The Heart of the MatterBy: Graham Greene Major Henry Scobie serves as a police officer in a British West African colony during the Second World War, a devout Catholic torn between duty and love. Stationed in a coastal colonial outpost in wartime West Africa, 1940s, Scobie prides himself on his incorruptibility. Yet as merchant ships crowd the harbour and the war tightens its grip on the empire, his private life begins to unravel. His wife Louise longs to escape the heat and