Part 15

"How long can you give us?" said the anguished John, torn between his sense of duty regarding his wife and his extreme reluctance to abandon his Mission Station to certain destruction.

"Well, not more than forty-eight hours."

"Brethren," said John, "we must meet in conference and decide this. Sister Lucy has retired to bed—I advised her to do so. She has left it to me to settle what she had better do. But for the rest of us, let us meet after supper in the mess house and talk it over. You, sir," he said, to the worn and weary-looking Brentham—who, whatever he might appear in Lucy's eyes as paladin and parfit gentill knight, was streaked with black and brown after having ridden and walked through the charred herbage of the burnt plains still smoking with their dry-season bush fires—"You, sir, would like a rest and a wash and a meal. Shall I show you your quarters?..."

When the little party met in conclave, how unreal the threat of war and violence seemed! The open square of the station was bathed in silver moonlight from a moon three-quarters full; there was the distant twanging of a native guitar played by some musical porter; a village dog sent up a complacent howl or two; a goat-sucker churred; a laugh came from the Big-geru's quarters.

John, not without a hope the Consul might be exaggerating their danger, said: "Brethren and Sister Jamblin, each of you shall speak in turn, but as I am regarded as your leader I will give my opinion first. I have decided that my wife shall leave with the Consul for the coast, perhaps even for England, unless she recovers her health and things quiet down. Cruelly hard as it is for me to part with her, I feel it is the right thing to do. As for me, it is also the right thing that I should stop here till all danger is over and my place can be taken by some one else. Sister Jamblin must go with Lucy." (Ann murmured she would do nothing of the kind.) "Yes, Ann; I must insist. Lucy could not possibly travel alone—it is not to be thought of...."

Ann: "Why, she can take Halima—"

"I say," continued John, wiping the perspiration from his heated face, "it is not to be thought of. As an unmarried woman, Ann, you could not remain here with us men—" (Ann: "Pooh, nonsense!") "Supposing we were really attacked by the Arabs and we men were killed, I dare not think what might be your fate! Brother Bayley, what do you say?"

Bayley: "Why, that I'll stay with you."

Anderson: "And I say the same. You've both spoken like jolly good Englishmen. And—er—let's trust in the Lord, brethren. He'll see us through, He won't leave His servants in the lurch. To think of all the work we've put into this place and all the money what's been spent on it! What are we going to do with our trade goods if we cut and run? The Consul can't load himself up with them—and our ivory and gum copal..."

Brentham: "I might mention here I can only spare about twenty-five porters for the whole five of you. We must travel as lightly as possible, especially if the Stotts want help. They have young children, I believe."

Anderson: "Then I vote we stop. Let the women go. It wouldn't be right to expose them to the risk.... Ann, what do you say?"

Ann: "I say this. Let Sister Baines go to the coast. She's always ailing and would only be a drag on us if we were hard-pressed. But for my part I stay with the men, at any rate till things have calmed down. I'm not afraid. I'll soon learn to handle a rifle, and I'm pretty good at dressing wounds. And there's my class of girls. It'd pretty nigh break my heart if I went away and they came to grief after all that training I've given them—to make them good wives some day."

John (shortly and decidedly): "You can't remain. I've already told you why. In this matter you must bow to my authority. Lucy in any case is too ill to stay here—under these circumstances—and it is common humanity that you should not let her travel alone to the coast. When our anxiety is over, you and she can come back...." (Ann: "Thank you for nothing!") "Well, sir, you shall know our definite decision in the morning. Meantime you must be tired, very tired indeed. We thank you heartily for coming to our assistance. I'm sure you'd like now to retire." (Brentham withdraws.) "Brethren, before we separate let us put our case before God, that He may guide us aright...."

The next morning the decisive answer tendered to the Consul was that the men would remain and defend their station. Sisters Baines and Jamblin should return to the coast with Consul Brentham.

Lucy forgot all about her anaemia and weak back and tendency to dizziness in an excited packing up of necessaries for the journey. She would not have to take with her more than her clothes and a few invalid's provisions and appliances. She felt terribly elated, wildly happy at times. No thought of danger entered her head—how could it, with Roger as escort? At the same time, the sight of poor John's silent grief—too deep for words—smote her with reproachfulness; and Ann's scornful observation of her moments of sparkling gaiety seemed sinister.

