Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa

by Warren Durrant

  She was tall and slender, she was blonde and green-eyed. She had a face of classical beauty. She was alive and intelligent. She was as strong as steel and as soft as honey. And I believe I saw it all in the first ten minutes.

  I don’t mean she was superficial. A diamond is not superficial: it is clear and true to its depths, and a lifetime will not exhaust its interest. And that was Katie.

  Next day I said to a woman in the office: ‘I met a lovely woman last night, Katie Woolfson. What do you know about her?’

  Sue was excited. ‘Yes, she is lovely; and she is a super person. But I must warn you: she has a boy-friend, and I think they are pretty steady.’

  Well, they all have boy-friends. I made it a principle to ignore them.

  The day after, Sue was standing on the steps, waiting for me.

  ‘Good news! No. Good news/bad news! Katie Woolfson’s boy-friend was killed in an ambush last night.’

  Well, reader, how would you have taken that news? I leave my feelings to your imagination.

  I thought I had better give it a decent interval before approaching her. Six months? Someone else might approach her before then. After two months I rang her up and asked her round to supper. She put me off with some excuse. I rang her once or twice later. She accepted once but discovered a PTA meeting at the last minute: she was a teacher at the local white primary school. She had five children of her own.

  Then I sent her a book for her birthday, with a gushing letter, like any schoolboy. She wrote back a serious letter, saying she did not want to disappoint me, but she had resolved to form no further romantic relationships with men. She dreaded another tragedy - her heart just could not take it.

  So I bided my time.

  I saw her occasionally about the town: the clubs, at the hospital, and we chatted in a friendly way. I would not say we had nothing in common: we had plenty. But it was plain, on some fundamental level, I was not her type.

  Then, after about eighteen months, I saw her with a tall dark handsome man. And it wasn’t long before Katie renounced her vows.

  Of course, it was inevitable. She had lived, not only in grief, but dread for over a year; but life and courage come back, and the heart of her nature was love.

  And soon after that, I met my wife, and within a year we were engaged.

  ‘I am glad,’ said Katie. ‘I am always glad when something nice happens to people I like.’ She was a good person.

  My fiancée and I became friendly with the Marais. Danie was the nicest chap you could wish to meet: a gentle giant. I played their piano. I had invited Katie to hear mine at one of the candlelight suppers that never came off. It would have been a disaster.

  I played Spanish music, which enchanted Danie, who had a romantic streak. Katie had romance as wide as the plains of Africa, but it did not stretch to Spanish music, which she called ‘jerky’.

  ‘That’s rhythm,’ I protested.

  ‘It’s not,’ insisted Katie. ‘It’s jerky.’

  She did not want anything ‘heavy’ either, which seemed to rule out the rest of my repertoire.

  Danie attracted me as much as Katie. Not only was he gentle and sensitive, he had great strength, and I respected him enormously. He also had a killer instinct, which I never had, except in desperation, which is not the same thing. One night, at the bar of the police club, I was telling him about the delights of war surgery - how after I had fought for hours in the night, saving a life from a gunshot wound, I felt too exhilarated to go back to bed before I had had a beer and music on the record-player.

  Danie leaned back and laughed in his beard. (He was in the police reserve.) ‘It’s funny you should say that, Warren. What you have been describing is the way I feel after I’ve shot one of the buggers.’

  Katie and Danie had something elemental about them. They belonged to Africa and always would. They were made for each other like the night and the day, like thunder and lightning - but I hope they did not have too much of that in their marriage.

  In 1977, Gareth decided to retire, at an early age, and devote himself to enjoyment; like Rossini, whom Gareth resembled in appearance and sanguine temperament, as well as loving his music. He sold his farm and bought a place outside Marandellas in ten acres of land. He kept sheep at first: the lean African things, of course, which look like greyhounds (fat English sheep would have starved), but eventually found it too much trouble, and settled for fruit-growing and bee-keeping. And I had a standing invitation to stay. I returned the compliment, and Gareth came one week-end to my place, but country mouse as he was, preferred to stay at home, so I was able to visit him every six months with a clear conscience.

