Three And Africa

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Title:     Three And Africa
Author: Arthur Shearly Cripps [More Titles by Cripps]

We all three went a common way with rather a bad grace, and Africa in a measure dominated our movements, or at least our proposed destinations. I think she tightened her grip on all our three affections by that journey, she made us more of her slaves she has ever a hankering after the slave-trade, has she not? In her shrewdness she gained a grip on us by very diverse expedients. Me the restless, so feverishly tired of her, she exercised in fresh fields. One result was, that I found out in those trial-grounds ever so many reasons why flight from Africa would be unthinkable for me. While as to him, my friend, whose doom of exile from her she had herself done much to bring about, I am sure that she dazzled him on that his road to the railway (his Via Dolorosa,) making assurance much more sure that he must leave his heart with her. As to her, my other friend, who had taken Africa so complacently and so very much for granted, Africa made revelations to her at each stage of a journey that was rousing in itself, for it brought her away from her western station to a very different countryside. And if these revelations were not prone to stimulate affection, I am quite mistaken. I could make out a strong case against Africa, on the grounds of that journey, as capricious, inconsiderate, and so on. Yet before I have done, I want to indicate pleas of extenuation.

We were going with a donkey-wagon, he and I, the wagon wherein she, my other friend, was riding. He had been in the Civil Service, and suffered much from fever; yet he was leaving the Service for other reasons as well as that particular one. He was traveling cross-country to his exit station, prolonging thus his pangs of farewell; he was making himself useful by escorting her on her desolate road. Moreover, I was making myself courteous by adding my own escort. I was under no delusion as to my being useful.

The donkeys were none too fat; they looked as if they had not been used well, and were far on in life. With their driver I differed as to beating them, but I will allow that they were dear to him on the whole, and that he made progress in by no means easy places. Indeed the road had been against us for many days before the day on which I left the wagon; and I as wagon conductor was to blame for the choice of it. I should have yielded myself patiently to go the mighty round that the main roads went. I had come almost due east at a venture, and when I had lost my first stake by being disappointed of the by-road I sought, I went on gambler-fashion. I had seen already how the wagon stuck in a big river's sand-bed. How many times we had dug out, how the whip and the driver's voice had plied, how we had filled up the ruts with sods and grass-tufts, striving to gain purchase for the wheels! And yet I was obstinately sanguine when I heard a tale of an ancient trading road. It would be wondrously direct, if one could win through by it. So along it, by my own decision, we went. That first night that we turned off by it, we stuck long in the waning light, trying to pull through a neck in the hills. It was grievously cumbered with boulders, and we were long in trying. Yet at last the driver rallied his team, and we slept on the right side of the pass, clear of the granite, ready for an early inspan next day. Then on the morrow we but crawled along, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor. That time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drew in on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned and went on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shoulders to wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we had been delayed far into another day. That noon and afternoon the disused road traveled through bush-veld. It had been ridden over so little in the last few years, that there was much wood-cutting now to be done.

Our voorlooper was no scraggy piccanin, he was brawny and bearded, an expert Mashona woodman. Now the woods bowed beneath his sturdy stroke. But his labors took time. One shrank in shame from the reckoning of miles covered on those days. Sunday came to our rescue, and we lay encamped in the granite-country, very grateful for our rest. On the Monday, its results showed. We trekked gallantly for hours and hours, we pulled out of a swamp at the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before we outspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knocked under, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The lady of the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped to coax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved from relapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded. We stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream; there we found odds against us, both rocks and also deep mire. So we camped, leaving our wagon jammed in the stream's bed.

Now I would tell you about that night and the next morning. We got the lady's mattress out of the wagon. She could not well sleep on it, where it was. There were many midges and mosquitoes about then, for March was the time of the year; so we made her bed on some high ground, close but not too close to our camp-fire. After supper we sat about the fire long, the branch-heaped blaze was comfortable after our chilly paddling. The wisdom or folly that we puffed and inhaled and toasted and sucked and munched over the fire is the making of my story. It is its best excuse for a yawning lack of plot.

Delia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us. When they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. But meanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and Miss Moore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle.

Anson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland. He had been quartered in many parts of her those last ten years; his admiration had been consistent, it had also stood the test of her feverish dealings with him. He said that she was the only country worth inhabiting in a cursed world, that she was God's own country. Then I fanned his flame with my own home-sick talk. The wind was blowing chillily north-westward that night on the other side of our ant-hill shelter. A kindred wind was blowing just as steadfastly in my own soul. I had had my contrarieties lately, both of hard times and pastoral reverses; but, and that seemed to matter more, I was beginning to feel my age, its untimely growth as my work grew. Had I not done my share by now? I painted scenes in south-eastern England for my private view frequently now, scenes in cool greens and sober blues and restful grey scenes of weald and down-land, of hop-garden and country rectory. Over this last my fancy played and kindled ruddily in tiles and roses.

