by Peter Rimmer
To score points for the government, several English newspapers picked up his challenge saying the Irish Times was talking rubbish. Not only was the man a British subject, resident in a British colony, but his mother was also British, his wife British and, by the common process of descent, his three children were three-quarters British. What kind of man took up arms against his own children?
At the farm, the long barn-like house with a veranda running the length of one side was shuttered and the listless, even surly servants were unable or unwilling to answer Billy’s questions in English. It was obvious he was not the first reporter trying to interview the prisoner’s wife.
Sebastian, flat on his back in the British military hospital in Cape Town, read the newspapers and there was nothing he could do. His right hip, fractured in three places, would make walking a painful experience for the rest of his life if he did not stay still and let the bones mend; the bullet wound in his shoulder was the least of his problems.
Harry Brigandshaw, who had turned thirteen in April, was told by the headmaster of Bishops School that his father had been badly wounded in action and was lying in a Cape Town hospital. On the same day, he read the newspaper and realised the rebel traitor, captured and about to be hanged, was the man he had called Uncle Tinus all his life. The pride in his father for at last going to war was doused by cold fear for Uncle Tinus. For the first time in his young life, he found himself on both sides of a deadly conflict. To call Uncle Tinus a traitor was like calling both of them cowards for not being willing to fight each other in a war. Uncle Tinus was an Afrikaner, so was Barend, Tinka and young Christo. In young Harry’s mind, there was no doubt whatsoever. Suddenly the world of principle, of right and wrong, that had seemed so simple the day before, was thrown in his face, and what had been an uncomplicated life that lay straight ahead down a long sunny path was shattered. Everything that Harry had been taught, from religion to being an English gentleman, no longer made any sense. If the British High Command was going to hang his Uncle Tinus for doing his rightful duty, how could they call themselves gentlemen? And if they were not gentlemen, who were?
By the time he reached his father’s bedside, he was a very confused young man.
Sebastian, looking up at the strapping lad standing beside his bed, realised the boy was turning into a young man and for the first time in his life he wondered if he was growing old. Harry offered his hand to shake.
“Shoulder took a bullet,” said Seb, shaking his head. “Do you know about Uncle Tinus?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t move. Hip’s the problem, not the shoulder. Go to the offices of African Shipping and if he’s not in Cape Town, wire Captain Doyle and tell him Uncle Tinus needs his help. He helped me when I was put in jail. Then wire your grandfather to come to Cape Town. The wire will stop in Salisbury but can be sent by hand to the farm. Your mother is to stay where she is. I am not the problem. Uncle James is avoiding all my messages, so find out where he is and go and see him. You think Madge and George can look after your mother?”
“Maybe she should take them into Salisbury and stay at Meikles Hotel?”
“Good. Put that in your wire. Then I want you to go and see Uncle Tinus and tell him not to worry.”
“But Uncle Tinus is in jail.”
“Make your Uncle James get you through the door. There’s a reporter for the Irish Times who made a story out of Uncle Tinus. His byline says ‘Clifford’. Find him and bring him here.”
“Are you in pain, Father?”
“Not the kind you are thinking about. That man means more to me than any brother.”
Alison and the children had gone to stay with Elize du Plessis, the wife of Magnus du Plessis, on the other side of the Franschhoek Valley, all thought of her miscarriage drowned in the horror of what was happening. The worst part had been accepting the advice of the lawyer she had employed to stop the British from hanging her husband.
“Don’t even try to see him,” said Mr Gotlieb of Gotlieb and Stein. “We have to make it clear the man’s a Boer fighting for his country. An English wife will question his motive. Get off your farm and keep away from the press. And may I warn you, this is not going to be an easy case to win.”
“You think they will hang my husband?”
“Yes. As an example to the rest of the Cape Boers. The British want to stop any new fighters joining Smuts or Botha. Keep out of the way and I will do my job. But under no circumstances are you to visit the jail or appear at his trial.”
