A Cleft of Diamonds
by
Tony Matthews
The story will leave you breathless.
by
Tony Matthews
The story will leave you breathless.
We hope you enjoy reading the first two chapters of Tony's book.
Chapter One - The Empire Mary
The sun was a bright ball in the copper-hot sky as the S.S. Kidwelly lurched and plunged through the blue swell of the Indian Ocean. She was an old tramp, built twenty years previously on the River Clyde, and slowly pounded into the promise of an early grave by the force of the terrible seas that often roared along the east coast of the African continent. Her ancient steam boiler and reciprocating engines thumped, whined, roared, leaked, squeaked, and rattled as they drove the rust-streaked ship slowly northwards. A sound vessel once, Norwood Tynbridge-Pierson reflectedmoodily as he stood at the vessel’s stern rail, but no longer. She was now an old witch of the sea, painted in the drab black of a coastal steamer with a tired, off-white band around her skinny funnel, the paint faded to the colour of sour cream.
Norwood turned from the rather depressing scene to watch the wake of the ship as it trailed away into the distance with raucous seagulls flapping and sailing effortlessly in the sea wind. So far the voyage had been a complete disaster. The captain was an imbecile. Surely a ship of this size could go just a little faster. It would take months to reach Mombasa. Norwood had remonstrated, had pleaded the urgency of his case, but the Portuguese captain, a small, rather oily individual named Manuel Baixa, remained adamant. The ship could go no faster. ‘Imposto!’ he had exploded angrily.
Damn the man!
It was a rare occurrence to witness Norwood Tynbridge-Pierson, late of Oxford University, in such a hurry to get anywhere. After graduating he had toyed with the idea of taking up the offer of a junior tutoring position, but his need to travel, to see and experience the sounds and smells of foreign lands had been an almost irresistible urge within him.
Three months after graduating, with his father’s blessing (and money), he had sailed aboard a luxurious passenger ship the S.S. Dongolly for Capetown where he had hoped to remain for at least six months enjoying the convivial colonial hospitality famous at the Cape. All that had suddenly changed, however, completely and quite without warning.
The cable had come to his hotel two days after his arrival at the South African colony.
June 29th, 1914.
Urgent you proceed at once
to Mombasa and Nairobi. Gauge present reactions of community to possibility of war with Germany. Require information concerning availability of local militia forces in event of attack from German East Africa. Also require report on spate of incidents along border between German East Africa and the British colony.
German authorities are claiming that raids are taking place against their nationals and property. You are to request a full report from the British Governor in Nairobi. Consider this cable as your notice of commencement
of temporary employment with the British Diplomatic Service.
The cable was signed by his father, Sir Winfred James Tynbridge-Pierson, minister for war.
Norwood was bemused by the contents of the cable and its pointed instructions.
Gauge the reaction to war. How?
Spate of incidents! What bloody incidents? It all seemed so thoroughly irksome and tedious. Surely the Ministry had people on its staff who could look after such things! Norwood shrugged his shoulders resignedly. If only his father had not added that final little sentence at the end of the cable.
Consider this cable an official order from the British government, and report back with utmost URGENCY.
Damn!
Norwood sat on a steel bollard amid coils of sun-bleached rope, his head resting disconsolately in his hands. To port, more than five miles distant, he could see the low shoreline of the African coast — green-fringed beaches and mangrove swamps, home of the ibis, crocodile, and water buffalo. Closer still, two Arab dhows were sailing slowly southwards, probably heading from Dar es Salaam to the port of Beira in the Mozambique
Channel, their lateen sails filled, and with white foam cresting against their bows. A school of dolphins raced playfully ahead of them and the dark darts of flying fish could be seen skimming over the tops of the waves.
Three more weeks! At least three weeks Baixa had said, before landing at Mombasa. Far too long Norwood thought to himself. Anything could happen in that time, particularly with the political situation in Europe supposedly worsening every day. He lit a cheroot and let a long plume of smoke escape from his lips. He would have to be patient. Father would simply have to understand. The Kidwellywas ancient and certainly due for the scrap-yard, but she was the only ship sailing from Capetown to Mombasa for several weeks. There was no other way.
Even as he pondered, Norwood heard the sharp crack of an explosion from beneath his feet, followed by a low rumbling roar. Slowly the regular thump-thud-thump of the engines died away to silence as the ship lost
headway.
Norwood jumped to his feet, throwing his cheroot over the side. He raced to the bridge ladder and climbed quickly to the bridge wings. Captain Baixa was shouting into the engine-room speaking tube. ‘Bastardo ... bastardo ... ’ followed by a string of expletives in his mother language that Norwood could never hope to comprehend.
‘Captain,’ Norwood interrupted, his voice filled with extended and long-suffering exasperation. ‘Could I have
another word with you?’
Baixa turned from the speaking tube, his sun-yellowed face suffused with indignation. ‘Meester Tynbridge-Peerson,’ he struggled with the awkward title. ‘This ess no time to trouble me.’ He raised his hands in supplication. ‘Cannot you see we haf the trouble. The engine, she go broke.’
‘I understand that,’ Norwood said,‘it’s rather obvious. But I was just wondering what’s ... ?’
‘Mae de Jesu,’ Baixa raised his eyes towards heaven and almost screamed: ‘Pleese get off my bridge Meester Tynbridge-Peerson. You haf caused my ulcer to burn again. I haf answered enough of your blutty questions. Cannot you understand? The sheep ess broke. We haf to fix. When we go, I tell you. Until then, leave me alone!’ He turned suddenly, ignoring Norwood’s immediate protest, and began to scream once more into the speaking tube. Norwood turned away in disgust. He could not seek the solace and companionship of other passengers. The old Kidwelly was a cargo vessel and Norwood was the only passenger aboard.
He walked to his cabin, a small steel hot-box on the port side of the ship’s superstructure, and stripped off his shirt. The heat was almost unbearable and perspiration ran from his body in tiny rivulets. He summoned the Goanese steward and ordered a bowl of cold water with ice. When it came finally he closed the cabin door, stripped naked, and sponged his body carefully.
Later, as the afternoon wore slowly on, Norwood lay on his bunk, the slight sea breeze drifting through the cabin door, the deck-head fan turning lazily above his head.
At 4 p.m. the steward brought a bottle of Portuguese wine with ice and a chipped glass, and when Norwood asked him about the engines the steward replied: ‘Captain said to tell you we haf deep trouble. We haf to call into Dar es Salaam for repairs.’
‘How long will it take?’
The steward shrugged. ‘We not know. Engineer says perhaps two or three weeks in dock. Engine she buggered up good. Just get it going enough to ... ’ow you say…limp into port.’
'Damn!’ Norwood expostulated. ‘Can’t they do better than that? I have to get to Mombasa urgently. I’ve explained all this to that bloody captain of yours.’
‘Captain not give monkey’s balls,’the steward replied indifferently. ‘Has woman in Dar with big teta,’ he demonstrated with his hands. ‘Muito grande, you understand? Captain not care how long we stay in Dar. All good time for him.’ He turned and was suddenly gone.
Norwood moodily lit a cheroot and poured a glass of the fine Portuguese wine. The heat hung about him like a drape, sucking the moisture from his body. He brushed away fresh perspiration from his face and cursed profoundly before throwing himself onto the clammy sheets of his narrow bunk.
That evening he spoke again with Captain Baixa. The engine could be repaired, Baixa brusquely confirmed, just sufficiently to get them to Dar es Salaam, but no farther. There was extensive damage to the condensers; the boiler water had become impregnated with seawater, which in turn had eventually caused corrosion of some vital engine parts. They would have to be replaced, and replacements would have to come by sea all the way from Capetown. It would take at least three weeks, perhaps longer.
‘Are there any ships leaving Dar es Salaam for Mombasa?’ Norwood had asked.
‘Not many,’ Baixa replied with evident irritation. ‘Some dhows, perhaps, but that was all.’
For the following two days they limped steadily northwards, the tramp steamer hardly making headway. When finally they sighted the ancient African port, Norwood was in a ferment of impatience. He left the ship the following day and found a room in a cheap hotel near the bustling waterfront. Here, gulls wheeled above the fishing boats and ancient dhows groaned and squeaked at the jetties. Small children with hungry eyes and skinny arms pleaded for coins. Beggars with missing limbs stared sullenly as Norwood passed by. Gaudily dressed prostitutes with flashing eyes and golden bangles laughed and shouted at him from the balconies of the brothels while slit-eyed pickpockets followed him stealthily and Arab traders with hawk-like faces called to him excitedly, holding trinkets and wooden carvings above their heads.
From here, Norwood began to make enquiries about the possibility of passage aboard any kind of vessel to Mombasa. He walked the length of the quays asking sullen Arab sailors in off-white shirts and calico breeches if they knew of any sailings. Some offered guarded advice; others simply shook their heads. Few vessels were
sailing into the waters between Dar and Mombasa because of the activity of British warships. The warships were reportedly stopping and searching all other vessels and demanding information about the possible location of the German battleship Konisberg that was in the area ready to support the German East African colony should war be declared. Nobody trusted the British. They had a reputation for sinking unarmed Arab dhows caught smuggling goods into British East Africa.
Norwood was desperate. He would take anything being offered. He asked many of the wharf sailors and fishermen to pass the word, and finally, after two days, a message came to his lodgings that there was a man who, for a price, would be willing to help. An Indian boatman named Rashiv.
Rashiv earned his living in Dar es Salaam in a number of nefarious ways. In his small riverboat he plied the harbour selling oranges, dates, coconuts, cheap wristwatches, pornographic photographs and bottles of a noisome and unbelievably noxious elixir which he claimed with great enthusiasm, having personally tried the remedy, to be the one and only cure for every sexually transmitted disease ever known to man. His other business enterprises included picking pockets at the markets and pimping for the many brothels that abounded in the streets and back alleys of the city.
Of course, Norwood was not to know of Rashiv’s rather insalubrious business occupations; when the message came he saw it as a God-given opportunity to escape the nightmare of this damnably hot city of dust, heat, maggots and stinking piles of rubbish, and to get farther north where he could accomplish the mission set for him.
The following morning Norwood dressed quickly: white cricket flannels, tennis shoes and an
open-necked cricket shirt. He caught a rickshaw to the wharf and was directed to Rashiv’s boat at the far end of a dilapidated wooden jetty.
‘Welcome, welcome sahib,’ Rashiv called as Norwood approached. ‘You are the Englishman I have been
hearing about yes?’
Norwood looked down to the deck of the small, untidy vessel and fervently hoped that this was not the boat that was to take him to Mombasa.
‘Welcome to the humble home of Rashiv and our boat the Empire Mary,’ Rashiv called. He was a small man, not more than five feet three inches, with dirty, coal-black tangled hair and a slim chocolate-coloured body. He was dressed in a pair of outrageously oversized pantaloons raggedly cut off at the knees. Around his skinny waist was a colourful chuddar shawl twisted into a belt.
‘You are wanting to come aboard and go to Mombasa?’ Rashiv called. ‘I know the way quite well, quite well indeed. I was there once.’
Norwood climbed down the jetty steps and stood level with the boat. It was a small river barge with an ugly thin funnel from which a smudge of dark smoke drifted. The decks were littered with debris: old ropes, nets, dried fish scales, baskets of fruit, a tattered sail, tin buckets, fishing lines, a withered shark’s fin, some tools, a
pile of stacked cordwood, and some verminous cushions on which Rashiv evidently slept.
‘I’m looking for a boat to take me to Mombasa,’ Norwood said without conviction. ‘I received your message that you might know of someone who owns such a boat.’
‘It is me!’ Rashiv jumped forward and grinned revealing a malodorous mouth totally devoid of teeth. ‘I will take you sahib.’
‘In this?’ Norwood looked around incredulously.
‘Of course sahib. This plenty fine boat. Can do anything in Empire Mary. Take you to Mombasa hop-skippedy. Plenty fast.’
‘But it’s just a bloody river barge,’Norwood protested. ‘It will never make it through the open sea.’
Rashiv looked offended. ‘You speaking cow dung sahib, with respect. Old Empire Mary been to sea before you know. We go many times fishing. She good ship.’
Norwood remained unconvinced and scratched his head. ‘Well, how much?’ he asked finally. ‘How much to take me to Mombasa?’
A look of pure cunning washed over Rashiv’s features. ‘One thousand five hundred rupees,’ he replied, thinking of the highest figure he could possibly imagine in the entire universe.