When I found words for these scenes they proved so many battlefields, for Dick gave battle to my panegyrics impartially, as I filed them up before him. He seemed to be very hard hit that night, savagely bludgeoned by his doom of banishment. He said that he hoped to come back someday. Anyhow, he said, would I try to remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where two rivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we were camping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Could not interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, so plainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay. I, on the other hand, full of home lust, England-amorous, yet so robust, so lacking in any decent excuse to give over my job and go in that green old age of mine. Then, at last, Delia Moore chimed or rather clashed in, when she had roasted her monkey-nuts and found a dish for them. She said that we were both wrong, we were both so clearly called to do just what we were doing, he to go his way, and I to stay on. But, contended she, her own move was a more than doubtful one; she had been made into a rolling stone, against her own judgment, by church despotism; the odds were against her gathering moss to any reasonable extent. 'O,' she appealed to me, 'look after my west-country work, whatever else you do. My going east bids you in honor to stay.' I allowed her plea with a nod. It was not till some while afterwards that I propounded Africa's apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had been talking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting the cold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and gloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross picture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the scoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks that night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she said I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at last. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, submitting subjects for inquiry.

'Are not countries and subcontinents like men born under stars What star was South Africa herself born under? Not the Lyre surely, her poetry is comparatively so negligible. Not the Plough, nor yet Aquarius, for she is not blest with overmuch irrigation, nor brilliant at agriculture. Neither was it the Northern Star surely; constancy does not easily beset her. No, it was the Southern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive of more than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifying peine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic of Africa to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly follow her star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?

'That's all very well,' said Dick truculently, 'but I want to know what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lying down?'

I sniffed. 'I suppose we had better,' I said. 'And if we want a decent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christi is excellent.'

'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at least not till I come back.' Miss Moore plunged for a particular shallow just when I was floating in gay generalities.

'Let me have till to-morrow,' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa's defense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She's emphatically a feminine continent,' I said. 'I learned only the other day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at the height of her power with a man, just when her contact with him is but one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of some women and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick one of such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to a distance, bidding him consecrate "a night of memories and sighs" to her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. But trust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's the same sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I left Oxford behind: "Not until you go from her will she come to you" you know the sort of thing.'

Dick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. My lucidities, I feared, were missing fire.

A donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were not harnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them. With a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip. After many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before it had taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortune had been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again.

'Go on,' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration.'

'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her, and by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkey has done about linen or calico, I forget which.'

That started the keening again.

'O,' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it by the dozen to get back just to the one place the same old Mission. You will promise to stop there till I come back, at any rate?'

Worn out by continual dropping-fire, I promised, starry Heaven being my helper. 'Let's go to bed after that,' I pleaded. 'I've soared in an airy disquisition and I've come to earth in a gross sort of pledge.'

'No, you're to go on,' Dick told me.

'What about yourself?'

'O, I'm led out on a string. I'm given trotting exercise by Africa within her own confines. I'm kept hanging about on her veld, while she delays my donkeys. Meanwhile she shows me out-of-the-way holes and corners where there's nobody to do the work she wants done. She appeals to my shame and pity, she has made a study of weak spots of mine. Has she not method? I meant to leave the wagon last week, but I'm lucky if I get off tomorrow. What with bad roads, spongy crossings, and indifferent donkeys, she's landed me in a pledge to-night a pledge to keep me hanging on. I'm in honor bound now to try to turn her night into day, just like a cock in one of her kraals. While all the time I want to be flitting North like one of her swallows this month of all months in the year.'

In the morning I renewed my pledge at a rock's altar a rock that lichen had stained bright orange. I professed resignation, as did the other two beside me. Then after breakfast, we shook hands. I gave Dick a motto about Africa:

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For 'ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

I gave Delia a prayer to say for her westward return. 'Turn our captivity ... as the rivers in the south.' Then I knelt by the grey flat stone and prayed audibly, 'Give me a blessing; for Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.'

Soon I was striding away. There was little time to reach home by the hour when home wanted me. Pity and shame, pity pointing east and west, while shame spurns and aspires these two beams seem to make up my own Cyrenian's burden the burden of the Southern Cross for me. On the other hand, regret and adoration seem to supply the same office for Dick, if I may judge by his letters. As for Miss Moore, by far the most deserving of us three admittedly, doubtless her faith is firmly rooted wherever she is, and her sympathy spreads east or west, whichever way her duty calls her. Nevertheless she would be still glad should the Voice call and the Wind blow westward again, at least that is my own conviction. In our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way or another the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in each of our three careers.

[The end]
Arthur Shearly Cripps's short story: Three And Africa

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