Odd John (15 page)

Here Norton broke in and said, "I had crawled into the cave by then, and I was terribly struck by the gaunt condition he was in. There wasn't a bit of fat on him anywhere. His muscles looked like skeins of cord under his skin. He was covered with scars and bruises. But the most disturbing thing was the look on his face, a look that I have only seen on some one that had just come out of the anaesthetic after a bad op.—sort of purified. Poor kid, he'd evidently been through it all right, but through what?"

"At first," said McWhist, "we thought he was mad. But now I'm ready to swear he wasn't. He was possessed. Something that we don't know anything about had got him, something good or bad, I don't know which. The whole business gave me the creeps, what with the noise of the storm outside, and the dim firelight, and the smoke that kept blowing back on us down the sort of chimney he'd made for it. We were a bit light-headed with lack of food, too. He offered us the rest of his bird, by the way, and some bilberries, but of course we didn't want to run him short. We asked if there wasn't
anything
we could do for him, and he answered, yes, there was, we could make a special point of not telling anyone about him. I said, couldn't we take a message to his people. He grew very serious and emphatic, and said, 'No, don't tell a soul, not a soul. Forget. If the papers get on to my tracks,' he said very slowly and coldly, 'I shall just have to kill myself.' This put us in a hole. We felt we really ought to do something and yet somehow we felt we
must
promise."

McWhist paused, then said crossly, "And we did promise. And then we cleared out, and floundered about in the dark till we reached our tent. We roped to get down the rock, and the lad went in front, unroped, to show us the way." He paused again, then added, "The other day when I happened to hear from Brinston about your lost lad, I broke my promise. And now I'm feeling damned bad about it."

I laughed, and said, "Well, no harm's done.
I
shan't tell the Press."

Norton spoke again. "It's not as simple as that. There's something McWhist hasn't told you yet. Go on, Mac."

"Tell him yourself," said McWhist, "I'd rather not."

There was a pause, then Norton laughed awkwardly, and said, "Well, when one tries to describe it in cold blood over a cup of coffee, it just sounds crazy. But damn it, if the thing
didn't
happen, something mighty queer must have happened to
us
, for we both saw it, as clearly as you see us now."

He paused. McWhist rose from his arm-chair and began examining the rows of books on shelves behind us.

Norton proceeded: "The lad said something about making us realize we'd come up against something big that we couldn't understand, said he'd give us something to remember, and help us to keep the secret. His voice had changed oddly. It was very low and quiet and composed. He stretched his skinny arm up to the roof, saying, 'This slab must weigh fifty tons. Above it there's just blizzard. You can see the raindrops in the doorway there.' He pointed to the cave entrance. 'What of it?' he said in a cold proud voice. 'Let us see the stars.' Then, my God, you won't believe it, of course, but the boy lifted that blasted rock upon his finger-tips like a trap door. A terrific gust of wind and sleet entered, but immediately died away. As he lifted he rose to his feet. Overhead was a windless, clear, starry sky. The smoke of the fire rose as a wavering column, illuminated at the base, and spreading dimly far above us, where it blotted out a few stars with a trail of darkness. He pushed the rock back till it was upright, then leaned lightly against it with one arm, crooking the other on his hip. 'There!' he said, In the starlight and firelight I could see his face as he gazed upwards. Transfigured, I should call it, bright, keen, peaceful.

"He stayed still for perhaps half a minute, and silent; then, looking down at us, he smiled, and said, 'Don't forget. We have looked at the stars together.' Then he gently lowered the rock into position again, and said, 'I think you had better go now. I'll take you down the first pitch. It's difficult by night.' As we were both pretty well paralysed with bewilderment we made no immediate sign of quitting. He laughed, gently, reassuringly, and said something that has haunted me ever since. (I don't know about McWhist.) He said, 'It was a childish miracle. But I am still a child. While the spirit is in the agony of outgrowing its childishness, it may solace itself now and then by returning to its playthings, knowing well that they are trivial.' By now we were creeping out of the cave, and into the blizzard."

