Taller Than Trees or the Search for Order: Book Four

By Roger Young

With nearly twenty men engaged, Willoughbys kitchen garden was appreciably expanding. The survivors from twelve hours ago worked willingly, but of a pair engaged in breaking ground, one seemed less than used to it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524673581

Roger Young

The author served with the police force concerned in the 1950s and 1960s. He presently lives in Europe.

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© 2017 Roger Young. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/08/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7359-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7357-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7358-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017903550

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To RENATE,

Who helped get it started.

DAY TWENTY-THREE

Wednesday

15TH April 1914

The sky was April-morning, stable-parade blue as the two men paced the boundary-path. May I ask a question, sir? the 2i/c asked presently.

Beyond a squeezing of the eyes, the i/c was noncommittal. Sure.

It is to show the difference between men and women, sir. You must imagine twelve ordinary women, on a desert island with some trees and just enough to live on. How do you expect to find them, when a year has passed?

Is this a trick?

No, sir.

Did you read it in a newspaper?

"No, sir.

Magazine?

No, sir. But you are supposed to answer quickly.

All right. I’d expect to find them well enough, and much as they were a month after arriving.

"Now you must imagine a dozen ordinary men. How would you expect to find them after twelve months?"

You wouldn’t, said the i/c, without needing to be quick. They’d all be gone.

Yessir, said the 2i/c. I asked my people that, and every man agreed.

And the women?

Those who understood, agreed. The others said that they didn’t know what a desert island was.

The i/c grunted. "Let me ask you a question. Suppose two of the twelve women built a boat, and were able, happy, and eager to be off. What would the other women do?"

Tandabantu blinked. I… I don’t know, sir.

Tell me when you find out. But there’s another way to appreciate the difference between men and women.

Sir?

Read a women’s magazine.

They were interrupted by someone with a shovel to report, ‘No snakes.’

* * *

Excuse me, sir. A gentleman has asked me to draw your attention to…

It’s cloves I need right now, mumbled Keene, whose coat was only pinned together, not to mention shirt, which indeed, and like his face, was not to mention.

I will attend to that. Now, if you’d just look at this…

The man held something out: Keene peered.

Yeah, I’ve one in my room. A trade-mark, isn’t it? He pointed to the emblem on the little cake of soap.

It’s the Royal Coat of Arms.

"On foap? (puffy lips) It’f a trophy?"

A guarantee of quality and reliability, said the Secretary of the Bulawayo Club.

The two were in his office.

Keene frowned (ouch!) A guarantee! He reached. By whom?

It’s called a Royal Warrant. You can see it written.

Keene squinted (that hurt, too). ‘By Appointment’ he read aloud. Wassat?

That that brand is the same used by one of the Royal Households: the King, the Queen, the Queen Mother, or the Prince of Wales.

Well, I’ll be… Who ‘appoints’ it? I mean: who chooses it?

Each article is selected by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office; then by the individual.

"The King … endorses it?"

Or his mother. Or the Queen. Or the Prince of Wales.

Keene observed it with amazement. "So this…is the best there is?"

Effectively. Of course, it may only be a personal preference…

It wouldn’t matter: it still has to be good. If it wasn’t … well, the King would lose his credibility! How many manufacturers hold Warrants?

About eight hundred.

That’s a hell of an endorsement! – which all would see to it they didn’t lose! Keene sniffed and held it up. Quality and reliability… Is safety included?

Inevitably.

Are Warrants issued right away?

After five years’ continual supply, sir.

That long! (a pause) And cost to the customer?

In theory, irrelevant. But in practice, if two articles are identical in all respects the Warrant is awarded the more competitively priced.

What happens if the manufacturer falls short on quality, or ups the price?

The Warrant is withdrawn.

Keene nodded. I see. And how much does it cost? he asked carefully.

For the endorsement? Nothing, sir. It’s free.

Silence accompanied the revelation; then:

How long has this been going on? The American was curious.

Since Tudor times: sixteenth century. It became formal in 1840.

You seem to know a lot about it,

My father was one of Queen Victoria’s Tradesmen. The pride was audible.

He held a Warrant?

He did indeed, sir. Wine, he answered the uplifted brow.

Keene studied him.

One last thing, he said. What ‘gentleman’ was this, who wanted me to see this piece of soap?

He said, sir, that his name was… ‘Dingiswayo’.

With nearly twenty men engaged, Willoughby’s kitchen-garden was appreciably expanding. The survivors of twelve hours ago worked willingly; but of a pair engaged in breaking ground, one seemed less than used to it.

Many are called, he puffed, "but few, I fear, are chosen (he meant the lucky many on the motor-car, who’d piled in the moment that the call was given). But I swear I never heard him say two hours gardening!"

Police are not a charitable institution, his friend returned, "or every vagabond and layabout would be camping here. Which, in the fact they aren’t… he leaned on his spade, gazing at the silver river and the blowing trees, amid these truly beautiful surroundings, supports what I said before: that layabouts don’t want to do a good day’s work. So when thinkin’ of a monastery, it’s something one should think of, too."

When’s breakfast? Berry was less inclined to thinking, and more hungry.

There came the echoes of a shout, Scoff’s up!

Though American, Keene was not averse to monarchies. In theory, a king or queen was better than a government, all things being equal saving time and money. Trouble was, all things were never equal and the odds were that good governance was more likely to be found among a group of men elected than in someone merely born to that position.

But there was an exception. No government could ethically involve itself in individual trade or commerce: monarchs could. One of the English Edwards was in fact a businessman. He trucked and traded wool, bought and sold it, discussed and haggled just like any other. No pomp or circumstance: in those fourteen-hundreds you could stop him in the street and say, ‘I’ve something that might interest Your Grace. May I invite you for a beer?’ and the two of you would step into a tavern and talk business – which you could never with a President.

And even if only constitutional, the British Monarchy today was still commercial, manifested in that bar of soap. Indeed, only a monarch could do it, because a guarantor on that scale must be permanent… or be a businessman intending that his business should endure.

Keene had found that ‘extra bit’ – in spades! Not just the means, of which he’d had a glimpse from the unwitting Dr Hamilton, but how to market it, where he’d no idea at all – now solved by Britain’s Royal Household and its irreproachable connection with the business world. He leaned back in his chair, recalling last night’s conversation with the Walking Corpse (who turned out to be pretty fit) which also left things sticking in his mind.

