Assegai

The grave was ready, waiting to receive its bounty. Leon nodded at Manyoro, who gave a quiet order to his men. Two jumped down into the pit and the others passed the wrapped bundles down to them. They laid the two larger awkwardly shaped forms side by side on the floor of the grave with the tiny one wedged between them, a pathetic little group united for ever in death.

Leon removed his slouch hat and went down on one knee at the edge of the grave. Manyoro ordered the small detachment of men to fall in behind him with their rifles at the slope. Leon began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. The askari did not understand the words, but they knew their significance for they had heard them uttered over many other graves.

‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, amen!’ Leon ended and began to rise, but before he stood upright the oppressive silence of the hot African afternoon was shattered by a deafening hubbub of howls and screams. He dropped his hand to the butt of the Webley pistol holstered on his Sam Browne belt, and glanced around him swiftly.

Out of the dense foliage of the bananas swarmed a mass of sweat-shining bodies. They came from all sides, cavorting and prancing, brandishing their weapons. The sunlight sparkled on the blades of spear and panga. They drummed on their rawhide shields with their knobkerries, leaping high in the air as they raced towards the tiny group of soldiers.

‘On me!’ bellowed Leon. ‘Form up on me! Load! Load! Load!’ The askari reacted with trained precision, immediately forming a tight circle around him, rifles at the ready, bayonets pointing outwards. Appraising their situation swiftly, Leon saw that his party was completely surrounded except on the side nearest the boma’s main building. The Nandi formation must have split as it rounded it, leaving a narrow gap in their line.

‘Commence firing!’ Leon shouted, and the crash of the seven rifles was almost drowned in the uproar of shouting and drumming shields. He saw only one of the Nandi go down, a chieftain wearing kilts and headdress of Colobus monkey pelts. His head was snapped back by the heavy lead bullet, and bloody tissue erupted in a cloud from the back of his skull. Leon knew who had fired the shot: Manyoro was an expert marksman, and Leon had seen him single out his victim, then aim deliberately.

The charge faltered as the chief went down, but at a shriek of rage from a leopard-robed witch doctor in the rear, the attackers rallied and came on again. Leon realized that this witch doctor was probably the notorious leader of the insurrection, Arap Samoei himself. He fired two quick shots at him, but the distance was well over fifty paces and the short-barrelled Webley was a close-range weapon. Neither bullet had any effect.

‘On me!’ Leon shouted again. ‘Close order! Follow me!’ He led them at a run straight into the narrow gap in the Nandi line, making directly for the main building. The tiny band of khaki-clad figures was almost through before the Nandi surged forward again and headed them off. Both sides were instantly embroiled in a hand-to-hand mêlée.

‘Take the bayonet to them!’ Leon roared, and fired the Webley into the grimacing face ahead of him. When the man dropped another appeared immediately behind him. Manyoro plunged his long silver bayonet full length into his chest and jumped over the body, plucking out the blade as he went. Leon followed closely and between them they killed three more with blade and bullet before they broke out of the ruck and reached the veranda steps. By now they were the only members of the detachment still on their feet. All the others had been speared.

Leon took the veranda steps three at a time and charged through the open door into the main room. Manyoro slammed the door behind them. Each ran to a window and blazed away at the Nandi as they came after them. Their fire was so witheringly accurate that within seconds the steps were cluttered with bodies. The rest drew back in dismay, then turned tail and scattered into the plantation.

Leon stood at the window reloading his pistol as he watched them go. ‘How much ammunition do you have, Sergeant?’ he called to Manyoro, at the other window.

The sleeve of Manyoro’s tunic had been slashed by a Nandi panga, but there was little bleeding and Manyoro ignored the wound. He had the breech bolt of his rifle open and was loading bullets into the magazine. ‘These are my last two clips, Bwana,’ he answered, ‘but there are many more lying out there.’ He gestured through the window at the bandoliers of the fallen askari lying on the parade-ground, surrounded by the half-naked Nandi they had taken down with them.

‘We will go out and pick them up before the Nandi can regroup,’ Leon told him.

Manyoro slammed the breech bolt of the rifle closed and propped the weapon against the windowsill.

