African Sky (11 page)

He was frustrated, especially now that someone had been charged with Flick's murder, that he had been so guarded with her in the beginning. She had obviously doubted him and now, as a result, she was holding back information. There was no trust between them, he thought.

Not that it mattered – as attractive as Pip was, she was a married woman, and therefore off limits as far as he was concerned. He imagined she would be out of his life once he dropped her off at the police camp. They drove on in silence. She apparently had no desire to get him talking today, which made him think her friendly demeanour the day before was a well-rehearsed act that she used to put interviewees – suspects, perhaps – at ease.

As they reached the outskirts of Bulawayo, the sun's rays were slanting in through the side windows of the Humber, making the car's interior oppressively hot. ‘Looks like a fire,' Bryant said as he veered off the road and stopped. He pointed to a pall of smoke rising straight as a dark column through the windless sky.

‘Could be,' she said. ‘It's to the west of town. Looks like it's near Mzilikazi township.'

He got out of the car and flagged down the Dodge, which pulled to a halt. ‘Carry on to Kumalo, Flight,' he said to the senior mechanic. ‘I'll take Constable Lovejoy back to the police camp. Dismiss the men when you get back. You can unload the kite tomorrow.'

‘Yes, sir.' The trucks rumbled past them, and Paul got in and started the car again. He drove Pip into town.

‘Well, this is it, I suppose,' Bryant said as he stopped the car at the front gate of the police compound. ‘I imagine you'll contact me if you need any more information.'

There was the squeal of rubber on tar as the driver of a police car parked in the yard dropped the clutch and sped out of the gates, his siren blaring. Pip watched the car leave and said: ‘Yes, I will. Thanks again for your help, and for the lift.'

‘My pleasure.'

Pip closed the car door and walked through the gates into a gathering storm.

‘What's the flap about, Henderson?' Bryant asked the air force police sergeant as he stopped the Humber at the entry gate to Kumalo air base.

‘Riot in town, sir. Wingco expected you back yesterday. He's fuming.'

‘What riot?' Bryant let the admonition from the flight sergeant slide by.

‘Hurry up and get in that bloody truck,' Henderson barked at an airman carrying a rifle. He thrust a pistol into the white holster on his belt and said to Bryant: ‘The local coppers arrested a black man for the murder of Felicity Langham.'

‘Yes, so I heard. But what's that got to do with a riot, and why are you armed?'

‘There was trouble during the arrest. The police went in a bit hard from what I gather. The chap they were after tried to make a run for it, and some of his mates got in the way of the law.'

‘How does that involve us?'

‘There were a bunch of our trainees and some erks sightseeing and shopping in town. They got wind of what was going on and tried to help the police out. There've been running street fights in town since this morning. Apparently, some of our men have been seeking revenge for the deaths of Langham and Smythe.'

‘So, word's out already about the missing pilot?'

Henderson reached into the cab of the truck his men were clambering into. ‘Only the bleedin' front page,
sir
.'

Bryant snatched the newspaper from Henderson. He didn't need to read past the headline.
BLACKS INVOLVED IN MURDERS OF AIR FORCE MAN AND WOMAN.
‘Bloody hell.'

‘That's what they say it's like in town. Wingco wants to see you. The police have called on us to reinforce them and to pick up our men.'

‘I'm coming with you,' Bryant said. He knew Henderson's style. The man was a bully and Bryant was sure he was itching to join the fight rather than just arrest troublemakers. He felt that he needed to be there to exercise some control. He was sure the Wingco would have ordered him out anyway. The explanations could come later.

‘Jones,' Henderson barked. ‘Fetch the squadron leader a pistol and ammunition from the armoury. Hop to it, man!'

The airman returned a few minutes later and handed Bryant a Webley revolver, a box of ammunition and a canvas holster and webbing belt. Bryant climbed into the open rear of the truck with eight askaris, three white noncommissioned officers and a couple of white airmen, mechanics who had been dragooned into service by Henderson as ad hoc riot troops. Bryant realised none of them had been trained for the mission they were setting out on. Reluctantly, he banged on the roof of the cab. ‘Right, Flight S'arnt Henderson, let's get weaving!'

