The Judas Tree (33 page)

‘How on earth did you get through those, dear boy?' Archie voiced the general feeling. ‘ Didn't they tear you to shreds?'

‘We lost a little skin.' Willie smiled. ‘ But we averaged at least fifty yards an hour. Yet that wasn't the worst. Just after we got through that last bit I showed you, because of my stupidity we lost our compass and wandered off the high northern tableland into the Cazar desert. It was a bad mistake – sand, deep sand, everywhere, and low scrubby bush, a waterless waste land. In the heat and blinding dust storms we ran out of water and would have fared rather badly if we hadn't come on three Bushmen who led us to a sucking hole – a muddy pit they had dug in the sand.'

‘Aren't the Bushmen dreadful little aboriginals, with hair all over their faces?' asked Leonora, intelligently.

‘These were not large, only four feet in height,' Willie answered gently. ‘But they were certainly not dreadful, for if they had not humanely shared their scanty supply of water, neither my companion nor I would have survived. In fact we very nearly didn't, for presently my good catechist went down with dysentery, three of the oxen sickened and died, and I – well, by this time we were both covered with sores from tick and mosquito bites, so I got a touch of malaria. As if this wasn't enough, the waggon chains broke and it was really a miracle that we did at last reach our destination, Kwibu, the chief village of the district and tribal headquarters of the Abatu. I have an old photograph which I took shortly after arrival.' He projected another slide on the screen. ‘As you see, it's just a scattered collection of conical mud hovels roofed with palm thatch, no cultivation whatsoever, and in the background you can make out a few skeleton cattle, poor starved creatures, always covered with flies, wandering miserably around on the parched ground.

‘Well, we had arrived, and were feeling pleased with ourselves, when we received a nasty shock. The chief of the Abatu wouldn't let me enter the village. Here he is, all painted up for the occasion, and I think you'll agree that I was not wise to press him too hard.'

‘Oh dear,' Leonora thrilled with sympathy. ‘What a fearful old sinner.'

‘Sometimes the biggest of sinners make the best of saints,' Willie smiled. ‘And old Tshosa hasn't done so badly, as you'll see. However, at that time he wasn't too full of brotherly love, so we were obliged to up stakes and move off some distance, to higher ground above the village where there was a small clump of tacula trees and a spring. Here, first of all, we set to and built a little hut. It was hot work. I wasn't used yet to the sweltering temperature, and the tacula wood was so tough it blunted my axe. We didn't have any roofing material, and by now we were running very short of food supplies.'

‘I was going to ask you that,' interposed Madame Ludin. ‘ How did you live? Catering is my business and I'd be interested to know.'

‘Our only food was a kind of porridge. I would boil my kettle and pour the boiling water into a bowl containing a handful of oatmeal. It sounds little enough, but it's good solid Scotch fare and stood by us well.'

‘It wouldn't me,' exclaimed Archie. ‘I'm all for the liquid Scotch.'

‘Anyway,' said Willie, joining in the laugh, ‘we had already started to make a garden and to dig ditches to carry the spring to irrigate the land. Properly watered, the grass grew amazingly quickly, we raised mealies, potatoes and Indian corn, and our remaining oxen began to thrive. All this time none of the tribe came near me; our only visitors were lions, cheetahs and an occasional rhinoceros.'

‘Oh dear. Did you shoot them?' said Leonora. She was fascinated by Willie, his oddness, his tic, that marvellous sweet expression. A thought flashed through her giddy brain: if there was game, why not take Herman on safari, drop in on the Mission, like a Hemingway heroine? But he was answering her question.

‘No,' he said thoughtfully. ‘We've never had a gun. They came close too, but I scared them away by throwing pebbles at them.'

‘Good heavens, weren't you afraid?'

He shook his head.

