Someone Wishes to Speak to You (19 page)

After Montgomery had given them some background
information on the park’s wildlife, Mathew and Addie walked ahead, seating themselves on a shady rock next to a small lake. Addie took Mathew’s hand and said, ‘You know, Mathew, I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this morning. Really, I haven’t enjoyed anything nearly this much since before my mother died.’

Although Mathew failed to release his hand from Addie’s clasp, he stopped himself from saying how much he too had enjoyed their time together. Instead he decided to reply rather reservedly, ‘I always enjoy explaining to people the ways the monkeys interact with one another, especially to someone like you, who shows so much interest in them.’ Addie took Mathew’s reserve to be that of a typical well-brought-up Englishman, and in response to what he had just said she gently squeezed his fingers, leant over and kissed him on the cheek, before letting go of his hand, standing up and quickly suggesting that they should make the most of the morning’s opportunity to see as much of the botanical reserve as possible.

They walked along a network of footpaths between the ancient indigenous fern trees leading to borders of hydrangeas, fuschias, proteas, azaleas, lilies, begonias, and to many other introduced and indigenous species. Mathew decided to tell Addie something about the emotional entanglements that he had experienced over the last year.

‘You see Addie,’ he said rather shyly in an attempt to avoid any misunderstandings and to be as pragmatic as possible, ‘I do very much enjoy your company, and would indeed like to see you again, but in this state of mind I just don’t think I can handle a relationship. I genuinely hope we can become the best of friends.’

Addie greatly appreciated Mathew’s frankness and spontaneously, and gave him another generous kiss. With a smile that highlighted the two attractive dimples on her cheeks, she confirmed that she too would be very happy to develop a friendship without romantic complications.

By midday they returned to the park’s headquarters, where they found the Group Captain and Montgomery sipping a cool glass of Castle lager. As Addie’s father had so much enjoyed his conversation with the park’s director, he had asked him to join them for lunch. ‘I would be delighted to accept,’ said Montgomery. ‘The Leopard Rock is renowned for its five-course Sunday lunches, they do an English carvery – roast beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings – all the trimmings, as they say. It’s got such a good reputation, people come from as far away as Hot Springs and Melsetter.’

During the course of the meal, the majority of the conversation between Montgomery and the Group Captain was about the ramifications of the UN trade sanctions against Rhodesia. In particular, how these had affected tourism; the significant loss of revenue from admission fees to the country’s extensive network of national parks was starting to cause a shortfall in meeting the day-to-day running costs. Mathew, not wishing to become involved with the political pros and cons of the UN sanctions strategy, spent the majority of his time responding to a flow of enthusiastic questions from Addie, who wanted to know as much as possible about what he was hoping to establish in the long term from the monkey groups that he was working with.

When they moved into the lounge to have coffee, Montgomery started to talk about the slippage of the Portuguese security presence in Mozambique and the joint operations that were increasingly frequently taking place across the border between Rhodesia’s security forces (which included the expertly trained counter-insurgency specialists, the Selous Scouts), and the Portuguese army, against both ZANLA and FRELIMO.

‘Because of all these joint operations against the freedom fighters going on across the border,’ said Montgomery, ‘the Parks Department Head Office in Salisbury sent out a publication called
Anatomy of Terror
from the Ministry of Information. Basically, it’s a short history of insurgency terror
tactics from 1972 to 1974, with numerous illustrations of some of the atrocities, quite horrendous. Although obviously it’s a propaganda tool to highlight what Rhodesians are now having to deal with, it’s also designed to alert those living in rural areas to be constantly on their guard and to inform the BSAP or local security forces about anything suspicious in their vicinity.’

‘Do you think Umtali or this area of the Vumba mountains may be in current danger from terrorist attacks?’ asked Addie.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ replied Montgomery. ‘Not at this stage, but who knows what will happen in the future?’ The happy mood of the party had become more melancholy and in an attempt to deviate from the seriousness of Rhodesia’s escalating Bush War, Montgomery tried to take a slightly different angle. ‘It was only a couple of years ago, July 1972, that I had the opportunity to speak to Lieutenant General Peter Walls, the officer commanding the Rhodesian forces, about the security measures that he had organised for this border region of southeastern Rhodesia. I was very pleased to be able to tell him first-hand as a resident of the Vumba how effective the security forces had been against terrorist attacks.’

