Fillets of Plaice

4 A Question of Promotion

MAMFE is not the most salubrious of places, perched as it is on a promontory above the curve of a great, brown river and surrounded by dense rain forest. It is as hot and moist as a Turkish bath for most of the year, only deviating from this monotony during the rainy season when it becomes hotter and moister.

At that time it had a resident population of five white men, one white woman, and some ten thousand vociferous Africans. I, in a moment of mental aberration, had made this my headquarters for an animal collection expedition and was occupying a large marquee full of assorted wild animals on the banks of the brown, hippo-reverberating river. In the course of my work I had, of course, come to know the white population fairly well and a vast quantity of the African population. The Africans acted as my hunters, guides and carriers, for when you went into that forest you were transported back into the days of Stanley and Livingstone and all your worldly possessions had to be carried on the heads of a line of stalwart carriers.

Collecting wild animals is a full-time occupation and one does not have much time for the social graces, but it was curiously enough in this unlikely spot that I had the opportunity of helping what was then known as the Colonial Office.

I was busy one morning with the task of giving milk to five un-weaned baby squirrels, none of whom, it appeared, had any brain or desire to live. At that time no feeding bottle with a small enough teat to fit the minute mouth of a baby squirrel had been invented, so the process was that you wrapped cotton wool round the end of a matchstick, dipped it into the milk mixture, and put it into their mouths for them to suck. This was a prolonged and extremely irritating job, for you had to be careful not to put too much milk on the cotton wool, otherwise they would choke, and you had to slip the cotton wool into their mouths sideways, otherwise it would catch on their teeth, whereupon they would promptly swallow it and die of an impacted bowel.

It was ten o’clock in the morning and already the heat was so intense that I had to keep wiping my hands on a towel so that I did not drench the baby squirrels with my sweat and thus give them a chill. I was not in the best of tempers but while I was trying to get some sustenance into my protégés (who were not collaborating), my steward, Pious, suddenly materialised at my side in the silent, unnerving way that Africans have.

“Please, sah,” he said.

“Yes, whatee?” I inquired irritably, trying to push some milk-drenched cotton wool into a squirrel’s mouth.

“D.O. come, sah,” he said.

“The District Officer?” I asked in astonishment. “What the hell does he want?”

“No say, sah,” said Pious impassively. “I go open beer?”

“Well, I suppose you’d better,” I said, and as Martin Bugler, the District Officer, arrived at the crest of the hill I pushed the squirrels back into their nestbox full of dried banana leaves and went out of the marquee to greet him.

Martin was a tall, gangling young man with round, almost-black eyes and floppy black hair, a snub nose and a wide and very ingratiating grin. owing to the length of his arms and legs and his habit of making wild gestures to illustrate when he talked, he was accident prone. But he was, however, a remarkably good D.O. for he loved his job intensely and, what is even more important, he loved the Africans equally intensely and they responded to this.

Now it has become fashionable to run down colonialism, District Officers and their assistants are made out to be monsters of iniquity. Of course there were bad ones but the majority of them were a wonderful set of men who did an exceedingly difficult job under the most trying conditions. Imagine, at the age of twenty-eight being put in charge of an area, say, the size of Wales, populated by an enormous number of Africans and with one assistant to help you. You had to look after their every need, you had to be mother and father to them, and you had to dispense the law. And in many cases the law, being English law, was of such complexity that it defeated even the devious brain of the indigenous population.

On many occasions, on my forays into the forest, I had passed the big mud-brick courtroom with its tin roof and seen Martin — the sweat pouring down him in torrents — trying some case or other, the whole thing being made even more complicated by the fact that villages, sometimes separated only by a few miles, spoke different dialects. Therefore, should there be dissension between two villages, it meant that you had to have two interpreters from the two villages and an interpreter who knew both dialects who could then interpret Martin. As in courts of law anywhere in the world, you knew perfectly well that everybody was lying the hind leg off a donkey, I had the greatest admiration for Martin’s patience and solemnity on these occasions. The cases could range from suspected cannibalism, via wife stealing, to simple things like whose cocoa-yam patch was invading whose, inch by subtle inch.

On the many occasions that I had visited West Africa, I had only met one D.O. who was unpleasant.

I was very surprised at Martin’s appearance because, at that time in the morning, he should have been up to his eyes in office work. He came down the hillside almost at a run, gesticulating like a windmill and shouting things at me that I could not hear. I waited patiently until he reached the shade of the marquee.

“So you see,” he said, throwing out his arms in a gesture of despair, “I need help.”

I pushed a camp chair forward and pressed him gently into it.

“Now stop carrying on like a mentally defective praying mantis,” I said. “Just shut up for a minute and relax.”

He sat there mopping his brow with a sodden handkerchief.

“Pious!” I shouted.

“Sah,” replied Pious from the kitchen.

“Pass beer for me and the D.O. please.”

“Yes, sah.”

The beer was of a nauseating brand and not really cold because in our rather primitive base camp our only method of refrigeration was to keep the beer in buckets of water which was itself lukewarm. However, in climates like that where you perspire constantly — even when sitting immobile — you need a large liquid intake and for the daytime beer was the best.

Pious gravely poured the beer out into the glasses and Martin picked his up with a shaking hand and took a couple of frenzied gulps.

“Now,” I said, putting on my best soothing-psychiatrist voice, “do you mind repeating, slowly and clearly, what you were shouting as you came down the hill? And, by the way, you shouldn’t run about like that at this hour of the day, ‘A’ it’s bad for your health and ‘B’ it doesn’t do your public image any good. I thought you’d had a terrible uprising in Mamfe and that you were being pursued by vast quantities of Africans with spears and muzzle-loaders.”

Martin mopped his face and took another gulp of beer.

“It’s worse than that,” he said, “much, much worse. ”

“Well,” I said, “softly and calmly tell me what’s the matter.”

“It’s the District Commissioner,” he said.

“Well, what s the matter with him?” I inquired, “Has he sacked you?”

“That’s the point,” said Martin, “he well might. That’s why I want help.”

“I don’t see how I can help,” I said, “I don’t know the District Commissioner or, as far as I am aware, any of his relatives, so I can’t put in a good word for you. Why, what heinous crime have you committed?”

“I suppose I had better begin at the beginning,” said Martin.

“It’s always a good place to start,” I said.

He mopped his face again, took another sustaining gulp of beer and glanced round furtively to make sure that we weren’t overheard.

“Well,” he said, “you probably haven’t noticed; I’m quite good at my job, but unfortunately when it comes to entertaining and things like that I always seem to manage to do the wrong things. When I had just been promoted to D.O. — that was in Umfala — the first thing that happened was that the bloody D.C. came through on a tour of inspection. Well, everything went splendidly. I had my district in apple-pie order and it seemed as though the D.C. was rather pleased with me. He was only staying one night and by evening I really thought that the whole thing had been a success. But it was very unfortunate that the lavatory in my house had ceased to function and I couldn’t get it fixed in time so I had had a very comfortable grass shack built well away from the veranda, behind the hibiscus hedge. You know, a hole in the ground and a cross-pole on which you sit. Well, I explained this to the D.C. and it seemed that he quite understood. What I hadn’t realised was that my entire African staff were under the impression that I had built it for them and had been using it for several days before the D.C.’s arrival. Just before dinner the D.C. wandered out to the latrine and, apart from the contents which rather put him off, since he was under the impression that it had been done specially for him, he then sat on the cross-pole, which broke.”

It was my turn now to become slightly alarmed.

“God in heaven,” I said, startled, “didn’t you check the cross-pole?”

“That’s the point,” said Martin. “I’m so bad at that sort of thing.”

“But you might have killed him or, worse still, drowned him,” I said. “I know what our latrine’s like here and I certainly wouldn’t like to fall into it.”

“I can assure you he didn’t enjoy the experience either,” said Martin dismally. “He shouted for help of course and we got him out, but he looked like a sort of er... a sort of er... sort of walking dung heap. It took us hours to wash him down and get his clothes cleaned and pressed in time for his departure the following morning, and I can assure you, my dear boy, we sat down to a very late dinner and he ate very little and the conversation was frigid to an almost polar degree.”

“Hasn’t he any spirit of fun?” I inquired.

“He hasn’t any spirit of fun about anything,” said Martin vehemently. “And anyway, I don’t blame him. Anyone falling into that load of muck couldn’t possibly treat it with merriment.”

“I do see your point,” I said. “Have some more beer.”

“The trouble is,” said Martin, “that this was not the first time that I’d made mistakes of that sort. There are several things I did when I was an A.D.O. which I prefer not to tell you about, and that’s why it took me so long to work up from being an A.D.O. to a D.O. After this awful lavatory thing my next posting was to Umchichi, and you know what that’s like.”

“Dear God,” I said, “I’ve never been there but I’ve heard about it.”

Umchichi was the sort of Devil’s Island to which all naughty D.O.’s and A.D.O.’s were sent when they were in disgrace. It consisted of a lot of leprous Africans and more mosquitoes than anywhere else on the whole west coast of Africa.

“Fascinating though these revelations are,” I said, “I don’t really see what this is all about.”

“But that’s what I was telling you as I was coming down the hill?” explained Martin. “He’s coming through on a tour of inspection. He arrives in three days’ time so I must have your help.”

