Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa (19 page)

  So I went with
him, and after a substantial Indian supper, bed and breakfast, and paying the
bill, I returned next day in the Land Rover with two of his workers.

Piet and Margriet
were no longer at the lodge. The warden informed us they had spent the night
there and got a lift in the morning to the main camp.

It was after four
before Susi and Chuma (the ghosts of Livingstone's last bearers?) finished the
job, and you can be sure I tipped them handsomely. I drove on to the main camp.
The swift tropical night overtook me on the way. I spotted two headlights
following me. People were supposed to be out of the park before dark, and these
were escorting me to safety.   

I found my friends
at the main camp: Margriet slightly worn, Piet hopping up and down, complaining
about a most awful sleepless night in a rondavel at the gate: 'bitten by rats
and pissed on by bats'.

We spent a few days
in the park. The usual animals: a black rhino out on the plain, a giraffe in
the woods, a pride of lion lazing in the afternoon. All this from the official
vehicle. Then on the road again.

And a terrible
road! I described it in mental letters home as 'like a dry river bed'; then we
saw such a river bed running alongside the road, which looked in better
condition than the road, so we used that for a few miles until it parted
company out of disgust with the dreadful road, which we were forced to resume.

Then out in the
lonely landscape, we came upon a branch road with a sign: TO OLDUVAI GORGE 9
MILES. Sure enough, it ran down into a valley. We were sorely tempted to visit
that cradle of mankind, but the road looked so terrible we despaired of getting
back.

Soon we came to
another great place, the Ngorongoro crater: a strange Garden of Eden, left by
an enormous spent volcano, millions of years ago. An impossible road ran down here
also, but the warning, FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES ONLY, was only too real, and
we had to let it go. We got a limited view from the top of the road, but I was
eager to climb the thirty-foot rim of the crater. Prudent Piet said, 'Look out
for lions!', and he and Margriet remained in the car. I was nervous, but this
did not hold me back. A short scramble up the grassy bank and I was looking
into the great theatre below - the Greatest Show on Earth: 2000 feet deep and
ten miles across. (If we had known then quite what a wonderful place it was, we
must have taken a guided tour.) From my distance the wildebeest were like ants
and the elephants like mice, the lions invisible. In fact, Piet's warning was
unnecessary: the lions had everything they wanted down below.

And at my back the
bulk of Oldeani filled a quarter of the sky - a landscape of the giants!

Next we entered the
Manyara park, by underhand means I had not suspected in Piet. On the way we had
come across a party in a Land Rover, calling themselves the United Nations
Hydrometric Project. They were based in the park. Soon after, Piet told me:
'The locals only have to pay two dollars a day to stay at these game parks, and
foreigners have to pay five, vich I think is a svindle.' I was not sure if his
reasoning was just, but said nothing. 'Leave it to me,' he added.

We came to the gate
lodge of Manyara park. Piet got out and announced to the warden in an
important-sounding voice: 'I am Professor Von Glockenspiel, of the United
Nations Hydrometric Project. I believe some of my boys came this vay.'

'O, yes, bwana,'
confirmed the warden, and next thing they opened the barrier without extracting
a single dollar from us. What's more, we spent two free nights in the lodge of
the hydrometric men, who even seemed to think we had something to do with them,
and treated us to a day's guided game-viewing into the bargain.

As I said, we were
in the land of the giants. Next day we reached Arusha, where Meru greeted us,
and later in the afternoon, the queen of them all - Kilimanjaro.

We must have been
twenty miles away when on the north-eastern horizon a curtain of cloud began to
lift, like the curtain of a theatre. What met our eyes was incredible. Step by
step a vast green wall grew before us, filling the north-eastern sky and barely
contracting to reveal the snowy crest, gleaming gold in the evening sun: Kilimanjaro,
19,000 feet high, fifty miles across, one of the most dramatic and majestic
sights on earth.

We called at
another mission, not to stay, but for Piet to look up old friends. Everyone was
out except for a small African brother. Piet asked after the others.

'How is Father
Francis?'

'He is very fine.'

'And how is Father
Joseph?'

'He is very fine.'

'And how is Brother
Martin?'

'O, it was very sad
about Brother Martin.'

'Is he dead?'

'No. He is
married.'

On the way to the
coast, something fell out of the sump, and we had to fill up with oil every ten
miles. Piet started moaning again.

'Varren, I don't
feel I am on holiday. Ven vee set out vee vere spending von day in the garage
and two days on the road. Now vee are spending two days in the garage and von
day on the road. I think that guy svindled you ven he sold you this old car.'

'Think of Stanley
and Livingstone, Piet. They didn't have it too easy.'

'But they veren't on
holiday!' protested Piet. 'They vere doing it for a job!'

