“Excellent vittles,” he said. “Is there any more wine?”

I opened another bottle for him, and we all watched with a certain admiration as he proceeded to empty that one as well. His cheeks were swiftly turning from magenta to a very deep purple and his nose seemed to be catching on fire. Halfway through the third bottle, he began to loosen up. He worked, he told us, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and was home on leave. His job had to do with the Sudan Irrigation Service, and a very hot and arduous business it was. But fascinating. Lots of fun, y’know. And the wogs weren’t too much trouble so long as one kept the old shambok handy all the time.

We sat round him, listening and not a little intrigued by this purple-faced creature from distant lands.

“A great country, the Sudan,” he said. “It is enormous. It is remote. It is full of mysteries and secrets. Would you like me to tell you about one of the great secrets of the Sudan?”

“Very much, sir,” we said. “Yes, please.”

“One of its great secrets,” he said, tipping another glass of wine down his throat, “a secret that is known only to a few old-timers out there like myself and to the natives, is a little creature called the Sudanese Blister Beetle or to give him his right name, Cantharis vesiccitoria sudanii.”

“You mean a scarab?” I said.

“Certainly not,” he said. “The Sudanese Blister Beetle is a winged insect, as much a fly as a beetle, and is about three-quarters of an inch long. It’s very pretty to look at, with a brilliant iridescent shell of golden green.”

“Why is it so secret?” we asked.

“These little beetles,” the Major said, “are found only in one part of the Sudan. It’s an area of about twenty square miles, north of Khartoum, and that’s where the hashab tree grows. The leaves of the hashab tree are what the beetles feed on. Men spend their whole lives searching for these beetles. Beetle hunters, they are called. They are very sharp-eyed natives who know all there is to know about the haunts and habits of the tiny brutes. And when they catch them, they kill them and dry them in the sun and crunch them up into a fine powder. This powder is greatly prized among the natives, who usually keep it in small elaborately carved Beetle Boxes. A tribal chief will have his Beetle Box made of silver.”

“But this powder,” we said, “what do they do with it?”

“It’s not what they do with it,” the Major said. “It’s what it does to you. One tiny pinch of that powder is the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world.”

“The Spanish Fly!” someone shouted. “It’s the Spanish Fly!”

“Well, not quite,” the Major said, “but you’re on the right track. The common Spanish Fly is found in Spain and southern Italy. The one I’m talking about is the Sudanese Fly, and although it’s of the same family, it’s a different kettle of fish altogether. It is approximately ten times as powerful as the ordinary Spanish Fly. The reaction produced by the little Sudanese fellow is so incredibly vicious it is dangerous to use even in small doses.”

“But they do use it?”

“Oh God, yes. Every wog in Khartoum and northwards uses the old Beetle. White men, the ones who know about it, are inclined to leave it alone because it’s so damn dangerous.”

“Have you used it?” someone asked.

The Major looked up at the questioner and gave a little smile under his enormous moustache. “We’ll come to that in a moment or two, shall we?” he said.

“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. A few minutes later, I went indoors and got myself a second drink, then I returned to the veranda. I lay back again in the deck chair. My shirt was soaked with sweat but I was too tired to take a shower. Then all of a sudden I went rigid. I was just about to put the glass of whiskey to my lips and my hand froze, it literally froze in mid-air, and there it stayed with my fingers clenched around the glass. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. I tried to call out to my boy for help but I couldn’t. Rigor mortis. Paralysis. My entire body had turned to stone.”

“Were you frightened?” someone asked.

“Of course I was frightened,” the Major said. “I was bloody terrified, especially out there in the Sudan desert miles from anywhere. But the paralysis didn’t last very long. Maybe a minute, maybe two. I don’t really know. But when I came to as it were, the first thing I noticed was a burning sensation in the region of my groin. ‘Hullo,’ I said, ‘what the hell’s going on now?’ But it was pretty obvious what was going on. The activity inside my trousers was becoming very violent indeed and within another few seconds my member was as stiff and erect as the mainmast of a topsail schooner.”

“What do you mean, your member?” asked a girl whose name was Gwendoline.

“I expect you will catch on as we go along, my dear,” the Major said.

“Carry on, Major,” we said. “What happened next?”

“Then it started to throb,” he said.

“What started to throb?” Gwendoline asked him.

“My member,” the Major said. “I could feel every beat of my heart all the way along it. Pulsing and throbbing most terribly it was, and as tight as a balloon. You know those long sausage-shaped balloons children have at parties? I kept thinking about one of those, and with every beat of my heart it felt as if someone was pumping in more air and it was going to burst.”

The Major drank some wine. Then he studied the ash on his cigar. We sat still, waiting.

“So of course I began trying to puzzle out what might have happened,” he went on. “I looked at my glass of whiskey. It was where I always put it, on top of the little white-painted balustrade surrounding the veranda. Then my eye travelled upward to the roof of the bungalow and to the edge of the roof and suddenly, presto! I’d got it! I knew for certain what must have happened.”