Norwood inclined his head thoughtfully and looked around the wharves. There were no other vessels in the harbour, a dhow luffed its sail and came into a berth, its motor shuddering.
‘Very well,’ Norwood finally agreed,‘if you’re sure we can get there in this thing. When can we leave? It’s most urgent. I must get to Mombasa as soon as possible.’
‘Leave it to me sahib. I get food and stores. We leave tomorrow, when sparrow farts.’
Norwood was crestfallen. ‘Can’t we leave today? It’s extremely important.’
‘Sorry sahib,’ Rashiv responded, thinking of the lovely young girl in Al Jutto’s brothel with whom, having taken a down payment from this foolish Englishman, he would now spend the night.‘This not possible. There much to do before we leave. Much preparations and all that. You give me seven hundred and fifty rupees now, and rest when we get to Mombasa.’
Norwood shrugged, taking his wallet from his trousers. ‘Very well,’ he said, peeling off the notes and handing them to Rashiv. ‘But we must leave early in the morning, very early. I have to be in Mombasa within days.’
‘You not to worry sahib,’ Rashiv grinned, counting the notes, ‘old Empire Mary get you there pretty damn quick.’
Chapter 2 — The Wreckage of Norwood
Commissioner Felix von Schrober was a happy man, well…relatively happy, as all things are relative here in this God-awful country, he mused as he toyed with the mounting lists of figures before him.
Business had been good lately. Ivory was coming in from all over the colony: ten tusks from the Korowga region just yesterday; twenty last week, making a total of almost one hundred for the month. Excellent! He leaned forward and poured himself a congratulatory glass of schnapps, drinking the clear liquid in one gulp. Of course, it would have been more, had it not been for these irritating raids from across the border. Even now, three weeks after the raids had started, he had no idea who was responsible. There were only unconfirmed reports, mainly from his own Askari troops, that a white man, a strange, almost inhuman devil-man, the natives had called him, was leading a band of Somalis and a few Masai, attacking the ivory wagons and making quickly off into the bush. Tracking them was pointless; the Masai were experts at covering their tracks and the bush was so dense, so impenetrable in the region that it simply swallowed up these accursed bandits before they could be found.
Von Schrober inserted a finger into the collar of his tunic and pulled it away from his damp neck. He would get them, eventually. They would make the mistake of thinking the Askari teams were too lightly defended, that the ivory was easy pickings, and then the time would come, he would pounce. Buko would enjoy that. Buko liked white men, especially when they were the prisoners of the German Empire and therefore open to all kinds of ‘interrogation’ methods. Ah yes, Buko would have a little party in the cells.
But who was this strange white man, and why were the reports of him a wild mixture of fantasy and myth? He came with a banshee wail, some of the Askari had said, a man from the trees, swinging down on them and dressed like some foreign god with flying tails of many colours, and a sword of wrath like none had ever seen before. It made no sense. The Askari were fools, drunken pisspots! Perhaps they should be replaced with more reliable men?
Von Schrober stood and walked to the verandah of his bamboo hut. The air today was oppressively hot and only a slight breeze blew into the military compound at Mboto. The compound consisted of half a dozen bamboo and timber huts constructed as barracks, in the centre of which was a roughly laid out parade ground of beaten ant-bed, stamped to an iron hardness by the boots of the 100 Askari native soldiers billeted at the camp. Before the huts lay the sea, the dark blue of the Indian Ocean, with a wharf where Von Schrober’s steam patrol boat was tied. Behind the camp were the rising Usumbara Mountains, the rolling mass of peaks and dark crevasses like velvet and coloured purple under the hot African sun.
‘Lord, a runner has come from Vanga.’Von Schrober had not heard the Askari corporal approach, and he turned suddenly. ‘Ja ... well, what is it?’ he demanded.
The Askari corporal dropped his eyes.‘There has been another attack on the ivory wagons, Lord. Two men have been killed and twenty tusks taken by the white-witch man. Three men are wounded.’
Von Schrober’s anger was like an instantaneous fuse. He exploded. ‘You useless damned cretins,’ he shouted. ‘I should have known you were incapable of guarding one little wagon of tusks. ’
‘But it was not I, Lord,’ the Askari protested, ‘I have been here. I was not a part of the guard. ’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Von Schrober screamed, spittle spraying from his lips, ‘I’ll hang the man in charge of the patrol. He’ll be court-martialled for this. Twenty more tusks. Have you any idea how much those tusks are worth?’
The Askari soldier tried to back away. ‘I will find out who was in charge so that you might hang him Lord. It is a fitting punishment for one so incapable of command.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Von Schrober fumed, ‘I’ll have his name and he’ll be swinging from the gallows by dawn. And when I catch this ... this so-called ‘white witch’, I’ll also hang him, by his balls. He’ll suffer very slowly before he dies.’
Von Schrober turned and walked quickly to his desk where he poured himself a large schnapps, his hands shaking with the violence of his anger. Twenty tusks! The Arab merchant was paying five hundred rupees a tusk. By God, there would be some accounting made of this!
~~~~
Norwood sensed, almost as soon as theEmpire Mary left the protection of Dar es Salaam harbour, that he had not made the right decision. He contemplated telling Rashiv to turn back, that he would wait for another boat, but he knew in his heart that there were no other boats going north, and that this was his only chance to get to Mombasa quickly.
The Empire Mary rolled and tossed in the open sea like a pregnant whale. Its flat bottom straddled the waves, plunging up over the rolling crests and crashing down on the other side with spine-jarring force.
Rashiv lashed the tiller with rope and spent much of his time below, stoking the boiler and tending the ancient engine. When he was on deck he sharpened several massive hooks, larger than Norwood’s hand, threaded them with bloodied strips of stinking maggot-riddled meat, and trailed them overboard on wire lines.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’Norwood protested. ‘We’re supposed to be going straight to Mombasa, not messing around here bloody fishing.’
‘Shark very good now,’ Rashiv stated stubbornly. ‘Plenty good meat. Plenty fins. Sell to silly Chinese fuggers in Dar. Very profitable. We fish on way.’
‘But what if we catch one?’ Norwood was horrified, ‘I mean they’re bloody big you know, and this is such a small boat. We could be swamped!’
‘Not to worry,’ Rashiv stated without conviction. ‘Rashiv know how to handle those big buggers.’ He took an ancient muzzle-loading blunderbuss from beneath a pile of rotting canvas and grinned wickedly. ‘Big buggers give too much trouble, they get this.’
‘Good God,’ Norwood said. ‘A blunderbuss. They haven’t been used for years. Where did you get it?’
‘Him mighty fine old gun,’ Rashiv stated with finality. ‘Bought him yesterday in bazaar. Two rupees.
Genuine antique but work bloody good.’
Norwood was a little disconcerted at the sight of the weapon. He sat on a coil of rope and looked keenly at Rashiv.‘I don’t think you’re going to need that,’ he said finally. ‘It looks pretty useless anyway. Lets have it overboard.’ He was suddenly aware that he was alone in a vast ocean with a man he hardly knew, and that man was now holding an ancient but probably still lethal weapon.
‘Not to worry,’ Rashiv grinned, but there was no humour in his eyes. He placed the blunderbuss on the deck beside him, silently wishing he had not, on the spur of the moment, shown it to the Englishman. Now he had been warned; his passenger was aware of the possibility of attack. He had been foolish; he knew it the moment he had produced the gun, but by then it had been too late. He would have used it then, blown the stupid Englishman into the water with the sharks, but that also would have been foolish. There was money to be earned from this deed, perhaps much money. The English were rich, it was well known. This one had produced a fat wallet yesterday when he paid the half price for the journey. There would be many more rupees in that wallet. All Rashiv had to do was to bide his time and wait. Load the gun when the Englishman was not looking, take the wallet, kill him, and throw him over the side. And who knows what other treasures awaited him in the baggage of the Englishman.
But there was a small problem of time. Many of the authorities in Dar es Salaam were aware of the Englishman and his need for passage to Mombasa. By now it would be well known on the waterfront that Rashiv had offered to take him there and the Englishman had been mad enough to accept the offer. The girl at Al-Jutto’s brothel would almost certainly talk, telling her friends of the riches, which he, Rashiv, had suddenly come into, and word would spread in other ways. Soon, all those on the waterfront, and the police, would know where the Englishman had gone. It would therefore look suspicious if Rashiv suddenly reappeared at Dar es Salaam without the Englishman. No, he would stay at sea for a long while, fishing, and when he returned, he would tell everyone that he had taken the mad Englishman to Mombasa, and had been paid well for his services. The sharks would take care of the evidence.
The first day progressed slowly as the tiny Empire Mary plunged farther north. Norwood was relieved that the meat trailing behind had not attracted any sharks, and Rashiv explained that perhaps the boat was too close to shore.
‘Tomorrow we go northeast to avoid reefs, then we catch plenty shark,’ he grinned.
But Norwood was beginning to feel uneasy about the journey. With sudden clarity he realised he was in an extremely vulnerable position. In his wallet were bank cheques and notes to the value of two thousand pounds, a fortune by Rashiv’s standards, and certainly worth killing for. Norwood decided that he would remain extra vigilant for the next few days until they arrived at Mombasa.
During the following hours Rashiv remained stubbornly at the tiller, sending Norwood below to stack cordwood into the small boiler furnace. While his passenger was below stoking the boiler, Rashiv took the opportunity to load the cumbersome blunderbuss. First, the powder, as he had been shown by the merchant in Dar es Salaam, then the wadding, pig-iron bolts as ammunition, followed by more wadding. Then came the primer, check to ensure the flint was locked and dry, tinder in the primer box, and all that remained was to cock the hammer. Carefully, the Indian placed the weapon under its protective layer of canvas and awaited his opportunity.
Towards dusk, Rashiv changed course to starboard, heading for deeper waters. He lit paraffin lanterns and over a small fire on a stone base near the tiller he cooked a tin pannikin of rice in seawater, half of which he reluctantly shared with Norwood.
They did not talk for some time. Norwood was watching the Indian carefully and by now had decided that some mischief was afoot. The Indian was surly and withdrawn, not at all the same person he had spoken to at the Dar es Salaam wharf only twenty-four hours previously.
They sat silently together after the meal as the boat plunged and bucked through the night. Over the howl of the wind Norwood could hear the waves booming hollowly against the reefs. The only illumination came from the miserable paraffin lanterns and a fierce amber moon amid a canopy of stars in a clinquant sky. Rashiv took a small stained tin and rolled a dagga cigarette, lighting the tip from his fire and drawing the rich narcotic smoke deeply into his lungs; after a while the marijuana took effect and he relaxed. The Englishman would wait until later, tomorrow perhaps. It would be a good day for him to die.
He lay back on the filthy cushions, the dagga reddening his eyes. ‘Why you want to go to Mombasa sahib?’ he asked sullenly. ‘You got woman there hey, quick jig-a-jig, very naughty, some business maybe, urgent
business?’
‘Business,’ Norwood replied reluctantly and with considerable revulsion. ‘I’m on a mission for the British government.’
‘Ah you government man,’ Rashiv responded with profound understanding. ‘I know government men in my country. They all stinking rich.’ He winked at Norwood conspiratorially. ‘They make money same way sahib, you know, through old fiddle.’
Norwood tried to ignore him. He looked out into the dark night sea; the tips of the waves were strangely luminescent under the light of the moon.
‘You like my boat sahib,’ Rashiv had finished the dagga cigarette and was rolling another.
‘I’m concerned it won’t take the rough weather.’
‘Ah old Empire Mary been in rough weather before sahib, always survived.’
‘Why do you call her the Empire Mary?’ Norwood asked. It seemed such an incongruous name for a seedy little riverboat.
Rashiv brightened. ‘Indeed sahib, that very good question. Twenty years ago there was woman in life, Hindu, like me, you understand. She earn money in brothels of Dar es Salaam. This I do not mind as money plenty good. One day British sailing ship call into port. Its name: Empire Mary. Many sailors come ashore. My Hindu girl give all sailors what they want—jolly good badgering! They like so much they come again next night, and next after that. We make so much rupees from sailors I am able to buy beautiful boat. In honour of sailors, I call boat Empire Mary.’
‘And what happened to your woman?’Norwood asked with studied politeness. ‘The Hindu. What did she get out of it all?’
