1982 - An Ice-Cream War (23 page)

Gabriel looked down. On the toe of his boot was a greyish pink blob, like a wet, peeled shrimp. With a shudder he wiped it off on the earth and ran after Bilderbeck.

Soon they arrived at a semblance of a front line on the more open ground by the sea. Groups of men crouched behind trees and rocks, two machine guns covering a dirt road.

Bilderbeck seemed quite unmoved by his summary execution. He told Gabriel it was his third that day. Gabriel felt his body tingling and trembling, as if any moment he might drop from accumulated shock and exhaustion.

They took up a position behind a jumble of rocks and watched a company of North Lancs drawing back in reasonable order from the customs house and the sheds around the jetty which were just visible. Peering forward Gabriel could just make out German askaris darting across gaps in the alleyway to re-occupy the abandoned buildings. Ragged covering fire broke out from the British lines and one of the Maxims stuttered into life.

“Bloody day,” Bilderbeck said gloomily. “Everybody ran for it. You should see the beaches. Mass panic. People swimming out to the lighters.
Disgusting!
” He gave Gabriel a fierce smile. “Where are your men?”

Gabriel explained about the bee attack and most of the bizarre and erratic course his day had taken. “What’s going on?” he asked, trying not to think about Gleeson.

“Well, we’ve been well and truly cut to pieces on the left. Fifty per cent casualties in the 101
st
Grenadiers. The line’s in tatters, thanks to all the bloody cowards who ran away.” He went on. The town had been far more heavily fortified and defended than anyone had expected. Every building was like a blockhouse. With no organization, with huge gaps in the attack, with the left wing being pushed further and further back, the few gains made in the town had to be yielded.

“It’s all gone
wrong
,” Bilderbeck said, as if it were a personal insult. “Even our general’s got no spunk for a fight.”

Gabriel felt suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to sleep. “I suppose I should try and get back to my men,” he said vaguely.

“They’ll be on the beach by now,” Bilderbeck sneered. He took out his map from his pocket and smoothed it on the ground. Gabriel thought maps should be banned. They gave the world an order and reasonableness which it didn’t possess. “Coconut groves,” it said in large letters. The phrase sounded pleasant, restful. It gave no indication of the tangled choking undergrowth they had clawed their way through at noon.

Bilderbeck’s finger traced a crescent on the map from the native graveyard up to the ditch then back to the coast. “We’re here now.” Bilderbeck tapped a point ahead of a building marked hospital. “The hospital’s just back there, overlooking the sea. You might find some of your men on the left of the line by the cemetery. There’s a mixed lot of North Lancs and Grenadiers around there. Go back down the road and take the first track on the right that’s marked with a red and white s take. It’ll take you along to the cemetery.”

He and Gabriel crawled away from the front line until they had lost sight of the town. Then they stood up.

“I’d better get back to headquarters,” Bilderbeck said looking glum. “See you later, Cobb.” He went behind a large tree and emerged with a bicycle, which he mounted and rode off down the track.

Gabriel walked slowly down the road behind him, which was now filled with troops making their unauthorized way back to the beach and the morning’s assembly point. As he cycled past each group Bilderbeck delivered a volley of insults and abuse but the dishevelled and exhausted men ignored him completely.

Presently Gabriel came to a track branching off to the right which was marked by a red and white striped pole. The staff officers at least were doing their job. He walked along a narrowing path, half-heartedly brushing creepers from his face. The sun was sinking lower in the sky and there was an orange-ish light hitting the top of the trees. The incessant noise of firing grew louder as he approached the left wing of the British lines but he scarcely gave it any thought. It seemed as much part of the natural landscape now as the chirping of crickets or the calls of the birds.

Soon he came to the graveyard, no more than a large part of cleared ground with a few graves dotted about it, most of them plain cement plinths or crosses, but with the occasional more elaborate Moorish headstone.

He saw an outpost of the British line in the far corner and began to pick his way towards it. Nothing today had been remotely how he had imagined it would be; nothing in his education or training had prepared him for the utter randomness and total contingency of events. Here he was, strolling about the battlefield looking for his missing company like a mother searching for lost children in the park.

