Dr Hurley zanzibar

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http://www.lukehurley.co.nz/2010/02/02/zanzibar-1964-part1/Zanzibar

Zanzibar 1964 Part1-8

Dr Hurley

Zanzibar, seen first from far out at sea is a long, low shore. It appears insubstantial and almostindistinguishable from streamers of distant cloud which intensify the remote vastness of the Indian

Ocean.

(Eds Note: This is part 1 of a series of eye witness accounts written by Lukes Dad who was working

in Zanzibar at the time with his family including Luke.)

As the steamer approaches, the shore becomes gradually more substantial and long beaches become

visible backed by screens of palms. The palms are dense but, at intervals, unrolled as it were by the

steady progress of the steamer, there are partial clearings giving sight of crumbling Arab villas, thick

walls, sightless windows, an air of disuse and decay.

From time to time as the shore unrolls, groups of outrigger canoes can be seen dancing on their

reflections like long-legged flies. These lead the eye to discover clusters of huts, the dwellings of

fishermen, partly hidden by the dense purple shadows thrown by the palms upon the beach. The roofs

are of thatch, dried palm fronds called makuti.

The shore has a listening, waiting quality and is forbidding and mysterious. It seems imbued with a

living personality; it seems to watch, it seems to repel rather than invite. The imagination conjures up

unseen watchers, silent, aware, hostile. It is like going back in time to an earlier state of the planet oreven to another planet.

The harbour is dotted by small coral islands, miniature replicas of Zanzibar herself, and the waterfrontpresents a limpid white facade of slender buildings and, tall among them, the rambling, massive palace

of the Sultan and the filigree clock-tower of Belt el Ajeib the House of Wonders.

THE SHAMBAS

It is impossible in this setting not to think of the many many episodes of violence which have clouded

the skies of this unhappy island. There are 640 square miles of island and, round about, the heedless

sea. Where can you escape? Your skin colour, your clothes, your long grey beard allow of noconcealment. Where is no border to cross with your few belongings, there are no mountains to take

cover in. The hunters will find you and surround you, you will fail to protect your child and you will

see the rising sun flicker on the blades as they descend.

THE STREETS OF ZANZIBAR

The streets of Zanzibar are tortuous and intersect erratically. Walking into any one of them is like

walking into a maze. After walking a short distance it is at first impossible to tell the alley by which

you entered. Like cracks in dried mud, the streets are little more than canyons whose depths, in places,only know the light and warmth of the sun at the times when it is directly overhead.

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Eventually you turn a corner and emerge into an open space. This space, unfamiliar because seen from

a different angle, may be your original point of entry or it may be right across the city or indeed

anywhere on its perimeter.

The houses form enormous blocks of three to four storeys on average. Each storey is a cube andadjacent houses at first one storey high can clearly be seen to have grown at different rates so that one

is three cubes high and the next two. It is this unequal growth which gives an Arab city itscharacteristic outlines.

When the second house grows up by the addition of another storey, the side windows of the firstnecessarily become communicating portals between adjacent houses. The walls of the tall houses are of

crumbling plaster with a weathered texture of pale pastel shades.

There are rows and rows of windows protected by shutters which are coloured more stridently than the

walls and which present fore-shortened lines of rust red, viridian green, cobalt blue, burnt sienna.Beneath them, at street level, shop awnings, gaily striped, cover trestle tables overflowing with a

profusion of fruit partly obscured by ink-black shadow.

It is possible to pass through large sections of the city from house to house at ground and second floor

level emerging into the street only rarely and then merely to cross a narrow alley. It is also possible towalk across the city from roof to roof and see lively streams of colour flowing along, far below.

Before going down to the street again, pause to take in once more the vast rooftop area which is the

uppermost tiers of life. Many families live at this level often under shanties built on the topmost flat

surface. There are bui buffs hanging up to dry, saris and scanties hanging on clothes lines, womenlooking, groups sitting and conversing and even people tending small gardens away beyond. You can

see the Indian Ocean between the taller slender buttresses of the mass which includes Beit airport and

the Palace of the Sultan.

All the various smells, like the notes of a symphony, are blended into one unmistakable smell thesmell of Zanzibar. The piquant blends with the foetid and the sickly sweet. Individual elements, like

solo phrases, emerge from time to time depending on the state of the tide, the shifting of a lazy breeze,

or proximity to a particularly powerful source.

An erotic breath of mimosa emanates from a passing hui hui. The nostrils prickle to the tang of

smouldering copra. Near the fruit stalls there is a sickly sweet smell from rotting loquats like the breath

of a sherry drinker.

The sounds are varied and continuous. The curious chants of itinerant vendors blend with the yap yapyapping of small bulb horns on the home-made hand carts of sweet-meat sellers. Bicycle bells ring all

the time. The children chant their rhythmic play, babies cry, old men argue. Radios compete with each

other from every window. Strange blends of curiously pitched string instruments complete with ElvisPresley, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and news bulletins in Kiswahili.

OUR HOUSE

We lived in a yellow-washed three-storey building, a typical massive piece of Arab domestic

architecture, impregnable as a fortress and possibly designed with this view in mind. It could be seenfor a distance of almost a mile.

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Our ground floor was characteristically bare, like a warehouse or a godown. Access from the street was

through a double door of timber, secured by a weathered beam. Up and out of this shadowy space a

stairway led into the principal room which was as vast as, and reminiscent of, a Saxon tithe-barn.

Another wooden gate at ground-floor level gave access to a small courtyard into which opened thedoors of the servants quarters. All of this ground floor region had once been the living space for the

slaves who slept on stone buttresses. Staples and rings let into the massive walls bore testimony to their

past occupancy.

The house was L-shaped with two high stone walls and a small courtyard. From this courtyard woodensteps led to a verandah on each floor. The top floor was freely accessible to the large colony of bush-

babies which lived in the trees of Victoria Gardens and there was a clear view of the main road to

Mazzizini. I could glimpse a corner of the hospital half-hidden by the trees. From the other end of theverandah there was a view of the street leading into the depths of the town.

WORKING SOUNDS MORNING IN ZANZIBAR

I have often thought that there is a seemingly haphazard sequence in the life of a street which would

turn out to be fully rounded and logical if studied daily. I remember most clearly the mornings or theevenings. Each dawn I awoke to the cry of the muzzein chanting his Arabic prayers, a mournful and

weird sound, the cry of a soul lost forever in the depths of an abyss. The whine of the wind in desolate

places, the lost and desolate predicament of the human being trapped on an inexorably inimical planet,a cry of loss, a despairing wail of loneliness.

A gardener from the nearby park, taking flowers to the Sultans palace, pushed his handcart along the

road. His cart sounded as though one of the wheels were square. It made a curious grinding rattle,

punctuated by a rhythmic knock, pause, knock, pause, knock which became louder and louder and thenapproached, deafeningly amplified as he reached the confines of the street and passed beneath the

bedroom window. Then the knock, pause, knock, pause, knock diminished into a distant featureless

rumble and faded away.

This was the first working sound of the day. The second was a faint rumbling, coming from afar whichrapidly increased in volume and became identifiable as the beat of galloping hoofs and the clanking of

milk cans. It was a donkey cart drawn by the liveliest donkey possible, beating sparks out of the road,

the cans swaying violently and the driver, hunched and indolent, carried along, lost in a dream of hisown. This din would also be suddenly amplified as the equipage entered the street and for a lime it

sounded like a locomotive and drowned all other sounds.

A group of cyclists came next, houseboys on their way to Mazzizini, their laughter making their

balance precarious as they listened with appreciation to one of their number, always the same one,imitating the falsetto pidgin Swahili instructions of his employer who must have talked a lot of

nonsense, judging from the hilarity.

Individual sounds became lost soon after and merged into an increasing volume as more and more

people and vehicles began to take up the tasks of the day. Time to get up and watch the crows chasingthe sparrows.

The streets were almost empty from 2pm to 4pm. All who could remained out of the sun which blazed

overhead melting the tarmac on the road and seeming to have weight as well as heat. A short-sleeved

shirt and light-weight slacks were all the clothing one could tolerate and, in the office, resting the

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forearms carelessly on the desk would saturate the papers with sweat and cause them to stick to the skin

and come off the table, stuck to the forearm.

1961

The election had been won in fact by a single vote, which gave the Zanzibar Nationalist Party a singleseat majority. Cabinet Ministers were chosen and had all the dignity associated with such rank yielded

to them, apart from that of final executive powers. It was, as it were, a trainee government. During thisperiod tempers had cooled down, though curfew was still in force.

