Chapter 11

The sense of disillusionment which had been Kommandant van Heerden’s first reaction to Major Bloxham’s disclosures gave way, as he walked back to the Spa, to several new suspicions. Looking back over his recent experiences, the invitation to stay at White Ladies and his subsequent relegation to Weezen Spa, the blatant neglect he had suffered for several days after his arrival, and the overall feeling that in some indefinable way he was not welcome, the Kommandant began to feel that he had some cause for grievance. Nor was that all. The disparity which existed between the behaviour of the Heathcote-Kilkoons and that of the heroes of Dornford Yates’ novels was glaring. Berry & Co didn’t end up blind drunk under the table unless some French crook had drugged their champagne. Berry & Co didn’t invite alcoholic Lesbians to dinner. Berry & Co didn’t go riding round the country dressed … Well, now he came to think of it, there was that story in Jonah & Co where Berry dressed up as a woman. But above all Berry & Co didn’t consort with Konstabel Els, late or not. That was for sure.

Lying on his bed in Colonic Irrigation No 6 the Kommandant nursed his suspicions until what had begun as disillusionment turned into anger.

Nobody’s going to treat me like this he thought, recalling the various insults he had had to put up with, particularly from the fat man, at the dinner. Colourful family indeed, he thought, I’ll colourful you. He got up and stared at the image of himself in the mottled mirror.

“I am Kommandant van Heerden,” he said to himself and puffed out his chest in an assertion of authority and was surprised at the large surge of pride that followed this avowal of his own identity. For a moment the gap between what he was and what he would like to have been closed and he viewed the world with all the defiance of a self-made man. He was just considering the implications of this new self-satisfaction when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” shouted the Kommandant and was surprised to see Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon standing in the doorway.

“Well?” said the Kommandant peremptorily and unable in so short a time to make the change from brusque authority to common courtesy the new situation clearly demanded. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon looked at him submissively.

“Oh darling,” she murmured. “Oh my darling.” She stood meekly before him and looked down at her immaculate mauve gloves. “I feel so ashamed. So terribly ashamed. To think that we’ve treated you so badly.”

“Yes. Well,” said the Kommandant uncertainly but still sounding as though he were interrogating a suspect.

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon subsided onto the bed where she sat staring at her shoes.

“It’s all my fault,” she said finally, “I should never have asked you to come.” She glanced round the horrid room to which her offer of hospitality had condemned the Kommandant and sighed. “I should have known better than to imagine Henry would behave decently. He’s got this thing about foreigners, you see.”

The Kommandant could see it. It explained for one thing the presence of La Marquise. A French Lesbian would appeal unnaturally to a transvestite Colonel.

“And then there’s that wretched club of his,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon continued. “It’s not so much a club as a secret society. Oh I know you think it’s all terribly innocent and harmless but you don’t have to live with it. You don’t understand how vicious it all is. The disguise, the pretence, the shame of it all.”

“You mean it’s not real?” the Kommandant asked trying to understand the full import of Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s outburst.

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon looked up at him in amazement.

“Don’t tell me they fooled you too,” she said. “Of course it’s not real. Don’t you see? We’re none of us what we pretend to be. Henry’s not a Colonel. Boy’s not a Major. He’s not even a boy, come to that and I’m not a lady. We’re all playing parts, all terrible phonies.” She sat on the edge of the bed and her eyes filled with tears.

“What are you then?” the Kommandant demanded.

“Oh God,” moaned Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, “need you ask?”

She sat there crying while the Kommandant fetched a glass of water from one of the many washbasins.

“Here, take some of this,” he said proffering the glass. “It will do you good.”

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon took a sip and stared at the Kommandant frantically.

“No wonder you’re constipated,” she said finally putting the glass down on the bedside table. “What must you think of us, letting you stay in this awful place?”

The Kommandant, for whom the day seemed to have become one long confessional, thought it better not to say what he thought though he had to agree that Weezen Spa wasn’t very nice.

“Tell me,” he said, “if the Colonel isn’t a Colonel, what is he?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, “I’ve promised never to tell anyone what he did in the war. He’d kill me if he thought I’d told you.” She looked up at him imploringly. “Please just forget what I’ve said. I’ve done enough damage already.”

“I see,” said the Kommandant drawing his own conclusions from the Colonel’s threat to kill her if she let his secret out. Whatever Henry had done during the war it was evidently hush-hush.

