Read Ebook: Tom Willoughby's Scouts: A Story of the War in German East Africa by Strang Herbert Paget Walter Illustrator

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Ebook has 949 lines and 64457 words, and 19 pages

"Ve shall go to ze hotel for to-day; I shall see to your baggage. To-morrow ve go to ze plantation. Zat zhentleman you part viz--I zink I know his look, but his name--no, I do not remember: it is--no, it vill not come."

"Barkworth."

He stopped abruptly, and gazed after the broad shambling figure with a look that Tom could not fathom. Then he turned to Tom again, begged him to excuse his absence for a moment, and went up the gangway on to the steamer. Returning after a minute or two, he explained that he had arranged for Tom's baggage to be sent to the hotel, and had invited Captain Goltermann to visit the plantation while the vessel remained in harbour.

"I can gif you good shootings," he said, smiling again. "You English are all good sports, eh? And my friend ze captain also is expert viz ze gun."

Tom felt that he had nothing to complain of in the warmth of his reception, and glowed with anticipation of diversifying his business inquiries with sport of a kind new to him.

Within half an hour of leaving the port the path entered hilly country, much overgrown with forest vegetation. The air was still, hot and humid, and Tom, though this novel means of locomotion, over rough ground, had its discomforts, reflected that he would have been still more uncomfortable had he walked. Innumerable insects buzzed around, seeking to pierce the protective curtains that enclosed him. Through the meshes of the muslin he saw gigantic ferns, revelling in the moist shade of huge trees, festooned with lianas and rattan. He heard monkeys chattering overhead, the soft notes of doves and the shriller cries of partridges and guinea-fowl; and but for the teeming insects he would have liked to spring from his litter and go afoot, where every yard brought some new beauty, some novel form of life, to view. After three hours the caravan halted, for the purpose of refreshing the Europeans with cool lager beer from bottles carried in ice-packs by one of the natives. It was drawing towards evening when they arrived at a clearing beyond which there was a dense and impenetrable thorn hedge about eight feet high. The path led to a wooden gate set in the midst of the hedge. This Reinecke opened with a key, and he stood back with a smile and a bow as he invited Tom, now on his feet, to enter.

"Zis is our estate," he said. "Vunce more I bid you tousand velcomes, and I vish your visit bring us good luck."

"Thanks very much," said Tom, noticing at the same time that Reinecke's eyes were fixed on the peculiarly stolid face of Captain Goltermann.

"Ze ups and downs of coffee," suggested Reinecke. "A good season--yes, zere shall be zree or four tousand kilos ze acre; but a bad season--ah! disease come--who can stop it? Vat physician haf ve for ze cure? Zen--ah! it break ze heart."

Tom looked about him with interest. As far as he could see, extended row on row of coffee plants in straight lines about six feet apart. Between them, at the same interval, were dug shallow pits some eighteen inches deep. He had arrived just at the time when the fruit was ripe, and a number of negroes were busily picking it from the bushes. Here and there among them stood tall Arab overseers, all armed with whips.

Presently the party came to a couple of machines resembling cider presses, which Reinecke explained were pulpers for separating the beans from the reddish pulp that covered them. Then they passed two large brick vats, in one of which the beans were fermented, in the other washed and dried. Beyond these were sheds where the coffee, now ready for market, was stored and packed. And then, in a separate clearing, laid out like a European garden, they came to Reinecke's bungalow, a brightly painted structure of wood, with a long verandah and a thatched roof. A table was laid on the verandah, and a few minutes after his arrival Tom was seated with his host and his fellow-guest at a meal, prepared and served by native servants, which reminded him, with a difference, of the meals he had known the year before, when his father had sent him to Germany.

Finding that Tom understood German, Reinecke conversed in that language, dropping into English now and then to explain technical terms. He related to his interested guests the story of the plantation: how the land was first cleared by cutting down the timber and uprooting the bush: how this was burnt and the ashes mixed with the soil: the months of hoeing: the sowings in the seed beds: the planting out of the seedlings in November, when the rains began: and the tedious three years' waiting before the young plants started to bear. Those three years he had utilised by planting a thorn fence about the whole clearing of some hundreds of acres. Tom supposed that this fence had been erected to keep out wild beasts, for depredations by human marauders were not to be feared in a district where German authority was established. Reinecke assented; but Tom was to discover before many days were past that the fence had another, even a sinister purpose.

The next two days were spent very agreeably in shooting expeditions into the wild country beyond the plantation. Captain Goltermann turned out to be a crack shot, and the greater number of the antelopes and buffaloes which the sportsmen brought down fell to his gun. Tom was all anxiety to get a shot at a lion or even an elephant, which Reinecke told him were to be found in parts of the Plateau; but the Germans were indisposed to take the long journeys that were necessary to reach the habitats of these more dangerous game: Goltermann's visit was to be only a short one.

"We have provided a meal for a crocodile," said the captain with a shrug. "The slimy sneaking reptile!"

