“Oh, God!” said Martin in an agonised tone of voice, “don’t even suggest such a thing.”
So taking Pious with us, we went up to the D.O.’s house, which was perched high on a bluff overlooking the river. It was a very handsome house, with thick walls and huge rooms, for it had been built in the time when the Cameroons had been a German colony. The Germans knew how to build for the heat so what little breeze there was the house received, and the massive walls made its interior as cool as it was possible to be in a place like Mamfe. On the way up the hill I explained to Pious what the problem was.
“Now,” I said, “this is very important and we all go help the D.O. as well as we can.”
“Yes, sah,” said Pious grinning happily, for he always felt I spent far too much time looking after my animals and not nearly enough letting him show off his prowess as a steward.
When we got there I examined the living-room and the veranda with great attention. They were spacious and quite pleasantly furnished by bachelor D.O. standards.
“I think you ought to take that calendar off the wall,” I said to Martin, “for a start.”
“Why?” he said, “I thought she was awfully pretty.”
“Martin,” I said, “if the D.C. sees nude women hanging all over your living-room, he is going to get some very peculiar ideas about you, so take it down.”
Pious, who had been following this with close attention, took down the calendar of a woman in a voluptuous pose who was so obviously a mammal that it almost embarrassed me.
“Now, his bedroom,” I said.
The bedroom, again, was large and contained a big double bed with a mosquito net.
“Pious,” I said, “you go look the bed to make sure it no go break.” Giggling happily to himself, Pious crawled round the bed on hands and knees examining every nut and bolt.
“Now,” I said to Martin, “we’ll both bounce up and down on top of it.”
We did and the bed responded well.
“Well, that’s alright,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything in here that will do him any damage. Now, where are you going to feed him?”
“Feed him?” said Martin, puzzled.
“Yes, feed him,” I said impatiently. “You’re going to feed him while he’s here, aren’t you?”
“Well, on the veranda,” Martin said.
“But haven’t you got anything else?” I asked.
“Well, there’s the dining-room.”
“Well, if you’ve got a dining-room for God’s sake use it. After all, you want to give him the best treatment possible. Where is this dining-room?”
He took me to the living-room, threw open two massive wooden doors and there was a splendid dining-room with a table long enough to seat at least ten people. It was beautifully polished but, naturally, as Martin had never used the dining-room, the whole thing was covered in dust, as were the rather handsome but heavy wooden chairs. From the ceiling, down the whole length of this eight-foot table hung what in India is called a “punka”. It is, in fact, a giant fan. The backbone of this one, as it were, was made out of a long length of bamboo some four or five inches in diameter and from it hung down a long fringe of dried palm fronds some four feet in length. From the centre of the bamboo ran a string through a series of little pulleys across the ceiling and out through a hole in the wall which led to the kitchen quarters. The idea was that you engaged a small boy to pull the string so that the whole fan waved to and fro over the table, thus at least occasionally allowing you a gust of warm air in the midst of your meal.
“But this is absolutely splendid,” I said to Martin. “He’ll be most impressed with this.”
“I suppose he might,” said Martin. “I’d never have thought about it. I never use the damn’ thing. You see, I would feel so lonely sitting here.”
“What you want is a wife, my boy,” I said in a fatherly tone.
“Well, I do try,” said Martin, “every time I go on leave. But as soon as they hear where I am, they break off the engagement. In fact, there was an awfully nice girl called Molly whom I met on my last leave but, unfortunately, one of her uncles had been to Mamfe and the damned old fool told her about it in the worst possible terms and so it came to nothing.”
“Never mind,” I said. “Persevere. You might find a woman stupid enough to marry you in the first place and live here one day.”
We got Pious to examine the huge table and the chairs with great care. We both sat on each one of them and tested the table by standing on it and doing a sort of tango, but it was as firm and solid as rock.
“Now,” I said to Martin, “I want to put Pious in charge of your staff because by and large they seem a very inefficient lot whereas Pious is highly efficient.”
“Anything you say, dear boy, anything at all,” said Martin, “just mention it.”
“Pious,” I said.
“Sah,” he said.
“We have three days to get ready. During that time you go be half my steward and half the D.O.’s steward. You hear?”
“I hear, sah,” he said.
We went out onto the veranda and sat down.
“Now,” I said to Pious, “go tell the D.O.’s steward to pass us a drink. By the way, Martin, what is the name of your steward?” I asked.
“Amos,” he replied.
“Yes,” I said, “he looks like an Amos. Well, Pious, go tell Amos to pass drink and then you go bring the cook, the steward and the small boy here so we look ’um and have palava.”
“Yes, sah,” said Pious and with an almost military strut disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
“I think the question of the food can be safely left to Mary,” I said. “The others might have some suggestions of use, too, so what I think would be a good thing is to call a council of war this evening. If you send chits round to all of them they can come up and have drinks and we can discuss the whole matter.”
“You’re really proving my salvation,” said Martin,
“Nonsense,” I said, “I am just orientating you a bit. You obviously aren’t cut out for social life.”
Pious came in bearing a tray with beer, followed by Amos, who in his brown shorts and jacket looked like an amiable but mentally defective monkey; the small boy, who looked quite bright but was obviously completely untrained and — if Amos was supposed to be his trainer — never would learn a thing; and then, to my astonishment, an enormous, tall, thin Hausa who looked as though he was 110 years old, wearing a white coat and shorts and a huge chef’s hat, on the front of which was embroidered in rather uneven lettering “BC”.
“Now,” I said in my firmest voice, “the D.O. is having the D.C. here in three days’ time. The D.O. he want my steward to watch you all and make sure that everything is proper. If it is not proper, D.C. will be very angry with D.O. and D.O. and I will be very angry with you and we will kick you for larse.”
In spite of the sternness with which I spoke, they all grinned at me happily. They knew the importance of the visitor and they knew that my threat was quite genuine. But it was put in a joking form that they could understand.
“Now,” I said, pointing to Martin’s steward, “you’re named Amos.”
“Yes, sah,” he said, standing to attention.
“Now, what’ee your name?” I asked the small boy.
“John, sah,” he said.
“The cook,” said Martin apologetically, interrupting my dragooning, “is called Jesus.”
“Dear fellow,” I said, “you’re in luck. With Pious and Jesus with us we can’t go far wrong. By the way what is that extraordinary piece of embroidery on the front of his hat?”
Martin looked acutely embarrassed.
“He happened to cook a very good meal one day by pure accident,” said Martin, “and I had a magazine which had a picture of a chef in a London hotel and so to encourage him I told him that the next time I went on leave I would buy him one of those hats that only expert cooks wore.”
“It was a very kind thought,” I said, “but what’s the embroidery in the front, the ‘BC’?”