'I am not open,' he said. 'I got no custom.'
I got out of the car into the scorching morning air. 'You have now,' I told him. Through the open door I saw a familiar red pattern painted on an ice box. 'You got cold Coca-Cola in there?'
'How many?' he asked cautiously.
'I could drink two. Two each — six of them. I'll pay.' I pulled out a handful of coins, wondering as I did so how he managed to keep them cold. He thought about it, then went in and returned with the Cokes, blissfully chilling to the touch in the narrow-waisted bottles that were still used in this part of the world. I sank half of my first in one swallow. 'Quiet around here, is it?'
He shrugged. 'There is trouble. Trouble come and the people they stop coming.'
'Trouble meaning the war?'
He shook his head. 'I don't know about no war. But there are many soldiers.'
Kemp asked, 'Soldiers where — here?' It certainly didn't look like it. Our untapped mine of information doled out another nugget. 'Not here. In Fort Pirie they are come.'
I swallowed air this time. Soldiers in Fort Pirie could be bad news if they were rebels, and I wondered how Sadiq was getting on.
'Has there been any fighting here at all?' Kemp asked.
A headshake. 'Not here.'
'Where then?'
This time we got the shrug again. 'Somewhere else. I do not know.'
This was like drawing teeth the hard way. I downed some more Coke in silence and tried to keep my impatience under control. Then, surprisingly, the attendant carried on unasked. Two tanks come two days ago from Fort Pirie. Then they go back again. They not buy nothing.'
'Did they threaten you? I mean, were they bad people?'
'I think not so bad. Gov'ment people.'
They might or might not be, but it sounded a little better. At least they weren't hellbent on destruction like the last lot we'd met up with.
The attendant suddenly went into his cabin and returned with another opened Coke, which he began to drink himself. I recognized a social gesture; he must have decided that we were acceptable, and was letting his guard down a little by drinking with us. I wondered with amusement how much of his stock vanished in this way, and how he fiddled his books to account for it. I didn't yet know him very well.
'Soldiers come by now, one half-hour ago. Not many. They go that way. Also they go that way this morning, then come back. They not stop here.'
He indicated the direction of the river and I realized that he was talking about Sadiq, but we weren't in a hurry to enlighten him about our association with any military force.
We exchanged a few more generalities and then, noticing the wires leading down to the cabin from a pole across the road, I said, 'Do you mind if we use your telephone?'
'No use. It dead.'
That would have been too easy. 'It's the trouble that caused it, I suppose. What about your radio?'
'It play dance music, long time only music. Sometimes nothing at all.' He decided that it was his turn to ask questions. 'You people. Where you from?'
'We've come from Kodowa.'
'A man said that Kodowa is not there no more. Is bombed, burnt. Is that true?'
'Yes, it's true. But Makara is all right. 'Was Fort Pirie bombed?'
Now we were trading information. 'No bombs there. No fighting, just many soldiers, the man he say. Where you go?'
'We are going to Fort Pirie, if it's safe there. We have more people waiting back there for us, men and women. We are not soldiers.'
'White women? Very bad for them here. They should stay in city, here is dangerous.' He seemed genuinely anxious.
'Believe me, my friend, they'd like nothing better. We are going to go back and get them, tell them it's safe here. When we come back we would like to buy gas, OK?'
'I not sell gas.'
'Sorry, I mean petrol. Petrol and other things if you have them to sell. Meantime, how many Cokes have you got in that ice box in there?'
'Many. Maybe twenty, twenty-four.'
'I'll buy the lot. Find a box and if you've got any more, put them in the cold right away. We'll buy them when we come back.'
He seemed bemused by this but was quite ready to deal with me, especially as I produced the cash at once. Kemp said, 'Do you have many people living here? Could we get food for our people, perhaps?'
The attendant thought about this. He was careful with his answers. 'Not so many people. Many of them go away when trouble comes, but I think maybe you can get food.'
