William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

“You stupid…stupid dumb idiot! ” Temple seethed. “You could have killed us.”

“Steady on, old chap. You could have been the wa-Germani for all we knew. No harm done anyway, thank goodness, that’s the main thing.” He gave a nervous smile. “Come across any Huns by any chance?”

“Yes,” Temple said, too exhausted to remonstrate further. “They threw us off the farm this morning. Set fire to the crops.”

“My God, the swine,” Wheech-Browning said, his voice hoarse with loathing. Temple wondered where the man got his antagonism from. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Wheech-Browning added, a little smugly. “They didn’t take you prisoner, though, that’s a bonus. We clapped old Heuber in irons for the duration, p.d.q. You know Heuber? Chap with the rubber at Kibwezi. He was most put out. Listen, are you going on to Voi? Can I get a lift back with you?”

On the way to Voi Wheech-Browning gave him his version of the attack on Taveta. He claimed he’d received no message from the Germans to surrender and was extremely surprised one morning to see about three hundred of them marching down the road ‘bold as brass’. It would be too undignified to leave without firing a shot, he thought, so he ordered his men to open fire. Nobody, he was sure, had been hit, but he was extremely surprised at the way in which the German askaris had scattered and had proceeded to lay down a furious fire on Taveta’s flimsy defences. Wheech-Browning and his men wasted no time in setting off down the road to Voi. Luckily, Wheech-Browning said, considering the amount of bullets shot in their direction, they had suffered only one casualty.

“Unfortunately he was my bearer,” Wheech-Browning said. “Got a round in the throat. I was standing right beside him. Fountains of blood, you wouldn’t believe it. I was covered, head to tail — dripping. Of course the fellow had been carrying all my personal gear. I had to leave everything behind in the retreat, everyone was hot-footing it out of town, I can tell you. Which explains,” he pointed to his footwear, “this unorthodox regalia.”

Temple was glad enough to have Wheech-Browning beside him as an escort. He felt it was only his due anyway, considering he’d had his farm seized and his crops burned in the cause of an Anglo-German war. Wheech-Browning could see them all right, he reasoned, make sure the authorities cared for them properly.

He was surprised when, as they reached the outskirts of Voi, Wheech-Browning leapt off the buggy saying he’d better report to the KAR officer who was in command.

“But hey,” Temple called. “What about us?”

“What about you, old man?”

“What are we meant to do?”

“I should put up at the dak bungalow at the station,” Wheech-Browning advised. “Pretty reasonable rates, and jolly good breakfasts.”

♦

The next morning, foregoing his jolly good breakfast, Temple went in search of the KAR officer to see what the British Army’s plans were for transporting the Smith family to Nairobi. He found the man in the Voi post office which was being used as a temporary command headquarters.

“My dear fellow,” said the KAR officer. “No can do.” He was smoking a pipe which he didn’t bother to remove from his mouth. As a result all his words were delivered through clenched teeth which made them sound, to Temple’s ears, even more heartless.

“But I’m a refugee,” Temple protested. “I’m a victim…of, of German war crimes. Surely there’s something in your rulebook about care of refugees?”

The man took his pipe out of his mouth, pointed its saliva-shiny stem in Temple’s direction and closed one eye as if taking aim.

“Ah. Ah-ha. But, you see, I’m not so sure you are a refugee. According to Reggie Wheech-Browning you were warned to evacuate your farm over a week ago. I’m afraid you can hardly expect us to take the consequences of your”—he stuck his pipe in his mouth again—“what shall we say? Your recalcitrance.”

Temple marched back to the dak bungalow viciously cursing the British Army in general and ‘Reggie’ Wheech-Browning in particular. He felt more irate and hard done-by now than when he’d been watching von Bishop destroying his livelihood. At the dak bungalow he discovered that the train from Mombasa to Nairobi, which had spent the night at Voi, had departed half an hour previously. The Smith family would have to wait until the next morning before their journey could continue.

Temple’s anger swiftly died down but he insisted that his family get and keep a receipt for everything they spent or consumed. He was fully determined to present the largest bill possible in his reparations claim. He sold his American buggy and two mules to a thieving Greek merchant for a fraction of their true worth, and added this deficit to his rapidly growing column of figures.

The boys and Matilda seemed far less put out than he was. The Dak bungalow was efficiently run and they enjoyed — as Wheech-Browning had promised — wholesome meals. In the afternoon Temple read his way through a pile of newspapers and illustrated magazines that had recently arrived from Eng-land. The news from Europe was two weeks old and was only of war declared and of the German invasion of Belgium. Talking to other travellers Temple pieced together some idea of what had been going on in East Africa while he had been innocently gathering and decorticating his sisal harvest. Dar-es-Salaam had been bombarded by HMS Astraea; Taveta had been captured — as he was by now well aware — and instructions had been sent to India for the dispatch of troops to East Africa. Indian Expeditionary Force ‘C’ was believed to be on its way at this very moment and was expected at the beginning of September. “Should be over soon after that,” his informant confidently told him. “Crack Indian troops. Fine body of fighting men.”

Temple’s spirits rose considerably at this. September, he thought. Let’s not be too hasty…say, two months before it’s all over. That would give him several weeks before the rains to lay the new trolley tracks down, possibly even plant out the first of the vanilla fields…Conceivably, this enforced stay in Nairobi could turn out to be more beneficial than irksome. He could examine different strains of vanilla seedlings at his leisure; there might even be someone — the idea was appealing — who would tell him a little more about Krupps Decorticators.

Temple looked out of the window as the train approached Nairobi. Compared to the stifling heat at Voi the cooler, drier air up here on the plateau felt almost chilly, even though it was mid-afternoon.

Nairobi in 1914 presented a curious sight. Built on a flat plain, with gently rising hills to the north and south, ten years before it had been no more than a cluster of tents and tin shacks around a rudimentary railway depot. Now there were many imposing stone buildings among the galvanized iron and wooden shops; motor cars bumped up the dirt streets, two of which — Government Road and Sixth Avenue — were illuminated at night by electric streetlamps. On many occasions Temple was forcibly reminded of small American townships.

The same single-storied wooden shop façades with hand-painted signs, the same wooden awnings over the sidewalks, but with bicycle racks outside instead of hitching posts. There was a half-mile of macadamized road leading to the centre of town from the station, otherwise all the thoroughfares were dirt, or slightly better, gravel and dirt.

As the train pulled into the station — new, stone and quite impressive, Temple had to admit — he saw the distinctive bald-headed, slope-shouldered figure of his father-in-law, the Reverend Norman Espie, of the Friends of Africa Evangelical Mission. Temple had telegraphed ahead the day before — the mission was some ten miles outside Nairobi — and arranged for them to be met. He was going to send Matilda and the children to stay with her parents while he remained in Nairobi to see what the government were prepared to do about the loss of his farm.