We stayed at a
holiday camp on the coast called Kanamai: sort of Club Mediterranée, full of
young people.

One day I went
swimming. The tide was out beyond the coral reef, but I pressed on, climbed
over the reef and plunged into the surf.

Then I noticed with
alarm that I was drifting out to sea. The heavy wave carried me towards the
reef, but the undertow drew me outwards, and the undertow was stronger than the
wave. After each wave I found myself farther out. I vaguely remembered stories
of people drowning in the surf. This must be the reason.

I turned and began
desperately swimming towards the reef. The waves helped me, but the undertow
that followed was a battle. Finally, a wave cast me onto the reef, where I
grazed my legs badly and began to bleed. Happily, the next wave did not pluck
me off again, or the sharks might have got scent of my blood.

I limped bleeding
into camp, where Piet gave me a lecture about swimming beyond the reef.

We visited places
on the coast. Mombasa, where we explored Fort Jesus. One of the Portuguese
sailors of three centuries ago had made a beautiful carving of a caravel on a
wooden lintel. Modern sailors would have carved something different, no doubt.
Autres
temps, autres moeurs!

We visited Malindi,
with its narrow Arab streets and lovely white buildings. Here I parted company
with my friends, who had taken two weeks more leave than me, and made my way
home alone.

Down to Tanga, then
Dar, where something happened to the gears, and I was forced to drive through
the teeming city in first gear, with traffic building up and protesting behind
me, until I could find yet another Indian garage.

Then back along the
hell run. Morogoro only on the first day; the lovely hill town of Iringa on the
next, like one of the hill towns of Spain or Italy. And another lovely African
country inn to stay at: the White Horse.

Now I was among the
Southern Highlands of Tanzania; not the giants of the north, but beautiful too,
like the Highlands of Scotland, with the same rivers running in rocky beds in
the valleys.

And so to Mbeya. I
asked to stay at the mission, but the bishop had banned guests, except for
their own people. Too many people had failed to make the customary donation. So
I was glad enough to stay at the good old inn.

Back down to
Chilonga, which was still taking guests. At supper a jolly clerical
conversation took place.

'Doctor comes from
just near me in UK,' announced Father Harrison. 'He comes from Liverpool. I
come from Manchester.'

'I have heard of
Liverpool,' commented Father Schmidt, 'but I have never heard of Manchester.'

Father Harrison
eyed him narrowly. 'Cheeky booger!'

And so, after
another boring 400 miles, I was running up the drive of my house, just after
dark. All lights were on; music sounded; people everywhere; drinks, food: Billy
had prepared a party to welcome home the weary wanderer.

In that old car I
had covered a distance of 4000 miles, including some of the roughest roads in
the world.

3 -
Through the Congo

When I came to the end of my contract in
Zambia at the end of May, 1972, I decided to make my way home through the
Congo. Various men whose contracts were ending at the same time or who were
going on long leave promised to go with me, excited by the romantic name,
usually in their cups in the Long Bar. Next day, the now dreaded name made
strong men blanch and remember previous commitments. One ex-Congo mercenary
offered to accompany me  - 'in a Ferret car'  - but he was not free at the time
anyway.

So, in the end, like the little red hen,
I did it myself.

The Congo was then enjoying a rare
period of calm in the years since its independence, and in the event I had no
trouble at all. Most of the crooks in a country like that are in uniform, and
robbing travellers by means of dubious or misused regulations is their main
source of income. I did not realise it at the time but it later occurred to me
that I had probably been taken for a priest, and as everyone knows, a priest is
not worth robbing. For I was not travelling in the ancient Victor (which I had
sold to Billy): the Congo being too ambitious altogether even for that
resilient vehicle. I was entrusting myself to public transport: rail, river and
air.

I looked like a priest for two reasons:
my sole luggage was a battered suitcase, and I was wearing a black safari suit
with long trousers - the only one left in the shop. Under the jacket, as it was
winter, I wore a grey polo-necked sweater, which enhanced my clerical
appearance.

Some effects I sent home in a box. I had
given away a canteen of cutlery to old Peter, my cook. I had no books to send -
those I had borrowed from the Kitwe library, and two I took with me to read on
the journey: Barnaby Rudge and Martin Chuzzlewit, which I intended to post back
when I got home. That left only my LPs, which I had not trusted to the box.

I took the LPs along to the post office,
and asked for them to be sent by surface. 'Five dollars,' said the clerk. This
sounded high to me. I asked: 'Is that surface?' 'No,' replied the clerk.
'Surface is two dollars.' 'And what's air mail?' He looked in his book. 'Ten
dollars.' 'So what is this five dollars?' 'That's special post.' 'And what is
special post?' 'That means we don't knock them about.'

