Search Results for 'spirit'

Forums Search Search Results for 'spirit'

Viewing 20 results - 61 through 80 (of 168 total)
  • Author
    Search Results
  • #6260
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      From Tanganyika with Love

      With thanks to Mike Rushby.

      • “The letters of Eleanor Dunbar Leslie to her parents and her sister in South Africa
        concerning her life with George Gilman Rushby of Tanganyika, and the trials and
        joys of bringing up a family in pioneering conditions.

      These letters were transcribed from copies of letters typed by Eleanor Rushby from
      the originals which were in the estate of Marjorie Leslie, Eleanor’s sister. Eleanor
      kept no diary of her life in Tanganyika, so these letters were the living record of an
      important part of her life.

      Prelude
      Having walked across Africa from the East coast to Ubangi Shauri Chad
      in French Equatorial Africa, hunting elephant all the way, George Rushby
      made his way down the Congo to Leopoldville. He then caught a ship to
      Europe and had a holiday in Brussels and Paris before visiting his family
      in England. He developed blackwater fever and was extremely ill for a
      while. When he recovered he went to London to arrange his return to
      Africa.

      Whilst staying at the Overseas Club he met Eileen Graham who had come
      to England from Cape Town to study music. On hearing that George was
      sailing for Cape Town she arranged to introduce him to her friend
      Eleanor Dunbar Leslie. “You’ll need someone lively to show you around,”
      she said. “She’s as smart as paint, a keen mountaineer, a very good school
      teacher, and she’s attractive. You can’t miss her, because her father is a
      well known Cape Town Magistrate. And,” she added “I’ve already written
      and told her what ship you are arriving on.”

      Eleanor duly met the ship. She and George immediately fell in love.
      Within thirty six hours he had proposed marriage and was accepted
      despite the misgivings of her parents. As she was under contract to her
      High School, she remained in South Africa for several months whilst
      George headed for Tanganyika looking for a farm where he could build
      their home.

      These details are a summary of chapter thirteen of the Biography of
      George Gilman Rushby ‘The Hunter is Death “ by T.V.Bulpin.

       

      Dearest Marj,
      Terrifically exciting news! I’ve just become engaged to an Englishman whom I
      met last Monday. The result is a family upheaval which you will have no difficulty in
      imagining!!

      The Aunts think it all highly romantic and cry in delight “Now isn’t that just like our
      El!” Mummy says she doesn’t know what to think, that anyway I was always a harum
      scarum and she rather expected something like this to happen. However I know that
      she thinks George highly attractive. “Such a nice smile and gentle manner, and such
      good hands“ she murmurs appreciatively. “But WHY AN ELEPHANT HUNTER?” she
      ends in a wail, as though elephant hunting was an unmentionable profession.
      Anyway I don’t think so. Anyone can marry a bank clerk or a lawyer or even a
      millionaire – but whoever heard of anyone marrying anyone as exciting as an elephant
      hunter? I’m thrilled to bits.

      Daddy also takes a dim view of George’s profession, and of George himself as
      a husband for me. He says that I am so impulsive and have such wild enthusiasms that I
      need someone conservative and steady to give me some serenity and some ballast.
      Dad says George is a handsome fellow and a good enough chap he is sure, but
      he is obviously a man of the world and hints darkly at a possible PAST. George says
      he has nothing of the kind and anyway I’m the first girl he has asked to marry him. I don’t
      care anyway, I’d gladly marry him tomorrow, but Dad has other ideas.

      He sat in his armchair to deliver his verdict, wearing the same look he must wear
      on the bench. If we marry, and he doesn’t think it would be a good thing, George must
      buy a comfortable house for me in Central Africa where I can stay safely when he goes
      hunting. I interrupted to say “But I’m going too”, but dad snubbed me saying that in no
      time at all I’ll have a family and one can’t go dragging babies around in the African Bush.”
      George takes his lectures with surprising calm. He says he can see Dad’s point of
      view much better than I can. He told the parents today that he plans to buy a small
      coffee farm in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and will build a cosy cottage which
      will be a proper home for both of us, and that he will only hunt occasionally to keep the
      pot boiling.

      Mummy, of course, just had to spill the beans. She said to George, “I suppose
      you know that Eleanor knows very little about house keeping and can’t cook at all.” a fact
      that I was keeping a dark secret. But George just said, “Oh she won’t have to work. The
      boys do all that sort of thing. She can lie on a couch all day and read if she likes.” Well
      you always did say that I was a “Lily of the field,” and what a good thing! If I were one of
      those terribly capable women I’d probably die of frustration because it seems that
      African house boys feel that they have lost face if their Memsahibs do anything but the
      most gracious chores.

      George is absolutely marvellous. He is strong and gentle and awfully good
      looking too. He is about 5 ft 10 ins tall and very broad. He wears his curly brown hair cut
      very short and has a close clipped moustache. He has strongly marked eyebrows and
      very striking blue eyes which sometimes turn grey or green. His teeth are strong and
      even and he has a quiet voice.

      I expect all this sounds too good to be true, but come home quickly and see for
      yourself. George is off to East Africa in three weeks time to buy our farm. I shall follow as
      soon as he has bought it and we will be married in Dar es Salaam.

      Dad has taken George for a walk “to get to know him” and that’s why I have time
      to write such a long screed. They should be back any minute now and I must fly and
      apply a bit of glamour.

      Much love my dear,
      your jubilant
      Eleanor

      S.S.Timavo. Durban. 28th.October. 1930.

      Dearest Family,
      Thank you for the lovely send off. I do wish you were all on board with me and
      could come and dance with me at my wedding. We are having a very comfortable
      voyage. There were only four of the passengers as far as Durban, all of them women,
      but I believe we are taking on more here. I have a most comfortable deck cabin to
      myself and the use of a sumptuous bathroom. No one is interested in deck games and I
      am having a lazy time, just sunbathing and reading.

      I sit at the Captain’s table and the meals are delicious – beautifully served. The
      butter for instance, is moulded into sprays of roses, most exquisitely done, and as for
      the ice-cream, I’ve never tasted anything like them.

      The meals are continental type and we have hors d’oeuvre in a great variety
      served on large round trays. The Italians souse theirs with oil, Ugh! We also of course
      get lots of spaghetti which I have some difficulty in eating. However this presents no
      problem to the Chief Engineer who sits opposite to me. He simply rolls it around his
      fork and somehow the spaghetti flows effortlessly from fork to mouth exactly like an
      ascending escalator. Wine is served at lunch and dinner – very mild and pleasant stuff.
      Of the women passengers the one i liked best was a young German widow
      from South west Africa who left the ship at East London to marry a man she had never
      met. She told me he owned a drapers shop and she was very happy at the prospect
      of starting a new life, as her previous marriage had ended tragically with the death of her
      husband and only child in an accident.

      I was most interested to see the bridegroom and stood at the rail beside the gay
      young widow when we docked at East London. I picked him out, without any difficulty,
      from the small group on the quay. He was a tall thin man in a smart grey suit and with a
      grey hat perched primly on his head. You can always tell from hats can’t you? I wasn’t
      surprised to see, when this German raised his head, that he looked just like the Kaiser’s
      “Little Willie”. Long thin nose and cold grey eyes and no smile of welcome on his tight
      mouth for the cheery little body beside me. I quite expected him to jerk his thumb and
      stalk off, expecting her to trot at his heel.

      However she went off blithely enough. Next day before the ship sailed, she
      was back and I saw her talking to the Captain. She began to cry and soon after the
      Captain patted her on the shoulder and escorted her to the gangway. Later the Captain
      told me that the girl had come to ask him to allow her to work her passage back to
      Germany where she had some relations. She had married the man the day before but
      she disliked him because he had deceived her by pretending that he owned a shop
      whereas he was only a window dresser. Bad show for both.

      The Captain and the Chief Engineer are the only officers who mix socially with
      the passengers. The captain seems rather a melancholy type with, I should say, no
      sense of humour. He speaks fair English with an American accent. He tells me that he
      was on the San Francisco run during Prohibition years in America and saw many Film
      Stars chiefly “under the influence” as they used to flock on board to drink. The Chief
      Engineer is big and fat and cheerful. His English is anything but fluent but he makes up
      for it in mime.

      I visited the relations and friends at Port Elizabeth and East London, and here at
      Durban. I stayed with the Trotters and Swans and enjoyed myself very much at both
      places. I have collected numerous wedding presents, china and cutlery, coffee
      percolator and ornaments, and where I shall pack all these things I don’t know. Everyone has been terribly kind and I feel extremely well and happy.

      At the start of the voyage I had a bit of bad luck. You will remember that a
      perfectly foul South Easter was blowing. Some men were busy working on a deck
      engine and I stopped to watch and a tiny fragment of steel blew into my eye. There is
      no doctor on board so the stewardess put some oil into the eye and bandaged it up.
      The eye grew more and more painful and inflamed and when when we reached Port
      Elizabeth the Captain asked the Port Doctor to look at it. The Doctor said it was a job for
      an eye specialist and telephoned from the ship to make an appointment. Luckily for me,
      Vincent Tofts turned up at the ship just then and took me off to the specialist and waited
      whilst he extracted the fragment with a giant magnet. The specialist said that I was very
      lucky as the thing just missed the pupil of my eye so my sight will not be affected. I was
      temporarily blinded by the Belladona the eye-man put in my eye so he fitted me with a
      pair of black goggles and Vincent escorted me back to the ship. Don’t worry the eye is
      now as good as ever and George will not have to take a one-eyed bride for better or
      worse.

      I have one worry and that is that the ship is going to be very much overdue by
      the time we reach Dar es Salaam. She is taking on a big wool cargo and we were held
      up for three days in East london and have been here in Durban for five days.
      Today is the ninth Anniversary of the Fascist Movement and the ship was
      dressed with bunting and flags. I must now go and dress for the gala dinner.

      Bless you all,
      Eleanor.

      S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

      Dearest Family,

      Nearly there now. We called in at Lourenco Marques, Beira, Mozambique and
      Port Amelia. I was the only one of the original passengers left after Durban but there we
      took on a Mrs Croxford and her mother and two men passengers. Mrs C must have
      something, certainly not looks. She has a flat figure, heavily mascared eyes and crooked
      mouth thickly coated with lipstick. But her rather sweet old mother-black-pearls-type tells
      me they are worn out travelling around the world trying to shake off an admirer who
      pursues Mrs C everywhere.

      The one male passenger is very quiet and pleasant. The old lady tells me that he
      has recently lost his wife. The other passenger is a horribly bumptious type.
      I had my hair beautifully shingled at Lourenco Marques, but what an experience it
      was. Before we docked I asked the Captain whether he knew of a hairdresser, but he
      said he did not and would have to ask the agent when he came aboard. The agent was
      a very suave Asian. He said “Sure he did” and offered to take me in his car. I rather
      doubtfully agreed — such a swarthy gentleman — and was driven, not to a hairdressing
      establishment, but to his office. Then he spoke to someone on the telephone and in no
      time at all a most dago-y type arrived carrying a little black bag. He was all patent
      leather, hair, and flashing smile, and greeted me like an old and valued friend.
      Before I had collected my scattered wits tthe Agent had flung open a door and
      ushered me through, and I found myself seated before an ornate mirror in what was only
      too obviously a bedroom. It was a bedroom with a difference though. The unmade bed
      had no legs but hung from the ceiling on brass chains.

      The agent beamingly shut the door behind him and I was left with my imagination
      and the afore mentioned oily hairdresser. He however was very business like. Before I
      could say knife he had shingled my hair with a cut throat razor and then, before I could
      protest, had smothered my neck in stinking pink powder applied with an enormous and
      filthy swansdown powder puff. He held up a mirror for me to admire his handiwork but I
      was aware only of the enormous bed reflected in it, and hurriedly murmuring “very nice,
      very nice” I made my escape to the outer office where, to my relief, I found the Chief
      Engineer who escorted me back to the ship.

      In the afternoon Mrs Coxford and the old lady and I hired a taxi and went to the
      Polana Hotel for tea. Very swish but I like our Cape Peninsula beaches better.
      At Lorenco Marques we took on more passengers. The Governor of
      Portuguese Nyasaland and his wife and baby son. He was a large middle aged man,
      very friendly and unassuming and spoke perfect English. His wife was German and
      exquisite, as fragile looking and with the delicate colouring of a Dresden figurine. She
      looked about 18 but she told me she was 28 and showed me photographs of two
      other sons – hefty youngsters, whom she had left behind in Portugal and was missing
      very much.

      It was frightfully hot at Beira and as I had no money left I did not go up to the
      town, but Mrs Croxford and I spent a pleasant hour on the beach under the Casurina
      trees.

      The Governor and his wife left the ship at Mozambique. He looked very
      imposing in his starched uniform and she more Dresden Sheperdish than ever in a
      flowered frock. There was a guard of honour and all the trimmings. They bade me a warm farewell and invited George and me to stay at any time.