“We had an argument before he left. I’d had a miscarriage and was feeling the world had come to an end. Tinus will think I’ve deserted him.”
“I will explain. Write him a letter for me to give to him. Just don’t let the newspapers take a photograph of General Oosthuizen being visited by his English wife.”
“Who made him a general?”
“His own commando by a vote, confirmed by Smuts and Botha. He’s a Boer general, don’t you worry about that.”
“Then how can they hang him?”
“Because he’s also a British subject. Maybe more because the Boer army has defied the might of the British Empire for too long. Kitchener wants it over and doesn’t care by what means he stops his men being killed by Boer guerrillas. And there’s General Gore-Bilham. Your husband made a fool of him. Better he had shot the man dead.”
“Why is the traitor lodged in a civil jail?” asked General Gore-Bilham. They were seated in the officers’ mess at the Castle in Cape Town where Gore-Bilham’s command was back in reserve from the front. Being the senior officer at the Castle, the rule of not talking shop in the mess did not apply to him. Having no wish to get into a discussion on the Boer general, the lower-ranking officers at the table used the rule to keep their mouths shut. The large majority of the men in the room were horrified by the thought of hanging an adversary captured in battle. Colonel Hickman, watching from the far side of the round table, wondered silently if the general would have preferred a bullet in his head rather than losing his trousers… Some men had the strangest of priorities.
“And what do you say about that, Hickman?… Someone tell the mess steward to put some more logs on the fire… Well, Hickman?”
“Sub judice, I’m afraid, sir.”
“But the army should try the man.”
No one looked at the general and James Brigandshaw, sitting next to Colonel Hickman, drummed his fingers on his knee under the table.
“Go and put some wood on the fire!” snapped Gore-Bilham to the mess steward who was standing behind James.
“There’s someone to see Colonel Brigandshaw.”
“Send him in, dammit, and put some wood on the fire. There’s a black south-easter blowing outside.”
“The man’s more a boy, I would think, and asks his uncle to meet him in the office of the military police. He was trying to walk through when the MPs picked him up.”
“Put some wood on the fire, dammit! Brigandshaw, do you even have a nephew in these parts?”
“Yes, sir. At school here.”
“In the colonies?” replied Gore-Bilham, horrified.
“Yes, sir. My brother lives in Rhodesia. May I be excused, sir?”
“I don’t care what anyone does, provided the steward puts wood on the fire.”
“Right away, sir.”
Outside in the quadrangle, James could hear the banshee of the howling wind that cut Table Bay in half. The Castle, built by the Dutch, was sheltered by Table Mountain along with a slice of the bay. No ships had entered the port or gone to sea for three days. Halfway across the quadrangle, it began to rain. If the presence of his nephew had not been announced in public, he would have made an excuse. James knew perfectly well Sebastian was lying on his back in the military hospital. He also knew the British, prodded by Gore-Bilham, intended hanging his brother’s partner very publicly and there was nothing he could do. If they had caught Smuts and de Wet the war would have been over and hanging men like Tinus Oosthuizen would no
longer have been politically necessary. And he blamed Sebastian for running off in the night.
“Ah, young Harry, what a surprise,” he said.
“I want permission to visit Uncle Tinus.” The boy looked at him with loathing.
“Nobody looks at me like that, young man.”
“Then get my real uncle out of jail.”
Tinus read the letter from his wife twice and gave it back to Gotlieb for burning. Then he smiled happily at the lawyer.
“I don’t understand how you can smile,” said the lawyer. “This is deadly serious and under martial law, you will face a military court even if for now they have you in a civil jail.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong and my wife loves me again. So does my son. I could have died many times in my life by a lion, elephant, or buffalo. Once even a honey badger tried to chew off my balls. Any one of those flying bullets could have taken off my head. Bullets are hard and very final if they hit you in the right spot. I’m forty-four years old and have lived every moment of my life. They’ll hang a man who’s had a good life, whose wife loves him, his eldest son no longer despises him, and he’s rich so his family will be all right when he dies.”
