by Peter Rimmer
“You!” shouted the man. “What are you doing there? Out! Out! No seamen. Dear oh dear. Get out, I say. The Captain is almost due. Get out, you hear me?”
“I want to see The Captain.”
“Don’t they all? Now out. What’s wrong with your face?”
“I’ll wait for The Captain.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. You know who I am! Chief clerk! Chief clerk!”
At the moment the chief clerk, puny as he was, clutched his right hand into a fist, the owner of Colonial Shipping, still in town to pursue his younger son, opened the second door from the outside, the first already shut behind him against the winter wind, and took in Jeremiah and the poster all in one.
“Good morning, Captain, sir,” five men said in unison standing to attention.
“I know this man,” said Jeremiah; the Lord was still on his side. He was pointing down at the poster still lying face up on the bench.
“Then you’d better follow me into my office,” said The Captain, by which time the five men were diligently back to their tasks.
“Close the door,” said The Captain. “Now, who is he?”
“Sebastian Brigandshaw, your youngest son.”
“Where is he?”
“First the reward, Captain, sir. Then I’ll tell. I ain’t ate nothin’ for four days so I want my money first.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re probably lying.”
“How I know his face? One more night like last night and I’ll be dead, and then you’ll never know Captain, sir… All right. Give me fifty quid and I’ll tell you all about the Indian Queen.”
“You sailed out with my boy?”
“And back again. Now, can I ’ave my fifty quid?”
The Captain thought for a moment and smiled. “I rather think you can.”
Outside, with his back to the warehouse buildings, Captain Doyle contemplated the bleakness of the London docks. Ships with furled sails were like trees without leaves, struck equally by the bitter cold. One two-master was tacking with the east wind into port and a steamship threw sooty clouds of black and white smoke that smelt of sulphur into the morning air: she would sail on the tide that pulled back and forth from the Thames Estuary and the Royal Navy port of Chatham. In his pocket was his letter of resignation and a list of his officers and men, with their signatures, who wished to leave Colonial Shipping and follow their captain. Only seven members of the crew had not been asked to sign. All those asked were listed on his sheet of paper.
From the corner where he had stood waiting, Doyle had seen The Captain go through the outside door into the building but still his conscience pricked, the loyalty given over so many years he now found difficult to throw away. Before The Captain had stridden across the dockyard, Doyle had seen Shank and known his purpose. The man was a misfit in a world that hated difference. There was no compassion for a misfit out at sea. Friends turned on friends after weeks of close quarters and a Shank was a catalyst for disaster. The first time he had sent him away with a good Certificate of Character, taken him back for pity and finally thrown him off the ship at Cape Town, thinking any white man could make some kind of life for himself in the colony.
The door banged in the wind behind him and Doyle turned to watch a rejuvenated Shank stride away from the building. In a way, Doyle was glad and hoped the man would put the reward to good use.
The Indian Queen had sailed home three weeks earlier and every member of the crew knew about the reward and was ashamed of a man pursuing his own son through the law. The deputation had been led by the coxswain and the first officer and the pre-emptive plan had been set. They all knew it was only a matter of time before someone told The Captain but with the days in port, the mood of his crew had changed. The contingency plan they had made called for the purchase of a new ship driven by steam with the crew and officers owning half the shares according to their rank. Not only would they own half the profits but half the ship, when the bank was repaid its loan. The other half would be owned by their backers, Sebastian Brigandshaw and Tinus Oosthuizen, from the proceeds of the last ivory hunt; Tinus’s last hunt for the Great Elephant.
Being a man who had always faced his dangers, Captain Doyle turned away from the tall masts and black funnels and walked towards the front door of Colonial Shipping.
As Doyle expected, the last person The Captain expected to see in his office that morning was the master of the Indian Queen.
They were both the same size and build; stocky men who had weathered all the oceans of the world. The Captain was fifty-four years old and Doyle, five years younger. They had first sailed together when Doyle was nineteen and the wind and sun had not turned his face into hard leather run through with rivers and ravines. A piece of Doyle’s right ear was missing, lost to frostbite on a deadly voyage round the Horn into the waters of the Antarctic. The Captain had a small finger, the pinkie, missing from his left hand, a reminder of the same deadly voyage. Nine Englishmen had died on that voyage round the Horn of South America fighting the Cape Horn current and the west wind drift, taking English machinery on the short route to Chile in a ship of three hundred and four tonnes. Doyle had been The Captain’s coxswain. Doyle remembered in those days, before his obsession with the gentry, The Captain had a heart, as all the profit from the owner’s and Captain’s portion of the profit had been given to the families of the nine dead men, according to their rank. Even in death, there had been an order of seniority. For a moment Doyle thought of letting The Captain verbally vent his feelings and for him to keep the papers closed in his pocket.
“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 safer 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 the side window. Doyle was walking briskly away into the cold morning. ‘He’s probably right,’ he said to himself and su
ddenly 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 thirty 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.
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 eight 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 and with them, 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 to his London bank.
The police station further down the wide road rutted by ox wagons was immaculate, the stones demarcating 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 a perfect line. Water pipes were being laid from the new pump station on the Makabuzi River. A sewage engineer had arrived from Liverpool and railwaymen 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 black men 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 sweetheart. 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 bathtub 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 for 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 on 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. Brigand
shaw, 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 buy 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, lording his status over the crew. By then he had dressed properly and spent five shillings of his new money on elocution lessons.
