by Peter Rimmer
“No, Father. Let me get it over with.”
“I have taken precautions. A trust containing two hundred thousand pounds will be set up which will go to Arthur upon my death, provided he is still living with you and married to you. If you should die first, the money will go to your children. That wealth may control his mind better than the love of any woman. Em, it is not the best bargain I can offer you for life, but I think it will work. Then again, there is never any certainty. A fool once said that it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable. That fool should have tried poor and miserable, which is always the road to poverty. There are few things worse in this life than to end up without money or the means of earning money. Ask any man or woman who is penniless. Wealth, Em, cushions the blows of life and you should mark my words.”
“Father, would you have gone bankrupt?”
“Within six months.”
While Henry Manderville was trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, the Indian Queen was under full sail beneath a clear sky. The squall had lasted ten minutes the day before, gone as quickly as it had come. The Portuguese island of Madeira was off the starboard bow. Once Seb thought he smelt the African desert blown by the wind and then it was gone again. The entire crew were cleaning the deck, except for the mate and first officer. The excitement of sail and squall had changed to boredom, Seb’s dreaded affliction.
He thought of Emily and what she was being made to do. There had always been Em and Seb, and even far away at boarding school, he had written to her every other day, telling her his deepest thoughts, the words so much easier to write than to say. Everything that happened in their lives happened only as it related to each other. For Seb to win a race at the school sports day was to win for Em, not the clamorous sycophants who patted his back and gushed his praise. Everything he had ever done as far back as he could remember was for her. Left alone by a distant, tyrannical father and a mother bemused by four sons and male domination, his real world had only existed through Em. For years they had literally run away from other people to be alone together and finally, right at what was now the end, as the ship careened down the west coast of Africa, they were lovers, a new, more beautiful love he had never known existed, and there was nothing he could do to change the new course of his life. Sadness became anger and then despair as he watched the green, terraced vinelands of Madeira slip slowly by two miles off the starboard bow; too far to swim, and if he got there, he told his despair, what could he do? Find some work and sail back to his father’s wrath? And what work could he do? He could write a good essay, even run a fast race, but all his gentleman’s education would be of little value on the rugged island passing by. Seb walked the deck as it plunged further away and there was not one thing he could do to change its course. Soon the island was behind them.
Martinus Oosthuizen had been waiting two months for the Indian Queen to call at Cape Town harbour. Stored under lock and key in the Colonial Shipping warehouse in Strand Street were the tusks of two hundred elephants, five tonnes of ivory.
From Signal Hill, Martinus watched the small brigantine make her way skilfully into the harbour. Slowly he turned his horse to go down and meet the ship. He was waiting when the gangplank was thrown down, and Captain Doyle came ashore.
From the ship’s rail, Sebastian Brigandshaw watched the captain shake hands with the bearded giant. Seb had no money so there was no point in going ashore other than to kick his heels. He saw the first officer follow the captain down the gangplank. The harbour was bursting with people and only a black man in rags observed idly from the dock, neither of them with anything to do. Forlornly, Seb stretched back his shoulders and looked up at the mountain covered in a white tablecloth of cloud, spilling down the south side towards a range of ragged-tooth mountains. There was a strong southeast wind cutting across the bay, the mountain shielding the harbour. The midday sun was hot even in the African winter. Then he remembered again. It was his eighteenth birthday, and he was quite alone and tears pricked the back of his eyes and the tips of his fingers hurt. The entire world had rejected him.
Captain Doyle was a head shorter and half the size of the Boer, which was little reflection on the Irishman. Martinus Oosthuizen was a very big man. Surprisingly his handshake was firm but gentle and the blue eyes hidden in the chestnut whorls of hair were amused. The surprise of the man’s size was matched by the blue eyes. The chestnut brown hair left room for the eyes, a powerful nose and full red lips. There was no sign of the man’s ears and little of his forehead. The full beard dropped to a hairy chest that bushed out of his open shirt. The shirt was the grey colour of being washed too often in the rivers of Africa.
