Tom could not help laughing as he surveyed the ruins of Mwesa's little
building, and the negro himself put his hands on his hips and roared
with merriment.
"Silly fella tink all same proper house," he said, alluding to the
crocodile. "Me show him."
It was clear that their first task, if they were to remain for any
length of time in this spot, must be to construct a more substantial
dwelling, and after a light breakfast they set forth to survey for a
site. Tom found that his long tramp on the previous day had caused his
injured ankle to swell, and he could only get along by hopping on his
sound foot. Fortunately he had not far to go before lighting on a
suitable situation in a spot above the shore of the lake, where a few
isolated trees in the form of a rough circle enclosed a clear space some
twenty yards across. Here, after bathing his ankle and tying his
handkerchief tightly about it, he sat down to watch Mwesa set about
building him a "proper house."
The boy cut down with his axe a number of straight saplings, trimmed
them, cut them to the same length, and then planted them in a circle in
the centre of the space. After a search along the banks of the stream
he returned with a load of withies cut from tough creeping-plants. With
these he bound the upright poles together: first in the middle, then two
feet below, and finally the same distance above. He worked with such
astonishing speed that early in the afternoon the framework of the new
hut was complete, standing up like a cage or a circular crate. After a
short rest he started on the roof. He gathered together a number of
flexible saplings, which he laid down on the floor of the hut so that
they radiated from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Then he
fastened the ends together, lifting the saplings one by one until the
structure resembled the ribs of an inverted Chinese umbrella. When it
was finished he drew the loose ends together, turned it upside down, and
pushed it up through the open roof space, the ends, when released,
resting on the tops of the poles. The skeleton of the hut was complete.
Tom envied the boy's dexterity. All his measurements had been made with
the eye alone, and Tom reflected that the work would have occupied a
white artisan, provided with a foot rule, probably twice or thrice as
long. Mwesa promised that another day's work would finish the job.
Next day he filled up the interstices between the poles with damp mud,
which he carried in his wallet from the edge of the lake. He left a
space about three feet square at the entrance; and built up with mud, in
the interior of the hut, a long bench some three feet high. The mud
dried rapidly in the heat of the day, and when the bench had hardened,
he mounted upon it, and wove long grasses in and out among the rods
composing the roof, until this was fairly impervious. It would give
slight protection against heavy rain, but the rainy season was not yet
due, and Tom agreed that the hut would form a very serviceable shelter
during the short time he expected to occupy it.
It occurred to him, however, to suggest a means of doubly securing
themselves against intruders, human or other. The trees surrounding the
open space could be turned into an effective zariba by planting poles
between them, and interlacing the poles with strands of prickly thorn.
Mwesa fell in with the notion at once, but this was a much longer task
than the construction of the hut had been, and in fact it occupied him
off and on for nearly a week.
Meanwhile the food he had brought from the plantation had long been
consumed, and he spent part of every day in snaring birds or small
animals for the subsistence of himself and his master. It appeared that
vegetable food was not to be obtained in this part of the country, and
Tom grew somewhat uneasy as to the effect of an uninterrupted diet of
flesh. He was uneasy, too, about his injuries. The wound caused by the
spike was healing well, but the swelling of his ankle was but little
reduced, and it gave him great pain to hobble even a few yards. It was
clear that without the ministrations of his faithful and indefatigable
boy he would starve.
Often as he lay at night, on rushes strewn upon the bench, listening to
the cries of night-birds, the bark of distant hyaenas, the coughs of the
crocodiles in the lake, the grunts and snarls of beasts that came
prowling around the zariba, but never attempted to penetrate it, scared
by the fire kept constantly burning within the enclosure--as he lay
listening to these eerie sounds he pondered plans for the future. His
dearest wish was to make his way to the frontier as soon as he was fit
to travel, and to join the British forces which, he supposed, were
gathering to resist the German invasion. The news that Germany and
Britain were at war had scarcely surprised him. Recollections of what he
had heard and seen during his year in Germany seemed to give
corroboration enough. He remembered in particular one young German
baroness, who had been to school at Cheltenham, and was continually
boasting of what the Germans would do when "the Day" came. He
remembered, too, how his father scoffed at the warnings of those who
foretold that Germany was only awaiting an opportunity for making her
tiger-spring, and how he and his brother had been rebuked for heeding
the "alarmists." And now the Day had come at last. He wondered what
spark had exploded the European powder-barrel, what pretext Germany had
alleged for the attack which, he believed, she had long been secretly
cherishing and preparing for. In the only letter he had received from
England since his arrival, Bob had said nothing of trouble brewing.
Whatever the ostensible reason was, he had no doubt the war had sprung
from Germany's lust for world-power, and with the easy confidence which
too many Englishmen felt in those early days, he believed that the
British Navy would square accounts with the Germans before many months
had passed. He did not know that Germany had cast her gauntlet in the
face of half the world, did not suspect that she had already set the
bases of civilisation staggering.
As for Africa, he took it for granted that German possessions would soon
be wiped off the map. It would have been difficult for a true-born
Englishman to think otherwise. All that he wished and hoped for was
that he might reach Rhodesia before the last act was played.
When about ten days had slipped away, and even Mwesa had nothing to
occupy him except the daily search for food, Tom began to fidget for
news. He was still unable to walk without pain; inaction irked him, and
ignorance of what was going on at the plantation and beyond gave him a
fit of the blues. His despondency did not escape the keen eyes of the
negro, who at last asked what was troubling him.
"I want to know things, Mwesa," he answered: "what Reinecke is doing,
whether fighting has already begun--all sorts of things. And I want to
get away from here and join my own people."
