And as he has decided, correctly as it happens, that my English is the best of the party, these complaints are all falling on me. He has given me a long and detailed history of his passage on Her Majesty’s Ship Enchantress, the ship that brought him to Zanzibar; of the many fevers he fell into on African soil; of the dysentery and malaria he suffered.
He has been a doctor with but one patient, himself, and though his ministrations to his own person have been as careful as they have been plentiful, his physique appears too weak to withstand these climes. Such a companion is most unpleasant to travel with, particularly when he feels himself master of us all. It is as though we are on the Dillon, and not the Livingstone, Expedition.
The morning after we set off, he refused to rouse when Majwara called the reveille. It was much too early, he said; in their party, they only started to march when the grass was dry of dew. Even with that late departure, we had to stop in the middle of the morning of the first day’s march for a long halt. In their party, Doctor Dillon said, they only walked until the lunch hour. This was enough to shock Halima into clucking over such laziness.
Two days into the march from Kazeh, he said he was quite unable to walk, and demanded that he be carried in a litter. His feet were swollen, he said, and his legs quite unable to support his body. This request occasioned significant anger among the men while Halima and Ntaoéka gave us their opinion that the man was not nearly as sick as he seemed.
I feared that he would not get on with Chirango, who carried the front of the litter, while Mariko Chanda carried the back. At one point as we walked, Chirango hit a stone and stumbled. Doctor Dillon was jolted in the litter and came down with a thump. Beckoning to Chirango, Doctor Dillon gave him a slap that shocked us with its power. Chirango seemed unfazed, and only smiled and bowed, before picking up the litter and striding with it so powerfully that Mariko Chanda had to scamper to pick it up.
Susi told Chirango to give the litter to another of the pagazi, but Chirango seemed so determined to make up for the jolt that he had given Doctor Dillon that he gave him nothing but smiling refusals. The Power of Christ truly moves in Chirango, and in him, Our Lord’s humility is made manifest.
Doctor Dillon was proving a terrible distraction from bigger problems. As I have said in an earlier entry, not only had Lieutenant Cameron appropriated the Bwana’s instruments to his use, he had also, most crucially, taken half our guns, and almost all the ammunition of our askari. Of the twenty guns they had carried, just ten were left, and three muskets besides.
There was no disguising the fact that we were now completely undefended. Nor would we be able to hide the activity in which we were engaged. Carrying a dead body, and a white man’s body for that matter, was sure to stir up a certain hostility.
Soon we were approaching a cluster of villages with whom we hoped to trade, left to defend ourselves only with stratagems. The news of our mournful burden had already arrived at the first village we reached. They turned us away. We marched to a second village, and here too we were turned away. We were just a party of traders, we protested, carrying nothing but goods to trade. They did not believe us.
On we marched, until we reached the village of Kasekera. To the villagers here, we feigned that we had listened to the Englishmen and abandoned the task of carrying the Doctor’s body. We had changed our minds and sent the body back to Unyanyembe to be buried there. Devoid of fear, the people of Kasekera asked us all to come and take up quarters in the town, a privilege that had been denied us so long as it was known that we had the remains of the dead with us.
Doctor Dillon continued to cause us trouble. In the evening after we left Kasekera, we camped near a flowing river. Once he had eaten his meal, he ordered his tent erected and disappeared within its folds. The rest of the party sat around the fire at night, listening to music made by Majwara’s drum, accompanied by Chirango’s njari.
We were so absorbed in the music that we did not hear Doctor Dillon leave his tent. It was only when he spoke that we saw him. “Will you stop that infernal din,” he said. “I can barely hear myself think.”
He lurched himself at Chirango, and took up his njari and smashed it to the ground. The outer calabash broke and shattered into three pieces, and the board with its metal keys fell with a clang. He picked it up and flung it into the river. We all stood in silence as he raged. His passion spent, Doctor Dillon turned on his heel and walked back to his tent.
