Journey from Darkness

by Gareth Crocker

  Edward seemed unable to comprehend what he had just heard, as if Father Gabriel had suddenly broken off into Latin. Belonged to his father? On the desk lay a silver pocket watch, a compass and, impossibly, what appeared to be an old leather book. Was that a diary? his mind whispered.

  Father Gabriel followed Edward’s gaze. ‘I haven’t read a page of it. You have my word. I was told your father kept it for you and your brother so you would one day understand why he had to leave you and what he went through during his expeditions in Africa.’

  Edward parted his lips to speak, but found his mouth bereft of a coherent sentence.

  ‘Look after it. Celebrate it with Derek. Keep it safe,’ the priest said, and then placed a hand on his arm. ‘I pray it’s everything you hope it to be.’

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ Edward heard himself say, the pain all but gone from his face. He reached over and carefully lifted up the journal as though it were a rare and ancient scroll. As he opened it, its arthritic spine cracking in his palm, a photograph slipped from between its dusty vertebrae. It was a faded picture of him and Derek, both barely six years old, standing on either side of a tall and handsome man. The hull of a large passenger ship loomed in the background.

  ‘I had no idea that was in there. Is that … him?’

  Edward nodded, numb.

  ‘Where was it taken? Do you remember?’

  His eyes skipped back and forth across the photograph. ‘At the docks in Southampton. Before his last trip.’

  It suddenly dawned on Father Gabriel that they were staring at a photograph that captured Edward and Derek’s final moments together with their father. It was a picture beyond any price.

  ‘I remember two things about that day. How scared that enormous ship made me feel, and the promise he made to us. He told us we would all be together again soon. That, before long, we would wake up one morning and find him waiting for us at the breakfast table,’ Edward offered, and then hesitated. ‘Do you know that I still look for him at breakfast, Father? I catch myself doing it sometimes. Have you ever heard anything more pathetic than that?’

  ‘That’s not pathetic, Edward. He’s your father,’ he said in a consoling whisper, as though the pitch of his voice lent his hollow words a special meaning.

  ‘I’ll be sixteen in a few days. He died almost ten years ago. How can I still be searching for him?’

  Father Gabriel stared at Edward for a moment. ‘We’re always looking for the things we miss the most. Even if we know they’re gone from us.’

  Edward looked back at him, his expression softening. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘May I ask you a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How many photographs do you have of your father?’

  ‘Including this one?’

  Father Gabriel nodded.

  Edward kept his head bowed, his eyes locked on the picture. He allowed himself a joyless laugh. ‘Just the one, Father.’

  Prologue III

  How could this be? Derek wondered again as the moon cast its bone eye through the dormitory’s large cottage-pane window and stared across his bed. It all still felt so raw and unreal to him. Only days ago his father had been a precious, yet vague and distant figure – a figment whose shape and contours had been warped and eroded by both the passing years and the shifting sands of a child’s memory. Now, he was back in near-perfect focus, every feature and nuance miraculously returned to him. But wondrous as it was, the photograph only fulfilled and restored the form. Ernest Hughes’s depth, his substance, lay in his words. For almost a week, Derek and Edward had taken turns meticulously picking through and poring over all seventy-nine pages of his diary. It was an extraordinary experience that offered them an ethereal bridge back to their father; a precious insight into the kind of man he was. They spent hours dissecting and debating single sentences, whole afternoons discussing and reliving favourite stories and passages. After so many years of wondering who their father was, they were now gifted at least a part of the answer, offered some of the bones to sort through. They finally had an authentic reflection to pin in the mirror. But it was not without a price. With enlightenment came a renewed sense of loss, a fresh blade drawn across tender skin. The fact that the real Ernest Hughes appeared to be a man of even more substance than the father they had constructed in their minds made the cold black light of his absence seem only more startling and cruel. It made his passing more immediate, less easy to move away from. Between every line on every page fell a shadow. A whisper of what could have been, of the life they could have had together.

  They discovered that his expeditions to Africa were not of his choosing. He was a geologist who worked for a mining company that, twice a year, would travel across southern Africa and into Bechuanaland and Portuguese East Africa. He wrote often and at length about how much he missed his sons and that one day, when they were old enough, he planned to take them with him on his travels. Yet while he made it clear that he loathed being away from them, the powerful affection he felt for the bush, and the African elephant in particular, offered him at least some consolation. Several of the diary’s entries were dedicated to ‘The Great Greys’, as he called them – and the scourge of the poachers who hunted them. Men whom he detested with an almost primal loathing.

  They also found out things about their mother that they never knew. That she played the church organ, for one thing. That she was partially blind, for another. One of the earliest and most upsetting entries described their father’s unbridled joy at witnessing his healthy twin sons being born into the world and then the agony of watching his wife being taken from it only minutes later. The burning guilt of that had weighed on Derek for as long as he had been able to draw memory. Although they never spoke of it, he knew it was a burden that Edward shared.

  Of all the entries, the one they both kept reverting to was the final one – the last words their father ever wrote: The night of the elephant ghosts.

