ON WHICH THE SUN HAS SET
By Kate Fagalde
CHAPTER ONE
‘Do Not Move’
Mrs. Bassingthwaite glared balefully at the African prisoner who stood trembling near the back door. Reaching for the telephone, she puffed out her chest to its’ fullest extent and dialled a number.
‘Mr. Harrington, this really is too much’ she boomed into the receiver,
‘What seems to be the problem?’ came his cautious reply.
Jeffrey Harrington knew exactly who the caller was, and he held the phone away from his ear slightly, in expectation of the onslaught that would doubtless follow. The afternoon heat of the African sun bounced in through the window as Harrington ran his finger around the inside of his sticky shirt collar easing it away from his sunburned neck, all too aware that he was in for a slice of hot tongue. From a corner of his office, the portrait of a youthful Queen Elizabeth II looked down on him in what he always felt was a kindly but slightly judgemental manner. She had only been on the throne for a relatively short time but already had a worldly-wise air about her. Harrington was wary of most women, starting at the top with his monarch and down through the ranks to his mother and his wife, and now he was compelled to deal with the dreadful Mrs Bassingthwaite.
‘Mr. Harrington’ came the voice of doom. ‘What is the meaning of the prisoner that you have sent to dig the garden this week?’
‘The meaning, Mrs. Bassingthwaite? I’m, sorry, I don’t quite follow’.
‘You know perfectly well that each week I have a prisoner sent down to the Residency for the purposes of helping Joshua in the garden. You also know that I always insist on having a murderer, and this week you have sent me a rapist
Mr. Harrington sighed silently and opening the Record Book on his desk , ran his finger down the list.
‘I do apologise Mrs. Bassingthwaite, We are extremely short of murderers just at present. It’s the time of year when a lot of them go home to the villages to help with the planting and only come back at the end of the month. I could have your rapist collected and exchange him for a tax offender if you prefer”.
‘Oh it’s far too late now, it’s just that murderers are a far better class of people and one likes to know where one stands with one’s labourers’.
Bearing in mind the fact that the murderer who had so patiently dug and weeded Mrs. Bassingthwaite’s garden the previous week had been incarcerated for using his wife’s head as a chopping block, her description of “a better class of person” seemed somehow slightly misleading, but Harrington knew far better than to argue with the fearsome lady. Having mumbled more apologies and promising to do better next time, he returned the receiver to its cradle and made a mental note to add “murder” to the charge sheet of any prisoner drawing the short straw and sent down to perform horticultural duties at the Residency.
Mrs Bassingthwaite had a point though. Rapists were a sloppy lot on the whole. In the little African state of Basutoland, there was seldom any evidence of physical violence or force having been involved in the crime; simply the fact that a hopeful bridegroom-to-be could not come up with the usually extortionate bride price of several head of cattle and a new saddle for his prospective Father-in-Law. Rather than spend the next five years on the gold mines of South Africa trying to raise the wherewithal to purchase himself a wife, the “rapist” simply helped himself and removed the girl from her father’s house – usually with her willing acquiescence – and, having spent one night away from home, it would be assumed that she was now “spoiled goods” and therefore of no value to any other suitor. The only recourse for the angry parents was to shout “Rape” from the rooftops and have her abductor hauled off to prison for a month or so to cool his heels, during which time, no doubt, his “wife” was given a thorough talking to by the rest of the family and then sent back to her new rondavel to await the return of her common-law husband.
Murderers on the other hand, were usually people with a bit of go in them. At least they had made a major decision and had done something about it, whether it was burying an assegai in the back of someone’s head or dosing his Saturday night brew with something a little bit stronger than the usual tot of methylated spirits. Wayward wives had been violently brought to their senses, but only briefly before passing on to that heavenly land where there were no buckets of water to be collected from faraway streams, nor great bundles of firewood to be cut and carried from distant mountain sides. Of course a variety of other murders were perpetrated apart from just the mundane domestic ones; interlopers who had made off with half a dozen pregnant sheep, people who had argued too heatedly over a political viewpoint, road hogs who had caused one to fall headlong into a wayside donga while passing each other on a narrow mountain pathway. Most of these difficult people had to be dealt with using either a firm hand, or whatever weapon was available be it a knife, Club or a handy rock.
