The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set

by Peter Rimmer

  “He’s going to charge,” said Barend quickly. “On the count of three we all fire at the heart at the same time; the colonel wins the trophy.”

  Four trained soldiers and Barend brought their guns to their shoulders as the elephant charged, the animal quickly picking up speed, trumpeting, great ears flapping, the ground shaking under the platter-sized pads of the feet.

  “One. Two. Three. Fire!” called Barend and four heavy calibre bullets hit the elephant, not even changing the animal’s stride.

  Barend had deliberately not fired, to give his clients the kill. The raging, wounded beast was charging straight for the German colonel. Barend, his brain cold as ice, took aim for the brain, the more difficult shot, and fired, dropping the animal dead in its tracks, ten yards in front of the German, breaking one of the tusks as it fell. The colonel was swearing profusely in German as the old elephant looked at Barend through dead eyes. He turned away from his clients, bent below the height of the elephant grass and retched and retched, tearing at the innards of his stomach. When he stood up again he was crying and the colonel was standing on top of the dead elephant, von Stratten taking his picture.

  “We’ll send the bearers for the tusks when we reach the makoris,” said Barend. “This hunt is over.”

  No one was taking any notice of him.

  Peregrine had woken with the volley of four shots, certain he had not been dreaming. The donkeys had taken no notice. Birds were arising from the canopy of the dense forest and the black-headed heron was making slow haste with heavy wings. Then came the lone shot and Peregrine felt a flood of relief that started in his stomach and dissipated in his brain.

  “You silly old bug. It was coffee.” Then he scowled. Once again the world of people had caught up with him. The idea of the fish on the fire for supper was no longer attractive. The gunshots, the coffee smells were intrusions. The afternoon found him irritated. He liked it better when his hermit’s world was left alone.

  The next day with the dawn he packed a few things in the wagon and this time remembered to hang his bedding and mattress from the roof of the wagon. With the donkeys in harness and a piece of biltong in the cheek of his mouth, he headed out of the swamps across the shallow river. The heron watched him without taking to flight. Even in a few days, they had grown used to each other.

  The colonel had come to the point the following afternoon. The elephant tusks, including the one with the broken tip, were safely in the German military truck after the bearers had hacked them out of the carcass of the dead elephant. The oarsmen had been paid, the new bush story was already going from mouth to mouth, spreading like the ripples from a stone thrown into a silent pond. The Great Elephant was dead. Whether it was the one spoken of so many years before by his father was a point in question to Barend. If it was not the one that had killed Uncle Sebastian it did not matter either. All the hatred had drained out of him. Never again would he shoot an elephant unless to protect himself. His days as a hunter finished in the dead eyes of the biggest animal he had ever seen, dead at his feet for no reason Barend could understand.

  The colonel had gone on about a great war the Germans were going to bring on the English. But all Barend could see was a great elephant dead, the ears not moving, the trumpet silent, the years of life shot out of him for man’s sport. The colonel was talking about meetings with the old Boer generals that had fought the British with his father and now wanted to fight them again. De Wet, Beyers, Kemp, Maritz; how old man de la Rey would have joined the rebellion if he had not been accidentally shot dead. But all the anger had gone out of him and he listened with half his mind.

  “When the time comes you will join us, Oosthuizen?”

  “Join us?”

  “Against the British. When we invade South Africa and make it a republic again.”

  “With allegiance to Germany?”

  “Of course.”

  “What will be the difference?”

  “You will have your republic again.”

  “But under German hegemony.”

  “Germany will then lead the world. You will join us, no?”

  “Of course, Colonel.”

  “The young Afrikaners will follow the son of General Oosthuizen.” The colonel was pleased. “I’m glad. Good. Very good… It was good hunting. We shall meet again.”

  “I hope so,” said Barend, wishing the opposite.

  When the two German trucks drove out of Maun the following day Barend smiled at the irony of life. Satisfied he had enough money to reach Kimberley he went inside his small rented hut and began the preparations for his departure the next day. The bearers had said they wanted to stay in Maun now they were local heroes. They had been part of the killing of the spirit of the Great Elephant. Everyone was safe again.

  Peregrine had the beginnings of a whisky thirst and wondered who he could prevail upon to buy him a drink. It was early in the following morning, Peregrine having travelled through the night, finding it easier to navigate his way around the bush by reading the stars; the moon had been good but not too bright to dull the pointer star of the Southern Cross. With the sound of waking birds and the slow clop of the donkeys’ hooves, he made his way towards the small cluster of dust-covered buildings that was Maun.

  The Duck Inn was on the far side of the only street, and one of Peregrine’s favourite places in the world, though the word ‘inn’ was a misnomer, as all old Dawie had put up was a shed open on three sides, with a small room attached to the only wall with its back to the road, so he could lock up his stash of booze. During the rains, it became rather muddy but no one seemed to care. Dawie opened for business with the first customer and closed for business when the last went home. No one had ever seen him sober and no one had ever seen him drunk.

