The Claws of Mercy

by John Harris

  Everyone knew of the affair between him and Zaidee Soloman and why Suri waited late into the night on the veranda of her house. Everyone knew why the black Cadillac she drove for Indian Joe was parked under the cotton trees near Earnshaw’s bungalow after the sun had disappeared and that it was not Indian Joe who kept her in the expensive clothes she fancied.

  Doubtless Earnshaw cheated at cards and was a congenital liar. Doubtless in his years of circling the earth he had forged cheques and seduced other men’s wives, but there was something about him which daily confirmed Jimmy’s first impression of him – that he knew where he was going and what he was talking about. No white man who lived and dressed as he did could have made a success of his life in Sierra Leone unless he did.

  As he said to Jimmy: “I’ve poached pheasants in my time. I’ve poached salmon. I’ve poached blokes – agents outa Dakar and Casablanca up the coast during the war – and when I say the fishermen is after you, me old china, you can take it from me as the solid bar gold that they are. There’s no flies on me.”

  “What’ll they do?”

  “Rifle the bungalow and mizzle with your dough. That’s what Suri says, so keep your things locked up so the connivering bastards get the bare nixey.”

  Jimmy duly locked up his treasures in one of the warped drawers and, in his growing dislike of Gotto, kept the information to himself until his conscience got the better of him and he passed it on. Gotto’s response to the news was immediate and typical.

  “No blasted black man can get anything out of my bedroom when I’m sleeping there,” he said. “And they know it. They won’t come.”

  But long after Jimmy had ceased worrying about them, they came silently in their canoes after dark and broke open the mine stores. Shadowy black figures, greased with palm oil, removed shovels, electric cable and spare parts for the lorries, most of them useless as loot, and carried them down to the canoes drawn up on the mud near the jetty.

  Then they crept to the bungalow through the bush, their bodies glinting under the oil in the faint light of the stars that peeped past the palm fronds, and removed food from the kitchen and all of Amadu’s chickens from their hut at the back of the bungalow without a squawk. And finally they entered the bedrooms and made away with all the spare cash from the pockets of the trousers they found alongside the beds.

  Gotto’s reaction was one of fury at the theft and despair that the hated black men could get into his room and disappear again without being seen. Immediately, thoughts of being murdered in his bed rushed through his mind as he dragged Jimmy along to Earnshaw to demand the loan of a gun.

  Not unnaturally, Earnshaw refused.

  “Think I am?” he demanded. “Who you going to shoot, anyway?”

  “Those damned wogs the next time they get into the bungalow.”

  “Don’t talk wet, old lad,” Earnshaw said calmly. “You’ll never see ’em long enough to get a shot at ’em – even if you see ’em at all.”

  “You’re on their side!” Gotto’s anger burst out in a shout. “You have been all the time. You’re another blasted nigger-lover like Romney. I’m going straight down to Sergeant Asimani. I’ll get a guard.”

  “Whyn’t you challenge ’em to a duel instead? Pistols for two and corffee for one. Or find the ringleader and beat each other to death with old banana skins?”

  “That’s stopped his little gallop,” Earnshaw said to Jimmy as they watched Gotto drive away. “Catch me lending him a gun. He go and plug some bloke and then he be in real trouble. He might even knock you off one night, old lad, after you come back in the dark from your sprazzing at the Swannacks.”

  Jimmy was glaring along the straight sunlit road after the car. “What the hell am I going to do with the clot?” he asked angrily. “The next thing we know the District Commissioner’ll hear about it and complain to Twigg. Then out goes Gotto. Even Twigg couldn’t turn a deaf ear to him. It’s all so stupid. They were doing no harm with their boats and Asimani’s bound to be on their side. He won’t stir himself much.”

  “No, he won’t and when Master-mind cottons on to it, he’s going to waltz hisself down to the District Commissioner and then the fat’ll be in the fire anyway. He’s a bright ’erb, that DC, and he’d want to know what caused it all in the first place and then – napoo, out goes Gotto, and his ma’s in the workhouse or something and me and you is calling usselves names for doing it across her.”

