by Wilbur Smith
‘I say, that isn’t necessary, you know,’ murmured Sebastian.
‘My poor village welcomes you,’ whimpered M’topo. Bitterly he recriminated himself for thus being taken unawares. He had not expected the tax expedition for another two months, and had taken no pains with the disposal of his wealth. Buried under the earthen floor of his hut was nearly a thousand silver Portuguese escudos and half again as many golden Deutschmarks. The traffic of his villagers in dried fish, netted in the Rovuma river, was highly organized and lucrative.
Now he dragged himself pitifully to his old knees and signalled two of his wives to bring forward stools and gourds of palm wine.
‘It has been a year of great pestilence, disease and famine,’ M’topo began his prepared speech, when Sebastian was seated and refreshed. The rest of it took fifteen minutes to deliver, and Sebastian’s Swahili was now strong enough for him to follow the argument. He was deeply touched. Under the spell of palm wine and his new rosy outlook on life, he felt his heart going out to the old man.
While M’topo spoke, the other villagers had dispersed quietly and barricaded themselves in their huts. It was best not to draw attention to oneself when candidates for the rope were being selected. Now a mournful silence hung over the village, broken only by the mewling of an infant and the squabbling of a pair of mangy mongrels, contesting the ownership-of a piece of offal.
‘Manali,’ impatiently Mohammed interrupted the old man’s catalogue of misfortune. ‘Let me search his hut.’
‘Wait,’ Sebastian stopped him. He had been looking about, and beneath the single baobab tree in the centre of the village he had noticed a dozen or so crude litters. Now he stood up and walked across to them.
When he saw what they contained, his throat contracted with horror. In each litter lay a human skeleton, the bones still covered with a thin layer of living flesh and skin. Naked men and women mixed indiscriminately, but their bodies so wasted that it was almost impossible to tell their sex. The pelvic girdles were gaunt basins of bone, elbows and knees great deformed knobs distorting the stick-like limbs, each rib standing out in clear definition, the faces were skulls whose lips had shrunk to expose the teeth in a perpetual sardonic grin. But the real horror was contained in the sunken eye cavities; the lids were fixed wide open – and the eyeballs glared like red marbles. There was no pupil nor iris, just those polished orbs the colour of blood.
Sebastian stepped back hurriedly, feeling his belly heave and the taste of it in his throat. Not trusting himself to speak, he beckoned for M’topo to come to him, and pointed at the bodies in the litters.
M’topo glanced at them without interest. They were so much part of the ordinary scene that for many days he had not consciously been aware of their existence. The village was situated on the edge of a tsetse fly belt, and since his childhood there had always been the sleeping sickness cases lying under the baobab tree, deep in the coma which precedes death. He could not understand Sebastian’s concern.
‘When … ?’ Sebastian’s voice faltered, and he swallowed before going on. ‘When did these people last eat?’ he asked.
‘Not for a long time.’ M’topo was puzzled by the question. Everybody knew that once the sleeping time came they never ate again.
Sebastian had heard of people dying of starvation. It happened in places like India, but here he was confronted with the actual fact. A revulsion of feeling swept over him. This was irrefutable proof that all M’topo had told him was true. This was famine as he had not believed really could exist – and he had been trying to extort money from these people!
Sebastian walked slowly back to his stool and sank down upon it. He removed the heavy helmet from his head, held it in his lap and sat staring miserably at his own feet. He was helpless with guilt and compassion.
Flynn O’Flynn had reluctantly provided Sebastian with one hundred escudos as travelling expenses to meet any emergency that might arise before he could make his first collection. Some of this had been expended on the hire of canoes to cross the Rovuma, but there was still eighty escudos left.
From his hip-pocket, Sebastian produced the tobacco pouch containing the money and counted out half of it. ‘M’topo,’ his voice was subdued. ‘Take this money. Buy food for them.’
‘Manali,’ screeched Mohammed in protest. ‘Manali. Do not do it.’
‘Shut up!’ Sebastian snapped at him, and prodded the handful of coins towards M’topo. Take it!’
