War Cry

‘Come on, Saffy,’ he whispered, not wanting to shout for fear of spooking her pony.

She cantered up to the first fence; steadied Kipipiri then darted forward and sailed right across the centre of the jump, with masses of room to spare. Saffron smiled to herself. She and Kippy were both strong-willed, stubborn characters. As her mother used to say, ‘You two girls are both as bad as each other!’

On days when Saffron and her pony were at odds with one another, the results were invariably disastrous, but when they were united and pulling in the same direction, it felt as though they could take on the world. The energy with which Kippy had jumped, her perfect balance on take-off and landing, the rhythm of her strides, and the alert, eager way her ears were pricked gave Saffron hope that this could be one of the good days.

Now, however, the challenge became much harder. The next fence was a double: two railed fences with a single stride between them. ‘Good girl!’ said Saffron as Kippy scraped over the first element of the pair, took her single stride perfectly then jumped the double rail too.

Now all the nerves had gone. Saffron was at one with the animal beneath her, controlling all the power that lay coiled up in the muscles bunched beneath Kippy’s rich, dark, glossy coat.

She slowed the pony, turned her ninety degrees to the right and set out along the line of three fences that now presented themselves to her. The first was a plain white gate and she made easy work of it. Saffron had long legs for her age, even if they were as thin as a stork’s, but she kept her stirrups short, all the better to rise out of the saddle as she jumped and drive her pony up and over the obstacle. Next came another single rail, although it was placed over bundles of flame-tree branches, still bedecked in their blazing red and yellow flowers: again it proved no match for Saffron and Kipipiri.

I say, Courtney, that girl of yours is as light as a feather in the saddle,’ said one of the other spectators, a retired cavalry major called Brett, who also served as the local magistrate, as she tackled an oxer, comprised of two railed fences side-by-side. ‘Lovely touch on the reins, too. Good show.’

‘Thank you, Major,’ Leon said, as Saffron brought Kipipiri round again to tackle the next couple of fences strung diagonally across the ring: a wall and the water jump. ‘Mind you, I can’t claim any credit. Saffron’s absolutely her mother’s daughter when it comes to riding. You wouldn’t believe the hours that Eva’s spent with her in the schooling ring, both as stubborn as each other, fighting like two cats in a bag, but by God it pays off.’ Leon smiled affectionately at the thought of the two most precious people in his life then said, ‘Excuse me a moment,’ as he switched his full attention back to the ring.

For some reason, his daughter’s pony had a terrible habit of ‘dipping a toe in the water’, as Leon liked to put it. She would leap over the highest, widest, scariest fences, but it was the devil’s own job to persuade her that the water was an obstacle to be avoided, rather than a pool to be dived into.

As Saffron steadied herself before the challenge in front of her, Leon took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing pulse.

I don’t know how Saffy feels jumping this course, he thought. But I’m absolutely shattered watching it.

One fence at a time, one fence at a time,’ Saffron repeated to herself as she fixed her eyes on the wall. ‘Here we go, girl!’ she said and urged Kippy on across the parched turf. The wall was high. They got over it without knocking any of the painted wooden tea-chests from which it had been improvised, but the pony stumbled on landing and it took all Saffron’s skill to keep her upright, maintain their forward momentum and have her balanced and moving strongly again by the time they approached the water jump.

Saffron was absolutely determined she wouldn’t make a mess of the water this time. She galloped at full pelt towards it, misjudged her pacing, had to take off miles away from the jump, but was going so fast that Kipipiri flew like a speeding dart over the rail, and the shallow pool of muddy brown water beyond. It was all Saffron could do to slow her down and turn her again – hard left this time – before they charged out of the ring.

Saffron was out of breath, but inwardly exultant. No faults! Almost there!

In front of her stood a low fence made of three striped poles on top of each other. The polo club’s gymkhana committee had decided to make this a particularly gentle challenge to the riders, for just beyond it stood the last and hardest jump: a vicious triple combination of a plain rail fence, another hay-bale and rail, and finally an oxer, each with just a single stride between them. Some competitors had scraped the first element of the triple, hit the second and simply crashed into the third, completely unable to manage another jump. None apart from Percy had managed to get through without at least one fence down.

Saffron had to clear it. She summoned every shred of energy she still had in her and rode along the side of the ring nearest to the spectators, her mind replaying the pattern of steps she would need to enter the triple combination at the perfect point, going at just the right speed. She barely even thought of the poles as Kipipiri jumped over them.

