The White Father (5 page)

“I suppose you’ll still be here when I come back,” said Shrieve as they discussed the future of the colony.

“Might be, might not. If I don’t get out with the rest I’ll never get out at all, I dare say. Get stuck out here seeing no one all the year round, like you. Don’t know how you can stand it, tell the truth.”

“I like it.”

“Oh, balls, man,” said Varner. “No one really likes living a million miles from civilisation. We do it because we don’t know any better, that’s all.”

“Not at all,” Shrieve protested. “I could easily get myself a job in London if I wanted one.”

“I’d start looking, then. You won’t be here much longer whether you want to be or not.”

“What will you do?”

“I dunno. Go back to the home country, I suppose. I’ve got a bit of money saved up. But the wife made me leave, and she doesn’t want to go back. Maybe we’ll drift up towards Europe.”

“You could try South America.”

“I might, at that. But I’m dead scared of those Indians with blow-pipes and all. And those snakes that squeeze you to death. I wouldn’t care to crash in that jungle there. Don’t think I’d get out of that one alive.”

“Why leave at all?” said Shrieve. “They’ll need you just as much after independence as they do now. Probably more. They’re begging mechanics to stay on, aren’t they? You could probably open a school of aeronautical engineering.”

“Me?” said Varner. “I don’t even know the names of half the bits in the engine. I have to look them up in the book when I want to order new ones. You can’t run a school just telling people to watch. It’s all in my hands. I couldn’t teach.”

“Oh, there’s always room for people like you, Garry. As long as you can tie two bits of string together and make them
fly you’ll be happy. And there are people everywhere who want cheap local air travel. Why not Arabia, for instance?”

“Don’t like Ay-rabs,” said Varner promptly. “They don’t treat their women right. Yashmaks and all.”

“Well what about Thailand? There’s a nice place.”

“No, it wouldn’t be the same, you know. The wife and I found this place and before we knew where we were we’d been here nearly ten years. So we decided we must like it, though we were blessed if we could see why. Now it’s our bit of bush, and we don’t want to leave it. Let the old natives do what they like, but leave me the pleasure of a little business doing nobody no harm, floating about the bush as the wish takes me. I don’t want to be bloody mucked about.” He glared out at the shimmering afternoon and said, “Have another beer, it’ll do you good.”

Shrieve, who had had three, declined. “You ought to take a look at the map. There’s still plenty of open space about if you want to be a bushman. Try the Sahara.”

“They’re unrolling new maps all over Africa,” said Varner with gloomy relish. “Who ever heard of Mali before? And all those places, they’re just empty, they say. A lot of tsetse, two or three donkeys, a pack of camels, and about one person every twenty-five miles. That’s not for me. I’ve grown too fond of my little bit of bush, that’s my trouble.”

“It’s all our troubles,” said Shrieve. “Look, I would like to get to the capital tonight, if you’ve nothing else on.”

“There’s plenty of time. The ship’s all ready. You haven’t a lot of baggage, I hope?”

“A couple of cases—they’re not heavy.”

“O.K., then. Give me half an hour and I’ll be with you.”

“Right,” said Shrieve, getting up. “I’ll go and wander round the town a bit. They always expect me to bring home bits of African junk. I’ll go and see what’s available.”

The town was small—one paved street and several unpaved alleys. In the middle was a building in European style which housed the Post Office, the Chamber of Commerce, and the offices of the Administration. Shrieve ambled towards the
market area, open stalls and a few shallow holes in the wall which were shops. He bought some trinkets for Aunt Grace’s grandchildren and an elaborately patterned blanket for her. There didn’t seem to be anything that would interest his father. Then he returned to the air-strip and joined Varner in one more beer for the road.

“Nice day for a ride,” said Varner.

They climbed into the plane and Varner revved the engine ferociously. Then they rolled to the end of the strip and took off, every strut groaning. They circled the town and headed east for the capital.

“Bloody radio’s up to mud,” shouted Varner. “I hope we reach the control tower all right. Had to come down once without making contact at all. Furious they were.” He raised his voice still louder and screamed happily, “Bloody furious!”

