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grant, and wildebeeste, dusty, the meat seared dry by the sun, and the
porters were happy, crouched around their fires roasting the meat on sticks.
Pop was puzzled why the rhino were all gone. Each day we had seen less and
we discussed whether it could be the full moon, that they fed out at night
and were back in the forest in the morning before it was light, or that they
winded us, or heard the men, and were simply shy and kept in the forest, or
what was it? ' Me putting out the theories, Pop pricking them with his wit,
sometimes considering them from politeness, sometimes with interest, like
the one about the moon.
We went to bed early and in the night it rained a little, not a real
rain but a shower from the mountains, and in the morning we were up before
daylight and had climbed up to the top of the steep grassy ridge that looked
down on to the camp, on to the ravine of the river bed, and across to the
steep opposite bank of the stream, and from where we could see all the hilly
slopes and the edge of the forest. It was not yet light when some geese flew
overhead and the light was still too grey to be able to see the edge of the
forest clearly in the glasses. We had scouts out on three different hill
tops and we were waiting for it to be light enough for us to see them if
they signalled.
Then Pop said, 'Look at that son of a bitch', and shouted at M'Cola to
bring the rifles. M'Cola went jumping down the hill, and across the stream,
directly opposite us, a rhino was running with a quick trot along the top of
the bank. As we watched he speeded up and came, fast trotting, angling down
across the face of the bank. He was a muddy red, his horn showed clearly,
and there was nothing ponderous in his quick, purposeful movement. I was
very excited at seeing him.
'He'll cross the stream,' Pop said. 'He's shootable.'
M'Cola put the Springfield in my hand and I opened it to make sure I
had solids. The Rhino was out of sight now but I could see the shaking of
the high grass.
'How far would you call it?'
'All of three hundred.'
'I'll bust the son of a bitch.'
I was watching, freezing myself deliberately inside, stopping the
excitement as you close a valve, going into that impersonal state you shoot
from.
He showed, trotting into the shallow, boulder-filled stream. Thinking
of one thing, that the shot was perfectly possible, but that I must lead him
enough, must get ahead, I got on him, then well ahead of him, and squeezed
off. I heard the {whonk} of the bullet and, from his trot, he seemed to
explode forward. With a whooshing snort he smashed ahead, splashing water
and snorting. I shot again and raised a little column of water behind him,
and shot again as he went into the grass; behind him again.
'Piga,' M'Cola said. 'Piga!'
Droopy agreed.
'Did you. hit him?' Pop said.
'Absolutely,' I said. 'I think I've got him.'
Droopy was running and I re-loaded and ran off after him. Half the camp
was strung out across the hills waving and yelling. The rhino had come in
right below where they were and gone on up the valley towards where the
forest came close down into the head of the valley.
Pop and P.O.M. came up. Pop with his big gun and M'Cola carrying mine.
'Droopy will get the tracks,' Pop said. 'M'Cola swears you hit him.'
'Piga!' M'Cola said.
'He snorted like a steam engine,' P.O.M. said. 'Didn't he look
wonderful going along there?'
'He was late getting home with the milk,' Pop said. 'Are you {sure} you
hit him? It was a godawful long shot.'
'I {know} I hit him. I'm {pretty} sure I've killed him.'
'Don't tell any one if you did,' Pop said. 'They'll never believe you.
Look! Droopy's got blood.'
Below, in the high grass, Droop was holding up a grass blade towards
us. Then, stooped, he went on trailing fast by the blood spoor.
'Piga,' M'Cola said. 'M'uzuri!'
'We'll keep up above where we can see if he makes a break,' Pop said.
'Look at Droopy.'
Droop had removed his fez and held it in his hand.
'That's all the precautions he needs,' Pop said. 'We bring up a couple
of heavy guns and Droopy goes in after him with one article less of
clothing.'
Below us Droopy and his partner who was trailing with him had stopped.
Droopy held up his hand.
'They hear him,' Pop said. 'Come on.'
We started toward them. Droopy came toward us and spoke to Pop.
'He's in there,' Pop whispered. 'They can hear the tick birds. One of
the boys says he heard the faro, too. We'll go in against the wind. You go
ahead with Droopy. Let the Memsahib stay behind me. Take the big gun. All
right.'
The rhino was in high grass, somewhere in there behind some bushes. As
we went forward we heard a deep, moaning sort of groan. Droopy looked around
at me and grinned. The noise came again, ending this time like a
blood-choked sigh. Droopy was laughing. 'Faro,' he whispered and put his
hand palm open on the side of his head in the gesture that means to go to
sleep. Then in a jerky-flighted, sharp-beaked little flock we saw the tick
birds rise and fly away. We knew where he was and, as we went slowly
forward, parting the high grass, we saw him. He was on his side, dead.
'Better shoot him once to make sure,' Pop said. M'Cola handed me the
Springfield he had been carrying. I noticed it was cocked, looked at M'Cola,
furious with him, kneeled down and shot the rhino in the sticking place. He
never moved. Droopy shook my hand and so did M'Cola.
'He had that damned Springfield cocked,' I said to Pop. The cocked gun,
behind my back, made me black angry.
That meant nothing to M'Cola. He was very happy, stroking the rhino's
horn, measuring it with his fingers spread, looking for the bullet hole.
'It's on the side he's lying on,' I said.
'You should have seen him when he was protecting Mama,' Pop said.
'That's why he had the gun cocked.'
'Can he shoot?'
'No,' Pop said. 'But he would.'
'Shoot me in the pants,' I said. 'Romantic bastard.' When the whole
outfit came up, we rolled the rhino into a sort of kneeling position and cut
away the grass to take some pictures. The bullet hole was fairly high in the
back, a little behind the lungs.
'That was a hell of a shot,' Pop said. 'A hell of a shot. Don't ever
tell any one you made that one.'
'You'll have to give me a certificate.'
'That would just make us both liars. They're a strange beast, aren't
they?'
There he was, long-hulked, heavy-sided, prehistoric looking, the hide
like vulcanized rubber and faintly transparent looking, scarred with a badly
healed horn wound that the birds had pecked at, his tail thick, round, and
pointed, flat many-legged ticks crawling on him, his ears fringed with hair,
tiny pig eyes, moss growing on the base of his horn that grew out forward
from his nose. M'Cola looked at him and shook his head. I agreed with him.
This was the hell of an animal.
'How is his horn?'
'It isn't bad,' Pop said. 'It's nothing extra. That was a hell of a
shot you made on him though, brother.'
'M'Cola's pleased with it,' I said.
'You're pretty pleased with it yourself,' P.O.M. said.
'I'm crazy about it,' I said. 'But don't let me start on it. Don't
worry about how I feel about it. I can wake up and think about that any
night.'
'And you're a good tracker, and a hell of a fine bird shot, too,' Pop
said. 'Tell us the rest of that.'
'Lay off me. I only said that once when I was drunk.'
'Once,' said P.O.M. 'Doesn't he tell us that every night?'
'By God, I {am} a good bird shot.'
'Amazing,' said Pop. 'I never would have thought it. What else is it
you do?'
'Oh, go to hell.'
'Mustn't ever let him realize what a shot that was or he'll get
unbearable,' Pop said to P.O.M.
'M'Cola and I know,' I said.
M'Cola came up. 'M'uzuri, B'wana,' he said. 'M'uzuri sana.'
'He thinks you did it on purpose,' Pop said.
'Don't you ever tell him different.'
'Piga m'uzuri,' M'Cola said. 'M'uzuri.'
'I believe he feels just the way you do about it,' Pop said.
'He's my pal.'
'I believe he is, you know,' Pop said.
On our way back across country to our main camp I made a fancy shot on
a reedbuck at about two hundred yards, offhand, breaking his neck at the
base of the skull. M'Cola was very pleased and Droopy was delighted.
'We've got to put a stop to him,' Pop said to P.O.M. 'Where did you
shoot for, really?'
'In the neck,' I lied. I had held full on the centre of the shoulder.
'It was awfully pretty,' P.O.M. said. The bullet had made a crack when
it hit like a bat swung against a fast ball and the buck had collapsed
without a move.
'I think he's a damned liar,' Pop said.
'None of us great shots is appreciated. Wait till we're gone.'
'His idea of being appreciated is for us to carry him on our
shoulders,' Pop said. 'That rhino shot has ruined him.'
'All right. You watch from now on. Hell, I've shot well the whole
time.'
'I seem to remember a grant of some sort,' Pop was teasing. So did I
remember him. I'd followed a fine one out of the country missing shot after
shot all morning after a series of stalks in the heat, then crawled up to an
ant hill to shoot one that was not nearly as good, taken a rest on the ant
hill, missed the buck at fifty yards, seen him stand facing me, absolutely
still, his nose up, and shot him in the chest. He went over backwards and as
I went up to him he jumped up and went off, staggering.
I sat down and waited for him to stop and when he did, obviously
anchored, I sat there, using the sling, and shot for his neck, slowly and
carefully, missing him eight times straight in a mounting, stubborn rage,
not making a correction but shooting exactly for the same place in the same
way each time, the gun bearers all laughing, the truck that had come up with
the outfit holding more amused niggers, P.O.M. and Pop saying nothing, me
sitting there cold, crazy-stubborn-furious, determined to break his neck
rather than walk up and perhaps start him off over that heat-hazy, baking,
noontime plain. Nobody said anything. I reached up my hand to M'Cola for
more cartridges, shot again, carefully, and missed, and on the tenth shot
broke his damned neck. I turned away without looking toward him.
'Poor Papa,' P.O.M. said.
'It's the light and the wind,' Pop said. We had not known each other
very well then. 'They were all hitting the same place. I could see them
throw the dust.'
'I was a bloody, stubborn fool,' I said.
Anyway, I could shoot now. So far, and aided by flukes, my luck was
running now.