“Martin,” I said, “much as I love you, I am not a social hostess.”

“No, no, old boy, I know,” he said, “but if you could just back me up a bit.”

This cri de coeur was impossible to refuse. All the white population of Mamfe and ninety-nine per cent of the African population loved Martin dearly.

“I must give this some thought,” I said.

We sat in silence while Martin twitched and perspired.

Presently I shouted, “Pious, pass more beer for the D.O. please.”

When the beer had been served I leaned forward and fixed Martin with a piercing eye.

“This,” I said, “is your only salvation. We have a woman in our midst.”

“A woman?” said Martin, puzzled, “What woman?”

“Mary,” I said, “your A.D.O.’s wife, in case you hadn’t remembered. Now women are good at this sort of thing. We also have McGrade (he was the Public Works Department man in charge of mending bridges, building roads and similar uninteresting things). We have Girton (he was the United Africa Company man, who spent his time selling Manchester cloth to the Africans and beer and tinned goods to the white population). Now, surely between all of us we can get something done.”

“Dear boy,” said Martin solemnly, “I shall be for ever, in your debt. What a brilliant suggestion.”

“Now, the first thing to do,” I said, “is to have a look at your house.”

“But you’ve been there often,” said Martin in surprise. “You’ve been up several times for chop and any number of times for drinks.”

“Yes,” I said, “but I’ve never seen anything other than your main living-room and your veranda.”

“Oh, I see what you mean,” he said. “Yes, of course. Well, you’d better come up and see it now.”

“I’ll bring Pious,” I said, “because I’ll lend you him for the evening. He’s far better than that stupid lout you’ve got and he can really put on Government House type service. That steward of yours is liable to drop the soup in the D.C.’s lap.”

“Oh, God!” said Martin in an agonised tone of voice, “don’t even suggest such a thing.”

So taking Pious with us, we went up to the D.O.’s house, which was perched high on a bluff overlooking the river. It was a very handsome house, with thick walls and huge rooms, for it had been built in the time when the Cameroons had been a German colony. The Germans knew how to build for the heat so what little breeze there was the house received, and the massive walls made its interior as cool as it was possible to be in a place like Mamfe. On the way up the hill I explained to Pious what the problem was.

“Now,” I said, “this is very important and we all go help the D.O. as well as we can.”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious grinning happily, for he always felt I spent far too much time looking after my animals and not nearly enough letting him show off his prowess as a steward.

When we got there I examined the living-room and the veranda with great attention. They were spacious and quite pleasantly furnished by bachelor D.O. standards.

“I think you ought to take that calendar off the wall,” I said to Martin, “for a start.”

“Why?” he said, “I thought she was awfully pretty.”

“Martin,” I said, “if the D.C. sees nude women hanging all over your living-room, he is going to get some very peculiar ideas about you, so take it down.”

Pious, who had been following this with close attention, took down the calendar of a woman in a voluptuous pose who was so obviously a mammal that it almost embarrassed me.

“Now, his bedroom,” I said.

The bedroom, again, was large and contained a big double bed with a mosquito net.

“Pious,” I said, “you go look the bed to make sure it no go break.” Giggling happily to himself, Pious crawled round the bed on hands and knees examining every nut and bolt.

“Now,” I said to Martin, “we’ll both bounce up and down on top of it.”

We did and the bed responded well.

“Well, that’s alright,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything in here that will do him any damage. Now, where are you going to feed him?”

“Feed him?” said Martin, puzzled.

“Yes, feed him,” I said impatiently. “You’re going to feed him while he’s here, aren’t you?”

“Well, on the veranda,” Martin said.

“But haven’t you got anything else?” I asked.

“Well, there’s the dining-room.”

“Well, if you’ve got a dining-room for God’s sake use it. After all, you want to give him the best treatment possible. Where is this dining-room?”

He took me to the living-room, threw open two massive wooden doors and there was a splendid dining-room with a table long enough to seat at least ten people. It was beautifully polished but, naturally, as Martin had never used the dining-room, the whole thing was covered in dust, as were the rather handsome but heavy wooden chairs. From the ceiling, down the whole length of this eight-foot table hung what in India is called a “punka”. It is, in fact, a giant fan. The backbone of this one, as it were, was made out of a long length of bamboo some four or five inches in diameter and from it hung down a long fringe of dried palm fronds some four feet in length. From the centre of the bamboo ran a string through a series of little pulleys across the ceiling and out through a hole in the wall which led to the kitchen quarters. The idea was that you engaged a small boy to pull the string so that the whole fan waved to and fro over the table, thus at least occasionally allowing you a gust of warm air in the midst of your meal.

“But this is absolutely splendid,” I said to Martin. “He’ll be most impressed with this.”

“I suppose he might,” said Martin. “I’d never have thought about it. I never use the damn’ thing. You see, I would feel so lonely sitting here.”

“What you want is a wife, my boy,” I said in a fatherly tone.

“Well, I do try,” said Martin, “every time I go on leave. But as soon as they hear where I am, they break off the engagement. In fact, there was an awfully nice girl called Molly whom I met on my last leave but, unfortunately, one of her uncles had been to Mamfe and the damned old fool told her about it in the worst possible terms and so it came to nothing.”

“Never mind,” I said. “Persevere. You might find a woman stupid enough to marry you in the first place and live here one day.”

We got Pious to examine the huge table and the chairs with great care. We both sat on each one of them and tested the table by standing on it and doing a sort of tango, but it was as firm and solid as rock.

“Now,” I said to Martin, “I want to put Pious in charge of your staff because by and large they seem a very inefficient lot whereas Pious is highly efficient.”

“Anything you say, dear boy, anything at all,” said Martin, “just mention it.”

“Pious,” I said.

“Sah,” he said.

“We have three days to get ready. During that time you go be half my steward and half the D.O.’s steward. You hear?”

“I hear, sah,” he said.

We went out onto the veranda and sat down.

“Now,” I said to Pious, “go tell the D.O.’s steward to pass us a drink. By the way, Martin, what is the name of your steward?” I asked.

“Amos,” he replied.

“Yes,” I said, “he looks like an Amos. Well, Pious, go tell Amos to pass drink and then you go bring the cook, the steward and the small boy here so we look ’um and have palava.”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious and with an almost military strut disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

“I think the question of the food can be safely left to Mary,” I said. “The others might have some suggestions of use, too, so what I think would be a good thing is to call a council of war this evening. If you send chits round to all of them they can come up and have drinks and we can discuss the whole matter.”

“You’re really proving my salvation,” said Martin,

“Nonsense,” I said, “I am just orientating you a bit. You obviously aren’t cut out for social life.”

Pious came in bearing a tray with beer, followed by Amos, who in his brown shorts and jacket looked like an amiable but mentally defective monkey; the small boy, who looked quite bright but was obviously completely untrained and — if Amos was supposed to be his trainer — never would learn a thing; and then, to my astonishment, an enormous, tall, thin Hausa who looked as though he was 110 years old, wearing a white coat and shorts and a huge chef’s hat, on the front of which was embroidered in rather uneven lettering “BC”.

“Now,” I said in my firmest voice, “the D.O. is having the D.C. here in three days’ time. The D.O. he want my steward to watch you all and make sure that everything is proper. If it is not proper, D.C. will be very angry with D.O. and D.O. and I will be very angry with you and we will kick you for larse.”

In spite of the sternness with which I spoke, they all grinned at me happily. They knew the importance of the visitor and they knew that my threat was quite genuine. But it was put in a joking form that they could understand.

“Now,” I said, pointing to Martin’s steward, “you’re named Amos.”

“Yes, sah,” he said, standing to attention.

“Now, what’ee your name?” I asked the small boy.

“John, sah,” he said.

“The cook,” said Martin apologetically, interrupting my dragooning, “is called Jesus.”

“Dear fellow,” I said, “you’re in luck. With Pious and Jesus with us we can’t go far wrong. By the way what is that extraordinary piece of embroidery on the front of his hat?”

Martin looked acutely embarrassed.

“He happened to cook a very good meal one day by pure accident,” said Martin, “and I had a magazine which had a picture of a chef in a London hotel and so to encourage him I told him that the next time I went on leave I would buy him one of those hats that only expert cooks wore.”

“It was a very kind thought,” I said, “but what’s the embroidery in the front, the ‘BC’?”

Martin looked very shamefaced.

“He got his wife to embroider that on for him,” he said, “and he’s very proud of it.”

“But what does it mean?” I insisted.

Martin looked even more embarrassed.

“It means Bugler’s Cook,” he said.

“Does he realise the terrible confusion he could cause in some people’s mind by being called Jesus and having BC on his hat?” I inquired.

“No, I’ve never tried to explain it to him,” said Martin. “I felt it would only worry him and he’s quite worried enough as it is.”

I took a long soothing draught of beer. The whole thing appeared to be getting so religious one would have thought it was the Pope who was arriving instead of the D.C.

“Now, Pious,” I said, “you go get some furniture oil, you hear?”

“Yes, sah,” he said.

“And,” I said, “you go make sure that the dining-room is cleaned out and the chairs and table are polished proper. You hear?”

“I hear, sah,” he said.

“I want the table top to look like a mirror. And if you don’t make sure that it does, I’ll kick your larse.”

“Yes, sah,” he said.

