Assegai

Afew weeks later Leon was spending almost every waking hour lying under Percy’s truck, his arms coated to the elbows with black grease. He had seriously underestimated the enormity of the task, and the amount of damage Percy had wrought with his previous efforts at repair. There were few spare parts available in Nairobi and Leon was forced to consider cannibalizing the vehicle he and Bobby owned. Bobby stoutly resisted the idea, but in the end he agreed to sell his share of the vehicle to Leon for the sum of fifteen guineas, to be paid in instalments of a guinea a month. Leon immediately removed a front wheel, the carburettor and other parts, and carried them out to Tandala Camp.

He had been working on the engine for ten days when he woke one morning to find Sergeant Manyoro squatting outside his tent. He was not dressed in his khaki uniform and fez but in an ochre-red shuka, and carried a lion spear. ‘I have come,’ he announced.

‘I see you have.’ Leon had difficulty in hiding his delight. ‘But why aren’t you in barracks? They’ll shoot you for desertion.’

‘I have paper.’ Manyoro brought out a crumpled envelope from under his shuka. Leon opened it and read the document quickly. Manyoro had at last been honourably discharged from the KAR on medical grounds. Although the leg wound had healed some time ago he had been left with a limp that rendered him unfit for military duty.

‘Why have you come to me?’ Leon asked. ‘Why did you not return to your manyatta?’

‘I am your man,’ he said simply.

‘I cannot pay you.’

‘I did not ask you to,’ Manyoro replied. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘First, we are going to mend this enchini.’ For a moment they contemplated the sorry spectacle. Manyoro had assisted with the restoration of the first vehicle so he knew what lay in store. ‘Then we are going to kill an elephant,’ Leon added.

‘The killing will be easier than the mending,’ was Manyoro’s opinion.

Almost three weeks later Leon sat behind the steering-wheel while, with an air of resignation, Manyoro took up his position in front of the truck and stood to attention. He had lost all faith in the eventual success of the manoeuvres he had performed repeatedly over the last three days. On the first day Percy Phillips and the entire camp staff, including the cook and the ancient skinners, had formed an attentive audience. Gradually they had lost interest and drifted away, one by one, until only the skinners were left, squatting on their haunches and following every move with rapt attention.

‘Retard the spark!’ Leon began the incantations to the gods of the internal combustion engine.

The two old skinners chanted after him, ‘Letaad de paak.’ They were word perfect.

Leon moved the spark control lever on the left-hand side of the steering-wheel to the upright position. ‘Throttle open.’

This one always tested the skinners’ powers of enunciation to the limit. ‘Frot le pen,’ was as close as they could get.

‘Handbrake on!’ Leon pulled it on.

‘Mixture rich!’ He rotated the control knob until the indicator pointed straight ahead.

‘Choke.’ He jumped out, ran to the front of the vehicle and pulled on the choke ring, then returned to the driver’s seat.

‘Manyoro, prime the carb!’ Manyoro stooped and swung the crank handle twice. ‘That’s enough!’ Leon warned him. ‘Choke off!’ He jumped out again, raced forward, pushed in the choke ring, then ran back to his seat.

‘Two more turns!’ Again Manyoro stooped and cranked the handle.

‘Carb primed! Power on!’ Leon turned the selector on the dashboard to ‘battery’ and looked to the heavens. ‘Manyoro, hit her again!’ Manyoro spat on his right palm, gripped the crank handle and swung it.

There was an explosion like a cannon shot and a spurt of blue smoke flew from the exhaust pipe. The crank handle kicked back viciously and knocked Manyoro off his feet. The two skinners were taken aback. They had not been expecting anything nearly as spectacular. They howled with fright and scuttled for the bushes beyond the camp. There was a shouted oath from Percy’s thatched bungalow on the first slope of the hill at the perimeter of the camp and he stumbled out on to the stoep in his pyjama bottoms, beard in disarray, eyes unfocused with sleep. He stared in momentary confusion at Leon, who was beaming with triumph behind the steering-wheel. The engine rumbled, shook and backfired, then settled down into a loud, clattering beat.

Percy laughed. ‘Let me get my trousers on, then you can drive me to the club. I’m going to buy you as much beer as you can drink. Then you can go out and find that elephant. I don’t want you back in this camp until you have him.’