Chapter V: The Special Commissioner

The Hon. George Tackle had the good fortune to be the son of his father; otherwise I am free to confess he had no claim to distinction. But his father, being the proprietor of the Courier and Echo (with which are incorporated I don’t know how many dead and gone stars of the Fleet Street firmament), George had a “pull” which no amount of competitive merit could hope to contend with, and when the stories of atrocities in the district of Lukati began to leak out and questions were asked in Parliament, George opened his expensively-bound Gazetteer, discovered that the district of Lukati was in British territory, and instantly demanded that he should be sent out to investigate these crimes, which were a blot upon our boasted civilisation.

His father agreed, having altogether a false appreciation of his son’s genius, and suggested that George should go to the office and “get all the facts” regarding the atrocities. George, with a good-natured smile of amusement at the bare thought of anybody instructing him in a subject on which he was so thoroughly conversant, promised; but the Courier and Echo office did not see him, and the librarian of the newspaper, who had prepared a really valuable dossier of newspaper cuttings, pamphlets, maps, and health hints for the young man’s guidance, was dismayed to learn that the confident youth had sailed without any further instruction in the question than a man might secure from the hurried perusal of the scraps which from day to day appeared in the morning press.

As a special correspondent, I adduce, with ill-suppressed triumph, the case of the Hon. George Tackle as an awful warning to all newspaper proprietors who allow their parental affections to overcome their good judgment.

All that the Hon. George knew was that at Lukati there had been four well-authenticated cases of barbarous acts of cruelty against natives, and that the Commissioner of the district was responsible for the whippings and the torture. He thought, did the Hon. George, that this was all that it was necessary to know. But this is where he made his big mistake.

Up at Lukati all sorts of things happened, as Commissioner Sanders knows, to his cost. Once he visited the district and left it tranquil, and for Carter, his deputy, whom he left behind, the natives built a most beautiful hut, planting gardens about, all off their own bat.

One day, when Carter had just finished writing an enthusiastic report on the industry of his people, and the whole-hearted way they were taking up and supporting the new rgime, the chief of the village, whom Carter had facetiously named O’Leary (his born name was indeed Olari), came to him.

Carter at the moment was walking through the well-swept street of the village with his hands in his coat pockets and his big white helmet tipped on the back of his head because the sun was setting at his back.

“Father,” said the Chief Olari, “I have brought these people to see you.”

He indicated with a wave of his hand six strange warriors carrying their shields and spears, who looked at him dispassionately.

Carter nodded.

“They desire,” said Olari, “to see the wonderful little black fetish that my father carries in his pocket that they may tell their people of its powers.”

“Tell your people,” said Carter good-humouredly, “that I have not got the fetish with me--if they will come to my hut I will show them its wonders.”

Whereupon Olari lifted his spear and struck at Carter, and the six warriors sprang forward together. Carter fought gamely, but he was unarmed.

When Sanders heard the news of his subordinate’s death he did not faint or fall into a fit of insane cursing. He was sitting on his broad verandah at headquarters when the dusty messenger came. He rose with pursed lips and frowning eyes, fingering the letter--this came from Tollemache, inspector of police at Bokari--and paced the verandah.

“Poor chap, poor chap!” was all that he said.

He sent no message to Olari; he made no preparations for a punitive raid; he went on signing documents, inspecting Houssas, attending dinner parties, as though Carter had never lived or died. All these things the spies of Olari reported, and the chief was thankful.

Lukati being two hundred miles from headquarters, through a savage and mountainous country, an expedition was no light undertaking, and the British Government, rich as it is, cannot afford to spend a hundred thousand pounds to avenge the death of a subordinate official. Of this fact Sanders was well aware, so he employed his time in collecting and authenticating the names of Carter’s assassins. When he had completed them he went a journey seventy miles into the bush to the great witch-doctor Kelebi, whose name was known throughout the coast country from Dakka to the Eastern borders of Togoland.

“Here are the names of men who have put shame upon me,” he said; “but principally Olari, chief of the Lukati people.”

“I will put a spell upon Olari,” said the witch-doctor; “a very bad spell, and upon these men. The charge will be six English pounds.”

Sanders paid the money, and “dashed” two bottles of square-face and a piece of proper cloth. Then he went back to headquarters.

One night through the village of Lukati ran a whisper, and the men muttered the news with fearful shivers and backward glances.

“Olari, the chief, is cursed!”

Olari heard the tidings from his women, and came out of his hut into the moonlight, raving horribly.

The next day he sickened, and on the fifth day he was near to dead and suffering terrible pains, as also were six men who helped in the slaying of Carter. That they did not die was no fault of the witch-doctor, who excused his failure on account of the great distance between himself and his subjects.

As for Sanders, he was satisfied, saying that even the pains were cheap at the price, and that it would give him great satisfaction to write “finis” to Olari with his own hand.

A week after this, Abiboo, Sanders’ favourite servant, was taken ill. There was no evidence of fever or disease, only the man began to fade as it were.

Making inquiries, Sanders discovered that Abiboo had offended the witch-doctor Kelebi, and that the doctor had sent him the death message.

Sanders took fifty Houssas into the bush and interviewed the witch-doctor.

“I have reason,” he said, “for believing you to be a failure as a slayer of men.”

“Master,” said Kelebi in extenuation, “my magic cannot cross mountains, otherwise Olari and his friends would have died.”