“And then the day before the D.C. arrives, all the floors have to be scrubbed and made clean and all the other furniture polished too. You hear?”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious.

I could see by the proud look on his face that he was going to look forward immensely to overseeing this very important occasion and also having the opportunity of dominating some of his compatriots.

Martin leant forward and whispered in my ear.

“The small boy is an Ibo,” he said.

Now, the Ibos are an extremely clever tribe and were constantly wandering over from Nigeria, swindling the Cameroonians and wandering back again. So they were regarded by the Cameroonians with great loathing and distrust.

“Pious,” I said, “the small boy is Ibo.”

“I know, sah,” said Pious.

“So you go make him work hard but you no go make him work too hard because he is an Ibo. You hear?”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious.

“Alright,” I said as though I owned Martin’s house, “pass more beer.”

The staff trooped off into the kitchen.

“I say,” said Martin in admiration, “you are good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never done it before,” I said, “but it doesn’t require much imagination.”

“No, I’m afraid I’m rather lacking in that,” said Martin.

“I don’t think you are lacking in imagination,” I said. “Anybody who would have the brilliance to bring back a chef’s hat for his cook cannot be completely insensitive.”

So we drank some more beer and I tried to think of any other calamity that could possibly happen.

“Does the lavatory work?” I asked suspiciously.

“It’s working perfectly.”

“Well, don’t, for God’s sake, let the small boy drop a pawpaw down it,” I said, “because we don’t want a repetition of the last episode you told me about. Now, you send the chits round to everybody and I’ll come up here about six o’clock and we’ll have a conference of war.”

“Wonderful,” said Martin. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said. “Even Standish couldn’t have organised things so beautifully.”

Standish was the Assistant D.O. and was at that moment sweating his way through the mountains north of Mamfe sorting out the problems of the remoter villages.

I hurried back to my marquee and my vociferous family. Having to help Martin had set me back in my routine work so the baby chimps were yelling for their food, porcupines were champing at the bars, and the bushbabies with enormous eyes, glared at me indignantly because, having roused themselves from their slumbers, they had found no pots of delicately chopped fruit in their cages.

At six o’clock I presented myself at the D.O.”s residence and found that Mary Standish, the A.D.O.’s wife, had already arrived.

She was a young and pretty woman, inclined to plumpness and had a great placidity of nature. She had been whisked by Standish from some obscure place like Surbiton or Penge and had been plonked down in the middle of Mamfe. She had only been there six months but so gentle and sweet was her nature that she accepted everything and everybody with such calmness and good nature that you felt that if you had a raging headache and she placed one of her plump little hands on your forehead, it would have the same effect as an eau de cologne-soaked handkerchief

“Gerry,” she squeaked, “isn’t this exciting?”

“Well, it may be for you,” I said, “but it’s a pain in the neck as far as poor Martin is concerned.”

“But the D.C!” she said again. “It might mean a promotion for Martin and it might even mean one for Alec.”

“If it’s organised properly,” I said. “The reason we’re having this council of war is to make sure that nothing goes wrong because, as you know, Martin is accident prone...”

Martin, thinking that I was going to tell her the hideous story of the D.C. and the latrine, made one of his windmill gestures to stop me and immediately knocked his glass of beer onto the floor.

“Sorry, sah,” said Amos. The Cameroonians had an endearing habit of saying “Sorry, sah” whenever arty accident befell you, as though it was their own fault. If, for example, you were following a line of carriers in the forest and you tripped over a root and grazed your knee, you would hear “Sorry, sah,” “Sorry, sah,” Sorry, sah,” “Sorry sah,” echoing back along the whole line of carriers.

“You see what I mean?” I said to Mary as Amos cleaned up the mess and brought Martin a fresh glass of beer.

“Yes, I do see,” she said.

“Well, we won’t discuss it now,” I said. “We’ll wait till the others arrive.”

So we drank our beer thoughtfully and listened to the hippos gurgling and roaring and snorting in the river some three hundred feet below us.

Presently McGrade arrived. He was a very impressive Irishman of enormous dimensions with almost pillar-box-red hair and vivid blue eyes, and he had one of those lovely Irish accents that are as soft as cream being poured out of a jug. He slumped his massive form onto a chair, seized Martin’s glass of beer, drank deeply from it and said, “So you’re being visited by royalty, then?”

“The nearest approach to it,” said Martin, “and kindly give me back my beer. I’m in urgent need of it.”

“Is he coming by road?” enquired McGrade anxiously.

“I think so,” said Martin, “Why?”

“Well, I wouldn’t give that old bridge very much longer,” said McGrade. “I think if he came across that we might well have to bury him here.”

The bridge he was referring to was an iron suspension bridge that spanned the river at one point and had been built in the 1900s. I had crossed it many times myself and knew that it was highly unsafe but it was my one means of getting into the forest so I always used to get my carriers to go across one at a time. As a matter of fact, McGrade’s prediction about the bridge was perfectly correct because not many months later a whole load of tribesmen came down from the mountain regions carrying sacks of rice on their heads and all crossed the bridge simultaneously, whereupon it collapsed and they crashed a hundred feet or so into the gorge below. But Africans, by and large, are rather like Greeks. They take these unusual incidents in their stride and so not one of the Africans was hurt, and the thing that annoyed them most was that they lost their rice.

“But he can’t come across the bridge, can he?” said Martin, anxiously looking round at our faces, “Not unless he’s coming with carriers.”

McGrade leaned forward and patted Martin solemnly on the head. “I was only joking,” he said. “All the roads and bridges that he will have to cross to get here are in perfect condition. When you want a job well done you get an Irishman.”

“Now,” I said, “we’ve got a Catholic in our midst as well as a Pious and a Jesus.”

“You,” said McGrade, smiling at me affectionately and rumpling his mop of crimson hair, “are just a bloody heathen animal collector.”

“And you,” I said, “spend more time in the bloody confessional than mending the atrocious roads and bridges that we have got round here.”

At that moment Robin Girton arrived. He was a small, dark man with a hawk-like nose, large brown eyes that always had a dreamy expression in them and gave you the impression that he wasn’t really with you. But he was, in fact, like all the United Africa Company people I had come across, exceedingly astute. He never spoke unless it was absolutely necessary and generally sat there looking as though he was in a trance. Then, suddenly, in a soft voice that had a faint tinge of North Country in it, he would come out with a remark that was so pertinent and intelligent that it summed up so succinctly what everybody else had been arguing about for an hour and a half.

He arranged himself elegantly in a chair, accepted a glass of beer and then glanced round at our faces.

“Isn’t it exciting?” said Mary with great enthusiasm.

Robin sipped his beer and nodded his head gravely.

“I gather,” he said, “that we have been summoned here to do Martin’s work for him as usual.”

“Now, hold on,” said Mary indignantly.

“If you’ve come here in that sort of a mood, I’d rather you left,” said Martin.

“We’ll leave when your beer runs out,” said McGrade.

“What do you mean,” said Martin, “doing my work for me?”

“Well,” said Robin, “I do far more good for the community by selling them baked beans and yard upon yard of Manchester manufactured cloth carefully embossed with aeroplanes than you do running around hanging them right, left and centre for murdering their grandmothers who probably deserved to die in the first place.”

“I haven’t hanged a single person since I’ve been here,” said Martin.

“I’m surprised to learn it,” said Robin. “You administer the place so badly that I would have thought there’d be a hanging every week.”

To hear them you would think that they loathed each other but in actual fact they were the closest of friends. In such a tight little European community you had to learn to live with those people of your own colour and build up a rapport with them. This was not a colour bar. It was simply that at that time the numerous highly intelligent Africans who visited or lived in Mamfe would not have wished to mix with the white community because they would have felt, with their extraordinary sensitivity, that there would be embarrassment on both sides.

I felt it was high time to call the meeting to order so, seizing a beer bottle, I banged it on the table. A chorus of “Yes, sah,” “Coming, sah” came from the kitchen.

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve done since I arrived,” said Robin.

Pious appeared carrying a tray of liquid sustenance and when all our glasses had been replenished I said, “I now call this meeting to order.”

“Dear me,” said Robin mildly, “how dictatorial.”

“The point is,” I said, “that although we all know. Martin is a splendid sort of chap in his way, he is an extremely bad D.O. and, even worse, has no social graces whatsoever.”

“I say,” said Martin plaintively.

“I think that’s a very fair assessment,” said Robin.

“I think you’re being very cruel to Martin,” said Mary. “I think he’s a very good D.O.”

“Anyway,” I said hastily, “we won’t go into that. The reason for this council of war is so that while Martin is making sure that his district is in order we can take over the entertainment side of the thing so that there’s no hitch and the whole thing runs smoothly. Now, I have inspected the house and I’ve got Pious in control of Martin’s staff for a start.”

“There are times,” said McGrade, “when you have strange flourishes of genius which I can only attribute to the tiny drop of Irish blood you’ve got in your veins. I’ve long envied you that steward.”

“Well, envy away,” I said, “you’re not pinching him from me. He’s too valuable. It now comes to a question of food. And this is where I thought that Mary could help.”

Mary glowed like a rosebud.

“Oh, but of course,” she said, “I’ll do anything. What have you got in mind?”

“Martin,” I said, “I assume that he’s only here for one day so we only have three meals to consider. What time will he be arriving?”

