Search Results for 'drifting'

Mavis adjusted her reading glasses, peering suspiciously at the announcement flashing across the common area screen.

“Right then,” she said, tapping it. “Would you look at that. We’re not drifting to our doom in the black abyss anymore. We’re going home. Makes me almost sad to think of it that way.”

Gloria snorted. “Home? I haven’t lived on Earth in so long I don’t even remember which part of it I used to hate the most.”

Sharon sighed dramatically. “Oh, don’t be daft, Glo. We had civilisation back there. Fresh air, real ground under our feet. Seasons!”

Mavis leaned back with a smirk. “And let’s not forget: gravity. Remember that, Glo? That thing that kept our knickers from floating off at inconvenient moments?”

Gloria waved a dismissive hand. “Oh please, Earth gravity’s overrated. I’ve gotten used to my ankles not being swollen. Besides, you do realise that Earth’s just a tiny, miserable speck in all this? How could we tire of this grand adventure into nothing?” She gestured widely, nearly knocking Sharon’s drink out of her hand.

Sharon gasped. “Well, that was uncalled for. Tiny miserable speck, my foot! That tiny speck is the only thing in this whole bloody universe with tea and biscuits. Get the same in Uranus now!”

Mavis nodded sagely. “She’s got a point, Glo.”

Gloria narrowed her eyes. “Oh, don’t you start. I was perfectly fine living out my days in the great unknown, floating about like a well-moisturized sage of space, unburdened by all the nonsense of Earth.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “Oh, spare me. Two weeks ago you were crying about missing your favorite brand of shampoo.”

Gloria sniffed. “That was a moment of weakness.”

Mavis grinned. “And now you’re about to have another when we get back and realise how much tax has accumulated while we’ve been away.”

A horrified silence fell between them.

Sharon exhaled. “Right. Back to the abyss then?”

Gloria nodded solemnly. “Back to the abyss.”

Mavis raised her cup. “To the abyss.”

They clinked their mismatched mugs together in a toast, while the ship quietly, inevitably, pulled them home.

Helix 25 – Gentle Utopia at Upper Decks

The Upper Decks of Helix 25 were a marvel of well-designed choreography and engineered tranquility. Life here was made effortless, thanks to an artful curation of everyday problems. Climate control ensured the air was always crisp, with just enough variation to keep the body alert, while maintaining a perfect balance of warm and cool, hygrometry, with no crazy seasons or climate change upheaval to disrupt the monotony. Food dispensers served gourmet meals for every individual preferences —decadent feasts perfectly prepared at the push of a button. The Helix cruise starships were designed for leisure, an eternity of comfort — and it had succeeded.

For the average resident, the days blended into one another in an animated swirl of hobbyist pursuits. There were the Arboretum Philosophers, who debated meaningfully over the purpose of existence while sipping floral-infused teas. There were the Artisans, who crafted digital masterpieces that vanished into the ship’s archives as soon as they were complete. There were the Virtual Adventurers, who lived entire lifetimes in fully immersive life-like simulations, all while reclining on plush lounges, connected to their brain chips courtesy of Muck Industries.

And then, there were Sharon, Gloria, and Mavis.

Three old ladies who, by all accounts, should have spent their days knitting and reminiscing about their youth, but instead had taken it upon themselves to make Helix 25 a little more interesting.

“Another marvelous day, ladies,” Sharon declared as she strolled along the gilded walkway of the Grand Atrium, a cavernous space filled with floating lounges and soft ambient music. The ceiling was a perfect replica of a sky—complete with drifting, lazy clouds and the occasional simulated flock of birds. Enough to make you almost forget you were in a closed fully-controlled environment.

Mavis sighed, adjusting her gaudy, glittering shawl. “It’s too marvelous, if you ask me. Bit samey, innit? Not even a good scandal to shake things up.”

Gloria scoffed. “Pah! That’s ‘cause we ain’t lookin’ hard enough. Did you hear about that dreadful business down in the Granary? Dried ‘im up like an apricot, they did. Disgustin’.”

“Dreadful,” Sharon agreed solemnly. “And not a single murder for decades, you know. We were overdue.”

Mavis clutched her pearls. “You make it sound like a good thing.”

Gloria waved a dismissive hand. “I’m just sayin’, bit of drama keeps people from losing their minds. No offense, but how many decades of spa treatments can a person endure before they go barmy?”

They passed a Wellness Lounge, where a row of residents were floating in Zero-G Hydrotherapy Pods, their faces aglow with Rejuvenex™ Anti-Aging Serum. Others lounged under mild UV therapy lamps, soaking up synthetic vitamin D while attendants rubbed nutrient-rich oils into their wrinkle-free skin.

Mavis peered at them. “Y’know, I swear some of ‘em are the same age as when we boarded.”

Gloria sniffed. “Not the same, Mavis. Just better preserved.”

Sharon tapped her lips, thoughtful. “I always wondered why we don’t have crime ‘ere. I mean, back on Earth, it were all fights, robbery, someone goin’ absolutely mental over a parking space—”

Gloria nodded. “It’s ‘cause we ain’t got money, Sha. No money, no stress, see? Everyone gets what they need.”

“Needs? Glo, love, people here have twelve-course meals and private VR vacations to Ancient Rome! I don’t reckon that counts as ‘needs’.”

“Well, it ain’t money, exactly,” Mavis pondered, “but we still ‘ave credits, don’t we?”

They fell into deep philosophical debates —or to say, their version of it.

Currency still existed aboard Helix 25, in a way. Each resident had a personal wealth balance, a digital measure of their social contributions—creative works, mentorship, scientific discovery, or participation in ship maintenance (for those who actually enjoyed labor, an absurd notion to most Upper Deckers). It wasn’t about survival, not like on the Lower Decks or the Hold, but about status. The wealthiest weren’t necessarily the smartest or the strongest, but rather those who best entertained or enriched the community.

Gloria finally waved her hand dismissively. “Point is, they keep us comfortable so we don’t start thinkin’ about things too much. Keep us occupied. Like a ship-sized cruise, but forever.”

Mavis wrinkled her nose. “A bit sinister, when you put it like that.”

“Well, I didn’t say it were sinister, I just said it were clever.” Gloria sniffed. “Anyway, we ain’t the ones who need entertainin’, are we? We’ve got a mystery on our hands.”

Sharon clapped excitedly. “Ooooh yes! A real mystery! Ain’t it thrillin’?”

“A proper one,” Gloria agreed. “With dead bodies an’ secrets an’—”

“—murder,” Mavis finished, breathless.

The three of them sighed in unison, delighted at the prospect.

They continued their stroll past the Grand Casino & Theatre, where a live orchestral simulation played for a well-dressed audience. Past the Astronomer’s Lounge, where youngster were taught to chart the stars that Helix 25 would never reach. Past the Crystal Arcade, where another group of youth of the ship enjoyed their free time on holographic duels and tactical board games.

So much entertainment. So much luxury.

So much designed distraction.

Gloria stopped suddenly, narrowing her eyes. “You ever wonder why we ain’t heard from the Captain in years?”

Sharon and Mavis stopped.

A hush fell over them.

Mavis frowned. “I thought you said the Captain were an idea, not a person.”

“Well, maybe. But if that’s true, who’s actually runnin’ the show?” Gloria folded her arms.

They glanced around, as if expecting an answer from the glowing Synthia panels embedded in every wall.

For the first time in a long while, they felt watched.

“…Maybe we oughta be careful,” Sharon muttered.

Mavis shivered. “Oh, Glo. What ‘ave you gotten us into this time?”

Gloria straightened her collar. “Dunno yet, love. But ain’t it excitin’?”

“With all the excitment, I almost forgot to tell you about that absolutely ghastly business,” Gloria declared, moments later, at the Moonchies’ Café, swirling her lavender-infused tea. “Watched a documentary this morning. About man-eating lions of Njombe.”

Sharon gasped, clutching her pearls. “Man eating lions?!”

Mavis blinked. “Wait. Man-eating lions, or man eating lions?”

There was a pause.

Gloria narrowed her eyes. “Mavis, why in the name of clotted cream would I be watchin’ a man eating lions?”

Mavis shrugged. “Well, I dunno, do I? Maybe he ran out of elephants.”

Sharon nodded sagely. “Yes, happens all the time in those travel shows.”

Gloria exhaled through her nose. “It’s not a travel show, Sha. And it’s not fiction.”

Mavis scoffed. “You sure? Sounds ridiculous.”

“Not as ridiculous as a man sittin’ down to a plate of roast lion chops,” Gloria shot back.

Mavis tilted her head. “Maybe it’s in a recipe book?”

Gloria slammed her teacup down. “I give up. I absolutely give up.”

Sharon patted her hand. “There, there, Glo. You can always watch somethin’ lighter tomorrow. Maybe a nice documentary about man-eating otters.”

Mavis grinned. “Or man eating otters.”

Gloria inhaled deeply, resisting the urge to upend her tea.

This, this was why Helix 25 had never known war.

No one had the time.

Helix 25 – Below Lower Decks – Shadow Sector

Kai Nova moved cautiously through the underbelly of Helix 25, entering a part of the Lower Decks where the usual throb of the ship’s automated systems turned muted. The air had a different smell here— it was less sterile, more… human. It was warm, the heat from outdated processors and unmonitored power nodes radiating through the bulkheads. The Upper Decks would have reported this inefficiency.

Here, it simply went unnoticed, or more likely, ignored.

He was being watched.

He knew it the moment he passed a cluster of workers standing by a storage unit, their voices trailing off as he walked by. Not unusual, except these weren’t Lower Deck engineers. They had the look of people who existed outside of the ship’s official structure—clothes unmarked by department insignias, movements too intentional for standard crew assignments.

He stopped at the rendezvous point: an unlit access panel leading to what was supposed to be an abandoned sublevel. The panel had been manually overridden, its system logs erased. That alone told him enough—whoever he was meeting had the skills to work outside of Helix 25’s omnipresent oversight.

A voice broke the silence.

“You’re late.”

Kai turned, keeping his stance neutral. The speaker was of indistinct gender, shaved head, tall and wiry, with sharp green eyes locked on his movements. They wore layered robes that, at a glance, could have passed as scavenged fabric—until Kai noticed the intricate stitching of symbols hidden in the folds.

They looked like Zoya’s brand —he almost thought… or let’s just say, Zoya’s influence. Zoya Kade’s litanies had a farther reach he would expect.

“Wasn’t aware this was a job interview,” Kai quipped, leaning casually against the bulkhead.

“Everything’s a test,” they replied. “Especially for outsiders.”

Kai smirked. “I didn’t come to join your book club. I came for answers.”

A low chuckle echoed from the shadows, followed by the shifting of figures stepping into the faint light. Three, maybe four of them. It could have been an ambush, but that was a display.

“Pilot,” the woman continued, avoiding names. “Seeker of truth? Or just another lost soul looking for something to believe in?”

Kai rolled his shoulders, sensing the tension in the air. “I believe in not running out of fuel before reaching nowhere.”

That got their attention.

The recruiter studied him before nodding slightly. “Good. You understand the problem.”

Kai crossed his arms. “I understand a lot of problems. I also understand you’re not just a bunch of doomsayers whispering in the dark. You’re organized. And you think this ship is heading toward a dead end.”

“You say that like it isn’t.”

Kai exhaled, glancing at the flickering emergency light above. “Synthia doesn’t make mistakes.”

They smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “No. It makes adjustments.” — the heavy tone on the “it” struck him. Techno-bigots, or something else? Were they denying Synthia’s sentience, or just adjusting for gender misnomers, it was hard to tell, and he had a hard time to gauge the sanity of this group.

A low murmur of agreement rippled through the gathered figures.

Kai tilted his head. “You think she’s leading us into the abyss?”

The person stepped closer. “What do you think happened to the rest of the fleet, Pilot?”

Kai stiffened slightly. The Helix Fleet, the original grand exodus of humanity—once multiple ships, now only Helix 25, drifting further into the unknown.

He had never been given a real answer.

“Think about it,” they pressed. “This ship wasn’t built for endless travel. Its original mission was altered. Its course reprogrammed. You fly the vessel, but you don’t control it.” She gestured to the others. “None of us do. We’re passengers on a ride to oblivion, on a ship driven by a dead man’s vision.”

Kai had heard the whispers—about the tycoon who had bankrolled Helix 25, about how the ship’s true directive had been rewritten when the Earth refugees arrived. But this group… they didn’t just speculate. They were ready to act.

He kept his voice steady. “You planning on mutiny?”

They smiled, stepping back into the half-shadow. “Mutiny is such a crude word. We’re simply ensuring that we survive.”

Before Kai could respond, a warning prickle ran up his spine.

Someone else was watching.

He turned slowly, catching the faintest silhouette lingering just beyond the corridor entrance. He recognized the stance instantly—Cadet Taygeta.

Damn it.

She had followed him.

The group noticed, shifting slightly. Not hostile, but suddenly alert.

“Well, well,” the woman murmured. “Seems you have company. You weren’t as careful as you thought. How are you going to deal with this problem now?”

Kai exhaled, weighing his options. If Taygeta had followed him, she’d already flagged this meeting in her records. If he tried to run, she’d report it. If he didn’t run, she might just dig deeper.

And the worst part?

She wasn’t corruptible. She wasn’t the type to look the other way.

“You should go,” the movement person said. “Before your shadow decides to interfere.”

Kai hesitated for half a second, before stepping back.

“This isn’t over,” he said.

Her smile returned. “No, Pilot. It’s just beginning.”

With that, Kai turned and walked toward the exit—toward Taygeta, who was waiting for him with arms crossed, expression unreadable.

He didn’t speak first.

She did.

“You’re terrible at being subtle.”

Kai sighed, thinking quickly of how much of the conversation could be accessed by the central system. They were still in the shadow zone, but that wasn’t sufficient. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.” Her voice was even, but her fingers twitched at her side. “You know this is treason, right?”

Kai ran a hand through his hair. “You really think we’re on course for a fresh new paradise?”

Taygeta didn’t answer right away. That was enough of an answer.

Finally, she exhaled. “You should report this.”

“You should,” Kai corrected.

She frowned.

He pressed on. “You know me, Taygeta. I don’t follow lost causes. I don’t get involved in politics. I fly. I survive. But if they’re right—if there’s even a chance that we’re being sent to our deaths—I need to know.”

Taygeta’s fingers twitched again.

Then, with a sharp breath, she turned.

“I didn’t see anything tonight.”

Kai blinked. “What?”

Her back was already to him, her voice tight. “Whatever you’re doing, Nova, be careful. Because next time?” She turned her head slightly, just enough to let him see the edge of her conflicted expression.

“I will report you.”

Then she was gone.

Kai let out a slow breath, glancing back toward the hidden movement behind him.

No turning back now.

Matteo — Autumn 2023

The Jardin des Plantes park was quiet, the kind of quiet that settled after a brisk autumn rain. Matteo sat on a weathered wooden bench, watching a golden retriever chase the last of the fallen leaves tumbling across the gravel path. The damp air was carrying scents of the earth welcoming a retreat inside, and taking the time to be alone with his thoughts was something he’d missed.

His phone buzzed with a notification—a news update about the latest film adaptation from a Liz Tattler classic fiction. The name made him smile faintly. Juliette had loved Tattler’s novels, their whimsical characters, and the unflinching and unapologetic observations about life’s quiet mysteries and the unexpected rants about the virtues of cleaning and dustsceawung that propelled the word in the people’s top 100 favourite in the Oxford dictionary for several years consecutively.

“They’re so full of texture,” Juliette once said as she was sprawled on the bed of their tiny Parisian flat, a battered paperback in her hands. “Like you can feel the pages breathe.”

His image of her was still vivid, they’d stayed on good terms and he would still thumb up some of her posts from time to time —but it was only small moments rather than full scenes that used to come back, fragmented pieces of memories really —her dark hair falling messily over her face, her legs crossed in a casual way.

Paris had been a playground for them. For a while, they were caught in a whirlwind of late-night conversations in smoky cafés and lazy Sunday mornings wandering the Seine. They’d spent hours in bookstores, Juliette hunting for first editions and Matteo snapping pictures of the handwritten notes tucked between the pages of used novels.

A year ago, a different park in a different city—Hyde Park, London. She was there, twirling a scarf she’d picked up in Vienna the weekend before, the bright red of it like a ribbon of fire against the soft gray skies. They had been enamored with each other and with the spontaneity of hopping trains to new cities, their weekends folding into one another like pages of a travel journal. London one week, Paris the next, Berlin after that. Each city a postcard snapshot, vibrant and fleeting.

Juliette would tease him about his fascination with the little things—how he would linger too long over a cup of coffee at a café or stop to photograph a tree in the middle of nowhere. “You’re always looking for stories,” she’d said with a laugh, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Even when you’re not sure what they mean.”

“Stories are everywhere,” he would reply, snapping a picture of her against the backdrop of the park, her scarf billowing in the wind. She had rolled her eyes but smiled, and in that moment, he had believed her smile was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen.

