Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  “Do they feast upon each other?” Jameson asks.

  “No. No one does that. Mostly, the Bangala eat slaves, Bakongo wandering through the jungle who accidentally cross paths with them, or Arabs who aren’t paying attention. Or they’ll be at war with a neighboring tribe and win. That gives them some captives. That sort of thing.”

  “Were you ever in danger?”

  “I suppose I must have been, but not anymore. I’m blood brother to the chief of the Bangala, Mata Mwiki.”

  “You should write a book about all of this,” says Jameson. “You know so much. You could call it Five Years Among the Congo Cannibals.”

  Ward is flattered, yet he also knows he’s been flattered—flattered purposefully, but he doesn’t know why.

  “You say the Opongo are cannibals. Are you sure?”

  “Not having been among them, I can’t be sure, but that is the prevailing wisdom.”

  “And you say we are passing into their territory?”

  “Either that, or we’re already here.”

  They march on in silence. There is another swamp to be crossed, another nest of vines that knocks your hat off and then follows up by tangling your boots.

  “They’re saying there’s a village close by,” says Jameson, “although they don’t know much about it.”

  “Right,” says Ward. “There’s reason for cheer.” He cheers himself by saying this.

  Ward washes his face. The village they have reached is deserted, although now—as Ward sights across the manioc fields—he can make out a native zig-zagging in cautious approach. The native is carrying something—at first Ward thinks it to be a baby—dangled by its leg. Whatever it is, it wriggles. And when the man draws close, disappearing for a moment behind the wall of a thatched hut, reappearing just six feet from where Ward stands, he sees that the man is holding a dog.

  Ward calls for one of the Stanley Falls natives to translate because he is sure he does not speak this man’s dialect. Molangi presents himself with his usual droll reserve.

  “Give the standard greetings,” says Ward, “and find out who he is.”

  Ward smiles as Molangi delivers as instructed: salutations, friendship, an explanation for their presence.

  The man listens, nodding, and responds pleasantly—or so it sounds—and as he speaks he gestures with the dog, which yelps and snaps.

  “Well?” says Ward.

  “He is the chief,” says Molangi. “And this dog is for you, because he would not like it if you left his village hungry.”

  “This can’t be his village. It’s completely deserted.”

  Molangi thinks this over and says something to the chief, who, lifting the miserable dog, indicates some location to the west.

  Molangi looks at Ward.

  “How far?”

  “Not far. One hour.”

  “Do they have food?”

  “First take the dog,” says Molangi, “then give thanks, and then we ask about other food.”

  “You take the dog,” instructs Ward.

  “Can I have it?”

  “Yes, you can.” Ward smiles at the chief with perfectly pantomimed gratitude.

  Jameson has shown up for the interview. He looks poorly rested, pale and red-eyed. “So where’s the village?”

  “An hour from here. Are you up to it?”

  “Is he Opongo?”

  Molangi, hearing “Opongo,” looks over the chief and nods to Jameson.

  “Is he a cannibal?”

  Ward supplies the Kikongo “cannibal” to Molangi. Jameson wants this communicated with the chief, but Molangi shrugs, unwilling to communicate things that aren’t worth knowing, as unwilling as Ward to continue in this vein of conversation.

  “Look at the necklace,” Ward instructs.

  The chief wears a number of bone fragments—teeth—strung out on a leather thong looped loosely about his neck.

  “Human teeth?” asks Jameson.

  “That’s what it looks like,” says Ward. “They must have food, at least fish and plantains. We should go with him. He seems friendly enough.” Even if he is a cannibal, he won’t injure a white man as the presence of Stanley’s allies is so strong in the region. And the dog is a diplomatic overture.

  “I’ll get my sketchbook,” says Jameson.

  Ward’s eyes follow Jameson to his tent. Molangi too looks in that direction and presents Ward with a quizzical look.

  “What concerns you, Molangi?”

  “I wish for the good health of the captain, that is all.”

  Ward too senses something about Jameson, and what could that be? Because when Ward sees Jameson he almost senses himself slipping, a sort of shared corruption. But this is the fever that has been lurking in his joints. Maybe his malaria is returning.