      The German ship “Watussi” was anchored in the Bay and I decided to visit her
      and try and have my hair washed and set. I had no sooner stepped on board when a
      lady came up to me and said “Surely you are Beeba Leslie.” It was Mrs Egan and she
      had Molly with her. Considering Mrs Egan had not seen me since I was five I think it was
      jolly clever of her to recognise me. Molly is charming and was most friendly. She fixed
      things with the hairdresser and sat with me until the job was done. Afterwards I had tea
      with them.

      Port Amelia was our last stop. In fact the only person to go ashore was Mr
      Taylor, the unpleasant man, and he returned at sunset very drunk indeed.
      We reached Port Amelia on the 3rd – my birthday. The boat had anchored by
      the time I was dressed and when I went on deck I saw several row boats cluttered
      around the gangway and in them were natives with cages of wild birds for sale. Such tiny
      crowded cages. I was furious, you know me. I bought three cages, carried them out on
      to the open deck and released the birds. I expected them to fly to the land but they flew
      straight up into the rigging.

      The quiet male passenger wandered up and asked me what I was doing. I said
      “I’m giving myself a birthday treat, I hate to see caged birds.” So next thing there he
      was buying birds which he presented to me with “Happy Birthday.” I gladly set those
      birds free too and they joined the others in the rigging.

      Then a grinning steward came up with three more cages. “For the lady with
      compliments of the Captain.” They lost no time in joining their friends.
      It had given me so much pleasure to free the birds that I was only a little
      discouraged when the quiet man said thoughtfully “This should encourage those bird
      catchers you know, they are sold out. When evening came and we were due to sail I
      was sure those birds would fly home, but no, they are still there and they will probably
      remain until we dock at Dar es Salaam.

      During the morning the Captain came up and asked me what my Christian name
      is. He looked as grave as ever and I couldn’t think why it should interest him but said “the
      name is Eleanor.” That night at dinner there was a large iced cake in the centre of the
      table with “HELENA” in a delicate wreath of pink icing roses on the top. We had
      champagne and everyone congratulated me and wished me good luck in my marriage.
      A very nice gesture don’t you think. The unpleasant character had not put in an
      appearance at dinner which made the party all the nicer

      I sat up rather late in the lounge reading a book and by the time I went to bed
      there was not a soul around. I bathed and changed into my nighty,walked into my cabin,
      shed my dressing gown, and pottered around. When I was ready for bed I put out my
      hand to draw the curtains back and a hand grasped my wrist. It was that wretched
      creature outside my window on the deck, still very drunk. Luckily I was wearing that
      heavy lilac silk nighty. I was livid. “Let go at once”, I said, but he only grinned stupidly.
      “I’m not hurting you” he said, “only looking”. “I’ll ring for the steward” said I, and by
      stretching I managed to press the bell with my free hand. I rang and rang but no one
      came and he just giggled. Then I said furiously, “Remember this name, George
      Rushby, he is a fine boxer and he hates specimens like you. When he meets me at Dar
      es Salaam I shall tell him about this and I bet you will be sorry.” However he still held on
      so I turned and knocked hard on the adjoining wall which divided my cabin from Mrs
      Croxfords. Soon Mrs Croxford and the old lady appeared in dressing gowns . This
      seemed to amuse the drunk even more though he let go my wrist. So whilst the old
      lady stayed with me, Mrs C fetched the quiet passenger who soon hustled him off. He has kept out of my way ever since. However I still mean to tell George because I feel
      the fellow got off far too lightly. I reported the matter to the Captain but he just remarked
      that he always knew the man was low class because he never wears a jacket to meals.
      This is my last night on board and we again had free champagne and I was given
      some tooled leather work by the Captain and a pair of good paste earrings by the old
      lady. I have invited them and Mrs Croxford, the Chief Engineer, and the quiet
      passenger to the wedding.

      This may be my last night as Eleanor Leslie and I have spent this long while
      writing to you just as a little token of my affection and gratitude for all the years of your
      love and care. I shall post this letter on the ship and must turn now and get some beauty
      sleep. We have been told that we shall be in Dar es Salaam by 9 am. I am so excited
      that I shall not sleep.

      Very much love, and just for fun I’ll sign my full name for the last time.
      with my “bes respeks”,

      Eleanor Leslie.

      Eleanor and George Rushby:

      Eleanor and George Rushby

      Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

      Dearest Family,

      I’m writing this in the bedroom whilst George is out buying a tin trunk in which to
      pack all our wedding presents. I expect he will be gone a long time because he has
      gone out with Hicky Wood and, though our wedding was four days ago, it’s still an
      excuse for a party. People are all very cheery and friendly here.
      I am wearing only pants and slip but am still hot. One swelters here in the
      mornings, but a fresh sea breeze blows in the late afternoons and then Dar es Salaam is
      heavenly.

      We arrived in Dar es Salaam harbour very early on Friday morning (7 th Nov).
      The previous night the Captain had said we might not reach Dar. until 9 am, and certainly
      no one would be allowed on board before 8 am. So I dawdled on the deck in my
      dressing gown and watched the green coastline and the islands slipping by. I stood on
      the deck outside my cabin and was not aware that I was looking out at the wrong side of
      the landlocked harbour. Quite unknown to me George and some friends, the Hickson
      Woods, were standing on the Gymkhana Beach on the opposite side of the channel
      anxiously scanning the ship for a sign of me. George says he had a horrible idea I had
      missed the ship. Blissfully unconscious of his anxiety I wandered into the bathroom
      prepared for a good soak. The anchor went down when I was in the bath and suddenly
      there was a sharp wrap on the door and I heard Mrs Croxford say “There’s a man in a
      boat outside. He is looking out for someone and I’m sure it’s your George. I flung on
      some clothes and rushed on deck with tousled hair and bare feet and it was George.
      We had a marvellous reunion. George was wearing shorts and bush shirt and
      looked just like the strong silent types one reads about in novels. I finished dressing then
      George helped me bundle all the wedding presents I had collected en route into my
      travelling rug and we went into the bar lounge to join the Hickson Woods. They are the
      couple from whom George bought the land which is to be our coffee farm Hicky-Wood
      was laughing when we joined them. he said he had called a chap to bring a couple of
      beers thinking he was the steward but it turned out to be the Captain. He does wear
      such a very plain uniform that I suppose it was easy to make the mistake, but Hicky
      says he was not amused.

      Anyway as the H-W’s are to be our neighbours I’d better describe them. Kath
      Wood is very attractive, dark Irish, with curly black hair and big brown eyes. She was
      married before to Viv Lumb a great friend of George’s who died some years ago of
      blackwater fever. They had one little girl, Maureen, and Kath and Hicky have a small son
      of three called Michael. Hicky is slightly below average height and very neat and dapper
      though well built. He is a great one for a party and good fun but George says he can be
      bad tempered.

      Anyway we all filed off the ship and Hicky and Cath went on to the hotel whilst
      George and I went through customs. Passing the customs was easy. Everyone
      seemed to know George and that it was his wedding day and I just sailed through,
      except for the little matter of the rug coming undone when George and I had to scramble
      on the floor for candlesticks and fruit knives and a wooden nut bowl.
      Outside the customs shed we were mobbed by a crowd of jabbering Africans
      offering their services as porters, and soon my luggage was piled in one rickshaw whilst
      George and I climbed into another and we were born smoothly away on rubber shod
      wheels to the Splendid Hotel. The motion was pleasing enough but it seemed weird to
      be pulled along by one human being whilst another pushed behind.  We turned up a street called Acacia Avenue which, as its name implies, is lined
      with flamboyant acacia trees now in the full glory of scarlet and gold. The rickshaw
      stopped before the Splendid Hotel and I was taken upstairs into a pleasant room which
      had its own private balcony overlooking the busy street.

      Here George broke the news that we were to be married in less than an hours
      time. He would have to dash off and change and then go straight to the church. I would
      be quite all right, Kath would be looking in and friends would fetch me.
      I started to dress and soon there was a tap at the door and Mrs Hickson-Wood
      came in with my bouquet. It was a lovely bunch of carnations and frangipani with lots of
      asparagus fern and it went well with my primrose yellow frock. She admired my frock
      and Leghorn hat and told me that her little girl Maureen was to be my flower girl. Then
      she too left for the church.

      I was fully dressed when there was another knock on the door and I opened it to
      be confronted by a Police Officer in a starched white uniform. I’m McCallum”, he said,
      “I’ve come to drive you to the church.” Downstairs he introduced me to a big man in a
      tussore silk suit. “This is Dr Shicore”, said McCallum, “He is going to give you away.”
      Honestly, I felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland. Wouldn’t have been at all surprised if
      the White Rabbit had popped up and said he was going to be my page.

      I walked out of the hotel and across the pavement in a dream and there, by the
      curb, was a big dark blue police car decorated with white ribbons and with a tall African
      Police Ascari holding the door open for me. I had hardly time to wonder what next when
      the car drew up before a tall German looking church. It was in fact the Lutheran Church in
      the days when Tanganyika was German East Africa.

      Mrs Hickson-Wood, very smart in mushroom coloured georgette and lace, and
      her small daughter were waiting in the porch, so in we went. I was glad to notice my
      friends from the boat sitting behind George’s friends who were all complete strangers to
      me. The aisle seemed very long but at last I reached George waiting in the chancel with
      Hicky-Wood, looking unfamiliar in a smart tussore suit. However this feeling of unreality
      passed when he turned his head and smiled at me.

      In the vestry after the ceremony I was kissed affectionately by several complete
      strangers and I felt happy and accepted by George’s friends. Outside the church,
      standing apart from the rest of the guests, the Italian Captain and Chief Engineer were
      waiting. They came up and kissed my hand, and murmured felicitations, but regretted
      they could not spare the time to come to the reception. Really it was just as well
      because they would not have fitted in at all well.

      Dr Shircore is the Director of Medical Services and he had very kindly lent his
      large house for the reception. It was quite a party. The guests were mainly men with a
      small sprinkling of wives. Champagne corks popped and there was an enormous cake
      and soon voices were raised in song. The chief one was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’
      and I shall remember it for ever.

      The party was still in full swing when George and I left. The old lady from the ship
      enjoyed it hugely. She came in an all black outfit with a corsage of artificial Lily-of-the-
      Valley. Later I saw one of the men wearing the corsage in his buttonhole and the old
      lady was wearing a carnation.

      When George and I got back to the hotel,I found that my luggage had been
      moved to George’s room by his cook Lamek, who was squatting on his haunches and
      clapped his hands in greeting. My dears, you should see Lamek – exactly like a
      chimpanzee – receding forehead, wide flat nose, and long lip, and such splayed feet. It was quite a strain not to laugh, especially when he produced a gift for me. I have not yet
      discovered where he acquired it. It was a faded mauve straw toque of the kind worn by
      Queen Mary. I asked George to tell Lamek that I was touched by his generosity but felt
      that I could not accept his gift. He did not mind at all especially as George gave him a
      generous tip there and then.

      I changed into a cotton frock and shady straw hat and George changed into shorts
      and bush shirt once more. We then sneaked into the dining room for lunch avoiding our
      wedding guests who were carrying on the party in the lounge.

      After lunch we rejoined them and they all came down to the jetty to wave goodbye
      as we set out by motor launch for Honeymoon Island. I enjoyed the launch trip very
      much. The sea was calm and very blue and the palm fringed beaches of Dar es Salaam
      are as romantic as any bride could wish. There are small coral islands dotted around the
      Bay of which Honeymoon Island is the loveliest. I believe at one time it bore the less
      romantic name of Quarantine Island. Near the Island, in the shallows, the sea is brilliant
      green and I saw two pink jellyfish drifting by.

      There is no jetty on the island so the boat was stopped in shallow water and
      George carried me ashore. I was enchanted with the Island and in no hurry to go to the
      bungalow, so George and I took our bathing costumes from our suitcases and sent the
      luggage up to the house together with a box of provisions.

      We bathed and lazed on the beach and suddenly it was sunset and it began to
      get dark. We walked up the beach to the bungalow and began to unpack the stores,
      tea, sugar, condensed milk, bread and butter, sardines and a large tin of ham. There
      were also cups and saucers and plates and cutlery.

      We decided to have an early meal and George called out to the caretaker, “Boy
      letta chai”. Thereupon the ‘boy’ materialised and jabbered to George in Ki-Swaheli. It
      appeared he had no utensil in which to boil water. George, ever resourceful, removed
      the ham from the tin and gave him that. We had our tea all right but next day the ham
      was bad.

      Then came bed time. I took a hurricane lamp in one hand and my suitcase in the
      other and wandered into the bedroom whilst George vanished into the bathroom. To
      my astonishment I saw two perfectly bare iron bedsteads – no mattress or pillows. We
      had brought sheets and mosquito nets but, believe me, they are a poor substitute for a
      mattress.

