Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (45 page)

Swinburne directed his gun at the sky and squeezed the trigger. It felt loose under his finger. The weapon didn't fire.

Trounce scowled. “Firstly, Spencer, there was no need for a bloody demonstration, especially one that involved me! You've been fitted with voice apparatus—ruddy well use it! Secondly, why are you still standing?”

Burton answered before Spencer could. “We encountered this same emanation when we went after the South American Eye. The fact that Herbert's mind is embedded in the Cambodian stones gives him the ability to neutralise it.”

“I say, Herbert!” Swinburne exclaimed. “If you radiate an opposing force, could you cast it wide enough to make our guns work? It would give us one up on the Prussians!”

“Perhaps a gun I was holdin' meself,” Spencer replied.

“By thunder!” Trounce yelled furiously. “You see! What if your magic rays, or whatever they are, had worked on the pistol in your hand? You'd have blown my bloody head off!”

“All right, all right,” Burton growled impatiently. “Let's leave it be. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again, Herbert, I'll throw your key into the middle of the Ukerewe Lake.”

“I'm sorry, Boss.”

Leading the horses, they moved to the edge of the rock, which the jungle overhung, and settled in the shade. The trees around them were crowded with blue monkeys that had fallen silent when the men appeared but which now took up their distinctive and piercing cries again—
Pee-oww! Pee-oww!
—and began to pelt the group with fruit and sticks. Sidi Bombay shouted and waved his arms but the tormentors took no notice.

“Confound the little monsters!” Trounce grumbled. “We'll not get any peace here!”

Swinburne removed the dressings from the detective's legs and applied fresh poultices. He checked the wound on his friend's arm. It was red and puckered but the infection had disappeared.

They abandoned the clearing and plunged back into the jungle, the men trailing behind Spencer as he swiped his machete back and forth, clearing the route. Pox and Malady had elected to sit on one of the horse's saddles rather than in their habitual position on the clockwork philosopher's head, causing Swinburne to wonder whether Spencer had fallen out of favour with the two parakeets as well.

The poet struggled with his thoughts. Hadn't he noticed something about the brass man's philosophical treatise back in Ugogi? Something unusual? What was it? Why couldn't he remember? Why was a part of him feeling ambivalent about Spencer? It didn't make sense—Herbert was a fine fellow!

Moving to Burton's side, he opened his mouth to ask if the explorer shared his misgivings. Instead, he found himself saying, “It's awfully humid, just like in the coast regions.”

“Humph!” Burton replied, by way of agreement.

It was near sundown by the time they stumbled wearily out of the vegetation. They were at the base of a hill, with a wide, clear, and shallow stream crossing their path.

The horses drank greedily. One of them collapsed.

“It's done for, poor thing,” Trounce said. “I'd put a bullet through its brain if I could. It's the proper thing to do.”

“If our guns worked,” Burton responded, “that would alert Speke to our presence.”

“Allow me,” said Spencer, limping over to the stricken animal. He bent, took its head in his hands, and twisted it with all his mechanical might. The horse's neck popped. It kicked and died.

They moved half a mile upstream, washed, ate, and set up camp.

Burton spoke to Pox: “Message for Isabel Arundell. Please report. Message ends. Go.”

Pox blew a raspberry, took to the air, and disappeared over the jungle.

“Weasel thief!” Malady screeched, and flew after his mate.

The men sat quietly for a little while then entered the tent and almost immediately fell into a deep slumber.

Dawn came, and so did a warning from their clockwork sentry: “Rouse yourselves, gents! Twenty men approachin' an' they don't look very cheerful!”

Burton, Swinburne, and Trounce crawled into the open and rubbed the sleep from their eyes. They found Spencer and Bombay watching a gang of men, some way off, marching toward them. Their hair was fashioned into multiple spikes and held in place with red mud, their faces striped with ridged scars, their noses adorned with copper rings, and their shadows stretched across the golden hillside. They were armed with spears and held long oval shields.

“Wow! They are Wanyambo,” Sidi Bombay advised. “A peaceful people.”

“Not if their expressions are anything to go by,” Burton observed. “Do you speak their language, Bombay?”

