“I picked up a dozen of these last winter in Baltimore,” says he. “American army guns—Gezo would give his very throne for 'em, and I intend to use them in driving a very special bargain with him. Are you a good shot? Well, then, you can demonstrate them for him. Get Kinnie to give you a needle gun and cutlass as well.”[19]
“D'you think. . . we'll need them?” says!.
He turned the pale eyes on me. “Would you rather go unarmed—into the presence of the most bloodthirsty savage in West Africa?” says he. “No, Mr Flashman—I don't expect we shall need to use our weapon3; not for a moment. But I fear the Greeks even when I'm bearing gifts to 'em, sir, d'you see?”
Well, that was sense, no doubt of it, so I took my needle carbine and bandolier, buckled on the cutlass and stuck the Colt in my belt, and stood forth like Pirate Bill; as we took our places in the canoe, it looked like something from a pantomime, every man with his hankie knotted round his head, armed to the teeth, some of 'em with rings in their ears, and one even with a patch over his eye. It struck me—what would Arnold say if he could look down now from his place at the right hand of God? Why, there, he would say, is that worthy lad, Tom Brown, with his milk-and-water wife in the West Country, giving bread and blankets to needy villagers who knuckle their heads and call him “squire”: good for you, Brown. And there, too, that noble boy Scud East, lording it over the sepoys for the glory of God and the profit of John Company—how eminently satisfactory! And young Brooke, too, a fearless lieutenant aboard his uncle's frigate Unspeakable—what a credit to his old school! Aye, as the twigs are bent so doth the trees grow. But who is this, consorting with pirates and preparing to ship hapless niggers into slavery, with oaths on his lips? I might have known—it is the degraded Flashman! Unhappy youth! But just what I might have expected!
Aye, he would have rejoiced at the sight—if there's one thing he and his hypocritical kind loved better than seeing virtue rewarded, it was watching a black sheep going to the bad. The worst of it is, I wasn't there of my own free will—not that you ever get credit for that.
These philosophical musings were disturbed by the tender scene between Mr and Mrs Spring as he prepared to board the canoe. Unlike the rest of us, he was dressed as usual—dark jacket, round hat, neck-cloth all trim—how the devil he stood it, in that steaming heat, I can't figure. Well, at the last minute, Mrs Spring leans over the ship's side crying to him to take his comforter “against the chill of the night”. This in a country where the nights are boiling hot, mark you.
“D-nation!” mutters Spring, but out he climbed, and took the muffler, crying good-bye, my dear, good-bye, while the men in the canoe grinned and looked the other way. He was in a fine temper as we shoved off, kicking the backside of the cabin boy—who had been ordered to come along—and d-ning the eyes of the man at the tiller.
Just as we pushed out into mid-stream came another diversion—from the jungle on the laudward side of the stockade came a distant murmuring and confused sound. As it grew nearer you could hear that it was a great shuffling and moaning, with the occasional shout and crack of a whip, and a dull chanting in cadence behind it.
“It's the slave train!” bawls Spring, and sure enough, presently out of the jungle came the head of a long line of niggers, yoked two by two with long poles, shuffling along between their guards. They were a startling sight, for there were hundreds of 'em, all naked, their black bodies gleaming in the sunshine and their legs covered with splashes of mud up to the thigh. They moaned and chanted as they walked, big stalwart bucks with woolly heads, jerking and stumbling, for the yokes were at their necks, and if a man checked or broke his stride he brought his yoke-fellow up short. The sound they made was like a huge swarm of bees, except when one of the guards, big niggers in kilts and blouses carrying muskets, brought his whip into play, and the crack would be followed by a yelp of pain.
“Easy with those kurbashes, d-n you!” yelled Spring. “That's money you're cutting at!” He leaned eagerly over the thwart, surveying the caravan. “Prime stuff, 'pon my soul, Mr Kinnie; no refuse there. Somba and Egbo, unless I'm mistaken.”
“Aye, sir, good cattle, all of 'em,” says Kinnie.
Spring rubbed his hands, and with many a last glance, gave the order to give way. The men at the sweeps hauled, and the big canoe pushed forward up river, Mrs Spring fluttering her handkerchief after us from the Balliol College's rail.
