The Dust Diaries (4 page)

From’The Outfitter’:

• Clothes pegs, half gross. (Very necessary articles, usually forgotten)
  
• Alarum—No wild animal will enter a tent at night where an alarum is ticking. A luminous face (which shines well after exposure to the brilliant African sunshine) is useful.
  
• Two tweed suits, unlined
  
• Two canvas suits for marching and hunting
  
• Two flannel suits
  
• Flannel shirts with good collar-bands but
  no collars
  
• Three travelling caps
  
• Two helmets (both good and cheap in Zanzibar)
  
• Brown-leather, broad-toed, thick-soled boots
  
• Strong, thick-soled slippers
  
• Comfortable, easy slippers
  
• Two pairs thin cork soles
  
• One pair of lasts for boots
  
• Spare laces
  
• Linen towels
  
• Turkish towels
  
• Six pyjama suits
  

He put the book down, wondering why anyone would need six pyjama suits and leaving the lists that followed for ‘Cooking Appliances’, ‘Scientific Instruments’, ‘The Luncheon Basket’, ‘Groceries’ and ‘Packing Cases’ unread.

Turning off the lamp, he pulled the side of his mosquito net down and tucked it under his mattress. A short gust of air blew in from the open window above his bed, indenting the net and briefly cooling his skin. It was still hot and he was sweating despite his decision to abandon his one pyjama suit and sleep naked. He lay there for a moment, listening to the night outside: the turning of the sea’s pages, the hush and fizz of the waves on the shore, the sudden screeching and confusion of two cats fighting, then silence. Just his breath in the sparse room. Turning onto his side, he thought of his small packing case in the corner, and of how his belongings compared to Mr Pruen’s recommended supplies. Two suits now (counting his purchase this afternoon), some notebooks, pencils and one pen, his Bible and Book of Common Prayer, a photograph of his mother (also called Charlotte—he had thought of her when introduced to the girl tonight), an old hat, some shirts, underwear, a pair of boots and not much else. He rolled onto his back again, closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him. The whine of a mosquito caught inside his net swung loud then quiet then loud in his ear, and he wondered, once again, if he was prepared for what lay ahead. Or, as he thought of the Princess’s story, for what he had left behind.

That had all been just over a week ago, but already Zanzibar seemed far away to him, already that visit was organising itself into memories and so much of what he had thought and seen there had been lost or altered. But at least now he would know if he was prepared, because the journey was over, and he was here. Snatches of conversation in the corridor outside his door confirmed that the
Hertzog
had been allowed into harbour and they would be disembarking soon. He considered going up on deck to take a look, but he was tired and he knew he would be needing his sleep over the next few days, so turning onto his side, he pulled the thin pillow over his exposed ear and tried to get another hour’s rest, or at least back to the half-waking thoughts of a poem that had been drifting in his mind before he had woken. It was a poem he had been working on throughout the voyage, a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and there on the inside of his eyelids he could still see the imprint of the lines he had formed in his semiconscious state. They were just about tangible and he tried to call them back once more, but like the ridges on a sand dune, they disintegrated under his touch, slipping away, edging back from language towards images again. Orpheus at the lip of the cave, turning and condemning himself with every degree of his turn. And there behind him, Eurydice, his lover, willing him not to, and at the same time drinking in every molecule of his being before she is tugged back to her darkness. Yes, he had the image, but not the words. They had gone, silting somewhere in his sleep. He hoped they would surface again, somehow they had felt right.

Turning onto his back again, he opened his eyes. Above him the same dimly lit patch of ceiling that he had woken up to for the past month came into focus, its cheap paint blistered with damp. From Naples, through the Suez Canal, Aden, Zanzibar, and now Beira Bay, Portuguese Mozambique. In all these places he had woken up to this sight. All his dreams ended here, in this damp patch of ceiling inches above his head. But he had chosen this, to travel steerage rather than in the more spacious cabins of 2
nd
or ist class. And he wouldn’t have had it any other way, despite both his brother William’s protestations and the concerns of the church committee, both of whom were dismayed by his choice. Once on board, though, he’d soon realised that he was still relatively well off, at least compared to the native passengers, who were restricted to the open deck accommodation.

