cloud. It was ushered on to the horizon in two short words—

"Father knows."

Mr. Desmond's heart sank like a stone.

"Oo told 'im?" he demanded brusquely.

"I don't know," the girl answered apologetically; "I think it must have been Seleni. I'm sorry."

Mr. Desmond did not answer. She sat quite close to him. The proximity of her stole over him like an opiate.

"Why do you mind so much?" she pleaded. "You must be rested now—ready to meet people again. Besides, he's not an ogre; he's an old dear. He says anyone I know he must know. It's only natural, after all. He told me to ask you to dinner this evening. He quite understands. You needn't talk about the War if you don't want to."

She said a great deal more, and at the end of it Mr. Desmond nodded his bullet head slowly in token of surrender.

The thing had to be faced, then. There were no such things as peace and quiet and freedom in the world. He had sought them in the furthermost corner of the earth, and they were not there.

He prepared himself for the ordeal with the minutest care. The best blue serge suit was brushed, the pointed boots made to shine, the mechanical tie and fancy vest selected by a painstaking process of elimination. At seven o'clock he stood resplendent, his confidence almost restored. At seven-thirty he found himself approaching a rambling white bungalow up an avenue of crotons and screw pines.

A tall, lethargic gentleman in evening-dress levered himself out of a cane chair as Mr. Desmond climbed the verandah steps.

"Mr. Desmond, I believe," he said, with a pronounced drawl.

"That's right," beamed the guest.

"Won't you sit down? I believe you helped my daughter out of difficulties on the lagoon the other day."

"Oo, that's nothing," murmured Mr. Desmond.

"It is a good deal to me," said Colonel Trenchard, relapsing into the cane chair; "I am greatly obliged. Cocktail, or whisky and sparklet?"

The rest of the evening was shrouded in a roseate haze for Mr. Desmond. He had vague recollections of soft lights and sparkling glass, of attacking unaccustomed food with strange implements, and of talking with a fluency that surprised himself. Also he was aware that the girl had been present, though in a filmy dress that somehow transformed her from his companion of the lagoon into an ethereal being, infinitely remote. His host was Mr. Desmond's only doubt. His main impressions of the lethargic gentleman at the head of the table were his penetrating eyes and an uncanny ability to draw others without saying anything himself. However, Mr. Desmond retraced his steps down the croton avenue with the air of one who has left a good impression in a desirable quarter.

This belief might have remained with him throughout life but for one of those trivial incidents that have a knack of shaping destiny. His bootlace came untied, and he stopped to attend to it. That was all—all, except that during the process he heard a voice on the verandah of the bungalow. It was deep but resonant, and came to him with startling distinctness through the hot, still night—

"Was that a joke, Helen? You can't be serious. A guttersnipe! My dear child, he's never been in the Service in his life. Most likely running away from it. Allow me to judge. And you've been hobnobbing with him for over a week! It's preposterous! Have you no discrimination? No—but there, how could you have? It's the result of having no woman about the place. I must get someone from somewhere …"

There followed the sound of a chair pushed back and impatient steps up and down the verandah.

Mr. Desmond continued his progress down the avenue mechanically, and, after walking a short distance, subsided heavily at the side of the road.

He was sitting, elbows on knees, head between hands, staring into the dust between his feet, when the girl came upon him. Her hand touched his shoulder.

"You heard," she said. "I'm so sorry."

He looked up at her dazedly for a moment before a glint came into his eyes.

"'E's right," he said raucously. "Everything 'e's said is right. Now, wot about it?"

The girl stood silent before him in the moonlit road.

Mr. Desmond gave vent to a mirthless cackle and sprang to his feet.

"Cecil Desmond! Oo yus!" he cried ironically, and lapsed into a sort of jaunty fierceness. "I'm Bill Santon of Camberwell, and you ought to 'ave known it, if you was 'uman, which you ain't. And I'm running awye all right. I've run fifteen thousand miles without a stop to get away from it! Bombs! Bay'nets! I made this 'ole in me 'and with a tin-opener!" He extended his stubby fingers derisively. "'E's right. I'm a guttersnipe, I am——"

The tirade died down as abruptly as it had begun. The girl stood quite still, looking at him with her tranquil grey eyes.

"Wot about it now?" demanded Bill.

"It makes no difference," she answered quietly.

He looked at her a moment, then flung back his bullet head and laughed.

"No difference!" he mocked,

"There's still time to make him wrong about—about the running away. The rest doesn't matter."

The old feeling of awe came over Bill Santon. He went nearer, hesitantly. He took her in his arms.

"Oo, yus, it does," he said in a voice that trembled. "You'll learn all that some day. I'm going to fight for you!"

The last she saw of him was a short, thick-set figure hurrying down the road in the moonlight. He never looked back.