by Tim Butcher
‘I made sure to practise safe birth control methods and had only three children, all spread out two years apart. We cannot afford overpopulation in our country you know, Mr Butcher.’
Johnson had kept his part of the social contract. Like countless millions across Africa he had gone to school, heeded the advice of experts, changed his lifestyle to meet their standards. But what had this got him? Nothing. Before I met him he had no job and after I left Liberia he had no job. Through greed and incompetence, the authorities in Liberia were not keeping their part of the social contract. Instead of providing a stable economy, earning opportunities and even the rule of law, they provided nothing.
In the city centre, right next to the government headquarters, I saw a crude poster depicting street lights illuminating a tarred road with white lines painted down the middle. In large letters, the poster declared ‘Your Taxes at Work – The Process is On’. It was fiction. I knew from my slow slog through the backwoods of Liberia, past unlit towns, along roads maintained only by UN peacekeepers, past schools funded by foreign aid groups, that the impact of Liberia’s central government is almost non-existent. And I knew from my own experience in Ganta that the law of government from Monrovia means nothing when it comes up against the traditional power of Poro. Take away the UN peacekeeping mission from Monrovia and the aid groups with their well-funded budgets and I fear not just for the future of the sushi restaurant in Monrovia. I fear for the future of the entire country.
On the night before we left the city I read a postscript to the army worms health crisis that had led the government to declare a state of emergency just days before David and I set off from Freetown. The dire warnings from foreign health officials had nagged at me for weeks during the trek. I had asked repeatedly about army worms as we crossed into Lofa County and made our way through Liberia but I found no evidence at all of the plague. In spite of this, a local newspaper carried the story that funds had been made available by the Liberian government to provincial health authorities to deal with the crisis. The paper reported all the money had gone missing.
The Greenes were trapped for nine unhappy days in Monrovia before a ship arrived to start them on their route home. Barbara Greene did not hold back when describing her attitude to the place.
I hated every moment of my time in Monrovia. I was tired, but, what was far worse, I was bored …I had said my farewells long ago in the forest and now wanted to leave the whole comedy behind me. This dragging out of the end was inartistic and spoiling the balance of the whole thing.
For the thirty expat – that is to say, white – residents of the city in 1935, drink offered the only escape. They drank gin with their quinine in the morning, beer throughout the day, and crème de menthe, chilled in an icebox, as a digestif. Barbara Greene recalled how appalled her hosts were whenever she asked for something non-alcoholic, and how sickly the expats appeared, with a third of their number struck down by fever during her stay. Both Greenes complained there was simply nothing to do to pass the time. Every Saturday the menfolk would walk down to the sea and entertain themselves with target practice, shooting bottles set up on the beach close to where, years later, Silk would watch the cabinet being shot dead. Graham Greene wrote how the English expats would routinely gather at six o’clock each evening and turn on their wirelesses in the hope of catching the Empire Service from Daventry. But the meteorological conditions on the tropical coast would defeat them each night and the speakers would emit nothing but a background medley of wheezes and whistles.
Graham Greene’s opinion of Monrovia was scarcely higher than his cousin’s. In his description of the city and its black elite, I detect the same tone of mockery he uses for the seedy white colonials in Freetown. When the cargo steamer that would take them home eventually came in sight off Cape Mesurado, the Greenes’ sense of relief was palpable.
I loved getting to know the Greenes during the trip because it changed so radically my understanding of them both. My initial image of Barbara Greene was the one she so self-deprecatingly projected in her writing: a socialite born of the Edwardian era, demurely playing a bit part on a stage rightly dominated by her male cousin. But I had come to see her quite differently, striding through the jungle mile after mile, day after day, clad in her ballooning shorts, keeping the whole expedition going through stamina and wit. And as a reader who knew Graham Greene only through his novels, my view of him as a literary untouchable was also transformed. I came to see him as more of a mortal, an adventurer who got ill, tired and confused – in his diary and correspondence he misspells champagne as champaign – on a thrilling journey embarked on not for selfish, inward-looking reasons but to help the philanthropists of the anti-slavery society.
The Greenes both came to acknowledge the huge impact of their shared adventure in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Barbara Greene, the twenty-something who before the journey had never trusted herself to do much more than float around the London social scene, had not just survived the physical hardship of the trip, she had thrived. Her later life would be complex and not without danger, as she married a German aristocrat and spent the Second World War in Berlin, an English patriot in constant fear of being denounced to the Nazis. Her son, Count Rupert Strachwitz, today believes the 1935 trip was key in making his mother what he called ‘an intellectual adventurer’.
