‘Stand still!’ commanded Mrs Forsdick, her mouth full of pins, her expression one of roguish servitude. ‘How can I get you ready, if you fidget so?’
‘You’re tickling me,’ said David Bracken, squirming. There was something about Mrs Forsdick’s manner which was contagious. ‘When this uniform was made for me in London, I swear that the collar was all right.’
‘Well, it’s not all right now.’ Mrs Forsdick gave a sharp tug at David’s shoulder. ‘And your medals are all crooked, too. Pity the poor girl who marries you!’
‘What poor girl is that?’ asked David.
‘Oh, I’ve heard lots of stories …’ Breathing heavily, obviously enjoying herself, Mrs Forsdick began to sew up the blue-and-gold collar that topped David’s uniform, while David, standing like an old-fashioned tailor’s dummy in the middle of the Forsdick sitting-room, wondered how long the session would be prolonged. There were quite enough accommodational hazards in being quartered on the Forsdicks, during his visit to Gamate, without becoming involved in a domestic melodrama as well. ‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Forsdick, turning more thoughtful as she completed a difficult corner, ‘that you think you’re going to set everything to rights, just by putting on full-dress uniform and holding an aboura.’
‘Yes,’ said David, amused. ‘I think that’s a very fair statement.’
From the room beyond, George Forsdick, who was sipping a mid-morning whisky and reading a week-old copy of the Times of Pharamaul, broke in: ‘They’ve got as good a chance,’ he called out, ‘as anyone else in this bloody place!’
‘George!’ said Mrs Forsdick, sewing busily and automatically, ‘watch that language!’
‘How am I looking?’ asked David, covertly squeezing her hand.
‘Wonderful,’ answered Mrs Forsdick. ‘Perhaps she’s a lucky girl, after all.’
‘If there was a girl,’ said David, ‘I’d agree with you.’ He gave Mrs Forsdick’s sandpaper palm another squeeze, mentally apologizing at the same time. Sorry, Nicole, he thought, almost aloud; you know how it is, you know it doesn’t mean a thing … Mrs Forsdick’s emotional imbalance was really highly infectious, and for a few hours at least he had to live with it.
‘I suppose all the Press people have come back to Gamate?’ said Mrs Forsdick, preparing to bite off a thread.
‘Yes,’ answered David. ‘Those jet-propelled vultures are back at work.’
‘Have you met one called John Raper?’
‘Oh, yes!’ said David. ‘He’s quite a well-known performer.’
Mrs Forsdick’s hand hovered over his collar. ‘Performer?’ she repeated.
‘Well,’ said David, retrieving from the cobwebs of his mind the faint shadow of a piece of gossip. ‘I mean, he’s a pretty good Pressman.’
‘Is he back here?’ asked Mrs Forsdick.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I thought you said they were all here.’
‘John Raper,’ said David, ‘is something of an exception.’
‘I’ll say he is!’ came Forsdick’s booming voice from the next room.
‘But why should he want to stay in Port Victoria?’ insisted Mrs Forsdick.
‘It’s a long and dirty story!’ called out George Forsdick, with unnecessary relish. ‘And I speak as an expert.’
‘George!’ warned Mrs Forsdick.
‘Sorry, dear,’ said Forsdick, unrepentant. ‘Just a spot of lèse majesté.’
The telephone rang in the narrow hallway, seeming to rescue the household from incipient crisis.
George Forsdick took the call; they heard him saying first, ‘Forsdick,’ then ‘Yes,’ then ‘Yes, sir,’ the latter many times, with increasing formality. It was a one-sided conversation, which the other two listened to with conventionally disguised, secretly avid curiosity. Mrs Forsdick continued to sew, David continued to stand in an attitude of constrained availability; but on this morning in Gamate, with the dubious aboura in the forefront of all their minds, any telephone call was part of a pattern of speculation, of which no segment could be disregarded. When Forsdick, with a final: ‘I’ll tell Bracken straight away, sir,’ put down the receiver and walked through into the living-room, he found waiting a readily attentive audience.
He looked at David. ‘That was the Governor,’ he said importantly. ‘There’s a job for you.’
‘For me?’ David straightened his collar, adjusted his helmet, all with the uncomfortable feeling that he was exhibiting a childish, do-or-die reaction. ‘What is it?’
