When the bodies had been laid in the shallow cuts, the Nama gathered round. One of the women came forward and recited what sounded, to Mbutu, like a poem. Three or four others took turns in giving a brief eulogy. Hendrik faced his people and uttered a short speech about his friend Stefaan.
“Good man,” he intoned to Mbutu afterwards. “Good man.”
Then, one of the blind men was led through to the front. He was middle-aged, bearded, dishevelled. He reminded Mbutu, to a degree, of Samuel, the man who had befriended him on the train.
Mbutu, you are a curse.
His appearance was deceptive. The man had the voice of an angel. The song he sang carried no obvious melody or tonal structure but was light, child-like, lyrical. For a moment, Mbutu was lost in memories of the songs sung by the elders in Basutoland.
When the testimonials had been concluded and whatever loose soil there was had been shovelled on top, the graves were again mounded with small rocks, forming cairns. It was to prevent the bodies being eaten by wild animals, he was informed.
While the womenfolk tended to the fire and stirred the broth, the men gathered. There had been much discussion prior to the burial, only a fraction of which Mbutu was privy to.
The gist of it was that while they could survive hiding in the rocks, it was but a temporary arrangement. Certainly they had been right to conceal the horses and dispose of the soldiers’ bodies, but it was only a matter of time before others came searching. They could only explain away so much.
Clearly the Nama had to move on. What they needed to know was whether it was now safe to return to their villages and rebuild them or to seek sanctuary elsewhere. Resolution would only come from someone scouting the land round about. There were only seven able-bodied men in total now. It was decided that two would go out into the bush and reconnoitre on horseback.
It did not take long for fingers to be pointed at Mbutu as one of the chosen. He could ride, as they all could. But he had also lived among the white men and knew their ways. He spoke their language. Mbutu objected at first, though saw the logic. In which case, the selection of his riding companion was also obvious – Hendrik. He was the only one with whom Mbutu could converse.
They would take two horses each – two in reserve – plus water, the biltong, the map, a carbine apiece and ammunition. The other rifles and two pistols would remain with the defending Nama.
The men spoke in furious clicks. Hendrik was urged to address Mbutu.
“Soldiers stop … find horses … return … money,” he said.
Mbutu asked him to repeat and then understood.
If they ran into a patrol they would claim that they had found the horses. They would say they had set out to return them to their rightful owners, hoping for a reward. It would be a more plausible scenario now that they would be riding with all four animals and with the saddle kit intact – save, of course, for the guns.
“But if they … If take … cap—?”
“Capture? If they capture us?”
Hendrik drew a line across his throat.
“Not from here.”
He waved his arms around to indicate their camp.
“We not know.”
Mbutu got it: if they were seized, they were to betray nothing of the others.
“But how would the pair of us explain how we came to be here in the desert?” asked Mbutu.
“Like you. Train,” said Hendrik. “Train. Jump.”
Mbutu asked Hendrik to tell the others that they would be back by sundown. Should they have failed to return, it was fair to assume the worst.
The sun was well up now. They would have to leave immediately. Mbutu took the officer’s map from its leather cylindrical holder and unfurled it on the ground. He weighted it with stones at the four corners. The Nama were curious. To them it was a picture, squiggles and lines, not a geographical representation.
It was a one-inch Ordnance Survey map. Mbutu tried his best to explain how it worked, but even he could see that much of the land in these parts had not been surveyed. Great chunks of the Karoo remained blank. Nonetheless, from the position of the railway, he worked out, as best he could, where they were presently situated. They were four or five miles from the tracks, somewhere north-northwest of the Beaufort West junction.
He called the white woman forward. Based on the information that she had given, drawing in the dirt with a stick again, he pointed to the various settlements that lay approximately where she had indicated.
There was one, according to the map, that matched the name the girl had tried to pronounce. This must be it. He pointed.
Mrs Sutton gave no reaction.
He said it. Not Vankalik … Vankilya.
This time she nodded.
