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

by Warren Durrant

  When Billy came out, the desk and its handlers had disappeared.

  A famous institution in Central Africa is the 'long bar': needless to say, exclusively male. The long bar at the mine club was as long as a cricket pitch. It was of course multiracial, but the whites used the left end and the blacks the right. As the place filled up, the two groups would meet at an uneasy conjunction somewhere between.

  One evening, at sundowner time, Billy was the last man on his side of the border. He had had a hard day, and perhaps had taken too much on board. At any rate, it was not his first brandy and coke which his black neighbour knocked over.

  In the ensuing altercation, Billy used the fatal word, 'Kaffir'.

  He hardly had time to think about it, still less regret it, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning round on his stool, he found himself facing a po-faced individual with notebook and biro.

  'I have noted the things you have been saying to this comrade, comrade, including the offensive word in question. I should inform you that I am a member of the area committee of UNIP, and I can assure you that you will shortly be leaving the country.' With which the individual put up his notebook and pen and left the bar.

  Hardly noticed by a somewhat crestfallen Billy, a small group of Africans drinking at a nearby table put down their glasses and left also.

  Presently, one of them, a respectable little grey-haired madala, (Old man) returned and approached Billy in what appeared to be a spokesman capacity. Touching his crinkly forelock, he addressed him.

  'O, Mistah Doughty, sah, you don't have to worry about our friend with the notebook. You see, Mistah Doughty, sah, we know you, sah, and we know you are a good chap, and when you are saying these things about "Kaffirs", we know you are not meaning them. Anyway, when we got our friend outside, we beat him up and burned his notebook.'

  Billy and I gave the first (and last) multiracial parties on the Copperbelt. We had the nucleus of the hospital staff to build on, where race relations were easier than in most places. One of these parties was invaded by a group of drunks, encouraged, no doubt, by the unusual racial mix, who invented an instant African custom to justify their intrusion, to the effect that anyone is welcome at any party in 'African culture'. They were led by one 'Tembo of the Times' (a title Billy later recalled with derision). As they were being rejected enthusiastically by both black and white participants, they had the cheek to call us 'racists' and 'colonialists', etc, in the usual knee-jerk way of Rentamob, and vowed to return with their friends next day. Tembo even threatened us with the hammer of the press.

  After they had gone, Sister Chitambo reassured me: 'They were talking nonsense, Dr Durrant. That is not an African custom. We call them "gate-crashers".'

  As a result of our initiative, Sister Chitambo invited Billy and me to the engagement party of her niece, with a very decorative and persuasive invitation card.

  We turned up at the time requested - about 4pm - and found the happy couple welcoming the arrivals outside the house. The fiancé was in a morning suit, the girl in a long white dress and long gloves. Both looked about as animated as tailor's dummies. Thank God, Billy and I had decided at least to wear shirts and longs instead of our usual week-end shorts and whatever.

  After shaking hands we went inside. We found ourselves in the usual enclosed veranda of such an old house, where a number of other guests were sitting. Europeans in such a situation would have split up into groups, each group exclusively male or female, unless the numbers had been small enough to oblige them all to get together. In African society togetherness is inescapable, and the chairs were lined round the walls facing inwards, like some kind of tram car. All were in their Sunday best. Beer (for the gentlemen) and Coke (for the ladies) were being taken in small paper cups. Billy and I took our places, and were similarly accommodated. Conversations of excruciating politeness were proceeding.

  'And how are you, Mr Longo?'

  'O, I am very fine. And how are you, Mr Bongo?'

  'I am very fine. And how is Mrs Longo?'

  Mrs Longo, who did not presume to answer for herself, stared bashfully into her Coke, leaving her husband to speak for her.

  'Mrs Longo is very fine. And how is Mrs Bongo?'

  After about half an hour of this, Billy and I crept into the sitting room.

  Such a room has no exterior windows and is in more or less darkness, on some days even aided by electric light. Here more chairs lined the walls. Some younger people sat about, no less formally dressed. Music was playing quietly from a record player.

  Billy, nothing if not a spreader of joy, approached a solitary girl, who also wore long gloves.