We came on into sight of camp and shouted. No one came out. Finally
Karl came out of his tent. He went back as soon as he saw us, then came out
again.
'Hey, Karl,' I yelled. He waved and went back in the tent again. Then
came toward us. He was shaky with excitement and I saw he had been washing
blood off his hands.
'What is it?'
'Rhino,' he said.
'Did you get in trouble with him?'
'No. We killed him.'
'Fine. Where is he?'
'Over there behind that tree.'
We went over. There was the newly severed head of a rhino that was a
rhino. He was twice the size of the one I had killed. The little eyes were
shut and a fresh drop of blood stood in the corner of one like a tear. The
head bulked enormous and the horn swept up and back in a fine curve. The
hide was an inch thick where it hung in a cape behind the head and was as
white where it was cut as freshly sliced coco-nut.
'What is he? About thirty inches?'
'Hell, no,' said Pop. 'Not thirty inches.'
'But he iss a very fine one, Mr. Jackson,' Dan said.
'Yes. He's a fine one,' Pop said.
'Where did you get him?'
'Just outside of camp.'
'He wass standing in some bush. We heard him grunt.'
'We thought he was a buffalo,' Karl said.
'He iss a very fine one,' Dan repeated.
'I'm damned glad you got him,' I said.
There we were, the three of us, wanting to congratulate, waiting to be
good sports about this rhino whose smaller horn was longer than our big one,
this huge, tear-eyed marvel of a rhino, this dead, head-severed dream rhino,
and instead we all spoke like people who were about to become seasick on a
boat, or people who had suffered some heavy financial loss. We were ashamed
and could do nothing about it. I wanted to say something pleasant and
hearty, instead, 'How many times did you shoot him?' I asked.
'I don't know. We didn't count. Five or six, I guess.'
'Five, I think,' said Dan.
Poor Karl, faced by these three sad-faced congratulators, was beginning
to feel his pleasure in the rhino drained away from him.
'We got one too,' said P.O.M.
'That's fine,' said Karl. 'Is he bigger than this one?'
'Hell, no. He's a lousy runt.'
'I'm sorry,' Karl said. He meant it, simply and truly.
'What the hell have you got to be sorry about with a rhino like that?
He's a beauty. Let me get the camera and take some pictures of him.'
I went after the camera. P.O.M. took me by the arm and walked close
beside me.
'Papa, please try to act like a human being,' she said. 'Poor Karl.
You're making him feel dreadfully.'
'I know it,' I said. 'I'm trying not to act that way.'
There was Pop. He shook his head. 'I never felt more of a four-letter
man,' he said. 'But it was like a kick in the stomach. I'm really delighted,
of course.'
'Me too,' I said. 'I'd rather have him beat me. You know that. Truly.
But why couldn't he just get a good one, two or three inches longer? Why did
he have to get one that makes mine ridiculous? It just makes ours silly.'
'You can always remember that shot.'
'To hell with that shot. That bloody fluke. God, what a beautiful
rhino.'
'Come on, let's pull ourselves together and try to act like white
people with him.'
'We were {awful,'} P.O.M. said.
'I know it,' I said. 'And all the time I was trying to be jolly. You
{know} I'm delighted he has it.'
'You were certainly jolly. Both of you,' P.O.M. said.
'But did you see M'Cola,' Pop asked. M'Cola had looked at the rhino
dismally, shaken his head and walked away.
'He's a wonderful rhino,' P.O.M. said. 'We must act decently and make
Karl feel good.'
But it was too late. We could not make Karl feel good and for a long
time we could not feel good ourselves. The porters came into camp with the
loads and we could see them all, and all of our outfit, go over to where the
rhino head lay in the shade. They were all very quiet. Only the skinner was
delighted to see such a rhino head in camp.
'M'uzuri sana,' he said to me. And measured the horn with shiftings of
his widespread hand. 'Kubwa sana!'
'N'Dio. M'uzuri sana,' I agreed.
'B'wana Kabor shoot him?'
'Yes.'
'M'uzuri sana.'
'Yes,' I agreed. 'M'uzuri sana.'
The skinner was the only gent in the outfit. We had tried, in all the
shoot, never to be competitive. Karl and
I had each tried to give the other the better chance on everything that
came up. I was, truly, very fond of him and he was entirely unselfish and
altogether self-sacrificing. I knew I could outshoot him and I could always
outwalk him and, steadily, he got trophies that made mine dwarfs in
comparison. He had done some of the worst shooting at game I had ever seen
and I had shot badly twice on the trip, at that grant and at a bustard once
on the plain, still he beat me on all the tangible things we had to show.
For a while we had joked about it and I knew everything would even up. But
it didn't even up. Now, on this rhino hunt, I had taken the first crack at
the country. We had sent him after meat while we had gone into a new
country. We had not treated him badly, but we had not treated him too well,
and still he had beaten me. Not only beaten, beaten was all right. He had
made my rhino look so small that I could never keep him in the same small
town where we lived. He had wiped him out. I had the shot I had made on him
to remember and nothing could take that away except that it was so bloody
marvellous I knew I would wonder, sooner or later, if it was not really a
fluke in spite of my unholy self-confidence. Old Karl had put it on us all
right with that rhino. He was in his tent now, writing a letter.
Under the dining tent fly Pop and I talked over what we had better do.
'He's got his rhino anyway,' Pop said. 'That saves us time. Now you
can't stand on that one.'
'No.'
'But this country is washed out. Something wrong with it. Droopy claims
to know a good country about three hours from here in the lorries and
another hour or so on with the porters. We can head for there this afternoon
with a light outfit, send the lorries back, and Karl and Dan can move on
down to M'uto Umbu and he can get his oryx.'
'Fine.'
'He has a chance to get a leopard on that rhino carcass this evening,
too, or in the morning. Dan said they heard one. We'll try to get a rhino
out of this country of Droopy's and then you join up with them and go on for
kudu. We want to leave plenty of time for them. '
'Fine.'
'Even if you don't get an oryx. You'll pick one up somewhere.'
'Even if I don't get one at all, it's all right. We'll get one another
time. I want a kudu, though. '
'You'll get one. You're sure to.'
'I'd rather get one, a good one, than all the rest. I don't give a damn
about these rhino outside of the fun of hunting them. But I'd like to get
one that wouldn't look silly beside that dream rhino of his.'
'Absolutely.'
So we told Karl and he said: 'Whatever you say. Sure. I hope you get
one twice as big. ' He really meant it. He was feeling better now and so
were we all.
Droopy's country, when we reached it that evening, after a hot ride
through red-soiled, bush-scrubby hills, looked awful. It was at the edge of
a belt where all the trees had been girdled to kill the tsetse flies. And
across from camp was a dusty, dirty native village. The soil was red and
eroded and seemed to be blowing away, and camp was pitched in a high wind
under the sketchy shade of some dead trees on a hillside overlooking a
little stream and the mud village beyond. Before dark we followed Droopy and
two local guides up past the village and in a long climb to the top of a
rock-strewn ridge that overlooked a deep valley that was almost a canyon.
Across on the other side, were broken valleys that sloped steeply down into
the canyon. There were heavy growths of trees in the valleys and grassy
slopes on the ridges between, and above there was the thick bamboo forest of
the mountain. The canyon ran down to the Rift Valley, seeming to narrow at
the far end where it cut through the wall of the rift. Beyond, above the
grassy ridges and slopes, were heavily forested hills. It looked a hell of a
country to hunt.
'If you. see one across there you have to go straight down to the
bottom of the canyon. Then up one of those timber patches and across those
damned gullies. You can't keep him in sight and you'll kill yourself
climbing. It's too steep. Those are the kind of innocent-looking gullies we
got into that night coming home.'
'It looks very bad,' Pop agreed.
'I've hunted a country just like this for deer. The south slope of
Timber Creek in Wyoming. The slopes are all too steep. It's hell. It's too
broken. We'll take some punishment to-morrow.'
P.O.M. said nothing. Pop had brought us here and Pop would bring us
out. All she had to do was see her boots did not hurt her feet. They hurt
just a little now, and that was her only worry.
I went on to dilate on the difficulties the country showed and we went
home to camp in the dark all very gloomy and full of prejudice against
Droopy. The fire flamed brightly in the wind and we sat and watched the moon
rise and listened to the hyenas. After we had a few drinks we did not feel
so badly about the country.
'Droopy swears it's good,' Pop said. 'This isn't where he wanted to go
though, he says. It was another place farther on. But he swears this is
good.'
'I love Droopy,' P.O.M. said. 'I have perfect confidence in Droopy.'
Droopy came up to the fire with two spear-carrying natives.
'What does he hear?' I asked.
There was some talk by the natives, then Pop said: 'One of these
sportsmen claims he was chased by a huge rhino to-day. Of course nearly any
rhino would look huge when he was chasing him.'
'Ask him how long the horn was.'
The native showed that the horn was as long as his arm. Droopy grinned.
'Tell him to go,' said Pop.
'Where did all this happen?'
'Oh, over there somewhere,' Pop said. 'You know. Over there. Way over
there. Where these things always happen.'
'That's marvellous. Just where we want to go.'
'The good aspect is that Droopy's not at all depressed,' Pop said. 'He
seems very confident. After all, it's his show.'
'Yes, but we have to do the climbing.'
'Cheer him up, will you?' Pop said to P.O.M. 'He's getting me very
depressed.'
'Should we talk about how well he shoots?'
'Too early in the evening. I'm not gloomy. I've just seen that kind of
country before. It will be good for us all right. Take some of your belly
off, Governor.'
The next day I found that I was all wrong about that country.