Once round the first bend, we were in another world. On either side and overhead the jungle penned us in like a huge green tent, muffling the cries and shrieks of the beasts and birds beyond it. The heat was stifling, and the oily brown water itself was so still that the plash of the sweeps and the dripping of moisture from the foliage sounded unnaturally loud. The men pulling were drenched in sweat; it was a labour to breathe the heavy damp air, and Kirk was panting under his breath as he accompanied the rowers with “Rock an' roll, rock an' roll, Shenandoah sail-or! hoist her high, hoist her dry, rock an' roll me ov-er!”
It must have been three or four hours, with only a few brief rests, before Spring ordered a halt at a small clearing on the water's edge. He consulted his watch, and then his compass, and announced:
“Very good, Mr Kinnie, we'll march from here. No sense in risking our craft any nearer these gentlemen than we have to. Cover her up and fall in ashore.”
We all piled out, and the huge canoe was manhandled in under the mangroves which hung far out from the water's edge. “When she was hidden to Spring's satisfaction, with a guard posted, and be bad ensured that every man was properly armed and equipped, be led the way along a track that seemed to me to run parallel with the river—although the jungle was so thick you couldn't see a yard either side. The air was alive with mosquitoes, and in the shadows of that little green tunnel we stumbled along, slapping and cursing; it was a poor trail, and when Spring asked me what I thought of it, I answered, h—lish. He barked a laugh and says:
“Truer than you know. It's made of corpses—some of the thousands that result from the Dahomeyans' yearly festival of human sacrifice.[20] They build up the path with 'em, bound together with vines and cemented with mud.” He pointed to the dense thickets either side. “You wouldn't make a mile a day in there—nothing but ooze and roots and rotting rubbish. Sodden wet, but never a drop of water to be had—you can die of thirst in that stuff.”
You may guess how this cheered up the journey, but there was worse ahead. We smelled Apokoto long before we saw it; a rank wave of corruption that had us cursing and gagging. It was a stink of death—animal and vegetable—that hit you like a hot fog and clung in your throat. “Filthy black animals,” says Spring.
The town itself was bigger than I had imagined, a huge stockaded place crammed with those round grass lodges which are beehive shaped with an onion topknot. All of it was filthy and ooze-ridden, except for the central square which had been stamped flat and hard; the whole population, thousands of 'em, were gathered round it, stinking fit to knock you flat. The worst of the reek came from a great building like a cottage at the far side, which puzzled me at first because it seemed to be built of shiny brown stones which seemed impossible in this swampy jungle country. Kirk put me wise about that: “Skulls,” says he, and that is what they were, thousands upon thousands of human skulls cemented together to make the death-house, the ghastly place where the human sacrifices—prisoners, slaves, criminals, and the like—were herded before execution. Even the ground directly before it was paved with skulls, and the evil of the place hung over that great square like an invisible mist.
“I seen as many as a hundred chopped up at one time before that death-house,” says Kirk. “Men, women, an' kids, all cut up together. It's like a Mayday fair to these black heathen.”
“They seem amiable enough just now,” says I, wishing to God I were back at the ship, and he agreed that as a rule the Apokoto folk were friendly to white traders—provided they had trade goods, and looked as though they could defend themselves. It was plain to see now why Spr
ing had us heavily armed; I'd have been happier with a park of artillery as well.
“Aye, they're savage swine if you don't mind your eye,” says Kirk, rolling his quid, “an' Gezo's the most fearsome b-d of the lot. He's the man to set upon your landlord, by G-d! An' wait till you see his warriors—you're a military man, ain't you?—well, you never seen nothin' like his bodyguard, not nowheres. You just watch out for 'em. Best fighters in Africa, they reckon, an' probably the on'y nigger troops anywhere that march in step—an' they can move in dead silence when they wants to, which most niggers can't. Oh, they're the beauties, they are!”
We had to wait near an hour before Gezo put in an appearance, in which time the sun got hotter, the reek fouler, and my mind uneasier. I've stood before the face of savage kings often enough, and hated every minute of it, but Gezo's little home-from-home, with its stench of death and corruption, and its death house, and its thousands of big, ugly niggers to our little party, was as nasty a hole as I've struck; I found myself shivering in spite of the heat haze, but took heart from the fact that all our fellows seemed quite composed, leaning on their muskets, chewing and spitting and winking at the niggers. Only Spring seemed agitated, but not with fear; he fidgeted eagerly from time to time, snorting with impatience at the delay, and took a turn up and down. Then he would stop, standing four square with his hands in his pockets, head tilted back, and you could feel he was working to contain himself as he waited.
