1982 - An Ice-Cream War

by William Boyd

  He walked up the street towards his men, his mind still dwelling on the events of that night. If Deeg hadn’t given his men secret instructions could the responsibility be laid at his—von Bishop’s—door? Had he done anything or said anything that the ruga-ruga could have construed as an order to kill Cobb? No, he was sure. He questioned himself with punctilious honesty. But he had not ordered the ruga-ruga to kill the man. “Get him,” was all he had said, in a language, moreover, that they could not understand. No, his conscience was clear.

  He joined his men. Like him they wore a mixture of ragged German uniforms and captured Portuguese clothing. All their weapons were by now of Portuguese or British origin. Some askaris sat behind a stone wall, others lay in shallow firing pits. Von Bishop’s sergeant, a European, came up and saluted. Everything was quiet.

  The sun beat down. The road they were guarding led back towards Fife and the border of German East some two hundred kilometres away. Fife was now occupied by the pursuing King’s African Rifles. Von Bishop stayed for half an hour and then set off back down the main street towards his billet.

  Then, from down a side road, he heard the put-put of a motorbike. Curious, he waited. Presently the bike emerged into the main street. The driver stopped and removed the goggles he was wearing. Von Bishop walked closer. He was an English soldier.

  “Where is everybody, mate?” the man said cheerfully. “Fraid I’m lost. Can you tell me where the Kasama garrison is?”

  Von Bishop realized that in his tattered faded uniform he looked more like a farmer than a German officer. It was awkward but he didn’t have a gun with him either.

  “This town has been occupied by the German army,” he said apologetically.

  “Oh,” said the dispatch rider. “Am I captured then?”

  “Yes you are,” said von Bishop, feeling rather foolish.

  “Haven’t you heard?” the dispatch rider said. “The war ended the day before yesterday.” He took a stiff canvas folder from the bag slung around his body and handed it over. Von Bishop read the message it contained.

  Send following to Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck under white flag. The Prime Minister of England has announced that an armistice was signed at 5 hours on Nov. 11th and that hostilities on all fronts cease at 11 hours on Nov. 11th.

  Von Bishop looked up. He felt suddenly weak with relief, a tingling in his knee joints, a slackening of his bowels. Finally it was all over. Two days late, but at last it was finished. The dispatch rider was holding his hands above his head in an attitude of surrender.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” von Bishop said, smiling broadly. “You don’t need to bother with that now.”

  Chapter 3

  2 December 1918,

  Nairobi, British East Africa

  Sir Nigel Macmillan’s house in Nairobi looked rather like a larger version of the grey granite bungalows that can be found in the more genteel streets of any Scottish country town. It too was stone, the roof was slate, the guttering ornamental and cast iron, the windows leaded. The only concession to the African climate was a wide, pillared verandah on which were arrayed pots of plants and wooden chairs and settees, and which over-looked neatly mown lawns and weed-free gravel paths. In 1917 Sir Nigel had lent it to the British and Empire forces in East Africa for use as a sanatorium. For officers only.

  Felix Cobb sat bolt upright in one of the armchairs, his spectacles held in both hands, staring blankly at the trio of African gardeners hoeing a flower bed. In his lap was a letter and a copy of the local newspaper, The Leader of East Africa, which he’d just been reading. He looked like a man who had just received a nasty shock.

  To compose himself he picked up the letter, put his spectacles on and read it again. It was brief and from his mother.

  Stackpole Manor

  30 August 1918

  Darling Felix,

  We were most distressed to hear of your accident with the bomb-gun, but relieved to know that you are steadily recovering from your injuries.

  I am writing in haste to tell you of your father. I am sorry to say that he has become progressively more unwell since your departure for the war. After much heart-searching and lengthy consultation with Dr Venables, Cressida and I have decided that it would be best for everyone if he went away for a while. Dr Venables has found a quiet and pleasant nursing home near Bournemouth, called St Jude’s. He says it comes highly recommended. Dr Venables hopes that when this war is finally over and you and Gabriel come home life may eventually return to normal.

