Someone Wishes to Speak to You

by Jeremy Mallinson

  9

  An Imire Rendezvous

  Professor Tom Martin was a charismatic, highly motivated academic and a native of South Africa. He had studied at the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the University of Pretoria, where he had gained his BSc (Zoology) and MSc (Ecology), before embarking upon his detailed study of acarology for his doctorate thesis. During two years of research for his PhD, he had undertaken exhaustive field work studying ticks in the Transvaal and north-western Rhodesia.

  The professor had seen Mathew’s presentation at the university the previous year and had been very impressed with his enthusiasm, depth of knowledge and communicate skills. He began the meeting by giving Mathew an overview of his responsibilities as Senior Visiting Lecturer.

  ‘It’s a great opportunity, Professor Martin. I’m really looking forward to working in the academic world again.’

  ‘For a start, you must call me Tom. Now, let me fill you in on the details of the position. Your first tutorial on the subject of animal communication will be during the first week of the forthcoming autumn term. In addition to your wages, the university will provide you with the use of a small flat on the campus if required, and an office within the department. I don’t know whether you’ve made any arrangements but when I first discussed the potential of you taking a post here with Dr Vaughan-Jones – Simon – he did say that he and Anna very much hoped that you would accept their invitation to lodge with them.’

  After asking Tom Martin a comprehensive list of questions about his position, the department and the university, the productive meeting came to an end and a very up-beat Mathew left for Salisbury to have lunch with Addie at the Meikles Hotel.

  ‘The initial contract is for a year, and I start in four months’ time,’ he told her. ‘I’m happy to be returning to academic life – but if it’s still convenient for you and your father, I’m still keen to keep my base at your home in Inyanga in the meantime. I want to take the opportunity to carry out a preliminary study of the chacma baboons. Though, of course, that’s completely dependent on whether I can sufficiently habituate a baboon family to tolerate my presence. They don’t seem particularly keen on having me around at the moment.’

  ‘In that case Mathew, they don’t know what they’re missing. Of course we would love to have you – I’ll call Daddy later and tell him the good news. Now, I must get back to work or they’ll be sending out a search party. I’ll see you back in Inyanga.’ Addie gave Mathew the customary light farewell kiss on the cheek before rushing out of the door.

  Soon after Mathew had accepted Tom Martin’s offer of a post, he was contacted by the President of the Zoological Society of Rhodesia to ask him if he would be willing to present a talk to its members on his views about the society’s ambition to establish a zoo in Salisbury. After accepting the invitation, he was taken to the large, picturesque Graniteside site. There were a series of flooded quarries where the Zoological Society considered some natural environments could be developed and Rhodesia’s first national zoo could be established. As Mathew knew little about zoos, other than remembering how saddened he had been to see the chimpanzees in cramped cages at the Lubumbashi Zoo, he asked Simon what his views were, and those of his Museum Board of Governors. Their collective viewpoint was that they would support the zoo’s establishment, providing it could be used as an educational resource.

  Before Mathew prepared his talk, he tried to reconcile his thoughts about animals being taken from their natural habitats into a captive and controlled environment. However, after reading a recently published book, The Stationary Ark by Gerald Durrell, which recorded the work of his Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, he had become more aware of how in recent years many of the world’s more conservation-minded zoos had changed significantly from museum collections of exotic species to important centres of education, research and conservation.

  Mathew composed a presentation emphasising that although the country had an abundance of wild animals, the bulk of the urban population, especially Africans, had little or no opportunity to see them in the wild. He came to the conclusion that the development of a zoo at Graniteside, to exhibit only indigenous species in as naturalistic surroundings as possible, could be an effective way of helping people to realise the importance and urgency of conservation.

  After he had given the lecture at the university, the President of the Zoological Society approached Mathew to congratulate him. ‘Well done – your address was very well received. You raised some very valuable points. There seems to be a default rejection of zoos in so many people’s eyes. Your words have really helped some members of the public to become more aware of the role of a modern zoo, so that they’re no longer in opposition to the planning permission being granted for a zoo here in Salisbury. Apart from my work here, I’m also the editor-in-chief of the Rhodesia Science News – I don’t suppose you would write us an article setting out the arguments that you made today?’

