by Peter Rimmer
“The Honourable Barnaby St Clair, at your service, ma’am.”
Then they were laughing with joy.
The round Africa voyage of the SS King Emperor brought Harry Brigandshaw and his party to the port of Beira in Portuguese Africa. They had left Tilbury docks in the Port of London seven weeks earlier. The rains were over; the bushveld was green and the air comparatively cool. When their train climbed out of the lowveld to the high plains of Southern Rhodesia, it was autumn, the best time of the year.
Mr and Mrs Jack Merryweather were the first of the passengers to disembark. The rails of the ship were crowded with passengers and crew. All were smiling and clapping. The ship’s orchestra was playing Mendelssohn’s wedding march. Captain Hosey, the Manxman from Castletown in the Isle of Man, his full grey-flecked beard perfectly clipped, smiled down on the bride and groom he had married an hour before the shipped docked. As captain of the ship, he had the power of the civil authority to throw a man in irons or pronounce a couple man and wife. It had been a good voyage from England, with good winds around the Cape of Good Hope, the ‘Cape of Storms’, the two great funnels belching black smoke in a steady line most of the voyage. Their only storm had been in the Bay of Biscay, soon after leaving the English Channel. It was the first time he had performed a marriage on board. And the first time he had seen a tiny daughter dressed as a bridesmaid at her mother’s wedding. The seamstress that had run up the little dress was well commended. Mary, Jack and Fay’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter made not a sound throughout the wedding. Harry Brigandshaw had given away the bride. Robert St Clair had been the best man. The reception was going to take place in the dining car of the Rhodesia Railways train taking them into Salisbury. There were now eight grown-ups in the party, Merlin having attached himself to a young girl from Chelsea travelling alone to Salisbury, on her way to a posting as secretary to the Governor of Southern Rhodesia, a shipboard romance that had started soon after leaving the shores of England.
Glen Hamilton helped Robert St Clair down the gangplank. His book was due out in the spring lists. Lucinda followed behind her brother, hand in hand with Harry. Merlin and his new girlfriend came next. From the dock, Fay turned back to look up at the ship. When she caught sight of Lucinda, her hands went wet and her mouth went dry. Her mother’s iron-bound wooden trunk with its studs was coming down the service gangplank on a sailor’s shoulder, not ten feet on the other side of Lucinda, and for the moment of her shudder, Lucinda’s head melted into the trunk where the sun caught them both from behind.
“What’s the matter, Mummy?” asked Mary.
As the child asked, the sailor stumbled, the small wooden trunk fell from his shoulder, going over and over, until it hit the dockside below and shattered. Her mother’s gipsy clothes, the long earrings, the pointed shoes, a myriad of bracelets, broke out of the smashed trunk and scattered on the dock. They watched in horror as a sailor ran down to gather up the contents of the broken trunk, helped by a Portuguese policeman. It was the most dangerous omen she had ever witnessed in her life. All that was her mother was exposed for all by the glaring African sun. Breaking away from Jack, she ran to the dockside and retched into the narrow stretch of water between the wooden dock and the towering metal side of the SS King Emperor.
Barend Oosthuizen had known for weeks when Harry was coming home. If he was going it had to be before Harry arrived. What he hated more than anything that had happened in his life was being stuck on a farm in the wilderness with a pack of screaming children and a mother who watched him every moment of her day. They all knew the old man wanted her to warm the old man’s bed, but even living on the other side of what had been the whole of Elephant Walk with Sir Henry Manderville was too far away from her darling son. And Barend knew better than anyone he was no darling, that the right thing to do was kick the thieving foreman off the farm and do the job himself properly… He hated farming. The slowness. The hours in the sun. The months between planting and reaping and seeing if all the work had been worthwhile. He hated always watching the sky for rain and when it rained for a week on end, watching for the sun. He was hemmed in. Claustrophobic. With all the space, there was no space for him. And Madge, taking all the horrible things he did without giving him a good slap on the face. She was not his childhood companion. His muse. His love. His friend… She was his lackey wife, and he hated it.
The stores he would need for a ride back to the Namib Desert and the search for his diamonds were locked in a shed with the two new saddles. The two horses he would take had been well fed and groomed. He had had the farrier out especially from Salisbury, much to everyone’s surprise. He was ready. All he had to do was tear himself away from his family and ride for his life away into the bush.
The one thing Barend Oosthuizen hated most in life was any kind of responsibility. Though he never admitted it even to himself.
Mervyn Braithwaite had called three times on the Salisbury office of Colonial Shipping to find out the progress of the SS King Emperor. He had been in Africa for three months, waiting his chance now the war was over. He had found a room close to Annie’s Shack, a whorehouse in central Salisbury, and the whores he despised, seeing their outward smile and their inner content. The passenger list had been a surprise and the thought of killing all of them warmed his heart and calmed his craving. He hated the American for knowing he was sane. He was ready, like a good pilot, to pounce on his enemies from out of the sun.