As the pony’s hind hooves passed over the jump, Saffron thought she heard a bump behind her. She glanced back and saw that the top pole had been rattled but it seemed to still be in place, so she thought no more of it. She barely even saw the people flashing by beside her, nor did she hear the faint gasp they emitted as she approached the first element. She met it perfectly, jumped the rail, kept Kippy balanced through her next stride, made it across the second rail, kicked on and then pulled so hard on the reins that she more or less picked up her pony and hauled her over the oxer.

I did it! I did it! Saffron thought exultantly as she galloped towards the finishing line. She crossed it and slowed Kipipiri to a trot as they exited the ring. She saw her father running towards her, dodging in and out of the applauding spectators and gave him a great big wave. But he didn’t wave back.

Saffron frowned. Why isn’t he smiling?

And then she heard the loudspeaker and felt as though she had been kicked in the tummy by a horse’s hoof as the announcer called out, ‘Oh, I say! What awfully bad luck for plucky Saffron Courtney, hitting the last-but-one fence when she was so close to a clear round. My goodness, that pole took an age to fall off! So that means the winner’s rosette goes to Percy Toynton. Well played, young man!’

Saffron hardly knew what was happening as her groom took hold of Kipipiri’s bridle. All she could think was, How could I knock down that silly, stupid, simple little pole? Her eyes had suddenly filled with tears and she could barely see her father Leon as he lifted her out of the saddle and hugged her to his chest, holding her tight before gently putting her down on the ground.

She leaned against him, wrapping her arms around his legs as he stroked her hair. ‘I’m better than Percy, I know I am,’ Saffron sobbed. And then she looked up, her face as furious as it was miserable and wailed. ‘I lost, Daddy, I lost! I can’t believe it … I lost!’

Leon had long since learned that there was no point trying to reason with Saffron at times like this. Her temper was as fierce as an African storm, but cleared as quickly and then the sun came out in her just as it did over the savannah, and it shone just as brightly too.

She pulled herself away from him, tore her hat off her head and kicked it across the ground.

Leon heard a disapproving, ‘Harrumph!’ behind him and turned to see Major Brett frowning at the display of juvenile female anger. ‘You should read that little madam some Kipling, Courtney.’

‘Because she’s behaving like a monkey from The Jungle Book?’ Leon asked.

The major did not spot the presence of humour, or perhaps did not feel this was the time and place for frivolity. ‘Good God, man, of course not! I’m referring to that poem. You know, triumph and disaster, impostors, treat them both the same and so forth.’

‘Ah, but my daughter is a Courtney, and we’ve never been able to live up to such lofty ideals. Either we triumph, or it is a disaster.’

‘Well that’s not a very British way of seeing things, I must say.’

Leon smiled. ‘In many ways we’re not very British. Besides, that poem you were quoting, “If”—’

‘Absolutely, that’s the one.’

‘As I recall, Kipling wrote it for his son, who died in the war, poor lad.’

‘Believe he did, yes, rotten show.’

‘And the point of the whole thing is summed up in the final line which is, if memory serves, “And – which is more – you’ll be a man, my son.”’

‘Quite so, damned good advice, too.’

‘Yes, to a boy it is. But Saffron is my daughter. She’s a little girl. And not even Rudyard Kipling is going to turn her into a man.’

Darling Leon, how good of you to come,’ said Lady Idina Hay.

‘My pleasure,’ Leon replied. A select few members of the gymkhana crowd had been invited back to the Hays’ house, Slains, which was named after Josslyn Hay’s ancestral home, to have dinner and stay the night afterwards. Leon had thought twice before accepting the invitation. Idina, a short, slight woman with huge, captivating eyes, who matched her husband in his appetite and seductive power, had swiftly become as much of a source of scandal to Kenyan society as she had been in London. Now on her third marriage, with armies of lovers besides, she was apt to greet guests while lying naked in a green onyx bath; to entertain while wearing nothing but a flimsy cotton wrap, tied at the bust in the native style, with nothing underneath; and to hand guests a bowl filled with keys to the Slains’ bedrooms, invite them to take one, inform them which room it opened and suggest that they slept with whomever they found within it.

‘Apparently it’s impossible for the servants,’ Eva had said, when she passed on the gossip on to Leon. ‘They pick up all the dirty laundry off the floor, get it all cleaned and pressed but then have absolutely no idea whom to return it to.’