‘According to Crump,’ continued Forsdick, ‘the boycott is working, and it may not be worthwhile holding the aboura.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘It’s half past ten already – an hour and a half to go. There still isn’t a single soul down on the aboura ground. The Governor wants you to go down now, scout around to see what’s happening, and report back to the Residency on the tax office telephone.’
‘All right,’ said David, feeling heroic and inadequate at the same time. ‘How do I get there? Do I go now?’
‘Crump is driving by in the jeep,’ answered Forsdick. ‘He’ll leave you at the tax office, while he takes a look round himself. All you have to do is keep in touch on the phone.’
‘But what happens if no one comes to the aboura?’ asked Mrs Forsdick.
‘Among other things,’ said Forsdick grimly, ‘Andrew Macmillan will be out of a job.’
Equity struggled briefly with ambition, in Grace Forsdick’s mind. Equity won.
‘But it isn’t his fault,’ she said.
‘It’s going to be someone’s fault,’ said her husband. ‘And it’s not going to be mine.’
‘How many people will there have to be,’ asked David, wrestling with the outlines of his task, ‘before it’s worth while holding the aboura?’
‘The Governor is leaving that to you,’ answered Forsdick, somewhat dauntingly. ‘He’s got to have some sort of a crowd to talk to. If there isn’t a crowd, he won’t come down.’
‘What a terrible thing!’ said Mrs Forsdick, lost in some interior speculation.
‘You wait,’ said Forsdick grimly. ‘This is just the beginning of chapter two.’
‘I’ll drop you off here,’ said Crump, braking the jeep sharply as it drew level with the tax office. ‘You know where the phone is. If I were you, I should ring up the Residency every quarter of an hour.’
‘Where will you be?’ asked David, preparing to step down.
Crump waved his hand vaguely. ‘Around … I want to see how my chaps are doing, and if there’s any open picketing or intimidation that’s keeping people away from the aboura. I’ll come back here in about half an hour.’
The sun burned suddenly hot as David, stepping down, stood between the jeep and the ramshackle, forlorn tax office. He grinned nervously at Keith Crump.
‘It’s just like Shebiya,’ he said, ‘with all those tough customers keeping well out of sight.’
Crump put the jeep into gear. ‘Good luck,’ he said, with no answering grin. And then, surprisingly: ‘Lock yourself into the inner office if things get tough. I’ll bail you out myself, for certain.’ Then he was gone.
David Bracken looked cautiously about him. He stood in isolation at the top end of the aboura; before him was a space three hundred feet square, of bare brown earth beaten level by countless generations of Maulas, and now entirely deserted. The pattern of white lines, the carefully calculated crosses and squares, the fluttering decorations, all were mocked into futility by the deep brooding silence that enclosed the whole scene. It had other containing outlines, but they were not the outlines that could bring him any comfort or hope.
Directly across from him, under the arid thorn trees, was a group of people; he could make out several Pressmen – Tulbach Browne and Pikkie Joubert among them. There was the prominent white cassock of Father Hawthorne, the small brown figure of Father Schwemmer; and Oosthuizen’s enormous bulk towering over them all. There was a handful of other white spectators – Fellows from the Gamate Hotel, one of the doctors from the hospital, a couple of nurses in trim blue uniforms. But in the whole circle, only three black faces were visible: Voice Tula, the tribal interpreter, and two of Crump’s native policemen.
They were all looking towards him, as he stood on the balcony of the tax office, and listened to the diminishing sound of the police jeep as it moved out of sight between the huts. Under the hot sun, he was aware of three elements: the silent, watchful players, the frieze of goats and dogs and flies and heat and dust that was a normal part of any Gamate morning; and the cruel solitude of the aboura, on which no foot save his own had yet trodden, or was likely to tread. At his back, the paper decorations rustled in the faint breeze, making a dry noise like the stirring of ancient bones.
In front of him was the loudspeaker and the control panel of the public address system. At a loss for his next move, David stepped up to it, switched it on, and blew through the microphone. A subdued roar answered him. Then he said, on a low note: ‘Testing, testing, testing …’ and his words were carried to the farthest limits of the aboura. The people under the thorn trees all stared afresh in his direction; the goats and dogs raised their heads momentarily. He longed to say: ‘Come to the aboura now, or I will burn your whole village …’ He switched off the microphone, and retreated into the shadows of the tax office. His immaculate white uniform, clinking medals, obtrusive sword, all seemed part of some ridiculous, fatuous charade. He closed the screen door behind him, and picked up the telephone.
