Wilbur Smith - Assegai

The proprietor hurried to meet Leon as he entered through the front door, carrying the lesser tusk. Mr Goolam Vilabjhi was a well-nourished little man with a beaming smile. ‘By golly, Lieutenant Courtney, for me and my humble establishment this is a jolly great honour.’

‘Good morning, Mr Vilabjhi, but I am no longer a lieutenant,’ Leon told him, as he laid the tusk on the counter.

‘But you are still the greatest polo player in Africa, and I have heard that you have become a mighty shikari . What is more, I see you bring proof of that.’ He shouted to Mrs Vilabjhi in the back of the store, asking her to bring coffee and sweetmeats, then ushered Leon between rows of heavily laden shelves into his tiny cubby-hole office. A book case that occupied one entire wall was filled with all twenty-two volumes of the Complete Oxford English Dictionary , a full set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica , Burke’s Peerage and Gentry and several dozen histories of the English kings, their people and language. Mr Vilabjhi was an ardent anglophile, royalist and proponent of the English language.

‘Please be seated, kindest sir.’ Mrs Vilabjhi bustled in with the coffee tray. She was even plumper than her husband and just as affable. When she had filled the glasses with the thick, sticky black liquid her husband shooed her away and turned back to Leon. ‘Now, tell me, Sahib, what is your pleasure?’

‘I want to sell you that tusk.’

Mr Vilabjhi thought about that for so long that Leon was becoming restless. Eventually he said, ‘Alack and alas, revered Sahib, I will not purchase that ivory from you.’

Leon was startled. ‘Why the hell not?’ he demanded. ‘You’re an ivory dealer, are you not?’

‘Did I ever tell you, Sahib, that I was once a horse groom or, as we say in India, a syce, in the stables of the maharaja of Cooch Behar? I am the utmost admirer and connoisseur of the royal game of polo and the men who play it.’

‘Is that why you won’t buy my tusk?’ Leon asked.

Mr Vilabjhi laughed. ‘That is a fine jest, Sahib. No! The reason is that if I buy that tusk I will send it to England to be made into the keys of a piano or carved into pretty coloured billiard balls. Then you will hate me. One day when you are an old man you will think back on what I did with your trophy and you will say to yourself, “Ten thousand curses on the head of that infamous villain and flagitious scoundrel, Mr Goolam Vilabjhi Esquire!” ’

‘On the other hand, if you do not buy it I will call down a hundred thousand curses on your head right now,’ Leon warned him. ‘Mr Vilabjhi, I need the money and I need it badly.’

‘Ah! Money, she is like the tide of the ocean. She comes in and she goes out. But a tusk like that you will never see again in all your existence.’

‘At this moment my tide is so far out that it’s over the horizon.’

‘Then, Sahib, we have to find some ruse or, as we were wont to say in Cooch Behar, some stratagem to accommodate our diverse wishes.’ He posed a moment longer in an attitude of deep thought, then raised one finger and touched his temple. ‘Eureka! I have it. You will leave the tusk with me as security, and I will loan you the money you require. You will pay me interest at twenty per cent per annum. Then one day, when you are the most famous and renowned shikari in Africa you will come back to me and tell me, “My dear and trusted friend, Mr Goolam Vilabjhi Esquire, I have come to repay the debt I owe you.” Then I will return your fine and magnificent tusk to you, and we will be lifelong friends until the day we die!’

‘My dear and trusted friend, Mr Goolam Vilabjhi Esquire, I call down ten thousand blessings on your head.’ Leon laughed. ‘How much can you let me have?’

‘I have heard tell that the weight of that tusk is one hundred and twenty-eight pounds avoirdupois.’

‘My God! How did you know that?’

‘Every living human creature in Nairobi knows it already.’ Mr Vilabjhi cocked his head to one side. ‘At fifteen shillings a pound I find that I am able to advance you the grand sum of ninety-six pounds sterling in gold sovereigns.’ Leon blinked. That was the most money he had ever held in his hand at one time.

Before he left Mr Vilabjhi’s shop he made his first purchase. On one of the shelves behind the counter he had noticed a small pile of red and yellow cardboard packets displaying the distinctive lion’s head trademark of Kynoch, the pre-eminent manufacturer of cartridges in Britain. When he examined the boxes closely he was delighted to discover that they were marked ‘H&H .470 Royal Nitro Express. 500 Grain. Solid’. Of the ten cartridges that Verity O’Hearne had left him as part of her gift, only three remained. He had fired five shots to check the sights on the rifle and two more to despatch the great bull.

‘How much are those bullets, Mr Vilabjhi?’ he enquired, with trepidation, and gulped at the reply.

‘For you, Sahib, and for you only, I will make my very best and extra special price.’ He gazed up at the ceiling as though seeking inspiration from Kali, Ganesh and all the other Hindu gods. Then he said, ‘For you, Sahib, the price is five shillings for each bullet.’

There were ten packets, each containing five rounds. Leon did a quick mental calculation, and the result appalled him. Twelve pounds ten shillings! He touched the heavy bulge in his hip pocket. I can’t afford it! he told himself. On the other hand, he answered, what kind of professional hunter goes out into the blue with only three cartridges in his belt? Reluctantly he reached into his pocket and brought out the canvas bank bag he had so recently deposited there.

The tide of his fortune had come in, all right, but just as rapidly it had started to ebb, as Mr Vilabjhi had warned him it would.

Manyoro and Ishmael were still waiting outside the front of the store. Leon paid them the wages he owed them. ‘What are you going to do with all that money?’ he asked Manyoro.

‘I shall buy three cows. What else, Bwana?’ Manyoro shook his head at such a foolish question. To a Masai, cattle were the only real wealth.

‘What about you, Ishmael?’

‘I am going to send it to my wives in Mombasa, Effendi.’ Ishmael had six, the maximum that the Prophet allowed, and they were as voracious as a swarm of locusts.

Leon drove to the KAR barracks, with Ishmael and Manyoro. He found Bobby Sampson moping over a tankard of beer in the officers’ mess. His friend brightened when he saw him and cheered up so much when Leon paid him the fifteen guineas he owed him for the Vauxhall that he bought him a beer.

From the barracks Leon drove out to the stock yards on the outskirts of the town. ‘Manyoro, I wish to send a cow to Lusima Mama to thank her for her help in the matter of the elephant.’

‘Such a gift is customary, Bwana,’ Manyoro agreed.

‘Nobody is a finer judge of cattle than you, Manyoro.’

‘That is true, Bwana.’

‘When you have chosen your own beasts, pick one out for Lusima Mama and strike a price with the seller.’ That cost Leon another fifteen pounds, for Manyoro selected the best animal in the yard.

Before Manyoro set off to return to Lonsonyo Mountain, Leon gave him a canvas bag of silver shillings. ‘This is for Loikot. If he keeps talking to his friends and brings the news to us there will be many more bags of shillings. Tell him to save all his money and soon he will have enough to buy himself a fine cow. Now go, Manyoro, and return swiftly. Bwana Samawati has much work for us to do.’

Driving the cows ahead of him, Manyoro took the rutted track that led down into the Rift Valley. When he reached the first bend he turned and shouted back to Leon, ‘Wait for me, my brother, for I shall return in ten days’ time.’