by Peter Rimmer
Listening to the rain drumming on the canvas roof, Seb thought more and more of Emily and his home so far away in England. The torrent of rain, flooding off one side of the canvas where it dipped with the weight of water, was alien. The never-ending mopane forest stretched on either side of the raging river that when first seen had been waterless. There were animal and bird cries in the night, a foreigner snoring next to him, the sense of being lost to everything he had ever understood. The crashing, peeling thunder sent the horses to fear as they whinnied and pulled at the long reins, the rainwater pouring from their backs lit by the lightning. There was fear in him mixed with terminal loudness, the end of life itself.
“You look like a man lost in hell,” said Tinus taking pity on the man. He had lit the lamp in the wagon and swung his legs over the bunk. “The horses will be all right. It’s inherent in everything to fear a storm; part of our evolution. You can’t sleep with the thunder, I suppose?”
“No,” said Seb miserably.
“When the sun comes out, you’ll feel a lot better. Have a cheroot.”
“Thank you.”
“You never asked how a Boer speaks such good English.”
“Don’t they all?” replied Seb, reluctant to be drawn into a conversation.
“My mother was a Scot, a Calvinist. Came out with the Scottish missionaries. You ever heard of Andrew Murray? No. Doesn’t matter. He was part of the beginning of our church. The Dutch Reformed Church. I was able to read and write English long before the Taal. You are sleeping on a chest. Why not look inside?”
Reluctantly, Seb got off his bed and opened up the top of the long chest. It was filled with books.
“When I hunt alone, they are my family. Sir Walter Scott. Every novel of Scott’s is in there. Carlyle’s essays. Dickens. Translations of the French and Russians. My mother said all the knowledge of the world was between the covers of books. We lived then in the Karoo. A little town called Graaff-Reinet. She wanted me to be a preacher. The bush is also a great teacher, young Sebastian. It grows on you and, in the end, it takes hold of your life. Maybe in a year you won’t wish to go home to England. Freedom. Real freedom is intoxicating. Let’s have a drop of brandy and listen to the music of the storm. When you hear the music and feel the dry, warm comfort of the wagon, you will sleep through the worst of storms. Now, while the rain comes down, tell me all about this girl you left behind.”
For three weeks the rain came down, leaving them huddled in the wagon fighting mosquitoes. The firewood was drenched, and they ate dried beef and drank the rainwater. Everything became wet including their clothes and bedding. To pass the many hours of night and day they talked.
Seb had imagined Tinus to be an old man, as the sun had weathered the visible patches of skin below the blue eyes, and the long hair that hung past his shoulders was streaked with grey. Even some of the full beard was touched with the same sign of age. Surprisingly, the Boer was the same age as Arthur, Seb’s older brother, by a week. In detail, they had explained their lives to each other.
Tinus was born Martinus Jacobus McDonald Oosthuizen, of a family that had spent two hundred years avoiding orders that confined the new civilisation of man to a set of rules and the dogmas of an established Church that wished to control the sole right to interpret the word of God. First, the family had left the Low Countries in Europe for the Cape of Good Hope to follow the doctrine of John Calvin and worship God in freedom. But with Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch East India Company came another set of rules, and the farmers moved inland from Cape Town. Then the British conquered the Cape and masterminded a new and more powerful set of rules that sent Tinus’s grandfather on the Great Trek of the Boers into southern Africa. The land was largely empty except for roaming bands of armed natives that fought the Boers. Tinus had joined the commando when he was fourteen and able to fire a rifle. At sixteen he and a middle brother had ridden north on their first hunt to avoid the discipline of their father and neither had ever returned to Graaff-Reinet, the brother leaving his earthly remains on the banks of the Limpopo River. He had also left Tinus with his first wagonload of ivory. He was seventeen, a year younger than Seb, alone and determined. Months later, he had brought the wagon to Mafeking. From Mafeking the wagon had taken him south and his first and only meeting with The Captain. He had had no money to board the train in Mafeking and no one had wanted his ivory. The journey south had taken two and a half lonely years, stopping at farms on the way to work for provisions.