After about six years I felt I knew everyone of any prominence in Zanzibar, from street vendors toexalted officials. So one of the most noteworthy features of the days succeeding the revolution, after a

semblance of normal daily activity had been restored, was the large number of unfamiliar faces to be

seen. A great many of these new people, Africans included, appeared to be in positions of authority.This was something which excited my curiosity. I wondered how much of the organisation had

originated outside Zanzibar.

The men on the losing side were either killed, or maimed or detained or shipped to where they had

come from as slaves had formerly been shipped. One day when overt violence had ceased and it wassafe to walk the streets, I encountered Balawai who had formerly been Head of Immigration. He was

walking in deep and unseeing dejection along the street, unshaven, unkempt and horribly hungry. He

had been summarily dismissed from his post and now had no means of livelihood. He had been in and

out of prison several times so I was told.

WHAT YOU SAW

It was embarrassing to walk along and encounter some of these men when the only Arabs who had

retained their former status were members of the Umma party who had, if anything, gained ground dueto devious methods and leftist affiliations. For the time being at least the doctors were irreplaceable.

The overtones and undertones of the political climate were becoming intolerable. Almost every person

of any standing who had favoured the deposed party was in a state of uncertainty about his own future.

If he were an Arab, it was virtually certain which party he had favoured. His beard, colour and clothesproclaimed his allegiance to the Zanzibar Nationalist Party. If he were an Indian or a Goan it was

likely, but not certain, where his sympathies lay. Most of these people had favoured what they were

inclined to call the more civilised crowd, the Arabs. An Arab who enjoyed the favour of the

Revolutionary Council was so held because of a common allegiance to a more universal cause, a causein the furtherance of which the island was to become curtained off from its friend and neighbour

Tanganika.

Arabs had been killed, maimed, dispossessed, and sacked from their jobs. Large numbers had been heldin detention camps and afterwards shipped to Muscat under the same conditions of privation which had

once been the lot of the slaves. Others had been into and out of the prison several times for questioning.

Some were allowed to retain their jobs because the jobs in question (doctoring, for example) could not,

for the time being, be done by anyone else.

An Arab doctor felt that he worked for an antagonistic master, that he was on sufferance, that his

services were retained with reluctance and that he would be dispensed with at the earliest opportunity.

There were grounds for such sentiments. An Arab doctor who had daily access to the imprisoned Arab

exministers of the deposed government, was treading on dangerous ground. Not only was he carefullywatched lest his daily visits to the prison be made use of for counter-revolutionary purposes, but he was

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probably under constant pressure to make use of his access to the deposed leaders for just this purpose.

A false move might be misunderstood with dire consequences to him. He was also at the mercy of any

malicious enemy who might destroy him by denouncing him as a spy. In addition, he had such an

enemy a former subordinate, who since the revolution had become a superior.

For reasons of this sort it was understandable that when one of the ministers became seriously ill he

should have been especially anxious to transfer the responsibility to me.

BROKEN LOCKS LOOTED BUILDINGS

The shops remained half-shuttered with their doors ajar ready for instant closure. That they were openat all was due to the fear of disobeying an order of the Revolutionary Council. Some remained closed,

however, notwithstanding this instruction which had come over the radio. (The radio had become an

instrument of Government.)

There was talk of rape, of houses entered and searched apparently at random by bands of men whosecredentials were never shown. Were they gangs of opportunists or were they acting on instructions? I

wondered how many of my personal acquaintances had been killed. Locks hung broken and half-

dislodged from many doors. There were many broken windows. The Indian pick-up, its windscreenshattered, remained in the street pushed to one side. Its deep black tyre marks were still clearly visible

in the soft tarmac. The black official cars with their black, green and blue pennants fluttering passed

and repassed over these marks, altering course a little to negotiate the obstruction.

Even then it required courage to walk in the streets. One felt uncomfortably conspicuous, onesfootfalls echoed. The empty joylessness, the long and worried faces and the apparent interdiction of

laughter, weighed on the spirit.

The house adjoining mine was empty for a time. The Riamis who had lived there, had left before the

Revolution. Further along, another house which had been lived in by a brother of the Sultan was emptytoo. Its emptiness also antedated the Revolution. It was odd that so many relatives of the Sultan had left

during the weeks of Zanzibar Nationalist Party rule. It was odd also that these houses had not been

decorated at the time of the Independence ceremony.

However, they were not empty for long. A number of Chinese soon occupied one, a number of girlscame to occupy the other. None of the girls was older than sixteen. There was also a little boy about

twelve years old.

The Chinese, there were about ten of them, walked from their house every day to their Embassy which

was also in my view close to the seashore. They walked in single file looking neither to right nor left. Inever saw any one of them smile or address what might appear to be a flippant or a humorous remark

to one of his fellows. For the most part they were silent. Joyless, like an empty atmosphere, they came

and went like clockwork.

The Riami house, now occupied by girls, never seemed to sleep. They had Arab and African physical

characteristics with Arab predominating. They were by no means quiet and spent their time dancing,

quarrelling and singing. Judging by the number of times I heard her name called, Silirna was the boss.

One day, after nightfall, I was standing on the high verandah looking along the empty street. Therewere no guards visible at the time, possibly because they tended to merge with the shadows.

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Two young Africans appeared from the depths of the town and slowly made their way along the street

until they came to the Riami house next door. They were very smartly dressed and aged about eighteen

or so.

They stood and seemed somewhat indecisive. They talked together in lowered voices for quite a longtime. Then one went to the door of the house while the other stationed himself across the street, the

better to scrutinise the highest window of the house the part where, judging from her frequentappearance at that window, Silima lived_

The man across the street then began to shout Silima repeatedly, while at the same time, hiscompanion rapped with his knuckles at the door. After quite a time the upstairs window was thrown

open and a long, shouted conversation ensued which I was unable to understand. Finally the door

below was opened and the men admitted to the house.

Silimas noisy household was in marked contrast to all the others in the street. Though many wereunoccupied, some of them harboured anything from six to ten people. But the occupied houses were as

silent as the unoccupied ones. It was as if the inmates feared to do anything whatsoever to attract

attention. They showed no lights and they played no music.

I was becoming dull myself. I had no inclination to paint or read. When work was over I returned to myhouse. Nothing within it had any particular interest for me. I had packing to do and the process seemed

interminable. Between spasms of activity in this regard I would scan the streets and open places from

one window after another and became, for the time, a curious watcher, a minder of other peoplesbusiness.

People did not visit each others houses at that time. There were, in any case, fewer and fewer friends

to pass the time with. One by one ex-officials were taking the plane and relieved, without exception, to

be on their way at last. There was a general exodus going on. Indians slipped away to Dar es Salaam,Mombasa and Bombay. They were free to go, so long as they did not take more than 10 in currency

with them. Many of them were shorn of their jewels, some were seized and imprisoned, but the

numbers remaining in Zanzibar lessened and lessened as time went by.

KNOCKING AT THE DOOR

It was an hour after sundown. From time to time I could hear muttered remarks which the guards made

to each other. They stood close against the wall of the house in the street below but were not visible

from the windows. Since they were always very quiet, I sometimes forgot about them and forgot tolower my voice when talking to Hassan or to myself. I sometimes spoke aloud when I was alone

because it helped to relieve the tension.

Hassan was late. I wondered what had happened to him because he usually insisted on coming even

when I gave him the evening off. I became restless and began to wander about the house from the circleof light, going from room to room and down to the shadowy basement to the stairs leading to the inner

courtyard where Hassan lived before the revolution. I thought that perhaps he had come back early and

gone to sleep. But there was no sign of him. I found, however, that one of the bicycles was missing.Hassan must have taken it without leave, and this disturbed me a little.

Having made a careful check of all the doors I went back to the small rough table under the naked bulb

a Rembrandt setting and I took out my pen and diary `careful what you write.

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`Hassan had changed, I thought. I would look up suddenly and find his eyes upon me, instantly

flicking away. `Have you been there all the time, Hassan? Why did he always stand partly concealed

in a long shadow, half hidden by a pillar? In fact they all did that. They quite instinctively always

placed themselves and some other object in the line of your vision.

In the Cuban revolution, a voice on the radio was saying, they started with only six pistols. In the

Zanzibar revolution we had only one gun between us at the start. Words to that effect. I wasntattending very well.

