Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (31 page)

They finally reached the slopes.

Burton guided his expedition along a well-trodden path, up through thick vegetation, over a summit, and down the other side. They waded through a swamp that sent up noxious bubbles of hydrogen sulphide with their every step. The rotting carcass of a rhinoceros lay at the far edge of the morass, and beyond it a long, sparsely forested incline led them to an area of tightly packed foliage. Monkeys and parrots squabbled and hooted in the branches around them.

They forced their way along the overgrown trail until they suddenly came to a clearing, where seven elderly warriors stood, each holding a bow with a trembling arrow levelled at them. The old men were plainly terrified and tears were streaming down their cheeks. They were no threat and they knew it.

Saíd called for the porters to halt, then stepped forward to speak to the old men, but one suddenly let loose a cry of surprise, dropped his weapon, pushed the Arab aside, and ran over to Burton.

“Wewe! Wewe!
Thou art
Murungwana Sana
of Many Tongues!” he cried. “Thou wert here long long days ago, and helped our people to fight the
p'hazi
whose name is Manda, who had plundered our village!”

“I remember thee,
Mwene Goha,”
Burton said, giving the man his title. “Thy name is Máví ya Gnombe. Manda was of a neighbouring district, and we punished him right and good, did we not? Surely he has not been raiding thy village again?”

“No, not him! The slavers have come!” The man loosed a wail of despair. “They have taken all but the old!”

“When did this happen?”

“In the night. It is Tippu Tip, and he is still here, camped beyond the trees, in our fields.”

A murmur of consternation rose from the nearest of the porters and rippled away down the line. Burton turned to Saíd. “See to the men. Bring them into this clearing. Do not allow them to flee.”

The
ras kafilah
signalled to his bully boys and they started to herd the porters into the glade.

The king's agent instructed Trounce, Honesty, Krishnamurthy, Spencer, Isabella Mayson, and Sister Raghavendra to help the Arab guard the men and supplies. He gestured for Swinburne to join him, then addressed Mávi ya Gnombe:
“Mwene Goha
, I wouldst look upon the slavers' camp, but I do not wish the slavers to see me.”

“Follow, I shall show thee,” the elder said. He and his companions, who'd put away their arrows, led Burton and Swinburne to the far side of the clearing where the path continued.

Between the glade and the cultivated fields beyond there was a thick band of forest. The trail led halfway through this, then veered sharply to the left. The African stopped at the bend and pointed down the path.

“It is the way to the village,” he said.

“I remember,” Burton replied. “The houses and
bandani
are in another clearing some way along. I had arranged for a forward party of Wanyamwezi porters to meet us at thy village with supplies, but the plan went awry.”

“Had they come, they would now be slaves, so it is good the plan did not work.
Murungwana Sana
, this is one of three paths from the village clearing. Another leads from it down to the plain and is better trodden than this.”

“I was wondering why this one is so overgrown,” said Burton. “The last time I was here, it was the main route.”

“We changed it after Manda attacked us.”

“And the third path?”

“Goes from the village, through the forest, to the fields. All these paths are now guarded by old men, as this one was. But let us not follow this way. Instead, we shall go through the trees here, and we will come to the fields at a place where the slavers would not expect to see a man, and will therefore not be looking. My brothers will meanwhile return to the village, for the grandmothers of those taken are sorely afraid.”

“Very well.”

Máví ya Gnombe nodded to his companions, who turned and continued down the trail, then he pushed through a sticky-leafed bush and disappeared into the undergrowth. Burton followed, and Swinburne stepped after him, muttering about leeches and ticks and fleas and “assorted creepy-crawlies.”

They struggled on for five minutes, then the trees thinned, and the men ducked low and proceeded as quietly as possible. They came to a bush, pushed aside its leaves, and looked out over cultivated fields, upon which was camped a large slave caravan.

There were, Burton estimated, about four hundred slaves, men and women, mostly kneeling, huddled together and chained by the neck in groups of twelve. Arabian traders moved among and around them—about seventy, though there were undoubtedly more in the large tents that had been erected on the southern side of the camp.

