‘They are killing our own brothers, in the town beside the sea’ – so ran the message that sped from mouth to mouth, and from hut to hut in Gamate, an hour or so before Forsdick, the District Commissioner, read an urgent telegram beginning: ‘Disturbances in the dock area have led to a strike affecting port facilities.’ To Forsdick, a dock strike in Port Victoria seemed of precious little account; if that were the only thing they had to worry about, he thought sourly, then those superior bastards down in Government House could count themselves pretty well off. But to Gamate itself, already stretched to a fearful tension, plagued by rumours and strange visitors, consumed by the violent joys of intrigue and mutiny, the news from the south, presented as it was in terms of bloodshed and oppression, made glorious all that they dared to do.
For they were no longer alone – so the fresh rumours ran. The men who wrote on the machines, the priest who talked of freedom and the striking-off of chains, now seemed wonderfully vindicated. Earlier, there had been some who held back, doubting the wisdom of opposing their will to white Government. But now, it seemed, all Pharamaul was in flames, and ready to throw aside its hated yoke. Any man could now strike any blow, provided it was a strong blow against tyranny. Had they not been told that the whole world was watching them? Had they not been assured that the time had come to prove their manhood?
David Bracken, once he had overcome the slight embarrassment of his position, found all that he did at this time, and all he watched, and all he recorded, more worth-while than anything in his life so far. He had been left behind in Gamate, to act as the Governor’s personal observer, and to report back directly to Government House. ‘Seconded for temporary duty with the Resident Commissioner’ had been the vague official delineation of his new assignment; but he felt it must be obvious to everyone in Gamate, and particularly to Andrew Macmillan, that he was nothing more than a Government House spy, detailed to keep an eye on the floundering yokels who were making such a mess of things, up there in the native capital …
However, it had all worked out on a simpler, less contentious plane. He lived at the Residency, and his relationship with Macmillan was cordial and uncomplicated. Resolutely he had put aside all conviction of spying, all implications that his very presence meant that the Governor was near to losing confidence in what Macmillan was doing and trying to do. As David Bracken, First Secretary, he was there to help. That was all that mattered.
Just as had happened at the time of the abandoned aboura, and the murderous confusion that followed it, his natural ally was Keith Crump, the policeman. Crump himself, grossly overworked, dealing hourly with a score of crises and a hundred conflicting rumours, seemed glad of his presence; though he was, at the same time, a man honest enough to make his own position clear at the outset. He had done this in a singularly direct manner, when he and David, touring one of the outlying circles of huts, had by chance come upon a wasted and putrefying Maula corpse, lying, half-eaten by jackals, beside its own grave.
‘For once, that’s natural causes,’ observed Crump. They were seated side by side in the jeep, surveying the disgusting cameo of death. Crump pointed. ‘You see what happened? That’s an old man called Tembula – he died of pneumonia a couple of days ago. He was buried there–’ Crump pointed again, ‘–and they put that big pile of stones on top of the grave. Along comes a pack of jackals, and they scrape away the soil, and burrow downwards, from the outside edge of the stones down to the corpse, until they’ve made an exit tunnel of the right size and at the right angle, and then they drag the corpse up, and sit down to dinner. Damned clever, these Chinese jackals … Don’t forget to put that in your report.’
‘What report?’ asked David, not sure, under the impact of such gruesome mortal decay, whether to laugh or to be sick.
‘The one you’ll be writing tonight.’ Crump faced him, cheerful, unresenting, friendly. ‘As a simple policeman, I deduce that you’re here to see how we’re handling things in Gamate, and to report back to H E. In fact, I’d be a bloody fool if I didn’t deduce that.’
‘I’m just here to help,’ said David, with appropriate care.
‘Fair enough,’ answered Crump. ‘We can always use a good man.’
‘And also to report,’ said David. He liked Crump, but this was not the moment to be patronized.
Crump nodded again, sure of himself as he always was. ‘All I say is, give us the credit, along with the black marks… Now let’s take a look at some of the people who are still alive.’
That had seemed then, and at all other later times, a most reasonable proposition … Together they covered many miles each day, improvising, snatching meals, weaving new plans of action out of the confused air, plugging the gaps in the fabric of security. Together they struck many blows, held many conferences, looked down on many dead men, watched much blood flow, and dodged many weapons.
They were two white men, whose authority was no longer invincible, in a black town – the lowering black town of Gamate.
For now, the pause in violence broke by sheer weight of ill-will, and was quickly left behind. All that had recently happened in Gamate, and had escaped without notable punishment, now served as a pattern; men who had prudently held back grew bold, men who had been leaders became wild prophets of revolt. By day, a brooding silence overlay the town, while fires were put out, smashed windows were boarded up, the wounded were cared for, the dead were buried, and the police searched for known malefactors; by night, the curtain came down on the rule of law, and blood thickened and boiled until it spewed over, once again, into disgusting violence.
For David Bracken, watching in fear and tension, the focus of all those evil days was Keith Crump. Macmillan seemed to have retreated into the shadows, from whence he witnessed, mutely impotent, the destruction of his whole working life; Forsdick also remained behind the scenes, shouldering a burden of administration which had now become unmanageable. Tribal affairs were at a standstill; to take their place, a senseless destruction possessed all but a few Maulas. Stemming this, spearheading the counter-thrust of order and discipline, Captain Crump of the Royal Pharamaul Police seemed like a lone heroic figure, moulded for this single purpose from some indestructible fibre.
Crump had always had a cheerful way with evildoers; basically, he always knew what was going on, all the crooks, all the smart boys, all the weaker vessels; and he had been able to deal with them from an all-embracing efficiency, with time to spare for paternal benevolence. But now it had become too tough for cheerfulness. Nothing was funny, any more in Gamate. There was no place for laughter; because between laughter and a grave look, a man might be murdered, a woman raped, a hut set on fire, a house torn down.
Fear ruled all their lives; fear, and a grim sense of execution. A dozen times each night, Crump, at the head of his police patrol, had to break up a riot, rescue hostages, defend a threatened strongpoint, give safe conduct to a doctor or a nurse or a Government official. His diary, and his subsequent reports, recorded a steady deterioration and a ruthless pressure from either side. The jail was hopelessly overcrowded; extra police were drafted in, living in tents behind a barbed wire enclave; convicted rioters or looters were sent down to the coast, to relieve the inroads on confinement; certain men were rounded up and cautioned, tough areas patrolled, appeals made to put an end to this murderous chaos.
But still the body of violence and disorder grew, fattening upon a profitable immunity. For the total of wrongdoing was more than could be dealt with, in any single working day. There came a time when, in one period of twenty-four hours, five huts were burned; every single window on the ground floor of the hospital was smashed; Father Schwemmer’s mission church was broken into, stripped, and defiled; some cattle, seized for unpaid taxes, were maimed and had to be destroyed; two men were shot by a sentry while trying to steal the key of the jail; a police raid on an illicit brewing of bariaana was beaten off, with wild excess of celebration; a gang of simpleminded thugs breached the retaining walls of the Gamate dam, and let two months’ rainfall escape in muddy chaos; and a waggon, overturned in reprisal for some faint-hearted support from its owner, crushed to death the four children sleeping in its shadow.
It was no wonder, thought David, that Keith Crump, charged with the care and solution of all such crises, grew taut and lean as a spear. His tribal nickname, ‘The Shining Soldier’, now seemed part of a remote, ridiculously benevolent past. Now, seeing a score of painstaking years evaporate like the precious water in the dam, knowing above all that he and his men had lost all tribal repute, and become the target for general hatred, he was grim, unsmiling, and resentful. So, indeed, were a lot of other people.