The Winter Rose (88 page)

"I will. Thanks," Sid said.

As he rose to leave, a pair of painters bustled through the taproom
carrying a ladder. Sid recalled all the renovation he'd seen on his walk
through town. "What's going on round here?" he asked.

"Don't you know?" Del asked.

"Wouldn't be asking if I did."

"We've a visitor coming from home. The undersecretary for the colonies."

Sid remembered Maggie saying something about that. "Elgin, is it?" he asked.

"No, that's the secretary himself. It's ...um... oh, blast, what is
his name?" Delamere grabbed a newspaper off an empty chair. "It's in
here somewhere," he said, scanning the front page. "It'll be quite the
social event."

"It'll be balls and banquets and a lot of bloody promises made, that's what it'll be," Roos said glumly.

"You forgot hunting," Del said. "The bloke'll certainly want to bag a lion. They all do. Ah! Here it is. Lytton."

Sid had been digging in his trouser pocket for a few coins for the
barmaid. He stopped and looked at Delamere. "What did you say?" he asked
quietly.

"Lytton. Freddie Lytton. Says here that he's bringing a whole
battalion of underlings with him. His daughter, too. And his wife, Lady
India Lytton. I knew her parents, God rest them, Lord Burnleigh was
richer than Midas and a damned good--" Delamere suddenly stopped
speaking. He frowned with concern. "I say, Bax, old boy, are you all
right? You've gone white as a bloody ghost!"

"Oh, just look at it, Seamie! Did you ever dream Africa would be like this? All turquoise and red and purple?"

"No, I didn't. I thought it would be sort of brown," Seamie said. "With zebras."

Seamie and Willa stood on deck of the SS Goorka, staring like two
wide-eyed children at the aspect of Mombasa. Foaming breakers thundered
toward its white seawalls, rising sheer and majestic out of the
shimmering Indian Ocean. Massive baobab trees ringed the harbor, their
trunks thick and stolid-looking next to the airy palms and lush green
mango trees. Vivid bougainvillea tumbled down walls and spilled over
cliffs. Beyond a tall lighthouse, the heavy battlements of a fort rose
into a brilliant blue sky.

"Look over there. It's Fort Jesus, and it's pink!" Willa cried. "Just like the book said."

She had brought along a dozen books on East Africa from which she
read aloud every night at supper. Last night they'd learned that
Portuguese conquerors had taken the city from Arab slavers in the 1500s,
building a massive fort to protect it. Two hundred years later it had
fallen again, to the Sultan of Oman. In 1840, the wily Sultan of
Zanzibar had taken it and had later asked the British to protect it. His
crimson flag still fiew over the fort, reminding the British that they
might currently hold the city, but only on his sufferance.

The Goorka had only just slipped through the mlango, an opening in
the enormous coral reef that protected the harbor, and was now anchoring
about forty yards offshore. Boatmen in slender wooden dhows were
already rowing out to take passengers ashore.

"I can't believe it! We're here, Seamie! We made it! Africa!" Willa
said. She grabbed his forearm and squeezed it. It hurt. He didn't care.
"What should we do first? See the fort? The village?"

"I think we should send our gear ahead to the hotel and try to find our man from the outfitters."

"Yes, you're right. Good idea. God, but I can't wait to get off this boat!"

"That makes two," Seamie said.

The journey had taken six long weeks on a clanking steamer that had
stopped at Malta, Cyprus, and Port Said, poked its way through the Suez
Canal, then stopped again at Aden. For Seamie, who'd made a journey to
Antarctica on a well-provisioned ship whose crew was determined to reach
their destination speedily, the Goorka seemed to move at a snail's
pace. At every port, fresh water had to be taken on board, as well as
live-stock, which was put belowdecks to be slaughtered as needed. Willa,
impatient for new sights and tired of being confined to the ship for
days on end, always insisted on exploring the ports. At Cyprus, and
again at Aden, she'd tarried so long that they'd had to run like hell to
avoid being left behind.

He looked at her now, as she pulled out her notebook, her beautiful eyes wide with excitement, and his heart ached with longing.

"You've been scribbling in that thing ever since we left Blighty," he said. "What are you doing?"

