Sebastian nodded, and the helmet slid forward over his eyes. He pushed it back.
"Well, you are going to go across the river with the gun and bearers dressed as Askari. You are going to visit each of the villages before the real tax-collector gets there and pick up, the money that they owe us. Do you follow me so far?"
"Are you coming with me?"
"Now, how can I do that? Me with my leg not properly healed yet?" Flynn protested impatiently. "Besides that, every headman on the other side knows who I am. Not one of them has ever laid eyes on you before. You just tell them you're a new officer straight out from Germany. One look at that uniform, and they'll pay up sharpish."
"What happens if the real tax-inspector has already been there?"
"They don't start collecting until September usually and then they start in the north and work down this way.
You'll have plenty of time."
Frowning below the rim of the helmet, Sebastian brought forward a series of objections each one progressively weaker than its predecessor, and, one by one, Flynn annihilated them. Finally there was a long silence while Sebastian's brain ground to a standstill.
Well? "Flynn asked. "Are you going to do it?"
And the question was answered from an unexpected quarter in feminine, but not dulcet tones. "He is certainly not going to do it!"
Guiltily as small boys caught smoking in the school latrines, Flynn and Sebastian wheeled to face the door which had carelessly been left ajar.
Rosa's suspicions had been aroused by all the surreptitious activity around the rondavel, and when she had seen Sebastian join in, she had not the slightest qualms about listening outside the window. Her active intervention was not on ethical grounds. Rosa O'Flynn had acquired a rather elastic definition of honesty from her father. Like him, she believed that German property belonged to anybody who could get their hands on it. The fact that Sebastian was involved in a scheme based on dubious moral foundations in no way lowered her opinion of him rather, in a sneaking sort of way, it heightened her estimate of him as a potential breadwinner. To date, this was the only area in which she had held misgivings about Sebastian Oldsmith.
From experience she knew that those of her father's business enterprises in which Flynn was not eager to participate personally always involved a great deal of risk.
The thought of Sebastian Oldsmith dressed in a sky-blue uniform, marching across the Rovuma and never coming back, roused in her the same instincts as those of a lioness shortly to be deprived of her cubs.
"He is certainly not going to do it," she repeated, and then to Sebastian. "Do you hear me? I forbid it. I forbid it absolutely."
This was the wrong approach.
Sebastian had, in turn, acquired from his father very Victorian views on the rights and privileges of women. Mr. Oldsmith, the senior, was a courteous domestic tyrant, a man whose infallibility had never been challenged by his wife. A man who regarded sex deviates, Bolsheviks, trade union organizers, and suffragettes, in that descending order of repugnance.
Sebastian's mother, a meek little lady with a perpetually harassed expression, would no more have contemplated absolutely forbidding Mr. Oldsmith a Course of action, than she would have contemplated denying the existence of God.
Her belief in the divine rights of man had extended to her sons. From a very tender age Sebastian had grown accustomed to worshipful obedience, not only from his mother but also from his large flock of sisters.
Rosa's present attitude and manner of speech came as a shock. It took him but a few seconds to recover and then he rose to his feet and adjusted the helmet. "I beg your pardon? "he asked coldly.
"You heard me," snapped Rosa. "I'm not going to allow this."
Sebastian nodded thoughtfully, and then hastily grabbed at the helmet as it threatened to spoil his dignity by blind, folding him again. Ignoring Rosa he turned to Flynn. "I will leave as soon as possible tomorrow?"
"It will take a couple more days to get organized," Flynn demurred.
"Very well then." Sebastian stalked from the room, and the sunlight lit his uniform with dazzling splendour.
With a triumphant guffaw, Flynn reached for the enamel mug at his elbow. "You made a mess of that one," he gloated, and then his expression changed to unease.
Standing in the doorway, Rosa O'Flynn's shoulders had sagged, the angry line of her lips drooped.
"Oh, come on now!"gruffed Flynn.
"He won't come back. You know what you are doing to him. You're sending him in there to die."
"Don't talk silly. He's a big boy, he can look after himself."
"Oh, I hate you. Both of you I hate you both!" and she was gone, running across the yard to the bungalow.
In a red dawn Flynn and Sebastian stood together on the stoep of the bungalow, talking together quietly.
"Now listen, Bassie. I reckon the best thing you can do is send back the collection from each village, as you make it. No sense in carrying all that money round with you." Tactfully Flynn refrained from pointing out that by following this procedure, in the event of Sebastian running into trouble half-way through the expedition, the profits to that time would be safeguarded.
Sebastian was not really listening he was more preoccupied with the whereabouts of Rosa O'Flynn. He had seen very little of her in the last few days.
"Now you listen to old Mohammed. He knows which are the biggest villages. Let him do the talking those headmen are the biggest bunch of rogues you'll ever meet. They'll all plead poverty and famine, so you've got to be tough. Do you hear me? Tough, Bassie, tough!!"
"Tough," agreed Sebastian absentmindedly, glancing surreptitiously into the windows of the bungalow for a glimpse of Rosa.
"Now another thing," Flynn went on. "Remember to keep moving fast. March until nightfall. Make your cooking fire, eat, and then march again in the dark before you camp.
Never sleep at Your first camp, that's asking for trouble.
Then get away again before first light in the morning."
There were many other instructions, and Sebastian listened to them without attention. "Remember the sound of gunfire carries for miles. Don't use your rifle except in emergency, and if you do fire a shot, then don't hang about afterwards. Now the route I've planned for you will never take you more than twenty miles beyond the Rovuma. At the first sign of trouble, you run for the river. If any of your men get hurt, leave them. Don't play hero, leave them and run like hell for the river."
"Very well," muttered Sebastian unhappily. The prospect of leaving Lalapanzi was becoming less attractive each minute. Where on earth was she?