From a few tiny beginnings the American Dream is born
The night falls quickly in the Tropics, and it's always advisable to have made camp and eaten before it does. And so it was on this particular evening in Burma in June 1945.
There had been no serious contact with the enemy for several days, though the odd sniper had been found and dealt with in the unceremonious ways of the King's East African Rifles, and which usually ended in beheading.
As always, the officers -- for the most part British, but there were also some Irishmen posted from the 7th Indian Division -- at first tended to the needs of their men, inspecting their feet and checking their rifles.
The last to arrive in the officers' messing area was the major, 23 years of age, a grammar-school boy from Leeds who'd been studying maths and economics at Manchester, until conscription took him from civvy street.
A declared socialist and devout Methodist, he had volunteered for duty with the King's African Rifles because he felt the white man had a duty to educate the black men whose land he had taken, so that one day they could run their own country.
He was unusual in that he had any politics. His second in command, a cheery farmer's son from Norfolk had probably never had a political thought in his life. A signals corporal approached the young major and saluted.
"Good news, sir," he whispered, passing him the decoded message from battalion HQ.
The major scanned it. Good news indeed. The enemy had broken off contact and were in full retreat.
He looked around him in the fading light, a smile showing in the gloom.
"Tidings of joy, chaps. The Nips are on the run. The way ahead is clear for miles. And the best news is that we can light up at last!"
For the past few weeks, Japanese troops had been so close that the men had been unable to smoke at night. All they could do was to puff disconsolately on empty pipes, to try to inhale any lingering molecule of tobacco that had escaped capture during earlier immolations.
Now, at last, tobacco-filled pipes could be smoked in all their voluptuous depravity.
As the major chortled at the prospect, one of the company-cooks began to clear their billy-cans away.
The major looked up at him. His own orderly was unwell, and he liked the cut of this African fellow's jib.
"Askari," he said.
"Mbwana," replied the African.
"Go to my tent and in the right-hand top pocket of my pack you'll find some Old Shag tobacco. Bring it here, pronto."
"Very good, Mbwana."
An Irish officer from Malahide, Bobby Law, rubbed his hands in delight. "My word: tobacco today, peace tomorrow, and what ho, home the day after. Who'd have believed it?"
The group settled into a happy, reflective silence.
"Of course," said the major, "the real question is: what'll we do with our future? What are we going to do for the next generation? Are we going to let them grow up in a society as class-ridden as ours has been? As divisive?" "Major, you exaggerate, surely," said 2nd Lieutenant Perkins, just out of public school.
"Anyway, the real question is the empire. It's been rocked to its heels, what with this and that. It's jolly well up to us to put it back together. White men will always lead black men. That's the natural order of things."
The Askari returned with the major's tobacco, and then stood deferentially beyond the circle of officers. "The question isn't, 'what's going to happen to the empire, or even our kids?'" said the major. "But, 'What's going to happen to our kids' kids?'"
Bobby Law did not answer: he was too busy revelling in his pipe which, 40 years on, back home in Malahide, was to cause his death from throat cancer.
The Norfolk man was, meanwhile, chuckling as he packed his own pipe with soft, wet shag -- the very word causing him to dwell with happy lubricity upon his wife's warm and welcoming loins, ah, getting closer by the day."
And what about all our poor African soldiers when the war's over and the army's got rid of them?" he continued. "What'll happen to them? Exclusion from their tribes, ruination and poverty, probably."
The Askari-cook, a Luo, stood unmoving, his panga hanging from a leather strap around his waist, as he mouthed the silent words, "Not me, Mbwana." At home in Kenya, on the shores of Lake Victoria, his wife was minding their nine-year-old son, who would himself have a son; and one evening in June, 63 years later, to the very day that the Askari of the King's East African Rifles had been standing wordlessly in a paddy-field in Burma, that boy would become the Democratic Presidential Candidate for the United States of America.
The American Way.
kmyers@independent.ie