Tonight, however, Idina was on her best behaviour and was dressed as if for the smartest salons of Paris in an impossibly short, translucent but just about decent dress of fluttering, champagne-coloured silk chiffon. Leon felt sure Eva would be able to identify it in an instant as being the work of some celebrated designer of whom he had never heard.

‘So sorry to hear that Eva wasn’t up to it,’ Idina said, as if reading his mind.

‘Well, she gets jolly tired, lugging the baby around inside her,’ he replied. ‘She swears it must be a boy, says it’s twice the size Saffy was at the same stage. So she’s gone back to Lusima with Saffy and the pony.’

‘She’s not driving, I hope!’

‘She wanted to, you know. Absolutely determined to get behind the wheel. But I put my foot down and said absolutely not. So Loikot, my estate manager, is taking her back in the Rolls. He’ll be back for me tomorrow.’

Idina laughed. ‘You’re the only man in Kenya who would even think of driving on the appalling, unmade roads in such a wildly extravagant car!’

‘On the contrary, it’s an extremely tough, practical machine. It was built as an armoured car, spent the war charging around Arabia and Mesopotamia. When peace came the army had far more than they needed, so I bought one. I smartened it up a bit, but underneath it’s still a military vehicle,’ Leon grinned at Idina. ‘If the balloon ever goes up again, I can weld on some armour plating, stick a gun turret over the passenger seats and drive straight off to war.’

‘Perhaps I should get one,’ Idina mused. ‘I have my Hispano–Suiza, of course and she’s a wonderful thing.’

‘I’ll say. At least as grand as my Roller, and that silver stork on the bonnet rivals the Spirit of Ecstasy for style.’

‘True, but she’d still rather be toddling around Mayfair than bumping about on the dirt tracks of Africa … Now I must get on and make sure dinner is being prepared properly,’ Idina concluded. ‘Just because one is a long way from home, that’s no excuse for lowering one’s standards.’

Apart from swapping the room keys, thought Leon, heading off to get dressed for dinner. Unless they do that in Mayfair, too.

The guests had gathered for drinks before dinner and split along gender lines, with the men, all dressed in white tie and tails, engaged in one set of conversations and the ladies, like a flock of brilliantly plumaged hummingbirds, all gathered in another. Leon Courtney was cradling a whisky in his hand as he talked with a small group that included his host, Josslyn Hay. The two men stood out from the rest, both because they were taller than the others, but also because they were so obviously the dominant males in that particular pack: a pair of magnets for watching female eyes.

‘I rather think I’m going to make a play for Leon Courtney,’ said the Honourable Amelia Cory-Porter, a well-dressed, brightly painted young divorcée with fashionably short, bobbed hair who had decided to lie low in Kenya until the fuss over her marriage, which had been ended by her adultery, died down. ‘He is quite utterly scrumptious, don’t you think?’

‘Darling, you’ll be wasting your time,’ Idina Hay informed her. ‘Leon Courtney’s the only man in the whole of Kenya who refuses to sleep with anyone other than his wife. He barely even eyes one up. It’s quite disconcerting, actually. Makes me wonder if I’m losing my touch.’

Amelia looked startled, as if confronted by an entirely new and unexpected aspect of human behaviour. ‘Refuses sex? Really? That hardly seems natural, especially when his wife is in no condition to oblige him. You don’t suppose he’s secretly a queer, do you?’

‘Heavens, no! I have it on good authority that in his younger days, he was quite the ladies’ man. But the moment he clapped eyes on Eva, he fell head over heels in love and he’s been besotted ever since.’

‘I suppose one can’t blame him,’ said Amelia, though her air of disapproval was plain. ‘I saw her at the gymkhana and she’s perfectly lovely. What is it they say in romantic novels – eyes like limpid pools? She has those, all right. But even so, she’s enormously pregnant. No one expects a chap to live like a monk these days just because his wife’s blown up like a barrage balloon.’

‘Well perhaps Leon Courtney’s just an old-fashioned gentleman.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly. You know as well as I do that there’s never been any such thing. But anyway, darling, do tell all about Eva. It’s very strange. I thought I could detect a Northumbrian lilt in her voice – Daddy used to go shooting up there and we’d all go up with him, so I know the accent from the staff and gamekeepers and so forth. But I’ve heard that she’s actually a German, is that so?’

