It was George's custom, each morning, to iron the newspapers and deliver them to the various residents of the Empire Lodge Hotel. Some guests liked their copies of The Times pushed smoothly under bedroom doors, while others expected a crisply creased Telegraph alongside the toast-rack and teapot.

Colonel Bagshot, however, liked to employ George as audience while he reviewed the events of the day as reported in The Morning Post. That was Bagshot's own custom. So, a modus vivendi had emerged by which George ensured that all other newspapers had been properly and strategically placed before he tapped on the top floor door that led into the Colonel's rooms. This was a daily ritual. George had ten clear minutes while those who supervised his duties were occupied with breakfast. This group included Old Mr. Quint, the Hotelier; his pompous son - known to all as Young Mr. Quint - who worked at a bank, but bossed George about in his spare time, 'Cook' a ferocious figure much disliked by Colonel Bagshot; Molly the upstairs maid, and Bottomley the senior porter. It was a vast hierarchy of sundry humanity whose sole link to George appeared to be that they all told him what to do. In fact, the only people at the Empire Lodge who were not prone to exert their authority over him were the part-time gardener (nearly blind and smelling of beer gone by) and a painfully shy kitchen maid, who seemed terrified of all other human beings.

After a cursory glance at the headlines, with special reference to the bloody Bolshevists, the damned trade unions and the untrustworthiness of Mr Winston Churchill M.P., Colonel Bagshot manoeuvred his way through the small patches of news, domestic and foreign, that would lead him to the sports page and its unnerving accounts of the batting prowess of the Australian cricketers. Blasted sheepstealers, the lot of them. The Colonel had always, he said, detested Australians, especially since the unfortunate conffision between 'Austrians' and the King's antipodean subjects - especially the ANZAC Mounted Division - which had been the reason that his career in the Great War had ended suddenly, some months before the Armistice ended everyone elses. But this was a story he told seldom, and with much editorial opinion when he did.

He'd found a paragraph that interested him.

"Good God, the Nuer have speared one of our chaps! A Captain Fergusson, apparently, just before Christmas!"

George had no idea who or what the Nuer might be, but evidently they had taken cold steel to one of his Majesty's serving soldiers, "Er, Burma, is it sir?"

"Burma!" snorted the Colonel. "D'ye know nothing, boy? The Nuer are a tribe of savages on the Upper Nile. Frightffilly primitive. Stark naked heathens, spend all their time stealin' each other's cattle or standing around on one leg in a swamp. Likeable fellows on the whole. Bit strange in their ways, though."

Which, considered George, appeared to include impaling those sent to administer them. This thought, however, he decided not to bring to the Colonel's attention. Colonel B liked his wild naked pagans, it was well known.

"Oh yes. I've spent time in the Sudan, as you know. Probably too much time, what with Osman Digna and the Camel Corps and Omdurman and all that running about in native garb for Wingate's Intelligence people. As the Arabs say "When Allah made the Sudan, he laughed ", so desolate a place is it. Like Hades with flies. That's the northern, deserty parts. The south is much nastier."

He adjusted his worn regimental tie - Tenth Hussars - and filled his pipe with that distinctive personal blend from Vafiades of Cairo that had been unfavourably compared to mustard gas by a travelling salesman from Bristol who'd spent two nights at the Hotel last month. The people you had to put up with nowadays. Standards had fallen. Jazz, votes for women, changes in the Church of England prayerbook. It was all the socialists' fault.

It was 1906 or 7, I suppose. After the Tibetan affair and before the Mohmand Rising on the North West Frontier, anyway. I'd retired from the army by then, with a Lieutenant Colonel's pension, and nothing special to do until some maniac shot the Archduke in Sarajevo. Then they needed me back again!