There was a silence. Presently McWhist faced us again, and glared rather wildly at Norton. "We were given a great sign," he said, "and we have been unfaithful."

I tried to calm him by saying, "Unfaithful in the letter, perhaps, but not in the spirit. I'm pretty sure John wouldn't mind
my
knowing. And as to the miracle, I wouldn't worry about that," I said, with more confidence than I felt. "He probably hypnotized you both in some odd sort of way. He's a weird kid."

Toward the end of the summer Pax received a post card, saying "Home late to-morrow. Hot bath, please. John."

On the first opportunity I had a long talk with John about his holiday. It was a surprise to me to find that he was ready to talk with perfect frankness, and that he had apparently quite got over the phase of uncommunicative misery which had caused us so much anxiety before his flight from home. I doubt if I really understood what he told me, and I am sure there was a good deal that he didn't tell me because he knew I wouldn't understand. I had a sense that he was all the while trying to
translate
his actual thoughts into language intelligible to me, and that the translation seemed to him very crude. I can give only so much of his statement as I understood.

JOHN said that when he had begun to realize the tragic futility of
Homo sapiens
he was seized with "a panicky sense of doom." and along with that "a passion of loneliness." He felt more lonely in the presence of others than in isolation. At the same time, apparently, something strange was happening to his own mind. At first he thought perhaps he was going mad, but clung to the faith that he was after all merely growing up. Anyhow he was convinced that he must cut right adrift and face this upheaval in himself undisturbed, It was as though a grub were to feel premonitions of dissolution and regeneration, and to set purposefully about protecting itself with a cocoon.

Further, if I understood him, he felt spiritually contaminated by contact with the civilization of
Homo sapiens
. He felt he must for a while at least strip away every vestige of it from his own person, face the universe in absolute nakedness, prove that he could stand by himself, without depending in any way whatever on the primitive and debased creatures who dominated the planet. At first I thought this hunger for the simple life was merely an excuse for a boyish adventure, but now I realize that it did have for him a grave importance which I could only dimly comprehend.

Of some such kind were the motives that drove him into the wildest region of this island. The thoroughness with which he carried out his plan amazed me. He simply walked out of a Highland railway station, had a good meal in an inn, strode up on to the moors toward the high mountains, and, when he judged himself safe from interruption, took off all his clothes, including his shoes, and buried them in a hole among the rocks. He then took his bearings carefully, so as to be able to recover his property in due season, and moved away in his nakedness, seeking food and shelter in the wilderness.

His first days were evidently a terrible ordeal. The weather turned wet and cold. John, it must be remembered, was an extremely hardy creature, and he had prepared himself for this adventure by a course of exposure, and by studying beforehand all possible means of securing food in the valleys and moors of Scotland without so much as a knife or a piece of string to aid him. But fate was at first against him. The bad weather made shelter a necessity, and in seeking it he had to spend much time that might otherwise have been spent in the search for food.

He passed the first night under a projecting rock, wrapped in heather and grass that he had collected before the weather broke. Next day he caught a frog, dismembered it with a sharp stone, and ate it raw. He also ate large quantities of dandelion leaves, and other green stuff which from previous study he knew to be edible. Certain fungi, too, contributed to his diet on that day, and indeed throughout his adventure. On the second day he was feeling "pretty queer." On the third evening he was in a high fever, with a bad cough and diarrhoea. On the previous day, foreseeing possible illness, he had greatly improved his shelter, and laid by a store of such food as he considered least indigestible. For some days, he didn't know how long, he lay desperately sick, scarcely able to crawl to the stream for water. "I must have been delirious at one time," he said, "because I seemed to have a visit from Pax. Then I came to and found there wasn't any Pax, and I thought I was dying, and I loved myself desperately, knowing I was indeed a rare bright thing. And it was torture to be just wasted like that. And then that unspeakable joy came, that joy of seeing things as it were through God's eyes, and finding them after all
right
, fitting, in the picture." There followed a few days of convalescence, during which, he said, "I seemed to have lost touch completely with all the motives of my adventure. I just lay and wondered why I had been such a self-important fool. Fortunately, before I was strong enough to crawl back to civilization I lashed myself into facing this spiritual decay. For even in my most abject state I vaguely
knew
that somewhere there was another 'I,' and a better one. Well, I set my teeth and determined to go on with the job even if it killed me."