We had breakfast before daylight and were started before sunrise,
climbing the hill beyond the village in single file. Ahead there was the
local guide with a spear, then Droopy with my heavy gun and a water bottle,
then me with the Springfield, Pop with the Mannlicher, P.O.M. pleased, as
always to carry nothing, M'Cola with Pop's heavy gun and another water
bottle, and finally two local citizens with spears, water bags, and a chop
box with lunch. We planned to lay up in the heat of the middle of the day
and not get back until dark. It was fine climbing in the cool fresh morning
and very different from toiling up this same trail last evening in the
sunset with all the rocks and dirt giving back the heat of the day. The
trail was used regularly by cattle and the dust was powdered dry and, now,
lightly moistened from the dew. There were many hyena tracks and, as the
trail came on to a ridge of grey rock so that you could look down on both
sides into a steep ravine, and then went on along the edge of the canyon, we
saw a fresh rhino track in one of the dusty patches below the rocks.
'He's just gone on ahead,' Pop said. 'They must wander all over here at
night.'
Below, at the bottom of the canyon, we could see the tops of high trees
and in an opening see the flash of water. Across were the steep hillside and
the gullies we had studied last night. Droopy and the local guide, the one
who had been chased by the rhino, were whispering together. Then they
started down a steep path that went in long slants down the side of the
canyon.
We stopped. I had not seen P.O.M. was limping, and in sudden whispered
family bitterness there was a highly-righteous-on-both-sides clash,
historically on unwearable shoes and boots in the past, and imperatively on
these, which hurt. The hurt was lessened by cutting off the toes of the
heavy short wool socks worn over ordinary socks, and then, by removing the
socks entirely, the boots made possible. Going down-hill steeply made these
Spanish shooting boots too short in the toe and there was an old argument,
about this length of boot and whether the bootmaker, whose part I had taken,
unwittingly first, only as interpreter, and finally embraced his theory
patriotically as a whole and, I believed, by logic, had overcome it by
adding on to the heel. But they hurt now, a stronger logic, and the
situation was unhelped by the statement that men's new boots always hurt for
weeks before they became comfortable. Now, heavy socks removed, stepping
tentatively, trying the pressure of the leather against the toes, the
argument past, she wanting not to suffer, but to keep up and please Mr. J.
P., me ashamed at having been a four-letter man about boots, at being
righteous against pain, at being righteous at all, at ever being righteous,
stopping to whisper about it, both of us grinning at what was whispered, it
all right now, the boots too, without the heavy socks, much better, me
hating all righteous bastards now, one absent American friend especially,
having just removed myself from that category, certainly never to be
righteous again, watching Droopy ahead, we went down the long slant of the
trail toward the bottom of the canyon where the trees were heavy and tall
and the floor of the canyon, that from above had been a narrow gash, opened
to a forest-banked stream.
We stood now in the shade of trees with great smooth trunks, circled at
their base with the line of roots that showed in rounded ridges up the
trunks like arteries, the trunks the yellow green of a French forest on a
day in winter after rain. But these trees had a great spread of branches and
were in leaf and below them, in the stream bed in the sun, reeds like
papyrus grass grew thick as wheat and twelve feet tall. There was a game
trail through the grass along the stream and Droopy was bent down looking at
it. M'Cola went over and looked and they both followed it a little way,
stooped close over it, then came back to us.
'Nyati,' M'Cola whispered. 'Buffalo.' Droopy whispered to Pop and then
Pop said, softly in his throaty, whisky whisper, 'They're buff gone down the
river. Droop says there are some big bulls. They haven't come back.'
'Let's follow them,' I said. 'I'd rather get another buff than rhino.'
'It's as good a chance as any for rhino, too,' Pop said.
'By God, isn't it a great looking country?' I said.
'Splendid,' Pop said. 'Who would have imagined it?'
'The trees are like Andre's pictures,' P.O.M. said. 'It's simply
beautiful. Look at that green. It's Masson. Why can't a good painter see
this country?'
'How are your boots?'
'Fine.'
As we trailed the buffalo we went very slowly and quietly. There was no
wind and we knew that when the breeze came up it would be from the east and
blow up the canyon toward us. We followed the game trail down the river-bed
and as we went the grass was much higher. Twice we had to get down to crawl
and the reeds were so thick you could not see two feet into them. Droop
found a fresh rhino track, too, in the mud. I began to think about what
would happen if a rhino came barging along this tunnel and who would do
what. It was exciting but I did not like it. It was too much like being in a
trap and there was P.O.M. to think about. Then as the stream made a bend and
we came out of the high grass to the bank I smelled game very distinctly. I
do not smoke, and hunting at home I have several times smelled elk in the
rutting season before I have seen them, and I can smell clearly where an old
bull has lain in the forest. The bull elk has a strong musky smell. It is a
strong but pleasant odour and I know it well, but this smell I did not know.
'I can smell them,' I whispered to Pop. He believed me.
'What is it?'
'I don't know but it's plenty strong. Can't you?'
'No.'
'Ask Droop.'
Droopy nodded and grinned.
'They take snuff,' Pop said. 'I don't know whether they can scent or
not.'
We went on into another bed of reeds that were high over our heads,
putting each foot down silently before lifting the other, walking as quietly
as in a dream or a slow motion picture. I could smell whatever it was
clearly now, all of the time, sometimes stronger than at others. I did not
like it at all. We were close to the bank now, and ahead, the game trail
went straight out into a long slough of higher reeds than any we had come
through.
'I can smell them close as hell,' I whispered to Pop. 'No kidding.
Really.'
'I believe you,' Pop said. 'Should we get up here on to the bank and
skirt this bit? We'll be above it.'
'Good.' Then, when we were up, I said. 'That tall stun' had me spooked.
I wouldn't like to hunt in that.'
'How'd you like to hunt elephant in that?' Pop whispered.
'I wouldn't do it.'
'Do you really hunt elephant in grass like that?' P.O.M. asked.
'Yes,' Pop said. 'Get up on somebody's shoulders to shoot.'
Better men than I am do it, I thought. I wouldn't do it.
We went along the grassy right bank, on a sort of shelf, now in the
open, skirting a slough of high dry reeds. Beyond on the opposite bank were
the heavy trees and above them the steep bank of the canyon. You could not
see the stream. Above us, on the right, were the hills, wooded in patches of
orchard bush. Ahead, at the end of the slough of reeds the banks narrowed
and the branches of the big trees almost covered the stream. Suddenly Droopy
grabbed me and we both crouched down. He put the big gun in my hand and took
the Springfield. He pointed and around a curve in the bank I saw the head of
a rhino with a long, wonderful-looking horn. The head was swaying and I
could see the ears forward and twitching, and see the little pig eyes. I
slipped the safety catch and motioned Droopy down. Then I heard M'Cola
saying, 'Toto! Toto!' and he grabbed my arm. Droopy was whispering,
'Manamouki! Manamouki! Manamouki!' very fast and he and M'Cola were frantic
that I should not shoot. It was a cow rhino with a calf, and as I lowered
the gun she gave a snort, crashed in the reeds, and was gone. I never saw
the calf. We could see the reeds swaying where the two of them were moving
and then it was all quiet.
'Damn shame,' Pop whispered. 'She had a beautiful horn.'
'I was all set to bust her,' I said. 'I couldn't tell she was a cow.'
'M'Cola saw the calf.'
M'Cola was whispering to Pop and nodding his head emphatically.
'He says there's another rhino in there,' Pop said. 'That he heard him
snort.'
'Let's get higher, where we can see them if they break, and throw
something in,' I said.
'Good idea,' Pop agreed. 'Maybe the bull's there.'
We went a little higher up the bank where we could look out over the
lake of high reeds and, with Pop holding his big gun ready and I with the
safety off mine, M'Cola threw a club into the reeds where he had heard the
snort. There was a wooshing snort and no movement, not a stir in the reeds.
Then there was a crashing farther away and we could see the reeds swaying
with the rush of something through them toward the opposite bank, but could
not see what was making the movement. Then I saw the black back, the
wide-swept, point-lifted horns and then the quick-moving, climbing rush of a
buffalo up the other bank. He went up, his neck up and out, his head
horn-heavy, his withers rounded like a fighting bull, in fast strong-legged
climb. I was holding on the point where his neck joined his shoulder when
Pop stopped me.
'He's not a big one,' he said softly. 'I wouldn't take him unless you
want him for meat.'
He looked big to nie and now he stood, his head up, broadside, his head
swung toward us.
'I've got three more on the licence and we're leaving their country,' I
said.
'It's awfully good meat,' Pop whispered. 'Go ahead then. Bust him. But
be ready for the rhino after you shoot.'
I sat down, the big gun feeling heavy and unfamiliar, held on the
buff's shoulder, squeezed off and flinched without firing. Instead of the
sweet clean pull of the Springfield with the smooth, unhesitant release at
the end, this trigger came to what, in a squeeze, seemed metal stuck against
metal. It was like when you shoot in a nightmare. I couldn't squeeze it and
I corrected from my flinch, held my breath, and pulled the trigger. It
pulled off with a jerk and the big gun made a rocking explosion out of which
I came, seeing the buffalo still on his feet, and going out of sight to the
left in a climbing run, to let off the second barrel and throw a burst of
rock dust and dirt over his hind quarters. He was out of shot before I could
reload the double-barrelled 470 and we had all heard the snorting and the
crashing of another rhino that had gone out of the lower end of the reeds
and on under the heavy trees on our side without showing more than a glimpse
of his bulk in the reeds.
'It was the bull,' Pop said. 'He's gone down the stream.'
'N'Dio. Doumi! Doumi!' Droopy insisted it was a bull. 'I hit the damned
buff,' I said. 'God knows where.
To hell with those heavy guns. The trigger pull put me off.'
'You'd have killed him with the Springfield,' Pop said.
'I'd know where I hit him anyway. I thought with the four-seven I'd
kill him or miss him,' I said. 'Instead, now we've got him wounded.'
'He'll keep,' Pop said. 'We want to give him plenty of time.'
'I'm afraid I gut-shot him.'
'You can't tell. Going off fast like that he might be dead in a hundred
yards.'
