by Wilbur Smith
Eva gave him a flash of her violet eyes, then turned to Graf Otto with a purr of sweet laughter. ‘In all of that he resembles you. In future I shall think of you as my honey badger.’
Which of them was she speaking to? Leon wondered. With this woman a man could never be sure of anything. There was always so much about her that was either enigmatic or ambiguous.
Before he could decide, she had spurred forward and, standing in the stirrups, pointed towards the southern horizon. ‘Look at that mountain over there!’ The distant shape of the flat-topped summit was dramatically highlighted by the rising sun. ‘Surely it must be the mountain we flew over, the mountain on which the Masai prophetess lives.’
‘Yes, Fräulein. That is Lonsonyo Mountain,’ Leon confirmed.
‘Oh, Otto, it is so close!’ she cried.
He chuckled. ‘For you it is close because that is where you want to go. For me it is a day’s hard ride away.’
‘You promised to take me there!’ Her voice was dulled by disappointment.
‘Indeed I did,’ he agreed. ‘But I did not promise when.’
‘Then promise me now. When?’ she demanded. ‘When, darling Otto?’
‘Not now. We must return to Nairobi at once. This delay was an indulgence. I have important business to see to. This African safari was not all for pleasure.’
‘Of course not.’ She grimaced. ‘With you it is always business.’
‘How else could I afford to have you as my friend?’ Graf Otto asked, with heavy humour, and Leon turned away so as not to reveal his quick anger at the unkind remark. But Eva seemed neither to hear nor care, and Graf Otto went on, ‘Perhaps I shall buy property here. It seems that there is room for investment in a new land with such resources to exploit.’
‘And when your business is done, will you take me to Lonsonyo Mountain?’ Eva persisted.
‘You do not give up easily.’ Graf Otto shook his head in mock-despair. ‘Very well. I will make a bargain with you. After I have killed my lion with the assegai I will take you to see this witch.’
Once again Eva’s mood altered subtly. Her eyes were masked, her expression closed and cool. Just when Leon had felt he might glimpse something beyond the veil, she had become once more remote and unfathomable.
They rested the horses at noon, off-saddling in a grove of stately pod mahogany trees beside a small reed-enclosed pool in an unnamed stream. After an hour they saddled up to ride on, but standing beside her mare Eva exclaimed irritably, ‘The safety clasp on my right stirrup is locked. If I were to fall I would be dragged.’
‘See to it, Courtney,’ Graf Otto ordered, ‘and make sure it does not happen again.’
Leon threw his reins to Loikot and went quickly to Eva’s side. She moved a little to allow him to reach the stirrup leather, but she was close beside him as Leon stooped to examine the steel. Both of them were hidden from Graf Otto’s view by the body of the horse. Leon found she was right: the safety clasp was locked. It had been open when they had left Sonjo manyatta that morning - he had checked it himself. Then Eva touched his hand, and his heart tripped. She must have opened the clasp herself as an excuse to have him alone for a moment. He glanced sideways at her. She was so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek. She wore no perfume, but she smelled as warm and sweet as a milk-fed kitten. For an instant he looked into the violet depths of her eyes and saw beyond the veil to the woman behind the lovely mask.
‘I must go to the mountain. There is something there for me.’ Her whisper was so soft he might have imagined it. ‘He will never take me. You must.’ There was the slightest check in her voice, and then she said, ‘Please, Badger.’ The heartfelt plea and the new pet name with which she had dubbed him made him catch his breath.
‘What is the matter, Courtney?’ Graf Otto called. Always alert, he had sensed something.
‘I am angry that the clasp was locked. It might have been dangerous for Fräulein von Wellberg.’ Leon drew out his knife and used the blade to prise open the clasp. ‘It will be all right now,’ he assured Eva. They were still screened by the mare, so he dared to stroke the back of the hand that lay on the saddle. She did not pull it away.
‘Mount up! We must ride on,’ Graf Otto ordered. ‘We have wasted enough time here. I wish to fly back to Nairobi today. We must reach the airstrip while there is still sufficient daylight for the flight.’ They rode hard, but the sun was lying red and bleeding on the horizon, like a dying morani on his shield, when at last they scrambled up the ladder into the cockpit of the Butterfly. Inexperienced as he was, even Leon knew that Graf Otto had cut the take-off beyond the limits of safety. At this season of the year twilight would be short-lived: it would be dark in less than an hour.
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 maste
rstroke 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!
Beside him Graf Otto made a small gesture, and Leon understood what it meant. The joystick was trembling in his fingers, and he pressed it gently forward. Behind him the massive tailplane lifted clear of the grassy surface, and the Bumble Bee reacted gratefully to the decrease in drag. He felt her quicken in his hands, and as Graf Otto made the next signal he was already easing the joystick back. Once, twice, the wheels bounced and then she was flying. He lifted the nose and settled it on the horizon ahead, in the attitude of climb. They went up and up. He shot a glance over the side of the cockpit and saw the earth falling away below. He was flying. His hands were the only ones on the stick, his feet alone were on the rudder bars. He was really flying. He soared on upwards joyfully.
