by Wilbur Smith
“By Jesus, boy, you’ve had a busy morning. Don’t tell me the rest of your tribulations, let me guess. You were attacked by a French ship-of-the-line, and charged by a wounded hippo.” Tom roared with delight at his own wit. “Anyway, how much did you get for a carthorse-sized steenbras?” he demanded.
“Eight silver guilders.”
Tom whistled. “It must have been a monster.” Then his expression became serious. “Ain’t no excuse, lad. I didn’t give you the week off. You should have been back hours ago.”
“I haggled with the purser of the Dutch ship,” Jim told him. “He will take all the provender we can send him—and at good prices, Papa.”
A shrewd expression replaced the laughter in Tom’s eyes. “Seems you ain’t wasted your time. Well done, lad.”
At that moment a fine-looking woman, almost as tall as Tom, stepped out of the kitchens at the opposite end of the courtyard. Her hair was scraped up into a heavy bun on top of her head, and the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up around her plump sun-browned arms. “Tom Courtney, don’t you realize the poor child left this morning without breakfast? Let him eat a meal before you bully him any more.”
“Sarah Courtney,” Tom shouted back, “this poor child of yours isn’t five years old any longer.”
“It’s your lunchtime too.” Sarah changed tack. “Yasmini, the girls and I have been slaving over the stove all morning. Come along now, all of you.”
Tom threw up his hands in capitulation. “Sarah, you’re a tyrant, but I could eat a buffalo bull with the horns on,” he said. He came down off the veranda and put one arm around Jim’s shoulders, the other round Mansur’s and led them towards the kitchen door, where Sarah waited for them with her arms powdered to the elbows with flour.
Zama took the team of mules and led them out of the courtyard towards the stables. “Zama, tell my brother that the ladies are waiting lunch for him,” Tom called after him,
“I will tell him, oubaas!” Zama used the most respectful term of address for the master of High Weald.
“As soon as you have finished eating, you get back here with all the men,” Jim warned him. “We have to pick and load a cargo of vegetables to take out to the Lucky Seagull tomorrow.”
The kitchen was bustling with women, most of them freed house slaves, graceful, golden-skinned Javanese women from Batavia. Jim went to embrace his mother.
Sarah pretended to be put out, “Don’t be a great booby, James,” but she flushed with pleasure as he lifted her and bussed her on both cheeks. “Put me down at once and let me get on.”
“If you don’t love me then at least Aunt Yassie does.” He went to the delicate, lovely woman who was wrapped in the arms of her own son. “Come now, Mansur! It’s my turn now.” He lifted Yasmini out of Mansur’s embrace. She wore a long ghgr skirt and a col blouse of vivid silk. She was as slim and light as a girl, her skin a glowing amber, her slanting eyes dark as onyx. The snowy blaze through the front of her dense dark hair was not a sign of age: she had been born with it, as had her mother and grandmother before her.
With the women fussing over them, the men seated themselves at the top of the long yellow-wood table, which was piled with bowls and platters. There were dishes of bobootie curry in the Malayan style, redolent with mutton and spices, rich with eggs and yoghurt, an enormous venison pie, made with potatoes and the meat of the springbuck Jim and Mansur had shot out in the open veld, loaves of bread still hot from the oven, pottery crocks of yellow butter, jugs of thick sour milk and small beer.
“Where is Dorian?” Tom demanded, from the head of the table. “Late again!”
“Did someone call my name?” Dorian sauntered into the kitchen, still lean and athletic, handsome and debonair, his head a mass of copper curls to match his son’s. He wore high riding boots that were dusty to the knees, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. He spun the hat across the room, and the women greeted him with a chorus of delight.
“Quiet! All of you! You sound like a flock of hens when a jackal gets into the coop,” Tom bellowed. The noise subsided almost imperceptibly. “Come on, sit down, Dorry, before you drive these women wild. We are to hear the tale of the giant steenbras the boys caught, and the deal they have done with the VOC ship lying out in the bay.”
Dorian took the chair beside his brother, and sank the blade of his knife through the crust of the venison pie. There was a sigh of approval from all of the company as a fragrant cloud of steam rose to the high stinkwood beams of the ceiling. As Sarah spooned the food on to the blue willow-pattern plates the room was filled with banter from the men, giggles and spontaneous demonstrations of affection from the women.
