Echoes from the Past (The Brigandshaw Chronicles Book 1)

by Peter Rimmer

  "There is someone coming out of the trees," said Seb.

  "Yes. I saw him half an hour ago. He was making sure the soldiers had gone. The remarkable thing about mankind is the survivor. There is always a survivor or otherwise you and I would not be here. Somewhere back in ancient history, one of our own ancestors came out of the forest to look at the destruction."

  "It's a child."

  "Probably a young herd boy, sent into the forest to look for a stray animal."

  "Won't he starve with the food gone?"

  "Maybe. If he's strong he'll survive."

  "Can't we help that one?" asked Seb.

  "Maybe."

  The boy was crying. A man with his stomach split open lay at his feet. Overhead the vultures were circling while the village smouldered in ruins.

  Seb dismounted and walked towards the boy, across the packed, dry earth between the ruins. Even the chickens and dogs had been killed. Seb stopped twenty yards short and waited, the sun burning his back. The child kept staring at his dead father while the tears cut a clean path through the red dust on his face. Three vultures came to earth in a spread and attacked the intestines spilling from one of the bodies. The sound of flies was as loud as swarming bees. A dust devil swirled through the dead village sending new sparks from the smouldering piles that had been huts where people had slept that night. The dust devil moved away from the boy and Seb, running off into the trees, raised old leaves and grass high into the sky.

  The boy looked up and saw the apparition with long straight hair the colour of sun-bleached maize, a wide-brimmed hat shielding eyes the colour of the morning sky, carrying a stick that spat death and he waited to die. The apparition took off the hat and swatted at the flies and then put it back on top of the long straight hair. The boy looked further, and another strange man was looking at him from a top of a horse, the man's eyes almost shut against the sun. More of the birds clattered to the ground to feed and the boy waited. There was nowhere to run and no one to help.

  "Leave him alone," called Tinus. "Come, young Seb. We came to hunt. There's nothing you can do. The boy's terrified. Let's get out of here."

  Seb looked the boy in the eye and made a gesture to follow before turning round. Walking slowly, he returned to his horse, and when he remounted the boy had left the corpse and was walking towards them.

  Tatenda was eleven-years-old and his grandfather had been chief of the Makori tribe before it was wiped out by Mzilikazi. He was the sixth child of his father's first wife and the first boy, which is why his mother had called him Tatenda. His mother had been taken with his two surviving older sisters and the three youngest children, his ten-year-old brother slaughtered with the other men, a boy too old to forget. Tatenda had heard the dreadful sound of the muzzleloaders at the same time as Seb and Tinus. The remnants of the Makori hidden in their small, mountain valley had been found by an impi of Lobengula, son of Mzilikazi. From his perch halfway up the escarpment on the other side of the valley from where the two horsemen had appeared, Tatenda had watched the slaughter of his father and brother. He had watched with hatred the remnants of the tribe being taken away to Matabeleland.

  When he looked up at the first white man he had ever seen, the prospect of revenge was embedded in his young mind. There had been many stories of these white men on horses with sticks that spat death and the ones that had most interested his father were the wild stories that these men had defeated Mzilikazi far to the south.

  He would have lived in the forest without starving to death. Three of the cows had strayed and two were in milk. There was game and fruit and many small rivers coming down the mountain. Alone he would have survived to find the remnants of another Shona tribe as the Makori were not the only ones hiding in the hills. Wiping the tears from his face for the last time he followed the white man. The cold, bitter taste of revenge, deep in his body. When the younger of the two white men, the one who had called with his hand, held it out again to pull him up onto the horse he allowed himself to be jerked up behind the rider. He made a prayer to God through his ancestors, that these men would show him the way. For a brief moment, he smiled at the rest of his life.

