Ghosts of the Past

by Tony Park

  Anja cleaned her teeth and ran a brush through her hair. Then she put the kettle on her gas bottle and portable burner and made coffee, which she drank with a couple of rusks for breakfast before packing up her things. By the time she was pulling away from the hide the first of the day’s tourists were arriving to get dawn photos of the desert horses. Anja felt a pleasant warmth inside, despite the freezing conditions, when she saw the mare and foal approaching the water point.

  In the car she called Ulli, the head researcher based at Klein-Aus Vista and, as she’d hoped, he gave her some coordinates for Narudas farm. Anja SMSed the coordinates to Nick, who responded that he had received them. She calculated that they would arrive at the spot about the same time.

  She drove as fast as the old Land Rover would go, just nudging the speed limit, the sun visor lowered against the rising sun as she headed eastwards on the main road towards Keetmanshoop. The Karasberge emerged on her right as she skirted the northern edge of the mountains and, eventually, she turned off onto a gravel road that led into the range on the eastern side.

  Ahead of her, parked on the side of the road was a small white sedan, with a tall man standing outside. He waved to her as she pulled up. She got out of her four-by-four, bringing her new iPad with her.

  ‘I’m imagining you’re Anja, as there’s no reason for anyone else to be out here.’ He had a wide smile.

  ‘Hello, yes, I am Anja.’ She held out her hand and he took it. She gave him a firmer handshake than he was expecting, she thought. She held up her iPad. ‘I was busy last night, as I mentioned, with my research, but if you like I can translate for you here, now, as I read.’

  ‘Sure, that sounds great, and nice to meet you at last.’

  ‘Yes, nice to meet you, as well.’ She felt a little nervous and awkward.

  ‘So, do you think this is the battlefield?’

  She looked down at the screen, opened the document, and started skipping ahead in the manuscript, speed-reading while Nick stood staring out at the rather barren rocky landscape.

  ‘Dr Kohl mentions a conical hill, shaped like a breast,’ she said, then blushed.

  Nick pointed. ‘Well, that one over there sticks out.’

  She looked up and out across the landscape, unwilling to meet his eyes while her cheeks burned. ‘And a ridge, in a horseshoe shape. I think we are in luck, Nick. We are looking over the site of Jakob Morengo’s kraal.’

  Glancing sideways at her, Nick said, ‘I’m really sorry about what happened to you, Anja, about the robbery and everything. I feel like it’s my fault.’

  She shook her head, touched by the genuine sincerity she heard in his voice, and finally looked into his green-brown eyes. He was a bit older than her, she thought, and handsome in a slightly unkempt way. ‘It is done. It is a shame we had to meet this way, but I am glad I got a chance to read Dr Kohl’s manuscript. Unless all the incidents, the robberies that you mention are coincidental, which seems unlikely, then there must be something of great value to someone in this document.’

  ‘I’ve got a line on who that might be,’ Nick said.

  Anja raised her eyebrows. ‘Someone looking for Claire Martin’s gold maybe? That’s the only thing of value I’ve seen in the manuscript so far.’

  ‘Paul Kruger’s gold, as a matter of fact,’ Nick said. ‘There’s a real-estate mogul in Cape Town, Scott Dillon, who’s an Anglo-Boer War history nut and would supposedly do anything to find that lost treasure. You’ve heard of it?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course. Everyone who has been in the Kruger Park area knows the story, but it’s widely believed to be a myth.’

  Nick shrugged. ‘Well, let’s see where the story takes us.’

  Anja looked down at the screen again and started to translate. She smiled. ‘Dr Kohl has once more inserted himself into the story here.’

  Anja started to read aloud, but stopped when something came back to her that Nick had just said. ‘You say this man’s name is Scott?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘I met a South African called Scott in Windhoek. He said he was something to do with property development. What does he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ Nick said, ‘I’ve only seen some pictures of him online. Dark wavy hair, a bit of a pretty boy, I suppose. I’d say women would find him handsome. Apparently he has plans for a golf estate near Windhoek. I wonder if it could be the same guy?’

