John pushed two Chloroquine tablets through the trembling lips and held a glass of water against Kadamanja’s mouth so he could wash them down. The man’s skin was fever-hot through sweat-soaked clothing but he complained of being freezing. John had piled every available blanket over him but to little avail. ‘Get some rest,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll be back later.’
Kadamanja nodded and sank gratefully back under the covering layers.
John left the tent and stood shading his eyes from the shimmering glare off the lake. The Livingstone Mountains on the eastern shore rose straight up, over 2000 metres sheer out of the water. They looked deceptively close but, in fact, were nearly fifty kilometres away. With the sun setting behind him, the mountains had lost their clarity and were bathed in soft shades of misty sepia, pink and red.
The lake, too, appeared stained by the sun’s last probing rays. Local fishermen were returning, effortlessly guiding their bwatos across the glasslike water. John had earlier watched two men on the beach as they worked on a new boat, patiently chipping away at the hardwood heart of a single trunk with nothing more than a crude adze, mallet and chisel. It crossed his mind that if he had visited this spot 300 years earlier the scene would be no different.
The wind, which had ruffled whitecaps through the day, had dropped. Voices of the fishermen, as they called to each other, carried clearly over the water. It was a beautiful and peaceful sight. Dark wakes followed the bwatos but, very quickly, the pink tinged lake reclaimed its mirror surface. In anticipation of a good catch, smoke rose all along the bay as women stoked their cooking fires.
‘Good evening, Mr Devereaux.’
John turned, momentarily startled. Sarah Fotheringham had walked to within two metres of where he stood without his being aware of her presence. ‘Good evening, Miss Fotheringham.’
‘How’s our patient?’
‘On the mend I think. It’s the worst case of malaria I’ve ever seen.’
Miss Fotheringham smiled. ‘Not up here, Mr Devereaux. Thousands die of it every year but they will not take prophylactics.’ She stepped towards him holding up a flask. ‘I’ve brought him some more broth.’
‘I doubt he’ll have any.’
Her head went up. Chin out, with a steely glint in her clear grey eyes which John had already learned meant ‘you’ll do it my way or else’, she said, ‘He’ll take it, Mr Devereaux. Excuse me,’ and went into Kadamanja’s tent.
John turned back to the lake but his thoughts were of Sarah Fotheringham. She was a woman who would not take ‘no’ for an answer. After Kadamanja was struck down with malaria – and how she got to hear about that remained a mystery – she had insisted they both accompany her to Karonga so he could be looked after. She had simply appeared at the place where John and his assistant had been working, some twenty kilometres out of Karonga, and taken charge of Kadamanja. There, with brisk efficiency, Mr Kadamanja’s recovery became her number one priority.
John knew his assistant was in good hands. There was no doubt that Miss Fotheringham knew what she was doing. He did not know much about her, but the little he did know intrigued him. She must have been in her late sixties yet her walk had the spring of a much younger woman. Her calm eyes twinkled with some kind of secret amusement, unless she had decided someone needed bullying for their own good. Her bearing was proud and erect, untouchable and barren. So why did she inevitably have half-a-dozen small children vying for the clasp of her hand? She spoke with an enchanting Scottish accent which left no doubt that she was a good, God-fearing woman. So why did she leave John with the impression she was unshockable, and ready to discuss anything from politics to prams, moral standards to motherhood?
She was tiny, no more than 150 centimetres tall, with a thin frame more like that of a boy than a woman of her years. Snowy white hair was pinned back in an enormous bun but strands strayed around her face, giving a youthful look. She wore rimless glasses which kept slipping down a bird’s beak of a nose. Her skin reminded John of delicate parchment. A faint scent of Lily of the Valley always surrounded her.
It was the way she dressed which gave the biggest clue as to her true personality. She favoured brightly floral, badly homemade skirts to her ankles. Her blouse was invariably white, of a loose design and never tucked in. On her feet she wore white canvas tennis shoes with neat socks always meticulously turned at the top. She was intelligent, kind-hearted, had a will of iron and no time for fools. Above all, she was harmlessly eccentric and loved the people of Karonga with a passion that went far beyond any simple desire to help them.
