Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘Ask him to show it to us. He brought us all this way with a promise that we would see the chicks, and I’m going to hold him to his word.’ Loikot led them along the edge of the cliff to a crack in the rock. He laid aside his assegai and crept into it. The opening was just wide enough to admit Leon’s larger frame. He propped the Holland rifle against a tree-trunk and wriggled down into the opening. Eva tucked up the skirts of her shuka between her long legs and followed him.

In semi-darkness they descended an almost vertical natural shaft lit by only a feeble reflection of light from the surface, just enough for them to make out the hand and footholds. Then, gradually, light began to filter up from below, and at last they crawled through a narrow gap on to an open ledge. The shaft had brought them out below the overhang of the buttress. However, there was still no sight of the eyrie, but the eagles had seen them appear on the ledge above their nest and screeched with anger and alarm, flying in closer to glare at them with fierce yellow eyes.

The ledge was narrow and precarious, so they edged along it with their backs to the cliff wall until, suddenly, it widened. Loikot stretched out flat on the rock and peered over the edge, then grinned at Eva, beckoning her to join him. She crawled cautiously to his side and looked down. ‘There they are!’ she exclaimed with delight. ‘Oh, Badger, come and see them.’

He lay beside her and placed one arm around her shoulders. The nest was no more than thirty feet directly below, a massive platform of dried sticks wedged into a cleft in the rock. The top was dish-shaped and lined with green leaves and reeds. In the centre of the indentation two eaglets crouched on wobbly legs, so young they could barely hold their heads upright. Their huge beaks were out of proportion to their fluffy grey bodies, and they had not yet shed the hooks on the tips with which they had battered their way through the tough shell of the egg as they hatched.

‘They’re so adorably ugly. Look at those big milky eyes.’ Eva laughed, then ducked with alarm as the air around their heads was disrupted and filled with the sound of great wings. Shrieking with outrage, first the female and then the male eagle dived in at them, talons extended, ready to defend their nest and the young birds in it.

‘Keep your head down,’ Leon warned, ‘or those talons will take it off for you. Keep still. Don’t move.’ They pressed themselves to the rocky floor of the ledge. Gradually the fury and deadly intent of the eagles abated, as they realized there was no direct threat to their brood. At last the female returned to the nest and settled upon it, furling her wings and standing over her chicks protectively before tucking them away beneath her breast. On the ledge above them Leon and Eva lay patiently making no movement, and the birds relaxed further, until at last they ignored the human presence and resumed their natural behaviour.

It was a fascinating experience to be allowed so close to such magnificent wild creatures and observe them caring for and feeding their young. Leon and Eva spent the rest of the day on the ledge. When at last daylight was fading and it was time to go, they left reluctantly. In the rudimentary overnight shelter that Loikot and Manyoro had built for them they lay under a single blanket.

‘I will never forget this day,’ Eva whispered.

‘Every day we spend together is unforgettable.’

‘You will never take me away from Africa, will you?’

‘This is our home,’ he agreed.

‘When I watched those funny little eaglets I had the strangest sensation.’

‘It’s a common female affliction, known as becoming broody,’ he teased her.

‘We will have babies of our own, won’t we, Badger?’

‘Do you mean right this moment?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ she conceded, ‘but perhaps we could start practising. What do you think?’

‘I think you’re a ruddy genius, woman. Let’s waste no more time in idle chatter.’

Their return to Lusima’s village was a happy homecoming. The herd-boys spied them from afar and shouted the news to the villagers, who trooped out to welcome them with singing and laughter. Lusima was waiting for them under the council tree. She embraced Eva and made her sit on her right-hand side. Leon took the stool on her other side and helped with translation when their intuitive understanding faltered. Suddenly he broke off in the middle of a sentence and raised his head to sniff the air. ‘What on earth is that wonderful aroma?’ he demanded, of no one in particular.

‘Coffee!’ cried Eva. ‘Wonderful, glorious coffee!’ Ishmael came towards them with a pair of mugs in one hand and a steaming coffee pot in the other. His grin was triumphant. ‘You are a worker of miracles!’ Eva greeted him in French. ‘That is the only thing I needed to make my life perfect.’

‘I have also brought you many of your beautiful clothes and shoes so that you no longer have to wear the garments of the infidel.’ He indicated her shuka with a grimace of the deepest disapproval and disgust.

‘Ishmael!’ Leon’s voice was sharp with alarm. ‘While we were away, did you go down to Percy’s Camp to fetch the coffee and the memsahib’s clothes?’

‘ Ndio , Bwana.’ Ishmael grinned with pride. ‘I rode hard on my mule and I was there and back in only four days.’

‘Did anybody see you? Who else was at the camp?’

‘Only Bwana Hennie.’

‘Did you tell him where we are?’ Leon demanded.

‘Yes, he asked me,’ Ishmael answered. Then his face fell as he saw Leon’s expression. ‘Did I do wrong, Effendi?’

Leon turned away as he struggled to suppress his anger and the dread that had engulfed him. When he turned back his face was blank. ‘You did what you thought was right, Ishmael. The coffee is excellent, as good as any you’ve ever brewed.’ But Ishmael knew him too well to be taken in by his words. It was not clear to him how he had erred, but he was stricken with guilt as he backed away to his kitchen hut.

Eva was watching Leon. Her face was pale and her hands were clenched in her lap. ‘Something dreadful has happened, hasn’t it?’ Her voice was soft and calm but her eyes were dark with worry.

‘We cannot stay here any longer,’ Leon told her grimly, and turned to look into the west where the sun was already on the horizon. ‘We should leave at once, but it’s already too late. I don’t want to chance the track down the mountain in the dark. We’ll go at first light tomorrow.’

‘What is it, Badger?’ Eva reached across to take his hand.

‘While we were at the eagle’s nest, Ishmael went down to Percy’s Camp to fetch supplies. Hennie du Rand was there. Ishmael told him where we are. Hennie has no idea of the delicate circumstances that have overtaken you and me. We cannot chance it, Eva. If Graf Otto is alive he will come after you.’

‘He is dead, my darling.’

‘So you dreamed, but we cannot be sure. Then there are your masters in Whitehall. If they find out where you are, they will not let you go. We must run.’

‘Where to?’

‘If we can get to one of the aircraft, we can fly across the German border to Dar es Salaam, and from there take a ship to South Africa or Australia. Once we get there we can change our names and disappear.’

‘We don’t have any money,’ she pointed out.

‘Percy left me enough. Will you come with me?’

‘Of course,’ she replied, without hesitation. ‘From now on, wherever you go, I go also.’

Leon smiled at her and said simply, ‘My heart, my dear heart.’ Then he turned back to Lusima. ‘Mama, we have to leave.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed at once. ‘This I have foreseen, but I could not tell it to you.’