by Evelyn Waugh
When the men were left together at the table, the Minister said, ‘My boy, I don’t know how much truth there is in all you’ve been saying, but I think you might not have talked like that before the ladies. If there is any danger, and I for one don’t for a moment believe there is, the ladies should be kept in ignorance of the fact.’
‘Oh, I like to see them scared, ‘ said Basil. ‘Pass the decanter, will you, Jagger, and now, sir, what arrangements are we making for defence?’
‘Arrangements for defence?’
‘Yes, of course you can’t possibly have everyone separated in the different bungalows. They could all have their throats cut one at a time and none of us any the wiser. The compound is far too big to form a defensible unit. You’d better get everyone up here, arrange for shifts of guard and put a picket of your sowars with horses half a mile down the road to the town to bring the alarm if a raiding party comes into sight. You run in and talk to the women. I’ll arrange it all for you.’
And the Envoy Extraordinary could find nothing to say. The day had been too much for him. Everyone was stark crazy and damned bad-mannered too. They could do what they liked. He was going to smoke a cigar, alone, in his study.
Basil took command. In half an hour the Legges and the Anstruthers, bearing children wrapped in blankets and their meagre supply of firearms, arrived in the drawing-room.
‘I suppose that this is necessary,’ said Lady Courteney, ‘but I’m afraid that you’ll none of you be at all comfortable.’
An attempt to deceive the children that nothing unusual was afoot proved unsuccessful; it was not long before they were found in a corner of the hall enacting with tremendous gusto the death agonies of the Italian lady whose scalp was eaten by termites.
‘The gentleman in the funny clothes told us,’ they explained. ‘Coo, mummy, it must have hurt.’
The grown-ups moved restlessly about.
‘Anything we can do to help?’
‘Yes, count the cartridges out into equal piles … it might be a good thing to prepare some bandages too … Legge, the hinges of this shutter aren’t too good. See if you can find a screwdriver.’
It was about ten o’clock when it was discovered that the native servants, who had been massed in the Legation kitchens from the surrounding households, had silently taken their leave. Only Basil’s camel boys remained in possession. ‘They had compounded for themselves a vast stew of incongruous elements and were sodden with eating.
‘Other boys going home. No want cutting off heads. They much no good boys. We like it fine living here.’
News of the desertion made havoc among the nerves in the drawing-room. Sir Samson merely voiced the feelings of all his guests when, turning petulantly from the table, he remarked: ‘It’s ‘no good. My heart is not in halma this evening.’
But the night passed and no assault was made. The men of the party watched, three hours on, three hours off, at the various. vulnerable points. Each slept with a weapon beside him, revolver, rook rifle, shot-gun or meat chopper. Continuous low chattering in the rooms upstairs, rustle of dressing-gowns, patter of slippers and frequent shrill cries from the youngest Anstruther child in nightmare, told that the ladles were sleeping little. At dawn they assembled again with pale faces and strained eyes. Lady Courteney’s English maid and the Goanese butler went to the kitchen and, circumventing with difficulty the recumbent camel boys, made hot coffee. Spirits rose a little; they abandoned the undertones which had become habitual during the last ten hours and spoke in normal voices; they began to yawn. Basil said, ‘One night over. Of course your real danger will come when supplies begin running short in the town.’
That discouraged them from any genuine cheerfulness.
They went out on to the lawn. Smoke lay low over the town.
‘Something still burning.’
Presently Anstruther said, ‘I say, though, look over there. Aren’t those clouds?’
‘It’s a week early for the rains.’
‘Still, you never know.’
‘That’s rain all right,’ said Basil. ‘I was counting on it today or tomorrow. They got it last week in Kenya. It’ll delay the repairs on the Lumo bridge pretty considerably.’
‘Then I must get those bulbs in this morning,’ said Lady Courteney. ‘It’ll be a relief to have something sensible to do after tearing up sheets for bandages and sewing sand-bags. You might have told me before, Mr Seal.’