It lay further to the northwest, about 20 miles away. There were other villages beyond – unnamed, the Nama had no need for them; tiny dots of civilisation that were mere afterthought for the cartographers.
As he sketched them out, there were murmurs of acknowledgement. Mbutu now doubted that he and Hendrik could make it there and back in a day, not in this heat. They would extend their return till sundown tomorrow and camp a night in the bush. They added bedrolls to their kit.
Mbutu and Hendrik were given a bowl of the broth and some water. The horses had been led round, out from the depression.
As they made to leave, the others gathered. Hands reached to touch the arms of the two men, to wish them well.
They turned to climb up the boulders. Mbutu heard Emily call his name. He crouched to her level. She ran and flung her arms round him.
“Please, will you find my father?”
“I cannot promise, but I will try to find out what has happened to him, yes.”
She squeezed his neck tight. He thought of his own boy and tears formed in his eyes. He wiped them away before she could see.
* * *
Within an hour the rocky hump had retreated to a dot. With no cover, the heat was searing. The horses were allowed to amble at their own pace, eating the scant vegetation as they wished. Again they took shelter under quiver trees to sit out the midday sun.
Though Mbutu was an experienced outdoorsman himself, Hendrik had the advantage of local knowledge. He was from a race of people who were at one with this land. The most precious commodity was water. The need for it was accentuated by the dry, salty biltong.
When Mbutu went to take a small drop from his canteen, Hendrik stopped him, grabbing his wrist forcefully. He pointed. There were some bushes nearby with leathery leaves and thick thorns. They bore a green bulbous fruit that looked like a spiky gourd. He picked one, split it in two with his knife then pulped the fibrous membranes within, yielding a few sips of not unpleasant liquid. They picked the rest for use later.
After taking turns for an hour’s sleep each, the other on watch with his rifle ready, Mbutu unfurled the map. They should soon emerge – if his estimations were correct – in a dry riverbed leading them approximately west. Nothing would have flowed through the gully, maybe for years, but such things could yield a borehole.
The sun had begun its descent. This time they swapped to the reserve horses. Hendrik had lavished great care on their mounts, leading them to scrub he knew they could eat and feeding them some of the gourds himself. He also ensured they got the best of the shade. The going had been hard for their trusty steeds. They were lean and muscular and clearly well-groomed, well-exercised, but the environment was gruelling enough for even the indigenous wildlife.
Mbutu was not wrong. Soon they were in a gently winding gully with sculpted walls and a stony bottom. It was surer footing for the horses, which seemed to snort with pleasure at the change of terrain. With the sun going down, the blessed relief of shade began to spread in the lee of the banks. And then, in a bend, Hendrik saw it, a small dark impression that looked little more than a rabbit hole.
Hendrik dismounted and walked over brandishing an enamel mug. He lay prone and thrust his arm deep in, reaching around. He came up with a mu
gful of thin, sandy mud. After dipping a finger in and a cautious taste he offered a handful to the horse he had been riding. It sniffed at it, then turned its head away.
He emptied his mug on the ground and smacked his hands together to wipe off the dirt.
“No good.”
Mbutu tried to explain that if they could sieve the mud through cloth, through a shirt, they could easily draw some liquid. Hendrik shook his head. He pointed to the ground around the hole.
“No animals.”
There were no footprints. The wildlife had spurned it too.
“Good water … many.”
Within half an hour they were back in the bush again. The ground rose slightly and the patchy grass grew thicker. Springbok bounded away in the distance. Every now and then some small unseen creature would scuttle out of their path.
It was an hour from sundown when Mbutu first saw it – what looked like a thin black vertical line, as if a child had taken a pencil to the paling sky. The closer they got they could see that the streak of darkness was smoke.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Gaiety Theatre downtown bore its name with an ironic grin. Finch felt as though he had walked into a bear pit – a triple-decked heaving mass of khaki where the air reeked of alcohol, sweat and cigarettes. The fug that hung over the stalls, rising up to the gods, was barely penetrable to the houselights.
