An Ice-Cream War

1: 15 May 1918, Boma Durio, Portuguese East Africa

“Snap!”

“Eh?”

“Snap. I win,” Felix said. “Ganhador. Me.”

“Oh. Oh, sim.”

“Terminar?”

“Sim. Sim.”

Felix noted down his victory. It took his score to 1,743 games of snap. His opponent, Capitao Pinto, had won thirty-four. Felix put the cards away. The capitao turned for consolation to his erotic books.

Capitao Aristedes Pinto was dying of tertiary syphilis. Or so he said. This fact didn’t bother Felix so much as the histrionic way the captain flicked through his small but well-handled collection of pornography. As he turned the pages of dim photographs and extravagant etchings he would sigh wistfully and shake his head as if to say, “Look at the trouble you naughty girls have got me into.” Occasionally he would give a fond chuckle and pass one of the books over to Felix for his perusal. Initially, Felix had indeed been intrigued to look at the pictures — mainly of plump girls in bordellos, with their breasts hanging out of satin slips, or skirts routinely raised to reveal huge creamy buttocks or luxuriant pudenda — but now it was just another irritation. The girls all smiled and posed with little coquettishness, almost as if they were drugged. Felix thought of his own solitary encounter with a prostitute in Bloomsbury Square. It seemed like decades ago, in another world.

Pinto was a small fat man with a pencil moustache, a festering sore in one nostril and one smoked blind eye. His uniform was constantly smeared and dirty, but for all that he was an amiable sort of fellow, Felix thought, and he seemed to find it not in the slightest bit out of the ordinary that he — a non-English speaker — should have to liaise with an English officer who in turn spoke no Portuguese. Felix had been sharing quarters with him at Boma Durio for getting on for three months and, thanks to the absence of a common vocabulary, they had never had a cross word.

Pinto pushed the book across the table and Felix obligingly scrutinized the picture.

“Francez,” Pinto moaned. He parted his lips in a grimace of ecstatic pain, exposing his four silver and two gold teeth. “Diabolico!” He blew on his fingertips and launched into a lengthy reminiscence in Portuguese. It was an impossible language, Felix thought, full of thudding consonants and slushing noises. He’d been trying to learn it for three months with the aid of a crude dictionary he’d bought in Porto Amelia but he couldn’t even pronounce it. Pinto had been making better progress with his English and spoke a little French, and through a combination of all three languages they just about managed to communicate. It was almost as difficult as talking to Gilzean. Felix shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He worried that he’d let Gilzean down rather, given him false hopes. His gloomy sergeant had died of blackwater fever three days before Christmas 1917. Poor Gilzean.

Pinto went back to his book and Felix took the opportunity to stroll outside.

Boma Durio was a huge earthwork fort, roughly two hundred yards square, set on a hill a mile away from Durio village somewhere in the middle of Portuguese East Africa. In one corner of the square was a red-bricked tin-roofed building which was Felix’s and Pinto’s quarters. Nearby were half a dozen large but flimsy grass huts which housed Pinto’s servants, his three young negro concubines and the half company of Portuguese native troops and their camp followers. The rest of the square was empty. That morning it had been filled with six hundred potters and their loads of yams, manioc, rice, sugar cane and sweet potatoes — provisions for some of the twelve thousand British and Empire troops still chasing von Lettow and his small army up and down Portuguese East Africa.

It was late afternoon. The light was soft and damp. Noting Felix emerge from his quarters Human came over to see if there was anything he wanted. Human was Felix’s sole remaining contact with the Nigerian Brigade, all of whom had been shipped home some months previously. Human had volunteered to follow Felix in his cross-posting, and Felix had been touched and surprised by his loyalty.

Back in November 1917, after von Lettow had successfully crossed the Rovuma at the Ludjenda confluence, the Nigerian Brigade had been recalled to Lindi. There, after a few weeks, they had learnt they were to be sent back to Nigeria. Felix had immediately applied for a cross-posting to the King’s African Rifles — now some twenty battalions strong — on whom the future brunt of the war in East Africa was to rest. For some mystifying reason it had been turned down. In desperation he recalled Wheech-Browning’s offer of a job with GSO II (Intelligence). He got in touch with Wheech-Browning, applied and was immediately accepted. He became a Special Services officer seconded to the Portuguese army. No-one ever thought to check up on his qualifications. “Believe me, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning had said with great enthusiasm, “your Portuguese is going to be the most tremendous asset.”

Felix imagined he would be in the front line liaising between the KAR and the Portuguese units who were being led a merry dance by von Lettow. In a confident mood he sailed from Lindi to Porto Amelia in northern Portuguese East Africa. It was from Porto Amelia that the main thrust in-land by the British columns — designated ‘Pamforce’ by the ever-imaginative army staff — was issuing. But, instead of fighting, Felix discovered that he was to be a requisitions officer organizing food supplies for the KAR troops. He had been sent to Boma Durio, some hundred and fifty miles from Porto Amelia in Nyana Province, which was in the midst of a fertile area of farm land. Here he received his instructions for supplies for ‘Pamforce’. Pinto and his men collected the food from surrounding farms and native settlements and carriers transported it to whichever area the British army happened to be fighting in.

Anguished complaints and protests to Wheech-Browning at headquarters in Porto Amelia had achieved nothing. “You’re doing a vital job, man,” Wheech-Browning said. “You can’t treat the war as a personal vendetta.”

So Felix lingered at Boma Durio, unable to pursue von Lettow, feeling frustrated and hard done by. Pinto did all the real work with surprising efficiency. Felix signed requisition orders, paid for the food and kept accounts. Every fortnight or so he received a visit from Wheech-Browning who kept him in touch with the course of the war and brought him a few home comforts from Porto Amelia.

