If his present business folded up, he had another scheme in mind. He was positive he could make a fortune by getting a timber concession and selling ties to the Uganda Railways, and he had a marvellous plan worked out for transporting the ties by water. The next time we saw him, however, some months later, he had a new dream. He had found land in Ethiopia which would be perfect for growing cotton. He could buy the land cheaply – all it needed was irrigation.
“Here’s the deal,” he said to Jack. “You come in with me and look after the irrigation side. A couple of good seasons, and we’d be set for life. What do you say?”
Jack declined, although with a certain amount of reluctance. Chuck shrugged. Never mind. He would find a partner somewhere else. He went his way and we went ours. We never discovered what happened to him. I would be willing to bet that he has never gone home, though. If he is not still in the crocodile business on the Juba River, or growing cotton on the Ethiopian plains, more than likely he is rounding up the last of the reindeer in the Arctic tundras or catching South American bushmasters to sell to zoos.
Ernest, who was in charge of agriculture and veterinary services, was a man of phenomenal energy. He dashed around at top speed, always, accompanied by a gaunt and glossy-haired Irish setter which loped tiredly behind, suffering from the day’s heat far more than its master ever did. Ernest had shaggy eyebrows and thick spectacles through which he peered with a keen blue-eyed look. He would not let you go, whoever you were, until he had finished explaining his latest scheme.
“Listen to this – I must just tell you about the garden at Bohotleh – the most astonishing results –”
This country grew practically nothing, but some food could be grown in the well areas if only the Somalis could be persuaded. Nothing ever discouraged Ernest, or if it did, he kept his discouragement to himself. If a jowari-growing scheme had failed – never mind. Maybe the date-growing scheme would succeed. Over the years he had studied and written extensively about the trees and plants of Somaliland, and had discovered which plants were believed by Somalis to possess medicinal properties. He had also done much research into livestock diseases, and was constantly attempting to introduce better methods of animal husbandry. It was slow going, for the tribesmen were highly suspicious of anything new. But the next effort, the next experiment – this was the one certain to succeed spectacularly.
He knew, of course, that it never would. Most of his work would not bear fruit that he would ever see. It was for other years, years that might be immensely distant. But he had the ability to travel hopefully, and here, where the earth was about as hard and unyielding as it is possible for earth to be, and where setbacks were not the exception but the norm, this ability was a great gift indeed.
Miles was a veterinary officer, a tall bony man with a reserved manner and a hesitant way of speech. He visited us when we were camped near Borama, and as he began to talk about his work he lost his shyness and was soon explaining the campaign to persuade tribesmen to bring their animals for vaccination.
“The cattle-owning Somalis of the west, you know, actually attempt to immunize their stock against rinderpest,” he said earnestly, glancing up with brief uncertainty as though to make sure he was not boring us, but then forging ahead regardless, carried by the force of his own enthusiasm. “They make a brew of the urine, dung and milk of a sick animal and place a little of it in the nostrils of a healthy beast. Unfortunately, the disease is often spread in this way instead of being checked. But the really significant thing is that they do have some concept of immunization.”
He was attempting to find out everything he could about the Somalis’ traditional ways of caring for livestock and treating diseases, in the hope that some mental bridge could be provided which would enable the nomads to move from the old methods to the new.
Long afterwards, in West Africa, one day we saw a familiar figure on the streets of Accra. It was Miles, on a visit to the coastal city to get supplies. He was working in the northern part of Ghana, he told us, an area which resembled Somaliland. His work was needed there; he only hoped he would be allowed to go on doing it. He suspected he might be moved to the coast, and he did not want to be.
He was attracted – impelled, almost – towards the sparsely settled desert and the desert people. That is where he wanted to live and work. It was his kind of country. For those who have loved the desert, it can be difficult to be content anywhere else.
“I wish,” Dexter said, “that they would not pinch the telephone wire. That’s the third time this month that the phone line to Berbera has been cut.”
The tribesmen in the Guban valued the government for this one thing if for nothing else – the quantity and quality of its copper wire, which was perfect for binding the head of a spear to the shaft. Dexter spoke of it plaintively, but without rancour. He no longer allowed himself to become unduly annoyed at these perpetual difficulties.
Dexter was in charge of the Public Works Department, and Jack was directly responsible to him. He was a quiet-spoken man who never interfered unless it was absolutely necessary, and then did so with diplomacy. When we were caught out on the Wadda Gumerad at the onset of the rains, and finally arrived back in Hargeisa in a depleted state, Dexter did not tell us, as he might well have done, that we were crazy to have gone out without food or water.
“Personally,” he said casually, “I never go out even on a short trip without supplies. You’ll probably find that’s the soundest way.”
Like almost everyone else here, he was hampered by a shortage of equipment and trained staff. But the main roads were kept open and each year a few more miles were added. Water continued to flow out of the taps; new bungalows were put up and old ones kept in repair. Things got done, somehow.
“When you’ve been out here for a while,” he said, “you don’t expect miracles any more. You just do what you can.”
We found that this was the theme of many Englishmen’s lives here. They did what they could. It was not everything, but it was something.
