by Osa Johnson
Father Johnson touched my arm. “Aren’t you going a mite fast?” he asked anxiously.
I nodded. “Sure. Want to get there right away. Why, all Martin will have to do, practically, is set up his camera and turn the crank. And as for meat for the porters, look at that bunch of antelope over there! We can just shut our eyes and shoot!” I bounced the car off the road and bounced it back on again. Everything rattled and shook.
A small herd of zebra, up ahead, stared at us, ears pointed forward. Then, as we came abreast of them, they leaped to a gallop and started to race our cars. This went on for perhaps two hundred yards, when suddenly they swerved to cross the road. I jammed on the brakes just in time. I also heard Martin’s brakes screeching behind us. The zebra now gathered in a tidy group on the other side of the road and stood calmly regarding us, with nothing to explain their purposeless dash.
“Hey!” Martin yelled.
I stuck my head out the door.
“We’re not going to a fire, you know,” he shouted, “and I don’t know of any hospitals in this direction either!”
He looked cross, but I grinned and waved to him and went off at a somewhat moderated speed until we came to a flock of ostrich. They too decided to race us and looked very earnest about it. They had a crazy, half-running, half-jumping gait which also included the elegant crossing of one foot over the other—like a fashion model on parade—and I speeded up to keep pace with them, expecting any minute to see them trip. Martin’s honking warned me to slow down again, so I gave up the race. The ostrich were too fast for me anyhow.
In about four hours we came to the place Blayney Percival had suggested for our camp. It might have been a lovely scene in a park, with the gnarled trunks of great mimosa trees framing the gently sloping banks and lively stream, and to the north a dark, jagged cliff for contrast.
Martin scolded me a little for fast driving, but he gave me a hug besides, and I could see he was every bit as excited as I was over the animals we’d seen and the apparent brightness of our prospects.
Jerramani and Ferraragi proceeded to order the setting up of our modest camp, and the air of disdain which accompanied this made clear that each was remembering the important men he had served and the impressive camps he had supervised—men of Theodore Roosevelt’s caliber, Carl Akeley’s. The other men seemed similarly minded, all rebelling at taking orders, whereupon Martin took command and, in words that had the sting of a lash, sent them sharply and with increased respect about their work.
Next, Mpishi, our cook, presented himself to my husband and, standing helplessly, arms hanging at his sides, asked for firewood. Twice he declared, with an effective air of personal injury, that he could not cook without firewood.
Martin said firmly, “There’s enough wood for six fires within twenty yards of here along the riverbank. Go and get it.”
Mpishi stiffened. “Me cook,” he said. “Me not porter.”
Father Johnson jumped up. “I’ll get the firewood,” he said. “And I’ll build the fire too. I’m good at building fires.”
“Stay where you are,” Martin barked tersely, though not meaning it that way. “When a white man loses face with a black, his authority is gone.”
Mpishi went for firewood, then presented himself shortly—same manner, same tone—saying he needed water. By this time he had food in preparation which in all fairness he shouldn’t be asked to leave, so Martin told Jerramani and Ferraragi, both of whom were completely idle at the moment, to fetch water. They stated loftily and in duet that such work was for porters. Sharply Martin reiterated his order. The two big natives looked at each other; Jerramani drew himself up and glared. Ferraragi stooped for the bucket, handling it as if some contamination were suddenly upon it, and went for water. Jerramani’s dignity and authority remained intact.
After dinner we sat about the fire in front of our shelter. It was our first evening in the African open and I was fit to pop with excitement. I was even shivering a little.
“Cold?” Martin asked. He took my hand and pressed it hard. The firelight was on his face, and I could see he was smiling; he knew I wasn’t cold.
Father Johnson sat on the other side of me, his little .22 across his knee.
“There might be a lion snooping around someplace,” he suggested hopefully.
All we could hear at first was the soft rush of the river close at hand and the plaintive cry of night birds. It was a clear, moonless night. Then suddenly, on the opposite bank of the river, we heard a ghoulish, mirthless laugh. From what Blayney Percival had told us, that would be a hyena. Then, as our ears became accustomed to the vibrant silence, we picked out the grunt of the wildebeest and the sneeze of the hartebeeste, and then, difficult at first to identify, a low, steady rumble and a faint vibration in the earth.
“Antelope, I think,” Martin said, “stampeding across the plain.”
If they were stampeding, fear was driving them—no doubt of that. Sharp pity turned me a little sick; the weaker creature everywhere was the victim of the stronger.
We were awakened before dawn the following morning by Father Johnson.
“Hey, you two kids,” he whispered sharply through the flap of our tent. “If you want to see something, you’d better get up!”
Still half asleep, we got into our things and stumbled outside.
“Where? What?” we asked.
Father Johnson pointed through the thick morning dusk to the river, and there we saw the dim shapes of hundreds of animals. It was still so dark we couldn’t make them out, but some were already at the river, drinking; others, following the beaten trails, were on their way to the water’s edge.
Martin rushed into the supply tent for his camera; I rushed for my gun and, rushing out again, sprawled flat over a guy rope. My gun went off, fortunately without killing anybody, but even before I could pick myself up I heard the startled rush of the animals away from the river’s bank. Martin said nothing, but I could see he was distinctly disappointed in me.
