Someone Wishes to Speak to You (33 page)

A few days before Mathew’s trip, Angus Whitton dropped in to enjoy one of his regular sundowners with Miles Kinloch.

‘I’ve just been at the official opening of the Tsango Lodge Rehabilitation Centre in Inyanga for convalescing soldiers – opened by P.K. van der Byl himself, no less. It occurred to me that as most of the young soldiers are getting extremely bored of having to put up with enforced physical inactivity due to their wounds, I wondered if you could spare some time to give a talk one evening at the centre about your field studies in Zaire? It’s fascinating stuff, bound to go down well. I thought it would help to take their minds off some of the atrocities they’ve experienced. Some of the boys in there witnessed the aftermath of the Honde Valley Tea Estate
massacre. That’s not something they’ll be able to forget in a hurry, if ever, but at least if we do something to keep their minds occupied, it might help.’

Mathew was only too happy to agree to Angus’s request. He was well aware that if he had been a Rhodesian citizen, he too would have been involved with the country’s compulsory military service. He could have been in the same situation as the soldiers at the rehabilitation centre.

When the evening of the talk came, Mathew was accompanied to the Tsango Lodge by Addie and her father. On arrival, Angus introduced Mathew to a Captain Darling of the Medical Corps and as soon as they entered the small assembly hall, the twenty or so patients present started to applaud them enthusiastically. When Mathew looked around the room, he could see that most of the young soldiers in the audience had been maimed in some way. While Angus introduced him, Mathew could not help feeling a great sadness that all such wounds and misery were a result of the disastrous conflict between ZANLA’s freedom fighters and Rhodesia’s security forces. In his opinion, this conflict was causing needless suffering to the entire population.

After Mathew’s talk, illustrated by a series of his mugshot drawings of Casimir’s family group and some similar sketches of his Stairs’ and vervet monkey subjects, he asked if there were any questions. A young soldier raised his arm immediately with a question about the significance of eye flashes between individual primates, and how much this type of communication could be relevant to the way humans interact with one another. Mathew was hugely gratified that there was an interest in this aspect of his talk. After he had answered the question, the emphasis shifted.

A number of the convalescents were keen to hear about how, as a European, he had been received in the Kivu Province of Zaire, so comparatively soon after the bloodbath resulting from the country’s independence from Belgium. And, in
particular, due to the way some of the mercenaries in the employ of Patrice Lumumba had been responsible for the killings of so many Africans in the eastern Congo.

Although Mathew could appreciate the degree of the soldiers’ concern should their security forces lose the war against ZANLA, he explained that he had always been well received. ‘I never experienced any racial problems between the remaining whites, and the indigenous African population in the Bukavu region of Kivu Province. I found the Africans in and around Bukavu to be on the whole very welcoming.’ (In this context, he decided not to mention anything about his unfortunate experience with the hostile police sergeant in Goma, who had been scarred while being interrogated by foreign mercenaries.) ‘Should a black majority government ever come to power in Rhodesia, I very much hope that in spite of the killings on both sides, as Rhodesia is such a very special country, such political wounds will mend and the harmony that exists between the races in Zaire will soon be achieved.’

Mathew hoped that at least by giving a positive account of his experience, he had expressed his view that peace was not an impossibility.

On his journey down to Umtali on Monday morning to meet Jim Prior for coffee at the sports club, Mathew had to pass through a series of road blocks, heavily manned with BSAP and RLI personnel. After they had inspected the contents of his Land Rover and made a note of his passport and visitor visa numbers, they had all asked him why he wasn’t carrying any type of weapon, such as the usual self-repeating pistol, for self-protection. Much to the amusement of those who asked the question, he always responded (untruthfully) that as he had always been such a bad shot, if he were to be confronted by a terrorist he would in all probability shoot himself by mistake.

He found Jim Prior was no longer the relaxed District Officer of former times. He had become very pessimistic about the outcome of the Bush War.

‘You know Mathew, I’m not at all happy about you going back to the Castle Beacon camp. I want your absolute assurance that in accordance with the permits, you promise to return to the safety of Umtali at least one hour before sunset.’

