(Extract from the diary of Sir Eustace Pedler)
As I remarked once before, I am essentially a man of peace. I yearn for a quiet lifeā āand thatās just the one thing I donāt seem able to have. I am always in the middle of storms and alarms. The relief of getting away from Pagett with his incessant nosing out of intrigues was enormous, and Miss Pettigrew is certainly a useful creature. Although there is nothing of the houri about her, one or two of her accomplishments are invaluable. It is true that I had a touch of liver at Bulawayo and behaved like a bear in consequence, but I had had a disturbed night in the train. At 3 a.m.
an exquisitely dressed young man looking like a musical-comedy hero of the Wild West entered my compartment and asked where I was going. Disregarding my first murmur of āTeaā āand for Godās sake donāt put sugar in it,ā he repeated his question, laying stress on the fact that he was not a waiter but an immigration officer. I finally succeeded in satisfying him that I was suffering from no infectious disease, that I was visiting Rhodesia from the purest of motives, and further gratified him with my full Christian names and my place of birth. I then endeavoured to snatch a little sleep, but some officious ass aroused me at 5:30 with a cup of liquid sugar which he called tea. I donāt think I threw it at him, but I know that that was what I wanted to do. He brought me unsugared tea, stone cold, at 6, and I then fell asleep utterly exhausted, to awaken just outside Bulawayo and be landed with a beastly wooden giraffe, all legs and neck!
But for these small contretemps, all had been going smoothly. And then fresh calamity befell.