Mission of Honor

Chapter Seventeen

The bus to Maun Center arrived at foui o'clock. It had dropped off forty-two tourists and would wait for an hour before returning. Anyone who missed this bus would have to wait until eleven A. M. the following morning to leave the tourist center. Taxicabs were expensive, and there were very few of them after dark. Outside the city or off the highway, the uncertain terrain was not conducive to nighttime driving. Car rentals were mostly for foreigners who were driving the highways directly to Gaborone or the other major city, Francistown.

Thirty-eight-year-old Deacon Eliot Jones had arrived at the Church of the Holy Cross shortly after two P. M. It had taken him more than a day to make his way northwest from Tonota on the Zimbabwe border. It was necessary to ride his bicycle to Francistown and catch a tour bus that went west, around the Makgadikgadi Pan. Then he had to wait at the salt pan tourist center for another bus that took passengers to Maun. From Maun, he had to catch the bus to the tourist center, where the church was located. There, he and Deacon Canon would link up. They would make preparations to leave Botswana.

That order did not sit well with him. He did not like the idea of being bullied from his flock. Souls mattered more than his flesh. His work was to help save souls, not his own skin.

Several times during his trip, he had tried to phone Father Bradbury. The calls were not answered. Deacon Jones was deeply worried about his old friend and mentor.

Just minutes after he finally reached the church, he received a call from the archdiocese in Cape Town. There was a change of plans. Jones was to go to Maun the following afternoon. Only he would not be flying to South Africa. He was to wait for the arrival of Bishop Victor Max from Washington, D. C., and bring him back to the church. The personal secretary of Archbishop Patrick in Cape Town also instructed Jones to bring one other deacon with him. Patrick did not want the thirty-five-year-old bishop left alone when the deacon had to buy tickets, food, or collect his luggage.

Jones was delighted to hear that the church would not be abandoned. Perhaps the new bishop would allow Jones to stay. The deacon was also excited because he had never met an American bishop. Though the men would only be together for a few hours, Jones was looking forward to it. Foreign clergy often had different perspectives, different ideas. Americans on the whole were always more direct and often better informed. Perhaps the bishop would have news about Father Bradbury or comforting insights about what was happening in Botswana. If the archdiocese in Cape Town knew any more about the crisis than Deacon Jones did, they were not saying anything.

Apart from Deacon Jones, Deacon Samuel Holden Canon had made the longest journey. His ministry encompassed a string of villages on the 6,000-foot-high Tsodilo Hill, which stood where Botswana, Namibia, and Angola all met in the northwest. He had taken a mule, jeep, and bus to get to Maun. Because of his late arrival, the Johannesburg-born Sam Canon was the only other deacon who had not taken the morning bus for Cape Town. Jones relayed the archbishop's instructions to the twenty-four-year-old deacon. Canon said he would be honored to accompany Deacon Jones to Maun.

The men went to the quarters the deacons used whenever they came in from the field. After removing their dirty soutanes and showering away the dust of the journey, the men put on fresh cassocks. In the absence of Father Bradbury, they would be responsible for ministering to any tourists who might need them. Deacon Jones made tea in the small kitchen area and then took it onto the veranda. The two men sat in wicker chairs and looked out at the flat, sprawling fWodplain. The afternoon was as dry, warm, and windless as usual for this time of year. The sky was cloudless, and the amber sun was low.

"Do you have any idea at all what's behind this?" Canon asked.

Eliot Jones had never been an especially political man. He had been raised in an upper-middle-class household in the Kensington section of London. Political history interested Jones only when it impacted on his two loves. Those were art and religion.

"I'm not sure," Jones said. "Have you ever read anything about the Mahdi of the Sudan?"

"Are you talking about the one who fought the British in the 1880s?" Canon asked.

"That's right," Jones said. "The British were under the command of General Gordon."

"I saw the movie Khartoum with Charlton Heston," Canon said, somewhat embarrassed.

Jones smiled. "In the video library at the archdiocese?"

Canon nodded.