The situation was eased by Brentham taking John away for three hours to confer with Chief Mbogo and his counsellors. Mbogo was sure he could drive off any number of Arabs or Wangwana if they came to attack his villages or the Mission Station. He would send out word to the Masai. The Masai were now his friends through the peace-making of the missionaries: they hated the Arabs and the "coast people," and said they would side with the Whites. At the same time he accepted gratefully Brentham's present of ten Snider rifles and two loads of ammunition. Another ten rifles and a thousand rounds of ammunition were added to the armoury of the Mission Station, as well as two revolvers, one of which Ann took over, for her own defence on the road or that of her "Big-geru."

Brentham also tendered some expert advice to the Chief on the subject of entrenchments round his stronghold. The Mission Station already possessed a pretty strong stockade and a moat outside it. A few years previously attacks from any quarter might be expected—Muhammadan slave-traders, impulsive Masai, thievish Wagogo. If the first rush could be checked the attack was seldom persisted in.

The Consul's safari as it passed down the western slopes of the Ulunga Hills[#] must have looked quite imposing to the natives who watched its departure behind their dracaena and euphorbia hedges. First marched Brentham himself with a stout staff and with his gun-carrier at his heels. Then came the caravan headman and guide, the Mwinyi-mpara or Kiongozi, as he was styled. He carried a small British ensign and was followed by twenty-five armed porters with Brentham's personal loads, each, however, with a Snider rifle and a neat uniform of cotton vest and breeches. Next followed Ann Jamblin, riding astride the Consul's Maskat donkey, every now and then glancing back on her fifteen Amazon porters, the pick of her Big-geru class who carried their mistress's effects in bundles on their woolly heads. Behind them was Lucy in her machila, its long pole borne on the shoulders of two strapping Walunga, with a relief crew behind of four other men of fine musculature. After that followed about fifty porters poising on their heads the heavier baggage—bundles of tents, bedding, water-tight tin boxes, bags of rice, bales of cloth, boxes of beads, cases of ammunition, cooking implements. Trotting by the side of this long file of men were two milch goats, bleating and baaing, but thoroughly enjoying the journey; they were intended to provide milk for the ladies' tea. One of the two was a special pet of Lucy's. To look after the goats was a little naked Mgogo boy—a released slave—who ran and frolicked with them, and kept the porters amused by his impudent mimicry of the white people. Lastly in the rear of the caravan was a guard of ten gunmen without loads to embarrass their quick movements.

[#] Ulunga was the southern portion of a country called "Ngulu" or "Nguru."

Brentham and his charges were bound for the Stotts' station of Burungi, three or four days' journey—say, fifty miles—to the west. Lucy felt already many degrees better in health, though she thought it only decent to conceal her returning vigour and new-found animation. The picnic meals by the road side stimulated her appetite; her eye took pleasure in the changes of scenery, the new panoramas of plain and wilderness that unfolded themselves as she was swayingly borne along. Ann seemed sombre and preoccupied, as though noting land-marks for after recognition. Occasionally she pointed to this and that feature in the landscape and asked her Big-geru for its native name.

The very hot weather which closes the dry season made itself felt, so that the start from Hangodi had been begun in the early morning twilight, and each succeeding morning they took to the road at 5.30. They jogged along, with an occasional five minutes', rest, till half-past ten or until about that time they had found a stream valley or a water hole which contained water not too bad for cooking purposes. Then the caravan halted for the day in such shade as might be found, and the march was not resumed till 5 p.m.

Owing to the brilliancy of the moonlight it might be continued well into the night. During the long mid-day halt, the Goanese cook, aided by Halima and several porters and Brentham's Swahili butler, would prepare really very creditable little meals, and after eating the travellers would lie on unfolded deck chairs in some piece of shade where the hard ground had been swept clear of snakes, insects or scorpions. Brentham, if the heat were not too scorching, might wander with a shot-gun near by to try for the chance of a guinea-fowl or francolin or tiny antelope.

At four o'clock they had tea with goat's milk; and at five resumed their journey. The tents were pitched by moonlight and the beds made by the light of a candle lantern. Toilet processes were very summary; there was all too little water to wash in and the travellers must just sleep in their clothes and put any ideas of effective ablutions out of their heads till they reached the water supply at the Stotts' station. The night camp was hastily surrounded by a thorn hedge cut from the acacia trees, and big fires were lighted to keep off lions and hyenas. Blacks and whites had to sleep in close proximity and the treasured goats and donkey in the middle of the circle of loads.

