“If they’ve touched my Decorticator…” Temple said, his eyes narrowing vengefully.
“Never fear, Mr Smith,” Mr Essanjee said. “You are covered by the African Guarantee and Indemnity Co. Have no fear.”
They came to the track that led to Smithville. Ahead was Salaita, and beyond that they could just make out the darker line of trees which marked the Lumi River. Swinging his gaze to the left Temple could see the rise of small hills among which Smithville nested.
“Huns in those trees, I’ll be bound,” Wheech-Browning said. “I don’t think I’ll come any closer if you don’t mind. How far is it to your place from here?”
“About four miles. It’ll take us an hour to get there, a quick look over, then an hour back. Shouldn’t be too long a wait.”
“Absolutely no trouble. See the outcrop there? I’ll stroll over with my binoculars.” He pointed to an untidy tumbled clump of boulders some six hundred yards off. “See what the old Germani are getting up to.”
Temple and Mr Essanjee looked in the direction he indicated. Temple saw the rocks, warm in the morning sun.
Then suddenly they seemed to explode in puffs of thick black smoke. A second later came the loud report of rifles. The thorn bushes around them seemed to be plucked and shaken by invisible hands.
“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Wheech-Browning. “Damn Germans! Not even a warning.”
“Oh my bloody God,” Mr Essanjee said and sat down with a thump. He looked in horror at his thigh. The starched white drill was being engulfed by a brilliant red stain.
“Oh shit!” Temple said.
“Ouf,” Mr Essanjee sighed and fell back to the ground. Temple and Wheech-Browning ran over and knelt by his side. Another stain had appeared in the middle of his chest.
“Good God!” said Wheech-Browning, holding his hand up to his mouth. The rattle of firing ceased.
“Let’s get out of here,” Temple said. They leapt onto the motorbike. Wheech-Browning attempted a kick-start, but banged his ankle on the foot rest.
“Christ!” he wept, tears in his eyes. “That’s agony!” Wincing, he kick-started again and the engine caught. Temple glanced back over his shoulder. He saw small figures scrambling down the rock pile and running up the track towards them.
“Hold on!” Temple shouted. “We’d better get Essanjee.”
“Fine. But look sharpish!”
They dragged Mr Essanjee over to the side-car and toppled him in head first, leaving his legs hanging over the side. Then Temple and Wheech-Browning jumped on the bike and, with rear wheel spinning furiously, they roared off back down the track to Voi.
Some miles further on, when they felt they were safe, they stopped. They confirmed that Mr Essanjee was indeed dead. His suit and jacket were soaking with blood, rendered all the more coruscating by the contrast it made to the patches of gleaming white. They rearranged his body in a more dignified position, so that it looked like he was dozing in the side-car, his head thrown back.
“Damn good shots, those fellows,” Wheech-Browning observed as he wedged his rifle between Mr Essanjee’s plump knees. “He was a plucky little chap for an insurance salesman. What did you say the name of his company was?”
“African Guarantee and Indemnity Co.”
“Must bear that in mind.”
Temple wondered who would process his claim now. How long would it take to find a replacement for Mr Essanjee? And would he be as amenable? He heard Wheech-Browning say something.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I was saying that, if you ask me, the only way you’re going to get back to that farm of yours is to join the army and fight your way there.”
Temple tugged at his moustache. “You know,” he said resignedly, “I think you may be right.”
4: 26 October 1914, SS Homayun, Indian Ocean
Gabriel Cobb stood in a patch of shade on the aft officers’ deck of the SS Homayun. The sun beat down out of a sky so bleached it seemed white, scalding the gently swelling surface of the ocean. The smoke from the Homayuns twin stacks hung in the air, trailing behind the ship, a tattered black epitaph marking its ponderous eight-knot passage from India to Africa.
Gabriel had been standing in the same position for nearly an hour, mesmerized by the wake streaming out behind. He was sunk in a profound lethargy, a sense of depressed boredom that seemed to penetrate every corner of the ship, if not the entire fourteen-vessel convoy of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’—force ‘C’ had arrived a month earlier — eight thousand men, steaming off, as far as he knew, to invade German East Africa.
He leant back against a bulkhead and exhaled, feeling his shirt press damply against his back. He was lucky to find this corner of the deck unoccupied. Every bit of shade had been claimed by sprawling supine soldiers, desperate to escape from the balmy clamminess of their tiny cabins. God only knew,
Gabriel thought, what it must be like for the other ranks, the Indian soldiers and regimental followers quartered below decks, sleeping in hammocks slung only a foot apart. He took off his pith helmet and used it to fan his face. God only knew what it was like for the stokers shovelling coal into the furnaces in the belly of the ship. He tried to cheer himself up. At least he was better off than the stokers and the miserable, ill-disciplined men he was supposed to lead into battle.
Gabriel sat down on the deck and stretched his legs out in front of him. It was small consolation. He’d never known life deal him such a succession of cruel disappointments. His ambitions had been modest. He wished only to fight in France with his regiment, but even that was to be denied him. He paused. The effort of swishing his hat to and fro was enervating in this heat. He allowed his head to roll to one side. Everywhere he looked he saw ships. Tramp steamers, reconditioned liners, troopships. He saw the battleship HMS Goliath, its four stacks belching smoke as for some reason it got up steam. It raised only a flicker of interest. The German commerce raider Emden was known to be loose in the Indian Ocean. So too was the cruiser Königsberg, recently on display to the inhabitants of Dar-es-Salaam, now believed to be roaming the coastal waters in search of prey. He didn’t really care; anything would be preferable to the numbing monotony he’d been experiencing for the last four weeks. He saw the battleship slowly wheel round and head back in the direction of India. Just another straggler, Gabriel thought, falling behind.
It was now the middle of October. The war had been going on for nearly three months. For at least two of them, Gabriel calculated with some sarcasm, he’d been on board ship. Anyone would have thought he’d joined the navy.
♦
Gabriel and Charis had returned from their shortened honey-moon on the thirtieth of July. Gabriel had gone at once to London in search of instructions but had been told to go away as there was nothing anyone could tell him. They then spent an uncomfortable few days at Stackpole — no one was expecting their return, the cottage was not ready, Cyril was still distempering the bedroom walls — watching the slide into war. He and Charis had been unhappy. Charis had been cool and distant. Every day she pointedly reminded him that they could be walking along the promenade at Trouville. Every day, that is, until the fourth of August when war was declared, thereby vindicating what had seemed like precipitate caution on Gabriel’s part. On the night of the fourth they had also been able to move into the cottage and, as if by magic, some of the happiness and intimacy they had experienced in Trouville returned. But it was clouded by the knowledge that Gabriel would soon have to go away. Diligently he telephoned to London every day, keen to get his orders. On the sixth, he was instructed to report to Southampton where he would find a berth on the SS Dongola, a P&O liner, which would take him to rejoin his regiment in India.