  And after the heavy and sometimes harrowing work of the hospital, there was nothing more relaxing than to arrive at Gareth’s place, after the 280 mile journey to Marandellas, finding myself bowling down the Igava road, which dipped to the vast distance of the Highveld, on whose crest Marandellas stood. And I had hardly put my bag away and washed my face before I would get it into a pint of Gareth’s home brew - the only beer I know which shares with the Congo beers the power of a strong bouquet.

  We talked. I talked more than Gareth, Welshman as he was; unloading myself, as he had a peculiar power to induce. He would have made a good psychiatrist. The best psychiatrists are made of such earthy stuff - not the intellectual weirdos of popular imagination. Though Gareth would talk often about bombing Germany, not in any boastful way, but because that seemed to be the high point of his rather disappointing life: not that he ever used such terms, and a more imperturbable and philosophical chap you would go a long way to find.

  He read much in his lonely days, mainly non-fiction: war, exploration; though his days were solitary rather than lonely, as that is how he preferred them. He was a miller of Dee if ever there was one, though while it would not be true to say he cared for nobody and nobody cared for him, the numbers were limited and highly selective, at any rate, on his side. Otherwise, he played golf once a week and enjoyed a drink afterwards at the club.

  Gareth loved music, especially the more melodious and romantic kind. He loved opera, but his favourite was Tchaikovsky. We listened to records much while I was with him. He had a peculiar aversion to Chopin, which I could not understand. Years later, he admitted that Chopin had written some good tunes: he had been put off by the wimpish way Chopin let that Sand woman push him around. A curious foundation for musical criticism!

  In the daytime (for I would stay three nights), we went fishing one day and played golf the other. Gareth would have a nap in the afternoon, while I sat with a book on his veranda, which gave a lovely view across a vlei to a rocky kopje, about a mile away.

  Gareth had two dogs, both English bull terriers. Joker, the elder, was becoming a social menace, as he noisily fumigated any room he was in; but Gareth loved him more than the pretty young bitch, Sally. The two dogs ran about the country together. One day, while I was there, only Sally returned, with a four-inch gash in her leg, which I stitched up while Gareth held her down. We thought they may have disturbed a leopard or baboons on the kopje. Gareth hated baboons with a black Welsh hatred which surprised me. Gareth was a good friend and a bad enemy. Joker never came back. I tried to console Gareth, saying that he had gone down fighting and would feel no pain. Better, too, than a painful old age; though Gareth would have spared him that, hard as he would have felt it. And he felt Joker’s loss hard then, for all my words.

  As for Sally, she soon got tired of Gareth’s dull company, and took to wandering off to the African township, where eventually she decided to remain. ‘Just like a woman!’ growled Gareth. ‘Serve her right! Soon she’ll learn how the Kaffirs treat their women!’

  Gareth never had a servant: did everything for himself, except for a girl who came in to wash and clean once a week. He never had another dog after Sally left, male or female. I warned him about security. Even he left his place sometimes, if only for the club or an occasional run up to town, to buy brewing requisites chiefly. Then he to
ok to going away for holidays, and leaving his place alone was a worry. His nearest neighbour was a hundred yards away. For longer periods he put the dogs into kennel anyway.

  Indeed, he had some break-ins: nothing much stolen; there was nothing much to steal, and that more of sentimental than material value, though the former would weigh more with Gareth. I advised him that the next best thing (better) to a fierce dog was a fierce houseboy. Gareth had a kaya on his land, so he leased it out for nothing, except the security of the place, to a strong honest fellow called Armando, who settled in with his family. What is more, I was surprised to learn that Armando’s pretty little wife, who certainly did not look the part, was a witch-doctor. It certainly strengthened Gareth’s household insurance: he never had another break-in after that!

  On his little breaks, Gareth had discovered the delights of the Troutbeck Inn. This large, comfortable hotel, all in one storey except for the Lake wing at its feet, lies beside a lake in a valley of the Eastern Highlands. It has a delightful nine-hole golf course, all up wooded hill and down dale, with a closing shot across the lake. There is trout-fishing, tennis, etc, and indoor games like snooker. It also had a piano in the vast lounge which I played to Gareth and such other guests as cared to listen. In the foyer is a log fire which is kept burning all the time, winter and summer, and is always a welcome sight in the fresh and sometimes keen air of the mountains. For it was not long before Gareth introduced me to the place and we had the first of many holidays there, starting in the cold of winter.