'The hell with that four-seventy,' I said. 'I can't shoot it. The
trigger's like the last turn of the key opening a sardine can.'
'Come on,' Pop said. 'We've got God knows how many rhino scattered
about here.'
'What about the buff?'
'Plenty of time for him later. We must let him stiffen up. Let him get
sick.'
'Suppose we'd been down there with all that stuff coming out.'
'Yes,' said Pop.
All this in whispers. I looked at P.O.M. She was like someone enjoying
a good musical show.
'Did you see where it hit him?'
'I couldn't tell?' she whispered. 'Do you suppose there are any more in
there?'
'Thousands,' I said. 'What do we do, Pop?'
'That bull may be just around the bend,' Pop said. 'Come on.'
We went along the bank, our nerves cocked, and as we came to the narrow
end of the reeds there was another rush of something heavy through the tall
stalks. I had the gun up waiting for whatever it was to show. But there was
only the waving of the reeds. M'Cola signalled with his hand not to shoot.
'The calf,' Pop said. 'Must have been two of them. Where's the bloody
bull?'
'How the hell do you see them?'
'Tell by the size.'
Then we were standing looking down into the stream bed, into the
shadows under the branches of the big trees, and off ahead down the stream
when M'Cola pointed up the hill on our right.
'Faro,' he whispered and reached me the glasses.
There on the hillside, head-on, wide, black, looking straight towards
us, ears twitching and head lifted, swaying as the nose searched for the
wind, was another rhino. He looked huge in the glasses. Pop was studying him
with his binoculars.
'He's no better than what you have,' he said softly.
'I can bust him right in the sticking place,' I whispered.
'You have only one more,' Pop whispered. 'You want a good one.'
I offered the glasses to P.O.M.
'I can see him without,' she said. 'He's huge.'
'He may charge,' Pop said. 'Then you'll have to take him.'
Then, as we watched, another rhino came into sight from behind a wide
feathery-topped tree. He was quite a bit smaller.
'By God, it's a calf,' Pop said. 'That one's a cow. Good thing you
didn't shoot her. She bloody well {may} charge too.'
'Is it the same cow?' I whispered.
'No. That other one had a hell of a horn.'
We all had the nervous exhilaration, like a laughing drunk, that a
sudden over-abundance, idiotic abundance of game makes. It is a feeling that
can come from any sort of game or fish that is ordinarily rare and that,
suddenly, you find in a ridiculously unbelievable abundance.
'Look at her. She knows there's something wrong. But she can't see us
or smell us.'
'She heard the shots.'
'She knows we're here. But she can't make it out.'
The rhino looked so huge, so ridiculous, and so fine to see, and I
sighted on her chest.
'It's a nice shot.'
'Perfect,' Pop said.
'What are we going to do?' P.O.M. said. She was practical.
'We'll work around her,' Pop said.
'If we keep low I don't believe our scent will carry up there once
we're past.'
'You can't teil,' Pop said. 'We don't want her to charge.'
She did not charge, but dropped her head, finally, and worked up the
hill followed by the nearly full-grown calf.
'Now,' said Pop, 'we'll let Droop go ahead and see if he can find the
bull's tracks. We might as well sit down.'
We sat in the shade and Droopy went up one side of the stream and the
local guide the other. They came back and said the bull had gone on down.
'Did any one ever see what son of horn he had?' I asked.
'Droop said he was good.'
M'Cola had gone up the hill a little way. Now he crouched and beckoned.
'Nyati,' he said with his hand up to his face.
'Where?' Pop asked him. He pointed, crouched down, and as we crawled up
to him he handed me the glasses. They were a long way away on the jutting
ridge of one of the steep hillsides on the far side of the canyon, well down
the stream. We could see six, then eight buffalo, black, heavy necked, the
horns shining, standing on the point of a ridge. Some were grazing and
others stood, their heads up, watching.
'That one's a bull, ' Pop said, looking through the glasses.
'Which one?'
'Second from the right.'
'They all look like bulls to me.'
'They're a long way away. That one's a good bull. Now we've got to
cross the stream and work down toward them and try to get above them.'
'Will they stay there?'
'No. Probably they'll work down into this stream bed as soon as it's
hot.'
'Let's go.'
We crossed the stream on a log and then another log and on the other
side, half way up the hillside, there was a deeply worn game trail that
graded along the bank under the heavily leafed branches of the trees. We
went along quite fast, but walking carefully, and below us, now, the stream
bed was covered solidly with foliage. It was still early in the morning but
the breeze was rising and the leaves stirred over our heads. We crossed one
ravine that came down to the stream, going into the thick bush to be out of
sight and stooping as we crossed behind trees in the small open place, then,
using the shoulder of the ravine as protection, we climbed so that we might
get high up the hillside above the buffalo and work down to them. We stopped
in the shelter of the ridge, me sweating heavily and fixing a handkerchief
inside the sweatband of my Stetson, and sent Droop ahead to look. He came
back to say they were gone. From above we could see nothing of them, so we
cut across the ravine and the hillside thinking we might intercept them on
their way down into the river bed. The next hillside had been burned and at
the bottom of the hill there was a burned area of bush. In the ash dust were
the tracks of the buffalo as they came down and into the thick jungle of the
stream bed. Here it was too overgrown and there were too many vines to
follow them. There were no tracks going down the stream so we knew they were
down in the part of the stream bed we had looked down on from the game
trail. Pop said there was nothing to do about them in there. It was so thick
that if we jumped them we could not get a shot. You could not tell one from
another, he said. All you could see would be a rush of black. An old bull
would be grey but a good herd bull might be as black as a cow. It wasn't any
good to jump them like that.
It was ten o'clock now and very hot in the open, the sun pegged and the
breeze lifted the ashes of the burned-over ground as we walked. Everything
would be in the thick cover now. We decided to find a shady place and lie
down and read in the cool; to have lunch and kill the hot part of the day.
Beyond the burned place we came toward the stream and stopped,
sweating, in the shadow of some very large trees. We unpacked our leather
coats and our raincoats and spread them on the grass at the foot of the
trees so that we could lean back against the trunks. P.O.M. got out the
books and M'Cola made a small fire and boiled water for tea.
The breeze was coming up and we could hear it in the high branches. It
was cool in the shade, but if you stirred into the sun, or as the sun
shifted the shadow while you read so that any part of you was out of the
shadow, the sun was heavy. Droopy had gone on down the stream to have a
look, and as we lay there, reading, I could smell the heat of the day
coming, the drying up of the dew, the heat on the leaves, and the heaviness
of the sun over the stream.
P.O.M. was reading {Spanish Gold}, by George A. Birmingham, and she
said it was no good. I still had the Sevastopol book of Tolstoy and in the
same volume I was reading a story called 'The Cossacks' that was very good.
In it were the summer heat, the mosquitoes, the feel of the forest in the
different seasons, and that river that the Tartars crossed, raiding, and I
was living in that Russia again.
I was thinking how real that Russia of the time of our Civil War was,
as real as any other place, as Michigan, or the prairie north of town and
the woods around Evan's game farm, of how, through Turgenev, I knew that I
had lived there, as I had been in the family Buddenbrooks, and had climbed
in and out of her window in {Le Rouge et Le Noir}, or the morning we had
come in the gates of Paris and seen Salcede torn apart by the horses at the
Place de Greves. I saw all that. And it was me they did not break on the
rack that time because I had been polite to the executioner the time they
killed Coconas and me, and I remember the Eve of St. Bartholomew's and how
we hunted Huguenots that night, and when they trapped me at her house that
time, and no feeling more true than finding the gate of the Louvre being
closed, nor of looking down at his body in the water where he fell from the
mast, and always, Italy, better than any book, lying in the chestnut woods,
and in the fall mist behind the Duomo going across the town to the Ospedale
Maggiore, the nails in my boots on the cobbles, and in the spring sudden
showers in the mountains and the smell of the regiment like a copper coin in
your mouth. So in the heat the train stopped at Dezenzano and there was Lago
de Garda and those troops are the Czech Legion, and the next time it was
raining, and the next time it was in the dark, and the next time you passed
it riding in a truck, and the next time you were coming from somewhere else,
and the next time you walked to it in the dark from Sermione. For we have
been there in the books and out of the books -- and where we go, if we are
any good, there you can go as we have been. A country, finally, erodes and
the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any
importance permanently, except those who practised the arts, and these now
wish to cease their work because it is too lonely, too hard to do, and is
not fashionable. A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art
endures for ever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not
fashionable. People do not want to do it any more because they will be out
of fashion and the lice who crawl on literature will not praise them. Also
it is very hard to do. So what? So I would go on reading about the river
that the Tartars came across when raiding, and the drunken old hunter and
the girl and how it was then in the different seasons.
Pop was reading {Richard Carvell}. We had bought what there was to buy
in Nairobi and we were pretty well to the end of the books.
'I've read this before,' Pop said. 'But it's a good story.'
'I can just remember it. But it was a good story then.'
'It's a jolly good story, but I wish I hadn't read it before.'
'This is terrible,' P.O.M. said. 'You couldn't read it.'
'Do you want this one?'
'Don't be ornamental,' she said. 'No, I'll finish this.'
'Goon. Take it.'
'I'll give it right back.'
'Hey, M'Cola,' I said. 'Beer?'
'N'Dio,' he said with great force, and from the chop box one of the
natives had carried on his head produced, in its straw casing, a bottle of
German beer, one of the sixty-four bottles Dan had brought from the German
trading station. Its neck was wrapped in silver foil and on its black and
yellow label there was a horseman in armour. It was still cool from the
night and opened by the tin-opener it creamed into three cups, thick-foamed,
full-bodied.
'No,' said Pop. 'Very bad for the liver.'
'Come on.'
'All right.'
We all drank and when M'Cola opened the second bottle Pop refused,
firmly.
'Go on. It means more to you. I'm going to take a nap.'