The country they marched over—a northward extension of the "Mkunda mkali" or "Bitter waste"—was at first steppe-like, then rocky and rising in a series of escarpments. Almost its only trees seemed to be flat-topped acacias, without leafage at this season, glistening in the blazing sun and studded with long white thorns. The thin grass was mostly burnt; nevertheless it was frequented by much game, and the land was apparently devoid of human inhabitants. Brentham, always obsessed by the fear of food scarcity, but hardly liking to absent himself from the line of march and his following caravan, started each morning a few minutes ahead of the rest and walked in advance as a pioneer, with his gun-carrier at his elbow. In this way he sometimes brought down, close to the path, an inquisitive Grant's gazelle or hartebeest; or a zebra out of the many herds which closed up to espy the distant concourse of men and then dissolved into a cloud of dust at the report of the gun. Even at this lean season of the year the male zebras were in good condition. Their yellow fat and juicy, sickly-sweet flesh delighted the hungry porters.

On the early morning of the fourth day, the expedition passed a few parched native plantations and one or two burnt huts and, as the sun rose, marched into the irregular circle of the Stott station, across a half-dry water-course, and found no human being to greet it. Silence and partially burnt buildings of clay and thatch, torn paper, vultures on the scorched trees, broken crockery, scraps of cloth, one or two pools of dried blood, empty cartridge-cases, and the torn sacking and splintered boards of packing-cases.

"This is pretty ghastly, Miss Jamblin," said Brentham, returning to the hastily-cleaned camp amid the ruins of the Mission Station.

Lucy, feeling she could do nothing to help and had better not look at the caked patches of dried blood which the porters were removing, had withdrawn herself to a folding chair placed by Halima under the thin shade of a fire-scorched tree. Ann was examining the vestiges of the Stott property which the looters had left behind: school books and primers in the Swahili language, empty ink-pots, broken slates, enamelled iron plates and some substantial tables of native timber, too heavy for either the fugitives or their enemies to carry away. Ann's white solar "topi" and white dress were already smudged and sooted from the burnt wood and thatch.

"Ghastly, isn't it!" he went on. "I've just returned from a reconnaissance in which we rounded up three Masai youths—not warriors but the hulking boys that attend on the spearmen. Two men in my safari understand Masai and they are now trying to make out the story these boys tell. They evidently deny emphatically that the Stotts were killed. They keep pointing to the north-west as the direction in which they have gone, and say every now and then 'Irangi.' My interpreters infer that this place was attacked about a week ago by a party of Ruga-ruga coming from the Nyaturu country and travelling towards the coast. They besieged the station, and killed some of the Mission boys, but the Stotts apparently were not hurt. They defended themselves for some time, till a party of Masai came to their relief, and then the Ruga-ruga and 'black' Arabs were beaten off. Nevertheless the Stotts left the station afterwards and went away to the north-west with the Masai escorting them.... I want to see if I get on their tracks or if I can find any real natives who saw the attack.... You seem to have a head on your shoulders ... and an influence over the natives. I'll leave all but five of the men here under your orders. Already they're at work reconstructing the 'boma.' I propose skirmishing around and finding out also if the Arabs and Ruga-ruga are still in the neighbourhood. I'll be back before dark...."

Ann: "You'd much better give up such a wild-goose chase as looking for the Stotts. Make for Kilimanjaro and the Mvita coast with Lucy. We've got mission stations in Taita and at Jomvu, near Mvita, where you could place her in comparative safety. I'd much rather return to Hangodi instead of floundering about in the wilderness, mad with thirst and unable to wash. I'm only a drag on you with my women porters whom your men can't leave alone—I daren't take my eyes off them. Lucy'll soon be well enough to ride your donkey—which I'm at present using. If the Arabs haven't plundered the Wagogo or if there are Masai bands in the neighbourhood you could easily buy a few donkeys—Masai breed, you know. They're quickly broken in to riding, especially with your Maskat donkey to show 'em how. And then you could travel much quicker. I don't think you'll have trouble with the Arabs farther north. It's a Masai country, and the Masai and the Muhammadans are at daggers drawn...."