“What’s wrong with Jim Boy?” Sarah looked across the table, and raised her voice above the pandemonium.
“Nothing,” said Tom, with the next spoonful half-way to his mouth. He looked sharply at his only son. “Is there?”
Slowly silence settled over the table and everyone stared at Jim. “Why aren’t you eating?” Sarah demanded with alarm. Jim’s vast appetite was a family legend. “What you need is a dose of sulphur and molasses.”
“I’m fine, just not hungry.” Jim glanced down at the pie he had barely touched, then at the circle of faces. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to die.”
Sarah was still watching him. “What happened today?”
Jim knew she could see through him as though he was made of glass. He jumped to his feet. “Please excuse me,” he said, pushed back his stool and stalked out of the kitchen into the yard.
Tom lumbered to his feet to follow him, but Sarah shook her head. “Leave him be, husband,” she said. Only one person could give Tom Courtney orders, and he subsided obediently on to his stool. In contrast to the mood of only moments before, the room was plunged into a heavy, fraught silence.
Sarah looked across the table. “What happened out there today, Mansur?”
“Jim went aboard the convict ship in the bay. He saw things that upset him.”
“What things?” she asked.
“The ship is filled with women prisoners. They had been chained, starved and beaten. The ship stinks like a pig-sty,” Mansur said, repugnance and pity in his voice. Silence descended again as they visualized the scene Mansur had described.
Then Sarah said softly, “And one of the women on board was young and pretty.”
“How did you know that?” Mansur stared at her with astonishment.
Jim strode out through the archway and down the hill towards the paddock at the edge of the lagoon. As the track emerged from the trees he put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. The stallion was a little separated from the rest of the herd, grazing on the green grass at the edge of the water. He threw up his head at the sound, and the blaze on his forehead shone like a diadem in the sunlight. He arched his neck, flared his wide Arabian nostrils and stared across at Jim with luminous eyes. Jim whistled again. “Come, Drumfire,” he called. “Come to me.”
Drumfire glided from a standstill into a full gallop in a few strides. For such a large animal he moved with the grace of an antelope. Just watching him Jim felt his black mood begin to evaporate. The animal’s coat gleamed like oiled mahogany and his mane streamed out over his back like a war banner. His steel-shod hoofs tore chunks out of the green turf with the thunder of rapid fire from a massed battery of cannon, the sound for which Jim had named him.
Riding against the burghers of the colony and the officers of the cavalry regiment, Jim and Drumfire had won the Governor’s Gold Plate last Christmas Day. In doing so Drumfire had proved he was the fastest horse in Africa, and Jim had spurned an offer of two thousand guilders for him from Colonel Stephanus Keyser, the commander of the garrison. Horse and rider had won honour but no friends that day.
Drumfire swept down the track, running straight at Jim. He loved to try to make his master flinch. Jim stood his ground and, at the very last instant, Drumfire swerved so close that the wind of his passing ruffled Jim’s hair. Then he came to a de
ad stop on braced front legs, nodding and neighing wildly.
“You great showman,” Jim told him. “Behave yourself.” Suddenly docile as a kitten Drumfire came back and nuzzled his chest, snuffling at the pockets of his coat until he smelt the slice of plum cake. “Cupboard love,” Jim told him firmly.
Drumfire pushed him with his forehead, gently at first but then so demandingly that Jim was lifted off his feet. “You don’t deserve it, but…” Jim relented and held out the cake. Drumfire drooled into his open palm as he picked up every last crumb with velvet lips. Jim wiped his hand on the shining neck, then laid one hand on the horse’s withers and leaped lightly on to his back. At the touch of his heels, Drumfire glided again into that miraculous stride, and the wind whipped tears from the corners of Jim’s eyes. They raced along the edge of the lagoon, but when Jim touched him behind the shoulder with his toe the stallion did not hesitate. He turned and plunged into the shallows, startling a shoal of mullet into brief flight like a handful of spinning silver guilders across the green surface. Abruptly Drumfire was into the deep and Jim slipped into the water beside him as he swam. He grasped a handful of the long mane, and let the stallion tow him along. Swimming was another of Drumfire’s great joys and the horse gave loud grunts of pleasure. As soon as he felt the bottom of the far shore under the horse’s hoofs Jim slid on to his back again, and they burst out on to the beach at full stride.
