The Missionary's Wife

by Tim Jeal

  When they reached their house, Simon was nowhere to be seen. Robert ran to the mission and returned soon afterwards with the news that the boy had been missing for three days. Philemon had last seen him on the morning when the soldiers had ridden in.

  Though she, too, was worried about Simon, relief outweighed all Clara’s other emotions. Now they would be able to leave with the soldiers and never have to endure long and terrifying weeks awaiting the arrival of their murderers. She went into the bedroom, meaning to put on some dry, clean clothes, but instead she lay down to savour her deliverance in peace and solitude. With no need to anticipate danger, her senses were blissfully at rest. As soon as Simon could be found, she would ask him to fetch water. She was imagining stepping into the hipbath, when she fell asleep.

  *

  Robert hurried through the village, which was strangely quiet and empty. By this hour in the morning, the boys would have gone to pasture with the cattle, but since no women were pounding maize and sifting meal, he feared that the soldiers had already misbehaved. The rapes and shootings in ’93 had left him hating all troops, whether volunteers or regulars, and the possibility that Simon might have been hurt or detained by such men enraged him.

  The soldiers had cut down every tree and shrub within three hundred yards of their camp – an act of vandalism that was presumably intended to deny cover to attackers – and a breach had been made in the southern side of the dam, to create a drinking stream for the cavalry horses. That the troopers were draining off precious water, which would otherwise have been available to the villagers during the dry season, shocked Robert, since they could easily have fetched water in buckets. When he stumbled upon two soldiers on lookout duty, his anger over Simon’s disappearance made him tremble. On demanding to be taken to the men’s commander, he was led to a tent guarded by a sentry. As he came closer, the flap was raised from within, and a young officer with fair, unruly hair came bounding out.

  ‘Are you in command here?’ asked the missionary doubtfully.

  ‘Indeed I am,’ said Francis, smiling broadly as he retreated a few steps to lift the flap. ‘Do come in, Mr Haslam. My name’s Vaughan … Captain Vaughan.’ He indicated a case of claret for Robert to sit on, while he perched himself on an up-ended ammunition box.

  Robert studied his handsome host suspiciously. ‘Did my houseboy come to your camp, Captain?’

  ‘He did.’

  The young man’s brisk tone grated on Robert. ‘Told you my name, did he? Where is he now?’

  ‘Running an errand.’

  ‘I’ll wait for him, then.’

  Vaughan pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid he won’t be back till tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ve sent him into the bush?’ Robert was dumbfounded.

  ‘He’ll tell you about it in the morning.’

  ‘I want to know now.’

  ‘It’s better he should tell you himself,’ insisted Francis, ignoring his visitor’s agitation. ‘You must come and dine with me tomorrow … you and Mrs Haslam. Mr Fynn and I brought your wife up here from Belingwe. Perhaps she mentioned it?’

  ‘Yes, but the only name that stuck was that trader fellow’s. He used to sell liquor here.’

  ‘Not any more. He’s in charge of my scouts now.’

  Robert frowned. ‘Why have you come to Mponda’s kraal, Captain?’

  ‘To take you and Mrs Haslam to safety.’

  Robert was confused by the man’s friendly manner. ‘I can’t believe you only want to rescue whites. What are your orders, sir?’

  ‘To end the rebellion and capture its leaders.’ Vaughan smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Not on my own, you understand. General Carrington has three thousand men at his disposal.’

  ‘How can you tell who’s a rebel and who isn’t?’

  ‘We keep our eyes open. Some rebels are good enough to introduce themselves … by attacking us.’

  ‘With spears?’ inquired Robert coldly. ‘I suppose you punish them with your Maxim guns?’

  Vaughan’s eyes were mildly reproachful. ‘Spears are no joke in woodland, Mr Haslam. In fact, they have guns too. The native police went over to them with seven hundred rifles. We’re often shot at.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re surprised.’

  ‘Of course I’m not.’ That easy smile again, as if, thought Robert, the man was amused by him. ‘They hate our guts.’ Vaughan rose and held out a formal hand. ‘Shall we say seven o’clock tomorrow evening? You and Mrs Haslam?’

  On reaching home, Robert was dismayed by Clara’s eagerness to hear about the soldiers. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathless as she ran up to him, for all the world like a young girl longing for the diversion of a military parade.

