Echoes from the Past (The Brigandshaw Chronicles Book 1)

by Peter Rimmer

  Jeremiah woke to the sound of breaking glass from below and got up to look down at what was happening. The small windows around the base of the dome were open to catch the cool breeze and Jeremiah put out his head to see the back of a man disappearing into his house.

  His shout of "hey, what the hell are you doing," was received from below by the discharge of an old muzzle loader knocking the man below onto his back, the shot ricocheting off the stone wall making Jeremiah pull his head back into the tower. Now he could hear the man breaking furniture in the drawing room and rage began to build. Taking down the ancestral cutlass from the wall he threw down the scabbard onto the floor. Outside he could see the barn burning and rage took possession. Slamming open the door, the small man with the crooked nose came down the spiral staircase, cutlass in hand and shouting. He crossed the passage to the main staircase.

  The man at the bottom of the stairs, high with dope, came rushing up the carpeted steps with his assegai ready to kill. Behind him a second man stood below the banister and fired his gun at the white man. The bullet hit a portrait of somebody else's grandfather. As the shot struck the dark portrait, Jeremiah's naval training made him cut hard and back handed at the first man's neck, severing his head. The second man took the curved blade in his belly the thrust coming up and twisting, taking out the man's bowels on the red staircase. The third man was running away towards the smashed windows when the cutlass cut through the back of his neck. The fourth man who had lit the fire in the corn shed was standing at the front door trying to get it open when the door leapt inwards and the hand guard of the cutlass hit him in the face, knocking him back down the five steps. He put his arm up to fend off the cut. Perfectly balanced, Jeremiah changed the position of his feet and cut open the right side of the man's neck.

  In front of him the fire was burning in the store shed as the fury drained from his mind. Only then did he shiver.

  Harry found the .410 shotgun by the river and did not understand why it was there. When the sun was overhead Harry watched his father bury the five dead men. Tinus said a prayer in English and the Taal while Harry from a distance muttered his own prayer in Shona so the dead blacks would understand.

  Book 4 – Shifting Sands - The first cracks in the British Empire

  Chapter 1: July 1897

  A year to the day Jack Slater hung the leaders of the first unsuccessful Chimerenga, Captain Doyle of the Indian Queen who first took Sebastian into exile, walked into the office of Baring Brothers in Threadneedle Street three hundred yards from the Bank of England. He was fifty-five. The dark suit he was wearing had been carefully tailored in Savile Row and was matched with a high stiff collar and black cravat. Perfectly shaved by an expert barber who had cut his hair as so to hide the hole in his right ear lost to frostbite while sailing the Horn as coxswain to The Captain in '64, there was no mistaking the weather-beaten lines on his face that told the most casual of glances the short, stocky man entering the offices of the first merchant bank in the City of London was a sea captain. No one took any notice as sea captains had been coming to the City for generations to sell their ships and cargo on the Baltic exchange, insure them with Lloyds of London and raise capital from the likes of Baring Brothers: it was the sea captains and their like who had made Britain the greatest trading nation on earth with the largest maritime fleet the world had ever known.

  In London, to appease President Kruger of the Transvaal Republic, Doctor Jameson had been tried and jailed for his abortive raid on Johannesburg but the foot soldiers were sent back to Rhodesia where calm returned to the colony. Cecil Rhodes, who had engineered the Uitlander rebellion to take over the Transvaal, resigned as chairman of the Chartered Company and as Prime Minster of the Cape: Captain Doyle in his new suit was convinced the stand-off in the Transvaal would lead to war with the Boers.

  In hushed tones Captain Doyle was shown into the private office of the senior partner. The man behind the sparse desk was tall and thin with a sharp nose, hooked slightly to the right. The man's skin was swarthy, the dark skin inherited from his parents and not from the sun. In front of him on the desk was the current balance sheet of African Shipping owned fifty one percent by Captain Doyle and the balance shared equally by Sebastian Brigandshaw and Tinus Oosthuizen. By the time Captain Doyle sat down opposite the sharp-nosed banker, African Shipping owned five modern steamers and was in direct competition with The Captain's Colonial Shipping.