      Anyway I arrayed myself in my pale yellow satin nightie and sat gingerly down
      on the iron edge of the bed to await my groom who eventually appeared in a
      handsome suit of silk pyjamas. His expression, as he took in the situation, was too much
      for me and I burst out laughing and so did he.

      Somewhere in the small hours I woke up. The breeze had dropped and the
      room was unbearably stuffy. I felt as dry as a bone. The lamp had been turned very
      low and had gone out, but I remembered seeing a water tank in the yard and I decided
      to go out in the dark and drink from the tap. In the dark I could not find my slippers so I
      slipped my feet into George’s shoes, picked up his matches and groped my way out
      of the room. I found the tank all right and with one hand on the tap and one cupped for
      water I stooped to drink. Just then I heard a scratchy noise and sensed movements
      around my feet. I struck a match and oh horrors! found that the damp spot on which I was
      standing was alive with white crabs. In my hurry to escape I took a clumsy step, put
      George’s big toe on the hem of my nightie and down I went on top of the crabs. I need
      hardly say that George was awakened by an appalling shriek and came rushing to my
      aid like a knight of old.  Anyway, alarms and excursions not withstanding, we had a wonderful weekend on the island and I was sorry to return to the heat of Dar es Salaam, though the evenings
      here are lovely and it is heavenly driving along the coast road by car or in a rickshaw.
      I was surprised to find so many Indians here. Most of the shops, large and small,
      seem to be owned by Indians and the place teems with them. The women wear
      colourful saris and their hair in long black plaits reaching to their waists. Many wear baggy
      trousers of silk or satin. They give a carnival air to the sea front towards sunset.
      This long letter has been written in instalments throughout the day. My first break
      was when I heard the sound of a band and rushed to the balcony in time to see The
      Kings African Rifles band and Askaris march down the Avenue on their way to an
      Armistice Memorial Service. They looked magnificent.

      I must end on a note of most primitive pride. George returned from his shopping
      expedition and beamingly informed me that he had thrashed the man who annoyed me
      on the ship. I felt extremely delighted and pressed for details. George told me that
      when he went out shopping he noticed to his surprise that the ‘Timavo” was still in the
      harbour. He went across to the Agents office and there saw a man who answered to the
      description I had given. George said to him “Is your name Taylor?”, and when he said
      “yes”, George said “Well my name is George Rushby”, whereupon he hit Taylor on the
      jaw so that he sailed over the counter and down the other side. Very satisfactory, I feel.
      With much love to all.

      Your cave woman
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

      Dearest Family,

      Well here we are at our Country Seat, Mchewe Estate. (pronounced
      Mn,-che’-we) but I will start at the beginning of our journey and describe the farm later.
      We left the hotel at Dar es Salaam for the station in a taxi crowded with baggage
      and at the last moment Keith Wood ran out with the unwrapped bottom layer of our
      wedding cake. It remained in its naked state from there to here travelling for two days in
      the train on the luggage rack, four days in the car on my knee, reposing at night on the
      roof of the car exposed to the winds of Heaven, and now rests beside me in the tent
      looking like an old old tombstone. We have no tin large enough to hold it and one
      simply can’t throw away ones wedding cake so, as George does not eat cake, I can see
      myself eating wedding cake for tea for months to come, ants permitting.

      We travelled up by train from Dar to Dodoma, first through the lush vegetation of
      the coastal belt to Morogoro, then through sisal plantations now very overgrown with
      weeds owing to the slump in prices, and then on to the arid area around Dodoma. This
      part of the country is very dry at this time of the year and not unlike parts of our Karoo.
      The train journey was comfortable enough but slow as the engines here are fed with
      wood and not coal as in South Africa.

      Dodoma is the nearest point on the railway to Mbeya so we left the train there to
      continue our journey by road. We arrived at the one and only hotel in the early hours and
      whilst someone went to rout out the night watchman the rest of us sat on the dismal
      verandah amongst a litter of broken glass. Some bright spark remarked on the obvious –
      that there had been a party the night before.

      When we were shown to a room I thought I rather preferred the verandah,
      because the beds had not yet been made up and there was a bucket of vomit beside
      the old fashioned washstand. However George soon got the boys to clean up the
      room and I fell asleep to be awakened by George with an invitation to come and see
      our car before breakfast.

      Yes, we have our own car. It is a Chev, with what is called a box body. That
      means that sides, roof and doors are made by a local Indian carpenter. There is just the
      one front seat with a kapok mattress on it. The tools are kept in a sort of cupboard fixed
      to the side so there is a big space for carrying “safari kit” behind the cab seat.
      Lamek, who had travelled up on the same train, appeared after breakfast, and
      helped George to pack all our luggage into the back of the car. Besides our suitcases
      there was a huge bedroll, kitchen utensils and a box of provisions, tins of petrol and
      water and all Lamek’s bits and pieces which included three chickens in a wicker cage and
      an enormous bunch of bananas about 3 ft long.

      When all theses things were packed there remained only a small space between
      goods and ceiling and into this Lamek squeezed. He lay on his back with his horny feet a
      mere inch or so from the back of my head. In this way we travelled 400 miles over
      bumpy earth roads and crude pole bridges, but whenever we stopped for a meal
      Lamek wriggled out and, like Aladdin’s genie, produced good meals in no time at all.
      In the afternoon we reached a large river called the Ruaha. Workmen were busy
      building a large bridge across it but it is not yet ready so we crossed by a ford below
      the bridge. George told me that the river was full of crocodiles but though I looked hard, I
      did not see any. This is also elephant country but I did not see any of those either, only
      piles of droppings on the road. I must tell you that the natives around these parts are called Wahehe and the river is Ruaha – enough to make a cat laugh. We saw some Wahehe out hunting with spears
      and bows and arrows. They live in long low houses with the tiniest shuttered windows
      and rounded roofs covered with earth.

      Near the river we also saw a few Masai herding cattle. They are rather terrifying to
      look at – tall, angular, and very aloof. They wear nothing but a blanket knotted on one
      shoulder, concealing nothing, and all carried one or two spears.
      The road climbs steeply on the far side of the Ruaha and one has the most
      tremendous views over the plains. We spent our first night up there in the high country.
      Everything was taken out of the car, the bed roll opened up and George and I slept
      comfortably in the back of the car whilst Lamek, rolled in a blanket, slept soundly by a
      small fire nearby. Next morning we reached our first township, Iringa, and put up at the
      Colonist Hotel. We had a comfortable room in the annex overlooking the golf course.
      our room had its own little dressing room which was also the bathroom because, when
      ordered to do so, the room boy carried in an oval galvanised bath and filled it with hot
      water which he carried in a four gallon petrol tin.

      When we crossed to the main building for lunch, George was immediately hailed
      by several men who wanted to meet the bride. I was paid some handsome
      compliments but was not sure whether they were sincere or the result of a nice alcoholic
      glow. Anyhow every one was very friendly.

      After lunch I went back to the bedroom leaving George chatting away. I waited and
      waited – no George. I got awfully tired of waiting and thought I’d give him a fright so I
      walked out onto the deserted golf course and hid behind some large boulders. Soon I
      saw George returning to the room and the boy followed with a tea tray. Ah, now the hue
      and cry will start, thought I, but no, no George appeared nor could I hear any despairing
      cry. When sunset came I trailed crossly back to our hotel room where George lay
      innocently asleep on his bed, hands folded on his chest like a crusader on his tomb. In a
      moment he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily and said kindly, “Did you have a nice walk
      my love?” So of course I couldn’t play the neglected wife as he obviously didn’t think
      me one and we had a very pleasant dinner and party in the hotel that evening.
      Next day we continued our journey but turned aside to visit the farm of a sprightly
      old man named St.Leger Seaton whom George had known for many years, so it was
      after dark before George decided that we had covered our quota of miles for the day.
      Whilst he and Lamek unpacked I wandered off to a stream to cool my hot feet which had
      baked all day on the floor boards of the car. In the rather dim moonlight I sat down on the
      grassy bank and gratefully dabbled my feet in the cold water. A few minutes later I
      started up with a shriek – I had the sensation of red hot pins being dug into all my most
      sensitive parts. I started clawing my clothes off and, by the time George came to the
      rescue with the lamp, I was practically in the nude. “Only Siafu ants,” said George calmly.
      Take off all your clothes and get right in the water.” So I had a bathe whilst George
      picked the ants off my clothes by the light of the lamp turned very low for modesty’s
      sake. Siafu ants are beastly things. They are black ants with outsized heads and
      pinchers. I shall be very, very careful where I sit in future.

      The next day was even hotter. There was no great variety in the scenery. Most
      of the country was covered by a tree called Miombo, which is very ordinary when the
      foliage is a mature deep green, but when in new leaf the trees look absolutely beautiful
      as the leaves,surprisingly, are soft pastel shades of red and yellow.

      Once again we turned aside from the main road to visit one of George’s friends.
      This man Major Hugh Jones MC, has a farm only a few miles from ours but just now he is supervising the making of an airstrip. Major Jones is quite a character. He is below
      average height and skinny with an almost bald head and one nearly blind eye into which
      he screws a monocle. He is a cultured person and will, I am sure, make an interesting
      neighbour. George and Major Jones’ friends call him ‘Joni’ but he is generally known in
      this country as ‘Ropesoles’ – as he is partial to that type of footwear.
      We passed through Mbeya township after dark so I have no idea what the place
      is like. The last 100 miles of our journey was very dusty and the last 15 miles extremely
      bumpy. The road is used so little that in some places we had to plow our way through
      long grass and I was delighted when at last George turned into a side road and said
      “This is our place.” We drove along the bank of the Mchewe River, then up a hill and
      stopped at a tent which was pitched beside the half built walls of our new home. We
      were expected so there was hot water for baths and after a supper of tinned food and
      good hot tea, I climbed thankfully into bed.

      Next morning I was awakened by the chattering of the African workmen and was
      soon out to inspect the new surroundings. Our farm was once part of Hickson Wood’s
      land and is separated from theirs by a river. Our houses cannot be more than a few
      hundred yards apart as the crow flies but as both are built on the slopes of a long range
      of high hills, and one can only cross the river at the foot of the slopes, it will be quite a
      safari to go visiting on foot . Most of our land is covered with shoulder high grass but it
      has been partly cleared of trees and scrub. Down by the river George has made a long
      coffee nursery and a large vegetable garden but both coffee and vegetable seedlings
      are too small to be of use.

      George has spared all the trees that will make good shade for the coffee later on.
      There are several huge wild fig trees as big as oaks but with smooth silvery-green trunks
      and branches and there are lots of acacia thorn trees with flat tops like Japanese sun
      shades. I’ve seen lovely birds in the fig trees, Louries with bright plumage and crested
      heads, and Blue Rollers, and in the grasslands there are widow birds with incredibly long
      black tail feathers.

      There are monkeys too and horrible but fascinating tree lizards with blue bodies
      and orange heads. There are so many, many things to tell you but they must wait for
      another time as James, the house boy, has been to say “Bafu tiari” and if I don’t go at
      once, the bath will be cold.

      I am very very happy and terribly interested in this new life so please don’t
      worry about me.

      Much love to you all,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

      Dearest Family,

      I’ve lots of time to write letters just now because George is busy supervising the
      building of the house from early morning to late afternoon – with a break for lunch of
      course.

      On our second day here our tent was moved from the house site to a small
      clearing further down the slope of our hill. Next to it the labourers built a ‘banda’ , which is
      a three sided grass hut with thatched roof – much cooler than the tent in this weather.
      There is also a little grass lav. so you see we have every convenience. I spend most of
      my day in the banda reading or writing letters. Occasionally I wander up to the house site
      and watch the building, but mostly I just sit.

      I did try exploring once. I wandered down a narrow path towards the river. I
      thought I might paddle and explore the river a little but I came round a bend and there,
      facing me, was a crocodile. At least for a moment I thought it was and my adrenaline
      glands got very busy indeed. But it was only an enormous monitor lizard, four or five
      feet long. It must have been as scared as I was because it turned and rushed off through
      the grass. I turned and walked hastily back to the camp and as I passed the house site I
      saw some boys killing a large puff adder. Now I do my walking in the evenings with
      George. Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when he is around.

      It is interesting to watch the boys making bricks for the house. They make a pile
      of mud which they trample with their feet until it is the right consistency. Then they fill
      wooden moulds with the clayey mud, and press it down well and turn out beautiful shiny,
      dark brown bricks which are laid out in rows and covered with grass to bake slowly in the
      sun.

      Most of the materials for the building are right here at hand. The walls will be sun
      dried bricks and there is a white clay which will make a good whitewash for the inside
      walls. The chimney and walls will be of burnt brick and tiles and George is now busy
      building a kiln for this purpose. Poles for the roof are being cut in the hills behind the
      house and every day women come along with large bundles of thatching grass on their
      heads. Our windows are modern steel casement ones and the doors have been made
      at a mission in the district. George does some of the bricklaying himself. The other
      bricklayer is an African from Northern Rhodesia called Pedro. It makes me perspire just
      to look at Pedro who wears an overcoat all day in the very hot sun.
      Lamek continues to please. He turns out excellent meals, chicken soup followed
      by roast chicken, vegetables from the Hickson-Woods garden and a steamed pudding
      or fruit to wind up the meal. I enjoy the chicken but George is fed up with it and longs for
      good red meat. The chickens are only about as large as a partridge but then they cost
      only sixpence each.

