Iroko Tree

Russ Watling

Description

Colonial West Africa and the nationalists want the British out. Tom Bradley, an ex-bomber pilot, takes a job in the Protectorate of Nigeria flying cargo up country alongside a local Nigerian, before external circumstances begin to test their relationship.Tom falls in love with Elizabeth, an expatriate teacher, but she is married to a wealthy banker and pillar of colonial society. The unfolding events impact on the scars Tom carries from the war, and cause them all to question where their allegiances lie.Both an adventure story of immense drama, and a love story of uncompromising passion with drastic and tragic consequences.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Contemporary romance
• Adventure fiction
• Adventure
• Nigeria

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800465947
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Russ Watling

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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To everyone I love


Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve

Part Two
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One

Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five

Author’s Note
Acknowledgements



Part One
‘Whatever difference there is between the negro and the European, in the conformation of the nose, and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature.’
Mungo Park, surgeon and explorer (1771–1806)


Chapter One
November 1947
The aircraft’s tyres thudded along the Lagos runway, the green landscape rushing past on either side. Tom held the throttle levers forward, aware of the noise and vibration rising from the engines. He held the pilot’s yoke to him, his eyes on the runway and the line of trees in the distance. The tailplane slowly began to lift and as they reached rotation speed the bumping stopped and the ground slowly slid away beneath the spinning wheels. As the plane climbed higher his eyes took in the airspeed, altimeter and direction indicator and then moved back to where they were headed. The roar from the Wasp radials pulsed back into the cockpit as the Dakota slowly gained height. Oil pressure and engine temperature normal, reasonable visibility too. It was going to be a good day.
The wind off the coast buffeted the fuselage as they climbed higher, but the air already felt fresher than on the hot, moist coastal plain with its draining humidity. To his right, Obike, the loadmaster, sat in the co-pilot’s seat, his hand backing up his own on the throttles. At two thousand feet he adjusted the propellers to cruise, checked the bearing and banked gently to port, swinging the aircraft around on to their correct course and then climbing higher. At nine thousand feel he levelled out – the Dakota could fly higher but oxygen cylinders were in short supply in Africa, and anyway the highest point in the great expanse of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria was on the Jos plateau off to the right of their track. He said a few words to Obike, who undid his seat straps and moved back through the companionway to the hold, as he always did about now to ensure the cargo hadn’t shifted in the climb.
The bright sky suggested things were set for another calm day with only a few puffy clouds in the far distance. The thermals rising steadily from the warming landscape were in a friendly mood, no buffeting currents of disturbed air hindering their progress this morning.
Obike eventually returned to the cockpit and strapped himself in. ‘All OK,’ he said. ‘I put an extra strap on that heavy black crate.’
Tom glanced at his watch – nearly half past nine. They should be in Sokoto by noon.
Just a few weeks in Africa now and the weather patterns were quite different to Europe. No air traffic control and no beacons beyond the one at Lagos. But his life was now back on course. They flew on further north and eventually the river Niger (Obike called it the Joliba) came into view – one of the great rivers of Africa. It was becoming a regular sight now and an aid to navigation, though seeing the river for the first time had been something of an anti-climax. He’d imagined a vast watercourse flowing through swathes of jungle, but at this point the main stream was intertwined with a series of meandering backwaters. Up-river somewhere, many miles away to the north-west, was Timbuktu, a name from his old school atlas. And now as they headed north the landscape would slowly change to the dry plains and scarps of the interior. He looked around at the sky again. Up in the cool bright air drifting clouds were forming, clusters of white against the deep blue.
It was time to switch on the gyropilot, and he watched the lights change from red to green and adjusted the aeroplane’s attitude and heading. Then he leaned back and folded his arms, watching the steering yoke turn by itself, twisting to the left and right to maintain their course. The autopilot was a great help. Back in the war he’d have a reassuring voice in his headphones as the navigator laid out their track in the lamp-lit darkness, telling him when to change course. Now he had to do things for himself. Aitken had been his first navigator. He could see him now being stretchered off after they landed. He didn’t think he’d survive.
Obike was fascinated by the gyropilot. The first time Tom had switched it on Obike looked perplexed as the yokes adjusted by themselves, and he had to explain the principle of it, ‘When that light changes to green it means the gyro is engaged, so it’s steering our course for us and I can have a rest’. Obike said it reminded him of the spirit of his ancestors. Like them, it was there to keep them safe. It was a comforting thought.
His old RAF gas-mask satchel hung behind the pilot’s seat and he reached inside for the flask of coffee. They had Camp Coffee in Lagos, and he poured cups for himself and Obike. Behind them in the cargo bay, the crates of agricultural equipment, industrial machinery and parts almost filled the hold, and after he finished his coffee he got up and went to back to stretch his legs.
It was draughty back there and noisier without his headphones. The roar from the engines echoed back from the metal surface of the aeroplane. The few windows let in little light but he could see clearly enough to make out the ribs and riveted skin of the fuselage. When the cargo bay was emptied it all looked strangely purposeless, bare and functional, the aircraft designers intent on keeping weight to a minimum. Sometimes he loaded his motorbike on with the intention of making a short journey of exploration at the other end, although as it turned out there was rarely enough time. The usual pattern was to carry goods from the docks up-country and then fill the hold with local produce for the return journey – typically agricultural items like groundnuts, cotton, millet, hides, and occasionally textiles. He looked at the boxes under the cargo nets and out of habit tested the straps holding the crates of radio and irrigation equipment, and canned foodstuffs for the army. The railway network usually carried the heavier items and bulk materials, but air cargo was faster, and they could carry high-value and urgent equipment and reach places away from the railheads.
When he returned to the cockpit he picked up the map and looked out the side window, trying to locate the settlements it mentioned, but there was a haze nearer the ground and pinpointing them was difficult. The colours down below had changed: the swathe of lush foliage in the fertile south had become an Impressionist painting of scattered ambers, ochres and browns with lighter shades of green. He spotted a fire in the distance, people clearing trees perhaps, the smoke drifting across the landscape. He’d seen enough fires in the war – factories, docks, cities – in the end he couldn’t take it any more. That’s why Nigeria was so important. He needed to find his composure again, and if he couldn’t he’d end up in a boring desk job like his brother.
Obike had his head in a book. He was surprisingly relaxed in the air, and maybe the book helped. Obike seemed a bit of a bookish sort of person, not how he’d expected a Nigerian to be. He asked him what book it was and he showed him the cover: The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn . He smiled to himself – perhaps he was Huck and Obike was Jim, or was it the other way around? After all, he was the one who’d escaped. Obike usually spoke the English his teachers had taught him but his pidgin nevertheless lurked in the background. He’d heard him say ‘ How far ’ instead of ‘hello’ and ‘ You do well ’ rather than ‘thank you’ to the clerks in the freight office, and he found it useful to repeat some of Obike’s phrases when he was shopping in the markets. He was trying to develop an ear for the local patois but had to ask Obike to repeat things when he slipped from the King’s English. A particular phrase which stuck in his head was when he asked how he’d convinced the freight manager that he could handle the loadmaster job. Obike said th