they talk of? It’s six years since I came to this country, and I’ve
worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men
who’ve worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in
the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water
or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow,
what would she find?--everything of value in the land given over to
private concessionaires--they’ll line their pockets if the whole land
goes to pot! It’ll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse’s
bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones.”
“Oh, you wait a bit and you’ll be squared,” said the handsome man. “I’ve
been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven’t got
anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way”--he
nodded towards the bell tent--“never got drunk or didn’t know how to
swear, I’d sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after
it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it
would only come my way.”
The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had
not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his
mouth.
“I tell you what,” said the keen man, “those of us up here who have got
a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting
pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we’d had a few men like the
Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this
would never have happened. And there’s no knowing when a reason won’t
turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a
time, to break out just when one’s settled down to work. It’s a damned
convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off.”
Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: “Let
resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow,” he said,
sententiously.
A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though
his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth
relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
“I’m always expecting,” said the big handsome man, “to have a paper come
round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the
B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and
how awfully good he is to them; and they’re going to subscribe to the
brazen statue. There’s nothing a man can’t be squared to do.”
The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he
held above his face. “What’s that in the Bible,” he said, slowly, “about
the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?”
“I don’t know much about the Bible,” said the keen man, “I’m going to
see if my pot isn’t boiling over. Won’t yours burn?”
“No, I asked the Captain’s boy to keep an eye on it--but I expect he
won’t. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?”
“Got to; I’ve got no other pot. And the fellows don’t object. It’s a
tasty variety, you know!”
The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire
burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his
own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left
alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and
he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and
watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand,
just under his nose.
A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick
cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems;
but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little
flat-topped tree in front of the captain’s tent, not a creature stirred
in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might
be heard half across the camp.
The intense midday heat had settled down.
At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass
and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp,
and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the
other a bird which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not
long from Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in
spite of the superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with
heat; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their
sensitive refinement.
He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. “That is
all I’ve got,” he said.
He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the
loose flap of the tent.
The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the
ground took up the bird. “I’ll put it into the pot; it’ll give it the
flavour of something except weevily mealies”; he said, and fell to
plucking it.
The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his
forehead.
“Knocked up, eh?” said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. “I’ve a
few drops in my flask still.”
“Oh, no, I can stand it well enough. It’s only a little warm.” He gave
a slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm. His eyes
watched mechanically the Colonial’s manipulation of the bird. He had
left England to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because
it was a place where he could earn an open-air living, and save his
parents from the burden of his support.
“What’s Halket doing over there?” he asked suddenly, raising his head.
“Weren’t you here this morning?” asked the Colonial. “Didn’t you know
they’d had a devil of a row?”
“Who?” asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.
“Halket and the Captain.” The Colonial paused in the plucking. “My God,
you never saw anything like it!”
The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where
Halket’s bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.
“What’s he doing out there in this blazing sun?”
“He’s on guard,” said the Colonial. “I thought you were here when it
happened. It’s the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!”
He rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance. “You
see, some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools
of water, and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank,
not five hundred yards from here! They found the bloody rascal by a
little path he tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a
porcupine’s walk. They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush
over the mouth, so you couldn’t see it. He’d evidently been there a long
time, the floor was full of bones of fish he’d caught in the pool, and
there was a bit of root like a stick half gnawed through. He’d been
potted, and got two bullet wounds in the thigh; but he could walk
already. It’s evident he was just waiting till we were gone, to clear
off after his people. He’d got that beastly scurvy look a nigger gets
when he hasn’t had anything to eat for a long time.
“Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew
and swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow;
he’d hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this
evening, so he’d wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn’t
come he’d hang him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as
sure as the sun rose. He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree
before his tent, with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist,
and a riem round his neck.”
“What did the native say?” asked the Englishman.
