The Ghost Club

by William Meikle

  Seeing that the whole thing might at any moment turn into something rather more serious, I intervened. At first she was anything but pleased at my interjection.

  “Can I help,” I said.

  “No,” she replied sharply and continued to hector the poor Arab, and his hand crept toward the dagger I knew would be tucked in at the back of his belt as his own anger rose twofold. Both of their tempers were such that a bloody confrontation seemed now almost inevitable—so much so that I stepped between them, and then spent the good part of five minutes calming each of them down to the point where negotiations could recommence on an even keel.

  In the end, both parties seemed happy at the price I named. The Arab went off to find more reasonable business, and I found that I had got myself hired—as guide and interpreter, for a boat trip into the interior that would take me rather further from Cornwall that I might have intended.

  ***

  Two days later we set off in the small boat I had negotiated for the woman, heading for the mouth of the Tanu river and thence upstream, as far as we could make it, intending to head for the Mackenzie Mission. The lady had informed me that she meant to reopen the old steadings and recommence its former usage, and no amount of my naysaying or explanation of the inherent dangers would sway her from the task. I took it upon myself to ensure that I got her at least as far as the Mission, but held little hope of her survival once she tried to settle it.

  We traveled light, for she had little by way of luggage beyond a case of Bibles and replacements for her shirt, trousers, and boots. I added provisions, but kept that to a minimum where I could except for boxes of ammunition for the Martini, which I intended to use to hunt the small game that I knew abounded on the shorelines of the Tanu. The lady kept herself to herself for the most part—I knew her name, Rosalyn McGowan, and that she was from Aberdeen, but beyond that she spoke little, spending much of her time up at the prow, lost in a close reading of her bible.

  For company I had two bearers who I had worked with on several hunts. M’bogo and M’kele were fine chaps on dry land, but neither of them were much for boats. Of necessity, I spent much of my time in handling the vessel, over shoals and sandbanks, through squalls, then commanding the two men as they rowed when we met a wind we could not sail through. But despite several periods of doldrums, and a current that was against us more than it was for us, we made good time. We passed Charra on the tenth day with no alarms and—with great thanks on my part—no sign of any Masai brigands, who I knew to be a blight in this area.

  But I should have known Africa better than to think she would allow us passage to our goal so easily. Lady Fate took note of me again the very next morning. We succeeded in attracting the attention of three large hippopotami as we negotiated a long slow turn in shallow water. I was suddenly all too aware how big the beasts were and how small our boat seemed. I fired a round from the Martini over the largest animal’s head, but, whether it was through some anger given to them by the boat itself, or by sheer bloody mindedness, the hippos kept coming at us until I had no other option but to start shooting. The Martini did not have the caliber to do enough damage, although I did slow the female down a tad. M’kele tried to fend off one of the males with an oar but only succeeded in having it bit off in half from his hand, and the other male made a lunge for the boat that swamped the back end in seconds.

  We started to sink.

  I made the safety of the lady my first priority, and we were fortunate that the water was shallow enough to enable us to stand, and allow me to keep the Martini dry. M’kele rescued his roll bag, and a small box of ammo. M’bogo tried to fetch the lady’s Bibles—and caught the attention of the big male for his troubles. Despite me putting two quick shots in the beast, he still had plenty of life in him as he bit poor M’bogo near in half then fought with his two companions over what was left. M’bogo’s last act for us was to allow himself to be eaten while we made our escape, wading to shore and falling, bereft and suddenly spent, on a sandbank, with little to our name but our wet clothes, the Martini, and a small box of shells.

  M’kele, stout chap that he was, went straight back into the water and, ignoring the hippos as much as they ignored him, managed to retrieve what was left of the vessel. I helped him pull it ashore, and was surprised to see that the main structure was yet intact, although the mast was broken in two and we would have no more use of the sail. My spirits were, however, raised yet more when M’kele produced his cooking pots and flints from his pack, and I shot two fat geese, meaning that we could at least fortify ourselves. Between us, M’kele and I managed to down a small tree and manufacture two rough oars. We spent that night on the sand. Our lady complained mightily of the loss of her Bibles, but went quiet when I reminded her of the friend I had lost so that she might live, and after that she took on a softer demeanor that became her far better than her previously imperious nature.

  ***

  We, of necessity, made much slower time after that, the current being so strong that we scarce made more than five miles in a day, and some days even less than that. Both M’kele and I were as lean and tight as gazelles, or muscles like knotted string beneath skin that was more like leather, and by the end of a week of exertion, we were both tired to our very bones and in need of rest. We stopped and made camp by a series of slower running bends where the river ran through marsh populated by all manner of wildfowl, and I had good sport in bagging ample wading birds and geese so that we had food enough for several days. Ms. McGowan was severely vexed with the stoppage, but she was too slight of stature to be of much use on an oar, and I assured her that we would indeed make better time after food and sleep.

  We were heaved up onto a tall embankment, and M’kele had fallen into a sleep so deep I doubt anything would have woken him. The lady surprised me by keeping the fire lit, and cleaning the birds I had shot, singing psalms as she plucked feathers and cleaved wings from the bodies as if it were a task she had been performed many times in the past. Her voice carried in the night air, high and clear over the still waters of the river, and for a time it was as if the whole world stopped to hear her sing.

