Delighted, Rosa took Sebastian for a walk down the valley, and when they reached the waterfall where it had all begun, she stood on tip-toe, put both arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. She had to repeat herself for her voice was muffled with breathless laughter.
‘You’re joking,’ gasped Sebastian, and then blushed bright crimson.
‘I’m not, you know.’
‘Good grief,’ said Sebastian; and then, groping for something more expressive, ‘Son of a gun!’
‘Aren’t you pleased?’ Rosa pouted playfully. ‘I did it for you.’
‘But we aren’t even married.’
‘That can be arranged.’
‘And quickly, too,’ agreed Sebastian. He grabbed her wrist. ‘Come on!’
‘Sebastian, remember my condition.’
‘Good grief, I’m sorry.’
He took her back to Lalapanzi, handing her over the rough ground with as much care as though she was a case of sweating gelignite.
‘What’s the big hurry?’ asked Flynn jovially at dinner that evening. ‘I’ve got a little job for Bassie first. I want him to slip across the river …’
‘No, you don’t,’ said Rosa. ‘We are going to see the priest at Beira.’
‘It would only take Bassie a couple of weeks. Then we could talk about it when he gets back.’
‘We are going to Beira – tomorrow!’
‘What’s the rush?’ Flynn asked again.
‘Well, the truth is, Flynn, old boy …’ Wriggling in his chair, colouring up vividly, Sebastian relapsed into silence.
‘The truth is I’m going to have a baby,’ Rosa finished for him.
‘You’re what?!’ Flynn stared at her in horror.
‘You said that you wanted to see your grandchild,’ Rosa pointed out.
‘But I didn’t mean you to start work on it right away,’ roared Flynn, and he rounded on Sebastian. ‘You dirty young bugger!’
‘Father, your heart!’ Rosa restrained him. ‘Anyway, don’t pick on Sebastian, I did my share as well.’
‘You shameless … You brazen little …’
Rosa reached behind the seat cushion where Flynn had hidden the gin bottle. ‘Have a little of this – it will help calm you.’
They left for Beira the following morning. Rosa was carried in a maschille with Sebastian trotting beside it in anxious attendance, ready to help ease the litter over the fords and rough places, and to curse any of the bearers who stumbled.
When they left Lalapanzi, Flynn O’Flynn brought up the rear of the column, lying in his maschille with a square-faced bottle for company, scowling and muttering darkly about ‘fornication’ and ‘sin’.
But both Rosa and Sebastian ignored him, and when they camped that night the two of them sat across the camp-fire from him, and whispered and laughed secretly together. They pitched their voices at such a tantalizing level that even by straining his ears, Flynn could not overhear their conversation. It infuriated him to such an extent that finally he made a loud remark about ‘ … beating the hell out of the person who had repaid his hospitality by violating his daughter.’
Rosa said that she would give anything to see him try it again. In her opinion it would be better than a visit to the circus. And Flynn gathered his dignity and his gin bottle and stalked away to where Mohammed had laid out his bedding under a lean-to of thorn bushes.
During the dark hours before dawn they were visited by an old lion. He came with a rush from the darkness beyond the fire-light, grunting like an angry boar, the great black bush of his mane erect, snaking with incredible speed towards the huddle of blanket-wrapped figures about the fire.
Flynn was the only one not asleep. He had waited all night, watching Sebastian’s reclining figure; just waiting for him to move across to the temporary thorn-bush shelter that gave Rosa privacy. Lying beside Flynn was his shotgun, double-loaded with big loopers, lion shot, and he had every intention of using it.
When the lion charged into the camp, Flynn sat up quickly and fired both barrels of the shotgun at point-blank range into the man-eater’s head and chest, killing it instantly. But the momentum of its rush bowled it forward, sent it sliding full into Sebastian, and both of them rolled into the camp-fire.
Sebastian awoke to lion noises, and gun-fire, and the violent collision of a big body into his, and red-hot coals sticking to various parts of his anatomy. With a single bound, and a wild cry, he threw off his blanket, came to his feet, and went into such a lively song and dance routine, yodelling and high-kicking, and striking out at his imaginary assailants that Flynn was reduced to a jelly of helpless laughter.