She came to Karonga in the fifties she had told John. She was the great-niece of Monteith Fotheringham, who had run the trading store in Karonga until 1895 when a bout of malaria ended his life. ‘I wanted to see where he lived,’ she had explained to John proudly. ‘He was much revered at home you know for his part in ending the slave trade.’
From others John gathered that after her arrival she had seemed to lose interest in the history of her ancestor, becoming totally engrossed with the present. Appalled by the sickness and poverty, and despite protest from the few whites in Karonga who viewed her as a threat to their supremacy, she set up a clinic at her own expense. Missionaries in the area complained to the authorities that she was unqualified to administer medication. Angrily, Sarah Fotheringham had taken her nursing diploma to the District Commissioner. Two local chiefs went with her to support the contention that she had as much right to run a clinic as anyone. Along the way, this determined trio were joined by hundreds of lake-shore dwellers, all of whom had come to regard this tiny but obstinate woman with deep affection and respect. Faced with a possible uprising, the District Commissioner told her she was free to carry on, providing she did not obstruct the real work being done by the missionaries.
He should have known better. Infuriated at his condescending remark, the indomitable Miss Fotheringham had gone on to open a school, a clearing house for woven artifacts and a fish market of sorts. She also ran classes for women to try and educate them in the ways of hygiene, nutrition and contraception.
Her interference in matters of birth control alarmed the missionaries. While they had sought to confine the villagers’ marital activities to one partner – rhetoric regarded with open amusement by all but the most fervent converts – Miss Fotheringham had gone to the women behind their backs and advised them to ‘spurn God’s gifts’. A delegation was sent to her.
The small group, made up of three indignant missionary wives and a young man of strong religious fibre but questionable sexuality, returned to the mission station with the words ‘bugger off’ ringing in their ears.
In truth, Sarah Fotheringham made little headway with her birth-control program. It did not stop her trying, however, and the villagers listened to her politely because they liked her, then went on with the business of giving birth every two years, making sure they apologised with great sincerity over each pregnancy.
During the turbulent years of independence, she had quietly and efficiently carried on with her work. Dr Banda was so impressed when he learned of her achievements that he offered Malawian citizenship. She accepted immediately and became one of the very few white people ever recognised in this way. As far as Malawi’s society matrons were concerned, she was an eccentric spinster who was much too friendly with the natives. The men speculated that she would benefit from just one night in their virile company. To all of this, Sarah Fotheringham reacted with dignified indifference.
To John Devereaux she was an angel. He had not been unduly worried when Kadamanja fell ill. However, two days later, the man’s condition had deteriorated, showing no response to anti-malaria treatment. When Miss Fotheringham appeared and demanded that they return immediately to Karonga, he gratefully handed Kadamanja into her competent care. John doubted that Kadamanja would still be alive if it weren’t for her.
‘He’s a little better.’
Damn! She’s done it again. How does she move so silently over sand? ‘Thanks t
o you,’ John said, turning from the lake to look at her.
She smiled. ‘Poppycock! Jonah has the constitution of a hippo.’
‘Jonah?’
She cocked her head and looked at him. ‘Surely you didn’t doubt he had a first name.’
‘He never told me.’
‘Did you ever ask?’
‘He’s a very formal individual,’ John said defensively. Kadamanja persisted in calling him ‘sir’ and had resisted any attempt John made to put their relationship on a more friendly basis.
Clear grey eyes regarded him seriously. ‘One of the things to impress me most when I first arrived in Nyasaland was the gently polite manner with which these people conduct themselves. They’re not formal, Mr Devereaux. At least, not in the stiff British way. They are very shy people and, unless you do something which upsets them, extremely respectful to their own kind and to us as well. I am constantly delighted that independence has not altered them unduly.’ She smiled a wicked little smile. ‘I am also continually relieved that, despite their best efforts, the missionaries have failed to interfere with the Malawians’ own high moral standards.’
