lashman and the Golden Sword

by Robert Brightwell

  It certainly was a peaceful place compared to Annamaboe; we could hear trumpets heralding our arrival when we were still a quarter of a mile offshore. At least a thousand people were on the beach to welcome us onto the sand. Tribesmen from dozens of villages had gathered, cheering and waving their weapons in the air. Large palm leaves were laid down for us to walk on as we made our way through the tumultuous crowds. Eventually we reached a dais shaded by a roof of leaves and grass where seven chieftains sat waiting, alongside them, another chair for McCarthy. One of their number, I saw, was Banutu, who nodded in greeting as I went with Rickets and Williams to stand behind the chair of the governor.

  There were voluble speeches of welcome from each of the chiefs. How much of them the governor understood I could not say – even Williams looked confused as he tried to interpret parts of them. But there was no doubting their enthusiasm as they beat at their chests and held their weapons aloft. McCarthy gave a speech in return, confirming that they would work together in a new and proud alliance to bring fear to their enemies. I saw Fenwick beside Banutu for this, whispering a translation in his ear, while waving a cheery greeting to me.

  One by one the chiefs made their oaths of allegiance to the new alliance. They would swear on the Bible for our benefit and then make more elaborate pledges to their own gods. This usually involved shouting at the heavens or at religious tokens that they had brought with them. They would also wave swords and spears above their heads with such a passion, that it was a miracle none of them lost an eye, or worse. After each chief’s declaration his warriors would set up their own acclaim, firing weapons into the sky and charging towards the platform yelling their war cries to show how ferocious they could be. They were pretty convincing, for at the first charge I was just about to make a run for it before Rickets caught my arm and explained that it was all a show. At the end of each charge, as the tumult died down the chieftain would look expectantly at McCarthy. Each time he would place his hand on the Bible and swear that the British would not break the alliance without first warning the tribe and ensuring that their interests were protected. After this had happened for the third time, I turned to Williams and asked why the tribes were so insistent on this. “Don’t they trust us?” I asked

  “They have good reason not to,” he admitted. “Back in ’07 the old trading company supported the tribes in a conflict against the Ashanti, but later changed sides without telling them. They handed an old chief who had sought their protection over to his enemies and he was tortured to death. Then they sold many of the local warriors into slavery.”

  “I am surprised that they trust us at all after that!” I exclaimed.

  “I think that they recognise that the governor is a very different man to the old company administrators. They are also far more worried about the Ashanti than they are about us.”

  Just as I thought the ceremony was about to come to a close, word came through that a new chief was coming. The man was called Appea, and he was a powerful leader of the Adjumacon people. McCarthy was delighted at the news and announced that we would stay overnight in the local fort to greet Appea when he arrived the next day.

  I saw the first of the Adjumacon when I threw back the shutters in my room the following morning. They were bearers walking towards us down the beach, each loaded with a bundle of possessions. By the time I had finished my breakfast and looked again a procession of them, now nearly a mile long, was visible coming over the sand.

  “How many of them are there?” I asked McCarthy.

  “There should be at least a thousand, but it is not just the numbers. Appea and his warriors have beaten Ashanti forces before and have no fear of them. That is why I am keen for them to join us. They will help give confidence to some of the tribes that the Ashanti have conquered in the past.”

  As we watched, the bearers were followed by the first of the warriors. There were hundreds of them, most armed with muskets but others with spears, bows and arrows and various other bladed weapons. At the head of each band was a war leader, striding under a colourful umbrella to keep off the sun, an impressive gold-hilted sword at his hip. We went to wait with the other local chiefs at the little shaded pavilion we had used before. The beach was now heaving with people as far as the eye could see as all of those from the previous day had come back to see the new arrivals. Many more from nearby villages had also come to view the spectacle. Eventually the clarion call of trumpets announced the arrival of the great king. Appea’s guards cleared a way through the crowds and a new procession appeared.

