MasNES I: Ghosts of Empires

TREVOR PENDLETON, EMPLOYMENT POACHER

Mr. St. Clair awoke the next morning with the peculiar expectation that that morning would precede a day of great reckoning. This expectation terrified him as the St. Clair family is not one generally predisposed to days of any kind of reckoning, to say nothing of days of great reckoning. This expectation was also reinforced in his taking the morning paper up into the offices of Roger & Roger Mining Co. where, in skimming the pages thereof, encountered a curious advertisement in the classified section that read “wanted: engineer, overseer, machinist of mining equipment in PULAU EMAS; pay: exceptional; if interested, inquire at the offices of Trevor Pendleton,” where followed an address that no doubt indicated the offices of Trevor Pendleton.

Mr. St. Clair’s eyes lingered here for but a moment when he turned the page decisively, as if to convince himself that the matter was settled, and his interest dormant. But his secret mind burnt at a mean rate, and many questions began to form which he could not suppress. The foremost question in his mind he directed, aloud, to a man sitting at the neighboring drawing table.

“Jerry,” said Mr. St. Clair, “Where is Pulau Emas?”

“Eh?” said Jerry, a mustachioed, red-nosed fellow with a boisterous demeanor. Jerry looked up from his work at Mr. St. Clair with some bemusement, before looking back at his work; and failing in focusing thereupon, looked back at Jerry again, “What’s that, Allie?”

“Pulau Emas, I, erm, read about it in the paper,” said Alistair, quickly amending the context of the unknown place.

“They wrote about the place and didn’t even mention where it is?” said Jerry, now turning back to his work.

“Indeed not, well, it was more an in-passing mention,” replied Alistair, “I thought you might have heard of it.”

“Hm! Well,” said Jerry, scratching his chin and twirling his mustache in what he must have thought was a dashing play at thoughtfulness, “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of such a place as Pulau Emas. How’s it spelt?”

Alistair spelt it out for him, although before he had finished spelling it Jerry was shaking his head. “No! No, never heard of it. Who knows what God-forsaken corner of the world it’s in?”

Rather than be disappointed at this turn of events, Mr. St. Clair found his mind preoccupied with a raging curiosity. Pulau Emas! Where could it be? An unknown territory, as of thousands of nameless places, which now sat, comely and beckoning, on a distant shore. And the harbormaster at the crowded filthy business-less harbor, that harbor which serviced the city of his whole being, shouted out last calls; and the sketch which sat in front of him came into focus once more.

At noon, he resolved to take his lunch at some distance from the office, and cautioned that he might be late in coming back afterwards, which his manager regarded with a dour look. He left the offices of Roger & Roger Mining Co. with a barely concealed spring to his step.

He made his way for the address indicated in the job posting, which was not very far. He worried that there might be a crowd of people gathered to apply for the job, like him inspired to come calling during lunch hours on a work day. Dear reader, it should be apparent to us that this fear was unfounded, and that our dear Mr. St. Clair is sufficiently out of touch to believe that anyone should come calling during the short lunch hour (which they may not even have) to apply for a job half a world away. Such as it was, he shortly reached the office of Trevor Pendleton, and found it, to his surprised delight, to be completely devoid of fellow applicants.

The office was small and cramped, and the lobby he entered was dimly lit and had an inconvenient air to it. At the far end of the room sat a wooden desk, behind which was perched a leathery old fellow whose years might have been more economically counted in scores. With the slightest apprehension, Mr. St. Clair moved to engage the desk.

“Good afternoon!” he greeted the old man. The old man looked at him with an expression that said he was clearly put-off to be attending visitors, and asked him what he was in for.

“I am inquiring about a job posting,” said Mr. St. Clair. The old man nodded and said that he might see Mr. Pendleton now, and indicated a door adjacent to the desk with a long, bony finger.

The door was very old and wooden, and painted on the door in clear golden letters was “TREVOR PENDLETON, EMPLOYMENT POACHER.” If Mr. St. Clair was apprehensive before, he was positively bewildered now. Slowly, cautiously, he approached the door, opened it, and went through.

