The covenant - James A. Michener [387]
'Captain, Captain!' the three Desais cried, bleating like injured sheep. 'You are a very great captain. Surely you can arrange . . .'
'Well, maybe I can fit them in.' The Desais kissed his hands, came weeping to do the same with Saltwood. 'You will never regret this,' they assured him.
So two hundred and three Indian men were certified for passage to Natal on ten-year contracts, after which they were to return home, but when Saltwood reported to the Limerick to see her off, he found some five or six hundred Indians ready to sail, many of them women. The three Desai brothers, grinning happily, had five extremely attractive women in tow.
'Our wives,' they explained.
'You're not Muslim,' Saltwood growled. 'You don't have more than one wife.'
'These two,' the Desais said. 'Our wives' sisters.'
'They can't sail with you. Men only. You work ten years, then come back to your wives.'
There was no great wailing. Life in India, especially after the mutiny, was difficult, and if this was the way these men were to earn their living, so be it. But that night at Government House, Saltwood raised the question with an official, who coughed and said, 'Well, there is some rubbish in the law about taking wives to Natal. But you certainly don't want that, do you? Take wives along, every man will have ten children in ten years.'
'Do you want them to live without women for ten years?'
'Do some of them good.'
'We have found in South Africa that it's inhuman to keep men separated from their women, and I'll have none of it.' His arguments prevailed; the government conceded that in future, women should accompany their men and work with them in the sugar fields, and it was then that some wag posted a letter to Punch detailing the further adventures of Cupid Saltwood, and soon the caricaturist had a new series showing the diapered Saltwood hovering with his bow and arrow over Indian couples working the sugar in the fields of Natal.
His successful mission to India, and the subsequent landing of young, healthy coolies with their wives, added the final complexity to the South African racial crucible: Bushman, Hottentot, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaner, Englishman, Coloured, and now the Indian.
When the cane workers, arriving under contract, were in place, 'passenger Indians' who paid their own way to Natal set themselves up as shopkeepers, and together, these initial groups grew to three-quarters of a million within the century. And though all were repeatedly offered free passage and bonus money if they would return to India, few were foolish enough to accept. They had found life so sweet in the land of Shaka that they intended staying.
Richard had succeeded beyond expectations. The Indians were happy to be in Natal and the white farmers were glad to have them. For his enterprise in handling this migration, and especially his foresight in also bringing wives, he received from the queen herself a letter which formed the capstone to his life: 'Because of your generous services to the Royal Family and the Throne, and in so many capacities, we wish you to come to London to receive a knighthood from our hands.'
When the ceremonies at court ended, Sir Richard Saltwood of De Kraal boarded his first train and rode down to Salisbury, where in the ancient hang-tile house beneath the sentinel oaks and chestnuts he sat with his older brother, Sir Peter, looking across the river at the still-glorious cathedral. They spoke of many things; Sir Peter was no longer in Parliament, having surrendered that seat to his son, but like all the Saltwoods, he was interested in everything.
'Tell me, Richard, what's to be done with the Dutchmen out there?'
'The Boers, or Afrikaners as some call them. They're a special breed. A real Dutchman came out not long ago, a clergyman from Amsterdam, intending to make his life there. I knew him well, and after six months he sat in my house and said, "I'm going back to civilization. These people don't even speak proper Dutch. They worship in a fashion we discarded