So, in the end, like the little red hen, I did it myself.
The Congo was then enjoying a rare period of calm in the years since its independence, and in the event I had no trouble at all. Most of the crooks in a country like that are in uniform, and robbing travellers by means of dubious or misused regulations is their main source of income. I did not realise it at the time but it later occurred to me that I had probably been taken for a priest, and as everyone knows, a priest is not worth robbing. For I was not travelling in the ancient Victor (which I had sold to Billy): the Congo being too ambitious altogether even for that resilient vehicle. I was entrusting myself to public transport: rail, river and air.
I looked like a priest for two reasons: my sole luggage was a battered suitcase, and I was wearing a black safari suit with long trousers - the only one left in the shop. Under the jacket, as it was winter, I wore a grey polo-necked sweater, which enhanced my clerical appearance.
Some effects I sent home in a box. I had given away a canteen of cutlery to old Peter, my cook. I had no books to send - those I had borrowed from the Kitwe library, and two I took with me to read on the journey: Barnaby Rudge and Martin Chuzzlewit, which I intended to post back when I got home. That left only my LPs, which I had not trusted to the box.
I took the LPs along to the post office, and asked for them to be sent by surface. 'Five dollars,' said the clerk. This sounded high to me. I asked: 'Is that surface?' 'No,' replied the clerk. 'Surface is two dollars.' 'And what's air mail?' He looked in his book. 'Ten dollars.' 'So what is this five dollars?' 'That's special post.' 'And what is special post?' 'That means we don't knock them about.'
I had been mistaken for a priest already in this ensemble at a party at the bowls club in Kitwe to which Billy and I had been invited. (And in Umtali before, if the reader remembers.) Mr and Mrs Gallagher from Glasgow were running the show. Mister was officiating behind the bar: Missus was looking after the eats and moving about, making sure everyone was happy. I got up to find the toilet.
Mrs Gallagher, a good Catholic herself, asked: 'Can I help you, father?'
When I got back to my seat I told Billy: 'Mrs Gallagher thinks I'm a priest. I suppose it's this black safari suit.'
After he'd got over his laugh, Billy called out: 'Mrs Gallagher. Would ye step over here a minute, ma'am?'
'Cool it, Billy!' I said, rightly suspecting some mischief.
'No, no, Warren! This is too good to waste.'
When she came over, Billy announced: 'I want you to meet Father Durand - White Fathers - doon from the Congo on leave.'
'Pleased to meet you, father,' said Mrs Gallagher; and I swear she dropped a curtesy. Then she rejoined her husband and had a word with him.
Mr Gallagher came rapidly to our table, wearing an apron. What followed surprised me in view of what had gone before.
Addressing me, he announced in a rough voice: 'Ony more trouble from you, mate, and ye're oot!'
His wife, who had been trotting behind him, quickly grabbed his arm and led him aside. Mr Gallagher came flying back.
'I'm terribly sorry, father!' he exclaimed. 'It's been a most unfortunate misunderstanding. The wife was telling me afore aboot some feller that was causing trouble, and I thought she meant you. Please forgive me, father!'
'That's all right, my son.'
I was given a lift as far as Lubumbashi by two friends, Pierre and his wife, Anne. Pierre was a Belgian doctor, Anne an English girl. Pierre was a small fiery chap with sandy hair. His pretty dark wife looked more Belgian than him.
He was normally the most good-natured little chap you could wish to know, but his fiery outbursts were famous. Once he had such trouble getting a line out of the hospital, I found him working the exchange himself, sitting in the box with the headphones on. The operator, about twice his size, was lying on his back in the corridor, like an immobilised beetle, where Pierre had thrown him.
We stayed at the Leo II hotel, where the Licops intended to make a week-end of it. At the bar we met another Belgian doctor, Dr Briac, who was district medical officer at Dilolo, 450 miles to the west and 24 hours on the train. He had come up to Lubumbashi (which was the provincial capital of Katanga, a province as big as France) to try and prise his salary out of the authorities. He was a tall lean man with, not surprisingly, a world-weary appearance.