It began with Soames’ description of the USA in 1776 as ‘peaceful anarchy’ – which was accurate, for that was what it must have been: independence and hard work; no taxes, licenses or ‘government’, just Common Law, sheriffs, itinerant judges, jails in the cities and hangings on the spot, all else done by agreement. Real pioneering; but in prompting him to comment ‘I wonder how it changed,’ it saw the answer more than stick: it left him speechless. For ‘this’ turned out to be from the US Declaration of Independence, which to illustrate a point Soames had copied and was about to put up on the notice-board.

Like most Americans, Keene knew it by heart; but, also like them, he’d never analysed it…

Soames had.

‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…’

Soames, a gentleman, had been polite, starting in by saying that the first sentence, an acknowledged reference both to Natural Law and Natural Justice, and Pursuit of Happiness to property, was correct; but that ‘consent of the governed’ actually meant only fifty-one percent of them, or even less…

‘However,’ more loudly he continued, ‘by combining, in the passive voice, ‘all men are endowed’ with ‘governments are instituted’, it conceals that in the active and more usual voice the Declaration states: ‘God endowed all men with equal rights, to secure which He instituted governments’

‘– where the inference is gross because He damn’ well didn’t!

‘With yet a grosser! ‘Rights can only be secured by government, whose powers are as self-evidently just and true as Creation is itself.’

At which point the teacher shed the gentleman, and bouncing up and down and in a fury shouted, ‘Which is bullshit for, ‘The writers of this document were sent by God!’ – after which, of course, they can claim anything!

‘The whole thing was a blatant lie and fraud by local lawyers, addressed to British settlers at the outset of the war – yes, the Patriots were British, every one of them, ‘fighting for their rights as freeborn Englishmen’! – to trick them into thinking that because being ruled by government was right, just, and sanctioned by the Deity, it was better to be ruled by theirs in Washington than Parliament in London, when plainly it was rule by any one and any where, the settlers didn’t want!’

[… just as well he didn’t know how many in the British forces proved his point by deserting to the Patriots, thought Keene, for it was something like a quarter!]

But ‘bullshit’…? He tried the word again, and found it strangely satisfying.

‘Now in power and office, they follow with a ‘Constitution’ that cemented their control!’ Soames fixed him with a frosty eye, ‘Where instead of the Republican ideal of liberty and rights, peace and harmony, it led in only eighty years to yet another war, this time a full-scale civil war, over slavery – which shouldn’t have existed, and wouldn’t have in Queenstown – while all the time they engineer their ‘Constitution’ and play politics till now they can tax anything you earn!’

Keene, a Loyal American, listened and learned with jaws clenched till they hurt. ‘No taxation without representation!’ was the war-cry of the Patriots: but with it their politicians taxed them just the same. Plus ça change, all starting with that Declaration, which he’d been told was simply: ‘to declare that America was making herself independent,’ but which Soames alleged was planned to lead to what the Federal Government now was, and whose powers Lincoln, the first Republican president, did indeed enlarge.

It may have been a personal interpretation but he couldn’t criticise its objectivity or relevance: Queenstown was British settlers, too, who didn’t want taxes, parliaments, governments or rulers, either.

With more than half a million dead, including his father’s two brothers, that crack about the Civil War, if inaccurate, was accurate enough. There were no slaves in the North; but though slavery might have been the wood, the spark igniting war in fact was politics among the Northern states.

According to his father, who also fought, in the ten years before 1861 they had at least a dozen furiously active parties, some for slavery and its expansion, some for compromise; with the Republicans, Radical Republicans and Free Soil Party against, Democrats split north, south and Copperhead; Whigs and No-Nothings, their Constitutional Union party unwilling to take sides; the defenders of ‘states’ rights’; and supporters of ‘popular sovereignty’ who said that settlers, not politicians should decide on slavery; and the Abolitionists with tinder-boxes, all of them heedless of warnings of secession from the South…

Which was a third of the entire country, of which a third of them, owning slaves since 1600-odd, that cost money and were hence considered property and believing such was sanctioned by the Bible, were really different people, concerned about the growing power, wealth, population and opposition of the North; who just before the War indeed seceded and set up a new nation, the Confederate States of America…

It was a huge, explosive mess – which, Soames was right enough, in Queenstown wouldn’t have existed.

‘Why did you fight, sir, if it was only politics?’ he’d asked his father.

‘Ah,’ was the reply, a little wry, ‘when you’re young, and the recruitment teams pitch up, and the drums roll and your buddies start to join, it’s not easy to say ‘No.’ It’s not just politics, you see. There’s real excitement there, and action, and the sort of comradeship you don’t get in the civilian world. It’s not all bad. Only to the women, who don’t know the first thing about it and don’t want to know.

‘Apart from which there was conscription anyway. On both sides.

‘But killing one’s own countrymen for politics is bad and there should be something there to stop it, unequivocal; and there isn’t; for drums don’t roll all by themselves, they roll to order; and the men who order them are politicians and the only way to stop a politician calling for a civil war is vote him out, by which time it’s too late; or shoot him dead, when another one’ll just pop up; or cut off his money, which you can’t…’

Or which you can! Keene added now. Just refuse to give him any, on the board last night: hog-tie him with a rule that, moral, unequivocal and right, did not allow him to collect. No American would gainsay that – or would have done in 1861, which would have seen him a pair of uncles better off…

Massaging his bruises, Keene resumed his task with new resolve.

Yes, he was a Patriot at heart; but, ‘I’d take it kindly, Mr Soames, if you didn’t put that Declaration on the notice-board just yet,’ he said last night.

‘Is that a warning, Mr Keene?’

‘No, sir,’ he returned politely. ‘It’s a request. You may not be aware, but Thomas Jefferson also wrote, ‘I took an oath to God that my mission in life was to attain a free society’, which according to his lights he did¸ so I’m sure he’d have approved of Queenstown.

‘However, talking of Rome,’ which he wasn’t, but it was time to change the subject, ‘I don’t suppose you know on what side of the road the Romans used to drive their goddam carts and chariots?’

Soames looked blank. ‘No, sir. I’m afraid I’ve not the least idea!’

* * *

… all thirty of them went out to Queenstown last night, leaving their luggage behind, the hotel owner told me; and only a handful came back!