“I should think probably about seven or eight o’clock,” said Martin.

“Right,” I said, “what do you suggest, Mary?”

“Well, the avocados are absolutely perfect at the moment,” said Mary. “And if you stuffed them with shrimps and did a sort of mayonnaise sauce which I’ve got the recipe for...”

“Mary, dear,” interrupted Robin, “I have no tinned shrimps in the store and if you think I’m going to spend the next two days wading round in the river with a shrimp net, being attacked by hippos, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Well, let’s just settle on avocados,” I said. “Does he like tea or coffee?”

“I don’t really know,” said Martin, “You see, the last time we didn’t get on very intimate terms and so I couldn’t find out his preferences.”

“Well then; provide both tea and coffee,” I said.

“And then, said Mary excitedly, something simple — scrambled eggs.”

Martin solemnly wrote this down on his pad.

“That should keep him going for a bit,” I said. “I suppose you have to show him round the place and so on?”

“Yes,” said Martin, “that’s all organised.”

We all leaned forward and peered into his face earnestly.

“Are you sure?” I enquired.

“Oh yes, yes,” said Martin, “honestly, I’ve got everything organised from that point of view. It’s just this bloody entertaining business.”

“Well, presumably he’ll want to go and look at some of the outlying areas?” I enquired.

“Oh yes,” said Martin, “he always likes to poke his nose in everywhere.”

“Well then, I suggest a picnic lunch. After all, if you have a picnic lunch you don’t expect the Ritz standards, do you?”

“As in this remote place,” said Robin, “we spend our lives living on picnic lunches and dinners and breakfasts, I don’t think it would come as a great surprise to him.”

“I’ll do the picnic lunch,” said Mary. “I’ll get a haunch of goat and you can have that cold. And I think there are two lettuces that I can give you. That poor dear boy forgot to water them for four days and so I’ve lost almost all of them but I think these two will be alright. They’re a little withered but at least they’re lettuce.”

Martin wrote this solemnly down on his pad. “And for afters?” he said, looking up anxiously.

“Why not sour-sour?” I suggested. This was an extraordinary fruit that looked like a large, deformed melon with knobs on, the contents of which were white and pulpy but, whipped up and served, had a delicious lemony sort of flavour which was very refreshing.

“Wonderful,” said Mary, “what a good idea.”

“Well, that’s taken care of breakfast and lunch,” I said. “Now we come to dinner and I think this is the most important thing. I’ve discovered that Martin has got a very elegant dining-room.”

“Martin’s got a dining-room?” said McGrade.

“Yes,” I said, “an extremely elegant one.”

“Well, why is it then,” said McGrade, “on the rare occasions when this parsimonious bastard asks us up here to chop, we’re forced to eat on the veranda like a set of gipsy Protestants?”

“Never mind the why’s and wherefore’s,” I said, “come and look at it.”

We all trooped in solemnly and examined the dining-room.

I was glad to see that in the interim — though how he had found time for it I didn’t know — Pious had had the table and chairs polished so that they glowed. Peering at the table top you could see your face reflected in it as though you were looking into a brown pool of water.

“Oh, but it’s delicious,” said Mary. “Martin, you never told us you had a room like this.”

“It’s certainly a marvellous table,” said McGrade, bashing his enormous fist down on it so that I feared that it would split in two.

“But you can have a simply splendid dinner here,” said Mary. “What an absolutely marvellous setting. I only wish we had some candelabras.”

I was just about to suggest that she did not complicate the issue when Robin unexpectedly said, “I have four.”

We all looked at him in complete astonishment.

“Well, they’re not silver or anything as posh as that,” he said, “but they are rather nice brass ones that I bought up in Kano. They need a bit of polishing, but I think they’d look pretty good.”

“Oh splendid,” said Mary, her eyes shining. “Dinner by candlelight. He couldn’t resist that.”

“If an honest Irish Catholic is allowed to get a word in edgeways with a lot of jabbering heathens,” said McGrade, “could I ask you all a question?”

We all looked at him expectantly.

“Where are we going to get the candles?”

“Dear, yes, I didn’t think of that,” said Mary. “You can’t very well have candelabras without candles.”

“I don’t know why it is that people always tend to underestimate my intelligence,” said Robin. “I bought the candelabras because I liked them and I intended to use them. The house I’m occupying at the moment doesn’t lend itself to such medieval splendour but I did, however, take the precaution of importing a considerable quantity of candles which have been steadily melting away in a cupboard since I was moved to Mamfe. If they have not congealed into a solid mass, we might be able to salvage one or two. However, leave that part of the thing to me.”

Knowing Robin as we did, we knew that the candles would not be a horrid sticky mess as he implied, for I was sure he would have checked on them four times a day.

“Well now, Mary,” I said, “will you do the flower arrangements?”

“Flower arrangements?” said Martin, startled.

“But of course,” I said, “a few bunches of begonias or something hung around the place always tart it up a bit.”

“Well, it’s rather difficult,” said Mary, “at the moment; There’s not really much in bloom. There’s hibiscus, of course...”

“Holy Mary,” said McGrade, “we’re surrounded by bloody hibiscus all the time. That’s not a flower arrangement. That’s just bringing the bloody jungle into the house.”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got a hunter who’s extremely good at climbing trees, and as well as bringing me some animals the other day he brought me a rather beautiful orchid which he’d got from the top of a tree. I’ll contact him and get him to go out into the forest and see what orchids and other things he can get. And then, Mary dear, you do the flower arrangements.”

“Oh, I love arranging flowers,” said Mary, “and if they are orchids it will be absolutely marvellous.”

Martin scribbled frantically on his pad.

“Now,” I said to him, “what have we got organised so far?”

“Well,” he said, “we’ve checked on the beds and furniture, we’ve got the staff under control, we’ve organised the breakfast. Mary is organising the picnic lunch and the flower arrangements and that’s really as far as we’ve got.”

“Drinks,” I said.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Robin. “Being in charge of the only emporium that supplies you with the stuff I know that Martin is a complete dipsomaniac and I could tell you almost down to the last bottle how much he’s got here.”

He glanced down into his empty glass pensively.

“Parsimoniousness is a thing that I could never suffer gladly,” he added.

“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up,” said Martin. “If you want another drink, call Amos.”

“Hush, children,” I said, “let’s go back onto the veranda and, raising our voices above the mating cries of the hippos, let us discuss the most important thing.”

We trooped back onto the veranda, refilled our glasses and sat for a brief moment listening to the lovely sounds of the African forest at night. Fireflies as green as emeralds were flashing past us, cicadas and crickets were playing complicated Bach melodies, and occasionally there would be a belch, a grunt or a roar from the hippos at the bottom of the gorge.

“If I’ve understood your devious, heathen, Protestant mind correctly,” said McGrade, draining his glass and putting it on the table in the obvious expectation that somebody would refill it for him, “I take it that what you consider to be the most important thing is the dinner in the evening.”

“Yes,” said Martin and I simultaneously.

In an outpost as remote as Mamfe when anybody as exalted as the D.C. came, it was automatic that all the white residents were invited to dinner.

“This is where I thought Mary would come into her own,” I said.

“Oh yes,” said Mary, “now here I can be of some help. Do you think four or five courses?”

“Holy Mary,” said McGrade, “with that indolent Protestant in charge of the stores, how the hell do you think we are going to get enough for five courses?”

“Leaving aside the rather offensive Catholic attack upon me,” said Robin, “I must admit that as the river is at its lowest ebb and the boat hasn’t managed to get through, I am rather short of supplies. However, if McGrade is going to come to this dinner, I suggest we simply give him a plate of boiled sweet potatoes, which is, I believe, the diet on which most Irish Catholics are reared.”

“Are you suggesting, then, that I am obese?” said McGrade.

“No, just obscene,” said Robin.

I banged my bottle on the table. “I call the convention to order,” I said. “We do not at this juncture want to discuss the physical attributes or failings of anyone. We are discussing a menu.”

“Well,” said Mary, “I think we ought to start with an entry.”

“In France,” said Robin, “they generally describe it as an entrée, which can be taken both ways, if you see what I mean.”

“No, no,” said Mary, “what I mean is that we ought to start off with something succulent to... to titillate the palate.”

“Dear God,” said McGrade, “I’ve been here now three years and I haven’t had anything titillated, least of all my palate.”

“But if you’re going to have candelabras and things,” said Mary, “you’ve got to have the food to go with it.”

“Love of my life,” said McGrade, “I agree with you entirely. But as there isn’t the food here, I don’t see really how you can go about producing five courses when that inefficient bastard from the United Africa Company has got his boat grounded and has probably only got a couple of tins of baked beans.”

I could see that the situation was getting out of hand so I banged again with my bottle. There was another chorus of “Yes, sah” from the kitchen and more beer was produced.

“Let’s settle on three courses,” I said, “and let’s make them as simple as possible.”

“Well, the first one,” said Mary excitedly, “could be a soufflé.”

“Jesus can’t do soufflés,” said Martin.”

“Who?” said Mary, astonished.

“Jesus, my cook,” Martin explained.

“I never knew that your cook was called Jesus,” said McGrade. “Why didn’t you let the world know he’d risen again?”

