The Last King of Scotland (1998) Page 31

  There was a little more resistance on the edge of the city, if the crackle of small-arms fire was anything to go by, but the Tanzanians advanced steadily, jumping into the concrete drainage ditches for cover whenever it was needed. As the light began to fail, I watched the vivid orange muzzle flashes as the soldiers moved forward firing. My eye was caught by the strange action of them shooting round the corners of buildings – holding the gun away from themselves as though it was something unpleasant.

  Night closed around us, and the fighting continued in a half-light of street-lamp and flame. Some of the defence was brave, not to say foolhardy. At one point, a Mercedes came careering round a corner filled with Ugandan soldiers brandishing weapons out of the windows. A Tanzanian trooper simply picked up one of the bazookas they had captured earlier and sent a vicious spout of fire in their direction. The explosion was loud, roaring in my ears. I once again felt my tympanic membranes flutter – to, I was sure of it, the very point of perforation.

  The style of fighting changed as successive waves of troops got deeper and deeper into the city. The Tanzanians nipped from shop-front to shop-front, their rifle reports echoing among the masonry. There was also a lot of waiting, during which periods the troops would pull out sticks of sugar-cane and chew them. The pavements were strewn with gobs of white fibre. If we had been a retreating army, it would have been forbidden, Colonel Kuchasa told me, as it makes it easier for trackers to follow your path.

  During the periods of waiting, the Colonel would confer with his officers. Nobody seemed to know exactly where they were going, although I knew from the previous night’s discussion that it was Kuchasa’s intention to take up commanding positions on each of the seven hills, and to secure the UTV and radio stations, the clock tower at the centre of the city, and Amin’s Command Post at Prince Charles Drive.

  Capturing the Command Post involved traversing a golf course, and also the moonlit gardens of Kampala’s diplomatic quarter, where the flags of distinguished nations hung unmoving in the wet air. It was odd to hear the sound of machine-gun fire and the crump of mortars in that suburban environment. I had got out of the APC and was walking by this stage. At one point, while I was going past the gates of a house, a security light came on and a dog rushed out into the driveway and started to bark. A dalmatian, it stood there yapping in the pool of light. I looked at it and it looked at me, while behind me hundreds of booted feet tramped past wearily. And then I, too, walked on.

  Most of the diplomats, like everyone else, stayed in their beds, except for the North Korean Ambassador, who came out as we went past and asked Kuchasa to join him for a noodle breakfast the following morning. Earlier, in a strange incident I heard about but did not see, Doctor Gottfried Lessing, the East German Ambassador (and former husband of Doris Lessing, the novelist), made a break for it in two white Peugeots in the middle of the night, along with the First Consul and both of their wives. They went over the golf course just as the Tanzanians and Ugandan liberation forces were crossing it. The latter fired rocket-propelled grenades at the two cars, turning them both into balls of flame. There was speculation that they were trying to escape because of East German associations with the State Research Bureau, one of Amin’s terror organizations.

  As for Amin himself, rumour was rife concerning his whereabouts. The few Ugandans who were on the street that night said that he had been seen at Namirembe market the previous day, trying to drum up morale. At one point on the approach, during the day, one of the Tanzanian officers had seen his red Maserati through binoculars – but no one really knew where he was now. One road out of the city, that to Jinja, had been deliberately left open to allow diplomats and the remaining Libyan soldiers to escape: President Nyerere was keen not to bring Libya further into the war, which some outside commentators were representing as an Arab-versus-African conflict. Some said Amin had already fled down this road, others that he was still holed up somewhere in Kampala.

  There was a peculiar moment in the early morning. Mist had come down along with the dawn, and the outskirts of the city were eerily swathed in the stuff. The troopers’ teeth were chattering with the cold and they looked, as they tramped along there in their grey ponchos, like giant bats. And then out of the mist there suddenly loomed a tall, silver figure.

  “It is him,” whispered one of the troopers.