  'Would ye like tae dance, miss?'

  The girl nearly choked, then seemed to emerge from some kind of trance, looked wildly about her and stiffly replied: 'O! I don't seem to be dancing.'

  Billy resumed his seat. It was not often I saw him deflated.

  Little cakes on paper plates were passed around. The light faded in the swift tropical twilight. The formality continued relentlessly. Billy and I felt ourselves slipping into rigor mortis. Then like a good fairy, Sister Chitambo appeared before us.

  'O, Billy!' she pressed. 'Why don't you go and get some of those nice LPs you played at your last party at your house?'

  Leaping at this chance with almost indecent alacrity, Billy replied: 'Certanly!' and to me: 'Can I borrow the car, Warren?'

  Then he was gone. He was gone a long time. Night came on. I plied the paper cups as hard as I could, but nothing changed. I realised I had reached that grey stage where even alcohol has failed. And like Mariana's boy friend, Billy cameth not.

  About eight o' clock I made some excuse - a case at the hospital. I got a lift from someone. Take me home first - I have to do some study. Someone else will fetch me. O, what a tangled web!

  Next day when I woke, I got the rest of the story from Billy as he sat up in his own bed in the next room. He had got the records but, as I had guessed, got holed up in some bar and did not rejoin the party till nearly midnight. The whole scene had changed.

  - Tae begin with, they had got rid of the paper cups and were drinking the stuff straight from the bottle. They must have got through fifteen crates by the time I got back. Mr Bongo and Mr Longo had discovered they supported different political parties. 'How can you support that man?' 'I thought this was a democracy!' 'You must be stupid! -' [This was almost as bad as 'Kaffir', and was meant to be.] 'Who are you calling "stupid"?'

  - The music was now shaking the building, and that little floozie that wouldnae dance wi' me came flying across the floor, wrapped hersel' round me and screamed: 'SOCK IT TO ME, MISTAH DOUGHTY!!!'

  - The next thing, I felt a heavy paw on my shoulder, and when I turned round, there was a bluidy big bloke like Idi Amin staring doon at me out of his smoky eyes. He said, 'You put her down! She has a boy friend and he is my friend. I will beat you!' -

  Billy decided it was time to leave.

  Lazarus was well-named. A creeping, cross-eyed creature who knocked on our door more than once asking for 'work, baas!' We had two servants: little old Peter, the cook, and Elias, the gardener. It is true that Elias had a spell put on his stomach by someone and had to return to the tribal lands for specialist treatment, and we never saw him again. The winter was coming on, and we decided to leave our garden, which never amounted to much, to lie fallow. In any case, we didn't like the look of Lazarus.

  Billy had a dog, some kind of collie bitch, called 'Shereen', and she liked the look of Lazarus even less than we did. One day, when he crept up to the house looking for work, Shereen saw him off the premises. Peter saved Lazarus with a timely closure of the gate, but that did not appease the evil creature.

  According to Peter, Lazarus then began to 'throw stones at doggie, bwana!'

  Billy's Caledonian blood turned black with murder at this news. 'The next time that black bastard comes near the house, Peter, you tell me! D'ye understand?' 'Yes, bwana!'

  It must have been shor
tly after that Shereen died. Nothing to do with the stone-throwing, but the loss affected Billy deeply and did nothing to soften his heart towards Lazarus.

  Lazarus had the sense to keep away for a bit. Then one Sunday morning, while Billy and I were sitting up in our beds reading the Sunday newspaper, a tap came on the door. I went to open it. Outside was Lazarus. 'Work, baas?' 'No,' I said quietly. 'You better not come here. Bwana Doughty know you throw stones at dog.' 'No, baas, I never,' pleaded the shameless creature. 'You go quick!' I urged, and closed the door.

  'Who was that, Warren?' came Billy's mild inquiry from his room.

  'It was Lazarus.'

  It was enough. Billy flung aside newspaper and bedsheet. He was dressed only in his pyjama shorts. He shot out of bed like a cannon ball, paused only to rattle open the door and bawl 'Lazarus!' just as the latter had reached the garden gate.