Ah, but for the moment, I decided to take a short-term contract with the Sudan Civil Service rather than kick around Aunt Agatha's place in Oxfordshire pretending to be a bona fide country gentleman. I am, as you know, fluent in colloquial Arabic, and a dab hand with camels. I knew the customs of the nomad tribes, and had old friends among the former Mahdists - who were nice enough chaps for demented Moslem fanatics, but never offer to buy them a drink --- anyway, they sent me to the distant wet south, where none of these skills were a blind bit of use. I was to report to the Provincial headquarters at Wau, which is in the middle of nowhere. I took a steamer from Khartoum upriver, through the papyrus swamp they call the Sudd - big as England, an ocean of floating matting - to the station at Meshra el Req on a tributary of the Nile called the Bahr el Ghazal. It's a relatively civilised place by local standards, you can get tinned kippers and Scotch there. Together, if you really want. It was another hundred odd miles on foot to HQ Wau, as they called it. But chance had something else in mind for Lt. Col. Bagshot, 10th Hussars, Retired. A telegram was awaiting me:

"Bagshot: Urgent: Proceed Rumbek Post: Prevent Tribal Outbreak: Both Officers Sick:"

It was signed by the Provincial Governor. I took a minimum of kit, leaving most of my gear at the club in Meshra, and borrowed a crew of porters. A decent young chap two years out of Oxford, pointed me in the general direction of Uganda.

The Upper Nile country is, as I say, pretty nasty; a vast region of swamp, grass and crawling things. In the wet season, the whole area is under three feet of water, except where it's under six. In the dry season it's all dried mud and flies. Actually you have flies all year round, also snakes and stinging beetles; it's a collector's paradise. many of the specimen's reveal themselves inside your laundry bag, or under the lavatory seat. One chap woke up with a puff adder inside his shirt, had to sit stock still until it vacated the premises by way of his trouser leg. Fortunately puff adders are idle bastards; a mamba would have bitten him for the sheer bloody hell of it. And crocodiles! Horrible creatures who will pull a man down into the water, drown him and - because their teeth aren't designed for chewing - lug him off to some subterranean larder to get nice and mushy like English vegetables. A crocodile will ram a canoe to upset it and pick the tastiest looking fellow as he flounders in the river. I try to carry either a heavy shotgun or a really big rifle - I used to have one of the old black powder express rifles, a Rigby .50, blow a hole in the side of a Brighton bus. I swapped it for a Hungarian Countess a few years ago. Anyway, since I can't shoot, I require something that will devastate half an acre in one shot. Bloody crocodiles.

This is the land of the Dinka and the Nuer. They are related, and hate each other the way only family can. Both peoples are tall, thin and extremely black - not chocolate like the Zulus and Zanzibaris, but hobnail boot black. They wear no clothes whatever, except, apparently, when they visit in-laws. I'm not counting beads, of course. However, they smear their bodies with ash (which keeps off flies) and dress their hair with cow's urine, turning it orange. Interestingly enough, they use cattle piss in all kinds of context: disinfectant, grooming aid, condiment. It's particularly appalling in a cup of fresh milk. Manure is also employed in situations that most Europeans find ingenious, surprising and disgusting.

Cattle are the be all and end all of life, like jewels and sports cars to the London smart set. If a Dinka steals a Nuer man's wife, he sighs and buys another one. If the Dinka pinches his cows, however, the fellow gets all his chums and goes off to raid the Dinka village. Much blood and burning and general unpleasantness. The Nuer, in particular, have a very odd belief that everyone has a cattle counterpart, a sort of 'fetch' or familiar. So, if you steal a cow, you may be running off with someone's psychic brother. Not every cow, of course, just certain ones: if you ever find yourself levying taxes in kind on the Upper Nile, just let the taxpayers select the animals for payment, and don't argue if they pick the scrawny ones. The well-fed heifer you see hidden behind the hut is the reincarnation of cousin Gertrude, so leave her alone. It's all bizarre, not at all Church of England. Still, they believe that we eat our own God every communion, so I suppose we seem strange to them. Anyway, cattle are important to these folk. They collect 'em, drink their blood, use their other, er, bodily excretions in various capacities. They hardly ever kill them. If you tried to explain the concept of a steak-and-kidney pie to a Nuer, he'd be genuinely shocked.

Both Dinka and Nuer are wonderfully savage. They use spears - iron tipped if they can get them, bone otherwise - and big wicker shields. They assume all outsiders are hostile. Having had experience of Arab slavers, their instinct is to stab first and ask questions afterwards. They can't tell Englishmen from Arabs, both being vaguely white and swaddled in clothes. My pal Chauncey Stigand was killed just after the Great War by the Aliab Dinka; a thousand of 'em rushed his patrol from the long grass, and Chauncey could only knock over a dozen or so before they got him. He'd known them for years, but they are like that.

