“What a racket,” he exclaimed as they drove on. “Is all Addis Ababa as full of grafters as that airport?”
Heidenstam shrugged philosophically. “I’m afraid you’ll find it so. Abyssinia’s a lousy country. With the exception of the Emperor, who is a really wonderful little man, and about a dozen of his Europeanised helpers, there’s hardly a native in the place one can respect. They have all the cunning and the greed of orientals but none of the Arabs’ love of colour and gaiety and good living. It may be their particular brand of Christianity that gets them down. I don’t know; anyhow all they seem to get from it is their morbid killjoy ways. It doesn’t prevent them getting drunk or being unbelievably cruel and vicious. They’re lazy too—lazy as hogs. You can never get anything done unless you go to the Emperor. Even the highest government officials constantly put you off with Ishe-naga which means, ‘all right, but to-morrow,’ or actually, ‘come next week and I’ll put you off again.’”
They were driving through well-wooded country with fields, rough gardens, and white, one-storied buildings dotted here and there between the patches of blue-gum trees.
“When shall we reach the city?” Valerie asked.
“We’re in it now,” Heidenstam replied. “Addis Ababa is a young town. It was started only fifty years ago because the wife of the old Emperor Menelik came and built a palace here. The Emperor followed her and it has grown until its 130,000 inhabitants have spread out over as big an area as Paris.”
The white-walled, zinc-roofed houses became a little more frequent as they entered the European quarter. They pulled up outside a big building on a hill and Heidestam said: “This is the Hotel Imperial. There are others, but it’s supposed to be the best, and you’ll not be uncomfortable here. Also, you will be quite safe, so I shall leave you now. One of the Emperor’s people will visit you this afternoon and tell you what you may or may not do during your stay. Haile Selassie is most anxious that all Europeans should be protected from any unpleasantness and, even though he’s at the front now, his partisans continue to superintend visitors’ arrangements personally in his absence.”
They thanked the Swedish airman, who drove away with a cheerful wave of his hand. Lovelace then interviewed the Greek hotel proprietor. The results were far more satisfactory than they had hoped. Three good bedrooms, each with a private bath, were placed at their disposal, and it was promised that a sitting-room on the first floor should be reserved for their exclusive use.
Having viewed the rooms and parked their few belongings, they came downstairs again. Now that the excitement of their flight was over they felt chilly and depressed. Although it was still only mid-morning, a drink seemed the obvious remedy.
A square-faced, grey-moustached man and a redheaded youth were the only occupants of the bar. After ordering drinks Lovelace got into conversation with them. The elder was a Dutchman representing a firm of coffee merchants; the younger a Belgian adventurer who had come out hoping to secure a command in the Abyssinian Army when the regular officers loaned by his Government were officially recalled on the outbreak of war. As he possessed exceptional linguistic attainments, he had managed to get a job as interpreter at the Consular Court where justice was dispensed among alien nationals.
They soon informed the newcomers why it had been so easy to secure accommodation. From September to Christmas the hotel had been crammed from basement to attic with foreign correspondents, armament men, and every sort of shady white who hoped for good fishing in the troubled waters. But the armament people could not find anyone with the cash to buy their goods; the Press-men discovered that even the Abyssinian War Office knew nothing of what was going on at the front, and the job-seekers had found the inborn suspicion of the Abyssinians concerning the honesty of all whites too deeply rooted to be overcome. After three or four months of wasted time and money the editors had recalled their journalists, the munition pedlars had packed their samples, and the funds of most of the others had run out. The place was now two-thirds empty.
When Valerie remarked how surprising it was to find that every room in the hotel had a bath, they both laughed.
“It happens to be built next to a hot spring,” the Belgian said. “It’s the only place in Addis of its kind. Even the people in the legations come here for a bath once or twice a week. But the food is filthy and the prices extortionate. You would do better at the Deutches Haus.”
Christopher asked if they had run across an elderly Armenian named Paxito Zarrif, during the last fortnight, but they shook their heads. Neither of them had even heard of him.