Soon after he had come to this decision some local boys with a dog came up the hill right on to his hiding-place. He leapt up and fled. They must have caught a glimpse of his small naked figure, for they gave chase, hallooing excitedly. As soon as he was on his feet he realized that his legs were like water. He collapsed. "But then," he said, "I suddenly managed to tap some deep reserve of vitality, so to speak. I simply jumped up and ran like hell round a corner of hillside, and farther, to a rocky place. There I climbed a pretty bad pitch into a hole I knew of and had counted on. Then I must have fainted. In fact, I think I must have lain unconscious for almost twenty-four hours, for when I came to, the sun seemed to have gone back to early morning. I was cold as death, and one huge ache, and so weak I couldn't move from the twisted position I was in."

Later in the day he managed to crawl back to his lair, and with great difficulty moved his bedding to a safer but less comfortable spot. The weather was now hot and bright. For ten days or so he spent nearly all his time creeping about in search of frogs, lizards, snails, birds' eggs and green stuff, or just lying in the sun recovering his strength. Sometimes he managed to catch a few fish by "tickling" them in a pool in the river. The whole of one day he spent in trying to get a flame by striking sparks from stones on a handful of dry grass. At last he succeeded, and began to cook his meal, in an ecstasy of pride and anticipation. Suddenly he noticed a man, far away but obviously interested in the smoke of his fire. He put it out at once and decided to go much farther into the wilds.

Meanwhile, though his feet had been hardened with long practice at home, they were now terribly sore, and quite unfit for "a walking tour." He made moccasins out of ropes of twisted grass which he bound round his feet and ankles. They kept in place for a while, but were always either coming undone or wearing through. After many days of exploration, and several nights without shelter, two of which were wet, he found the high cave where later the climbers discovered him. "It was only just in time," he said. "I was in a pretty bad state. Feet swollen and bleeding, ghastly cough, diarrhoea. But in that cave I soon felt snugger than I had ever felt in my life, by contrast with the past few weeks. I made myself a
lovely
bed, and a fireplace, and I felt fairly safe from intrusion, because mine was a remote mountain, and anyhow very few people could climb those rocks. Not far below there were grouse and ptarmigan; and deer. On my first morning, sitting in the sun on my roof, positively happy, I watched a herd of them crossing a moor, stepping so finely, ears spread, heads high."

The deer seem to have become his chief interest for a while. He was fascinated by their beauty and freedom. True, they now depended for their existence on a luxurious civilization; but equally they had existed before there was any civilization at all. Moreover, he coveted the huge material wealth that the slaughter of one stag would afford him. And he had apparently a queer lust to try his strength and cunning against a worthy quarry. For at this time he was content to be almost wholly the primitive hunter, "though with a recollection, away at the back of my mind, that all this was just a process of getting clean in spirit for a very different enterprise."

For ten days or so he did little but devise means for catching birds and hares, and spent all spare time in resting, recuperating, and brooding over the deer. His first hare, caught after many failures, he took by arranging a trap in its runway. A huge stone was precariously held in position by a light stick, which the creature dislodged. Its back was broken. But a fox ate most of it in the night. From its skin, however, he made a rough bow-string, also soles and thongs for his foot-gear. By splitting its thigh bones and filing thens on the rock he made some fragile little knives to help him in preparing his food. Also he made some minute sharp arrowheads. With a diversity of traps, and his toy bow and arrows, and vast patience and aptitude, he managed to secure enough game to restore him to normal strength. Practically his whole time was spent in hunting, trap ping, cooking, making little tools of bone or wood or stone. Every night he rolled himself in his grass bedding dead tired, but at peace. Sometimes he took his bedding outside the cave and slept on a ledge of the precipice, under stars and driving cloud.