As the 'war situation' developed, the DC started recruiting district assistants to supplement his personnel. These people had medical examinations at the hospital. In Africa, delegation is an important and necessary principle. The doctors did the main business and filled in the relevant sections of the forms, which they then signed. As doctors are unworldly souls who do not read small print, few of us studied the previous entries made by the nursing and clerical staff.
The DC was used to taking a closer look at things, and presently returned the first batch of forms, in which he remarked in his covering letter, some men were marked down as ten feet tall and others as three feet tall, who appeared to his untutored eye to be within normal limits.
When we re-examined the forms (if that is the right expression), we found that it was true. Matron investigated and discovered that the great principle of delegation had in this case been pushed too far. The boring business of measuring heights had been passed on to a little old man from the kitchen. When asked to demonstrate his working method, he showed us on the machine how, when he got a measure of 5' 10", he marked it down as ten feet, and for 5' 3", he put three feet.
In my last months at Umtali I did some locums, which I might say are a luxury in Africa: for the recipient, I mean, who, as I have earlier indicated, more usually shuts up shop and leaves everything to the nurses, with instructions to transfer anything they cannot handle to the next person who can.
First I went to Inyanga District Hospital, in the mountains. Inyanga was the only white-occupied place in Rhodesia which I heard described as a 'village'. It was a spread-out sort of place, like some places in the Scottish Highlands, nestling under the shadow of World's View, as the nearest big mountain was called. I stayed at one of the small local hotels.
The DMO was Harry Knight, then about 80, who had already made as many retirements and come-backs as Gigli; and I had a couple of days with that delightful man before he went off on leave. He was a cherubic figure, like Mr Pickwick, and I noticed that he had taken to driving round his district, which was already infiltrated by guerrillas, with a sub-machine-gun beside him in his car, looking like a country clergyman with a fixation on Al Capone. I did not bother with weapons at that stage.
Inyanga in those days was a quiet station. (It got busier later, with the growth in population and the influx of refugees from Mozambique.) I used to call it an 'old man's station', and certainly Harry managed it happily enough. Most afternoons I was free, after an hour at his house, conducting the private surgery to which more than one patient rarely came, and I spent most of the hour reading a book from Harry's library. Then I would take a boat and go trout-fishing on one of the dams. The ambulance driver, of course, could always get me for an emergency.
The operating theatre must have had the loveliest view of any in the world (most have no view at all), overlooking the mountains - a solace to the straining surgeon when he looks up from his work.
There were two rural hospitals to visit. One lay up the lovely Inyanga North Valley - a wide, flat valley with conical hills on its floor, like the mountains of the moon: one of Kipling's 'great spaces washed with sun'; which looks so like the Great Rift Valley of East Africa that I wonder if it is not the lost tail of it.
One week-end Jimmy came out to see me and shared my room at the hotel. And I was to discover that Jimmy's charm was visible to more than myself, especally as far as the ladies were concerned.
As we sat with our fellow guests round the fire one evening, that 'winter in July', Jimmy was his usual ebullient self; sprinkling his out-going personality around him like a life-giving fountain. And one who bathed in it more than most was a dark lady of mature charms sitting beside him, who seemed to be with a large surly man. We thought nothing of this until next morning.
As the sun rose, so did Jimmy, like another sun himself, and stood at the door of our room in the spread-out motel. Across the cheerful beams of both the sun and Jimmy, hove the shadow of the large surly man. This did not prejudice Jimmy any more than the larger sun above him. 'Good morning!' called out Jimmy, in his warmest tones.
Whether the response was unexpected from such a source, I will not say. It certainly shook both of us.
'Are you looking for a punch on the jaw?'
The large surly man took his shadow elsewhere, without waiting for a reply. Jimmy worked it out this far, at any rate: 'Warren, I believe that man is jealous.'
It did not take long for Jimmy's suspicions to be confirmed. He had not been back at Umtali two weeks before he received an interesting letter.
'I've got rid of YOU KNOW WHO. The coast is clear. Love, Anita.'
We met a number of army officers at the bar of the hotel, who had been taught by Jimmy. Jimmy had taught about half the people in the country, white and black. When some politician appeared on television once, Jimmy commented: 'I know that man well, Warren. I taught him. Thick as two short planks!' He also received political pronouncements with a device of his own which I called 'Lennon's corrector'. Eg, when Smithy or somebody told the country he would not increase taxes, Jimmy would reply smartly: 'He means he will!'; and the contrary to positive statements. Lennon's corrector, of course, is a useful political tool beyond the borders and times of Rhodesia.
One of the officers recalled how Jimmy would mark exercises while supervising prep - at lightning speed. Refusing to believe in the efficiency of this speed, one boy inserted in his exercise the message: 'I bet Eggy Lennon doesn't see this.' Jimmy's flying pencil came to a sudden stop. 'Stand forth, Perkins minor!'
Jimmy left before I did. In some parts of the country, convoys were already in operation on the roads between the towns. At first, just numbers of people getting together with their own weapons. Later, more formal convoys were formed as the towns became islanded by the spreading bush war: a police reserve pick-up leading with a Browning machine-gun mounted on the back, another in the middle in a long convoy, and one bringing up the rear. These convoys assembled at fixed points, and left at fixed times. And sometimes came under ambush and returned fire.