  Meanwhile, the bush war was spreading. The white farms between Marandellas and the Highlands were still free, and remained so till the end, so we had to join no convoy, despite Jimmy’s enterprise in the matter. The infiltration from Mozambique was proceeding, north and south, and the guerrillas were beginning the permanent occupation of the tribal areas, which eventually they would complete throughout the country. Nevertheless, on the night of July 14, 1978, fireworks were added by Comrade Mugabe to the other entertainments of the Troutbeck Inn.

  Gareth and I were sitting up in our beds at 10.15pm, reading our books, in the East wing of the hotel. Everyone else was in the bar. On our arrival, we had left our weapons at the desk, to be locked up in the manager’s office, as was the practice in hotels in other parts of the country. Suddenly we heard what sounded like a fireworks display from the direction of the golf course, across the lake. Very soon I recognised it for what it was. I said to Gareth: ‘That’s an attack!’

  First, the irregular crackle of automatic rifles, then the steady hammering of a machine-gun, then the boom!, boom! of mortars and rockets, solemn and sinister in the night. I knew you had to get two walls between yourself and a rocket-propelled grenade, which burned its way through the first one and exploded inside. I told Gareth, we had better crawl into the corridor.

  We doused the lights and got down on the floor, or at least, I did. I was about to reach up for the door handle when, glancing over my shoulder to see if Gareth was following me, I saw his stout form silhouetted in the window. He had actually opened the curtains, and said: ‘It doesn’t seem to be coming this way, Warren.’

  Then all the lights in the hotel went out, as the manager raced for his office and threw the master switch.

  Meanwhile, firing was coming from the hotel itself. The people in the bar ( who had not put their weapons in the manager’s office) had broken the windows, and were firing back, Wild West fashion.

  When the shooting started, two ‘bright lights’ had been patrolling the front of the hotel. These were police reservists, sent to guard hotels and farms and suchlike exposed country places; so called because they mostly came from the bright lights of the city. They had crossed beneath the large globe lights of the hotel’s central steps, and were as exposed as could be. They hit the ground and started firing with their rifles across the lake. When the lights went, they somehow broke into the Lake wing, whose french windows stood behind them, and fired back from some cover.

  The guerrillas, a party of about thirty, were ensconced in a pine wood, across the lake. They had got a mortar on the tenth tee - a long-range speciality of the course, for stronger players, crossing the lake - which gives the range to the ninth hole: 350 yards. Add another fifty and they had the range of the hotel. They got one bomb on the terrace in front, and another in the car park behind, nicely ‘bracketing’ the building. Then they got a third one on the roof, which blew a hole in it over the foyer. The rockets all flew over the hotel and landed harmlessly in the open ground beyond.

  The people in the bar and the bright lights aimed for the flashes of the guerrillas’ weapons, including the mortar. The firing grew too hot for the mortar-handlers, who, after three shots, decamped. The evidence of all this we saw next day: the flash burn of the mortar on the tenth tee (probably a recoilless rifle), the scores of the bullets within feet of it, the pine trees gashed with high-velocity bullets, discarded AK magazines, and even an RPG left in the little wood.

  Meanwhile, Gareth’s bulky form filled the window. Suddenly he exclaimed: ‘Good God, Warren! Why haven’t we got our weapons? It will all be over without us!’

  Pausing only to don dressing-gown and slippers, he shuffled into the corridor, and I followed him likewise. We got to the foyer and saw the starry sky through the big hole. Someone with a rifle challenged us. I answered nervously: ‘Dr Durrant and Mr Baker.’ Gareth wanted to find the manager and retrieve his .303. Like Dr Watson, I had brought my revolver, which would not have made much contribution, even if I had Gareth’s enthusiasm, which I did not. I was not afraid, but neither was I interested in gun-fighting. But the manager was too busy firing himself, and Gareth and I had to sit in the smoky corridor.

  And in ten minutes, it was all over. No one was hit on either side. The guerrillas suddenly stopped firing and made their way back over the hills. Smoke continued to fill the corridors. It was coming from a mattress, smouldering in the Lake wing. The manager had it pulled out on to the lawn.