The noise was such that Shrieve could nod meaningfully and ignore the generally abusive comments from the cockpit. They flew quite low over the bush, occasional animals fleeing from the roar of the plane. From above it looked almost
park-like
, the trees well separated from one another and the land mostly flat. But, as Shrieve knew well enough, on the ground it looked quite different. The scrub was everywhere, and you were lucky if you could see more than a few hundred yards ahead. The sun filtered through the trees, leaving large pools of warmth and light, but where there were no trees it blazed mercilessly down as you pushed through the endless long grass.

After a while they came to a small ridge of hills. With much groaning and grumbling the plane increased altitude, Varner glaring angrily at the instruments and urging the machine on with curses, like an Arab with a mule. Safely across the barrier, they looked down on the wide plain which led to the capital. Shrieve could make out the dusty tracks which appeared on the map as main roads. From above it all looked level and easy, but he knew the reason the journey took three days by jeep was that there were dry river-beds, slow rocky passages and many unexpected detours across the bush where the track had been washed away by the rains. A few clumps of huts indicated
villages. This was the area of the Kwahi-Nuaphi, a nomadic people who based themselves on these villages for a month or two, then moved on, the villages remaining for the next group to drift into, like oases in the desert, available to all. What happened when two groups met no one quite knew, but they were basically an amiable people and conflicts were usually resolved without fighting. The Luagabu frontier lay in the small ridge the plane had just crossed. The Kwahi-Nuaphi were less advanced than the Luagabu, but about equal in numbers: they would have an important part to play in the new politics of the country, if only they could be found in the right place at the right time to vote. Their leaders would be at the constitutional conference.

At the far side of the plain came a taller ridge of mountains, some of whose peaks had snow on them even at this time of year. Varner chose a pass in order not to have to go too high, and they flew down a perilous-looking valley from the sides of which jutted great slabs of purplish rock. The valley narrowed as they flew, and suddenly Varner shouted back at Shrieve, “Here we go!” He pointed the nose of the aircraft upwards, and the ground slid rapidly away. In a moment they were over the pass and cruising down towards the capital, some thirty miles away in the foothills. In twenty minutes they had established contact with the control-tower, landed, and taxied up to the main building of the airport.

“Thanks a lot,” said Shrieve, jumping down. His ears still roared with the noise of the engine, and his legs felt weak after the cramped plane. He stretched luxuriously and yawned. “Are you staying here for the night?”

“Not me,” said Varner. “The wife gets all het up if I’m not home to keep her company. I’ll have a couple of beers, though. Buy a paper. Chat around.”

They went into the airport bar and had a beer. Then Shrieve bought Varner another and said goodbye. He carried his cases out to the taxi-rank, past a large hoarding showing an African mother urging her son to feel Free, and ordered a cab to take him to the Elizabeth Hotel, a small undistinguished building
with a few uncomfortable rooms run by a Jew called Simon Bensimon. Shrieve saw no point in paying heavily for the doubtful air-conditioning of the grand hotels. There were no feather-beds in the bush, and air-conditioning gave him a cold.

After checking the time of his plane the following day, he rang Robbins’s home. It was six o’clock and the offices should all be closed. Robbins’s wife answered.

“He’s not back yet,” she said. “Often he doesn’t get home till after eight.”

“Good gracious. Would he mind me calling him at the office, do you think?”

“Not at all. He’ll be glad to see you, I know. And tell him I’ve asked you to dinner, will you?”

“That’s extremely kind of you,” said Shrieve.

“See you shortly, then. Do try and make him come home at a reasonable time for a change.”

Shrieve rang Robbins’s office and announced his arrival.

“When are you leaving, old boy?” said Robbins.

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Hmm. Not wasting any time, are you? Never mind. Why don’t you come round now and we’ll have a natter. I’m booked solid tomorrow morning. Then you can come and dine with us.”

“Your wife’s already asked me.”

“Good, good. So you thought I’d be home by now, did you? I’m never there before sundown these days, I’m sorry to say. But come on round right away.”