  Lazarus then achieved a speed I would never have credited his twisted body with, streaking down the avenue with Billy in his pyjama shorts streaking barefoot after him.

  After a minute or so, Billy became aware of a number of well-dressed Europeans also progressing down the avenue at a more leisurely pace on their way to church, many of them probably liberals who wondered, no doubt, what that indecent-looking white man was doing chasing that poor little black man. The pyjama shorts also did nothing for Billy's self-confidence, and before he reached the railway line, he gave up the chase. At least, Lazarus got the message and we never saw him again.

  One night that winter, I was wakened by the 'music of two voices' in the house some time after midnight. I recognised Billy's tones, somewhat thickened by the 'hard stuff'. I also recognised a male African voice. This turned out to be a trainee manager Billy had taken under his wing at the club.

  After doing the honours, Billy took on the didactic tones of Dr Livingstone improving his black congregation. Billy had evidently got out a record and started the record player.

  'Now you listen tae this, Boniface, ma boy. This is Beethoven. I mean that's the man who wrote the music. Now listen weel, 'cause ye never had naething like this in your culture!'

  ‘Thump! Thump!’ I recognised the opening bars of the Eroica.

  The first movement surged to its end after fifteen minutes or so. Another fifteen took us lurching through the funeral march; at least, it did Boniface and me, as subsequent events showed.

  When it reached its dying fall and the end of that side of the disc, I heard only a persistent clickety-click. Of course, I well knew what had happened.

  I got up. An embarrassed Boniface introduced himself, somewhat unnecessarily, and I de-activated the machine. Billy, of course, lay slumped in the arms of Morpheus.

  It was a cold night. I spread a blanket over him, put some clothes on myself, and drove Boniface home.

  Life with Billy had never a dull moment. He was due to go on long leave - to UK, of course. We threw a party the night before. Billy's plane would leave Ndola at 7am: an internal flight to Lusaka, the international airport, but a vital link in the chain, whose strength lay in its weakest link, etc. At any rate, Billy had to be at Ndola airport at 6.30am or all was lost.

  The party was the usual such party, and sank in the same drunken stupor and chaos. I woke up next day with the sun - which was rather too late. Billy's alarm clock had failed, or not been heard, or more likely not been set. For Billy was none of your sober, taking-thought-for-the-morrow type of Scot. He had more of the wild Hielander in him.

  The usual wreckage lay around me: bottles and dirty glasses, dirty plates, the remains of food scattered about, the furniture all over the place, the record player still clicking, a number of bodies that had fallen at their posts, a pair of legs sticking out from under the sofa, doors and windows left open - and no dog to guard us now. Yes! - we discovered a burglar had been and lightened us of a few watches and wallets.

  When I returned from the toilet, I glanced at my own watch which fortunately still lay at my bedside - 6am. We needed an hour to get to the airport. Should have left half an hour ago at the latest - up at most at five to pack. And there was Billy, still snoring like a pig.

  I shook him. 'Billy! Billy! Wake up! It's six o' clock!'

  'What! What! What's happening?' Then it dawned on him. 'O, my God! What went wrong?'

  'Never mind. Let's get cracking!'

  Billy leapt out of bed. We both threw on our clothes, for I had to take him to the airport. Billy packed his suitcase as fast as he could, looking for passport, money, etc, crying out all the time, with a sob in his voice like Gigli. Finally we were in some state to travel.

  'Gimme the car keys, Warren!'

  He thought my careful driving would never get us there.

  'You're never driving any car, Doughty,' I insisted. 'You're too emotional.'

  Suffice it to say that we got to Ndola airport about five to seven. We could see the plane on the runway, with the doors already closed, and some men about to remove the steps. The propellers only had not started to turn.

  Billy leapt out of the car with a rapid 'Thanks! Good-bye, Warren! See ye!' He was aye the gentleman! Then he tore into the airport building.

  God! I thought. How long would it take him to get through there? I was rapidly enlightened. Billy simply smashed through all the barriers, and immediately after, I saw him charging out of the other side of the building like a runaway bull in the market, clutching his suit-case, with two little men in peaked caps and smart uniforms running after him.

