Read The Dust Diaries for Free Online Page A

sound of aftermath rising to the occasion. More shouts, the German of the crew, an undertone of groaning, the sea’s slap and clap against the hull, his own breath, short and close in his ear, the winch and pulley of a crane that had worked throughout. One woman’s scream, long on the morning.
    The whole incident had passed in seconds, and already it was over, it had happened. But Arthur’s mind had not caught up, and as he lay there on the deck, his eyes closed, he was still trying to register it, to adjust himself to the sudden disturbance, the violent brevity of it. The whole, sight, sound and smell of it. He opened his eyes. From where he lay he could see the legs of the remaining Somalis, thick together like a copse of closely planted saplings. Looking up their bodies he saw they were being rounded up, collected, gathered by men in uniform. Policemen. Two held drawn swords, one held a revolver, clumsy and smoking in his hand. Then there, closer to him, were the bodies. Two, no, three of them. The man closest to him lay on his back, his head thrown back, exposing his neck, his pointed Adam’s apple jutting from his throat. His mouth was open, and leaked blood from the commissure of his lips which trailed down his tilted face to his open eyes, where it collected in an eyelid. A red tear, ready to drop.
    He was still staring at the dead man when he felt the pressure of hands on his body. He was being picked to his feet. Hands under his arms, pulling him up. A face swam into view, one of the young German crew, speaking in faltering English.
    ‘You are hurt, Voter?
    No, he was not hurt. His body was fine. He gently pulled his arms away from theirs and waved a hand in front of his face, making it clear they should leave him. Behind them other members of the crew were clearing the bodies. He watched, still stunned, as the man with the blood in his eyes was hauled over a broad shoulder, and carried off the ship, like one of the thousands of sacks being carried back and forth on the dock below him. He felt the bitter taste of bile rise in his throat, the swelling of nausea in his stomach and, thinking he was going to vomit, he turned again to the ship’s railings, resting his hands on them, his head bowed, breathing deeply. The urge to be sick passed and he raised his head once more to look down on the dock, which was teeming again with work. In fact, it looked like it had never stopped. It was all energy. Energy and sweat. The essential ingredients for empire building, for the building of new countries, new lives. New dreams. But energy and sweat would never be enough on their own. As he had just witnessed, there was always blood too.
    One of the Europeans standing on the harbour side, a stocky man in khaki, had spotted him looking out over the dock. Arthur saw him now, squinting up at him, one hand shielding his eyes beneath his solar hat, the other raised above his face, waving. He seemed to be smiling, but it was hard to tell. Arthur raised his own arm in reply, and waved back, not sure in himself if he was waving a greeting to this man or waving goodbye.
    Bishop William Gaul had been waiting in Beira Bay since the previous day, and on the dockside since dawn. He was, he knew, by nature an impatient man, but this delay, he felt, would have tried the patience of even the most saintly of constitutions. The Boer War grinding on in the south didn’t help, cutting off all supply routes from Cape Town, making Beira Bay the main point of entry for anything and anyone from Europe (and from where he was standing it seemed as if Europe was sending most of herself to Africa). The port was impossibly busy. The ship he had been told was carrying Cripps had stayed stubbornly anchored far out all yesterday evening, and was still there earlier this morning. Now, at last, it had been allowed in. But he was still waiting, and the sun was rising, and the heat of the day was finding itself, flat and harsh on his skin. So he stood there, at