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Robert Beaumont is a minor character and the closest thing to an antagonist of the 1996 action/adventure/thriller film The Ghost and the Darkness. He is a knight in London, England and the employer of Colonel John Henry Patterson in the film.
Background[]
Little to nothing is known of Beaumont's past, other than that he rose to great social position and became a knight. He also appeared to work on England's foreign ambitions, including the building of a railway in Africa to help the country and end slavery. He hired Colonel John Henry Patterson to help with this goal by building a railway bridge in Tsavo, East Africa.
The Ghost and the Darkness[]
Robert Beaumont made his debut in the film in London where, after breaking away from his fellows, he greeted Colonel John Henry Patterson, the military engineer he hired to build a bridge over the Tsavo river in East Africa, who he greeted with a hand shake, seemingly learning from his firm grip much about him. After giving him a ruthless speech, Beaumont pointed out the ambition of the British for building the railroad in East Africa and how Patterson's completion of the bridge he'd been hired to build would help them stay ahead of the Germans and French in the race. After Patterson revealed his wife's pregnancy, Beaumont heartlessly spoke down to him and smiled as he left after asking for further words of encouragement. Much later, Beaumont arrived in Africa for a check on Patterson's progress and to deliver some bibles to his underling, Angus Starling, questioning how he died when Samuel pointed him to the former's coffin being carried away. Angered with seeing perfectly fine people not working at the hospital, Beaumont asked what was going on, being told that two man-eaters were causing them trouble, and afterwards asking how many had died. After Patterson told him thirty, Beaumont expressed displeasure that he was behind schedule and declared that he cared not for the thirty dead, but rather for his knighthood. Asking Patterson how he planned to deal with the man-eaters, Beaumont followed him to a recent trap he had set up out of a boxcar surrounded by a boma(thorn fence), which Beaumont mocked. Unimpressed with the inside of the trap as well, Beaumont then mocked Patterson, asking if the trap had worked the first time he used it, but after being told otherwise openly declared he had made a mistake hiring Patterson, and decided to hire Charles Remington, a legendary, world-famous big-game hunter and tracker to kill the man-eaters. After further talk with Patterson, Beaumont agreed to let him keep building the bridge, but only because it would take too long to replace him. After stating he would fire him if he had to return, Beaumont assured Patterson he would do everything in his power to ruin his reputation at that time, before leaving. He wasn't seen again for the rest of the film.
Skills[]
As a knight and therefore someone of great social status, Robert Beaumont is a considerably powerful man, able to use the word "Sir" before his first name. The fact that he rose to such status implies that he was quite skilled in what he did to get there and was put in charge of building the railways in Africa, which was England's ambition there.
Personality[]
Beaumont is a very cold-hearted and cruel man, which he seems openly proud of, telling Colonel John Henry Patterson his only pleasure is tormenting the people who work for him. He claimed openly in the film that his knighthood was the only thing he cared for, and stated that the victims of the man-eaters at Tsavo mean't nothing to him. His best moment in the film by far was when he revealed he had brought bibles for his underling, Angus Starling, which the latter had requested beforehand, which shows Beaumont will grant the wishes of those who serve him well enough, though he has high standards and is very hard to please. The only person he seemed to respect was Charles Remington, openly praising the legendary hunter as a professional and just the man he needed.