The Man Called Brown Condor (16 page)

Lamoriciere
sailed around the south end of Sardinia for the French colony of Tunis where it docked. The ship's purser recognized John standing near the gangway and asked if he cared to go ashore, see the sights. “The ship won't sail for six hours,” he assured John.

“I can see 'bout all the people, goats, camels, and old buildings I care to right from the deck here,” he answered.

Truth was, every new exotic port of call, filled with strange sights, sounds, odors, and people, reminded him of just how far from home the course he had chosen was taking him. Each morning brought another bright day, fresh wind across the deck, his pilot's eyes on the sky where he had always been most comfortable, his spirits most high, but each night in the cramped, hot cabin, he spent hours fighting in the darkness the mocking demons of self-doubt and loneliness.

From Tunis the ship sailed south of Sicily to the Italian-controlled port of Tripoli, Libya, and from there to the Anglo-Egyptian Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal. The ship rarely spent more than half a day at any port of call. John lost any desire to go ashore among the vendors and crowds congregating in the harbor areas. At each port a few tons of cargo was exchanged. At Port Said, John watched a Rolls Royce touring sedan carefully lifted from the forward hold, swung outboard, and land dockside.

I bet if they dropped that, some potentate would chop off a head or two. I wonder if they behead people in Ethiopia. I forgot to ask about that.

As
Lamoriciere
made its way down Suez, John was amazed at the French ditch cut through the desert sands.

At a distance from out on the desert, I bet a ship looks like it's plowing right through the sand.

The ship continued down Suez and into the Red Sea for more than a thousand miles, much of the time with Arabia off the port side and Sudan to starboard. At the southern end of the Red Sea,
Lamoriciere
passed through the straits of Bab al Mandab and barely kissed the Gulf of Aden before turning into the French Somaliland port of Djibouti.

The ship dropped anchor off shore. The harbor was too shallow for ocean-bound vessels. Small, ancient sailing craft loaded with trading goods crowded the old harbor where the tri-color flag of France flew over the customs building. Laborers carrying heavy sacks on their shoulders swarmed about like ants, loading or unloading lighters to transfer cargo, mostly coffee, to the few steamers waiting at anchor. Ship's tackle clanked and clanged as booms hoisted loads to or from the lighters.

John closed his steamer trunk and made sure his cabin attendant understood it was to be put ashore. He then went on deck. As soon as the accommodation ladder was lowered in place, John and other passengers disembarked onto a small, sea-worn vessel that served as a water taxi. The boat's wheezing gasoline engine labored to shore. From the dock, the Djibouti John saw consisted mostly of whitewashed buildings with roofs of straw or corrugated iron. The air was thick with humidity.

John had barely taken a step ashore when he heard his name. “Mr. Robinson?”

The man who called Robinson's name was a slim bearded black man with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. He was dressed in fine white cotton, jodhpur-like trousers with puttees, a white shirt, and a dark capelike garment.

John nodded. “I'm Robinson.”

“May I introduce myself? I am Ras Mebratu.” He bowed slightly and offered his hand. John shook it. “I have been sent by the emperor himself, to whom I am a second cousin. He has honored me with the privilege of escorting you to Addis Ababa. All arrangements have been made. We will leave by train in the morning. I know you must be tired from your long journey. We will have ample time for a briefing and your questions during the train trip. For now, we have a room for you at the hotel. We will dine there this evening.” The envoy spoke English with a distinct British accent.

“Thank you for meeting me. I have to admit this is all new to me, all unfamiliar—the travel, the lands I have seen, and,” John swept his arm in a large arc, “so many different people, so many customs and languages. I reckon I got a whole lot to learn.”

“It will not be so difficult. You will see. Good food and rest and you will be ready for the train tomorrow. Come. Your luggage will be brought to the hotel.” They took an ancient Citroën taxi.

