Assegai

Dearest, dearest Leon,

By the time you read this I will be on my way back to Ireland. I did not want to go, but I have been given little choice. Deep in my heart I know that the person who is sending me away is right and it is for the best. Next year I will be thirty years old, and you are just nineteen and a very junior subaltern. I am sure that one day you will be a famous general covered with medals and glory, but by then I will be an old maid. I have to go. This gift I leave you is an earnest of my affection for you. Go and forget me. Find happiness somewhere else. I will always hold you in my memory as I once held you in my arms.

It was signed ‘V’. His vision blurred and his breathing was uneven as he reread the letter.

Before he reached the last line there was a polite knock on the door of his rondavel. ‘Who is it?’ he called.

‘It is me, Effendi.’

‘Just a minute, Ishmael.’

Quickly he wiped his eyes on the back of his forearm, placed the letter under his pillow and packed the rifle back into its case. He pushed it under the bed and called, ‘Come in, Beloved of the Prophet.’

Ishmael, who was a devout coastal Swahili, came in with a zinc bathtub balanced on his head. ‘Welcome back, Effendi. You bring the sun into my heart.’ He set the tub in the centre of the floor, then set about filling it with steaming buckets of water from the fireplace behind the hut. While the water cooled to a bearable temperature, Ishmael whipped a sheet around Leon’s neck and then, with comb and scissors, took up position behind him and began to snip at Leon’s sweat- and dust-caked hair. He worked with practised skill, and when he had finished he stood back and nodded, satisfied, then fetched the shaving mug and brush. He worked up a creamy lather over Leon’s stubble, then stropped the long blade of the straight razor and handed it to his master. He held the small hand mirror while Leon scraped his jaw clean, then wiped away the last traces of soap.

‘How does that look?’ Leon asked.

‘Your beauty would blind the houris of Paradise, Effendi,’ Ishmael said solemnly, and tested the bathwater with one finger. ‘It is ready.’

Leon stripped off his stinking rags and threw them against the far wall, then went to the steaming bath and lowered himself into it, with a sigh of pleasure. The bath was hardly large enough to accommodate him, and he sat with his knees under his chin. Ishmael gathered up his soiled clothing, holding it ostentatiously at arm’s length, and carried it away. He left the door open behind him. Without knocking, Bobby Sampson ambled in.

‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,’ he said, with a diffident grin. Bobby was only a year older than Leon. He was a large, gawky but affable youth, and as the two most junior officers in the regiment, he and Leon had formed a friendship that had at its core the instinct for survival. They had sealed their friendship with the joint purchase of a dilapidated and road-beaten Vauxhall truck from a Hindu coffee-grower for the sum of three pounds ten shillings, almost their total combined savings. By working until all hours of the night they had restored it to an approximation of its former glory.

Bobby went to the bed and dropped on to it, placed his hands behind his head, crossed his ankles and contemplated the gecko, which had climbed into the rafters and now hung upside down, above him. ‘Well, old man, you seem to have got yourself into a bit of a pickle, what? I’m sure you know by now that Freddie the Frog is accusing you of all sorts of mischief and wrongdoing. Quite by chance, I happen to have with me a copy of the charge sheet.’ He reached into the large side pocket of his uniform jacket and brought out a crumpled ball of papers. He smoothed them out on his chest, then waved them at Leon. ‘Some pretty colourful stuff here. I’m impressed with your naughtiness. Trouble is, I’ve been ordered to defend you, what? What?’

‘For God’s sake, Bobby, stop saying “what”. You know it drives me mad.’

Bobby put on an expression of contrition. ‘Sorry, old boy. Truth is I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m supposed to be doing.’

‘Bobby, you are an idiot.’

‘Can’t help it, my old beauty. Mother must have dropped me on my head, don’t you know? Anyway, back to the main item on the agenda. Have you any idea what I’m supposed to be doing?’