‘I think we didn't fear them because we were both terribly weak and our spirits were at a low ebb, especially when the rainy season began, continuous thunderstorms followed by a plague of white ants. Daniel and I were both ill with fever. He was so weak he had to be fed with a spoon. I didn't seem to be doing any good; it looked as though our Heavenly Father had no use for us at all. But just when I felt ready to give up, Tshosa, the chief; suddenly appeared, at the head of a long line of his best warriors, all carrying spears. It was an alarming sight and I was very frightened, for of course I thought it was all up with us. But no, he had come bearing an offering.' Willie paused with a faint smile. ‘Would you like to guess what it was?'

No one seemed able to advance a suggestion but they were all listening intently.

‘Well,' Willie said, ‘ it was a bowl of blood and milk, the Abatu token of friendship. So I drank this awful brew, though it was a struggle, and communications were established between us. It appeared that they had been closely watching my gardening efforts, and now they wanted me to show them how to cultivate their dried-up land. Well, we began to work their fields for them and presently, in return, got some of the tribe – mostly women, for they did all the hard labour, poor things – to build a little church of sun-dried mud bricks. This is it.' A poor little shanty with a palmetto roof and sacking over the window and door appeared on the screen. ‘Here I began my first services, trying to plant the seeds of the gospel in the minds of those poor savages. Then I went often to the cattle posts to try to explain Christian principles to the men, and especially to teach the children. It wasn't easy, we had to face primitive ignorance and ingrained superstition. And there was always the danger of a sudden mass uprising incited by those who feared the word of God because it might undermine their prestige and destroy the pagan fetishism that's the basis of many tribal customs. For instance, I had some little trouble with this fellow.' Another slide came on the screen.

‘Oh, what a horrible old man,' exclaimed Leonora. ‘ He's worse than the chief.'

‘That's the witch doctor and rain maker. When the droughts came, and they were frequent, his job was to dispel them with magic. And when his mumbo-jumbo didn't work he blamed it on the bad medicine of the new religion. During my second year we had a dry spell so prolonged and serious that things looked very bad for us. I don't think I ever prayed so hard for rain – I almost cracked the heavens.'

‘And the rains came,' Leonora murmured in a dreamy voice. She already felt herself a little in love with Willie.

‘No, not a drop,' Willie said calmly, and paused. ‘But I had a sudden idea, an inspiration if you like – that my spring, which disappeared high on the hill, might be running down the slope
underground.
I'd never done a stroke of water divining in my life but I cut myself a mangana twig, which was the nearest I could find to hazel, asked the good Lord to help me if He didn't want to see His servant without a head, and started walking down the hill towards the village. By the time I got there the whole tribe were round me, watching, including our friend there on the screen. Suddenly, just outside the chief's hut, the twig gave a twitch. I thought it might only be my shaky nerves, but I took a chance and told them to dig. Twenty feet down we came on a rushing subterranean stream that went right through the centre of the village. I couldn't describe to you the wild scene that followed, for I was on my knees reciting the fourteenth Psalm, but since that moment we have never lacked water and it was then that I made my first converts.'

There was a ripple of interest and appreciation, a spontaneous reaction that fell warmly on Moray's ears. Now a full partner in this splendid enterprise, he exchanged a quick communicative glance with Kathy.

Meanwhile Willie had resumed, describing the further progress of the Mission, the slow and painful emergence from darkness to light of a savage, isolated tribe. There had been setbacks of course, and some bad disasters. His original church had been burned down and when, having gained a mastery of the language, he tried to change the tribal initiation rites, in which youths and young girls were subjected to indescribable indignities, he'd had a difficult time. But for the intervention of Tshosa the entire Mission would have been wiped out. As it was, three of his converts were killed and several attempts made on his life. The following year a Swedish missionary, his nearest neighbour, ninety miles away, and his wife and two little daughters were murdered – all beheaded. It was so difficult to change the hearts of men inured to brutality and bloodshed that he had determined to concentrate on the children; by early teaching he could obtain positive results, and for this reason he had built the school and, later, the orphanage. He showed several slides of these little ones grouped around Daniel the catechist, now an old man, touching photographs which caused Leonora to exclaim: ‘ Oh dear, aren't the whites of their eyes so divinely pathetic.'

‘Their eyes are pathetic because so many of them have trachoma. And as you see, some of the faces are pitted with smallpox scars.'