  * * *

  As Mathew had promised the Willocks that the next time he visited Salisbury he would spend at least one night with them, he accepted the invitation to be their guest on the Friday night. He arranged to stay with the Vaughan-Joneses for the rest of the weekend, before returning to Inyanga on Monday. The Willocks had arranged a small dinner party but before he joined the other guests, Mathew telephoned his parents in Yorkshire and his brother in Northern Ireland. They had all read about the mortar attack on the Leopard Rock Hotel in the British press, and were very relieved to hear that he had moved to a much safer environment. Since Mathew’s arrival in Rhodesia four years previously, he had only returned to Hartington Hall for a brief visit in 1976. He promised his parents that he would arrange another visit in mid-September before starting at the university.

  Michael Lamb and his charming wife, Denise, were among the guests at the dinner party. Before going into dinner, Mathew was introduced to a Major Piet Erasmus who had recently taken up the post of military attaché to the South African Embassy in Salisbury. As had become commonplace at such social occasions, the majority of the conversation centred around the current political situation within Rhodesia, the Bush War and the damaging effect that the UN sanctions were having on the country. During one of these conversations, Mathew heard the unwelcome news from Sir Roger that in March, Cuban troops had marched into Zaire’s Katanga Province after fighting with UNITA forces in southern Angola. Mathew could not help worrying whether Zaire’s internal problems would escalate to Kivu Province, and thereby affect the security and welfare of his beloved eastern lowland gorilla population in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park.

  ‘Because of the presence of Cuban troops just across Zambia’s northern border,’ explained Sir Roger, ‘P.K. van der Byl has found an unlikely ally in Kenneth Kaunda, who referred to the Soviet-surrogate presence on his border as “a tiger with its marauding cubs”. The British Government is troubled about Fidel Castro and Soviet President Podgorny’s tour of Southern Africa, and about Russia’s increased support of Robert Mugabe and his ZANU/PF party, as well as their increased supply of arms to the ZANLA freedom fighters in Mozambique. On top of all that, Britain’s Foreign Office is having to deal with the aftermath of Idi Amin’s ousting of Milton Obote, in Uganda. The latest figures estimate that more than 90,000 Africans have been killed in the ongoing genocide – worse still, if that’s possible, is that reports suggest Idi Amin participated personally in some of the slaughter.’

  The conversation switched to the subject of Ian Smith seeking an internal settlement after the abandonment of the Geneva Conference proposals, a strategy that Piet Erasmus said his Pretoria Government had just given its full backing. Also, Mathew was pleased to learn that Smith’s government had recently announced the excellent news that the Land Tenure Act, which segregated certain areas of the country on racial lines, was soon to be scrapped.

  ‘I wholeheartedly welcome Ian Smith’s statement that his government is irrevocably committed to majority rule,’ said Sir Roger. ‘The British Go
vernment has been striving for this since the break-up of the Federation in the early 1960s. The problem is that Smith’s timetable for Rhodesia’s African majority to achieve political franchise is very much slower than the British Commonwealth is demanding, or will accept. I’m sorry to say that in my view, the current political impasse is still irrevocable.’

  At the end of the dinner, when the female guests left the table to leave the men to enjoy their cigars and some Cockburn’s vintage port which Sir Roger had brought out from England, Mathew could not help feeling that both Michael Lamb and Piet Erasmus had started to quiz him too deeply about his Manyika tribal friends and, in particular, about his friendship with Chief Chidzikwee. Although he would have been happy to talk about his relationship with his African friends, it appeared that they required the type of information that could have been of interest to international intelligence agencies or the security forces.

