silverkitcat – In regard to both your questions, there are some issues and dangers to be worked through first, but like Tom, I am always hopeful of a positive outcome! All will be revealed by the end of the trilogy, I promise. Thanks for your comments.
EmmaSteed – Glad to hear you're doing more writing (especially on that subject). I'll keep an eye out. Good luck with the essays!
Ingra – Yes, our sweet Tom is having some self-esteem issues, and the League and upcoming events are going to be addressing that problem in full force. Thank you; I enjoy writing for Mina and Tom.
Sawyer Fan – Thank you for all your help and for your feedback! In the movie I loved Tom's parting word at Allan's grave. I just wish we'd gotten a good look at his face at that point!
"Rubicon 2 – Africa" Chapter 3
by Ten Mara
Rating: T
CATEGORY: Story, Drama/Angst, Supernatural aspects, hints of potential Tom/Mina
DISCLAIMER: The literary characters referred to are copyright their respective authors, and "LXG: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is copyright 20th Century Fox, based on the comic books by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. The characters and movie universe are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be gained. Characters not recognised are mine.
xXx
After Allan's funeral, people started assembling in the hotel to pay their respects to him and reminisce about the great white hunter. As the League headed into the building, Tom paused on the verandah and looked back, seeing that the witch doctor was still standing over his fire outside the cemetery. The witch doctor looked fixedly up at the sky for a long time, then shook his head and began extinguishing the fire.
The gathering at the hotel gave the League a chance to meet and mix with friends and colleagues of Quatermain. While there, Nemo made the suggestion that the League could go to the orphanage to see if they could do anything to help, like repairing buildings, and deliver any money or things of Allan's that Hanrahan could get ready. "While we are here, I think it would be a fitting thing, and allow us to see more of the land. Then we can go traveling elsewhere, as planned."
The other League members agreed. Jekyll suggested that it be 'sedately paced' traveling, like how they had gotten to Nairobi, with frequent stops. That not only allowed them to absorb the landscape, but most of them were not used to such a hot climate either. And with Skinner only so recently recovered from his injuries, it was a good idea to not rush around yet. He still had to get fully up to his old speed. Though of course his sense of humour was fine.
Hanrahan, who was with the group, said, "I think that Bennett, one of the hunters, is wanting to head that way on a trip soon. He was at the graveside; he should be around here somewhere. Ah – he's over by that bookcase. You can ask him and he would be a great guide and escort."
The doctor introduced the League to Hunter Bennett, a very gung-ho forty-year-old with an ego bigger than his moustache, who not only was willing to take them to the orphanage in question, but insisted that the group come stay as his guests at his own home. He lived half a day's journey from Nairobi, in the same direction as the orphanage.
"I have plenty of room, and you'll find it much better than this hotel. We've got a military man who has an idea to make a really first rate hotel here as soon as he can – I'm looking forward to seeing him achieve that aim! Anyway, come stay with me now and I can show you around the local area, then we can travel on to the orphanage and I could take you on some longer trips. There are a number of places of interest we could cover in even just two weeks, but it depends on things like the weather, movement of animals and so on as to the order in which we can do them. How about it?"
"Well, we did want to see the world. Why not start here? It is certainly a fascinating enough place," Henry commented.
Nemo saw that the others were not opposed to the idea either. "That sounds very agreeable, thank you."
Bennett said, "I'm heading back home tomorrow, first thing. Would you be ready to come with me then? I can get some supplies sorted during the next few days, ready for any further traveling."
"Doctor Hanrahan will probably not have everything ready for us to take to the orphanage by tomorrow, but we should be able to take something, and to give them some assistance," Nemo replied. Ben Hanrahan had excused himself after making the introductions, so at the moment he was not around to ask.
For a while they talked with Bennett, making plans. He was willing to take the traveling at a slow pace. "And we can spend as much time as you want at my place. I built there especially because of the location. There is plenty to see around there before we even go further afield or to the orphanage. The schedule can be very flexible." Then he went off to catch up with another hunter.
Tom mingled with some of the other mourners, finding out their connection to Allan and some recollections of him. Then he met up with Doctor Hanrahan again while getting a drink. "Sorted everything out with Bennett?" Hanrahan asked. When Sawyer explained their plans, the doctor said, "Good. I think you'll enjoy it. I'll try to get a few things ready for Captain Nemo to take. I've been wanting to go on an excursion of my own too, but between recuperating and waiting for the League to arrive, that's been on hold. However, if you lot are going away for a few weeks, then I'll take the opportunity. When I come back, I'll sort out more of Allan's estate. I can get some letters in the post before I go, to get some things underway."
