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The sky was full of stars. From the labour compound came the sound of a drum, the rise and fall of singing. The Company Law brief was spread on his study table, but Mahoney sat on the verandah of the womanless house, staring out at the moonlight, listening to the singing; and, oh no, he did not want to leave his Africa. Maybe he should have stayed a Nature Commissioner in the bush, with people who needed men of goodwill like him; to help them, to judge them, to show them how to rotate their crops and put back something into the land, how to improve their cattle; someone who knew all their troubles, who attended their indabas and counselled them, the representative of Kweeni, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith … Maybe that was his natural role, to serve – and God knows thev’ll need men like me for the next two hundred years …
‘And if I had sold him to you last year, how much money would I have in my hand today, Nkosi?’ Oh, dear, this is Africa. Today! Today the Winds of Change have driven the white man away. Today we have his roads and railways and schools and hospitals. Today we have fifty dollars … And tomorrow when the roads start crumbling and the sewerage does not work any more, that has nothing whatsoever to do with today.
Joe Mahoney paced his verandah in the moonlight. It was so sad. Africa was dying, but not in the name of Partnership anymore like in those big brave days of Operation Noah, but in the name of Today. And tomorrow the new prime minister will be President-for-Life of a one-party state and there will be no more One Man One Vote, and the roads will be breaking up and the railways breaking down. And he heard Max shout: ‘Then why the hell do you want to give them more power?’
‘Because that’s the only way we can win the war and hang on to just enough!’
But that is only half the godawful story of the dying of Africa, Shelagh. The other half is even more godawful. Because the African counts his wealth in wives and cattle, and in daughters whom he sells as brides for more cattle – his standing is counted by the number of children he has. Twenty years ago there were two hundred million Africans in the whole of Africa, today there are four hundred million, in twenty years there’ll be eight hundred million – and they can’t even feed themselves now.
So what’s it going to be like in twenty years? But even that’s not all. What about the forests these starving millions are going to slash trying to feed themselves? What about the earth that’s going to turn to dust because they’ve sucked everything out and put nothing back? What about the rain that won’t come because the forests are gone? And what about the wild animals? Where are they going to go? The African word for game is nyama, the same word as ‘meat’!
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man. He turned. Another figure followed. It was Elijah, followed by the witchdoctor. Elijah raised his hand. ‘The nganga wishes to speak with Nkosi.’
Mahoney sighed. He thought the man had gone. ‘Let him speak, then.’
The witchdoctor came forward, dropped to his haunches, his hands clasped. He shook them, muttering, then flung them open. The bones scattered on the ground.
Mahoney stared down at them. And for a moment he felt the age-old awe at being in the. presence of the medicine-man. The witchdoctor looked at the bones; then he picked them up, rattled them again, and threw them again. He stared at them.
He threw them a third time. For a full minute he studied them; then he began to point. At one, then another, muttering. Mahoney waited, in suspense. Then the man rocked back on his haunches, closed his eyes. For a minute he rocked. Then he began. ‘There are three women. They all have yellow hair … But the first woman is a ghost. She is dead …’
Mahoney was astonished. Suzie. …
‘The second woman has an unhappy spirit. This woman, you must not marry.’
Mahoney’s heart was pounding. The witchdoctor could know about Shelagh from Elijah, but not about Suzie.
‘The third woman …’ The witchdoctor stopped, his eyes closed, rocking on his haunches. ‘She has the wings of an eagle …’ He hesitated, eyes closed. ‘She will fall to earth. Like a stone from the sky …’
Mahoney tried to dismiss it as nonsense; but he was in suspense. He wanted to know why he must not marry the second woman.
The old man rocked silently.
‘And you too have wings. You will go on long journeys, even across the sea. You have a big ship …’ The man stopped, eyes still closed. ‘You have spirits with you … But you do not hear them …’ He was quite still. ‘There are too many guns.’
Guns? Mahoney thought. Too right there were too many guns. But ships? He waited, pent. But the man shook his head. He opened his eyes, and got up. Mahoney stared at him.
