The Man Called Brown Condor (28 page)

The emperor later described the scene: “It was no longer a war for the Italian airmen. It was a game, a massacre.”

John did get the call and returned Selassie to Addis Ababa. There the emperor conferred with Sir Sidney Barton, the British foreign minister, and Monsieur Albert Bodard, the French ambassador. He informed them that his imperial council had beseeched him not join Ras Imru, as he wished, to organize a guerilla war from the gorges of the Blue Nile. His council had convinced him he should try to escape in order to maintain Ethiopian rule in exile until such time as his government could return. By that act, Ethiopia could, at least symbolically, refuse to accept defeat. His council advised that as long as “Haile Selassie was free and unbowed, Italian rule in Ethiopia could have no legitimacy.” To do otherwise, they said, would end futilely in capture, public humiliation, death, and the end of thousands of years of Ethiopian self-rule.

The British foreign minister arranged for the gold from Ethiopia's treasury to be deposited in Barclay's Bank in Jerusalem. Barton also promised that if the emperor could reach the port of Djibouti in French Somaliland, a British warship would meet him and transport his party to safety.

On May 2, 1936, at four o'clock in the morning, the last train left Addis Ababa. Because of the number of foreign citizens, the diplomatic corps, and members of the world press that were aboard the train, Mussolini refused to approve his commander's persistent requests to bomb it. It was, after all, a French train. On that train, Haile Selassie and his government in exile made it to Djibouti. Two days later, on May 4, the day before Italian troops marched into Addis Ababa, Emperor Haile Selassie and his staff departed Djibouti aboard the British cruiser HMS
Enterprise
.

In the chaos of Addis Ababa, some were fleeing the Italians while others took advantage of the pandemonium to loot businesses and homes, especially those belonging to foreigners. Mixed among them were Azebu and Galla tribesmen who had sided with the Italians. General Bono had cleverly sent them into Addis Ababa ahead of his army. Their job was to create chaos. If that meant taking revenge against Selassie's followers and looting as they pleased, so be it.

For John it was past time to leave. Robinson found his paymaster had fled and the banks all closed. The consulates scattered through the city were all barricaded and under siege. He thought,
I should have left two weeks ago with Corriger and Demeaux.

Perhaps the Regia Aeronautica were distracted by the celebrations of victory that had already begun at the airstrips, for John was able to retrieve Staggerwing from hiding, get it off the ground, and fly unmolested to French Djibouti. He landed the morning of May 4 just as HMS
Enterprise
got under way. At the field, French officials impounded the sleek biplane bearing the colors and insignia of Ethiopia.
³

The French weren't quite sure what to do with an American citizen wearing the uniform of an Ethiopian colonel and possessing passports of both countries. After a day of interrogation, they impounded his sidearm and released him. John had escaped with a few possessions stuffed in a suitcase and very little money. His only option was to catch a freighter bound for Marseille and try to get home as best he could.

On May 5, Badoglio's armies marched into Addis Ababa. Although Ethiopia never surrendered, the Italo-Ethiopian war was over. The kingdom of Italy annexed the Ethiopian empire on May 7, and on May 9 in Rome, Mussolini proclaimed King Victor Emmanuel III emperor of Ethiopia. Italy merged Italian Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland into a single colony known as Italian East Africa.

3
This Beechcraft Staggerwing aircraft was destined for a long and fascinating history. Records indicate that this particular Staggerwing was given the French registration, F-APFD. It took part in the Spanish Civil War flown by the French pilot, Lebaud, for the Basque government 1936–1939. Lucky again, it survived to cross the Spanish border into France. In November of 1942, it was captured by the Germans at Briscous, a town on the French side of the Pyrenees. Dismantled, it was taken to Paris for display at a Luftwaffe exhibition. Sometime after World War II, this same Staggerwing somehow wound up in the United States and was refurbished and registered as NC 15811.