Unexpectedly, Captain Simpson answered his call, with a bare moment’s delay; David could imagine them all waiting up at the Residency, with the Governor and Andrew Macmillan talking weightily in one room, and Simpson (whose views were not essential) detailed to man the telephone. Momentarily, David was conscious of a great gulf, between the bare aboura and the naval aide-de-camp: between black Gamate and white officialdom.
There was this vast empty space, hot and deserted, which he could just see out of the corner of his eye, through the tax office window; and then there was the Residency, with the Governor, the Resident Commissioner, and the naval aide-de-camp, all three of them tremendously starched and white, sharing between them at least twenty assorted orders and decorations of undoubted merit, and waiting – waiting like tormented virgins for the invitation to the dance.
It was his sad duty to tell them that, so far from their being the belles of the ball, the ball itself might never be held. He wished he could feel like a mother – jealous, protective, and solacing. As it was, he felt like a fool.
‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘I just rang up to say that I’m here.’
‘That’s good,’ came Captain Simpson’s booming voice. ‘We were hoping you’d keep in touch. What’s the form, old boy?’
‘Not too encouraging,’ answered David. He looked once more beyond the dusty room to the aboura. The sunlight was fatally revealing. Not a single human being stirred. ‘In fact, there’s no one here at all, at the moment.’
‘I say!’ said Captain Simpson. ‘That’s a pretty bad show, isn’t it? I must tell H E.’
‘Do that …’ David looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. ‘I’ll ring again in a quarter of an hour.’
‘Good show!’ said Captain Simpson. ‘Anything else? Where’s that policeman fellow?’
‘Driving about. Trying to find out what’s going on. He’ll be back before very long.’
‘Good show,’ said Captain Simpson again. ‘I’ll tell H E.’
David felt a sudden wish to draw aside the curtain and lay bare the facts. ‘I don’t think this is any good,’ he said.
‘How do you mean, exactly?’ asked Simpson.
‘They’re not going to turn up. No one is.’
‘Oh … I’d better tell H E.’
‘I’ll ring again,’ said David, depressed, ‘at eleven-fifteen.’
He replaced the receiver, opened the screen door, and went out into the sunlight again. The heat smote him, and the scorched, dusty smell of the aboura. Just in front of him, a scrawny goat was licking at the white-painted cross where the Governor was to stand. After a moment David set out, determinedly, to traverse the empty ground towards the Press correspondents.
It was a long walk; his uniform was tight and stiff, his sword bumped foolishly against his thigh. He felt that there must be many intent eyes watching him – not just the eyes of the Pressmen, whose curiosity was obvious, or the handful of white spectators, but thousands of other eyes, Maula eyes beyond the fringe of thorn trees and the grey ranks of the huts. They must be watching, and hating, and mocking, and thinking: ‘At last a man enters the aboura.’ But he was a white man, a very white man with medals and a sword. One such man, they would say, does not make an aboura.
The group of Pressmen opened outwards as he approached. Tulbach Browne smiled a thin smile of welcome. Clandestine Lebourget and a news cameraman took a few quick shots. Pikkie Joubert nodded, Axel Hallmarck regarded him with sharp, weasel attention. Father Hawthorne stared with burning eyes at a point two feet above his head. David did not know what to say, and therefore said the first thing that came into his mind.
‘Ahsula!’ he said, and raised his hand in the formal Maula salute. There was a vague murmur in reply. One single man answered him directly. It was Voice Tula, standing dutifully at one side, ready to help. ‘Ahsula,’ said Voice Tula, and bowed.
After a pause, Tulbach Browne asked, ironically: ‘What time is the meeting?’
‘Twelve o’clock,’ answered David.
‘Is it still on?’ asked Axel Hallmarck.
‘Yes,’ said David.
‘Man!’ said Pikkie Joubert, ‘those niggers had better hurry up!’
‘When is the Governor coming down?’ asked Noblesse O’Toole, throwing away one flashbulb and substituting another.
‘At eleven-forty-five,’ answered David.
‘How will he be dressed?’
‘The same as me, roughly.’
‘Only wearing more medals, one supposes,’ said Tulbach Browne blandly.
