The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man

With his health continuing to improve, Burton decided to risk a foray onto the lake. He borrowed two large canoes from the Ujiji natives and instructed Sidi Bombay to have them loaded with supplies and crewed by the strongest oarsmen.

  “Aren't you too sick for this?” Speke asked.

  “I'm fine. And we must establish for certain which way the Rusizi flows. Hearsay is not enough. I have to see it with my own eyes.”

  “I think we should wait until you're stronger.”

  Burton ground his teeth in vexation. “Dash it all, John! Why are you suddenly so reluctant to see this expedition through?”

  “I'm not!” Speke protested. His attitude, though, remained surly as the two canoes were launched, with Burton in the first and him in the second.

  On choppy water, the crew paddled northward.

  The weather broke. They were by turns soaked by torrential rain, baked by ferocious sun, and battered by downpours again.

  They put ashore at a village named Uvira, where the oarsmen from Ujiji mutinied.

  “They have much fear,” Sidi Bombay explained. “People in village say we be killed if we go more north. Tribes there very bad. Always make war.”

  Then came a terrible blow: “Boss man here say Rusizi come in lake, not go out.”

  “Sheikh Hamed claimed otherwise!” Burton cried.

  Sidi Bombay shook his head. “No, no. Mr. Speke he no understand what Sheikh Hamed say.”

  Despondency settled over Burton.

  The lieutenant avoided him.

  The explorers turned around and returned to Ujiji. From there, they trudged back inland to a village named Kawele.

  Burton rallied. He felt sure that with the evidence he'd so far collected, he could raise sponsorship for a second, more fully equipped expedition—and, by God, he'd bring a better travelling companion!

  “I'd like to circumnavigate Tanganyika,” he told Speke, “but we should save what's left of our supplies for the trek back to Zanzibar. If our furlough ends before we report to the RGS, we'll lose our commissions.”

  “Agreed,” the lieutenant answered stiffly.

  So, on the 26th of May, they began the long march eastward, reaching Unyanyembe in mid-June, where a mailbag awaited them. One of its letters revealed to Burton that his father had died ten months previously, and another that his brother, Edward, had been savagely beaten in India and had suffered severe head injuries.

  His despondency deepened into depression.

  They slogged on over the endless savannah until they reached the Arab trading town of Kazeh. Here they rested.

  Speke encouraged Burton to take Saltzmann's Tincture to drive away the last vestiges of malarial fever. He even mixed the doses himself. No amount of medicine, though, could fully protect the Englishmen from Africa's insidious maladies, and in addition to all their other ailments, they now both suffered from constant, eye-watering headaches.

  Death hung oppressively over this part of Africa—and it wanted them.

  One day, Speke came to Burton and told him that the locals were hinting that there was a huge body of water fifteen or sixteen marches to the north.

  “We should explore it,” he said.

  “I'm not well enough,” came the reply. “I'm short of breath and can't think straight. My mind is all over the place. I don't even trust myself to take accurate readings. Besides, we don't have the supplies.”

  “How about if I take a small party? I can travel fast and light, while you rest here and get your strength back.”

  Burton, who was lying on a cot, tried to sit up and failed.

  “Where's your medicine?” Speke asked. “I'll prepare you a dose.”

  “Thank you, John. Do you really think you can get there and back without eating into our provisions too much?”

  “I'm certain of it.”

  “Very well. Organize it and go.”

  Secretly, Burton was relieved at the prospect of time apart from his colleague. Speke had been a thorn in his side ever since the visit to Sheikh Hamed, and while they'd been in Kazeh, the lieutenant hadn't made a single concession to Eastern customs and etiquette, repeatedly offending their Arabian hosts and leaving Burton to explain and apologise.

  His departure lifted a weight from Burton's shoulders. The explorer put aside his medicine and started compiling a vocabulary of the local dialects for use by future travellers. As scholarly pursuits usually did, this activity revived his spirits.

  Six weeks later, Lieutenant John Hanning Speke returned.