‘Well,’ said Idina as the two women moved fractionally closer together, like conspirators sharing a deadly secret, ‘the real British East Africa hands, like Florence Delamere, who’ve been here for years and years, can still remember the first time Eva pitched up in Nairobi, about a year or so before the war. Some ghastly German industrialist arrived in town on the most lavish safari anyone had ever seen, accompanied by a magnificent open motor car in which to go hunting, numerous lorries to cart all his baggage and two huge aeroplanes, made by his own company.’

‘Good lord, what an extraordinary show,’ Amelia said, clearly impressed by such a display of power and wealth.

‘Absolutely,’ Idina agreed. ‘Of course, the whole town turned out to see the flying machines, but by the end of the day there was just as much talk about the ravishing creature who was parading around on the industrialist’s arm, making no bones whatever about being his mistress and calling herself Eva von something-or-other.’

‘And that was the same Eva I saw today?’

‘Indeed she was. And guess who was the white hunter acting as the Germans’ guide?’

‘Goodness, was it Leon Courtney?’

‘The very same. Anyway, Eva and the industrialist – apparently he was the absolute picture of the bullying, bullet-headed Hun – went back to Germany, and that seemed to be that. But then, really very soon after the start of the war, she was mysteriously back in Kenya, having parachuted down to earth from a giant Zeppelin.’

‘Oh, don’t! That’s just too extraordinary!’ Amelia laughed.

‘Well, that’s the story and I’ve heard it from enough people who were here at the time to believe it. Apparently, the Zeppelin crash-landed deep in the heart of Masailand. And it was shot down by …?’ Idina paused, teasingly.

‘No! Don’t tell me! Not Leon again?’

‘Absolutely … and out of the wreckage, looking as pretty as a picture and as fresh as a daisy, steps the lovely Eva and falls, swooning into his arms!’

‘Lucky girl. I’d happily swoon into his arms right now, if he’d have me.’

‘Well, he won’t, so you’ll just have to find another man to swoon at!’

‘Are you sure?’ Amelia asked, wrinkling her porcelain brow with a little frown. ‘It really is too bad to give up without a fight. After all, Leon’s rich as well as divinely handsome. Lusima must be one of the biggest estates in the country.’

‘He paid cash for the land, you know,’ Idina said. ‘Half a million pounds for a hundred and twenty thousand acres, didn’t have to borrow a penny. I know that for an absolute fact because I heard it from the chap who conducted the sale.’

‘Half a million? Cash?’ Amelia gasped.

‘Absolutely. I once plucked up the courage to ask Leon where his money came from it, but he was very coy. First he described it as “war reparations” and then he said it was payment for various patents that had belonged to Eva’s father.’

‘Perhaps he’s a gangster and it’s all the proceeds of his evil crimes!’ said Amelia, excitedly. ‘I rather like the idea of being – what’s the phrase? – a gangster’s moll.’

‘I’m sure you do, duckie, but whatever else he might be, Leon Courtney’s not a criminal. My guess is that it’s something to do with the war.’ Idina’s eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. ‘I tell you what, darling, I shall set you a challenge. I’m going to change the placement I’d planned for the dinner table tonight and put you next to Leon. If you can find out where he got his gold by the time we retire to leave the men to their brandy and cigars I shall be very impressed indeed.’

‘Done!’ said the Hon. Amelia. ‘And I’ll seduce him, too, just you watch me, wife or no wife.’

Idina arched an eyebrow and concluded their little chat: ‘Now, now, darling, let’s not be greedy.’

Thanks to the combined efforts of Idina Hay and her formidable housekeeper Marie, the kitchen staff at Slains had been trained to produce French cuisine that would not have shamed the dinner table of a château on the Loire. The wine, notoriously difficult to keep in good condition in the tropics, was of equally high standard. Leon had long ago learned to pace himself when drinking at altitude, but the woman sitting next to him, who introduced herself as Amelia Cory-Porter, seemed determined to force as much Premier Cru claret as possible down his throat. She was attractive enough, in an obvious, uninteresting way, and covered in far too much make-up for his taste. She was also very clearly determined to get something from him, but Leon was not yet sure quite what that might be.

At first he’d thought she was flirting, for everything he knew about women told him that if he made a pass at her she would very happily oblige. But as the starter of confit duck breasts served with a salad of vegetables from Slains’ own gardens gave way to superb entrecôte steaks served in a pepper sauce, he realized that Amelia was not after his body – or not at this precise moment anyway – but was instead angling for information. It was, of course, good manners to show interest in one’s dining companions and any woman with half a brain knew how to make a man feel as though he was the wisest, most fascinating and witty fellow she had ever met. But Amelia was not flattering, so much as cross-examining him, working her way through his life and becoming more intense in her questioning as she went on. His war service seemed to be of particular interest to her. Leon had done his best to fob her off by saying he never talked about the war, adding that in his experience any man who did was a bounder who was almost certainly lying. ‘Unless, of course, he’s a poet,’ he’d added, hoping she might, like many an idealistic young woman, be distracted by thoughts of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and the other bards of war.