A few days before Hassan had asked me What is this socialism, Sir? in the course of my reply he haddrawn me to the centre of the floor, away from the windows, out of ear-shot of the guards. Another

time he had said But you work with your hands, dont you, Sir?

*****

The next morning when I emerged on the street below, Mrs Comes was waiting to way-lay me. We

didnt expect to see you today, she said. We thought you had been taken away during the night.

There was a loud banging on your door about three oclock this morning. We thought they had come toget you. Theyre after the Europeans now. I never gave Mrs Comes any change. Moreover, I was

already concentrating on the work before me at the hospital and this was more than enough to engagemy whole attention.

NEW ENCOUNTERS, NEW STATUS

Sometimes one forgot about particular people until one encountered them by accident on the street.

Such encounters usually meant a brief, silent exchange during which both parties thought for a momentof the recent disorders and wondered about the effects which these disorders might have had.

Seeing a familiar face was the first certainty that the person encountered was not dead. Secondly, you

wondered what he or she had been through. Thirdly, now that previous secret affiliations had come into

the open, you wondered where the other person stood. Why were the two impecunious Arabs who kepta small huckster shop alive? I often walked to their shop in Stone Town in the afternoon to buy my

cigarettes. This was an area where many Arabs had lost their lives. I had seen many in the wards who

looked just like the two from the shop. Not only were these two brothers alive and in good spirits buttheirs was the only shop whose wares were openly and profusely on display. Arab and Indian-owned

shops all around were now shut or half-shut, but the shop in question, typical of shops ?f the Arab

followers of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (Z.N.P.) had passed unscathed through all the troubles.

A man whom I knew equally well, a poverty-stricken Arab petrol pump attendant, had been shot. Beingharmless, just as Nzee was harmless, somehow I had not expected him to suffer any harm. He worked

for an Indian proprietor who described the pointless manner in which the man had met his end. He had

been shot off-hand, the gunman firing with the same sort of action with which one throws away acigarette-end.

Some acquaintances had been changed terribly and had looked blankly at the ground before them. They

recognised me only after a momentary hesitation and seemed ashamed to have me see them in their

altered state. An airport official, for example, who had always been very friendly and effusive passedme by within a few feet, unshaven and harrowed looking. When I greeted him I instantly felt sorry I

had done so. He had seen me but had not wished to talk to me. He was ashamed. I was possibly a

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reminder to him of former happier occasions when he was gainfully employed and full of the

importance of his position.

Members of the Ruwehy family, patients of mine, passed by with looks of introspective despair. Mister

Suchak had achieved what he and I had finally agreed had been impossible he had visibly lost weight.But he was anxious to speak to me and greeted me in his usual way Yes, Doctor, to which I replied

Yes, Mister Suchak.

A NIGHT CALL

The telephone was ringing at 2.30 in the morning. It was Saturday 14 January 1964. The voice at theother end, though familiar, was not a voice I ever heard outside of office hours. I was alarmed at this,

even before I got the message.

Theres trouble. Stay where you are for the moment. Its big this time, touch and go I understand, and

heavy casualties expected, but not just now. We are doing all thats necessary. Stay where you are andget some rest.

I put down the phone feeling a fierce resentment. I did not look forward to hours on end, case after caseand going from one operating theatre to the other. The work was tiring and worrying. I had had it all

before. I had come to abhor violence, to be frightened by it, to be overcome by the uselessness of it.

I walked into the shadowy living room which was open to the night on all sides, and the night was full

of noise like that of an immense firework display. I looked for but did not see rockets in the sky. I was

struck by the sinister import of the alarmed cawing of crows. My anxiety was of such great intensity

that it benumbed me. I stood in the dark and listened, all thought and motion eliminated by theenormous din. I went to one window after the other and looked out into the black sky, still half-

expecting bursts of coloured light, but I could see nothing. The night was black and there was no moon

or stars.

At one moment bursts of gunfire seemed to come from very near at hand, the next from far away.There would be a fusillade of shots, then a single shot, then another, then a pause, then another

fusillade. With each shot I imagined a man dead under the trees or wounded mortally and crawling

amid the tripping, snake-like roots and the haphazard graves.

When I arrived at the hospital, light was everywhere, cars were converging, the matron, superintendent

and assistant matrons were all at their posts and in uniform. Even the Director of Medical Services was

there, unfamiliarly unshaven, his face white and worried.

Extra beds were being set up, extra stores were being checked, ambulances were rounding up off-dutynurses, theatre attendants and laboratory staff. Great activity prevailed amid the constant noise of

gunfire and a sense of uncertainty and anxiety.

A few casualties had appeared and were being dealt with. They were men who had minor injuries, and

men who had been able to make their own way to the hospital. It seemed that the battle was engagingthe attention of the antagonists to the exclusion of all other considerations. The fact that the

government forces were not transporting casualties to the hospital was regarded as definite proof that

things were really serious. It meant that they were fully occupied.

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Telephone messages to police headquarters had been of little use. The Commissioner of Police had

been contacted but seemed breathless and preoccupied. His replies had been drowned by the noise of

splintering glass and loud, amplified detonations, making it clear that he was in the height of trouble.

Previous experience of multiple casualties had taught me that I would go into action last of all, andcontinue longer. So I drove back to the house to get some food and to alert the family. Daylight was

breaking by now, and though my ears were filled with gunfire and the clamour of the crows, there wasnothing for the eye to see.

Mr and Mrs Gomes and Mrs Balucci, our neighbours, appeared from across the road. Mrs Balucciasked me if it was safe for her to go to Mass. I opened my mouth to say Yes, and I said No, and

was glad afterwards. How could she have asked? I was terrified, though made myself appear otherwise.

As we spoke, the sinister blasts of gunfire went on, seeming at one moment to be all around us, far faraway the next.

What I recall at this time most of all is the craving for knowledge of what was going on. I tuned the

radio to the local station, Radio Nguja (the correct name for Zanzibar). It emitted a high-pitched signal

but this would, I hoped, give place, sooner or later, to a voice probably telling everybody to keepcalm.

The police, some two hundred trained riflemen who took the place of the military in Zanzibar, had the

firearms. Their opponents had pangas, the silent weapons.

The police had learned from the recent riots when they had been too slow to act vigorously and

were now acting with firmness, ruthlessness, and decision. It was only a matter of time before the risingwould be crushed.

Suddenly the radio fell silent. It seemed to give the lie to my wishful thinking and implied with great

force that all was not well. Two single shots exploded with terrifying noise very close by, and then

there was a period of silence into which a new sound gradually crept, increasing rapidly in intensityuntil it became recognisable as a loudspeaker van. I got to the window in time to identify it as a police

car, which sped towards Mazzizini. It was a reassuring sight for all its evident haste. I made out the

words curfew and houses, and stay off the streets.

The real development was the sound of voices shouting in the distance. On looking out I could make

out a group in the middle distance between the house and the hospital. Seven men intermittently

concealed the trees which lined the road. It was obvious that they had emerged from the cover afforded

by the shrubs of the park known as Victoria Gardens. There was something about them which arouseduneasy suspicion. They looked like riot police who were neither smart nor properly equipped. Two of

them had steel helmets and wicker-work shields, like the tops of circular laundry baskets, and carried

police riot sticks. Another carried a service rifle. He was constantly peering up into the trees andshifting his position scanning the road in both directions, and scanning the cover on either side.

As a consequence of the riots and civil disturbances which had occurred the previous year and which

had not been firmly crushed at the very beginning owing to the tardiness of the police who were slow,

well-meaning, peaceful chaps a specially trained emergency unit had been formed. I had seem themat work on various occasions, notably when they had charged and dispersed the demonstrators outside

the court room in which Barn had been sentenced.

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There was no certain means of knowing whether these men were riot police or not. They were dressed

in tatters, long-tailed shirts hanging untidily outside their khaki shorts. They were very vulnerable, right

on the main road and were bound to be engaged by a police patrol. The degree of dishevelment and the

incompleteness of their equipment might have been accounted for by a surprise attack, leaving themtime only to dress hastily and grab what equipment they could. Furthermore, the Special Branch often

dressed themselves deliberately in nondescript clothing.