Who are they? asked Kincaid through a cloud of pipe-smoke.

From South Africa, said Oldknow. All pretty beaten-up.

Sounds likely. Probably they missed the train. At any rate, I doubt they’ve been abducted.

‘Prayers’ continued…

Back home, Keene was used to figuring in thousands, often tens of thousands of dollars at a time: to be doing it in ones and twos like this was a distinctly new experience. But so was pioneering, he assured himself, reaching for his notepad.

The OK Guarantee

1. Business Cards. Start at £2 per year ($10).

2. Guarantees protection against unfounded allegations by the public.

3. Card on loan. Complaint valid, card withdrawn, compensation paid.

4. Once agreed to, fee not changed without consent both parties.

Great idea, he thought, but not enough: he was a businessman, who had to show a profit or go home. Two pounds a head was going to be his only source of income, and, he could see it, there were going to be a lot of out-going expenses; also time-wasters, with spurious or frivolous complaints.

How could one stop that?

And then, as the thought expanded, slowly he stiffened in his chair. For minutes he sat staring at the wall; then: Holy…Roly…Moses! he ejaculated. He jerked the pad towards him and scrawled another line.

5. Customer Cards.

Psychology, plus common-sense. He studied his figures; and watched as they increased a thousand-fold, a million-fold, till they became a business empire stretching right across the world: not built on dreams or promises, but on the logic of that single thought and on those two last words.

He wrote, corrected and re-wrote for half an hour more; then threw his pencil on its pad, and, shoes fresh-shined and jacket mended, in pressed silk shirt and dark green ascot took to the sunlit streets of Bulawayo.

A printer… was what he needed now.

And continued:

…one of my men on beat last night reported that he found a pair of young Scotchmen being treated at the Memorial Hospital for a variety of injuries. Received in Queenstown, they alleged.

Who from? Kincaid asked.

An Irishman, probably Muldoon. Kicked one in the wedding tackle…

That’s Muldoon. Any reason?

None at all. They said they were quietly enjoying a drink.

Were they robbed?

They said not, sir.

Do they want to charge?

Doesn’t seem so, sir.

In my experience there’s no such thing as two young Scotchmen quietly enjoying a drink in a place like Muldoon’s bar. They were doing something that they shouldn’t. How did they get back?

Bicycles, sir. The same detail saw a motor coming into town with an estimated fifteen men aboard.

Warn him about excessive drinking, too.

Hamilton, returning from the Clinic and a visit to young Ernest, for whose state he felt a small responsibility (being with him at the time) as well as duty to inform authority of what had happened (concussion: two days bed-rest), was escorted by the native sergeant to the entrance of the courtyard.

The scene surprised him. Overshadowed by the branches of a tree, levelled by a variety of surfaces and covered by cloths of different shapes and colours, the horse-trough down the centre had been turned into a table long enough to seat a pair of football teams, while the seats themselves, including boxes, saddles, a coffin and a wheel-barrow, were anything not likely to collapse. Players came and went in the direction of the kitchen: the air was heavy with the smell of frying bacon…

Though Willoughby was not playing host he was definitely ‘there’, a presence, seated at the end; and what surprised the doctor was the jollity around him. It recalled his visit of two days ago: this was not a place where perturbation reigned.

The policeman saw him and got up, and for a while they stood talking.

Since most of these are going to be your litigants this morning I won’t ask you to stay, though of course you’re welcome, he concluded. Thanks for calling. By the way, any more from that woman with the pregnant daughter?

Not a word. Hamilton was eyeing the company. They’re in a better mood than last night, he commented.

What caused it, do you know?

Muldoon’s notice-board. He explained about ‘Bisect a country.’

It was probably provocative, Willoughby agreed.

Do you suppose it’s fear of the unknown?

The other turned to study him. It’s Envy, he said.

Envy! Hamilton was startled. It didn’t sound like it!

Depends on what you understand by Envy. You’ll find a good example in ‘The Norwood Builder’, Sherlock Holmes, also in ‘The Priory School’, same book. Do you know them?

Er…

Not to mention the case of the Rokeby Venus.

I don’t recall a story of that name.

Willoughby’s smile was of the fleetest. It’s in yesterday’s paper, and is even more explicit and extreme. He beckoned. Have you met my sergeant? Tandabantu, chief Kumalo: Dr Hamilton.

Hamilton inclined his head.

Willoughby fixed him with those black and penetrating eyes.

If you’d like to know more about the subject, Tandabantu is your man. Now, with your permission…

The doctor and the chief were left together.

And continued…

… and there was a chap at the Hospital who said he got into an argument with Hamilton, who punched his lights out.

Hamilton! What sort of argument?

About the courts out there, I gather. He did not approve.

Ah, these legal disputations… Kincaid shook his head. I hope the poor fellow wasn’t badly hurt.

Black eye. He said he’s going out again, to lay a charge with the police.

Kincaid nodded understandingly.

Willoughby will know what to do.

Again, he was sententious more than sympathetic.

Once upon a time there was a pack of wolves who sought protection for the sheep: not for their well-being of course, but to induce them to venture from the safety of their pen. So they took counsel with a mean old buzzard, who thought privately, ‘The best way to protect the sheep from you, my friends, is to protect you all from one another. The real problem is: To make it pay!’

It could have been Pat Duffy or Muldoon, engaged in allegory; but it wasn’t, it was Keene, who endeavouring to whistle, went his way.

Question: How to induce visitors to Queenstown, customers (the sheep) to take out cards as well, and at the same time keep it local, as Dingiswayo said.

Only one way: Keep ’em separate, particular, and cheap.

Tweet-tweet!

…and concluded.

Captain Murray stayed behind, tucking a handkerchief into his sleeve.

With more than a hundred arrests, should we not issue a Press Release?

Why?

Because they’ve asked for one. In fact, demanded.

Who?

Bulawayo Chronicle: the Editor. He’s a hard man.

No.

That’s what I said. ‘For the BSA Police’, I told him, ‘success is natural, normal, and doesn’t need publicity or statements to the press.

What did he say?

He said ‘Balls!’

"Did he, by Thunder! He’ll get no Christmas card from us this year!"

Kincaid could be a hard man, too.

* * *

I thought a card would be appropriate: clear, simple, hardwearing, suitable for open-air display. He made a rectangle of his fingers.

