Dust Clouds of War

by John Wilcox

  As he fell he caught a glimpse of a bayonet poised above him and realised that, at last, his time had come. But as the gleaming steel came down, it was diverted by Jenkins’s knife blade, who, having lost his rifle, was now fighting with his favourite weapon. The deflected bayonet plunged into the side wall of the trench and, with a twist of his wrist, the Welshman ran his own, more manoeuvrable blade up along the man’s arm to sink into his chest.

  Simon rose onto his hands and knees and heard Mzingeli’s rifle bark into action as the second of the askaris pushed forward.

  ‘On your feet, quick, bach,’ called Jenkins. ‘There are more of ’em comin’.’

  But in fact the askaris, seeing the Punjabis storming down the trench behind Simon and his comrades, thought better of it and melted away. Suddenly, the noise of the battle lifted and Fonthill staggered to his feet.

  ‘I think you’ve done it, bach,’ cried Jenkins. ‘The buggers are runnin’ away.’

  It was true. The trench ahead was deserted. The German line had been turned. Looking up the rise above him, Fonthill became aware that the metallic chattering of the machine guns up above had also ceased. He anxiously scanned the view of the hill to catch a glimpse of John Jones but all he could see were the turbans of his troops.

  In fact, the dusk had fallen quickly on the battlefield and allowed the Germans to melt into the dark confusion without being pursued. If von Lettow-Vorbeck was in the offing he never, in fact, materialised and once again the Teutonic will-o’-the-wisp had slipped away into the blackness of the German colony.

  It was not a clear-cut British victory, or if it was it was pyrrhic, for Beves’s strategy of direct attack on von Lieberman’s position and of throwing men into the battle throughout the day had produced heavy casualties. Among the 800 men of the Gold Coast Regiment who had led the attack one in five lay dead or wounded, six of the officers of the King’s African Rifles were lost and 200 men killed and the troops who had supported the Gold Coast Regiment had lost one-third of their men.

  It seemed clear that Simon’s flank attack had swung the day in the end. But it, too, had its cost – not least in the person of the perky, brave Lieutenant John Jones, who fell as he led his men against the German machine guns.

  That evening, as Jenkins was dressing the gash in Simon’s shoulder, a message came through from General Deventer congratulating Fonthill on his initiative. It also – and more rewardingly – stated that he and his two comrades should immediately take three weeks’ leave back in Mombasa.

  ‘Good,’ said Simon. ‘I can see Alice.’ He looked up at the creased face of Jenkins who, tongue protruding from blackened lips, was trying to adjust a sling with a final knot. ‘Once again, my dear old 352,’ he said, ‘I owe you my life. Thank God you were there.’

  ‘Well, actually,’ said Jenkins, concentrating hard, ‘I wanted to slip back into the swamp to tickle the tummies of the crocs, ’cos I think I’ve got the ’ang of them now. But I thought I’d just ’old on for a minnit and finish off that black bloke first.’

  He looked shyly at Simon. ‘I dunno what the score is now, bach sir, but I’d ’ave been dead in that swamp without you and old Jelly ’ere. So I think the count on who’s saved who over the years ’as to be about even. Now let’s bugger off back to old Mombasa and ’ave a beer with Miss Alice.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  At that moment Alice’s thoughts, in fact, were not with Simon. Although she pretended to be examining the melon in her hand at a stall in the market near the harbour in Mombasa, she was trembling slightly and thanking God that she had slipped her little automatic pistol into her purse before setting out to shop. The reason for her excitement – no, anxiety – was a tall, thin white man of swarthy appearance who was buying vegetables three stalls away.

  The full beard had been replaced by a neatly-trimmed Vandyke and a wide-brimmed hat was pulled well down over his eyes but she was convinced. It was Herman de Villiers all right.