People had not started forming convoys to or from Inyanga yet (never did, I believe), but Jimmy was a prudent man and on the day he left, organised one himself. The local police chief, returning to the village, was surprised to see the first convoy in his district coming round a bend, led by a stern-faced Jimmy.
After Jimmy got back to the house, he got his name in the local newspaper. Rhodesian schools worked from 7am to 1pm. Every afternoon there was sport, which Jimmy, who was now 60, was excused. He would return to the house exhausted, he told me, physically and emotionally. He would throw himself into his work whole-heartedly. He was then teaching at an African school. He took as much as he gave, he told me. 'When I look at your happy faces,' he would tell the children, 'I am not teaching you; you are teaching me!' But by one o' clock, he had had enough, and the first thing he did on getting home was to lie on his bed for a couple of hours.
He was lying back one day when he heard music coming from the sitting-room. He had seen no one there when he entered. Carlos would be at work. Warren was not expected back till next day. He got up to investigate, and found the record-player playing one of Warren's records to itself. Then a noise from the bathroom. Maybe Warren back a day early, taking a bath and listening to music. He glanced through the open door, and saw a black man treating himself to a hot bath, as free as you please.
Jimmy's first thought was one becoming fashionable then: terrorists. (He did not seem to associate burglars with music and hot baths.) He put his hand round the door and extracted the key, closed the door and locked it; then telephoned the police, who, of course, came rushing in with all their artillery. At least they didn't kick the door in, but what they found inside was no terrorist, just a frightened black man, who turned out to be one of the poor lunatics who haunted the bins of the hospital, competing for food with the dogs. This one at least got a bed for the night. All duly reported in the Umtali News.
The reader may won
der what food was doing in the hospital bins in 'starving Africa'. And well he might, for by the time they were emptied, say, once a week, they not only overflowed but lay on their sides, where the dogs had pulled them over, scattering food like the horn of Ceres.
I thought at first it was because the stuff was unappetising: it was certainly coarse enough to delicate white palates, especially the wretched ration meat. Once, in Zambia, I had a lady patient who was reluctant to leave hospital. This was unusual: as a rule they were into their street clothes as soon as I gave the word. Although cured, I expect she needed rest, the poor thing, which is not surprising among the women of Africa. I jokingly suggested she was staying for the food.
My joke misfired. The woman took me at my word, silently rose from her bed and began to change her clothes. Thank God I was able to perceive my gaffe and urge the sister to persuade the woman I was joking! What was hard tack to me was a banquet to her.
But the prodigious waste of food was universal. When I had my own hospital later in this story, my northern English frugality rebelled against this extravagance. The plates were certainly loaded: overloaded, I thought and ordered the rations to be cut. It made no difference: still the bins overflowed. Fortunately, someone explained the mystery, or I might have gone on till the patients actually went hungry. It is good manners in Africa to leave some food on one's plate. ‘Licking the platter clean’ might seem to imply an insufficiency, and insult the munificence of one's host.
A few days back at Umtali, then another locum at Rusape, where the 'Baroness' was going on leave. Rusape was another general hospital, with two doctors. The Baroness was a large German lady: her number two was a tiny, black-eyed Polish girl, whom I called the 'Princess'. The Rusape Club had their own names. The Baroness, who must have weighed twenty stone, they called 'Twiggy': Stephanie, the Polish girl, they called 'Ipi Tombi', which sounds like a fetish doll.
The Baroness gave me supper on the day of my arrival. (Stephanie was not present.) We were neither of us conversationalists, so the evening was in the words with which Trollope modestly (and unjustly, in my opinion, as regards him) described his own performance: 'comfortable, but not splendid'.
The Baroness, I believe, was the doctor who performed the postmortem caesarean section referred to in Part II of this book. She was a Bavarian Catholic. She was an outdoor woman and once sustained a two-foot gash in her leg when out shooting. She bopered (tied up) herself (in the Rhodesian phrase) and got herself back to the hospital, where she calmly requested the nervous senior medical assistant to, 'stitch me up, please, Mr Moyo.'
She was said to have played a part in the German resistance during the war. She was a formidable lady, and I can well imagine her putting Hitler, 'that commonest little blighter' (in Chamberlain's phrase), in his place, if she ever encountered him.
A third locum at Marandellas, while the new superintendent was on sick leave, brought me to the end of November. It was pleasant to be in this lovely spot again, but I was already listed to go elsewhere.
Harry Knight had informed me that Shabani was going. This was a district hospital, plumb in the middle of the country, in a mining town. It was over a hundred miles away from the nearest specialists, so a good place for an independent spirit like myself. I applied and once again, as the only applicant, and presumably passing muster, got the job.
I left Marandellas and went to Shabani via Umvuma, spending the week-end there en route. The previous DMO Shabani had left three months before, and my old friend, Jock Scott, at Belingwe, was covering; but in the leisurely way of Africa, a week-end between friends made no difference.