'Poor old Mama?'
porters were happy, crouched around their fires roasting the meat on sticks.
Pop was puzzled why the rhino were all gone. Each day we had seen less and
we discussed whether it could be the full moon, that they fed out at night
and were back in the forest in the morning before it was light, or that they
winded us, or heard the men, and were simply shy and kept in the forest, or
what was it? ' Me putting out the theories, Pop pricking them with his wit,
sometimes considering them from politeness, sometimes with interest, like
the one about the moon.
We went to bed early and in the night it rained a little, not a real
rain but a shower from the mountains, and in the morning we were up before
daylight and had climbed up to the top of the steep grassy ridge that looked
down on to the camp, on to the ravine of the river bed, and across to the
steep opposite bank of the stream, and from where we could see all the hilly
slopes and the edge of the forest. It was not yet light when some geese flew
overhead and the light was still too grey to be able to see the edge of the
forest clearly in the glasses. We had scouts out on three different hill
tops and we were waiting for it to be light enough for us to see them if
they signalled.
Then Pop said, 'Look at that son of a bitch', and shouted at M'Cola to
bring the rifles. M'Cola went jumping down the hill, and across the stream,
directly opposite us, a rhino was running with a quick trot along the top of
the bank. As we watched he speeded up and came, fast trotting, angling down
across the face of the bank. He was a muddy red, his horn showed clearly,
and there was nothing ponderous in his quick, purposeful movement. I was
very excited at seeing him.
'He'll cross the stream,' Pop said. 'He's shootable.'
M'Cola put the Springfield in my hand and I opened it to make sure I
had solids. The Rhino was out of sight now but I could see the shaking of
the high grass.
'How far would you call it?'
'All of three hundred.'
'I'll bust the son of a bitch.'
I was watching, freezing myself deliberately inside, stopping the
excitement as you close a valve, going into that impersonal state you shoot
from.
He showed, trotting into the shallow, boulder-filled stream. Thinking
of one thing, that the shot was perfectly possible, but that I must lead him
enough, must get ahead, I got on him, then well ahead of him, and squeezed
off. I heard the {whonk} of the bullet and, from his trot, he seemed to
explode forward. With a whooshing snort he smashed ahead, splashing water
and snorting. I shot again and raised a little column of water behind him,
and shot again as he went into the grass; behind him again.
'Piga,' M'Cola said. 'Piga!'
Droopy agreed.
'Did you. hit him?' Pop said.
'Absolutely,' I said. 'I think I've got him.'
Droopy was running and I re-loaded and ran off after him. Half the camp
was strung out across the hills waving and yelling. The rhino had come in
right below where they were and gone on up the valley towards where the
forest came close down into the head of the valley.
Pop and P.O.M. came up. Pop with his big gun and M'Cola carrying mine.
'Droopy will get the tracks,' Pop said. 'M'Cola swears you hit him.'
'Piga!' M'Cola said.
'He snorted like a steam engine,' P.O.M. said. 'Didn't he look
wonderful going along there?'
'He was late getting home with the milk,' Pop said. 'Are you {sure} you
hit him? It was a godawful long shot.'
'I {know} I hit him. I'm {pretty} sure I've killed him.'
'Don't tell any one if you did,' Pop said. 'They'll never believe you.
Look! Droopy's got blood.'
Below, in the high grass, Droop was holding up a grass blade towards
us. Then, stooped, he went on trailing fast by the blood spoor.
'Piga,' M'Cola said. 'M'uzuri!'
'We'll keep up above where we can see if he makes a break,' Pop said.
'Look at Droopy.'
Droop had removed his fez and held it in his hand.
'That's all the precautions he needs,' Pop said. 'We bring up a couple
of heavy guns and Droopy goes in after him with one article less of
clothing.'
Below us Droopy and his partner who was trailing with him had stopped.
Droopy held up his hand.
'They hear him,' Pop said. 'Come on.'
We started toward them. Droopy came toward us and spoke to Pop.
'He's in there,' Pop whispered. 'They can hear the tick birds. One of
the boys says he heard the faro, too. We'll go in against the wind. You go
ahead with Droopy. Let the Memsahib stay behind me. Take the big gun. All
right.'
The rhino was in high grass, somewhere in there behind some bushes. As
we went forward we heard a deep, moaning sort of groan. Droopy looked around
at me and grinned. The noise came again, ending this time like a
blood-choked sigh. Droopy was laughing. 'Faro,' he whispered and put his
hand palm open on the side of his head in the gesture that means to go to
sleep. Then in a jerky-flighted, sharp-beaked little flock we saw the tick
birds rise and fly away. We knew where he was and, as we went slowly
forward, parting the high grass, we saw him. He was on his side, dead.
'Better shoot him once to make sure,' Pop said. M'Cola handed me the
Springfield he had been carrying. I noticed it was cocked, looked at M'Cola,
furious with him, kneeled down and shot the rhino in the sticking place. He
never moved. Droopy shook my hand and so did M'Cola.
'He had that damned Springfield cocked,' I said to Pop. The cocked gun,
behind my back, made me black angry.
That meant nothing to M'Cola. He was very happy, stroking the rhino's
horn, measuring it with his fingers spread, looking for the bullet hole.
'It's on the side he's lying on,' I said.
'You should have seen him when he was protecting Mama,' Pop said.
'That's why he had the gun cocked.'
'Can he shoot?'
'No,' Pop said. 'But he would.'
'Shoot me in the pants,' I said. 'Romantic bastard.' When the whole
outfit came up, we rolled the rhino into a sort of kneeling position and cut
away the grass to take some pictures. The bullet hole was fairly high in the
back, a little behind the lungs.
'That was a hell of a shot,' Pop said. 'A hell of a shot. Don't ever
tell any one you made that one.'
'You'll have to give me a certificate.'
'That would just make us both liars. They're a strange beast, aren't
they?'
There he was, long-hulked, heavy-sided, prehistoric looking, the hide
like vulcanized rubber and faintly transparent looking, scarred with a badly
healed horn wound that the birds had pecked at, his tail thick, round, and
pointed, flat many-legged ticks crawling on him, his ears fringed with hair,
tiny pig eyes, moss growing on the base of his horn that grew out forward
from his nose. M'Cola looked at him and shook his head. I agreed with him.
This was the hell of an animal.
'How is his horn?'
'It isn't bad,' Pop said. 'It's nothing extra. That was a hell of a
shot you made on him though, brother.'
'M'Cola's pleased with it,' I said.
'You're pretty pleased with it yourself,' P.O.M. said.
'I'm crazy about it,' I said. 'But don't let me start on it. Don't
worry about how I feel about it. I can wake up and think about that any
night.'
'And you're a good tracker, and a hell of a fine bird shot, too,' Pop
said. 'Tell us the rest of that.'
'Lay off me. I only said that once when I was drunk.'
'Once,' said P.O.M. 'Doesn't he tell us that every night?'
'By God, I {am} a good bird shot.'
'Amazing,' said Pop. 'I never would have thought it. What else is it
you do?'
'Oh, go to hell.'
'Mustn't ever let him realize what a shot that was or he'll get
unbearable,' Pop said to P.O.M.
'M'Cola and I know,' I said.
M'Cola came up. 'M'uzuri, B'wana,' he said. 'M'uzuri sana.'
'He thinks you did it on purpose,' Pop said.
'Don't you ever tell him different.'
'Piga m'uzuri,' M'Cola said. 'M'uzuri.'
'I believe he feels just the way you do about it,' Pop said.
'He's my pal.'
'I believe he is, you know,' Pop said.
On our way back across country to our main camp I made a fancy shot on
a reedbuck at about two hundred yards, offhand, breaking his neck at the
base of the skull. M'Cola was very pleased and Droopy was delighted.
'We've got to put a stop to him,' Pop said to P.O.M. 'Where did you
shoot for, really?'
'In the neck,' I lied. I had held full on the centre of the shoulder.
'It was awfully pretty,' P.O.M. said. The bullet had made a crack when
it hit like a bat swung against a fast ball and the buck had collapsed
without a move.
'I think he's a damned liar,' Pop said.
'None of us great shots is appreciated. Wait till we're gone.'
'His idea of being appreciated is for us to carry him on our
shoulders,' Pop said. 'That rhino shot has ruined him.'
'All right. You watch from now on. Hell, I've shot well the whole
time.'
'I seem to remember a grant of some sort,' Pop was teasing. So did I
remember him. I'd followed a fine one out of the country missing shot after
shot all morning after a series of stalks in the heat, then crawled up to an
ant hill to shoot one that was not nearly as good, taken a rest on the ant
hill, missed the buck at fifty yards, seen him stand facing me, absolutely
still, his nose up, and shot him in the chest. He went over backwards and as
I went up to him he jumped up and went off, staggering.
I sat down and waited for him to stop and when he did, obviously
anchored, I sat there, using the sling, and shot for his neck, slowly and
carefully, missing him eight times straight in a mounting, stubborn rage,
not making a correction but shooting exactly for the same place in the same
way each time, the gun bearers all laughing, the truck that had come up with
the outfit holding more amused niggers, P.O.M. and Pop saying nothing, me
sitting there cold, crazy-stubborn-furious, determined to break his neck
rather than walk up and perhaps start him off over that heat-hazy, baking,
noontime plain. Nobody said anything. I reached up my hand to M'Cola for
more cartridges, shot again, carefully, and missed, and on the tenth shot
broke his damned neck. I turned away without looking toward him.
'Poor Papa,' P.O.M. said.
'It's the light and the wind,' Pop said. We had not known each other
very well then. 'They were all hitting the same place. I could see them
throw the dust.'
'I was a bloody, stubborn fool,' I said.
Anyway, I could shoot now. So far, and aided by flukes, my luck was
running now.
We came on into sight of camp and shouted. No one came out. Finally
Karl came out of his tent. He went back as soon as he saw us, then came out
again.
