The Book of the Heathen

by Robert Edric

  It was decided that no-one should accompany me to Tilbury to see me off. My father suggested this and I agreed with him immediately. In truth, however, I regretted not having someone standing at the quayside and waving to me as I was taken slowly away from them, but it was beyond me to put this to him.

  He was right: in fact, I left the house at four the following morning, when there was no-one but me and my mother to mark my going. I remember looking up at the windows of my sisters’ bedrooms, hoping that they had learned of this early departure, and that I might see them there, ghostly figures in their nightgowns waving gently down at me while tears passed silently over their faces. I even had a tin of the earplugs in my coat pocket which I would have taken out and held up to them to cheer them up and cause them to laugh.

  At Tilbury, Frere told me that he had spent long hours during the past week composing a letter to Caroline, expressing his feelings for her, confirming her feelings for him, and then suggesting how these might now be adapted and constrained during their time apart. I suspected he was telling me much more, that he had asked her to forget him and not to allow him to remain a shadow on her life. It was her twenty-second birthday two days after our departure, and he had included a gift with the letter. When I asked him what this was he refused to tell me.

  Waiting until we were out of sight of land, he presented me with photographic miniatures of my parents and sisters, the five people I held dearest to me, and though I already possessed others, packed away amid my softest clothes, these five were the most recent, and, framed together in a single piece, they were where, for ever afterwards during my absence from home, those five people lived most fiercely for me.

  PART TWO

  7

  Frere was returned to us two days later. We heard nothing in advance of this, and it was not until the boat bringing him was almost at our shore that we understood what was happening. I heard of it from the deformed boy, who banged on my door and then stood pointing when I answered.

  Frere was accompanied by Proctor and three of his men. His hands were tied and a rope was looped loosely around his ankles. Proctor and his men all wore their dress uniforms and carried rifles. Their polished buttons and the gold braid of their caps and epaulettes shone in the sun as they came. I had never seen the man dressed like this before, and the formality of the occasion made me cautious.

  The boat was moored and the five men waited on the jetty while we on this side formed ourselves into a group and went down to meet them. As we approached, Proctor called to his men and they stood to attention. They were not well drilled, but again the gesture and all it implied made me uneasy. I stood with Cornelius, who told me to wait and to remain silent.

  Proctor came forward and took out a piece of paper. He announced who he was and what he was there to undertake. He required several signatures and various guarantees before he was prepared to hand Frere over. All of these were duly given. He insisted on handing over directly to Bone. Bone, however, had not so far appeared. Fletcher sent someone to find him. He asked Proctor to hand Frere over to him, but Proctor refused, and we waited an hour until Bone was eventually found and brought to us, and then even longer as his own men were gathered together. There was only one other Englishman with Bone, a private called Clayton, the rest of his squad being natives, most carrying only clubs. I saw the look of contempt on Proctor’s face as he inspected his counterparts.

  ‘Why are we tolerating this charade?’ I whispered to Cornelius.

  ‘Because that’s what it is. And because it serves someone else’s purpose. Look at them – when did you ever see Proctor or his pretend soldiers dress like that before? Somebody, somewhere, wants all this done properly.’

  ‘They’re washing their hands of him,’ I said. I looked to where Frere stood, his head down, his hands held together in front of him. He looked much as I had seen him on my last visit. I wanted to attract his attention, to signal to him that he was finally safe, but he kept his eyes resolutely on the ground, determined not to see me, not to have to respond to what was happening around him.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Cornelius said. ‘Or perhaps it’s more a question of them wanting us to properly understand our own responsibilities in the matter.’

  I asked him what he meant, and he answered me by nodding in the direction of the far shore. A line of men stood there, none of whom I could identify at that distance and through the watery haze between us, but whose identity I might easily guess at.

  There was a further delay while Bone went through the painstaking task of signing his own name on the various documents.

  ‘Why don’t they cross, too?’ I said, meaning the distant figures, perhaps Amon, perhaps even Hammad, among them.

  ‘Because this way we understand them more clearly.’

  ‘Then why not at least warn us that they were sending him to us?’

  Cornelius turned his back on the proceedings. ‘Has it not occurred to you over the previous months that we hear less and less, are told less and less, of anything connected to us? Do you not see that even a year ago we heard of signatures on documents five thousand miles away which affected our trade, that we were informed of trading opportunities, of tariff and custom charges, that we were even informed of goods which never came, of men who never came. What didn’t we hear of in those days?’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘And now this.’

  ‘And you believe there is a purpose to it all, Frere included?’

  ‘Possibly. I was merely remarking on the fact that once we were the kings of our own little kingdom, and that now…’

  I wished he and not Bone were conducting the arrangements on behalf of Frere. Bone’s men were no longer standing beside Frere, but were squatting on the ground.

  ‘Are you satisfied?’ Fletcher said to Proctor, as the man made a point of reading all the signatures that had just been signed. But Proctor played to his advantage and refused to be hurried. He slowly divided those pages which were to be returned to the Belgians from those which were to be left with us. He then shouted to Bone and said that he’d been told to take Frere all the way to our gaol and to see him securely held there before leaving. Fletcher said this was unnecessary, but Proctor insisted. He signalled to the men on the jetty and they came forward.

