William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

As he worked on in this way and considered his plans for the future, the slight feelings of alarm generated by Wheech-Browning’s words disappeared. The price he was getting for his sisal seeds, let alone the fibre, guaranteed him a prosperous year. If he planted another four acres he would have doubled his turnover in three years. It was unfortunate about the coffee seedlings; he had thought that particular idea was a master-stroke. He wondered vaguely about the possibility of rubber. There was a German at Kibwezi, near Voi, with six hundred acres planted. But rubber took even longer to grow than sisal, and however much Temple liked the image of Smithville surrounded by profitable acres of rubber trees, he wanted to move faster than that.

On the morning of the eighteenth of August, just before he left for Voi with the sisal fibre, he had his brainwave. He sat across the breakfast table from Matilda. Glenway was crying because he claimed he didn’t like his porridge. Matilda, to Temple’s annoyance, was ignoring the boy. She was reading a book, a cup of warm tea pressed to her cheek. She seemed to be growing more oblivious to the demands of her family. Temple reached for the butler tin. There was only a smear of the oily orange butler left.

“Matilda,” Temple said. “Do we have no butter?”

“What, dear?”

“Butter, it’s finished.” He put down his knife. “Would you see what the boy wants?” he added crossly.

Matilda put her book face down on the table. “What is it, Glennie?”

“It’s not sweet,” Glenway said, telling porridge plop from his spoon on the enamel plate.

“Joseph,” Matilda called lo the cook. “Did you remember lo put vanilla essence in the porridge?”

Vanilla. That was it, Temple suddenly realized. The cash crop of the future…Someone had planted an acre near Voi. No machinery, no processing plant, just pods to pick. His mind began lo work. He’d plough up the abortive coffee plantation, yes. Perhaps he could even get seedlings on this trip to Voi.

“No vanilla,” Joseph announced from the kitchen doorway.

“No vanilla and no butter,” Matilda reported. “Can you get some in Taveta on your way back?”

“What?” Temple said, his mind preoccupied with visions of vanilla fields, the brittle pods rattling soothingly in the breeze off Lake Jipe. “Sure; oh no, I can’t. I’ll get them at Voi. O’Shaugnessy’s left. Shut up shop.”

“Of course,” Matilda said, picking up her book. “It’s the war. I forgot.”

Saleh appeared at the dining room. He looked worried.

Temple stood up. “All ready?” he asked. Saleh had been hitching the oxen to the heavily laden waggons.

Saleh leant against the door frame. Temple realized it wasn’t worry distorting his features, but fear.

“Askari.” Saleh gestured feebly down the hill towards the factory buildings. “Askari are here.”

Temple ran to the door, a sudden feeling of pressure building up in his chest. Matilda followed close behind. Sure enough, drawn up in a ragged line in front of the Decorticator shed was a column of black soldiers. For a moment Temple thought they were British. They wore the same khaki tunics and shorts, the same felt fezzes as the King’s African Rifles he’d seen. But then he caught sight of two Europeans who, just at that moment, were walking out of the Decorticator shed. They wore the thick drilljodhpurs and knee-length leggings, the long-sleeved jacket buttoned to the neck, of Schütztruppe officers. The leading man looked up the hill to the house and waved.

“Hello, Smith,” he called cheerily. “How nice to see you again. May we come up?” It was von Bishop.

“Look it’s von Bishop,” Temple said to Matilda as the two men walked up the hill. “You know, Erich von Bishop. I met him and his wife when I was in Dar. Very pleasant man.”

♦

“What happens now?” Temple asked as he watched his empty trek waggons being driven off towards Taveta. The large heap of deposited sisal bales was already beginning to crackle and smoke. Sixteen hundredweight, he thought. Two months’ work gone. He saw his vanilla plantation swept from the land as though by a blast from a hurricane.

“I am sorry about all this,” von Bishop said equably. “We have to commandeer any transport and destroy all crops.”

“What? Even those in the fields?”

Von Bishop shrugged. “Orders, I’m afraid.” Then he laughed…“Don’t worry, Smith, I won’t try too hard in your case. After all, we are almost next-door neighbours.”

He seemed quite unconcerned, Temple thought. He tried to summon up a rage or a sense of injustice, but von Bishop’s easygoing manner made it appear somehow inappropriate, an overreaction, even a discourtesy. He looked away and saw his two boys dancing merrily around the pyre of sisal fibres.

“GET AWAY FROM THERE!” he bellowed, taking out his frustration on them. “Go and help your mother pack.” They ran off obediently. Von Bishop had obligingly left them an old buggy and two mules in which they were to travel to Voi. Von Bishop said that, theoretically, he should have interned them, but as Temple was an American citizen he’d let them go. Matilda and Joseph were hastily getting their personal possessions together and a squad of farm boys were relaying them from the house to the buggy.

Von Bishop told Temple about the capture of Taveta. The invading Germans, about four companies strong, had crossed the border and had sent a note to Wheech-Browning and his police askaris telling them that they intended to occupy the town and that he had one hour to evacuate. In fact they waited overnight, and in the morning marched down the road into Taveta. Wheech-Browning’s men opened fire and the Germans reassembled for a frontal attack. But when they cautiously advanced they discovered that Wheech-Browning and his men had disappeared.

Temple thought this highly characteristic of Wheech-Browning and was about to tell von Bishop a few home truths about his adversary, when a loud clanging noise came from the Decorticator shed.

“My God!” Temple cried and ran forward. Von Bishop made no attempt to restrain him. Inside the shed he found the other German officer banging experimentally at the Decorticator and some of the steel girders supporting the roof with a hammer.

“Hey! Stop it!” Temple shouted, snatching the hammer away. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” But the man didn’t speak English. Von Bishop said something to him in German and he shrugged and wandered off.

“Nobody touches that machine, Erich,” Temple said warningly to von Bishop. “Everything is tied up in that machine, one way or another. Burn the crops if you must, but leave this alone.”

Von Bishop looked around the shed. “So this is the factory you told me about. Very impressive I must say. Is it economically viable, though? With such a small acreage?” For a few minutes they talked about the pros and cons of independently producing your own sisal fibre, Temple searching his machine for any dents and scratches caused by the hammering. They were interrupted by Saleh who told them that everyone was ready and the buggy was loaded.

Von Bishop and Temple left the shed, Temple taking a final fond look at the Decorticator. Outside he saw his wife and children gathered in a small group curiously watching the German askaris ripping up his trolley lines supervised and directed by the other European officer.

“For God’s sake!” Temple exclaimed. “What’s wrong with that man? Is he some kind of vandal? Got this urge to destroy?”

This time von Bishop did place a restraining hand on Temple’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Trolley lines are required. So is fencing wire. You’re lucky, I see you have no wire fences.”