Finch leaned out of the window. The authorities at King’s Cross would surely never tolerate such laxity – onlookers ambling about the yards, the black workers of the rail gangs casually walking across the tracks. But never had the sounds of a city, that vibrant hum of activity, seemed more welcoming.
Even at noon in high summer it was considerably cooler than the north. And, beyond the steam and the oil and the coal, he could smell it – the sea.
As the train squeaked and shuddered to a halt under the vaulted roof, the locomotive yielded a great ‘job-done’ hiss and they were enveloped in a cacophony of noise.
Through the clouds of steam, Coloured porters rushed along the platform to the carriages. Handcarts were wheeled by shoeless blacks. Indians toted urns of tea. Everyone seemed to be screaming either for business or at each other.
Keeping a respectful distance, army personnel waited to part the khaki tide. RAMC orderlies congregated near the hospital cars, a line of ambulance wagons pulled right up alongside.
Beyond, on the far platform, infantry were arrayed in full kit, ready to embark. The neat puttees and shiny boots seemed ridiculously fastidious to one who’d been two months in the field. A sergeant major was barking at the men to present arms. Gleaming Lee-Metford rifles swung with precision.
Finch slid back the compartment door, stepped into the corridor and was carried on a human wave that swept him onto the platform and out towards the concourse. He managed to procure a porter who, somehow, emerged beaming with his kit bag.
Ahead Finch could see Lloyd with his crew, remonstrating with a team of porters, urging to them to handle his precious kinematograph boxes with care. One of them had been opened, he was complaining.
Beneath the glass of the atrium, gaily coloured birds flitted, tweeting and screeching on high.
Finch tipped the porter generously, swung his bag over his shoulder and emerged into the glorious sunshine, his eyes bombarded with colour – advertising hoardings, familiar ones for Horlicks, Lyons Tea and Guinness Stout; the enormous oranges, grapefruit and pineapples piled high on the stands of street vendors; the bright shirts of the black Africans.
On the pavement, city gents jostled their way through a knot of turbaned Sikh infantrymen. Behind, down Adderley Street, trams clanged by, cutting through a sea of carts. A traffic policeman with white gloves, standing on a box, blowing a shrill whistle, was trying to inflict order.
Finch made his way to the cab stand. The queue snaked round the side of the building.
“Very busy, sir,” a black orderly informed. “Christmas Eve.”
Finch had no map and tried to fathom from him a way to his backstreet hotel, which he deduced to be a couple of miles distant but whose route by a combination of trams – trams stuffed to the gunnels – seemed overly complicated.
He was about to set off by foot, the last thing he really wanted, when he heard a familiar voice.
“Finch. Say, Finch.”
At the kerb, sitting up beside the African driver of a flatbed mule cart was Lloyd, his crew and precious crates in the rear.
“Room for one more.”
Finch gave a wry smile.
* * *
Finch’s hotel, The Belvedere, was a modest converted town house. Lloyd had dropped Finch off before continuing inland to his more sumptuous quarters at the Mount Nelson.
As he had alighted on the cobbles, Finch had found it impossible to resist Lloyd’s invitation to join him there later for dinner. And, secretly, he was grateful for the offer. He knew no one to pass the evening with and, much as he could have crawled into bed right there and then, it seemed wrong not to mark Christmas Eve in some fashion.
Finch had a shave, took a quick dip in the bathtub across the corridor, put on his dress uniform and brushed his hair. No matter how hard he blew his nose, the dust of the Karoo seemed to have entered the very fibres of his being.
Kissed by the pink glow reflecting back off Table Mountain, the Mount Nelson Hotel was exquisite, its red-tiled drive lined with protea flowers. A waft of night-blooming jasmine scented the air. The white wooden building’s verandas had been set with tiny candles.
You could hear the sounds of genteel society from within – polite chatter, the clinking of glasses and a string quartet playing Vivaldi. A general exited, his chest a wash of medals, a woman on his arm in an ivory evening gown and an ostrich feather in her hair.