Amelia, however, wasn’t distracted for a second. She was like a terrier with the scent of a particularly juicy rabbit in its nostrils. ‘I heard the most extraordinary story about how you’d shot down a giant Zeppelin, single-handed. Do tell, that sounds so brave, is it actually true?’

‘That sounds pretty improbable to me,’ Leon said. ‘Damned hard thing to shoot down, a Zeppelin, just ask any pilot. Now, I’ve talked far too much. You must tell me everything that’s happening in London, what’s new and interesting and so forth. Eva will be thrilled if I can pass on any news of home.’

Leon had been telling the truth, up to a point. It really was extremely hard to down a Zeppelin with machine-gun fire, which was one reason why he had never done any such thing. And Eva would indeed be keen to hear about the latest clothes, plays, novels and music that were captivating London society.

Amelia, however, was having none of it. ‘Oh, who cares about silly dresses and even sillier books? I want to hear about that Zeppelin.’

Leon sighed. This was not a subject he had any intention of discussing, but how could he evade this woman’s steely clutches without being unforgivably rude? He was just pondering his next move when he heard a man’s voice, clearly somewhat the worse for wine, braying across the table.

‘I say Courtney, is it true you have a Masai blood brother?’

The voice belonged to a newcomer to Kenya, who called himself Quentin de Lancey and affected the mannerisms of the upper class, though his appearance was far from noble. He was overweight and prone to become both red-faced and very sweaty in the heat, which caused his thin, reddish-brown hair to lie in damp strings across his pale, flabby skin.

‘Something of that sort,’ Leon replied, noncommittally.

When he was a nineteen-year-old Second Lieutenant in the Third Battalion of the King’s African Rifles his platoon sergeant had been a Masai called Manyoro. Leon had saved Manyoro’s life in battle, and when Leon had then been court-martialled on trumped-up charges of cowardice and desertion it had been Manyoro’s evidence that had saved his neck. There was no man on earth whose friendship he valued more highly.

‘And a coon name? Bongo-something, was what I’d heard.’ A few people smiled at that, one of the women tittered. ‘Bongo from Bongo-bongo-land, what?’ de Lancey added, looking delighted by his own rapier wit.

‘The name I received was M’Bogo,’ said Leon, and a wiser, or more sober man than de Lancey might have heard the note of suppressed anger in his voice.

‘I say, what kind of name is that?’ de Lancey persisted.

‘It is the name of the great buffalo bull. It represents strength and fighting spirit. I count myself honoured to have been given it.’

Again, it took a fool not to heed the warning contained in the phrase ‘strength and fighting spirit’, and again de Lancey was deaf to it. ‘Oh, come-come, Courtney,’ he said, as if he were the voice of reason and Leon the common fool. ‘It’s all very well getting on with these people, I suppose, but let’s not pretend that they are anything but a lesser race. A chap I know was up-country a few months ago, looking for a good spot to start farming. He hung a paraffin lamp by his tent when he stopped for the night. The next thing he knew there were half-a-dozen nig-nogs coming up out of the bush, absolutely stark bollock naked apart from those red cloak things they wear.’

‘It’s called a shuka,’ said Leon.

Beside him, Amelia Cory-Porter’s eyes had widened and she was breathing just a little more heavily as she sensed that the man beside her was readying himself to impose his authority, possibly by force.

‘Yes, well, whatever it’s called, the poor chap was absolutely terrified, real brown-trouser time,’ de Lancey said. ‘Turned out the niggers just wanted to sit by his tent, cocks swinging gently in the breeze, gawping at the light – my chum didn’t know where to look! They’d never seen anything like it, thought it was a star trapped in a bottle.’

Leon realized that he had clenched his napkin in his right fist and recognized the signs of an imminent explosion. Control yourself, he thought. Count to ten. No point making an exhibition of yourself over one blithering idiot.

He consciously relaxed his body, much to Amelia’s disappointment as she felt her own gathering anticipation subside.

‘It’s true that the first sight of a white man and his possessions comes as a surprise,’ Leon said, as dully as possible, hoping to close the subject and move on.