‘Oh her sahib. Very maggoty end to story. She get dose of old clap. Caught a box of jolly bad badgers. I boot her out hop-skippedy.’
That night, as the moon started to sink towards the sea in a fierce yellow orb, the winds began to freshen from the southwest and the tips of the dark waves heightened and streamed luminescent foam. Rashiv became agitated, despite the calming effect of the dagga he had smoked, and began gibbering to himself in a language Norwood could not understand. The wind moaned and shrieked around them and the bows of the boat were burying themselves into the troughs of the waves.
‘We must get to shore,’ Norwood shouted to make himself heard. ‘We’ll never be able to ride out a storm if it’s brewing.’
‘We cannot sahib,’ Rashiv replied, also shouting. ‘Too many reefs inshore of here. If we try to get through at night, we will crash-wallop onto one of them, and then we shall both be dead.’
Norwood thought about that. He did not like the way Rashiv had said, ‘we shall both be dead,’ somehow inferring that one of them was going to be dead anyway. Was it just his imagination, or had that sinister inflection been there? He decided not to take any chances.
‘I’m going to stay in the boiler room tonight,’ he called, and before Rashiv could answer he jumped for the ladder and scrambled below to the warmth where he stoked up the boiler and settled himself into a corner, fighting off the drowsiness that threatened to claim his consciousness.
It was a long night, perhaps one of the longest he had ever endured, and although he was not aware of it, the rising storm saved his life that night. Rashiv was too busy at the tiller to leave it for his murderous intent. As the hours wore on so the storm increased in its intensity and Norwood began earnestly to fear for their lives. The Empire Mary was tossing and cavorting through the seas, its switchback ride twisting the boat and flinging it into the onrush of waves. Water foamed over its decking, sweeping away the filthy debris that was a part of Rashiv’s normal existence. The diminutive Indian clung frantically to the tiller, trying to keep the boat’s bows facing the oncoming sea, and there must have been some kind of seamanship there, somewhere deep within him, for he succeeded. As the dawn broke—a watery thin dawn with scudding grey cloud and an approaching bank of rain—the boat was still bobbing about like a cork on the surface of the boiling sea.
For Rashiv, it had been a night of hell. Never again would he be foolish enough to venture out onto the open seas in the Empire Mary. Not for any foolish Englishman with plenty of money, not for all the money in the Bank of bloody England, not for all the bloody tea in India. Today, this was the day. He would kill the Englishman and run inshore, hide somewhere for a week or two, up some quiet estuary surrounded by mangroves where no one would see him, and then, after a decent period, he would return rich to Dar es Salaam.
The gun ... the gun! Frantically he pulled the canvas from the blunderbuss and checked the load. He spat disgustedly when he discovered that the primer was soaked. Carefully he extracted the waterproof tinderbox with its wads and grainy packages of black gunpowder and somewhat inexpertly extracted the load, wiping away the last traces of dampness before reloading the ancient piece. Satisfied, he wrapped the weapon in canvas and sat on it.
The sun broke through pale clouds and shone listlessly on the steel grey sea as Norwood cautiously poked his head from the boiler room hatch. His eyes were glowing red from weariness.
‘We are running inshore sahib,’Rashiv called from the tiller. ‘We shall be getting ashore before the real storm comes I am thinking.’
‘I am also thinking it,’ Norwood said quietly under his breath, then added more loudly: ‘Perhaps we should turn back. We could be in Dar es Salaam in a day or two.’
‘You are a very clever man,’ Rashiv said, taking the bundle from beneath his posterior. ‘And I agree it is time we turn back.’ He quickly unrolled the canvas package and lifted the ugly trumpet mouth of the blunderbuss. ‘But I am thinking it would be a shame to take you with me when you have all those rupees in pocket.’ He smiled mirthlessly and the ugly toothless hole of his mouth was somehow sickening.
Norwood was shaken but not surprised.‘So I was right,’ he said, and was almost startled to find that his voice was even and clear and showed no trace of the emotions racing wildly within him.
‘You will please take nice fat wallet from pocket before walking to rail and jumping overboard,’ Rashiv said.
‘You must be bloody joking,’ Norwood replied hotly, but he noticed that his knees were beginning to shake and there was now a tiny quaver in his voice. The trumpet of the gun was held unwaveringly on his stomach and he could only imagine what damage the massive blast from such a weapon would do. He would quite literally be torn in half. Better to risk his chances in the waves.
~~~~
They came from deep underwater, seven of them in a cold hungry pack. They had scented the trailing bait for hours, but the turbulence and wild gyrations of the boat had kept them at bay. Now they came with the dawn, like dark darts of death, the tiny ridges of tissue along their gills sensing the rich scent of blood and decomposing flesh.
In the darkness of the sea they themselves were almost invisible, only the strong thrust of their sleek bodies gave them away, the water swirling with each powerful stroke. Their eyes were cold and they swam with the serrated rows of their teeth edged and jutting forward like needles of ivory in the darkness ready to rip and tear, to gulp and swallow. Their hunger was an angry thing lying deeply within them, but they knew they would soon feed, for those bloodied chunks of flesh trailing behind the Empire Mary were calling to them irresistibly.
~~~~
On board the Empire Mary the two men were poised like statues. Norwood gulped, for his mouth was suddenly bone dry.
‘The wallet sahib,’ Rashiv said again, the trumpet muzzle wavered a little as he spoke.
Norwood reached gingerly into the back pocket of his now rather stained and crumpled cricket trousers, extracting the leather wallet.
‘Put on deck sahib, if you please.’
Norwood moved closer, holding the wallet before him like a sacred offering. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take it. It’s not worth a man’s life though. We can turn back to Dar es Salaam. You can have the money. I’ll say nothing of this.’
‘Not very clever sahib,’ Rashiv grinned. ‘You must think I am silly damned fugger with no brains. I myself am most untrustworthy gentleman, and so I also never trust anyone. If we return to Dar you will surely turn me in, and then what? Quite early one bright morning the little wallopers of policemen take me to bloody gallows and
string me up like mouldy piece of pork in market square. Oh no sahib, sorry and all that, but over side you must go.’
‘Look,’ Norwood said desperately. ‘Let’s talk about this. You have my word as ... as a gentleman and a member of the British Empire ... .’
‘Sorry sahib,’ Rashiv stated with some finality, indicating again with the blunderbuss. ‘Put rupees on deck and over you go. Nice swim for you. Very cool today. You like.’
‘Listen to me,’ Norwood shouted with anguished frustration, ‘you have my word. I’ll say nothing of this. Dammit, you can’t do this to me you murderous little wretch.’
Rashiv’s dark eyes clouded with sudden hatred. ‘Murderous little wretch eh sahib. We black fellows all same to you high and mighty English wallahs. We just bags of Indian shit.’ He moved closer, the vehemence of his passion making him careless. ‘Well now is time for toffee-nosed smelly camel farts like you to take what is deserving.’ He was within a few feet of Norwood, his finger white on the trigger. ‘I tell you something Mr. Sack of English Horse Dung. I not let you go over side just as you are, I send you over with belly full of scrap-iron. You will like that, most interesting for you.’
Norwood realised that he was about to die, and filled with a sudden fear and desperation he lunged forward. Rashiv pulled the trigger of the blunderbuss but nothing happened. He looked down incredulously as Norwood closed with him and his heart leapt when he realised he had forgotten to cock the weapon. Norwood smashed a blow at the little Indian’s head and Rashiv went sprawling into the scuppers, blood flowing freely from his broken nose, the gun clattering to the deck. He screamed, ‘English shit. Bloody English garbage. I kill you.’
Norwood closed with him again but the nimble Indian darted away, moving to the starboard side of the boat. Norwood followed, the blunderbuss rolling forgotten on the deck. With great agility, Norwood’s opponent scrambled upright and ran forward. He was desperately searching for a weapon; the blunderbuss was behind Norwood now and completely out of reach. He picked up a short wooden spar, turning to face his attacker. But Norwood’s anger had been unleashed, it was an anger slow to awaken, but once its bright flame had been ignited it was difficult to extinguish.
Waves were still breaking over the bows, the white foam washing over the decks making them slippery and treacherous as the Empire Mary lunged and wallowed. Norwood ignored the timber spar and moved in with clenched fists. Rashiv swung the spar and it struck Norwood a smashing blow on his upraised arm. He cried out with the sudden pain of it, fearing for a moment that the arm had been broken, but as Rashiv swung the spar back for another blow, Norwood moved in and kicked with all his strength into the Indian’s groin.
Rashiv uttered a scream of such incredible agony that Norwood thought for a moment he had killed his opponent. The Indian fell to the deck, curling into a bundle, his small brown hands tightly clenching his genitals.
‘English bastard, oh English bastard,’ he shouted weakly, but the fight had clearly gone from him. Norwood moved closer, quite amazed at the sudden effectiveness of his blow.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked quickly, but Rashiv only looked at him with hate-filled eyes set into an obscenely pellagrous face.
‘English bastard,’ he swore again, groaning.
‘I’ll get some water,’ Norwood replied, walking aft to the tiller flat where Rashiv kept a goatskin.
Rashiv’s eyes were yellow-tinged with agony and hatred as he began to crawl forward. From where he lay he could see the blunderbuss lying forgotten in the port scupper. Inch by agonised inch, trying to ignore the bright burning pain in his testicles, he crawled forward, hidden from Norwood’s view by the mass of the boiler-room superstructure and the coaming of the vessel’s small hold. His hands were outstretched, feeling for the weapon, then his fingers touched the walnut stock, its wood burnished with use and cracked through age. Rashiv’s slim fingers grasped it and he pulled the weapon towards him. Using it as a crutch, he levered himself painfully upright, the breath and his agony rasping in his throat. He looked cunningly around the lee of the boiler room, and, ah yes, the stupid Englishman was still bent over the goatskin. Carefully, very carefully indeed, Rashiv cocked the blunderbuss with his thumb, the hammer coming back with a metallic snick. He leaned against the boat’s superstructure, skinny legs and knees bent with the effort, raised his weapon and waited.
Moments later, Norwood returned with a pannikin filled with water and was again confronted with that wavering trumpet’s mouth of death.
Surprised, he dropped the pannikin and it clattered to the deck. ‘Christ, don’t you ever give up?’ Norwood protested. In answer, Rashiv spat at his opponent; a thick wad of yellow phlegm sprayed over Norwood’s tennis shoes. ‘You one very stupid English fugger,’ he said, and pulled the trigger.
The blast was a roar like an express train as it enters a tunnel. The snap of the hammer and flash of the pan was followed almost immediately by the billowing explosion of white smoke that erupted from the trumpet’s mouth. The ancient rusty barrel cracked open like a melon split with a machete, discharging none of its deadly load, the force of the recoil sending Rashiv staggering backwards, pain and alarm etched upon his face. His skinny brown legs crashed into the boat’s coaming and he fell backwards with a high-pitched scream. Then he was gone, arms and legs splashing into the rolling waves as the current whipped him away from the boat’s side.
Rashiv gave a long thin cry as Norwood dashed to the gunnels, but he was already too late. Within moments Rashiv had been swept twenty-five yards from the side of the Empire Mary and the distance was increasing every second. Norwood cast around for a rope, knowing that it was hopeless. He even considered jumping over the side himself but immediately discarded the idea. With no lifeline both would be swept instantly to their deaths in the roaring seas.
And then the decision was taken from Norwood. The first of the sharks came from the depths, attracted by the splashes and the sounds of an animal in distress. Rashiv knew instinctively that he was doomed. He remembered in that fraction of a second that he had left the shark lures in the water, and the horror of the first bite that severed one of his legs and took most of his lower groin was sure testimony to his foolishness. He cried, just once, and then the pack was upon him, tearing, pulling him down with their serrated rows of forward-pointing teeth. Within moments, Rashiv the Indian, proud owner of the Empire Mary, pimp, scavenger, peddler, and murderer, simply ceased to exist.
~~~~
The wagons of ivory were rolling down to the coast. With the knowledge that war was almost certainly to be declared within months, or perhaps even weeks, the administration of German East Africa was using its native Askari troops to kill the large herds of elephant and transport as much ivory to the coast as possible. The German high commissioner in Dar es Salaam knew with clear insight that once war was declared the British Royal Navy would effectively seal the coastline of the German colony thus preventing any imports or exports. For the good of the Fatherland it was vital that as much of the country’s natural resources, particularly those that could easily and rapidly be moved to the coast, should be exported before the blockades were put into effect.
