"You are not just there to learn their WAYS, my son. You are there to make FRIENDS. Forget about passing exams or getting distinctions. We are rich, money always gives us a foot in the door. But if you are to walk through it and be welcomed, the people that matter have to LIKE you. So be likable my son, be friendly, and survive their abuse in any way you can. Remember, they do not hate YOU, despite how it appears. They merely want to have someone under them who is subservient, because it makes them feel important. So do not react, or appear to be hurt. Accept all that comes with good grace." His fathers' advice had been sound, bless his soul.
Slowly his family had climbed the ladder of acceptance. From the time his great grand-father had joined the East India Company to the present day, his people had been in service to the Crown in one way or another and, finally, those long years of faithful adherence to all things English had been rewarded with his position of Raj here in Burma. Hunting a mad Englishman, was but another step on this path. Pity they couldn't shoot him.
He already knew the general area in which the fellow was hiding. Odd he went for the deep forest, and difficult, but with his armed guard on elephants with expert trackers on the ground they would soon sort it out.
"Peters old chap, you are Cambridge, yes? Studied under that remarkable man, Pasteur?"
"Indeed Raj, this is so. I understand you were Oxford?"
"Yes, this is true, but only because of the good grace of my father and the goodwill of the Queen, long may she reign."
"You are familiar with Pasteur?" Peters asked.
"Indeed, though not in as detailed a way as yourself. His remarkable studies have reached across the oceans to our good doctors here In Burma and India, which is why I have been able to expedite the vaccine. The good news, Doctor, is that with favorable winds, it will be here inside two days."
Doctor Peters was visibly moved. "Why, my dear Raj, I am at a loss for words ..."
"Make no further mention my dear Doctor. Your interest in this subject is ours as well. If we can help one poor Soul, this will help others, so all I have done on my part is to assist the advance of science. It is a privilege to do so. As my father always instructed me, we are the servant to our people and the Crown. I am indebted to her Highness for allowing me this position where I can help you."
Smithers sitting in the back said nothing. He knew full well the double talk of the Indian upper class. Sitting there he could see how Baradbur was playing the poor doctor, fishing him like he was hunting trout. He smiled to himself, he had to do the same in his own way. Butter those above you with compliments that did not seem like compliments. Telling the Doctor, without actually saying it, that HE was the one helping to move the English Empire and the cause of science forward. Well, Smithers didn't care that Peters was an idiot, he just wanted to find the madman.
The Hunt Begins
It had been three days since the first searches had gone out, and still no word. The men from the various plantations had just received the information as to where the Raj was headed, and none of them liked it. The deep jungle was where you caught malaria or any one of the many nasty diseases that lay in wait there. Or worse, snakebite.
But they went. Constance was well-liked, unlike her husband who the good detectives had just locked up for organizing vigilante groups. The man had gone overboard: tortured some locals, and was threatening to cause serious issues between natives and settlers. Winston Godfrey would probably now be shipped out to solve the tensions, losing the tenure on the plantation. In all, an ugly business - The resolve of the men was now that of a lynching party.
Trudging out in the wilds during the monsoon was madness. No one was doing this for Winston Godfrey, most could not stand the man. No one was doing this for his wife, she was almost certainly dead. In truth, it was for the O'Shea family. They were thought well of - hard-working, and trustworthy. The bastard who did this would die, then they could all go home, dry off, and get ready for the coming season.
The company men had the same instructions, but different intentions. They were ordered to keep the bondsman alive. Goodyear wanted a clear unambiguous testimony from the Doctors that it was Rabies. It was a disease that caused this, and nothing at all to do with the company practices. There would be a coroner's inquiry, many questions would be asked, and everything that appeared to contribute to the matter would be looked at. They wanted everything tidy, no loose ends.