Kemp had noticed the chickens, and caught a glimpse of a small field of corn out behind the cabin. Even his mind, running mainly to thoughts of fuel, road conditions and other such technicalities, could spare a moment to dwell on the emptiness of our stomachs. The station hand was back with us now with some twenty icy bottles in a cardboard box, for which he gravely accepted and counted my money and rung it into his little till. Zimmerman, who'd said nothing, watched with interest as he filled our tank with gas and rung up that sale as well. After we drove off he said, 'He runs a pretty tight ship. That's good to see. We're both on the same payroll, him and me. We've got to give him a square deal when we bring the convoy in.'
Zimmerman was a Lat-Am man and he regarded the station in a rather proprietorial manner.
'Don't worry, Harry,' I said to him, feeling unwarranted optimism rising inside me. 'We won't rip him off, I promise you.' I patted the box of Cokes. 'This is going to make them sit up, isn't it? Something tells me that it's going to be easy all the way from now on.'
It wasn't quite like that.
CHAPTER 23
There was some restrained rejoicing when we got back to camp with the news and the Cokes, which hadn't yet lost all their chill. Geoff Wingstead decided that unless we heard anything to the contrary from Sadiq within an hour, he'd move the rig on as far as the filling station, thus saving some valuable time. I suggested that he leave Kemp in charge of this phase of the operation and come on ahead again with me. I'd had a couple of ideas that I wanted to check out.
He agreed and we left taking Zimmerman with us and adding Ben Hammond to the Land Rover complement. Proctor was quite able to take Hammond's place for this easy run. This time I bypassed the gas station and we carried on for a little way, with the forest, which was still quite dense at the station, now thinning away until there was only a narrow screen between the road and the gleam of sunlight on water. When we had a clear view I pulled off and stopped. At this point Lake Pirie was about five miles wide, broadening out to our right. We were told that where the ferry crossed it was a couple of miles across, with the far bank visible, but I wasn't sure how far downwater that would be from where the road came out; local maps were not entirely accurate, as we had often discovered. Wingstead said, 'It doesn't look like a river.' It wouldn't, to an Englishman to whom the Thames was the Father of Waters, but I recalled the Mississippi and smiled. 'It's all part of the Katali,' I said. 'It would have been better if they hadn't put the word Lake into it at all. Think of it as the Pirie Stretch and you'll have a better mental picture.' It was a long stretch, being in fact about thirty miles from where it broadened out to where it abruptly narrowed again, a pond by African standards but still a sizeable body of water.
'It's a pity it isn't navigable, like most of the European rivers,' Kemp said, his mind as ever on transport of one sort or another.
'It's the same with most African rivers,' I said. 'What with waterfalls, rapids, shoals, rocks and crocodiles they just aren't very cooperative.' Zimmerman laughed aloud. We sat for a while and then heard the rumble of traffic and a moment later a Saracen came into view, moving towards us from the river. There wasn't much we could do except hope that it was ours, and it was; a couple of Sadiq's men waved and the armoured car stopped alongside us.
'We came back to look for you, sir. To stop you going any further,' one of them said.
'What's wrong?'
It was bad news. The ferry crossing was about six miles downstream, and the Nyalan ferrypoint and t
he road to it were occupied by a rebel force, not a large one but probably a guard detachment. There was no ferry movement at all. All this Sadiq had seen from far off, which was bad enough, but what was worse was that he had picked up radio conversations, thanks to Ring's expertise; and it was apparent that Kigonde had not told him the whole truth. The opposition was stronger than we'd been led to believe. A large part of the army had defected and the countryside through to Fort Pirie and perhaps as far down as Lasulu was in rebel hands.
From what the soldiers told us, there was even some doubt as to whether they should be called rebels or military representatives of a new ruling Government; all news from Port Luard had ceased. There was no indication as to which way the Air Force had gone, but no doubt that whichever side they started on they'd find a way of ending up on the side of the victors.
Thank you for the news,' I said, though I didn't feel at all thankful. Tell Captain Sadiq that we will bring the convoy no further than the filling station along the road there. We'll wait there until we hear from him.'