  ‘This man was very attractive. I met him in Joe’s, a bar, and he was very forward with me, making friends, but in a gentlemanly way. He asked me a lot of questions about my work.’

  ‘He seems to come to Namibia often,’ Nick said. ‘Do you think . . .’

  ‘I need to look online.’ Anja took her phone out and checked the screen. ‘No signal. I will check later, but I’m worried, Nick. I met this Scott on the same evening I was attacked. If it’s the same man, perhaps he was looking for your manuscript? Perhaps he knew we’d been in contact with each other and deliberately delayed me while the other men searched my room?’

  ‘You might be right. That sounds too targeted to be a coincidence. Scott Dillon is the only link I have to Susan Vidler, and she knew where my aunt lives, and that Lili had a copy of the manuscript as well. Plus, of course, she had been in touch with you, and asked me to contact you, too. You may not know this, but Susan was working for Scott, possibly as a private investigator.’

  ‘Really?’ That surprised Anja, but it made sense. The woman had always seemed particularly nosey, even for a journalist.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nick slowly, clearly still thinking. ‘And if it was Scott Dillon who was behind the attacks and robberies, then we have to assume that he now has the manuscript, stolen from Lili, and is working from the same information we have. If there are clues to where Claire Martin might have hidden her share of Kruger’s gold, then Dillon may well be following them up.’

  ‘What will you do, Nick? Do you want to confront him?’

  ‘I think so. For now, though, we need to work out exactly what is so important in this manuscript.’

  Chapter 37

  Narudas, German South West Africa, 1906

  Dr Peter Kohl coughed and spat, his saliva thick with dust, as he reined in his mount at the centre of the horseshoe-shaped ridge overlooking the valley. The long ride from Keetmanshoop was over, but there would be no rest. Non-commissioned officers gave softly spoken orders as the mounted column of Schutztruppen reorganised itself for the attack on Jakob Morengo’s kraal.

  The breath of men and horses hung in the air, harness buckles clinked, and from along the line came the snicker of Mauser rifle bolts being worked as rounds were chambered, ready for action. A cone-shaped hill, which instantly reminded Peter of one of Claire’s perfectly shaped breasts, caught his eye in the ghostly pre-dawn light.

  He missed his wife and he missed his life on the farm, both of which he now realised he had taken for granted for too long. It was cold, but at least he had an extra layer over his police reservist’s uniform, a long oilskin mariner’s coat he had bought in Cape Town.

  Peter had tired of war in a very short time, just the week it had taken the German columns to march and ride from Keetmanshoop and Warmbad to these godforsaken hills. Below them was their Nama quarry.

  A horseman approached and reined in next to him. Peter saw that it was Hennie du Preez, one of the Afrikaner scouts who rode with the Germans and, sometimes, spied on the Nama people and their sympathisers for them. Du Preez had fought in the Boer War, against the British, and had chosen to move to South West Africa rather than live in a South Africa run by his enemies. ‘Morning, Doctor. A good day for some shooting, don’t you think?’

  Peter gave a small nod, but he was not looking forward to more blood and bodies.

  Below them Peter saw hundreds of matjieshuise, mat houses, wooden-framed structures covered with mats woven from reeds. Fro
m each little home came a straight plume of smoke that lined the pale pink dawn sky. Here and there, for it was still early, Peter saw women, the early risers of the African family, wandering about. One had a bundle of wood on her head as she walked, another stirred a pot. His stomach grumbled. What he wouldn’t give now for an Eisbein in the Schützenhaus, and a cold beer. Instead, dinner and breakfast were tinned beef and biscuits.

  ‘It looks quiet,’ du Preez said, ‘but von Deimling needs to be careful. That Jakob Morengo is as clever as Christiaan de Wet. I’d best be going, Doctor.’

  Du Preez touched the brim of his hat and gave a more formal salute to the overall commander of the one thousand–strong German force, Colonel Berthold von Deimling, who, with an entourage of half-a-dozen staff officers, stopped next to Peter.