Suddenly everything went dead quiet; the chatter of the crowd stopped, everyone held their breaths, and our fellows stiffened and shifted together. Utter silence lay over that vast place, broken only by the distant jungle noises. Spring shrugged and muttered:
“High time, too. Come on, you black b-d.”
The silence lasted perhaps a minute, and then out of the street beside the death house scampered a score of little figures, either dwarves or boys, but you couldn't tell, because they were grotesquely masked. They swung rattles as they ran, filling the air with their clatter, and crying out a confused jumble of words in which I managed to pick out “Gezo! Gezo!” They scattered about the square, prancing and rattling and questing, and Spring says to me:
“Chasing away bad spirits, and finding the most propitious place for his majesty to plant his fat posterior. Aye, as usual, on the platform. Look yonder.”
Two warriors were carrying forward a great carved stool, its feet shaped like massive human legs, which they planked down on the dais of skulls before the death house. The masked dancers closed in, whisking away round the stool, and then scattered back to the edge of the square. As they fell silent a drum began to beat from beyond the death house, a steady, marching thump that grew louder and louder, and the crowd began to take it up, stamping and clapping in unison, and emitting a wordless grunt of “Ay-uh! ay-uh!” while they swayed to the rhythm.
“Now you'll open your eyes,” says Kirk in my ear, and as he said it I saw emerging from the street by the death house a double file of warriors, swinging along in time to the steady cadence of the drum, while the chanting grew louder. “Ha!” cries Spring, eagerly. “At last!”
They marched out either side of the square in two long lines, lithe, splendid figures, swaying as they marched, and it was something in the manner of that swaying that struck me as odd; I stared harder, and got the surprise of my life. The warriors were all women.
And such women. They must have been close on a man's height, fine strapping creatures, black as night and smart as guardsmen. I gaped at the leading one on the right as she approached; she came sashaying along, looking straight before her, a great ebony Juno naked to the little blue kilt at her waist, with a long stabbing spear in one hand and a huge cleaver in her belt. The only other things she wore were a broad collar of beadwork tight round her throat, and a white turban over her hair, and as she passed in front of us I noticed that at her girdle there hung two skulls and a collection of what looked like lion's claws. The others who followed her were the same, save that instead of turbans they wore their hair coiled together and tied with ropes of beads, but each one carried a spear, some had bows and quivers of arrows, and one or two even had muskets. Not all were as tall as the leader, but I never saw anything on Horse Guards that looked as well-drilled and handsome—or as frighteningly dangerous.
“None o' your sogers could throw chests like them,” says Kirk, licking his lips, and then I felt Spring's hand grip my wrist. To my surprise his pale eyes were shining with excitement, and I thought, well, you old lecher, no wonder you left Mrs Spring at home this trip. He pointed at the black, glistening line as they marched past.
“D'you realise what you're seeing, Flashman?” says he. “Do you? Women warriors—Amazons! The kind of whom Herodotus wrote, but he knew nothing of the reality. Look at them, man—did you ever see such a sight?”
Well, they were likely big wenches, certainly, and they bounced along very jolly, but when I watch a wobbling buttock I prefer it to be unobscured by a dangling skull. And I'm no hand with women who look as though they'd rather kill and eat me than grapple in the grass. But Spring was all for 'em; his voice was husky as he watched.
“D'you know what they call themselves? Mazangu—the fair ones. You see how every company leader wears a spotless turban—they call 'em Amodozo. Doesn't that name bring back an echo from your school-days—think, man! Who was the leader of the Amazons in Africa—Medusa! Amodozo, Medusa. Mazangu, Amazons.” His face was alive with a delight I'd never seen before. “These are the cream of the Dahomeyan army—the picked bodyguard of the king. Every voyage I've made, I vowed I'd bring back half a dozen of them, but I've never been able to make this black Satan part with even one. He'll part this time, though.” He rounded on me. “You've a gift of languages, have you not? On this voyage we'll learn it—we'll find out everything there is to know about 'em, study them, their history, their customs. The real Amazons! By the holy, I'll make those smug half-educated Balliol sons-of-b-s sit up, won't I though? They'll find out what real scholarship is!”
