William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

“Quite extraordinary,” von Bishop explained to Hammerstein who’d strolled down to join them. “The man was just walking around, calmly making notes.”

Bilderbeck apologized to Hammerstein and ordered Dobbs to get off the beach and back to the fleet at once.

Hammerstein shook his finger at the very red-faced Dobbs. “No flag of truce,” he chided. “By rights you should be taken prisoner.” Dobbs hung his head and meekly went to board one of the lighters.

Hammerstein took out some cheroots and passed them around. They stood smoking on the beach watching the wounded being loaded on board the lighters. This job was nearly complete when Hammerstein spotted two lifeboats full of men rowing into shore from one of the transports. The boats grounded a little way down the beach and the men on board took off their clothes and jumped into the shallows and began to swim and splash about in the surf. Some of them had cakes of soap and began to wash themselves.

“Look, I’m dreadfully sorry,” Bilderbeck said. “I don’t know what they think they’re playing at.” He ran down to the boats. “Who’s in charge here?” he called angrily.

A very white naked man sloshed out of the water and saluted. “Sergeant Althorpe, sir. Loyal North Lancs. Ablutions detail, sir.”

Hammerstein and von Bishop joined the group. “I really must protest, Bilderbeck,” Hammerstein said suavely, flicking his cheroot stub into the sea. “If they don’t go back at once I shall have to order my men to open fire. Really, you know, this is a war. It’s not some kind of sporting event.”

Bilderbeck, looking — von Bishop thought — extremely ashamed, ordered the men back to the transports. The naked men complied, but with extreme reluctance. There was much resentful muttering, and, as the two lifeboats pulled away from the shore, von Bishop heard foul insults being shouted at them.

Once the last of the wounded men had been taken offshore, Hammerstein invited Bilderbeck for breakfast at the German hospital. They rode back through the hot and steamy forest to the large white building of the hospital. The fighting had raged around this building during the battle on the fourth and for most of the day it had been behind British lines, tending wounded from both sides. The imposing stone building was set in its own beautifully laid-out park of gravel pathways and low clipped hedges. Wooden benches were set in the shade cast by two huge baobab trees.

On the ground floor was a wide verandah where a long linen-covered table was laid and where they all enjoyed breakfast in the company of Dr Deppe, the senior physician, and some other Schütztruppe officers. They had iced beer, eggs, cream and asparagus, and talked amicably about the previous days’ battles trying to work out if Bilderbeck had been opposite any of them during the fighting. Von Bishop remained silent; he wasn’t entirely sure if he approved of this sort of fraternization. After all, wasn’t it exactly the sort of thing Hammerstein was criticizing on the beach? Von Bishop had his reservations about Hammerstein too, even more so when he saw him exchanging addresses with Bilderbeck, promising to get in touch after the war.

Hammerstein eventually took his leave and asked von Bishop to see Bilderbeck to his boat (moored by the shore just below the hospital) when he was ready. Von Bishop didn’t hear at first as he had his little fingers thrust down both ear-holes in an attempt to alter the pressure in his inner ear. A whispered consultation with Dr Deppe had produced this as a possible diagnosis of the irritating whine.

Bilderbeck, however, didn’t want to leave before seeing those British officers and soldiers in the hospital who were too seriously wounded to be moved.

“Come up to the wards,” Deppe invited. “You too, Captain von Bishop. I can have a look in your ear.”

“What’s wrong with your ear?” Bilderbeck inquired, with a wide smile.

“I’ve got a whine. Eeeeeeeee . You know, going on all the time in my ears.” He found the man’s mannerisms most strange. It was nothing to smile about.

“Pour some oil down them,” Bilderbeck advised, now narrowing his eyes suspiciously, as if he suspected von Bishop of malingering.

They arrived at the ward. It was on the first floor, very high-ceilinged with large French windows giving on to a generous balcony. Everyone in the beds was lying ominously still. Many bandaged limbs were in evidence and nobody spoke except in whispers.

Deppe handed Bilderbeck a list of names which Bilderbeck began to copy down.

“Let me look in your ears,” Deppe said to von Bishop and shoved the cold snout of an ophthalmoscope into the nearest moaning orifice. Von Bishop winced.

“Ah,” said Deppe. “Um. Ah-ha. Yes, I can see nothing.”

Bilderbeck interrupted. “Captain Cobb,” he said to Dr Deppe, pointing to a name on the list. “How is he?”

Deppe looked at the list. “Captain Cobb. Oh, yes. Very bad. Two bayonet wounds in the lower abdomen. And a severely injured leg. In that bed over there.”

Deppe inserted his instrument in the other ear. Out of the corner of his eye von Bishop watched Bilderbeck go over to a bed and speak to the injured man lying in it.

“See anything?” von Bishop asked Deppe, who was now making clicking noises with his longue.

“Your ears are full of wax,” Deppe said. “I can’t see anything. Come back tomorrow and I’ll clean them out. Maybe I can get a better view.”

Von Bishop walked with Bilderbeck down to the small launch that was moored at the jetty below the hospital. Four very bored naval ratings were sitting in the stern smoking, oblivious of the two German askaris that stood guard over them.

“Goodbye,” Bilderbeck said, and shook hands. He grinned.

“Goodbye,” said von Bishop, annoyed to find that he’d smiled back. He watched the launch pull away. He tugged at his right ear lobe. That fool Deppe’s probing seemed to have made the whine go up a tone or two. He had no intention of allowing the man to clean out his ears. He would ask Liesl to have a look; after all, he thought, she used to be a nurse, she might as well put her training to some use.

He walked thoughtfully back to Tanga thinking of his wife. The trip to Europe had been a great mistake. She had changed utterly, in almost every respect, and, what was worse, she seemed to be in a permanent bad mood. She was getting so fat, too. All she wanted to do was eat. As he had boarded the train in Moshi, rally armed, off to repel an enemy invasion, she had kissed him briefly good-bye and made him promise to buy her some Turkish Delight in Tanga.

“Tanga!” He had forced a laugh, extremely irritated. “It may be a smoking ruin for all we know. And you want me to buy you sweets.”

“Promise,” she said. “Try to get some.”

He had eyed her broadening figure, the well-padded shoulders, the horizontal creases in her neck, the freckled creaminess of her cheeks. He found it almost impossible to imagine her as she had been before: tall and lean from the hard work they put in on the farm.

“Don’t you think you had…?” he began, then thought better of it. “As you wish, my dear,” he said.

Now he shrugged his shoulders in resignation as he strolled through the mined town, kicking at a stone, trying to ignore the noise in his head. Where would he get Turkish Delight in Tanga?

The first thing Felix remembered when he woke up was that he’d failed Pass Moderations in History. He turned over in his narrow bed and looked at the gap of sky he could see between his badly drawn curtains. Dark. And the pattering on the window told him that Oxford was experiencing its fifth day of continuous rain. He turned on his side and looked up at his de Reske poster, which he’d framed and now hung on the wall in his bedder.