I put up at the Falcon, met the old Friday night crowd, and had supper. I sat up in the hard bed in the plain room of the old hotel, with Phineas Finn, and was as content as our imperfect nature can be.
Next day, I played bowls with my old companions. One of them turned out to be the uncle of Ivor, the fiery physician at Umtali. The uncle asked me how I got on with him. Being, like Samson, my 'small boy' of Ghana days, too childish simple for the diplomatic evasion, I told them about the way he threw the notes across the ward - with or without the clip-boards: a touch June, especially, relished; at which the uncle laughed heartily, which told me what I knew already, that humour was not lacking in that family.
Next day, at nine o' clock in the evening, I drove into the quiet streets of Shabani: an action which, as I was to say in my annual report the following year, would have been madness at the later date, when the tide of war had engulfed the whole country.
6 - Shabani
In the main street I asked the way to the hospital. I rang at the front door which was opened by a pretty white sister. She called a maid who took me to my house in the hospital grounds - or rather, a temporary house until my house was ready. (Meantime, and during my locums, I had given Anderson leave.) Deborah said, 'Be sure to lock your door, doctor. There has been a lot of pinchings from this house.' This was because it was unoccupied: burglary was not a problem in the town.
I had a good feeling about this post from the first, which was not disappointed by trials ahead, including those of increasing war: a feeling which was to find romantic fulfilment not too far ahead.
Next morning I woke to find myself surrounded by little hills, like the many breasts of Diana, glowing emerald in the strong light of summer. Shabani lay where the Highveld descends into the Lowveld, and, at a height of 3000 feet, was already 1000 feet lower than Gwelo. It was an up and down place, being not only surrounded by hills, but built on them, and the usual grid pattern was missing. The main street ran downhill into the town from Bulawayo and uphill out of the town, past the mine hospital, on the way to Fort Victoria. A branch road ran north to Selukwe and Gwelo, and the government hospital lay off this to the left. From these roads ran many smaller roads, up and down, round suburbs and townships, as well as the mine itself. There was a large township called Mandava, which came under the council and had a clinic under me. The mine, which was for asbestos, ran a hospital for their own people, who lived in four smaller townships with their own clinics; besides the management, who attended a clinic at the mine hospital, and were admitted, if necessary, to the white section of the government hospital, under their own doctors.
The town had then a population of 27,000, and the whole district (including town), about 75,000. The mine had three doctors, who looked after their own employees and families, and private patients from the general public (10,000 people in all). All the rest came under the single district medical officer.
The government hospital had 150 beds, thirty of which were for Europeans, who were treated by the mine doctors. There were some government whites, such as pioneer pensioners (before mentioned) and police. All road traffic and other police cases came under the government doctor.
The white ward had been built first, so the hospital (although now overwhelmingly black) was still called by the people, the 'White Hospital', or simply the 'White'. Out in the rural areas there was one rural hospital, which I visited once a week, and a number of council clinics, which were then visited by the provincial medical staff. The township clinic (Mandava), I visited every morning, referring patients to myself at the hospital (a mile away), whom if necessary I would take in the back of a van, delivering them to the clerk with a cry of: 'Mandava Tours!', which he heard with an indulgent grin.
I had a number of these stock jokes (which I would explain, if necessary, not wishing to take advantage of anyone). When I saw the radiographer in the corridor with one of his creations, I would ask, ‘What have you got there, Rembrandt?’ All of which, I hope, added to the gaiety of nations, or, at any rate, the hospital.
My district was as big as Cheshire: 50 miles by 30, and was the smallest in the country. I managed this seemingly impossible situation by the system and methods already referred to in the chapter on Gwelo.
And next to me lay Belingwe, Jock Scott's district, which was as big as say, Norfolk, and contained about 100,000 people. It is fair to say that
Jock's district was also served by a number of mission hospitals - 'was', but not then, as will emerge.
I knew Jock was my neighbour and looked forward to meeting him again. I did not do so until the Christmas party at my hospital. All government departments gave Christmas parties and invited one another's personnel and the mine management. All these parties were whites only. The African sisters, who lived in a sisters' home adjoining and symmetrical with the white sisters' home, also gave a Christmas party, to which whites were invited, and I and the matron would attend. But the compliment was not returned in those days, I am sorry to say, not through any fault of myself or the matron: it would have been socially impossible.
At the Christmas party, Jock and his wife, Joyce, gave me a standing invitation to Sunday lunch, which I soon and often took up; and occasionally (self-centred bachelor) reciprocated. Jock had been at Belingwe eight years. He had a public health diploma and had previously worked as assistant medical officer of health in Bulawayo. He had served in the RAF in the war, which had first introduced him to Africa. He abhorred the cold, so when they asked him where he would like to be posted, he said, 'somewhere warm'. They sent him to the Gold Coast: something else we had in common.
The actual microscopic 'town' of Belingwe was only fifteen miles away, and from the first it was a delightful occasion to sit on Jock's veranda with him while Joyce prepared the lunch. We sat with our beers and watched the louries dropping down from a big wild fig tree in his front garden, and flapping up again, now and again uttering their cry: 'g'way! g'way!', for which they are also called 'go-away birds'. And Jock and I would talk work, books and music.
Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa Page 25