"Writing it all down. Every bit of it."

"Why?"

"For my paper. The one I intend to give at the Royal Geo when we get
back to London. After I've given it, I'm going to make it into a book--a
travelogue--and sell thousands of copies so I can finance my next trip.
Did that when I climbed McKinley and made a bundle. How shall I
describe you, Seamie? Would you rather be an accomplished explorer or a
brilliant explorer?"

Seamie thought, I would rather be your lover, Willa. Neither
accomplished nor brilliant, but yours. He said, "How about brilliant and
accomplished?"

"And let's not forget modest."

He turned away from her and squinted into the sun, worried his
emotion might show. This was a mistake, he thought. I should never have
come to Africa with her. He should never have taken her up on her dare.
Back in Cambridge, he had thought himself in love with her. Now he knew
he was.

Every day spent with her was an adventure. Everything they did was
exciting. The meal of red grapes and salty cheese they'd eaten with
their fingers in Cyprus. The veiled women they'd seen on the balconies
of Aden. The merchants and their camels. The spice markets and cloth
markets, the voices of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer. No
woman he'd ever met was as curious and fearless--as passionately
alive--as Willa. And he had never felt himself to be as alive as when
she grabbed his hand and went whooping down piers, pounding down docks,
hollering for the crew to hold the boat, they were coming, damn it! They
were coming!

What would his life be after this trip? Ruined, that's what. He would
never be able to forget her or the time they'd spent together. He'd
never be able to fall in love, because loving anyone else would only
ever be second best and wrong.

He'd almost told her how he felt a dozen times or more. He'd been
close, so close, the words had been on the tip of his tongue, but then
he'd remembered that she belonged to someone else. And he would imagine
the embarrassment he'd cause her, the pity in her eyes for him as he
made his unwanted confession, and he would stop himself.

"We're off, then!" a voice bellowed from behind him, startling him
out of his sadness. It was Eamon Edmonds and his wife, Vera. They were a
newlywed couple, aiming to plant coffee in the Ngong Hills. Seamie and
Willa had become friendly with them, and with other settler couples,
during the long journey.

"Oh, Vera, I'll miss you!" Willa said, hugging her tightly.

"I'll miss you, too, Wills. Wave to us from the top of Kili, won't you?"

The two women hugged again. Eamon and Seamie shook hands and then one
of the porters was handing Vera over the side of the ship to a ladder,
which she used to climb down to a waiting dhow.

Seamie and Willa weren't far behind. They had to lower their
rucksacks into the boat first, followed by their climbing gear and tent.
They would have to procure everything else they needed--and the porters
needed to carry it--in town with the help of Newland & Tarlton, a
firm of safari outfitters. They'd estimated they'd need four or five
days to arrange it all.

Seamie was glad to get off the boat, glad to be on land again. But
more than that, he was eager to start the trek to Kilimanjaro. Eager to
distract himself with the planning and provisioning and the hard work of
mountaineering. Eager to forget how much he wanted Willa.

They reached the noisy, bustling docks, paid their boatman, then
engaged a man with a donkey cart to take their gear to the Mombasa Club.
There was a sprawl of narrow pathways leading from the port into the
town, but only one thoroughfare that could properly be called a street.
It was named after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Their contact,
Peter Boedeker, had premises there.

"Vasco da Gama Street," Willa said longingly. "Think there'll be a
Seamus Finnegan Street one day?" she asked. "Or a Willa Alden Avenue?"
She was walking with her head back, the better to take in the minarets
and domes of the Arabian town, and the pretty whitewashed houses, their
shutters closed against the shimmering heat. She stumbled once and
nearly fell, but Seamie caught her.

After a ten-minute walk they arrived at number 46, a white stone
building with a small brass plaque advertising the services of Newland
& Tarlton, Safari Outfitters.

"Remember, Wills, we're here for a safari. Sightseers, that's what we are."

Willa nodded. They climbed a flight of stairs and found the office on the first floor. The door was open.

"Mr. Boedeker?" Seamie called, walking in. Willa followed him. It was
a small room containing a desk, a few chairs, and a filing cabinet.
Maps of Africa were hung on the walls.

