The Book of the Heathen (16 page)

On the fourth day there was some damage to one of our wharves when the river rose and swung a heavily laden boat into its supports, crushing several of these and weakening others. The boat's moorings were lost and the vessel was driven towards the bank, slicing away more of the wooden structure as it came. The alarm raised, we gathered to watch. The men on the boat left it at the first opportunity. Some were able to leap onto the decks of other vessels, but these were quickly out of reach. As the collision with the jetty threatened to undermine it even further, some men jumped into the racing shallows and scrambled ashore. There was nothing any of us watching from further back could do to help them.

The captain of the small vessel stood in his wheelhouse and tried frantically to turn the boat into the main flow of the water, but this proved impossible in its over-laden state. Part of the cargo was stacked on the deck and this was soon lost to the higher waves.

As the boat came closer to the shore, Fletcher instructed some of our men to attempt to push it away from the undamaged jetties into the faster-flowing water. He shouted to the captain that the vessel was lost and for him to save himself. Several ropes were thrown to the man. It would not have been difficult for him to leap from his vessel and wade ashore, but the man refused to leave. Eventually, Fletcher had ten men working the poles and keeping the boat away from the jetties. The rain streamed over them, turning the bank to a quagmire in which they all frequently lost their footing and fell. Their cries when this happened added to the overall sense of urgency and growing alarm. The masters of the other, securely moored vessels stood on their own decks and watched. None made any attempt to help the stricken boat.

Eventually, the floundering vessel was manhandled clear of the damaged jetty and pushed away from us. The man still on board became even more frantic in his calls for our help. Fletcher sent someone to fetch one of his rifles, and he stood on what remained of the jetty looking down at the man.

Soon afterwards, the boat finally lodged among the submerged posts. It was violently rocked in these, but was held steady enough to be safe there until the rain stopped and the water level fell. We heard the loud cracks as its waterline planking was ruptured and saw the billowing water where it rushed in to flood the vessel and destroy what remained of its cargo. Only when this happened, and when pieces of loose planking began to break free and float away, did the captain make any attempt to get ashore. He climbed out onto the canopy which then rose level with the spars of the damaged jetty. His intention, I saw, was to climb from the boat onto one of these and then make his way along the broken posts to solid ground. The attempt seemed easily achievable and there was little concern among us at what the man was about to do. He was protected now from the main assault of the river by his own disintegrating boat, which bore the full force of its flow.

Fletcher went as far as was safe along the unsteady timbers and indicated to the man where to climb next, but the man paid him no attention, and as he passed from one seemingly sound post to another, the second post swayed beneath him and then fell slowly away from the jetty until it lay at an angle, forcing the man to cling to it, and from where he could not reach any other part of the structure. He clung to this post as I had seen small animals cling to the floating branches rushing past us in the floods. Further ropes were thrown to him, but he caught none of these. The post itself was lassoed, but it was beyond even the strength of the ten men to pull it back into its upright position, and with every minute that passed it leaned even further, undermined more quickly by the faster water in which it now lay.

Fletcher cursed the man for having waited so long before leaving his boat. Cornelius inspected the damage done to the jetty and said that in all likelihood it was beyond repair. Abbot disputed this, but was ignored.

The closest we could get to the man clinging to the pole was twenty feet, the water between us more earth than liquid. I imagined the only course of action remaining to us was to leave the stranded man where he was until the rain stopped and the river slowed and fell. But I knew even as I considered this that the rain would continue falling for a further three hours, and that another six hours might pass before the surge was gone from the river, by which time it would be night, and even at that short distance the man would be lost to our sight. It was inconceivable to me that he might remain clinging to the pole until morning.

All these considerations were then cleared from my mind as Cornelius came to me, and said, ‘The boat.'

I looked to where the stricken boat, still stuck among the poles and spars of the jetty, continued to break up. It was less firmly lodged than before, lightened by the loss of its cargo, and it rose higher in the water and was starting to swing free of its underwater restraints. Fletcher called for the men with the ropes to secure it, but they were as unsuccessful as before in their efforts.

I considered it unlikely that the man clinging to the pole was aware of what was now happening. Had he been upriver of the vessel, then this would not have mattered – the boat would have drifted free, broken up and been dragged away from him. But he clung to his pole downriver of where this was happening, and it was clear to everyone standing away from him that when the vessel finally rose free of its restraining poles, then it would swing directly onto him, at worst crush him where he was, and at best dislodge him and his perch and carry them both downriver amid the disintegrating wreckage.

I asked Fletcher what he thought might now happen, but it was the question of a man wanting only to confirm and share his own fears, and he did not answer me.

Finally, the boat rose free, spun until it was side-on to the clinging man and was then rammed into him, crushing him against the pole, and striking him such a blow that he had no time to understand what was happening to him and no time to do anything to avoid the collision. He screamed, but it was a short, truncated scream, and he instantly lost his grip on the pole and was lost between it and the boat in the dark, foaming water. The pole stood firm for several seconds, but then it too gave way with the weight of the boat against it, and once this obstacle was overcome the boat was free to drift out onto the river and away from us.

I heard Cornelius say, ‘Thank God for that,' and for the words to be repeated by others around him.

I looked back to where the man had disappeared. It was impossible that he would have avoided serious injury in the collision of the boat with the post: at best his arms, legs or ribs would have been crushed, at worst his spine or skull broken and his agony ended. It was difficult to see exactly where he had been because the pole was no longer visible, but we searched as best we could through the rain for any sign of him. We saw nothing – not even his snagged body on another of the poles – and soon afterwards, the day's drama over, we all withdrew to our offices or rooms.

