Stannard followed him to one side of the path.

‘That was a damn poor show, making an exhibition of yourself. I take it you had too much to drink.’

‘No sir, I would never do that,’ Stannard replied. ‘I’m teetotal.’

Henderson looked appalled. ‘Good grief!’ he gasped. ‘What was it then, touch of the dicky tummy?’

‘No, sir, it was . . .’ Stannard had suppressed his feelings once, when Leon was there to restrain him. But this time he could not stop himself. ‘I just couldn’t bear it, sir.’

‘Bear what?’

‘Seeing a native worker being beaten, sir. It was . . . completely unforgivable.’

Henderson’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, sir, if Britain stands for anything, it’s the rule of law. Surely that’s what we’re supposed to be spreading throughout the Empire. Seeing a native being beaten like that, without any chance to put his case . . . It was barbaric, sir, and . . . well . . . it made me sick to see British men behaving that way and no one lifting a finger.’

‘I never heard anything so pathetic in all my days,’ Henderson said. ‘Let me tell you why we’re here. Forget all that white man’s burden nonsense about giving the lesser races the benefits of our civilisation. The only thing that matters is keeping Kenya in the Empire. We’ve lost India. We’re losing Malaya. It’s a matter of time before the West African colonies and the Caribbean islands go too. But Kenya is the one jewel left in the imperial crown and we are not letting it out of our hands, d’you hear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘As for tonight’s show of discipline being barbaric, well, it probably was. But do you think any African would treat a thief any better? The Kikuyu beat their miscreants with a club called a kiboko. Believe me, young man, that boy thought he’d got off lightly just getting a few strokes of a whip.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But nothing. I spent five years in Somaliland. They believe in Muslim law there. That boy wouldn’t have been given a whipping, they’d have chopped his bloody hand off.’ Henderson paused. ‘Listen, Stannard, if I’d not seen you play cricket I’d have had you marked down as a lily-livered bleeding heart, and had you shipped back to England on the next boat out of Mombasa. But no one can face fast bowling the way you do without a bit of backbone, so I’ll tell it to you straight.

‘Those chaps you saw cheering their heads off because a young black man was being whipped are scared witless. They know that they, and their wives and children, are outnumbered a hundred to one by the natives. They live in dread of the day when the masses rise up against them. The only way we can keep a grip on the place is to make the blacks more scared of us than we are of them. The moment they scent weakness, or loss of conviction in the white population, the game’s up.’