The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set

by Peter Rimmer

  After Jack’s two elder brothers joined the family firm of solicitors, it was left to Jack and his younger brothers to use their training to help govern the empire. He was twenty-four years old when the office of the Colonial Secretary seconded him to the British South Africa Company to make certain they complied with the rules set down in the Royal Charter. It was a splendid way of making the men of business pay for the administration of the empire. Clive had gone about expanding the empire in India, Brooke in Sarawak and now Rhodes in Africa. And the rules said the Charter Company, as it was now being called, had the right of protection over the indigenous people, provided the company enabled the missionaries to do their work and convert the heathens to Christianity. Their rights included the land and what was below and above the land, which included the animals. When the young man at the front desk had brought the horrible little man into his office, who had proceeded to sneak on someone taking ivory out of the new country, his instinct had been to throw Jeremiah Shank straight out again.

  His upbringing overcame his dislike for the man with the crooked nose and drooping eyelid. If one rule could be broken, then so could the rest. A blind eye turned to a breach of the rules was the equivalent of taking a bribe, and for the British civil servant that was the worst crime that could be perpetrated against the empire. Honesty was the first rule of them all.

  Half an hour later, accompanied by the young policeman who had first spoken to Jeremiah, he rode out of Fort Salisbury to arrest the wagonload of ivory. They were the rules. The owner of the ivory would be given a fair hearing as to why he was not in possession of the permit, a fact that Jack Slater was certain of because no one had yet been given the right to hunt. Everyone had been more interested in finding the gold in King Solomon’s mines.

  Unaware of anything untoward, Tinus Oosthuizen in the lead wagon, with his left hand resting comfortably on Alison Ford’s knee, was enjoying the pungent smell of wild sage and the sight of a herd of buffalo whose heads, and sometimes part of their backs, was visible as they moved through the long grass looking for choice grazing. The idea of a farm and family was foremost in his mind, with a tug of war between land in this new country, or a farm with his fellow Boers in the Transvaal Republic or the Republic of the Orange Free State. Even though his mother had been from Scotland and a major influence on his life, his reading of English books and his command of the English language, never once had he considered himself anything other than a Boer of Dutch descent. He was an African Oosthuizen as his family had been for seven generations, for over two hundred years. One of the first tasks on the new farm, wherever it was to be, was to teach Alison how to speak the Taal, the Dutch van Riebeeck had brought to the Cape in the seventeenth century. Tinus let his thoughts meander and realised he was happier than he had been for all of his years.

  The buffalo were the first to spook and Tinus took his hand away from Alison’s knee to have them both on the reins. The grass was so tall the predator lions could be anywhere, and Tinus searched the bush with a practised eye for the head of a lioness. Back in the cool shade of a tree the lion would be waiting. The buffalo were properly spooked and were running through the long grass, pushing a cloud of dust up into the sky. Puzzled, Tinus looked again but there were no lionesses leaping through the grass in pursuit of their quarry. The crash of hundreds of hooves pounding the dry earth was so loud they obliterated the sound of the crickets singing in the grass. Tinus brought the oxen to a halt and watched the spectacle.

  “You own this ivory, sir?” said a young man on horseback who had ridden up on his right, away from Alison. Tinus turned slowly to look at the Englishman and told him to mind his own business in the Taal.

  “Sorry, old chap. Don’t speak that lingo. Do you speak English by any chance? Name’s Jack Slater from the Charter Company. I believe, sir, you don’t have a licence to shoot our elephant.”

  Tinus cracked the rawhide whip over the lead oxen and the wagon lumbered forward again. He pressed Alison’s knee telling her to keep quiet. An emptiness had found its way into the pit of his stomach: the English again; why his people had made the Great Trek out of the Cape to be free of British rule. The young man on his right was joined by a second young rider, this one in uniform. Then a third horseman came up and Tinus looked into the sneering eyes of the man with a crooked face. One of the man’s eyes drooped half shut and the hollow in Tinus’s stomach became a certainty: this was no accident.