Jim turned him down towards the seashore, and they crossed the high dunes, leaving deep hoofprints in the white sand, and went down the other side to where the surf crashed on to the beach. Without check Drumfire galloped along the edge of the water, running first on the hard wet sand, then belly deep through salt water as the waves came ashore. At last Jim slowed him to a walk. The stallion had galloped away his black mood, his anger and guilt left on the wind. He jumped up and stretched to his full height on Drumfire’s back, and the horse adjusted his gait smoothly to help him balance. This was just one of the tricks they had taught each other.
Standing high Jim gazed out over the bay. The Meeuw had swung on her anchor so that she lay broadside to the beach. From this distance she looked as honest and respectable as a burgher’s goodwife, giving no outward sign of the horrors hidden within her drab hull.
“Wind’s changed,” Jim told his horse, who cocked an ear back to listen to his voice. “It’ll blow up a hell-storm in the next few days.” He imagined the conditions below the decks of the convict ship if she were still anchored in the bay, which was open to the west, when it came. His black mood was returning. He dropped back astride Drumfire and rode on at a more sedate pace towards the castle. By the time they arrived below the massive stone walls his clothing had dried, although his velskoen boots made of kudu skin were still damp.
Captain Hugo van Hoogen, the quartermaster of the garrison, was in his office beside the main powder magazine. He gave Jim a friendly welcome, then offered him a pipe of Turkish tobacco and a cup of Arabian coffee. Jim refused the pipe but drank the dark, bitter brew with relish—his aunt Yasmini had introduced them all to it. Jim and the quartermaster were old accomplices. It was accepted between them that Jim was the unofficial go-between of the Courtney family. If Hugo signed a licence stating that the Company was unable to supply provisions or stores to any ship in the bay, then the private chandler designated in the document was allowed to make good the shortfall. Hugo was also an avid fisherman, and Jim related the saga of the steenbras, to a chorus from Hugo of “Ag nee, man!” and “Dis nee war nee! It’s not true!”
When Jim shook hands with him and took his leave, he had in his pocket a blank licence to trade in the name of Courtney Brothers Trading Company. “I will come and drink coffee with you again on Saturday.” Jim winked.
Hugo nodded genially. “You will be more than welcome, my young friend.” From long experience he knew that he could trust Jim to bring his commission in a little purse of gold and silver coin.
Back in the stables on High Weald Jim rubbed Drumfire down, rather than letting one of the grooms do the job, then left him with a manger of crushed corn, over which he had dribbled molasses. Drumfire had a sweet tooth.
The fields and orchards behind the stables were filled with freed slaves gathering in the fresh produce destined for the Meeuw. Most of the bushel baskets were already filled with potatoes and apples, pumpkins and turnips. His father and Mansur were supervising the harvest. Jim left them to it, and went down to the slaughterhouse. In the cavernous cool room, with its thick, windowless walls, dozens of freshly slaughtered sheep carcasses hung from hooks in the ceiling. Jim drew the knife from the sheath on his belt and whipped the blade, with practised strokes, across the whetstone as he went to join his uncle Dorian. To prepare all the produce they needed to supply to the ship, everyone on the estate had to help with the work. Freed slaves dragged in fat-tailed Persian sheep from the holding pen, held them down and pulled back their heads to expose the throats to the stroke of the knife. Other willing hands lifted the dead animals on to the hooks and stripped off the bloody fleeces.
Weeks ago, Carl Otto, the estate butcher, had filled his smokeroom with hams and sausages for just such an opportunity. In the kitchens all the women from eldest to youngest were helping Sarah and Yasmini to bottle fruit and pickle vegetables.
Despite their best efforts it was late in the afternoon before the convoy of mule carts was fully loaded and had set off down to the beach. The transfer of the provisions from the carts to the beached bumboats took most of the rest of the night, and it was almost dawn before they were loaded.
