Storms Over Africa

by Beverley Harper

  At six o’clock, having managed to get through the rest of the day unscathed, Richard was showered, dressed in fresh khaki shorts and shirt and sipping a scotch on the verandah. David finally joined him, having come straight from the shower, judging by the way his hair was still dripping onto his white T-shirt causing the garment to stick to the muscles on his shoulders. Once again Richard was struck by the size of his son. He tended to think of David as little, but the boy was taller than him and broad with it. ‘Want a drink, son?’

  ‘Thanks. A beer would be nice.’

  David turned to fetch the drink but Richard rang a little crystal bell at his side and Wellington appeared on the verandah a few seconds later. ‘Bring the young master a beer.’ David looked uncomfortable, particularly when Wellington reappeared and poured the beer before handing it to him with a small bow. Richard waited until Wellington had gone back inside. ‘You don’t like to be served, do you?’

  David shrugged and sipped his beer.

  ‘Why not?’ Richard pressed.

  ‘Wellington is more like my father or my friend,’ he managed.

  ‘Wellington is our cook,’ Richard answered mildly.

  ‘I don’t have a problem with that, Dad. It’s when he serves us I feel awkward. Sort of like I’m acting a part. Know what I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well that’s how I feel,’ David finished lamely.

  ‘If you had a cook in Scotland you wouldn’t make him your friend would you?’

  ‘That would be different.’

  ‘How?’ Richard sipped his scotch.

  ‘For starters, I probably wouldn’t have grown up spending more time in his company than anyone else’s.’

  ‘Are you saying that’s wrong?’

  ‘No. I realise things are done differently in Africa.’

  Richard nodded. ‘They are indeed, son. Including the way you treat servants as servants. If you try to treat him any other way you make him uncomfortable. Wellington understands that, why can’t you?’

  ‘How do you know that? Wellington might resent the hell out of you for all you know.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to stay.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a lot of choice, does he?’ David said sarcastically. ‘He’s likely to starve if he goes. You take advantage of him.’

  ‘That’s Africa for you,’ Richard said callously, bored with David’s idealism. Then he added, ‘and there are not many people in Zimbabwe who disagree with that concept. It’s the way things work here.’

  David sighed. ‘I’ll never understand Africa. I love it but I’ll never understand it. It’s like the law of the jungle is carried through everything.’

  ‘That’s a good way of putting it, son. Africa is unique. The laws which apply elsewhere don’t necessarily work here. That’s what makes it so fascinating.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be like that, Dad. I wish life could be fair for everyone in Zimbabwe.’

  ‘Life isn’t fair to all people in any country, David.’

  ‘Well it should be.’

  He abruptly changed the subject. ‘You’re doing a good job on that beer, son. Drink much in Scotland, do you?’

  ‘Once or twice,’ David blushed.

  ‘Get pissed?’

  David floored him with his answer. ‘Downright legless on one occasion.’ He grinned, half ashamed, half proud at the memory. ‘I spewed up all over Grandma’s rose garden.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Richard whistled. ‘I hope the old girl didn’t catch you. She can be hell on wheels.’ Richard’s mother had not changed much over the years.

  ‘She blamed the neighbours’ son.’

  ‘That’d be right. She lets you get away with murder.’

  The two Dunn men—one still unfledged and full of idealism, the other a cynic—for the first time in their lives enjoyed a chuckle and some quiet enjoyment together.

  Penny’s flamboyant arrival spoiled the mood. They heard the car before they saw it. It had the powerful throaty roar of a very expensive machine. Penny’s taste in men had a great deal to do with the cars they drove. The vehicle proved to be a Jaguar, brand-new, with smoky windows and sleek lines and fancy wire wheel tyres.

  She had the door open and jumped out before the car fully stopped. ‘Daddy!’ she yelled.

  Richard and David had walked off the verandah and were standing together on the lawn. Penny ran straight at her father and embraced him. There seemed to be something hysterical in her manner. She then offered her brother a cool cheek and a hurried ‘Welcome’ before turning back to her father and taking his arm. ‘Come and meet Joe,’ she said. ‘You’ll like him.’