Like a playing-card, said the printers’ foreman. What design?

On one side two initials, in black, enclosed by a white circle, on green.

The other nodded. I’ve some blanks in stock. And on the other?

Half like this,’ Keene handed him a piece of paper, and the other half like this, he handed him another; then ‘Name’, and under that, ‘Date of Issue’, both the same.

… ‘Business’ and ‘Customer’, the other wrote. Right, I’ll have a sample ready by this afternoon. How many will you want, Mr Keene?

"Six dozen of each. And I’d like you to print this…on a good strong piece of cardboard." Keene handed him a third piece of paper.

The man read it: a likely-looking individual, Keene thought, strongly built, very straight, with a way of smiling that made one wonder if he was.

Like now. Might I ask, sir, for where this intended?

Queenstown.

I thought so. He was looking at his injuries.

And this, a fourth, a good, stiff paper strip: three inch letters.

The other looked at it. Is this a motto?

Yes.

Good one. Very interesting. Yes, I’ll do it, and deliver it this afternoon. Where are you staying, sir?

Bulawayo Club; but don’t bother, I’ll drop by.

Very good, sir. By the way…

Yes?

What are the initials?

Oakman Keene glanced at him.

Mine, he said, but no full-stops. Looks better, he explained.

Willoughby did indeed insist on two hours’ digging in his kitchen-garden to discourage the professional freeloader; but his two sundowners, agreeable, be-whiskered souls approaching middle-age, their swags festooned with pots and pans, were not like that. They’d work of some sort in the town, they said; all the same, the Police Camp wasn’t an hotel…

What’s the problem? he enquired.

Accommodation, sir. There isn’t any.

Are many in the same position?

Aye, dossing all round town. What’s needed is a bunkhouse…

Willoughby made a mental note; and was on his way to see if Mayhew had given up and gone to sleep, when an idea struck him and he turned back.

‘Envy…’

Like gravity, Hamilton reflected walking slowly back to town: always there, it was a commonplace. The Sun went round the Earth the Church maintained, which was the centre of the Universe: the geocentric theory. Then arrived the 15th century and Copernicus. Gravity remained unchanged; but, he demonstrated in a mathematical hypothesis he called the heliocentric theory, instead the reverse was true: the Earth went round the Sun, and less than 100 years later Galileo showed him to be right.

Envy, too, was always there, also plainly visible; but it wasn’t wanting what another had, or wanting it yourself because you didn’t have it, or wanting what wasn’t yours: in fact it wasn’t wanting any thing at all: the commonplace.

Instead, the reverse was true – again.

‘Envy,’ the sergeant said, ‘is wanting that someone doesn’t have.’ Have what? ‘Have anything.’ Because it isn’t merited? ‘No, sir: because of the pleasure it appears to bring.’ Why? ‘Because he cannot bear to see it in another person.’

Rich or poor, high or low, to the envious the sight or even thought of someone enjoying anything … was intolerable. It was a wish, a thought, a strong desire, a reaction, instinctive and compelling…

Now change ‘desire’ to ‘urge’, specify ‘anything’ as land, possessions, money, status, beauty, intelligence, ability, but repress that urge, and with a whiz and bang he was back to the debate on Cruelty to Animals, and the neuroses of those who wished to see society made equal, lopped and chopped, across the board, all of them deprived of pleasure…

He stopped in the roadway, thinking.

His conclusion then was that their psychology was based on fear, but at the same time was conscious that this wasn’t the whole answer: too many of the affluent were similar; and the rhetoric of both was too aggressive to be fear. There had to be another reason, one which, though hidden, was unusually strong; and Envy, properly defined, was possible…

It wasn’t a neurosis. It was an emotion like any other, a powerful emotion, too, witness the violence of language of the Immoderate Left; but repressed because, not like any other, if it wasn’t it was met with sharp and instant punishment, beginning in that most formative of times: childhood.

Which while interesting, more so was that if the sergeant was correct and Envy was particularly good with its disguises, instead of trying to find the source of an unusual or anti-social thought or act, should such include reproach towards another for doing or possessing something that brought pleasure or prestige, e.g. ‘Nudity is sinful’, ‘Give your money to the poor’, ‘Down with the Monarchy’, ‘Everybody should be equal’, (or by ‘poetry’ avoided saying so), or if the act itself was vengeful, vindictive, malicious or destructive, then a doctor should assume its origin as simple Envy and work backward to verify that it was not.

Take the man at that same debate who hated to see animals in the service of mankind: Was it pity – or Envy at the pleasure that mankind derived from them? Did the lady really feel for plants and flowers – or was it that she couldn’t bear to see them decorating other people’s houses? Was it really fear of what would happen if society were free of government – or that it might allow the gifted or hard-working to attain a greater measure of success? And was the difference between them and Dan Jones’ faction… that theirs was a compulsion out of Envy, while Dan Jones’ faction, just as envious, were not compelled?

No reason why it shouldn’t be: only questioning could tell. More important from his point of view, was that a medical condition now became a moral one.

Envy …was wrong.

And how did one treat that? he asked, without being rude? (or even crude)

He moved to let the water-cart pass by and watched it creak towards the dam. Who it belonged to, no one knew. As though wound up by clockwork years ago, its ancient driver and his piccanin drew water from the dam twice daily and sold it for a penny a bucket in the town; but where the money went, who fed the oxen or who kept the wagon serviced, was one of Queenstown’s mysteries.

First Willoughby, now Tandabantu…

Hamilton did not believe that living ‘close to nature’ made a person ‘noble’: in his experience the average savage was a psychological disaster, unable to be truthful even to himself. But Tandabantu and his ‘people think that Envy means wanting what another has: thieves however, who want and take what others have, aren’t always envious. Envy, therefore, must mean wanting to take it for reasons different to a thief. But if the reasons of a thief aren’t secret and aren’t wrong while Envy is a Deadly Sin, the different reasons have to be what makes it wrong’, said evenly as to an equal intellect, was as unlike his equals as was Willoughby.

‘Do you intend to propagate your views, sergeant?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Why? They are intriguing.’ ‘Not to me, sir. If a case is solved, then it is solved. All that interests me, as a policeman, is that Envy should be recognised as a motive for criminal behaviour.’

Which returned him to the problem once again.