The night before the boat train was due into Salisbury from Beira, he indulged himself with one of the whores. She was black. Very black. The owner catered to all tastes. The place was run-down. Seedy. The carpets pocked with burn marks from cigars and cigarettes. The rooms were all the same. One cheap band in one big bar.
Mervyn had found nothing in his wanderings. Only loneliness. The young girls in South America had been no more interested in living with him than Sara Wentworth. And she haunted him. More than all the dead German pilots put together. The service revolver waiting for him in his room was a Webley, similar to the one that had flown with him during the war.
The girl, when he left her, locked her door, shivering uncontrollably. For two hours she was sure the man with the wet eyes was going to kill her. He had not even paid her a bonus. She heard his feet echo down the carpetless corridor and made up her mind. Despite the money, despite the rich men who wanted her, she was going home to her rural village. Before the pig of an owner found her dead in her bed and tossed her into the street for the stray dogs to gnaw upon.
Before Mervyn Braithwaite reached his anonymous room she left Annie’s Shack for the last time, running in the night for her life, calling on all her ancestors to give her protection. Before the sun came up she was three miles out of Salisbury on the same winding path of the road that led to Elephant Walk. She neither saw nor heard the leopard as it dropped out of the tree as she passed underneath in her flight. Razor-sharp teeth tore out her throat before she could scream… The leopard dragged her carcass deep into the bush. She was a small girl, and the big cat carried her in his mouth, only her shoeless feet trailing in the grass.
When the sun came up most of her flesh had been eaten away.
Jack Merryweather made up his mind as the boat train pulled its way across the big veld four thousand feet above sea level deep in the African bush. It was the most beautiful countryside he had seen. The sky was powder blue. White, motionless clouds. Lush bush, green still from the last of the rains, watered with rivers, and streams. Game every which side of the train he looked. Ranges of distant mountains, hued a rich pink by the rising sun, later shimmering in the new heat of the day. He had forgotten how beautiful it was. Out of the carnage of battle, it was a balm to his soul. Beside him, Fay’s eyes were shining at what she saw passing outside the carriage window. His daughter Mary was silent, taking in the herds of game, her thumb clamped in her mouth in rich contentment.
“Why don’t we make this our home?” he said.
The American opposite had his eyes
closed and was either asleep or did not hear. Harry Brigandshaw gave Jack a broad smile and squeezed Lucinda’s hand. For some reason, Robert chuckled. Merlin was in another carriage with his new girlfriend on her way to work for the governor.
“Good,” said Fay.
He waited a long moment but that was all she said. Just the one word. Good. He smiled past her to again look out of the window at the rolling countryside. The clacking of metal wheels on metal rails sang in his ears. All the horror was behind them.
An hour before the boat train was due at the station, Sallie Barker was walking back from her doctor’s rooms to the Johannesburg offices of Serendipity Mining and Explosives Company. In the one block walk either way her life had changed forever. She was going to be a mother. Her one was going to be two. There was a person growing inside her she loved already with a passion she had never known before.
Back in the office of her company, she walked straight to his door and threw it open without so much as a knock.
“Hello, Dad!”
Albert looked up. Then it dawned on him as she grinned stupidly. Slowly he rose from his chair, the smile rising on his face.
“We’d better get married, Bert!”
“Today or tomorrow?”
“Maybe we can give it a week.”
“Are you sure?”
“The doctor is.”
“Special permit. Right now. Before you change your mind.”
“All right,” said Sallie Barker. “You know, I never thought I’d have children.”
“Neither did I. Not with you, anyway… My mother said to me the best things in life are worth waiting for. As was so often with my mother, she was right… And tomorrow we’ll both take the day off.”
“You think we should?”
“When you’re Mrs Pringle, you’ll do as I say.”
“Like hell I will.”
The Oosthuizen children were running riot on the platform ten minutes before the boat train was due at Salisbury Station. Everyone was there except Barend: Emily, excited to see her son after so many years of war; Sir Henry, glad of the chance to talk to Alison. The third child in a pram watched over by Madge. Everyone was fidgeting, the months of expectation coming to a head. The three-year-old girl was dodging in and around the legs of the large crowd waiting to meet the passengers.
“Mother, please help. She’ll get on the track… Now where’s she gone?… Please help! And Tinus! Come here. Please, Tinus.”
Alison, ever good with children other than her own, caught the boy by the hand, and then his sister. The boy howled with rage. His grandmother took no notice now she had him in a firm grip.
The afternoon sun was hot. The women wore big floral hats. Outside the station building, a line of motor cars was intermingled with tethered horses, traps, carriages and bicycles. A strong smell of horse manure mingled with the ladies’ perfume. Black porters with two-wheeled trolleys waited patiently.
Someone at the end of the platform gave a shout and everyone turned to look. Emily heard the puffing from the train and held her breath. Then the train came into sight around the long curve in the railroad, the cowcatcher front of the engine black and powerful.