  The Jag’s driver door opened and a tall man, dressed in dark trousers, an immaculate white shirt, thin black tie and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles which glinted in the late afternoon sunlight, straightened slowly and walked around the car. The presentation was perfect. The car, the clothes, the smile were just right. The only trouble was, the man was a full-blooded Shona.

  Richard’s welcoming smile froze. He felt immobilised. His brain was in chaos. The black man saw the effect he was having and his steps slowed. But his eyes never left Richard’s face. Penny’s conversation flowed over both men’s heads as they stared at each other.

  ‘Daddy, I’d like you to meet Joe Tshuma. He’s with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management. Joe, this is my father, Richard Dunn.’ She stepped back with a smile of gloating spite.

  David came to the rescue. He walked over to Joe and shook his hand. ‘I’m David,’ he said, ‘Penny’s brother. Nice to meet you.’

  The timely intervention by David had given Richard the necessary few seconds he needed to get control of himself. He stepped forward and shook Tshuma’s hand. ‘Welcome to Pentland,’ he said formally.

  ‘Thank you, sir. It’s nice to be here.’ Joseph Tshuma’s voice was rich and full, with barely a trace of an accent. He matched Richard’s polite formality. ‘This is quite a place.’

  ‘We think so,’ Richard replied curtly.

  Penny linked her arm through Joseph’s and smiled brightly at her father. ‘Let’s go inside,’ she said gaily. ‘I’m dying for a drink.’ And Richard led the way, a pulse at the side of his right eye ticking mightily at the supreme effort of will it took for him to appear calm. Drinks had been laid out at one end of the lounge. Snacks were placed on the sideboard. Penny wanted a gin and tonic. David said he would have a beer and Richard, who normally would have limited his son to one, was so distracted he gave him one. He opted for another scotch and water. Joseph Tshuma asked for lemonade. ‘I don’t drink,’ he told Richard.

  Penny, on the other hand, drank enough for both of them. She was in a brittle, nervous mood and Richard recognised the signs. She might pull herself together or she might not. If not, the evening could end in disaster. By the time dinner was served Penny was into her fifth gin and tonic and slurring her words a little.

  ‘Did I tell you, Daddy, Joe is with Game Department in Harare?’

  ‘You mentioned it,’ Richard said, then added heavily, ‘several times.’

  Penny ignored the sarcasm. ‘Joe says that poaching in Zimbabwe is on the increase.’

  ‘Really!’ Richard kept his voice deliberately light.

  ‘Joe says there’s a well-organised ring of poachers. He says that when the axe falls, a lot of well-known heads will roll. Joe says . . .’

  ‘I don’t think you need to bore your father with my job,’ Tshuma sent Penny a look which should have shut her up and had Richard wondering why.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t have some wine with dinner?’ Richard asked. ‘We have an excellent South African pinotage in the cellar and this claret is a fine wine as well.’

  ‘I don’t drink at all, Mr Dunn. I had hepatitis as a child. Alcohol makes me ill.’

  Richard thought about the rough red he knew Wellington put into the gravy. ‘Bugger it,’ he thought, ‘boiling it takes out the alcohol. Anyway, if he gets sick it’s his problem. Sil
ly bugger should have got Penny to warn me.’

  ‘I’ll have some,’ Penny held out her glass.

  ‘Sure, why not.’ Richard did not know what game his daughter was playing. Certainly, she was attempting to punish him, probably for inviting Candice to join them for dinner. But was she trying to warn him as well? He gave up and poured her drink. If she got drunk and passed out he would have the satisfaction of her hangover in the morning. As far as punishment was concerned, two could play that game.

  To his surprise, the evening was not as terrible as he thought it would be. Penny, warned by the lightness of her father’s voice together with the steely glint in his eyes, backed down and stopped drinking. While she was prepared to push her father to the limits of his endurance, when his voice went soft and his eyes hard, she knew it was time to stop. She loved her father and needed his approval. Something in her nature made her want to see how far she could annoy him before he snapped. His anger, to Penny, was affirmation of his love for her. But, on the occasions where she overstepped the mark, she always wished she had not done so.