R
OBINSON ARRIVED AT THE PORT OF
M
ARSEILLE EARLY IN THE
morning and was able to catch a train to Paris that same day. It was a long 450-mile ride in third class. He managed to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese, and cheap wine. Upon arrival at the railroad station in Paris, he went to the information booth where he found an elderly woman who spoke English. John told her he had limited funds, some French francs but most in English pounds sterling. He asked if she could recommend an inexpensive hotel. She remarked that the few American Negroes she had seen in Paris all seemed to be musicians, and he was the first she had seen in uniform since the Great War. She told him which bus to catch— that a taxi would be expensive. The hotel was small, old, but clean. It was located not far from the Seine on La Rive Gauche, the left bank. Bonetired, Robinson fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.

His main concern was how to get home with so little money in his pocket. The Ethiopian government, he knew, was fleeing into exile. He had no idea how to contact them to obtain the back pay and transportation to America he had been promised.

Haile Selassie had briefly put into port at Haifa to visit Jerusalem, his first choice as a location to establish his government in exile, but an Arab revolt against Jewish emigration made the city too dangerous. Arabs and Jews, both armed, were fighting in the streets of the holy city and the British were hard put to stop it. The emperor proceeded aboard HMS
Enterprise
to England where he established residence in exile.

John's only choice was to swallow his pride and send a telegram via the Atlantic cable asking his former partner, Cornelius Coffey, for help.

While he waited for an answer, John took in the sights of Paris, spending as little as possible. He toured the Louvre, Notre Dame, walked along the Seine and down the Champs Elysées. He marveled at the Eiffel tower. He searched out small neighborhood restaurants where he could eat inexpensively. He loved the sidewalk cafés but could afford only coffee. Paris was an expensive city. He passed several clubs that advertized American Negro Jazz Orchestras, but he could not afford them.

Generally ignored by the French, John felt lonely in crowded Paris. He was relieved to be safely away from the senseless slaughter in Ethiopia, but felt uneasy surrounded by the bustling day-to-day activity of people engaged in ordinary life. The French seemed unconcerned about the war their neighbor Italy had waged on Ethiopia. There was little to nothing about it in the news. The war in Africa was over, no longer of interest. News of an impending civil war in Spain had chased “that Abyssinian business” off the front page. Some nights, John awoke in a cold sweat wondering if he had cried out in his sleep or only in his dreams, dreams of Italian planes surrounding him, of running for cover from bombs and shells, of hearing the screams of terrified wounded and dying people.

One evening while eating at a small restaurant, an old Frenchman, curious about the black man at the next table who had trouble ordering because he spoke little French, struck up a conversation with John. He said he had learned to speak English from American soldiers during the Great War. After discovering John had fought in “that African war” against Italy, he shrugged and said, “What can that Abyssinian business teach us about war? Italy is no threat to France. I was in the Great War. I already know all about such things. It will never happen here again. We are building the Maginot Line.”

When his food arrived, John excused himself from the conversation. “Sir, unlike you Frenchmen, it seems I am a stranger to peace.”

On the way to his hotel, John picked up a copy of the
Herald Tribune
, the English-language newspaper published in Paris. Contrary to what the old Frenchman had said, it appeared that the French government was mildly apprehensive about new German claims to territory occupied by France since the Great War. The newspaper claimed that Hitler was moving troops disguised as civil policemen into the Rhineland. It seemed to Robinson there was plenty of other news that should have concerned France, America, and the rest of the world. The paper claimed that civil war between the communist-leaning Republican government (
republicanos
) and the Fascist-leaning nationalist movement (
nacionales
) in Spain appeared certain. Japan was engaged in aggression against China. John read about one American who he thought had things right. A general named MacArthur, quoted saying, “If another great conflict ever should occur it will not be fought from trenches as was the Great War. Troops will be highly mobilized, fighting mostly in the open with fast units using tanks and trucks. Aircraft will play a great part in any conflict.” John folded the paper and tossed it aside.

I've just been witness to the truth of that, but who will listen to me?

