THE CORPORAL WHO SAT ON THE THRONE OF KINGI GEORGI

(Alex Flinder)

August 1995 was, for old campaigners, a month of memories, and it was one of these memories that brought me back to Westminster Abbey.

As I joined the thousands being ushered past the tombs and memorials of Britain’s great past, I recalled that day in 1945 when the Abbey had been entirely empty except for a verger, me and five Askari. It was a lovely summer day in late August of that year. The war in Europe had come to an end in May; the Japanese had surrendered just a couple of weeks earlier, and everyone was still intoxicated with the first days of peace after six years of war. My only slight misgiving was that I rather wished that I could have celebrated our victory with my Sapper colleagues of the 11^th East African Division with whom I had been retraining at Ranchi in India following our part in the Burma campaign.

I had however good reason to be in London. I was on 28 days home leave during which I had celebrated VJ Day by marrying my WAAF fiancée. It may have been the consequent exertions that triggered a violent Malaria relapse, but we spent the rest of our honeymoon in the Canadian Military Hospital at Taplow, and I was eventually discharged fit at the Millbank Military Hospital; all of which explains how I came to be walking back across Parliament Square on that day in August 1945.

Am I seeing things? They told me that I babbled away in Swahili when I was delirious, but this is ridiculous and anyway I’m fit now. But there they are, five tall bush-hatted Askari, in heavy greatcoats in spite of the warmth, standing in the middle of Parliament Square. As I approach, I catch the familiar cadences of that lingo which I have known for the past two years. My Swahili greeting is received by a chorus of Jamba Bwanas and a flurry of saluting and stamping of heels that frightened the life out of the nearby pigeons.

“What unit are you from, and how do you come to be in London?” I ask the Corporal who appears to be in charge. “We have been prisoners of war in Germany, Bwana”. “In Germany?” is my surprised response, pressing him further. “Yes, Bwana, we were in a Pioneer Company in the Western Desert and were captured at Tobruk. When we were released we were brought back to England and we have been waiting for a long time for a ship to take us home. We have been given a day’s pass from our camp so that before we go home we can say that we have been to London and have seen the Capital of the British Empire.” As the Corporal and I converse, the others listen intently with nods and murmurs of confirmation.

I feel moved, for here we stand, a small, unlikely and incongruous group, meeting by a strange coincidence. I feel somehow responsible, for these chaps have spent years in a POW camp in a strange country, and this visit to the heart of the Empire must be a big day in their lives. How can I say hello and leave them? But what to do?

I propose some refreshment. Yes, they would welcome some chai, and as we drink our tea at a nearby mobile canteen I am desperately trying to think of my next move, when the corporal asks me if I know where King George’s church is. He explains that he had been educated at a Mission school and when he returns home he would like to tell his teachers that he had been to the ‘Kanisa ya Kingi Georgi’. My initial thought is Windsor, but hold on, what about Westminster Abbey? After all, that’s where he was crowned. “Kingi Georgi’s church?” I reply, “Why, its just up the road; let’s go.”

The Corporal is delighted; so off we walk, or rather march, because the Corporal orders the others to fall in behind, and as we get into our strike I find myself humming ‘Kwenda Safari’. I recalled this memory of so many years ago as I joined the throng of tourists entering the Abbey, and I thought how strange it was that I now needed to stretch to see over the heads of the excited Japanese who encircled the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. On that earlier occasion the Askari and I had walked slowly into an empty Abbey; there were no tourists in those days and we stood bareheaded around the Tomb as I explained its significance to my solemn companions.

As we proceeded, hushed and treading lightly through the magnificent nave and past the elaborate tombs and monuments, the silence was brushed only by the awed whispered exclamations of my companions – “Aye-Aye, namna gani, mzuri kabisa”.

The centre of the nave was covered in seating of which the front pews were cordoned off. We were approached by a black-robed verger who asked if we needed assistance. I explained the circumstances leading to our visit and as we walked along I privately communicated my slight subterfuge regarding ‘Kingi Georgi’s Church’. “But you are not far off the mark” he said, because the King and Queen were actually here at a thanksgiving service last week.” I repeated this bit of information to the Askari who were deeply impressed and then the Corporal asked a question which I passed to the verger. “He would like to know which is the King’s own chair”. The verger smiled and pointed to one of the special-looking chairs behind the cordoned barrier, and then with a twinkle in his eye he looked slyly over each shoulder to see if the field was clear, lifted the silk rope, and said with a thumbed gesture “as a special treat the Corporal can sit on the chair, but make it quick”.

I repeated this invitation to a stunned Corporal who had to be encouraged by a swift push in the back and a whispered “upesi sana”. Ducking under the rope he tiptoed across to the chair, gently lowered himself and sat wide-eyed on its very edge with that sort of ecstatic smile that nature has surely allotted onto to the African and to no other.

We returned to the canteen in the square for another cup of chai, with the Corporal still in a daze, shaking his head and repeating how he will tell them all at home how he sat on the chair of Kingi Georgi. I had little doubt that in the tradition of African story telling the chair would soon become a throne. The time had come for me to leave. There was good handshaking all round in the two handed African manner, many asanti sanas and kwa heris, and then the Corporal called the others to order in the Swahili equivalent of ‘get fell in’ and I was treated to an improvised but rather ragged ‘grand salute’ which under the circumstances was a pretty commendable effort. Walking off towards Whitehall I glanced back to see five happy Askari waving their bush hats. I waved back.

As things worked out, these Askari happened to be the very last with whom I had any contact. I never returned to the Division, for as an architect I was offered an early discharge; I believe it was called a ‘B’ Release; to join a local authority “to rebuild Britain” they said, and within a few months I was back in civvy street.

****