Leon slipped his pistol back into its holster and went to join him at the doorway. They stood side by side and gathered themselves for the effort. Manyoro was watching his face and Leon grinned at him. It was good to have the tall Masai at his side. They had been together ever since Leon had come out from England to join the regiment. That was little more than a year ago, but the rapport they had established was strong. ‘Are you ready, Sergeant?’ he asked.

‘I am, Bwana.’

‘Up the Rifles!’ Leon gave the regimental war-cry and threw open the door. They burst through it together. The steps were slippery with blood and cluttered with corpses so Leon hurdled the low retaining wall and landed on his feet running. He raced to the nearest dead askari and dropped to his knees. Quickly he unbuckled his webbing and slung the heavy bandoliers of ammunition over his shoulder. Then he jumped up and ran to the next man. Before he reached him a loud, angry hum rose from the edge of the banana plantation. Leon ignored it and dropped down beside the corpse. He did not look up again until he had another set of webbing slung over his shoulder. Then he leaped up as the Nandi swarmed back on to the parade-ground.

‘Get back, and be quick about it!’ he yelled at Manyoro, who was also draped with ammunition bandoliers. Leon paused just long enough to snatch up a dead askari’s rifle before he raced for the veranda wall. There he paused to glance back over his shoulder. Manyoro was a few yards behind him, while the leading Nandi warriors were fifty paces away and coming on swiftly.

‘Cutting it a little fine,’ Leon grunted. Then he saw one of the pursuers unsling the heavy bow from his shoulder. Leon recognized it as the weapon they used to hunt elephant. He felt a prickle of alarm at the back of his neck. The Nandi were expert archers. ‘Run, damn it, run!’ he shouted at Manyoro, as he saw the Nandi nock a long arrow, lift the bow and draw the fletching to his lips. Then he released the arrow, which shot upwards and fell in a silent arc. ‘Look out!’ Leon screamed, but the warning was futile, the arrow too swift. Helplessly he watched it plummet towards Manyoro’s unprotected back.

‘God!’ said Leon softly. ‘Please, God!’ For a moment he thought the arrow would fall short, for it was dropping steeply, but then he realized it would find its mark. He took a step back towards Manyoro, then stopped to watch helplessly. The strike of the arrow was hidden from him by Manyoro’s body but he heard the meaty whunk of the iron head piercing flesh and Manyoro spun around. The head of the arrow was buried deeply in the back of his upper thigh. He tried to take another pace but the wounded leg anchored him. Leon pulled the bandoliers from around his own neck and hurled them and the rifle he was carrying over the retaining wall and through the open door. Then he started back. Manyoro was hopping towards him on his unwounded leg, the other dangling, the shaft of the arrow flapping. Another arrow came towards them and Leon flinched as it hummed a hand’s breadth past his ear, then clashed against the veranda wall.

He reached Manyoro and wrapped his right arm around his sergeant’s torso beneath the armpit. He lifted him bodily and ran with him to the wall. Leon was surprised that although he was so tall the Masai was light. Leon was heavier by twenty pounds of solid muscle. At that moment every ounce of his powerful frame was charged with the strength of fear and desperation. He reached the wall and swung Manyoro over it, letting him tumble in a heap on the far side. Then he cleared the wall in a single bound. More arrows hummed and clattered around them but Leon ignored them, swept Manyoro into his arms, as though he was a child, and ran through the open door as the first of the pursuing Nandi reached the wall behind them.

He dropped Manyoro on the floor and picked up the rifle he had retrieved from the dead askari. As he turned back to the open doorway he levered a fresh cartridge into the breech and shot dead a Nandi as he was clambering over the wall. Swiftly he worked the bolt and fired again. When the magazine was empty he put down the rifle and slammed the door. It was made from heavy mahogany planks and the frame was deeply embedded in the thick walls. It shook as, on the other side, the Nandi hurled themselves against it. Leon drew his pistol and fired two shots through the panels. There was a yelp of pain from the far side, then silence. Leon waited for them to come again. He could hear whispering, and the scuffle of feet. Suddenly a painted face appeared in one of the side windows. Leon aimed at it but a shot rang out from behind him before he could press the trigger. The head vanished.

Leon turned and saw that Manyoro had dragged himself across the floor to the rifle he had left propped beside the other window. Using the sill to steady himself he had pulled himself on to his good leg. He fired again through the window and Leon heard the solid thud of a bullet striking flesh, and then the sound of another body falling on the veranda. ‘Morani! Warrior!’ he panted, and Manyoro grinned at the compliment.