‘Nganga,’ he demanded, ‘what have you not told me?’
The man shook his head. He hesitated, then said: ‘The Nkosi must heed the spirits.’
And he raised his hand in a salute, and walked away in the moonlight.
Mahoney sat on his verandah, with a new glass of whisky, trying to stop turning over in his mind what the witchdoctor had said. But he was still under the man’s spell ‘This woman you must not marry …’
Suddenly he glimpsed a flash of car lights, coming over the hill, and he jerked. He watched them coming, half-obscured by the trees, and his heart was pounding in hope. They swung on to his gates a hundred yards away, and stopped. He got up. The car door opened and a woman got out.
Mahoney came bounding down the steps and down the drive.
She stood by the car, hands on her hips, a smile on her beautiful face. He strode up to the gates, grinning. ‘Hullo, stranger,’ Shelagh said. He unlocked the gate shakily. She held her hand out flat, to halt him. ‘Why didn’t you come to see me?’
‘You know why.’
She smiled. ‘Very well … What do you want first? The bad news or the terrible news?’
He grinned at her: ‘What news?’
She took a breath. ‘The bad news is I’m pregnant.’
Mahoney stared at her; and he felt his heart turn over. He took a step towards her, a smile breaking all over his face, but she stepped backwards.
‘The very bad news is: I’ve decided not to have an abortion.’
And, oh God, the joy of her in his arms, the feel of her lovely body against him again, and the taste and smell of her, and the laughter and the kissing.
Later, lying deep in the big double bed, she whispered: ‘Ask me again.’
He said again, ‘Now will you marry me?’
She lay quite still in his arms for a long moment.
‘Yes.’
The moon had gone. He could not see the storm clouds gathering. They were deep asleep when the first claps of thunder came, and the rain.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_6a5a7fce-d5db-5a1b-95de-1ea454c793eb)
And so it was that Joe Mahoney got married, stood for parliament, and bought a Britannia cargo aeroplane.
The wedding was the following Friday, before the District Commissioner in Umtali, a hundred and fifty miles from Salisbury. The bride wore red. Nobody was present except the Clerk of Court, as witness, and Mahoney had such a ringing in his ears that he went temporarily deaf. Afterwards they drove up into the Inyanga mountains, to the Troutbeck Inn, where they spent a dazed weekend. On Monday Mahoney got rid of all his cases to other counsel, and started his short political career.
He was standing as an independent. He had posters printed, bought radio and television time. He chose the most prestigious constituency to contest, so he would make the most noise. He made many speeches, visited over a thousand homes, had countless arguments. Not in his wildest dreams did he expect to win; his only interest was the opportunity to tell people the truth. He didn’t expect his message to make him popular. ‘Let’s make it a grand slam!’ the government propaganda cried. ‘Let’s show the world we are a united people!’ Let us BE a united people!’ Mahoney bellowed. ‘White and Black united to fight the enemy!’ He drew good crowds, much heckling, and few votes. On polling day the government won every white seat, and there was cheering.
Thus Joseph Mahoney did his duty, then washed his hands of Africa and prepared to emigrate to Australia; but ended up buying a big cargo aeroplane instead, which happened like this.
In those days there were many sanction-busters, men who made their living by exporting Rhodesian products to the outside world in defiance of the United Nations sanctions against Rhodesia, and Tex Weston was one. He was a swashbuckling American with prematurely grey hair, a perfect smile, and a Texan drawl that he could change to an English accent in mid-word; he owned a number of large freight airplanes which plied worldwide, changing their registration documents like chameleons. Tex Weston made a great deal of money by dealing in everything from butter to arms, with anybody. Today it might be ten million eggs, tomorrow hand-grenades. Tex Weston talked a good, quiet game, and claimed he owned a ‘consultancy company’ in Lichtenstein which devised plans for clandestine military operations for client states and put together the team to do the job. In the Quill Bar, where Mahoney did most of his drinking with the foreign correspondents, they called Tex Weston ‘The Vulture’, and nobody knew whether to believe him, although it was suspected that occasionally the government employed foreign professionals to carry out operations against the enemy in other countries. But it was undeniable that Tex Weston was once a major in the American Green Berets, that he was a supplier of arms to Rhodesia, that he knew all about aircargo, and that the Rhodesian government sorely needed the likes of him to bust the sanctions.