The boy's anxious expression cleared; his eyes brightened.
"Me go; one day, two, me come back tell sah," he said.
"Do you think you could go safely?"
Mwesa looked hurt at the suggestion. Had he not already stolen in and
out of the plantation? Why should his master suppose that he could not
do it again? He would set off at once, as soon as he had provided food
and water for a day or two, and he would come back stuffed with news.
The boy was so eager that Tom let him go. He took nothing but his wallet
and a knife. By nightfall he would reach the plantation. There he
would learn all that was to be learnt from Mirambo: his master would be
only one night alone.
It was not till the dense blackness of night brooding over the nullah
deepened his feeling of solitude that Tom doubted whether he had done
right. The boy might not return: who could tell what mischance might
befall him? In daytime he might escape the many perils of the forest;
but what if he were discovered in his furtive passage of the thorn fence
and impressed into the ranks of the recruits? "Without Mwesa what will
become of me?" The troublesome question gave Tom no rest as he lay in
the hut, listening to the outer noises to which darkness adds mystery
and horror. Alone, almost helpless, what could a white man do in the
wilds of Africa? Tom was not ordinarily a victim to "nerves"; but the
series of shocks he had recently suffered had quickened his imagination
in proportion as it had reduced his physical vigour, and the sensations
of that night were one long nightmare.
At dawn, limp and haggard, he got up, crawled out of the hut, and sat
down with his back against a tree-trunk, listening for the return of the
negro boy. He heard rustlings among the trees, the call of a quail, the
snorting grunt of some animal prowling round the zariba. But neither
rustle nor footfall caught his ear when Mwesa suddenly appeared at his
side.
"Come back all right, sah," said the boy cheerfully.
"But how? I didn't hear you. How did you get in?"
"Climb tree, sah; come like snake."
He had dropped thus into the enclosure to avoid making a gap in the
fence. As before, he came laden with food. Welcome as this was, Tom
was more eager to have his tale of news; but before Mwesa would relate
his discoveries, he produced from his wallet, with much show of mystery,
a small bundle with a covering of leaves tied with grass thread.
Opening this with an expression of great solemnity, he displayed a lump
of some substance olive-green in colour, and of the consistency of
putty.
"Good medicine, sah. Mirambo my uncle: berry clebber pusson. Me make
sah well."
Dropping to his knees he unwound the handkerchief from Tom's injured
ankle, pinched off a small portion of the plastic medicament, and rubbed
it gently over the joint, muttering strange words. It gradually
softened to a greenish oil. When the joint was thoroughly anointed, the
boy bound it again with the handkerchief, jumped up, and, smiling away
his look of intent earnestness declared:
"Sah, one time better; two time better; t'ree time all same well."
Then he unslung from his shoulder a small iron cooking-pot, and sat down
to tell his news.
At the plantation drill was in full swing. Some askaris had come from
Bismarckburg under the charge of a German non-commissioned officer, the
former as guards and examples, the latter to train the new recruits.
Drill went on all day and every day, the German giving his commands in a
Bantu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he
frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by
the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of
the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as
yet they had fired no shot. They were all sullen and resentful; but
cowed by the presence of the armed askaris and in constant fear of the
whip, they gave no utterance to their feelings in face of their
taskmasters, pouring out their hearts only in the seclusion of their own
huts and sheds.
Reinecke himself was now seldom at the plantation. Mirambo believed
that he was busy at headquarters at Bismarckburg. The askaris had said
that a great force was being prepared to attack the English in Abercorn,
and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the
great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in
the white man's country far away; of many great cities which the Germans
had taken; how the King of England and his war chiefs had been hanged by
the people, enraged at defeat. Soon there would not be a single
Englishman in the whole of Africa.
"Do they believe that stuff?" said Tom. "It's all nonsense."
Mwesa was not at all sure that he had not believed it himself, for how
was a simple African to deny what was told him with such assurance?
Indeed, even among the Germans, settlers and soldiers alike, in those
early days of the war, no rumour was too fantastic to find easy
credence. Conceit is a hotbed for credulity. But Tom's vigorous
assertion that it was all nonsense was enough to convince Mwesa.
"Dey silly fellas, sah," he said scornfully. "Mwesa him English: he know
all right."
Tom knew nothing of the relative strength of the British and German
forces in East Africa; but having a Briton's invincible faith in the
British Navy, he could not believe that the German colony, cut off from
Europe as it must be, could really measure itself against the resources
of the British Empire. But he remembered how, in the past, British
carelessness and want of foresight had bred disasters only painfully
retrieved, and he felt no little anxiety as to how far Northern Rhodesia
was prepared to resist the expedition which the Germans were organising.
He was only the more eager to join his fellow-countrymen, and take his
part in the fight, if fight there was to be. At school he had been
colour-sergeant in the cadet corps, and looked back with reminiscent
pleasure on the field days, when, in the intervals of business, he had
munched apples in a farmer's orchard or solaced himself and his squad
with junket in a dairy. "Rummy," he thought, "if all that swat were to
turn out useful after all. But here it will be minus the apples and
junket."
This being his state of mind, he was doubly curious about the healing
properties of the stuff"--Mirambo's plasticine, he called it--that Mwesa
had brought from his uncle. He was aware almost at once of a lessening
of the pain in his ankle. After the second application the swelling was
sensibly reduced; within a week he found himself able to walk freely.
Mwesa took the cure as a matter of course.
"What's the stuff made of?" Tom asked him.
Mwesa shook his head gravely.
"Berry good medicine: Mirambo him savvy all same."
And that was all that Tom could get out of him.