The explorer looked. He was wired and jumpy with the tasteless white powder he’d taken to scourge himself of the fever. A tentative leg snaked out to thump the hull of the smaller craft. He went down on his knees, smoothing his hand over the wood like a furniture appraiser. Then he turned to squint up at Ned. “You mean. . we could join the two of them?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Ned snapped a hand to his brow and clicked his heels. “Splendid idea, Captain.”
The H.M.S. Joliba, flying the British colors, was loaded and ready to sail by the fifteenth of November. In a short month, the increasingly lucid explorer, aided by Ned Rise, Fred Frair and Abraham Bolton, had managed to put together a reasonably seaworthy craft, forty feet long by six wide, flat-bottomed and drawing no more than twelve inches of water when fully loaded (Martyn and M’Keal declined to help, reasoning that they’d signed on as military men—”men o’ the sword”—rather than laborers). A rusted spike projected from the front of the Joliba’s bow like a rugbyman’s stiff-arm, and a canopy constructed of bent branches and a double layer of tanned bullock hide stretched half the length of the craft. The canopy would provide shade and shelter, and the hide was impervious to any of the slings and arrows that might come Mungo’s way as he cruised down the mighty Niger into the unknown and almost certainly hostile regions to the east.
In addition, the explorer had taken some offensive measures as well, ordering windows cut at intervals in the bullock hide so that his men could fire from cover if necessary, and providing each of his remaining soldiers with fifteen new Charleville muskets which were to be kept primed, cocked and loaded day and night. This time, Mungo Park would stop for no one — neither Moor nor Maniana, nor any other disagreeable characters he might encounter along the way. No, if the watchword of the first expedition was to turn the other cheek, the motto this time around would be guerra cominciata, inferno scatenato: war commenced, hell unchained.
It was at about this time, when the boat was caulked, battened and provisioned, and the explorer clearing up his affairs at Sansanding, that he had his falling out with Johnson.
♦ YOUR OWN GOOD SENSE ♦
“I don’t like it,” Johnson had said when they reached Sansanding. “You sure you want to go through with this?” he asked as the boat began to take shape. And finally, when the Joliba was ready to set sail, he took the explorer aside and said: “You’re crazy.”
Now, on the eve of their departure, he stepped into Mungo’s tent and announced that he was turning back. “This is it,” he said. “The last time I ever lay eyes on you. No more shit, Mungo. No more Isaaco, no more Mr. Park. This is Johnson speaking — your old friend and companion, your advisor — and I say you ought to reconsider. I say don’t go.”
The explorer was seated at his makeshift desk, a welter of half-written letters, journal extracts and crude maps heaped up around him. Apart from the clutter of the desk, the interior of the tent was arranged with an Essene precision. In the corner, packed and ready, was the knapsack containing the explorer’s personal effects; beside it lay the leather-bound trunks that protected his sextant and thermometers and the sheafs of dried stems, leaves and buds he planned to bring back to England for classification.
All the foodstuffs had been removed and stowed away neatly in the hull of the Joliba, a lingering odor of goat cheese and chicken excrement testimony to their recent removal. Even the floor had been swept clean.
A moment passed — eight hammering heartbeats. Johnson’s hortatory words hung in the air like the memory of something dead, while the explorer, dressed only in his underwear, squinted through the eye of a needle and moistened a strand of thread with the tip of his tongue. He never even looked up.
“I mean it, brother,” Johnson said. “I’m takin’ Serenummo and Dosita and the two Dembas and headin’ for Dindikoo — tomorrow. If you got any sense at all — and by now I’m pretty well convinced you don’t — you’ll come with me.”
Mungo was trying to close up a six-inch tear in the seat of his nankeen trousers, but his hands shook so he couldn’t seem to thread the needle. This was frustrating. It was bad enough that he had to run around and get the boat loaded and the men ready, not knowing whether he was going off to triumph or defeat, but this damned sewing took the cake. He flung the needle down in disgust and glared up at Johnson. “Listen,” he said, his voice thick and harsh, “don’t you come around here trying to pressure me at the last minute because it’s just not going to work. You’ve been a naysayer all along, and I’ll tell you, I don’t need it. Just get your things together and climb into that boat. Period. End of discussion.”
Johnson was slowly shaking his head. He looked a great deal older than he had just a few months earlier at Dindikoo, more worn and frayed. He’d lost one of his chins, and the great bulge of his abdomen seemed to have receded. With his hair getting progressively whiter and his limbs stiff, he’d begun to look like the sixty-two-year-old he was. “You don’t need me,” he said, “you got Amadi Fatoumi.”
It was true. Johnson had never been farther east than Sansanding, and knew absolutely nothing of the geography, the peoples or the languages of the lower Niger. And Mungo had engaged a new guide — an itinerant merchant named Amadi Fatoumi, who’d been as far as Kong, Badoo, Gotto and Cape Coast Castle to the south, and Timbuctoo, Hausa, Maniana and Bornou eastward. But still, the idea of going on without Johnson was insupportable. It chilled Mungo to the bone, frightened him to the soles of his feet. Without Johnson he was totally on his own. “All right,” he said, pushing himself up from the table. “I’ll triple your wages, send you crateloads of books, paintings — anything you want.”
“No,” Johnson said, still shaking his head in that weary, resigned way. “You’ll never send me anythin’, Mungo. Because if you launch that boat tomorrow you’ll never live to see England again.”
“Bullshit!” Mungo shouted, hammering his fist against the tent-pole until the canvas began to quake and billow.
“Turn back,” Johnson whispered. “For me. For your wife and your children. Turn back now before it’s too late.”
The explorer was stalking up and down in his underwear, flailing his arms like some great waterbird lifting itself from the swamp. “You know I can’t do that, old boy.” He was trying to control his voice. “I’ve spent a fortune — all government money— and I’ve lost nine out of ten men that came with me. Georgie Scott is dead, and Zander. And you expect me to tuck my tail between my legs and turn back now? How would I face Sir Joseph? Camden? Even Ailie? No: it’s impossible. I’ve got to go on.”
“Hey,” Johnson’s voice was soft, still soft, as if he were whispering to Amuta in the night, “stuff your ego, swallow your pride. You made a mistake, let’s face it. You dragged all these sick dogs and all this excess baggage out here with you in the middle of the monsoon — what do you expect? Go back. Go back now and mount another expedition. You’re a young man. You can do it.”