  The man had been dominating her thoughts since she had returned from Smuts’s camp weeks ago. It was not just a growing irritation of a sense of unfinished business that occupied her mind, nor even the anger that he had been allowed to slip so cleanly away, but more a growing feeling that the traitorous Afrikaner had not, in fact, fled Mombasa for the old German colony but was still somewhere near – even perhaps watching her. She had taken now to carrying the little Belgian Francotte automatic in her purse whenever she went out and always checked her surroundings carefully. He could be anywhere, watching, waiting …

  It was with a leap of the heart, then, that she had observed the man walking ahead of her in the market. There was something immediately familiar about that long, loose gait that had stood him so well in his escape from the censor’s office. He also had the slightly bow-legged walk of a Boer life spent in the saddle. She had quickened her pace and, moving into a lane between the stalls to his right, had examined his face covertly from that angle. His narrow spectacles, balanced on the long nose, convinced her. He was dressed in typical hand-me-down Boer garments – open-necked flannel shirt, cotton corduroy trousers with the knees worn well – as befitted a man who had lost his employment. Undoubtedly, here was the spy who had tried to deliver her into German hands, who had obviously warned about the attack on Bukoba. The man, in fact, for whom she had been searching, both consciously and unconsciously, for so long.

  Alice replaced the melon and looked around her. Not a policeman or soldier in sight, of course. This was the native quarter and the obvious place for de Villiers to have gone to ground. She bit her lip. What to do? Well, follow him, obviously, taking great care not to be recognised, and then mark where he lived so that she could return later with the military. But she must be careful and, this time, he must not escape. She grasped the little handgun in her bag gratefully.

  De Villiers bought his vegetables and then sauntered away. Alice pulled down her sun hat well over her eyes and dropped behind a little. As a white woman in the native market she would stand out like a sore thumb if he turned his head. But he did not do so. Obviously, after so long on the run, he had become confident of his anonymity. Nevertheless, Alice grabbed a long, pastel-coloured shawl from a stall, paid for it without haggling – earning the stall-keeper’s surprise – then wrapped it around her and hurried on after her quarry.

  Eventually he turned away from the market and strolled down a narrow lane fringed by native houses. Alice discarded her sun hat, swung the top of the shawl over her face and head and hurried after him, following as he turned again into the labyrinth of the native quarter.

  She was just in time to see de Villiers climb a flight of stone steps and open a door to allow him entry to a second-storey dwelling of some sort. Now … Alice hesitated. She knew enough about this poor part of town to know that this would not necessarily be the entrance to a separate house or apartment. These native homes were often like terraces, with dwellings opening off corridors. Should she follow or presume that this is where he lived and return later?

  She took a deep breath. No. She must be certain.

  Alice caught a glimpse of herself in a bead-fringed window. With the shawl covering most of her head and body she appeared native enough. But she was betrayed by the very European court shoes that she wore. Cursing, she kicked them off and mounted the steps in her bare feet, pausing at the top to look behind her. No one. She gulped and softly turned the handle of the door. It opened invitingly and, after waiting a moment to accustom herself to the semi-darkness within, she stepped inside.

  ‘Ah, how delightful to see you again, Mrs Fonthill, after so long.’

  The voice, in that well-remembered, clipped Afrikaans accent, came from behind her. De Villiers moved forward and closed the door. In his hand he carried a long-nosed Luger automatic pistol, the end of which seemed disproportionally large.

  Alice swallowed hard. Damn! The very thing she had feared had happened. How could she have been so foolish? But better remain cool.

  ‘Fe
llow journalists don’t address me by my married name,’ she said. ‘I am Alice Griffith to them. But then, you are not a journalist. You are a traitor and a spy, are you not?’

  ‘No. I am not. I am a South African patriot who continues to fight against the people who invaded his country and decimated it.’

  ‘That is finished. An honourable settlement between Britain and the Boer nation was made years ago.’

  ‘Not with my family, madam. Your troopers killed two brothers of mine and put my wife and two children into a concentration camp on the veldt where they nearly starved to death.’ His voice was cold and bitter.

  Alice paused for a moment. At least, while he was talking he was not shooting. ‘There was much cruelty on both sides during that war,’ she said. ‘That happens in wars. And as for the concentration camps, my articles in the Morning Post attacked the concept and, I am told, helped to end the practice.’