‘Do not leave all the work to me, Bwana. Take the other window!’

Leon stuffed the pistol into his holster, snatched up the empty rifle and ran with it to the open window, cramming clips of cartridges into the magazine – two clips, ten rounds. The Lee-Enfield was a lovely weapon. It felt good in his hands.

He reached the window and threw out a sheet of rapid fire. Between them they swept the parade-ground with a fusillade that sent the Nandi scampering for the cover of the plantation. Manyoro sank slowly down the wall and leaned against it, legs thrust out before him, the wounded one cocked over the other so that the arrow shaft did not touch the floor.

With one last glance across the parade-ground to confirm that none of the enemy was sneaking back, Leon left his window and went to his sergeant. He squatted in front of him and tentatively grasped the arrow shaft. Manyoro winced. Leon exerted a little more pressure, but the barbed iron head was immovable. Though Manyoro made no sound the sweat poured down his face and dripped on to the front of his tunic.

‘I can’t pull it out so I’m going to break off the shaft and strap it,’ Leon said.

Manyoro looked at him without expression for a long moment, then smiled, his teeth showing large, even and white. His earlobes had been pierced in childhood, the holes stretched to hold ivory discs, which gave his face a mischievous, puckish aspect.

‘Up the Rifles!’ Manyoro said, and his lisping imitation of Leon’s favourite expression was so startling in the circumstances that Leon guffawed and, at the same instant, snapped off the reed shaft of the arrow close to where it protruded from the oozing wound. Manyoro closed his eyes, but uttered no sound.

Leon found a field dressing in the webbing pouch he had taken from the askari, and bandaged the stump of the arrow shaft to stop it moving. Then he rocked back on his heels and studied his handiwork. He unhooked the water-bottle from his own webbing, unscrewed the stopper and took a long swallow, then handed it to Manyoro. The Masai hesitated delicately: an askari did not drink from an officer’s bottle. Frowning, Leon thrust it into his hands. ‘Drink, damn you,’ he said. ‘That’s an order!’

Manyoro tilted back his head and held the bottle high. He poured the water directly into his mouth without touching the neck with his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed three times. Then he screwed on the stopper tightly and handed it back to Leon. ‘Sweet as honey,’ he said.

‘We will move out as soon as it’s dark,’ Leon said.

Manyoro considered this statement for a moment. ‘Which way will you go?’

‘We will go the way we came.’ Leon emphasized the plural pronoun. ‘We must get back to the railway line.’

Manyoro chuckled.

‘What makes you laugh, Morani?’ Leon demanded.

‘It is almost two days’ march to the railway line,’ Manyoro reminded him. He shook his head in amusement and touched his bandaged leg significantly. ‘When you go, Bwana, you will go alone.’

‘Are you thinking of deserting, Manyoro? You know that’s a shooting offence—’ He broke off as movement beyond the window caught his eye. He snatched up the rifle and fired three quick shots out across the parade-ground. A bullet must have thumped into living flesh because a cry of pain and anger followed. ‘Baboons and sons of baboons,’ Leon growled. In Kiswahili the insult had a satisfying ring. He laid the rifle across his lap to reload it. Without looking up he said, ‘I will carry you.’

Manyoro gave his puckish smile and asked politely, ‘For two days, Bwana, with half the Nandi tribe chasing after us, you will carry me? Is that what I heard you say?’

‘Perhaps the wise and witty sergeant has a better plan,’ Leon challenged him.

‘Two days!’ Manyoro marvelled. ‘I should call you “Horse”.’

They were silent for a while, and then Leon said, ‘Speak, O wise one. Give me counsel.’

Manyoro paused, then said, ‘This is not the land of the Nandi. These are the grazing lands of my people. These treacherous curs trespass on the lands of the Masai.’

Leon nodded. His field map showed no such boundaries: his orders had not made such divisions clear. His superiors were probably ignorant of the nuances of tribal territorial demarcations, but Leon had been with Manyoro on long foot patrols through these lands before this most recent outbreak of rebellion. ‘This I know, for you have explained it to me. Now tell me your better plan, Manyoro.’

‘If you go towards the railway—’

Leon interrupted: ‘You mean if we go that way.’

