Black Mischief (5 page)

On
their heels came the hordes of Wanda and Sakuyu warriors. In the hills these
had followed in a diffuse rabble. Little units of six or a dozen trotted round
the stirrups of the headmen before them they drove geese and goats pillaged
from surrounding farms. Sometimes they squatted down to rest; sometimes they
ran to catch up. The big chiefs had bands of their own — mounted drummers
thumping great bowls of cowhide and wood, pipers blowing down six-foot chanters
of bamboo. Here and there a camel swayed above the heads of the mob. They were
armed with weapons of every kind: antiquated rifles, furnished with bandoliers
of brass cartridges and empty cartridge cases; short hunting spears, swords and
knives; the great, seven-foot broad-bladed spear of the Wanda; behind one
chief a slave carried a machine-gun under a velvet veil; a few had short bows
and iron-wood maces of immemorial design.

The
Sakuyu wore their hair in a dense fuzz; their chests and arms were embossed
with ornamental scars; the Wanda had their teeth filed into sharp points, their
hair braided into dozens of mud-caked pigtails. In accordance with their
unseemly usage, any who could wore strung round his neck the members of a slain
enemy.

As this
great host swept down on the city and surged through the gates, it broke into a
dozen divergent streams, spurting and trickling on all sides like water from a
rotten hose-pipe, forcing out jets of men, mounts and livestock into the
by-ways and back streets, eddying down the blind alleys and into enclosed
courts. Solitary musicians, separated from their bands, drum med and piped
among the straggling crowds; groups split away from the mêlée and began dancing
in the alleys; the doors of the liquor shops were broken in and a new and
nastier element appeared in the carnival, as drink-crazed warriors began to re-enact
their deeds of heroism, bloodily laying about their former comrades-in-arms
with knives and clubs.

‘God,’
said Connolly, ‘I shall be glad when I’ve got this menagerie off my hands. I
wonder if his nibs has really bolted. Anything is possible in this abandoned
country.’

No one
appeared in the streets. Only rows of furtive eyes behind the shuttered windows
watched the victors slow progress through the city. In the main square the
General halted the guards and such of the irregular troops as were still
amenable to discipline; they squatted on the ground, chewing at bits of sugar
cane, crunching nuts and polishing their teeth with little lengths of stick,
while above the drone of confused revelling which rose from the side streets,
Connolly from the saddle of his mule in classical form exhorted his legions.

‘Guards,’
he said loudly, ‘Chiefs and tribesmen of the Azanian Empire. Hear me. You are
good men. You have fought valiantly for your Emperor. The slaughter was very
splendid. It is a thing for which your children and your children’s children
will hold you in honour. It was said in the camp that the Emperor had gone over
the sea. I do not know if that is true. If he has, it is to prepare a reward
for you in the great lands. But it is sufficient reward to a soldier to have
slain his enemy.

‘Guards,
Chiefs and tribesmen of the Azanian Empire. The war is over. It is fitting that
you should rest and rejoice. Two things only I charge you are forbidden. The
white men, their houses, cattle, goods or women you must not take. Nor must you
burn anything or any of the houses nor pour out the petrol in the streets. If
any man do this he shall be killed. I have spoken. Long live the Emperor.

‘Go on,
you lucky bastards,’ he added in English. ‘Go .and make whoopee. I must get a
brush up and some food before I do anything else.’

He rode
across to the Grand Azanian Hotel. It was shut and barred. His two servants
forced the door and he went in. At the best of times, even when the fortnightly
Messageries liner was in and gay European sightseers paraded every corner of
the city, the Grand Azanian Hotel had a gloomy and unwelcoming air. On this
morning a chill of utter desolation struck through General Connolly as he
passed through its empty and darkened rooms. Every movable object had been
stripped from walls and floor and stowed away subterraneously during the
preceding night. But the single bath at least was a fixture. Connolly set his
servants to work pumping water and unpacking his uniform cases. Eventually an
hour later he emerged, profoundly low in spirits, but clean, shaved and very
fairly dressed. Then he rode towards the fort where the Emperor’s colours hung
limp in the sultry air. No sign of life came from the houses; no welcome; no
resistance. Marauding bands of his own people skulked from corner to corner;
once a terrified Indian rocketed up from the .gutter and shot across his path
like a rabbit. It was not until he reached the White Fathers’ mission that he
heard news of the Emperor. Here he encountered a vast Canadian priest with
white habit and sun-hat and spreading crimson beard, who was at that moment
occupied in shaking almost to death the brigade sergeant-major of the Imperial
Guard. At the General’s approach the reverend father released his victim with
one hand —keeping a firm grip in his woollen hair with the other — removed the
cheroot from his mouth and waved it cordially.

‘Hullo,
General, back from the wars, eh? They’ve been very anxious about you in the
city. Is this creature part of the victorious army?’

‘Looks
like one of my chaps. What’s he been up to?’

‘Up to?
I came in from Mass and found him eating my breakfast.’ A tremendous buffet on
the side of his head sent the sergeant-major dizzily across the road. ‘Don’t
you let me find any more of your fellows hanging round the mission today or
there’ll be trouble. It’s always the same when you have troops in a town. I
remember in Duke Japheth’s rebellion, the wretched creatures were all over the
place. They frightened the sisters terribly over at the fever hospital.’

‘Father,
is it true that the Emperor’s cut and rur?’

‘If he
hasn’t he’s about the only person. I had that old fraud of an Armenian
Archbishop in here the other night, trying to make me join him in a motor-boat.
I told him I’d sooner have my throat cut on dry land than face that crossing in
an open boat. I’ll bet he was sick.’

