African Dawn (4 page)

Before Paul could explain what they'd been up to, Fothergill held up a hand. ‘Paul, I've just received a radio message … a friend of yours in Bulawayo, a Doctor Hammond, got through to the ops centre at Kariba by telephone. It's your wife, Paul … she's been taken to hospital. It's not good.’

*

George and Winston sat side by side on a green grassy spit of land in the newly declared Kuburi wilderness area, on the edge of the growing inland sea.

‘I wonder what happened to that rhino and her calf.’

Winston lifted the galvanised-tin water bucket and pushed the end of the mopane log deeper into the fire, balancing the bucket again on the newly stoked coals. ‘Another man from the camp told me she ran through the township at Mahombekombe, not far from the dam wall, and then up into the hills.’

‘Shame,’ George said, but his grin at the thought of the rhinos stampeding through the workers' shanties faded when he thought of the animals' plight. ‘But her little baby didn't look like he would make it. He was struggling to keep up with her when we left to …’

George looked out over the lake and stared at the red ball heading for the water. The sun sank like his spirits. He hated to think of his mother in hospital, in pain, and wondered what had happened to the baby brother or sister she was carrying. He felt his throat constrict and his eyes began to sting. He would not cry, he told himself. He was nearly a man. He felt Winston's hand on his shoulder and looked at him.

‘Your mother is a good woman. God will look after her, George. My mother … she is angry at everything all the time. She is angry at me, my father, the white people …’

George smiled. Patricia Ngwenya's temper was legendary in the district and his mother, who rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, had a favourite word for Winston's mother – insufferable. It was good to have her son here with him, though. George sometimes felt he had missed out, not having a brother of his own, but he and Winston were close enough to be family.

Rupert Fothergill had told George's father, when they'd met out on the lake, that there was a light aircraft leaving Kariba airstrip within the hour for Salisbury, but there was only space on board for one person. ‘Go, Dad,’ George had said, seeing the indecision further furrow his father's already stricken face.

‘We'll take care of the boys until you can send word or organise transport for them,’ Fothergill had added.

George didn't feel nearly as brave now as he'd tried to be on the boat. He wanted to be by his mother's side, but at the same time he was scared of finding out what might be wrong with her. He couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to her; it was easier, he decided, for him to stay here on Operation Noah and act like everything was OK.

‘You and your father saved my life today,’ Winston said.

George looked at his friend and realised he wasn't the only one who'd been doing some serious thinking. ‘You would have done the same for us.’

‘Of course,’ Winston nodded.

George picked up a stone and tossed it as far out into the water as he could. It landed with a satisfyingly loud
kerplunk
.

‘What do you want to do when you leave school?’ George asked.

‘Me, I am going to join the army.’

George looked at him in surprise. ‘I thought you'd become a teacher, like your dad.’

Winston shook his head. ‘I'm sure that's what he has planned, but I don't like school enough to want to stay in the classroom for the rest of my life.’

George laughed. ‘I know what you mean.’ He looked up at Venus, rising bright in the purple twilight, and cocked his ear and held up a finger and pointed towards the far-off call of a lion. When it was still again, he asked, ‘Why the army?’

‘I want to be a warrior. Your father was in the war; he was a great warrior.’

‘He was a pilot.’

‘Yes, but he still fought for his country. I wouldn't want to fly an aeroplane, but I would like to be paid to fight. My mother says my father talks too much, and that he should learn to stand up and fight for what he believes in.’

‘I asked my dad once about joining the air force,’ said George, ‘and he told me he would do everything in his power to stop me. He says the war was terrible and that no one should ever have to go through what his generation did.’

‘Still, I don't want to be a teacher. Myself, I want to spend my days among warriors, not children. I want to drink beer and have many women. What about you?’

There were hippos honking in a newly created bay, behind and off to their left, but they went quiet when the lion started calling again, closer this time. ‘I'd like to be a game ranger. I like it out here in the bush.’ He'd also like to be with Susannah Geary, whom he'd seen in church in Bulawayo whenever he was home from school.

‘I don't like the bush. But it's good to get away from school, and from the work on the farm. You know, that lion you can hear now …’

‘Yes?’ George said.