Detective Sergeant Nickleson was no fool. He knew exactly what he was dealing with and, despite initial misgivings, he hoped the Raj found the fellow first. The Indian had more control over his troops than the Detective had over the rabble in his ranks. Notice from Goodyear had been received in London and telegraphed out from the local office to him that morning. The man was to be saved at all costs for a proper inquiry and trial.
So it was a quandary, send the ex-pats home? If he did, all they would do would be to go ahead and hunt the fellow down anyway. Bit of a Rubicon moment. Ah, a runner turns up just then with a notice from Smithers, they had found the possible location where the madman was hiding. Well, that makes it easier.
Nickleson called over his native runners and wrote a short note. "Possible location of bondsman found. All men are to meet up at the Dickens farm to organize beaters and search parties." There, they are in the area but kept to one location away from the actual spot they expected to find the bondman, a place where he can keep an eye on them. A dead Englishman murdered by his own meant no end of paperwork.
oooOOOooo
Perhaps it was the madness, perhaps it was intuition, perhaps it was this 'going native' that had made Erik feel the jungles rhythms better, but he sensed them zeroing in. He would need weapons, he would need to defend himself. Constance lay on some grass matting on the floor of the hut, asleep. She was naked, cut and scratched from her last attempt to escape, and bound.
He thought she had loved him better than this, but no matter. She would learn to behave, in time. For the present, the question was how to hide her in case they found this place. Up in the shafts where the old mine used to be was the answer. He looked once more at her naked form and trusted that his great love for her would override whatever the class distinctions prevented her from adoring him as she must.
So he raped her with love, before picking up her still bound but now sobbing body. Wrapping her in an old blanket, he made his way with her over his shoulder, up into the mine. He had to secure her, so he dug a hole in the soft moist soil, and buried her, leaving only her head above the dirt. She was gagged and had fallen back into unconsciousness.
Now he was free to travel to the nearby farm to get more weapons and more food. He had already killed the people there, all of them, apart from the natives that managed to escape. They had come at him, it wasn't HIS fault, he had to defend himself. The old man was too slow, so Erik macheted off his head, and soon enough did the same to his wife. Then he killed anyone and anything he saw, the natives, the dogs, even the house cat.
That damn thing was the hardest one to catch. He had to bait it with food and surprise it. The dogs tasted quite good. He thought of eating the farmers' wife, but just raped her dead body instead, like he had done to living body before she died. Regrets? Not at all. The truth was, he had never felt better in his entire life.
No more confinement, no more slavery to the company. No more responsibility, and no more 'shoulds' to ruin his day. He did what he wanted now, take what he wanted, kill who or what he wanted. His existence was complete and he now felt his true purpose for being, simply to just DO whatever the hell he wanted to.
Rules were for fools. He hated his old self, the one confined and imprisoned by a thousand invisible barriers ... He knew now he had caged himself. He despised those still in their cages, they were farm animals for slaughter. Any one of them could break out, take their miserable lives and just live free of convention - like he was doing - but they don't. They all lived life in small measures, sipping poison from the cup of slow death. Fear runs them, fear
and self-loathing are the cancer that eats away at their heart, turning them into puppets.
Not him. Erik was free as a bird. No more saluting Mother England, no more God Save the Queen, no more groveling at the feet of bullies. Which reminded him, he really had to go kill Winston Godfrey.
oooOOOooo
Men vomited at the stench of the Palmer Homestead. The poor old souls, they had been some of the oldest residents. Polish, not British, they had come out looking for a way out of poverty. Having no money makes it hard, but they carved out a farm and managed to get hands on some livestock. Slowly they made a go of their new life and though never rich, nor part of the social scene, they were well known and respected.
"Disgusting," Smithers said. It was a gruesome sight. Nothing he hadn't seen before, but a lot of the farmers would be deeply shocked. The bondsman had butchered villagers, cut off their heads. Then they found the father, butchered and hacked, and the poor woman. She was in her sixties, but he had obviously raped her anyway. Her head was on a stake.
