by Peter Rimmer
"Traitor," screamed The Captain.
"What did you say…Sir?"
"You're a bloody traitor. You stole my grandson from his father."
Doyle, for want of a better way to control his temper, held his breath telling himself it would be better to say nothing than telling the truth. There were too many lives at stake.
"I'll have you charged with conspiracy to kidnap. Accessory to the fact."
"Did you give Shank the five hundred pounds?"
"I gave him fifty quid."
"You promised five hundred."
"Shut your bloody mouth."
"Where's the gentleman's word in that one?" sneered Doyle. They glared at each other while Doyle gained control of his temper.
Coming to attention he pulled his letter of resignation from his right pocket. "Captain Brigandshaw, I regretfully resign my command."
"You'll never get another one. I'll bloody well see to that even if I can't put you in jail."
"And here is the list and signatures of officers and crew who will be leaving your employ on completion of their contracts."
"They're all fired. Never sail again. Not a bloody one of 'em. I will not be gainsaid."
"As you wish, Captain Brigandshaw."
"Get out."
"Yes, Captain, sir. You will find the Indian Queen shipshape at her berth. By this evening she'll be empty of officers and crew."
"What are you going to do Doyle?"
"That is for me to know and you to find out, Captain, sir." Even with the best of discipline there was a faint smile on his face.
"You bastard!"
"Don't forget Shank's four hundred and fifty pounds. A gentleman's word is his bond, I think they say. Shall I have them call for his full reward or will you send it for him to the Mission to Seamen?" Doyle reached the door to The Captain's office and had it open before turning back to the man still seated behind his desk. "He's a good boy…Fact is, he's the best of your litter."
They glared back at each other thinking of Sebastian.
When the door to his office had closed quietly and the sound of Doyle's boots had receded from the building, The Captain got up from his desk and looked out of the side window. Doyle was walking briskly away into the cold morning. 'He's probably right,' he said to himself and suddenly the smell of cloves was no longer to his taste…"But I will not be gainsaid," he said out loud when Doyle was long gone out of sight.
At three o'clock that afternoon a crew member of the Indian Queen found Jeremiah Shank drinking gin. Miraculously he was surrounded by friends. All of them were drunk but only Shank had been buying the gin.
"If you go to the Mission to Seamen ye'll find’t rest of ye fifty pieces of silver, Judas," said the crewman from the Indian Queen.
"Who are you callin' Judas?" asked a big man standing up from his bench: he had been the first to sense a free drink soon after Shank had entered the tavern.
"Enjoy the free drink, Mister," said the seaman, "cause there's plenty more. Best thing you can do, Jeremiah Shank, is get out of the country. And stay out."
Surrounded by his sycophants Shank leered back at the seamen. At five hundred pounds to his credit he could leer back at anyone. He was the richest ordinary seaman in the British Merchant Navy, to hell with his Certificate of Character. Shouting louder than the last time he ordered everyone a drink. For the first time in his life, he liked his fellow man.
Chapter 2: April 1891
After seven months in the bush, Henry Manderville and Gregory Shaw had nothing to show for it but the smiles of men content with themselves and the world around them. The last night’s camp had been within sight of Fort Salisbury that had changed from tents and men in uniform to brick buildings, shiny tin roofs and civilians everywhere. Gregory counted seven Union Jacks snapping in the wind. Everywhere were wagons and people, the road they had cut from South Africa bringing a tidal wave of experts and artisans, prospectors and spectators with them and the rule of law. The Standard Bank that had opened for business in a tent was housed in a one-roomed building with a stoep in front to shade the customers where Henry presented his letter of credit on his London bank. The police station further down the wide road rutted by ox wagons was immaculate, the stones demarking the building painted twice a day with whitewash to fight the fine red dust spread by the wheels and hooves. The rains had been over a month. The roads were straight and the front of the buildings in perfect line. Water pipes were being laid from the new pump station on the Makabuzi River. A sewage engineer had arrived from Liverpool and railway men were discussing with the British South Africa Company, in terms of its charter from Queen Victoria, the best route to link up with the British rail from Cape Town. A few blacks had come out of hiding away from Lobengula and were working on the roads, bewildered men in a world they had never imagined. Further down the wide road as Henry and Gregory edged their horses through the traffic and noise another building blazoned the Rhodesia Herald, the new press providing a weekly broadsheet having named itself after Cecil Rhodes. The British Empire had arrived and nothing would ever be the same. A life that had gone on little changed from the advent of man had come to an abrupt halt in less than a year.