Lovelace inquired their opinion of the outcome of the war. They both began to talk at once, but the Belgian was more fluent and won the day. “In less than a week the rains will come. The Italians will be bogged; their communications will be cut, their leading troops will be massacred piecemeal and there will be a stalemate for six months. After that they will advance again, but the Emperor will have had time to reorganise his forces and secure fresh supplies of munitions. The Abyssinians all believe that the League will intervene before then, though, and that Britain will come in on their side. Anyhow, my job’s safe for another year, at least.”
“How about air-raids? Aren’t the Italians making things pretty unpleasant here?”
The young man shook his fiery red head. “There was a great scare at first, but the Italian planes never seem to do much except reconnoitre. They bombed Harar and Dessye some time back, but only as a sort of demonstration, I imagine. They killed a few civilians, but they didn’t do much damage. All sorts of nonsense has been written in the Press about their deliberate destruction of hospitals, and so on. That has occurred in isolated cases, but it’s not deliberate. The red cross used to be the sign of a brothel in Abyssinia. It still is outside the principal towns. Directly the blacks learned that Europeans regarded it as immune from attack, they painted it on everything. You’ll see thousands of red crosses plastered all over Addis.”
Valerie shivered in her light, tropical clothes. Lovelace noticed it and said: “We need some more suitable kit. There’s plenty of time before lunch. We’d better go out and buy it.”
“Mohamedally,” said the Dutchman. “That is the place for you to go. Anyone will tell you where to find it. Their store is the only one worth while in Addis, and they have branches all over the country.”
Leaving their new friends lolling in the bar, as though time had no significance, they set off on foot to do their shopping.
It was a bright, sunny day, but the temperature seemed almost arctic after the stifling heat of Assab and Jibuti. As they trudged up the steep gradients they found themselves not only cold but oppressed and breathless.
“We should have taken a taxi,” Lovelace said. “I’d forgotten that Europeans never walk more than a few hundred yards here. This place is 8,000 feet above sea-level, and that means a big strain on the heart.”
They found Addis Ababa, or rather the small scattered European quarter, to be a place of staggering contrasts. Three-story, stone blocks rose, here and there, among a jumble of tin-roofed, brick bungalows and mud-walled huts thatched with straw. In the irregular open space that formed its centre delicatessen shops were selling luxury tinned foods, such as caviare and asparagus, imported from Europe, while before their doorsteps native women squatted, displaying for sale mouldy-looking fruit and vegetables, miserable little heaps of parched corn, and handfuls of red peppers.
There were two cinemas, two indifferent-looking cafés, the Perroquet and the La Secret. Khaki-clad, white-topee’d policemen at the junctions of the roads were laying about them with heavy, hippopotamus-hide whips—the only method, apparently, of driving the pedestrian population out of the way of the traffic, which was mostly composed of smart taxis driven with reckless speed by fuzzy-headed Abyssinians.
Mohamedally’s store provided them with most of their requirements, all at fantastically expensive prices, but Christopher paid without a murmur. He was too cold and too worried about the necessity
of finding Zarrif, now that they were at last in Addis, to argue.
He questioned the turbaned Indian who attended to them, and the policemen in the streets, without result. Lovelace took him by the elbow.
“Look here,” he said, “you lost the ether pistol with which you meant to kill him when we were taken by the Danakils. We’ll have to use ordinary automatics, and we must get another brace of those before we can do anything; even if we can find out where he’s got to.”
Christopher agreed, and they walked over to an oil-shop which displayed for sale a most extraordinary collection of weapons: scimitars that had possibly been used to lop off the limbs of Crusaders; poisoned spears such as the Mahdi carried when they surrounded General Gordon in Khartoum; ancient arquebuses which had been new when Cardinal Richelieu was beseiging La Rochelle; long-barrelled, beautifully-inlaid pieces from Arabia; wide-mouthed blunderbusses for firing handfuls of old nails; tenth-hand rifles made for a dozen wars of the last century, and, quite incongruously among these museum exhibits, a few modern automatics.