The break-up came unannounced, but not fully unexpected. There were signs here and there. Her love of the endless whirlwind of life, that was a match for his way of following life’s intents for him. When sometimes life went still during winter, he would also follow, but she wouldn’t. She had insatiable love for a life filled with animation, bursts of colours, sounds. It had been easy to be with her then, her curiosity pulling him along, their shared love of stories giving their time together a weight that felt timeless. It was when Drusilla’s condition worsened, that their rhythms became untangled, no longer synching at every heartbeat. And it was fine. Matteo had made his decision then to leave Paris and bring his mother to Avignon where she could receive the care she needed. Those past two weeks that brought the inevitable conclusion of their separation had left him surprisingly content. Happy for the past moments, and hopeful for the unwritten future.

He could see clearly that Juliette needed her freedom back; and she’d agreed. Regular train rides to Avignon, the weekends spent trying to make the sparse walls of his mother’s room feel like home as she started to forget her son’s girlfriend, and sometimes even her own son.

Last they were in this park together was one of their last shared moments of innocent happiness ; It was a beautiful sunny afternoon —or was it only coloured by memories? They had been sitting in the Jardin des Plantes, sharing a crêpe. Juliette had been scrolling through her phone, stopping at an announcement about an interview with Liz Tattler airing that evening. “You should watch it,” she’d said, her tone light but distant. “Her books are about people like us—drifting, figuring it out.”

He had smiled then, nodding, though he wasn’t sure if he’d meant it. A week later, she told him she was moving back to Lille, closer to her family until she figured out her next step. “It’s not you, Matteo,” she’d said, her eyes soft but resolute. “You need to be here, for her. I need… something else.”

Now, sitting in the park a few weeks later, Matteo pulled his phone from his pocket and opened his gallery. He scrolled through the pictures until he found one from their weekend in London—a black-and-white shot of Julia standing in front of a red telephone booth, her smile sharp and her eyes already focused on the next shooting star to catch.

Julia was right, he thought. People like them—they drifted, but they also found their way, sometimes in unexpected ways. He put on his earpods, listening to the beginning of Liz Tattler’s interview.

Her distinct raspy voice brimming with a cackling energy was already engrossing. Synchy as ever, she was saying:

“Every story begins with something lost, but it’s never about the loss. It’s about what you find because of it.”

Matteo — December 1st 2023: the Advent Visit

(near Avignon, France)

The hallway smelled of nondescript antiseptic and artificial lavender, a lingering scent jarring his senses with an irreconciliable blend of sterility and forced comfort. Matteo shifted the small box of Christmas decorations under his arm, his boots squeaking slightly against the linoleum floor. Outside, the low winter sun cast long, pale shadows through the care facility’s narrow windows.

When he reached Room 208, Matteo paused, hand resting on the doorframe. From inside, he could hear the soft murmur of a holiday tune—something old-fashioned and meant to be cheerful, likely playing from the small radio he’d gifted her last year. Taking a breath, he stepped inside.

His mother, Drusilla sat by the window in her padded chair, a thick knit shawl draped over her frail shoulders. She was staring intently at her hands, her fingers trembling slightly as they folded and unfolded the edge of the shawl. The golden light streaming through the window framed her face, softening the lines of age and wear.

“Hi, Ma,” Matteo said softly, setting the box down on the small table beside her.

Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice, her eyes narrowing as she fixed him with a sharp, almost panicked look. “Léon?” she said, her voice shaking. “What are you doing here? How are you here?” There was a tinge of anger in her tone, the kind that masked fear.

Matteo froze, his breath catching. “Ma, it’s me. Matteo. I’m Matteo, your son, please calm down” he said gently, stepping closer. “Who’s Léon?”

She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes clouded with confusion. Then, like a tide retreating, recognition crept back into her expression. “Matteo,” she murmured, her voice softer now, though tinged with exhaustion. “Oh, my boy. I’m sorry. I—” She looked away, her hands clutching the shawl tighter. “I thought you were someone else.”

“It’s okay,” Matteo said, crouching beside her chair. “I’m here. It’s me.”

Drusilla reached out hesitantly, her fingers brushing his cheek. “You look so much like him sometimes,” she said. “Léon… your father. He’d hold his head just like that when he didn’t want anyone to know he was worried.”

As much as Matteo knew, Drusilla had arrived in France from Italy in her twenties. He was born soon after. She had a job as a hairdresser in a little shop in Avignon, and did errands and chores for people in the village. For the longest time, it was just the two of them, as far as he’d recall.

Matteo’s chest tightened. “You’ve never told me much about him.”

“There wasn’t much to tell,” she said, her voice distant. “He came. He left. But he gave me something before he went. I always thought it would mean something, but…” Her voice trailed off as she reached into the pocket of her shawl and pulled out a small silver medallion, worn smooth with age. She held it out to him. “He said it was for you. When you were older.”

Matteo took the medallion carefully, turning it over in his hand. It was a simple but well-crafted Saint Christopher medal, the patron saint of travellers, with faint initials etched on the back—L.A.. He didn’t recognize the letters, but the weight of it in his palm felt significant, grounding.

“Why didn’t you give it to me before?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“I forgot I had it,” she admitted with a faint, sad laugh. “And then I thought… maybe it was better to keep it. Something of his, for when I needed it. But I think it’s yours now.”

Matteo slipped the medallion into his pocket, his mind spinning with questions he didn’t want to ask—not now. “Thanks, Ma,” he said simply.

Drusilla sighed and leaned back in her chair, her gaze drifting to the small box he’d brought. “What’s that?”

“Decorations,” Matteo said, seizing the moment to shift the focus. “I thought we could make your room a little festive for Christmas.”

Her face softened, and she smiled faintly. “That’s nice,” she said. “I haven’t done that in… I don’t remember when.”

Matteo opened the box and began pulling out garlands and baubles. As he worked, Drusilla watched silently, her hands still clutching the shawl. After a moment, she spoke again, her voice quieter now.

“Do you remember our house in Crest?” she asked.

Matteo paused, a tangle of tinsel in his hands. “Crest?” he echoed. “The place where you wanted to move to?”

Drusilla nodded slowly. “I thought it would be nice. A co-housing place. I could grow old in the garden, and you’d be nearby. It seemed like a good idea then.”

“It was a good idea,” Matteo said. “It just… didn’t happen.”

“No,… you’re right” she said, collecting her thoughts for a moment, her gaze distant. “You were too restless. Always moving. I thought maybe you’d stay if we built something together.”

Matteo swallowed hard, the weight of her words pressing on him. “I wanted to, Ma,” he said. “I really did.”

Drusilla’s eyes softened, and she reached for his hand, her grip surprisingly strong. “You’re here now,” she said. “That’s what matters.”

They spent the next hour decorating the room. Matteo hung garlands around the window and draped tinsel over the small tree he’d set up on the table. Drusilla directed him with occasional nods and murmured suggestions, her moments of lucidity shining like brief flashes of sunlight through clouds.

When the last bauble was hung, Drusilla smiled faintly. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Like home.”

Matteo sat beside her, emotion weighing on him more than the physical efforts and the early drive. He was thinking about the job offer in London, the chance to earn more money to ensure she had everything she needed here. But leaving her felt impossible, even as staying seemed equally unsustainable. He was afraid it was just a justification to avoid facing the slow fraying of her memories.

Drusilla’s voice broke through his thoughts. “You’ll figure it out,” she said, her eyes closing as she leaned back in her chair. “You always do.”

Matteo watched her as she drifted into a light doze, her breathing steady and peaceful. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against the medallion. The weight of it felt like both a question and an answer—one he wasn’t ready to face yet.

“Patron saint of travellers”, that felt like a sign, if not a blessing.

The road was stretching endlessly and monotonously, a straight line disappearing into a nothingness of dry landscapes that sounded a bit depressing. At regular speed, the car barely seemed to progress, and Youssef was rather serious at the wheel. Soon Xavier was left depleted of jokes to tell (even the bad ones which tended to come off easily with sleep deprivation), so he tried to catch some of the patchy network signal to reconnect where he’d left off on the game. There wasn’t much network, and all he could download in the car, even with the game in lo-fi mode, was a measly text message with the starter for his new challenge.

Your quest takes place in the ghost town of Midnight, where time seems to have stood still. The townspeople are all frozen in time, stuck in their daily routines and unable to move on. Your mission is to find the missing piece of continuity, a small hourglass that will set time back in motion and allow the townspeople to move forward.

A ghost town seemed apt indeed.

The welcome signs at the entrance of the town for their hostel were rather uninviting, but a festive banner mentioning the local “Lager and Carts festival” caught his attention. He counted the days. It would be next week-end; there was a good chance they’d still be there, the four of them. At least some action to look forward to!

When he and Youssef arrived at the Inn after that rather uneventful and terribly long drive, all they wanted was to get a shower and some sleep. Zara wasn’t back yet from her trip, but they both figured out they’d meet at breakfast in the morning.

The old lady with the sharp tongue had shown them their rooms rather unceremoniously; she was too busy ranting about an idle person not taking their *one job* seriously to care about details. Xavier almost asked for a wifi, but then thought better and decided to hold his question until he found someone to ask who was born in his century.
Xavier took room 7, and Youssef room 5.

The rooms were quite nicely decorated. It reminded him of something he’d read in the plane from a commentary of the Bardo Thodöl:

In Tibetan the word for body is lü, which means “something you leave behind,” like baggage. Each time we say “lü,” it reminds us that we are only travelers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body. So in Tibet people did not distract themselves by spending all their time trying to make their external circumstances more comfortable. They were satisfied if they had enough to eat, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. Going on as we do, obsessively trying to improve our conditions, can become an end in itself and a pointless distraction. Would anyone in their right mind think of fastidiously redecorating their hotel room every time they booked into one? 

— The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

At least, he wasn’t feeling compelled to redecorate this room; it was perfect. The shared sanitaries, the boiler and the piping were another story, but that was probably coming from the same era as the owner, nice as she was.

After having unpacked his few belongings, and taken a hot shower, he laid on the bed looking at the ceiling, which was blank and made a nice contrast to the ornate walls full of colorful dots.

Luckily, searching through the signals available, he could see there was mostly one, and without any password. With the next neighbour a few miles away, no wonder nobody bothered with security.

He connected to AL to check a few parameters — there seemed to be some degenerescence in the programme output that wasn’t satisfactory, and he was wondering if some self-repair or training reinforcement mechanisms were missing. At the moment, nothing too pressing, but he would keep an eye on them.

Still no words from Yasmin… he thought drifting to sleep… I half expected her to be there already…

From Tanganyika with Love

continued part 8

With thanks to Mike Rushby.

Morogoro 20th January 1941

Dearest Family,

It is all arranged for us to go on three months leave to Cape Town next month so
get out your flags. How I shall love showing off Kate and John to you and this time
George will be with us and you’ll be able to get to know him properly. You can’t think
what a comfort it will be to leave all the worries of baggage and tipping to him. We will all
be travelling by ship to Durban and from there to Cape Town by train. I rather dread the
journey because there is a fifth little Rushby on the way and, as always, I am very
queasy.

Kate has become such a little companion to me that I dread the thought of leaving
her behind with you to start schooling. I miss Ann and George so much now and must
face separation from Kate as well. There does not seem to be any alternative though.
There is a boarding school in Arusha and another has recently been started in Mbeya,
but both places are so far away and I know she would be very unhappy as a boarder at
this stage. Living happily with you and attending a day school might wean her of her
dependance upon me. As soon as this wretched war ends we mean to get Ann and
George back home and Kate too and they can then all go to boarding school together.
If I were a more methodical person I would try to teach Kate myself, but being a
muddler I will have my hands full with Johnny and the new baby. Life passes pleasantly
but quietly here. Much of my time is taken up with entertaining the children and sewing
for them and just waiting for George to come home.

George works so hard on these safaris and this endless elephant hunting to
protect native crops entails so much foot safari, that he has lost a good deal of weight. it
is more than ten years since he had a holiday so he is greatly looking forward to this one.
Four whole months together!

I should like to keep the ayah, Janet, for the new baby, but she says she wants
to return to her home in the Southern Highlands Province and take a job there. She is
unusually efficient and so clean, and the houseboy and cook are quite scared of her. She
bawls at them if the children’s meals are served a few minutes late but she is always
respectful towards me and practically creeps around on tiptoe when George is home.
She has a room next to the outside kitchen. One night thieves broke into the kitchen and
stole a few things, also a canvas chair and mat from the verandah. Ayah heard them, and
grabbing a bit of firewood, she gave chase. Her shouts so alarmed the thieves that they
ran off up the hill jettisoning their loot as they ran. She is a great character.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 30th July 1941

Dearest Family,

Safely back in Morogoro after a rather grim voyage from Durban. Our ship was
completely blacked out at night and we had to sleep with warm clothing and life belts
handy and had so many tedious boat drills. It was a nuisance being held up for a whole
month in Durban, because I was so very pregnant when we did embark. In fact George
suggested that I had better hide in the ‘Ladies’ until the ship sailed for fear the Captain
might refuse to take me. It seems that the ship, on which we were originally booked to
travel, was torpedoed somewhere off the Cape.

We have been given a very large house this tour with a mosquito netted
sleeping porch which will be fine for the new baby. The only disadvantage is that the
house is on the very edge of the residential part of Morogoro and Johnny will have to
go quite a distance to find playmates.

I still miss Kate terribly. She is a loving little person. I had prepared for a scene
when we said good-bye but I never expected that she would be the comforter. It
nearly broke my heart when she put her arms around me and said, “I’m so sorry
Mummy, please don’t cry. I’ll be good. Please don’t cry.” I’m afraid it was all very
harrowing for you also. It is a great comfort to hear that she has settled down so happily.
I try not to think consciously of my absent children and remind myself that there are
thousands of mothers in the same boat, but they are always there at the back of my
mind.

Mother writes that Ann and George are perfectly happy and well, and that though
German bombers do fly over fairly frequently, they are unlikely to drop their bombs on
a small place like Jacksdale.

George has already left on safari to the Rufiji. There was no replacement for his
job while he was away so he is anxious to get things moving again. Johnny and I are
going to move in with friends until he returns, just in case all the travelling around brings
the new baby on earlier than expected.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 26th August 1941

Dearest Family,

Our new son, James Caleb. was born at 3.30 pm yesterday afternoon, with a
minimum of fuss, in the hospital here. The Doctor was out so my friend, Sister Murray,
delivered the baby. The Sister is a Scots girl, very efficient and calm and encouraging,
and an ideal person to have around at such a time.

Everything, this time, went without a hitch and I feel fine and proud of my
bouncing son. He weighs nine pounds and ten ounces and is a big boned fellow with
dark hair and unusually strongly marked eyebrows. His eyes are strong too and already
seem to focus. George is delighted with him and brought Hugh Nelson to see him this
morning. Hugh took one look, and, astonished I suppose by the baby’s apparent
awareness, said, “Gosh, this one has been here before.” The baby’s cot is beside my
bed so I can admire him as much as I please. He has large strong hands and George
reckons he’ll make a good boxer some day.

Another of my early visitors was Mabemba, George’s orderly. He is a very big
African and looks impressive in his Game Scouts uniform. George met him years ago at
Mahenge when he was a young elephant hunter and Mabemba was an Askari in the
Police. Mabemba takes quite a proprietary interest in the family.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 25th December 1941

Dearest Family,

Christmas Day today, but not a gay one. I have Johnny in bed with a poisoned
leg so he missed the children’s party at the Club. To make things a little festive I have
put up a little Christmas tree in the children’s room and have hung up streamers and
balloons above the beds. Johnny demands a lot of attention so it is fortunate that little
James is such a very good baby. He sleeps all night until 6 am when his feed is due.
One morning last week I got up as usual to feed him but I felt so dopey that I
thought I’d better have a cold wash first. I went into the bathroom and had a hurried
splash and then grabbed a towel to dry my face. Immediately I felt an agonising pain in
my nose. Reason? There was a scorpion in the towel! In no time at all my nose looked
like a pear and felt burning hot. The baby screamed with frustration whilst I feverishly
bathed my nose and applied this and that in an effort to cool it.

For three days my nose was very red and tender,”A real boozer nose”, said
George. But now, thank goodness, it is back to normal.

Some of the younger marrieds and a couple of bachelors came around,
complete with portable harmonium, to sing carols in the early hours. No sooner had we
settled down again to woo sleep when we were disturbed by shouts and screams from
our nearest neighbour’s house. “Just celebrating Christmas”, grunted George, but we
heard this morning that the neighbour had fallen down his verandah steps and broken his
leg.

Eleanor.

Morogoro Hospital 30th September 1943

Dearest Family,

Well now we are eight! Our new son, Henry, was born on the night of the 28th.
He is a beautiful baby, weighing ten pounds three and a half ounces. This baby is very
well developed, handsome, and rather superior looking, and not at all amusing to look at
as the other boys were.George was born with a moustache, John had a large nose and
looked like a little old man, and Jim, bless his heart, looked rather like a baby
chimpanzee. Henry is different. One of my visitors said, “Heaven he’ll have to be a
Bishop!” I expect the lawn sleeves of his nightie really gave her that idea, but the baby
does look like ‘Someone’. He is very good and George, John, and Jim are delighted
with him, so is Mabemba.

We have a dear little nurse looking after us. She is very petite and childish
looking. When the baby was born and she brought him for me to see, the nurse asked
his name. I said jokingly, “His name is Benjamin – the last of the family.” She is now very
peeved to discover that his real name is Henry William and persists in calling him
‘Benjie’.I am longing to get home and into my pleasant rut. I have been away for two
whole weeks and George is managing so well that I shall feel quite expendable if I don’t
get home soon. As our home is a couple of miles from the hospital, I arranged to move
in and stay with the nursing sister on the day the baby was due. There I remained for ten
whole days before the baby was born. Each afternoon George came and took me for a
ride in the bumpy Bedford lorry and the Doctor tried this and that but the baby refused
to be hurried.

