Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WHITE ELEPHANT AT on the way to Bangkok. In those few hours he had justified his recent transfer to the Me Mai. He had succeeded where others had failed. It had meant almost thirty hours of constant toil, but it had been accomplished, and fourteen hours of sound sleep had put him in the best of spirits. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the boy was just removing the breakfast dishes. Sommerfield had decided to take a day off. He would inspect no logs. He would break his way through no jungle. He would rest, read his mail and get what pleasure there was in life for a jungle walla exiled from civilization. When the breakfast dishes had been removed, the boy brought out the stack of mail that a carrier had brought from Chiengmai the day before. Sommerfield had been too tired to read them then, but gazed at them hungrily as the boy placed them on the table. He crossed the tanned knees between his shorts and golf hose and settled himself for a comfortable morning. : His feeling of satisfaction and content- ment was dispelled by the first letter he read. It was a letter from Hodgkins in ‘Bangkok. At varying intervals Hodgkins sent to all members of the company a copy of his Further India Teak Tirade, a breezy _ letter giving the news and gossip of inter- est to every member of the company. The letter which Sommerfield opened was written in a more serious vein than was habitual with Hodgkins. The first para- graph was as follows: TEAK WALLAS TO BE DISCHARGED Yesterday it became known that the rumors which have been afloat for the past two months are confirmed. The lease on the Prae Jungle which was denied the Further India Corpora- tion on the ground that the government would itself extract the teak, has been granted to. the Compagnie General d’Extreme Oriente. As this is the.last uncut jungle in the country, the work of the corporation will probably end. with the work now under way. Unless the company is able to do something immediately to ingrati- ate itself with the government, there will be no chance of finding further work for the assist- ants. As only two men can be used in Burma, the jungle wallas may expect to have home leave and discharges within the next two years. Sommerfield reread the paragraph. He knew that it was not official, but he also knew that it contained more truth than poetry. He cursed the day he had signed up with the company and cursed himself for not resigning years before, when he would have been able to get into some other kind of work. For twelve years he had given the company his all, and now he was to be turned out with no hope for the future. E CURSED the government. H “A bunch of fools clutching for - a straw like a drowning man,” he muttered. “Currying favor with France, with the hope that if the crash comes French troops will keep the king on his throne. And why thecrash? The igno- rance of blind fools. The tradition that if Buddha approves of a new king, a white elephant will be born in the kingdom. Can’t the new king reign without a white elephant? But, no, he calls in all the mossbacks as advisors. They get excited because there is no white elephant. Their fright spreads to the people and the rulers fear insurrections conjured up by their own imaginations. Damn them!” He pictured himself in England looking for a position. He knew he was not fitted for work at home even if he could find it. His years in the jungle had made him “jungle shy”. He was afraid of people. He spent the Christmas holidays on hunting trips with some other jungle wallas, be- cause he was afraid of the crowds that gathered at Chiengmai and Lampang during the holidays. He knew he would be terrified if he had to accept a position in a place where there would be a lot of people around him. His last home leave had been pleasant in a way, and yet the only times he felt at ease were those when he was in a big arm- chair in a corner of the club, talking to another jungle man, who was also on leave. “Boy!” shouted Sommerfield. The boy appeared from behind the tent. “Whisky soda.” The boy disappeared and in a moment comnlicloooks.com