Finch had procured himself a tuppenny seat though it, too, was something of a misnomer, for all inside the auditorium were standing, even on the balconies, some literally hanging from them, others having scaled the walls to perch on ledges or swing from drapes and light fittings.
The men seemed to form a single organic entity, a heaving mass, whose movement was dictated less by what was happening on the stage but through its communal swerves to avoid the flail of fists or another drunk Tommy nonchalantly relieving himself.
Out front, the raked stage was awash with broken glass, the remnants of the reception reserved for acts that did not meet with the audience’s approval. On Finch’s entry, a hail of beer bottles was already greeting an unfortunate duo named Max & Pal – a man and his performing poodle, the poor pooch yelping in terror as it abandoned its hoop-jumping to bolt for cover.
The following performers, a juggling/acrobatic troupe, the Flying Niembaums, fared little better. Though, from where Finch stood, their act was of such questionable quality, performing feats you could witness in an average school playground, that he himself was almost inclined to launch a missile of his own.
In the pit beneath the harsh phosphorescent glare of the footlights, the tinny house band struck up an off-key oom-pah introduction for the next Christian to be thrown to the lions. While the conductor looked nervously over his shoulder, the Master of Ceremonies strode out into the spotlight. He was a small man wearing a black dinner jacket. His thick black hair and lustrous moustache seemed to have been borrowed from someone several sizes larger.
“My Lords, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, barely audible, “all the way from beautiful Birmingham. One of the finest voices in the Empire. Singing a song made famous by the great Harry Lauder, would you please give a warm Gaiety welcome to Mr Arthur Krebbs.”
To a volley of abuse, the safety curtain was winched back and there, standing against a crude painted backdrop of an English country garden with rose bushes, a swing and white trellis, was a portly man dressed in a child’s sailor suit, grotesque rouged cheeks, blacked out front teeth and carrying a giant red-and-white swirled wooden lollipop. It was a spectacle so absurd, so incongruous, that for a moment the baying mob was stunned into a hush.
The orchestra picked up the tune and Arthur Krebbs began in a wavering falsetto.
“Two little boys had two little toys,” he trilled. “Each had a wooden horse …”
Within an instant, the audience had regained its senses. A barrage of projectiles flew towards the stage and the man tried to shield himself with his oversized confectionery. Professional to the last, he edged off slowly, his face locked in a resolute showbiz rictus.
A bottle of pale ale soon evaded his swatting and glanced off his forehead, sending a jet of blood across the boards. As he staggered off stage right, a black houseboy was dispatched with a mop, his readiness implying such spillages were not an irregular occurrence.
A chant went up, starting slowly from the back, building momentum, then accompanied by handclaps and foot stamps in 2/4 time. The theatre was shaken to its core. Dust rained down from the rafters.
“Ves-ta,” it went. “Ves-ta … Vest-ta … Ves-ta.”
The flustered MC scampered back on, straightening his askew wig. This time he carried a large speaking trumpet. He cast an eye to the wings, was given some kind of assent then nodded to the band leader.
“My Lords, ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed. “Back by popular demand … the Queen of the Cape, the sweetheart of South Africa … Please give a warm Gaiety welcome to the one and only …”
He was sounding more like a boxing announcer.
“The delightful …”
Huge cheers.
“The delectable …”
Animal-like baying.
“MISS VESTA LANE!”
The cacophony of wolf-whistles was so loud it distorted the eardrums. And then suddenly there she was, prone, head casually propped on one hand, borne on the outstretched arms of three muscular black men who were stripped to the waist wearing baggy pantaloons and turbans.
They set their mistress down and then stood still, arms folded, like court eunuchs, while she sauntered out before the footlights – curvaceous, dressed in the kind of black basque and high boots that the showgirls wore at Maxim de Paris. Clearly older than her stage persona suggested, Vesta Lane was overly made-up, with unnaturally dyed copper hair pinned in a bun beneath an undersized top hat, fastened at a jaunty angle.
