The white Britsih officer commanding a detachment of black soldiers in Cameroon finds more in common with his sergeant than he had imagined. I quite liked the telling of this story, but didn’t, to be honest, find it particularly affecting. At five pages, I think ‘Umaru’ is too short for me to gain a proper impression of Cary’s work; but he has another, longer, piece later in the anthology, which may facilitate that.

Rating: ***