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, judging that her tears and the admission she had just made sufficiently atoned for the discomfort of the Kommandant’s accommodation, dried her eyes and stood up.

“You’re so understanding,” she murmured.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said the Kommandant truthfully.

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon went over to the mirror and began to repair the calculated ravages to her make-up.

“And now,” she said with a gaiety that surprised the Kommandant, “I’m going to drive you over to the Sani Pass for tea. It’ll do us both good to get out and you could do with a change of water.”

That afternoon was one the Kommandant would never forget. As the great car slid noiselessly over the foothills of the mountains leaving a great plume of dust to eddy over the fields and kaffir huts they passed, the Kommandant resumed something of the good nature he had so recently lost. He was sitting in a car that had once belonged to a Governor-General and in which the Prince of Wales had twice ridden during his triumphal tour of South Africa in 1925 and beside him there sat if not, evidently, a proper lady at least a woman who possessed all the apparent attributes of one. Certainly the way she handled the car excited the Kommandant’s admiration and he was particularly impressed by the perfect timing she displayed in allowing the car to steal up behind a black woman with a basket on her head before squeezing the bulb of the horn and causing the woman to leap into the ditch.

“I was in the Army during the war and I learnt to drive then.” she said when the Kommandant complimented her on her skill. “Used to drive a thirty hundredweight truck.” She laughed at the memory. “You know everyone says the war was absolutely awful but actually I enjoyed it enormously. Never had so much fun in my life.”

Not for the first time, Kommandant van Heerden considered the strange habit of the English of finding enjoyment in the oddest places.

“What about the … er … Colonel? Did he have fun too?” asked the Kommandant for whom the Colonel’s wartime occupation had become a matter of intense curiosity.

“What? On the Underground? I should think not,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon before realizing what she had just done. She pulled the car into the side of the road and stopped before turning to the Kommandant.

“That was a dirty trick,” she said, “getting me to talk like that and then asking what Henry did during the war. I suppose that’s a professional trick of the police. Well, it’s out now,” she continued in spite of the Kommandant’s protestations, “Henry was a guard on the Underground. The Inner Circle as a matter of fact. But for God’s sake promise me never to mention it.”

“Of course I won’t mention it,” said the Kommandant whose respect for the Colonel had gone up enormously now that he knew he’d belonged to the inner circle of the underground.

“What about the Major? Was he in the underground too?”

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon laughed.

“Dear me no,” she said. “He was some sort of barman at the Savoy. Where do you think he learnt to make those lethal concoctions of his?”

The Kommandant nodded appreciatively. He’d never thought of Major Bloxham as being a legal type but he supposed it was possible.

They drove on and had tea at the Sani Pass Hotel before returning to Weezen. It was only as they were approaching the town that the Kommandant brought up the question that had been bothering him all day.

“Do you know anyone called Els?” he asked. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon shook her head.

“No one,” she said.

“Are you quite sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she said. “I’d hardly be likely to forget anyone with a name like Else.”

“I don’t suppose you would,” said the Kommandant thinking that anyone who knew Els under any name was hardly likely to forget the brute. “He’s a thin man with little eyes and he has a flat sort of head, at the back as if someone has hit him with a blunt instrument several times.”

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon smiled. “That’s Harbinger to the life,” she said. “Funny you should mention him. You’re the second person to ask about him today. La Marquise said something odd about him at lunch when his name came up. She said, ‘I could a tale unfold.’ A funny sort of thing to say about Harbinger. I mean he’s not exactly cultured is he?”

“No, he’s not,” said the Kommandant emphatically and with a shrewd understanding of La Marquise’s remark.

“Henry got him from the Weezen jail, you know. They hire out prisoners for a few cents a day and we’ve kept him ever since. He’s our odd-job man.”

“Yes, well, I daresay he is,” said the Kommandant, “but I’d keep an eye on him all the same. He’s not the sort of fellow I’d want hanging about the place.”

“Funny you should say that,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon yet again. “He told me once that he had been a hangman before he took to a life of crime.”

“Before?” said the Kommandant in astonishment but Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon was too busy manoeuvring the car through the gates of Weezen Spa to hear him.

“You will come out with the hunt tomorrow?” she said as the Kommandant climbed out. “I know it’s an awful lot to ask after what you have had to put up with already but I would like you to come.”

