Chapter 5 - Egypt to Johannesburg

We came down at Khartoum to re-fuel and the heat struck us like a blast from hell. Well trained boys in white Kansas and red fezzes brought us welcome drinks of orange or lime, and we passed the half hour or so in the shade of the waiting room looking out at a hedge starred with pink flowers, and beyond as the dazzling planes came down to refuel, and the heat struck us like a blast frizzling in the brassy heat, then on again, our last and only distressing flight. The heat rising caused our plane to bump, and several of us were sick in our little paper bags. I found that if I fastened the safety belt tightly over my stomach and pressed on it that I could avoid vomiting, but instead I passed into oblivion and was revived by the stewardess playing a draught of air on my face.

The food was not so appetising, and we ran into a storm near Mount Kilimanjaro. On one side of the 'plane the windows showed ominous grey and black but on the other, the sun was shining as usual so I kept my face turned to the brightness and tried to ignore the threat in those lowering black clouds. Slips of paper were passed back from the pilot at intervals, telling us the plane's position, speed, altitude and important landmarks. We were now on our way to Nairobi and should have arrived about 4 p.m. but soon we felt the plane veer round, and on the flight we were least enjoying, we had to put back to the landing strip at Juba, some 200 miles, to pick up a sick American in need of an operation. The landing strip was small and the plane large, but our blond pilot made as usual, a perfect landing and there we were in real Africa at last.

A roof of grass supported on four poles protected us from the blazing sun, and while the business of getting the American on board was being carried out we decided to give poor Gus a haircut with my nail scissors. Poor dog!. His coat was made for the Scottish climate and although the clipping he received made his paternal origin more suspect than ever, he licked us gratefully with a warm tongue and shook off the tufts with relief. Georgie was equally hot, but with his pride of race, a clipping would have shamed him forever, and his ancestor Confucius might have said 'Ne'er cast a clout till May is oot'. He could save his face for another week at least.

A few thin natives ambled up, their legs were like sticks and they were very black. We were all intrigued of course, at our first sight of natives in their habitat, and we asked for permission to peep at a picanniny slung in a goatskin on the back of his mother, a young girl of about 16. He was a beautiful baby, naked but for a string of blue beads round his waist, and shining, fat and polished like a miniature Buddha. A coloured man working on the air strip told us that these people were very poor and got little to eat, so with characteristic generosity, a fellow traveller gave the young mother a ten shilling note. It meant nothing to her at the time of course - she would much have preferred a silver half crown or a tin of meal, but perhaps someone would relieve her of the responsibility of the note!. However little their food, nature had endowed her with ample for her little Buddha.

Up again, and on to Nairobi but our delay meant a night landing and our pilot had to get permission. Our poor American was made as comfortable as possible on one of the seats tipped back as far as it would go, and made no sound, just lay with a grey face and an expression of waiting - suspending all effort and thought until something practical could be done for him. The lights of Nairobi scattered below us like jewels on a black cloth, but that was all we saw of this African city then just a debutante but since in the full glory of young nationhood. We were split into two groups and our chance was a small hotel where they could only offer bread and jam at that time of night.

We were more tired and hungry than we had been since we left Britain and after a great deal of concerted persuasion the proprietress agreed to cook some bacon and eggs, and we sat on the verandah listening to the rustle of lizards while the rigours of our 16 hour flight, dispersed on anticipation of a meal. We fell into bed, four of us in one room, and as we were awakened again at 4 a.m. and out to the Airport before it was day, our visit to Nairobi was only a tantalising memory.

Nothing exciting happened from Nairobi to Johannesburg. Below us stretched hundreds and hundreds of miles of nothing but bush. From above it seemed a dense mass of trees of similar height. Here and there a small clearing and the white dot of a house. The native compounds were not distinguishable from our height as they are made from bush materials and perfect camouflage both in the colour and design. I wondered how a European could live in so remote a place, little knowing that we would be living in just such a spot about a year later. Our pilot flew low to look for big game as one of the passengers had a camera and wanted some shots but we saw nothing at all. Our paper came up to say we were about to cross the Limpopo. How we used to smile at that name years ago in our geography lessons.

We were getting near our destination and there was the rustle of people about to cast off the skin of their 'fellow traveller' disguise, and emerge as real people belonging to another set of real people on terra firma. Eyes began to look intent and thoughtful, their thoughts ahead, not rolling around inside the plane like goldfish in a bowl.

I looked at my old fur coat on it's hanger. It seemed to say, 'phew! Fancy dragging me over here' but I had been glad of it as far as Norway, and forever it's pathetic remains haunted me as I sweltered in our bush house. It had been my comfort and joy on occasions when our car had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the bush.

The re-fuelling was from 40 gallon drums hand-pumped into the aircraft. Aviation petrol of course. I wonder what the safety people would think of it nowadays!!.