CHAPTER 39

DESSIE, NEAR THE EASTERN rim of the Ethiopian high plateau in north central Ethiopia, was a market town of twenty thousand people. In 1882, while camping in the area, Emperor Yohannes IV saw a comet that he believed signified an important omen. He decided to found a city there and named it Dessie for the Amharic meaning of “My Joy.”

In 1935, it had a sizable cluster of Ethiopian tukuls with an occasional European style building among them. The town was scattered at the bottom of a cup, irregularly formed by the surrounding three thousand foot yellow bluffs. Through a deep breach in the mountain wall to the southeast, the Borkenna River cascaded away to the landing strip and the far away Danakil Desert.

On one of Dessie’s small hills was the rambling Ghibbi, or palace of Crown Prince, Asfa Wossen. On another, the house of the local chief. On the west lay a long ledge of mountain and on its extreme slope, the Italian commercial agency. The Italian building, a handsome stone structure with a porch in the front, was undoubtedly Dessie’s finest building and now the emperor’s field headquarters.

Not far away, housed in a new stone building with a corrugated iron roof and a huge red cross painted on it, was the American Seventh-Day Adventists Mission Hospital where Ceseli was working.

With the arrival of the emperor, Dessie was swelled to overflowing not only by the recruited army, but also by the numerous camp followers, the women and children, who accompany their fighting men.

At Dessie, Haile Sellassie maintained his peacetime lifestyle. He dined with guests on both European food and choice Ethiopian ones like wot, chicken served with chili peppers washed down with bottles brought from his wine cellar in Addis. He had his Arab race horses brought up to Dessie and stabled them in the grounds next to his only Oerikion antiaircraft gun.

It was shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday December 6, 1935, one week after Badoglio assumed command, when the distant hum of airplanes became audible. If the Italians were coming to bomb, it was because they had learned of the emperor’s presence. He was certainly a legitimate target and Badoglio intended to win this war as soon as possible.

When Haile Sellassie heard the approaching airplanes, he ran into the garden where his antiaircraft gun was already installed. As the planes neared, he could count nine white Italian Caproni bombers. These CA.133 three-engine monoplanes could carry two tons of high explosive and poison gas a range of nine hundred miles. The emperor, who knew how to use the antiaircraft gun, pushed aside the fumbling frightened soldiers and began shooting at the planes.

The noise of the planes and the crashing of the bombs was deafening as if the mountains themselves were protesting. The whole earth heaved under the thunderous explosions. As the incendiary bombs dropped, fires sprang up and began to eat up the straw-roofed tukuls. Women and children, who had never seen a plane, were fleeing from the fires. Thinking this was a game, the children were laughing as they ran from the bombs. Yifru saw one woman and her two children all hit by a bomb as they tried to cross the narrow mud road.

The American Seventh-Day Adventist Hospital was hit in rapid succession by five high explosive bombs. One bomb went directly through the hospital building, tearing off the roof of the surgery, destroying two wards and the instrument room. Then, as it had started, seventeen minutes later it was over.

“Ceseli, Ceseli . . .,” Yifru hollered, looking inside the building. His eyes were burning from the smoke. He looked around to see whole clusters of Ethiopian tukuls burning. He spotted her crawling out of the wrecked building.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said, wiping the tears from her smarting eyes. “I’m not crying. It’s just the smoke.”

Yifru looked at her. Her hair was singed at the back and dark spots of soot covered her face and hands. “Ceseli, I think it’s time you went home.”

“No. It isn’t. Don’t change your mind the first time something goes wrong.”

Yifru, not answering, studied her determined expression. Then he noticed the small boy who came up to her and put his hand into hers.

Kneeling she smiled at the child. “Don’t be afraid.”

The little boy began a tentative smile that soon widened to reveal his irregularly shaped teeth. He was tiny, Yifru noticed, but seemed to have considerable courage for his eight or nine years. He stayed with her holding her hand reassuringly.

Yifru looked at her. “You’ve made a friend for life,” he said, turning to the child. “What’s your name?”

“Habtu,” the boy answered shyly.

“Where do you live?”

“In that cave,” the boy said, pointing toward the far ridge.

“You see, I’m in good hands,” Ceseli smiled at Yifru. “What does Habtu mean?”

Yifru paused for a moment. “It’s the kind of feeling you get when you have your first child.”

Ceseli frowned trying to capture the feeling. “He comes here every day. One day, he even brought one of his sheep to show me and I think he wants to take me home to meet his mother. We’ll see. We’re pretty busy right here for now.”

After the planes withdrew, the emperor abandoned his overheated gun to return inside and draft a letter of protest to the League against the bombing of civilians. Then, donning a cloak and selecting a stick, he walked through the town visiting the wounded. Yifru, walking with him, counted fifty-three people dead and about two hundred injured. These were not the cheap fragmentation bombs of other Italian air raids. Two unexploded two hundred pounders were taken to the emperor’s garden where Haile Sellassie and his twelve-year-old son, Ras Makonnen, posed for photographers.

There were many war correspondents at Dessie camped in the grounds of the American Advent Hospital. Each one of them would have his story, if the same story. One was evacuated to Addis by plane along with a Red Cross nurse who had broken her leg jumping into a ditch to avoid the bombs. Their dispatches about the bombing of a hospital and civilians raised outrage in the capitals of the world.

As soon as the surgical unit could be set up in the last remaining tent, the doctors began the heart-rending job of amputation. Ceseli’s heart pounded recklessly as one by one, the mutilated limbs were hacked away from their bodies with no anesthesia. These were the first amputations she had ever assisted with. The last one was a girl not more than four. It was her only chance to live, Ceseli knew, but still she felt sickened.

When it was over, she walked out to the edge of the compound and looked beyond the town. She felt ill and wondered if she would vomit. She was used to blood by now, and the frequent smell of gangrene, the endless moaning of the living and sunken faces of coming death. But this little girl brought her pain beyond belief. Tears started to roll uncontrollably down her cheek. She made no effort to stem them. She sensed, rather than saw, Yifru standing not far away in case she needed protecting. After she recovered she turned to walk back. She knew he would not be there.