"Where are you going?"
"Opposite direction to the orphanage. I do rounds of the outlying villages and settlements every so often to see how everyone is doing, give them med supplies and so on. Thanks to my illness I'm now overdue and impatient to get out there. In a way it is too bad you're heading off – you could have come with me if you'd liked. I usually have another person or two with me, but my regulars got killed when the Club went up. No one else has put their hand up, and I was going to hire someone." Seeing that Tom was looking distinctly curious, he added, "The help and the company are always handy, you'd get to see some great landscape, and I could tell you more about Quatermain."
"How long are you going for?" Tom asked. His interest was piqued, and a strange feeling stirred in him that he'd first had back on the Nautilus, when they were about to leave England for Africa to bury Quatermain.
"This circuit takes about a week, week and a half. I go in a wagon with my supplies."
Ten minutes later a thoughtful Sawyer rejoined the rest of the League, accompanied by Hanrahan. The others were sitting at a table, looking at maps of where they were going to go.
Mina discreetly studied the American to see how he was bearing up after burying his father figure.
"If I'm in Africa, I might as well try to see a lion," Skinner said. "It's not the same seeing them in zoos with their hearts broken."
"As long as that lion doesn't see you. Or rather, smell you," Mina remarked.
"You'd rescue me, wouldn't you, darling?"
"I'd think of it more in terms of rescuing the lion, actually."
"What are you most looking forward to seeing, Thomas?" Nemo asked, trying to hide his smile at Mina's comment in his beard, but the twinkle in his eyes gave it away. Then he saw the hesitancy on the young man's face and promptly lowered the map he was holding, looking concerned.
"Um, actually, I've decided not to come." That got the attention of all of his colleagues. "Hanrahan is going on some doctoring rounds of the villages and has invited me along. We'll be here again in a week or so, and I'll be waiting for you when you return. I can find plenty to keep me busy. The Doc says I can help sort out Allan's things when we get back." Then he would get to find out what Quatermain's home was like too – the League had not gone into that house yet.
Hanrahan chipped in, "Thomas can be my bodyguard as well as company, though I'm not expecting any trouble. The people all know me and that I'm here to help them. Though some wild animals of course won't know the difference, so it will be handy to have a good shot along if any get peckish or overly curious. And a good shoot is also useful when fresh meat is needed."
Just like at Allan's graveside, Tom felt eyes upon him, scrutinizing to try to judge his emotions, his reasonings.
Nemo finally nodded. "Very well, Thomas, if you are sure, then we will all meet up again here in two weeks."
Then Jekyll spoke up. "Well, perhaps I should come along with you too, Hanrahan, if you think my skills could be of some use?"
Hanrahan replied, "Actually, instead of coming with me, there are some places that I'd be very much obliged if you stopped in at on the way to the orphanage and beyond it, to see how they're going. We're heading in the opposite way, and I did want to see those people too at some point. But if you can do it, that will cover more ground and be better for them."
"I'd be happy to."
"Excellent. I'll give you the details and some medical supplies."
Nemo said, "And I will send word back to the Nautilus of our plans. I will go to the telegraph station soon." He would also enquire with the British Government about their current status.
xXx
The American was not surprised that Mina sought him out in private as soon as possible after his announcement. He found himself cynically thinking that she was either the elected League representative with the best chance of checking on his emotional state, then reporting it back, or over the next few hours one by one the others would come and do this too.
He could not help wishing that if Mina was going to visit him, it would not be to check up on him or to mother him, but for an entirely different purpose. . . . Then he made himself move well away from that line of thinking.
"Tom . . . ." Mina inwardly cursed her hesitancy. She had been trying to work out the best way to broach the subject, but was not getting off on the best foot. What is the most diplomatic way to ask if he's going off because he still doesn't feel he belongs with the rest of us, or to prove himself, either to himself or to the doctor?
