Acacia - Secrets of an African Painting

by Paul Bondsfield

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – THE SEARCH GOES ON

  We sat there for some time, silently, just holding each other. The images that had been conjured up in Frederick’s words span round our heads and the room, like evil sprites content to sow unhappiness and discord, where before there had been excitement and wonder. I felt hollow, as if the feelings I had been enjoying when reading about Frederick’s historical journey had been ripped from me and replaced with a dark emptiness born of the horror he had witnessed over a century before. I looked around the room in which we sat with its mementoes of Africa. Before now, I had held a romantic view based on sunlit stories told over the years at Nellie’s knee. Now it struck home that Africa could be a cruel place, where pain and death were a constant and the sunlight merely provided a sugar coating on a harsh reality. The fact that this was family made it more real for some reason. It wasn’t an abstract news report of strangers dying unimaginably slowly in famines, whose television images remained just that, images, despite, or perhaps because of blanket coverage in the media.

  These feelings were still strange and uninvited. I had never really been affected by words before; I was able to read the most horrific accounts of murder, brutality, and horror. Before too long, could shrug off any feelings of sadness or pain and carry on in my relatively pampered existence. We continued to sit there, taking comfort in each other’s touch and I turned my head slowly to look at Tara. She turned to me at the same instant to gaze unblinkingly into my eyes. In that moment, I knew our two fates were entwined with this story: that we had to follow this search to whatever end was in store. It was only a minute or so, but it felt like an age before we drew away from each other and I reached for the book again, flicking through the pages absentmindedly, not looking for anything, merely using it as a device to cover the disquiet I felt at what had been an almost spiritual moment.

  I turned the page at the end of the book where we had left off and realised that there was a little more to read. The last pages were scantily covered with ink, just a date and time and one or two sentences upon which I focused my attention now.

  “I have put down all I can remember from that time. My dreams have become nightmares from that time until the present, but I feel that my time of dreaming is nearly done. All that is left to show from then is the painting on that coarse paper; a painting based on the sketch I cannot remember producing, but which my family has told me I held tight when I was found on the river bank so long ago.

  To any who are keen to retrace my steps, who might find themselves in the thrall of that most vicious disease and who seek the power of what still may be buried, I believe you must look behind the acacia, for there you will find what you seek. But beware, for I also believe there are secrets that will never be told that emanate from the spirits of the Matabele; spirits that will protect the treasure as best they can from any who come to it.

  There has been death and suffering aplenty before now, so heed my words and do not seek that which you cannot suffer.

  Frederick James Braughton, Christmas 1921, Salisbury, Rhodesia.”

  Tara was the first to speak when I had finished reading these words out loud. ‘It’s like something from a movie or something; buried treasure, evil curses and mysterious clues.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m finding it hard to believe aren’t you?’ I asked her, part rhetorically and partly seeking confirmation that I was not mad to believe in all this.

  ‘I think it is true. What he wrote about his companion’s deaths before made it true for me. Why would he make it up?’

  This last question was rhetorical, but I answered it anyway.

  ‘For all we know, he may have been mad at this point. He may not have known what he was writing or at least what was true or what was nightmare. Don’t forget that he would have been knocking on a bit by then, he could have just been rambling on and decided to write some of it down on a whim.’ I was trying desperately not to believe it, but I knew that I actually wanted to trust every word he had written. Somehow, deep down inside, I knew that this was no fairytale. For one thing, Nellie had been the one to pass the book on to me and she must have known what was in it. Nellie was just too sensible to believe nonsense.

  ‘So what do we do now then?’ I asked, racking my brains for answers, looking at Tara again for the first time for some moments.

  ‘Well,’ Tara replied, ‘we have to go to Africa and find out what we can from the family still there. We can quiz anyone here to see if they know anything, although I think we would have heard if there had been anything to know, don’t you?’

  I stood up and paced the room. ‘You may be right, but it’s worth asking anyway. There may be facts that just haven’t fitted a story before, like the reason for Nellie’s return and her mood when she did. Remember what the vicar said. There was definitely something strange about that. Maybe it was to do with all this.’

  ‘Possibly, and we can interrogate your Mum, she seems to know a bit more than she has let on so far. Both she and Uncle Peter could know something.’ There was an air of excitement in the room again as we formulated our plan of attack and we batted ideas back and forth for the next hour before deciding to first find out a bit more about the period when all this took part. We planned to hit the library as soon as we could and then reconvene with our findings.

