Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

“It be funeral palaver, Ma.”

Oh, well, a funeral palaver was no great matter, surely. I had never heard of these Coast natives doing anything more than drink palm wine to celebrate the occasion. Some of those we passed had evidently drunk copiously already, and I was thankful we were passing. We came to the little river, we crossed the ford, and then we stopped.

“We go drink water, Ma,” said my men.

I ought to have said “No,” but it was a very hot afternoon, and the request was not unreasonable. They had had to work hard carrying me over those rocks so I got out and let them go. And then, as I might have known, I waited. I grew cross, but it is no good losing your temper when there is no one to be made uneasy by it, and then I grew frightened; but, if it is foolish to lose one's temper, it is the height of folly to be afraid when there is no help possible. I was standing on the bank of the little river that we had just forded, my hammock was at my feet, all around was greenery, tropical greenery of palm and creeper, not very dense compared to other bush I have seen, but dense enough to prevent one's stepping off the road; before me was the village, with its mud walls and its thatched roofs, and behind me were the groves of trees on the other side of the water that hid the village, from which came the sound of savage revelry. Never have I felt more alone, and yet Sekondi was a bare five miles away. I comforted myself with the reflection that nothing would be likely to happen, but the thought of those half-naked men with the bloodshot, staring eyes was most unpleasantly prominent in my mind. Some little naked boys came and bathed and stared at me; I didn't know whether to welcome them as companions or not. They understood no English, and when asked where were my men only stared the harder. I tried to take a photograph, but the policeman, who carried my stand, was also absent at the funeral, and I fear my hand shook, for I have never seen that picture. Then, at last, when I was absolutely despairing, a hammock-boy turned up. He was a most ragged ruffian, with a printed cloth by way of trousers, a very openwork singlet, all torn away at one arm, a billycock hat in the last stages of dilapidation, and a large red woollen comforter with a border of black, blue, and yellow. That comforter fascinated me, and I looked at it as I talked to him, and wondered where it had been made. It had been knitted, and many of the stitches had been dropped, and I pictured to myself the sewing-party sitting round the fire doing useful work, while someone read aloud one of Father Benson's books. My hammock-boy looked at me as if he wondered how I was taking it, and wiped his mouth with the tail of the comforter, where they had used up the odd bits of wool. He flung it across his shoulder and a long, dropped red stitch caught over his ear.

“Where be the men?” I was very angry indeed, which was very rough on the only one of the crowd who had turned up. He was very humble, and I suggested he should go and look for them, and tell them that if “they no come quick, they get no pay.” He departed on his errand, and I waited with a sinking heart. Even if there was no danger, and I was by no means sure of that, with that tom-toming and that chant in my ears, I could not afford to go back and announce that I had failed. All my outlay had been for nothing. Another long wait, and more little boys to look at me. The evening was coming; here in the hollow, down among the trees, the gloom was already gathering, and I began to think that neither Chama nor Sekondi would see me that night. I wondered what it would be like to spend the night under the trees, and whether there were any beasts that might molest me.

“Toom, toom, toom,” went the village drum, as if to remind me there might be worse things than spending the night under the trees, and then my friend with the comforter appeared, leading two of the other hammock-boys; one wore a crocheted, red tam-o'-shanter that fell over his face—probably made at the same sewing-party. It was the same wool.

I talked to those three men. Considering they were the best behaved of the lot, it comes back to me now that I was rather hard on them. I pointed out the dire pains and penalties that befell hammock-boys who did not pay proper attention to their duties, and I trusted that the fact that I was utterly incapable of inflicting those penalties was not as patent to them as it was to me, and then I decreed that my friend with the comforter should go back and try and retrieve a fourth man while the other two stayed with me. After another long wait he got that fourth man and we started off, I dignifiedly wrathful—at least I hope I was dignified; there was no doubt about the wrath—and they bearing evident marks of having consumed a certain quantity of the funeral palm wine.