'Hey, Karl,' I yelled. He waved and went back in the tent again. Then
came toward us. He was shaky with excitement and I saw he had been washing
blood off his hands.
'What is it?'
'Rhino,' he said.
'Did you get in trouble with him?'
'No. We killed him.'
'Fine. Where is he?'
'Over there behind that tree.'
We went over. There was the newly severed head of a rhino that was a
rhino. He was twice the size of the one I had killed. The little eyes were
shut and a fresh drop of blood stood in the corner of one like a tear. The
head bulked enormous and the horn swept up and back in a fine curve. The
hide was an inch thick where it hung in a cape behind the head and was as
white where it was cut as freshly sliced coco-nut.
'What is he? About thirty inches?'
'Hell, no,' said Pop. 'Not thirty inches.'
'But he iss a very fine one, Mr. Jackson,' Dan said.
'Yes. He's a fine one,' Pop said.
'Where did you get him?'
'Just outside of camp.'
'He wass standing in some bush. We heard him grunt.'
'We thought he was a buffalo,' Karl said.
'He iss a very fine one,' Dan repeated.
'I'm damned glad you got him,' I said.
There we were, the three of us, wanting to congratulate, waiting to be
good sports about this rhino whose smaller horn was longer than our big one,
this huge, tear-eyed marvel of a rhino, this dead, head-severed dream rhino,
and instead we all spoke like people who were about to become seasick on a
boat, or people who had suffered some heavy financial loss. We were ashamed
and could do nothing about it. I wanted to say something pleasant and
hearty, instead, 'How many times did you shoot him?' I asked.
'I don't know. We didn't count. Five or six, I guess.'
'Five, I think,' said Dan.
Poor Karl, faced by these three sad-faced congratulators, was beginning
to feel his pleasure in the rhino drained away from him.
'We got one too,' said P.O.M.
'That's fine,' said Karl. 'Is he bigger than this one?'
'Hell, no. He's a lousy runt.'
'I'm sorry,' Karl said. He meant it, simply and truly.
'What the hell have you got to be sorry about with a rhino like that?
He's a beauty. Let me get the camera and take some pictures of him.'
I went after the camera. P.O.M. took me by the arm and walked close
beside me.
'Papa, please try to act like a human being,' she said. 'Poor Karl.
You're making him feel dreadfully.'
'I know it,' I said. 'I'm trying not to act that way.'
There was Pop. He shook his head. 'I never felt more of a four-letter
man,' he said. 'But it was like a kick in the stomach. I'm really delighted,
of course.'
'Me too,' I said. 'I'd rather have him beat me. You know that. Truly.
But why couldn't he just get a good one, two or three inches longer? Why did
he have to get one that makes mine ridiculous? It just makes ours silly.'
'You can always remember that shot.'
'To hell with that shot. That bloody fluke. God, what a beautiful
rhino.'
'Come on, let's pull ourselves together and try to act like white
people with him.'
'We were {awful,'} P.O.M. said.
'I know it,' I said. 'And all the time I was trying to be jolly. You
{know} I'm delighted he has it.'
'You were certainly jolly. Both of you,' P.O.M. said.
'But did you see M'Cola,' Pop asked. M'Cola had looked at the rhino
dismally, shaken his head and walked away.
'He's a wonderful rhino,' P.O.M. said. 'We must act decently and make
Karl feel good.'
But it was too late. We could not make Karl feel good and for a long
time we could not feel good ourselves. The porters came into camp with the
loads and we could see them all, and all of our outfit, go over to where the
rhino head lay in the shade. They were all very quiet. Only the skinner was
delighted to see such a rhino head in camp.
'M'uzuri sana,' he said to me. And measured the horn with shiftings of
his widespread hand. 'Kubwa sana!'
'N'Dio. M'uzuri sana,' I agreed.
'B'wana Kabor shoot him?'
'Yes.'
'M'uzuri sana.'
'Yes,' I agreed. 'M'uzuri sana.'
The skinner was the only gent in the outfit. We had tried, in all the
shoot, never to be competitive. Karl and
I had each tried to give the other the better chance on everything that
came up. I was, truly, very fond of him and he was entirely unselfish and
altogether self-sacrificing. I knew I could outshoot him and I could always
outwalk him and, steadily, he got trophies that made mine dwarfs in
comparison. He had done some of the worst shooting at game I had ever seen
and I had shot badly twice on the trip, at that grant and at a bustard once
on the plain, still he beat me on all the tangible things we had to show.
For a while we had joked about it and I knew everything would even up. But
it didn't even up. Now, on this rhino hunt, I had taken the first crack at
the country. We had sent him after meat while we had gone into a new
country. We had not treated him badly, but we had not treated him too well,
and still he had beaten me. Not only beaten, beaten was all right. He had
made my rhino look so small that I could never keep him in the same small
town where we lived. He had wiped him out. I had the shot I had made on him
to remember and nothing could take that away except that it was so bloody
marvellous I knew I would wonder, sooner or later, if it was not really a
fluke in spite of my unholy self-confidence. Old Karl had put it on us all
right with that rhino. He was in his tent now, writing a letter.
Under the dining tent fly Pop and I talked over what we had better do.
'He's got his rhino anyway,' Pop said. 'That saves us time. Now you
can't stand on that one.'
'No.'
'But this country is washed out. Something wrong with it. Droopy claims
to know a good country about three hours from here in the lorries and
another hour or so on with the porters. We can head for there this afternoon
with a light outfit, send the lorries back, and Karl and Dan can move on
down to M'uto Umbu and he can get his oryx.'
'Fine.'
'He has a chance to get a leopard on that rhino carcass this evening,
too, or in the morning. Dan said they heard one. We'll try to get a rhino
out of this country of Droopy's and then you join up with them and go on for
kudu. We want to leave plenty of time for them. '
'Fine.'
'Even if you don't get an oryx. You'll pick one up somewhere.'
'Even if I don't get one at all, it's all right. We'll get one another
time. I want a kudu, though. '
'You'll get one. You're sure to.'
'I'd rather get one, a good one, than all the rest. I don't give a damn
about these rhino outside of the fun of hunting them. But I'd like to get
one that wouldn't look silly beside that dream rhino of his.'
'Absolutely.'
So we told Karl and he said: 'Whatever you say. Sure. I hope you get
one twice as big. ' He really meant it. He was feeling better now and so
were we all.
Droopy's country, when we reached it that evening, after a hot ride
through red-soiled, bush-scrubby hills, looked awful. It was at the edge of
a belt where all the trees had been girdled to kill the tsetse flies. And
across from camp was a dusty, dirty native village. The soil was red and
eroded and seemed to be blowing away, and camp was pitched in a high wind
under the sketchy shade of some dead trees on a hillside overlooking a
little stream and the mud village beyond. Before dark we followed Droopy and
two local guides up past the village and in a long climb to the top of a
rock-strewn ridge that overlooked a deep valley that was almost a canyon.
Across on the other side, were broken valleys that sloped steeply down into
the canyon. There were heavy growths of trees in the valleys and grassy
slopes on the ridges between, and above there was the thick bamboo forest of
the mountain. The canyon ran down to the Rift Valley, seeming to narrow at
the far end where it cut through the wall of the rift. Beyond, above the
grassy ridges and slopes, were heavily forested hills. It looked a hell of a
country to hunt.
'If you. see one across there you have to go straight down to the
bottom of the canyon. Then up one of those timber patches and across those
damned gullies. You can't keep him in sight and you'll kill yourself
climbing. It's too steep. Those are the kind of innocent-looking gullies we
got into that night coming home.'
'It looks very bad,' Pop agreed.
'I've hunted a country just like this for deer. The south slope of
Timber Creek in Wyoming. The slopes are all too steep. It's hell. It's too
broken. We'll take some punishment to-morrow.'
P.O.M. said nothing. Pop had brought us here and Pop would bring us
out. All she had to do was see her boots did not hurt her feet. They hurt
just a little now, and that was her only worry.
I went on to dilate on the difficulties the country showed and we went
home to camp in the dark all very gloomy and full of prejudice against
Droopy. The fire flamed brightly in the wind and we sat and watched the moon
rise and listened to the hyenas. After we had a few drinks we did not feel
so badly about the country.
'Droopy swears it's good,' Pop said. 'This isn't where he wanted to go
though, he says. It was another place farther on. But he swears this is
good.'
'I love Droopy,' P.O.M. said. 'I have perfect confidence in Droopy.'
Droopy came up to the fire with two spear-carrying natives.
'What does he hear?' I asked.
There was some talk by the natives, then Pop said: 'One of these
sportsmen claims he was chased by a huge rhino to-day. Of course nearly any
rhino would look huge when he was chasing him.'
'Ask him how long the horn was.'
The native showed that the horn was as long as his arm. Droopy grinned.
'Tell him to go,' said Pop.
'Where did all this happen?'
'Oh, over there somewhere,' Pop said. 'You know. Over there. Way over
there. Where these things always happen.'
'That's marvellous. Just where we want to go.'
'The good aspect is that Droopy's not at all depressed,' Pop said. 'He
seems very confident. After all, it's his show.'
'Yes, but we have to do the climbing.'
'Cheer him up, will you?' Pop said to P.O.M. 'He's getting me very
depressed.'
'Should we talk about how well he shoots?'
'Too early in the evening. I'm not gloomy. I've just seen that kind of
country before. It will be good for us all right. Take some of your belly
off, Governor.'
The next day I found that I was all wrong about that country.
