The Adventures of Henry Farthingale

By Sebastian Hales

Dr Henry Farthingale was due for a break from his language studies at Camford University. His friend and mentor Sir Nicholas Spenser suggested he spent his sabbatical exploring the bird language of the tribes in the jungle at the end of the river. He was intrigued when the little steamboat arrived to find a thriving town not marked on any maps. He was greeted by Savarin, the bank master, and a marching band, dressed in ragged uniforms, which started playing a medley of national anthems as they led him in a procession up the hill to a half-ruined British residence, abandoned years before.
Henry was surprised to find a hot English meal awaiting him in the residence dining room, and later to discover that a bed had been made up in another room. His suitcase of clothes had been neatly unpacked and folded into a small lowboy. What was going on?
Henry did not believe in fairy stories, but was patient enough to accept, learn and adapt to his new environment. His adventures included love and marriage, the bird trade, a hurricane, bank notes, a witch doctor, wooden carvings, costumes, food, and the devil. Always in the background was the mysterious Sir Nicholas Spenser and the machinations of Camford University.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781528986380

Sebastian Hales

Sebastian Hales has been a secondary and tertiary teacher, writer, poet and performer. He has qualifications in languages, teaching, education administration, drama and social work. His long-term interests include protecting civil liberties, community development, gardening, and researching climate change. Sebastian lives in a little cottage in Waikawa Beach, a small seaside community on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island. His first novel, I Play the Mermaid Song (2011), was written in the form of an autobiography, and explores issues of sexual and cultural identity.

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About the Author

Sebastian Hales has been a secondary and tertiary teacher, writer, poet and performer. He has qualifications in languages, teaching, education administration, drama and social work. His long-term interests include protecting civil liberties, community development, gardening, and researching climate change.

Sebastian lives in a little cottage in Waikawa Beach, a small seaside community on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island. His first novel, I Play the Mermaid Song (2011), was written in the form of an autobiography, and explores issues of sexual and cultural identity.

Copyright Information ©

Sebastian Hales 2022

The right of Sebastian Hales to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528986373 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528986380 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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E14 5AA

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Brenda, Tina, Sheryl, Stan, and all the other people from my real and fictional worlds who have provided me with so much good advice

and support.

Act 1: Bird Calls

1: The Arrival

The small plane banked low over the broad river and turned straight in line with the main street, with its sprinkling of shops and the wide verandas of several taverns. Colourfully dres0sed matrons, spindly knaves, ragged urchins and dogs scattered out of the way. Bicycles swerved. Cattle bellowed. The little twin-engine aeroplane dipped between the shops and houses onto the small strip of tarmac at the end of the road, then bumped and bounced its way across the uneven ground. It came to an abrupt stand-still outside a shabby Nissan hut with the sign ‘BELTWAYS CUMMERBUND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’ fastened with rusty brackets to its roof.

Henry had been the only passenger. He headed into the hut and waited for his luggage to be unpacked. Sir Nicholas Spenser of the foreign office had advised him on what to bring. As well as essential food supplies, there were books on animals, birds and plant life, books on the study of obscure languages, a box full of wind-up torches to use as presents and a range of medical supplies to meet any eventuality. He also carried a strongbox full of Irish one-pound sterling notes, at the insistence of an old Camford colleague of his, Professor Teddy Carver, who assured him that these were of equal value to the one-pound coins in England, and were a great deal easier to carry.

Two swarthy porters with ragged black beards lugged out his luggage. The porters were quaintly dressed in full regalia, with gold epaulettes and tall caps complete with gold buttons. After piling up Henry’s possessions, these fierce brigands first saluted him, then demanded that he open every box and suitcase to ensure that he was not taking guns, drugs or contraband. Henry flatly refused. Being British, he could not tolerate that interference, especially as he carried a special clearance from the High Commission. It was stalemate. The scraggy guards sat manfully on the boxes, while Henry waited for a representative of the British Government to come and sort out the apparent problems.

After what seemed like more than an hour, they were rescued by the uniformed Beltway Airways captain, who had been checking and cleaning the aeroplane engine. I’m glad I caught up with you, said the captain. I noticed the insignia on your lapel before you boarded the plane.

What might be the problem? he asked the two sullen guards, who had slowly uncurled themselves from the top of the luggage and were now standing to untidy attention.

"No papers, mai!"

