“Come dear, we need to find safety,” her husband interrupted, nudging her elbow from behind as he sought the scientist’s eye and his agreement. “Surely this conversation can wait...”
He was anxious to keep a sense of calm about the proceedings. On this desolate stretch of beach, with such a noise still echoing in their ears, these musings were ridiculous and provocative—but he knew fear goaded his wife on.
She insisted, “I refuse to believe that we are related to the beasts...whether they bear some comic resemblance to us or not. Christianity tells us...”
“...much that remains to be seen, Mrs. Quarrie,” the scientist finished her sentence, taking a step toward the thick vegetation that crowded the edge of the beach. “And indeed you might very well see it, for here stands a veritable laboratory for the biological sciences.”
He bowed toward the forest, sweeping his hands apart, before returning his gaze to his companions. “In this place, we can study the plants and those creatures that consume them such as giraffe and hippopotamus and monkeys, yes, even the ape. As we can also observe the beasts that prey upon those life forms in turn: the lion, the jackal and yes as I have mentioned, perhaps the ape again.”
“Darn it, doctor!” Clive Quarrie grumbled. With his frustration came a pronounced Texas twang. Additionally, his fleshy face grew red and caused his thick sideburns to gleam the whiter. He could see that his wife was growing more terrified despite her calm demeanor, and her part of the conversation was born of her nervous disposition. “We must find some shelter. The women...”
“Mr. Quarrie forgive my practical nature, but neither you, I, nor the women will have time for superstition if we are to survive...” Dr. Van Resen took a step toward the others to emphasize his point. “In lieu of fact, doubt is a more welcome replacement for ignorance, and religious certainty has no place here at all.”
On the water behind them, thick black smoke rose from the steamer’s funnel. The mutineers had killed the officers and honest crewmen of the Lancet, thrown their bodies overboard in the night and commandeered the vessel before sunrise.
“We must embrace this—our reality—to understand its nature and identify its threats,” Van Resen snapped, crossing the sand to the group as his face darkened and a sad look came over him. He reached out and caught up Mrs. Quarrie’s soft hands.
“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, and then begged the same of the others. “I am a pragmatic man who is inclined to empirical evidence—a student of Descartes—and so I can seem painfully blunt when my heart is broken. I believe that is why I so miss Captain Seward’s company.”
Van Resen hung his head. “He did not allow for hopelessness.”
Captain Theodore Seward had been hired a decade past to guard the Quarries and their small entourage back home in Texas and he had steadfastly fulfilled that duty on their many trips abroad. His companions had joked on their most recent that the retired ranger stood out in the streets of London as though Buffalo Bill himself had ridden into town.
With his sweeping gray moustache, tall “Stetson” and folksy ways right down to bolo tie, piping on his frontier lapels and the seams of his riding britches, the man drew a crowd whenever he performed his duties in the public eye.
The captain had suffered the exposure with a dignity that belied his extreme discomfort, so he had been tickled pink to learn that his employer Archibald “Gusher” Quarrie wanted him to accompany his parents Clive and Abigail, daughter Lilly and retinue on a journey that would take them from foggy England to South Africa where Gusher had been engaged with an expedition to discover and secure oil supplies.
Apparently things had gone well, and the Quarrie patriarch was in the midst of signing contracts with the ruling government that would engage him and his company for several more years in the development of those resources.
So Gusher wanted his family near.
And Captain Seward had been only too happy to oblige. The idea of traveling to the Dark Continent and going cheek and jowl against dusky warriors and savage beasts appealed more to him than the “polite” society he had been plunged into while wrangling the Quarries.
“I like looking my enemies in the eye,” he had said to Dr. Van Resen during their first meeting on the S.S. Dunwich. “Some of these dinners the Quarries go to, hell, it’s gotta be something like Custer felt in the long grass at Little Big Horn.”
Van Resen had quickly warmed to the big fellow, something he’d soon attributed to their mutual preference for honesty and the truth—painful or not.
