by Tony Park
‘Don’t worry, Doctor,’ Pip said, seeing Strachan’s embarrassment at discussing details in front of her, ‘I know what you mean. I presume, Squadron Leader, that all of your trainees are lectured on the evils of venereal diseases.’
‘When they arrive, and before their first leave,’ Bryant said.
‘And they’re issued with condoms?’ Pip asked.
Hayes gave a little cough.
‘Yes,’ Bryant answered.
‘Unusual behaviour for a rapist, or rapists, to use one of those things, wouldn’t you agree, Doctor?’ Hayes weighed in.
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more at this stage. I may know more after the postmortem. Now, as for the pilot . . .’
God, at last, Pip thought. She’d watched Bryant closely during the talk of rape, but detected nothing other than bewilderment in his face.
‘He was killed by two poison arrows,’ Doctor Strachan said.
‘I heard he’d been attacked by natives,’ Bryant said.
‘The body was found with two of these in it,’ the doctor said, holding up a short wooden shaft.
‘Arrows?’ Bryant asked.
‘Yes. Of the type used by the San people. I’ve studied their culture. They’re remarkable people, expert hunters and able to live on meagre amounts of food and water. They use a lightweight bow and arrow, with the wooden shafts dipped in poison made from the larvae of the Diamphidia nigroornata beetle. The poison’s deadly, but it’s relatively slow-acting. The bushmen don’t usually aim for the heart or lungs, like a western hunter with a gun might. They rely on the poison working its way through the animal’s body, which can take anywhere from a few hours, for a small animal such as an impala, to four or five days for a giraffe. They’ve patience a white man can only dream of.’
‘So you think they followed Smythe through the desert for hours, until the poison worked?’
‘No. I said he was killed by poison arrows but, in his case, not by the poison. One of the arrows pierced Flight Sergeant Smythe’s heart. He bled to death very quickly. The depth of the wound indicates the arrow was fired from close range. The man, or men, who fired those arrows were aiming for his vital organs, and close enough to hit one of them.’
Bryant nodded. ‘If you’ve studied these people, I wonder if you could explain to me why they’d kill an English flyer who was presumably wandering around the desert hopelessly lost? Hardly a threat to anyone.’
‘Your flyers aren’t armed, are they, with a pistol or other weapon?’ Doctor Strachan asked.
‘Not at all,’ Bryant said. ‘The guns on this bloke’s Harvard weren’t loaded. He was on a solo navigational flight, not even a gunnery practice, so he couldn’t have been shooting up the local wildlife or population by mistake.’
‘I’ll admit, it seems very odd,’ the doctor said. ‘Although they’ve cause to hate some whites – not all that long ago they were hunted down and shot as vermin, like wild dogs – I’ve not heard of bushmen going out of their way to kill a stranded European. In fact, there have been tales of them rescuing people lost in the Kalahari and the saltpans, and leading them back to safety.’
‘What worries me is the reaction of your boys once news of this gets out,’ Hayes said to Bryant.
‘If I have my way, news won’t get out.’
Pip noticed that Hayes looked uncomfortable as he ran a hand through his thinning hair.
He said: ‘Well, it seems, from what I’ve heard, that the local newspaper is already onto the story. It will run tomorrow. It’s big news here, if a black man kills a white man. Something folk don’t stand for.’
‘What!’ Bryant said. ‘What bloody idiot told the press?’
Hayes’s embarrassed silence told them all.
Bryant shook his head and looked back at the body. ‘Is it true, Doc, that he was found like this, only wearing his undershorts?’
‘That’s how the body was clothed when I received it.’
Hayes nodded. ‘He was found by a couple of big-game hunters. They said there was no sign of his clothes, or his aircraft, in the general area. Don’t your trainees receive survival training?’
Bryant’s annoyance with the policeman was clear. ‘Of course they do. They’re taught to stay with their aircraft. There are survival rations and a tin of water on board each Harvard, so it seems odd to me that Smythe took off into the desert so soon after crashing.’
