Zanzibar 5 -Escape to the Hospital

PAINTING/GLOOM

My great trouble in times of upheaval is that my chief obsession in life, namely painting, appears meaningless and irrelevant. The canvas seems so flimsy, and the paint marks on the canvas seem so inept, so helpless, when the world around is in cataclysm.

I was not myself. I was one infinitesimal apprehension. I felt that I was in a dark, closed tunnel, that I had lost my identity. I had heard of grave misfortunes which had befallen others. One man’s wife was shot before his eyes. Another had been taken away at night, maybe to have been flogged, there was a lot of flogging.

But what I am really trying to say is that during this time I was not the person whom I had known from childhood. Though outwardly calm enough, inside there was a man of new emotions. I experienced a sense of exhilaration and nightmare mixed up with other feelings, but above all I had a sense of being shut up in a dark place. The clouds seemed to be no higher than the trees.

CROWS

Once, dozing on the verandah at midday, I was awakened by hoarse, yet penetrating cries, close to my ear. I opened my eyes and found myself looking into the very bright, predatory eye of a crow. He had been watching my eyelids as he stood there on the balustrade two feet away. The movement of my eyelids would tell him whether I was alive or dead. His cries were such as a crow makes just before he makes his sortie: cries at once intimidating and alarming as though the crow were himself alarmed at the risk he is about to undertake.

During these days the crows looked down and made their weird music, gazed in alarm and greed at the bodies beneath the trees.

ESCAPE TO THE HOSPITAL

Just across the street from our main door there was a narrow alleyway leading to the seashore. This afforded cover for the ambulance. We had opened the double doors and were standing back from the street out of sight of the gunmen who were standing at a distance of about two hundred yards from us. We had to get across the width of the street to reach the ambulance and we hoped we would not be shot down as we crossed. We had to decide whether it was better to run across one by one or in a group. There were six of us, including Hassan, (one son having gone to Pemba on a fishing expedition). Which was the correct

manoeuvre we never came to know but we decided that if we crossed one by one each succeeding person would be in greater jeopardy and the last one might have been hit. Therefore, we all made a sudden dash, got across safely – no shot was fired – and scrambled into the ambulance and kept ourselves close to the floor as it swung into the street and out along the road. We reached the hospital very quickly and there we had another shock coming.

We had rushed from fear to fear. It was swarming with revolutionaries. Both main gates were under heavy guard, armed men were placed at every vantage point. Each had the silent angry aspect of an enemy, eyes cold and watchful. Many had rifles, others had clubs or pangas. One carried an axe. We were completely in their power. It remained to be seen how they would use this power.

One point at least was speedily made clear. No ambulance was to leave the hospital. The wounded were to be left to lie where they fell and no attempt was to be made to reach them.

The telephone in the theatre office rang again and again with scarcely a pause between calls. Each appeal for assistance added a fragment to the developing pattern of events and told of a gradual penetration of terror into the depths of the town. It was a picture of unbridled violence, of suspension of law, of liquidation of the police forces.

The first call was from the wife of a bank official. Her message made it clear that the forces I had seen from my own home, the group of seven followed by the truckload of irregulars who gave the Churchillian V sign, were penetrating deeper into the town. This message was succeeded immediately by a phone call from the Reverend Mother of the Convent. The tide was partly in and partly out and on the strip of sandy beach beyond the jetty she said she saw the body of a European, dead. The next message was from another area in the denser portion of the town, a place called Darajani where it seemed that looting was in progress. A man found in the street, unconscious and bleeding from the head, had been carried into the house. What should they do? We gave first-aid instructions in reply, feeling unhelpful and inadequate.

Yet another call, a boy, shot through the legs, had been taken to the home of our anaesthetist. It was the voice of his wife. Could her husband come and see the boy, or failing this an ambulance must be sent at once or he would die. This boy had been a passenger in the Anglia I had seen swerve away from the group of seven. It had been shot at as it swerved. The bullet had penetrated the coachwork and struck this little boy. It had been an inoffensive family party merely returning home from Mass, the same Mass to which Mrs Balucci had been going when I had dissuaded her. Another boy had been shot dead as he emerged from church; terrified by this, the remainder of the congregation spent the rest of that day cowering in the buildings of the Mission.

Then, in the midst of these distress messages, amongst urgent and angry calls for an ambulance, came a strange request for water for Malindi. This was a police station situated on the outskirts of the town at an opposite point from where the hospital was situated. It had been built to withstand attack and was manned by a small, well-equipped force under the Commissioner of Police. This post had been under attack and in a state of siege since the early hours of the morning.

They were holding out but were without water. “Could we send some by ambulance?”

No sooner was the telephone set down than it rang again, diverting our minds from this extraordinary message. Early calls began to be repeated, the voices more anxious and angry because the casualties in their cars were going downhill, and there was no sign of an ambulance or of any assistance from the hospital. It looked as though we did not care.

