Love from Boy Read online

  Love to all

  Roald

  Sunday

  Dar es Salaam

  Dear Mama

  Last week I finally succumbed to malaria and went to bed on Wednesday night with the most terrific head and a temp of 103º. Next day it was 104º and on Friday 105. They’ve got some marvellous new stuff called Atebrin which they straightway inject into your bottom in vast quantities which suddenly brings the temperature down; then they give you an injection of 15 or 20 grains of quinine and by that time you haven’t got any bottom left at all—one side’s just Atebrin and the other’s quinine. On Saturday, yesterday I was O.K., and today I’m up, feeling none the worse except for a slight loss of weight through sweating. If any of you want to do a bit of slimming hire an anopheles mosquito and ask him to bite you. You sweat so much your sheets have to be changed several times during the night. I discovered that it was an excellent scheme to sleep between two enormous bath towels.

  . . . The funny thing about my getting fever was that, George being upcountry, and Pakenham-Walsh having broken his right wrist, I still had to sign all letters and cheques. Without knowing it I’m told I signed cheques for 20,000 shillings—I only hope the Bank recognized the signature. Anyway we know the Bank managers etc. here so well personally that there’s never any trouble.

  . . . You’ll be extremely surprised to hear that I’m expected to win the Tanganyika Golf Championship, which takes place down here in a few weeks. If it was Peggity I might stand a chance. People have been foolish enough to back me—but as you know I never bet myself, I never did hold with gambling—or didn’t I? What’s going to win the St. Leger?

  . . . I hope there’s not going to be a bloody war—but if there is all you people have got to pack into the car and drive for Wales as fast as possible, whether you’ve got a house or not. Those aeroplanes will be over just as quick as it takes them to get there. Will you please write and confirm that you’ll be doing that.

  Love

  Roald

  July 23rd 1939

  Dar es Salaam

  Dear Mama

  . . . We’ve had the hell of a week. Two darts matches, a snooker match at the Railway Club, and a piss up last night . . . A small dinner party, a cinema, then the club till 2am. Then we all came back here and I distinguished myself by inventing a new game called strip-darts, run on the same principles as strip-poker. You each throw 3 darts at the board, and at the end of one round the person with the lowest score has to discard one garment. If you throw a double or a bull you can put one garment on again. Well, the first crisis came when Scottie only had his trousers left and threw the magnificent total of 3 (quite pie-eyed). We were all waiting for him to take off his pants, when he solemnly extracted his false-teeth, placed them on the table and said, ‘That’s foxed you, you buggers.’ Scottie (being more whistled than the rest) continued to throw the lowest score with amazing consistency, and each time carefully removed one of his fly buttons with a pair of nail scissors. At last came the ‘moment critique’ when he had no more buttons left, and the manager of the East African Central Line Sisal Estates was compelled to remove his ravaged trousers. There were no pants underneath—only the usual things.

  The staff of Roald’s house in Dar es Salaam. Roald was housekeeper and greatly admired his nineteen-year-old “boy” Mdisho, on the left, who came from a tribe of “magnificent fighters.” Mdisho traveled everywhere with Roald, showing “absolute loyalty” to his “young white master.”

  . . . When I said I wanted to photo the boys, there was terrific excitement. The Shamba boy (gardener) who never wears anything except a pair of trousers dashed round the place trying to borrow a Kansa (the white robe the houseboys wear) but he couldn’t get one. Then Mwino approached and asked if I would take a photo of him and Mary, his wife, who as you will see is quite an elegant creature. I had to wait 10 minutes while she did her toilet.

  I must fly and get some clothes on; someone’s coming up for a drink.

  Love to all

  Roald

  I may send you some leopard skins!