  Having waited patiently for the other boys in the dormitory to fall asleep, Derek sat up and lit a small candle on the table beside his bed. He looked across at Edward who was sleeping soundly alongside him, the bruising on his cheek visible even in the gloom. Sighing, still unable to forgive himself, he stared down at the diary and turned to the final few pages. In the flickering light, the words danced and swayed as though alive.

  9 January 1893

  The Limpopo River

  This malaria is more severe than I imagined.

  I can mostly cope with the fever and the constant aching in my limbs, but the headaches are difficult to bear. Last night was the worst so far. And yet, despite the pain, it is a date which now accounts for one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.

  As I lay in my tent, fighting a burning fever, I became convinced that if I did not get my temperature down I would not make the morning. As we are camped alongside the Limpopo River, I decided to crawl down her banks and submerge myself in her waters.

  But what my faltering mind failed to consider is that although the Limpopo is as wide as a lake, and an almost biblical sight when in flood, her throat has been dry for months.

  Unable to grasp this, I believe I was scooping handfuls of sand over my head, convinced it was water. After that, there is a lapse in my memory and at some point I fell asleep.

  I know this because I was woken by rain dancing on my skin. Sweet, glorious rain. I remember raising my arms to the heavens and shouting something. A thank you or a prayer, perhaps. Maybe both.

  The soft rain soon grew into a storm. I closed my eyes, savouring the downpour, when I sensed a presence – that I was no longer alone. I opened my eyes and, at first, could see nothing but the rain and the dark shoulders of the river banks glowing softly in the night.

  But then I saw them.

  Tall grey figures emerging through the rain. My first thought was that I was dying and these were angels summoned to carry me away. But then I realised I was mistaken. These figures were somethi
ng else. As they drifted closer, I was offered a clearer sight of them.

  It was a herd of five adult elephants, but like none I have ever seen. Their heads towered above the banks. Their tusks were enormous, like trees bent over in the wind. As they came towards me, the rain eased up for a moment and I realised I could not hear them move. I leaned forward and held my breath, but still could not hear any part of them. Their feet appeared to float above the sand, as if I was witnessing their spirits and not their bodies.

  A minute later they were gone, devoured by the dark river.

  I was woken shortly after sunrise by our tracker, a kind Shangaan named N’jalabane. My fever had broken and I was feeling better than I have in some while. I decided to share my story with him – convinced it was either a dream or a hallucination – but as I described the elephants to him, something changed in his eyes.

  He explained that his grandfather – an elder in their village – had often told the story of what he believed was a rare and ancient Desert Elephant tribe that he had encountered as a boy. He had woken up in the middle of the night, in answer to nature, and was making his way to the trees at the bottom end of their village when a herd of seven giant elephants drifted across his path – barely yards away from him. They were like nothing he had ever seen. ‘Elephant gods,’ he called them. The next morning he told his story to the elders, but nobody believed him. Not until he led them to the vast tracks running through the back of the village.

  After sharing his story, N’jalabane helped me to my feet and we hobbled over to where I thought I had seen the elephants. And there, pressed into the mud, was a wide expanse of circular pans. Vast footprints in which the rainwater had collected. Shapes in which a child could lie down.

  As I write this, I find myself wondering if it is possible that these elephants I saw are indeed the descendents of the ancient Desert Elephant tribe of whom N’jalabane’s grandfather spoke. Or if they were merely a large herd of adult elephants – their proportions magnified by the night shadows and the demons in my head.

  I cannot know for certain, but I am certain of what I find in my heart.

  These were elephants unlike any other. I pray I see them again.

  Derek closed the diary and felt a familiar barb of emotion hook in his throat. Rubbing his fingers over his eyes, he stared at the fresh candle that still had so much light left to give. Shaking his head, he licked his thumb and index finger and pinched the top of the wick. And then, much like his father – well before its time – the flame sighed quietly in the silence, and was gone.

  Prologue IV

  Derek was lying on a grass embankment in a small tree-lined park, the sounds of King’s Cross a faint echo in his ears. Fingers knitted behind his head, he stared up at the granite sky, crossed his ankles, and wished he were somewhere else.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Elizabeth asked, her words dragging like iron nails down his back. ‘How many children should we have? I think five is a good number. We’ll have one boy and four girls.’

  He shrugged, said nothing.

  ‘Derek, I’m asking you a question. Why don’t you ever answer me? It’s because you don’t like me anymore. I know it is,’ she said, leaping from marriage to divorce in a single breath. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘I don’t answer your questions, Elizabeth,’ he replied slowly, his eyes closing, ‘because you answer them for me.’

  She propped herself up on her elbows, her long black hair swirling in the breeze. Although an attractive girl, she had the unattractive habit of almost permanently pulling an exaggerated face. There seemed a constant hardness to her features, a belligerence in her expression that was both overdone and out of place in one so young. ‘What are you talking about?’ she grumbled, her mouth curling into a snarl.

  Derek was about to respond when she cut him off. ‘I do not answer your questions for you. That’s absurd! I can’t believe you sometimes. I really can’t.’

  Derek raised his eyebrows, fed a grass stalk into his mouth.

  ‘Well?’ she cried. ‘What do you have to say for yourself? Something clever, I’m sure.’