The Kommandant looked at her and wondered what to say. He had enjoyed the afternoon drive and he didn’t want to offend her.

“What would you like me to wear?” he asked cautiously.

“That’s a point,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said. “Look why don’t you come over now and we’ll see if you can get into Henry’s togs.”

“Togs?” said the Kommandant wondering what obscure feminine garment a tog was.

“Riding things,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon.

“What sort of things does Henry ride in?”

“Ordinary breeches, riding breeches.”

“Ordinary ones?”

“Of course, what on earth do you think he wears? I know he’s pretty odd but he doesn’t ride around in the raw or anything.”

“Are you sure?” asked the Kommandant.

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon looked at him hard.

“Of course I’m sure,” she said. “What on earth makes you think otherwise.”

“Nothing,” said the Kommandant, meaning to have a chat with Major Bloxham at the earliest opportunity. He climbed into the car again and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon drove back to White Ladies.

“There you are,” she said half an hour later as they stood in the Colonel’s dressing-room. “They fit you perfectly.”

The Kommandant looked at himself in the mirror and had to admit that the breeches looked rather splendid on him.

“You even dress the same side,” continued Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon with a professional eye.

The Kommandant looked around the room curiously.

“Which side do you dress?” he asked and was amazed at the laughter his remark produced.

“Naughty man,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon finally, and much to the Kommandant’s surprise kissed him lightly on the cheek.

 In Piemburg the question of naughty men was one that was beginning to bother Luitenant Verkramp. The dispatch of his eleven remaining secret agents had not, after all, seen the end of his problems. Arriving at the police station the morning after their departure he found Sergeant Breitenbach in a state of unusual agitation.

“A fine mess you’ve got us into now,” he said when Verkramp asked him what was wrong.

“You mean those ostriches?” Verkramp inquired.

“No, I don’t,” said the Sergeant, “I mean the konstabels you’ve been giving shock treatment to. They’re queer.”

“I thought those ostriches were pretty queer,” said Verkramp who still hadn’t got over the sight of one blowing up almost under his nose.

“Well you haven’t seen the konstabels,” Sergeant Breitenbach told him and went to the door. “Konstabel Botha,” he shouted.

Konstabel Botha came into the office.

“There you are,” said Sergeant Breitenbach grimly. “That’s what your bloody aversion therapy’s been and done. And he used to play rugby for Zululand.”

At his desk Luitenant Verkramp knew now that he was going mad. He’d felt bad enough faced with exploding ostriches but they were as nothing to the insanity he felt now confronted with the famous footballer. Konstabel Botha, hooker for Zululand, six foot four and sixteen stone, minced into the room wearing a yellow wig and with his mouth smudged hideously with lipstick.

“You lovely man,” he simpered to Verkramp, sauntering like some modish elephant about the office.

“Keep your hands off me, you bastard,” snarled the Sergeant but Luitenant Verkramp wasn’t listening. The inner voices were there again and this time there was no stopping them. With his face livid and his eyes staring Verkramp collapsed screaming in his chair. He was still screaming and babbling about being God, when the ambulance arrived from Fort Rapier and he was carried downstairs struggling furiously.

Sergeant Breitenbach sat beside him in the ambulance and was there when they arrived at the hospital. Dr von Blimenstein, radiant in a white coat, was waiting.

“It’s all right now. You’re quite safe with me,” she said and with one swift movement had pinned Verkramp’s arm between his shoulderblades and was frogmarching him into the ward.

“Poor bastard,” thought Sergeant Breitenbach gazing with alarm at her broad shoulders and heavy buttocks, “you’ve got it coming to you.”

He went back to the police station and tried to think what to do. With a wave of sabotage on his hands, thirty-six irate citizens in prison and two hundred and ten queer konstabels out of a total force of five hundred, he knew he couldn’t cope. Half an hour later urgent messages were going out to all police stations in the area asking them to contact Kommandant van Heerden. In the meantime, as a method of isolating the disaffected konstabels, he gave orders that they should be put through their paces on the parade ground and sent Sergeant de Kok down there to give them drill. It was not a particularly happy choice, as Sergeant Breitenbach found when he went down to see how things were going. The two hundred konstabels minced and pirouetted across the parade ground alarmingly.

“If you can’t stop them marching like that, you’d better get them out of sight,” he told the Sergeant. “It’s that sort of thing gives the South African Police a bad name.”