“I fear the fever has gotten to him,” Carus Farrar said.
Chirango said nothing, but stood looking at the flowing river, as though to see where his instrument had fallen. Though he waded into the river to look for it at dawn the next day, though he dived into as many sections as he could, he did not find it. Instead he took the pieces of painted, broken calabash that were all that remained and packed them with his things.
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28 October 1873
Twentieth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright, written just outside Kasekera; in which Wainwright enters the Valley of Humiliation.
Darkness, darkness, all is darkness, all is despair. I am in the grip of the Giant Despair, tightly held. I am shut up in his Doubting Castle. I have sinned against the Light of the World, against the Goodness of God. I doubt my own salvation. I have grieved the Spirit and He will flee from me. I tempted the Devil and he is come to me. And as the Devil is wont to do, he has used the agent Woman, Tainted Eve, Double-Faced Jezebel, and Traitorous Aholibah, Whorish Aholah. She has felled me as Delilah did Samson, as Jezebel felled Ahab, as Eve felled Adam.
For I was not in the Land of Beulah after all, but had been ensnared to the Enchanted Ground on Vanity Fair, where an Enchantress made me lose my way. Such despair I feel. Mabruki called the expedition leaders together for an urgent consultation. He had received news of significant import from Mariko, he said, he wished to discuss a matter of import, for he had been greatly dishonored. A member of the party had been lying with his woman Ntaoéka under the cover of darkness. He looked over to where I sat with the other Nassickers and pointed his finger.
My eyes closed in prayer. I had not been aware just how hot the day was, for sweat began to prickle at my forehead. Before anything more could be said, Ntaoéka ran up to stand a few meters from where Mabruki stood.
“It is true,” said Ntaoéka as she looked in my direction.
I felt as though the eyes of the whole party were on me.
“I chose Carus,” Ntaoéka said.
I opened my eyes to see that Carus Farrar had risen to stand beside her.
“I chose Carus, and I am carrying his child.”
For a minute, they seemed suspended before me, Mabruki stupefied, Ntaoéka defiant, Carus contained. My eyes closed again, as a lance of pain shot through my side.
Ntaoéka said, “Yes, it is Carus that I want, and there is nothing anyone could do to make me change my mind. I am a free woman, am I not, I am no bondswoman. I am not Halima.”
Halima flared up in anger and asked, “Is a bondswoman not a person?” to which Ntaoéka retorted that this had nothing to do with Halima, and nothing anyone said would change the way she felt about Carus.
I escaped the quarreling voices and walked down to the stream. Their shouting voices rose and fell as though from a place far off. I do not know how long I stood on my own, I know only that at first my breath came in short painful stabs, then in longer breaths that sent agony through the whole of my being. I could not see anything around me, for my vision was blurred. Though I could no longer hear it, her voice rang in my head. I chose Carus. She chose Carus.
She waylaid me as I walked from the stream. I held up my hand, that I might not see her, but she stood in my way. “I cannot be what you want me to be,” she said.
I walked on as though I had not heard her. “And you know what you made me do, what you told me to do. How can I love such a man?”
I stopped and looked at her without speaking.
“Chirango said I was to lie with him, at your re
quest.”
My heart froze as the meaning of what she said hit me. Then she said, “Carus and I are to be married and go and live in the Cape, and I will learn English.”
The rest was drowned out at the sound of that name. She had chosen Carus Farrar. As thoughts of her with Chirango threatened to fill my mind, I forced myself to think of her with Carus Farrar. She babbled their plans as I walked away. He and Farjallah plan to ask Doctor Christie in Zanzibar to help them to be trained as doctors. He has promised her frocks and frivolity. “I cannot help it,” she said. “I am carrying a child, and that child must have a father.”
