Assegai

‘White hunters? Like Tarlton and Cunninghame?’ Leon’s face was bright. ‘What a wonderful life that must be.’ His expression crumpled again. ‘But how would I get started? I have no money, and I won’t ask my father for help. He’d laugh at me anyway. And I don’t know anybody. Why would dukes and princes and business tycoons want to come all the way from Europe to hunt with me?’

‘I could take you to see a man I know. He might be willing to help you.’

‘When can we go?’

‘Tomorrow. His base camp is only a short ride out of Nairobi.’

‘Major Snell has given me orders to take a patrol up to Lake Turkana. I have to scout out a location to build a fort up there.’

‘Turkana!’ Penrod snorted with laughter. ‘Why would we need a fort up there?’

‘It’s his idea of fun. When I submit the reports he asks for, he sends them back to me with mocking comments scrawled in the margins.’

‘I’ll have a word with him, ask him to release you briefly for a special assignment.’

‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’

They rode out through the barracks gates and down the main street of Nairobi. Although it was early morning the wide, unsurfaced road was crowded and bustling like that of a gold-rush boom town. Sir Charles, the governor of the colony, encouraged settlers to come out from the old country by offering land grants of thousands of acres at a nominal fee and they flocked in. The road was almost blocked by their wagons, which were piled high with their scanty possessions and forlorn families as they journeyed on to take up their parcels of land in the wilderness. Hindu, Goanese and Jewish traders and storekeepers followed them. Their mud-brick shops lined the sides of the road, hand-printed boards on the fronts offering everything from champagne and dynamite to picks, shovels and shotgun cartridges.

Penrod and Leon picked their way through the ox wagons and mule teams until Penrod reined in before the Norfolk Hotel to greet a small man, in a solar topee, who was perched like an elf in the back of a buggy drawn by a pair of Burchell’s zebra. ‘Good morning, my lord.’ Penrod saluted him.

The little man adjusted his steel-rimmed spectacles on the end of his nose. ‘Ah, Colonel. Good to see you. Where are you headed?’

‘We’re riding out to visit Percy Phillips.’

‘Dear old Percy.’ He nodded. ‘Great friend of mine. I hunted with him the first year I came out from home. We spent six months together, trekking up as far as the Northern Frontier district and on into the Sudan. He guided me to two enormous elephant. Lovely man. Taught me everything I know about hunting big game.’

‘Which is a very great deal. Your feats with that .577 rifle of yours are almost as legendary as his.’

‘Kind of you to say so, even though I detect a touch of hyperbole in that compliment.’ He turned his bright, inquisitive eyes on Leon. ‘And who is this young fellow?’

‘May I present my nephew, Lieutenant Leon Courtney? Leon, this is Lord Delamere.’

‘I’m honoured to make your acquaintance, my lord.’

‘I know who you are.’ His lordship’s eyes twinkled with amusement.

Apparently he did not pretend the same high moral ethics as the rest of the local society. Leon guessed that his next remark would be some reference to Verity O’Hearne, so he added hastily, ‘I am much taken with your carriage horses, my lord.’

‘Caught and trained them with my own fair hands.’ Delamere gave him a last piercing glance, then he turned away. Can understand why young Verity was so taken with him, he thought, and why all the old hens in the coop were cackling with jealous outrage. That young blade is the answer to a maiden’s prayer.

He touched the brim of his helmet with his buggy whip. ‘I wish you a very good day, Colonel. Give my compliments to Percy.’ He whipped up the zebra and drove on.

‘Lord Delamere was once a great shikari, but now he’s become an ardent conservator of wild game,’ Penrod said. ‘He has an estate of more than a hundred thousand acres at Soysambu on the west side of the Rift Valley which he’s turning into a game sanctuary, mortgaging his family estates in England to the very hilt to do so. The finest hunters are all like that. When they tire of killing they become the most devoted protectors of their former quarry.’ They left the town and rode out along the Ngong Hills until they looked down on a sprawling encampment in the forest. Tents, grass huts and rondavels were spread out under the trees in no particular order.

‘This is Percy’s base, Tandala Camp.’ ‘Tandala’ was the Swahili name for the greater kudu. ‘He brings his clients up from the coast by railway, and from here he can strike out into the blue on foot, on horseback or by ox wagon.’ They rode on down the hill, but before they reached the main camp they came to the skinning sheds where the hunting trophies were prepared and preserved. There, the upper branches of the trees were filled with roosting vultures and the carnivorous marabou storks. The stench of drying skins and heads was rank and powerful.