The Detective Sergeant just looked around. He knew now the only chance was the Raj finding the madman first. These men would just kill the bondsman on sight and there would be nothing he could do about it, nor would there be ramifications for their actions afterward. The only person with his head in the noose was himself. How the hell did it come to this? He sent word back to Rangoon to bring up a photographer and ordered the men not to disturb anything. He also ordered up the court artist, who was part of the search party, to draw up the overall scene.
"We can't stay here men, and we can't disturb the crime scene. There is an old mining camp in towards the forest, we will head there overnight," he said, calling the men to attention and marching them out of the brutal slaying ground.
He knew what they were muttering, the only justice for the bondsman was a bullet.
OooOOOooo
Waiting in the forest that surrounded the farm, Erik watched. They were onto him. HE saw the men all filing out, he knew where they were headed ... His camp! What to do? Well, Constance was lost, he had to accept that. But this only meant he was now free to punish the cause of all his misery, her husband. Waiting until the last of them were well gone, he went to the locked case in the machinery shed, where the weapons were always stored on these farms.
Sure enough, a shotgun and a Gewehr 88 carbine, ex-German military issue. No great amount of ammunition, but he would only need one bullet. The next question, WHERE was Winston Godfrey? This is when Erik first realized he would have to go back to the world of men, and ask questions. Could he risk going back to the farm? Well, he would have to.
The Finale'
Winston had finally convinced his jailers that he was not going on a mad quest to save his wife. She would be dead by now, and the men would find the bastard. But he needed to go home and tend to the plantation. He was not being held under any charge, was he? He requested a brief hearing with the local magistrate, and that afternoon, with undertakings being given to not leave his plantation until the bondsman was captured, he made it back to his home.
The place was quiet. Apart from the rain disturbing the stillness, not a soul was there. Well, it suited him. He had already decided to leave this stinking hell hole and Goodyear. No children, no wife, and after this debacle no prospects. That pratt, that piece of scum, the turd of a bondsman. He so wanted him dead, but not with a noose - he wanted to strangle the life out of him personally, this Eric Johnson.
Late afternoon had him tending to fires. It would be beans and whiskey tonight. No help, not even the housemaid. Winston fumed in anger and unexpressed violence, his inner voice raged and ranted and the more whiskey he drank, the more he was fit to kill. He sat there, drunk, watching the sullen light of the moon rising behind the clouds. He saw no beauty in it. He saw nothing of the silvered light that caused the trees to glow. He saw nothing of the water that lay all around, shimmering with the incessant rain ... He saw only the blood red of his rage. All he felt was the scream of anger ripping through his miserable existence.
He did not see the beatings from his father, the neglect of his mother, the ongoing and callous rape as a boy by the local priest, he saw nothing but his blinding hatred of Eric Johnson. The bondsman was the reason for everything going wrong in his life, and killing him was the solution. He went to the gun cabinet and pulled out the hunting rifle, his lever-action Winchester. That new pump-action he had wanted was out of reach now, because of that bastard, but this one will do. Undertakings to the court be damned, he was going hunting.
As he was checking the rifle, he heard a lone dog howl, and then the unmistakable sound of death as it squealed. Someone was out there. He put all five shots into the breach and loaded one into the chamber. The clouds had suddenly broken, so the moon was shining full that evening, making a clear shot much easier.
In many ways, Winston should have been grateful. In the cleared area a figure was raising what seemed to be the dead dog up over his head, in some sort of primitive show of triumph. He must have tackled it with a knife, no shots had been fired. He just knew it was the bondsman. He lined up the silhouette with the iron sights and fired.
It dropped the dog and ran. Dammit, he had missed. It was the whiskey he supposed, he was normally a crack shot. "I will eat your liver, Johnson!" He screamed out into the night. Only hollow laughter greeted him, and then a howl, not a dog, a human howl, but it was like a wolf.