But for all the deadening monotony of the work and the steamy lethargic atmosphere of Boma Durio Felix found his hatred of von Bishop never left him. He thought about Gabriel’s death constantly, trying to puzzle out what had happened on the plateau: what dreadful struggle had torn up the grass, why his brother’s body had been mutilated. His desire for revenge never left him. It was like the nagging pain of an ulcer: some sort of normal life was possible, but the pain never went away.

Felix walked across the compound and climbed the steps onto the earthwork ramparts. Below the walls ran a deep ditch and beyond that the ground sloped down to a small river. The road from the Boma crossed it on a small wooden bridge and meandered down hill for a mile or so to Durio village. The countryside around was lush. Lining the river were huge stands of bamboo, some of the central trunks as thick as a man. On either side of the track to the village, where the ground wasn’t cultivated, elephant grass grew to a height of nine feet. Anything stuck in the ground here took root at once, Felix had observed. Human had cut some poles to act as supports for a washing line. Within two weeks new shoots and leaves were sprouting from them. Now they resembled miniature trees.

Felix lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the flies buzzing round his head. Two days ago it had been Gabriel’s birthday. He would have been thirty-one. He thought back to that terrible day on the Makonde plateau. They had buried Gabriel at the side of his final camp, in the hollow between the two spurs of rock. Wheech-Browning and Temple had carried the body over and the askaris had dug the grave. Felix had done nothing, overwhelmed by the enormous grief and the surging emotions in his body. They covered the grave with rocks and Wheech-Browning said the few words he could remember from the burial service. Temple had marked the kopje accurately on his map so that they would know where to find it again. By then there was no point in continuing after von Bishop and they had returned to Nanda. Felix had wanted to speak to the von Bishop woman but she and the other civilians had already been moved to Dar. Shortly after this, Temple learnt that he was being recalled to Nairobi. He said he was glad to be leaving. He left Felix to continue the chase.

Felix threw his cigarette over the ramparts and turned to look at the cluster of huts in the Boma. He saw Pinto emerge from their brick building and watched him stretch and stamp his tubby frame into activity.

“Felix!” Pinto shouted, looking around for him.

“Aristedes,” Felix replied. “Up here.”

Pinto puffed up the steps to the ramparts.

“Telefon,” he panted, showing his array of gold and silver teeth. “Wheesh-Brownim. Stokesh gonz.” He prattled on. Felix registered Stokes guns. Wheech-Browning was coming with Stokes guns. But when?

“Um. Ah…presentamente?” Felix asked.

“Nao. Eh…Demain. Sim. Demain.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Nao. Demain. Demain.”

“Sim.”

They nodded and smiled at each other. Then they turned and surveyed the view. It was extremely familiar. Nonetheless, Pinto started pointing out features in the landscape but Felix didn’t understand him. All the same he nodded, and said ‘Sim’ from time to time.

The sun began to sink and the light thickened. In the ditch frogs croaked and the first crickets began to trill. The mosquitoes came out from the shadows they had been resting in all day and began to whine around Felix’s ears. He felt a great weight of melancholy descend easily on him; an acute sense of how futile all his efforts had been, of all the human cost of the last two years. Charis, Gabriel…The list went on. Gilzean, Cyril, Bilderbeck, Parrott, Loveday. Then there were the wounded: Nigel Bathe, Cave-Bruce-Cave, his father. Then there were the unremembered casualties: the men in his platoon and company, the poisoned porters at Kibongo. And that was just one person. Think of everybody with their own list: Temple, Wheech-Browning, Gabriel, Aristedes — then everybody in East Africa and Europe. He could only mourn in the vaguest sense for the others, but when he thought of his personal list of names he felt his anger return. How could he just accept these casualties? He couldn’t be fatalistic about them any more. That was why he had joined up after Charis’s death, why he felt he had at least to try and find Gabriel…He ruefully acknowledged his own dishonesty here. There had been other motives too: fear, self-preservation, worry, guilt. But it didn’t matter. The important thing was that efforts had to be made, responsibilities shouldered, blame apportioned. He couldn’t simply let it go. But he had his guilty man now. Von Bishop carried the heavy freight of all his grievances.

He accepted another cigarette from Pinto, who was still talking away. Felix thought about Stackpole. He had written a long letter home about Gabriel, telling them that Gabriel had died while escaping from prison camp with vital military secrets of an unspecified sort. But then he’d torn it up. It was better, he felt, to let them live on as long as possible in ignorance. He realized he’d been away from Stackpole for nearly two years. To his surprise he found himself feeling homesick for the ugly house. He set his face, feeling an unfamiliar twitching below his eyes.

To distract himself he looked back at Pinto. But the melancholy mood of the African dusk seemed to have affected the captain too. His plump features were slack, a hand worried at the sore in his nostril. He had abandoned his disquisition on the landscape and returned to his favourite theme: his illness. His voice was doleful and slurred with self-pity. He cupped his fat groin in both hands. Felix saw his eyes glistening with tears as his pathological litany softy continued with the evening garnering kindly about them.

♦

Wheech-Browning leapt awkwardly from the Packard lorry. He sneezed and reached into his pocket, extracted a large checked handkerchief and blew his nose into it.

“Ah, Cobb. Good morning. Stinking cold. Somehow you never expect to get a cold in Africa. Touch of the ‘flu as well if I’m not mistaken.”

Pinto wandered up.

“Ah, morning, Capitao Pinto!” Wheech-Browning dropped his voice and turned to Felix. “How do you say ‘Good morning’, Cobb? I can never remember.”

“Buon. Dias.”

“Buon. Dias. Señor. Capitao.” He enunciated each syllable very clearly.

Pinto bowed. He was still very depressed. “Dias,” he muttered.

“Marvellous gift you have, Cobb. I say, is old Aristedes all right? He looks a bit white around the gills.”

“It’s his syphilis. It’s getting him down.”

“I see. Extraordinary man. Rather hard luck, though.” He turned to the askaris jumping from the back of the lorry. “Come on you men, let’s get those guns out.”

