371 CHAPTER 42
Rietfontein, Cape Colony, near the border of German South West Africa, 1906The camel dropped to its front knees and Colonel Llewellyn Walters gratefully and painfully dismounted. A coloured levy took the cantankerous beast’s reins and a white constable saluted.
Walters narrowed his eyes against the glare. Even by African standards this was a godforsaken middle-of-nowhere place. The police post and lockup were made of brick and tin but the dozen or so other dwellings were mean little places of mud and whatever rubbish some trader had bothered bringing this far into the rocky desert and abandoned. He’d been assaulted by the sun throughout the journey and now the ground was trying to burn him from the soles of his boots upwards.
The lioness had taken a good deal of muscle an
