Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (58 page)

Oxford forced his way free and started to run up the slope.

“No!” Burton whispered again.

He snapped out of his shock and backed into the trees, pulling the jewel case and portmanteau with him, and found a place of concealment. He listened as Oxford reached the vegetation and pushed through it to where he'd left his suit, helmet, and boots.

Burton lunged forward, hooked an arm around the time traveller's throat, squeezed hard, and crushed his windpipe. He put his mouth against the man's ear and hissed: “You don't deserve this, but I have to do it again. I'm sorry.”

With his right hand, he twisted Oxford's head until the neck snapped, then released his hold and allowed the corpse to crumple to the ground.

He stepped back into hiding.

Almost immediately, he heard a voice calling: “Step out into the open, sir! I saw what happened. There's nothing to worry about. Come on, let's be having you!”

It sounded familiar.

Burton remained silent.

“Sir! I saw you trying to protect the queen. I just need you to accompany me to the station to make a statement!”

There was a pause, then someone began to push their way into the thicket. A policeman emerged from the leaves and looked down at Oxford.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “What in the devil's name has happened here?”

Burton took up his rifle, raised it butt-forward over his shoulder, and stepped out of the undergrowth.

The policeman turned and looked him full in the face.

Burton hesitated. The young, square-jawed, and wide-eyed features were those of William Trounce.

“Who the heck—?” the constable began.

Burton cracked the rifle butt into the youth's forehead. Trounce's cockscomb helmet went spinning away. He moaned and collapsed. The king's agent leaned over him and checked that he was breathing. He was.

Screams and whistles filled the air.

Burton straightened and returned to the portmanteau and jewel case. He took them over to where Oxford had hung his time suit, and, taking down the clean, unmarked material, pushed it into the bag with the older, scorched version of itself. With difficulty, he managed to squeeze the helmet and boots in, too.

He took off his jacket and wrapped it around the rifle, then, picking everything up, made his way through the trees toward the high wall at the back of the thicket. Horses' hooves and voices sounded from the street beyond. He followed the barrier around the border of the park until he came to a tree stump hard up against the brickwork. Stepping onto it, he reached up and placed the rifle and jewel case on top of the wall. He looped his arm through the handles of the bulging portmanteau and hauled himself up and over, dropping to the ground on the other side. His ribs creaked, and for a moment he thought he might pass out. He leaned back against the bricks.

“Sangappa,” came a voice.

The explorer looked up and saw a street sweeper standing on the pavement nearby.

“What?”

“Sangappa,” the man repeated. “It's the best leather softener money can buy. They send it over from India. Hard to find and a mite expensive but worth every penny. There's nothing to top it. Sangappa. It'd do that overstuffed portmanteau of yours the world of good, take my word for it.”

Burton used his sleeve to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.

The street sweeper leaned on his broom and asked, “Are you quite all right?”

“Yes,” Burton replied. “But I'm having a bad day.”

“It looks like it. Don't you worry, you'll forget it by tomorrow!”

The man suddenly looked confused. He scratched his head.

“It's odd—I can't even remember this morning. I must be going loopy!” He lifted his broom and stepped from the pavement into the street. With a look of bemusement on his face, he began to sweep horse manure from it and into the gutter.

Burton swallowed and licked his lips. He needed a drink. He was feeling strange and disorientated. He wasn't sure where he was, what he was doing, why he was doing it.

He retrieved the rifle and jewels and started to move away.

“Hey!” the man called after him. “Don't forget! Sangappa! You can buy it at Jambory's Hardware Store on the corner of Halfmoon Street.” He pointed. “Thataway! Tell old Jambory that Carter the Street Sweeper sent you!”

Burton nodded and limped on. He tried to piece together what had just occurred, but his mind was a jumble.

He crossed the road, passed Jambory's Hardware Store, kept going, and entered Berkeley Street, where he saw an elderly man peering out of a ground-floor window. He stopped and examined the white-bearded and scarred face, the sharp cheekbones and deep, dark, tormented eyes.

