1940 March | War Looms over Bangbel

Now – Wars

May 1998. On the TV, tanks roll up the street, as demonstrators fight a running battle just in front of the hotel. From the window however, there is only the usual 5 o’clock Jakarta gridlock. 

June 2006. In terminal 2E, Paris. A platoon of French soldiers reclines in plastic seats, joking, fidgeting, waiting. They look incredibly young in their baggy camouflage. The crowd of busy business people ignores them and just swarm around them, indifferent. 

March 2026. Far above the clouds, bombers, B1, B2 and B52, streak over Belgium towards the Middle East, on their way to bomb Iran. On every screen, Teheran burns, buildings collapse, boats sink. At ground level, the carwash is closed. 

Then – March 1940, late afternoon, Bangbel, Cameroon

War. Or something like it. 

On every frontpage of the “Eveil du Cameroun”, whenever she can get her hands on it, that is. There, Suzanne can read the war updates, rendered in pretend-military language. It turns into a laundry lists of ships sunk, damaged, troops sent here or there. No one can piece the picture together, except the HQs and the governments, if that. She remembers her father in Soissons, and his Great War Tales. Once the war itself was over. 

And then, everyone and anyone came out of the woodwork and became an expert at explaining what had happened for 5 years.

This time round, it was slightly confusing, and apart from the French, it was rather messy. From what she could make out, and people reported, Poland had been overran, despite heroic cavalry charges. The Bolsheviks had been humiliated in Finland, despite their treacherous alliance with Germany. Italian territories were 3000 kilometres North and East of them, but still… 

Distances themselves, countries, cities were utterly unfamiliar. Finland? Lithuania? Norway? 

She was born in a world of cavalry charges, panache and glorious last stands. Battles were towns: Crécy, Austerlitz, Reichshoffen and Sedan. Led by heroes: Du Guesclin, Jeanne D’Arc, Montcalm. Wars in Spring and Summer, officers leading from the front, swords drawn, screaming encouragement and defiance, flags waving and drums beating. Napoléon on the bridge of Arcole. 

Blood and guts, death and suffering up-close.

She grew up in the storms of steel of Ernst Jünger, among the Wooden Crosses of Dorgelès, in the ruins, the mud and the wreckage left once the war had ended. This was the war of front lines. This was a war where heroism was enduring mud swallowing bodies and minds, trampling the corpses of your comrades to get at the enemy with claws and teeth, for years on end. It was bayonet charges into clouds of Shrapnel. It was Verdun. And the victors were the generals who remained steadfast and planned meticulously the waves, after waves, after waves of soldiers to stop the Hun. 

Endure, put your head in your shoulders, outlast.

She lives now in a world of science-fiction, of technologies dreamt of 50 years before. War from the skies, bombers flying out of reach to bring countries down, fighter planes zooming around at 500 km per hour! Enemy soldiers that could drop from the sky anytime, anywhere. Invisible death rays. There was no front, no rear, no civilian and military. Not really. Everywhere spies and fifth columnists, ideological goons and venal traitors. 

Was that war? Where was the humanity in that? 

She knew enough the truth of war, up-close, in Soissons. There was no cleverness to it, no 240mm shell had ever been able to distinguish between legitimate target and not. Even why they fought was puzzling. She sailed on the Woermann Linie. No. She is proud to have sailed on the Woermann ships. How to reconcile the quiet, understated luxury, the dedicated thoroughness of it with this Germany, an oompah brass band goosestepping in hobnailed boots. 

She flips to the practical section of the new sheet. She knows that they have to keep a lookout, anything could fly over the next hill. 

3000 kilometres away by land. They could drive down, from Libia or Ethiopia. And of course, the German submarines the Ü-Boats, were back on, yada-yada. So that’s was it for travelling back to Europe this year. The SS Ussukuma itself has been sunk in Montevideo, in the battle to sink the German cruiser Graf Spee. Talk about coincidence! Trust the Royal Navy and the French bayonets! 

She folds the paper, looks at the horizon. Nothing. Still, we are rather alone here. 

With no way to reach Paris, you do need to weigh the odds. Belgium has declared its neutrality, safe behind their German built fortresses. Holland as well, as usual. The USA sits that one out again, apparently there is a strong German lobby there, the German Bund, Delanoe Roosevelt needs the votes. Italy tries to look threatening from behind the Alps. And fails. They hardly could take Ethiopia, so… France is dug in behind the Maginot Line. Germany behind the Siegfried line. After all, the last time around, the front staid put years.

Another day, soon another week gone. It is a chore to keep up when so much does not happen.

The Brits have the wet mop Chamberlain in charge. We have Edouard Daladier, its French equivalent. Not exactly an eagle, a social democrat history teacher. At least Gamelin is our Commander in Chief, the epitome of the French general. Raised in the shadow of Joffre, and tutored by Foch, a canny old coot of the  Great War. And France produces weapons like never before, new ships, new guns, new planes: France should be once again at the leading edge by 1941. In the meantime, we just need to sit it out behind our impregnable walls, the Maginot Line. 

For all of that, telegrams never stop about keeping the gold extraction going. What to make of that? 

Here, the shade from the acacia tree is welcoming, the breeze playful and the Sun smiling. Suzanne sits on the bench outside of the house with Françoise on her lap. Boy is running around the garden to get attention. Nanny and Cook help greatly. They love the kids, and their help is more than welcome. Françoise requires a watchful eye: born on the 3^rd of November 1939, she was so poorly that she had been given an in-extremis baptism. To be a part of the Church, in case, to avoid Limbo. Just need to keep an eye out. The name and nickname came as an obvious choice: Françoise, France. Of course, the family, an aunt this time, the sister, and prestige, music this time: Irène, Anne, Isolde.  

The colonial helmet lays on the next seat. Discarded. A second daughter, a nice house, finally. We are getting somewhere, Suzanne tchips.

Everything is under control, within arm’s length. The new house is functional, spacious, breezy. It is nestled among the palm trees, with a large gravel forecourt, and an extensive garden to the South. The view over the Lom is breathtaking. Everyone loves Claude in Bangbel. She is always full of laughter and wonder, a live wire raising smiles and laughter with her antics. She even has a little friend, Marie, who she can’t stop babbling to. The both of them cute as pie in their little pith helmets.

Boy yaps and bounds in the garden, ever happy, ever watchful. 

Crickets quietly chirp in the Sun. A long legged bug tries to sneak its way in the house, Françoise in her arm, Suzanne catches it deftly with a leaf and dismissively cancels hours of slow crawling by chucking it into the nearby bushes. It shrugs off the setback and hobbles its way back towards the fields. 

In the garden, Claude is trilling to Marie a local melody Nanny taught them.

Peace, if not for War. Under a transvaal blue sky.  

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You read part 29 of Transvaal Blue Skies: the true story of how, early last century, Suzanne moved to Africa and built her laager. This is a series of loose dots weaved in a chronological thread, wrapped into a story to be plucked and observed, heard and remembered, recognised and judged. Suzanne Dulière was my grandmother.  

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