The laughter, and the praise and thanks showered on him by Sebastian, Rosa, and the bearers, cleared the air.
‘You saved my life,’ said Sebastian soulfully.
‘Oh Daddy, you’re wonderful,’ said Rosa. ‘Thank you. Thank you,’ and she hugged him.
The mantle of the hero felt snug and comfortable on Flynn’s shoulders. He became almost human – and the improvement continued as each day’s march brought them closer to the little Portuguese port of Beira, for Flynn greatly enjoyed his rare visits to civilization.
The last night they camped a mile from the outskirts of the town, and after a private conference with Flynn, old Mohammed went ahead armed with a small purse of escudos to make the arrangements for Flynn’s formal entry on the morrow.
Flynn was up with the dawn, and while he shaved with care, and dressed in clean moleskin jacket and trousers, one of the bearers polished his boots with hippo fat, and two others scaled the tall bottle palm tree near the camp and cut fronds from its head.
All things being ready, Flynn ascended his maschille and lay back elegantly on the leopard-skin rugs. On each side of Flynn a bearer took his position, armed with a palm-frond, and began to fan him gently. Behind Flynn, in single file, followed other servants bearing tusks of ivory and the still-green lion skin. Behind this, with instructions from Flynn not to draw undue attention to themselves, followed Sebastian and Rosa, and the baggage bearers.
With a languid gesture such as might have been used by Nero to signal the start of a Roman circus, Flynn gave the order to move.
Along the rough road through the thick coastal bush, they came at last to Beira and entered the main street in procession.
‘Good Lord,’ Sebastian expressed his surprise when he saw the reception that awaited them, ‘where did they all come from?’
Both sides of the street were lined with cheering crowds, mainly natives, but with here and there a Portuguese or an Indian trader come out of his shop to find the cause of the disturbance.
‘Fini!’ chanted the crowd, clapping their hands in unison. ‘Bwana Mkuba! Great Lord! Slayer of elephant. Killer of lions!’
‘I didn’t realize that Flynn was so well regarded.’ Sebastian was impressed.
‘Most of them have never heard of him,’ Rosa disillusioned him. ‘He sent Mohammed in last night to gather a claque of about a hundred or so. Pays them one escudo each to come and cheer – they make so much noise that the entire population turns out to see what is going on. They fall for it every time.’
‘What on earth does he go to so much trouble for?’
‘Because he enjoys it. Just look at him!’
Lying in his maschille, graciously acknowledging the applause, Flynn was very obviously loving every minute of it.
The head of the procession reached the only hotel in Beira and halted. Madame da Souza, the portly, well-moustached widow who was the proprietress of the hotel, rushed down to welcome Flynn with a smacking kiss and usher him ceremoniously through the shabby portals. Flynn was the kind of customer she had always dreamed about.
When Rosa and Sebastian at last fought their way through the crowd into the hotel, Flynn was already seated at the bar counter and half way through a tall glass of Laurentia beer. The man sitting on the stool beside his was the Governor of Mozambique’s aide-de-camp, who had come to deliver His Excellency’s
invitation for Flynn O’Flynn to dine at Government House that evening. It was settlement day in the partnership of ‘Flynn O’Flynn and Others’. His Excellency José De Clare Don Felezardo da Silva Marques had received from Governor Schee, in Dar es Salaam, an agitated report, in the form of an official protest and an extradition demand, of the success of the partnership’s operations during the last few months – and His Excellency was delighted to see Flynn.
In fact, so pleased was His Excellency with the progress of the partnership’s affairs, that he exercised his authority to waive the formalities required by law to precede a marriage under Portuguese jurisdiction. This saved a week, and the afternoon after their arrival in Beira, Rosa and Sebastian stood before the altar in the stucco and thatch cathedral, while Sebastian tried with little success to remember enough of his schoolroom Latin to understand just what he was getting himself into.
The wedding veil, which had belonged to Rosa’s mother, was yellowed by many years of storage under tropical conditions, but it served well enough to keep off the flies which were always bad during the hot season in Beira.
