Talbot Mundy

“ Let your game be to seem mysterious. Seem to know more than you do, but don’t tell anybody anything. Above all, listen!”
Fred leaned back in his chair and laughed.
“Didums!” he said. “This is the idioticest wild goose chase we ever started on! I admit I nosed it. I gave tongue first. But think of it—here we are—four sensible men—hitherto sensible—off after ivory that nobody can really prove exists, said to be buried somewhere in a tract of half-explored country more than a thousand miles each way—and the German government, and half the criminals in Africa already on our idiotic heels!” ”

“ There’s a section of country called the Bahr el Gazal that the Congo people claim, but that I believe will eventually prove to lie on the British side of the boundary. It was good elephant country—which is to say bad living and traveling for man—since the earth took shape out of ooze. Awful swampy, malarious, densely wooded, dangerous country, sparsely inhabited by savages not averse to cannibalism when they’ve opportunity. The ivory may be there. If the Germans know it’s there they’re naturally afraid the British government would claim the whole district the minute the secret was out. ”

“ You boys must overlook things. These boys you’re angry with are younger than you, Fred. That collector you’ve contrived to pick a quarrel with has fought Arabs and cannibal troops—odds against him of fifty or a hundred to one, mind you—all across the Congo and back again. He fought in the Uganda mutiny. He’s a man. He’s a merchant, though, with a merchant’s education. He was taken over with the rest of the clerks when the British government superseded the British East Africa Trading Company. He has never had the advantage of legal training. ”

“ But Monty refused to rise. He talked of the bowed and ancient slaves of Zanzibar, who refused in those days to be set free and afforded prolific ground for attack on British public morals by people whose business it is to abuse England for her peccadillos and forget her virtues. ”

“ He was the sort of man in whom nearly every one confides.
“We’re after Tippoo Tib’s ivory!” said Fred, plunging into the middle of things. “Monty has gone to drive a bargain with the King of Belgium. Do you think it’s a wild goose chase?”
Courtney chuckled. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it that. They’ve been killing elephants in Africa ever since the flood. Ivory must have accumulated. It’s somewhere. Some of it must be so old and well seasoned as to be practically priceless, unless rats have spoiled it. Rats play old Harry with ivory, you know.” ”

“ We do our best. God gave us our work to do, and the devil came and made us stupid! Take this country, for instance.”
“Yes!” agreed Fred. “Take this country! We came ashore to-day—left Monty on board ship on his way to Europe. Nobody knew a thing about us. A female woman, known to the police in Zanzibar and so notorious in Europe that she’s in no hurry to go home—said, too, on every hand to be in the pay of the German government—chose to tell lies about us to the chuckle-headed puppies in charge of Mombasa. ”

“ They’re overmanned where we are under-manned—backed up from home where our boys are only blamed and neglected—well supplied with troops and ammunition, where our police are kept down to the danger point and now and then even without cartridges. The Germans have no railway yet, but they’ve a policy and they keep it secret. We have a railway, and no policy except retrenchment and economy. I’m convinced the German government has no scruples. ”

“ I asked whether he had a permit, and was told he did not need one.
“Being an Arab?” I asked.
“Being well known to the government,” was the answer.
We left the store feeling neither quite so confident nor friendly. And the collector’s Goanese assistant did the rest of the disillusioning.
No, we could not have our guns. No, we could have no permit for ammunition. No, the collector was not in the office. No, he would not be there that afternoon. It was provided in regulations that we could have neither guns, sporting licenses, nor permits for ammunition. ”

“ Zanzibar’s agog with the story—after all these years. The ivory must have been buried more than a quarter of a century ago. Some one’s been stirring the mud. We arrive, unexpectedly from nowhere, ask questions about the ivory, make plans for British East Africa—and there you are! The people who were merely determined to get the stuff jump to the false conclusion that we really know where it is.”
“Q. E. D.!” said Fred, finishing his drink.
“Not at all,” said Monty. “There are two things yet to be demonstrated. They’re true, but not proven. The German government is after the stuff. ”

“ The little man laughed. “Oh, you and your Montdidier are still inseparable, I suppose! How are you, Fred? I’m glad to see you. Who are your friends?”
At that minute out came the collector from his office—stood on the step, and stared. Fred introduced us to Courtney, and I experienced the thrill of shaking hands with the man accounts of whose exploits had fired my schoolboy imagination and made stay-at-home life forever after an impossibility.
“I missed the steamer, Fred. Not another for a week. Going down now to see about a passage to Somaliland. I suppose you’ll be at the club after dinner?” ”