We had breakfast before daylight and were started before sunrise,
climbing the hill beyond the village in single file. Ahead there was the
local guide with a spear, then Droopy with my heavy gun and a water bottle,
then me with the Springfield, Pop with the Mannlicher, P.O.M. pleased, as
always to carry nothing, M'Cola with Pop's heavy gun and another water
bottle, and finally two local citizens with spears, water bags, and a chop
box with lunch. We planned to lay up in the heat of the middle of the day
and not get back until dark. It was fine climbing in the cool fresh morning
and very different from toiling up this same trail last evening in the
sunset with all the rocks and dirt giving back the heat of the day. The
trail was used regularly by cattle and the dust was powdered dry and, now,
lightly moistened from the dew. There were many hyena tracks and, as the
trail came on to a ridge of grey rock so that you could look down on both
sides into a steep ravine, and then went on along the edge of the canyon, we
saw a fresh rhino track in one of the dusty patches below the rocks.
'He's just gone on ahead,' Pop said. 'They must wander all over here at
night.'
Below, at the bottom of the canyon, we could see the tops of high trees
and in an opening see the flash of water. Across were the steep hillside and
the gullies we had studied last night. Droopy and the local guide, the one
who had been chased by the rhino, were whispering together. Then they
started down a steep path that went in long slants down the side of the
canyon.
We stopped. I had not seen P.O.M. was limping, and in sudden whispered
family bitterness there was a highly-righteous-on-both-sides clash,
historically on unwearable shoes and boots in the past, and imperatively on
these, which hurt. The hurt was lessened by cutting off the toes of the
heavy short wool socks worn over ordinary socks, and then, by removing the
socks entirely, the boots made possible. Going down-hill steeply made these
Spanish shooting boots too short in the toe and there was an old argument,
about this length of boot and whether the bootmaker, whose part I had taken,
unwittingly first, only as interpreter, and finally embraced his theory
patriotically as a whole and, I believed, by logic, had overcome it by
adding on to the heel. But they hurt now, a stronger logic, and the
situation was unhelped by the statement that men's new boots always hurt for
weeks before they became comfortable. Now, heavy socks removed, stepping
tentatively, trying the pressure of the leather against the toes, the
argument past, she wanting not to suffer, but to keep up and please Mr. J.
P., me ashamed at having been a four-letter man about boots, at being
righteous against pain, at being righteous at all, at ever being righteous,
stopping to whisper about it, both of us grinning at what was whispered, it
all right now, the boots too, without the heavy socks, much better, me
hating all righteous bastards now, one absent American friend especially,
having just removed myself from that category, certainly never to be
righteous again, watching Droopy ahead, we went down the long slant of the
trail toward the bottom of the canyon where the trees were heavy and tall
and the floor of the canyon, that from above had been a narrow gash, opened
to a forest-banked stream.
We stood now in the shade of trees with great smooth trunks, circled at
their base with the line of roots that showed in rounded ridges up the
trunks like arteries, the trunks the yellow green of a French forest on a
day in winter after rain. But these trees had a great spread of branches and
were in leaf and below them, in the stream bed in the sun, reeds like
papyrus grass grew thick as wheat and twelve feet tall. There was a game
trail through the grass along the stream and Droopy was bent down looking at
it. M'Cola went over and looked and they both followed it a little way,
stooped close over it, then came back to us.
'Nyati,' M'Cola whispered. 'Buffalo.' Droopy whispered to Pop and then
Pop said, softly in his throaty, whisky whisper, 'They're buff gone down the
river. Droop says there are some big bulls. They haven't come back.'
'Let's follow them,' I said. 'I'd rather get another buff than rhino.'
'It's as good a chance as any for rhino, too,' Pop said.
'By God, isn't it a great looking country?' I said.
'Splendid,' Pop said. 'Who would have imagined it?'
'The trees are like Andre's pictures,' P.O.M. said. 'It's simply
beautiful. Look at that green. It's Masson. Why can't a good painter see
this country?'
'How are your boots?'
'Fine.'
As we trailed the buffalo we went very slowly and quietly. There was no
wind and we knew that when the breeze came up it would be from the east and
blow up the canyon toward us. We followed the game trail down the river-bed
and as we went the grass was much higher. Twice we had to get down to crawl
and the reeds were so thick you could not see two feet into them. Droop
found a fresh rhino track, too, in the mud. I began to think about what
would happen if a rhino came barging along this tunnel and who would do
what. It was exciting but I did not like it. It was too much like being in a
trap and there was P.O.M. to think about. Then as the stream made a bend and
we came out of the high grass to the bank I smelled game very distinctly. I
do not smoke, and hunting at home I have several times smelled elk in the
rutting season before I have seen them, and I can smell clearly where an old
bull has lain in the forest. The bull elk has a strong musky smell. It is a
strong but pleasant odour and I know it well, but this smell I did not know.
'I can smell them,' I whispered to Pop. He believed me.
'What is it?'
'I don't know but it's plenty strong. Can't you?'
'No.'
'Ask Droop.'
Droopy nodded and grinned.
'They take snuff,' Pop said. 'I don't know whether they can scent or
not.'
We went on into another bed of reeds that were high over our heads,
putting each foot down silently before lifting the other, walking as quietly
as in a dream or a slow motion picture. I could smell whatever it was
clearly now, all of the time, sometimes stronger than at others. I did not
like it at all. We were close to the bank now, and ahead, the game trail
went straight out into a long slough of higher reeds than any we had come
through.
'I can smell them close as hell,' I whispered to Pop. 'No kidding.
Really.'
'I believe you,' Pop said. 'Should we get up here on to the bank and
skirt this bit? We'll be above it.'
'Good.' Then, when we were up, I said. 'That tall stun' had me spooked.
I wouldn't like to hunt in that.'
'How'd you like to hunt elephant in that?' Pop whispered.
'I wouldn't do it.'
'Do you really hunt elephant in grass like that?' P.O.M. asked.
'Yes,' Pop said. 'Get up on somebody's shoulders to shoot.'
Better men than I am do it, I thought. I wouldn't do it.
We went along the grassy right bank, on a sort of shelf, now in the
open, skirting a slough of high dry reeds. Beyond on the opposite bank were
the heavy trees and above them the steep bank of the canyon. You could not
see the stream. Above us, on the right, were the hills, wooded in patches of
orchard bush. Ahead, at the end of the slough of reeds the banks narrowed
and the branches of the big trees almost covered the stream. Suddenly Droopy
grabbed me and we both crouched down. He put the big gun in my hand and took
the Springfield. He pointed and around a curve in the bank I saw the head of
a rhino with a long, wonderful-looking horn. The head was swaying and I
could see the ears forward and twitching, and see the little pig eyes. I
slipped the safety catch and motioned Droopy down. Then I heard M'Cola
saying, 'Toto! Toto!' and he grabbed my arm. Droopy was whispering,
'Manamouki! Manamouki! Manamouki!' very fast and he and M'Cola were frantic
that I should not shoot. It was a cow rhino with a calf, and as I lowered
the gun she gave a snort, crashed in the reeds, and was gone. I never saw
the calf. We could see the reeds swaying where the two of them were moving
and then it was all quiet.
'Damn shame,' Pop whispered. 'She had a beautiful horn.'
'I was all set to bust her,' I said. 'I couldn't tell she was a cow.'
'M'Cola saw the calf.'
M'Cola was whispering to Pop and nodding his head emphatically.
'He says there's another rhino in there,' Pop said. 'That he heard him
snort.'
'Let's get higher, where we can see them if they break, and throw
something in,' I said.
'Good idea,' Pop agreed. 'Maybe the bull's there.'
We went a little higher up the bank where we could look out over the
lake of high reeds and, with Pop holding his big gun ready and I with the
safety off mine, M'Cola threw a club into the reeds where he had heard the
snort. There was a wooshing snort and no movement, not a stir in the reeds.
Then there was a crashing farther away and we could see the reeds swaying
with the rush of something through them toward the opposite bank, but could
not see what was making the movement. Then I saw the black back, the
wide-swept, point-lifted horns and then the quick-moving, climbing rush of a
buffalo up the other bank. He went up, his neck up and out, his head
horn-heavy, his withers rounded like a fighting bull, in fast strong-legged
climb. I was holding on the point where his neck joined his shoulder when
Pop stopped me.
'He's not a big one,' he said softly. 'I wouldn't take him unless you
want him for meat.'
He looked big to nie and now he stood, his head up, broadside, his head
swung toward us.
'I've got three more on the licence and we're leaving their country,' I
said.
'It's awfully good meat,' Pop whispered. 'Go ahead then. Bust him. But
be ready for the rhino after you shoot.'
I sat down, the big gun feeling heavy and unfamiliar, held on the
buff's shoulder, squeezed off and flinched without firing. Instead of the
sweet clean pull of the Springfield with the smooth, unhesitant release at
the end, this trigger came to what, in a squeeze, seemed metal stuck against
metal. It was like when you shoot in a nightmare. I couldn't squeeze it and
I corrected from my flinch, held my breath, and pulled the trigger. It
pulled off with a jerk and the big gun made a rocking explosion out of which
I came, seeing the buffalo still on his feet, and going out of sight to the
left in a climbing run, to let off the second barrel and throw a burst of
rock dust and dirt over his hind quarters. He was out of shot before I could
reload the double-barrelled 470 and we had all heard the snorting and the
crashing of another rhino that had gone out of the lower end of the reeds
and on under the heavy trees on our side without showing more than a glimpse
of his bulk in the reeds.
'It was the bull,' Pop said. 'He's gone down the stream.'
'N'Dio. Doumi! Doumi!' Droopy insisted it was a bull. 'I hit the damned
buff,' I said. 'God knows where.
To hell with those heavy guns. The trigger pull put me off.'
'You'd have killed him with the Springfield,' Pop said.
'I'd know where I hit him anyway. I thought with the four-seven I'd
kill him or miss him,' I said. 'Instead, now we've got him wounded.'
'He'll keep,' Pop said. 'We want to give him plenty of time.'
'I'm afraid I gut-shot him.'
'You can't tell. Going off fast like that he might be dead in a hundred
yards.'
