Assegai

by Wilbur Smith

  When Eva entered the mess tent an hour later Graf Otto was alone at the long table, a sheaf of documents stacked in front of him. He was poring over one that bore the black eagle crest of the German Ministry of War and making entries in his notebook. He laid it aside and looked up at her as she stood in the entrance to the tent with the morning light behind her. She wore sandals, and a light summer dress in a lovely floral pattern that made her as winsome as a schoolgirl. Her hair was freshly washed, and brushed out in a cascade of sable wavelets down her back. Her lips were unpainted. She came to stand behind him and draped an arm over his shoulder. He took her hand, opened her fingers and kissed the palm. ‘How can you be so beautiful?’ he asked. ‘Do you not feel guilty that you make every other woman around you seem drab and ugly in comparison?’

  ‘Don’t you feel guilty that you lie so readily and convincingly?’ She kissed him full on the mouth, then giggled and broke away as he reached for her breasts. ‘You must feed me first, darling Otto.’

  Ishmael had been poised for her arrival. He wore his best scarlet fez with a black tassel, and his kanza had been carefully laundered, then ironed crisp as a fresh fall of snow. His teeth flashed brightly when he smiled. ‘Good morning, Memsahib. May your day be filled with the perfume of roses and flavoured with sweet fruits such as these.’ He spoke in French as he placed a platter of sliced mangos, banana and papaya before her,

  ‘Merci beaucoup, Ishmael. Where did you learn to speak such good French?’

  ‘I worked for many years for the consul in Mombasa, Memsahib.’ Ishmael beamed. She had cast her spell over all the staff of Tandala Camp.

  ‘Away with you, you smirking infidel,’ Graf Otto intervened. ‘My coffee is cold. Get me a fresh pot.’ As soon as Ishmael had gone, his manner changed and he became serious and businesslike. ‘Well, I’ve got rid of Courtney. I sent him out into the hunting grounds to find the lion we have spoken of so often. He will be well out of the way for as long as it takes to see to the real business. Despite his guileless manner and his engaging personality I do not trust him. He is much too astute for my taste. Last evening he was wearing army uniform. That was the first inkling I had that he is on the British Army reserve list. Also, I learned from Delamere that Brigadier General Ballantyne is his uncle. His connections with the British military are strong. In future we must be more circumspect with him.’

  ‘Of course, Otto.’ She took the chair beside him and turned her attention to the platter of fruit.

  ‘There was a cable from Berlin yesterday. They have arranged my meeting with von Lettow for the seventeenth,’ he continued. ‘It’s a long flight to Arusha, but I cannot afford to be gone long. There are too many people watching us. Pack some of your pretty things, Eva. I want to be proud of you.’

  ‘Do you really need me with you, Otto? It will be all men’s talk and so dull. I would rather stay here and do some painting.’ She speared a slice of ripe mango.

  Her attitude of mild disinterest in his affairs of business and state was a pose she had perfected over her long association with him. It yielded far greater fruits than if she had tried to wheedle information from him. Once again her patience had paid off handsomely. For the first time since they had left Wieskirche he had mentioned von Lettow Vorbeck. She knew that this was the real purpose of their African expedition. This was what lay at the heart of all the make-believe and play-acting.

  ‘Yes, indeed,Liebling. You know that I always need you with me.’

  ‘Who else will be there other than von Lettow? Will there be any other women?’

  ‘I doubt it. Von Lettow is a bachelor. It is possible that Governor Schnee may be there, but he and von Lettow do not get on together, or so I believe. It will not be a social occasion. The most important person at the meeting will be the South African Boer, Koos de la Rey. He is the pivot on which it all hinges.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just a silly girl, as you often say I am, but isn’t this a very convoluted way of meeting? Would it not have been easier for this Boer general simply to have come to Berlin - or couldn’t we have sailed to Cape Town in the comfort of an ocean-going liner like the Admiral?’

