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In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
Carob didn’t know what to say — which gave her a tendency to ramble.
Was everyone avoiding Amy?
Was it because she was dressed as a stout little lady?
Carob cleared her throat. “Well, Amy, you look… most interesting today.”
“I have to agree,” replied Amy, unperturbed. “Now — what is this about you and Ricardo?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you,” Carob said, shaking her head. “Partly because it’s top secret, and partly because…”
She tapped her temple and nodded to herself — definitely a few times more than necessary. “I’m still working it out.”“But you know him?” Amy persisted. “How do you know him?”
Carob knew Amy could be relentless.
“Look over there!” she shouted, pointing vaguely.
Amy didn’t even turn her head. She gazed up at Carob with a long-suffering stare. “Carob?”
Carob scrunched up her face. “Okay,” she said eventually. “I think the others are avoiding you. Me. Us. Both of us.”
She took a deep breath. “Thiram doesn’t know where we are or what we’re doing here — and he’s not good with that, bless. We don’t know where on earth Chico is — but we do know he spits, which, quite frankly, is uncouth.”
She brightened suddenly. “But one thing I do know — here, amid the coffee beans and the lucid dreamers, there is a story to be told.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “I’ve noticed you still haven’t told me how you know Ricardo.”
It was rather odd — but neither of them noticed the bush inching closer.
Trailing suspect but nothing to report yet, messaged Ricardo.
He knew Miss Bossy Pants wouldn’t be happy.
In reply to: Cofficionados Bandits (vs Lucid Dreamers)
A mad cackle started to shake the Universe again.
“Mmm…” Thiram interjected. “Not like you to be so hung up on details now? Although, I thought that was the whole point — coffee beans acclimation to whole unexpected new places, with the AI models predicting or hallucinating the shifts of weather patterns and all? Surely coffee beans no longer grow where they’re supposed to?”
They all looked at him with eyes like coffee cup’s saucers.
“And what’s that place you’re calling Florida by the way?” he felt pressed to add.
The cackling intensified, shaking their sense of geography to the core.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – The Mad Heir
The Wellness Deck was one of the few places untouched by the ship’s collective lunar madness—if one ignored the ambient aroma of algae wraps and rehydrated lavender oil. Soft music played in the background, a soothing contrast to the underlying horror that was about to unfold.
Peryton Price, or Perry as he was known to his patients, took a deep breath. He had spent years here, massaging stress from the shoulders of the ship’s weary, smoothing out wrinkles with oxygenated facials, pressing detoxifying seaweed against fine lines. He was, by all accounts, a model spa technician.
And yet—
His hands were shaking.
Inside his skull, another voice whispered. Urging. Prodding. It wasn’t his voice, and that terrified him.
“A little procedure, Perry. Just a little one. A mild improvement. A small tweak—in the name of progress!”
He clenched his jaw. No. No, no, no. He wouldn’t—
“You were so good with the first one, lad. What harm was it? Just a simple extraction! We used to do it all the time back in my day—what do you think the humors were for?”
Perry squeezed his eyes shut. His reflection stared back at him from the hydrotherapeutic mirror, but it wasn’t his face he saw. The shadow of a gaunt, beady-eyed man lingered behind his pupils, a visage that he had never seen before and yet… he knew.
Bronkelhampton. The Mad Doctor of Tikfijikoo.
He was the closest voice, but it was triggering even older ones, from much further down in time. Madness was running in the family. He’d thought he could escape the curse.
“Just imagine the breakthroughs, my dear boy. If you could only commit fully. Why, we could even work on the elders! The preserved ones! You have so many willing patients, Perry! We had so much success with the tardigrade preservation already.”
A high-pitched giggle cut through his spiraling thoughts.
“Oh, heavens, dear boy, this steam is divine. We need to get one of these back in Quadrant B,” Gloria said, reclining in the spa pool. “Sha, can’t you requisition one? You were a ship steward once.”
Sha scoffed. “Sweetheart, I once tried requisitioning extra towels and ended up with twelve crates of anti-bacterial foot powder.”
Mavis clicked her tongue. “Honestly, men are so incompetent. Perry, dear, you wouldn’t happen to know how to requisition a spa unit, would you?”
Perry blinked. His mind was slipping. The whisper of his ancestor had begun to press at the edges of his control.
“Tsk. They’re practically begging you, Perry. Just a little procedure. A minor adjustment.”
Sha, Gloria, and Mavis watched in bemusement as Perry’s eye twitched.
“…Dear?” Mavis prompted, adjusting the cucumber slice over her eye. “You’re staring again.”
Perry snapped back. He swallowed. “I… I was just thinking.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Gloria muttered.
“Thinking about what?” Sha pressed.
Perry’s hand tightened around the pulse-massager in his grip. His fingers were pale.
“Scalpel, Perry. You remember the scalpel, don’t you?”
He staggered back from the trio of floating retirees. The pulse-massager trembled in his grip. No, no, no. He wouldn’t.
And yet, his fingers moved.
Sha, Gloria, and Mavis were still bickering about requisition forms when Perry let out a strained whimper.
“RUN,” he choked out.
The trio blinked at him in lazy confusion.
“…Pardon?”
That was at this moment that the doors slid open in a anti-climatic whiz.
Evie knew they were close. Amara had narrowed the genetic matches down, and the final name had led them here.
“Okay, let’s be clear,” Evie muttered as they sprinted down the corridors. “A possessed spa therapist was not on my bingo card for this murder case.”
TP, jogging alongside, huffed indignantly. “I must protest. The signs were all there if you knew how to look! Historical reenactments, genetic triggers, eerie possession tropes! But did anyone listen to me? No!”
Riven was already ahead of them, his stride easy and efficient. “Less talking, more stopping the maniac, yeah?”
They skidded into the spa just in time to see Perry lurch forward—
And Riven tackled him hard.
The pulse-massager skidded across the floor. Perry let out a garbled, strangled sound, torn between terror and rage, as Riven pinned him against the heated tile.
Evie, catching her breath, leveled her stun-gun at Perry’s shaking form. “Okay, Perry. You’re gonna explain this. Right now.”
Perry gasped, eyes wild. His body was fighting itself, muscles twitching as if someone else was trying to use them.
“…It wasn’t me,” he croaked. “It was them! It was him.”
Gloria, still lounging in the spa, raised a hand. “Who exactly?”
Perry’s lips trembled. “Ancestors. Mostly my grandfather. *Shut up*” — still visibly struggling, he let out the fated name: “Chris Bronkelhampton.”
Sha spat out her cucumber slice. “Oh, hell no.”
Gloria sat up straighter. “Oh, I remember that nutter! We practically hand-delivered him to justice!”
“Didn’t we, though?” Mavis muttered. “Are we sure we did?”
Perry whimpered. “I didn’t want to do it. *Shut up, stupid boy!* —No! I won’t—!” Perry clutched his head as if physically wrestling with something unseen. “They’re inside me. He’s inside me. He played our ancestor like a fiddle, filled his eyes with delusions of devilry, made him see Ethan as sorcerer—Mandrake as an omen—”
His breath hitched as his fingers twitched in futile rebellion. “And then they let him in.“
Evie shared a quick look with TP. That matched Amara’s findings. Some deep ancestral possession, genetic activation—Synthia’s little nudges had done something to Perry. Through food dispenser maybe? After all, Synthia had access to almost everything. Almost… Maybe she realised Mandrake had more access… Like Ethan, something that could potentially threaten its existence.
The AI had played him like a pawn.
“What did he make you do, Perry?” Evie pressed, stepping closer.
Perry shuddered. “Screens flickering, they made me see things. He, they made me think—” His breath hitched. “—that Ethan was… dangerous. *Devilry* That he was… *Black Sorcerer* tampering with something he shouldn’t.”
Evie’s stomach sank. “Tampering with what?”
Perry swallowed thickly. “I don’t know”
Mandrake had slid in unnoticed, not missing a second of the revelations. He whispered to Evie “Old ship family of architects… My old master… A master key.”
Evie knew to keep silent. Was Synthia going to let them go? She didn’t have time to finish her thoughts.
Synthia’s voice made itself heard —sending some communiqués through the various channels
“The threat has been contained.
Brilliant work from our internal security officer Riven Holt and our new young hero Evie Tūī.”“What are you waiting for? Send this lad in prison!” Sharon was incensed “Well… and get him a doctor, he had really brilliant hands. Would be a shame to put him in the freezer. Can’t get the staff these days.”
Evie’s pulse spiked, still racing — “…Marlowe had access to everything.”.
Oh. Oh no.
Ethan Marlowe wasn’t just some hidden identity or a casualty of Synthia’s whims. He had something—something that made Synthia deem him a threat.
Evie’s grip on her stun-gun tightened. They had to get to Old Marlowe sooner than later. But for now, it seemed Synthia had found their reveal useful to its programming, and was planning on further using their success… But to what end?
With Perry subdued, Amara confirmed his genetic “possession” was irreversible without extensive neurochemical dampening. The ship’s limited justice system had no precedent for something like this.
And so, the decision was made:
Perry Price would be cryo-frozen until further notice.
Sha, watching the process with arms crossed, sighed. “He’s not the worst lunatic we’ve met, honestly.”
Gloria nodded. “Least he had some manners. Could’ve asked first before murdering people, though.”
Mavis adjusted her robe. “Typical men. No foresight.”
Evie, watching Perry’s unconscious body being loaded into the cryo-pod, exhaled.
This was only the beginning.
Synthia had played Perry like a tool—like a test run.
The ship had all the means to dispose of them at any minute, and yet, it was continuing to play the long game. All that elaborate plan was quite surgical. But the bigger picture continued to elude her.
But now they were coming back to Earth, it felt like a Pyrrhic victory.
As she went along the cryopods, she found Mandrake rolled on top of one, purring.
She paused before the name. Dr. Elias Arorangi. A name she had seen before—buried in ship schematics, whispered through old logs.
Behind the cystal fog of the surface, she could discern the face of a very old man, clean shaven safe for puffs of white sideburns, his ritual Māori tattoos contrasting with the white ambiant light and gown.
As old as he looked, if he was kept here, It was because he still mattered.In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Onto The Second Murder Investigation
Very strangely, it was a lot less chaotic in the Lower Decks, while the Upper Decks were having a rave of a time with the moon and mood swings.
Evie stood over the diagnostics table, arms crossed, watching as Luca Stroud ran his scanner over Mandrake’s cybernetic collar. The black cat lay still, one eye flickering intermittently as though stuck between waking and shutdown. The deep gash along his side had been patched—Romualdo had insisted on carrying Mandrake to the lab himself, mumbling about how the garden’s automated sprinklers were acting up, and how Luca was the only one he trusted to fix delicate mechanisms.It had been a casual remark, but Evie had caught the subtext. Mandrake was no ordinary ship cat. He had always been tied to something larger.
“Neurolink’s still scrambled,” Luca muttered, adjusting his scanner. “Damage isn’t terminal, but whatever happened, someone tried to wipe part of his memory.”
Riven, arms crossed beside Evie, scoffed. “Why the hell would someone try to assassinate a cat?”
Luca didn’t answer, but the data flickering on his screen spoke for itself. The attack had been precise. Not just a careless act of cruelty, nor an accident in the low-gravity sector.
Mandrake had been targeted.
Evie exhaled sharply. “Can you fix him?”
Luca shrugged. “Depends. The physical repairs are easy enough—fractured neural pathways, fried circuits—but whatever was erased? That’s another story.” He tilted his head. “Thing is… someone didn’t just try to kill Mandrake. They tried to make him forget.”
Riven’s frown deepened. “Forget what?”
Silence settled between them.
Evie reached out, brushing a gloved hand over Mandrake’s sleek black fur. “We need to figure out what he knew.”
It had been Trevor Pee—TP himself—who first mentioned it, entirely offhand, as they reviewed logs of the last places Mandrake had been seen.
“He wasn’t always on his own, you know,” TP had said, twirling his holographic cane.
Evie and Riven both turned to him.
“What do you mean on his own, I though he was Seren’s?”
“Oh, no. He just had a liking for her, but he’d belonged to someone else long before.” TP’s mustache twitched. “I accessed some archival records during Mandrake’s diagnostic.”
Evie blinked. “Mmm, are you going to make me ask? What did you find?”
“Indeed,” TP offered cheerfully. “Before Mandrake wandered freely through the gardens and ventilation shafts, becoming a ship legend, he belonged—as much as a cat can belong—to someone.”
Riven’s expression darkened. “Who?! Will you just tell?!”
TP flicked his wrist, bringing up an old personnel file, heavily redacted. But one name flickered beneath the blurred-out sections.
Dr. Elias Arorangi.
Evie felt her heartbeat quicken. The name echoed faintly familiar, not directly connected to her, but she’d seen it once or twice before, buried in obscure references. “Dr. Arorangi—wait, he was part of the original Helix design team, wasn’t he?”
TP nodded gravely. “Precisely. A lead systems architect, responsible for designing key protocols for the AI integration—among them, some critical frameworks that evolved into Synthia’s consciousness. Disappeared without a trace shortly after Synthia’s initial activation.”
Riven straightened. “Disappeared? Do you think—”
TP raised a finger to silence him. “I don’t speculate, but here’s the interesting part: Dr. Arorangi had extensive, classified knowledge of Helix 25’s core systems. If Mandrake was his companion at that crucial time, it’s conceivable that Arorangi trusted something to him—a memory, a code fragment, perhaps even a safeguard.”
Evie’s mouth went dry.
An architect of Helix 25, missing under suspicious circumstances, leaving behind a cat whose cybernetics were more sophisticated than any pet implant she’d ever seen?
Evie looked down at Mandrake, whose damaged neural links were still flickering faintly. Someone had wanted Mandrake silenced and forgotten.
Later, in the dim light of his workshop, Luca Stroud worked in silence, carefully re-aligning the cat’s neural implants. Romualdo sat nearby, arms crossed, watching with the nervous tension of a man who had just smuggled a ferret into a rat convention.
“He’s tough,” Luca muttered, tightening a connection. “More durable than most of the junk I have to fix.”
Romualdo huffed. “He better be.”
A flicker of light pulsed through Mandrake’s collar. His single good eye opened, pupils dilating as his systems realigned.
Then, groggily, he muttered, “I hate this ship.”
Romualdo let out a relieved chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. Welcome back, Mandrake.”
Luca wiped his hands. “He’s still scrambled, but he’s functional. Just… don’t expect him to remember everything.”
Mandrake groaned, stretching his mechanical paw. “I remember… needing a drink.”
Romualdo smirked. “That’s a good sign, yeah?”
Luca hesitated before looking at Evie. “Whatever was wiped—it’s gone. But if he starts remembering things in fragments… we need to pay attention.”
Evie nodded. “Oh, we definitely will.”
Mandrake rolled onto his feet, shaking out his fur, a small but defiant flick of his cybernetic tail.
“I have the strangest feeling,” he muttered, “that someone is still looking for me.”
Evie exhaled.
For now, with his memory gone, he would probably be safe, but a killer was in their midst and they needed to find out the truth, and fast.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
Helix 25 – Lower Decks – Secretive Adjustments
Sue Brittany Kaleleonālani Forgelot moved with the practiced grace of someone accustomed to being noticed—but tonight, she walked as someone trying not to be. The Upper Deck was hers, where conversations flowed with elegant pretense and where everyone knew her by firstname —Sue, she would insist. There would be none of that bowing nonsense to her noble lineages —bless her distinguished ancestors.
Here, in the Lower Decks, she was a curiosity at best, an intrusion at worst.
Unlike the well-maintained Upper Decks, here the air was warmer, and one could sense mingled with the recycled air, a distinct scent of metal, oil, and even labouring bodies. Maintenance bots were limited, and keeping people busy with work helped with the social order. Lights flickered erratically in narrow corridors, nothing like the pristine glow of the Upper Deck’s crystal chandeliers. The Lower Decks were functional, built for work and survival, not for leisure. And deeper still—past the bustling workstations, past the overlooked mechanics keeping Helix 25 from falling apart—the Hold.
The Hold was where she found Luca Stroud.
A heavy, reinforced door hissed as it unlocked, and Sue stepped inside his dimly lit workshop. Stacks of salvaged tech lined the walls, interspersed with crates of unauthorized modifications in this workspace born of a mixture of necessity, ingenuity, and quiet rebellion.
Luca barely looked up as he wiped oil from his hands. “You’re late, dear.”
Sue huffed, settling into the chair he had long since designated for her. “A lady does not rush. Besides, I had affairs to attend to.” She crossed one leg over the other, her silk shawl catching on the metallic seam of a cybernetic limb beneath it. “And I had to dodge half the ship to get here unnoticed.”
Luca grunted, kneeling beside her. “You wouldn’t have to sneak if you’d just let one of the Upper Deck doctors service this thing.” He tapped lightly on the synthetic skin to reveal the metallic prosthetic, watching as the synthetic nerves twitched in response.
Sue’s expression turned sharp. “You know why I can’t.”
Luca said nothing, but his smirk spoke volumes.
There were things she couldn’t let the Upper Deck medics see. Upgrades, modifications, small enhancements that gave her just enough edge. In the circles she moved in, knowledge was power. And she was far too valuable to be at the mercy of those who wanted her dependent.
Luca examined the joint, nodding to himself. “You’ve been walking too much on it.”
“Well, forgive me for using my own legs.”
He tightened a wire. Sue winced, but he ignored it. “You need recalibration. And I need better parts.”
Sue gave a slow, knowing smile. “And what minor favors will you require this time?”
Luca leaned back, thoughtful. “Information. Since you’re generous with it.”
She sighed, shifting in her seat. “Fine. You’re lucky I find you amusing.”
He adjusted a component with expert hands. “Tell me about the murder.”
Sue arched a brow. “Everyone wants to talk about that. You’d think no one had ever died before.”
“They haven’t,” Luca countered, voice flat. “Not for a long time. And not like this.”
She studied him, his interest piquing her own. “So you think it was a real murder.”
Luca let out a dry chuckle. “Oh, it was a murder alright. And you know it.”
Sue exhaled, considering what to share. “Well, rumor has it, the DNA found in the crime scene doesn’t belong here. It’s from the past. Far past.”
Luca glanced up, intrigued. “How far?”
Sue leaned in, voice hushed. “Crusader far.”
He let out a low whistle, shaking his head. “That’s… new.”
She tilted her head. “What does that mean to you?”
Luca hesitated, then shrugged. “Means whoever’s playing god with DNA sequencing isn’t as smart as they think they are.”
Sue smiled at that, more amused than disturbed. “And I suppose you have theories?”
Luca gave her cybernetic limb one final adjustment, then stood. “I have suspicions.”
Sue sighed dramatically. “How thrilling.” She flexed her leg, satisfied with the result. “Keep me informed, and I’ll see what I can find for you.”
Luca smirked. “You always do.”
As she rose to leave, she paused at the door. “Oh, one last thing, dear.”
Luca glanced at her. “What?”
Sue’s smirk deepened. “Should I put in a good word to the Captain for you?”
The question hung between them.
Luca narrowed his eyes. “Nobody’s ever met the Captain.”
She nodded, satisfied, and left him to his thoughts.
In reply to: The Last Cruise of Helix 25
The Survivors:
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Gregor said, his face cracking into another toothless grin. “Beginning to think we might be the last ones.”