  ‘So how many of them are there, Robert?’

  ‘I didn’t ask,’ he replied flatly.

  ‘Did you talk to anyone in particular?’

  He looked at her sadly. ‘Don’t you want to know about Simon?’

  ‘He’s fine. You’d be mad with grief if he weren’t.’ She clapped her hands like a child. ‘Now, who did you talk to?’

  ‘Young chap called Vaughan. Says he brought you up here from Belingwe.’

  Her shriek of joy astounded Robert. He might have just told her that the rebellion was over and Mponda was coming home. She seemed to understand his confusion, for she took his hand and said gently, ‘It’s just wonderful luck for us that it’s him.’

  Robert shrugged. ‘He seemed a typical cavalry officer to me.’

  ‘Are most of them kind and considerate, Robert? Well, Captain Vaughan is. He may even ask your advice.’

  ‘I fear he has a less delightful associate. An American trader who sold brandy to the Venda.’

  ‘Heywood Fynn?’

  ‘The very one.’

  Clara laughed cheerfully. ‘Poor old Fynn. He only seems rough and insensitive. Oh, Robert, he was awfully good to me.’

  Robert laid a hand on each of her shoulders. ‘Understand this, Clara: Vaughan has orders to put down the rebellion. That means he’ll shoot people and burn villages.’

  ‘Of course he won’t. He’ll stop the murders.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Clara, Vaughan and his cronies will kill thousands. Revenge is ugly. I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘You’re wrong about him,’ she insisted with finality.

  He let his hands slip from her shoulders. ‘He’s asked us to dine with him tomorrow.’

  ‘Splendid! You’ll be able to judge how wrong you are.’

  Robert lowered his eyes. ‘My dear, I mean to send a note of refusal.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because,’ he replied gravely, ‘any man who joins the army knows he may be ordered to butcher patriots.’

  Clara felt dazed. Robert couldn’t be turning his back on their only chance of survival. She said urgently, ‘We have to leave with Captain Vaughan. Surely we must, Robert.’

  ‘We don’t at all.’

  ‘But if we stay, what happens to us?’ She was too shocked to feel anger.

  He said in his most reasonable voice, ‘These soldiers will attract enemies from miles around – thousands of warriors. They’ll be wiped out.’

  ‘How many men would it take to kill the two of us here?’ she cried.

  He seemed astonished by the question. ‘We’re Mponda’s friends. Who would want to kill us?’

  ‘Mponda’s enemies, of course. One man with a spear – that’s all it would take.’

  After a silence, he murmured, ‘All right. We’ll dine with Vaughan and his officers. But don’t think I’ll leave here with them.’

  Looking at the confident scarecrow facing her, Clara felt pity as well as anger. Robert would probably talk down to Francis without any awareness of covert smiles and stifled laughter from the other officers. Clara’s eagerness to meet them was replaced by an equally vehement disinclination.

  *

  When Simon came home early the following morning, wearing a hussar busby and a pair of overlarge rid
ing boots, Robert embraced him tearfully. He looked no worse for his walk through the bush, except for some grazes around his neck. After Robert’s initial relief was over, he scolded the boy fiercely, telling him he should never have gone anywhere near Captain Vaughan and his men. Surely he knew that soldiers killed people and led immoral lives. Simon then told him about his abduction and Nashu’s determination to betray Mponda. Robert was disgusted by the nganga’s treachery and scandalized to learn that Simon had arranged a meeting between Nashu and Vaughan.

  He looked at the boy reproachfully. ‘How did Nashu persuade you?’

  Simon became tearful. ‘He said he would kill you, master, if I didn’t take his message to the soldiers.’

  Simon’s unhappy face made Robert repeat to himself, ‘May he who is without guilt cast the first stone.’ He should have explained to the boy why Mponda had joined the rebels and why no black person ought ever to betray him. But in the past he had found it too painful to talk about the deceptions practised by Cecil Rhodes on Lobenguela and other chiefs. And now that the murders had started, Robert felt he could not speak of earlier crimes by the whites without seeming to be excusing black atrocities. I should have spoken out strongly years ago. Instead I preached the vanity of earthly possessions to Africans witnessing the theft of their country.

