“Then we must commandeer them,” said Major Kinsella. “We’ll make up a foraging party at once. Come on and open your winkel, Dennison. Hunloke, buck up.”
Tommy Dennison was the cheeky Oxford undergraduate whose father owned about forty thousand acres somewhere in Scotland and one of the smartest yachts to be seen at Cowes; but Tommy was a younger son and a black sheep, so he kept a shop in Fort George with Hunloke, the long-nosed barrister. They were always proclaiming bitterly that no one ever paid their bills and that they should shortly go bust.
A small but select party of buccaneers was formed, including Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, Mrs Brand, and myself. The others had their cards already dealt and their half-crowns staked on the table, so they had to continue the game whether they liked it or not. Anna Cleeve and Mrs Valetta did not appear pleased, and Judy gave me a chaperony sort of look of which I took not the slightest notice. She then remarked with great point and significance that the night air was very dangerous. But the others cried her down saying that it was balmy and healthy, and the only air, in fact, that was any good at all. Mrs Brand said she would chaperon me, but as soon as we got out of doors she went off with Gerry Deshon. Some of the others ran ahead with Mr Hunloke to get the keys of the shop, and I found myself walking alone with Anthony Kinsella.
It was a lovely night, full of a sort of veiled radiance, shed from a deep purple sky embroidered with silver stars. Strange insects in the grass were calling to each other shrilly, and heavy on the air hung the divine odour of wild clematis of which almost every little house had a drapery over walls or verandah.
Anthony Kinsella plucked a spray from a wall as we passed, and put it in my hand without speaking, but our hands touched and I saw his intent eyes for a moment. I fastened the flower into the front of my black gown, and the scent of it will stay with me all my life. I suddenly felt so happy I could have sung aloud. Africa seemed all at once to have turned into a land of fair dreams, in which I was a happy wanderer, travelling towards my heart’s desire. I did not analyse my feelings nor ask myself any questions. I only knew that my eyes were unsealed to the beauty and mystery of life.
In a few moments we had reached the shop—a galvanised-iron building with “Hunloke and Dennison” painted in huge black letters across its roof. The others had already arrived with the keys, and we were admitted into a perfect paradise of tinned goods. Candles were hastily burst from their packets and stuck in lighted rows along the counter, and the general public was invited by the owners of the shop to “pay their money and take their choice.” This, however, was a mere form of speech. Apparently no one paid for anything in happy-go-lucky Mashonaland.
Mrs Skeffington-Smythe was helped up on the counter and walked along it, inspecting the things on the top shelves and handing them down. The rest of us made dives at anything we liked the look of, and the winkel of Messrs Hunloke and Dennison resounded with shouts of glee and triumph.
“Olives!”
“This lovely pink curly bacon—just the thing to make bicycles for my apostles to ride on. Banzai!”