“So did we.” Molly glanced nervously around at the odd assortment of people staring at her and Tundra. “I’m Molly. This is Tundra.”
“Tundra? Like the frozen wasteland?” Yulia asked.
Tundra nodded. “It’s because I’m strong and tough.”
“Would you like to join us?” Tala motioned toward the fire.
“Yes, yes, of course, ” Anya said. “Are you hungry?”
Molly hesitated, glancing toward the edge of the clearing, where their horses stood tethered to a low branch. “We have food,” she said. “We foraged.”
“I’d have foraged if someone didn’t keep going on about food poisoning,” Yulia muttered.
Finja sniffed. “Forgive me for trying to keep you alive.”
Molly watched the exchange with interest. It had been years since she’d seen people bicker over something so trivial. It was oddly comforting.
She lowered herself slowly onto the log next to Vera. “Alright, tell me—who exactly are you lot?”
Petro chuckled. “We’ve escaped from the asylum.”
Molly’s face remained impassive. “Asylum?”
“It’s okay,” Tala said quickly. “We’re mostly sane.”
“Not completely crazy, anyway,” Yulia added cheerfully.
“We were left behind years ago,” Anya said simply. “So we built our own kind of life.”
A pause. Molly gave a slow nod, considering this. Vera leaned towards her eagerly.
“Where are you from? Any noble blood?”
Molly frowned. “Does it matter?”
“Oh, not really,” Vera said dejectedly. “I just like knowing.”
Tundra, warming her hands by the fire, looked at Vera. “We came from Spain.”
Vera perked up. “Spain? Fascinating! And tell me, dear girl, have you ever traced your lineage?”
“Just back to Molly. She’s ninety-three,” Tundra said proudly.
Mikhail, who had been watching quietly, finally spoke. “You travelled all the way from Spain?”
Molly nodded. “A long time ago. There were more of us then… ” Her voice wavered. “We were looking for other survivors.”
“And?”Mikhail asked.
Molly sighed, glancing at Tundra. “We never found any.”
________________________________________
That night, they took turns keeping watch, though Molly tried to reassure them there was no need.
“At first, we did too,” she had said, shaking her head. “But there was no one…”
By dawn, the fire had burned to embers, and the camp stirred reluctantly to life.
They finished off the last of their cooked vegetables from the night before, while Molly and Tundra laid out a handful of foraged berries and mushrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to start the day.
“Right,” Anya said, stretching. “I suppose we should get moving.” She looked at Molly and Tundra. “You’re coming with us, then? To the city?”
Molly nodded. “If you’ll have us.”
“We kept going and going, hoping to find people. Now we have,” Tundra said.
“Then it’s settled,” Anya said. “We head to the city.”
“And what exactly are we looking for?” Molly asked.
Mikhail shrugged. “Anything that keeps us alive.”
________________________________________________
It was late morning when they saw it.
A vehicle—an old, battered truck, crawling slowly toward them.
The sight was so absurd, so impossible, that for a moment, no one spoke.
“That can’t be,” Molly murmured.
The truck bounced over the uneven ground, its engine a dull, sluggish rattle. It wasn’t in good shape, but it was moving.
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
Matteo — December 2022
Juliette leaned in, her phone screen glowing faintly between them. “Come on, pick something. It’s supposed to know everything—or at least sound like it does.”
Juliette was the one who’d introduced him to the app the whole world was abuzz talking about. MeowGPT.
At the New Year’s eve family dinner at Juliette’s parents, the whole house was alive with her sisters, nephews, and cousins. She entered a discussion with one of the kids, and they all seemed to know well about it. It was fun to see the adults were oblivious, himself included. He liked it about Juliette that she had such insatiable curiosity.
“It’s a life-changer, you know” she’d said “There’ll be a time, we won’t know about how we did without it. The kids born now will not know a world without it. Look, I’m sure my nephews are already cheating at their exams with it, or finding new ways to learn…”
“New ways to learn, that sounds like a mirage…. Bit of a drastic view to think we won’t live without; I’d like to think like with the mobile phones, we can still choose to live without.”
“And lose your way all the time with worn-out paper maps instead of GPS? That’s a grandpa mindset darling! I can see quite a few reasons not to choose!” she laughed.
“Anyway, we’ll see. What would you like to know about? A crazy recipe to grow hair? A fancy trip to a little known place? Write a technical instruction in the style of Elizabeth Tattler?”“Let me see…”
Matteo smirked, swirling the last sip of crémant in his glass. The lively discussions of Juliette’s family around them made the moment feel oddly private. “Alright, let’s try something practical. How about early signs of Alzheimer’s? You know, for Ma.”
Juliette’s smile softened as she tapped the query into the app. Matteo watched, half curious, half detached.
The app processed for a moment before responding in its overly chipper tone:
“Early signs of Alzheimer’s can include memory loss, difficulty planning or solving problems, and confusion with time or place. For personalized insights, understanding specific triggers, like stress or diet, can help manage early symptoms.”Matteo frowned. “That’s… general. I thought it was supposed to be revolutionary?”
“Wait for it,” Juliette said, tapping again, her tone teasing. “What if we ask it about long-term memory triggers? Something for nostalgia. Your Ma’s been into her old photos, right?”
The app spun its virtual gears and spat out a more detailed suggestion.
“Consider discussing familiar stories, music, or scents. Interestingly, recent studies on Alzheimer’s patients show a strong response to tactile memories. For example, one groundbreaking case involved genetic ancestry research coupled with personalized sensory cues.Juliette tilted her head, reading the screen aloud. “Huh, look at this—Dr. Elara V., a retired physicist, designed a patented method combining ancestral genetic research with soundwaves sensory stimuli to enhance attention and preserve memory function. Her work has been cited in connection with several studies on Alzheimer’s.”
“Elara?” Matteo’s brow furrowed. “Uncommon name… Where have I heard it before?”
Juliette shrugged. “Says here she retired to Tuscany after the pandemic. Fancy that.” She tapped the screen again, scrolling. “Apparently, she was a physicist with some quirky ideas. Had a side hustle on patents, one of which actually turned out useful. Something about genetic resonance? Sounds like a sci-fi movie.”
Matteo stared at the screen, a strange feeling tugging at him. “Genetic resonance…? It’s like these apps read your mind, huh? Do they just make this stuff up?”
Juliette laughed, nudging him. “Maybe! The system is far from foolproof, it may just have blurted out a completely imagined story, although it’s probably got it from somewhere on the internet. You better do your fact-checking. This woman would have published papers back when we were kids, and now the AI’s connecting dots.”
The name lingered with him, though. Elara. It felt distant yet oddly familiar, like the shadow of a memory just out of reach.
“You think she’s got more work like that?” he asked, more to himself than to Juliette.
Juliette handed him the phone. “You’re the one with the questions. Go ahead.”
Matteo hesitated before typing, almost without thinking: Elara Tuscany memory research.
The app processed again, and the next response was less clinical, more anecdotal.
“Elara V., known for her unconventional methods, retired to Tuscany where she invested in rural revitalization. A small village farmhouse became her retreat, and she occasionally supported artistic projects. Her most cited breakthrough involved pairing sensory stimuli with genetic lineage insights to enhance memory preservation.”Matteo tilted the phone towards Juliette. “She supports artists? Sounds like a soft spot for the dreamers.”
“Maybe she’s your type,” Juliette teased, grinning.
Matteo laughed, shaking his head. “Sure, if she wasn’t old enough to be my mother.”
The conversation shifted, but Matteo couldn’t shake the feeling the name had stirred. As Juliette’s family called them back to the table, he pocketed his phone, a strange warmth lingering—part curiosity, part recognition.
To think that months before, all that technologie to connect dots together didn’t exist. People would spend years of research, now accessible in a matter of seconds.
Later that night, as they were waiting for the new year countdown, he found himself wondering: What kind of person would spend their retirement investing in forgotten villages and forgotten dreams? Someone who believed in second chances, maybe. Someone who, like him, was drawn to the idea of piecing together a life from scattered connections.
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
March 2024
The phone buzzed on the table as Lucien pulled on his scarf, preparing to leave for the private class he had scheduled at his atelier. He glanced at the screen and froze. His father’s name glared back at him.
He hesitated. He knew why the man called; he knew how it would go, but he couldn’t resolve to cut that link. With a sharp breath he swiped to answer.
“Lucien”, his father began, his tone already full of annoyance. “Why didn’t you take the job with Bernard’s firm? He told me everything went well in the interview. They were ready to hire you back.”
As always, no hello, no question about his health or anything personal.
“I didn’t want it”, Lucien said, his voice calm only on the surface.
“It’s a solid career, Lucien. Architecture isn’t some fleeting whim. When your mother died, you quit your position at the firm, and got involved with those friends of yours. I said nothing for a while. I thought it was a phase, that it wouldn’t last. And I was right, it didn’t. I don’t understand why you refuse to go back to a proper life.”
“I already told you, it’s not what I want. I’ve made my decision.”
Lucien’s father sighed. “Not what you want? What exactly do you want, son? To keep scraping by with these so-called art projects? Giving private classes to kids who’ll never make a career out of it? That’s not a proper life?”
Lucien clenched his jaw, gripping his scarf. “Well, it’s my life. And my decisions.”
“Your decisions? To waste the potential you’ve been given? You have talent for real work—work that could leave a mark. Architecture is lasting. What you are doing now? It’s nothing. It’s just… air.”
Lucien swallowed hard. “It’s mine, Dad. Even if you don’t understand it.”
A pause followed. Lucien heard his father speak to someone else, then back to him. “I have to go”, he said, his tone back to professional. “A meeting. But we’re not finished.”
“We’re never finished”, Lucien muttered as the line went dead.
Lucien adjusted the light over his student’s drawing table, tilting the lamp slightly to cast a softer glow on his drawing. The young man—in his twenties—was focused, his pencil moving steadily as he worked on the folds of a draped fabric pinned to the wall. The lines were strong, the composition thoughtful, but there was still something missing—a certain fluidity, a touch of life.
“You’re close,” Lucien said, leaning slightly over the boy’s shoulder. He gestured toward the edge of the fabric where the shadows deepened. “But look here. The transition between the shadow and the light—it’s too harsh. You want it to feel like a whisper, not a line.”
The student glanced at him, nodding. Lucien took a pencil and demonstrated on a blank corner of the canvas, his movements deliberate but featherlight. “Blend it like this,” he said, softening the edge into a gradient. “See? The shadow becomes part of the light, like it’s breathing.”
The student’s brow furrowed in concentration as he mimicked the movement, his hand steady but unsure. Lucien smiled faintly, watching as the harsh line dissolved into something more organic. “There. Much better.”
The boy glanced up, his face brightening. “Thanks. It’s hard to see those details when you’re in it.”
Lucien nodded, stepping back. “That’s the trick. You have to step away sometimes. Look at it like you’re seeing it for the first time.”
He watched as the student adjusted his work, a flicker of satisfaction softening the lingering weight of his father’s morning call. Guiding someone else, helping them see their own potential—it was the kind of genuine care and encouragement he had always craved but never received.
When Éloïse and Monsieur Renard appeared in his life years ago, their honeyed words and effusive praise seduced him. They had marveled at his talent, his ideas. They offered to help with the shared project in the Drôme. He and his friends hadn’t realized the couple’s flattery came with strings, that their praise was a net meant to entangle them, not make them succeed.
The studio door creaked open, snapping him back to reality. Lucien tensed as Monsieur Renard entered, his polished shoes clicking against the wooden floor. His sharp eyes scanned the room before landing on the student’s work.
“What have we here?” He asked, his voice bordering on disdain.
Lucien moved in between Renard and the boy, as if to protect him. His posture stiff. “A study”, he said curtly.
Renard examined the boy’s sketch for a moment. He pulled out a sleek card from his pocket and tossed it onto the drawing table without looking at the student. “Call me when you’ve improved”, he said flatly. “We might have work for you.”
The student hesitated only briefly. Glancing at Lucien, he gathered his things in silence. A moment later, the door closed behind the young man. The card remained on the table, untouched.
Renard let out a faint snort, brushing a speck of dust from his jacket. He moved to Lucien’s drawing table where a series of sketches were scattered. “What are these?” he asked. “Another one of your indulgences?”
“It’s personal”, he said, his voice low.
Renard snorted softly, shaking his head. “You’re wasting your time, Lucien. Do as you’re asked. That’s what you’re good at, copying others’ work.”
Lucien gritted his teeth but said nothing. Renard reached into his jacket and handed Lucien a folded sheet of paper. “Eloïse’s new request. We expect fast quality. What about the previous one?”
Lucien nodded towards the covered stack of canvases near the wall. “Done.”
“Good. They’ll come tomorrow and take the lot.”
Renard started to leave but paused, his hand on the doorframe. He said without looking back: “And don’t start dreaming about becoming your own person, Lucien. You remember what happened to the last one who wanted out, don’t you?” The man stepped out, the sound of his steps echoing through the studio.
Lucien stared at the door long after it had closed. The sketches on his table caught his eyes—a labyrinth of twisted roads, fragmented landscapes, and faint, familiar faces. They were his prayers, his invocation to the gods, drawn over and over again as though the repetition might force a way out of the dark hold Renard and Éloïse had over his life.
He had told his father this morning that he had chosen his life, but standing here, he couldn’t lie to himself. His decisions hadn’t been fully his own these last few years. At the time, he even believed he could protect his friends by agreeing to the couple’s terms, taking the burden onto himself. But instead of shielding them, he had only fractured their friendship and trapped himself.
Lucien followed the lines of one of the sketches absently, his fingers smudging the charcoal. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was missing. Or someone. Yes, an unfathomable sense that someone else had to be part of this, though he couldn’t yet place who. Whoever it was, they felt like a thread waiting to tie them all together again.
He knew what he needed to do to bring them back together. To draw it where it all began, where they had dreamed together. Avignon.In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
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.
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
The luxury of an afternoon nap was one of the finer pleasures of retirement, particularly during the heat of an Italian summer. Elara stretched like a cat on the capacious sofa, pulling a couple of kilim covered cushions into place to support her neck. She had only read a few pages of her book about the Cerne Abbas giant, the enigmatic chalk figure on a hill in Dorset, before her eyes slid closed and the book dropped with a thud onto her chest.
The distant clang of a bell woke her several hours later, although she remained motionless, unable to open her eyes at first. Not one to recall dreams as a rule, Elara was surprised at the intensity of the dream she was struggling to awaken from, and the clarity of the details, and the emotion. In the dream she was at the CERN conference, a clamour and cacophony of colleagues, some familiar to her in waking life, some characters complete strangers but familiar to her in the dream. She had felt agitation at the noise and at the cold coffee, and an indescribable feeling when Florian somehow appeared by her side, who was supposed to be in Tuscany, whispering in her ear that her mother had died and she was to make the funeral arrangements.
Elara’s mother had died when she was just a child, barely eight years old. She was no longer sure if she remembered her, or if her memories were from the photographs and anecdotes she’d seen and heard in the following years. Her older sister Vanessa had said darkly that she was lucky and well out of it, to not have had to put up with her when she was a teenager, like she had. Vanessa was ten years older than Elara, and had assumed the role of mother. She explained later that she’d let Elara run wild because she didn’t want to be bossy and domineering, but admitted that she should perhaps have reined her younger sister in a bit more than she had.
Again, the distant bell clanged. Shaking her head as if to dispel the memories the dream had conjured, Elara rose from the sofa and walked out on to the terrace. Across the yard she could see Florian, replacing the old bell on the new gate post.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” he called. “I had a bit of linen round the clanger so it didn’t make a noise while I screwed it to the post, but it slipped. Sorry,” he repeated.
Squinting in the bright sun, Elara strolled over to him, saying, “Honestly, don’t worry, I was glad to wake up. What a dream I had! That’s great Florian, nice job.”
In reply to: Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
At the Café
The Sarah Bernardt Café shimmered under a pale grey November sky a busy last Saturday of the “Black Week”. Golden lights spilled onto cobblestones slick with rain, and the air buzzed with the din of a city alive in the moment. Inside, the crowd pressed together, laughing, arguing, living. And in a corner table by the fogged-up window, old friends were about to quietly converged, coming to a long overdue reunion.
Lucien was the first to arrive, dragging a weathered suitcase behind him. Its wheels rattled unevenly on the cobblestones, a sound he hated. His dark curls, damp from the rain, clung to his forehead, and his scarf, streaked with old paint, hung loose around his neck. He folded himself into a corner chair, his suitcase tucked awkwardly beside him. When the server approached, Lucien waved him off with a distracted shake of his head and opened a battered sketchbook.
The next arrival was Elara. She entered briskly, shaking rain from her short gray-streaked hair, her eyes scanning the room as though searching for anomalies. A small roller bag trailed behind her, pristine and black, a sharp contrast to Lucien’s worn luggage. She stopped at the table and tilted her head.
“Still brooding?” she asked, pulling off her coat and folding it neatly over the back of a chair.
“Still talking?” Lucien didn’t look up, his pencil scratching faint lines across the page.
Elara smiled faintly. “Two minutes in, and you’re already immortalizing us? You know I hate being drawn.”
“You hate being caught off guard,” Lucien murmured. “But I never get your nose wrong.”
She laughed, the sound light but brief, and sank into her seat, placing her bag carefully beside her.
The door swung open again, and Darius entered, shaking the rain from his jacket. His presence seemed to fill the room immediately. He strode toward the table, a leather duffel slung over one shoulder and a well-worn travel pouch clutched in his hand. His boots clacked against the café’s tile floor, his movements easy, confident.
“Did you walk here?” Elara asked as he dropped his things with a thud and pulled out a chair.
“Ran into someone on the way,” he said, settling back. “Some guy selling maps. Got this one for ten euros—worth every cent.” He waved a yellowed scrap of paper that looked more fiction than cartography.
Lucien snorted. “Still paying for strangers’ stories, I see.”
“The good ones aren’t free.” Darius grinned and leaned back in his chair, propping one boot against the table leg.
The final arrival was Amei. Her entrance was quieter but no less noticeable. She unwound her scarf slowly, her layered clothing a mix of textures and colors that seemed to absorb the café’s golden light. A tote bag rested over her shoulder, bulging with what could have been books, or journals, or stories yet untold.
“You’re late,” Darius said, but his voice carried no accusation.
“Right on time,” Amei replied, lowering herself into the last chair. “You’re all just early.”
Her gaze swept across them, lingering on the bags piled at their feet. “I see I’m not the only one who came a long way.”
“Not all of us live in Paris,” Elara said, with a glance at Lucien.
“Only some of us make better life choices,” Lucien replied dryly.
The comment drew laughter—a tentative sound that loosened the air between them, thick as it was with five years of absence.
Matteo Appears
Matteo approached the table, a tray balanced effortlessly in one hand, his dark eyes flicking over the group as though cataloging details in an invisible ledger. His waistcoat, sharp and clean, gave him a practiced professionalism, but there was something else—a casual, unspoken authority that drew attention.
“Good evening,” he began, his voice smooth and low, almost conspiratorial. Then, he froze for the briefest moment, his gaze shifting from face to face, the easy smile tightening at the corners.