Rumbek Post was no health spa, but it was better than before we British brought the light of civilization. It had once been a slaving centre, a eunuch market; Dr Junker, the Russian scientist of the 1 880s had said "What a pigsty! --- we were glad to turn our backs on this wretched hole". Romolo Gessi, Gordon's Italian lieutenant, who would put up with a lot, wrote to the Governor that "if fate ever brings me to these parts again, I will do my best to avoid Rumbek". The District Commissioner was down with malaria, while the Inspector of Woods and Forests was suffering from an unfortunate contretemps with a lion. He'd reached out for his Paradox eight-bore and seen his trusty gunbearer up a tree fifty feet away. Fortunately the bearer slipped and the express rifle went off, which put the beastie off his lunch. The inspector was not as grateful to the gunbearer as perhaps he might have been. Even a slight mauling's bad news, though. Lions have very poor personal hygiene, and the filth behind their fingernails will send the wounds septic. Still, it's nicer to write to the dear departed's mama that he is buried in a plot of foreign soil that is forever England, than to mention that his last remains are dissolving in some huge kitty's gastric juices. Anyway, the inspector wasn't up to talking.

The District Commissioner raised himself up in his cot, swathed in fever. he was white behind the veils of mosquito netting.

"Bagwell", he said, "You have to prevent war between traditional enemies. Uphold British prestige, Keep the sides apart. Avoid bloodshed."

It sounded like a goodish day's work, with time for a tub and a G&T later on. "Lead a patrol, you mean? A company of infantry in a cordon between warring tribes? Or a dawn swoop to nab the headmen of both sides?"

"Er, no, Bagshoot, No. No, I need you to preside over a native court. Quite easy. The tribal elders get together and decide on a verdict according to customary law. All you have to do is put the official imprimature on the proceedings. Dead easy. Got any quinine on you, Bogbrush?"

With that he lapsed into rambling, with many threats towards a servant - currently absent without leave - who had allegedly traded the whole of the station's anti-malarial stocks for an unstated number of goats. He did not have permission to do this, I understood.

British authority in this place consisted of myself, a Greek trader by the unlikely name of Stavros Pathanassiou, who was employed as a part-time interpreter, and half a dozen policemen. When I say 'policemen', I'm not talking about reassuring servants of the great British public, with blue helmets and "What's all this then?" No, these were tribesmen in red fezzes and baggy khaki shorts, with fierce scarring on their faces and well oiled Martini-Henrys. They were earnest fellows of the Shilluk people, marsh dwellers from Fashoda way, selected for their neutrality in the quarrels between Nuer and Dinka. The sergeant was a tough veteran copper, tribal welts raised like ferocious warts across his forehead. He'd acquired the Moslem name of Mahmoud somewhere in his travels. He spoke army Arabic, and four words of English: "Hector MacDonald Fighting Mac". If this meant, as I believed, that he had fought in MacDonald's brigade at Omdurman - who broke the Dervish charge with fire and discipline - then he was a good 'un to have at my back. Poor Mac; a hieland laddie, raised from the ranks to be a general, shot himself over an incident with a schoolboy in Ceylon. Good soldier for a Nancy-boy. But I'm getting away from the point.

The station log, written in a successively deteriorating hand by the raving D.C. told me most of what I needed to know about the case.

• September 12. A deputation of Dinka headmen came in to the post. Report that single Nuer man stole forty cows last Thur. Wish to complain to Govt. rather than deal with traditional way. Gave directions regarding direction taken by thief. Assured govt. will return stock and render judgement.
• September 13. Sent Sergt. and detachment in pursuit of cattle and thief.
• September 19. Message from Sergt Mahmoud. Has captured Nuer thief at home village. Stock safe. Will return with all above ASAP.
• September 25. Sergt Mahmoud and detachment returned, report capture of Nuer man, by name Ping, cattle thief, plus evidence. Evidence found grazing behind Ping's hut. Ping made full confession, no accomplices. Runners despatched villages.
• September 28. Dinka headmen request trial by native law. Telegraphed HQ Wau for instructions, say alright. Trial to be set Oct 14, delegations of elders both Nuer and Dinka. Ping to be held w/o bail, also cattle. Trial to take place under the Sausage Tree.
• Oct. 2. Self unwell, malaria. No quinine. Must telegraph HQ Wau replacement DC handle Ping case.