  God is Our Refuge and Strength,

  Though its waters roar and foam,

  Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

  To our great surprise another voice rose up to join hers, coming from somewhere out on the river.

  There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

  We shouted huzzah, and were answered by someone swinging a light, the orange flame bobbing in the current—a boat, one rather larger in size than our own, hove into the view of our firelight, and I moved to hurriedly help them tie up. Aboard were three white men—bally Germans, but beggars can’t be choosers. Herrs Klinsmann, Langer, and Bowker introduced themselves most civilly, as if we had all just met on a street corner, and all too soon we were all gathered around the fire—we shared our fowl, and they shared some most welcome brandy. Herr Klinsmann did most of the talking for the newcomers.

  “We are a hunting party,” he said, and I held my tongue, for I had seen their guns and provisions in the bottom of their boat and knew they were no such thing. But they offered to travel with us, for they too were heading upstream, although not as far as the Mission House. When I pressed for their destination I got an evasive answer, and I pushed no further, for all three were armed with pistols, and my Martini was under M’kele’s body where he still slept. But as I have said, beggars cannot be choosers, and the next morning we tied our boat to the back of theirs and all six of us continued upstream in the German vessel. I did not trust our new travelling companions one whit, but I was more than happy not to be doing any more rowing in that first day, as the sail sufficed to drive us, albeit slowly, upriver.

  ***

  Over the next three days I came to have a better idea of our new companions. They were a close knit, secretive bunch, as taciturn as Ms. McGowan had been at our first meeting. M’kele took an instant dislike to all three—a
feeling that seemed to be mutual as none of the three gentleman spoke a single word to our bearer, directing all their conversation to myself or, with rather more enthusiasm, to our traveling lady. I was not at all pleased with the manner in which Klinsmann looked at Ms McGowan, but there was little I could do about it, being forced to be polite in such close quarters to maintain a degree of civility.

  Their brandy suited me just fine though, as did their strong black cheroots—both of which I paid for by bagging a dozen geese for their pot. None of the three of them could shoot worth a damn—at least not any further than twenty paces, and I knew for certain that this was no hunting party—at least, not hunting any game that I was familiar with. Their secrecy on the matter worried at me, a worry that grew stronger still when I caught them at the prow perusing a map, yellowed by age, that was quickly hidden at my approach.

  Wherever they were headed, it was not spoken of at all, and we went upriver for three more days in this manner, while I consoled myself with the fact that at least we were getting closer to our final destination.

  ***

  I got a much clearer idea of their purpose on the fifth morning together. We had only gone two miles from our overnight encampment when Klinsmann, at the prow, called for Bowker to steer for shore. Then it was all hands to the oars as we fought a stiff current all the way in, such that we were quite exhausted again by the time we moored up. I was too tired to note it at first and only saw as we stepped out of the boat that we had docked at a quayside. It was a long stone pier of some great age, built with blocks of stone each eight feet long and half again as high, a cyclopean structure such as I have not seen outside Egypt, and one that clearly had Klinsmann in a high degree of excitement. The three Germans started unloading equipment from the boat, preparing for some kind of expedition.

  “This is as far as we can take you,” Klinsmann said. “We are headed inland from here.”

  In truth, I was not too unhappy at the news, although I wished they had told us before we headed for shore, for I did not relish having to row back out into the river against the current that had caused us so much difficulty to come through. But even despite that, I cannot say I would have been sorry at our parting there and then. Our lady, however, had other ideas.

  “Inland? And what might be there?”

  “A city,” Klinsmann said. “A city of gold and gems and more riches than you can imagine.”

  “A fool’s errand more like,” I replied, but Ms. McGowan seemed enthused by some new idea and spoke up over the top of my objections.

  “And heathens? Are there heathens in this fabled city of yours?”

  “A great many of them, if one of my countrymen is to be believed,” Klinsmann replied.

  I was once again thinking about that map they had been so careful to keep from prying eyes, but Ms. McGowan did indeed have other thoughts in mind.

  “Then I shall come with you,” she said, in the same tone as when I’d first heard her by the fish crates in Lamu. “I shall bring them the good word of the Lord. It seems to my mind that he has led me to this shore for just such a purpose.”

  I started to protest, to tell her it had been our strong arms that had brought her here and her Lord had had little say in the matter, but I saw the look in her eye, and knew the argument was lost before it had begun.

  I could do naught but stay by her side, and hope to provide her protection against what I feared might be coming. My last, faint, hope was for Klinsmann to deny her, but he seemed so full of excitement, so hopeful of success that he needed to share his good fortune and he took her hand as she climbed up onto the pier.

  Only M’kele refused to accompany us, preferring to remain with the boat, where he exhorted me at no small length. He warned of devils in the forests, but that was an old tale I had heard far too often from bearers to pay it any heed.

  Matters might have proceeded differently if I had but listened.

