William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

He looked down at his legs stretched before him as he sat. His decrepit boots, his tattered socks, his thin knees freshly scratched from the thorn. He touched his right knee, pushing at the knee bone with a forefinger. It slid, oiled and easily, at his touch. As it moved the sun caught the springy golden hairs that covered it. His fingers travelled higher, pulling back the frayed hem of his shorts to exposé the wasted thigh, the contorted pink and white scar that stitched together the severed halves of his muscle. He pulled the trouser leg down. His wound was aching a little more; his leg seemed to be stiffening up. He rubbed his jaw, hearing the rasp of bristles of his three-day beard. Above him the sun beat down as midday approached. Locusts and grasshoppers kept up their monotonous shrilling whine in the surrounding bushes.

He lay down and pillowed his arms beneath his head. I must rest, he told himself. I’ll set out again in the afternoon, when the heat’s gone from the sun. He’d look for a flint later and try and sharpen some kind of point on the pencil, so he could write down the details of his escape. At least the facts would be there, if his body were found. He tried to replace this grim thought by something more agreeable. He made an effort to conjure up a picture of Charis’s face, something he hadn’t done for many, many months, thinking uneasily of the few days they had spent together as man and wife. He screwed up his eyes in concentration but he found he was thinking only of Liesl. Liesl in the bath, her heavy breasts dripping with water, the maid pouring it over her shoulders, rivulets sluicing over her body, dampening the pale coppery triangle of hairs between her thighs…

He sat up. A problem suddenly became obvious to him. How could he write of Liesl’s part in the escape? How would it look to anyone — Charis — reading about it? He decided to wait to think about it later.

He set off again in the middle of the afternoon. The day was still hot but he found the slope he was moving up well-provided with shady trees. His leg had stiffened up considerably and he didn’t make the good progress he had in the morning. Skirting some fields on the edge of a native village some children shouted at him and some stones were thrown, but he kept on going. It took him two laborious hours to break out of the trees and reach the edge of the plateau.

The sun was lower in the sky, the air was dusty and soft. Ahead stretched a vast grassy plain dotted with small stone hills — kopjes — occasional brakes of trees and bushes and delicately beautiful flat-topped acacias.

He set off across the grass plain. He would walk as far as he could before night fell. Then he would make a fire at the base of one of the kopjes. In the morning he would change course and march into the rising sun. By the end of that day, or perhaps the next, he would meet the advancing columns of the British army.

The 5th Battalion of the Nigerian Brigade plodded along the dirt road to Nambindinga, Twelve company in the vanguard. Felix walked beside Gilzean in the stifling, late afternoon heat. He looked back at his platoon, green fezzes bobbing in an untidy column, the slap of their bare feet on the hard earth of the road. Frearson was somewhere behind. Gent’s platoon was pushed out on the right wing. Young Waller, Parrott’s replacement, was slogging up and down the crumpled foothills and gullies of the plateau on the left. Loveday’s platoon was fanned out across the road several hundred yards ahead.

“ Sacré bleu! ” Loveday had exclaimed on being told his position. “Advance guard, my, my.”

They had been making slow progress all day without meeting any opposition. This was their first occasion at the head of the column of troops pushing inland from Lindi, ‘Linforce’ as it was known. To the north was another column, from Kilwa, and imaginatively dubbed, in true army fashion, ‘Kil-force’. It was these two columns that were driving the remains of von Lettow’s army out of German East Africa.

Felix looked at Gilzean. His khaki shirt was soaked with sweat. In the shade cast by his sun helmet he looked pallid and drawn, his chin and jaws blue-black against his white cheeks.

“Are you all right, sergeant?” Felix asked.

“Oh aye. It’s just unco heat.”

Frearson came puffing up from the rear at this point.

“Didn’t you hear the bugle?” he demanded angrily. He seemed furious.

“No. Sorry. What for?”

“We’re pulling back. Lines of communication too extended. Bivouac by the side of the road then march back to camp tomorrow. Pass the word to Loveday and the others, and keep your ears open in future.”

Just then, beyond the curve in the road ahead, there was a loud explosion. A column of smoke and dust shot up high in the air, followed by the rattle of falling stones and gouts of earth. There were shouts and cries of alarm from Loveday’s platoon. Everyone fell to the ground.

“My God! Artillery?” Frearson gasped, alarm tensing his putty features.

“Scairdy gowk,” Felix heard Gilzean mutter behind him.

There were no more explosions. They got to their feet and ran round the corner. In the middle of the road was a crater surrounded by Loveday’s excited platoon. By its side lay Loveday, or rather his top half. There was no sign of his legs or much of anything below his waist. None of his platoon seemed hurt, beyond a few cuts and bruises. They were voluble with nervous excitement over their narrow escape. Half a dozen men must have walked over the mine before Loveday’s boot set it off. What would Loveday have said? Felix found himself wondering. ‘ Nom de nom’, ‘zut alor’?

Felix turned away and looked at the landscape. The road sloped down slightly at this point, affording a panorama of the countryside. The burnt grass plains, the thorn scrub, undulating hills fading out into the evening haze in the south, the lusher green of the Rovuma basin away in the distance. No sign of a German anywhere.

♦

They spent the next morning and afternoon laboriously retracing their steps to the camp they’d left the day before. After a quiet night they buried Loveday at the foot of a baobab tree in the morning. After the burial service Felix returned to his tent for a breakfast of corned beef, mashed sweet potato and a local variety of bean which an ever efficient Human had ready for him. He was half-way through his meal when Gilzean approached with a tin can in his hand.

“What is it, Gilzean?” Felix asked.

“Could you take a peek at this, please sir?”

Felix looked. It contained a thick albuminous dark liquid.

“What’s this, coffee?”

“No. It’s aidle from my cullage.”

“Oh yes?”

“I’ve been passin’ this drumlie loppert water for a week. I just get a mitchkin, ye ken. A jaup.”

Felix frowned. He was about to ask Gilzean to repeat himself when he saw a vaguely familiar lanky figure sauntering over.

“I say, Cobb?” it shouted. “Captain Frearson said I’d find you here. Got some interesting news. It’s me, Wheech-Browning, Kilwa, GSO II (Intelligence). Remember?”

“Oh yes. Have a seat. I won’t be a minute.” He turned to Gilzean, and handed him back his tin.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “Is this something to do with your health?” He wondered what Wheech-Browning wanted.

“Aye. I’m fair doited with worry. This grugous stuff…”

“How are you feeling?” He wanted to dismiss Gilzean, but the man was persistent.

“A bit tired. But it’s oorie. It could be a clyre in my culls.”

“Yes?” Wheech-Browning was staring curiously at Gilzean.