“Well, he’s risen in the most extraordinary shape,” said Robin, “as a nine-foot-six Hausa with heavily indented tribal marks on his cheeks, looking as though he’s ready for the grave, and cooking appallingly.”

“That’s what I meant,” said Martin, “so we can’t have soufflés.”

“Oh,” said Mary, disappointed, “I’d be willing to do them but I don’t suppose I ought to be in the kitchen when the D.C.’s here.”

“Certainly not,” said Martin firmly.

“What about a spot of venison?” said Robin, looking at me interrogatively.

“Although I wish to help Martin,” I said, “I have no intention of killing off any of my baby duiker in order to give the D.C. venison.”

“How about poached eggs on toast?” suggested McGrade, who was now on his fifth bottle of beer and not really concentrating on the important matter at hand.

“I don’t think somehow that that’s really posh enough,” said Mary. “You know, D.C.’s like to be cosseted.”

“I tell you what,” I said, “have you ever tried smoked porcupine?”

“No,” they all said in unison.

“Well, it’s delicious if it’s done properly. And I have a hunter who’s constantly bringing me porcupines which he hopes that I will buy from him. As they have been caught in those awful steel snares that they use, the porcupines are always too badly damaged. I buy them and put them out of their misery and feed the meat to my animals. However, occasionally I send a bunch of them down to an old boy I know called Joseph — this is beginning to resemble an ecclesiastical conference — and he smokes the porcupine over special wood and herbs which he refuses to reveal to me. The result is quite delicious.”

“You Protestant swine,” said McGrade, “you’ve been concealing this from us.”

“Only because there’s not enough porcupine to go around,” I said. “However, I had two brought in to-day that had been so badly savaged by the trap that I had to kill them. I was going to feed them to my animals but in view of this dire emergency I could send them down to Joseph and have them smoked and we could then have them on toast for what Mary so prettily calls the entry.”

“I’m becoming more and more convinced,” said McGrade, “that you’ve got real Irish blood in you. I think it’s a masterly idea.”

“But you can’t give the D.C. porcupine,” said Mary in horror.

“Mary dear,” I said, “you don’t tell him its porcupine. You tell him it’s venison. It’s so subtly smoked that anybody who’s got a palate like a D.C. could not possibly tell the difference.”

Martin now checked his notebook.

“Well,” he said, “what are we going to have for afters?”

“I do wish you wouldn’t keep using that vulgar phrase,” said Robin, “it takes me straight back to Worthing, where I had the misfortune of being brought up. What you mean is ‘what are we going to have for the next two courses?’ ”

“Well, that’s what he said,” said Mary. “I do wish you wouldn’t keep picking on him. We’re here to help him.”

Robin raised his glass in solemn salute to Mary.

“Saint Mary, I am devoted to you for many reasons, the principal one being that I want to plumb, before we part company, the depths of your ignorance.”

“Really, you men are so stupid,” said Mary crossly. “I thought we were supposed to be discussing what else we were going to eat.”

“Can we work on the assumption,” said McGrade, “that he will probably die after the smoked porcupine and so it’s not worth considering the other two courses?”

“No, no,” said Martin, taking him literally, “we must have something else to follow.”

“A wake,” said McGrade, “there’s nothing like a good Irish wake for getting everybody in a mood of frivolity.”

“Now, look. Shut up and listen to me,” I said. “We start with some smoked porcupine. I then suggest groundnut chop.”

Everybody groaned.

“But we always have groundnut chop,” said Robin, “it’s the one thing we all live on. It’s our staple diet.”

“No, no,” said Martin excitedly, “that’s the reason I bought Jesus’s hat.”

The others, this not having been explained to them, looked slightly puzzled.

“You mean he makes a really good groundnut chop?” I inquired.

“Yes,” said Martin, “best I’ve ever tasted anywhere.”

Goundnut chop could only be described as a sort of Irish stew made with whatever meat was available and covered in a heavy sauce of crushed peanuts, served with a whole mass of tiny side dishes which the Africans called “small, small tings”. It could be delicious or it could be a disaster.

“Well, if Jesus can do the groundnut chop,” I said, “Pious is awfully good at doing the small, small things. So that settles that as the main course.”

“What confection can we have as a sweet?” enquired Robin. We thought for a moment and then looked at each other. “Well, really,” said Mary despairingly, “I think we’ll have to fall back on the old stand-by.”

“I know,” said McGrade, “flute salad.”

Flute salad was an inevitable part of our diet — so called because of the African’s inability to pronounce “f” and “r” together without lisping.

“Yes, I suppose it will have to be,” said Robin dismally.

“There are several quite nice fruits at the moment,” said Mary, “I think we could make something rather special.”

“Excellent,” I said, “now the whole thing is settled.”

“Then drinks and coffee on the veranda and we’ll get the old bastard into bed as quickly as possible,” said McGrade.

“I do hope,” said Martin earnestly, “that you will not drink too much and become your unpleasant Irish self. That could undo the whole evening.”

“I shall be a model of propriety,” said McGrade. “You’ll be able to see my halo very clearly shining over my head as I tell him about all the bridges that have fallen down and all the roads that need to be repaired.”

“Don’t say anything like that,” said Martin, “after all, I will have just been showing him how beautifully the place is run.”

“One often wonders,” said Robin pensively, “how England ever kept her Empire going if the English carried on in the imbecile way that we have been carrying on to-night. Anyway, I’m going back to chop and to attend to my candelabras.”

He got to his feet and wandered off, then suddenly rematerialised.

“By the way,” he said, “I haven’t got a white tie and tails. Does it really matter?”

“Oh no,” said Martin, “no, no, but if you come in a jacket and tie, after the first five minutes we all get so hot that we have to take them off. Just as long as you come in them, that’s the important thing.”

Oh, God, I thought. The only tie I possessed at that time was sitting in a suitcase some three hundred miles away. Still, that was a minor problem, which I dealt with the following morning.

When Pious brought me my sustaining early morning cup of tea and I had removed one squirrel, four mongooses and a baby chimpanzee from my bed — which they shared with me, from their point of view, out of love and affection but from my point of view simply because I didn’t want them to catch chills — I told Pious to go down to the market and buy me a tie.

“Yes, sah,” he said, and, having organised the rest of the staff about their duties, he strutted off into town to return some time later with a tie that was so psychedelic that I felt it would have a detrimental effect on the D.C.’s eyesight. However, Pious assured me that it was the quietest tie in the market and I tried to take his word for it.

Needless to say, the next couple of days were very trying on everybody’s nerves. McGrade, being very proud of his roads and bridges, had noticed to his horror that the drive up to Martin’s house had several large pot-holes in it and so he had borrowed all the convicts from the local jail to fill these in and regravel the whole drive so that the entrance began to look like a medium-sized but extremely elegant country house. I had gone down to see my old man, Joseph, and persuaded him to smoke the two porcupines for me, and I also contacted my hunter who promised that the day before the D.C.’s arrival he would go into the forest and get what flowers he could. Robin had ransacked the United Africa Company’s stores but was in despair at not being able to produce anything of real merit, for as the boat had been unable to go up-river he was running low on the sort of esoteric delicacies that we thought worthy of a D.C. However, his pride was immense when he announced to us that he had discovered — and God knows why they were there in the first place — three small tins of caviar which were left over from his predecessor.

“I don’t know what they’ll be like,” he said, looking at them glumly. “They must have been here at least three years. We’ll probably all die of ptomaine poisoning, but anyway it’s caviar.”

Mary, very cleverly, having discovered that Martin’s house did not contain a single vase for flower arrangements, had gone down to the market and bought five rather elegant calabashes. She had also worked out fifteen ways of trying to make soufflés with the aid of Jesus, all of which were totally impracticable and which we had to crush unmercifully underfoot.

As Pious was spending most of his time up at Martin’s house, I felt secure since I knew that he would do the job perfectly, even if it meant assaulting Jesus’ feelings.

The evening before the D.C.’s arrival we had another council of war to check on all our various activities, and everything appeared to be running like clockwork. The porcupines had been smoked and smelt delicious even though they were uncooked. My hunter friend had come back with an enormous array of forest orchids and plants which Mary was keeping in her lavatory as it was the coolest part of her house. As an experiment, we opened one of the tins of caviar and it proved to our surprise to be edible, and Robin had also unearthed a packet of small biscuits. This, together with peanuts, we felt, would be suitable for the drinks before dinner. Robin’s candelabras turned out to be extremely elegant pieces of brasswork, polished and gleaming, that would grace any dining-room. I coveted them myself. He also had sufficient candles, as McGrade sagely observed, to light up the whole of Vatican City.

We had all thrown ourselves into these tasks, partly because of our affection for Martin but also rather like children at Christmas time. I was probably the only one who had any excitement each day because I never knew what strange habit I might observe among my animals but, by and large, the others led dull, routine lives in a most unpleasant climate. So, although we all pretended that the arrival of the D.C. was a terrible bore and kept piling curses on his head, we all really rather enjoyed ourselves. That is, with the exception of Martin, who looked more and more shaky as the day approached.

When the fatal day actually arrived we were all quite casually standing under a sour-sour tree which commanded a convenient view of the entrance to Martin’s residence. We all talked nervously about animal behaviour, the rising cost of manufactured cloth, the difficulty of building a bridge, and Mary gave us a long lecture on the art of cookery. Nobody listened to anybody else for we were waiting with bated breath for the arrival of the D.C.

