Kingdom of the Paper Sun

By Christopher Leary

The Kingdom of the Paper Sun is in a faraway world where it is the South that colonizes the North.

Audi dan Zaki is a young colonial official from the Kworra Republic posted to a settlement on the Cold Coast. The Kworra Republic is no secretive Wakanda – far from shying away from the world, Kworra is the proud owner of a vast global empire upon which the sun never sets.

Our hapless hero expects to have a jolly time bringing civilisation to the white people but instead finds himself confronted with the grimmer realities of colonial life: ennui, disease, climate, wild animals, rampaging natives, gun-slinging settlers, mutinous soldiers and pining for the woman of his dreams. It’s not easy being a colonizer.

Kingdom draws its inspiration from the back catalogues of colonial literature and film. From Biggles to Heart of Darkness, from African Queen to Zulu, Kingdom checks the classic colonial themes, repurposing them as adventure stories for an African hero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Leary
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9783982177113

Christopher Leary

Christopher Leary was born in New Zealand in 1953 but did not stay there long. His parents had a bad case of wanderlust and by the time he was six his family was living in Nigeria. Then a couple of years in Spain before moving on to England. There he was educated and ended up with a degree in architecture. After graduation he moved to New York. These days he lives in Berlin.

Book preview

Kingdom of the Paper Sun

A colonial tale from a faraway world

By Christopher Leary

Copyright © 2020 Christopher Leary

Published by Christopher Leary at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

This book is also available in a print edition (ISBN: 9783982177106)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales 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. The action all takes place in another universe, for heaven's sake.

Le colon fait l’histoire. Sa vie est une épopée, une odyssée.

Franz Fanon

These scoundrels must be well chastised with powder and shot.

John Beecroft (19th century British trader in West Africa)

The only imperialist or colonialist I trust is a dead one.

Kwame Nkrumah

CONTENTS

MEDAL

Dan Zaki's beans are spilled

SAUSAGE

Dan Zaki is tangled in green ribbon

COOK

Dan Zaki watches the detectives

LEAD

Dan Zaki is the golden boy

TELEGRAM

Dan Zaki steps into another man's boots

AEROPLANE

Dan Zaki learns the price of milk

WOLF

Dan Zaki catches a cold

ARROW

Dan Zaki forms a suspicion

AXE

Dan Zaki fights a forest

QUEEN

Dan Zaki is deposed

SHOVEL

Dan Zaki looks for Trouble

EGUSI

Dan Zaki is comforted

GLOSSARY

Dan Zaki's Hausa translated

BIO

About the author

CONNECT

Talk to the author

MEDAL

Dan Zaki's beans are spilled

I came here to build a bridge.

Those were my words to Lieutenant Mafauchi. How he laughed.

‘You chose a bad day for bridge building, Katsin.’

‘Indeed, Lieutenant. The goat thought to greet the hyena and look where it got him.’

Beyond the station’s perimeter, thousands of native warriors screamed for our blood. We were well armed and adequately provisioned but utterly trapped. There was no guarantee that any help was on its way.

What was happening back in Kaduna? Were they too surrounded?

In short, I was back where I did not want to be. One would think that a man who had already nearly paid with his life for a bridge would not be asked to risk everything a second time, and for another damn bridge no less. If Baal really did exist then he was certainly a witty fellow.

The whites of his eyes. It is no longer a figure of speech. I can see those eyes clearly now. Along with white savage teeth. I see, ahead of eye and tooth, the long moonlight gleam of a bayonet.

I aim my revolver at teeth and eyes and I pull the trigger. Firecracker sparks fly from the barrel. The hyena teeth continue to advance.

The bayonet is pointing at my belly. In comparison to the cruelty of the teeth it is surgical, almost beneficent. The kindness of cold steel.

The Kongo man is on me. I turn as if in a bullfight and the bull’s long blade passes me by. My useless firearm has disappeared and my hands now hold a sapper’s long-handled shovel. My bullfighter pirouette arcs the shovel’s edge into the soldier’s bull-neck. Blood jets black by the moon’s glow. The élan of his attack carries him several faltering steps before he sinks to the ground.