Manyoro inclined his head slightly in acquiescence. ‘If we go towards the railway we will be moving back into Nandi ground. They will grow bold and harry us, like a pack of hyenas. However, if we move down the valley . . .’ Manyoro indicated south with his chin ‘. . . we will be moving into Masai territory. Each step they take in pursuit will fill the bowels of the Nandi with fear. They will not follow us far.’

Leon thought about this, then shook his head dubiously. ‘There is nothing to the south but wilderness and I must get you to a doctor before the leg festers and has to be cut off.’

‘Less than a day’s easy march to the south lies the manyatta of my mother,’ Manyoro told him.

Leon blinked with surprise. Somehow he had never thought of Manyoro as having a parent. Then he collected himself. ‘You don’t hear me. You need a doctor, somebody who can get that arrow out of your leg before it kills you.’

‘My mother is the most famous doctor in all the land. Her fame as the paramount witch doctor is known from the ocean to the great lakes. She has saved a hundred of our morani who have been struck down by spear and arrow or savaged by lions. She has medicines that are not even dreamed of by your white doctors in Nairobi.’ Manyoro sank back against the wall. By now his skin bore a greyish sheen and the smell of his sweat was rancid. They stared at each other for a moment, then Leon nodded.

‘Very well. We will go south down the Rift. We will leave in the dark before the rise of the moon.’

But Manyoro sat up again and sniffed the sultry air, like a hunting dog picking up a distant scent. ‘No, Bwana. If we go, we must go at once. Can you not smell it?’

‘Smoke!’ Leon whispered. ‘The swine are going to flush us out with fire.’ He glanced out of the window again. The parade-ground was empty, but he knew they would not come again from that direction: there were no windows in the rear wall of the building. That was the way they would come. He studied the leaves of the nearest banana plants. A light breeze was ruffling them. ‘Wind from the east,’ he murmured. ‘That suits us.’ He looked at Manyoro. ‘We can carry little with us. Every extra ounce will make a difference. Leave the rifles and bandoliers. We will take a bayonet and one water-bottle each. That’s all.’ As he spoke, he reached for the pile of canvas webbing they had salvaged. He buckled three of the waist belts together to form a single loop, slipped it over his head and settled it on his right shoulder. It hung down just below his left hip. He held his water-bottle to his ear and shook it. ‘Less than half.’ He decanted the contents of the salvaged bottles into his own, then topped up Manyoro’s. ‘What we can’t carry we will drink here.’ Between them they drained what was left in the others.

‘Come on, Sergeant, get up.’ Leon put a hand under Manyoro’s armpit and hoisted him to his feet. The sergeant balanced on his good leg as he strapped his water-bottle and bayonet around his waist. At that moment something heavy thumped on the thatch above their heads.

‘Torches!’ Leon snapped. ‘They’ve crept up to the back of the building and are throwing firebrands on to the roof.’ There was another loud thump above them, and the smell of burning was stronger in the room.

‘Time to go,’ Leon muttered, as a tendril of dark smoke drifted across the window, then rolled with the breeze diagonally across the open parade-ground towards the trees. They heard the distant chanting and excited shouting of the Nandi as, for a moment, the curtain of smoke cleared, then poured down so densely that they could see no more than an arm’s length in front of them. The crackle of flames had risen to a dull roar that drowned even the voices of the Nandi, and the smoke was hot and suffocating. Leon ripped the tail off his shirt and handed it to Manyoro. ‘Cover your face!’ he ordered, and knotted his neckerchief over his own nose and mouth. Then he hoisted Manyoro over the window sill and jumped out after him.

Manyoro leaned on his shoulder and hopped beside him as they crossed quickly to the retaining wall. Leon used it to orientate himself as they moved to the corner of the veranda. They dropped over it and paused to get their bearings in the dense smoke. Sparks from the roof swirled around them and stung the exposed skin of their arms and legs. They went forward again as quickly as Manyoro could move on one leg, Leon keeping the light breeze behind them. They were both choking in the smoke, their eyes burning and streaming tears. They fought the urge to cough, smothering the sound with the cloths that covered their mouths. Then, suddenly, they were among the first trees of the plantation.