  And the shape of the figure was indeed much like that of Amin – fifteen feet tall, mind, and dressed in swimming trunks, but the same muscular build and imperious air. It was, it transpired on closer inspection, a statue advertising a health spa on the edge of Kampala. The fact is, it would have been totally in character for Amin to have greeted the invading force dressed in his swimming trunks. The story went down the line, provoking much merriment.

  As for myself, I didn’t really know what to do once we were in the heart of the city, walking past the closed shutters and barricaded doors. There was still a little danger. Small groups of pro-Amin soldiers were moving through the streets in a confused manner, some on foot, but most in tanks, Land Rovers and armoured cars. The odd bullet flicked off the walls of the buildings, and in the distance a burning oil-storage depot gave off the same sick yellow light I had seen during the advance. Salvoes of artillery were still booming overhead.

  The Tanzanian command, I learned, were planning to billet at State House. I realized then what a situation I was in. I couldn’t simply go back to the bungalow there: my relationship with Amin might easily be misinterpreted. Already I had seen several pro-Amin citizens prodded by the bayonets of the Tanzanian soldiery, which by this time had got hold of crates of whisky and beer and (perhaps more worryingly) bundles of dagga: the strong Ugandan marijuana.

  I decided instead to trudge up to Mulago. I went off in search of Colonel Kuchasa, to find him slightly harassed by the problem of keeping his over-excited troops in order. They were firing their pistols and automatic rifles into the air, and were I a woman, I should not have liked to have been in the vicinity. I said goodbye to their exemplary leader, who had been so kind to me, and began the long walk through the rain up to the hospital. On the way, I noticed that there were a lot more rats about.

  When I got to the hospital, soaked through and covered in mud, Paterson was shocked – and at the same time almost too busy to see me. He was in surgical greens, and rushing about the ward. It was full of soldiers. They lay on the beds and they lay on the floor, moaning quietly and staring up at me as I walked past. I saw the dirty bandages, covered in brown and yellow muck, and I felt a rush of guilt. This was where I should have been, I thought, this was where I should have been all the time.

  Paterson was exteriorizing a loop of damaged bowel, winding it around a spindle. The patient’s stomach had obviously been opened by a bomb, and it was not a pretty sight. There were shreds of flesh and muscle all over his torso.

  “Very nice of you to join us, Nick,” Paterson said, his sarcasm making me feel even worse. “We thought you’d disappeared into the sunset with Amin.”

  “I tried for the border,” I said.

  “That was brave of you,” he said. “Thanks for letting us know.”

  “I…”

  “Look, we’re run off our feet. I don’t care where you’ve been or what you have been doing. Just scrub up and pitch in.”

  I did as he said, changing into surgical greens – at least they were clean and dry – and set to work. Stretcher upon stretcher was brought in, from both sides. A surprising number had broken thighs, from standing too close to their own artillery when the recoil came. As there were Africans with Arab features fighting on the Tanzanian side, and the Libyans and Palestinians on the Amin side, with the majority of both forces having Bantu characteristics – and, as I have said, the same camouflage fatigues, the same canvas packs and steel water-bottles – it was nigh on impossible to distinguish between them. Eventually we realized that only their undergarments provided a clue: the Ugandans wore olive green Y-fronts, the Tanzanians the same except in navy blue. And
the Libyans, for some inexplicable reason, wore white woollen long-johns.

  The procession of those consumed by death and wounds seemed interminable – and so it was that I spent most of the day at the operating table. A single horrible image from that time sticks in my mind: a kidogo on the slab, not much older than Gugu would have been, Paterson leaning over him, opening his chest with the plastic spreader and then going in. A butterfly, I thought. Ekwihuguhugu. This one is very fragile.

  37

  Late in the afternoon I stumbled – crazed from overwork and lack of sleep – back down into town, I must have looked a strange sight. I had taken off the blood-spattered surgical gown and pantaloons I had worn for the operations and put on a clean set of the same from the store. My own clothes were simply too dirty and too torn to wear.