  ‘Let’s hope there is not too much business for you today, Herr Doktor Kohl,’ Colonel von Deimling said.

  Peter lowered his glasses and forced a smile. ‘Today the Black Napoleon will meet his Waterloo, Colonel.’

  Von Deimling frowned. ‘If you were not a reservist, or if you rode with us more often, Herr Doktor, you would know that I forbid the use of that ridiculous nickname for this common outlaw.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Peter wondered if von Deimling had overheard and reprimanded du Preez for likening the black man to Christiaan de Wet, the canny Boer leader whose highly mobile commandos had caused the British so much trouble.

  Morengo had certainly drawn the first blood against this force. The guerrillas had hit von Deimling’s column in the rear, where they had least expected it, on the ride down from Keetmanshoop. Riding out of the setting sun, a score of Nama on horseback had sailed into the wagon train carrying the Schutztruppe’s ammunition and food, firing from the saddle at men and horses.

  The wagon masters, cooks and storemen bringing up the rear had been armed, but their rifles and pistols were not within easy reach. Their officers might have been scanning the mountaintops and ridges for ambushes, but the last thing they expected was a fast-moving flying column riding up in their own tracks. The toll had been savage.

  As a doctor in a frontier colony Peter had seen far more bloodshed than he might have in the wealthy suburb of Berlin where his family lived, but this attack had shaken him.

  Until now, apart from some minor injuries and the time he had ridden out into the desert to save a young trooper who had been wounded in an ambush, the war had largely been an abstract concept for him, something discussed by young braggarts in the bar, tales of gruesome native savagery and soldierly courage. This was young men dying painful deaths, and despite rushing from casualty to casualty, he had been able to do so little for them. Eighteen had died and another twelve men were wounded, six of them badly enough to be sent back to Keetmanshoop on a wagon. Peter felt like he had failed the men and his commander so the colonel’s rebuke hurt him doubly.

  He felt angry at the rebels. He himself had treated many Nama patients who had gravitated to his and Claire’s farm when they’d learned he was a healer. Some of the other settlers thought him foolish and soft, but he saw the local people as just that – human beings who deserved his help as much as any German farmer or his wife. Now he cursed them for stealing his cattle, for rising up against the Kaiser. Peter had thought Morengo a noble fellow, again, in the abstract, fighting for his land and freedom, but now he wondered why the Nama had not found some more peaceable way to make their case.

  When he closed his eyes and looked into his heart, and saw the pleading eyes of a nineteen-year-old German boy calling for his mother with his dying breath, Peter realised he wanted revenge.

  He studied the huts. Again he noticed that nearly all of them had a cooking fire outside.

  ‘No sign of Morengo and his criminals,’ Colonel von Deimling said.

  ‘They will be hiding in the hills,’ Peter said.

  ‘Of course they will be, Herr Doktor. What we need to do is bring them out. Leave the strategy to me and I will leave the butchering to you.’ The colonel spurred his horse and galloped off, his smirking staff officers in his wake.

  Peter felt chastised yet again. More than ever he just wanted to focus on healing and farming, rather than the business of war. It brought out the best and worst in men and so far, in his limited experience, he had seen only the worst. The young Schutztruppen in the supply train had died without great bravery or sacrifice. There had been no rallying counterattack or acts of gallantry, just chaos and blood. After the attack, he had winced as an officer had walked along the column dispatching wounded, thrashing horses. More than one young soldier had cried at that act alone.

  Returning to the task at hand, Peter continued to study the kraal below through his field glasses as riders were dispatched to the various units under von Deimling’s command, to put the commander’s plan into action.

  Peter shifted his gaze and watched a troop of artillery unlimbering their mountain guns. The crews worked with practised speed, setting up the small but deadly cannons, removing ammunition from wagons and stacking it. Officers and non-commissioned officers sighted the guns and gave the command to load.

  Further along the ridgeline half-a-dozen of the Maxim machine guns – terrifying weapons Peter had so far only seen fired in training – were being set up on tripods. A sergeant had let him fire one during a shooting practice, and the vibrations through his arms and the smell of cordite and hot gun oil had left him in no doubt that this was a true manifestation of the meeting of warfare and modern manufacturing, a machine that could kill quickly and en masse.