  The young policeman rode to the front of the team of eight oxen and, with a quiet expertise, took hold of the onside leading ox by jumping off his horse onto its back. He then tried to bring the animal to a halt with little success. For Tinus, the target was too great a temptation and before he could control his temper, the long thong of his whip curled out and cut a hole in the man’s starched uniform making him scream with pain. In the commotion, Sebastian caught up with the lead wagon.

  “I say, do you speak English?” asked Jack Slater, appalled at the unprovoked attack on the policeman.

  “Of course. Why did your man try to stop this wagon?”

  “Carrying ivory without a permit.”

  Instead of becoming more annoyed, Sebastian smiled to himself. Now he understood. There was a new law in the land and the laws had to be complied with. The men were doing their job as they thought best.

  “Tinus, bring the wagon to a halt.”

  “So he does speak English?” said Jack Slater.

  “Of course he does. His mother was a Scot.” Sebastian climbed down from the box in front of his wagon and walked across to the policeman slumped over the lead oxen, blood staining the back of his uniform. The buffalo were far away in the distance, still in full stampede.

  “You all right, old chap?” asked Sebastian. “My partner was a bit hasty.”

  “That hurt.”

  “He’s a bit of an expert, so to speak. Can I help you down? My wife has some iodine. It will sting but stop any trouble. Now, what’s all this about? You see, we have a permit. A very valid and at the time a very important permit from Lobengula. We left to hunt long before you chaps invaded the country. You can’t arrest a chap for a crime he hasn’t done, now can you? And if you don’t believe we wasted three weeks at Gu-Bulawayo, you can ask Lobengula yourself, but that probably would not be wise. He still thinks this country belongs to him. All you have is the right to prospect for minerals. So you see we are complying with the law. Lobengula’s law. But if you go and ask him he might just bash your head in with a knobkerrie. Saw him do that to his top general. Nasty mess. Whole head split open. Dead before the poor chap hit the ground. So be a good fellow, can you, and put in a proper report after my wife has looked at your back? Sorry about that, I really am.”

  The policeman, still in pain, slid off the back of the ox and Seb helped him to the ground.

  Jack Slater had also heard the conversation and was duly relieved. Now he had an excuse. The rules had not been broken. These people had come into the country before the Pioneer Column had crossed the Shashe River.

  “Well, that clears it up,” he said thankfully. “Apology accepted. How bad is that back, old chap? Oh, that’s a nasty gash. ’Fraid you’ll have a scar but all in the line of duty. I’ll put that in my report to the company. So, there we are. No permit required. You will, of course, apply for one when you come back again. You may find it easier, old chap, instead of lugging all that stuff down to Cape Town. The rules are, we give you a permit to hunt provided you sell the ivory to the company. Saves you all the trouble. You shoot the poor old elephants and we find a market for the ivory. That way everyone is happy. Better than having your brains knocked out by a savage, I’d say.”

  Seb had quickly noticed the man with the crooked face had not said a word but every time Seb looked in his direction, the half-hooded eye was watching him, the expression malicious. By the look of the small man he was neither a policeman nor did he seem, like a man who had spent his life indoors. The more Seb’s glance returned to the man the more Seb was
sure he was a seaman. The face away from the bent nose and drooping eyelid had been seared by sun and wind. He had the same dried-up-looking skin as Seb’s own father, and when his horse moved its head down to eat the new green shoots at the stem of the dry grass, the man stretched out his left hand, forcing his sleeve to ride up to his elbow and show an anchor tattooed on his arm. For Seb, the coincidence was too great. This man staring at him with such malicious intent had been sent by his father, the man who always said he would never be gainsaid. With a sharp surge of adrenaline running through his brain, Seb was certain the ivory was not the problem but the way by which the seaman had convinced the company man to bring a policeman out in pursuit of him. It was also obvious to Seb that the seaman was not of the other two men’s class.

  “Look, while my wife’s looking after your man, why don’t we make camp here and boil some coffee? We have all been in the bush for a long time and you can tell us what has been happening. I gather Rhodes has come into the country, that much is clear, but what is the news from England? What do you think of my son… Mister?”