“How long have you been waiting?” asked Captain Doyle.
“Two months, kerel, two months. You think it matters?”
“What have you got for me?”
“Four hundred tusks. Big tusks. You have room for five tonnes?”
“When we unload some cargo.”
“You trade all along the coast?”
“Yes. Half the profit for me and the crew, and half for the owner. Merchants of the sea.”
“You English get rich.”
“There is risk and profit. You can wait for me to sell your ivory in India and I will take twenty per cent for shipping and selling, or I buy your tusks today for a price.”
Captain Doyle turned back to his ship to check the mate was organising the discharge and saw Seb standing by the rail.
“Did you ever meet The Captain?” he said turning back to Tinus.
“He was the first man to buy my ivory.”
“That’s his son on deck. The youngest son. Trouble with a girl in England. The Captain sent him away. You mind if we bring him to lunch?” Looking back to his ship he cupped his mouth: “Mr Brigandshaw,” he shouted, “come ashore.”
The cab driver had no front teeth and his skin was the colour of parchment. The horse gave the three passengers a melancholy look and waited for the Cape Malay to give him the road out of the harbour. Seb kept quiet in his corner whilst the driver spoke to the horse in a foreign language. There was a road that ran around the bay close to the sea which the cab took, and the pleasure of being off the ship balanced Seb’s shyness. All the captain had told him to do was get in the cab, which he had done. The older man continued their conversation. There had been no introduction to the foreigner and no indication of where they were going. Apart from his two days at Las Palmas, this was the first time Seb had been on a foreign shore. The calls at Accra and Lagos to unload goods from England and take on bags of produce had been watched from the ship and permission had been refused for him to go ashore.
Somewhere Seb had read the words of Sir Francis Drake, ‘the fairest Cape in the world’. He took in with awe at the beauty of mountain and sea, the calls of seagulls and strange seabirds, and the sea being whipped up where the strong south-easter was unguarded by the towering mountain.
Soon the harbour was left behind and the track went around the bay away from the houses. A mile later the cabbie swung the horse to the left through two white entrance pillars onto a private driveway that rose up towards a large bungalow set against the mountain. In front were tended rose gardens and lawns with strange tall trees Seb had never seen before growing to either side of the house. The sign across the top of the two white pillars had read Oude Kraal. The perfect blue sky framed the mountains that framed the white house. As the cab drove up the front drive, Seb could smell the roses in the terraced gardens that dropped down to the great rocks and the sea three hundred feet below the slope. Seb was told to get out of the cab. Empty of passengers, the cab turned around and the horse trotted away. Seb followed the two men into the house. The foreigner seemed quite at home but Seb had no idea who the house belonged to. A barefoot, red-fezzed servant offered Seb a glass of wine. The toast to Captain Brigandshaw before they drank surprised him. The foreigner had proposed the toast. Seb kept quiet while plates of lobster were put out on the low tab
les.
The wine was different to the Spanish sherry he had sometimes been allowed when growing up. The colour was pale yellow, the taste sweet and rich with fruit. To Seb’s surprise the lobster, as red as any he had seen from the shores of Britain, were free of claws. Putting down the glass of wine on the table, Seb pulled at the white meat offering itself from the slit belly of the Cape lobster. The taste was even better than an English lobster. Unthinking, he began to eat his way through the plate of food, dipping the sweet white flesh into the sauce dishes with his fingers. No one took any notice, so he started on the second plate of food and tried not to think of Emily on his birthday. Lost in the woods of England, Seb continued to eat, clearing all but the shells. The two men ten paces down the veranda had not even noticed his devastation of the food. The wine they had drunk was making them laugh. There were uneaten plates of food on the table with their bottle of wine. Far over the water, the sun was sinking into the sea, layering the heavens with shades of gold. The wind was still whipping foam out of the sea. If necessary he would sleep in the wicker chair and dream of England.