‘And long may it continue!’ said Addie.

‘Indeed. The occasion in question was when General Walls was invited as guest of honour at Plumtree School’s speech day to celebrate its seventieth birthday. We are both alumni of Plumtree – otherwise known as Old Prunitians. During his speech, the general highlighted the problems that Rhodesia was now facing due to what he considered to be the totally unjustified and unwarranted sanctions that had been forced on the country by the United Nations.’

A waiter came in to refill their coffee cups, causing Montgomery to pause just as Mathew was beginning to worry that the conversation was returning to the UN sanctions. ‘So you think General Walls is employing the right tactics to tackle this cross-border insurgency?’ he asked.

‘His measures seem to have been effective so far. Another interesting point General Walls made in his speech was that for the good and future welfare of all Rhodesian citizens, whether European or Africans, it is of huge importance for both communities to do everything possible to act together in order to combat future terrorist incursions and possible tribal conflict.’

With such food for thought, the time had come for Addie and the Group Captain to make their respective ways home in order to reach their destinations before nightfall. Mathew could at least be satisfied in the knowledge that he had been honest with Addie and hoped that though in its infancy, the seeds of a genuine friendship had been sown.

6

Chief Chidzikwee

On 25 April 1974, a left-wing military coup ousted the right-wing dictatorship of the Portuguese Prime Minister, Marcello Caetano, which immediately threw into doubt the future of Portuguese overseas provinces, in particular Angola and Mozambique. While Ian Smith’s government was attempting to settle with the British and Rhodesia’s African nationalist opponents (ZANU), FRELIMO Marxist armed troops fighting against the Portuguese took advantage of the crossing of the Zambezi River in the Tete Province of Mozambique.

The presence of FRELIMO along Rhodesia’s eastern frontiers meant that ZANLA, the armed wing of ZANU, had a safe haven in Mozambique from which to penetrate the adjacent tribal areas and so access the white farming areas of the region. During the latter part of the year, insurgency activities started to escalate Rhodesia’s Bush War on its eastern borders. When Mozambique obtained its independence from Portugal on 25 June 1975, further concerns were raised when President Samora Machel’s Marxist regime proclaimed a republic, with houses and businesses declared to be state owned, which resulted in a constant flow of Portuguese refugees crossing the border into Rhodesia.

During Mathew’s first year in the Vumba Mountains, he developed many friendships within both the European and
African communities. His friends included a number of staff from the small Umtali Museum, who helped him to identify various plant and invertebrate species, and the vets and laboratory staff who analysed the samples he sent on a weekly basis. Through Edgar Chidzikwee and Joshua Dombo, he gained a workable knowledge of the Manyika language and took the opportunity to meet a number of their friends.

Umtali had first come to the notice of both the Portuguese and British colonial powers in the latter part of the nineteenth century, when prospectors discovered gold in the Penhalonga Valley. Both nations were vying for the attention and favour of Chief Mutasa, the dominant ruler in the area. The name Umtali is derived from the local word
mutare
, meaning ‘piece of metal’. Following the granting of concessions by Chief Mutasa, a group of pioneers and a contingent of British South Africa Company (BSAC) police built a fort close to the chief’s
kraal
in November 1890. During the next decade a police camp was established, an administrative building erected in the township headed by a Civil Commissioner and, after an Anglo/Portuguese treaty, a rail link between the eastern coastal port of Beira in Mozambique and Salisbury was started in 1897.