‘He’s older,’ said David flippantly. He felt in a curious mood, of mixed anxiety and carelessness. He knew it was wrong to give any save the most guarded answers, but he could not bring himself to the necessary point of watchfulness. The aboura was going to be a complete disaster. He did not like these people, who were partly responsible. He tried, and failed, to feel that the thing mattered at all.
Pikkie Joubert was surveying him with inquisitive eyes.
‘Excuse me,’ he said presently. ‘What’s that first ribbon, eh?’
‘The Military Cross,’ answered David briefly.
After a long pause, Tulbach Browne jerked his thumb towards the empty aboura. ‘You must be finding this a very different sort of war.’
‘It is a war of ideas!’ proclaimed Father Hawthorne, with holy fervour. ‘Here there are no medals – only wounds.’
David Bracken turned aside, looking out across the aboura. It was no good being angry, or becoming provoked in any way. The day was too hot, the whole occasion too ridiculous. He found himself gazing into the eyes of Voice Tula.
‘Where are all the people?’ he asked, on the spur of the moment.
‘Barena?’ said Voice Tula.
‘It is nearly time for the aboura. Where are the people?’
‘They do not come, I think.’
The others were listening closely; Axel Hallmarck was scribbling on the back of an envelope.
‘But this is a special day,’ said David, persevering.
‘Oh yes, sir,’ answered Voice Tula. His voice had a musically ironic lilt. ‘It is the day when Dinamaula was to be proclaimed chief.’
‘It is the day that the Governor holds his aboura,’ corrected David sharply.
‘Yes,’ agreed Voice Tula. ‘The very same day.’
Their eyes met briefly before David turned away again. He tried to make allowances for the other man’s situation, the delicate balance of an interpreter, with one foot in the tribal camp, the other among the white men – and an audience of yet a third group, dubious in their allegiance, flatteringly attentive. If he himself had been Voice Tula, he might well have tried to show off in the same way … He raised his head as a new sound made itself heard, among the huts at the upper end of the aboura.
It was the police jeep returning, grinding in low gear with the engine revving at near-maximum speed. It came into view between the tax office and a nearby clump of thorn bushes, with Crump at the wheel, square and trim in his full-dress whites, and a policeman by his side. They all watched it as, after pausing at the tax office, it circled the aboura, making for David’s easily recognizable figure at the other side of the open space. It flew a small Union Jack from a metal staff welded to the top of the radiator; it seemed the only sensible and dependable thing within many miles … Enter a messenger, thought David, unreasonably glad of the khaki jeep, the white of Crump’s uniform, the fluttering red-white-and-blue of the flag; enter a messenger, bearing tidings of magnificent victory from Agincourt, Waterloo, Alamein. But he knew well enough that, for all its brave air of competence, the jeep bore news of shoddy defeat.
Once more the circle of correspondents opened outwards as Crump, stepping briskly from the driving seat, strode towards them. Watching him, David remembered his Maula nickname – ‘The Shining Soldier’. It seemed especially appropriate now, as he drew near to them; on this day of the Governor’s formal aboura in Gamate, Crump seemed to embody all the soldierly virtues of smartness, cleanliness, and discipline. It might be that, in the present circumstances, these virtues were making no inch of headway in any direction; but that did not mean that they would be abandoned – rather that they would be maintained with special determination.
Crump saluted David as he drew near – to the latter’s surprise. He suddenly realized that Crump was indicating the necessity for putting on a show, and that he himself, as the Governor’s personal envoy, could be accorded full ceremonial treatment. He returned the salute, with equal gravity and ceremony. If they were starting to retreat – as he already guessed and feared – then they would retreat in good order.
‘Any news?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ answered Crump, in crisp tones. ‘The tribe is being prevented from reaching the aboura.’ He was speaking half to David, half to the ring of correspondents who stood within earshot. ‘The opposition have managed to put a pretty effective cordon round the aboura ground. No one can get through.’
‘That means,’ said David, conscious also of a public audience, ‘that the aboura can’t be held.’
‘No,’ answered Crump. ‘Not in the present circumstances.’
The Pressmen drew closer, surrounding the two of them.
‘What “opposition”?’ asked Tulbach Browne. ‘What kind of an effective cordon do you mean?’
Crump looked at him, his glance cold, his bearing stiff. ‘There’s a sort of noose round the whole aboura,’ he answered, after a pause. ‘All the paths and approaches are guarded. There’s a rough element at work as well. It’s impossible to break through.’
‘Does anyone want to break through?’ asked Axel Hallmarck.