      I had my first visit to Mbeya two days ago. I put on my very best trousseau frock
      for the occasion- that yellow striped silk one – and wore my wedding hat. George didn’t
      comment, but I saw later that I was dreadfully overdressed.
      Mbeya at the moment is a very small settlement consisting of a bundle of small
      Indian shops – Dukas they call them, which stock European tinned foods and native soft
      goods which seem to be mainly of Japanese origin. There is a one storied Government
      office called the Boma and two attractive gabled houses of burnt brick which house the
      District Officer and his Assistant. Both these houses have lovely gardens but i saw them
      only from the outside as we did not call. After buying our stores George said “Lets go to the pub, I want you to meet Mrs Menzies.” Well the pub turned out to be just three or four grass rondavels on a bare
      plot. The proprietor, Ken Menzies, came out to welcome us. I took to him at once
      because he has the same bush sandy eyebrows as you have Dad. He told me that
      unfortunately his wife is away at the coast, and then he ushered me through the door
      saying “Here’s George with his bride.” then followed the Iringa welcome all over again,
      only more so, because the room was full of diggers from the Lupa Goldfields about fifty
      miles away.

      Champagne corks popped as I shook hands all around and George was
      clapped on the back. I could see he was a favourite with everyone and I tried not to be
      gauche and let him down. These men were all most kind and most appeared to be men
      of more than average education. However several were unshaven and looked as
      though they had slept in their clothes as I suppose they had. When they have a little luck
      on the diggings they come in here to Menzies pub and spend the lot. George says
      they bring their gold dust and small nuggets in tobacco tins or Kruschen salts jars and
      hand them over to Ken Menzies saying “Tell me when I’ve spent the lot.” Ken then
      weighs the gold and estimates its value and does exactly what the digger wants.
      However the Diggers get good value for their money because besides the drink
      they get companionship and good food and nursing if they need it. Mrs Menzies is a
      trained nurse and most kind and capable from what I was told. There is no doctor or
      hospital here so her experience as a nursing sister is invaluable.
      We had lunch at the Hotel and afterwards I poured tea as I was the only female
      present. Once the shyness had worn off I rather enjoyed myself.

      Now to end off I must tell you a funny story of how I found out that George likes
      his women to be feminine. You will remember those dashing black silk pyjamas Aunt
      Mary gave me, with flowered “happy coat” to match. Well last night I thought I’d give
      George a treat and when the boy called me for my bath I left George in the ‘banda’
      reading the London Times. After my bath I put on my Japanese pyjamas and coat,
      peered into the shaving mirror which hangs from the tent pole and brushed my hair until it
      shone. I must confess that with my fringe and shingled hair I thought I made quite a
      glamourous Japanese girl. I walked coyly across to the ‘banda’. Alas no compliment.
      George just glanced up from the Times and went on reading.
      He was away rather a long time when it came to his turn to bath. I glanced up
      when he came back and had a slight concussion. George, if you please, was arrayed in
      my very best pale yellow satin nightie. The one with the lace and ribbon sash and little
      bows on the shoulder. I knew exactly what he meant to convey. I was not to wear the
      trousers in the family. I seethed inwardly, but pretending not to notice, I said calmly “shall
      I call for food?” In this garb George sat down to dinner and it says a great deal for African
      phlegm that the boy did not drop the dishes.

      We conversed politely about this and that, and then, as usual, George went off
      to bed. I appeared to be engrossed in my book and did not stir. When I went to the
      tent some time later George lay fast asleep still in my nightie, though all I could see of it
      was the little ribbon bows looking farcically out of place on his broad shoulders.
      This morning neither of us mentioned the incident, George was up and dressed
      by the time I woke up but I have been smiling all day to think what a ridiculous picture
      we made at dinner. So farewell to pyjamas and hey for ribbons and bows.

      Your loving
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

      Dearest Family,

      A mere shadow of her former buxom self lifts a languid pen to write to you. I’m
      convalescing after my first and I hope my last attack of malaria. It was a beastly
      experience but all is now well and I am eating like a horse and will soon regain my
      bounce.

      I took ill on the evening of the day I wrote my last letter to you. It started with a
      splitting headache and fits of shivering. The symptoms were all too familiar to George
      who got me into bed and filled me up with quinine. He then piled on all the available
      blankets and packed me in hot water bottles. I thought I’d explode and said so and
      George said just to lie still and I’d soon break into a good sweat. However nothing of the
      kind happened and next day my temperature was 105 degrees. Instead of feeling
      miserable as I had done at the onset, I now felt very merry and most chatty. George
      now tells me I sang the most bawdy songs but I hardly think it likely. Do you?
      You cannot imagine how tenderly George nursed me, not only that day but
      throughout the whole eight days I was ill. As we do not employ any African house
      women, and there are no white women in the neighbourhood at present to whom we
      could appeal for help, George had to do everything for me. It was unbearably hot in the
      tent so George decided to move me across to the Hickson-Woods vacant house. They
      have not yet returned from the coast.

      George decided I was too weak to make the trip in the car so he sent a
      messenger over to the Woods’ house for their Machila. A Machila is a canopied canvas
      hammock slung from a bamboo pole and carried by four bearers. The Machila duly
      arrived and I attempted to walk to it, clinging to George’s arm, but collapsed in a faint so
      the trip was postponed to the next morning when I felt rather better. Being carried by
      Machila is quite pleasant but I was in no shape to enjoy anything and got thankfully into
      bed in the Hickson-Woods large, cool and rather dark bedroom. My condition did not
      improve and George decided to send a runner for the Government Doctor at Tukuyu
      about 60 miles away. Two days later Dr Theis arrived by car and gave me two
      injections of quinine which reduced the fever. However I still felt very weak and had to
      spend a further four days in bed.

      We have now decided to stay on here until the Hickson-Woods return by which
      time our own house should be ready. George goes off each morning and does not
      return until late afternoon. However don’t think “poor Eleanor” because I am very
      comfortable here and there are lots of books to read and the days seem to pass very
      quickly.

      The Hickson-Wood’s house was built by Major Jones and I believe the one on
      his shamba is just like it. It is a square red brick building with a wide verandah all around
      and, rather astonishingly, a conical thatched roof. There is a beautiful view from the front
      of the house and a nice flower garden. The coffee shamba is lower down on the hill.
      Mrs Wood’s first husband, George’s friend Vi Lumb, is buried in the flower
      garden. He died of blackwater fever about five years ago. I’m told that before her
      second marriage Kath lived here alone with her little daughter, Maureen, and ran the farm
      entirely on her own. She must be quite a person. I bet she didn’t go and get malaria
      within a few weeks of her marriage.

      The native tribe around here are called Wasafwa. They are pretty primitive but
      seem amiable people. Most of the men, when they start work, wear nothing but some
      kind of sheet of unbleached calico wrapped round their waists and hanging to mid calf. As soon as they have drawn their wages they go off to a duka and buy a pair of khaki
      shorts for five or six shillings. Their women folk wear very short beaded skirts. I think the
      base is goat skin but have never got close enough for a good look. They are very shy.
      I hear from George that they have started on the roof of our house but I have not
      seen it myself since the day I was carried here by Machila. My letters by the way go to
      the Post Office by runner. George’s farm labourers take it in turn to act in this capacity.
      The mail bag is given to them on Friday afternoon and by Saturday evening they are
      back with our very welcome mail.

      Very much love,
      Eleanor.

      Mbeya 23rd December 1930

      Dearest Family,

      George drove to Mbeya for stores last week and met Col. Sherwood-Kelly VC.
      who has been sent by the Government to Mbeya as Game Ranger. His job will be to
      protect native crops from raiding elephants and hippo etc., and to protect game from
      poachers. He has had no training for this so he has asked George to go with him on his
      first elephant safari to show him the ropes.

      George likes Col. Kelly and was quite willing to go on safari but not willing to
      leave me alone on the farm as I am still rather shaky after malaria. So it was arranged that
      I should go to Mbeya and stay with Mrs Harmer, the wife of the newly appointed Lands
      and Mines Officer, whose husband was away on safari.

      So here I am in Mbeya staying in the Harmers temporary wattle and daub
      house. Unfortunately I had a relapse of the malaria and stayed in bed for three days with
      a temperature. Poor Mrs Harmer had her hands full because in the room next to mine
      she was nursing a digger with blackwater fever. I could hear his delirious babble through
      the thin wall – very distressing. He died poor fellow , and leaves a wife and seven
      children.

      I feel better than I have done for weeks and this afternoon I walked down to the
      store. There are great signs of activity and people say that Mbeya will grow rapidly now
      owing to the boom on the gold fields and also to the fact that a large aerodrome is to be
      built here. Mbeya is to be a night stop on the proposed air service between England
      and South Africa. I seem to be the last of the pioneers. If all these schemes come about
      Mbeya will become quite suburban.

      26th December 1930

      George, Col. Kelly and Mr Harmer all returned to Mbeya on Christmas Eve and
      it was decided that we should stay and have midday Christmas dinner with the
      Harmers. Col. Kelly and the Assistant District Commissioner came too and it was quite a
      festive occasion, We left Mbeya in the early afternoon and had our evening meal here at
      Hickson-Wood’s farm. I wore my wedding dress.

      I went across to our house in the car this morning. George usually walks across to
      save petrol which is very expensive here. He takes a short cut and wades through the
      river. The distance by road is very much longer than the short cut. The men are now
      thatching the roof of our cottage and it looks charming. It consists of a very large living
      room-dinning room with a large inglenook fireplace at one end. The bedroom is a large
      square room with a smaller verandah room adjoining it. There is a wide verandah in the
      front, from which one has a glorious view over a wide valley to the Livingstone
      Mountains on the horizon. Bathroom and storeroom are on the back verandah and the
      kitchen is some distance behind the house to minimise the risk of fire.

      You can imagine how much I am looking forward to moving in. We have some
      furniture which was made by an Indian carpenter at Iringa, refrectory dining table and
      chairs, some small tables and two armchairs and two cupboards and a meatsafe. Other
      things like bookshelves and extra cupboards we will have to make ourselves. George
      has also bought a portable gramophone and records which will be a boon.
      We also have an Irish wolfhound puppy, a skinny little chap with enormous feet
      who keeps me company all day whilst George is across at our farm working on the
      house.

      Lots and lots of love,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

      Dearest Family,

      Alas, I have lost my little companion. The Doctor called in here on Boxing night
      and ran over and killed Paddy, our pup. It was not his fault but I was very distressed
      about it and George has promised to try and get another pup from the same litter.
      The Hickson-Woods returned home on the 29th December so we decided to
      move across to our nearly finished house on the 1st January. Hicky Wood decided that
      we needed something special to mark the occasion so he went off and killed a sucking
      pig behind the kitchen. The piglet’s screams were terrible and I felt that I would not be
      able to touch any dinner. Lamek cooked and served sucking pig up in the traditional way
      but it was high and quite literally, it stank. Our first meal in our own home was not a
      success.

      However next day all was forgotten and I had something useful to do. George
      hung doors and I held the tools and I also planted rose cuttings I had brought from
      Mbeya and sowed several boxes with seeds.

      Dad asked me about the other farms in the area. I haven’t visited any but there
      are five besides ours. One belongs to the Lutheran Mission at Utengule, a few miles
      from here. The others all belong to British owners. Nearest to Mbeya, at the foot of a
      very high peak which gives Mbeya its name, are two farms, one belonging to a South
      African mining engineer named Griffiths, the other to I.G.Stewart who was an officer in the
      Kings African Rifles. Stewart has a young woman called Queenie living with him. We are
      some miles further along the range of hills and are some 23 miles from Mbeya by road.
      The Mchewe River divides our land from the Hickson-Woods and beyond their farm is
      Major Jones.

      All these people have been away from their farms for some time but have now
      returned so we will have some neighbours in future. However although the houses are
      not far apart as the crow flies, they are all built high in the foothills and it is impossible to
      connect the houses because of the rivers and gorges in between. One has to drive right
      down to the main road and then up again so I do not suppose we will go visiting very
      often as the roads are very bumpy and eroded and petrol is so expensive that we all
      save it for occasional trips to Mbeya.

      The rains are on and George has started to plant out some coffee seedlings. The
      rains here are strange. One can hear the rain coming as it moves like a curtain along the
      range of hills. It comes suddenly, pours for a little while and passes on and the sun
      shines again.

      I do like it here and I wish you could see or dear little home.

