The Crescent Moon

by Francis Brett Young

From the first she realised that her game was up. She saw how simple she had been in underrating the carefulness of her enemy. “How he would laugh at me,” she thought. “He” was M‘Crae. She knew very well that Hamisi, for all his smiles, had orders not to let her pass. Indeed she was rather frightened of this new and militant Hamisi. She made the best of a bad job, and rated him soundly in kitchen Swahili for having left her in the lurch when the bwana was ill. . . . Hamisi scratched his back under the new jersey and smiled. He was evidently very proud of his cartridge belt and rifle and the big aluminium water-bottle which he wore slung over his shoulder.

In the failing light Eva made her way back to the mission. Rather a pathetic return after her plans and hopes. In the dim kitchen at the mission she saw the packet of food which she had prepared for M‘Crae. She had put the strips of biltong and the biscuits with a tin of sardines and a single cake of chocolate into a little linen bag. In spite of her disappointment she could almost have smiled at her own simplicity.

For all that, the failure of this enterprise opened her eyes to a great many things which she had stupidly missed. Hamisi in a burst of confidence and pride in his equipment had told her that he was no longer a house-boy but a soldier, a soldier of Sakharani; that Sakharani was going to give him not five rupees a month but twenty; that he, being a soldier, could have as many women as he liked wherever he went, with more tembo than he could drink, and minge nyama . . . plenty of meat. It became clear to Eva that Godovius was busy raising an armed levy of the Waluguru. That was the meaning of many strange sounds which she had heard in the forest but hardly noticed before: the blowing of a bugle, and the angry stutter of rifle fire. She began remotely to appreciate what war meant: how this wretched, down-trodden people had suddenly begun to enjoy the privileges and licence of useful cannon-fodder. After that evening she was conscious all the time of this warlike activity. All day Godovius was drilling them hard, and at night she heard the rolling of the drums, and sometimes saw reflected in the sky the lights of great fires which they lighted in their camps. In the presence of this armed force she wondered however she could have been so foolish as to think that it was possible to rescue M‘Crae. She knew once and for all that the idea of succeeding in this was ridiculous. The knowledge that she and James were really prisoners began to get on her nerves. She could not imagine what would be the end of all this. She almost wished, whatever it might be, that the end would come soon. It came, indeed, sooner than she had expected.

CHAPTER XIII

I

For two days the forest below Luguru echoed the German bugle calls and the sound of rifle fire. At night the throbbing of drums never ceased, and the reflection of great fires lit along the edge of the bush reddened the sky. During this time the prisoners at Luguru heard nothing of Godovius. James, who was still keeping to his room, had not been able to notice the absence of the mission boys. Now he was quickly regaining strength and confidence. It was strange how brightly the flame of enthusiasm burned in his poor body. As soon as the cuts on his hands were healed he began to consort once more with his friends the prophets, and Eva was almost thankful for this, for it kept him employed as no other recreation could have done. Indeed, beneath this shadow of which she alone was conscious, their solitary life became extraordinarily tranquil. The atmosphere impressed Eva in its deceptiveness. All the time she was waiting for the next move of Godovius, almost wishing that the period of suspense might end, and something, however desperate, happen. One supposes that Godovius was busy with the training of his levies, instructing them in the science of slaughter, flattering them in their new vocation of askaris with the utmost licence in the way of food and drink and lust, as became good soldiers of Germany. That was the meaning of those constant marchings and counter-marchings by day, and the fires which lit the sky at night above their camps upon the edge of the forest.

The failure of her feeble attempt at an escape had shown Eva that it was impossible for her to help M‘Crae in the way which she had planned. Again and again the idea of bargaining with Godovius returned to her. It came into her head so often, and was so often rejected beneath the imagined censure of the prisoner that, in the end, her sense of bewilderment and hopelessness was too much for her. She could not sleep at night, even when the drums, at last, were quiet. The strain was too acute for any woman to have borne.

In the end even James, who never noticed anything, became aware of her pale face and haggard eyes. Anybody but James would have seen them long before. He said:

“You’re not looking well, Eva. . . . You don’t look at all well. I hope you’re not going to be ill. You’ve taken your quinine? What’s the matter with you?”

Rather wearily she laughed him off; but James was a persistent creature. He wouldn’t let her excuses stand: and since it didn’t seem to her worth while sticking to them, she thought she might as well tell him everything and be done with it. Not quite everything. . . . She didn’t tell him about M‘Crae, for she felt that his clumsiness would be certain to irritate her. She told him, as simply as she could, that they were both prisoners; that England was at war with Germany, and how she had promised Godovius that they wouldn’t try to escape. “I don’t suppose it will make any difference to us out here, so far away from everywhere,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you before. And of course you were too ill to be bothered.”