From this point on the log, no masterpiece of wit and erudition, became a jumble of cursory squiggles, with occasional words underlined and capitalized: 'WAR' appeared more than once, which I was sure would not please HQ Wau, though I personally have no problems with it.

Well, jolly good. If the Dinka had shown unusual faith in the justice of the Government, I'd be happy to serve as His Majesty's representative. Where was this bloody Sausage Tree place anyway? Our guide - a six foot four Adonis with orange ha* and ash-smeared skin - told me, through Stavros, that it was four days walk. Seemed like a reliable type, by local standards.

I packed light: change of clothes, razor, shotgun, folding camp gear, three bottles of assorted single malt whisky, and a handful of books from the decreasingly life-like Inspector of Woods and Forests' library. His taste ran heavily to the dour and domestic mid-Victorians; Trollope, Eliot, various Brontes. Damned discouraging. I took two or three. I already had a copy of King Solomon's Mines I'd read a dozen times. You can never have enough rip-roaring adventure .

Four days trek through a flat world of tall grass and cracked earth, I ventured a question as to how far it was to the place of judgement. The Greek asked the guide, and was answered with a stream of incomprehensibility.

"Another two day" offered Stavros, "three if elephants trampling path."

"Good grief!" I expostulated. "It was four days walk when we left Rumbek."

"Oh yes, Colonello. Four days journey, long leg man. Him long leg man, you can see. You not long leg man. You" - he pointed at me -you bandy leg man. Six days, no doubt."

The guide, the sergeant and the policemen all looked at me as if this was obvious.

I had a chance to brush up my Arabic with the sergeant while we hiked. He gave an account of the capture of Ping. The patrol had surrounded his village, but gone in cautiously to avoid bloodshed. Ping had been caught drinking millet beer and boasting of his coup. He'd taken his imprisonment well, and thrived on the notoriety of his theft. No doubt about it, the man had a way with animals. Nobody had ever driven forty cows for two days on their own.

"Behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great", as it saith in the Book of Daniel. The sausage tree is technically known to botanical types as Kigelia Aethiopica. It looks much like an ordinary English oak tree, but bears a very distinctive fruit. At the end of long stalks hang brown pods, cigar shaped, about two feet long and weighing enough to do a considerable mischief if one were to fall on an unsuspecting person underneath. British officers likened the tree, with our usual obsession with familiar grub, to a sausage. The Arabs, who all have filthy minds, call it Abu Shutur, the Father of Breasts, owing to some fancied resemblance to the anatomy of elderly native women. "The tree is known by his fruit": Matthew 33. Whatever you called it, the tree was a distinctive feature of the plain, the only shade for ten miles in any direction. Its mother must have been very proud. There were dozens of Nuer and Dinka gathered beneath its branches, squatting and chattering. The delegates had all brought their families.

"This should be straightforward enough," I thought to myself. When you've caught the thief redhanded with the stolen goods chewing the cud ten feet from his dwelling, there can't be that much to discuss. The thief, in this case, was especially proud to plead guilty, and one assumes that if the London illustrated papers had been there, he would have been happy to pose for a lithograph. It wasn't like one of those endless Indian cases over unpaid dowries and ancestral water rights that my father used to deal with before the Mutiny. I remembered sitting on his knee while two Brahmins alternately cooed at the dear little Baba-log (being myself) and cursing one another roundly. Since I didn't want to overawe the assembly with the power and prestige of empire, - and also my feet hurt - I made a few opening remarks, translated by my unshaven Greek trader in his best pink shirt, and retired. The police had arranged a groundsheet, draped over standing spears, as a shelter for me. Very Imperial. Just like the bloody Delhi Durbar. I pulled out King Solomon and bade the Bobbies brew tea. It was too early for the Glenfiddich. A couple of hours and we'd be trekking back to the fleshpots of Rumbek Post. It was nine in the morning, more or less.