  The following week we met again, this time at Tara’s little flat in London. She lived on the top floor of a converted Victorian semi on a back street in Teddington. The narrow streets didn’t give much room to manoeuvre my rather large, but aging car. After bumping off one or two curbs trying to squeeze it into spaces patently too small for it, I parked in the next street over and walked back.

  ‘God you live in an inconvenient place.’ I moaned as I came in through the door. ‘I had to park miles away and god knows if my baby will still be there when I get back. Bloody London, can’t trust a soul up here, everyone knows it!’

  Tara smiled patiently at the little rant that I greeted her with every time I visited. ‘Good to see you too James, have you been busy?’ she asked, ignoring my tirade completely, which is the best way to deal with it to be honest.

  ‘As a matter of fact I have.’ I smirked as I had some information to share. ‘I have found out all sorts of things about the history of southern Africa, it’s an amazing story when you get into it you know.’

  ‘Yes I know, I have done a little research myself actually. I had a couple of good sessions at the library and I learnt all about the Matabele dash from the clutches of the Zulu king, Chaka, and how Mzilikasi invaded the land north of the Limpopo, killing anyone who stood in his way, until his people settled to the west of the country. Then Lobengula was given the throne in mysterious circumstances, when the rightful heir went missing.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, but take a breath occasionally would you. I said while frowning at the fact she had covered the same ground as me on this research stuff.

  ‘Sorry, but it’s exciting isn’t it. I mean it really was like some movie epic, where people were on the move and wars were fought on an almost daily basis.’ Her eyes were shining a little and I could see she had really embraced the history she had read.

  ‘I think we should write down any information we have that we think is going to be relevant to our search, as we don’t want to be doubling up our efforts and only producing the results from one person do we?’ I said, not unreasonably, I thought.

  Luckily, Tara agreed with me for once, and so we sat down at her kitchen table with large mugs of coffee and some chocolate digestives. First of all, we sketched out the history we had boned up on in simple terms and then puzzled over what may or not be relevant.

  Tara started the discussion. ‘So, it sounds as if Lobengula was a dodgy character by all accounts. I mean, he had got his throne through the back door hadn’t he, and he must have had some enemies to contend with.’

  ‘True enough, so he would have been on his guard all the time I would imagine. If you think about African leaders today, they
all have their elite bodyguards don’t they? I can’t think of any reason why he wouldn’t have had the same thing.’ I dunked a digestive, much to Tara’s disgust as the chocolate melted and dripped back into my cup. I ignored her screwed up face and continued, ‘So would he have done anything special to ensure the safety of his position?’

  Tara had stopped frowning with disgust and started frowning in concentration. ‘You’ll get wrinkles if you don’t let your face relax a little.’ I couldn’t resist a little dig.

  She ignored me yet again and said, ‘But does Lobengula have anything to do with all this. I mean, for all we know, he wasn’t even involved. There is nothing in Frederick’s diary to say that the treasure was linked to the Matabele high-ups is there?’

  ‘Well no, not specifically,’ I replied, ‘but I just have a feeling that if there was this much treasure involved, then it wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by the king surely. Don’t forget we are talking about sacks of diamonds here. Even then, they must have been worth a small fortune.’ I scrabbled around in a pile of papers I had placed on the table beside her. ‘Ah, here we are.’ I ran my finger down a page until I reached what I was looking for. ‘In 1870, South African diamond production totalled approximately 270,000 carats. Now if we assume that the sacks that Frederick and his companions took were only a part of the total haul the Matabele held and they carried away four full sacks of diamonds, then they were probably holding something like ten percent of the total production for a year. Even back then they were dealing in millions of pounds worth, men were becoming multi-millionaires, paying for whole armies and colonising new countries on the back of their wealth. It couldn’t have escaped the notice of Lobengula that there was so much treasure hidden away by his people.’ I finished this little report with a satisfied grin as I realised the thoroughness of my research and the logical way in which I had reasoned out my argument. I think Tara agreed because she went quiet for a little while before speaking again.

