Owen Sheers - The Dust Diaries

‘General Stewart, sir.’

Stewart turned to Meinertzhagen. ‘Ah, Captain. Everything all right with the tower? Turn up anything useful?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ah, well, never mind. We’re just…’

‘Sir, why are the men looting the town?’

Stewart looked shocked at Meinertzhagen’s directness. As was his manner he cleared his throat and began blinking rapidly. ‘Well, Colonel Driscoll of the Fusiliers requested the action. And I, er, granted it.’ He paused. ‘To the victors the spoils, and all that?’

Meinertzhagen looked him in the eye. The man was out of his depth, he could see that now. Lost.

‘With all respect, sir,’ he said, careful to winnow any trace of it from his tone, ‘if you go into the town now you will find no victory there.’

Feeling the flush of anger rise up his throat into his cheeks he didn’t wait for an answer, but turned on his heel and strode away from the blinking general.

And then he saw the priest. He was returning from burying the eight British dead where they had been gathered at the edge of the town. A group of porters stood behind him, their shovels over their shoulders. His dog collar was smeared with dirt and Meinertzhagen noticed he had lost one of the brass crosses on his lapels. Their eyes met for a moment, but then a crowd appearing at the end of the street distracted them both. It was the drunk porters, still wearing the lingerie. Reeling behind them came a group of European soldiers and askaris, laden down with candlesticks, ceremonial swords and other trophies from the town. One of them dropped a silver tankard which clattered down the dusty slope. Meinertzhagen made to go and pick it up, but as he did, above the noise of their excited chatter, the short sharp soprano of a woman’s scream travelled across the bay, followed by a single shot. Meinertzhagen looked in the direction of the echoing report, then out across the lake. He heard the priest walk behind him, but he did not turn around. He knew he couldn’t meet his eyes again.

Private Smith of the Loyal North Lanes lay on his field bed in the hospital tent by the lake. It was early in the morning and the camp was quiet. He had heard the steamers come back from Bukoba late the night before; an hour of endless clatter and movement as the force disembarked, then silence. Now though, with the coming of the sun, there was movement again. The shuffle of feet outside. The stirring of the other wounded around him, the sun’s growing heat distracting them from their sleep. And now Mrs Cole, moving between the beds with her bucket of cold water and supply of fresh flannels. He knew it was Mrs Cole and not the doctor or another nurse because he could make out the red of her dress through a crack in the bandages over his face. A flash of crimson as she passed through his line of sight. And then, as she got nearer, her perfume. Sweet and feminine, rising like a promise from the stale smells of disease, sweat and rotten skin that usually filled the hospital tent.

♦

The young boy with the burnt face seemed to be stirring. She could not tell if he was asleep or awake as the bandages covered his eyes, but she went to him anyway. Dipping a fresh flannel in the water she wrung it out, but not too much, so it was still heavy and wet, then folded it into a long strip and placed it across his forehead.

‘There you go, darling, you’ll need that. I think it’s going to be a hot one.’

She leant over him and adjusted his pillow. He tried to thank her, but his lips were crisp and the bandages tight against his skin. She patted his arm and carried on up the tent between the rows of prone white patients. Further up, after a partition of screens, the faces changed colour: first the pale brown of the sick Indian sepoys, then the black heads of African askaris looked out from over the sheets and blankets. The illnesses and wounds remained the same.

She called all her patients ‘darling’ for the same reason she wore her old red evening dress and sprayed her neck with perfume. Because she wanted to bring something from the world of women into the lives of these men. Something from life outside the war. A reminder of what else did and will exist. The dress also helped her to remember these things herself. To remember herself. She had forgotten herself once, and she didn’t want to again. But the dress was not just a psychological prop. It was, in its way, practical too. It was red, a good colour for the hospital tent. Blood didn’t show so starkly against it as it did against khaki or white.

She was on her way out to refill her bucket with fresh water when she saw the chaplain. He was at the African end of the tent, sitting on the edge of a patient’s bed. It was the first time she had seen him. She’d come up on the railway to Lake Command from Nairobi the day after the steamers left for Bukoba, in preparation for their return. She had been told to expect heavy casualties.

The chaplain stood up and she caught a glimpse of his face that stopped her mid-stride. It was thinner, more gaunt than that night fourteen years ago. All traces of the young man had gone; his hair had thinned and greyed, his eyes sunk a little deeper under his brow, but it was still unmistakably the face of Father Cripps. She had forgotten many things over the years, but never that night. She watched him move to another bed, bend and speak to the soldier there. The movement confirmed it was him. The same tall, angular body. The strange mix of physical possession and awkwardness.

Remembering that night she felt a rush of affection towards him. But then, close on its heels, a sudden anger which surprised her in its ferocity. The last time they had met he had listened to her. Well, this time she wanted him to talk. Last time she had spoken freely, answering his questions, but now she had questions of her own, and she wanted his answers.

She waited for him to finish speaking with the patient before she approached him.

‘Father Cripps? It is Father Cripps, isn’t it?’

He turned at the sound of his name, but his face showed no sign of recognition at seeing her. She helped him along.

‘Mrs Cole. We met once in Salisbury. You came to dinner.’

A moment of thought, then she saw the memory engage.

‘Yes, yes, of course. With Bishop Gaul? Of course. Well, how good of you to remember, I mean, after all this time.’

‘It isn’t often I entertain a poet and a Bishop at my table, Father.

You were something of a special occasion for me back then.’

‘Well, I’m glad you thought so. How good to see you again. But have you been at the lake long? I mean, I don’t think I’ve…’

‘No, I came up yesterday. Posted here for the push on Bukoba.’

‘Oh…yes. We got back fronthat last night.’

‘You were at Bukoba?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, congratulations. I hear it was a success.’

‘Yes, I suppose it was in a way, but…’ He looked away for a moment and she saw he was uncomfortable talking about the attack. Turning back to her, forcing a smile, he changed the subject. ‘It’s strange, I met someone else here just a few days ago. Someone else I hadn’t seen for a long time. It seems as if we’re all being washed up on this lake.’

Arthur thought of Pruen. He was one of the eight who had not returned on the steamers. Shot through the throat as he stood to rally his men. One of the eight he had buried in the earth of Bukoba, marking their graves with wooden crosses and their rifles, stuck in the ground.

‘Well, you shouldn’t be so surprised,’ she replied. ‘There aren’t many of us to go around in this war, we’re bound to bump into each other from time to time.’