'A .
'Fourteen Vickers machine guns, most of them straight from the factory
hardly a shot through the barrels-' They passed slowly down the array
of merchandise to where one of the machine guns had been uncrated and
set up on its tripod.
'As YOU can see, all first-class stuff.' The five Ethiopians were all
warriors, from a long warlike line, and they had the true warrior's
love of and delight in the weapons of war. They crowded eagerly around
the gun.
Gareth winked at Jake, and went on, 'One hundred and forty-four
Lee-Enfield service rifles, still in the grease-' Half a dozen of the
rifles had been cleaned and laid out on display.
No. 4 Warehouse was an Aladdin's Cave for them. The elderly courtiers
forgot their dignity, and fell upon the weapons like a flock of crows,
cackling in Amharic as they fondled the cold oiled steel.
They hoisted up the skirts of their shammas to crouch behind the
demonstration machine gun and traversed it happily, making the staccato
schoolboy imitations of automatic fire as they mowed down imaginary
hordes of their enemies.
Even Lij Mikhael forsook his Etonian manners and joined in the
delighted examination of the hoard, pushing aside an old greybeard of
seventy to take his place at the Vickers gun and triggering off a noisy
squabble amongst the others in which Gareth diplomatically
intervened.
'I say, Toffee, old chap. This isn't all I have for you. Not by a
long chalk. I've kept the plums for the last.' And Jake helped him to
gather up the robed and bearded group of excited old men and herd them
gently away from the display of weapons and down the warehouse to the
open tourers.
The motorcade, headed by Gareth, Jake and the Prince in the leading
tourer, came bumping down the dusty track through the mahogany forest
and parked in the clearing in front of the candy-striped marquee that
had taken the place of Jake's weather-beaten bell tent.
The Royal Hotel had undertaken to cater for the occasion, despite
Jake's protests at the cost.
'Give them a bottle of Tusker each and open a tin of beans,' he
insisted, but Gareth had shaken his head sadly.
'Just because they are savages doesn't mean that we have to behave like
barbarians, old chap. Style. One has to have style that's what life
is all about. Style and timing. Fill them up with Charlie and then
take them for a stroll down the garden path, what?' Now there were
white-robed waiters with red sashes and little red pillbox fezes upon
their heads. Under the marquee, long trestle-tables were laden with
displays of choice food decorated sucking pig, heaped salvers of boiled
scarlet reef lobster, a smoked salmon, imported apples and peaches from
the Cape of Good Hope and case upon case, bucket upon bucket of
champagne. Although Gareth had been swayed t by Jake's pleas for
economy sufficiently to order a Veuve Clicquot not of a selected
vintage.