The captain glanced at the passport and entry card that Henry produced from his bag. Doctor Henry, he said, in an elegant voice. So you have come at last to this frontier. He glanced at the pile of baggage. I am sorry there has been so much of a mix-up. Then he said to the guards, Doctor Henry is on important British Government business and must proceed without further delay. To emphasise his authority he stamped the papers and every piece of luggage with a large Beltway Airways stamp in a prominent place. Doctor Farthingale thanks you for looking after his safety over this period and wishes to present you with this as a token of his gratitude.

The captain produced from his large briefcase an unopened bottle of cheap malt whisky, as a peace offering. He then gave Henry his business card and shook hands with the guards, as though this was the only way to do business. Could you please make sure this luggage gets onto the ferry at Bandanna for tomorrow’s sailing. He then made a peculiar gesture. He folded his arms and lifted them up to his forehead. The guards hesitated for a moment then did the same.

Henry glanced at the card. Above the blue and gold words of Beltway Airways was the same gold linked arms logo as that worn in Henry’s lapel. ‘Captain Avery Buckle, CAA, CTC, CATPL’. It gave a corporate address and cell-phone number. He turned the card over. On this side Avery Buckle was no longer a captain with his string of qualifications but plain Avery Buckle. His address was the Whirligig Hotel in Cummerbund. The logo was the same but the company was called the ‘Camford Conservation Club’.

Leave your bags here for these men to look after them, said the captain, and let’s find a room for you in my hotel down the road. You look pretty tired. I heard you were coming. I’ve arranged for you to catch the ferry at Bandanna, which is the next stop down the river. The ferry will take you to Aipotu. Cummerbund is really the end of the road. Bandanna is, well, beyond the pale, so to speak. You will see. You’re a brave man. Now grab what you need for the night.

Henry felt not at all brave as he pulled off his boots and socks that night in the weather-beaten mock-colonial residence that was the Whirligig Hotel. He tried to sleep on the truckle bed provided. There were no mosquito nets. The window would not close properly and the loose wallpaper around it flapped in the stiff breeze. A dog howled periodically. A thrumming noise rose and fell in the distance.

Too late now, he said to himself, as he tossed and turned on the rapids and reefs of anxiety. No turning back. The mosquitoes buzzed mercilessly around him. The die is cast, he groaned, as he whacked fruitlessly at the persistent attacks. The glass is empty, he added, as he squashed a hapless insect full of his own red blood. It’s the end of the road. He jumped out of bed, grabbed a thin copy of the Cummerbund Gazette lying on the bedside cabinet, and flayed around him, singing The end is nigh, the end is nigh! at the top of his voice. Then he leapt back into bed, pulled the blanket over him, and fell into a sound sleep.

The morning coffee was grey and greasy as the Limpopo River. Henry set out along the road beside this river to Bandanna in an old British army jeep, with another that contained all his luggage. The road, constructed by British engineers around thirty years before as part of their aid package, had not taken into account the huge rainfall in these parts, nor the depredations of nature and tribal conflict. It now consisted of small stretches of tar seal, some even with white painted centre lines, joined by long detours, slips and washed away bridges. The journey took most of the day. The two drivers dumped his bags and boxes in the rain at the side of the road outside the river transport offices and covered them with a couple of tarpaulins lying there, then without a word drove off back the way they had come.

Henry walked through the huts and shacks that constituted the small sad settlement of Bandanna. He tried to ask for a bed for the night from some of the locals lurking in the doorways, but each time the characters sidled off without a word. The rain soon drenched him. As soon as he had found a small sheltered nook beside the river for his tent a gang of four ruffians drove up in an old Austin 10. Their ragged blue tunics and decrepit khaki trousers indicated they were on official business. Not camp down here! one of them said, pulling a mustard-coloured beret out of his pocket and putting it onto his head. No wisitors allowed. All dis guvmint own. No wisitors.

Henry laughed at their bluster, and their lack of any discipline or obvious weapons. Please arrest me, he said, holding out his wrists for handcuffs. Please take me to your station and lock me up. The men looked at each other, non-plussed. Go on, insisted Henry, and started walking along the road back to Bandanna, holding out his hands in front of him as though they were handcuffed. The leader of the police posse quickly went in front, with two others either side of Henry. After much inept to-ing and fro-ing the driver of the car managed to turn it and follow their slow procession.

