The Missionary's Wife

by Tim Jeal

‘I’ll try,’ she whispered.

  ‘Thank you.’ He brought his hands together as if in prayer. ‘We leave at dawn.’

  As Francis walked away, he passed through a shaft of sunlight, which made his hair shine like a golden helmet. For several seconds afterwards Clara’s eyes remained fixed on the empty doorway.

  *

  The tents had all come down, though the sky was still crusted with stars. The men had breakfasted on biscuits and coffee, and the horses stood saddled in their lines. Francis watched the cloaked forms of the outlying pickets tramping in through the gloom. The wagons were ready, and the oxen stood in their places on either side of the poles. As the stars became paler, pink light glowed over the earth’s eastern rim.

  So where were the Haslams? Francis could hardly believe that Clara had failed with her husband. And where was she herself? Perhaps Haslam had been the persuasive one, causing a change of heart at the eleventh hour.

  As Heywood Fynn rode up beside Francis, golden rays blazed on the horizon. The American reported that the advance screen of scouts was already moving forward. Francis knew he must now give the order to mount and form column. In the distance he could hear the shrill voices of herdboys driving their beasts to pasture. Dawn had broken. Francis turned to his trumpeter. Moments later, the notes of the order rang out across the veld.

  Fynn shook his head as though bemused by Francis’s obtuseness. ‘Still hoping, huh? I’m glad to be shot of ’em.’

  Francis mounted his stallion and kneed him around. ‘It’s grand news, is it? The chief fights to the last man, and Haslam’s wife is raped and murdered! Hip, hip, hooray!’

  ‘You’ve got it all twisted up. Haslam hates us.’ Around them, troop commanders were getting their men into column. ‘Risks kill, Vaughan – like trustin’ missionaries, and lettin’ Nashu walk free.’

  ‘He had my word of honour.’

  ‘Honour can cost plenty,’ muttered Fynn as he turned his horse.

  Francis felt chilled. From Fynn – more than from anyone – he wanted support, not carping. He was distraught that a brave and unhappy woman had chosen to face death with her husband rather than give herself a chance to live, and he bitterly reproached himself for failing to convince her. She had a strange talent for confusing him.

  On every side, the bush stretched away, bereft of landmarks, indifferent to man. A thousand horsemen could lose themselves as completely here as fishes in an ocean. As the column snaked along, Francis glanced over his shoulder, and from time to time he would raise his field glasses. He did so again after a longer interval, fearing that it was already too late. But, to his astonishment, a small covered cart trembled in the twin circle of his lenses. He felt a surge of wild elation. Clara had chosen life. As the vehicle came closer, he saw that she was not alone, and raised his slouch hat in salute. She had persuaded her husband after all. She’d damn well done it.

  CHAPTER 18

  By the time she had spent three days with the column, Clara had accustomed herself to the frustratingly slow pace of the ox wagons, but she had not grown used to the condescension of the young officers. She had no idea whether their standoffishness was due to snobbery or to a continuing resentment against Robert for the views he had expressed before they left. Although none ignored her completely – perhaps because they had been told to be polite – their greetings seemed at best halfhearted. Out of all of them, only Francis Vaughan appeared genuinely eager to talk to her.

  Whenever he did, Clara felt pleased but agitated in case Francis was talking to her only in order to gain Robert’s goodwill. This possibility upset Clara more than she cared to admit to herself. There was no reason for Francis to treat her in any particular way, so why feel that he should? She certainly found him attractive – most honest women would admit the same. But since the morals of the cavalry officers she had met at home had been largely absent, she was glad she could not call her feelings love.

  They were passing through dark woods, which made the young soldiers jittery and had kept the scouts busy for several hours before they permitted the column to proceed. Exotic lilies grew on the forest floor under the shadow of tall mahogany trees, and underfoot, the peaty ground sucked at the horses’ hooves. Occasionally, the distant crashes caused by feeding elephants alarmed the troopers.

  At last the column emerged into a terrain as brimful of light as a Dutch landscape. As they passed a village, with huts clustering in the midst of plantain groves, distant drums were thudding. The column halted, and a wagon became bogged down, obliging twenty men to push it out.