‘The heat and the endless white of the saltpan will do strange things to the mind in a short period of time,’ the doctor said.
‘Will you search for the aircraft?’ Hayes asked.
‘Yes. We’ll divert some of the training flights that way, once I notify the authorities in Bechuanaland.’
‘Wouldn’t have thought your training flights were allowed to cross the border,’ Hayes said.
‘They’re not. Smythe was way off course, there’s no doubt about that. He should have been heading north, not west. There’ll be a full air force investigation, in addition to whatever you normally do.’
‘The body was found in Bechuanaland – out of my country, out of my jurisdiction,’ Hayes said. ‘I’ll make sure the doctor’s report is passed to the police in Francistown, over the border, but it’ll be up to them to investigate the killing.’
Probably a good thing, Pip thought. She reckoned Hayes was out of his depth investigating one murder, let alone two.
‘If we’re done, I’ve work to be going on with. I hope you all understand,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m sorry for the loss of two of your people, Squadron Leader.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Doc. Me too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a cigarette.’
Pip said goodbye to Doctor Strachan and set off after Bryant. She found him outside. ‘Squadron Leader Bryant, I’ve still got some more questions to ask you.’
‘Look, Constable, I know you’ve got a job to do, but so have I. I’ve got a letter to write to Smythe’s family and Flick’s father, wherever he is. On top of that I’ve got to investigate the crash of our Harvard at Mrs De Beers’ place near Wankie, and organise a search for Smythe’s kite over several hundred square miles of desert in Bechuanaland. I’m going back to Kumalo now and I’ll be back from up country in a couple of days. Make an appointment with the orderly room.’
She glared at him. ‘I could arrest you now.’
He turned on his heel and tossed his cigarette into the gutter. ‘What for?’
Pip fought to control her anger. She was fast realising that she had a lot to learn about masking her emotions during an investigation. ‘Where were you last night?’
‘In the mess, drinking, and then in bed, sleeping it off.’
‘Liar.’
‘What? I wouldn’t have thought name-calling is recommended in the police manual. You’re in over your head, Constable Lovejoy. Go back to directing traffic or filing. I’ve got work to do.’ He turned away again.
‘You don’t drink in the mess, do you? You’re a loner. I know the type. Susannah Beattie said you never socialise with the others. I can tell from your face you’re a drinker. I’m betting it’s a bottle in the desk drawer. If I go out to Kumalo now and interview every officer who was drinking in the mess last night, not one of them will say you were there, will they?’
He started walking away from her.
‘It’s time for you to start talking to me, properly, Squadron Leader. For you to start telling the truth about Felicity Langham.’
He stopped, turned and faced her. ‘I want to find who killed Flick, probably more than you do,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s the truth. But first I’ve got to tell someone else the awful bloody news.’
‘Catherine De Beers?’
‘Yes.’
‘At least you won’t have to do it alone.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘You are?’
‘Well, not physically with you. I’ll be in a police vehicle. But I plan on interv
iewing Catherine De Beers tomorrow. I can break the news, if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s a tempting offer, but it might be better if it comes from a friend.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were friends with Mrs De Beers, too,’ Pip said, trying to make it sound like an innocent observation. This was getting more interesting all the time.
Paul Bryant drove back out of Bulawayo on the Salisbury Road to Kumalo, his mind reeling from the events of the day. He passed only a few cars – due to the perennial fuel shortages most whites with business in town rode bicycles. The blacks walked. He was tempted to stop by a bottle store on the way – it didn’t do to buy bottles from the mess – but willed himself to press on to the base.
A troop of baboons was crossing the road, its leaders barking and chivvying the others to hurry as Bryant’s air force vehicle closed on them. They knew how to look after each other, he thought. He wondered if the deep emotions and petty jealousies that governed human life were apparent in the simple existence of these distant relatives of mankind. He hoped not, for their sake.
