1982 - An Ice-Cream War Read Online Free PDF

an hour’s ride from Moshi, due south into the lush foothills of the Pare mountains.
    Temple’s farm foreman, Saleh, was a Swahili from the coast, a small wizened alert man upon whom Temple relied more than he liked, but there was no sign of him, any farm boys, or the ox-cart with its team of six oxen that was intended to haul the crates of coffee seedlings the ten miles from Moshi to Taveta, the first settlement across the border in British East Africa.
    Liesl watched Temple supervise the unloading of the crates onto the low platform. When their own luggage was secured on the buggy she called out to him.
    “Mr Smith. We are ready to go.”
    He came over and shook her hand.
    “A real pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs von Bishop.” She found his accent easier to understand. “I must say,” he went on, “this, ah, agricultural endeavour of mine has been greatly, um…Your company has…and I only hope our conversation wasn’t too boring.”
    Von Bishop joined them. “Well, Smith, we must be going. No sign of your boys?”
    “No, damn them—excuse me, Mrs Bishop. I think I’ve hired the laziest bunch of niggers in British East Africa.”
    “Niggers?”
    “Natives, my dear,” von Bishop explained.
    “Don’t let me keep you,” Temple said. “I know you must be keen to get home.” He shook von Bishop’s hand. “Good to see you again, Erich. Why don’t you ride over and visit my sisal factory one day.”
    “I might just do that, Smith. I might just do that.”
    They left Temple pacing up and down outside Moshi station. Von Bishop helped Liesl into the buggy and climbed up to join her. He shook the reins, the mules reluctantly started, and the buggy trundled off down the dusty street. Liesl looked back and saw Temple take off his terai hat and mop his brow with a handkerchief. He saw her turn and he waved his hat at her before his squat figure disappeared from view as they rounded a bend to pass beneath the huge embankments of the new fort the Schutztruppe had built at Moshi. Liesl looked up at the stone walls and crude square buildings of the boma and saw the black, white and red flag of the Imperial Army hanging limply against its flagpole.
    “He’s a curious man, the American,” she remarked to her husband, to break through the silence that sat between them.
    “And a foolish man as well,” von Bishop said with a laugh. “If he thinks he can grow coffee at Taveta he must have more money than sense.”

Chapter 3
    10 June 1914,
Taveta, British East Africa
    “Bwana Smith is a great merchant,” Saleh extemporized, singing in Swahili and cracking his whip idly in time at the lead bull ox in the lumbering team. They had just crossed the Anglo-German boundary and were making their way along a rough track that wandered between the many small hillocks that were a feature of the landscape at this spot.
    Temple saw Saleh glance back over his shoulder to make sure he was listening to the song.
    “Bwana Smith has bought coffee of exquisite beauty,” he droned. “He will grow many coffee plants, he will become a rich man, his farm boys will praise the day he gave them work.”
    “Oh-ya-yi!” chorused the two farm boys who plodded behind Saleh. Saleh looked back at Temple again, and rubbed his buttocks through his grimy white tunic. Temple laughed to himself. He had landed three powerful kicks on Saleh’s behind when the men had turned up two hours after the train’s arrival. He was also forcing them all to walk beside the ox-team as further punishment—normally they would have sat on the back of the waggon, each one taking turns to lead the team. Saleh had sworn that a miserable, monkey-brained swine of a station sweeper had assured him the train was due later in the day, but the reek of corn beer on his breath tended to devalue his protestations of innocence.
    Temple’s body jolted and swayed as the heavy waggon negotiated the ruts and stones of the track. The country around them was of thick