It was early morning but already ferociously hot. The troops were dripping sweat. They were exhausted, ill, and miserable. Occasional bursts of chanting broke out—the usual sad native dirges—but these quickly tailed off, overwhelmed by the rhythmic tromp tromp tromp of boots. At one point a company of Britishers broke into song, their mock cheerfulness shot through with resentful hatred. The tune was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” but the lyrics were rather more colourful than those of the original hymn:
When this lousy war is over, no more soldiering for me,
When I get my civvy clothes on, oh how happy I shall be.
No more church parades on Sunday, no more begging for a pass.
You can tell the sergeant major to stick his passes up his arse.
The sergeant major in question harangued the men for a three-mile stretch after that.
Burton was sitting on the ambulance's tailgate, leaning against the side of the vehicle's open back. He couldn't stop scratching.
“Human nature?” he said. “What do you mean?”
Wells, perched on a bench just behind him, responded, “I'm of the opinion that we possess an inbuilt craving for narrative structure. We want everything to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That way, we can make better sense of it.” He looked down at Burton. “How many days did that uniform last before it got infested?”
“Four. The lice are eating me alive.”
“Chin up, old man. It could be worse. Fever, trench foot, dysentery, having your bloody legs blown off—all the perils of wartime Africa.”
“Bismillah! What are you people doing? You've created hell from an Eden!”
“Is my generation responsible, Richard, or is yours? I've heard people say over and over that we are all products of the past. They'd lay the blame for this war squarely at their fathers' feet. In other words, welcome to the world you created.”
“Absolutely not! None of my contemporaries intended the creation of this Jahannam!”
“As you say. Besides, I disagree with the philosophy of what you might term sequentialism. The problem, as I see it, is that we don't truly understand the nature of the past. We mythologise it. We create fictions about actions performed to justify what we undertake in the present. We adjust the cause to better suit the effect. The truth is that the present is, and will always be, utter chaos. There is no story and no plan. We are victims of Zeitgeist. I apologise for using a German word, but it's singularly appropriate. Are you familiar with it?”
“Yes. It translates as ‘ghost tide,’ or, perhaps, ‘spirit of the age,’ and refers to the ambience or sociopolitical climate of any given period.”
“Exactly so, and in my view it's a phenomenon entirely independent of history. History doesn't create the zeitgeist, we create the history to try to explain the zeitgeist. We impose a sequential narrative to endow events with something that resembles meaning.”
The ambulance jerked as its wheels bounced through a pothole. Burton's head banged against the vehicle's wooden side.
“Ouch!”
“How's your arm?” Wells asked.
“Aching. How's your leg?”
“Broken. How's your head?”
“Shut up.”
“Have a cigar.”
The war correspondent passed what remained of the “Hoffman” to the explorer, who glanced at its much-reduced length and muttered, “Your lungs are healthy, at least.” He raised it to his lips and drew in the sweet smoke, savouring it while observing the column of men and vehicles that snaked back over the rolling landscape.
The supply wagons and ambulances were mostly towed by steam-horses or oxen. There were a few mangy-looking nonmechanical horses in evidence, too, including mega-drays pulling huge artillery pieces. Harvestmen stalked along beside the troops, and Scorpion Tanks thumped through the dust with their tails curled over their cabins, the guns at their ends slowly swinging back and forth.
“Hey! Private!” Burton called to a nearby Britisher. “Where are we?”
“In it up to our bloody eyeballs, chum!”
“Ha! And geographically?”
“I ain't got a bleedin' clue. Ask Kitchener!”
“We're almost there, sir,” an African voice answered. “Tanga is a mile or so ahead.”
“Much obliged!” Burton said. He turned Wells. “Did you hear that? We must be near your village. Shall we hop out here?”
“Hopping is my only option, unfortunately.”
Burton slid from the tailgate into the ambulance, then moved to its front and banged his fist against the back of the driver's cabin. “Stop a moment, would you?”
He returned to Wells and, as the vehicle halted, helped him down to the ground and handed him his crutches. The two men put on their helmets, moved to the side of the column, and walked slowly along beside it.
“So what's your point, Bertie?”
“My point?”
“About history.”
“Oh. Just that we give too much credence to the idea that we can learn from the past. It's the present that teaches the lesson. The problem is that we're so caught up in doing it that we can never see the wood for the trees. I say! Are you all right?”
Burton had suddenly doubled over and was clutching the sides of his head.
“No!” he gasped. “Yes. I think—” He straightened and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes. Yes. I'm fine. I'm sorry. I just had a powerful recollection of—of—of a man constructed from brass.”
“A statue?”
“No. A machine. But it was—it was—Herbert.”
“What? Me?”
“No, sorry, not you, Bertie. I mean, its—his—name is—was—is Herbert, too.”
“A mechanical man named Herbert? Are you sure your malaria hasn't flared up again?”
Burton clicked his tongue. “My brain is so scrambled that the line between reality and fiction appears almost nonexistent. I'm not sure what that particular memory signifies, if anything. Perhaps it'll make more sense later. Where's the village?”
Wells pointed to a vaguely defined path that disappeared into a dense jungle of thorny acacias. The trees were growing up a shallow slope, and Burton could just glimpse rooftops through the topmost leaves. “Along there,” Wells said. “Kaltenberg is right on the edge of Tanga—practically an outlying district. It was built by the Germans in the European style, on slightly higher ground. The occupants fled into the town a few days ago. We'll get a good view of the action from up there.”
“I gather the role of war correspondents is to climb hills and gaze down upon destruction?”
“Yes, that's about it.”
They left the convoy and followed the dirt track. The boles of the trees crowded around them, blocking the convoy from sight. The sky flickered and flashed through the foliage just above their heads. Mosquitoes whined past their ears.
“Who's Kitchener?” Burton asked.
“One of the military bigwigs. Or was. No one knows whether he's dead or alive. Damn this leg! And damn this heat. In fact, damn Africa and all that goes with it! I'm sorry, we'll have to slow down a little.” Wells stopped, and, balancing himself on his crutches, struck a match and lit a cigarette. He took a pull at it then held it out to Burton.
“Thanks, Bertie, but I'll pass. My fondness for cheap cigars doesn't plummet to such depths. Besides, it would ruin the taste of my toffee.”
“You have toffee?”
“I scrounged it from the ambulance driver. Four pieces. I'd offer you two but I fear they'd be wasted after that tobacco stick.”
“You swine!”
Burton grinned.
“And don't do that with your ugly mug,” Wells advised. “It makes you look monstrously Mephistophelian.”
“You remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
“I don't recall.”
They set off again, the war correspondent swinging himself along on his crutches.
Burton said, “Remind me again why we're attacking Tanga.”