“I like it plain, Doc—same as I enjoy my liquor,” the Texan had said in the salon aboard the Dunwich after his charges had retired for the evening. He and Van Resen had made a habit of meeting late for a nightcap of one sort or another. Captain Seward had brought along several bottles of his favorite, tequila, which Van Resen had immediately regretted sampling.
They took up this tradition each night aboard the S.S. Dunwich, and continued it when they later changed vessels.
Captain Seward had originally booked passage to South Africa on the large British steamship, but a wireless message from Gusher was relayed en route that they should transfer from the S.S. Dunwich to another ship at Freetown.
The plan was for a South African business associate’s private steam yacht the Lancet to meet them there at the end of its long northern journey, and would then be available for their use on the return trip.
Seward was not one to like surprises, but as he said, “I know who waters my horse,” so with his employer’s permission he had asked his new acquaintance Dr. Van Resen to join them on the faster ship, along with the pasty Holmes fellow who had somehow talked young Lilly into inviting him aboard.
Neither Seward nor Gusher, his employer, had come up with an effective defense to the cherished youngster’s requests, so she had a habit of getting her way.
The only other souls on the sleek new ship were the 25 or so that made up the command and crew, and Seward had judged the owner negligent in his hiring practices. He told Van Resen none too quietly that he had deep reservations about the sailors he had seen.
“They put me in mind of the bandits and riverboat gamblers that I run across in my travels,” he had said. “Who knows what company they keep between jobs, and a rich man’s ship like this Lancet draws the wrong kind of attention, if you ask me. Hell, I done my reading. It wasn’t that long ago that pirate corsairs sailed up and down this here coast.”
Van Resen had worked to dismiss the big man’s concerns by speaking of the steam yacht’s virtues. Small and powerful, the Lancet had been chosen for her speed, and maneuverability. She could sail much shallower waters than the Dunwich, and if the Texan was concerned about pirates; well, few ships could catch the one they were on.
Seward was never convinced, and sadly Van Resen was soon to share his new friend’s reservations. Neither of the men was wholly surprised when the “pirates” were exposed to be among the crew.
“Oh, Theodore...” Van Resen whispered the words huskily, turning to look south along the beach as his companions struggled with their fears.
Memory of their nightly tradition caused Van Resen’s eyes to water and throat to close like they had when he’d tried the Texan’s favorite drink.
Captain Seward would have been a great help to them there on the edge of a wild continent. He was resourceful: a marksman, accomplished Indian fighter and totally fearless. In the end, that last quality had proven the castaways’ greatest blessing and had sealed the big Texan’s doom.
2 - The Mutiny
Captain Theodore Seward had appeared to be unconscious or dead at the feet of the mutineers when the scoundrels forced Van Resen, Holmes and the black butler Jacob Raines along with his charges, the elder Quarries, into the lifeboat.
All of the men looked worse for wear sporting bruises, bloodied noses and torn clothing after losing their recent battle for freedom. Around and under them on the lifeboat were piled bags and wooden crates along with most of
their belongings—any of those things that were not made of precious metal or had been judged by their captors to be of little value.
Distantly, the breakers had roared against the African coast as the mutineers glared down from the deck of the Lancet.
Those nefarious men were led by a pig-faced little sailor of indeterminate heritage named Mr. Manteau. For reasons Van Resen had not immediately understood, Manteau had said that instead of killing the passengers as they had the officers and loyal crewmen; he would maroon them on the African coast.
The scientist later suspected the arrangement would allow the wealthy Texans to be used as hostages, either for Manteau to claim a reward for information leading to their recovery or as insurance to buy the mutineers a pardon from the hangman’s noose should they be captured.
But Manteau had said nothing about keeping the younger women: Lilly Quarrie the blonde-haired beauty of 17, and as fair as any princess, and her governess, the lovely Miss James.