I had been mistaken for a priest already
in this ensemble at a party at the bowls club in Kitwe to which Billy and I had
been invited. (And in Umtali before, if the reader remembers.) Mr and Mrs
Gallagher from Glasgow were running the show. Mister was officiating behind the
bar: Missus was looking after the eats and moving about, making sure everyone
was happy. I got up to find the toilet.

Mrs Gallagher, a good Catholic herself,
asked: 'Can I help you, father?'

When I got back to my seat I told Billy:
'Mrs Gallagher thinks I'm a priest. I suppose it's this black safari suit.'

After he'd got over his laugh, Billy
called out: 'Mrs Gallagher. Would ye step over here a minute, ma'am?'

'Cool it, Billy!' I said, rightly
suspecting some mischief.

'No, no, Warren! This is too good to
waste.'

When she came over, Billy announced: 'I
want you to meet Father Durand - White Fathers - doon from the Congo on leave.'

'Pleased to meet you, father,' said Mrs
Gallagher; and I swear she dropped a curtesy. Then she rejoined her husband and
had a word with him.

Mr Gallagher came rapidly to our table,
wearing an apron. What followed surprised me in view of what had gone before.

Addressing me, he announced in a rough
voice: 'Ony more trouble from you, mate, and ye're oot!'

His wife, who had been trotting behind
him, quickly grabbed his arm and led him aside. Mr Gallagher came flying back.

'I'm terribly sorry, father!' he
exclaimed. 'It's been a most unfortunate misunderstanding. The wife was telling
me afore aboot some feller that was causing trouble, and I thought she meant
you. Please forgive me, father!'

'That's all right, my son.'

I was given a lift as far as Lubumbashi
by two friends, Pierre and his wife, Anne. Pierre was a Belgian doctor, Anne an
English girl. Pierre was a small fiery chap with sandy hair. His pretty dark
wife looked more Belgian than him.

He was normally the most good-natured
little chap you could wish to know, but his fiery outbursts were famous. Once
he had such trouble getting a line out of the hospital, I found him working the
exchange himself, sitting in the box with the headphones on. The operator,
about twice his size, was lying on his back in the corridor, like an
immobilised beetle, where Pierre had thrown him.

We stayed at the Leo II hotel, where the
Licops intended to make a week-end of it. At the bar we met another Belgian
doctor, Dr Briac, who was district medical officer at Dilolo, 450 miles to the
west and 24 hours on the train. He had come up to Lubumbashi (which was the
provincial capital of Katanga, a province as big as France) to try and prise
his salary out of the authorities. He was a tall lean man with, not
surprisingly, a world-weary appearance.

We all had supper together. Dr Briac
inquired of me in a lugubrious tone:

'Do they still eat mint sauce in that
country of yours?' This required some explanation for Pierre's sake.

When I said, yes, Dr Briac continued:
'When I am in 'ell, I shall know it, because they will be eating mint sauce.'

Next day we met Pierre's uncle, by
arrangement, who was also up in town. He was a priest at Manono, 400 miles to
the north, and still in Katanga. He showed us the beautiful cathedral. And he
expounded his interesting theory on the new name, 'Zaire', which Mobutu had
thrust on his country, in place of its genuine African one, in the cause of
something he called, in unblushing French,
'authenticité'.

When the Portuguese arrived off the
mouth of the Congo river, 500 years before, said Pierre's uncle, they asked the
locals what it was called. In the immemorial African fashion of answering a
silly question with at least a simple answer, they replied: 'That's a river,
bwana,' using the Kikongo name for river -
'nzare',
which the Portuguese
heard as 'Zaire' and printed on the ancient maps which had misled the good
President Mobutu into imagining was the original name of his river and country.

I have said that most of the crooks in
countries like Zaire are in uniform. The police especially were pests, stopping
cars every five minutes and demanding international driving licences or other
nonsense, and fines in default. I would get very hot under the collar, a
reaction I realised later was fear. However, I never submitted to the indignity
of paying a 'fine'.

Piet on such an occasion, when I was in
Lubumbashi with him and Margriet, waxed more indignant than I did and demanded
to be taken to the police station, a rash request which was fortunately refused
and we were left alone: fortunate for if we had once got into a Congolese
police station, it might have been a costly business getting out again in more
ways than one.

Pierre had a smooth way with these
people. He would step out of the car, call them
'mon capitaine'
, slip a
dollar bill into their breast pockets - 'for the police ball' - and end by
inquiring the way to save faces all round. Big smiles and old pals by the time
we drove away.