  Francis Vaughan came striding towards the missionary’s Cape cart. Clara was sitting beside Robert under the hood, and as usual in Captain Vaughan’s presence, flickers of nervousness troubled her. Relations between the two men had been tense ever since Robert had refused to say where he thought Mponda might be hiding. All he had agreed to do was speak to Mponda if he could be found.

  Francis lifted his slouch hat in greeting and waved to Simon, who was gathering mushrooms beside the track.

  ‘I’d be glad if you could come and look at something, Mr Haslam.’ Even when Francis was worried, his voice sounded calm and friendly.

  Tramping along behind them both, Clara saw nothing unusual, until Francis pointed. At the head of the column, some objects were lying in the middle of the track. Above a heap of broken pot shards and ashes, an impaled cockerel’s head had been mounted on a stick.

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Francis.

  Robert compressed his lips. ‘It’s a witch doctor’s pitiful attempt to stop disease visiting the village.’

  ‘Fynn doesn’t think so,’ remarked Francis. Flies were buzzing around the severed head.

  ‘What does he say?’ asked Clara.

  ‘That it’s a warning to us.’

  ‘He’s wrong,’ said Robert with finality.

  Francis’s puzzlement was plain to see. Clara guessed he had at least expected a discussion. Back in the Cape cart, she asked her husband, ‘Do you believe what you told Captain Vaughan?’

  He gave her a martyred look. ‘I don’t make a habit of lying.’

  ‘Lies aren’t always bad,’ said Clara. ‘The soldiers might have attacked the village if you’d said those things were a threat.’ She glanced at him. ‘Is that why you lied?’

  Robert picked up the reins and twisted them between his fingers. ‘Signs are always hard to interpret.’

  ‘Master is right,’ declared Simon loyally, from the raised seat behind them. ‘Different ngangas have different charms.’

  Clara was sure Robert had misled Francis, but perhaps no great harm would come of it. Francis would surely be as likely to believe Fynn’s opinion.

  That night, they camped on higher ground, three miles from the village. Clara and Robert were obliged to sleep on the floor of the cart after finding that their groundsheet had been gnawed by rats. The hours Clara had spent squashed up against her husband on their last journey had been hateful to her, and even now he thought it his right to pull up her skirt and force himself into her. While Clara felt violated, Robert resented her physical coolness and thought it no coincidence that she had become more distant after the arrival of the soldiers. Her attentiveness to Captain Vaughan confused him. If she was merely being polite, why was she always distracted after talking to the man?

  During the night, Clara was woken by noises from the camp. Knowing she was frightened, Robert reassured her, saying that some horses had probably broken loose. She went back to sleep, but at dawn, Francis woke them both without apologizing. He was white-faced with anger. ‘Three of my men have been brutally murdered.’

  Clara was shaking as Robert began calmly buttoning his shirt. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Captain. Where were they?’

  ‘On outpost duty. They were stripped naked and their stomachs slashed open.’

  ‘The Venda think it releases a man’s ghost from his body.’

  ‘So it’s a favour?’ gasped Francis.

  ‘Of co
urse not. They don’t want hostile spirits to haunt the place of burial.’

  ‘You lied about that stuff on the path.’

  ‘You needn’t worry about pagan charms,’ said Robert, slipping his arms into his faded frock coat. ‘Your men terrify the natives – that’s your real problem. Scared people are always dangerous.’

  With an immense effort, Francis folded his arms. ‘You expect me to believe that scared people creep out at night and murder armed men?’

  ‘Desperation does strange things, Vaughan.’

  ‘Not that strange,’ snapped Francis, turning on his heel.

  Less than an hour later, Robert saw flames rising from the distant huts. He caught his wife’s arm. ‘Isn’t that what I said he’d do? Burn whole villages. Your sweet-natured captain.’

  While the village burned, Robert prayed. Shortly before the column moved on again, he thrust his way into the little knot of officers that had gathered around Francis.

  ‘Why the brutality, sir?’ cried Robert. ‘Women and children didn’t kill your men.’