Shrieve walked the few blocks to the main administrative area and entered Robbins’s building, tall and white, with metal shutters against the late afternoon sun. He took the lift to the sixth floor.

“Hello, hello,” said Robbins, “it’s good to see you, Hugh.” He was looking hotter than ever, but he seemed to have lost weight. Beneath his tan he looked drawn. “Jesus, but we’re working long hours here. You chaps out in the bush just don’t know what it’s like.”

“But we do the real work,” said Shrieve, shaking Robbins’s hand. “You people just make paperwork for yourselves.”

“You’re damned right,” said Robbins, sighing. “Ton after ton of forms repeating each other’s information. It’s the madness of our civilisation. We’ve taught the Africans to read and write so that they can fill in forms.”

“You know what we use them for in the bush.”

“Yes,” said Robbins, pushing papers about his blotter. “Now look here, Hugh, let’s get down to business and then we can enjoy the evening, right? First of all, what are your plans? You’ll be coming back in September, you said. That’ll give you about four months to pack and go away again.”

“There’s no chance of being allowed to stay on?”

“It’s most unlikely. They’re going to need all the
administrative
jobs they can get to pay off political debts. As for Europeans, they’ll need a few at headquarters still, and in the electric and water companies. Engineers won’t have to look far for work. But for district officers like Mackenzie and yourself the outlook’s frankly a bit bleak.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to go home. But I’d like to make sure first that whoever replaces me knows what he’s doing.”

“He won’t,” said Robbins flatly. “There aren’t enough educated people to go round. Of course, if we’d had another ten years——”

There was a silence while the two men contemplated the future of the colony. Then Robbins said, “The new university may help eventually, of course. But it’s still tiny, and hasn’t even got properly trained teachers yet. That’s a place where there’s still plenty of room for white men. You want to have a bash at teaching?”

“I don’t think I could,” said Shrieve. “I’ve forgotten all my formal learning. And what use would English History be to these people? They want engineers and doctors, don’t they?”

“That’s for sure,” said Robbins. He mopped his face with a large blue handkerchief. “Now, about your Ngulu. Everyone knows about the problem, thanks to your efforts, but no one
has the first idea of a solution. What’s really going to count is the new administrator, right?”

“Not really, no. However good my replacement is, there has to be some genuine threat of force to keep the Luagabu away.”

Robbins sighed. “As if I didn’t know. It’s the same story everywhere. It’ll be like India and Pakistan if we’re not careful, with tribe murdering tribe along all the borders of the territories.”

“Quite,” said Shrieve. “So what should I try and achieve at this conference?”

“Guarantees. They won’t strictly be enforceable for the reasons we’ve discussed, but you can’t hope for more. You must try and get something written down. And at the same time, be chummy with the African delegates—you’re in a much better position to handle them than the men in Whitehall. Try and get them on your side, make it an old boy arrangement with them while you’re getting something written into the
constitution
.”

“And how do I do that?”

“How should I know?” said Robbins. “But you could offer them drinks, couldn’t you?”

Shrieve thought for a while. He couldn’t imagine himself asking the African leaders for drinks and broaching the subject with the casualness one read about in books.

“And you think that’s all I can hope for?”

“You must put what pressure you can on the Colonial Office, too, of course. Push from both sides at once. And the best of Nguluan luck.”

“You think it’s all a waste of time?”

“Not at all. But the effectiveness of the sanctions is what’s really going to matter, isn’t it? And as to them, no one can judge till they’ve been tested.”

“If they’re really effective,” said Shrieve, “they won’t be tested at all.”

Robbins nodded and mopped his face again.

“And I’m likely to be replaced by someone’s great-nephew
who’s been gadding indiscreetly round the capital and who’ll simply fret to get back.”

“Not necessarily. There are a few African anthropologists—you might get one of them. But frankly I doubt it. How big is your tribe?”

“Eight hundred and six. No, seven. There was a new baby last week.”

“Congratulations,” said Robbins. “Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“It’s still only a tiny tribe.”

“But it doesn’t matter how few they are, they’re people who need help. The fewer there are, the more help that’s needed.”

“Of course. But whether the politicians are going to see it that way or not is another matter.”