The police station was not far away, opposite the transport offices. On receiving ten Irish English one pound notes, one of the men quickly cleared out the chickens from the lock-up, called on an old woman to brush the floor, provided Henry with an adequate meal and slightly muddy water to drink, left a kerosene lamp burning in the corner, and locked him in. Then the guards spent the night drinking in the station office.

The next day they brought a couple of mates and unlocked the cell door. Henry was now their greatest friend. They loaded his luggage onto the little ferry, all the time chattering to him excitedly in a language he could scarcely understand.

Aipotu long away, said the chief of police.

Aipotu not real, said one of the men.

And then the others joined in. Aipotu him my home, said a third.

Aipotu make birds to fly, said the fourth.

The fifth added, Aipotu crazy man no speak, and the last policeman finished, as though on cue, Aipotu legend lost in world.

Then they all stood in a row and saluted. Henry waited, then realised they wanted a further ten pounds.

My money is not going to last very long, Henry said to himself, as he sank down on the deck and prepared for the slow journey up the turbulent river to an uncertain future.

The steamer was belching and tugging like an animal on a leash. It was crowded with passengers. On one side he saw a family of about eight people all dressed in bright red, on the other three or four bearded loungers. Two young children were chasing around the deck. It was noisy and turbulent as a fairground. An odd song crept into his head:

‘Here we go round the mulberry bush

At five o’clock in the morning’

But he couldn’t remember the next lines. He settled down in a quiet spot at the front of the boat.

As a parting present his friend Sir Nicholas Spenser had given Henry a map of the jungle, showing each bend in the river and each village. It seemed a very old map. It looked like the little treasure maps that school children were given on their summer camps. It was illustrated around its border by a number of fantastic creatures. Though it was headed with the curious title of ‘The Winding Road to Aipotu’, the actual town of Aipotu was not shown anywhere. His destination remained mysterious. Why should a map that should have had Aipotu as its main destination, instead fail to show it at all?

At first Henry meticulously ticked off in his head every bend, every village, every wharf and every set of rapids. But the course of the actual river bore little likeness to the route on the map, so he slowly tore it into strips, then tore those strips to make little squares of paper, which he threw up in the air to drift away like confetti.

Henry Farthingale had been up this river many times in his dreams. But his dreams were of the time when Britain talked of ‘Empire’ and in them, though the captain was much the same – a big burly fellow who on random occasions would heave himself out of the wheelhouse, puff out his chest, let forth a loud bellow, give a hoick and spit into the sullen muddy water – the phantom passengers of his dreams were elegant, spoke with cultured English accents and wore regulation British adventuring clothes, complete with brown checked trousers and jackets, and even sometimes with red spotted neckerchiefs.

On this real journey Henry was wearing cords and a colourful open-necked shirt, with a vile mixture of Dettol and baby oil as insect repellent. As the sun rose higher in the sky it glinted on the water like a strobe light that hurt his eyes.

A wiry old man in ragged shorts and a dirty tee-shirt sidled down to where he was sitting and sat against him in an uncomfortably intimate manner. How far you pigman go up river? he asked, showing a row of blackened stumps in his mouth, and darting his eyes all around.

Henry was reluctant to respond, but did not know how to get away from such an intrusion. I go to the end, he said, and where do you go?

I go hell! said the traveller. I go find YOU. I go find ME. I friend to you, not? You my friend, OK?

I will be your friend, responded Henry stoically, reluctantly handing over a small pack of peanuts and raisins. Have some of these – and I didn’t catch your name.

No, I not give you my name, responded the hellbent man, grinning like a fiend. Then the man leant over him, his raw gums showing. I name is Debbil – Diablo. I go hell.

I wish you would, thought Henry, as the man quickly emptied the contents of the bag of nuts and raisins into his pocket, before handing the empty packet back to Henry.

Thanks! responded Henry automatically, before adding Thanks SO much! Next time I buy you soul, grinned the man, as he sidled off.

After that encounter Henry was quite shaken up, as though it was a premonition of things to come. The more he tried to shrug it off as a chance event the more perplexing it seemed. Although he was certain that their paths had never crossed, there had been something extremely familiar about the man. Perhaps it was his presumption and manner of talking, as though his mad demeanour was designed just for Henry personally.