“Well,” Matteo said finally, his smile broadening as if he’d just solved a riddle. “Here you all are. Together, at last.”
The group exchanged glances, each of them caught off-guard by the comment.
“You say that like you’ve been expecting us,” Elara said, her tone measured but sharp, as if probing for variables.
“Not expecting,” Matteo replied, his eyes glinting. “But hoping, perhaps. It’s… good to see you all like this. It fits, somehow.”
“What fits?” Darius asked, leaning forward. His voice was lighter than Elara’s but carried a weight that suggested he wouldn’t let the question drop easily.
Matteo’s smile deepened, though he didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he set down his tray and folded his hands in front of him, his posture relaxed but deliberate, as though he were balancing on the edge of some invisible line.
“You’ve never all been here before,” he said, a simple statement that landed like a challenge.
“Wait,” Amei said, narrowing her eyes. “You know us?”
“Oh, I know you,” Matteo replied, his tone as light as if they were discussing the weather. “Individually, yes. But together? This is new. And it’s… remarkable.”
“Remarkable how?” Lucien asked, his pencil stilled over his sketchbook.
Matteo tilted his head, considering the question as though weighing how much to say. “Let’s just call it a rarity. Things don’t often align so neatly. It’s not every day you see… well, this.”
He gestured toward them with a sweeping hand, as if the mere fact of their presence at the table was something extraordinary.
“You’re being cryptic,” Elara said, her voice edged with suspicion.
“It’s a talent,” Matteo replied smoothly.
“Alright, hold on.” Darius leaned back, his chair creaking under him. “How do you know us? I’ve never been here before. Not once.”
“Nor I,” Amei added, her voice soft but steady.
Matteo raised an eyebrow, his smile taking on a knowing tilt. “No, not here. But that’s not the only place to know someone, is it?”
The words hung in the air, unsettling and oddly satisfying at once.
“You’re saying we’ve met you before?” Elara asked.
Matteo inclined his head. “In a manner of speaking.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lucien said, his voice quiet but firm.
“Doesn’t it?” Matteo countered, his tone almost playful. “After all, do we ever truly remember every thread that weaves us together? Sometimes we only see the pattern when it’s complete.”
A pause settled over the table, heavy with unspoken questions. Matteo shifted his weight, breaking the silence with an easy gesture.
“It doesn’t matter how,” he said finally. “What matters is that you’re here. That’s what counts.”
“For what?” Amei asked, her eyes narrowing.
“For whatever happens next,” Matteo replied, as if the answer were obvious. Then he straightened, his professional mask sliding back into place with effortless grace.
“Now, what can I bring you?” he asked, his tone light again, as though the previous exchange hadn’t happened.
One by one, they placed their orders, though their minds were clearly elsewhere. Matteo scribbled in his notebook, his pen moving with deliberate strokes, and then he looked up once more.
“Thank you for being here,” he said, his voice quieter this time. “It’s been… a long time coming.”
And with that, he was gone, disappearing into the crowd with the same fluidity he’d arrived.
They sat in silence for a moment, his words pressing down on them like a hand on a wound, familiar and foreign all at once.
“What the hell was that?” Darius asked finally, breaking the spell.
“Does he seem… different to you?” Amei asked, her voice distant.
“He seems impossible,” Elara replied, her fingers tapping an unconscious rhythm on the table.
“He remembered me,” Lucien said, almost to himself. “Something about absinthe.”
“I’ve never even met him,” Elara said, her voice rising slightly. “But he knew… too much.”
“And he didn’t explain anything,” Darius added, shaking his head.
“Maybe he didn’t need to,” Amei said softly, her gaze fixed on the space Matteo had just vacated.
They lapsed into silence again, the noise of the café returning in fits and starts, like an orchestra warming up after a pause. Somewhere, a glass clinked against porcelain; outside, the violinist struck a note so low it hummed against the windowpane.
The four of them sat there, strangers and friends all at once, the questions left dangling between them like stars in a cloudy sky. Whatever Matteo had meant, it was clear this moment was no coincidence. It wasn’t an end, nor a beginning—it was the start of something unraveling, something they couldn’t yet see.
And though none of them said it aloud, the thought was the same: What had happened before?
Quintessence: Reversing the Fifth
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
Frella considered the box of props, Truella’s request still echoing in her mind. Or perhaps “command” was more accurate? She had been tempted to tell Tru to put together her own prop box. Regardless, Frella, being uncommonly good-natured, decided to indulge her friend. After all, poor Truella deserved a bit of indulgence after her recent ordeal.
It was curious, even ironic, that a witch as formidable as Truella had found herself spirited away by Thomas Cromwell. The incident left Frella baffled, but Truella, true to form, had been vague about the whole affair, refusing to provide even a brief synopsis. And any hope of clarification had been swallowed by Truella’s recent hobby: deleting gifs on her phone—a pastime that Frella was convinced had reached the level of an obsession.
Shaking her head, Frella returned to her task. The box needed to be extraordinary, full of magic tailored to delight, surprise, and assist even the most accomplished witch. With a whispered spell, she conjured a feather-light coat woven from shimmering starlight, and folded it carefully into the box. Depending on the moon’s phase, the coat could cloak its wearer in illusions or make them vanish entirely.
Next came a pair of Ug Boots enchanted with swiftness, rendering the wearer light as air and nearly impossible to catch. Beside them, she placed a midnight-blue satchel with a mind of its own—returning lost items to their rightful owners, whether or not they wanted to be found.
Frella paused, her hands hovering above the box. What else? After some thought, she conjured a delicate chemise spun from moonlight, its diaphanous fabric especially created to ward off hexes. “Truella should get plenty of use out of this one,” Frella mused, remembering past escapades. “Not that I’m calling her a tart or anything.”
She followed it with iridescent sunglasses. The lenses could decode ancient texts or, failing that, soften a cutting glare. A golden phoenix brooch came next. Pinned to fabric, it could either blaze into a protective flame or summon a fiery companion to light the way.
With a snigger, Frella crafted a magical moustache—a silky, distinguished creation. It granted the wearer an air of nobility, perfect for moments when one needed gravitas, especially if Truella found herself back in the 16th century (or whenever it was).
A string of enchanted pearls nestled into the box, each bead holding a spell: one for charm, another to quell hunger, and a third to lower prices at the supermarket. Truella was always banging on about her budget.
Frella added three wigs: a flaming red one for irresistible allure, a sleek black bob for perfect recall, and a powdered peruke for communing with spirits of the past.
For good measure, she added a selection of headgear: a knitted beanie for quick thinking and to keep warm, a velvet-trimmed bonnet to ward off insults, and a silk turban that blocked eavesdropping and mind-reading.
Finally, she included a pretty peacock-feathered fan. A mere flick of the wrist could shift the weather or create a gust strong enough to fend off any ill intentions.
The box now brimmed with marvels; would these treasures aid Truella and perhaps shield her from whatever tangled fate had ensnared her with Thomas Cromwell?
Frella could only hope so.
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
“When did you arrive?” asked Truella when they found her in her at her Cloacina booth in faux-fur waterproof boots and a faux-bear-fur cape with a waterproofed silk hood to protect her perfect hairdo from the incessant drizzle. It gave her a look of one of those Fantasy warrior-goddess ready to intervene at the last minute to save her chosen champions from complete destruction by the forces of evil.
“Well, I’ve been there all along,” retorted the glamour witch, moving two little loos in front of the booth closer together. “I’ve been living in Limerick since the start of this story, even if it wasn’t clear where. Granny Linda thinks I’m living in Glamorheaven and Finnley think I’m living in London, but I’m pretty sure it’s Limerick. At least it is in my mind manor,” she said as if for herself. “There!” she said. Her face lit up as she just found the perfect orientation for the loos. “Don’t those miniature loos look cute?”
“Sure,” said Truella. At the same time she looked at Frella as if their friend had gone nut.
“Don’t ask me,” said Frella. “I didn’t make the selection of the goddesses for the olympic set.”
Jeezel took three cups, dipped them into one of the toilet bowl and offered them to her friends to drink.
Truella grimaced.
“I prefer not to drink that early in the morning,” said Frella with a polite smile.
Jeezel lifted the cup to her nose and inhaled deeply before taking a sip. “It’s connected to the purest water source on Earth through a little time sewer spell coupled with a little pump and filter and a nice chime when you throw your worries in. It’s perfectly safe and drinkable sparkling water, and it smells of roses.”
“My gran used to spray rose scent in the bathroom after she used it,” said Truella, cackling nervously.
Frella took the cup, smelled it and continued smiling.
“Anyways, those cuties are for the cleansing prayers,” said Jeezel. “Cleansing and release,” she added pointing her finger up at the banner. “That’s Cloacina’s motto. At least at this booth. And, as I’m sure you asked, I didn’t answer all your messages because I’ve been kept busy with preparing all of those. Here, Truelle, take one of those Sacred Bath Salts. I have two flavors, Moonlight Mist and Sunset Serenity. Take the second one, it’s a blend of Himalayan pink salt and rose petals. It’ll help keep you warm as the salts will absorb the extra humidity, and as an extra it’ll make you think of your gran”, she added with a grin. “As for my friend Frella…”
Truella grabbed the pouch of salts and smelled it. “The smell is not so bad,” she conceded. “And Bubona knows I need their warming qualities,” she said shaking her head to get rid of irritating water drops.
Jeezel then turned to the potion and elixirs section. “No, not purification for Frella, and neither of you need the Lover’s Elixir… Oh! Here it is, take that. A soap made of goat’s milk, honey and calendula oil for radiant skin. And good to keep the hinges perfectly oiled. And as my future gran will say, remember, keeping those hinges oiled is key to avoiding squeaky situations.”
Frella took the soap and chuckled. “Thanks.” She scratched the surface with her nail. “It’s seems good quality. And it smells good. That reminds me I have to prepare my own booth. See you later girls.”
As soon as she left. Truella leaned towards her friend and asked in a conspiratory voice: “Did you know Malove was here?”
“What?”
In reply to: The Incense of the Quadrivium’s Mystiques
Promontories! It was one thing Truella writing a diary for her, mused Frella, but quite another when she used words like promontory.
So here she was on holiday, supposedly relaxing but unsure of how to commence. Life had been so busy of late with all the parties and conferences Malove had insisted they attend. Frella sat on the edge of the sofa, which extended into a spare bed apparently, and then tentatively eased herself back into the fat cushions.
The Airbnb was on Ireland’s east coast and was especially for witches needing some time out. Of course it wasn’t advertised as such, but Herma, the proprietor, although not a witch herself, was “witch friendly” and carefully vetted all bookings.
Frella had found Herma rather unnerving. She was a large lady who, upon her arrival yesterday evening, had enveloped Frella in a hug which left her gasping for air. Eventually she released Frella and held her at arms length. “You poor wee thing,”she’d said shaking her head. “But just look at the state of you!” There was an alarming gleam in Herma’s eyes and Frella was overpowered for a moment by the smell of apple pie.
In reply to: The Stories So Near
What satisfying conclusion to this saga?
Granola was the tying material to their friend, and her pop-in nascent capabilities (ability to project into material matter, sometimes being corporeal) could help. Her goal was to wake her friends out of their routines, and reinvigorate the stories they tell themselves about their lives.
- Maeve was the one making custom dolls.
- Shawn Paul her handsome bearded bachelor next door was an aspiring writer looking for a story to tell and to become published.
- Lucinda is their neighbour, enrolled in creative writing courses.
- Jerk is a clerk at a local WholeDay*Mart and also manages a forum in his spare time.
- Uncle Fergus is Maeve’s father’s estranged brother.
The dolls were found in all across places, used by different groups, maybe glamour bombs for some, maybe ways to smuggle information and keys.
Across their trips they connect with story characters, and unknowingly revive their stories.
POP*IN THREAD (plot development suggestions, to be looked into later)
Maeve and Shawn-Paul are still in Tikfijikoo, investigating the mysterious dolls and their connection to Uncle Fergus. They’ve also encountered strange happenings, including a missing girl and a strange man in a top hat.
Meanwhile, Jerk is still moderating the forum and dealing with the strange messages. Lucinda is continuing her creative writing course and enjoying her time with Fabio.
Granola is currently on a mission to find Ailill and learn more about pop-ins, while also trying to reconnect with her friends and figure out what’s going on with the dolls.
As for the mysterious man following Maeve, his intentions are still unclear, but it seems he has some connection to Uncle Fergus and the dolls. The group is still trying to uncover the truth and figure out their next steps.
In the end, Granola’s pop-in abilities proved to be the key to unlocking the mystery of the dolls and their connection to Uncle Fergus. With her help, Maeve and Shawn-Paul were able to uncover the truth about the dolls and their purpose, and use them to reconnect with various story characters across their trips.
Through their adventures, they also discovered the power of storytelling and the importance of shaking up their routines to keep their lives interesting and full of wonder. Jerk found a new sense of purpose in managing the forum and connecting with others through his passion for the dolls and their stories.
In the final chapter, Uncle Fergus reconciled with Maeve’s father and shared the true meaning behind the dolls and their connection to their family history.
While Shawn-Paul’s path led him to become a successful author, Lucinda’s path took a different turn. She found fulfillment in her creative writing course and continued to hone her skills, but she didn’t pursue a career as a writer. Instead, she used her passion for storytelling to help others, working as a therapist and using storytelling techniques to help her clients work through their struggles and find healing. Lucinda’s work was deeply rewarding, and she felt fulfilled in being able to help others in such a meaningful way.
As for Granola, she continued to pop-in and out of their lives, using her abilities to bring joy and excitement to their everyday routines, and keeping their stories alive for years to come. The group remained close friends, bonded by their shared experiences and love of storytelling.
In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys
Youssef had brought his black obsidian with him in the kitchen at breakfast. Idle—Youssef had realised that on top of being her way of life, it was also her name—was preparing a herbal brownie under the supervision of a colourful parrot perched on her shoulder.
“If you’re interested in rocks, you should go to Betsy’s. She’s got that ‘Gems & Minerals’ shop on Main street. She opened it with her hubby a few years back. Before he died.”
“Nutty Betsy, Pretty Girl likes her better,” said the parrot.
Idle looked at his backpack and his clothes.
“You seem the wandering type, lad. I was like you when I was younger, always gallivanting here, there, and everywhere with my brother. Now, I prefer wandering in my mind, if you know what I mean,” she said licking her finger full of chocolate. “Anyway, an advice. Don’t go down the mines alone. Betsy’s hubby’s still down there after one of the tunnels collapsed a few years back. She’s not been quite herself ever since.”
Main street was —well— the only street in town. They’ve been preparing for some kind of festival, putting banners on top of the shops and in between two trees near the gas station. Youssef stopped there to buy snacks that he stacked on top of the obsidian stone in his backpack. The young boy who worked there, Devan, seemed quite excited at the perspective of the Lager and Cart Race. It happened only every ten years and last time he was too young to participate.
The shop had not been difficult to find, at the other end of the street. A tiny sign covered in purple star sequins indicated “Betsy’s Gems & Minerals — We deliver worldwide”. He felt with his hand the black rock he had put in his backpack. If Idle had not mentioned the mines and the dead husband, Youssef might have reconsidered going in. But the coincidence with his dream and the game was too intriguing. He entered.
The shop was a mess. Crates full of stones, cardboard boxes and bubble wrappings. In the back, a plump woman, working on a giant starfish she held on her lap, was humming as she listened to loud rock music. Youssef recognised a song from the Last Shadow Puppets’ second album : The Element of Surprise. Apparently, the woman hadn’t heard him enter. She wore a dress and a hat sprinkled with golden stars, and her wrists were hidden under a ton of stone bracelets. The music track changed. The woman started shaking her head following the rhythm of the tune. She was gluing small red stones, she picked in a little box, on one of the starfish arms.“Bad Habits! Uhu. Bad Habits! Uhu.”
Youssef moved closer. His shadow covered the starfish. The woman raised her head and screamed, scattering the red stones in her workshop. The starfish fell from her lap onto the ground with a thud.
“Oh! My! Little devil. Look at what you made me do. I lost my marbles,” she said with a high pitched laugh. “Your mother never taught you? That’s bad habit to creep up on people like that. You scared the sheep out of me!”
“I’m so sorry,” said Youssef, getting on his knees to help her gather the stones.
When they were all back in their box, Youssef got back on his feet. The woman looked a him with a softened face.
“You such a cutie with your bear shirt. You make me think of my Howard. He was as tall as you are. I’m Betsy, obviously” she said with a giggle, extending her hand to him.
They shook hands, making the pearls of her bracelets clink together.
“I’m Youssef.”
Youssef didn’t need to insist too much. Betsy was a real juke box of gossips. He just had to ask one question from time to time, and she would get going again. He was starting to feel his quirk could be more than a curse after all.
“When the tunnel collapsed,” Betsy said, “I was ready to give up the stone shop. The pain was too much to bear, everything in the shop reminded me of Howard. And in a miners’ town, who would want to buy stones anyway. We’ve been in bad terms with Idle and her family for some time, but that tragic incident coincided with her brother Fred’s disappearance. They thought at first Fred had died in the mines with Howard, because they spent so much time discussing together in Room 8 at the Inn. I overheard them once, talking about something they found in the mines. But Howard never told me, he was so secretive about that. We even had a fight, you know. But Fred, the children found some message later that suggested he had just left the family. Imagine, the children! Idle was pissed with him of course. Abandoning her with that mother of theirs and that money pit of an Inn and the rest of the family. And I needed company. So we started to get together on a regular basis. She would bring her special cakes, and we would complain about our lives. At some point she got involved with that shamanic stuff she found online, and she helped me find my totem Bear. It was quite a revelation. Bear suggested I diversify and open an online shop and start making orgonites. I love those little gummy bears so much. So, I followed Bear’s advice and it has been working like a charm ever since. That’s why I trusted you straight away, lad. Not ’cause of your cute face. You got the Bear in your heart,” she said putting her finger at the center of his chest.
My inner Bear, of course, thought Youssef. That’s the magnet. His phone buzzed. He took it out and saw he had an alert from the game and a message from his friends.
You found the source of your quirk, the magnetic pull that attracts talkative people to you.
Now obtain the silver key in the shape of a tongue to fulfil your quest.Zara : Where are you!?
We’re at the bar, getting parched! They got Pale Ale!“I have to go,” said Youssef.
“Wait,” said Betsy.
She foraged through her orgonite collection and handed Youssef one little gummy bear and an ornate metal badge.
“Bear wants me to give this to you. Howard made it. He said it was his forked tongue key.”
She looked at him, emotion in her eyes.
“I know you won’t listen if I tell you not to. So, be careful when you go into the mines.”
In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys
“I’d advise you not to take the parrot, Zara,” Harry the vet said, “There are restrictions on bringing dogs and other animals into state parks, and you can bet some jobsworth official will insist she stays in a cage at the very least.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I guess I’ll leave her here. I want to call in and see my cousin in Camden on the way to the airport in Sydney anyway. He has dozens of cats, I’d hate for anything to happen to Pretty Girl,” Zara replied.
“Is that the distant cousin you met when you were doing your family tree?” Harry asked, glancing up from the stitches he was removing from a wounded wombat. “There, he’s good to go. Give him a couple more days, then he can be released back where he came from.”
