The covenant - James A. Michener [246]
When Colonel Cuyler returned from the hangings at Slagter's Nek, he was so disgusted with Reverend Saltwood's pusillanimous behaviorfor so he considered itthat he submitted an angry report to Cape Town, confirming what many government officials had begun to suspect: that Hilary was an irresponsible character whose loyalties were questionable. From then on, the English segment of South Africa had little to do with the gawky missionary at the eastern edge of settlement.
During these years Captain Richard Saltwood was conducting himself rather well in India; at Hindu hangings, of which he saw not a few, he gave way to no hysterics: 'Blighter was caught, he gets hanged, that's that.'
In 1819, as a newly commissioned major with six campaigns to his credit, two with Ochterlony against the Gurkhas, losing 1814, winning 1816, he shipped home to England from his regiment, and when his transport lay to at Cape Town he fully expected to unite with his brother, who was serving somewhere as a missionary, but when he found that Hilary was four or five hundred miles distant, he was amazed: 'This place is as big as India.' And he surrendered any idea of trying to find him.
He was not pleased with what he heard in Cape Town regarding Hilary's curious behavior; one army wife said, 'It's the frontier, Richard. The Kaffirs, the Hottentots, the Boer farmers who can't read or write. Our army men are stationed there only seven months. That's about all they can take. How long's your brother been there? Nine long years? No wonder he's acting up.'
An army captain who had been stationed at Graaff-Reinet was more specific: 'It's the moral loneliness ... the intellectual loneliness. The church in London sends them books and all that, but there they are, stuck away and gone. I wouldn't dare leave one of my men out there for even two years. They'd go to rot.'
'In what way?'
'They begin to see everything from the point of view of the natives. They learn the language, you know. Eat Kaffir food. Some of them, God forbid, take Kaffir wives.'
'Not missionaries, certainly.'
'Yes, even marry them. And there have been cases . . .' He dropped his voice significantly to allow Major Saltwood to guess what those cases had consisted of.
'Is there anything I can do?' Richard asked.
'There certainly is. Find him a wife.'
'Can't he find'
The captain interrupted, wishing to elaborate on a point which he had often considered: 'Fact is, men everywhere are sounder stuff if they have wives. Keeps them responsible. Go to bed earlier. Eat better-prepared food. Missionaries are no different. Your brother needs a wife.'
'Why doesn't he take one?'
'None to be had.'
'I saw lots of women at the dance last night.'
'None single.' He ran off a list of the pretty women Richard had met, and every one was married.
'They didn't seem so last night,' Richard said.
'What you must do,' the captain said, 'is when you get home, find your brother a good wife. One who accepts missionaries.'
'And ship her out?'
'That's the way we all do. Every ship comes into Table Bay has its quota, but never enough.' He looked reflectively into his cup. 'When you're in England, and women are everywhere, they seem rather ordinary. But when you're overseas and there are noneno white ones, that isdamn, they seem important.' It was under this urging that Richard Saltwood drafted a letter to his brother:
I was most fearfully disappointed not to have met you during my visit. The regiment's home to Wiltshire with me a major, thanks to some lucky work against the Gurkhas. I find myself quite homesick for Sentinels, and wish to God you were going to be at home when I get there.
Several people in Cape Town, religious and military alike, urged me to find you a wife when I get back to Salisbury, a task I face for myself. Send Mother a letter, quickly, telling us whether we should proceed and how. Your woman could be aboard one of the next ships to Cape Town, and I could be, too, because I've taken a great liking to your land.