He sat on his hard bench at the side of the wheelhouse and stared at the sullen water that was ever changing but always the same. It reflected his own personality, he mused with a wry smile. Everything was real, too real. He looked out over the brown expanse and could in it see a myriad of colours and shapes and rhythms and thoughts and regrets and elusive moments of happiness. But then, when he looked again, it was all so unreal. It could instead have been a dream or fantasy. There was no anchor and, no certainty. He wondered about death, about whether it was no more than a letting go of a global cohesion and rationality. There was nothing to gain and nothing to lose. All was the present and the present was his mind.

After two hours Henry’s excitement had waned. He found his eyelids drooping in the heat. The sluggish river was little different from other rivers in that part of the world. The chugging of the little engine caused his mind to drift, taking away with it all sense of time and space. In a sense not even the steamer existed, but only his little piece of deck, disturbed only by occasional shouts from the bridge and the random snorts of one of the crew, who seemed to have little to do and squatted in the shade of the smokestack just a little further down from Henry.

The villages they called in at along the route were almost indistinguishable from each other. Each had a small jetty, with roofs in a haze of smoke behind and swarms of young men crowding along the causeway. It was as though the little boat was calling in at the same village again and again. The only difference between them was in the shape of their roofs, glimpsed between the trees. Some villages had tall spires, while others were flat, and yet others had round roofs like turbans. In that way all the different villages distinguished themselves and everyone knew where they belonged.

His musings were interrupted by a familiar voice.

Why there you are, said the voice, and he turned to find Captain Avery Buckle behind him, this time dressed not as an airline pilot, but in boots and shorts. I was wondering where you were.

Captain Buckle… started Henry.

No, not today, interrupted the captain. I’m just plain Avery today. I’m pursuing my passion. Avery Buckle leaned down conspiratorially. I’m into conservation. I’m saving the rare birds of the jungle. It’s a great place for bird conservation. But… he added, before Henry could speak, I think you should meet my friend and mate Master Richard Barrette, the lord of the river. And he squeezed Henry with him into the tiny bridge.

Though they shook hands, Richard Barrette was in no mood to talk. The boat was approaching a jetty and it was clear that most of the passengers would be disembarking.

This place is called Tiara. I must leave you here, said Avery. This is the place I go to do my conserving. We’ll meet again, I’m sure. Do you hear that noise? he added. In the distance, Henry could hear a repetitive ‘wa-wa-wa’ sound. That’s the whirligig bird, confided Avery, the one that gave the name to the hotel. I hear you’re interested in birds. We’ll meet again. I’m sure of it.

Henry’s journey continued up the river for another half hour, until it came to a confluence. While the main river flowed over to the right, a smaller stream joined it from the left. The boat stepped gingerly across the current and over into the left shoulder, where the waters made little vee-shaped ripples. It tiptoed over to the right to avoid a floating reed island complete with two crocodilloes. It juddered over a series of wavelets, their ridges gleaming like rows of shark teeth. And suddenly the steamer was ploughing through deep jungle that pushed in on both sides. He was going right to the end of the steamer’s route, into the heart of darkness. Aipotu was the furthest he could go.

The last links to reality had been cast off. There was now no turning back, no redemption. There was of course excitement and a sense of alertness associated with fear. His home, the children, the comfortable and respected life in England – well, he had no real regrets about any of that. But instead of adventure, he felt a void, as though there was nothing but dead butt ends. Perhaps he was not cut out for adventure.

He realised that the encouragement of his great friend Sir Nicholas and the urging of Madeleine may have been merely to get him out of the way.

2: The Residency

Aipotu was larger than the other villages cut out of the jungle. On the edge of the river was a grove of enormous kalem trees fringed by dense islands of river lilies. Up on the bank behind the jetty was a large flat open space, and behind it a substantial town straggled its way up to the dense jungle beyond. It had round houses with roofs like straw hats, and floating above it, on tall poles, were flags of many colours and shapes.

Henry could glimpse the corner of a large stone colonial house half hidden by high jungle trees up on the ridge to his left. That house used to be the British residency and he hoped it would become his home. He would have liked to have slipped in quietly, without fanfare, and moved up to the decaying building before anyone noticed. But he knew that couldn’t be. The boat rarely brought visitors this far upriver. There were letters and newspapers and Western clothes to offload and in exchange little cages of animals and brightly coloured birds to sell at the Bandanna market. Even before the steamer let off its loud hoots of welcome the wharf was crowded.

Henry was alarmed as the steamer swept in and quickly steered towards a little bay across the swift downstream current. But the captain knew what he was doing. He steered it back directly onto the wharf, veering away just in time for the ropes to be thrown and the boat to be made secure.