Zara smiled at Harry as she picked up the animal. “Yes! We haven’t met in person yet, and he’s going to show me the church my ancestor built. He says people have been spotting ghosts there lately, and there are rumours that it’s the ghost of the old convict Isaac who built it. If I can’t find photos of the ancestors, maybe I can get photos of their ghosts instead,” Zara said with a laugh.
“Good luck with that,” Harry replied raising an eyebrow. He liked Zara, she was quirkier than the others.
Zara hadn’t found it easy to research her mothers family from Bangalore in India, but her fathers English family had been easy enough. Although Zara had been born in England and emigrated to Australia in her late 20s, many of her ancestors siblings had emigrated over several generations, and Zara had managed to trace several down and made contact with a few of them. Isaac Stokes wasn’t a direct ancestor, he was the brother of her fourth great grandfather but his story had intrigued her. Sentenced to transportation for stealing tools for his work as a stonemason seemed to have worked in his favour. He built beautiful stone buildings in a tiny new town in the 1800s in the charming style of his home town in England.
Zara planned to stay in Camden for a couple of days before meeting the others at the Flying Fish Inn, anticipating a pleasant visit before the crazy adventure started.
Zara stepped down from the bus, squinting in the bright sunlight and looking around for her newfound cousin Bertie. A lanky middle aged man in dungarees and a red baseball cap came forward with his hand extended.
“Welcome to Camden, Zara I presume! Great to meet you!” he said shaking her hand and taking her rucksack. Zara was taken aback to see the family resemblance to her grandfather. So many scattered generations and yet there was still a thread of familiarity. “I bet you’re hungry, let’s go and get some tucker at Belle’s Cafe, and then I bet you want to see the church first, hey? Whoa, where’d that dang parrot come from?” Bertie said, ducking quickly as the bird swooped right in between them.
“Oh no, it’s Pretty Girl!” exclaimed Zara. “She wasn’t supposed to come with me, I didn’t bring her! How on earth did you fly all this way to get here the same time as me?” she asked the parrot.
“Pretty Girl has her ways, don’t forget to feed the parrot,” the bird replied with a squalk that resembled a mirthful guffaw.
“That’s one strange parrot you got here, girl!” Bertie said in astonishment.
“Well, seeing as you’re here now, Pretty Girl, you better come with us,” Zara said.
“Obviously,” replied Pretty Girl. It was hard to say for sure, but Zara was sure she detected an avian eye roll.
They sat outside under a sunshade to eat rather than cause any upset inside the cafe. Zara fancied an omelette but Pretty Girl objected, so she ordered hash browns instead and a fruit salad for the parrot. Bertie was a good sport about the strange talking bird after his initial surprise.
Bertie told her a bit about the ghost sightings, which had only started quite recently. They started when I started researching him, Zara thought to herself, almost as if he was reaching out. Her imagination was running riot already.
Bertie showed Zara around the church, a small building made of sandstone, but no ghost appeared in the bright heat of the afternoon. He took her on a little tour of Camden, once a tiny outpost but now a suburb of the city, pointing out all the original buildings, in particular the ones that Isaac had built. The church was walking distance of Bertie’s house and Zara decided to slip out and stroll over there after everyone had gone to bed.
Bertie had kindly allowed Pretty Girl to stay in the guest bedroom with her, safe from the cats, and Zara intended that the parrot stay in the room, but Pretty Girl was having none of it and insisted on joining her.
“Alright then, but no talking! I don’t want you scaring any ghost away so just keep a low profile!”
The moon was nearly full and it was a pleasant walk to the church. Pretty Girl fluttered from tree to tree along the sidewalk quietly. Enchanting aromas of exotic scented flowers wafted into her nostrils and Zara felt warmly relaxed and optimistic.
Zara was disappointed to find that the church was locked for the night, and realized with a sigh that she should have expected this to be the case. She wandered around the outside, trying to peer in the windows but there was nothing to be seen as the glass reflected the street lights. These things are not done in a hurry, she reminded herself, be patient.
Sitting under a tree on the grassy lawn attempting to open her mind to receiving ghostly communications (she wasn’t quite sure how to do that on purpose, any ghosts she’d seen previously had always been accidental and unexpected) Pretty Girl landed on her shoulder rather clumsily, pressing something hard and chill against her cheek.
“I told you to keep a low profile!” Zara hissed, as the parrot dropped the key into her lap. “Oh! is this the key to the church door?”
It was hard to see in the dim light but Zara was sure the parrot nodded, and was that another avian eye roll?
Zara walked slowly over the grass to the church door, tingling with anticipation. Pretty Girl hopped along the ground behind her. She turned the key in the lock and slowly pushed open the heavy door and walked inside and up the central aisle, looking around. And then she saw him.
Zara gasped. For a breif moment as the spectral wisps cleared, he looked almost solid. And she could see his tattoos.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, “It is really you. I recognize those tattoos from the description in the criminal registers. Some of them anyway, it seems you have a few more tats since you were transported.”
“Aye, I did that, wench. I were allays fond o’ me tats, does tha like ’em?”
He actually spoke to me! This was beyond Zara’s wildest hopes. Quick, ask him some questions!
“If you don’t mind me asking, Isaac, why did you lie about who your father was on your marriage register? I almost thought it wasn’t you, you know, that I had the wrong Isaac Stokes.”
A deafening rumbling laugh filled the building with echoes and the apparition dispersed in a labyrinthine swirl of tattood wisps.
“A story for another day,” whispered Zara, “Time to go back to Berties. Come on Pretty Girl. And put that key back where you found it.”
In reply to: The Elusive Samuel Housley and Other Family Stories
From Tanganyika with Love
continued part 9
With thanks to Mike Rushby.
Lyamungu 3rd January 1945
Dearest Family.
We had a novel Christmas this year. We decided to avoid the expense of
entertaining and being entertained at Lyamungu, and went off to spend Christmas
camping in a forest on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. George decided to combine
business with pleasure and in this way we were able to use Government transport.
We set out the day before Christmas day and drove along the road which skirts
the slopes of Kilimanjaro and first visited a beautiful farm where Philip Teare, the ex
Game Warden, and his wife Mary are staying. We had afternoon tea with them and then
drove on in to the natural forest above the estate and pitched our tent beside a small
clear mountain stream. We decorated the tent with paper streamers and a few small
balloons and John found a small tree of the traditional shape which we decorated where
it stood with tinsel and small ornaments.We put our beer, cool drinks for the children and bottles of fresh milk from Simba
Estate, in the stream and on Christmas morning they were as cold as if they had been in
the refrigerator all night. There were not many presents for the children, there never are,
but they do not seem to mind and are well satisfied with a couple of balloons apiece,
sweets, tin whistles and a book each.George entertain the children before breakfast. He can make a magical thing out
of the most ordinary balloon. The children watched entranced as he drew on his pipe
and then blew the smoke into the balloon. He then pinched the neck of the balloon
between thumb and forefinger and released the smoke in little puffs. Occasionally the
balloon ejected a perfect smoke ring and the forest rang with shouts of “Do it again
Daddy.” Another trick was to blow up the balloon to maximum size and then twist the
neck tightly before releasing. Before subsiding the balloon darted about in a crazy
fashion causing great hilarity. Such fun, at the cost of a few pence.After breakfast George went off to fish for trout. John and Jim decided that they
also wished to fish so we made rods out of sticks and string and bent pins and they
fished happily, but of course quite unsuccessfully, for hours. Both of course fell into the
stream and got soaked, but I was prepared for this, and the little stream was so shallow
that they could not come to any harm. Henry played happily in the sand and I had a
most peaceful morning.Hamisi roasted a chicken in a pot over the camp fire and the jelly set beautifully in the
stream. So we had grilled trout and chicken for our Christmas dinner. I had of course
taken an iced cake for the occasion and, all in all, it was a very successful Christmas day.
On Boxing day we drove down to the plains where George was to investigate a
report of game poaching near the Ngassari Furrow. This is a very long ditch which has
been dug by the Government for watering the Masai stock in the area. It is also used by
game and we saw herds of zebra and wildebeest, and some Grant’s Gazelle and
giraffe, all comparatively tame. At one point a small herd of zebra raced beside the lorry
apparently enjoying the fun of a gallop. They were all sleek and fat and looked wild and
beautiful in action.We camped a considerable distance from the water but this precaution did not
save us from the mosquitoes which launched a vicious attack on us after sunset, so that
we took to our beds unusually early. They were on the job again when we got up at
sunrise so I was very glad when we were once more on our way home.“I like Christmas safari. Much nicer that silly old party,” said John. I agree but I think
it is time that our children learned to play happily with others. There are no other young
children at Lyamungu though there are two older boys and a girl who go to boarding
school in Nairobi.On New Years Day two Army Officers from the military camp at Moshi, came for
tea and to talk game hunting with George. I think they rather enjoy visiting a home and
seeing children and pets around.Eleanor.
Lyamungu 14 May 1945
Dearest Family.
So the war in Europe is over at last. It is such marvellous news that I can hardly
believe it. To think that as soon as George can get leave we will go to England and
bring Ann and George home with us to Tanganyika. When we know when this leave can
be arranged we will want Kate to join us here as of course she must go with us to
England to meet George’s family. She has become so much a part of your lives that I
know it will be a wrench for you to give her up but I know that you will all be happy to
think that soon our family will be reunited.The V.E. celebrations passed off quietly here. We all went to Moshi to see the
Victory Parade of the King’s African Rifles and in the evening we went to a celebration
dinner at the Game Warden’s house. Besides ourselves the Moores had invited the
Commanding Officer from Moshi and a junior officer. We had a very good dinner and
many toasts including one to Mrs Moore’s brother, Oliver Milton who is fighting in Burma
and has recently been awarded the Military Cross.There was also a celebration party for the children in the grounds of the Moshi
Club. Such a spread! I think John and Jim sampled everything. We mothers were
having our tea separately and a friend laughingly told me to turn around and have a look.
I did, and saw the long tea tables now deserted by all the children but my two sons who
were still eating steadily, and finding the party more exciting than the game of Musical
Bumps into which all the other children had entered with enthusiasm.There was also an extremely good puppet show put on by the Italian prisoners
of war from the camp at Moshi. They had made all the puppets which included well
loved characters like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Babes in the Wood as
well as more sophisticated ones like an irritable pianist and a would be prima donna. The
most popular puppets with the children were a native askari and his family – a very
happy little scene. I have never before seen a puppet show and was as entranced as
the children. It is amazing what clever manipulation and lighting can do. I believe that the
Italians mean to take their puppets to Nairobi and am glad to think that there, they will
have larger audiences to appreciate their art.George has just come in, and I paused in my writing to ask him for the hundredth
time when he thinks we will get leave. He says I must be patient because it may be a
year before our turn comes. Shipping will be disorganised for months to come and we
cannot expect priority simply because we have been separated so long from our
children. The same situation applies to scores of other Government Officials.
I have decided to write the story of my childhood in South Africa and about our
life together in Tanganyika up to the time Ann and George left the country. I know you
will have told Kate these stories, but Ann and George were so very little when they left
home that I fear that they cannot remember much.My Mother-in-law will have told them about their father but she can tell them little
about me. I shall send them one chapter of my story each month in the hope that they
may be interested and not feel that I am a stranger when at last we meet again.Eleanor.
Lyamungu 19th September 1945
Dearest Family.
In a months time we will be saying good-bye to Lyamungu. George is to be
transferred to Mbeya and I am delighted, not only as I look upon Mbeya as home, but
because there is now a primary school there which John can attend. I feel he will make
much better progress in his lessons when he realises that all children of his age attend
school. At present he is putting up a strong resistance to learning to read and spell, but
he writes very neatly, does his sums accurately and shows a real talent for drawing. If
only he had the will to learn I feel he would do very well.Jim now just four, is too young for lessons but too intelligent to be interested in
the ayah’s attempts at entertainment. Yes I’ve had to engage a native girl to look after
Henry from 9 am to 12.30 when I supervise John’s Correspondence Course. She is
clean and amiable, but like most African women she has no initiative at all when it comes
to entertaining children. Most African men and youths are good at this.I don’t regret our stay at Lyamungu. It is a beautiful spot and the change to the
cooler climate after the heat of Morogoro has been good for all the children. John is still
tall for his age but not so thin as he was and much less pale. He is a handsome little lad
with his large brown eyes in striking contrast to his fair hair. He is wary of strangers but
very observant and quite uncanny in the way he sums up people. He seldom gets up
to mischief but I have a feeling he eggs Jim on. Not that Jim needs egging.Jim has an absolute flair for mischief but it is all done in such an artless manner that
it is not easy to punish him. He is a very sturdy child with a cap of almost black silky hair,
eyes brown, like mine, and a large mouth which is quick to smile and show most beautiful
white and even teeth. He is most popular with all the native servants and the Game
Scouts. The servants call Jim, ‘Bwana Tembo’ (Mr Elephant) because of his sturdy
build.Henry, now nearly two years old, is quite different from the other two in
appearance. He is fair complexioned and fair haired like Ann and Kate, with large, black
lashed, light grey eyes. He is a good child, not so merry as Jim was at his age, nor as
shy as John was. He seldom cries, does not care to be cuddled and is independent and
strong willed. The servants call Henry, ‘Bwana Ndizi’ (Mr Banana) because he has an
inexhaustible appetite for this fruit. Fortunately they are very inexpensive here. We buy
an entire bunch which hangs from a beam on the back verandah, and pluck off the
bananas as they ripen. This way there is no waste and the fruit never gets bruised as it
does in greengrocers shops in South Africa. Our three boys make a delightful and
interesting trio and I do wish you could see them for yourselves.We are delighted with the really beautiful photograph of Kate. She is an
extraordinarily pretty child and looks so happy and healthy and a great credit to you.
Now that we will be living in Mbeya with a school on the doorstep I hope that we will
soon be able to arrange for her return home.Eleanor.
c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 30th October 1945
Dearest Family.
How nice to be able to write c/o Game Dept. Mbeya at the head of my letters.
We arrived here safely after a rather tiresome journey and are installed in a tiny house on
the edge of the township.We left Lyamungu early on the morning of the 22nd. Most of our goods had
been packed on the big Ford lorry the previous evening, but there were the usual
delays and farewells. Of our servants, only the cook, Hamisi, accompanied us to
Mbeya. Japhet, Tovelo and the ayah had to be paid off and largesse handed out.
Tovelo’s granny had come, bringing a gift of bananas, and she also brought her little
granddaughter to present a bunch of flowers. The child’s little scolded behind is now
completely healed. Gifts had to be found for them too.At last we were all aboard and what a squash it was! Our few pieces of furniture
and packing cases and trunks, the cook, his wife, the driver and the turney boy, who
were to take the truck back to Lyamungu, and all their bits and pieces, bunches of
bananas and Fanny the dog were all crammed into the body of the lorry. George, the
children and I were jammed together in the cab. Before we left George looked
dubiously at the tyres which were very worn and said gloomily that he thought it most
unlikely that we would make our destination, Dodoma.Too true! Shortly after midday, near Kwakachinja, we blew a back tyre and there
was a tedious delay in the heat whilst the wheel was changed. We were now without a
spare tyre and George said that he would not risk taking the Ford further than Babati,
which is less than half way to Dodoma. He drove very slowly and cautiously to Babati
where he arranged with Sher Mohammed, an Indian trader, for a lorry to take us to
Dodoma the next morning.It had been our intention to spend the night at the furnished Government
Resthouse at Babati but when we got there we found that it was already occupied by
several District Officers who had assembled for a conference. So, feeling rather
disgruntled, we all piled back into the lorry and drove on to a place called Bereku where
we spent an uncomfortable night in a tumbledown hut.Before dawn next morning Sher Mohammed’s lorry drove up, and there was a
scramble to dress by the light of a storm lamp. The lorry was a very dilapidated one and
there was already a native woman passenger in the cab. I felt so tired after an almost
sleepless night that I decided to sit between the driver and this woman with the sleeping
Henry on my knee. It was as well I did, because I soon found myself dosing off and
drooping over towards the woman. Had she not been there I might easily have fallen
out as the battered cab had no door. However I was alert enough when daylight came
and changed places with the woman to our mutual relief. She was now able to converse
with the African driver and I was able to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air!
George, John and Jim were less comfortable. They sat in the lorry behind the
cab hemmed in by packing cases. As the lorry was an open one the sun beat down
unmercifully upon them until George, ever resourceful, moved a table to the front of the
truck. The two boys crouched under this and so got shelter from the sun but they still had
to endure the dust. Fanny complicated things by getting car sick and with one thing and
another we were all jolly glad to get to Dodoma.We spent the night at the Dodoma Hotel and after hot baths, a good meal and a
good nights rest we cheerfully boarded a bus of the Tanganyika Bus Service next
morning to continue our journey to Mbeya. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We slept two nights on the road, the first at Iringa Hotel and the second at Chimala. We
reached Mbeya on the 27th.I was rather taken aback when I first saw the little house which has been allocated
to us. I had become accustomed to the spacious houses we had in Morogoro and
Lyamungu. However though the house is tiny it is secluded and has a long garden
sloping down to the road in front and another long strip sloping up behind. The front
garden is shaded by several large cypress and eucalyptus trees but the garden behind
the house has no shade and consists mainly of humpy beds planted with hundreds of
carnations sadly in need of debudding. I believe that the previous Game Ranger’s wife
cultivated the carnations and, by selling them, raised money for War Funds.
Like our own first home, this little house is built of sun dried brick. Its original
owners were Germans. It is now rented to the Government by the Custodian of Enemy
Property, and George has his office in another ex German house.This afternoon we drove to the school to arrange about enrolling John there. The
school is about four miles out of town. It was built by the German settlers in the late
1930’s and they were justifiably proud of it. It consists of a great assembly hall and
classrooms in one block and there are several attractive single storied dormitories. This
school was taken over by the Government when the Germans were interned on the
outbreak of war and many improvements have been made to the original buildings. The
school certainly looks very attractive now with its grassed playing fields and its lawns and
bright flower beds.The Union Jack flies from a tall flagpole in front of the Hall and all traces of the
schools German origin have been firmly erased. We met the Headmaster, Mr
Wallington, and his wife and some members of the staff. The school is co-educational
and caters for children from the age of seven to standard six. The leaving age is elastic
owing to the fact that many Tanganyika children started school very late because of lack
of educational facilities in this country.The married members of the staff have their own cottages in the grounds. The
Matrons have quarters attached to the dormitories for which they are responsible. I felt
most enthusiastic about the school until I discovered that the Headmaster is adamant
upon one subject. He utterly refuses to take any day pupils at the school. So now our
poor reserved Johnny will have to adjust himself to boarding school life.
We have arranged that he will start school on November 5th and I shall be very
busy trying to assemble his school uniform at short notice. The clothing list is sensible.
Boys wear khaki shirts and shorts on weekdays with knitted scarlet jerseys when the
weather is cold. On Sundays they wear grey flannel shorts and blazers with the silver
and scarlet school tie.Mbeya looks dusty, brown and dry after the lush evergreen vegetation of
Lyamungu, but I prefer this drier climate and there are still mountains to please the eye.
In fact the lower slopes of Lolesa Mountain rise at the upper end of our garden.Eleanor.
c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 21st November 1945
Dearest Family.