  The following day, they reach Stanley Falls and the current location of Tippo Tib’s camp. Ward and Jameson are presented at the entrance of his movable palace, constructed of paper and cheap paint—a stage set for this little drama. Ward runs his eyes over Tib’s hundred wives, arrayed about him in flowing, spotless white, their faces veiled. Tippo Tib himself scans into vacant space as if he is a wolf testing the air for the scent of prey.

  “I see it’s true he’s blind,” says Jameson.

  “But his hearing,” says Ward, his voice dropping to the caliber of breath, “is very, very good.”

  Assad Farran makes the preliminary introductions, with appropriately flowery language and Ward and Jameson follow along.

  “Friends of Bulwa Matadi are my friends,” says Tib.

  Bulwa Matadi is Stanley’s native name and means “breaker of rocks,” since once, recognizing a fracture and being in possession of a hammer, Stanley did manage to crack a rock in two. This impressive feat surprised all the natives and—no doubt—Stanley himself. They sit on the floor with the food and circulating all around, coffee replenished before it can cool. More rifles, says Tib. More porters, says Ward, and off to the side Assad Farran feigns attention, but his eyes—large black irises on the surface of brilliant whites—flit right and left, observing the veiled women.

  Jameson whispers to Ward, “Is there nothing to drink, not even malafu?”

  How does Jameson not know that with Tib, a devout Muslim, one does not consume alcohol?

  The meeting over, Ward returns to his tent and falls into an exhausted sleep. His fast-approaching illness produces a great, clouded darkness as he drops off, as if a heavy blanket has been thrown over him, head to foot.

  “Ward, wake up.”

  Ward awakes to find it bright already and Jameson standing, dressed, beside his pallet. “What time is it?” asks Ward.

  “Almost nine. Are you all right?”

  “Don’t know yet,” says Ward as he pulls himself to a seated position.

  “Two of the Stanley Falls natives have stolen rifles. I’m going after them.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Not sure you’re up for it,” says Jameson. “Do you think you can make it back to Yambuya?”

  “I will. Besides, one of us will have to report back to Barttelot. We’re running a day late as it is.”

  “I’m not sure I should leave you,” says Jameson.

  “Go. Get back the rifles, and quickly, before they’re pointed at us.”

  Ward asks Jameson to send in a boy with water and, after drinking, he feels refreshed, but his light-headedness informs him that the next three days are going to be a hellish slog back to Yambuya.

  The first leg of the trip is by canoe, and after, on foot. When his porters, who are hungry, refuse to move on, Ward isn’t sure how to persuade them. Then—with the fever growing—he no longer cares. He sees them terrorizing villagers, throwing women to the ground, decimating carefully tended stores, as he limps forward with one hand resting on the shoulder
of his rifle-bearer who now must bear so much more. He wonders how Jameson is faring. After four days, he reaches Yambuya and collapses in his hut. Before sleep takes over, he manages to scrawl very seedy in his journal.

  The next five weeks pass with Ward moving through different chambers of consciousness, his limbs vibrating with pain. Jameson is his near constant companion.

  “Look,” says Jameson. And Ward sees the first drawing: a young girl, her hands tied together, her face fixed in terror as an exchange is made. “She was purchased for six handkerchiefs. I provided them.”

  Ward’s eyes, swimming, look at the watercolor—the girl, no more than twelve, seems to tremble on the page.

  “So the sale was made—Assad Farran translating—and here we see how they dispatch with the slaves that are to be eaten.” The girl’s hands are tied with a chord, and this chord is tied to a tree. A wash of red spills out from her abdomen. At her side, her ferocious assailant still holds the knife. “They bled her out like that. She didn’t make a sound. She was resigned, you see. She understood her fate.”

  Jameson has captured himself in the corner of the picture, drawing the scene. One looks over his shoulder at the event. Ward’s fever makes it so that he feels himself stirred by that breeze, hearing the snap of wet twigs on the fire.

  “And here,” continues Jameson, “we see how they cut the body up. I’m sure you know how that’s done. You must, given all your exposure to the savages.”

  Jameson flips to the next page.

