The Book of the Heathen (10 page)

By that stage, and at my insistence, Frere had visited our home several times, and I saw even then that there was the beginning of an attachment, a fondness, between himself and Caroline, my middle sister – but one already tempered by what lay ahead of him and the time he would be apart from her.

His latest passion then was photography, and each time he visited us he brought with him one or other of the cameras he owned, posing every member of my family and the household staff for their portraits, singly and in groups, indoors and outdoors with the house and grounds as his backdrop. Needless to say, my sisters were the ones most impressed by him and by all this – though they already possessed countless portraits of themselves – and his photographs of them outnumbered all others.

I confronted him one evening when the two of us were alone in London, in the rooms he had rented in Greenwich while making his own preparations to depart, and asked him of his feelings towards Caroline. He told me that had she and he met under different circumstances, then he would have insisted on seeing more of her and perhaps of preparing in some way for their future together. I saw immediately what a disservice I had done the pair of them.

He came to the house at my every invitation, and invariably he brought small presents for all three of my sisters, and for my parents too – nothing of any great value financially, because he did not possess such things, but personal gifts which no other man could produce. For my father he brought a whalebone inkwell which he himself had carved, and for Caroline he once brought an amber necklace which he had strung himself from small pieces he had collected on the Suffolk coast. My father owned a dozen inkwells, mostly of silver, and Caroline had a room strewn with jewellery, but I knew that each of them treasured these gifts above all others.

In the way that we all mould ourselves in the shapes of others, I saw then in Frere those attributes – of openness and generosity, of flair and kindness – that I knew I should myself enjoy possessing, and which might be appreciated in me by others, just as my sisters admired them in him.

He and I were frequently compared, inevitably to my detriment. He was worldly, whereas I, for all my military service, had lived a cloistered life; he was open to all new experiences, whereas I insisted on being forewarned of everything; he was a man moving back and forth on contradictory currents, whereas I was a man set rigidly in full sail in one and only one direction. I knew that these remarks were not intended to hurt me, and that my persecution was never anything but playful – Frere himself always arguing in my defence – but at the time I heard in them more truths than I wished to acknowledge. At the slightest indication that I had been stung by their comments, my sisters flocked to me like birds and covered my face with enthusiastic kisses.

A week before our departure, Frere and Caroline spent a day together, left alone by the others, who knew instinctively that something of this playfulness was at an end and that he and I were already beginning to detach ourselves from the comforts and the certainties of the lives we then lived.

It was decided that no-one should accompany me to Tilbury to see me off. My father suggested this and I agreed with him immediately. In truth, however, I regretted not having someone standing at the quayside and waving to me as I was taken slowly away from them, but it was beyond me to put this to him.

He was right: in fact, I left the house at four the following morning, when there was no-one but me and my mother to mark my going. I remember looking up at the windows of my sisters' bedrooms, hoping that they had learned of this early departure, and that I might see them there, ghostly figures in their nightgowns waving gently down at me while tears passed silently over their faces. I even had a tin of the earplugs in my coat pocket which I would have taken out and held up to them to cheer them up and cause them to laugh.

At Tilbury, Frere told me that he had spent long hours during the past week composing a letter to Caroline, expressing his feelings for her, confirming her feelings for him, and then suggesting how these might now be adapted and constrained during their time apart. I suspected he was telling me much more, that he had asked her to forget him and not to allow him to remain a shadow on her life. It was her twenty-second birthday two days after our departure, and he had included a gift with the letter. When I asked him what this was he refused to tell me.

Waiting until we were out of sight of land, he presented me with photographic miniatures of my parents and sisters, the five people I held dearest to me, and though I already possessed others, packed away amid my softest clothes, these five were the most recent, and, framed together in a single piece, they were where, for ever afterwards during my absence from home, those five people lived most fiercely for me.

PART TWO

7

Frere was returned to us two days later. We heard nothing in advance of this, and it was not until the boat bringing him was almost at our shore that we understood what was happening. I heard of it from the deformed boy, who banged on my door and then stood pointing when I answered.

Frere was accompanied by Proctor and three of his men. His hands were tied and a rope was looped loosely around his ankles. Proctor and his men all wore their dress uniforms and carried rifles. Their polished buttons and the gold braid of their caps and epaulettes shone in the sun as they came. I had never seen the man dressed like this before, and the formality of the occasion made me cautious.

The boat was moored and the five men waited on the jetty while we on this side formed ourselves into a group and went down to meet them. As we approached, Proctor called to his men and they stood to attention. They were not well drilled, but again the gesture and all it implied made me uneasy. I stood with Cornelius, who told me to wait and to remain silent.

Proctor came forward and took out a piece of paper. He announced who he was and what he was there to undertake. He required several signatures and various guarantees before he was prepared to hand Frere over. All of these were duly given. He insisted on handing over directly to Bone. Bone, however, had not so far appeared. Fletcher sent someone to find him. He asked Proctor to hand Frere over to him, but Proctor refused, and we waited an hour until Bone was eventually found and brought to us, and then even longer as his own men were gathered together. There was only one other Englishman with Bone, a private called Clayton, the rest of his squad being natives, most carrying only clubs. I saw the look of contempt on Proctor's face as he inspected his counterparts.

‘Why are we tolerating this charade?' I whispered to Cornelius.

‘Because that's what it is. And because it serves someone else's purpose. Look at them – when did you ever see Proctor or his pretend soldiers dress like that before? Somebody, somewhere, wants all this done properly.'

‘They're washing their hands of him,' I said. I looked to where Frere stood, his head down, his hands held together in front of him. He looked much as I had seen him on my last visit. I wanted to attract his attention, to signal to him that he was finally safe, but he kept his eyes resolutely on the ground, determined not to see me, not to have to respond to what was happening around him.