We’re quite settled in now and I have got the little house fixed up to my
satisfaction. I have engaged a rather uncouth looking houseboy but he is strong and
capable and now that I am not tied down in the mornings by John’s lessons I am able to
go out occasionally in the mornings and take Jim and Henry to play with other children.
They do not show any great enthusiasm but are not shy by nature as John is.
I have had a good deal of heartache over putting John to boarding school. It
would have been different had he been used to the company of children outside his
own family, or if he had even known one child there. However he seems to be adjusting
himself to the life, though slowly. At least he looks well and tidy and I am quite sure that
he is well looked after.I must confess that when the time came for John to go to school I simply did not
have the courage to take him and he went alone with George, looking so smart in his
new uniform – but his little face so bleak. The next day, Sunday, was visiting day but the
Headmaster suggested that we should give John time to settle down and not visit him
until Wednesday.When we drove up to the school I spied John on the far side of the field walking
all alone. Instead of running up with glad greetings, as I had expected, he came almost
reluctently and had little to say. I asked him to show me his dormitory and classroom and
he did so politely as though I were a stranger. At last he volunteered some information.
“Mummy,” he said in an awed voice, Do you know on the night I came here they burnt a
man! They had a big fire and they burnt him.” After a blank moment the penny dropped.
Of course John had started school and November the fifth but it had never entered my
head to tell him about that infamous character, Guy Fawkes!I asked John’s Matron how he had settled down. “Well”, she said thoughtfully,
“John is very good and has not cried as many of the juniors do when they first come
here, but he seems to keep to himself all the time.” I went home very discouraged but
on the Sunday John came running up with another lad of about his own age.” This is my
friend Marks,” he announced proudly. I could have hugged Marks.Mbeya is very different from the small settlement we knew in the early 1930’s.
Gone are all the colourful characters from the Lupa diggings for the alluvial claims are all
worked out now, gone also are our old friends the Menzies from the Pub and also most
of the Government Officials we used to know. Mbeya has lost its character of a frontier
township and has become almost suburban.The social life revolves around two places, the Club and the school. The Club
which started out as a little two roomed building, has been expanded and the golf
course improved. There are also tennis courts and a good library considering the size of
the community. There are frequent parties and dances, though most of the club revenue
comes from Bar profits. The parties are relatively sober affairs compared with the parties
of the 1930’s.The school provides entertainment of another kind. Both Mr and Mrs Wallington
are good amateur actors and I am told that they run an Amateur Dramatic Society. Every
Wednesday afternoon there is a hockey match at the school. Mbeya town versus a
mixed team of staff and scholars. The match attracts almost the whole European
population of Mbeya. Some go to play hockey, others to watch, and others to snatch
the opportunity to visit their children. I shall have to try to arrange a lift to school when
George is away on safari.I have now met most of the local women and gladly renewed an old friendship
with Sheilagh Waring whom I knew two years ago at Morogoro. Sheilagh and I have
much in common, the same disregard for the trappings of civilisation, the same sense of
the ludicrous, and children. She has eight to our six and she has also been cut off by the
war from two of her children. Sheilagh looks too young and pretty to be the mother of so
large a family and is, in fact, several years younger than I am. her husband, Donald, is a
large quiet man who, as far as I can judge takes life seriously.Our next door neighbours are the Bank Manager and his wife, a very pleasant
couple though we seldom meet. I have however had correspondence with the Bank
Manager. Early on Saturday afternoon their houseboy brought a note. It informed me
that my son was disturbing his rest by precipitating a heart attack. Was I aware that my
son was about 30 feet up in a tree and balanced on a twig? I ran out and,sure enough,
there was Jim, right at the top of the tallest eucalyptus tree. It would be the one with the
mound of stones at the bottom! You should have heard me fluting in my most
wheedling voice. “Sweets, Jimmy, come down slowly dear, I’ve some nice sweets for
you.”I’ll bet that little story makes you smile. I remember how often you have told me
how, as a child, I used to make your hearts turn over because I had no fear of heights
and how I used to say, “But that is silly, I won’t fall.” I know now only too well, how you
must have felt.Eleanor.
c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 14th January 1946
Dearest Family.
I hope that by now you have my telegram to say that Kate got home safely
yesterday. It was wonderful to have her back and what a beautiful child she is! Kate
seems to have enjoyed the train journey with Miss Craig, in spite of the tears she tells
me she shed when she said good-bye to you. She also seems to have felt quite at
home with the Hopleys at Salisbury. She flew from Salisbury in a small Dove aircraft
and they had a smooth passage though Kate was a little airsick.I was so excited about her home coming! This house is so tiny that I had to turn
out the little store room to make a bedroom for her. With a fresh coat of whitewash and
pretty sprigged curtains and matching bedspread, borrowed from Sheilagh Waring, the
tiny room looks most attractive. I had also iced a cake, made ice-cream and jelly and
bought crackers for the table so that Kate’s home coming tea could be a proper little
celebration.I was pleased with my preparations and then, a few hours before the plane was
due, my crowned front tooth dropped out, peg and all! When my houseboy wants to
describe something very tatty, he calls it “Second-hand Kabisa.” Kabisa meaning
absolutely. That is an apt description of how I looked and felt. I decided to try some
emergency dentistry. I think you know our nearest dentist is at Dar es Salaam five
hundred miles away.First I carefully dried the tooth and with a match stick covered the peg and base
with Durofix. I then took the infants rubber bulb enema, sucked up some heat from a
candle flame and pumped it into the cavity before filling that with Durofix. Then hopefully
I stuck the tooth in its former position and held it in place for several minutes. No good. I
sent the houseboy to a shop for Scotine and tried the whole process again. No good
either.When George came home for lunch I appealed to him for advice. He jokingly
suggested that a maize seed jammed into the space would probably work, but when
he saw that I really was upset he produced some chewing gum and suggested that I
should try that . I did and that worked long enough for my first smile anyway.
George and the three boys went to meet Kate but I remained at home to
welcome her there. I was afraid that after all this time away Kate might be reluctant to
rejoin the family but she threw her arms around me and said “Oh Mummy,” We both
shed a few tears and then we both felt fine.How gay Kate is, and what an infectious laugh she has! The boys follow her
around in admiration. John in fact asked me, “Is Kate a Princess?” When I said
“Goodness no, Johnny, she’s your sister,” he explained himself by saying, “Well, she
has such golden hair.” Kate was less complementary. When I tucked her in bed last night
she said, “Mummy, I didn’t expect my little brothers to be so yellow!” All three boys
have been taking a course of Atebrin, an anti-malarial drug which tinges skin and eyeballs
yellow.So now our tiny house is bursting at its seams and how good it feels to have one
more child under our roof. We are booked to sail for England in May and when we return
we will have Ann and George home too. Then I shall feel really content.Eleanor.
c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 2nd March 1946
Dearest Family.
My life just now is uneventful but very busy. I am sewing hard and knitting fast to
try to get together some warm clothes for our leave in England. This is not a simple
matter because woollen materials are in short supply and very expensive, and now that
we have boarding school fees to pay for both Kate and John we have to budget very
carefully indeed.Kate seems happy at school. She makes friends easily and seems to enjoy
communal life. John also seems reconciled to school now that Kate is there. He no
longer feels that he is the only exile in the family. He seems to rub along with the other
boys of his age and has a couple of close friends. Although Mbeya School is coeducational
the smaller boys and girls keep strictly apart. It is considered extremely
cissy to play with girls.The local children are allowed to go home on Sundays after church and may bring
friends home with them for the day. Both John and Kate do this and Sunday is a very
busy day for me. The children come home in their Sunday best but bring play clothes to
change into. There is always a scramble to get them to bath and change again in time to
deliver them to the school by 6 o’clock.When George is home we go out to the school for the morning service. This is
taken by the Headmaster Mr Wallington, and is very enjoyable. There is an excellent
school choir to lead the singing. The service is the Church of England one, but is
attended by children of all denominations, except the Roman Catholics. I don’t think that
more than half the children are British. A large proportion are Greeks, some as old as
sixteen, and about the same number are Afrikaners. There are Poles and non-Nazi
Germans, Swiss and a few American children.All instruction is through the medium of English and it is amazing how soon all the
foreign children learn to chatter in English. George has been told that we will return to
Mbeya after our leave and for that I am very thankful as it means that we will still be living
near at hand when Jim and Henry start school. Because many of these children have to
travel many hundreds of miles to come to school, – Mbeya is a two day journey from the
railhead, – the school year is divided into two instead of the usual three terms. This
means that many of these children do not see their parents for months at a time. I think
this is a very sad state of affairs especially for the seven and eight year olds but the
Matrons assure me , that many children who live on isolated farms and stations are quite
reluctant to go home because they miss the companionship and the games and
entertainment that the school offers.My only complaint about the life here is that I see far too little of George. He is
kept extremely busy on this range and is hardly at home except for a few days at the
months end when he has to be at his office to check up on the pay vouchers and the
issue of ammunition to the Scouts. George’s Range takes in the whole of the Southern
Province and the Southern half of the Western Province and extends to the border with
Northern Rhodesia and right across to Lake Tanganyika. This vast area is patrolled by
only 40 Game Scouts because the Department is at present badly under staffed, due
partly to the still acute shortage of rifles, but even more so to the extraordinary reluctance
which the Government shows to allocate adequate funds for the efficient running of the
Department.The Game Scouts must see that the Game Laws are enforced, protect native
crops from raiding elephant, hippo and other game animals. Report disease amongst game and deal with stock raiding lions. By constantly going on safari and checking on
their work, George makes sure the range is run to his satisfaction. Most of the Game
Scouts are fine fellows but, considering they receive only meagre pay for dangerous
and exacting work, it is not surprising that occasionally a Scout is tempted into accepting
a bribe not to report a serious infringement of the Game Laws and there is, of course,
always the temptation to sell ivory illicitly to unscrupulous Indian and Arab traders.
Apart from supervising the running of the Range, George has two major jobs.
One is to supervise the running of the Game Free Area along the Rhodesia –
Tanganyika border, and the other to hunt down the man-eating lions which for years have
terrorised the Njombe District killing hundreds of Africans. Yes I know ‘hundreds’ sounds
fantastic, but this is perfectly true and one day, when the job is done and the official
report published I shall send it to you to prove it!I hate to think of the Game Free Area and so does George. All the game from
buffalo to tiny duiker has been shot out in a wide belt extending nearly two hundred
miles along the Northern Rhodesia -Tanganyika border. There are three Europeans in
widely spaced camps who supervise this slaughter by African Game Guards. This
horrible measure is considered necessary by the Veterinary Departments of
Tanganyika, Rhodesia and South Africa, to prevent the cattle disease of Rinderpest
from spreading South.When George is home however, we do relax and have fun. On the Saturday
before the school term started we took Kate and the boys up to the top fishing camp in
the Mporoto Mountains for her first attempt at trout fishing. There are three of these
camps built by the Mbeya Trout Association on the rivers which were first stocked with
the trout hatched on our farm at Mchewe. Of the three, the top camp is our favourite. The
scenery there is most glorious and reminds me strongly of the rivers of the Western
Cape which I so loved in my childhood.The river, the Kawira, flows from the Rungwe Mountain through a narrow valley
with hills rising steeply on either side. The water runs swiftly over smooth stones and
sometimes only a foot or two below the level of the banks. It is sparkling and shallow,
but in places the water is deep and dark and the banks high. I had a busy day keeping
an eye on the boys, especially Jim, who twice climbed out on branches which overhung
deep water. “Mummy, I was only looking for trout!”How those kids enjoyed the freedom of the camp after the comparative
restrictions of town. So did Fanny, she raced about on the hills like a mad dog chasing
imaginary rabbits and having the time of her life. To escape the noise and commotion
George had gone far upstream to fish and returned in the late afternoon with three good
sized trout and four smaller ones. Kate proudly showed George the two she had caught
with the assistance or our cook Hamisi. I fear they were caught in a rather unorthodox
manner but this I kept a secret from George who is a stickler for the orthodox in trout
fishing.Eleanor.
Jacksdale England 24th June 1946
Dearest Family.
Here we are all together at last in England. You cannot imagine how wonderful it
feels to have the whole Rushby family reunited. I find myself counting heads. Ann,
George, Kate, John, Jim, and Henry. All present and well. We had a very pleasant trip
on the old British India Ship Mantola. She was crowded with East Africans going home
for the first time since the war, many like us, eagerly looking forward to a reunion with their
children whom they had not seen for years. There was a great air of anticipation and
good humour but a little anxiety too.“I do hope our children will be glad to see us,” said one, and went on to tell me
about a Doctor from Dar es Salaam who, after years of separation from his son had
recently gone to visit him at his school. The Doctor had alighted at the railway station
where he had arranged to meet his son. A tall youth approached him and said, very
politely, “Excuse me sir. Are you my Father?” Others told me of children who had
become so attached to their relatives in England that they gave their parents a very cool
reception. I began to feel apprehensive about Ann and George but fortunately had no
time to mope.Oh, that washing and ironing for six! I shall remember for ever that steamy little
laundry in the heat of the Red Sea and queuing up for the ironing and the feeling of guilt
at the size of my bundle. We met many old friends amongst the passengers, and made
some new ones, so the voyage was a pleasant one, We did however have our
anxious moments.John was the first to disappear and we had an anxious search for him. He was
quite surprised that we had been concerned. “I was just talking to my friend Chinky
Chinaman in his workshop.” Could John have called him that? Then, when I returned to
the cabin from dinner one night I found Henry swigging Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. He had
drunk half the bottle neat and the label said ‘five drops in water’. Luckily it did not harm
him.Jim of course was forever risking his neck. George had forbidden him to climb on
the railings but he was forever doing things which no one had thought of forbidding him
to do, like hanging from the overhead pipes on the deck or standing on the sill of a
window and looking down at the well deck far below. An Officer found him doing this and
gave me the scolding.Another day he climbed up on a derrick used for hoisting cargo. George,
oblivious to this was sitting on the hatch cover with other passengers reading a book. I
was in the wash house aft on the same deck when Kate rushed in and said, “Mummy
come and see Jim.” Before I had time to more than gape, the butcher noticed Jim and
rushed out knife in hand. “Get down from there”, he bellowed. Jim got, and with such
speed that he caught the leg or his shorts on a projecting piece of metal. The cotton
ripped across the seam from leg to leg and Jim stood there for a humiliating moment in a
sort of revealing little kilt enduring the smiles of the passengers who had looked up from
their books at the butcher’s shout.That incident cured Jim of his urge to climb on the ship but he managed to give
us one more fright. He was lost off Dover. People from whom we enquired said, “Yes
we saw your little boy. He was by the railings watching that big aircraft carrier.” Now Jim,
though mischievous , is very obedient. It was not until George and I had conducted an
exhaustive search above and below decks that I really became anxious. Could he have
fallen overboard? Jim was returned to us by an unamused Officer. He had been found
in one of the lifeboats on the deck forbidden to children.Our ship passed Dover after dark and it was an unforgettable sight. Dover Castle
and the cliffs were floodlit for the Victory Celebrations. One of the men passengers sat
down at the piano and played ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, and people sang and a few
wept. The Mantola docked at Tilbury early next morning in a steady drizzle.
There was a dockers strike on and it took literally hours for all the luggage to be
put ashore. The ships stewards simply locked the public rooms and went off leaving the
passengers shivering on the docks. Eventually damp and bedraggled, we arrived at St
Pancras Station and were given a warm welcome by George’s sister Cath and her
husband Reg Pears, who had come all the way from Nottingham to meet us.
As we had to spend an hour in London before our train left for Nottingham,
George suggested that Cath and I should take the children somewhere for a meal. So
off we set in the cold drizzle, the boys and I without coats and laden with sundry
packages, including a hand woven native basket full of shoes. We must have looked like
a bunch of refugees as we stood in the hall of The Kings Cross Station Hotel because a
supercilious waiter in tails looked us up and down and said, “I’m afraid not Madam”, in
answer to my enquiry whether the hotel could provide lunch for six.
Anyway who cares! We had lunch instead at an ABC tea room — horrible
sausage and a mound or rather sloppy mashed potatoes, but very good ice-cream.
After the train journey in a very grimy third class coach, through an incredibly green and
beautiful countryside, we eventually reached Nottingham and took a bus to Jacksdale,
where George’s mother and sisters live in large detached houses side by side.
Ann and George were at the bus stop waiting for us, and thank God, submitted
to my kiss as though we had been parted for weeks instead of eight years. Even now
that we are together again my heart aches to think of all those missed years. They have
not changed much and I would have picked them out of a crowd, but Ann, once thin and
pale, is now very rosy and blooming. She still has her pretty soft plaits and her eyes are
still a clear calm blue. Young George is very striking looking with sparkling brown eyes, a
ready, slightly lopsided smile, and charming manners.Mother, and George’s elder sister, Lottie Giles, welcomed us at the door with the
cheering news that our tea was ready. Ann showed us the way to mother’s lovely lilac
tiled bathroom for a wash before tea. Before I had even turned the tap, Jim had hung
form the glass towel rail and it lay in three pieces on the floor. There have since been
similar tragedies. I can see that life in civilisation is not without snags.I am most grateful that Ann and George have accepted us so naturally and
affectionately. Ann said candidly, “Mummy, it’s a good thing that you had Aunt Cath with
you when you arrived because, honestly, I wouldn’t have known you.”Eleanor.
Jacksdale England 28th August 1946
Dearest Family.
I am sorry that I have not written for some time but honestly, I don’t know whether
I’m coming or going. Mother handed the top floor of her house to us and the
arrangement was that I should tidy our rooms and do our laundry and Mother would
prepare the meals except for breakfast. It looked easy at first. All the rooms have wall to
wall carpeting and there was a large vacuum cleaner in the box room. I was told a
window cleaner would do the windows.Well the first time I used the Hoover I nearly died of fright. I pressed the switch
and immediately there was a roar and the bag filled with air to bursting point, or so I
thought. I screamed for Ann and she came at the run. I pointed to the bag and shouted
above the din, “What must I do? It’s going to burst!” Ann looked at me in astonishment
and said, “But Mummy that’s the way it works.” I couldn’t have her thinking me a
complete fool so I switched the current off and explained to Ann how it was that I had
never seen this type of equipment in action. How, in Tanganyika , I had never had a
house with electricity and that, anyway, electric equipment would be superfluous
because floors are of cement which the houseboy polishes by hand, one only has a
few rugs or grass mats on the floor. “But what about Granny’s house in South Africa?’”
she asked, so I explained about your Josephine who threatened to leave if you
bought a Hoover because that would mean that you did not think she kept the house
clean. The sad fact remains that, at fourteen, Ann knows far more about housework than I
do, or rather did! I’m learning fast.The older children all go to school at different times in the morning. Ann leaves first
by bus to go to her Grammar School at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Shortly afterwards George
catches a bus for Nottingham where he attends the High School. So they have
breakfast in relays, usually scrambled egg made from a revolting dried egg mixture.