      Your loving,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

      Dearest Family,

      Everything is now running very smoothly in our home. Lamek continues to
      produce palatable meals and makes wonderful bread which he bakes in a four gallon
      petrol tin as we have no stove yet. He puts wood coals on the brick floor of the kitchen,
      lays the tin lengh-wise on the coals and heaps more on top. The bread tins are then put
      in the petrol tin, which has one end cut away, and the open end is covered by a flat
      piece of tin held in place by a brick. Cakes are also backed in this make-shift oven and I
      have never known Lamek to have a failure yet.

      Lamek has a helper, known as the ‘mpishi boy’ , who does most of the hard
      work, cleans pots and pans and chops the firewood etc. Another of the mpishi boy’s
      chores is to kill the two chickens we eat each day. The chickens run wild during the day
      but are herded into a small chicken house at night. One of the kitchen boy’s first duties is
      to let the chickens out first thing in the early morning. Some time after breakfast it dawns
      on Lamek that he will need a chicken for lunch. he informs the kitchen boy who selects a
      chicken and starts to chase it in which he is enthusiastically joined by our new Irish
      wolfhound pup, Kelly. Together they race after the frantic fowl, over the flower beds and
      around the house until finally the chicken collapses from sheer exhaustion. The kitchen
      boy then hands it over to Lamek who murders it with the kitchen knife and then pops the
      corpse into boiling water so the feathers can be stripped off with ease.

      I pointed out in vain, that it would be far simpler if the doomed chickens were kept
      in the chicken house in the mornings when the others were let out and also that the correct
      way to pluck chickens is when they are dry. Lamek just smiled kindly and said that that
      may be so in Europe but that his way is the African way and none of his previous
      Memsahibs has complained.

      My houseboy, named James, is clean and capable in the house and also a
      good ‘dhobi’ or washboy. He takes the washing down to the river and probably
      pounds it with stones, but I prefer not to look. The ironing is done with a charcoal iron
      only we have no charcoal and he uses bits of wood from the kitchen fire but so far there
      has not been a mishap.

      It gets dark here soon after sunset and then George lights the oil lamps and we
      have tea and toast in front of the log fire which burns brightly in our inglenook. This is my
      favourite hour of the day. Later George goes for his bath. I have mine in the mornings
      and we have dinner at half past eight. Then we talk a bit and read a bit and sometimes
      play the gramophone. I expect it all sounds pretty unexciting but it doesn’t seem so to
      me.

      Very much love,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

      Dearest Family,

      It is still raining here and the countryside looks very lush and green, very different
      from the Mbeya district I first knew, when plains and hills were covered in long brown
      grass – very course stuff that grows shoulder high.

      Most of the labourers are hill men and one can see little patches of cultivation in
      the hills. Others live in small villages near by, each consisting of a cluster of thatched huts
      and a few maize fields and perhaps a patch of bananas. We do not have labour lines on
      the farm because our men all live within easy walking distance. Each worker has a labour
      card with thirty little squares on it. One of these squares is crossed off for each days work
      and when all thirty are marked in this way the labourer draws his pay and hies himself off
      to the nearest small store and blows the lot. The card system is necessary because
      these Africans are by no means slaves to work. They work only when they feel like it or
      when someone in the family requires a new garment, or when they need a few shillings
      to pay their annual tax. Their fields, chickens and goats provide them with the food they
      need but they draw rations of maize meal beans and salt. Only our headman is on a
      salary. His name is Thomas and he looks exactly like the statues of Julius Caesar, the
      same bald head and muscular neck and sardonic expression. He comes from Northern
      Rhodesia and is more intelligent than the locals.

      We still live mainly on chickens. We have a boy whose job it is to scour the
      countryside for reasonable fat ones. His name is Lucas and he is quite a character. He
      has such long horse teeth that he does not seem able to close his mouth and wears a
      perpetual amiable smile. He brings his chickens in beehive shaped wicker baskets
      which are suspended on a pole which Lucas carries on his shoulder.

      We buy our groceries in bulk from Mbeya, our vegetables come from our
      garden by the river and our butter from Kath Wood. Our fresh milk we buy from the
      natives. It is brought each morning by three little totos each carrying one bottle on his
      shaven head. Did I tell you that the local Wasafwa file their teeth to points. These kids
      grin at one with their little sharks teeth – quite an “all-ready-to-eat-you-with-my-dear” look.
      A few nights ago a message arrived from Kath Wood to say that Queenie
      Stewart was very ill and would George drive her across to the Doctor at Tukuyu. I
      wanted George to wait until morning because it was pouring with rain, and the mountain
      road to Tukuyu is tricky even in dry weather, but he said it is dangerous to delay with any
      kind of fever in Africa and he would have to start at once. So off he drove in the rain and I
      did not see him again until the following night.

      George said that it had been a nightmare trip. Queenie had a high temperature
      and it was lucky that Kath was able to go to attend to her. George needed all his
      attention on the road which was officially closed to traffic, and very slippery, and in some
      places badly eroded. In some places the decking of bridges had been removed and
      George had to get out in the rain and replace it. As he had nothing with which to fasten
      the decking to the runners it was a dangerous undertaking to cross the bridges especially
      as the rivers are now in flood and flowing strongly. However they reached Tukuyu safely
      and it was just as well they went because the Doctor diagnosed Queenies illness as
      Spirillium Tick Fever which is a very nasty illness indeed.

      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

      Dear Family,

      I’m feeling fit and very happy though a bit lonely sometimes because George
      spends much of his time away in the hills cutting a furrow miles long to bring water to the
      house and to the upper part of the shamba so that he will be able to irrigate the coffee
      during the dry season.

      It will be quite an engineering feat when it is done as George only has makeshift
      surveying instruments. He has mounted an ordinary cheap spirit level on an old camera
      tripod and has tacked two gramophone needles into the spirit level to give him a line.
      The other day part of a bank gave way and practically buried two of George’s labourers
      but they were quickly rescued and no harm was done. However he will not let them
      work unless he is there to supervise.

      I keep busy so that the days pass quickly enough. I am delighted with the
      material you sent me for curtains and loose covers and have hired a hand sewing
      machine from Pedro-of-the-overcoat and am rattling away all day. The machine is an
      ancient German one and when I say rattle, I mean rattle. It is a most cumbersome, heavy
      affair of I should say, the same vintage as George Stevenson’s Rocket locomotive.
      Anyway it sews and I am pleased with my efforts. We made a couch ourselves out of a
      native bed, a mattress and some planks but all this is hidden under the chintz cover and
      it looks quite the genuine bought article. I have some diversions too. Small black faced
      monkeys sit in the trees outside our bedroom window and they are most entertaining to
      watch. They are very mischievous though. When I went out into the garden this morning
      before breakfast I found that the monkeys had pulled up all my carnations. There they
      lay, roots in the air and whether they will take again I don’t know.

      I like the monkeys but hate the big mountain baboons that come and hang
      around our chicken house. I am terrified that they will tear our pup into bits because he is
      a plucky young thing and will rush out to bark at the baboons.

      George usually returns for the weekends but last time he did not because he had
      a touch of malaria. He sent a boy down for the mail and some fresh bread. Old Lucas
      arrived with chickens just as the messenger was setting off with mail and bread in a
      haversack on his back. I thought it might be a good idea to send a chicken to George so
      I selected a spry young rooster which I handed to the messenger. He, however,
      complained that he needed both hands for climbing. I then had one of my bright ideas
      and, putting a layer of newspaper over the bread, I tucked the rooster into the haversack
      and buckled down the flap so only his head protruded.

      I thought no more about it until two days later when the messenger again
      appeared for fresh bread. He brought a rather terse note from George saying that the
      previous bread was uneatable as the rooster had eaten some of it and messed on the
      rest. Ah me!

      The previous weekend the Hickson-Woods, Stewarts and ourselves, went
      across to Tukuyu to attend a dance at the club there. the dance was very pleasant. All
      the men wore dinner jackets and the ladies wore long frocks. As there were about
      twenty men and only seven ladies we women danced every dance whilst the surplus
      men got into a huddle around the bar. George and I spent the night with the Agricultural
      Officer, Mr Eustace, and I met his fiancee, Lillian Austin from South Africa, to whom I took
      a great liking. She is Governess to the children of Major Masters who has a farm in the
      Tukuyu district.

      On the Sunday morning we had a look at the township. The Boma was an old German one and was once fortified as the Africans in this district are a very warlike tribe.
      They are fine looking people. The men wear sort of togas and bands of cloth around
      their heads and look like Roman Senators, but the women go naked except for a belt
      from which two broad straps hang down, one in front and another behind. Not a graceful
      garb I assure you.

      We also spent a pleasant hour in the Botanical Gardens, laid out during the last
      war by the District Commissioner, Major Wells, with German prisoner of war labour.
      There are beautiful lawns and beds of roses and other flowers and shady palm lined
      walks and banana groves. The gardens are terraced with flights of brick steps connecting
      the different levels and there is a large artificial pond with little islands in it. I believe Major
      Wells designed the lake to resemble in miniature, the Lakes of Killarney.
      I enjoyed the trip very much. We got home at 8 pm to find the front door locked
      and the kitchen boy fast asleep on my newly covered couch! I hastily retreated to the
      bedroom whilst George handled the situation.

      Eleanor.

      #6206

      “I’m not ‘aving this treatment, Mavis, I’ve booked meself in for the spirit chew all mender tations session instead. No need to loook at me like that, our Mavis, I aint going all new agey on yer, just thought I’d give it a try and see if it relaxes me a bit.”

      “Relaxes yer? Yer int done a stroke of work in years, whatcher on about?” Sha said, nudging Mavis in the ribs and cackling.

      “It’s not all about the body, y’ know!” Glor replied, feeling the futility of trying to make them understand the importance of it to her, or the significance in the wider picture.

      “I’m listening,” a melodious voice whispered behind her.  Andrew Anderson smiled and looked deep into her squinting eyes as she turned to face him (the sun was going down behind him and it was very hard to see, much to her chagrin).

      “Tell me more, Glor, what’s the score, Glor, I want to know more…”

      Gloria, who knees had momentarily turned to jelly, reeled backwards at this surprising change in the conversation, and lost her balance due to her temporarily affected knees.  Instinctively she reached out and grabbed Mr Anderson’s arm, and managed to avoid falling to the ground.

      She retracted her arm slowly as an increasingly baffled look spread across her face.

      Why did his arm feel so peculiar? It felt like a shop mannequin, unyielding, different somehow.  Creepy somehow. Glor mumbled, “Sure, later,” and quickly caught up with her friends.

      “Hey, You’ll never guess what, wait til I tell yer..” Glor started to tell them about Mr Anderson and then stopped. Would it be futile? Would they understand what she was trying to say?

      “I’m listening,” a melodious voice whispered in her ear.

      “Not bloody you again! You stalking me, or what?”  Visibly rattled, Gloria rushed over to her friends, wondering why every time that weirdo whispered in her ear, she had somehow fallen back and had to catch up again.

      She’d have to inform her friends of the danger, but would they listen? They were falling for him and wouldn’t be easily discouraged.  They’d be lured to the yacht and not want to escape. The fools! What could she do?

      “I’m listening,” the melodious voice whispered.

      #6137

      In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

      “Shut up, Tara!” hissed Star, “And keep him singing while I think. This is a monumental clue!”

      “But I can’t stand bloody opera singing,” Tara whispered back, “It’ll drive me mad.  When they said he had a melodious voice I was expecting something more modern than this ancient caterwauling.”

      “Do you want to solve this case or not?”

      “Oh alright then,” Tara said grudgingly. “But your thinking better be good!”  She clapped loudly and whistled. “More! More!” she shouted, stamping her feet. The assorted middle aged ladies joined in the applause.

      Star leaned over and whispered in Tara’s ear, “Do you remember that client I had at Madame Limonella’s, that nice old man with a penchant for seeing me dressed up as a 13th century Italian peasant?”

      “Yeah, you had to listen to opera with him, poor thing, but he did tip well.”

      “Well, he told me a lot about opera. I thought it was a waste of time knowing all that useless old stuff, but listen: this song what he’s singing now, he’s singing this on purpose. It’s a clue, you see, to Uncle Basil and why Vince wants to find him.”

      “Go on,” whispered Tara.

      “There’s a lot of money involved, and a will that needs to be changed. If Uncle Basil dies while he’s still in the clutches of that cult, then Vince will lose his chance of inheriting Basil’s money.”

      “Wasn’t that obvious from the start?”

      “Well yes, but we got very cleverly sidetracked with all these middle aged ladies and that wardrobe!  This is where the mule comes in.”

      “What mule?”

      “Shh! Keep your voice down! It’s not the same kind of mule as in the opera, these middle aged ladies are trafficking mules!”

      “Oh well that would make sense, they’d be perfect. Nobody suspects middle aged ladies.  But what are they trafficking, and why are they all here?”

      “They’re here to keep us from finding out the truth with all these silly sidetracks and distractions.  And we’ve stupidly let ourselves be led astray from the real case.”

      “What’s the real case, then?”