While the guns were being unloaded Wheech-Browning explained his mission. Apparently a column had broken off from von Lettow’s main force, had wheeled north and was heading in the general direction of Boma Durio in search, it was assumed, of stores and supplies. Two companies of KAR askaris were being marched down from Medo as reinforcements but in the meantime it had been decided to strengthen the Boma’s defences with two Stokes guns.

“I said you knew how to fire them, Cobb. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Felix said yes. He had spent many days at Morogoro after Twelve company had returned from the Rufiji learning how to fire the simple mortars.

The guns were taken up onto the earthworks and aimed at a stand of bamboo which stood at the edge of the cleared ground around the fort. Pinto had cheered up at the prospect of a private firing and stood by the Stokes guns expectantly waiting for instructions.

“Right, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning said. “Over to you.”

Felix thought fast. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll explain everything to the capitao and then he can drill his men. I’m a bit rusty on the technical terms.”

Some dummy rounds were brought up. Felix dropped in a charge, set the sights on the bamboo stand approximately one hundred yards away, then fitted the round dummy bomb — rather like a large wooden toffee apple — into the top of the muzzle.

“Normally this is done by three men,” he explained.

“Que?” said Pinto.

“Three. Tres, um, homem. Très homem.”

“Eh?”

“Sim.”

“Good, Cobb. Excellent.”

“Stand by.” Felix jerked the lanyard at the base of the barrel. There was a loud report causing everyone to leap back in alarm. Smoke coiled from the barrel and every fissure in the gun. The bomb remained fixed at the end of the muzzle.

“Good Lord,” said Wheech-Browning.

“Let’s try the other gun,” Felix suggested.

The sighting and loading procedures were repeated, the lanyard jerked and this time with a dull thump the bomb went sailing high into the blue morning air and dropped into the jungle a good fifty yards beyond the bamboo stand. Pinto clapped.

“Bit off target,” said Wheech-Browning.

Felix adjusted the elevation of the barrel. Another round was fired. This one went almost straight up and when it came down bounced off the hard ground some thirty yards short. Pinto’s men had by now gathered at a safe distance further along the earthworks, and were looking on with a mixture of apprehension and sceptical curiosity. Pinto himself seemed enormously pleased.

“What’s going wrong?” Wheech-Browning said.

“I can’t seem to get the range.”

“I was told these things were infallible. Child’s play to operate. Not much of a show you’re putting on, Cobb.”

Felix looked darkly at Wheech-Browning. “The dummy rounds. They’re too light.” He told himself to stay calm. He took out his spectacles and slipped them on to check the small calibrations on the sighting mechanism. Everything seemed to be in order. He suspected it must be something to do with the imbalance between the charge and the dummy round. He explained as much to Wheech-Browning.

“Try a real one then,” Wheech-Browning said, taking out his handkerchief and snorting into its folds. “Only for God’s sake get it on target. We’re looking a right pair of fools.” He smiled and waved at Pinto. “At this rate a bunch of schoolgirls could capture the place.”

A live round was loaded. Felix adjusted the elevation and jerked the lanyard. The round bomb sailed high in the air and again landed beyond the bamboo, throwing up a puff of white smoke as it exploded with a very loud bang.

“They make a lot of noise,” Wheech-Browning said slowly to Pinto, as if he were addressing a three year-old. “Noise. BANG!”

“Sim,” Pinto agreed. “BOOM!”

“Come on, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning said in a low voice. “Hit the wretched target.”

Felix loaded another live bomb. He couldn’t understand the gun’s erratic performance. Then he had a thought. If one gun had malfunctioned maybe the other gun was doing the same.

“Just a moment,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with the sight. I’m going to pace out the range.”

“You won’t exactly be able to do that if the Germans are storming the place, you know,” Wheech-Browning said scathingly.

But Felix had leapt over the rampart and slithered down the side of the earthworks, leaping across the ditch as he went. He strode quickly across the open ground counting out the paces through gritted teeth. He was determined to land the next bomb right in the middle of the bamboo stand, and shut Wheech-Browning up for good.

At ninety-two he reached the bamboo and turned round. He was surprised to see Pinto energetically pacing out the distance behind him. The stupid idiot evidently thought this was something to do with the training exercise.

“Nao, Aristedes,” Felix called, with forced geniality, going back to meet him and waving his hands. “Nao importa.”

He saw the puff of smoke from the earthworks before his incredulous ears registered the report from the Stokes gun. He even saw the speedy climb of the bomb, a black streak against the blue sky.

“Run!” he screamed into the startled face of Pinto. “Run!”

Felix turned and began to run.

There was an immense roaring noise. He felt as if he’d been caught by several huge ocean breakers in quick succession, buffeted, lifted, tossed. He felt a searing pain in the back of his head, as if a nail had been driven into his skull. Then he hit the ground.

He lost consciousness for a matter of seconds. He opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by swirling smoke. His mind seemed to be functioning with hypersensitive lucidity: he remembered everything, understood what had happened.

He got groggily to his feet, staggered a bit then looked down at his body. He was shocked to see he was totally naked apart from his boots, which remained. Such bits of his body as he could see between the strands of swirling smoke were either bloodlessly pale or mottled with grotesque livid bruises. Blood dripped from his chin onto his chest. He touched his face and head and looked at his finger tips. Blood seemed to be pouring from his nose, ears and eyes. The back of his head felt numb and wet. He lurched a bit. He seemed to be getting more dizzy, not less. He looked around for Aristedes, squinting through the gaps in the smoke for him but there was no sign. He tripped over the lip of the fresh crater. The torn earth was warm, like bread that has just been pulled from an oven. As if in some kind of a dream he saw what he took to be precious stones or jewels glittering among the steaming clods. With difficulty he groped in the earth and picked one up. He held it close to his baffled eyes. It was a golden tooth. Aristedes had disappeared.