Then there are beds to make and washing and ironing to do, so I have little time for
sightseeing, though on a few afternoons George has looked after the younger children
and I have gone on bus tours in Derbyshire. Life is difficult here with all the restrictions on
foodstuffs. We all have ration books so get our fair share but meat, fats and eggs are
scarce and expensive. The weather is very wet. At first I used to hang out the washing
and then rush to bring it in when a shower came. Now I just let it hang.We have left our imprint upon my Mother-in-law’s house for ever. Henry upset a
bottle of Milk of Magnesia in the middle of the pale fawn bedroom carpet. John, trying to
be helpful and doing some dusting, broke one of the delicate Dresden china candlesticks
which adorn our bedroom mantelpiece.Jim and Henry have wrecked the once
professionally landscaped garden and all the boys together bored a large hole through
Mother’s prized cherry tree. So now Mother has given up and gone off to Bournemouth
for a much needed holiday. Once a week I have the capable help of a cleaning woman,
called for some reason, ‘Mrs Two’, but I have now got all the cooking to do for eight. Mrs
Two is a godsend. She wears, of all things, a print mob cap with a hole in it. Says it
belonged to her Grandmother. Her price is far beyond Rubies to me, not so much
because she does, in a couple of hours, what it takes me all day to do, but because she
sells me boxes of fifty cigarettes. Some non-smoking relative, who works in Players
tobacco factory, passes on his ration to her. Until Mrs Two came to my rescue I had
been starved of cigarettes. Each time I asked for them at the shop the grocer would say,
“Are you registered with us?” Only very rarely would some kindly soul sell me a little
packet of five Woodbines.England is very beautiful but the sooner we go home to Tanganyika, the better.
On this, George and I and the children agree.Eleanor.
Jacksdale England 20th September 1946
Dearest Family.
Our return passages have now been booked on the Winchester Castle and we
sail from Southampton on October the sixth. I look forward to returning to Tanganyika but
hope to visit England again in a few years time when our children are older and when
rationing is a thing of the past.I have grown fond of my Sisters-in-law and admire my Mother-in-law very much.
She has a great sense of humour and has entertained me with stories of her very
eventful life, and told me lots of little stories of the children which did not figure in her
letters. One which amused me was about young George. During one of the air raids
early in the war when the sirens were screaming and bombers roaring overhead Mother
made the two children get into the cloak cupboard under the stairs. Young George
seemed quite unconcerned about the planes and the bombs but soon an anxious voice
asked in the dark, “Gran, what will I do if a spider falls on me?” I am afraid that Mother is
going to miss Ann and George very much.I had a holiday last weekend when Lottie and I went up to London on a spree. It
was a most enjoyable weekend, though very rushed. We placed ourselves in the
hands of Thos. Cook and Sons and saw most of the sights of London and were run off
our feet in the process. As you all know London I shall not describe what I saw but just
to say that, best of all, I enjoyed walking along the Thames embankment in the evening
and the changing of the Guard at Whitehall. On Sunday morning Lottie and I went to
Kew Gardens and in the afternoon walked in Kensington Gardens.We went to only one show, ‘The Skin of our Teeth’ starring Vivienne Leigh.
Neither of us enjoyed the performance at all and regretted having spent so much on
circle seats. The show was far too highbrow for my taste, a sort of satire on the survival
of the human race. Miss Leigh was unrecognisable in a blond wig and her voice strident.
However the night was not a dead loss as far as entertainment was concerned as we
were later caught up in a tragicomedy at our hotel.We had booked communicating rooms at the enormous Imperial Hotel in Russell
Square. These rooms were comfortably furnished but very high up, and we had a rather
terrifying and dreary view from the windows of the enclosed courtyard far below. We
had some snacks and a chat in Lottie’s room and then I moved to mine and went to bed.
I had noted earlier that there was a special lock on the outer door of my room so that
when the door was closed from the inside it automatically locked itself.
I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard a hammering which seemed to
come from my wardrobe. I got up, rather fearfully, and opened the wardrobe door and
noted for the first time that the wardrobe was set in an opening in the wall and that the
back of the wardrobe also served as the back of the wardrobe in the room next door. I
quickly shut it again and went to confer with Lottie.Suddenly a male voice was raised next door in supplication, “Mary Mother of
God, Help me! They’ve locked me in!” and the hammering resumed again, sometimes
on the door, and then again on the back of the wardrobe of the room next door. Lottie
had by this time joined me and together we listened to the prayers and to the
hammering. Then the voice began to threaten, “If you don’t let me out I’ll jump out of the
window.” Great consternation on our side of the wall. I went out into the passage and
called through the door, “You’re not locked in. Come to your door and I’ll tell you how to
open it.” Silence for a moment and then again the prayers followed by a threat. All the
other doors in the corridor remained shut.Luckily just then a young man and a woman came walking down the corridor and I
explained the situation. The young man hurried off for the night porter who went into the
next door room. In a matter of minutes there was peace next door. When the night
porter came out into the corridor again I asked for an explanation. He said quite casually,
“It’s all right Madam. He’s an Irish Gentleman in Show Business. He gets like this on a
Saturday night when he has had a drop too much. He won’t give any more trouble
now.” And he didn’t. Next morning at breakfast Lottie and I tried to spot the gentleman in
the Show Business, but saw no one who looked like the owner of that charming Irish
voice.George had to go to London on business last Monday and took the older
children with him for a few hours of sight seeing. They returned quite unimpressed.
Everything was too old and dirty and there were far too many people about, but they
had enjoyed riding on the escalators at the tube stations, and all agreed that the highlight
of the trip was, “Dad took us to lunch at the Chicken Inn.”Now that it is almost time to leave England I am finding the housework less of a
drudgery, Also, as it is school holiday time, Jim and Henry are able to go on walks with
the older children and so use up some of their surplus energy. Cath and I took the
children (except young George who went rabbit shooting with his uncle Reg, and
Henry, who stayed at home with his dad) to the Wakes at Selston, the neighbouring
village. There were the roundabouts and similar contraptions but the side shows had
more appeal for the children. Ann and Kate found a stall where assorted prizes were
spread out on a sloping table. Anyone who could land a penny squarely on one of
these objects was given a similar one as a prize.I was touched to see that both girls ignored all the targets except a box of fifty
cigarettes which they were determined to win for me. After numerous attempts, Kate
landed her penny successfully and you would have loved to have seen her radiant little
face.Eleanor.
Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946
Dearest Family.
Back in Tanganyika at last, but not together. We have to stay in Dar es Salaam
until tomorrow when the train leaves for Dodoma. We arrived yesterday morning to find
all the hotels filled with people waiting to board ships for England. Fortunately some
friends came to the rescue and Ann, Kate and John have gone to stay with them. Jim,
Henry and I are sleeping in a screened corner of the lounge of the New Africa Hotel, and
George and young George have beds in the Palm Court of the same hotel.We travelled out from England in the Winchester Castle under troopship
conditions. We joined her at Southampton after a rather slow train journey from
Nottingham. We arrived after dark and from the station we could see a large ship in the
docks with a floodlit red funnel. “Our ship,” yelled the children in delight, but it was not the
Winchester Castle but the Queen Elizabeth, newly reconditioned.We had hoped to board our ship that evening but George made enquiries and
found that we would not be allowed on board until noon next day. Without much hope,
we went off to try to get accommodation for eight at a small hotel recommended by the
taxi driver. Luckily for us there was a very motherly woman at the reception desk. She
looked in amusement at the six children and said to me, “Goodness are all these yours,
ducks? Then she called over her shoulder, “Wilf, come and see this lady with lots of
children. We must try to help.” They settled the problem most satisfactorily by turning
two rooms into a dormitory.In the morning we had time to inspect bomb damage in the dock area of
Southampton. Most of the rubble had been cleared away but there are still numbers of
damaged buildings awaiting demolition. A depressing sight. We saw the Queen Mary
at anchor, still in her drab war time paint, but magnificent nevertheless.
The Winchester Castle was crammed with passengers and many travelled in
acute discomfort. We were luckier than most because the two girls, the three small boys
and I had a stateroom to ourselves and though it was stripped of peacetime comforts,
we had a private bathroom and toilet. The two Georges had bunks in a huge men-only
dormitory somewhere in the bowls of the ship where they had to share communal troop
ship facilities. The food was plentiful but unexciting and one had to queue for afternoon
tea. During the day the decks were crowded and there was squatting room only. The
many children on board got bored.Port Said provided a break and we were all entertained by the ‘Gully Gully’ man
and his conjuring tricks, and though we had no money to spend at Simon Artz, we did at
least have a chance to stretch our legs. Next day scores of passengers took ill with
sever stomach upsets, whether from food poisoning, or as was rumoured, from bad
water taken on at the Egyptian port, I don’t know. Only the two Georges in our family
were affected and their attacks were comparatively mild.As we neared the Kenya port of Mombassa, the passengers for Dar es Salaam
were told that they would have to disembark at Mombassa and continue their journey in
a small coaster, the Al Said. The Winchester Castle is too big for the narrow channel
which leads to Dar es Salaam harbour.From the wharf the Al Said looked beautiful. She was once the private yacht of
the Sultan of Zanzibar and has lovely lines. Our admiration lasted only until we were
shown our cabins. With one voice our children exclaimed, “Gosh they stink!” They did, of
a mixture of rancid oil and sweat and stale urine. The beds were not yet made and the
thin mattresses had ominous stains on them. John, ever fastidious, lifted his mattress and two enormous cockroaches scuttled for cover.We had a good homely lunch served by two smiling African stewards and
afterwards we sat on deck and that was fine too, though behind ones enjoyment there
was the thought of those stuffy and dirty cabins. That first night nearly everyone,
including George and our older children, slept on deck. Women occupied deck chairs
and men and children slept on the bare decks. Horrifying though the idea was, I decided
that, as Jim had a bad cough, he, Henry and I would sleep in our cabin.When I announced my intention of sleeping in the cabin one of the passengers
gave me some insecticide spray which I used lavishly, but without avail. The children
slept but I sat up all night with the light on, determined to keep at least their pillows clear
of the cockroaches which scurried about boldly regardless of the light. All the next day
and night we avoided the cabins. The Al Said stopped for some hours at Zanzibar to
offload her deck cargo of live cattle and packing cases from the hold. George and the
elder children went ashore for a walk but I felt too lazy and there was plenty to watch
from deck.That night I too occupied a deck chair and slept quite comfortably, and next
morning we entered the palm fringed harbour of Dar es Salaam and were home.Eleanor.
Mbeya 1st November 1946
Dearest Family.
Home at last! We are all most happily installed in a real family house about three
miles out of Mbeya and near the school. This house belongs to an elderly German and
has been taken over by the Custodian of Enemy Property and leased to the
Government.The owner, whose name is Shenkel, was not interned but is allowed to occupy a
smaller house on the Estate. I found him in the garden this morning lecturing the children
on what they may do and may not do. I tried to make it quite clear to him that he was not
our landlord, though he clearly thinks otherwise. After he had gone I had to take two
aspirin and lie down to recover my composure! I had been warned that he has this effect
on people.Mr Shenkel is a short and ugly man, his clothes are stained with food and he
wears steel rimmed glasses tied round his head with a piece of dirty elastic because
one earpiece is missing. He speaks with a thick German accent but his English is fluent
and I believe he is a cultured and clever man. But he is maddening. The children were
more amused than impressed by his exhortations and have happily Christened our
home, ‘Old Shenks’.The house has very large grounds as the place is really a derelict farm. It suits us
down to the ground. We had no sooner unpacked than George went off on safari after
those maneating lions in the Njombe District. he accounted for one, and a further two
jointly with a Game Scout, before we left for England. But none was shot during the five
months we were away as George’s relief is quite inexperienced in such work. George
thinks that there are still about a dozen maneaters at large. His theory is that a female
maneater moved into the area in 1938 when maneating first started, and brought up her
cubs to be maneaters, and those cubs in turn did the same. The three maneating lions
that have been shot were all in very good condition and not old and maimed as
maneaters usually are.George anticipates that it will be months before all these lions are accounted for
because they are constantly on the move and cover a very large area. The lions have to
be hunted on foot because they range over broken country covered by bush and fairly
dense thicket.I did a bit of shooting myself yesterday and impressed our African servants and
the children and myself. What a fluke! Our houseboy came to say that there was a snake
in the garden, the biggest he had ever seen. He said it was too big to kill with a stick and
would I shoot it. I had no gun but a heavy .450 Webley revolver and I took this and
hurried out with the children at my heels.The snake turned out to be an unusually large puff adder which had just shed its
skin. It looked beautiful in a repulsive way. So flanked by servants and children I took
aim and shot, not hitting the head as I had planned, but breaking the snake’s back with
the heavy bullet. The two native boys then rushed up with sticks and flattened the head.
“Ma you’re a crack shot,” cried the kids in delighted surprise. I hope to rest on my laurels
for a long, long while.Although there are only a few weeks of school term left the four older children will
start school on Monday. Not only am I pleased with our new home here but also with
the staff I have engaged. Our new houseboy, Reuben, (but renamed Robin by our
children) is not only cheerful and willing but intelligent too, and Jumbe, the wood and
garden boy, is a born clown and a source of great entertainment to the children.I feel sure that we are all going to be very happy here at ‘Old Shenks!.
Eleanor.
In reply to: The Elusive Samuel Housley and Other Family Stories
From Tanganyika with Love
continued part 7
With thanks to Mike Rushby.
Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938
Dearest Family,
George arrived today to take us home to Mbulu but Sister Marianne will not allow
me to travel for another week as I had a bit of a set back after baby’s birth. At first I was
very fit and on the third day Sister stripped the bed and, dictionary in hand, started me
off on ante natal exercises. “Now make a bridge Mrs Rushby. So. Up down, up down,’
whilst I obediently hoisted myself aloft on heels and head. By the sixth day she
considered it was time for me to be up and about but alas, I soon had to return to bed
with a temperature and a haemorrhage. I got up and walked outside for the first time this
morning.I have had lots of visitors because the local German settlers seem keen to see
the first British baby born in the hospital. They have been most kind, sending flowers
and little German cards of congratulations festooned with cherubs and rather sweet. Most
of the women, besides being pleasant, are very smart indeed, shattering my illusion that
German matrons are invariably fat and dowdy. They are all much concerned about the
Czecko-Slovakian situation, especially Sister Marianne whose home is right on the
border and has several relations who are Sudentan Germans. She is ant-Nazi and
keeps on asking me whether I think England will declare war if Hitler invades Czecko-
Slovakia, as though I had inside information.George tells me that he has had a grass ‘banda’ put up for us at Mbulu as we are
both determined not to return to those prison-like quarters in the Fort. Sister Marianne is
horrified at the idea of taking a new baby to live in a grass hut. She told George,
“No,No,Mr Rushby. I find that is not to be allowed!” She is an excellent Sister but rather
prim and George enjoys teasing her. This morning he asked with mock seriousness,
“Sister, why has my wife not received her medal?” Sister fluttered her dictionary before
asking. “What medal Mr Rushby”. “Why,” said George, “The medal that Hitler gives to
women who have borne four children.” Sister started a long and involved explanation
about the medal being only for German mothers whilst George looked at me and
grinned.Later. Great Jubilation here. By the noise in Sister Marianne’s sitting room last night it
sounded as though the whole German population had gathered to listen to the wireless
news. I heard loud exclamations of joy and then my bedroom door burst open and
several women rushed in. “Thank God “, they cried, “for Neville Chamberlain. Now there
will be no war.” They pumped me by the hand as though I were personally responsible
for the whole thing.George on the other hand is disgusted by Chamberlain’s lack of guts. Doesn’t
know what England is coming to these days. I feel too content to concern myself with
world affairs. I have a fine husband and four wonderful children and am happy, happy,
happy.Eleanor.
Mbulu. 30th September 1938
Dearest Family,
Here we are, comfortably installed in our little green house made of poles and
rushes from a nearby swamp. The house has of course, no doors or windows, but
there are rush blinds which roll up in the day time. There are two rooms and a little porch
and out at the back there is a small grass kitchen.Here we have the privacy which we prize so highly as we are screened on one
side by a Forest Department plantation and on the other three sides there is nothing but
the rolling countryside cropped bare by the far too large herds of cattle and goats of the
Wambulu. I have a lovely lazy time. I still have Kesho-Kutwa and the cook we brought
with us from the farm. They are both faithful and willing souls though not very good at
their respective jobs. As one of these Mbeya boys goes on safari with George whose
job takes him from home for three weeks out of four, I have taken on a local boy to cut
firewood and heat my bath water and generally make himself useful. His name is Saa,
which means ‘Clock’We had an uneventful but very dusty trip from Oldeani. Johnny Jo travelled in his
pram in the back of the boxbody and got covered in dust but seems none the worst for
it. As the baby now takes up much of my time and Kate was showing signs of
boredom, I have engaged a little African girl to come and play with Kate every morning.
She is the daughter of the head police Askari and a very attractive and dignified little
person she is. Her name is Kajyah. She is scrupulously clean, as all Mohammedan
Africans seem to be. Alas, Kajyah, though beautiful, is a bore. She simply does not
know how to play, so they just wander around hand in hand.There are only two drawbacks to this little house. Mbulu is a very windy spot so
our little reed house is very draughty. I have made a little tent of sheets in one corner of
the ‘bedroom’ into which I can retire with Johnny when I wish to bathe or sponge him.
The other drawback is that many insects are attracted at night by the lamp and make it
almost impossible to read or sew and they have a revolting habit of falling into the soup.
There are no dangerous wild animals in this area so I am not at all nervous in this
flimsy little house when George is on safari. Most nights hyaenas come around looking
for scraps but our dogs, Fanny and Paddy, soon see them off.Eleanor.
Mbulu. 25th October 1938
Dearest Family,
Great news! a vacancy has occurred in the Game Department. George is to
transfer to it next month. There will be an increase in salary and a brighter prospect for
the future. It will mean a change of scene and I shall be glad of that. We like Mbulu and
the people here but the rains have started and our little reed hut is anything but water
tight.Before the rain came we had very unpleasant dust storms. I think I told you that
this is a treeless area and the grass which normally covers the veldt has been cropped
to the roots by the hungry native cattle and goats. When the wind blows the dust
collects in tall black columns which sweep across the country in a most spectacular
fashion. One such dust devil struck our hut one day whilst we were at lunch. George
swept Kate up in a second and held her face against his chest whilst I rushed to Johnny
Jo who was asleep in his pram, and stooped over the pram to protect him. The hut
groaned and creaked and clouds of dust blew in through the windows and walls covering
our persons, food, and belongings in a black pall. The dogs food bowls and an empty
petrol tin outside the hut were whirled up and away. It was all over in a moment but you
should have seen what a family of sweeps we looked. George looked at our blackened
Johnny and mimicked in Sister Marianne’s primmest tones, “I find that this is not to be
allowed.”The first rain storm caught me unprepared when George was away on safari. It
was a terrific thunderstorm. The quite violent thunder and lightening were followed by a
real tropical downpour. As the hut is on a slight slope, the storm water poured through
the hut like a river, covering the entire floor, and the roof leaked like a lawn sprinkler.