‘If it comes into camp tonight it's not going to bite you …’

‘Good.’

‘… it's going to eat you!’

3

‘L
et me see Kenneth Ngwenya,’ Paul said to Chief Inspector Harold Hayes.

The police station smelled of sweat and urine. Paul felt as though he wanted to be sick. He hadn't slept and had hardly eaten, save for some gruel-like soup at the hospital. After flying from Kariba to Salisbury he'd hitched a lift to Bulawayo on a delivery van. He'd arrived in Bulawayo late the night before.

Pip was in the intensive care ward. She'd suffered bleeding after her fall, and some cuts and scrapes from the pavement. Kenneth, according to Pip, had tripped as well and then lain on top of her to try to protect her from being trampled by the fleeing demonstrators. But that hadn't stopped the police from arresting him. As soon as he was certain Pip was all right, Paul had come straight to the police station.

‘You're not his lawyer, and you're not family, so no dice.’ The policeman folded his arms and rested both of his chins on his chest.

Paul glared at Hayes. The two men loathed each other and Paul would have been very happy to live out the rest of his days without ever seeing the fat policeman again. Paul wondered if he'd got the term ‘no dice’ from an American movie or a crime novel. Either one would have radically improved his knowledge of policing and the law.

‘Philippa says Kenneth wasn't trying to assault her at the demonstration, so you've no grounds to hold him in the cells.’

Hayes snorted. ‘You've got no grounds, Bryant, to tell me who I can or can't arrest and hold.’ He leaned forward over the well-worn timber charge counter. ‘You weren't born here, you don't know what these people are capable of.’

Paul was seething, but forced himself to stay calm. ‘No, but my wife was born here and she says there was no assault.’

Hayes stood straight again and shook his head. ‘I don't get you two kaffir-lovers.’

Paul clenched his fist. He wanted to lash out and shatter Hayes's nose, but he knew that was exactly what the obese bully wanted him to do. That way he could arrest Paul too.

‘A munt knocks your pregnant wife down in the middle of a subversive rally and you come here begging me to let him out of gaol,’ continued Hayes. ‘Wait a minute. Perhaps this is all a ruse to get me to let him out so that you can
donner
him good, hey?’

‘We're not all like you, Hayes. Let me see him.’

‘No.’

‘She won't make a statement against him. Look, Ngwenya's boy nearly drowned up on Lake Kariba yesterday. He's still up there. You don't want the lad to find out his father's been locked up on trumped-up charges, do you?’

‘
Trumped-up
? This is none of your business, or your wife's, Bryant. Special Branch is on the case now, and it's out of my hands.’

‘What's their interest in Ngwenya? As I understand it, he and the others were part of a peaceful demonstration over bus fares.’

Hayes snorted. ‘You weren't there, I was. If you think that demonstration was about the price of bus tickets you're more naïve than I thought. It's about politics – about them thinking they'd know how to run a country. That's why the Branch is involved.’

‘But what's Ngwenya done wrong? If my wife doesn't testify you'll have no grounds to hold him on a charge of assault.’

Hayes smiled. ‘I don't care whether he assaulted anyone or not. You see, there's an operation going on right now in Salisbury and Bulawayo. You'll be able to read about it in tomorrow's
Chronicle
. It's called Operation Sunrise. A new dawn.’

Bryant had no idea what Hayes was talking about.

‘We're rounding up the rabble and filth who'd sell this fine country of ours out to the communists and the black nationalists. These people think they can bring Rhodesia to a halt by telling honest, hard-working Africans to walk to work rather than catch the bus. All the leaders of the protests have been arrested, and that includes your
friend
Ngwenya. I doubt he'll be filling any young minds with red propaganda for some time.’

‘Can I at least see him?’

‘No,’ Hayes said.

Paul didn't know what else to say. He'd known for years that Kenneth was active in black nationalist politics, but he'd never heard his friend espousing communist propaganda. Far from it, in fact. Kenneth and his fellow agitators wanted one man, one vote – which would mean, of course, black majority rule in a democratic country.

