by William Boyd
Felix walked across the compound and climbed the steps onto the earthwork ramparts. Below the walls ran a deep ditch and beyond that the ground sloped down to a small river. The road from the Boma crossed it on a small wooden bridge and meandered down hill for a mile or so to Durio village. The countryside around was lush. Lining the river were huge stands of bamboo, some of the central trunks as thick as a man. On either side of the track to the village, where the ground wasn’t cultivated, elephant grass grew to a height of nine feet. Anything stuck in the ground here took root at once, Felix had observed. Human had cut some poles to act as supports for a washing line. Within two weeks new shoots and leaves were sprouting from them. Now they resembled miniature trees.
Felix lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the flies buzzing round his head. Two days ago it had been Gabriel’s birthday. He would have been thirty-one. He thought back to that terrible day on the Makonde plateau. They had buried Gabriel at the side of his final camp, in the hollow between the two spurs of rock. Wheech-Browning and Temple had carried the body over and the askaris had dug the grave. Felix had done nothing, overwhelmed by the enormous grief and the surging emotions in his body. They covered the grave with rocks and Wheech-Browning said the few words he could remember from the burial service. Temple had marked the kopje accurately on his map so that they would know where to find it again. By then there was no point in continuing after von Bishop and they had returned to Nanda. Felix had wanted to speak to the von Bishop woman but she and the other civilians had already been moved to Dar. Shortly after this, Temple learnt that he was being recalled to Nairobi. He said he was glad to be leaving. He left Felix to continue the chase.
Felix threw his cigarette over the ramparts and turned to look at the cluster of huts in the Boma. He saw Pinto emerge from their brick building and watched him stretch and stamp his tubby frame into activity.
“Felix!” Pinto shouted, looking around for him.
“Aristedes,” Felix replied. “Up here.”
Pinto puffed up the steps to the ramparts.
“Telefon,” he panted, showing his array of gold and silver teeth. “Wheesh-Brownim. Stokesh gonz.” He prattled on. Felix registered Stokes guns. Wheech-Browning was coming with Stokes guns. But when?
“Um. Ah…presentamente?” Felix asked.
“Nao. Eh…Demain. Sim. Demain.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Nao. Demain. Demain.”
“Sim.”
They nodded and smiled at each other. Then they turned and surveyed the view. It was extremely familiar. Nonetheless, Pinto started pointing out features in the landscape but Felix didn’t understand him. All the same he nodded, and said ‘Sim’ from time to time.
The sun began to sink and the light thickened. In the ditch frogs croaked and the first crickets began to trill. The mosquitoes came out from the shadows they had been resting in all day and began to whine around Felix’s ears. He felt a great weight of melancholy descend easily on him; an acute sense of how futile all his efforts had been, of all the human cost of the last two years. Charis, Gabriel…The list went on. Gilzean, Cyril, Bilderbeck, Parrott, Loveday. Then there were the wounded: Nigel Bathe, Cave-Bruce-Cave, his father. Then there were the unremembered casualties: the men in his platoon and company, the poisoned porters at Kibongo. And that was just one person. Think of everybody with their own list: Temple, Wheech-Browning, Gabriel, Aristedes—then everybody in East Africa and Europe. He could only mourn in the vaguest sense for the others, but when he thought of his personal list of names he felt his anger return. How could he just accept these casualties? He couldn’t be fatalistic about them any more. That was why he had joined up after Charis’s death, why he felt he had at least to try and find Gabriel…He ruefully acknowledged his own dishonesty here. There had been other motives too: fear, self-preservation, worry, guilt. But it didn’t matter. The important thing was that efforts had to be made, responsibilities shouldered, blame apportioned. He couldn’t simply let it go. But he had his guilty man now. Von Bishop carried the heavy freight of all his grievances.
He accepted another cigarette from Pinto, who was still talking away. Felix thought about Stackpole. He had written a long letter home about Gabriel, telling them that Gabriel had died while escaping from prison camp with vital military secrets of an unspecified sort. But then he’d torn it up. It was better, he felt, to let them live on as long as possible in ignorance. He realized he’d been away from Stackpole for nearly two years. To his surprise he found himself feeling homesick for the ugly house. He set his face, feeling an unfamiliar twitching below his eyes.
