She led us into an office, asked us to wait and vanished, to return very soon with the surgeon in tow.
Kemp said, ‘We’re very pleased to meet you, Doctor—’
He was a tall, saturnine Nyalan with a strong Asian streak, grey-haired and authoritative. He wore tropical whites which were smudged and blood-streaked. He put out a hand and took Kemp’s, and smiled a mouthful of very white teeth at all of us.
‘Katabisirua. But here everyone calls me Doctor Kat. It is a pleasure to have you here, especially at this moment.’
‘Doctor—Doctor Kat, I’m Basil Kemp of Wyvern Transport. You probably know what we’re doing here in Nyala. This is my partner, Mister Wingstead. Mister Hammond, our chief mechanic. Mister Mannix is from our associated company, British Electric.’ He ran through the introductions and there were handshakes all round, very formal. Ben hid a smile at the man’s nickname.
‘Gentlemen, I can offer you little hospitality. Please forgive me.’
Wingstead brushed this aside.
‘Of course you can’t, and we don’t expect it. There’s work to be done here. Let me say that I think we have got your water problem sorted out, thanks to some of my lads, provided you’ve got tanks or somewhere to store the stuff.’
Dr Kat’s eyes lit up. ‘Thank God. Water is a pressing need. We have a storage tank which is almost empty; I have been trying to take nothing from it until we knew about replacement, but naturally everyone is in need of it.’
‘We’ll get the tanker up here as soon as we can. We expect Captain Sadiq to join us soon; he’s the officer of the military detachment here. When he comes, I’ll get him to send a message to our camp,’ Wingstead said. He and Dr Kat were on the same wavelength almost immediately, both men of decision and determination. Basil Kemp’s tendency to surrender to irritation and his stubborn inability to keep his plans flexible would be easily overridden by these two.
‘Now, what about the electricity? We cannot make our generator work. We have bottled gas, but not much. What can you do to help us there?’ Dr Kat asked. He had another attribute, the calm assurance that every other man was willing to put himself and his possessions completely at the service of the hospital at any time. Without that self-confidence no man would have been capable of even beginning to run such a project, for the obstacles Katabisirua must have had to overcome in his time would have been enormous.
‘Hammond and I are going to have a look at your generator. We’ve some experience at that sort of thing. I can’t make any promises but we’ll do our best,’ Wingstead said.
Sister Ursula interrupted. ‘What about your refrigerator?’ she asked.
Dr Kat’s head came up alertly. ‘What refrigerator?’
Wingstead hadn’t known about last evening’s conversation and Kemp, for whatever motives I didn’t quite like to think about, hadn’t referred to it. Sister Ursula said firmly, ‘Doctor Kat, they have a working fridge on their transporter. We should send all the drugs that must be kept cold and as much food as possible down there immediately. We can save a lot of it.’
His face beamed. ‘But that’s wonderful!’
Sister Ursula went on inexorably, ‘And also they have electricity. Lights, cooking, even a deepfreeze. I saw all this last night. Isn’t that so, gentlemen?’
‘Of course we have,’ Wingstead concurred. ‘We’re going to do what we can to use our power supply to restart yours. We’ll have to get the rig up here, though, and that isn’t going to be at all easy.’
Kemp looked troubled. ‘I’ve been studying the road up here. What with the refugees and the condition of the road itself, I’d say it’s going to be damn near impossible, Geoff.’
The nun interrupted, her jaw set at its firmest. ‘But all we want is your generator. We don’t need that huge thing of yours. We could do with your deepfreeze too; and with the generator our own refrigerator will run. You gentlemen can manage without cold beer, but we need that facility of yours.’
The Wyvern team exchanged looks of despair.
‘Ma’am, Doctor Kat, that just isn’t possible,’ Hammond said at last.
‘Why not, please?’ The surgeon asked.
Sister Ursula showed that she’d picked up a bit of politics during her evening at our camp. ‘Mister Mannix,’ she said, ‘you represent a very wealthy company. Please explain to your colleagues that it is imperative that we have this facility! I am sure your board of executives will approve. It is of the highest importance.’
I was dumbfounded and showed it. ‘Sister, that just isn’t the problem. British Electric would give you anything you asked for, but they’re not here. And the reason you can’t have the generator isn’t economic, it’s technical. Explain, someone.’
Hammond took up a pad of paper lying on the desk, and his pen began to fly over the paper as he sketched rapidly.