He had taken a look at their quarters on the second day out of Aden, and was disgusted at what he found. The men (they were all men) were Somalis picked up to work on the Rhodesian railways. They were crouched beneath an ageing green canvas stretched above them as an improvised roof. The rain, spray and sea wind all blew through holes in the material, giving the cramped collection of dark arms, legs and heads a persistent skin of moisture, slick on their bodies. The area was completely inadequate, the space having been reduced to make room for extra cargo, and he went straight to the German captain of the ship and complained, demanding he take some action to improve the conditions for these men. To his credit the captain listened and agreed with him that something ought to be done, though Arthur was aware of an irritation in his manner running beneath the smooth surface of his words. When he returned in a couple of days the canvas had been replaced, and a number of the men had been moved to other quarters further along the starboard side of the ship. But the situation still frustrated him. The divide in comfort was a gross insult and Arthur made sure to take half his food there every day for the rest of the voyage. And he made sure the captain knew that he did.

The man beneath him was still having a restless time of it, not just coughing now, but turning on the axis of his sleep as well. With each shift of his weight the flimsy bunks rocked and creaked, and the loose screws holding the bed to the wall of the cabin slid in their worn holes. The man, whose name was Joseph O’Connor, was younger than Arthur, more of a boy than a man. He was thin and pale, sent on this voyage by his father to follow in the wake of Rhodes and his pocket-fuls of diamonds. From what Arthur could make of it his father had booked this voyage for his son because he wanted a new world for him. London, he had told him, was no place to start a life now, not when there was so much of Africa to make your own, to build your dreams in. He himself had travelled from Ireland as a boy to follow his dreams in England, and now his son would follow his to Africa. And that was what the boy seemed to be travelling on: dreams, borrowed dreams, not even his own. But then who was he to dismiss Joseph’s borrowed dreams? Wasn’t he, after all, travelling on dreams himself? Towards them and away from them, pushed and pulled, by borrowed and broken dreams alike.

He knew his decision to leave England had caused pain. He thought of his mother’s distress, her worries for his safety and his promise to her to stay in Africa for just two years. But then he thought of his brother too, William, how he had glanced ai his pocket watch as the train pulled out of the station, as if even then he wasn’t leaving quickly enough. He knew his brother loved him as much as his mother, but he showed it in a very different way. And he would, there is no doubt, be feeling some relief now his troublesome younger sibling was so far away, now that things could finally be allowed to settle. Except of course, lying there looking at his damp patch of ceiling, Arthur knew they would never settle entirely; not in him or, he found himself hoping, in her. What had he done, leaving like that? Maybe he should have taken the risk and, like Orpheus, not gone on, but should have turned back instead. And if he had done, then maybe she would, after all, have still been there, waiting for him to turn. Waiting for him to come back to her, for the touch of his hands on her face, the sound of his voice in her ear and the taste of his breath on her skin.

Joseph O’Connor’s dreams obviously weren’t going to let Arthur return to his, so, swinging his legs off the edge of the bunk, he let himself down onto the floor of the cramped two-berth cabin. He reached for the khaki suit he had bought in Zanzibar, hanging on the end of his bed. Though a little on the small side, wearing it made him feel suitably adventurous. He pulled on the trousers and put the jacket on over his cotton shirt, before slipping his bare feet into his boots. Turning to the cabin door, he reached for its handle. As he did, he glanced back at the sleeping form of Joseph, who looked even younger now, frowning like a confused child over the top of the twisted sheets that had wound themselves around him. Arthur looked at him and could not help but feel a pang of concern about what lay in store for this boy in Africa. Joseph rolled over again, away from him, and Arthur turned away too, opening the cabin door, stepping through it and walking up the narrow corridor, acknowledging as he went that the concern he felt was not just for Joseph. It was for himself as well.

He heard the noise as he climbed the steep stairwells towards the top deck of the ship. Muffled at first, it became clearer the nearer he got. It was the noise of men, not at work, but at argument. The cadences of two languages were confronting each other above him, and while he could not make out what those languages were, he could tell from their pitches and rhythms they were infused with high emotions. Aggression, fear and panic. Coming up onto the first level beneath the deck he pushed through a heavy door, and the two tongues suddenly became more forceful, like the heat from an opened oven. He broke into a jog and took the steps up onto the deck two at a time.

