lashman and the Golden Sword

by Robert Brightwell

  “So, you are a supporter of our cause, then?” She looked at me eagerly and I noticed that she rested her hand on my arm. I had not felt comfortable with the slave culture in Brazil, but I will be honest and say that at that moment, I would have sold every man jack alive in Africa into bondage, just to see this beauty stripped for action. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of the need to be patient.

  “My last command was a detachment of marines who were all liberated slaves,” I told her. “Now why don’t you tell me where we are going.”

  She explained that we were heading to a settlement, ten miles down the coast. The governor had set it up for former slaves that were now being returned to Africa. Some, who were delivered back on the coast of this vast continent and left to find their own way home, came from captured slave ships. Others were former slaves from the Caribbean and the Americas. Both groups found their arrival in Africa challenging. Those recently enslaved often had no idea where they had come from and had rarely seen a map. Even where it was known from which port the ship they were captured in had embarked, it was usually not wise to return them there, for they would simply be re-captured and loaded on the next west-bound vessel. Some tried to make their way home regardless, but ignorant of local languages and customs, it was likely that only a few succeeded. Others remained in the coastal settlements, almost as lost and disorientated as when they had been at sea.

  The situation was even worse for those who had lived in the Caribbean and the Americas. Many of them had been born there and were completely unfamiliar with Africa, its climate, plants, animals and people. Eliza explained that some of them were encouraged to return to Africa by well-meaning abolitionists, who felt that the blacks would never achieve equality in their countries. Others were free blacks who were sent back to Africa by slave owners, as they were worried that notions of freedom would unsettle their ‘livestock’. Some fifteen thousand had been sent back so far and they were scattered in settlements from Sierra Leone all the way to the Gold Coast, which was where Cape Coast Castle was located.

  “Who is organising the return of slaves?” I asked.

  “Well, our navy returns most of those captured on slave ships. They often just turn the ships around and head for the nearest African shore before food and water on board run out. As for the rest, there is an organisation in America founded by George Washington’s nephew which sends many back and similar groups in the Caribbean and Canada.”

  We arrived at noon. It was easy to spot the settlement we were going to. Unlike the African villages we had seen on the coast with their round huts, this one had rectangular buildings and ridged roofs. Its occupants had constructed in the style they knew from the Americas.

  “It is a sizeable place,” I pointed out. “There must be over twenty houses.”

  Eliza beamed with pleasure as she studied it, from its roughest shack to a large whitewashed building that I took to be the church. “I have not been here before. When Cuthbert first came to Africa, some of the settlements would disappear. The occupants would be lost in conflicts with the local tribes or sometimes sold back into slavery.”

  “Cuthbert?” I queried.

  “My husband,” she grinned. “He might be a ‘dry old stick’ as you put it, but he is a good man. Before, people would be landed here with little or no support. Local tribes viewed them with suspicion, especially if they encroached on hunting grounds or stole crops to survive. They were seen by many as a nuisance and Cuthbert thinks that the old trading company connived in selling them back into slavery to remove them as a problem. But the new governor has already set up thriving communities in Sierra Leone. Now he is governing here too, he is supporting the missionaries and these settlements so that they survive without conflict. Once we get ashore you will see.”

  The fishermen skilfully steered us through the surf and onto the beach where a crowd was already waiting to greet us. They were delighted to have visitors and were even more pleased when they saw the supplies we had brought along. We were escorted up to the village and proudly shown fields where rows of young coffee trees were growing alongside vines of the pepper plant. Only one of the smaller fields looked close to producing fruit. Eliza explained that these plants had been provided by the missionaries while the rest were grown from seed provided to the farmers. There were also vegetable patches, chickens and even a few goats. The place certainly looked self-sufficient. A man called Joshua, the leader of the group, proudly showed me a warthog that he had shot that morning.

  “Praise the Lord, we have a fine hog for yo’ dinner. Yes indeed, after your sermon we will have a feast,” he told me.

