The Dust Diaries by Owen Sheers Read Free Book Online Page A

man folding to his knees.
    He looked up from his knuckles to the ship again. Apparently violence had risen its head there this morning too. From what he could gather from the rumours and reports doing the rounds of the port, the German crew had told a group of Somalis brought from Aden they would be used as slaves, not workers on the railways. It was the young Portuguese policeman who came to collect them this morning who bore the consequences of this information. Badly beaten by all accounts. Which of course had brought his colleagues with their swords and pistols. He’d heard the shots. He sighed. Thick-skinned as he was, the indifference with which life was treated here still got to him.
    In the past ten years the Universities Mission to Central Africa had already lost fifty-seven men from the two hundred missionaries sent to them. Blackwater fever, diarrhoea, animals, uprisings. The country could find a hundred ways to kill a man, and the Bishop was all too aware that they were taking its soul with their graves. The new missionaries knew it too and were now even told to write their will before making the journey. And choose their epitaph. From what he could gather though, Cripps was a harder man than most. A boxing and cross-country blue. Quite a runner apparently. Still, you can never tell, he’d seen good men go under before. And apparently Cripps was also a poet.
    An increase in activity on board and around the ship’s gangway caught his drifting attention. The first passengers were disembarking. A bustling stream of hats, leather trunks, dresses and parasols. Women and children first. The Bishop scanned the people behind the women, the men, for Cripps, wondering as he did what kind of epitaph a poet chooses for his grave. He thought he knew who he was looking for as he was sure he’d seen him earlier, shortly after he’d heard the shots on board. A tall figure silhouetted against the morning glare, resting his hands on the railings of the deck. He’d waved, and the figure had waved back. Disorientedly slowly. His arm delicate against the sky.
    Half an hour passed before the Bishop finally caught a glimpse of Cripps coming down the steep gangway. Yes, it was the same man. Head and shoulders above his fellow passengers. He was walking beside a younger, pale-faced man and looking about him, his long, thin frame making him resemble a curious heron. As he neared, the Bishop took stock. An awkwardness about him. Sun-blushed skin, the tops of his ears blistered and burnt by the voyage. His safari suit far too small. Thin wrists. Not those of a boxer really. Striking eyes, not a stare as such, but certainly a deeper gaze than most. The Bishop took this all in, his own practised eyes skimming over Cripps once more before passing judgement. He gave him five years at the most. Five years before the fever, the sickness, the home-1 ust, the whole truck and trial of this country buckled him. He was close now, and the Bishop walked towards him, revealing himself from the crowd, his sore right hand outstretched.
    ‘Father Cripps, I presume? Welcome to Mozambique. Bishop Gaul. The smallest Bishop with the largest diocese in Christendom.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘The smallest Bishop with…’
    Cripps’ eyes were on him; in his, studying him from below a frown. The Bishop petered out. ‘…the largest…oh, never mind.’ Then, indicating the one small suitcase he carried, ‘Is this all your luggage?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, let’s get you out of here. This way.’
    Indicating to an African boy to take Cripps’ suitcase from him, the Bishop turned and began to make his way through the moving crowd to where his car and driver were waiting, thinking as he went that he’d never trusted poets anyway, but also, that he may have been wrong about Cripps lasting only five years. His handshake had been that of a physical man, and his body, though slim, seemed taut with muscle. And those eyes too, they promised more.
    That