They were talking together in rough, angry-sounding voices and while they talked, they kept moving

around the same spot. The rifleman had been a few paces apart from the others, and his voice waslouder than the rest. But he set my doubts at rest by leaning his rifle against a tree and moving away

from it, separating himself from it by a good six or seven paces. This was irregular, I thought. No

service rifleman would leave his rifle in this manner. Therefore, they were revolutionaries. I becamecertain in that moment that I was observing a group of violent men who had taken the law into their

own hands. Their possession of so many items of police equipment indicated that some success had

attended them and suggested that the regular police force must have sustained a setback at their hands.

The group moved closer very slowly, shouting to each other very raucously, glancing all around, eachman slowly gyrating and the group as a whole constantly changing in relationship to each other.

Hassan had come quietly some moments before and had been inspecting the men with silent

concentration. He said to me now in a whisper, full of anxiety, These are bad men, sir, very bad men

he was adding something more when my attention was distracted from his words by the sound of avehicle. I caught the words Makonde and toka Kenya but the sound of the coming vehicle held my

attention. The men shouted loudly and angrily at the car which must have been running straight at

them.

The white Anglia swerved violently as the driver made to turn off the main road, aiming at the side

road which passed by the open aspect of our house around the enclosure where the family of graves

was situated. The rifleman fired as the car, tyres screaming, barely made the turning and raced away

out of earshot.

The explosive sound set us all trembling. The sound set the crows to renewed raucous clamour, and as

the shock of it diminished, the men were even nearer, their faces quite distinct now and dark with an

anger such as I had never seen on a human face before. It was probably compounded with fear, the sort

of fear which drives a man to rain blow after blow on a victim already dead.

My family and I and Hassan were now in a group in the middle of the floor, afraid to approach the

windows, trying to keep the small one quiet. We could hear the men who were now in the street outside

the main wooden door. Hassan had slipped down and secured it minutes before. Even so simple an actrequired the highest courage.

Another blast sounded, this time amplified a hundred times by the confines of the street. From this time

onward shot after shot sounded, giving me the impression that the shot fired at the Anglia was the first

shot of the campaign as far as that particular gunman was concerned. From then on he seemed to fire atrandom into the eaves of the houses. All the houses were shuttered and the group of seven had the

street to themselves.

There was an ominous noisy debate going on outside, the men sounding angry and violent with each

other. We waited for them to batter at the door with their clubs. At one time the voices seemed to come

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from the floor directly beneath us. Was the smaller door secure? Had they found their way in without

hindrance? We waited for another explosion, for their feet on the stairs, for violence beyond

imagination, but they passed on along the street surely into a trap of opposition. Where on earth were

the police? In one of three situations amongst the dead and the wounded, helping to lead therevolution, or sailing away into the open sea on the Sultans boat, the Said Khalifa.

Again there was the sound of another vehicle approaching the town at a headlong speed. It was a smallpickup full of Indians. There were three adults crammed together in the front and there were children

on the back clinging together as the vehicle swayed, almost leaping off the road. They were fleeingfrom some danger into the safety of the town.

The driver cannot have seen what was awaiting. The pickup passed into the street, passed our house in

amplified sound, and then there was a scream of skidding tyres and the crash of broken glass, a violentexplosion, loud angry shouts and children screaming.

I placed myself cautiously so that my back was pressed against the wall near a side window, and I was

able to get a view along the street. I saw the shattered pickup and the children cowering in the back.

Then the children were obscured by the group which encircled them, clubs raised. I heard the childrenwhimper as the clubs struck them repeatedly, and I saw them thrown violently onto the ground.

There was no doubt about the identity of the next vehicle to appear. It was a police lorry, a reassuring

sight. It was moving soberly into the town following the direction taken by the group and by the

pickup. I could see the steel helmets of the men it carried. Obviously the rising had been contained andmopping up operations were on foot. I looked forward vindictively to the retribution which was in the

offing for the group of violent men.

I called out to my family that there would be a battle and that they should stay away from the windows

they were in the bedroom because it seemed to offer a modicum of additional security. I myself,however, resumed my observation point at a window which overlooked the street. From here I saw the

lorry pass and had a clear view of the men in the back, some twenty-five or thirty, fully equipped for

combat.

But they were not policemen at all! They were allies of the group first seen, who had positionedthemselves and were waiting by the broken Indian pickup which was now a roadblock. The men in the

police lorry cheered and raised their right hands giving the V sign index and long finger separated,

the sign of Winston Churchill to their comrades-in-arms. The comrades-in-arms replied in likemanner. There was no purpose at all in ringing the police.

This fact may be divulged at the present juncture though naturally I did not know about it until later.

My immediate problem was to come to terms with the fact that there were no signs of any resistance to

the revolutionaries. I imagined that a regrouping of Government forces was being carried out or thatour area happened to be behind revolutionary lines. I had been told that a message had been sent

requesting aid and, like everybody else, I frequently glanced at the sky and looked out to sea. But sea

and sky were both empty and were destined to remain so.

As far as I knew at the time, however, the streets and the open spaces between myself and the hospitalwere bristling with revolutionaries, and I had to call for transport and for any information available

from the Hospital Superintendent.

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I went to the telephone, looked at it, and paused. It lay there black, squat and silent. It had taken on a

sinister aspect. I was afraid to pick it up and had to summon all my willpower. But as my fingers

touched it and before I could grasp it, it came to life of its own accord. The person at the other end was

a female and she was so frightened that she could hardly speak. Theres shooting in the street, thereare men everywhere. Theyve shot our Askari, through the chest.

I think hes dead or dying. I cant get through to the hospital. You must come. She was gasping,making articulation difficult. You must come at once. She showed a touching faith. What the hell

could I do? What did she expect me to do? To my certain knowledge there were already eight peoplelying dead or half dead in the street. With every shot I imagined another. Im sure if I had had a gun

just then, I would have leaned out of a window and fired it. And that would certainly have been the end

of all of us.

In view of the danger in the streets, it was decided that an ambulance should come and fetch me and the

family. In this way I would be able to do my work untroubled by the thought of them besieged in the

house or at least cut off and very much a prey to unspeakable anxiety.

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PAINTING/GLOOM

My great trouble in times of upheaval is that my chief obsession in life, namely painting, appearsmeaningless and irrelevant. The canvas seems so flimsy, and the paint marks on the canvas seem so

inept, so helpless, when the world around is in cataclysm.

I was not myself. I was one infinitesimal apprehension. I felt that I was in a dark, closed tunnel, that Ihad lost my identity. I had heard of grave misfortunes which had befallen others. One mans wife was

shot before his eyes. Another had been taken away at night, maybe to have been flogged, there was a

lot of flogging.

But what I am really trying to say is that during this time I was not the person whom I had known fromchildhood. Though outwardly calm enough, inside there was a man of new emotions. I experienced a

sense of exhilaration and nightmare mixed up with other feelings, but above all I had a sense of being

shut up in a dark place. The clouds seemed to be no higher than the trees.

CROWS

Once, dozing on the verandah at midday, I was awakened by hoarse, yet penetrating cries, close to myear. I opened my eyes and found myself looking into the very bright, predatory eye of a crow. He had

been watching my eyelids as he stood there on the balustrade two feet away. The movement of my

eyelids would tell him whether I was alive or dead. His cries were such as a crow makes just before hemakes his sortie: cries at once intimidating and alarming as though the crow were himself alarmed at

the risk he is about to undertake.

During these days the crows looked down and made their weird music, gazed in alarm and greed at the

bodies beneath the trees.

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ESCAPE TO THE HOSPITAL

Just across the street from our main door there was a narrow alleyway leading to the seashore. Thisafforded cover for the ambulance. We had opened the double doors and were standing back from the

street out of sight of the gunmen who were standing at a distance of about two hundred yards from us.

We had to get across the width of the street to reach the ambulance and we hoped we would not be shotdown as we crossed. We had to decide whether it was better to run across one by one or in a group.

There were six of us, including Hassan, (one son having gone to Pemba on a fishing expedition).

Which was the correct

manoeuvre we never came to know but we decided that if we crossed one by one each succeedingperson would be in greater jeopardy and the last one might have been hit. Therefore, we all made a

sudden dash, got across safely no shot was fired and scrambled into the ambulance and kept

ourselves close to the floor as it swung into the street and out along the road. We reached the hospitalvery quickly and there we had another shock coming.

We had rushed from fear to fear. It was swarming with revolutionaries. Both main gates were underheavy guard, armed men were placed at every vantage point. Each had the silent angry aspect of an

enemy, eyes cold and watchful. Many had rifles, others had clubs or pangas. One carried an axe. Wewere completely in their power. It remained to be seen how they would use this power.