‘But
you don’t know where the Emperor is?’

‘He
might be over in the fort. He was the other day. Silly young ass, pasting up
proclamations all over the town. I’ve got other things to bother about than
young Seth. And mind you keep your miserable savages from my mission or they’ll
know the reason why. I’ve got a lot of our people camped in here so as to be
out of harm’s way, and I am not going to have them disturbed. Good morning to
you, General.’

General
Connolly rode on. At the fort he found no sentry on guard. The courtyard was
empty save for the body of Ali, which hay on its face in the dust, the cord
which had strangled him still tightly twined round his neck. Connolly turned it
over with his boot but failed to recognize the swollen and darkened face.

‘So His
Imperial Majesty
has
shot the moon.’

He
looked into the deserted guard-house and the lower rooms of the fort; then he
climbed the spiral stone staircase which led to Seth’s room, and here, lying
across the camp bed in spotted silk pyjamas recently purchased in the Place Vendôme,
utterly exhausted by the horror and insecurity of the preceding night, lay the
Emperor of Azania fast asleep.

From
his bed Seth would only hear the first, rudimentary statement of his victory.
Then he dismissed his commander-in-chief and with remarkable self-restraint
insisted on performing a complete and fairly elaborate toilet before giving
his mind to the details of the situation. When, eventually, he came downstairs
dressed in the full and untarnished uniform of the Imperial Horse Guards, he
was in a state of some elation. ‘You see, Connolly,’ he cried, clasping his
general’s hand with warm emotion, ‘I was right. I knew that it was impossible for
us to fail.’

‘We
came damn near it once or twice,’ said Connolly.

‘Nonsense,
my dear fellow. We are Progress and the New Age. Nothing can stand in our way.
Don’t
you see?
The world is already ours; it is our world now, because we are of
the Present. Seyid and his ramshackle band of brigands were the Past. Dark
barbarism. A cobweb in a garret; dead wood; a whisper echoing in a sunless
cave. We are Light and Speed and Strength, Steel and Steam, Youth, Today and
Tomorrow. Don’t you see? Our little war was won on other fields five centuries
back.’ The young darky stood there transfigured; his eyes shining; his head
thrown back; tipsy with words. The white man knocked out his pipe on the heel
of his riding boot and felt for a pouch in his tunic pocket.

‘All right,
Seth, say it your way. All I know is that
my
little war was won the day
before yesterday and by two very ancient weapons — lies and the long spear.’

‘But my
tank? Was it not that which gave us the victory?’

‘Marx’s
tin can? A fat lot of use that was. I told you you were wasting money, but you
would have the thing. The best thing you can do is to present it to Debra Dowa
as a war memorial, only you couldn’t get it so far. My dear boy, you can’t take
a machine like that over this country under this sun. The whole thing was red
hot after five miles. The two poor devils of Greeks who had to drive it nearly
went off their heads. It came in handy in the end though. We used it as a
punishment cell. It was the one thing these black bastards would really take notice
of. It’s all right getting on a high horse about progress now that everything’s
over. It doesn’t hurt anyone. But if you want to know, you were as near as
nothing to losing the whole bag of tricks at the end of last week. Do you know
what that clever devil Seyid had done? Got hold of a photograph of you taken at
Oxford in cap and gown. He had several thousand printed and circulated among
the guards. Told them you’d deserted the Church in England and that there you
were in the robes of an English Mohammedan. All the mission boys fell for it.
It was no good telling them. They were going over to the enemy in hundreds
every night. I was all in. There didn’t seem a damned thing to do. Then I got
an idea. You know what the name of Amurath means among the tribesmen. Well, I
called a shari of all the Wanda and Sakuya chiefs and spun them the yarn. Told
them that Amurath never died — which they believed already most of them — but
that he had crossed the sea to commune with the spirits of his ancestors; that
you were Amurath, himself, come back in another form. It went down from the
word go. I wish you could have seen their faces. The moment they’d heard the
news they were mad to be at Seyid there and then. It was all I could do to keep
them back until I had him where I wanted him. What’s more, the story got
through to the other side and in two days we had a couple of thousand of
Seyid’s boys coming over to us. Double what we’d lost on the Mohammedan story
and real fighters — not dressed-up mission boys. Well, I kept them back as best
I could for three days. We were on the crest of the hills al the time and Seyid
was down in the valley, kicking up the devil burning villages, trying to make
us come down to him. He was getting worried about the desertions. Well, on the
third day I sent half a company of guards down with a band and a whole lot of
mules and told them to make themselves as conspicuous as they could straight
in front of him in the Ukaka pass. Trust the guards to do that. He did just
what I expected; thought it was the whole army and spread out on both sides
trying to surround them. Then I let the tribesmen in on his rear. My word, I’ve
never seen such a massacre. Didn’t they enjoy themselves, bless them. Half of
them haven’t come back yet; they’re still chasing the poor devils all over the
hills.’

‘And
the usurper Seyid, did he surrender?’

‘Yes,
he surrendered all right. But, look here, Seth, I hope you aren’t going to mind
about this, but you see how it was, well, you see, Seyid surrendered and …’

‘You
don’t mean you’ve let him escape?’

‘Oh no,
nothing like that, but the fact is, he surrendered to a party of Wanda … and,
well, you know what the Wanda are.’

‘You
mean …..

‘Yes,
I’m afraid so. I wouldn’t have had it happen for anything. I didn’t hear about
it until afterwards.’

‘They
should not have eaten him — after all, he was my father … It is so … so
barbarous.’

‘I knew
you’d feel that way about it, Seth, and I’m sorry. I gave the headmen twelve
hours in the tank for it.’