  The lights came on and everyone gathered in the bar, in the euphoria which follows a happy issue on such occasions. The bar was riddled with bullets. Most of the bullets had gone high, as is common in such exchanges. All the windows were shattered from the activities of both sides. The ceiling was scored all over. The big mirror behind the bar was shattered, and many of the bottles in front of that. Every room in the Lake wing was riddled, but the East wing, out of the line of fire, escaped. Wire furniture on the terrace was smashed by the first mortar bomb. The second had done little damage in the car park. All this, too, we discovered next day.

  Meanwhile, the bar opened for drinks on the house, and a party started that went on till two in the morning. A pretty Australian girl, who was holiday-working at the hotel, found herself the excited and exciting centre of attention from bearded men with smoking rifles. She would have a tale to tell when she got home. She did not wait to tell it. She quit her job and left the country next day.

  Otherwise, the only cloud rested on Gareth, who was fuming. ‘I’ve never felt so frustrated,’ he spluttered, ‘since I was looking the wrong way when that German night-fighter flew past us over Berlin.’ Gareth was a forward gunner at the time.

  When we got back to Marandellas, we told our tale at the bar of the Three Monkeys Hotel, expecting to be kings of the pub and bought a round, at least. But such tales were two a penny by now, and most of the drinkers, being younger than ourselves, were spending half their time in the security forces, one way or another. We did our stuff, like dual announcers on the television. When we finished, there was a pause. One man put down his glass, and remarked reflectively: ‘Troutbeck! I lost three golf balls in the lake there once.’

  The following Christmas we went up to Troutbeck again. As we entered the foyer, Gareth brandished his rifle and said to the manager behind the counter: ‘Here we are again, David! All ready to shoot a few terrorists, what?’

  David received this greeting with a certain coolness. ‘Things have changed, Gareth. We have o
ur own guard force now.’

  Both coolness and information failed to register with Gareth, who carried his rifle to our room and propped it lovingly beside his bed, like a favourite teddy bear. He carefully laid a bag of ammunition beside it on the floor, in case it got hungry in the night. He was not going to be cheated of any sport going this time. I had my cowboy outfit with me, which I put away in a drawer. After that, we went for sundowners and supper.

  At supper, a white youth of about nineteen in a T-shirt approached our table. This was the captain of the guard force. He had no difficulty making out whom he wished to speak to. David had probably described Gareth in terms of the Galloping Major, which would certainly have picked out Gareth in a crowd.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he began. ‘I believe you have a rifle in your room.’

  Gareth put down his soup spoon. ‘Yes, my boy,’ he replied, rubbing his hands together. ‘Expecting a spot of trouble, are we?’

  ‘If we do have any trouble, sir,’ replied the youth, ‘we would prefer you to remain in your room.’

  ‘But you see,’ replied Gareth, anxiously, ‘we are in the Garden wing. You don’t have a very good field of fire from there.’ The Garden wing lay behind the main building. ‘Shouldn’t I report to an assembly point or something?’

  The youth looked at the ceiling. He looked down again.

  ‘Look, sir,’ he concluded. ‘If we want you, we will send for you.’ With which he walked away.

  ‘Don’t ring us, we’ll ring you!’ mocked Gareth, bitterly. He looked at me earnestly. ‘Why, Warren! I was seeing action when that child’s nappies were on the line!’ He looked away, engaged in some mental arithmetic. He looked back at me. ‘Dammit! When his father’s nappies were on the line!’

  Something aged in Gareth, almost visibly. Between spoonfuls of soup, he went on bitterly: ‘Not wanted! That’s it! Not wanted! Too old!’

  Now that the shooting has started in these pages, ‘liberal’ readers (lock up the spoons!) may be asking what I was doing toting a gun on the ‘wrong side’, with which I might have killed someone old Mr Gladstone used to describe as ‘struggling, rightly struggling, to be free’. Quite apart from the chances of hitting anyone with my ancient Webley, carried for self-defence, or simply deterrence ( as previously explained), while pinned down in a ditch, under a hail of bullets, I suppose it still implicated me in the situation; and even if I had been as defenceless as Jock Scott, I was still committing the ‘sin’ of risking my precious hide in a ‘wrong cause’, even if I did have a romantic idea of death in Africa, under almost any circumstances, as carrying its own crown of glory: all of which may call for some explanation.