  As the donkeys drew Peregrine’s wagon towards the first of what might be called a building, the whisky thirst grew stronger and by the time the wagon with Peregrine on the box drew alongside Barend’s small hut with the new shingle that was about to be taken down, the thirst was raging.

  He had heard the name Barend Oosthuizen over the years, especially from young Madge Brigandshaw, and clutching at any straw that might bring him a drink, Peregrine stopped Clary and Jess right outside the hut and studied the shingle further. The donkeys were quite happy to stand still in the middle of the road. Far down the dirt track, Peregrine could clearly see the object of his desire, the sign ‘Duck Inn’ being the biggest sign in Maun.

  A big blond man with slate-green eyes surveyed him from just inside the open door and quickly lost interest, turning his back.

  “Excuse me. Are you Barend Oosthuizen from Elephant Walk?”

  Involuntarily, Barend spun around and gave himself away, wondering how on earth this decrepit old man knew where he came from.

  “Were you making coffee in the swamps the day before yesterday?” asked Peregrine. His desperation to hold the man where he was focusing all his guile.

  “Probably.”

  “And you shot something?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “I was glad of that. Not for the animal, of course. Thought I was going crackers smelling fresh coffee coming out of the bush. Then I fell asleep and woke to gunshot and birds rising from the canopy. Then another shot, which made me happy as it obviously told me I was not out of my mind after all. That I thought was rather pleasing for an old man.”

  “How do you know where I come from?”

  “It was just a good guess.” Trying one of his best tricks (he rather thought he had the man’s individual attention), Peregrine slapped Clary with a stick and told the donkeys to ‘loop’. As expected, both donkeys failed to move. Peregrine looked at Barend through small blue twinkling eyes and prepared his long stick for a second mild blow.

  “Won’t you join me for coffee?” said Barend, homesickness overcoming his caution.

  “Do you know Dawie?”

  “Ah,” said Barend smiling. “You would like a drink.”

  “Specifically, a l
arge whisky. And then I’ll tell you where I was when last I was drunk.”

  “At Elephant Walk?”

  Peregrine stayed silent.

  “You do have some money?” Peregrine asked as an afterthought.

  “Well, well, well. Fact is, I haven’t been drunk a while myself. Do you know the Duck Inn well?” asked Barend.

  “Oh yes I do,” said Peregrine all in one piece.

  Dawie had been watching the whole performance, as he did not sleep well when he was sober, and drinking alone in Dawie’s mind was only for drunks. Fact was, he had not seen a customer for two days and his whisky thirst was also raging. The two donkeys, Clary and Jeff, and the wagon were recognisable, as everyone else used salted horses to pull their wagons, or in the case of big wagons with big loads they used oxen. No one used donkeys except the black men with small carts they used for collecting firewood. Dawie licked his lips and had even made up his mind to allow Peregrine to drink on the house. The stop outside the white hunter’s hut was a surprise. And a further surprise when the big man climbed up onto the box bench next to Peregrine, almost upsetting the wagon. Dawie felt immediate panic. His only chance of a drinking companion was driving away. Using all the mental telepathy that he knew about, he willed the wagon to stop, all the time pretending he had not seen the wagon despite all the squeaking and grinding noises. It would never do for the landlord of the Duck Inn to solicit business. In agony he waited, looking the wrong way. When the squeaking and rattling stopped almost next to him he froze.

  “Morning, Dawie,” said Peregrine softly, leaning out of his wagon to within a yard of Dawie’s ear; they were both on the same level as the back of the inn was raised to keep the very limited stock of food dry in the lock-up. There were wooden steps from the room down to the open bar that looked across the start of the swamps, a view so beautiful it usually made Peregrine cry when he had drunk enough whisky.

  “Why it’s Peregrine the Ninth, isn’t it?” he said, having turned around. Speaking in English, his accent was thick but understandable. He was an Afrikaner, who managed to overcome his dislike of the British when in pursuit of his favourite pastime, which was drinking whisky. He had been heard to say many times, ‘the British can make whisky, there is room for forgiveness’. Usually, and always with Barend, he spoke Afrikaans.

  “Are you open, Dawie?” asked Peregrine, knowing exactly what was going on.

  “Well, I suppose we could be, Uncle.” It was a habit of Dawie Lamprecht to call anyone a lot older than himself ‘uncle’. Peregrine rather liked the habit. A drinking friend with a good respect was essential in his life.

  “This is Mr Barend Oosthuizen,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Without any more ceremony, Peregrine climbed down from the box and walked across into the bar, leaving the donkeys in the middle of the road. Dawie, always thoughtful, and mindful of not wishing to be interrupted when he was drinking, gave them each a bucket of water. Barend, seeing no one else was going to help, relieved them of their harnesses, dropping the shaft in the middle of the road. When he went inside Peregrine was already seated at the bar filling his long pipe with tobacco. When he lit the pipe with a match from Dawie Lamprecht it gave off a smell like an old rope, which overpowered most of the old clothes smell emanating from Peregrine.

