“That’s right,” Wheech-Browning said. “Why?”
“I’ve got a score to settle. He was the man who commandeered my farm, remember?”
“We’ve all got a score to settle with the huns,” Wheech-Browning said pompously. “What did this man do?”
“All sorts of things,” Smith said, non-committally. “Ruined me, for one. He stole my Decorticator for another.”
“Oh God, that bloody great thing. Stole it? How can you steal something like that?”
Felix wondered what on earth they were talking about. They sounded like schoolboys squabbling. He interrupted with his own request about released prisoners of war.
Wheech-Browning returned to his files and drew out a small dossier.
“What did you say your brother’s name was?”
“Cobb. Gabriel Cobb, captain. Captured at Tanga.”
“Oh. Tanga.” Wheech-Browning and the American exchanged glances. “Less said about that…” Wheech-Browning ran his finger down the list of names. “Cobb, Cobb, Cobb. No, sorry. No Captain Cobb here. Half a mo, they’ve just liberated a big camp at Tabora.” More rifling through files continued. “There’s a Godfrey Cobb from the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa. That wouldn’t be him, would it? I suppose not.”
He shut the drawers of the wooden filing cabinet. “Drawn a blank, I’m afraid. Mind you, there are other camps in occupied territories. Places like Chitawa, Massasi and Nanda.”
He pointed them out on a wall map. “He may be in one of those. Also,” he added, “the German columns always tend to carry some prisoners with them. Ones they don’t want freed, if you know what I mean. I shouldn’t give up hope. The Germans are quite good about supplying information — deaths, that sort of thing. If we’d heard anything it would be down here somewhere.”
Felix felt his face suddenly grow hot. “What about letters?” he said. “Do letters to British prisoners get through?”
Wheech-Browning sat down. “It depends. We send food parcels to the camps. Any letters usually go along with them. Bit erratic though.”
“Can you tell me if a letter has been sent on to my brother in the last six months or so?”
“My dear Cobb, I haven’t the faintest.” Wheech-Browning spread his hands. “I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, since old Bilderbeck went bonkers. He’d be the man to tell you. It may have been passed on. We can never tell. We have to rely on jerry supply officers. Not exactly grade-one material, I believe.”
Felix felt only slightly composed. He took out a notebook and recorded the names of the POW camps. Then he stood up and said he had to go. The American got to his feet also. Wheech-Browning invited them both to lunch at the ‘quite decent little officers’ club’ they had in Kilwa. Felix declined, the American emphatically followed suit.
Wheech-Browning saw them down the stairs. At the front door he halted them with a story.
“Listen to this,” he said. “Something Bilderbeck came up with. It’s called the ‘China Show’. It was a plan, he told them, formulated by the Germans to fly a Zeppelin out to East Africa to give aid and succour to von Lettow’s army. Extraordinary idea, isn’t it? Keep your eyes peeled for an airship.” He raised an imaginary shotgun to his shoulder and fired both barrels. “Can’t see what it’s got to do with China, though.”
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.”
5: 19 November 1917, Nanda, German East Africa
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.