“That is as it may be,” said Sanders. “I am now concerned with magic nearer at hand, and I must tell you that the day after Abiboo dies I will hang you.”

“Father,” said Kelebi emphatically, “under those circumstances Abiboo shall live.”

Sanders gave him a sovereign, and rode back to headquarters, to find his servant on the high road to recovery.

I give you this fragment of Sanders’ history, because it will enable you to grasp the peculiar environment in which Sanders spent the greater part of his life, and because you will appreciate all the better the irony of the situation created by the coming of the Hon. George Tackle.

Sanders was taking breakfast on the verandah of his house. From where he sat he commanded across the flaming beauties of his garden a view of a broad, rolling, oily sea, a golden blaze of light under the hot sun. There was a steamer lying three miles out (only in five fathoms of water at that), and Sanders, through his glasses, recognised her as the Elder Dempster boat that brought the monthly mail. Since there were no letters on his table, and the boat had been “in” for two hours, he gathered that there was no mail for him, and was thankful, for he had outlived the sentimental period of life when letters were pleasant possibilities.

Having no letters, he expected no callers, and the spectacle of the Hon. George being carried in a hammock into his garden was astonishing.

The Hon. George carefully alighted, adjusted his white pith helmet, smoothed the creases from his immaculate ducks, and mounted the steps that led to the stoep.

“How do?” said the visitor. “My name is Tackle--George Tackle.” He smiled, as though to say more was an insult to his hearer’s intelligence.

Sanders bowed, a little ceremoniously for him. He felt that his visitor expected this.

“I’m out on a commission,” the Hon. George went on. “As you’ve doubtless heard, my governor is the proprietor of the Courier and Echo, and so he thought I’d better go out and see the thing for myself. I’ve no doubt the whole thing is exaggerated----”

“Hold hard,” said Sanders, a light dawning on him. “I gather that you are a sort of correspondent of a newspaper?”

“Exactly.”

“That you have come to inquire into----”

“Treatment of natives, and all that,” said the Hon. George easily.

“And what is wrong with the treatment of the native?” asked Sanders sweetly.

The hon. gentleman made an indefinite gesture.

“You know--things in newspapers--missionaries,” he said rapidly, being somewhat embarrassed by the realisation that the man, if any, responsible for the outrages was standing before him.

“I never read the newspapers,” said Sanders, “and----”

“Of course,” interrupted the Hon. George eagerly, “we can make it all right as far as you are concerned.”

“Oh, thank you!” Sanders’ gratitude was a little overdone, but he held out his hand. “Well, I wish you luck--let me know how you get on.”

The Hon. George Tackle was frankly nonplussed.

“But excuse me,” he said, “where--how----Hang it all, where am I to put up?”

“Here?”

“Yes -- dash it, my kit is on shore! I thought----”

“You thought I’d put you up?”

“Well, I did think----”

“That I’d fall on your neck and welcome you?”

“Not exactly, but----”

“Well,” said Sanders, carefully folding his napkin, “I’m not so glad to see you as all that.”

“I suppose not,” said the Hon. George, bridling.

“Because you’re a responsibility--I hate extra responsibility. You can pitch your tent just wherever you like--but I cannot offer you the hospitality you desire.”

“I shall report this matter to the Administrator,” said the Hon. George ominously.

“You may report it to my grandmother’s maiden aunt,” said Sanders politely.

Half an hour later he saw the Hon. George rejoin the ship that brought him to Isisi Bassam, and chuckled. George would go straight to the Administrator, and would receive a reception beside which a Sahara storm would be zephyrs of Araby.

At the same time Sanders was a little puzzled, and not a little hurt. There never had been a question of atrocities in his district, and he was puzzled to account for the rumours that had brought the “commissioner” on his tour of investigation--could it be a distorted account of Olari’s punishment?

“Go quickly to the ship, taking a book to the lord who has just gone from here,” was his command to a servant, and proceeded to scribble a note:--

“I am afraid,” he wrote, “I was rather rude to you--not
understanding what the devil you were driving at. An
overwhelming curiosity directs me to invite you to share my
bungalow until such time as you are ready to conduct your
investigation.”

The Hon. George read this with a self-satisfied smirk.

“The way to treat these fellows,” he said to the Elder Dempster captain, “is to show ‘em you’ll stand no nonsense. I thought he’d climb down.”

The Elder Dempster captain, who knew Sanders by repute, smiled discreetly, but said nothing. Once more the special correspondent’s mountain of baggage was embarked in the surf boat, and the Hon. George waved a farewell to his friends on the steamer.

The Elder Dempster skipper, leaning over the side of his bridge, watched the surf boat rising and falling in the swell.

“There goes a man who’s looking for trouble,” he said, “and I wouldn’t take a half-share of the trouble he’s going to find for five hundred of the best. Is that blessed anchor up yet, Mr. Simmons? Half ahead--set her due west, Mr. What’s-your-name.”

It was something of a triumph for the Hon. George. There were ten uniformed policemen awaiting him on the smooth beach to handle his baggage, and Sanders came down to his garden gate to meet him.

“The fact of it is----” began Sanders awkwardly; but the magnanimous George raised his hand.

“Let bygones,” he said, “be bygones.”

Sanders was unaccountably annoyed by this generous display. Still more so was he when the correspondent refused to reopen the question of atrocities.

“As your guest,” said George solemnly, “I feel that it would be better for all concerned if I pursued an independent investigation. I shall endeavour as far as possible, to put myself in your place, to consider all extenuating circumstances----”