He looked up. The outpost was composed of native troops in khaki uniforms and tarbooshes. They seemed to be bent over some wounded men. King’s African Rifles, Gabriel thought; they were the only African troops in the British army. Then he realized there had been no KAR in the expeditionary force.

At once, instinctively, he turned on his heel and started to run, a ghastly leaping fear in his heart. He heard shouts come from behind. He started to run like a sprinter, as he’d been taught at school, arms pounding and pulling at the air, lifting the knees high. He thumped heavily across the uneven ground, throwing his sun helmet off his head. Faster, he told himself,
faster
, get to the forest, just get back to the forest. He shut his ears to the pursuit, the drumming of feet behind him. “Don’t want to get caught by those jerry niggers,” the North Lancs soldier had said. So: faster, faster.

They caught up with him about twenty yards from the shelter of the trees. They even ran alongside him for a pace or two, far speedier than him in their bare feet, even when encumbered by their rifles and bayonets.

Gabriel ran on regardless, it was all he could do. Then he felt the first bayonet slice into his leg, a slashing, tearing stroke that severed the big rectus femoris muscle in the middle of his thigh. He crashed to the ground, squirming and rolling over and over to avoid the pronging, skewering blades. They missed once or twice but they eventually got him. He saw the bayonet coming as he spun round. Watched it spear through his tunic. Felt an icy coldness which wasn’t really painful travel the length of his coiled intestines. He saw the blade withdraw, with a squirt of his own dark blood, looked up in horrified disbelief as another man stepped into place for his turn, felt his mouth full with hot, salty blood. He wriggled desperately in an attempt to get out of the way, saw the second blade slice in just above his hip bone, glancing inward off the pelvis, feeling the rasp and judder of the point on the bone. He thought he heard faint cries of ‘
Halt
’ And that was all.

6 November 1914,
Tanga, German East Africa

“The North Lancs put up a good fight. So did some of the Kashmir Rifles,” von Bishop heard Hammerstein say to the English officer Bilderbeck. Hammerstein was von Lettow’s chief of staff. They were all riding on mules towards Ras Kasone, two days after the battle. Hammerstein spoke just as they were passing a burial party heaving British corpses onto a wagon. It seemed, von Bishop thought, a tactless thing to say. But Bilderbeck appeared not in the least put out.

“Thank goodness,” he said. “At least someone did.” He gave a cackle of laughter. Hammerstein exchanged a covert glance with von Bishop.

It was half past nine in the morning. The day was growing hot and humid. Bilderbeck was the officer sent by the British to supervise the removal of the wounded and to hand over the large quantities of abandoned stores. Von Bishop rode a few paces behind him and Hammerstein who were chatting away about the war like old friends. Hammerstein’s English, he had to admit, was really of quite a high Standard.

Von Bishop took off his peaked cap and shook his head. On the afternoon of the fourth, shortly after the
Schutztruppe
had driven the British out of Tanga, the battleship
Fox
had bombarded the town for half an hour, doing great damage. Von Bishop had been knocked senseless for a few minutes when a six-inch shell exploded nearby. He had suffered only mild concussion but it had left him with a high-pitched singing sound in his ears, soft but persistent, and it refused to go away. This morning he had bent down, placed his hands on his knees and had shaken his head to and fro so severely that he had fallen over from the effort. But still it remained: a quiet
eeeeeeeee
going on in the background.

He looked at the thick undergrowth in the coconut groves on either side of the road and thought it little wonder that the British had taken so long to attack. He himself had arrived by rail from Moshi shortly after noon on the fourth and had ordered his company of askaris into the attack on the British left flank against the Indian troops of the 101
st
Grenadiers. It had been exhilarating to see the machine guns cut down the advancing troops and then to follow in with the charge. That exhilaration had been sustained throughout the day as the British had been routed, until the unfortunate incident with the exploding shell. Now all he could think about was this noise in his ear.
Eeeeeeeee
. It was driving him mad.

Soon they emerged from the coconut groves and into the trampled open spaces above the beaches. The British fleet lay at anchor about a quarter of a mile offshore, tugboats, launches and lighters plying to and fro between the transports. The red house had been converted into a hospital and was full of British wounded. They were to be evacuated to the fleet under conditions of parole, namely that none of them would serve again for the duration of the war.

