‘I want to ring Haggard Hall,’ he told the stationmaster. ‘Where can I find a telephone?’
‘No telephone to Haggard Hall.’
‘Is there a bus?’
‘No bus.’
‘Taxi, then?’
‘No taxi.’ The word meant nothing to the stationmaster. He was a cheerful Kikuyu with a gap in his teeth, eager to help.
‘Well, how does one get to Haggard Hall?’
‘You have no car?’
‘No. I came on the train.’
‘Is better if you have a car.’
‘But I haven’t. I came on the train.’ There was truth in this. The stationmaster ruminated for a while, then pointed with his chin.
‘Is that way,’ he said.
‘How far?’
‘Not far.’
Not far was an African unit of measurement, meaning anything between five and a hundred miles.

(..)

When would all this travelling stop, Martin wondered, as the vehicle slithered ambitiously uphill. By now he should have been safely at Haggard Hall, sleeping off the effects of his journey. Instead he was illegally climbing a mountain, in the company of people he had never met before - most of them carrying spears – in pursuit of a child he didn’t know.


//Nicholas Best, 2013, Tennis and the Masai