by Peter Rimmer
“You spend a lot of time looking up at the night sky, Mr Shank?”
“Yes. Would you like to see the heavens, Mrs Shaw? Now, if you’ll excuse me I have so many guests and the bishop wants to leave.”
Still annoyed, he turned his back and left her standing alone. Even the best-laid plans come to nothing, he told himself, and put the matter out of his mind. Halfway towards the bishop he stopped and looked back and their eyes met at thirty yards. When he reached the bishop, he was smiling.
The crimson major had reached the bishop two paces ahead of him and was whispering something in the Right Reverend’s ear that made Jeremiah stop. The bishop beckoned over Nathanial Brigandshaw and seemingly passed on the message.
“No pagan witch doctor is going to intimidate me,” said Nat sharply to his brother.
“They are calling her the Prophet, brother. In Shona of course. Tried once to pronounce their word. Very difficult. The man who speaks English says as near as he can think it means prophet. She has a pet leopard and frightens the wits out of people who come too close. Withered old hag by most reports. We think she had something to do with the rebellion but we kept away from hanging a woman. She was the power behind the Kalanga rising and probably ordered the burning of brother Nat’s church. Often the people who start all the killing are far away from the event when it happens. Fanatics themselves, they breed a deadly fanaticism in their followers. Rather like ‘who will rid me of this priest’, if you’ll forgive me using Henry II as an example, Bishop. The smaller people in life have a smaller vision and take their leader’s words rather too personally. Anyway, this old crone has prophesied that when they burn down your church in the second Chimurenga, and that one I can pronounce, it will send all us British back to where we belong. A Chimurenga translates as a war of liberation. So like the apes at Gibraltar, brother, you’d better look after your new church when it’s built. Can’t have these prophecies coming true, can we?”
“Why don’t you arrest the crone and hang her as a witch?” said Nat.
“Burning witches at the stake is rather out of fashion, old chap.”
“But if she started the rebellion?”
“If everyone went back in history and started hanging the perpetrators of rebellions, I rather think one half of the world would be trying to hang the other half. Let sleeping dogs lie. The rebellion is over.”
“She’s a heretic,” Nat almost shouted.
“Not according to her belief, so I am told. She just has a different way of looking at it all.”
“That’s blasphemous, James. And in front of the bishop. You should be ashamed of yourself even thinking such a thought. We have come here to save the blacks, not throw them back in the hot fire of damnation.”
“My apologies, your Lordship. ’Twas not my own belief, I spoke only the witch doctor’s. They say she believes in one God but has a different way of speaking to Him. Through the intercession of her ancestors. I am no theologian just an ordinary soldier. No, the army will do more harm by hanging the prophet. There are few of us and many of them. If we want to do any good for them, as we all profess and believe, we must get along with them first. And hanging their high priest would have the opposite effect. Even Constantine didn’t hang all the pagans at once when he tried to convert them to Christianity… Ah, there you are, Seb. I’ve been meaning to talk to you. How are you after all these years? You know, you’re grown and I don’t have the same wish to box your ears anymore. Fact is, I’d probably have my own ears boxed by the look of you. How’s the great white hunter? Emily, how are you? Now, is this my nephew Harry?”
“And I’m Madge,” said a young voice next to him. “And this is George. Why haven’t you come and visited us, Uncle James?”
“Now that’s a long story, young lady.”
“I can listen.”
“Well, if you’re going to do that, we’d better go over to that chair under the tree so you can sit on my knee.”
“Can George come as well?”
“George can come too. But first, let me take away your father as I rather think I owe him the explanation first.”
“Even if I am the black sheep of the family?” said Sebastian smiling.
“Father was going to cut off my allowance.”
“I know. How’s Mother?”
“I rather think she would like to have sent her love.”
“But she didn’t.”
“She’s frightened of Father… Is that Sir Henry over there with a butterfly net?”
“Grandfather’s gone potty,” said Harry.
Even the bishop smiled at the sight of Sir Henry Manderville down by the river with a butterfly net in one hand and a large glass of Pimm’s in the other.
“You have done a great thing building a church,” the bishop said to Jeremiah Shank.
“Not built yet, Bishop.”
“Yes, well. Now, if you’ll excuse me. The day has been long for an old man.”
Being the eyes and ears in Africa of the British Army, James was amused to watch the exploits of the merchant seaman who had managed to have himself ostracised by the Merchant Navy, no mean feat in James’s book. Not long ago in British naval history, those who went to sea for the king had to be persuaded into service. James ate the man’s splendid spread of food on the man’s terrace, extracted himself with difficulty from the grip of his niece and rode off in the afternoon back to Fort Salisbury. He waved at Sebastian from atop his thoroughbred horse and let the animal have its lead.
It was a beautiful day, and he had not eaten or drunk too much to spoil the pleasure of the sunshine and the bush. James was a man who enjoyed the open spaces and rather thought he would have been a gentleman farmer if he had not decided to join the army. He hoped Sebastian understood that a British officer in a good regiment was unable to live without a private income. There were always problems in life. Having decided in his own life to avoid the problems of marriage he would have enjoyed getting to know his brothers’ children. They all seemed happy, which was what really mattered.
