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

by Warren Durrant

  'I don't believe him, Warren. The lying bastard! The bugger's pinched it himself. That's just the kind o' trick those Japie bastards are up to. Ye're too soft, Warren! Let me handle it. I'll soon have it oot the bugger.'

  I do believe he would have left his hospital bed there and then and caused a very unfortunate incident, if another visitor had not timeously arrived and informed us that he had found the radio missing before the garage people got to it.

  'By Christ! These black bastards are like ants,' commented a somewhat mollified Billy. 'They're on ye afore ye're even deed.'

  (It will be seen that Billy was politically incorrigible, thank God. His stock was humanity, not correctness.)

  As soon as he got over his fright, Piet's mind, which moved as fast as Billy's in its own way, jumped to the next question.

  'Vot about our safari, Varren?' Piet had done all the planning, but my car was to be used. I had to find another one quick.

  And so it came about that a person in the Long Bar, a smooth-talking little man from Newcastle, negotiated the sale of the Victor, which belonged to a friend of his, for 400 dollars. (I got 2000 dollars on the BMW.) He said it was an old car, not a fancy car, but as a mechanic himself, he would guarantee it was a sound car. With the cosiness of an old family doctor he assured me: 'That car will take ye onywheer in Africa ye want to go!'

  As the reader will discover, in a manner of speaking, he was right.

  We loaded up the old Victor, an estate model; or rather, I put my suitcase in and Piet proceeded to load it. There was going to be no British muddling through: we had Dutch muddling through instead. Half the mysterious boxes Piet loaded in (I wondered if he was doing some gun-running on the side) were never opened. We had no room for extra drinking water, and the overweight caused eventual shipwreck. But I run ahead of my tale.

  We drove down to Kapiri M'Poshi, where we found the Great North Road. This was the most notorious road for skidding in the rainy season and losing your bearings. At least it was well metalled but otherwise the most boring road in the world, unless the Sahara or the steppes of Russia have something to offer in competition. The same low Bushveld for hundreds of miles. Eventually we came to Chilonga mission, near Mpika.

  Piet had been a flying doctor (full time) in East Africa, so knew many missions. They took guests without charge, but one was expected to leave a donation: two dollars per person per night was usual. A country hotel would have cost five dollars. But there you would have got a hot shower. The servants of the Lord spurned such luxuries, or could not afford them; so we coined a phrase: 'as cold as a mission shower'. We got plain beds in plain rooms, and three square meals a day.

  We must have covered about 400 miles first day. And same next day, which carried us over the border into Tanzania, where the tarmac road immediately disappeared and the 'hell run', as the lorry drivers called it, began.

  It knocked hell out of our old car, at any rate, and we barely limped into Mbeya. Here the mission was full, so we stayed at the hotel. Piet got the mission mechanic to work on our car, which they kindly allowed at voluntary rates.

  The hotel was the usual lovely African inn: large airy dining room, lounge ditto, with battered armchairs and old magazines, thatched roofs and a wide veranda for drinks and chat, which in itself is one of the best pleasures of Africa.

  When he heard at the mission of our arrival, Father Philippe Morin turned up and joined us in the sitting room. He was an old friend of Piet's. A tall lean sunburnt French Canadian, he looked more like a white hunter than a priest, and in fact told us with gusto about a buck he had recently shot. He invited us to join him at his own mission station, fifty miles away over the hills, at Lake Rukwa.

  I think it took Brother Thomas a day to fix the car, so we killed time in the hill town of Mbeya, and after another night at the hotel, set off for Saza next day.

  Here we saw for the first time the strange baobab trees, basking like fat giants in the hot sun. Someone described them as 'upside-down trees, with their roots in the air', for the bare crazy branches, hung with heavy fruits, are like that, and their bark is the grey hide of an elephant.

  Philippe took us out on the lake in an outboard motorboat. We landed at an island where fishermen were camping. Their canoes were drawn up on the bank. They were curing barbel over a slow fire. Some of the barbel (which can live a long time out of water) were still writhing. Margriet made the fishermen knock them on the head, to the surprise of the fishermen, and Piet vigorously backed her up. Even then, some were still writhing, so Margriet kept them at it. Philippe and I said nothing. We weren't about to change Africa that day. And I do not know what fish feel: these were half-dead, already. I was getting harder since the fish eagle business at Ndola.