After returning to London, Graham Greene was quick to report on his trip to his sponsors at the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, presenting the keynote speech to the society’s 1935 annual meeting, specially convened to fit in with his programme. I could find no written proof that Graham Greene reported back to the Foreign Office, although I feel this was highly likely, a foretaste of his closer links with the British government when he spied for MI6 during the war. The true impact of the journey on Graham Greene is perhaps best expressed in a letter he wrote to his cousin in January 1975 on the fortieth anniversary of their trip. Their lives had taken them in differing directions and they rarely saw each other, but Barbara Greene had clearly seen the anniversary as a suitable moment to write to her cousin reminding him of their shared bond and suggesting some sort of celebration. Her note is lost but his reply survives.
By God! I think you are right. 40 years. I would have loved to split a bottle with you – preferably not champaign! It should be whisky with warm filtered water and squeezed limes. To me too that trip has been very important – it started a love of Africa which has never quite left me…Altogether a trip which altered life.
My life was also altered by the journey. I had loved my years as a news reporter but this trek had been so rewarding and illuminating that I would find it difficult to go back to the flash immediacy demanded by modern online journalism. The trip had taught me the value of taking time to savour the true smell and taste of a place and, like Silk, I would leave Liberia with a different attitude towards my career. Within a few months I had left the Telegraph to begin a different phase of my life as an author. David also moved on, taking a management job overseas that meant he escaped the world of banking.
I felt a little lost when the pair of us finally set out from Monrovia for the long jeep drive back to Freetown. For many months I had been so intensely preoccupied, anticipating every aspect of the trip – the route, security, border crossings, guides, accommodation – that to have the worry suddenly vanish was odd. The city was soon left behind and within a few minutes we were speeding along a tarmac road. The jungle that had been home for so many miles of trekking was a blur through the windscreen, the leaf definition, contour of the ground, smell of woodsmoke from village kitchens, all lost.
Some time after crossing the border into Sierra Leone, the road filled with people, slowing us to a crawl. It was a political rally by the main opposition party, one led by politicians making the platitudinous promises heard throughout the turbulent histories not just of Sierra Leone and Liberia, but wider Africa: corruption will be crushed, wealth shared, laws respected, hope reborn. The crowd was young, loud a
nd enthusiastic, waving a thicket of palm fronds out of allegiance to the party’s official colour, green.
I was tired and distracted but out in the mêlée something caught my eye. Some women were standing in a circle smiling, their heads swaying from side to side as they clapped and chanted. In their midst was a twirling, masked, grassy figure I recognised immediately. The devil was dancing one last time.
The author in Liberia
Bibliography
Graham Greene
Private diary from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Jan-Mar 1935, held by Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Greene collection, box 20 item 7
Manuscript proof of Journey Without Maps, 1935/36, same collection, box 20 item 9
Journey Without Maps, 1936, William Heinemann
A Chance for Mr Lever, 1936, Story Magazine
The Heart of the Matter, 1948, William Heinemann
In Search of a Character – Two African Journals, 1961, The Bodley Head
Graham Greene revisits the Soupsweet Land, Observer magazine feature, May 1968
A Sort of Life, 1971, The Bodley Head
Ways of Escape, 1980, The Bodley Head
Barbara Greene
Land Benighted, 1938, Geoffrey Bles (re-printed as Too Late to Turn Back)
Works on Graham Greene
Nicholas Elliott: Never Judge a Man by His Umbrella, 1991, Michael Russell
Richard Greene: Graham Greene – A Life in Letters, 2007, Little, Brown
Julia Llewellyn Smith: Travels Without My Aunt, 2000, Michael Joseph
Anthony Mockler: Graham Greene – Three Lives, 1994, Hunter Mackay
Adam Schwartz: The Third Spring, 2005, Catholic University of America Press
Michael Shelden: Graham Greene – The Man Within, 1994, William Heinemann
Norman Sherry: The Life of Graham Greene, 1989/1994/2004, Jonathan Cape
W. J. West: The Quest for Graham Greene, 1997, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Papers relating to Graham Greene
Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society files, 1934/5, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth & African Studies, Rhodes House, University of Oxford; correspondence (MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 19, D3/67 and D3/68), minutes (MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 20, E2/17 and E2/21) and periodicals (100.221 v.16 - The Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines’ Friend, Series V., Vol.25. No.3 October 1935)