  When Jimmy and Earnshaw returned from the jetty at lunch time, they found all the labourers, digger-handlers and drivers outside the office in a ragged line that ballooned here and there and broke into groups of gesticulating men. There was quite a lot of noise and as they drew near they could hear an angry shouting that made Jimmy’s heart sink.

  “Archie,” he said, as they made their way past the older men who squatted like frogs, under the trees, waiting with untroubled patience, accepting the uproar with the African’s bland indifference to time. “Something tells me he’s cracking that whip again.”

  “He’s a right boy, ain’t he?” Earnshaw said wearily. “Every day he comes down here, brisk as a kipper, itching to spit in some bloke’s eye for his morning exercise.”

  The crowd round the door opened to let them through and flooded after them, shouting indignantly. The noise inside the office was worse than it was outside. Protesting men were passing through in a line, Clerk Smith, his face contorted into a look of importance, searching them by patting their ragged shorts, in most cases the only garment they wore, while Gotto sat on the desk with a pad of paper, surrounded by cigarette butts.

  “What the hell’s all this?” Jimmy asked.

  “One of these black bastards pinched my money,” Gotto said, “so I’m giving ’em the once-over. That’s all. Simple enough.”

  “And are the fools letting you?”

  Gotto grinned, a hard, humourless grin. “They’ve got to. I’m giving them a note when they’ve finished. Without it they won’t draw their wages.”

  Jimmy’s mouth dropped open. He spluttered for a while as his anger choked him, then he managed to burst out again. “Do you honestly think they’d be potty enough to bring your blasted money to work if they had pinched it? And, anyway, how will you identify it as yours?”

  “There were some notes in my pocket,” Gotto said cheerfully. “If we find any notes on these bastards, I’ll want to know where he got ’em. I’ll whip him straight down to Asimani. They don’t get paid enough to carry notes around.”

  “Have you found any yet?”

  “No.”

  “Nor will you. God, man, where would they hide it? Most of ’em only wear a pair of shorts.”

  “I’ve read stories of black men in the diamond mines hiding diamonds up their backsides.”

  Earnshaw, who was leaning on the window frame, bored, contemptuous and indifferent, gave a sudden dry laugh.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said loudly. “You got a smashing job there. You looking at every one?”

  “No, Boss” – Clerk Smith looked up with an important frown – “black boys no like.”

  Earnshaw nodded understandingly. “Perhaps they reckon their behinds is private,” he said.

  Gotto was walking up and down now, softly beating one fist against the palm of the other. “They might think they’ve got the upper hand,” he said. “But they’ve not. An Englishman always wins the last battle.”

  Earnshaw looked up once more. “We at war again?” he asked.

  Gotto spared him an angry contemptuous glance and looked round at Jimmy. “You’ve got to lick ’em in a thing like this,” he announced. “Or you’ll never get ’em to do as they’re told.”

  Jimmy sighed. “Is it all that important?” he asked. “God, man, there are always stoppages over some damn’ thing or other these days. It might interest you to know that Twigg’s noticed the output’s falling. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Who told you he’s noticed?”

  “He asked me about it when he ca
me up.”

  “Why didn’t he ask me? Nobody asks me anything. And how did he find out?”

  “He’s got eyes, mate,” Earnshaw said. “One each side of his nose.”

  Gotto pointedly ignored him. “I wish you’d stop worrying about the output,” he said peevishly to Jimmy. “I’ve got everything under control. Nobody’s getting agitated but you lot.”

  “Nobody but us lot and the nigs,” Earnshaw growled.

  Gotto sneered. “I’ll soon sort them out. Never fear.”

  “You ain’t been very successful up to press, old lad.”

  “Don’t call me old lad,” Gotto snapped, the sweat standing out on his face at his anger.

  “OK, old lad.”

  Gotto glared. “Perhaps you can do better. How about having a go?”

  “No, thanks, old lad. I’ll leave it to you. Besides, tomorrer, I’m off for a day or two to Freetown for me annual constitutional before the rains come. My advice is play ball with the nigs and your troubles are over. These chaps in Sierra Leone are a matey lot if you don’t muck ’em about. Why not try and be pally with ’em?”