‘Look here, ma’am. You too, Doctor.’
They bent over the sheet of paper and I peered over Ben’s shoulder. He had produced a lightning and very competent sketch of the entire rig. He pointed to various parts as he spoke, and it must have been obvious to his whole audience that he was speaking the truth.
‘Here’s the generator. To drive it you have to have an engine, and that’s here. The actual generator is really a part of the engine, not a separate section. If you looked at it, just here, you’d see that the engine casting and the generator casting are one and the same; it’s an integral unit.’
‘Then we must have the engine too,’ said Sister Ursula practically.
Kemp choked.
Hammond shook his head. ‘Sorry. The engine has much more to do than just drive this generator. Sure, it provides the electricity to power the fridge and freezer, and light the camp at night and stuff like that, but that’s just a bonus.’
He pointed to the illustration of the transformer.
‘This big lump on its trailer is now resting on the ground, practically. Before we can move off we have to lift three hundred and thirty tons—that’s the load plus the platform it’s resting on—through a vertical distance of three feet. It’s done hydraulically and it needs a whole lot of power, which comes from the engine. And when we’re moving we must have power for the brakes which are also hydraulically operated. Without this engine we’re immobile.’
‘Then you must—’
Hammond anticipated the nun’s next demand.
‘We can’t ditch our load. It took a couple of pretty hefty cranes to get it in place, and it’d need the same to shift it off its base. Some flat-bed trucks have the mobility to tip sideways, but this one hasn’t, so we can’t spill it off. And any attempt to do so will probably wreck the entire works.’
It was stalemate. Kemp tried to hide his sigh of relief.
Into the disappointed silence Wingstead spoke. ‘Don’t be too downhearted. We
can
refrigerate your drugs and a lot of your food too, if you think it’s safe to do so, at least while we’re here. And we can probably get the whole rig up here so that we can couple up with your lighting and sterilizing units.’
Sister Ursula did look thoroughly downcast.
Katabisirua said gently, ‘Never mind, Sister. It was a good idea, but we will have others.’
‘But they’re going to be moving along. Then what can we do?’
Wingstead said, ‘We won’t be moving anywhere for a bit, not until we know a little more about the general situation and have a decent plan of action. Let’s take this one step at a time, shall we? I think we should go back to our camp now. Would you like to make a pack of all your drugs that need to go into the refrigerator, Sister? We’ll take them with us. If you need any in the meantime we can arrange for the Captain to put a motorcyclist at your disposal. What do you suggest we do for our wounded pilot?’
‘I will come with you. I think I should see him. They must spare me here for a little while,’ the Doctor said. After a quick conference, Sister Ursula went off to supervise the packing of drugs and other items that could do with refrigeration, while Dr Kat collected the ubiquitous little black bag and said that he was ready to go.
We found a soldier standing guard over the Land Rover, and parked nearby was Sadiq’s staff car. The Captain was speaking to a knot of Nyalan men, presumably the elders of Kodowa, but left them to join us.
‘Good morning, sir. You are better now?’ This was addressed to Wingstead, who nodded cheerfully.
‘I would like to know what your plans are, sir. There is much to do here, but do you intend to continue upcountry?’ Sadiq asked.
‘We’re not going immediately,’ Wingstead said. I noticed how easily he took over command from Kemp, and how easily Kemp allowed him to do so. Kemp was entirely content to walk in his senior partner’s shadow on ail matters except, perhaps, for the actual handling of the rig itself. I
wasn’t sorry. Geoff Wingstead could make decisions and was flexible enough to see alternative possibilities as he went along. He was a man after my own heart.
Now he went on, ‘I’d like to discuss plans with you, Captain, but we have to sort ourselves out first. We are going to try and help the doctor here, but first we’re going back to camp. Can you join me there in a couple of hours, please?’
At this moment Sadiq’s sergeant called him over to the staff car, holding out earphones. Sadiq listened and then turned dials around until a thin voice, overlaid with static, floated out to us as we crowded round the car. ‘Radio Nyala is on the air,’ Sadiq said.
It was a news broadcast apparently, in Nyalan, which after a while changed into English. The voice was flat and careful and the words showed signs that they had come under the heavy hand of government censorship. Apparently ‘dissident elements’ of the Army and Air Force had rioted in barracks but by a firm show of force the Government had checked the rebels. The ringleaders were shortly to stand trial in a military court. There was no need for civil unease. No names or places were given. There was no mention of Kodowa. And there was no other news. The voice disappeared into a mush of palm court music.