He fell back on the ground. He sensed his faculties leaving him as if being tugged away by invisible hands. Through the one remaining gap in the enveloping smoke he saw Wheech-Browning’s agonized looming face, heard his shocked voice, clear as a child’s.

“The lanyard, Cobb. I sneezed. I was holding it in my hand. It just went off. I’m sorry, Cobb.”

2: 13 November 1918, Kasama, Rhodesia

Von Bishop looked at Rutke, whose teeth were chattering with cold, even though the morning sun was bearing down with its usual strength.

“If you ask me you’ve got influenza,” von Bishop said bluntly. “But go and see Deppe, he’ll tell you.”

“Oh God, please no,” Rutke said heavily. Three officers had already died from Spanish influenza. He walked off, shoulders slumped, in search of the doctor. Not that Deppe would do much, von Bishop thought. A useless doctor, worse than useless. Von Bishop was still suffering from the high-pitched ringing in his ears which he’d contracted at Tanga. Four years ago now, and still no release. Angrily he wriggled his little finger in his left ear. If anything it seemed to be worse.

He walked out from beneath the awning he’d been standing under and looked up and down the deserted main street of Kasama. A dust road, a straggling avenue of flame trees, mud and wooden houses, tin and straw roofs. Up ahead he could see the men of his company standing guard behind some hastily erected barricades. It was a pleasant morning.

He returned to his patch of shade and told his servant to bring him a cup of coffee. He sat down in a cane chair and leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, supporting his head in his hands. He wondered if von Lettow felt as tired as he did. In the last year they had marched south, deep into Portuguese East Africa, innumerable Portuguese strongholds surrendering at the first shot, fighting a constant rearguard battle against the plodding English columns in pursuit. Then they had turned north again. Winding back up through Portuguese East, back across the Rovuma into German East once more. In August their progress had been retarded by a curious epidemic. At first Deppe said it was ‘bronchial catarrh’. Then he changed his diagnosis to ‘croupous pneumonia’. Now after three Europeans and seventeen natives had died he was telling everyone it was ‘Spanish influenza’. Von Bishop furiously wiggled both little fingers in his ears. And the man called himself a doctor.

In October, still pursued by the relentless British columns, the tattered Schütztruppe turned west and invaded Rhodesia. Little resistance was encountered and many stores were captured. Von Lettow halted his small army for a few days near the border town of Fife. Here English newspapers provided the first information about the war in Europe that they had had for months. The news was not good. An offensive had been launched by the allies in September. The Americans were advancing in the Argonne, the French and the British at Cambrai and St Quentin. Von Bishop and many of the other officers wondered if von Lettow would consider surrendering. But at a meeting the general announced that captured medical supplies had brought their quinine reserves up to fourteen kilos, and that they had four hundred head of cattle, sufficient to last until June 1919. He planned to advance across Africa, westward into the Congo, perhaps as far as the Atlantic coast.

And so mobile detachments were sent down the road from Fife towards Kasama. A week earlier von Bishop had marched into the town after the garrison had fled southwards. Shortly after the main body of the Schütztruppe had gathered in Kasama and was preparing to march off again in pursuit. Some patrols had gone ahead. Von Bishop was to remain behind for a few days as part of the rearguard.

Von Bishop looked up. His coffee was ready. His boy had also brought him a tin plate filled with strawberries which grew in plentiful supply in Kasama’s kitchen gardens. He took one of the plump berries and popped it in his mouth, crushing it against his palate with his tongue. His mouth was filled with the sweet juice and the pulp. How Liesl would love this! he thought suddenly. His smile drooped. He wondered where and how she was. He wondered if she knew that Cobb was dead.

He stirred his coffee slowly thinking about that night on the plateau. A terrible mistake. A lack of communication, that was all. That morning he had hastily buried the head and then had made off straight away to the Ludjenda confluence and the meeting with von Lettow. He intended to have the ruga-ruga arrested and executed for murder but they disappeared the next night. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t ask them why they had done it;’ they couldn’t tell him. He had some suspicions that they may have been acting under instructions from Deeg, but that was something else he couldn’t confirm. He told von Lettow that they had found Cobb’s dead body and had buried him. He assumed that Cobb had died from starvation and exposure out on the plateau.

He drank his coffee down and got to his feet. It was over now. He didn’t like to think too much about that particular episode. It had been a tragic error. By rights Cobb should have been with them now in Kasama, along with the other British prisoners in the Schütztruppe column. He checked himself: there was nothing to be gained by that sort of reflection.

He walked up the street towards his men, his mind still dwelling on the events of that night. If Deeg hadn’t given his men secret instructions could the responsibility be laid at his — von Bishop’s — door? Had he done anything or said anything that the ruga-ruga could have construed as an order to kill Cobb? No, he was sure. He questioned himself with punctilious honesty. But he had not ordered the ruga-ruga to kill the man. “Get him,” was all he had said, in a language, moreover, that they could not understand. No, his conscience was clear.

He joined his men. Like him they wore a mixture of ragged German uniforms and captured Portuguese clothing. All their weapons were by now of Portuguese or British origin. Some askaris sat behind a stone wall, others lay in shallow firing pits. Von Bishop’s sergeant, a European, came up and saluted. Everything was quiet.

The sun beat down. The road they were guarding led back towards Fife and the border of German East some two hundred kilometres away. Fife was now occupied by the pursuing King’s African Rifles. Von Bishop stayed for half an hour and then set off back down the main street towards his billet.

Then, from down a side road, he heard the put-put of a motorbike. Curious, he waited. Presently the bike emerged into the main street. The driver stopped and removed the goggles he was wearing. Von Bishop walked closer. He was an English soldier.

“Where is everybody, mate?” the man said cheerfully. “Fraid I’m lost. Can you tell me where the Kasama garrison is?”

Von Bishop realized that in his tattered faded uniform he looked more like a farmer than a German officer. It was awkward but he didn’t have a gun with him either.

“This town has been occupied by the German army,” he said apologetically.

“Oh,” said the dispatch rider. “Am I captured then?”