      “We need to find Uncle Basil so that Vince can change his will. It wasn’t Vince that was in a coma, as that hatchet faced old butler told us. It was Basil.”

      “How do you know that for sure?” asked Tara.

      “I don’t know for sure, but this is the theory. Once we have a theory, we can prove it.  Now, about that wardrobe. We mustn’t let them take it away. No matter what story they come up with, that wardrobe stays where it is, in our office.”

      “But why? It’s taking up space and it doesn’t go with the clean modern style.  And people keep getting locked inside it, it’s a death trap.”

      “That’s what they want you to think! That it’s just another ghastly old wardrobe!  But it’s how they smuggle the stuff!”

      “What stuff are they smuggling? Drugs?  That doesn’t explain what it’s doing in our office, though.”

      “Well, I had an interesting intuition about that. You know that modified carrot story they tried to palm us off with? Well I reckon it’s vaccines.  They had to come up with a way to vaccinate the anti vaxxers, so they made this batch of vaccines hidden in hallucinogenic carrots.  They’re touting the carrots as a new age spiritual vibration enhancing wake up drug, and the anti vaxxers will flock to it in droves.”

      “Surely if they’re so worried about the ingredients in vaccines, they won’t just take any old illegal drug off the street?”

      Star laughed loudly, quickly putting her hand over her mouth to silence the guffaw.  Thankfully Vince had reached a powerful crescendo and nobody heard her.

      Tara smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I guess that was a silly thing to say.  But now I’m confused.  Whose side are we on? Surely the carrot vaccine is a good idea?  Are we trying to stop them or what?  And what is Vince up to? Falsifying a will?” Tara frowned, puzzled. “Whose side are we on?” she repeated.

      “We’re on the side of the client who pays us, Tara,” Star reminded her.

      “But what if the client is morally bankrupt? What if it goes against our guidelines?”

      “Guidelines don’t come into it when you’re financially bankrupt!” Star snapped.  “Hey, where has everyone gone?”

      “They said they had to pick up a wardrobe,” said the waitress. “Shall I bring you the bill?  They all left without paying, they said you were treating them.”

      “Pay the bill, Tara!” screamed Star, knocking over her chair as she flew out of the door. “And then make haste to the office and help me stop them!”

      #6129

      In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

      “Clearly,what we do next, my friend, is free the middle-aged lady,” Tara smiled smugly.”First rule, notwithstanding that I hate rules, if you don’t know what to do, do what you do know what to do, even if you don’t want to do it because at least you’ve done something.”

      “Is that a Lemone quote?” asked Star. “Haven’t heard much of him lately.”

      “No, I made it up myself.”

      “Oh, well … I’m too tired to do anything.You do it, Tara.”

      “No, you do it! Lazy tart.”

      “I’ll do it!” says Rosamund, appearing from nowhere and bounding over to the wardrobe. “I want to borrow her lippy again.” She tugged at the door. “It seems to be stuck.”

      “Let Star try,” said Tara. “She goes to the gym.”

      “It does seem to be rather stuck,” said Star said after a few minutes of fruitless tugging. She knocked on the door of the wardrobe. “Excuse me, are you there? Excuse me … dreadfully sorry about all this.” There was no reply.

      “Dead,” said Tara. “Darn it.”

      Undaunted, Star tried again. After a particularly spirited tug, the door flew open and Star fell backwards. “She’s gone! But she left a note. Thank you, Ladies for your hospitality. This is a clue. At 4pm Thursday, go to the cafe on Main street. Vince French will be there..”

      Tara gasped. “Who was she? That seemingly innocuous middle-aged lady.”

      “Perhaps we will never know,” said Star.

      #6119

      In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

      “I think you’ve forgotten something, Star.”  Tara didn’t want to put a dampener on Star’s high spirits, but felt obliged to point out that New Zealand was still out of bounds with the quarantine restrictions.

      “Not only that,” Tara continued, “Where exactly in New Zealand?”

      This was unanswerable at this stage and was quickly forgotten.

      “We can send Rosamund on a recce to find out more.  That way if she gets arrested for breaking the lockdown rules it won’t matter much and we can carry on solving the case.”

      In response to Star’s look of outrage she added, “Well better than either of us getting locked up innit!”  Star had to agree.

      “It will take two of us to keep an eye on Aunty April, anyway. And it would behoove us to have a thorough look at that wardrobe, and decipher those notes.  And check the lining of the fur coats. I read a book once and spies used morse code in the hem stitches for sending messages.”

      “Do you know morse code?”

      “Of course not, why would I?”

      “Well then how will you know..?”

      The conversation went on in a similar vein for some time.

      #6102

      In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

      “That damn cult is going from strength to strength and not a damn thing we can do about it,” said Star.  “What bloody awful timing for a lockdown, just as we were getting started!”

      “I know,” replied Tara sadly.  “At this rate we’ll have to go back to work for Madame Limonella.”

      “Don’t be silly, she’ll have had to close down too!”

      “Don’t you believe it!” retorted Tara, “She’d find a way to keep her clients happy.”

      “But we’re not keeping our clients happy are we? We haven’t found a way. We’re pretty useless, aren’t we?”

      “Not just our clients. Well client, really, we only had one. We could have saved the world from the Zanone cult if it hadn’t been for this quarantine.  Hey, maybe that cult started all this, just so we couldn’t stop them.”

      Star barked out a bitter laugh. “Now you sound like one of them parroting out conspiracy theories.”

      “We could find a way to break the quarantine, sneak out at night dressed as urban kangaroos or something.”

      Star was shocked. “Tara, that’s morally reprehensible!  Where is your community spirit!”

      “I don’t think the kangaroos would mind all that much,” Tara replied huffily.

      “I didn’t mean the kangaroos, good lord!  But you know what, you might be on to something.  Remember that kangaroo dressed in a mans overcoat that tried to break someones car window the other day?”

      Tara had a feeling Star had got her wires crossed somehow, but didn’t question it. Star was getting excited and it was a welcome change from the weeks of despondent boredom.

      “Well never mind that,” Star continued, who had started to wonder herself, “The point is, we can use a disguise.  And it’s a matter of grave social responsibility to expose the cult. In the fullness of time, we will be exonerated, hailed as heroic, even.”

      The excitement was contagious and Tara found herself sitting upright instead of slumped in despair.  “Let’s do it!”

      #6086

      In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

      “A dil-do factory?” She was aghast. “A fucking carrot dildo factory?”

      “Admit it, we’re rubbish at this” Tara said. “Even Rosamund may be better at this than us.”

      “Oh don’t push it.” Star lit a large cigar, a nasty habit that cropped up when she was nervous. She blew a smoke ring and sighed. “At least the rogering was a nice change. Good clean sex, almost a spiritual experience.”

      “Oh come now, with all the don’t-need-to-know details…”

      “Well, don’t be such a prude, you were there after all. With all that luscious moaning. Haven’t seen you so flushed in ages…” Star tittered in that high-pitched laughter that could shatter crystal flutes.

      “Wait… a minute.” Tara was having a brainwave. “We may have overlooked something.”

      “What? In the sex department?”

      “Shush, you lascivious banshee… In the flushed department.”

      “What? Don’t speak riddles tart, I can’t handle riddles when my body’s aching from all that gymnastic.”

      “Can’t you see? They got to get rid of the dissident stuff unfit for cultish dildoing, if you catch my drift.”

      “Oh I catch it alright, but I’ve checked the loo… Oh, what? you mean the compost pile?”

      “I’ve seen trucks parked out the back, they where labelled… Organic Lou’s Disposal Services… OLDS… That’s probably how they remove their archives, if you see what I mean.”

      “Alright, alright, we’ll go investigate them tomorrow. Meanwhile, what about Mr French?” Star was puffing on her cigar making a good effort at trying to remember and link the details together.

      “I have a theory. Although it usually would be more in your area of theories.”

      “What? Alien abduction?”

      “No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m talking time travel… Haven’t you noticed the scent of celery when we were at the mansion and the appartment?”

      “A dead give-away for time-travelling shenanigans!”

      “Exactly. And if I’m correct, might well be that it’s Mr French from the future who phoned us, before he returned to his timeline. Probably because he already knows we’re going to crack the case. Before we know.”

      “Oh, that’s nice. Would have been nicer if he’d told us how to solve it instead, if he knew, from the future and all? Are you not sure he’s not from his past instead, like before he got in that dreadful car accident?”

      “Oh well, doesn’t matter does it? And probably won’t any longer once we locate the Uncle Basil in the Drooling Home of Retired Vegetables.”

      #5818

      Dear Diary

      Cousin Lisa came calling yesterday morning and she tells us there’s some in the Village have come down with sickness. Of course it would be Lisa being the bearer of such news, her face lit up when I tell her I have heard nothing. Cook, over hearing our conversation, which was private but Cook is always sticking her great nose in where it is not required, she’s hung braids of garlic at the front door. I caught her telling the children it was to keep away the evil spirits that brought death. Poor little Jimmy couldn’t sleep last night he was that afraid of the spirits bringing death in the night. He asked endless questions,  how will the garlic stop them? Can the spirits get in through a window instead? He got his sister afraid also and the pair of them wouldn’t sleep then for crying in fear. I told Cook off roundly this morning for speaking to them thus.

      The master came home filled with drink, crashing around like the damned drunken fool he is nowadays. He shouted at the children for their crying and shouted at me for not keeping them quiet. At least he did not raise his fists for he wanted to lie with me and I nearly retched with his stinking breath coming close and thank God for His mercies that the fool passed out before he could do the deed. I may have done harm if he’d tried for the brass bell was sitting there on the table (and it is a heavy thing) and I was seeing at it as he came close and there was a moment I could have picked it up and crashed it to his skull. May God forgive me. 

      He makes my skin crawl for I know what he has done that he thinks I don’t know. But all will come to light if not in this world then the next. I am more sure than ever I must get away and the children with me.

      #5615

      June looked at the “locate my e-zapper” app on her phone and had to do a double-take.

      “Look at that, April dear; I need a second pair of eyes, yeah you look a tad more sober than I am. I must say,… I may not be at my peak performance, brain-wise and all,…” she started, her tongue rolling in vapours of the strong Chinese spirits, “but, why does it say the baby is on the move on the Interstate 81, few miles north of Birmingham, Alabama??”

      April’s hand flew to her mouth. 🤭

      #4858
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        “Well, where were we?” Jerk took the articles where he left them when he got up to check the price on one lacking a barcode.
        The blip blip resumed, with the impatient twitching lady pouncing on the items as soon as they passed the scanning, to cram them into her compostable bag.

        Days were stretching in ennui, and he started to feel like an android. At least, the rhythmical blips and “Have a good day, thank you for your purchase” were now part of his muscle memory, and didn’t require much paying attention to.

        He’d renewed the yearly fee to maintain his group website yesterday, but he wasn’t sure why he did it. There were still the occasional posts on the groups he was managing, but the buzz had died already. People had moved to other things, autumn for one. Really, what was the point of maintaining it for 3 posts a week (and those were good weeks, of course not counting the spam).

        There was fun occasionally, but more often than not, there were harangues.
        He wondered what archetype he was in his life story; maybe he was just a background character, and that was fine, so long as he wasn’t just a supporting cast to another megalomaniac politician.

        The apartment blocks were he was living were awfully quiet. His neighbours were still in travel, he wondered how they could afford it. Lucinda was completely immersed in her writing courses, and Fabio was still around amazingly – Lucinda didn’t look like she could even care of herself, so a dog… Meanwhile, the town council was envisaging a “refresh” of their neighborhood, but he had strong suspicion it was another real-estate development scheme. Only time would tell. He wasn’t in a rush to jump to the conclusion of an expropriation drama —leave that to Luce.

        Friday would have been her 60th brithday (funny typo he thought). Their dead friend’s birthday would still crop up in his calendar, and he liked that they were still these connections at least. Did she move on, he wondered. Sometimes her energy felt present, and Lucinda would argue she was helping her in her writing endeavours. He himself wasn’t sure, those synchronicities were nice enough without the emphatic spiritualist extrapolations.

        “Happy birthday Granola.” he said.

        :fleuron2:

        Another crack appeared on the red crystal into which Granola was stuck for what felt like ages.

        “About time!” she said. “I wonder if they have all forgotten about me now.”

        She looked closely at the crack. There was an opening, invisible, the size of an atom. But maybe, just maybe, it was just enough for her to squeeze in. She leaned in and focused on the little dot to escape.

        #4758

        It took a while for Franola to get back to the sudden surge of activity. She had to use Finley as an anchor for awhile, since Tiku seemed to have moved out of the picture.
        Franola shook the typo mergence out of her dusty cloud, and resumed being Garnola — — well, Granola.

        She’d picked up interesting stuff on her way to the now overcrowded inn.
        Bits and pieces of a ragtag team of mag’spies on their way to fetch the engraved key, but they seemed to have been distracted by promises of gold on their way from their last known location. She hadn’t stayed too long to check on them, as she’d felt a sudden telepathic attack from the Doctor, and had simply popped out to avoid attracting him into her safe mental spaces.