It was here that Redvers Buller had stayed, Finch understood; where he had planned the early days of the campaign. Such an incongruous setting for the scheduling of death.
Finch soon found Lloyd in the elegant restaurant, a fat cigar clenched between his teeth. Lloyd greeted him like a long-lost brother and bade him sit at a large round table for 12 beneath a huge chandelier.
Finch instantly forgot the names of his dinner companions, male and female, none of whom were military, save for two captains, French and German, there as international observers. They seemed undiplomatically exuberant over the Empire’s current misfortune.
Finch was too tired to argue with them. He bit his lip, laughed at Lloyd’s jokes, especially once Lloyd insisted the American Kinematograph Company would be picking up the bill, and listened in earnest while Lloyd told of two ‘buddies’ of his in North Carolina, brothers, who were building a flying machine. He had no doubt about Lloyd’s assertion, that the impending century would be an American one.
After some magnificent sea bass, washed down with a Chenin Blanc, Finch ordered a triple Talisker and lingered till midnight so that he might wish his company Merry Christmas.
He had now gone through tiredness and out the other side, so chose to walk home in the fresh air, hoping that it might sink his supper and wear him out, the alcohol an anaesthetic for his stiff leg, which he trusted would loosen up with exercise.
The main thoroughfare of Adderley was still a riot of noise. Nearby, on Long Street, with its ornate, overhanging wrought iron balconies, the drinkers, largely military, were spilling beyond the taverns onto the pavement. The atmosphere had gone beyond festive, the cobbles now a carpet of crunching glass, urine and vomit.
From one throng, a group of Military Foot Police was dragging away a drunken private. A volley of angry abuse came from his pals.
Further along, on a corner, Finch watched men gathered round a street hustler, a white South African playing Chase the Lady on an upturned tea chest. The man, doubtless operating with stooges, was fleecing his drunken audience.
Off the main drag, up an alleyway, Finch saw men, soldiers, buying dagga, the powerful South African marijuana, from a dealer who was letting them take a sample puff on his own reefer of superior quality.
In the background Finch heard glasses smashing, shouting and whistles blowing. He hastened on his way. From a doorway, a black woman in a tattered approximation of an evening dress offered him sexual favours.
Back in his hotel Finch climbed the tight winding stairs, undressed, crawled into bed and tried to sleep. The raucous merriment and the fiddler from the pub a few doors along put paid to that.
But, eventually, the exhaustion washed over him and he tipped into the blackness of the abyss.
* * *
He had no idea of the hour when a loud pounding on his door resulted in him groggily pulling on his shirt and trousers and finding himself face to face with a bellboy brandishing a paraffin lamp who urged that he come quickly. Half-thinking that he had overslept and was late for something, Finch tugged on untied boots, shrugged on his jacket and followed down the narrow staircase.
Standing in the lobby was a man in a Homburg hat, a grey suit and black necktie. He was an impressive figure – in his late 50s, Finch guessed, on the tall side, darkly handsome, with silver hair visible at the sides and back. He extended his hand and wished Finch a cursory ‘Happy Christmas’.
Finch had quite forgotten what day it now was but mumbled a seasonal pleasantry in return.
“Detective Inspector Brookman, Cape Constabulary,” he announced.
“Sorry to wake you so early, sir, but I’m afraid we need your assistance.”
His eyes were deep brown, almost black.
“Assistance?”
“Yes, sir. There’s been a murder.”
Chapter Eleven
The singing seemed to be coming from behind a low mound of rocks some hundred or more yards distant. Mbutu trod his way towards them. Closer, he could discern a glow emanating from within, and the sound, now clear – voices, male and female.
“Hoor die blye eng’lelied.”
Hark the herald angels sing. Dutch … Afrikaans, but not the Afrikaans of a native speaker – of those who had learned the hymn parrot fashion.
The snarling was closer, too. Short, sharp bursts. The creature had moved position. No, there was more than one. They were circling, communicating. There were jackal and hyena out here but this sounded like a big cat. There were no lions in the Karoo, but leopard … Didn’t leopard hunt alone? Not always. It had been known …
“Vrede opaard, aan God die eer.”