We all had supper together. Dr Briac inquired of me in a lugubrious tone:
'Do they still eat mint sauce in that country of yours?' This required some explanation for Pierre's sake.
When I said, yes, Dr Briac continued: 'When I am in 'ell, I shall know it, because they will be eating mint sauce.'
Next day we met Pierre's uncle, by arrangement, who was also up in town. He was a priest at Manono, 400 miles to the north, and still in Katanga. He showed us the beautiful cathedral. And he expounded his interesting theory on the new name, 'Zaire', which Mobutu had thrust on his country, in place of its genuine African one, in the cause of something he called, in unblushing French, 'authenticité'.
When the Portuguese arrived off the mouth of the Congo river, 500 years before, said Pierre's uncle, they asked the locals what it was called. In the immemorial African fashion of answering a silly question with at least a simple answer, they replied: 'That's a river, bwana,' using the Kikongo name for river - 'nzare', which the Portuguese heard as 'Zaire' and printed on the ancient maps which had misled the good President Mobutu into imagining was the original name of his river and country.
I have said that most of the crooks in countries like Zaire are in uniform. The police especially were pests, stopping cars every five minutes and demanding international driving licences or other nonsense, and fines in default. I would get very hot under the collar, a reaction I realised later was fear. However, I never submitted to the indignity of paying a 'fine'.
Piet on such an occasion, when I was in Lubumbashi with him and Margriet, waxed more indignant than I did and demanded to be taken to the police station, a rash request which was fortunately refused and we were left alone: fortunate for if we had once got into a Congolese police station, it might have been a costly business getting out again in more ways than one.
Pierre had a smooth way with these people. He would step out of the car, call them 'mon capitaine', slip a dollar bill into their breast pockets - 'for the police ball' - and end by inquiring the way to save faces all round. Big smiles and old pals by the time we drove away.
I left my friends at the station, where I took the train for Kamina: again, 400 miles and 24 hours away. The Congolese trains then had four classes. Twenty years before I would have gone fourth class with the common people and their animals, struggling with my French and trying to learn Swahili; but as one of my old professors said, one does things at twenty one does not do at forty. I took a first class compartment, which I had mostly to myself. My main companion on the journey was Barnaby Rudge.
African trains (except in South Africa, which is another place) move slowly, covering about twenty miles in an hour, stopping at every halt. Here women sold food and drink to the poorer passengers through the windows. I used the dining saloon.
Katanga is Highveld, about 4000 feet, and the winter nights are cold. I slept fully clothed on my bunk. A blanket was not necessary. At one stage, when I was lying on my front, an attendant woke me to inform me that my wallet was sticking out of my back trousers pocket. Honesty!
The following afternoon I arrived at Kamina, the usual wide-open dusty small town of Central Africa. At the station a small boy with a handcart presented himself. This type of vehicle was later called a 'Scania'. It was practically a charity to employ him. I placed my suitcase in solitary state on his cart and followed him to the Hôtel de la Gare.
I stayed here a couple of nights, waiting for my next connection - to Kabalo. Round the bar after supper there were Greeks, Indians, and some of the posher Africans, enjoying their evening at the local. The first two groups spoke English, and made racialistic remarks in the freemasonry of
the language about their black neighbours.
There were also two (non-racialistic) Americans present. One was a teacher making his way home: the other was a medic who was engaged in machine-gunning the villages with a vaccine gun.
Next day I walked about the town with Wayne, the teacher, while Hank was at work. We sat in the taverns, pulsing with the rather charming Congo dance music on the radio, and drank the famous Simba beer, the only beer I know (with the others in the Congo) so strong its bouquet hits you before it reaches your lips.