  Richard was furious with her and she knew why. Bringing a black boyfriend into his home was the ultimate outrage. It offended everything he believed in. Even Penny was surprised by her own audacity. While it was true she found Joseph Tshuma attractive, and the question of black or white never bothered her, she had another reason for bringing him home. Something he let slip the first time she met him, before he knew who she was. He had been talking about his job and said, ‘There’s far more poaching going on in this country than we believed possible. We’re onto them, though. We’ve decided to initiate a “shoot to kill” policy. That might deter them.’ Later, when he knew who she was, and when Penny pressed him for more information, he become evasive, changing the subject. When she tried to insist he said, ‘I’m not supposed to talk about it,’ and would not be drawn into further comment.

  Penny knew her father used to poach on his own property. She had been old enough to see that the farm could never sustain them in the inactive years after her mother died and knew she owed her lifestyle to the profits from tusks, skins and horns. She had no problem with this. To Penny, like so many others who live side by side with nature, these animals were Africa’s bounty, a never-ending spring, there for the benefit of man to do with as he pleased. What frightened her was the chance her father could go to prison. She worshipped him. To her, he was a larger-than-life figure, glamorous and romantic, swashbuckling in the style of pirates and highwaymen in years gone by. Locking him away would be unendurable for him.

  In bringing Joe to Pentland Park she had two objectives. She was in constant open conflict with her father. The two of them were too much alike to have an easy relationship. For reasons of pure perversity Penny wanted to rub her father’s nose in her relationship with a black man. But she also wanted to warn him that Game Department had started a war against poachers.

  David was largely responsible for salvaging the evening. He involved Joseph in a conversation about wildlife preservation schemes which gave Penny time to sober up and Richard a chance to bury his anger against his daughter. Richard found himself listening to the conversation and, eventually, taking part in it. Joseph Tshuma knew his subject. After the War of Independence he had graduated from Durban University in South Africa with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in wildlife management, and he presented an argument about the importance of saving Africa’s game, about educating people who thought the game would go on forever, about culling programs and revenue from hunting versus the tragedy of species becoming extinct and about how to balance the needs of man with those of the animals. His point of view, and the concise way he presented it, impressed and interested Richard.

  While he could never condone the idea of the man in bed with his daughter, and was having a hard time coping with the sight of him at his dinner table, he had to concede that Joseph Tshuma was entertaining, intelligent and enjoyable to talk to. However, he drew the line at the sleeping arrangements. When it was time for them to go to bed, Penny was firmly ushered into her old room upstairs while Joseph was given the guest room on the ground floor. The stairs creaked badly in places, something which should unnerve anyone trying to sneak up or down them in the middle of the night.

  Before falling asleep Richard spoke to Kathy. ‘What is Penny up to, Kath? Should I ask her? Do you think I should ignore her? Help me, Kath?’ But the sky, like the night before, held no answers and Richard felt more alone than ever. He was just drifting off when he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. He heard a chair scrape below him and realised that Joseph Tshuma must have gone out onto the verandah for a last cigarette and to enjoy the cool night air.

  But Joseph Tshuma had things other than the night air on his mind. He was thinking back to the War of Independence. He was remembering a day, burned so deeply in his mind he would never forget any detail of it. It was the day he first learned to hate Richard Dunn.

  Joseph Tshuma had been a ZANLA Detachment Commander for the Chiredzi district. As a high-ranking officer in the military wing of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union, he commanded attention and respect wherever he went. He was on a routine ‘call to arms’ visit in a small village south of Chiredzi, addressing the villagers, recruiting, rekindling their enthusiasm for a war which had dragged on, decimating their land, their young men and their desire for independence. ‘Pamberi ne ZANU’ he shouted, waving his AK submachine gun above his head. ‘Pamberi ne hondo . . . forward with the war.’ The rhetoric was well rehearsed and effective. The villagers listened, enthralled, roaring their approval and support, their passionate fighting natures revitalised.