For almost a month the mass slaughter of the elephant herds had been taking place. Whole generations of the magnificent animals were being butchered from the tip of Lake Victoria at Mwanza, south through the rolling mountains and dry veldt of the Masai Steppe, even down to the tip of Lake Melawi in the massively serrated pinnacles of the Livingstone Mountains.
In addition to the ivory the Germans were moving vast amounts of other precious items including gold and diamonds. The diamonds were being taken from the small but incredibly rich mines in the west, beyond the wilderness of the Serengeti, and especially from the rich deposits of industrial diamonds at Lake Manyara.
Day after day the wagons rolled eastwards, sixteen or twenty oxen to each wagon with Askari troops acting as guards. On the wharves of Tanga and Dar es Salaam, the contents of these wagons were loaded onto German freighters for the journey to the Fatherland. Each day millions of rupees worth of raw precious materials were stolen from Africa. It was a rape of unprecedented proportions.
~~~~
Carrick MacDonald lay in the tangled undergrowth and listened to the sounds of Africa. But the sounds were few. Before him the arid bone-dry vlei was quiet and secluded, broken only by the spread of baobab and fever trees and tufts of elephant grass, its long razor shards waving listlessly in the hot morning breeze. This was the silent, patient period of the hunt, the unimaginable stillness of sitting quietly, watching, waiting for movement in the sun-shimmering bush.
But today, the hunters were not waiting for the slow lumbering gait of elephant or the slinking feline stench of wildcat. They were hunting men and the rich prize those men would be carrying with them.
Carrick MacDonald knew the movements of every wagon as they traced their way eastwards to the coast. His network of Masai agents reported to him almost daily. ‘Two wagons from Mkomazi, Lord, with fifteen tusks each. One wagon from Kisiwani, ten more tusks, and another, from farther west near Makanya, three wagons, Lord, almost sixty tusks.’
It was proving to be a lucrative business indeed. Aye, more lucrative than toiling for a living growing wee little coffee beans, despite what his daughter, Corra, had said about hunting elephant and the morality of it all—hunting elephant—well it was a good excuse anyway, and what she didna’ know wouldna’ harm her. Ah the wee cub. She knew only the half of it!
There were more than forty natives hiding in the low depression near MacDonald, yet each man was so carefully concealed that MacDonald himself, who knew exactly where they were located, could not actually see any of his men. The Kikuyu porters and mess-boys had been left behind at the camp with Corra, ten miles to the north. The men here were the best MacDonald had ever worked with. Masai trackers, the el moran, proud and fearless fighters with their shukas, flowing cotton shifts the colour of ochre and hair tightly lacquered with mud. There were nomadic Somali gun-bearers and skinners, armed now with a vile assortment of machetes, knives, clubs, and even rifles. MacDonald himself was armed with a .350 double-barrel Express elephant gun. Strapped into a stout leather harness on his back was the massive and ungainly claidheamhmor, the Highland Claymore or Great Sword, fully five feet in length, double-edged and sharper than Damascus steel.
They had been in position since two hours before dawn, and now the sun was rising like a flat golden disc into a powder-blue sky. Before them the land stretched into infinity, the heat haze shimmering and distorting so that even the trees and low scrub seemed to move and whisper to them. A bush cuckoo called, its cry rising and falling in the wooded distance. MacDonald could see, more than a mile to the north, a few elephant standing beneath the gold and black spread of fever trees. The animals were brick-red, dust-covered, and almost immobile in the dappled shade, their trunks flicking lazily in the stupefying heat. Africa lay before MacDonald like a painter’s canvas, a chiaroscuro of light and shade blending into a polychromatic embroidery of mauve shadows.
The minutes passed into hours as the sun drew higher.
Silence.
Noon came and passed. MacDonald cursed silently to himself. Where were they? Bluidy heathens. Always late!
~~~~
Norwood was in great peril. The ungainly Empire Mary was slewing and pitching through the angry seas like a tart at a carnival. Beneath his feet the small steam engine thumped and cavorted. Spray continued to crash onto the ancient decking. Norwood knew nothing of boats. His only experiences of boating had been during his rowing days at Eton and the almost de rigueur hours of punting at Oxford, and such experiences hardly qualified him to guide an ungainly old bitch like the Empire Mary through some of the most dangerous and complex reefs in the world.
After Rashiv had disappeared for the last time beneath the Indian Ocean’s waves, Norwood had stood transfixed and stunned for several minutes. The suddenness of the shark attack, its unbelievable brutality and effectiveness had been awesome. Finally, he turned, realising that he was in desperate trouble. The tiller was still tied and the boat was heading roughly northwards. Norwood searched for a map or compass but there was none. Rashiv had not needed such navigational aids in Dar es Salaam harbour.
By now, the frail Empire Mary was plunging through the Zanzibar Channel, its Herculean little engine spluttering and kicking the boat ever northwards. Norwood decided finally that he had three choices. He could
keep going and hope for the best, perhaps even reaching Mombasa. He could turn the boat to port and try to find somewhere to land, or he could turn around and head back to Dar es Salaam. Of these he thought an immediate landing would be his best course of action. He untied the tiller and attempted to bring the boat around on a course that would take him to the green-fringed shore he could see about six miles distant. However, as soon as the little boat’s course was changed she began to roll alarmingly in the cross-seas as the waves smashed against its starboard side. Norwood was immediately drenched as the boat lurched to port, threatening to capsize. Instinctively he threw his weight against the tiller bringing the bows back onto their northerly course. The boat quickly settled back to its roll and tip motion, which in these heavy seas, was still frightening but not quite so dangerous. For several minutes Norwood pondered his plight. In the heavy Indian Ocean swell, turning to either port or starboard was quite out of the question. He could only keep his bows to the wind and hope he did not hit one of the reefs.
For the following few hours Norwood remained doggedly at the tiller, only leaving it briefly to go below to stoke the old boiler. By midday he was ravenous. He rummaged around in Rashiv’s locker, finding a small bag of uncooked rice and some stale dried fish. He lit a fire and cooked himself a meal, washing it down with water from the goatskin bag.
By early evening, as the sun began to lower in the sky, Norwood was beginning to feel confident that he would come through unscathed. ‘After all,’ he told himself, ‘if a little Indian idiot can handle a boat like this, why can’t I?’
And then, without warning, the engine beneath his feet gave a long, drawn out sigh, more a wheeze really, thumped loudly for several heart-stopping moments, grunted once, and died.
Norwood Tynbridge-Pierson was suddenly alone on a wild sea in a dead boat, the oily darkness of night quickly closing in.
~~~~
They came finally near sundown. Carrick MacDonald counted them carefully and his information had been correct, as usual. There were six wagons each stacked with raw green ivory. The Askari were on foot, walking beside the wagons, Mauser rifles slung unsuspectingly over their shoulders. There were team drivers, several mule boys, half a dozen skinners and a small wagon which looked to be a field-cooking unit.
The waiting was finally over.
The small cortège was just twenty feet from MacDonald when the Scot rose from his place of concealment. For the native troopers such an apparition was beyond comparison, something bordering closely on sorcery. Here was a demon of such terror that none could stand in its way.
MacDonald was dressed in fine Highland style. He was a tower of a man, standing six feet six inches with wide shoulders and two stout legs—legs like the knotted trunks of a marula tree. He was dressed in the Breacan an f’heile, the belted plaid. His coat was of lachdan, the natural colour of fleece, and the tartan kilt was predominantly red and green. The hose, complete with razor sharp dirks, were of matching tartan, and his brogs were cut from deerskin with the hairy side worn outwards. Across his chest was a wide leather belt, and his bonnet, now somewhat cracked with age and sweat-stained, still held the proud feathers of South
Morar.
‘Have y’ never seen the dress of the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald?’ he roared at the Askari, ‘Aaaargh yer black heathens, ‘tis the master o’ the glens come for your souls.’ And he charged with a wild cry that sent frenzied terror racing through the Askari troops as they scattered in disarray.
From their places of concealment MacDonald’s men leapt into the fray, wielding their weapons with ease, cracking heads, smashing terrified faces. MacDonald raised the huge elephant gun to his shoulder, its muzzle wavering wildly at the melee before him. Then the gun boomed, billowing smoke. The shot sailed harmlessly over the heads of the Askari and MacDonald staggered backwards, almost falling under the force of the recoil. He tossed aside the weapon and quickly pulled the claidheamhmor from its leather back-harness. With the weapon clutched tightly in his hand and with a banshee roar of pure delight, he again charged. The remaining Askari dropped their rifles without firing a shot and scattered, running for their very lives. Within moments it was over. The wagons and oxen stood alone in the gathering purple gloom of a sultry African evening.
‘Hurry up me laddies,’ MacDonald called to the Masai and Somali warriors. ‘We’ll be away from here afore that bastard in Mboto can send a patrol. Ismail… Ismail.’
‘Lord MacDonald,’ Ismail shouted. He was a small, turbaned Somali with dark eyes and a wide grin on his coal-black face. ‘I hear you Lord. I come.’
‘Get this lot going laddie,’MacDonald shouted. ‘Give them the orders. We can’t wait around all day. There’ll be Askari patrols here before dawn.’
‘Yes Lord,’ Ismail said and ran off shouting orders in Swahili. Within fifteen minutes the wagons were heading northeast towards the coast where another wagon of tusks was reported to be wending its way southwards.
~~~~
The night was totally black as the incapacitated Empire Mary was plucked and tossed at the mercy of the savage waves. Norwood, who knew even less about engines than he did about navigation, could only cling to the tiller in despair, hoping ... no praying ... that something, anything, would soon come and save him from this awful nightmare.
The Empire Mary was dead in the sea as the fury of the wind rose and shrieked all around. Norwood tried to steer as close as he could to the wind, endeavouring to get the boat inshore if possible, but in the darkness and with no steerageway, the task was all but hopeless.
The hours passed in a mindless frenzy. Norwood had no idea of the time. The moon and stars were hidden by thick banks of dark cloud and during the early hours of the morning it began to rain heavily, thick curtains of water washing over the little boat.
Norwood had a vague idea that his end might be close. He did not fear death, although the repulsive thought of being taken by sharks was abhorrent to him; the vision of Rashiv’s recent demise was still fresh in his mind. No, if he had to die, then he would face death with all the courage and gentlemanly conduct he could muster. He decided that he should pray, but was surprised to find that the prayers he had been taught during childhood had suddenly evaporated from his mind. He was about to begin composing his own prayer when the Empire Mary gave a mighty lurch which catapulted him forward from the tiller bench and sent him sprawling on deck. Norwood shook his head and began to get to his feet, vaguely wondering what on earth could have happened. Then the boat struck again, a smashing splintering crash of broken timbers and a screech of rending metal.
Suddenly, Norwood realised that the boat was aground, that it had hit something solid, like a reef perhaps, and he ran forward to the bows.
In the darkness it was difficult to see what was happening. From beneath his feet it sounded as though the bottom of the shallow vessel was grinding on rocks, the timbers tearing and breaking apart. Norwood rushed below to the boiler room and was horrified to see that the hull was splintered and seawater was rushing in at an alarming rate.
He quickly grabbed some rope and several of Rashiv’s fishing nets, tying the nets together in a tight bundle. As the water reached the coaming of the boiler room and the bows of the boat dipped into the waves, he ran aft, took the goatskin bag, threw it over his shoulder and with the bundle of nets under his arm, launched himself into the raging sea.
The water crashed over his head and he sank, despite the buoyancy of the nets. He spluttered to the surface coughing seawater. With the nets held before him he kicked away from the side of the doomed Empire Mary.
When he turned to look back, less than sixty seconds later, the old river barge had gone, slipping quietly to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
Norwood kicked again, striking out determinedly. He had no idea in which direction he was heading, whether it was west, towards the African coast, or east, into the endless ocean wastes where only exhaustion, thirst, and death awaited him.
However, within half an hour he felt the change in water temperature, the deep cold of the ocean was giving way to warmer layers. Soon afterwards came the sounds of waves breaking on a beach. Encouraged, he kicked more furiously until, without warning, his knees ground against a sandy bottom. He staggered forward still dragging the nets until he found himself knee-deep on a dark sandy cove with luminescent waves breaking on the shore.