The smoke was still thick, and they groped their way forward, bayonets at the ready, expecting at any moment to run into the enemy. Leon was aware that Manyoro was flagging already. Since they had left the boma he had set a furious pace that Manyoro, on one leg, could not sustain. He was already leaning most of his weight on Leon’s shoulder.

‘We daren’t stop before we’re well clear,’ Leon whispered.

‘On one leg I will go as far and as fast as you will on two,’ Manyoro gasped.

‘Will Manyoro, the great braggart, wager a hundred shillings on that?’ But before the sergeant could respond Leon gripped his arm in silent warning. They stopped, peering ahead into the smoke and listening. They heard the sound again: someone coughed hoarsely not far ahead. Leon lifted Manyoro’s hand from his shoulder and mouthed, ‘Wait here.’

He went forward, crouching low with the bayonet in his right hand. He had never killed a man with a blade before, but in training the instructor had made them practise the motions. A human shape loomed directly in front of him. Leon leaped forward and used the hilt of the bayonet like a knuckle-duster, smashing it into the side of the man’s head with such force that he fell to his knees. He threw an armlock around the Nandi’s neck, choking any sound before it reached his lips. But the Nandi had coated his entire body with palm oil. He was as slippery as a fish and struggled violently. He almost managed to twist out of Leon’s grasp but Leon reached around the wriggling body with the hand that held the bayonet and drove the point up under the Nandi’s ribs, shocked by how easily the steel slipped in.

The Nandi redoubled his efforts and tried to scream, but Leon held the lock on his throat and the sounds he uttered were muffled. The dying man’s violent struggles worked the blade around in his chest cavity as Leon twisted and sawed it. Suddenly the Nandi convulsed and dark red blood spouted from his mouth. It splattered over Leon’s arm and droplets blew back into his face. The Nandi heaved once, then went slack in his grip.

Leon held him for a few seconds longer to make certain he was dead, then released the body, pushed it away and stumbled back to where he had left Manyoro. ‘Come on,’ he croaked, and they went forward again, Manyoro clinging to him, staggering and lurching.

Suddenly the ground gave way under them and they rolled down a steep mud bank into a shallow stream. There, the smoke was thinner. With a lift of relief Leon realized they had come in the right direction: they had reached the stream from the spring that ran to the south of the boma.

He knelt in the water and scooped handfuls into his face, washing his burning eyes and scrubbing the Nandi’s blood off his hands. Then he drank greedily, Manyoro too. Leon gargled and spat out the last mouthful, his throat rough and raw from the smoke.

He left Manyoro and scrambled to the top of the bank to peer into the smoke. He heard voices but they were faint with distance. He waited a few minutes to regain his strength and reassure himself that no Nandi were close on their tracks, then slid down the bank to where Manyoro crouched in the shallow water.

‘Let me look at your leg.’ He sat beside the sergeant and took it across his lap. The field dressing was soaked and muddy. He unwrapped it and saw at once that the violent activity of the escape had done damage. Manyoro’s thigh was massively swollen, the flesh around the wound torn and bruised where the shaft of the arrow had worked back and forth. Blood oozed out from around it. ‘What a pretty sight,’ he muttered, and felt gently behind the knee. Manyoro made no protest but his pupils dilated with pain as Leon touched something buried in his flesh.

Then Leon whistled softly. ‘What do we have here?’ In the lean muscle of Manyoro’s thigh, just above the knee, a foreign body lay under the skin. He explored it with a forefinger and Manyoro flinched.

‘It’s the point of the arrow,’ he exclaimed, in English, then switched back into Kiswahili. ‘It’s worked its way right through your leg from back to front.’ It was hard to imagine the agony Manyoro was enduring, and Leon felt inadequate in the presence of such suffering. He looked up at the sky. The dense smoke was dissipating on the evening breeze and through it he could make out the western tops of the escarpment, touched with the fiery rays of the setting sun.

‘I think we’ve given them the slip for now, and it will soon be dark,’ he said, without looking into Manyoro’s face. ‘You can rest until then. You’ll need your strength for the night ahead.’ Leon’s eyes were still burning with the effects of the smoke. He closed them and squeezed the lids tightly shut. But not many minutes passed before he opened them again. He had heard voices coming from the direction of the boma.