Next day, in the afternoon, Wayne and I took the train to Kabalo, another 400 miles; or rather, he was moving on to Albertville. Hank saw us off. The gates were closed until the train arrived so we stood about in the crowd outside. Then we were borne through in a mighty crush, and when we emerged from the bottle-neck (there is no platform) I found I had been painlessly relieved of twenty dollars and a biro from my breast pocket. I had taken the precaution of buttoning my back pocket. Thereafter, I placed my wallet in one of my socks and my travellers cheques in the other.
Twenty-four hours later, in the early afternoon, Wayne and I parted company at Kabalo, just after the train had crossed the mile-wide breadth of the great river - the Lualaba, the Upper Congo.
The great rivers of Africa, winding their mighty courses through plain and forest, stir me as few things can. The land opens and there it is, the great thing on its way. Dear God! I'd rather be a pagan suckled in creed outworn, so I could sing aloud.
Instead, I found myself in the wide dusty square of the seedy little town. The usual 'Scania' appeared and we proceeded across the square to the hotel. This looked very dubious and throbbed with rather too much Congo music for my taste as well as being full of drunks and tarts at three in the afternoon - where did they get the money from?
I needed some myself, after having been relieved of my small change, so directed the taxi to a Greek store, where I knew I could change a travellers cheque at a better rate than the bank, if such a thing existed in this place.
I found the owner half asleep over his counter. He brightened up somewhat at the sight of a white face and readily cashed my cheque. He was mightily amused when I removed the book from my sock. I told him how I had been robbed at Kamina. I asked about the hotel.
'L'hôtel, c'est merde. Vous feriez mieux rester chez moi.'
And so I did, for three days and nights. He had a small guest room and gave me most of my meals. When I came to settle up, he told me I could pay him on my next time through. To say that a fresh white face in such a place is payment in itself is not to depreciate his generosity.
After leaving my suitcase in my room, I went for a stroll around the town. I found a sign: ''Hôpital'. I often dropped into district hospitals on my African travels: the sort of place I was aiming for myself, and where I was to spend most of my African career. I found the place, the usual small hundred-bed affair, a larger edition of Samreboi, and introduced myself to a medical assistant as a doctor from Zambia.
'Où est le docteur, s'il vous plait?'
'Il n'y a pas de docteur ici.'
He found me instead the person in charge, a European nun. When she discovered I was a doctor, I found myself doing a two-hour ward round.
I asked questions. Did they have a theatre? (In many African countries nurses perform major operations.) Yes, but the instruments were stolen during les événements (the troubles of '64) and never replaced.
Now I knew this hospital covered an area as big as a large English county and a population of 100,000. The nearest hospital which could operate was Albertville, twelve hours away (if the patient was rich enough or lucky enough to find transport), which is a long time for most emergencies. And that was on top of the time it would take them to get to the local hospital. It was obvious that for many the situation was hopeless.
I returned to the store. Before sundowners Spiros took me for a drive around town in his Land Rover. The swift twilight was falling. 'La prostitution s'allume dans les rues.' Spiro called to a young white man on foot: 'Tu cherches la femme, mon ami?'
Spiros told me of a mine disaster, where I had come from, he had heard about on the radio. It was not exactly where I came from: it was the Wankie Colliery disaster in which 400 died.
Before supper we sat with his French wife on the balcony overlooking the river, sipping our sundowners. They had no children. They spent as much time as they could in Europe.
'La vie est triste ici,' sighed Spiros.
I asked if they had television (which was available then in Zambia, though Billy and I never bothered with it). 'Ah, si seulement il y'en avait!'
Next day he took me to meet another Englishman in the town, a large man from Newcastle who was working on the railways. He was living alone. He in turn took me to the house of a doctor. So there was a doctor in the town! The railway doctor, a little African from the Ivory Coast, whom we found sitting in his clinic.
Alas, the clinic was bare! He had a small patient with him, a little boy with a greenstick fracture of the forearm. The doctor had not even a sling to offer him. Now I knew what few European doctors get the chance to know, as fortunately what is known as the 'natural history of disease' is rarely observable in Europe (except in incurable cases): I knew that such a fracture would reduce itself by natural forces and the boy's arm be as straight as ever in a month. Small consolation to our doctor in his empty clinic!
