Sherlock Holmes--The Devil's Dust

by James Lovegrove

  “Harry Quatermain did minister to me as I lay upon my sickbed. Never let it be said that he was not diligent or failed to heed his vocation as a physician. He stayed by my side while the illness assailed me, ever with a cold damp cloth to mop my brow and a draught of soothing nostrum from his collection of medical supplies to quell my pangs, even as my breath became short and my chest ached like fire and I tossed and turned like a whirlwind. Were it not for him I might well have expired and now be dwelling amongst the spirits of my ancestors, including King Chaka, who was secretly my father.

  “As soon as I began to recover, however, and show signs that I would not die, Harry did a wrong thing. The headstrongness of youth was upon him, and I cannot fault him for that, for we have each of us been young and bereft of continence; and yet I regret it all the same. He left. He took half the caravan, with its drivers and bearers and outriders, and continued onward without me. He told me, full of apology, that he could bear to tarry no longer. He had lost enough time as it was. He ordered those men who stayed with me to look after me as though I were his father, and that was no mean edict, for Macumazahn is revered throughout the region and his name carries as much heft as any chieftain’s.

  “Naturally I was angry that Harry had deserted me, because it rendered my vow to Macumazahn obsolete. Yet I was still too frail of health to hinder him or give chase. Merely to stand upright left me trembling like a newborn springbok calf. All I could do was fume helplessly and pray to the gods that Harry would come to no harm. But the gods…”

  “They did not listen,” I said.

  “Or they did, but in their capriciousness chose to spurn my entreaties. Harry was gone for many days, and as soon as I was well enough, I commanded the half of the caravan that had remained behind at our encampment to be on the move again. We rolled north, and at every town and village we enquired after the young white man Quatermain. At some such places we did not dare risk lingering, since smallpox had visited there and left its heinous mark in graves that were freshly dug and in the ravaged skin and ulcer-whitened eyes of the afflicted still living. Reports nonetheless were given of Harry, whose doctoring had eased the passing of many and was credited even with saving a few. O, rash, brave youngster, to expose yourself to such risks in the service of others – of strangers, moreover – without seeming concern for your own wellbeing!

  “Eventually we found ourselves in mining country, where Boers and Britishers have set aside their differences in the name of commerce, and together, in relative harmony, draw diamonds, copper, gold, silver and more from the soil, enriching themselves greatly from the proceeds as they gouge deep gashes in the earth. It was here that the trail dwindled. Confirmed sightings of Harry’s caravan were few and far between. The smallpox was less prevalent amongst the communities of white men that had sprung up around the deposits of jewels and precious metals. Perhaps they had better cleanliness there, and a better diet, and that helped keep the disease at bay.”

  “There are certain strains of smallpox to which those of European extraction have built up an immunity,” I said, “but to which other races, not least Africans, are highly susceptible. I have read about it in The Lancet.”

  “You would know more about it than I, koos. I bow before your expertise.” Umslopogaas literally bowed. “I assumed, at any rate, that Harry had been unable to find any occupation there for himself and had gone on to seek the sick elsewhere.

  “Then came the news. The dire news. A Hottentot cattle herder, at whose kraal we fetched up one evening, said in response to my enquiries that a young Englishman named Harry lay dead at a town half a day’s journey west. Such was the rumour he had heard, at any rate.

  “I refused to believe him. I accused the man of being a liar. Yet I did not hesitate to set out for the town. All alone, I rode through the night, pushing myself and my horse to the brink of exhaustion. My heart pounded within my breast. My head swam. The dead man was not Harry Quatermain, I told myself. He could not be. Nothing could be more awful than if the son of Macumazahn had died.

  “Under a pitiless cold moon I rode, and at dawn reached my destination, which was one of those settlements I described earlier, a community of miners. Its name was Silasville, and it was a sprawling expanse of huts and cabins large enough to be called a town, nestling beside a small lake and a line of low hills, and I will tell you, sirs, I was joyous when I saw it. I was joyous because I presumed that plenty of white men must live there, and that meant that if someone was deceased, there was every chance it was not Harry Quatermain. I know ‘Harry’ is a name bestowed upon many an Englishman. I entered Silasville full of hope.