  July 30th

  Sunday

  Dar es Salaam

  Dear Mama

  . . . This hasn’t been a very eventful week, except for one terrible incident which happened yesterday. George & I were asked to go and have a drink at Mrs. Wilkin’s house. Mrs. Wilkin is a frightful old hag who weighs 19½ stone (and is proud of it) and looks like a suet dumpling covered in lipstick & powder. Well George went into the drawing room & I went down to the basement to have a widdle. Down there I came across the most marvellous crimson tin pi-jerry, so with a whoop of joy I seized it to dash upstairs to show it to George, entering the drawing room waving the thing above my head. Well, I wasn’t to know that there were 20 other people in the room, sitting primly around sipping their pink gins. There was a horrified silence then George started giggling—then we both got a fit of giggling while I pushed the frightful apparition under the nearest sofa and muttered something about ‘what a pretty colour it was and didn’t they all think so’. No-one answered & Dr. Wilkin said ‘what will you have to drink’. We didn’t have one; I said we had to go to the office at once to send a telegram which was very urgent, and George said, ‘By God yes. I’d forgotten that,’ and we dashed out. I don’t think we’ll be invited to the Wilkins’ again. Got to go to golf . . .

  Sorry this is such a bloody awful letter, but I’ll write again soon.

  Love to all

  Roald

  August 27th

  Sunday

  The Dar es Salaam Club

  Tanganyika Territory

  Dear Mama

  This will only be a very short letter, because there’s rather a lot to do here in these times of crises. I suppose that by the time you get this letter war will either be declared or it’ll be off, but at the moment things, even here, are humming a bit. We’re all Special Constables, with batons, belts & all sorts of secret instructions. If we leave the house we’ve got to leave word where we’ve gone to so that we can be called at a moment’s notice. We know exactly where to go if anything happens, but everything’s very secret, and as I’m not sure whether our letters are being censored or not I’m not going to tell you any more. But if war breaks out it’ll be our job to round up all the Germans here, and after that things ought to be pretty quiet. Perhaps the Germans will allow themselves to be rounded up quietly too.

  Many thanks for your letter which I got yesterday. You must try to sell the house for anything you can get now. If war breaks out it will be worth absolutely nothing, being where it is; so if that borrowing scheme (from Alf) has materialised go right ahead, pay off the mortgage & sell the house for £200. It seems a frightful shame, but I don’t see what else you can do.

  Grand fancy dress party last night for the British Legion. George & I were actually in our baths (me after cricket & he after golf) before we decided what to go as. Eventually we were a couple of sportin’ parsons; white trousers tucked into our mosquito boots—Black waistcoat back to front and the usual stiff collar turned the wrong way round. Then he wore my old Reptonian blazer & I wore one of his tweed jackets (He’s about 5 foot 6 inches). He carried a butterfly net & I an umbrella & that was fizzing—we won a prize of a bottle of whiskey, which, I regret, was empty by the time it came to leave. I woke up in the sitting room at 8am this morning in my sportin’ parson’s clothes feeling a little the worse for wear, but everything’s O.K. now—Bar Hitler.

  Lots of love to all

  Roald

  P.S. My records haven’t arrived yet!!

  September 15th

  Friday

  Dar es Salaam

  Dear Mama

  . . . I’m very sorry I haven’t written to you for such ages—(that’s why I put on Alf’s letter ‘To be opened by Mrs Dahl . . .’) but you can guess that things have been humming a bit here. Now all the Germans in th
e Territory, and it’s a pretty big place in which to try to catch them, have been safely put inside an internment camp. And we Special Constables were the people who had to collect them. The moment that war broke out at about 1.15pm on Sunday the alarm was given on a series of telephones and certain key men dashed round and collected their squads, & proceeded to the police lines to be armed and to receive orders. At the time, I was actually out guarding the road going down the South Coast to Kilwa and Lindi with 6 armed native troops (Askaris) and an enormous barbed wire blockage across the road. All I heard was a grim voice down the field telephone which said—‘War has been declared—Stand by—arrest all Germans attempting to leave or enter the town.’ Then the fun started, and after a bit when I was relieved, I went into the town to help with the work there, rounding them up in their houses. I better not say any more or the ruddy censor might hold up the letter.