  Chapter 3: 1889 December

  Arthur Brigandshaw was having the time of his life. He had once again avoided a tedious weekend at Hastings Court and the girl he had had in mind had agreed to the theatre and supper at the Café Royal. She was coarse and sexy which was how Arthur liked his women. By the time he had finished flattering the lady telling her how refined and well-bred and beautiful she was the lady would be back in his Baker Street house and right in his bed. Flattery and champagne were his chief weapons of conquest.

  Six months before, the Indian Queen had returned to London from a profitable voyage and without his younger brother. The captain had told some tales of Seb going off to hunt elephant in darkest Africa but Arthur was happily sure the good Captain Doyle had taken his words 'keep the brat out of England for at least eighteen months' most literally. He had of course emphasised the words 'at least' and as the further months had stretched his brother's absence he was convinced Sebastian was dead.

  The boy would be two-years-old in April and even though he and Emily knew perfectly well the boy belonged to Seb, The Captain was none the wiser. Ensconced at Hastings Court as Lord of the Manor, he was in his element and it was just a pity the man's accent had not changed with his wealth and new position. Arthur, in fact, had never touched Emily which amused him. The girl had been bought and paid for along with the house, there was an heir to the great future dynasty of Brigandshaws, Arthur himself received an excessive salary from Colonial Shipping for very little work and the poor girl was largely chaperoned by his father who now made the captains of his ships attend him at Hastings Court. The king, thought Arthur, was very much in his counting chamber.

  To cap it all he was going to make his personal fortune. The East India Club was largely for rich merchants and underwriters at Lloyds and as titular manager of Colonial Shipping Arthur had been offered membership on his thirtieth birthday, which at first had seemed a crashing bore but afterwards the source of fun listening to the old codgers pontificating on their fortune and the fortune of the great British Empire. On three occasions he picked up tips for the Stock Exchange and made a quick profit. His habits as a new, young member was to be demure and eavesdrop. Two of the men he had overheard were Alfred Beit and Cecil John Rhodes, the wealthiest man in Africa and Prime Minister of the Cape. And if these two did not know what they were talking about, Arthur asked himself, then whoever did? Beit, the financier, was reputed to be as rich as Rhodes. The whole thing Arthur had overheard in his high backed armchair away from the fire in a small alcove that had made him anonymous. He was quite sure neither man knew he was there. Lazy as usual, he had spent the afternoon in the club reading a detective novel rather than going back to the office after his lunch.

  What he overheard was going to be bigger than the East India Company that had made Clive a rich man and the Queen Empress of all India. The new Royal Charter would at first cover central Africa but Arthur had overheard Rhodes talking about a rail link from the Cape to Cairo to be built by his Charter Company. Rhodes had told Beit about the German surveyor, Karl Mauch, who predicted more gold in central Africa than anywhere else in the world. And Rhodes, Arthur had learnt as he eavesdropped avidly, had bought Lobengula's mining concession from Rudd and was launching a Pioneer Column the next spring into the interior. The new British South Africa Company which had some time ago been floated on the London Stock Exchange was going to make a fortune. New shares were being offered to the public.

  Arthur had gone to his bank and mortgaged his existing shares, his house in Baker Street and two years’ salary. To Arthur's surprise, buying BSAC shares was the easiest part of the exercise which made him chuckle. Only Beit, Rhodes and Arthur Brigandshaw knew what was going on. His fifty thousand pound investment was not only going to make him rich it was going to make him independent. There would no longer be any n
eed to pretend to his father. At last he would be his own man. Rhodes and Africa were going to make him his fortune. He was having the time of his life.

  The fact that Rhodes had been quite well aware of young Brigandshaw sitting with his back to them in the alcove was the one piece of information Arthur was unaware. Beit and Rhodes needed investors, it being better to use other people's money than their own. And young Brigandshaw's father was rich. Rhodes had gone from mining magnate to Empire builder. He wanted his name in history and to do it he was going to conquer central Africa with his private army for his Queen. Beit and Rhodes had no intention of paying a dividend any time soon.

