An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd – Reviewed by Guy Portman
After much tension and speculation, World War I begins. The main campaign is contended on the Western Front, but there is also a less well-known offensive in colonial East Africa, where the British and their native conscripts are pitted against the Tanganyika-based Germans. It is here that newly-wed Englishman Gabriel Cobb is deployed.
Back at home in Stackpole, Kent are Gabriel’s family. They include his estranged wife, his eccentric father and younger brother, Felix. The story oscillates between Kent and German and British East Africa. There are a host of colourful and in some instances caricatured characters. Amongst the most memorable is a comical, Kenya-dwelling American whose passion is his decorticator (agricultural-processing machine).
An Ice-Cream War’s motif is the absurdness of war. Boyd is unwavering in presenting the East African campaign as chaotic and futile. The book’s grave content is laced with humour of the dark variety. There are occasional gruesome descriptions.
This unpredictable serio-comedy’s blend of tragedy and black humour appealed to this reader, who empathised with the fair Europeans perspiring in the African heat. And the East African campaign was of particular interest to him, having visited as a child one of the battlefields on the banks of Tanzania’s Rufiji River.