By eleven I'd poured down a pint of muddy tea, and had reached the part where hero Quatermain and company are lost while crossing a desert in search of a waterhole. Desperate thirst and all that. Time for a whisky. The deliberations under the tree, fifty yards away, seemed to be going well. No outbreaks of spearplay had occurred, and the Dinka and Nuer were debating earnestly. I asked the sergeant to send a copper and inquire as to progress. The report was encouraging. The accused fully admitted the theft, as we knew he would. His defence, such as it was, ran like this: since the Government, in its wisdom, would not permit the ancient sport of slave-raiding, a man of honour and character had no choice but to engage in lifting his neighbour's cattle. As far as the policeman could tell, neither the Dinka nor Nuer jurors were persuaded by this spirited but desperate line of argument. Good -oh!

Noon passed. Lunch came. It consisted of a Nile perch, broiled in ashes, courtesy the police force; most of the coppers had stripped off the uniforms and gone fishing as soon as we got here. I added a bit of Kendal mint cake I'd been saving, while Stavros contributed a tin of warm sardines and some tomatoes he had grown in defiance of the climate. It was all very civilised. At three, by which time the evil Gagool was smelling out the noble Ignosi as a warlock - you saw the moving picture, didn't you? - the jury sent a man to tell us they had decided to end business for the day. I took a bath with six inches of silty water in my indiarubber tub and took some whisky in case of fever. It can creep upon you at night in the tropics.

The Dinka sang songs about cattle for half the evening, and danced like lunatics for the other, bouncing up and down like jacks-in-the-box. The sun was up and about its business at six, as it always does in Equatorial parts. The delegates convened. I tried to look businesslike, reviewing the six policemen and inspecting the camp. This was a pretty ridiculous process, but it took up ten minutes. Then the peelers went off to play football with some kind of inflated bladder. I'd have joined them if it wasn't for Appearances. As the Imperial Presence, it was back to the rubberised canvas shelter and H. Rider Haggard. On several occasions I sent a policeman - Sgt Mahmoud left a man in uniform and rifle on guard with me while he played goalie - to ask about deliberations. He kept returning with what Stavros explained were reports of good fellowship and positive advances towards a judgement. The Greek had decided it was his role to keep me company. He had a bottle of some clear liquid which he called Ouzo. I tried a taste. It was like something you'd clean steam turbines with. He grew maudlin, showing me pictures of his wife and family in Cyprus, but talking of his other wife, the Abyssinian one, in Rumbek. He had five children by one and four by the other. At one moment he was praising the wonderful cooking of Mrs Pathanassiou the Aethiope, the next bemoaning the sad fact that, but for a few silver coins lost though a hole in his pocket, he could have bought a much prettier bride.

He didn't have any pictures, of her, no. He was drinking far too early in the day, even earlier than the Warwickshires' mess would permit. That's the problem with these Levantine traders: the natives can't tell 'em from English, but they don't have the same standards. Still, there was some baklava his dusky spouse had replicated from the distinctly non-Hellenic resources available at Rumbek market.

The police were taking a rest from footer - I think they'd been up late dancing with the jury the night before - and Sgt Mahmoud joined us.

"Tell me about Omdurman! Fighting Mac!" I commanded him, in Arabic and English, mixed. I'd had enough of Stavros' domestic concerns. If you've got two wives, don't gripe about it to me. I've always avoided having one. "I was with the 21st Lancers that day."

"Ah, Omdurman!" he replied. "A great day. The Ansars - which is what some call 'Dervish' - charge, spears in hand, into the teeth of the rifles. The Government army was surprised you know, moving out of its position towards the city. Ya'qub had kept his command, the Black Flag, out of sight, waiting until the English and Egyptians left their entrenchment to advance. Then it was like lightning. Inshallah! Fighting Mac's brigade was alone on the plain.

