Apart from the cries of the burghers and the blast of the rifle, Masson was shocked at how silent the whole episode had been. But that shock turned to terror as he could sense, even if he could not hear, their unseen enemies drawing closer. In an instant, they were surrounded.
From the underside of the cart, he could only see the bottom halves of their assailants. Their legs were covered by bands of animal hide from ankle to knee, whilst a flap of calfskin shielded their privates. A sheepskin around their thighs covered their behinds. Their thighs and lower torsos were slathered in ochre-coloured grease that gave off a strong, aromatic odour that only served to worsen Masson’s rising nausea.
The silence was broken by hushed clicks and words in a language that Masson had never heard before. When one of their attackers knelt down on the grass to look under the cart, Masson saw that his arms were covered in iron, brass and leather bracelets, and that he wore strings of multi-coloured glass beads around his neck and waist, with a piece of leopard skin draped around his neck like a short cape. This man was injured; he held one hand to a bleeding wound in his side as he gestured for the men to come out from their hiding place.
As he exited the cover of the cart, Eulaeus began shouting and pleading with the man. He kept gesturing towards Thunberg, who looked calm and composed, as if this was all part of a regular evening outing.
The man looked sternly at Eulaeus, winced, and then appeared to relent, as he turned to his men and barked an order. At his words, they all seemed to relax a little.
“What’s going on?” asked Masson.
“They’re Khoikhoi from further inland,” answered Thunberg. “They probably just wanted the oxen and the guns, but the burgher managed to hit the chief and he’s in a pretty bad way. The good news is that Eulaeus has told them I am a doctor and that I can heal him.”
Masson did not look convinced.
“You needn’t worry. These men aren’t cannibals, so you won’t end up on the evening menu and, unlike our friends at the garrison in Cape Town, if it all ends badly they’ll kill us quite quickly.”
“Well, that is a relief,” Masson said, deadpan.
Without another word and with the sun already beginning to set behind the mountain to their left, the three captives were pushed and prodded as they were led roughly from the road and pushed north into the bush. The heavy dew that had begun to form on the grass soaked through Masson’s shoes and stockings, whilst the shadows of the trees and scrub stretched across the veldt like long, dark claws.
The group tramped through the bush for hours, walking wordlessly behind the oxen that were being driven on ahead. Just as Masson began to think that the night march would never end, he caught a whiff of wood smoke on the wind. The tribesman began to chatter, and Masson’s heart started beating a little faster as he realised that they had reached their destination at long last.
But just as they emerged from the bush into the clearing of the rough camp, the greetings and cheers from the tribesman who were returning and those who stayed behind quickly melted away into stunned silence as the chief crumpled and fell to the ground, unconscious.
CHAPTER 23
To Masson’s relief, there was indeed no bubbling cauldron, and it seemed unlikely that the small fire that snapped and crackled in the centre of the clearing would be sufficiently large to roast the three of them alive.
Masson couldn’t help but notice, however, that the Khoikhoi men kept their spears close at hand as they sat on their haunches and talked across the flames. As Thunberg and Eulaeus tended to the chief, Masson sat tied up next to a small enclosure made of thorn branches in which the oxen had been corralled for the night.
Occasionally, one or another of the men came to check on his bindings. Masson did not need to understand the language to know that the men around the fire were not happy. Their steely looks were all the proof that Masson needed to know that if Thunberg did not perform some kind of miracle, they were all in desperate trouble.
A howl of pain erupted from the area that Thunberg had designated as his operating theatre, hidden from Masson’s view by the branches. The Khoikhoi all became very agitated and started to bicker amongst themselves. Some clearly wanted to put an end to the affair, and whilst there were others that were holding them back, they were beginning to lose the battle.
But then Eulaeus walked slowly into the circle, and all the men stopped talking and stood up, waiting to hear what he had to say. Eulaeus looked each one in the face and then started to speak. He had only said a few words when all the men cried out in unison and rushed past Eulaeus towards their chief.