Brentham (hesitating): "No. I don't think I ought to let you go ... I ..." (His thoughts were saying: "Let her go. She's a tiresome termagant, she, with her fifteen women porters who'll cause the deuce-and-all of a lot of trouble before we've gone far. It would be lovely to have a long journey back to the coast with Lucy. Of course I'd respect her. I should simply treat her as a sister" ... and his pulses quickened)....

Ann: "Let me go? I'm my own mistress and not going to be ordered about by anybody. If I choose to go back, I'll go, even if I have to walk all the way. But there! I don't want to be tiresome. You go off on your prospecting and leave Lucy in my charge. I'll promise not to do a bolt till you return—and whenever I promise, I keep my promise."

(Lucy came up at this juncture and was told rather impatiently by Ann the dilemma in which the three of them were placed.) Captain Brentham turned away, called up his headman, gave him instructions, and finally went off with five gunmen and the three Masai youths. These were put in a good humour by being crammed with broiled meat and rice, the latter a food they had never tasted before, but accepted without demur at the hands of the godlike white man.

Ann, thus placed in authority, set to work to carry out her plans. She had the interior of the station circle cleaned as much as possible of half-burnt house material, and gathered together what remained in the ruins of books, clothes, trade goods. The looting had evidently been very hurried, and no doubt the Stotts had conveyed some things with them on their retreat. Lucy, sharply ordered by Ann not to over-exert herself, sat in the shade in a deck chair, very apprehensive as to the future and worried that Roger should have gone away.

The news that white people were back at Burungi—as this station was called—penetrated quickly through this seemingly deserted region. So often in Africa there occurs this wireless telegraphy, really due perhaps to the lurking here and there in the brush and herbage of invisible natives, observing what goes on and bounding away noiselessly to carry the news to other prowlers. In the afternoon when Ann within the thorn enclosure had made things a little more tidy and presentable there appeared in the middle distance numbers of Wagogo warriors gazing at the new arrivals with kindly neutrality, occasionally calling out friendly, deprecatory greetings. Encouraged by Ann's answering shouts in Kagulu they approached the "boma," and even ventured within the camp enclosure, squatting then on their heels to exchange information. Their confidence was sealed by little gifts of tobacco. The attack on the Mission Station was described. The white people had been taken by surprise, but had held their own till the Wagogo and Masai came to their assistance. The Ruga-ruga shot fire-arrows in among the thatched roofs and set fire to some of the houses. They even broke in through one part of the "boma," but three of them were killed by the white man's people.

The fight had lasted half-a-day and one day. Then the Wangwana had drawn off—to the south. Two days more and the white people had gone—there were the white man—"Sitoto," they called him—and the white woman chief—she was a great "doctor"—and three white children ... they had all gone off with a party of the Masai—to the north somewhere. The Masai had sold them donkeys to ride. Some Wagogo had gone with them. It was perhaps four days since they went away. No! the Wagogo had not plundered the white man's place. They were frightened to come there because of the white man's "medicine." ...

"Then how did you get that?" said Ann, pointing to a soiled white petticoat which an elderly man wore over one shoulder and across his chest.

"That? That had been given him by the white woman herself for running to summon the Masai." ...

"See here," said Ann, in fragmentary Kagulu. "You've got donkeys—Masai donkeys—among you. The Ruga-ruga have not raided you. You bring me here three good strong donkeys and I will buy them for a good price: white cloth, brass rings, iron wire, red cloth and gunpowder."

They conferred among themselves and thought they might produce three donkeys—for a price.

"Well, then fetch them—at once. Otherwise the big white man, the great chief of all the white men on the coast, the Balozi, will believe you helped to plunder this station and make you give up the property you've stolen." ...

Roger returned late that evening in brilliant moonlight to find that Ann had purchased with his trade goods three good stout grey asses with broad shoulder stripes. One she reserved for herself, the other two she transferred to Brentham. They would serve for him to ride and also provide his Goanese cook with a mount. [This Portuguese-Indian was a very poor marcher and much inclined to fever; yet in some ways the second most important person of the caravan, decent cooking being such an enormous help to good health in Africa.] Lucy, who had grown much stronger for this change and excitement, could ride the Maskat donkey and her hammock men could return to Hangodi with some of Ann's loads.