  “There's an inland sea!” he declared, triumphantly. “They call it Nyanza or Nassa or Ziwa or Ukerewe or something—”

  “Nyanza is the Bantu word for lake, John.”

  “Yes, yes—it doesn't matter; I named it after the king! I swear to God, Dick, I've discovered the source of the Nile!”

  Burton asked his companion to describe all he'd seen.

  It turned out that Speke had seen very little. His evidence was more guesswork than science. He'd been within sight of the water for only three days, hadn't sailed upon it, and had, in fact, observed only a small stretch of the southeastern shore.

  “So how do you know its size? How do you justify calling it an inland sea? How do you know the Nile flows out of it?”

  “I spoke to a local man, a great traveller.”

  “Spoke?”

  “Through gestures.”

  Burton looked at the map his companion had sketched.

  “Great heavens, man! You've set the far shore at four degrees latitude north! Is this based on nothing more than the wave of a native's hand?”

  Speke clammed up. He became increasingly cantankerous, caused arguments among the porters, and barely spoke a word to Burton.

  It quickly became apparent that he'd used up more of their supplies than predicted. There was no way they could afford to make a diversion northward. However big the lake was, however likely the source of the Nile, it was going to have to wait.

  September arrived, and they departed Kazeh and began the long march back to Africa's east coast.

  The ensuing weeks were unpleasant in the extreme. There were fights, disputes, thefts, accidents, and desertions. Burton was forced to punish some of the porters and to pay off others. They drove him into a fury, and, on one occasion, he used a leather belt to thrash a man, then stood panting over him, confused and disoriented, his head throbbing, hardly realizing what he had done.

  He had to push the expedition every step of the way homeward and Speke did nothing to help. If anything, his attitude toward the natives just made the situation worse.

  The two explorers exchanged barely a word until, a month later, Speke fell seriously ill. They halted and Burton nursed him as a high temperature erupted into a life-threatening fever. The lieutenant, lying in a cot, ranted and raved. He was obviously in the grip of terrifying hallucinations.

  “They have their claws in my legs!” he howled. “Dear God, save me! I can hear it in the room above but they won't let me approach! I can't get near! My legs! My legs!”

  Burton mopped Speke's brow, feeling the heat radiating from his skin.

  “It's all right, John,” he soothed.

  “They aren't human! They are crawling into my head! Oh, Jesus, get them out of me, Dick! Get them out! They are putting their claws into me! Dragging me away from it, across the cavern, by the legs!”

  Away from what? Burton wondered.

  Speke's body arched and he shook violently, gripped by an epileptic fit. Burton called Sidi Bombay over and they forced a leather knife sheath between the lieutenant's teeth to prevent him from biting his tongue. They held him down as spasms twisted and contorted him.

  Eventually, Speke fell into a stupor and lay semiconscious, muttering to himself.

  “Hobgoblins,” he whispered. “Great crowds of them spilling from the temple. Heaven help me, I have them inside my soul! They are setting loose their dragons!”

  His face was suddenly wrenched out of shape by a ferocious cramp, his eyes
became glassy, and he began to bark like a dog. He was almost entirely unrecognisable, and Sidi Bombay backed away hastily, wearing an expression of superstitious dread.

  “It is kichyomachyoma,” he said. “He attack by bad spirits! He die!”

  Speke screamed. He screamed ceaselessly for an entire day—but he didn't die.

  Eventually he quieted, lapsed in and out of consciousness, and finally slept.

  Another week slipped by.

  John Speke was sitting up, sipping at a cup of tea, when Burton entered the tent.

  “How are you feeling, John?”

  “Better, Dick. I think we'll be able to move on soon. Maybe in a couple of days.”

  “When you're ready, but not before.”

  Speke put down his cup and looked Burton squarely in the eyes. “You shouldn't have said it.”

  Burton frowned, puzzled. “Said what?”

  “At Berbera. When we were attacked. You said: ‘Don't step back or they'll think we're retiring.’ I'm not a coward.”

  “A coward? What are you talking about? Berbera was three years ago!”

  “You thought I was retreating in fear.”