Von Bishop let Hammerstein and Bilderbeck go into the red house to administer the parole. He left the mules with the askari guard and walked over to the headland to get a better view of the English ships. There was a pleasant breeze blowing off the sea and he allowed himself to experience the complacent satisfactions of a victor as he surveyed the vast piles of abandoned stores stacked among the mangroves on the beach. Sixteen machine guns, someone had said, half a million rounds of ammunition—even new motorbikes—all left behind by the British when they hastily re-embarked yesterday morning.

However, von Bishop was extremely surprised to see a British officer—clipboard in hand—emerge from behind a pile of packing cases. Hurriedly von Bishop ran down to the beach. The man, who was a major, looked up casually as he approached.

“Hello there,” the major said.

“Who the hell are you?” von Bishop said excitedly. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

The major, an elderly man, was very neatly dressed in gleaming Sam Browne and riding boots. He had curious sagging, fleshy cheeks which trembled when he spoke.

“The name’s Dobbs,” he said, a little nervously now, as if he sensed he shouldn’t be where he was. “Quartermaster General, Expeditionary Force. I’m making an inventory of all these stores we’re handing over. For my records,” he added plaintively. “I’ve got to make a report, you see.”

“But this is ridiculous!” von Bishop said, waving his arms about. “Stay here!” He ran back to the red house, past the long lines of stretcher cases that were now being taken down to lighters on the beach. Von Bishop reported the matter to Bilderbeck, who rolled his eyes in exasperation and accompanied him back down to the beach.

“Quite extraordinary,” von Bishop explained to Hammerstein who’d strolled down to join them. “The man was just walking around, calmly making notes.”

Bilderbeck apologized to Hammerstein and ordered Dobbs to get off the beach and back to the fleet at once.

Hammerstein shook his finger at the very red-faced Dobbs. “No flag of truce,” he chided. “By rights you should be taken prisoner.” Dobbs hung his head and meekly went to board one of the lighters.

Hammerstein took out some cheroots and passed them around. They stood smoking on the beach watching the wounded being loaded on board the lighters. This job was nearly complete when Hammerstein spotted two lifeboats full of men rowing into shore from one of the transports. The boats grounded a little way down the beach and the men on board took off their clothes and jumped into the shallows and began to swim and splash about in the surf. Some of them had cakes of soap and began to wash themselves.

“Look, I’m dreadfully sorry,” Bilderbeck said. “I don’t know what they think they’re playing at.” He ran down to the boats. “Who’s in charge here?” he called angrily.

A very white naked man sloshed out of the water and saluted. “Sergeant Althorpe, sir. Loyal North Lancs. Ablutions detail, sir.”

Hammerstein and von Bishop joined the group. “I really must protest, Bilderbeck,” Hammerstein said suavely, flicking his cheroot stub into the sea. “If they don’t go back at once I shall have to order my men to open fire. Really, you know, this is a war. It’s not some kind of sporting event.”

Bilderbeck, looking—von Bishop thought—extremely ashamed, ordered the men back to the transports. The naked men complied, but with extreme reluctance. There was much resentful muttering, and, as the two lifeboats pulled away from the shore, von Bishop heard foul insults being shouted at them.

Once the last of the wounded men had been taken offshore, Hammerstein invited Bilderbeck for breakfast at the German hospital. They rode back through the hot and steamy forest to the large white building of the hospital. The fighting had raged around this building during the battle on the fourth and for most of the day it had been behind British lines, tending wounded from both sides. The imposing stone building was set in its own beautifully laid-out park of gravel pathways and low clipped hedges. Wooden benches were set in the shade cast by two huge baobab trees.

On the ground floor was a wide verandah where a long linen-covered table was laid and where they all enjoyed breakfast in the company of Dr Deppe, the senior physician, and some other
Schutztruppe
officers. They had iced beer, eggs, cream and asparagus, and talked amicably about the previous days’ battles trying to work out if Bilderbeck had been opposite .any of them during the fighting. Von Bishop remained silent; he wasn’t entirely sure if he approved of this sort of fraternization. After all, wasn’t it exactly the sort of thing Hammerstein was criticizing on the beach? Von Bishop had his reservations about Hammerstein too, even more so when he saw him exchanging addresses with Bilderbeck, promising to get in touch after the war.