Assegai

Leon travelled the rough track to Arusha, the local administrative centre of the government of German East Africa. He went before the district Amtsrichter, and swore an affidavit as to the circumstances of Percy’s demise. The judge issued a death certificate.

Some days later when he reached Tandala Camp, Max and Hennie du Rand were anxiously awaiting his return to find out what fate was in store for them now that Percy was gone. Leon told them he would speak to them as soon as he knew what was the position of the company.

After he had drunk a pot of tea to wash the dust out of his throat, he shaved, bathed and dressed in clothes freshly ironed by Ishmael. Then he faced the fact that he was deliberately marking time, reluctant to go to Percy’s bungalow. Percy had been a private man and Leon would feel guilty of sacrilege if he ferreted around in his personal possessions. However, he steeled himself at last with the thought that this was what Percy had charged him to do.

He went up the hill to the little thatched bungalow that had been Percy’s home for the last forty years. Yet he was still reluctant to enter and sat for a while on the stoep, remembering some of the banter that the two of them had enjoyed while seated in the comfortable teak chairs with their elephant-skin cushions and the whisky-glass coasters carved into the armrests. At last he stood up again and went to the front door. It swung open to his touch. In all those years Percy had never bothered to lock it.

Leon went into the cool, dim interior. The walls of the front room were lined with bookcases, the shelves packed with hundreds of books. Percy’s library was a treasury of Africana. Instinctively Leon crossed to the central shelf and took down a copy of Monsoon Clouds Over Africa by Percy ‘Samawati’ Phillips. It was his autobiography. Leon had read it more than once. Now he flicked through the pages, enjoying some of the illustrations. Then he replaced it on the shelf and went into Percy’s bedroom. He had never been in this room before and looked around diffidently. A crucifix hung on one wall. Leo smiled. ‘Percy, you crafty old dog, I always thought you were an unrepentant atheist, but you were a secret Catholic all along.’

There was one other decoration on the monastically austere walls. An ancient, hand-coloured daguerreotype of a couple, sitting stiffly in what were obviously their best Sunday clothes, faced the bed. The woman held a small child of indeterminate sex on her lap. Despite his sideburns, the man was a dead ringer for Percy. The couple were unmistakably his parents, and Leon wondered if the child was Percy himself or one of his siblings.

He sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was as hard as concrete and the blankets were threadbare. He reached under the bed and dragged out a battered steel cabin trunk. As it came it encountered resistance. He went down on one knee to see what had snagged it.

‘My oath!’ he muttered. ‘I wondered what you’d done with that.’ It required considerably more effort to drag the heavy item into plain view. Then he was gazing at a great ivory tusk, the pair of the one he had pawned to Mr Goolam Vilabjhi Esquire. ‘I thought you’d sold it, Percy, but all along you had it squirrelled away.’

He resumed his seat on the edge of the bed and possessively placed both feet on the tusk, then threw back the lid of the trunk. The interior was neatly packed with all of Percy’s treasures and valuables, from his passport to his accounts and his cheque book, from small jewellery boxes of cufflinks and dress studs to old steamline tickets and faded photographs. There were also several neat wads of documents tied with ribbon. Leon smiled again when he saw that one comprised all the clippings of the newspaper reports of the great safari, which had so prominently featured himself. On top of this hoard a folded document, sealed with red wax, was inscribed in block capitals: ‘TO BE OPENED BY LEON COURTNEY ONLY IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH’.

Leon weighed it in his hand, then reached for the hunting knife in its sheath on his belt. Carefully he prised open the wax seal and unfolded a single sheet of heavy manila paper. It was headed ‘Last Will and Testament’. Leon glanced at the bottom of the page. It was signed by Percy, and his two witnesses were Brigadier General Penrod Ballantyne and Hugh, the 3rd Baron Delamere.

Impeccable, Leon thought. Percy couldn’t have found more credible witnesses than those two. He started again at the top of the page and read the entire handwritten document carefully. The gist was clear and simple. Percy had left his entire estate, with nothing excluded, to his partner and dear friend Leon Ryder Courtney.

It took Leon some time to come to terms with the magnitude of Percy’s last gift to him. He had to read the document three more times in order to assimilate it. He still had not the slightest idea of Percy’s total wealth, but his firearms and safari equipment must have been worth at least five hundred pounds, to say nothing of the huge ivory tusk that Leon was using as a footstool. But the intrinsic value of the estate was of no concern to Leon: it was the gift itself, the earnest of Percy’s affection and esteem, that was the real treasure.

He was in no hurry to examine the remaining contents of the trunk, and sat for a while, considering the will. At last he carried the trunk out to the stoep where the light was better and settled into the easy chair that had been Percy’s favourite. ‘Keeping it warm for you, old man,’ he muttered apologetically, and began to unpack.

Percy had been meticulous in keeping his records in order. Leon opened his cash book and blinked with astonishment when he saw the balances of the deposits held by the Nairobi branch of Barclays Bank, Dominion, Colonial and Overseas to the credit of Percy Phillips Esq. They totalled a little more than five thousand pounds sterling. Percy had made him a wealthy man.

But that was not all. He found title deeds to land and properties not only in Nairobi and Mombasa but in the city of Bristol, the place of Percy’s birth, in England. Leon had no means of estimating what they might be worth.

The value was more readily apparent of the bundle of Consols, the 5 per cent perpetual bearer bonds issued by the government of Great Britain, the safest and most reliable investment in existence. Their face value was twelve and a half thousand pounds. The interest on that alone was more than six hundred per annum. It was a princely income. ‘Percy, I had no idea! Where the hell did you get it all from?’

When it grew dark Leon went into the front room and lit the lamps. He worked on until after midnight, sorting documents and reading accounts. When his eyelids drooped he went through to the austere little bedroom and stretched out under the mosquito net on Percy’s bed. The hard mattress welcomed his weary body. It felt good. After all his wanderings he had found a place that felt like home.