Shout at the Devil - Smith Wilbur. Страница 5

, I'd eat you without spitting out the bones."

"That, sir, is your opinion. But I must warn you I was highly thought of in the light heavyweight division."

"Oh, goddamn it." Flynn shook his head wearily and capitulated. "What difference does it make what we call the mother-loving place. Sit down, for God's sake. Here! Let's drink to whatever you want to call it."

Sebastian sat on the carpet and accepted the mug that Flynn handed him. "We shall call it-" he paused dramatically, "we shall call it New Liverpool," and he lifted the mug.

"You know, said Flynn, "for a limey, you aren't a bad guy," and the rest of the night was devoted to celebrating the birth of the new colony.

In the dawn the empire builders were paddled ashore in the dug-out by two of Flynn's gun-bearers.

The canoe ran aground on the narrow muddy beach of New Liverpool, and the sudden halt threw both of them off-balance. They collapsed gently together on to the floor of the dug-out, and had to be assisted ashore by the paddlers.

Sebastian was formally dressed for the occasion but had buttoned his waistcoat awry and he kept tugging at it as he peered about him.

Now at high tide, New Liverpool was about a thousand yards long and half as broad. At the highest point it rose not more than ten feet above the level of the Rufiji river.

Fifteen miles from the mouth the water was only slightly tainted with salt and the mangrove trees had thinned out and given way to tall matted elephant grass and slender bottle palms.

Flynn's gun-bearers and porters had cleared a small opening above the beach, and had erected a dozen grass huts around one of the palm trees. It was a dead palm, its crown leaves long gone, and Flynn pointed an unsteady finger at it.

"Flag pole," he said indistinctly, took Sebastian's elbow and led him towards it.

Tugging at his waistcoat with one hand and clutching the bundled Union Jack that Flynn had provided in the other, Sebastian felt a surge of emotion within him as he looked up at the slender column of the palm tree.

"Leave me," he mumbled and shook off Flynn's guiding hand. "We got to do this right. Solemn occasion very solemn."

"Have a drink." Flynn offered him the gin bottle, and when Sebastian waved it away, he lifted it to his own lips.

"Shouldn't drink on parade." Sebastian frowned at him.

"Bad form."

Flynn coughed at the vicious sting of the liquor and smote himself on the chest with his free hand.

"Should draw the men up in a hollow square," Sebastian went on. "Ready to salute the flag."

"Jesus, man, get on with it," grumbled Flynn.

"Got to do it right."

"Oh, hell," Flynn shrugged with resignation, then issued a string of orders in Swahili.

Puzzled and amused, Flynn's fifteen retainers gathered in a ragged circle about the flag pole. They were a curious band, gathered from half a dozen tribes, dressed in an assortment of cast-off Western clothing, half of them armed with ancient double-barrelled elephant rifles from which Flynn had carefully filed the serial numbers so they could never be traced back to him.

"Fine body of men," Sebastian beamed at them in alcoholic goodwill, unconsciously using the words of a Brigadier who had inspected Sebastian's cadet parade at Rugby.

"Let's get this show on the road," Flynn suggested.

"My friends," Sebastian obliged, "we are gathered here today..." It was a longish speech but Flynn weathered it by nipping away quietly at the gin bottle, and at last Sebastian ended with his voice ringing and tears of great emotion prickling his eyelids, In the sight of God and man, I hereby declare this island part of the glorious Empire of His Majesty, George V, King of England, Emperor of India, Protector of the Faith..." His voice wavered as he tried to remember the correct form, and he ended lamely, and all that sort of thing."

A silence fell on the assembly and Sebastian fidgeted with embarrassment. "What do I do now?" he enquired of Flynn O'Flynn in a stage whisper.

"Get that goddamned flag up."

"Ah, the flag!" Sebastian exclaimed with relief, and then uncertainly, "How?"

Flynn considered this at length. "I guess you have to climb up the palm tree."

With shrill cries of encouragement from the gun-bearers, and with Flynn shoving and cursing from below, the Governor of New Liverpool managed to scale the flag pole to a height of about fifteen feet. There he secured the flag and descended again so swiftly he tore the buttons off the front of his waistcoat, and twisted his ankle. He was borne away to one of the grass huts singing, "God save our Gracious King" in a voice broken with gin, pain and patriotism.

For the rest of their stay on the island, the Union Jack flew at half mast above the encampment.

Carried initially by two Wakamba fishermen, it took fully ten days for the word of the annexation to reach the outpost of the German Empire one hundred miles away at Mahenge. - Mahenge was in the bush country above the coastal lowlands. It consisted, in its entirety, of four trading posts owned by Indian shopkeepers and the German boma.

The German boma was a large stone building, thatched, set about with wide verandas over which purple bougainvillea climbed in profusion. Behind it stood the barracks and parade ground of the African Askari, and before it a lonely flag pole from which streamed the black, red and yellow of the empire. A speck in the vastness of the African bush, seat of government for an area the size of France. An area that spread south to the Rovurna river and the border of Portuguese Mozambique, east to the Indian Ocean, and west to the uplands of Sao Hill and Mbeya.