I remember our cook cutting the chicken’s neck in preparation for our evening meal. The cook offers the blessing (In the name of the Beneficent One, I take this life that I might live, Blessed be the Blood of the Stone) and, with one draw of the long knife, he opens the bird’s artery. Blood ejaculates and wets the red dirt of my family’s compound. Our meal kicks and spasms its life away while the blood slows to a pulsing trickle. The cook twists the chicken’s neck under its wing and leaves it to twitch its last drops in accordance with the law.

I stand over my fallen enemy. He is on his back. I can see the whites of his eyes; before glowing ferocious, now filled with fear. The hyena teeth are dark with blood. The Kongo man is choking; his massive hands claw at the dirt. I raise my shovel and thrust down into his belly. In the name of the Beneficent One, I take this life that I might live.

A blade sears my entrails. Cold steel burns like molten lead. In the name of the Beneficent One, that I might live, that I might live. Sacred Blood, save me. This chicken doesn’t want to die.

I reached for the light. The clock showed a half hour after five. A half hour after five on Yerana the thirteenth of Watahudu, 1717. The start of my last day at sea.

My seventeenth day at sea. One seafaring day more than scheduled due to the horror we ran into crossing Elbow Bay. I had been in the war and I had known my share of fear but nothing had ever terrified me quite as much as that awful night the ship spent churning up and down the towering waves, all the while yawing and rolling like a drunken sailor. Riding a log down a cataract backwards would have made me feel a thousand times safer. The Chief Purser told me that this was by no means the most violent storm he had encountered on the Eko to Ratadama run.

‘Not at all, sir. Just two years ago we were hit by a near hurricane. Even for an experienced seaman that was frightening. I never saw so much praying in all my life. And starting with yours truly, I can tell you that. No sir, don’t you worry about a thing. The old Sakkwato can take far worse than this. Just hang on tight, that’s my advice.’

I did not care for the part about old but I hung on tight, took the occasional slug of ogogoro and waited the hurricane out. As I did so I could not help reflecting that to return to my homeland I would have to cross this notorious body of water again. This assuming old Sakkwato would survive the night and I did not end up dying even younger than my father.

I lay staring at the ceiling. I relaxed in the distant mechanical throb emanating from somewhere below. The cabin a womb, the ship’s engines the beating maternal heart. The bayonet though was still vivid. My mouth tasted metallic, like blood. I had bitten my tongue again. I rolled out of bed and tottered to the tiny bathroom.

I was glad for this luxury. I had upgraded myself to a first class single cabin. The government travel allowance only covered a second class shared and I had read enough on the delights of ocean travel to know that a passenger was well advised to have his own private sanitary arrangements. I also knew that my idea of hell was sharing a small space with a disagreeable stranger and since there are so many ways strangers can be disagreeable the chances were very good that if I selected the democratic cabin I would find myself sharing a cell with the worst sort. For two whole weeks, in roiling seas. In the Army I had had to endure bunking with some absolute brutes, at times it was worse than the shelling.

This is the enormous advantage of having kudi and not being in the Army. One can purchase agreeableness. I suppose this is as good a time as any to admit that I come from a privileged background. My people have been well off for generations. Certainly, we are not wealthy like an Abacha or a Dikko but we have always travelled first class.

Thus I had a lushly decorated room with a big bed, table, chairs and banquette, a dresser with mirror, a wardrobe, a sort of fake mantlepiece with more mirror above it and, naturally, the aforementioned and all-important sanitary facilities. The walls were panelled with white aka wood. There were two generously proportioned portholes for fresh air and a door that led directly to the upper deck. When the weather precluded stepping outside then I had another door opening to the corridor that was no great distance to the state room. Practically my own little house on the ocean.

I was up too early for breakfast. Even the tea trolley would not be by for another hour. I put on my gown and stepped out my front door. The darkness held the first hint of twilight. There was a light, cold breeze. The sea was calm, the flattest I had seen it in an eternity.