  “Let’s get started,” said Dawie, lining up the glasses.

  Barend, bursting with curiosity, picked up his first shot of whisky and tossed it back. No one said a word until the shot glasses were filled again.

  “Now let’s get started,” said Peregrine.

  “How do you know about Elephant Walk?” asked Barend, unable to contain himself.

  “Oh that comes much later,” said Peregrine, his small blue eyes twinkling. “Just lucky I had a good bath yesterday in the river. Must have known I was going to be in good company. I’ll make a toast: to the man who invented whisky.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Dawie.

  There were a few tables and chairs behind Barend and Peregrine. They sat at the wooden bar that Dawie had laboriously cut from a mukwa tree, ruining three bandsaws in the process, the wood was so harsh. Polished by many elbows and washed with spilt alcohol, the surface of the bar top was a mahogany blood red. The stools were made of stout bamboo from the delta, and between the tables on the floor were scattered zebra, kudu, and leopard skins, that Dawie washed and shook clean after every rain. Nailed to the uprights and crossbeams were many species of animals, just the heads trying to still look alive, with their tails hanging down the uprights, the bodies having probably been eaten. The view of the delta down the slope of the cleared bush, over a river to primal forest, went on and on, alive with birds circling the treetops. A pair of crocodiles were taking the morning sun on a sandbank in the river close by, the eyes and guarded heads of hippo were watching from just above the surface of the river. Three warthogs were rooting halfway up the cleared bush that gave the Duck Inn a good firebreak, and circling high in the sky far, far away, the scavengers of Africa, the vultures, were going round and round, lower and lower, still afraid to land and tear the last flesh from the Great Elephant.

  Barend watched them with remorse, knowing the jackals and hyenas would be waiting, hidden in the bush and long grass, waiting for the old lions, too old to make a kill themselves, to finish what was left of the bloated carcass of the old elephant. Last would come the black ants, leaving huge bones to bleach white in the African sun forever.

  After two quick shots of whisky, the drinking had become more patient, the glasses bigger and topped up with river water. The heat of the day began to rise but no one noticed. Peregrine went out to feed his donkeys from the fodder still in the wagon but they had wandered off the road, grazing quietly under the canopy of acacia trees. The wagon was still where it had been left in the middle of the road. After giving himself a good scratch all over, he went back into the bar, glad to be alive.

  Very quietly he took Barend by the arm, first smiling to Dawie to convey the need for confidentiality. Just inside the shade from the roof, seated at a wooden table, the breeze still cooling slightly from the river, he talked to Barend about Barend’s mother, his sister, his dead father. He even mentioned little Christo Oosthuizen, Barend’s only brother, buried next to little James Brigandshaw in the family plot on Elephant Walk, dead so long from heatstroke. Only last did he mention Madge.

  “She’s waiting for you,” he said smiling sadly with his own memories. “Every day, I think. Time you went home, my boy.” They sat in silence for a long time… “Now. Let’s go and join Dawie. He hates drinking on his own.”

  “Who are you really?” asked Barend.

  “That’s my business.” It was the first and only time Barend ever heard the old man being rude to anyone.

  With the knowledge that life was a lot more simple with its repetition than people understood, Peregrine sat quietly at the bar. He was still quite sure in his belief that each person had the destiny to marry only one person, that one person who could make the other content with the vagaries of life. He rather thought Madge and Barend were two of those people destined for each other. When he had lost the love of his own life as a young man, he had hoped it was only the first love experience he would have, and another person was waiting for him down the road. But he was wrong. There had been many more women in his life but none that he could look back on and say he missed. Some of them would have stayed friends but none he had loved, and being a sentimental old goat he let a tear drain into his grey-white beard, not for himself, but for two other people who could well go through their lives alone having missed their boat together.

  “The whisky and the purity of the view,” he said to hide his melancholy. “And a bit of old age.” He was wondering again how different his life might have been. Not the money, that had never bothered him one way or the other. The lifelong love of fellowship is what he had missed. He was also sure of one other thing in life that he had seen too many times. Bad marriages. It was be
tter to live alone than live in a bad marriage. Yes, he was certain of that.

  Then he broke into a passable rendering of ‘Greensleeves’ to change his mood.

  The stones came out of the pouch onto the blood-red bar when the sun was directly over the Duck Inn. No one else had come or gone. The faraway vultures had sunk out of sight. The crocodiles had gone into the water. Even the birds had stopped singing. Dawie had produced a brace of cold roast guinea fowl on a large platter, which they had pulled apart with their fingers. A loaf of bread was torn apart in the same way. The three of them were drunk but still coherent; no one was slurring their words, and to Peregrine’s surprise, he had not once wobbled on his bar stool perch. They had all three given out variations of their lives that bore very little resemblance to the truth, happily knowing that none of them would remember what had been said. They had all enjoyed themselves immensely.

  The glittering stones on the bar brought a moment of silence.

  “What are they?” asked Barend. “You’re the first to see my stones. Friends, what are they?”