The soldiers didn’t care. For those who’d been cooped up in barracks or at sea, or witnessed the carnage at the Front, the sight of female flesh, especially the white expanse extending from the top of Vesta’s stockings, against which she was now twitching a riding crop, was enough to bring the house down.
The escorts retreated, Vesta entered into some crude badinage with one soldier she picked on then started up a husky, slightly off-key ditty, full of indiscreet double entendres about her passion for ‘riding’, slapping her own backside for good measure. She tossed her hat into the crowd, releasing a cascade of her artificially hewed hair, causing yet another scrap to break out.
It was a spectacle, all right, Finch had to concede. He was not sure if Vesta believed in what she was doing or if she were wryly sending up the whole burlesque genre, which, if so, afforded him a sneaking admiration.
No sooner had the show finished than a number of soldiers rushed the stage, locked in combat with the bouncers while Vesta was hustled away. It was the key for the whole auditorium to erupt in one huge communal mêlée. Whistles blew, there were MFPs now forcing their way through to inflict order. Truncheons flailed.
Finch seized his moment. He eased his way down to the front. In the corner was a fire exit. Pushing the metal bar, he found his way into the backstage area that was both unlocked and – in view of the manpower now required front of house – unguarded.
Behind the scenes, it was cramped, poky, dimly lit. He was in a narrow corridor. Up ahead, around the corner, he could hear shouting. Approaching gingerly he put his head round, saw a knot of people pushing and shoving and darted unnoticed into an alcove behind some water pipes.
Through the jostling bodies he could glimpse Vesta Lane’s name on the door, emblazoned in lipstick red upon a bright yellow star. Some soldiers, drawn like moths to a flame, were being rebuffed by two men.
Staying military personnel, men trained to fight, was no mean feat. But you wouldn’t want to mess with this pair. The first, the younger, was sinewy, muscular, bow-legged, scrawny like a lightweight boxer, and with a long, bent, broken nose to go with it. His suit and bowler gave a v
eneer of respectability, but there was no mistaking a man of violence.
The other, middle-aged and greying slightly, was an even more impressive sight. Another who looked like he’d stepped out of a ring, but this time from a bout of all-in wrestling. He was huge, a man mountain, maybe 6ft 5ins and weighing what, 20 stone? The thick beard lent him a bruinesque quality.
The duo made light work of the drunken Tommies, who were soon sent packing towards the stage door out to the street. But they were persistent, these admirers. From the opposite direction approached another man.
Finch held his breath, squeezed in tighter. The man passed close enough for Finch to get a whiff of the French cologne and observe that this caller was a civilian, a gentleman. He wore a powder-blue suit of silk cloth, a felt fedora with a maroon velvet band and carried a large bunch of gladioli done up in patterned paper bound with a big pink bow. On his shoes were strapped white spats.
And then Finch saw it, glinting in the muted gas light – on the man’s left little finger, a diamond.
The man gave a diplomatic cough and the two heavies turned, then stepped aside. The gent rapped a rat-tat-a-tat-tat tattoo with his cane’s silver head – in the shape of an eagle – and Finch heard a female voice utter ‘Come in’, followed by a squeal and a chuckle before the door was closed behind them.
The corridor now seemed painfully quiet. He was sure he would be noticed any second but, mercifully, for a full 15 minutes or so, Finch remained undiscovered while the two bodyguards smoked, discussed their respective fortunes with betting on the nags, the talents of a new and reasonably-priced Chinese prostitute at a bordello known to them both, and the finer points of how to immobilise a man with a single finger applied firmly behind the ear.
When the gent re-emerged, Finch was unable to follow for fear of exposure. Before the man put his hat back on, Finch got a clear look at him – medium height, slim, blue eyes, wavy, sandy hair, clean-shaven. As if some kind of privileged guest, the man was escorted away.
No Ordinary Killing Page 16
