William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

“He’s a curious man, the American,” she remarked to her husband, to break through the silence that sat between them.

“And a foolish man as well,” von Bishop said with a laugh. “If he thinks he can grow coffee at Taveta he must have more money than sense.”

“Bwana Smith is a great merchant,” Saleh extemporized, singing in Swahili and cracking his whip idly in time at the lead bull ox in the lumbering team. They had just crossed the Anglo-German boundary and were making their way along a rough track that wandered between the many small hillocks that were a feature of the landscape at this spot.

Temple saw Saleh glance back over his shoulder to make sure he was listening to the song.

“Bwana Smith has bought coffee of exquisite beauty,” he droned. “He will grow many coffee plants, he will become a rich man, his farm boys will praise the day he gave them work.”

“Oh-ya-yi!” chorused the two farm boys who plodded behind Saleh. Saleh looked back at Temple again, and rubbed his buttocks through his grimy white tunic. Temple laughed to himself. He had landed three powerful kicks on Saleh’s behind when the men had turned up two hours after the train’s arrival. He was also forcing them all to walk beside the ox-team as further punishment — normally they would have sat on the back of the waggon, each one taking turns to lead the team. Saleh had sworn that a miserable, monkey-brained swine of a station sweeper had assured him the train was due later in the day, but the reek of corn beer on his breath tended to devalue his protestations of innocence.

Temple’s body jolted and swayed as the heavy waggon negotiated the ruts and stones of the track. The country around them was of thick scrubby thorn with the occasional small volcanic-shaped hill. Behind them lay the fertile Pare hills and the purple slopes of the great mountain, its flattish white top obscured by a cloudy afternoon haze. Temple’s mind turned to the von Bishops. What a train journey! Von Bishop seemed nice enough, but was he boring…And his voice: three days of that reedy falsetto had almost proved too much.

She was a fine woman, though. Big-breasted and broad-shouldered, with that creamy freckly skin of one just fresh from Europe. It was hard to keep that look. It wasn’t so much the sun and the heat but the constant nagging ailments: the fevers, the attacks of diarrhoea, insect bites and sores that never seemed to heal…They made a very strange couple, he thought. He wondered what it would be like living with von Bishop: that voice, day in, day out.

Temple winced, and looked at the swarming clouds of flies that buzzed around the rolling backs of the ox-team. Sometimes he wondered if he had been right to bring his wife and young family to Taveta, away from the comparative health and easeful climate of Nairobi. It hadn’t been very fair on Matilda or the children, he admitted. But he could never have afforded so much land in the highlands, could never have set himself up as he had down here. He gave a grim smile. Also, he doubted if he could have stood the society much longer: the mad aristocrats with their obsessive horse racing and hunting; the way the tiny society had evolved — almost overnight it seemed — its own rigid hierarchy, its preposterous code of values and bizarre snobbery. A club for senior officials and a club for junior ones. The endless bickering between the settlers and the government. The awesome privilege of riding after hyenas with the Maseru hunt, all hunting horns, tally-ho and view-halloo. God, Temple swore, the English! He was glad to have escaped. Now he had his own farm, a sisal factory and linseed plant that provided him with a steady turnover. He could stay at the Norfolk Hotel when he went to Nairobi now, take his entire family to the Bioscope — every night of the week if he felt like it. He squared his shoulders self-consciously and smoothed his moustache. It seemed better in German East. Less fun perhaps, but life was organized, and they appeared happy to accept everyone. Look at von Bishop, he thought, half-English, but a local hero.

“Taveta!” Saleh shouted.

Temple looked up. They had come over a small rise and the township of Taveta lay ahead. Among the dark green mango trees the sun flashed off tin roofs. Houses and buildings were scattered around haphazardly. The dirt road from Voi, to the east on the Mombasa — Nairobi railway, arrived and became Taveta’s main street. There was a post office, and a few bungalows belonging to the Assistant District Commissioner, the police inspector and a jailer. Some tin shacks did duty as the ADC‘s offices and courthouse. Forming three sides of a square were the whitewashed stone buildings of the police askari barracks, the jail and a stable block. An untidy heap of wooden huts and stalls at one end of the street marked the festering purlieus of the Indian bazaar. Sited as far away as possible, at the opposite end of town, was a new wooden store, run by a European. There were a few settler-farmers in the district, like Temple, but not many, as the Taveta — Voi district was not generally regarded as fertile farming land. Most of the farmers were Boers who, again like Temple, were not too enamoured of the British.

Temple’s ox-cart creaked slowly into Taveta. It was late afternoon and there was little activity. The place reminded Temple strongly of small western townships he had seen in Wyoming, which he visited once as a young man in the 1890’s. He wondered briefly if he should stop in at the store, run by an Irishman named O’Shaugnessy, and have a drink, but as he still had an hour’s journey to go before he reached his farm he decided to press on.

He wheeled the ox-team off the Taveta-Voi road and followed the meandering track south towards Lake Jipe that led to his farm.

He was only about ten minutes out of Taveta when his attention was caught by the sight of a saddled, riderless mule trotting round a bend in the road, followed, some seconds later, by a tall lanky figure in a white drill suit and solar topee, brandishing a riding crop and screaming foul insults at the animal. As soon as the figure saw Temple and the ox-cart he stopped at once, straightened his suit and dusted it down. Saleh grabbed the halter of the mule as it trotted past.

“I say, thanks a lot,” the white suited figure shouted and strolled over. Temple hauled on the reins and the oxen stopped at once. The man sauntered over, for all the world as if he were enjoying a Sunday afternoon stroll.

“Ah, Smith,” he said, raising the brim of his topee in greeting. “Pleasant day.”

It was the ADC from Taveta, called Wheech-Browning. He was very young, about 25 years old, and very tall, about six foot three or four, Temple calculated.

“Hello,” said Temple; he found it difficult to address Wheech-Browning by his preposterous name. “Having trouble?”

“Yes,” Wheech-Browning confessed. “I bought this bloody mule from a Syrian in Nairobi, for three hundred rupees, and he assured me the beast was broken in. He trotted out well enough, but then suddenly seemed to go raving mad.” He turned to look at the animal, standing motionless now it was attended by Saleh.

“Oh,” Wheech-Browning said. “Seems quiet enough now, but I can assure you the little beast bucked me clear off his back.” He paused. His face above his collar and tie was bright red and sweat trickled from beneath the brim of his topee. Temple found it extraordinary that this awkward, innocent youth sat in judgement over murderers, thieves and drunks every day in his sweltering tin courtroom, but he seemed to accept his duties unreflectingly. Temple had been in court once as prosecution witness against one of his own farm boys who’d stolen cattle from a neighbouring farm. He had seen Wheech-Browning sentence the quaking man to six months hard labour. A murder case had to be referred to the Provincial Commissioner’s court at Voi but it was obvious to Temple that Wheech-Browning could happily have condemned the accused to death and then gone out for a game of lawn tennis with the police inspector without a qualm.