Vengeance, page 11
‘Next, your lordship, the prosecution calls Frank Waite.’
Again, it took Ralph a moment to recognise the false name. He stood, aware that every eye in the room was on him, and laid his hand on the Bible the clerk presented. A tremor went through his hand as he touched the gold cross embossed in the leather and repeated the oath. He hoped the jurors had not noticed.
‘Mr Waite, where is your rightful abode?’ the prosecutor asked. He addressed the jury rather than turning to Ralph.
Where indeed? Every home Ralph had ever known had been taken from him. ‘My home is in Devon,’ he lied. At least the court could not check the truth of it.
‘Devon is a long way away,’ the prosecutor said, once again addressing the jury. The wrinkle of his nose, the way he squinted through his pince-nez, even the set of his shoulders, all communicated profound scepticism. ‘I meant, where in Africa is your home?’
‘I have no home in Africa.’
It was clearly the answer the prosecutor had hoped for, and the jurors’ faces said plainly what they thought of it. They were all farmers: to them, a man without land was no man at all.
‘Would it surprise you, Mr Waite, that in all the records we have searched, the only man of your name we have discovered died six years ago?’
Ralph shrugged. ‘I cannot answer for the British government’s failure to keep true records.’
Some of the crowd gathered in the courtroom – and a few of the jurors – laughed. They were Dutchmen, Boers, and they had no love for the British colonial authorities. Ralph might have revealed himself as a landless vagabond, but they still liked to see the government get its nose tweaked.
The prosecutor acted as if he had not spoken. ‘What is your occupation, Mr Waite?’
Again, Ralph hesitated. Where do you live? What do you do? The most basic questions, the answers to which defined a man, and he had no response.
‘I am a trader.’
‘You cannot be a very good one,’ the prosecutor said, to laughter from the crowd. ‘When you were arrested, you had nothing but the clothes on your back, six ancient muskets and a black girl.’
‘I was shipwrecked—’ Ralph began.
‘You were a long way from the coast.’
Ralph understood what the prosecutor was doing, needling him so that he would lose his temper. He knew that he should give the plain, factual answers that he had rehearsed with William. The lawyer sitting next to him was shaking his head, urging him under his breath to be calm. But Ralph could not help himself.
‘I was shipwrecked with my wife and son. Hundreds of miles from any settlement. We—’
‘What was the name of your ship?’
‘The Tiger.’
‘I’ll warrant there is no record of any such vessel.’
‘That is because she sank.’
‘And your wife and child?’ The prosecutor had a way of enunciating certain words, able to convey his utter incredulity to the jury in a single syllable. ‘What became of them?’
‘We crossed the Drakensberg mountains, out of Zululand, and came to the mission station at Mahikeng. My son broke his leg. I came south to find a wagon.’
‘Did you have a pass for entering the Cape Colony?’
‘The missionary at Philippolis was due to give me one, but the mission had been abandoned.’
‘So, you confess you entered the colony unlawfully.’
‘There was no other way.’
‘Because you had walked across the Drakensberg mountains.’ The prosecutor took the gold watch from his pocket and dangled it on its chain, watching it spin. ‘You crossed an impassable range of mountains, from one unmapped country to another.’ He looked up again the jury. ‘You may judge the likelihood of that claim for yourselves.’
‘If it is an unmapped country, how do you know it is impassable?’ Ralph asked as the prosecutor flipped the watch back up into his hand. But he could see on the jurors’ faces what they thought. Only one – a thin man, with a bushy black beard and a pair of round spectacles – seemed more sympathetic. He stared at Ralph with a curious expression, as if he alone believed the story.
‘What trade were you engaged in?’
‘Ivory.’
The prosecutor gave a condescending laugh. ‘Very droll. But the colour, sir, the colour. Black ivory, was it not?’
‘I have never been a slaver,’ Ralph said hotly.
‘Yet you say you are a trader, and all you had with you when you were taken was a Kaffir girl and a few guns. What other conclusion should we draw?’
