Instantly Ned is on his feet, shovel in hand, flinging dirt like a prospector on to the motherlode. Alarmed, Boyles drops the bottle and scrambles up beside him. “Neddy: wot is it? An attack? Is that wot it is?” Ned neither slows down nor glances up. His voice is as taut and urgent as a strung bow: “Pick up the shovel, you idiot. Dig. Dig for your life.” Bewildered, Boyles takes up his shovel and begins pitching earth into the open hole.
A few minutes later, the work nearly complete, Boyles glances up and is startled to see two strangers standing over him. The one is short, dark and effeminately slight, a smile on his lips and a dimple creasing his chin. The other is tall and wheat-haired, erect as a pillar, a three or four days’ growth of reddish beard furring his cheeks — but wait a minute. Isn’t that—?
Mungo Park stands there in his coruscating boots and nankeen trousers, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, the peach-colored jacket flung carelessly over his shoulder. His brother-in-law is beside him, leaning back on one leg, arms akimbo, dressed up like the most insouciant beau on Bond Street. “Well,” the explorer says, “it’s good to see that at least somebody around here is capable of exertion.” His voice is hearty as a handshake.
Ned, digging furiously, suddenly whirls round as if surprised, jerks to attention and snaps a salute. “Sir!” he barks, the response as smooth and automatic as if he were a trained seal and the explorer a man with a fish. He makes an effort to hold the explorer’s eyes and to control the hot/cold tremors rattling his knees and snatching at his elbows. Still, he can’t suppress the surprise he feels at seeing the explorer up close for the first time. He’d expected an older man — forty at least. After all, this fellow’s a celebrity, been to Africa and back, written books, hobnobbed with the cream of society. And he can’t be any older than Ned himself.
Mungo pushes a lock of hair out of his eye, barely sweating though the heat is like a hammer. “No need to be so formal, friend,” he says, and Ned relaxes. “Alexander and I were beginning to think that nobody on this island ever left sick bay.”
“Well, Sir,” Ned says, dredging up all the schooling in his voice, “the Lord has blessed us with our health, and we feel duty-bound to do what we can to repay Him by seeing that those less fortunate can at least have a decent burial.”
Mungo and Zander exchange glances, like men at a horse sale who’ve just been quoted a price so preposterously low it makes their palms crawl.
“Yes, Sir, Billy and I have been out here for three hours, seeing to the burial of the four unfortunates called to their reward yesterday in the excitement of your arrival, Sir.”
“Oh — then you men know why my brother-in-law and I have come to Goree?”
Boyles, who has to this point stood by with his mouth hanging open, begins to get the idea. “That we does, oh that we does,” he sings, a silly wet grin splitting his face in two. “It’s a great and glorious mission you’re about, init? One that’ll redound to the everlastin’ glory o’ King George and the Queen and all the proud cityzens of Merry Old, am I royt?”
The explorer has already removed his hat to get at a notepad concealed in the crown. He is beaming like a hero. “So,” he says, pen poised over paper, “I take it you fellows would like to come along with us, then?”
♦ CROSSING THE RUBICON ♦
The thick sludge of tropical air — already pregnant with humidity — is penetrated on this particular morning by the lusty jubilant cries of men who consider themselves uncommonly fortunate, serendipitous even. These are the cries of the elect, the chosen few, the lucky dogs who’ve just kissed the beauty queen and tucked the turkey under their arms: these are the cries of the winners. “Hoorah!” they cheer. “Pip-pip!” Intermingled with these cheers is another sound, a sound like celestial static — brazen, tinny, grating — the sound of musical instruments violated and abused. The source of this secondary cacophony is the regimental band, which consists of six bugles, two trumpets and a viola. Stationed just outside the main gate, the band is hammering away at “Rule Britannia” and the bourree from the “Royal Fireworks Music.” The occasion is momentous. Rank upon rank of red-jacketed soldiers stand at attention, the Major himself has deigned to rise early and straddle his dapple-gray, the band rings out like a convocation of archangels: Mungo Park’s second expedition is under way.
The thirty-five men the explorer has chosen to accompany him are prancing through the gates like peacocks, crowing out their good fortune, looking almost dashing in the new uniforms provided for the occasion. And why shouldn’t they crow? They’re escaping a hellhole, a pit, the very maw of pestilence and death, and setting off on a jaunt that will lead them through the countryside and back to England, free men and heroes to boot. The rest of the garrison isn’t so sanguine. The three hundred twenty-five men Mungo has left behind (eight more having expired in the interval) are cheering, true enough, but only for form’s sake. They are dejected, jealous, fatally disappointed. Some have turned their heads and burst into tears. Others are sniveling openly or blowing their noses on shirttails or blackened rags.
The explorer, at the head of the van, is brimming with good cheer and optimism. He’s got himself thirty-five good men, strong, stalwart and true — not to mention eager and stout of heart. He’s got his asses, the government is behind him, Zander at his side, and the band is playing. What more auspicious way to launch the greatest adventure of his life? He is grinning, grinning till his lips crack, all the while saluting the crowd and thinking: this is it, finally and at long last, this is it. There’s no turning back now, nothing to stop him. He’ll track the Niger and capture the hearts and minds of the world. Nothing less than immortality awaits.
Fifteen minutes later, on board the Crescent again and sandwiched between his cap-waving men and the throng of blaring asses, he checks his roster and conducts a quick roll call. The solid Celtic and Anglo-Saxon surnames slip off his tongue like heavy syrup and the responses snap back at him, enthusiastic, this one pitched high, the next rasping and timbreless, the next scraping bottom. There are forty-five men in alclass="underline" himself, Zander, Georgie Scott and Lieutenant Martyn, the four carpenters, two sailors recruited from the Eugenia for the purpose of piloting the boats on the Niger, and the thirty-five brave lads he’s spirited away from the garrison. Of these last, he can barely match names and faces, though he does recognize Jemmie Bird, Jonas Watkins, Ned Rise and Billy Boyles, among others. Besides Martyn, all the men but one are privates first class. The exception is Sergeant M’Keal, an outstanding man, tried and true, and with a wealth of experience ranging over his thirty-one years of active service. Mungo could tell from his handshake and the look in his eye that here was a man — never mind his service record. Never mind that he’d been twelve times a corporal and nine times a sergeant and would have gone even higher but for the unfortunate attachment to the bottle that always returned him to the ranks. The man was true-blue. Any fool could see that.
Mungo looks up at the commotion on shore as the Crescent draws back from the dock. Every man in the garrison has tears of joy in his eyes. The band is blazing, the Major waving a white handkerchief, the sails bellying in the breeze. Mungo raises his clenched fists in salute, glorious moment, as the wind takes hold of the boat and the shore begins to slip away.