When that came to light, Manteau had spoken of them as hostages, but when one of the mutineers leered at Lilly, Van Resen and his companions had read the situation as more dire, and they stormed out of the lifeboat to attack the criminals.
The mutiny had begun the night before when the sound of gunfire in the wheelhouse set Seward going room to room, gathering up his companions and taking them to the elder Quarries’ cabin.
The big Texan feared mutiny or worse, but managed to calm his friends with his courageous demeanor, telling them to stick together come what may, and to follow his direction when the trouble came—because he knew it would come.
After a sleepless night, they’d watched through portholes as crewmen lowered a large lifeboat and commenced loading it with their possessions: bags, wooden crates and supplies, while distantly the African shore grew dark with the sun rising behind its greenery.
Soon after that, Mr. Manteau and four armed henchmen had ordered them out onto the deck where the other mutineers assembled near the Lancet’s portside railing. Seward had glared around the gathering of rogues before he growled a question about their skipper’s whereabouts.
A sneering mutineer had stepped toward the big Texan with a pistol raised and Seward felled him with a blow that would have stunned an ox. The ranger bellowed and charged at three of the closest seamen before they could react, sending two hurtling to the deck beneath the weight of his fists.
Van Resen and the others had leapt howling to his defense, but quickly found themselves overwhelmed. None of them had lived as rough and tumble a life as the good captain, who brawled on for some minutes after, giving a good account of himself against 15 brawny mutineers until some quick-thinking ruffian brought a hard belaying pin down on the Texan’s bull neck.
That staggered Seward enough for the tide to turn, and the poor ranger went down beneath a hail of bludgeons and sturdy rifle stocks.
There he had lain bleeding on the deck as Manteau ordered Van Resen and the others into the lifeboat.
“You got food, your gear, and a fighting chance,” Mr. Manteau had said. “I want your stuff off the ship in case we run afoul of the law.” He had young Lilly clamped tight in the pit of his filthy arm. “We’ll keep good care of your girls.”
Then had come the “leer” that provoked Van Resen and the others to muster for a final fight, but a stiff wall of thrashing rifle stocks met them at the Lancet’s rail and pushed them back into the lifeboat.
“Now, off with you!” Manteau released the girl to draw a knife, stepping forward to cut the line that tethered the launch to the steamship.
At that moment, Captain Seward leapt up to make his stand. Indeed, he was a terrible thing to see for he was covered with blood from head to toe, and in each fist he held a captured belaying pin that he used to batter any mutineer within reach.
Down went the devils who were closest to Lilly and Virginia, and a startled silence fell as the old ranger threw one woman after another over the Lancet’s rail and into the lifeboat. Lilly landed square in it, and Virginia struck the side with a splash as Van Resen and the others heaved her in.
The scientist had quickly grabbed up a paddle and encouraged Jacob to do the same on the side opposite so together they could start pulling feverishly for shore. As they advanced their breaths caught when sharp rocks scraped along the lifeboat’s keel, and submerged stones fouled their oars. But there was no time for worry.
Tears ran over all their faces as Seward fought the mutineers in the early morning light. On their own, the men would never have left him to this fate, but charged by the captain himself with the good ladies’ virtue, they had no choice but to push for the escape he had arranged.
The ranger fought to buy this freedom—and such a fight had none of the witnesses ever seen before. Impossibly, each time a mutinous gun was raised to fire at the lifeboat; the man holding it went down beneath a savage assault by the Texan.
Those within the lifeboat could not help but offer encouraging words. Saluting, they shouted their friendship across the waves, cheering the marvelous ranger on as he threw man after bloody man into the sea.
A drowned rock had thumped and the launch shuddered in the trough between waves. Then, just as the boat was lifted by the first swell of the surf, Seward assaulted the main group of mutineers gathered around Manteau. From within that living rampart the pig-faced man lifted a gun that belched a plume of smoke and a sharp report echoed across the waves.
