by Wilbur Smith
‘Which way?’ Graf Otto had to shake his arm to get his attention.
‘Follow the railway line.’ Leon pointed westwards. With both hands he was trying to shield his eyes from the hundred-mile-an-hour wind that tore at his face. Graf Otto prodded his ribs with a bony finger and pointed at a small cubby-hole in the side of the cockpit. Leon opened it and found another leather flying helmet at the back. He pulled it over his head and buckled the strap under his chin, then adjusted the goggles over his eyes. Now he could see, and the side flaps of the helmet protected his eardrums from the roar of the rushing wind.
While he had been engrossed with fitting his helmet Eva had risen from her seat and moved to the front of the cockpit where she was standing, holding the handrail that ran around the rim. She resembled a figurehead on the bows of a man-o’-war, as she balanced gracefully against the motion of the Butterfly.
At that moment the aircraft plummeted sickeningly and unexpectedly. Leon grabbed at the nearest handhold in panic. He knew, without a shadow of doubt, that they were about to fall out of the sky and die a swift but violent death in a pile of wreckage on the earth far below. But the Butterfly was unperturbed: she waggled her wings in a dignified gesture of contempt at the forces of gravity and flew on serenely into the west.
Eva was still standing in the nose, and only then did Leon notice the safety-belt buckled around her waist and the karabiner snap-link at the other end of the lanyard hooked into a steel eye bolt in the floorboards between her feet. It had prevented her being hurled over the side when the Butterfly had dropped.
Graf Otto was still handling the controls with gentle touches of his big, freckled hands. He grinned at Leon around the unlit Cohiba cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth. ‘Thermal!’ he shouted above the wind. ‘It is nothing.’
Leon was mortified by his own panicky display. He had read enough about the theory of flight to know that air acted in the same way as water, with all its unpredictable currents and eddies.
‘Go forward.’ Graf Otto gestured. ‘Go forward to where you can see ahead to guide me.’ Leon edged gingerly to the front of the cockpit. Without a glance in his direction Eva moved aside to make room for him and he took up his position beside her and fastened his safety belt to the ring bolt. They braced themselves with both hands on the rail. They were so very close that he fancied, despite the wind, that he could smell a trace of her special perfume. Facing forward, he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. The slipstream flattened the blouse and long skirt against her body and limbs so that every curve and contour was accentuated. For the first time he was able to make out the shape of her legs, long and slender, and then he looked to the twin mounds of her bosom under the velveteen jacket. He saw at once that her breasts were larger than they had seemed, rounder and fuller than Verity O’Hearne’s had been. He forced himself to tear his eyes away and look ahead.
Already they were approaching the rim of the Great Rift Valley. He picked out the glint of the steel tracks where the railway began its descent of the escarpment to the volcanic steppe of the valley floor. He looked back at Graf Otto and gave him a hand signal to turn ninety degrees southwards. The German nodded and the Butterfly dropped one wing and went into a lazy left-hand turn. Centrifugal force pushed Eva lightly against him, and for a long, exquisite moment Leon felt the outside of her warm thigh press against his. She seemed oblivious to this for she made no move to pull away. Then Graf Otto lifted the port wing and the Butterfly came back on to even keel again. The contact was broken.
The Great Rift Valley opened before them. From this altitude it was a vista that belonged not to petty mankind but to God and his angels. Now Leon could truly appreciate the immensity of the land: the seared and rocky hills, the lion-coloured plains blotched with dark expanses of forest, and the blue palisades of hills and mountains stretching away into infinite distances.
Suddenly the deck canted under their feet as Graf Otto lowered the Butterfly’s nose and she dropped into the airy void. The cliffs of the escarpment rushed under them, so close that it seemed her wheels must bounce off the rocks. The valley floor loomed up to meet them. Leon saw Eva’s fists tighten into balls on the handrail. He could see that the tension in her body was arching her back. To pay her back for her earlier sauciness he released his own grip on the rail, and placed his hands on his hips, leaning easily into the dive as the aircraft dropped. This time she could not ignore him, and shot him a quick glance as he balanced against the disparate forces that dragged at his body. Then she looked ahead, but lifted one hand from the rail and turned it palm upwards in a gesture of resignation.
Graf Otto pulled the Butterfly’s nose up out of her dive down the valley wall. Leon’s knees buckled under the force of gravity and Eva was pushed against him once more. She swayed away as the Butterfly came back again on to even keel. They barrelled along the escarpment with the wall flashing past on the port side, so close that it seemed the wing-tip might touch it at any moment.