  I didn’t know what to do. Paterson had grudgingly offered me use of a room in his house, but I couldn’t stay there for ever. I had no money to speak of and nowhere to go. Apparently a tank shell had landed in the grounds of State House. If my bungalow hadn’t been destroyed, it was now no doubt home to Tanzanian soldiers. The rumour was that Amin had come running out on to the lawn as soon as the shell had landed and leaped into a helicopter.

  Everyone was wondering where he was. We had heard him on the radio that day in the refectory at Mulago, more incoherent and deluded than ever.

  I President Idi Amin Dada of Republic of Uganda. I would like to denounce reports that Kampala is in the hands of foreign aggressors, that my government has been overthrown and that they have formed their rebellion government in Uganda. I myself am in a relaxed and jovial mood. I am in a very comfortable place. I dismiss as nonsense reports that I have run away…I assure that as a conqueror of the British Empire I am prepared to die in defence of my motherland…which will survive completely. Though it is true that Tanzania and its Zionist friends – including Cuba, Israel, America and South Africa – have been attacking the country. They have killed very many innocent Ugandans, children, young and old, and women, killing doctors with long-range artillery. Destroying the whole Kampala including the Mulago Hospital, killing doctors, nurses…

  —this last declaration brought a dry laugh from Paterson and the rest of the staff, since Mulago had come through the barrage more or less unscathed –

  …making the mercenaries tyrannizing the wananchi of Uganda. Even changing completely the town of Uganda today. It is not a town, therefore I am surprised this so-called government wanted to form a government in Uganda after killing everyone…Yet Palestinian soldiers are fighting side by side with us on the front line. My good friend Gaddafi has sent us two thousand troops and large quantities of arms. This is, truly, the time when Arab countries should assist Uganda financially and materially…

  …and Uganda armed forces must not surrender their arms to any rebellion completely. Coward officers and soldiers that…whoever will be found retreating from the firing line must be court-martialled and, if found guilty, must be killed by firing-squad.

  Yet we are in full control all over Uganda…Kampala we have too…We have got soldiers controlling the country, keeping the law and order…I am speaking as the President of the Republic of Uganda and the commander in chief of Uganda’s armed forces. I want repeat this in Kiswahili. Mimi nataka kusema…

  Where, people asked, was he broadcasting from? One of the mobile Land Rover transmitters he had fitted out? Or somewhere in the city? Certainly it was not the main radio station in Kampala – from where, earlier, one of the officers of the Ugandan liberating forces had made a triumphant speech as soon as they had secured the complex.

  “We ask all the masses of Uganda,” the officer had said, “to rise up and join hands in eliminating the few remaining murderers. We appeal to all peace-loving peoples of the world to support the people’s liberation cause and condemn the former Fascist regime.”

  On other stations, Western countries and various African ones were busily denouncing the Tanzanian invasion: “It was the first time,” said one commentator, “that an African country had invaded with impunity the capital of its neighbour. If the borders are not respected, the invasions will never cease…”

  I turned all these words over in my head as I walked through Kampala. Down Mulago Hill, along Kitante and Akii Bua, then round into Lugard Road. Overnight, it had changed beyond all recognition. Once residents had realized that the Tanzanians would not prevent them, indeed would join in – on the way down I had passed a soldier who was completely naked, except for the helmet on his head and the bottle of Simba in his hand – they had begun to loot their own city.

  The process had obviously started early in the morning, and it was still going on, if the crowd that flooded the streets was anything to go by. In the main shopping precinct nearly every door and window I walked past had been broken down. I saw three youths pushing a brand-new Toyota along the road, and then farther up the enormous gaping hole they had made in the showroom window. Others contented themselves with bicycles, typewriters and televisions. Latecomers had to settle for pots and pans.

