by Wilbur Smith
He went up on to the stoep and hammered on the front door with his fist, and heard the blows reverberate through the room beyond. Beside him, the Boerhound cocked its head and watched him expectantly, but silence settled again over the old building.
Twice more Zouga beat upon the door, before he. tried the handle. it was locked. He rattled the brass lock and put his shoulder to the door; but it was heavy teak in a solid frame. Zouga jumped down off the stoep and circled the house, squinting his eyes at the fierce reflected sunlight from the white-washed walls. The windows were shuttered.
Beyond the farmyard stood the old slave quarters, now used by Harkness" servant, and Zouga called loudly for him, but his room was deserted and the ashes cold in the cooking place. Zouga went back to the main house and stood by the locked kitchen door.
He knew that he should go back to his horse and ride away, but he needed the map, even if just for long enough to make a copy. Harkness was not here, and in three days, perhaps less, he would be sailing out of Table Bay.
There was a pile of broken rusted garden tools in the corner of the stoep. Zouga selected a hand scythe, and carefully probed the metal point of the blade into the crack between jamb and door. The lock was old and worn, the tongue slipped back easily under the blade and he jerked the door open with his free hand.
It was still not too late. He paused in the doorway for many seconds, and then he took a deep breath and stepped quietly into the gloom of the interior.
There was a long passage leading past closed doors towards the front room. Zouga. went down it, opening doors quietly as he passed. In one room was a huge fourposter bedstead with the curtains opened and the. bed clothes in disorder.
Quickly Zouga passed on to the main room. It was in semi-darkness and he stopped to let his eyes adjust, and immediately was aware of a low sound. The hivemurmur of insects seemed to fill the high room. It was a disturbing, almost menacing sound, and Zouga felt the skin prickle on his forearms. Mr. Harkness! " he called hoarsely, and the hum rose to a loud buzzing. Something alighted on his cheek and crawled across his skin. He struck it away with a shudder of revulsion and stumbled across to the nearest window. His fingers were clumsy on the fastening of the shutters. A shaft of white sunlight burned into the room as the shutter swung open.
Thomas Harkness sat in one of the carved wingback chairs across the cluttered table, and stared at Zouga impassively.
The flies crawled over him, big metallic blue and green flies that glittered in the sunlight. They swarmed with evident glee upon the deep dark wound in the centre of his chest. The snowy beard was black with clotted blood, and blood had formed a congealed pool beneath his chair.
Zouga was rooted by the shock for many seconds, and then reluctantly he took a step forward. The old man had propped one of his big-bored elephant guns against the table le& reversing the weapon so the muzzle pressed into his own chest and his hands were still locked around the barrel. What did you do that for? " Zouga demanded stupidly, speaking aloud, and Harkness stared back at him.
Harkness had removed the boot from his right foot, and depressed the trigger with his bare toe. The massive impact of the heavy lead ball had driven the chair and the man in it back against the wall, but he had retained his death grip on the barrel. That was a stupid thing to do. " Zouga took a cheroot from his case and lit it with a Swan Vesta. The smell of death was in the room, coating the back of his throat and the roof of his mouth. Zouga drew deeply on the tobacco smoke.
There was no reason at all to feel grief. He had known the old man for a single day and night. He had come here for one reason only, to get the map the best way he was able. It was ridiculous now to have the deep ache of sorrow turning his legs leaden and stinging the backs of his eyes. Was he mourning the passing of an era perhaps, rather than the man himself? Harkness and the legends of Africa were interwoven. The man had been history itself.
Slowly Zouga approached the figure in the chair, and then reaching out drew his palm slowly down over the old face, ruined by the elements and by pain, closing the lids down over the staring black eyes.
The old man looked more peaceful that way.
Zouga hooked one leg over the corner of the cluttered table, and smoked the cheroot slowly, in almost companionable silence with Thomas Harkness. Then he dropped the stub in the big copper spittoon beside the chair and went through to the bedroom.