  “And here—well, if you don’t know what they’re eating, it just looks like any other stew. It’s problematic, you know. When you think of all those Spanish etchings from the New World, they’re always depicting feet and hands, because that’s what makes us human. But these cannibals don’t eat the feet and hands, and I did want to be accurate.”

  Then Jameson shows him a picture of a Manyema woman, her back patterned over with decorative scarring.

  Next Jameson shows him a new butterfly fixed with a pin to a wooden board.

  He says, “I’m getting bored with you so ill. I was down myself, for a couple of days, but with you as sick as you are, there was no one to notice.”

  Jameson returns to Ward’s side with a cup of broth, caring for him with tenderness. Ward, choking on the broth, falls back against his cushion. “I had a curious dream,” he says. “You purchased a girl for six handkerchiefs and presented her as a gift to cannibals so that you could watch her be eaten.”

  “That was no dream,” says Jameson.

  Ward sits up weakly.

  Jameson says, “They would have eaten her anyway. There was nothing remarkable about the situation other than the fact that some old chief has six handkerchiefs and I have five watercolors.”

  Ward lies back down. Jameson does not understand the simple truth about the black man, that he—like every man—thinks himself the best expression of humanness, that the black man finds the white man less human.

  October comes with smallpox and no Stanley.

  In November, Ward catches one of the Sudanese stealing meat from his tent. Barttelot orders 150 lashes, which is extreme and should kill the man, but all the officers are frightened of what these hungry men will do. The Sudanese takes each lash, holding Ward’s gaze, his teeth pulled back at the corners. It isn’t even hatred in his eyes, rather incomprehension. Ward responds in his mind, saying, You shouldn’t have stolen the meat. But of course he stole it. The men are starving. This man’s eyes ask, Why are you killing me? and Ward replies, Because you stole the meat. And this man’s eyes say, I stole the meat because it cured my hunger. And you kill me because it cures yours. Foggy thoughts. Shuddering images. Fever. All this is Yambuya.

  Surprised that the man survives, it is decided that he be chained in the camp for all to see, as a warning: Do not enter our tents, do not steal our food.

  “It’s Christmas,” says Jameson. “How shall we celebrate?”

  “Sketching in the morning,” suggests Ward, “followed by a malafu stupor.”

  “You are an African Scrooge, Ward.”

  “Scrooge would have been dead within two weeks of arriving here.”

  “You know that’s wrong. People like that tend to have iron constitutions.”

  Jameson looks around Ward’s hut. He picks up Ward’s sketchbook and flips through, but Ward hasn’t added anything since the day before, when Jameson last looked at it. “What should we do for presents?”

  “Presents?” Ward sits up. “There’s nothing here but brass rods.”

  “Then that’s what we’re getting. Now for wrapping paper.”

  Petty differences have been put aside and Bonny, Troup, and Barttelot agree to join the party. Ward rallies a little cheer. He shaves and trims his mustaches. He sits cross-legged on the floor sorting brass rods into piles, searching for the most entertaining scraps of newspaper with which to wrap them: plant-fiber makes a stringy, yet somehow appealing, bow.

  And in the evening, a superb dinner of goat: first chops on the griddle, and then a leg roasted like lamb, which is extremely tough, but reminds of the Christmas spread that is happening back home. There is something that resembles a pudding. Barttelot produces a bottle of brandy, left by Stanley, which has enough for two good glasses, or four lesser portions.

  “Presents!” says Jameson, handing each in turn. “You first, Major.”

  “Very well,” says Barttelot, “I have an advert for a woman seeking employment—”

  “I have an opening!” says Troup.

  “And if you’re lucky,” says Bonny, “she does too!”

  Oh, funny.

  “Ward, read yours.”

  Ward smoothes the paper and says, “I got the agony column.”

  “I think we’ve all had that,” says Bonny.

  More laughter.

  “It says,” says Ward, “that Reggie has been going daily to Saint James Park Station and waiting for Lil and that Lil has not shown up.”

  “What does she look like?” asks Bonny.

  “It does not say,” says Ward, “but I imagine her to be very pretty.”