The office was even smaller and more stifling than the lobby was. It was crammed close with furniture, bookshelves, and bureaus, which threatened vigorously to collapse upon one another at the slightest provocation. The bookshelves were overstuffed with almanacs, atlases, maps, and encyclopedias. Stacked high on every flat surface in the room was papers and binders bound with string, and small journals and booklets sprawled among messes of old notes. The most curious object of all was a proud, large globe, which stood in the windowsill at the far end of the room. Between Mr. St. Clair and the globe was a short, narrow desk, and a chair, where a balding man sat low writing furiously on a sheet of paper.

The man looked up to survey the newcomer, who took it in kind to survey the man. He looked to be hard upon 50 years of age, and had the lean and narrow countenance of a man that worked constantly at a job that demanded the utmost in keenness and precision.

“How can I help you?” said the man after few long moments.

“I’m here about the job,” said Mr. St. Clair slowly, “The one in Pulau Emas.” Although he had not forgotten the name of the island, his slow pace of speech gave the man who surveyed him the impression that he had, momentarily.

“Ah, yes, of course; come in, please, and have a seat,” said Mr. Pendleton with a tinny voice that suited him perfectly.

Mr. St. Clair entered the office and closed the door behind him, sitting down in the overstuffed armchair that sat in front of Mr. Pendleton’s desk. As he did this, Mr. Pendleton made quite a show of making a few quick scratches and scribbles on the paper he was attending, before folding it up, stowing it away in a binder, and setting that binder on a nearby shelf. He then pulled another stack of bound papers off of the shelf and set it heavily on his desk where, unbinding it, he began to leaf through the papers.

“Pulau Emas, Pulau Emas, P, P, P…” said Mr. Pendleton as he shuffled through the papers, “Ah, here it is. Pulau Emas! You are familiar, I take it, yes?”

“Uh, no, I’m afraid not,” said Mr. St. Clair as Mr. Pendleton glanced inquiringly at it.

“Do you know where Pulau Emas is?” asked Mr. Pendleton, one eyebrow raised.

“No, I don’t,” said Mr. St. Clair with an attendant sinking feeling in his heart, as he felt his prospects wilting.

“No matter,” said Mr. Pendleton dismissively, as he began gathering an assortment of papers together, “Although you should know that the Company is interested in acquiring someone to occupy this position for the long haul.”

With a flourish Mr. Pendleton produced the globe behind him on the desk in front of him, between him and Mr. St. Clair. He spun it around until East Asia was facing Mr. St. Clair, and pointed at a very, very small island near Sumatra.

“That,” said Mr. Pendleton dramatically, “is Pulau Emas.”

“The Orient…” said Mr. St. Clair aloud, in spite of himself.

“Well,” said Mr. Pendleton, taking up the globe and depositing it behind him once again, “Not quite the Orient, but close enough. As I hear it there are enough Orientals there to pass for the Orient, however!” Mr. Pendleton chuckled at this as he resumed the sorting of some paperwork.

“I assume,” said Mr. Pendleton as he took up one paper and glanced at it more closely, “That you know the job specification?”

“Mining equipment engineering, is that correct? As I’m currently employed as an engineer with Roger & Roger, I can assure you that I’m equal to the task.”

“Yes, indeed, however the position will also have you overseeing larger mining operations.”

“Ah,” said Mr. St. Clair, “I have no experience in management.”

Mr. Pendleton gave Mr. St. Clair a long, thoughtful look. “Living in Pulau Emas will give you plenty of experience in management.”

To this, Mr. St. Clair said nothing but inclined his head.

“Well then!” said Mr. Pendleton, “I can have you off this Saturday, and some four or five months hence, you will be in Pulau Emas. I only need you to sign here and, er… what’s your name?”

“S… Smith,” said Mr. St. Clair, “Alistair Smith.”

“Very good, Mr. Smith. Any family you are taking with you: wife, children…?”

Mr. St. Clair hesitated for a few moments. “None. I’m a bachelor.”

“Ah, me too,” said Mr. Pendleton with a sympathetic chuckle, “All right, when you reach Pulau Emas, give this letter to the local Postmaster, and he will help set you straight. And I will be at the docks on Saturday to introduce you to the captain of the vessel you’ll be journeying on.”

Mr. St. Clair nodded. “Is that all? I must say I’m eager to get under way.”

“Are you? That’s good! Very fortunate. You had better be, because it’s quite a commitment.”

