Читать книгу There Should Have Been Five - Marilyn Honikman - Страница 6

Counting minutes

Tobruk Harbour, Libya, North Africa July 1942

Sipho had been edgy all day. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen on the ship, but he knew it would be dangerous, it would be soon, and that somehow he would have to help.

A crane swung the last load of petrol drums across the deck towards him. Sipho reached up to the heavy rope net, positioned it over the hatch, and then watched as it dropped into the hold where Job was waiting.

Sipho was moving away from the open hatch, his back foot still in the air, when the ship lurched. He was pitched forward, bruising his palms as he grabbed at the hatch’s upturned lip, which saved him from plummeting head first into the hold.

In the gloom below he saw Job loosen the net, free a petrol drum and roll it past boxes of ammunition to the back of the hold, where two men wrestled the drum upright and shoved it against several hundred others that were already stashed there. Sipho sat back on his haunches with a grunt, relieved to be alive and relieved, he realised, that Job hadn’t seen him stumble.

He’s not sure I’m up to this, Sipho thought. Will he always think of me as Mzi’s little brother?

He rubbed his aching hands against his thighs and stood, stretching his gaunt body to its full height and noticing, with wry satisfaction, little knots of muscle on his wiry biceps after all the weeks of backbreaking work.

I know I’m up to it. I must be eighteen by now – I’ve been in the army for nearly a year.

He breathed deeply and swallowed the bile burning the back of his throat.

The ship righted itself and then lurched heavily again. He heard a thump behind him and the ship juddered.

This is it! It’s started! He whipped around and saw the swell that had pushed in through the harbour mouth, bumping the ship against the barge tied up alongside.

It hadn’t started, but the sun was dipping low towards the dusty hills.

Any minute now …

*

Early that morning, before they’d left the prison camp, Lance Corporal Job Maseko had beckoned to Sipho, his friend Andrew and three other prisoners of war to gather close. Standing a head taller than any of them, Job had spoken quietly in isiZulu.

“Ngizwe kahle. Listen carefully. We don’t have to give up just because we’re POWs. The Nazis must not win this war. There’s something we can do today. On the ship.”

Sipho had been dubious. “What can we do,” he’d wondered aloud, “with an Italian guard watching us every minute?”

Job had looked at each of them in turn, with a glimmer of a smile and a glint of defiance, although he’d hesitated as he’d caught Sipho’s eye.

“Last thing this afternoon, just before we leave the ship, find a way to get the guard to look away, out to sea. Franco’s our guard today. He’s just a kid, not much older than you, Sipho, and he likes to fool about. It’ll be easy to distract him. I need you guys to keep him busy for a few minutes. Andrew, do something to get his attention. The rest of you, help Andrew. And don’t ask why! The less I tell you, the safer you’ll be.”

Andrew, sturdy and unruffled, had given Job a slight grin. Round-eyed, the other men had nodded silently.

Sipho usually kept away from the Italian guards. Most were unfriendly and some were vicious – a few days before, a guard had shot dead a prisoner of war who’d been slow to obey an order. Since then, Sipho had experienced a growing numbness as he made it through each day, trying not to think too far into the future – a future which seemed darkly unknowable.

And now Sipho knew Job was expecting them to risk their lives, but he’d nodded along with the others.

He would not say no to Job.

Now, in the late afternoon on a lurching ship, Sipho snuck an anxious glance at the guard. Job was right: Franco did look young to be a guard and he seemed quite friendly.

But Italian guards were unpredictable.

*

Franco had spent a long, lonely day guarding the South African prisoners of war.

He had watched them roll petrol drums from the dock onto a flat barge that then chugged out to the ship, and he’d watched them manoeuvre the drums into a net so the ship’s crane could hoist them up and lower them into the hold.

The work was heavy, the day airless and the heat fierce, but the prisoners had been in good spirits, with the tallest prisoner of war, the one they called Job, singing as he worked and the others chanting the chorus. Franco had been a little envious, almost wishing he could join them. But he had strict instructions, so he’d tried to look stern as he stood with his feet apart and arms folded, until the petrol drums were on board, the hatch closed for the night and he could relax in the light breeze that now wafted in from the sea.

He leant against the ship’s rail, his rifle propped next to him, and lazily watched the prisoners packing away the equipment. One of the men, the sturdy one, shoved a net into its box and gave a jaunty swagger.

“Can you dance, Franco? Can you dance like us?”

*

Sipho sucked in his breath. Andrew! Was he crazy, being sassy to an Italian guard? Sipho waited for Franco to react; the other prisoners of war watching silently.