The vehicle lurched out the gate, throwing Bryant onto a wide-eyed African askari. He steadied himself against the side of the truck and loaded six bullets into the revolver. ‘Listen to me,' he ordered the men around him as he snapped the pistol closed. ‘No one, and I mean
absolutely no one, fires his weapon without a direct order from
me
and me only. Understand?'

There were a few nods.

‘Understand!' he bellowed in his best parade-ground voice.

‘Yes, sir!' they yelled back in unison.

‘Better. Now, if we go in there boots and all, we'll only inflame the situation further. Our mission is to pick up our fellow airmen – in handcuffs if they won't come quietly – then leave this mess to the police. Understood?'

‘Yes, sir!'

The truck raced into town on the Salisbury Road, then weaved through city streets that were emptier than usual. Bryant guessed the smarter citizens of Bulawayo had locked themselves indoors. As they rounded a corner, onto the Sixth Avenue extension, and entered the outskirts of Mzilikazi, his worst fears were confirmed.

A line of BSAP officers stood blocking the road, shoulder to shoulder. Some carried small round riot shields. All had their batons drawn. Behind the twenty officers forming the cordon were another dozen carrying Lee-Enfield .303 rifles. The armed men held their weapons at the ready, butts in their shoulders.

Ahead of the police line a roughly equal number of young black and white men, a total of about sixty, Bryant guessed, were engaged in a series of melees. Some carried broken chair legs or other improvised weapons. Bryant saw a European wipe a bloody cheek with the back of his forearm. Two other white men were laying into a prone black youth with lumps of wood. Elsewhere, an African held an airman's arms behind his back while another punched him in the stomach.

A stray dog barked at the fighting men and an African woman wailed from the footpath, adding to the din of shouted curses and the thud of feet and fists on flesh. Another woman snatched up a small boy who had lingered to watch the fracas and ran off with him bouncing on her hip. The smoke Bryant had first seen was from a burning car. The road around the Studebaker was scorched black and the vehicle itself now was no more than a smoking, charred hulk.

Bryant saw that some of the policemen were also bleeding. It appeared they had regrouped and were about to charge into the crowd again. Henderson drew a loudhailer from the front of the truck.

‘Give that to me,' Bryant ordered. Henderson surrendered the instrument to him, and Bryant strode up to the police line.

‘Who's in charge here?' he barked.

‘I am, Squadron Leader.'

He turned and saw the rotund Harold Hayes standing behind him, truncheon in hand. ‘You're a busy man. I heard you'd arrested a suspect,' Bryant said.

‘I have. Get your men to form a line behind my armed officers. They'll be needed as back-up in case we have to open fire. I'll give the order when required.'

‘Like hell, you will,' Bryant said. ‘It's sixty-odd blokes having a punch-up. They'll settle eventually. We should just contain them and go in when they run out of steam.'

‘You trying to tell me how to do my job now? It's your young fools who've caused this riot.'

‘Way I heard it, Sergeant, was that some of our lads came to help yours after they ballsed up the arrest this morning.'

Hayes snorted. ‘Well, they're the ones out of control now. Bloody foreigners acting like vigilantes on my patch. I'll arrest the lot of them.'

‘A second ago you were considering shooting them.' Bryant looked up and down the police line and noticed, for the first time, two women standing just behind the front rank of men, between them and the constables armed with rifles. The women wore Red Cross armbands on their uniforms and carried bulky canvas first-aid satchels slung across their bodies. He saw one of them was Pip Lovejoy. He gave her a quick smile when he saw her looking at him, but she quickly turned away and stared resolutely back up the street towards the rioters.

The sound of shattering glass made them all look up the street. Two of the airmen had chased an African man into a barber shop and he had closed the door behind him. One of the whites had hurled a bin lid through the plate glass window. The black man appeared at the
window, brandishing a cut-throat razor. The Europeans stayed outside, facing him down.

‘This is about to turn nasty,' Hayes said. He lifted his own loudhailer and said into it, ‘This is the police. You there, in the barber shop. Drop that razor or we will open fire!'

The whites looked at the policemen, but held their ground. ‘Shoot the bastard!' one of them yelled in an Australian accent.

