The future lies before us, clear and full of hope
As soon as David Bracken had gone, President Dinamaula put him instantly out of mind. It was not difficult; he had many larger problems to consider, besides those of Government personnel. There could be something about ‘at the conclusion of his contract’ in the newspaper. Joseph Kalatosi would take care of the necessary deletions from the official list … Dismissing the matter as he had dismissed the man, the President left the gloomy shadows of the Throne Room, and, treading easily, went through into his private study.
There, he rang for a servant to pour him a drink, and for another to make up the fire. A mid-winter night, even in fortunate Pharamaul, could turn chilly and treacherous. Then, on an impulse, he pressed a certain switch on his desk, and spoke into a microphone: ‘Turn out the guard! Turn out the guard!’
Secure in his room, with an armed sentry on the door, the President could hear his own voice echoing and re-echoing round the Palace grounds, as a string of loudspeakers relayed the message, from the floodlit portico to the farthest gatehouse. He heard the sound of running feet, and barked commands, and the crash of rifle butts on stone and gravel and concrete. He glanced down at his watch. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. Thirty-five seconds … Then there was a knock on his door.
‘Who is there?’ he called out.
‘A friend, Lord Protector.’
‘Give the password.’
‘Freedom!’
‘Come in.’
The guard-commander entered. He was a young police lieutenant, eager and dedicated; though he panted slightly, his back was ramrod stiff as he gave a tremendous semi-circular salute, and reported: ‘Guard all present and correct, Lord Protector!’
‘Very good.’ Dinamaula had also studied the drill manual. ‘Tell me, what are your orders?’
The guard-commander looked puzzled. ‘To keep the Palace secure, Lord Protector.’
‘How do you keep it secure?’
Now the policeman was definitely flustered. ‘We – we stop visitors.’
‘How do you stop them?’
‘We challenge them, Lord Protector.’
‘And what if they are strangers who cannot account for themselves?’
‘We – stop them.’
‘You shoot them!’ Dinamaula roared at him. ‘Is that understood? That is what your guns are for! Anyone who cannot explain his presence in the Palace grounds – shoot him on sight!’
‘Yes, Lord Protector.’
‘That’s better. Now, who is your Commander-in-Chief?’
The lieutenant was quite certain about this one. ‘The Colonel, Lord Protector.’
‘What colonel?’
‘Colonel Mboku.’
‘He is not the Commander-in-Chief! I am! You owe your loyalty to me! Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Do not forget it.’ Dinamaula, who had been standing by the fireplace, pointed to his desk, which had always been placed with its back to the French windows. ‘I want this moved. Send in two of your men.’
‘Yes, Lord. Permission to retire, Lord Protector.’
‘Carry on.’
When the men came, Dinamaula gave his directions. The heavy desk, fashioned of teak carved by cunning hands long dead, was turned round, so that it now sat securely in an angle with the back of the chair to the wall, and the long windows directly in front of it. Halfway through the awkward operation, a small chirping lizard, of the kind called a gecko, ran up the wall in alarm at all these sounds and movements, and stayed high up near the ceiling, fearful to see what might come next.
With the guard dismissed at last, Dinamaula sat down. He reached for his drink, and swallowed thirstily, and banged the glass down again. Then he put his elbows squarely on the solid desktop, and began to think.
He did not – he would not – think of David Bracken. He turned his mind away from all such stupid nonsense, and thought of his kingdom.
Pharamaul was now quiet. Indeed, it had never been so quiet. Down south, not a mouse stirred; all the mice had been trodden on, once and for ever, and the Punta Maula gaols which were the mousetraps were empty except for common criminals. Up north, they had taken their crude revenge as best they could, but it was no more than the bite of a flea, compared with his own fierce stroke.
Up in Fish Village, that fouled nest of the U-Maulas, they had rounded up all the foreign Maulas, about fifty in number, who for one reason or another chose to work in the fish factory. These had been killed out of hand, and their bodies mutilated. Then certain men with a rustic sense of humour had taken over, and proposed a joke.
In a small consignment of tinned, tender-fleshed crayfish tails, due for export, the meat had been replaced, unspeakably, by particular trophies from the corpses.
A twelve-tin case of this choice delicacy had been delivered, by a messenger who unfortunately escaped, to the Palace kitchens, and then – by some luckless jester who had since died – to the President himself. Crudely stencilled ‘The Longest Crayfish Tails In Africa’, it had served as a joke for a few hours, until all laughing mouths had been cursed into silence, and then shut.
The U-Maulas, always so uncivilized, could have their little byplay, if they chose. When it got out of hand, he, the Lord Protector, would act again.
The President drank deeply once more. Then he bent to a secret drawer which was part of a built-in safe, and drew out a fat scarlet file labelled: ‘Top Secret: Project PICAM’.
It had long been his favourite file, to be studied and enjoyed for hours on end, and he had only to turn a few pages to find the particular diagram he sought.
It showed his island of Pharamaul as a dot off the coast of Africa, with a fan of lines radiating outwards from it leading towards the heartland of the continent. It was like a colossal spider’s web, though the pointing fingers were aimed outwards, not inwards. They were each labelled in compass degrees, and then in mileages; and the great arc was itemized below, like a recital of battle honours soon to come:
Luanda, Portuguese West: 027°, 1,100 miles.
Salisbury, Rhodesia: 078°, 1,800 miles.
Lourenço Marques, Portuguese East: 098°, 1,800 miles.
Pretoria, SA: 100°, 1,500 miles.
Johannesburg, SA: 103°, 1,500 miles.
Durban, SA: 109°, 1,750 miles.
Cape Town, SA: 134°, 1,150 miles.
As a matter of additional insurance, which he had not communicated to anyone else, he had added in his own hand:
Lusaka, Zambia: 1,600 miles.
Nairobi, Kenya: 1,600 miles.
Tanzania: 2,590 miles.
Uganda: 2,500 miles.
Congo: 1,500 miles.
As that well-remembered US senator had once said, one had to bring this thing down to dollars and cents … The President was still working on the cents – the compass courses to these secondary targets, in case there was some challenge to his plans.
But on this single sheet of paper was set out the pattern, the master plan, for the cleansing of Africa. At the moment, secretive strangers still held the key to the door. But one day, when it was all going to come true, he would be the man who turned that key, and pressed that giant’s trigger. It would be his right, as a true giant! Was it not all set down in the titles he had been born to: ‘Urn of the Royal Seed, Ruler and Kingbreaker, Lord of the Known World’?
With such weapons, with such close computation, he could hardly be less than Lord of Africa. Given the same sort of chance, Castro of Cuba, and the same stranger-ally, had both turned chicken-hearted. But not he, not he!
The President closed the file, and looked again at its title: PICAM. It stood for ‘Pharamaul Inter-Continental Atomic Missile’, but he was still not quite satisfied with it. It still lacked total authority. It sounded vague. He had thought of POMP – ‘Pharamaul Overseas Missile Project’. Then there was OBA – ‘Operation Black Africa’. There was his so-far favourite, his double-edged FFTW – ‘Freedom from the West’.
It would come, it would come … The Lord Protector of Pharamaul put the file back in the safe, and secured it, and reached out for his drink again. Now, for reasons which he did not even choose to think about, he was himself free, and before long his great country, under great leadership, would give a great continent its liberation.
High up on the wall, the little bright-eyed gecko lizard, always wary, not daring the smallest chirrup, watched this master carefully. Why did he make such great upheavals? At any moment, it seemed, there could be surprises, huge upsets, even the end of small lizard worlds.