by William Boyd
One of Deeg’s first moves had been to imprison Gabriel but Liesl had refused him permission, saying that not only was Gabriel an officer and couldn’t be billeted with NCOs but also that he was still under medical observation and, besides, had given his parole. Deeg had been forced to accept her instructions, but he insisted that Gabriel be confined to the hospital and its grounds and that he was not allowed to wander freely around Nanda. This restriction had to be accepted but Deeg let it be known that he was lodging an official protest. Nothing further, however, was heard of this. Presumably the military authorities had more pressing matters on their hands.
Liesl sat down opposite Gabriel, her eyes bright with pleasure as she prepared to cut the banana bread. Gabriel released his grip on the table and rested his trembling hand on his knee. He looked at Liesl’s plump freckly face, her curious upper lip, the way she seemed constantly to be either on the point of speaking or biting back words. She had three distinct horizontal creases in her soft neck. AU her clothes seemed several sizes too small for her and were consequently always patched by sweat stains. She tucked a wisp of her hair behind an ear. Gabriel felt the blood pulse in his head. He felt dull and thick-tongued with hopeless love. Since Deeg’s arrival and the restrictions on his movement he had not dared to creep round to her bungalow at nights. But somehow feeding on his memories made the experience almost more intense. He knew every inch of that beautiful large body. The long hanging breasts, the almost invisible salmon-pink nipples, the creamy freckled belly, the ginger-gold hair in her groin and armpits…
“Gabriel,” she said. “Is this enough for you?”
“Oh. Yes. thanks.”
And yet she knew nothing of his feelings. She had left to see her husband without a word of goodbye. It had been Frau Ledebur who had told him of her departure. His clenched fist drummed gently on his knee. As Liesl grew plumper and sleeker, he seemed to be falling apart. He was thinner than ever, his leg wound was healed but it still ached, he walked with a limp and now there was this nervous tremor in his hand.
He watched her spoon some honey onto the two slices of bread she had cut and spread it thickly over the surfaces. She handed his piece over and, not waiting for him to begin, took a huge bite out of her own. Honey spilled off the crust and ran slowly down her chin.
“Verdammt,” she swore, collecting the dribble with a fore-finger and licking it clean. She shut her eyes, chewing slowly, a dreamy look crossing her face as she savoured the taste.
Unaccountably, Gabriel felt tears brim in his eyes and a sob form in his throat. He was literally helpless, he knew. The tears flowed silently down his cheeks and his features trembled in a crying grimace.
Liesl opened her eyes. “Gabriel,” she exclaimed in alarm. “You haven’t eaten. What’s wrong?”
Gabriel hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he tried to explain. “It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s just that—suddenly I felt very happy. I have been very happy here. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I have.”
Liesl tried to stop herself smiling. “Gabriel, you fool.” She laughed, throwing back her head. “You can’t be happy here.” Her breasts shook as she gave a great hooting laugh. “You stupid!” Her eyes were shut, the room was filled with the unrestrained noise of her mirth.
Gabriel didn’t care. He had declared himself.
She was calming down. “Oh. Oh that’s sore. Oh grosser Gott. Oh Gabriel, don’t do that to me. Did you say something?”
“Me?” Gabriel said. “No, nothing.” He took a mouthful of banana bread. “Mmm,” he mumbled. “This is superb.”
As Liesl predicted the hospital at Nanda soon filled up with wounded men from the fighting around Kilwa. One of the wounded was a Captain von Steinkeller who appeared to be an officer of some importance, judging from the high-ranking visitors he received. He had been very badly injured in the hip. Liesl patched it up as best she could, but it was agreed that he would have to be moved to Chitawa where Deppe could examine it. Shortly before he was transferred he was visited by von Lettow’s adjutant himself, another captain called Rutke.
Gabriel was standing in the dispensary when two askaris carried von Steinkeller out to a waiting waggon.