“Oh, he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a soul in the camp could have
understood him if he had. The coloured boys don’t know his language. I
expect he’s one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the
bush out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state
it must have been, I don’t know. He didn’t try to fight when they caught
him; just stared in front of him--fright, I suppose. He must have been a
big strapping devil before he was taken down.
“Well, I tell you, we’d just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just
going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing
round, when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his
front lock--you know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could
have seen it! I’ll never forget it to my dying day!” The Colonial seemed
bursting with internal laughter. “He begins, ‘Sir, may I speak to you?’
in a formal kind of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and
then all of a sudden he starts off--oh, my God, you never heard such a
thing! It was like a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture
he’s learnt off by heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he’s not
going to be stopped till he gets to the end of it.”
“What did he say,” asked the Englishman.
“Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would
be a terrible thing to kill him if we weren’t quite sure; perhaps he was
hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after
all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight
against the French if they came and took England from us; and the
niggers were brave men, ‘please sir’--(every five minutes he’d pull his
forelock, and say, ‘please sir!’)--‘and if we have to fight against them
we ought to remember they’re fighting for freedom; we shouldn’t shoot
wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn’t shoot them if they
were white!’ And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You
never heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a
black man as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant
folk, and we had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we
ought to let this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and
tell him to go back to his people, and tell them we hadn’t come to take
their land but to teach them and love them. ‘It’s hard to love a nigger,
Captain, but we must try it; we must try it!’--And every five minutes
he’d break out with, ‘And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I’m
not sure, but I think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!’--as if any born
devil cared whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere
else! I’m sure he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, ‘I don’t
mean that I’m better than you or anybody else, Captain; I’m as bad a man
as any in camp, and I know it.’ And off he started, telling us all the
sins he’d ever committed; and he kept on, ‘I’m an unlearned, ignorant
man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he’s got no one else!’
And then he says--‘If you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I’m
not afraid; and I’ll tell the people there that it’s not their land and
their women that we want, it’s them to be our brothers and love us. If
you’ll only let me go, sir, I’ll go and make peace; give the man to me,
sir!’” The Colonial shook with laughter.
“What did the Captain say?” asked the Englishman.
“The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing
all round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down
at each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder
and redder: and all he could say was, ‘My Gawd! my Gawd!’ I thought
he’d burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as
though he didn’t see a soul of us all there.”
“What did the Captain do?”
“Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the
tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good
as Halket himself. And when he’d finished and got sane a bit, he said
Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the
nigger. And he gave orders that if the big troop didn’t come up tonight,
that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was
to shoot him.”
The Englishman started: “What did Halket say?”
“Nothing. He’s been walking there with his gun all day.”
The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket’s head
appeared and disappeared.
“Is the nigger hanging there now?”
“Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything
to eat or drink all day: but--” The Colonial glanced round where the
trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, “This
morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain’s coloured boy
to ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and
the poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the
water out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had
become of my mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the
Captain’s tent, before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody
nigger drink out of my mug. The riem was so tight round his neck he
couldn’t drink but slowly, and there was Halket holding it up to him! If
the Captain had looked out! W-h-e-w! I wouldn’t have been Halket!”
“Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?” asked the Englishman.
“Of course he will. He’s the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a
fuss about it, or it’ll be the worse for him.”
“His time’s up tomorrow evening!”
“Yes, but not tomorrow morning. And I wouldn’t make a row about it if I
was Halket. It doesn’t do to fall out with the authorities here. What’s
one nigger more or less? He’ll get shot some other way, or die of
hunger, if we don’t do it.”
“It’s hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs,” said the
Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a
little.
“Oh, they don’t feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I’ve
seen a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling
like that!--without a sound. They’ve no feeling, these niggers; I don’t
suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you
know.”
The Englishman’s eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which
Halket’s head appeared and disappeared.
“They have no right to order Halket to do it--and he will not do it!”
said the Englishman slowly.