  ***

  We had followed a bush trail inland for some three miles before I realized we were being watched. The trail was several yards wide and easy walking. We traveled in single file. There was stone underfoot, not always visible beneath the vegetation but most surely there, the remnants of some unbelievably ancient thoroughfare. I knew that Persians had traded up and down the African coast at the time of the Crusades, and even somewhat earlier, but these behemoths of stones spoke of ages yet older still, eons long forgotten by modern man, where our distant relatives walked in lands rich and far stranger than this jungle.

  None of my companions, unused as they were to the ways of the bush, were yet aware of our predicament, which seemed to be growing more perilous by the minute, as rustling in the undergrowth spoke to me of increasing numbers on either side of us. I walked up to the head of our small line, and was about to draw Klinsmann’s attention to a possible ambush, when a most singular fellow stepped out of the foliage and stood on the path in front of us.

  He wasn’t as pale in skin as any of us were, but he wasn’t full black either, being rather golden, almost yellow in tone. He wore feathers woven into hair that ran over his shoulders like a cape—such feathers, in green and blue and red and gold, oiled and shimmering like heat haze from a lake in summer. His nose was pierced and run through with a thin bone, every inch of his skin that was visible was covered in the most ornate tattoo work I have ever seen, as detailed as any mariner’s scrimshaw. But the singular most remarkable fact about him was his height, which reached scarcely three feet six feet at the top of his head. Accompanied by the fact that he was as rotund as a barrel, stout of both body and limb, he cut a peculiar figure indeed, even as he smiled widely, as if profoundly pleased to have come across us on the path.

  Although his appearance had surprised me, I was more astonished still when he spoke; I found I understood him, it being a variety of pidgin Portuguese more common along the Western shores of the continent, which I shall translate here, for to transcribe it would be an onerous task indeed.

  “It is as the dreamtime said, in the place that was foretold. The Droose bid you greeting and blessings.”

  I was quickly to discover that Droose was the name of his people—a great many of whom, each similarly befeathered and tattooed, now crept from the foliage. That was not their real name, merely the nearest my poor attempts at translation can come to deciphering the trills and whistles of the Droose speech, which at times resembles some exotic bird rather than anything human.

  The rotund chap then told me that we were invited to visit these new friends in their homes a short walk away. All three Germans, and Ms. McGowan, were only too happy to agree when I informed them of the invitation. We set off, still along the old causeway, but now accompanied by several score of the Droose, all of whom were as small or smaller than my new, fat friend, who took my hand and led me forward.

  It quickly became clear that there was more to the place than just the overgrown causeway. Close to the river the vegetation had overrun all traces, but the further inland we encroached, the more I saw that we walked in the ruins of an ancient city, one of immense age and size. Colossal blocks, larger still than those of the old quay where we had docked, had been raised into high ziggurats, and the causeway soon opened out into a wide avenue lined by acacias that were dwarfed by the cyclopean structures of stone behind them. The great age of the city was evident in the weathering, for the rock was sandstone, and rain in Africa washes even the greatest works of the mighty away. But the occasional softening and rounding of the edges did not diminish the awe and wonder we all felt at finding such a thing buried away where none would think to look for it.

  We walked along for almost an hour, each new structure seemingly larger than the last, until we saw ahead of us an even larger structure, all black, as if hewn from a single unimaginable piece of jet. In size it resembled one of the great pyramids of Egypt, but there was no regularity to it, composed as it was of a staggering degree of shelves and towers, parapets and slopes in a geometry that seemed to confuse the e
ye. The causeway was leading us straight to it. For the first time since stepping off the boat, I had no desire to take a single step further, and with every fiber of my being wished that I might make a speedy return to the river, and thence as quickly from this spot as the current might take me.

  The old Droose gripped my hand tighter, and smiled.

  “Come,” he said. “My people have waited for you these many years, you who are our saviors.”

  Savior was not the word he used—deliverer might be closer in meaning, but even then it does not convey the full import of what I imagined the Droose was trying to tell me. When I mentioned it to Ms. McGowan she snorted in derision.

  “What do these savages know of our savior?”

  As it happened, we found out all too quickly.

  ***

  I noted that the three Germans were in deep, whispered conversation as we approached the black ziggurat, but even they fell quiet when we came to the foot of a long flight of steps that led up to the entrance. There was a doorway at the top, some twenty feet above us, and above that, a lintel. This block was not black, but green, an emerald that shone in the sun, almost glowed, a gemstone like no other, some ten feet long by four feet high—a jewel with which a man could buy the world.

  The Germans, when they finally found their voices, were much animated, and I understood that my surmise about them had been right—they were not hunters of game—they were hunters of treasure, and here, they had found one greater than any other.

  The small, fat Droose paid them no heed and started to lead me up the steps in a manner that would brook no argument. Ms. McGowan followed and I saw open lust—greed—in Klinsmann’s eyes as the Germans came along behind.

  As we reached the top step, I saw that the emerald was not a smooth block, but had been cunningly carved—a representation of a huge bird’s head covering most of the frontage. It resembled most a crow or a raven, and one that seemed to watch us with a baleful eye as we stepped under it and into the ziggurat itself.