  ‘Ah,’ the cold voice had become a sneer. ‘So you are now a champion of the Boers, are you?’

  ‘No. But I am loyal to my country and to concepts of honour and duty. I don’t believe that is true of you.’

  ‘Your view of me is of no concern to me. You will shortly be dead, in fact.’

  A chill ran through Alice. ‘So in addition to being a traitor, you are also a murderer?’

  ‘No. But in just one moment I shall become an executioner.’ He gestured around him. ‘This tenement is uninhabited. I don’t live here. I chose it some time ago as the place for your death. Yes, I have been watching you.’ He held up the Luger. ‘This thing on the end is a new accessory called a silencer. When the gun is fired the noise is muffled by this chamber at the end. No one will hear your passing, woman. There is no one to come to your aid.’

  Alice’s mind raced. After all the years of adventuring with Simon, of sharing front-line dangers with him, what a way to end – in this cheap, dirty little room, facing this fanatic. She had perhaps, though, one last hope.

  ‘It is customary,’ she tried to keep her voice level, ‘to grant a condemned person one last wish. Will you do so now and perhaps earn some redemption for your act in the eyes of a Christian God?’

  His eyes behind the spectacles narrowed. ‘What wish is that, then?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘If I am to be killed, I do not wish to be found looking filthy and unkempt in this foul place. Would you allow me to open my purse and apply just a little face powder and rouge to soften my appearance when, at last, my husband is brought to me?’

  He sneered. ‘Oh yes. Of course. And in that little purse you will no doubt be carrying a small hand pistol, which you will take out and shoot me with. Do you take me for a fool?’

  ‘No.’ She offered the purse to him. ‘Open it and look for yourself. It only contains cosmetics. A feminine trait, you must know.’

  For one fatal moment, de Villiers lowered his gaze and the muzzle of his Luger dropped slightly. It was all that Alice had hoped for. She tightened her grip on the purse and, through the knitted cotton and silk of its texture, found the contour of the trigger with her index finger. Pointing the purse directly at the Boer, she fired twice.

  Both bullets took the man in the chest. Alice’s gun had little velocity for it was designed only for close-quarter fighting, but the range here was short indeed. De Villiers’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened and, as he attempted to lift the heavy Luger, his legs crumpled beneath him and he collapsed onto the floor.

  Immediately, Alice sprang to his side and found the artery under his ear. It was still beating. He turned his head to look at her. ‘English bitch …’ he began. Then blood seeped from the corner of his mouth and his head fell to one side. Alice took the gun from his fingers and presented it to the door, but no one entered. All was silent.

  Slowly she stood, examined the holes in her still smoking purse and realised that she was trembling violently. She gulped. She had killed him. What to do now? Report it to the police or the army? With the South Africans in such control of the military now in Mombasa, was this a risk worth taking? She had killed an Afrikaner. There would be a trial …

  No, dammit. There would not! Let the bloody man lie here until he was found, perhaps by his compatriots. There was nothing to say who had killed him. Quickly, she went through his pockets and emptied his wallet. There was nothing to identify him and whoever found him could only now presume that he had been shot and robbed. She stood, checked that she still had four small cartridges in her handgun, wound the scarf around her head and face and stepped through the door. Down below, her shoes lay where she had left them. She put them on and walked quickly away.

  As she walked, tears streaming down her cheeks, she promised herself that this was the last time, the very last time, she would kill another human being.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The border between Northern Rhodesia and German East Africa, 25th November, 1918

  The four riders sat on their mounts looking down on the town from the exact place where three of them had stood, a little over four years ago. Abercorn itself had hardly changed but the scene now was very different from that which Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli had observed then. The town was hardly awake that morning in 1914. Now, despite a rain-filled sky, Abercorn was en fête and prepared to accept a surrender.