 “You’ve done what?” Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon shouted when his wife told him she had invited the Kommandant to the hunt. “A man who shoots foxes? In my breeches? By God, I’ll see about that.”

“Now, Henry,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, but the Colonel had already left the room and was hurrying to the stables where Harbinger was grooming a chestnut mare.

“How’s Chaka?” he asked. As if in answer a horse in one of the stalls gave his door a resounding kick.

The Colonel peered cautiously into the darkened interior and studied an enormous black horse that stirred restlessly inside.

“Saddle him up,” said the Colonel vindictively and left Harbinger wondering how the hell he was ever going to get a saddle on the beast.

“You can’t possibly ask the Kommandant to ride Chaka,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon told the Colonel when he said what he had done.

“I’m not asking a man who shoots foxes to ride any of my damned horses,” said the Colonel, “but if he chooses to he can take his chance on Chaka and good luck to him.”

A dreadful banging and the sound of curses from the direction of the stables suggested that Harbinger was not having an easy job saddling Chaka.

“Be it on your own head if the Kommandant gets killed,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon but the Colonel was unimpressed.

“Any man who shoots foxes deserves to die,” was all he said.

When Kommandant van Heerden arrived it was to find Major Bloxham resplendent in a scarlet coat standing on the steps.

“I thought you said you always wore pink,” said the Kommandant with a touch of annoyance.

“So I do, old boy, so I do. Can’t you see?” He turned and went into the house followed by the Kommandant who wondered if he was colour-blind. In the main room people were standing about drinking and the Kommandant was relieved to note that they were all dressed appropriately for their sex. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon in a long black skirt was looking quite lovely if a little pale while the Colonel’s complexion matched that of his coat.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting another green chartreuse,” he said, “or perhaps yellow would suit you better this morning.”

The Kommandant said the green would suit him fine and Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon presently drew him into a corner.

“Henry’s got it into his head you go around shooting foxes,” she said, “and he’s absolutely furious. I think you ought to know he’s given you the most awful horse.”

“I’ve never even seen a fox,” said the Kommandant with simple honesty. “I wonder where he got that idea from.”

“Well, it doesn’t much matter. He’s got it and you’ve got Chaka. You can ride, can’t you? I mean really ride.”

Kommandant van Heerden drew himself up proudly.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I think I can ride.”

“Well I do hope you’re right. Chaka’s a dreadful brute. Don’t for goodness sake, let him get away from you.”

The Kommandant said he certainly wouldn’t and a few minutes later everyone trooped out to the yard where the hounds were waiting. So was Chaka. Massive and black, he stood some way apart from the other horses and at his head there stood the figure of a man with small eyes and a nonexistent forehead.

It was difficult for Kommandant van Heerden, who in the excitement of going hunting had forgotten all about ex-Konstabel Els, to make up his mind which animal most dismayed him. Certainly the prospect of even mounting a horse as monstrous as Chaka was hardly pleasing but at least it offered a way of avoiding Els if very little, he was about to say, else. With a speed and vigour that quite took the Colonel by surprise, the Kommandant reached up and hauled himself into the saddle and from these commanding heights surveyed the throng. Below him hounds and horses milled about while the other riders mounted and then with Els on a nag vigorously blowing a horn the hunt moved off. Behind them the Kommandant urged Chaka forward tentatively. I am going foxhunting like a real Englishman, he thought as he dug his heels in a second time. It was the last coherent thought he had for some time. With a demonic lurch the great black horse shot out of the yard and into the garden. As the Kommandant desperately clung to his seat it was apparent that wherever he was going it wasn’t hunting. The hounds had strung out in quite a different direction. As a rockery disappeared beneath him, as an ornamental bush looked up and disintegrated, and as the Colonel’s roses shed both their labels and their petals in his wake the Kommandant was only aware that he was travelling at a great height and at a speed which seemed incredible. Ahead of him loomed the azalea bushes of which Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon was so proud and beyond them the open veldt. Kommandant van Heerden shut his eyes. There was no time for prayer. The next moment he was airborne.

The Kommandant’s startling gallop caused mixed reactions among the huntsmen. Immaculately sidesaddled and with her top hat perched on her neat blue curls Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon watched the Kommandant disappear over the azaleas with a combination of disgust at her husband and admiration for the Kommandant. Whatever else he might be, the Kommandant was clearly not a man to baulk at fences.