One point at least was speedily made clear. No ambulance was to leave the hospital. The wounded

were to be left to lie where they fell and no attempt was to be made to reach them.

The telephone in the theatre office rang again and again with scarcely a pause between calls. Eachappeal for assistance added a fragment to the developing pattern of events and told of a gradual

penetration of terror into the depths of the town. It was a picture of unbridled violence, of suspension of

law, of liquidation of the police forces.

The first call was from the wife of a bank official. Her message made it clear that the forces I had seenfrom my own home, the group of seven followed by the truckload of irregulars who gave the

Churchillian V sign, were penetrating deeper into the town. This message was succeeded immediately

by a phone call from the Reverend Mother of the Convent. The tide was partly in and partly out and onthe strip of sandy beach beyond the jetty she said she saw the body of a European, dead. The next

message was from another area in the denser portion of the town, a place called Darajani where it

seemed that looting was in progress. A man found in the street, unconscious and bleeding from the

head, had been carried into the house. What should they do? We gave first-aid instructions in reply,feeling unhelpful and inadequate.

Yet another call, a boy, shot through the legs, had been taken to the home of our anaesthetist. It was the

voice of his wife. Could her husband come and see the boy, or failing this an ambulance must be sent atonce or he would die. This boy had been a passenger in the Anglia I had seen swerve away from the

group of seven. It had been shot at as it swerved. The bullet had penetrated the coachwork and struck

this little boy. It had been an inoffensive family party merely returning home from Mass, the same

Mass to which Mrs Balucci had been going when I had dissuaded her. Another boy had been shot deadas he emerged from church; terrified by this, the remainder of the congregation spent the rest of that

day cowering in the buildings of the Mission.

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Then, in the midst of these distress messages, amongst urgent and angry calls for an ambulance, came a

strange request for water for Malindi. This was a police station situated on the outskirts of the town at

an opposite point from where the hospital was situated. It had been built to withstand attack and was

manned by a small, well-equipped force under the Commissioner of Police. This post had been underattack and in a state of siege since the early hours of the morning.

They were holding out but were without water. Could we send some by ambulance?

No sooner was the telephone set down than it rang again, diverting our minds from this extraordinary

message. Early calls began to be repeated, the voices more anxious and angry because the casualties intheir cars were going downhill, and there was no sign of an ambulance or of any assistance from the

hospital. It looked as though we did not care.

Abdullah the bank watchman was still lying on the road. The dead European body witnessed from the

Convent was still on the beach, now lapped by the incoming tide.

The next message was from another area in the denser portion of the town, a place called Darajani

where it seemed that looting was in progress. A man found on the street, unconscious and bleedingfrom the head, had been carried into the house. What should they do? We gave first-aid instructions in

reply, feeling unhelpful and inadequate.

The unconscious man had died.

The Goan boy, his femoral artery severed, was getting worse and worse. He had been a passenger in

the white Anglia returning from Mass and had been fired on as it turned away from the group. The

remainder of the congregation at the same Mass were taking refuge in the mission. Others had beenshot dead in the narrow street outside. This meant that the irregulars had reached Saks Mahogo and

were meeting no resistance. Bank, Convent and Mission were each further than the other on the way

into the centre of the town.

Several streams of violence flowed from the outer to the inner portions of the town along all theprincipal lanes and alleys of the maze of Zanzibar. And so it continued throughout the day, each

message weaving a strand, adding to the pattern. In the hospital at regular intervals we walked along

the rows of injured people, examining and re-examining, supervising resuscitation, selecting andcategorising cases for the operating rooms.

The wards, balconies and corridors were filling up, and every inch of space was being utilised the

ambulance must have been released. Fourteen doctors were at work, and they were already showing

signs of strain. While they worked on their patients they worried about their families, most of whomwere defenceless and in the thick of the trouble. Most of the doctors were Arabs and it was becoming

clear that the police barrier had been beaten down and that there was nothing to stand between the

exuberant victorious African and his hereditary enemy. Rumour had it that a house to house massacreof Arabs was going on. judging by the unabated gunfire there was substance in this rumour. It was

feared that the Africans would go berserk and kill as many Arabs as possible without reference to age,

sex or political expediency.

When injuries are multiple and when the full extent of the causative violence is not known, it is

necessary to evaluate the patient at frequent and regular intervals. For example, a man admitted with

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head wounds may later develop an internal haemorrhage from a concomitant rupture of spleen or

kidney. Physical signs in the nervous system may overshadow, or even temporarily hide serious

damage in other systems.

When casualties are numerous, it is necessary, in the first instance, to make a quick survey to pick outthose patients in need of most urgent attention. Otherwise, while you attend to injuries which can wait

an hour, a patient further down the ward or in another ward may slip away through your fingers.

It is also necessary to make a severely injured patient fit for surgery by treating shock, for example, and

to decide theatre priorities. Cases in need of operation were distinguished by a large card on which wasprinted a big red T. Cases capable of being dealt with in the ward were marked with a large W. Next

time round a figure was written in beside the capital letter to indicate the individual priority. For

example T1 meant first in this ward for theatre, W1 meant first in this ward for treatment in ward.

It was during the frequent ward rounds, continuing around the clock, that information about the state ofaffairs outside could be gleaned. During this time also an operated patient would be moved from the

theatre and his place taken by the next. I shuttled from one theatre to the other operating on case after

case. It was like an endless conveyor belt. While changing bloody gowns for fresh ones, I could hearthe most recent, usually ghastly, rumour and there was a new rumour for my ears when I emerged yet

again. The scaring thing about the rumours was that they were reported, not as suppositions, but as

facts. For example, we heard They want the wounded to die. They wont let the ambulances out. And

in this emotional atmosphere one gave instant credence to those `facts and ones fears were intensified.

In any one ward there were at times ten or twelve cases each normally requiring two or three hours of

reconstructive surgery. The rule had to be made close the skin, do it in the ward, reconstructive

surgery must wait. We can only stand back and choose carefully so as to select for operation only thosecases which would otherwise die.

Even so, how do you choose between two patients when each requires immediate operation and one

will die while you work on the other? It happened more than once. Junior surgeons were working too.

Theatres were working to maximum capacity and not a moment was wasted. Nevertheless, we couldnot work quickly enough. We were in a veritable sea of casualties and we could not keep pace with the

incoming tide.

A nurse came to the ward where I was sorting priorities. Doctor Maitra says the abdominal case is

ready, Sir.

I know which one it is. It is a gentle old Arab with a gunshot wound of the upper abdomen. The bullethas probably damaged the stomach, possibly lung as well.

Tell him to intubate and place him on his right side. Well have to go in through the chest.

Very well, Sir.

I followed presently. There he lay, an elderly man with kindly eyes. I remember his hurt, questioning

look, the early cataract. I remember thinking What harm could this old gentleman, this devoutMuslim, have ever done to anyone? His hands bore the callosities of years of toil. But now he was

asleep and I took up the knife and began.

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One after the other they were wheeled in. Anaesthetic, incision, repair, out. This went on all night until

all awareness of time was lost.

Next case please. Dont waste time. Yes, yes, two pints at least.

When, oh when will the bastards lay off? Theyve achieved their object. Why cant they stop?

CAPITULATION

The. revolution was brilliantly successful. Within a mere twelve hours the government had changedhands, the popular leader had become Prime Minister and the overthrown government were under lock

and key.

Some time during Sunday the radio had come to life again. There were announcements interspersed

with music. Several portable transistor sets were in the hospital and small groups, idle for a moment,listened avidly for news of what was going on. The noise of shooting had by then become, like the

cawing of the crows, something to which one scarcely adverted. Periodically the radio music would

stop, often in mid-strain, a voice would speak, and everyone within earshot would fall silent.

In the general atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty, a voice of someone in authority was welcome. Thevoice of the new leader, Abeid Kharume, a gruff, stern voice, slightly hoarse, was heard for the first

time in this capacity late on Sunday afternoon. He declared himself to be the President of the Peoples

Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba and stated that the overthrow of the former regime had beenaccomplished. He introduced the overthrown leaders one by one. They had driven themselves to his

headquarters and given themselves up.