  ‘But how did they get hold of so many diamonds? There was nothing I read to suggest that the Matabele were mining anywhere, their entire wealth was tied up in cattle and women.’ She said the later with a little frown at me as if I had had something to do with the sexist attitudes of these tribesmen from a century ago. I, in turn, ignored her.

  ‘That’s the question isn’t it? They must have stolen them too. I mean, there is no other way if they weren’t digging them up themselves.’ I pondered on this while dunking another biscuit, which, due to my inattention, broke off and sank to the bottom of my cup.

  ‘You grub!’ said Tara. ‘But I reckon the mines would have been guarded night and day. How would they have got in there and stolen so much in one go?’

  ‘That’s it though, isn’t it?’ I jumped up spilling what was left of my digestive-ridden coffee, ‘they must have been stealing these stones over a long period. They couldn’t possibly have got away with them all in one go. You’re right, the mines and pits would have been guarded all the time and the workers must have been searched too. I don’t quite know how they did it, but it must have taken a heck of a lot of courage and nerve to pinch the wealth from under the noses of the mine owners.’

  Tara now jumped in, adding her own thoughts. ‘There must have been hundreds of them doing it. They could only steal tiny amounts at a time, so there must have been whole teams of them in every mine. I mean, can you imagine the logistics of organising something like that? There would have to be team leaders, coordinators, couriers, and messengers, people to recruit the workers in the first place. My god, it would have involved so much organisation and management.’ Tara’s professional curiosity had been aroused now. She was a project manager of something or another at a big multi-national and loved her job. She stared off into space, imagining the structures and costs of putting something like this together.

  ‘Do you know what the biggest achievement was though?’ I asked her, breaking into her cost/benefit analysis, or whatever it was her mind was calculating.

  ‘What?’ she asked

  ‘There is no mention of any of this in any book that I read. I assume none that you read either. They must have kept the whole thing totally secret. All those people, all that organisation, and Cecil Rhodes and all those other colonialists never suspected a thing, or if they did, they kept it to themselves.’

  ‘My god, you’re right.’ Tara had obviously not picked up on this point herself, so I mentally chalked another one up to me. ‘They may have known about it of course, but it would have been very embarrassing for them, all that money being pinched from under their fat noses. However, you are right; even then you would have thought that something would have been written down somewhere.’

  ‘Ok, so where do we go from here then?’ I asked. ‘What else can we fathom out from what we have found out so far?’

  ‘What about why?’ She said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if the Matabele measured their wealth in terms of cattle and people, then why would they want diamonds? Don’t forget this all happened before Rhodes made his way north and claimed the country for himself. So why would they risk so much and take so much effort in doing something like this?’

  Again, a possible answer came to me but in more measured terms this time. ‘If Lobengula couldn’t use the diamonds amongst his own people, then they were obviously for use with another people, don’t you think?’ Without waiting for an answer, I carried on. ‘If we assume that the other native tribes had similar cultures with regards to wealth, and that if the Matabele would simply go to war with them if they wanted anything, then the treasure must have been for trade with the white man.’

  ‘Guns!’ Tara said the one word as both a question and answer together.

  ‘Yes, guns. I mean, what else would the white man have that the Matabele would want? Now it may be that Lobengula wanted guns to subdue his own people, which would make sense if he thought his rule was under threat for any reason, or he may have sensed that it wouldn’t be long until the colonialists made their way to his land and so wanted some way to protect himself. He would have known about the battles the Zulu’s had fought against the whites, spear against gun, and he would have known the results of those battles, so he would have assumed that he would need to build an armoury of equal strength.’

  ‘Surely the white men would never have sold him arms just like that, and he would have known it wouldn’t he?’ Tara’s point was a good one, but then I remembered something I had read about other colonies in the area.

  ‘But there were the Portuguese in Mozambique not too far away. I am sure they were already trading with the peoples of what is now Zimbabwe and had been for some time. There was no love lost between the English and the Portuguese, so they may have been glad to arm the Matabele for a share of Barnato’s and Rhodes’ millions.’ The theory seemed to fit the facts as well as we knew them. I figured that it was not totally necessary that we knew the exact motives of Lobengula, so long as we had the facts at hand then we could go on from here.

  Of course, we were making a lot of assumptions here, a fact that escaped our attention until we excitedly related all we knew to Mum the next day. We had chosen to go back on our previous decision to keep everything a secret because we needed to pick some brains and we knew that Mum, of all people, would immediately smell a rat and prise it out of us anyway.

