Assegai

‘I love him but I know I’ll never see him again,’ she whispered, and the tears blew back across her cheeks with the speed of the mare’s gallop. At last they burst out on her favourite view across Lake Bodensee to the snow-clad heights of the Swiss Alps on the far side. She stopped on the high ground, wiped away her tears and gazed out across the blue waters. There were many sails in sight, but she picked out a tiny fishing-boat, ru

The girl turned her head and said something to the man in the stern. He put the tiller over and tacked the fishing-boat. As it came across the wind, the blue swallow-tailed pe

Eva was relieved. For the past weeks she had been expecting a response to her last signal to Penrod in Nairobi. His silence had made her feel even more vulnerable. Although she was still bitter that he had separated her and Leon, Penrod was the only ally she had in all her lonely world. She gathered the reins and trotted the mare along the shore in the direction of Friedrichshafen. The Meerbach estates stretched for more than twenty miles.

At one point ahead a copse came to the water’s edge, the trees marking the juncture of the boundary wall with the lake. She reached the wall and dismounted to open the gate in it. The wall was a substantial construction of dry-packed stone blocks. Otto had boasted to her that it had been built originally by the Roman legionaries of Tiberius. She hitched the mare to the gate, climbed up on to the stone blocks and, her sketchpad open in her lap, gazed about as though she was admiring the scenery.

When she had satisfied herself that she was not observed, she reached down casually and lifted a mossy stone from its niche. In the recess beneath it lay the folded sheet of thin rice paper that the dark girl had placed there for her.

Eva put back the stone carefully before she unfolded the paper. She was alarmed to see that the script was in clear language, not coded. Her first thought was that a trap had been set for her. Swiftly she sca

Joy surged through her. ‘Badger!’ she exclaimed. ‘My darling Badger, you’ve found me.’ Although he was half a world away she was no longer completely alone. The knowledge armed her and strengthened her wounded heart. She put the scrap of rice paper into her mouth, chewed it and swallowed. Then, struggling to control her soaring emotions, she began a sketch of the lakeshore, with the spire of the Wieskirche in the background. Finally, satisfied that Otto had not sent any of his men to spy on her, she tore a small strip from the foot of the pad and wrote in neat block capitals: ‘MACMILLAN ENGLISH DICTIONARY JULY 1908 EDITION STOP FIRST NUMERAL GROUP IS PAGE STOP SECOND NUMERAL GROUP IS COLUMN STOP FINAL NUMERAL GROUP IS WORD FROM THE TOP STOP.’ She paused, searching for words to express her feelings adequately. Finally she wrote, ‘YOU ARE IN MY HEART FOR EVER.’ She did not add a signature. She folded the sheet and placed it carefully in the niche under the stone in the top of the wall. The girl from across the lake would come for it after dark. She would transmit it to Mr Goolam Vilabjhi, and by tomorrow evening Badger would be reading it in Nairobi. She sat for a while longer, bowed over the sketchpad, pretending to draw, but her spirits were bubbling like a freshly opened bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne.

‘To get back to Africa and the man I love. This is all I desire. Please, dear God, have mercy on me,’ she prayed aloud.

Leon spent the morning in conference with Hugh Delamere and his other officers. The little man had thrown himself whole-heartedly into the formation and training of his tiny force. Already he had raised more than two hundred troopers and had mounted and equipped them from his own pocket. Delamere was renowned throughout the colony for his energy and enthusiasm, but keeping pace with him was exhausting. It had taken Delamere less than two weeks to bully and cajole the regiment into a state of campaign readiness. Now he wanted an enemy to fight and had turned to Leon to find one.

‘You’re the only pilot we have, Courtney. Our border with the Hun is long and the bush is thick. I agree with you that the best way to keep an eye open for the movements of von Lettow and his askaris is from the air. You have the job. My guess is that he will try to reach Nairobi by forced marches up the Rift Valley from the main German base at Arusha. I want you to fly regular reco

By noon Leon’s notebook was half filled with his lordship’s orders and instructions. Delamere dismissed his officers for lunch with orders to return promptly at fourteen hundred hours. His lordship enjoyed his food and his siesta, so two hours was plenty of time to get out to the club for a bite of lunch and back again before Delamere ordered him flogged. But when he strode out into the street Latika was waiting for him by the hitching rail in front of the bank. She was feeding his horse with sugar cubes, which both of them were enjoying.

‘Hello, Lollipop. Did you come to see me or my horse?’

‘My daddy sent me to give this to you.’ She pulled a sealed buff envelope from her apron pocket and offered it to him. She watched his face as he opened it and read the cablegram. ‘Is it a letter from someone who loves you?’ she asked wistfully.

‘How did you know that?’

‘Do you love her back?’

‘Yes, very much.’

‘Don’t forget I love you too,’ she whispered, and he saw she was close to tears.

‘Then you won’t mind if I give you a ride home on horseback, will you?’

Latika sniffed back her tears and forgot her potential rival. Mounted up behind him, she chattered happily all the way to her father’s shop.

Mr Goolam Vilabjhi Esquire came out on to the pavement to welcome them. ‘Welcome! Welcome! Mrs Vilabjhi is serving her world-famous chicken curry and saffron rice for lunch. She will be cross and sad if you do not sample it with us.’

While Mrs Vilabjhi and her daughters put the finishing touches to the luncheon table, Leon went to stand in front of the bookshelf and ran his eye over the display of books. Then he grunted with satisfaction and took a copy of Macmillan’s English Dictionary from the upper shelf. ‘May I borrow this for a while?’ he asked.

Mr Vilabjhi touched the side of his nose with a finger and looked knowing. ‘General Ballantyne kept a copy of that book on his desk. It was the first thing he reached for whenever I took him a cable from Switzerland. Maybe Memsahib von Wellberg has sent you the code.’ Then he covered both ears with his hands and said, ‘But do not tell me about it. I am like the monkey who hears no evil. We secret agents must always be discreet.’

The curry was exquisite but Leon, eager to compose his response to Eva, hardly tasted it. As soon as the girls were clearing away the empty dishes he sequestered himself in Mr Vilabhji’s office and, within twenty minutes, had encoded a message to be sent to Eva. He began with a fervent protestation of his love, then explained Penrod’s absence and went on, ‘With my uncle transferred to Cairo I am left in the dark stop I need to have all intelligence that you have in your possession stop Eternal love stop Badger.’