“You’re not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?” said the
Colonial, looking curiously at him. “It doesn’t pay. I’ve made up my
mind never to speak whatever happens. What’s the good? Suppose one were
to make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he’s made to
shoot the nigger against his will; what would come of it? There’d be
half-a-dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted--not
to speak of a fellow like that”--turning his thumb in the direction of
the sleeping trooper--“who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on
the Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one’s wires are edited
before they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through.
There are many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us
are there, do you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making
anything in Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he
had a real row with the Company? I’ve a great liking for Halket myself,
he’s a real good fellow, and he’s done me many a good turn--took my
watch only last night, because I was off colour; I’d do anything for him
in reason. But, I say this flatly, I couldn’t and wouldn’t fly in the
face of the authorities for him or anyone else. I’ve my own girl waiting
for me down in the Colony, and she’s been waiting for me these five
years. And whether I’m able to marry her or not depends on how I stand
with the Company: and I say, flatly, I’m not going to fall out with it.
I came here to make money, and I mean to make it! If other people like
to run their heads against stone walls, let them: but they mustn’t
expect me to follow them. This isn’t a country where a man can say what
he thinks.”
The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. “And the Union Jack is
supposed to be flying over us.”
“Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company,” laughed the Colonial.
“Do you ever have the nightmare?” asked the Englishman suddenly.
“I? Oh yes, sometimes”; he looked curiously at his companion; “when I’ve
eaten too much, I get it.”
“I always have it since I came up here,” said the Englishman. “It is
that a vast world is resting on me--a whole globe: and I am a midge
beneath it. I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under
it--and let it crush me!”
“It’s curious you should have the nightmare so up here,” said the
Colonial; “one gets so little to eat.”
There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the
bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
“Mind you,” the Colonial said at last, “I don’t say that in this case
the Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He’s
never been quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night
out on the kopje. When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of
dead sleep; we couldn’t wake him; yet it wasn’t cold enough for him to
have been frozen. He’s never been the same man since; queer, you know;
giving his rations away to the coloured boys, and letting the other
fellows have his dot of brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of
apart to himself, you know. The other fellows think he’s got a touch of
fever on, caught wandering about in the long grass that day. But I don’t
think it’s that; I think it’s being alone in the veld that’s got hold of
him. Man, have you ever been out like that, alone in the veld, night
and day, and not a soul to speak to? I have; and I tell you, if I’d been
left there three days longer I’d have gone mad or turned religious. Man,
it’s the nights, with the stars up above you, and the dead still all
around. And you think, and think, and think! You remember all kinds of
things you’ve never thought of for years and years. I used to talk to
myself at last, and make believe it was another man. I was out seven
days: and he was only out one night. But I think it’s the loneliness
that got hold of him. Man, those stars are awful; and that stillness
that comes toward morning!” He stood up. “It’s a great pity, because
he’s as good a fellow as ever was. But perhaps he’ll come all right.”
He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand. When he had
gone the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm
across his forehead.
High, high up, between the straggling branches of the tree, in the
clear, blue African sky above him, he could see the vultures flying
southward.
*****
That evening the men sat eating their suppers round the fires. The large
troop had not come up; and the mules had been brought in; and they were
to make a start early the next morning.
Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a
little in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.
The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their
mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be
asked him; and the men, fearing the Colonial’s size and the Englishman’s
nerve, left him in peace. The men laughed and chatted round the fire,
while the big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates,
and passed them round to the men. Presently he passed one to Halket,
who lay half behind him leaning on his elbow. For a while Halket ate
nothing, then he took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.
“You are eating nothing, Halket,” said the Englishman, cheerily, looking
back.
“I am not hungry now,” he said. After a while he took out his red
handkerchief, and emptied carefully into it the contents of the plate;
and tied it up into a bundle. He set it beside him on the ground, and
again lay on his elbow.
“You won’t come nearer to the fire, Halket?’ asked the Englishman.
“No, thank you, the night is warm.”