No, she cannot help it. She cannot help being a false Jezebel. No, she cannot help it, for she is a daughter of Eve, and sister to the temptress Jezebel. She is Samaria, Aholah, and Aholibah. She is all the whores of Jerusalem. She can’t help that she played the harlot, she can’t help defiling herself with men whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. No, she cannot help it.
I am sure they laugh at me, she and Carus. This Chirango business is nonsense, of course it is nonsense. It is something that she has made up, it can only be that. He is my first convert. I know in my heart that he would not do such a thing. To whiten her name and that of her lover, she will not scruple to blacken the name of a Christian.
I have always known that Carus resents me, that he resents my gifts. I have known that he does not like me, neither he nor his friend Farjallah, for I am younger than him but was so well favored at school. He does not like that I speak the Doctor’s language better than he ever will, that I read the same books, that I know of what the Doctor thought.
He is much my senior in years, and so he must have looked in envy as a much younger man became the Doctor’s confidante. And he is to be a doctor too, to be trained in medicine just as the Doctor was trained. But it was not enough. Oh, but it was less than enough! For matters of the spirit are not the same as matters of the body. This body is but a shell. We have no abiding city here, but seek a home that is far away, and here on earth we leave our bodies so that, thus lightened, our souls can take flight. Though he knows how to cut human bodies, I know how to cut to the human soul.
This evening, after a meal I could not eat, Carus came to me where I sat with the other Nassickers. As the others ribbed him and joshed him about, I stood up and gave him a stony look. “Mabruki is being very good about it all. I suppose it helps that he can hardly take her to be his wife.”
“Excuse me,” I said as I walked past him, “I have more important matters to think on than which bed a harlot plans to sleep in this week.”
On my way to I knew not where, I met Chirango, who gave me a smiling greeting. I walked past him without acknowledging him. I walked on alone in the raging cauldron of my hate.
21
18 November 1873
Twenty-First Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which the Mohammedan Feast of Eid Approaches as Wainwright Dons the Armor of God and Sets Forth to Do Battle Against the Authorities and Principalities of Apollyon.
Jehovah Jireh. The Lord is my provider. Jehovah Jireh. Christ is my protector. His Grace is sufficient for me. His Grace is sufficient for me. Yes, it is sufficient. His Grace is sufficient. I will lay the reins on the neck of my lusts. In the Blood of the Lamb I shall write on my heart: sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura. With the fire of the Holy Spirit I shall brand those words on my soul. By Faith alone, by Grace alone, by Scripture alone.
His Grace is sufficient for me. His Faith is sufficient for me. His Salvation is sufficient for me. I will pray with the Spirit, eat with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. For this battle is not one of Flesh and Blood.
It is a fight against the Authorities and Principalities of Evil. It is a battle I fight for my Lord and King, against all that is Dark in this world, against the spiritual forces of Evil. For they have sent to me the Temptress Woman. They have sent Aholah and her sister Aholibah, who lust after men with the flesh of donkeys and issue that flows like that of horses. They have sent the Jezebel who whispered to me in the dark just as the snake whispered to Eve and she whispered back in the garden long ago. And through her came the Fall of Man.
I will stand against her plots, stand true against the Devil’s schemes. I will put on His Armor and, thus clothed, set out to meet Apollyon, that scaled, tailed Demon who is enemy to all that is Pure. Satan will not defeat me, Beelzebub will not defeat me. Around my waist, I wear the Belt of Truth; over my chest the Breastplate of Righteousness; on my feet, the Gospel of Peace; on my head, the Helmet of Salvation; and in my hands, I clutch the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit. And I will stand firm against every one of Apollyon’s flaming arrows.
Do not be afraid, my Lord God Jehovah says to me. For I have named thee JACOB, and thou art Mine. I have bought you and made you free. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you pass through the rivers, they will not flow over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The fire will not destroy you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves you.
And I will pray in the Spirit, and eat with the Spirit. I will drink with the Spirit and sleep in the Spirit. I will walk in the Spirit and live in the Spirit. And I will conquer. The fire will not consume me, for I am washed in His Blood. The fire will not destroy me, for I am made Pure by His Love. I will conquer. In the name of my savior, I will conquer.