It was dark when we reached Chama, at least as dark as it ever is on a bright, starlight night in the Tropics, and we came out of the gloom of the trees to find a dark bungalow raised high on stilts on a cement platform, looming up against the star-spangled sky, and then another surprise, a comforting surprise, awaited me: on that cement platform were two white spots, and those white spots rose up to greet me, shamefaced, humble, contrite, my servants. They had evidently slunk past me without being seen, and I was immensely relieved. But naturally I did not say so. I mentioned that I was very angry with them, and that it would take a long course of faithful service to make up for so serious a lapse, and they received my reproof very humbly, and apparently never realised that I was just about as lonely a woman as there was in the world at that moment, and would gladly have bartered all my wild aspirations after fame and fortune for the comfortable certainty that I was going to spend a safe night. It certainly does not jump with my firm faith in thought transference that none of those men apparently ever discovered I was afraid. I should have thought it was written all over me, but also, afraid as I was, it never occurred to me to turn back; so, if the one thought impressed them, perhaps the other did too.

Then I waited on that dark verandah. There was some scanty Government furniture in the rest-house, and my repentant servant fetched me out a chair, and I sat and waited. I looked out; there was the clearing round the house, the gloom of the dense greenery that grew up between the house and the seashore, while east ran the road to the town of Chama, about a ten minutes' walk distant, and on the west a narrow track hardly discernible in the gloom came out of the greenery. Up that I had come and up that I expected my men. And it seemed I might expect them. No one was going to deny me that privilege. Still, I began to feel distinctly better. At least I had arrived at Chama, and four hammock-boys and two servants were very humbly at my service. I wasn't going to spend the night in the open at the mercy of the trees and the unknown beasts, and I laughed at the idea of being afraid of the trees, though to my mind African trees have a distinct personality of their own. Well, there was nothing to be done but wait, and I waited in the dark, for as no carriers had come in there was no possibility of a light, or of dinner either for that matter. Grant was extremely sympathetic and most properly shocked at the behaviour of the carriers. No punishment could be too great for men who could treat his missus in such an outrageous manner. In the excitement and bustle of getting off I had eaten very little that day, so I was very hungry now; it added to my woes and decreased my fear. Nothing surely could be going to happen to a woman who was so very commonplacely hungry. At last, about ten o'clock, I saw my loads come straggling out of the gloom of the trees on to the little path up to the platform, and then, before I quite realised what was happening, the verandah was full of carriers, drunk and hilarious, and not at all inclined to recognise the enormity of their crime. Something had to be done, I knew. It would be the very worst of policies to allow my verandah to be turned into pandemonium. The headman had lighted a lantern, that I made Grant take, and by its flickering light I singled out my policeman, cheerfully happy, but still, thank goodness, holding on to the sticks of my camera. Him I tackled angrily. How dared he allow drunken carriers on my verandah, or anywhere near me? Everyone, on putting down his load, was to go downstairs immediately. How we cleared that verandah I'm sure I don't know. The four virtuous haminock-boys and Grant and Zacco, I suppose, all took a hand, backed by their stern missus, and presently I and my servants had it to ourselves with a humble and repentant policeman sitting on the top of the steps, and Grant set about getting my dinner. It was too late, I decided, to cook anything beyond a little coffee, so I had tinned tongues and tinned apricots this my first night alone in Africa. Then came the question of going to bed. There were several rooms in the rest-house, but the verandah seemed to me a pleasanter place where to sleep on a hot night. Of course, I was alone, and would it be safer inside? The doors and windows were frail enough, besides it would be impossible to sleep with them shut, so I, to my boy's intense astonishment, decided for the verandah, and there I set up my bed, just an ordinary camp-bed, with mosquito curtains over it, and I went to bed and wondered if I could sleep.

First I found myself listening, listening intently, and I heard a thousand noises, the night birds calling, the skirl of the untiring insects, a faint tom-toming and sounds of revelry from the village, which gave things an unpleasant air of savagery, the crash of the ceaseless surf on the beach. I decided I was too frightened to sleep and I heartily wished myself back in England, writing mystery stories for a livelihood, and then I began to think that I was most desperately tired, that the mosquito curtains were a great protection, and before I realised I was sleepy was sound asleep and remembered no more till I awakened wondering where I was, and saw the first streaks of light in the east. Before the first faint streaks of light and sunrise is but a short time in the Tropics, and now I knew that everything depended upon me, so I flew out of bed and dressed with great promptitude, and there was Grant with early-morning tea and then breakfast. But no carriers; and I had given orders we were to start at half-past five. It was long past that; six o'clock, no carriers, half-past. I sent Zacco for the headman and he like the raven from the ark was no more seen. I sent Grant and he returned, not with an olive branch but with the policeman.