  “Oh, you bachelors,” says Jameson. “I’ve no time for idle speculation as my lovely wife is waiting for me back at home.”

  There’s a moment of quiet as people try to be respectful.

  “Well, I wonder who’s coming down her chimney,” says Bonny, and they’re off again. And Jameson laughs too, a good sport.

  Then Bonny sings and his voice is a tremendous baritone so rich with emotion that he seems altogether a different sort of man. Then they sing together, different songs, and Ward would like it if they sang that long Irish ballad that Casement was so fond of, but Ward never learned all the words, just the chorus, and this is what’s playing in his head when he falls asleep that night.

  On New Year’s Day, Ward goes hunting with Jameson before the heat sets in. Jameson sees a small bird dart into a tree. He’s sure it’s something new, but he loses it. Standing stiffly in silence, Ward waits for the bird to show itself. And then there is the sound of wings singing against the air and in two expert shots, two birds drop. Jameson has claimed the pair—a cock and hen—sunbirds, with jeweled feathers. Ward goes to retrieve them from where they have fallen on packed dirt, startled and almost saddened by their brilliance and beauty, those glinting feathers dirtied with blood.

  Weeks pass, as if carried off in the sickly breeze. Late morning heat brings Ward to consciousness. There is a woman in the corner of his hut. A woman. She crouches, watching him guardedly. He inhales hard, trying to clear the fog from his mind. What will he say to her? Nothing.

  He makes his way, still clumsy with drink, to Jameson’s tent. How much malafu had they consumed the previous evening?

  “Jameson,” he says outside the entrance. “Jameson,” he says again.

  Jameson appears in his breec
hes, no shirt. He seems fresh, rested.

  “I need to send her back,” says Ward.

  “Send her back where?” asks Jameson.

  “To her village.”

  “Burnt to the ground by Selim’s men,” Jameson informs.

  “She should rejoin her people.”

  “Who are at this point twenty miles from here and expanding that distance by the minute.”

  “Well, I can’t keep her.”

  “That’s not what you said last night.”

  “This isn’t funny,” says Ward. “I can’t be keeping a slave.”

  “Apparently, you can,” says Jameson, “although I don’t know how you’re going to get on without your boots. I suppose Troup might be able to dig up another pair for you.”

  Ward remembers—in a panicking flash—his trading of his boots for the Bolongo woman who had been captured by Selim’s men. He had thought it valiant at the time, that he was saving her.

  “You rescued that woman. She could have ended up in a brothel. Or a cooking pot. And if you give her up now, that’s her likely fate.”

  “You don’t know that,” says Ward. Jameson’s brow is smooth and untroubled. He could have that same look back in Scotland, standing on a wide verandah in the Highlands, ready to hunt elk.

  “I can’t prove I’m right, but you can’t prove I’m wrong.” Jameson looks over his shoulder at his tent flap, which has not yet been secured open to allow for a breeze.

  “What about your wife?” Ward asks.

  Jameson smiles. “You know nothing of women,” he says. “I’ll give her children and that will make her happy, but she doesn’t want me snapping at her heels. A husband needs to keep his appetite in check.”

  All the officers have purchased women, even Barttelot, who is so volatile that one wouldn’t think he had the patience. And it’s more than mere memory that recalls the screams coming from Bonny’s tent. The impression of them loops like birdcall, repeating in Ward’s mind.

  Ward, unlike Troup and Bonny, does not keep his woman locked up, as she is aware of her limited options. She spends most of her time with the other women, close by the huts, not showing up until the evening when she’s wanted. She sits on the floor, her legs swung to the side, her full breasts exposed, traced over with decorative scars. Her hair is cropped close to her head, and her lips and cheeks are full. Ward sees her make that face—a cringe that shows the fine edge of her straight teeth—and then she meets his eyes. Those eyes are neither docile nor combative. They say, I will give you nothing but what I have to, and when Ward draws her, she is quiet, unlike Jameson’s woman who talks and talks, asks if all white men come from the same mother, tells Jameson to lower his eyes more frequently because his intent look as he sketches might steal her soul, says that he must get her an extra helping of rice when the Arabs prepare it.