To distract himself he looked back at Pinto. But the melancholy mood of the African dusk seemed to have affected the captain too. His plump features were slack, a hand worried at the sore in his nostril. He had abandoned his disquisition on the landscape and returned to his favourite theme: his illness. His voice was doleful and slurred with self-pity. He cupped his fat groin in both hands. Felix saw his eyes glistening with tears as his pathological litany softy continued with the evening garnering kindly about them.
Wheech-Browning leapt awkwardly from the Packard lorry. He sneezed and reached into his pocket, extracted a large checked handkerchief and blew his nose into it.
“Ah, Cobb. Good morning. Stinking cold. Somehow you never expect to get a cold in Africa. Touch of the ‘flu as well if I’m not mistaken.”
Pinto wandered up.
“Ah, morning, Capitao Pinto!” Wheech-Browning dropped his voice and turned to Felix. “How do you say ‘Good morning’, Cobb? I can never remember.”
“Buon. Dias.”
“Buon. Dias. Senor. Capitao.” He enunciated each syllable very clearly.
Pinto bowed. He was still very depressed. “Dias,” he muttered.
“Marvellous gift you have, Cobb. I say, is old Aristedes all right? He looks a bit white around the gills.”
“It’s his syphilis. It’s getting him down.”
“I see. Extraordinary man. Rather hard luck, though.” He turned to the askaris jumping from the back of the lorry. “Come on you men, let’s get those guns out.”
While the guns were being unloaded Wheech-Browning explained his mission. Apparently a column had broken off from von Lettow’s main force, had wheeled north and was heading in the general direction of Boma Durio in search, it was assumed, of stores and supplies. Two companies of KAR askaris were being marched down from Medo as reinforcements but in the meantime it had been decided to strengthen the Boma’s defences with two Stokes guns.
“I said you knew how to fire them, Cobb. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Felix said yes. He had spent many days at Morogoro after Twelve company had returned from the Rufiji learning how to fire the simple mortars.
The guns were taken up onto the earthworks and aimed at a stand of bamboo which stood at the edge of the cleared ground around the fort. Pinto had cheered up at the prospect of a private firing and stood by the Stokes guns expectantly waiting for instructions.
“Right, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning said. “Over to you.”
Felix thought fast. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll explain everything to the capitao and then he can drill his men. I’m a bit rusty on the technical terms.”
Some dummy rounds were brought up. Felix dropped in a charge, set the sights on the bamboo stand approximately one hundred yards away, then fitted the round dummy bomb—rather like a large wooden toffee apple—into the top of the muzzle.
“Normally this is done by three men,” he explained.
“Que?” said Pinto.
“Three. Tres, um, homem. Tres homem.”
“Eh?”
“Sim.”
“Good, Cobb. Excellent.”
“Stand by.” Felix jerked the lanyard at the base of the barrel. There was a loud report causing everyone to leap back in alarm. Smoke coiled from the barrel and every fissure in the gun. The bomb remained fixed at the end of the muzzle.
“Good Lo
rd,” said Wheech-Browning.
“Let’s try the other gun,” Felix suggested.
The sighting and loading procedures were repeated, the lanyard jerked and this time with a dull thump the bomb went sailing high into the blue morning air and dropped into the jungle a good fifty yards beyond the bamboo stand. Pinto clapped.
“Bit off target,” said Wheech-Browning.
Felix adjusted the elevation of the barrel. Another round was fired. This one went almost straight up and when it came down bounced off the hard ground some thirty yards short. Pinto’s men had by now gathered at a safe distance further along the earthworks, and were looking on with a mixture of apprehension and sceptical curiosity. Pinto himself seemed enormously pleased.
“What’s going wrong?” Wheech-Browning said.
“I can’t seem to get the range.”
“I was told these things were infallible. Child’s play to operate. Not much of a show you’re putting on, Cobb.”