To my surprise there were quite a number of passengers already out and about, most of them like me in their dressing gowns. I wondered if there had been an epidemic of uncomfortable dreaming. From my upper-deck vantage point I could see people standing singly and in small groups all along the decks. I heard a quiet hubbub of expectation.

It was clear everybody else knew something I did not. A crew member passed by and I resisted the temptation to ask him what this sudden fascination for the dawn was all about. I did not wish to reveal my ignorance and, besides, I thought I might have guessed what was afoot. If I were right then we must have made very good time during the night. I had thought we would not be in sight of shore until later in the day. I stood at the rail, lit a cigar and waited for the morning to reveal its purpose.

My shipboard neighbour came out of his cabin. The Colonel was already spruce in his crisply pressed uniform; he had an excellent batman. I felt shabby in my gown and nightclothes. He stood a motsa away and, after scrutinising the dark horizon, turned to me.

‘Sannu, sannu,’ he said. ‘I trust you slept well?’

This with his usual bonhomie. The Colonel was an amiable man if also distant. We had played gida together but not conversed much. Just watched the beans and sipped our ogogoro. We had dined with the Captain on a couple of occasions during our journey but this was a formal event and the group’s conversation stayed safely in the realm of the impersonal and anodyne. Although the Colonel participated in the table talk he seemed happiest when just sitting there observing the scene, a twinkle in his eye. He had a knack of offering information while not revealing much. A useful knack to have on long voyages where most people seem to be overcome with an almost indecent urge to unburden themselves to their fellow travellers.

‘Sannu kadai. Yes, I had an excellent night. And your last night aboard ship was agreeable I hope?’

‘Most agreeable,’ he said. ‘Clement conditions are a great boon to a restful sleep, don’t you find?’

‘Very true, Colonel, very true.’

The Colonel smiled and nodded and turned again to the view. We both stared out to sea.

The Colonel was career military; he had probably been born in uniform. I had come across the type during my time in the Army; they generally thought very little of us soldiers who were serving for the duration. My old friend Hanno, may he rest peacefully, had called them the Holy Warriors. The army is their church and Mot is their god, he said. What this particular career military man thought of us amateur soldiers I did not know. He had said very little about the war in my hearing.

I offered the warrior a cigar.

‘Kind of you.’

He leaned forward while I lit it for him. The light of the flame threw the long scar on his cheek into relief. I had been wanting to ask him where he had acquired it but I could not do anything so vulgar as to simply enquire.

He straightened up and said, ‘Mopti.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Mopti. That’s where I picked up my battle scar.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s the question on everybody's mind when I first meet them.’

‘Ah, so you were at Mopti?’

‘Yes, and I’m told you were too.’

‘Indeed, yes. I’m afraid I was.’

‘Afraid?’

‘Well, it was hardly a picnic.’

‘It was war,’ he said.

I did not know what to add to that and he made no further comment. We smoked our cigars in silence.

I studied the lifting gloom and realised, with a landlubber’s thrill, that I could see coastline. Dawn was breaking and I was looking at a recognisable and renowned landmark.

‘The White Cliffs,’ I said.

They were perhaps a couple of tarak distant and in this crepuscular light were not so much chalk white as guava pink. My first sighting of Jagab geography. The White Island. To think that it was the bayonet I had to thank for this view.

The Colonel did not reply to my statement of the obvious.

As I watched, the wall gradually lost its blush and acquired the bleached tone for which it was famous. Like the colour of the island’s inhabitants it was said. The Bleached People, the Ghost People. I felt a small shiver of apprehension as I thought of this piratical folk with their reputation for drunkenness and violence. Naturally, I thought of my father.

‘Your father fell here,’ said the Colonel, pointing to land with his cigar.

It was not a question.

‘Goodness, you seem well informed, Colonel.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am.’

‘Um, I must say you have me at a disadvantage. I know nothing about you beyond your name and rank… Colonel Maikarafi.’

‘That’s as it should be Katsin dan Zaki.’

‘Are you in intelligence?’

A feeble effort to restore some balance to our relationship. The only thing the Colonel’s uniform told me was that he was with the Army of the Air.