“Yes. I shall talk with them.” The African set off to greet the newcomers, braving their scowls and brandished weapons. Burton and his friends watched as an argument commenced, gradually cooled to a heated debate, then settled into a passionate discussion, and, finally, became a long conversation.

Bombay returned. “Wow! These fine warriors are from the village of Kisaho. They say the
muzungo mbáyá
arrived at Kufro, which is nearby, and took all the food and weapons from the people. Wow! The jungle moved among them and killed nine men.”

“The Prussian plant vehicle!” Burton murmured.

“And a mighty wizard took the chief by the neck and turned him into a tree which killed three more villagers by sucking out their blood. The men had to burn it to kill it.” Bombay gestured back toward the Wanyambo. “These from Kisaho came to fight you but I told them that, although you are ugly and strange, you are an enemy of the wizard and you have come to punish the wicked white men. They will help.”

“Tell them we will be honoured if they join us. Ask them to send a man running ahead to inform the villages that we are approaching, and that we are here to avenge the dead.”

This was done, and the Britishers packed their tent and set off up the hill, following the warriors over its brow and down into the forested valley beyond.

They passed along a dirt path bordered by fruit-bearing trees and fragrant flowery shrubs, then stepped out into cultivated fields where peas grew in profusion. While they were crossing these, Pox and Malady returned.

“Message from Isabel Arundell. The Arabs are holding stinking cesspit Kazeh. My witless reinforcements from Mzizima have arrived but Prussian numbers are building steadily. We're keeping them occupied. Isabella and Sadhvi are safe. Mucous-bag Mirambo is injured but will recover. When you get home, tell Palmerston to send troops as a matter of urgency. May Allah guide and protect you. Bettawfeeq!”

“That means ‘good luck,’” Burton explained in response to a puzzled look from Trounce.

“Are you going to send the bird to Maneesh?” the police detective asked.

“No. I fear it's too great a distance by now.”

The whole day was spent crossing valleys and hills. On the next, they trekked over an alluvial plain until they reached the Kitangule Kagera, a river that, according to Speke's account of his earlier expeditions, flowed into the Ukerewe Lake. Crossing it proved so awkward that their supplies got soaked and another of the horses died.

The swelling terrain on the other side was alive with antelope, which scattered as the twenty Wanyambo led the Britishers up to the crest of a hill. From there they saw, stretching for miles and miles to their right, a rich, well-wooded, swampy plain containing large open patches of water.

A band of light blazed across the horizon.

Burton waved a fly away from his face and shaded his eyes.

“Bismillah!” he exclaimed. “Look at the size of it!”

“Is it a mirage?” Swinburne asked, squinting.

“No, Algy. That's it. That's the lake!”

“Ukerewe? Are you sure? It looks like the sea! Perhaps we've walked right across Africa—or we've wandered in an enormous circle!”

Burton cast his eyes around the landscape, taking in every topographical detail, making rapid mental calculations, adding it to his knowledge of the country to the southwest, around Lake Tanganyika.

“I think he was right all along,” he murmured. “I think Speke got it. Ukerewe has to be the source!”

“But I don't want him to be right!” Swinburne objected. “He doesn't deserve it!”

They continued west.

The ground rose and fell, rose and fell, and rolled away to the hazy horizon. Through the moisture-heavy air, distant peaks faded into view, dark green at their base, blanching up to such a pale blue that they merged with the sky. Hovering above, as if floating, their jagged peaks were white.

“It's wonderful!” Swinburne enthused, jerking and waving his arms. “Snow in the middle of Africa! No one will believe it!”

“Our destination!” Burton announced. “The Mountains of the Moon!”

“Wow! I do not want to go there again,” Sidi Bombay said softly. “But I shall because I am with you, and I am certain you will pay me very well indeed.”

Yet another horse succumbed. The men were all on foot now, the baggage divided between the remaining animals. There wasn't much of it. Burton had no idea how they were going to make it back to Zanzibar.

As they progressed, villagers turned out to greet them and to press food and weapons into their hands. Word had spread like wildfire across the lands between the lake and the mountains, and now the air throbbed with drums—a deep, thunderous booming, ominous and threatening and incessant.

“I don't think we'll be taking Speke by surprise,” Swinburne commented.

