William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

To distract himself he looked back at Pinto. But the melancholy mood of the African dusk seemed to have affected the captain too. His plump features were slack, a hand worried at the sore in his nostril. He had abandoned his disquisition on the landscape and returned to his favourite theme: his illness. His voice was doleful and slurred with self-pity. He cupped his fat groin in both hands. Felix saw his eyes glistening with tears as his pathological litany softy continued with the evening garnering kindly about them.

♦

Wheech-Browning leapt awkwardly from the Packard lorry. He sneezed and reached into his pocket, extracted a large checked handkerchief and blew his nose into it.

“Ah, Cobb. Good morning. Stinking cold. Somehow you never expect to get a cold in Africa. Touch of the ‘flu as well if I’m not mistaken.”

Pinto wandered up.

“Ah, morning, Capitao Pinto!” Wheech-Browning dropped his voice and turned to Felix. “How do you say ‘Good morning’, Cobb? I can never remember.”

“ Buon. Dias .”

“ Buon. Dias. Señor. Capitao .” He enunciated each syllable very clearly.

Pinto bowed. He was still very depressed. “ Dias ,” he muttered.

“Marvellous gift you have, Cobb. I say, is old Aristedes all right? He looks a bit white around the gills.”

“It’s his syphilis. It’s getting him down.”

“I see. Extraordinary man. Rather hard luck, though.” He turned to the askaris jumping from the back of the lorry. “Come on you men, let’s get those guns out.”

While the guns were being unloaded Wheech-Browning explained his mission. Apparently a column had broken off from von Lettow’s main force, had wheeled north and was heading in the general direction of Boma Durio in search, it was assumed, of stores and supplies. Two companies of KAR askaris were being marched down from Medo as reinforcements but in the meantime it had been decided to strengthen the Boma’s defences with two Stokes guns.

“I said you knew how to fire them, Cobb. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Felix said yes. He had spent many days at Morogoro after Twelve company had returned from the Rufiji learning how to fire the simple mortars.

The guns were taken up onto the earthworks and aimed at a stand of bamboo which stood at the edge of the cleared ground around the fort. Pinto had cheered up at the prospect of a private firing and stood by the Stokes guns expectantly waiting for instructions.

“Right, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning said. “Over to you.”

Felix thought fast. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll explain everything to the capitao and then he can drill his men. I’m a bit rusty on the technical terms.”

Some dummy rounds were brought up. Felix dropped in a charge, set the sights on the bamboo stand approximately one hundred yards away, then fitted the round dummy bomb — rather like a large wooden toffee apple — into the top of the muzzle.

“Normally this is done by three men,” he explained.

“ Que? ” said Pinto.

“Three. Tres , um, homem. Très homem .”

“Eh?”

“Sim.”

“Good, Cobb. Excellent.”

“Stand by.” Felix jerked the lanyard at the base of the barrel. There was a loud report causing everyone to leap back in alarm. Smoke coiled from the barrel and every fissure in the gun. The bomb remained fixed at the end of the muzzle.

“Good Lord,” said Wheech-Browning.

“Let’s try the other gun,” Felix suggested.

The sighting and loading procedures were repeated, the lanyard jerked and this time with a dull thump the bomb went sailing high into the blue morning air and dropped into the jungle a good fifty yards beyond the bamboo stand. Pinto clapped.

“Bit off target,” said Wheech-Browning.

Felix adjusted the elevation of the barrel. Another round was fired. This one went almost straight up and when it came down bounced off the hard ground some thirty yards short. Pinto’s men had by now gathered at a safe distance further along the earthworks, and were looking on with a mixture of apprehension and sceptical curiosity. Pinto himself seemed enormously pleased.

“What’s going wrong?” Wheech-Browning said.

“I can’t seem to get the range.”

“I was told these things were infallible. Child’s play to operate. Not much of a show you’re putting on, Cobb.”

Felix looked darkly at Wheech-Browning. “The dummy rounds. They’re too light.” He told himself to stay calm. He took out his spectacles and slipped them on to check the small calibrations on the sighting mechanism. Everything seemed to be in order. He suspected it must be something to do with the imbalance between the charge and the dummy round. He explained as much to Wheech-Browning.

“Try a real one then,” Wheech-Browning said, taking out his handkerchief and snorting into its folds. “Only for God’s sake get it on target. We’re looking a right pair of fools.” He smiled and waved at Pinto. “At this rate a bunch of schoolgirls could capture the place.”

A live round was loaded. Felix adjusted the elevation and jerked the lanyard. The round bomb sailed high in the air and again landed beyond the bamboo, throwing up a puff of white smoke as it exploded with a very loud bang.

“They make a lot of noise,” Wheech-Browning said slowly to Pinto, as if he were addressing a three year-old. “Noise. BANG!”

“Sim,” Pinto agreed. “ BOOM! ”

“Come on, Cobb,” Wheech-Browning said in a low voice. “Hit the wretched target.”

Felix loaded another live bomb. He couldn’t understand the gun’s erratic performance. Then he had a thought. If one gun had malfunctioned maybe the other gun was doing the same.

“Just a moment,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with the sight. I’m going to pace out the range.”

“You won’t exactly be able to do that if the Germans are storming the place, you know,” Wheech-Browning said scathingly.

But Felix had leapt over the rampart and slithered down the side of the earthworks, leaping across the ditch as he went. He strode quickly across the open ground counting out the paces through gritted teeth. He was determined to land the next bomb right in the middle of the bamboo stand, and shut Wheech-Browning up for good.

At ninety-two he reached the bamboo and turned round. He was surprised to see Pinto energetically pacing out the distance behind him. The stupid idiot evidently thought this was something to do with the training exercise.

“ Nao , Aristedes,” Felix called, with forced geniality, going back to meet him and waving his hands. “ Nao importa .”

He saw the puff of smoke from the earthworks before his incredulous ears registered the report from the Stokes gun. He even saw the speedy climb of the bomb, a black streak against the blue sky.

“ Run! ” he screamed into the startled face of Pinto. “ Run! ”

Felix turned and began to run.

There was an immense roaring noise. He felt as if he’d been caught by several huge ocean breakers in quick succession, buffeted, lifted, tossed. He felt a searing pain in the back of his head, as if a nail had been driven into his skull. Then he hit the ground.

He lost consciousness for a matter of seconds. He opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by swirling smoke. His mind seemed to be functioning with hypersensitive lucidity: he remembered everything, understood what had happened.

He got groggily to his feet, staggered a bit then looked down at his body. He was shocked to see he was totally naked apart from his boots, which remained. Such bits of his body as he could see between the strands of swirling smoke were either bloodlessly pale or mottled with grotesque livid bruises. Blood dripped from his chin onto his chest. He touched his face and head and looked at his finger tips. Blood seemed to be pouring from his nose, ears and eyes . The back of his head felt numb and wet. He lurched a bit. He seemed to be getting more dizzy, not less. He looked around for Aristedes, squinting through the gaps in the smoke for him but there was no sign. He tripped over the lip of the fresh crater. The torn earth was warm, like bread that has just been pulled from an oven. As if in some kind of a dream he saw what he took to be precious stones or jewels glittering among the steaming clods. With difficulty he groped in the earth and picked one up. He held it close to his baffled eyes. It was a golden tooth. Aristedes had disappeared.