I smiled sourly as I listened to this farrago. Next week, if the Government survived, the ‘dissident elements’ would be plainly labelled as traitors. The news broadcasts would never refer to a state of war, nor give more than the most shadowy version of the truth. Of course, all that depended on whether the broadcast station remained in government hands. If the rebels took it there would be an entirely different version of the ‘truth’.
None of us made much comment on what we’d heard, all recognizing it for the fallacy that it was. We piled into the Land Rover with Dr Kat and drove back in silence to the convoy camp.
Three hours later after a short discussion with Wingstead I gathered the people I wanted for a conference. But I had decided that this wasn’t going to be a committee meeting; I wasn’t going to put up my proposals to be voted on. This was to be an exchange of ideas and information, but the only person who was going to have the final say was me.
I had found McGrath shaving in front of his tractor. ‘Mick, you’ve just got your old rank back.’ He looked a bit blank while the lather on his chin dried in the hot sun. ‘You’re back to sergeant. We might be going through a tough time in the next few days, and I want someone to keep the crew whipped in line. Think you can do it?’
He gave a slow grin. ‘I can do it.’
‘Hurry up with your shaving. I want you to sit in on a conference.’
So we had McGrath, Hammond, Kemp, Wingstead, Captain Sadiq and me. Katabisirua had been joined at our camp by Sister Ursula and they were included as a matter of courtesy; any decisions would affect them and in any case I didn’t think I had the power to keep them out. I had already realized they made a strong team: just how strong I was shortly to find out.
Firstly I outlined the geographical position, and gave them my reasons for changing our direction. Instead of
going on up to the arid fastness of Bir Oassa we would turn at right angles and take the secondary road to the Manzu border at Lake Pirie on the Katali River. Here we had two options whereas at Bir Oassa we had only one, or slightly less than one; we could turn back along the coast road to Lasulu and the capital if the country had by then settled its internal quarrel and things were judged safe, or we could get the men at least across the Katali into Manzu and diplomatic immunity.
Wingstead had already heard all this from me and was resigned to the possibility of losing his rig and convoy, and of not being able to fulfil the terms of his contract with the Nyalan Government. He did not contest my arguments. I had already spoken to Kemp, and Hammond had heard it all from him. Kemp was still obviously fretting but Hammond’s faith in Wingstead was all-encompassing. If his boss said it was OK, he had no objections. I asked McGrath what he thought the men’s reactions might be.
‘We haven’t got much choice, the way I see it. You’re the boss. They’ll see it your way.’ He implied that they’d better, which suited me very well.
Sadiq was torn between a sense of duty and a sense of relief. To take the long hard road up to the desert, with all its attendant dangers, and without any knowledge of who or what he’d find waiting there, was less attractive than returning to a known base, in spite of the unknown factors waiting in that direction as well. But there was one problem he didn’t have that we did; any decision concerning the moving of the rig.
We discussed, briefly, the possible state of the road back. It was all guesswork which Kemp loathed, but at least we knew the terrain, and there was a bonus of the fact that it was principally downhill work, redescending the plateau into the rainforest once more. We would not run short of water; there were far more people and therefore more
chance of food and even of fuel. And we wouldn’t be as exposed as we would be if we continued on through the scrublands. I hadn’t discounted the likelihood of aerial attack.
Hammond and Kemp, with an escort of soldiers, were to scout ahead to check out the road while McGrath and Bert Proctor began to organize the convoy for its next stage forward, or rather backward. Wingstead asked McGrath to call a meeting of the crew, so that he could tell them the exact score before we got down to the business of logistics. Everything was falling nicely into place, including my contingency plans to help the hospital as much as possible before we pulled out.
Everything didn’t include the inevitable X factor. And the X factor was sitting right there with us.
The moment of change came when I turned to Dr Katabisirua and said to him, ‘Doctor Kat, those drugs of yours that we have in refrigeration for you; how vital are they?’
He tented his fingers. ‘In the deepfreeze we have serum samples and control sera; also blood clotting agents for our few haemophiliac patients. In the fridge there is whole blood, plasma, blood sugars, insulin and a few other things. Not really a great deal as we try not to be dependent on refrigeration. It has been of more use in saving some of our food, though that is being used up fast.’
I was relieved to hear this; they could manage without refrigeration if they had to. After all, most tropical mission hospitals in poor countries work in a relative degree of primitiveness.
