The return to normal is relatively easy in Africa, and can even be accomplished quite rapidly. Because so much here is makeshift, impermanent, light, and shabby, it is possible instantly to destroy a village, a field, or a road — and just as quickly to rebuild them.
We usually went to the post office before noon to send our dispatches. There were already ten of us, for seven more foreign correspondents had been allowed in. The small post office building, adorned with arabesques, had a history: great travelers — Livingstone and Stanley, Burton and Speke, Cameron and Thomson — had sent their telegrams from here. The teleprinters inside reminded me of those long-ago days. Their exposed innards, with all their little wheels, cogs, gears, and levers, looked like the mechanisms of the huge old clocks in the towers of medieval city halls.
John, from UPI, a tall and eternally perplexed-looking blond-haired fellow, grabbed his head after reading the telegram he had just received. As we left the post office, he took me aside and showed me the alarming piece of paper. His editors were informing him that military revolts had erupted overnight in Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda, and that he must get to those countries at once. “At once!” John exclaimed. “At once, but how?”
The news was startling. Army coups! It looked serious, although we had no details. Barely a week ago — Zanzibar. Today already, the whole of East Africa! Clearly, the continent was entering a period of disturbances, revolts, takeovers. And we, the residents of the Zanzibar Hotel, now had a new problem: how to leave here? A longer stay made no sense in any event — Okello’s people would not let us travel beyond the town and into the countryside, where battles had raged earlier and, apparently, many were being held prisoner. As for the town itself it was peaceful, sleepy; the days passed uneventfully.
We had a meeting after returning to the hotel, during which John informed everyone about his telegram. We all wanted to get back to the mainland, but no one knew how. Zanzibar was still cut off from the rest of the world. To make matters worse, it looked as if the locals, still afraid of intervention, were holding us hostage. Karume, the only one who could help us, was elusive, spending most of his time at the airport, and of late he hadn’t been seen there, either.
There was really only one possibility: to try the sea route. Someone read in a guidebook that it is seventy-five kilometers from here to Dar es Salaam. It is a pleasant journey by ship — but where do we get a ship? A boat was out of the question. We couldn’t take the local boat owners into our confidence, because, even supposing they were still alive, they would be either in jail, or afraid to help, or they might inform against us. And the greatest danger of all was that Field Marshal Okello’s inexperienced, casually recruited people, scattered as they now were along the entire coastline, would begin shooting were they to spot a boat — after all, no one really controlled them.
As we were conferring, a messenger brought a new telegram together with our mail. His editors were once again ordering John to act quickly: the military had already seized airports and government buildings, and the prime ministers of the three countries had disappeared; perhaps they were in hiding, but it was uncertain if they were still alive. We listened to this sensational bulletin in helplessness and anger. Our little conference came to nothing. There was only one thing to do: wait.
The two Englishmen — Peter from Reuters and Aidan from Radio Tanganyika — had gone to look for their compatriots in the city, hoping with their help to find some way out. When they returned near evening they called another meeting. They had found an elderly Englishman who had decided to leave at the earliest opportunity and wanted to sell a motorboat in good condition. “The boat is moored nearby, in the port, in a secluded, out-of-the-way bay. He will take us there in the evening, along side paths and under cover of darkness. Hidden in the boat, we will wait until late at night, until the guards fall asleep. The Englishman, an old colonialist, said: ‘A negro is a negro. Be what may, he has to sleep.’ When midnight passes, we will start the motor and begin our escape. The nights are so dark now, that even if they did try to shoot, it is doubtful they could hit us.”
They finished, and silence descended. Then, the first voices were heard. As always, there were supporters and opponents of the idea. Questions were posed; a discussion began. Had there been other possibilities, this flight by boat would doubtless have seemed too risky and foolhardy. But there were none. The ground was burning beneath our feet, and time was of the essence. Zanzibar? With the same determination that we had tried to get here, we would now struggle to get out. Only Felix and Arnold were opposed. Felix deemed the plan idiotic, and considered himself too old for such adventures, while Arnold simply had too much valuable photographic equipment he was afraid to lose. They nevertheless agreed to pay our hotel bills when we were already out at sea, so as not to arouse suspicion.
A slight, gray-haired man arrived in the evening, dressed in the traditional costume of British colonial administrators: a white shirt, wide white shorts, and white kneesocks. We followed him. The darkness was so profound that his silhouette ahead of us appeared and disappeared like a phantom. Finally, we sensed boards beneath our feet — it was probably the pier. The old man whispered that we should walk down the steps to the boat. What steps? What boat? We couldn’t see anything. But he insisted, his words now resounding like commands. And we knew the field marshal’s men could be lurking somewhere close by. Mark, the Australian, a massive man with a wide, good-hearted face, climbed down first; during our earlier deliberations, he had maintained that he knew how to sail and could navigate the boat. He also had the key to the lock on the chain with which the boat was secured to the pier, and knew how to start the engine. When Mark’s foot reached the bottom of the boat, there was a splash, and everyone hissed for quiet! Quiet! We were now descending one after the other: the Englishmen, Peter and Aidan; the German, Thomas; the American, John; the Italian, Carlo; the Czech, Jarek; and I. Each tried to feel for the shape and location of the boat, where the side was and how the bulkheads were spaced, and then groped for a spot somewhere on the little bench, or failing that on the boat’s bottom.
The old Englishman disappeared and we were left alone. There were no lights anywhere. The silence was ever more penetrating. Only now and then could we hear a wave hitting the pier, and from somewhere far, very far away, the roll of the invisible ocean. So as to not give ourselves away, we honored the silence, uttering not a word. John’s watch had a phosphorescent dial, and he passed it around from time to time — the miniature glowing dot circulating from hand to hand: 22:30, 23:00, 23:30. We stayed this way, in the deepest darkness, half-asleep, numbed, and anxious, until John’s watch indicated two in the morning. Mark pulled on the line activating the engine. The motor, like a wild animal unexpectedly goaded, roared and howled. The boat rocked, lifted its bow, and took off straight ahead.
The Zanzibar port is on the western side of the island, the one closest to the continental coast. Logically, therefore, one would have to travel due west to reach the mainland, and southwest if the goal was Dar es Salaam. But for now we cared about one thing only: to gain as much distance as possible from the port. Mark set the controls to maximum speed, and the boat, shuddering ever so slightly, skimmed the calm, smooth surface. The darkness was still absolute, and no shots came from the direction of the island. The escape had succeeded; we were safe. This realization pulled us out of our torpor and our spirits rose. We motored along blissfully for more than an hour, then suddenly everything began to change. The hitherto glassy surface of the water started to move restlessly and violently. Waves reared up, crashing against the side of the boat, with increasing force, relentless. It was if a mighty fist were pounding with angry regularity at the hull. Strangely it seemed a force of blind savage cry and at the same time of cool, systematic calculation. A strong wind arose, and rain, the kind of downpour that comes only in the tropics: rain like a waterfall, rain like a wall of water. Because it was still dark, we lost our bearings completely; we no longer knew where we were, or in which direction we were headed. But soon even this became unimportant, for we were being hurled about by ever larger waves, by now so dangerous and frenzied, we couldn’t tell what would happen to us the next minute, the next second. The boat would heave and groan upward, freezing for a moment on the wave’s invisible summit, and then plunge abruptly from the precipice into a roaring abyss, a rumbling darkness.