A Falcon Flies (19 page)

Zouga's request for volunteers had been most enthusiastically received. By reputation the Hottentots could scent plunder or a willing lady from fifty miles, and the pay and rations that Zouga offered were almost thrice that of the British army. They had volunteered to a man and Zouga's difficulty had been in selecting ten of them.

Zouga had taken an instant liking to these wiry little men, with their almost oriental features, slanted eyes and high cheekbones. Despite appearances, they were more African than almost any other breed. They were the original inhabitants that the first navigators had found on the beach at Table Bay – and they had taken readily to the white man's ways, and more than readily to his vices.

Zouga had solved his problem by making one selection only. This was a man with an ageless face, it might have been forty years or eighty, for the skin was the colour and texture of a papyrus parchment, each wrinkle seemed to have been eroded into it by wind and driven dust, but the little peppercorns of hair that covered his skull were untinged with silver.

‘I taught Captain Harris to hunt elephant,' he boasted.

‘Where was that?' Zouga demanded, for Cornwallis Harris was one of the most famous of the old African hunters. His book
The Wild Sports of Africa
was the great classic of the African chase.

‘I took him to the Cashan mountains.' Harris's expedition to the Cashan mountains, which the Boers now called Magaliesberg, was in 1829, thirty-one years previously. That would make the little Hottentot somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, if he were telling the truth.

‘Harris did not mention your name,' he said. ‘I have read his account carefully.'

‘Jan Bloom – that was my name then.' Zouga nodded. Bloom had been one of Harris's most intrepid hunter-retainers.

‘Why is your name Jan Cheroot now?' Zouga asked and the dark eyes had twinkled with pixie merriment.

‘Sometimes a man gets tired of a name, like he does of a woman, and for his health or his life he changes both.'

The long military-issue Enfield rifle was as tall as Jan Cheroot, but it seemed an extension of his wizened little body.

‘Pick nine other men. The best,' Zouga told him, and Sergeant Cheroot brought them aboard while the gunboat was working up a head of steam in her boilers.

Each man carried his Enfield over his shoulder, his worldly possessions in the haversack on his back and fifty rounds in the pouches on his belt

It needed only the ‘Rogue's March' to welcome them, Zouga thought wryly, as he watched them come in through the entry port, each one bestowing upon him a beatific grin and a salute so vigorous that it nearly swung the donor off his feet.

Sergeant Cheroot lined them up at the rail. Their original scarlet uniform jackets had suffered strange mutations to ten different shades, ranging from sun-faded pink to dusty puce, and each peppercorn head wore its brimless infantry cap cocked at a different angle from all the others. Thin shanks were bound up with grubby puttees, and brown bare feet slapped the oak planking of the deck in unison as Cheroot brought them to attention, Enfields at the slope and happy grins on each puckish face.

‘Very well, Sergeant.' Zouga acknowledged the salute. ‘Now let's have the packs open, and the bottles over the side.'

The grins wilted, and they exchanged crestfallen glances – the Major had looked so young and gullible.

‘You hear the Major,
julle klomp dom skaape
.' Gleefully Jan Cheroot likened them to ‘a herd of stupid sheep' in the kitchen Dutch of the Cape, and as he turned back to Zouga there was for the first time a gleam of respect in the dark eyes.

T
here are two passages from which a ship may choose when sailing the south-eastern coast of Africa. The master may stay outside the 100-fathom line which marks the edge of the continental shelf, for here the opposing forces of the Mozambique current and the prevailing winds can generate a sea which seamen call with awe the ‘100 year wave', a wave over 200 foot from crest to trough, which will overwhelm even the sturdiest vessel as though it were a drifting autumn leaf. The alternative and only slightly less hazardous passage lies close inshore, in the shallows where the rocky reefs await a careless navigator.

For the sake of speed Clinton Codrington chose the inshore passage, so that always the land was in sight as they bustled northwards. Day after day the shimmering white beaches and dark rocky headlands unreeled ahead of
Black Joke
's bows, sometimes almost lost in the smoky blue sea-fret, and at other times brutally clear under the African sun.