With the intention of finding out why Shank had called his farm Holland Park, and to check the unlikely rumour being wafted around by the little man that he was related to Teddy Holland, James made a mental note to also enquire about the tall major-domo and then let his mind drift away from military intelligence.
He chuckled to himself. Not once had any of the brothers mentioned that pompous ass, Arthur, all day. What stuck in James’s craw when it came to Arthur was that every time the ass made a mistake, it made him richer. The shares in the Chartered Company that should have sunk Arthur out of sight were making him richer than ever. Since the collapse of the Matabele and Shona rebellions, and Rhodes’s move over the Zambezi to explore for minerals, the shares had more than doubled. Then he shrugged. His father had done even better out of the same shares and that was the source of his private income. His horse shied for a moment as it caught the scent of a lion. James pulled his rifle from its holster and for the rest of the journey kept his eyes on the way ahead. Africa, as he knew, was always full of surprises.
The rumour had started when Jeremiah told the bishop that he owed his great wealth to Lord Edward Holland, third son of the Marquis of Surrey. The idea of building a church so tall its spire would dominate the surrounding bush for miles had originated with Nathanial Brigandshaw when the bishop was doing the rounds of the new church of the province of Central Africa, which at that stage had more to do with imagination than practical achievement.
In the lounge of the Meikles Hotel, with the punkahs stirring the heat, Jeremiah overheard the conversation at the next table as it was his habit to listen to other people’s conversations. It was both a hobby and a valuable source of information. Being neighbours, he had met Nathanial on a number of occasions and had given money to the Mission. The idea of building a church the height of St Paul’s Cathedral out of local brick in the middle of nowhere fired his imagination and provided a way for his redemption and entry into colonial
society. Even a knighthood seemed a possibility with the right amount of charity and connections. Jeremiah had soon realised that money was a scarce commodity, and those who dished it out liberally were forgiven their sins and the sins of their fathers. Under the weight of enough money, anyone could acquire a heritage to which they would like to aspire. Looking for his opportunity he waited, and when Nathanial looked up from his animated conversation with the bishop, Jeremiah was standing at his elbow.
“Do you require more funds for your Mission, Reverend?” he said.
“Mr Jeremiah Shank, the bishop-designate of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.”
“How do you do, Bishop. Now, I hear a rumour you want to want to build a church and of course I would be happy to oblige. My benefactor Lord Edward Holland enables me to be generous.”
“You are related to Teddy Holland?” said the bishop, smiling at the prospect of raising a large sum of money for the church, the prerequisite for the creation of his bishopric.
“On my mother’s side,” blurted Jeremiah before he could stop himself talking.
“Maybe when you have the time, we can meet again.”
“I am always at the service of the church. As a director of this hotel, I wish you a pleasant stay. I presume you are staying with us?”
“You work in the hotel?” said the bishop, about to change his tune.
“Of course not. I merely lent them a large sum of money. I have my estate, Holland Park, but three miles from the reverend’s mission. My investments and donations are handled by Baring Brothers in the City of London, bankers of note. I am sure you will have heard of them, Bishop?”
“Of course I have, dear sir,” replied the bishop.
It was the first time anyone had heard a name given to his estate on the Hunyani River and Jeremiah, in it up to his neck, thought he had taken another step on the road to his reinvention. All he hoped for was that Lord Holland never heard a word of it and the great distance between Africa and England would dilute the story before it reached Bramley Park.
With the bishop’s card put away in his breast pocket, he walked out of the lounge of the hotel. Outside, Jack Jones was waiting with the horses.
“Money, old cock,” said Jeremiah, pulling himself up into the saddle, “is a drug they never get enough of. Silly old fart. Had the sod eatin’ out of my bleedin’ hand.”
“Who?”
“The bishop of something or other. Now, let’s go down to Annie’s shack and get drunk, my old soldier. A man still has to enjoy ’imself.”
“One of these days, guv, you’ll put the right accent in the wrong place.”
“Probably.”
Annie would have laughed out loud were she not aware that the small man with the crooked nose was sensitive about his height. The long and short of it were standing at her entrance. Outside Meikles Hotel and the stone house with the observatory overlooking the Hunyani, Annie’s shack was the most elaborate house in Rhodesia. Despite the prudish setbacks imposed by British colonialism, the establishment flourished.
Moving graciously across the room, she greeted Jeremiah Shank. The tall man next to him was given the nod due to a servant and the three of them moved through the throng of men and young girls to the gilded bar in the centre of the great room, the crystal chandelier sparkling above with the lights of a hundred candles. Being late, June fires were laid for the going down of the sun when the bush temperature would plummet.
“Valentine is away for a while but I am sure she will be back in time to have a drink with you, Mr Shank. And what great work has bought you into town?”
“I’m building a church to the greater glory of God. It will rise in the African bush, the cross so high no man will be able to touch it and everyone will see the light of Christianity for miles and miles.”
“I never know, Mr Shank, when you are being serious or pulling my leg.”
“I never joke about my maker,” said Jeremiah humbly. “My man here will have a whisky and so will I. Doing the Lord’s work is a thirsty business.”
