Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 35
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And any one of those. would be a bad bargain! He roared with laughter and introduced his client to Daniel. This is Steve Conrack from California. I know you, of course, the American interjected.
Great honour to meet you, Doctor Armstrong. I always watch your stuff on TV.
just by chance I've got a copy of your book with me. I'd love an autograph for my kids back home. They're great fans of yours.
Inwardly Daniel winced at the price of fame but when the client returned from the truck with a copy of one of his earlier books, he signed the fly-leaf.
Where are you headed? Stoffel asked.
Lusaka? Let me go ahead and run interference for you, otherwise anything could happen. It could take you a week or all eternity to get there. The police guard, still grinning, lifted the barrier and saluted them as they drove through. From there onwards their progress was a royal procession, with lumps of raw meat appearing regularly from under the tarpaulin. Roses, roses all the way, and buffalo steaks strewn in our path like mad. Daniel grinned to himself and put his foot down to keep up with the safari truck. They were driving through the fertile plains that were irrigated from the Kafue River. This was an area of sugar and maize and tobacco production and the farms were owned almost entirely by white Zambians. Prior to independence, the farmers had vied with each other to beautify their properties.
From the main road the white-painted homesteads had glistened, set like pearls in the green and lovingly tended home paddocks. The fences had been meticulously maintained and sleek cattle had grazed within view of the road.
These days the dilapidated appearance of the properties was a deliberate attempt by the owners to divert envious and acquisitive eyes. If you look too good, one of them had explained to Daniel, they're going to take it away from you. He didn't have to explain who they were. The golden rule in this country is: if you've got it, for God's sake don't flaunt it. The white farmers lived as a tiny separate tribe in their own little enclave. Rather like their pioneering ancestors, they made their own soap and other commodities which were simply unobtainable from the bare shelves of the local trading stores.
They lived mostly on the products of their own lands, yet they enjoyed a reasonably good life with their golf clubs and polo clubs and theatrical societies.
They sent their children to school and university in South Africa with the small amounts of fiercely rationed foreign exchange they were granted; they kept their heads down below the parapet and took care not to draw attention to themselves.
Even the powers that presided in the government halls in Lusaka realised that without them the precarious economy would collapse completely. The maize and sugar they produced kept the rest of the population from true starvation and their tobacco crops eked out the tiny dribble of foreign exchange brought in by the ruined copper mines.
Where could we go?
Daniel's informant put the rhetorical question. If we leave here, we go in our underclothes. They won't let us take a penny or a stick with us.
We've just got to make the best of it. As the two-vehicle convoy approached the capital town of Lusaka, Daniel was given a demonstration of one of the many distressing phenomena of the new Africa, the mass movement of rural populations to the urban centres.
Daniel smelt the slum odour as they passed the outskirts of the town.
It was a miasma of smoke from the cooking-fires, the stench of pit latrines and festering garbage heaps, of sour illicit beer brewing in open drums, and human bodies without running water or rivers in which to bathe. It was the smell of disease and starvation and poverty and ignorance, the ripe new smell of Africa.
Daniel stood Stoffel and his client a drink in the bar of the Ridgeway Hotel, then excused himself and went to the reception desk to check in.
He was given a room overlooking the swimming-pool, and went to shower away the grime and exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours. Then he reached for the telephone, and called the British High Commission. He caught the telephonist there before the close of the day's business.
May I speak to Mr. Michael Hargreave, please? He held his breath.
Mike Hargreave had still been in Lusaka two years previously, but he could have been transferred anywhere in the world by now. I'm putting you through to Mr. Hargreave, the girl replied after a few moments, and Daniel let his breath out. Michael Hargreave speaking. Mike, it's Danny Armstrong. Good Lord, Danny, where are you? Here in Lusaka.
Welcome back to fairyland. How are you? Mike, can I see you? I need another favour. Why don't you come to dinner tonight? Wendy will be charmed.
Michael had one of the diplomatic residences on Nabs Hill, within walking distance of Government House. As with every other house in the street it was fortified like the Maze Prison.
The ten-foot perimeter walls were topped with rolled barbed wire and two malondo, night watchmen, guarded the gate.
Michael Hargreave quieted his pair of Rortweiler guard dogs, and greeted Daniel enthusiastically. You aren't taking chances, Mike.
Daniel gestured towards the security precautions and Michael grimaced.
On this street alone we average one break-in a night, despite the wire and dogs.
He led Daniel into the house and Wendy came to kiss him.
Wendy was a rosebud, with soft blonde hair and one of those incredible English complexions. I had forgotten that you are even more handsome in the flesh than on television. She smiled at him.
Michael Hargreave resembled an Oxford don more than a spook, but he was indeed an MI6 man. He and Daniel had first met in Rhodesia towards the end of the war. At the time Daniel had been sick and dispirited with what he had come to realize was not only a lost cause, but an unjust one.
The breaking point had come when Daniel led a column of the Selous Scouts into the neighbouring state of Mozambique. The target was a guerrilla camp. Rhodesian intelligence had told them it was a training camp for ZANLA recruits, but when they hit the cluster of huts they found mostly old men and women and children. There had been almost five hundred of these unfortunate people. They had left none of them alive.
On the return match Daniel had found himself weeping uncontrollably as he staggered along in the darkness. Years of ever-present danger and endless call-up for active service had worn his nerves thin and brittle.
Only much later Daniel realised that he had suffered a breakdown, but at that critical moment he was approached by the clandestine Alpha Group.
The war had dragged on for so many years that a small group of police and army officers had come to realize the facility of it all. Even more they had realised that they were on the side, not of the angels, but of the devil himself.
They decided that they must strive for an end to the bitter civil war, that they must force the white supremacist Smith government to accept a truce negotiated by Great Britain, and thereafter agree to a democratic and free election and the process of national reconciliation between the races. All the members of the Alpha Group were men whom Daniel admired; many were senior officers and most of them had been decorated for their courage and leadership. Daniel was drawn irresistibly to them.
Michael Hargreave had been the head of station for British intelligence in Rhodesia. They had first met once Daniel had committed himself to the Alpha Group. They had worked together closely and Daniel had played a minor role in the process that finally led to the end of those dreadful sufferings and excesses, and that culminated in the Lancaster House Agreement.
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