John laughed. ‘I hope Dr Livingstone can’t hear that.’
Sarah Fotheringham laughed too. ‘I think the good doctor was more realistic than some. He at least accepted that moral codes, even if they differed from ours, were better than none at all.’ She squinted across the lake to the mountains which bore the Scottish missionary’s name. ‘How long have you known Jonah?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Six weeks.’
She smiled at him. ‘That’s all right then. He’ll tell you his name fairly soon.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘My dear man, I’m one of them.’ She peered at John over her spectacles, her eyes bright with amusement. ‘Besides, I had to ask his name. It’s difficult to wash a man’s undercarriage while you’re calling him mister.’
John chuckled. He liked her. Her personality was that of a modern woman but her precise manner of speaking was straight from the previous century, except of course when she was telling someone to ‘bugger off’. ‘Would you mind if I leave Mr Kadamanja with you tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘I’d like to finish off up at the camp and bring our equipment back to Karonga.’
‘After more of my broth, Mr Devereaux, I assure you Jonah will be up and about by the time you get back.’ Again, the wicked grin. ‘It’s laced with sherry you see.’
John pretended to be scandalised. ‘Miss Fotheringham, how could you! Mr Kadamanja doesn’t drink.’
‘Well he does now,’ she said gleefully. ‘And he appears to be thriving on it.’
John left Karonga before dawn to return to the site where he and Kadamanja had been working: on the border between Malawi and Tanzania about twenty kilometres to the north near where the rivers Kaparo and Songwe run into the lake. With a geologist’s knowledge of what lay under the earth’s surface, John had located a possible basin which looked as though it might once have been part of Lake Malawi. They had collected sand samples and were about to start testing them when Kadamanja fell ill. John could easily finish the work on his own.
Oil geologists, John included, believed that all the easy oil in the world had already been located. Back in the fifties, oil fields of less than a billion barrels were discounted as economically unviable. But with dwindling resources of natural gas, oil and petroleum, the smaller fields were being reinvestigated. Some of the world’s most inhospitable places were now traversed in the quest for petroleum.
John knew that Malawi had no large reserves of oil. All his training, years of experience in the field, all his instincts told him it was impossible. But what if . . . It was the ‘what ifs’ that made this business an exciting challenge, attracting mavericks from all over the world. John was no different to the rest of them. ‘What if’ was the reason he left his assistant in Karonga. He was too impatient to wait for him to get better.
As he drove along the sandy road John was not actually thinking about oil. He was wondering why the big South African tobacco farmer, Karl Henning, had paid them a call the previous week. John did not believe the visit was coincidental. There was something about Henning that disturbed him. It was entirely possible that the man was spying on John. The question was, who for? Should John inform Minister Matenje? ‘Damn them and their bloody intrigue,’ he thought, changing down a gear to negotiate a steep and rutted water causeway. ‘There’s no way Henning just happened along.’
John had been working on a structural map of the area and glanced up from the portable table to catch sight of a ketch-rigged motorsailer as she rounded the headland. Straightening, he watched the vessel with admiration as she sliced smoothly through the water. It was unusual to see such a large craft up here. The lake shelved away from the land very slowly. Indeed, John had seen cattle several hundred metres out from shore with the water lapping just above their hooves. Obviously the skipper of the ketch knew the area well and kept the craft in the deep channel where the Kaporo River ran into the lake. John estimated the boat to be about a forty-five footer and, in the light southerly breeze, she appeared to be making about five knots. An aft cockpit accentuated her sleek lines. A bit of an armchair expert, he nonetheless preferred the racy appearance of a cockpit to stern rather than the more solid looking centre-well favoured by leisure sailors. Light blue sails and a gleaming white hull gave the ketch a clean, eager appearance.
As he watched, the sails had come down and she dropped anchor some fifty metres from shore. From where he stood, John could see only one person moving about on the deck. The ketch was close enough for him to read her name, Silver Bird.