Thunberg walked over and dropped down next to Masson, clearly exhausted.
“Well?” asked Masson.
“Oh, he’s going to die for sure,” replied Thunberg.
Masson hung his head in defeat.
A cheeky smile broke over Thunberg’s face. “I said he was going to die for sure, just not today.”
Masson looked up to see the Khoikhoi chief limping towards the fire, flanked on either side by his comrades. Masson was soon released from his bonds, and all three captives were ushered close to the warmth of the fire, where they were given a waterskin to drink from together with a foul-smelling broth served in upturned tortoise shells.
Masson was about to take a tentative swig from the waterskin before recoiling in disgust at the odour that emanated from the drinking aperture “Are they trying to poison us? I thought you saved the chief!”
Thunberg chuckled as he grabbed the waterskin from Masson and then took a healthy gulp before passing it on to Eulaeus and explaining, “In the north of Sweden we drink soured milk that has been left to age for a few months, but this is like a vintage wine by comparison.” Thunberg smiled as Masson wrinkled his nose. “You should try the broth. I think this one is iris root with a pinch of ixia.”
“Thanks, but I think that I’ve lost my appetite,” Masson replied. He felt like he hadn’t had a decent meal in days, and at the rate things were going, he wasn’t sure if he would ever see another.
“Suit yourself, but you’re missing out on a real African experience.”
“I think I’ve had enough of those for one day.”
Thunberg nodded his head as he unfurled himself and relaxed in front of the fire. “I suppose you have. But tell me, Masson, why did you come here anyway?”
“You know why: to find the flower — at least that’s what I thought, anyway,” Masson said, still stinging from Banks’s deception.
“Yes, but what made you decide to come?”
“Decide?” Masson repeated, giving himself time to mull over the question. “I didn’t decide, really, so much as agree. Come to think of it, I didn’t really agree either, I just didn’t object. I was told to come and so I came, and now that I’m here I can’t wait to get back.”
Thunberg seemed to sense Masson’s defensiveness and changed the subject. He pointed at the men who were talking around the fire. “They’re not from around here, either. My guess is that this is just a scouting party. Sent to appraise the colony so that they can report back to the tribal leaders in the east.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? To prepare for war.”
Masson raised his eyebrows in surprise. No one had mentioned anything about war.
Thunberg continued, “The eastern frontier has been a massive thorn in the Company’s side for years. The Company isn’t interested in colonising the Cape; they just want enough of it so that it pays for itself and makes a decent profit from the ships that pass by.
“The main trouble is that there’s too little water over much of the land and not enough pasture. Disputes have broken out with the tribes, and although a border was agreed upon, nobody respects it. The Governor refuses to incur the cost of sending troops to enforce it, especially when the settlers who would benefit bring so little profit to the Company. They end up feeling that they are nothing more than a buffer between Cape Town and the dangerous hordes lurking in the i
nterior. If the tribes were to set aside their own differences and focus on the common enemy, a war would be inevitable.”
Masson noted that all through Thunberg’s explanation, Eulaeus had not spoken but had simply sipped at his broth. Other than when Thunberg asked him to, he never talked or communicated with the other men, which Masson thought strange. He turned to Thunberg and said, “You told me earlier that these men are from a place not far from Eulaeus’s own tribe. I thought that locals weren’t allowed to be enslaved?”
Thunberg shook his head and smiled ruefully. “That’s true, but Eulaeus is no slave. He’s a warrior of the Xhosa tribe.”
Masson could not reconcile his vision of the fearsome warriors that Trudy had read about with the obedient, soft-spoken man sitting quietly next to him. “Officially, he’s called a Free Black, but unofficially he’s what you might call an unwilling participant.”
Eulaeus appeared not to register the conversation as Thunberg continued. “He’s from beyond the frontier. He got into trouble with his tribal elders, who banished him, and not long afterwards he was picked up by Willmer, who promised to put a roof over his head and food in his belly. All he had to do was put a cross on a piece of paper.