‘We’ll keep your stuff on ice as long as possible,’ I said. ‘And we’re going to have a go at repairing your generator. We’ll do all we can before leaving.’
Dr Kat and Sister Ursula exchanged the briefest of glances, which I interpreted, wrongly, as one of resignation.
‘Captain Sadiq,’ the Doctor said, ‘Do you have any idea at all as to whether there will be a measure of governmental control soon?’
Sadiq spread his hands. ‘I am sorry, no,’ he said. ‘I do not know who is the Government. I would do my best for all civilians, but I have been told to stay with Mister Mannix and protect his convoy particularly, you see. It is very difficult to make guesses.’
They spoke in English, I think in deference to us.
‘The people of Kodowa will scatter among the smaller villages soon,’ Kat said. ‘The area is well populated, which is why they needed a hospital. Many of them have already gone. But that solution does not apply to my patients.’
‘Why not?’ Kemp asked.
‘Because we do not have the staff to scatter around with them, to visit the sick in their homes or the homes of friends. Many are too sick to trust to local treatment. We have many more patients now because of the air raid.’
‘How many?’
‘About fifty bed patients, if we had the beds to put them in, and a hundred or more ambulatory patients. In this context they could be called the “walking wounded”,’ he added acidly.
‘So it is only a matter of extra shelter you need,’ said Sadiq. I knew he was partly wrong, but waited to hear the Doctor put it into words.
‘It is much more than that, Captain. We need shelter, yes, but that is not the main problem. We need medical supplies but we can manage for a while on what we have. But our patients need nursing, food and water.’
‘There will be dysentery here soon,’ put in Sister Ursula. ‘There is already sepsis, and a lack of hygiene, more than we usually suffer.’
‘They also are vulnerable to the depredations of marauding bands of rebels,’ said Dr Kat, a sentence I felt
like cheering for its sheer pomposity. But he was right for all that.
‘As are we all, including the younger nurses,’ added the Sister. It began to sound like a rather well-rehearsed chorus and Wingstead and I exchanged a glance of slowly dawning comprehension.
‘Am I not correct, Mister Mannix, in saying that you consider it the safest and most prudent course for your men to leave Kodowa, to try and get away to a place of safety?’
‘You heard me say so, Doctor.’
‘Then it follows that it must also be the correct course for my patients.’
For a long moment no-one said anything, and then I broke the silence. ‘Just how do you propose doing that?’
Katabisirua took a deep breath. This was the moment he had been building up to. ‘Let me see if I have everything right that I have learned from you. Mister Hammond, you say that the large object you carry on your great vehicle weighs over three hundred tons, yes?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘Could you carry another seven tons?’
‘No trouble at all,’ said Hammond.
‘Seven tons is about the weight of a hundred people,’ said Katabisirua blandly.
Or one more elephant, I thought with a manic inward chuckle. The silence lengthened as we all examined this bizarre proposition. It was broken by the Doctor, speaking gently and reasonably, ‘I am not suggesting that you take us all the way to the coast, of course. There is another good, if small, hospital at Kanja on the north road, just at the top of the next escarpment. It has no airfield and is not itself important, so I do not think it will have been troubled by the war. They could take care of us all.’
I doubted that and didn’t for a moment think that Dr Kat believed it either, but I had to hand it to him; he was
plausible and a damned good psychologist. Not only did his proposition sound well within the bounds of reason and capability, but I could tell from the rapt faces around me that the sheer glamour of what he was suggesting was beginning to put a spell on them. It was a
Pied Piper
sort of situation, stuffed with pathos and heroism, and would go far to turn the ignominious retreat into some sort of whacky triumph. The Dunkirk spirit, I thought—the great British knack of taking defeat and making it look like victory.
There was just one little problem. Kanja, it appeared, was on the very road that we had already decided to abandon, heading north into the desert and towards the oilfields at Bir Oassa. I was about to say as much when to my astonishment Wingstead cut in with a question which implied that his thinking was not going along with mine at all.
He said, ‘How far to Kanja?’
‘About fifty miles. The road is quite good. I have often driven there,’ the Doctor said.
Hammond spoke up. ‘Excuse me, Doctor. Is it level or uphill?’
‘I would say it is fairly flat. There are no steep hills.’
McGrath said, ‘We could rig awnings over the bogies to keep off the sun.’