The man gazed back.

The man moved when he moved.

What? No! It can't be! That's me! My reflection! But how? How can I be old? I'm—I'm nineteen! Just nineteen!

He looked down at his hands. They were brown and wrinkled and weathered. They were not the hands of a young man.

What has happened? How is this possible?

He stumbled away and passed through Berkeley Square into Davies Street, then onto Oxford Street, which was filled with horse-drawn traffic. Only horse-drawn. Nothing else. That surprised him. He had no idea why.

What am I expecting to see? Why does it all feel wrong?

Burton reached Portman Square, staggered into the patch of greenery at its centre, dropped his luggage, and collapsed onto a bench beneath a tree. He'd been walking toward Montagu Place, but it had just occurred to him that there was no reason to go there.

He laughed, and it hurt, and tears poured down his cheeks.

He cried, and thought he might die.

He was quiet, and suddenly hours had passed and a dense fog was rolling in with the night.

Muddled impressions untangled and emerged from behind a veil of shock. He tried to force them back but they kept coming. Around him, London vanished behind the murk. Inside him, the truth materialised with horrible clarity.

She had flinched to one side.

Just as he'd pulled the trigger, she'd moved.

The assassin's second bullet had clipped her ear.

Sir Richard Francis Burton's bullet had hit her in the head.

It was me. I did it.

He had killed Queen Victoria.

Here it begins
.

Here it ends
.

Not the source, but just another part of a circle.

He sat in Portman Square.

The thick fog embraced him.

It was silent.

It was mysterious.

It was timeless.

And, behind it, the world he had created was very, very real.

by Algernon Charles Swinburne,
from
Poems and Ballads
, 1866.

I.

Who hath known the ways of time
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
For chance overcomes him, or crime
Changes; for all things sweet
In time wax bitter again.
Who shall give sorrow enough,
Or who the abundance of tears?
Mine eyes are heavy with love
And a sword gone thorough mine ears,
A sound like a sword and fire,
For pity, for great desire;
Who shall ensure me thereof,
Lest I die, being full of my fears?

Who hath known the ways and the wrath,
The sleepless spirit, the root
And blossom of evil will,
The divine device of a god?
Who shall behold it or hath?
The twice-tongued prophets are mute,
The many speakers are still;
No foot has travelled or trod,
No hand has meted, his path.
Man's fate is a blood-red fruit,
And the mighty gods have their fill
And relax not the rein, or the rod.

Ye were mighty in heart from of old,
Ye slew with the spear, and are slain.
Keen after heat is the cold,
Sore after summer is rain,
And melteth man to the bone.
As water he weareth away,
As a flower, as an hour in a day,
Fallen from laughter to moan.
But my spirit is shaken with fear
Lest an evil thing begin,
New-born, a spear for a spear,
And one for another sin.
Or ever our tears began,
It was known from of old and said;
One law for a living man,
And another law for the dead.
For these are fearful and sad,
Vain, and things without breath;
While he lives let a man be glad,
For none hath joy of his death.

II.

Who hath known the pain, the old pain of earth,
Or all the travail of the sea,
The many ways and waves, the birth
Fruitless, the labour nothing worth?
Who hath known, who knoweth, O gods? not we.
There is none shall say he hath seen,
There is none he hath known.
Though he saith, Lo, a lord have I been,
I have reaped and sown;
I have seen the desire of mine eyes,
The beginning of love,
The season of kisses and sighs
And the end thereof.
I have known the ways of the sea,
All the perilous ways,
Strange winds have spoken with me,
And the tongues of strange days.
I have hewn the pine for ships;
Where steeds run arow,
I have seen from their bridled lips
Foam blown as the snow.
With snapping of chariot-poles
And with straining of oars
I have grazed in the race the goals,
In the storm the shores;
As a greave is cleft with an arrow
At the joint of the knee,
I have cleft through the sea-straits narrow
To the heart of the sea.
When air was smitten in sunder
I have watched on high
The ways of the stars and the thunder
In the night of the sky;
Where the dark brings forth light as a flower,
As from lips that dissever;
One abideth the space of an hour,
One endureth for ever.
Lo, what hath he seen or known,
Of the way and the wave
Unbeholden, unsailed-on, unsown,
From the breast to the grave?

