Going Solo Read online

  ‘It is a long distance, bwana, and it took four hours each way. That is why I am so late. I am sorry to be so late.’

  Mdisho stopped. He had finished his story. I knew it was true. The German sisal-owner was called Fritz Kleiber and he was a wealthy and extremely unpleasant bachelor. It was rumoured that he treated his workers badly and had been known to beat them with a sjambok, which is a murderous whip made of rhinoceros hide. I wondered why he hadn’t been rounded up by our people before Mdisho got to him. They were probably on the way out there now. They were in for a shock.

  ‘And you, bwana!’ Mdisho cried out. ‘How many did you get today?’

  ‘How many what?’ I said.

  ‘Germani, bwana, Germani! How many did you get with that fine machine-gun you had out on the road?’

  I looked at him and smiled. I refused to blame him for what he had done. He was a wild Mwanumwezi tribesman who had been moulded by us Europeans into the shape of a domestic servant, and now he had broken the mould.

  ‘Have you told anyone else what you have done?’

  ‘Not yet, bwana, I came to you first.’

  ‘Now listen carefully,’ I said. ‘You must tell nobody about this, not your father, not your wives, not your best friend and not Piggy the cook. Do you understand me?’

  ‘But I must tell them!’ he cried. ‘You cannot take that pleasure away from me, bwana!’

  ‘You must not tell them, Mdisho,’ I said.

  ‘But why not?’ he cried. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ I lied.

  ‘Then why must I not tell my people?’ he asked again.

  I tried to explain to him how the authorities would react if they found him out. It simply wasn’t done to go round chopping heads off civilians, even in wartime. It could mean prison, I told him, or even worse than that.

  He couldn’t believe me. He was absolutely shattered.

  ‘I myself am tremendously proud of you,’ I said, trying to make him feel better. ‘To me you are a great hero.’

  ‘But only to you, bwana?’

  ‘No, Mdisho. I think you would be a hero to most of the British people here if they knew what you had done. But that doesn’t help. It is the police who would go after you.’

  ‘The police!’ he cried in horror. If there was one thing in Dar es Salaam that every local was terrified of, it was the police. The police constables were all blacks, acting under a couple of white officers at the top, and they were not famous for being gentle with prisoners.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘the police.’ I felt pretty sure they would charge Mdisho with murder if they caught him.

  ‘If it is the police, then I will keep quiet, bwana,’ he said, and all of a sudden he looked so downcast and disillusioned and defeated that I couldn’t bear it. I got up from the chair and crossed the room and took the scabbard of the sword down from the wall. ‘I shall be leaving you very soon,’ I said. ‘I have decided to join the war as a flier of aeroplanes.’ The only word for aeroplane in the Swahili language is ndegi, which means bird, and it always sounded good and descriptive in a sentence. ‘I am going to fly birds,’ I said. ‘I shall fly English birds against the birds of the Germani.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ Mdisho cried, brightening again suddenly at the mention of war. ‘I will come with you, bwana.’

  ‘Sadly, that will be impossible,’ I said. ‘In the beginning I shall be nothing but a very humble bird-soldier of the lowest rank, like your most junior askaris here, and I shall be living in barracks. There would be no question of me being allowed to have somebody to help me. I shall have to do everything for myself, including the washing and ironing of my shirts.’

  ‘That would be absolutely impossible, bwana,’ Mdisho said. He was genuinely shocked.

  ‘I shall manage quite well,’ I told him.

  ‘But do you know how to iron a shirt, bwana?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You must teach me that secret before I go.’

  ‘Will it be very dangerous, bwana, where you are going, and do those Germani birds have many guns?’

  ‘It might be dangerous,’ I said, ‘but the first six months will be nothing but fun. It takes six months for them to teach you how to fly a bird.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ he asked.

  ‘First to Nairobi,’ I answered. ‘They will start us on very small birds in Nairobi, and then we will go somewhere else to fly the big ones. We shall be travelling a great deal with very little luggage. That is why I shall have to leave this sword behind. It would be impossible to carry a great big thing like this with me wherever I go. So I am giving it to you.’

  ‘To me!’ he cried. ‘Oh no, bwana, you mustn’t do that! You will need it where you are going!’

  ‘Not in a bird,’ I said. ‘There is no room to swing a sword when you are sitting in one of those.’ I handed him the beautiful curved silver scabbard. ‘You have earned it,’ I said. ‘Now go away and wash the blade very well indeed. Make sure there is no trace of blood left on it anywhere. Then wipe it with oil and return it to its glove. Tomorrow I shall hand you a chit saying that I have given it to you. The chit is important.’

  He stood there holding the sword in one hand and the scabbard in the other, staring at them with eyes as bright as two stars.

  But one thing you might do – let me know by telegram if you change your address – that is if it isn’t too expensive – and mind you do change your address pretty soon. It’s absolute madness to stay anywhere in the East of England now. You’ll have parachute troops landing on the lawn if you don’t look out.

  ‘I am presenting it to you for bravery,’ I said. ‘But you must not tell that to anybody. Tell them simply that I gave it to you as a going-away present.’

  ‘Yes, bwana,’ he said. ‘That is what I shall tell them.’ He paused for a moment and looked me straight in the eye. ‘Tell me truthfully, bwana,’ he said, ‘are you really and truly glad that I killed the big Germani sisal-grower?’

  ‘We killed one today as well,’ I said.

  ‘You did?’ Mdisho cried. ‘You killed one, too?’

  ‘We had to do it or he would probably have killed me.’

  ‘Then we are equal, bwana,’ he said, smiling with his wonderful white teeth. ‘That makes us exactly equal, you and me.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose it does.’

  Flying Training

  In November 1939, when the war was two months old, I told the Shell Company that I wanted to join up and help in the fight against Bwana Hitler, and they released me with their blessing. In a wonderfully magnanimous gesture, they told me that they would continue to pay my salary into the bank wherever I might happen to be in the world and for as long as the war lasted and I remained alive. I thanked them very much indeed and got into my ancient little Ford Prefect and set off on the 600-mile journey from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi to enlist in the RAF.

  When one is quite alone on a lengthy and slightly hazardous journey like this, every sensation of pleasure and fear is enormously intensified, and several incidents from that strange two-day safari up through central Africa in my little black Ford have remained clear in my memory.

  A frequent and always wonderful sight was the astonishing number of giraffe that I passed on the first day. They were usually in groups of three or four, often with a baby alongside, and they never ceased to enthral me. They were surprisingly tame. I would see them ahead of me nibbling green leaves from the tops of acacia trees by the side of the road, and whenever I came upon them I would stop the car and get out and walk slowly towards them, shouting inane but cheery greetings up into the sky where their small heads were waving about on their long long necks. I often amazed myself by the way I behaved when I was certain that there were no other human beings within fifty miles. All my inhibitions would disappear and I would shout, ‘Hello, giraffes! Hello! Hello! Hello! How are you today?’ And the giraffes would incline their heads very slightly and stare down at me with languorous demure