  Nigel Bathe has a splendid new pair of hands and is much more his old self. Your friend Holland has gone to Russia to join a revolution there. He telephoned the other day to ask news of you.

  With fondest love from us all,

  Mother

  Felix put the letter down, momentarily overcome with sadness for his old mad father. He wished he had written home with the news about Gabriel at the time. It was going to be impossibly hard to relate the facts of his death now. He smiled ruefully. He was full of retrospective wisdom, twenty-twenty vision as far as his hindsight was concerned.

  He stood up, his right hand going automatically to the back of his head to feel the bumps and ridges of his scar there. As he got to his feet the newspaper slid off his lap onto the floor. He bent down to retrieve it and felt the giddiness come on as the blood rushed into his brain.

  He tucked the newspaper under his arm. He needed to wait a while longer before he could bring himself to read it again. He walked down the steps into the garden.

  He had made an almost complete recovery since the day Wheech-Browning had blown him and Captain Pinto up with the Stokes gun bomb. A chunk of shrapnel had fractured his skull at the back of his head and caused lesions to the occipital area of the brain. The swirling ropes of smoke he had seen at the time of the explosion had in fact been a symptom of the partial blindness caused by his injury. What happened subsequently was that only parts of his eye could see. It was like looking through a shattered pane of frosted glass. The remaining shards were the blind areas, demarcated by a swirling effervescent grey smoke, like a cloud of glittering mica dust. The partial blindness had lasted for nearly four months, then it slowly began to clear as his wound healed. The only lingering effect was, he discovered, that it returned for a day or so if he was ever close to a loud noise. A viciously slammed door, a high pitched shout, gunshots.

  He was to be invalided out of the army and was due to sail back to England from Mombasa in three weeks’ time. Those intervening weeks were to be spent convalescing on Temple Smith’s farm near Kilimanjaro. That, at least, had been the plan. Everything had changed since he’d read today’s newspaper. For a year now he’d been waiting in hope for the news it contained.

  As he drew near a group of patients, a curiously shaped man detached himself from it and came sidling up. It was the Rev Norman Espie, Temple’s father-in-law and an annoyingly regular visitor to the ‘gallant injured boys’ in the sanatorium. It was through Espie, though, that Felix had renewed his acquaintance with Temple, and he was grateful to him for that.

  The Rev Norman Espie ducked a non-existent shoulder and held up three fingers in front of Felix’s eyes.

  “How many fingers, Lt Cobb?”

  “Three, Reverend,” Felix said impatiently. Espie always did this. “I’m not blind.”

  “Praise the good Lord,” Espie said. “Temple has asked me to relay the message that he will meet you at the Norfolk Hotel at ten of the clock, the morn’s morn.”

  “Ah. I’m afraid there’s been a change in plan. I won’t be coming now. At least, not for a while.”

  “Goodness me. Not any sign of a relapse, I trust.”

  “No. I have to go to Dar-es-Salaam.”

  “Dar! What on earth for, my dear young man?”

  “Official business. To do with the death of my brother. Temple will understand.”

  Felix repeated his apologies and left the Rev Normah Espie to his visiting. He walked back to his seat on the verandah.
What he had told Espie wasn’t strictly true. It was a plan he’d concocted only minutes before. He still had arrangements to make, official permissions to secure, but he had every intention of going to Dar.

  He sat down and opened The Leader again. It contained a long article about the surrender of the German forces at Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia on the twenty-fifth of November.

  …von Lettow made this formal statement of surrender in German and then repeated it in English. General Edwards accepted the surrender on behalf of His Majesty King George V. Von Lettow was then presented to the officers present, and in return introduced his own officers. The German forces numbered 155 Europeans, 30 of whom were officers, medical officers and higher officials, and 1,168 askaris,

  Then followed a list of those German officers who had surrendered. Felix’s heart began to beat faster as he searched again for the one name he was looking for. He felt a slight sensation of nausea when he found it. “Von Bishop, Erich, Capt of Reserve.” Von Bishop was still alive. Fate had allowed him to survive the war. Felix shut his eyes and conjured up an image of Gabriel’s severed head. The waxy skin, the staring eyes, the dull tousled hair. He thought of his half-eaten body in the trampled grass. The questions that had nagged relentlessly at him for a year rose again in his head. What had happened to Gabriel out there on the plateau? What hellish torments had he endured?