‘They are following our spoor!’ Manyoro murmured, and they shrank lower under the bank of the stream. In the banana plantation the Nandi called softly to each other, like trackers following blood, and Leon realized that his earlier optimism was groundless. The pursuers were following the prints of his boots: under their combined weight, they would have left a distinctive sign in the soft earth. There was nowhere for him and Manyoro to hide in the stream bed so Leon drew the bayonet from his belt and crawled up the bank until he lay just below the lip. If the searchers looked down into the stream and discovered them he would be close enough to spring out at them. Depending on how many there were he might be able to silence them before they raised a general alarm and brought the rest of the pack down on them. The voices drew closer until it seemed that they were on the very edge of the bank. Leon gathered himself, but at that moment there was a chorus of distant shouts from the direction of the boma. The men above exclaimed with excitement, and he heard them run back the way they had come.

He slid down the bank to Manyoro. ‘That was very nearly the last chukka of the game,’ he told him, as he rebandaged the leg.

‘What made them turn back?’

‘I think they found the body of the man I killed. But it won’t delay them long. They’ll be back.’

He heaved Manyoro upright, draped the other man’s right arm over his shoulder and, half carrying and half dragging him, got him up to the top of the far bank of the stream.

The halt in the stream bed had not improved Manyoro’s condition. Inactivity had stiffened the wound and the torn muscles around it. When Manyoro tried to put weight on it the limb buckled under him and he would have collapsed had Leon not caught him.

‘From here you may indeed call me Horse.’ He turned his back to Manyoro, then stooped and pulled him on to his back. Manyoro grunted with pain as his leg swung freely and bent at the knee, then controlled himself and uttered no further sound. Leon adjusted the webbing belts to form a sling seat for him, then straightened with Manyoro perched high on his back, legs sticking out, like a monkey on a pole. Leon took hold of them, as though they were the handles of a wheelbarrow, to prevent any unnecessary movement, then struck out for the foot of the escarpment. As they emerged from the irrigated plantation into the bush the smokescreen, which had concealed them thus far, blew away in pale grey streamers. However, by now the sun was low, balancing like a fireball on top of the escarpment, and the darkness was thickening around them.

‘Fifteen minutes,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘That’s all we need.’ By now he was into the bush along the foot of the escarpment wall. It was thick enough to afford them some cover, and there were folds and features in the terrain that were not obvious from afar. With the instincts and eyes of a hunter and a soldier, Leon picked them out and used them to screen their labouring progress. As darkness settled comfortingly over them and their immediate surroundings were swallowed in the gloom he felt a lift of optimism. It seemed they were clear of pursuit, but it was still too early to know for certain. He sank to the ground on his knees, then rolled gently on to his side to protect Manyoro from jolting. Neither spoke or moved for a while, then Leon sat up slowly and unbuckled the sling so that Manyoro could straighten his injured leg. He unscrewed the water-bottle’s stopper and handed it to Manyoro. When they had both drunk, he stretched out full length. Every muscle and sinew in his back and legs seemed to scream aloud, begging for rest. ‘This is just the start,’ he cautioned himself grimly. ‘By tomorrow morning we should really be enjoying ourselves.’

He closed his eyes, but opened them again as his calf muscle locked in an agonizing cramp. He sat up and massaged his leg vigorously.

Manyoro touched his arm. ‘I praise you, Bwana. You are a man of iron, but you are not stupid and it would be a great stupidity for both of us to die here. Leave the pistol with me and go on. I will stay here and kill any Nandi who tries to follow you.’

‘You whimpering bastard!’ Leon snarled. ‘What kind of woman are you? We haven’t even started and you’re ready to give up. Get on my back again before I spit on you where you lie.’ He knew his anger was excessive, but he was afraid and in pain.

This time it took longer to get Manyoro settled in the loop of the sling. For the first hundred paces or so Leon thought his legs would let him down entirely. Silently he turned his insult to Manyoro on himself. Who is the whimpering bastard now, Courtney? With all the force of his mind and will he drove back the pain and felt the strength gradually trickle back into his legs. One step at a time. He exhorted his legs to keep moving. Just one more. That’s it. Now one more. And another.

He knew that if he stopped to rest he would never start again, and went on until he saw the crescent moon appear above the high ground on the eastern side of the Rift Valley. He watched its splendid progress across the sky. It marked the passage of the hours for him as clearly as the tolling of a bell. On his back Manyoro was as quiescent as a dead man, but Leon knew he was alive for he could feel the fever heat of his body against his own sweat-drenched skin.