Despite Jim’s misgivings the wind had not increased in strength and the sea and surf were manageable as the mule teams dragged the heavily laden boats down the sand. The first glimmer of dawn was in the eastern sky by the time the little convoy was on its way. Jim was at the tiller in the leading boat and Mansur was on the stroke oar.
“What have you got in the bag, Jim?” he asked, between strokes.
“Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies.” Jim glanced down at the waterproof canvas bag that lay between his feet. He kept his voice low so that his father did not overhear. Luckily Tom Courtney, who stood in the bows, had fired so many heavy muskets in his long career as a hunter that his hearing was dull.
“Is it a gift for a sweetheart?” Mansur grinned slyly in the darkness, but Jim ignored him. That arrow was too near the bullseye for comfort. Jim had carefully packed into the bag a bundle of salted, sun-dried venison, the ubiquitous biltong of the Cape boers, ten pounds of hard ship’s biscuit wrapped in a cloth, a folding knife and a triangular-bladed file that he had pilfered from the estate workshop, a tortoiseshell comb, which belonged to his mother, and a letter written on a single sheet of paper in Dutch.
They came up to the Meeuw, and Tom Courtney hailed her in a bull bellow: “Longboat with supplies. Permission to hook on?”
There was an answering shout from the ship and they rowed in, bumping lightly against the tall hull.
With her long legs folded under her, Louisa Leuven sat on the hard deck in the noisome semidarkness that was lit only by the feeble light of the fighting-lanterns. Her shoulders were covered with a single thin cotton blanket of the poorest quality. The gunports were closed and bolted. The guards were taking no chances: with the shore so close, some of the women might take the risk in the cold green currents, undeterred by the possibility of drowning or being devoured by the monstrous sharks that were attracted to these waters by the swarming seal colony on Robben Island. While the women had been on deck that afternoon the cook had thrown overboard a bucket of guts from the red steenbras. The head gaoler had pointed out to his prisoners the triangular fins of the sharks as they sped in to snatch these bloody morsels.
“Don’t any of you filthy slatterns get ideas of escape,” he cautioned them.
At the beginning of the voyage Louisa had claimed for herself this berth under one of the huge bronze cannon. She was stronger than most of the other wizened undernourished convicts and, of
necessity, she had learned how to protect herself. Life on board was like being in a pack of wild animals: the women around her were every bit as dangerous and merciless as wolves, but shrewder and more cunning. At the beginning Louisa knew she had to procure a weapon so she had managed to prise loose a strip of the bronze beading from under the carriage of the cannon. She had spent long hours of the night stropping this against the cannon barrel until it had a sharp double stiletto edge. She tore a strip of canvas from the hem of her shift and wrapped it round the hilt to make a handle. She carried the dagger, day and night, in the pouch she wore strapped around her waist under the canvas shift. So far she had been forced to cut only one of the other women.
Nedda was a Frieslander, with heavy thighs and bottom, fat arms and a pudding face covered with freckles. She had once been a notorious whore-mistress for the nobility. She had specialized in procuring young children for her rich clients, until she became too greedy and tried to blackmail one. On a hot, tropical night as the ship lay becalmed a few degrees south of the equator, Big Nedda had crept up on Louisa in the night, and pinned her down under her suffocating weight. None of the gaolers or any of the women had come to Louisa’s rescue as she screamed and struggled. Instead they had giggled and egged Nedda on.
“Give it to the high and mighty bitch.”
“Listen to her squealing for it. She loves it.”
“Go on, Big Nedda. Shove your fist up that prim royal poesje.”
When Louisa felt the woman prise her legs apart with a fat knee, she reached down, slipped the blade out of its pouch and slashed Nedda’s chubby red cheek. Nedda howled and rolled off her, clutching the deep, spurting wound. Then she crept away, sobbing and moaning, into the darkness. During the next few weeks the wound had festered, and Nedda had crouched like a bear in the darkest recess of the gundeck, her face swollen to double its size, pus leaking out through the dirty bandage, dripping yellow and thick as cream from her chin. Since then Nedda had kept well clear of Louisa, and the other women had learned from her example. They left her well alone.