"I saw it, too." Jones smiled. "I first became interested in the conflict between the two men when I was thirteen. Gordon was a very religious Christian who fought in the Crimean War, put down the Taiping Rebellion, and then went searching for Noah's Ark. That was something I always wished I could do. Read the Bible and other texts, look for clues, then search through the mountains. I found a copy of General Gordon's published journals and was fascinated by the quest. He finally had to give it up to undertake the defense of the loyal British subjects of Khartoum.

The Mahdi was Muhammad Ahmad, a forty-year-old Muslim religious leader. For years, Ahmad would preach to whomever would listen. Typically, they were the hungry, the homeless, people without hope. In 1881, Ahmad became convinced that he was God's vice-regent on earth. He was equally convinced that the ills of his people were due to the presence of infidels. He declared a jihad, a holy war, and from that point forth, he would go anywhere, slay or torture anyone who disagreed with his worldview. Only General Charles Gordon and a few hundred Sudanese soldiers were on hand in Khartoum to oppose him. The Mahdi slaughtered them and thousands of citizens who were loyal to him."

"The first radical Islamic fundamentalist," Canon said.

"Not really," Jones replied. "But he was the first one who made all the newspapers in England."

"So are you saying that you see parallels between that conflict and this one?" Canon asked.

"I do," Jones replied. "I don't believe Father Bradbury's kidnapping or the deacon missionaries being asked to leave has to do with national origin. It's clearly a religious issue."

"A Mahdi in the making," Canon said.

"That's what I believe," Jones told him.

"How do you know the government is not behind this for some reason?" Canon asked.

"The Church brings food, education, and health care to the villages," Jones said. "That encourages peace. The government of Botswana gains nothing by casting us out."

"Then how do you explain what Director Ndebele told me when I arrived?" Canon said. "He said that Father Bradbury was taken away by soldiers."

"Soldiers can be hired," Jones pointed out.

"But what kind of loyalty do they give you?" Canon asked. "What kind of courage?"

"Enough, if it gets the job done," Jones replied. "Especially if you hire enough of them. I also spoke with Director Ndebele. He said that forty or fifty men came to take Father Bradbury. That tells me the kidnappers were looking to make some kind of statement."

Canon shook his head slowly. "I really don't know about these things. My parents were always talking about politics, but I didn't get involved. It seemed to me that all the answers we needed were in the Bible. That was my guide. The word of God."

Jones smiled. "That's exactly how General Gordon felt. In the end, he could have used a few more bullets."

"What happened to the Mahdi?" Canon asketl.

"His own success killed him," Jones replied.

"How do you mean?" Canon asked.

"His holy warriors slaughtered the defenders of Khartoum and left their bodies in the streets for weeks," Jones told him. "As a result, there was an epidemic of typhus. The Mahdi succumbed to the disease just a few months after securing Khartoum."

" 'Let evil hunt down the violent man speedily,' " Canon said.

"Psalms 140:11," Deacon Jones said.

"Yes," said Canon. "The Mahdi was doomed the moment he raised a sword against others. But it did not need to be that way; I Corinthians 2:15 says, 'The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.' If the Mahdi had been a truly spiritual man, devoted to God and not to glory, he would have preached instead of making war. He would not have been destroyed."

"To the contrary," Jones agreed. "He might have had a more lasting impact. Working among the people here, I have seen deep spirituality," he said. "Many of those who have not been persuaded by the teachings of Christ have held tightly to their own faith. I admire their conviction. Faith and truth must be the vehicles of change," he insisted. "Otherwise, the result is never permanent."

Canon grinned. "Have their beliefs ever made you doubt your own?" the deacon asked.

"No," he replied. "But they have made me reexamine it. And every time I do, I come away stronger."

The men sat in silence then, as they sipped their tea. The sun dropped, and the air cooled quickly. The chill felt good. The silence, settled upon such vastness, was humbling.

Deacon Jones's cell phone beeped. He jumped from the sound and quickly pulled the phone from the pocket of his cassock. He expected it to be the archbishop's secretary.

It was not.

It was Father Bradbury with a surprising request.