Or ever the stars were made, or skies,
Grief was born, and the kinless night,
Mother of gods without form or name.
And light is born out of heaven and dies,
And one day knows not another's light,
But night is one, and her shape the same.
But dumb the goddesses underground
Wait, and we hear not on earth if their feet
Rise, and the night wax loud with their wings;
Dumb, without word or shadow of sound;
And sift in scales and winnow as wheat
Men's souls, and sorrow of manifold things.

III.

Nor less of grief than ours
The gods wrought long ago
To bruise men one by one;
But with the incessant hours
Fresh grief and greener woe
Spring, as the sudden sun
Year after year makes flowers;
And these die down and grow,
And the next year lacks none.

As these men sleep, have slept
The old heroes in time fled,
No dream-divided sleep;
And holier eyes have wept
Than ours, when on her dead
Gods have seen Thetis weep,
With heavenly hair far-swept
Back, heavenly hands outspread
Round what she could not keep,

Could not one day withhold,
One night; and like as these
White ashes of no weight,
Held not his urn the cold
Ashes of Heracles?
For all things born one gate
Opens, no gate of gold;
Opens; and no man sees
Beyond the gods and fate.

SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (1821-1890)

T
he year 1863 started well for Burton—he was at last able to enjoy a honeymoon with Isabel, a full year after they were married. Unfortunately, he then had to return to his consulate duties on the disease-ridden West African island of Fernando Po. He made various forays onto the mainland but was not much impressed by the slavery-ravaged tribal kingdoms he found there.

In August of 1864, he returned to England. Fourteen months earlier, John Hanning Speke and James Grant had come back in triumph from their expedition to find the source of the Nile. Now Burton and his former partner engaged in an unpleasant duel, and much was done to besmirch Burton's reputation. The conflict reached its climax in September, when, the day before they were scheduled to confront each another at a debate in the city of Bath, Speke died. He had shot himself in the left side of his body while out hunting. There is no clear evidence whether this was suicide or a tragic accident. Biographers generally agree that, preoccupied with the forthcoming debate, Speke was uncharacteristically careless with his weapon and probably discharged it by accident while climbing over a wall.

Burton appears to have gone off the rails for a time after this incident. Given the consulship of Brazil, he went to South America and, unlike all his other excursions, did not keep a journal or account of his travels. Witnesses, such as Wilfred Scawen Blunt, recalled that he was drinking heavily for much of the time. While in Buenos Aires, Burton fell in with a rather unscrupulous character—a fat man named Arthur Orton, who was passing himself off as Sir Roger Tichborne.

“I ask myself ‘Why?’ and the only echo is ‘damned fool!…the Devil drives.’”

—From a letter to Richard Monckton Milnes, 31st May, 1863

“And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man. Weaving th’ unpattern'd dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.”

—From
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî
, 1870

“Zanzibar city, to become picturesque or pleasing, must be viewed, like Stanbul, from afar.”

—From
Zanzibar, City, Island, and Coast
, 1872

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837-1909)

Swinburne travelled widely in 1863, visiting Paris, Genoa, and Florence, and enjoyed perhaps his most productive period, writing many of his most celebrated poems.

“Here life has death for neighbour…”

—From “The Garden of Proserpine”

“The dense hard passage is blind and stifled…”

—From “A Forsaken Garden”

“One, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not, is…”

—“The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell” (complete poem quoted)

“A wider soul than the world was wide…”

—From “On the Death of Richard Burton”

HERBERT SPENCER (1820-1903)

In 1863, Spencer, having published the year before his
First Principles of a New System of Philosophy
, was rapidly emerging as one of the greatest ever English philosophers.