“Are you staying in town tonight?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Please enjoy my hospitality.”
“I will.”
When Annie reached her office, the smile had left her face. “Tell Valentine to have a bath and get ready. The little man is back again.”
By the time Valentine appeared, bathed, perfumed and perfectly groomed, no one in the room would have guessed her age at thirty-five. The round dark face was smooth of wrinkles, her stomach small and flat, her smile radiant. Had she been born other than in the slums of Cape Town, she would have been an actress instead of a whore. Her red dress reached the floor spread wide by ten petticoats, her bosom pushed almost out of the top of her dress, an unblemished firmness the colour of milk coffee. Behind her head, the long black hair had been gathered and caught by a silver clasp in the shape of a lion. No other ornaments touched her body and the smile she gave Jeremiah caught him in the genitals. Even as she put her white-gloved hand out to be kissed, his eyes were fixed not on her dark and sparkling eyes but on her cleavage.
“Kind Mr Shank, how nice to see you again,” she said in a strange accent that was part of her lure… To give her conversation, Annie had taught Valentine how to read. Ever since the understanding of the written words, sweet romances had been a balm to her work. Always now she pretended she was someone else, the heroine, the lady with the glittering future and the perfect love.
Many years before in the hovel that had been her home in Cape Town, a young sailor had come ashore. The Englishman was unworldly, an officer and a romantic, treating Valentine like any lady he would have met in England. By the time his ship sailed, she had a dream forged in her mind by the midshipman. She was going to escape her poverty and go to the tropical island the boy so vividly described, where fruit fell from the lush trees, fish were caught by hand in the warm shallows and people loved each other. From the day he left she began to save her pennies in pursuit of the vast sum of money she needed to make her dreams come true.
“Are you mine tonight?” asked Jeremiah.
“I’m always yours, dear Mr Shank.”
“Call me Jeremiah.”
“Really, Mr Shank… Why, isn’t this Mr Jones? How do you do, Mr Jones? I do so hope you are well.”
Part 5 - War
1
October 1899
The heat was oppressive, the bush dry as tinder, brown grass broken down by six months of drought. Brown trees leafless, no colour for miles except for the high blue sky showing between the columns of cumulus that reached to heaven; insects silent waiting for the rain and God’s salvation; October, the month the new Rhodesians were calling the month of suicide, when tempers snapped and friends fought with each other. And through the silence from far away came the whooping joy of Gregory Shaw as he forced his exhausted horse the last hundred yards towards the stockade of Elephant Walk. He shouted his news. There was a war. At last, there was a war. And this time it was definite. The Boers had given the British an ultimatum.
The wild geese honked away from the shouting noise and pounding hooves, flying up and over the stockade. The dogs barked and a cow in labour joined her moos to the sudden mayhem. Sebastian Brigandshaw pushed open the screen door of his house having woken heavy-headed from his afternoon sleep, the mid-day too hot for anyone to work. The door thwacked shut behind him and the sun pierced his brain. Across the dry brown lawn between the msasa trees ringed by flowerless beds, white froth was lathering from the mouth of the exhausted horse.
“You’re killing that bloody horse,” he shouted, further annoyed by his own swearing.
“What’s going on?” called Emily from inside the house.
“Gregory. He’s gone mad. Look, you fool, you can’t ride a horse like that in this heat. You’ll kill the poor beast and we don’t have good horses to spare. What on earth’s the matter with you?”
“Kruger’s given Chamberlain an ultimatum to move the Briti
sh troops from the Transvaal border. The Boers, for God’s sake, Seb. The Boers have given us an ultimatum.”
“Us, Gregory?”
“The British.”
“Then they are all fools. A third of Rhodesians are Boers. You mean we’re going to fight each other?”
“Not here.”
“Sorry, my friend. I don’t have your enthusiasm for killing people. Don’t want to kill the animals anymore except to eat… You’d better rub that animal down before you do anything else.”
“Don’t you see, Seb? I’ll be back in the army where I belong. Your brother promised if hostilities broke out.”
“So now when you see Tinus, you’re going to shoot him?”
“I never thought of that.”
The door clunked shut behind Seb, leaving Gregory alone. The dogs stopped barking. The tame Egyptian geese stayed down by the river and from far away towards the Zambezi escarpment came a distant roll of thunder. And when their compound returned to its quiet, Seb knew something had changed for all of them. The white tribes of Africa were going to war with each other. They were going to destroy each other and everyone else that came in between.
“The bloody world’s gone mad again,” he said, slumping back onto the bed next to Emily.
“Please don’t swear, Seb. The children will hear you.”
“Sorry, Em. Not thinking in this heat. First we fight Lobengula, and when we’ve chased him to his death, we put down a rebellion. Now we are going to fight each other. Marvellous, absolutely marvellous. Don’t we ever learn?”
“They won’t make you go in the army, will they?”
“I have not the slightest idea. And just when the money from African Shipping was helping to build the farm, this had to happen.”
“Are the new ships ready?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Then Captain Doyle will make a great deal of money. Everything the army needs has to come from England… You think Gregory’s horse will be all right?”