He took one of the blankets off the bed and brought it back.
He brushed the flies away into an angry buzzing circle, and threw the blanket over the seated figure. As he drew it up over the head, he murmured softly, "Get in close, old man, and go for the heart, the advice that Harkness had given him as a farewell. Then he turned away briskly to the laden table, and began shuffling through the jumbled pieces of canvas and paper, and slowly his impatience turned to alarm, and then to panic as he hunted through pile after pile without finding the map.
He was panting when at last he straightened up and glared at the blanket-covered figure. You knew I was coming for it, didn't you!
He left the table and went to the chest, lifted the lid against groaning hinges and the leather bag with its golden contents was gone also. He ransacked the chest down to its floorboards, but it was not there. Then he started to search in earnest, going carefully through any possible hiding-place in the crowded room. An hour later he went back and perched on the edge of the table once more.
13-arrin you, for a cunning old bastard, he said quietly.
He took one more slow look about the room, making certain that he overlooked nothing. The painting of the lion hunt was no longer on the easel, he noticed.
Suddenly the humour of the situation struck him, and his scowl lightened, he began to chuckle ruefully to himself.
You had the last joke on the Ballantynes, didn't you?
By God, but you always did things your way, Tom Harkness, I'll grant you that."
He stood up slowly, and placed his hand on the blanket-covered shoulder. "You win, old man. Take your secrets with you then. " He could feel the twisted old bones through the cloth and he shook him gently and then he went out quickly to his horse for there was much to do.
It took him the rest of the day to cross the neck again and reach the magistrate's court, then to get back with the coroner and his assistants.
They buried Thomas Harkness that evening, wrapped in the blanket, under the milkwood grove, for the heat was oppressive in the valley and they could not wait for a coffin to be carted out from the city.
Zouga left the coroner to take charge of the estate, to list the equipment and livestock in the yard and put his seals on the doors of the old house until the contents could be taken in.
Zouga rode home in the golden Cape dusk, his boots dusty and his shirt sticky with sweat. He was exhausted from the day's exertions, and low in spirits, still oppressed by grief for the old man, and angry with him for the last trick he had played.
The groom took his horse in front of the bungalow. Did you deliver the letter to Captain Codrington? " Zouga demanded, and hardly waited for the reply as he went up into the house. He needed a drink now, and while he poured whisky into a cut crystal glass, his sister came into the room, and reached up casually to kiss his cheek, wrinkling her nose at the tickle of his whiskers and the smell of his sweat. You had best change. We are dining with the Cartwrights tonight, Robyn told him. "I could not avoid it."
And then as an afterthought, "Oh, Zouga, a coloured servant delivered something for you this morning. just after you had left. I had it put in the study. "Who is it from? " Robyn shrugged. "The servant spoke only kitchen Dutch and he seemed terrified. He fled before I could find someone to question him."
With the whisky glass in his hand Zouga crossed to the door of the study, and stopped there abruptly. His expression changed, and he strode through the doorway.
Minutes later Robyn heard his shout of triumphant laughter, and curiously she crossed to the open door.
Zouga stood beside
the heavy carved stinkwood desk.
On the desk-top lay a draw-string bag of tanned and stained leather from which spilled a heavy necklace of gleaming gold; beside the bag was spread a magnificently illustrated map on a backing of linen parchment, and Zouga stood with his back to her. He held at arm's length a flamboyant picture in oils in a large frame, a figure on horseback with a band of ferocious wild animals in the foreground, and as she watched, Zouga reversed the picture. There was a message freshly carved into the wood of the frame.
For Zouga Ballantyne. May you find the road to all your Monomatapas, would only that I could have gone with you.
Tom Harkness.
Zouga was laughing still, but there was a strange quality to the laughter and when he turned towards her she realized with a shock that her brother's eyes were bright with tears.