“Don’t worry,” Rutke shouted. Then he spoke some phrases too quickly for Gabriel to translate. “November,” Rutke then said. “Wait until November. We have das chinesische Geschaft.” A ragged cheer went up from the men in the ward. After Rutke left, Gabriel heard the phrase being used again as the men referred to it. Das chinesische Geschaft. He asked Liesl for a translation.
“What would you say? ‘The Chinese Exhibition’? Perhaps. ‘The China Show’? It’s curious. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “I heard the men saying it in the ward.”
Liesl shrugged. They left it at that. Gabriel wondered if it was important.
Chapter 4
19 October 1917,
Lindi, German East Africa
In October 1917 the third battle of Ypres—Passchendaele—was well on its way to its half-million casualties. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth of October the most savagely fought battle on African soil took place at Mahiwa. British columns, advancing south from the Rufiji and inland from the ports of Kilwa and Lindi, were fiercely attacked by the supposedly retreating Germans at some innocuous hills near a bend in the Mahiwa river. Out of five thousand African, Indian, British and South African troops, two thousand seven hundred were killed or wounded.
Fifty per cent casualties in a single battle. Three battalions of the Nigerian Brigade were at the forefront of the fighting and suffered heavy losses. Among those not taking part, though, was Twelve company of the 5th Battalion. On the days of the battle of Mahiwa Felix’s platoon was digging latrine trenches at the brigade’s headquarters at Redhill Camp, Lindi. Gent’s and Loveday’s platoons were escorting supply wagons up to the front line.
After their privations at Kibongo it was recognized that Frearson’s company had endured more than most, and as a reward they received three weeks’ leave in Zanzibar. Fully recovered, Twelve company rejoined the battalion at Moro-goro where they spent the next few months training new recruits, making roads and strengthening culverts and embankments.
As the polyglot British Army marched south the Nigerian Brigade was involved in many of the small actions that took place whenever the Germans’ rearguard was encountered. It soon became clear to Felix that Frearson’s company was unlikely ever to be with them. They guarded supply dumps, provided escorts for labour battalions and assisted District Commissioners to establish administrative authority in the newly conquered territory. Felix’s platoon personally flattened a small hill for an extension to an aerodrome’s runway; built, with mud bricks, a new wing for a field hospital; escorted without incident one hundred tons of rice from Kilwa to Mikesse—a distance of eighty miles—and, for the last three weeks, had been responsible for looking after the brigade’s sizeable baggage train.
At first Felix found nothing to object to. His months at Kibongo seemed a sufficient ordeal for anyone to have gone through, and life at the rear, though agonizingly dull, was tolerably comfortable. Loveday occasionally made warlike noises (“Aux armes, mes braves!”) but Frearson was insistent that there was nothing he could do. The word was that morale had been laid so low at Kibongo that Twelve company was unlikely ever to regain its full fighting capacity. Furthermore, its ranks had been depleted with sickness and the calibre of the new recruits was only suitable for depot duties.
It wasn’t until a German field ambulance was captured near Mahiwa that Felix sensed any alarm over his lack of activity. He stood at the gate of Redhill Camp and watched the Provost Marshal and his men escort the prisoners in. There was one surgeon, three German nurses and some native dressers. The Germans looked rugged and bush-hardened but seemed quite pleased to be captured. Among the wounded they had been tending when they were overrun were three British officers who had been captured a month previously. They were loudly cheered as they
were stretchered into the base hospital. Since then more and more German civilians had been interned as the advancing British columns occupied the small villages and mission stations around the Lindi area. The south eastern corner of the country had become the supply centre for the Schutztruppe in the last year and was fairly heavily populated. As the hard-pressed German army retreated towards the Rovuma and the border with Portuguese East, more and more prisoners and wounded men were abandoned by them in the interests of swifter progress.
It was the sight of these liberated English POW s that most forcefully reminded Felix of his neglected ‘quest’ and stirred him out of his shameful complacency. He asked and was given permission to go to Kilwa to see if the headquarters staff intelligence department could provide him with any information about his brother.