The first to speak was Sheik Mohamed Shamte, leader of the Zanzibar and Pemba Peoples Party, ex

Prime Minister of the constitutional sultanate whose government had lasted a mere month. He had beenleader of the splinter smaller party in the coalition government, a man of relatively small popularity

who had split off from the Afro-Sherazi party and its leader, the same Abeid Kharume who now held

him captive. Had he not made the split, there is no doubt that there would have been no revolution. Thevoice of this old man was broken and hesitant, suggesting fear, bitterness and absence of hope. It was

impossible not to be moved. He confirmed that he had resigned in favour of the new President Abeid

Kharume. Mohamed Shamtes coalition with the second largest party, that of Sheik Ali Mushin, theZanzibar Nationalist Party, had won but the smallest of majorities in the recent elections, a majority of

a single seat. Without his aid, Ali Mushin, the stronger, more popular of the two, would not have won

sufficient seats to form a government.

Ali Mushin was the most powerful leader after Kharume. It was widely thought that the Presidency wasthe bribe which led to the coalition, and it was on this account that Ali Mushim did not assume the title

of Head of Government.

After the voice of the new Father of the People, we heard the voices of the overthrown leaders one after

the other. They confirmed the truth of Kharumes words and, speaking in tones of the utmost dejection,they adjured their followers to give loyalty to the new regime. If Ali Mushiin had surrendered, the

revolution was at an end.

Therefore, the atmosphere was tenser than ever as his voice came over the radio. His power was broken

for good.

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Speaking in tones of the utmost dejection and with a vibration which conveyed itself to me as fear, he

told his followers to give allegiance to the new head of state. It was almost as though he were talking at

gun-point, as though he expected to be shot, out of hand, the moment he had finished speaking. He

explained that his reason for surrendering was the desire that there should be no further violence. Heurged them to transfer their loyalty to the new regime., and to accept the new situation with calmness

and resignation.

His motives were altruistic, if the face value of his words were any indication. Rumour had it, on the

other hand, that he had been stoned by his own followers, as he drove to give himself up. Possibly theyfelt betrayed; maybe they attributed his surrender to cowardice and condemned his acceptance of an

offer of safe conduct.

At any rate there was no life in his voice, and the known followers who were listening with me werevisibly smitten by the sound no less than by the content. I felt sorry for them because I thought that

they had been betrayed.

Suddenly, startling everybody, the music began again, abrupt and irrelevant. After a pause to digest the

momentous news, many earnest conversations began.

The revolution was at an end. The long supremacy of the Arabs in Zanzibar was over. But the firingcontinued unabated. But surely not for much longer. Victory and defeat had come about, so it now

remained merely to bury the dead and to collect the wounded. Nevertheless, the firing continued as the

darkness closed in.

I had been no admirer of the decadent regime which had golthere by a trick. A trick which had beencynically permitted by a group of officials who must have been well aware that the so-called

constitution sowed the seeds of civil disturbance. Otherwise it would have lasted longer.

As the night wore on I found myself reflecting that the continuation of violence during the succeeding

day depended only on the degree of control which the leaders could maintain upon the forces underthem. The leaders were responsible men, not unlettered, who might be expected to draw the line at a

general sack of the town and of the dwellings in the shambas. I had heard some of their speeches, heard

Kharume himself declare that the intention was to achieve a genuine multi-racial society. An unbridleddisplay of animosity towards the vanquished would be of adverse political significance. If humanitarian

grounds weighed little, which was by no means proven, political grounds weighed much. Can an

African Government seeking diplomatic recognition afford to appear racist?

I reflected on the previous civil disturbances. The Makonde had run amok and killed many Arabs. Theyattacked the vulnerable dwellings of the poorer Arab families. They encircled the huts during the night

and as the first light appeared, threw burning faggots on the roofs of the houses. When the occupants

were driven out by the smoke and flames, they ran blindly into a circle of flashing pangas and weremercilessly cut down. This terror raged for several days even in defiance of the fully intact police force

and units of the Kings African Rifles drafted hurriedly from Kenya to control it.

How must these families be feeling now at this very moment as I lie surrounded on every side by

wounded men, women and children? Now there is nothing to stop the same violent tribesmen fromcontinuing this massacre. How must they feel, cowering in their flimsy homes? `But, I continued to

myself, there is an authority, there is the strength of Abeid Kharume. As a fellow of the people, his

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authority should be greater than that of any power imposed from outside. Will he control his forces?

Can he control his forces?

A new and popular leadership had been established the obvious man who should have been assisted

rather than outmanoeuvred by the British Administration. But he was in the saddle now and apart fromoutside intervention, his position was quite unassailable.

Therefore, the quietness was open to an optimistic interpretation. The voice of Arab notabilities in the

shambas, the village chieftains that is, the concentration of effort, judging by the broadcasts and the

note of retribution not only in the content but in the very inflection of Okellos voice all pointed atmayhem in the coconut plantations. The absence of rebels from our immediate environment pointed the

same way.

* * * * *

That night the wards were in a state of utter confusion. Only the selected worst of the cases could be

accommodated on beds. Those less severely wounded lay on blankets on the floors. Repeatedly we

searched through these recumbent figures to ensure that no serious cases were being overlooked.

Those who had been injured in a particularly grave manner were re-examined regularly throughout the

night and treatment was modified as necessary. Additional injuries, either previously overlooked orrecently come to light in new severity, were sought in those whose treatment appeared to be

progressing favourably.

This routine made sleep for the hospital staff available only in small doses. It became necessary to

insist that some should go off duty and have a more generous period of rest so that there would be, atall times, a leaven of fresh and rested personnel. Most of the workers were resistant to this instruction

and wanted to carry on without cessation. But this could not be permitted because

the collection of casualties from the shambas would bring about a fresh influx in the morning whether

the violence was over or not.

There was no indication that the violence had ceased. Even in the dark shooting continued, and theshots sometimes came from so close at hand that I started up several times thinking that a gun had been

fired in the hospital itself. Cars and lorries, their headlights bright in the darkness, came and went all

through the night. There was often only a sole occupant.

I slept on the floor of an office, directly under a ceiling fan, trying to snatch some rest between my

regular patrolling of the wards. Whenever I did doze off, the sound of this fan simulated the approach

of an aeroplane with so real an effect that I got up and scanned the sky several times during the night. I

was overtired and my imagination was playing me tricks.

Fear held universal sway in the beginning, fear of the rebels by their enemies and their potential

enemies, fear on the part of the victors of reprisal and reverse of fortune. Sorrow succeeded fear, the

sorrow of bereavement, sorrow of failure. Despair was the lot of some, captivity without an end in

sight, the end of hope of power. These effects could have been foretold.

One ingredient of the emotional cocktail I have left to last. It is absent from a natural calamity such as

flooding or fire or earthquake. It was there, from the beginning, it motivated the circumstances, it

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modified the gaiety giving it an edge of sadness. It mixed into despair and rendered it gall, it inflicted

wounds to fester, it liberated the fumes of tyranny. This ingredient was hatred. Natural calamity is

impersonal and rallies humanity in a common cause. Man-made calamity, however justifiable by

political sychophancy, liberates forces of diabolical destructiveness to body and spirit alike.

Fear was universal in the beginning. It affected everyone, irrespective of their situation. Those who

faced the violent ones in a helpless and unarmed condition had every cause for fear. But therevolutionaries themselves were not immune. No one group could have known how the fighting was

proceeding elsewhere. There was the apprehension associated with the uncertainty of outside reactions at any moment a fleet might appear on the horizon or a battalion might drop from the sky. Nearer at

hand, and of more immediate concern, was the danger of a solitary act of revenge, a knife in the back, a

shot from a high window.

The gaiety which gradually made its appearance was associated with the accumulating evidence of

success. The revolutionaries gained confidence and became elated. They laughed and cheered, fired

random shots at crows and windows, and shook each other by the hand.

All this was natural. It contrasted with the increasing despondency of their political opponents and withthe personal sorrow in many a home. This gaiety pervaded the atmosphere, and caused an uplift in the

spirits in defiance of anger and misgiving at all the death and suffering on every side. For a time I, too,

felt a

lightening of the spirit. Though surrounded by the grim results of the butchery of war, I vicariouslyshared the feeling of Uhuru tena foretold by Suwena when she did her little dance in the street below

me not many days before.

Then, gradually, I became repelled by the lack of any evidence of feelings, of pity for a helpless, beaten

country. The gaiety and joy became unholy as the elemental hatred obtained unbridled control. Itinflicted wounds destined to fester, it liberated the fumes of tyranny from the emotional cocktail and it

sullied the bright victory of the long oppressed.