  The rumour reached Sir Henry Manderville, Emily's father and Arthur's father-in-law during his sojourn in Florence where he had spent two of the most boring years of his life for somewhere better to go. England, having sold his house and daughter for a lifelong annuity, was too painful. Emily wrote but never once asked him back to England. News of the birth of Harry reached him three months after the event. Having looked at every conceivable piece of Italian art and with his life in the pit of boredom he had made friends with a reprobate Englishman who was also disinclined to return to the island of his birth. Sir Henry had just turned thirty-seven and should have been in the prime of life. Rich Italian food, too much wine, very little exercise and a permanent balding head made him look fifty. He had nothing to live for so it didn't matter and the wine bottle was likely to get him into less trouble than Italian women. He had loved a woman once that had been enough for him.

  Gregory Shaw had been in the army, the Indian army, and Henry suspected something had gone wrong with his career but had never asked the question. Basically they were both in the same boat so it didn't matter. They were exiles. Exiles from home, country, family and friends. Neither delved into the other’s past, glad enough to drink together and talk English. Drinking alone was the bottom of the bottom of the pit in Henry's opinion of life and the two almost middle-aged exiles had made friends, each day meeting in the same hotel bar to get drunk. The local ladies had long given them up for lost and left them alone. The Italian barmen kept the drinks coming and also left them alone and when the rumour reached them they were sitting at the bar drinking the second glass of wine, the bottle between them in a silver ice bucket next to a large bowl of olives. It usually took them a bottle of wine to become talkative so they drank and fed olives in silence staring separately into the past of their lives where everything they were existed. The knack at the end of the first bottle of wine was to talk trivia and keep to trivia through the third. After that it didn't matter.

  In mutual silence both of them listened to two Englishmen talking at the table next to the bar, oblivious of anyone else understanding English. Henry had gone quite dark from strolling in the Italian sun, his only exercise. They looked like locals in clothes they had bought in Italy. When the two men left the table, Henry looked at Gregory. "We'd better go," he said.

  "I agree, old boy."

  Leaving half-filled glasses they left the bar with a rare purpose. The barmen picked the bottle out of the ice bucket. It was more than half-full. For a moment he wondered what he had done wrong. Then he shrugged shoulders. He had seen a lot of foreigners come and go in Florence.

  "Where are we going so fast old boy?" asked Gregory out on the pavement.

  "The shipping company. We can take a boat through the new canal, and down the east coast of Africa to Cape Town. Cape Town isn't England."

  "Or India," said Gregory quickening his pace. "The right to peg fifteen gold claims and a three thousand acre farm."

  "No, it was two farms and ten gold claims."

  "Major Johnson."

  "Major Frank Johnson."

  "You're a baronet and I was a captain."

  "What if they don't take us on the column?"

  "Then we've wasted a passage to Cape Town but relieved our boredom. I'll stake you a passage for one of your farms. Five thousand acre farms."

  "I'm sure it was six, old boy. We better get ourselves fit between here and Cape Town."

  "We will."

  "Oh, and I'll buy my own ticket."

  "You will!"

  "Yes I will, old boy."

  The one problem worrying Gregory Shaw as they walked briskly towards the offices of Lloyd-Tristino was communication. Was it possible that the major recruiting for Rhodes would know that Captain Gregory Shaw had been drummed out of his regiment? Would the nightmare continue? The Colonel's words rang as clearly in his ears as they had the first time.

  "We British, Captain Shaw, rule the Indians, we do not live with them. Do I make myself clear? There are twenty thousand Englishmen ruling two hundred million Indians because they respect us. We are aloof. We are their superiors. We do not allow them into the mess any more than we allowed them into our bedrooms. May I remind you, Captain Shaw that your family are one of the most respected in Dorset and I will not have a scandal, sir. No, I most definitely will not have a scandal. I want your word that you will never see the woman in question again. Do I have your word Captain Shaw?"

