Chapter Ten
Capetown! The ship steamed — far too lazily it seemed to Jack — towards the long low shore, past what Jack was told was a lepers’ home on the parched, flat Robben Island, then seeming to crawl right under Lions Head on the top of Table Mountain. Jack quickened with excitement as he saw the harbour. Almost the entire regiment crowded to the near side of the ship, making it list slightly.
On the way in to the dock, they passed another troopship that turned out to contain soldiers from the Australian colonies. So here again, Jack thought, six other colonies in a soon-to-be dominion had produced a Militia and sent them on an even longer voyage to come and fight for Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, who reigned over Australia as well.
Although aching to get ashore, the regiment had to wait until the yellow flag was hoisted and a medical officer came on board to approve the ship for landing. Finally the ship came to moor at the dock and Kaffir (black) stevedores began to unload supplies. But the men still could not disembark, for orders came to spend another night in their cramped quarters.
After dinner, Jack loitered on deck, looking longingly out at the thriving city. Two of their four war correspondents were getting ready to disembark. Did orders not apply to them? Well, thought Jack, maybe chaplains are exempted also. He thought for a bit, and then crossed over to Stanley Brown, of the Mail and Empire, and another fellow, Kandinsky, who looked ready to disembark. He had stayed well clear of them during the voyage: with notebooks at the ready, he suspected they might be focussed on reporting the worst, rather than the brighter, aspects of the voyage. But now, perhaps no damage would be done.
“Mr. Brown!” Jack approached the friendly-looking writer who had grown a moustache during the voyage, perhaps to fit in better with the regiment. His inquisitive yet rather kind brown eyes suggested he might be an upright citizen. Jack was not so sure about the lean and hungry-looking Kandinsky, who had been tarred by the soldiers as a bit of a wastrel. “Do I detect your intention to go ashore tonight?”
“Why yes,” came the answer from Brown. “We believe those orders have nothing to do with us. So, to better inform our readers across the Atlantic, we’re going down that gangplank. Can’t wait to set foot on this great new continent.”
“My sentiment exactly,” Jack said. “May I join you?”
Kandinsky scowled but Stanley nodded. “Of course, Padre. We’re just going to wander around a bit, get a feel for the town, and perhaps end with a celebration drink.” The last phrase seemed thrown out as a bit of a challenge.
“A drink would be just what the doctor ordered!” Jack grinned. “As long as we’re not back too late... Like you, I shall take in the town with very curious eyes.”
So it came to be that Jack, not glancing back but half-expecting a shouted command to return, hurried after them down the gangplank. Gingerly and proudly, he stepped for the first time on African soil.
As he trod the quay, he felt a surge of elation such as he had not known since Sir Wilfrid had shaken his hand at Spencerwood. At last, the African continent! What other Shigawaker had such luck? And who might have thought, when he entered Bishop’s University seven or eight years ago, that one day he would become a world traveller? Did he ever think, snowed in by blizzards on the Canadian Labrador, that he would soon adventure on tropical lands?
They turned off a waterfront street into the quaint old city thronged with dark-skinned, gaudily dressed Kaffirs, some refugees from the conflict to the north, and some slovenly, barefooted types in rags. Jack had never seen such variety: Malay and East Indians, Coolies, Soudanese, Arabs and Egyptians — turbans, fezzes, the woolly heads of Zulus and the slouch hats of the Cape “boys”. Red electric trolley cars clanged past, their passengers sitting in open seats on top. Jack and the others took in every storefront, every passer-by. He enjoyed the rather grand public buildings that lined this main thoroughfare. Such a monumental style of architecture he thought, must resemble European cities, particularly in Holland. Along the way, he noticed signs in Dutch as well as English. The colony had been an outpost of the Dutch East India Company until 1795, when the British seized it in the name of the Prince of Orange.
“I’ve never been able to get this South African history straight, Stanley,” Jack confessed. “Mind you, I came at a moment’s notice, and there were no history books on board I could find.”
“All you need to know is that the place went back and forth between the Dutch, or Boers, and the British —”
“Until the Brits passed that Emancipation of Slaves Act. That’s what undone ’em,” Kandinsky added.
“Oh yes, in 1833,” Stanley said. “I seem to remember a bunch of Boers trekked north, the Voortrekkers — “
“Five thousand of them,” Kandinsky said. “Brought their Kaffirs with ’em. Crossed the Vaal River.”
“Oh, so that set up the Transvaal,” concluded Jack. “They wanted more land?”
“They wanted to get out from under British Control.” Stanley sounded vehement. “But then in the Zulu uprising, 1877, they needed British help and so they lost their independence again.”