Zouga brushed the crumbs from his lips with the damask table napkin and chuckled as he picked up the sheet of newsprint and shook it open again at the second page. Damn me, Sissy, I should have known better than to leave you alone. " He read further and laughed outright. Did you really say that to him? Did you really? "I cannot remember my exact words, " Robyn told him primly, "you must remember it was in the heat of battle."
They sat on the terrace of the bungalow under the pergola of vines, through which the early sun flicked golden coins of light upon the breakfast table.
The previous day the editor of the Cape Times, with a speculator's eye to making a profit on Dr. Robyn Ballantyne's notoriety, had invited her on a tour of the military hospital at Observatory, and in innocence, Robyn had believed that the visit was at the invitation of the Colony's administration and she had welcomed the opportunity to widen her professional experience.
The visit had succeeded beyond the editor's most extravagant expectations, for the surgeon-general of the Colony had scheduled a tour for the same day and he had walked into the hospital's main operating room, followed by his staff, at the moment that Robyn was expressing herself on the subject of sponges to the hospital matron.
The surgeon's sponges were kept in pails of water, clean water from the galvanized rainwater tanks at the rear of the building. The pails were under the operating table, where the surgeon could reach them readily, and after swabbing away blood and pus and other matter the sponge was dropped into a collection tray, later to be washed out and returned to the original pail of fresh water. I assure you, doctor, that my nurses wash the swabs out most thoroughly The matron was a formidable figure with the flattened features of a bulldog bitch and the same aggressive thrust to her jaw. She stooped, plunged her hand into the pail, and selected one of the sponges and proffered it to Robyn. You can see for yourself how soft and white they are. Just like the soft white germs that swarm in them.
" Robyn was angry, with red spots of colour in her cheeks. Have none of you here ever heard of joseph T-isteiV The surgeon-general answered her question from the doorway. The answer to that question, Doctor Ballantyne, is NO we have never heard of that person, whoever he may be. We do not have time to concern ourselves with the opinions of every crank or, for that matter, with male impersonators."
The surgeon-general had a very good idea of the identity of the young woman before him. He had followed the gossip which was the Colony's main recreation, and he did not approve of Robyn.
On the other hand, Robyn had no idea as to the identity of the elderly gentleman with the bushy grey whiskers and beetling brows, though by the dried blood stains on the front of his frock coat she guessed that he was a surgeon of the old school, one who operated in his street clothes and let the stains advertise his profession. Here was a much more worthy adversary than the hospital matron, and she rounded on him with the battle light bright in her eyes. Then, sir, I am amazed that you admit so readily your ignorance and your bigotry."
The surgeon-general spluttered for breath and a ready answer. By God, madam, you do not truly expect me to look for dangerous poisons in each speck of dust, in each drop of water, on my own hands even. " He held them up for her inspection, shaking them in Robyn's face. There were dark rinds of dried blood under the nails, for he had operated that morning. He pushed his face close to hers, and she drew back a little as his spittle flew angrily. Yes, sir, " she told him loudly. "Look for them there, and on each breath you exhale, on those filthy clothes."
The editor scribbled delightedly in his shorthand notebook, as the exchanges became more violent, more loaded with personal insult. He had not bargained for anything so spectacular, but the climax came when Robyn had goaded her adversary until he used an oath as potent as his rage. Your choice of words is as foul as these lowly little white sponges of yours, she told him, and let him have the sponge full in the face, hurling it with all her strength so that water flew and dripped from his whiskers on to the front of his frock coat as Robyn marched from the operating room. You hit him? " Zouga lowered the newspaper, and stared across the table at his sister. "Really, Sissy, sometimes you are no lady. "True, " Robyn agreed unrepentantly. "But that is not the first time you have made that observation. Besides I had no idea that he was the surgeon-general."
Zouga shook his head in mock disapproval and read to her. "His considered opinion of you, as expressed to the editor, is that you are a fledgling doctor of dubious qualification very recently obtained from an obscure school of medicine, by even more dubious means. "Oh, rich! " Robyn clapped her hands. "He's a better orator than a surgeon. "He goes on to say that he is considering going to law to obtain redress. "For assault with a sponge. " Robyn laughed lightly as she stood up from the breakfast table. "A fig for him, but we must hurry if we are to keep our appointment with Captain Codrington."