“Well,” he said, “maybe they won’t run more than a mile or two. I guess we can go after them.”
The sun came up, and I suppose it was a very beautiful morning, but I was aware only of my disgrace. Martin and I gulped our breakfast in silence, and even Father Johnson’s recital of how he once fell flat in an Elks’ parade didn’t help a bit. Mpishi, still on his dignity, said he hoped we would supply him that day with fresh meat to cook. This, it seemed to me, considering all the food we had brought from Nairobi, was an unnecessary demand on our first day out, but Martin nodded, remembering what Blayney Percival had said, and whether we liked it or not, the job was ours of killing something before we returned.
Gloom was still heavy upon me as we started out, and it wasn’t lessened particularly when Ferraragi showed clearly that he wasn’t in the least honored to carry my gun. Martin saw this and punished him by giving him the camera to carry besides. Ferraragi started to balk, but Jerramani reasserted the authority won the night before by snapping a command, and we started on our first African hunt.
We had gone little more than a mile from camp when we spied a herd of small animals grazing peacefully. I guessed from the description I had read they they were Thompson’s gazelle, sometimes called Tommies. Martin motioned Jerramani to hand him his gun.
“Well, aren’t you going to try to photograph them first?” I asked.
Martin shook his head. “Background isn’t interesting, and besides, we might as well get this killing business over so we won’t have to keep thinking about it.”
I reached for my gun and we crept forward, keeping well to leeward of the cute little animals, and in a few minutes we were close enough to hear the soft sound of their feeding. I glanced at Martin. He was raising his rifle. Father Johnson and I did likewise, and as one man we all fired, whereupon the gazelle leaped straight into the air and sped away—every one of them. We avoided lo
oking at Jerramani and Farraragi when we handed our guns back to them.
Some distance farther on we caught sight of nine Grant’s gazelle, which are larger than Tommies and have beautiful, curved horns. This was in a gully, the background was good, and Martin decided he’d like a picture of them. He told the men to circle the animals and drive them toward us, but his voice, too loud, apparently carried down the gully, so the gazelle threw up their heads, saw us, and galloped away.
And so it went all day long, game on every side of us which we could neither photograph nor hit. At one time we were so close to some Tommies that it seemed to me we could almost touch them with our hands, and yet our shots went wild. This was at the end of the day, we were returning to camp, and the porters looked very sad and discouraged. It didn’t help our feelings very much, either, to remember what Blayney Percival had said: that a native headman or gun-bearer is only as great as his white bwana (master), and that if a white hunter fails to live up to a certain standard, then his servant in turn becomes the laughingstock of his fellows. An African servant, Blayney had informed us, “is faithful, humble, and admiring,” and asks but two things of his master: one, that he never run away; two, that he be a good shot. Well, so far we hadn’t run away—there had been nothing to run from.
This went on for three days, with an enormous amount of ammunition being shot and not a single hit. A deep gloom settled on the camp. In an effort at being funny I reminded Martin that in western movies the hero was always being shot at by fifteen or twenty men—crack shots, supposedly—and none of them ever hit him. Martin merely looked at me. Father Johnson, as usual, viewed the whole situation quite cheerfully and told us many stories of rabbit hunting in Kansas.
On the morning of the fourth day, Jerramani came to Martin and, with something very close to a sneer, said he and the rest of the porters were hungry. He asked for a gun to go and kill some meat.
Martin knew in that moment that unless he did something, his failure as a hunter would be spread among the blacks all through British East Africa, and his authority from that point on would be lost. Springing to his feet in a rage, he not only refused Jerramani the use of a gun but told him that if he ever dared to presume so far again he would “beat the tar” out of him. Jerramani seemed both impressed and pleased by this display of temper and retired with mumbled apologies. Martin winked at me then, and I saw he wasn’t nearly as angry as he had pretended to be, but when he picked up his double-barreled elephant gun, a .470 Bland, I also saw that he intended to solve the meat problem, and alone.
He came back in a little while, though, mad and limping, and with the sight broken off the new, five-hundred-dollar rifle. Unfamiliar with the gun, it seemed that he had aimed at a Tommy and accidentally pulled both triggers. The recoil from one barrel of a .470 Bland is enough to set a strong man back on his heels. The concussion from two had hurled him backward, and the rifle had soared through the air, landing muzzle down.
Rubbing some ointment on his twisted ankle, Martin then took a long drink of water, picked up his .405 Winchester, and grimly started out again. I begged to go with him, but he said “No,” violently, and once more strode off across the plain.
I suppose I have spent longer days in my life, but I can’t remember when. At any rate, it occured to me that if I caught some fish the meat situation might be relieved a little. I wasn’t at all hopeful, certainly, that Martin in his present mood would bring anything down; so, saying nothing to anyone—not even to Father Johnson, who was in his tent getting a much-needed rest—I got out my fishing tackle and went around a bend in the river to try my luck. The Athi River simply teemed with a fish resembling the Mississippi catfish, but a sense of failure must have been strong upon me or I wouldn’t have scurried out of camp before dropping my bait in the water. I’m not a bad fisherman—indeed, I’m considered a very good one, for a woman—but all I could catch that day was a four-foot crocodile.
