Bones of the River (15 page)

*  *  *

There can be no question that Bones had an inquiring mind. And there was a special reason why he should be interested in photography and all that pertained to the art, at that moment.

“You stick your infernal nose into every darned thing that doesn’t concern you,” said the wrathful Hamilton, the owner of a new camera, an important plate of which Bones had irretrievably ruined. “I’ve been waiting for weeks to get that cloud effect over the sea, and you, like the howling jackass…”

“Not howlin’, dear old Ham,” murmured the patient Bones, his eyes tightly shut, “quiet, dignified, sufferin’, dear old savage, in silence…not howlin’.”

“I told you…” spluttered Hamilton.

“You told me nothin’,” said Bones gently, “and a boy should be told. I read it somewhere in a jolly old book the other day, a boy should be told how to work the shutter and everything. A loaded camera, dear old tyro – which means a cove that doesn’t know an awful lot – a loaded camera is worse than a loaded gun. Listen to the voice of reason, dear old Ham, the
vox reasoni
. I picked up the silly old thing and clicked the shutter –”

“Never leave things within reach of children,” said Hamilton bitterly.

Bones shrugged his lean shoulders. “Dear, but explosive old officer,” he said quietly, “there may be method in my jolly old naughtiness. There may be money, dear old improvident one. Old Bones may be working out a great old scheme in his nippy old nut, to make us all rich.”

“Orange growing?” asked Hamilton pointedly, and Bones writhed. Once he had conceived a get-rich-quick scheme, and Hamilton had put his money into an orange syndicate which Bones had conceived. They had imported trees and they had grown trees that bore everything except oranges. Some had borne apples, a few might, had they lived, have borne chestnuts. Bones bought the young trees by post, from the Zeizermann Mail Order Corporation – the proprietors of which are still in Sing Sing.

“Being my superior officer, sir and captain, you may taunt me,” he said stiffly and shrugging his shoulders again, saluted and went back to his quarters. He could, of course, have offered a very complete and satisfactory explanation, but had he done so, he would have spoilt the surprise he had in store for everybody.

And to Bones, surprise (other people’s pleasant surprise) was the joy of life.

Most of his daydreams were about surprises that he sprung on other people. Bones had on many occasions owned a potential Derby winner, and on the morning of the race, the jockey having proved false, Bones had donned the colours and to the amazement of his friends and the confusion of his sinister enemies, he had ridden the horse home a winner in a desperate finish.

“Never in the history of this great classic (so his dream
of Sporting Life
read) has there been a more wonderful exhibition of masterly jockeyship than that given by the famous amateur rider, Captain (or Major) Tibbetts. He is a noble-looking fellow, with grave blue eyes and a mask-like yet mobile face…”

At this point Bones would sigh happily and introduce
The Girl
. There was always a girl. He saw her on the stand, white-faced and tearing at her handkerchief (not an expensive handkerchief) or clutching at her throat, and she always fell into his arms when he dismounted, and, presumably, was weighed in with him.

He had surprised the War Office by inventing a new gun and the Admiralty by compounding a new strategy, but mostly, as has been remarked before, he surprised girls by his strength, genius, workmanship, knowledge of women, kindness of disposition, tenderness of heart, wit, nobility of character, and general all-round excellence. And the motif of Bones’ plan of surprisement at the moment was an amazing cinema camera which he had seen advertised in an American magazine, and which at that moment was speeding on its way – it would in fact arrive by the same steamer that carried home Father Carrelli.

Bones had an immense faith in the probity of magazine advertisements, and when he read of Keissler’s King Kamera which was offered at $150.00, and after he had discovered that $150.00 was not fifteen thousand, but a hundred and fifty and no cents, he wrote for the prospectus and received in reply an avalanche of literature which was alone worth the money.

Therefore, anything of a photographic nature meant much to Bones. He could have explained his fault in a word. Instead he maintained silence. There was time enough later – and the story had to be written, for in those days the picture play was coming to its own, and Bones was an enthusiastic subscriber to all movie periodicals that were published. He had many stories in his mind.

