Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘Which you opened to save me the trouble?’

‘Good Lord, no.’ Penrod was horrified. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. That’s your private mail.’

‘As opposed to all my other correspondence, which is public, Uncle?’ Leon asked, and Penrod smiled comfortably,

‘Line of duty, my dear boy.’ Then he changed the subject. ‘So, I understand that, with the princess out of your hair, you’re charging off hot-foot to assist your partner, Percy, with the Eastmont safari.’

‘That’s correct. I leave first thing tomorrow. Percy’s hunting on the west bank of Lake Manyara down in German territory. He left a note for me at Tandala. He says that Lord Eastmont is keen to get at least a fifty-inch buffalo and Manyara’s the best place to find one.’

‘Percy introduced me to Eastmont when he was passing through Nairobi. We had dinner together here, Percy, me and their two lordships, Eastmont and Delamere.’

‘What did you make of Eastmont, if I might ask, sir?’

‘You might indeed. In fact, I was about to tell all – you and Percy need to know. From our very first meeting I thought he was an odd fish. Something about him troubled me. It was only after he and Percy had left for Manyara that it all came back to me with a rush and a roar, if you’ll pardon the poetic licence.’

‘Pardon granted, sir. Please continue. I’m all ears.’

‘I remembered there had been a nasty little incident in the South African campaign back in ’99. A young captain of the Middlesex Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry named Bertie Cochrane was in command of a forward reconnaissance platoon at a place called Slang Nek when they ran into a strong Boer contingent. At the first shots young Cochrane ran. He left his sergeant to try to fight off the Boers and ran for home and Mother. It was a massacre. The platoon took fifteen casualties from a strength of twenty before they could extricate themselves. Cochrane was court-martialled for cowardice in the face of the enemy, found guilty and cashiered. He might have been given a blindfold and a .303 bullet if not for his friends in high places. When I remembered all this I sent a cable to somebody I know at the War Office to check my memory of the incident. The reply came back affirmative. Cochrane and Eastmont are one and the same fellow, but there were a few more snippets of information. After his dishonourable discharge, young Bertie Cochrane married an extremely wealthy American oil heiress. Less than two years later, the new Mrs Cochrane drowned in a boating mishap on Ullswater in the Lake District of Cumberland. Cochrane was tried at the Middlesex Assizes for the murder of his wife, but acquitted for lack of evidence. He inherited her fortune, and two years later, on the death of his uncle, he became Earl of Eastmont, with an estate of more than ten thousand acres near Appleby in Westmorland. Thus plain old Bertie Cochrane became Bertram, Earl of Eastmont.’

‘Dear God! Does Percy know this?’

‘Not yet, but I rely on you to give him the glad tidings.’

Leon was in pensive mood when he rode home to Tandala. When he got there Manyoro and Loikot were waiting for him. He gave them instructions for an early start the next morning on the journey to join Percy’s hunting camp on the banks of Lake Manyara, then went to his tent to read his mail.

There were three of his mother’s marvellously fond and entertaining letters. Each was more than twenty pages long, and they were dated a month apart but had arrived at the Nairobi post office together. He learned that his father was well and prosperous, as always. His mother’s latest book was titled African Reflections and it had been accepted for publication by Macmillan of London. Leon’s eldest sister, Penelope, was to marry her childhood sweetheart in May, which was six weeks ago. He would have to send her a belated wedding gift. He laid the three maternal letters aside for reply, then slit open the letter with the New York postmark and Kermit’s red wax seal on the flap.

Kermit had kept his word. His letter was breezy and chatty. He described the last months of the great safari with Quentin Grogan up the Nile and through the Sudan and Egypt. Big Medicine had continued to wreak havoc among the game herds. On the voyage from Alexandria to New York he had fallen in love again, but the girl was already engaged. He seemed to have taken this rejection in good part. Then he went on to describe a dinner party at the home of Andrew Carnegie, the steel multi-millionaire who had financed the great presidential safari. One of the other guests had been a German industrialist from Wieskirche in Bavaria. His name was Otto von Meerbach. Kermit had been seated across the dinner table from him and they had taken to each other immediately. After dinner, when the ladies had withdrawn, they had lingered over the port and cigars.

Otto is an extraordinary character, straight out of the pages of a lurid novel, complete with duelling scar and all. He is a great mountain of a man, booming with energy and self-assurance, and even if one does not like him, one has to admire him. He is the proprietor of the Meerbach Motor Works. I am sure that you have heard of it. In fact, I think I remember you and I discussing it. It’s one of the biggest and most successful enterprises in all of Europe, employing more than thirty thousand workers. MMW developed the rotary engine for flying machines and dirigible airships. It also makes motor-cars and trucks for the German Army and airplanes for their air force. But the really interesting thing about Otto is that he is an avid hunter. He has huge estates in Bavaria where he hunts stags and wild boar. In winter he hosts hunting parties at his Schloss, which are famous. It is nothing out of the ordinary for the guns to shoot more than two hundred wild boar in a day. He has invited me to join him as one of his guests the next time I am in Europe. I told him about our safari, and he was very interested. He told me he has been thinking about an African safari for many years. He asked me for your address and of course I gave it to him. I hope you do not mind?

‘So that’s how von Meerbach found out where to get hold of me,’ Leon said aloud. ‘Thank you, Kermit.’ The letter continued for a few more pages.

Otto’s wife, or maybe she is his mistress, I am not entirely certain of the relationship, is truly one of the most beautiful ladies I have ever laid eyes upon. Her name is Eva von Wellberg. She is very refined and quiet but, my sweet Lord, when she turned those eyes on me my heart melted like butter in a skillet. I would readily have fought a duel with Otto for her favours, even though he is reputed to be one of the most accomplished swordsmen in Europe. That’s how strongly I feel about this lovely consort of his.

Leon laughed. The hyperbole was so typical of Kermit. He interpreted his description to mean that Eva was probably fair-to-middling attractive. Kermit ended by exhorting Leon to reply soon, letting him have all the news of his own activities and of the many friends Kermit had made in British East Africa, particularly Manyoro and Loikot. It concluded, ‘ salaams and Weidmanns heil (Otto taught me this, it means Hunters’ Salute) from your BWB ’. It took a moment for Leon to work out what the letters stood for. He smiled again. ‘And all the best to you, too, Kermit Roosevelt, my brother of the warrior blood.’

Leon opened his travelling bureau to begin the replies to his mother and Kermit, but before he could dip his pen in the inkwell Ishmael sounded the dinner gong. Leon groaned. He had not fully recovered from his luncheon with Penrod. But Ishmael’s meals were not optional. They were obligatory.

The journey south to Lake Manyara was over brutally rough tracks for the first two hundred miles. The Vauxhall took cruel punishment and they were forced to stop and repair punctured tyres at least a dozen times. Manyoro and Loikot had become past masters at the art of locating and removing the thorns that had pierced them. In the sandy stretches of road the engine boiled over regularly and they had to wait for it to cool before they refilled the radiator.