Hallowed Ground

by Paul Twivy

  Barbara found herself regretting her statement that she hadn’t intended to marry archaeological digs and burial sites. She had a strange feeling of knowing her husband for the first time, here in a cave in Africa.

  ‘I am touched,’ Ubuntu responded. ‘Perhaps our countries can start to understand each other at last. Let’s hope so.’

  He looked at the five eager faces.

  ‘Anyway, who could resist the curiosity of these infuriatingly bright youngsters?’

  They all laughed.

  ‘To be honest,’ Ubuntu continued, ‘I have also been obsessed by the circles for many years. One often reacts badly to what one sees in one’s self. I, of course, respect the views of my countrymen that each circle is the soul of a dead ancestor. Yet, I am also too much of a rationalist to believe it.’

  ‘You said we were looking in the wrong place,’ Ben prompted.

  ‘Yes, we need to go deeper, into the cave proper,’ Ubuntu advised.

  They carefully folded up the maps and followed Ubuntu along the rocks and boulders that were already starting to radiate heat, to the concealed entrance of a cave.

  ‘Does everyone have a head-torch? Or, some kind of a torch, anyway?’ Ubuntu asked. ‘It will be cold in here as well, so you might want another layer.’

  They had to unhook a chain to enter. A sign which read ‘No public admission. Approved guides only.’ was put to one side.

  The beams of their head-torches criss-crossed the cave and at different heights: from Clara’s darting four foot and ten inches to Ubuntu’s measured and stately six-foot three.

  ‘This is just a hunch,’ Ubuntu admitted ‘but the Victorians often liked the earliest engravings which are in here… also the paintings of which there are very few. If Captain Alexander were to paint or engrave anything himself, it might well be in here or the adjoining cave.’

  At Darius’s suggestion, they split the cave between the four families, each one taking a different section of wall and ceiling. They assumed that a Victorian painting would look fresher and have more varied colours than the subdued ochres and whites of the San’s.

  Sometimes they encountered a name or initials alongside a date: ‘ABJT: 1861’; ‘Pinkerton: 1903’; ‘The Boer Constrictor: 1971’. The Victorian dates made their hearts flutter with hope and their eyes keenly scoured its vicinity.

  After an hour of patient searching, they had covered the first cave between them. Necks aching and eyes adjusting, they sat in the sun of the cave entrance, sipping hot chocolate and milky coffee from Thermos flasks. The chill of the cave penetrated your bones after an hour.

  Fleeces were donned for the second cave which was significantly colder than the first being further underground. After ten minutes Ben called to Sarah.

  ‘Sarah, your moment has come.’

  She felt flattered but anxious in case he had exaggerated her knowledge and skill in his mind.

  Fortunately, what greeted her gaze were hieroglyphs. Her eyes settled, her brain whirred.

  ‘Well, they’re Egyptian, as I’m sure you can tell.’

  ‘Alexander had a fascination with Egyptology,’ Ben noted excitedly. ‘Those earlier journals show that he had visited the Valley of the Kings. He made copious notes and drawings.’

  Sarah pressed her face closer to the wall. She brushed some dust away with her fingertips.

  ‘These are a slightly cod version, whether deliberate or not.’

  ‘You mean an amateur has painted them?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Exactly. But they’re clear enough, despite the mistakes, to pick up the meaning.’

  She started to translate, and Ben took notes.

  ‘From the cave of paintings…’

  ‘That must be here,’ Selima said.

  ‘Head towards the place of the elephants and rhinos.’

  ‘That must be Etosha,’ Ilana suggested. ‘It would make sense because it’s north-east of here.’

  ‘Heading towards the point of the intersection,’ Joe added.

  Sarah continued.

  ‘Keep the valley…’

  ‘The Huab,’ Darius suggested.

  ‘… and the mountains at your back.’

  ‘The Brandberg and Spitzkoppe,’ Ilana confirmed.

  ‘Then, this next section is unclear…. Something about three rivers?’

  ‘Three rivers meet just north of my father’s farm,’ Darius confirmed.