Towards the end of the long ceremony, Flynn was so overcome by the heat, the gin he had taken at lunch, and an unusually fine flood of Irish feeling, that he began snuffling loudly. While he mopped at his eyes and nose with a grubby handkerchief, the Governor’s aide-de-camp patted his shoulder soothingly and murmured encouragement.
The priest declared them husband and wife, and the congregation launched into a faltering rendition of the Te Deum. His voice quivering with emotion and alcohol, Flynn kept repeating, ‘My little girl, my poor little girl.’ Rosa lifted her veil and turned to Sebastian who immediately forgot his misgivings as to the form of the ceremony, and enfolded her enthusiastically in his arms.
Still maintaining his chorus of ‘My little girl,’ Flynn was led away by the aide-de-camp to the hotel where the proprietress had prepared the wedding feast. In deference to Flynn O’Flynn’s mood this started on a sombre note but as the champagne, which Madame da Souza had specially bottled the previous evening, started to do its work, so the tempo changed. Among his other actions, Flynn gave Sebastian a wedding present of ten pounds and poured a full glass of beer over the aide-de-camp’s head.
When, later that evening, Rosa and Sebastian slipped away to the bridal suite above the bar, Flynn was giving lusty tongue in the chorus of ‘They are jolly good fellows’, Madame da Souza was seated on his lap, and overflowing it in all directions. Every time Flynn pinched her posterior, great gusts of laughter made her shake like a stranded jellyfish.
Later the pleasure of Rosa and Sebastian’s wedding-bed was disturbed by the fact that, in the bar-room directly below them, Flynn O’Flynn was shooting the bottles off the shelves with a double-barrelled elephant rifle. Every direct hit was greeted by thunderous applause from the other guests. Madame da Souza, still palpitating with laughter, sat in a corner of the bar-room dutifully making such entries in her notebook as, ‘One bottle of Grandio London Dry Gin 14.50 escudos; one bottle Grandio French Cognac Five Star 14.50 escudos; one bottle Grandio Scotch whisky 30.00 escudos; I magnum Grandio French Champagne 75.90 escudos.’ ‘Grandio’ was the brand-name of the house, and signified that the liquor each bottle contained had been brewed and bottled on the premises under the personal supervision of Madame da Souza.
Once the newly-wed couple realized that the uproar from the room below was sufficient to mask the protests of their rickety brass bedstead, they no longer grudged Flynn his amusements.
For everyone involved it was a night of great pleasure, a night to be looked back upon with nostalgia and wistful smiles.
– 32 –
Even at Flynn’s prodigious rate of expenditure, his share of the profits from Sebastian’s tax expedition lasted another two weeks.
During this period Rosa and Sebastian spent a little of their time wandering hand in hand through the streets and bazaars of Beira, or sitting, still hand in hand, on the beach and watching the sea. Their happiness radiated from them so strongly that it affected anyone who came within fifty feet of them. A worried stranger hurrying towards them along the narrow little street with his face creased in a frown would come under the spell; his pace would slacken, his step losing its urgency, the frown would smooth away to be replaced by an indulgent grin as he passed them. But mostly they remained closeted in the bridal suite above the bar – entering it in the early afternoon and not reappearing until nearly noon the following day.
Neither Rosa nor Sebastian had imagined such happiness could exist.
At the expiry of the two weeks Flynn was waiting for them in the bar-room as they came down to lunch. He hurried out to join them as they passed the door. ‘Greetings! Greetings!’ He threw an arm around each of their shoulders. ‘And how are you this morning?’ He listened without attention as Sebastian replied at length on how well he felt, how well Rosa was, and how well both of them had slept. ‘Sure! Sure!’ Flynn interrupted his rhapsodizing. ‘Listen, Bassie, my boy, you remember that £10 I gave you?’
‘Yes.’ Sebastian was immediately wary.
‘Let me have it back, will you?’
‘I’ve spent it, Flynn.’
‘You’ve what?’ bellowed Flynn.
‘I’ve spent it.’