Tinus Oosthuizen’s cheroots were sweet-smelling and augmented the taste of the wine. Both men were watching the last of the sun, silent with admiration. The seascape sky had gone from gold to orange and red, with a pocket of duck egg blue that showed the way to heaven. For five perfect minutes, they watched the light go out across the sea.
“The beauty of God,” Tinus said loudly to himself. “The lad’s fast asleep.”
“The glory of youth,” said Captain Doyle. “Six thousand miles from home. Thrown out of house and hearth by his father. Broken his heart on a girl. And there is youth. A good two plates of crayfish, one good glass of Chenin Blanc and fast asleep without the trace of a snore. They told me to take him away and not bring him back for a year and a half. Just before we sailed, Arthur, the eldest brother, brought him on board. What am I going to do with the lad? I can’t make him a sailor ’cause he’s The Captain’s son and I can’t make him an officer as he knows nothing about ships. From here to India he’ll go mad with boredom if he doesn’t jump over the side… He’ll wake eventually from the cold. As you know, once the sun goes down in winter the temperature drops quickly.”
“Get the Hottentot to cover him with a blanket. He’ll be sleeping in peace by the look of him. Pity to let him wake.”
When the servant brought the third bottle of wine, he put a heavy blanket over the sleeping boy. The light had almost gone. The two men took their wine inside where a log fire was burning.
“Can the boy ride a horse?” asked Tinus, standing in front of the fire.
“Why do you ask?”
“Shoot a gun? He wouldn’t be bored hunting elephant.”
“But he might be dead and then what do I say to The Captain?”
“Ships go down. There was a risk. The boy’s company would be good.”
“He’s only a lad.”
“He’ll be a man before we cross the Limpopo River.”
2
February 1888
Sebastian Brigandshaw and Tinus Oosthuizen watched in fascinated horror. The witch doctor had careened at speed from the king’s cattle kraal to stand motionless before the line of men. The skin of a spotted hyena hung down her back, the skull without the lower jawbone clutching her head. Jackal tails dangled from her waist and crocodile teeth from her ankles. The king, seated in an armchair presented by one of the white concession seekers, paid the hag no attention. Seb, from seventy yards, caught a repulsive sweet smell that came from the half-crouched hag as she walked down the line of men. Behind Lobengula stood the king’s executioner. The hag crabbed her way down the front of the men and then began the search from behind. Darting forward, she smelt a man from his shoulder blades to his feet. The total silence in the king’s kraal made Seb more frightened than any uproar. The man being smelt out shivered the length of his body. The witch doctor gave a low cackle and moved on behind the line, stopping at the king’s general to smell for evil. The man, the second most powerful man after the king in the land conquered by the Matabele, began to shiver with fear. The hag went round him in a crouch and looked up at his face. Backing away from the man while the king, the only person to move, put a bowl of beer to his mouth and drank, the witch doctor screamed and flung out her hand at the man, pointing a finger, making the hackles rise on the back of Seb’s neck. The king’s executioner moved with practised speed and hit the king’s general just behind his right ear with a knobkerrie made of teak, exploding the man’s head and sending the soft inside thirty feet in front of the dead man even before he fell to the floor. Seb turned away to be sick and a strong hand gripped his elbow.
“Don’t flinch, lad,” whispered Tinus as the hag rushed back to the king’s cattle kraal through the gap in the thorn thickets that locked the nation’s treasure.
The king waved a flywhisk and called for a new bowl of beer. The standing men dispersed as quickly as their dignity and fear allowed them. The dead man was left where he had dropped and the flies found the leftovers of his brain and crawled inside the big nostrils that were oozing with thick blood.
“Why?” asked Seb as normality returned to the king’s kraal.
“In a tribe that lives by war, there can only be one king. The general had been too successful. The smelling out is a charade, a way to keep the people in constant fear. The king had fingered the man long before that show of the witch doctor’s power. That hag is the only person in the kingdom feared by the king. Only through her can he kill his most powerful rivals. There will be no audience with the king today for you and me. We shall wait. In Africa, there is always time.”