‘I found her on the road.’
‘Hah! I submit that either you stole her from the man she belonged to, or else that you had captured her from one of the tribes beyond the frontier and brought her here to sell.’
‘That is not true! I . . .’ I rescued her from Cobus, Ralph was about to say. But that would have placed him at the scene of the crime. He had to finish the sentence, but he could not think of anything else to say.
‘I . . . found her on the road,’ Ralph said again. ‘She is the same age as my son. I did not want any harm to come to her.’
The prosecutor took off his pince-nez and wiped them on a silk handkerchief. ‘I regret to say, I do not believe you, Mr Waite. Your tale is beyond fantastical. A ship that has never been registered was wrecked on a coast that has never been charted. You crossed an impenetrable mountain range, conjured a wagon and a slave girl from thin air, and then just happened to be found fleeing from a murder the like of which this colony has never seen.’
Ralph was shaking with rage. He wanted to shut the prosecutor’s mouth. He had done nothing wrong. He had saved the girl.
‘Tell me about the scars on your cheek, Mr Waite,’ the prosecutor demanded.
William bounced from the bench, clutching his sheaf of papers. ‘I cannot see the relevance, your honour.’
‘They have the appearance of burn marks. I should say that might be extremely relevant,’ the prosecutor countered.
‘I will allow it.’ The judge pointed his gavel at Ralph. ‘Answer the question.’
Ralph touched his cheek as William took his seat again. It was nine years since the fire on the Tiger. The livid skin had turned glossy pink, then dulled, but he still felt the heat of the conflagration each and every day. The brand of Cain that he could never lose.
‘There was a fire aboard my ship.’
The prosecutor snorted. William leaped back to his feet. ‘Is my esteemed colleague trying to suggest my client could have suffered these burns at the Meyers’ farmhouse? Any man can see that he has carried them for years.’
‘All I wish to establish, your honour, is that Mr Waite is no stranger to incendiary situations. It is literally written on his face.’ The prosecutor turned away from the magistrate and back to the jury as William retook his seat. ‘You do not need me to explicate any further. Mr Waite is a slave trader – which is illegal. He entered this colony without a pass – also illegal. Having established his criminal character, can we doubt what he is capable of?
‘He went to the Meyers’ homestead to try and sell them a slave and two barrels of gunpowder. When they, being good, God-fearing people, refused, he lost his temper. He killed them, and stole what he wanted, hoping the explosion would hide all evidence of his crime. And now he stands before you for your judgement.’
With a flourish like a dancer, the prosecutor flung out his arms. He held the pose a moment, commanding the jury’s attention while he made sure that his words had found their mark. Then he relaxed.
‘I rest my case. The facts speak for themselves. I trust you will, in due course, pronounce the defendant guilty.’
Ralph did not have to look at the jury to know what they were thinking. Nor did he receive any comfort from William. The lawyer was fidgeting with his papers like a child on his first day of school.
‘For the defence, Mr William Runciman.’
William rose. And as he did, a change came over him. His hands stilled, his back straightened; even his facial twitch subsided to an intermittent tautness. He ran his eyes over the jury with a smile, like a man sizing up the field in a horse race.
He is a gambler, Ralph thought. It is the excitement of the wager, the thrill of long odds that makes him come alive.
Except in this case, while he may lose his stake, I stand to lose considerably more.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ William began, stepping towards the jurors. ‘The prosecution has spun you a lurid little tale, but I fancy you were not deceived. You will have noticed that they could offer no motive, no reason for why my client should want to harm the Meyers. The prosecution say that he stole from these good people, but no witness has placed at him at the scene of the explosion, and nothing is missing from the farm – as far as the authorities are able to determine. The prosecution allege that it was Mr Waite who brought the gunpowder onto the Meyers’ property, the gunpowder which brought Jacobus and Marta to their tragic end, but they have no plausible explanation whatsoever for how he might have obtained this gunpowder. I believe powder and shot are scarce north of the Colony.’