  ‘You must never wear a soldier’s uniform,’ said Robert, lifting the busby from the boy’s head.

  ‘The soldiers are my friends, master.’

  Simon’s innocence touched Robert. He said very gently, ‘They sent you through the bush. Would friends do that?’

  ‘But, master, I have told you. Nashu said he would kill you if I did not go back to him. The soldiers didn’t make me go. I wanted to.’

  ‘Has Nashu already told the soldiers’ leader where Mponda is?’

  ‘He will tell him soon.’

  Robert bowed his head. ‘We must pray for you, my poor misguided boy.’

  Obediently, Simon knelt beside his master. He tried to concentrate on praying, but he could not tear his eyes away from his beautiful soldier’s hat. If only he could reach out and take it.

  *

  Two days after the missionary’s return, Heywood Fynn was stunned to spot the nganga, leaving Francis Vaughan’s tent soon after dawn. The sentry had been perfectly placed to see Nashu, and yet he did nothing, so Fynn knew that the visit had been sanctioned. Because, in the past, Francis had kept nothing from him, it was painful to realize that he was no longer confided in.

  Since the American mistrusted Nashu, Francis’s behaviour alarmed him. A year earlier, Fynn had himself been a victim of the nganga’s genius for extortion. Whenever Nashu had advised Mponda not to deal with a particular trader, the chief had invariably acted on his advice. Fynn had therefore paid Nashu with brandy and tobacco to guarantee his neutrality, but by doing so, he inadvertently led Haslam to think he was selling cheap liquor to the tribe. The missionary denounced him to Mponda, who promptly refused to trade with him. When Fynn asked Nashu to tell Mponda what had really happened, the nganga had denied all knowledge and had burned one of his wagons to punish him for speaking out of turn.

  Later in the day, seeing Nashu and his henchmen drinking porter from several leather fire buckets, Fynn stalked away and on an angry impulse snatched some potassium from one of the squadron’s veterinary chests. He unsheathed his knife and cut this lump into several pieces, before approaching Nashu and his cronies with an exaggerated show of deference.

  ‘Greetings, Master of the Owls,’ he simpered, bowing low. ‘I owe you thanks. When you burned my wagon, you gave me the gift of fire.’

  There were mutterings of anger and incredulity.

  ‘You have the gift of fire?’ growled Nashu. ‘Why tell lies to grown men?’

  ‘Lies?’ Fynn tugged at his beard, as if greatly surprised. ‘The Lightning Bird sits in my hand when I set fire to water.’

  ‘The Lightning Bird cannot belong to living man,’ gasped the nganga, amazed at this blasphemy. ‘Not even Mwari makes water burn.’

  ‘You reckon I can’t do it?’

  Fynn waited for their jeers to subside, looking from man to man. Their disbelief lasted until the moment when he flung the potassium into the beer bucket closest to Nashu. A violet flash lit the whole circle of faces, and the surface of the beer hissed and seethed as if bewitched. Nashu recoiled in terror.

  Fynn bowed respectfully to the witch doctor. ‘Thank you for the gift of fire, Great Lion.’ Francis would have a real job to patch things up with the little troublemaker now.

  *

  An hour before she and Robert were due to leave for the soldiers’ camp, Clara was agitated by her memories of Francis Vaughan’s kindness. While Fynn had made no secret of his dislike for missionaries and his doubts for her safety, Francis had simply tried to bolster her confidence. Most people, he had said, would act like her and start a new life if they only had the guts.

  What should she wear for the evening? She could not put on faded cotton and act the devoted missionary wife, nodding agreement with Robert’s every word. Despite the murders at Mungora, he was counting on her to stay behind with him when the soldiers left. But she needn’t. She could go away with the hussars if she wanted, and he would be powerless to stop her.

  Should she beautify herself for her meeting with these cavalrymen? She had a sudden vision of herself standing in the midst of rustling tissue paper and thrilling to the whisper of taffeta and tulle as she held up an evening gown from Ince’s. The bodice would be cut low, her breasts supported enticingly. Just two years, and already her bosom had become smaller and her features more pronounced. Tears shone in her eyes, but she did not give way to them. Instead she chose a favourite wasp-waisted bodice, worn on the steamship passage. Why not wear the dress tonight, since it fitted to perfection? Yet she hesitated. They might think her a dissatisfied wife, eager to attract the first white men to cross her path in this godforsaken spot. She tossed the bodice aside and chose a nondescript dress in grey velvet.

