William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

“Oh yes,” Temple said sardonically. “I’m a lucky man.”

“Well,” von Bishop said, his breeziness returning. “Fortunes of war and all that.”

Temple shook his head and kicked angrily at a stone. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. Fortunes of war, he thought. It didn’t feel in the least bit like a war, yet there were enemy soldiers with loaded weapons forcibly ejecting him from his property. Von Bishop was behaving like a man who’d come round to reclaim a book he’d once lent. Temple watched sections of his trolley line being prized from the dusty and unyielding ground. Then he had an idea. Reparations, he thought, I can demand reparations. He started doing quick sums in his head. Often this sort of disaster could be turned to your advantage. It should be seen as an opportunity for a fresh start: a chance to re-think and re-plan. He’d always regretted not laying the trolley lines closer to Lake Jipe…now, with his reparations, was the ideal time to redirect them. He turned back to von Bishop.

“You’re right, Erich. Fortunes of war. Could you provide me with a…I don’t know, an affidavit or something? Just so I can prove things have been commandeered.”

“Yes, of course,” von Bishop said. “With pleasure.” He called the other officer over and told him to make out a careful note of everything that had been taken or destroyed.

“What about the house?” Temple asked.

“I suppose I might billet some men here,” von Bishop said. “It commands a good position on the hill. We can’t pay you rent,” he laughed. “Doubtless there’ll be some minor breakages, wear and tear. Who knows, we might even finish building it for you.”

Temple smiled, even the sight of a thin plume of smoke rising from the linseed fields didn’t give him pause. Von Bishop signed the piece of paper and tore it out of the officer’s notebook. Temple looked it over.

“Imperial German…Erich von Bishop, Major. That’s excellent, Erich. Excellent.” He patted him on the shoulder. “Just don’t touch the Decorticator that’s all. My future’s in that machine. I’ll come all the way to Dar to get you otherwise.”

The two men laughed heartily.

“We have our own decorticators, Smith,” von Bishop said. “We don’t need yours. Krupps Decorticators. Very efficient. One hundredweight of fibre an hour. Much better than your American machines.”

They were walking back to the buggy which now contained his family as well as their possessions.

“I don’t know about that,” Temple said. “Finnegan and Zabriskie are renowned”—he paused. “Krupps, did you say? Is there an agent in Mombasa, do you know?”

Saleh and the farm boys were ranged beside the buggy. They all wore uniform expressions of deep misery, glancing uneasily about them at the armed askaris.

“Don’t worry, Saleh,” Temple said quietly, confident that he wouldn’t. “Keep an eye on the place. Look after the farm and the Decorticator. We’ll be back in two months.” He gave the man an encouraging slap on the back and climbed up on to the buggy. Matilda sat beside him, still reading her book. The children nestled in the back among the trunks and bundies of clothes and bedding, protected from the sun by a makeshift canvas shelter. The ayah sat on the back, her feet hanging down, crying piteously. She was the only one who seemed obviously affected by the occasion.

“Well goodbye, Smith,” von Bishop said. “Mrs Smith. I’m so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.” He touched the brim of his sun helmet in a casual salute.

Temple shook the reins and the mules moved forward. “Remember,” Temple called back to von Bishop, “look after the machine. I’m holding you responsible.”

Von Bishop laughed again and waved. Seeing him do this all the farm boys laughed politely and waved too. This is most strange, thought Temple, it’s as if we’re being seen off on holiday.

At the top of the rise, just before Smithville was lost to sight, Temple looked back. Smoke still rose from the sisal bonfire and at least half his linseed fields seemed ablaze. The gang of askaris had uprooted some fifty yards of trolley line and were piling the rails in neat bundies. Von Bishop was leading half a dozen soldiers up the hill to the house.

Temple felt suddenly disorientated and confused. Von Bishop’s matter-of-fact behaviour, his genial appropriation of his goods and chattels, the total absence of threat hardly made it seem like a criminal act.

“Criminals,” Temple said experimentally, more out of a sense of duty than outrage. He felt the same. “Criminals!” he repeated more fiercely.

“What’s that, my dear?” Matilda asked, raising her eyes from her book. If she was going to read all the way to Voi, Temple said to himself, he would get very angry. He shook the reins viciously and the buggy moved forward with a lurch. The ayah gave a squeal of alarm as she fell off the back. Temple reined in.

“When are we coming back?” Glenway called out as the whimpering ayah clambered back on board.

“Soon,” Temple said with grim confidence. “Very soon indeed.”

♦

It was about a forty-mile journey from Smithville to Voi along an old caravan track which led through particularly and and dusty scrubland. The Smith family in their buggy made slow but steady progress without seeing any further signs of the Germans. Temple briefly savoured the cruel irony of the fact that he had intended to make this journey today anyway — but with two valuable loads of sisal, instead of his placid wife and increasingly fractious children. For the first time and for a brief moment he experienced a feeling of rage and frustration which seemed to do some justice to his new refugee status, but it didn’t last long. The track was too bumpy and the waggon jolted too much for Matilda to read, he noted with selfish pleasure. But she seemed as unperturbed as always, gazing out over the thorny scrub, which shimmered and vibrated in the haze, at the distant hills and mountain ranges, fanning herself with her book. She also, in an effort to amuse the children, played interminable word games which seemed to consist of building ever-longer lists of groceries and vegetables, repeated ad nauseam, and which drove Temple wild with a kind of rampaging boredom, until he ordered them to cease forthwith. They stopped once to water the mules, for an hour and a half, at midday, and ate some sandwiches which Joseph had prepared before they left. Temple looked back up the road to Taveta, squinting into the glare, wondering if he could see the smoke from his burning fields.

It was nearly dark as they approached the small village of Bura, still some eight miles from Voi. The mules were plodding very slowly, the children and Matilda were asleep, curled up in the back, and Temple himself nodded dozily over the reins.

“Halt!” came a sudden shout. “Who goes there?” followed immediately by a ragged volley of shots. Temple saw the flash of the muzzles, but as far as he could make out no bullet came anywhere near.

“Get down!” he yelled at his screaming terrified family, and then bellowed “Friends!” up the road in the direction the shots had come from.

“Cease fire! Cease fire, you bloody fools!” came a familiar voice. A lantern came bobbing down the track towards them, casting its glow on long thin legs protruding from flapping shorts, and improbably shod in black socks and very large tennis shoes.

“Thought I recognized your accent, Smith,” said Wheech-Browning. “Sorry my men were a bit premature. ‘Trigger-happy’ is the expression in your part of the world, I believe. Gave the children a fright I expect.” He held up the lantern. “Evening Mrs Smith. Sorry about all this fuss. Wheech-Browning here, late of Taveta. Ha-ha!”