  Frere was prodded in his back by one of the men with his rifle and he cried out at the unexpected pain of this. Proctor saw what had happened and looked round at the rest of us to see who might attempt to intervene. None of us did, and this disappointed Proctor, who called for his men to stop goading Frere.

  For the first time, Frere raised his head and looked around him.

  A considerable crowd had gathered by then. Men I had never before seen began to shout out, to condemn Frere for what he had done. Someone threw a clod of earth at him which burst into dust on his chest. Someone else cheered the shot. A group of women pushed through the crowd and spat at Frere. Proctor told them to get back, but made no real effort to restrain them until they had finished their protest.

  Fletcher came to Cornelius and showed him the documents that had been signed. Cornelius read them.

  ‘We accept full responsibility for him,’ he said. ‘And we hold him here until further action is necessary.’

  ‘Next page,’ Fletcher said, his eyes on the procession passing us close by.

  ‘A delegation to be sent to assess the facts of the matter and to establish the most suitable manner in which to proceed with whatever action is deemed necessary.’

  ‘They don’t want him sent home,’ Fletcher said. ‘They want him tried and hanged here.’

  ‘Hanged?’ I said.

  Fletcher and Cornelius shared a glance.

  ‘Our gift to their new republic, or whatever,’ Cornelius said.

  ‘And don’t look so surprised,’ Fletcher said. ‘You could have guessed all this from the very beginning.’

  It was then, just as the slow procession passed in front of the chart room, that Frere stumbled and fell forw
ard, grabbing out at the man in front of him and pulling him to the ground as he fell. From where I stood, it was difficult to see any more precisely what had happened. There was further cheering from the crowd as Fletcher pushed through them. Then I heard a call from Bone, and watched disbelievingly as two of his native guards ran forward, pulled Proctor’s man to his feet, and started clubbing Frere where he lay on the ground. The cheering from the crowd grew even louder. The beating continued, with both Bone and Proctor looking on, and with neither man making any effort to stop it. It was ended finally by Fletcher firing his rifle into the air and pushing through the circle that had formed around the three men. Cornelius and I followed in his wake.

  I had not noticed him previously, but as I approached close to where Frere lay on the ground, I saw Abbot standing in the open doorway of my office. I had locked the door behind me on coming out. He saw me approaching him, but made no effort to disguise the fact that he had been in among my maps without my permission. Instead he stared in fascination at the man on the ground and at the two men still hitting him. It was only as Fletcher fired again, and as the crowd finally fell silent and parted, that Abbot looked up and acknowledged my presence.

  Frere lay on the ground without moving. There was blood on his cheek and forehead. Fletcher knelt and spoke to him, eventually helping him to his feet. Only then did Bone begin to admonish his men, but in a manner which made his own feelings clear to us and the watching crowd. The two natives retrieved their clubs and stood together with them cupped in their palms as though they were rifles. Bone then apologized to Frere, who wiped at his bloody mouth with his bound hands.

  ‘Just get him to the gaol,’ Fletcher said to Bone. ‘You have a duty to him.’

  ‘But not to you,’ Bone said, angry at being spoken to like this in front of all these others.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Fletcher said, helping Frere as he resumed his hobbled walk. ‘But you do seem to have signed your name to an awful lot of papers recently. Not me, not any of the rest of us – you. And what do you imagine that means, Bone? What do you imagine you’ve committed yourself to in your eagerness to sign?’

  This had not occurred to Bone, and he looked at Fletcher without answering.

  ‘At least now they’ve got someone to blame,’ Fletcher said.

  ‘Blame for what?’

  ‘For whatever happens to your prisoner – yours, that is, not ours – before they can try him.’

  Bone became alarmed at what he was being told. There was some truth in what Fletcher said, but he made more of it than it warranted. Bone looked down to where Frere had been on the ground, at the marks and stains in the dust there. Then he turned on the closest of the gathered men and women and told them to go. Few paid him any attention, but most wandered away of their own accord.

  Cornelius left me and returned to his work.

  I went to where Abbot stood and asked him what he wanted of me.

  ‘With you?’ he said. ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘You were in my room.’

  ‘I was in a room owned by the Company, filled with Company maps. I wanted to ascertain how far behind you were in your work.’ He carried several ledgers and folded his arms across these as he spoke. ‘He makes quite a spectacle of himself, wouldn’t you say,’ he said, indicating Frere and the men around him. ‘A great pity that neither you nor Cornelius could not have arranged to have him returned a little more discreetly.’

  ‘We had nothing to do with it,’ I said. ‘It was beyond our control.’

  He smiled at this. ‘Of course.’ He turned away from me. ‘Forgive me, I have a great deal to do.’

  I stood in my doorway, waiting until I saw Proctor and his men march back to their boat. Once out on the water, all four men fired their rifles into the air and were answered by shots from the distant shore.

