Somewhere in Mozambique  – With consummate poise, I execute a series of big cape passes, the odd natural or two thrown in for good measure. After five minutes of this, I am quite prepared to retire behind the makeshift bullring for a quiet bottle of lunch.

But the crowd will give me no respite. Five veronicas, the classic pass of the big cape, bring them to their feet. A languid relobera, a sweet chiqueline, and I begin to feel that I will never again be able to find peace of mind in the mundane world of journalism.

Then they let in the bull.

Being at all times honest to a fault, I will be the first to concede that the animal which comes pounding into the arena is not a fighting bull in the true sense.

Possibly, it is slightly smaller than the fighting variety. And, well, possibly a bit younger.

I am also willing to admit that its horns are not of a size one normally associates with fighting bulls. But further than that I am not prepared to budge. (My colleagues, with their usual cynicism, will claim this description perfectly fits a calf. But if there is any such talk, I shall sue.)

At one stage during my training, I had considered taking the first charge on my knees, as I had once seen the great Antonio Ordonez do in Seville. Now, however, I reject that plan as frivolous and exhibitionist.

My substitute ploy, though less spectacular, is far more effective. I merely turn sideways to the line of the bull’s attack and disappear.

For ordinary mortals, the trick would be impossible. But for a man of my lateral proportions (I would make the young Sinatra look like an overstuffed gourmet) it is easy.

Bewildered, the bull blunders on.

Twenty metres away, an aged toureiro is reclining against the bamboo stockade, chatting to a friend in the stand. The bull takes him unawares, horns ripping through his trousers, raising a bruise on his thigh.

Hopping about indelicately on one leg, the man lets fly two flurries in Portuguese which I interpret loosely as “Please, you must be more considerate” and “Why do you not use the cape?”

Back in the middle of the sandpit, I feel it is time to establish supremacy. Shoulders erect, I leap nimbly into the air and yell “Toiro!”

It is a terrible mistake. Hardly have I landed when the bull is upon me.

Round and round the ring we race. After five laps I am ahead. On the seventh, I almost lap my snorting adversary, but manage to check my pace.

By the ninth circuit, we are both dead beat. We face each other through the settling dust. The bull stands there, chest heaving and mouth agape. I stand there, chest heaving and mouth agape. It must be a horrible sight.

After a statutory two-minute pause, we are at it again.

The bull comes on. Hopefully, I extend my cape. It is a reflex action, like the threshing of a drowning man. Amazingly, it works. The bull tears at the red square, misses comprehensively, and ploughs a neat furrow in the dirt with its nose.

When it charges again, I have summoned up enough energy for a lame veronica, while shuffling off in the direction of where, in cricketing terms, square leg would be.

Now the bull, with evil aforethought, decides on a change of tactics. From a distance of two metres, it suddenly takes off. I choose the same instant to get my front foot trapped in the folds of the cape, and fall.

Fortunately, the bull has badly over-judged its leap. By the time it is able to turn, skidding like a puppy on a polished floor, I am thirty metres away and still moving.

The chase begins afresh. Midway through the eight round, it is obvious which way the result will go. The bull begins to move in for the kill.

What happens next is not in the script. At the height of its final lunge, the bull seems to lose co-ordination and crashes down in a superb belly-flop. From this position, legs splayed, it eyes me like a beached porpoise.

Now the aficionados are around me, slapping my back and mumbling praises. Someone thrusts a bandarillio, the long coloured dart, into my hand. It is the old toureiro, his thigh bound with an incredibly dirty handkerchief.

“Come, amigo,” he says softly. “Now you must place the dart in the toiro’s neck to signify the kill.”

But something in the man’s tone makes me decline. I have never been able to stand the sight of blood.

Particularly my own.

From One Man’s Africa.