And so mobile detachments were sent down the road from Fife towards Kasama. A week earlier von Bishop had marched into the town after the garrison had fled southwards. Shortly after the main body of the Schütztruppe had gathered in Kasama and was preparing to march off again in pursuit. Some patrols had gone ahead. Von Bishop was to remain behind for a few days as part of the rearguard.
Von Bishop looked up. His coffee was ready. His boy had also brought him a tin plate filled with strawberries which grew in plentiful supply in Kasama’s kitchen gardens. He took one of the plump berries and popped it in his mouth, crushing it against his palate with his tongue. His mouth was filled with the sweet juice and the pulp. How Liesl would love this! he thought suddenly. His smile drooped. He wondered where and how she was. He wondered if she knew that Cobb was dead.
He stirred his coffee slowly thinking about that night on the plateau. A terrible mistake. A lack of communication, that was all. That morning he had hastily buried the head and then had made off straight away to the Ludjenda confluence and the meeting with von Lettow. He intended to have the ruga-ruga arrested and executed for murder but they disappeared the next night. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t ask them why they had done it;’ they couldn’t tell him. He had some suspicions that they may have been acting under instructions from Deeg, but that was something else he couldn’t confirm. He told von Lettow that they had found Cobb’s dead body and had buried him. He assumed that Cobb had died from starvation and exposure out on the plateau.
He drank his coffee down and got to his feet. It was over now. He didn’t like to think too much about that particular episode. It had been a tragic error. By rights Cobb should have been with them now in Kasama, along with the other British prisoners in the Schütztruppe column. He checked himself: there was nothing to be gained by that sort of reflection.
He walked up the street towards his men, his mind still dwelling on the events of that night. If Deeg hadn’t given his men secret instructions could the responsibility be laid at his — von Bishop’s — door? Had he done anything or said anything that the ruga-ruga could have construed as an order to kill Cobb? No, he was sure. He questioned himself with punctilious honesty. But he had not ordered the ruga-ruga to kill the man. “Get him,” was all he had said, in a language, moreover, that they could not understand. No, his conscience was clear.
He joined his men. Like him they wore a mixture of ragged German uniforms and captured Portuguese clothing. All their weapons were by now of Portuguese or British origin. Some askaris sat behind a stone wall, others lay in shallow firing pits. Von Bishop’s sergeant, a European, came up and saluted. Everything was quiet.
The sun beat down. The road they were guarding led back towards Fife and the border of German East some two hundred kilometres away. Fife was now occupied by the pursuing King’s African Rifles. Von Bishop stayed for half an hour and then set off back down the main street towards his billet.
Then, from down a side road, he heard the put-put of a motorbike. Curious, he waited. Presently the bike emerged into the main street. The driver stopped and removed the goggles he was wearing. Von Bishop walked closer. He was an English soldier.
“Where is everybody, mate?” the man said cheerfully. “Fraid I’m lost. Can you tell me where the Kasama garrison is?”
Von Bishop realized that in his tattered faded uniform he looked more like a farmer than a German officer. It was awkward but he didn’t have a gun with him either.
“This town has been occupied by the German army,” he said apologetically.
“Oh,” said the dispatch rider. “Am I captured then?”
“Yes you are,” said von Bishop, feeling rather foolish.
“Haven’t you heard?” the dispatch rider said. “The war ended the day before yesterday.” He took a stiff canvas folder from the bag slung around his body and handed it over. Von Bishop read the message it contained.
Send following to Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck under white flag. The Prime Minister of England has announced that an armistice was signed at 5 hours on Nov. 11th and that hostilities on all fronts cease at 11 hours on Nov. 11th.
Von Bishop looked up. He felt suddenly weak with relief, a tingling in his knee joints, a slackening of his bowels. Finally it was all over. Two days late, but at last it was finished. The dispatch rider was holding his hands above his head in an attitude of surrender.
“Oh, it’s all right,” von Bishop said, smiling broadly. “You don’t need to bother with that now.”
3: 2 December 1918, Nairobi, British East Africa
Sir Nigel Macmillan’s house in Nairobi looked rather like a larger version of the grey granite bungalows that can be found in the more genteel streets of any Scottish country town. It too was stone, the roof was slate, the guttering ornamental and cast iron, the windows leaded. The only concession to the African climate was a wide, pillared verandah on which were arrayed pots of plants and wooden chairs and settees, and which over-looked neatly mown lawns and weed-free gravel paths. In 1917 Sir Nigel had lent it to the British and Empire forces in East Africa for use as a sanatorium. For officers only.
Felix Cobb sat bolt upright in one of the armchairs, his spectacles held in both hands, staring blankly at the trio of African gardeners hoeing a flower bed. In his lap was a letter and a copy of the local newspaper, The Leader of East Africa, which he’d just been reading. He looked like a man who had just received a nasty shock.
To compose himself he picked up the letter, put his spectacles on and read it again. It was brief and from his mother.
Stackpole Manor
30 August 1918
Darling Felix,
We were most distressed to hear of your accident with the bomb-gun, but relieved to know that you are steadily recovering from your injuries.
I am writing in haste to tell you of your father. I am sorry to say that he has become progressively more unwell since your departure for the war. After much heart-searching and lengthy consultation with Dr Venables, Cressida and I have decided that it would be best for everyone if he went away for a while. Dr Venables has found a quiet and pleasant nursing home near Bournemouth, called St Jude’s. He says it comes highly recommended. Dr Venables hopes that when this war is finally over and you and Gabriel come home life may eventually return to normal.
Nigel Bathe has a splendid new pair of hands and is much more his old self. Your friend Holland has gone to Russia to join a revolution there. He telephoned the other day to ask news of you.
With fondest love from us all,
Mother
Felix put the letter down, momentarily overcome with sadness for his old mad father. He wished he had written home with the news about Gabriel at the time. It was going to be impossibly hard to relate the facts of his death now. He smiled ruefully. He was full of retrospective wisdom, twenty-twenty vision as far as his hindsight was concerned.
He stood up, his right hand going automatically to the back of his head to feel the bumps and ridges of his scar there. As he got to his feet the newspaper slid off his lap onto the floor. He bent down to retrieve it and felt the giddiness come on as the blood rushed into his brain.
He tucked the newspaper under his arm. He needed to wait a while longer before he could bring himself to read it again. He walked down the steps into the garden.