‘If I were you,’ said Basil, ‘I should start checking your stores and making out a scheme of rations. I should think my boys must have eaten a good week’s provisions last night.’
The party split up and attempted to occupy themselves in useful jobs about the house; soon, however, there came a sound which brought them out helter-skelter, all together again, chattering on the lawn; the drone of an approaching aeroplane.
‘That’ll be Ballon,’ said Basil, ‘making his get-away.’
But as the machine came into sight it became clear that it was making for the’ Legation; it flew low, circling over the compound and driving the ‘ponies to frenzy in their stables. They could see the pilot’s head looking at them over the side. A weighted flag fluttered from it to the ground, then the machine mounted again and soared off in the direction of the coast. The Anstruther children ran, crowing with delight, to retrieve the message from the rose garden and bring it to the Minister. It was a brief pencil note, signed by the squadron-leader at Aden. Am bringing two troop carriers, three bombers. Be prepared to evacuate whole British population from Legation in one hour from receiving this. Can carry official archives and bare personal necessities only.
‘That’s Walsh’s doing. Clever chap, always said so. But I say, though, what a rush.’
For the next hour the Legation was in a ferment as a growing pile of luggage assembled on the lawn.
‘Official archives, indeed. There may be some papers about somewhere, William. See if any of them seem at all interesting.’
‘We’ll have to put the ponies out to grass and hope for the best.’
‘Lock all doors and take the keys away. Not that it’s likely to make any difference.’
‘Envoy, you can’t bring all the pictures.’
‘How about passports?’
The visitors from the town, having nothing to pack, did what they could to help the others.
‘I’ve never been up before. I’m told it often makes people unwell.’
‘Poor Mr Raith.’
Basil, suddenly reduced to unimportance, stood by and watched the preparations, a solitary figure in his white Sakuyu robes leaning over his rifle like a sentinel.
Prudence joined him and they walked together to the edge of the compound, out of sight behind some rhododendrons. She was wearing a red beret jauntily on one side .of her head.
‘Basil, give up this absurd Emperor, darling, and come with us.’
‘Can’t do that.’
‘Please.’
‘No, Prudence, everything’s going to be all right. Don’t you worry. We’ll meet again somewhere.’
Rain clouds on the horizon grew and spread across the bright sky.
‘It seems so much more going away when it’s in an aeroplane, if you see what I mean.’
‘I see what you mean.’
‘Prudence, Prudence,’ from Lady Courteney beyond the rhododendrons. ‘You really can’t take so many boxes.’
In Basil’s arms Prudence said, ‘But the clothes smell odd.’
‘I got them second-hand from a Sakuyu. He’d just stolen an evening suit from an Indian.’
‘Prudence.’
‘All right, mum, coming … sweet Basil, I can’t really bear it.’
And she ran back to help eliminate her less serviceable hats.
Quite soon, before anyone was ready for them, the five aeroplanes came into sight, roaring over the hills in strictly maintained formation. They landed and came to rest in the compound. Air Force officers trotted forward and saluted, treating Sir Samson
with a respect which somewhat surprised his household.
‘We ought to start as soon as we can, sir. There’s a storm coming up.’
With very little confusion the party embarked. The Indian troopers and the Goan butler in one troop carrier, the children, clergy and senior members in the other. Mr Jagger, William and Prudence took their places in the cockpits of the three bombers. Just as they were about to start, Prudence remembered something and clambered down. She raced back to the Legation, a swift, gay figure under her red beret, and returned panting with a loose sheaf of papers.
‘Nearly left the Panorama of Life behind,’ she explained.
The engines started up with immense din; the machines taxied forward and took off, mounted steadily, circled about in a neat arrow-head, dwindled and disappeared. Silence fell on the compound. It had all taken less than twenty minutes.
Basil turned back alone to look for his camels.