On the tenth day I had the offer of a lift and decided to go home for tea and
surprise George. It was a surprise too, because George was entertaining a young
Game Ranger for tea and my arrival, looking like a perambulating big top, must have
been rather embarrassing.Henry was born at the exact moment that celebrations started
in the Township for the end of the Muslim religious festival of Ramadan. As the Doctor
held him up by his ankles, there was the sound of hooters and firecrackers from the town.
The baby has a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon above his left eyebrow.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 26th January 1944

Dearest Family,

We have just heard that we are to be transferred to the Headquarters of the
Game Department at a place called Lyamungu in the Northern Province. George is not
at all pleased because he feels that the new job will entail a good deal of office work and
that his beloved but endless elephant hunting will be considerably curtailed. I am glad of
that and I am looking forward to seeing a new part of Tanganyika and particularly
Kilimanjaro which dominates Lyamungu.

Thank goodness our menagerie is now much smaller. We found a home for the
guinea pigs last December and Susie, our mischievous guinea-fowl, has flown off to find
a mate.Last week I went down to Dar es Salaam for a check up by Doctor John, a
woman doctor, leaving George to cope with the three boys. I was away two nights and
a day and returned early in the morning just as George was giving Henry his six o’clock
bottle. It always amazes me that so very masculine a man can do my chores with no
effort and I have a horrible suspicion that he does them better than I do. I enjoyed the
short break at the coast very much. I stayed with friends and we bathed in the warm sea
and saw a good film.

Now I suppose there will be a round of farewell parties. People in this country
are most kind and hospitable.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 20th March 1944

Dearest Family,

We left Morogoro after the round of farewell parties I had anticipated. The final
one was at the Club on Saturday night. George made a most amusing speech and the
party was a very pleasant occasion though I was rather tired after all the packing.
Several friends gathered to wave us off on Monday morning. We had two lorries
loaded with our goods. I rode in the cab of the first one with Henry on my knee. George
with John and Jim rode in the second one. As there was no room for them in the cab,
they sat on our couch which was placed across the width of the lorry behind the cab. This
seat was not as comfortable as it sounds, because the space behind the couch was
taken up with packing cases which were not lashed in place and these kept moving
forward as the lorry bumped its way over the bad road.

Soon there was hardly any leg room and George had constantly to stand up and
push the second layer of packing cases back to prevent them from toppling over onto
the children and himself. As it is now the rainy season the road was very muddy and
treacherous and the lorries travelled so slowly it was dark by the time we reached
Karogwe from where we were booked to take the train next morning to Moshi.
Next morning we heard that there had been a washaway on the line and that the
train would be delayed for at least twelve hours. I was not feeling well and certainly did
not enjoy my day. Early in the afternoon Jimmy ran into a wall and blackened both his
eyes. What a child! As the day wore on I felt worse and worse and when at last the train
did arrive I simply crawled into my bunk whilst George coped nobly with the luggage
and the children.

We arrived at Moshi at breakfast time and went straight to the Lion Cub Hotel
where I took to my bed with a high temperature. It was, of course, malaria. I always have
my attacks at the most inopportune times. Fortunately George ran into some friends
called Eccles and the wife Mollie came to my room and bathed Henry and prepared his
bottle and fed him. George looked after John and Jim. Next day I felt much better and
we drove out to Lyamungu the day after. There we had tea with the Game Warden and
his wife before moving into our new home nearby.

The Game Warden is Captain Monty Moore VC. He came out to Africa
originally as an Officer in the King’s African Rifles and liked the country so much he left the
Army and joined the Game Department. He was stationed at Banagi in the Serengetti
Game Reserve and is well known for his work with the lions there. He particularly tamed
some of the lions by feeding them so that they would come out into the open and could
readily be photographed by tourists. His wife Audrey, has written a book about their
experiences at Banagi. It is called “Serengetti”

Our cook, Hamisi, soon had a meal ready for us and we all went to bed early.
This is a very pleasant house and I know we will be happy here. I still feel a little shaky
but that is the result of all the quinine I have taken. I expect I shall feel fine in a day or two.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 15th May 1944

Dearest Family,

Well, here we are settled comfortably in our very nice house. The house is
modern and roomy, and there is a large enclosed verandah, which will be a Godsend in
the wet weather as a playroom for the children. The only drawback is that there are so
many windows to be curtained and cleaned. The grounds consist of a very large lawn
and a few beds of roses and shrubs. It is an ideal garden for children, unlike our steeply
terraced garden at Morogoro.

Lyamungu is really the Government Coffee Research Station. It is about sixteen
miles from the town of Moshi which is the centre of the Tanganyika coffee growing
industry. Lyamungu, which means ‘place of God’ is in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro and
we have a beautiful view of Kilimanjaro. Kibo, the more spectacular of the two mountain
peaks, towers above us, looking from this angle, like a giant frosted plum pudding. Often the mountain is veiled by cloud and mist which sometimes comes down to
our level so that visibility is practically nil. George dislikes both mist and mountain but I
like both and so does John. He in fact saw Kibo before I did. On our first day here, the
peak was completely hidden by cloud. In the late afternoon when the children were
playing on the lawn outside I was indoors hanging curtains. I heard John call out, “Oh
Mummy, isn’t it beautiful!” I ran outside and there, above a scarf of cloud, I saw the
showy dome of Kibo with the setting sun shining on it tingeing the snow pink. It was an
unforgettable experience.

As this is the rainy season, the surrounding country side is very lush and green.
Everywhere one sees the rich green of the coffee plantations and the lighter green of
the banana groves. Unfortunately our walks are rather circumscribed. Except for the main road to Moshi, there is nowhere to walk except through the Government coffee
plantation. Paddy, our dog, thinks life is pretty boring as there is no bush here and
nothing to hunt. There are only half a dozen European families here and half of those are
on very distant terms with the other half which makes the station a rather uncomfortable
one.

The coffee expert who runs this station is annoyed because his European staff
has been cut down owing to the war, and three of the vacant houses and some office
buildings have been taken over temporarily by the Game Department. Another house
has been taken over by the head of the Labour Department. However I don’t suppose
the ill feeling will effect us much. We are so used to living in the bush that we are not
socially inclined any way.

Our cook, Hamisi, came with us from Morogoro but I had to engage a new
houseboy and kitchenboy. I first engaged a houseboy who produced a wonderful ‘chit’
in which his previous employer describes him as his “friend and confidant”. I felt rather
dubious about engaging him and how right I was. On his second day with us I produced
some of Henry’s napkins, previously rinsed by me, and asked this boy to wash them.
He looked most offended and told me that it was beneath his dignity to do women’s
work. We parted immediately with mutual relief.

Now I have a good natured fellow named Japhet who, though hard on crockery,
is prepared to do anything and loves playing with the children. He is a local boy, a
member of the Chagga tribe. These Chagga are most intelligent and, on the whole, well
to do as they all have their own small coffee shambas. Japhet tells me that his son is at
the Uganda University College studying medicine.The kitchen boy is a tall youth called
Tovelo, who helps both Hamisi, the cook, and the houseboy and also keeps an eye on
Henry when I am sewing. I still make all the children’s clothes and my own. Life is
pleasant but dull. George promises that he will take the whole family on safari when
Henry is a little older.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 18th July 1944

Dearest Family,

Life drifts quietly by at Lyamungu with each day much like the one before – or
they would be, except that the children provide the sort of excitement that prohibits
boredom. Of the three boys our Jim is the best at this. Last week Jim wandered into the
coffee plantation beside our house and chewed some newly spayed berries. Result?
A high temperature and nasty, bloody diarrhoea, so we had to rush him to the hospital at
Moshi for treatment. however he was well again next day and George went off on safari.
That night there was another crisis. As the nights are now very cold, at this high
altitude, we have a large fire lit in the living room and the boy leaves a pile of logs
beside the hearth so that I can replenish the fire when necessary. Well that night I took
Henry off to bed, leaving John and Jim playing in the living room. When their bedtime
came, I called them without leaving the bedroom. When I had tucked John and Jim into
bed, I sat reading a bedtime story as I always do. Suddenly I saw smoke drifting
through the door, and heard a frightening rumbling noise. Japhet rushed in to say that the
lounge chimney was on fire! Picture me, panic on the inside and sweet smile on the
outside, as I picked Henry up and said to the other two, “There’s nothing to be
frightened about chaps, but get up and come outside for a bit.” Stupid of me to be so
heroic because John and Jim were not at all scared but only too delighted at the chance
of rushing about outside in the dark. The fire to them was just a bit of extra fun.

We hurried out to find one boy already on the roof and the other passing up a
brimming bucket of water. Other boys appeared from nowhere and soon cascades of
water were pouring down the chimney. The result was a mountain of smouldering soot
on the hearth and a pool of black water on the living room floor. However the fire was out
and no serious harm done because all the floors here are cement and another stain on
the old rug will hardly be noticed. As the children reluctantly returned to bed John
remarked smugly, “I told Jim not to put all the wood on the fire at once but he wouldn’t
listen.” I might have guessed!

However it was not Jim but John who gave me the worst turn of all this week. As
a treat I decided to take the boys to the river for a picnic tea. The river is not far from our
house but we had never been there before so I took the kitchen boy, Tovelo, to show
us the way. The path is on the level until one is in sight of the river when the bank slopes
steeply down. I decided that it was too steep for the pram so I stopped to lift Henry out
and carry him. When I looked around I saw John running down the slope towards the
river. The stream is not wide but flows swiftly and I had no idea how deep it was. All I
knew was that it was a trout stream. I called for John, “Stop, wait for me!” but he ran on
and made for a rude pole bridge which spanned the river. He started to cross and then,
to my horror, I saw John slip. There was a splash and he disappeared under the water. I
just dumped the baby on the ground, screamed to the boy to mind him and ran madly
down the slope to the river. Suddenly I saw John’s tight fitting felt hat emerge, then his
eyes and nose. I dashed into the water and found, to my intense relief, that it only
reached up to my shoulders but, thank heaven no further. John’s steady eyes watched
me trustingly as I approached him and carried him safely to the bank. He had been
standing on a rock and had not panicked at all though he had to stand up very straight
and tall to keep his nose out of water. I was too proud of him to scold him for
disobedience and too wet anyway.

I made John undress and put on two spare pullovers and wrapped Henry’s
baby blanket round his waist like a sarong. We made a small fire over which I crouched
with literally chattering teeth whilst Tovelo ran home to fetch a coat for me and dry clothes
for John.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 16th August 1944

Dearest Family,

We have a new bull terrier bitch pup whom we have named Fanny III . So once
more we have a menagerie , the two dogs, two cats Susie and Winnie, and
some pet hens who live in the garage and are a real nuisance.

As John is nearly six I thought it time that he started lessons and wrote off to Dar
es Salaam for the correspondence course. We have had one week of lessons and I am
already in a state of physical and mental exhaustion. John is a most reluctant scholar.
“Why should I learn to read, when you can read to me?” he asks, and “Anyway why
should I read such stupid stuff, ‘Run Rover Run’, and ‘Mother play with baby’ . Who
wants to read about things like that? I don’t.”

He rather likes sums, but the only subject about which he is enthusiastic is
prehistoric history. He laps up information about ‘The Tree Dwellers’, though he is very
sceptical about the existence of such people. “God couldn’t be so silly to make people
so stupid. Fancy living in trees when it is easy to make huts like the natives.” ‘The Tree
Dwellers is a highly imaginative story about a revolting female called Sharptooth and her
offspring called Bodo. I have a very clear mental image of Sharptooth, so it came as a
shock to me and highly amused George when John looked at me reflectively across the
tea table and said, “Mummy I expect Sharptooth looked like you. You have a sharp
tooth too!” I have, my eye teeth are rather sharp, but I hope the resemblance stops
there.

John has an uncomfortably logical mind for a small boy. The other day he was
lying on the lawn staring up at the clouds when he suddenly muttered “I don’t believe it.”
“Believe what?” I asked. “That Jesus is coming on a cloud one day. How can he? The
thick ones always stay high up. What’s he going to do, jump down with a parachute?”
Tovelo, my kitchen boy, announced one evening that his grandmother was in the
kitchen and wished to see me. She was a handsome and sensible Chagga woman who
brought sad news. Her little granddaughter had stumbled backwards into a large cooking
pot of almost boiling maize meal porridge and was ‘ngongwa sana’ (very ill). I grabbed
a large bottle of Picric Acid and a packet of gauze which we keep for these emergencies
and went with her, through coffee shambas and banana groves to her daughter’s house.
Inside the very neat thatched hut the mother sat with the naked child lying face
downwards on her knee. The child’s buttocks and the back of her legs were covered in
huge burst blisters from which a watery pus dripped. It appeared that the accident had
happened on the previous day.

I could see that it was absolutely necessary to clean up the damaged area, and I
suddenly remembered that there was a trained African hospital dresser on the station. I
sent the father to fetch him and whilst the dresser cleaned off the sloughed skin with
forceps and swabs saturated in Picric Acid, I cut the gauze into small squares which I
soaked in the lotion and laid on the cleaned area. I thought the small pieces would be
easier to change especially as the whole of the most tender parts, front and back, were
badly scalded. The child seemed dazed and neither the dresser nor I thought she would
live. I gave her half an aspirin and left three more half tablets to be given four hourly.
Next day she seemed much brighter. I poured more lotion on the gauze
disturbing as few pieces as possible and again the next day and the next. After a week
the skin was healing well and the child eating normally. I am sure she will be all right now.
The new skin is a brilliant red and very shiny but it is pale round the edges of the burnt
area and will I hope later turn brown. The mother never uttered a word of thanks, but the
granny is grateful and today brought the children a bunch of bananas.

Eleanor.

c/o Game Dept. P.O.Moshi. 29th September 1944

Dearest Mummy,

I am so glad that you so enjoyed my last letter with the description of our very
interesting and enjoyable safari through Masailand. You said you would like an even
fuller description of it to pass around amongst the relations, so, to please you, I have
written it out in detail and enclose the result.

We have spent a quiet week after our exertions and all are well here.

Very much love,
Eleanor.

Safari in Masailand

George and I were at tea with our three little boys on the front lawn of our house
in Lyamungu, Northern Tanganyika. It was John’s sixth birthday and he and Jim, a
happy sturdy three year old, and Henry, aged eleven months, were munching the
squares of plain chocolate which rounded off the party, when George said casually
across the table to me, “Could you be ready by the day after tomorrow to go on
safari?” “Me too?” enquired John anxiously, before I had time to reply, and “Me too?”
echoed Jim. “yes, of course I can”, said I to George and “of course you’re coming too”,
to the children who rate a day spent in the bush higher than any other pleasure.
So in the early morning two days later, we started out happily for Masailand in a
three ton Ford lorry loaded to capacity with the five Rushbys, the safari paraphernalia,
drums of petrol and quite a retinue of servants and Game Scouts. George travelling
alone on his monthly safaris, takes only the cook and a couple of Game Scouts, but this was to be a safari de luxe.

Henry and I shared the cab with George who was driving, whilst John and Jim
with the faithful orderly Mabemba beside them to point out the game animals, were
installed upon rolls of bedding in the body of the lorry. The lorry lumbered along, first
through coffee shambas, and then along the main road between Moshi and Arusha.
After half an hour or so, we turned South off the road into a track which crossed the
Sanya Plains and is the beginning of this part of Masailand. Though the dry season was
at its height, and the pasture dry and course, we were soon passing small groups of
game. This area is a Game Sanctuary and the antelope grazed quietly quite undisturbed
by the passing lorry. Here and there zebra stood bunched by the road, a few wild
ostriches stalked jerkily by, and in the distance some wildebeest cavorted around in their
crazy way.

Soon the grasslands gave way to thorn bush, and we saw six fantastically tall
giraffe standing motionless with their heads turned enquiringly towards us. George
stopped the lorry so the children could have a good view of them. John was enchanted
but Jim, alas, was asleep.

At mid day we reached the Kikoletwa River and turned aside to camp. Beside
the river, under huge leafy trees, there was a beautiful camping spot, but the river was
deep and reputed to be full of crocodiles so we passed it by and made our camp
some distance from the river under a tall thorn tree with a flat lacy canopy. All around the
camp lay uprooted trees of similar size that had been pushed over by elephants. As
soon as the lorry stopped a camp chair was set up for me and the Game Scouts quickly
slashed down grass and cleared the camp site of thorns. The same boys then pitched the tent whilst George himself set up the three camp beds and the folding cot for Henry,
and set up the safari table and the canvas wash bowl and bath.

The cook in the meantime had cleared a cool spot for the kitchen , opened up the
chop boxes and started a fire. The cook’s boy and the dhobi (laundry boy) brought
water from the rather muddy river and tea was served followed shortly afterward by an
excellent lunch. In a very short time the camp had a suprisingly homely look. Nappies
fluttered from a clothes line, Henry slept peacefully in his cot, John and Jim sprawled on
one bed looking at comics, and I dozed comfortably on another.