  The more Clara thought about meeting Francis again, the more clearly she remembered their shared journey and her misgivings on approaching Mponda’s kraal. It embarrassed her to imagine what Francis had thought then, and what he must think now, having met Robert.

  They sat on camp stools and boxes on either side of a trestle table lit by two gasogene lamps: seven young men, none older than thirty, and most exuding a superiority that Clara disliked. There was no dazzling white tablecloth in the mess tent, only bare boards, and although Clara had expected scarlet mess jackets, everyone wore blue undress uniforms – everyone, that is, except Fynn, who sported his usual worn buckskins. Though the roast bustard was tough, they ate off china plates and drank claret in wineglasses. When big beetles began to clatter on the lamps’ globes, troopers fixed up muslin nets across the tent’s entrance.

  Francis Vaughan presided benignly at the head of the table. Impregnable within his armour of patrician good manners, he chatted affably to his officers about nothing in particular. He had greeted Clara in the same easy style, like a casual acquaintance at home. She wondered what this African tragedy meant to him and guessed it signified very little. Yet there was something so disarming about his smiling lips under his straw-coloured moustache that she could not think him cynical. He rarely looked at her, but when he did, his cornflower-blue eyes were kindly rather than prying.

  Fynn’s gaze was sharper. ‘Will you tell us this, Mrs Haslam: Did you ever talk that chief into divorcin’ his wives?’ The American resumed stripping a bone with his teeth.

  ‘Why not ask me, Mr Fynn?’ interrupted Robert.

  The American chewed energetically, pleased to have the attention of everyone at the table. ‘It’s like this, see: Mrs Haslam and me, we had ourselves a disputation ’bout chiefs and their wives when we was travellin’ up here.’

  ‘What did Mrs Haslam say?’ asked Robert, curiosity getting the better of irritation.

  Fynn grinned at him. ‘She said chiefs h
ad to quit assin’ around and put their extra wives out to grass if they wanted to be Christian folk.’

  Robert looked pained, and Clara supposed it had upset him to be reminded that she had come to Africa parroting his views. The tension eased around the table when Francis gave Robert a friendly smile.

  ‘Well, did you convert the chief, Mr Haslam?’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘Then aren’t you surprised he’s joined the rebels?’

  ‘Not in the least. He wants to free his country from foreign intruders.’

  Francis lowered his voice. ‘Did you warn him he would be defeated?’

  Robert burst out, ‘He’s prepared to die for his country.’

  ‘Is he also prepared to murder a few hundred women and children before he does?’

  ‘He’s a Christian, sir.’

  ‘Christians!’ sneered Fynn. ‘Haven’t they stained the earth red for centuries in the name of Jesus?’

  Clara held her breath as Robert leaned across the table. ‘That’s really quite something coming from you, Fynn. No more wars in America, so you come here to fight. No matter for whom. You’d work for the devil himself if he paid you.’

  Francis took an unhurried sip of wine. ‘Actually, Mr Haslam, he’s working for me at the moment.’

  There was an explosion of mirth from the officers. Robert went very red.

  ‘No, sir, he’s not working for you,’ contradicted Robert, raising his voice above the laughter. ‘Mr Rhodes’s company pays the War Office for your regiment to be here, and you pay Mr Fynn from that money.’

  Francis put down his glass, and for the first time affability vanished. ‘You can’t possibly speak from knowledge, Mr Haslam.’

  ‘It’s how things were done in ’93,’ insisted Robert, turning on Fynn again. ‘Answer me this: Is Mr Rhodes a swindler or is he not?’

  Fynn’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’d better believe he’s not.’

  ‘Why had I better believe it?’ mocked Robert. ‘I happen to know that Mr Rhodes had Chief Lobenguela’s permission to dig a few holes, not to occupy his whole country.’

  Without warning, Fynn crashed a fist down on the table, making every glass and plate jump. ‘Lobenguela signed an agreement,’ he thundered. ‘That ol’ savage took guns and money from the chartered company in exchange for granting concessions.’