‘Let us say that my function is multifaceted.’

‘And, um, is your function in Ratadama?’

It was nineteen questions except the Colonel had already won the game.

‘Ratadama, yes… amongst other places.’

The Colonel looked at me in that narrowed-eye way I had come to see as his hallmark. He put his hand to his face and touched his scar. I knew this trait too. It meant he was considering something. In this case it was plainly myself that was the object of consideration.

‘Katsin dan Zaki,’ he said, ‘It has been a pleasure to voyage with you. I have much enjoyed your company. Sannu.’

‘Sannu, sannu kadai, Colonel. The honour has been all mine. And I look forward to our next round of gida. I still hold out hope of one day defeating you.’

‘Sannu, sannu. I too look forward to our next battle of the beans. Your style reflects your character, dan Zaki. You are coolheaded and watchful. Had you more speed I feel sure I would not have been able to contain you.’

Not so coolheaded though that I was able to hide my surprise at the personal observation wrapped in the requirements of etiquette.

The Colonel smiled merrily.

‘Ah, yes, I suppose it takes a watcher to know a watcher. I saw you making mental notes of everything that transpired, dan Zaki. You have the engineer’s eye for detail. I’d be surprised if you missed much. And, well, as for meeting again, I know not. We are presently bound for different destinations. Me to Ratadama, you to Oba.’

That the Colonel knew my posting was now no surprise. The question was beginning to arise, what did he not know about me? I felt a little embarrassed. I had thought my observing and note taking had been discrete but the eagle eye with the twinkle had spied me out.

‘Is Oba amongst your other places?’

‘Who can say, Katsin, who can say? I am but a servant of the Republic, I go where my masters send me.’

‘Ah, that sounds familiar.’

With that the Colonel gave a bow, smiled his heartwarming smile, bade me sai wata rana and returned to his cabin.

I stayed at the rail. I smoked another cigar. The shoreline turned north and slipped from view. I watched the water, half expecting to see a pirate ship bearing down on us. A foolish concern. The Republic had suppressed piracy in the White Sea before I was even born. Still, there was that ugly business with a freighter only a couple of years back.

As befits an island population the Ghost People were said to have an insatiable appetite for fish which they fried in cow or pig fat. The indigenes ate a lot of pig’s flesh as well. The war had put paid to my religion, such as it was, but I shuddered nonetheless at the idea of uncircumcised savages salivating over the meat of such a diseased animal.

Inevitably, I thought of my father. When was the goat strong enough to kill the leopard? Sixteen hundred and eighty-eight. That year the leopard was brought down by pig-eaters while I was still in my mother’s womb. Brought down in the hour of his greatest triumph as it turned out. My mother lost her husband, I lost my father, but the Republic of Kworra gained a river.

I saw the Colonel again at breakfast. He was seated alone at a table for two. I did not get the impression he wanted company; he radiated self-sufficiency. He gave me a cheery wave with his fork and went back to his plate. I joined a large table presided over by the always convivial Mrs Obasanjo.

‘Ah!’ she cried, when she saw me approaching, ‘Our charming dan Zaki! Sannu, Katsin! Please do grace our table with your company!’

‘Sannu kadai. Gladly, Mrs Obasanjo.’

I took the hand she was offering, bowed with as much grace as I could muster and enquired after her health.

Mrs Obasanjo was visiting Ratadama to see her sister and experience the exotic North. She was a large round woman about the same age as my aunt. She had claimed maternal rights the moment she laid eyes on me. She had a daughter of marriageable age. Hardly a day had passed when she had not dropped heavy hints as to the delights that awaited any man fortunate enough to take this damsel for a wife.

‘Such a cook! Such dishes! Such art! Really, I do believe if she were to open a restaurant in Zaria, she would be the talk of the town. Not, of course, that she would ever do anything so unladylike as running any establishment.’

‘Your daughter works at the stove, Mrs Obasanjo?’ asked Mrs Bello.