"Constance loves me, Winston. She came with ME, she slept with ME while you were whoring and drinking of town. I had to kill the Irish because she caught us at it, right there, in my hut. You never knew Winston, you never knew how much she hated you."
He fired into the night at the voice, more laughter. "I came here to kill you, you know that don't you? It's my job to kill you, to rid the world of your stupidity. You don't know how much the natives hate you, do you? You don't know how much everyone hates you, even your so-called friends. I heard them talking behind your back, saying what a prick you were. No breeding, they would say. No manners."
Winston fires again, blindly, only to create more laughter. "Constance hated you because you were so low brow. She told me how you had failed your last job because you were a bully. She told me everything, especially when we were making love, out there, in the hut where I killed the Irish. I have her still Winston, she's MINE!"
Winston loses it, shouting into the shadows, "Come out you low piece of crap. You are dead meat bondsman. Come out so I can save everyone the trouble of a trial. I can hang you here, if you like, right here. We can have it done with." A shot, Winston staggers, and falls. He had stepped out onto the porch to talk, making himself a clear target in the moonlight.
Erik comes up, he had tortured that poor Constance to find out everything she knew about Winston. Why she just didn't tell him, he had no idea, but women are strange creatures. However, his cunning had worked. It had made Winston so angry he forgot himself. He walked up to the prone figure, rifle loaded and still aimed at his former boss should he make a move.
Nothing, but Eric could see breathing, and he could see blood spilling out. The heart was still beating. Well, that is something he could solve. He glanced up, watched the moonlight as it made the scene before him glorious. What a magnificent night this was. Then CRACK! The bullet goes through his heart and Eric Johnson departs this world.
Winston Godfrey, an expert shot, had swung his Winchester and fired from the hip where he lay bleeding. A perfect hit, just perfect. He smiled to himself as he passed out, I got the bastard, was the last thought he ever had.
oooOOOoo
Barabdhur understood the madness of men, he understood it well. It is not just the rabies, it is everything that led up to the insanity. His trackers found the camp, and his instinct was right. He had not killed the woman, he was in love. It wasn't hard to have the dogs point out the mine shaft, and his tracks were clear. They found the poor woman, dehydrated, naked and mostly buried, but alive.
Tied and gagged, she was bei
ng kept like a dog till the mad English returned. Unfortunately, all those men he could hear in the distance, crashing through the jungle at night, they will have made a mess of the trails leading to the place. There will be no way to hide and catch the Bondsman now. He will be gone from this place, but where to next?
"Do you know anything about this Bondsman, Doctor Peters? Any notion about who he hates, who he loves, this is how we will find out his whereabouts."
"Sincerely sorry Raj, he is a non-person. Obviously, he had a thing for the woman, I suppose he may have the opposite for her husband? As an educated guess, he might have a grudge there."
"It is a good guess Doctor. This makes sense. He will not be returning here, the evidence that we found his hide is too obvious. He will be moving on to whatever seems his next target, and I would presume it will be the husband."
"Well, the fellow is locked up in the city jail for the present, according to Nickleson." Doctor Peters replied.
"What did he do?"
"More stopping him from doing it. He's a violent man and was trying to put together his own party to hunt down the bondsman. He was locked up to cool him down."
"Doctor, presuming you wish to continue in my carriage, I believe we may find your patient at the plantation he came from. I understand your judicial system, and without the good detectives there to remind your magistrate that the this Winston Godrey is a danger to the community, that good judge will stand on principle: the man is innocent of wrongdoing, suffered a terrible injustice at the hands of a madman, and he will be released.
"Therefore, it is my estimation that we will find the bondsman in the place where it all began. Did you wish to come with me, or tend the woman?"
"Saunders is here, and as the most experienced Doctor, he should be left in charge. Plus she knows him, so yes, I would enjoy further conversation my good Raj."
"You are not like the others, Peters. Why are you cut from different cloth?" The Raj asks, bluntly.
Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019) Page 12