  "Do your partners concur with your plans?" asked the investment banker.

  "My partners are far away in the middle of Africa."

  "Do they know your plans?"

  "No, but I control fifty one percent of the company and have a valid power of attorney from both my partners, over their shares. The shares given to my original crew have been repurchased by the company when they left our employ. There is a partnership agreement binding the remainder of officers and crew by controlling interest, their shares part of my fifty one percent. They have all been greatly rewarded for their loyalty to me when I left command of the Indian Queen and Colonial Shipping."

  "We shall want your partners' agreement."

  "You shall have it. A surprise to them I expect. They think I have one ship. When I sent them the first set of accounts, Sebastian said he neither understood a word written on the paper nor wished to understand. They both gave me their full trust. They have a large farm, you see, in Rhodesia."

  "You don't correspond?"

  "By Christmas cards once a year."

  "Very quaint…Why did they invest in you?"

  "They thought they owed me a favour. Or rather, Brigandshaw owed me a favour."

  The man with the sharp nose did not blink, the dark eyes boring into Doyle's soul. The seaman stared back without flinching, a faint smile reflected in his eyes. They were summing each other up, the lender and the borrower.

  "Is this Brigandshaw a relation of the Chairman of Colonial Shipping?" asked the banker, his perfectly manicured hands now resting on either side of the open balance sheet.

  "He is The Captain's youngest son."

  "There was some scandal."

  "There was."

  "Does The Captain know of his son's shareholding?"

  "No."

  The silence ticked along with the clock that stood over and behind the banker's leather-bound chair. Captain Doyle knew there was nothing more for him to say: everything was there in front of the banker. The clock reached twelve thirty and chimed the half hour. The dark eyes had not blinked and the faint smile half evaporated from Doyle's eyes.

  "If we are to underwrite a share offering in your company, Captain Doyle, I would like to take you to lunch. At Baring's we have found over the many years it is important to invest in people. Facts and figures are important but it is people who make them a success. I have a table booked at my club. Shall we go? I do hope you like oysters as they are rather good at this time of the year. Over lunch I would be glad if you would explain how the son fell out with his father. Fortunately my children have followed me into the bank. Barings has been a family affair for many generations. You will also tell me why you think Joseph Chamberlain, our esteemed Colonial Secretary will bother going to war with bearded farmers of Dutch descent. Because if you are right the shipping requirements to the Cape will be enormous. Should, and I repeat should, we take a position in your company does twenty percent sound equitable? We like to share in our clients' success. The flotation will bring us eight hundred thousand pounds enough to double your fleet. Maybe one of your farming partners will wish to sell their shares. Sleeping partners are very useful at the beginning. Afterwards they tend to be rather expensive…Was it raining when you came to the office?"

  "No the sun was shining."

  "How pleasant. England has many surprises…We made a great deal of money financing the Napoleonic wars. Done correctly, wars can be very profitable. But only for some, Rhodes still controls the Chartered Company even though he resigned as Chairman. Strange man, Mr Rhodes. All that gold in the
Transvaal. Tut-tut Captain Doyle. Maybe you are right. All that gold should belong to the Empire seeing we British financed the exploration and the shaft sinking. You think they will find gold in Rhodesia?"

  "No."

  "Neither do we…I think if the sun is really shining we shall walk to the club. What do you say Captain Doyle? You look a fit enough man for a walk."

  Jeremiah Shank cut open the oyster, lifted the shell to his mouth and expertly tipped the content down his throat. The oyster shells on the plate were spread over seaweed and ice with wedges of Spanish lemons at either end of the oblong plate. Without looking at his lunch partner or saying a word he ate through to the thirteenth oyster and slithered the freshly killed fish from the half shell into his mouth. Then he sighed with pleasure and smiled at the banker.