George, with the Game Scouts, drove off in the lorry about his work. As a Game
Ranger it is his business to be on a constant look out for poachers, both African and
European, and for disease in game which might infect the valuable herds of Masai cattle.
The lorry did not return until dusk by which time the children had bathed enthusiastically in
the canvas bath and were ready for supper and bed. George backed the lorry at right
angles to the tent, Henry’s cot and two camp beds were set up in the lorry, the tarpaulin
was lashed down and the children put to bed in their novel nursery.

When darkness fell a large fire was lit in front of the camp, the exited children at
last fell asleep and George and I sat on by the fire enjoying the cool and quiet night.
When the fire subsided into a bed of glowing coals, it was time for our bed. During the
night I was awakened by the sound of breaking branches and strange indescribable
noises.” Just elephant”, said George comfortably and instantly fell asleep once more. I
didn’t! We rose with the birds next morning, but breakfast was ready and in a
remarkably short time the lorry had been reloaded and we were once more on our way.
For about half a mile we made our own track across the plain and then we turned
into the earth road once more. Soon we had reached the river and were looking with
dismay at the suspension bridge which we had to cross. At the far side, one steel
hawser was missing and there the bridge tilted dangerously. There was no handrail but
only heavy wooden posts which marked the extremities of the bridge. WhenGeorge
measured the distance between the posts he found that there could be barely two
inches to spare on either side of the cumbersome lorry.

He decided to risk crossing, but the children and I and all the servants were told to
cross the bridge and go down the track out of sight. The Game Scouts remained on the
river bank on the far side of the bridge and stood ready for emergencies. As I walked
along anxiously listening, I was horrified to hear the lorry come to a stop on the bridge.
There was a loud creaking noise and I instantly visualised the lorry slowly toppling over
into the deep crocodile infested river. The engine restarted, the lorry crossed the bridge
and came slowly into sight around the bend. My heart slid back into its normal position.
George was as imperturbable as ever and simply remarked that it had been a near
thing and that we would return to Lyamungu by another route.

Beyond the green river belt the very rutted track ran through very uninteresting
thorn bush country. Henry was bored and tiresome, jumping up and down on my knee
and yelling furiously. “Teeth”, said I apologetically to George, rashly handing a match
box to Henry to keep him quiet. No use at all! With a fat finger he poked out the tray
spilling the matches all over me and the floor. Within seconds Henry had torn the
matchbox to pieces with his teeth and flung the battered remains through the window.
An empty cigarette box met with the same fate as the match box and the yells
continued unabated until Henry slept from sheer exhaustion. George gave me a smile,
half sympathetic and half sardonic, “Enjoying the safari, my love?” he enquired. On these
trying occasions George has the inestimable advantage of being able to go into a Yogilike
trance, whereas I become irritated to screaming point.

In an effort to prolong Henry’s slumber I braced my feet against the floor boards
and tried to turn myself into a human shock absorber as we lurched along the eroded
track. Several times my head made contact with the bolt of a rifle in the rack above, and
once I felt I had shattered my knee cap against the fire extinguisher in a bracket under the
dash board.

Strange as it may seem, I really was enjoying the trip in spite of these
discomforts. At last after three years I was once more on safari with George. This type of
country was new to me and there was so much to see We passed a family of giraffe
standing in complete immobility only a few yards from the track. Little dick-dick. one of the smallest of the antelope, scuttled in pairs across the road and that afternoon I had my first view of Gerenuk, curious red brown antelope with extremely elongated legs and giraffe-like necks.

Most interesting of all was my first sight of Masai at home. We could hear a tuneful
jangle of cattle bells and suddenly came across herds of humped cattle browsing upon
the thorn bushes. The herds were guarded by athletic,striking looking Masai youths and men.
Each had a calabash of water slung over his shoulder and a tall, highly polished spear in his
hand. These herdsmen were quite unselfconscious though they wore no clothing except for one carelessly draped blanket. Very few gave us any greeting but glanced indifferently at us from under fringes of clay-daubed plaited hair . The rest of their hair was drawn back behind the ears to display split earlobes stretched into slender loops by the weight of heavy brass or copper tribal ear rings.

Most of the villages were set well back in the bush out of sight of the road but we did pass one
typical village which looked most primitive indeed. It consisted simply of a few mound like mud huts which were entirely covered with a plaster of mud and cattle dung and the whole clutch of huts were surrounded by a ‘boma’ of thorn to keep the cattle in at night and the lions out. There was a gathering of women and children on the road at this point. The children of both sexes were naked and unadorned, but the women looked very fine indeed. This is not surprising for they have little to do but adorn themselves, unlike their counterparts of other tribes who have to work hard cultivating the fields. The Masai women, and others I saw on safari, were far more amiable and cheerful looking than the men and were well proportioned.

They wore skirts of dressed goat skin, knee length in front but ankle length behind. Their arms
from elbow to wrist, and legs from knee to ankle, were encased in tight coils of copper and
galvanised wire. All had their heads shaved and in some cases bound by a leather band
embroidered in red white and blue beads. Circular ear rings hung from slit earlobes and their
handsome throats were encircled by stiff wire necklaces strung with brightly coloured beads. These
necklaces were carefully graded in size and formed deep collars almost covering their breasts.
About a quarter of a mile further along the road we met eleven young braves in gala attire, obviously on their way to call on the girls. They formed a line across the road and danced up and down until the lorry was dangerously near when they parted and grinned cheerfully at us. These were the only cheerful
looking male Masai that I saw. Like the herdsmen these youths wore only a blanket, but their
blankets were ochre colour, and elegantly draped over their backs. Their naked bodies gleamed with oil. Several had painted white stripes on their faces, and two had whitewashed their faces entirely which I
thought a pity. All had their long hair elaborately dressed and some carried not only one,
but two gleaming spears.

By mid day George decided that we had driven far enough for that day. He
stopped the lorry and consulted a rather unreliable map. “Somewhere near here is a
place called Lolbeni,” he said. “The name means Sweet Water, I hear that the
government have piped spring water down from the mountain into a small dam at which
the Masai water their cattle.” Lolbeni sounded pleasant to me. Henry was dusty and
cross, the rubber sheet had long slipped from my lap to the floor and I was conscious of
a very damp lap. ‘Sweet Waters’ I felt, would put all that right. A few hundred yards
away a small herd of cattle was grazing, so George lit his pipe and relaxed at last, whilst
a Game Scout went off to find the herdsman. The scout soon returned with an ancient
and emaciated Masai who was thrilled at the prospect of his first ride in a lorry and
offered to direct us to Lolbeni which was off the main track and about four miles away.

Once Lolbeni had been a small administrative post and a good track had
led to it, but now the Post had been abandoned and the road is dotted with vigourous
thorn bushes and the branches of larger thorn trees encroach on the track The road had
deteriorated to a mere cattle track, deeply rutted and eroded by heavy rains over a
period of years. The great Ford truck, however, could take it. It lurched victoriously along,
mowing down the obstructions, tearing off branches from encroaching thorn trees with its
high railed sides, spanning gorges in the track, and climbing in and out of those too wide
to span. I felt an army tank could not have done better.

I had expected Lolbeni to be a green oasis in a desert of grey thorns, but I was
quickly disillusioned. To be sure the thorn trees were larger and more widely spaced and
provided welcome shade, but the ground under the trees had been trampled by thousands of cattle into a dreary expanse of dirty grey sand liberally dotted with cattle droppings and made still more uninviting by the bleached bones of dead beasts.

To the right of this waste rose a high green hill which gave the place its name and from which
the precious water was piped, but its slopes were too steep to provide a camping site.
Flies swarmed everywhere and I was most relieved when George said that we would
stay only long enough to fill our cans with water. Even the water was a disappointment!
The water in the small dam was low and covered by a revolting green scum, and though
the water in the feeding pipe was sweet, it trickled so feebly that it took simply ages to
fill a four gallon can.

However all these disappointments were soon forgotten for we drove away
from the flies and dirt and trampled sand and soon, with their quiet efficiency, George
and his men set up a comfortable camp. John and Jim immediately started digging
operations in the sandy soil whilst Henry and I rested. After tea George took his shot
gun and went off to shoot guinea fowl and partridges for the pot. The children and I went
walking, keeping well in site of camp, and soon we saw a very large flock of Vulturine
Guineafowl, running aimlessly about and looking as tame as barnyard fowls, but melting
away as soon as we moved in their direction.

We had our second quiet and lovely evening by the camp fire, followed by a
peaceful night.

We left Lolbeni very early next morning, which was a good thing, for as we left
camp the herds of thirsty cattle moved in from all directions. They were accompanied by
Masai herdsmen, their naked bodies and blankets now covered by volcanic dust which
was being stirred in rising clouds of stifling ash by the milling cattle, and also by grey
donkeys laden with panniers filled with corked calabashes for water.

Our next stop was Nabarera, a Masai cattle market and trading centre, where we
reluctantly stayed for two days in a pokey Goverment Resthouse because George had
a job to do in that area. The rest was good for Henry who promptly produced a tooth
and was consequently much better behaved for the rest of the trip. George was away in the bush most of the day but he returned for afternoon tea and later took the children out
walking. We had noticed curious white dumps about a quarter mile from the resthouse
and on the second afternoon we set out to investigate them. Behind the dumps we
found passages about six foot wide, cut through solid limestone. We explored two of
these and found that both passages led steeply down to circular wells about two and a
half feet in diameter.

At the very foot of each passage, beside each well, rough drinking troughs had
been cut in the stone. The herdsmen haul the water out of the well in home made hide
buckets, the troughs are filled and the cattle driven down the ramps to drink at the trough.
It was obvious that the wells were ancient and the sloping passages new. George tells
me that no one knows what ancient race dug the original wells. It seems incredible that
these deep and narrow shafts could have been sunk without machinery. I craned my
neck and looked above one well and could see an immensely long shaft reaching up to
ground level. Small footholds were cut in the solid rock as far as I could see.
It seems that the Masai are as ignorant as ourselves about the origin of these
wells. They do say however that when their forebears first occupied what is now known
as Masailand, they not only found the Wanderobo tribe in the area but also a light
skinned people and they think it possible that these light skinned people dug the wells.
These people disappeared. They may have been absorbed or, more likely, they were
liquidated.

The Masai had found the well impractical in their original form and had hired
labourers from neighbouring tribes to cut the passages to water level. Certainly the Masai are not responsible for the wells. They are a purely pastoral people and consider manual labour extremely degrading.

They live chiefly on milk from their herd which they allow to go sour, and mix with blood that has been skilfully tapped from the necks of living cattle. They do not eat game meat, nor do they cultivate any
land. They hunt with spears, but hunt only lions, to protect their herds, and to test the skill
and bravery of their young warriors. What little grain they do eat is transported into
Masailand by traders. The next stage of our journey took us to Ngassamet where
George was to pick up some elephant tusks. I had looked forward particularly to this
stretch of road for I had heard that there was a shallow lake at which game congregates,
and at which I had great hopes of seeing elephants. We had come too late in the
season though, the lake was dry and there were only piles of elephant droppings to
prove that elephant had recently been there in numbers. Ngassamet, though no beauty
spot, was interesting. We saw more elaborate editions of the wells already described, and as this area
is rich in cattle we saw the aristocrats of the Masai. You cannot conceive of a more arrogant looking male than a young Masai brave striding by on sandalled feet, unselfconscious in all his glory. All the young men wore the casually draped traditional ochre blanket and carried one or more spears. But here belts and long knife sheaths of scarlet leather seem to be the fashion. Here fringes do not seem to be the thing. Most of these young Masai had their hair drawn smoothly back and twisted in a pointed queue, the whole plastered with a smooth coating of red clay. Some tied their horn shaped queues over their heads
so that the tip formed a deep Satanic peak on the brow. All these young men wore the traditional
copper earrings and I saw one or two with copper bracelets and one with a necklace of brightly coloured
beads.

It so happened that, on the day of our visit to Ngassamet, there had been a
baraza (meeting) which was attended by all the local headmen and elders. These old
men came to pay their respects to George and a more shrewd and rascally looking
company I have never seen, George told me that some of these men own up to three
thousand head of cattle and more. The chief was as fat and Rabelasian as his second in
command was emaciated, bucktoothed and prim. The Chief shook hands with George
and greeted me and settled himself on the wall of the resthouse porch opposite
George. The lesser headmen, after politely greeting us, grouped themselves in a
semi circle below the steps with their ‘aides’ respectfully standing behind them. I
remained sitting in the only chair and watched the proceedings with interest and
amusement.

These old Masai, I noticed, cared nothing for adornment. They had proved
themselves as warriors in the past and were known to be wealthy and influential so did
not need to make any display. Most of them had their heads comfortably shaved and
wore only a drab blanket or goatskin cloak. Their only ornaments were earrings whose
effect was somewhat marred by the serviceable and homely large safety pin that
dangled from the lobe of one ear. All carried staves instead of spears and all, except for
Buckteeth and one blind old skeleton of a man, appeared to have a keenly developed
sense of humour.

“Mummy?” asked John in an urgent whisper, “Is that old blind man nearly dead?”
“Yes dear”, said I, “I expect he’ll soon die.” “What here?” breathed John in a tone of
keen anticipation and, until the meeting broke up and the old man left, he had John’s
undivided attention.

After local news and the game situation had been discussed, the talk turned to the
war. “When will the war end?” moaned the fat Chief. “We have made great gifts of cattle
to the War Funds, we are taxed out of existence.” George replied with the Ki-Swahili
equivalent of ‘Sez you!’. This sally was received with laughter and the old fellows rose to
go. They made their farewells and dignified exits, pausing on their way to stare at our
pink and white Henry, who sat undismayed in his push chair giving them stare for stare
from his striking grey eyes.

Towards evening some Masai, prompted no doubt by our native servants,
brought a sheep for sale. It was the last night of the fast of Ramadan and our
Mohammedan boys hoped to feast next day at our expense. Their faces fell when
George refused to buy the animal. “Why should I pay fifteen shillings for a sheep?” he
asked, “Am I not the Bwana Nyama and is not the bush full of my sheep?” (Bwana
Nyama is the native name for a Game Ranger, but means literally, ‘Master of the meat’)
George meant that he would shoot a buck for the men next day, but this incident was to
have a strange sequel. Ngassamet resthouse consists of one room so small we could
not put up all our camp beds and George and I slept on the cement floor which was
unkind to my curves. The night was bitterly cold and all night long hyaenas screeched
hideously outside. So we rose at dawn without reluctance and were on our way before it
was properly light.

George had decided that it would be foolhardy to return home by our outward
route as he did not care to risk another crossing of the suspension bridge. So we
returned to Nabarera and there turned onto a little used track which would eventually take
us to the Great North Road a few miles South of Arusha. There was not much game
about but I saw Oryx which I had not previously seen. Soon it grew intolerably hot and I
think all of us but George were dozing when he suddenly stopped the lorry and pointed
to the right. “Mpishi”, he called to the cook, “There’s your sheep!” True enough, on that
dreary thorn covered plain,with not another living thing in sight, stood a fat black sheep.

There was an incredulous babbling from the back of the lorry. Every native
jumped to the ground and in no time at all the wretched sheep was caught and
slaughtered. I felt sick. “Oh George”, I wailed, “The poor lost sheep! I shan’t eat a scrap
of it.” George said nothing but went and had a look at the sheep and called out to me,
“Come and look at it. It was kindness to kill the poor thing, the vultures have been at it
already and the hyaenas would have got it tonight.” I went reluctantly and saw one eye
horribly torn out, and small deep wounds on the sheep’s back where the beaks of the
vultures had cut through the heavy fleece. Poor thing! I went back to the lorry more
determined than ever not to eat mutton on that trip. The Scouts and servants had no
such scruples. The fine fat sheep had been sent by Allah for their feast day and that was
the end of it.

“ ‘Mpishi’ is more convinced than ever that I am a wizard”, said George in
amusement as he started the lorry. I knew what he meant. Several times before George
had foretold something which had later happened. Pure coincidence, but strange enough
to give rise to a legend that George had the power to arrange things. “What happened
of course”, explained George, “Is that a flock of Masai sheep was driven to market along
this track yesterday or the day before. This one strayed and was not missed.”

The day grew hotter and hotter and for long miles we looked out for a camping
spot but could find little shade and no trace of water anywhere. At last, in the early
afternoon we reached another pokey little rest house and asked for water. “There is no
water here,” said the native caretaker. “Early in the morning there is water in a well nearby
but we are allowed only one kerosene tin full and by ten o’clock the well is dry.” I looked
at George in dismay for we were all so tired and dusty. “Where do the Masai from the
village water their cattle then?” asked George. “About two miles away through the bush.
If you take me with you I shall show you”, replied the native.

So we turned off into the bush and followed a cattle track even more tortuous than
the one to Lolbeni. Two Scouts walked ahead to warn us of hazards and I stretched my
arm across the open window to fend off thorns. Henry screamed with fright and hunger.
But George’s efforts to reach water went unrewarded as we were brought to a stop by
a deep donga. The native from the resthouse was apologetic. He had mistaken the
path, perhaps if we turned back we might find it. George was beyond speech. We
lurched back the way we had come and made our camp under the first large tree we
could find. Then off went our camp boys on foot to return just before dark with the water.
However they were cheerful for there was an unlimited quantity of dry wood for their fires
and meat in plenty for their feast. Long after George and I left our campfire and had gone
to bed, we could see the cheerful fires of the boys and hear their chatter and laughter.
I woke in the small hours to hear the insane cackling of hyaenas gloating over a
find. Later I heard scuffling around the camp table, I peered over the tailboard of the lorry
and saw George come out of his tent. What are you doing?” I whispered. “Looking for
something to throw at those bloody hyaenas,” answered George for all the world as
though those big brutes were tomcats on the prowl. Though the hyaenas kept up their
concert all night the children never stirred, nor did any of them wake at night throughout
the safari.