At last, to our immense relief, his large and elegant car arrived, swept up the drive and came to a halt in front of the house.

“By God, those pot-holes held,” said McGrade. “I was worried about them.”

We saw Martin come out and the D.C. emerged from his car. From a distance he looked like a small caterpillar emerging from a large black cocoon. Martin looked immaculate. Then he ushered the D.C. into the house and we all heaved sighs of relief.

“I’m sure he’ll like the avocados,” said Mary. “Do you know I went through forty-three of them to pick out the best.”

“And my pot-holes held,” said McGrade proudly. “Takes an Irishman to do a job like that.”

“You wait till he gets to the caviar,” said Robin, “that, as far as I’m concerned, will be the highpoint of the evening.”

“What about my smoked porcupine?” I said indignantly.

“And what about my flower arrangements?” said Mary. “One would think that you’d done everything, Robin.”

“Well, I have, virtually,” said Robin. “I have contributed my brain.”

Then we all went our separate ways to our late breakfasts.

We could do nothing further until the evening. The rest was in Martin’s hands and we knew that, being the person that he was, the D.C. would find very little wrong in the way Martin was handling the district.

At five o’clock Pious materialised at my elbow just as I had been bitten in the thumb by an indignant pouched rat whom I had been inspecting to see whether she was pregnant.

“Sah,” said Pious.

“Na what’ee?” I said, sucking the blood off my thumb.

“Barf ready, sah.”

“Why the hell are you passing me a bath at this time of the day?” I asked, having completely forgotten what an auspicious occasion it was.

Pious looked at me with surprise. “You got to be at D.O.’s for six o’clock, sah,” he said.

“Damn,” I said, “I’d forgotten all about it. Have you organised my clothes?”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious. “Small boy has ironed your trousers. Clean shirt, sah. Your jacket is ready and your tie.”

“God in Heaven,” I said, suddenly struck by a thought. “I don’t think I’ve brought any socks with me.”

“I buy you socks, sah, for market, sah,” said Pious. “I done clean your shoes.”

Reluctantly leaving investigations into the possible pregnancy of my pouched rat, I went and had my bath, which was rather like a canvas coffin into which they had poured lukewarm water. In spite of this and the hour of the day, I was dripping with sweat and bath water in equal quantities. I flopped into a chair in a vague endeavour to cool off and thought about the evening that stretched before me. The thought was so appalling that it made me shudder.

“Pious,” I shouted.

“Sah,” he said.

“Pass me a drink,” I said.

“Beer, sah?”

“No,” I said, “a very big whisky with water.”

I drank this sustaining liquid and began to feel in a merrier mood. I dressed with care, though because of the heat and the sweat the beautifully laundered pearl-white shirt that I put on became grey and damp almost immediately. The socks that Pious had purchased for me were apparently the hunting colours of one of the remoter Scottish clans and clashed abominably with my tie. I did not put on my jacket but slung it over my shoulder for I knew that in my short climb up to Martin’s house, if I wore the jacket, I would end up meeting the D.C. looking like a seal newly emerged from the ocean. Pious walked up with me.

“Are you sure everything’s all right?” I asked.

“Yes sah,” he said. “But the D.O.’s boys, sah, they not really good boys.”

“I know that,” I said. “That’s why I put you in charge.”

“Yes, sah. Please, sah, Jesus goes funny.”

Dear God, I thought, what can happen now? “What do you mean, he goes funny?”

“He’s a good man,” said Pious earnestly, “but he’s an old man and so when he go make dis sort of ting he go funny.”

“You mean he gets frightened?” I said.

“Yes, sah,” said Pious.

“So you think he might make a bad chop?”

“Yes, sah,” said Pious.

“Well, what are we going to do about that?” I asked.

“I done send our cook up, sah,” said Pious. “ ’E go help Jesus and then Jesus go be all right.”

“Good,” I said, “a very good idea.”

Pious beamed with pride. We walked on for a bit in silence.

“Please, sah.”

“What’ee?” I asked irritably.

“I send our small boy too, sah,” said Pious. “Dat small boy is good boy but Amos never teach um.”

“Excellent,” I said, “I’ll have you recommended for the New Year’s Honours List.”

“Tank you, sah,” said Pious, not understanding but judging from the way I spoke that these decisions which he had made and carried out on his own met with my full support.

When we got to Martin’s place Pious, who had done himself up in his best uniform — for which I had paid an exorbitant amount of money and added brass buttons too — and which he so seldom had an opportunity to display, dematerialised from my elbow and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

The front door was open and on one side of it stood my own small boy. His shorts and tunic had been laundered and ironed with such care that they looked like a Swiss ski slope before the beginning of a season.

“Iseeya, sah,” he said, beaming at me.

“Iseeya, Ben,” I said, “and make sure that you work hard tonight or I go kill you to-morrow.”

“Yes, sah,” he said smiling.

I found that, owing to my dilatoriness in taking a slow bath, a slow whisky and a slow and reluctant entry into clothes that were totally unsuitable for the climate, the others had arrived before me and were all sitting on the veranda.

“Ahhh,” said Martin, leaping to his feet and coming to greet me, “I thought perhaps you weren’t coming.”

“Dear boy,” I whispered, “I would not let you down in your hour of need.”

“Let me introduce you,” he said, pushing me into the crowd on the veranda. “Mr Featherstonehaugh, the District Commissioner.”

He was a smallish man whose face closely resembled a badly made pork pie. He had thinning grey hair and pale blue but penetrating eyes. He rose from his chair and shook hands with me, and his handshake was surprisingly strong because he looked at first glance to be rather vapid.

“Ah, Durrell,” he said, “delighted to meet ye.”

“I’m so sorry I’m late, sir,” I said.

“Not at all, not at all,” he said, “sit ye down. I’m sure Bugler here has the odd drink hidden away which he can give you, eh, Bugler?”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, sir,” said Martin. He clapped his hands and a chorus of “Yes, sah’s” came from the kitchen.

To my relief Pious appeared, with his gilt buttons glittering in the lamplight.

“Sah?” he said to me as though he had never met me before.

“Whisky and water,” I said, adopting the cold attitude that so many people used towards their servants. I felt that coming from Nigeria the D.C. would appreciate my falling into the right sort of British habits. I took a swift glance round at the circle of faces. Mary, round-eyed, was hanging on the D.C’s every word. If she had had a neon sign above her head saying “I hope for a promotion for my husband” it couldn’t have been more obvious. Robin gave me a swift glance, raised his eyebrows and then went into one of his dream-like trances. McGrade had a rather smug look on his face and beamed at me benevolently.

The long couch on the veranda was littered with coats and ties and there was a semi-cool breeze blowing up from the river.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, to the D.C., “do you mind if I adopt the local custom and take off my tie and jacket?”

“Of course, of course,” said the D.C. “all informal here. I was just explaining to Bugler here. Really a matter of routine. Just come through once or twice a year to keep an eye on you chaps. Make sure you’re not getting up to any mischief.”

With infinite relief I removed my rainbow-coloured tie and my jacket and flung them on the couch. Pious passed me my drink, for which I did not thank him. Generally it was not done to thank your servants for anything in West Africa. Nor did you call them by their Christian name. You simply clapped your hands and shouted “Boy”.

The conversation had come to a complete halt during this operation. It was quite obvious that the D.C. was holding the floor and that nobody else could speak until he did. I sipped my drink reflectively and wondered what on earth I could have in common with the D.C. and indeed whether I was going to survive the evening with my mental faculties intact.

“Chin, chin,” said the D.C. as I raised the glass to my lips.

“Your very good health, sir,” I said.

The D.C. settled himself more comfortably in his chair, adjusted his glass on the arm of it, glanced round to see that he had a rapt audience and then began.

“As I was saying, Durrell, just before your late arrival, I’m extremely pleased that Bugler here has got this place apparently in perfect order. As you know, we chaps have to potter out occasionally just to make sure that the various areas are kept in order.” Here he gave the most uncharming chuckle and drank deeply from his glass.

“Awfully good of you to say so, sir,” said Martin.

He then saw Mary turning imploring, anguished eyes upon him. “But, of course,” he added hastily, “I couldn’t have done it without the aid of a splendid A.D.O.”

“I think you’re being too modest, Bugler,” said the D.C. “After all, A.D.O.s can be a help or a hindrance.”

“Oh, but I assure you that Standish is absolutely marvellous,” said Martin, making one of his sweeping gestures and knocking the large bowl of roasted peanuts into the D.C.’s tap.

“Sorry, sah,” came a chorus from Pious, Amos and the two small boys, who were standing waiting in the shadows like hunting dogs. They converged upon the D.C. and while muttering “Sorry, sah,” “Sorry, sah’, they swept the greasy peanuts from his clean trousers back into the bowl and removed it to the kitchen.

“I’m terribly. terribly sorry, sir,” said Martin.

“Oh, it’s just an accident,” said the D.C., looking at the grease stains on his trousers, “could happen to anyone. But I must say you do seem to go in for this sort of thing, what? Where was that place I visited you?”

“Yes, and I’m awfully sorry about that,” said Martin, interrupting hurriedly, “but it was a complete misunderstanding you understand, sir. I assure you the lavatory here works perfectly.”