  Clara feared that Francis might fail to rebut Robert’s accusation. She had sworn to him that Francis was humane and honourable.

  Having vented his anger, Francis eyed Robert with strained good humour. ‘Come come, Mr Haslam, don’t jump to conclusions. Nothing was done till the people had fled.’

  ‘Just nigger houses, were they?’ growled Robert.

  Francis met his gaze. ‘It’s hardly like burning an English town. These places can be built up again in a week.’

  ‘What about their grain? Takes rather longer to replace.’

  ‘My men had orders not to burn it.’

  ‘But they killed people, I suppose?’

  ‘I’m told one native was killed. He’d shot one of my people in the arm.’ A faint smile parted Francis’s lips. ‘Will you report me to the Aborigine Protection Society?’

  Robert said scornfully, ‘Wouldn’t you fight foreign soldiers if they came to burn your home?’

  Stung at last, Francis said, ‘My men’s water bottles were found in that village.’ He gazed for a moment at the rising smoke before mounting his horse.

  Lieutenant Carew, one of Francis’s subalterns, rode up beside him. ‘Don’t know how you kept your temper, sir.’

  ‘He’s right, in a way.’ Francis sighed.

  ‘Really, sir?’ Carew’s face creased with puzzlement under his tropical helmet.

  ‘You’d fight pretty hard, wouldn’t you, Carew, if Chinamen invaded England?’

  ‘We’re not savages.’

  ‘We were when the Romans came. And we fought tooth and nail then.’

  ‘I bet we didn’t slaughter their children after pretending to be friends.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

  Carew was twenty-four, only six years younger than his commander. Francis often felt twenty years older; and as for his men, they seemed like children: poorly educated, easily frightened, and held together only by their sergeants’ example. Yet to winkle well-armed natives out of caves and drive them down from hilltops would require courage and outstanding marksmanship.

  Carew took off his helmet and mopped his brow. His reddish-coloured hair was dark with sweat. It upset Francis that the squadron had been issued hot and cumbersome pith helmets instead of light slouch hats. The chin strap had left a white line on Carew’s brick-red skin.

  ‘Who killed our men, sir?’

  Francis stroked his moustache. ‘They weren’t killed by members of a native army. So don’t worry about that.’

  ‘How can you be sure, sir?’

  ‘Fynn’s been over the ground for miles.’ Francis flicked a mosquito from his horse’s neck. ‘Our poor fellows were caught off guard by local natives. It’s a popular uprising.’

  ‘They must have crept up so quietly … I don’t like to think of it, sir.’

  ‘Then you mustn’t,’ said Francis gently. He too lived in terror of waking up to the bowel-loosening realization that thousands of savages were closing in. In nightmares, he had watched the leaf-shaped blade of an assegai pressing slowly through the fibres of his coat. On this open plain they would be safe. But among rocks and scrub, they would be unable to deploy the quick-firing guns that alone could preserve them against overwhelming odds.

  *

  Five miles ahead of the column, Heywood Fynn was on his knees, examining the spoor of an army on the move and gleaning from the flattened grass and the scores of nutshells and chewed sorghum stems that several thousand men had recently passed by. One find that alarmed him more than the rest was a black ostrich feather such as Matabele warriors wore. If a Matabele impi had entered Mashonaland, a small column like Vaughan’s would be annihilated by it.

  Two days after the murders, Fynn was still enraged that the victims had each been stabbed thirty or forty times. The American consoled himself with the knowledge that he had disobeyed Vaughan’s order not to destroy native grain. In order to avoid detection, he had poured water into the storage pits; and despite his fondness for native women, he had ignored another of Vaughan’s prohibitions when he turned a blind eye to acts of copulation bordering on rape. He was still tormented by his memory of one white woman’s corpse in Belingwe – a spear had been thrust up her vagina, and the point was sticking out through her neck.