Abdullah the bank watchman was still lying on the road. The dead European body witnessed from the Convent was still on the beach, now lapped by the incoming tide.

The next message was from another area in the denser portion of the town, a place called Darajani where it seemed that looting was in progress. A man found on the street, unconscious and bleeding from the head, had been carried into the house. What should they do? We gave first-aid instructions in reply, feeling unhelpful and inadequate.

The unconscious man had died.

The Goan boy, his femoral artery severed, was getting worse and worse. He had been a passenger in the white Anglia returning from Mass and had been fired on as it turned away from the group. The remainder of the congregation at the same Mass were taking refuge in the mission. Others had been shot dead in the narrow street outside. This meant that the irregulars had reached Saks Mahogo and were meeting no resistance. Bank, Convent and Mission were each further than the other on the way into the centre of the town.

Several streams of violence flowed from the outer to the inner portions of the town along all the principal lanes and alleys of the maze of Zanzibar. And so it continued throughout the day, each message weaving a strand, adding to the pattern. In the hospital at regular intervals we walked along the rows of injured people, examining and re-examining, supervising resuscitation, selecting and categorising cases for the operating rooms.

The wards, balconies and corridors were filling up, and every inch of space was being utilised – the ambulance must have been released. Fourteen doctors were at work, and they were already showing signs of strain. While they worked on their patients they worried about their families, most of whom were defenceless and in the thick of the trouble. Most of the doctors were Arabs and it was becoming clear that the police barrier had been beaten down and that there was nothing to stand between the exuberant victorious African and his hereditary enemy. Rumour had it that a house to house massacre of Arabs was going on. judging by the unabated gunfire there was substance in this rumour. It was

feared that the Africans would go berserk and kill as many Arabs as possible without reference to age, sex or political expediency.

When injuries are multiple and when the full extent of the causative violence is not known, it is necessary to evaluate the patient at frequent and regular intervals. For example, a man admitted with head wounds may later develop an internal haemorrhage from a concomitant rupture of spleen or kidney. Physical signs in the nervous system may overshadow, or even temporarily hide serious damage in other systems.

When casualties are numerous, it is necessary, in the first instance, to make a quick survey to pick out those patients in need of most urgent attention. Otherwise, while you attend to injuries which can wait an hour, a patient further down the ward or in another ward may slip away through your fingers.

It is also necessary to make a severely injured patient fit for surgery by treating shock, for example, and to decide theatre priorities. Cases in need of operation were distinguished by a large card on which was printed a big red ‘T’. Cases capable of being dealt with in the ward were marked with a large ‘W’. Next time round a figure was written in beside the capital letter to indicate the individual priority. For example T1 meant ‘first in this ward for theatre’, W1 meant ‘first in this ward for treatment in ward’.

It was during the frequent ward rounds, continuing around the clock, that information about the state of affairs outside could be gleaned. During this time also an operated patient would be moved from the theatre and his place taken by the next. I shuttled from one theatre to the other operating on case after case. It was like an endless conveyor belt. While changing bloody gowns for fresh ones, I could hear the most recent, usually ghastly, rumour and there was a new rumour for my ears when I emerged yet again. The scaring thing about the rumours was that they were reported, not as suppositions, but as facts. For example, we heard “They want the wounded to die. They won’t let the ambulances out.” And in this emotional atmosphere one gave instant credence to those `facts’ and one’s fears were intensified.

In any one ward there were at times ten or twelve cases each normally requiring two or three hours of reconstructive surgery. The rule had to be made – ‘close the skin, do it in the ward, reconstructive surgery must wait. We can only stand back and choose carefully so as to select for operation only those cases which would otherwise die.’

Even so, how do you choose between two patients when each requires immediate operation and one will die while you work on the other? It happened more than once. Junior surgeons were working too. Theatres were working to maximum capacity and not a moment was wasted. Nevertheless, we could not work quickly enough. We were in a veritable sea of casualties and we could not keep pace with the incoming tide.

A nurse came to the ward where I was sorting priorities. “Doctor Maitra says the abdominal case is ready, Sir.”

I know which one it is. It is a gentle old Arab with a gunshot wound of the upper abdomen. The bullet has probably damaged the stomach, possibly lung as well.

“Tell him to intubate and place him on his right side. We’ll have to go in through the chest.”

“Very well, Sir.”

I followed presently. There he lay, an elderly man with kindly eyes. I remember his hurt, questioning look, the early cataract. I remember thinking “What harm could this old gentleman, this devout Muslim, have ever done to anyone?” His hands bore the callosities of years of toil. But now he was asleep and I took up the knife and began.

One after the other they were wheeled in. Anaesthetic, incision, repair, out. This went on all night until all awareness of time was lost.