Exhausted beyond belief he stumbled higher onto the beach and sat down beneath a cluster of dark fig-palms. He closed his eyes in thanks and relief and within moments drifted into a deep and troubled sleep.
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Chapter One - The Empire Mary
The sun was a bright ball in the copper-hot sky as the S.S. Kidwelly lurched and plunged through the blue swell of the Indian Ocean. She was an old tramp, built twenty years previously on the River Clyde, and slowly pounded into the promise of an early grave by the force of the terrible seas that often roared along the east coast of the African continent. Her ancient steam boiler and reciprocating engines thumped, whined, roared, leaked, squeaked, and rattled as they drove the rust-streaked ship slowly northwards. A sound vessel once, Norwood Tynbridge-Pierson reflectedmoodily as he stood at the vessel’s stern rail, but no longer. She was now an old witch of the sea, painted in the drab black of a coastal steamer with a tired, off-white band around her skinny funnel, the paint faded to the colour of sour cream.
Norwood turned from the rather depressing scene to watch the wake of the ship as it trailed away into the distance with raucous seagulls flapping and sailing effortlessly in the sea wind. So far the voyage had been a complete disaster. The captain was an imbecile. Surely a ship of this size could go just a little faster. It would take months to reach Mombasa. Norwood had remonstrated, had pleaded the urgency of his case, but the Portuguese captain, a small, rather oily individual named Manuel Baixa, remained adamant. The ship could go no faster. ‘Imposto!’ he had exploded angrily.
Damn the man!
It was a rare occurrence to witness Norwood Tynbridge-Pierson, late of Oxford University, in such a hurry to get anywhere. After graduating he had toyed with the idea of taking up the offer of a junior tutoring position, but his need to travel, to see and experience the sounds and smells of foreign lands had been an almost irresistible urge within him.
Three months after graduating, with his father’s blessing (and money), he had sailed aboard a luxurious passenger ship the S.S. Dongolly for Capetown where he had hoped to remain for at least six months enjoying the convivial colonial hospitality famous at the Cape. All that had suddenly changed, however, completely and quite without warning.
The cable had come to his hotel two days after his arrival at the South African colony.
June 29th, 1914.
Urgent you proceed at once
to Mombasa and Nairobi. Gauge present reactions of community to possibility of war with Germany. Require information concerning availability of local militia forces in event of attack from German East Africa. Also require report on spate of incidents along border between German East Africa and the British colony.
German authorities are claiming that raids are taking place against their nationals and property. You are to request a full report from the British Governor in Nairobi. Consider this cable as your notice of commencement
of temporary employment with the British Diplomatic Service.
The cable was signed by his father, Sir Winfred James Tynbridge-Pierson, minister for war.
Norwood was bemused by the contents of the cable and its pointed instructions.
Gauge the reaction to war. How?
Spate of incidents! What bloody incidents? It all seemed so thoroughly irksome and tedious. Surely the Ministry had people on its staff who could look after such things! Norwood shrugged his shoulders resignedly. If only his father had not added that final little sentence at the end of the cable.
Consider this cable an official order from the British government, and report back with utmost URGENCY.
Damn!
Norwood sat on a steel bollard amid coils of sun-bleached rope, his head resting disconsolately in his hands. To port, more than five miles distant, he could see the low shoreline of the African coast — green-fringed beaches and mangrove swamps, home of the ibis, crocodile, and water buffalo. Closer still, two Arab dhows were sailing slowly southwards, probably heading from Dar es Salaam to the port of Beira in the Mozambique
Channel, their lateen sails filled, and with white foam cresting against their bows. A school of dolphins raced playfully ahead of them and the dark darts of flying fish could be seen skimming over the tops of the waves.
Three more weeks! At least three weeks Baixa had said, before landing at Mombasa. Far too long Norwood thought to himself. Anything could happen in that time, particularly with the political situation in Europe supposedly worsening every day. He lit a cheroot and let a long plume of smoke escape from his lips. He would have to be patient. Father would simply have to understand. The Kidwellywas ancient and certainly due for the scrap-yard, but she was the only ship sailing from Capetown to Mombasa for several weeks. There was no other way.
Even as he pondered, Norwood heard the sharp crack of an explosion from beneath his feet, followed by a low rumbling roar. Slowly the regular thump-thud-thump of the engines died away to silence as the ship lost
headway.
Norwood jumped to his feet, throwing his cheroot over the side. He raced to the bridge ladder and climbed quickly to the bridge wings. Captain Baixa was shouting into the engine-room speaking tube. ‘Bastardo ... bastardo ... ’ followed by a string of expletives in his mother language that Norwood could never hope to comprehend.
‘Captain,’ Norwood interrupted, his voice filled with extended and long-suffering exasperation. ‘Could I have
another word with you?’
Baixa turned from the speaking tube, his sun-yellowed face suffused with indignation. ‘Meester Tynbridge-Peerson,’ he struggled with the awkward title. ‘This ess no time to trouble me.’ He raised his hands in supplication. ‘Cannot you see we haf the trouble. The engine, she go broke.’
‘I understand that,’ Norwood said,‘it’s rather obvious. But I was just wondering what’s ... ?’
‘Mae de Jesu,’ Baixa raised his eyes towards heaven and almost screamed: ‘Pleese get off my bridge Meester Tynbridge-Peerson. You haf caused my ulcer to burn again. I haf answered enough of your blutty questions. Cannot you understand? The sheep ess broke. We haf to fix. When we go, I tell you. Until then, leave me alone!’ He turned suddenly, ignoring Norwood’s immediate protest, and began to scream once more into the speaking tube. Norwood turned away in disgust. He could not seek the solace and companionship of other passengers. The old Kidwelly was a cargo vessel and Norwood was the only passenger aboard.
He walked to his cabin, a small steel hot-box on the port side of the ship’s superstructure, and stripped off his shirt. The heat was almost unbearable and perspiration ran from his body in tiny rivulets. He summoned the Goanese steward and ordered a bowl of cold water with ice. When it came finally he closed the cabin door, stripped naked, and sponged his body carefully.
Later, as the afternoon wore slowly on, Norwood lay on his bunk, the slight sea breeze drifting through the cabin door, the deck-head fan turning lazily above his head.
At 4 p.m. the steward brought a bottle of Portuguese wine with ice and a chipped glass, and when Norwood asked him about the engines the steward replied: ‘Captain said to tell you we haf deep trouble. We haf to call into Dar es Salaam for repairs.’
‘How long will it take?’
The steward shrugged. ‘We not know. Engineer says perhaps two or three weeks in dock. Engine she buggered up good. Just get it going enough to ... ’ow you say…limp into port.’
'Damn!’ Norwood expostulated. ‘Can’t they do better than that? I have to get to Mombasa urgently. I’ve explained all this to that bloody captain of yours.’
‘Captain not give monkey’s balls,’the steward replied indifferently. ‘Has woman in Dar with big teta,’ he demonstrated with his hands. ‘Muito grande, you understand? Captain not care how long we stay in Dar. All good time for him.’ He turned and was suddenly gone.
Norwood moodily lit a cheroot and poured a glass of the fine Portuguese wine. The heat hung about him like a drape, sucking the moisture from his body. He brushed away fresh perspiration from his face and cursed profoundly before throwing himself onto the clammy sheets of his narrow bunk.
That evening he spoke again with Captain Baixa. The engine could be repaired, Baixa brusquely confirmed, just sufficiently to get them to Dar es Salaam, but no farther. There was extensive damage to the condensers; the boiler water had become impregnated with seawater, which in turn had eventually caused corrosion of some vital engine parts. They would have to be replaced, and replacements would have to come by sea all the way from Capetown. It would take at least three weeks, perhaps longer.
‘Are there any ships leaving Dar es Salaam for Mombasa?’ Norwood had asked.
‘Not many,’ Baixa replied with evident irritation. ‘Some dhows, perhaps, but that was all.’
For the following two days they limped steadily northwards, the tramp steamer hardly making headway. When finally they sighted the ancient African port, Norwood was in a ferment of impatience. He left the ship the following day and found a room in a cheap hotel near the bustling waterfront. Here, gulls wheeled above the fishing boats and ancient dhows groaned and squeaked at the jetties. Small children with hungry eyes and skinny arms pleaded for coins. Beggars with missing limbs stared sullenly as Norwood passed by. Gaudily dressed prostitutes with flashing eyes and golden bangles laughed and shouted at him from the balconies of the brothels while slit-eyed pickpockets followed him stealthily and Arab traders with hawk-like faces called to him excitedly, holding trinkets and wooden carvings above their heads.
From here, Norwood began to make enquiries about the possibility of passage aboard any kind of vessel to Mombasa. He walked the length of the quays asking sullen Arab sailors in off-white shirts and calico breeches if they knew of any sailings. Some offered guarded advice; others simply shook their heads. Few vessels were
sailing into the waters between Dar and Mombasa because of the activity of British warships. The warships were reportedly stopping and searching all other vessels and demanding information about the possible location of the German battleship Konisberg that was in the area ready to support the German East African colony should war be declared. Nobody trusted the British. They had a reputation for sinking unarmed Arab dhows caught smuggling goods into British East Africa.
Norwood was desperate. He would take anything being offered. He asked many of the wharf sailors and fishermen to pass the word, and finally, after two days, a message came to his lodgings that there was a man who, for a price, would be willing to help. An Indian boatman named Rashiv.
Rashiv earned his living in Dar es Salaam in a number of nefarious ways. In his small riverboat he plied the harbour selling oranges, dates, coconuts, cheap wristwatches, pornographic photographs and bottles of a noisome and unbelievably noxious elixir which he claimed with great enthusiasm, having personally tried the remedy, to be the one and only cure for every sexually transmitted disease ever known to man. His other business enterprises included picking pockets at the markets and pimping for the many brothels that abounded in the streets and back alleys of the city.
Of course, Norwood was not to know of Rashiv’s rather insalubrious business occupations; when the message came he saw it as a God-given opportunity to escape the nightmare of this damnably hot city of dust, heat, maggots and stinking piles of rubbish, and to get farther north where he could accomplish the mission set for him.
The following morning Norwood dressed quickly: white cricket flannels, tennis shoes and an
open-necked cricket shirt. He caught a rickshaw to the wharf and was directed to Rashiv’s boat at the far end of a dilapidated wooden jetty.
‘Welcome, welcome sahib,’ Rashiv called as Norwood approached. ‘You are the Englishman I have been
hearing about yes?’
Norwood looked down to the deck of the small, untidy vessel and fervently hoped that this was not the boat that was to take him to Mombasa.
‘Welcome to the humble home of Rashiv and our boat the Empire Mary,’ Rashiv called. He was a small man, not more than five feet three inches, with dirty, coal-black tangled hair and a slim chocolate-coloured body. He was dressed in a pair of outrageously oversized pantaloons raggedly cut off at the knees. Around his skinny waist was a colourful chuddar shawl twisted into a belt.
‘You are wanting to come aboard and go to Mombasa?’ Rashiv called. ‘I know the way quite well, quite well indeed. I was there once.’
Norwood climbed down the jetty steps and stood level with the boat. It was a small river barge with an ugly thin funnel from which a smudge of dark smoke drifted. The decks were littered with debris: old ropes, nets, dried fish scales, baskets of fruit, a tattered sail, tin buckets, fishing lines, a withered shark’s fin, some tools, a
pile of stacked cordwood, and some verminous cushions on which Rashiv evidently slept.
‘I’m looking for a boat to take me to Mombasa,’ Norwood said without conviction. ‘I received your message that you might know of someone who owns such a boat.’
‘It is me!’ Rashiv jumped forward and grinned revealing a malodorous mouth totally devoid of teeth. ‘I will take you sahib.’
‘In this?’ Norwood looked around incredulously.
‘Of course sahib. This plenty fine boat. Can do anything in Empire Mary. Take you to Mombasa hop-skippedy. Plenty fast.’
‘But it’s just a bloody river barge,’Norwood protested. ‘It will never make it through the open sea.’
Rashiv looked offended. ‘You speaking cow dung sahib, with respect. Old Empire Mary been to sea before you know. We go many times fishing. She good ship.’
Norwood remained unconvinced and scratched his head. ‘Well, how much?’ he asked finally. ‘How much to take me to Mombasa?’
A look of pure cunning washed over Rashiv’s features. ‘One thousand five hundred rupees,’ he replied, thinking of the highest figure he could possibly imagine in the entire universe.