Later that evening, as I told Frere about what had happened, and as the rain finally slackened and fell on the roof above us with less and less clamour, he asked me why I referred to the events of the afternoon as a tragedy.

‘Because a man lost his life when he might have saved it,' I said.

He shook his head at this definition. ‘No, a man lost his life because he chose not to save himself and because he made a judgement concerning the value of his life against that put upon it by others – that put upon it in relation to the value of his boat and the goods he carried. That is no tragedy.'

I did not understand the distinction he was making, but I was still too overwhelmed by the events of the day and the brutal death I had witnessed to continue the argument. I would have told him he was dealing with events merely as abstractions devoid of human understanding or feelings, that he would have felt differently had he too stood helplessly by as the man was crushed. But to what end? He might have conceded these points to some small degree to appease me, but he would not have believed me.

*   *   *

Word reached us via the Belgians that a delegation was being sent to us to enquire into what had happened regarding Frere, and that the findings of this enquiry would determine what action was subsequently to be taken against the man.

The document Abbot read out to us was four pages long, and scarcely a single sentence of it strayed from this official camouflage. It was signed by six men, each, apparently, with some part in the ‘affair'. None of us recognized a single name other than that of our own Company Secretary. The titles of the others confused us.

We were assured that Frere would be provided with every ‘civil comfort' relating to his situation, yet warned that he should be offered no more liberty than was absolutely necessary. We were his gaolers, little more – guardians of his health and his sanity.

Our own testimonies would be sought, however peripheral, however indirectly they related to the events at hand, to those fifty-one days, the true focus of the enquiry.

That all this information had been addressed to and delivered to Abbot caused us further concern. He told us he was instructed to read it aloud to us, that we were all to attend this announcement, and that the document was afterwards to be kept safe by him and him alone. We all suspected him of a greater part in the proceedings than he admitted.

To the best of my knowledge, he had not so far visited Frere in his cell, and nor had Frere made any attempt to communicate with him. There was pride in his voice as he read out this news of the delegation, something which had thus far remained only an unwelcome rumour, the possibility of which had receded with each passing day.

Cornelius asked Abbot to explain to us who the unknown signatories were, and Abbot went through the pretence of knowing. He spoke of new governmental bodies and the powers and institutions of new protectorates; he added to this tangle of meaninglessness by quoting new rules and regulations to us. He said that deals had been struck elsewhere between the Company and others, between the Company and the concession-granting, tax-imposing Belgians, and between those men and the men of emerging native governments, who might or might not become their partners in the future.

Our minds wandered into the background of these dramas, and we learned nothing solid, nothing of any use to us, other than that Abbot considered himself to be at our centre in the matter, and that anything concerning Frere must now be undertaken through him. He wore this small responsibility like a crown and became even more unbearable than usual in its possession.

He told me that he was liaising directly with Bone concerning Frere's treatment, and in improving the conditions in the flooded garrison, suggesting to me that my own involvement must cease. I told him that there was nothing in the document to prevent me from continuing to visit Frere. This angered him, and though he was forced to concede the point, he made it clear to me that everything I now did and said in the matter might be legitimately observed and noted.

Fletcher asked him how large the delegation was likely to be, and we knew again by Abbot's answer that he was guessing.

The Inquisition would come and shine its light on us in our darkness. Abbot would help direct the light this way and that, and the Blaze of understanding would be so great that we would all be dazzled and then blinded by it. Nothing would remain unseen. We had all lived too long in the half-light of speculation and hearsay, of lying and evasion, to have any true idea of how brightly that light of enquiry, and, possibly, of redemption, might now shine in on us. We all understood this, and we all made our own unspoken assessments. The hand behind any one of those six signatures might sweep us all away, might take Frere from us and never again present him to view.

We were reminded by Cornelius that the document had come to us via the far shore.

‘Meaning what?' Abbot said angrily.

‘Meaning nothing,' Cornelius said, looking round at the rest of us to confirm what we all understood – that whatever
we
knew was already known by others.

‘It has no bearing, no bearing whatsoever,' Abbot insisted. ‘No-one else has any involvement in the matter.'

Fletcher asked if he might look again at the papers, but Abbot refused him and sealed them in his case.

He left us shortly afterwards.

A bottle of brandy was produced and the rest of us sat together considering the wider implications of the message we had so abruptly received.

Cornelius wondered aloud why we had been forewarned of what was about to happen, and when I asked him what he meant, he told me instead to imagine how much pleasure Abbot would have in reading the document through the bars of Frere's cell door. I still did not fully understand what he was saying, until Fletcher, sitting beside him, made his hand into a gun and pressed it into his temple. I told him he was being ridiculous, but he refused to argue with me.

Cornelius diverted us by calculating how long it would take the delegation to reach us if it had departed, as we were told, from Leopoldville, eighteen days previously. He calculated that ten days remained before it would be with us. Fletcher put this closer to twenty. He said there would be ‘new' men involved, men unaccustomed to travelling in the wet season, and that, besides, there were too many diversions along the way.

I left them and returned to my quarters.

I thought of approaching Abbot alone and asking him if he knew anything more than was contained in the document, but even as I considered this I knew that I would achieve nothing. He knew no more or less than the rest of us, the only difference being that his own ignorance had been sanctioned, had been elevated into an official role within the proceedings, and ours had not.

I sat for an hour in my open doorway, watching all the stars of heaven in the night sky and listening to the calls of unseen creatures all around me.

14

‘You didn't see fit to tell me about my inquisitors?' were Frere's first words to me when I saw him two days later.