“Next case please.” “Don’t waste time.” “Yes, yes, two pints at least.”

“When, oh when will the bastards lay off? They’ve achieved their object. Why can’t they stop?”

CAPITULATION

The. revolution was brilliantly successful. Within a mere twelve hours the government had changed hands, the popular leader had become Prime Minister and the overthrown government were under lock and key.

Some time during Sunday the radio had come to life again. There were announcements interspersed with music. Several portable transistor sets were in the hospital and small groups, idle for a moment, listened avidly for news of what was going on. The noise of shooting had by then become, like the cawing of the crows, something to which one scarcely adverted. Periodically the radio music would stop, often in mid-strain, a voice would speak, and everyone within earshot would fall silent.

In the general atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty, a voice of someone in authority was welcome. The voice of the new leader, Abeid Kharume, a gruff, stern voice, slightly hoarse, was heard for the first time in this capacity late on Sunday afternoon. He declared himself to be the President of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba and stated that the overthrow of the former regime had been accomplished. He introduced the overthrown leaders one by one. They had driven themselves to his headquarters and given themselves up.

The first to speak was Sheik Mohamed Shamte, leader of the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party, ex Prime Minister of the constitutional sultanate whose government had lasted a mere month. He had been leader of the splinter smaller party in the coalition government, a man of relatively small popularity who had split off from the Afro-Sherazi party and its leader, the same Abeid Kharume who now held him captive. Had he not made the split, there is no doubt that there would have been no revolution. The voice of this old man was broken and hesitant, suggesting fear, bitterness and absence of hope. It was impossible not to be moved. He confirmed that he had resigned in favour of the new President Abeid Kharume. Mohamed Shamte’s coalition with the second largest party, that of Sheik Ali Mushin, the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, had won but the smallest of majorities in the recent elections, a majority of a single seat. Without his aid, Ali Mushin, the stronger, more popular of the two, would not have won sufficient seats to form a government.

Ali Mushin was the most powerful leader after Kharume. It was widely thought that the Presidency was the bribe which led to the coalition, and it was on this account that Ali Mushim did not assume the title of Head of Government.

After the voice of the new Father of the People, we heard the voices of the overthrown leaders one after the other. They confirmed the truth of Kharume’s words and, speaking in tones of the utmost dejection, they adjured their followers to give loyalty to the new regime. If Ali Mushiin had surrendered, the revolution was at an end.

Therefore, the atmosphere was tenser than ever as his voice came over the radio. His power was broken for good.

Speaking in tones of the utmost dejection and with a vibration which conveyed itself to me as fear, he told his followers to give allegiance to the new head of state. It was almost as though he were talking at gun-point, as though he expected to be shot, out of hand, the moment he had finished speaking. He explained that his reason for surrendering was the desire that there should be no further violence. He urged them to transfer their loyalty to the new regime., and to accept the new situation with calmness and resignation.

His motives were altruistic, if the face value of his words were any indication. Rumour had it, on the other hand, that he had been stoned by his own followers, as he drove to give himself up. Possibly they felt betrayed; maybe they attributed his surrender to cowardice and condemned his acceptance of an offer of safe conduct.

At any rate there was no life in his voice, and the known followers who were listening with me were visibly smitten by the sound no less than by the content. I felt sorry for them because I thought that they had been betrayed.

Suddenly, startling everybody, the music began again, abrupt and irrelevant. After a pause to digest the momentous news, many earnest conversations began.

The revolution was at an end. The long supremacy of the Arabs in Zanzibar was over. But the firing continued unabated. But surely not for much longer. Victory and defeat had come about, so it now remained merely to bury the dead and to collect the wounded. Nevertheless, the firing continued as the darkness closed in.

I had been no admirer of the decadent regime which had golthere by a trick. A trick which had been cynically permitted by a group of officials who must have been well aware that the so-called constitution sowed the seeds of civil disturbance. Otherwise it would have lasted longer.

As the night wore on I found myself reflecting that the continuation of violence during the succeeding day depended only on the degree of control which the leaders could maintain upon the forces under them. The leaders were responsible men, not unlettered, who might be expected to draw the line at a general sack of the town and of the dwellings in the shambas. I had heard some of their speeches, heard Kharume himself declare that the intention was to achieve a genuine multi-racial society. An unbridled display of animosity towards the vanquished would be of adverse political significance. If humanitarian grounds weighed little, which was by no means proven, political grounds weighed much. Can an African Government seeking diplomatic recognition afford to appear racist?

I reflected on the previous civil disturbances. The Makonde had run amok and killed many Arabs. They attacked the vulnerable dwellings of the poorer Arab families. They encircled the huts during the night and as the first light appeared, threw burning faggots on the roofs of the houses. When the occupants were driven out by the smoke and flames, they ran blindly into a circle of flashing pangas and were mercilessly cut down. This terror raged for several days even in defiance of the fully intact police force and units of the Kings African Rifles drafted hurriedly from Kenya to control it.