The sun when it came at the end of March steamed the wetland, and many birds that Seb had never heard sang with joy. They waited another three days for the river to fall and made a crossing where rocks had tumbled against broken trees trapped in the land. For a further day, they climbed up through the mopane forest until the passage was blocked by a great dyke, a giant eruption a million years before that had rumbled up from the molten bowels of the earth.
“We spent two months here my first trip, looking for a way to those mountains,” said Tinus. “We rode the horses a hundred miles in both directions but found nothing to pass an ox wagon. You see over here, young Seb, where that clump of trees is different from here, shorter with a spreading canopy. Right there in front of us is the only way for the oxen to reach the ancient Kingdom of Monomotapa, a civilisation now extinct. There are only the pickings of legend among the scattered blacks, the stories passed from father to son of a kingdom that traded ivory and gold with the Portuguese traders on the East Coast, that smelted iron and copper, built great fortifications and developed agriculture. There are still traces of them, still traces of the mines, but very few traces of the people who once ruled the high plateau that stretches for hundreds of miles to a great river. The climate is cool, the land well watered. Tomorrow we will start our climb through the mountain and I will show you the most beautiful country on this earth.”
At the top of the great dyke, before they descended the gentle slope to the plateau, Seb looked out over the forest of trees, three times the height of a man, that spread a canopy of green to the far horizon. Swathed into the trees were vast areas of open savannah with tall brown grass the height of a horse’s withers, and over all the open ground were herds of game. Thousands upon thousands of animals dispersed by the rain, now able to feed far from the rivers. Elephants standing high out of the grass next to the herds of impala. Giraffe feeding from the tops of trees. Buffalo so numerous he was unable to count.
“A perfect harmony,” said Seb, roving his eyes over the great panorama.
“On the surface, young Seb. You can’t see the lion from here. They rest up under the trees in the day, hidden by the elephant grass. You ever see anything more beautiful?”
The puffed white clouds rested above the landscape capped by a clear blue sky, the air clear, washed by the recent rain. There was no wind.
“We camp here for a day to rest the oxen,” said Tinus.
“Where are the people?” asked Seb. “There are no villages. Nothing but grass, trees and the thousands upon thousands of animals.”
“They killed each other.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rape and pillage are more common in these parts. Africa can be cruel.”
They stood together looking at the scenery for some time before Seb broke the silence of respect.
“No,” he said. “I never saw anything more beautiful. How long are we staying?”
“We want to be back over the dyke before next year’s rains. It won’t rain now for eight or nine months. By then you’ll be able to go home.”
“You think I will want to go home?”
“Your Emily will take you home.”
“Poor girl. She will wonder where I am.”
With new grass pushing through the old, green emerging from last year’s fallen brown, the legacy of the soaking rains, they outspanned the oxen and untethered their horses from the rear of the wagon. The animals moved slowly away grazing, trailing their long leads.
Seb thought the flat ar
ea around the camp to be five or six acres with a drop in front of five hundred feet to the plain below. Craggy outcrops of rock pushed out of the grass and some of the trees were growing out of cracks in the rocks. Tinus had gone off with two guns as the red ball of the sun began to slide down below the far horizon to Seb’s right, showering the clouds orange and gold with great stabs of fire. The broken wood he had collected from beneath the trees was piled high. The shotgun fired twice behind him and all sound was extinguished at the moment the rim of sun slid from sight. The birds and insects, the frogs and animals, waited for a moment and began the noise again. Down in the plain, a lion roared. Using one precious match, Seb lit the dry twigs he had gathered beneath a rock overhang and the fire took hold that would burn all night. The animals had been tethered to stop them straying in the night and to be close to the protection of the firelight, the loss of horse and oxen the greatest fear of the distant hunter.
