Wilbur Smith: Assegai

‘Do you think somebody will solve the mystery soon?’

‘Perhaps today,’ he replied. He stood up and began to unbutton his shirt.

‘It’s been lying here for almost four years. What if somebody has found it already?’ she asked, and her light mood began to fade.

‘That could never have happened,’ he reassured her. ‘Lusima Mama put a curse on the pool. Nobody would dare go in there.’

‘But aren’t you afraid?’ she asked.

He smiled and touched the little carved-ivory charm that hung on a thong around his neck. ‘Lusima gave me this. It will ward off the curse.’

‘You’re making that up, Badger!’ she accused him.

‘There’s only one way I can prove it to you.’ He hopped on one leg as he shed his trousers, then took a running dive from the ledge into the water.

She jumped to her feet and shouted after him, ‘Come back! I’m afraid to know the answer. What if it’s all gone, Badger?’

He trod water and grinned at her from the middle of the pool. ‘You’re a determined pessimist, my love. In a few minutes from now we’ll know the worst or the very best.’ He drew four deep breaths and ducked. For a few seconds his bare feet kicked above the surface of the water and then he was gone. She knew it would be some time before he surfaced and she let her mind travel back over the last four years. They had been filled with excitement and danger, but also with love and laughter. She had been with him most of the time he was on campaign with Delamere’s light horse in the bush against that cunning rascal, von Lettow Vorbeck. Leon had taught her to fly the Bumble Bee and to act as his observer and navigator. The two of them had made a famous team. Once, when Leon was not with her, she had landed the aircraft under heavy fire from the Germans to rescue four wounded askaris . Lord Delamare had pulled every trick in the book to see to it that she was awarded the Military Medal.

‘But now the war is fought and won, I will be grateful for a little less excitement and danger and a lot more love and laughter’.

She jumped up as Leon burst out of the water with a mighty splash. ‘Tell me the bad news!’ she yelled.

He did not reply but swam to the ledge below her and lifted his right hand out of the water. He was holding something and threw it at her feet. It was a small canvas bag and it was heavy, for the mouth burst open as it hit the ledge. Golden coins poured from it and sparkled in the sunlight, and she squealed with excitement and fell to her knees. She gathered them up in her cupped hands and looked down at him with an unspoken question in her eyes.

‘Some of the cases have burst open, probably when Lusima’s morani dropped them into the pool from the top of the waterfall, but it looks as though none or very little is missing.’ He slithered out of the water like an otter and she dropped the handful of gold sovereigns and reached out to hug his cold, wet body.

‘Don’t we have to give it all back?’ she whispered into his ear.

‘Give it back to whom? Kaiser Bill? I think he went out of business recently.’

‘I feel so guilty. It doesn’t belong to us.’

‘Why don’t you look upon it as full and final payment from Otto von Meerbach for the patents he stole from your father?’ he suggested.

She rocked back, held him at arms’ length and stared at him bemusedly. She started to smile. ‘Of course! When you look at it like that it’s really quite different.’ Then she laughed. ‘I can find no fault with your reasoning, my darling Badger!’