There were ten packets, each containing five rounds. Leon did a quick mental calculation, and the result appalled him. Twelve pounds ten shillings! He touched the heavy bulge in his hip pocket. I can’t afford it! he told himself. On the other hand, he answered, what kind of professional hunter goes out into the blue with only three cartridges in his belt? Reluctantly he reached into his pocket and brought out the canvas bank bag he had so recently deposited there.
The tide of his fortune had come in, all right, but just as rapidly it had started to ebb, as Mr Vilabjhi had warned him it would.
Manyoro and Ishmael were still waiting outside the front of the store. Leon paid them the wages he owed them. ‘What are you going to do with all that money?’ he asked Manyoro.
‘I shall buy three cows. What else, Bwana?’ Manyoro shook his head at such a foolish question. To a Masai, cattle were the only real wealth.
‘What about you, Ishmael?’
‘I am going to send it to my wives in Mombasa, Effendi.’ Ishmael had six, the maximum that the Prophet allowed, and they were as voracious as a swarm of locusts.
Leon drove to the KAR barracks, with Ishmael and Manyoro. He found Bobby Sampson moping over a tankard of beer in the officers’ mess. His friend brightened when he saw him and cheered up so much when Leon paid him the fifteen guineas he owed him for the Vauxhall that he bought him a beer.
From the barracks Leon drove out to the stock yards on the outskirts of the town. ‘Manyoro, I wish to send a cow to Lusima Mama to thank her for her help in the matter of the elephant.’
‘Such a gift is customary, Bwana,’ Manyoro agreed.
‘Nobody is a finer judge of cattle than you, Manyoro.’
‘That is true, Bwana.’
‘When you have chosen your own beasts, pick one out for Lusima Mama and strike a price with the seller.’ That cost Leon another fifteen pounds, for Manyoro selected the best animal in the yard.
Before Manyoro set off to return to Lonsonyo Mountain, Leon gave him a canvas bag of silver shillings. ‘This is for Loikot. If he keeps talking to his friends and brings the news to us there will be many more bags of shillings. Tell him to save all his money and soon he will have enough to buy himself a fine cow. Now go, Manyoro, and return swiftly. Bwana Samawati has much work for us to do.’
Driving the cows ahead of him, Manyoro took the rutted track that led down into the Rift Valley. When he reached the first bend he turned and shouted back to Leon, ‘Wait for me, my brother, for I shall return in ten days’ time.’
Leon drove back to the club to pick up Percy Phillips. He found him slumped in one of the armchairs on the wide stoep overlooking the sun-parched lawns. He was in a foul mood. His eyes were bloodshot, his beard was in disarray and his face as wrinkled as the khaki bush jacket in which he had passed the night. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he growled at Leon and, without waiting for an answer, stumped down the steps to where the truck was rumbling and coughing blue exhaust smoke. His expression lightened a little when he saw the tusk on which Ishmael was sitting. ‘Well, thank the Lord you’ve still got that. What happened to the other?’
‘We sold it to the infidel Vilabjhi, Effendi.’ Ishmael had got into the habit of referring to his master in the royal plural.
‘That rogue! I bet he diddled you,’ Percy said, and climbed into the front seat. He did not speak again until they were bumping down the final and worst section of the track into Tandala Camp.
‘I managed to have a few words with your uncle Penrod last evening. He had received a cable from the American State Department. The former President of the United States of America and his entire entourage will be arriving in Mombasa in two months’ time aboard the luxury German steamship
When they parked in front of the mess tent Percy shouted for tea to be brought. Two mugs of the brew restored his sense of well-being and good humour. ‘Get out your pencil and notebook,’ he ordered Leon.
‘I don’t possess either.’
‘In future they will be your most essential items of equipment. Even more so than your rifle and quinine bottle. I have spares in my library. You can replace them when you next go into town.’ He sent one of the servants to fetch them and soon Leon’s pencil was poised over the first page.
‘Now, here is a broad picture of what this safari will involve. Apart from the President there will be his son, a lad of about the same age as you, and his guests, Sir Alfred Pease, Lord Cranworth and Frederick Selous.’
‘Selous!’ Leon exclaimed. ‘He’s an African legend. I was weaned on his books. But he must be ancient.’
‘Not at all,’ Percy snapped. ‘I doubt he’s even sixty-five yet.’