  “My hope crumbled when I was hailed by someone I knew, one of the bearers who had been in the half of the caravan which Harry had taken with him. His face was heavy. His demeanour spoke of sorrow and defeat.

  “In that instant, I understood beyond all doubt that my worst fears were well-founded.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SILASVILLE

  Umslopogaas’s composure disintegrated. He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders heaved, and great agonised sobs issued forth from his throat.

  Crouching there in that confined space within the thicket, Holmes and I exchanged looks. I could see that my friend, while not unsympathetic to Umslopogaas’s remorse, was growing impatient. He was obviously wishing that Umslopogaas would confine himself to the meat of his narrative and not indulge in digressions or emotional outbursts.

  For my part, I was content to let the story unfold at whatever pace its teller liked. However, mindful of Holmes’s short temper and keen to avert some expression of exasperation which might offend Umslopogaas, I decided to cajole the African into resuming his monologue.

  “Your English is excellent, Umslopogaas,” I said. “You speak it better than many for whom it is their mother tongue.”

  “I thank you, Dr John H. Watson,” Umslopogaas said with a tearful sniff. “I came by it courtesy of Macumazahn. Over the years he has taught me both how to speak your language and how to read it. He has given me books by your nation’s most celebrated writers. I admire greatly the works of Mr Dickens, Miss Austen and Mrs Gaskell. Sir Walter Scott, too, with his fine romances of Scotland.”

  “Then you are a man of taste. Those are all authors whom I admire as well and, what is more, in whose footsteps I one day hope to follow.”

  “You write novels?”

  “I fully intend to, if suitable subject matter presents itself.” I darted a glance at Holmes. “But you were saying about Harry Quatermain…?”

  “Yes.” Umslopogaas collected himself. “With an icy feeling in my belly, a dread so all-consuming it left me benumbed, I let the bearer direct me to Silasville’s hospital. I call it hospital but it was barely that. It was a shed where a man whom I shall not dignify with the title ‘doctor’ treated miners who were sick or injured. He was a drunkard, this fellow. With the sweat that oozed from his pores came the reek of alcohol, and he seemed incapable of speaking in any way but thickly, as though his mouth were crammed with sand. In a back room, which one might laughingly term a surgery, lay a body. He took me through to see it, but only after I had convinced him that it was in his best interests to do so. A shaken fist, a glare of the eyes – that was all it took to overcome his initial stubborn refusal.

  “Upon a wooden trestle table, beneath a sheet, I found Harry. He had been dead long enough that he needed urgent burying, for his flesh had begun to resemble marble and flies were becoming interested. It was unmistakably he. That thatch of short, upward-sticking hair, those features so much like Macumazahn’s own… Indeed, to look at Harry Quatermain was akin to looking at his father in his younger days, when Macumazahn and I first became acquainted. And now here the lad was, so still, so empty, a shell, a husk…

  “I was broken. I could not countenance the thought of this thing that had happened. It was too heavy to bear, like a boulder inside me. I raged. I howled. I beat my breast and clawed at my scalp.

  “Whe
n I had calmed, I made demands. ‘How did he die?’ I asked the so-called doctor. ‘What killed him?’

  “The man had no plain answer. ‘I do not know,’ said he. ‘He was brought to me yesterday morning, already far too gone to be saved. He breathed his last upon this very table, just minutes after I began tending to him. Some disease perhaps?’

  “‘Disease? Which one? Tell me, you booze-befuddled nitwit. Which disease carried him off?’

  “‘I cannot say. Tropical diseases are not my forte. I am told that he had been visiting places where smallpox is rife. Perhaps it was that.’

  “‘Smallpox!’ I exclaimed. ‘Even I can tell he did not contract smallpox. Where are the blisters? I see not one. You are an idiot and a charlatan. You are a disgrace to your profession.’

  “The man was of no help to me. Before my fury he quailed and retreated, and I subsequently found him suckling from a hipflask, as though from his mother’s teat.