Before Henry could disembark a stream of stevedores in blue dungarees came aboard to pick up his luggage, which consisted of two suitcases, six crates of books and a range of other boxes and bags. Instead of stacking them neatly on the other side of the wharf, the men left this luggage in an untidy heap at the end of the gangway, so that when an official welcoming party stepped forward to greet Henry he was still trying to extricate his foot from between two large chests.

The whole village had come down to see him. Or actually just half the village. There was not a single woman among them. They were all men. They all wore red jackets and acted like a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus. They pushed forward together, shouted together, and when called to attention became silent together and stood with their arms over each other’s shoulders like a half-menacing tableau. Henry gave them a wave of his hand and on cue they called out the greeting they had rehearsed: "Ko moron, Tokta Fartingle!"

Now an excessively fat man waddled forward. He was dressed in a blue suit several sizes too small for him, with a white shirt bursting at the buttons. He wore a badly tied blue tie. His shoes, Henry noticed, were black and shining, but with sad-looking creases and splits along the side. He presumed this personage, who now stood with hand outstretched, was the bank master. The bemused doctor strode up to him and shook the hand heartily.

Veel cump Toktor Fartingle, said the bank master. Vee hope you vill make us vell.

Henry realised that it would be too difficult to explain that he was not the kind of doctor who made people well, but the kind who wrote obscure papers on unimportant topics for learned journals. Besides his response was drowned out by the ragged red-tunic band which beat on drums and sang the British national anthem in scarcely recognisable English.

"God, satan and the king, – they sang, long live on a string – God safer in."

The crowd stood to attention. Henry stood as well, and rocked to and fro uncomfortably in his boots. He wanted to sit down and rest. He wanted a cup of tea. He mopped his brow. His shirt stuck like a plastic bag against his back.

Come, said the bank master, taking him by the right arm. Come, come, come, come, come!

Henry stumbled, then pulled himself upright again. He looked around. The whole of that small world was watching. He stood up and gave a sort of wave with his right arm, partly to shoo away the bank master’s grip. He picked up his rucksack. He gazed at the crowded wharf, where the male chorus now were now standing in line, like bottles on a wall.

Then he realised what he had to do. It was his job to lead the noisy crowd in a procession up off the wharf, up the decayed steps that he could see ahead and through the broken garden to the residency. He quickly grabbed from his bags a small suitcase containing a change of clothes and other necessities for a comfortable night and pulled his rucksack onto his back.

Let me see my palace! he declared, ironically, in English. Let us go then, you and I…

And quite unlike the shy Prufrock he marched through the crowd, followed two steps behind by the bank master, puffing noisily, with all the men of the village giving way for him and falling in behind, and followed then by the women and children who had magically emerged from the houses and trees on either side. Up we climb, to whatever fortune may complete this rhyme.

In the letter he had written to the bank master Henry had humbly asked if he could occupy the home built some forty years before for the resident. At Sir Nicholas Spenser’s insistence he had explained in the letter that he was coming to investigate the indigenous languages of Aipotu, as described in Jodhpur Singh’s famous thesis of 1947. He had assumed the house would be unoccupied, awaiting the possible return of the resident. Because it was stone, with corrugated iron on the roof, and had a stone path connecting it to the wharf and the village beyond, and because it was said it had a real flushing toilet and a separate kitchen attached to it, he imagined it was probably regarded by the Aipotians as a palace, and the resident as a passing emperor or even a od. So the place would have become somewhat sacred.

The truth was actually a little different. There were many in the village who would have liked the whole place pulled down because of the bad memories it contained. But it had proved useful as a refuge in monsoon times when the river was in flood and overflowed into the town. It had been maintained in a haphazard way by being brushed out a couple of times a year by two women who dressed in overalls for the occasion, carefully washing and folding them afterwards and putting them away until the following half-yearly visit. They had started that unpaid menial task when Henry’s dear friend, the businessman Sir Nicholas, had resided there, in the vain hope that if he were not interested in their looks he might at least be attracted by their industry.

Not recognising the significance of the place, the jungle had started to lay claim to several of the rooms down one side. Two of those rooms had suffered so badly from termites and ripper macaques that they were no longer safe for habitation, except by the omnipresent squirrel monkeys. Three other rooms on that side had been slowly smothered in vines and rampant wisteria, which had wrenched awry the shutters and even some of the sash window casements. The sunny side of the house was however