Jabang was now on his feet, motioning for silence. ‘Comrades,’ he began, ‘I will not take up much of your time – we all have duties to perform,’ adding with a smile: ‘And a country to run. I can tell you that we are in firm control of Banjul, Bakau, Fajara, Serekunda, Yundum and Soma. Three-quarters of the Field Force has joined us. I do not think we have anything to fear from inside the country. The main threat, as we all knew from the beginning, will come from outside, from the Senegalese. They have the treaty with Jawara, and if they judge it in their interests to uphold it then it is possible they will send troops. I still think it more likely that they will wait to judge the situation here, and act accordingly.
‘So it is important that we offer no provocations, no excuse for intervention. At the moment we have no news of their intentions, but I will be asking their envoy here to talk to his government in Dakar this morning. And of course we shall be making the most of the friends we have in the international community.
‘The Senegalese will not act without French approval, so we must also make sure that nothing tarnishes our image in the West. The last thing we need now is a dead white tourist.’ He grinned owlishly.
‘The Council will be in more or less permanent session from now on – and when any of us will get any sleep is anyone’s guess. All security matters should be channelled through Junaidi here.’
Taal smiled at them all, reflecting that it was going to be a long day.
The British High Commission was situated on the road between Bakau and Fajara, some eight miles to the west of Banjul. McGrath finally got through on the phone around ten o’clock. The line had been jammed for the previous two hours, presumably with holiday-makers wondering what the British Government intended to do about the situation. As if there was anything they could do.
He asked to talk to Bill Myers, the all-purpose undersecretary whose roles included that of military attaché. Myers had helped smooth the path for McGrath on the ex-SAS man’s arrival, and they had met several times since, mostly at gatherings of the expatriate community: Danes running an agricultural research station, Germans working on a solar-energy project, Brits like McGrath involved in infrastructural improvements. It was a small community, and depressingly male.
‘Where are you?’ was Myers’s first question.
‘At the Atlantic’
‘How are things there? No panic?’
‘Well, there was one outbreak when someone claimed the hotel was running out of gin…’
‘Ha ha…’
‘No, no problems here. People are just vaguely pissed off that they can’t go out. Not that many of them wanted to anyway, but they liked the idea that they could.’
Myers grunted. ‘What about the town? Any idea what’s going on?’
‘Hey, I called you to find out what was going on – not the other way round.’
‘Stuck out here we haven’t got a clue,’ Myers said equably. ‘There seems to be a group of armed men outside each of the main hotels, but there haven’t been any incidents involving Europeans that we know of. There was some gunfire in Bakau last night, but we’ve no idea who got shot. And we listened to Chummy on the radio this morning. And that’s about it. What about you?’
McGrath told him what he had heard and seen from the Carlton roof, and at the hospital. ‘It seems quiet enough for now,’ he concluded. ‘Looks like they made it stick, at least for the moment.’
‘If you can find out anymore, we’d appreciate it,’ Myers said. ‘It’s hard to give London any advice when we don’t know any more than they do.’
‘Right,’ McGrath agreed. ‘In exchange, can you let my wife know I’m OK?’
Myers took down the London number. ‘But don’t go taking any mad risks,’ he said. ‘I’m not taking a day trip to Banjul, not even for your funeral.’
‘You’re all heart,’ McGrath said, and hung up. For a moment he stood in the hotel lobby, wondering what to do. The new government had only restricted the movement of ‘guests’, by which they presumably meant the three hundred or so lucky souls currently visiting The Gambia on package holidays. McGrath was not on holiday and not a guest, so the restrictions could hardly apply to him.
He wondered if the guards at the hotel gates would appreciate the distinction.
Probably not. He decided discretion was the better part of valour, and after moving the holstered Browning round into the small of his back, left the hotel the way he had come, through the beach entrance. Already twenty or so guests were sunning themselves as if nothing had happened, a couple of the women displaying bare breasts. McGrath supposed they were nice ones, and wondered why he always found topless beaches such a turn-off.
Better not to know, probably. At least there were no armed men guarding the beach: the new regime was either short on manpower or short on brains. He headed west, reckoning it was best to avoid the area of the Palace and cut back through to Independence Drive just above the Carlton. There was a heavy armed presence outside the Legislative Assembly, but no one challenged him as he walked down the opposite pavement and ducked into the Carlton’s terrace.
The hotel seemed half-deserted. There were no messages for him and the telephone was dead. He decided to visit the office he had been given in Wellington Street, in the heart of town. If he was stopped, he was stopped; there was no point in behaving like a prisoner before he got caught.
Outside he tried hailing a taxi, more out of curiosity than because he really wanted one. The driver slowed, noticed the colour of his face, and accelerated away. McGrath started walking down Independence Drive, conscious of being stared at by those few Gambians who were out on the street. It was all a bit unnerving, and recognition of this added a swagger to his walk. He was damned if he was going to slink around the town in broad daylight.
The stares persisted, but no one spoke to him or tried to impede his passage. Once on Wellington Street he noticed that the Barra ferry was anchored in midstream: no one could escape in it, and no one could use it to launch an attack on Banjul. McGrath found himself admiring that piece of military logic. The rebel forces were obviously not entirely composed of fools, even if they did include the last person on earth who could use the phrase ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ with a straight face.
The offices of the Ministry of Development, where he had been allotted a room, had obviously not been deemed of sufficient importance to warrant a rebel presence. McGrath simply walked through the front door and up to his room, which he half-expected to find as empty as the rest of the building. Instead he found the smiling face of Jobo Camara, the twenty-four-year-old Gambian who had been appointed his deputy.
‘Mr McGrath!’ Camara called out to him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to work,’ McGrath answered mildly.
‘But…there is a revolution going on!’
‘There’s nothing happening at the moment. Why are you here?’
‘I only live down the street. I thought I would make certain no one has come to the office who shouldn’t have.’
‘And has anyone?’ McGrath asked, going over to the window and checking out the street.
‘No…’
