What had made Cobb come to his house on that particular night? Sheer chance? Or was he really gathering intelligence? He’d known about Cobb for a long time: that the wounded Englishman was one of Deppe’s long-term projects. He’d even seen him once or twice. A manifestly sick, limping officer on parole who sometimes helped out in the ward…
He walked back to his mule. He waved one ruga-ruga twenty metres out to the left. He positioned another similarly on the right. To the third he gave the reins of his mule. He himself took the middle position. He could just see the ruga-ruga on either side. He unholstered his revolver. They would creep silently up to the fire. He was looking forward to seeing Cobb’s face when they stepped out of the gloom and into the fire-light.
He waved the men forward and they moved silently across the dark grass plain towards the glimmering fire. They were about a hundred metres away when von Bishop caught a glimpse of Cobb moving about in front of the flames. He seemed to be collecting twigs and wood for fuel. Von Bishop stopped and hissed at the ruga-ruga on either side to do the same. He would wait until Cobb had settled once more.
Just then his mule whinneyed. Not very loud — perhaps the ruga-ruga leading it had drawn it up too fiercely — but to von Bishop it sounded deafening. Swearing under his breath he dropped to one knee, peering ahead at the fire. But it still burned on. Cobb evidently felt there was no need to extinguish it. Von Bishop allowed himself a small sigh of relief. The African night was full of sounds, especially those made by animals.
For safety’s sake, though, he and the ruga-ruga remained where they were, crouched in the knee-high grass, for another ten minutes, before moving slowly forward once again. As they drew closer von Bishop felt a tightening in his chest. Cobb had made his camp between two spurs of rock at the foot of the kopje. Slowly more details emerged. A stunted thorn tree grew out of a large fissure. The flames caused shifting knife-edged shadows to be cast by the jagged rocks on each side. They inched closer. Then von Bishop suddenly stood up. Cobb had gone.
He strode angrily into the deserted camp site followed by the chattering ruga-ruga. Cobb had obviously left at once, and in haste, abandoning everything as soon as he heard the mule snicker in the dark. Von Bishop looked at the dry tufts of grass around the fire. One had been flattened from the pressure of a body. A sack hung from the thorn tree. A heel of unleavened bread lay on the ground beside a small bundle of sticks. A box of matches had been placed neatly on a round stone…
Von Bishop looked around him vainly. The light from the fire made the surrounding night impenetrably black. One of the ruga-ruga unhooked the sack from the thorn tree and brought it over. Von Bishop reached inside and drew out two candles. He reached in again and his hand closed on a book. He frowned with surprise. A book? He took it out. The worn black and gold leather binding was immediately familiar. He held the spine to the fire, attempting to read the faint lettering of the title. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers.
He recognized the book as his own. How curious, he thought; how on earth did Cobb come to have it? And where were all the missing pages? He tugged at his bottom lip in puzzlement. For what possible reason would Cobb want to read Goethe while on the run? Did he tear out each page after he had read it?
His eye caught some faint writing on the top margin. “Report of Captain G.H. Cobb,” he read. “Account of imprisonment and escape.” He turned the pages with new interest, thinking that here would be some significant clues, but there was no more writing. Another frustration. He felt mildly disappointed.
There was a rattle of falling stones from somewhere high on the kopje. They all looked up at once.
“Get him!” von Bishop shouted excitedly at the started ruga-ruga. They had seized their rifles. “Go on, you idiots!” von Bishop shouted again. He tried Swahili. “Get him I tell you!” What was Kikuyu for ‘catch’?
One of the ruga-ruga yelled something in their gibberish language. He brandished his rifle in the air like a spear. Von Bishop mimed grabbing movements in desperation. Why couldn’t they understand? How did Deeg speak to them? Dutch? Afrikaans? “Yes,” he yelled exasperatedly, baffled by their reticence. Every second counted in this darkness. “Go on, yes?” he gestured at the black mass of the hill. “Catch?” He tried Swahili again. No effect. “Quickly, for God’s sake catch him.” This was ridiculous. Cobb was getting a head start while he floundered around with languages.
Then one ruga-ruga suddenly turned and shouted something to the other two. The three of them scrambled off into the dark, up the rocky slope of the hill. For several minutes he could hear them calling out to each other, and heard the slither and fall of the stones dislodged by their feet. Then their cries became fainter. It sounded to him as if they were now on the other side of the hill. Soon he could hear nothing above the endless noise of the crickets.
He threw some more wood on the fire and sat down. He stared glumly at the flames. He felt tired. He still held the book, he realized. He reached forward and dropped it on the fire. It burnt away to ashes very quickly. It was a kind of evidence, he supposed. Theoretically, he shouldn’t have destroyed it. He pursed his lips and rubbed his nose.
He poked at the ash brick which was all that remained of the book, letting the flakes crumble and fall into the embers of the fire. He thought suddenly of Cobb, out there alone on the dark plain, running. Running frantically from the ruga-ruga. He shivered with sympathy. The man would be terrified out of his wits, any man would. You could die from that sort of terror. Racing blindly through the night, heart pounding, lungs bursting, tripping and falling over, the shouts of your pursuers in your ears.
♦
Von Bishop woke up just before dawn. He felt stiff and hungry. There was a lemon-grey lightening in the east. He relit the fire, took some mealie-flour cakes from his saddle bag, spread them with the last of his raspberry jam and ate a lonely breakfast.
The ruga-ruga didn’t return for another hour or so. Von Bishop saw them first in the distance, coming round the side of the hill, just the three of them in single file. So Cobb got away, he thought, briefly elated for some reason. But then the prospect of another day’s chase made him miserable again. Still, Cobb knew about the China Show. He had his duty to do.
He built up the fire and then took his rifle from his saddle holster. He would try and shoot a bird or a small antelope for the ruga-ruga. It was a safe bet that they wouldn’t move off again until they had eaten.
The ruga-ruga marched into the hollow between the two spurs of rock ten minutes later. Von Bishop sat on a boulder, his rifle between his knees. The leading man, he noticed, had unslung his blanket and carried it over his shoulder like a sack. Perhaps they’ve got their own food, he thought, bending down to remove a speck of dust from his rifle bolt.
There was a soft heavy thud and von Bishop looked up. A yard from the toe of his left boot lay the severed head of Gabriel Cobb, his nose pressed uncomfortably into the dusty earth, his staring eyes and gaping mouth swarming with tiny insects.
10: 25 November 1917, The Makonde plateau, German East Africa
Temple rode between Wheech-Browning and Felix. A hundred yards up ahead his two askari trackers paced easily along, leading their mules, following the conspicuous trail left by von Bishop and his men. They had been up early that day and had made good progress. Temple calculated that they were only two or three hours behind von Bishop now. He stood up in the saddle and stared ahead over the grass plain. Up here on the plateau the morning mists lingered. There was still something of a haze on the horizon, softening the details of the landscape.