The hotel was small, old, but John found the food and service good. During dinner there was polite conversation but little serious talk. When John tried to turn the conversation to matters at hand, the envoy answered, “Mr. Robinson, you have come far and I know you must have many questions. Tonight let's just enjoy the food and good French wine. There will be plenty of time on the train to discuss serious matters. I assure you I will answer all your questions. Please have a good night's rest. Your journey is not quite finished.”

John was not much of a drinker. To be polite he sipped at his wine a little during the meal. After dinner, he thanked his host, purchased a copy of the only English-language newspaper available, a two-week-old copy of the
Herald Tribune
published in Paris, and found his way to his quarters. There was a basket of fruit, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of mineral water on a small table beside a lamp. His steamer trunk was in a corner. Surrounded by sweltering heat, he turned on the ceiling fan, undressed, and flopped on the bed. The old fan made a rhythmic
wump-pa-wump
tattoo while drawing the exotic sounds and smells of Djibouti in through the open window. Still awake after an hour, John moved to the chair beside the table, turned on the lamp, opened the bottle of mineral water, and picked up the copy of the
Herald Tribune
.

Anything to get my mind off home and what the hell I'm doing here.

He skipped over an article concerning Italy's protest over the alleged sale of American arms to Ethiopia, but could not avoid a front page article stating
,
“Mussolini Doubling Troops Already in East Africa.”

John, my man, you're in one hell of a spot and nobody to blame but you.

He turned to less troubling articles. There were several on aviation. Amelia Earhart had set another record, flying nonstop twenty-one hundred miles from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey.

I wonder if a black woman had done it there'd be headlines like that. Janet Bragg or Willa Brown could have done it if they had the money and backing.

One article, headlined
“
Greatest Mass Ocean Flight Ever Attempted,” stated that the US Navy had begun a flight of forty-six planes flying from Honolulu Pearl Harbor 1,323 miles to Midway Island. Another article that caught John's eye said that England's Royal Air Force was seeking recruits to keep pace with Germany's growing challenge.

Wonder if they'd take a black man from Mississippi?

The news stories did little to raise John's spirits. He turned to the entertainment section. American movies playing in Paris included
Devil Dogs of the Air
with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien and
Bride of Frankenstein
with Boris Karloff. The most popular film appeared to be
Mutiny on the Bounty
with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable. John had seen none of them. The only movies he saw growing up were from the colored balcony of a motion picture theater in Gulfport that had a separate box office window and stairs in the alley for black ticket-holders. He hadn't seen many movies as a child and they were all silent films back then. He saw his first talkies on the south side of Chicago in a theater with a mostly black audience. Howard Hughes's
Hell's Angels
was his favorite.

Just as the young pilot was getting sleepy, his eye caught a small article near the bottom of an inside page that set him wide awake. It read, “Captain Anthony Eden, Britain's traveling salesman of peace, returned from his Continental tour bearing a report of Benito Mussolini's avowed intention to wage war against Ethiopia.” Sleep was a long time coming.

T
HE MORNING CAME TOO SOON
. J
OHN FELT HE HAD HARDLY GOTTEN
to sleep before the bright sun of a new day awakened him. He took a sponge bath, since there was no shower in his room, put on fresh clothes, packed, and was waiting in the hotel lobby when the Ethiopian envoy arrived. His English-speaking host of the previous night was again dressed in white jodhpurs and puttees and wore a wide-brimmed felt hat. He greeted Robinson and, after arranging for John's baggage to be collected and delivered to the railroad station, suggested breakfast in the hotel dining room. Both ordered French pastry and coffee. After breakfast Ras Mebratu paid John's hotel bill and called for a taxi, this time a ten-year-old Renault a little worse for wear.

At the station, John was introduced to several other Ethiopian members of his escort party. Only one of the men besides Mebratu spoke English. The grime-streaked train consisted of a small wood-burning locomotive, a tender overflowing with firewood, two freight cars, and three white passenger cars The European-style passenger cars were divided into compartments boarded directly from the platform. John and the Ethiopians boarded their reserved compartment and settled in for the 488-mile trip to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa aboard the French-built, narrow-gage rail line. Robinson's anxiety from the night before was displaced by anticipation of the exotic, primitive land that lay before him.