I left my friends at the station, where
I took the train for Kamina: again, 400 miles and 24 hours away. The Congolese
trains then had four classes. Twenty years before I would have gone fourth
class with the common people and their animals, struggling with my French and
trying to learn Swahili; but as one of my old professors said, one does things
at twenty one does not do at forty. I took a first class compartment, which I
had mostly to myself. My main companion on the journey was Barnaby Rudge.

African trains (except in South Africa,
which is another place) move slowly, covering about twenty miles in an hour,
stopping at every halt. Here women sold food and drink to the poorer passengers
through the windows. I used the dining saloon.

Katanga is Highveld, about 4000 feet,
and the winter nights are cold. I slept fully clothed on my bunk. A blanket was
not necessary. At one stage, when I was lying on my front, an attendant woke me
to inform me that my wallet was sticking out of my back trousers pocket.
Honesty!

The following afternoon I arrived at
Kamina, the usual wide-open dusty small town of Central Africa. At the station
a small boy with a handcart presented himself. This type of vehicle was later
called a 'Scania'. It was practically a charity to employ him. I placed my
suitcase in solitary state on his cart and followed him to the Hôtel de la
Gare.

I stayed here a couple of nights,
waiting for my next connection - to Kabalo. Round the bar after supper there
were Greeks, Indians, and some of the posher Africans, enjoying their evening
at the local. The first two groups spoke English, and made racialistic remarks
in the freemasonry of the language about their black neighbours.

There were also two (non-racialistic)
Americans present. One was a teacher making his way home: the other was a medic
who was engaged in machine-gunning the villages with a vaccine gun.

Next day I walked about the town with
Wayne, the teacher, while Hank was at work. We sat in the taverns, pulsing with
the rather charming Congo dance music on the radio, and drank the famous Simba
beer, the only beer I know (with the others in the Congo) so strong its bouquet
hits you before it reaches your lips.

Next day, in the afternoon, Wayne and I
took the train to Kabalo, another 400 miles; or rather, he was moving on to
Albertville. Hank saw us off. The gates were closed until the train arrived so
we stood about in the crowd outside. Then we were borne through in a mighty
crush, and when we emerged from the bottle-neck (there is no platform) I found
I had been painlessly relieved of twenty dollars and a biro from my breast
pocket. I had taken the precaution of buttoning my back pocket. Thereafter, I
placed my wallet in one of my socks and my travellers cheques in the other.

Twenty-four hours later, in the early
afternoon, Wayne and I parted company at Kabalo, just after the train had
crossed the mile-wide breadth of the great river - the Lualaba, the Upper
Congo.

The great rivers of Africa, winding
their mighty courses through plain and forest, stir me as few things can. The
land opens and there it is, the great thing on its way. Dear God! I'd rather be
a pagan suckled in creed outworn, so I could sing aloud.

Instead, I found myself in the wide
dusty square of the seedy little town. The usual 'Scania' appeared and we
proceeded across the square to the hotel. This looked very dubious and throbbed
with rather too much Congo music for my taste as well as being full of drunks
and tarts at three in the afternoon - where did they get the money from?

I needed some myself, after having been
relieved of my small change, so directed the taxi to a Greek store, where I
knew I could change a travellers cheque at a better rate than the bank, if such
a thing existed in this place.

I found the owner half asleep over his
counter. He brightened up somewhat at the sight of a white face and readily
cashed my cheque. He was mightily amused when I removed the book from my sock.
I told him how I had been robbed at Kamina. I asked about the hotel.

'L'hôtel, c'est merde. Vous feriez
mieux rester chez moi.'

And so I did, for three days and nights.
He had a small guest room and gave me most of my meals. When I came to settle
up, he told me I could pay him on my next time through. To say that a fresh
white face in such a place is payment in itself is not to depreciate his
generosity.

After leaving my suitcase in my room, I
went for a stroll around the town. I found a sign:
''Hôpital'.
I often
dropped into district hospitals on my African travels: the sort of place I was
aiming for myself, and where I was to spend most of my African career. I found
the place, the usual small hundred-bed affair, a larger edition of Samreboi,
and introduced myself to a medical assistant as a doctor from Zambia.

'Où est le docteur, s'il vous plait?'

'Il n'y a pas de docteur
ici.'

He found me instead the person in
charge, a European nun. When she discovered I was a doctor, I found myself
doing a two-hour ward round.

I asked questions. Did they have a
theatre? (In many African countries nurses perform major operations.) Yes, but
the instruments were stolen during
les événements
(the troubles of '64)
and never replaced.

Now I knew this hospital covered an area
as big as a large English county and a population of 100,000. The nearest hospital
which could operate was Albertville, twelve hours away (if the patient was rich
enough or lucky enough to find transport), which is a long time for most
emergencies. And that was on top of the time it would take them to get to the
local hospital. It was obvious that for many the situation was hopeless.