Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘Do not worry. Fräulein von Wellberg speaks no English. Tell me what it is.’

‘It means “salty penis”, sir.’

Graf Otto began to grin, anticipating a good joke. ‘Salty prick? Explain this to me.’

‘They have one foot in London and the other in Cape Town, with their cocks dangling in the Atlantic,’ Hennie said.

Graf Otto let out a hearty guffaw. ‘ Sout Piel! Ja. I like it! It is a good joke.’ His chuckles died away, and then he picked up the conversation from where it had been diverted. ‘So, you do not like the British? You fought against them in the war, did you?’

Hennie thought about the question carefully, while he nursed the vehicle over a particularly rough stretch of the track. ‘The war is finished,’ he said at last, his tone flat and noncommittal.

‘ Ja , it is finished, but it was a bad war. The British burned your farms and killed your cattle.’

Hennie did not reply, but his eyes shaded. ‘They put your women and children in the camps. Many died there.’

‘ Ja. It is true,’ Hennie whispered. ‘Many died.’

‘Now the land is ruined and there is no food for the children, and your Volk are slaves to Britain, nein ? That is why you left, to escape the memories.’

Hennie’s eyes were filled with tears. He wiped them away with a calloused thumb.

‘Which commando did you ride with?’

Hennie looked directly at him for the first time. ‘I did not say I rode with any commando.’

‘Let me guess,’ Graf Otto suggested. ‘Perhaps you rode with Smuts.’

Hennie shook his head with an expression of bitter distaste. ‘Jannie Smuts is a traitor to his people. He and Louis Botha have gone over to the khaki. They are selling our birthright to the British.’

‘Ah!’ Graf Otto exclaimed, with the air of a man who already knew the answer to his question. ‘You hate Smuts and Botha. I know then who you rode with. It must have been Koos de la Rey.’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Tell me, du Rand, what manner of man was General Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey? I have heard tell that he was a great soldier, better than Louis Botha and Jannie Smuts put together. Is that true?’

‘He was no ordinary man.’ Hennie stared at the track ahead. ‘To us he was a god.’

‘If there were ever to be another war, would you follow de la Rey again, Hennie?’

‘I would follow him through the gates of hell.’

‘The others of your commando, would they follow him also?’

‘They would. We all would.’

‘Would you like to meet de la Rey again? Would you like to shake his hand one more time?’

‘That is not possible,’ Hennie mumbled.

‘With me everything is possible. I can make anything happen. Say nothing to anybody else. Not even to your Sout Piel boss, whom you like. This is between you and me alone. One day soon I will take you with me to see General de la Rey.’

Eva was crammed in beside him. She was obviously uncomfortable and swiftly becoming bored with the conversation in a language she did not understand. Graf Otto knew that her only languages were German and French.

Leon refuelled the Butterfly from one of the fifty-gallon drums that had been brought from Nairobi by Gustav in the big Meerbach truck. While he was doing this he sent Manyoro and Loikot to the top of the hill above the camp to join in with the Masai grapevine and gather any news that might be of interest. Once or twice he looked up from refuelling to listen to the shrill distant voices, calling to each other from hilltop to hilltop. The chungaji used a type of verbal shorthand, and he could make out a few isolated words but he could not follow the whole sense of their exchanges.

Not long after he had topped up the last of the Butterfly ’s four fuel tanks and was washing his hands in the basin in front of his tent, the two Masai came down from the hill. They began to report to him the few items of interest they had gathered.

It was said that on the next full moon, as was customary at this time of the year, Lusima would preside over a conference of the Masai tribal elders on Lonsonyo Mountain. She would sacrifice a white cow to the ancestors. The welfare of the tribe depended on the observance of these rituals.

It was said also that there had been a raid by a war-party of Nandi. They had run off thirty-three head of prime Masai cattle, but the avenging morani had caught up with them on the banks of the Tishimi river. They had recovered all the missing cattle and thrown the corpses of the rustlers into the river. The crocodiles had disposed of this evidence. At the moment the district commissioner was holding an inquiry at Narosura, but it seemed that the entire area was suffering from an attack of amnesia. Nobody knew anything about stolen cattle or missing Nandi warriors.

It was further said that four lions had come down into the Rift Valley from the direction of Keekorok, all young males. They had been given a drubbing by the big dominant male and driven out of the pride into which they had been born: he would not tolerate any competition when it came to breeding with his females. Two nights previously the youngsters had killed six heifers from the manyatta directly to the west of Lonsonyo Mountain. The call had gone out to the morani to gather at this village, which was named Sonjo. They were going to deal out to these four cattle-killing lions a summary lesson in manners.

Leon was pleased with this news. Graf Otto had expressed a keen desire to watch a ceremonial hunt, and this was a most fortuitous coincidence. He despatched Manyoro to the Sonjo manyatta , which was hosting the lion hunters, with a gift of a hundred shillings for the local chieftain, and a request that he allow the wazungu to be spectators at the hunt.

By the time Graf Otto returned with Hennie in the Vauxhall from butchering the buffalo carcasses, Leon had the horses saddled and the pack mules loaded with sufficient supplies for the side expedition to Sonjo. As his client disembarked Leon hurriedly told him the good news.

Graf Otto was excited. ‘Quickly, Eva! We must change into riding clothes and go at once. I do not want to miss the show.’

They pushed the horses along at a canter, covering almost twenty miles before it became too dark to see the ground ahead. Then they dismounted and unsaddled. They ate a cold dinner and slept rough. The next morning they were away again before it was fully light.

Some time before noon the next day, as they neared the village of Sonjo, they heard drums and singing. Manyoro had come from the village to await their arrival and was squatting beside the track. He stood up and came to meet the horses. ‘All is arranged, M’bogo. The chief of the manyatta has agreed to delay the hunt until you arrive. But you must hurry. The morani are becoming restless. They are eager to blood their spears and win honour. The chief cannot keep them on the leash much longer.’

The morani were gathered in the centre of the cattle pen, an élite band who had been selected by the elders, the bravest and best. They were young men, fifty strong, dressed in red leather kilts decorated with ivory beads and cowrie shells. Their naked torsos gleamed with a coating of fat and red ochre. Their hair was dressed in an elaborate style of coiled plaits. They were lean and long-limbed, hard and elegantly muscled, their features handsome and hawkish, eyes bright and rapacious, showing their eagerness for the hunt to begin.

They had formed up in a single rank, shoulder to shoulder. At their head was a senior morani , an experienced warrior who wore five lion tails in his kilt, one for every Nandi he had killed in single combat. His war-bonnet was the headskin of a black-maned lion, further proof of his prowess. Single-handed, he had taken the lion with the assegai . He had a signal whistle made from the horn of a reed buck hanging on a thong around his neck.