  ‘Elizabeth, you asked me how many children we should have. You answered that five was a good number. Four girls and a boy, if I recall. You then asked me why I don’t answer your questions, before telling me that it’s because I don’t like you anymore. Your final question was to ask me what I have to say for myself. You then answered that it was sure to be something clever. Well … I hope I haven’t disappointed you.’

  Elizabeth’s lips first pouted, then parted in disbelief. ‘W–Well,’ she stuttered, ‘if I do answer my own questions it’s because talking to you is like throwing a stone down a well … I get absolutely nothing back! What is wrong with you, Derek Hughes?’

  He slipped his hands into his pockets, sucked the moisture from the grass and fought away a smile. ‘I don’t know, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.’

  That, as it proved, was as much as Elizabeth Whitley was willing to bear. She snapped to her feet, her eyes narrowing. ‘I really don’t know what I ever saw in you!’

  Not one to filter his thoughts, Derek offered the first thing that entered his mind. ‘Someone to speak at, I would imagine.’

  A sound not unlike a whimper pushed up from her throat.

  ‘I gather this means no more children,’ Derek added, unable to help himself.

  She glowered at him and forced her sun hat down over her eyes. ‘I should have chosen your brother. I don’t know what I was thinking. He’s really so much better than you. Do you know why?’

  Derek made a circular movement with his hand, urging her on.

  ‘Because,’ she wailed, ‘he would appreciate me! He would know how lucky he was to have someone like me willing to give him the time of day!’ Realising that she had again answered her own question, something flickered in her eyes and she turned on her heels and stormed off.

  As Derek watched her go, he knew he should feel at least some guilt for the way he had mocked her, but he simply didn’t. All he felt was a sense of overwhelming relief. It was as though he had been marching for days in boots that were two sizes too small for him. Having them off his feet now was pure heaven. As Elizabeth pushed through the gate and disappeared down the street, he wondered how he had ever allowed her to come between him and his brother. How had it happened that he had picked a fight with Edward over her? It now seemed impossible to fathom.

  ‘Michael,’ he whispered, a grin pushing through his lips. ‘We could have named our boy Michael.’

  He sat up, checked the time on his father’s pocket watch, and was about to push to his feet when he heard voices rising up behind him, the slope of the embankment concealing who they belonged to.

  ‘Did you see how he went down?’ one of the voices asked.

  ‘Like he’d been bloody shot in the face,’ another replied, clapping his hands. ‘When he tried to stand up I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.’

  Derek crouched down as the boys drew closer. He now thought he recognised at least one of the voices.

  ‘I’d take on that Derek any day. A few punches and it would all be over,’ a third voice boasted. ‘Maybe just one would do.’

  That was all Derek needed to hear. He stood up and folded his arms, revealing himself. ‘Afternoon, lads.’

  The three boys, all a year older than he, pulled up as they saw him. Their eyes darted to each other and then reached for the same thought: How much had Derek heard? It was one thing to tease a large dog from behind a fence; it was quite another to do it from inside the yard.

  ‘Do you know why I like coming here?’ Derek asked, and then realised with some irony that he was about to answer his own question. ‘Because it’s quiet. Nice and peaceful. Not like at King’s Cross. Do you know what I mean? It gives me a chance to think. I like it. It calms me down.’

  None of the boys responded. They all just stared back at him, unsure of where this was going.

  ‘But
the thing about the quiet is that when people speak, you can hear them from some distance away. It’s quite something, really.’

  The tallest of the boys decided that the situation called for a strong arm, a bold show. Besides, he thought, they had Derek outnumbered three to one. ‘To blazes with you, Hughes. I don’t care what you heard.’

  ‘Well, I happen to care a great deal about what you were saying. In particular, what you had to say about my brother. I’ll take an apology now, thanks. From each of you. One by one will do, or you can sing it together if you like.’

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ the boy in the middle blurted out. He was the shortest of the three, but by far the heaviest.

  ‘I’d write down my name for you, but I know you can’t read.’

  Heat flushed through the boy’s face. ‘Your brother’s a nutter … and so are you.’

  ‘All right, so here’s what’s going to happen,’ Derek announced, exchanging calm looks with each of them. ‘I’m going to hit you first,’ he said, finger outstretched, ‘then you,’ he added, the finger turning, ‘and then you. As a gentleman, it’s only right that I give you fair warning.’

  The first boy roared with laughter, astounded by Derek’s nerve. He leaned forward which, as it turned out, was a mistake. ‘There are three of us, we’ll tear your–’ But his words were rammed back into his throat by a short right hook. Shocked, he dropped to his knees, warm fluid filling his mouth. He cupped his hands under his chin and blood trickled into his palms. Before the second boy could even think to react, Derek spun around and slapped him hard on the ear. The force of the blow sent him tumbling down the embankment, wailing and whimpering as he rolled. Adjusting his stance, Derek squared up to the remaining boy.

  ‘Please! L–Look … I … I didn’t really mean those things about your brother. It’s just–’

  ‘Don’t change your mind; that’s what cowards do. Stand your ground. Be a man,’ Derek said, tipping his head to the side. More scared than he had ever been in his life, the boy nodded, tears pushing behind his eyes.