‘Baal! What! Of course not! She’s not a servant. Forgive me if my turn of phrase was infelicitous. I meant only to say that under her direction the cooks produce excellent cuisine in our household. As many a happy guest at our table has testified. No, Mrs Bello, the matter is that servants require good direction. A good doki requires a good rider as the saying goes.’

Here Mrs O paused to cast me a coquettish smile before continuing.

‘I am myself not without talent in the kitchen, but my Dido quite puts me in the shade. If only you could try her egusi, Katsin dan Zaki, I feel sure you would agree. Her egusi is without equal in the Republic.’

Fortunately, my seat today was on the other side of the table from Uwa Obasanjo and I was able to eat my breakfast uninterrupted by tugs on my cloak and whispered asides about her daughter’s extraordinary talents, manners, style, beauty and so forth. However, since this was our last day aboard ship Uwa did not intend to let pass this final opportunity my presence afforded.

‘Katsin dan Zaki, you must be so looking forward to taking up your work in the Service. It must have been hard for a man of your energy and abilities to endure the idleness that is the curse of life aboard ship.’

The good lady knew very little about either my energy or abilities. She knew I had an aristocratic blood line, and she knew that my family had connections and kudi. She did not seemed to have asked herself what such a qualified man was doing in the Colonial Service when he should have, by right of kudi and connections, been making a brilliant career in the Foreign Office or the Nishbata. I rather wondered at her willingness to marry off her daughter to a man destined to spend his days in the colder and obscurer corners of the Republic’s many overseas territories. I imagined, most ungallantly, that Uwa’s daughter was beautiful like a baboon and could not organise so much as breakfast.

‘Mrs Obasanjo, I am certainly looking forward to taking up my duties. Although I must confess I have rather enjoyed the enforced idleness of the last couple of weeks. It has given me the opportunity to get plenty of sleep and catch up on my reading. I believe I shall miss the idleness when I find myself draining the swamps of the Amsa.’

Mrs Obasanjo tittered, and waved her plump hand in mock dismissal.

‘You see?’ she said to the assembled company. ‘Such a modest man. But that is the stuff true heroes are made of. For Katsin dan Zaki is the son of a courageous man I hear, and, what is more, he is a hero in his own right. Isn’t that so, Katsin?’

Mrs Obasanjo looked smug. The breakfast group turned to me expectantly.

‘If you refer to my service during the war, Mrs Obasanjo, I can only say that I was doing my duty along with most other men of my generation. I thank you nonetheless for the accolade, even if it is unmerited. As for my late father, yes, he was a courageous man.’

‘Oh, Katsin dan Zaki, you are too, too modest. But I’m afraid I can’t let you get away with this deception any longer. It is most unfair that your fellow passengers are travelling with a very brave man and don’t even know it.’

Mrs Obasanjo smiled triumphantly and looked around at the other guests with an expression that said, Wait till you know what I know. Even the two gentleman from the Hanibal Bank who had been conducting their own conversation sensed a revelation in the air and stopped to listen to what she had to tell. I cursed the woman.

‘I had a very interesting conversation last night with Colonel Maikarafi. A lovely man, if a little taciturn. He agreed to make up our four at gida. Poor Mr Jamaa was feeling out of sorts again. I really don’t think ships agree with him.’

She paused to take a sip of coffee.

‘Colonel Maikarafi, I have to say, plays very well.’

The audience looked a little impatient. Mrs Obasanjo was not a polished story teller and inclined to take her time getting to where she wanted to go.

‘And what did the Colonel tell you, Mrs Obasanjo?’ asked one of the men from Hanibal.

‘Mr Sanusi, it was the most extraordinary thing. It would seem that Katsin dan Zaki has, so to speak, been sailing under false colours.’

She looked at me with a stern expression. Mr Sanusi frowned at me in expectation of some bookkeeping irregularity. I revised my opinion of her storytelling ability. Clever Mrs Obasanjo, she was playing her listeners rather well.

‘First,’ she said, ‘It should be known that this gentleman comes from an excellent pedigree. His father, Commander dan Zaki, made the ultimate sacrifice during action on the Tamasa.’

She looked around to make sure she had everybody’s attention.