George Pauling (a British engineer working for BSAC, which had acquired the construction rights) completed the rail link from Beira to a point on the boundary of British territory, but was then confronted by a major geographical hurdle. How could a train negotiate the steep gradient of Christmas Pass to reach Umtali? The township was 10 km north-west of the pass in the Penhalonga Valley. After having advised Cecil Rhodes (Prime Minister of the Cape at that time) of this dilemma, Rhodes visited Umtali and it was decided to relocate the small township 15 km south-east of Christmas Pass where the railway could service the settlement and continue its construction onwards to Salisbury. In 1902, the first part of Cecil Rhodes’ dream was achieved when his planned ‘Cape to Cairo’ railway reached Salisbury from the
Cape via Bulawayo, a through link of over 2,000 miles connecting Cape Town with Beira.

The new town of Umtali was surrounded on three sides by mountains, with Christmas Pass to the north-west, the main route to Salisbury. The township attained its city status in October 1971 and had recently become the centre of extensive commercial forestry operations, as well as agriculture involving the production of coffee, tea, and the cultivation of a range of deciduous fruit. The new Cecil Hotel had only recently been completed to replace the original building next door. With the expected increase of ZANLA activities from across the border, Rhodesia’s military presence in the region had been significantly supplemented by territorials and the old Cecil Hotel building had been taken over as the official headquarters of 3 Brigade (Manicaland).

Whenever Mathew visited Umtali to deliver his various samples or collect provisions, he either lunched at the Cecil Hotel or at the Umtali Sports Club, of which he had become a member. On these occasions, Mathew would take the opportunity to play tennis with staff attached to either the Provincial Commissioner’s (Manicaland) headquarters, or the District Commissioner’s office in Umtali. He became particularly good friends with a District Officer (DO), Jerome Prior, who was responsible for the area that included the Vumba Mountains. Jerome, known to his friends as Jim, had been educated at England’s oldest public school, the King’s School, Canterbury and Hertford College, Oxford before going to Rhodesia just prior to the country’s UDI. He had immediately fallen in love with his adopted home and fully concurred with the frequently quoted comment that Rhodesia was ‘God’s Own Country’. They not only played tennis together on a monthly basis, but Jim had also shown considerable interest in Mathew’s primate comparative field studies and, whenever he undertook one of his regular tours of duty in the Vumba area, he always visited the Castle Beacon camp.

Now that the threat of terrorist insurgency was deepening, Mathew was aware of the many changes that were taking place in Umtali. During the last twelve months, the relaxed attitude of its citizens had become more apprehensive and despondent. The majority of customers in the bars of the Cecil Hotel and the Umtali Sports Club were members of the military security forces from the Rhodesia Light Infantry (RLI) and BSAP personnel, which included officers of the CIO. At these venues, Mathew found that (in spite of a new emphasis on self-censorship) the conversation usually centred around recent terrorist incursions from across the border and how best to combat the insurgency resulting from the recent escalation of the Bush War.

Although Mathew had been frequently asked about his views on the Royal Navy’s blockade of Beira in connection with the UN international trade embargo on Rhodesia, he did everything possible to remain totally apolitical on all such matters. At times, he could not help thinking that if the worst possible scenario were to occur, with the Western powers being pressurised by the African Commonwealth countries to invade the country in order to overthrow the Smith regime, how ironic it would be should his brother’s Household Brigade of Life Guards become involved. In particular, with British forces having to fight against so many of their fellow countrymen, the majority of whom had either come out to the colony of Southern Rhodesia from the UK with their parents, or had more recently emigrated to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (FR&N) to settle. The majority of these immigrants considered they were there to help with the development of the country into a significant trading partner for the UK and other Commonwealth countries.

Edgar Chidzikwee was the second son of a tribal chieftain, a distant descendant of Chief Mutasa. Mathew’s first meeting
with Chief Chidzikwee took place at the beginning of 1975 at one of the Tribal Trust Lands (TTLs), known as Mutasa North. The tribal area of the Umtali district stretched from the north-west to the south-west of the city, a large tract of land prescribed by law to be used and occupied exclusively by the black population of the region.

Before the meeting, Edgar gave Mathew some background information about the traditional hostility that there had always been between the Ndebele tribal chiefs in Matabeleland and the Shona tribes of the eastern part of Rhodesia, and the various degrees of conflict within the Shona sub-ethnicities.