As the moon started down towards the tall black wall of the western escarpment on his right, it threw weird shadows under the trees. Leon’s mind began to play tricks on him. Once a black-maned lion reared up out of the grass directly in his path. He fumbled the Webley from its holster and aimed at the beast, but before he could take a fair sight over the short barrel the lion had become a termite mound. He laughed uncertainly. ‘Stupid beggar! Next you’ll be seeing elves and hobgoblins,’ he said aloud.

He plodded on with the pistol in his right hand, phantoms appearing and dissolving before him. With the moon hanging halfway down the sky, the last grains of his strength slipped away, like water through cupped fingers. He reeled and almost went down. It took a mighty effort to brace his legs and recover his balance. He stood with legs wide apart, head hanging. He was finished and knew it.

He felt Manyoro stir on his back, and then, incredibly, the Masai began to sing. At first Leon could not recognize the words, for Manyoro’s voice was a wispy breath, light as the dawn breeze in the savannah grass. Then his fatigue-dulled mind echoed the words of the Lion Song. Leon’s grasp of Maa, the language of the Masai, was rudimentary – Manyoro had taught him the little he knew. It was a difficult language, subtle and complicated, unlike any other. However, Manyoro had been patient and Leon had a gift for languages.

The Lion Song was taught to the young Masai morani at his circumcision class. The initiates accompanied it with a stiff-legged dance, bounding high into the air, as effortlessly as a flock of birds taking flight, their red toga-like shuka cloaks spreading like wings around them.

It was the song the Masai sang when they went out to plunder the cattle and women of lesser tribes. It was the song they sang when they went out to prove their valour by hunting the lion with nothing but the stabbing assegai in their hands. It was the song that gave them stomach for battle. It was the battle hymn of the Masai. Manyoro began the chorus again and this time Leon joined in, humming under his breath when he could not recall the words. Manyoro squeezed his shoulder and whispered in his ear, ‘Sing! You are one of us. You have the heart of the lion and the strength of a great black mane. You have the stomach and heart of a Masai. Sing!’

They staggered on towards the south. Leon’s legs kept moving, for the song’s chorus was mesmerizing. His mind veered wildly between reality and fantasy. On his back he felt Manyoro slump into coma. He stumbled on but now he was not alone. Beloved and well-remembered faces appeared out of the darkness. His father and four brothers were there, egging him onwards, but as he drew closer to them they receded and their voices faded. Each slow, heavy pace reverberated through his skull, and sometimes that was the only sound. At others he heard myriad voices shouting and ululating, the music of drums and violins. He tried to ignore the cacophony, for it was pushing him to the edge of sanity.

He shouted to drive away the phantoms: ‘Leave me alone. Let me pass!’ They sank away, and he went onwards until the rim of the rising sun broke clear of the escarpment. Abruptly his legs went from under him and he collapsed as though he had been shot in the head.

The heat of the sun on the back of his shirt goaded him awake, but when he tried to lift his head he dissolved into vertigo, and could not remember where he was or how he had got there. His sense of smell and his hearing were tricking him now: he thought he could detect the odour of domestic cattle and their hoofs plodding over the hard ground, their mournful lowing. Then he heard voices – children’s – calling shrilly to each other. When one laughed, the sound was too real to have been fantasy. He rolled away from Manyoro and, with a huge effort, raised himself on one elbow. He gazed around with bleary eyes, squinting in the glare of bright sunlight and dust.

He saw a large herd of multi-hued and humpbacked cattle with spreading horns. They were streaming past the spot where he and Manyoro lay. The children were real too: three naked boys, carrying only the sticks with which they were herding the cattle towards the waterhole. He saw that they were circumcised, so they were older than they appeared, probably between thirteen and fifteen. They were calling to each other in Maa, but he could not understand what they were saying. With another huge effort Leon forced his aching frame into a sitting position. The tallest boy saw that movement and stopped abruptly. He stared at Leon in consternation, clearly on the point of flight but controlling his fear as a Masai who was almost a morani was duty-bound to do.

‘Who are you?’ He brandished his stick in a threatening gesture but his voice quavered and broke.