As a schoolteacher, Kenneth was well educated for a black man, having studied teaching at Fort Hare University in South Africa, but this set him apart from the vast majority of black Rhodesians. Even the most liberal whites Paul knew seemed unified in their belief that while majority rule might be inevitable one of these days, it wasn't something to be rushed. There was a need for more Africans to become better educated before they were ready to govern their own affairs.

When Paul had put this view to Kenneth the teacher had retorted that this was condescending, racist rubbish. It was the closest he'd ever seen the bookish teacher come to radicalism. ‘Paul,’ he'd said, slapping a closed fist into his palm, ‘can't you see that this will never happen? Our junior education system might be one of the best in Africa for African people, but as long as we are excluded from higher education and so many professions we will never be given the chance to advance ourselves and take control of our destiny.’

Paul thought of Winston, and the high hopes Kenneth had for his son. He still hadn't worked out when or how he would get back to Kariba to collect the two boys. He hoped they were safe. They were level-headed enough youngsters, but two teenagers together could get up to a good deal of mischief.

‘I'll get Kenneth's wife and bring her here. Surely you'll allow her to visit him,’ Paul said to the policeman.

Hayes nodded. ‘We're not uncivilised, Bryant. I dare say the black communists wouldn't be so accommodating to political prisoners if they were running the country.’

The phone rang and a white constable sitting at a desk behind the charge counter picked up the Bakelite handset. ‘Mr Bryant, is it?’ the constable interrupted.

‘Yes.’

‘It's the hospital, sir. Matron says you're to get back there now. It's your wife. She's gone into labour.’

*

Paul sat by Pip's bedside in the Mater Dei hospital in Hillside until at last her eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes.

He kissed her cheek.

‘Where's George?’ she asked, still groggy from the anaesthetic.

‘He's fine. Probably having the time of his life up on Kariba with Winston and without me. We have a daughter.’

Doc Hammond had told him the delivery had not been without complications. Pip had lost a lot of blood and had needed a transfusion. According to the doctor, their daughter seemed as healthy as could be expected for a premature baby.

‘Oh, yes. I remember now.’

He laughed, but stopped when she tried to join in and he saw her wince.

‘Go get her, Paul.’

Paul went out into the corridor and fetched the nurse, who brought the tiny red-faced baby to her mother. Paul plumped the pillow and helped Pip sit up, and the nurse passed her the tightly wrapped bundle. ‘Hello.’

‘She's beautiful,’ Paul said.

‘I was so scared.’ Pip kissed her baby tenderly.

‘Doc Hammond says she's fine and that you'll be fine after some rest.’

Pip looked up into his eyes and blinked a couple of times. ‘Not for me and her, Paul … It was what happened, before, in the street.’

‘It's over now.’

She shook her head. ‘You should have seen the hatred in the eyes of those constables as they laid into the crowd, Paul. It was madness. Kenneth tried to protect me, but then people were running by us, over us. It's not over. It's just beginning.’

‘It was a demonstration over bus fares, that's all. It got a bit out of hand. It's hardly a civil war, although I have to tell you that things don't look good for Kenneth. He's facing more charges and may end up in gaol.’

Pip rocked her baby gently. ‘It's been simmering for years. I don't want her to grow up in a war, Paul.’

‘She won't. What are we going to call her?’

‘Hope.’

*

It had been, George thought as he walked out of the building, a week for extraordinary names at the Mater Dei Hospital. First there was his little sister, Hope, whose name was quite odd, but not nearly as unusual as the names Mrs Quilter-Phipps had given her new twin sons, Braedan and Tate.

Apparently Braedan had been named by his father after the farm he had grown up on in England, and Mrs Quilter-Phipps had picked Tate because she thought it sounded like the sort of name an American film star might have.

Talk of unusual names aside, George found hospitals quite boring; except for the time he'd had his appendix out and had been allowed to see it after the operation. He was certainly very relieved that his mother was fine, and that the baby was normal, but he couldn't really see the point of sitting at the foot of his mum's bed, with nothing much to say after he'd told her about his adventures on the lake. On his father's orders he'd left out the bits about the rhino goring a hole in the side of the boat and Winston nearly drowning.

He and Winston had been given a lift all the way back to Bulawayo with a motor mechanic. It had been a long, hot drive home and his skin was burned a deep red from sitting in the back of the mechanic's
bakkie
with Winston.

