A Spear of Summer Grass Read Online Free PDF Page B

earlier meant missing the closing of Cocteau’s Antigone, but I was not about to budge. And when I saw the crew, I didn’t even mind giving up the Chanel costumes or the Picasso sets. The boys were absolutely darling, each and every one of them, and for the next fortnight, I nursed my grievances in style. The deck steward made certain my chair was always in the best spot, near the sun but comfortably shaded as we moved south. As soon as I settled myself each morning, he was there with a travelling rug and a cup of hot bouillon. The dining steward dampened my tablecloth lightly so my plate wouldn’t slide in rough seas and the wine wouldn’t spill on my French silks. The older officers took turns escorting me onto the dance floor, and the younger ones gathered up empty bottles by the armful. We composed messages to seal inside, each one sillier than the last, and hurled them overboard until the captain put a stop to it. But he made up for it by inviting me to sit at his table for the rest of the voyage, and I discovered he was the best dancer of the lot. Poor Dodo was violently seasick and spent the entire trip holed up in her cabin with a basin between her knees and a compress on her brow.
    I was feeling much better indeed by the time we sailed into Mombasa, past the old Portuguese fort of St. Jesus. I had asked the officers endless questions about the place and they talked over each other until I scarcely got a word in edgewise. I learned quite a bit about Mombasa, although my knowledge was rather limited to places that might appeal to sailors. If I needed a tipple or a tattoo or a two-dollar whore, I knew just the spots, but five-star hotels seemed in short supply. They told me if we sailed into port early in the morning, I could make straight for Nairobi on the noon train, heading up-country to where the white settlers had carved out a settlement for themselves. The captain had an uncle who had gone up-country and he regaled me with tales of hippos in the gardens and leopards in the trees. I knew a bit from Nigel’s stories as well, but the captain’s knowledge was somewhat fresher and he offered me his guidebook as a reference.
    “Be careful with the natives,” he warned. “Don’t let them take advantage of you. If you need advice, find an Englishman who’s been there and knows the drill. Make sure you visit the club in Nairobi. It’s the best place to get a bit of society and all the news. They won’t let you join, naturally, since you are a lady, but you would be permitted inside as the guest of a member. You will want to mix with your own kind, of course, but mind you steer clear of politics.”
    “Politics! In a backwater like this?” I teased.
    The captain had lovely eyes, but the expression in them was so serious it dampened the effect. “Definitely. Rhodesia gained its independence from the Crown last year, and there are those who feel that Kenya ought to be next.”
    “And will England let her go as easily as she did Rhodesia?”
    A slight furrow plowed its way between his brows. “Difficult to say. You see, England doesn’t care about Africa itself, not really. It’s all about control of the Suez.” He flipped open the guidebook and pointed on the map. “France, England and Germany have all established colonies in Africa to keep a close eye upon the Suez. At present, we have the advantage,” he said with a tinge of British pride, “but we may not keep it. It all depends on Whitehall and how nervous they are about India.” He traced a line from India westward, through the Arabian Sea, into the Gulf of Aden and then a sharp turn up the slender length of the Red Sea to the Suez at the tip of Egypt. “See there? Whoever controls Egypt controls the Suez, and through it, all the riches of India.”
    I picked up the long slender line of the Nile. One branch, the Blue, curved into Ethiopia, but the other snaked through Uganda and trailed off somewhere beyond. “And whoever controls the Nile