NaNoWriMo 2006 novel. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Quality may suffer.
After supper was concluded Montague James reluctantly told his companions not to count on seeing him again that night, excused himself and took a stroll out on deck to smoke and admire the calm moonlit ocean before paying his visit on Mister Pabodie. In his life he had seen much that was unusual, sometimes so unusual he had long since given up convincing others that it truly existed, very little of the unusual he had seen had worked out for the good, often entirely the opposite. There was something in Mister Pabodie that disturbed him, a fatalistic, hunted look. He had seen the look before and did not like to recall what had become of the men who wore it. Reluctantly he emptied the remains of his pipe into the sea, tapping it against the steel balustrade and returning it to his jacket pocket, and walked to Frank Pabodie's cabin.
His knock was answered by a demand that he identify himself, which he did. He heard the heavy steel bolts being drawn back on the watertight steel door and it opened a crack and Pabodie's face peaked out, scanning the corridor before opening the door fully and allowing Montague in. Pabodie shut the and locked the door behind him. Montague raised an eyebrow but had expected little more.
'Sit down, sit down,' said Pabodie, picking a pile of papers off the desk chair and placing them on the bunk besides several others and a few open books. The room was strewn with the material of a man studying some arcane subject, old books and faded documents, on the desk was a stack of more books, several more papers, and an open notepad containing tiny densely packed writing and several obviously amateur sketches, none of which Montgomery could immediately identify but a couple of which he found inexplicably disturbing. Pabodie leaned over him and shut the notebook and placed it on top of some other papers on the desk before sitting himself down on the corner of his bunk.
'My,' said Montgomery, 'I see why you spend so much time in here.'
'No jokes sir please,' said Pabodie, 'I am taking a great risk bringing another into my confidence.'
'I must ask you now then,' said Montgomery, 'is the matter you refer to illegal?'
'No. It is not.'
'I feared as much.'
'Feared, Mister James?'
'Yes, feared. There are worse horrors in the world than the law can cover. But perhaps you only ask me here for assistance translating some Greek play?'
'No sir. I am afraid not. Although I see you might be more help to me than I thought. Please, make yourself comfortable and I shall tell you my story.'
'May I smoke?'
'Of course.'
Montague took his pipe and tobacco from his jacket pocket and placed the jacket on the back of the chair which he turned to face Mister Pabodie. He sat back down with his elbow resting on the desk and busied himself loading the pipe while Pabodie spoke.
'I am a representative of a consortium of Michigan businessmen seeking to start a rubber plantation in the Belgian Congo. The consortium believe that the South American rubber industry is now pretty much tied up by a few major players but the African industry is still wide open to men of ambition and means. I am returning from an initial fact finding mission. I travelled via Britain in order to interview and maybe recruit some members of the Dunlop rubber company in Scotland, but it is in the Congo that my story begins.
'The journey there was hard. I went from Edinburgh to Oostend and from there caught a steamer to Point Noire. The weather was not good, and neither was the company. Military men mainly, a few unsavoury businessmen. Oh I know what you think sir but far more unsavoury than myself. Do not deny it. They were hard men, men going back after having their hearts hardened by the place, and drunkards all. I am not a drinker. We hit storms from the second day and they barely let up till the last. I was confined to my cabin with seasickness for most of the journey but might well have chosen that confinement if I had the choice, the sounds of drunkenness and sickness was permanent from outside my cabin door. Did I mention that the Belgian's were in the habit of shipping prostitutes down to entertain their soldiers? They were well used on the voyage too.
'I tell you these sordid details so perhaps you will understand what that place can do to a man. The Belgians debauched themselves because they knew they were on their way back to hell and their dignity, their godliness, their morality, was no value to them any more. Only first timers like myself maintained any decorum, we still had that to loose.
'My American contact in Point Noire also turned out to be a drunk. If I am honest I doubt I could have stood the place long without turning to alcohol myself. Are you a religious man mister James? So am I, but I think God is not in the Congo. No. He may be everywhere else but he is not in the Congo.