“Yes you are,” said von Bishop, feeling rather foolish.

“Haven’t you heard?” the dispatch rider said. “The war ended the day before yesterday.” He took a stiff canvas folder from the bag slung around his body and handed it over. Von Bishop read the message it contained.

Send following to Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck under white flag. The Prime Minister of England has announced that an armistice was signed at 5 hours on Nov. 11th and that hostilities on all fronts cease at 11 hours on Nov. 11th.

Von Bishop looked up. He felt suddenly weak with relief, a tingling in his knee joints, a slackening of his bowels. Finally it was all over. Two days late, but at last it was finished. The dispatch rider was holding his hands above his head in an attitude of surrender.

“Oh, it’s all right,” von Bishop said, smiling broadly. “You don’t need to bother with that now.”

3: 2 December 1918, Nairobi, British East Africa

Sir Nigel Macmillan’s house in Nairobi looked rather like a larger version of the grey granite bungalows that can be found in the more genteel streets of any Scottish country town. It too was stone, the roof was slate, the guttering ornamental and cast iron, the windows leaded. The only concession to the African climate was a wide, pillared verandah on which were arrayed pots of plants and wooden chairs and settees, and which over-looked neatly mown lawns and weed-free gravel paths. In 1917 Sir Nigel had lent it to the British and Empire forces in East Africa for use as a sanatorium. For officers only.

Felix Cobb sat bolt upright in one of the armchairs, his spectacles held in both hands, staring blankly at the trio of African gardeners hoeing a flower bed. In his lap was a letter and a copy of the local newspaper, The Leader of East Africa, which he’d just been reading. He looked like a man who had just received a nasty shock.

To compose himself he picked up the letter, put his spectacles on and read it again. It was brief and from his mother.

Stackpole Manor

30 August 1918

Darling Felix,

We were most distressed to hear of your accident with the bomb-gun, but relieved to know that you are steadily recovering from your injuries.

I am writing in haste to tell you of your father. I am sorry to say that he has become progressively more unwell since your departure for the war. After much heart-searching and lengthy consultation with Dr Venables, Cressida and I have decided that it would be best for everyone if he went away for a while. Dr Venables has found a quiet and pleasant nursing home near Bournemouth, called St Jude’s. He says it comes highly recommended. Dr Venables hopes that when this war is finally over and you and Gabriel come home life may eventually return to normal.

Nigel Bathe has a splendid new pair of hands and is much more his old self. Your friend Holland has gone to Russia to join a revolution there. He telephoned the other day to ask news of you.

With fondest love from us all,

Mother

Felix put the letter down, momentarily overcome with sadness for his old mad father. He wished he had written home with the news about Gabriel at the time. It was going to be impossibly hard to relate the facts of his death now. He smiled ruefully. He was full of retrospective wisdom, twenty-twenty vision as far as his hindsight was concerned.

He stood up, his right hand going automatically to the back of his head to feel the bumps and ridges of his scar there. As he got to his feet the newspaper slid off his lap onto the floor. He bent down to retrieve it and felt the giddiness come on as the blood rushed into his brain.

He tucked the newspaper under his arm. He needed to wait a while longer before he could bring himself to read it again. He walked down the steps into the garden.

He had made an almost complete recovery since the day Wheech-Browning had blown him and Captain Pinto up with the Stokes gun bomb. A chunk of shrapnel had fractured his skull at the back of his head and caused lesions to the occipital area of the brain. The swirling ropes of smoke he had seen at the time of the explosion had in fact been a symptom of the partial blindness caused by his injury. What happened subsequently was that only parts of his eye could see. It was like looking through a shattered pane of frosted glass. The remaining shards were the blind areas, demarcated by a swirling effervescent grey smoke, like a cloud of glittering mica dust. The partial blindness had lasted for nearly four months, then it slowly began to clear as his wound healed. The only lingering effect was, he discovered, that it returned for a day or so if he was ever close to a loud noise. A viciously slammed door, a high pitched shout, gunshots.

He was to be invalided out of the army and was due to sail back to England from Mombasa in three weeks’ time. Those intervening weeks were to be spent convalescing on Temple Smith’s farm near Kilimanjaro. That, at least, had been the plan. Everything had changed since he’d read today’s newspaper. For a year now he’d been waiting in hope for the news it contained.

As he drew near a group of patients, a curiously shaped man detached himself from it and came sidling up. It was the Rev Norman Espie, Temple’s father-in-law and an annoyingly regular visitor to the ‘gallant injured boys’ in the sanatorium. It was through Espie, though, that Felix had renewed his acquaintance with Temple, and he was grateful to him for that.

The Rev Norman Espie ducked a non-existent shoulder and held up three fingers in front of Felix’s eyes.

“How many fingers, Lt Cobb?”

“Three, Reverend,” Felix said impatiently. Espie always did this. “I’m not blind.”

“Praise the good Lord,” Espie said. “Temple has asked me to relay the message that he will meet you at the Norfolk Hotel at ten of the clock, the morn’s morn.”

“Ah. I’m afraid there’s been a change in plan. I won’t be coming now. At least, not for a while.”

“Goodness me. Not any sign of a relapse, I trust.”

“No. I have to go to Dar-es-Salaam.”

“Dar! What on earth for, my dear young man?”

“Official business. To do with the death of my brother. Temple will understand.”

Felix repeated his apologies and left the Rev Normah Espie to his visiting. He walked back to his seat on the verandah. What he had told Espie wasn’t strictly true. It was a plan he’d concocted only minutes before. He still had arrangements to make, official permissions to secure, but he had every intention of going to Dar.

He sat down and opened The Leader again. It contained a long article about the surrender of the German forces at Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia on the twenty-fifth of November.