I thought it would not have been beyond the wit of man to unite the empty-handed doctor with the doctorless hospital, which were both government property, but did not broach the subject. Besides, that would have meant re-equipping the hospital. The African hopeless feeling was beginning to get to me.
The doctor took me home with him for lunch, where I met his wife and baby girl. I told them about the Copperbelt, where I felt sure they could get a job. This seemed to bring a ray of hope into their lives.
After three days, Spiros's friend, the stationmaster, told me the train for Kindu was expected that afternoon. This was news to him as much as to me. He had not consulted the time-table, which was merely an academic document: they had told him over the telephone - at least they had that. So at three o' clock in the afternoon I found myself alone in my first-class compartment with Barnaby Rudge, waiting for the train to make up its mind to start. Through the window I could see a plaque, announcing to all who ran and read that the station was opened in 19-- by Son Excellence, le Président des Colonies.
Incidentally, as we got more and more up country, the trains became rougher and rougher, and this one was exceedingly rough indeed.
We got moving, and after dark, before I fell asleep, I was joined by one silent fellow traveller on our bunks, when the train stopped in the crowded station of Kongolo.
It was no more than my fancy, no doubt, but there seemed an aggressive air about the lamp-lit crowd. This was the town where the sixteen Italian airmen were murdered at lunch during the troubles. There was nothing unique about Kongolo. Kolwezi was to gain the prize for the biggest massacre of whites in Africa ten years later. Old, unhappy things, etc! And it is only the murder of whites we remember.
Next morning, when the sun rose, I found myself in La Grande Forêt: the high forest I had not seen since West African days. The same giant trees, the same fin roots, the same tangle of greenery, the same hot, wet air. When I moved to the dining saloon for breakfast and lunch, the windows lay open in the heart of the green grotto. There was good food and lager to be had on a clean table-cloth.
Then towards 6pm the train took a long high curve and below us was the town of Kindu, burning red in the evening sun.
I caught a 'Scania' which led me up the high street to the hotel, Le Relais. Here was a pleasant Belgian host and another English traveller, a young man, a teacher I think. After supper we wandered down to the river and found a couple of rather disconsolate-looking Indian traders sitting gazing at the water on what was evidently their evening constitutional. They brightened up at the chance to speak the tongue that Sha
kespeare spake.
Kindu was the railhead. My next journey would be by river. And sure enough, the boat was there next morning. I packed my bag, paid my bill, and without benefit of Scania, made my way to the quay where lay the boat.
And what a boat! A dirty little tramp, its lower deck stacked high with the logs which were its fuel; some palm oil drums and a single white man on the upper deck directing the loading. A smaller vessel interposed between boat and quay, and a perilous bridge of duck boards ran over all. The boat had side paddle-wheels and two barges in tow, and on her funnel proudly bore the letters: CFL (Chemins de Fer des Lacs).
Presently I boarded with the usual crowd. We all paid two dollars, but as soon as the black captain saw me, the Great White Man, he installed me in a cabin on the top deck behind his own, which I could share with the engineer at no extra charge. He ordered a deck chair for me so I could sit outside under the awning. He and his family occupied the front cabin, and there was a bathroom between us. This was the extent of the first class accommodation, and I was the only white to travel on the ship: the other was a checker and would not come with us. After making sure I was comfortable, the captain joined the checker in busily stacking the black passengers into the bowels of the ship like sardines.
I asked about food and discovered none was provided. I flew back to the hotel and mine host seemed to find this amusing: the blighter! - he might have told me; or perhaps he was an absent-minded type like me. He hastily prepared a stack of sandwiches - enough to last three days, which was the duration of the journey to Ubundu. I ran back to the boat, but need not have panicked. I was to sit on my deck chair observing the scene for another hour before we moved.
Finally, after a lot of hooting the boat moved off, making a great curve across the mile-wide river to change direction to the right side. Now this surprised me considerably.
Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa Page 16