Quietly they backed out away from the space in front of the king’s kraal, away from the great jackalberry tree that shaded the king as he filled his vast belly with beer. Seb suspected the springs in the armchair had broken long ago.
Walking through the mopane trees to their wagon, Seb wished he was back in the English countryside where nothing threatened his peace of mind. Above the trees, high in the powder blue sky, tufted clouds hung motionless. The main rains had been due for weeks.
They had taken the train to Kimberley with Tinus Oosthuizen’s horse in the horse wagon at the back of the train. From Kimberley they had ridden unencumbered to the new gold mining town of Johannesburg. The horse bought for Seb was salted and able to go through tsetse fly country without falling sick. They had ridden across the veld, sleeping under trees and eating strips of salted dried beef. Once they shot a springbok and roasted the carcass but Tinus was in a hurry.
The wagon and six oxen were waiting for Tinus on a farm eight miles north of the mining camp, and had been brought back to Johannesburg to stock for the hunting trip to the north. Tinus’s horse nuzzled the lead oxen. They were the Boer’s only family.
The trek north took them along the banks of the Limpopo River to Bain’s Drift where they crossed into the land of the Bechuana. The main rains had not broken and the river crossing was simple. Without pause, Tinus had headed north for Gu-Bulawayo, across the Maklautsi and Shashe rivers to seek permission to hunt elephant from Lobengula.
They had been in Gu-Bulawayo eleven days before they were granted an audience. It was the day after the general’s brains had been knocked out of his head. Tinus pulled out a long box from the back of the wagon. There were leather straps on either side of the box and it was heavy.
“The only currency he understands,” said Tinus as they lifted the box together. “Guns. The reason he likes the whites. With guns he can maintain his power forever, and they are worth more than any herd of elephant to the king.”
“The British made it illegal to sell guns to the natives.”
“The Boer has spent his history trekking from authority. Here Lobengula is the law.”
“How many?”
“There are three guns, old guns with powder and shot. Chances are they will kill more Matabele than anything else.”
There was no sign of the genera
l’s remains when they presented the guns to the king. Tinus showed the king how to load one of the muzzleloaders and killed a vulture that had gorged on the general’s body. The bird was too heavy to fly. The king laughed with great excitement and would have hugged Tinus if he had been able to move the great bulk of his body out of the armchair.
Permission was given to hunt in the land of the Shona.
The next morning the six oxen pulled the wagon northeast from Gu-Bulawayo, the horses on a loose rein at the back of the wagon. Tinus Oosthuizen was more excited than a schoolboy given permission to shoot his first rabbit. He was free to roam the bush.
The rains came in the second week of their journey into the hinterland. Tinus made camp on the high bank of a dried-up river and extended the side of the wagon with waterproof canvas. The covered wagon was dry inside, the canopy having been carefully patched while they waited for Lobengula. Behind the camp stretched the mopane forest with thorn trees along the bank of the dry river. In the middle of the river sand, a great hole had been dug by elephants for water.
“They dig with their trunks. We wait now and we don’t shoot elephant. This is still Matabeleland. Lobengula considers the land of the Shona his hunting ground. His sphere of influence as you British would say. This rain will last for weeks. Make yourself comfortable.”
The next morning the river was a raging torrent.
There was little of Seb that Emily would have recognised. The thin man had developed powerful shoulders from pulling the wooden spokes of the wagon wheels to help the straining oxen through rivers and over kloofs. The ponytail had parted and dropped long hair to his shoulders. Where the leather hat given to him by Tinus failed to keep out the sun, the brown hair had bleached to a ragged white. His face, that so few years ago had sprouted his first bumfluff, was a full beard. The most striking change after his shoulders were the muscles on his thighs and calves, pounded week after week by straining at the wheel. For something to do as much as anything else, he now smoked the occasional cheroot.