Clinton kept steam in his boilers and the single bronze screw spinning under his counter with every sail set and trained around to glean the smallest puff of the wind, as he drove
Black Joke
on to the rendezvous that Mungo St John had set. His haste was symptom of a compulsion that Robyn Ballantyne only began fully to understand during those days and nights that they drove east and north, for Clinton Codrington sought her company constantly and she spent many hours of each day with him, or all of it that could be spared from the management of the vessel – beginning with the assembly of the ship's company for morning prayers.

Most naval captains went through the motions of divine service once a week, but Captain Codrington held prayers every morning and it did not take Robyn long to realize that his faith and sense of Christian duty was, if anything, greater than her own. He did not seem to experience the terrible doubts and temptations to which she was always such a prey, and if it had not been unchristian to do so she would have felt envy for his sense and secure faith.

‘I wanted to go into the church, like my father and my elder brother, Ralph, before me,' he told her.

‘Why did you not?'

‘The Almighty led me into the path He had chosen for me,' Clinton said simply, and it did not seem pretentious when he said it. ‘I know now He meant me to be a shepherd for His flock, here in this land,' and he pointed at the silver beaches and blue mountains. ‘I did not realize it at the time, but His ways are wonderful. This is the work He has chosen for me.'

Suddenly she realized how deep was his commitment to the war he was waging against the trade, it was almost a personal crusade. His whole being directed at its destruction, for he truly believed that he was the instrument of God's will.

Yet, like many deeply religious men, he kept his belief closely guarded, never flaunting it in sanctimonious posturing or biblical quotation. The only time he spoke of his God was during the daily prayers and when he was alone with her on his quarterdeck. Quite naturally, he assumed that her belief matched, if not outstripped, his own. She did nothing to disillusion him, for she enjoyed his patent admiration, his deference to the fact that she had been appointed as a missionary, and when she was truthful to herself, which was more and more often these days, she liked the way he looked, the sound of his voice, and even the smell of him. It was a man's smell, like tanned leather or the pelt of an otter she had once had as a pet at King's Lynn.

He was good to be near, a man, as the pale missionary initiates and medical students she had known had not been men. He was the Christian warrior. She found a comfort in his presence, not like the wicked excitement of Mungo St John, but something deeper and more satisfying. She looked upon him as her champion, as though the deadly assignation to which he was hurrying was on her behalf, to wipe out the knowledge of sin and to atone for her disgrace.

On the third day they passed the settlement on the shore of Algoa Bay, where the 5,000 British settlers brought out by Governor Somerset forty years before in 1820 had landed and still eked a hard existence from the unforgiving African earth. The white flecks of painted walls looked pitifully insignificant in that wilderness of water and sky and land, and at last Robyn started to come to some small understanding of the vastness of this continent and how puny were the scratches that man had made upon it. For the first time she felt a small cold dread at her own temerity that had brought her so far, so young and so inexperienced, to venture she was not sure what. She hugged her shawl about her shoulders and shivered in the cutting wind that poured in off the green sea. The Africa she had dreamed of so often seemed harsh and unwelcoming now.

As
Black Joke
closed swiftly with the rendezvous that St John had appointed, Clinton Codrington became quieter, and was more often alone in his cabin. He understood clearly the ordeal that faced him. Zouga Ballantyne had discussed it with him on almost every occasion that presented itself. Zouga was unwavering in his opposition to the meeting.

‘You have chosen a formidable opponent, sir,' he told Clinton bluntly. ‘And I mean no offence when I say I doubt you are a match for him with either pistol or sword – but he'll choose pistols, you can wager on that.'

‘He challenged,' Clinton said quietly. ‘My weapon is the naval cutlass. We will fight with those.'

‘I cannot support you there.' Zouga shook his head. ‘If there was a challenge, and I could make a case against that – but if there was one, it came from you, sir. If you fight, it will be with pistols.'

Day after day he tried to persuade Clinton to miss the rendezvous.

