Britannia's Mission: The Dawlish Chronicles August 1883 to February 1884 by Antoine Vanner

Author:Antoine Vanner [Vanner, Antoine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Old Salt Press
Published: 2018-11-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Dawlish and Lutz stood in the shade of the church’s ruin, out of earshot of others. Each cautious of what they said, each probing for information only reluctantly imparted, each uncertain of the other’s motives. Dawlish admitted that a larger force was following him upriver but said nothing about the encounter with Imker’s gunboat. In time Lutz would know about that, but better not now. Even less should he know that Mathews was due to arrive soon with some five hundred Zanzibari troops to occupy the area inland of Mtwara and to cut it off from the interior. Lutz acknowledged that his troops – his askaris, as he referred to them – had been trained by a retired German sergeant-major, dead now of fever. Dawlish envied them their Mauser rifles, superior to his own men’s ageing Sniders.

Lutz had come from the north west. Another nine communities had signed commercial treaties there, he told Dawlish, all based on the same terms as concluded at Nanguruwe. That brought the total to twenty-three, he said with pride, a firm foundation for German trade. He had arrived at Nanguruwe the previous evening. Chief Kikuwa and his people had told of the party of slavers and ivory traders setting out for the German mission, had heard their savage boasts when they returned, had feared that their rage might now be turned on their village.

“But they’d left before you arrived in Nanguruwe, had they not?” Dawlish asked.

“To the west,” Lutz said. “To meet the caravan expected soon with slaves and ivory.”

“Achmed Ibn Hamed?”

“Him. He’ll have a powerfully armed group with him.”

“Was there news about the British mission? Mr. Horne’s?”

Lutz shrugged. “I never asked. He’s not my concern. But you, Captain Dawlish, kicked over a hornet’s nest on Mr. Horne’s behalf in a village where you had no business. Achmed uses Nanguruwe as a staging post. That’s of no concern to me as long as he did not intrude on the trading rights that the treaty gives Germany. But you interfered, captain, and because of that fourteen German subjects died.”

“A treaty with Germany?” Dawlish knew that sarcasm would gain him nothing, but Lutz’s arrogant tone had provoked him. “I understood that you represented a private trading company, Dr. Lutz. That you’ve been negotiating with petty African chiefs, and turning a blind eye to the slave trade, so you could peddle tin trays and mirrors and scissors and cooking pots.”

Lutz ignored the accusation. “The question is what you are going to do now, captain. German blood has been spilled and I’ll avenge it. But English blood was spilled too. Will that remain unavenged?”

How much to share with this man?

Dawlish had intended that the force he had brought this far would bolster the defences of Horne’s mission. Only with that wholly secure could he risk using any of his force to strike at Achmed. And that too would be folly until the larger group that was still crawling upriver under O’Rourke’s command had arrived. That force would be unlikely to get this far for another two days…

“And what do you intend to do, Dr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.