Beside him Graf Otto nodded approvingly, then gave him the signal to level out of the climb, to bank left and bank right. Stick and rudder together, Leon put the Bumble Bee over, and she responded docilely.
Graf Otto nodded again and raised his voice so that Leon could catch the words: ‘Some are born with the wind in our hair and the starlight in our eyes. I think you may be one of us, Courtney.’
Under his instructions Leon circled wide, then lined up on the runway. He had not yet learned how to slow the machine and at the same time lose height. He should have held the nose up and let her bleed off speed, sinking under her own weight. Instead he pushed the nose down and dived towards the field, coming in much too fast. The Bumble Bee was still flying when she hit the ground with a crash and ballooned up off the grassy strip. He was forced to open the throttles wide and go around again. Beside him Graf Otto laughed. ‘You still have much to learn, Courtney. Try again.’
On the next approach he did better. With her vast wing area the Bumble Bee had a low stall speed. He came in over the fence of the polo ground at thirty feet above the ground, with forty knots of air speed indicated. He held her nose up, and let her sink to the earth. She touched down with a jolt that clashed his teeth but did not bounce, and Graf Otto laughed again. ‘Good! Much better! Go around again.’
Leon was getting the feel of it quickly. Each of the next three landings was an improvement on the preceding effort, and the fourth was a perfect three-point touch-down, the main undercarriage and tail wheel kissing the ground in unison.
‘Excellent!’ Graf Otto shouted. ‘Taxi to the hangar!’
Leon felt heady with success. His first day of instruction had been a triumph and he knew he could look forward to continued improvement over the days ahead.
When he swung the Bumble Bee around in front of the hangar he reached for the fuel cock to shut off the engines, but Graf Otto forestalled him. ‘No! I am getting out, but you are not.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Leon was puzzled. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I promised to teach you how to fly, and I have done so. Now go and fly, Courtney, or go and kill yourself. It is all the same to me.’ Graf Otto von Meerbach scrambled over the side of the cockpit and disappeared, leaving Leon, after the grand total of three hours’ tuition, facing his first solo flight.
It took a deliberate effort of mind and body to force himself to reach forward and grip the throttle handle. His mind was in a spin. He had forgotten everything he had just learned. He began his take-off run with the wind behind his tail. The Bumble Bee ran and ran, building up air speed so gradually that he was only able to wrench her into the air seconds before she hit the boundary fence. He cleared it with three feet to spare, but at least he was flying. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Graf Otto standing in front of the hangar with his fists on his hips, his head thrown back and his whole body convulsed with laughter.
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‘Wonderful sense of humour you have, von Meerbach. Deliberately wounding a couple of buffalo and sending up a complete novice to kill himself. Anything for a laugh!’ But his anger was ephemeral and forgotten almost immediately. He was flying solo. The earth and the sky belonged to him alone.
The sky was bright and clear except for a single silver cloud that seemed not much larger than his hand. He put the Bumble Bee into a climb and banked towards it. It seemed almost solid as the earth and he flew close over the top. Then he turned and came back, and this time he touched the top of the silver billows with his wheels as though he was landing upon them. ‘Playing with clouds,’ he exulted. ‘Is this how the angels and the gods pass their time?’ He dropped down through the cloud bank and was blinded for a few seconds in the silver mists, then burst out through them into the sunlight, laughing with the joy of it. Down and down he plummeted and the great brown land rushed up to meet him. He levelled out, his wheels skimming the treetops. The wide expanse of the Athi plains opened ahead and he dropped even lower. Thirty feet above the earth and at a hundred miles an hour he charged across the treeless wilderness. The game herds scattered in pandemonium under his wheels. He was so low that he had to lift his port wing-tip to avoid collision with the outstretched neck of a galloping bull giraffe.
He climbed again and turned towards the line of the Ngong Hills. From two miles out he picked out the thatched roofs of Tandala Camp. He flew over it so low that he could recognize the faces of the camp staff who stared up at him in amazement. There were Manyoro and Loikot. He leaned over the side of the cockpit and waved, and they danced and cavorted, waving back in wild exuberance.
He looked for a white face among them, not just any white face but that special one, and felt a throb of disappointment that she was not there. He turned back towards the airstrip, and was skimming the tops of the Ngong Hills when he saw the horse. It was on the skyline directly ahead, the grey mare she always favoured. Then he saw her standing at its head. She wore a bright yellow blouse and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She looked up at the approaching aircraft but showed no animation.