  "Perfect. Simply perfect, old boy," said Shank in an accent honed to near perfection that would have fooled anyone other than old Harrovians, old Etonians and other members of the public school elite. The man next to him had been educated at Winchester and inwardly winced at being referred to as an 'old boy' by a man who had crawled out of the bowels of a ship: the bank was always thorough when it came to lending other people's money and knew the full career of one Seaman Shank. Even the more recent episode with the cutlass was recorded on the file of the Kimberley Diamond Corporation that would shortly offer its share to the public.

  Unaware of his faux pas Jeremiah accepted a portion of halibut from the waiter in the City Carlton Club and added the white sauce from the boat the second waiter placed at his elbow. Each lunch companion complimented the other on the perfection of the chef's cooking and toasted the success of the flotation, the banker all the time trying to imagine the small man next to him killing four natives single handed with a cutlass. The revolting little man might have saved his own skin in a fit of bravery but ever since the banker met the diamond magnate he had wanted to plant his fist in the man's crooked face and the right drooping eyelid added the macabre to the revulsion. Aware of Rhodes's interest in Kimberley Diamonds he had kept his primal urge under control and smoothly concluded the transaction: the lunch unfortunately was obligatory.

  'What a day!' Jeremiah thought to himself. 'First I told Cecil Rhodes to go to hell and now the Queen's bankers have given me the financial power to compete with anyone in Kimberley'. There was no doubt in his twenty-nine-year old mind that he had finally arrived. With so much money how could Fran Shaw turn him down? He would buy himself a town house in the capital and allow the rich and famous to court his company. With Fran at his side they would never guess his origin. Feeling replete and satisfied with himself he allowed his eyes to roam around the exclusive dining room of the Club and came eye to eye with Captain Doyle seated three tables to his left. The man who had discharged him from the Indian Queen without a Certificate of Character was staring at him with obvious contempt and he wanted to get up and tell the weathered old sea captain that Jeremiah Shank was now the Chairman of a major diamond corporation when the further implications made him stop in his track.

  "You seem to know that man lunching with my brother," said the senior partner of Baring Brothers to Captain Doyle.

  "He was a member of my crew. What's he doing here?"

  "Exactly what you are, Captain. Borrowing money and offering shares in his company to the public."

  "He's a nasty piece of work."

  "Probably. But so are most self-made men, current company excluded of course. Your friend is Chairman of the Kimberley Diamond Corporation. If you have some spare cash you should buy some shares next month. Rather good investment I would say."

  "You know his background?" asked Doyle.

  "Of course. Even down to the fact you failed to give him a Character Certificate. What the Royal Navy would call a dishonourable discharge. But the man has a way of making money which is what it's all about if you come to think of it. Would you like to join them for coffee?"

  "Not on your life."

  "I see. Probably best. My brother says from the first time he met Shank he wanted to hit him on the nose. You will understand fighting in the club is strictly frowned upon. Now, a glass of port and you and I will go back to my office and sign the papers. Pleasure to do business with you, Captain Doyle." Idly, he wondered how many shares in African Shipping he would sell to the Chairman of Kimberley Diamond Corporation. Men and their vanity were so easily manipulated he told himself for the umpteenth time.

  Captain Doyle left with one glare back at Shank as he followed the senior partner from the club. London society made him uncomfortable and he was glad to be out in the street and sunshine. As they walked to Threadneedle Street he wished he was back on the deck of a ship and for a moment regretted his decision to expand, forever on shore away from the passion of his life, the great sea oceans of the world. He knew selfishness was not always possible: the debt to Sebastian Brigandshaw and Tinus Oosthuizen had to be paid.

  "The esteemed man with my brother is Captain Doyle, the man rather rudely staring at you as he left the club. You should buy some of his shares, Mr Shank. Do you know the man?" asked the junior partner of Baring Brothers enjoying himself.

  "Never seen the man in my life before."

  "Seemed to know you, Mr Shank."

  "Had me for someone else." For a brief moment the accent had slipped and the younger brother only just managed to suppress a smile.