Norwood inclined his head thoughtfully and looked around the wharves. There were no other vessels in the harbour, a dhow luffed its sail and came into a berth, its motor shuddering.
‘Very well,’ Norwood finally agreed,‘if you’re sure we can get there in this thing. When can we leave? It’s most urgent. I must get to Mombasa as soon as possible.’
‘Leave it to me sahib. I get food and stores. We leave tomorrow, when sparrow farts.’
Norwood was crestfallen. ‘Can’t we leave today? It’s extremely important.’
‘Sorry sahib,’ Rashiv responded, thinking of the lovely young girl in Al Jutto’s brothel with whom, having taken a down payment from this foolish Englishman, he would now spend the night.‘This not possible. There much to do before we leave. Much preparations and all that. You give me seven hundred and fifty rupees now, and rest when we get to Mombasa.’
Norwood shrugged, taking his wallet from his trousers. ‘Very well,’ he said, peeling off the notes and handing them to Rashiv. ‘But we must leave early in the morning, very early. I have to be in Mombasa within days.’
‘You not to worry sahib,’ Rashiv grinned, counting the notes, ‘old Empire Mary get you there pretty damn quick.’
Chapter 2 — The Wreckage of Norwood
Commissioner Felix von Schrober was a happy man, well…relatively happy, as all things are relative here in this God-awful country, he mused as he toyed with the mounting lists of figures before him.
Business had been good lately. Ivory was coming in from all over the colony: ten tusks from the Korowga region just yesterday; twenty last week, making a total of almost one hundred for the month. Excellent! He leaned forward and poured himself a congratulatory glass of schnapps, drinking the clear liquid in one gulp. Of course, it would have been more, had it not been for these irritating raids from across the border. Even now, three weeks after the raids had started, he had no idea who was responsible. There were only unconfirmed reports, mainly from his own Askari troops, that a white man, a strange, almost inhuman devil-man, the natives had called him, was leading a band of Somalis and a few Masai, attacking the ivory wagons and making quickly off into the bush. Tracking them was pointless; the Masai were experts at covering their tracks and the bush was so dense, so impenetrable in the region that it simply swallowed up these accursed bandits before they could be found.
Von Schrober inserted a finger into the collar of his tunic and pulled it away from his damp neck. He would get them, eventually. They would make the mistake of thinking the Askari teams were too lightly defended, that the ivory was easy pickings, and then the time would come, he would pounce. Buko would enjoy that. Buko liked white men, especially when they were the prisoners of the German Empire and therefore open to all kinds of ‘interrogation’ methods. Ah yes, Buko would have a little party in the cells.
But who was this strange white man, and why were the reports of him a wild mixture of fantasy and myth? He came with a banshee wail, some of the Askari had said, a man from the trees, swinging down on them and dressed like some foreign god with flying tails of many colours, and a sword of wrath like none had ever seen before. It made no sense. The Askari were fools, drunken pisspots! Perhaps they should be replaced with more reliable men?
Von Schrober stood and walked to the verandah of his bamboo hut. The air today was oppressively hot and only a slight breeze blew into the military compound at Mboto. The compound consisted of half a dozen bamboo and timber huts constructed as barracks, in the centre of which was a roughly laid out parade ground of beaten ant-bed, stamped to an iron hardness by the boots of the 100 Askari native soldiers billeted at the camp. Before the huts lay the sea, the dark blue of the Indian Ocean, with a wharf where Von Schrober’s steam patrol boat was tied. Behind the camp were the rising Usumbara Mountains, the rolling mass of peaks and dark crevasses like velvet and coloured purple under the hot African sun.
‘Lord, a runner has come from Vanga.’Von Schrober had not heard the Askari corporal approach, and he turned suddenly. ‘Ja ... well, what is it?’ he demanded.
The Askari corporal dropped his eyes.‘There has been another attack on the ivory wagons, Lord. Two men have been killed and twenty tusks taken by the white-witch man. Three men are wounded.’
Von Schrober’s anger was like an instantaneous fuse. He exploded. ‘You useless damned cretins,’ he shouted. ‘I should have known you were incapable of guarding one little wagon of tusks. ’
‘But it was not I, Lord,’ the Askari protested, ‘I have been here. I was not a part of the guard. ’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Von Schrober screamed, spittle spraying from his lips, ‘I’ll hang the man in charge of the patrol. He’ll be court-martialled for this. Twenty more tusks. Have you any idea how much those tusks are worth?’
The Askari soldier tried to back away. ‘I will find out who was in charge so that you might hang him Lord. It is a fitting punishment for one so incapable of command.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Von Schrober fumed, ‘I’ll have his name and he’ll be swinging from the gallows by dawn. And when I catch this ... this so-called ‘white witch’, I’ll also hang him, by his balls. He’ll suffer very slowly before he dies.’
Von Schrober turned and walked quickly to his desk where he poured himself a large schnapps, his hands shaking with the violence of his anger. Twenty tusks! The Arab merchant was paying five hundred rupees a tusk. By God, there would be some accounting made of this!
~~~~
Norwood sensed, almost as soon as theEmpire Mary left the protection of Dar es Salaam harbour, that he had not made the right decision. He contemplated telling Rashiv to turn back, that he would wait for another boat, but he knew in his heart that there were no other boats going north, and that this was his only chance to get to Mombasa quickly.
The Empire Mary rolled and tossed in the open sea like a pregnant whale. Its flat bottom straddled the waves, plunging up over the rolling crests and crashing down on the other side with spine-jarring force.
Rashiv lashed the tiller with rope and spent much of his time below, stoking the boiler and tending the ancient engine. When he was on deck he sharpened several massive hooks, larger than Norwood’s hand, threaded them with bloodied strips of stinking maggot-riddled meat, and trailed them overboard on wire lines.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’Norwood protested. ‘We’re supposed to be going straight to Mombasa, not messing around here bloody fishing.’
‘Shark very good now,’ Rashiv stated stubbornly. ‘Plenty good meat. Plenty fins. Sell to silly Chinese fuggers in Dar. Very profitable. We fish on way.’
‘But what if we catch one?’ Norwood was horrified, ‘I mean they’re bloody big you know, and this is such a small boat. We could be swamped!’
‘Not to worry,’ Rashiv stated without conviction. ‘Rashiv know how to handle those big buggers.’ He took an ancient muzzle-loading blunderbuss from beneath a pile of rotting canvas and grinned wickedly. ‘Big buggers give too much trouble, they get this.’
‘Good God,’ Norwood said. ‘A blunderbuss. They haven’t been used for years. Where did you get it?’
‘Him mighty fine old gun,’ Rashiv stated with finality. ‘Bought him yesterday in bazaar. Two rupees.
Genuine antique but work bloody good.’
Norwood was a little disconcerted at the sight of the weapon. He sat on a coil of rope and looked keenly at Rashiv.‘I don’t think you’re going to need that,’ he said finally. ‘It looks pretty useless anyway. Lets have it overboard.’ He was suddenly aware that he was alone in a vast ocean with a man he hardly knew, and that man was now holding an ancient but probably still lethal weapon.
‘Not to worry,’ Rashiv grinned, but there was no humour in his eyes. He placed the blunderbuss on the deck beside him, silently wishing he had not, on the spur of the moment, shown it to the Englishman. Now he had been warned; his passenger was aware of the possibility of attack. He had been foolish; he knew it the moment he had produced the gun, but by then it had been too late. He would have used it then, blown the stupid Englishman into the water with the sharks, but that also would have been foolish. There was money to be earned from this deed, perhaps much money. The English were rich, it was well known. This one had produced a fat wallet yesterday when he paid the half price for the journey. There would be many more rupees in that wallet. All Rashiv had to do was to bide his time and wait. Load the gun when the Englishman was not looking, take the wallet, kill him, and throw him over the side. And who knows what other treasures awaited him in the baggage of the Englishman.
But there was a small problem of time. Many of the authorities in Dar es Salaam were aware of the Englishman and his need for passage to Mombasa. By now it would be well known on the waterfront that Rashiv had offered to take him there and the Englishman had been mad enough to accept the offer. The girl at Al-Jutto’s brothel would almost certainly talk, telling her friends of the riches, which he, Rashiv, had suddenly come into, and word would spread in other ways. Soon, all those on the waterfront, and the police, would know where the Englishman had gone. It would therefore look suspicious if Rashiv suddenly reappeared at Dar es Salaam without the Englishman. No, he would stay at sea for a long while, fishing, and when he returned, he would tell everyone that he had taken the mad Englishman to Mombasa, and had been paid well for his services. The sharks would take care of the evidence.
The first day progressed slowly as the tiny Empire Mary plunged farther north. Norwood was relieved that the meat trailing behind had not attracted any sharks, and Rashiv explained that perhaps the boat was too close to shore.
‘Tomorrow we go northeast to avoid reefs, then we catch plenty shark,’ he grinned.
But Norwood was beginning to feel uneasy about the journey. With sudden clarity he realised he was in an extremely vulnerable position. In his wallet were bank cheques and notes to the value of two thousand pounds, a fortune by Rashiv’s standards, and certainly worth killing for. Norwood decided that he would remain extra vigilant for the next few days until they arrived at Mombasa.
During the following hours Rashiv remained stubbornly at the tiller, sending Norwood below to stack cordwood into the small boiler furnace. While his passenger was below stoking the boiler, Rashiv took the opportunity to load the cumbersome blunderbuss. First, the powder, as he had been shown by the merchant in Dar es Salaam, then the wadding, pig-iron bolts as ammunition, followed by more wadding. Then came the primer, check to ensure the flint was locked and dry, tinder in the primer box, and all that remained was to cock the hammer. Carefully, the Indian placed the weapon under its protective layer of canvas and awaited his opportunity.
Towards dusk, Rashiv changed course to starboard, heading for deeper waters. He lit paraffin lanterns and over a small fire on a stone base near the tiller he cooked a tin pannikin of rice in seawater, half of which he reluctantly shared with Norwood.
They did not talk for some time. Norwood was watching the Indian carefully and by now had decided that some mischief was afoot. The Indian was surly and withdrawn, not at all the same person he had spoken to at the Dar es Salaam wharf only twenty-four hours previously.
They sat silently together after the meal as the boat plunged and bucked through the night. Over the howl of the wind Norwood could hear the waves booming hollowly against the reefs. The only illumination came from the miserable paraffin lanterns and a fierce amber moon amid a canopy of stars in a clinquant sky. Rashiv took a small stained tin and rolled a dagga cigarette, lighting the tip from his fire and drawing the rich narcotic smoke deeply into his lungs; after a while the marijuana took effect and he relaxed. The Englishman would wait until later, tomorrow perhaps. It would be a good day for him to die.
He lay back on the filthy cushions, the dagga reddening his eyes. ‘Why you want to go to Mombasa sahib?’ he asked sullenly. ‘You got woman there hey, quick jig-a-jig, very naughty, some business maybe, urgent
business?’
‘Business,’ Norwood replied reluctantly and with considerable revulsion. ‘I’m on a mission for the British government.’
‘Ah you government man,’ Rashiv responded with profound understanding. ‘I know government men in my country. They all stinking rich.’ He winked at Norwood conspiratorially. ‘They make money same way sahib, you know, through old fiddle.’
Norwood tried to ignore him. He looked out into the dark night sea; the tips of the waves were strangely luminescent under the light of the moon.
‘You like my boat sahib,’ Rashiv had finished the dagga cigarette and was rolling another.
‘I’m concerned it won’t take the rough weather.’
‘Ah old Empire Mary been in rough weather before sahib, always survived.’
‘Why do you call her the Empire Mary?’ Norwood asked. It seemed such an incongruous name for a seedy little riverboat.
Rashiv brightened. ‘Indeed sahib, that very good question. Twenty years ago there was woman in life, Hindu, like me, you understand. She earn money in brothels of Dar es Salaam. This I do not mind as money plenty good. One day British sailing ship call into port. Its name: Empire Mary. Many sailors come ashore. My Hindu girl give all sailors what they want—jolly good badgering! They like so much they come again next night, and next after that. We make so much rupees from sailors I am able to buy beautiful boat. In honour of sailors, I call boat Empire Mary.’
‘And what happened to your woman?’Norwood asked with studied politeness. ‘The Hindu. What did she get out of it all?’
‘Oh her sahib. Very maggoty end to story. She get dose of old clap. Caught a box of jolly bad badgers. I boot her out hop-skippedy.’