The conversation didn’t end there, as Mr. Pendleton continued to talk for some time about the details of the voyage and the job, however as Mr. St. Clair walked back to the offices of Roger & Roger Mining Co., the only thing that stuck in his mind was the letter in his jacket pocket, the one that he must give to the Postmaster in Pulau Emas. That felt to him so much like a ticket to another world that all other things flit from his mind: that he should imagine the coming Saturday morning, him proclaiming too loudly that he was going out for lunch, and retrieving a stash of bags and things which he had hidden away, and identifying himself as Mr. Smith to the ship’s captain, and being away then for so long that she came to know the truth; he imagined that she did not cry, though she did, and he shut her from his mind forevermore.

Mister Takahashi

I first met him when I was only seven years old. I had been summoned by Grandfather, and upon my arrival I found the two men gathered in the bird room. Specimens were out on display on every surface, and a weathered copy of Grandfather's own book, The Birds of Borneo, lay flattened on the center of his desk, with the visitor leafing through it with scarcely-concealed glee.

Mister Takahashi was a smartly-dressed man, with western clothes, round spectacles and a pointed moustache. He spoke English with little accent, and laughed frequently- quite a contrast to my grandfather, with his puffy white beard and dour temperament.

I stood silently for some time before Grandfather took note of my presence, and introduced me to his guest. Mister Takahashi took to me quite quickly, and here I learned that he required an assistant, someone familiar with the local area who could serve as a guide. Word in Branbrake had apparently led him to Grandfather, but the old man insisted that at age 82 he was in no shape to go jaunting about in the jungle. I suspected otherwise, given that I had gone birding with him mere months ago, but knew better than to question him, especially in the presence of strangers.

Thus did I enter the employ of Mister Takahashi. It was to be a long summer.

THE TWO BROTHERS

Life aboard the Robert Mackenzie was, as life often was for shipboard passengers in those days, mostly idle. As such, Mr Smith was left an awful lot of time alone with his thoughts, which he spent reading, or drinking, or smoking, as the occasion demanded. Many evenings, the crew played poker or bridge in the cabin, where they smoked cigars, and drank rum, and told stories. As was the fashion of the time, the seasoned deckhands made it something of a sport to frighten the greener passengers and crewmembers with ghost stories, and tales of native savagery. They would make sure that no stories were told without a surplus of liquor to go around, such that so much greater was the embarrassment of the newer hands when their insides were chilled by ghastly recollections of ghostly ships and their revenant crews.

But Mr Smith, whose greatest talent was drinking heavily, was generally unfazed by these attempts – and others – to drink him under the table, though he invested in the stories heavily. Under the influence of a bottle of rum, he would spend half of the time jeering at the stories for their obvious foolishness; the other half of the time, he sat in wide-eyed amazement.

It was, perhaps, thanks to this constitution that Mr Smith quickly befriended the captain, who was a stout man with wispy black hair and a considerable moustache. The captain was the kind of man who settled arguments with fisticuffs, and was not shy about turning a small disagreement into a serious brawl. Though he never had occasion to duel with Mr Smith, Mr Smith believed that it would probably never come to that anyway: the captain had taken such a liking to him, that it was very common for the captain to place Mr Smith in light-hearted confidence before ever going to pick a fight.

“D’ye see Wesley over there,” asked the captain of Mr Smith one evening, somewhat rhetorically as the red-haired Wesley was making an ass of himself: bragging, loudly, about how one time he had beaten down twenty unruly wogs by himself. “I’m goanna give ‘em a lickin’.”

“You should,” said Mr Smith solemnly, “he’s making a right ass of himself.”

“Well,” said the captain, wobbling, “I think the story’s true, but the details, yinnae, are exaggerated.”

“Such as the number of wogs, perhaps,” said Mr Smith dryly, “and who beat whom.”

“Oi,” said the captain, glaring at Mr Smith, “my crew can beat down wogs with the best of ‘em.”

“If you say so,” said Mr Smith.

Without another word, the captain lumbered over to Wesley and cried “Oi, quit bein’ an ass!” And they were at it. This was such a common occurrence aboard the Robert Mackenzie that nobody thought much of it that the captain should take to fighting someone over, apparently, nothing at all. Mr Smith wondered about this, sometimes, and reflected upon the ensuing shouting and laughter of the crew as they watched Wesley and the captain go at it.

When Mr Smith did not drink, his temperament was a little more reserved. He wasn’t quite so bold with the captain, or anyone else for that matter, and he occasionally resented the familiarity of the crewmembers during the day, or at dinner, before drinking. It was not such an attitude as to alienate anyone seriously, but he did gain the reputation of being a rather sombre person on the whole, which he thought suited him just fine.