“ Then—don’t forget that the Germans have a military government to the south of us—all experienced men—a great many of them unmitigated rascals, but nearly all of them clever—students of strategy and psychology and tactics—some of them brilliant men who have had to apply for colonial service because of debt or scandal. ”

“ CHAPTER THREE There is no public landing wharf at Zanzibar. Passengers have to submit their persons into the arms of loud-lunged Swahili longshoremen, who recognize one sole and only point of honor: neither passenger nor luggage shall be dropped into the surf. ”

“ Salaries—expenses and so on come from home, voted by Parliament. As long as that condition lasts they’re all going to feel nervous. They know they’ll get the blame for everything that goes wrong, and precious little credit in any case. Parliament advertised the country in answer to their complaints of no revenue. Parliament called for settlers. But they’re not ready for settlers. They don’t know how to handle them. They’ve no troops—nothing but a handful of black police. How shall they keep in order colonials armed with repeating rifles? They’re not ready. The Uganda Railway isn’t finished yet ”

“ Their invariable habit, the instant the view-halloa is raised, is to scamper headlong, pounce on the victim and pull him apart (or so it feels) until fortune, superior strength, or some such element decides the point; and then more often than not it is the victim’s fate to be carried between two men, each hold of a thigh, each determined to get ashore or to the boat first, and each grimly resolved not to let go until three times the proper fee shall have been paid. ”

“ Richest country in the world—grow anything—find anything—game—climate—elevation—scenery—natives by the million to do the work—all good! Only waiting for white men with energy, and capital to start things really moving! ”

“ And so do they. The Germans know it, too, and they’re flaunting her under official British noses! They’re using her to start something the British won’t like, and the British know it! Yet she’s going to be allowed to travel to British territory on a British ship, and the Heinies are shaken hands with! If you complained to Monty I bet he’d say, ‘Don’t talk fight unless you mean fight!’”
“Monty might also add, ‘Don’t talk—fight!”’ said I.
“Oh, rot!” Will answered. “British individuals may bridle a bit, but their government’ll shut its eyes until too late, whatever happens! ”

“ Fred exclaimed.
“I’ll tell them you’re friends of mine,” he went on. “I believe that will solve the sporting license and ammunition problem. As for the woman—if I were in your shoes I would steal a march on her. I wouldn’t be surprised if your licenses and ammunition permits were here at the hotel by ten to-morrow morning. I see they’ve sent your guns already. Well, there’s a train for Nairobi to-morrow noon, and not another for three days. I’d take to-morrow’s train if I were you. I always find in going anywhere the start’s the principal thing. ”

“ The purser was Goanese—beside himself with the fumes of flattery. He had a pass-key, so the Syrian maid went through our cabins and searched thoroughly everything except the wallet of important papers that Monty kept under his shirt. The first and second officers were rather young, unmarried men possessed of limitless ignorance of the wiles of such as Lady Waldon. It was they who signed a paper recommending Coutlass to the B.I. agents and a lot of other reputable people in Mombasa and elsewhere, thus offsetting the possibility that the authorities might not let him land. ”

“ At that we took chairs and announced our intention of staying until the collector should come or be fetched. We were informed that the collector was the most important government official in Mombasa—information that so delighted Fred that he grew almost good tempered again.
“I’d rather twist a big tail than a little one!” he announced. “Shall we sing to pass the time?”
The Goanese called for the askari, half-soldier, half-police-man, who drowsed in meek solitude outside the office door. ”

“ Of only these two things let the passenger assure himself—fight how he may, he will neither escape their clutches nor get wet. Rather they will hold him upside-down until the contents of his pockets fall into the surf. ”

“ Are you ivory hunters or not?”
“I’ll answer that,” said Fred—dexterously I thought, “when I’ve seen a copy of the game laws. We’re law-abiding men.”
The collector handed us a well thumbed copy of the Red Book.
“They’re all in that,” he said. “I’ll lend it to you, or you can buy one almost anywhere in town. If you decide after reading that to go farther up country I’m willing to issue provisional game licenses, subject to confirmation after I’ve looked into any evidence you care to submit on your own behalf. You can have your guns against a cash deposit—”
“How big?” ”