Her mood was still gay as she stood beside Zouga in the stern of the Water lighter when they came alongside the steel side of the gunboat. The south-east wind had raked the surface of Table Bay into a cottonfield of white caps, and had spread a thick white table-cloth of cloud upon the flat-topped mountain. The people of the Colony called this windThe Cape Doctor', for without it the summers would have been oppressive and enervating. However, it provided a constant hazard to shipping and the bottom of the bay was littered with wrecks. Black Joke had two men on her anchor watch as she lunged and fretted against her cable.
As the lighter came alongside, the thick canvas hoses were passed down and a dozen men on the pumps began to transfer the cargo into the gunboat's boiler room tanks, before any attempt was made to take visitors aboard.
As Robyn came up through the entry port to the maindeck she looked immediately to the quarterdeck.
Codrington was in shirt sleeves, he was a head taller than the group of warrant officers around him, and his sun-bleached blond hair shone in the sunlight like a beacon.
The group was giving its attention to the coal lighter which was secured against the port side of the ship. Have the hands secure a tarpaulin over the buckets Codrington shouted down to his boatswain in the lighter. "Else you'll have us looking like a party of chimneysweeps.
" The deck was alive with the purposeful pandemonium of revictualling, hunkering and watering, and with Zouga beside her, Robyn picked her way through the litter.
Codrington turned away from the rail and saw them.
He seemed younger than Robyn remembered, for his expression was relaxed and his manner easy. He had an almost boyish air when contrasted to the grizzled and weatherbeaten sailors about him, but the illusion was dispelled the moment he recognized his visitors. Suddenly his features were stern and the line of his mouth altered, the eyes chilled to the hardness of pale sapphires.
IisCaptain Codrington, Zouga greeted him with his most studied charm. "I am Major Ballantyne. We have met before, sir, Codrington acknowledged, making no effort to return the smile.
Zouga went on unruffled, "May I present my sister, Doctor Ballantyne? " Codrington glanced back at Robyn. "Your servant, ma'am. " It was more a nod than a bow. "I have read something of your further exploits since our last meeting in this morning's news-sheet. "
For a moment the stern expression cracked, and there was a mischievous spark in the blue eyes. "You have strong views, ma'am, and an even stronger right hand."
Then he turned back to Zouga. "I have orders from Admiral Kemp to convey you and your party to Quelimane. No doubt you will find our company dull, after your previous travelling companions. " Deliberately Codrington turned and looked across a half mile of wind creamed green water to where Huron still lay at her anchor, and for the first time Zouga fidgeted uncomfortably as he followed the direction of the Captain's eyes. Codrington went on. "Be that as it may, I would be grateful if you could present yourselves aboard this ship before noon on the day after tomorrow when I expect a fair tide to leave the bay. Now you must excuse me. I must attend to the management of my ship. " With a nod, not offering to shake hands or make any other civility, Codrington turned away to his waiting warrant officers, and Zouga's charm deserted him. his face darkened and seemed to swell with anger at the abrupt dismissal. The fellow has a damnable cheek, he growled fiercely to Robyn. For a moment he hesitated and then with a curt, "Come, let us leave, " he turned, crossed the deck, and clambered down into the water lighter, but Robyn made no move.
She waited quietly until Codrington had finished the discussion with his boatswain and looked up again, feigning surprise to see her still there.
Captain Codrington, we left Huron on my insistence.
That is why we are now seeking other passage. " She spoke in a low husky voice, but her manner was so intense that his expression wavered. You were correct. That ship is a slaver and St. John is a slave-master. I proved it."
How? " he demanded, his manner altering instantly. I cannot speak now. My brother-" She glanced back at the entry port, expecting her brother to reappear at any moment. He had given her strict instructions as to how he expected her to act towards Codrington.