Sadiq would probably regard even this as dangerously close to the enemy. The Saracen turned back and so did we, bearing a cargo of gloom to the gas station. Wingstead said, 'Christ, can't anything go right?' It wasn't like him to be dejected and I hoped it was caused by nothing more than exhaustion.
'Why couldn't they have been government troops?' Zimmerman asked plaintively.
'You think that would make much difference? In a civil war the best bet for a foreigner is to stay clear of all troops whichever side they're on. There'll be bastards like Maksa on both sides.'
We arrived at the station and I took the Land Rover round the back of the cabin out of sight of the road. The Nyalan attendant popped out with a disapproving face, then relaxed when he saw who we were. 'I got more Cokes getting cold, like you said,' he announced proudly.
'You know the trouble we talked about? Well, it's not far away, my friend. There are soldiers down at the ferry and they are not friends of your Government.'
The others got out of the car and joined me. I said, 'We would like to look around here. I think there is going to be more trouble, and it may come this way. If I were you I'd go tell your people in the village to go away until it's over, and that means you too.'
He said, 'Other people, they already go. But not me.'
'Why not?'
'I leave and Mister Obukwe, he kill me,' he said very positively.
'Who's he?'
'My boss in Fort Pirie.'
I thought that Mr Obukwe must be quite a terrifying guy to instil such company loyalty, and exchanged a grin with Harry Zimmerman. He came forward and said, 'What's your name?'
The attendant thought about answering him. 'Sam Kironji,' he said at last. Zimmerman stuck out his hand.
'Pleased to meet you, Sam. My name is Harry Zimmerman. Call me Harry. And I work for Lat-Am same as you. Look here.' He opened a wallet and produced a plastic identification badge, to which Kironji reacted with delight.
'Very good you come. You tell Mister Obukwe I got no trade except I sell Coca-Cola.'
'Sure, I'll tell him. But if you want to leave, Sam, it'll be OK. Neil here is right, there could be trouble coming this way.'
Kironji thought about it and then gave him a great smile.
'I stay. This is my place, I take care of it. Also I not afraid of the soldiers like them.' He waved a contemptuous hand at his departed fellow inhabitants. 'You want Cokes, other things, I got them maybe.'
I said, 'Sure, we want Cokes and food and all sorts of things. Soon our trucks will come here and we'll want lots of petrol too.' Probably more than you've ever seen sold in a year, I thought. I pointed to a hard-surfaced track which led away from the road. Tell me, Sam, where does that track go to?'
'The river.'
'But you're already at the river.'
'It go compound, back there,' he said, waving a vague hand.
'How far is it?'
'Not far. Half an hour walking maybe.'
I said, 'We're going to take our car down there and have a look. If any white men come by here, tell them to wait for us.'
'Hey, man,' he said, 'that company property. You can't drive there.'
I looked at him in amusement and wondered if Lat-Am knew how lucky they were. 'Harry?'
Zimmerman persuaded him that we were going on company business and Kironji finally gave way to our demands.
The track was better surfaced than I had expected and showed signs of considerable use. Wherever it was rutted the ruts had been filled in with clinker and the repair work was extensive and well done. Presumably Mr Obukwe of Lat-Am Oil had need of this track and we wondered why.
It wasn't all that wide, just enough to take a big truck through the trees. On the right they pressed in thickly but on the left they barely screened the water. The trees showed signs of continual cutting back, the slash marks ranging from old scars to new-cut wood still oozing sap.
The track ran parallel to the main road to the lake shore. We emerged into a clearing to see the sun striking hard diamond reflections from the water and to find yet another fenced compound full of drums. There was also a landing stage, a rough structure consisting of a wooden platform on top of empty oil drums making a floating jetty about ten feet wide and eighty feet long.
There was even a boat, though it was nothing much; just a fifteen-foot runabout driven by an outboard. I walked out onto the landing stage which swayed gently and looked closely at the boat. It was aged and a bit leaky, but the outboard looked to be well maintained. I turned my attention to the lake itself.