He saved her further trouble and awkwardness. "I know what you're going to say and ask. I want to go for several reasons. Hanrahan knew Allan better and longer than Bennett did. I want to learn more about Allan and where he came from. Being with Hanrahan for that time will help me in that way and also I can help the people where I can. Then there will be the week or so here in Nairobi where I can do the same. It will be a good thing." Then he paused, before saying, "And also, I just have a very strong feeling that this trip is something I not only want to do, but have to do. That it's the right choice to make."
She saw the conviction in his eyes and nodded.
"Besides, it's not like I'm leaving the League for good. When we all regroup, we might have word about whether we're official or not." Then we're going to have to work out who leads it. Or be told.
Suddenly Allan's voice resounded in his head. And the boy becomes a man. Perhaps a leader of men.
Pride clashed with uncertainty in Tom at that assessment.
The others had seen him in a new, more mature light at that point when he had rallied them after Venice, and way before that, back home in St Petersburg, he was usually the ringleader. Indeed, when he was a teenager folk in his hometown were fond of commenting that he would make President one day, if he escaped hanging in the meantime. The Service had entrusted him with missions, including pursuing the Fantom to England.
But his natural self-assurance and confidence had taken quite a beating lately.
Besides, he doubted he would be chosen to lead the group. His age, lack of special abilities and lack of experience compared to the others would probably go against him with the British Government. Also the facts that he was an American and a Special Agent.
xXx
The League members were ready to split up for the next two weeks or so. The doctor was set with his lone wagon, and Bennett had prepared a group of wagons for his guests and supplies.
Tom and the others said their goodbyes with uncharacteristic awkwardness.
"Be careful," Mina told him, giving him a quick embrace.
"I've got Allan's gun and Nemo's training." Perhaps a vial of Jekyll's formula would be handy too.
Then he thought wryly, Anyone would think we're never going to see each other again!
Mina had a feeling that things were going to be very different the next time she saw Tom. For good or bad, she could not tell. Perhaps they all sensed it to some degree. She recalled her silent promise to Allan, made as she had walked away from the grave, that they would keep an eye on him. But Sawyer was an adult, a spy no less, clearly able to look after himself, and there had been no easy way to maneuver themselves into coming along with him, without the danger of raising his hackles about possible overprotection. Henry had almost managed an in with his suggestion about coming along to give medical help, but was thwarted.
As Sawyer and Hanrahan headed out of town, Tom noticed that the witch doctor was back, this time standing near Allan's grave instead of outside the cemetery like during the funeral. Though again there was a fire burning in a cleared spot outside the boundary, in the same place as before. Some sort of native funeral rite? Tom wondered. His rifle gleamed on the grave.
The last he saw was the witch doctor waving something over the grave, then he and Hanrahan were out of sight and heading off along the road.
"Thank you very much for the elephant gun," Tom said. "It means a lot to me. Allan gave me shooting lessons with it, and it was a big help on our mission."
"Glad to hear it. It seems to suit you, actually. You remind me of him in some ways."
After a while Tom heard a distant rumbling noise. He looked and saw dark clouds gathering on the horizon behind them, back over Nairobi. Odd. Or is it? This country has such amazing animals, I shouldn't be surprised that its weather is just as strange.
And Hanrahan didn't seem to find anything weird about it, just giving a comment that he hoped the storm wouldn't move their way.
Sawyer's attention quickly turned to the exotic sights and sounds all around him. It was bush country and soon he saw a herd of gazelle giving the two humans very disdainful looks. Then the animals trotted off.
"Those are Grant's gazelle, or 'Tommies'," Hanrahan said with a laugh.
"Better than Tom Thumb or Peeping Tom or 'Tomfoolery'." Though Aunt Polly has said that the latter was surely named with me in mind. She's surely right.
"There's another Tom in a story I heard Allan tell a few times. Bit of a dodgy chap though," the doctor commented.
Hanrahan told him a story of a time when Allan tried gold prospecting in the Transvaal. He had taken Harry along with him, the boy being about fourteen at the time. "As far as I know it was the only trip he took his son on when he was young. Allan had bought the mine off a Yankee, who had made his fortune and sworn he was only giving it up because he was sick of digging the gold out. But once the deal was done – 'now that there ain't any filthy lucre between us to obscure the features of the truth' - the Yankee revealed he thought the claim was worked out, then he hightailed it."
"We're not all like that. And I bet Allan was thrilled."
Hanrahan continued his tale, trying to tell it in Quatermain's own words as best he could remember. A good attempt at his accent even unconsciously crept in.