‘Good God Almighty! All of it? You’ve squandered ten pounds in as many days?’ Flynn was horrified by his son-in-law’s extravagance and Sebastian, who had honestly believed the money was his to do with as he wished, was very apologetic.
They left for Lalapanzi that afternoon. Madame da Souza had accepted Flynn’s note of hand for the balance outstanding on her bill.
At the head of the column Flynn, broke to the wide, and nursing a burning hangover, was in evil temper. The line of bearers behind him, bedraggled and bilious from two weeks spent in the flesh-pots, were in similar straits. At the rear of the doleful little caravan, Rosa and Sebastian chirruped and cooed together – an island of sunshine in the sea of gloom.
The months passed quickly at Lalapanzi during the monsoon of 1913. Gradually, as its girth increased, Rosa’s belly became the centre of Lalapanzi. The pivot upon which the whole community turned. The debates in the servants’ quarters, led by Nanny, the accepted authority, dealt almost exclusively with the contents thereof. All of them were hot for a man-child, although secretly Nanny cherished a treacherous hope that it might be another Little Long Hair.
Even Flynn, during the long months of enforced inactivity while the driving monsoon rains turned the land into a quagmire and the rivers into seething brown torrents, felt his grand-paternal instincts stirred. Unlike Nanny, he had no doubts as to the unborn child’s sex, and he decided to name it Patrick Flynn O’Flynn Oldsmith.
He conveyed his decision to Sebastian while the two of them were hunting for the pot in the kopjes above the homestead.
By dint of diligent application and practice, Sebastian’s marksmanship had improved beyond all reasonable expectation. He had just demonstrated it. They were jump-shooting in thick cat-bush among the broken rock and twisted ravines of the kopjes. Constant rain had softened the ground and enabled them to move silently down-wind along one of the ravines. Flynn was fifty yards out on Sebastian’s right, moving heavily but deceptively fast through the sodden grass and undergrowth.
The kudu were lying in dense cover below the lip of the ravine. Two young bulls, bluish-gold in colour, striped with thin chalk lines across the body, pendulent dewlaps heavily fringed with yellow hair, two and a half twists in each of the corkscrew horns – big as polo ponies but heavier. They broke left across the ravine when Flynn jumped them from their hide, and the intervening bush denied him a shot.
‘Breaking your way, Bassie,’ Flynn shouted and Sebastian took two swift paces around the bush in front of him, shook the clinging raindrops from his lashes, and slipped the safety-catch. He heard the tap of big horn against a branch, and the first bull came out of the ravine at full run across his front. Yet it seemed to float, unreal
, intangible, through the blue-grey rain mist. It blended ghostlike into the background of dark rain-soaked vegetation, and the clumps of bush and the tree trunks between them made it an almost impossible shot. In the instant that the bull flashed across a gap between two clumps of buffalo thorn, Sebastian’s bullet broke its neck a hand’s width in front of the shoulder.
At the sound of the shot, the second bull swerved in dead run, gathered its forelegs beneath its chest and went up in a high, driving leap over the thorn bush that stood in its path. Sebastian traversed his rifle smoothly without taking the butt from his shoulder, his right hand flicked the bolt open and closed, and he fired as a continuation of the movement.
The heavy bullet caught the kudu in mid-air and threw it sideways. Kicking and thrashing, it struck the ground and rolled down the bank of the ravine.
Whooping like a Red Indian, Mohammed galloped past Sebastian, brandishing a long knife, racing to reach the second bull and cut its throat before it died so that the dictates of the Koran might be observed.
Flynn ambled across to Sebastian. ‘Nice shooting, Bassie boy. Salted and dried and pickled, there’s meat there for a month.’
And Sebastian grinned in modest recognition of the compliment. Together they walked across to watch Mohammed and his gang begin paunching and quartering the big animals.
With the skill of a master tactician, Flynn chose this moment to inform Sebastian of the name he had selected for his grandson. He was not prepared for the fierce opposition he encountered from Sebastian. It seemed that Sebastian had expected to name the child Francis Sebastian Oldsmith. Flynn laughed easily, and then in his most reasonable and persuasive brogue he started pointing out to Sebastian just how cruel it would be to saddle the child with a name like that.