Tom Willoughby's Scouts: A Story of the War in German East Africa, Page 3

  CHAPTER III--THE VOUCHER

  During the next two or three days Tom went about the plantation,watching the negroes at their work of picking and pulping the fruit.Reinecke left him in perfect freedom to go where he pleased, and seeanything and everything. The natives worked industriously: there was nolack of talk and laughter among them, no indication of discontent orill-treatment. Tom's misgiving was dissipated; he concluded that theoverseers' whips were wands of office rather than instruments ofcorrection. The negroes gazed at him with a certain curiosity andinterest. Some smiled, in unconscious response to the charm of hisexpression, of which he was equally unconscious. One of them, henoticed, a lad apparently about seventeen, looked at him with a peculiarintentness. Once, when, in lighting his pipe, he dropped his box ofmatches, the young negro sprang forward, picked it up, and handed it tohim with a sort of proud pleasure that so trifling a service hardlyaccounted for.

  "Thanks," said Tom, and the lad's face beamed as, admonished by a severelook from the overseer with whom Tom had been talking, he went back tothe bush which he had left.

  "I hope you will pardon my leaving you so much to yourself," saidReinecke one day. "There is little to be learnt at this season, exceptwhat you can see with your own eyes. In seedtime, if you still favourme with your company, I shall have more opportunities of giving youdefinite instruction. And now what do you say to a little relaxation?Shall we go shooting to-morrow?"

  "I shall be delighted."

  "Very well. I will give orders that Mirambo and another man shallaccompany us to-morrow. We shall find wild geese and snipe at the streama few miles south; possibly a hippo, if, like most youngsters, you've afancy for big game."

  When they started next morning, Tom looked at the German's gunbearerwith a good deal more attention than he had shown previously. It wasstrange that this humble negro had once been a chief. Mirambo was awell-built man past middle life, quick in his movements, and with largeeyes of piercing brilliance. With him was a youth whom even a whiteman, not easily able to distinguish one negro from another, could hardlyfail to recognise as his son. Reinecke gave them their instructions intheir own tongue, and with a bullying manner that Tom secretly resented.They received them silently, with an utter lack of expression,displaying none of the interest or alacrity which an English gamekeeperwould have shown in similar circumstances.

  The party of four set off, the negroes leading. Their destination wasone of the rare streams that traverse this part of the Plateau, and maketheir way in devious course and with many cascades to the great lakebelow. The morning was still young. By starting early, Reinecke hadexplained, they would make as large a bag as the men could carry beforethe midday heat became oppressive, and after a brief rest could strollleisurely back to a late lunch. Tom reflected that this attitudeevinced no great enthusiasm for sport, and concluded that Reinecke wasreally rather a good fellow in taking so much trouble for the sake of aguest.

  It was not until they were well in the forest that Mirambo showed anyanimation. The instincts of the old hunter awoke. His keen eyes movedrestlessly, alert to mark the spoor of beasts in the woods and on theopen park-like spaces dotted with acacias, euphorbias, and the wildthick bushes known as scrub. At one spot he became excited, pointing tofresh marks in the soft soil.

  "The tracks of a wart-hog," Reinecke explained. "The beast evidentlywent to his hole not long ago."

  "I've never seen one," said Tom. "Couldn't we track him and have ashot?"

  "We couldn't carry him home. We're out for birds. Still, I daresay theniggers could dispose of him. You can try your hand if you like."

  To Tom's surprise, the negroes, instead of following the tracks in thedirection in which the animal had apparently gone, went in the oppositedirection.

  "They're going away from him," he said.

  "No, no," said Reinecke with a smile. "Speak low--or better not at all:he's close at hand."

  He halted, bidding Tom stand by with his rifle ready cocked. The twonegroes stole forward, and within about fifty yards posted themselvesone on each side of a hole in the ground. Then together they began tostamp heavily with their feet, uttering no sound, and keeping their eyesfixed on the hole. Wondering at this strange performance, Tom lookedinquiringly at Reinecke, who shook his head and signed to him to be onthe alert. Presently there appeared in the hole the ugly tusked snoutof a wart-hog. He grunted with annoyance at his slumbers having beendisturbed by a shower of falling earth, heaved his ungainly body out,and began to trot away on his short legs directly across the white man'sline of fire.

  "Now!" murmured Reinecke. "Behind the ear."

  Tom shouldered his rifle, took careful aim, and fired. But whetherowing to excitement, or to the fact that the animal, through hisprotective colouring, was almost indistinguishable from the backgroundof brownish bush, his shot missed the vital spot and inflicted only agash in the shoulder. The infuriated animal wheeled round and chargedacross the open space. But he had covered only a few yards when awell-planted shot from Reinecke's rifle stretched him on the ground.