For a quarter of an hour they stood examining the goods among drums of paint and turpentine. Lovelace came away with a heavy, blue-barrelled Mauser, Christopher with an ultra-modern, snub-nosed, American automatic, Valerie with a small but handy Browning, and each had acquired as much ammunition for their weapons as they could carry without inconvenience.
Heavy fatigue still upon them, they carried their numerous parcels to a taxi and drove back to the hotel, where they changed into their new, ill-fitting, but warmer clothes.
At lunch they were given mutton, and Valerie commented upon it, as she had hardly tasted meat since they left Alexandria.
“I am glad that Madam is pleased,” said the Eurasian head waiter brightly. “We have mutton every day.”
“And nothing else,” added Lovelace bitterly. “I remember that when I stayed in Addis for the Emperor’s coronation.”
They had coffee upstairs in their private sitting-room. Christopher returned at once to the necessity for finding Zarrif.
“Well, we’re here at last,” he said. “But d’you realise it’s the 28th? We’ve only got two clear days left to work in. We’ve got to act quickly now or it’ll be too late. Somehow we’ve got to run Zarrif to earth and fix him once for all. If we don’t, the concession will go through, and you both know what that means.”
“How about trying the United States Legation?” Lovelace suggested thoughtfully. “They must have a big staff here, and somebody there may be able to put us on to him.”
“Splendid!” Christopher’s dark eyes lit up with their old fanatic gleam. He turned to the door. “I’ll go down and call them up now.”
It was a long time before Christopher returned. He was breathless and paler than ever from having run upstairs, but his handsome young face was alight with excitement.
“We’re in luck,” he panted. “Rudy Connolly is one of the secretaries at the Legation. He’s a friend of mine. He’s asked us out there to dine this evening. In the meantime he’ll pump all his colleagues for us. One of them is certain to know where Zarrif’s staying. Men like that can’t hide themselves in a small place like this.”
Sitting down, he put his hand up to his heavily pounding heart, and went on jerkily: “God! the telephone service here—you’d never believe it. They call the operator by name and have to ask after the health of his wife and family before he’ll even consent to give you the first wrong number.”
Lovelace grinned. “I know. It’s a ragtime country, isn’t it? If I were you, though, I’d take it easy. The height here plays the very devil with Europeans. Don’t exert yourself more than you absolutely have to, and do everything you’ve got to do as slowly as you can. If you’re feeling dicky, why not have a lie-down on your bed?”
“Good idea,” Christopher panted, but at that moment a house-boy arrived to announce that Blatta Ingida Yohannes, a representative of the Emperor, was below and wished to see them.
“Ask him to come up,” Lovelace said at once. Then he explained to the others that Blatta meant “wise” and was a civil title ranking one higher than Ato. It could be taken as Esquire; the next rank above it being Kantiba, or Knight.
The Abyssinian proved to be a pleasant young man dressed in European clothes. His hair was oiled back, his face clean-shaved, and he spoke French with an easy fluency.
His first request was rather surprising: he asked for news of the war; but he explained that communications with the fronts were so difficult that even the Emperor usually learnt of fresh movements, when he was in Addis Ababa, through reports brought in from the outside world by neutrals before he heard of them from his own commanders.
“We heard the Italians had opened a big attack at Sasa Baneh this morning,” Lovelace informed him.
Blatta Ingida Yohannes smiled. “There they will break themselves against our “Hindenburg line”. Many lion pits have been dug to trap their tanks. When these have fallen through the thin, earth-covered layers of sticks into the holes Ras Nasibu’s men will overwhelm their infantry and wipe it out. What do they say in Jibuti of the fighting on our northern front?”
“We’ve heard nothing of that since they captured Dessye close on a fortnight ago.”