‘Then it's not a healthy district?' someone asked.

‘Unfortunately not. Malaria is still endemic, sleeping sickness too, and we get a lot of hookworm and filariasis, even an odd case of leprosy.' So the main necessity was now a hospital, and – with a half smile towards Moray he hoped to have this soon. Proper medical treatment would prove of immense benefit. Still, after nearly twenty years of continuous labour he was not ashamed of the results: the fine stone church, the school and orphanage, the proper mission house – he displayed them on the screen – all were rather different from that first mud shed. And he now had over three hundred practising church members, besides four catechists and several out-stations in the bush which he visited in rotation every month in his jeep. Needless to say, they still had their troubles. He was worried over the situation that might develop in the neighbouring province of Kasai. If the civil authority failed there, now that the Belgians were going out, there might be some disorders. And they were very near, in fact two of his new out-stations were actually across the border. Nothing had happened so far, at least nothing to speak of, but because of the possibility of trouble he must get back to the Mission quickly, to be on hand if needed.

‘And now,' Willie said, with an apologetic smile, looking at the clock, ‘that's about all. I only hope I haven't bored you and that you'll forgive me for having taken so much of your time.'

When he concluded there was a cordial round of applause, a tribute only faintly tempered by the slight note of misgiving on which the talk had ended. Encouraged by the general approbation which, through his inclusion in the scheme of medical reform, must apply in some measure to himself, Moray seized the appropriate moment and stood up. He was normally a confident speaker but now he was restrained, almost humble. Still, the words came to him.

‘I think I speak for all of us, in offering warmest thanks to our good friend for his stimulating and moving discourse. His has been a supremely brave and unselfish accomplishment – an epic humanitarian achievement. Incidentally,' he added, striving for humorous parenthesis, ‘if you should wish to express your appreciation in more tangible form, a salver has been placed for that purpose in the hall. And now,' he followed on quickly, ‘ if I may impose upon you for a moment, I should like to add a personal postscript to what has already been said.' He paused, almost overcome by a rush of feeling. ‘ The truth is … I've come to a decision that may surprise you … but which I hope you will hear with understanding.'

A stir passed over the audience, a decided stir.

‘You might imagine it to be a sudden decision. It is not. Although I've been happy here I've been conscious of a prompting, an urge, one might say, towards a more active, a more useful existence, in which my medical knowledge might be utilised, not for reward but for good. And in how remarkable a manner that intention has been given effect. Early last month it so happened that I felt myself recalled to my native country. Here I made contact with a family I had known and loved in my youth, a family, in short, of which Kathy and Willie are members. Kathy I had not known, the joy of finding her was therefore all the greater. Willie I already knew. He and I, in those early days, had been friends, he as a little lad, I as a thoughtless though striving youth, and often, during our long conversations, he had thrilled me with his boyish enthusiasm for the missionary life. And now the wheel has turned full circle.' He paused, so affected he could scarcely go on. ‘My friends, I don't want to weary you with the story of a soul's regeneration. I will say simply that I am going out with Willie to the Mission, as a doctor, and Kathy, my dear Kathy,' he moved over to where she stood beside the projector and placed his arm about her shoulders, ‘will be there with us, as my wife.'

Now, indeed, there was a marked reaction which took the form of an immediate silence, followed by a sudden outburst. In a hurry, everyone got up and began to speak at once. Congratulations were showered on Moray, his hand was shaken, the ladies pressed round Kathy.

‘More champagne,' Stench shouted. ‘A toast to the bride and groom.'

Champagne was available, the toast was drunk, it seemed as though the party would begin all over again. Most encouraging of all was Madame von Altishofer's composed acceptance of the accomplished fact. He had feared trouble, some marring exhibition of pique or displeasure, but no, her behaviour had been perfect, a smile of congratulation, gently tinged with sadness perhaps, yet a definite smile for him, and for Kathy a kiss upon the cheek.

Indeed, when half an hour later the others had begun to leave and, standing in the hall, he was speeding them on their way, she stopped briefly for a final word.