“Got it back seven years later, though, at that Convention in London,” Brown said. “But all the while, Germany was siding with the Boers. Didn’t hurt of course that they discovered diamonds in 1867, and gold near Kimberly a year earlier.”
“That’s for sure.” Jack was grateful for them piecing it together, now that he was actually here. Parts of downtown Montreal, he thought, displayed the same magnificent frontages, but he found these more interesting. Old Quebec City still held his heartstrings: nowhere else could be as attractive as that place he now called his second home. But this city here could at least claim the magnificent Table Mountain dominating its whole scene.
They squeezed back as a hansom cab trotted past, a Kaffir under a wide hat perched high on the back seat, snapping and cracking his whip like an expert as he wheeled two officers carelessly through some mud-packed, some stone-paved, streets. The three of them walked past rows of waiting carriages, brightly painted and gilded, rear danger lamps flaring red. Jack smiled at their names: Dashing and Bold, Napoleon the First, Swift and Sure, and so on.
One building, a newspaper office, rang bells to announce special war bulletins, and groups hastened to see what might be the latest. Jack took in the native drivers and porters, some in turbans, others in high-pointed straw hats rising like pagodas, and a group of Kaffirs guffawing at three jaunty young officers who strode past.
Finally, they entered a saloon that didn’t look too costly. In front of a long counter, soldiers, civilians and sailors all stood drinking deep the health of the Empire. This bar, they soon discovered, circulated wild rumours and even wilder gossip about the war, as did most others.
And what a week this last one had been. Jack and his journalist friends Kandinsky and Stanley learned from the bartender, a short bearded fellow with an unkempt apron covering his squat frame, that things were not going well for the British: the Boers had Ladysmith and Kimberly under siege, he told them, as well as Colonel Baden-Powell’s force at Mafeking. True, the British General Gatacre had successfully occupied Bushman’s Hoek, but the Imperial forces had been forced to fight for every foot of ground in all their battles, suffering great losses. So far not one shot had been fired in the territories of the Boer Republics.
“Well, I suppose that augurs well for the Canadians,” Jack commented. “Means our boys will get into action pretty quick.”
“Yes,” Stanley said, “at last we’ll have something real to report.” He nudged Kandinsky.
They spent the next half hour listening to, and trading, all sorts of rumours. The somewhat partisan bartender told them that in this rather divided city, some people were hoping for a pro-Boer uprising in the British territories of Cape Colony and the Natal. Stanley countered this with the news of the Sardinian’s thousand fighting men, all raring to do battle for their Queen.
Stanley proposed a second round of drinks, and Jack nodded. “But that’ll be the last for me.”
“The fighting is still a long way North,” the bartender told them as he poured their beers. “You won’t see any of that for a good while yet.”
“The quicker we give those Boers the whipping they deserve,” Stanley declared, “and the sooner we get back to Canada, the better.”
“Amen to that,” echoed Jack.
The bartender looked at them askance. “It may not be the Boers who get the whipping. They beat the blazes out of the Imperials — what do you think they’ll do to a bunch of rag-tag recruits from Canada?”
“My worry exactly,” echoed Kandinsky.
Jack was taken aback to hear of skepticism about the ability of soldiers who’d shared with them a month-long sea voyage. “I, for one, have every faith in our lads,” he snapped.
“Those Boers, they have the advantage of the Germans’ guns and munitions,” the bartender countered. “They know how to make a gun, I’ll tell you. Soldiers have been in here talking about that six inch Long Tom — and those pom-poms: sixty rounds a minute, shells the size of your thumb, and four times the range of a rifle bullet! Oh yes, and their Maxim guns are much better than ours, from what I hear.”
“Rumours are flying everywhere. You just wait,” Stanley said. “We were told our boys have a nine inch gun —”
“A lot of use against roving bands of kommandos,” the bartender sneered.
“So the Boers are not alone? The Germans are supplying them?” Jack had heard something about this from Kelsie, but it still shocked him.
“O’course. Everyone knows the Germans are backing the Boers,” the bartender snorted. “They send down arms, they’re doing everything they can. Don’t want any spread of British influence in Africa. Age-old rivalry, o’course.”
“Not so age-old, my friend,” Stanley countered. “That dastardly Kaiser has wound it up a lot since the departure of Bismarck.”
“You mean to say Boer bullets,” Jack felt his ire rising, “made in Germany, will be killing our Canadians?”
“You’re right they will,” said the bartender, moving off to bring drinks to another group of soldiers rowdily demanding attention.
“Imagine going back home with a beaten regiment!” mourned Stanley.
“Those who are going home...” added Kandinsky.