  Well most people here have been called up by the K.A.R. (Kenya army), but as we’re an essential service we’ve got to go on working for the moment—and working like buggery. When I was guarding the road, I used to sit under a palm tree all night with a gun across my knee & being bitten absolutely to death by anopheles mosquitoes, get home at 6am & go to the office for the whole of the day—then on again at night. It was no joke. Now all we do is work like buggery from 7 or 8 until 6 or 7 or often longer.

  . . . I may have to move about all over the place, in which case my allowance will be very essential if you are able to remit it to me—I hope so. If you can’t let me know and I can make arrangements with the Company to pay me here if you’ll pay them there—will write again v. soon.

  Lots of love to all

  Roald

  Please move house!

  September 30th 1939

  Saturday

  The Dar es Salaam Club

  Tanganyika Territory

  Dear Mama

  Many thanks for your letter and the second batch of newspaper cuttings which caused much amusement in the club bar on Thursday evening. Your letter was opened by the Censor here, who probably thought it was one from Alf full of dirty jokes; no doubt he was disappointed. Glad to learn that you’re all still O.K., but I say once more that you’ve no right to be sitting in one of the most dangerous places in the world at the moment, quite happy in the mere thought that you’ve got a cellar—That cellar’s no good once the real raids start, which presumably they must before very much longer. And if they start with a vengeance, Oxford won’t be any good either. You’ll have to go to Wales; but enough of that—by now you must know what I think.

  . . . There’s absolutely nothing one can do out here at the moment. There’s no point in joining the local army, who do very little, having very little to do; and one’s not allowed to leave East Africa—anyway for the time being. If I get the chance I think it might be a good idea if I trained for flying up in Nairobi; I believe they’re taking a few blokes soon. But for the moment, as far as I can see we shan’t be doing anything for at least a month or two.

  As for Dar es Salaam it is exactly the same as usual except for one or two things. Firstly, as I believe I’ve told you before, there’s been an invasion of women from Nairobi to work for the military down here as stenographers, typists, telephone operators, secretaries and making the colonels’ tea. They belong to an organisation in Kenya and are quite seriously called the somewhat unfortunate name of ‘Fannies’. Each letter in the word stands for something but I don’t know what—you know, same idea as ARP or D.O.M. These girls go about in the most gruesome khaki uniforms you ever saw, and all have to be in by 8.30pm in the evenings; but the one I know is not so dumb—you should see her shinning up a drainpipe to her room at midnight—her name is Lance-Corporal Higgins and she’s got one stripe on her uniform. She deserves promotion, but I daren’t suggest it to the Colonel because he may start wondering why, and then she wouldn’t only be making his tea. We had a game of mixed hockey with them yesterday and they certainly are tough, but they were very out of position because there’s only one they know. Actually that’s not true—they’re very prim really.

  Then the second thing about Dar is an invasion of the military. Fellows in uniform and cockade hats all over the place and a frightful lot of snobbishness. All bullshit. Talking about Bullshit we’ve invented an instrument called the Ox-ometer which is designed to measure the amount of bullshit talked and written by the military and by the Government out here (this letter’ll probably be stopped by the censor—if it is you’ll know why you haven’t got it!).

  . . . What is everyone at home doing? Let me know, and let me know what things are like—here there’s rationing only of petrol—I get 2 gallons a week. We could of course take as much as we want but we’re being strictly honourable about it. The only chance of any fighting out here is if the Italians come in against us—then it’ll be pretty hot what with Abyssinia.