…von Lettow made this formal statement of surrender in German and then repeated it in English. General Edwards accepted the surrender on behalf of His Majesty King George V. Von Lettow was then presented to the officers present, and in return introduced his own officers. The German forces numbered 155 Europeans, 30 of whom were officers, medical officers and higher officials, and 1,168 askaris,

Then followed a list of those German officers who had surrendered. Felix’s heart began to beat faster as he searched again for the one name he was looking for. He felt a slight sensation of nausea when he found it. “Von Bishop, Erich, Capt of Reserve.” Von Bishop was still alive. Fate had allowed him to survive the war. Felix shut his eyes and conjured up an image of Gabriel’s severed head. The waxy skin, the staring eyes, the dull tousled hair. He thought of his half-eaten body in the trampled grass. The questions that had nagged relentlessly at him for a year rose again in his head. What had happened to Gabriel out there on the plateau? What hellish torments had he endured?

He opened his eyes again and looked out at the quiet garden, with its civilized lawns and groups of strolling invalids. Since this war had begun not one thing in his life had turned out the way he had planned. Oxford, Charis, the search for Gabriel, the hunt for von Bishop. He realized that he’d been a soldier now for nearly two and a half years — since July 1916—and he had never fired a shot in anger. What kind of a war was it where this sort of absurdity could occur? And yet he’d been sick, half-starved, insanely bored, had seen his brother hideously murdered, shared a house with a syphilitic Portuguese who spoke no English and been almost killed by a bomb fired by his own side. He knew that he was not responsible for the way events had turned out, that it was futile to expect that life could in some way be controlled. But surely everyone had some vestigial power to influence things at his disposal? He had sworn to himself that before he left Africa, before he was done with this mad, absurd war, he was going to exercise that power and fire at least one shot in anger. He was going to put a bullet in von Bishop’s brain. As far as he was concerned his war would not be over until then.

4: 5 December 1918, Dar-es-Salaam, German East Africa

After the surrender, the German army remained at Abercorn for two weeks before being marched to Bismarckburg on Lake Tanganyika. From there a steamer took them to Kigoma, the terminus of the Central Railway from Dar. The journey back to the capital took several days. First they stopped in Tabora where the askaris were to be interned. The officers and European officials were being taken directly to Dar where they, along with the rest of the German civilian population, were to be repatriated as soon as possible.

As the train approached Dar, von Bishop began to feel distinctly nervous at the prospect of meeting Liesl. He hadn’t seen her for over a year. Their last unsatisfactory good-bye had taken place under very strained circumstances on the steps of the hospital at Nanda. He wondered if she would be at the station to meet him. At Morogoro, when the train had stopped, the remaining German population of the town had turned out in force to provide a lavish welcome. Tables had been set out on the platform. Fresh bread, fruit, beer and wine had been in plentiful supply.

The sight of the coconut groves behind the city made von Bishop’s nervousness increase. It crossed his mind that somehow Liesl might have found out about Cobb’s death. If not, she would surely ask him what had happened. He shut his eyes for a moment, a flutter of panic beating at his throat. What could he say? What answer could he give?

“Don’t look so worried,” Rutke said. “We’ll be home soon.”

Concealing his annoyance, von Bishop looked at Rutke who was sitting opposite him. Rutke was pale and thin. But he had been lucky. Five more Europeans had died of Spanish influenza since the surrender. Rutke had pulled through after forty-eight hours in a high fever.

“It’s all right for you,” Rutke went on heedlessly. “Married men with homes to go to. Us bachelors have to live in a camp.”

A big crowd was waiting at the station. As the train pulled in a hearty cheer of welcome rose up. The officers got out and were marched up Unter den Akazien to a tented camp set up in the botanical gardens. Von Bishop hadn’t seen Liesl among the faces at the station, but someone told him that the wives of prisoners would be waiting at the camp. Slowly they filed through a large, airy tent. Their names, ranks and particulars were noted and they were presented with a new cotton drill suit, three shirts, collars, underclothes and a shaving kit.

His arms full, von Bishop stepped outside into the sun.

“Erich,” he heard a voice call.

“This way,” the English sergeant said and led him off to where the group of wives was waiting.

Liesl was wearing a white high-necked blouse and a long grey skirt. On her head she had a man’s sun helmet. The first thing von Bishop noticed was that she was much thinner. For the first time in years she bore some resemblance to the woman he had seen off on the boat to Germany in 1913. For some reason the change seemed to him an indication of new hope.

She took the clothes from him. “You were meant to be here yesterday,” she said. “What happened?”

“A delay at Morogoro,” he said. He bent his head and touched his lips to hers.

“Liesl,” he said. “You look wonderful. Very well.”

“I’ve been sick,” she said, her voice sharp with irritation. “A month of fever.”

Von Bishop felt his heart brim with love at her retort. Now everything, he was sure, would be fine.

They took a rickshaw back to the quarter of the town that was reserved for German civilians. Formerly a temporary development for junior officials on the railways, it lay behind the marshalling yards and was composed of small corrugated iron bungalows raised two or three feet off the ground on brick piles. German civilians were permitted to move freely around the town during the day, but after dark a curfew was imposed and they were obliged to stay indoors.

It was a curious sensation to be riding through Dar again. Von Bishop looked about him. English soldiers were every-where, union jacks flying from the highest buildings, English street signs at road junctions. German East Africa didn’t exist any more.

Their bungalow was mean and unprepossessing, smaller even than their house in Nanda. The streets in the neighbour-hood were rutted and narrow, pie dogs and skinny hens sniffed and picked at piles of rubbish which mouldered at the side of the road, shade trees were few and far between.

Liesl’s house boasted a ravaged hibiscus hedge and a cinder path to the front door marked by freshly whitewashed stones. Inside there was a sitting room, separated from the single bedroom by a narrow hallway. A kitchen shack and privy stood a few yards from the back door. The Germans were allowed only one servant per household. Kimi, Liesl’s maid from Nanda, welcomed them at the front door.

Inside it was fetid and warm. Von Bishop sat down on a wooden upright chair.