Having tethered their horses to a newly erected hitching rail and with the firm belief that British law would protect them from theft they began a walk back down the main road they had ridden. They looked more like tramps than English gentlemen and if they were honest with themselves they stank. Their open shirts and tattered breeches were the same well-washed dirty grey, the soap having run out months earlier. Their beards were thick and matted, their hair chopped irregularly with blunt scissors.
"You think we could find a beer, old boy," asked Gregory.
"We'll ask at the police station."
As they approached the newly whitewashed line of stones, a man was standing in the shade of the front stoep of the police station looking at the noticeboard. He had a nasty sharp face and the nose was slanted to the left. The man's right eyelid drooped. He was smirking at a poster on the board and both approaching men found their right fist clenching with a wish to punch the man in the face for no reason whatsoever. Neither Gregory nor Henry had set eyes on the man who then caught sight of them. The nasty look turned to one of mild disgust. Henry caught the man's shifty eye and laughed.
"Sorry, old chap. Probably pong. Been in the old bush too long."
"You know where we can get a beer old boy?" asked Gregory.
"Not like that," said the man cutting them dead as he turned away from the noticeboard. The man's accent was forced and strange but the suit he was wearing had probably been tailored in Savile Row.
"I say, how rude," said Gregory as they both began to laugh.
In mid-laugh, Henry stopped and stared at the poster, "I know that face," he said. "Looks like young Seb."
Gregory walked closer and read the caption.
"Sebastian Brigandshaw," he read, "wanted in England for kidnapping. The notice is quite old. Do you know the young man?"
"He was my daughter's boyfriend. They were friends from childhood."
"How strange. What's he doing wanted out here, old boy?"
The policeman was immaculately dressed in the uniform of the newly constituted British South Africa Company Police, the starched brown of his sleeveless shirt as stiff as a board. The black-peaked cap was on the desk to his right and Gregory smiled at the polished shine of his knee-high boots planted under the drawer-less table. The man was more a boy and probably eighteen-years-old, one of the new arrivals that had come up north once the Pioneer Column had opened the road.
"Do you have a file on Sebastian Brigandshaw?" asked Henry.
"Man before you asked the same question, sir."
"You know of a hotel with a bath?" interrupted Gregory.
"Believe it or not a bloke called Meikle opened one last week. But he only takes cash. Won't give credit to prospectors."
"Wise man," said Henry. "Now about Brigandshaw."
"Some story he's a white hunter. We've looked for months. No sign of him. Kidnapped his brother's wife and son."
"No word of him?"
"Not a word, sir."
"Where is this hotel?"
"Halfway down Pioneer Street on the left. Find any gold?"
"Not a glimmer."
"Same as the rest. A few are digging into old Shona workings. Not much there either. Pity. Company shares have dropped in half so they say. Lucky I couldn't afford to buy any shares...Have a nice bath, sir."
To Henry and Gregory the first bottle of Cape red wine tasted like nectar from the gods and the second was tasting even better. They had found an English barber doing his trade under a msasa tree waiting for his shop to be built, the shaving water boiling in a bath tub over an open fire just fifty yards behind the new hotel. The hot bath in their room had come from a similar heating system while the steam boilers were being shipped from England. Each had bought a new shirt and a pair of trousers smelling of mothballs stronger than soap. The roast beef on their plates was not a fallen ox after all and both decided that even if the peas and potatoes came out of tin cans who were they to complain. After eating game for six months with the pioneer column and seven months fruitlessly searching their pot of gold the roast beef of old England was much to their taste. Both of them sent their plates back for a second helping and after the canned peaches were eaten they settled to a bottle of old Cape brandy and a large cigar content with life.