Foreign Office files concerning Greene’s plans to travel to Liberia,7 to 23 Dec 1934, held by The National Archives, Kew, London. Registry serial J 2957/2957/24. Catalogue serial FO 371/18044
Bolahun Mission Station Visitors’ book, January 1935, held by The Order of the Holy Cross, Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York
Winifred Harley correspondence on meeting the Greenes, March 1935, held by Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Charles Evans, chairman of William Heinemann, libel action correspondence, February 1937, held by Random House Group Archive & Library, Rushden, Northants
Secret Service files from Greene’s intelligence career, 1942-1944, held by The National Archives, Kew, London. Serial KV 2/2272, The Security Service: Personal (PF Series)
Sierra Leone
Phil Ashby: Unscathed, 2002, Macmillan
Philip Beale and Vic Mitchell: Sierra Leone Narrow Gauge, 2004, Middleton Press
Tim Collins: Rules of Engagement, 2005, Headline
Ross Donaldson: The Lassa Ward, 2009, Transworld
Aminatta Forna: The Devil that Danced on the Water, 2002, HarperCollins
William Fowler: Operation Barras, 2004, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Christopher Fyfe: A Short History of Sierra Leone, 1962, Longman
— Sierra Leone Inheritance, Oxford University Press, 1964
Lansana Gberie: A Dirty War in West Africa, 2005, C Hurst & Co
Michael Jackson: In Sierra Leone, 2004, Duke University Press
A. P. (Peter) Kup: The Story of Sierra Leone, Cambridge University Press, 1964
Roy Lewis: Sierra Leone – A Modern Portrait, 1954, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office
M. McCulloch: The Peoples of Sierra Leone Protectorate, 1950, International African Institute
Harry Mitchell: Remote Corners, 2002, The Radcliffe Press
John Peterson: Province of Freedom, Northwestern University Press, 1969
Simon Schama: Rough Crossings, 2005, BBC Books
A.B.C. Sibthorpe: The History of Sierra Leone, Elliot Stock, 1868
F.A.J. Utting: The Story of Sierra Leone, 1931, Longmans, Green and Co
Liberia
R. Earle Anderson: Liberia – America’s African Friend, 1952, University of North Carolina Press
Christopher Clapham: Liberia and Sierra Leone, 1976, Cambridge University Press
Helene Cooper: The House at Sugar Beach, 2008, Simon & Schuster
Anthony Daniels: Monrovia Mon Amour, 1992, John Murray
Brother Edward: ‘Plenty How Do’ from Africa, 1960, Holy Cross Press
Stephen Ellis: The Mask of Anarchy, 1999, Hurst & Co
Merran Fraenkel: Tribe and Class in Monrovia, 1964, Oxford University Press
Harry J. Greenwall and Roland Wild: Unknown Liberia, 1936, Hutchinson
George W. Harley: Notes on the Poro in Liberia, 1941, Harvard University
— Masks as Agents of Social Change, 1950, Harvard University
Winifred J. Harley: A Third of a Century With George Way Harley in Liberia, 1973, Liberian Studies Association in America, Newark
Sir Harry Johnston: Liberia, 1906, Hutchinson
Werner Junge: African Jungle Doctor – Ten Years in Liberia, 1952, George G. Harrap & Co
Adam Dubar McCoy: Holy Cross, 1987, Morehouse-Barlow
Lady Dorothy Mills: Through Liberia, 1926, Duckworth
Mary H. Moran: Liberia – The Violence of Democracy, 2006, University of Pennsylvania
Wilson Jeremiah Moses: Liberian Dreams, 1998, The Pennsylvania State University Press
William Powers: Blue Clay People, 2005, Bloomsbury
Henry Fenwick Reeve: The Black Republic, 1923, H. F. & G. Witherby
James L Sibley and Diedrich Westermann: Liberia Old and New, 1928, James Clarke
Richard Lane Stryker III: Forged From Chaos, 2003, 1stBooks
Stefan von Gnielinski: Liberia in Maps, 1972, University of London Press
Esther Warner: The Crossing Fee, 1968, Victor Gollancz
Charles Morrow Wilson: Liberia, 1947, William Sloane Associates
Misc
Julian Barnes: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, 1989, Jonathan Cape
Dr Cuthbert Christy: Liberia in 1930, The Geographical Journal, Vol 77, No 6, June 1931
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, 1899, Blackwood’s Magazine
Daily Telegraph: Ex-rulers executed on Liberia beach, Brian Silk, 23 April 1980
— Dark Journey into Greeneland, Jeremy Gavron, 16 January 1988
Foreign Office, London: Papers Concerning Affairs in Liberia December 1930 – May 1934, Cmd 4614,
Sir Harry Johnston: Liberia, Royal Geographical Society paper, March 1905
Wangari Maathai: The Challenge for Africa, 2009, William Heinemann
Donald MacIntosh: Travels in the White Man’s Grave, 1998, Neil Wilson Publishing
Sir Alfred Sharpe: The Hinterland of Liberia, The Geographical Journal, Vol 55, No 4, April 1920
The New York Times: Rev. Allen Dies In The Jungle, 22 April 1929
Acknowledgements
The help I received began long before I set out for West Africa and continued well after I made it home. My debt is substantial and my thanks are heartfelt.