  As Sarah’s torch moved slowly along, it found every archaeologist’s worst nightmare: a missing section, a gouge taken out of the rock.

  ‘It’s been vandalised,’ Ben sighed. ‘It looks deliberate. It’s too deep for water damage.’

  ‘Was someone else on the same trail as us?’ Freddie speculated.

  ‘Impossible to know,’ Ben responded. ‘It seems unlikely, as we have what we assume to be the only copy of his map.’

  ‘He might have told someone where to look before he died,’ Joe suggested.

  ‘Or he could have sent a copy of the map back to his sponsors at the Royal Geographical Society who then sent another expedition,’ Ben added.

  They all suddenly felt a competitor at their back, adding to their sense of urgency.

  ‘Look further along the wall,’ Li suggested.

  They inched systematically along for several feet but found nothing.

  ‘Below,’ Freddie suggested.

  The floor lit up as they dropped their heads together, as if in prayer. Nothing met their gaze.

  ‘Where do you look when you want to be inspired?’ asked Ubuntu, not much louder than a whisper. In the light reflected from the floor he’d already seen what they had missed.

  They raised their eyes to the ceiling as one. There looking down at them was a painting of the Golden Leopard.

  ‘Not a single rosette!’ Selima noted.

  13

  Hunting the Golden Leopard

  Freddie had been awake a large part of the night. First, there was the cooing of a woodpigeon, which was curiously British and soothing. This was followed by a sound like a tiny anvil being struck by the most delicate of hammers. It came in very uneven intervals, thus causing maximum alertness. No metronomes in Nature. Finally, came the whooping of the hyenas.

  They were camping near the banks of a river and he was convinced he could hear the splash of crocodiles, emerging from the water, followed by the slither of their bellies across the coarse, lush grass. Irritatingly, Joe had seemed oblivious to it all, breathing heavily and rhythmically.

  Then, the low growl of a lion fired up Freddie’s adrenaline like a car battery at the turn of a key.

  Finally, just as he was drifting back to sleep under the influence of Joe’s breathing, there had been the sound of something heavy but soft, like a giant walking with felt shoes. The snapping of twigs played treble to the bass of the padding feet. Then, the back wall of the tent started to bulge and darken. He sat bolt upright and shook his sleeping friend.

  ‘Joe!’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s an elephant outside the tent.’

  ‘Sure, and I’m the forty-fifth President of the United States!’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, we’re sleeping out in the bush.’

  Joe suddenly came to, with a jolt.

  ‘OMG!’ Joe said seeing the bulge in the tent wall. ‘What if it decides to sit down?’

  Freddie had started to giggle at this point.

  ‘When did you ever see an elephant sit down?’

  ‘At a circus!’ Joe answered mildly hurt. ‘And in Dumbo…’

  This last comment sent Freddie into uncontrollable, suppressed giggles.

  Just then, the corner of the tent squeezed in, which made his throat convulse in a different way.

  ‘Just be quiet for God’s sake,’ Joe said in the kind
of angry whisper that’s triggered by fear.

  ‘I want to see if it really is an elephant,’ Freddie said, starting to get out of bed.

  ‘Don’t be mad!’ Joe exclaimed in a whisper rasping with rage. ‘People have been trampled to death!’

  Once the bulge had gone, and the noises retreated, they decided to look. They carefully rolled up one window cover and hooked it up. Through the mosquito mesh they could see two elephants chewing the grasses at the edge of the river. They seemed a deathly grey in the moonlight, like giant ghosts. Their breathing slowed now the danger had passed, and stories from Kipling came flooding into their heads.

  ‘God, this place is magical,’ Freddie said.

  It was almost an hour before they returned to a haunted sleep.

  ‘Come on guys, wake up! Glorious morning!’

  ‘Wakey, wakey! Rise and shine!’

  The unmistakeable voices of the two fathers penetrated the tents. Ben’s was a call to action in the enthusiastic, American tradition of ‘fresh morning, fresh energy’. Ralph’s was English, firm, almost military.