  He opened his eyes again and looked out at the quiet garden, with its civilized lawns and groups of strolling invalids. Since this war had begun not one thing in his life had turned out the way he had planned. Oxford, Charis, the search for Gabriel, the hunt for von Bishop. He realized that he’d been a soldier now for nearly two and a half years—since July 1916—and he had never fired a shot in anger. What kind of a war was it where this sort of absurdity could occur? And yet he’d been sick, half-starved, insanely bored, had seen his brother hideously murdered, shared a house with a syphilitic Portuguese who spoke no English and been almost killed by a bomb fired by his own side. He knew that he was not responsible for the way events had turned out, that it was futile to expect that life could in some way be controlled. But surely everyone had some vestigial power to influence things at his disposal? He had sworn to himself that before he left Africa, before he was done with this mad, absurd war, he was going to exercise that power and fire at least one shot in anger. He was going to put a bullet in von Bishop’s brain. As far as he was concerned his war would not be over until then.

  Chapter 4

  5 December 1918,

  Dar-es-Salaam, German East Africa

  After the surrender, the German army remained at Abercorn for two weeks before being marched to Bismarckburg on Lake Tanganyika. From there a steamer took them to Kigoma, the terminus of the Central Railway from Dar. The journey back to the capital took several days. First they stopped in Tabora where the askaris were to be interned. The officers and European officials were being taken directly to Dar where they, along with the rest of the German civilian population, were to be repatriated as soon as possible.

  As the train approached Dar, von Bishop began to feel distinctly nervous at the prospect of meeting Liesl. He hadn’t seen her for over a year. Their last unsatisfactory good-bye had taken place under very strained circumstances on the steps of the hospital at Nanda. He wondered if she would be at the station to meet him. At Morogoro, when the train had stopped, the remaining German population of the town had turned out in force to provide a lavish welcome. Tables had been set out on the platform. Fresh bread, fruit, beer and wine had been in plentiful supply.

  The sight of the coconut groves behind the city made von Bishop’s nervousness increase. It crossed his mind that somehow Liesl might have found out about Cobb’s death. If not, she would surely ask him what had happened. He shut his eyes for a moment, a flutter of panic beating at his throat. What could he say? What answer could he give?

  “Don’t look so worried,” Rutke said. “We’ll be home soon.”

  Concealing his annoyance, von Bishop looked at Rutke who was sitting opposite him. Rutke was pale and thin. But he had been lucky. Five more Europeans had died of Spanish influenza since the surrender. Rutke had pulled through after forty-eight hours in a high fever.

  “It’s all right for you,” Rutke went on heedlessly. “Married men with homes to go to. Us bachelors have to live in a camp.”

  A big crowd was waiting at the station. As the train pulled in a hearty cheer of welcome rose up. The officers got out and were marched up Unter den Akazien to a tented camp set up in the botanical gardens. Von Bishop hadn’t seen Liesl among the faces at the station, but someone told him that the wives of prisoners would be waiting at the camp. Slowly they filed through a large, airy tent. Their names, ranks and particulars were noted and they were presented with a new cotton drill suit, three shirts, collars, underclothes and a shaving kit.

  His arms full, von Bishop stepped outside into the sun.

  “Erich,” he heard a voice call.

  “This way,” the English sergeant said and led him off to where the group of wives was waiting.

  Liesl was wearing a white high-necked blouse and a long grey skirt. On her head she had a man’s sun helmet. The first thing von Bishop noticed was that she was much thinner. For the first time in years she bore some resemblance to the woman he had seen off on the boat to Germany in 1913. For some reason the change seemed to him an indication of new hope.

  She took the clothes from him. “You were meant to be here yesterday,” she said. “What happened?”