As he emerged into the morning air the brightness of the light took him by surprise, and his eyes were momentarily confused, shot with white stars and a prism light reflecting in his pupils. He put his hand out to steady himself on a rail, vaguely aware of the activity far below him on the dock to his right, and, shading his face with the other hand, waited for his eyes to clear. As they did the source of the argument came into focus. The Somalis from the native accommodation stood as a crowd further up the starboard side of the ship. All of them seemed to be there, about fifty in total. They were tightly bunched, and moving, swaying together, a muscle of men. As Arthur watched they suddenly contracted as one, recoiling from something he couldn’t see beyond them. They were all agitated, but the raised voices came from the front of the group, the part he couldn’t see despite his height. The Somalis were a tall people.

As he walked towards the group he could hear the language opposing the Somali: harsh, Hispanic, but not Spanish. He glanced to his right. There was the dock, and there was Africa. Black bodies worked everywhere, carrying, pushing, lifting. A few Europeans stood among them. Not carrying, not pushing, not lifting. They pointed. They shouted. And they all wore khaki like he did.

It was the first shot that snapped his attention back to the deck. It cracked and echoed through the air, leaving a sense of sound displaced. He didn’t think it was a shot until he heard the second, then the third. He began to run towards the group. But then came the fourth and the fifth in quick succession, each ear-jarring crack chasing the tail of the other. The Somalis had broken on the first, and were now fanning, spreading, melting towards him as he ran towards them. They hit him like a wave, a riptide of feet rolling him, pulling him under. He saw the flash of a blade swipe through the corner of his eye, more feet, more legs and arms, then a body falling, its black chest unfurling a sheet of blood to the floor. More shots. Six, seven, eight. He was clear of the feet and legs now, but he remained lying on the deck, his arms over his head, the same words repeating again and again in his mind. Why don’t they stop? Why don’t they stop? And then they did.

Suddenly, as suddenly as it had begun, it all stopped, and for a few seconds silence came ebbing back into the vacuum. But it was not long until more noise arrived, the sound of aftermath rising to the occasion. More shouts, the German of the crew, an undertone of groaning, the sea’s slap and clap against the hull, his own breath, short and close in his ear, the winch and pulley of a crane that had worked throughout. One woman’s scream, long on the morning.

The whole incident had passed in seconds, and already it was over, it had happened. But Arthur’s mind had not caught up, and as he lay there on the deck, his eyes closed, he was still trying to register it, to adjust himself to the sudden disturbance, the violent brevity of it. The whole, sight, sound and smell of it. He opened his eyes. From where he lay he could see the legs of the remaining Somalis, thick together like a copse of closely planted saplings. Looking up their bodies he saw they were being rounded up, collected, gathered by men in uniform. Policemen. Two held drawn swords, one held a revolver, clumsy and smoking in his hand. Then there, closer to him, were the bodies. Two, no, three of them. The man closest to him lay on his back, his head thrown back, exposing
his
neck, his pointed Adam’s apple jutting from his throat. His mouth was open, and leaked blood from the commissure of his lips which trailed down his tilted face to his open eyes, where it collected in an eyelid. A red tear, ready to drop.

He was still staring at the dead man when he felt the pressure of hands on his body. He was being picked to his feet. Hands under his arms, pulling him up. A face swam into view, one of the young German crew, speaking in faltering English.

‘You are hurt,
Voter?

No, he was not hurt. His body was fine. He gently pulled his arms away from theirs and waved a hand in front of his face, making it clear they should leave him. Behind them other members of the crew were clearing the bodies. He watched, still stunned, as the man with the blood in his eyes was hauled over a broad shoulder, and carried off the ship, like one of the thousands of sacks being carried back and forth on the dock below him. He felt the bitter taste of bile rise in his throat, the swelling of nausea in his stomach and, thinking he was going to vomit, he turned again to the ship’s railings, resting his hands on them, his head bowed, breathing deeply. The urge to be sick passed and he raised his head once more to look down on the dock, which was teeming again with work. In fact, it looked like it had never stopped. It was all energy. Energy and sweat. The essential ingredients for empire building, for the building of new countries, new lives. New dreams. But energy and sweat would never be enough on their own. As he had just witnessed, there was always blood too.