That night, as the moon started to sink towards the sea in a fierce yellow orb, the winds began to freshen from the southwest and the tips of the dark waves heightened and streamed luminescent foam. Rashiv became agitated, despite the calming effect of the dagga he had smoked, and began gibbering to himself in a language Norwood could not understand. The wind moaned and shrieked around them and the bows of the boat were burying themselves into the troughs of the waves.
‘We must get to shore,’ Norwood shouted to make himself heard. ‘We’ll never be able to ride out a storm if it’s brewing.’
‘We cannot sahib,’ Rashiv replied, also shouting. ‘Too many reefs inshore of here. If we try to get through at night, we will crash-wallop onto one of them, and then we shall both be dead.’
Norwood thought about that. He did not like the way Rashiv had said, ‘we shall both be dead,’ somehow inferring that one of them was going to be dead anyway. Was it just his imagination, or had that sinister inflection been there? He decided not to take any chances.
‘I’m going to stay in the boiler room tonight,’ he called, and before Rashiv could answer he jumped for the ladder and scrambled below to the warmth where he stoked up the boiler and settled himself into a corner, fighting off the drowsiness that threatened to claim his consciousness.
It was a long night, perhaps one of the longest he had ever endured, and although he was not aware of it, the rising storm saved his life that night. Rashiv was too busy at the tiller to leave it for his murderous intent. As the hours wore on so the storm increased in its intensity and Norwood began earnestly to fear for their lives. The Empire Mary was tossing and cavorting through the seas, its switchback ride twisting the boat and flinging it into the onrush of waves. Water foamed over its decking, sweeping away the filthy debris that was a part of Rashiv’s normal existence. The diminutive Indian clung frantically to the tiller, trying to keep the boat’s bows facing the oncoming sea, and there must have been some kind of seamanship there, somewhere deep within him, for he succeeded. As the dawn broke—a watery thin dawn with scudding grey cloud and an approaching bank of rain—the boat was still bobbing about like a cork on the surface of the boiling sea.
For Rashiv, it had been a night of hell. Never again would he be foolish enough to venture out onto the open seas in the Empire Mary. Not for any foolish Englishman with plenty of money, not for all the money in the Bank of bloody England, not for all the bloody tea in India. Today, this was the day. He would kill the Englishman and run inshore, hide somewhere for a week or two, up some quiet estuary surrounded by mangroves where no one would see him, and then, after a decent period, he would return rich to Dar es Salaam.
The gun ... the gun! Frantically he pulled the canvas from the blunderbuss and checked the load. He spat disgustedly when he discovered that the primer was soaked. Carefully he extracted the waterproof tinderbox with its wads and grainy packages of black gunpowder and somewhat inexpertly extracted the load, wiping away the last traces of dampness before reloading the ancient piece. Satisfied, he wrapped the weapon in canvas and sat on it.
The sun broke through pale clouds and shone listlessly on the steel grey sea as Norwood cautiously poked his head from the boiler room hatch. His eyes were glowing red from weariness.
‘We are running inshore sahib,’Rashiv called from the tiller. ‘We shall be getting ashore before the real storm comes I am thinking.’
‘I am also thinking it,’ Norwood said quietly under his breath, then added more loudly: ‘Perhaps we should turn back. We could be in Dar es Salaam in a day or two.’
‘You are a very clever man,’ Rashiv said, taking the bundle from beneath his posterior. ‘And I agree it is time we turn back.’ He quickly unrolled the canvas package and lifted the ugly trumpet mouth of the blunderbuss. ‘But I am thinking it would be a shame to take you with me when you have all those rupees in pocket.’ He smiled mirthlessly and the ugly toothless hole of his mouth was somehow sickening.
Norwood was shaken but not surprised.‘So I was right,’ he said, and was almost startled to find that his voice was even and clear and showed no trace of the emotions racing wildly within him.
‘You will please take nice fat wallet from pocket before walking to rail and jumping overboard,’ Rashiv said.
‘You must be bloody joking,’ Norwood replied hotly, but he noticed that his knees were beginning to shake and there was now a tiny quaver in his voice. The trumpet of the gun was held unwaveringly on his stomach and he could only imagine what damage the massive blast from such a weapon would do. He would quite literally be torn in half. Better to risk his chances in the waves.
~~~~
They came from deep underwater, seven of them in a cold hungry pack. They had scented the trailing bait for hours, but the turbulence and wild gyrations of the boat had kept them at bay. Now they came with the dawn, like dark darts of death, the tiny ridges of tissue along their gills sensing the rich scent of blood and decomposing flesh.
In the darkness of the sea they themselves were almost invisible, only the strong thrust of their sleek bodies gave them away, the water swirling with each powerful stroke. Their eyes were cold and they swam with the serrated rows of their teeth edged and jutting forward like needles of ivory in the darkness ready to rip and tear, to gulp and swallow. Their hunger was an angry thing lying deeply within them, but they knew they would soon feed, for those bloodied chunks of flesh trailing behind the Empire Mary were calling to them irresistibly.
~~~~
On board the Empire Mary the two men were poised like statues. Norwood gulped, for his mouth was suddenly bone dry.
‘The wallet sahib,’ Rashiv said again, the trumpet muzzle wavered a little as he spoke.
Norwood reached gingerly into the back pocket of his now rather stained and crumpled cricket trousers, extracting the leather wallet.
‘Put on deck sahib, if you please.’
Norwood moved closer, holding the wallet before him like a sacred offering. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take it. It’s not worth a man’s life though. We can turn back to Dar es Salaam. You can have the money. I’ll say nothing of this.’
‘Not very clever sahib,’ Rashiv grinned. ‘You must think I am silly damned fugger with no brains. I myself am most untrustworthy gentleman, and so I also never trust anyone. If we return to Dar you will surely turn me in, and then what? Quite early one bright morning the little wallopers of policemen take me to bloody gallows and
string me up like mouldy piece of pork in market square. Oh no sahib, sorry and all that, but over side you must go.’
‘Look,’ Norwood said desperately. ‘Let’s talk about this. You have my word as ... as a gentleman and a member of the British Empire ... .’
‘Sorry sahib,’ Rashiv stated with some finality, indicating again with the blunderbuss. ‘Put rupees on deck and over you go. Nice swim for you. Very cool today. You like.’
‘Listen to me,’ Norwood shouted with anguished frustration, ‘you have my word. I’ll say nothing of this. Dammit, you can’t do this to me you murderous little wretch.’
Rashiv’s dark eyes clouded with sudden hatred. ‘Murderous little wretch eh sahib. We black fellows all same to you high and mighty English wallahs. We just bags of Indian shit.’ He moved closer, the vehemence of his passion making him careless. ‘Well now is time for toffee-nosed smelly camel farts like you to take what is deserving.’ He was within a few feet of Norwood, his finger white on the trigger. ‘I tell you something Mr. Sack of English Horse Dung. I not let you go over side just as you are, I send you over with belly full of scrap-iron. You will like that, most interesting for you.’
Norwood realised that he was about to die, and filled with a sudden fear and desperation he lunged forward. Rashiv pulled the trigger of the blunderbuss but nothing happened. He looked down incredulously as Norwood closed with him and his heart leapt when he realised he had forgotten to cock the weapon. Norwood smashed a blow at the little Indian’s head and Rashiv went sprawling into the scuppers, blood flowing freely from his broken nose, the gun clattering to the deck. He screamed, ‘English shit. Bloody English garbage. I kill you.’
Norwood closed with him again but the nimble Indian darted away, moving to the starboard side of the boat. Norwood followed, the blunderbuss rolling forgotten on the deck. With great agility, Norwood’s opponent scrambled upright and ran forward. He was desperately searching for a weapon; the blunderbuss was behind Norwood now and completely out of reach. He picked up a short wooden spar, turning to face his attacker. But Norwood’s anger had been unleashed, it was an anger slow to awaken, but once its bright flame had been ignited it was difficult to extinguish.
Waves were still breaking over the bows, the white foam washing over the decks making them slippery and treacherous as the Empire Mary lunged and wallowed. Norwood ignored the timber spar and moved in with clenched fists. Rashiv swung the spar and it struck Norwood a smashing blow on his upraised arm. He cried out with the sudden pain of it, fearing for a moment that the arm had been broken, but as Rashiv swung the spar back for another blow, Norwood moved in and kicked with all his strength into the Indian’s groin.
Rashiv uttered a scream of such incredible agony that Norwood thought for a moment he had killed his opponent. The Indian fell to the deck, curling into a bundle, his small brown hands tightly clenching his genitals.
‘English bastard, oh English bastard,’ he shouted weakly, but the fight had clearly gone from him. Norwood moved closer, quite amazed at the sudden effectiveness of his blow.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked quickly, but Rashiv only looked at him with hate-filled eyes set into an obscenely pellagrous face.
‘English bastard,’ he swore again, groaning.
‘I’ll get some water,’ Norwood replied, walking aft to the tiller flat where Rashiv kept a goatskin.
Rashiv’s eyes were yellow-tinged with agony and hatred as he began to crawl forward. From where he lay he could see the blunderbuss lying forgotten in the port scupper. Inch by agonised inch, trying to ignore the bright burning pain in his testicles, he crawled forward, hidden from Norwood’s view by the mass of the boiler-room superstructure and the coaming of the vessel’s small hold. His hands were outstretched, feeling for the weapon, then his fingers touched the walnut stock, its wood burnished with use and cracked through age. Rashiv’s slim fingers grasped it and he pulled the weapon towards him. Using it as a crutch, he levered himself painfully upright, the breath and his agony rasping in his throat. He looked cunningly around the lee of the boiler room, and, ah yes, the stupid Englishman was still bent over the goatskin. Carefully, very carefully indeed, Rashiv cocked the blunderbuss with his thumb, the hammer coming back with a metallic snick. He leaned against the boat’s superstructure, skinny legs and knees bent with the effort, raised his weapon and waited.
Moments later, Norwood returned with a pannikin filled with water and was again confronted with that wavering trumpet’s mouth of death.
Surprised, he dropped the pannikin and it clattered to the deck. ‘Christ, don’t you ever give up?’ Norwood protested. In answer, Rashiv spat at his opponent; a thick wad of yellow phlegm sprayed over Norwood’s tennis shoes. ‘You one very stupid English fugger,’ he said, and pulled the trigger.
The blast was a roar like an express train as it enters a tunnel. The snap of the hammer and flash of the pan was followed almost immediately by the billowing explosion of white smoke that erupted from the trumpet’s mouth. The ancient rusty barrel cracked open like a melon split with a machete, discharging none of its deadly load, the force of the recoil sending Rashiv staggering backwards, pain and alarm etched upon his face. His skinny brown legs crashed into the boat’s coaming and he fell backwards with a high-pitched scream. Then he was gone, arms and legs splashing into the rolling waves as the current whipped him away from the boat’s side.
Rashiv gave a long thin cry as Norwood dashed to the gunnels, but he was already too late. Within moments Rashiv had been swept twenty-five yards from the side of the Empire Mary and the distance was increasing every second. Norwood cast around for a rope, knowing that it was hopeless. He even considered jumping over the side himself but immediately discarded the idea. With no lifeline both would be swept instantly to their deaths in the roaring seas.
And then the decision was taken from Norwood. The first of the sharks came from the depths, attracted by the splashes and the sounds of an animal in distress. Rashiv knew instinctively that he was doomed. He remembered in that fraction of a second that he had left the shark lures in the water, and the horror of the first bite that severed one of his legs and took most of his lower groin was sure testimony to his foolishness. He cried, just once, and then the pack was upon him, tearing, pulling him down with their serrated rows of forward-pointing teeth. Within moments, Rashiv the Indian, proud owner of the Empire Mary, pimp, scavenger, peddler, and murderer, simply ceased to exist.
~~~~
The wagons of ivory were rolling down to the coast. With the knowledge that war was almost certainly to be declared within months, or perhaps even weeks, the administration of German East Africa was using its native Askari troops to kill the large herds of elephant and transport as much ivory to the coast as possible. The German high commissioner in Dar es Salaam knew with clear insight that once war was declared the British Royal Navy would effectively seal the coastline of the German colony thus preventing any imports or exports. For the good of the Fatherland it was vital that as much of the country’s natural resources, particularly those that could easily and rapidly be moved to the coast, should be exported before the blockades were put into effect.
