Rolt spent most of his days in meetings and dinners with one cabinet minister after another, listening to von Kleist as he tried to sell the Prussian plan and receive a pledge from the English. After three weeks, they were no closer to any kind of commitment, and then they heard the Austrians were in town too, seeking assistance for their own uprising (bigger and better than the comparatively vague Prussian plan). After that, Ludwig von Kleist became quite desperate and pushy. Rolt knew this wasn’t the approach to take with the English. They nodded politely into their soup as von Kleist argued his case. They cleared their throats as the plates were taken from between Kleist’s firmly planted elbows, and they smiled uncomfortably and tried to change the subject, and still he insisted. Finally, they listened to von Kleist beg and were forced to say, ‘We’ll see what we can do,’ and hoped the man would desist from embarrassing himself and those around him any further.

The shrunken head was in a glass cabinet at Lord Oldham’s house.

They were in his study, drinking French cognac after dinner, and like all the dukes and lords before him, Lord Oldham had stopped listening to what von Kleist had to say. The shrunken head hung by a braided cord from a small brass hook, like the pendulum in some grotesque clock, a blackened leathery ball about the size of a fist. It had long matted hair and wide, shrivelled lips sewn unevenly together, as were the half-closed eyelids, bulging and puckered around the thread, and the nose upturned like a snout, the nostrils obscenely flared. Its cheeks were sunken and lacerated and the face was dry and tight, knuckled like a ham hock. Claus von Rolt couldn’t take his eyes off it.

‘My son brought it back for me,’ Lord Oldham said, noticing the Prussian’s interest and keen for the distraction from the insufferable von Kleist. ‘South America, I believe. They’re into that sort of thing down there you know—lopping off the enemy’s head and usurping its power. If only it were that easy!’

‘Savages,’ Ludwig von Kleist said. ‘Cannibals.’

‘I’ve often wondered what his name was,’ Lord Oldham said. ‘My wife calls him Richard.’

‘How is it done?’ Rolt said.

‘First the skull is removed and the flesh cut away, then they fill it with heated pebbles and sand and sew everything back up again. Leave the head to dry and wait until the whole thing shrinks. Hell of a job. Then they wear the heads around their necks and apparently become invincible—or invisible. One or the other. Useless either way, I should think.’

‘What would you take, Lord Oldham,’ Rolt said, ‘if I were to make an offer?’

‘For my old friend Richard?’

‘Name a price, sir. I will endeavour to oblige.’

‘Ha! And I thought you Prussians had no money!’

WAR CONTINUES IN THE CARIBBEAN, TOO