  “Jack Slater.”

  “Sebastian Brigandshaw. Harry here is probably the only white man in your new country who speaks the local lingo.”

  “He speaks Zulu?” said Jack Slater surprised, falling into the ploy.

  “No, Shona, the language of the tribes hereabouts. Over the decades the Zulus of Mzilikazi and Lobengula only raided these people. Stole their grain and cattle. We saved that young lad over there from the assegais. The Matabele killed the rest of his family and he’s been with us ever since. He looks after my son and taught him Shona… You’d better take that shirt right off and have my wife wash your wound. Tinus, come and meet some new friends of ours. We are all going to have some coffee and a bit of a chat. Mr Jack Slater, meet my very best friend, Tinus Oosthuizen, and the shy lady who is still up on the box is his wife, Alison. Please forgive how we look but there aren’t exactly barbers on the banks of the Zambezi River. And this is my wife Emily, who will now make Florence Nightingale look like a lady who had never nursed anyone in her life. Healing hands, has my darling Emily. Soon, my friend, you will wish you had more than one cut, the pleasure of being looked after by Mrs Brigandshaw will be so great.”

  “That’s the man,” interrupted Jeremiah Shank, pointing at Seb and taking the policeman by the right elbow. “He’d be Sebastian Brigandshaw wanted for kidnapping. You ’ave ’is picture on your wall, Constable. Now arrest him.” The five shillings’ worth of elocution lessons had left him in his excitement. Even if he had lost his reward for the ivory, five hundred pounds from Captain Brigandshaw was definitely his; the journey to Africa had been well worth his while.

  Seb gave the man a look up and down and then down and up and put on his best air of indignation.

  “Why don’t you trot off back to Fort Salisbury?” said Jack Slater to Jeremiah Shank. “Come here, lad. Is this your father?”

  “Daddy, what’s the man saying?”

  “He wants to know if you’re my son.”

  Shyly, Harry put his thumb in his mouth and buried his head against Seb’s thigh.

  “Mr Shank,” said Jack Slater. “Please leave this company. One wild-goose chase is enough for one day. How can this man have possibly kidnapped his own son?”

  “Excuse me, madam, but are you Mrs Brigandshaw?” persisted Jeremiah.

  “Yes,” replied Emily in all truthfulness.

  “Please Mr Shank, please trot along,” said Jack Slater losing his patience. “You’ve been rather a bore. This man is obviously a gentleman.”

  The slight chuckle from Tinus changed to a cough. Five minutes later the coffee was boiling over the small wood fire. The policeman had had his wound attended to and the smell of iodine mingled with the coffee and the woodsmoke.

  With the men sitting around the fire, Alison and Emily went off behind the big wagon where they held each other to suppress their giggles of relief.

  An hour later the posse left them to continue the journey south in the morning.

  That night the new moon smiled down on the wagons. The smell of wild sage was stronger at night and fireflies were flitting through the grass looking for their mates, and Emily felt the new baby stirring in her belly.

  3

  June 1891

  What struck Henry Manderville most was all the people. They had caught a steamship from Cape Town to England and in their hurry to catch the first boat leaving for home, they boarded a large cargo vessel that proceeded to stop at every available port. In St Helena alone, they spent three days kicking their heels. Finally, at Waterloo station, there were the London crowds: hordes of people going in every direction possible, all with a purpose and a destination. The noise and bustle after months in the African bush were continuous: train whistles, steam engines huff-huffing and billowing sulphurous smoke, the shouts of guards echoing under the great roof of the railway station at the heart of the greatest empire on earth.

  Gregory Shaw would have stayed at the Naval and Military Club if they had not blackballed him for his love affair in India, and Henry Manderville, poor until he had sold his daughter, had never had the money for a London club. Gregory’s family lived in Nottingham and neither of them had relatives in the capital.