Johnny Jo was snug enough in the pram with the hood raised, but Kate and I had a
damp miserable night. Next morning I had deep drains dug around the hut and when
George returned from safari he managed to borrow an enormous tarpaulin which is now
lashed down over the roof.It did not rain during the next few days George was home but the very next night
we were in trouble again. I was awakened by screams from Kate and hurriedly turned up
the lamp to see that we were in the midst of an invasion of siafu ants. Kate’s bed was
covered in them. Others appeared to be raining down from the thatch. I quickly stripped
Kate and carried her across to my bed, whilst I rushed to the pram to see whether
Johnny Jo was all right. He was fast asleep, bless him, and slept on through all the
commotion, whilst I struggled to pick all the ants out of Kate’s hair, stopping now and
again to attend to my own discomfort. These ants have a painful bite and seem to
choose all the most tender spots. Kate fell asleep eventually but I sat up for the rest of
the night to make sure that the siafu kept clear of the children. Next morning the servants
dispersed them by laying hot ash.In spite of the dampness of the hut both children are blooming. Kate has rosy
cheeks and Johnny Jo now has a fuzz of fair hair and has lost his ‘old man’ look. He
reminds me of Ann at his age.Eleanor.
Iringa. 30th November 1938
Dearest Family,
Here we are back in the Southern Highlands and installed on the second floor of
another German Fort. This one has been modernised however and though not so
romantic as the Mbulu Fort from the outside, it is much more comfortable.We are all well
and I am really proud of our two safari babies who stood up splendidly to a most trying
journey North from Mbulu to Arusha and then South down the Great North Road to
Iringa where we expect to stay for a month.At Arusha George reported to the headquarters of the Game Department and
was instructed to come on down here on Rinderpest Control. There is a great flap on in
case the rinderpest spread to Northern Rhodesia and possibly onwards to Southern
Rhodesia and South Africa. Extra veterinary officers have been sent to this area to
inoculate all the cattle against the disease whilst George and his African game Scouts will
comb the bush looking for and destroying diseased game. If the rinderpest spreads,
George says it may be necessary to shoot out all the game in a wide belt along the
border between the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and Northern Rhodesia, to
prevent the disease spreading South. The very idea of all this destruction sickens us
both.George left on a foot safari the day after our arrival and I expect I shall be lucky if I
see him occasionally at weekends until this job is over. When rinderpest is under control
George is to be stationed at a place called Nzassa in the Eastern Province about 18
miles from Dar es Salaam. George’s orderly, who is a tall, cheerful Game Scout called
Juma, tells me that he has been stationed at Nzassa and it is a frightful place! However I
refuse to be depressed. I now have the cheering prospect of leave to England in thirty
months time when we will be able to fetch Ann and George and be a proper family
again. Both Ann and George look happy in the snapshots which mother-in-law sends
frequently. Ann is doing very well at school and loves it.To get back to our journey from Mbulu. It really was quite an experience. It
poured with rain most of the way and the road was very slippery and treacherous the
120 miles between Mbulu and Arusha. This is a little used earth road and the drains are
so blocked with silt as to be practically non existent. As usual we started our move with
the V8 loaded to capacity. I held Johnny on my knee and Kate squeezed in between
George and me. All our goods and chattels were in wooden boxes stowed in the back
and the two houseboys and the two dogs had to adjust themselves to the space that
remained. We soon ran into trouble and it took us all day to travel 47 miles. We stuck
several times in deep mud and had some most nasty skids. I simply clutched Kate in
one hand and Johnny Jo in the other and put my trust in George who never, under any
circumstances, loses his head. Poor Johnny only got his meals when circumstances
permitted. Unfortunately I had put him on a bottle only a few days before we left Mbulu
and, as I was unable to buy either a primus stove or Thermos flask there we had to
make a fire and boil water for each meal. Twice George sat out in the drizzle with a rain
coat rapped over his head to protect a miserable little fire of wet sticks drenched with
paraffin. Whilst we waited for the water to boil I pacified John by letting him suck a cube
of Tate and Lyles sugar held between my rather grubby fingers. Not at all according to
the book.That night George, the children and I slept in the car having dumped our boxes
and the two servants in a deserted native hut. The rain poured down relentlessly all night
and by morning the road was more of a morass than ever. We swerved and skidded
alarmingly till eventually one of the wheel chains broke and had to be tied together with
string which constantly needed replacing. George was so patient though he was wet
and muddy and tired and both children were very good. Shortly before reaching the Great North Road we came upon Jack Gowan, the Stock Inspector from Mbulu. His car
was bogged down to its axles in black mud. He refused George’s offer of help saying
that he had sent his messenger to a nearby village for help.I hoped that conditions would be better on the Great North Road but how over
optimistic I was. For miles the road runs through a belt of ‘black cotton soil’. which was
churned up into the consistency of chocolate blancmange by the heavy lorry traffic which
runs between Dodoma and Arusha. Soon the car was skidding more fantastically than
ever. Once it skidded around in a complete semi circle so George decided that it would
be safer for us all to walk whilst he negotiated the very bad patches. You should have
seen me plodding along in the mud and drizzle with the baby in one arm and Kate
clinging to the other. I was terrified of slipping with Johnny. Each time George reached
firm ground he would return on foot to carry Kate and in this way we covered many bad
patches.We were more fortunate than many other travellers. We passed several lorries
ditched on the side of the road and one car load of German men, all elegantly dressed in
lounge suits. One was busy with his camera so will have a record of their plight to laugh
over in the years to come. We spent another night camping on the road and next day
set out on the last lap of the journey. That also was tiresome but much better than the
previous day and we made the haven of the Arusha Hotel before dark. What a picture
we made as we walked through the hall in our mud splattered clothes! Even Johnny was
well splashed with mud but no harm was done and both he and Kate are blooming.
We rested for two days at Arusha and then came South to Iringa. Luckily the sun
came out and though for the first day the road was muddy it was no longer so slippery
and the second day found us driving through parched country and along badly
corrugated roads. The further South we came, the warmer the sun which at times blazed
through the windscreen and made us all uncomfortably hot. I have described the country
between Arusha and Dodoma before so I shan’t do it again. We reached Iringa without
mishap and after a good nights rest all felt full of beans.Eleanor.
Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.
Dearest Family,
You will be surprised to note that we are back on the farm! At least the children
and I are here. George is away near the Rhodesian border somewhere, still on
Rinderpest control.I had a pleasant time at Iringa, lots of invitations to morning tea and Kate had a
wonderful time enjoying the novelty of playing with children of her own age. She is not
shy but nevertheless likes me to be within call if not within sight. It was all very suburban
but pleasant enough. A few days before Christmas George turned up at Iringa and
suggested that, as he would be working in the Mbeya area, it might be a good idea for
the children and me to move to the farm. I agreed enthusiastically, completely forgetting
that after my previous trouble with the leopard I had vowed to myself that I would never
again live alone on the farm.Alas no sooner had we arrived when Thomas, our farm headman, brought the
news that there were now two leopards terrorising the neighbourhood, and taking dogs,
goats and sheep and chickens. Traps and poisoned bait had been tried in vain and he
was sure that the female was the same leopard which had besieged our home before.
Other leopards said Thomas, came by stealth but this one advertised her whereabouts
in the most brazen manner.George stayed with us on the farm over Christmas and all was quiet at night so I
cheered up and took the children for walks along the overgrown farm paths. However on
New Years Eve that darned leopard advertised her presence again with the most blood
chilling grunts and snarls. Horrible! Fanny and Paddy barked and growled and woke up
both children. Kate wept and kept saying, “Send it away mummy. I don’t like it.” Johnny
Jo howled in sympathy. What a picnic. So now the whole performance of bodyguards
has started again and ‘till George returns we confine our exercise to the garden.
Our little house is still cosy and sweet but the coffee plantation looks very
neglected. I wish to goodness we could sell it.Eleanor.
Nzassa 14th February 1939.
Dearest Family,
After three months of moving around with two small children it is heavenly to be
settled in our own home, even though Nzassa is an isolated spot and has the reputation
of being unhealthy.We travelled by car from Mbeya to Dodoma by now a very familiar stretch of
country, but from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam by train which made a nice change. We
spent two nights and a day in the Splendid Hotel in Dar es Salaam, George had some
official visits to make and I did some shopping and we took the children to the beach.
The bay is so sheltered that the sea is as calm as a pond and the water warm. It is
wonderful to see the sea once more and to hear tugs hooting and to watch the Arab
dhows putting out to sea with their oddly shaped sails billowing. I do love the bush, but
I love the sea best of all, as you know.We made an early start for Nzassa on the 3rd. For about four miles we bowled
along a good road. This brought us to a place called Temeke where George called on
the District Officer. His house appears to be the only European type house there. The
road between Temeke and the turn off to Nzassa is quite good, but the six mile stretch
from the turn off to Nzassa is a very neglected bush road. There is nothing to be seen
but the impenetrable bush on both sides with here and there a patch of swampy
ground where rice is planted in the wet season.After about six miles of bumpy road we reached Nzassa which is nothing more
than a sandy clearing in the bush. Our house however is a fine one. It was originally built
for the District Officer and there is a small court house which is now George’s office. The
District Officer died of blackwater fever so Nzassa was abandoned as an administrative
station being considered too unhealthy for Administrative Officers but suitable as
Headquarters for a Game Ranger. Later a bachelor Game Ranger was stationed here
but his health also broke down and he has been invalided to England. So now the
healthy Rushbys are here and we don’t mean to let the place get us down. So don’t
worry.The house consists of three very large and airy rooms with their doors opening
on to a wide front verandah which we shall use as a living room. There is also a wide
back verandah with a store room at one end and a bathroom at the other. Both
verandahs and the end windows of the house are screened my mosquito gauze wire
and further protected by a trellis work of heavy expanded metal. Hasmani, the Game
Scout, who has been acting as caretaker, tells me that the expanded metal is very
necessary because lions often come out of the bush at night and roam around the
house. Such a comforting thought!On our very first evening we discovered how necessary the mosquito gauze is.
After sunset the air outside is thick with mosquitos from the swamps. About an acre of
land has been cleared around the house. This is a sandy waste because there is no
water laid on here and absolutely nothing grows here except a rather revolting milky
desert bush called ‘Manyara’, and a few acacia trees. A little way from the house there is
a patch of citrus trees, grape fruit, I think, but whether they ever bear fruit I don’t know.
The clearing is bordered on three sides by dense dusty thorn bush which is
‘lousy with buffalo’ according to George. The open side is the road which leads down to
George’s office and the huts for the Game Scouts. Only Hasmani and George’s orderly
Juma and their wives and families live there, and the other huts provide shelter for the
Game Scouts from the bush who come to Nzassa to collect their pay and for a short
rest. I can see that my daily walk will always be the same, down the road to the huts and
back! However I don’t mind because it is far too hot to take much exercise.The climate here is really tropical and worse than on the coast because the thick
bush cuts us off from any sea breeze. George says it will be cooler when the rains start
but just now we literally drip all day. Kate wears nothing but a cotton sun suit, and Johnny
a napkin only, but still their little bodies are always moist. I have shorn off all Kate’s lovely
shoulder length curls and got George to cut my hair very short too.We simply must buy a refrigerator. The butter, and even the cheese we bought
in Dar. simply melted into pools of oil overnight, and all our meat went bad, so we are
living out of tins. However once we get organised I shall be quite happy here. I like this
spacious house and I have good servants. The cook, Hamisi Issa, is a Swahili from Lindi
whom we engaged in Dar es Salaam. He is a very dignified person, and like most
devout Mohammedan Cooks, keeps both his person and the kitchen spotless. I
engaged the house boy here. He is rather a timid little body but is very willing and quite
capable. He has an excessively plain but cheerful wife whom I have taken on as ayah. I
do not really need help with the children but feel I must have a woman around just in
case I go down with malaria when George is away on safari.Eleanor.
Nzassa 28th February 1939.
Dearest Family,
George’s birthday and we had a special tea party this afternoon which the
children much enjoyed. We have our frig now so I am able to make jellies and provide
them with really cool drinks.Our very first visitor left this morning after spending only one night here. He is Mr
Ionides, the Game Ranger from the Southern Province. He acted as stand in here for a
short while after George’s predecessor left for England on sick leave, and where he has
since died. Mr Ionides returned here to hand over the range and office formally to
George. He seems a strange man and is from all accounts a bit of a hermit. He was at
one time an Officer in the Regular Army but does not look like a soldier, he wears the
most extraordinary clothes but nevertheless contrives to look top-drawer. He was
educated at Rugby and Sandhurst and is, I should say, well read. Ionides told us that he
hated Nzassa, particularly the house which he thinks sinister and says he always slept
down in the office.The house, or at least one bedroom, seems to have the same effect on Kate.
She has been very nervous at night ever since we arrived. At first the children occupied
the bedroom which is now George’s. One night, soon after our arrival, Kate woke up
screaming to say that ‘something’ had looked at her through the mosquito net. She was
in such a hysterical state that inspite of the heat and discomfort I was obliged to crawl into
her little bed with her and remained there for the rest of the night.Next night I left a night lamp burning but even so I had to sit by her bed until she
dropped off to sleep. Again I was awakened by ear-splitting screams and this time
found Kate standing rigid on her bed. I lifted her out and carried her to a chair meaning to
comfort her but she screeched louder than ever, “Look Mummy it’s under the bed. It’s
looking at us.” In vain I pointed out that there was nothing at all there. By this time
George had joined us and he carried Kate off to his bed in the other room whilst I got into
Kate’s bed thinking she might have been frightened by a rat which might also disturb
Johnny.Next morning our houseboy remarked that he had heard Kate screaming in the
night from his room behind the kitchen. I explained what had happened and he must
have told the old Scout Hasmani who waylaid me that afternoon and informed me quite
seriously that that particular room was haunted by a ‘sheitani’ (devil) who hates children.
He told me that whilst he was acting as caretaker before our arrival he one night had his
wife and small daughter in the room to keep him company. He said that his small
daughter woke up and screamed exactly as Kate had done! Silly coincidence I
suppose, but such strange things happen in Africa that I decided to move the children
into our room and George sleeps in solitary state in the haunted room! Kate now sleeps
peacefully once she goes to sleep but I have to stay with her until she does.I like this house and it does not seem at all sinister to me. As I mentioned before,
the rooms are high ceilinged and airy, and have cool cement floors. We have made one
end of the enclosed verandah into the living room and the other end is the playroom for
the children. The space in between is a sort of no-mans land taken over by the dogs as
their special territory.Eleanor.
Nzassa 25th March 1939.
Dearest Family,
George is on safari down in the Rufigi River area. He is away for about three
weeks in the month on this job. I do hate to see him go and just manage to tick over until
he comes back. But what fun and excitement when he does come home.
Usually he returns after dark by which time the children are in bed and I have
settled down on the verandah with a book. The first warning is usually given by the
dogs, Fanny and her son Paddy. They stir, sit up, look at each other and then go and sit
side by side by the door with their noses practically pressed to the mosquito gauze and
ears pricked. Soon I can hear the hum of the car, and so can Hasmani, the old Game
Scout who sleeps on the back verandah with rifle and ammunition by his side when
George is away. When he hears the car he turns up his lamp and hurries out to rouse
Juma, the houseboy. Juma pokes up the fire and prepares tea which George always
drinks whist a hot meal is being prepared. In the meantime I hurriedly comb my hair and
powder my nose so that when the car stops I am ready to rush out and welcome
George home. The boy and Hasmani and the garden boy appear to help with the
luggage and to greet George and the cook, who always accompanies George on
Safari. The home coming is always a lively time with much shouting of greetings.
‘Jambo’, and ‘Habari ya safari’, whilst the dogs, beside themselves with excitement,
rush around like lunatics.As though his return were not happiness enough, George usually collects the
mail on his way home so there is news of Ann and young George and letters from you
and bundles of newspapers and magazines. On the day following his return home,
George has to deal with official mail in the office but if the following day is a weekday we
all, the house servants as well as ourselves, pile into the boxbody and go to Dar es
Salaam. To us this means a mornings shopping followed by an afternoon on the beach.
It is a bit cooler now that the rains are on but still very humid. Kate keeps chubby
and rosy in spite of the climate but Johnny is too pale though sturdy enough. He is such
a good baby which is just as well because Kate is a very demanding little girl though
sunny tempered and sweet. I appreciate her company very much when George is
away because we are so far off the beaten track that no one ever calls.Eleanor.
Nzassa 28th April 1939.
Dearest Family,
You all seem to wonder how I can stand the loneliness and monotony of living at
Nzassa when George is on safari, but really and truly I do not mind. Hamisi the cook
always goes on safari with George and then the houseboy Juma takes over the cooking
and I do the lighter housework. the children are great company during the day, and when
they are settled for the night I sit on the verandah and read or write letters or I just dream.
The verandah is entirely enclosed with both wire mosquito gauze and a trellis
work of heavy expanded metal, so I am safe from all intruders be they human, animal, or
insect. Outside the air is alive with mosquitos and the cicadas keep up their monotonous
singing all night long. My only companions on the verandah are the pale ghecco lizards
on the wall and the two dogs. Fanny the white bull terrier, lies always near my feet
dozing happily, but her son Paddy, who is half Airedale has a less phlegmatic
disposition. He sits alert and on guard by the metal trellis work door. Often a lion grunts
from the surrounding bush and then his hackles rise and he stands up stiffly with his nose
pressed to the door. Old Hasmani from his bedroll on the back verandah, gives a little
cough just to show he is awake. Sometimes the lions are very close and then I hear the
click of a rifle bolt as Hasmani loads his rifle – but this is usually much later at night when
the lights are out. One morning I saw large pug marks between the wall of my bedroom
and the garage but I do not fear lions like I did that beastly leopard on the farm.
A great deal of witchcraft is still practiced in the bush villages in the
neighbourhood. I must tell you about old Hasmani’s baby in connection with this. Last
week Hasmani came to me in great distress to say that his baby was ‘Ngongwa sana ‘
(very ill) and he thought it would die. I hurried down to the Game Scouts quarters to see
whether I could do anything for the child and found the mother squatting in the sun
outside her hut with the baby on her lap. The mother was a young woman but not an
attractive one. She appeared sullen and indifferent compared with old Hasmani who
was very distressed. The child was very feverish and breathing with difficulty and
seemed to me to be suffering from bronchitis if not pneumonia. I rubbed his back and
chest with camphorated oil and dosed him with aspirin and liquid quinine. I repeated the
treatment every four hours, but next day there was no apparent improvement.
In the afternoon Hasmani begged me to give him that night off duty and asked for
a loan of ten shillings. He explained to me that it seemed to him that the white man’s
medicine had failed to cure his child and now he wished to take the child to the local witch
doctor. “For ten shillings” said Hasmani, “the Maganga will drive the devil out of my
child.” “How?” asked I. “With drums”, said Hasmani confidently. I did not know what to
do. I thought the child was too ill to be exposed to the night air, yet I knew that if I
refused his request and the child were to die, Hasmani and all the other locals would hold
me responsible. I very reluctantly granted his request. I was so troubled by the matter
that I sent for George’s office clerk. Daniel, and asked him to accompany Hasmani to the
ceremony and to report to me the next morning. It started to rain after dark and all night
long I lay awake in bed listening to the drums and the light rain. Next morning when I
went out to the kitchen to order breakfast I found a beaming Hasmani awaiting me.