  Lots of love to all

  Roald

  October 14th 1939

  Dar es Salaam

  Dear Mama

  . . . Nowadays one flying boat a week comes in from the North on Thursdays, and one a week leaves for England on Sundays but the bugger of it is that even if we post on Saturday mornings we may not catch the mail because the censor has perhaps not thought fit to go to the Post Office and do his censoring, so one’s letter has to wait for the next mail—that’s why you’re getting my letters at such odd times. The last but one I received from you had been opened by the Censor! And—oh bugger!! I’ve just spilt a bottle of ink on the floor—just hold on while I call a boy to try to wipe it up –

  That’s better. You see, it’s now 3.30 on Saturday afternoon. We’ve got through most of our work, have been to the club for the usual Saturday morning beer and gin and have just had lunch. And I’m lying on top of my bed with nothing on (it’s getting really hot again) writing this letter. For some weeks past I’ve always written in pencil, but I thought that it was time that I used ink. I hate ink in bed anyway because it always gets on the sheets, however careful one is; but nevertheless I balanced the bottle on the end of the bed and proceeded to write. Then I sneezed and over it went and now there’s a horrible black mark on the floor, but there’s luckily some ink left in the bottle. I’m getting fed up with talking about ink.

  . . . WE had a terrific snake hunt the day before yesterday. David & I had just rolled up to the house in my car and David got out and went up the steps. I was just going to follow when a huge black mamba shot past. Now these black mambas are real bastards. Not only are they one of the few snakes that will attack without provocation, but if they bite you, you stand a jolly good chance of kicking the bucket in a few hours unless you receive treatment at once. Any way the old Mamba shot into a corner just where the steps join the house, and having jumped onto the roof of my car I shouted to David to have a look over the verandah. You should have seen the look on his face. All he saw was a horrible head waving in the breeze and looking up at him, and he knew bloody well that it was a black mamba. He rushed into the house & got a couple of hockey sticks and threw one to me on the car. Then the bugger darted into the garden in some grass and we followed, because you can’t possibly leave a thing like that lurking around. Shouted to all the boys, ‘Nioka, nioka kubwa njo upesi’ which means ‘snake, snake big, come here quick’, and out they came, Mdisho with a thing like a bargepole, Hosmani with an axe, Abdulla with a bread knife. Only Omari, David’s boy stayed inside ironing because if there’s one thing he hates like hell its ‘nioka’.

  We surrounded it but it shot out and away like a flash; surrounded it again, and this time the sod came at us, and I just managed to catch him with my hockey stick and break his back before it was too late. Then there was much rejoicing and the boys danced around and got very excited because he was a big bugger (for a Mamba) about 8 feet long and as thick as my arm and black as soot. I’m getting fed up with talking about snakes.

  Last Saturday we had the best party we
’ve had for a long time. A week of hard work and only a strict ration of 3 or 4 whiskeys in the evenings had left us just right for a real heat up—And we had it. At the Dar Club in the evening I’m told that I tossed each glass over my shoulder à la Henry VIII as soon as I’d finished the whiskey therein, and worst of all a dame I know told me that every time I danced with anyone I just said, ‘you dance like a goat, so stuff me full of sage and onions’. Well, that was awful, but one gets excused for doing things like that because there’s a war on. The worst thing about that night was waking up next morning on the floor underneath my bed. For 3 awful minutes I wondered where the hell I was, and wondered whether I’d been buried alive. It was indeed a bugger. I’m getting tired of talking about drink.

  This income tax sure has played hell with all of us. I knew exactly what it meant as soon as I heard it on the wireless. What about the car; wouldn’t it be better for you to sell it for what you can get—No, on second thoughts, you must keep it; it will perhaps be your only means of getting away from London if those air-raids start. You can all get into it and just beetle off with the dogs and a suitcase as soon as things begin to look dangerous. Nevertheless I think you could live cheaper and very much safer on a farm in Devon or Cornwall, or would that be too bloody. Mind you do that if things start to happen.

  . . . I must get up and get ready to play in a big football final against the Sudanese which will be watched by a crowd of about 800 natives who, I’m afraid never cease to rock with laughter at me when I trip up over my own legs, which I do frequently. Then up to Penn’s house for some Shove Halfpenny and some beer and bugger the war.