‘You are right.’

‘Well then?’

‘It’s not the point.’

‘It’s my point. That is why I dwell on the simple savagery of the Matabele and the Mashona. The other is simply too hideous to contemplate. It is the reality of our time, socialist or capitalist - well, Comrade Willi?’

Willi hesitated, then said: ‘There will be certain outward similarities but…’ He was interrupted by Paul and myself, then Jimmy, in a fit of laughter.

Maryrose said to Willi: ‘They’re not laughing at what you say, but because you always say what they expect.’

‘I am aware of that,’ said Willi.

‘No,’ said Paul, ‘you are wrong, Maryrose. I’m also laughing at what he’s saying. Because I’m horribly afraid it’s not true. God forbid, I should be dogmatic about it, but I’m afraid that - as for myself, from time to time I shall fly out from England to inspect my overseas investments and peradventure I shall fly over this area, and I shall look down on smoking factories and housing estates and I shall remember these pleasant, peaceful pastoral days and …’ A pigeon landed on the trees opposite. Another and another. Paul shot. A bird fell. He shot, the second fell. The third burst out of a bunch of leaves skywards as if it had been shot from a catapult. Jimmy got up, walked over, brought back two bloodied birds, flung them down with the others and said: ‘Seven. For God’s sake, isn’t it enough?’

‘Yes,’ said Paul, laying aside his rifle. ‘And now let’s make tracks fast for the pub. We shall just have time to wash the blood off before it opens.’

‘Look,’ said Jimmy. A small beetle about twice the size of the largest ant-eater, was approaching through the towering grass-stems.

‘No good,’ said Paul, ‘that is not a natural victim.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Jimmy. He twitched the beetle into the largest pit. There was a convulsion. The glossy brown jaws snapped on the beetle, the beetle jumped up, dragging the ant-eater halfway up the sides of the pit. The pit collapsed in a wave of white sand, and for a couple of inches all around the suffocating silent battle, the sand heaved and eddied.

‘If we had ears that could hear,’ said Paul, ‘the air would be full of screams, groans, grunts and gasps. But as it is, there reigns over the sunbathed veld the silence of peace.’

A cleaving of wings. A bird alighted.

‘No don’t,’ said Maryrose in pain, opening her eyes and raising herself on her elbow. But it was too late. Paul had shot, the bird fell. Before it had even hit the ground another bird had touched down, swinging lightly on a twig at the very end of a branch. Paul shot, the bird fell; this time with a cry and a fluttering of helpless wings. Paul got up, raced across the grass, picked up the dead bird and the wounded one. We saw him give the wounded struggling bird a quick determined tight-mouthed look, and wring its neck.

He came back, flung down the two corpses and said: ‘Nine. And that’s all.’ He looked white and sick, and yet in spite of it, managed to give Jimmy a triumphant amused smile.