  “Pally? With a lot of Africans? You can be if you like.”

  Earnshaw looked up at Gotto under a dusty grey eyebrow. “I am, mate. And I don’t get no trouble. And them fishermen are a decent lot, if you treat ’em right.”

  “You think it was the fishermen?”

  “Course it was.”

  “Right,” Gotto turned to Clerk Smith. “You can let the rest go. I’ll get Asimani in on this. I’ll go through that bloody village at King Tim again – with a tooth comb.”

  Jimmy watched him walk away from the office and start his car. Earnshaw had sat down at the desk.

  “Lemme out, lemme out,” he was croaking in a dry dusty voice that sounded as though it had been dug out of a coffin. “It gets more like a mad-house every day. I wish somebody back home in London would decide he needs him in England.” He lifted his head. “It can’t be long, old lad, can it, before he goes?”

  Jimmy was still staring through the door. “Archie,” he said. “He’s heading for Amama Town. He’s gone for Sargy Asimani.”

  Earnshaw clasped his hands to his dusty hair in mock horror. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “And I sent him. What I gone and done now?”

  Four

  Earnshaw turned up from his holiday a week later, with a hangover and eyes that looked like knot-holes in wood. His hand was unsteady and he was heavily disinterested in anything.

  “How’s it go, old lad?” he asked Jimmy as they met by the jetty. “Pardon my high spirits, but I got ever such a jolly mood on just now. I spent the last few days getting meself a beautiful crop of ulcers dodging in and out of bars. My inside’s fizzing like a bottle of pale ale. How’s the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze? He take my advice?”

  “No,” Jimmy said glumly. “In fact, he’s showing his contempt for it by working it off on the boys.”

  Earnshaw looked quickly at him, with a bleary eye full of the sad, stale wisdom of the Coast. “What’s the matter, cock? You got saddle sores?”

  “He’s down with Sargy Asimani at the moment,” Jimmy said. “He had his room raided again last night. They stole his clothes this time. And they’ve lifted more stuff from the mine stores. I’ve got Asimani to keep quiet for the time being but it can’t go on.” He paused, drew a deep breath and continued. “We had a bloke killed by blasting yesterday. It shouldn’t have happened. It needn’t have happened. But they were thinking too much about Gotto and not enough about their job.”

  Earnshaw took off his hat and mopped his face with a dirty handkerchief. “How’s the rice situation?” he asked soberly.

  “Lousy. Indian Joe got raided too, last night. They know he’s got rice hidden away somewhere.”

  “You know something, son?” Earnshaw said. “Summat’s going to blow up one of these days. I can feel it in me bones. He’s dangerous. I know. I’m dead ’ot on danger.”

  “Thank God he’s due to go home soon,” Jimmy said fervently.

  Earnshaw squinted up the winding road to the mine and nudged him. “Kid,” he said. “Put on your dancing pumps and report to the ballroom for a waltz. Here comes His Master’s Voice.”

  Clerk Smith emerged out of the approaching cloud of dust on his noisy old bicycle and almost fell into Jimmy’s arms.

  “What the hell is it this time?” Jimmy demanded angrily.

  “Boss. Labourer done get hurt.”

  “Another?”

  “Yassah. Bryma Komorra. De digger bucket done hit him. Boss Momo send for Ole Doc. He hurt plenty bad.”

  They found Romney kneeling on the ground alongside the still dusty form of one of the labourers whose black face was flecked with specks of blood.

  “How bad is it, Doc?” Jimmy asked.

  “Bad as it can be without being fatal. Fractured skull.”

  Romney looked up, his heavy face serious. “How did it happen, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “You know as much as I do, Doc. Arguing about Gotto, I suppose, like the last one, and not watching what he was doing.”

  He stared at the dusty ground and his eyes found their way to the silent figure of the injured man.

  ‘What is he, Doc? Temne?”

  “Yes, so I’m told.”

  Jimmy sighed. “I suppose that means a row in the town,” he said.