  “After my what?” I asked, surprised. The man clearly thought I was a missionary too and I was just about to disabuse him of the notion when he showed me into a hut that had been prepared for our arrival.

  “We hope you and your wife will be comfortable here,” he beamed, showing me a room with a large homebuilt double bed. Suddenly the role of ‘Reverend Flashy’ was much more appealing.

  “Sermon, you say… Is there any particular theme you have in mind?” I asked.

  He nodded to where two pretty young women were arguing over a goat. “I fear we are having trouble with the Seventh Commandment, if you know what I mean.”

  I watched them squabbling over the rope that held the animal and tried desperately to recall my Commandments. “Ah you mean the one about not coveting thy neighbour’s ass.”

  The man beamed in delight, “You are surely right there, Reverend. You tell them firm now, won’t you?”

  “Oh I will,” I replied distractedly as I watched Eliza bend down to tickle a young child. I had been patient long enough. “My wife will be tired after such a long journey, perhaps we should rest for a while now and join you later.”

  “Yes sir, Reverend,” Joshua replied before striding forward to shoo the children away. “You leave Mrs Bracegirdle alone now, her husband says she needs a rest and then he will preach to us before dinner.” He turned to Eliza, who was staring at me, a mixture of shock and alarm fighting for dominance of her features. “Now ma’am, let me show you to your lodgings. I am sure it will not be as good as you are used to, but it is the best that we can provide.”

  “Why on earth did you say that you were my husband, never mind a member of the clergy?” Eliza hissed at me as soon as we were alone.

  I pointed at the bed, “How else was I to explain us romping on that?”

  “You fool, what if Cuthbert finds out? Besides, you can’t give them Holy Communion, you are not ordained in the church.”

  “I have a much more personal communion in mind,” I growled, pulling her towards me. Initially she was inclined to continue the argument, but once I had stopped her lips with mine and grabbed hold of one of those fine breasts, her resistance crumbled like a sand wall in the surf.

  “I’ll be ruined again,” she wailed as she started to undo my breeches as my fingers feverishly worked on removing her blouse.

  “Nonsense, girl,” I declared as I finally revealed my prize. By God, they were tits to die for and I fervently declared, “Whatever we have to tell him, it will be worth it for tonight.”

  That bed was stronger than it looked, as were several of the hut walls as we both worked through our pent-up frustrations. It was early evening when we finally emerged from that hut and I will venture that we both had that healthy glow of a couple who have had an afternoon well spent. But there was no rest for the wicked, as immediately we stepped outside, some child started hitting a bent piece of metal on a string with a spade. The resulting clanging was evidently their equivalent of the church bells. Instantly the entire community started to emerge from the other huts and head to the large one that was their church. I was reminded that my short ecclesiastical career was about to begin.

  As I stood before my congregation I wished that I had paid more attention to the hundreds of church services I had been obliged to attend back in Leicestershire and elsewhere. I had fidgeted impatiently thro
ugh nearly all of them. But how hard could it be, I reasoned as I looked at my flock. They sat erect on their roughly hewn pews, wearing their best clothes, all the women adorned with modest bonnets. With solemn, freshly washed faces, they were a vision of Christian respectability.

  “The Reverend Bracegirdle will now give us Holy Communion and a sermon,” intoned Joshua before sitting in the front row next to Eliza.

  “No,” said my ‘wife,’ “my husband is not yet fully ordained to give Communion.”

  “But is he not the leading missionary here?” asked Joshua, puzzled.

  Eliza looked perplexed at how to answer that one and so I swiftly stepped in with the only explanation I could think of. “I believe there is some confusion,” I started. “My father, the older Reverend Bracegirdle is the head missionary.”

  Joshua’s brow cleared. “That explains it,” he grinned. “I had heard that the reverend was an old man and so I was surprised when I first saw you. But surely you can bless the wine for us? We have been making it since we heard you were coming.” He gestured over my shoulder to where a large bowl sat on a table that served as the altar.