‘And Katsin dan Zaki here present,’ she continued, ‘Is in fact Engineer Lieutenant-Colonel dan Zaki… LM.’

There was a small collective gasp. Everybody stared at me.

‘Legion Medal?’ said Mr Sanusi. ‘But why did you not tell us?’

What could I tell them? Not the ridiculous truth, that was for certain. Far from fighting courageously I had lashed out in a blind fury. There was no display of extraordinary initiative. I had merely found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Coolness under fire? My memory was of a chicken running around trying to find a place to hide from the cook.

I went through all this with my superiors at the time. However, they preferred to believe the officers who had brought up the column and had seen me through their field glasses single-handedly saving the bridge. The last man standing, surrounded by dead and dying. I had apparently cut a heroic figure when I charged the enemy waving a shovel. It is true that prior to the shovel I had devastated the advancing Kongane with a machine gun but there is nothing particularly heroic in that; devastating is what a machine gun is made for. When the gun jammed I experienced the prospect of my imminent death and went berserk.

I do not know why the Kongane ran when I went after them. All they had to do was shoot me and the position was theirs. Perhaps it was the fact my shrieking made enough noise for an entire squad of shovel-wielding lunatics. More likely they had seen the mass of Republic reinforcements pouring across the bridge and into our trenches. I did not know it at the time, but the Kongane offensive had overreached itself. They were short of ammunition and rations, their troops were exhausted and they had no reserves. At the bridge they had reached their high water mark but their fighting spirit was gone. Faced with a crazy man and a shovel, along with a regiment of his friends eager for revenge, the Kongane broke.

For my shrieking I was given the Legion Medal, the highest military award for conspicuous gallantry in the face of the enemy. A war must have its heroes, especially when a general’s blunder allows the enemy to reach a strategic bridge situated many tarak behind the front line. I think this was a case of any live soldier will do. Heaven knows, I was the only one they had left from my gallant company.

I was advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and sent to recuperate. The wounds were mostly slight except for my left arm which got a larger taste of Kongo steel and was never quite the same again. In contrast to the gong, my leave was gratefully received. I was even more grateful when the armistice took effect before I was obliged to return to the war for another demonstration of my indomitable valour. I was sure neither I nor my valour would survive the demonstration. Armistice Day fell on my birthday. It was the best birthday present I ever received.

To the banker at the breakfast table I gave the by-now standard explanation when revealed in all my war-hero glory.

‘Well, Mr Sanusi, most who return intact from the battlefield prefer not to talk about what they have witnessed. And, as for my award, I can only say there were those that didn’t survive who were far more deserving of a medal than myself. The gods of war allowed me to live. That is reward enough as far as I’m concerned.’

An explanation that was near enough to the truth without getting tangled in the details. Of course, somebody always wanted the details. This time it was Mr Sanusi’s older colleague who asked. I had my answer ready.

‘It was a beastly business. I’m sorry, but I prefer not to elaborate.’

‘Yes, of course, I quite understand.’

It was obvious he did not understand. Disappointment was writ large on his wide face. He wanted a tale of derring-do. He settled for getting up and shaking my hand vigorously and calling me a fine fellow.

Mrs Obasanjo beamed.

‘Oh, Katsin, I’m just so sorry my daughter couldn’t have been here today. She would have loved to have met you. Such modesty is rare in a man. Yes, it is really too bad she wasn’t here.’

That afternoon we took on the pilot out from Ratadama. The coastal waters of the Jagab are shallow and sandbanks present a constant danger to shipping. Local knowledge and up-to-date charts are a necessity in the bridge. The weather that had started so clear turned to rain. The region was living up to its reputation.

A number of freighters passed us by on the starboard side as they headed out to sea bearing the fuel destined for the Republic’s power plants. Every schoolchild knew about the coalfields of Doja and the importance of this resource in helping make our republic the greatest power on earth. Though it was not just coal. Potash, copper and iron ores also flowed from Doja’s mines to our hungry mills. Yet other vessels carried butter, cheese and milk powder to a Kworrane public that had an insatiable appetite for dairy produce. East Doja butter was held to be the finest money could buy. Probably because it came from the furthest away. The virtuous cycle; we brought them civilisation and bicycles and they sent us coal and butter.