  Burton's eyebrows rose. He was amazed, shocked. “I—what? I didn't—”

  “You accused me.”

  “John! You have it all wrong! I did no such thing! I have never, not for a single moment, considered you anything other than courageous in the face of danger!”

  Speke shook his head. “I know what you think.”

  “John—” Burton began, but Speke interrupted: “I'll rest now.”

  He lay down and turned his face away. Burton stood looking at him, then quietly left the tent.

  After a further three days, the safari got moving again, with the lieutenant being carried on a stretcher. The long line of men—the two explorers and their porters—wound like a snake through the undulating landscape. They seemed to make no progress, seeing only sun-baked grass for mile after mile after mile.

  In fact, they were wending their way up onto higher ground, and the gradual change of air did Burton and Speke a world of good, driving the fevers, diseases, pains, and infections from their ravaged bodies, though they continued to suffer from terrible headaches.

  Christmas Day came and went. By this time, they were maintaining a polite but cold relationship. Speke's excursion to the great lake was never spoken of.

  Desertions and disobedience among the porters halted them for another fortnight. Burton warned the men that they'd forfeit their pay if they didn't pick up their packs and start moving. They refused. He rounded up the troublemakers and dismissed them, hiring nine new men from a passing caravan.

  They moved on.

  Walking, walking, walking! Would it never end?

  It did.

  On the 2nd of February, 1859, they climbed to the top of a hill and saw the blue sea scintillating in the far distance.

  They threw their caps into the air and cheered.

  “Hip, hip, hurrah!” John Speke hollered. “Let's get ourselves off this filthy damned continent, and I pray to God that my blasted headache stays behind!”

  “We reached Zanzibar and from there sailed to Aden, where I decided to lay up awhile to recover my strength. John, meanwhile, jumped onto the first available Europe-bound ship. He promised to await my arrival in London, so we could report our findings to the Royal Geographical Society together. In any event, he went there alone and claimed sole credit for the discovery of the source of the Nile.”

  Burton flicked his cigar stub into the hearth.

  “It was a terrible betrayal,” Swinburne said.

  “The worst. I was his commanding officer. It was my expedition. His evidence was so incompetent that he made an embarrassment of the entire endeavour.”

  A short silence settled over the two men.

  Burton ran the tip of his right index finger along the scar on his cheek, as if reminded of that old, mind-numbing pain.

  “Of course,” he continued, “in going to the RGS, he wasn't acting entirely of his own volition. He'd been mesmerised during the voyage home by the leader of the Rakes, Laurence Oliphant.”

  He stood, crossed to the window, and looked down at the traffic that clanked and steamed and rolled and rumbled along Montagu Place. Almost inaudibly, he said: “You think John betrayed me even before we left Africa, don't you? At Tanganyika.”

  “Yes, I'm sorry, Richard, but it all adds up. I think Speke learned from Sheikh Hamed that the Mountains of the Moon were nowhere near, but far away to the northeast; that the tribes to the north of Ujiji were hostile; and that the Rusizi flows into, not out of, the lake. He then set about convincing you of the exact opposite, so that you'd waste time and resources and be forced to return to Zanzibar.”

  Burton sighed. “A lust for glory. He wanted to be John Hanning Speke, the man who discovered the source of the Nile.”

  “It would seem so, and though his map didn't fool you—you're too good a geographer to be taken in by absurdly misplaced mountains—the rest of it worked. Your attempts to see the Rusizi precluded any further explorations.”

  The king's agent clenched his fists and leaned with his knuckles against the window frame and his forehead touching the glass.

  “So,” the poet continued, “you began the long journey back eastward and when you reached Kazeh, Speke dosed you up with Saltzmann's Tincture until you couldn't think straight. He then used rumours of a lake to justify his independent excursion north to where Hamed had told him the Mountains of the Moon were located. Whether he found them or not, something happened in that region that made the Nile question irrelevant to him.”

  Burton pushed himself back upright, turned, frowned, and said: “You're referring to his subsequent hallucinations?”