  Eliza looked like she was going to protest, but I got in first. “Yes, I can bless the wine,” I agreed. I turned and went to stand over the bowl. I knew some priests chanted in Latin at this point and so I waved my hand over the wine and announced the only Latin that came to mind: “Orando Laborando,” which was my old school motto. ‘By prayer and work,’ seemed appropriate here anyway and I lifted the bowl to take a sip. It was the local palm wine, a substance that was normally weak in alcohol. This time, however, a familiar searing heat burned my gullet and I scanned the congregation for the person responsible. O’Hara grinned happily back from the side of the room. He tapped the pocket of his tunic, where I knew that he kept a huge silver flask normally filled with his homebrewed ‘tonic’.

  I passed the bowl to Joshua. “This wine is enhanced with the fire of our lord,” I announced as I strode to the platform that I took to be the pulpit. By the time I faced them again Joshua must have drunk, for his eyes were watering and he was gasping for air as he passed the bowl to the man sitting beside him. I waited while the wine went up and down the rows until it finally reached the back of the church. Having not given a thought to what I would say until now, I needed time to think. Perhaps it was the post-coital contentment, or the effect of O’Hara’s tonic, but I was in no mood to call fire and brimstone down on them. Surely being jealous of your neighbour’s livestock was not that much of a sin. How was I to know that ‘ass’ to Americans did not just mean a donkey, but was their word for arse as well, and particularly a woman’s flesh.

  “The lord says, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s ass’,” I began, as the congregation settled and looked at me expectantly. I ran my tongue around my mouth and realised that I could no longer feel any sensation from my gums. I would have to keep this speech short in case I started slurring as the elixir took hold. “But the Bible was written for those in towns and cities,” I told them. “In a small community like this we have to do more to help each other to get along. So I say if a neighbour covets your ass, let them have it.” There were gasps of surprise at this and a frown of concern from Eliza. The two girls I had seen arguing over the goat giggled as a man next to them nudged one and whispered something. “You should share your goats too,” I warned them sternly. If you give your neighbours what they need, then when you need something, they will give it to you. That is the Christian way.” I finished then and stepped down. Judging from the smiling faces of the congregation, my sermon had gone down rather well.

  Joshua got up and announced that the feast would shortly begin before turning to me with a puzzled expression. “Are you sure what you said is the Christian way?” he asked.

  “Absolutely, old chap, now why don’t you show us to this feast, I am famished.”

  A few minutes later and we were all sitting outside eating plates of roasted hog and a mixture of vegetables that were hard to identify in the evening light. I noticed that the bowl was still circulating and might even have been refilled as there was still plenty in it when it was handed again to me.

  “What is in this stuff?” asked Eliza, taking a cautious sip.

  “I strongly suspect that it has been fortified with Corporal O’Hara’s home brew,” I told her. “But at least it is helping people celebrate Reverend Flashman’s first church service.”

  “I cannot believe that you countermanded one of the Ten Commandments,” she scolded.

  Joshua wanted one on the Seventh Commandment,” I explained. “But I thought that such a small community should share its animals.”

  “Dear God,” Eliza groaned. “The Seventh Commandment is not the one about animals, it is the one forbidding adultery. If Cuthbert ever hears about this, he will have a seizure.”

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “They will wake up in the morning with sore heads and wonder if it happened at all.” I spoke confidently at the time, but as the evening wore on and the bowl kept circulating, things did seem to be getting slightly out of hand. I remember one of the goat girls squealing with laughter as she was picked up by some big cove and carried off to a hut. I looked around for the other one and spotted her lying under another man among some pepper vines. As her knees were up near her ears, there was no doubt as to what they were doing. In fact, when I surveyed the clearing I could see at least four fornicating couples and several more who were clearly thinking along those lines. Even O’Hara had his arm around Bessie, Eliza’s maid. Then I saw Joshua walking over. He was unsteady on his feet and clearly had been supping on the bowl more than was good for him. I thought he was coming to talk to me and so got to my feet, but at the last minute he staggered several paces to his left and came up behind Eliza.