He smiled a little. To a mind as starved of them as his, new ideas were not a problem; though why, he wondered, when native women couldn’t read, should anyone as definitely male as Tandabantu ask to borrow from his waiting-room a woman’s magazine?

Which wouldn’t be available until tomorrow. He resumed his walk.

And what light could ‘The Norwood Builder’ shed? Or ‘The Priory School’? And though reading and enjoying Sherlock Holmes, he was darned if he remembered any case about a ‘Rokeby Venus…’

By the right, quick march! Left, right, left, right! Heads up, shoulders back! Left, right, left, right! Swing those arms, now! Keep the dressing! ’Tooooon halt! Into line, left turn! Right dress! Eyeees… front! Stand still! Tandabantu used the downward inflexion on the word of command: quiet, professional, and civilised.

Very nice, sergeant, said Willoughby, inspecting the smart and orderly contingent, standing to attention in the road. May I enquire…?

I am teaching them discipline, sah, for when they start to work.

The i/c surveyed the 20 boys and girls from the Native Police Lines, youngest 7, oldest 12, to whom foot-drill was more natural than to their fathers, and nodded.

March them through the town to the siding, will you, where you can stand them easy for five minutes.

Yessir. And then?

March them back again. Advertising. Size ’em up, now.

Sah! Tallest on the right, shortest on the left, in single raaaank, form!

The effect was as desired.

– Who are they? Surprised, Niobe Jones indicated the double-file winding through the market place, the sergeant alongside. Sam watched them halt near the siding, turn into line and stand easy.

I think, mum, them’s our labour force, when the present ones go back to school.

Over my dead body, came sotto voce from behind: Robby, whose breakfasts, now a source of bliss and not of stomach-ache, was permitted certain liberties.

– Who the hell are they! Muldoon’s eyes were crossed and bloodshot, and his aspect so unpleasing that no one bothered to reply.

– How many children do I have? Patel asked, then: No matter. Get them into uniform and have them wait at table in the curry-house this afternoon, and in explanation, Customers trust children, where they don’t trust adults.

He had another problem. On a menu-card an arrow had been drawn, pointing to one of his Madrassi curries and informing diners, A REAL BUM-SIZZLER! while another was inscribed, ‘THIS ONE MAKES YOUR KNEES TREMBLE!’ and he couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or incensed.

– [Willoughby, looking through his Duty Hints for inspiration on his lecture, noted that the sections on ‘Eating Houses’ and ‘Dynamite’ were adjacent]

– Macaluso, too, had seen the children.

Who do you think you are: sons of God? he demanded of his own.

No, sir! they chorused, truthfully.

Then get busy!

– Yeah, I could use some help, Sawyer wheezed, watching the young hopefuls from the shadow of his stables. Black kid, strong and willing, kick his arse, pay him nothing… Who’re their parents? he enquired.

The sergeant’s in charge of ’em.

… forget it, growled Sawyer.

Shadreck, in plain clothes, moved away. Which was better? he asked wistfully: to own a motor-car, with a black and shining bonnet and a big brass Klaxon … or to have another talk of him with such respect?

* * *

Perhaps it was the angle of the sun, or that she wanted exercise; or he’d discovered that post-brushing, an old dishcloth added lustre to her chestnut coat, Tandabantu knew his mare to be exceptionally beautiful that morning.

As they left for the Arbitrator’s Court the complainants of the night before surrounded her, petting, patting and exclaiming, ‘If I were a horse, I’d marry her!’ ‘If you were a horse she wouldn’t look at you’, funny things men said when words were not enough; then he and Willoughby were mounting up, and while the litigants, the two priests with them, shouting thanks for breakfast in a body made towards the town, they set off for the Clinic.

That young man, sah, repairing the mule stable, is very slow, the morning’s cheeriness made Tandabantu conversational, and I was thinking that perhaps the other two, the tramps, instead of working in the garden, could assist him.

The Nkalakata nodded.

"One of them told me that what this place needed was a bunkhouse for travellers. The stable could be used for that, temporarily; so, since they say they’re carpenters, I’ve recruited them to help him. They can start after they’ve spoken to Muldoon.

What the hell…!

Tandabantu’s mount had jumped and made a wild chassé, bumping into Willoughby’s great shire. The sergeant swung about, and saw a European boy ten yards away among the long grass at the roadside.

Something in the way he stood, tensely staring, made him twist and check the mare’s hindquarters. Yes! From the centre of the near-side haunch she was beginning to run blood!

He threw something! he shouted, leaping from the saddle.

Find it!

Hearing his roar of rage as he discovered both missile and the damage done, the perpetrator was sprinting towards town. Willoughby spurred and caught him within seconds, reaching down to seize him by the hair; then circling, the boy dangling, shrieking, kicking and clutching fast his wrist, to return to where the sergeant waited – on his face a look which must have told his i/c to arrest the boy himself, for he’d have killed him on the spot…

He dropped his captive in a heap: speechless, he glared up at him – at him, not Willoughby! a blue-eyed boy of 12 or 13, rather fat, with fair, untidy hair whom neither of them knew.

Blood was running down his horse’s leg. He held up the jagged stone, its edge so sharp it could have cut him just by holding it.

What’s your name? asked Willoughby in level tones.

There was no answer but the sound of panting.

The chief could not contain himself. He leaped and seized the youngster by the collar, Answer, dog! He flung up his ’kerrie-haft, prepared to thrash him…

Then he stopped. Willoughby was shaking his head.

I’ve a better idea. Put the simbies on him.

Chan so associated the start of a judicial session with the sounding of a gong, that when, shortly before 10am, he heard a ‘bonggg’ from the direction of the market-place, he was so surprised he nearly dropped his cup of tea. He hurried out.

False alarm. A man selling copperware was being assailed by another, wielding one and shouting, These pots aren’t made of copper, you swindling sod! They’re only thinly copper-plated! I’m taking you to court…

The crowd was big today, filled with faces that he didn’t recognise. As he took stance next to the two gentlemen in black seen yesterday, one of whom knew Mandarin (Chan’s eyes were going but his ears were not), he looked forward to an animated session.

In pressed clothes and polished shoes, feeling and indeed looking good, Shadreck watched a motor-car approach and stop among the wagons of the visitors. He strolled over for a better view. The name was on the radiator: ‘Ford’, the latest model as far as he could see, in sparkling black, with a brass Klaxon fastened to the windscreen, brass acetylene lamps which the driver ignited with a match, and varnished wooden wheels.

