Dennis Wheatley - The Secret War

They set off at once in Blatta Ingida Yohannes' car, which pulled up at the first filling station. The Abyssinian explained regretfully that he had forgotten to bring out any money, so Christopher, suppressing a smile at what Henrick Heiderstam had told them the day before of this Abyssinian custom, paid a pound for the usual four and a half gallon tonika of petrol. They then proceeded on their way through the hilly, well wooded town, which had far more the appearance of an ill planned suburb than of a capital city.

The War Office, when they passed it, proved to be, not as they might have expected a hive of activity, but a small, tumble down, almost deserted building, and on Valerie remarking that it hardly looked as if a war was in progress at the moment, Blatta Ingida Yohannes shrugged indifferently.

`All power is centralized in the person of the Emperor, and he is so remarkable a man that he can dictate three letters to different secretaries at the same time. Each ministry has its office, but only for a few clerks; the Ministers are in constant attendance at the Palace, and it is there that every decision on even the most minor matters is taken. See, there it is upon the hill. That is Gibbi, where the Emperor lives and works when he is in Addis Ababa.'

In the distance the Palace appeared little more than a rambling mass of buildings clustered upon a high mound which dominated the whole town. As they approached it, Blatta Ingida Yohannes pointed out the dome of the old Emperor Menelik's tomb, the long roof of the Audience Hall, and, between them, the present Emperor's Observation Tower; below these spread a higgledy piggledy collection of roofs and courtyards sufficient to accommodate the population of a good sized town. Thousands of white robed or khaki clad figures were in constant movement behind the palings which separated the first great court from the street. Here was the explanation of the deserted War Office;

all the brain power and nervous force of Abyssinia was concentrated in Gibbi.

A little further on they met a strange procession. It was headed by a big, black bearded man, riding on a mule, and beneath an open umbrella which an attendant held over his head. His helmet, shoulders, knees and elbows were decorated with great tufts of lions' fur so that in the distance he had the appearance of some kind of animal. A nearer view, however, showed that the fur was sewn on to a frock coat of rich brocade, laced with tarnished gold embroidery. Several sinister looking necklaces dangled on his chest, and altogether he was an amazing spectacle of barbaric valour. Behind him there rode several hundred warriors, somewhat less spectacularly clad, then, in a ragged column, marched at least a thousand men and children, some of whom carried rifles, but most armed only with spears and cutlasses, slung, as in the Abyssinian fashion, at their right hips.

`That was the Dedjazmatch Maskassa,' Blatta Ingida Yohannes remarked, as he steered his car round the tail end of the column,

`Is he off to harass the Italians during the rains?' Lovelace asked, thinking of the contrast between this ill equipped rabble, which must be a fair sample of the bulk of the Abyssinian forces, and a detachment of the smart European trained Imperial Guard they had just passed outside the Palace.

`Oh, no. The Emperor would like him to go, but cannot compel him, as he is one of our great feudal chieftains, and, for some reason of his own, he does not wish to take part in the war for the moment.'

`What on earth was he doing with all those armed followers, then?' Christopher inquired.

Blatta Ingida Yohannes shrugged. `He had been to visit a friend, I expect, or is going to do a little shopping in the town. Whether you have five men or five thousand, it is still the custom here for your entire retinue to accompany you wherever you go. Only the younger members of good families who have been educated, like myself, have given up the practice as yet.

I am hoping that you will lunch at my house today,' he went on after a moment. `We go now to inspect the Menelik and Ras Makonnen Schools, but we will drive out there afterwards.'

As he was virtually their host on behalf of the Emperor, no other course was open to them but to accept his invitation, and for the next four hours they had to hold their frayed nerves in check as well as possible while they visited the two schools which are the pride of the small progressive element in Abyssinia.

In the first all lessons were given in English, and in the second in French. The young pupils spoke these languages quite fluently, and asked a thousand questions of the visitors. The class rooms, dormitories and kitchens were clean and orderly, the curriculums carefully thought out and on a par with the highest standards of modern European education. Christopher felt that these bright, happy, knowledgeable boys and girls were the living proof of what the Emperor could do if only he were given time, money, and peace; but Lovelace saw these schools for the children of the Abyssinian aristocracy in more correct proportion, as only two oases of civilisation in a vast wilderness of barbarism.

Each time they had to leave the car to walk round or mount flights of stairs they felt the strain on their hearts which ensued from the least effort at this great altitude. Ordinarily Valerie would have taken immense interest in all that she was seeing, but her acute anxiety about the immediate future was too great. Half the time she felt that she was talking sheer nonsense, through inability to concentrate her thoughts on anything but the terrible events that the next few hours might have in store for her, and the other half she was fighting to control her laboured breathing. Christopher, too, talked only in nervy, spasmodic bursts, being almost entirely occupied with his secret thoughts. Lovelace alone managed to maintain at least an outward appearance of calm, polite interest in the things they were being shown.

Afterwards, on their way to another quarter of the town, they passed several of the Legations: clusters of buildings like good sized villages set in spacious, walled parks that the Emperor had presented to the foreign governments.

Blatta Ingida Yohannes pointed out a number of them and, driving on, arrived twenty minutes later at his house. It was a square bungalow with the usual array of huts and lean to’s about it; all enclosed by a high wall and separated from its neighbours by patches of partially cultivated ground shaded in places by blue gums.

The house possessed only one reception room, but this its owner showed them with some pride. It was furnished with fumed oak of the variety obtainable from the cheaper shops in the Tottenham Court Road, but probably imported at very considerable expense. There were two long shelves of well thumbed books, a relic of their host's student days, and a porcelain stove fitted in one corner as a gallant attempt to carry a French atmosphere into this benighted corner of Africa.

The effort was interesting but pathetic, for these European furnishings looked completely out of place, lacking, as they did, a natural background.

Two white robed servants produced a meal, the principal course of which was vod with intshera, and Blatta Ingida Yohannes gave his visitors their first lesson in eating this staple Abyssinian dish. The vod was a highly seasoned stew and the intshera a kind of biscuity unleavened bread. The process consisted of breaking off a piece of intshera, then pouring some of the vod upon it and getting the resultant mess into one's mouth while spilling as little as possible.

Valerie was surprised that an apparently cultured man should think it amusing to teach his visitors to feed in such a disgusting manner, but Lovelace knew that if it had been their misfortune to have had to accept the hospitality of one of the old school Abyssinian nobility they would have had to eat raw meat and show their appreciation afterwards by loud, and to Europeans offensive, noises.