  8

  I had hoped to visit Frere the following day, but circumstances worked against me. On that morning a vessel arrived at the centre of the river flying a yellow flag. The waterways on either side of it emptied immediately, and I could not understand why the small steamer had dropped anchor there rather than continuing downriver. An hour later, a second vessel arrived, also showing a fever flag. These two joined themselves stern to prow and continued on their way together.

  The rest of the day was filled with speculation. It was Cornelius’s opinion that they had come from the mission at Mohta, but we were at a loss as to what contagion they might have carried. There had been men working on the decks of both vessels while they waited.

  Several hours passed before anyone crossed the river, almost as though something of the boats’ sickness might remain diluted in the water. There was some complaint from our consignment traders that the vessels they were expecting had been kept away by the flags. Later, we received word that a cargo of palm oil and block attar had been diverted to Biembo at word of the flags.

  The incident left us unsettled; these things seldom occurred in isolation. An order was given to all the independent traders due to leave over the following days to conclude their work more quickly and to leave before nightfall. When they complained at being hurried like this, Fletcher told them either to leave or to take back on board all their recently unloaded supplies. Few persisted in their complaints.

  ‘If it is an outbreak of something at Mohta,’ Cornelius said, ‘then the boats will be back and forth.’

  Seven hundred women and children lived at the mission. Cross-river traffic ceased for two days afterwards. Abbot complained that everyone was overreacting, and that our business had been delayed and disrupted enough over the previous months without this.

  Cornelius waited for him to leave us before saying to me, ‘I read Proctor’s papers last night. The Company was informed within an hour of Frere’s return. They’ll know already down in Boma.’

  Boma remained our administrative centre in preference to Stanleyville, where the Belgian presence was too great. Sea-breeze Boma we called it, where life was easy, and departure forever on the minds of the men who worked there.

  ‘Someone will be sent to examine the facts of the matter. Frere might even be returned with whoever is sent.’

  ‘Is there no chance that we might be left to sort it out for ourselves?’ I asked him.

  ‘Those days are over,’ he said. ‘It seems we can no longer be trusted. Besides, there are other considerations.’

  I regretted having asked. He told me nothing I had not considered a hundred times over through the previous night.

  He went on: ‘All I’m saying is that it is in all our interests – especially Frere’s – to be aware that these things are about to happen to us, for us to be ready for them to happen, and then for us to act accordingly.’

  ‘Which, you believe, involves us keeping our distance from the man.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Are we going to sacrifice him so readily?’

  He shook his head at this remark. ‘I am as powerless as you,’ he said.

  I asked if anyone had been to see Frere since his return.

  ‘Bone is under orders to keep everyone away for the first few days.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Perhaps to give Frere time to prepare himself.’

  ‘And to imagine that we here, his friends, have all abandoned him.’

  ‘I doubt he will believe that.’

  ‘Has Bone set a guard on him?’

  ‘Bone himself, honest, decent, conscientious little man that he is.’

  ‘Hardly our greatest conversationalist.’

  ‘And perhaps that is the last thing Frere needs of us for the time being.’

  ‘And after this embargo?’

  ‘Then presumably whoever wishes to see him will be free to do so.’ I heard the note of caution sounded in the remark.

  It was as we discussed the other matters of the day – primarily the anticipated arrival of our monthly consignment of rubber and indigo – that Fletcher arrived with news of an accident at the quarry, a lands
lide beneath which four workers had been buried, believed killed. I took out our ledger of employees from my desk and asked him if he knew the men’s names.

  ‘Who among us knows any of their names? Abbot’s up there now, flapping around like the headless chicken that he is.’

  ‘Will it hold up the digging?’ Cornelius said.

  ‘Apparently not. The fall was on an old face.’

  It was unlikely that the diggers’ bodies would be retrieved unless they were either visible or easily accessible. In the past, men had been killed in the quarry and abandoned beneath the rock and earth which had crushed them. Their families were afterwards sought and compensated depending on how loyal the workers were deemed to have been – another division of Abbot’s authority – and how long they had worked for the Company.

  At the news of a single death, ten families would immediately petition Abbot, and then sit for days on the quarry floor until they were either driven out or they abandoned their useless appeals. We were regularly sent directives on how every type of payment and compensation was to be calculated.

  I went with Fletcher and Cornelius to the quarry, where we were joined by Abbot. It was clear where the wall had collapsed: a slope of bright red earth and soft rock, fifty feet high, near-liquid in appearance and spreading outwards over the quarry floor. There was some effort still being made to search the surface of this by men probing with long canes, but little hope remained for the buried diggers.

  It was Abbot’s opinion that only three, not four, men had been lost, and that this ought to be remembered when the wailing women arrived. He made no attempt to supervise the search for the men, leaving this to those who had been working alongside them when the fall occurred, and those who knew how much easier it was to search than to continue working elsewhere. Abbot calculated that the work of twenty men would be lost for half a day. Fletcher asked him if that included the three dead men, and Abbot said it did.