Van Resen and the others cried out as Captain Seward staggered back. Then turning slightly to see that he’d bought his friends’ escape, he fell from the Lancet and sank beneath the waves with his tanned hands clasped over his mighty heart.
The scientist had shouted at his comrade then to pull with all his strength. “For we must not waste the efforts of our good friend!”
The lifeboat was caught up in the waves and driven through the surf toward shore.
At any moment, Van Resen had expected a hail of bullets, but none came—and then he thought a group of mutineers would follow to avenge their comrades or retrieve the women; but as the hull of the lifeboat ground against the sandy shore, Van Resen was free to clamber out with the other men and heave the boat up onto the beach.
While evacuating the women and Mr. Quarrie from the lifeboat, the scientist had been shocked to see the Lancet’s bow heaving west into the waves beneath a cloud of thick black smoke that churned desperately from its funnel.
The scientist had wondered then why Manteau had not followed, and thought to lay that marvel upon Seward’s efforts, too. Had the big Texan’s attack been so severe that Manteau lacked crew in sufficient health to attempt such risky things as reclaiming hostages—even pretty ones?
Van Resen had watched the ship steam away as he briefly considered an attempt to redeem the ranger’s body from the sea, but the reality of their situation was too severe.
There was no time for such luxuries as funerals.
And so with heavy hearts the castaways had started unloading the lifeboat, each thinking of the ranger, and wondering at the perilous future that he had purchased for them.
Then had come the ape’s screams.
“What shall we do, doctor?” Mr. Quarrie asked, limping over the sand toward him. The older man looked forlorn, glancing nervously between the jungle and the sea.
“Survive, sir,” Van Resen answered, rubbing his eyes as he shifted back from reverie. “As we must.”
Dr. Joseph Van Resen was an eminent biologist and scientist who had studied in his native Germany before taking research positions in Amsterdam and England. He had been lecturing at institutions in London when he was invited by the South African College in Cape Town to lecture on Charles Darwin’s work The Origin of Species.
“But how do we—survive?” Mr. Quarrie moaned, returning to his wife to dab at her cheeks with a damp handkerchief. She’d been growing paler since the last savage call had echoed from the jungle depths.
“Start with optimism. At least you weren’t traveling with
White Star Lines,” Van Resen cracked. “Mind you, their crew is honest, and the luxury afforded you would make up for the dampness later experienced on the main deck.”
“You would joke about Titanic?” Miss James said harshly from where she had moved to fan Mrs. Quarrie’s face with her hands.
“Merely some levity intended to illustrate how lucky we are in comparison, Miss James,” Van Resen said, removing his eyeglasses to clean the lenses with his blood-stained and salt-encrusted shirt cuff.
He glanced up at tall, tufted trees that grew along the beach, and wondered which task would be more difficult: climbing them or opening the coconuts once they’d been retrieved.
“Marooned we may be,” he said, “but I see ample evidence of edible plant life which suggests potable water and animals that will suit our dietary requirements once we make some necessary adjustments.”
“Adjustments!” Miss James blurted, storming over to him. “We stand at the edge of a savage wilderness, and you speak of adjustments as though it is as simple as choosing coffee or tea.”
“Please remember, Miss James...” Van Resen slid his glasses back over his nose. “Our ancestors lived in places like this during prehistoric times and did quite well. If you can imagine them climbing up from this savage wilderness to sit eventually in a London tea room and make that choice between beverages... It’s quite encouraging don’t you think?”
He grinned without humor, catching her elbow and drawing her close to whisper, “My dear, I doubt we can expect rescue from a Carpathia of our own, and so we must make the best of what we have. Take a better attitude. Reality we must embrace, but your charges the dear Miss Lilly and her grandparents require your optimism if they are to make the ‘adjustments’ to which I have referred.” He gestured to the young girl who stood by the lifeboat with her arms crossed over her chest; her eyes were focused inward and her lips were quivering hopelessly.
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