  Joseph had held many rallies. This one, at first, had a textbook feeling to it. He could count on recruiting at least two dozen men. But as he spoke there was unusual movement in the crowd. Men were shuffling aside to make way for others. He glanced down at his audience and was reassured to see nothing more than newcomers who were obviously anxious to hear his words. But something about the men pushing their way through the crowd alerted him. They were too sure of themselves, too confident in the way they stood. A warning buzzer sounded in his head. These were not simple villagers. He turned to the man at his side, his brother, Jacob. ‘Take over,’ he instructed curtly, and stepped out of the ring of onlookers, through the crowd, until he reached the back. His skin was crawling and his scalp itched. He was convinced the men were Selous Scouts.

  He melted into the bush and skirted around until he had adequate cover but could still see his brother addressing the crowd. The newcomers stood impassively, arms folded, listening. He tried to identify them in the crowd. They were easy to spot. They were placed strategically so they virtually surrounded the speaker. They all bore the aura of authority. None of them looked like simple rural villagers. Some of them did not even look like pure-blooded Africans. He had heard of the Selous Scouts’ ability to disguise themselves and mingle with a crowd.

  Joseph had a field radio hidden in the bush which he always carried with him in case of emergency. He was about to set off to use it, to bring backup should it be necessary. He left it too late, however. As he watched, one of the men slowly revealed a rifle he had hidden under his coat. For one frozen moment the voice of his brother and the shouted support of the crowd disappeared and was replaced by a chilling silence. He was helpless. The man raised his rifle and shot Jacob through the head. Pandemonium broke out. Other men opened fire on the crowd as they fled in every direction. The Selous Scouts, taking advantage of the chaos, slipped to the back of the crowd and disappeared into the bush.

  Joseph took a bearing on where they had gone. Ignoring the cries for help from the terrorised villagers, he moved with experienced stealth through the bush. Once away from the village, tracking the men became easier. So relaxed were they they had not bothered to conceal their tracks. He came across them in a sheltered clearing. One of them was using a radio, giving a bearing on the village and asking for another unit to come in and c
lean up. He was speaking English. As Joseph watched, the man who had shot his brother and who appeared to be their leader wiped a weary arm across his face. The man’s disguise smeared off on his sleeve. Joseph looked into the eyes of the white man, disguised as a black man, and swore he would never forget those eyes. He watched one of the others pat the man on the shoulder and say, ‘Good one, Richard.’

  The man, Richard, grinned and replied, ‘That should teach the bastards a lesson.’ As he lay in the bush and hated the white man he heard their radio burst into life and a disembodied voice enquire if Major Dunn was there. Joseph had heard enough. The name Richard Dunn was burned into his memory. The arrogance in the man’s eyes would act like salt on a wound to him. The man’s casual shooting of Joseph’s brother would forever sour his opinion of the white man. Joseph backed carefully away. They would meet again. When the time was right.

  They did meet again during the war. Joseph and several of his men walked into a Selous Scouts ambush. They were marched for several hours to a field camp and interrogated at length by a young captain. Their story was one prepared and memorised for such an occasion and they succeeded in convincing the captain they were innocent victims of the war and had been out hunting for meat. The fact they were dressed in rags and carried bows and arrows lent authenticity to their cover. The young captain wanted to let them go but, at the last moment, thought it best to contact his superior officer. Major Richard Dunn spent fifteen minutes questioning them but he appeared distracted and finally let them go, saying, ‘Try to stay out of our way.’ His arrogant dismissal added fuel to the fire already burning in Joseph Tshuma’s gut.

  Drifting off to sleep upstairs, Richard spared a few seconds trying to remember where he had seen Tshuma before. But the events of the war were carefully locked away or complicated by memories of Kathy’s illness. He was more concerned with the thought that his unwelcome house guest might try to sneak upstairs to be with his daughter.