  First came the trumpeters, who were now blowing near continuously, but not playing any kind of tune. I was glad when they moved past as the din was awful. They were replaced by a procession of Appea’s senior captains, each one lying on a palanquin borne by four soldiers and around them four more held up a canopy to keep their chief in the shade. At the sight of McCarthy each of these leaders left their conveyance and gave the governor a salute in their custom, before standing with the other local men to await the arrival of their king. A steady thumping beat could now be heard and two huge drums came into view. Each drum and its beater was borne aloft by six men. The drums were draped in a tartan plaid, which seemed an effort to hide the adornments underneath, but glimpses could still be had of the skulls and jawbones of what must have been beaten enemies. Then came warriors bearing elephant tails, emblematic of the king’s power and finally ten men carrying aloft swords that appeared to have been made of solid gold. Only then did a much larger canopied palanquin make its way through the crowd, carrying a smiling monarch reclining on a satin cushion. Appea climbed out of his conveyance as it was set down before the pavilion. He grinned and held out his hands in welcome to all those present as McCarthy stepped forward to greet him personally.

  “Welcome, Chief Appea, it is an honour to have you join our gathering,” the governor called. I watched as the words were translated for the chief by a pretty young woman, who quickly stepped up beside him.

  “The chief is honoured to be an ally of the governor,” she replied on his behalf as the king stepped forward and shook McCarthy’s hand in the European manner. He had another of the golden swords at his hip and I noticed several scars indicating he had fought a few wars already. He said something to the translator and she continued, “He says that we will chase the Ashanti from our lands like lions chasing cowardly dogs. None will be left alive.”

  “Indeed,” agreed McCarthy somewhat hesitantly. He had said previously that he was simply looking for a display of strength to intimidate our aggressive neighbours, but clearly some of the tribes had other ideas. Before he could say more a huge warrior stepped forward, a good head and shoulders taller than any of the others. His massive oiled body was rippling with muscle; he looked like an ebonised Greek god.

  “This is our champion,” announced the translator. She looked smugly at McCarthy and then at the other chiefs sitting behind him before she announced, “The king suggests a wrestling tournament to see if you have anyone who can beat him.” The huge brute could probably have beaten a grizzly bear into submission, never mind another warrior. The other chiefs evidently thought the same, for they lapsed into furious whispering between themselves as each tried to persuade one of the others to put a man up to be pulverised and have their people humiliated. As no foolhardy volunteer was forthcoming, the translator turned back to McCarthy and asked with deceptive sweetness, “Who is the governor’s champion?”

  McCarthy looked back to Rickets. We were still standing behind the chair he had been using. “Captain Rickets, do we have anyone among the soldiers we brought who could at least stand a few minutes against this fellow?” He must have known the answer to his question before he asked it. No single man in a fair fight would stand a chance and I would not have bet on them if they had allowed three of our men to take him on together. Rickets shook his head, at a loss at what to suggest. Then I saw McCarthy turn to me and wink before he responded. “Mr Flashman is my champion,” he announced to gene
ral gasps of astonishment – not least from me.

  “If you think I am wrestling that big bastard you are out of your mind,” I announced firmly. I was a civilian now and could speak my mind. Governor of this part of Africa or not, there was no way that I was obeying any order to fight that giant. He was strong enough to break my back as though it were a dry twig. McCarthy just grinned at my response. Over his shoulder I could see the interpreter whispering my answer to the king, who looked at me and roared with laughter.

  “He says your champion is a wise man, but not perhaps very brave,” the girl translated, passing on Appea’s thoughts.

  “Well now, brave he is, but not foolish enough to fight your man,” announced McCarthy. “Mr Flashman was formerly a soldier, a great warrior, who had many battles with the French under their great chief Napoleon. Have you heard of him?” The girl nodded that Bonaparte’s fame had spread to even this remote corner of civilisation. “Mr Flashman was at the great battle of Waterloo that saw Napoleon finally vanquished once and for all.”