'We travelled east, inland. My contact, a man named Barnes, said he had heard of a possible plantation north of Brazzaville, he did not say that it was over one hundred miles north of Brazzaville. The journey was tough, the roads were barely worth the name, they had been washed away the previous rainy season and few of them had been repaired. I was persecuted by mosquitoes and illness, nothing I ate agreed with me and I suffered diarrhoea and sickness from the day I arrived, on top of this Barnes and myself had to pitch in with the Africans helping our wagon through the difficult terrain. North of Brazzaville it was even worse.
'But it was in Brazaville that I first gathered there was an even darker shadow hanging over our journey. I arrived in a sorry state, I had lost three stone in weight and it was Barnes' opinion that I was not strong enough to survive the remaining journey until I had rested a while. Barnes knew the privations that were coming and indulged himself to every degree that he was capable. I was left at the hotel, at first so weak I was barely able to make it from my room to breakfast in the morning. There I befriended a Frenchman named Albert, he was a mercenary by any other name although he described himself as a bodyguard, and, unusually for a white man in Brazzaville, not much of a drinker either, due I think to a strong faith. We talked most days Albert and me and, although I was naturally cagey about my purpose in visiting the country, which was perfectly natural to Albert as most men in Brazzaville who were there for private industry were cagey about their purposes, I did eventually tell him where we were heading on our next leg.
'His face went white as a sheet mister James. "Is it rubber? he asked, straight off, his voice trembling, I nodded, "do not go, he said. This man who had spent a lifetime in the worst places in Africa told me soberly that he would never, for any money, venture where Barnes was planning to take me. I asked him why of course but he could not give me a satisfactory answer, I do not believe he knew himself, but he said there was a tribe there unlike the other tribes and they had dreadful rituals. When I asked him to tell me about the rituals he refused. He begged me, he literally got down on the floor and begged me not to go.
'But I went anyway of course. How could I not? After my company had sent me so far how could I turn back on the evidence of one man I had only just met? He might have been in the employ of a potential rival and only be weaving a story to dissuade me. The following day I found Barnes in some tin shack brothel and informed him we were leaving. Albert met us as we were making preparations and asked me if I really intended to go. When I told him it was so he said "I will pray for you Monsieur Pabodie, I will pray for you. Perhaps his prayers are the reason I am still here now. Certainly, he did not promise to pray for Barnes.
'As I have said, the journey north was tough. There were no roads on the route we took and no towns worth the name either, after three days we did not see another white face. We had twelve Congolese with us, four fell sick and had to be left at villages we passed, two simply upped and deserted, one man died in agony after being bitten by a snake. The jungle, Mister James, you do not ever want to go to the jungle. A harder place I have not seen, and I have seen Alaska in the winter and deserts of New Mexico in the summer, but in the jungle ... The heat was intense, and the humidity appalling, nothing we wore was ever less than sodden. Mosquitoes, and worse, were everywhere. The fauna will try and consume you and the flora will try and hinder your progress, according to Barnes we were travelling a known path but still we had to hack our way through the vegetation from time to time. We made pitifully slow and exhausting progress.
'After ten days Barnes announced we were approaching our destination. I do not know how much you know of the rubber tree Mister James, I have studied it a little of course, but only a little. It is a hard plant to grow, exacting in its requirements, which is why, of course, we need journey to such places for its cultivation, but it is not that hard. It was clear that a rubber plantation in such an inhospitable place would be a major prospect, roads would need to be constructed, and roads do not last in that country so that is an ongoing expense, even with roads the site was so remote that communications would be appalling. If the plantation already existed with a thousand expert tree tappers eager to work it would still be a risky proposition. As these facts dawned on me I first thought that Barnes was an idiot, as we approached our destination I began to suspect he had an ulterior motive entirely, and had shanghaied my company's money to fund his own expedition.