Liesl stood by the window, fanning herself with a piece of card.

“It gets cooler at night,” she said non-committally.

“I suppose it’s better than being herded in a camp.”

“Oh, the English are very fair.”

The maid brought von Bishop a glass of beer.

“My God, beer!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t had it for years.” In fact he’d drunk bottles at Morogoro.

Liesl looked pleased. “I saved it for you.”

Von Bishop got to his feet, went over to her and kissed her on the cheek. Then he stood awkwardly at her side staring through the open shutters at the spindly hibiscus hedge and the cinder path with its whitewashed stones.

“Erich,” Liesl said, still looking outside. “I have to ask you. What happened to Gabriel Cobb?”

“You don’t know?”

“I heard nothing. They moved us here almost immediately. After those men set off after you.”

Von Bishop almost dropped his glass of beer. He forced himself to relax.

“We found him,” he said gravely. “On the Makonde plateau. He was dead, from starvation, weakness…”

Liesl looked at her left hand which rested on the window sill. She prised up a splinter from the dried and cracking wood.

“I knew it,” she said sadly. “When I heard nothing I knew he was dead.” She paused. “Erich, I—”

“We found him quite alone,” von Bishop went on quickly. “His clothes were rags. He had nothing with him. No food, no water. “Unaccommodated man,” as Shakespeare says. A brave but foolish attempt.”

Liesl looked round at him sharply. Von Bishop shrugged his shoulders. “We buried him there. I went on to the Ludjenda confluence, rejoined von Lettow. You never heard anything from, ah, the men following me?”

Liesl opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, then she closed it. Her shoulders relaxed.

“No,” she said, exhaling. “Nothing. But I saw one of them yesterday. He reminded me of it all.”

“Here? In Dar?” Common sense stilled his alarm. He’d been in captivity a month. If he had been accused of anything he would have learnt of it by now.

“Yes,” Liesl said looking round with mild curiosity.

“Did he see you?”

“I think so. He must have.”

“But he didn’t say anything?”

“No, nothing. I don’t think he recognized me.”

Von Bishop cleared his throat to hide the relief. “They couldn’t have found the grave then.”

“No.” Liesl took her bottom lip between her teeth. “I suppose not.”

Von Bishop set his beer glass down and put his arms around his wife and pulled her to him. She was thinner but her body was still soft. He felt a sense of happiness wash through him. He squeezed her shoulders.

“Soon we’ll be in Germany,” he said. “But perhaps one day they’ll let us come back.”

5: 9 December 1918, Dar-es-Salaam, German East Africa

Felix stood in the dappled moon-shadow beneath a cotton tree looking at the von Bishops’ house. He cursed his luck. How typical of the way everything had gone that within two days of arriving in Dar he should practically fall over von Bishop’s wife outside the Kaiserhof. He had looked right through her, pretending not to recognize her face and had turned and walked off quickly. He couldn’t tell if she recognized him, however, and to allay any possible suspicions he had not stirred from the hotel for the next few days.

Now he pulled the collar of his linen jacket up above his ears. He was wearing civilian clothes. A cool breeze was coming off the sea. He seemed to have been standing under this tree for hours. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, feeling as he did so the barrel of his service revolver scrape across his pelvis. The gun was too large to go inconspicuously into his jacket pocket so he had thrust it into the waist of his trousers. He took the gun out now and opened it, catching the moon’s gleam on the six brass cartridges. He wondered if the time was right for him to make his move but decided to wait a few more minutes. One of the rooms of the tin bungalow was lit, the other was completely dark. He looked up and down the dusty streets. They were deserted. The moonlight had turned the dust an ash colour and despite the balminess of the night the scène looked cold and chilly. Felix decided to wait a few more minutes. Just in case.

Getting official permission to come to Dar-es-Salaam had presented few problems. He had telegraphed to the Provost Marshal in Dar, saying he had information about the death of his brother, Captain Gabriel Cobb, that might constitute it a war crime. Permission was promptly granted and he went by train to Mombasa, and from there by coastal steamer to Dar. At the Provost Marshal’s office they had been most helpful. He told them the story of Gabriel’s death, leaving nothing out except von Bishop’s name. The harassed and overworked young lieutenant appointed to investigate the case had provided all manner of information about the surviving German officers. Securing von Bishop’s address had not been difficult.

He had set wheels in motion, but he knew they would move very slowly, such was the clutter and chronic disorganization of Dar-es-Salaam. Other cases of alleged German brutality were also pending, let alone the myriad of usual disciplinary matters attending a large and idle occupying army. Felix’s accusations would just have to wait their turn.

Then he had seen the von Bishop woman and, in the interests of safety, had lain low in his tiny room at the top of the Kaiserhof for three days. During this period of inactivity he concentrated on sustaining the mood of hatred and desire for retribution which he’d felt so fiercely all these months.

But, somehow, now he was almost in sight of his quarry he felt his resolve wavering. He decided to let von Bishop speak for himself, to see if he had any defence to offer.

Those few moments when a voice in his head asked him if it was worth persevering were easily overcome. He simply had to conjure up the images of that dreadful day on the plateau. The only trouble was that they brought a train of associated but unwanted memories. Memories of Gabriel and Charis on their wedding day, of Charis’s appallingly misleading reassurances on the train between Aylesbury and London, of her own frightful death. Soon he would be shaky with guilt and unhappiness again, fully aware of his own problematic motives, and yet above all conscious of the overwhelming imbalance, the dreadful unfairness of everything. He was lucky, he reminded himself. He had it in his power to do some squaring up, knot a few of the dangling loose ends. At these times when he was most low he would try to imagine von Bishop’s face, try to visualize the features of the man who had killed his brother. Temple had said it was thin, shaven-headed with a large, sharp nose. It was not much to go on but in his imagination it readily acquired the lineaments of despicable cruelty. He felt instinctively that he would recognize von Bishop anywhere.