‘Of course they do,’ answered Crump brusquely. ‘There’s a meeting. There should be a lot of people here. They’re being kept away, sometimes forcibly.’
‘Have you any evidence of that?’ asked Tulbach Browne.
‘Yes,’ said Crump, without hesitation. ‘I’ve already arrested two people for using threats and intimidation.’
‘Two,’ repeated Axel Hallmarck, with careful emphasis.
‘There are lots of others,’ said Crump, persevering. ‘But it’s almost impossible to put them down.’
David became aware that other people were joining their group: Oosthuizen and Fellows walked towards them, and then some of the nurses from the hospital. There was a general murmur of comment. He raised his voice.
‘It’s obvious,’ he said, ‘that there’s an organized boycott of the aboura. But apart from that, the people who actually want to attend are being kept away.’
‘Who by?’ asked Pikkie Joubert.
‘The gangster element in the tribe.’
‘Can we quote you on “gangster element”?’ asked Tulbach Browne, faintly menacing.
‘Yes,’ said David hardily. ‘There’s a definite strong-arm organization – you can call them gangsters – who are keeping people away from the aboura.’
Pencils were busy as he finished his sentence. Bang goes my career, he thought, nervous and reckless at the same time. But something in Crump’s confident bearing made him totally unwilling to retract what he had said.
A new ally raised his voice nearby. ‘It’s a bloody disgrace!’ said Oosthuizen, solid fury in his voice. ‘This is the Governor’s aboura. It happens once in ten years – in twenty years! Now they’re staying away from it, just because some bloody agitators tell them to.’
‘They could be staying away from it because they want to,’ said Tulbach Browne.
Father Hawthorne raised a white-cassocked arm. ‘Blessed are the meek,’ he said. ‘I say unto you–’
‘Bunk!’ interrupted Oosthuizen roughly. ‘They’re not meek at all! They’re bloody mutineers! They’ve been put up to every bloody trick in the book! And we’ve got to go on living here, when all you half-baked bastards are safe back in England!’
In the pause that followed this, Father Schwemmer’s gentle voice was heard. ‘If only I could talk to them,’ he said. ‘The true Maulas are not such people. They are always lawful … Can we not hold a meeting of both sides?’
David detached himself from the group, and spoke privately to Crump.
‘It’s about time I reported again,’ he said. ‘Will you take me back to the tax office?’
‘Yes,’ answered Crump readily. ‘I’m getting a bit tired of your friends, anyway.’
As the two of them drew aside, making for the jeep, Axel Hallmarck raised his voice.
‘Has the aboura been cancelled?’
‘No,’ said David, half turning his head.
‘Will it be?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Honey lamb,’ said Clandestine Lebourget, with heavyweight archness, ‘I came here to photograph thousands of enthusiastic people, and there’s not a darned soul in sight. Do the British give out with rainchecks?’
David found it impossible not to join in the laughter, as he took his place in the jeep. The trouble about this assignment was that it had at least seventy-seven different sides, and no intelligent human being could choose one of them, and disregard the other seventy-six.
Back in the uncertain, heat-hammered shelter of the tax office, David conferred briefly with Crump, seeking any new facts that might be worth reporting. But there was virtually nothing save what Crump had already told himself and the correspondents, nothing beyond the bare outline of their defeat; the boycott was on, and it was too late to do anything about it, or to salvage the official face in any way. The clock showed 11.25, as once more David dialled the private line to the Residency.
This time Andrew Macmillan himself answered; David could imagine the other man, nervous and harassed, glad of any sort of physical action that would take him out of the bitter cage of his thoughts. Andrew’s voice was severely controlled, and totally revealing; he sounded all that he was, at this moment of Maula history – grim, intent, and powerless.
‘The situation’s the same,’ David told him, in answer to his query. ‘There’s nobody here at all. There is a cordon round the aboura, though it doesn’t show on the surface, except here and there. Keith Crump has just got back. He’s had two people arrested for intimidation, but he says it won’t make any difference.’
‘Why not?’
‘The police are hopelessly outnumbered.’ David looked at Crump, sitting across on the other side of the tax office desk, and Crump nodded his agreement. ‘It wouldn’t be possible to break the cordon without an equal number of men – which would make it a full-scale operation. At the moment, no one can get through, and nobody really wants to try.’