I suppose I've been in some queer places, with some d-d odd fellows, but nothing queerer than watching those big black fighting sluts march by while a classically-educated slaver skipper babbled to me about anthropological research. I thought it had been lust that excited him, at the sight of all those black boobies quivering, and it was lust, at that—but it was scholarly, not carnal. Well, if he thought I was going to huddle up with those female baboons, studying present infinitives, he was dead wrong.
“They've got both tits,” I said. “Thought Amazons only had one.”
He snarled his contempt. “Even Walter Raleigh knew better than that. But he was wrong about what mattered—so was Lopez Vaz, so was Herodotus. Not South America, not Scythia—here! Africa! I shall make a name—a great name, with my work on these women. Despise John Charity Spring, will they?” He was shouting again, not that anyone could hear much, above that drumming. “I'll show them, by G-d, I will! We'll keep one, perhaps two. The others will fetch a handy price in Havana—what? Think of the money they'll pay for black fighting women in New Orleans! I could get two—no, three thousand dollars a head for creatures like those!”
I never interrupt an enthusiast, especially one with a temper like a wild dog's. Presently he fell silent, but he never took his eyes off those women, who were halted now in a great circle round the square. Two other companies of them had filed in and taken station close to the death house, and now in their wake came a gross black figure, under a striped umbrella, at the sight of whom they raised their spears in salute and stamped, while the mob round the square roared a welcome.[21]
King Gezo of Dahomey was bitter ugly, even by nigger standards. He must have weighed twenty stone, with a massive belly hanging over his kilt of animal tails, and huge shoulders inside his scarlet cape. He had a kind of wicker hat on his head, and under it was a face that would have shamed a gorilla—huge flat nose, pocked cheeks, little yellow eyes and big yellow teeth. He waddled to his stool, plumped down, and op
ened the palaver in a croaking voice that carried harshly all over the square.
At first we were ignored, although he could be seen squinting our way every now and then. He palavered with elders of the town, and then with several folk who were summoned forward from the crowd; one of them evidently displeased him, because he suddenly screamed an order, and two of the Amazons beside his throne stepped forward, drawing their cleavers, and without ceremony laid into the victim right and left, and literally slashed him to pieces. The crowd hollo'ed like mad, Gezo surged about on his stool, and those two harpies hacked away at the dismembered corpse, spattering the skull platform with blood. When they were done, slaves came forward to clear up—they had to sweep what was left of the body off the stage.
No doubt this was for our benefit, for we were now beckoned forward. Gezo was even more horrifying at close range, with those yellow eyeballs rolling at you, but he was civil enough to Spring, laughing hoarsely and chattering at him through one of his officials, who spoke fair Coast English.
They palavered for a while about the slaves who had been sent down to our ship, and then Gezo in high good humour ordered stools to be set for all our party, and we squatted down at the edge of the dais, while servants brought dishes of food—I expected it would turn my stomach, but it was not bad: stew, and fruit, and native bread, and a beer that was powerful and not unlike a German lager. Gezo gorged and talked, spluttering out food as he squealed and barked at Spring, and occasionally drinking beer from a gaudy china mug on which was inscribed, of all things, “A Present for a Good Boy from Scarborough”. I remember thinking how odd it was that this shoddy article should obviously be a prized possession, while the local cups from which we drank were really fine pieces, of metal beautifully carved.
All told it was as pleasant a meal as one could have in the presence of a terrifying ogre, with the blood still sticky before his feet, and the foul stench of the death house all around. Another distraction was the Amazons, who ringed the dais; one of the white-turbanned leaders stood close by me and I took close stock of her. She had the flat face, broad nose, and thick lips usual on this part of the Coast, but with that splendid shape, and a fine black satin thigh thrust out and almost touching me as I sat, I thought, by gum, one could do worse. They had men only once a year, Spring had said, and I decided that being the man would be interesting work, if you survived it. I gave her a wink, and the sullen face never altered, but a moment later she raised the fly whisk that dangled from her wrist and brushed away an insect buzzing round my head. I could see she fancied me; black or white, savage or duchess, they're all alike.
Flash For Freedom! Page 8