  ‘In South Africa de la Rey is a marked man. He was one of the Boer leaders who fought so hard and bitterly against the British. Since the armistice he has made no secret of his anti-British feelings. Any contact between him and our government would set off alarm bells in London. The meeting has to be outside his own country. Ten days ago, in great secrecy, he was picked up off the South African coast by one of our submarines and brought to Dar es Salaam. After our meeting he will return by the same route.’

  ‘Meanwhile, you are on a big-game safari in an adjoining country. There is nothing to lead anybody to suspect that the two of you ever made contact. I see now that it is a rather neat conspiracy.’

  ‘I am glad you approve.’ He smiled sarcastically.

  ‘The whole business must be very important for you to have spent so much time on it when you might have been hunting.’

  ‘It is.’ He nodded seriously. ‘Believe me, it is.’

  Instinct warned her that she had gone far enough for the moment. She sighed and murmured, ‘Very important, and deadly boring. If I come with you, will you buy me a nice present when we get back to Germany?’ She pouted at him and fluttered her long dark lashes, using her eyes artfully. This was more in line with the character she had built up to please him. It was the type of shallow response he had come to expect of her. During the time they had been together she had worked out precisely how to handle every situation that arose between them, and how best to fulfil all his expectations. She understood precisely what he needed from her. He did not want her to be a companion, or someone who gave him intellectual stimulation - there were many others who could do that. He wanted her as an ornament, an uncomplicated and compliant beauty, someone who could first arouse, then skilfully satisfy his animal passions. He wanted her as a pleasurable possession, who excited the envy and admiration of other men and women; a decoration that enhanced his own position and social standing. As soon as she became tiresome he would discard her as readily as he would throw away a pair of shoes that pinched his toes. She was fully aware that hundreds of other beautiful women would be delighted to take her place. It was a measure of her skills as a courtesan that he had kept her so long at his side.

  ‘It will be the prettiest present we can find in all of Berlin,’ he agreed easily.

  ‘Shall I take the Fortuny frock you bought for me in Paris? What do you think General von Lettow Vorbeck will think of it?’

  ‘One look at you in that dress and his thoughts would probably have him locked behind bars in any decent society.’ Graf Otto chuckled, then raised his voice to a shout: ‘Ishmael!’

  ‘Send for Bwana Hennie!’ Graf Otto ordered, as soon as Ishmael appeared. ‘Tell him to come at once.’

  Within minutes Hennie du Rand appeared in the fly of the tent. The frown on his brown, weatherbeaten face was anxious, and he held his stained slouch hat across his chest, twisting it between grease-stained fingers.

  ‘Come in, Hennie. Don’t just stand there.’ Graf Otto greeted him with a friendly smile, then looked at Eva. ‘You must forgive us,Liebling. You know that Hennie has no German so we will be speaking English.’

  ‘Please, Graf Otto, do not worry about me. I have my book of birds and my binoculars. I shall be quite happy.’ She stooped to kiss him as she passed his chair, then went to sit just outside the tent where she had a good view of the birdbath and feeding table Leon had set up for her entertainment. Noisy flocks of songbirds gathered around it: fire finches, waxbills, weavers and wild canaries.

  Although they were within earshot she ignored the conversation of the two men in the mess tent as she concentrated on capturing in her sketchpad the forms and colours of the tiny jewel-like creatures.

  Almost at once Graf Otto forgot her and gave Hennie his full attention. ‘How well do you know Arusha and the country around it, Hennie?’


  ‘I worked for a timber company there for two years. They were logging on the lower slopes of Mount Meru. I came to know the area well.’

  ‘There is a military fort on the Usa river,ja?’

  ‘Ja. It is a local landmark. People thereabouts call it the Icing Sugar Castle. It is painted brilliant white, and there are turrets and battlements along the top of the walls. It looks like something from a child’s picture book.’

  ‘We are going to fly there. Do you think you can find it from the air?’

  ‘I have never flown in an aeroplane, but I am sure that a blind man could pick out that building from fifty miles away.’

  ‘Good. Be ready to leave tomorrow morning at first light.’