'The hell with that four-seventy,' I said. 'I can't shoot it. The
trigger's like the last turn of the key opening a sardine can.'
'Come on,' Pop said. 'We've got God knows how many rhino scattered
about here.'
'What about the buff?'
'Plenty of time for him later. We must let him stiffen up. Let him get
sick.'
'Suppose we'd been down there with all that stuff coming out.'
'Yes,' said Pop.
All this in whispers. I looked at P.O.M. She was like someone enjoying
a good musical show.
'Did you see where it hit him?'
'I couldn't tell?' she whispered. 'Do you suppose there are any more in
there?'
'Thousands,' I said. 'What do we do, Pop?'
'That bull may be just around the bend,' Pop said. 'Come on.'
We went along the bank, our nerves cocked, and as we came to the narrow
end of the reeds there was another rush of something heavy through the tall
stalks. I had the gun up waiting for whatever it was to show. But there was
only the waving of the reeds. M'Cola signalled with his hand not to shoot.
'The calf,' Pop said. 'Must have been two of them. Where's the bloody
bull?'
'How the hell do you see them?'
'Tell by the size.'
Then we were standing looking down into the stream bed, into the
shadows under the branches of the big trees, and off ahead down the stream
when M'Cola pointed up the hill on our right.
'Faro,' he whispered and reached me the glasses.
There on the hillside, head-on, wide, black, looking straight towards
us, ears twitching and head lifted, swaying as the nose searched for the
wind, was another rhino. He looked huge in the glasses. Pop was studying him
with his binoculars.
'He's no better than what you have,' he said softly.
'I can bust him right in the sticking place,' I whispered.
'You have only one more,' Pop whispered. 'You want a good one.'
I offered the glasses to P.O.M.
'I can see him without,' she said. 'He's huge.'
'He may charge,' Pop said. 'Then you'll have to take him.'
Then, as we watched, another rhino came into sight from behind a wide
feathery-topped tree. He was quite a bit smaller.
'By God, it's a calf,' Pop said. 'That one's a cow. Good thing you
didn't shoot her. She bloody well {may} charge too.'
'Is it the same cow?' I whispered.
'No. That other one had a hell of a horn.'
We all had the nervous exhilaration, like a laughing drunk, that a
sudden over-abundance, idiotic abundance of game makes. It is a feeling that
can come from any sort of game or fish that is ordinarily rare and that,
suddenly, you find in a ridiculously unbelievable abundance.
'Look at her. She knows there's something wrong. But she can't see us
or smell us.'
'She heard the shots.'
'She knows we're here. But she can't make it out.'
The rhino looked so huge, so ridiculous, and so fine to see, and I
sighted on her chest.
'It's a nice shot.'
'Perfect,' Pop said.
'What are we going to do?' P.O.M. said. She was practical.
'We'll work around her,' Pop said.
'If we keep low I don't believe our scent will carry up there once
we're past.'
'You can't teil,' Pop said. 'We don't want her to charge.'
She did not charge, but dropped her head, finally, and worked up the
hill followed by the nearly full-grown calf.
'Now,' said Pop, 'we'll let Droop go ahead and see if he can find the
bull's tracks. We might as well sit down.'
We sat in the shade and Droopy went up one side of the stream and the
local guide the other. They came back and said the bull had gone on down.
'Did any one ever see what son of horn he had?' I asked.
'Droop said he was good.'
M'Cola had gone up the hill a little way. Now he crouched and beckoned.
'Nyati,' he said with his hand up to his face.
'Where?' Pop asked him. He pointed, crouched down, and as we crawled up
to him he handed me the glasses. They were a long way away on the jutting
ridge of one of the steep hillsides on the far side of the canyon, well down
the stream. We could see six, then eight buffalo, black, heavy necked, the
horns shining, standing on the point of a ridge. Some were grazing and
others stood, their heads up, watching.
'That one's a bull, ' Pop said, looking through the glasses.
'Which one?'
'Second from the right.'
'They all look like bulls to me.'
'They're a long way away. That one's a good bull. Now we've got to
cross the stream and work down toward them and try to get above them.'
'Will they stay there?'
'No. Probably they'll work down into this stream bed as soon as it's
hot.'
'Let's go.'
We crossed the stream on a log and then another log and on the other
side, half way up the hillside, there was a deeply worn game trail that
graded along the bank under the heavily leafed branches of the trees. We
went along quite fast, but walking carefully, and below us, now, the stream
bed was covered solidly with foliage. It was still early in the morning but
the breeze was rising and the leaves stirred over our heads. We crossed one
ravine that came down to the stream, going into the thick bush to be out of
sight and stooping as we crossed behind trees in the small open place, then,
using the shoulder of the ravine as protection, we climbed so that we might
get high up the hillside above the buffalo and work down to them. We stopped
in the shelter of the ridge, me sweating heavily and fixing a handkerchief
inside the sweatband of my Stetson, and sent Droop ahead to look. He came
back to say they were gone. From above we could see nothing of them, so we
cut across the ravine and the hillside thinking we might intercept them on
their way down into the river bed. The next hillside had been burned and at
the bottom of the hill there was a burned area of bush. In the ash dust were
the tracks of the buffalo as they came down and into the thick jungle of the
stream bed. Here it was too overgrown and there were too many vines to
follow them. There were no tracks going down the stream so we knew they were
down in the part of the stream bed we had looked down on from the game
trail. Pop said there was nothing to do about them in there. It was so thick
that if we jumped them we could not get a shot. You could not tell one from
another, he said. All you could see would be a rush of black. An old bull
would be grey but a good herd bull might be as black as a cow. It wasn't any
good to jump them like that.
It was ten o'clock now and very hot in the open, the sun pegged and the
breeze lifted the ashes of the burned-over ground as we walked. Everything
would be in the thick cover now. We decided to find a shady place and lie
down and read in the cool; to have lunch and kill the hot part of the day.
Beyond the burned place we came toward the stream and stopped,
sweating, in the shadow of some very large trees. We unpacked our leather
coats and our raincoats and spread them on the grass at the foot of the
trees so that we could lean back against the trunks. P.O.M. got out the
books and M'Cola made a small fire and boiled water for tea.
The breeze was coming up and we could hear it in the high branches. It
was cool in the shade, but if you stirred into the sun, or as the sun
shifted the shadow while you read so that any part of you was out of the
shadow, the sun was heavy. Droopy had gone on down the stream to have a
look, and as we lay there, reading, I could smell the heat of the day
coming, the drying up of the dew, the heat on the leaves, and the heaviness
of the sun over the stream.
P.O.M. was reading {Spanish Gold}, by George A. Birmingham, and she
said it was no good. I still had the Sevastopol book of Tolstoy and in the
same volume I was reading a story called 'The Cossacks' that was very good.
In it were the summer heat, the mosquitoes, the feel of the forest in the
different seasons, and that river that the Tartars crossed, raiding, and I
was living in that Russia again.
I was thinking how real that Russia of the time of our Civil War was,
as real as any other place, as Michigan, or the prairie north of town and
the woods around Evan's game farm, of how, through Turgenev, I knew that I
had lived there, as I had been in the family Buddenbrooks, and had climbed
in and out of her window in {Le Rouge et Le Noir}, or the morning we had
come in the gates of Paris and seen Salcede torn apart by the horses at the
Place de Greves. I saw all that. And it was me they did not break on the
rack that time because I had been polite to the executioner the time they
killed Coconas and me, and I remember the Eve of St. Bartholomew's and how
we hunted Huguenots that night, and when they trapped me at her house that
time, and no feeling more true than finding the gate of the Louvre being
closed, nor of looking down at his body in the water where he fell from the
mast, and always, Italy, better than any book, lying in the chestnut woods,
and in the fall mist behind the Duomo going across the town to the Ospedale
Maggiore, the nails in my boots on the cobbles, and in the spring sudden
showers in the mountains and the smell of the regiment like a copper coin in
your mouth. So in the heat the train stopped at Dezenzano and there was Lago
de Garda and those troops are the Czech Legion, and the next time it was
raining, and the next time it was in the dark, and the next time you passed
it riding in a truck, and the next time you were coming from somewhere else,
and the next time you walked to it in the dark from Sermione. For we have
been there in the books and out of the books -- and where we go, if we are
any good, there you can go as we have been. A country, finally, erodes and
the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any
importance permanently, except those who practised the arts, and these now
wish to cease their work because it is too lonely, too hard to do, and is
not fashionable. A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art
endures for ever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not
fashionable. People do not want to do it any more because they will be out
of fashion and the lice who crawl on literature will not praise them. Also
it is very hard to do. So what? So I would go on reading about the river
that the Tartars came across when raiding, and the drunken old hunter and
the girl and how it was then in the different seasons.
Pop was reading {Richard Carvell}. We had bought what there was to buy
in Nairobi and we were pretty well to the end of the books.
'I've read this before,' Pop said. 'But it's a good story.'
'I can just remember it. But it was a good story then.'
'It's a jolly good story, but I wish I hadn't read it before.'
'This is terrible,' P.O.M. said. 'You couldn't read it.'
'Do you want this one?'
'Don't be ornamental,' she said. 'No, I'll finish this.'
'Goon. Take it.'
'I'll give it right back.'
'Hey, M'Cola,' I said. 'Beer?'
'N'Dio,' he said with great force, and from the chop box one of the
natives had carried on his head produced, in its straw casing, a bottle of
German beer, one of the sixty-four bottles Dan had brought from the German
trading station. Its neck was wrapped in silver foil and on its black and
yellow label there was a horseman in armour. It was still cool from the
night and opened by the tin-opener it creamed into three cups, thick-foamed,
full-bodied.
'No,' said Pop. 'Very bad for the liver.'
'Come on.'
'All right.'
We all drank and when M'Cola opened the second bottle Pop refused,
firmly.
'Go on. It means more to you. I'm going to take a nap.'
'Poor old Mama?'