Nobody paid any particular attention to the arrival of a large case or of sundry other bulky packages, because both Sanders and Hamilton had long since ceased to wonder at the amazing character of Bones’ mail. He had, on an average, one new hobby a month, and the inauguration of each was signalised by mails of terrific or mysterious proportions.

The first hint Hamilton had that something unusual was afoot, came to him in the nature of a shock. One afternoon he strolled over to the hut in which Bones had his headquarters, and, as was usual, he made straight for the big window which gave access to the young man’s sitting-room; and, looking in, he gasped.

Sitting at the table was a young man who was not Bones. His face was a bright and vivid yellow; his hands and bare arms were similarly tinted; about his eyes were two rings of blue. Hamilton stared open-mouthed, and then dashed into the hut through the door.

“For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter with you, Bones – fever?”

Bones looked up with a horrible smile, for his lips were painted a blue that was nearly purple.

“Get into bed at once,” ordered Hamilton. “I’ll wire through to Administration to get a doctor down – you poor young devil!”

Bones looked at him haughtily as he fixed a slight, dark moustache to his upper lip. And then it was that Hamilton saw the make-up box and the mirror.

“What are you doing, you great jackass?” he asked, offensive in his relief.

“Just a bit of make-up, dear old audience.”

“Make-up? Yellow? What are you supposed to be? The King of the Gold Coast?”

“That’s who I’m supposed to be,” said Bones carelessly, and handed a slip of paper to his visitor.

“Reginald de Coursy, a man of synister appearance, yet of plesing apearance. His eyes show sings of diserpation dissipation disapation his nose is aquerline his mouth creul. He looks like a man who has lived.”

“Is that you?” asked Hamilton.

Bones nodded.

“You look more like a man who has died,” snarled his superior. “What’s the meaning of this dashed nonsense?”

He did not say “dashed.” Bones screwed up his face in an expression of pain, and the grimace made his face even more startling.

“Language, dear old thing! That’s one of the things I’m not going to have. I hate to hurt your jolly old feelings, Ham, but the studio
must
be kept clean.”

“Studio?”

“Well, I haven’t got a studio yet,” admitted Bones, “but that’s coming, dear old Felix – you’re Felix.”

“I’m what?” asked the dazed Hamilton.

Bones searched the litter of papers by the side of his make-up box and found another slip, which he handed without a word to his chief.

“Fellix Harington a young and hansom fellow of 26. His countenance is open and Frank and a genal smile is in his eyes, but very deceptful.”

Hamilton could only look helplessly from the paper to Bones. That gentleman was perfectly composed.

“There’s a fortune in it, my dear old officer,” he said calmly. “In fact, there’s two fortunes in it. Now, my idea is a play where a seemingly villainous person turns out a jolly old hero in the end. And the seemingly heroic old person turns out a jolly old rotter – robs his old father, and is going to murder him, when up comes Reggie the Knut – that’s me.”

“Wait a minute,” said the dazed Hamilton. “Do I understand that you have cast me for this part – and may I ask who is the father?”

“The jolly old Commissioner,” said Bones complacently, and Hamilton’s jaw dropped.

When he recovered command of his voice: “Do you imagine that Sanders is going to jigger about, wearing false whiskers, just to amuse an infernal–”

“I’m not sure about the whiskers,” said Bones thoughtfully, “I’ve been turning it over in my mind, dear old Ham, and I’m not so sure that the whiskers would come out. A little beard perhaps, or maybe a couple of mutton chops.”

Then Bones’ scheme came out. He had written a great play; it was entirely without women characters. He, Sanders and Hamilton were to act the story in their spare time, work in, to use his own expression, “a dinky little battle between savages, where I come along, dear old thing, and foil them single-handed – and it will be a sensation, Ham. There’s never been anything done like it and there never will be again perhaps, unless I do it. Look at the life, my dear old Felix…the wonderful scenery…it will be a sensation, dear old thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t make half-a-million.”

Sanders heard all about this new scheme of Bones’ without being either annoyed or perturbed.

“But you may tell him from me, Hamilton, that under no conditions will I act the fool in front of his wretched camera. By the way, did you see it?”

Hamilton nodded. “It’s not a bad-looking camera,” he admitted, “and Bones can turn the handle very well. He’s been to the kitchen, practising on the knife-cleaner, and he says he’s got exactly the right speed.”