        Well, without Tiku around the Inn to lend her body for spirit possession, it would be more difficult to verbally warn her friends Maeve and Shawn-Paul, especially caught up as they were in all that dramatic tension.
        She quite liked her new vantage point though. Fisheye view, literally. She could see the whole company, hidden in the eye of the strange fish hanged on the wall.

        A mean looking cat was starting to hiss and snarl at her though. Or maybe that was her mind playing tricks. After all that backstage exploration, she might have been confounded as to whom was doing the snarling.

        #4721
        F LoveF Love
        Participant

          “Only one left now,” said Finnley, popping 3 in her mouth. “I will save the last one for you.”

          “This is not in the spirit of things, Finnley,” said Godfrey, taking the last peanut.

          #4711
          Jib
          Participant

            The aircon was buzzing and Sophie walked in her pajamas through the open space to reach her dreaming base. That’s how she secretly called it. She could feel the eyes of her colleagues following her, and as usual she felt proud to be the center of attention. It didn’t matter that it was jealousy or anything else. People were looking at her and she was doing something different.

            Once in her base of operation, she settled on the couch and looked at the brew that had been brought for her. It was her second attempt at remote viewing the Doctor and this time she had requested a bucket and some padding around the sharp corners. She feared a little the unleashing of her wild nature, but in truth she had no idea what to expect. She had read on the Internet that there was nothing to fear and that there would be no side effects, and usually with her natural paranoia she would have double checked before using the drugs, but her obsession with the Doctors had rendered her a little bit… more reckless.

            She pinched her nose and swallowed the brew. One gulp. But some of it stayed in her mouth and nausea followed. She didn’t like the taste at all. Then she laid down the couch and waited. The effects weren’t long to come. Space lit up, soon followed by the usual geometrical dynamic animation and the strange floating spirits. One of them looked like her old nanny. She had a hair on her chin and Sophie couldn’t focus on anything else. The hair grew and multiplied on the face, it was soon a forest of wiggling glowing worms growing indefinitely.

            After what seemed an eternity to her, she saw the doors. A huge circle made of doors like a giant neckless. Sophie giggled at the typo especially that she could see the neckless giant now below the doors. It was definitely a male, with boobs covered by skulls.

            Find the door, she reminded herself. Her thought took the shape of a butterflowck —understand a flow of a flock of butterflies— that rippled in a pond of honey… suckles.

            It reached the door and she was sucked in.

            :fleuron:

            “Why are they doing this?” asked a male voice behind her. “They’re supposed to be magpies, not monkeys.”
            “I’m not sure,” said a bald woman with six fingers and an ethereal beehive hairdo. The strange thing was that she had a beard.
            “Do something quick. I need them operational soon” said the man, “You’re the one controlling them after all,” he added with poison in his voice.
            “Yes, Doctor.”

            Sophie startled at the name. She turned around and tried to look at the man, but he was headless, or rather pixelated. Shit! I watch too much science fiction, she thought.

            “Anyway,” he continued. What are the news on the dolls’ front?”
            “We are closing in on the next target, Doctor. It’s a small Inn in Australia where the vortex or probabilities converge. I took the liberty to send another sleeping agent there to steal the key and the list of other addresses from the dollmaker. He’s taking the same airplane as she is.”

            #4707

            An unexpected shaman tart witch was looking and had spotted them coming from afar.

            Head Shaman Tart Witch, if you please.” She muttered in her breath, happy to break the fourth wall and all.

            The sun was already high and the air was sizzling ready to burst out like buttered pop corn.

            “A rather lame metaphor. You’ve done better.”

            The Head Shtart Witch, as we will call her later for brevity’s sake, was as tart as a sour lemon dipped in vinegar, and prone to talking to spirits, when not cackling in tittering fits of laughter, as shamans are wont to do.
            She was surprisingly in tune with the narrator’s voice this late in the day, considering it wasn’t her first bottle of… medicine she ingested today.

            “Voices are rather quiet, yes. I was expecting a bit more… quantity if you know what I mean.”

            The narrator had absolutely no idea of what she meant, not discontent with the quantity per se.

            Three in quantity, they came, looking for her. A girl, visibly in charge, although a bit hard to tell either, buried into the baggy hood and all.

            “The star-studded stockings under the striped red and white trousers were a bit of a give-away though… she was a she, and a bossy pants to boot.” the Head Schwtich replied.

            “And don’t take advantage to maim my full name… Jeeze, they’re so lazy these days. Can’t even spell right.”

            Ignoring the rude comments, the narrator continued.
            Then, a man, a bit namby-pamby with the gait of a devil-may-care goat at that.
            And a boy, on the threshold of manhood, with lots of red hair and freckles he could have put the bush on fire.

            “You have forgotten the gecko… and the cat.”

            The cat wasn’t forgotten of course, but was it technically a cat, with the talking and all? Poor thing had ill-fitted boots (probably a clearance sale from the Jiborium’s), so that it wouldn’t burn its pads on the red hot trail. It seemed stubborn enough to refuse being carried, although not confident enough about the surrounding life in the bush to stop checking every minute for all that crawled and crept around.

            “That’s why they’re here. The protective charms. That, and the jeep of course.”

            The Twitch seemed to know everything so the narrator felt it would probably best to let her finish the comment.

            “Oh, don’t you start. That passive aggressive attitude isn’t going to get your story done, is it. And it’s not like I’m going to follow them in their dangerous and futile quest. It’s your job, better get to it.”

            Indeed, she was only just a sour, old, decrepit…
            “You stop that!”

            :fleuron:

            “Is that her hut?” Albie pointed at the horizon.
            “Yes, I think we’re there.” Arona looked at the compass she’d put around Albie’s neck. “Yes, that’s it.”

            Sanso yawned and stretched lazily “I hope they have a hot shower now, I feel so dirty.”

            Arona chose to ignore Sanso and let him gesticulate. They’d only walked for less than 15 minutes, and the perspective of few more hours of driving with him breathing down her neck started to give her murderous thoughts.

            She turned to the team. “Listen, whatever happens, don’t make rude remarks, even if she seems a bit… unhinged.”

            “Are you talking about the crazy lady with the chameleon on her head, who talks to herself and looks like she hadn’t got a bath in a century?”

            “That’s what I meant Sanso.” Arona rolled her eyes in a secret signature move she owned the secret of. “Listen, it would be better for everyone if you’d stay here and stop talking until we get the keys to the jeep, alright.”

            Luckily for all of them, a little sage smudging and a bakchich in kind sealed the deal with the HEAD Shaman Tart Witch, and less than an hour later, with the mountain at their back, they were all barreling at breakneck speed down the lone road towards the Old Mine Town.

            That’s where the Inn was, now starting to crawl with unexpected guests and long lost family members.

            #4695

            The note had troubled Maeve. It was different than the one Shawn Paul received, not only because it was handwritten and very long, but also because it implied someone, potentially even several groups, were after the dolls and the keys.
            “You have to retrieve them,” the note eventually said, “and use the clues they hide to find the important people they protect.”

            There was no signature, but it sounded so much like uncle Fergus, oddly wordy and mysterious. Was he still alive after all this time? Did he still ride his Harley?

            Maeve’s first thought after the surprise was that she needed someone to take care of Fabio. The next thought felt like a brilliant idea. Lucinda. Maeve would go ask her to take care of Fabio during her vacation to Australia and would use that opportunity to spirit away the doll. She had the intuition she might need it afterwards.

            So she prepared her luggage and cuddled Fabio who knew he wouldn’t be part of the trip.
            “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I need you to keep that sad face of yours when we go see Lucinda.” In response, Fabio wiggled his tail happily and tried to lick Maeve’s face. “No! Keep the face,” she mimicked what she thought was a sad face.

            After all was packed she went to Lucinda’s with Fabio and her luggage.
            “I’m sorry, I’m going on a trip and I need someone to take care of Fabio,” Maeve said. As she had imagined Lucinda was moved by Fabio’s look and couldn’t refuse to take car of him.
            “Of course! He’ll be well treated here with my new parrot.”
            “Huhu,” said the colourful bird.
            “I think it comes from New Zealand,” said Lucinda. “It flew in yesterday and had not left ever since despite me not putting it into a cage, so I’m buying it food. It seems particularly fond of that doll I told you about the other day.”
            Indeed, the parrot was on the sofa, trying to open the doll’s head. That’s when Fabio jumped and tried to catch the bird. He clearly didn’t like it and the parrot flew away to a higher ground on an old grannies’ Welsh dresser, making a few glasses and china fall down in an awful breaking noise. Lucinda tried to catch the bird or the china or Fabio, but could do neither of the three.

            Seizing that as an opportunity, Maeve put the doll in her messenger bag.
            “I don’t want to bother you longer, I have a plane to catch. Bye,” she said, and she left with bags and luggage without checking if Lucinda had heard.

            At the elevator, she met with Shawn Paul.
            “Hi.”
            “Hi. I’m going to the airport,” the young man said. “Australia. Like you?”
            She felt uncomfortable. The note hadn’t mention anything about him. Unless he was part of one of those groups who were after the dolls. Maeve grumbled something while holding her bag closer. She didn’t know if she could trust him.

            #4693

            In reply to: The Stories So Near

            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Some updates on the Heartwoods Weave

              So far, there were loosely 2 chapters in this story, and we’re entering the 3rd.
              Let’s call them:

              • Ch. 1 – The Curses of the Stolen Shards
              • Ch. 2 – The Flight to the Desert Mountains
              • Ch. 3 – Down the Lands of Giants

              Ch. 1 – The Curses of the Stolen Shards

              In Chapter One, we get acquainted with the main characters as their destinies intertwine (Rukshan, Glynis, Eleri, Gorrash, Fox, Olliver and Tak).
              In a long past, the Forest held a powerful artifact created and left behind as a seal by the Gods now departed in their World: a Gem of Creation. It was defiled by thieves (the 7 characters in their previous incarnations of Dark Fae (Ru), Toothless Dragon (Gl), Laughing Crone (El), Mapster Dwarf (Go), Glade Troll (Fo), Trickster Dryad (Ol), Tricked Girl (Ta)), and they all took a shard of the Gem, although the innocent girl was tricked to open the woods by a promise of resurrecting a loved one, and resented all the others for it. She unwittingly created the curse all characters were suffering from, as an eternal punishment. Removing the Gem from the center of the Forest and breaking it started a chain of events, leading to many changes in the World. The Forest continued to grow and claim land, and around the (Dragon) Heartwoods at the center, grew many other woods – the Haunted Bamboo Forest, the Enchanted Forest, the Hermit’s Forest, the Fae’s Forest etc. At the other side, Cities had developed, and at the moment of the story, started to gain control over the magical world of Old.
              From the special abilities the Seven gained, some changes were triggered too. One God left behind was turned into stone by the now young Crone (E).
              Due to the curse, their memories were lost, and they were born again in many places and other forms.
              During the course of Ch.1, they got healed with the help of Master Gibbon, and the Braider Shaman Kumihimo, who directed Rukshan how to use the Vanishing Book, which once completed by all, and burnt as an offering, lifted the curse. Tak (the Girl of the origin story), now a shapeshifting Gibbon boy, learned to let go of the pain, and to start to live as a young orphan under the gentle care of the writer Margoritt Loursenoir and her goat Emma, in a cottage in the woods.
              Glynis, a powerful healer with a knack for potions, still haven’t found a way to undo the curse of her scales, which she accepts, has found residency and new friends and a funny parrot named Sunshine. Eleri besides her exploration of anti-gravity, learnt to make peace with the reawakened God Hasamelis no longer vengeful but annoyed at being ignored for a mortal Yorath. Eleri continues to love to butt heads with the iniquities of the world, which are never in lack, often embodied by Leroway and his thugs. Gorrash, who adopted the little baby Snoots activated by Glynis’ potions seemed simply happy to have found a community. Fox, a fox which under the tutelage of Master Gibbon, learnt to shapeshift as a human for all his work and accumulation of good karma. Olliver, a young man with potential, found his power by activating the teleporting egg Rukshan gave him. As for Rukshan, who was plagued by ghosts and dark forces, he found a way to relieve the Forest and the world of their curse, but his world is torn between his duties towards his Fae family in the woods, his impossible love for his Queen, and his wants for a different life of exploration, especially now knowing his past is more than what he thought he knew.
              At the end of the chapter, the Door to the God’s realm, at the center of the Forest seems to have reopened.

