William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

Felix and the American left Wheech-Browning and walked down the palm-lined coast road to the centre of the town.

“That man keeps turning up in my life,” Smith said. “And somebody always seems to get killed.”

“Wheech-Browning?”

“The same.”

Felix said nothing. The news about letters was worrying. A silence fell and they walked on together without talking. For want of something to say Felix brought up the Zeppelin story. They both agreed it was probably some kind of fantasy dreamed up by the deranged Bilderbeck.

They reached Felix’s motor car.

“They’re big, aren’t they?” the American said.

“What?”

“Those Zeppelins.”

“Yes. I think they are. But it will have to land in Redhill Camp if I’m to see it. My company’s been in reserve since April.”

“Ask for a cross-posting to the KAR.”

“It’s my brother, you see. It’s extremely important that I find my brother.”

“Yes,” Smith nodded, but he looked like he only half-understood. There was a pause.

“Tell you what,” the American said. “We found a camp last week but it was full of Portuguese. If we come across any more I’ll look out for your brother. What’s he like?”

“He’s fair. Gabriel Cobb, that’s his name. He’s tall, strong-looking. He doesn’t look like me at all.”

On the drive back to the camp Felix thought about the idea of a cross-posting. New KAR battalions were constantly being raised, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

When he arrived he found a long-faced Gilzean standing outside his tent.

“Hello, sergeant,” Felix said. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re on the move, sir,” Gilzean said gloomily. “Twelve company’s going up to the front. Attacking a place called Nambindinga.”

Gabriel eased his position trying to make as little noise as possible while he found a secure perch in the bushes outside Liesl’s room. Tonight the house was full of German officers and he knew he’d have a long wait before she came to bed. The branch he was sitting on suddenly gave with a green crack and with a loud rustle of leaves deposited him gently on his feet. He stiffened with alarm, but no one seemed to have heard anything.

For the last three days Nanda had been like a garrison town. Von Lettow’s retreating headquarters had set up base there temporarily. Over a thousand askaris and their camp followers had occupied every available building. Gabriel had confined himself to the quinine distilling sheds and his own small hut, concerned not to draw undue attention to himself. Liesl told him Deeg planned to make representations to von Lettow in an attempt to get him incarcerated, but she told him not to worry as she thought it extremely unlikely that Deeg would even get near von Lettow under the circumstances. Headquarters would be moving on in a day or so, she said, the British were getting so close.

“Maybe the war is nearly over for us,” she said matter-of-factly. “You can go home soon to your family.”

Gabriel had never told her about Charis. “What will happen to you?” he said, changing the subject.

“Perhaps I’ll go to Chitawa with Deppe.”

“Deppe?”

“I hope not.” She gave a brief laugh. “Or Dar-es-Salaam. All civilians are being sent to Dar.”

She had continued speculating in a dreamy, off-hand way. Gabriel said nothing. For the first time the reality, and proximity, of his salvation was apparent to him. British troops were fifty miles away. He’d been a prisoner for three years. In a day, two days, it would be all over. He would be free.

Why then, he asked himself, did he feel assailed with doubts and dissatisfactions? His life in Nanda had been curiously secure and uncomplicated: the future seemed to consist only of problems, realignments and responsibilities which he wasn’t sure he could cope with in the same way he had before the war. Uncomfortably, he found himself thinking of Charis and of the identity which he felt he had shed when he was bayonetted. The approach of the British army stirred hibernating instincts and forgotten values. Now that he had to face up to them they seemed, if he was to be honest, unfamiliar and — more worrying — unwelcome.

Responding to these new pressures he slipped round the back of the stockade and passed on the news of the advance to the NCO’s behind the wire. “Good on yer, sir,” one of them said, as if he’d done something heroic. There were whispered mutters of agreement from the others. “Be careful, sir,” one of them counselled.

As Gabriel had crept away, for a moment he saw himself as they did: a young officer in the midst of the enemy camp, carrying out a dangerous double game, risking his safety — his life perhaps…Back in the hospital he was suffused with a sense of shame and guilt when he considered the reality of his case. He felt loyalties and emotions tug at him in conflicting directions. What should he do? He could provide no answers, so he did nothing. He felt maddeningly helpless. There was no solution in inertia, yet that seemed all he was capable of.

The feeling of mounting frustration was exacerbated by Liesl’s presence. She was being unusually solicitous and kind, as if the thought of their coming separation had caused her to re-examine and revalue their curious relationship. That afternoon she came out to the palm-roofed shelter where the chinchona bark was boiled in huge metal vats. Gabriel stood bare-chested stirring the bubbling fluid with a bamboo pole, the clouds of steam and the heat from the fires covering his thin chest with gleaming perspiration. He broke off when she arrived. She held two ‘real’ cigarettes—“from Erich,” she said. They stood in the shade of a large mango tree, smoking, and talking about the future.

“You’ll be glad to go home?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, I will. I suppose.”

“Perhaps you will go to Leamington Spa.”

“What?”

“I visited Leamington Spa once. Erich’s mother lived there.”

“I’ve never been.”

“It’s a pleasant town.”

The bland exchange affected him with unbearable poignancy. He was gripped by a sense of fear. He felt like a new boy on his first day at boarding school: everything ahead was strange and perplexing. In what ways would he have to prove himself? What demands would be made on his character?

A precise and cruel sense of his own inadequacies and weakness was suddenly revealed to him. He felt chastened and desperately in need of some support. He glanced at the strong and placid woman beside him. She was looking at the sun on the wasted grass beyond the pool of shade. The hand that held the cigarette was poised, a cursive rope of blue smoke rose into the heavy dark green leaves above their heads. Gabriel was suddenly possessed of the awful feeling that nothing beyond this moment, outside Nanda, in the rest of his life, would be as sure or certain again. For as long as it lasted he immersed himself unreflectingly in the confident tranquillity. Then Liesl left and the self-doubts, like homing pigeons, returned to roost.

♦

Memories of those seconds in the shade drove him to take the risk of creeping through the plantations to Liesl’s bungalow that night. Troops were billeted everywhere and he had to make his way with extreme caution. But he wanted to see her once again if he could, see her pale and unsuspecting, freeze that image in his mind for ever.

But as soon as he saw the little bungalow he knew his luck was out. On the rickety stoop sat a group of German officers in very grubby, tattered dress whites. Liesl sat with them and two other planters’ wives. Gabriel recognized von Bishop, Liesl’s husband, his head shaven nearly bald, his large nose and gaunt cheeks giving him a surprised, faintly pop-eyed look.