It was beautiful!

They started talking, the driver giving technicalities – ‘mass-produced, four cylinders, engine displacement 2.9 litres you’d call it here, I guess,’ sufficient to advise him that he wasn’t English, and there was more to motor-cars than brasswork, wood-work, and a sweetly-sounding horn.

But I prefer horses, he concluded. You’ve a horse? Shadreck admitted that he had. Where d’you keep it?

At the Police Camp, sir.

That’s a strange place! Why there?

I am a policeman.

The man’s look sharpened. Is that a fact? Your boss has banned the use of force, I understand.

To start it, sir; by anyone, including the police.

So I heard. Greatest thing since sausage-rolls. I’d like to see your horse.

Yes, sir. We can go now.

He saw the driver staring, and turned quickly. It was Tandabantu’s mare, saddled, bridled, in among the crowd about Muldoon’s verandah…

Say, that’s some animal! the driver of the Ford exclaimed; then, What going on! for the crowd itself was in an uproar. And who’s that?

That is Mr Willoughby, sir, who has banned the use of force.

The other stopped and blinked; then side by side they hurried over.

The doctor was addressing empty space.

Listen, he said rapidly and from the corner of his mouth. Don’t comment or react. Their line is going to be that you as owner of a public house may not invite ’em in, then bash ’em when you disagree with what they say, and especially when you’re pissy-drunk as undoubtedly you were. I concur, and normally you’d be for the high-jump. However, Willoughby, I don’t know how, has turned them round: they’re on our side. So whatever happens don’t argue, put on your nicest smile and go along with it. Clear?

Muldoon, hanging onto a verandah pole, had such a headache that he couldn’t have stitched on a smile if he were paid. Dimly he saw Tandabantu pushing through the crowd, leading his horse in one hand and a youngster by the neck in t’ other…

And the Marinoni, thudding in the rear room didn’t help.

D’ye mind repeatin’ that? he mumbled.

Go to hell!

While Willoughby, dismounted, waited, the native sergeant and his horse forced a space immediately in front of the verandah, right on top of Chan who had to trample on the toes of those behind to let them by. As they passed, to cries of anger from the crowd, What a thing to do! What a beautiful animal! Why, for God’s sake! for the mare was a great favourite in the town, his eyes leaped to her rump where down it coursed a glistening, scarlet streak, breaking into separate rivulets of blood.

The sergeant swung her round to show the Court; and now the Chinee saw that in the other hand he grasped a white boy by the scruff, while the hand that held the bridle held a large and wicked-looking piece of flint.

The sergeant unlocked the handcuffs and released his captive.

Hamilton raised his hand to quell the din, and in the quietness the black policeman’s voice came clearly.

This boy threw this stone at my horse, he held it up, and cut her here, he pointed to the wound, then tried to run away; and I would like you to adjudicate.

The mare’s warm breath was on Chan’s cheek. He peeped around… to see that Hamilton was on his feet and almost crouched with rage; and he guessed what he was thinking, too: This is not a case for arbitration, this is for police; yet they are making the complaint; and there is Willoughby, not a dozen yards away…

It was a test case of some kind.

Why don’t you charge him with malicious injury to property?

I would like you to arbitrate, sir, the sergeant told the doctor firmly. I have ten shillings.

Ask him why he did it! a man said suddenly in an authoritative voice: a stranger in a white shirt and a waistcoat who was standing at one of the two tables reserved for litigants, staring at the boy.

Hamilton looked at him, and then turned back.

Do you admit the allegation? Even his voice had changed.

The boy’s eyes, darting in panic, now cleared in an expression of relief.

Father! Daddy! I’m over here! He stood on tiptoe and waved, a thickset youngster with disordered hair.

Make him answer, dammit!

The same man raised his voice; and from others clustered round Chan heard the same demand, Make him answer! in a rising chant, infused with sudden, unexpected anger. Chan could understand: the mare was lovely, and someone wantonly had injured her; but who these strangers were and how they could be so ready about something that was no concern of theirs, was …

Next to him the shorter of the gentlemen in black was shouting Make him answer, little swine! crimson in the face and brandishing his fists while the taller tried to calm him. The American with questions about opium, too, also Soames, and Molyneaux the rancher with a face hard-set…

Even Muldoon, till now confined to fastening himself to anything that might support him, was following. Dan Jones, too, and as he always was, was on the stoep, looking angry and perplexed…

Then ‘Daddy’ arrived, barging through the crowd, a young man (though to one as old as Chan, anyone was young) with the same fair hair, a labourer it seemed, who mounted the verandah step and, breathing heavily, looked round him.

What’s goin’ on? The voice was rough.

Your son threw a stone at this horse, Hamilton’s was rougher. The owner has brought the case to me for arbitration.

What’s to arbitrate? Daddy was dismissive and contemptuous. Kids do stupid things…

Then, catching full sight of the mare; he turned, and in the quietness approached, without reaction noticing the blood.

This yours? he said to Tandabantu.

Yes.

There was silence as he looked her over, the fine head, the satin skin, the English saddle; then he nodded, Very proud, and his lip curled. "Now what right has a nigger… he said softly to the owner, leaning on the word, to a horse like this?"

Not by a flicker did the chief react, only looked at Hamilton directly. He seemed to be waiting, thought Chan. The Arbitrator’s face was white, his mouth scarcely visible so tightly were the lips compressed.

Dan Jones was first to speak.

That, sir, is an unwarrantable, racialist …

Shut up! said Waistcoat roughly, you don’t know what you’re talking about, in the sort of voice that one obeyed. He stepped closer; not old either, Chan observed; but if the strangers present had a leader, it was he.

He tapped Daddy on the chest.

It’s your son’s reason that was wrong, mister, he said. Yours, too.

Don’t be clever with me, you…!

Smack!

The tapping finger had become a fist that bounced him on the nose and blinded him, followed by another, dropping him. Pile in lads! he ordered, nodding, Over there!

Men swarmed onto the verandah, seizing Daddy by his flailing arms and legs; then, following the nod, swooped him to the trough and plunged him in. The horses on the other side reared back.

Stay there!

Don’t struggle, or we’ll hold you under!