  “Why don’t we rent a flat in Mayfair, old boy?” said Gregory as they stood in the station concourse with their luggage and nowhere to go. “I think we may be here for months and I have some plans of my own. Somewhere close to the Cape Royal. All that tramping around in Africa not spending money. Same for you, old boy. We can spend in three months what we would have spent in a year.”

  “Are you going up to Nottingham?”

  “Probably not. My parents are rather ashamed of me. Father said he would never mention my name. Fact is, were it not for Grandfather’s will, yours truly would be poor as a church mouse. Father would have loved to have cut me off. So there we are. Lots of lovely lolly in London waiting for the charm of Gregory Shaw.”

  “You mean the ladies of London.”

  “It has been a long time. Fact is, I have a mind to find a wife. That farm on our own will be lovely, old boy. I’m thirty-seven and fancy creating a dynasty. The Shaws of Africa. Such a nice ring.”

  “Who on earth would go and live in the bush?”

  “I’ve no idea but I’m going to find out. Wouldn’t do you any harm yourself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m nearly forty.”

  “Had a friend in the Indian Army. Said there was always old cheese for old cheese. Now if Methuselah could bend down and pick up his luggage, we could find a cab. We don’t even have enough baggage for a porter. We should have some lunch and a bottle of wine and then I will think more clearly. I’m going to have six children. The Pirate can wait one more day for his comeuppance.”

  Arthur Brigandshaw wished he had never heard of Cecil John Rhodes. For a week he had not been to the office and had holed up in the Baker Street house that no longer belonged to him. In late October of the previous year, when the Charter Company shares had peaked, he had gone again to his bank manager and, with a smirk, laid his Charter Company share certificate on the table and borrowed ninety per cent of its stock market value to buy more Charter shares. On the Tuesday with the new shares, he did the same thing. And with greed propelling his certainty of great wealth, he followed the same procedure on the Wednesday and Thursday. On the following Monday, the shares began to go the other way when the first gold rush in the new country they were calling Rhodesia proved fruitless. The telegraph had by then reached Fort Salisbury, so the rumours reached London soon after the first Pioneers said they were wasting their time prospecting for gold. By Wednesday, Arthur was broke and by Friday, as the Charter shares went into free fall with everyone including Rhodes and Beit dumping shares, he owed the bank manager eighty thousand pounds he did not have. By the time Henry arrived at Waterloo station, Arthur was about to be declared a bankrupt. For eight months he and the bank manager had hoped the shares
would go up again, that someone would strike gold in the land of Ophir, the legendary land of King Solomon’s mines, that someone would quickly find the gold reefs that were going to make the new Witwatersrand look poor. Then the bank manager was fired and the new man tried to force The Captain to bail out his eldest son and failed.

  “The lad got himself in muck. Lad can get himself out of muck. Teach him a lesson. That lad’s been nothing but trouble these last couple of years. Put him in jail for all I care but you ain’t getting a brass farthing from me. I made my money. Worked for it. You should do the same, Mr Bank Manager, without bothering me. Lad’s of age. Nought to do with me.”

  “He’s your son.”

  “And it’s your money he’s lost not mine. You and your bank are just as stupid as he is. Lending the lad money to gamble. Oh, I know, you thought his father would stand guarantee. Bloody likely. Now go and do your work. Now is the time to buy Charter shares when they’re worth near nothing. Rhodes won’t let a country with his name on it go down the drain. Mark my words. Fact is, you’ve given me a good idea. Maybe you haven’t wasted my time after all.”

  At the age of fifty-one, Tilda Brigandshaw, the mother of the four boys, looked like a little old lady. She lived mostly in her memories. The Captain had not touched her for fifteen years. Arthur never visited Hastings Court, not even when Emily was having the child. Nathanial was too busy doing good in the slums of London and preparing to go out to Africa as a missionary. Captain James Brigandshaw, her third and snooty son, would cut his mother dead in the street if she found him with his army friends, and Sebastian, her favourite, had been sent out of England and was now being hounded by his father and the police. Tilda had tried with Emily but she was so in awe of the daughter of a baronet that she found it difficult to communicate.