Hammond asked, his mind seething with practicalities, ‘Fifty odd patients, and a staff of—?’
‘Say ten,’ said Sister Ursula.
‘What about all the rest, then?’
‘They would walk. They are very hardy and used to that, and even those who are wounded will manage. There are a few hospital cars but we have no spare petrol. I believe you do not go very fast, gentlemen.’
‘We could take some up on top of the trucks. And we’ve got your car, Mister Mannix, and Mister Kemp’s Land Rover, and perhaps the military could give up some space,’ Hammond said.
‘And the tractors?’ the Sister asked.
‘No, ma’am. They’re packed inside with steel plates set in cement, and the airlift truck is full of machinery and equipment we might need. But there’s room on top of all of them. Awnings would be no problem?’
McGrath said, ‘There’d be room for a couple of the nippers in each cab, like as not.’
‘Nippers?’ the Doctor asked.
‘The children,’ McGrath said.
I looked from face to face. On only one of them, and that predictably was Basil Kemp’s, did I see a trace of doubt or irritation. Minds were taking fire as we talked. Geographical niceties were either being entirely overlooked or deliberately avoided, and somehow I couldn’t bring myself to dash cold water on their blazing enthusiasm. But this was madness itself.
Dr Kat regarded the backs of his hands and flexed his fingers thoughtfully. ‘I may have to operate while we are travelling. Would there be room for that?’
‘Room, yes, but it would be too bumpy, Doctor. You’d have to work whenever we were stopped,’ said Hammond. He had a notebook out and was already making sketches.
Sadiq spoke. ‘I think my men can walk and the wounded will ride. They are our people and we must take care of them.’ He squared his shoulders as he spoke and I saw the lifting of a great burden from his soul; he had been given a job to do, something real and necessary no matter which side was winning the mysterious war out there. It called for simple logistics, basic planning, clear orders, and he was capable of all that. And above all, it called for no change in the route once planned for him and us by his masters. It was perfect for him. It solved all his problems in one stroke.
Sister Ursula stood up.
‘Have you a measuring tape, Mister Hammond?’
‘Yes, ma’am. What do you want it for?’ he asked.
‘I want to measure your transport. I must plan for beds.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you want.’
McGrath lumbered to his feet. ‘I’ll go round up the lads, Mister Wingstead,’ he said. ‘You’ll be wanting to talk to them yourself.’ The Doctor too rose, dusting himself off fastidiously. He made a small half-bow to Geoff Wingstead. ‘I have to thank you, sir,’ he said formally. ‘This is a very fine thing that you do. I will go back now, please. I have many arrangements to make.’
Sadiq said, ‘I will take the Doctor and then prepare my own orders. I will come back to advise you, Mister Mannix. We should not delay, I think.’
Around us the conference melted away, each member intent on his or her own affairs. Astonishingly, nobody had waited to discuss this new turn of events or even to hear from the so-called bosses as to whether it was even going to happen. In a matter of moments Kemp, Wingstead and I were left alone. For once I felt powerless.
Kemp shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s all quite mad,’ he said. ‘We can’t possibly get involved in this—this—’
‘Stunt?’ Wingstead asked gently. ‘Basil, we
are
involved. I’ve never seen a piece of manipulation more skilfully done. Those two have run rings round the lot of us, and there isn’t any way that we could put a stop to this business. And what’s more,’ he went on, overriding Kemp’s protests, ‘I don’t think I’d want to stop it. It is crazy, but it sounds feasible and it’s humanely necessary. And it’s going to put a lot of heart into our lads. None of them likes what’s happened, they feel frustrated, cheated and impotent.’
I finally got a word in. ‘Geoff, we’d already decided that we shouldn’t carry on northwards. This would be a very fine thing to do, but—’
‘You too, Neil? Surely you’re not going to fight me on this. I think it’s damned important. Look, it’s fifty miles.
Two, maybe three days extra, getting there and back here to Kodowa. Then we’re on our own again. And there’s something else. The news that we must turn back is one they were going to take damned hard. This way they’ll at least have the feeling that they’ve done something worthwhile.’
He stretched his arms and yawned, testing the stiffness in his side.
‘And so will I. So let’s get to it.’
Down near the commissariat truck McGrath had called all hands together. Wingstead and I went to meet them. On the way I stopped and called Bishop over to give him an instruction that brought first a frown and then a grin to his face. He in turn summoned Bing and they vanished. ‘What did you tell him?’ Wingstead asked.