The two days extra he'd spent on the lake with Winston had been two of the best of his life, George thought, as he walked out of the hospital, away from its acrid smells and sick people. He tossed a cricket ball up and down and shuddered as he remembered being sick over the side of the
bakkie
. He'd been embarrassed at the time, but Winston had found it hilarious and had laughed so much there had been tears in his eyes.

They'd stolen a bottle of whisky from near the campfire after the men had all turned in for bed, and drunk half of it as they'd sat on the shore of the lake. Winston had noticed a ripple in the shallows and they'd found a baby crocodile. Egging each other on, George had run into the water and chased it. Winston, not silly enough again to go out into water past his knees, had herded the little reptile back onto the mudflat. George had dived into the silt and grabbed its tail. It had reared back on him and scratched his arm with its tiny teeth, but Winston had been there a split second later and grabbed its snout.

‘You saved my life,
boet
,’ George had exclaimed drunkenly.

Winston had smiled at him. ‘You have never called me brother before.’

‘You are … you are my brother, Winston,’ George had slurred. He'd been drunk, but he'd meant it.

‘Then we are even, brother, because you and your father saved me on the lake, but I am in his debt too.’

The crocodile had bucked in their hands, with surprising strength for such a tiny little creature, and George had burst into laughter at Winston's yelp. Soon after, they'd retired, wet and muddy, to their canvas bed-rolls spread out under mosquito nets tied to trees near the water's edge.

They hadn't spoken of their drunken emotions on the trip back, and instead shared a companionable silence brought on by their mutual nausea as the truck rumbled along strip roads and wide tar down to Salisbury. The mechanic had bought them each a cold beer at Sinoia and although George had tried at first to refuse the gesture, he had found that the man was right and that it really did make him feel better.

After they'd passed through Salisbury they'd stopped on a roadside on the way to Gatooma and the boys had slept in the back of the
bakkie
under a big star-studded sky. Driving the last leg back to Bulawayo they'd passed through Gwelo and the high open grasslands of the midlands, dotted with fat cattle.

George had thought about Winston's plan to join the army when he came of age. George, too, could join up, as the Rhodesian African Rifles, which accounted for the country's permanent military force, was made up of black soldiers and white officers.

‘Look.’

Winston, with his keen eyes, had pointed up into the sky as the
bakkie
had raced along at its top speed of fifty miles per hour. George had shielded his eyes and seen the glint of light reflected on shiny bare metal. ‘Vampire,’ he'd said, immediately identifying the twin tail booms of the British-made jet fighter.

George had watched the silvery jet come in to land at Thornhill Airbase, feeling the vibration of its engine in his chest as it roared low over the waving boys, and he'd made up his mind then and there about what he wanted to do. His father would fight him all the way, of that he was sure, but he didn't care. ‘I don't want to join the army. I want to be a pilot.’

‘At least you can choose to do that. There are no black pilots in the air force or officers in the army.’

George thought about Winston's comment now as he picked up his pushbike from under the tree in the hospital garden. He started cycling out from the all-white suburb of Hillside towards Mzilikazi Township. Not many whites ventured into the black township, but George went often enough, when he was home on holidays, that he warranted friendly waves and greetings from many of the people he met.

Kenneth and Patricia lived in a two-bedroom brick house, with a tin roof held in place by an assortment of rocks and concrete blocks, behind the school where Kenneth was principal. The house was modest compared to the rambling colonial farmhouse George had been born into, but substantial by African standards, as befitted a man of Kenneth's standing.

Winston had a sister, Thandi, who was a year younger than George. George hadn't paid much attention to girls up until his thirteenth birthday, but now he found himself thinking about them a lot of the time. Sometimes, when he was alone in his bed in the dorm at school, or home on the farm, he found his body responded to these thoughts.

To his horror, George once got the reaction, down there, in the middle of a church sermon, while he and his mother were standing behind Susannah Geary and her mother. Susannah was named after her mother. Her father had also been in the air force during the war, in bomber command like George's father, except Susannah's dad had been an air gunner. He'd lost the sight in his left eye thanks to a metal splinter from a flak round. He was now a butcher in town.