  ‘You must be daft, the both of you.’ She said, instantly popping our balloon of expectation. ‘How do you know that Frederick was telling the truth? He could have made the whole thing up or more likely imagined everything. By the sounds of it, he was already a little mad so he could have just dreamt it all.’

  ‘Yes, but the descriptions of everything are so vivid.’ Tara argued our case, as she was always better at getting her own way with Mum than I was. We hadn’t decided this strategy, but once under way, it was the obvious way to go.

  ‘Anyone could have come up with that stuff. Like with all good stories, there is an element of truth in th
em, because he most probably did go on an expedition and he may even have met Lobengula, but the treasure thing is just too fantastic for words.’

  ‘But it does fit the facts, doesn’t it?’ Tara tried again.

  ‘I’m not so sure dear. Something like this would have been reported somewhere along the line. I mean, if they had as many diamonds as you say they had, then surely they would have been missed from the mines. Old Rhodes was pretty astute you know; he would have had exact records of what was dug up and what he ended up with. A discrepancy this large would have been detected long before a haul of this size could have been amassed.’

  ‘But that’s just the point, isn’t it?’ Strategy went out the window now as I chimed in. ‘They would have had to steal these diamonds over many years, just a tiny amount at a time; otherwise you’re right that they would have been missed. However, the quantities we are talking about spread between all the mines over several years would have been miniscule, easy to misread on a report of rock tonnage or whatever it was they used.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ She was bending a little, I could feel it, but we needed to really convince her before she would buy in to our theory.

  ‘Ok then, you should read the book yourself. See what you think, and if you are still sceptical, then we shall just have to accept it.’ As the descriptions of Frederick’s companions’ deaths had eventually convinced us of his story’s authenticity, so I hoped it would with Mum.

  ‘We will leave it with you and go for a walk and then see what you think by the time we come back.’ I didn’t want to leave the book overnight for some reason I couldn’t explain, even with my own mother.

  She agreed to the plan and Tara and I left her house and walked down to the village for a coffee at the little bakery in the High Street.

  ‘So, do you think she’ll buy it?’ I asked as we strolled through the field next to the house.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tara replied, ‘she was fairly adamant that it was all a bit of a fairy tale. I hope she doesn’t get too upset by it. You remember how it affected us and we had each other to cling to.’

  ‘Yes, but Mum’s fairly tough, and we will be back before too long anyway if she needs to be comforted.’ Tara had hooked her arm naturally through mine as we walked and she obviously decided this was a good time to sort out my personal life.

  ‘So, James. What’s going on with Eden?’

  ‘Oh, we’re okay really. Just getting on with our lives you know.’

  I knew this answer wasn’t going to suffice, but as I didn’t really know where we were at it was going to be difficult telling anyone else.

  ‘Come on Cuz, you need to talk about it you know, either to me or preferably, to her. She deserves better than to be strung along like this.’

  I knew she was right of course and I stopped in the middle of the pathway and turned to face her.

  ‘It’s like there’s something in my brain that just keeps saying ‘not yet’ all the time.’ I know in my heart that I love her, but it’s almost as if that’s not enough just yet. I am scared at the thought of giving everything and then finding that actually she just wants us to continue as we are. I mean, it would really kill me if she doesn’t feel the same way and then just decided to walk away from it or take up with someone better than me.’

  Tara looked at me incredulously.

  ‘I knew it. You’re still hung up on ‘whatever-her-name-was from years ago aren’t you? Come on James, have you even asked her how she feels? Have you even the slightest idea about what’s going through her mind at the moment? How do you know she would walk away?’

  This barrage silenced me for the moment. I couldn’t answer any of those questions with anything approaching the answers they deserved, and which I knew Tara was expecting, so saying nothing seemed to be the best bet for the moment. She was on the right track though with the old girlfriend angle. I had been hurt badly and something deep inside was blocking any attempt I made at moving on with Eden.

  ‘For God’s sake James, you seriously need to talk to her and soon too. Don’t keep putting things off like this or she will walk away, but out of sheer frustration I should think.’

  My head sank as I knew that every word she said was true and that the long awaited talk needed to happen. Tara’s tone softened a little.

