“What does it actually do to you?” one of the girls asked.

“My God,” the Major said, “what doesn’t it do to you? It builds a fire under your genitals. It is both a violent aphrodisiac and a powerful irritant. It not only makes you uncontrollably randy but it also guarantees you an enormous and long-lasting erection at the same time. Could you give me another glass of wine, dear boy?”

I leaped up to fetch more wine. My guests had suddenly become very still. The girls were all staring at the Major, rapt and motionless, their eyes shining like stars. The boys were staring at the girls, watching to see how they would react to these sudden indiscretions. I refilled the Major’s glass.

“Your father always kept a decent cellar,” he said. “And good cigars, too.” He looked up at me, waiting.

“Would you like a cigar, sir?”

“That’s very civil of you,” he said.

I went to the dining-room and fetched my father’s box of Montecristos. The Major put one in his breast pocket and another in his mouth. “I will tell you a true story if you like,” he said, “about myself and the Blister Beetle.”

“Tell us,” we said. “Go on, sir.”

“You’ll like this story,” he said, removing the cigar from his mouth and snipping off the end of it with a thumbnail. “Who has a match?”

I lit his cigar for him. Clouds of smoke enveloped his head, and through the smoke we could see his face dimly, but dark and soft like some huge over-ripe purple fruit.

“One evening,” he began, “I was sitting on the veranda of my bungalow way upcountry about thirty miles north of Khartoum. It was hot as hell and I’d had a hard day. I was drinking a strong whiskey and soda. It was my first that evening, and I was lying back in the deck chair with my feet resting on the little balustrade that ran round the veranda. I could feel the whiskey hitting the lining of my stomach, and I can promise you there is no greater sensation at the end of a long day in a fierce climate than when you feel that first whiskey hitting your stomach and going through into the bloodstream.