Waugh in Abyssinia by Evelyn Waugh

Author:Evelyn Waugh
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780718197742
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

V

Anticlimax

1

THE excitement barely survived the transmission of our cables. By afternoon the cheering crowd had melted away and was dozing silently in their tukals. Shutters were put up on the Greek-Italian grocery store and a guard posted before it, while at the back door journalists competed with the French Legation to buy the last tins of caviare. There were guards at the Italian Legation, the Italian Hospital and mission, the house of the military attaché; these buildings were out of bounds to Ethiopians and, for all practical purposes, to ourselves, for the soldiers in charge were a surly lot; Mr David at the Press Bureau assured us that the guards were there merely for the protection of the Italians, that we had only to show our Press cards to obtain admission; in fact for the first day or two we were turned back in the most uncompromising manner; later their vigilance became milder and Vinci and his staff even accepted invitations to dinner.

His position was to become increasingly anomalous. It had been odd during the preceding month; now that hostilities had actually begun, it was without precedent. The Emperor was reluctant to order his withdrawal, for fear of compromising the posture he had assumed of Quaker-like patience. No one knew the exact extent or purpose of the hostilities. Some said the bombardment of Adowa was a local reprisal for the deflection by the Abyssinians of the stream flowing to the Italian lines. No one knew how abruptly or effectively the League of Nations might intervene. In those days of early October, in Addis Ababa at least, it was thought possible that there might be some concerted, exemplary action which would smother the new-born war almost before it had taken independent breath. It was important to keep means of communication open with the enemy. So, for the time being, Vinci stayed on, attended by a somewhat incongruous entourage of nuns and grocers. He had deserved a holiday and he was enjoying it. For four years he had been at an arduous, responsible and unpleasant post, trying to maintain a working method which with each year had been more obviously futile; a routine of constant insult, constant protest, constant evasion; always hampered by the jealousies of his European colleagues. Now the make-believe was over; the uniforms and evening clothes were packed; the journalists who had pestered him were at a distance. With Latin relish he settled down to a few days of leisure.

That afternoon and evening we drove round the town in search of ‘incidents’, but everything was profoundly quiet. News of the bombardment of Adowa was now all over the bazaars, but it seemed to cause little stir. It would be impertinent to attempt any certain definition of what the people felt. Perhaps the majority of them believed that the war had already been in progress for some time. Adowa was a very long way off. Practically no one in Addis had ever been there. It was known to them by name, as the place where the white men had been so gloriously cut to pieces forty years before.

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