Wilbur Smith - Assegai

Then he turned to Leon. ‘You may introduce your assistants,’ he said, and Leon called Hennie and Max forward. Graf Otto treated them in the same easy, condescending manner, and Leon watched them fall almost immediately under his spell. He had a way with men, but Leon knew that if anyone ever crossed or disappointed him he would turn on them vindictively and mercilessly

‘ Sehr gut, meine Kinder. Very well, children. Now we can go to Nairobi,’ Graf Otto proclaimed. With the Meerbach mechanics, Hennie, Max and Ishmael climbed into the back of the waiting truck, Gustav took the wheel, and the huge vehicle roared away along the road to Nairobi.

‘Courtney, you will ride with me in the hunting car,’ Graf Otto told Leon. ‘Fräulein von Wellberg will sit beside me, and you will take the back seat to show me the road and to point out to us the sights along the way.’ He made a fuss of settling her in the front passenger seat, with a mohair rug to cover her lap, a pair of goggles to protect her eyes from the wind, kid gloves to keep the sun off her flawless hands and a silk scarf knotted under her pretty chin to prevent her hat being blown away. Finally he checked the three rifles in the gun rack behind his seat, then climbed behind the steering-wheel, adjusted his goggles, revved the engine and accelerated away in pursuit of the truck. He drove very fast but with effortless skill. More than once Leon saw Eva’s grip on the door handle beside her tighten until her knuckles showed white as he accelerated through a tight bend, corrected an alarming skid as the wheels hit a patch of floury dust, or bounced through a series of corrugations, but her expression remained serene.

Once the road had climbed away from the coast they entered the game fields and soon they were speeding past herds of gazelle and larger antelope. Eva was distracted by them from the rapidity of their progress: she laughed and clapped with delight at the multitudes and their alarm antics as the car roared past.

‘Otto!’ she cried. ‘What are those pretty little animals, the ones that dance and prance in that delightful manner?’

‘Courtney, answer the Fräulein’s question,’ Graf Otto shouted, above the rush of the wind.

‘Those are Thomson’s gazelle, Fräulein. You will see many thousands more in the days ahead. They are the most common species in this country. The peculiar gait you have noticed is known as stotting. It is a display of alarm that warns all other gazelle in sight that danger threatens.’

‘Stop the car, please, Otto. I would like to sketch them.’

‘As you wish, my pretty one.’ He shrugged indulgently and pulled over. Eva balanced her sketchbook on her lap. Her charcoal flew over the page and, leaning forward unobtrusively, Leon saw a perfect impression of a stotting animal, its back arched and all four legs held stiffly, appear magically on the paper before his eyes. Eva von Wellberg was a gifted artist. He recalled the easel, the boxes of pastels and oil paints that had been shipped in on the SS Silbervogel ahead of her arrival. He had given them little thought at the time, but now their importance was clear.

From then onwards the journey was interrupted repeatedly at Eva’s request as she picked out subjects she wished to draw: a roosting eagle on the top branches of an acacia tree, or a female cheetah sauntering long-legged across the sun-seared savannah with her three young cubs following her in Indian file. Although he humoured her, it was soon obvious that Graf Otto was becoming bored with these checks and delays. At the next stop he dismounted and took down a rifle from the gun rack. Standing beside the car he killed five gazelle with as many shots as they bounded across the road in front of the car. It was an incredible display of marksmanship. Although Leon despised such wanton slaughter he kept a civil tone as he asked, ‘What do you wish to do with the dead animals, sir?’

‘Leave them,’ said Graf Otto, offhandedly, as he replaced the rifle in the rack.

‘Do you not wish to examine them, sir? One has a fine set of horns.’

‘ Nein . You say there will be many more. Leave them to feed the vultures. I was merely checking the sights of my rifle. Let us go on.’

Eva’s cheek was pale as they drove on, Leon noticed, and her lips were pursed. He took this as evidence of her disapproval, and his opinion of her was enhanced.

Graf Otto’s attention was on the road ahead, and Eva had not looked directly at Leon since their first meeting on the ship’s bridge. She had not spoken to him either: all her queries and remarks were relayed to him through Graf Otto. He wondered at this. Perhaps she was naturally extremely modest, or he did not like her to talk to other men. Then he recalled that she had been friendly with Gustav, and had chatted easily to Max and Hennie when they were introduced to her at Kilindini. Why was she so remote from and aloof with him? From the rear seat he was able surreptitiously to study her features. Once or twice Eva shifted uneasily in her seat, or tucked a tendril of hair under her scarf with a self-conscious gesture, and the cheek that was turned towards him flushed delicately as though she was fully aware of his interest.

A little after midday they came around another bend in the dusty road and found Gustav standing on the verge, waiting for them. He flagged down the car, and when Graf Otto braked to a halt, he ran to the driver’s side. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but your luncheon has been prepared, if you should wish to partake.’ He pointed to where the big truck was parked in a grove of fever trees two hundred yards off the road.

‘Good. I’m ravenous,’ Graf Otto replied. ‘Jump up on the running-board, Gustav, and I’ll give you a lift.’ With Gustav clinging to the side of the car they bumped across the rough ground towards where the truck was parked.

Ishmael had spread a sun awning between four trees and in its shade he had set up a trestle table and camp chairs. The table was covered with a snowy linen cloth, silver cutlery and china. As they climbed stiffly out of the car and stretched their limbs Ishmael, in his red fez and long white kanza , came to each in turn with a basin of warm water, a bar of lavender-perfumed soap, and a clean hand towel over his arm.

As soon as they had washed, Max showed them to the table. Platters of carved ham and cheese were laid out, with baskets of black bread, crocks of butter and an enormous silver dish filled with Russian beluga caviar. He drew the cork from the first of the platoon of wine bottles that were standing to attention on the side table and poured the crisp yellow Gewürztraminer into long-stemmed glasses.

Eva picked delicately at the food. She drank a few mouthfuls of wine, and ate a single biscuit spread with a tablespoon of caviar, but Graf Otto fell to like a trencherman. When the meal was over he had polished off two bottles of Gewürztraminer on his own account, and had left the caviar dish, the platters of ham and the cheese in sorry disarray. He showed no ill-effects from the wine when he took his place in the driver’s seat once more and they drove on towards Nairobi, but his speed increased substantially, his laughter was unrestrained and his sense of humour less decorous.

When they came upon a party of black women walking in single file along the edge of the road with bundles of cut thatching grass balanced on their heads, Graf Otto slowed to a walking pace to study the girls’ naked breasts openly. Then, as he pulled away, he laid a hand on Eva’s lap in a possessive and familiar manner and said, ‘Some like chocolate – but I prefer vanilla.’ She grasped his wrist and replaced his hand on the steering-wheel. ‘The road is dangerous, Otto,’ she remarked evenly, and Leon seethed with outrage at the humiliation he had inflicted on her so casually. He wanted to intervene to protect her in some way but he sensed that Graf Otto in wine would be unpredictable and dangerous. For Eva’s sake, he restrained himself.