  Even before discovering that a native force was in the region, Fynn had decided to reconnoitre the supposed location of Mponda’s headquarters with exceptional care. He had never shared Francis’s belief in the reliability of Nashu’s information and meant to spend at least ten days checking it. While this went on, to keep out of trouble, the main column would have to remain where it was – too far away to render him any assistance. But Fynn had a plan for giving his men additional protection. Because he believed that Nashu was in league with Mponda and intended to spring a trap, he thought it would be only prudent to take Haslam with him to plead for the lives of his scouts should they be captured. But with Francis expecting the missionary to persuade Mponda to lay down his arms, Fynn feared his commander would not agree to let Haslam out of his sight.

  It was early evening when Fynn made his request. As he and Francis walked along the camp’s thornbush perimeter, the American had no idea what the Englishman was thinking. Some guinea fowl dipped down to roost in trees away to their right. Francis let out a low breath. ‘All right, Fynn, I’ll risk it. He can go with you.’

  Fynn seized Francis’s hand. ‘You won’t regret it, I promise.’

  ‘He may refuse to accompany you. I told you to be more respectful.’

  ‘Shall I go ask him now?’

  Francis shook his head. ‘We’ll do the asking tomorrow. I want time to think what to say.’

  The following morning dawned grey with rain hissing down steadily. The missionary was seated on a box, holding an umbrella over his head while his boy shaved him. His wife was reading a book under the canopy of their cart.

  After greeting the Haslams, Francis launched into his theme. He stressed that Fynn would be taking less than twenty men and that such a small contingent could not possibly pose a threat to Mponda. ‘In fact,’ continued Francis eagerly, ‘this scouting expedition may provide the best opportunity we’ll ever get for a meeting with the chief.’ He smiled encouragingly at Robert. ‘What do you think?’

  Fynn and Francis stood, getting wet, while Robert pondered. At last the missionary announced, ‘I’ll go, but it won’t be for your sake, Vaughan. I’ll do it because Mr Fynn’s men will commit fewer crimes if I’m with them.’

  Francis noticed that Clara was distressed and guessed she felt humiliated. He said quietly to Robert, ‘I expect you’ll want to discuss things first with Mrs Haslam?’

  ‘She trusts my judgement, sir.’

  Francis was mortified; his effort to spare Clara’s feelings had merely made things worse for her.

  As the moment for the American’s departure approached, the sky darkened to deep purple. The scouts were greasing their gun barre
ls and waxing their boots against the wet. Walking beside his friend, Francis weighed up the dangers of their situation, acknowledging that the presence of an unknown impi meant that in addition to Mponda’s men, there were several thousand rebels in the area. He knew he ought to consider rejoining General Carrington’s field force at once, but as always, the fact that he would be able to continue his career only if he could make a success of the campaign made him reluctant to order a pullback. Instead he would await the scouts’ findings.

  Francis gazed at Fynn’s powerful neck and familiar grizzled hair. The man could be absurdly touchy, but Francis could not imagine being able to bear his responsibilities without Fynn’s support. With his short legs and giant’s torso, the American reminded him of a tough and confident boy who had plenty of growing still to do. Fynn grinned broadly.

  ‘I’m mighty grateful, Vaughan.’

  Francis was touched. If anyone should be grateful, it was he.

  CHAPTER 19

  As Robert rode away with the scouts, Clara’s heart told her it was admirable that her husband should be ready to risk his life as a mediator in the hope of saving Mponda; but her brain told her that it was futile to save a man whose survival would only lead to civil war.

  Two days later, the vanguard of Francis’s force – about thirty men – were riding through a tract of thick bush when, without warning, they blundered into a kraal. In the pandemonium of screaming children and bleating goats, a trooper panicked and fired a shot, which badly wounded a child. Spears were thrown at the soldiers, and more shots were fired in return; one of these killed an old man.

  When the main column came on the scene, cooking pots were still bubbling and pigs had resumed their search for food. The entire population had fled, save for the white-haired man spread-eagled on the path and the injured girl, now bleeding to death in the arms of a trooper.

  In the evening, soon after the girl’s agony ended, the man who had shot her was tied to a wagon wheel and flogged, on Francis’s orders. From fifty yards away, Clara heard the whoosh of the cane, followed by the first slashing blow. And every time thereafter, in the split second before the stroke, she felt as if she were falling through the air.