  Swinburne nodded. “You said he ranted and raved about dragons dragging him away from something. Dragons, Richard—mythical reptiles, just like the Shayturáy, the African Nāga. Is that a coincidence, do you think?”

  “And the Nāga are associated with a fabled black diamond that fell from the sky and gave rise to the Nile,” Burton whispered. “Bloody hell, Algy, did he see the African stone?”

  “It would certainly account for his subsequent actions.”

  Burton whistled and ran his fingers through his hair. He paced over to the fireplace, took another cigar from the box on the mantelpiece, and immediately forgot it, holding it unlit while he gazed thoughtfully at Swinburne.

  “When Babbage said the Technologists had become aware of the black diamonds, I wondered how. Now we know: Speke told Oliphant and Oliphant told the Technologists.”

  “Yes, and that's when the whole game changed. Let me ask you a question: why did Speke receive Murchison's backing for a second expedition? He's an inept geographer, a terrible public speaker, a bad writer, and has proven himself thoroughly unreliable. Yet he was chosen over you. Why?”

  Burton's jaw dropped. The cigar fell from his fingers.

  “My God,” he whispered. “My God. At last it's making sense. The Rakes and Technologists must have offered to fund him!”

  “What still remains unclear is what actually happened during that second expedition. He took with him a young soldier named James Augustus Grant—I don't know if he was a Technologist or a Rake, but one or the other, I should think—and they used swans to fly to Kazeh. Speke failed to properly guard the birds and lions killed them. That was the first of a string of disasters that forced him to return to Zanzibar. When he arrived there, Grant was no longer with him. Speke claimed that his colleague had died of fever and was buried near the shore of the lake.”

  Burton dropped back into his armchair and said: “He also reaffirmed that he'd discovered the source of the Nile—but, again, his evidence was pathetically flawed.”

  Swinburne grunted his agreement. “He was scheduled to give a fuller account at the Bath Assembly Rooms last year. Instead, knowing that you were going to expose the scale of his ineptitude, he shot himself in the head. Oliphant a
bducted him from the hospital, and the Technologists replaced the damaged half of his brain with a clockwork mechanism.”

  “Babbage's prototype. I never understood why they did that until now. Bismillah! They still needed him to show them where the diamond was. But then the Spring Heeled Jack affair occurred, the Technologist and Rake alliance diverted their resources to capturing Edward Oxford, and Speke was left trailing about after them, awaiting further orders. When I defeated the alliance and killed Oliphant, he fled.”

  Swinburne twitched, jerked, and jumped to his feet.

  “Where do you suppose he is now?”

  “Brunel says he's in Prussia.”

  “Hmm,” Swinburne hummed. “I wonder why there? Could he have arranged the Brundleweed theft?”

  “Are you suggesting he's making a play for the Eyes?”

  “Yes, I think it quite likely. If Darwin and his cronies implanted that device in his head to somehow impel him to retrieve the African Eye, is it not possible that it might also have driven him to acquire the Cambodian diamonds? If Speke or the alliance researched the matter, they will know that there were three Eyes and that the Choir Stones are the fragments of one of them.”

  “You're making a lot of sense, Algy. In which case, if the Tichbornes really do have the South American stone and Speke is aware of it, they'll be his next target.”

  “Then let's stop chinwagging and get ourselves to Tichborne House!”

  Swinburne leaped to his feet and ran to the door. Burton followed.

  “Really, Algy, there's no need for you to come.”

  They descended to the ground floor.

  “There's every need! You know how trouble dogs your footsteps and you're obviously not at the peak of physical fitness. What better time to call on your faithful assistant for support? I say, speaking of dogs, where's that blasted basset hound of yours?”

  “Fidget? I don't know. In the kitchen with Mrs. Angell, probably.”

  “Well, he can jolly well stay there, the brute! What say you?”

  “I have no objection, and I'm certain he doesn't either, what with the scraps of food my esteemed housekeeper throws into his welcoming maw.”

  Swinburne screeched and clapped his hands together. “I mean about me coming to Tichborne House with you, you buffoon!”