The distance to the far side was about four miles and through binoculars I thought I could see the shore and a ribbon of track leading up from it. That was Manzu, a country blessedly free of civil war and as desirable as Paradise. But as far as we were concerned it might as well have been the far side of the moon. It was ironic to think that if we had no-one to worry about but ourselves we four could have crossed this stretch of water to safety in no time.
'Pretty sight, isn't it,' Wingstead murmured as he took his turn with the binoculars. He was thinking my thoughts.
I turned back to the clearing. It was easy now to see the reason for the good road. Delivery to and from this petrol dump was made by water, probably from Fort Pine to this and other drop points along the shore. It would be easier than road transport especially if the fuel came prepacked in drums.
There was a locked wooden shed standing nearby. By peering through the boards we could see that it was a workshop and toolroom. There was every sign that it was used regularly for maintenance work, though everything was tidy. I walked back along the pontoon and prowled around the perimeter of the compound. I found a gate which was also locked and there was a palm-thatched hut just inside it. It crossed my mind that the clearing, which was very long, would be a good place to put the rig and the rest of the convoy off the road and out of sight. The road down was rough but I had learned enough from Kemp to judge it would stand the traffic, and Wingstead confirmed this.
'It's not a bad idea. And it brings us at least within sight of our goal,' he said when I put the proposition to him.
On the far shore we could make out a cluster of buildings where there was possibly another landing stage. On the water itself there were no boats moving. Traffic on Lake Pirie might simply be infrequent or it may have been brought to a halt by the advent of war.
When we got back to the station we arranged for Kironji to load the balance of his Cokes and a few other items into the car. The cabin wasn't exactly a shop but there was some tinned foodstuff for sale and a few bits of hardware that might be useful. He also had a little first aid kit but it wasn't worth ransacking. As Kironji closed the cooler lid on the last load of Cokes I saw something else down there.
'Are those beer cans, Sam?'
'Mine.' He closed the lid defiantly.
'OK, no sweat.' A ridiculous statement in this scorching weather. This train of thought made me wipe my fore
head. Kironji watched me, hesitated, and then said, 'You want a beer?'
'You'd be a hero, Sam.'
He grinned and handed me a cold can. 'I got a few. Only for you and your friends. I not sell them.'
It tasted wonderful. Our warm beer had long been finished.
I looked around as I drank. The interior of the cabin was neat and tidy. It was a combination of office and store, with a few tyres in racks and spare parts on shelves. I thought that Hammond could make something of all this, and in fact he had already been browsing through the stock. At the back was a door which led to Kironji's living quarters; he was a bachelor and preferred to live where he worked, presumably to protect his precious Lat-Am property. There was a supply of tools here too, and a small workbench.
'Do you do all your own repair work, Sam?'
'I got plenty tools, sir, and much training. But mostly I work by the lake.' The shed we had seen housed a fair amount of stuff, a well-equipped workshop for boats as well as vehicles.
'Who does the boat belong to?' I asked.
To me. I go fishing sometime.'
'I'd like to hire it from you. I want to have a look at the lake.'
He shook his head at my folly but we agreed on a hire fee, and he jotted it down on what was becoming a pretty healthy tab. He wasn't going to be done out of a penny, either by way of business or personally.
Wingstead came in and to his great delight Kironji handed out another beer. He disposed of it in two swallows.
Kironji asked, 'You say you have other people coming. What you doing here, man?'
'We were going to Bir Oassa with parts for the oilfields,' Wingstead said. 'We met the war and had to turn back. Now we must try to get back to Lasulu.' He said nothing of the Manzu border. Kironji pondered and then said, 'You know this hospital?'
'Which hospital?' I asked, thinking he meant that there was one in the vicinity. But his reply only proved the efficiency of the bush telegraph once again.
'I hear it go travel on a big truck, lots of sick people. The other they follow where it go, all through the country.'
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