  We visited the hospital, where there was a young Dutch doctor and his wife. Piet, the pig, persisted in speaking Dutch to his compatriot, who courteously insisted in his turn on replying to Piet in English for my benefit. It was a one-sided conversation as far as I was concerned, but I appreciated the other doctor's attempts to drop heavy hints on Piet.

  While we were in the doctor's house, a young man in a bush-shirt and a hat with a leopard-skin band knocked on the door. He looked liked the blond hero of a South African film. He was not any kind of African. He came from Russia. He was an engineer working on some project in the neighbourhood, and was making a friendly call.

  After we had all sat down with drinks in our hands, I raised mine to the Russian and said: 'Shchastlivo, tovarishch!' I had learned some Russian in the army. Now I am a born mimic. People think I am good at languages. I am not, but I can get accents perfectly. And by the look on his face, I knew this young man, for a second at least, wondered if he was listening to a foreigner.

  A shadow fell across his bronzed features, in which you could practically read the letters: 'K-G-B' - 'the shadow of the autocracy', in Conrad's words.

  'Vi russki?'

  'No, I am English,' I reassured him, unnecessarily, in view of my next stumbling sentences in the same language. 'I learned Russian in the British Army in Trieste, after the war. There were many Russians in Trieste at that time.'

  'Tourists?'

  'Refugees.'

  He looked solemn. I explained to him about the 'victims of Yalta' and how those in Yugoslavia were not returned to Russia. (These people were the original refugees of 1917 and their children.) Feelings between the two tyrants had already soured, and Tito was only interested in killing his own people. When they fell out altogether in 1948, Tito indeed expelled the Russians, but to the West. All this of course was complete news to Sergei. Much of it was news to other people too.

  We had planned (or rather, Piet had planned) to move on to Tabora, where there was another mission. This meant crossing the Pora - a hundred miles of desert. They got a young seminarian, called Oswald, to go with us as a sort of guide. One was recommended to carry five litres of water per person in case of breakdown. We had one squash bottle between us. In the event, we got through without difficulty, though we were stuck in deep sand several times and were glad to have Oswald to lend muscle, as well as for his company and knowledge of the country. Then, as we approached Tabora, the road 'improved' to rock-hard corrugations - the typical dirt road of Africa, wrinkled by the sun.

  Piet had a theory, derived from the practice of the East African Safari drivers, he told me. Instead of limping along at our usual twenty miles an hour (when the going was good), you should drive at fifty over these ribs, while rocking the steering wheel from side to side. This way you 'skated' over them. I tried this, and it was a very rough skate. Whether it helped the car, I do not know.

  After staying at Tabora, we ran across the Highveld of Tanzania, wide, hot and open. For miles we passed hundreds of baobab trees, which looked like Don Quixote's windmill giants. This was the country where Williamson, another Don Quixote, but a sadder one, found a diamond and became thereafter the prisoner of his treasure, immured in solitary confinement for the rest of his life at the near
by mine, which bears his name. We did not try to visit this place, not wishing to be shot on sight.

  We came to another mission near Mwanza, where we stayed with another young Dutch doctor and his wife. One night here and we moved on, catching an unsatisfactory glimpse of Lake Victoria. This lake is so surrounded with marshes that I have never had a decent look at it except from the air. And in the same day, we entered Serengeti.

  When we were well and truly inside the great game park, there was a tremendous bang, and the car started taking a series of great leaps on its hind legs, like a giant kangaroo, as if it had completely forgotten what continent it was on. After about three such leaps it came to a stop. Piet, who was driving, went into his submarine disaster routine, and even Margriet said: 'O!' I, as usual, said nothing. Nobody can beat the British at a time like that.

  When we got out, the car's guts seemed to be hanging out, from what we could make out by peering under it. We had thoughts of a night among the lions. It was about four in the afternoon: not the best time of day for a breakdown in Serengeti.