Jeffrey didn’t like to agree with her, but it had to be said, Mrs. Bassingthwaite was probably right. You would get a lot more work out of a man who had screwed up his courage to the sticking point and actually had carried out his decision to kill someone, than from a feeble fellow who took the easy way and then slunk off like a thief in the night without paying his dues.
Hearing the clock in the outside office chime five, with evident relief and anticipating the pleasures of a cold beer, Harrington gathered up the remaining papers that were strewn across his desk and shoved them into a drawer. Taking his broad brimmed straw hat from the stand near the door, he straightened his tie, twitched his waistcoat into place and took a quick look in the mirror. It reflected a pleasant enough man with mid- brown eyes, light brown hair and a slightly receding chin. Despite the deskbound nature of his job, he sported a healthy sun tan and overall had the demeanour of a forty year old man who had arrived in Africa some five years before, and who was now starting to look as though he belonged. He knew that he couldn’t be described as conventionally handsome but with a height of six feet two and with his military stance, he knew that he gave the impression of a good looking man who had come to grips with his expatriate life and who was making decent progress. Putting his hat firmly on his head, he gave a slight nod at his reflection in approval of what he saw, and walking out of the office into the hot afternoon sun, he marched across the parade ground to where his vehicle stood waiting.
Standing smartly to attention next to the car was his Basotho driver Jeremiah. His green fatigue prison issue uniform was reasonably clean if somewhat creased and a fresh bandage covered the latest wound on his left fist. Jeremiah was not only the Chief Prison Officer’s driver but was also extremely handy at keeping things in order within the prison itself. Serving a five year sentence for murder, having battered his victim to death in a fight, (and suspected of having removed some of his opponents inner organs to sell for profit to a local witchdoctor), Jeremiah was not a man to be trifled with. While he had great respect for the white men who had come to bring some sort of order to the country, it was he who kept order inside the jail. Nobody messed with Jeremiah. Over the years, stories about the exact destination of the organs removed from his victim had become horrifically embroidered, and Jeremiah would look at some recalcitrant prisoner while picking his teeth speculatively and occasionally running his eyes over the region of the offender’s liver. It was all that was needed to bring the most arrogant and difficult of prisoners to heel. Harrington knew it and gave Jeremiah a fair amount of leeway in which to work, and if it kept things quiet, he was more than wiling to do so.
‘Good afternoon Jeremiah’ said Harrington.
‘Good afternoon Sir’ snapped Jeremiah smartly, pulling open the car door and sent the wounded hand to his forehead in a sort of military salute.
‘The Club I think Jeremiah’ requested Harrington, sinking back gratefully against the warm leather.
Jeremiah never queried his European name of Jeremiah whereas his Sesotho name had always been Thabo. When he arrived at the mines in Johannesburg, he was automatically given his new English name and, to all intents and purposes when he was in the company of the white man, this was his accepted name even if those of his village knew him only as Thabo. Within the confines of the prison he insisted on the use of his European name, as if he wanted no part of his real self to be associated with this dismal place. When he left it, he believed he would be able to leave Jeremiah behind and return once more to being Thabo, the person that he had been in his previous life.
‘Hot again today’ said Harrington as Jeremiah started the engine, finding the weather to be a safe conversational bridge in any situation.
‘Yes Morena’ replied Jeremiah, giving Harrington the title that would be accorded to anyone who was in a position of responsibility and importance.
If he had felt that he was on an equal footing with Harrington, he would have given him the title N’tati which would mean “father” but this would have been considered too casual for the man who sat in the back of the car.
Jeremiah was always meticulous about parking the car in the shade of the big acacia tree that grew to one side of the prison grounds, only moving it into the heat of the sun at the last moment. The car was his pride and joy and he would polish it endlessly, and anyone who carelessly splashed mud or otherwise marked its pristine paintwork would soon regret doing so if they were anywhere within reach of Jeremiah’s fist or his voice. Sometimes there seemed little difference in being on the receiving end of either as they both delivered a fearsome a punch.