“Memsahib”, he said. “My child is well, the fever is now quite gone, the Maganga drove
out the devil just as I told you.” Believe it or not, when I hurried to his quarters after
breakfast I found the mother suckling a perfectly healthy child! It may be my imagination
but I thought the mother looked pretty smug.The clerk Daniel told me that after Hasmani
had presented gifts of money and food to the ‘Maganga’, the naked baby was placed
on a goat skin near the drums. Most of the time he just lay there but sometimes the witch
doctor picked him up and danced with the child in his arms. Daniel seemed reluctant to
talk about it. Whatever mumbo jumbo was used all this happened a week ago and the
baby has never looked back.Eleanor.
Nzassa 3rd July 1939.
Dearest Family,
Did I tell you that one of George’s Game Scouts was murdered last month in the
Maneromango area towards the Rufigi border. He was on routine patrol, with a porter
carrying his bedding and food, when they suddenly came across a group of African
hunters who were busy cutting up a giraffe which they had just killed. These hunters were
all armed with muzzle loaders, spears and pangas, but as it is illegal to kill giraffe without
a permit, the Scout went up to the group to take their names. Some argument ensued
and the Scout was stabbed.The District Officer went to the area to investigate and decided to call in the Police
from Dar es Salaam. A party of police went out to search for the murderers but after
some days returned without making any arrests. George was on an elephant control
safari in the Bagamoyo District and on his return through Dar es Salaam he heard of the
murder. George was furious and distressed to hear the news and called in here for an
hour on his way to Maneromango to search for the murderers himself.After a great deal of strenuous investigation he arrested three poachers, put them
in jail for the night at Maneromango and then brought them to Dar es Salaam where they
are all now behind bars. George will now have to prosecute in the Magistrate’s Court
and try and ‘make a case’ so that the prisoners may be committed to the High Court to
be tried for murder. George is convinced of their guilt and justifiably proud to have
succeeded where the police failed.George had to borrow handcuffs for the prisoners from the Chief at
Maneromango and these he brought back to Nzassa after delivering the prisoners to
Dar es Salaam so that he may return them to the Chief when he revisits the area next
week.I had not seen handcuffs before and picked up a pair to examine them. I said to
George, engrossed in ‘The Times’, “I bet if you were arrested they’d never get
handcuffs on your wrist. Not these anyway, they look too small.” “Standard pattern,”
said George still concentrating on the newspaper, but extending an enormous relaxed
left wrist. So, my dears, I put a bracelet round his wrist and as there was a wide gap I
gave a hard squeeze with both hands. There was a sharp click as the handcuff engaged
in the first notch. George dropped the paper and said, “Now you’ve done it, my love,
one set of keys are in the Dar es Salaam Police Station, and the others with the Chief at
Maneromango.” You can imagine how utterly silly I felt but George was an angel about it
and said as he would have to go to Dar es Salaam we might as well all go.So we all piled into the car, George, the children and I in the front, and the cook
and houseboy, immaculate in snowy khanzus and embroidered white caps, a Game
Scout and the ayah in the back. George never once complain of the discomfort of the
handcuff but I was uncomfortably aware that it was much too tight because his arm
above the cuff looked red and swollen and the hand unnaturally pale. As the road is so
bad George had to use both hands on the wheel and all the time the dangling handcuff
clanked against the dashboard in an accusing way.We drove straight to the Police Station and I could hear the roars of laughter as
George explained his predicament. Later I had to put up with a good deal of chaffing
and congratulations upon putting the handcuffs on George.Eleanor.
Nzassa 5th August 1939
Dearest Family,
George made a point of being here for Kate’s fourth birthday last week. Just
because our children have no playmates George and I always do all we can to make
birthdays very special occasions. We went to Dar es Salaam the day before the
birthday and bought Kate a very sturdy tricycle with which she is absolutely delighted.
You will be glad to know that your parcels arrived just in time and Kate loved all your
gifts especially the little shop from Dad with all the miniature tins and packets of
groceries. The tea set was also a great success and is much in use.We had a lively party which ended with George and me singing ‘Happy
Birthday to you’, and ended with a wild game with balloons. Kate wore her frilly white net
party frock and looked so pretty that it seemed a shame that there was no one but us to
see her. Anyway it was a good party. I wish so much that you could see the children.
Kate keeps rosy and has not yet had malaria. Johnny Jo is sturdy but pale. He
runs a temperature now and again but I am not sure whether this is due to teething or
malaria. Both children of course take quinine every day as George and I do. George
quite frequently has malaria in spite of prophylactic quinine but this is not surprising as he
got the germ thoroughly established in his system in his early elephant hunting days. I
get it too occasionally but have not been really ill since that first time a month after my
arrival in the country.Johnny is such a good baby. His chief claim to beauty is his head of soft golden
curls but these are due to come off on his first birthday as George considers them too
girlish. George left on safari the day after the party and the very next morning our wood
boy had a most unfortunate accident. He was chopping a rather tough log when a chip
flew up and split his upper lip clean through from mouth to nostril exposing teeth and
gums. A truly horrible sight and very bloody. I cleaned up the wound as best I could
and sent him off to the hospital at Dar es Salaam on the office bicycle. He wobbled
away wretchedly down the road with a white cloth tied over his mouth to keep off the
dust. He returned next day with his lip stitched and very swollen and bearing a
resemblance to my lip that time I used the hair remover.Eleanor.
Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939
Dearest Family,
So now another war has started and it has disrupted even our lives. We have left
Nzassa for good. George is now a Lieutenant in the King’s African Rifles and the children
and I are to go to a place called Morogoro to await further developments.
I was glad to read in today’s paper that South Africa has declared war on
Germany. I would have felt pretty small otherwise in this hotel which is crammed full of
men who have been called up for service in the Army. George seems exhilarated by
the prospect of active service. He is bursting out of his uniform ( at the shoulders only!)
and all too ready for the fray.The war came as a complete surprise to me stuck out in the bush as I was without
wireless or mail. George had been away for a fortnight so you can imagine how
surprised I was when a messenger arrived on a bicycle with a note from George. The
note informed me that war had been declared and that George, as a Reserve Officer in
the KAR had been called up. I was to start packing immediately and be ready by noon
next day when George would arrive with a lorry for our goods and chattels. I started to
pack immediately with the help of the houseboy and by the time George arrived with
the lorry only the frig remained to be packed and this was soon done.Throughout the morning Game Scouts had been arriving from outlying parts of
the District. I don’t think they had the least idea where they were supposed to go or
whom they were to fight but were ready to fight anybody, anywhere, with George.
They all looked very smart in well pressed uniforms hung about with water bottles and
ammunition pouches. The large buffalo badge on their round pill box hats absolutely
glittered with polish. All of course carried rifles and when George arrived they all lined up
and they looked most impressive. I took some snaps but unfortunately it was drizzling
and they may not come out well.We left Nzassa without a backward glance. We were pretty fed up with it by
then. The children and I are spending a few days here with George but our luggage, the
dogs, and the houseboys have already left by train for Morogoro where a small house
has been found for the children and me.George tells me that all the German males in this Territory were interned without a
hitch. The whole affair must have been very well organised. In every town and
settlement special constables were sworn in to do the job. It must have been a rather
unpleasant one but seems to have gone without incident. There is a big transit camp
here at Dar for the German men. Later they are to be sent out of the country, possibly to
Rhodesia.The Indian tailors in the town are all terribly busy making Army uniforms, shorts
and tunics in khaki drill. George swears that they have muddled their orders and he has
been given the wrong things. Certainly the tunic is far too tight. His hat, a khaki slouch hat
like you saw the Australians wearing in the last war, is also too small though it is the
largest they have in stock. We had a laugh over his other equipment which includes a
small canvas haversack and a whistle on a black cord. George says he feels like he is
back in his Boy Scouting boyhood.George has just come in to say the we will be leaving for Morogoro tomorrow
afternoon.Eleanor.
Morogoro 14th September 1939
Dearest Family,
Morogoro is a complete change from Nzassa. This is a large and sprawling
township. The native town and all the shops are down on the flat land by the railway but
all the European houses are away up the slope of the high Uluguru Mountains.
Morogoro was a flourishing town in the German days and all the streets are lined with
trees for coolness as is the case in other German towns. These trees are the flamboyant
acacia which has an umbrella top and throws a wide but light shade.Most of the houses have large gardens so they cover a considerable area and it
is quite a safari for me to visit friends on foot as our house is on the edge of this area and
the furthest away from the town. Here ones house is in accordance with ones seniority in
Government service. Ours is a simple affair, just three lofty square rooms opening on to
a wide enclosed verandah. Mosquitoes are bad here so all doors and windows are
screened and we will have to carry on with our daily doses of quinine.George came up to Morogoro with us on the train. This was fortunate because I
went down with a sharp attack of malaria at the hotel on the afternoon of our departure
from Dar es Salaam. George’s drastic cure of vast doses of quinine, a pillow over my
head, and the bed heaped with blankets soon brought down the temperature so I was
fit enough to board the train but felt pretty poorly on the trip. However next day I felt
much better which was a good thing as George had to return to Dar es Salaam after two
days. His train left late at night so I did not see him off but said good-bye at home
feeling dreadful but trying to keep the traditional stiff upper lip of the wife seeing her
husband off to the wars. He hopes to go off to Abyssinia but wrote from Dar es Salaam
to say that he is being sent down to Rhodesia by road via Mbeya to escort the first
detachment of Rhodesian white troops.First he will have to select suitable camping sites for night stops and arrange for
supplies of food. I am very pleased as it means he will be safe for a while anyway. We
are both worried about Ann and George in England and wonder if it would be safer to
have them sent out.Eleanor.
Morogoro 4th November 1939
Dearest Family,
My big news is that George has been released from the Army. He is very
indignant and disappointed because he hoped to go to Abyssinia but I am terribly,
terribly glad. The Chief Secretary wrote a very nice letter to George pointing out that he
would be doing a greater service to his country by his work of elephant control, giving
crop protection during the war years when foodstuffs are such a vital necessity, than by
doing a soldiers job. The Government plan to start a huge rice scheme in the Rufiji area,
and want George to control the elephant and hippo there. First of all though. he must go
to the Southern Highlands Province where there is another outbreak of Rinderpest, to
shoot out diseased game especially buffalo, which might spread the disease.So off we go again on our travels but this time we are leaving the two dogs
behind in the care of Daniel, the Game Clerk. Fanny is very pregnant and I hate leaving
her behind but the clerk has promised to look after her well. We are taking Hamisi, our
dignified Swahili cook and the houseboy Juma and his wife whom we brought with us
from Nzassa. The boy is not very good but his wife makes a cheerful and placid ayah
and adores Johnny.Eleanor.
Iringa 8th December 1939
Dearest Family,
The children and I are staying in a small German house leased from the
Custodian of Enemy Property. I can’t help feeling sorry for the owners who must be in
concentration camps somewhere.George is away in the bush dealing with the
Rinderpest emergency and the cook has gone with him. Now I have sent the houseboy
and the ayah away too. Two days ago my houseboy came and told me that he felt
very ill and asked me to write a ‘chit’ to the Indian Doctor. In the note I asked the Doctor
to let me know the nature of his complaint and to my horror I got a note from him to say
that the houseboy had a bad case of Venereal Disease. Was I horrified! I took it for
granted that his wife must be infected too and told them both that they would have to
return to their home in Nzassa. The boy shouted and the ayah wept but I paid them in
lieu of notice and gave them money for the journey home. So there I was left servant
less with firewood to chop, a smokey wood burning stove to control, and of course, the
two children.To add to my troubles Johnny had a temperature so I sent for the European
Doctor. He diagnosed malaria and was astonished at the size of Johnny’s spleen. He
said that he must have had suppressed malaria over a long period and the poor child
must now be fed maximum doses of quinine for a long time. The Doctor is a fatherly
soul, he has been recalled from retirement to do this job as so many of the young
doctors have been called up for service with the army.I told him about my houseboy’s complaint and the way I had sent him off
immediately, and he was very amused at my haste, saying that it is most unlikely that
they would have passed the disease onto their employers. Anyway I hated the idea. I
mean to engage a houseboy locally, but will do without an ayah until we return to
Morogoro in February.Something happened today to cheer me up. A telegram came from Daniel which
read, “FLANNEL HAS FIVE CUBS.”Eleanor.
Morogoro 10th March 1940
Dearest Family,
We are having very heavy rain and the countryside is a most beautiful green. In
spite of the weather George is away on safari though it must be very wet and
unpleasant. He does work so hard at his elephant hunting job and has got very thin. I
suppose this is partly due to those stomach pains he gets and the doctors don’t seem
to diagnose the trouble.Living in Morogoro is much like living in a country town in South Africa, particularly
as there are several South African women here. I go out quite often to morning teas. We
all take our war effort knitting, and natter, and are completely suburban.
I sometimes go and see an elderly couple who have been interred here. They
are cold shouldered by almost everyone else but I cannot help feeling sorry for them.
Usually I go by invitation because I know Mrs Ruppel prefers to be prepared and
always has sandwiches and cake. They both speak English but not fluently and
conversation is confined to talking about my children and theirs. Their two sons were
students in Germany when war broke out but are now of course in the German Army.
Such nice looking chaps from their photographs but I suppose thorough Nazis. As our
conversation is limited I usually ask to hear a gramophone record or two. They have a
large collection.Janet, the ayah whom I engaged at Mbeya, is proving a great treasure. She is a
trained hospital ayah and is most dependable and capable. She is, perhaps, a little strict
but the great thing is that I can trust her with the children out of my sight.
Last week I went out at night for the first time without George. The occasion was
a farewell sundowner given by the Commissioner of Prisoners and his wife. I was driven
home by the District Officer and he stopped his car by the back door in a large puddle.
Ayah came to the back door, storm lamp in hand, to greet me. My escort prepared to
drive off but the car stuck. I thought a push from me might help, so without informing the
driver, I pushed as hard as I could on the back of the car. Unfortunately the driver
decided on other tactics. He put the engine in reverse and I was knocked flat on my back
in the puddle. The car drove forward and away without the driver having the least idea of
what happened. The ayah was in quite a state, lifting me up and scolding me for my
stupidity as though I were Kate. I was a bit shaken but non the worse and will know
better next time.Eleanor.
Morogoro 14th July 1940
Dearest Family,
How good it was of Dad to send that cable to Mother offering to have Ann and
George to live with you if they are accepted for inclusion in the list of children to be
evacuated to South Africa. It would be wonderful to know that they are safely out of the
war zone and so much nearer to us but I do dread the thought of the long sea voyage
particularly since we heard the news of the sinking of that liner carrying child evacuees to
Canada. I worry about them so much particularly as George is so often away on safari.
He is so comforting and calm and I feel brave and confident when he is home.
We have had no news from England for five weeks but, when she last wrote,
mother said the children were very well and that she was sure they would be safe in the
country with her.Kate and John are growing fast. Kate is such a pretty little girl, rosy in spite of the
rather trying climate. I have allowed her hair to grow again and it hangs on her shoulders
in shiny waves. John is a more slightly built little boy than young George was, and quite
different in looks. He has Dad’s high forehead and cleft chin, widely spaced brown eyes
that are not so dark as mine and hair that is still fair and curly though ayah likes to smooth it
down with water every time she dresses him. He is a shy child, and although he plays
happily with Kate, he does not care to play with other children who go in the late
afternoons to a lawn by the old German ‘boma’.Kate has playmates of her own age but still rather clings to me. Whilst she loves
to have friends here to play with her, she will not go to play at their houses unless I go
too and stay. She always insists on accompanying me when I go out to morning tea
and always calls Janet “John’s ayah”. One morning I went to a knitting session at a
neighbours house. We are all knitting madly for the troops. As there were several other
women in the lounge and no other children, I installed Kate in the dining room with a
colouring book and crayons. My hostess’ black dog was chained to the dining room
table leg, but as he and Kate are on friendly terms I was not bothered by this.
Some time afterwards, during a lull in conversation, I heard a strange drumming
noise coming from the dining room. I went quickly to investigate and, to my horror, found
Kate lying on her back with the dog chain looped around her neck. The frightened dog
was straining away from her as far as he could get and the chain was pulled so tightly
around her throat that she could not scream. The drumming noise came from her heels
kicking in a panic on the carpet.Even now I do not know how Kate got herself into this predicament. Luckily no
great harm was done but I think I shall do my knitting at home in future.Eleanor.
Morogoro 16th November 1940
Dearest Family,
I much prefer our little house on the hillside to the larger one we had down below.
The only disadvantage is that the garden is on three levels and both children have had
some tumbles down the steps on the tricycle. John is an extremely stoical child. He
never cries when he hurts himself.I think I have mentioned ‘Morningside’ before. It is a kind of Resthouse high up in
the Uluguru Mountains above Morogoro. Jess Howe-Browne, who runs the large
house as a Guest House, is a wonderful woman. Besides running the boarding house
she also grows vegetables, flowers and fruit for sale in Morogoro and Dar es Salaam.
Her guests are usually women and children from Dar es Salaam who come in the hot
season to escape the humidity on the coast. Often the mothers leave their children for
long periods in Jess Howe-Browne’s care. There is a road of sorts up the mountain side
to Morningside, but this is so bad that cars do not attempt it and guests are carried up
the mountain in wicker chairs lashed to poles. Four men carry an adult, and two a child,
and there are of course always spare bearers and they work in shifts.Last week the children and I went to Morningside for the day as guests. John
rode on my lap in one chair and Kate in a small chair on her own. This did not please
Kate at all. The poles are carried on the bearers shoulders and one is perched quite high.
The motion is a peculiar rocking one. The bearers chant as they go and do not seem
worried by shortness of breath! They are all hillmen of course and are, I suppose, used
to trotting up and down to the town.Morningside is well worth visiting and we spent a delightful day there. The fresh
cool air is a great change from the heavy air of the valley. A river rushes down the
mountain in a series of cascades, and the gardens are shady and beautiful. Behind the
property is a thick indigenous forest which stretches from Morningside to the top of the
mountain. The house is an old German one, rather in need of repair, but Jess has made
it comfortable and attractive, with some of her old family treasures including a fine old
Grandfather clock. We had a wonderful lunch which included large fresh strawberries and
cream. We made the return journey again in the basket chairs and got home before dark.
George returned home at the weekend with a baby elephant whom we have
called Winnie. She was rescued from a mud hole by some African villagers and, as her
mother had abandoned her, they took her home and George was informed. He went in
the truck to fetch her having first made arrangements to have her housed in a shed on the
Agriculture Department Experimental Farm here. He has written to the Game Dept
Headquarters to inform the Game Warden and I do not know what her future will be, but
in the meantime she is our pet. George is afraid she will not survive because she has
had a very trying time. She stands about waist high and is a delightful creature and quite
docile. Asian and African children as well as Europeans gather to watch her and George
encourages them to bring fruit for her – especially pawpaws which she loves.
Whilst we were there yesterday one of the local ladies came, very smartly
dressed in a linen frock, silk stockings, and high heeled shoes. She watched fascinated
whilst Winnie neatly split a pawpaw and removed the seeds with her trunk, before
scooping out the pulp and putting it in her mouth. It was a particularly nice ripe pawpaw
and Winnie enjoyed it so much that she stretched out her trunk for more. The lady took
fright and started to run with Winnie after her, sticky trunk outstretched. Quite an
entertaining sight. George managed to stop Winnie but not before she had left a gooey
smear down the back of the immaculate frock.Eleanor.
