The Sunshine Land

  … “You’ve got to go to Christiansborg Castle, with a sten and some ammunition,” said Major Ives.    “The Brigadier’s going too.    I’ll be at my office in twenty minutes.”

     He rang off, leaving me to wonder what kind of insurrection the Brigadier was planning to lead.    I collected from the armoury a Sten Machine Carbine ‘4’, the most up-to-date model we had, and five magazines of ammunition, and arrived back at the office at the same time as Ives.

     “Now, revelations,” Ives said, flinging his slouch-hat across the room so that it hooked neatly onto a peg.    “There’s a job for you,” he said, sitting down impassively as if the hat-trick was nothing unusual.    “Nkrumah wants to see some automatic weapons in action,” he declared, in his Adjutant’s voice.   

     “Why me?” I asked.

     “It’s intelligence work, isn’t it?    Well, actually,” he admitted, “I was asked to go over myself… but the Brigadier’s going to be there, and I don’t get on all that well with him.    Anyway, it’s good training for you.”

     The Brigadier arrived just after me.    He was carrying a Sten ‘5’, a slightly more recent model than mine.    We were shown into the Castle up a flight of stairs.    Nkrumah met us outside a door with a ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ notice hung slantwise across it.    He was wearing a smart dark suit, white shirt, sober tie, very European.    Thick lips, receding hair, an attractive smile.    Kwame Nkrumah, the Prime Minister.    You are shaking hands with the Prime Minister.    I wondered: is it ‘Sir’, or ‘Prime Minister’, or ‘Your Excellency’?    Behind him stood four or five other Africans, all in suits.   

     “Good of you to come,” Nkrumah said.    “I wanted to see some guns.”    A soft voice, slightly American: not a bit like the honeyed, seductive public voice.   “What about this?” he asked, handing the Brigadier a short, squat automatic.    It looked very clumsy.    The Brigadier passed it on to me: an ugly weapon.    Some sort of adapted sten, perhaps?

     “I’d hate to have to fire that,” I said brashly.    Then I noticed an inscription which said that the gun was a present to the Right Honourable Kwame Nkrumah from the Israeli Government.