M’topo stared at him as though he offered a live scorpion. It was as unnatural as though a man-eating lion had walked up and rubbed itself against his leg.
Take it,’ Sebastian insisted impatiently, and in disbelief, M’topo extended his cupped hands.
‘Mohammed,’ Sebastian stood up and replaced his helmet, ‘we’ll move on immediately to the next village.’
Long after Sebastian’s column had disappeared into the bush again, old M’topo squatted alone, clutching the coins, too stunned to move. At last he roused himself and shouted for one of his sons.
‘Go quickly to the village of Saali, who is my brother. Tell him that a madman comes to him. A German lord who comes to collect the hut tax and stays to offer gifts. Tell him …’ here his voice broke as though he could not believe what he was about to say,’ … tell him that this lord should be shown the ones who sleep, and that the madness will then come upon him, and he will give you forty escudos of the Portuguese. And, furthermore, there will be no hangings.’
‘Saali, my uncle, will not believe these things.’
‘No,’ M’topo admitted. ‘It is true that he will not believe. But tell him anyway.’
– 25 –
Saali received the message from his elder brother, and it induced in him a state of terror bordering on paralysis. M’topo, he knew, had a vicious sense of humour – and there was between them that matter of the woman Gita, a luscious little fourteen-year-old who had deserted the village of M’topo within two days of taking up her duties as M’topo’s junior wife, on the grounds that he was impotent and smelled like an hyena. She was now a notable addition to Saali’s household. Saali was convinced that the true interpretation of his brother’s message was that the new German commissioner was a rampaging lion who would not be content with merely hanging a few of the old men but who might extend his attentions to Saali himself. Even should he escape the noose, he would be left destitute; his carefully accumulated hoard of silver, his six fine tusks of ivory, his goat herd, his dozen bags of white salt, the bar of copper, his two European-made axes, the bolts of trade cloth – all of his treasures gone! It required an heroic effort to rouse himself from the stupor of despair and make his few futile preparations for flight.
Mohammed’s Askari caught him as he was heading for the bush at a trot, and when they led him back to meet Sebastian Oldsmith, the tears that coursed freely down his cheeks and dripped on to his chest were genuine.
Sebastian was very susceptible to tears. Despite the protests of Mohammed, Sebastian pressed upon Saali twenty silver escudos. It took Saali about twenty minutes to recover from the shock, at the end of which time he, in turn, shocked Sebastian profoundly by offering him on a temporary basis the unrestricted services of the girl, Gita. This young lady was witness to the offer made by her husband, and was obviously whole-heartedly in favour of it.
Sebastian set off again hurriedly, with his retinue straggling along behind him in a state of deep depression. Mohammed now had a bad case of the mutters.
Drums tap-tap-tapped, runners scurried along the network of footpaths that crossed and criss-crossed the bush; from hilltop to hilltop men called one to the other in the high-pitched wail that carries for miles. The news spread. Village after village buzzed with incredulous excitement, and then the inhabitants flocked out to meet the mad German commissioner.
By this time Sebastian was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was carried away with the pleasure of giving, delighted with these simple lovable people who welcomed him sincerely and pressed humbl
e little gifts upon him. Here a scrawny fowl, there a dozen half-incubated eggs, a basin of sweet potatoes, a gourd of palm wine.
But Santa Claus’s bag, or, more accurately, his tobacco pouch, was soon empty – and Sebastian was at a loss for some way to help alleviate the misery and poverty he saw in each village. He considered issuing indulgences from future tax … the bearer is hereby excused from the payment of hut tax for five years … but realized that this was a lethal gift. He shuddered at what Herman Fleischer might do to anybody he caught in possession of one of these.
Finally he struck on the solution. These people were starving. He would give them food. He would give them meat.
In fact, this was one of the most desirable commodities Sebastian could have offered. Despite the abundance of wild life, the great herds of game that spread across the plains and hills, these people were starved for protein. The primitive hunting methods they employed were so ineffectual, that the killing of a single animal was an event that happened infrequently, and then almost by accident. When the carcass was shared out among two or three hundred hungry mouths, there was only a few ounces of meat for each. Men and women would risk their lives in attempting to drive a pride of lions from their kill, for just a few mouthfuls of this precious stuff.