Ten minutes later a small runabout had been lowered on davits extended back over the transom. Since he and Kadamanja were the only two people in the vicinity John assumed the visit to be deliberate and wondered, with some disquiet, if perhaps there was bad news for one of them. As the dinghy drew closer he recognised its sole occupant as the large South African he had met briefly in Blantyre at the Mount Soche Hotel. He walked down the beach to greet the man. ‘Bit out of your way,’ he commented.
Karl Henning stepped easily from the dinghy, turned and heaved it further up the beach. ‘Doing a bit of fishing. Saw the tents. Assumed it was you,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d drop in to see how you’re doing.’
The two men walked up to the camp. Henning glanced at the table John had been working at. ‘Looks complicated,’ he commented.
John had wanted to draw his unexpected visitor’s attention away from the map. Clearly it was not of Lake Malawi and, since he had told Henning he would be mapping the bottom of the lake, he did not wish to arouse suspicions. ‘I’ve been a bit diverted. Looks like this used to be under water. I wanted to take some measurements but we’re nearly finished. Heading south later in the week. Somewhere near Likoma Island.’
‘How’s the survey going?’ Henning was glancing around as he spoke, his eyes missing nothing.
‘Could be finished in a couple of weeks. It’s all going very well.’
‘Found anything interesting?’
There was something wrong. Henning was trying too hard to appear casual. John’s earlier suspicions – that the man was prying for something specific – returned. ‘Rock formations, rise and fall of the substratum, composition of rocks, that sort of thing.’
That was usually enough to turn the conversation elsewhere. But Henning hadn’t finished. ‘How about wrecks?’
John laughed. ‘I’m not in the salvage business, Mr Henning. Wrecks don’t interest me.’
‘Yes, but have you found any?’ the man persisted.
‘No,’ John said bluntly. If Henning was after an easy line on sunken treasure he was wasting his time.
The South African did not believe him and it showed. ‘As you wish.’ He smiled coldly. ‘You’ve got yourselves nicely set up here,’ he remarked, changing the subject. ‘What’s it like being cooped up with a kaffir for weeks on end?’
Mr
Kadamanja had been carefully mixing sand samples about ten metres away. Henning made no attempt to lower his voice and, although the Malawian did not appear to have heard, John saw the black man’s back stiffen. ‘Mr Kadamanja and I work well together,’ he replied, not allowing his anger to show.
Karl Henning knew his words were offensive, John could tell. But all the man said was, ‘So you’re off to Likoma next week.’
‘Yes, that’s the plan.’ John, in order to divert Henning’s attention, had said the first thing to come into his head and had no intention of going anywhere near Likoma. It was 200 kilometres south, inside Mozambique waters and of no interest whatsoever. In reality, he and Kadamanja had nearly finished their work. They had one more area to investigate and then he’d be returning to London, writing a final report and that would be an end to it. And, he hoped, an end to whatever game Karl Henning was playing.
After one final penetrating look at the map John was drawing, Henning turned to go. ‘I’ll be off then. May catch up with you later.’
John walked with him to the dinghy, they shook hands and he watched as Henning pulled away from the beach, hoping another encounter could be avoided. There was something almost predatory about the way the man just happened to appear, ask questions and then abruptly leave. John watched until Henning reached his ketch, then returned to where Kadamanja was working. ‘That comment was inexcusable. I apologise on his behalf.’
Mr Kadamanja had smiled, shaking his head. ‘It was not your fault, sir. Please do not worry. We are used to it.’ The following day Kadamanja had come down with malaria and, two days after that, he and John had gone to Karonga at the insistence of Miss Fotheringham.
It was fully light when he reached their camp site. They had left behind one large tent with most of the survey equipment. Miss Fotheringham, impatient to get Kadamanja back to Karonga, had said, ‘For God’s sake, my good man, who is going to steal bags of sand?’ Reluctantly, John had packed everything into the tent and left it there. It was a relief to find it unscathed.
Echo of an Angry God Page 9