A little to the north, a great many pack mules were corralled, along with a few ill-looking horses.

Swinburne started to twitch with fury. “This is diabolical, Richard!” he hissed. “There must be something we can do!”

“We're vastly outnumbered, Algy,” Burton said. “And we have the Prussians breathing down our necks. But—”

“But what?”

“Perhaps there's a way we can kill two birds with one stone. Let's get back to the others.”

They retraced their steps through the foliage until they emerged once again onto the path. Burton addressed the elderly African: “Máví ya Gnombe, go thou to thy village and bring all who remain there to the glade where we encountered thee. Do not allow a single one to remain behind.”

The old man looked puzzled, but turned and paced away to do as commanded.

Burton and Swinburne returned to the clearing, where they found the porters restless and unhappy. The king's agent walked over to the bundle of robes that hid Herbert Spencer and reached up to the parakeet that squatted atop it. Pox jumped onto his outstretched hand, and Burton took the bird away from his companions and quietly gave it a message to deliver to Isabel. He included a description of their location, outlined a plan of action, and finished: “Report the enemy's numbers and position. Message ends.”

Pox disappeared into the green canopy overhead.

As if turned on by a switch, the day's rainfall began. Everyone moved to the more sheltered edges of the glade.

Burton called his companions over and told them what he intended.

“You've got to be bloody joking!” Trounce exclaimed.

“Chancy!” Thomas Honesty snapped.

“Perilous!” Krishnamurthy grunted.

“Inspired!” Swinburne enthused.

“I see no other way,” Burton said.

They ate a hurried meal while awaiting the parakeet's return.

The villagers arrived, pitifully few in number, and all elderly. Burton described to them what was soon to happen, and drilled into them that their silence would be essential. They huddled together, wet, miserable, and scared.

The expedition members took rifles and pistols from the supplies and began to clean and load them.

“You'll remain with the porters,” Burton told the two women.

Isabella Mayson picked up a revolver, flicked open its chamber, and started to push bullets into it. “Absolutely not,” she said.

Sister Raghavendra hefted a rifle. “Do you consider us too frail, Richard?”

“On the contrary, you have proven yourselves—”

“Equal to any man?” the Sister interrupted. “Good. Then we shall do what needs to be done and fight at your side, and don't you dare attempt to persuade us otherwise.”

Burton gave a curt nod.

Forty minutes later, Pox returned.

“Message from Isabel Arundell. We are ready. Estimate a hundred and fifty thumb-sucking men fast approaching your position. You have an hour at most, chamber-pot lover. Be prepared.”

“You all understand what you must do?” he asked his friends.

They gave their grim assent, pushed pistols into their belts, slung rifles over their shoulders, and divided into two teams of four: Trounce, Swinburne, Krishnamurthy, and Mayson; and Burton, Honesty, Spencer, and Raghavendra. Pox huddled on the explorer's shoulder.

Burton addressed Saíd: “To thee falls responsibility for the porters and villagers. It is vital that they neither flee nor make a sound.”

“I understand.”

The king's agent and his companions moved out of the glade and along the path. The rain hammered against the leaves around them, hissing loudly, soaking through their clothing, making the ground squelch beneath their feet.

They followed the trail as it veered to the right, and traipsed on until they eventually reached the abandoned village, which was some considerable distance from the original clearing. The second glade was much bigger. There were twenty or so beehive huts in it, and a well-built palaver house. A massive fig tree spread over the central space.

“The first shot is yours,” Burton said to Trounce. “Judge it well. Don't be too eager.”

“Understood.”

Trounce led his team to the eastern edge of the village and they disappeared into the vegetation, following the path down the hill to the marshy ground where the rhinoceros carcass lay. Burton and the rest went in the opposite direction, cautiously proceeding along the trail toward the fields. Halfway along it, they left the path and pushed into the bushes and plants that crowded around the boles of the trees. Struggling through the roots and vines and thorns and branches, they made their way to the edge of the forest until, through the dripping verdure, they saw the cultivated land and the slave encampment.