‘Constable Grant, three paces forward!' Hayes shouted. A young uniformed policeman from the second line advanced to the cordon.

Pip Lovejoy made way for Grant, who elbowed his way through the front rank and brought his rifle up to the firing position. ‘Oh, God,' she said.

‘Load!' Hayes screamed. ‘Drop that razor or we
will
fire.'

The African man looked over his shoulder, apparently searching for a way out. There was none. Bryant sensed the man's thoughts. If he dropped the razor the two white airmen would be on top of him before the police could arrive. If he did nothing, he would be shot.

‘On my command, Grant, two rounds, rapid fire, at the man with the razor! Aim!'

‘Shit,' Bryant said. He pushed past Hayes, stepped between two of the armed police officers, then, before Hayes saw what was going on, said to Pip Lovejoy: ‘Excuse me, Constable.'

‘Stop that man!' Hayes roared, red faced. Several members of the police line looked back at him as Bryant pushed his way through the front rank, which closed behind him. To move out to stop the air force officer would weaken the cordon and create an opening for the rioters. Also, the squadron leader was armed, having drawn his service revolver.

‘Careful,' Pip called to him. ‘Do you know what you're doing?'

He turned and gave her a smile and wink. ‘No bloody idea.'

Bryant crossed the fifty yards of empty street that divided the police and fighting men. A few of them, those of both colour not immediately trading punches, turned and eyed him. He stopped, twenty feet from a white man who was standing over a prone black man, kicking him.

‘Carmichael, isn't it?' he said quietly, just loudly enough for the man to hear.

The big Ulsterman, a trainee pilot, paused mid-kick and looked at him. His eyes were wide with the rage of the fight. ‘These fookers killed our people.'

‘Sir,' Bryant said quietly, but forcefully.

Carmichael turned away from the African, squared up for a second, but then looked into Bryant's eyes. ‘Sir,' he said at last.

‘That's better. The police have arrested one man for Langham's murder. Smythe's death remains the subject of an investigation. Get back behind that police rank now, or I swear you'll sit this war out as a shithouse cleaner in the hottest, driest part of Arabia I can think of – that's if you survive two tours over Germany as a rear gunner first.'

The Irishman looked down at the barely conscious youth and then back at his superior officer. For a moment defiance flashed in his eyes, as he stood there, fists clenched.

Then Bryant pulled the trigger. He fired two shots, into the air. The police line instinctively advanced a pace.

The individual fights halted, some in mid-punch, and several of the African men involved took their cue to run off down the street. The man who had brandished the razor, seeing his two white opponents staring at the madman with the pistol, hopped through the gap where the barber shop window had been, then ducked around the corner into an alleyway.

‘Trainees and members of the Rhodesian Air Training Group, fall in behind the police. Now!' Bryant barked.

Enraged as they were, each of the airmen and trainee aircrew on the street knew that Paul Bryant could hurt them far more than any civvie policeman. At his word their worlds would change, for the worse. In spite of his orders, a few last blows were landed, but the remaining Africans took flight, one by one.

‘Henderson!' Bryant called, not looking back but still staring the huge Irishman in the face.

‘Sah!'

‘Escort this fucking rabble back onto the truck.'

‘Yes, sir. Right, escorts, move forward, at the double now! You heard the good squadron leader.' Henderson led the airmen through the police rank and each man paired off with one of the troublemakers.

Bryant turned and walked back towards the police cordon. He holstered his revolver and kept his hands by his side, hoping the shaking would not show.

‘Well done,' Pip Lovejoy said as he walked past her again.

He paused and looked at her, noticing, for the first time, the bruise on her left cheek. ‘Who did that to you?'

‘One of your blokes. Funny way of seeking vengeance for the death of a woman, hitting another one.'

‘Which one?' he asked.

‘Don't know. All those Pommies look alike to me,' she said, forcing a painful smile.

‘If you pick him out, let me know. He's history.'

‘Don't go acting like a vigilante now because some hothead landed a blow on me. I've had worse and, besides, it's part of my job. It'll be up to us to lay charges, but I'd be more worried about some of those African lads who just got clapped for no other reason than their colour.' She paused, then added quietly: ‘You just showed incredible leadership, Paul.'