The Padre was the only Church of England clergyman in Somaliland. He had been sent out here many years ago, to serve the needs of the English community. Now he was an old man, and was supposed to be retired, but he was not the kind of person who could ever retire. He had gained permission from the government to stay on, for this was his home now.
Because the Somalis were strong Muslims, and because at the beginning of this century the Somalis waged against the British a war that was both nationalistic and religious in character, no missionaries were permitted here. This seemed an excellent policy to me, for I could never believe in anyone’s right to foist his religious views upon others, and in any event, these desert people could not possibly have found a religion which would have sustained them better than the one they already had.
The Padre, naturally, did not regard the matter in this way. He had, I think, a sense of sorrow because he had not been able to proselytize here. He did not have that all-too-common missionary trait, the patronizing and basically scornful desire to enlighten people who are regarded as low savages. I think he would have liked to preach among Somalis merely because he was fond of them and would have wished to share with them the faith which was so close to his own heart.
He had spent years and years translating the Bible into Somali. Why would a man labour so pointlessly? For him, of course, it was not pointless. He really believed that his translation would be needed one day. He respected the Muslim religion, but his own belief so filled him that he could not help feeling that some day some Somalis would seek what he had found in the Man who to him was not merely a prophet but the Son of God. He was well aware that Muslims considered this concept to be at complete variance with monotheism. But he lived by faith, not logic, and in this way he was closer to the Somalis than we could ever be.
He was one of the frailest men I have ever seen, a man like thistledown, slight and fleshless, with a wispy white beard. He wore heavy boots several sizes too big for him, pro
bably someone’s castoffs, and a food-speckled black soutane. Accompanied only by his Somali “boy,” who was nearly as old as he, he wandered around the country, sometimes living in Somali camps, sometimes giving church services in the European stations, marrying and baptizing and burying when English people needed these rites performed. He had no car. He walked across the desert, and the English in all the stations worried about him, thinking he would be found dead of thirst or sunstroke one day in the Haud or the Guban. But he never was.
Dexter told us of meeting the Padre out in the Haud. The old man was striding along through the dust, a tatty-looking topee on his head.
“You’re miles from nowhere, Padre,” Dexter said, half reproachfully. “What would you have done if I hadn’t come along to give you a lift?”
The Padre was completely unperturbed.
“Ah, but you did come along, my dear boy, didn’t you?” he replied. “Don’t you see?”
The Padre’s trust in divine bounty was apt to give those of lesser faith (which meant everyone else) many moments of concern. At the height of the Jilal – was he marching across the dry wastes of the Haud? Or when the rain came on – had he found shelter? And yet – how to explain it? – the Lord, or someone, always did provide for this incredible man.
The Somalis called him wadaad, a man of religion, and regarded him as a holy man. They understood his kind better than we did, and they fed him willingly whenever he stopped at their encampments. During the war, the Padre was ludicrously made a major. It is hard to imagine what he must have looked like, lean-shanked and fragile, swathed in a khaki uniform. He did not have much use for his officer’s pay, which seemed a ridiculously large sum of money to him, so he used to give most of it away to urchins in the magala.
He had a fine disregard for any law which he considered to be silly. In Hargeisa immediately after the war there was a rule that all Europeans walking out at night must carry a hurricane lamp – in case of sudden attack, presumably, from the Somalis who were edgy and unsettled after the Italian occupation and their subsequent return to British jurisdiction. The Padre turned up at Government House one evening, gaily swinging his hurricane lamp – unlighted.
“They told me I must carry a lamp,” he said mildly, “but they didn’t specify that it should be a lighted one.”
The true lantern he carried, of course, was always lighted – it would never go out until he died. Because his faith illuminated him so, it was tempting to see him simply as a saintly man, some gentler John the Baptist. But how intricate must be the forces which make life seem possible to some men only in the wilderness.
We travelled many miles over terrible roads to see the government geologist. His wife ushered us into the bungalow – would we like a cup of tea? Aubrey was working and could not be disturbed. Perhaps we would like to wait, or if not, could we return some other time? She spoke of him as though he were an artist whose inspiration must not be intruded upon. And in a sense, that is just what he was.
We waited for an hour or so, and finally Aubrey came stomping out of his study and beckoned to us, managing to look cordial and absent-minded at the same time.
“Come in, come in! Sorry to keep you waiting, but if I let people interrupt me, you know, I’d never get a blessed thing done.”
His study was like a small natural history museum, crammed with maps, charts, rock specimens, animal skulls, collections of butterflies and insects.
“Rainfall records – that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Let’s see, now –”
He ruffled through thousands of documents and emerged triumphantly with the records Jack needed for his work. Aubrey was something of a legend in this country. He had done geological surveys, maps, charts of tribal migrations, rainfall records and heaven knows what-all. He was completely bound up in his work, and it seemed to him that there was never enough support for his projects. Only slowly were his reports and maps printed. He carried on a running battle with the Secretariat. He was on friendly enough terms with the administrative officers individually, but collectively he appeared to view them as a mammoth stone wall against which he was doomed forever to batter. He told us about it in gloomily ironic tones.