  It was obvious from the type of direct questions that Major Erasmus was asking Mathew that his main interest was whether he had any information about the movement of African National Congress (ANC) activists from across the border, and whether he had any evidence that ANC activists had joined forces with the ZANLA insurgents. ‘The South African Embassy has known for a number of years that the ANC have been directly involved with the forces of FRELIMO,’ Erasmus explained, ‘but has only recently become aware that some of its more terrorist elements have joined forces with ZANLA. What’s more, from some of the reports that South Africa’s Bureau of State Security (BOSS) have received, it’s evident that ZANLA operatives have been assisting the infiltration of ANC activists from across Rhodesia’s border into the Northern Transvaal.’ Mathew resented the feeling that he was yet again being interrogated, and chose his words extremely carefully.

  Sir Roger said how much he was saddened by the un-substantiated reports by the BBC and the Observer newspaper that the Rhodesian Army had been responsible for the murder of seven Catholic missionaries at Musami Mission, which had subsequently proved to have had no credibility whatsoever. ‘In all probability, the report was the product of ZANU/PF’s propaganda machine in order to keep the name of the supposedly still-practising Roman Catholic, Robert Mugabe, as snow-white as possible. But mud sticks, it’s a bad mistake to make.’

  Once the guests had been reunited in the spacious drawing room, the conversation became less politically dominated. The ebullient Devra Willock was always keen to talk about something less controversial and, for that evening, she had chosen to discuss one of her favourite subjects; gardening. ‘What do you consider is the best variety of annuals to plant in the garden during the dry season?’ she asked her guests. ‘I’m very much looking forward to October, when the purple mist of the jacaranda trees appears to envelop almost every main street in the city. It’s so beautiful, I would think it’s almost worth a special visit to Salisbury for people who have never seen it.’ Although it seemed a strange contrast to the talk of killing and hatred, Mathew was relieved to be out of the spotlight.

  Later on in the evening, when all the guests had departed, Sir Roger apologised to Mathew about what he considered to have been the tactless and undiplomatic questions that Major Erasmus had directed at him. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if once the South African Embassy knew that you were going to be one of the guests, Erasmus was told to glean as much information as possible, particularly about the cross-border movements of Africans from Mozambique and South Africa.’

  ‘Don’t apologise, Sir Roger. It’s not your fault. It’s bound to happen, in fact I’m getting quite used to it, although being interrogated is not my idea of enjoyable after-dinner conversation.’ As was always the case when Mathew was queried about his various relationships with the indigenous African population, he had been careful to confine his responses (probably to the frustration of those querying him), to speaking about the friendliness of the tribal people that he had been fortunate enough to meet. He also mentioned how much he enjoyed learning the Manyika dialect, which had enabled him to talk to Africans who couldn’t speak English.

  On the Saturday morning, Mathew joined Simon and Anna at the Victoria Museum, where Anna was observing her family group of vervet monkeys. One of them had just given birth to its fourth infant.

  ‘I’ve just received a very welcome letter from the editor of the International Journal of Primatology,’ Anna told Mathew. ‘He expressed an interest that I should submit a paper on my behavioural research work. He particularly wants me to highlight the comparisons in the social behaviour of my captive colony with that of a habituated family group in their natural environment, which – very much thanks to you – I’ve been able to study at Castle Beacon. As you’ve helped me so much, would you be willing to co-author the paper?’

  Mathew was only too happy to agree to Anna’s request, as he knew that to be the senior author of a published paper in a well known peer-reviewed journal would represent a significant addition to her list of publications. By the end of the academic year, Anna, as an external graduate of the University of Pretoria, was due to complete the MSc degree examinations that she had been working so hard towards.

  ‘I’ve just received an invitation from Paddy Bushney to a braai at their house this evening,’ Simon told Mathew over a quick lunch at the museum. ‘After I told him that we had our friend, Dr Mathew Duncan, staying for the weekend, he said that we were to bring you along – he said he’s already heard something about the “doctor scientist” from his wife, and would be pleased to meet you, so I’ve accepted the invitation on all of our behalf. I hope that’s all right with you. He said most of the guests will be commissioned and non-commissioned officers from the Selous Scouts and the RLI. They’re just back from a successful raid on a terrorist camp. He’s hosting it for the NCOs, as they wouldn’t be allowed to celebrate in the Officers’ Mess – which does seem rather unfair, after the part they played in the operation.’