Sebastian’s Askari joined in the sport with delight. Even old Mohammed perked up a little. Unfortunately, their marksmanship was about the same standard as Sebastian’s own, and a day’s hunting usually resulted in the expenditure of thirty or forty rounds of Mauser ammunition, and a bag of sometimes as little as one half-grown zebra. But there were good days also, like the memorable occasion when a herd of buffalo virtually committed suicide by running down on the line of Askari. In the resulting chaos one of Sebastian’s men was shot dead by his comrades, but eight full-grown buffalo followed him to the happy hunting grounds.
So Sebastian’s tax tour proceeded triumphantly, leaving behind a trail of empty cartridge cases, racks of meat drying in the sun, full bellies, and smiling faces.
– 26 –
Three months after crossing the Rovuma river, Sebastian found himself back at the village of his good friend, M’topo. He had by-passed Saali’s in order to avoid the offended Gita.
Sitting alone in the night within the hut that M’topo placed at his disposal, Sebastian was having his first misgivings. On the morrow, he would begin the return to Lalapanzi, where Flynn O’Flynn was waiting for him. Sebastian was acutely aware that from Flynn’s point of view the expedition had not been a success – and Flynn would have a great deal to say on the subject. Once more Sebastian puzzled on the fates which took his best intentions, and manipulated them in such a manner that they became completely unrecognizable from the original.
Then his thoughts kicked off at a tangent. Soon, the day after tomorrow, if all went well, he would be back with Rosa. The deep yearning that had been his constant companion these last three months throbbed through Sebastian’s whole body. Staring into the wood-fire on the hearth of the hut, it seemed as though the embers formed a picture of her face, and in his memory he heard her voice again.
‘Come back, Sebastian. Come back soon.’
And he whispered the words aloud, watching her face in the fire. Gloating on each detail of it. He saw her smile, and her nose wrinkled a little, the dark eyes slanted upwards at the corners.
‘Come back, Sebastian.’
The need of her was a physical pain so intense that he could hardly breathe, and his imagination reconstructed every detail of their parting beside the waterfall. Each subtle change and inflection of her voice, the very sound of her breathing, and the bitter salt taste of her tears upon his lips. He felt again the touch of her hands, her mouth – and through the wood-smoke that filled the hut, his nostrils flared at the warm woman smell of her body.
‘I’m coming, Rosa. I’m coming back,’ he whispered, and stood up restlessly from beside the fire. At that moment his attention was jerked back to the present by a soft scratching at the door of the hut.
‘Lord. Lord.’ He recognized old M’topo’s hoarse croaking.
‘What is it?’
‘We seek your protection.’
‘What is the trouble?’ Sebastian crossed to the door and lifted the cross-bar. ‘What is it?’
In the moonlight M’topo stood with a skin blanket draped around his frail shoulders. Behind him a dozen of the villagers huddled in trepidation.
‘The elephant are in our gardens. They will destroy them before morning. There will be nothing, not a single stalk of millet left standing.’ He swung away and stood with his head cocked. ‘Listen, you may hear them now.’
It was an eerie sound in the night, the high-pitched elephant squeal, and Sebastian’s skin crawled. He could feel the hair on his forearms become erect.
‘There are two of them.’ M’topo’s voice was a scratchy whisper. Two old bulls. We know them well. They came last season and laid waste our corn. They killed one of my sons who tried to drive them off.’ In entreaty, the old man clawed hold of Sebastian’s arm and tugged at it. ‘Avenge my son, lord. Avenge my son for me, and save our millet that the children will not go hungry again this year.’
Sebastian responded to the appeal in the same manner that St George would have done.
In haste he buttoned his tunic and went to fetch his rifle. On his return he found his entire command armed to the teeth, and as eager for the hunt as a pack of foxhounds. Mohammed waited at their head.