Prudence crouched in the cockpit, clutching her beret to her head. The air shrieked past her ears while the landscape rolled away below in a leisurely fashion; the straggling city, half shrouded in smoke, disappeared behind them; open pasture dotted with cattle and little clusters of huts; presently the green lowlands and jungle country. She knew without particular regret that she was leaving Debra Dowa for good.
‘Anyway,’ she reflected, ‘I ought to get some new ideas for the Panorama,’ and already she seemed to be emerging into the new life which her mother had planned for her, and spoken of not long ago seated on Prudence’s bed as she came to wish her good night. Aunt Harriet’s house in Belgrave Place; girls, luncheons, dances and young men, weekends in country houses, tennis and hunting; all the easy circumstances of English life which she had read about often but never experienced. She would resume the acquaintance of friends she had known at school, ‘and shan’t I be able to show off to them? They’ll all seem so young and innocent …‘ English cold and fog and rain, grey twilight among isolated, bare trees and dripping coverts; London streets when the shops were closing and the pavements crowded with people going to Tube stations with evening papers; empty streets, hate at night after dances, revealing unsuspected slopes, sluiced by men in almost mediaeval overalls … an English girl returning to claim her natural heritage …
The aeroplane dipped suddenly, recalling her to the affairs of the moment. The pilot shouted back to her something which was lost on the wind. They were the extremity of one of the arms of the V. A goggled face from the machine in front looked back and down at them as they dropped below him, but her pilot signalled him on. Green undergrowth swam up towards them; the machine tilted a little and circled about, looking for a place to land.
‘Hold tight and don’t worry,’ was borne back to her on the wind. An open space appeared among the trees and bush. They circled again and dropped precisely into place, lurched for a moment as though about to overturn, righted themselves and stopped dead within a few feet of danger.
‘Wizard show that,’ remarked the pilot.
‘Has anything awful happened?’
‘Nothing to worry about. Engine trouble. I can put it right in two shakes. Stay where you are. We’ll catch them up before they reach Aden.’
Rain broke late that afternoon with torrential tropic force. The smouldering warehouses of the city sizzled and steamed and the fire ended in thin black mud. Great pools collected in the streets; water eddied in the gutters, clogging the few drains with its burden of refuse. The tin roofs rang with the falling drops. Sodden rioters waded down the lanes to shelter; troops left their posts and returned to barracks huddled under cover in a stench of wet cloth. The surviving decorations from the pageant of birth control clung limply round the posts or, grown suddenly too heavy, snapped their strings and splashed into the mud below. Darkness descended upon a subdued city.
For six confused days Basil floundered on towards the lowlands. For nine hours out of the twenty-four the rain fell regularly and unremittingly so that it usurped the sun’s place as the measure of time and the caravan drove on through the darkness, striving hopelessly to recover the hours wasted under cover during the daylight..
On their second day’s journey Basil’s boys brought a runner to him, who was carrying a sodden letter in the end of a cleft staff.
‘A great chief will not suffer his messengers to be robbed.’
‘There is a time,’ said Basil, ‘when all things must be suffered.’
They took the message. It read:
From Viscount Boaz, Minister of the Interior of the Azanian Empire, to the Earl of Ngumo, Greeting. May this reach you. Peace be upon your house. Salute, in my name and in the name of my family, Achon whom some style Emperor of Azania, Chief of the Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas. May his days be many and his progeny uncounted. I, Boaz, no mean man in the Empire, am now at Gulu on the Wanda marches; with me is Seth whom some style Emperor. I tell you this so that Achon may know me for what I am, a loyal subject of the crown. I fear for Seth’s health and await word from your Lordship as to how best he may be relieved of what troubles him. Boaz.
‘Go on in front of us, ‘ Basil ordered the man, ‘and tell Lord Boaz that Achon is dead.’
‘How can I return to my Lord, having lost the letter he gave me? Is my life a small thing?’
‘Go back to your Lord. Your life is a small thing beside the life of the Emperor.’