And soon, Tainted Jezebel, Apollyon’s Minion, will be but a memory to me. She will be a memory like the uncle who sold me into bondage is a memory to me, like the whips that marched me weeping to the coast are a memory to me, like the dhow that took me across the terror of the high, high waters is a memory to me, like the bodies jumping into those waters as the great ship bore down upon us are but a memory to me. I am an Heir to Salvation. I am cloaked in His Grace and shod in His Truth.
I will pray in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit, and live in the Spirit. And I will conquer. And, just like Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress, I will enter the Celestial City and walk with the Shining Ones. I shall pass over. And All the Trumpets shall sound for me on the other side. And the Trumpets shall sound.
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30 November 1873
Twenty-Second Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright; in which Wainwright celebrates his rebirth, casts aside his Stupor, and Rededicates Himself to the Service of He who by His Incarnation Gathered into one All Things Earthly and Heavenly.
For some days, we were wandering in a great dense forest, where the only shelter is under trees. Beyond the bare knowledge that we are somewhere between Unyanyembe and Bagamoio, I do not know where we are, nor do I care to ask. When we emerged from the forest, we reached a large, featureless plain.
Between the forest and the plain, we moved slowly, for the weather has been most inclement. The rain has been falling constantly. My thoughts are as muddled and dark as the overcast sky. My mind is vexingly slow and dull. I appear to have been woken unwillingly from a deep slumber before falling again into stupor, only to be woken again in protest.
I eat when the others eat, I walk when the others walk, and I sleep when the others sleep, though the food has no taste and the ground seems to float beneath my feet. My sleep is plagued by horrible visions of unclothed women. When I walk, or talk, it is as though I am in a daze or just emerging from a fever dream. When I am spoken to, the voices come to me as though from a far-off place, while objects take on an unreal quality in my sight.
When I am not marching, and often even then, I find myself in the grip of a great lassitude. I feel a great disinclination to all labor or thought. It is for this reason that I have made no entries in this journal.
Even the manner of my dressing is altered. I have now given in to wearing my nightshirt in the day. My suit feels heavy in the heat. And when it rains, it hangs on my body like a clammy curse. I have also lately taken to wearing a turban around my head to protect it against the sun, a sight that pleased the em
pty mind of Halima, who insisted on calling me a right-looking Mohammedan.
It was that comment, together with seeing my face in a stream, that finally woke me up. Were those my eyes, so dull and lifeless? Was that my mouth, so downcast? Though the pen is heavy in my hand, I forced myself to take it up. And it was as I wrote down the date that it came to me that today is my birthday.
No, I do not have her.
And I never will.
But I have my freedom.
I have my life.
I have my Christ.
The fire will not consume me. Despair will not consume me. I take up my pen on this most blessed of days to give thanks to Him Above for the life that I have. And I pray for a Shower of Blessings to rain upon all the men who sailed aboard the SS Daphne on the day of my rescue all those many years ago.
I pray Blessings on the heads of Reverends Wainwright, Price, and Isenberg and on all my teachers. I pray for all the boys who remain at the Nassick school, freed from human bondage. And I pray for all the Pilgrims on this journey, both the deceased and the living, and yes, even for she whose name shall never pass my lips again, though she has smote my heart.
Though we are far from any human settlement, we are in a land that is not unknown, for everywhere we see the small piles of bones under trees, a true sign that slaves have been on this route. The sight of those poor yellowed bones has done its work on me. I fasted and prayed for two days and found myself with Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones.
And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and He brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in a valley full of bones, and He said to me, Can these bones live? And I turned to them and said, O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. The Lord shall put breath in you, and lay sinews on you, and you shall live. And you shall know that He is the Lord.
Out of Darkness, Shining Light Page 21