A few shouts up and down the platform followed by the shriek of conductor's whistles, and they were off. The morning temperature along the Red Sea coastal plain was nearly one hundred degrees Fahrenheit as the train began its slow, labored climb toward Addis Ababa, which was situated on the cool, fertile Ethiopian plateau at an elevation of nearly eight thousand feet.

John knew going in that he would not be flying over the friendliest geography a pilot could wish for. In preparation for the job before him, John had read all the resources he could find on Ethiopia—its history, people, geography, and climate. The highland plateau ranges in elevation from three thousand to ten thousand feet and is surrounded by mountains reaching up to and above fourteen thousand feet. Ethiopia, he learned, is the source of the Blue Nile and, because of the snowcapped mountains, is sometimes referred to as the Tibet of Africa. The high plateau is slashed by plunging valleys. In rugged parts of the highlands there are strange-shaped
ambas
, not unlike the buttes of the American West. The Great Rift Valley slices from Kenya through the plateau, opening into the lowland desert and ending at the Red Sea. To the southeast is the harsh desert bordering Somaliland. To the southwest lay humid tropical lowlands.

The dirt-streaked window of the compartment had been opened, the only relief from the smothering heat. John sat in silence. Looking out the open window, he was struck by the primitive beauty of the rugged terrain but shocked by the almost total lack of anything common with the modern Western world he had left behind. He saw people living in sunbaked mud huts and occasionally a camel caravan, scenes that appeared to have not changed for a thousand years.

Ras Mebratu must have sensed John's thoughts. He broke the silence and began to discuss the recent history of his country.

“You know, Mr. Robinson, Ethiopia is the only African nation that has been exclusively under black rule for at least three thousand years. It has been a Christian nation since 400 AD. Because of that, and the fact that we have been surrounded by natural boundaries of mountains, deserts, and swamps, and by countries of the Islamic faith since 700 AD, we have been mostly isolated from the modern world.

“Since Ras Tafari became Emperor in 1930 and took the name Haile Selassi he has worked even harder to awaken our land to the modern century. In 1931 he gave Ethiopia its first written constitution. But you have to understand that for Ethiopia, as for much of Africa, the bridge to the twentieth century spans a vast distance and must be crossed slowly if a culture is not to be ripped apart. Justice was traditionally in the hands of the chieftains of each district. They are still powerful and many look upon reform as a threat to their power as do many leaders of the Coptic Church.”

John accepted a cup of tea and several plain cookies from a silver tray offered to him by a servant dressed in white. They passed the border of French Somaliland into low hill country. The train swayed and jerked on the narrow-gauge rails, slowing almost to a mule's pace as it struggled up the grade in its climb toward the highlands. On the rocky hillsides John could see an occasional round hut made of stones or mud and wattle, the walls often whitewashed, the structure covered with a conical straw roof.

“You will see many such structures,” Ras Mebratu explained. “They are called
toucouls
, sometimes spelled tukuls in English.” John nodded, still looking out the window at weird-looking cacti scattered across the surrounding semi-desert of which much was covered in black lava sands. Ras Mebratu took a sip of tea and continued.

“The emperor has outlined administrative reforms and has enlisted the aid of such experts as de Halpert of Britain, Auberson of Switzerland, General Virgin of Sweden, and Evertt Colson of your own country, but as I have said, changes must come slowly. The emperor cannot overwhelm his people and still retain their loyalty. I am afraid you may see slavery in practice while you are here. The Italians use that sad fact against us in their propaganda. His Majesty has worked many years to stamp out its existence. Nevertheless, a practice so long rooted in custom is not easy to abolish, as the history of your nation clearly illustrates. His Majesty has set up a bureau to administer the repression of slavery, but still the Italians use it against us before the League of Nations.”

Mebratu paused, giving Robinson a chance to ask a question that was foremost on his mind. “What of your military situation? I have heard that some feel the emperor may have placed too much faith in the League of Nations.”