He weighed the gun in his hand. It was time to go. Keeping as much as he could to the shadows Felix moved towards the von Bishop house. Not far off a dog began to bark, but it soon fell silent. As he crept towards the bungalow, the gun held in readiness by his side, he felt suddenly possessed of an avenging strength and confidence. There was, he decided, an irrefutable rightness in the doctrine of an eye for an eye. It had a logic that brooked no backsliding: it allowed man some say in his fate; some little control of the order events took upon his planet.

He saw the shadow of a figure against the lighted square of window. He wondered if it were von Bishop. He crept up to the house. He could hear no conversation. He thought suddenly of von Bishop’s wife, and the fact that she might be a witness. He paused. It would be necessary to mask himself somehow. Felix felt through his pockets. He had no handkerchief with him. It was paramount that he disguise his face.

Cursing under his breath, he took off his linen jacket and wrapped and knotted it awkwardly under his chin. Simply by pulling up one fold his face was effectively masked. But somehow this ad hoc pragmatic operation had deprived him of his mood of vengeful omnipotence as swiftly as it had arisen. He felt foolish and vulnerable and, try as he might, he couldn’t help wondering what he must look like with his jacket wrapped around his head. Already he was bathed in perspiration, sweat running uncomfortably down his muffled neck.

He looked again at the gun, hoping that the sight of the agent of destruction would inspire him once again, but it only brought another unwelcome thought to mind. When he fired, when he pulled the trigger, the noise in an enclosed space would be deafening. Without doubt it would bring back his partial blindness again, his fractured vision. What would he do then? How would he get away? He threw back his head in desperation and looked at the vague stars in the sky. Why now, at the eleventh hour, were all these obstacles massing in his path? Don’t think, he told himself angrily, just do.

He eased round to the dark end of the house. Here the shutters, to what he assumed was the bedroom, were flung wide to cool the room as much as possible prior to the occupants retiring. Reaching up he grabbed the sill. The gun in his hand clanged noisily against the corrugated iron. He dropped immediately into a crouch. But there was no reaction from inside. Ordering his leaping heart to still itself, Felix stuffed the gun back in the waistband of his trousers, stood up and, with some effort, clambered into the empty bedroom. He stood by the window listening for any suspicious noises from the sitting room. All was quiet.

Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness of the bedroom. A wooden chest against one wall. The tall shape of a cupboard. A stand with a basin on it by a bed. The two beds themselves with tall crude cast-iron bedsteads, rumpled sheets on one of them—

He felt a silent scream of shock echo through his head. One of the beds was occupied. He tried to swallow but his Adam’s apple seemed to have swelled to block his throat. As silently as he knew how he drew the gun from his waistband and took a tentative step nearer the bed. The person lay on its back, sound asleep, its large sharp nose silhouetted against the pale wall.

Felix felt his stomach churn with nausea as he realized that the sleeper was von Bishop. He took another small step nearer the bed. Miraculously there was no squeak from the wooden floorboards. He had him now. He aimed the gun. It trembled wildly in his grasp. But he was so close he couldn’t miss.

“Von Bishop,” he hissed. “Wake up.”

There was no movement from the bed.

“Wake up,” he croaked. “Wake up.”

Von Bishop slept on peacefully.

Felix lowered the gun. What now? He took a step closer. He stood almost above him. Felix could hardly hear the sound of his breathing. Hand wobbling, he levelled the gun at von Bishop’s shadowed face.

“Wake. Up.” He reached forward to shake him by the shoulder. This was absurd, he thought, it was going to be impossible to shoot the man now.

Behind him the door swung open.

“He’s dead,” Liesl von Bishop said in a calm voice. “Leave him alone.”

Felix reeled round in horror and aghast surprise, frantically hauling the folds of his jacket up over his face. He lost his balance and staggered, a hand slamming down on the bed for support, thwacking von Bishop’s immobile leg.

The light from the oil lamp she carried illuminated von Bishop’s face. His eyes were shut, his mouth slightly open, his skin looked stretched tight.

“Oh my God,” Felix exclaimed tremulously, bending over, gasping for air. “Oh God, Jesus!” He felt as if he were about to fall apart, so critical was the shock he’d received.

“He died this evening,” Liesl said dully. “About three hours ago. Influenza. Spanish influenza, the doctor said.”

Felix felt his rioting body come under minimal control.

“What’s wrong with your face?” she said.

“What?” Felix touched the masking folds of his jacket.

“Your face, why is it covered? And a gun,” she said with more alarm. “Why have you got a gun?”

“In case,” Felix improvised, tearing away his jacket, hoping he wouldn’t have to try and explain that. “Self-protection,” he concluded lamely.

“I saw you outside,” she said. “Standing under the tree. I was waiting for you to come to the door.” She gave him a weary, tolerant smile, as if he were an idiotic child who kept getting into trouble. She moved to one side to let him pass, and Felix walked out of the bedroom into the narrow hall. He put on his jacket and tucked his gun away with some embarrassment.

“You wanted to ask Erich about Gabriel?” she said.

“Yes.” It was odd hearing the sound of his brother’s name on her lips, she used it so familiarly.

Her face went serious. “I must tell you. You know that he’s dead?”

Felix nodded. “I know. I found him.” He looked again at this perplexing woman. He remembered that she had known Gabriel for what amounted to the last two years of his life.

“Did your husband…did he tell you what happened? About Gabriel?”

“Oh yes.” Liesl said.

“But why?” Felix said imploringly, suddenly aching for some sort of explanation. “That’s all I want to know. Why? Why? Why?”

“Why what?” Liesl frowned.

With an intuition of dream-like clarity Felix realized that she knew nothing of the truth of Gabriel’s death. She had no idea of what happened that night on the plateau, had no conception of her husband’s part. He decided at once not to tell her. He knew, again with a surprising sense of conviction, that it was better to leave it as it was. After all, he thought sadly, we all have our secrets to keep. The heavens wouldn’t fall for such a trifle.