The Missionary's Wife

by Tim Jeal

  ‘You mean I should ask the MO to overdo the morphia? No, no. Lane won’t play that game.’

  ‘Who’s talking of a game?’ Carew’s pale eyes were furiously reproachful. ‘Unless we’ve shot him by nightfall, we might as well shoot ourselves.’

  Francis knew he should respond with fury, but he could not. Instead he said quietly, ‘And afterwards we send his body through the lines on a mule?’

  ‘Exactly!’ Carew grabbed Francis’s arm above his sling, making him wince. ‘It’d be a terrible blow to their morale. Imagine it, sir. He’s a god to them.’

  And Francis did imagine it – vividly. But he snapped back, ‘We can’t shoot prisoners of war without a trial.’

  ‘Then try him, for God’s sake. He’s a rebel captured while offering armed resistance. Others have been tried for that.’

  ‘Only by civil courts. It’s a rebellion, not a war, Lieutenant.’

  ‘How the hell do we get him to a civil court? The nearest is hundreds of miles away.’

  Francis smiled stiffly. ‘We can’t shoot him unless he’s violated the customs of war.’

  ‘He murdered the missionary,’ cried Carew triumphantly.

  ‘Mrs Haslam says the chief tried to save her husband.’

  Like a swordsman fighting for his life, Carew thrust again. ‘The rebels aim to kill all the whites, so Mponda must have sanctioned murder, sir. He’s an important chief. How can he not be to blame?’

  Trooper Birch ran up, shouting that the natives were relighting their fires. Already men were dashing to the barricades.

  ‘Do we shoot him, or don’t we?’ screamed Carew, as his commander started towards the nearest Maxim.

  ‘Save your ammunition till they’re close,’ Francis roared.

  *

  While the rattle of shooting continued unabated, Clara remained with Mponda in the wagon. His eyes were dimmer, and his leg was shockingly bloated. When Mponda whispered her name, Clara did not dare ask him what she knew she must. If Francis would not save himself, she would beg Mponda to order his men to let the soldiers go.

  For a long time the chief was absorbed in the business of breathing, his rib cage rising and falling as if an immense weight were resting on it. As soon as the pressure eases, I will ask him, Clara told herself. But before she could, he wheezed, ‘Until the white men came, my heart was happy eating honey and just living. I was like an ox. I did not know I could choose how to live.’

  ‘Umfundisi loved you very much.’

  ‘He saved me, Mrs Robert.’

  Clara thought of the families in Mponda’s village sitting outside their huts in the evening, eating together, then talking for hours around their fires or dancing late into the night; and Mponda’s words haunted her: ‘My heart was happy … just living.’ Had Robert ever been happy just living? Perhaps in very early childhood. And she herself? Maybe before her mother had taught her about sin and salvation. And what of Mponda? Had he known one moment of peace after his conversion?

  Clara braced herself to ask her question, but as she opened her mouth, Mponda gasped, ‘Are sinners punished here on earth, Mrs Robert, as well as after death?’

  ‘Why do you ask, my chief?’

  ‘I did great wrong to Herida. Is that why I suffer?’

  Clara’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m sure God has forgiven you.’ She leaned closer to him, her heart thumping. How would he answer her? ‘My chief,’ she began, ‘if the white leader lets you return to your people, will you order your warriors to let the soldiers go?’ She watched his face in anguish, for it conveyed no hint of emotion. His eyes were closed, sunken in their sockets. At last his lips moved.

  ‘The white leader insults me.’

  ‘He does not mean to.’

  ‘In his country,’ gasped the chief, ‘I would not ask him for favours if I had come across the sea with guns to fight.’

  ‘You wish your men to kill all the white soldiers?’

  ‘No, I do not wish that. God has punished them already. For your sake, Mrs Robert, I will ask my warriors to let them go. You may tell the white leader.’