All Sudanese men, Shilluk, Dinka, Bari, Nuba men. These black soldiers started firing, but wildly, madly. Bang! Bang! Mac stopped the firing. He rode along the front of the line, shouting 'Cease fire!', with bullets from both sides whishing past. They say that only two days before a soldier had threatened to shoot Mac: Mac had loaded his rifle for him, handed it back, turned away and told the man to fire and be damned. Of course he hadn't, but he might have changed his mind later. Mac didn't care one whit for such men.

The Ansar were five hundred paces away when he ordered the volley. Crash! The attack faltered. Then it was that General Kitching-ner turned his brigades around and fell on the Ansar. Rifles and maxim guns were firing, with a noise like 'runnnn!' Ya'qub was killed by a machine gun. A blind emir named Abd el Rahman Ahmad, was told his brother Ibrahim al Khalil had already been killed. He pulled his horse out of the mass of warriors. He told his servant to point the horse towards MacDonald's position. The servant protested. The emir rebuked him. The servant did as he was bid. Another man smacked the horse's rump with the flat of his sword. The blind horseman surged into a trot, then a gallop. His sword was in his hand, though he could not see to slay. All eyes were upon him. A rifle shot brought him down, dead. His horse fell into the front ranks of the soldiers. Yet the battle was in the balance still, for Sheikh el Din's forces of the Green Flag were approaching MacDonald's right flank from the Karari Hills to the north.

Mac was kicked in the leg by a horse. He was in excruciating pain, but he turned two battalions, the IXth and Xth Sudanese, to face the north. The Ansar were within a hundred paces. The soldiers were firing madly again. The officers begged them to shoot straight. They had six, eight bullets left for each man. The Ansar were fifty paces away. They outnumbered the Sudanese tenfold. Then it was thirty paces. The Ansar threw spears as they came on. The Xth fired into their faces and fixed bayonets. Ten paces apart. Then it was that the camel men and the Englishmen, the Lin -kin-sheers came up and began their terrible volleys into the flank of the Ansars. Then it was finished. The Green Flag was beaten."

"What a wonderful telling", I marvelled. "You were with the Xth Sudanese, Sergeant?"

"Oh, no sir. My brother was with the Xth Sudanese. I was the servant of Abd el Rahman Ahmad."

My Sergeant was a Dervish.

He accepted a glass of whisky. "Ah, but I'm a Christian now. Perhaps I shall change my name to Ezekiel. Or Paul. Or Binky."

By the third day I'd seen the tale of King Solomon's fabled treasure properly accounted for, and had begun the first chapter of Barchester Towers. Not at all to my taste. The Sergeant drilled his coppers, but quietly, so as to avoid consternation - and further delays - among the jurors. Later they played football again, using their fezzes as goalposts, I noticed. The Kendal mint cake was gone, and the third bottle of whisky half empty. Much longer, I'd be reduced to begging liquid fire from Stavros and reading "The Mill on the Floss" or some such improving tripe - as I said, the inspector's library was heavy on the Dull Victorians. Misery and melodrama on bleak moors, and not a lost city or Russian plot in any of'em. Can't think why anyone would write such drivel. Suddenly a long figure was looming over me; it was a spokesman for the jury.

Stavros interpreted. "Is the talk finish?"

Much jabbering and clucking. "Yes, he say talk finish now."

"Have you found the accused, er, Ping, guilty or not guilty?" I asked.

More pointing and smiling as Stavros spoke in laboured ---ah, Dinka? Nuer? I couldn't tell 'em apart. If his mastery of the native languages was equal to his gift with my own mother tongue, we'd have a complete failure of comprehension. The man was an imbecile, obviously. He turned and grinned at me. His teeth were things of horror. "This man say Ping is very bad man."

"Of course. Did Ping admit to stealing the cattle?"

"Oh yes. He admitted that right from beginning of talk."

"Well, dammit, have the delegates agreed on a suitable punishment?"

"Pardon, you are speaking too fast."

"Have they decided what to do with Ping?"

"Oh yes. Yes they have."

"Stavros you oaf. Stopping piddling about and tell me the verdict."