‘Lord Manali, we are ready.’
‘Now, steady on, old chap.’ Sebastian had no intention of sharing the glory. ‘This is my shauri. Too many cooks, what?’
M’topo stood by, wringing his hands with impatience, listening alternately first to the distant sounds of the garden raiders feeding contentedly in his lands, and then to the undignified wrangling between Sebastian and his Askari, until at last he could bear it no longer. ‘Lord, already half the millet is eaten. In an hour it will all be gone.’
‘You’re right,’ Sebastian agreed, and turned angrily on his men. ‘Shut up, all of you. Shut up!’
They were unaccustomed to this tone of command from Sebastian, and it surprised them into silence.
‘Only Mohammed shall accompany me. The rest of you go to your huts and stay there.’
It was a working compromise, Sebastian now had Mohammed as an ally. Mohammed turned on his comrades and scattered them before falling in beside Sebastian.
‘Let us go.’
At the head of the main gardens, high on its stilts of poles, stood a rickety platform. This was the watch-tower from which, night and day, a guard was kept over the ripening millet. It was now deserted, the two young guards had left hurriedly at the first sight of the garden raiders. Kudu or waterbuck were one thing, a pair of bad-tempered old elephant bulls were another matter entirely.
Sebastian and Mohammed reached the watch-tower and paused beneath it. Quite clearly now they could hear the rustling and ripping sound of the millet stalks being torn up and trampled.
‘Wait here,’ whispered Sebastian, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, as he turned to the ladder beside him. He climbed slowly and silently to the platform, and from it, looked out over the gardens.
The moon was so brilliant as to throw sharply defined shadows below the tower and the trees. Its light was a soft silver that distorted distance and size, reducing all things to a cold, homogeneous grey.
Beyond the clearing the forest rose like frozen smoke clouds, while the field of standing millet moved in the small night wind, rippling like the surface of a lake.
Humped big and darker grey, standing high above the millet, two great islands in the soft sea of vegetation, the old bulls grazed slowly. Although the nearest elephant was two hundred paces from the tower, the moon was so bright that Sebastian could see clearly as he reached forward with his trunk, coiled it about a clump of the leafy stalks and plucked them easily. Then swaying gently, rocking his massive bulk lazily from side to side, he beat the mi
llet against his lifted foreleg to shake the clinging earth from the roots before lifting it and stuffing it into his mouth. The tattered banners of his ears flapped gently, an untidy tangle of millet leaves hanging from his lips between the long curved shafts of ivory, he moved on, feeding and trampling so that behind him he left a wide path of devastation.
On the open platform of the tower, Sebastian felt his stomach contracting, convulsing itself into a hard ball, and his hands on the rifle were unsteady; his breathing whistled softly in his own ears as the elephant thrill came upon him. Watching those two huge beasts, he found himself held motionless with an almost mystic sense of awe; a realization of his own insignificance, his presumption in going out against them, armed with this puny weapon of steel and wood. But beneath his reluctance was the tingle of tight nerves – that strange blend of fear and eagerness – the age-old lust of the hunter. He roused himself and climbed down to where Mohammed waited.
Through the standing corn that reached above their heads, stepping with care between the rows so that they disturb not a single leaf, they moved in towards the centre of the garden. Ears and eyes tuned to their finest limit, breathing controlled so that it did not match the wild pump of his heart, Sebastian homed in on the crackle and rustle made by the nearest bull.
Even though the millet screened him, he could feel the weak wash of the wind move his hair softly, and the first. whiff of elephant smell hit him like an open-handed blow in the face. He stooped so suddenly that Mohammed almost bumped into him from behind. They stood crouching, peering ahead into the moving wall of vegetation. Sebastian felt Mohammed lean forward beside him, and heard his whisper breathed softer than the sound of the wind. ‘Very close now.’
Sebastian nodded, and then swallowed jerkily. He could hear clearly the soft slithering scrape of leaves brushing against the rough hide of the old bull It was feeding down towards them. They were standing directly in the path of its leisurely approach, at any moment now – at any moment!