Felix looked darkly at Wheech-Browning. “The dummy rounds. They’re too light.” He told himself to stay calm. He took out his spectacles and slipped them on to check the small calibrations on the sighting mechanism. Everything seemed to be in order. He suspected it must be something to do with the imbalance between the charge and the dummy round. He explained as much to Wheech-Browning.
“Try a real one then,” Wheech-Browning said, taking out his handkerchief and snorting into its folds. “Only for God’s sake get it on target. We’re looking a right pair of fools.” He smiled and waved at Pinto. “At this rate a bunch of schoolgirls could capture the place.”
A live round was loaded. Felix adjusted the elevation and jerked the lanyard. The round bomb sailed high in the air and again landed beyond the bamboo, throwing up a puff of white smoke as it exploded with a very loud bang.
“They make a lot of noise,” Wheech-Browning said slowly to Pinto, as if he were addressing a three year-old. “Noise. BANG!”
“Sim,” Pinto agreed. “BOOM!”
“Come on, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning said in a low voice. “Hit the wretched target.”
Felix loaded another live bomb. He couldn’t understand the gun’s erratic performance. Then he had a thought. If one gun had malfunctioned maybe the other gun was doing the same.
“Just a moment,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with the sight. I’m going to pace out the range.”
“You won’t exactly be able to do that if the Germans are storming the place, you know,” Wheech-Browning said scathingly.
But Felix had leapt over the rampart and slithered down the side of the earthworks, leaping across the ditch as he went. He strode quickly across the open ground counting out the paces through gritted teeth. He was determined to land the next bomb right in the middle of the bamboo stand, and shut Wheech-Browning up for good.
At ninety-two he reached the bamboo and turned round. He was surprised to see Pinto energetically pacing out the distance behind him. The stupid idiot evidently thought this was something to do with the training exercise.
“Nao, Aristedes,” Felix called, with forced geniality, going back to meet him and waving his hands. “Nao importa.”
He saw the puff of smoke from the earthworks before his incredulous ears registered the report from the Stokes gun. He even saw the speedy climb of the bomb, a black streak against the blue sky.
“Run!” he screamed into the startled face of Pinto. “Run!”
Felix turned and began to run.
There was an immense roaring noise. He felt as if he’d been caught by several huge ocean breakers in quick succession, buffeted, lifted, tossed. He felt a searing pain in the back of his head, as if a nail had been driven into his skull. Then he hit the ground.
He lost consciousness for a matter of seconds. He opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by swirling smoke. His mind seemed to be functioning with hypersensitive lucidity: he remembered everything, understood what had happened.
He got groggily to his feet, staggered a bit then looked down at his body. He was shocked to see he was totally naked apart from his boots, which remained. Such bits of his body as he could see between the strands of swirling smoke were either bloodlessly pale or mottled with grotesque livid bruises. Blood dripped from his chin onto his chest. He touched his face and head and looked at his finger tips. Blood seemed to be pouring from his nose, ears and eyes. The back of his head felt numb and wet. He lurched a bit. He seemed to be getting more dizzy, not less. He looked around for Aristedes, squinting through the gaps in the smoke for him but there was no sign. He tripped over the lip of the fresh crater. The torn earth was warm, like bread that has just been pulled from an oven. As if in some kind of a dream he saw what he took to be precious stones or jewels glittering among the steaming clods. With difficulty he groped in the earth and picked one up. He held it close to his baffled eyes. It was a golden tooth. Aristedes had disappeared.
He fell back on the ground. He sensed his faculties leaving him as if being tugged away by invisible hands. Through the one remaining gap in the enveloping smoke he saw Wheech-Browning’s agonized looming face, heard his shocked voice, clear as a child’s.
“The lanyard, Cobb. I sneezed. I was holding it in my hand. It just went off. I’m sorry, Cobb.”
Chapter 2
13 November 1918,
Kasama, Rhodesia
Von Bishop looked at Rutke, whose teeth were chattering with cold, even though the morning sun was bearing down with its usual strength.