It was 1936 and America was still in the depth of the Great Depression. Business, especially the aviation business, was suffering. When Cornelius Coffey received John's telegram, he was struggling to keep the flying school open. He had few students and little cash. What he did have was a Great Lakes Trainer biplane he had bought wrecked and painstakingly restored to like-new condition over the past year. When he received word of his best friend's predicament, he didn't hesitate. He sold the Great Lakes for five hundred dollars and sent all of it to John in Paris.

A few years later when Coffey applied for his air transport and instrument ratings, the Commerce Department flight examiner recognized Coffey. The examiner was the man who had purchased the Great Lakes and learned to fly in it. Needless to say, Coffey was awarded his air transport and instrument ratings.

In Cherbourg, France, a young black man who felt very old and tired for his thirty-one years boarded the North German Lloyd Lines passenger ship
Europa
bound for New York. The money Coffey had sent him allowed John to pay his Paris debts and book passage home. John sent a wire to Coffey thanking him and giving him the name of his ship and date scheduled for arrival at New York.

Because of Germany's promotion of the forthcoming 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Lloyd Lines advertised cheap fares to lure Americans to the games. A round-trip, first-class ticket from New York to Bremen via Southampton and Cherbourg could be had for $212. The cheap fares did not apply to one-way passage from France to New York. John booked second-class passage, Cherbourg to New York. It would not be as luxurious a voyage as his first-class trip over, but it was a ticket home. John found there was an advantage to second-class: dinner was only semi-formal. His uniform would do. He had lost his black tie and tuxedo when his hotel was bombed.

As
Europa
sliced its way across the Atlantic, the tension of the past year began to ebb from him like ice melting in the warmth of spring. John admitted to himself how tired he was and how glad he was to be going home. He splurged sixty-five cents to rent a deck chair and blanket for the duration of the trip.

Each morning, printed in German, French, and English, the ship provided news highlights obtained over the wireless the night before. After breakfast, John liked to sit in his deck chair and read the ship's newspaper. He found many items of interest. Germany had launched the giant zeppelin Hindenburg. It would be put into service between Germany and America. In England, the grand new ocean liner
Queen Mary
was preparing for her maiden voyage to the United States. The new United States aircraft carrier
Yorktown
was christened by Eleanor Roosevelt. It was equipped by the navy's first-line fighter, the Grumman F3F biplane. John couldn't believe it. He had read that Germany had a sleek new fighter called a Messerschmitt and England had unveiled the beautiful Spitfire. They were both monoplanes and reported to be much faster than any fighter the United States had at the time.

The atmosphere onboard the ship was light. Most conversations Robinson overheard were about fashion, sports, or business. When the subjects of conflict in China or Germany rearming were brought up, they were often dismissed with the statement, “Well, yes, war seems inevitable,” stated as if the speaker had the impression that the “inevitable war” would be somehow remote from his own nation. “After all,” one gentleman said, “we have the Locarno Treaty under which Germany, France, and Belgium promised not to attack each other. England and Italy have been charged with enforcing the treaty should one of the signatories violate the terms.” John couldn't believe his ears.

These fools still believe in treaties and the League of Nations
.

In a new edition of the ship's little paper, there was a piece of news about students in the United States staging demonstrations pledging not to support the United States in any war. President Roosevelt, speaking during his campaign for re-election, said the United States would not increase its arms and intended to stay out of war. There was a blurb about Charles Lindbergh returning from a personal tour of the new German air force. He said America and the rest of the world had nothing to compare with it.

What was crystal clear to Robinson was that the whole world seemed headed where he had just been: to war.

If a black child from Mississippi can see it, why the hell can't high-falutin' white folks see it?
John lost his appetite for news. He borrowed a book from the ship's library: a translation of
Night Flight
by the French flyer Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

John had not slept well for months, often waking from dreams of bombings, of flying lost in clouds, of animals eating the unburied dead, of fogs of poison gas, of lost friends. In the mornings he would get up feeling tired and sick.