  Eventually they found three warriors willing to take on Appea’s champion. The big man must have been under orders not to humiliate his king’s new allies, for he toyed with each of them for a while. He even let them try to come to grips with him. I am sure one of his challengers broke his shoulder when he tried to charge the giant, as I heard a bone snap. Then, when the big man tired of their antics, he lifted them up in the air as though they were small children and then dropped them down on the sand, pinning them there with his foot.

  I thought the king had forgotten about me, but when we settled down for a feast at the end of the day, I found the pretty young interpreter at my elbow. “King Appea would like you to sit with him and tell him about this battle of Waterloo,” she announced.

  So that evening, while McCarthy sat on the king’s left, I sat on his right. Well perhaps not immediately to his right, for between us sat the interpreter, wearing a colourful blue sarong and smelling of tropical flowers. I told him the story of the battle, explaining how the French emperor had managed to get an army of over a hundred and twenty thousand men close to his enemies unseen and how he had come so close to winning. We struggled a little with numbers as their biggest number was ten thousand. So I used beans to show how many ten thousands there had been on both sides. The king asked lots of questions, but I think he struggled to understand the full horror of the barrage from the French grand battery. Or perhaps he understood well, for he suggested that Wellington would have been better off charging the gunners at the start of the battle and trying to hold the guns. Thinking back to the bodies scattered along the British ridge at the end of the day, he may have been right.

  I agreed with him anyway as by then I was more than a little distracted. The translator sat so close that her shoulders brushed against both the king and me as she leaned first to one and then the other so that we could talk above the din of the feast. It was hard not to stare at the firm ripe orbs of flesh that were visible down the front of her sarong and I am sure that the garment slipped lower during the evening. Appea caught me gazing at the view once and grinned. The next thing I knew, the interpreter was turning to me and asking coyly, “The king is enquiring if you find his interpreter attractive?”

  “Well… I… er… Tell him that his interpreter is as beautiful as she is skilful in languages,” I tried diplomatically.

  “And are my breasts that you have been admiring as pretty as those of the white women?” she pressed while holding my gaze. I was pretty sure that this was not part of Appea’s question and now suspected that the cunning minx had been discreetly pulling down on her sarong to distract me with a better view.

  There was a brazen tilt to her chin, but if she thought she was going to embarrass me, well she was knocking at the wrong door. “Well, why don’t we arrange a private viewing after this dinner and then I can give you my expert opinion.”

  She turned back to the king. Heaven knows what she told him about what I had said, but he was amused and then asked more questions about how British Army regiments were trained. As the evening finished and the king got to his feet, the translator turned to me and whispered, “Your ‘viewing’ will have to wait as the king needs me at his side this evening. But perhaps we can meet again on the march and I can also see how white men compare with my brothers.”

  Chapter 8

  “How is my champion this fine day?” boomed McCarthy as he strolled into my room the next morning. I was still in bed, which was not surprising as the sun was not even up.

  “What in God’s name are you doing waking me at this unearthly hour?” I grumbled.

  “I wanted to make sure you are awake, as we are setting off in half an hour. As you will soon see, travelling through the jungle is much easier if you get ahead of the crowds.”

  “Through the jungle?” I queried, still half asleep. “But I thought we would be going back to Cape Coast Castle.”

  “Ah, that was the old plan,” admitted the governor as he threw back the shutters to let a grey pre-dawn light into the room. “But as Appea has brought with him men and supplies for a month, I can hardly thank him for coming and send him straight home. We are going to make a patrol in strength up to the Pra River – it forms a natural border between the territory of some of our allies and the Ashanti.”

  I was awake now all right, the reek of danger filling my nostrils as McCarthy prattled on. “It will mostly be a procession, of course, just a show of strength, and the various champions will be displayed. As I have now announced you as my champion, it would be awkward if you were not there.”