“If you ask me you’ve got influenza,” von Bishop said bluntly. “But go and see Deppe, he’ll tell you.”
“Oh God, please no,” Rutke said heavily. Three officers had already died from Spanish influenza. He walked off, shoulders slumped, in search of the doctor. Not that Deppe would do much, von Bishop thought. A useless doctor, worse than useless. Von Bishop was still suffering from the high-pitched ringing in his ears which he’d contracted at Tanga. Four years ago now, and still no release. Angrily he wriggled his little finger in his left ear. If anything it seemed to be worse.
He walked out from beneath the awning he’d been standing under and looked up and down the deserted main street of Kasama. A dust road, a straggling avenue of flame trees, mud and wooden houses, tin and straw roofs. Up ahead he could see the men of his company standing guard behind some hastily erected barricades. It was a pleasant morning.
He returned to his patch of shade and told his servant to bring him a cup of coffee. He sat down in a cane chair and leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, supporting his head in his hands. He wondered if von Lettow felt as tired as he did. In the last year they had marched south, deep into Portuguese East Africa, innumerable Portuguese strongholds surrendering at the first shot, fighting a constant rearguard battle against the plodding English columns in pursuit. Then they had turned north again. Winding back up through Portuguese East, back across the Rovuma into German East once more. In August their progress had been retarded by a curious epidemic. At first Deppe said it was ‘bronchial catarrh’. Then he changed his diagnosis to ‘croupous pneumonia’. Now after three Europeans and seventeen natives had died he was telling everyone it was ‘Spanish influenza’. Von Bishop furiously wiggled both little fingers in his ears. And the man called himself a doctor.
In October, still pursued by the relentless British columns, the tattered Schutztruppe turned west and invaded Rhodesia. Little resistance was encountered and many stores were captured. Von Lettow halted his small army for a few days near the border town of Fife. Here English newspapers provided the first information about the war in Europe that they had had for months. The news was not good. An offensive had been launched by the allies in September. The Americans were advancing in the Argonne, the French and the British at Cambrai and St Quentin. Von Bishop and many of the other officers wondered if von Lettow would consider surrendering. But at a meeting the general announced that captured medical supplies had brought their quinine reserves up to fourteen kil
os, and that they had four hundred head of cattle, sufficient to last until June 1919. He planned to advance across Africa, westward into the Congo, perhaps as far as the Atlantic coast.
And so mobile detachments were sent down the road from Fife towards Kasama. A week earlier von Bishop had marched into the town after the garrison had fled southwards. Shortly after the main body of the Schutztruppe had gathered in Kasama and was preparing to march off again in pursuit. Some patrols had gone ahead. Von Bishop was to remain behind for a few days as part of the rearguard.
Von Bishop looked up. His coffee was ready. His boy had also brought him a tin plate filled with strawberries which grew in plentiful supply in Kasama’s kitchen gardens. He took one of the plump berries and popped it in his mouth, crushing it against his palate with his tongue. His mouth was filled with the sweet juice and the pulp. How Liesl would love this! he thought suddenly. His smile drooped. He wondered where and how she was. He wondered if she knew that Cobb was dead.
He stirred his coffee slowly thinking about that night on the plateau. A terrible mistake. A lack of communication, that was all. That morning he had hastily buried the head and then had made off straight away to the Ludjenda confluence and the meeting with von Lettow. He intended to have the ruga-ruga arrested and executed for murder but they disappeared the next night. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t ask them why they had done it;’ they couldn’t tell him. He had some suspicions that they may have been acting under instructions from Deeg, but that was something else he couldn’t confirm. He told von Lettow that they had found Cobb’s dead body and had buried him. He assumed that Cobb had died from starvation and exposure out on the plateau.
He drank his coffee down and got to his feet. It was over now. He didn’t like to think too much about that particular episode. It had been a tragic error. By rights Cobb should have been with them now in Kasama, along with the other British prisoners in the Schutztruppe column. He checked himself: there was nothing to be gained by that sort of reflection.