“See what you’ve done now,” she shouted at the Colonel who was staring at the destruction left in the wake of his retreating guest. To add to his annoyance Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon turned her bay and galloped off in pursuit of the Kommandant churning the lawn up still more as she went.

“Got rid of the blighter,” said Major Bloxham cheerfully.

“Damned Boer,” said the Colonel. “Shoots foxes and smashes my best roses.”

Behind them Harbinger blew his horn again happily. He’d always wanted to see what would happen if he stuffed a quid of tobacco up the great black horse’s arse and now he knew.

So did Kommandant van Heerden, though he wasn’t aware of the specific cause of Chaka’s urgency. Still in the saddle after the first enormous jump he tried to recall what Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon had said about not letting the horse get away from him. It seemed an uncalled-for piece of advice. If the Kommandant could have thought of any way of letting the horse get away from him without breaking his neck in the process he would have been glad to do so. As it was his only hope of survival seemed to lie in staying with the beast until it ran out of wind. With all the fortitude of a man for whom there were no alternatives, the Kommandant hunched in the saddle and watched a stone wall hurtle towards him. The wall had evidently been built with giraffes in mind. Certainly no horse could clear it. As he landed on the other side Kommandant van Heerden had the distinct impression that the animal he was riding was no horse at all but some mythical creature he’d seen portrayed so eloquently on petrol pumps. Ahead there lay open veldt and in the far distance the shadowy outlines of a wood. One thing he was determined on and that was that no horse, mythical or not, was going to career through a wood full of trees with him on its back. It was better to break one’s neck on the open ground than to emerge legless on the far side of a dense wood. With a determination to end his journey one way or another the Kommandant grasped the reins firmly and heaved.

To Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon, galloping desperately after him, the Kommandant appeared in a new light. He was no longer the coarsely attractive man of reality she had formerly seen him as but the hero of her dreams. There was something reminiscent of a painting she had once seen of Napoleon crossing the Alps on a prancing horse about the figure that soared over the wall no one had been known to attempt before. With a caution entirely justified by her longing for her new idol, Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon chose a gate and emerged on the other side to find to her astonishment that both the Kommandant and Chaka had vanished. She galloped towards the wood and was horrified to see both horse and rider motionless on the ground. She rode up and dismounted.

When Kommandant van Heerden came to, it was to find his head cradled in the dark lap of Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon who was bending over him with a look of maternal admiration on her face.

“Don’t try to move,” she said. The Kommandant wiggled his toes to see if his back was broken. His toes wiggled reassuringly. He lifted a knee and the knee moved. His arms were all right too. There seemed to be nothing broken. The Kommandant opened his eyes again and smiled. Above him beneath a ring of tinted curls Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon smiled back and it seemed to Kommandant van Heerden that there was in that smile a new acknowledgement of some deep bond of feeling between them, a meeting of two hearts and minds alone on the open veldt. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon read his thoughts.

“Ant-bear hole,” she said with suppressed emotion.

“Ant-bear hole?” asked the Kommandant.

“Ant-bear hole,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon repeated gently.

The Kommandant tried to think what ant-bear holes had to do with his feelings for her and apart from the rather bizarre notion that they should get into one together couldn’t think of anything. He contented himself with murmuring “Ant-bear hole,” with as much emotion as possible and closed his eyes again. Beneath his head her plump thighs formed a delightful pillow. The Kommandant sighed and nestled his head against her stomach. A feeling of supreme happiness welled up inside him marred only by the thought that he would have to mount that ghastly horse again. It was a prospect that he had no intention of hastening. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon dashed his hopes.

“We can’t stay here,” she said. “It’s far too hot.”

The Kommandant who had begun to suspect that some large insect had begun to crawl up the inside of his breeches had to agree. Slowly he lifted his head from her lap and climbed to his feet.

“Let’s go into the woods,” Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon said. “You need to rest and I want to make sure you haven’t broken anything.”

Now that the Kommandant was up he could see what she had meant by ant-bear hole. The great black horse lay on its side, its neck broken and one foreleg deep in a hole. With a sigh of relief that he would never have to ride the beast again and that his horsemanship had been vindicated after all by the aardvark, the Kommandant allowed himself to be helped quite unnecessarily into the shade of the wood. There in an open dell shaded by the trees Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon insisted that he lie down while she examined him for broken bones.