“No money, saith the government. It was ever thus. These things of mine have got to be printed, you know, but do you think they’ll see that? Not they.”
All the same, he knew his work was valued here. I only hope it will be valued as much in the independent Somali Republic.
The Colonel owned an infant ostrich and an exceedingly pregnant grey mare. The mare’s condition was a source of anxiety to him.
“She’s been pregnant for such a long time, I’m beginning to wonder if she’ll ever foal. Or if she does, what on earth will come forth?”
Perhaps she mated with a camel by mistake, and at this very moment some exotic hybrid was being formed, some creature which required an unusually long period of gestation. The Colonel and Aul, his stable-boy, fussed over the swollen but placid mare like two worried physicians. When at last she dropped her foal, it was a little brown filly, perfectly formed, and the Colonel was almost disappointed.
The Colonel was retired from the Army and now served as an aide to the Governor. He was thoughtful and courteous, the gentlest of men, and his favourite pastime was telling ghastly battle stories. From him I learned more about the famous Mullah campaigns half a century ago, for he had read everything he could find on the subject, and he spoke almost as though he had been there.
“Now this shows you what sort of chaps the Somalis are when they’re fighting – it was during the 1912 campaign, I believe, when a Somali dragged himself into the Berbera hospital one day with a bullet in his leg and a spear wound right through his body. The doctor started to take out the bullet, and the Somali gasped, ‘No, no – never mind that. But for the love of Allah, do something about this spear wound – it hurts when I laugh.’”
And although this same anecdote had probably been told, with local variations, of warriors in every army since the days of Genghis Khan, the Colonel laughed delightedly.
“I can quite believe it, you know,” he said. “We had some very good men in those campaigns, too. Corfield, who founded the Camel Corps – he was killed, of course. And Swayne – he led the Second Expedition. Along with Risaldar-Major Haji Musa Farah, he trekked across the Haud with five thousand tribesmen, to attack the Mullah’s forts. Think of it – all that way. Water was the problem, and fever. The Mullah was holed up with all the water he needed. It wasn’t a simple matter of spears, either – the Mullah’s forces had rifles.”
His face grew sombre as he recounted the series of campaigns that went on for twenty years. “When we got up the Third Expedition, we had regular forces of Sudanese and Sikhs as well as the Somalis. The worst battle was at Gumburu – our men were terribly outnumbered, holding out inside a zareba and entirely surrounded by the Mullah’s men. After a while it looked as though the whole British force would be killed. And indeed they were, to a man. But first –”
The Colonel paused, for he was very much moved by this story, and hearing him tell it, so was I.
“Just before the Mullah’s dervishes swept in,” he finished, “Captain Johnson-Stewart broke up the Maxim guns so that they would never fire again.”
We were silent, both of us, thinking of all the brave young men, the dead young men. But at least the gentle Colonel never doubted that they died for something worth while. And perhaps, after all, they did, if they believed they did. While on the other side, also believing, the Mullah’s young Somali warriors died crying Allah Akbar!
Whether Mohamed Abdullah Hassan was a madman and a religious fanatic, as the British claimed, or an early nationalist and divinely inspired leader, as the Somalis claimed, was not a matter that could ever be settled. Perhaps he was both. Even the Somalis did not deny that he was a cruel man, but in their eyes this was not such an unusual thing for a sultan to be. He was a great gabei poet, and some of his poems survived to this day and were often re
cited by Somalis. The one I had heard showed skill and deep feeling and did not sound like the work of a madman.
“That may be,” the Colonel said, “but we must remember that many of the tribesmen in the interior were not on the Mullah’s side and were looking to us for protection against him.”
Plain fact or wishful thinking? Again, probably both. One point, however, the Colonel conceded willingly.
“The Mullah was a courageous man,” he said. “No one would deny that. Insane at times, no doubt. But he would never admit defeat, and that is something one has to admire, always.”
Matthew had often been mentioned to us by the Somalis.
“Wait until you are meeting him,” they told us. “There is a man.”
Scarcely another Englishman in the country did they hold in this kind of esteem. We, however, were suspicious. Whenever I am told I will be certain to like someone, I become convinced that I will not like him at all. But when we finally met and got to know Matthew, we saw what the Somalis meant.
He was a District Commissioner, and as such he was entitled to one of the new large stone bungalows. But he could not be bothered with such fancy accommodation – it simply did not interest him. He lived in a small and almost shack-like bungalow, closer to the Somali magala than to the European settlement. His house was cluttered with files and papers, massive texts on Qoranic law, and every book that had ever been written about Somaliland. Matthew lived happily in the midst of this muddle, flicking the ash from his constant cigarette on the floor, for the ashtrays were always buried somewhere beneath the debris of paper.
There was about him a quickness, a kind of nervous energy. He did not belong to the “dinner-jackets-in-the-desert” set. He dressed in baggy khaki trousers, a bush jacket and an old Australian bush hat, and he took the formalities of colonial life as lightly as possible. He was the only Englishman in government service, as far as we could discover, who spoke really fluent Somali, and one of the few who understood the complexities of tribal organization and tribal law.
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