Assegai

Ladies’ Night at the KAR Regimental mess was another towering success for all but Leon. He stood at the bar and watched Penrod waltzing with Eva. His uncle was a striking figure in his dress uniform and danced gracefully. Eva was light and lovely in his arms, her shining dark hair swept up and her shoulders bare. Her dress was in a subtle shade of violet that enhanced her eyes and emphasized the satin skin of her décolleté. Her bosom was full and shapely. Her arms were long and sleek. Her skin glowed and her cheeks were slightly flushed as she laughed at one of Penrod’s sallies. As they whirled past, Leon picked up snatches of their conversation. They were talking French, and Penrod was at his most charming and urbane.

The old bastard! Leon thought bitterly. He’s old enough to be her grandfather, but I wouldn’t put anything past him. Then he saw the sparkle of Eva’s eyes and the flash of her perfect white teeth as she smiled up at him. She’s no better than he is. Can’t she resist the temptation to sparkle at every man who passes through her life?

The evening dragged on interminably. The jokes of his brother officers creaked with age, the speeches were dull, the music loud and tuneless and even the whisky tasted sour. The night was hot and the air in the hall suffocating. He felt caged in. The wallflower with whom he was doing his duty suffered from halitosis and he returned her to her large, hopeful mother, then escaped thankfully into the night.

The air was sweet, the sky clear, and the stars were wondrous. Scorpio stood on his head with his sting raised, ready to strike. Leon thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered glumly around the parade-ground. As he completed the circuit and came back towards the mess, he saw a small group of men on the veranda. They were smoking cigars, and Leon heard a familiar braying voice holding forth from the centre of the group. It was answered almost immediately by another that jarred on his nerves as painfully as the first. Froggy Snell and his grovelling boot-licker Eddy Roberts, he thought irritably. Just when I was starting to feel better, the last two people in the world I wanted to meet.

Fortunately there was a rear entrance to the dance hall so he made his way quietly along the side wall of the building, which was covered with a dense trumpeter vine.

As he turned the corner a Vesta flared in the darkness close by and he saw a couple standing among the concealing curtain of the vine’s leaves and flowers. The woman had her back to him. She had struck the Vesta and was holding it for the man, who stooped over the flame to light his cigar. He straightened up, puffing out streamers of smoke. The Vesta was still burning and by its light Leon saw that the man was Penrod. Neither he nor the woman was aware of his presence.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ Penrod said, in English. Then he spotted Leon and his expression changed to one of mild alarm. ‘It’s Leon!’ he exclaimed.

An odd remark, Leon thought. It sounded like a warning rather than a friendly greeting. The woman whirled around to face him, still holding the burning Vesta. She let it drop and put her foot upon it to snuff out the flame, but he had seen the expression on her face. She and Penrod were behaving like a pair of conspirators.

‘Monsieur Courtney, you made me jump. I didn’t hear you coming.’

She spoke in French – but why, only seconds before, had Penrod been speaking to her in English? ‘Forgive me. I’m intruding.’

‘Not at all.’ Penrod denied it. ‘The air in the hall is oppressive. Those little punkah fans are worse than useless. Fräulein von Wellberg was affected, and needed a breath of fresh air. And I, on the other hand, needed a smoke.’ He switched to French when he addressed Eva: ‘I was telling my nephew that you were a little indisposed by the heat and the stale air.’

‘I am feeling perfectly well now,’ she replied, in the same language, and though Leon could not see her face she sounded utterly composed once more.

‘We were discussing the band and their musical repertoire,’ Penrod said. ‘Fräulein von Wellberg feels that their rendition of Strauss resembles a tribal war-dance, and she prefers the way they deal with the polka.’

Uncle, it seems to me that you are protesting too much, Leon thought, with a touch of bitterness. Something very strange is going on here. For a little longer he joined in their inconsequential conversation, then bowed to Eva. ‘Please excuse me, Fräulein, but I am not as strong as you two are. I shall go home to get some sleep. Will you and the Graf be returning to Tandala Camp after the ball, or will you stay at the Norfolk Hotel?’

‘I understand that Gustav will drive us back to the camp in the hunting car,’ Eva replied.

‘Very well. I have instructed my staff to have everything ready for your return. If there is anything you need you have only to let them know. I imagine that tomorrow you and Graf Otto may wish to sleep late. Breakfast will be served when you order it.’ He nodded at Penrod. ‘Even though duty calls loud and clear, sir, I find that the flesh is weakening fast. One or two more duty dances and then I will be lost in a cloud of dust as I head for my bed.’

‘I shall give you an avuncular mention in despatches, my boy. You have held high the honour of the regiment. The manner in which you trotted the light fantastic with Charlie Warboys’s fat daughter was a joy to watch. You have been weighed in the balance and not found wanting.’

‘Jolly kind of you to say so, Uncle.’ He left them, but when he reached the door of the hall he glanced back. They were two dark figures and he could not see their faces, but there was something in the way they leaned towards each other, an alertness in the way they held their heads, that convinced him they were no longer discussing the band’s rendition of the polka, but something of much deeper import.

Just what are the two of you up to? Who are you really, Eva von Wellberg? The closer I get to you, the more elusive you become. The more I learn about you, the less I know.