The young coloured man shrugged his shoulders. “So that silly rumour still persists. We had it here ten days back, but it is false, of course—just one of the many propaganda lies that the Italians send out over their powerful wireless to try and hearten their troops in other sectors. You see, it is quite impossible, because the Emperor is still at Dessye.”
Lovelace forebore to contradict him, although he had seen the Italians occupying the town itself from Count Dolomenchi’s plane. He feared that the officials in Addis might become suspicious and troublesome if they knew their visitors had just spent some time as guests of the enemy. Spy mania was running high. Their movements might be restricted and the aeroplane seized. It was safer to allow it to be believed that they had come straight from Jibuti. “You feel that the war’s going well for you, then?” he asked.
“It is difficult to say,” the Abyssinian replied. “We know so little, only that it is certain we shall win in the end. The Italian casualties are far higher than they say, since we contest every inch of the ground, and every one of our soldiers is a crack marksman. Each night we raid their lines, too. They hate that. It is shaking their morale even worse than their air-raids are shaking the morale of our people. Every mile they penetrate, too, lengthens their lines of communication and makes them more vulnerable. Sooner or later they must collapse. It will happen quite suddenly one night. Then we will chase them out of our country. You will see.”
“They won’t collapse as long as they keep on sending out adequate reinforcements,” Christopher said, “because you cannot possibly hope to beat them in a pitched battle owing to their complete supremacy in the air.”
“No.” The young Abyssinian gave him a sly glance. “You are right, perhaps, as long as the fighting is on the low levels with only an isolated mountain to be captured here and there; but wait until they reach the high ground. European airmen cannot fly day after day at fifteen thousand feet. Their hearts will give out in the rarefied atmosphere and they will be crashing all over the place. That is why they so seldom attempt an air-raid here. White people cannot even walk here in Addis without their hearts giving them trouble.”
They knew that he was right. Every step they had taken since they arrived in the Abyssinian capital had seemed to cost them a special effort.
“You feel very confident, of victory, then?” Valerie said.
“How can you doubt it when everybody knows that the British are coming to our assistance?”
“If they did it would mean another World War,” Christopher said quickly.
“About that I do not know, but our situation is obvious. A few years ago the Emperor might have been willing to compromise with his powerful neighbour rather than risk a war which must mean much misery for his people whicheve
r side was victorious. Since that time Abyssinia has been admitted to the League. What is the League for if not to protect small nations from aggression? Naturally, after that the Emperor would not consider any form of compromise. He knew that he could rely upon the League to maintain him in his just rights. The machinery at Geneva works slowly. We understand that; and we are perfectly willing to defend ourselves while Britain makes her preparations. But as the champion of the League she is bound to intervene on our behalf before very much longer. Many squadrons of her aeroplanes are already in Egypt waiting for the word to attack.”
Valerie sighed. The whole world knew now that the League was a broken reed to lean upon, yet this man’s faith in it was apparently unshakable and quite pathetic.
More coffee and liqueurs were sent for. Lovelace took advantage of the interruption to get Blatta Ingida Yohannes off the thorny subject of the League, and asked him about the Emperor.
The young man was one of the Jeunesse d’Ethiopie; the society of progressive Abyssinians. He spoke with real enthusiam of the Emperor’s reforms, and sadly of how the westernisation of his country was being held up now for lack of funds because the Emperor was being compelled to spend every penny of his money on munitions for this wicked war that had been forced upon them.
Believing them to be ordinary tourists, he expressed great anxiety that they should see everything before they went away and leave with a good opinion of Abyssinia. He said that the Emperor received all visiting Europeans personally when he was in the capital, but in the Emperor’s absence it was his duty to entertain them. To start with, he proposed a drive round the town that afternoon and that he should call for them again after dinner to take them to the cinema.
Christopher’s face showed his anxiety lest their self-appointed guide would seriously embarrass their movements; but Valerie leaped into the breach by saying that they were all tired after their journey and feeling the effect of the high altitude; for the remainder of the afternoon they would prefer to rest. The evening was already disposed of by their arrangement to dine at the American Legation.
The Secret War Page 21