  "African Shipping, sir. Wonderful investment. Captain Doyle believes there will be a war in the Transvaal. This Kruger, so he says, is a man of great pride and will never back down and give in to Chamberlain's demands. You see there are more immigrants on the Witwatersrand developing the gold mines than Dutch Burghers and most of the new comers are English. If Kruger gives them the vote as Chamberlain demands he will lose control of the government and nobody likes to do that. With a pro-British government in the Transvaal they will wish to join up with British Natal and British Cape and your Mr Rhodes will have the chance of his lifetime to build a railway from the Cape to Cairo. Does sound rather nice opening up so much country to British trade. Snag is the Boers will be back where they came from under British rule and that is what they trekked away from in the first place. Do you know Mr Rhodes? I'd very much like to know his opinion."

  "We have met in Kimberley. Kimberley is a mining town. Small, you would say."

  "And what was the opinion of the shortly disgraced Mr Rhodes?"

  "He never gives an opinion that doesn't make him money. How many shares can you get me in African Shipping? The logistics of fighting a war six thousand miles away would require a fleet of ships bigger than anything afloat at the moment."

  "Which is why African Shipping are laying the keels for ten modern ships." Silently the younger brother forgave himself of the exaggeration. The keels would only be laid after the successful flotation of the shares.

  "Buy me as many shares as you can."

  "Certainly, Mr Shank."

  For the next few minutes Jeremiah Shank was silent thinking of the consequences of war. His education had been minimal but his mind was crystal clear. Writing letters and adding up figures were for people he employed. It was the thinking that made the money. He could read and that was all the formal education he required; the rest he was born with. War. He could not get it out of his mind.

  "You seem distracted, Mr Shank."

  "Excuse me, sir but I must go."

  "Not another glass of port?"

  "Could you order me a cab?"

  "Where do you want to go, guv?"

  "Anywhere. I want to think," said Jeremiah.

  "Nice day for thinkin' I'd say."

  "Shut up, cabbie."

  "Anything you say, guv."

  The horse, left to its own devices began to make its way home out of the City of London across London Bridge and the River Thames. In the back oblivious of the river, Jeremiah was thinking, taking different thought lines, different businesses but each with the new ingredient factored into the equation. War. And how could he, Jeremiah Shan
k make money out of war in South Africa? How would it affect his diamond mine? His estate in Rhodesia where the rebellion had been laid to rest by swift public hangings? Food. He thought of food for an army. He thought of how long the army would need to be fed. He thought of horses and how many remounts an army would need to stay in the field. He thought of the Boers and how long they would fight and remembered the day he had broken into a cold sweat with dead bodies around him, the strength, anger and rage drawn from him by men trying to take what he had built. The Boers would fight for their own with the same bitter rage. Even with the afternoon sun shining into the cab he shivered again at the terrible implications. And this time the British would be fighting men with modern rifles who knew how to shoot a buck dead with one shot from seven hundred yards, dropping the bullet in the animal's head using the wind. 'Ships. Horses. Cattle' he repeated to himself. Kimberley would be safe as part of the Cape. The Boers would never dare invade British territory. By the time the horse trotted over the cobbles into the East End of London, Jeremiah Shank was richer than Croesus. Not once had he looked out of the cab, his mind's eye searching Rhodesia to buy horses for breeding, cows for breeding, men to work his great estate. But above all he was going to buy a controlling interest in African Shipping and throw the great Captain Doyle back in the sea. Only when the horse stopped outside a council house in Bermondsey did Jeremiah come back to the present and when he did and looked out of the cab at the mean street and the meaner houses he knew with a fright exactly where he was, a place he had told himself for fourteen years that he would never go back to. Three semi-detached houses down from where the horse had stopped was 37 Pudding Lane and outside on the mean step were two boys he strongly suspected of being his brothers.

  "Bleedin' horse, came right home," said the cabbie into Jeremiah's horror. "Bought the 'orse from the bloke what I was 'ere, see."

  "I'm taking a walk."

  "Not 'ere you arn’t guv. Don't like toffs, ere abouts."