  “But surely the Ashanti are likely to retaliate if you march a huge force up to their front door?”

  “Nonsense, there is nothing to worry about. We will still be seventy miles from Coomassie, their capital, and they have no idea where we might appear. Appea’s people have heard that the Ashanti army is broken up into at least twelve different divisions and scattered across the country to block any advance on Coomassie. They are on the defensive, they don’t know what we are going to do next and have spread their forces out too thinly to be a threat. Even if we were to stumble into one of these divisions, we would outnumber it three or four to one. But I am sure that they do not want war with us anyway. As I told you before, they are bullies, happy to attack a weaker foe, but when someone with a bit of resolve looks them in the eye, they will back down. You need not be concerned, Flashman, the Ashanti will not bother us. This patrol will also block their trade with the Dutch outpost at Elmina, which has been selling them powder and ammunition.” He grinned, “Anyway, I thought you would want to come. You seemed keen on Appea’s translator and she will be coming with us. I will need someone to liaise closely with her, so we know what Appea’s men are doing.”

  Now in the past I’ll admit that such an appeal might have made me overlook the risk, but I was longer in the tooth now. I remembered all too well the times that lust and debauchery had led me into moments of stomach-churning terror. I wasn’t falling for that again.

  “Well obviously I wish you well with the expedition,” I started, “but I doubt I would be of much help to you. I have been out of the army for years now and I have never fought in jungle terrain such as this. Anyway, as you know, I am keen to get home, my family have not seen me in years. My duty is to them now and I would be perturbed to discover that I had missed a ship home while I was up-country.”

  “Fear not, sir,” consoled McCarthy as he gave me a manly grip on the shoulder. “My order that no homeward bound ship shall leave here without you on board still stands. You will not miss your passage back to the bosom of your kin, I will give you my word on that. A messenger will bring us news of any ship and we will quickly get you back to the coast. We are using my schooner to bring supplies up river and once we are near the Pra, you will be able to get back to the castle in a day using her if need be. But I think you will be of more use than you imagine. Word has spread amongst our own men of your exploits and now our allies
are hearing of your deeds. They put great store in men of such courage. You will find that you are honoured wherever we go and your presence will add greatly to the confidence of our men.”

  The governor was toadying me for all he was worth, but I was not falling for such flattery, for I knew where it led. “I hear what you say, sir, but I know a champion will be expected to lead any attack and I’m afraid my fighting days are behind me. I would not want to let you down. The time of my heroic exploits is long past. I ain’t as fast as I was with pistol or sword and certainly not over rough ground.”

  McCarthy laughed. “My dear Flashman, that fancy pistol you normally wear in your belt tells me that you still carry a martial sting, but do not worry. I give you my word that I truly believe there will be no serious engagement with the Ashanti at all, this is just a matter of show. We will merely demonstrate our strength and resolve. But if I am wrong, then the fighting will be led by our soldiers and our allied warriors. You can stand with me as we watch the attacks of our men and give me the benefit of your experience on how any battle should be conducted.”

  Well, I suppose he could not be fairer than that: a guarantee that I would not have to fight and a confident assurance that there would be no battle at all. On top of that, an immediate dismissal should a homeward bound ship appear. He had addressed all my objections and to continue to argue against joining him would have looked odd for a man who had previously boasted of his ordeals in uniform. And there was that translator to consider, a shapely piece who would provide an interesting diversion as we progressed through the country.

  So it was that despite my initial objections, twenty minutes later I was joining the governor as he started his way up a jungle track. There were just the two of us and a couple of local guides. I could see immediately why the governor liked to set off early. The path was so narrow that at times we had to walk in single file, but we made brisk progress in the relative cool of the early morning. It was hard to imagine how several thousand warriors and bearers would follow us. They would have to hack down the foliage for several yards on either side of the track to make a road that the army could march on; it would take them days to follow in a single file.