The adventure would have failed completely without the strength and companionship of David Poraj-Wilczynski, Johnson Boie and Omaru N. Kanneh.
And the trail through the jungle would have been lost without the skill of guides Moses Kallie, Amah Karoma, David Jalleh, Selmah Jalleh, Karmah Gayfor, Forkpa Zaza, James Monbar,
Peter Sumo, Moses Kollie, Shmay Lablah, Fidel Bofumu, Musa Koroma- Gbembu, Carlo Dunzo and Nathaniel Dean.
Understanding Sierra Leone a little better was made possible through two more Poraj-Wilczynskis – Joe and Huw, Yvette Reyes, Mohamed Bangura, Kelvin Lewis, Alpha Kahn, Yannis Behrakis, Dominic O’Neill, Mark Ravnkilde, Garry Horlacher, Lamine Somparé, Kenneth Jones, Professor Eldred Jones, Marjorie Jones, Marie Staunton and her colleagues at Plan, Fadimata Alainchar and Sarah Smart, Rugiatu Neneh Turay, Abator Thomas, Phil Ashby, Keith Biddle, Simon Lang, Victor Ferrari, the late Tamba Pujeh Gbekie, Peter C. Andersen, Gary Schulze and Bala Amarasekaran and his colleagues at the Tacugama chimpanzee sanctuary.
Similarly for Liberia, I owe much to Dave Waines and his colleagues at Equip Liberia, Mark Chapeskie and Sarah Joy Carlson, Chantal Richey, Marcel Koppejan, Jill Salmon and her colleague at Concern, Jacob Blama, Gillian Dare, Mark Lavender, Frank Foday and his colleagues at the Holy Cross mission in Bolahun, Mark Togba and Mawolo Kpawor, Weegie Freeman, Andy Russ Gborley, Father Gareth Jenkins, Forkpa Duolar, Dr Edna Johnson, Mark Buckland, Dave Buston, Mark Wells-Cole, Mary Jo Loehle, Richard Martin, James Brabazon, Tim Hetherington, Samuel Shevach, Sue Porter and her associates at the Ganta United Methodist Mission, Nancy Chamberlin and Barbara Tutton, Nick Alexander, Stephen Ellis and Augustine A. Allieu and his colleagues at Plan.
Learning more about Graham and Barbara Greene was made easier by Count Rupert Strachwitz, Nicholas Dennys, Caroline Bourget, Francis Greene, Bruce Hunter, Richard Greene, Colin Garrett, Jeremy Lewis, David Williams, Jeremy Gavron, Donald Macintyre, David Oakley, Helen Threlfall, Drummond Moir, Ziaad Khan, Nikolaus Kircher, Philip Laubach-Kiani, Christopher Munnion, Jean Rose (Random House chief archivist), the staff of Hebrew University social science library in Jerusalem, Lucy McCann and her colleagues at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth & African Studies at Rhodes House in Oxford, Hugh Alexander and his colleagues at the National Archives in London, Richard Oram and his colleague at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Elspeth Healey, Janie Morris and her colleagues at Duke University and Father Adam McCoy and fellow members of the Order of the Holy Cross.