Assegai

When Leon met Max Rosenthal at Tandala Camp he proved to be a powerfully built Bavarian, with huge hands and feet and a bluff, jovial manner. Leon liked him on first sight.

‘Greetings.’ They shook hands. ‘We’ll be working together. I’m sure we’ll get to know each other well,’ Leon said.

Max let out a fruity chuckle that shook his belly. ‘Ah, so! You speak a little German. That’s very good.’

‘Not so very good,’ Leon corrected him, ‘but you will help me to improve it.’

Almost immediately Max proved invaluable, a gifted teacher, and a hard, efficient worker, who relieved Leon of much of the mundane work of camp organization and arranging catering supplies. He and Hennie du Rand made a good team of workhorses and freed Leon to learn the organizational and economic skills that the safari business demanded. Leon made it a rule to communicate with Max only in German and, in consequence, as the months passed, his grip on the language strengthened with surprising rapidity.

Lord Eastmont was only weeks away from arriving for his safari when Leon received a cable from Berlin to the effect that the Princess Isabella Madeleine Hoherberg von Preussen von und zu Hohenzollern had decided to come out to Africa on the next sailing of the German liner SS Admiral from Bremerhaven. Her royal duties were such that she could only afford six weeks in Africa before she must return to Germany. She demanded that all be ready for her on her arrival.

This peremptory communication threw Tandala into turmoil. Percy raged through the camp, hindering rather than helping the frantic efforts of Leon and his staff to change the elaborate arrangements already in place for Eastmont. They now had two major safaris to run simultaneously, which they had never attempted previously. In the end the only circumstance that saved the day was that the princess would stay just six weeks, while Lord Eastmont had arranged a four-month adventure. Leon was able to reassure Percy that on the day the princess sailed for Germany he would rush with his staff to assist Percy with the remainder of his expedition.

Accordingly, when the princess arrived in Kilindini lagoon on board the Admiral, Leon went out from the beach in a launch to welcome her. He waited on the deck for almost an hour before she deigned to leave her stateroom. When finally she ascended the companionway to the main deck she was escorted by the ship’s captain and four of his senior officers, all fawning on her obsequiously. The rest of her entourage, including her secretary and two plump, pretty handmaidens, trailed behind her.

The princess cut a striking figure as she stepped into the sunshine. Leon had seen photographs of her but he was still unprepared for her in the flesh. His first impression was of her towering height and her contrastingly lean body. She was almost as tall as him, but he could easily have encircled her waist with his hands. Her bust was boyish and her carriage imperious. Her eye was steely, and as penetrating as a rapier, and her features were hard and as sharp as a whipsaw. She wore a green loden ankle-length riding habit of superb cut. The toes of her boots, which showed under the skirts, glowed with the lustre of expensive leather. Surprisingly she carried a 9mm Luger pistol in a holster on her belt, and a wide-brimmed safari hat in her left hand. Her ash-blonde hair was braided into two thick ropes and looped on top of her head. Leon knew from Penrod that she was fifty-two, but she looked thirty.

‘Your Royal Highness, I am your servant.’

She did not bother to acknowledge his bow but continued to regard him as though he had just let off a particularly obnoxious fart. At last she spoke, her tone icy. ‘You are very young.’

‘Your Royal Highness, this is a regrettable circumstance for which I must apologize. In time I hope to correct it.’

The Princess did not smile. ‘I said you were young. I did not say you were too young.’ She held out her right hand.

When he took it in his he found it as hard and cold as her expression. He kissed the air an inch short of her bony white knuckles. The crêpe of tiny wrinkles across the back tittle-tattled her age.

‘The governor of the territory of British East Africa has placed his private railway coach at your disposal for the journey to Nairobi,’ Leon told her.

‘Ja! This is fitting and anticipated,’ she agreed.

‘His excellency also begs your presence as guest of honour at a special dinner at Government House to be arranged at any time convenient to you, Princess.’

‘I did not come to Africa to eat in the company of junior civil servants. I came here to kill animals. Many animals.’

Leon bowed again. ‘Immediately, ma’am. Does Your Royal Highness have any particular preference for the animals she wishes to kill?’

‘Lions!’ she answered. ‘And pigs.’

‘How about a few elephants and buffalo?’

‘No! Only big lions and pigs with long tusks.’