  Then Mwari, the Rain God, clapped his hands. There was a sudden tropical downpour. This did not deter Billy - Mwari had done this for him! The two little officials thought about their smart uniforms and ran back for umbrellas. And that was their big mistake.

  By the time they re-emerged, still struggling to open their umbrellas, Billy was at the plane. But the men there had removed the steps.

  Billy dropped his suitcase, shoved the handlers aside and pushed the steps back to the aeroplane door himself, grabbed his suitcase and ran up the steps, where he banged on the door so hard the surprised people inside opened it for him - and the props already turning, for the pilot, naturally, was unaware of these events. Such is the force of personality!

  The last I saw of Billy was when he disappeared inside the plane and they hastily closed the door.

  I once said to Andy, 'Billy has all the passionate virtues.' The remark reached Billy who reflected, 'Ay, and nane o' the ither kind!' I don't know, but if we can't have everything in this world, I know which set I prefer.

  I compared us to David Balfour and Alan Breck: Billy, of course, in the character of the dashing, if erratic, swordsman. One night, we sat on either side of the fireplace, reading; Billy re-reading Kidnapped from the Kitwe library in the light of my statement. He looked up. 'He doesnae gie me a very guid write-up, Warren!'

  I last saw Billy when I left for UK at the end of my contract. I wrote to him, but never got a reply. This was no bad sign. Correspondence was not one of his virtues.

  I heard later he had become a pastor in the Church. Best wishes to him! He would make a bonnie fechter for his Master.

  2 - On Safari

  In August 1971 I went with Piet and Margriet on a car journey through East Africa for one month.

  They were a Dutch couple, he a doctor with the mine, she perhaps a nurse, I do not remember: at any rate, she did not work in Zambia. They were both tall and blond, and there the similarity ended. Piet was a thin, highly-strung type, liable to panic attacks, or, at any rate, bouts of excitement, like a disaster on a submarine. Margriet was a buxom, pretty girl of cow-like placidity (if the comparison with such a beautiful creature is permissible, which I do not see it is not) and was the perfect counterpoise to Piet.

  We went in an old car of mine: a ten-year-old Victor. (I reckon the Vauxhall people should pay me something for this.)

  This was not the first car I owned in Zambia. I started off with a BMW, second-hand, it is true, but still the most ambitious car I ever had in my life
. Then one night I lent this car to Billy, like Davie Balfour lent the money to Alan; and like Alan, he blew it all in one night.

  Coming home along Second Avenue, the great suburban artery of Kitwe, at five in the morning, Billy fell asleep at the wheel. At least, that is what I told the insurance man, and I am sure I was right. In fact, he must have been or he would never have survived the next series of events, even if he had been a professional stuntman.

  First he jumped a ditch, missed a concrete lamp-post by six inches, knocked down a tree, did a somersault into another tree, slid down it, landing upside down, and after taking a short breather, crawled out with a small scratch on his face.

  Somehow he got himself to the management hospital, and there I found him later in the day, sitting up in bed and looking as sorry for himself (or me) as Alan on the said occasion.

  'Sorry about the car, Warren!'

  I remember being worried about him, about a party we were supposed to be giving that night, and about the car not at all.

  After making sure he was all right, I asked: 'Did you remember to order the glasses from the club?'

  'Listen to him,' chuckled Billy, for other friends stood round the bed. 'The show must go on!'

  Meanwhile, Piet drove to work down Second Avenue, recognised the wreckage of my car at the roadside and believed that Warren could no longer be in the land of the living. He ran into the hospital with tears streaming down his face, the dear boy, crying: 'Vere's Varren? Does anyone know vot has happened to Varren?' He was pleasantly surprised to find Warren in one piece, happily at work.

  I had a look at the car in the garage. It was a write-off. The garage owner informed me that when he found the vehicle, the radio was missing. He was an Afrikaner. Most of the garage owners on the Copperbelt at that time were Afrikaners.

  I called in to see Billy again later and told him about the missing radio. Billy was furious.