  Peter scanned the rocky hills, which were turning pink in the dawn, and the still deeply shaded ravines and valleys. He mentally traced the trajectory of the guns and tried to identify their targets. So far he had seen no armed enemy on foot or horseback.

  A red sun was visible through the haze above the flat peaks to the east as Colonel von Deimling gave the order to attack.

  There was a series of ragged booms and a sound like material being torn as shells left the battery of mountain guns. Peter lowered his binoculars to get a wide-angle picture of exactly what the guns were targeting. His jaw dropped. From the high plateau below he heard the crump of distant explosions and saw dust clouds mushrooming between and directly on the humble dwellings of the kraal. Von Deimling had given the order to shell the civilians.

  Peter heard the chatter of the Maxims and watched for their fall of shot. Here, too, the gunners were raking the mat houses of Morengo’s followers.

  A cloud of dust to his right told Peter that a company of Schutztruppen were on the move, their horses galloping down a narrow pass towards the plateau and the killing field below them. The German soldiers were mounted infantry, rather than cavalry, which meant they dismounted to fight, instead of riding through the enemy’s ranks. Peter saw the men rein in their animals as they came to the edge of the plateau. Here and there a soldier gathered the mounts of his comrades while the rest of the force moved quickly into an extended line and started moving towards the rows of houses on foot, rifles up and ready.

  Peter scanned the battlefield, if it could be called that, and saw maybe fifteen or twenty women and children running from the advance. He wondered what had happened to the rest of the civilians – if Morengo’s band numbered between 150 and 200 then surely the number of dependents would be a multiple of that, perhaps a thousand or more wives, children and elderly people? Had so many been killed in the barrage?

  The mountain guns and the Maxims adjusted their fire to keep their shower of shrapnel and bullets ahead of the advancing Schutztruppen.

  Peter swallowed bile, imagining and trying to prepare himself for the sight of eviscerated women and children in the obliterated, smoking remains of huts. He had wanted revenge, but not like this. He kicked his horse and followed the same trail the soldiers had just negotiated.

  His heart pounded with a mix of excitement, fear and dread. Peter stayed on his
horse as he passed the Schutztruppen who were holding the mounts of their fellow soldiers, at the same time dimly registering that the guns had fallen temporarily silent; the skirmishers must have worked their way across most of the plateau. He caught up with two riflemen, one of whom kicked in the flimsy door of a house that had survived the artillery bombardment. The man went inside the dwelling, but came out, shaking his head to his comrade.

  ‘What do you see?’ Peter called down from his horse.

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ the man said. ‘Nearly all these stinking huts are empty. There are cooking fires, but no food, no pots, no sign of people. We came across a couple of bodies, old people by the look of them.’

  Peter looked across the plateau. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. ‘Get back to your horses, mount up!’

  ‘The natives have all gone.’ The soldier put his rifle between his knees, took off his Südwester hat, and reached into his pocket for a pipe. ‘With respect, you’re the doctor, sir. We take our orders from our officers. We were told to clear these huts and we’ve done so.’

  ‘It’s a trap,’ Peter said, the realisation hitting him. Von Deimling was so intent on crushing the rebellion, on sending a message to Morengo by targeting his women and children, that he hadn’t seen that the camp was all but deserted. ‘Goddamn you, I said get on your horse.’

  The soldier laughed at him. Peter drew his pistol and the man reached for his Mauser.

  ‘Be careful where you point that peashooter, Doctor,’ the man said, working the bolt of his rifle to chamber a round.

  Peter looked up, checking the ridgeline partly encircling the plateau. He heard a rattle of rifle fire and a bullet smacked into the ground next to the foot of the man who had been mocking him.

  ‘Shit!’ The soldier spat out his pipe and ran to the matting wall of the hut he had just searched. The flimsy dwelling might have provided some concealment, but it couldn’t stop the bullet that tore through the reeds and into the man’s chest.