For almost a month the mass slaughter of the elephant herds had been taking place. Whole generations of the magnificent animals were being butchered from the tip of Lake Victoria at Mwanza, south through the rolling mountains and dry veldt of the Masai Steppe, even down to the tip of Lake Melawi in the massively serrated pinnacles of the Livingstone Mountains.
In addition to the ivory the Germans were moving vast amounts of other precious items including gold and diamonds. The diamonds were being taken from the small but incredibly rich mines in the west, beyond the wilderness of the Serengeti, and especially from the rich deposits of industrial diamonds at Lake Manyara.
Day after day the wagons rolled eastwards, sixteen or twenty oxen to each wagon with Askari troops acting as guards. On the wharves of Tanga and Dar es Salaam, the contents of these wagons were loaded onto German freighters for the journey to the Fatherland. Each day millions of rupees worth of raw precious materials were stolen from Africa. It was a rape of unprecedented proportions.
~~~~
Carrick MacDonald lay in the tangled undergrowth and listened to the sounds of Africa. But the sounds were few. Before him the arid bone-dry vlei was quiet and secluded, broken only by the spread of baobab and fever trees and tufts of elephant grass, its long razor shards waving listlessly in the hot morning breeze. This was the silent, patient period of the hunt, the unimaginable stillness of sitting quietly, watching, waiting for movement in the sun-shimmering bush.
But today, the hunters were not waiting for the slow lumbering gait of elephant or the slinking feline stench of wildcat. They were hunting men and the rich prize those men would be carrying with them.
Carrick MacDonald knew the movements of every wagon as they traced their way eastwards to the coast. His network of Masai agents reported to him almost daily. ‘Two wagons from Mkomazi, Lord, with fifteen tusks each. One wagon from Kisiwani, ten more tusks, and another, from farther west near Makanya, three wagons, Lord, almost sixty tusks.’
It was proving to be a lucrative business indeed. Aye, more lucrative than toiling for a living growing wee little coffee beans, despite what his daughter, Corra, had said about hunting elephant and the morality of it all—hunting elephant—well it was a good excuse anyway, and what she didna’ know wouldna’ harm her. Ah the wee cub. She knew only the half of it!
There were more than forty natives hiding in the low depression near MacDonald, yet each man was so carefully concealed that MacDonald himself, who knew exactly where they were located, could not actually see any of his men. The Kikuyu porters and mess-boys had been left behind at the camp with Corra, ten miles to the north. The men here were the best MacDonald had ever worked with. Masai trackers, the el moran, proud and fearless fighters with their shukas, flowing cotton shifts the colour of ochre and hair tightly lacquered with mud. There were nomadic Somali gun-bearers and skinners, armed now with a vile assortment of machetes, knives, clubs, and even rifles. MacDonald himself was armed with a .350 double-barrel Express elephant gun. Strapped into a stout leather harness on his back was the massive and ungainly claidheamhmor, the Highland Claymore or Great Sword, fully five feet in length, double-edged and sharper than Damascus steel.
They had been in position since two hours before dawn, and now the sun was rising like a flat golden disc into a powder-blue sky. Before them the land stretched into infinity, the heat haze shimmering and distorting so that even the trees and low scrub seemed to move and whisper to them. A bush cuckoo called, its cry rising and falling in the wooded distance. MacDonald could see, more than a mile to the north, a few elephant standing beneath the gold and black spread of fever trees. The animals were brick-red, dust-covered, and almost immobile in the dappled shade, their trunks flicking lazily in the stupefying heat. Africa lay before MacDonald like a painter’s canvas, a chiaroscuro of light and shade blending into a polychromatic embroidery of mauve shadows.
The minutes passed into hours as the sun drew higher.
Silence.
Noon came and passed. MacDonald cursed silently to himself. Where were they? Bluidy heathens. Always late!
~~~~
Norwood was in great peril. The ungainly Empire Mary was slewing and pitching through the angry seas like a tart at a carnival. Beneath his feet the small steam engine thumped and cavorted. Spray continued to crash onto the ancient decking. Norwood knew nothing of boats. His only experiences of boating had been during his rowing days at Eton and the almost de rigueur hours of punting at Oxford, and such experiences hardly qualified him to guide an ungainly old bitch like the Empire Mary through some of the most dangerous and complex reefs in the world.
After Rashiv had disappeared for the last time beneath the Indian Ocean’s waves, Norwood had stood transfixed and stunned for several minutes. The suddenness of the shark attack, its unbelievable brutality and effectiveness had been awesome. Finally, he turned, realising that he was in desperate trouble. The tiller was still tied and the boat was heading roughly northwards. Norwood searched for a map or compass but there was none. Rashiv had not needed such navigational aids in Dar es Salaam harbour.
By now, the frail Empire Mary was plunging through the Zanzibar Channel, its Herculean little engine spluttering and kicking the boat ever northwards. Norwood decided finally that he had three choices. He could
keep going and hope for the best, perhaps even reaching Mombasa. He could turn the boat to port and try to find somewhere to land, or he could turn around and head back to Dar es Salaam. Of these he thought an immediate landing would be his best course of action. He untied the tiller and attempted to bring the boat around on a course that would take him to the green-fringed shore he could see about six miles distant. However, as soon as the little boat’s course was changed she began to roll alarmingly in the cross-seas as the waves smashed against its starboard side. Norwood was immediately drenched as the boat lurched to port, threatening to capsize. Instinctively he threw his weight against the tiller bringing the bows back onto their northerly course. The boat quickly settled back to its roll and tip motion, which in these heavy seas, was still frightening but not quite so dangerous. For several minutes Norwood pondered his plight. In the heavy Indian Ocean swell, turning to either port or starboard was quite out of the question. He could only keep his bows to the wind and hope he did not hit one of the reefs.
For the following few hours Norwood remained doggedly at the tiller, only leaving it briefly to go below to stoke the old boiler. By midday he was ravenous. He rummaged around in Rashiv’s locker, finding a small bag of uncooked rice and some stale dried fish. He lit a fire and cooked himself a meal, washing it down with water from the goatskin bag.
By early evening, as the sun began to lower in the sky, Norwood was beginning to feel confident that he would come through unscathed. ‘After all,’ he told himself, ‘if a little Indian idiot can handle a boat like this, why can’t I?’
And then, without warning, the engine beneath his feet gave a long, drawn out sigh, more a wheeze really, thumped loudly for several heart-stopping moments, grunted once, and died.
Norwood Tynbridge-Pierson was suddenly alone on a wild sea in a dead boat, the oily darkness of night quickly closing in.
~~~~
They came finally near sundown. Carrick MacDonald counted them carefully and his information had been correct, as usual. There were six wagons each stacked with raw green ivory. The Askari were on foot, walking beside the wagons, Mauser rifles slung unsuspectingly over their shoulders. There were team drivers, several mule boys, half a dozen skinners and a small wagon which looked to be a field-cooking unit.
The waiting was finally over.
The small cortège was just twenty feet from MacDonald when the Scot rose from his place of concealment. For the native troopers such an apparition was beyond comparison, something bordering closely on sorcery. Here was a demon of such terror that none could stand in its way.
MacDonald was dressed in fine Highland style. He was a tower of a man, standing six feet six inches with wide shoulders and two stout legs—legs like the knotted trunks of a marula tree. He was dressed in the Breacan an f’heile, the belted plaid. His coat was of lachdan, the natural colour of fleece, and the tartan kilt was predominantly red and green. The hose, complete with razor sharp dirks, were of matching tartan, and his brogs were cut from deerskin with the hairy side worn outwards. Across his chest was a wide leather belt, and his bonnet, now somewhat cracked with age and sweat-stained, still held the proud feathers of South
Morar.
‘Have y’ never seen the dress of the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald?’ he roared at the Askari, ‘Aaaargh yer black heathens, ‘tis the master o’ the glens come for your souls.’ And he charged with a wild cry that sent frenzied terror racing through the Askari troops as they scattered in disarray.
From their places of concealment MacDonald’s men leapt into the fray, wielding their weapons with ease, cracking heads, smashing terrified faces. MacDonald raised the huge elephant gun to his shoulder, its muzzle wavering wildly at the melee before him. Then the gun boomed, billowing smoke. The shot sailed harmlessly over the heads of the Askari and MacDonald staggered backwards, almost falling under the force of the recoil. He tossed aside the weapon and quickly pulled the claidheamhmor from its leather back-harness. With the weapon clutched tightly in his hand and with a banshee roar of pure delight, he again charged. The remaining Askari dropped their rifles without firing a shot and scattered, running for their very lives. Within moments it was over. The wagons and oxen stood alone in the gathering purple gloom of a sultry African evening.
‘Hurry up me laddies,’ MacDonald called to the Masai and Somali warriors. ‘We’ll be away from here afore that bastard in Mboto can send a patrol. Ismail… Ismail.’
‘Lord MacDonald,’ Ismail shouted. He was a small, turbaned Somali with dark eyes and a wide grin on his coal-black face. ‘I hear you Lord. I come.’
‘Get this lot going laddie,’MacDonald shouted. ‘Give them the orders. We can’t wait around all day. There’ll be Askari patrols here before dawn.’
‘Yes Lord,’ Ismail said and ran off shouting orders in Swahili. Within fifteen minutes the wagons were heading northeast towards the coast where another wagon of tusks was reported to be wending its way southwards.
~~~~
The night was totally black as the incapacitated Empire Mary was plucked and tossed at the mercy of the savage waves. Norwood, who knew even less about engines than he did about navigation, could only cling to the tiller in despair, hoping ... no praying ... that something, anything, would soon come and save him from this awful nightmare.
The Empire Mary was dead in the sea as the fury of the wind rose and shrieked all around. Norwood tried to steer as close as he could to the wind, endeavouring to get the boat inshore if possible, but in the darkness and with no steerageway, the task was all but hopeless.
The hours passed in a mindless frenzy. Norwood had no idea of the time. The moon and stars were hidden by thick banks of dark cloud and during the early hours of the morning it began to rain heavily, thick curtains of water washing over the little boat.
Norwood had a vague idea that his end might be close. He did not fear death, although the repulsive thought of being taken by sharks was abhorrent to him; the vision of Rashiv’s recent demise was still fresh in his mind. No, if he had to die, then he would face death with all the courage and gentlemanly conduct he could muster. He decided that he should pray, but was surprised to find that the prayers he had been taught during childhood had suddenly evaporated from his mind. He was about to begin composing his own prayer when the Empire Mary gave a mighty lurch which catapulted him forward from the tiller bench and sent him sprawling on deck. Norwood shook his head and began to get to his feet, vaguely wondering what on earth could have happened. Then the boat struck again, a smashing splintering crash of broken timbers and a screech of rending metal.
Suddenly, Norwood realised that the boat was aground, that it had hit something solid, like a reef perhaps, and he ran forward to the bows.
In the darkness it was difficult to see what was happening. From beneath his feet it sounded as though the bottom of the shallow vessel was grinding on rocks, the timbers tearing and breaking apart. Norwood rushed below to the boiler room and was horrified to see that the hull was splintered and seawater was rushing in at an alarming rate.
He quickly grabbed some rope and several of Rashiv’s fishing nets, tying the nets together in a tight bundle. As the water reached the coaming of the boiler room and the bows of the boat dipped into the waves, he ran aft, took the goatskin bag, threw it over his shoulder and with the bundle of nets under his arm, launched himself into the raging sea.
The water crashed over his head and he sank, despite the buoyancy of the nets. He spluttered to the surface coughing seawater. With the nets held before him he kicked away from the side of the doomed Empire Mary.
When he turned to look back, less than sixty seconds later, the old river barge had gone, slipping quietly to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
Norwood kicked again, striking out determinedly. He had no idea in which direction he was heading, whether it was west, towards the African coast, or east, into the endless ocean wastes where only exhaustion, thirst, and death awaited him.
However, within half an hour he felt the change in water temperature, the deep cold of the ocean was giving way to warmer layers. Soon afterwards came the sounds of waves breaking on a beach. Encouraged, he kicked more furiously until, without warning, his knees ground against a sandy bottom. He staggered forward still dragging the nets until he found himself knee-deep on a dark sandy cove with luminescent waves breaking on the shore.
Exhausted beyond belief he stumbled higher onto the beach and sat down beneath a cluster of dark fig-palms. He closed his eyes in thanks and relief and within moments drifted into a deep and troubled sleep.
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