  Clara felt faint with relief. Francis would surely grasp this heaven-sent chance. She squeezed Mponda’s hand in gratitude and the next moment was flinging herself to the floor as a bullet tore through the canvas. Afterwards, as her agitation subsided, she sat listening to Mponda’s breathing, trying to concentrate on the dying man, whatever might be happening in the battle outside. How strange it was, after living through so much danger, still to feel afraid. She wanted with a great longing to know what was going on outside, and yet she could not bring herself to leave the wagon. The moment the attack was over, she would tell Francis what Mponda had said.

  On the ledge beside the chief’s bed she saw a giant grasshopper, four or five inches long. And although his wings were a beautiful shade of green, his expression was remarkably sinister. In front of him a tiny golden beetle was resting. From Clara’s eyeline, the grasshopper looked as monstrous as she imagined he must from the little insect’s viewpoint. She reached out and placed the beetle on her palm. He clicked open his golden armour and spread his wings. One flash in the lamplight, and he was gone.

  CHAPTER 25

  When the attackers finally fell back, it was midafternoon. Clara found soldiers crawling on their hands and knees, begging for help. Others sat on the ground, weeping with shock. In a line of dead bodies outside the hospital tent was Francis’s runner, Wilfred Birch, intestines spilling from his stomach. She did not have to count corpses to know that the next attack would be the last.

  As Clara approached the tent, Dr Lane emerged, wild-eyed with anger.

  ‘That bloody young fool is going to shoot him.’

  Stunned by the suffering around her, Clara could scarcely take in what he was telling her. ‘Shoot who?’

  ‘The chief, of course,’ thundered Lane. ‘Vaughan’s decided to try him by court-martial. His staff are doing the paperwork.’ Lane pointed to some men sitting at a table at the centre of the laager. ‘They’re sticking to the book in case there’s trouble later.’

  Clara hurried across to see what documents they were copying. Over one man’s shoulder, she read:

  Order for the assembly of a Field General Court-Martial at Ibanula in Mashonaland this thirteenth day of July 1896.

  Whereas complaint has been made to me, the undersigned Officer in command of the Gwelo Column, that the person named in the annexed Schedule has committed the offences in the said Schedule, being offences against the person of residents in the above named country, and I am of the opinion that it is not practicable that those offences should be tried by an ordinary General Court-Martial – I therefore order the officers listed below to assemble at Ibanula Camp at 4:00 P.M. for the purpose of trying the said person by Field General Court-Martial.

  At the foot of the page a space had been left for a signature, and beneath that had been written:

  F. M. Vaughan, Capt. 9th Hussars

  President of the Court

  Commanding Gwelo Column

  On the table, Clara saw several copies of another document.

  Charge Sheet

  Mponda, Chief Induna of the Venda at Ibanula, is charged with:

  1st Charge Being a rebel in armed resistance to constituted authority: in that on 11 July 1896 at Ibanula he was captured in arms.

  2nd Charge Instigating murder: in that about 1st July he sent his men to attack and kill white miners near the Isanga River.

  By Order

  M. de H. Carew, Lieut.

  Staff Officer

  Gwelo Column

  Clara ran back to Lane’s wagon as the doctor was mounting the steps. ‘Can they try a dying man?’

  ‘Vaughan can do anything he damn well likes if his men obey him.’

  ‘What if you refuse to let the chief leave the wagon?’

  ‘He can try him in absentia.’

  ‘Will he really shoot him?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

&nb
sp; *

  Francis’s eyes were bloodshot and his face unshaven. The ceaseless drums seemed to pulse in time with the throbbing of his hand. His sling was caked with dirt and dried blood. Clara approached him, looking so angry that all he wanted was to escape from her. He supposed the chief mattered to her so much because her husband had loved him and because she still felt guilty.

  ‘How can you be so callous?’ she cried.

  ‘Callous?’ he gasped, reacting in spite of himself, galled by the unfairness of it. ‘How can it be callous to want to save lives – my men’s and countless natives’?’

  ‘You can’t have any idea how they’ll react if you shoot him.’

  Francis said firmly, ‘If he dies, their morale will collapse.’

  She twisted a strand of black hair between her fingers. ‘Isn’t it just as likely that they’ll thirst for your blood?’

