Wilbur Smith - Assegai

When they crossed the wall of the Rift Valley they were flying just high enough to catch the last rays of the sun, but the earth below was already shrouded in impenetrable purple shadow. Suddenly the sun was gone, snuffed out like a candle, and there was no afterglow.

They flew on in darkness, until Leon picked out the tiny cluster of lights far ahead that marked the town, insignificant as fireflies in the dark immensity of the land. It was completely dark when at last they were over the polo ground. Graf Otto repeatedly revved, then throttled back on the engines as he circled. Suddenly the headlights of the two Meerbach trucks lit up below them, at opposite ends of the landing field, shining down the grassy runway. Gustav Kilmer had heard the Butterfly ’s engines and hurried to the rescue of his beloved master.

Guided by the lights Graf Otto put the Butterfly down on the turf as gently as a broody hen settling on a clutch of eggs.

Leon believed that the flying visit to Percy’s Camp down in the Rift Valley and the wild buffalo hunt in the thorn signalled the commencement of the safari in earnest. He thought that the Graf was at last ready to head out into the blue. His assumption was incorrect.

The second morning after their return from Percy’s Camp and the nocturnal landing at the polo ground, Graf Otto sat at the head of the breakfast table at Tandala Camp with a dozen envelopes stacked in front of him. Every one was a response to the official letters from the German Foreign Office in Berlin that Max Rosenthal had distributed to all the dignitaries of British East Africa.

Graf Otto translated excerpts from each missive to Eva, who was sitting opposite him nibbling daintily on slices of fruit. It seemed that all of Nairobi society was agog to have in their midst a man like Graf Otto von Meerbach. Like any other frontier town, Nairobi needed little excuse for a party, and he was the best excuse they had been presented with since the opening of the Muthaiga Country Club three years previously. Every letter contained an invitation.

The governor of the colony was hosting a special dinner at Government House in his honour. Lord Delamere was holding a formal ball at his new Norfolk Hotel to welcome him and Fräulein von Wellberg to the territory. The committee of the Muthaiga Country Club had voted Graf Otto an honorary member and, not to be outdone by Delamere, were also throwing a ball to initiate him into club membership. The officer commanding His Britannic Majesty’s armed forces in East Africa, Brigadier General Penrod Ballantyne’s invitation was to a banquet at the regimental mess. Lord Charlie Warboys had invited the couple to a four-day pigsticking party on his fifty-thousand-acre estate on the edge of the Rift Valley. The Nairobi Polo Club had voted Graf Otto full membership, and asked him to play on their first team in a challenge match against the King’s African Rifles on the first Saturday of the coming month.

Graf Otto was delighted by the furore he had stirred up. Listening to him discuss each invitation with Eva, Leon realized that their departure from Nairobi had receded to some time in the remote future. Graf Otto accepted every one of the invitations, and in return issued his own to spectacular dinners, banquets and balls that he would host at the Norfolk, the Muthaiga or out at Tandala Camp. Leon now understood why he had sent out such enormous supplies of food and drink on the SS Silbervogel .

However, the Graf’s masterstroke of hospitality, which warmed every heart in the colony and earned him the instant reputation of being a cracking good fellow, was his open day. He issued a public invitation to a picnic on the polo ground. At this gathering, selected guests such as the governor, Delamere, Warboys and Brigadier General Ballantyne would be given a flight over the town in one of his aeroplanes. Then Eva exerted her influence, and persuaded him to extend the invitation to every boy and girl between the ages of six and twelve: they were all to be given a flight.

The entire colony went into raptures. The ladies were determined to turn the open day into an African equivalent of Ascot. From a simple picnic it snowballed into an almost royal occasion. Lord Warboys donated three prime young oxen to be roasted on spits over beds of coals. Every member of the Women’s Institute got busy with her oven, turning out cakes and pies. Lord Delamere took over the supply of beer: he sent an urgent-rate cable to the brewery at Mombasa and received an assurance that a large quantity would be on its way within days. Word of the invitation went out into the hinterland and settler families on the remote farms loaded their wagons in preparation for the trek to Nairobi.

There were only four dressmakers in town and their services were immediately booked out. The open-air barbers on Main Street were busy clipping beards and trimming hair. The boys’ school and the girls’ convent declared a holiday, and rumour flew through the classrooms that every child who made a flight would be presented by Graf Otto with a commemoration gift in the form of a perfect scale model of the Butterfly .

Leon was sucked into all this feverish activity. Graf Otto decided he needed a second pilot to deal with the hordes of eager children who would be queuing for a flight. He would pilot the senior guests, but he was not enthusiastic about filling his cockpit with their offspring. As he remarked to Eva in Leon’s hearing he preferred children in their sweet spirit rather than in their clamorous, noisome flesh.

‘Courtney, I promised I would teach you to fly.’

Leon was taken by surprise. This was the first time Graf Otto had mentioned the flight instruction since the buffalo hunt, and he had thought the promise conveniently forgotten. ‘So we go to the airfield immediately. Courtney, today you learn to fly!’

Leon sat beside Graf Otto in the cockpit of the Bumble Bee and listened intently as he described the functions and operation of each dial and instrument, the taps and switches, the levers and controls. Despite their complexity, Leon already had a working knowledge of the flight-deck layout, acquired on the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ principle. When Graf Otto listened as Leon repeated everything he had just learned, he chuckled and nodded. ‘ Ja! You have been watching me when I fly. You are quick, Courtney. That is good!’

Leon had not expected he would make a good instructor, and was pleasantly surprised by the Graf’s attention to detail and his patience. They began on engine start-up and shut-down, then moved on quickly to ground taxiing: cross wind, down wind and into the wind. Leon started to feel the controls and the big machine’s response to them, like the reins and stirrups of a horse. Nevertheless he was surprised when Graf Otto tossed him a leather flying helmet. ‘Put it on.’ They had taxied to the far end of the polo ground, and he shouted above the engine roar, ‘Nose to wind!’ Leon put on full starboard rudder and gunned the two port engines. Already he had assimilated the use of opposing thrust to manoeuvre the machine. The Bumble Bee came around handily and put her nose into the wind.

‘You want to fly? So fly!’ Graf Otto shouted into his ear.

Leon gave him a horrified, disbelieving look. It was too soon. He wasn’t ready yet. He needed a little more time.

‘ Gott in Himmel! ’ Graf Otto bellowed. ‘Why are you waiting? Fly her!’

Leon took a long, slow breath and reached for the bank of throttles. He opened them gradually, listening for the beat of the separate engines to synchronize. Like an old lady running for a bus, the Bumble Bee broke into a trot, then a canter and finally a sprint. Leon felt the joystick come alive in his hands. He felt the lightness of impending flight in his fingertips, in his feet on the rudder bars and in his spirit. It was a feeling of absolute power and control. His heart began to sing in the rush of the wind. The nose veered off line and he met it with a touch of rudder and brought it back. He felt the Bumble Bee bounce lightly under him. She wants to fly, he thought. We both want to fly!