Early next morning I walked across to the camp kitchen to enquire into the loud
lamentations coming from that quarter. “Oh Memsahib”, moaned the cook, “We could
not sleep last night for the bad hyaenas round our tents. They have taken every scrap of
meat we had left over from the feast., even the meat we had left to smoke over the fire.”
Jim, who of our three young sons is the cook’s favourite commiserated with him. He said
in Ki-Swahili, which he speaks with great fluency, “Truly those hyaenas are very bad
creatures. They also robbed us. They have taken my hat from the table and eaten the
new soap from the washbowl.

Our last day in the bush was a pleasantly lazy one. We drove through country
that grew more open and less dry as we approached Arusha. We pitched our camp
near a large dam, and the water was a blessed sight after a week of scorched country.
On the plains to the right of our camp was a vast herd of native cattle enjoying a brief
rest after their long day trek through Masailand. They were destined to walk many more
weary miles before reaching their destination, a meat canning factory in Kenya.
The ground to the left of the camp rose gently to form a long low hill and on the
grassy slopes we could see wild ostriches and herds of wildebeest, zebra and
antelope grazing amicably side by side. In the late afternoon I watched the groups of
zebra and wildebeest merge into one. Then with a wildebeest leading, they walked
down the slope in single file to drink at the vlei . When they were satisfied, a wildebeest
once more led the herd up the trail. The others followed in a long and orderly file, and
vanished over the hill to their evening pasture.

When they had gone, George took up his shotgun and invited John to
accompany him to the dam to shoot duck. This was the first time John had acted as
retriever but he did very well and proudly helped to carry a mixed bag of sand grouse
and duck back to camp.

Next morning we turned into the Great North Road and passed first through
carefully tended coffee shambas and then through the township of Arusha, nestling at
the foot of towering Mount Meru. Beyond Arusha we drove through the Usa River
settlement where again coffee shambas and European homesteads line the road, and
saw before us the magnificent spectacle of Kilimanjaro unveiled, its white snow cap
gleaming in the sunlight. Before mid day we were home. “Well was it worth it?” enquired
George at lunch. “Lovely,” I replied. ”Let’s go again soon.” Then thinking regretfully of
our absent children I sighed, “If only Ann, George, and Kate could have gone with us
too.”

Lyamungu 10th November. 1944

Dearest Family.

Mummy wants to know how I fill in my time with George away on safari for weeks
on end. I do believe that you all picture me idling away my days, waited on hand and
foot by efficient servants! On the contrary, life is one rush and the days never long
enough.

To begin with, our servants are anything but efficient, apart from our cook, Hamisi
Issa, who really is competent. He suffers from frustration because our budget will not run
to elaborate dishes so there is little scope for his culinary art. There is one masterpiece
which is much appreciated by John and Jim. Hamisi makes a most realistic crocodile out
of pastry and stuffs its innards with minced meat. This revolting reptile is served on a
bed of parsley on my largest meat dish. The cook is a strict Mohammedan and
observes all the fasts and daily prayers and, like all Mohammedans he is very clean in
his person and, thank goodness, in the kitchen.

His wife is his pride and joy but not his helpmate. She does absolutely nothing
but sit in a chair in the sun all day, sipping tea and smoking cigarettes – a more
expensive brand than mine! It is Hamisi who sweeps out their quarters, cooks
delectable curries for her, and spends more than he can afford on clothing and trinkets for
his wife. She just sits there with her ‘Mona Lisa’ smile and her painted finger and toe
nails, doing absolutely nothing.

The thing is that natives despise women who do work and this applies especially
to their white employers. House servants much prefer a Memsahib who leaves
everything to them and is careless about locking up her pantry. When we first came to
Lyamungu I had great difficulty in employing a houseboy. A couple of rather efficient
ones did approach me but when they heard the wages I was prepared to pay and that
there was no number 2 boy, they simply were not interested. Eventually I took on a
local boy called Japhet who suits me very well except that his sight is not good and he
is extremely hard on the crockery. He tells me that he has lost face by working here
because his friends say that he works for a family that is too mean to employ a second
boy. I explained that with our large family we simply cannot afford to pay more, but this
didn’t register at all. Japhet says “But Wazungu (Europeans) all have money. They just
have to get it from the Bank.”

The third member of our staff is a strapping youth named Tovelo who helps both
cook and boy, and consequently works harder than either. What do I do? I chivvy the
servants, look after the children, supervise John’s lessons, and make all my clothing and
the children’s on that blessed old hand sewing machine.

The folk on this station entertain a good deal but we usually decline invitations
because we simply cannot afford to reciprocate. However, last Saturday night I invited
two couples to drinks and dinner. This was such an unusual event that the servants and I
were thrown into a flurry. In the end the dinner went off well though it ended in disaster. In
spite of my entreaties and exhortations to Japhet not to pile everything onto the tray at
once when clearing the table, he did just that. We were starting our desert and I was
congratulating myself that all had gone well when there was a frightful crash of breaking
china on the back verandah. I excused myself and got up to investigate. A large meat
dish, six dinner plates and four vegetable dishes lay shattered on the cement floor! I
controlled my tongue but what my eyes said to Japhet is another matter. What he said
was, “It is not my fault Memsahib. The handle of the tray came off.”

It is a curious thing about native servants that they never accept responsibility for
a mishap. If they cannot pin their misdeeds onto one of their fellow servants then the responsibility rests with God. ‘Shauri ya Mungu’, (an act of God) is a familiar cry. Fatalists
can be very exasperating employees.

The loss of my dinner service is a real tragedy because, being war time, one can
buy only china of the poorest quality made for the native trade. Nor was that the final
disaster of the evening. When we moved to the lounge for coffee I noticed that the
coffee had been served in the battered old safari coffee pot instead of the charming little
antique coffee pot which my Mother-in-law had sent for our tenth wedding anniversary.
As there had already been a disturbance I made no comment but resolved to give the
cook a piece of my mind in the morning. My instructions to the cook had been to warm
the coffee pot with hot water immediately before serving. On no account was he to put
the pewter pot on the hot iron stove. He did and the result was a small hole in the base
of the pot – or so he says. When I saw the pot next morning there was a two inch hole in
it.

Hamisi explained placidly how this had come about. He said he knew I would be
mad when I saw the little hole so he thought he would have it mended and I might not
notice it. Early in the morning he had taken the pewter pot to the mechanic who looks
after the Game Department vehicles and had asked him to repair it. The bright individual
got busy with the soldering iron with the most devastating result. “It’s his fault,” said
Hamisi, “He is a mechanic, he should have known what would happen.”
One thing is certain, there will be no more dinner parties in this house until the war
is ended.

The children are well and so am I, and so was George when he left on his safari
last Monday.

Much love,
Eleanor.

 

From Tanganyika with Love

With thanks to Mike Rushby.

• “The letters of Eleanor Dunbar Leslie to her parents and her sister in South Africa
  concerning her life with George Gilman Rushby of Tanganyika, and the trials and
  joys of bringing up a family in pioneering conditions.

These letters were transcribed from copies of letters typed by Eleanor Rushby from
the originals which were in the estate of Marjorie Leslie, Eleanor’s sister. Eleanor
kept no diary of her life in Tanganyika, so these letters were the living record of an
important part of her life.

Prelude
Having walked across Africa from the East coast to Ubangi Shauri Chad
in French Equatorial Africa, hunting elephant all the way, George Rushby
made his way down the Congo to Leopoldville. He then caught a ship to
Europe and had a holiday in Brussels and Paris before visiting his family
in England. He developed blackwater fever and was extremely ill for a
while. When he recovered he went to London to arrange his return to
Africa.

Whilst staying at the Overseas Club he met Eileen Graham who had come
to England from Cape Town to study music. On hearing that George was
sailing for Cape Town she arranged to introduce him to her friend
Eleanor Dunbar Leslie. “You’ll need someone lively to show you around,”
she said. “She’s as smart as paint, a keen mountaineer, a very good school
teacher, and she’s attractive. You can’t miss her, because her father is a
well known Cape Town Magistrate. And,” she added “I’ve already written
and told her what ship you are arriving on.”

Eleanor duly met the ship. She and George immediately fell in love.
Within thirty six hours he had proposed marriage and was accepted
despite the misgivings of her parents. As she was under contract to her
High School, she remained in South Africa for several months whilst
George headed for Tanganyika looking for a farm where he could build
their home.

These details are a summary of chapter thirteen of the Biography of
George Gilman Rushby ‘The Hunter is Death “ by T.V.Bulpin.

 

Dearest Marj,
Terrifically exciting news! I’ve just become engaged to an Englishman whom I
met last Monday. The result is a family upheaval which you will have no difficulty in
imagining!!

The Aunts think it all highly romantic and cry in delight “Now isn’t that just like our
El!” Mummy says she doesn’t know what to think, that anyway I was always a harum
scarum and she rather expected something like this to happen. However I know that
she thinks George highly attractive. “Such a nice smile and gentle manner, and such
good hands“ she murmurs appreciatively. “But WHY AN ELEPHANT HUNTER?” she
ends in a wail, as though elephant hunting was an unmentionable profession.
Anyway I don’t think so. Anyone can marry a bank clerk or a lawyer or even a
millionaire – but whoever heard of anyone marrying anyone as exciting as an elephant
hunter? I’m thrilled to bits.

Daddy also takes a dim view of George’s profession, and of George himself as
a husband for me. He says that I am so impulsive and have such wild enthusiasms that I
need someone conservative and steady to give me some serenity and some ballast.
Dad says George is a handsome fellow and a good enough chap he is sure, but
he is obviously a man of the world and hints darkly at a possible PAST. George says
he has nothing of the kind and anyway I’m the first girl he has asked to marry him. I don’t
care anyway, I’d gladly marry him tomorrow, but Dad has other ideas.

He sat in his armchair to deliver his verdict, wearing the same look he must wear
on the bench. If we marry, and he doesn’t think it would be a good thing, George must
buy a comfortable house for me in Central Africa where I can stay safely when he goes
hunting. I interrupted to say “But I’m going too”, but dad snubbed me saying that in no
time at all I’ll have a family and one can’t go dragging babies around in the African Bush.”
George takes his lectures with surprising calm. He says he can see Dad’s point of
view much better than I can. He told the parents today that he plans to buy a small
coffee farm in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and will build a cosy cottage which
will be a proper home for both of us, and that he will only hunt occasionally to keep the
pot boiling.

Mummy, of course, just had to spill the beans. She said to George, “I suppose
you know that Eleanor knows very little about house keeping and can’t cook at all.” a fact
that I was keeping a dark secret. But George just said, “Oh she won’t have to work. The
boys do all that sort of thing. She can lie on a couch all day and read if she likes.” Well
you always did say that I was a “Lily of the field,” and what a good thing! If I were one of
those terribly capable women I’d probably die of frustration because it seems that
African house boys feel that they have lost face if their Memsahibs do anything but the
most gracious chores.

George is absolutely marvellous. He is strong and gentle and awfully good
looking too. He is about 5 ft 10 ins tall and very broad. He wears his curly brown hair cut
very short and has a close clipped moustache. He has strongly marked eyebrows and
very striking blue eyes which sometimes turn grey or green. His teeth are strong and
even and he has a quiet voice.

I expect all this sounds too good to be true, but come home quickly and see for
yourself. George is off to East Africa in three weeks time to buy our farm. I shall follow as
soon as he has bought it and we will be married in Dar es Salaam.

Dad has taken George for a walk “to get to know him” and that’s why I have time
to write such a long screed. They should be back any minute now and I must fly and
apply a bit of glamour.

Much love my dear,
your jubilant
Eleanor

S.S.Timavo. Durban. 28th.October. 1930.

Dearest Family,
Thank you for the lovely send off. I do wish you were all on board with me and
could come and dance with me at my wedding. We are having a very comfortable
voyage. There were only four of the passengers as far as Durban, all of them women,
but I believe we are taking on more here. I have a most comfortable deck cabin to
myself and the use of a sumptuous bathroom. No one is interested in deck games and I
am having a lazy time, just sunbathing and reading.

I sit at the Captain’s table and the meals are delicious – beautifully served. The
butter for instance, is moulded into sprays of roses, most exquisitely done, and as for
the ice-cream, I’ve never tasted anything like them.

The meals are continental type and we have hors d’oeuvre in a great variety
served on large round trays. The Italians souse theirs with oil, Ugh! We also of course
get lots of spaghetti which I have some difficulty in eating. However this presents no
problem to the Chief Engineer who sits opposite to me. He simply rolls it around his
fork and somehow the spaghetti flows effortlessly from fork to mouth exactly like an
ascending escalator. Wine is served at lunch and dinner – very mild and pleasant stuff.
Of the women passengers the one i liked best was a young German widow
from South west Africa who left the ship at East London to marry a man she had never
met. She told me he owned a drapers shop and she was very happy at the prospect
of starting a new life, as her previous marriage had ended tragically with the death of her
husband and only child in an accident.

I was most interested to see the bridegroom and stood at the rail beside the gay
young widow when we docked at East London. I picked him out, without any difficulty,
from the small group on the quay. He was a tall thin man in a smart grey suit and with a
grey hat perched primly on his head. You can always tell from hats can’t you? I wasn’t
surprised to see, when this German raised his head, that he looked just like the Kaiser’s
“Little Willie”. Long thin nose and cold grey eyes and no smile of welcome on his tight
mouth for the cheery little body beside me. I quite expected him to jerk his thumb and
stalk off, expecting her to trot at his heel.

However she went off blithely enough. Next day before the ship sailed, she
was back and I saw her talking to the Captain. She began to cry and soon after the
Captain patted her on the shoulder and escorted her to the gangway. Later the Captain
told me that the girl had come to ask him to allow her to work her passage back to
Germany where she had some relations. She had married the man the day before but
she disliked him because he had deceived her by pretending that he owned a shop
whereas he was only a window dresser. Bad show for both.

The Captain and the Chief Engineer are the only officers who mix socially with
the passengers. The captain seems rather a melancholy type with, I should say, no
sense of humour. He speaks fair English with an American accent. He tells me that he
was on the San Francisco run during Prohibition years in America and saw many Film
Stars chiefly “under the influence” as they used to flock on board to drink. The Chief
Engineer is big and fat and cheerful. His English is anything but fluent but he makes up
for it in mime.

I visited the relations and friends at Port Elizabeth and East London, and here at
Durban. I stayed with the Trotters and Swans and enjoyed myself very much at both
places. I have collected numerous wedding presents, china and cutlery, coffee
percolator and ornaments, and where I shall pack all these things I don’t know. Everyone has been terribly kind and I feel extremely well and happy.

At the start of the voyage I had a bit of bad luck. You will remember that a
perfectly foul South Easter was blowing. Some men were busy working on a deck
engine and I stopped to watch and a tiny fragment of steel blew into my eye. There is
no doctor on board so the stewardess put some oil into the eye and bandaged it up.
The eye grew more and more painful and inflamed and when when we reached Port
Elizabeth the Captain asked the Port Doctor to look at it. The Doctor said it was a job for
an eye specialist and telephoned from the ship to make an appointment. Luckily for me,
Vincent Tofts turned up at the ship just then and took me off to the specialist and waited
whilst he extracted the fragment with a giant magnet. The specialist said that I was very
lucky as the thing just missed the pupil of my eye so my sight will not be affected. I was
temporarily blinded by the Belladona the eye-man put in my eye so he fitted me with a
pair of black goggles and Vincent escorted me back to the ship. Don’t worry the eye is
now as good as ever and George will not have to take a one-eyed bride for better or
worse.

I have one worry and that is that the ship is going to be very much overdue by
the time we reach Dar es Salaam. She is taking on a big wool cargo and we were held
up for three days in East london and have been here in Durban for five days.
Today is the ninth Anniversary of the Fascist Movement and the ship was
dressed with bunting and flags. I must now go and dress for the gala dinner.

Bless you all,
Eleanor.

S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

Dearest Family,

Nearly there now. We called in at Lourenco Marques, Beira, Mozambique and
Port Amelia. I was the only one of the original passengers left after Durban but there we
took on a Mrs Croxford and her mother and two men passengers. Mrs C must have
something, certainly not looks. She has a flat figure, heavily mascared eyes and crooked
mouth thickly coated with lipstick. But her rather sweet old mother-black-pearls-type tells
me they are worn out travelling around the world trying to shake off an admirer who
pursues Mrs C everywhere.