I had imagined that my first sight of Doja would be a memorable moment. The excitement of being on the threshold of a new life in a new and different world. What struck me instead was the resolute greyness of it all. And the flatness. Yes, I could see the famous dikes, masterpieces in their own way and interesting to any engineer. Apart from these mounds, none of the land in front of me could have been more than a banaa above sea level. I was not sure if I was looking at field or marsh on either side of the estuary. Through the drizzle I could make out what looked like cows so I assumed some of it at least was grassland. I think I saw some species of heron take off and disappear into the mist. The other interesting feature I observed was a windmill, although it too was little more than a fuzzy splodge of indeterminate colour. I could see no people in this soaked landscape.

In my travels about the Republic I had been enormously impressed by the canals, dikes and dams of the Kworra Delta. Those great waterways of our mighty seagoing nation. In the Delta, commerce and engineering are the father and mother of a race of steel and concrete giants whose lifelong task is to channel, block, divert, hold and exploit Nono’s waters where she flows to the sea. Engineering and commerce cannot colonise all of the Delta though, Kworra is too big and too powerful for that. Between and around the concrete there remain waterlogged worlds, where the ur-forest awaits the day when our marvellous works shall crumble and mangrove is king of the delta once more.

I stood on the upper deck staring out at the Cold Coast, a bit damp with disappointment. Beyond the drizzle there was little to see. Certainly the air was thick with inquisitive seagulls. I found them beautiful and enjoyed watching them swoop and hover about the ship, their intelligent eyes alert for morsels. I had consulted Wachuku’s Birds of the Jagab and had only been able to confidently identify the Black Gull amongst the various types I could observe. I would have to get to know these birds better before I could distinguish my Common from my Fish Gull.

As for the land, well, I thought it the saddest I had ever seen. The dikes, though built of human hand, tended to blend with the grey sea and grey grass and appeared a natural part of the grey landscape. Quite a contrast to the Grand Trunk Canal which can be fairly said to pay the Delta landscape no regard whatsoever as it slices its shining path to the Bay of Benin. The dikes of West Doja were going nowhere except slowly under the chill water of the White Sea. The Cold Coast’s reticent vegetation and lack of colour had me missing the mangroves.

The natives’ constructions held back sufficient water to create large low-lying fields which were drained by a regular pattern of ditches. I was impressed with what the indigenes had been able to achieve with earth, stone, timber and much digging. I had read that these edifices were originally built with slave labour, usually prisoners of war. Now there were no more slaves and the natives themselves were rather reduced in numbers from their glory days, which is to say, the time before the black man arrived. As a consequence of this depopulation, repair work on the barriers was carried out less frequently than in the past or even not at all. Little cracks turned into big gaps and breaks in the dikes became commonplace. In storm conditions I would not have liked to depend on them to save me from flood.

My inner engineer winced at the thought and then pondered the technical difficulties of shoring up ancient seawalls. Concrete delivered by barge? Boulders placed by steam cranes? Not that there was any chance of these tatty structures getting reinforcement. The Low Country was beyond the pale of the Colonial Office’s interest. If the natives wished to live on land that rightly belonged under the White Sea they were free to do so. The maintenance of their precarious existence was, however, their affair.

‘More water than land, this country,’ said a voice behind me.

I turned to greet the owner of the voice.

‘Sannu! So I’d heard. Still, seeing is believing. But, hang on a minute, you should be right at home here with all this mud and water, delta child.’

‘Sannu, sannu. Not this water. Not this mud. Evil cold stuff. Kill a man in minutes.’

‘Good point. It doesn’t look very inviting I must say.’

‘Grey and gloomy. Remind me again why we volunteered for this job.’