Leon understood the simple words and the challenge. ‘I am not an enemy,’ he called back hoarsely. ‘I am a friend who needs your help.’

The other two boys heard the strange voice and stopped to stare at the apparition that seemed to rise from the ground ahead of them. The eldest and bravest child took a few paces towards Leon, then stopped to regard him gravely. He asked another question in Maa, but Leon did not understand. In reply he reached down and helped Manyoro to sit up beside him. ‘Brother!’ he said. ‘This man is your brother!’

The boy took a few quick paces towards them and peered at Manyoro. Then he turned to his companions and let fly a string of instructions accompanied by wide gestures that sent them racing across the savannah. The only word Leon had understood was ‘Manyoro!’

The younger boys were heading towards a cluster of huts half a mile away. They were thatched in the traditional Masai fashion and surrounded by a fence of thorn bushes. It was a Masai manyatta, a village. The outer stockade of poles was the kraal in which the precious cattle herds were penned at night. The elder child approached Leon now and squatted in front of him. He pointed at Manyoro and said, in awe and amazement, ‘Manyoro!’

‘Yes, Manyoro,’ Leon agreed, and his head spun giddily.

The child exclaimed with delight and made another excited speech. Leon recognized the word for ‘uncle’, but could not follow the rest. He closed his eyes and lay back with his arm over them to blot out the blazing sunlight. ‘Tired,’ he said. ‘Very tired.’

He slipped away, and woke again to find himself surrounded by a small crowd of villagers. They were Masai, there was no mistaking that. The men were tall. In their pierced earlobes they wore large ornamental discs or carved horn snuffboxes. They were naked under their long red cloaks, their genitals proudly and ostentatiously exposed. The women were tall for their sex. Their skulls were shaven smooth as eggshells and they wore layers of intricately beaded necklaces that hung over their naked breasts. Their minuscule beaded aprons barely covered their pudenda.

Leon struggled to sit up and they watched him with interest. The younger women giggled and nudged each other to see such a strange creature among them. It was probable that none had ever seen a white man before. To command their attention he raised his voice to a shout: ‘Manyoro!’ He pointed at his companion. ‘Mama? Manyoro mama?’ he demanded. They stared at him in astonishment.

Then one of the youngest and prettiest girls understood what he was trying to tell them. ‘Lusima!’ she cried, and pointed to the east, to the distant blue outline of the far wall of the escarpment. The others joined in shouting joyously, ‘Lusima Mama!’

It was clearly Manyoro’s mother’s name. Everybody was delighted with their grasp of the situation. Leon mimed lifting and carrying Manyoro, then pointed to the east. ‘Take Manyoro to Lusima.’ This brought a pause in the self-congratulation and they stared at each other in bewilderment.

Again the pretty girl divined his meaning. She stamped her foot and harangued the men. When they hesitated she attacked the ferocious and dreaded warriors with her bare hands, slapping and pummelling them, even pulling one’s elaborate plaited coiffure, until they went to do her bidding with shamefaced guffaws. Two ran back to the village and returned with a long, stout pole. To this they attached a hammock made from their leather cloaks knotted at the corners. This was a mushila, a litter. Within a short time they were settling Manyoro’s unconscious body on it. Four picked it up, and the entire party set off towards the east at a trot, leaving Leon lying on the dusty plain. The singing of the men and the ululations of the women faded.

Leon closed his eyes, trying to summon sufficient reserves of strength to get to his feet and follow them. When he opened them again he found he was not alone. The three naked herd-boys who had discovered him were standing in a row, regarding him solemnly. The eldest said something and made an imperious gesture. Obediently Leon rolled on to his knees, then lurched to his feet. The child came to his side, took his hand and tugged at it possessively. ‘Lusima,’ he said.

His friend came and took Leon’s other hand. He pulled at it and said, ‘Lusima.’

‘Very well. There seems to be no other option,’ Leon conceded. ‘Lusima it shall be.’ He tapped the eldest child on the chest with a finger. ‘Name? What is your name?’ he asked, in Maa. It was one of the phrases Manyoro had taught him.

‘Loikot!’ the boy answered proudly.

‘Loikot, we shall go to Lusima Mama. Show me the way.’

With Leon limping between them, they dragged him towards the far blue hills, following Manyoro’s litter-bearers.