Peace on earth and mercy mild.
Mbutu’s eyes were long used to the dark. He was aided by a full moon, the stars a giddying splash across the black of the heavens. But his vision could not remotely match that of a feline.
He calculated the distance – ten, twelve seconds to the rocks if he ran full pelt; less than that for the animals to be upon him. His best bet was to ease his way over slowly, let the leopards circle, then sprint the last few yards before they closed in. But he would still have to scramble up the boulders …
“God daal tot die sondaar neer.”
God and sinners reconciled.
He edged on, his attuned senses recording his own painfully amplified footfalls. He could hear the breath and padding of feet – one animal to each side and, now, ominously, one straight ahead.
He stopped, absolutely frozen. He held his breath. He had become a pounding human heartbeat.
The cats stopped, too. All of them … silent.
He hadn’t noticed but the carolling had also been suspended, as if the choristers were now aware of the fatal drama about to play out beyond their walls.
Then came the signal. An almighty primal roar that shook Mbutu to his core.
Attack!
He had 30 yards to reach cover. At an angle, away from the predators, he ran for his life.
Mbutu’s feet kicked stones and were slowed by clumps of grass. He tripped, plunging forward, but just kept his footing. He could feel the thuds of padded paws pounding in.
He made it to the boulders and jumped up on one, almost as high as himself, and clung for dear life. It was smooth with no handholds. His fingers clawed but he slid back.
Join the triumph of the skies.
To his right he saw a streak of spots and then, suddenly, brightness …
Above him a flaming torch arced over the rocks and landed, fizzing, 6ft away. For an instant there were not three, but five leopard in tableau – paralysed, mesmerised, their retina reflecting back the bright yellow tongue of fire.
“Torch … Pick up! Wave!” someone was yelling.
Mbutu scrambled to it. The flame was dulling in the dirt, the rags unravelling. He grabbed the stick and swung it wildly above his head. The air fed the fire.
Then they were gone …
“Come! Quick! Will be back.”
A tattered rope had been thrown down. No, not a rope, a vine, some sort of twisted, knotted fibre. Mbutu eased himself up. Hands reached out and grabbed his forearms. Never had he been so grateful for human contact.
Over the edge and he was in a natural corral, almost perfectly circular, about 30 yards across, sunken in the centre and with a fire burning, around which sat some 20 or so men and women, plus a smattering of infants.
In the torchlight he could see that the men who had pulled him to safety were short and slender. Their faces were flat with high cheekbones, eyes slanted, their hair matted, their beards thin and wispy like those of an adolescent. In daylight Mbutu knew that their skin would be paler than his – apricot, almost yellow.
They were not Bantu, like him, but Khoikhoi, descendants of the bushmen who once hunted across Southern Africa unchallenged. Before the white man and the black man moved in.
He’d encountered them before, west of Kimberley. The Nama people. They had been looked down upon, subsistence farmers scratching a living, exiled to this semi-desert.
Scratching a living but free. Not down a mine. Not in a cage.
Around the rim of the rocks, men stood on lookout. There were several with spears. One, he saw, had a rifle … if you could call it that, a cumbersome, weighty contraption with a flared muzzle – an ancient, flintlock blunderbuss.
“Thank you,” panted Mbutu.
The one who had shouted to him, a fit-looking man of about 30, had a battered revolver tucked into his waistband. He seemed to be the leader.
He gave a nod and the man with the blunderbuss came over, though not by way of greeting but to thrust the barrel into the small of Mbutu’s back. Spears were lowered either side. They pushed him down the slope.
The men and women sitting round the fire looked up at the interloper. The women appeared out of place in the wilds, in thick long dresses of the British Victorian style and wound headscarves.
The man, the leader, addressed them in a rapid tongue with a volley of clicking noises.
Mbutu knew nothing of the language but could hear the leader’s name repeated – Hendrik – as they each took turns to put over their viewpoint to him.