  “I am taking your ass,” he announced. Then to my astonishment he bent down and grabbed Eliza across the chest, taking a firm grip on those delicious breasts, and started to haul her to her feet.

  “What the devil are you doing, man?” I shouted, appalled at his impertinence. My hand dropped to my waist, but I remembered that the Collier was back in the hut. I had decided that a revolver was not something a reverend should have tucked into his waistband. I looked around for another weapon and saw a shovel resting nearby. He was a big man, but he was much drunker than me. I would break his damn legs if he did not give up my woman. But as I snatched up the spade, I saw that O’Hara had moved even faster. He was up behind Joshua and two sharp punches in the man’s kidneys saw Eliza released.

  “You’d better take the lady to your hut, sir,” the corporal suggested. Eliza still looked shocked from the encounter and O’Hara gently took her arm and guided her towards me. “I’ll stay with Bessie by the door, they won’t trouble ye again.”

  A minute later and we were in the hut staring out of the window at the scene in the clearing. Joshua lay supine where he had fallen, but a woman was with him now and pulling on his trouser belt, clearly planning to offer some personal comfort. Two other couples could be seen in various stages of undress as they pawed at each other around the fire.

  “What have you done?” asked Eliza, astonished. “This used to be an upright Christian community, but after just a few hours of your ministry it has descended into a bacchanalian orgy.”

  “I know,” I said with a touch of pride. “With O’Hara’s tonic to guide the congregation, I could start a whole new church.”

  “It is not funny,” she chided as she leaned further out of the window to look at the couple rutting away under the pepper vines.

  “I know, but it is making me as horny as hell,” I muttered as I hauled up her skirt. I ran my hand around the top of her now naked thigh and felt her skin tremble with desire. “Prepare to receive the sacrament,” I called as I plunged in.

  Chapter 7

  If the good Reverend Bracegirdle ever heard how easily I had converted one of his model settlements into the African equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah, well
he never mentioned it. But then he soon had far more important things to worry about. There had been hardly anyone around when we rose the next morning and slipped down to the boat on the beach. Given his behaviour, I doubt Joshua was minded to complain and the two fishermen, having availed themselves of the local hospitality in every sense, were also inclined to keep the matter to themselves.

  The day after our return to Cape Coast Castle, Governor McCarthy marched out of the jungle from his trip up-country. He was in remarkably good spirits; there had been no trouble and Major Chisholm had even managed to keep up without getting lost. The surrounding tribes had greeted the governor as some kind of saviour for protecting them from the Ashanti. They had pledged to provide warriors to support any action that McCarthy wanted to make. With the governor’s return and preparations for more expeditions, there was much more activity in the fort and town, which made it near impossible to organise another assignation with Eliza. Lustful eyes followed her wherever she went. She was terrified that someone would notice some casual familiarity between us and create a fresh scandal. I managed to get messages to her via O’Hara and her maid, so all was not lost, but then I learned that after the apparent success of our visit, Bracegirdle had decided to take her himself to one of his settlements to the west.

  They were away for over a week and as I kicked my heels in frustration, I was invited on another voyage myself. McCarthy was planning to take his schooner twelve miles down the coast to Annamaboe, to another gathering of Fantee chieftains.

  “Come with me, Flashman,” he cajoled. “You must be fed up, you have been stuck here for over a month. I promise it will be an amazing spectacle and I will organise a runner to come to us if a ship arrives. We will leave orders that it is not to depart until you are on board.”

  He was right, a fresh diversion would be welcome, so I joined the governor, his secretary Williams and a Captain Rickets in the little ship and I made my way down the coast again. We passed Joshua’s village en route and I studied it through the glass. It seemed that their Christian values had been restored as I saw several villagers working industriously in the fields.