  Just then a Land Rover drove up from the opposite direction, and a guardian angel in the shape of an Indian garage owner stepped out. He quickly diagnosed the complaint. The U-bolt on a back wheel spring had snapped (under the weight of Piet's kitchen sink or whatever), dislocating the prop shaft, which had acted like a vaulting pole. He could send his men out from his garage in Mwanza, now 100 miles away, to fix it next day.

  We locked the car and got into his vehicle. We dropped off Piet and Margriet at the entrance lodge, and he invited me to stay the night with him in Mwanza, to pay the bill next day.

  So I went with him, and after a substantial Indian supper, bed and breakfast, and paying the bill, I returned next day in the Land Rover with two of his workers.

  Piet and Margriet were no longer at the lodge. The warden informed us they had spent the night there and got a lift in the morning to the main camp.

  It was after four before Susi and Chuma (the ghosts of Livingstone's last bearers?) finished the job, and you can be sure I tipped them handsomely. I drove on to the main camp. The swift tropical night overtook me on the way. I spotted two headlights following me. People were supposed to be out of the park before dark, and these were escorting me to safety.

  I found my friends at the main camp: Margriet slightly worn, Piet hopping up and down, complaining about a most awful sleepless night in a rondavel at the gate: 'bitten by rats and pissed on by bats'.

  We spent a few days in the park. The usual animals: a black rhino out on the plain, a giraffe in the woods, a pride of lion lazing in the afternoon. All this from the official vehicle. Then on the road again.

  And a terrible road! I described it in mental letters home as 'like a dry river bed'; then we saw such a river bed running alongside the road, which looked in better condition than the road, so we used that for a few miles until it parted company out of disgust with the dreadful road, which we were forced to resume.

  Then out in the lonely landscape, we came upon a branch road with a sign: TO OLDUVAI GORGE 9 MILES. Sure enough, it ran down into a valley. We were sorely tempted to visit that cradle of mankind, but the road looked so terrible we despaired of getting back.

  Soon we came to another great place, the Ngorongoro crater: a strange Garden of Eden, left by an enormous spent volcano, millions of years ago. An impossible road ran down here also, but the warning, FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES ONLY, was only too real, and we had to let it go. We got a limited view from the top of the road, but I was eager to climb the thirty-foot rim of the crater. Prudent Piet said, 'Look out for lions!', and he and Margriet remained in the car. I was nervous, but this did not hold me back. A short scramble up the grassy bank and I was looking into the great theatre below - the Greatest Show on Earth: 2000 feet deep and ten miles across. (If we had known then quite what a wonderful place it was, we must have taken a guided tour.) From my distance the wildebeest were like ants and the elephants like mice, the lions invisible. In fact, Piet's warning was unnecessary: the lions had everything they wanted down below.

  And at my back the bulk of Oldeani filled a quarter of the sky - a landscape of the giants!

  Next we entered the Manyara park, by underhand means I had not suspected in Piet. On the way we had come across a party in a Land Rover, calling themselves the United Nations Hydrometric Project. They were based in the park. Soon after, Piet told me: 'The locals only have to pay two dollars a day to stay at these game parks, and foreigners have to pay five, vich I think is a svindle.' I was not sure if his reasoning was just, but said nothing. 'Leave it to me,' he added.

  We came to the gate lodge of Manyara park. Piet got out and announced to the warden in an important-sounding voice: 'I am Professor Von Glockenspiel, of the United Nations Hydrometric Project. I believe some of my boys came this vay.'

  'O, yes, bwana,' confirmed the warden, and next thing they opened the barrier without extracting a single dollar from us. What's more, we spent two free nights in the lodge of the hydrometric men, who even seemed to think we had something to do with them, and treated us to a day's guided game-viewing into the bargain.

  As I said, we were in the land of the giants. Next day we reached Arusha, where Meru greeted us, and later in the afternoon, the queen of them all - Kilimanjaro.

  We must have been twenty miles away when on the north-eastern horizon a curtain of cloud began to lift, like the curtain of a theatre. What met our eyes was incredible. Step by step a vast green wall grew before us, filling the north-eastern sky and barely contracting to reveal the snowy crest, gleaming gold in the evening sun: Kilimanjaro, 19,000 feet high, fifty miles across, one of the most dramatic and majestic sights on earth.