An extreme hypochondriac, he also had little patience for the excesses of Victorian attire, and preferred to wear a one-piece brown suit of his own design. Apparently, it made him look like a bear.

He said:

“Time is that which a man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.”

GEORGE HERBERT WELLS (1866-1946)

By 1914, H. G. Wells was an established and popular author, a pioneer of science fiction.

“A time will come when a politician who has wilfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.”

“We were making the future, he said, and hardly any of us troubled to think what future we were making. And here it is!”

“Our true nationality is mankind.”

“I hope, or I could not live.”

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (1809-1885)

In 1863, Monckton Milnes was raised to the peerage, becoming the 1st Baron Houghton.

HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, 3RD VISCOUNT PALMERSTON (1784-1865)

1863, for Palmerston, marked the middle of his final term as British prime minister. Nicknamed “Lord Cupid” on account of his youthful appearance and rumoured affairs, he was a popular and capable leader.

WILLIAM SAMUEL HENSON (1812-1888)

A very industrious inventor, Henson is best known as an early pioneer in aviation. He created a lightweight steam engine that he hoped would power a passenger-carrying monoplane, the “Henson Aerial Steam Carriage,” but was never able to perfect the design. He also invented the modern safety razor.

FRANCIS HERBERT WENHAM (1824-1908)

A British marine engineer, Wenham came to prominence in 1866 when he introduced the idea of superposed wings at the first meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London. His concept became the basis for the design of the early biplanes, triplanes, and multiplanes that attempted flight, with varying degrees of success. Wenham is possibly the first man to have employed the term “aeroplane.”

OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)

In 1863, aged nine, Wilde started his formal education at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“I can believe anything provided it is incredible.”

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”

“The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”

“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”

“Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.”

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

“Do not be afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, do not believe them. The past, the present, and the future are but one moment in the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of thought. The imagination can transcend them.”

ISABELLA MAYSON (1836-1865)

Married to Samuel Beeton in 1856, Isabella was made famous by her
Book of Household Management
, which had been published in 1861. 1863 was the last healthy year of her life. In 1864, she contracted puerperal fever, which caused her death on 6th February 1865.

“A place for everything and everything in its place.”

—From
The Book of Household Management

FERDINAND GRAF VON ZEPPELIN (1838-1917)

Count Zeppelin was a German general who later became an aircraft manufacturer. In 1863, he acted as an observer for the Union during the American Civil War, during which time he made his first ascent in a balloon. After serving in the Austrian and Franco-Prussian wars, he became increasingly fascinated by the prospect of steerable balloons and devoted himself to their development. By the turn of the century, his name was synonymous with rigid-framed powered airships.

ALEISTER CROWLEY (1875-1947)

An influential occultist, Crowley challenged the moral and religious values of his time, promoting a libertine philosophy—“Do what thou wilt”—that earned him notoriety and the reputation for being “the wickedest man in the world.”

He said:

“Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people.”

SIDI MUBARAK BOMBAY (1820-1885)

Captured by Arab slave traders when he was a young boy, Bombay was sold in exchange for some cloth, and was taken to India where he lived as a slave for many years. When his owner died, he was emancipated and returned to Africa, where he gained fame as a guide, working with Burton, Speke, Stanley, and Livingstone. In 1873 he traversed the continent from its east coast to its west.

MTYELA KASANDA (AKA MIRAMBO)

A Wanyamwezi warlord, he started out as a slave and ivory trader, travelling between Africa's great lakes and the coast, but later installed himself as king of the Urambo region. He was a sworn enemy of the Arabic traders at Kazeh. He died aged 44, after becoming too ill to rule.

GENERALMAJOR PAUL EMIL VON LETTOW-VORBECK (1870-1964)

The commander of the German East Africa campaign during the First World War.

MAJOR GENERAL ARTHUR EDWARD AITKEN (1861-1924)

Commander of the Indian Expeditionary Force “B” in Africa during the First World War.

