Chapter 37

The wedding took place a month later, held in the register office in Cairo. Commodore Silverman and his wife Doctor Helen Silverman, Cookie, and Prof with Barbara sporting an engagement ring. Ted Frazer, now a Lieutenant Colonel, and Bobby sporting a cast on his arm, learning later he was on sick leave due to run in with a German patrol.

At the reception in the gardens of the Nile Palace Shaun thanked everyone for attending amid ribald remarks from Bobby and Cookie.

At five the Commodore and Doctor Silverman ran Sharon and him in his Humber staff car to the airport where Dad had pulled strings to get them on a flight. Their luggage was already in the DC3 hold. He shook hands with the Commodore and thanked Doctor Silverman who kissed him on his cheek whispering in his ear, “Take care of her son.”

They relaxed in the uncomfortable canvas bucket seats as the aircraft lifted off on the first leg of their journey.

He glanced at Sharon sitting next to him. She had worn the white summer dress to the wedding and now had a cardigan over her shoulders to offset the cold of the aircraft at this altitude.

Happy darling?” He murmured. She turned and looked at him with those dark beautiful eyes. Taking his hand in hers she kissed it. “Ecstatic” she whispered, squeezing his hand.

They refuelled at Juba in South Sudan before continuing on to Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia. They stayed overnight in a hotel before catching the De Havilland Rapid to Nairobi early the next morning.

Aunt t Vicky and Tamba were waiting to greet them. Shaun and Tamba loaded the big American Shooting Brake with the luggage whilst Sharon and Aunt Vicky hugged each other.

Shaun sat in the front with Tamba as he took the wheel of the powerful V8. Tamba had taken over the duties of running the house after his grandfather’s old batman, Hanga, had died. Now almost fifty he drove carefully as they negotiated through the traffic leading out of Nairobi.

“I’ve taken the liberty of having Yasmin’s old bungalow prepared for you,” Aunt Vicky told them. He saw Sharon frown, and Shaun explained. “Yasmin is married to Sultar, a Ghurkha who fought with my grandfather in India and here in Kenya. Yasmin was an Indian princess who gave up her succession to the throne when she married Sultar. They both now run the Crater Game Reserve and their home is now on the reserve.”

Sharon nodded, “So how old are they now?”

Aunt Vicky replied “They are both in their sixties, although you would never guess it to see them. I’m named after Yasmin, Victoria Yasmine.”

They chattered away about the people she would meet at the Crater, saying that a bar-b-q had been arranged in honour of their arrival tomorrow.

Sharon’s eyes opened wide as the V8 passed through the walls that surrounded the Crater, seeing the green of the grass as opposed to the brown that that was prevalent out on the veldt.

The car made its way up the gravelled road, coming to a stop by the three buildings spread out around a small lake. Tamba got out and with Shaun’s help gathered up the luggage and started to walk towards the centre of the three.

“Leave the cases on the stoep Tamba,” Shaun cried out. Sharon frowned, and he explained, “Stoep is what you would call a veranda, in Afrikaans.”

Aunt Vicky climbed the stairs leading to the stoep, with Sharon close behind. Shaun hung onto the rail to help negotiate the stairway.

The door opened and a young man dressed in white trousers and shirt stood in the doorway to accept the luggage from Tamba. Shaun smiled when he saw him, “Hector, so are you going to be running the home?”

The young man’s face lit up with a smile, he nodded “yes Sir”,

Aunt Vicky explained to a mystified Sharon, “Hector was at school with Shaun here in the Crater. He’s the son of Ali who was our cook before his death. He learnt cooking from his father.”

“So who does your cooking now?” Sharon asked.

Aunt Vicky smiled, “Tamba sees to all my needs. I’ll leave you now my dear to settle into your new home. You both must be exhausted after your long journey. Tomorrow you will meet the others at the B-B-Q”. She hugged Sharon and kissed Shaun on the cheek before leaving.

Shaun reached down and picked up Sharon, who squealed as he carried her over the threshold.

Sharon followed Hector and Shaun into the bedroom where they left the suitcases on the ottomans at the foot of the bed.

“I’m ready for a drink. How about you darling?” Shaun murmured.

She nodded “I’ll just change and meet you out on the,” she hesitated, “stoep.”

Shaun chuckled, “Do we have any vodka Hector?” He nodded “Yes Sir.”

When she joined him she had removed her cardigan and brushed her hair. He sat in a large cane chair by a small table with glasses upon it. She sat down in the chair opposite lifting a glass and taking a sip before settling back into the chair.

She looked over the lake to the pastures where cattle were milling around as small black boys herded them. Closer to them she saw horses in paddocks. “How many cattle and horses does Aunt Vicky have?” she asked.

“About 700 cattle with over a 100 in the Jersey heard. They supply the milk, cheese, and butter which is sold in Nairobi. We have a plant there that converts it. The other cattle are sold for slaughter and we have a slaughter house also in Nairobi. We only have around 100 horses now. Most are bought for riding at events, although thirty or so are used by the Rangers out on the game reserve. Patar will fix you up with one so you can see around the Crater. By the way this doesn’t belong to Aunt Vicky, but to me. I’m the eldest male in the family, although she has been running it since Gran died.”

