Temple inclined his head in the direction of the German woman.
“That woman is the wife of the bastard I’m chasing,” he said. “But wait for this. He’s chasing your brother. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
Felix wasn’t interested in the American’s observations: what was coincidence to him was merely irrelevant to Felix.
“But why? Why is he chasing him?”
“Your brother escaped two days ago. It seems they think he was a spy.”
“A spy?” It didn’t make any sense. “Gabriel?”
“Yes. But Frau von Bishop says he wasn’t a spy.” Temple frowned, as if he too were having trouble comprehending everything. “Anyway,” he went on, “the Germans believe your brother is in possession of vital information, which is why they’re after him.”
“I wonder what it is?” Wheech-Browning said.
“Doesn’t she know?” Felix asked.
“No. Or at least she isn’t saying. She says she has no interest in the war at all.”
“But where’s he gone?” Felix said. It seemed the most malevolent cruelty to have allowed him to get so close.
“North,” Temple said. “That’s all she knows. She keeps saying not to worry. She says your brother will come back here any day. She says he’s just hiding out in the bush somewhere.”
“How does she know all this?”
“Your brother was in the hospital here for a long time as her patient. It seems she got to know him then.”
Felix felt lost. He couldn’t really grasp what was going on.
“Look,” Temple said. “I’m going after this von Bishop. They won’t be long off. If I catch him your brother might not be far away.”
“I’m coming too,” Felix said. “But I must ask this woman a question first.”
“Let’s get out of the damned sun first,” Wheech-Browning said, pushing open the door of an outhouse. “Cooler in here. I’ll just have a look.” He ducked inside. Ten seconds later he came out, red-faced, scrupulously wiping his hand with a handkerchief.
“Good God!” he seemed genuinely shocked. “Barbarians! The place is covered in…human ordure!”
“That’s right,” Temple said calmly. “I should have warned you.”
Felix walked over to the German woman, Temple and Wheech-Browning following. The woman was plump and strong-looking, with a pale freckly face. She had a mango leaf in her hands and was tearing it methodically into tiny pieces.
“Guten Tag, gnadige Frau,” Felix said, striving to remember his German.
“She speaks English,” Temple said.
“Oh good.” Felix started again. “I believe you know my brother, Gabriel Cobb. He escaped from here two days ago.”
The woman’s placid expression suddenly became curious. She stared at Felix’s face.
“You are Gabriel’s brother?” she said.
“Yes. I just want to ask you one question,” Felix said slowly. “Can you tell me if, during the time he was here, he ever received a letter? A letter from England.”
“A letter?”
“Yes.”
“No. No, I’m sure.”
“Sure he didn’t?”
“He never had any letter.”
Felix felt a delicious sensation momentarily envelop him. A feeling of supernatural release, a floating, an ecstatic removal of terrible worries and tormenting fears. Gabriel knew nothing. Now all he had to do was find him.
“Thank you,” he said with heartfelt sincerity to the woman, and rejoined Temple and Wheech-Browning.
“Were you speaking German then?” Wheech-Browning asked.
“You don’t happen to number Portuguese among your many tongues, do you?”
Felix was still overcome with the information he’d just received. He couldn’t be bothered with the idiotic, insane questions of this ludicrous bean-pole of a man.
“Portuguese? Yes, I speak it fluently.”
“You wouldn’t care for a job with GSO II (Intelligence), would you?” They were walking round the hospital back to the main street. “It seems my next task will be to liaise with our Portuguese allies, if and when von Lettow crosses the Rovuma, and I don’t speak a word.”
“No thank you,” Felix said firmly. “I’m fully committed to the Nigerian Brigade.”
“Are you coming?” the American asked casually, as if he were offering to drive him to the local railway station. “I’ve got orders to scout north anyway. They think there’s another column heading south from Tabora trying to rejoin Lettow.”
Felix paused. He experienced a sense of mounting desperation, he felt the imponderable obstacles of army custom and regulations hemming him in.
“I’ve got to come,” he said finally. “But my captain has only cleared me for today. What can I do?” he asked Temple.
“Easy,” Temple said. “Get Wheech-Browning here to say his motor car has broken down. We shouldn’t be more than two or three days.”
Wheech-Browning held up his hands. “Sony old chap. Not on, I’m afraid.”
“Come on,” Temple persuaded. “It’s his brother for God’s sake.”
“It could be his great-grandmother for all I care,” Wheech-Browning said cheerily. “No can do.”
Felix felt like killing the man. Wheech-Browning was a major. Frearson wouldn’t suspect anything.
“Jesus Christ,” Temple swore incredulously. “Can’t you say it’s a matter of vital security?”
“Oh yes,” Wheech-Browning agreed. “I can say that. But then I’d have to come along too, do you see. I couldn’t say that, then send Cobb along in my place, could I now?”
Temple’s face set. He looked at Felix. “Is that all right with you?”
“Yes,” Felix said desperately, “anything.”
“Jolly good,” Wheech-Browning said. “Let’s pop back to battalion HQ. I’ll give your company commander a call.”
9: 24 November 1917, The Makonde plateau, German East Africa
Von Bishop had hoped to catch up with his quarry long before, but it had proved harder than he thought to pick up his trail and necessitated a tedious to-ing and fro-ing between native villages, and the issuing of bribes and threats, before reports started to come in. Once they had reached the plateau he thought it would only be a matter of hours, but Cobb’s course was so erratic that the ruga-ruga kept losing his trail. Cobb had been on the move now for two full days: by all accounts he should be collapsing from exhaustion. It was remarkable that he’d got so far.
As dusk fell the ruga-ruga made their unwillingness to continue evident. They hadn’t expected to be away from Nanda this long either, but von Bishop pressed them on regardless. Each night when he camped Cobb lit a fire, judging from the remains they found. He hoped that tonight they would be close enough to him to spot it glimmering in the darkness. He had been on the point of calling a halt — the sun had disappeared, only the shred of an orange-pink sunset lightened the sky — when one of the ruga-ruga up ahead gave a whistle. A kilometre or so away, at the base of the darker mass of a rock kopje, was a tiny twinkle of flame.
♦
They stopped where they were and waited until it became fully dark. The ruga-ruga stood together whispering excitedly, clearly glad the chase was finally over. Von Bishop too felt a vague relief. He began to plot their next moves. They would have to head west for a while before wheeling south to the Ludjenda confluence. He wished suddenly that he had had the foresight to bring another mule. If Cobb was sick and weak their progress would be considerably impeded. Perhaps he could get the ruga-ruga to procure him one from a village: they couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
He wandered a little way from the group, staring at the twinkling point of light. There was a moon rising but it was too thin to make detection likely. He frowned with concentration, staring at Cobb’s fire — a tiny flicker in the vast encroaching darkness of the plateau — until his eyes watered.