A man, blond and muscular, was seated at the desk. Seamie thought he
might be in his thirties, but his face was so weathered and lined from
the sun that he looked more like fifty.

At the sound of Seamie's voice, he looked up. "Mr. Finnegan, Miss
Alden. I've been expecting you. Heard the Goorka was due in today. Sit
down, won't you? How was your trip?"

As Seamie and Willa sat and began to tell him about their sea voyage,
Boedeker said a few words in Swahili to a boy seated cross-legged in a
corner. The boy dashed out. Before they had finished, he was back again
with three tall, slender glasses of hot minty tea, heavily sugared.
Boedeker sipped his, then he opened a folder and took out the telegram
Willa had sent him before they'd left London.

"Says here you're interested in a safari. West to Kilimanjaro." He
gave them each a long look, then said, "What do you want with Kili,
then, eh?"

"We want to see it," Seamie said.

Peter nodded thoughtfully. "And you want to see it from this side of the border, correct?"

"Correct," Willa replied.

"You weren't thinking of trying to climb it, by any chance, were you?"

"Climb it?" Willa echoed innocently. "Oh, no."

Boedeker nodded. "Good. Because, as I'm sure you both know, the
mountain lies within German East Africa. If you were to cross into GEA
at any of the border towns, the Germans would want your documents.
They'd inspect your gear and they'd want to know why you're there. If
they thought you--an American and a Briton--were there to climb their
mountain, they might deny you entry. If you decided to sneak in anyway
and got caught, you might be jailed."

Seamie knew Kili belonged to the Germans. Willa did, too. They hoped
to get around them by trekking to the mountain under cover of its
surrounding jungle. If they made it up, they'd hightail it back to
Mombasa and not make their feat public until they were back home. They
were taking chances, they knew they were, but they didn't care. They
both strongly felt that a mountain--any mountain--belonged not to
nations or peoples, but to those who climbed it.

"We just want to get to the border," Seamie said. "Take a few photographs."

"Right, then. I'm going to set you up for a lovely little camping
trip to Taveta, just east of the border, so you can have a good old hike
through the bush and then take a nice gander at Kili, all right?"

Seamie and Willa nodded. Seamie felt relieved that Boedeker had
bought their story and was not going to be troublesome. The three spent
some time discussing the quantity and weight of the gear, the food and
drink that would be required, and the trip's duration. Both Seamie and
Willa had legacies from relatives that funded their trips, but neither
legacy was unlimited, and they were both careful with their money. They
were both willing to carry gear to economize on the amount of men
needed. With that in mind, Boedeker eventually decided that nine porters
plus a headman would be sufficient.

"Ten men for two people," Seamie said. "Seems like an army."

"That's nothing," Boedeker said. "Last safari I did, for a party of
twenty wealthy Americans--now that was a headache. Fifty crates of
champagne, twenty more of whisky, Waterford glasses, Wedgwood china,
sterling cutlery, linen for the tables, eight-course dinners ...I needed
a hundred porters on that one. Line stretched out from Nairobi for a
mile."

Boedeker told them that he'd have their arrangements made in five
days' time at the most. They would provision here, then take the train
to Voi--a small town in Kenya Province about sixty miles northwest of
Mombasa. They'd be met there by their headman, a Masai tribesman named
Tepili. He and the nine porters under his command would get them to
Taveta.

Seamie and Willa paid Boedeker and thanked him. He said he would send
word to the Mombasa Club as soon as their plans were in place.

They shook hands and Boedeker saw them to the door. As they were
about to leave, he said, "Miss Alden, Mr. Finnegan... may I give you a
few words of advice?"

"Certainly," Seamie said.

Boedeker's genial smile was gone. The look in his eyes was deadly
serious as he said, "Beware of the Chagga. Use them if you must, but do
not turn your backs on them. When you near the border--and I suggest you
cross it well north of Taveta--you'll be in Chagga territory. They're
the best guides--no one knows the land around Kili like they do--but
they are highly unpredictable. They've killed both Germans and British.
Make sure you bring gifts. They are partial to knives and mirrors."

"Cross the border? But we never said--" Willa began.

"I know what you said. I also know who you are. You, Miss Alden, have set records in the Alps and on McKinley."