Now you, said Waistcoat, pointing to the boy (Chan saw Willoughby signal the sergeant to circle his horse so that all the crowd could see the wound again), who tried to flee: Hamilton, without word, hauled him back.

Waistcoat took him by the ear, brought him to the centre of the stoep and twisted him to face the onlookers.

"You know that what you did was wrong, because you ran away; but do you know why it was wrong?"

The boy’s eyes were terrified. N-No, sir!

You could have thrown that stone from mischief. But your father has advised us what your real reason was: You couldn’t bear it that the horse was beautiful, and that the rider might enjoy her. That is Envy; and Envy as a reason is very wrong indeed.

He looked at Hamilton. Sentence?

Six of the best, rasped the Arbitrator, with an explanation that would prove decisive: "Three for wounding an animal on purpose, and for the danger to the rider of it bolting: and three for having Envy as his reason.

You will oblige this Court?

Duly done, with the haft of Tandabantu’s knobkerrie, Sonny held face-down across the table; and to such shrieks and howls, and splashing and imprecations from the trough that Chan was sure that for the boy, corporal punishment wasn’t only painful but entirely new. The onlookers kept vengeful count (Dan Jones looked horrified): done, Waistcoat wiped his hand across the horse’s wound, seized the boy again and smeared it bloodily across his face from ear to ear.

Then Daddy was hauled out, and dripping wet released before the Court.

There are no costs, and is no compensation in this case, Hamilton told him. But if you’re thinking of reporting this to the police in Bulawayo, bear in mind it was a police horse that your son attacked, and to the sobbing boy, clutching his fat little rear, Don’t ever do anything like that again!

And there the matter might have ended, but that the man in the white shirt and waistcoat asked:

Do you mind if I have a word?

Hamilton nodded. The stranger motioned Tandabantu to one side so that he could face the gathered throng.

We came here last night, his voice was strong, "because we heard about some weird new scheme to do away with taxes, restrictions, inspections and so forth, imposed by government. Which is not a bad idea: no one likes ’em; but, we told ourselves, such a scheme could not be right.

"We were wrong; not about the scheme but why we came. As you’ve just heard, a lot depends upon the motive; and, honestly, we came because… well, we didn’t like to see you having a good time."

He spoke unsmilingly, which was effective, and moreover seemed used to speaking publicly. We wanted to take your new idea, and pi… (ladies present!) and spoil it for you if we could. We wanted to deprive you of the pleasure you were having, and the attention you enjoyed because of it. We came to have a bit of ‘fun’.

He nodded after the departing pair. "Like them.

"Now that, we learned, is also Envy, and contemptible, and wrong. There was a bit of trouble, yes; and though them as caused it are probably liable, and though we came today to see ’em fined as heavily as possible (he looked round, but the only sound was someone being sick in the alleyway), we’ve changed our minds. You were only defending yourselves from what normally has no defence: the Envy of the envious, the hatred of another’s pleasure; so instead we’ve agreed to shake hands with you, and forget the whole blessed business."

A storm of applause. Chan heard Oakshot shout, "Who are you?"

"I was coming to that. My name is Hodgson and I’m in charge of a group recruited from Johannesburg to come and help you build your town. A rush job. There are thirty of us, carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, every one a journeyman; and at the moment we’re in Bulawayo, waiting for the boss to pitch up with the building materials. As soon as he does, which should be tomorrow, we’ll be out here again, early afternoon, this time with a better understanding of the place.

That’s all, ladies and gentlemen, he bowed to left and right, and Chan formally bowed back.

I wish you all a pleasant day.

* * *

So ended the sermon on the stoep, to cheers and whistles, women clapping, Muldoon emerging long enough to shout ‘Free drinks, everygloop…!’ and vanish back into the alleyway again…

Hamilton went straight to the horse for an examination.

More of a stab than a cut, Chan heard him mutter. Little bastard.

Will she have a scar, sir? Tandabantu’s voice was even.

The doctor took his time in answering.

We’ll have to see. I’ll treat her, anyway. Take her home, clean her up, put anti-septic on the wound, and bring her to my surgery at one o’clock. By the way, he turned to look at him, "Did you speak to Hodgson about Envy?"

No, sir! said Tandabantu blankly. I thought you did!

One of the ladies was Mrs Jones, now joined by her husband in the crowd.

Thirty, all artisans, she sounded pleased. It couldn’t have been better timed.

Artisans? He sounded more like a revivalist preacher to me!

Let’s hope he’s both. But I agree it was an unusual ten minutes.

"What I don’t understand is why the police didn’t take the case. Malicious injury to property is criminal! It’s almost as if they planned it that way!"

Planned what? That the boy should throw a stone, or that Mr Hodgson should give us a lecture about Envy? Hardly likely, though I thought it was enlightening.

Presumptuous, you mean. That sort of thing should be dealt with by the church!

They began to walk away.

He said you didn’t know what you were talking about. Did you, Daniel?

She asked the question suddenly. Be careful! Be honest! Jones shouted at himself.

Not entirely. I…I’ll have to think about it.

It’s given us a lot to think about, came lightly: then thoughtfully, I wonder how those thirty men are going to be distributed…

The two priests, silent listeners, had otherwise not spoken, O’Rourke because, as he feebly put it, ‘I’m rather fond of horses, don’t ye know,’ Berry because he’d hurt his arm in trying to restrain him, and both because they were engaged in searching for the heart of the event.

From that ‘oration’, Envy, it appears, has been defined, Berry began cautiously.

…at last! from the horse-fancier.

"‘The desire to prevent a person having something, not because you think he shouldn’t, not because you want it for yourself, not because you think that what he has is ‘good’, but solely because you can’t bear to see the pleasure it affords him,’ shown by using force, by denial, equivocation, or attempt to flee. It’s radical…"

And moral.

Logical…

And clear.

Cohesive…

And far-reaching.

But I’m not convinced. What do you think?

The answer took a while to come.

I think that if you asked ten priests what ‘Envy’ was… O’Rourke said at last, "you’d get ten different answers: incoherent, contradictory, each an hour long, from me included. For instance, I also thought it meant wantin’ something: I was wrong. That’s what I was thinkin’."

Hmmm.