Would Franco understand the English words, or would he only hear the provocative tone? The ropes in the men’s hands dropped to the deck and they stood frozen, expectant.

A slow smile lit up Franco’s face.

“In South Africa, we dance! We’ll teach you!” someone called out to him.

Andrew lifted a bent leg to his shoulder. “Like this, Franco!”

Andrew stamped down with a double beat, thud-THUD and then again, thud-thud, pause, thud-THUD. A few men started singing, swaying in time. With a laugh, Franco slicked back his dark hair, stamped his foot and moved away from the rail. Andrew shimmied behind Franco, jostling him with his elbows to face the harbour mouth, the gap between the surrounding hills.

Franco tried to copy their dance with a few wild kicks, and then he laughed at his own poor efforts. He gave up on the high kicks and, spreading his arms wide, stamped his heels to the same double beat. He stepped forward and across, thud-THUD, and back again.

“I too can dance!” Franco said to Andrew. “I dance like the Greek men. My papou, my grandfather he is Greek.” Franco seemed hardly to move. Just his heels beat down as his body rotated slowly.

Sipho looked around uneasily, wondering where Job was. He’d seen two men come out of the hatch and close it carefully for the night. So where was Job? It was usually easy to spot him: a tall man with striking looks, high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. But Job was not with the dancers. He was nowhere on the deck.

Sipho stood still, wondering how he was supposed to help. Andrew caught his eye and flicked his head towards three men dancing in front of the hatch, one of whom, a bit older than the others, called out through the clamour of singing, “Ndebele! Woza! Come join us here, Sipho!” He reached out a hand, clasped Sipho’s arm and pulled him towards the group so they could pack close.

So Sipho danced, crouching low and kicking high.

Franco slowly swivelled, stamping his heels and looking at each of the dancing men, and then at the men coiling the last of the ropes. His glance slid to Sipho’s tight group in front of the hatch, and for a second he paused. His eyes focused, through their legs, on the closed hatch and then he shifted round towards the open sea.

While Franco’s back was turned, Sipho scanned the length of the ship, searching again for Job.

Has Franco noticed Job is missing?

But Franco was looking out at where the breeze blew shadows across the bright water, and dancing with the beat until a prisoner of war knocked his heel against Franco’s rifle. It slipped sideways, and another prisoner of war made a grab to save it from dropping overboard. Franco panicked. Was he mad? Fraternising with POWs?

He snatched back his rifle and stood at attention. In an instant he changed back into a guard, and they were all just prisoners of war once more.

“Fall into line!” Franco ordered. “On to the barge! March!” And he led the way down the gangplank.

Someone nudged Sipho’s elbow and there was Job grinning at him, with that glint, again, in his eye.

“Time to go and watch a strange sunset, Sipho,” Job said.

The prisoners of war filed down the gangplank to the flat barge where Franco was waiting. As Job stepped on to the barge, Franco’s eyes were watching him thoughtfully, and Sipho’s stomach cramped. What did Franco know? But Job stood with his feet wide apart, balancing confidently as they rode the swells towards the dock.

By the time the barge bumped against rubber tyres on the quay, Sipho’s fingers were numb from gripping the rail, his back tense as he kept it braced, expecting for endless moments a blast behind him. At the dock, the prisoners jumped ashore and swung up onto the open lorry waiting on the wharf. No one looked back at the ship.

But there was none of the usual talk as the lorry jolted through the bombed and burnt-out warehouses and lumbered up the stony road from the harbour to the prisoner-of-war camp in the desert. Job sat back, but Sipho and the other men were quiet and tense, hugging their knees and listening, waiting. They knew an explosion would bring a visit from the grim-faced military police. And who of them would survive such a visit? Would Job?

Sipho found himself counting seconds, and then minutes, the way he had done down in the gold mine when a fuse was lit. Why was it was taking so long? Something should have happened already. The desert dust boiled up beneath the lorry’s wheels, stinging the men’s eyes and clogging their nostrils.

Sipho did not notice.

He counted as the minutes stretched out, and he longed for the quiet hills of his home.

What had brought him here? It was Job, of course, the city boy who had visited their remote valley every summer for as long as he could remember, bringing his lightness with him. Job had always seemed fearless, Sipho thought, wishing he was too.

I’ve been scared every day and every night since we left South Africa, he realised. Bombs, shells, a lion and a hyena in Abyssinia were bad enough. But people – the Askaris in Abyssinia, the guards and the military police here – they frighten me the most. And maybe I’ve always been afraid.

Pictures from his childhood slipped through his mind as minutes passed. A vivid image appeared suddenly. He was a small boy in a calf pen and he was frozen with fear.

Job had been watching, he remembered.