It was a thorough hearing and seemed to take forever, some assailing Hendrik with lengthy diatribes, bringing gasps, mutterings or nods of condemnation; others with pithy utterances causing the audience to giggle.
An old lady, hunched, toothless, was helped to her feet. She raged for ages, wagging her finger in Mbutu’s face amid a great tutting and general head-shaking.
Hendrik turned to him.
“Want to know where you come from,” he summarised. “Want to know if can trust. Want to know if have seen …” he said it nervously, “… the devil soldiers?”
There was agitation, hand-wringing and a sudden burst of shrill ululation from the women.
Mbutu had heard enough superstitious native claptrap about the war to last him a lifetime, but now was not the time or place to tell these people that they were talking nonsense.
He waited for silence. He felt the great coercive blunderbuss.
“My name is Mbutu, Mbutu Kefaleze,” he began. Hendrik translated. “I am a Basuto and I have spent the last ten years working for the diamond mines in Kimberley.”
And he told them his story.
* * *
In the hours after his escape, Mbutu kept hidden at the western end of the Spytfontein ridge, placing himself high, tucked behind boulders just below the summit. He had a scrap or two of biltong but barely any water, his pigskin having split during the struggle.
At home, in the bush of Basutoland, he would have known how to survive – which plants to squeeze to make moisture, which sap to drink. But here? Mother Nature was mischievous. There were spiky pods in the scrub – horned cucumber – of which some varieties were toxic, others not. How to tell? There were no springbok, no gemsbok to guide him. The animals seemed to have fled. A sixth sense.
Down below, at first light, Mbutu could see the landscape shifting under great dark masses – troops on the move. And then he heard it, a great screech – like the Kimberley siege guns but multiplied a hundredfold – that penetrated his very being. The hills around him began exploding in great clouds of lethal rubble.
He lay in the lee of a boulder, fingers in ears, curled up like a baby for what seemed an eternity. And then, suddenly, with a silence that seemed even more deafening, the artillery stopped, the dust settled.
The gunfire after that seemed pathetic – small pops that carried on the wind. From his grandstand perch Mbutu watched as wave after wave of soldier ants marched casually towards their d
eaths, mown down at will.
The gully through the ridge was now cut off, blocked by the Boer horsemen that had mustered.
Mbutu had two choices when it came to getting back to Kimberley: circumvent the mountains – a journey that could take days across inhospitable terrain, without guarantee of food and water and without knowledge of troop movements; or move amongst the Boer army and access the pass from within the laager – their encampment.
Be smart, Mbutu. Your heart screams but you must go with your head.
That afternoon, Mbutu seized his chance. There appeared to be an amnesty or truce of sorts, a means for both sides to tend to their wounded. The Boers, like the British, moved with a whole army-within-an-army of black attendants – drivers, porters, carriers, runners, cooks.
With a lack of any apparent structure within the Boer brigades, it was easy to infiltrate. Mbutu simply walked down onto the plain and attached himself to a burial detail, tying his kerchief round his mouth, retrieving bodies, throwing stones at the vultures, hauling mashed remains onto ox carts. There were British there too now, tending to their own. Enemies one minute, friends the next. They were the same tribe after all.
And then the screeching began again. British shells. The truce was abandoned and they dived for cover.
That night, Mbutu ate pumpkin soup and rough dark bread, boerebeskuit. Never had food tasted so good. He sat round a fire with black farm boys from the Free State and the Transvaal, their heads filled with tales of the demonic British and their necromancy. Mbutu said nothing.
In darkness, Mbutu tried to make his way back to the gully to no avail. He would try again, he vowed, and again. But the next day he was moved further from the mountains, following the cavalry to the farmstead on the hill, unloading boxes of ammunition in the wake of the British retreat.
A Boer soldier whistled to him. He and several others were summoned to the cowshed. The stench was so great he thought he would vomit – worse than that of the corpses he had gathered up on the battlefield.
No Ordinary Killing Page 6