  ‘I can scarcely believe I will be flying in one of your machines, sir.’ He grinned. ‘I can help with the maintenance and refuelling.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Gustav takes care of those details. That’s not why you are coming. I need you to introduce me to an old friend of yours.’

  The sun was still below the horizon when the Butterfly took off from the polo ground. It was cold in the rush of pre-dawn air, and everyone in the cockpit was bundled up in great-coats. Graf Otto headed due south at three thousand feet above the ground, and not long after they crossed the escarpment of the Rift Valley the sun shot above the horizon with startling rapidity and lit the great mountain bastion of Kilimanjaro, which, even though it was more than a hundred miles away, still dominated the southern horizon.

  Eva was alone in the rear seat of the cockpit, out of view of Graf Otto, who sat forward at the controls. She was huddled down behind the windscreen in her heavy loden coat. Her hair was covered with her helmet; her eyes with the smoked lenses of her goggles. Gustav and Hennie were in the front of the cockpit, absorbed in the view ahead. None of them looked back at her. Usually every eye was on her, and it was strange to be unobserved. For once she did not have to act. For once she was able to slip her emotions off the short leash on which she kept them and allow them to run free.

  Gazing over the starboard side of the cockpit, she had a sweeping vista of the great brown land, the length and breadth of the wide Rift Valley. The immense spaces enhanced her loneliness. They made her feel tiny and insignificant. A sense of total isolation from any meaningful human contact overwhelmed her. She contemplated the depths of her despair and wept. It was the first time she had shed tears since the cold November day six long years ago when she had stood at the graveside and watched her father’s coffin lowered into the earth. She had been alone ever since. It was too long.

  Masked by the helmet, she wept silently and secretly. This sudden weakness terrified her. In all the years she had been forced to live the life of illusion and disillusion, to play the game of shadows and mirrors, she had never been assailed by such feelings as these. She had always been strong. She had always known her duty and been steadfast in her resolve. But now something had changed, and she did not understand what it was.

  Then she felt the aircraft bank steeply under her and saw a mountain appear high above. She had retreated so deeply into herself that she thought it was a trick of her mind. The mountain was so ethereal that it floated on a silver cloud. She knew it could not be real. Was it a beacon of hope in the midst of her desolation? Was it her haven in the sky where she could hide from the wolf packs that pursued her? Thoughts as insubstantial and fanciful as this dream mountain flitted through her mind.

  Then, with a start, she realized it was not the stuff of dreams. It was Lonsonyo. The clouds on which it seemed to float were a solid bank of silver mist at its base. Even as she watched, it began to dissipate in the warmth of the rising sun and the massif of Lonsonyo was revealed.

  She felt the despair slough off her soul like an old skin and strength flow back into her. She understood the changes that had overwhelmed her so suddenly and completely. Until now she had believed that strength alone held her on her charted course, but now she knew it was resignation. There had been no other road open to her. But that had changed. It was not despair that had overwhelmed her so suddenly but hope. A hope so strong it transcended all else.

  ‘The hope that springs from love,’ she whispered to herself. She had never been able to love a man before. She had never been able to trust a man before. She had never before let a man into her secret, well-guarded places. That was why the feeling had been so alien. That was why she had not known it immediately. Now she had found a man who had made her dare to hope. Until this moment she had resisted him, for she knew him as little as he knew her. But now her resistance had crumbled. She had let him in. Despite herself she had surrendered to him. For the first time in her life she had given someone her trust and her unconditional love.

  She felt this new hope stemming her tears and steeling her resolve. Badger, oh, Badger! I know that the road we must travel together will be long and hard. So many snares and pitfalls stand in our way. But I know with equal certainty that together we can win through to the summit of our mountain.

  Graf Otto flew on through the airy canyons of the sky, with the eternal snowfields and the gleaming glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro towering high above them and casting their shadow over them. The Butterfly was tossed about wantonly by the winds that swirled around the mountain’s three extinct volcanic peaks. Then she broke free of Kilimanjaro’s influence and sailed out into the sunlight. But there was another mountain range directly ahead of them and Meru was so different from the great massif they had left behind. Eva fancied that if Kilimanjaro was the male, Meru was the female. She was lower and gentler in aspect, covered with dense green forests rather than harsh rock and ice.