  A faint smile moved his lips. ‘Can they get any thirstier?’ He rose from his chair. ‘Please, Clara, try to be reasonable. He’s dying anyway.’

  She stepped away from him. ‘He says he’ll let your men go if you free him.’

  ‘Why should I believe him?’

  ‘He’s a Christian, a better one than I ever was.’

  Wanting to rage at her, Francis controlled himself and pointed to some wounded Africans. ‘Is he a Christian? Or him? Or the one with the scars? Use your head, Clara. Mponda split his tribe, and now he’s dying. If I let him go, I throw away our only hope of survival.’

  She faced him pityingly. ‘It’ll be murder if you shoot him. I can’t believe it of you.’

  He said sharply, ‘Some of our prisoners say Mponda ordered the killing of miners on the Isanga River.’

  ‘Scared men will say anything to save their skins. The man’s dying, Francis. He’s helpless.’

  ‘We’ll be helpless too before we’re hacked to bits. And spare a thought for his people. What’ll the British Army do to them if we’re massacred?’

  Clara gazed at him with blazing rectitude. ‘Some things must never be done, whatever the circumstances.’

  Not knowing how to answer her, he walked towards the laager where the court-martial would take place.

  *

  Ten minutes before four o’clock, Francis arrived with six troopers at the medical wagon. Dr Lane stepped down, bristling with anger. ‘Dear God, Captain, the man will be dead within days. It’s unheard of to try a man in his condition.’

  ‘It’s unusual, I agree.’

  Francis told himself that somehow he must endure all the reproofs that came his way. But when Clara came out from the wagon, he did not know how he would survive the loathing in her eyes.

  In lifting the stretcher down from the wagon, the soldiers jolted the dying man so severely that he cried out.

  ‘Imagine he’s Field Marshal Wolseley,’ roared Dr Lane.

  Clara caught Francis’s arm. ‘He risked his life to meet Robert. Is this your reward?’

  Francis did not reply but gently prized her fingers from his arm. Since Lane was a commissioned officer with the rank of captain, Francis had been unable to turn down the doctor’s request to defend Mponda. He now feared that Lane would do the job well enough to arouse Clara’s hopes of an acquittal.

  When the stretcher was placed in front of the table, Francis gave orders for it to be tilted so that the chief could see his judges. Since Mponda had no feeling in his legs, he had to be strapped to the stretcher, or he would have slipped to the ground. The straps cut into his flesh, and his great head lolled sideways; but he made no sound.

  At a quarter past four, the order convening the court was read aloud and signed by Francis. The charge sheet was also laid before the court. It too was read out and then signed by Carew in his capacity as prosecutor. Francis, as president, sat between the court’s two other members: Lieutenant Gradwell and another subaltern, Richard Haydon. Both had been briefed by Carew and believed that their lives would be at stake if the prisoner was found not guilty.

  While Seda was being sworn in as court interpreter, Mponda, whose eyes had been closed until then, interrupted. Long before Seda had finished translating the chief’s angry words, Francis guessed that Mponda wanted Clara to interpret for him. Since she was not appearing as a witness, he could see no good reason to deny the chief his wish. Clara was handed a Bible and asked to swear to interpret accurately at all times and to offer no opinions of her own. Then Francis swore in Seda as interpreter for the African prosecution witnesses. In a private aside, Francis asked Seda to raise his hand if he disagreed with Clara’s translation on any point.

  Francis had thought that Mponda might refuse to recognize the court; but through Clara he pleaded not guilty to both charges. The sight of her standing attentively beside the dying man, sometimes giving him water and at all times listening for the slightest sound he might make, was very painful to Francis. While it was noble to protect the sick, to do as he was doing was contrary to every canon of decent behaviour. Yet whenever he heard a wounded man cry out, or caught the distant thump of drums, Francis’s resolution was strengthened. The next attack would sweep them all away.

  Carew rose to put the case for the prosecution. He began by calling as witnesses the two troopers who had accompanied Francis into the cave. Their evidence was supposed to prove the first charge: that Mponda was a rebel, captured in armed resistance to constituted authority. Both soldiers swore that when they called on Mponda to give himself up, he had first fired at them and then, when his gun had jammed, tried to stab Captain Vaughan with his assegai. Carew declared that this proved that the chief had been captured while offering armed resistance to authority after refusing to surrender.