  The war in Europe had formally ended two weeks before. At last, von Lettow-Vorbeck, whose own campaign had started before the first shots were fired on the Western Front, had reluctantly agreed to surrender. Now the quartet – Alice had now joined the three comrades – watched as the little general, dapper in smart uniform, with the brim of his colonial hat turned up on one side, led what were left of his troops up the main street to where an obscure British brigadier waited to receive his sword.

  ‘Appropriate that the bloody war should end virtually where it started four years ago,’ murmured Fonthill.

  ‘Why did the stupid man fight on, so hopelessly, for so long?’ asked Alice.

  Jenkins sniffed. ‘Generals are like that. Cocky little buggers. They always think they can win.’

  Fonthill, Jenkins and Mzingeli had joined Alice in Mombasa, to her great surprise and delight, the day after de Villiers’s death. She was on the point of confessing to the army when Simon’s arrival persuaded her to keep silent. His presence had assuaged her guilt and the delivery of a letter from Sunil in Ypres, announcing that he had been awarded the Military Cross, had cheered everyone and prompted a celebration. The cable that arrived the next day, however, had been particularly cruelly timed. ‘I regret to inform you …’ it began. Sunil’s job as brigade major behind the lines had not saved him. A shell had landed at Brigade HQ, killing him instantly.

  When news arrived from van Deventer that the Germans were threatening to attack Portuguese East Africa and ordering Simon and his companions to cut short their leave, Alice had insisted on going with him. This time, Fonthill did not have the heart to argue. Nor did he seek permission for her to accompany him. Alice just packed a saddle roll, bought a good horse and rode with them.

  They had followed the twists and turns of von Lettow-Vorbeck – this time without clashing with his troops – as the determined little German led his men in and out of the Portuguese territory and, finally, headed towards Rhodesia where he planned one last invasion and where the news of the Kaiser’s abdication had reached him. Chastened at last, he had indicated that he would surrender at Abercorn.

  A guard of honour provided by men of the King’s African Rifles and the Northern Rhodesian Regiment formed up, providing an avenue through which von Lettow-Vorbeck rode to where Brigadier General W. F. S. Edwards – the British local commander – awaited him. Solemnly, the German withdrew his sword and presented it to Edwards. Equally solemnly, Edward handed it back to his adversary, marking his respect for a noble opponent.

  ‘Oh to hell with it,’ exclaimed Fonthill suddenly. ‘I’m not watching them dance this bloody gavotte any longer. Let’s go.’ He pulled his horse’s head round and headed away from
Abercorn. The others followed. They rode in reflective silence for two hours before they camped and ate sandwiches and drank coffee.

  No one spoke until Simon said, ‘By the way. Did I tell you that van Deventer offered me a knighthood?’

  ‘Blimey!’ Jenkins jaw dropped. ‘What, making you a sir, a proper sir?’

  ‘Yes. I refused, of course.’

  ‘What? It would ’ave been wonderful! What was it – forty years ago, look you – they was trying to ’ang you as a coward in the Zulu war. Now they’re tryin’ to knight you. It would show everyone ’ow stupid the army can be.’

  ‘Well, I turned it down.’

  ‘And with it,’ Alice pulled a mock face, ‘my chance of being a proper lady.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve always been that, Miss Alice.’

  Fonthill reached into his saddlebag. ‘Speaking of rewards,’ he said. He handed a large envelope to Mzingeli. ‘Inside this are the deeds to the farm,’ he said. ‘I have formally transferred ownership to you, old friend. I hope you will always allow us to visit and I will have funds to help you should you ever need them. But the farm is now yours.’

  Mzingeli did not speak, but he bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.

  ‘Oh, and by the way,’ Fonthill continued. ‘As you know, your army pay has been paid into accounts under your names in Cape Town. The same bank holds two additional accounts for you. I have continued to pay your wages as my employees into them throughout the war. Gentlemen, you are both now quite well off. I should get married quickly if I were you. You will be good catches.

  ‘And,’ he reached out and took Alice’s hand, ‘I can recommend the state of marriage to you.’ Then: ‘For God’s sake woman, stop crying, or you’ll start us all off again.’