  "Her grandfather is…"

  "I don't care if her grandfather was the Maharaja. She is Indian, sir, and you are an Englishman. Do I make myself clear!"

  A cold Florentine wind played across the street. He could see her as clearly as if she were walking with him down the street. They had been discreet but the love was far stronger than the warnings from her father or Colonel Jones and they were found out.

  "You will resign your commission, sir. Immediately, do you hear? I want you out of India and I shall write to your father though I rather think that will be unnecessary. Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Worse, you gave me your word. When an Englishman breaks his word he breaks the cornerstone of our code of conduct. This time I will not ask for your word. I want your signature. Now. You are no longer welcome in the officers’ mess. I have given an instruction that no officer in my regiment will speak to you again. You are a disgrace to this regiment and your country. Good day to you, sir." They were the last words spoken to him by a fellow officer. He signed the paper resigning his commission. He had left Chittagong by boat the same day; an Italian boat which had brought him to Italy.

  Looking silently at Sir Henry Manderville walking next to him, he wondered what the baronet had done to be ‘sent to Coventry', to be cut off from his own people, to be exiled. Maybe this Africa with its thousands of acres would give them the chance to talk about their past. He just hoped the new country they were to occupy for Rhodes had never heard of Captain Gregory Shaw, ex-Indian army.

  Whilst her father and Gregory Shaw were buying the only two passenger tickets on a boat carrying marble to Cape Town, Emily was watching the snowfall on the stone terrace at Hastings Court. The long sash windows through which she stared were little protection against the winter. Once the heavy curtains were drawn the room would grow warmer. The falling flakes removed all thought from her mind. Soon the light would go. A sharp wind rattled the windows and without thinking she tightened the central lock without any effort and ice cold wind blew on her chapped hand. The rest was silence throughout the house: outside, stark, leafless trees in front of the terrace and a leaden sky above the battlements of the old house. Apart from the servants and her son she had not spoken to a soul all week, The Captain and his wife had made a rare visit to London and Arthur, God only knew where. Finally, putting the heavy curtains together, she turned away from the winter cold. Even her son had become a burden to her misery. She might just as well have been dead. Without her son she would have killed herself. She was quite sure Sebastian was long dead. Even the fire when she walked to it failed to warm her body, let alone her soul.

  Some people said the Reverend Nathanial Brigandshaw was the nicest member of the family, that with better connections he would become a bishop in the Church of England and take his place in the House of Lords. Arthur was known to be devious, James the military member of the family aloof and superior while Sebastian ha
d been sent away to sea and never been seen again. No one said it to his face but The Captain, with all his money and mansion was far too pushy and really rather common. His wife, Mathilda, rumoured to be the daughter of a draper from Chester, wherever that was, agreed with everything everyone ever said to her and had never been heard to hold an opinion of her own. No, they said, Nathanial, the second son who had gone into the church was the pick of the bunch. He listened, he advised and he was always available night and day in his squalid parish which included part of London docks. He had been administering the small-impoverished parish for three and a half years as many potential vicars older than himself preferred to remain curates until something better came along. Career paths in the Church were as clearly defined as career paths in the army. Good regiments and well-to-do parishes were the way to military and ecclesiastical promotion. The chances were that Nathanial, two years younger than Arthur would end up a saint rather than a bishop. His was the way of all good men.

  His wife was so glad: she found herself a husband she put up with the parish and Nat giving away to the poor the money he sometimes received from his father.

  Bess heard the loud knock on the front door and put down her sewing. Placing the guard in front of the coal fire she left the room and went down the narrow stairs to the small hall that made enough room for a hat and an umbrella stand and the grandfather clock that began striking eleven o'clock the same time the brass knocker was again struck outside of the door with authority. 'The police again at this time of night' thought Bess, hurrying down the wooden stairs sliding her hand down the polished banister to prevent herself going down head first in such a hurry. The peelers often consulted the vicar but never before to her knowledge at eleven o'clock at night.