"You want to talk about them?" asked Gregory.
"No, not really. Nothing I can do. The boy's Sebastian's. Even I can count. My own fault. Damn stupid. All about money and pride and vanity. Poor Emily. I hope she is safe…You ever do something damn stupid in your life?"
Gregory Shaw thought for a while. "I think I pieced the story together. We've been together alone for a long time…But what I want now is a woman. You ever think of women, Henry?"
"My wife most of the time. My daughter some of the time. My own selfish stupidity all the time. If they are out here we need a farm big enough for all of us. They haven't any money. Brigandshaw, the Pirate, will have cut off the boy. That policeman was damn helpful letting me see the file. Vanity, Gregory. It's all vanity once you have a roof over your head and enough to eat let's forget gold and by any of the land concessions the pioneers want to sell. Many will have had enough by now and want to go home. I can deal with the Pirate. Or I think I can. One thing none of us can do permanently is go back to England, you as well. A big farm and lots of cows. There's so much empty land out here you could build yourself a private empire. I like the idea of being far away from all the avarice and greed in this world."
Above them the punkahs were turning but having little effect on the heat. Even in April it was stifling hot with all the bodies in the dining room generating heat as they ate and talked.
On the other side of the room at a table set for one, Jeremiah Shank had put down his knife and fork to better eavesdrop the conversation at the table next to him. He had seen Gregory and Henry across the dining room but had failed to connect them with the two prospectors at the police station. After receiving the letter from Captain Brigandshaw at the Mission to Seaman he had called again as requested at Colonial Shipping, received the balance of his five hundred pounds and struck a deal: for the chance of another five hundred pounds he had set out to Africa to find the errant boy, report him to the police and have him shipped back to England for trial. Even Jeremiah had been surprised at The Captain's hatred of his youngest son. As a passenger this time he had taken ship on the first Colonial Shipping vessel sailing for the Cape, lauding his status over the crew. By then he had dressed himself properly and spent five shillings of his new money on elocution lessons.
He had arrived in Cape Town and taken the train to Kimberley, recently annexed by the British from the Boers as the place was an underground mountain of diamonds. From Kimberley he had made his way to the new mining camp at Johannesburg where he had been told the main rains had flooded the rivers and cut the road to the interior. Along with the avalanche of suppliers he had arrived in Fort Salisbury three weeks earlier when the drifts across the Shushi, the Bubye, Nuanetsi and Lundi had become impassable. Until the moment he put down his knife and fork there had not been a trace of his quarry. The word Brigandshaw, spoken by the big man with a beard down to his chest, rang the bell for Jeremiah that silenced every other thought in his mind.
"You think Oosthuizen has found the Great Elephant? asked Frederick Selous at the next table.
"Never will. Hunted him for years myself," said Henry Hartley, the other man at the table.
"They haven't come in."
"Camped on the Zambezi I'll bet. They won't come through here if they have any sense. Rhodes thinks he owns every elephant south of the Zambezi."
When Henry Hartley looked up from his place a short man with a crooked nose was standing at his elbow. The old hunter felt an immediate flash of dislike.
"Do you know the whereabouts of Sebastian Brigandshaw?" asked the stranger.
"What's it to you?" said Hartley, annoyed at the interruption. He had spoken louder than intended and the conversation in the dining room came to an abrupt halt, the silence broken by the swish and creek of the punkah.
"He's wanted by the police," said Shank into the silence. "In England," he added. "He's kidnapped his brother's wife and son."
"Has he now. Maybe the brother was a tad careless."