'He dismissed all but the four most trusted Congolese and instructed the rest of us to carry our rifles loaded at all times. Barnes took the lead and we began to carve our way far slower and stealthier than before, he would stop and listen at every unfamiliar sound, and the jungle is full of unfamiliar sounds, and frequently he scouted ahead by himself, returning after an hour and leading us off in a new direction. He ignored my questions, telling me to trust him, in fact he became uncommunicative and uncharacteristically serious and sombre.
'Two days after this change in Barnes' character we heard chanting. Without speaking Barnes signalled us to ready our weapons and we followed him in the direction of the voices. I cannot describe the voices to you Mister James, it was a language I have never heard before, and not one I want to hear again, I can only tell you it was wholly different from any African dialect I have ever heard. We approached cautiously and eventually came upon a clearing in the centre of which perhaps fifty tribesmen were performing a ritual. I hesitate to describe it to you, so barbarous was it, but perhaps it is necessary that you understand the full horror of it in order to understand my own plight. As we approached we heard screaming rise above the chanting, a frightful sound, an animal sound really, though it was from a human source. In the centre of the clearing, surrounded by a ring of wooden poles from which ... well, in the centre of the clearing was a stone table around which the tribesmen gathered, on the table they were disembowelling a woman whilst she was still alive. Carcases of others hung from the steaks around the clearing, a dozen at least. Yes. At least a dozen of them, and all of them ... fresh.
'I am sorry. You are the first person I have told and I had to tell someone I think, just to get it out. Would you like a drink. I have some brandy somewhere. I think I will join you. Like I said I am not generally a drinker but I think I will join you.
'Barnes took charge, the Congolese with us crossed themselves, they were frozen with terror I thin or they would have run. Barnes told us to wait while he worked his way around the side, when we heard him fire we were to start firing ourselves. It did not even occur to me to question his plan. I waited, I remember very clearly the waiting and hoping that he would hurry up because all I wanted to do was to get the job over with and get out of there. All the time the screaming from the poor woman ... Yes. Well I won't dwell on it but to say that Barnes's shot rang out and we started firing. The tribesmen scattered and Barnes ran straight into the clearing and took something from the stone table and ran back towards us. We could not fire with him in our line of site and the tribesmen regathered quickly. He was slain by a spear just before he reached the edge of the clearing, in his hand he held ... well I shall show you in a moment.
'The Congolese ran and when I was sure Barnes was dead so did I. The journey back was hard, in our panic we foolishly abandoned the bulk of our supplies, fear struck all of us. I am not a timid man Mister James, I know I may appear one now but I am not, I was chosen for that task because I was experienced in the world and had faced and survived many dangers. But that fear, I cannot describe it, it gripped all of us, the four Congolese and myself. We travelled day and night, exhausting ourselves, I do not know for how long. They were good men and in the end they carried me in to Brazzaville. I have not seen them since, I hope they managed to disappear to safety. I believe it would have been possible for them.
'I recuperated in the hotel for a few days. The frenchman, Albert, watched over me. When I was returning to health he informed me that a man outside watched my window day and night. I thought it might be one of our bearers so we peered out the window. It was not. It was a man of far more dreadful countenance, a tribesman. It struck fear in my heart and once Albert had left I hid the item Barnes has stolen on my person. That might, while at dinner, my room was ransacked, turned over, obviously in search of something. I ran to tell Albert, fearing that I was still in danger, when I reached his room I found it in a similar state and Albert dead on the floor. His arms, face, and head had been slashed at terribly. A machete attack I think.
'I wasted no time fleeing, I gathered the bare minimum of my belongings and fled Brazaville that night. I fear, of course, that my actions will have implicated me in the murder of Albert but I dared not wait to clear my name. In Africa a man can travel as fast as the news and I made it on board a ship before the warrant for my arrest that was undoubtedly pursuing me arrived. No doubt again there would be another waiting in Zeebruge but by a stroke of fortune the ship was forced to put in in Spain for repairs and from there I travelled overland for London. In London I stayed for two weeks. I wanted to research it you see, find out what it was. I had better let you see it now.'