  Although the raid on a terrorist camp close to the Mozambiquan town of Mapai had greatly raised the morale of all those involved in fighting Rhodesia’s terrorist insurgency, it had drawn widespread international condemnation. The US State Department referred to it as a ploy to draw Cuban troops across the border into Zambia from Zaire, in order to create the suggestion that they might become directly involved in Rhodesia’s Bush War. The raid also led Jimmy Carter to warn white Rhodesians not to expect to be rescued by American troops, and for the British Foreign Secretary, David Owen, to ask Parliament to send British troops to Rhodesia to overthrow the Smith regime. This was, of course, a strategy that the government was reluctant to adopt. The Rhodesian Government’s response to such international criticism was to issue a statement that the country’s security forces’ only intention had been to protect its citizens, both black and white, from the ongoing terrorist activities of ZANLA.

  When the time came for them to walk to the Bushneys’ home, Mathew felt very apprehensive about meeting the husband of the woman he had fallen so much in love with. He was nervous about seeing Jan in such a military environment, for whenever he reflected on their first meeting, and how instantly besotted he had become, he had in his mind an almost unimpeachable image of her. Whereas Winston Churchill was purported to have once suggested love to be the most important force in the world, Mathew found that such strong feelings had an unsettling effect on him, rather than anything pleasurable.

  When they arrived, there were over forty people gathered on the lawn in front of the spacious veranda. The carcass of a bush pig slowly turned on a spit, above the intense heat of the embers on a sizeable barbecue. The majority of the guests were men and in typical Rhodesian fashion, they were congregated in close proximity to a long table from which the drinks were being served, swigging their beer from bottles. The women were dotted about in small groups across the lawn, some distance away from their respective partners.

  Simon introduced Mathew to Major Paddy Bushney, who took his hand in a grip so firm it was as if he wanted to crush every finger withi
n its grasp. ‘Welcome to our home, Mathew. I’m very pleased to meet you. My wife has already told me what an interesting person you are.’

  ‘Thank you, Major Bushney,’ said Mathew, doing his best not to flinch. ‘It’s very kind of you to ask me along.’

  Bushney said that he had laughed when Jan had told him, in her rather Afrikaans accent, that prior to coming to Rhodesia he had studied guerillas, and not gorillas, in Zaire.

  ‘I sincerely hope you’ve been able to avoid becoming mixed up in the Rhodesia’s internal politics,’ said Bushney, ‘or anything to do with the Bush War. These are troubled times.’ (He had been informed by the Special Security Branch of the Selous Scouts that Mathew was a liberal-thinking friend of the UK’s Senior Representative in Salisbury.)

  ‘It’s always been my policy to keep well away from internal differences of opinion and conflict in a country that’s been agreeable enough to grant me permission to continue with my academic studies. I try to keep up with what’s going on, but I never get involved.’

  With a smile, Bushney summoned an African civilian batman to bring some drinks over to them.

  ‘Well, I hope you all enjoy the party.’ He added, as somewhat of a passing shot, ‘I find it most regrettable that after having served with many delightful British servicemen in the Malayan Emergency – at the time I always referred to Great Britain as Rhodesia’s “mother country” – these loyal subjects have now been tragically deserted.’

  The first sight that Mathew had of Jan was as she was speaking to a small group of women close to the veranda. It was some twenty minutes before she approached Mathew and the Vaughan-Joneses. After embracing Simon and Anna, she rather shyly touched his cheeks gently with her lips, and said how pleased she was that he had been able to come to her husband’s celebratory party. Mathew was alarmed to see how dejected Jan seemed, and distressed that she left their company almost as quickly as she had arrived, which he only hoped she was reluctant to do. Playing the role of hostess, she moved on to speak to a small group of women who had been abandoned by their macho partners. The men remained gathered around the drinks table, no doubt boasting about their recent accomplishments.