It was after five by the time he returned to his office. The molten gold light of the setting African sun had rendered the building hot as hell. Richards was gone and he had the orderly room and his office to himself. He slid open the second drawer of his desk, found the bottle of Santy’s and filled his coffee cup to the three-quarter mark with gin. He drank as he sifted through the outstanding paperwork on his desk. The telephone rang.
He sighed and picked up the receiver. ‘Adjutant, Squadron Leader Bryant.’
‘Hello, it’s Constable Lovejoy here. Sorry to bother you again.’
Not more questions, he prayed, instantly on his guard. ‘No worries. What can I do for you?’
‘It’s about tomorrow. Your trip to Mrs De Beers’ ranch.’
‘What about it?’
‘Um . . . we’ve got a shortage of vehicles at the police camp, big operation on tomorrow,’ she said. ‘My sergeant still wants me to interview Catherine De Beers and he’s approved of me asking you for a lift.’
It sounded like a fib to him. ‘You want me, that is, the Rhodesian Air Training Group, to transport you there?’
‘I’ll get up there eventually, one way or another, with or without you, Squadron Leader,’ she said.
Damn her, Bryant thought. It would be better if he were around when she questioned Catherine, and better still if he could talk to the widow first. ‘Very well, I was planning on taking an air force car. The others will be going by truck.’
‘You’re not flying?’ she asked.
‘No. And if I were, don’t think I’d take you. We’ve strict rules forbidding the carriage of civilians, and that includes police officers.’
‘You can pick me up at –’ she began.
‘I’ll be leaving Kumalo at zero-five-hundred, Constable Lovejoy – that’s five in the morning to you. Be at the front gate if you want a lift.’ He hung up before she could best him again.
Kenneth Ngwenya saw the light on in Bryant’s office. This late in the afternoon he knew his friend would be alone. The others in the office, including the clerk, an Englishman who treated all blacks like dirt, would have left for the evening meal or the bar in the mess by now. He feared Paul’s evening meal would be liquid.
The heat of the day was slowly ebbing. The sky was a deep pink as the sun slipped behind the curtain of dust that hung over the dry countryside. The askari fathers of his students would be on their way to the beer hall in the township off base by now, some chasing women other than their wives, but all the evening promised for Kenneth was a chat with the Australian and a few hours of correcting poor grammar by the light of a paraffin lamp. Somewhere a baboon barked, calling his family to their night-time tree to roost. The growing sprawl around the base had forced most of the animals that had lived in the bush to move further afield, but the baboons would stay as long as foreign airmen were stupid enough to keep throwing them their food scraps.
Kenneth did not resent the presence of the allied pilots and trainee aircrew, but he was surprised, from talking to some of them, how much more of their world he knew than they did of his. He was as patriotic as the next man – he had read enough in the newspapers to know that Hitler and Mussolini stood for nothing but evil – yet he and his political party quietly railed against the injustices that still beset their people, no matter how much the white Rhodesians liked to crow about the way they treated ‘their’ blacks, as compared with some other colonial powers on the continent.
What irked him most, though – and it had come as something of a shock to him – was that if he had been born in Nigeria or Barbados, he could have been training to be an air gunner or, if he were a Sikh or a Hindu, he could have been learning to be a pilot. All were subjects of the King, yet some nonwhites were still treated as inferior to others. How odd, he thought, to support a party that called for independence and majority rule, while at the same time lamenting he did not have the right to die for an ideology and a regime that treated him as a second-class person. He smiled as he knocked on the door to the operations room. One had to smile.
‘Enter,’ Bryant called.
Kenneth strode through the empty outer office and pushed open Paul’s door, just in time to see the furtive disappearance of a bottle into the desk drawer. He feigned a cough. ‘Sundowners already? You’ve still got an hour or so.’
‘What are you, my conscience?’ Bryant smiled.
Perhaps, Kenneth thought. He shrugged. ‘It’s not my business if you want to ruin your life, Paul.’
‘Spare me the missionary zeal.’