Kilwa was like any number of East African coastal towns. A palm-tree-fringed beach, a prominent old fort, barracks, a whitewashed church and narrow dirt streets lined with single-storey, mudwalled shops and houses. On the sea front were large imposing residences once owned by the richer merchants and the colonial administrators. He was directed to one of these, which, he was told, housed the offices of GSO II (Intelligence). Inside the hall of this particular building—sturdy, two-storeyed and pillared on the ground floor—was a list of the offices it contained. Opposite the title GSO II (Intelligence) was the name of the incumbent: Major R. St J. Bilderbeck. The name rang a bell. Bilderbeck: Felix suddenly remembered that it was from one Bilderbeck that they had heard the full details of Gabriel’s capture. He felt a sudden excitement. This was surely some sort of omen. He walked up the wooden stairs. At the top there was a capacious landing off which there were half a dozen doors. On a board were numerous typed orders. Loose telephone wires were looped haphazardly across the walls. From the rooms came a sustained rattle of typewriters. Every now and then an orderly clutching a sheaf of papers would appear from one room and go into another. None of the doors had any notices on them.
Standing in the middle of the landing was a very fat man with a thick black walrus moustache. His uniform was shabby and faded. He wore dirty riding boots, a frayed spine pad, no tie and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Felix was only marginally tidier. The closer one got to base, the neater everyone became. Dar-es-Salaam was full of immaculate staff officers. Clearly this man had just come from the front.
“Excuse me,” he said, turning to Felix. “Can you tell me which is Major Bilderbeck’s office?”
It took Felix a second or two to recognize his accent as American.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Felix said. “I’m looking for the same man.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess we just go in.” He chose a door at random and knocked. Felix heard someone shout ‘come in’. The American opened the door and looked into the room.
“God no!” he said vehemently, and shut the door abruptly. He turned on his heel and headed for the stairs at speed.
“I’ve got to go,” he said to Felix as he passed.
The door he’d knocked on was flung open and an immensely tall thin figure appeared.
“Smith,” it shouted. “It’s me. Reggie. For Heaven’s sake. Didn’t you recognize me?”
The American—Smith—halted on the stairs, turned and climbed slowly back up, his head bowed.
“Wheech-Browning,” he said tiredly. “I thought it was you.”
“Come on in, old man,” the Wheech-Browning person exclaimed with evident pleasure. “Haven’t seen you for yonks.”
“Excuse me,” Felix said. “I’m looking for Major Bilderbeck.”
“Oh, that’s me, sort of,” Wheech-Browning said. “Temporary Major Wheech-Browning. You’d better come in too.”
Felix followed the American into Wheech-Browning-Bilderbeck’s office. They were waved into a couple of wooden seats. Felix introduced himself.
“Dear old Smith,” Wheech-Browning said fondly, paying no attention to Felix. “Fancy seeing you again.” He looked up at Felix. “Smith and I are old comrades-in-arms, aren’t we Smith?”
“What do you mean by saying you’re Bilderbeck sort-of!” The American said with a hostility Felix found surprising. “I’m looking for him too.”
“You’re both out of luck,” Wheech-Browning apologized. “Bilderbeck’s disappeared. Dead probably. Gone mad, by all accounts. You know the sort, he was one of those fearless chappies, always wanting to be in the thick of it. He used to sneak off to the front lines all the time. A few weeks ago he got caught up in a rather nasty battle at a place called Bweho-Chino. Apparently he used to stand on the parapets of the trenches at night yelling insults at the jerries. Then one night he cracked. He was last seen sprinting off in the direction of the enemy, waving his gun, screaming something about ‘his girl’ and how the huns were preventing him from finding her.” Wheech-Browning shrugged. “Doesn’t make much sense, I’m afraid. He was never seen again.” He threw his thin arms wide. “Sorry,” he said. “But, ours not to reason why, and all that. I’ve taken over from him. Let me see what I can do. This Bilderbeck fellow kept a phenomenal number of files. Seemed to have some sort of compulsion to write things down.” He frowned. “Actually, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to let you have any information. I think all the gen is classified. Still, as it’s you Smith we’ll pretend it’s all been officially cleared, eh?” He gave a conspiratorial smile. “Fire away.”