“You may have concussion,” she said as her experienced hands unbuttoned his jacket. In the next few moments Kommandant van Heerden began to think that she must be right. What the great English lady was doing to him must be some result of brain damage. As she stood above him and unbuckled her skirt he knew he was seeing things. I’d better just lie still until it passes over, he thought and shut his eyes.

Two miles away the hounds had picked up the scent of Fox and, with the hunt in full pursuit and Harbinger occasionally blowing his horn, were off across country.

“Wonder what happened to that damned Boer,” Major Bloxham shouted.

“I daresay he’s all right,” the Colonel shouted back, “Daphne’s probably looking after him.”

Presently the hounds veered to the left and headed for a wood and ten minutes later, still mutely absorbed in their pursuit, had left the open ground and were deep in the undergrowth. The scent was stronger here and the hounds quickened their pace. Half a mile ahead Kommandant van Heerden followed suit.

He wasn’t quite so mute but his absorption matched that of the pack. Above him clad only in her boots and spurs and with her top hat clinging elastically to the top of her tinted head, Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon shouted encouragement to her new mount, occasionally lashing him on with her crop. They were so deeply engrossed in one another that they were oblivious to the crackling undergrowth that signalled the approach of the hunt. “Jill. Jenny, Daphne, my sweet,” moaned the Kommandant unable even now to shake off the notion that he was figuring in one of Dornford Yates’ novels. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s imagination, sharpened by years of frustration, was more equestrian.

“Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross to see a fine lady upon a white horse,” she shouted and was astonished to find that her invitation had been accepted.

Out of the woods raced the pack and the Kommandant who had been on the point of reaching his second climax became suddenly aware that the tongue that was licking his face was of a length and texture quite unusual in a lady of Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon’s breeding. He opened his eyes and found himself looking into the face of a large foxhound which slobbered and panted disgustingly. The Kommandant looked wildly around. The dell was filled with dogs. A tide of tails waved above him and out above them all Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon sat impaled upon him beating around her with her riding crop.

“Down Jason. Down Snarler. Down Craven. Down van Heerden,” she yelled, her topper bobbing as vigorously as her breasts.

Kommandant van Heerden stared crazedly up at the underside of Snarler and tried to get the dog’s paw out of his mouth. He had never realized before how horrible a hot dog smelt. Obedient as ever to his mistress Snarler sat - and got up promptly when the Kommandant, dreading death by suffocation, bit him. Relieved for a moment of this threat of asphyxia the Kommandant raised his head only to have it submerged a moment later by the press. The brief glimpse he had had of the outside world presented so awful a prospect that he preferred the stinking obscurity to be found under the foxhounds. Colonel Heathcote-Kilkoon and the other members of the hunt had emerged from the woods and were surveying the scene in amazement.

“Good God, Daphne, what on earth do you think you’re doing?” the Kommandant heard the Colonel shout angrily.

Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon rose to the occasion magnificently.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” she screamed with a display of righteous indignation the Kommandant found extraordinarily impressive but which seemed calculated to raise a question in her husband’s mind the Kommandant would have preferred to remain unanswered.

“I’ve no idea,” shouted the Colonel who couldn’t for a moment imagine what his wife was doing in the middle of a dell without her clothes. Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon answered him. “I’m having a shit,” she shouted with a coarseness that Kommandant van Heerden found personally humiliating but entirely apposite.

The Colonel coughed with embarrassment. “Good God, I’m terribly sorry,” he muttered but Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon was determined to pursue the advantage she had gained.

“And if you were gentlemen you’d turn your backs and get the hell out of here,” she screamed. Her words were immediately effective. The huntsmen turned their horses and galloped back the way they had come.

As the tide of foxhounds slowly ebbed the Kommandant found himself, naked and covered with muddy paw-marks, staring up at the lady of his and Heathcote-Kilkoon’s choice. With a reluctance that did him credit she detached herself from him and stood up. Breathless with fear and a new admiration for her the Kommandant scrambled to his feet and began to look for his breeches. He knew now what British sang-froid meant.

“And I’ve got a stiff upper lip,” he said feeling the effects of Snarler’s hindpaw.

“About the only thing stiff you have got,” said Mrs Heathcote-Kilkoon frankly.

In the bushes on the edge of the dell Harbinger giggled softly. He’d never pretended to be a gentleman and he’d always wanted to see the Colonel’s wife in the nude.