  “My imperative was to get Harry Quatermain’s mortal remains out of that town. It was not a good place. I had sensed that upon arrival – a distinct tension in the air, a dark undercurrent that blew like a wind between its meagre dwellings – and my instinctive impression was confirmed the moment I set foot outside the hospital, which I exited in order to find somewhere where I might purchase a bolt of cloth. My plan was to wrap Harry in bindings and transport him out into the wilderness to some fitting burial spot. I had not gone far down Silasville’s main street, however, when I was accosted by a large Boer with a beard red as fire, who positioned himself in front of me, arms folded. At his side were a half-dozen other white men, all equally large.

  “The red-bearded Boer introduced himself as Marius van Hoek and said he was site foreman at the gold mine nearby. He asked me to state my business in Silasville, using certain Afrikaans epithets for one of my race which are far from complimentary. I struggled to maintain a cool head. I did not want any trouble, for all that Marius van Hoek and his entourage seemed eager to provide it. I explained that I was there to collect the body of Harry Quatermain and take it to be interred. Such was my one and only desire, and if Mr Van Hoek and his associates would allow me to be on my way, I would be very grateful.”

  “You were most diplomatic,” I said.

  “Believe me, I would have liked nothing more than to give those men the fight they were looking for. They would have learned that a lone Zulu was more than a match for them. Had they numbered ten, twenty, even thirty, it would have made no difference. I could have unstrapped Groan-Maker from my back, cast it aside and dealt with them with my bare hands, and still won.

  “But there is a time and a place for brawling, and this was not it. For a long while we eyed each other, Marius van Hoek and I, and then he said, ‘Take the damned corpse and leave. As fast as you can. If you are still here at midday, you will have me to answer to.’ He uttered a few further derogatory names, spat at my feet, and strode off.

  “I have been insulted by far better men than him, and so dismissed his hostility as one might swat away a mosquito. My anger still bubbled but I did not let it boil over. Quietly I bought the cloth, I swathed Harry in it from head to toe, and I rode out of Silasville with the cadaver draped athwart my horse’s flanks.

  “In the shade of a rocky hillock, that feature of the landscape which the Boers call a kopje, I dug a trench. I hewed it from the earth with Groan-Maker, and in it I laid Harry Quatermain. I covered the body in soil and stones, and wailed and chanted over the grave, singing songs of heroism and valour and commending Harry to his god.

  “Then I began a long, unhappy journey that took me to Cape Town, where I stowed away aboard a freighter of the Union Steamship Company line, bound for Southampton. I shall not detain you with an account of that sea voyage.”

  “No, there is no need,” said Holmes.

  “It was long, that I will say, and uneventful up until the point when one of the crewmen discovered my hiding place in the cargo hold, a nest I had made for myself amidst the packing crates where I was subsisting upon my supplies of beans, dried termites and strips of salted beef, along with such drinkable water as I could obtain from the bilges. I was hauled before the captain, who was minded to throw me off at the next port, but I pleaded to be allowed to earn my passage. I was not familiar with the operation of a ship, I told him, but I was strong and hardworking. ‘See these muscles?’ I said.” Umslopogaas flexed his arms and puffed out his chest. “‘Are these the muscles of a weakling?’

  “I was, moreover, on an errand of mercy, I said. I explained about Harry Quatermain and his father, and the captain believed my tale and was moved to take pity on me. He set me to work on menial tasks, such as swabbing the decks and shovelling coal, and even gave me clothing from his own wardrobe – these garments I am clad in now – so that I did not have to go about ‘like a half-naked savage’, as he put it.

  “In the six weeks it took us to steam from Cape Town to England I learned much about shipboard life and was soon welcomed by the crew as one of their own, for I proved my worth in every role I was given. Being a mixed lot – Portuguese, Malays, Irishmen, Lascars – they were not the sort to close ranks against a foreigner, as a group of men of one single race might.”

  “Can I ask why you simply did not send Quatermain a telegram about Harry?” said Holmes. “You would have saved yourself an arduous expedition.”

  “Some news cannot be delivered save in person,” replied Umslopogaas. “It would not have been right for Macumazahn to have learned of his son’s death from words on paper. It should come from a friend, man to man.”

  “A sentiment that does you credit, Umslopogaas,” I said.