‘Is Crump there with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ask him if it would be possible to open up one end of the aboura, using whatever force is necessary, and let a small number of people through.’
David repeated the question; Crump gave his answer, in a few short phrases.
‘He says,’ relayed David, ‘that he could make a passage into the aboura, concentrating all his men, but that no one would use it. Most of them don’t want to, the rest are scared.’ He paused. ‘I think we’ll have to call it off.’
‘Not until twelve o’clock,’ answered Andrew harshly.
‘That’s half an hour,’ said David, glancing at his wristwatch. ‘We’ll have to say something to the Press, too.’
‘To hell with the Press!’ said Andrew.
‘Hear, hear,’ said David. ‘But they do exist … There’s just one thing we might still try,’ he went on. ‘I don’t know whether it would work.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Andrew.
‘Round up the Regents. Say what a disgrace it is to the tribe, not to attend the Governor’s aboura. Ask them to use their influence, and bring a few of their people to the meeting.’
‘What does Keith think?’ asked Andrew, after a moment.
David raised his eyebrows in Crump’s direction. ‘What about it?’
‘It won’t work,’ said Crump glumly. ‘But I don’t mind trying it.’
‘He says yes,’ said David.
‘All right,’ answered Andrew Macmillan, after a second of hesitation. ‘I don’t think it will work, but we’d better try everything. Tell him to go off now, and report the result as soon as you can.’
‘He’s on his way already,’ answered David. It was true. Crump was even now pushing his way through the screen door, and a moment later the jeep’s engine started up with a decisive roar.
Left to himself, David stood uncertainly at the tax office door, looking out across the aboura. The scene was the same; the sun still bore down on a deserted space, with the figures of the Press correspondents, and of the white spectators, the only living things within sight. He had a feeling now that he was watching history – morbid and regrettable history, history that would earn a disdainful paragraph in all the books for the next five hundred years. Here in Gamate something died, he thought – and the death wasn’t a good thing, because something worse was inevitably going to take its place.
The correspondents were talking among themselves. Father Hawthorne was gesticulating; Oosthuizen was leaning back against the trunk of a thorn tree, in brooding ill-humour. The same yellow goat was still at work on the white-painted cross. The rest of Gamate waited somewhere out of sight, fearful and exultant at the same time. It was twenty minutes before the time appointed for the Governor’s great aboura, and still no single Maula was to be seen.
The deserted ground had an air of triumphant decay, like a town in the grip of a plague which no one would acknowledge, and no one dared to fight.
David’s sombre thoughts persisted, while the hands of the clock crept round, and the fierce angle of the sun drew close to its fatal station overhead, the appointed hour of noon. Unconsciously, while he waited in the hot silence, playing out the last few moments before their official bankruptcy, he was seeking some means to salve their embarrassment. It was too late to do it now, but it must surely be done in the future. His line of search grew impatient, degenerating into an arid violence. Either they should all of them quit Gamate and Pharamaul, thought David – withdrawing their patronage, leaving the Maulas to sink back into a stinking savagery, teaching them a cruel and remorseless lesson; or they should attack them out of hand, beat them down, subjugate and enslave them; while he himself, David Bracken, plumes waving, sword plunging and swinging, formed the avenging spearhead of a final punitive column.
There could be no half measures. One should either rule, or consign to the scrap heap – the noise of the returning jeep broke in on his thoughts, and guiltily he shook them off, and went out to meet Keith Crump.
Crump himself offered a minor object lesson in colonial patience. The policeman, whose authority was being directly challenged, and who had, during the last few days, endured rare ordeal of danger and provocation, might well have matched the anger and violence of David’s thoughts; instead, his short absence seemed, if anything, to have improved his humour. He approached the stoep, his uniform still immaculate, his swagger-stick swinging; when he caught sight of David, he remarked: ‘That was a waste of time,’ as if time today were of no account, and all his years spent in the territory had conditioned him for just such a moment as this.
‘What happened?’ asked David. ‘Did you see the Regents?’
‘They sent a message,’ answered Crump ironically. ‘They’re still ill. They can’t come. In fact, they had almost forgotten there was such a thing as an aboura today …’
‘Bastards!’ said David angrily.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Crump, without rancour. ‘If you get an idea, you might as well stick to it … But that puts the stopper on our plans. You’d better tell Andrew.’
Once more David looked at his watch. it was five minutes to twelve. He was still unwilling to concede defeat, and especially to be the herald of it.
