Company Of Spears

Lieutenant Fairbrother’s lodgings were about half a mile from the castle next to an expanse of greenery known as the Company’s Gardens, originally a market garden for the Dutch East India Company but now a handsome park filled more with exotic plants and the makings of some sturdy oaks. Hervey’s instructions took him through the gardens to one of a dozen brightly painted timber houses on the western side. A Hottentot woman answered the bell. She was not a great age, but her hair was white; she wore a print dress of European fashion, but no cap. There was about her both dignity and authority. Hervey explained who he was, and she admitted him and showed him to a flower-filled sitting room.

‘I am Master Fairbrother’s housekeeper, sir. I will see if he may receive you,’ she said, with a certain formality. ‘Please be seated.’

Hervey took a seat by a window with a prospect of Table Mountain. He sat for more than a quarter of an hour trying to remain composed, though inclining to exasperation at the delay in any sort of reply. There was a fire in the hearth, which at least began the process of drying out his trousers. He wondered what Sam Kirwan would be thinking of the prospects of studying his science in a tropical climate.

At length the housekeeper reappeared, and with a look that said she had had some difficulty. ‘Master Fairbrother will come very presently, Colonel Hervey. May I offer yourself tea?’

Hervey was very content to take tea: the fire was drying him well enough, but he felt the need of something warming to the inner parts.

When the housekeeper returned, with a silver teapot, and blue china which looked as if it had come from the East, Hervey asked if she knew whether Master Fairbrother had any engagements in the coming weeks, to which she replied that as far as she knew there was nothing to detain him in Cape Town or elsewhere, explaining that he was engaged only infrequently in business, and that he spent his time with his books. Hervey was appreciative of her candour, and intrigued by the suggestion of a bookish disposition.

After five more minutes the half-pay lieutenant appeared, in a long silk dressing gown over day clothes, and perfectly shaved. Edward Fairbrother was a man of about Hervey’s own height and not many years his junior. He had large brown eyes, thick black hair and noble cheekbones. Hervey rose, and in evident surprise.

‘Mislike me not for my complexion, Colonel Hervey,’ said Fairbrother, with a look almost haughty.

Hervey was no little discomfited. In India he had had so many native friends (and a lover) that a brown complexion had been nothing more to him than the clothes a man chose to wear. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Fairbrother,’ he near stammered. ‘I had not thought—’

‘I take no offence, Colonel. It is of no consequence, and your surprise is hardly a thing of novelty.’

Hervey was uncertain on the first two assertions. Quite plainly it was something to which Fairbrother was sensible. Even in a corps so far removed from the regular order of battle as the Royal Africans a skin the colour of coffee, albeit with a good splashing of cream, would tell against a man. ‘You speak Xhosa, Mr Fairbrother, as I’m given to understand,’ he tried briskly. ‘How did you acquire it?’

Fairbrother now looked positively disdainful. ‘ “I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”‘

Hervey sighed, and held out a hand, wondering if the bookish disposition was entirely favourable. ‘Let us begin anew, if we may. Hervey, lieutenant-colonel-commandant of the Cape Mounted Rifles.’

Fairbrother took the hand, and smiled, conciliatory. ‘Edward Fairbrother, late of His Majesty’s Royal African Corps, and before that ensign, Jamaica Militia.’

Hervey now supposed he had a better understanding of Fairbrother’s circumstances: a planter’s family, English, with that admixture of the native blood which over long centuries shaded the complexions of many a good family there (or so Peto had once informed him, for he himself had never been to the West Indies).

‘Well, Mr Fairbrother, I am much obliged to you. I have come to ask if you would be so good as to accompany me to the eastern frontier. I am to make a reconnaissance, and I should be grateful for the company of guide and interpreter.’

Fairbrother said nothing by reply, turning instead to his housekeeper. ‘Mama Anky, would you bring me tea if you please.’

He sat down and crossed his legs, a gesture of independence that Hervey could not fail to observe.

‘Colonel Hervey, I am a man of some affairs in Cape Town’ (Hervey would learn that he imported rum from his father’s estate) ‘and I am not obliged to be at the governor’s call.’