“I’m looking for information about a German officer called von Bishop,” Smith said. “Can you tell me if he’s been captured or if you know if he’s been killed?”
Wheech-Browning jumped to his feet and went to a row of filing cabinets.
“We’ve got records of every officer in the Schutztruppe,” he said proudly. “Here we are. “Bishop, von, E. (captain of reserve). Owns a farm near Kilimanjaro…um, Maji-Maji rebellion…commanded a company at Tanga. Present at Kahe. Moved to Kondoa Irangi. Now believed to be on von Lettow’s staff.” That’s it. If he’s dead there’s a ‘D’ beside the name. If he’s a prisoner there’s a ‘P’. Stands to reason, I suppose. There’s no ‘D’ and no ‘P’. That answer your question?” Wheech-Browning looked disgustingly pleased with himself, Felix thought.
“So he’s still out there,” Smith said grimly. “Theoretically at least. Good.”
“That’s right,” Wheech-Browning said. “Why?”
“I’ve got a score to settle. He was the man who commandeered my farm, remember?”
“We’ve all got a score to settle with the huns,” Wheech-Browning said pompously. “What did this man do?”
“All sorts of things,” Smith said, non-committally. “Ruined me, for one. He stole my Decorticator for another.”
“Oh God, that bloody great thing. Stole it? How can you steal something like that?”
Felix wondered what on earth they were talking about. They sounded like schoolboys squabbling. He interrupted with his own request about released prisoners of war.
Wheech-Browning returned to his files and drew out a small dossier.
“What did you say your brother’s name was?”
“Cobb. Gabriel Cobb, captain. Captured at Tanga.”
“Oh. Tanga.” Wheech-Browning and the American exchanged glances. “Less said about that…” Wheech-Browning ran his finger down the list of names. “Cobb, Cobb, Cobb. No, sorry. No Captain Cobb here. Half a mo, they’ve just liberated a big camp at Tabora.” More rifling through files continued. “There’s a Godfrey Cobb from the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa. That wouldn’t be him, would it? I suppose not.”
He shut the drawers of the wooden filing cabinet. “Drawn a blank, I’m afraid. Mind you, there are other camps in occupied territories. Places like Chitawa, Massasi and Nanda.”
He pointed them out on a wall map. “He may be in one of those. Also,” he added, “the German columns always tend to carry some prisoners with them. Ones they don’t want freed, if you know what I mean. I shouldn’t give up hope. The Germans are quite good about
supplying information—deaths, that sort of thing. If we’d heard anything it would be down here somewhere.”
Felix felt his face suddenly grow hot. “What about letters?” he said. “Do letters to British prisoners get through?”
Wheech-Browning sat down. “It depends. We send food parcels to the camps. Any letters usually go along with them. Bit erratic though.”
“Can you tell me if a letter has been sent on to my brother in the last six months or so?”
“My dear Cobb, I haven’t the faintest.” Wheech-Browning spread his hands. “I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, since old Bilderbeck went bonkers. He’d be the man to tell you. It may have been passed on. We can never tell. We have to rely on jerry supply officers. Not exactly grade-one material, I believe.”
Felix felt only slightly composed. He took out a notebook and recorded the names of the POW camps. Then he stood up and said he had to go. The American got to his feet also. Wheech-Browning invited them both to lunch at the ‘quite decent little officers’ club’ they had in Kilwa. Felix declined, the American emphatically followed suit.
Wheech-Browning saw them down the stairs. At the front door he halted them with a story.
“Listen to this,” he said. “Something Bilderbeck came up with. It’s called the ‘China Show’. It was a plan, he told them, formulated by the Germans to fly a Zeppelin out to East Africa to give aid and succour to von Lettow’s army. Extraordinary idea, isn’t it? Keep your eyes peeled for an airship.” He raised an imaginary shotgun to his shoulder and fired both barrels. “Can’t see what it’s got to do with China, though.”
