A Spear of Summer Grass. Deanna Raybourn

the crew had given me, all inscribed with thoughtful messages.

      The town of Mombasa was just as strange and wild as I had expected, the air damp and heavy with the scent of spices and smoke and donkeys. I lifted my nose, sniffing appreciatively, but Dodo just moaned softly until we were safely ensconced on the train and pulling away from the city.

      I lowered the window, letting in the fragrant spices and the tang of the woodsmoke that poured from the engines. “Here, Dodo, sit by the window and stick your head out like a dog. The fresh air will sort you out.”

      She did as I told her to and soon her colour came back, although that might have been the red dust blowing into her face. She sat back after a while and we passed the next hours peacefully. Dodo dozed and I watched Africa reveal itself. First came the mangrove swamps with their sinister-looking roots. They reminded me of the bayous back home, the branches twisting out to catch at a person and hold them fast. The roots thrust up through the muck, looking as if the trees had gotten up and walked around when no one was looking and had just come to rest.

      After the mangrove swamps, there were acres of orchards thick with tropical fruits – coconuts and mangoes, bananas and papayas, all ripening like jewels as monkeys frolicked through their branches, plotting and pilfering like highwaymen. Beyond the fruit trees, the country opened up to wide prairie, tilting upward like an angled plate and each mile carried us higher. We crossed a few bridges I didn’t like the looks of, and I liked the sound of them even less. Each one swayed and creaked in protest, and I held my breath until we made it to the other side.

      We stopped at every small station on the line to fill the boilers of the steam engines, and at every station women peddlers with sleek black skin wrapped bright calico fabric about their bodies and sold wares from baskets on their heads. I bought bananas and mangoes and devoured them, licking mango juice from my hands as Dora continued to moan.

      I pointed out one bridge from my guidebook as we crossed it. “This is the Tsavo bridge, Dodo. When it was built, a pair of man-eating lions spent nine months gobbling up the crew. It says here they ate more than a hundred men.”

      She gave a delicate hiccup and fixed me with a hateful look. “What are you reading? The Ghoulish Guide to Kenya?”

      I waved the book at her. “It’s the guidebook the captain gave me, his own personal copy. Baedeker’s. Ooh, and it says that the lions would creep into camp and carry off victims, staying just close enough that their companions could hear the beasts crunching into the bones in the night.”

      “Stop it, Delilah. You’re just as bad as you were when we were children, always reading those horrible ghost stories out loud just to frighten me.”

      “Don’t be stupid. I read them to you because you never owned you were frightened. If you’d shown the slightest fear I would have stopped.”

      “I used to lock myself in the bathroom and sleep in the bathtub. Of course I was frightened,” she argued. “You just liked to torment me.”

      “Possibly,” I conceded. “Oh, and it says here one of the stations is notorious for the number of man-eating lions that have roamed around it, eating the builders. The station is called Kima. That means ‘minced meat’ in Swahili.”

      “Do be quiet,” she said sharply and promptly vomited into her basin.

      I turned back to the view and watched Africa unrolling before me, mile after mile of emptiness under a sky as big as any in the States.

      * * *

      Some time later, when dusk began to fall, I heard footsteps overhead. Dora jolted awake. “What is that? An animal?”

      I answered her with a peal of laughter. “No, you ninny. It’s the railman lighting the lamps.”

      Just at that moment, a trapdoor opened above us and a cheerful Indian face peered inside.

      “Good evening, memsahibs.”

      Dora gave a little scream and shrank back against the seat, but I smiled at the fellow.

      “Ignore her, I beg you. She has delicate nerves.”

      He reached in to light the oil lamp and the carriage was bathed in the warm glow of civilisation. He gave a single nod and said crisply, “Voi in half an hour,” before dropping the trapdoor neatly back into place.

      “What does Voi mean?” Dora demanded.

      I rifled through the pages of the guidebook before giving her a triumphant smile. “Voi is where we eat.”

      Right on schedule, the train stopped at a bungalow. Hanging outside was a hand-lettered sign proclaiming that we had reached Voi. In the packed-earth yard, third-class passengers crowded around picnic baskets while first-class travellers made straight for the dining room inside. The stewards were wearing pristine white jackets and serving thoroughly English food from the look of it. Dora staggered to her seat and collapsed gratefully, requesting a gingerroot tisane and waving off any suggestion of food.

      Just as I had made up my mind to order a second glass of champagne, a shadow loomed over the table.

      “I say, I’m terribly sorry to intrude, but there don’t seem to be any empty tables.”

      I looked up to see that the Englishman matched his voice, rich and slow. He was good-looking in a slightly seedy way, and I liked the coolness of his blue eyes. His mouth was thin and possibly cruel, but his hands were beautiful. I smiled.

      “There is a free seat at the table over there,” I countered with a nod towards a trio of gentlemen tucking into bowls of muddy brown soup. “Why not sit with them?”

      He didn’t hesitate. “Because a beautiful woman in this place is like a long drink of cool water in the desert. And two beautiful women...” He trailed off, collecting Dora with his gaze. It was the rankest flattery. Dora was not beautiful.

      I waved him to one of the empty chairs as he introduced himself. “I assure you, manners are far more relaxed here in Africa than back home. You needn’t worry about the lack of formal introduction. I am Anthony Wickenden.”

      “And how do you know where home is for me, Mr. Wickenden? I might be accustomed to very casual manners indeed.”

      He raised a brow into a delicate arch. It was a practiced gesture and one I had no doubt he had used often and to great effect. “I think a lady of such sophistication could only come from Paris.”

      I clucked my tongue. “Disloyal for an Englishman,” I scolded gently. “Don’t you have sophisticated women in London?”

      “None like you.”

      I took out a Sobranie and fit it into the holder. Before I could reach into my bag again, he bent forward, a tiny flame dancing at the end of his match. I leaned into him as he cupped his hands to protect the flame. I took two short drags, sucking the fire onto the end of my cigarette, my eyes fixed on his. He swallowed hard, and I blew out the match.

      I sat back and crossed my legs. “Tell me about Mrs. Wickenden.”

      A slow smile spread over his face. “What makes you so certain there is a Mrs. Wickenden?”

      “I can smell a wife a mile away, Mr. Wickenden, and you have the stink of one all over you.”

      He laughed, and the suave stranger disappeared. He was simply a friendly fellow looking for a bit of a chat then, and we settled to our dinner companionably. The stewards served up a succession of depressing courses – brown Windsor soup followed by boiled beef and cabbage, listlessly mashed potatoes, and tinned fruit and custard. I picked the insects out of mine and lined them up on the edge of the plate. Wickenden didn’t even bother.

      “You’ll get used to it in time. Insects and dust will be half of every meal you consume out here.” Between indifferent bites he told me a little about himself. He was on his way home to his farm outside Nairobi. He had been in Africa for many years, having come out as a boy with his parents. He had tried – and failed – to farm a variety of crops and