“They won’t be. If they find you guilty of treason all your property will be forfeit to the Crown.”
Sir Henry Manderville looked at the handwritten message on the telegraph form and understood. Together with his daughter and grandchildren, he left the farm on the banks of the Mazoe River. Maybe his title would have some weight in a world foolishly impressed with old titles, and even if it was just possible, he would give it a try. Hiding away in the Rhodesian bush could not get him far enough away from the problems of man. Or had he always been just running away from his responsibilities?
With the railway line at Fort Salisbury and the tracks traversing the former Boer republics through the arid veld of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, it would take him just five days to reach Cape Town.
After listening to Sebastian for over an hour, Billy Clifford could find nothing in the story he could use to help the Giant. Having brought the focus of attention, Billy felt guilty for the man’s predicament. If he had never made Oosthuizen a celebrity, no one would have made all the fuss.
“Why is it when you’re needed most you can’t do a thing?” asked Sebastian.
For a moment Billy was going to tell the man lying on his back in the hospital bed about his fruitless quest for Sarie Mostert. The dog-lady had vanished without a trace.
“We all have our problems,” he said.
“How soon will they hang him?”
“In a couple of weeks.”
Outside, the wind was rattling the hospital windows.
Captain Doyle, seated at his office desk in London, wondered why bad news always came together like a flight of devils from a cloudless sky. He put the telegraph form on the table upside down and for a moment forgot the repulsive little man seated across his table.
“Not bad news?” said Jeremiah Shank in his half-cultivated accent. His pronunciation of the word news had a strange parallel with the rope that went around a condemned man’s neck. When Shank repeated the sentence, Doyle felt the doom of the white hunter and shuddered. He had known it before but now he was certain… The man on the other side of the desk was evil. He began tapping his fingers on the table. The Indian Queen II was sailing on the tide not five hundred yards from where he was sitting in the London docks.
“I’ve got more shares in African Shipping than you, Doyle. Over forty per cent. I want to have my say, see. Board of Directors. Chairman, I thought. You can keep on runnin’ the place but I want my say.”
“The consortium controls over fifty per cent.”
“So you’ve said more than once.”
“I have to leave for Africa on the tide.”
“I don’t care whether you have a shit in your chair. I want to have my say. You see, cock, you’ve never paid a dividend and that ain’t right with all my money invested.”
“I bought new ships. The company’s worth far more.”
“Then sell it and give me my money or pay a proper dividend. My solicitor says…”
“I will give you an answer in a month.”
“Thirty days, cock. No problem. ’Ave a nice trip. They’re going to hang ’im. Bloody traitor. Just lucky I bought his share when he sold or they’d all be forfeit to the Crown. Better me as a director than the government. See you in a month, sonny boy. It’s been nice sailing with you again. Lucky for you they didn’t kill your fornicating partner or I’d ’ave bought his shares. All very well having lots of ships but in this world, you need cash to protect yourself… Ah, that one you didn’t know, by the look of you. Tell you what, Doyle, I know more about your company than you do. Brigandshaw’s in a hospital and you didn’t know. Shot by the British. Makes you laugh really. All that hunting and he gets shot by his own side.”
When the door to his office slammed shut, just hard enough to make the point, Captain Doyle got up and looked out of the window. It was a beautiful English summer afternoon and more than one ship would be ready to sail on the tide. In the old days, he could see the tall masts from where he stood. For the first time in his life, he would be sailing into the Cape of Storms as a passenger. It was winter in the Cape, he remembered.
The traffic outside 37 Pudding Lane in Bermondsey had been a dray pulled by an old carthorse that was so old it was a miracle the flat wagon carrying the barrels of beer moved at all. Even in poverty, there were public houses doing good business and once a week Ethel Shank watched the same beer-cart trundle iron wheels over cobbled stones, the only sign of brief hope in the wilderness.