Kenneth laughed. ‘That doesn’t come from my people. I was taught by the Jesuits, Paul. Fierce Irish drinkers. I saw what a religious man with a strap was capable of after a few drinks. That was enough to keep me away from alcohol. Besides, on my pay I can’t afford it. How did it go with the police today?’
‘I don’t know. It was Felicity Langham who was found dead in town. They wanted to know who she kept company with, what she was like . . . that sort of thing.’
Kenneth’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Ah. And?’
And what?’
Kenneth narrowed his eyes. ‘Did you tell them about you and her?’
‘There was little to tell,’ Bryant said. Kenneth sensed he was being guarded. All he knew was that Bryant had mentioned her name a couple of times lately. He had not said anything specifically, but Kenneth had guessed there was something going on between the Australian and the parachute packer, whom he thought pretty, even if she was too skinny.
‘Do they think it was an African who killed her, Paul?’
Bryant shrugged. ‘If they do, they were spending a lot of time snooping around here for no reason. There were two of them – a man and woman. The bloke thinks it was a black. The woman’s seeing conspiracies everywhere, I think.’
‘Don’t underestimate women, Paul. They don’t think like us.’
Bryant laughed, and raised his coffee cup. ‘Sure you don’t want one – it’s gin?’
‘No, thank you. I am fine. Seriously, I am worried what will happen if the police find out an African did this terrible thing. I think there are some people on this base who are looking for an excuse for trouble.’
Bryant pursed his lips, then took another swig. ‘There’s more bad news coming in tomorrow’s newspaper. It seems one of our student pilots was killed by bushmen after making a forced landing out on the saltpans. But don’t worry, Kenneth, I’ll keep the men in line, or they’ll face the consequences.’
‘I hope so. Paul, are you all right, my brother?’
‘Yes, fine. Why do you ask?’ He leaned back in his chair, seemingly surprised by the frankness of the question.
‘Forgive me for intruding, but I got the impression you and Miss Langham may have been . . . close.’
Bryant paused. ‘She was a Leading Aircraftswoman, Ken, an NCQ. I’m . . . at least I was . . . her superior officer. Besides, you’re hardly in
a position to give me advice about women. Most men of your age would have a couple of wives and a herd of cattle by now.’
Kenneth smiled away the jibe. ‘I have my career to think of first, Paul. And more study. That is my excuse. You, however, need to find a woman.’ He believed Bryant’s soul had suffered in the war, more than his body, and that only a woman’s love could mend him.
He remembered the day they met – soon after Bryant had arrived at Kumalo to take over as adjutant. Kenneth had taken delivery of two precious planks of timber from the base carpentry store – a sly gift from the ageing white Rhodesian flight lieutenant in charge, who had worked as a woodwork teacher before the war. Bryant, still gaunt and pale from his stress-filled months in England, had stopped Kenneth as he was walking along the perimeter fence, the planks balanced on his head. Paul had questioned him gruffly, obviously thinking he had stolen the wood, and Kenneth had rounded on him, standing his ground and telling him that he was using the timber to build a classroom for the children of this new officer’s men, whose welfare was being seriously neglected. He remembered how Bryant, unconvinced, had offered Kenneth a lift to the school in his air force car, the wood sticking out of the back window. On arriving, Bryant had shaken his head at the ramshackle collection of huts that passed for a school and the next day had organised a meeting with the base workshops, engineering detachment and a senior student from the trainee pilots’ class. Bryant had known that the fledgling flyers all came from different walks of life and, within a week, had suggested strongly that a former surveyor, student architect and construction engineer all give up their next few precious weekends to design a new school. Volunteer work parties had been formed, and both Kenneth and Bryant had been pleasantly surprised at how the men, far from home and with little release from their gruelling training schedules except for boozy nights in the mess, had taken to the work. It had led to greater camaraderie between the blacks and whites on the base, and had, over time, cemented a growing friendship between Kenneth and Paul.