Five o’clock came. Martin had been gone seven hours, and even Father Johnson, who always tried to put the most optimistic face possible on things, admitted to being a little worried.
“I can’t stand it any longer,” I said. “We’ve got to go and look for him. Maybe he ran into a lion or something.”
Father Johnson nodded and we went to get our guns, when we heard a blast from Martin’s police whistle a short distance away. We raced to where he was, on the far side of a clump of thornbush. At his feet lay a beautiful impala with long, curved horns. Martin was completely exhausted. For more than an hour he had dragged the hundred-pound buck across the plains.
“I couldn’t leave it,” he said. “As it was, a pack of hyenas followed me most of the way.”
I was so happy I almost cried. Certainly this should reestablish Martin in the eyes of the porters as well, of course, as supplying them with meat. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t look happier about the whole thing, though clearly they were impressed when they discovered that a single bullet in the center of the animal’s forehead had brought it down.
Martin and his father and I walked off quite as if expert marksmanship and bringing fresh meat into camp were an everyday affair, but when we were out of earshot of the porters, Martin confessed that the kill was sheer luck. He had started dejectedly back to the camp when he ran into the gazelle and, desperately anxious, had knelt and taken careful aim. To his astonishment, the buck at which he had aimed galloped blithely off, but another lay on the ground, bored neatly in the skull.
“But it’s wonderful anyhow,” I said, “and for goodness’ sake, don’t let the men know!”
Arriving at camp, we discovered to our astonishment that the porters had followed us in and left the gazelle where it lay on the edge of the plain. Martin demanded an explanation.
“No good,” they said discouragedly.
My husband was dumbfounded. “What’s the matter with it?”
They told him it had not been “hallaled.” Being Mohammedans, they were forbidden to eat the flesh of an animal that had not had its throat cut before it was dead. They would make a slight compromise, it seemed, and eat the flesh if the ceremony were performed immediately after the animal had been killed, but obviously this one had been dead at least two hours, and they could not touch it as food.
Father Johnson, Martin, and I withdrew to our tent that night and had a serious discussion.
“It’s been the same story day after day,” Martin said glumly. “Everything we’ve done has been wrong. As a matter of fact, the whole trip here to the Athi River has been a total loss.”
“If I remember rightly,” Father Johnson said in his sometimes brittle, humorous fashion, “experience was what you came for, wasn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Martin replied vaguely. He wasn’t listening.
“More failure than success in it, sure,” Father Johnson went on. “That’s what makes it valuable. Keeps you working. Makes you learn.”
Martin was intent on a gloomy review of our failures.
“We came to get pictures, and what have we to show for it?” he demanded. “Nothing! I’m throwing other people’s money away for—nothing!”
“Well, it hasn’t all been our fault,” I said. “Whenever we left the heavy cameras behind to make the hunt for meat easier, we usually found conditions perfect for photography. And when we went out to get pictures, either we couldn’t find animals or they kept out of range or the light was bad.” I thought about this a minute, then added, “All of it hasn’t been bad judgment; a lot of it’s been plain bad luck.”
“Bad luck nothing,” Martin shouted in exasperation. “I’ve turned into a meat-hunter for my porters. I’m no longer a photographer!”
“Hold on, now, son—listen to me.” Father Johnson pulled his chair a little closer to Martin’s.
Martin listened, with the result that we decided to stick it out at least another week. Experience was what we needed—no doubt
of that. As for the meat problem for our confounded men, we decided to go into Nairobi and buy some, all properly “hallaled.”
We were up for an early start the next morning. I chanced to look off across the plain and there, perhaps three hundred yards away on the crest of a hill and silhouetted against the rising sun, were two large elephants. I called excitedly to everyone to look. Martin rushed for his light camera.
“It will be a perfect piece of photography!” My heart was thumping like everything. “Maybe our luck’s changed,” I added hopefully.
Keeping in the cover of thornbush, we crept to within about a hundred yards of the hill, only to see our two elephants suddenly dissolve into four zebra and run away.
Martin pulled in his lips the way he always did when he was mad, and we trudged back to camp.
“It was the way they were grouped,” I said, “and the sun behind them and everything—and besides, you thought they were elephants too, or you wouldn’t have taken your camera.”
Leaving Father Johnson in charge of the camp, we got into the new Ford and started for Nairobi. Neither of us spoke for quite a long time. We had gone only a little more than three miles when, at a bend in the road that gave a view of the plain, we saw a large herd of antelope. They made a beautiful picture. The early-morning light and the background were exactly right. They were quite a distance off, but Martin had brought his long-focus lens and ground out a picture of the beautiful creatures grazing peacefully.
“Maybe if you shot your gun we’d get a little action,” he said. He hadn’t looked so happy in a long time.
I thought a bit. Perhaps I could stir up the herd and put an end to our meat problem at the same time. I picked out the largest buck in the herd, took a long and careful aim, and fired. To my complete astonishment, he fell where he stood. The rest of the animals galloped away.