The one male passenger is very quiet and pleasant. The old lady tells me that he
has recently lost his wife. The other passenger is a horribly bumptious type.
I had my hair beautifully shingled at Lourenco Marques, but what an experience it
was. Before we docked I asked the Captain whether he knew of a hairdresser, but he
said he did not and would have to ask the agent when he came aboard. The agent was
a very suave Asian. He said “Sure he did” and offered to take me in his car. I rather
doubtfully agreed — such a swarthy gentleman — and was driven, not to a hairdressing
establishment, but to his office. Then he spoke to someone on the telephone and in no
time at all a most dago-y type arrived carrying a little black bag. He was all patent
leather, hair, and flashing smile, and greeted me like an old and valued friend.
Before I had collected my scattered wits tthe Agent had flung open a door and
ushered me through, and I found myself seated before an ornate mirror in what was only
too obviously a bedroom. It was a bedroom with a difference though. The unmade bed
had no legs but hung from the ceiling on brass chains.

The agent beamingly shut the door behind him and I was left with my imagination
and the afore mentioned oily hairdresser. He however was very business like. Before I
could say knife he had shingled my hair with a cut throat razor and then, before I could
protest, had smothered my neck in stinking pink powder applied with an enormous and
filthy swansdown powder puff. He held up a mirror for me to admire his handiwork but I
was aware only of the enormous bed reflected in it, and hurriedly murmuring “very nice,
very nice” I made my escape to the outer office where, to my relief, I found the Chief
Engineer who escorted me back to the ship.

In the afternoon Mrs Coxford and the old lady and I hired a taxi and went to the
Polana Hotel for tea. Very swish but I like our Cape Peninsula beaches better.
At Lorenco Marques we took on more passengers. The Governor of
Portuguese Nyasaland and his wife and baby son. He was a large middle aged man,
very friendly and unassuming and spoke perfect English. His wife was German and
exquisite, as fragile looking and with the delicate colouring of a Dresden figurine. She
looked about 18 but she told me she was 28 and showed me photographs of two
other sons – hefty youngsters, whom she had left behind in Portugal and was missing
very much.

It was frightfully hot at Beira and as I had no money left I did not go up to the
town, but Mrs Croxford and I spent a pleasant hour on the beach under the Casurina
trees.

The Governor and his wife left the ship at Mozambique. He looked very
imposing in his starched uniform and she more Dresden Sheperdish than ever in a
flowered frock. There was a guard of honour and all the trimmings. They bade me a warm farewell and invited George and me to stay at any time.

The German ship “Watussi” was anchored in the Bay and I decided to visit her
and try and have my hair washed and set. I had no sooner stepped on board when a
lady came up to me and said “Surely you are Beeba Leslie.” It was Mrs Egan and she
had Molly with her. Considering Mrs Egan had not seen me since I was five I think it was
jolly clever of her to recognise me. Molly is charming and was most friendly. She fixed
things with the hairdresser and sat with me until the job was done. Afterwards I had tea
with them.

Port Amelia was our last stop. In fact the only person to go ashore was Mr
Taylor, the unpleasant man, and he returned at sunset very drunk indeed.
We reached Port Amelia on the 3rd – my birthday. The boat had anchored by
the time I was dressed and when I went on deck I saw several row boats cluttered
around the gangway and in them were natives with cages of wild birds for sale. Such tiny
crowded cages. I was furious, you know me. I bought three cages, carried them out on
to the open deck and released the birds. I expected them to fly to the land but they flew
straight up into the rigging.

The quiet male passenger wandered up and asked me what I was doing. I said
“I’m giving myself a birthday treat, I hate to see caged birds.” So next thing there he
was buying birds which he presented to me with “Happy Birthday.” I gladly set those
birds free too and they joined the others in the rigging.

Then a grinning steward came up with three more cages. “For the lady with
compliments of the Captain.” They lost no time in joining their friends.
It had given me so much pleasure to free the birds that I was only a little
discouraged when the quiet man said thoughtfully “This should encourage those bird
catchers you know, they are sold out. When evening came and we were due to sail I
was sure those birds would fly home, but no, they are still there and they will probably
remain until we dock at Dar es Salaam.

During the morning the Captain came up and asked me what my Christian name
is. He looked as grave as ever and I couldn’t think why it should interest him but said “the
name is Eleanor.” That night at dinner there was a large iced cake in the centre of the
table with “HELENA” in a delicate wreath of pink icing roses on the top. We had
champagne and everyone congratulated me and wished me good luck in my marriage.
A very nice gesture don’t you think. The unpleasant character had not put in an
appearance at dinner which made the party all the nicer

I sat up rather late in the lounge reading a book and by the time I went to bed
there was not a soul around. I bathed and changed into my nighty,walked into my cabin,
shed my dressing gown, and pottered around. When I was ready for bed I put out my
hand to draw the curtains back and a hand grasped my wrist. It was that wretched
creature outside my window on the deck, still very drunk. Luckily I was wearing that
heavy lilac silk nighty. I was livid. “Let go at once”, I said, but he only grinned stupidly.
“I’m not hurting you” he said, “only looking”. “I’ll ring for the steward” said I, and by
stretching I managed to press the bell with my free hand. I rang and rang but no one
came and he just giggled. Then I said furiously, “Remember this name, George
Rushby, he is a fine boxer and he hates specimens like you. When he meets me at Dar
es Salaam I shall tell him about this and I bet you will be sorry.” However he still held on
so I turned and knocked hard on the adjoining wall which divided my cabin from Mrs
Croxfords. Soon Mrs Croxford and the old lady appeared in dressing gowns . This
seemed to amuse the drunk even more though he let go my wrist. So whilst the old
lady stayed with me, Mrs C fetched the quiet passenger who soon hustled him off. He has kept out of my way ever since. However I still mean to tell George because I feel
the fellow got off far too lightly. I reported the matter to the Captain but he just remarked
that he always knew the man was low class because he never wears a jacket to meals.
This is my last night on board and we again had free champagne and I was given
some tooled leather work by the Captain and a pair of good paste earrings by the old
lady. I have invited them and Mrs Croxford, the Chief Engineer, and the quiet
passenger to the wedding.

This may be my last night as Eleanor Leslie and I have spent this long while
writing to you just as a little token of my affection and gratitude for all the years of your
love and care. I shall post this letter on the ship and must turn now and get some beauty
sleep. We have been told that we shall be in Dar es Salaam by 9 am. I am so excited
that I shall not sleep.

Very much love, and just for fun I’ll sign my full name for the last time.
with my “bes respeks”,

Eleanor Leslie.

Eleanor and George Rushby:

Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

Dearest Family,

I’m writing this in the bedroom whilst George is out buying a tin trunk in which to
pack all our wedding presents. I expect he will be gone a long time because he has
gone out with Hicky Wood and, though our wedding was four days ago, it’s still an
excuse for a party. People are all very cheery and friendly here.
I am wearing only pants and slip but am still hot. One swelters here in the
mornings, but a fresh sea breeze blows in the late afternoons and then Dar es Salaam is
heavenly.

We arrived in Dar es Salaam harbour very early on Friday morning (7 th Nov).
The previous night the Captain had said we might not reach Dar. until 9 am, and certainly
no one would be allowed on board before 8 am. So I dawdled on the deck in my
dressing gown and watched the green coastline and the islands slipping by. I stood on
the deck outside my cabin and was not aware that I was looking out at the wrong side of
the landlocked harbour. Quite unknown to me George and some friends, the Hickson
Woods, were standing on the Gymkhana Beach on the opposite side of the channel
anxiously scanning the ship for a sign of me. George says he had a horrible idea I had
missed the ship. Blissfully unconscious of his anxiety I wandered into the bathroom
prepared for a good soak. The anchor went down when I was in the bath and suddenly
there was a sharp wrap on the door and I heard Mrs Croxford say “There’s a man in a
boat outside. He is looking out for someone and I’m sure it’s your George. I flung on
some clothes and rushed on deck with tousled hair and bare feet and it was George.
We had a marvellous reunion. George was wearing shorts and bush shirt and
looked just like the strong silent types one reads about in novels. I finished dressing then
George helped me bundle all the wedding presents I had collected en route into my
travelling rug and we went into the bar lounge to join the Hickson Woods. They are the
couple from whom George bought the land which is to be our coffee farm Hicky-Wood
was laughing when we joined them. he said he had called a chap to bring a couple of
beers thinking he was the steward but it turned out to be the Captain. He does wear
such a very plain uniform that I suppose it was easy to make the mistake, but Hicky
says he was not amused.

Anyway as the H-W’s are to be our neighbours I’d better describe them. Kath
Wood is very attractive, dark Irish, with curly black hair and big brown eyes. She was
married before to Viv Lumb a great friend of George’s who died some years ago of
blackwater fever. They had one little girl, Maureen, and Kath and Hicky have a small son
of three called Michael. Hicky is slightly below average height and very neat and dapper
though well built. He is a great one for a party and good fun but George says he can be
bad tempered.

Anyway we all filed off the ship and Hicky and Cath went on to the hotel whilst
George and I went through customs. Passing the customs was easy. Everyone
seemed to know George and that it was his wedding day and I just sailed through,
except for the little matter of the rug coming undone when George and I had to scramble
on the floor for candlesticks and fruit knives and a wooden nut bowl.
Outside the customs shed we were mobbed by a crowd of jabbering Africans
offering their services as porters, and soon my luggage was piled in one rickshaw whilst
George and I climbed into another and we were born smoothly away on rubber shod
wheels to the Splendid Hotel. The motion was pleasing enough but it seemed weird to
be pulled along by one human being whilst another pushed behind.  We turned up a street called Acacia Avenue which, as its name implies, is lined
with flamboyant acacia trees now in the full glory of scarlet and gold. The rickshaw
stopped before the Splendid Hotel and I was taken upstairs into a pleasant room which
had its own private balcony overlooking the busy street.

Here George broke the news that we were to be married in less than an hours
time. He would have to dash off and change and then go straight to the church. I would
be quite all right, Kath would be looking in and friends would fetch me.
I started to dress and soon there was a tap at the door and Mrs Hickson-Wood
came in with my bouquet. It was a lovely bunch of carnations and frangipani with lots of
asparagus fern and it went well with my primrose yellow frock. She admired my frock
and Leghorn hat and told me that her little girl Maureen was to be my flower girl. Then
she too left for the church.

I was fully dressed when there was another knock on the door and I opened it to
be confronted by a Police Officer in a starched white uniform. I’m McCallum”, he said,
“I’ve come to drive you to the church.” Downstairs he introduced me to a big man in a
tussore silk suit. “This is Dr Shicore”, said McCallum, “He is going to give you away.”
Honestly, I felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland. Wouldn’t have been at all surprised if
the White Rabbit had popped up and said he was going to be my page.

I walked out of the hotel and across the pavement in a dream and there, by the
curb, was a big dark blue police car decorated with white ribbons and with a tall African
Police Ascari holding the door open for me. I had hardly time to wonder what next when
the car drew up before a tall German looking church. It was in fact the Lutheran Church in
the days when Tanganyika was German East Africa.

Mrs Hickson-Wood, very smart in mushroom coloured georgette and lace, and
her small daughter were waiting in the porch, so in we went. I was glad to notice my
friends from the boat sitting behind George’s friends who were all complete strangers to
me. The aisle seemed very long but at last I reached George waiting in the chancel with
Hicky-Wood, looking unfamiliar in a smart tussore suit. However this feeling of unreality
passed when he turned his head and smiled at me.

In the vestry after the ceremony I was kissed affectionately by several complete
strangers and I felt happy and accepted by George’s friends. Outside the church,
standing apart from the rest of the guests, the Italian Captain and Chief Engineer were
waiting. They came up and kissed my hand, and murmured felicitations, but regretted
they could not spare the time to come to the reception. Really it was just as well
because they would not have fitted in at all well.

Dr Shircore is the Director of Medical Services and he had very kindly lent his
large house for the reception. It was quite a party. The guests were mainly men with a
small sprinkling of wives. Champagne corks popped and there was an enormous cake
and soon voices were raised in song. The chief one was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’
and I shall remember it for ever.

The party was still in full swing when George and I left. The old lady from the ship
enjoyed it hugely. She came in an all black outfit with a corsage of artificial Lily-of-the-
Valley. Later I saw one of the men wearing the corsage in his buttonhole and the old
lady was wearing a carnation.

When George and I got back to the hotel,I found that my luggage had been
moved to George’s room by his cook Lamek, who was squatting on his haunches and
clapped his hands in greeting. My dears, you should see Lamek – exactly like a
chimpanzee – receding forehead, wide flat nose, and long lip, and such splayed feet. It was quite a strain not to laugh, especially when he produced a gift for me. I have not yet
discovered where he acquired it. It was a faded mauve straw toque of the kind worn by
Queen Mary. I asked George to tell Lamek that I was touched by his generosity but felt
that I could not accept his gift. He did not mind at all especially as George gave him a
generous tip there and then.

I changed into a cotton frock and shady straw hat and George changed into shorts
and bush shirt once more. We then sneaked into the dining room for lunch avoiding our
wedding guests who were carrying on the party in the lounge.

After lunch we rejoined them and they all came down to the jetty to wave goodbye
as we set out by motor launch for Honeymoon Island. I enjoyed the launch trip very
much. The sea was calm and very blue and the palm fringed beaches of Dar es Salaam
are as romantic as any bride could wish. There are small coral islands dotted around the
Bay of which Honeymoon Island is the loveliest. I believe at one time it bore the less
romantic name of Quarantine Island. Near the Island, in the shallows, the sea is brilliant
green and I saw two pink jellyfish drifting by.

There is no jetty on the island so the boat was stopped in shallow water and
George carried me ashore. I was enchanted with the Island and in no hurry to go to the
bungalow, so George and I took our bathing costumes from our suitcases and sent the
luggage up to the house together with a box of provisions.

We bathed and lazed on the beach and suddenly it was sunset and it began to
get dark. We walked up the beach to the bungalow and began to unpack the stores,
tea, sugar, condensed milk, bread and butter, sardines and a large tin of ham. There
were also cups and saucers and plates and cutlery.

We decided to have an early meal and George called out to the caretaker, “Boy
letta chai”. Thereupon the ‘boy’ materialised and jabbered to George in Ki-Swaheli. It
appeared he had no utensil in which to boil water. George, ever resourceful, removed
the ham from the tin and gave him that. We had our tea all right but next day the ham
was bad.

Then came bed time. I took a hurricane lamp in one hand and my suitcase in the
other and wandered into the bedroom whilst George vanished into the bathroom. To
my astonishment I saw two perfectly bare iron bedsteads – no mattress or pillows. We
had brought sheets and mosquito nets but, believe me, they are a poor substitute for a
mattress.

Anyway I arrayed myself in my pale yellow satin nightie and sat gingerly down
on the iron edge of the bed to await my groom who eventually appeared in a
handsome suit of silk pyjamas. His expression, as he took in the situation, was too much
for me and I burst out laughing and so did he.

Somewhere in the small hours I woke up. The breeze had dropped and the
room was unbearably stuffy. I felt as dry as a bone. The lamp had been turned very
low and had gone out, but I remembered seeing a water tank in the yard and I decided
to go out in the dark and drink from the tap. In the dark I could not find my slippers so I
slipped my feet into George’s shoes, picked up his matches and groped my way out
of the room. I found the tank all right and with one hand on the tap and one cupped for
water I stooped to drink. Just then I heard a scratchy noise and sensed movements
around my feet. I struck a match and oh horrors! found that the damp spot on which I was
standing was alive with white crabs. In my hurry to escape I took a clumsy step, put
George’s big toe on the hem of my nightie and down I went on top of the crabs. I need
hardly say that George was awakened by an appalling shriek and came rushing to my
aid like a knight of old.  Anyway, alarms and excursions not withstanding, we had a wonderful weekend on the island and I was sorry to return to the heat of Dar es Salaam, though the evenings
here are lovely and it is heavenly driving along the coast road by car or in a rickshaw.
I was surprised to find so many Indians here. Most of the shops, large and small,
seem to be owned by Indians and the place teems with them. The women wear
colourful saris and their hair in long black plaits reaching to their waists. Many wear baggy
trousers of silk or satin. They give a carnival air to the sea front towards sunset.
This long letter has been written in instalments throughout the day. My first break
was when I heard the sound of a band and rushed to the balcony in time to see The
Kings African Rifles band and Askaris march down the Avenue on their way to an
Armistice Memorial Service. They looked magnificent.

I must end on a note of most primitive pride. George returned from his shopping
expedition and beamingly informed me that he had thrashed the man who annoyed me
on the ship. I felt extremely delighted and pressed for details. George told me that
when he went out shopping he noticed to his surprise that the ‘Timavo” was still in the
harbour. He went across to the Agents office and there saw a man who answered to the
description I had given. George said to him “Is your name Taylor?”, and when he said
“yes”, George said “Well my name is George Rushby”, whereupon he hit Taylor on the
jaw so that he sailed over the counter and down the other side. Very satisfactory, I feel.
With much love to all.

Your cave woman
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

Dearest Family,

Well here we are at our Country Seat, Mchewe Estate. (pronounced
Mn,-che’-we) but I will start at the beginning of our journey and describe the farm later.
We left the hotel at Dar es Salaam for the station in a taxi crowded with baggage
and at the last moment Keith Wood ran out with the unwrapped bottom layer of our
wedding cake. It remained in its naked state from there to here travelling for two days in
the train on the luggage rack, four days in the car on my knee, reposing at night on the
roof of the car exposed to the winds of Heaven, and now rests beside me in the tent
looking like an old old tombstone. We have no tin large enough to hold it and one
simply can’t throw away ones wedding cake so, as George does not eat cake, I can see
myself eating wedding cake for tea for months to come, ants permitting.