Now, on the day after the election, a Portuguese sanction-busting aeroplane was shot up by terrorists as it took off from a bush airstrip, and made an emergency landing in Salisbury. The next day Mahoney was in the Quill Bar, waiting for his wife to finish school and trying hard to spend some of the money he could not take with him to Australia, when Tex Weston sauntered up to him. ‘I hear you’re leaving us for Sydney. I fly Down Under a bit, and sometimes need an understanding lawyer.’
Mahoney smiled wanly. He wondered whether Tex Weston didn’t find it a disadvantage being so good-looking. Men distrusted him for it. But he was one of the few people who quite liked the man.
‘You’d better get one who understands some Australian law. I’ve got to re-qualify first.’
Weston shook his head sympathetically. ‘How long will that take?’
‘A couple of years. Of pure fun.’
Weston smiled. ‘What about money? You’re only allowed to take a thousand dollars, aren’t you?’
Mahoney wondered whether Weston was about to offer to do a bit of smuggling. ‘Shelagh’ll get a job teaching. And we’ll buy a bit of jewellery here and flog it there.’
‘You never get your money back on that sort of thing.’
‘As long as I get some money back.’
Tex said, ‘Tell you what. There’s this Portuguese cargo plane that got shot up. The owner’s lost his nerve, he’s selling her cheap: twenty-five thousand pounds, payable in Rhodesian dollars. She’s in good condition.’
Mahoney looked at him, taken aback.
‘What do I do with a bloody great aeroplane? I’ve just sold my little one.’
Weston said, ‘Fly her to Europe, sell her there. You should
make a profit. But even if you lose a bit, you’ll have got twenty-odd thousand pounds out. Which is better than it sitting here in the bank until the communists shoot their way into town.’
‘But I can’t fly a big aeroplane!’
Tex laughed. ‘The co-pilot’s still aboard, wondering about his next job. Pay his salary and he’ll fly you to Kingdom Come. Out-of-work pilots come pretty cheap.’
Mahoney’s mind was boggling. ‘But how do I go about selling an aeroplane in Europe?’
‘There’s plenty of brokers – planes are for sale all the time.’ He shrugged. ‘She’s a good buy. The Britannia is an excellent workhorse. She’s worth double, I guess.’
‘But even fifty thousand sounds suspiciously cheap for a big aeroplane.’
Tex shook his head. ‘A popular misconception. Planes are like ships. In Singapore there’re hundreds of freighters going rusty. You could pick up a good one for a hundred thousand dollars.’
Mahoney was staring at him. ‘And what is fuel to Europe going to cost?’
‘A few thousand pounds. But you can get a cargo to cover that; Rhodesians are screaming to export. My agents will get you a cargo tomorrow.’ He added, ‘She’s a bargain, but have your pal Pomeroy check her over.’
Mahoney wondered why the great Tex Weston was being so nice to him. ‘If she’s such a bargain, why aren’t you buying her?’
Tex smiled. ‘I’ve already got twenty. What do I need the hassle for? But it’s different for you, you’re an emigrant.’
The next week, Joe Mahoney and his patched-up Britannia took off for Lisbon with a cargo of tobacco. Mahoney had three big diamond rings and three enormous gold bracelets in his pocket. The pilot was a fifty-year-old American with a gravelly voice called Ed Hazeltine. Pomeroy had put up five thousand pounds of the price, for a piece of the action. Dolores, his clerk, had put up two thousand pounds. Pomeroy was co-pilot and engineer, though he was not licensed for Britannias. Mrs Shelagh Mahoney was not aboard: she would join her husband later, in Australia, when he had sold the aircraft, rings and bracelets and found them a place to live.
When they were over the Congo, in the moonlight, Mahoney said: ‘What’re you going to do when we’ve sold her, Ed?’