The jurors nodded. They could see the sense of what he said.
‘The truth is, Mr Waite was captured more than forty miles from the Meyers’ farm. He had no connection with them whatsoever, as he will tell you himself.’
William turned to Ralph. ‘Is it true, Mr Waite, that you had no grudge against the Meyers?’
‘That is correct.’
‘In fact, you had never met them?’
‘Never.’
‘Nor set foot on their property?’
‘No.’
Every word Ralph spoke made his stomach coil tighter. To lie was one thing, but to tell lies that could easily be disproved felt like sticking your hand into a crocodile’s mouth. The prosecutor could demolish his story with a single witness. If they called any of Cobus’ slaves to testify, he would hang. Or Molly – if they could get a word out of her. Ralph had to believe that William was right: the twelve men that sat in judgment would rather lose their case and let a guilty man walk free, than dignify the word of a black person.
‘You were found driving a wagon.’ The prosecutor stirred from where he was slumped uncomfortably on his bench, but William waved a hand to still him. ‘I have no doubt my colleague will wish to suggest that you stole the wagon from the Meyers, so to save his breath, perhaps you could tell us how you came by it.’
‘I was walking along the road when I saw it coming towards me. The oxen were all inspanned, but there was no driver.’
Ralph knew it sounded incredible. The jurors’ gazes were disbelieving – but William had anticipated their scepticism. ‘You will understand that some men may find that difficult to believe. They will say you took it from the Meyers.’
Ralph shrugged. ‘I do not know if the Meyers even owned a wagon.’
‘They did.’ William flourished his sheaf of papers and made great play of shuffling through them. ‘The dragoon lieutenant noted it very precisely in his report. He says he found it at the Meyers’ farm, when he went to investigate the explosion. At the Meyers’ farm,’ he repeated. ‘Precisely where they had left it.’
Across the room, the prosecutor’s face had flushed an angry shade of red. He had never suggested that Ralph had taken the Meyers’ wagon, but William had made it seem as if it was part of the case, and then rebutted it. It was a neat sleight of hand.
William turned back to Ralph. ‘Did you attempt to find the owner of the wagon?’
‘Of course. But I was in a wilderness, with little food or water, and the only settlement I knew was Philippolis.’
Again, he had the feeling that he was a fraud who was about to be found out. The words sounded false in his mouth, as if they belonged to someone else.
‘Did you ever find the owner?’
Ralph gestured to the redcoats by the door. ‘These gentlemen interrupted me before I had the chance.’
That drew a few smiles from the jurors. You must make them warm to you, William had told him. Their first impression will be that you are most likely a murderer, so they will not be disposed to like you. You must win them over.
‘You know that the court holds that you are innocent until proven otherwise,’ William said. ‘You are not obliged to offer any explanation for what happened to the unfortunate couple. Nevertheless, I must ask if you have any notion what may have happened – and indeed where the wagon you found might have come from.’
Ralph drew breath. William stood perfectly still, his hands folded in front of him: the calm of a gambler when the cards have been dealt and there was nothing left but to turn them over.
‘The day before, I passed a man on the road,’ Ralph said. ‘He had a wagon.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘We exchanged a few words. His name was Arend.’
A murmur went through the crowd. Several of the jurors exchanged significant looks.
‘And were you aware that there is a villain named Arend, wanted on several charges of thieving, smuggling and breaching the King’s peace, at large near the Orange River frontier?’
‘I did not know that.’
‘Of course not. You are new in this country. Can you describe this man?’
‘He was a black man, travelling with half a dozen companions. He had two barrels loaded on his wagon – I noticed them because they carried the broad arrow mark of government property. It surprised me, because I did not think the government employed men like Arend as carters.’
The last sentence was almost lost as the room erupted in consternation. The prosecutor looked as if he would disappear into his wig, while the jurors whispered urgently together. The only one who did not join in was the young man Ralph had noticed earlier. He stared at Ralph through his round spectacles, smiling behind his beard.