‘Perhaps,' Cornelius said. ‘Or perhaps it's more a question of them wanting us to properly understand our own responsibilities in the matter.'

I asked him what he meant, and he answered me by nodding in the direction of the far shore. A line of men stood there, none of whom I could identify at that distance and through the watery haze between us, but whose identity I might easily guess at.

There was a further delay while Bone went through the painstaking task of signing his own name on the various documents.

‘Why don't they cross, too?' I said, meaning the distant figures, perhaps Amon, perhaps even Hammad, among them.

‘Because this way we understand them more clearly.'

‘Then why not at least warn us that they were sending him to us?'

Cornelius turned his back on the proceedings. ‘Has it not occurred to you over the previous months that we hear less and less, are told less and less, of anything connected to us? Do you not see that even a year ago we heard of signatures on documents five thousand miles away which affected our trade, that we were informed of trading opportunities, of tariff and custom charges, that we were even informed of goods which never came, of men who never came. What
didn't
we hear of in those days?'

‘And now?'

‘And now this.'

‘And you believe there is a purpose to it all, Frere included?'

‘Possibly. I was merely remarking on the fact that once we were the kings of our own little kingdom, and that now…'

I wished he and not Bone were conducting the arrangements on behalf of Frere. Bone's men were no longer standing beside Frere, but were squatting on the ground.

‘Are you satisfied?' Fletcher said to Proctor, as the man made a point of reading all the signatures that had just been signed. But Proctor played to his advantage and refused to be hurried. He slowly divided those pages which were to be returned to the Belgians from those which were to be left with us. He then shouted to Bone and said that he'd been told to take Frere all the way to our gaol and to see him securely held there before leaving. Fletcher said this was unnecessary, but Proctor insisted. He signalled to the men on the jetty and they came forward.

Frere was prodded in his back by one of the men with his rifle and he cried out at the unexpected pain of this. Proctor saw what had happened and looked round at the rest of us to see who might attempt to intervene. None of us did, and this disappointed Proctor, who called for his men to stop goading Frere.

For the first time, Frere raised his head and looked around him.

A considerable crowd had gathered by then. Men I had never before seen began to shout out, to condemn Frere for what he had done. Someone threw a clod of earth at him which burst into dust on his chest. Someone else cheered the shot. A group of women pushed through the crowd and spat at Frere. Proctor told them to get back, but made no real effort to restrain them until they had finished their protest.

Fletcher came to Cornelius and showed him the documents that had been signed. Cornelius read them.

‘We accept full responsibility for him,' he said. ‘And we hold him here until further action is necessary.'

‘Next page,' Fletcher said, his eyes on the procession passing us close by.

‘A delegation to be sent to assess the facts of the matter and to establish the most suitable manner in which to proceed with whatever action is deemed necessary.'

‘They don't want him sent home,' Fletcher said. ‘They want him tried and hanged here.'

‘Hanged?' I said.

Fletcher and Cornelius shared a glance.

‘Our gift to their new republic, or whatever,' Cornelius said.

‘And don't look so surprised,' Fletcher said. ‘You could have guessed all this from the very beginning.'

It was then, just as the slow procession passed in front of the chart room, that Frere stumbled and fell forward, grabbing out at the man in front of him and pulling him to the ground as he fell. From where I stood, it was difficult to see any more precisely what had happened. There was further cheering from the crowd as Fletcher pushed through them. Then I heard a call from Bone, and watched disbelievingly as two of his native guards ran forward, pulled Proctor's man to his feet, and started clubbing Frere where he lay on the ground. The cheering from the crowd grew even louder. The beating continued, with both Bone and Proctor looking on, and with neither man making any effort to stop it. It was ended finally by Fletcher firing his rifle into the air and pushing through the circle that had formed around the three men. Cornelius and I followed in his wake.

I had not noticed him previously, but as I approached close to where Frere lay on the ground, I saw Abbot standing in the open doorway of my office. I had locked the door behind me on coming out. He saw me approaching him, but made no effort to disguise the fact that he had been in among my maps without my permission. Instead he stared in fascination at the man on the ground and at the two men still hitting him. It was only as Fletcher fired again, and as the crowd finally fell silent and parted, that Abbot looked up and acknowledged my presence.

Frere lay on the ground without moving. There was blood on his cheek and forehead. Fletcher knelt and spoke to him, eventually helping him to his feet. Only then did Bone begin to admonish his men, but in a manner which made his own feelings clear to us and the watching crowd. The two natives retrieved their clubs and stood together with them cupped in their palms as though they were rifles. Bone then apologized to Frere, who wiped at his bloody mouth with his bound hands.

‘Just get him to the gaol,' Fletcher said to Bone. ‘You have a duty to him.'

‘But not to you,' Bone said, angry at being spoken to like this in front of all these others.

‘Perhaps,' Fletcher said, helping Frere as he resumed his hobbled walk. ‘But you do seem to have signed your name to an awful lot of papers recently. Not me, not any of the rest of us –
you.
And what do you imagine that means, Bone? What do you imagine you've committed yourself to in your eagerness to sign?'

This had not occurred to Bone, and he looked at Fletcher without answering.

‘At least now they've got someone to blame,' Fletcher said.

‘Blame for what?'

‘For whatever happens to your prisoner –
yours,
that is, not ours – before they can try him.'

Bone became alarmed at what he was being told. There was some truth in what Fletcher said, but he made more of it than it warranted. Bone looked down to where Frere had been on the ground, at the marks and stains in the dust there. Then he turned on the closest of the gathered men and women and told them to go. Few paid him any attention, but most wandered away of their own accord.