"It was bad luck for you, Goltermann," said Reinecke. "The beast was hopelessly trapped; there's no exit from this end of the nullah. Our long tramp for nothing!"

Naturally, it was not until the captain had left that Tom broached the business that had brought him from England.

"Now that we have come into my father's property," he said on the third morning at breakfast, "my brother and I thought it just as well that I should take a trip out and see things on the spot. He explained that in his letter."

"Naturally," said Reinecke. "It is what I should have done myself."

"Of course," Tom went on, "I've only had a year's business training--in Germany, by the way: and I know nothing whatever about coffee: but I know two and two make four, and I'm sure if you'll be good enough to go into things with me, I'll soon get the hang of them. If the plantation can't be made to pay, there's only one way out--sacrifice our interest. On the other hand, if there's a chance of success, I thought perhaps I might stay on here and become a planter myself: it's a life I think I should take to."

"Excellent," said Reinecke. "I am very glad you have come. And if you can suggest some means of making the place pay--well, need I say I shall be delighted. What with poor crops and low prices, and the heavy costs of carriage, it is difficult to wring from it even the small, and I confess unsatisfactory margin which I have been able to show since the plants came into bearing."

It crossed Tom's mind that this pessimistic attitude was hard to square with Captain Goltermann's enthusiastic praise of Reinecke, and his remarks on the valuable cargoes that he had carried; but he remembered Mr. Barkworth's advice to "go carefully," to "keep an open mind," and at present he had no material on which to form a judgment. Nor could he yet decide how to estimate Reinecke. The German had been cordiality itself. He had left nothing undone for his guest's comfort; his manner had every appearance of frankness; yet Tom was conscious in himself of an instinctive reserve, a something undefined that held him back from complete confidence.

"You will see the books, of course," said Reinecke, rising to unlock his desk. "They are kept in German, but after your year's training in Germany that will be no difficulty to you. Here they are: the stock book, the cost book, the ledger: on this file you will find the vouchers for the quantities of beans we have shipped from Bismarckburg. My clerk is very methodical: he is a nigger, but trained in Germany, and in spirit a true German: you will find all in order. I will leave you to examine them at your leisure, and anything you want explained--why, of course I shall be delighted."

Tom spent the rest of the morning in digesting the figures that Reinecke had placed before him. It was a task that went against the grain; he hated anything that savoured of the part of inquisitor; but he reflected that it was purely a matter of business, and being thorough in whatever he undertook he bent his mind to the distasteful job, resolved to get it over as quickly as possible.

As Reinecke had said, everything was in order. There were records of the total quantity of beans produced; he compared the vouchers for the consignments with the entries in the stock book, and found that they tallied. The other books gave him the costs of production, which included wages, provisions, upkeep of buildings and so on; duplicates of the invoices dispatched with the goods to a firm in Hamburg; records of bills of exchange received in payment, and the hundred and one details incident to an export business. Balance sheets had, of course, been sent to his father: here was the material on which those sheets were based, and everything confirmed the position as he already knew it: that the plantation did little more than pay the not inconsiderable salary which Reinecke drew as manager. His and the Willoughbys' shares of the profits were minute.

Tom could only conclude that Captain Goltermann, knowing nothing of the details of management, had drawn erroneous conclusions from the facts within his knowledge. His vessel conveyed a certain number of bags up the lake at certain seasons: that was all. It was easy for a seaman to make mistakes in such a matter. If so, then, what was wrong? Were the costs too high in proportion to the out-turn? Was the acreage under cultivation too small? Was there something faulty in the methods employed? Tom felt that these questions carried him beyond his depth. Would it not have been better to send an expert to make the necessary investigations? That might still have to be done: meanwhile here he was; he must learn what he could, spend a few months in getting a grip of things, keep Bob at home informed, and then go back and consult with him.

When Reinecke returned to lunch, Tom complimented him on the perfect order in which his books were kept, and frankly told him the conclusion to which he had come.

"That means that I must trespass on your hospitality for some months, at any rate," he added. "I shall see the results from this season's crops, your preparations for next, and fresh sowings, I suppose. Of course I can't expect to learn in a few months what has taken you years."

"That is so," said the German, and Tom fancied that there was a shade less cordiality in his manner, which was perhaps not to be wondered at in view of the prospect of having a stranger quartered on him for an indefinite period. "Still," Reinecke went on, "it is with knowledge as with wealth. The heir inherits thousands which his father has laboriously amassed; the pupil enjoys the fruits of his master's long and concentrated study. I think you will be an apt pupil."

He said this with so pleasant a smile that Tom dismissed his feeling of a moment before as unwarranted, and reflected that Reinecke was really taking things with a very good grace.

Next day he accompanied Reinecke to the outlying quarter of the estate where the workers were lodged in huts and sheds constructed by themselves. They were shut off from the outer world by the ring fence, which consisted of quick-growing thorn bushes so closely matted as to form a practically impenetrable barrier many feet thick. There were more than a hundred adult negroes, men and women, employed on the plantation. A number of children playing in front of the huts stopped and clustered together in silent groups when the two white men appeared.