One evening, the captain had asked Mr Smith and a few crewmembers to his cabin to play bridge and smoke after supper. Mr Smith returned first to his quarters, to wash-up, and came to the captain’s cabin a little time after the first cigars were lit. The captain was leaning back in a thick, oak chair, his booted feet on the card table. He was evidently in the middle of telling a story as Mr Smith walked in.

“O, Alistair, there y’are!” boomed the captain.

Alistair Smith nodded in acknowledgement. “Good evening, captain.”

“The cap’n ‘ere was just tellin’ us a story of these two blokes he knew back in London,” said Wesley. Wesley had a thick lower-class English accent, the kind of accent that sounded as if it resulted from a dozen animals stamping on the throat of someone who could speak properly. Though he spoke with such an abominable tongue, the captain didn’t bring him on for his history, but his credentials – insisting, against better judgement, that Wesley was a “fine sailor.” From the differences in their speech, Mr Smith and Wesley developed, between them, an inherent understanding of their differing origins, which contributed to a sense of petulant uneasiness in Mr Smith, and a sense of bitter resentment in Wesley. These feelings never manifested as more than personal thoughts, but the captain’s overbearing personality made it difficult to focus on these private grievances for very long at a time.

“That’s right!” said the captain, slapping his knee, “Two fellas I knew back in London, back roundabouts when I did most of my business in the North Sea.”

Mr Smith sat down at an available chair, and accepted a cigar that was offered to him, and settled in to listen to the story.

“Well, these two men were brothers, ‘n they could’nae been no more different than me and the Queen, I’ll say. One was named George, and he was a right, hardworkin’ sort. And his brother was named Nick, and he was a scoundrel. Never did an honest day’s work in his life. He wasn’t a real criminal; mind you, just shiftless as they come. Anyway, George made quite a labour out of bailin’ out Nick when he got into trouble, which was sometimes because Nick was out of money, and sometimes because Nick got in trouble with the law. I remember one time, Nick was bein’ pursued by all the courtly powers of a one Tristan Arbuckle, a merciless sort of man, and when George settled the matter with 500 pounds in cash and no shortage of trouble, both Nick and Arbuckle took the money to vacation for a month in Nice.”

The captain paused for a moment to puff on his cigar, as the crewmen howled with laughter. Wesley said: “Oi, that’s right clever, that is.”

“Well,” the captain resumed, “I guess this went on for some time, as I started doing work along the African coast, and then in the Pacific, and I didn’ae see either of them, for a long time. But about a month ago, I pulled into port, met up with ol’ George, an’ I hadn’ae seen ‘m for… I guess it must be twenty years? Now, George’s been talkin’ ‘bout how he’s earned his way, he has a beautiful wife, a living, four beautiful daughters, all that, and he’s earned thirty thousand pounds to his name to retire with.”

The sailors nodded glumly at this testament to the hardworking nature of diligent men.

“And George used to tell me, ‘When that Nick wakes up and realizes he’s fifty-five, without a penny to his name – then we’ll see who has the last laugh!’ So I pulled into harbour, met up with George, ‘bout a month ago, and he’s in a right state. So I said to him, ‘George old boy, what’s the matter?’ And he says ‘Nick’s gone and got engaged to a widow, who died and left him her fortune: half a million pounds, a house in London, a house in the country, and a yacht!’”

At this, the crew howled with laughter again, as the first bottles of rum were opened, and glasses were passed around for all. Mr Smith was floored.

“Say, that’s not true, is it?” asked a dumbfounded Mr Smith.

“True! Or, my name ain’t Macnair!” declared the captain, as he leaned forward and sat his booted feet down heavily on the floor of the cabin.

Mr Smith considered this for a moment, and was soon enough lost in a game of cards.

So most nights passed on the Robert Mackenzie, and Mr Smith thought very rarely of London, except for that story about the two brothers. For some reason, it consumed him. He imagined himself working hard for nothing, and dying penniless alongside lords and ladies who, perhaps, never lifted a finger in their own name. He thought of Pulau Emas, and realized it was still some two or three months before they’d make landfall in the Pacific island. He rolled over in his bunk that night and thought bitterly “life is unfair,” before passing into a drunken, dreamless slumber.