  That night the noise of mourning could be heard continually from the moment the sun set in its thunderous glory. The drums began beating solidly and the mourning party spread a little under the influence of palm wine and native beer and the bottles of gin which Indian Joe had generously provided to assist the wailing, until it began to include people who were in no way related to the injured man – people who merely wanted to get drunk, noisy people and people who wanted to celebrate, and before long they could hear the shrieks of laughter, and the tinkling of the native xylophones chanting their monotonous tune. There were several big fires blazing round Amama Town and, inevitably, Samuel Assissay was doing the round of the parties, breathing fire and slaughter and making the most of the occasion to preach insurrection.

  The drumming had reached a breathless pitch that set the whole town throbbing when Jimmy arrived at the Swannacks’, and as he and Stella sat behind the mosquito mesh on the veranda, they could see a steady procession of people moving through the streets. The whole place seemed to be on the move, and the glow of passing lanterns and torches lit up the great leaves of the banana plants by Swannack’s front gate.

  Swannack seemed worried and the tufts of hair on his face which seemed to move about like a weather-vane according to his mood seemed limp and dispirited.

  “Bad thing, this accident today, son,” he said to Jimmy as he stood by the door, outlined by the fires that were burning down the road. He waved his cigar to shift the flies from round his head. “That’s two in two days. The people are upset. There’s a lot of noise down there.”

  Mrs Swannack put her head round the door from the other room where she was conducting in hygiene and mothercraft a class of village women whose high-pitched chatter came through to them in bursts.

  “There’s too much laughter in the village, Father,” she said aggressively. “Too much drinking. That poor man’s soul’s only an excuse for licence.”

  “They always make this noise,” Swannack said patiently. “They’re always looking for an excuse to make a noise. They sure are fast off the mark for a mourning or a celebration.”

  Mrs Swannack glared suspiciously at the crowds. “I don’t trust ’em,” she said loudly. “They’re too quick to celebrate these days but they don’t come to church with the same speed.”

  “This is only high spirits, Mother,” Swannack said gently. “The Lord will always prevail. If I went out and preached the Word now to them, they’d come, excited as they are.”

  “And probably burn the place down, the liquor they’ve been taking.”

  As Mrs Swannack went back to her class, mu
ttering rough-handed Old Testament texts, Swannack gave Jimmy his evening tot of gin – what Earnshaw was in the habit of calling “enough to drown a flea” – and settled himself down for a talk.

  “Gin warms the soul as much as a good rousing hymn,” he said, “but don’t say I said so or Old Doc would tell me it’s easier to make a convert with it than with prayer.” He looked up at Jimmy. “Son,” he went on seriously, “this afternoon I was approached in the town to denounce your friend Gotto in the pulpit–”

  “Mr Swannack,” Jimmy pointed out, “he’s not my friend.”

  Swannack waved a hand. “No, I guess not. But this boy who was injured today, he belonged to my flock and I was told I must denounce Gotto as an oppressor of the black races.”

  “Sounds a familiar line. Who by?”

  “I don’t know, Jimmy. Guy I never saw before. Looked like he came from Freetown. Smart suit. Glasses. Samuel Assissay was with him.”

  “I thought he might be.” Jimmy’s brow was wrinkled. “Looks as if the vultures are gathering. What did you say to him?”

  Swannack rubbed his nose uneasily. “I figured it wasn’t any of my business, son. I told him so.”

  Jimmy lit a cigarette. No, it’s no one’s business, he thought gloomily. Nobody wants Gotto. Not Twigg. Not Romney. Not Earnshaw. Not you. Nobody. That leaves me. Only me. He felt suddenly weary with the weight of his responsibility.

  “What did he say?”

  “Oh, he made oblique references to other means of getting rid of him.”

  “Father,” Mrs Swannack bawled from the other side of the house. “Aren’t you tired of playing gooseberry?”

  “Yes, Mother. Coming now.” Swannack turned again to Jimmy. “I figured I’d better pass it on to you, son. Thought you’d like to know.”

  “Thanks,” Jimmy said heavily.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you advise?”

  “Well–” Swannack rubbed his nose again – “I guess it’s none of my concern. Gotto belongs to the mine. He isn’t a member of my flock and the chances of me enfolding him into this church are small, I guess, now.”