The night came swiftly as Seb hung a pot over one side of the fire filled with water from the stream that broke out of an outcrop of rocks to cascade over the escarpment, turning to rain long before the water brushed the lush canopy of trees far below. Tinus came out of the trees into the new firelight carrying two birds Seb judged to be the size of a partridge. Tinus called them Cape Franklin but explained the colouring was different. The guns were strapped on his back and the belt of cartridges hung over his chest. In his right hand, the leather hat that never left his head during the day was filled with a strange, orange fruit a little larger than a gooseberry. The big man put the birds and hat next to Seb before unloading the guns against the rear of the wagon. A second and third lion roared from the darkened plain below as the last light of day faded into darkness, the firelight reaching further and further into the new dark, sparks flying high into the night. Without being asked, Seb began to pluck the warm birds, letting the downy chest feathers be drawn to the flames. The smell was pungent. Tinus had lit his first cheroot and came to stand by the fire. Neither spoke, both listening to the sounds of the African night.
When the birds were plucked and gutted, Seb went to the wagon and ground a handful of coffee beans. Back at the fire, he dropped the ground coffee into the pot of boiling water and the smell mingled with the cheroot and the smell of burning feathers. A hyena laughed hysterically from behind them and one of the horses whickered.
“Smelt your feathers,” said Tinus comfortably, watching the firelight dance among the under boughs of the trees.
“What’s in the hat?” asked Seb as he pushed the green stick through the body of the second bird and popped it over embers he had drawn away from the fire. The one forked stick that made up half of the crude spit was shorter than the other but it didn’t matter. The headless bird would roast looking halfway up to heaven.
“Fruit,” answered Tinus.
“Have you eaten them before?”
“Never seen them before.”
“They could be poisonous.”
“There were two monkeys that fell backwards out of the tree when I fired the gun. Frightened the shit out of them. Under the tree was a mess of half-eaten fruit. We can eat anything a monkey eats.”
“How come you’ve never seen one before?”
“Never frightened a monkey out of the tree before. Try one?”
“You try one first.”
Replete with bird and wild fruit, they watched the flames of fire. The oxen had got down on the ground to chew the cud and both of the horses were fast asleep standing up. The empty mug of coffee stood on the earth next to Seb’s right foot as he stared into the constantly changing flames. To get a better view of the fire, he lay on his side and shortly he was sound asleep. Tinus got up and loaded the fire and sat back on the ground with his back to a fallen tree. The hyena drew a few feet closer to the fire and Tinus waited with the shotgun across his knees. An hour passed before the animal’s courage drew it close enough for Tinus to see the fire reflected in the yellow eyes. Both barrels were loaded with birdshot and the hyena, whose jaws could break a man’s leg in half with one bite, was forty yards from the campfire. Gently, Tinus pulled back the right hammer and in one movement took the gun to his shoulder and fired.
“What the hell?” shouted Seb scrambling to his feet.
“Now we can both go to sleep.”
They could hear the hyena yelping further and further into the trees.
“Birdshot. More fright than pain. Won’t come back tonight and the others will sense his fear. Always works. Now go back to sleep, young Seb. Tomorrow is the first day in the territory where we will hunt.”
By the time the sun was burning overhead, the wagon was making a trail through the grassland. The path they had taken down was a gentle slope compared to the precipice from their camp. Seb looked back and not a trace of smoke rose from the dampened fire that he had covered over with dry grass. They both rode on horseback on either side of the wagon with Tinus coaxing the lead ox to plod on deeper into Africa. Since they had crossed the swollen river, they had seen no sign of man. Just game in quantities Seb had never imagined.
For seven days they travelled deep into the virgin land where the trees had never been cut and ploughs had never turned the earth. Not once had they seen the sign of living man, only the remnants of rongwas, stone fortifications that Tinus had heard were once part of the Kingdom of Monomotapa. Each night, away from the fires, Tinus checked their direction by reading the stars, checking the exact position of south from the Southern Cross.