Almost equalling Jeffrey Harrington in height, Jeremiah was taller than most Basotho men and despite the drab prison uniform, still created an imposing figure. When dressed in his traditional blanket and conical hat, riding out across the mountain ranges, he had been even more so, but his violent crime had cut short that life of freedom, and now he blended in more or less, with his fellow prisoners who served out their sentences in the local prison.
Jeremiah knew that in keeping with the tribal laws of years gone by, he would not have been incarcerated for his crime. Before the whites arrived bringing with them their own peculiar form of justice, it was invariably agreed by the tribal elders that manslaughter was punished with a hefty fine of cattle to be paid over to the chief. Capital punishment was unheard of. Men were far too valuable to kill off simply because, for their own good reason, they had taken the life of another. On the whole, minor crimes were dealt with by the extended family or the tribe, but should it be felt that a higher rank needed to be called upon, the matter would be taken to the headman or the local sub-chief for discussion by all the men of the village who gathered together in the shade of a large tree to smoke and debate the issue.
In Jeremiah’s case, it would have been decided that, although a man’s life had been taken, it was not one of any particular value to the clan, since the victim had threatened the life of a valued member of their society, and in all probability the matter would have been laid to rest with Jeremiah in all probability subsequently viewed as something of a hero among his people. The matter of the missing liver would have been overlooked, since there was no evidence that it had been put to use in the preparation of a diretlo or medicine to give one person great power over others. But the days when the Basotho were allowed to manage their own affairs were over, and, having sought the protection of the British Crown in the face of increasing land invasions by a steady march of Boers crossing their land, they had to accept the often incomprehensible laws.
Slowly navigating the rough road that eventually joined with the main route, Jeremiah turned the vehicle towards town. He was totally unsurprised at the destination for where else would Morena Harrington be going at the end of a hot working day? Indeed, where else would any of the white male community be going at five-o-clock on a weekday except to The Club?
Jeremiah had learned his driving skills on the mines and quickly became skilful at staying out of the deep tunnels that kept him from the sunlight. Honing his natural talents for driving, he became a delivery man within the confines of the mine compound and was occasionally even called upon to drive from one mine to another. It was vital not to incur the wrath of his employers by allowing so much as a dent or a mark on the vehicles he drove and soon established a good reputation for honesty and reliability when it came to ensuring that the goods he carried arrived intact at their destination. To Jeremiah, it was all a simple matter of supply and demand. His Bosses demanded a high standard of work and he was meticulous in supplying it. In return, they supplied the money he so desperately needed as well as giving him a roof over his head.
Driving the two mile route to the Club, Jeremiah carefully avoided the huge potholes making up a large portion of the road surface. Tar surfacing was unknown and the gravel roads occasionally scraped and graded were at the mercy of both wind and rain and the baking heat of summer.
The road leading into town was flat, but far ahead rose the horseshoe range of mountains that ringed Mohales Hoek. Mohale had been one of the brothers of the great Chief Moshoeshoe while the word Hoek was the Dutch word for corner, for in many respects, this was a corner of the country. Having run in a south westerly direction, the Maluti range now curved away to the south east and the arm of the mountains protected the little town from the worst of the southern winds that blew across the high range. The plains of the Free State lay away to the west and standing above the line of mountains behind the town was the great flat topped outcrop of Mokhele mountain.
Decelerating, Jeremiah safely passed a large herd of goats on their way home to the safety of the kraal for the night, wary of the young kids who could skip out into the traffic at any moment. Hooting, he avoided the donkeys with their burdens of firewood and sacks of mealie meal, being urged on by herd boys wearing grey blankets, oversized gumboots and carrying thick sticks.
‘Why must they beat them so?’ barked Harrington crossly as he watched a herd boy belabour one of the ribby donkeys.
Jeremiah knew that it was a rhetorical question but looking at the herd boy he failed to see what the problem was. Often he heard Morena Harrington comment angrily as a heavy stick would come down on the back of some animal which had slowed its pace or paused to snatch a mouthful of grass at the roadside.
