Doris Lessing - The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

Dann stood at ease, wearing the old gown he slept in – lived in, these days. Beside him sat Ruff, his head as high as Dann’s chest. Opposite Ruff sat the phalanx of snow dogs, with their minders, one to a dog. The animals were very white and they glistened in the gloomy scene. Behind the snow dogs were the soldiers. They were of every kind and colour. The majority were stocky, strong, solid people, probably Thores, or of Thores stock, but there were many Kharabs, tall and thin, and mixes of people from all along the coasts, from the wars; they were still coming in every day. The presence of people from the River Towns, so far south, was evidenced by the ranks of shiny very black faces, and there was even a little platoon of Albs, with skin like Leta’s or modified shades of it. The hair was of all kinds. Not one of them had Leta’s pale hair, like light. All colours, all sizes, and hair long and black, like Dann’s, to the tight close curls of the River Towns, and the many shades of brown from the East. There were all kinds of clothes. Some still wore the rags they had arrived in. Griot simply could not get enough clothes for them, of any sort, let alone standard clothes that would make a uniform. Despairing, Griot had bought fleece cloth from Tundra and dyed it red, and every soldier, no matter what he wore under it, had over his or her shoulder a red woolly blanket, needed on most days of the year, chilly, cold, always damp. Without these red blankets they would have nothing to identify them. Throw them away and they would be a rabble.

Dann stood there, silent, for a while, smiling, letting them have a good look at him. Then he said, ‘I am sure you know that I have been ill.’ He waited, watching those faces, which would show – what? Derisive smiles? Impatience? No, they all stood and waited, serious, attentive.

‘Yes, I have been very ill.’ He waited. ‘I was ill from the poppy.’ Now a different silence gripped the soldiers. A seabird speeding along the cliff edge cut the silence with its wings. It screamed and another answered from where it floated far out beyond the cliffs.

‘When I was young I was captured by a gang of dealers in poppy and ganja – I was forced to take poppy and I was very ill then. I have the scars of the poppy on me – as I think you must know.’

Silence; a deep and powerful attention.

Dann had picked up a red fleece on his way out to the square and had held it in his hand, and now he shifted it into his arms and stood sheltering it, like a child: like something young that needed protecting. There was a breath of sympathy from the soldiers, a sigh.

‘So I know very well how poppy gets a grip on you.

‘It had a grip on me.

‘It still has a grip on me.

‘I do not believe that this will be the last time it makes me – ill.’

Between each quiet, and almost casual, statement Dann waited, and took his time looking over the faces. Not a sound.

‘Griot – where are you?’

Griot stepped out from the doorway that led to Dann’s room and came forward to stand in front of Dann, where he saluted and, at Dann’s gesture, stood beside him.

‘You all know Griot. This is Captain Griot. That is what you will call him. Now, I am speaking for Captain Griot and for myself, General Dann. If any one of you, any one wearing the red fleece, catches me with poppy, it will be your duty to arrest me and take me at once to Captain Griot – or anyone else who is in command. You will take no notice of anything I say or do when under the influence of poppy. This is my order. You will arrest me.’

He paused a long time here. Ruff, standing between Griot and Dann, looked up at Griot’s face and at Dann’s, and then barked softly.

A ripple of laughter.

‘Yes, and Ruff says so too. And now for you. If any one of you is found with poppy, in the camp, let alone smoking it, you will be arrested and severely punished.’

Here a tension communicated itself from Griot to Dann, who said, ‘The degree of punishment has not yet been decided. It will be announced.’

A movement of unease through the soldiers.

‘You will remember, I am sure, that you chose to come here, to the Centre. No one forced you. No one stops you from leaving. But while you are here, you will obey orders. And now, look to Captain Griot for orders and for what you need. I am not well yet and I shall rest, though I am sure I will be well soon. Captain, dismiss them.’

Dann retired back to the great hall and Griot’s working table, where Griot joined him, with the snow dog.

Dann sat carefully, disposing his so thinly covered bones among the folds of his Sahar robe, which had been Mara’s, though Griot did not know this.

Griot waited and, when Dann said nothing, asked, ‘And how are you proposing to punish, sir?’

‘I thought we could dismiss any soldier caught with poppy.’

‘No, that is how I was punishing the looters from the Centre, and all that happens is that they became gangs of outlaws and thieves.’

‘So, what else?’

‘I have put offenders into a punishment hut on half-rations but, you see, some of these people have starved for weeks, and our half-rations and a warm hut are hardly a punishment.’

‘Well, then?’

‘When I was in the army in Venn, they branded offenders with marks denoting their offence.’

‘No,’ said Dann at once, ‘no.’ His hand went to his waist where the scars were.

‘No,’ said Griot, ‘I agree. When I was in the army in Theope – that’s on the coast, and it’s a cruel place – they flogged offenders, in front of the whole army.’

‘No, no flogging. I’ve seen it. No.’

‘This is an army – General.’

‘Yes, it is, and congratulations. And how are you going to enforce discipline?’

‘Sir, in my view there is not much we can do. This is an army but it is a voluntary one. What we are depending on is …’

‘Well, out with it.’

‘It’s you – sir. No, I know you don’t like that, General, but it’s true. Everyone is waiting – for you. What we lack is space. You can see that. We are badly overcrowded now. There are parts of the Centre fit for occupation, but if we had the soldiers in it, they would be a rabble in no time.’

‘Yes, you are right. And then?’

‘And the food. You have no idea what a job it is, feeding everyone.’

‘Then tell me.’

‘We’ve got a road zigzagging down to the Bottom Sea and the fish comes up that. We have fishing villages all along the shores of the Bottom Sea now – well, for a good little distance. We have our farms on the slopes of the mountain. The animals are doing well. But there’s never enough of anything.’

‘So, it’s Tundra. I get your message, Griot. So what are your spies saying?’

‘There will be civil war. There’s already fighting in some places out on the eastern edges of Tundra.’ He saw the strain on Dann’s face. Dann was trembling. He seemed hardly able to keep his seat.

‘They want us to invade and keep order and – they want you, sir.’

‘A Mahondi general?’

‘I don’t think they remember that. To tell the truth it is hard to understand how they see it. You are a bit of a legend, sir.’

‘What a prize, Griot. What a general. What a ruler – that’s what they want, I suppose.’

Griot’s eyes were going to overflow if he wasn’t careful. He could hardly bear to see Dann sit shaking there: he was actually putting his weight on the snow dog, for support. Griot could not stop thinking about the handsome young captain in Agre, or, for that matter, the healthy Dann who had returned from his wanderings so recently. And here was this sick unhappy man who looked as if he were seeing ghosts, or hearing them.

‘You’ll get better, Dann – sir.’