Shout at the Devil

Why? "Sebastian looked up in surprise.

"Otherwise there will be nobody there when we arrive."

During his service with the German Imperial Army, Mohammed had been on tax expeditions before.

"Well if you think it necessary," Sebastian agreed dubiously.

Half an hour later Sebastian swaggered in burlesque of a German officer into the village of M'tapa, and was dismayed by the reception he received. The lamentations of two hundred human beings made a hideous chorus for his entry.

Some of them were on their knees and all of them were wringing their hands, smiting their breasts or showing other signs of deep distress. At the far end of the village M'tapa, the headman, waited under guard by Mohammed and two of his Askari.

M'tapa was an old man, with a cap of pure white wool, and an emaciated body covered with a parchment of dry skin. One eye was glazed over with tropical ophthalmia, and he was clearly very agitated. "I crawl on my belly before you, Splendid and Merciful Lord," he greeted Sebastian, and prostrated himself in the dust.

"I say, that isn't necessary, you know," murmured Sebastian.

"My poor village welcomes you," whimpered M'tapa.

Bitterly he recriminated. himself for thus being taken unawares. He had not expected the tax expedition for another two months, and had taken no pains with the disposal of his wealth. Buried under the earthen floor of his hut was nearly a thousand silver Portuguese escudos and half again as many golden Deutschmarks. The traffic of his villagers in dried fish, netted in the RoVUma river, was highly organized and lucrative.

Now he dragged himself pitifully to his old knees and signalled two of his wives to bring forward stools and gourds of palm wine.

"It has been a year of great pestilence, disease and famine," M'tapa began his prepared speech, when Sebastian was seated and refreshed. The rest of it took fifteen minutes to deliver, and Sebastian's Swahili was now strong enough for him to follow the argument. He was deeply touched.

Under the spell of palm wine and his new rosy outlook on life, he felt his heart going out to the old man.

While M'tapa spoke, the other villagers had dispersed quietly and barricaded themselves in their huts. It was best not to draw attention to oneself when candidates for the rope were being selected. Now a mournful silence hung over the village, broken only by the mewling of an infant and the squabbling of a pair of mangy mongrels, contesting the ownership of a piece of offal.

"Manali," impatiently Mohammed interrupted the old man's catalogue of misfortune. "Let me search his hut."

Wait," Sebastian stopped him. He had been looking about, and beneath the single baobab tree in the centre of the village he had noticed a dozen or so crude litters. Now he stood up and walked across to them.

When he saw what they contained, his throat contracted with horror. In each litter lay a human skeleton, the bones still covered with a thin layer of living flesh and skin. Naked men and women mixed indiscriminately, but their bodies so wasted that it was almost impossible to tell their sex. The pelvic girdles were gaunt basins of bone, elbows and knees great deformed knobs distorting the stick-like limbs, each rib standing out in clear definition, the faces were skulls whose lips had shrunk to expose the teeth in a perpetual sardonic grin, But the real horror was contained in the sunken eye cavities; the lids were fixed wide open and the eyeballs glared like red marbles. There was no pupil nor iris, just those polished orbs the colour of blood.

Sebastian stepped back hurriedly, feeling his belly heave and the taste of it in his throat. Not trusting himself to speak, he beckoned for M'tapa to come to him, and pointed at the bodies in the litters.

M'tapa glanced at them without interest. They were so much part of the ordinary scene that for many days he had not consciously been aware of their existence. The village was situated on the edge of a tsetse fly belt, and since his childhood there had always been the sleeping sickness cases lying under the baobab tree, deep in the coma which precedes death. He could not understand Sebastian's concern.

"When... Sebastian's voice faltered, and he swallowed before going on. "When did these people last eat? "he asked.

"Not for a long time." M'tapa was puz led by the question.

Everybody knew that once the sleeping time came they never ate again.

Sebastian had heard of people dying of starvation. It happened in places like India, but here he was confronted with the actual fact. A revulsion of feeling swept over him.

109 This was irrefutable proof that all M'tapa had told him was true. This was famine as he had not believed really could exist and he had been trying to extort money from these people!

Sebastian walked slowly back to his stool and sank down upon it. He removed the heavy helmet from his head, held it in his lap and sat staring miserably at his own feet. He was helpless with guilt and compassion.

Fly

From his hip-pocket, Sebastian produced the tobacco pouch containing the money and counted out half of it.

tapa," his voice was subdued. "Take this money. Buy food for them."

"Manali," screeched Mohammed in protest. "Manali. Do not do it."

"Shut up!" Sebastian snapped at him, and prodded the handful of coins towards M'tapa. "Take it!"