The voice belonged to Katsin Ore Ojukwu. I had come to know that warm baritone well since leaving Eko. In the course of my two weeks at sea Ojukwu had become something of a mentor to me. He was on his way to his third posting and, naturally, I had been impressed by his experience and his interesting stories. Here was a man I could learn from. I was also impressed by the fact that he had been appointed Katsin of Kaduna. Kaduna, a border area in East Doja, was a settler district with many cows and a large native population. In other words, it was a job requiring a deal of tact and intelligence in dealing with a very complex interplay of interests. Settlers, cows and natives and the concerns of the Colonial Office all had to be considered.

This range of complication seemed to me to make the job a very tall order.

‘Surely, there’s no possible way to square this triangle?’

‘Yes, you’re right, the geometry is always going to be a bit uneven. Nobody is going to be happy all the time. I therefore don’t intend to drive myself mad trying for the impossible. The best I can hope for is to keep some of them happy most of the time.’

‘Lafiya, Katsin! Sounds like you’re going to have your hands full. From what I know of my posting things shouldn’t be quite so complicated, at least as far as the number of opposing interests. Oba has no settlers. From what I can gather a large part of my work will be drainage. And you know what? I am just the man for the job, for if I know anything it’s earthworks… and mud.’

Ojukwu laughed.

‘I have not a shadow of doubt on that score Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers. If I ever require a mud fort, on the double, you will be the man I call. But, Engineer, don’t underestimate the power of two interests to make life complicated for the katsin. The power of two does not always produce the desired square.’

‘Handsomely put, wa. I shall remember that advice.’

In addition to his four years of experience as katsin and his keen intelligence, Ojukwu had another asset that I felt sure must help in his job. He was a physically remarkable man. Tall and powerfully built and still in excellent condition. Unlike many former athletes Ojukwu had not gone to seed when his sporting days were over. He had been a lamba Full Blood at Katsina. By the time he matriculated he was captain of the team and had won everything there was to win at the university level. The wrestling agents had pressed him hard, a glorious future in the professional arena was his for the taking. What was his price? But not for Ojukwu the glories of the meat market.

‘All that slapping? No thank you. Then lamba degenerates into a childish version of boxing. You whack your opponent as hard as possible around the head to confuse him, you grab his ankle and over he goes. I fail to see the art. You know why the professional sport allows the so-called slap, it’s really an openhanded punch, you know why? Because, my friend, pain sells, blood sells. Oh, yes, the public are eager to see the lamba, the rolling and the tumbling, the pushing and the shoving, that’s all good fun. But it’s not enough. They want suffering. They want gladiators, they want to see the bull stuck.’

Ojukwu was one of those special beasts, the gentle giant. Still, gentle or not, he was an imposing figure. I had no difficulty imagining the good folk of Kaduna being as good as gold when Katsin Ojukwu got to town.

That was the job both of us had volunteered for: katsin. I do not believe many people know anymore what this archaic title means. A katsin was the administrator of a colonial district and was the Republic’s senior officer in that district. The role also contained a judicial function as investigative magistrate. Over the native population this meant the power of life and death. Out east the katsin held the same power not only over natives but also over the black settlers in that region. There the katsin’s district was a little kingdom and there the katsin was king. Today, in our more egalitarian times, this arrangement is of course viewed as shocking for its lack of republican spirit.

The reason for this autocratic approach was simple. The more recently-acquired colonial territories required a firm hand. The Cold Coast had long been settled and had a large Jagab-born black population. It had been designated a Representative Territory a generation back, and thus had the amenities of limited self-government, self-policing and a judicial appeals process that went all the way to the Majalisa in Zaria (although it has to be said these amenities did not apply to the whites in the territory at that time). In the East, had it been left to the tendencies of natives and settlers alike, the country would have been in continual uproar, as indeed had been the case thirty years previously. It had only been the firm hand of the Republic in the form of the all-mighty katsin and, where necessary, the Army, that some rough semblance of order had come to the frontier.

In our present times it seems hardly credible that a young man could be granted so much authority. Indeed, leadership itself no longer seems to be in fashion. Unless of course it is leadership in fashion and music and dance where the leader is a narcissistic, narcotic-addled kora player. However, I digress.

It is true that even in my day not all were born to lead. Ojukwu and