  Elsewhere, crowds were gorging themselves on sugar. A warehouse had been found fully stocked and people were pushing their way through to get a sackful. Many weren’t waiting to get the sacks home but were ripping them open on the spot, and simply filling their mouths with it.

  At the same time as all this was taking place, there was also a kind of victory rally in progress. One portion of the crowd was cheering the detachments of Tanzanian soldiers who were combing the city for pro-Amin troops and officials. The people followed the soldiers in large groups, the body of them running slowly after with a heavy, unified tread. Some were beating drums, others calling out.

  I stopped on the pavement and watched them go by – and then I saw something which made me fear for my own life. The crowd suddenly turned in on itself. Losing the rhythm of its slow jog, it started to contract and expand about a single point. I couldn’t see anything but a whirl of clothing. The Tanzanian soldiers turned round and tried to break it up.

  But they were too late. Suddenly an arm rose above the mêlée, flung up into the air. It spun round like a stick, and then fell back down into the threshing mass of bodies. Horrified, I realized that somebody was being torn limb from limb.

  “It is an Amin fellow,” said a young girl standing on the kerb beside me. I could hardly hear her above the noise of the crowd. She was talking to a friend. Both were wearing maroon gymslips and cream blouses: the uniform of one of the big Kampala schools. As I watched the confusion in front of me, I strained to hear their voices.

  “He would have been luckier if the Tanzanians had got him.”

  “It will be like this for a while now. Until the gogolimbo has passed.”

  “What is that?”

  “It is the bad spirit that has come over this place. My grandmother says that it will only go away when you see a dog and a goat riding a bicycle together.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me. Nothing would surprise me now.”

  “It will be all right, though. Not now, perhaps, but at some point it will all be back to normal.”

  “We’ll be able to get married.”

  “Are you kidding? All the good men are dead.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Most.”

  “Did you hear about Cecilia?”

  “What about her?”

  “She was raped by a soldier. I saw her in the street. She looked very bad. Walking painfully.”

  “It is a horrible thing. A gun can make men very pleased with themselves.”

  “Look at that poor man! There is hardly anything left of him.”

  “Don’t be sad. Like I said, this era will be over soon.”

  “You think so? I am not so sure. I have my doubts.”

  “About what?”

  “About the new leaders. I am apprehensive.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re pessimistic. We must have hope if we are to be saved…”

  Passing so clos
e that one of its handlebars nearly hit me in the ribs, a droning, low-powered scooter snapped me out of my daze. Annoyed, I watched it weave through the crowd. Leaving the two girls talking, I found myself carried along by the mob. It was converging on Amin’s city residence at Nakasero, which the Tanzani-ans were in the process of searching.

  When the crowd got there, the guards tried to prevent them coming in, jamming the wooden doors against the wall of bodies. I saw Colonel Kuchasa among the people on the steps, shouting and waving a revolver around. He had discarded his spear and was wearing Amin’s cowboy holster around his waist. I recognized the gun which he was holding: the silver revolver. And then the doors gave way and the crowd poured in. I followed, the tails of my surgical gown flapping behind me.

  38

  I am Idi Amin at Holyrood. I am walking the echoing corridor. My mind shuttles between past and present as the lights on the walls fizz and rustle. It is the sound of electricity, the sound of electricity meeting damp. My footsteps echo in front of me and behind me. I am like a ghost in my green gown.

  The north-west tower. I am Idi Amin standing gleeful as Rizzio dies, lam Idi where Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, gives birth to the one who will unite the realms. I am Idi walking on the gravel, watching it all recede, watching it where Jamie the Saxt watches it from his carriage as he departs for London. The window is chapped with frost…At Musselburgh we’ll stop for the funeral of Lord Seton, at Berwick they’ll sound the guns for us, in Buckinghamshire one Oliver Cromwell, landowner, will feast us royally…

  I am Idi walking with Cromwell in the stables of the Palace. It is years later. The smell of blood, excrement and steel is everywhere. It is the smell of occupation. It is the smell of electricity.