We travelled up by train from Dar to Dodoma, first through the lush vegetation of
the coastal belt to Morogoro, then through sisal plantations now very overgrown with
weeds owing to the slump in prices, and then on to the arid area around Dodoma. This
part of the country is very dry at this time of the year and not unlike parts of our Karoo.
The train journey was comfortable enough but slow as the engines here are fed with
wood and not coal as in South Africa.

Dodoma is the nearest point on the railway to Mbeya so we left the train there to
continue our journey by road. We arrived at the one and only hotel in the early hours and
whilst someone went to rout out the night watchman the rest of us sat on the dismal
verandah amongst a litter of broken glass. Some bright spark remarked on the obvious –
that there had been a party the night before.

When we were shown to a room I thought I rather preferred the verandah,
because the beds had not yet been made up and there was a bucket of vomit beside
the old fashioned washstand. However George soon got the boys to clean up the
room and I fell asleep to be awakened by George with an invitation to come and see
our car before breakfast.

Yes, we have our own car. It is a Chev, with what is called a box body. That
means that sides, roof and doors are made by a local Indian carpenter. There is just the
one front seat with a kapok mattress on it. The tools are kept in a sort of cupboard fixed
to the side so there is a big space for carrying “safari kit” behind the cab seat.
Lamek, who had travelled up on the same train, appeared after breakfast, and
helped George to pack all our luggage into the back of the car. Besides our suitcases
there was a huge bedroll, kitchen utensils and a box of provisions, tins of petrol and
water and all Lamek’s bits and pieces which included three chickens in a wicker cage and
an enormous bunch of bananas about 3 ft long.

When all theses things were packed there remained only a small space between
goods and ceiling and into this Lamek squeezed. He lay on his back with his horny feet a
mere inch or so from the back of my head. In this way we travelled 400 miles over
bumpy earth roads and crude pole bridges, but whenever we stopped for a meal
Lamek wriggled out and, like Aladdin’s genie, produced good meals in no time at all.
In the afternoon we reached a large river called the Ruaha. Workmen were busy
building a large bridge across it but it is not yet ready so we crossed by a ford below
the bridge. George told me that the river was full of crocodiles but though I looked hard, I
did not see any. This is also elephant country but I did not see any of those either, only
piles of droppings on the road. I must tell you that the natives around these parts are called Wahehe and the river is Ruaha – enough to make a cat laugh. We saw some Wahehe out hunting with spears
and bows and arrows. They live in long low houses with the tiniest shuttered windows
and rounded roofs covered with earth.

Near the river we also saw a few Masai herding cattle. They are rather terrifying to
look at – tall, angular, and very aloof. They wear nothing but a blanket knotted on one
shoulder, concealing nothing, and all carried one or two spears.
The road climbs steeply on the far side of the Ruaha and one has the most
tremendous views over the plains. We spent our first night up there in the high country.
Everything was taken out of the car, the bed roll opened up and George and I slept
comfortably in the back of the car whilst Lamek, rolled in a blanket, slept soundly by a
small fire nearby. Next morning we reached our first township, Iringa, and put up at the
Colonist Hotel. We had a comfortable room in the annex overlooking the golf course.
our room had its own little dressing room which was also the bathroom because, when
ordered to do so, the room boy carried in an oval galvanised bath and filled it with hot
water which he carried in a four gallon petrol tin.

When we crossed to the main building for lunch, George was immediately hailed
by several men who wanted to meet the bride. I was paid some handsome
compliments but was not sure whether they were sincere or the result of a nice alcoholic
glow. Anyhow every one was very friendly.

After lunch I went back to the bedroom leaving George chatting away. I waited and
waited – no George. I got awfully tired of waiting and thought I’d give him a fright so I
walked out onto the deserted golf course and hid behind some large boulders. Soon I
saw George returning to the room and the boy followed with a tea tray. Ah, now the hue
and cry will start, thought I, but no, no George appeared nor could I hear any despairing
cry. When sunset came I trailed crossly back to our hotel room where George lay
innocently asleep on his bed, hands folded on his chest like a crusader on his tomb. In a
moment he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily and said kindly, “Did you have a nice walk
my love?” So of course I couldn’t play the neglected wife as he obviously didn’t think
me one and we had a very pleasant dinner and party in the hotel that evening.
Next day we continued our journey but turned aside to visit the farm of a sprightly
old man named St.Leger Seaton whom George had known for many years, so it was
after dark before George decided that we had covered our quota of miles for the day.
Whilst he and Lamek unpacked I wandered off to a stream to cool my hot feet which had
baked all day on the floor boards of the car. In the rather dim moonlight I sat down on the
grassy bank and gratefully dabbled my feet in the cold water. A few minutes later I
started up with a shriek – I had the sensation of red hot pins being dug into all my most
sensitive parts. I started clawing my clothes off and, by the time George came to the
rescue with the lamp, I was practically in the nude. “Only Siafu ants,” said George calmly.
Take off all your clothes and get right in the water.” So I had a bathe whilst George
picked the ants off my clothes by the light of the lamp turned very low for modesty’s
sake. Siafu ants are beastly things. They are black ants with outsized heads and
pinchers. I shall be very, very careful where I sit in future.

The next day was even hotter. There was no great variety in the scenery. Most
of the country was covered by a tree called Miombo, which is very ordinary when the
foliage is a mature deep green, but when in new leaf the trees look absolutely beautiful
as the leaves,surprisingly, are soft pastel shades of red and yellow.

Once again we turned aside from the main road to visit one of George’s friends.
This man Major Hugh Jones MC, has a farm only a few miles from ours but just now he is supervising the making of an airstrip. Major Jones is quite a character. He is below
average height and skinny with an almost bald head and one nearly blind eye into which
he screws a monocle. He is a cultured person and will, I am sure, make an interesting
neighbour. George and Major Jones’ friends call him ‘Joni’ but he is generally known in
this country as ‘Ropesoles’ – as he is partial to that type of footwear.
We passed through Mbeya township after dark so I have no idea what the place
is like. The last 100 miles of our journey was very dusty and the last 15 miles extremely
bumpy. The road is used so little that in some places we had to plow our way through
long grass and I was delighted when at last George turned into a side road and said
“This is our place.” We drove along the bank of the Mchewe River, then up a hill and
stopped at a tent which was pitched beside the half built walls of our new home. We
were expected so there was hot water for baths and after a supper of tinned food and
good hot tea, I climbed thankfully into bed.

Next morning I was awakened by the chattering of the African workmen and was
soon out to inspect the new surroundings. Our farm was once part of Hickson Wood’s
land and is separated from theirs by a river. Our houses cannot be more than a few
hundred yards apart as the crow flies but as both are built on the slopes of a long range
of high hills, and one can only cross the river at the foot of the slopes, it will be quite a
safari to go visiting on foot . Most of our land is covered with shoulder high grass but it
has been partly cleared of trees and scrub. Down by the river George has made a long
coffee nursery and a large vegetable garden but both coffee and vegetable seedlings
are too small to be of use.

George has spared all the trees that will make good shade for the coffee later on.
There are several huge wild fig trees as big as oaks but with smooth silvery-green trunks
and branches and there are lots of acacia thorn trees with flat tops like Japanese sun
shades. I’ve seen lovely birds in the fig trees, Louries with bright plumage and crested
heads, and Blue Rollers, and in the grasslands there are widow birds with incredibly long
black tail feathers.

There are monkeys too and horrible but fascinating tree lizards with blue bodies
and orange heads. There are so many, many things to tell you but they must wait for
another time as James, the house boy, has been to say “Bafu tiari” and if I don’t go at
once, the bath will be cold.

I am very very happy and terribly interested in this new life so please don’t
worry about me.

Much love to you all,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

Dearest Family,

I’ve lots of time to write letters just now because George is busy supervising the
building of the house from early morning to late afternoon – with a break for lunch of
course.

On our second day here our tent was moved from the house site to a small
clearing further down the slope of our hill. Next to it the labourers built a ‘banda’ , which is
a three sided grass hut with thatched roof – much cooler than the tent in this weather.
There is also a little grass lav. so you see we have every convenience. I spend most of
my day in the banda reading or writing letters. Occasionally I wander up to the house site
and watch the building, but mostly I just sit.

I did try exploring once. I wandered down a narrow path towards the river. I
thought I might paddle and explore the river a little but I came round a bend and there,
facing me, was a crocodile. At least for a moment I thought it was and my adrenaline
glands got very busy indeed. But it was only an enormous monitor lizard, four or five
feet long. It must have been as scared as I was because it turned and rushed off through
the grass. I turned and walked hastily back to the camp and as I passed the house site I
saw some boys killing a large puff adder. Now I do my walking in the evenings with
George. Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when he is around.

It is interesting to watch the boys making bricks for the house. They make a pile
of mud which they trample with their feet until it is the right consistency. Then they fill
wooden moulds with the clayey mud, and press it down well and turn out beautiful shiny,
dark brown bricks which are laid out in rows and covered with grass to bake slowly in the
sun.

Most of the materials for the building are right here at hand. The walls will be sun
dried bricks and there is a white clay which will make a good whitewash for the inside
walls. The chimney and walls will be of burnt brick and tiles and George is now busy
building a kiln for this purpose. Poles for the roof are being cut in the hills behind the
house and every day women come along with large bundles of thatching grass on their
heads. Our windows are modern steel casement ones and the doors have been made
at a mission in the district. George does some of the bricklaying himself. The other
bricklayer is an African from Northern Rhodesia called Pedro. It makes me perspire just
to look at Pedro who wears an overcoat all day in the very hot sun.
Lamek continues to please. He turns out excellent meals, chicken soup followed
by roast chicken, vegetables from the Hickson-Woods garden and a steamed pudding
or fruit to wind up the meal. I enjoy the chicken but George is fed up with it and longs for
good red meat. The chickens are only about as large as a partridge but then they cost
only sixpence each.

I had my first visit to Mbeya two days ago. I put on my very best trousseau frock
for the occasion- that yellow striped silk one – and wore my wedding hat. George didn’t
comment, but I saw later that I was dreadfully overdressed.
Mbeya at the moment is a very small settlement consisting of a bundle of small
Indian shops – Dukas they call them, which stock European tinned foods and native soft
goods which seem to be mainly of Japanese origin. There is a one storied Government
office called the Boma and two attractive gabled houses of burnt brick which house the
District Officer and his Assistant. Both these houses have lovely gardens but i saw them
only from the outside as we did not call. After buying our stores George said “Lets go to the pub, I want you to meet Mrs Menzies.” Well the pub turned out to be just three or four grass rondavels on a bare
plot. The proprietor, Ken Menzies, came out to welcome us. I took to him at once
because he has the same bush sandy eyebrows as you have Dad. He told me that
unfortunately his wife is away at the coast, and then he ushered me through the door
saying “Here’s George with his bride.” then followed the Iringa welcome all over again,
only more so, because the room was full of diggers from the Lupa Goldfields about fifty
miles away.

Champagne corks popped as I shook hands all around and George was
clapped on the back. I could see he was a favourite with everyone and I tried not to be
gauche and let him down. These men were all most kind and most appeared to be men
of more than average education. However several were unshaven and looked as
though they had slept in their clothes as I suppose they had. When they have a little luck
on the diggings they come in here to Menzies pub and spend the lot. George says
they bring their gold dust and small nuggets in tobacco tins or Kruschen salts jars and
hand them over to Ken Menzies saying “Tell me when I’ve spent the lot.” Ken then
weighs the gold and estimates its value and does exactly what the digger wants.
However the Diggers get good value for their money because besides the drink
they get companionship and good food and nursing if they need it. Mrs Menzies is a
trained nurse and most kind and capable from what I was told. There is no doctor or
hospital here so her experience as a nursing sister is invaluable.
We had lunch at the Hotel and afterwards I poured tea as I was the only female
present. Once the shyness had worn off I rather enjoyed myself.

Now to end off I must tell you a funny story of how I found out that George likes
his women to be feminine. You will remember those dashing black silk pyjamas Aunt
Mary gave me, with flowered “happy coat” to match. Well last night I thought I’d give
George a treat and when the boy called me for my bath I left George in the ‘banda’
reading the London Times. After my bath I put on my Japanese pyjamas and coat,
peered into the shaving mirror which hangs from the tent pole and brushed my hair until it
shone. I must confess that with my fringe and shingled hair I thought I made quite a
glamourous Japanese girl. I walked coyly across to the ‘banda’. Alas no compliment.
George just glanced up from the Times and went on reading.
He was away rather a long time when it came to his turn to bath. I glanced up
when he came back and had a slight concussion. George, if you please, was arrayed in
my very best pale yellow satin nightie. The one with the lace and ribbon sash and little
bows on the shoulder. I knew exactly what he meant to convey. I was not to wear the
trousers in the family. I seethed inwardly, but pretending not to notice, I said calmly “shall
I call for food?” In this garb George sat down to dinner and it says a great deal for African
phlegm that the boy did not drop the dishes.

We conversed politely about this and that, and then, as usual, George went off
to bed. I appeared to be engrossed in my book and did not stir. When I went to the
tent some time later George lay fast asleep still in my nightie, though all I could see of it
was the little ribbon bows looking farcically out of place on his broad shoulders.
This morning neither of us mentioned the incident, George was up and dressed
by the time I woke up but I have been smiling all day to think what a ridiculous picture
we made at dinner. So farewell to pyjamas and hey for ribbons and bows.

Your loving
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

Dearest Family,

A mere shadow of her former buxom self lifts a languid pen to write to you. I’m
convalescing after my first and I hope my last attack of malaria. It was a beastly
experience but all is now well and I am eating like a horse and will soon regain my
bounce.

I took ill on the evening of the day I wrote my last letter to you. It started with a
splitting headache and fits of shivering. The symptoms were all too familiar to George
who got me into bed and filled me up with quinine. He then piled on all the available
blankets and packed me in hot water bottles. I thought I’d explode and said so and
George said just to lie still and I’d soon break into a good sweat. However nothing of the
kind happened and next day my temperature was 105 degrees. Instead of feeling
miserable as I had done at the onset, I now felt very merry and most chatty. George
now tells me I sang the most bawdy songs but I hardly think it likely. Do you?
You cannot imagine how tenderly George nursed me, not only that day but
throughout the whole eight days I was ill. As we do not employ any African house
women, and there are no white women in the neighbourhood at present to whom we
could appeal for help, George had to do everything for me. It was unbearably hot in the
tent so George decided to move me across to the Hickson-Woods vacant house. They
have not yet returned from the coast.

George decided I was too weak to make the trip in the car so he sent a
messenger over to the Woods’ house for their Machila. A Machila is a canopied canvas
hammock slung from a bamboo pole and carried by four bearers. The Machila duly
arrived and I attempted to walk to it, clinging to George’s arm, but collapsed in a faint so
the trip was postponed to the next morning when I felt rather better. Being carried by
Machila is quite pleasant but I was in no shape to enjoy anything and got thankfully into
bed in the Hickson-Woods large, cool and rather dark bedroom. My condition did not
improve and George decided to send a runner for the Government Doctor at Tukuyu
about 60 miles away. Two days later Dr Theis arrived by car and gave me two
injections of quinine which reduced the fever. However I still felt very weak and had to
spend a further four days in bed.

We have now decided to stay on here until the Hickson-Woods return by which
time our own house should be ready. George goes off each morning and does not
return until late afternoon. However don’t think “poor Eleanor” because I am very
comfortable here and there are lots of books to read and the days seem to pass very
quickly.

The Hickson-Wood’s house was built by Major Jones and I believe the one on
his shamba is just like it. It is a square red brick building with a wide verandah all around
and, rather astonishingly, a conical thatched roof. There is a beautiful view from the front
of the house and a nice flower garden. The coffee shamba is lower down on the hill.
Mrs Wood’s first husband, George’s friend Vi Lumb, is buried in the flower
garden. He died of blackwater fever about five years ago. I’m told that before her
second marriage Kath lived here alone with her little daughter, Maureen, and ran the farm
entirely on her own. She must be quite a person. I bet she didn’t go and get malaria
within a few weeks of her marriage.

The native tribe around here are called Wasafwa. They are pretty primitive but
seem amiable people. Most of the men, when they start work, wear nothing but some
kind of sheet of unbleached calico wrapped round their waists and hanging to mid calf. As soon as they have drawn their wages they go off to a duka and buy a pair of khaki
shorts for five or six shillings. Their women folk wear very short beaded skirts. I think the
base is goat skin but have never got close enough for a good look. They are very shy.
I hear from George that they have started on the roof of our house but I have not
seen it myself since the day I was carried here by Machila. My letters by the way go to
the Post Office by runner. George’s farm labourers take it in turn to act in this capacity.
The mail bag is given to them on Friday afternoon and by Saturday evening they are
back with our very welcome mail.

Very much love,
Eleanor.

Mbeya 23rd December 1930

Dearest Family,

George drove to Mbeya for stores last week and met Col. Sherwood-Kelly VC.
who has been sent by the Government to Mbeya as Game Ranger. His job will be to
protect native crops from raiding elephants and hippo etc., and to protect game from
poachers. He has had no training for this so he has asked George to go with him on his
first elephant safari to show him the ropes.