“Well, I have every intention of making it through,”Stanley replied. “I think that goes for the Padre here too, doesn’t it Father?”
Jack nodded. “Yes indeed. No bullets will stop me doing my duty, even in the front line.”
“I wasn’t talking about being finished off,” Kandinsky interrupted. “I was talking about choosing not to go back.”
They both whirled. “You’re not?” Jack asked.
“No sir. Why do you think I took this job cooped up in those awful conditions on that boat? Because like you fellows, I felt a surge of pride? No sir. I wanted a new life.” The drink, Jack saw, might have loosened his tongue. “I’ve left behind a wife, sure, and I promised to send her money. But like all the others, she’ll find someone else pretty quick, you watch. I’ll be only too glad to get rid of her. All this talk of sweethearts and wives crying? The one thing I’ll tell you is: most of them will be laughing themselves to sleep — in another man’s bed.”
Now this kind of talk Jack had not heard along the Labrador, nor in the tightly knit villages in Quebec. He was, quite frankly, shocked. But he held his tongue.
“I know, I know,” said Stanley, ever the pacifier, “several recruits I interviewed intend to start new lives here.”
All this was news to Jack. Should he have listened even more to his men on the voyage? But to egg on Kandinsky and learn more, he said, “Well, you may not be alone, Kandinsky, but you’re certainly rare among these folk.”
“I don’t give a damn what the others think, nor you, Padre. There’s some with lives so rotten, we’d do anything for a change. We cry out for it. You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. Most of us didn’t.”
Stanley shook his head. “You’re wrong about that. They say Jack here was a poor farm laddie.”
That reply got Kandinsky more worked up. Jack wondered how to pour soothing ointment on the bitterness.
Stanley tried. “Well, Kandinsky, you’ll be well quit of that rag you write for in Montreal.” He had intended this as a way of placating him, but in fact it just spurred him on.
“That rag, it might not be not up to the level of your high and mighty Mail and Empire back in Toronto,” the swarthy journalist said, but from what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t be working for them either. Bloody slanted paper, switching around everything you write, telling you what to do...”
“They certainly do not!” Stanley said. “We have all the freedom we need. I write whatever I please.”
This friendly drink was turning into quite a verbal brawl. Jack gulped his ale and made ready to leave. “Boys, boys, you’re both here to write about our gallant lads who have crossed the sea to vanquish some misguided beasts attacking our noble Queen. So let’s keep a sense of proportion! Kandinsky, you’re at liberty to stay here afterwards, of course, and we both hope you’ll find a wonderful life in this good land. And Stanley, surely you’re going to be fêted on your return after all those fine accounts, which I haven’t read, of course, but which I know will be quite enlightening.”
“And you, Padre,” Kandinsky looked at him, somewhat mollified, “you were preaching that rubbish as though you believed in it. I do find you convincing. I went to hear you twice.”
“Oh,” asked Jack, “you’ve come to my services?”
He was about to go on, when Kandinsky cut him short: “Only to report what you said as a duty to my readers. Not because I belong to the C. of E., no sir, I was brought up Catholic, my parents are from Europe, and a hard time they had of it. But you gave me no reason to slander you, because I would’ve. That’s what the readers love — misadventure.”
“No they don’t!” snapped Stanley. “My readers like heroism, bravery under fire, cheerfulness in the face of hardship, all the finer qualities of mankind.”
Kandinsky sneered. “Arrgh, you think your readers are any better than mine? No sir, you just don’t know them, and I do.”
Oh dear, thought Jack, this is never getting any better. “Lads, shall we wend our way back? We might discover something interesting on the way. This bar, we’ve dredged for all the information we’re likely to get. And it’s bad enough hearing about the German nation, and how quickly those ruthless Boers are using European armaments to beat our plucky Imperial troops.” He stood up.
Kandinsky nodded, and downed his pint; Stanley left half his on the bar and slid from his stool as well. The three of them waved goodbye to their somewhat confrontational bartender, and made their way back to the Sardinian.
Once on board, Jack stopped before going into his stateroom. The moonlight made everything almost as clear as day, and the scene was one he’d never forget: the harbour crowded with shipping, huge troopships and men of war. On shore, myriad lights sparkled from the city. Jack stared up again at the steep, scarred sides of Table Mountain, its top capped with fleecy moonlit clouds. He was not the only one awake; everyone was much too excited at going ashore the next morning to sleep.
He leaned back against the steel bulkhead, watching and thinking, his mind now full of Kelsie and the friends he had made on the voyage. What would the future bring to them — a long life ahead? Or a lonely grave in the sandy desert. He prayed for them silently, and then made himself retire, to be ready for the morrow.