  It felt more like the middle of the night than even the middle of the night had felt.

  Selima felt for her torch, but instead found Hannah’s face.

  ‘Hey!’ Hannah complained.

  ‘Sorry, I was looking for a head torch rather than a head.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘5.45.’

  ‘What? I’m suing under the UN Charter for Young People’s Rights!’

  Selima burst out laughing.

  ‘Hannah, how on earth can you think of such things this early in the morning? You’re crazy!’

  ‘It came with the family. DNA doesn’t lie!’

  ‘Can you girls cut the banter please?’ Joe called from the next-door tent. ‘We’re trying to get some sleep in here.’

  ‘You need to get up,’ Selima called. ‘It’s 5.48.’

  ‘Is that the time or an isotope?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Only from a geek’s mouth,’ Freddie cried, for which he got a pillow in the face.

  ‘Who else was freezing in the night?’ Hannah called, still protecting her body in a foetal position, for fear of contact with the early morning chill.

  A couple of ‘Me’s’ responded through the canvas walls.

  ‘You, wimps!’ Selima cried. ‘You’ve clearly never camped out in Africa before.’

  Hannah put on her walking shoes and exited the tent. The moon was still up and the colour of wax. The sun was a blood-red disc barely visible above the treeline. Then, gradually, after playing hide-and-seek amongst the thickets, it rose, calling the landscape to life. Shadows and animals stretched and so did Hannah.

  The river was flat and silent. The air felt like the purest drinking water.

  ‘Come out, guys!’ she called to the other three. ‘The sun’s just up and it’s incredible. However tired you are…’

  Selima felt pride at the thrill in Hannah’s voice. This was Selima’s country, her landscape.

  Darius, practised in the art of living out in the bush, was already re-kindling the fire. He placed the ends of three hardwood logs on top of each other, reviving the coals from the previous night that lay smouldering underneath. The fire was small, but darting, like the tongue of a priest.

  Selima emerged from her tent and watched her father move at ease between his chores. He was always happiest outdoors.

  ‘Dad, how long have you been up?’

  ‘Almost an hour. You know me. Listen, you and your friends need to get up sharpish. If we want to find that leopard, we need to leave in less than thirty minutes before it starts to warm up.’

  Ralph had been taught how to drive jeeps over rough terrain when he was a teenager: by his father, off-road on various military bases. So, it was decided that he and Darius would drive the open-sided Land Rovers.

  The five rode together in Darius and Ilana’s jeep, whilst Ralph drove behind and took the remaining adults.

  Before they set off, Darius issued some safety instructions. By now, the sun had set the sky ablaze with crimson and the smell of wild basil was already rising from the bush.

  ‘Keep your hands and feet inside the jeeps at all times. When we do find animals, no standing up and no sudden movements.’

  ‘Why no standing up?’ Clara asked.

  ‘Animals use silhouettes to hunt. In the jeep we blend into the shape of the vehicle. They don’t pick you out as an individual. If you stand up, they can identify you as prey!’

  ‘Prey?!’ Clara gulped.

  Freddie put his arm round her.

  ‘It’s all-right. I’ll stay close, pumpkin.’

  They sat in three rows in the open-sided jeeps.

  The moon-white gravel road was bumpy and jolted their spines.

  ‘This is what we call a free African massage!’ Darius yelled.

  They all smiled, even Selima, who’d heard it a thousand times before.

  ‘Hold tight!’ he called as they turned off the road and into the bush.

  The jeep rocked like a cradle, tilting and lurching.

  ‘This is like being drunk,’ Joe called out.

  ‘How would you know, Joe?’ Ilana asked, turning around to him with an amused smile.

  Joe went silent. That one evening, raiding the drinks cabinet in their Brooklyn apartment with his brother, had not ended well. He never wanted to look at a crème de menthe again.

  ‘Here,’ Selima said, handing out binoculars.

  ‘Mine don’t work!’ Clara said distraught, as everyone else seemed lost deep in the landscape.