The gale of laughter made Shank's right eyelid droop further and the pulverised cartilage in his twisted nose began to hurt.
"It's a capital offence," he said trying to maintain his authority.
"No, Mister whoever you are, never heard of Sebastian Brigandshaw."
"But I distinctly overheard you mentioned his name."
"Then you shouldn't listen to private conversations," replied Hartley standing up. Selous, who had been Chief Scout for the Pioneer Column also got to his feet. They were the most famous hunters in Africa.
"I'll report you to the police," said Shank standing his ground in his new suit.
The two hunters laughed with the rest of the dining room and sat down again picking up their knives and forks and leaving Shank standing. Everyone in the room went back to their food except Henry Mandeville on the other side of the room.
Shank sat down well pleased with himself. His quarry was camped on the banks of the Zambezi River. The man was still in the country. All he had to do was wait and listen. Jeremiah Shank knew that Oosthuizen was Brigandshaw's partner. He sat back comfortably in his chair and watched Hartley turn and glare at him. He smiled back. With another five hundred pounds he would buy himself half a dozen farms they were talking about and turn himself into a gentleman.
Jeremiah Shank was already in the office of the BSA Company when Gregory Shaw arrived the next morning to register his claim for the farmland he would receive payment for being a member of the Pioneer Column. Next to Shank was a disgruntled young man who had sold his farm right for twenty pounds: the man had been interested in quick gold not hard work of farming.
"If you don't occupy the land within twelve months you will forfeit the title," said the company man to Shank. "Beacons will be completed next month when you may choose your farm all of which are within fifteen miles of Salisbury. Now, if you wish to renounce your right to Mr J Shank, sign here," he said to the disgruntled young man…"Now, good day to you. Mr Shank, twelve months remember." The BSA Company wanted Englishmen, any Englishmen occupying the land to deter any aggression from Lobengula when he realised Rhodes had taken the land that he valued and not just the minerals that were worthless to the Matabele.
Ten minutes later, having chosen neighbouring farms from a surveyor's map, Gregory took up their right to six thousand acres north of Fort Salisbury.
"Sir Henry Manderville will sign for his three thousand acres this afternoon."
"The company store will sell you implements and seed."
"I'm sure it will."
Smiling to himself, he left the office to join Henry who was selling the pack horses and prospecting equipment. 'Whatever it is, wherever it is,' he said to himself. 'There's always a racket.'
At first light the following morning Henry and Gregory began the ride south that would take them back to England. They had exactly twelve months to complete their business and return.
Even as they rode back close to Matabele territory there was no sign of Lobengula's impis. Wisely they travelled with a group of Englishmen going the same way. They were all armed with the new Martini-Henry repeating rifles. Largely the English had conquered the country by force of arms, the Rudd concessions with its prospecting rights merely providing an excuse to pacify the British government and convince the Queen this particular imperialism was legal. The Shona, coming out of their hiding in ever-increasing numbers had never once been consulted about what was happening to their ancestral home. They were bewildered and hungry and many of them took jobs working for the Englishmen. All the Shona had managed to do was change masters. Instead of losing their lives they had lost their land to British protection.
Emily knew in her heart that the last seven months would be the best part of her life but their provisions were exhausted, the trail through the bush was dry and it was time to return to the world. For the seven months they had not even seen the footprint of another man and nothing had disturbed their harmony. Not only had Tatenda learnt to speak good English but Harry, just three years old, was the first Englishman to speak Shona without an accent. He moved from English to Shona as if they were all the same language.
Tinus had made the decision for them.
"You young lady will need a doctor in three months’ time and Alison and I need a priest. Break camp. We must move."
The largest wagon was used to store the ivory from the hunt, stacked high and roped to the bed of the wagon with a canvas pulled tight over the top. The vegetable garden was left to go to seed and feed the buck and at the end of April the journey back to civilisation began. Not one of them wanted to go.