Free The Gunny Sack by M.G. Vassanji Page B

they went to the Rukanga mukhi’s store and asked for water.
    “I have lived through hell,” Ji Bai would say, “and this was hell. First the long walk in the hot sun, followed always by hungry hyenas who never left sight of us, looking out for snakes, fearing lions, afraid the guides and porters would murder and rob us. We told Mtumwa always to listen to what they were saying at night when they made the fire and ate, so we would have advance warning of their intentions. When we got to Rukanga we had blisters the size of boils just from mosquito bites, and feet covered with blood from killing the giant mosquitoes … and flies covered our bloody feet until they looked black. I cursed my husband for having decided on the journey, and I cursed my poor father for having sent me to Africa. In India we travelled by bullocks, we could talk to people in the villages, they were our own kind … and even the Europeans talked our language. But in this jungle the merest sound in the night would send our hearts aflutter … and the men would call out to the guides, seeking reassurance.”
    In Rukanga, sugar and flour went for the price of gold, and this is what the visitors from the coast brought with them and what got them through the ensuing months. General trade had stopped. Only specific shortage items were bartered. The staple food was maizemeal; bird and deer meat were sometimes available; milk was scarce, but local beehives supplied honey.
    A few miles away, two strange and foreign armies had met in an uncaring jungle to fight a minor round of a World War. The Germans used African askaris led by white settlers, and the British, so the reports went, had all kinds of strange askaris—Indians, coloureds, and Africans who spoke no local language. Reports were brought in by natives of the area, andsmuggling between the village and the two forces had begun. At night Rukanga lived in fear. Sometimes, lone rifle shots and what were believed to be human cries were heard in the distance. In the village there was total blackout. Sometimes running footsteps were heard: not ghosts but deserters. The presence of deserters was established when a house was robbed and a girl raped. During those nights, immediately before the first direct encounter between the two enemies, when silence and darkness were the first priority for fear of raiders, Ji Bai would gag little Mongi whose fever had recurred. Sitting on the floor beside the hammock, she would rock the child, give salt-water compresses and silently weep. Only when the child started breathing deeply did she herself breathe easy. One morning she woke with a start and went on her knees to undo the child’s gag. But the child was still, her eyes open. That afternoon Gulam and a few other men buried Mongi in the local grave half-way up to the boma.
    Early one morning the whole village was woken by a tremendous racket: there were the sounds of rifle-shots and the continuous rat-tat-tat of machine guns; there were shouts and screams in the vicinity, the thumps of booted feet outside, desperate knocks on doors that went unanswered. The two forces had finally met; or so the villagers thought. Some time later there was complete silence. Then the natives started coming in and familiar, reassuring sounds returned. Front doors were opened and enquiries rang out. The people of Rukanga heard about the ignominious defeat of the British force. The smaller German force, it was said, had used the aid of bees; and there are no fighters more ferocious than bees. The British troops with their inexperienced foreigners had simply walked into a forest of beehives, was the other interpretation. Whatever the case, the bees had routed the British, who had fled in terror in all four directions firing guns and screaming and banging on doors. By sunrise most of the British force had disappeared into the bushes or been captured. Foreigners always learn the hardway, people would later say. With such weapons are