  “A delay at Morogoro,” he said. He bent his head and touched his lips to hers.

  “Liesl,” he said. “You look wonderful. Very well.”

  “I’ve been sick,” she said, her voice sharp with irritation. “A month of fever.”

  Von Bishop felt his heart brim with love at her retort. Now everything, he was sure, would be fine.

  They took a rickshaw back to the quarter of the town that was reserved for German civilians. Formerly a temporary development for junior officials on the railways, it lay behind the marshalling yards and was composed of small corrugated iron bungalows raised two or three feet off the ground on brick piles. German civilians were permitted to move freely around the town during the day, but after dark a curfew was imposed and they were obliged to stay indoors.

  It was a curious sensation to be riding through Dar again. Von Bishop looked about him. English soldiers were every-where, union jacks flying from the highest buildings, English street signs at road junctions. German East Africa didn’t exist any more.

  Their bungalow was mean and unprepossessing, smaller even than their house in Nanda. The streets in the neighbour-hood were rutted and narrow, pie dogs and skinny hens sniffed and picked at piles of rubbish which mouldered at the side of the road, shade trees were few and far between.

  Liesl’s house boasted a ravaged hibiscus hedge and a cinder path to the front door marked by freshly whitewashed stones. Inside there was a sitting room, separated from the single bedroom by a narrow hallway. A kitchen shack and privy stood a few yards from the back door. The Germans were allowed only one servant per household. Kimi, Liesl’s maid from Nanda, welcomed them at the front door.

  Inside it was fetid and warm. Von Bishop sat down on a wooden upright chair.

  Liesl stood by the window, fanning herself with a piece of card.

  “It gets cooler at night,” she said non-committally.

  “I suppose it’s better than being herded in a camp.”

  “Oh, the English are very fair.”

  The maid brought von Bishop a glass of beer.

  “My God, beer!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t had it for years.” In fact he’d drunk bottles at Morogoro.

  Liesl looked pleased. “I saved it for you.”

  Von Bishop got to his feet, went over to her and kissed her on the cheek. Then he stood awkwardly at her side staring through the open shutters at the spindly hibiscus hedge and the cinder path with its whitewashed stones.
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  “Erich,” Liesl said, still looking outside. “I have to ask you. What happened to Gabriel Cobb?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I heard nothing. They moved us here almost immediately. After those men set off after you.”

  Von Bishop almost dropped his glass of beer. He forced himself to relax.

  “We found him,” he said gravely. “On the Makonde plateau. He was dead, from starvation, weakness…”

  Liesl looked at her left hand which rested on the window sill. She prised up a splinter from the dried and cracking wood.

  “I knew it,” she said sadly. “When I heard nothing I knew he was dead.” She paused. “Erich, I—”

  “We found him quite alone,” von Bishop went on quickly. “His clothes were rags. He had nothing with him. No food, no water. “Unaccommodated man,” as Shakespeare says. A brave but foolish attempt.”

  Liesl looked round at him sharply. Von Bishop shrugged his shoulders. “We buried him there. I went on to the Ludjenda confluence, rejoined von Lettow. You never heard anything from, ah, the men following me?”

  Liesl opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, then she closed it. Her shoulders relaxed.

  “No,” she said, exhaling. “Nothing. But I saw one of them yesterday. He reminded me of it all.”

  “Here? In Dar?” Common sense stilled his alarm. He’d been in captivity a month. If he had been accused of anything he would have learnt of it by now.

  “Yes,” Liesl said looking round with mild curiosity.

  “Did he see you?”

  “I think so. He must have.”

  “But he didn’t say anything?”

  “No, nothing. I don’t think he recognized me.”

  Von Bishop cleared his throat to hide the relief. “They couldn’t have found the grave then.”

  “No.” Liesl took her bottom lip between her teeth. “I suppose not.”

  Von Bishop set his beer glass down and put his arms around his wife and pulled her to him. She was thinner but her body was still soft. He felt a sense of happiness wash through him. He squeezed her shoulders.