They finished their drink and went inside. The lounge was large dominated by huge leather couch and two matching armchairs with a long coffee table between them. A drinks cabinet was against one wall and alongside of it was a tall cabinet. On the walls were paintings and native masks and weapons.

Sharon was looking at them, “Do Tamba and Hector both belong to the same tribe?”

Shaun chuckled, “No darling, Tamba is pure Maasia while Hector’s father Ali was the result of an Arabs rape on his mother.”

Sharon paused “I thought he looked different from Tamba. So all the natives are Maasia here in the Crater?”

Shaun shook his head, “No he’s the only Maasia in the Crater. The Maasia live out on the veldt where they rear cattle which is their life’s work. We have a tribe of Matabele’s here in the Crater and you’ll meet Jason who is the son of N’debi the chief of them. N’debi was a great friend of my grandfather. He must be well over eighty by now. Jason, Hector and I all started school together here in the Crater”. He smiled remembering, “We used to love the stories told to us by Gran from the Iliad about Helen of Troy and the war. That’s where they got their names. I was Achilles.”

They wondered through to the study. Bookshelves filled one wall, packed with books of different subjects. “Most of these were my father’s and Grans’. Gramps didn’t do much reading, but the maps were his”. He said indicating where they hung on the wall. Alongside of them stood a tall Teak gun case and his rifle still in its canvas case was propped up against it. Opening the gun case he removed the rifle from the canvas case and clipped it into position alongside four other rifles.

Hector called them for dinner. After they sat out on the stoep as the sun set, listening to the sounds of Africa as darkness fell.

Shaun finished his drink rising from the chair. “I think I’ll turn in. It’s been a long day.”

Sharon smiled “I’ll be in shortly”, she murmured.

Sharon knew that Shaun still had a hang up regarding his false foot and hated her to see him without it. It had affected their love making; they had only made love twice since he had left the hospital. It had been hesitant, almost clumsy, and she knew it would take time for him to come to terms with it. Until then she would have to make the best of it.

When she entered the bedroom he was in bed asleep so she undressed and slipped beneath the bedclothes naked.

The next morning after breakfast, Shaun took Sharon down to the stables and introduced her to Patar. Patar was in his late sixties now, but showed very little signs of his age.

“So I must find you a horse to match your beauty,” Patar murmured as he led her along the stable stalls. He came to a stop at one and entered then led out a pure white mare for Sharon to see.

“Patar she’s beautiful”, Sharon gasped.

Patar smiled “her name is Moonbeam and she can trace her linage back to Sulkie and Khan, Sahib Ramage’s horses that first came to the Crater. She is four years old and accustomed to the saddle, do you wish to ride her today Sharon?”

“Oh please Patar,” Sharon asked excitedly.

Patar led the mare back to the tack house and whilst Sharon petted the horse entered, returning with a saddle and tack.

Sharon heard a noise and swung round to see Shaun mounted on a black stallion.

“I see Patar has fixed you up with a horse darling.”

“Isn’t she beautiful Shaun? She’s called Moonbeam.”

They chattered as Patar saddled the horse, then gave Sharon a leg up to mount it, finally adjusting the stirrups to suit her.

They set off with Shaun leading the way. “Is your horse descended from your grandfather’s horses?”

“Not exactly. It was one of his horses, but originally its grandfather belonged to a German officer. He’s called Loki, after the Norse god of mischief. When I first started training him to the saddle he would take off the horse blanket with his teeth. That was five years ago.”

As they rode Shaun pointed out the school, the hospital, and where the Ghurkha families lived, giving a running commentary about them. Sharon began to realise how huge the Crater was. Down near the entrance she saw the graveyard of the men killed in action during the First World War defending Kenya from invasion.

They rode slowly back towards the stables and, as they neared them, Sharon became aware of a low humming noise coming from a building off to the right. Shaun saw her looking at it and chuckled, “That’s the generator house, and it produces the electricity for the Crater. We have three of them, two are always running with a third as a backup.”

They unsaddled and rubbed the horses down before releasing them into the paddock.

As they walked back towards the bungalow Shaun told her she would be meeting Sultar and Yasmin along with Uncle Martin and Aunt Jill that evening at the B-B-Q. They were down on the Reserve at the moment along with Jason who was chief tracker for the reserve.

Once in the house Sharon announced she was going to have a shower. He watched as she undressed feeling the accustomed ache in his groin. “Do you want to wash my back?” Sharon murmured.

“No, you go ahead”, he replied as he removed his shirt.

After she had gone he sat down on the bed thinking, “Why do I balk at being naked in front of her?” He knew he had lost the foot and that made no difference to the love she had for him. The fault lay with him; how could she love a man who wasn’t whole, who only had a stump where a foot should be. It was an embarrassment, the ugly wooden appendage that had to pass for a foot. She had never been allowed to see him without it. He knew that this was affecting their marriage so he had to find some way of overcoming this obstacle.