  TOM TOOK CAREFUL AIM AND FIRED.]

  "Don't take it to heart," said the German, noticing Tom's crestfallenexpression. "Everyone misses his first shot at a wart-hog. I remembera famous sportsman once having to dodge round a tree for a quarter of anhour to escape the tusks of a beast he had only wounded. Better lucknext time."

  "But why didn't he charge the negroes? He passed within a few inches ofthem."

  "They stood a little way back from the hole, you noticed; and besides,the beast is very short-sighted. You were surprised that all the tracksapparently lead away from the hole instead of towards it. That's notcunning, as it was in the case of that cattle-stealer, wasn't it? inclassical story who pulled oxen into a cave by the tails. It's sheernecessity. That hole was once the dwelling of an ant-bear; the wart-hoghad appropriated it. But his head and shoulders are so much bigger thanthe rest of him that he has to go in tail first."

  The negroes had rushed to the animal as soon as it fell, lifted the headslightly, and tied it to one of the hind legs with thongs of creeper.Then Mirambo tore a strip from his white loincloth and attached it tothe wart-hog's horns.

  "That's to scare vultures away until our return," said Reinecke. "Inthe rainy season myriads of flies would be at the carcase already, butin this dry weather it will probably not suffer much before the niggersget back to cut it up. Hyenas and other scavengers don't prowl tillnight. Now let us get on."

  The negroes, whose pleasure is always rather in the quarry than in thechase, were delighted at having secured, without trouble to themselves,a quantity of fresh pork to carry home, and went on with alacrity to thestream a few miles away. Here, in the course of a couple of hours, thetwo white men had shot as many geese, quail, and guinea-fowl as thenegroes could conveniently carry slung about their bodies, with theprospect of the addition of a good many pounds of hog's flesh later.Tom was disappointed of his half-cherished hope of bagging a hippo; buthis morning's sport had been sufficiently exciting to form aninteresting part of his next budget of news for his brother.

  A negro carried the mail to Bismarckburg once a week, and Tom hadalready dispatched his first letter, giving a description of theplantation and a running account of his experiences so far. He hadconfined himself to statements of fact, saying nothing about theproblems he found himself faced with--the character of Reinecke and theconditions of the negro labour. Until he should have arrived atdefinite conclusions on these matters he felt that it would be unwise totrouble his brother with them.

  In his second letter he related further sporting expeditions, in some ofwhich he had been accompanied by Reinecke, in others only by Mirambo andother natives. He had shot several hartebeeste and waterbuck, whichMirambo was accustomed to skin and cut up on the spot. On theseoccasions Tom was tempted sometimes to question the negro directly aboutthe conditions of his employment; but he was held back by a sense ofloyalty to Reinecke. Pending further light on t
he man himself, he wouldrely solely on his own observations.

  It was at the end of the third week of his stay that the first reallydisquieting incident occurred. Reinecke had gone to Bismarckburg, andTom, having time on his hands, had made up his mind to write a longletter home. Going to the desk to get some paper, he discovered thatthe drawer in which he had usually found it was empty, and he tried thedrawer below. This, however, would not open fully: it stuck half way.He put his hand in, thinking that something had probably become wedgedbetween the upper part of the drawer and the one above. It was as hehad supposed. By pushing in the drawer a little, he was able to workout the obstruction, which turned out to be a paper, half folded andmuch creased. On the portion that was not folded down he saw a seriesof figures like the numbers on the vouchers which were kept on a file.

  "An old voucher," he thought; and unfolded it to see if it were worthkeeping. To his surprise it was dated Nov. 17, 1913, and evidentlybelonged to the series which he had examined in connection with theaccounts of the past year. But that series had corresponded exactly withthe entries in the stock book--or had he made a mistake? To reassurehimself he got out the file, turned to the vouchers for November, andonce more compared them with the book. There was no discrepancy. Thebook showed that on Nov. 17, 1913, a consignment of 1000 kilos wasshipped on board the _Hedwig von Wissmann_, and there was a vouchercorresponding. The voucher he had just found was for a consignment of1000 kilos.

  This was odd. The numbers on the two vouchers were consecutive: clearlythey did not refer to the same consignment. Yet there was only oneentry of that date in the book. If one had been a duplicate or a carboncopy of the other, the matter would have been easily explicable; butboth were originals, and written in the same clerkly hand.