  Hennie du Rand gestured to Graf Otto, indicating the new course. He banked sharply along the lower slopes of Meru and flew on past the town of Arusha that huddled at the foot of the mountain. Then Hennie pointed ahead and they all saw the white gleam of the crenellated walls of Fort Usa sitting above the river. As they flew closer they could make out the flag upon the central turret, which billowed in the light breeze, the twin-headed black imperial eagle of Germany on a ground of red, yellow and black.

  Graf Otto flew low past the white walls, and the uniformed figures on the battlements looked up at them. A staff motor-car drove out through the main gates and headed towards the open ground along the bank of the Usa river, dragging a pall of dust behind it. The Graf nodded with gratification: the vehicle was one of the latest models from his own factory. There were two men in its back seat.

  As Graf Otto had requested, a strip of ground had been cleared parallel to the river bank in preparation for their arrival. The earth was as raw as a ploughed field, and uprooted trees were piled haphazardly along the edge. At the far end a windsock floated from the top of a tall mast. The layout of the landing ground was exactly as he had stipulated it should be in his cables to Colonel von Lettow Vorbeck. Lightly he touched down and let the Butterfly run to where the staff car was parked. A uniformed German officer stood beside the open front door of the vehicle with one booted foot on the running-board.

  As soon as Graf Otto had clambered down the boarding ladder the officer came forward to greet him. He was a tall, spare but broad-shouldered figure in a field grey tunic and a felt-covered tropical helmet. He wore red and gold staff officer’s tabs on his collar, and the Iron Cross, first class, at his throat. His clipped moustache was flecked with grey, and his regard was direct and piercing.

  ‘Count Otto von Meerbach?’ he asked, as he saluted smartly. ‘I am Colonel Paul von Lettow Vorbeck.’ His voice was brisk and precise, given to command.

  ‘Indeed, Colonel. After all our correspondence, I am delighted to meet you.’ Graf Otto shook his hand and examined his features keenly. Before leaving Berlin he had made a special visit to Army Headquarters on Unter den Linden, where he had been given access to von Lettow Vorbeck’s service record. It was an impressive document. There was probably no other officer of equivalent rank who had seen as much active duty as he had. In China he had taken part in the campa
ign to put down the Boxers. In German South-west Africa he had fought under von Trotha during his ruthless genocide of the Hereros. Sixty thousand men, women and children had been exterminated, more than half of the entire tribe. After that von Lettow Vorbeck had gone on to command the Schutztruppe in the Cameroons, before being given the same task here in German East Africa.

  ‘Colonel, may I present Fräulein von Wellberg?’

  ‘Enchanted, Fräulein.’ Von Lettow Vorbeck saluted again, then clicked his heels and bowed as he held open the door to the staff car for Eva to take her seat in the back. They left Gustav and Hennie to secure the Butterfly and drove up towards the fort.

  Graf Otto came directly to the main business. He knew the colonel would expect and appreciate a forthright approach. ‘Has our visitor from the south arrived safely, Colonel?’

  ‘He is waiting for you in the fort.’

  ‘What do you make of him? Does he live up to his reputation?’

  ‘Difficult to say. He speaks no German or English, only his native Afrikaans. You will have some difficulty communicating with him, I fear.’

  ‘I have made allowance for that. One of the men I brought with me is an Afrikaner. In fact, he fought under de la Rey against the British in South Africa. He also speaks fluent English, as I know you do, Colonel. We shall have no trouble in communicating.’

  ‘Excellent! That will certainly make matters easier.’ Von Lettow Vorbeck nodded as they drove through the gates into the interior courtyard. ‘After your journey, you and Fräulein von Wellberg will want to bathe and rest for a while. Captain Reitz will conduct you to the quarters that have been prepared for you. At four o’clock, that is in two hours’ time, Reitz will return and bring you to the meeting with de la Rey.’