Stavros started blabbering with the foreman of the jury once again. There were many nods of agreement, vocal additions, side comments and general words of self- congratulation from the delegates, who had chosen to join their spokesman in a wall of humanity surrounding my groundsheet shelter. Ping was conspicuous among them, affably joshing with those who had judged him. Or had they? It was apparent that my conception of a judicial process was considerably different from theirs. Maybe they'd crowned him king instead. Stavros seemed to have collected a consensus.

"Well, your excellency, it's like this. They all think that Ping is a very bad man."

Everyone nodded, Ping included. "No bloody argument on that one" I muttered to myself. However, for the sake of Imperial Dignity, I announced "Yes, we are all agreed. What is the sentence of the court?" I hoped they had one, and weren't waiting for me to come up with one.

"This stealings might have leading to war between Dinka and Nuer peoples. Blood all over" stated the Greek.

"That is indeed so." I was thinking about learning Dinka and Nuer myself. They were difficult languages for someone with a full set of teeth; both tribes pulled out a certain number of teeth in some kind of puberty ritual, which means everybody has a speech impediment. Perhaps I'd undergo some painful dental surgery without anaesthetic. It seemed better than putting up with this boozy Cypriot. He had more to say.

"So, Ping must be punishing most severely, oh yes."

"Certainly", I replied. "Most severely." Did they mean that I should make the decision? Er, would six months hard labour be what they were thinking of? Seven years digging roads in Egypt? A rope over one of the tree limbs and a quick step off a camp stool? I had a quick think of the Old testament laws regarding cattle theft, which seemed more useful than anything you'd hear in Bow Street Magistrate's court. "If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep and kill it, or sell it: he shall restore five oxen for and ox, and four sheep for a sheep" - Exodus 22. So, Ping would owe, ah, two hundred cattle. Did that include the ones he'd pinched or not? Two hundred and forty, then. Or one hundred and, er, sixty. If I could do arithmetic I'd have gone into the artillery.

Stavros had more to say. " Well, your excellency. The Dinka men and Nuer men are have gone into case thoroughly. They are conclusion that Ping is a very bad man, that he might have been cause of warrings between the tribes, and that he must now be punished severely. Yes!" He ended on a note of exultation. Or it might have been covering a belch. The delegates applauded. They were firmly under the impression that Stavros was expressing their views in the most eloquent manner.

"Yes, Stavros, you've said all that. Several times. What have the Dinka elders and the Nuer elders decided should be done? To Ping, especially?"

"Well, your excellency. They find that Ping must have gone to a vast amounts of trouble and consternation to planning this thieverys,. He goes to great efforts to take forty cattle all on his ownness, being most difficult as you must understand. This all be very bad. They have consider much the trouble Ping here --" he ushered Ping forward. Ping smiled at me. Cocky little bastard. "has gone to for thief so much cattles and carrying them all to his house so far away" -he made a gesture toward the horizon, eliciting admiration from the assembly - "and all this being very bad, as has been said. The deciding is that Ping can only keep one bull, and must gives all thirty nine others back to owner."

There was much applause.

I finished off the whisky and threw Barchester Towers into a swamp. The police beat the delegates ten-seven, with the prisoner putting a couple of neat headers past Sergeant Mahmoud in goal.

The breakfast bell rang. The Colonel struggled into a tweed jacket which almost certainly fitted him better when he was measured for it just after Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. After thirty years it had gained in character what it might have lost in accuracy of size, and actual wool content. The Colonel always dressed for breakfast.

"Captain Fergusson, eh. Skewered by the Nuer, December 14th, 1927. Still, could 've been worse, eh Georgie?"

George, being of limited imagination and experience, couldn't fathom how.

"Well, they just up and stabbed the fellow. They didn't make him wait for days under a tarpaulin while they talked about it."

Colonel Bagshot pulled a dusty long gun from its case. "Jeffreys .475 No 2 Express rifle, loaded with a 480 grain bullet and 85 grains of cordite. Present from Teddy Roosevelt for my small help with the Perdicaris affair. No crocodiles downstairs, today? Perhaps I shall bag Cook."

George looked aghast. The Colonel smiled. "No, I think not. The .500 double rifle would be much more the thing. She'd count as very heavy game indeed."

"Bleeding cheek!" said Cook, when she heard of it, as the Colonel knew she would.

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