  Troubled, for it was impossible to crush down a suspicion, Tom put thevoucher into his pocket, and went out into the plantation.

  "I'll write to Bob to-morrow," he said to himself. At the back of hismind there was the feeling that he might have more to say than he hadexpected.

  Reinecke was in good spirits when he returned about sunset.

  "I've just made an excellent contract with a dealer representing a newhouse," he said. "He'll take all next season's crop, at a good price.I hoped your visit would bring us good luck, and this is the best."

  "Capital news," said Tom. The German's manner was so frank and cordialthat he was almost ashamed of his suspicion. "By the way, I found thisto-day: it was stuck between two drawers. Is it any good?"

  He handed Reinecke the voucher, folded. The German opened it, and saidinstantly, with a smile--

  "At last! I wondered what had become of it. It is a voucher I lost,and I got the shipping clerk to give me another. You found that on thefile all right?"

  "Yes."

  "You don't know how I worried about that lost voucher. And you found itwedged between the drawers? Extraordinary way things have ofdisappearing! Well, we don't want it now. But I'm glad you found it."

  He tore it across and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket.

  "Now for dinner," Reinecke went on. "I hope your appetite is as good asmine. And how have you put in your time to-day?"

  The German's explanation was so natural and reasonable, so ready, hismanner so free from embarrassment, that Tom was for the moment quitereassured, and chatted unconstrainedly until bedtime--and Reineckeappeared to take great pleasure in making him talk. But later, in theprivacy of his room, some rather troublesome questions suggestedthemselves. Was it not unlike a shipping clerk to issue a duplicatewithout writing "duplicate" upon it? How was it that duplicate andoriginal bore consecutive numbers, when at least two or three days musthave elapsed between them? It was very odd that no consignment fromanother firm should have been shipped in the interim. And then suddenlyTom flushed. "By George!" he thought. "I'm hanged if the duplicatehasn't got the earlier number!"

  Then he wondered whether he was not mistaken. Saying to himself, "I mustfind out for certain," he went back to the living-room to examine thefragments in the waste-paper basket. He passed the door of Reinecke'sroom, and heard his host splashing within.

  The basket had been emptied.

  The discoveries he had made kept Tom awake during a good part of thenight. They were very disturbing. Reinecke's explanation had beenplausible enough, and it was possible Tom was mistaken in hisrecollection of the numbers on the vouchers. But the German's haste indisposing of the contents of the basket bred an ugly suspicion. Werethere other such "duplicates" in existence? Did the books account foronly a part of the consignments? Had Reinecke, in fact, beensystematically robbing his partners? Tom felt worried and perplexed.Here, thousands of miles from home, young and inexperienced, he washardly in a position to deal with a clever rogue, if Reinecke was intruth a rogue; and he wished that he had some older person at hand, someone like blunt, rugged old Mr. Barkworth, to whom he could turn foradvice. He was not likely to find any help among the Germans inBismarckburg, and inquiries of the shipping clerk would probably befruitless. Of course, he might question Reinecke's own clerk, but thatcourse had very obvious disadvantages.

  He concluded that he could do nothing at present except mention thematter in his next letter to his brother, and be more than ever alert instudying his host. To play the part of detective was abhorrent, butthere seemed to be no help for it, and he writhed inwardly at the ideaof living under the same roof with a man whom he distrusted but withwhom he must try to keep up an appearance of friendship.

  When the next mail day came, his feeling of mistrust prompted him togive his letter into the hand of the negro postman just as the latterwas starting. Reinecke's correspondence was as usual placed in apadlocked bag. The man had gone about a mile on his way from theplantation when Reinecke overtook him, carrying two letters.

  "I forgot these," he said. "Put down your bag."

  He unlocked the bag, dropped his letters into it, and took up thevoucher slip bearing the number of letters enclosed; this would besigned at the post office and brought back with the incoming mail.

  "That letter of Mr. Willoughby's had better go in too," he said. "Giveit to me."

  The man took it from the folds of his loincloth, and Reinecke appearedto drop it into the bag. In reality he put it into his pocket. Havingaltered the figures on the slip, he relocked the bag and dismissed theman. Twelve hours later the postman returned and delivered his bag asusual into his master's hand.

  Next day, in going about the plantation, Tom, as was natural enough,sought the negro, to ask him whether he had duly posted the letterentrusted to him in so unusual a manner. But he could not find the man,and on asking where he was, learnt that he had been sent on an errand toBismarckburg. It was nearly a fortnight before he returned to theplantation, and by that time Tom was no longer in a position to make anyinquiry of him.