‘How must these families be feeling now at this very moment as I lie surrounded on every side by wounded men, women and children? Now there is nothing to stop the same violent tribesmen from continuing this massacre. How must they feel, cowering in their flimsy homes?’ `But’, I continued to myself, ‘there is an authority, there is the strength of Abeid Kharume. As a fellow of the people, his authority should be greater than that of any power imposed from outside. Will he control his forces? Can he control his forces?’

A new and popular leadership had been established – the obvious man who should have been assisted rather than outmanoeuvred by the British Administration. But he was in the saddle now and apart from outside intervention, his position was quite unassailable.

Therefore, the quietness was open to an optimistic interpretation. The voice of Arab notabilities in the shambas, the village chieftains that is, the concentration of effort, judging by the broadcasts and the note of retribution not only in the content but in the very inflection of Okello’s voice all pointed at mayhem in the coconut plantations. The absence of rebels from our immediate environment pointed the same way.

* * * * *

That night the wards were in a state of utter confusion. Only the selected worst of the cases could be accommodated on beds. Those less severely wounded lay on blankets on the floors. Repeatedly we searched through these recumbent figures to ensure that no serious cases were being overlooked.

Those who had been injured in a particularly grave manner were re-examined regularly throughout the night and treatment was modified as necessary. Additional injuries, either previously overlooked or recently come to light in new severity, were sought in those whose treatment appeared to be progressing favourably.

This routine made sleep for the hospital staff available only in small doses. It became necessary to insist that some should go off duty and have a more generous period of rest so that there would be, at all times, a leaven of fresh and rested personnel. Most of the workers were resistant to this instruction and wanted to carry on without cessation. But this could not be permitted because

the collection of casualties from the shambas would bring about a fresh influx in the morning whether the violence was over or not.

(Author’s note: 2a somewhere here.)

There was no indication that the violence had ceased. Even in the dark shooting continued, and the shots sometimes came from so close at hand that I started up several times thinking that a gun had been fired in the hospital itself. Cars and lorries, their headlights bright in the darkness, came and went all through the night. There was often only a sole occupant.

I slept on the floor of an office, directly under a ceiling fan, trying to snatch some rest between my regular patrolling of the wards. Whenever I did doze off, the sound of this fan simulated the approach of an aeroplane with so real an effect that I got up and scanned the sky several times during the night. I was overtired and my imagination was playing me tricks.

Fear held universal sway in the beginning, fear of the rebels by their enemies and their potential enemies, fear on the part of the victors of reprisal and reverse of fortune. Sorrow succeeded fear, the sorrow of bereavement, sorrow of failure. Despair was the lot of some, captivity without an end in sight, the end of hope of power. These effects could have been foretold.

One ingredient of the emotional cocktail I have left to last. It is absent from a natural calamity such as flooding or fire or earthquake. It was there, from the beginning, it motivated the circumstances, it modified the gaiety giving it an edge of sadness. It mixed into despair and rendered it gall, it inflicted wounds to fester, it liberated the fumes of tyranny. This ingredient was hatred. Natural calamity is impersonal and rallies humanity in a common cause. Man-made calamity, however justifiable by political sychophancy, liberates forces of diabolical destructiveness to body and spirit alike.

Fear was universal in the beginning. It affected everyone, irrespective of their situation. Those who faced the violent ones in a helpless and unarmed condition had every cause for fear. But the revolutionaries themselves were not immune. No one group could have known how the fighting was proceeding elsewhere. There was the apprehension associated with the uncertainty of outside reactions – at any moment a fleet might appear on the horizon or a battalion might drop from the sky. Nearer at hand, and of more immediate concern, was the danger of a solitary act of revenge, a knife in the back, a shot from a high window.

The gaiety which gradually made its appearance was associated with the accumulating evidence of success. The revolutionaries gained confidence and became elated. They laughed and cheered, fired random shots at crows and windows, and shook each other by the hand.

All this was natural. It contrasted with the increasing despondency of their political opponents and with the personal sorrow in many a home. This gaiety pervaded the atmosphere, and caused an uplift in the spirits in defiance of anger and misgiving at all the death and suffering on every side. For a time I, too, felt a

lightening of the spirit. Though surrounded by the grim results of the butchery of war, I vicariously shared the feeling of ‘Uhuru tena” foretold by Suwena when she did her little dance in the street below me not many days before.

Then, gradually, I became repelled by the lack of any evidence of feelings, of pity for a helpless, beaten country. The gaiety and joy became unholy as the elemental hatred obtained unbridled control. It inflicted wounds destined to fester, it liberated the fumes of tyranny from the emotional cocktail and it sullied the bright victory of the long oppressed.

Section 5 of 8 in Part 1