‘Damn it, man. Nobody fights duels any more, especially against a man who can split the cheroot in your mouth with either hand, at twenty paces.' Or again, ‘There was no challenge, Captain Codrington, I was there, and I would stake my honour on it.' At another time, ‘You will lose your commission, sir. You have Admiral Kemp's direct order to avoid the meeting, and it is obvious that Kemp is waiting for an opportunity to haul you before a court martial.' Then again, ‘By God, sir, you will serve no one – least of all yourself – by being shot to death on some deserted and Godforsaken shore. If St John is a slaver, then your chance to take him at more favourable odds will come later.'

When Zouga's best arguments made no dent on Clinton's resolve Zouga went to Robyn in her cabin.

‘You seem to have some influence on the fellow. Can you not persuade him, Sissy?'

‘Zouga, why are you so determined to prevent Captain Codrington defending his honour?'

‘He's a likeable enough chap, and I do not wish to see him pipped.'

‘And if he were, you might find it difficult to reach Quelimane. Is that not so?' Robyn asked sweetly. ‘Your concern is most Christian.'

‘St John can choose which of his eyes he will put a ball into. You have seen him shoot.' Zouga ignored the accusation.

‘I believe it is Captain Codrington's duty to destroy that monster. God protects the righteous.'

‘In my experience he protects only those who shoot fastest and straightest,' Zouga growled with frustration.

‘That is blasphemy,' Robyn told him.

‘You deserve to hear some real blasphemy for your stubbornness,' Zouga told her curtly and strode out of the cabin. He had learned through long experience when he was wasting his time.

They passed the mouth of the Kei river – the frontier of British influence and beyond it was the wilderness, unclaimed and untamed, peopled by the tribes which had been driven back inexorably by the white advance, and by scattered bands of renegades and bastards, wandering hunters and hardy travellers and traders.

Even the trekking Boers had by-passed this land, going on into the interior, circling out beyond the mountain massif that divided the littoral from the highland plateau.

Far to the north they had turned back and crossed the mountains again and reached the coast, fighting and shattering the impis of the Zulu nation, beginning to settle the fertile coastal strip until the British ships had sailed into Port Natal, following them up from the Cape Colony, from whence they had trekked so long and so hard to avoid British rule. The Boers had loaded their waggons once more, and driving their herds before them, climbed back over the range that they called the Dragon mountains and abandoned the land they had wrested from the Zulu king Dingaan with the flame and smoke of their muskets.

However, this coast along which
Black Joke
now steamed lay between the English colonies of Cape and Natal, claimed by none, except the wild tribesmen who watched the black-hulled vessel pass almost within arrow shot.

Clinton Codrington had marked the point where latitude 31° 38″ south intersected the coast, and the estuary was shown on the chart with the notation ‘St John's river', named, probably, by one of the early Portuguese navigators, but it was ironicthatitshould bear thesamenameasthe man they were hastening to meet. When
Black Joke
steamed around the last headland the description that St John had given of his namesake was instantly recognizable.

Steep, heavily wooded hills rose almost sheer about a wide lagoon. The forest was very dense dark green, with tall galleries of trees, festooned with lianas. Through the telescope could be made out the troops of little grey vervet monkeys and the brilliant plumage of exotic birds that sported and fluttered through the top branches.

The river came down a deep rocky gorge torn through the barrier of hills, filling the reed-lined lagoon and then flowing out over the bar between the curved white pillows of a sandy beach.

To dispel any doubt that this was the rendezvous,
Huron
lay at anchor a cable's length beyond the first line of breakers, in the deep, where the shoal water turned from pale green to blue.

Clinton Codrington examined her carefully through his telescope, then without a word passed the instrument to Zouga. While he in turn glassed the big clipper, Clinton asked softly, ‘Will you act for me?'

Zouga lowered the glass with surprise. ‘I expected one of your own officers.'

‘I could not ask them.' Clinton shook his head. ‘Slogger Kemp would mark their service records if he ever heard of it.'

‘You do not have the same qualms about my career,' Zouga pointed out.