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Chapter fourteen. Things That Go Bump in the Night. |
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One other happening is perhaps worth mention, though still without explanation offered. It occurred some years after, during our spell with the guerilla forces. |
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Namkia went off one morning on leave, to spend a few days in his village. That afternoon his porter came hurrying back to say that Namkia's small son had cerebral malaria and that they needed the military doctor at once. The doctor was out on tour, but he was due the next day at a village one march on the far side of Impoi, so I picked a pair of the best runners in Laisong and sent them off to intercept him. At cockcrow, just before dawn, I woke up. I was lying there wondering what had roused me when I heard a man's voice in the death-cry, the terrible shrieks a Zemi gives when a death has just occurred. It was a long way off, I imagined among the houses at the top of the village, and I was surprised to hear it at all, as we knew of no one ill. Speculation was idle; so I turned over and went to sleep. |
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The next morning, when I inquired, the men were surprised. There had been no death in Laisong. |
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At noon my two runners returned, with the letter to the doctor undelivered. They had reached Impoi late at night and had halted in Namkia's house to wait for dawn. At cockcrow, however, the child had died. |