There had been rumours before, all verbal. When Fred the coalman drank his four pints of mild and bitter on a Friday in the Duke of Clarence, he reckoned it was the only day of the week when his throat was not choked with coal dust. Ethel had her one glass of port and lemon and Fred four pints, no more, no less. In the thirty-three years they had been married, the ritual in the Duke of Clarence had been the same, and the only time either of them did anything that wasn’t work or sleep. They rarely spoke in the Duke of Clarence, to themselves or anyone else, though each of their neighbours received a warm smile of recognition. It was the way the community enjoyed their recreation, the luxury of sitting down doing nothing.
Vivian Clay was the only one in Pudding Lane who did not work with his hands. Most of the day he stood at a lectern in the City filling in the records of the company’s claims in a leather-bound register that weighed twenty pounds. The beautiful copperplate writing of young Vivian Clay had landed him the job forty years ago and not a day had gone by without the same repetition. Apart from a small increase in his Christmas bonus, his pay had stayed the same. When he retired in ten years’ time, eighty per cent of his wages would be paid for doing nothing, the great shining light at the end of a lifetime’s toil.
The previous evening, Fred and Ethel had sat on the bench outside the Duke of Clarence, it being so warm; a long weathered table made from an old railway sleeper stood in front of them, though Fred never rested his pint for fear of it tipping in the cracks and spilling his only pleasure. Vivian, passing on his way to the bar, dropped the day’s copy of the Evening Standard in front of them. The paper was folded into four so Vivian could read on the train. It was like opening a concertina… In the train, there was no room for moving his elbows. For thirty years, the manager of the insurance company read the morning and evening papers and when Vivian left to go home, he took both papers from the wastepaper basket where they had been thrown.
The paper in front of Ethel and Fred was folded to a picture, in grainy black and white, of a man in a silk top hat.
“You always said, Eth, there had to be two Jeremiah Shanks,” said Vivian Clay. “But that’s ’im, I tell you. Recognised that droopy eye anywhere and the twisted nose. Ascot, I tell you. In the royal enclosure with his new wife. The paper says he ’as a son. Congratulations, you’re grandparents. Ho
bnobs with his mentor Lord Edward Holland. Your son’s a millionaire.”
Ethel had not worked all morning, sitting in the parlour with the window open staring out onto the street. The coincidence was far too great and if the truth came out and was known in Pudding Lane, it would ruin Fred Shank for life. The good, solid man who had always provided for her and the kids would know she had married him on a lie, would know she had made him marry her knowing she was carrying another man’s child.
“I’ve got a grandchild,” she said out loud and then began to cry.
Francesca Shank, born Cotton, was in her element and thanked the day she had married Jeremiah Shank. Wealth, real wealth, overcame any impediment. The drooping eye, the twisted nose, the short stature, the look that made most men want to punch him in the face, were forgotten. The relatives in Godalming, her doting father, the red setters, all had been visited and even if some had sniggered when she left, she had seen their gleams of envy. Living in the country keeping up appearances with not enough money, paled against the house in Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park and the great estate in Africa where all the right people in London were clamouring for invitations to shoot big game. And best of all for Fran, her son would inherit the little man’s money but not the little man’s blood. Fran, above everything else in her new world of wealth, had become a snob. Knowing the best way to keep a man was to keep him on short rations, Fran made it as difficult as possible for Jeremiah Shank to have sex. Clothed and safe in public she flirted with him outrageously. In bed, she went as cold as a fish. Then, when she saw his interest waning, she gave him what he wanted in spades. Happily, in London, even though he probably knew she was playing a game, he could not give her a clout. There were rules in society even Jeremiah understood. The little man who had sailed before the mast as an ordinary seaman, who had taken elocution lessons, who was richer than most men with English country estates, wanted above all to be accepted by the men and women who ran high society.