‘Is there any more news, otherwise?’
‘Another of my chaps was beaten up, down by the post office. He was trying to lead a couple of old people through to the aboura, but he was chased away.’ Crump sighed, laying his helmet down on the table. ‘It’s just not our day.’
‘When will it be “our day”?’ asked David, with an edge to his voice.
Crump looked at him. ‘Don’t let it get you down,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It’ll come again. These things go in cycles … But it’s not today.’
This time, when David dialled the Residency, the Governor himself answered the telephone. Momentarily, David was sorry that he was not up at the Residency himself, for there, it seemed, the most consequential drama of all was being played.
‘Ah, David!’ said the Governor, on a confident note. ‘What news have you for us?’
‘There’s no one here, sir,’ answered David unwillingly. ‘The situation’s the same as before. Crump tried to get the Regents to come to the aboura, and bring some of their people, but they refused. I’m afraid it’s no good.’
‘No good?’ repeated the Governor, as if he could scarcely believe his ears.
‘No, sir. It’s a complete boycott.’
The wires fell silent between them, for so long an interval that David had an idea that the Governor might have fainted dead away. But presently his voice came through again, as stiff and precise as ever.
‘Extraordinary business,’ said the Governor. ‘I suppose we should make an announcement.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said David.
‘You make it, there’s a good fellow,’ said the Governor, as though struck with a thoroughly constructive idea. ‘Wait until twelve o’clock. Then just say that the aboura is cancelled.’
‘Very well, sir. What about the Press?’
‘The Press?’
‘Won’t you be holding a Press conference, sir?’
‘Good heavens, no!’
‘I think we ought to say something, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘To explain what’s happened.’
‘Anyone can see what’s happened.’
‘All the same, sir,’ David persisted, ‘I’d like to put our side of it. Explain about the boycott, and the cordon round the aboura, and what it was you wanted to tell the tribe.’
‘I wanted to tell the tribe,’ said Sir Elliott aloofly, ‘that Dinamaula won’t be coming back to Gamate, until things have quietened down.’
‘I think we should put that on record, sir. Officially.’
‘Very well,’ said the Governor, with one of his baffling reversals of mood. ‘You “put that on record”, as you say …’
From somewhere near at hand, a clock – the schoolhouse clock – started to chime midday, in tinny, unmistakable accents.
‘When will you be leaving Gamate, sir?’
‘Tonight,’ answered the Governor. ‘Informally.’
‘It’s just about twelve o’clock,’ said David awkwardly. ‘I’d better make that announcement.’
‘Very well,’ said the Governor. ‘And thank you, David. You’ve really been awfully useful.’
David turned away from the telephone. He looked at Keith Crump, now comfortably settled in an armchair.
‘Poor old boy,’ said Crump, without a great deal of feeling. ‘Was he very depressed?’
‘Difficult to tell,’ answered David. He felt in a sudden mood of formal, heroic determination. Someone had to make a good end to this fiasco. That someone had better be himself. ‘What’s the Maula phrase,’ he asked, ‘for “the aboura is cancelled”?’
‘That’s easy,’ answered Crump, grinning widely. ‘Aboura i faanga.’
‘Aboura i fanga,’ repeated David inexpertly.
‘Longer vowels,’ corrected Crump. ‘Faanga … Faanga…’
‘Aboura i faanga,’ said David.
‘Fine,’ said Crump. ‘That’s one you’d better memorize…’
The school clock had long ceased to strike the hour. It must be, thought David, at least two minutes after twelve. He pushed his way through the screen door, and out into the bright, the midday sun.
The aboura ground was still defiantly empty. At the lower end, the correspondents were all watching him. He switched on the microphone. There was no reason for delay.
‘I have an official announcement to make,’ he intoned. His echoing voice swept the deserted space in front of him. ‘The aboura is cancelled … The aboura is cancelled …’ Then he braced himself, enunciating with Parisian delicacy: ‘Aboura i faanga … Aboura i faanga.’
As the echo of his voice faded, the Press correspondents swiftly broke their ranks, and started to hurry towards him. For some few seconds, that was the only visible movement. But then, with deliberative unconcern, other men and women – Maula men, Maula women – began to appear in twos and threes between the grey huts, and presently, without intent and yet without hesitation, to move on to the aboura ground, in a steady black encroachment, shamefully free, shamefully released from care.