  We called at another mission, not to stay, but for Piet to look up old friends. Everyone was out except for a small African brother. Piet asked after the others.

  'How is Father Francis?'

  'He is very fine.'

  'And how is Father Joseph?'

  'He is very fine.'

  'And how is Brother Martin?'

  'O, it was very sad about Brother Martin.'

  'Is he dead?'

  'No. He is married.'

  On the way to the coast, something fell out of the sump, and we had to fill up with oil every ten miles. Piet started moaning again.

  'Varren, I don't feel I am on holiday. Ven vee set out vee vere spending von day in the garage and two days on the road. Now vee are spending two days in the garage and von day on the road. I think that guy svindled you ven he sold you this old car.'

  'Think of Stanley and Livingstone, Piet. They didn't have it too easy.'

  'But they veren't on holiday!' protested Piet. 'They vere doing it for a job!'

  We stayed at a holiday camp on the coast called Kanamai: sort of Club Mediterranée, full of young people.

  One day I went swimming. The tide was out beyond the coral reef, but I pressed on, climbed over the reef and plunged into the surf.

  Then I noticed with alarm that I was drifting out to sea. The heavy wave carried me towards the reef, but the undertow drew me outwards, and the undertow was stronger than the wave. After each wave I found myself farther out. I vaguely remembered stories of people drowning in the surf. This must be the reason.

  I turned and began desperately swimming towards the reef. The waves helped me, but the undertow that followed was a battle. Finally, a wave cast me onto the reef, where I grazed my legs badly and began to bleed. Happily, the next wave did not pluck me off again, or the sharks might have got scent of my blood.

  I limped bleeding into camp, where Piet gave me a lecture about swimming beyond the reef.

  We visited places on the coast. Mombasa, where we explored Fort Jesus. One of the Portuguese sailors of three centuries ago had made a beautiful carving of a caravel on a wooden lintel. Modern sailors would have carved something different, no doubt. Autres temps, autres moeurs!

  We visited Malindi, with its narrow Arab streets and lovely white bui
ldings. Here I parted company with my friends, who had taken two weeks more leave than me, and made my way home alone.

  Down to Tanga, then Dar, where something happened to the gears, and I was forced to drive through the teeming city in first gear, with traffic building up and protesting behind me, until I could find yet another Indian garage.

  Then back along the hell run. Morogoro only on the first day; the lovely hill town of Iringa on the next, like one of the hill towns of Spain or Italy. And another lovely African country inn to stay at: the White Horse.

  Now I was among the Southern Highlands of Tanzania; not the giants of the north, but beautiful too, like the Highlands of Scotland, with the same rivers running in rocky beds in the valleys.

  And so to Mbeya. I asked to stay at the mission, but the bishop had banned guests, except for their own people. Too many people had failed to make the customary donation. So I was glad enough to stay at the good old inn.

  Back down to Chilonga, which was still taking guests. At supper a jolly clerical conversation took place.

  'Doctor comes from just near me in UK,' announced Father Harrison. 'He comes from Liverpool. I come from Manchester.'

  'I have heard of Liverpool,' commented Father Schmidt, 'but I have never heard of Manchester.'

  Father Harrison eyed him narrowly. 'Cheeky booger!'

  And so, after another boring 400 miles, I was running up the drive of my house, just after dark. All lights were on; music sounded; people everywhere; drinks, food: Billy had prepared a party to welcome home the weary wanderer.

  In that old car I had covered a distance of 4000 miles, including some of the roughest roads in the world.

  3 - Through the Congo

  When I came to the end of my contract in Zambia at the end of May, 1972, I decided to make my way home through the Congo. Various men whose contracts were ending at the same time or who were going on long leave promised to go with me, excited by the romantic name, usually in their cups in the Long Bar. Next day, the now dreaded name made strong men blanch and remember previous commitments. One ex-Congo mercenary offered to accompany me - 'in a Ferret car' - but he was not free at the time anyway.