In one settlement, the
p'hazi
led them into a hut where four men lay groaning. Their skin was lacerated, in some places to the bone, and none were likely to live.

Bombay translated: “Warriors attacked Mr. Speke's people but the jungle thing killed many. Wow! Five died in this village, and the
p'hazi
says that in the next, Karagu, you will discover all the men gone, for there was a very big battle there.”

“How far behind Speke are we?” Burton asked.

“He says the wicked
muzungo mbáyá
are four or five villages ahead.”

“We're too done in to catch up with him today. Ask if we can stay here overnight.”

Permission was granted, and the Britishers slept with drums pounding through their dreams.

In the morning, the women intoned a warlike chant as the expedition set off again. Burton, Swinburne, Trounce, Spencer, Bombay, and the twenty Wanyambo marched out of the village and onto marshy plains studded with rounded knolls, each topped by an umbrella cactus. They pushed through tall grasses where buffalo were numerous and mosquitoes were legion.

At noon, they arrived at Karagu, which was nestled against a strip of jungle, and found it half-wrecked and filled with keening women. The men, as the
p'hazi
had stated, were all dead.

On Burton's behalf, Bombay promised the women that vengeance would soon fall upon those responsible.

The expedition rested and ate a light meal, then prepared to move on.

“Kwecha!” Burton called. “Pakia! Hopa! Hopa!”

The Wanyambo gathered at the edge of the jungle. One of them shouldered through a screen of vegetation to the path beyond. He suddenly howled and came flying back out, cartwheeling over the heads of his fellows, spraying blood onto them. He thudded to the ground and lay still.

“What the—” Trounce began, then tottered back as the Prussian plant vehicle burst out of the undergrowth and plunged into the warriors. He cried out in horror as the thing's spine-covered tendrils lashed like whips, opening skin, sending blood splashing. The Wanyambo yelled in agony as their flesh was sliced and torn. Sidi Bombay was hoisted into the air and flung into the trees. The village women screamed and raced away. Trounce instinctively drew his pistol, aimed at the plant, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He threw the weapon down in disgust and swore at himself.

“Stop it!” Swinburne shouted. He hefted a spear and charged forward, plunging the shaft into the centre of the repulsive bloom. Its point sank into the driver's stomach but had little effect. A thorny appendage slashed across the poet's forehead and sent him spinning away, with red droplets showering around him. He crashed into the side of a wrecked hut, which collapsed under the impact, burying the poet beneath sticks and dried mud.

The Wanyambo fought desperately, dodging and ducking, lunging in then backing away. They fell over one another and became wet with each other's blood. They went down and struggled up again. They threw and jabbed their spears until the huge weed-like thing was bristling with shafts. But despite their efforts, the plant continued to lurch back and forth, with the Prussian cradled in its bloom screeching furiously in incomprehensible German.

Burton looked this way and that, hoping to see fire somewhere in the village—sticks burning beneath a cooking pot, anything that he might fling at the plant to set it alight—but there was nothing. He snatched a spear from the ground and started to circle the monstrosity, looking for an opening that would allow him to leap in and drive the weapon through the Prussian's head. He got too close; a thick ropey limb smacked against his torso and ripped upward, shredding his shirt and flaying a long strip of skin from his chest. He stumbled and dropped to his knees.

“Stay back, Boss!” a voice piped.

A bundled mass of robes dived past Burton and launched itself into the writhing vegetation. Herbert Spencer landed on top of the driver and was immediately entwined by creepers. His robes and polymethylene suit were ripped apart as he fought with the frenzied, flailing appendages. A thick coil whipped around him, its thorns gouging deep scratches into his brass body.

The philosopher groped downward and forced his right hand into the fleshy petals. His three brass fingers slid over the driver's face. The man hollered and the plant shook and bucked as two of Spencer's digits found his eyes. The philosopher put his full weight on his arm and drove his fingers through the back of the Prussian's eye sockets and into the brain behind. The vehicle convulsed. Burton ran over and thrust his spear through the man's neck, severing the spine. The plant's tendrils flopped down, a tremor ran through it, then it was still.

Spencer fell backward and clanged onto the ground.