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Clarke and Wade were amazed and not a little embarrassed to see Dr Mary Savage, the severe and unfeminine missionary doctor in charge of the hospital, collapse into tears and panic as Captain Winterbottom was brought in. She kept calling, ‘Tom, Tom,’ and behaving generally as though her doctoring had deserted her. But her panic lasted only a short time; she was soon mistress of herself and the situation. However, it had lasted long enough to have been noticed by a few native nurses and ward attendants who spread it not only in the hospital but in the small village of Nkisa. Both in the hospital and outside in the village Dr Savage was known as Omesike, One Who Acts With Power, and it was not expected that she would ever cry for a patient, not even when the patient happened to be Captain Winterbottom whom they mischievously called her husband.
Winterbottom’s delirium lasted three days and in all that time Dr Savage rarely left his bedside. She even postponed the operations which she performed every Wednesday for which that day was known throughout the village as Day of the Cutting Open of Bowels. It was always a sad day and the little daily market which had sprung up outside the gates of th
e hospital to supply the needs of patients from distant clans attracted fewer market women on Wednesdays than on any other day of the week. It was also noticed that even the sky knew that day of death and mourned in gloom.
Dr Savage checked through her list of operation cases and was satisfied that there was none that could be called very urgent and decided to postpone them till Friday. Captain Winterbottom’s condition had improved very slightly and there was a little hope. The next day or two would be decisive and a lot would depend on skilled nursing to help him over the critical threshold. He was in a special ward all by himself and nobody was allowed in there except Dr Savage and her only European Sister.
Captain Winterbottom’s steward, John Nwodika, was told to escort the two policemen to Umuaro as he had done for the messenger. But in his mind he had sworn never again to take a representative of ‘gorment’ to his home clan. His resolve was strengthened in this case when he got to know that the two policemen would be armed with a warrant of arrest and handcuffs for the Chief Priest of Ulu. But since he could not turn round and say to his master: No, I shall not go, he agreed to go but made other plans. Consequently when the two policemen came for him before the crow of the first cock they found him shivering from a sudden attack of iba. Wrapped up in an old blanket which Captain Winterbottom had given him for the child his wife delivered four months ago John managed with great effort to whisper a few directions to the men. Once they were in Umuaro, he said, any suckling child could show them Ezeulu’s house. This turned out to be literally true.
The two men entered Umuaro at the time of the morning meal. Soon they met a man carrying a pot of palm wine and stopped him.
‘Where is Ezeulu’s house?’ asked the leader, Corporal Matthew Nweke. The man looked suspiciously at the uniformed strangers.
‘Ezeulu,’ he said after a long time in which he had seemed to search his memory. ‘Which Ezeulu?’
‘How many Ezeulus do you know?’ asked the corporal irritably.
‘How many Ezeulus do I know?’ repeated the man after him. ‘I don’t know any Ezeulus.’
‘Why did you ask me which Ezeulu if you don’t know any?’
‘Why did I ask you—’
‘Shut up! Bloody fool!’ shouted the policeman in English.
‘I say I don’t know any Ezeulu. I am a stranger here.’
Two other people they stopped spoke in more or less the same fashion. One of them even said that the only Ezeulu he knew was a man of Umuofia, a whole day’s journey in the direction of the sunrise.
The two policemen were not in the least surprised. The only way to make people talk was by frightening them. But they had been warned by the European officer against using violence and threats and in particular they were not to use the handcuffs unless the fellow resisted. This was why they had shown so much restraint. But now they were convinced that unless they did something drastic they might wander around Umuaro till sunset without finding Ezeulu’s house. So they slapped the next man they saw when he tried to be evasive. To drive the point home they also showed him the handcuffs. This brought the desired result. He asked the men to follow him. He took them to the approaches of the compound they were looking for and pointed at it.
‘It is not our custom,’ he told the policemen, ‘to show our neighbour’s creditors the way to his hut. So I cannot enter with you.’ This was a reasonable request and the policemen released him. He ran away as fast as he could so that the inmates of the compound might not catch as much as a glimpse of his escaping back.
The policemen marched into the hut and found an old woman chewing her toothless gums. She peered at them in obvious fright and did not seem to understand any of the questions they put to her. She did not even seem to remember her own name.
Fortunately a little boy came in at that moment with a small piece of potsherd to take burning coals to his mother for making a fire. It was this boy who took the men around the bend of the footpath to Ezeulu’s compound. As soon as he went out with them the old woman picked up her stick and hobbled over at an amazing speed to his mother’s hut to report his behaviour. Then she returned to her hut – much more slowly, curved behind her straight stick. Her name was Nwanyieke, a childless widow. Soon after she got back she heard the boy, Obielue, crying.
Meanwhile the policemen arrived at Ezeulu’s hut. They were then no longer in the mood for playing. They spoke sharply, baring all their weapons at once.
‘Which one of you is called Ezeulu?’ asked the corporal.
‘Which Ezeulu?’ asked Edogo.
‘Don’t ask me which Ezeulu again or I shall slap okro seeds out of your mouth. I say who is called Ezeulu here?’
‘And I say which Ezeulu? Or don’t you know who you are looking for?’ The four other men in the hut said nothing. Women and children thronged the door leading from the hut into the inner compound. There was fear and anxiety in the faces.
‘All right,’ said the corporal in English. ‘Jus now you go sabby which Ezeulu. Gi me dat ting.’ This last sentence was directed to his companion who immediately produced the handcuffs from his pocket.
In the eyes of the villager handcuffs or iga were the most deadly of the white man’s weapons. The sight of a fighting man reduced to impotence and helplessness with an iron lock was the final humiliation. It was a treatment given only to violent lunatics.
So when the fierce-looking policeman showed his handcuffs and moved towards Edogo with them Akuebue came forward as the elder in the house and spoke reasonably. He appealed to the policemen not to be angry with Edogo. ‘He only spoke as a young man would. As you know, the language of young men is always pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation.’ He told them that Ezeulu and his son had set out for Okperi early in the morning to answer the white man’s call. The policemen looked at each other. They had indeed met a man with another who looked like his son. They remembered them because they were the first people they had met going in the opposite direction but also because the man and his son looked very distinguished.
‘What does he look like?’ asked the corporal.
‘He is as tall as an iroko tree and his skin is white like the sun. In his youth he was called Nwa-anyanwu.’
‘And his son?’