‘Look for another sucker who owns airplanes,’ Ed rumbled. He added: ‘If you sell her.’
‘You think that’ll be hard?’ Mahoney demanded.
‘Britannias?’ Ed said. ‘Nobody can make a living with these old things, except bus-stopping around Africa where nobody else wants to go.’
When they got to Lisbon there was a telex from Tex Weston offering to buy the aircraft for ten thousand pounds.
‘The bastard,’ Mahoney said.
He spent that day telephoning aircraft brokers all over Europe, but nobody wanted an old Britannia this week. He spent the next day selling a gold bracelet and feverishly telephoning freight agents, trying to find a cargo, because the most terrifying thing about owning an aircraft is how much it costs on the ground. The next day it took off for Nigeria with a cargo of machinery. Mahoney felt he had aged years. As soon as they were at a safe altitude he said grimly, ‘O.K., Ed, start showing me how to fly this thing.’
There was no cargo for the return flight awaiting them in Nigeria, although the Lisbon freight-agent had promised one. In desperation Mahoney went to the market place and bought seventeen tons of pineapples, as his own cargo.
‘So now we’re in the fruit business?’ Pomeroy said.
‘We’ve got to pay for the fuel somehow.’
‘Where to, boss?’ Ed said.
‘To wherever they like pineapples. To Sweden. And stop calling me boss.’
‘We ain’t got enough fuel for Sweden, boss.’
‘To England, then,’ Mahoney said.
As soon as they were airborne he climbed back into Pomeroy’s seat. ‘O.K., Ed, now you’ve really got to teach me to fly this bloody awful machine.’
‘Boss, you can’t operate this airplane with your private pilot’s licence, you’ve got to go to aviation school.’ ‘Start teaching me, Ed!’
PART 2 (#ulink_e176914d-0e37-5f6a-8efb-97743f45957d)
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_0e8729af-2ae1-5099-9278-5155f8829b5a)
It was a hand-written letter, in a brisk scrawl:
The Managing Director
Redcoat Cargo Airlines Ltd
Gatwick Airport, England.
Dear Mr Mahoney,
I read your letter to The Times about the escalating costs of aviation fuel. I will shortly be floating a company to build aircraft which will be very economical on fuel, and I am seeking all the moral support I can get. Plainly it is vital to build these aircraft in (to quote your Times letter) a hostile world of oil bandits holding us to ransom with ever-increasing fuel prices, a world full of poor countries plunging deeper into poverty and despair because of oil prices, becoming ripe for communist takeover as a consequence. I would like to meet you. Rest assured I am not asking you, or Redcoat Cargo Airlines, for money. I will telephone you.
Sincerely,
(Major) Malcolm Todd
The telephone call, from a coin-box, was equally brisk. So was the meeting, in a pub called The Fox and Rabbit. Major Todd thanked him for coming, bought him half a pint and got straight to the point, as if rehearsed. He was a grey-haired man, mid-fifties, with a cherubic face and bespectacled eyes that seldom left Mahoney’s; he stood very still while he spoke:
‘I have a Master of Science degree and until the year before last I was in the Royal Engineers. Five years ago I was given the task of formulating a plan for moving British troops to various battle-zones in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; I had to assume that the Channel, Gibraltar and Suez were blocked by enemy navy, our airforce fully engaged in challenging enemy airstrikes, and that all ports, airfields and railways in Europe were in enemy hands.’
Mahoney was intrigued. The Major went on: ‘After considering every form of transport – and of course all methods of breaking blockades – I and my staff concluded that the quickest, cheapest and safest system would be the transportation of troops and armour by airship.’
‘By airship?’ Mahoney interposed.
‘Yes. We calculated that an airship with a lifting capacity of seven million cubic feet of helium – not hydrogen – could airlift almost a thousand men, at a hundred miles an hour, at a fraction of the fuel cost of any other vehicle, exposing the troops to less vulnerability-time en route. Remember that all airfields are assumed to be in enemy hands. An airship, however, can hover anywhere, like a helicopter, and lower its troops by scrambling net.’