MZEE

Africans are fond of nicknames. A very short man becomes known to his friends as Fupi and all oldmen are called Mzee (pronounced mzay). In our house there was an oldish man who did the laundry

work. Inevitably he was known to all as Mzee.

He kept his own council, worked assiduously, came and went in his own time and at his own pace. He

sometimes talked a little to himself as his iron clinked gently away. He did not acknowledge with theusual jambo the coming and going of any member of the household, never said Good morning, and

never said Good night. He spared his words and it was most exceptional for him to initiate a

conversation.

He spoke no English but had command of a particularly pure and beautiful Swahili. He was not easy to

understand however, because he used words so sparingly that his communications had telegrammatic

brevity which brought about a slight degree of incoherency.

On one occasion he approached me with a long account of his difficulties in regard to his registration asa voter. This was prior to the first General Election, an election incidentally, which was won by Abeid

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Khanxrnes party by a majority of one seat, and that one seat by a majority of one single vote!

Therefore Mzees vote, had we known it at the time, might well have been of crucial significance.

For some reason which I failed to fathom, he was apparently not entitled to a vote. He had worked in

the country, so he told me, for twenty-three years. Nevertheless, the authorities had turned down hisapplication, and he was very disturbed. I advised him to consult the leadership of whichever party he

supported, that, since their interest in his vote would be as great as his own, they could be relied uponto solve his problem.

The subject was not raised again. I always respected his taciturnity and, since he did not tell me howthings had gone, I assumed that his problem had been resolved.

The election came and went. The winning party took their seats in Legislative Council and gained the

respect of the professional administrators. One of their members, moderate in his views, showed

considerable aptitude for constitutional

affairs. The remainder were, it was thought, unsophisticated in matters of statesmanship, men of the

people, rather extreme in their views and well to the left of centre.

My assumption about Mzee had been wrong, however. He had not been able to vote. I do not know

why. Maybe he had not carried the matter any further, maybe he had been turned down again. I did notfind this out until after the Revolution when I had returned to and resumed life in my own house. By

then the schools had re-opened and all the workers had returned to their normal jobs.

During the ensuing week which was the decline of Okello, his voice was heard less often, other voices

more often. Civil servants were instructed to return to work, otherwise they would lose their jobs.Children were to return to school. All normal activities were to be resumed.

The first person to greet me was Mzee and he had a great deal to say. Words simply tumbled out of his

mouth and he was very angry. Grievance had shocked him into verbosity. Ever since the outbreak on

January 20 he had been detained in Rahaleo with hundreds of others. It was very bad he said,hunger. People lying under the sky with wounds and hunger. Six men he said share a single

mango. Food sent for the internees was taken by the guards. Six people he repeated, one mango

between them. Men, women and children all lying together without cover, some of them sick, somewounded.

Poor Mzee! He had risen as usual on the fateful Sunday morning and had set off from his home in

Ngambo to his place of work. The guns were not his shauri no business of his. But on his way he

had been stopped and questioned, roughly bundled into a truck and taken and interned in Rahaleo.

They had not known him long enough to be able to understand what he was saying to them, nor hadthey the patience just then. The fact that he was obviously harmless had meant nothing to them. Had he

been an Arab, he would probably have been shot out of hand, like the old and wizened petrol pump

attendant on Creek Road who had also been harmless and inoffensive.

CAT

This rather light-hearted tale illustrates one of the minor effects of revolution in the domestic sphere.

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They were beginning to get me worried about the cat. One evening, seated amongst the packing-cases,

Sheila, looking at me in her special way a sort of vague scrutiny said What are you going to do

about Smuts? The question took me by surprise, as most of Sheilas questions do. It was not that the

problem had not occurred to me already, and more than once, but that I had not dared to put it intowords, not even to myself.

Smuts had been around for years, waxing and waning in size, depending on whether the boys were athome or away at school. When they were away Smuts was thin and active, and when they were at

home he was fat, sleek, and sluggish. But at present, since I was alone and preoccupied, working byday and packing by night, Smuts was in a lean phase, and had, reluctantly I am sure, taken once more

to hunting, so as to supplement the erratic meals I provided whenever I thought of him, which was not

often. My relationship to the cat was a distant one. It jumped on my book when I was reading and onmy papers when I was writing. I had never thought of a cat as a disposal problem. Sheilas question

forced me to do so. How dangerous it is to put things into words!

Much better to put him to sleep. Hes had a good innings.

You mean I should kill him?

Sheila recoiled from such crudity. The subject was dropped. But she had started the thought process shehad intended to start; probably it was for this express purpose she had visited me just then. She left,

presumably to resume her own packing, leaving me to muse about the good innings. It was a

favourite expression of hers, and usually employed in respect of people who had succumbed after acouple of weeks of intravenous saline, surrounded by anxious doctors employing one desperate remedy

after the other.

Life went on, the revolution went on; Smuts continued his activities, roamed about, slept, licked his

paws, asked for food, met his friends. I continued my activities, painted, operated, discussed politics,worried about Zanzibar, wrote letters.

Are you going to take him with you? asked Mrs Potter, a lady whom I knew only slightly,

nevertheless better than I would have wished. Her chief attribute was her ability to call her husband

Darling in a voice that made me quail. But she was a great animal lover. Sheila is taking Mackenzieand Pat took Joey. Joey had lost weight while in quarantine and had had a low-grade fever which had

caused anxiety for some time. It was attributed to his distaste at being forced to exist in a semi-

detached cat house. I shall certainly not take Smuts with me, I said. There was a reproachful silence.His air passage to London and his hotel fees while in quarantine for six months would pay the

childrens school fees for one term.

Then you must put him to sleep, said Dorothy.

You mean kill him?

It would be kinder.

I did not pursue the subject. Hassan, Mzee, Smuts and I went on living our life. But, during intervalsbetween one stress and another, I found myself looking at Smuts, marvelling at, and envying, his peace

of mind. I patted him more frequently and went more frequently to the ice-box, Smuts walking at my

heels, his tail held high.

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What are you going to do about your cat? asked Ken Cook. We put Harrys away yesterday.

You killed Harrys cat, I said. Did he know about it?

He was very glad. Cant have a lot of stray cats about the place.

I allowed the subject to die. We talked of other things, of Pemba and Tanzan and the Russians. But, bynow, Hassan, on my instructions, was buying food for both of us me and Smuts. We had salmon andsteak together regularly. I found that Smuts was becoming more fastidious than I. Soon the menu

depended more on his taste than mine. He was getting very large, sleek and glossy and was putting in

many extra purring hours daily.

I had not been indoctrinated by the advocates of sleep. I did want the cat to go on living; to die,eventually, otherwise than by my doing a spot of Deus ex Machina. But I did look long and

ponderingly upon him quite often, and usually between meals. Hassan and I began to discuss the

subject rather frequently. On the first few occasions we explored the various possibilities of disposal in

Smuts presence. We quickly noticed however, that Smuts became rather agitated; so we confined our

discussions to occasions when Smuts was elsewhere. There seemed to be no solution other than theradical one. We had arrived at the point of condemning him to death, in his own interest of course. He

had had a good innings. But from now on we were unable to look him in the eye.

Meanwhile, the condemned cat had a daily hearty breakfast, dinner and supper. Unaware, most of the

time, of the thoughts in my head he continued to wax fatter, sleeker, more somnolent and more

authoritative. I now knew my departure date from Zanzibar, therefore the arrangements for Smuts

would have to be given a definite time and place. Then I remembered little Miss Smith. She was thelady who ate my apples while I operated. She had given us Smuts in the first place. We had taken

Smuts because she had been going on leave. She had now returned, having become married in the

meantime. I approached her at the Sailing Club. I am glad to say, I said, feeling very false, thatSmuts is very well. And I am sure you will be delighted to have him back. Oh, Mr Hurley! said she,

looking up at me with much concern on her face. We have three cats, five monkeys and four bush-

babies. We dont know what to do with them, and my husband wont have another animal in thehouse.

Time was growing short. The rooms were becoming more and more empty and desolate as my packing

continued. The furniture was reduced to a chair, a table, a transistor radio, a fork, spoon, cup, plate

and Smuts. And then came a little note, not from the Home Secretary, but the nearest thing:

Dear Mr Hurley,

Mohamed Said Kharusis eldest daughter wants to have your cat. She knows she is asking a great

favour but promises to look after it well. Could you possibly let her have it?