McGrade, Robin and Mary looked completely and utterly mystified by this conversation.

“Yes, well, as I was saying,” said the D.C., glancing down again at the oil stains on his pants, “I think that Bugler has done a very good job.”

He paused and drank.

“And of course,” he said, as an afterthought, leaning forward and bowing sanctimoniously to Mary, “aided by you and your husband, Bugler seems to have done awfully well. The roads and bridges seem to be in remarkably fine fettle.” He glanced at McGrade.

“Thank you, sir,” said McGrade with mock civility.

“And I understand,” continued the D.C., addressing Robin, “although of course your chaps don’t come under us chaps, that you managed to provide this excellent caviar. Remarkable to find such a thing in Mamfe.”

Robin gave a little bow. “I deeply appreciate your appreciation,” he said, “for as you well know, sir, caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon.”

“I think the whole thing is absolutely splendid,” said the D.C. “As a matter of fact, it is one of the best tours I’ve had so far, but don’t let it go any further, for it might hurt certain people’s feelings. Ha ha!”

We all laughed dutifully. I was watching the level of the gin in the D.C.’s glass because I had planned things with Pious, knowing that this sort of conversation could not go on interminably without driving us all mad. So at the precise moment that the D.C. drained the last drops from his glass, Pious appeared, all polished buttons, and said to Martin,

“Jesus say chop ready, sah.”

“Ah, chop,” said the D.C., slapping his stomach, “just what we all need, don’t you agree, little lady?” He gave Mary a rather arch glance.

“Oh, yes,” said Mary, flustered, “I think chop is awfully important, especially in this climate.”

“Actually,” said Robin, as we all got to our feet and walked towards the dining-room, “I have always been under the biological impression that chop was important in any climate.”

Fortunately, the D.C. didn’t hear this remark.

Martin seized me by the shoulder and whispered frenziedly in my ear,

“What about seating?”

“Put Mary at one end of the table and the D.C. at the other.”

“Oh, good,” he said. “And I’ve done something rather clever.”

“Oh, God,” I said, “what have you done now?”

“No, no,” he said, “it’s perfectly all right. But while you all were being so helpful I felt I had to contribute in some sort of way. I’ve got the punka to work and Amos’s son is out there to pull on the cord so at least we’ll have some fresh air in the room.”

“We’re obviously having a good effect on you, Martin,” I said. “By the time we’ve finished with you, you’ll be able to socialise like mad. Now go on ahead and make sure that everybody sits where they’re supposed to sit. As long as we get Mary at one end of the table and the D.C. at the other, you can spread the rest of us to look like a crowd.”

I must say the dining-room looked extremely impressive. The table and chairs glowed in the candlelight like freshly-husked chestnuts. Three candelabras ran down the centre of the table and the fourth was on the massive sideboard. Pious had done his job well. The cutlery and the china gleamed in the candlelight. If the D.C. wasn’t impressed by this, I thought, nothing would impress him.

We sat down and Pious, who had obviously got Amos and the D.O.’s small boy under control, passed drinks of our choice.

“By Jove,” said the D.C., glancing at the shining candelabras, polished table and the gently swinging punka, “you’re very well placed here, Bugler, aren’t you? Positive Government House, what?”

“No, no, sir,” said Martin hastily, obviously under the impression the D.C. thought he was spending too much money. “We don’t always eat like this. Normally we eat sort of bush fashion, if you know what I mean. But we felt this was a special occasion.”

“Quite right,” said the D.C. “I understand perfectly.”

Pious, with all the deference and decorum of a head waiter from Claridge’s, served small square chunks of porcupine on pieces of crisp toast.

“By Jove,” said the D.C., “what’s this?”

Martin, who by this time was in an acute state of nerves, was just about to say “porcupine” when Mary, in her calm, placid voice, said,

“Once you’ve eaten it we want you to guess. It’s a surprise.”

The porcupine, as I knew it would be, was excellent. The D.C. engulfed it with obvious enjoyment.

“Ha!” he said as he swallowed the last mouthful, “you can’t catch me — venison! Eh, what?”

The look of relief on Martin’s face almost gave the whole thing away but again Mary stepped into the breach.

“But how clever of you,” she said, “we thought you’d never recognise it since it’s been smoked and prepared in a special way.”

“Can’t catch me out on things like that,” said the D.C., preening himself. “Don’t forget I was an A.D.O. once and had to live in the bush and live rough. We used to feed off all sorts of things. These local antelopes are unmistakable, but I must admit this has been wonderfully smoked.”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “it’s a thing that we do have occasionally and Martin was clever enough to find a small man down the road who has a special recipe for smoking and does it extremely well. So on the very rare occasions when we manage to get the venison, Martin is kind enough to distribute some so we can all enjoy it.”

While this rather tricky conversation had been going on, the enormous platter of groundnut chop had been placed in front of Mary, and down the long shining table had appeared some twenty little plates containing the small small tings. It really looked most impressive.

“I’m sorry, sir, we couldn’t think of anything except groundnut chop,” said Martin, who had an awful tendency to apologise in advance, thus giving his adversary a chance to complain. “But normally my cook does it frightfully well.”

“I know one tends to eat too much of it,” said the D.C., “but, really, I think it’s a very good, sustaining food.”

Mary had served the groundnut chop with rice onto the plates, which were solemnly carried by Amos and Pious and distributed among us. Then came the sort of chess game that one had to play with the small small tings.

The D.C.’s plate was piled high. He added three or four chunks of pink paw-paw and looked at it with satisfaction.

“Splendid,” he said, “it looks absolutely splendid.”

Martin began to look a little less strained, for he knew that my cook was helping Jesus and that the groundnut chop would probably be excellent.

Mary, on her best behaviour, looked at the D.C., who gravely bowed his head, and she dipped her spoon and fork into the groundnut chop. The D.C. followed suit and then we all picked up our implements and attacked our plates. The punka, creaking slightly, waved to and fro and sent wafts of warm air upon us.

“Best groundnut chop I’ve ever had,” said the D.C., having just swallowed an enormous mouthful.

Martin beamed at me across the table.

“Martin’s a great one for organising,” said McGrade.

“Indeed he is. I agree with you entirely,” said Robin. “I fear that on this occasion it is I who have failed.”

“Failed?” said the D.C., “how d’ye mean, failed?”

“Well, we could have put on a much more splendiferous meal for you,” said Robin, “but unfortunately the river ran rather dry and the boat with the supplies couldn’t get up. So I’m afraid poor Martin’s doing the best he can in the circumstances.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “we’d hoped to put on a really good meal for you.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” said the D.C., waving his hands deprecatingly. “This is superb.”

Martin positively glowed and relaxed.

“Tell me,” said the D.C., “I understand you’re an animal collector, Durrell.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

“But surely you don’t find much around here?” he enquired.

During the course of our drinks on the veranda I had seen Pious swiftly and silently remove a praying mantis and a gecko from the D.C.’s chair.

“When I was an A.D.O.,” he said, “wandering about in the bush, never saw a damn’ thing.”

“Oh, there’s an amazing amount of stuff around here if you know where to look for it, sir,” I said. “Why, only the other day I caught quite a rare creature at the bottom of Martin’s garden. There’s plenty of life here if you look for it.”

“Extraordinary,” said the D.C., shovelling a great spoonful of groundnut chop into his mouth, “I wouldn’t have thought there was anything living so near to civilisation, as it were.”

At that moment came a noise like somebody breaking the backbone of a whale, and with a rustle like a million autumn leaves being caught by a hurricane, the palm leaf punka crashed straight onto the table, one end of it completely obliterating the D.C.

Fortunately, it put out the candles so that nothing caught fire, but it did, however contain in its many ballet-skirt-like sets of fronds an extremely interesting cross-section of the local fauna that lives in close proximity to civilisation.

The effect upon the party was considerable.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” screamed Mary, leaping to her feet, upsetting her gin and tonic and losing her normal pose of placidity.

“Why didn’t you let me check it, you stupid bastard!” roared McGrade.

“There are times when I really despair of you, Martin,” said Robin with some asperity.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry, sir,” said Martin to the invisible D.C. “I really don’t know how to apologise.”

He was trembling from head to foot at the catastrophe. The palm fronds rustled and the D.C.s’ head appeared. He emerged from the punka looking not unlike an albino African emerging from his hut. He opened his mouth to say something and then caught sight of a chocolate-coloured, very hairy spider the circumference of a saucer making its way along the punka towards him. Already the rich and happy little community that had been living in the fan undisturbed for years was starting to emerge. The D.C. pushed back his chair and leapt to his feet.

I knew this was a disaster of the worst sort from Martin’s point of view, but I have always found in life that one should seize every opportunity. It seemed as though the punka was going to provide me with some interesting specimens.

“I suggest you all go into the other room,” I said, noticing a new species of gecko emerging from the palm fronds. “I’ll fix things in here.”

The parts of the table that were still visible were rapidly becoming covered with indignant beetles and other specimens of lesser life who looked, even if they were not, extremely malevolent.

Mary pulled herself together and with great grace led the way out of the dining-room and onto the veranda and the others trooped after her.

The staff had been frozen solid because, as we had been sitting in our chairs, it would have been extremely difficult to remove the palm leaf fan and pretend that dinner was going on as normal. It was a situation they had not met with before and even Pious was incapable of coping with it.