At the end of March, they reached a small river where the signs of man were seen in an old fire site with logs drawn on either side to make a seat. A little way from the remnants of old charcoal a hut had stood, the building burnt to the ground. A long piece of rope hung from a fever tree, the thorns on the tree longer than Seb’s index finger. The area was well shaded and high on the banks of the river.
“This is where we camp in the dry season,” said Tinus.
“Someone’s been here before.”
“Me. There are few tribesmen in the mountains. None on the plains. The Matabele cleared them out years ago. That’s why we needed Lobengula’s permission to hunt. In the trees is a kraal I made of thorn bush for the oxen. That river is full of bream. Near the river, we sleep under nets against the mosquitoes. Tomorrow we plant the vegetable seeds and water them from the river. I’ll show you my old vegetable garden with its fence to keep out the buck and pigs. The soil in the vlei is black and rich. By the time we break camp, there will be enough maize to reap for our journey. Welcome to my home, young Seb, such as it is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I wish to thank God for my safe return.”
Quietly and without fuss, the big man sank to his knees and began to pray in the Taal. Seb watched him for a moment before dropping to his knees and joining the prayer. Behind them, the oxen and horses watched with quiet regard. Over from the opposite side of the river, a fish eagle called the triple call, achingly lonely.
It felt to Seb they were the only people left in the world, and when the seeds broke from the black earth, he felt a primal excitement. The old hut had been burnt to the ground by Tinus to prevent black ants, scorpions, geckos and snakes infesting the rough bush thatch. The new rondavels had taken them a week to build, enough protection at night to give them the feeling of safety. An old anthill made the oven and a pulley system drew buckets of water up from the river.
The day Emily gave birth to his son, Seb set out to hunt the elephant, nine months after he had been bundled on board the Indian Queen by his brother.
“You all right?” asked Tinus.
“I have a terrible pain in my stomach but I think it’s going.”
“Wind. Probably wind. You all right to get on your horse?”
“I’ll be fine. You sure the oxen won’t break out of the kraal?”
“Never have before.”
Both men carried heavy-calibre Mausers strapped to their backs. The leather ammunition belts moved on their chests with the rhythm of the horses. By the time they s
ighted the herd of elephant, Seb had forgotten the pain in his stomach, overwhelmed by the excitement of the hunt. The long grass brushed his knees as they brought their mounts to walk. A herd of impala broke and ran away from them and in the distance upwards of fifty vultures were circling a kill, waiting their turn. The white fluffy clouds had been sucked dry of water and the sun was blazing hot.
Tinus gauged the elephant and signalled Seb to move around the herd. A herd of buffalo watched them aggressively from a leafless thorn thicket as they rode off towards the vultures.
“I killed the old bull in that herd on my last hunt,” said Tinus. “We are going to ride up into the foothills of those mountains and camp for the night. I only kill an old elephant with the biggest tusks, the bulls pushed out of the herd, poor old bastards. Nature has no sympathy for the weak or useless. Survival, that’s all it thinks about. They usually die of starvation, the old bulls, or loneliness. Better they find Martinus Jacobus McDonald Oosthuizen than dying of thirst too weak to reach the waterhole or too weak to climb out of the mud. We are looking for the spoor of the lone elephant, young Seb. How’s your stomach?”
“It’s fine now.”
“Like the animals, if you get sick out here, you die.”
They passed the vultures an hour before sunset, the birds so graceful in the air now ugly on the ground. The lions had left the kill and gone off to sleep under a tree. Hyena and black-backed jackal snarled at each other over the remains of a wildebeest, the ungainly vultures watching impatiently from the ground and surrounding trees. Seb could hear the flies in the dead animal’s gutted stomach and the smell of putrefying flesh was strong. Seb judged the kill was three, possibly four days old.