"I was thinkin’ that the seizure of the monasteries mightn’t only have been Greed, but that Envy, too, could have been why the English watched them go without a peep; Henry above all. I was thinking of ‘Utopia’; and of Puritans and Presbyterians, and that they and anyone would want to alter ‘Pride’ to mean superbia or arrogance, actually and only to conceal their Envy. You can’t make Envy ‘good’, so what you do is make Pride ‘bad’: in that way you can attack it. ‘Envy hates pride:’ did you know it was a saying? And the feller even said it! ‘Proud’!"

Hmmm.

I was thinkin’ that Envy has been trivialised, deliberately, by everyone includin’ us, when in fact it’s huge, vile, deadly, and everywhere. I was thinkin’ that in all of us it’s hidden but in Puritans it’s not, and that quite honestly I don’t know which is worse; and I was shocked to the very core.

Berry said nothing.

Three strokes for the act and three for the motive makes Envy half the sin. Not just throwin’ stones at horses: any wrongful act whose motive the doer won’t acknowledge is very likely based in Envy. But how did he come up with the idea, eh? O’Rourke’s voice rose.

"Hodgson? Seeing it so clearly demonstrated, I suppose; and if he is a preacher…"

"No, I mean the argument! Right there, on his tongue, the whole thing, Hamilton as well! That’s not something that just happens! I’d never have thought of making that connection. Would you?"

Berry shrugged. He said ‘we learned.’ Who from? Who were they with last night? after what happened in the bar, I mean.

They went to the Police Camp to complain. But we were there, too.

Not immediately. However, we can easily find out since we’re on the same train back to Bulawayo. Come on, let’s talk to them…

But when they did it was to learn that Hodgson had been acting on his own, and at that moment was talking to the driver.

But he seemed to be speaking for all of you! O’Rourke objected.

Well, he’s the boss, the workman said evasively.

Did he talk to the policeman there?

The big feller? Now you mention it, I think he had a word or two.

"Envy? I don’t want to stop folk having anything, Young Harker remarked to a companion. I just don’t like ’em showing off, that’s all: swanking, don’t y’know. He dropped his voice. Like that old Chinaman. They say he’s worth a pile, but you’d never guess. That’s acceptable."

Chan, standing right in front of them did not react; but mentally he shoved a charge and detonator up the speaker’s trouser-leg and banged the plunger.

Boooom! he said beneath his breath –

And then returned to copper pottery and law.

That’s someone with the right idea! said Keene.

"I thought Envy meant hating what another person has because it’s good."

Shadreck, repeating what he’d heard elsewhere, was always critical of what he was endeavouring to understand.

"Eh? No! If a person thinks it’s good, it’s obvious he can’t hate it. Keene was always practical. Envy is dislike of what another likes, because he likes it. He shook his head. Quite different."

Now he was on tiptoe, trying to see the Arbitrator.

But I was talking of an organised workforce: that’s professional. Let’s listen; because I want to set up an office here, and this kind of thing is going to have to do with it. Then we’ll go and see your pony, huh?

Well, sergeant, are you satisfied?

Yes sir. Mr Hodgson beat him very hard, and I do not think that he will do a thing like that again.

Willoughby had waited for Tandabantu to rejoin him, and they returned to Camp. The blood was washed from Muhle’s leg with warm water, and her coat brushed and dish-clothed till it shone again. The wound, disinfected with permanganate, now that it had ceased to bleed could be more clearly seen as a small and hardening coagulation.

Are you sure you want to take her out? Willoughby asked.

If she can work, then she must work, her owner was a disciplinarian; anyway, the envious will always try to injure her, and a realist; so she must get used to it: the price of beauty, a philosopher, too; which of course is wrong, but one cannot arrest for MIP, unfortunately, for he was also a policeman.

They always abscond, said the trooper. You can arrest for that. Mount up: we’ve an official visit to make. And those children you took through town this morning: have them paraded and available when the train arrives tomorrow with the artisans. They’ll be needed for offloading. Sah. Tell ’em to bring gloves, of any kind. Something to cover their hands; and bits of cloth to wind around their arms. He demonstrated. Sah? Splinters, sergeant – splinters! He swung into the saddle and the sergeant followed suit.

By the way, Willoughby was curious. "How do you know about Envy?"

Indicating that the court was over by getting up and pushing back his chair, Hamilton stood buttoning his jacket.

His mind was on Muldoon’s shout about the opposition in his pub last night: ‘They don’t give a damn about solutions for the poor: that’s only an excuse! They just don’t want us to have it!’ meaning Queenstown’s freedom.

‘Why not?’ he had asked.

Ernest replied, ‘Human nature’. Himself, he might have given ‘Fear’, unsure of the real answer. But the emotion in that room was definitely anger; and taken with the sergeant’s observation earlier, ‘Envy, sir, is very strong; and though some know that it is wrong and try to hide it, others persuade themselves that it is right’, closely followed and supported by that startlingly frank admission, ‘We wanted to spoil it for you if we could… because we thought that we were right’, thrust all three of them together, confirming that ‘human nature’ meant both envy and the wish to hide it.

Which meant… what?

What sort of office do you want to start, sir? Dube heard Shadreck ask.

The seller of copper-plated pots had had an uncomfortable time:

‘Do you know the difference between a copper pot and a copper-plated pot?’ asked Hamilton. ‘Of course I do!’ ‘Your notice says ‘Copper Pots’. I can see it from here!’ ‘Yes, but that’s only a manner of speaking. Normal people know they’re copper-plated, from the price!’ ‘If normal people know they’re copper-plated, then what objection can you have to advertising them as such?’

‘Because the expression is ‘A copper pot’!’

‘Speaking as a normal person, that is not an argument I find convincing,’ Hamilton had said. ‘Neither do I feel it incumbent upon me to divine, from its price, whether your pots are made of copper, copper-plate, or some copper-coloured base material. I therefore find for the plaintiff. You will return him the money paid for the article in question, plus the same amount for his inconvenience, plus costs of ten shillings.’

The man said nothing. He’d lost his profit for the day, Dube knew; on the other hand, the Queenstown market was a good place to sell, and because of this decision it was going to improve. If he rejected it he was open to picketing, harassment, loss of trade, denial of those services he took for granted, even to use of an ordinary toilet. He’d lose a lot more than twenty shillings.

Now, he sighed. All right. I’ll pay.

I suggest you change your advertising, said Hamilton.