After three months Allan was nearly broke. One night he and Harry were sitting on the edge of the large hole they'd dug in the hill, and Allan counted out what little money he had left into his hand. A half-sovereign ended up falling into the hole. Naturally they tried to find it, and instead ended up finding a gold nugget the size of a large apple. Harry's joy had gotten away from him and he yelled in jubilation, thereby alerting anyone within earshot that there had been a significant find. Father and son then heard someone approaching. It turned out to be a bad character called 'Handspike Tom', who was said to have used a handspike to kill his mate.
Allan had concealed the find from him by sitting on the nugget. Trying to be as polite as possible while in pain from the hard 'seat' he was on, he made the best excuses he could about Harry's yells. Inwardly he thought that while rolling in gold was supposed to be very pleasant, sitting on it was anything but.
Allan was able to survive the night and cash in his riches, though they were quite insignificant compared to his diamond haul at King Solomon's Mines a decade or so later. The young spy laughed at the image of Allan trying to perch casually on top of the nugget. What a strange bird sitting on a strange egg that would have been.
But then came a section of the tale which was extremely poignant in hindsight.
"'Harry,' I said presently, 'I am going away this week towards Delagoa to shoot buffalo. Shall I take you with me, or send you down to Durban?'
"'Oh, take me with you, father!' begged Harry, 'I want to kill a buffalo!'
"'And supposing that the buffalo kills you instead?' I asked.
"'Oh, never mind,' he said, gaily, 'there are lots more where I came from.'
"I rebuked him for his flippancy, but in the end I consented to take him."
Sawyer felt melancholy at those words. He wondered just what had happened years later on the mission that had ended up claiming Harry's life. The American wanted to ask the doctor, but for now let Hanrahan continue with this other tale, where the trip had become more about lions than buffalo.
The scenery continued to pass slowly, giving Tom ample opportunity to gaze at it. The trees lining the road were heavily populated with baboons, who were mostly busy scratching themselves and giving the travelers similar looks that the gazelle had bestowed.
xXx
Over the next few days they visited a few native villages and white settlements. Tom helped out where he could, both on the medical side under Hanrahan's directions and with helping to repair things. He saw what the settlers had done - in some places it was beneficial, in others, not.
Hanrahan was kind and non-superior to everyone, and while he and Tom journeyed, he answered the American's questions about Quatermain and told more stories. He was a good storyteller, but oh, to have been able to hear them from the source! I did get to hear some though, Sawyer thought, reminding himself of the time he and Allan had spent together on the way to Mongolia.
Tom looked at the wonderful sights, including the amazing Masai warriors and their diet of blood and milk, and also wished Allan was there to show them himself. But Sawyer was glad he was getting to see them, and to go some small way towards helping the people and places that Allan knew.
One port of call was to a farm owned by a British couple, the Sydneys. The husband took safaris with wealthy people. The house was very comfortable, and the wife was lovely, filling Hanrahan in on the health of the local population, as she was like a doctor for those on the farm and surrounds when needed, including midwifery duties. He had brought her more medical supplies. The native servants adored the couple, and had their own allotments to grow crops in. The workers were looked after and their children educated. Indeed, some of the children proudly sang songs and nursery rhymes to Tom and Hanrahan during their stay. The children (and a number of the women) were fascinated by the American's blonde hair and green eyes and accent.
And that strange feeling of certainty was not only in him again, but growing stronger with each stop. As Tom and the doctor approached their next port of call, a plantation, the spy knew without a doubt that the feeling was reaching its peak. Somehow, coming to this particular location was his destiny.
He took a deep breath. Now to find out why.
END PART THREE
Notes: The tale Hanrahan was telling Tom about gold prospecting and buffalo hunting (including the quoted dialogue between Harry and Allan) is from the Allan Quatermain short story "A Tale of Three Lions" by H Rider Haggard, which was released in the novel "Allan's Wife".
The wildlife details about the trip Tom is taking and the details about the people I have called the "Sydneys" are from Stewart Granger's autobiography, "Sparks Fly Upwards".
This is a shorter chapter than usual, because it was taking me longer than I thought to finish the rewriting of a few scenes in the second half of it, so I decided to just post the first half out for now and keep tweaking the rest. But the drama mentioned in the summary is fast approaching. I promise! Shutting up now . . . .