JANE DIGBY (LADY ELLENBOROUGH) (1807-1881)

An English aristocrat, Digby was involved in numerous romantic scandals. She had four husbands and countless lovers before eventually settling in Damascus, where she married Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was twenty years her junior.

BLUT UND EISEN

Otto von Bismarck made his famous speech in support of increased military spending on 29th September 1862. “Blood and iron” was, in fact,
“Eisen und Blut.”
The words were reversed almost immediately by press reports and have remained that way in most accounts.

HMS
ORPHEUS

The
Orpheus
was a Jason-Class Royal Navy corvette, constructed in Chatham Dockyard, England, in 1861. She was commanded by Captain Robert Burton and served as the flagship of the Australian squadron. On 7th February 1863, while navigating Manukau Harbour, New Zealand, the ship hit a sandbar and sank, with a loss of 189 men, including Captain Burton. Frederick Butler, a convicted deserter, served as quartermaster aboard the vessel.

THE BOMBING OF DAR ES SALAAM

Despite a number of prior skirmishes between British and German troops, the First World War didn't properly begin in East Africa until 8th August 1914, when the British launched an attack against Dar es Salaam. The naval vessels HMS
Astraea
and HMS
Pegasus
bombarded the city, the
Astraea
hitting and destroying the German radio station. The Germans responded by sabotaging the harbour so the British couldn't use it, which also had the effect of preventing their own ship, SMS
Königsberg
, from returning to port. Just over a month later, the
Pegasus
was docked at Zanzibar for repairs when the
Königsberg
launched a surprise attack and sank her. The
Königsberg
was herself eventually knocked out of action by British ships on 11th July 1915.

THE BATTLE OF THE BEES

Also known as the Battle of Tanga, this was an attempt by the British Indian Expeditionary Force to capture the German port, and became one of the worst defeats for the British in Africa during the First World War. The incident commenced when HMS
Fox
arrived at the port and gave the authorities an hour to surrender. The hour passed but no action was taken, which gave Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck time to move German reinforcements into position. On 4th November 1914, street-to-street fighting began in the north and jungle skirmishes in the south. The British found themselves hard pressed, and when swarms of bees, disturbed by the conflict, attacked both sides, the British were routed and took to their heels. In retreating, they left behind all their equipment, which the Germans appropriated. In later propaganda, the British suggested that the bees had somehow been a fiendish trap set by the enemy.

L.59 ZEPPELIN

A German dirigible used during the First World War,
L.59 Zeppelin
was known as Das Afrika-Schiff (“The Africa Ship”). In 1917, it was commissioned to resupply Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck's troops. Its journey to Africa was intended to be a one-way voyage—upon delivering its 50 tons of supplies, the ship would be cannibalised, its outer envelope used for tents, its frame used to build radio towers, etc. Following the course of the Nile,
L.59 Zeppelin
was halfway along the river when she received an “abort” order transmitted by Lettow-Vorbeck, who, in his battle with British forces, had been unable to secure a safe landing place for her. She returned to Germany. The following year, the dirigible mysteriously exploded over the Strait of Otranto in the Mediterranean, with a loss of all twenty-one crew.

THE SECOND SCHLESWIG WAR

Beginning on 1st February 1864, this was a renewal of hostilities between Prussia, Austria, and Denmark over control of the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxe-Lauenburg. The conflict continued until the end of October, when the Treaty of Vienna saw the territories ceded to Prussia and Austria. It confirmed Prussia's military might and thus advanced the cause of those who supported German unification.

THE BURNING OF SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON'S JOURNALS AND PAPERS

Of all the controversies concerning Burton during his lifetime, none compared with what happened after his death in 1890. His widow, Isabel, made a bonfire of his personal journals, the vast majority of his papers, and the unpublished book he regarded as his magnum opus, his new translation of
The Perfumed Garden
, which he'd retitled
The Scented Garden.
Her act incited such anger and condemnation from those who'd known Burton, including Swinburne, that she lost many friends and badly stained her own reputation.