  Dr Lane rose to cross-examine the troopers in turn.

  ‘Trooper Morris,’ he asked in a gruff and kindly voice, ‘what would you do if you were chased into a cave by three armed men?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘My dear chap, you must have some idea. Would you, for instance, call out, “Here I am, come and get me, I’ve thrown down my weapons”?’

  The trooper blushed with embarrassment as he said, ‘I think I’d say something like that, yes, sir.’

  ‘How very surprising. You wouldn’t be terrified out of your wits and try to stop the three men getting near you?’

  ‘We called out to the prisoner, quite friendly. “Stop,” we told ’im. “Lay down yer arms.”’

  Lane nodded solemnly. ‘Might I ask what language you used, Trooper Morris?’

  ‘There was no swearin’ and cussin’, sir. We used good language.’

  ‘The prisoner wouldn’t have known that, would he? He doesn’t speak English. For all he knew, you might have been threatening to shoot him.’

  ‘I suppose so, sir.’

  Only when the second charge, instigating murder, was dealt with did the prosecution fare better. They produced three prisoners who swore that the leaders of the raiding party that went to the Isanga River had made no secret of their intent to kill the white men there. Chief Mponda must have overheard them. No questions put by Dr Lane, with Seda’s help, could sway the witnesses.

  Looking at these inscrutable tribesmen, Clara could not believe that they understood the significance of their testimony. Very often, at the mission, she had encountered natives who, out of simple politeness, said what they supposed their white listener wished to hear rather than what they knew to be true. Aware of the terrible danger that Mponda was in, Clara jumped up and asked the eldest of the three Africans in his own language if he was lying to please the soldiers.

  Seda jumped up excitedly. ‘Captain, sir, she is asking questions.’

  Francis leaned across the table and said sharply, ‘No more of this, Mrs Haslam. Only Dr Lane and Lieutenant Carew may ask questions. The witnesses stated clearly that Chief Mponda sent men to the Isanga River knowing that they would kill the white miners there. The prosecution will now continue.’

  ‘Gentlemen, the point is this,’ said Carew, facing Francis and hi
s brother officers behind the table. ‘The defendant, Chief Mponda, led armed men away from his kraal on an illegal expedition aimed at murdering the white residents of this country. Nobody had threatened his kraal or his people. Nobody had occupied his land. But he joined the rebellion as a leader, knowing that this would mean death for white settlers, including women and children.’

  Later, Dr Lane refuted this by arguing that there was no evidence that whites had been killed while Mponda was actually commanding his force and that he could not reasonably be blamed for murders that took place while he was somewhere else. But since the African witnesses had plainly stated that the chief had known that murder was to be done, Clara sensed in her bones that Mponda was doomed. Her husband’s beloved chief, his only convert and most brilliant pupil, was to be executed like a common criminal.

  Dr Lane wanted to ask Mponda whether he had ordered the deaths, and Clara put the question in Venda. The chief denied it so vehemently that she was utterly convinced. She turned to Francis and said in a voice cracking with emotion, ‘Chief Mponda swears those men are lying. He wanted his impi to drive the miners away from the area, but he did not want them killed.’

  Carew threw up his hands as if in amazement. ‘Then ask him this, Mrs Haslam: How did he expect his men to behave if fired on by the miners?’

  Clara exchanged words with Mponda and turned back to Carew. ‘He expected his men to defend themselves but not to surround the white men.’

  ‘In that case,’ persisted Carew, ‘ask him how all the miners came to be killed.’

  Ten minutes later, Dr Lane was completing his final remarks for the defence. Mponda, he said, was a patriotic chief who had tried to defend his country and countrymen against people whom he thought of as invaders. He had lost control over his followers, but that did not make him guilty of instigating murder. He appealed to Francis and the two subalterns to respond in the spirit of British fair play and not to be a party to injustice.