  “When at last we docked at Southampton, I had endeared myself to my crewmates to such an extent that they clubbed together and gave me money for a train ticket to Yorkshire. There were tears in my eyes, sirs, when they did that. I am not ashamed to admit it. I bawled like a baby in the face of such generosity. We Zulus have a word: ubuntu. It is the idea that people should all recognise one another as human beings, equals under the sun. We should treat one another as members of one great tribe, regardless of racial origin, and take care of one another accordingly, like family. I had not expected to find ubuntu amongst those sailors, but there it was, large as life. Their kindness will be forever enshrined in my memory.

  “Northward I went through England, an alien country about which I had heard so much from Macumazahn that I felt I knew it. Still, the paleness of the blue sky was a source of astonishment to me, nor had I realised that sunshine could ever be chilly. People in the train carriage around me were fanning themselves and joking about how hot the weather was for early autumn, saying it was as though summer had neglected to consult the calendar, while I shivered and hugged myself to keep warm. One man even jested to me that I had brought a heatwave with me from my homeland.

  “Then I came to Yorkshire, a rugged, rolling green place parcelled up into small pieces by dark stone walls. Distant sheep moved like maggots across the hillsides, and cloud shadows rippled over shallow valleys.

  “It was after nightfall as I approached Macumazahn’s house, which looked to me the size of a palace. Lights shone in many windows, and from outside I spied my old friend seated in his library with two companions. One was a giant of a man, grey-eyed and noble-looking, with a chest as broad as a baobab trunk and hair as yellow as the savannah. The other was a smaller, darker-haired fellow with a round belly and a glass lens over one eye. This threesome seemed convivial together, smoking cigars and drinking wine with not a care in the world, and I regretted all the more the terrible nature of my mission.

  “Such a startlement was there upon Macumazahn’s face when he answered my knock at the front door, and then he swept me up in a crushing embrace, with a cry of unalloyed delight. In short order he was introducing me to his companions. The grey-eyed giant was Sir Henry Curtis, gentleman of leisure, and the portly fellow Captain John Good, formerly an officer in Her Majesty’s Navy. ‘This is Umslopoga
as,’ said Macumazahn, ‘whom I have not seen in some twelve years but about whom you have frequently heard me speak, and never without admiration and approbation.’ Both men said it was a pleasure to meet me, and I basked in the sincere warmth of their greetings, even as my heart felt leaden in my breast.

  “‘But what brings you here, Umslopogaas?’ Macumazahn asked. ‘Not that this isn’t the pleasantest of surprises, but why have you come all this way to see me? What could possibly have prompted you to undertake a journey of several thousand miles? This cannot be simply a social call.’ His smile lessened somewhat. ‘Is it about Harry?’

  “I did not need to reply. My sombre silence said it all.

  “‘My God,’ said Macumazahn. ‘Quick. Tell me. What has happened? Out with it, man!’

  “My voice faltered as I gave him the news, which he had half guessed already. When I was done, he – mighty Macumazahn, peerless hunter, scourge of lions, who has never shied from battle no matter how high the odds stacked against him – all but collapsed. Sir Henry and Captain Good hastened to his side and supported him, helping him to a chair and plying him with whisky.

  “When he had recovered somewhat from the shock, I prostrated myself before him and begged his forgiveness. I had let him down, I said. I was an unworthy wretch. He had every right to slay me on the spot, and I would not resist. I would welcome death by his hand as just punishment for my sins.

  “Though his spirit was broken, Macumazahn brushed aside my remonstrations. ‘You have done nothing wrong, Umslopogaas,’ said he with solemn dignity. ‘You have no reason to feel guilty. Harry is – was – an impulsive lad. I could not curb that tendency in him any more than I could command the Nile not to flood; nor would I have wanted to, for no off spring of mine could ever grow up timid and lily-livered. Ah, if only I had gone with him to Africa! But I thought him mature enough to make the trip on his own, and besides, I was too busy. I was too bound up in financial matters. The wealth to which we three – Sir Henry, Captain Good and I – can now lay claim after our discovery of King Solomon’s diamond mines has brought with it copious demands upon our time. I seem to spend the better part of each day in correspondence with accountants, stockbrokers, lawyers and the like. No, if anyone is to blame for Harry’s sad fate, Umslopogaas, it is not you, but I.’