Tembo left the horses where they were and joined the crowd as the train puffed its way into the station. He stood at the back, a large grin on his face. He and Harry Brigandshaw had known each other for most of their lives. The train gave a sharp whistle before grinding to a halt. People in front were shouting greetings to people on the train.
Harry and Lucinda had the carriage window down and were leaning out looking for the family. Glen Hamilton had got up and was looking over them. Merlin, leaning out of his own window in the next carriage was shouting over the noise at his sister. Robert was still sitting, keeping the weight off his wooden foot for as long as possible. Fay had picked up Mary to look out of the window. Jack Merryweather was smiling at his family, planning the cattle farm he was going to buy and the great house he was going to build.
Harry saw his mother and shouted louder than everyone. The family was still twenty yards up the platform but they heard. Harry saw his grandfather take off his bush hat in salute. Then he saw Madge and waved. There was Alison, his old nurse, his sister’s mother-in-law. He had never before seen his sister’s children. Harry had the catch of the door open and pushed the heavy door. He got down first, putting his arms up to Lucinda for her to come down to him.
Glen Hamilton saw the face and wondered why something was so familiar in a crowd so far from anything he knew. The man’s eyes were bulging and wet, the face squashed. The man was looking straight at him from twenty feet. Even before the gun came into view Glen knew what was happening. The gun fired twice in quick succession, the bullets hurling Lucinda back into the train. Glen fell back against Jack as a third bullet crashed into the back of the carriage. When Glen recovered to look out, Mervyn Braithwaite and his gun were gone.
Harry had not even seen who fired the shots that killed his wife.
For the first time when he killed, Mervyn Braithwaite had not said a word. A black man had him from behind, arms around his throat, but nothing else mattered. He had taken his revenge on Harry Brigandshaw by killing his wife. When the police took him away he was still smiling.
They buried Lucinda on the farm Sebastian Brigandshaw had called Elephant Walk. Her brothers went straight home to Purbeck Manor after the funeral with the American, Glen Hamilton. There had seemed no reason for them to stay any longer.
The day after the funeral, Jack and Fay Merryweather returned with their daughter to Meikles Hotel. There was nothing they could do for Harry. Words were useless.
“Are you going to live here, Jack? I hope so,” said Harry, trying to change the course of his mind.
“What are you going to do, Harry?”
“I know where Barend is going. I’m going to catch up with him. Only the bush can help me now. Barend and I have never had to talk too much together and that will be good.”
“Will you come back?”
“Oh, yes. We both will. Here is our family. This is our house and always will be.”
“What have they done with him?”
“Back in irons to England. To Banstead. To the lunatic asylum.”
“But he’s not mad. Glen was quite sure.”
“Does it really matter now?… Did you know she was pregnant?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Maybe that’s something I won’t tell my mother… I was going to ask her about my father and when I was born. Now it doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing seems to matter, Jack. You see what I mean? You look after Fay and Mary.”
Three weeks later Harry Brigandshaw caught up with Barend Oosthuizen on the banks of the Zambezi River. He was going to use his geology degree, at last, to find the diamond pipe in the Namib Desert. What they were going to do with the money he had no idea. It was just something to do. To stop his brain shattering into pieces.
Three days later they crossed the big river on a raft they had made for themselves, watched by a troop of baboons. Barend had lost a father. He had lost a wife. He was not sure which was worse.
They rode on together, side by side.
Principal Characters
The Brigandshaws
Harry — The central character of Elephant Walk and son of Sebastian and Emily
Sebastian and Emily — Harry’s parents, central characters in Echoes from the Past
Madge — Harry’s long-suffering sister
George — Harry’s younger brother
Sir Henry Manderville — Emily’s father and Harry’s potty grandfather
Nathanial and James — Harry’s uncles
Mathilda Brigandshaw — Harry’s paternal grandmother
The St Clairs
Robert — Harry’s university friend and son of Lord St Clair
Richard — Eldest son of Lord St Clair
Lucinda — Robert’s youngest sister who is in love with Harry
Annabel and Genevie
ve — Robert’s other sisters
Frederick, Merlin and Barnaby — Robert’s other brothers
Ethelbert, Seventeenth Baron St Clair — Robert’s father
Lady St Clair (Bess) — Robert’s mother
Granny Forrester (Nettie) — Lady St Clair’s mother
Sir Willoughby Potts — Cousin to Granny Forrester
The Pringles
Albert — Manservant to Jack Merryweather
Mr and Mrs Pringle — Albert’s parents
Tina Pringle — Albert’s sister
Edward, Walter, Billy and Maggie — Albert’s other siblings
The Oosthuizens
Barend — Son of Tinus and Alison, and Harry’s childhood friend
Tinus — Barend’s father (deceased) central character in Echoes from the Past
Alison — Barend’s mother
Katinka (Tinka) — Barend’s sister
Other Principal Characters
Jack Merryweather — Wealthy but bored friend of Robert and Harry
Sallie Barker — Beautiful friend and business partner of Albert