“Of course, that piece of paper turned out to be a work contract. In exchange for bringing him to the Cape, Eulaeus has to pay Willmer an agreed-upon sum every week for the next ten years or face prison. He came to work for the Landdrost at Stellenbosch, who, in addition to being the equivalent of the local magistrate and a fine man, is also my landlord. In view of his excellent local knowledge, the Landdrost agreed that Eulaeus could accompany me on all my journeys into the interior. He doesn’t say it, but I think he enjoys being out and away from the town. He’s a good man, just doesn’t talk very much.”
Whilst listening to Thunberg, Masson had picked up a twig and, as he replayed the events of the last couple of days, began to doodle in the dirt. Without taking much notice of what it was that he had been drawing, he looked up and saw that some of the Khoikhoi had collected a large number of wild almond nuts and seemed ready to share them out for dinner.
He dropped his twig and leaped up, shouting for them to stop, making gagging gestures and miming someone in the throes of death. But the Khoikhoi just looked at him and laughed — another umlungu who had been out too long in the sun.
In desperation, Masson turned to Thunberg and pleaded, “For pity’s sake, explain to them that the nuts are poisonous. They can’t eat them!”
With all conversation stopped, Thunberg said something to Eulaeus. He translated for the Khoikhoi, whereupon there was further laughter and shaking of heads before the men went right back to preparing the nuts.
Masson was at a loss until he saw that the men had boiled the nuts in one of the pots taken from the burgher’s cart before taking them out and roasting them on the embers of the fire.
When the nuts were cooked, they were shared out amongst the men and eaten, with Thunberg making a great show of pretending to choke and feigning death, which amused the Khoikhoi enormously. Masson accepted his share and sat down next to Thunberg.
“Let me guess,” Masson said, looking at the steaming lumps before him. “Once boiled and roasted, these nuts are no longer poisonous and are good to eat?”
Thunberg replied, “Well, I wouldn’t say that they’re good, but they will stop you from starving. You also forgot the part about how this has been a staple food for these people for hundreds of years, and how they can’t understand why we would build a giant hedge of the trees around our village and then not eat the stuff.”
Masson tried the nuts. They tasted bitter and dry, but not especially lethal. As he tried a second bite, one of the Khoikhoi shouted over to them, pointing at the picture of the Queen’s flower that Masson had absentmindedly drawn in the sand.
Thunberg relayed Eulaeus’s translation. “He says it is called isigude and that apart from the nectar, it’s not of much use.”
Masson appealed to him silently with his open palms raised heavenwards. “Does he know where it is?”
Thunberg spoke to Eulaeus, who then conferred with the tribesman. The tribesman answered with a lengthy explanation. When he had finished, Masson could not contain himself. “Well, what did he say?”
Eulaeus’s re-telling to Thunberg lasted only a few short sentences, which was and was then reduced even further by Thunberg’s final version. “He says that the flower can be found far to the east, beyond even the farthest colonial settlements, at a place he calls Two Rivers.”
“Is that really all?” asked Masson incredulously.
“More or less,” replied Thunberg.
“Could you get us to Two Rivers?” he asked Thunberg.
“I’ve been in that general direction, but never that far.” Thunberg looked at Masson quizzically. “But Willmer’s probably showing your diary to the Governor even as we speak. Your only hope is to get back to Cape Town. I know the Governor, and if I can explain our side of the story, with a bit of luck he’ll send you on your way back to England. Isn’t that what you want?”
“It was luck that landed me in Banks’s office, where all of this began, and it was luck that gave me the lead poisoning that almost killed me aboard the Resolution. I’m happy to take responsibility for the mistake of trusting Schelling, but I won’t make the mistake of placing my fate in the cruel hands of luck once more.”
“But what choice do you have? To find the flower, we would have to go beyond the eastern frontier, where few Europeans have ever been. It won’t be civilised.”