  ‘You’re clutching onto something that you think will protect you, something you think is important without even really knowing what it is you’re holding on to. This idea that it’s just not right yet is daft if you don’t know how she feels, but the only way to erase your demons is to talk to her.’

  I couldn’t reply as I knew she was right and any rebuttal from me would seem like yet another excuse, so I nodded and turned once more to the path.

  As we walked on in silence though, the unfolding Braughton mystery once more filled my head. As I looked at the trees and the countryside around us, I wondered how different the bush of Africa would be to this. England was such a gentle land for the most part; ‘polite’ landscapes Eden called them, hills and vales swelling easily into one another, great oaks dotting the landscape with their spreading branches reaching out and almost touching the ground underneath. The colours were lavish with every shade of green imaginable; from the leaves on tree and bush to the grass and mosses on the ground, everything looked fertile and lush. The colours I associated with Africa were hues of yellow and gold, oranges, and ambers, somehow warmer than the cool greens of England, but at the same time less gentle, and harsher, promising much for those who fought and worked to survive, but little for those who didn’t.

  As we walked through the churchyard and down the pretty little lane leading from it, I remembered there was a shop in the village specialising in African goods and so I suggested we go and take a look. The shop used the same colour scheme as I had just been thinking about and seemed warm and inviting. The goods inside were beautiful and exuded charm and character. Rough hewn sculptures, much like the ones at Nellie’s house, but with price tags to make your eyes water, watercolours stylishly depicting scenery and animals of the veldt, more professionally presented than the one I had now hung on my wall at home, but somehow with less spirit to them. We poked around for a short while until the shop assistant started to ask if we were looking for anything in particular, at which point, we decided to leave and carried on down the High Street to the bakery.

  After a pleasant half hour munching on sweet pastries and sipping scalding hot coffee, no mention was made of our previous conversation about Eden. Tara forbade me to dunk my pain-au-chocolat in my coffee or she would get up and leave, we headed back the mile or so to Mum’s house.

  When we arrived through the back door, I called out that we were home and got a response of total silence. We traipsed through the house to the front porch and found Mum sitting there looking out over her garden, her eyes looking slightly swollen and red. Tara sat down next to her and held her hand.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ she gently asked.

  ‘I can’t believe what I read,’ she said, ‘I think Frederick definitely believed it and maybe that is what you should try and discover. It makes no difference if there is or ever was a treasure, but for the family, it would be good to know the truth behind all this.’ She hesitated as if she was going to say something more, but then thought better of it.

  ‘What mum?’ I pressed gently for her to tell us what was on her mind.

  ‘Well, there may be some secrets that this family has held on to that perhaps it shouldn’t have. It may be time to bring them out into the open and perhaps Nellie, by passing this book onto you, has decided you should be the ones to do it. However, you should be careful. Whatever is out there, be it treasure or just secrets, people may want to keep the truth hidden, and may be willing to go to some lengths to keep it that way.’

  This sounded so ominous that Tara and I were silent for a moment, both staring at Mum and each other in bewilderment. Mum had never spoken like this before; it was just so un-Braughton-like.


  ‘Mum, you’re scaring us.’ I laughed a nervous laugh to try and lighten the mood a bit. ‘What do you mean about people trying to keep things hidden? You have to tell us more than that, or we won’t sleep for days.’

  ‘I’m sorry, both of you, but I will have to think about this for a while before I decide what you should know. There are some things that I am not sure about and I don’t want to lead you down the wrong path, because that may be dangerous for you in the long run.’

  We could tell she was deadly serious, and once again we looked at each other, giving a mental shrug of confusion. There was steeliness to Mum that I had never seen before, she was like a different person, and one that I wasn’t sure I was that enamoured with.

  We stood and made ready to leave, knowing that any pleasant chat about the weather and Mum’s garden was out of the question now, and both of us wanting to go somewhere to discuss this unexpected turn of events.

  ‘OK Mum, we’ll be off then. Will you call when you’ve made a decision as to what you can tell us?’

  ‘Yes dear,’ she seemed distracted again, ‘I just need to talk to a couple of people that’s all. Nothing to worry about.’

  Her attempt to allay our fears fooled no one and we shuffled out not knowing whether we should be looking over our shoulders or just dismissing Mum’s words with a shrug until everything became clearer.