Harrington could never get used to the casual cruelty of Africa; the scrawny ever- hungry dogs and the thin ponies and donkeys that he saw daily. As far as Jeremiah was concerned, if an animal was too stupid to stay out of range of a boot or a whip, or too slow to stay well ahead of the sticks, it only got what it deserved. Apart from a worthwhile hunting dog, the only animal he respected was a good horse knowing it was worth its’ weight in gold in a hard country where the animal was expected to carry a full grown man for a whole day and climb to heights over 2,000 metres above sea level. He had owned many horses in his time and had ridden for miles across the wild mountainous interior of the country, where there was precious little use for the white man’s unreliable cars and trucks on the narrow tracks. A good horse could swim a fast flowing river or slip and slide through deep mud; a brave hearted animal would tackle the steepest mountain tracks and bear thirst and hunger until the safety and comfort of some distant village was reached.
Jeremiah enjoyed driving but had yet to see the vehicle that could conquer “The Impossible Pass” or the “God Help Me Pass”; mountain not named for amusement but reality. Up there with the lightning flashing and the thunder barrelling around the mountain ranges with the rain beating down relentlessly, was no place for the weak or fearful. This was not a country for the thin-blooded; if you lived away from the ease of the lowlands, you took the country by its fearsome horns and fought it, or else it would lay you to waste.
Harrington pulled out an old copy of “The Field” from his briefcase and settling back into the seat once more, he turned his mind away from the unrelenting grinding poverty of Africa he looked at photographs of pink coated huntsmen leading packs of hounds out to chase down and kill foxes in the prescribed traditional manner. It was a comfort to remind himself of just how civilised his countrymen were when here he was surrounded on all sides by the barbarity of Basutoland.
Driving along, Jeremiahs thoughts floated ahead of him, up into the high mountains where his village lay in the lee of the great Maluti range. In his mind’s eye, he could see the dark stone circular rondavels with thatched roofs that were completely camouflaged against the hillside when wet. The curve of the stone walls withstood the howling winds and the steep slopes of the tightly packed grass shed cascading rain and snow. Standing in a circle, each rondavel was linked to its neighbour with a low stone wall. Protected in the shelter of these walls was a structure of plastered stone built in the shape of a cross, on either side of which could be built a cooking fire, positioned according to which way the wind blew from.
Around these stone walls the womenfolk gathered, exchanging news and views and advice as women do the world over; children tumbled and played in the dust with the young puppies, and chickens would peck and cluck their way between the huts, blissfully unaware that it might be headed into one of the great black bellied cooking pots that stood like so many malignant toads crouching over their bed of coals.
‘Thank you Jeremiah’. He was brought back to the moment to find that he had driven straight into the grounds of the Club without much awareness of the journey.
‘Yes Sir’. Jeremiah was a man of few words. He could speak English but chose not to, and since his employer, or rather the one responsible for his detention, could speak only a few faltering words of Sesotho, (and this with an accent that would make Jeremiah cringe), he saw little reason to bridge the communication gap. He knew what his Boss wanted and knew what was expected of him, and if he was to serve out his term and return to that wind blown mountain he called home, he would quietly get on with the job until his sentence was over,
‘You can return to the prison, Jeremiah. Madam will be along later and I shall go home with her or else get a lift’.
‘Yes Morena’. Jeremiah held the car door open and inclined his head slightly as Mr. Harrington alighted and went in through the door of the long whitewashed single storey building.
Jeremiah had never seen the inside of the white Club and doubted if he ever would. He knew people who had been ordered to move furniture in and out for various functions and who had later returned to haul away the incredible number of empty beer bottles. He had seen for himself the effects that some of these functions had on Mr. Harrington and had taken care to drive especially carefully on those days.
Reversing out of the car park, Jeremiah headed back towards the prison in good time for his nightly plate of mealie meal porridge and a chunk or two of meat in a thin watery stew. Not all that different from the meal that his family would be eating in his far away village, and his cell was just as wind and water proof as the snug rondavel , but it lacked the voices of his children and the warmth of his wife’s body and their absence made him sigh softly to himself as he turned into the Prison Grounds. Carefully parking the car he went in to deal with a couple of new boastful offenders who had tried flexing their muscles and throwing their weight around. It was all in a days work for Jeremiah.