George likes Col. Kelly and was quite willing to go on safari but not willing to
leave me alone on the farm as I am still rather shaky after malaria. So it was arranged that
I should go to Mbeya and stay with Mrs Harmer, the wife of the newly appointed Lands
and Mines Officer, whose husband was away on safari.

So here I am in Mbeya staying in the Harmers temporary wattle and daub
house. Unfortunately I had a relapse of the malaria and stayed in bed for three days with
a temperature. Poor Mrs Harmer had her hands full because in the room next to mine
she was nursing a digger with blackwater fever. I could hear his delirious babble through
the thin wall – very distressing. He died poor fellow , and leaves a wife and seven
children.

I feel better than I have done for weeks and this afternoon I walked down to the
store. There are great signs of activity and people say that Mbeya will grow rapidly now
owing to the boom on the gold fields and also to the fact that a large aerodrome is to be
built here. Mbeya is to be a night stop on the proposed air service between England
and South Africa. I seem to be the last of the pioneers. If all these schemes come about
Mbeya will become quite suburban.

26th December 1930

George, Col. Kelly and Mr Harmer all returned to Mbeya on Christmas Eve and
it was decided that we should stay and have midday Christmas dinner with the
Harmers. Col. Kelly and the Assistant District Commissioner came too and it was quite a
festive occasion, We left Mbeya in the early afternoon and had our evening meal here at
Hickson-Wood’s farm. I wore my wedding dress.

I went across to our house in the car this morning. George usually walks across to
save petrol which is very expensive here. He takes a short cut and wades through the
river. The distance by road is very much longer than the short cut. The men are now
thatching the roof of our cottage and it looks charming. It consists of a very large living
room-dinning room with a large inglenook fireplace at one end. The bedroom is a large
square room with a smaller verandah room adjoining it. There is a wide verandah in the
front, from which one has a glorious view over a wide valley to the Livingstone
Mountains on the horizon. Bathroom and storeroom are on the back verandah and the
kitchen is some distance behind the house to minimise the risk of fire.

You can imagine how much I am looking forward to moving in. We have some
furniture which was made by an Indian carpenter at Iringa, refrectory dining table and
chairs, some small tables and two armchairs and two cupboards and a meatsafe. Other
things like bookshelves and extra cupboards we will have to make ourselves. George
has also bought a portable gramophone and records which will be a boon.
We also have an Irish wolfhound puppy, a skinny little chap with enormous feet
who keeps me company all day whilst George is across at our farm working on the
house.

Lots and lots of love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

Dearest Family,

Alas, I have lost my little companion. The Doctor called in here on Boxing night
and ran over and killed Paddy, our pup. It was not his fault but I was very distressed
about it and George has promised to try and get another pup from the same litter.
The Hickson-Woods returned home on the 29th December so we decided to
move across to our nearly finished house on the 1st January. Hicky Wood decided that
we needed something special to mark the occasion so he went off and killed a sucking
pig behind the kitchen. The piglet’s screams were terrible and I felt that I would not be
able to touch any dinner. Lamek cooked and served sucking pig up in the traditional way
but it was high and quite literally, it stank. Our first meal in our own home was not a
success.

However next day all was forgotten and I had something useful to do. George
hung doors and I held the tools and I also planted rose cuttings I had brought from
Mbeya and sowed several boxes with seeds.

Dad asked me about the other farms in the area. I haven’t visited any but there
are five besides ours. One belongs to the Lutheran Mission at Utengule, a few miles
from here. The others all belong to British owners. Nearest to Mbeya, at the foot of a
very high peak which gives Mbeya its name, are two farms, one belonging to a South
African mining engineer named Griffiths, the other to I.G.Stewart who was an officer in the
Kings African Rifles. Stewart has a young woman called Queenie living with him. We are
some miles further along the range of hills and are some 23 miles from Mbeya by road.
The Mchewe River divides our land from the Hickson-Woods and beyond their farm is
Major Jones.

All these people have been away from their farms for some time but have now
returned so we will have some neighbours in future. However although the houses are
not far apart as the crow flies, they are all built high in the foothills and it is impossible to
connect the houses because of the rivers and gorges in between. One has to drive right
down to the main road and then up again so I do not suppose we will go visiting very
often as the roads are very bumpy and eroded and petrol is so expensive that we all
save it for occasional trips to Mbeya.

The rains are on and George has started to plant out some coffee seedlings. The
rains here are strange. One can hear the rain coming as it moves like a curtain along the
range of hills. It comes suddenly, pours for a little while and passes on and the sun
shines again.

I do like it here and I wish you could see or dear little home.

Your loving,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

Dearest Family,

Everything is now running very smoothly in our home. Lamek continues to
produce palatable meals and makes wonderful bread which he bakes in a four gallon
petrol tin as we have no stove yet. He puts wood coals on the brick floor of the kitchen,
lays the tin lengh-wise on the coals and heaps more on top. The bread tins are then put
in the petrol tin, which has one end cut away, and the open end is covered by a flat
piece of tin held in place by a brick. Cakes are also backed in this make-shift oven and I
have never known Lamek to have a failure yet.

Lamek has a helper, known as the ‘mpishi boy’ , who does most of the hard
work, cleans pots and pans and chops the firewood etc. Another of the mpishi boy’s
chores is to kill the two chickens we eat each day. The chickens run wild during the day
but are herded into a small chicken house at night. One of the kitchen boy’s first duties is
to let the chickens out first thing in the early morning. Some time after breakfast it dawns
on Lamek that he will need a chicken for lunch. he informs the kitchen boy who selects a
chicken and starts to chase it in which he is enthusiastically joined by our new Irish
wolfhound pup, Kelly. Together they race after the frantic fowl, over the flower beds and
around the house until finally the chicken collapses from sheer exhaustion. The kitchen
boy then hands it over to Lamek who murders it with the kitchen knife and then pops the
corpse into boiling water so the feathers can be stripped off with ease.

I pointed out in vain, that it would be far simpler if the doomed chickens were kept
in the chicken house in the mornings when the others were let out and also that the correct
way to pluck chickens is when they are dry. Lamek just smiled kindly and said that that
may be so in Europe but that his way is the African way and none of his previous
Memsahibs has complained.

My houseboy, named James, is clean and capable in the house and also a
good ‘dhobi’ or washboy. He takes the washing down to the river and probably
pounds it with stones, but I prefer not to look. The ironing is done with a charcoal iron
only we have no charcoal and he uses bits of wood from the kitchen fire but so far there
has not been a mishap.

It gets dark here soon after sunset and then George lights the oil lamps and we
have tea and toast in front of the log fire which burns brightly in our inglenook. This is my
favourite hour of the day. Later George goes for his bath. I have mine in the mornings
and we have dinner at half past eight. Then we talk a bit and read a bit and sometimes
play the gramophone. I expect it all sounds pretty unexciting but it doesn’t seem so to
me.

Very much love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

Dearest Family,

It is still raining here and the countryside looks very lush and green, very different
from the Mbeya district I first knew, when plains and hills were covered in long brown
grass – very course stuff that grows shoulder high.

Most of the labourers are hill men and one can see little patches of cultivation in
the hills. Others live in small villages near by, each consisting of a cluster of thatched huts
and a few maize fields and perhaps a patch of bananas. We do not have labour lines on
the farm because our men all live within easy walking distance. Each worker has a labour
card with thirty little squares on it. One of these squares is crossed off for each days work
and when all thirty are marked in this way the labourer draws his pay and hies himself off
to the nearest small store and blows the lot. The card system is necessary because
these Africans are by no means slaves to work. They work only when they feel like it or
when someone in the family requires a new garment, or when they need a few shillings
to pay their annual tax. Their fields, chickens and goats provide them with the food they
need but they draw rations of maize meal beans and salt. Only our headman is on a
salary. His name is Thomas and he looks exactly like the statues of Julius Caesar, the
same bald head and muscular neck and sardonic expression. He comes from Northern
Rhodesia and is more intelligent than the locals.

We still live mainly on chickens. We have a boy whose job it is to scour the
countryside for reasonable fat ones. His name is Lucas and he is quite a character. He
has such long horse teeth that he does not seem able to close his mouth and wears a
perpetual amiable smile. He brings his chickens in beehive shaped wicker baskets
which are suspended on a pole which Lucas carries on his shoulder.

We buy our groceries in bulk from Mbeya, our vegetables come from our
garden by the river and our butter from Kath Wood. Our fresh milk we buy from the
natives. It is brought each morning by three little totos each carrying one bottle on his
shaven head. Did I tell you that the local Wasafwa file their teeth to points. These kids
grin at one with their little sharks teeth – quite an “all-ready-to-eat-you-with-my-dear” look.
A few nights ago a message arrived from Kath Wood to say that Queenie
Stewart was very ill and would George drive her across to the Doctor at Tukuyu. I
wanted George to wait until morning because it was pouring with rain, and the mountain
road to Tukuyu is tricky even in dry weather, but he said it is dangerous to delay with any
kind of fever in Africa and he would have to start at once. So off he drove in the rain and I
did not see him again until the following night.

George said that it had been a nightmare trip. Queenie had a high temperature
and it was lucky that Kath was able to go to attend to her. George needed all his
attention on the road which was officially closed to traffic, and very slippery, and in some
places badly eroded. In some places the decking of bridges had been removed and
George had to get out in the rain and replace it. As he had nothing with which to fasten
the decking to the runners it was a dangerous undertaking to cross the bridges especially
as the rivers are now in flood and flowing strongly. However they reached Tukuyu safely
and it was just as well they went because the Doctor diagnosed Queenies illness as
Spirillium Tick Fever which is a very nasty illness indeed.

Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

Dear Family,

I’m feeling fit and very happy though a bit lonely sometimes because George
spends much of his time away in the hills cutting a furrow miles long to bring water to the
house and to the upper part of the shamba so that he will be able to irrigate the coffee
during the dry season.

It will be quite an engineering feat when it is done as George only has makeshift
surveying instruments. He has mounted an ordinary cheap spirit level on an old camera
tripod and has tacked two gramophone needles into the spirit level to give him a line.
The other day part of a bank gave way and practically buried two of George’s labourers
but they were quickly rescued and no harm was done. However he will not let them
work unless he is there to supervise.

I keep busy so that the days pass quickly enough. I am delighted with the
material you sent me for curtains and loose covers and have hired a hand sewing
machine from Pedro-of-the-overcoat and am rattling away all day. The machine is an
ancient German one and when I say rattle, I mean rattle. It is a most cumbersome, heavy
affair of I should say, the same vintage as George Stevenson’s Rocket locomotive.
Anyway it sews and I am pleased with my efforts. We made a couch ourselves out of a
native bed, a mattress and some planks but all this is hidden under the chintz cover and
it looks quite the genuine bought article. I have some diversions too. Small black faced
monkeys sit in the trees outside our bedroom window and they are most entertaining to
watch. They are very mischievous though. When I went out into the garden this morning
before breakfast I found that the monkeys had pulled up all my carnations. There they
lay, roots in the air and whether they will take again I don’t know.

I like the monkeys but hate the big mountain baboons that come and hang
around our chicken house. I am terrified that they will tear our pup into bits because he is
a plucky young thing and will rush out to bark at the baboons.

George usually returns for the weekends but last time he did not because he had
a touch of malaria. He sent a boy down for the mail and some fresh bread. Old Lucas
arrived with chickens just as the messenger was setting off with mail and bread in a
haversack on his back. I thought it might be a good idea to send a chicken to George so
I selected a spry young rooster which I handed to the messenger. He, however,
complained that he needed both hands for climbing. I then had one of my bright ideas
and, putting a layer of newspaper over the bread, I tucked the rooster into the haversack
and buckled down the flap so only his head protruded.

I thought no more about it until two days later when the messenger again
appeared for fresh bread. He brought a rather terse note from George saying that the
previous bread was uneatable as the rooster had eaten some of it and messed on the
rest. Ah me!

The previous weekend the Hickson-Woods, Stewarts and ourselves, went
across to Tukuyu to attend a dance at the club there. the dance was very pleasant. All
the men wore dinner jackets and the ladies wore long frocks. As there were about
twenty men and only seven ladies we women danced every dance whilst the surplus
men got into a huddle around the bar. George and I spent the night with the Agricultural
Officer, Mr Eustace, and I met his fiancee, Lillian Austin from South Africa, to whom I took
a great liking. She is Governess to the children of Major Masters who has a farm in the
Tukuyu district.

On the Sunday morning we had a look at the township. The Boma was an old German one and was once fortified as the Africans in this district are a very warlike tribe.
They are fine looking people. The men wear sort of togas and bands of cloth around
their heads and look like Roman Senators, but the women go naked except for a belt
from which two broad straps hang down, one in front and another behind. Not a graceful
garb I assure you.

We also spent a pleasant hour in the Botanical Gardens, laid out during the last
war by the District Commissioner, Major Wells, with German prisoner of war labour.
There are beautiful lawns and beds of roses and other flowers and shady palm lined
walks and banana groves. The gardens are terraced with flights of brick steps connecting
the different levels and there is a large artificial pond with little islands in it. I believe Major
Wells designed the lake to resemble in miniature, the Lakes of Killarney.
I enjoyed the trip very much. We got home at 8 pm to find the front door locked
and the kitchen boy fast asleep on my newly covered couch! I hastily retreated to the
bedroom whilst George handled the situation.

Eleanor.

“Mind joining me on an adventure?” Sanso said while continuing to walk at a rapid pace on the trail in the middle of running people carrying buckets of water, as though he knew exactly were he was going. “Of course not” he took no time to wait for an answer, as clearly the young lady was way over her head in her first attempt to teleport.

“I should be called the Sanso Bernar of Teleporting Mishaps, you know, it’s like I have this seventh sense to precisely arrive where stranded teleporters need me… that and lost socks, but that’s an entire different story, although I could recall quite many times where both had me landing on dirty launderettes…”

He paused to look at the panting Fanella. “But you don’t get a word of what I’m saying do you?”
She shrugged timidly, batting her doe eyes in a seductive manner, as she had learnt to do at the Versailles Palace when caught her hand in the honeypot, so to speak.

“Oh, never mind.” He went on. “Well,… ugh, burp, excuse me, this sea cucumber isn’t sitting well me…”
Fanella signaled she needed a moment to catch her breath too, and sat on a flat rock, covering her legs with her arms, suddenly self-conscious of her modesty.
“What was i saying already? Oh, yes, I have to deliver a message to a sea cucumber, sorry, I mean a lady cucumber, who may be in grave danger of death… possi—blurp— by sea cucumber indigestion.”

He looked at her from head to toes: “Well, you look reasonably pliable… That trick should work. I suppose you don’t have any wax, clay, salt dough or… well never mind, I have… just what I need here…”

All the while babbling on, he started to unfold a large piece of patchwork, which was somehow folded in his satchel.

“The map dancer, you see… well, he’s a bit of a pain in the butt to find. But here, hold that for a moment. With that bit of,… there, put your finger there, no, not here, yes, riiight there… with a bit of patience, and… tada!”

Fanella looked puzzled at the cloth now wrapped around them, snug and tight.

“Oh well, I know, the resemblance is passable, but that will do. Believe it or not, I have done a lot of sewing in the past, patchwork quilts, miniature needlepoint rugs for doll houses, curtains, upholstery… Oh sweet times. It’s been a while I’ve had to travel via rag doll. A bit rough, but leaves little trace to follow.”

Fanella broke her silence “are you making it along as you go, or you really have a plan to get us out of this awful middle age place?”

Sanso tittered softly, apparently pleased with himself.

“Now, you may want to relax, the trick is in letting go and drifting through Time’s flow.”

Gloria had volunteered to go fetch whatever thing she could find to feed the measly fire burning in a ice crevice. They were starting to get a bit hungry and the watermelbomb once exploded weren’t giving off much to feed on. She was starting to hallucinate delicious roasted penguins on a fire, with a slice of bread and whale lard, and a smoking cup of algae tisane…

“Golly, this is gettin’ sick! The little buggers are so cute…” she mused, fondly overlooking the flock of penguins on the shore, some diving and catching fish, others nursing, some gliding lazily on the glittering ice.

“Now look at this!” she said “SHA! SHA! Com’ere!”

“What the ‘eck!” Akita couldn’t believe its ears.
“Weeehoo! We’re goin’ome, and on a cruise mind ye!” Mavis was beaming.
“On a frigging iceberg! You can’t be serious!”
“Oh don’t be such a party pooper Akitooh, it’s perfect!” Sharon said
Not even trying to be reassuring, Mavis echoed “Yes! Remember BBC talkin’ about it years ago; just another mad project they said. But I loved that! Mad projects ye know… never thought I would see that in my lifetime. Guess the project has been funded after all. Drifting bagged icebergs to Africa through the Indian Ocean! Now that’s a plan!”
“And look! this one has got propellers, and a little platform,… and a satellite dish!” Sharon was inspecting the behemothic plastic-bagged iceberg on rockets which was bobbing up and down, still anchored to the nearby whale-watching base.
“Hope it’s not teleguided by aliens though…” Gloria said a bit wearily.

“Well, I suppose it’s our best option for now” Akita was trying to be appreciative of the ladies efforts. “And how do we hop on that thing?”

“Oh, that’s easy! Bring the ropes girls!”