‘Of course it does,’ said de Lancey, who was equally keen to prolong the thrilling sensation of being the centre of everyone’s attention. ‘These people haven’t developed anything that remotely passes for a civilization.’

Leon gave an impatient sigh. Damn! I’m just going to have to put this buffoon in his place.

‘The Masai have no skyscrapers, or aeroplanes, or telephones in their world, that is true. But they know things that we cannot begin to understand.’

‘Go on then, what sort of things?’

‘Even a Masai child can track a stray animal for days across open country,’ Leon said. ‘They’ll spot the faint outline of an elephant’s footprint on a patch of rock-hard earth where you or I would see nothing but dirt and stones, and identify the precise animal to which the print belongs. If the Masai soldiers I once had the privilege to command came across the trail of an invading war-party from another tribe they would at once know the number of men in the party, the length of time since they had passed and the destination to which they were heading. And if you doubt the capacity of the African brain, de Lancey, answer me this: how many languages do you speak?’

‘I’ve always found the King’s English perfectly adequate, thank you, Courtney.’

‘Then you are two behind a great many Africans, who speak three languages as a matter of course: their tribal tongue; the lingua franca spoken by everyone in the nation of which their tribe is part; and the language of their colonial masters. So the particular Masai who calls me M’Bogo grew up speaking Masai. As a young man he joined the King’s African Rifles where the ranks spoke Kiswahili, which he swiftly mastered. In recent years he has become fluent in English. These men are not niggers or coons, as you like to call them. They are a proud, noble, warrior race who have grazed their cattle on these lands since time immemorial, and in their own environment they are every bit our match and more.’

‘Well said,’ said a small man, with a bald pate and a scattering of silver hair, peering across the table through a pair of steel-framed spectacles.

‘Well, I still say that there is a reason why we are their masters and they our servants,’ de Lancey insisted. ‘They’re just a bunch of bone-idle savages and we are their superiors in both mind and body.’

Having dismissed the option of beating de Lancey to a pulp, Leon had been wondering how he could teach him the lesson he so richly deserved, and now a stroke of inspiration came to him. ‘Would you like to put that proposition to the test?’ he asked.

‘Ooh …’ purred Amelia. ‘This is going to be fun!’

‘How so?’ de Lancey asked, and for the first time a note of caution entered his voice as it occurred to him he might just have blundered into a trap.

Leon thought for a moment, working out a way to draw de Lancey in, while still ensuring his ultimate humiliation. ‘I will bet that one Masai from my Lusima estate can outrun any three white men you put up against him.’

‘In a race, do you mean?’

‘In a manner of speaking. What I have in mind is this …’ Leon leaned forward onto the table so that everyone could see and hear him clearly. He wanted this to be public. ‘One week from today, we will all meet up again at the polo field. String a rope around all four sides of one of the fields. The competitors will run around the field, outside that rope. D’you follow?’

‘Yes, I believe so,’ said de Lancey. ‘They all run round the field and if a white man wins the race I win the wager, and if your darkie wins, you do?’

Leon smiled. ‘Actually, that would be too easy for the Masai. They would be insulted by the very idea and say that one of their young boys, or even a woman, could win.’

‘Listen here, old man, you sound like you hate your own race.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. I just think that you’re either a good man or you’re not and skin colour’s got nothing whatever to do with it. The most appalling bully and bounder I ever met was a white man.’ Leon paused for a moment and looked around the table at the disapproving faces. Then he added, ‘Mind you, he was a German.’

The frowns turned to smiles and laughs at that and someone called out, ‘I say, what happened to this horrible Hun?’

‘His chest got in the way of a bullet from a .470 Nitro Express hunting rifle.’

‘Was that what passed for your war service?’ asked de Lancey acidly. ‘Better than nothing I suppose.’

The man in the steel-rimmed glasses cleared his throat. There was a philosophical, almost sad look in his eyes and a wry cast to his mouth, as if he were all too aware of the imperfections of man and the shortness of his life. Yet at once the table fell silent. This was the Right Honourable Hugh Cholmondeley, Third Baron Delamere and the unquestioned leader of Kenya’s white population. He had been among the first British settlers in British East Africa, owned two huge estates and was famed for the fortune he had spent trying to establish cattle, sheep and grain farming on his farmland, while preserving the wildlife in the vast areas of country that he left untouched. There was a cane resting on the back of his chair, for he walked with a limp, the result of being mauled by a lion. Yet there was real strength behind those faraway eyes.