But Masson was not to be dissuaded. “You said yourself that it was the most fantastic story you had ever heard. Well, the only chance I have of anyone believing it to be true is to prove it. If I want to get home, I have to find and bring back that flower.”
Despite the Masson’s determination, Thunberg put up one final piece of resistance. “We would need oxen and supplies to last a journey that could take months. Even if we weren’t being hunted down by the burghers, it could take weeks to arrange.”
“Well, then,” replied Masson. “It seems there’s no time to lose.”
CHAPTER 24
After Thunberg and Eulaeus managed to negotiate the safe return of their horses, the three men mounted up and said goodbye to the Khoikhoi before turning their backs to Cape Town and riding hard to the east.
They rode through the night, the clouds scattering the light that came from the waning moon. Masson took turns doubling with Eulaeus and Thunberg in order to tire the horses as little as possible. Uncultivated wilderness gave way to neatly arranged vineyards and fields and just as dawn was about to break the men could make out the shadow of a church steeple and thirty odd houses that comprised the village of Stellenbosch.
The trio skirted around the village’s eastern periphery, away from the cobbled main streets so that the horses’ shod hooves would not wake the inhabitants.
They arrived at a large, rather grand, Dutch style farmstead with whitewashed walls and elaborate gables over the main entrance. They dismounted, and Eulaeus took the sweating horses to the stables whilst Masson and Thunberg walked quietly and without speaking towards the main entrance of the house.
But as they approached the front door, Thunberg made a sudden change of direction and tiptoed around to the rear of the house before stopping beneath one of the large sash windows that looked onto a courtyard.
“What are we doing?” hissed Masson, who only knew that they were coming back to Thunberg’s lodgings to retrieve some supplies. No one had mentioned anything about breaking in.
But Thunberg just held his finger to his lips and then eased open the painted shutters that covered the lower half of the window, before lifting the bottom sash by just enough so that the men could climb through.
Once inside, Masson didn’t move for fear of knocking something over in the dark. With barely a sound, Thunberg made his way through the blackness and a moment later had lit an oil lamp which bathed the room in a weak, tepid
light.
The square room had an enormous, full-length, hinged mirror that stood next to an ornately decorated armour on one side of the bed, with a desk and a washstand on the other. A single door led towards what Masson would have guessed to be the main entrance hall. Thunberg removed his shoes and gestured for Masson to do the same.
“I don’t want to disturb my host. We’ll need his assistance, and I don’t want to upset him if I can help it,” Thunberg whispered.
Thunberg retrieved a leather holdall from beneath the bed and began to pack into it various items of equipment, most of which came from a wooden chest situated at the base of the bed. The initials ‘CPT’ were emblazoned on its lid in gold leaf.
As Thunberg packed, Masson looked around the room, which was plainly decorated except for a number of different drawings of the same plant, an exquisite type of gardenia that he had not seen before. These had been carefully framed and hung on the wall where Masson would have expected to see family portraits, or perhaps a crucifix.
A beautiful white-bloomed living version of the gardenia had been placed on a table beside the bed. “I see you found my jewel,” Thunberg whispered from over by the armoire, where he was busy retrieving spare shirts and breeches. “I found it in Paarl. Incredibly difficult to bring into bloom, but when you do, it’s worth the effort.”
Next to the plant was a large, leather-bound copy of Systema Naturae by Linnaeus. Such a volume was too rare and expensive for a man of Masson’s meagre means, and he had been forced to make do with the copy in the library at Kew. Nonetheless, he knew almost all of its pages by heart. When he opened the cover, he saw opposite the familiar opening page a hand-written dedication to Thunberg in Latin, signed by Carl Linnaeus himself.
Masson passed his gaze across Thunberg’s desk to a stack of journals very similar to the ones that he had lost. They appeared to be new and unused. At the sight of them, Masson thought immediately of Constance, and he found himself wondering whether Thunberg had also left someone behind.
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