"I suppose the workers get a holiday sometimes?" said Tom, whose schooldays were only eighteen months behind him.

"Of course," said Reinecke. "There are slack times, in the early part of the season between the hoeings, when there is little to be done."

"But I mean, they go away sometimes?"

"Why should they? Where should they go? There is only the forest, and the port. They would be eaten in the forest; they would eat up the port." Reinecke laughed at his joke.

"Then they are practically prisoners?"

"My dear Mr. Willoughby, this is Africa. In Europe you put fences round your cattle: the negroes are just cattle. Break your fences, and your animals stray and are lost. So with the niggers."

"But that is slavery."

"Words! words!" said Reinecke lightly. "They are no more slaves than the apprentices who are bound to their masters for a term of years. They are indentured labourers. They are paid; and there's not a man among them but accumulates enough to make him rich when his time is up."

"They can go to their homes, then, when their time is up?"

Reinecke shrugged.

"As they please," he said. "They have a long way to go. See, Mr. Willoughby, I give you a page from German colonial history. Twenty years ago, in our early days, our brave pioneers of empire had enormous difficulties to contend with. There was one savage tribe, the Wahehe some two hundred miles north of us here, that resisted our civilising mission with especial pertinacity and violence. On August 17, '91, they gained a victory over our much-tried soldiers. They dispersed as we approached, but when the column of Captain von Zelewski was passing through a rugged and densely-grown country it was attacked along its whole length by thousands of the treacherous dogs. Zelewski was among the first to fall; taken at a disadvantage his column was almost annihilated. Ten Germans, sir--ten Germans, I say, as well as over three hundred askaris and porters, were slain. The gallant Lieutenant von Tettenborn fought his way back with a few survivors to Kondoa, and thence reached the coast."

"We've had many incidents of that sort in India and elsewhere," said Tom. "I suppose there was a punitive expedition?"

Tom did not venture to say what he thought. In these early days it was useless to enter into a dispute with Reinecke. But to his British way of thinking the condition of the labourers was simply slavery, however the German might seek to disguise it, and he would make it his business to find out for himself the natives' point of view. If they were contented with their lot, it would be folly to disturb them. But if not--and he remembered the whips he had seen in the overseers' hands--a new system must be introduced, with or without Reinecke's consent.

During the next two or three days Tom went about the plantation, watching the negroes at their work of picking and pulping the fruit. Reinecke left him in perfect freedom to go where he pleased, and see anything and everything. The natives worked industriously: there was no lack of talk and laughter among them, no indication of discontent or ill-treatment. Tom's misgiving was dissipated; he concluded that the overseers' whips were wands of office rather than instruments of correction. The negroes gazed at him with a certain curiosity and interest. Some smiled, in unconscious response to the charm of his expression, of which he was equally unconscious. One of them, he noticed, a lad apparently about seventeen, looked at him with a peculiar intentness. Once, when, in lighting his pipe, he dropped his box of matches, the young negro sprang forward, picked it up, and handed it to him with a sort of proud pleasure that so trifling a service hardly accounted for.

"Thanks," said Tom, and the lad's face beamed as, admonished by a severe look from the overseer with whom Tom had been talking, he went back to the bush which he had left.

"I hope you will pardon my leaving you so much to yourself," said Reinecke one day. "There is little to be learnt at this season, except what you can see with your own eyes. In seedtime, if you still favour me with your company, I shall have more opportunities of giving you definite instruction. And now what do you say to a little relaxation? Shall we go shooting to-morrow?"

"I shall be delighted."

"Very well. I will give orders that Mirambo and another man shall accompany us to-morrow. We shall find wild geese and snipe at the stream a few miles south; possibly a hippo, if, like most youngsters, you've a fancy for big game."

When they started next morning, Tom looked at the German's gunbearer with a good deal more attention than he had shown previously. It was strange that this humble negro had once been a chief. Mirambo was a well-built man past middle life, quick in his movements, and with large eyes of piercing brilliance. With him was a youth whom even a white man, not easily able to distinguish one negro from another, could hardly fail to recognise as his son. Reinecke gave them their instructions in their own tongue, and with a bullying manner that Tom secretly resented. They received them silently, with an utter lack of expression, displaying none of the interest or alacrity which an English gamekeeper would have shown in similar circumstances.

It was not until they were well in the forest that Mirambo showed any animation. The instincts of the old hunter awoke. His keen eyes moved restlessly, alert to mark the spoor of beasts in the woods and on the open park-like spaces dotted with acacias, euphorbias, and the wild thick bushes known as scrub. At one spot he became excited, pointing to fresh marks in the soft soil.

"The tracks of a wart-hog," Reinecke explained. "The beast evidently went to his hole not long ago."

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