Hassan and I got a wicker basket. We packed this full of growls and claws and outraged dignity.

Hassan, quivering all over as a result of the transmitted oscillations of this bundle of energy, enteredthe house of Kharusis eldest daughter. He emerged empty-handed. Smuts had entered his new phase

his Arab phase. I trust that he is happy and not too displeased at the change in diet from salmon to

kebabs and sherbet.

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MUSSA AND THE MINISTER

The telephone rang at 4am on Friday 31 January. I had never known an operator so incoherent. I couldmake out very little, only the urgent tone. The words tumbled out, the word Mussa repeated, and

come, come to the hospital. I put down the phone hastily and began to dress, but before I had

removed my pyjama jacket the bedroom door was flung open noisily and a woman rushed into theroom. She was in Cuban uniform and carried a rifle.

She caught hold of me and began to drag me out, and was in a frenzy of urgency. Mussa has been

shot, hes been shot! she shouted and made renewed efforts to drag me by the pyjama coat.

I insisted on dressing and while I did so she stood by in a frenzy of impatience and handling her rifle ina most dangerous manner. She was a dark presence; she had very big black eyes, close woolly black

hair, yellowish skin, and a thick brooding mouth. She had the same uniform as the Cuban contingent

short sleeved khaki shirt, khaki slacks with boots and short leggings, but she wore no hat.

When I had put on the minimum of clothing she clutched me again and pulled me down the stairs andout on to the road, where there was a very big black saloon car flying the black, green and blue pennant

of the new regime. The rear door of the car was already open and the engine was running. She settled in

her corner and I in mine. We kept as far away from each other as possible. She was silent, morose anddeeply worried.

I was worried too. Mussa shot! I said to myself over and over again, and all sorts of implications

presented themselves to my mind. I even saw myself operating, surrounded by the tornrny guns of

Mussas friends and even found time to wonder what would be my position if his treatment shouldprove beyond my powers. By this time the car had slewed around the hospital block and been brought

up with a jerk which practically threw us on the floor.

She remained where she was. I made quickly for the lift, drew closed the gates and pressed the button.

There was no light in the lift a deliberate economy, the bulb had been removed in the course of aneconomy drive instigated by the Treasury prior to Independence. It was one of the slowest lifts

imaginable so I would not be instantly button-holed by Mussas friends and would have time to prepare

myself mentally for the coming situation.

When I emerged I had a valuable moment to take in the scene before I was recognised. The figures firstappeared as intensely dark shadows in the very bright light from the theatre, an indication that the staff

had been alerted and preparations were in progress. There was a very tall, exceedingly pale-skinned

African, obviously a stranger, and four of the men whom I have previously described as the corpsdelite, the friends of Mussa. All seemed to defer to a smaller, older man who was evidently in the grip

of a great emotion.

He was the first to see me approach. He ran towards me and practically embraced me. He had been

drinking heavily, but he spoke slowly and sensibly, with a great deal of control. There was somethingvery pitiful about him.

Mussa has been placed on a trolley. He lay prone, both hands clutching his abdomen and his head

twisted to one side; his breath came rapidly in gasps, there was cold sweat on his forehead, and his

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colour was clay white. His expression conveyed pain and fear. He looked up at me and recognition for

a moment erased the pain.

In the course of my examination I was aware of people crowding behind me and the sounds of a mute

scuffle. Then the man in authority bent under my elbow and brought his face close to Mussa. He wasfull of anxiety and wanted to do something to help. How you are you now, Mussa?

Mussa made a great effort to raise himself from the stretcher the better to direct at the questioner a look

of poisonous intensity. I looked to see if his gun was anywhere near. You should know, he said.

Mussas abdomen was rigid. There was a puncture about an eighth of an inch in diameter, just beneath

the left costal margin. Immediate surgery was indicated.

Tell me, just tell me what I can do.

Well need blood, I said, muster as many donors as you can. The thought struck me fleetingly as I

said this, that it would be no harm at all to immobilise the other gunmen around the place. Their

numbers were increasing. If we took a pint of blood from each one, not only would we have enough forMussa but we would replenish our depleted bank and keep the onlookers quiet as well.

As soon as the blood transfusion was under way it was necessary to wait a little while until the patient

had been sufficiently resuscitated to allow major surgery. During this brief waiting period I reflected on

the fact that what we did now, under conditions of abnormal feeling and pressure, might well becomethe subject of a long and leisurely judicial inquiry at a later date. I reflected wryly on the fact that such

inquiries frequently take months to decide the rightness or wrongness of a course of action which had

to be decided, at the time, in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

If we seem to be doing very little at the moment, I explained, this is calculated. We must show noalarm in our faces or in our gestures lest we convey it to the patient and worsen his state. I can think of

nothing more likely to hasten a patients demise than the sight of a panicy doctor.

I had gathered the principals into an ante-room for this harangue. I wanted them to sit down and keep

quiet and not get under our feet. I was gratified at the cooperation which I received. The men waitedsilently while the operation proceeded; it went well. A fairly optimistic prognosis was in order.

When I returned to the room where they were waiting I noticed that protocol had been re-established.

The senior man was seated in the only easy chair, ankle deep in cigarette ends. An aide sat by him,silent as his master, deferential to him. Just outside the door, on the verandah, partially in shadow and

watching every gesture, stood the figures of the other war-like members of the retinue.

The gun, Mussas gun was on the table between us. I took it up, I was being playful. I said I know

every bit as much about these guns as you do Mussa. Mussa made to snatch it from me and it went off.It was just like that. I saw no reason to disbelieve this. The only odd thing was that the bullet had

travelled with the right trajectory to suggest a very creditable shot by a gunman out of practice.

Again and again I was asked if there was anything I required. This tempted me to ask for a cigarette.

There was a general searching of pockets but nobody had any cigarettes. Send for some, came thegruff order. Two gunmen broke away and disappeared.

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We watched Mussa anxiously for a long period, and during this time a large quantity of cigarettes

became available. Eventually the group dispersed and I made my way down to the courtyard.

The black saloon was still in the same place and the female gunman was vigilantly standing by. Both

she and the driver showed a marked reluctance to drive me to my house. Do you expect me to walk?I enquired. The two conversed together in low voices. Then, with exaggerated slowness, the driver

carefully furled the black, blue and yellow pennant and tied it tight with string. Then he got in, andwithout a word of acknowledgment or acquiescence, he drove me home.

Some days later an acquaintance casually observed that Mussa had been shot and the sailing club andbeen broken into on the same night. A crate of cigarettes had been removed, stolen, attached,

confiscated, or nationalised. Take your pick.

It seemed that for a moment, up there in the operating theatre, I had forgotten exactly how things stood.

EARLY AFTERMATH RECRUITMENT

The recruitment of an army had the effect of taking the irregulars off the streets, securing them in acamp, and keeping them out of mischief. It was done gradually. Flushed with success and the feelings

of well-being and jubilation consequent upon it, individuals readily offered themselves for recruitment,

without considering the consequences to themselves.

As recruitment continued, a formidable force was steadily built up. The set-up was distinctlyprofessional. Once a recruit was accepted, he was subjected to strict military discipline and spent his

day marching and counter-marching and all the rest of it. Professional instructors who knew how to

keep the rookies busy were in charge. During leisure periods lectures were given and these lecturesfrequently referred to paper tigers.

As recruitment and training progressed, it had the effect of steadily drawing Okellos teeth. Steadily the

forces under his control began to dwindle and it turned out that there was nothing he could do about it.

Or, to put it another way, he did nothing about it. I pictured him at this time rather bewildered andincreasingly solitary. He had no real support in high councils having subserved his function, and was

now an embarrassment.

He had no political skill and he was rather mercenary. I hesitate to think that the subtle, wily minds

with whom he had to deal experienced much difficulty in outmanoeuvring him.

As time passed it was less and less certain that the force in question was available even to Kharume,

had the latter taken it into his head to act against the extremist leftwing elements who were gradually

tightening their grip. It was noteworthy, though opinions might differ about its significance, that his

residence was guarded, not by a military force, but by a contingent of Police from Tanganika whichhad been sent across from Dar es Salaam with the compliments of Julius Nyerere.

It is my view that had a coup detat succeeded the revolution, a great nationalist victory would have led

to a one party state with Kharume as its head and that a Federation with Tanganika would have

eventually ensued. African Nationalism was the mo

Dr Hurley zanzibar

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