The sun was low in the sky by now, and it turned the fringes of the passing clouds a radiant gold.

The rain stopped.

“It won't be long,” Burton said softly. “Spread out. Don't shoot until I do. And remember—keep moving.”

Honesty, Spencer, and Sadhvi Raghavendra slipped away.

Burton lay flat on his stomach and levelled his rifle, aiming at the slavers who were moving around their tents and captives.

He flicked a beetle from his cheek and crushed a leech that had attached to the back of his left hand.

Pox hopped from his shoulder to his head and mumbled, “Odious pig.”

The shadows lengthened.

A seemingly endless line of ants marched over the mulch just in front of him. They were carrying leaf fragments, dead wasps, and caterpillars.

He heard Honesty sneeze close by.

A rifle cracked in the near distance.

All of a sudden, gunfire erupted and echoed through the trees, the sound rising up from the base of the hill on the other side of the village. Burton knew what it meant: the Prussians were very close, and Trounce and his team had opened fire on them.

Sheltered behind the roots of trees, the police detective's team could take pot-shots at the hundred and fifty Prussians with impunity. Not only were they concealed but they were also on higher ground, while the pursuing party had to struggle through the marsh before ascending a slope that, while forested, was considerably more open than the uppermost part of the hill.

Trounce, Swinburne, Krishnamurthy, and Isabella Mayson would be silently and invisibly moving backward as they picked off the enemy, drawing the Prussians toward the village and away from the other clearing.

The noise of battle had reached the Arabs. Burton watched as they grabbed rifles and gestured at the forest. A large group of them started running toward where he and the others were hidden.

He took aim at a particularly large and ferocious-looking slaver and shot him through the heart.

Immediately, rifles banged loudly as Honesty, Spencer, and Raghavendra opened fire.

Burton downed two more of the slavers, then, as the other Arabs started shooting blindly into the undergrowth, he crawled backward and repositioned himself behind a tangle of mangrove roots from where he could see the beginning of the path to the village.

Bullets tore through the foliage but none came close to him. He put his rifle aside and pulled two six-shooters from his belt. Four Arabs ran into view. He mowed them down with well-placed shots then crawled away to reposition himself once again.

Slowly, in this fashion, Burton and his friends retreated toward the village.

The slavers followed, and though they sent bullet after bullet crashing into the trees, they didn't once find a target.

On the other side of the empty settlement, Trounce and his companions were performing exactly the same manoeuvre. They had slightly less luck—a bullet had ploughed through Krishnamurthy's forearm and another had scored the skin of Isabella Mayson's right cheek and taken off her earlobe—but the effect was the same: the Prussians were advancing toward the village.

After some minutes, Burton came closer to the end of the path where it opened into the clearing. He fired off three shots and wormed his way under a tamarind tree whose branches slumped all the way to the ground forming an enclosed space around the trunk, and here he found Herbert Spencer collapsed and motionless in the dirt.

A rifle cracked, tamarind leaves parted, and Thomas Honesty crawled in. He saw the bundle of Arabian robes and whispered: “Herbert! Dead?”

“He can't die,” Burton replied in a low voice. “He's clockwork. Fool that I am, I forgot to wind him up this morning—and the key is back with the supplies!”

“Manage without him. Almost there!”

“Let's get into position,” Burton said. “Stay low—things are about to get a lot hotter around here!”

He dropped onto his belly and—followed by the Scotland Yard man—wriggled out from beneath the tamarind, through thorny scrub, and into the shelter of a matted clump of tall grass. Using his elbows, he propelled himself forward until he reached the edge of the village clearing. Honesty crawled to his side. They watched the action from behind a small acacia bush. The police detective glanced at it and murmured, “Needs pruning, hard against the stem.”

Guns were discharging all around them, and they immediately saw that the thing they'd hoped for had come to pass. The slavers had entered the village from the west, while Trounce and his team had lured the Prussians into it from the east; and now the two groups, convinced that the other was the enemy, were blazing away at each other.

“Now we just lie low and wait it out,” Burton said.