THE DICTATOR OF GRAND BASSA 243

CHAPTER THREE

THE DICTATOR OF GRAND BASSA
Black Mercenary

1 FELT very dirty as I followed the sentry into the wide
clean compound and rather ahsurd, with my stock-
ings over my ankles, my stained shorts, my too, too
British khaki sun helmet. I was very much at a dis-
advantage, standing beneath a verandah crowded
with black gentlemen in the smartest of tropical
lounge suits and uniforms. They had just finished
lunch and were smoking cigars and drinking coffee:
I wondered which was Colonel Davis. There was an
air of subdued activity as I stood there in dirty
neglect in the sun: clerks kept on delivering messages
and running briskly off again, sentries saluted, and
the supercilious diplomatic gentlemen leant over the
verandah and studied with well-bred curiosity the
dusty arrival.

The sentry returned and led me across the com-
pound to another bungalow, a less smart one this
time, with a few rickety chairs on the verandah. The
District Commissioner appeared in the doorway, a
slatternly mulatto woman peered over his shoulder.
He was a middle-aged man with a yellow face and
Victorian side-whiskers; he hadn't shaved for a long
time; his teeth were bad, and he wore a shabby khaki
uniform and the dirtiest old peeling white sun helmet
I had ever seen. He was like a stern and sadistic papa
in a Victorian children's story; his name was Words-