“Pious,” I roared, startling him out of his horrified trance, “go bring bottles, boxes, anything for catch this beef.”

Beef is the all-important West African term meaning any animal that walks, flies or crawls. Pious, grabbing Amos and the two small boys by the scruff of the neck, disappeared.

By this time a number of other interesting inhabitants were appearing out of the punka to see why their community life had been disturbed. The first to emerge was a young and highly indignant green mamba, reputedly the most deadly snake in Africa. He was about two feet long, like a green and yellow plaited lariat, and you could tell from his attitude that the whole thing was very upsetting to his psyche. I tried to pin him down with a fork but he wriggled free and fell off the table onto the floor. It was only then that I realised that although all the others had fled to the veranda and left the disaster to me, the D.C. had stayed on. The green mamba, in that irritating way that snakes have, with the whole of the room to choose from, wriggled straight towards the D.C., who remained rooted to the spot, his face going a rather interesting shade of blue. I made another quick assault on the mamba and this time succeeded in pinning him down and picking him up by the back of the neck. By this time Pious had returned, having unearthed from the kitchen jars, boxes, bottles and other containers. I slipped the green mamba into a bottle and corked it up securely.

The D.C. was still regarding me with bulging eyes. I had to say something in an attempt to cover up the disaster and protect Martin. I smiled at the D.C. beguilingly.

“You see what I mean, sir?” I said airily, removing a large beetle from the groundnut chop where he was lying on his back waving his legs and uttering shrill mechanical whirrings. “The animals are all around you. It’s merely a question of finding out where they live.”

He stared at me for a moment.

“Yes. Yes, I can see that,” he said, adding, “I think I need a drink.”

“It was extremely clever of you to stand still, sir,” I said.

“Why?” asked the D.C. suspiciously.

“Well, most people in those circumstances would have panicked, sir, but you kept your head admirably. If it hadn’t been for you I doubt whether I’d have ever caught the mamba.”

The D.C. looked at me suspiciously again, but I was wearing my most innocent expression.

“Hah!” he said. “Well, let’s go and have a drink.”

“Well, I think there are one or two more creatures here for me to catch and I’d better get Martin to organise things a bit. I’ll join you in a minute, sir, if I may.”

“Certainly,” he said, “I’ll send Martin to you.”

Martin staggered into the dining-room looking like the sole survivor of the Titanic.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “I never thought...”

“Look,” I said firmly, “just don’t think. Do what I say.”

“It’s worse than the lavatory!”

“Nothing could be worse than the lavatory. Now, just take things calmly.”

While we were talking Pious and I were busy collecting further denizens of the fan, which consisted of numerous geckos, eight tree frogs, a hysterical dormouse with its nest and young, three bats, a couple of irascible scorpions and an incredible number of beetles.

“What are we going to do?” said Martin in despair, almost wringing his hands.

I turned to Pious and I could tell from his expression that he was as worried by this awful catastrophe as Martin was. I, unfortunately, was suffering from an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh loud and long but I didn’t dare to do so.

“Now,” I said to Pious, “you go go for Masa McGrade’s house and you find chop. Then you go to Masa Girton’s house and you find chop. Then you go to A.D.O.’s house and find chop, then you go for our place and find chop. I want chop in one hour, you hear.”

“I hear, sah,” said Pious and disappeared.

“God, I shall be sent back to Umchichi,” said Martin.

“That might well happen,” I said, “but judging by the D.C.’s reaction it will not.”

“But he couldn’t have been pleased,” said Martin.

“I don’t think anybody was, with the possible exception of me. I’ve got some nice specimens out of it.”

“But what are we going to do now?” said Martin, gazing at the wreckage of the table.

I sat him down in a chair.

“I sent the D.C. to call you because I said you could control the situation,” I explained. “Pious has gone to fetch the chop. What it’ll be, God only knows, but at least it will be something to eat. In the meantime, you must try and fill the D.C. up with as much gin as possible.”

“I’ve got plenty of gin,” said Martin earnestly.

“Well, there you are,” I said soothingly. “The problem’s almost solved.”

“But I don’t see how...” Martin said.

“Look, just don’t think about it. Leave it to me. The point is, you have to appear as though you are in control of the situation.”

“Oh. Yes, I see what you mean,” said Martin.

I called Amos and John from the kitchen.

“Clean up this table, polish it and put things for chop,” I said.

“Yes, sah,” they said in a chorus.

“Pious done go for chop. You tell Jesus and my cook they can make new chop.”

“Yes, sah.”

“But you go make the table look fine like before, you hear?”

“Please, sah,” said Amos.

“Whatee?” I asked.

“Masa done catch all de snakes from inside dere?” inquired Amos, pointing at the wreckage of the punka.

“Yes,” I said. “You no go fear. I done catch all the beef.”

“I don’t know how you organise things so well,” said Martin.

“Listen,” I said, “as far as the D.C. is concerned, you’ve organised all this. Now, when we join them you assume an almost military pose. You’ve got to give the D.C. the impression that while I was more concerned with my animals you had everything else under perfect control. And don’t apologise every five minutes! We’ll get him well ginned up and Pious will have the food under control so don’t worry about that. All you have to do is give the impression that although this is a disaster, it is a very minor one and you are quite sure that on thinking it over the D.C. will see the funny side of it.”

“The funny side of it?” said Martin faintly.

“Yes,” I said. “How long have you been in the Colonial Service?”

“Since I was twenty-one,” he said.

“Don’t you realise that people like that pompous ass dine out on stories like this? You’ve probably done yourself more good than harm.”

“Are you sure?” said Martin doubtfully.

“You think about it,” I said. “Now let’s go out onto the veranda.”

So we joined the D.C on the veranda and found that the others had been doing stalwart service. Mary had given the D.C. a long lecture on orchids and flower arrangements. McGrade had given him such a complicated discourse on bridge building and road maintenance that I don’t think even he could have understood. And Robin had come in at just the right moment to discuss literature and art, two subjects about which the D.C. knew nothing.

I dug Martin in the ribs and he straightened up.

“I’m terribly sorry about that, sir,” he said. “Most unfortunate. I’m afraid my boy didn’t check on the hooks in the ceiling. However, I have... er... organised everything and we should have chop in about an hour. Terribly sorry to keep you waiting.”

He subsided into a chair and mopped his face with his handkerchief.

The D.C. looked at him speculatively and drained his tenth gin.

“I don’t usually,” he said acidly, “in the course of my duties have fans dropped on my head.”

There was a short but ominous silence. It was obvious that Martin could think of nothing to say, so I stepped into the breach.

“I must say, sir, that I was damned glad to have you there,” I said.

I turned to the others.

“Of course, you all didn’t see it but there was a mamba in that fan. If it hadn’t been for the D.C., I doubt whether I would have got it.”

“A mamba!” squeaked Mary.

“Yes,” I said, “and he was in a very nasty mood, I can assure you. But fortunately the D.C. kept his head and so we managed to catch it.”

“Well,” said the D.C., “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I helped very much.”

“Oh that’s modesty, sir,” I said. “Most people, as I told you, would have panicked. After all, a mamba is supposed to be the most deadly snake in Africa.”

“A mamba!” said Mary. “Fancy that! Think of it, coiled there over our heads waiting to attack! I do think you were both awfully brave.”

“By Jove, yes,” said Robin smoothly. “I’m afraid I would have run like a hare.”

“So would I,” said McGrade, who was built like an all-in wrestler and not afraid of anything.

“Well,” said the D.C. deprecatingly, having found himself forced into the position of hero, “you get used to this sort of situation, you know, especially when you’re trekking around in the bush.”

He embarked on a long and slightly incoherent story about a leopard he had nearly shot once and we all sighed with relief when Pious emerged out of the gloom and informed us that our second dinner was ready.

Cold baked beans and tinned salmon were not what one would call a gastronomic delight, but they served their purpose and by the end of dinner, full of gin, the D.C. was telling us some most improbable snake stories.

Fortunately, the flute salad had not been within range of the catastrophe and so this had been salvaged and after we had eaten it we all agreed that Mary, who had put her heart and soul into it, had done us proud and that it was the flute salad to end all flute salads.

When we finally left I thanked the D.C. once more for his courage in helping me catch the mamba.

“Nothing, my dear fellow,” he said, waving his hand airily. “Nothing, I assure you. Glad to have been of assistance.”

The following day, Martin, in spite of all our efforts, was inconsolable. The D.C., he said, had been rather frosty when he had left and he was convinced that his next posting would be back to the hellhole of Umchichi. There was nothing we could do but write polite notes to the D.C. thanking him for the disastrous dinner party. I did manage to insert in mine additional thanks for the considerable help that his D.O. had given me. I said that in my experience in West Africa Martin was one of the best and most efficient D.O.s I had come across.

Shortly after that I had to move my animals down-country to catch the ship back to England and the whole incident faded from my mind.

Then, some six months later, I got a brief note from Martin, In it he said,

“You were quite right, old boy, about this dining out on stories stuff. The D.C. is now telling everybody how he caught a green mamba for you on the dining-room table while you were apparently so petrified with fright that you couldn’t do anything sensible. I’ve got a promotion and go to Enugu next month. I can’t thank you all enough for making the dinner party such a success.”