‘Don’t worry about me, Jim. Look how long I was there before, day in day out – nothing ever happened to me.’

‘You don’t understand, it’s a whole different ballgame now. You’d be very welcome to stay with me at the flat tonight. It’s not safe anymore for Europeans to drive alone out of Umtali during the hours of darkness. There’s been quite a number of terrorist attacks on unescorted vehicles in the region.’

After leaving the sports club, Mathew headed off for Castle Beacon and as Jim had said, the two African askaris were waiting for him at the first police road block on his way out of Umtali. They were surprised when he greeted them in the Manyika tongue and how he went on to tell them that during his time in the Vumba, he had made a number of friends amongst their fellow tribesmen, who had taught him the dialect. By the time they arrived at the turn-off to Castle Beacon, it was obvious to Mathew that they had become relaxed in his company and that in all probability they had not had such a friendly conversation with a European before.

On arrival at his campsite, Mathew was disappointed to find little left of the hut that Edgar and Joshua had constructed for him, or much evidence of the two canopy platforms they had made. However, as he had less than six hours to look for his monkeys, he was fortunate to locate the Stairs’ group within half an hour of walking up a forest trail to one of their favourite mid-morning resting places, by a small mountain stream. He was delighted by the way they accepted him, as if he’d seen them yesterday, for none of the adult male sentinels
uttered any of their usual alarm calls. They appeared to be completely nonchalant about his reappearance.

After Mathew had carefully positioned one of his tape-recorders, he did some mugshots of two of the sub-adults, playing hide-and-seek in the foliage above him. What had been their infant pelage had changed quite dramatically since he had last seen them and he hoped that by doing some sketches, he would have the chance to identify their parentage. In the meantime, he requested his two companions to remain on the path some distance away from the stream, as he was worried that the presence of strangers would cause an unnecessary disturbance within his study group.

Although Mathew was disappointed that none of his vervet monkey group had put in an appearance, he found that his few hours of observations on the Stairs’ family had been most worthwhile. In particular when they started to crash through the branches of the forest canopy away from the stream to commence their early afternoon foraging, one of the adult males had spotted the two askari on the path lower down the hill. Immediately, it uttered a series of warning calls alerting the rest of the group to their presence, which turned out to be vocalisations Mathew had not previously recorded. He was also pleased to have updated a number of the mugshots, as some of the sub-adults of the family group had now reached adulthood.

After returning to the remains of his old camp, Mathew enjoyed sharing some sandwiches and a Thermos of locally grown coffee with his two companions. On the drive back to Umtali, he had the opportunity to speak once more in their native tongue. When the two askaris stepped down from the Land Rover at the police roadblock where he had collected them, their African sergeant was surprised to see the warmth in the way that Mathew shook their hands and said goodbye. Without doubt this was the first time that the two soldiers had experienced such an informal meeting with a European, or had conversed with an Englishman who could speak their language.
Mathew could well imagine the degree of amusement that would arise when the two of them returned to their barracks and told their comrades-in-arms that they had just spent the day looking after the safety of a British gentleman on a trip to the Vumba. Particularly when they said it was to provide the Britisher who could speak their Manyika dialect with the opportunity to do some drawings of the faces of a family of monkeys, and to take tape-recordings of some of their noises.

Over dinner at Jim Prior’s flat that evening, he was pleased to learn how successful the mission had proved to be. He seemed genuinely interested when Mathew showed him some of the sketches he had drawn and played back the adult Stairs’ monkey alarm vocalisations. Over a balloon glass of Cape brandy, the conversation reverted to the progress of the Bush War.

‘On the international front,’ said Jim, ‘since the beginning of 1976 the US, in cooperation with the British, have begun to take a more active role in the search for a settlement. The main reason for the general election was the internal political crisis in Ian Smith’s party, due to the defection of twelve RF MPs. They were complaining that the government had become too liberal, and was no longer adhering to party principles or election promises. Despite that, Ian Smith’s RF has managed to sweep all the seats for his party again. As Rhodesia is currently involved in such difficult negotiations as to its future, it gives the country a more secure footing.’