It took some minutes for the judge to bring the court back to order. William, sensing that further words were unnecessary, concluded his cross-examination with alacrity. The jury were sent to deliberate. The soldiers took Ralph away to wait.
Back in his cell, staring at the bars of his little window, Ralph’s hopes began to ebb. William had given a deft performance, conjuring conclusions from the thinnest of air, but the more Ralph thought it over, the flimsier his defence seemed.
And it is the most far-fetched parts of my story that are true, he thought bitterly. Tales of shipwrecks and mountain crossings would convince the jurors he was a fantasist and a liar. That he was a slave trader who had intended to sell Molly to the Meyers, that they would not doubt.
Much sooner than he had expected, the bolt on the door shot open and soldiers stepped into the cell to fetch him. William was with them. He had sunk into silence; his hands fidgeted with his waistcoat buttons and his cheek twitched as if palsied.
Ralph did not want to ask the question, but he could not help himself. ‘What odds do you give me now?’
‘Evens. Maybe.’ The tone of William’s voice suggested that Ralph might struggle to find a bookmaker who would be so generous. ‘We sowed doubt in their minds. That is all we could do.’
The courtroom was a cauldron of noise and confusion, as those who had expected a long wait hurried to retake their seats. The magistrate had to be fetched from a nearby tavern, to which he had repaired, thinking the jurors would require time to deliberate. His robe hung crooked from being thrown on in haste. It took some time for him to bring the room to order.
Ralph sat through it all, eyes straight ahead, his manacled hands resting on his knees.
So many times I thought I would die, but at least I always had a weapon in my hand. Now, twelve farmers and a judge with a wooden hammer will do what pirates and opium traders and Zulu armies could not.
The jury filed in and seated themselves. None of them looked towards Ralph – except the young, bearded man who had been so interested in him earlier. The sun reflected off the lenses of his glasses, hiding the look in his eyes. Hatred? Pity?
‘Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?’ the clerk intoned.
The foreman stood. ‘We have.’
‘On the charge of feloniously murdering the farmer Jacobus Meyer and his wife Marta, how do you find the defendant?’
The foreman cleared his throat and wiped a bead of sweat from his moustache. ‘Not—’
Ralph never heard the second word. It was lost in the pandemonium that erupted in the courtroom. Everyone had an opinion. Some spluttered with outrage and shot looks of such hatred at Ralph that he half feared they might take justice into their own hands. Others were celebrating – perhaps, like William, they had money on the right side of the verdict.
As for Ralph, in his mind he had already plummeted from the scaffold with a noose around his neck. Now the rope had broken, and he had landed on his feet.
He turned to William. In the joy of the moment, he was ready to hug the young lawyer. But William looked to be the most unaffected man in the room – not at all like a gambler whose horse had just come in at a hundred to one. He shuffled his papers, his jaw clenching and unclenching.
‘How did you do it?’ Ralph asked.
‘Is it not obvious? It was easier for them to believe a black man did it than a white man.’
Another day, the injustice of it might have troubled Ralph. But in that moment, all he cared about was that he was free. The bailiff was coming to remove his manacles. Then he would take the wagon back north, collect Ann and Harry, and go home.
‘I hope you enjoy your freedom,’ said a voice in Dutch-accented English. Ralph looked around. It was the young juror with the bushy beard and glasses that Ralph had noticed earlier. He gave Ralph a skew look, as if the outcome of the trial was a sort of joke they shared. ‘I must ask, did you really cross the Drakensberg?’
Ralph nodded. ‘I did.’
‘In a wagon?’
‘On foot.’
The juror took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt front. ‘Could it be done – in a wagon, I mean?’
It was the same question Andrew Ryder had asked. ‘If a man was patient, and had a good ox-team.’ Ralph looked over the man’s shoulder, impatient for his manacles to be off. The bailiff was struggling to push his way through the crowd.