  ‘That’s because you need to take the lens caps off first,’ said Joe, removing them for her.

  She wasn’t used to brotherly attention from anyone other than Freddie and decided she rather liked it.

  Looking through the binoculars only exaggerated the jeep’s bumps and so she strung them round her neck for now.

  The cold morning air chastened them all into blankets, but it was intoxicating: their eyes on patrol, the cold air refrigerating their face, the horizon bouncing and ever-changing. The adventure sang in their blood.

  ‘So, this, is why people hunt,’ Freddie said.

  ‘I guess it’s what we’re hard-wired to do,’ Joe observed. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years.’

  ‘We’ve also spent thousands of years looking after animals, not hunting them,’ Hannah pointed out, wanting to tell a different narrative.

  ‘But we still kill them,’ Joe pointed out.

  ‘Sometimes we need to kill to cull,’ Darius intervened. ‘There are too many elephants in Botswana for example. They’re destroying the landscape.’

  ‘There are seven billion of us and we’re destroying the planet,’ Ilana barked. ‘Who’s culling us?’

  ‘Disease? War?’ Joe offered.

  ‘You Augustineum kids are too bloody smart by half,’ Darius said snatching at the clutch and jerking their necks in the process.

  ‘If we ate less meat, the world would be a healthier place in every sense of the term,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Well said, Hannah,’ Ilana cheered. ‘Selima, you could take a leaf out of Hannah’s book.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum!’ Selima said sarcastically. Like her father, she was too in love with meat to give it up. The smell of it cooking was enough to intoxicate her.

  They continued in silence for a while.

  ‘Narnia trees!’ Clara exclaimed as they passed bushes like Christmas trees, shrouded in white by the wind-blown sand.

  ‘How likely is that we’ll find the Golden Leopard, Darius?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Leopards are crepuscular,’ Darius explained.

  ‘Is that like a pancake?’ Clara asked.

  ‘No, it means that they are active at dawn and at dusk, when it�
�s cooler, but not in between,’ Darius replied.

  ‘Are we out early enough?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Yes, but this is needle-in-a-haystack stuff,’ Darius replied. ‘Leopards hunt alone for a start. They’re also the shyest big cats and good at camouflage. Finding any leopard is a minor miracle. Finding the rare, and possibly mythical, Golden Leopard is even harder.’

  ‘It’s not mythical, Dad,’ Selima said firmly ‘We both saw it at Grandpa’s farm.’

  ‘And that’s why we’re here, Sel. But it was a long way in the distance, and we can’t be sure. Perhaps it was a young lioness.’

  ‘You were certain at the time,’ Selima protested.

  Suddenly, Darius stopped the jeep. Ralph, who was still not fully awake, and struggling with the gears, almost crashed into him but slammed on the brakes just in time.

  ‘Ralph!’ Anne screamed. ‘Be careful. You’re looking decidedly uncomfortable. Perhaps Ben should drive.’

  ‘Sure, I don’t mind,’ Ben called out from behind. ‘I drove four-by-fours in Afghanistan.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Ralph, finding Ben’s confidence about everything rather grating. ‘I just need to get familiar with this clutch that’s all.’

  He flashed Anne a thunderous look and she decided to back off. Ralph could quickly flare when undermined. Barely suppressed anger often lies beneath the gentle surface of a diplomat, as she had learned to her cost.

  Darius switched off the engine, opened the jeep door and leaned down to examine some tracks.

  ‘This is where we could do with a Bushman,’ he said. ‘They’re expert trackers. But there’s definitely a leopard footprint here.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ asked Joe, leaning out and taking a photo with his phone.

  ‘Four toes and a paw pad: looks like an upside-down, molar tooth. Three bumps at the back. Narrower than a lion, wider than a cheetah.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘Darius trained as a guide,’ Ilana said proudly. She always appreciated him most in times of danger.

  ‘They’re quite fresh tracks. Heading in the direction we’re heading,’ Darius said. ‘This is bizarre though…’

  He jumped down from the jeep having checked his safety first with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree scan.