Mathew was interested to hear Jim talk about the reasons behind the general election and encouraged him to expand on the subject. He explained that the general consensus within the party was that the twelve MPs who defected were reactionaries attempting to put the clock back. Due to the degree of public concern caused by such a sizeable defection, the government wished to clearly establish where it stood with the electorate. Ian Smith reluctantly decided to hold the general election on 31 August.

‘I heard something very interesting recently – it was strictly confidential but it’s recently become declassified,’ said Jim. ‘The British Government is considering appointing Field Marshall Lord Carver as Britain’s Pro-Consul in Salisbury, and if this is the case it will undoubtedly cause the termination of your friend Sir Roger’s posting and the Willocks’ return to the UK.’

Mathew had not heard any word of this from Addie, although he did recognise that anything to do with her secretarial work for either Sir Roger or Michael Lamb had to be kept strictly confidential. He was very concerned at the thought of his friends’ enforced return to the UK.

‘Do you know what’s behind it? Is it part of wider scheme?’

‘On the day after the general election,’ said Jim, ‘David Owen and the US Ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, who had previously enthusiastically increased UN sanctions against Rhodesia, arrived in Salisbury and demanded the immediate handover of the security forces to Robert Mugabe’s ZANU/PF, and to Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU. Owen is reported to have informed Ian Smith that the British Government wanted Field Marshall Lord Carver brought in to take command and control of all “security matters”, as well as stating that they wished to have the Field Marshall appointed as Britain’s Commissioner Designate. All the members of Ian Smith’s government were taken aback by this, which they considered to be Owen and Young’s total rejection of the strong mandate that the election results had provided the RF with. Particularly as the results represented a strong vote of support as a message to both the British and US Governments that the Rhodesian nation is united in its determination to negotiate for a fair and just settlement for the long-term benefit of all Rhodesians.’

‘I’m glad to have this insight into the various national and international manoeuvres – I know that when I go back to the UK I’m going to face a barrage of questions about what the real situation is. So many people have friends or relatives
in Rhodesia and I know many of them are concerned about the long-term future of the country, for both its black and white populations. All they have to go on are the politically biased and often fabricated reports in the British press . . . The media there still refer to the country as the “British colony of Southern Rhodesia”.’

After Mathew returned to Inyangar, it took him a further ten days to complete writing up his chacma baboon observations and to move his belongings to the Vaughan-Joneses’ home. In appreciation for all the hospitality he had received from Miles and Addie over the last eight months, he hosted a farewell dinner at the Rhodes Inyanga Hotel to which he also invited Angus Whitton. During the course of the evening, Mathew could not help teasing Addie by mentioning a few bits of the recently declassified information that Jim Prior had provided him with.

‘I was interested to hear, Addie, that the British Government is wishing to appoint Lord Carver as Britain’s Commissioner Designate. What will happen to Sir Roger?’

‘Mathew, where on earth did you hear that?’ whispered Addie, visibly alarmed. ‘Please say I didn’t tell you.’

Feeling slightly guilty, Mathew said, ‘No, don’t worry. Your professional confidentiality has remained unbreached. It was a District Officer friend of mine in Umtali. It’s no longer confidential, apparently.’

‘Just as well!’ Addie laughed. ‘I don’t know what the timescale is but I will miss Sir Roger, I’ve enjoyed working for him.’

Mariette had contacted Mathew to say that Willie would be away from Carnock Farm at a maize market for the majority of Monday, so he agreed to call in to see her in an attempt
to arrange another rendezvous with Jan before leaving for the UK. As they drank some local coffee together on the farmhouse’s ‘stoep’, Mariette asked Mathew a question that had been preying on her mind.

‘I want you to tell me the truth. Are you as serious about Jan as she is about you? I would hate to see her suffering from another broken heart. She was so upset when her last English boyfriend left her without any warning, and her feelings for you are so much stronger. . . I can’t bear to think what would happen. I’m putting my neck on the line for you two, imagine what Paddy will do if he finds out – I’m even deceiving my own husband.’