              Ch. 2 – The Flight to the Desert Mountains

              In the second Chapter, strange sightings of light beams in the mountains prompt some of our friends to go investigate, while in the cottage, the others stay to repel encroachments by brutal modernity embodied by Leroway and his minions. Glynis has found a way to be rid of her scales, but almost failed due to Tak’s appetite for untested potions. Remaking the potion, and succeeding at last, she often still keeps her burka as fond token of her trials. Eleri is spreading glamour bomb concrete statues in the woods, and trying her hand with Glynis supervision at potions to camouflage the cottage through an invisibility spell. Muriel, Margoritt’s sister, comes for a visit.
              In the mountains, the venturing heroes are caught in a sand storm and discover spirits trapped in mystical objects. Pushing forward through the mountain, they are tracked and hunted by packs of hellhounds, and dark energy released from an earthquake. Rukshan works on a magical mandala with the help and protection of his friends. Olliver discovers a new teleportation trick making him appear two places at once. Kumihimo rejoins the friends in trouble, and they all try to leave through the magical portal, while Fox baits the dogs and the Shadow. Eerily, only Fox emerges from the portal, to find a desolated, burnt Forest and his friends all gone. They had been too late, and the Shadow went with them through the portal instead of being destroyed. Luckily, a last potion left by Glynis is able to rewind Fox in time, and succeed in undoing the disaster. The beaming lights were only honeypots for wandering travellers, it turned out.
              Shaken by the ordeal, Rukshan leaves the party for some R&R time in the parallel world of the Faes, which is now mostly abandoned.

              Ch. 3 – Down the Lands of Giants

              In Chapter 3, which has only just begun, some time has passed, and Margoritt has come back to the City, at the beginning of winter for some special kneedle treatments. Glynis and Margoritt are in turn taking care of Tak, who has joined a local school, where he seems to have befriended a mysterious girl Nesingwarys (Nesy). Gorrash seems to have been hurt, broken whilst in his statue form by Leroway’s thugs, but the Snoot babies are still staying with him, so there is hope. Fox is always hungry, and helps with the reconstruction work for the cottage, which was damaged in a fire (we suppose during Leroway’s men foray in the woods).
              Rukshan emerges from his retreat after an encounter with a mad Fae, babbling about a Dark Lord’s return. Piecing clues together, he finds a long lost World Map and connection with a renegade magician who may have been the Maker of Gorrash (and maybe linked to the trapped spirits in the mountain after all). He sends a pigeon to his friends before he returns to the thick of the Heartwoods.
              Now, it seems the Door to the God’s realm has reopened the ancient Realms of the Underworld too, all accessible through the central pillar of the World, intersecting their World precisely at the Heartwoods, were the Gem of Creation originally was. He’s planning to go to the long lost Underworld of the Giants, were he suspects the so-called Dark Lord is hiding.

              #4692

              BERT:

              The old secrets are going to get me in the end. But you know what, it’s still better than choking on the goddamn lizard’s stew.

              I tried to protect the family from all the bloody secrets, but they’re working against me, Dodo for one, who doesn’t like secrets, the sweet twat. Time is against me too.

              Of course I didn’t want to sell the Inn, even if it wasn’t for what’s hidden there, and all the secret entrances to the old mines, it was still Abby’s legacy. Her mother had to endure that sorry abusive husband of hers for years, it’s only fair she got something in return. The bastard didn’t know it, but the best thing in his life, his daughter Abscynthia wasn’t even his, she was mine. In the end, I’m glad she buggered off this town, her so-called “disparition” that made everyone run in circles for months. For her own sake, wherever she is now, she was better off.
              Only probably Mater knows now about our crazy ties, and she’ll take this secret to her grave I’m sure. But I still want to take care of my grand children, the little buggers. Even had founded that smartass Prune for her dreams of university. Good for her.

              All those sudden booking at the Inn? Don’t trust ‘em. Be here for the spiritual voodoo is one thing, but me, can’t fool me with that. The package, it never arrived. I’m sure it’s no coincidence, they’re onto us.

              And they’re here for one thing.

              The chests of gold.

              #4683

              It took him three days in total. The wall was slippery in places, and distraction was always there.
              But he was done with the second wall.

              There was a last one, the largest, encircling all, but it seemed here to confuse.
              Spores were sending whiffs of hallucinogenic compounds in the misty air.
              After a whole day, he felt like he’d gone through the same places over and over.

              Labyrinth, but in his own mind.

              He would have to think fast or risk being trapped and finish as meat for carrion crows.

              The crows
              They know the way…

              It was a leap of faith to trust the sound of the birds, but nature had no evil intent, only men had developed the skill. They only followed their nature.

              He drew a sigil on the ground, to tune in with the birds spirits.

              Moments after, he could see through their eyes. He only needed to follow their senses, and ignore his own.

              He could see there was some walk ahead of him.

              #4545

              “That is unfortunate,” said Rukshan when Fox told him about the dogs’ answer. They were all gathered around the fire on rough rugs for a last meal before activating the portal. For a moment shadow and light struggled on Rukshan’s face as the flames of the fire licked the woods, making it crack and break. A few sparkles flew upward into the dark starry night.

              Lhamom used the magic metal spoon to serve steaming soup in carved wooden bowls, and Olliver was doing the service.
              When he took his, Fox felt a chilly breeze find its way past his blanket. He shivered, put the bowl on the carpet in front of him and attempted to readjust the yakult wool blanket in a vain attempt to make it windproof. He took back the bowl and took a sip. The dogs barked in the distance. They were impatient to start the hunt. Fox shivered again.

              “I could still serve as bait,” Fox said because he felt it was his fault if the plan failed. “You know, surprise the dogs while they are focused on the Shadow and make it follow me to trap it into the portal after we crossed it.”

              “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Rukshan. “It’s too dangerous. If you try to do that, we could have not one but two problems to solve. And you might get stuck too.”

              Fox tried not to think about the implications of being stuck here, or in between the portals. He looked at Olliver who was looking at his soup as if it was the most important thing in the world.

              Rukshan shook his head. “No. It was a foolish of me to hope those dogs would help us.”

              “What can we do then?” asked Lhamom. They all drank their soup, the silence only broken by the fire cracking and the dogs barking.

              “I can be in several places at once,” said Olliver quickly. Fox held his breath.
              Lhamom and Rukshan looked at the boy.

              “I know,” said Lhamom. “You were so helpful today with the cooking and all.”
              “What do you mean?” asked Rukshan. “Olliver was with me helping me with the sand all day.” He stopped. His face showed sudden understanding. “Oh! Of course,” he said. “The book we burnt. The shard’s power was not only teleportation, but also ubiquity.” Rukshan turned to look at Fox. “You don’t seem surprised.”

              Fox shrugged, making his blanket slip off of his shoulders slightly. Before he answered he adjusted it back quickly before the warmth he had accumulated could vanish into the night. “Well I saw him… I mean them. How do you think I came out of the negotiation alive? I can not teleport! I don’t even know what my powers are, or if I have any now that the shards have gone.”

              “Grace and miracles,” said Rukshan with a grin.
              A strange cristalline noise rang to Fox’s hears.
              “What? Oh! Yes. Well, that explains it then,” he said, feeling a mix of grumpiness and contentment. He finished his soup and was about to leave the comfort of his blanket to take some stew when Lhamom took the bowl from his hands. She gave him a good serving and gave him back his bowl.

              “What is it about shards and powers?” she asked.
              Fox, Rukshan and Olliver looked at each other.
              “It’s…” started Fox.
              “It’s a long story,” cut Rukshan.

              “Don’t make as if I said nothing important,” said Olliver.
              The red of the flames enhances his angry look, thought Fox.
              “I can be at two places, even more, at once. I can still be the bait and go back home with you at the same time.”

              A dog barked impatiently.

              “Yes,” said Fox.
              “I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” said Rukshan, concern on his face.
              “Why? I’m not a boy anymore, if that’s what it’s all about. I can do it. I already did it this afternoon.”
              “Well this afternoon was nice and cosy, wasn’t it? You had plenty of light, and yes you helped Fox escape from the dogs, so you can certainly do it. But what about the Shadow spirit. We have no idea what it is, or what it can do to you. And what will happen if one of you get killed?”

              Once again, they fell silent. There was a dog bark and that strange cristalline noise again. It sounded closer.
              “What’s that noise?” asked Olliver. Fox suddenly realised the strange noise had nothing to do with the sound of miracles, but it was a real noise in the real world.
              “What noise?” asked Lhamom. “And what are you all talking about, shards and powers and ubiquity?”
              “I can hear it too,” said Fox. “I’ve heard it before, but thought it was just me.”

              The noise happened again, this time sounding a lot like metallic ropes snapping on ice.
              Fox wriggled his nose. There was the smell of an animal and of a human.
              “I think someone is coming,” he said, sniffing the cold air. “A donkey and a human.”

              It was not too long before they saw an odd woman riding a donkey. She was playing a lyre made of ice, the strings of which had a faint glow. The woman was smiling like she was having the best adventure of her life.
              “Hi guys. I came to help you. You didn’t think I would remain forgotten in my cave, did you?”

              “Kumihimo! Ronaldo!” said Lhamom, standing up.

              #4539

              Fox, layered in warm clothes, looked dubiously at the hellishcopter. He had assumed it was fantastic and awe inspiring creature from the underworld. But it wasn’t.

              “It’s a carpet with a circular wooden platform,” he said, feeling a bit disappointed. He noticed the steam that formed out of his mouth with every word and it made him feel cold despite the numerous layers around him.
              The carpet was floating limply above its shadow on the snow. It looked old and worn out by years of use. The reds blues and greens were dull and washed-out, and it was hard to tell apart the original motives from stains. Oddly enough it was clear of dust.

              “Not just a carpet, said Lhamom with her usual enthusiasm illuminating her face. It’s a magic carpet.” She wore that local coat of them which looked so thin compared to his multiple layers, but she had assured him it was warm enough for far worse temperatures. Steam was also coming out of her mouth when she talked.

              Fox was still not convinced. “And how fast does it go?”

              “Fast enough,” said Lhamom. “You’ll all be back in no time to the forest.”
              “Isn’t there a risk for the luggage to fall off? I don’t see any practical way to attach them.”
              “Oh! Sure,” retorted Lhamom with an amused look. “You won’t fall from the platform unless someone pushes you out.”
              Fox winced and gulped. His mind had showed him someone shaken by an uncontrollable movement and pushing him off the platform above the sharp mountain tops, and even if it his fantasy had no sound, it was not very reassuring.

              Lhamom looked at him sharply. “Are you afraid of heights?” she asked.
              Fox shrugged and looked away at Rukshan who was busy packing the camp with Olliver and their guide.
              “What if I am?” Fox said.
              “I have some pills,” she said, foraging in her numerous pockets. She brandished victoriously an old little wooden box that she opened and showed him brown pills that looked and smelled like they had been made by dung beetles.

              Rukshan had finished his packing and was approaching them with a messenger bag.
              “Don’t play with him too much, he said, in his current state Fox’s will swallow everything, except food.” Rukshan and Olliver laughed. Fox didn’t know what to make of it, feeling too exhausted to find clever retorts. Lhamom winked at him and put the pills back in her pocket.

              Rukshan put his hand on Fox’s shoulder. “We’re going home through a sand portal, he said giving putting a hand on his bag. I’ve gathered coloured sand from the different places we visited and Lhamom had brought some holy dripping water collected from the running nose of the lama headmaster of Pulmol Mountain when he last had a cold.”
              That sounded a little complicated to Fox and he didn’t try to make sense of it.
              “We’ll only go on the hellishcopter to fly throught the portal with all the stuff we collected. But I need time to make the sand portal, and from what you reported the dogs have said, we may only have little time available before that thing you have felt come to us.”

              Fox started. With his bowel adventures and Rukshan’s previous dismissal of the matter, Fox had forgotten about the odd presence he had smelled and that had seemed to preoccupy the hunting dogs at night.
              “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to not let worry crept back in his mind.
              “I first thought it was fantasies coming out of your imagination because of your poor health condition, but when I told Lhamom this morning she told me what it was.” Rukshan hesitated.
              “What? asked Fox, his heartbeat going faster.
              “Some kind of ancient spirit roaming through the mountain. It feeds of human flesh and is attracted by magic. It was liberated by an earthquake recently and it that Olliver and Tak felt. Up until now the dogs, who are the gardians of the mountains, were enough to ward it off for us despite the presence of the baby snoot. But now that Lhamom has brought the spoon and that I’m going to use magic for the portal, it may get bolder and the dogs will not be enough to stop it. Fortunately it only gets out at night, so we have ample enough time, Rukshan said cheerfully. Olliver also is exhausted and he can’t use his teleporting abilities for all of us. By using a sand portal I may even be able to lay a trap for the spirit when we leave, but I need to begin now and let’s pray the weather remains clear and windless.”

              It took some time for the meaning and the implications of flesh eating to sink into Fox’s mind. He looked nervously at the sky where it seemed a painter had splashed a few white strokes of clouds with his giant brush. Were they still or moving? Fox couldn’t tell. He looked back at Rukshan and Lhamom.
              “What can I do to help?”
              “I need you to explain the plan to the dogs so that they release the spirit when I give the signal.”

            Viewing 20 results - 61 through 80 (of 168 total)