Later two beasts lost their footing in the bed of a swollen water-course and were washed down and tumbled among the boulders; during the third night march five of the hindermost deserted their leaders. The boys mutinied, first for more money; later they refused every inducement to proceed. For two days Basil rode on alone, swaying and slipping towards his rendezvous.
Confusion dominated the soggy lanes of Matodi. Major Walsh, the French secretaries and Mr Schonbaum daily dispatched conflicting messages by wireless and cable. First that Seth was dead and that Achon was Emperor, then that Achon was dead and Seth was Emperor.
‘Doubtless Mine Ballon could tell us where General Connolly is to be found.’
‘Alas, M. Jean, she will not speak.’
‘Do you suspect she knows more?’
‘M. Ballon’s wife should be above suspicion.’
The officials and soldiers loafed in the dry intervals about barracks and offices; they had no instructions and no money; no news from the capital. Destroyers of four nations lurked in the bay standing by to defend their nationals. The town governor made secret preparations for an early escape to the mainland. Mr Youkoumian, behind the bar at the Amurath Hotel, nervously decocted his fierce spirits.
‘There ain’t no sense in ‘aving bust-ups.’
‘Ere we are, no Emperor, no railway, and those low niggers making ‘ell with my property at Debra Dowa. And just you see, in less than no time the civilized nations will start a bombardment. Gosh.’
In the dingy calm of the Arab club the six senior members munched their khat in peace and spoke gravely of a very old error of litigation.’
Amidst mud and liquid ash at Debra Dowa a leaderless people abandoned their normal avocations and squatted at home, occupying themselves with domestic bickerings; some of the rural immigrants drifted back to their villages, others found temporary accommodation in the saloons of the deserted palace, expecting something to happen.
Among the dry clinkers of Aden, Sir Samson and Lady Courteney waited for news of the missing aeroplane. They were staying at the Residency, where everything was done that hospitality and tact could do to relieve the strain of their anxiety; newspaper agents and sympathetic compatriots were kept from them. Dame Mildred and Miss Tin were shipped to Southampton by the first P. & 0. Mr Jagger made preparations to leave a settlement he had little reason to like. Sir Samson and Lady Courteney walked alone on the cliff paths, waiting for news. Air patrols crossed to Azania, flying low over the impenetrable country where Prudence’s machine was last observed, returned to refuel, set out again and at the end of the week had seen nothing to
report. The military authorities discussed and despaired of the practicability of landing a search party.
In the dry spell between noon and sunset, Basil reached Seth’s encampment at Gulu. His men had taken possession of a small village. A dozen or so of them, in ragged uniforms, sat on their haunches in the clearing, silently polishing their teeth with pieces of stick.
His camel lurched down on to its knees and Basil dismounted. None of the Guardsmen rose to salute him; no sign of greeting from inside the mud huts. The squatting men looked into the steaming forest beyond him.
He asked: ‘Where is the Emperor?’ But no one answered.
‘Where is Boaz?’
‘In the great house. He is resting.’
They indicated the headman’s hut which stood on the far side of the compound, distinguished from the others by its superior size and a narrow verandah, floored with beaten mud and shaded by thatch.
‘Why is the Emperor not in the great house?’
They did not answer. Instead, they scoured their teeth and gazed abstractedly into the forest, where a few monkeys swung in the steaming air, shaking the water from bough to bough.
Basil crossed through them to the headman’s ‘hut. It was windowless and for a short time his eyes could distinguish nothing in the gloom. Only his ears were aware of a heavily breathing figure somewhere not far distant in the dark interior. Then he gradually descried a jumble of household furniture, camp equipment and the remains of a meal; and Boaz asleep. The great dandy lay on his back in a heap of rugs and sacking; his head pitched forward into his blue-black curly beard. There was a rifle across his middle. He wore a pair of mud-splashed riding breeches, too tight to button to the top, which Basil recognized as the Emperor’s. A Wanda girl sat at his head. She explained: ‘The Lord has been asleep for some time. For the last days it has been like this. He wakes only to drink from the square bottle. Then he is asleep again.’