Baffled in his great attempt to create a picture which should startle the world, Bones, the adaptable, decided upon a great native drama.

“It’s never been done, dear old Ham,” he said eagerly one night at dinner, when he expounded his scheme – and it was curious how quickly he had assimilated the clichés of the studio – “that’s the one thing you’ve got to be careful about on the cinema, old boy, do something that has never been done before. I’m working out the scenery now–”

“The word you want, I think,” said Hamilton, “is ‘scenario.’”

“Same thing, my dear old Ham,” said Bones testily. “Good gracious heavens, why do you interrupt me on a trivial little matter like scenery? Scenery or scenario – same jolly old thing.”

“Where are you laying the plot?” asked Sanders.

“Anywhere, dear old excellency,” said Bones vaguely. “My idea is to make Ahmet the hero, who runs away with the beautiful Kalambala, the Sultan’s favourite wife. And she’s rescued by a handsome young Englishman–”

“Need you go any further?” asked Hamilton.

“A handsome young Englishman,” repeated Bones, with a contemptuous glance at his superior.

“You, of course,” said Hamilton.

“Anyway, she’s rescued.”

“And then what do you do with her?” asked Hamilton.

But Bones hadn’t got as far as this. He filmed the first scene of this exciting story, and Hamilton and Sanders came down to witness the production. The attempt was a failure for many reasons. Ahmet had to stroll on to the scene, fold his arms, shake his head and smile. Then he had to shrug his shoulders and walk off. And he did it remarkably well until Bones started turning the handle.

“Roll your eyes,” screamed Bones.

“Lord, I roll my eyes,” said Ahmet, standing stiffly to attention and saluting.

Bones stopped turning with a groan. “O man,” he said bitterly, “when I speak to you, do not stick your big feet together and salute me! Stand easy! Now try it again.”

He tried it again, with no greater success; for this time, instead of saluting, Ahmet stood regimentally at ease. When the scene was made right, new trouble arose. The escaping Sultana was to be played by the wife of a Corporal Hafiz; and Corporal Hafiz refused resolutely, and with much stamping of feet and spitting on the ground, to allow his wife to be carried in Ahmet’s arms.

“You’re demoralising the detachment, Bones,” said Hamilton sternly, and dismissed the actors to their several duties.

Bones did not speak to his company commander for two days, at the end of which time he had found a new and more alluring scheme.

“I’ve got it, old Ham,” he said one day, dashing into the dining-room where the two men were sitting, smoking their after-luncheon cigars, in what shade they could find, for the sun was burning and there was little or no breeze from the sea.

“You’ll get sunstroke if you go around without your helmet,” said Hamilton lazily. “What have you got? The picture?”

“The picture!” said Bones triumphantly. “The greatest stunt ever, dear old excellency. And it all came out of jolly old Bones’ nut. Lives and customs of savage old tribes, dear old officer.” He stepped back to notice the effect of his words.

“Lives and customs of savage tribes?” repeated Hamilton.

“That’s the idea. Wherever I go, I take the camera, and if I don’t make a thousand a week lecturing on a subject, dear old killjoy, that is dear to the heart of every jolly old patriot, my name is mud.”

“Your real name I’ve never been able to remember,” said Hamilton, “but it does strike me as being much more feasible than the other.”

Thereafter, Bones spent a great deal of his time filming native scenes; and for once there happened to be method in his hobby. Having trained Ahmet to turn the handle, he was able to make a personal appearance in most. Sometimes he was standing in a negligent attitude, talking to a native woman as she cooked the evening meal. In other pictures he was patting the heads of little black toddlers (after carefully fixing a handkerchief about their middles, lest the susceptibilities of Surbiton should be shocked). Sometimes he was standing with his arms folded, and a sad but determined look upon his face, on the bow of the
Zaire
. And to all he supplied titles. He showed Hamilton a list of them.

“Kindly Chief Comissioner helping Savidges to build a Hut.”

Or, more flamboyantly, and in keeping with the spirit of modern subtitles:

“Far from the hum and compitetion of the bussy world, the native goes about his daily tarsks, under the watchful but bernevilent eye of the Cheif Comissioner.”