After a while Peter Halket took out from his belt a small hunting knife
with a rough wooden handle. A small flat stone lay near him, and he
passed the blade slowly up and down on it, now and then taking it up,
and feeling the edge with his finger. After a while he put it back in
his belt, and rose slowly, taking up his small bundle and walked away to
the tent.
“He’s had a pretty stiff day,” said the Colonial. “I expect he’s glad
enough to turn in.”
Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns. Would
the Captain stick to his word tomorrow? Was Halket going to do it?
Had the Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead
of letting them fire a volley? One man said he would do it gladly in
Halket’s place, if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So
they chatted till nine o’clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to
turn in. They found Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with
his face turned to the canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might
not disturb him.
At ten o’clock all the camp was asleep, excepting the two men told off
to keep guard; who paced from one end of the camp to the other to keep
themselves awake; or stood chatting by the large fire, which still burnt
at one end.
In the Captain’s tent a light was kept burning all night, which shone
through the thin canvas sides, and shed light on the ground about; but,
for the rest, the camp was dead and still.
By half-past one the moon had gone down, and there was left only a blaze
of stars in the great African sky.
Then Peter Halket rose up; softly he lifted the canvas and crept out.
On the side furthest from the camp he stood upright. On his arm was tied
his red handkerchief with its contents. For a moment he glanced up at
the galaxy of stars over him; then he stepped into the long grass, and
made his way in a direction opposite to that in which the camp lay. But
after a short while he turned, and made his way down into the river bed.
He walked in it for a while. Then after a time he sat down upon the bank
and took off his heavy boots and threw them into the grass at the side.
Then softly, on tip-toe, he followed the little footpath that the men
had trodden going down to the river for water. It led straight up to the
Captain’s tent, and the little flat-topped tree, with its white stem,
and its two gnarled branches spread out on either side. When he was
within forty paces of it, he paused. Far over the other side of the
camp the two men who were on guard stood chatting by the fire. A dead
stillness was over the rest of the camp. The light through the walls of
the Captain’s tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but
there was no sound of movement within.
For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the
tree. The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to
it that they seemed one. His hands were tied to his sides, and his head
drooped on his breast. His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had
once been those of a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints
stand out. The wool on his head was wild and thick with neglect, and
stood out roughly in long strands; and his skin was rough with want and
exposure.
The riems had cut a little into his ankles; and a small flow of blood
had made the ground below his feet dark.
Peter Halket looked up at him; the man seemed dead. He touched him
softly on the arm, then shook it slightly.
The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at
Peter from under his weary eyebrows. Except that they moved they might
have been the eyes of a dead thing.
Peter put up his fingers to his own lips--“Hus-h! hus-h!” he said.
The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.
Quickly Peter Halket knelt down and took the knife from his belt. In an
instant the riems that bound the feet were cut through; in another he
had cut the riems from the waist and neck: the riems dropped to
the ground from the arms, and the man stood free. Like a dazed dumb
creature, he stood, with his head still down, eyeing Peter.
Instantly Peter slipped the red bundle from his arm into the man’s
passive hand.
“Ari-tsemaia! Hamba! Loop! Go!” whispered Peter Halket; using a word
from each African language he knew. But the black man still stood
motionless, looking at him as one paralysed.
“Hamba! Sucka! Go!” he whispered, motioning his hand.
In an instant a gleam of intelligence shot across the face; then a wild
transport. Without a word, without a sound, as the tiger leaps when the
wild dogs are on it, with one long, smooth spring, as though unwounded
and unhurt, he turned and disappeared into the grass. It closed behind
him; but as he went the twigs and leaves cracked under his tread.
The Captain threw back the door of his tent. “Who is there?” he cried.
Peter Halket stood below the tree with the knife in his hand.
The noise roused the whole camp: the men on guard came running; guns
were fired: and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their
weapons. There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry
went round the camp, “The Mashonas are releasing the spy!”
When the men got to the Captain’s tent, they saw that the nigger was
gone; and Peter Halket was lying on his face at the foot of the tree;
with his head turned towards the Captain’s door.