Suddenly Leon saw what appeared to be a swarm of large black scarab beetles crawling along a mile or so ahead. It was only when the Butterfly raced down on them that he saw it was a large herd of buffalo charging away in panic from their approach. He made another hand signal to Graf Otto, and the Butterfly banked steeply towards the fleeing herd. Once again Eva was pressed against him, but this time she gave him a deliberate bump with her hip. With a surge like electricity through his loins, he understood she was letting him know that she was just as aware of these physical contacts as he was.
They flashed over the heaving backs of the buffalo, so close that Leon could see each pellet of dried mud sticking to their hair, and clearly discern the parallel pattern of scars across the shoulders of the leading bull, left by the raking claws of a marauding lion.
They flew on until Eva waved excitedly and pointed out on her side of the fuselage. Graf Otto banked in the direction she was pointing. Then the Butterfly was straight and lined up on five huge elephant bulls, wading through the dense thorny undergrowth a short distance ahead. Although she no longer had the excuse of gravity, Eva gave him another cheeky little bump with her hip. It was a titillating but dangerous game they were playing, right under Graf Otto von Meerbach’s nose. Leon laughed into the wind and, without moving her head, Eva peeped at him through lowered lashes and smiled secretly.
They bore down on the running elephant. Leon saw that they were all old bulls and at least two carried tusks of more than a hundred pounds a side. Another had only a single, the other broken off at the lip, but the remaining one was colossal and dwarfed those of his companions. Otto dropped lower, then lower still, until it looked as though he meant to fly straight into the herd. The elephant seemed to realize that they could not outrun the Butterfly: they turned back and bunched up, shoulder to shoulder, forming a solid phalanx to confront this threat from the skies. Trumpeting so loudly that Leon could hear them above the engine, they charged headlong to meet the aircraft. As she skimmed over them they reared up, flaring their ears, and stretched out their serpentine trunks as though to snatch her out of the air.
Graf Otto climbed several hundred feet above the ground and flew on southwards. New and unexpected vistas opened before them. They flew over hidden valleys, secret re-entrants and salients in the walls of the Rift, some of which were not reflected on any survey map Leon had ever studied. Two or three valleys were fed by streams and pastured with green grass on which herds of large mammals, from giraffe to rhinoceros, had congregated. Leon tried to memorize the exact location of each one so that he could return to explore them, but they were flying so fast he found it difficult to keep track of their progress.
They climbed higher still until they could make out the vast massif of Kilimanjaro looming on the southern horizon a hundred miles or more ahead. The mountain was blue with distance, its crest wreathed in silver cloud through which the sun threw golden blades of light. Then Graf Otto waggled the wings to attract Leon’s attention and pointed out a closer mountai
n, only twenty or thirty miles off. The table top was unmistakable, and was probably what had attracted his notice.
‘Lonsonyo Mountain!’ Leon cried, but his voice was lost in the roar of wind and engines. ‘Go there!’ He made vehement hand signals, and Graf Otto opened the throttles wide. The Butterfly rose upwards, but the table of Lonsonyo stood almost ten thousand feet above sea level, near the aircraft ceiling. At first she climbed rapidly, but as the altitude increased her speed bled off. She became so sluggish that they cleared the top of the cliffs by no more than fifty feet.
Before them, Lusima’s cattle were spread out as they grazed on the sweet grasses of the high table land. Beyond them Leon picked out the pattern of the huts and cattle pens that formed the manyatta, and signalled to Otto to turn towards the village. Goats, chickens and naked herd-boys scattered at their approach. It was easy to single out Lusima’s hut from the others, for it was the largest and grandest, closest to the spreading branches of her council tree. There was no sign of Lusima until they were almost directly overhead. Then, suddenly, she appeared, ducking out of the low doorway of her hut and staring up at him. She was naked except for her tiny red loincloth, and the colourful bangles and necklaces around her ankles, wrists and neck. She gazed up at the Butterfly with an expression of comical bewilderment.
‘Lusima!’ Leon yelled, and ripped off his helmet and goggles. ‘Lusima Mama! It is me! M’bogo, your son!’ He waved frantically and suddenly she recognized him. He was so close that he saw her face light up and she waved with both hands, but then they were past and dropping down the far side of the mountain.
Once again Graf Otto waggled the wings and, with hand signals, asked Leon to point out the course he should take to reach the hunting camp. They had left it on the far side of Lonsonyo Mountain, so Leon directed him into a right-hand circuit of the sheer cliffs below the table land. He had never seen this side of the mountain before. Up until now, he had always approached and ascended from the southern side.
The rock was as sheer and impregnable as the outer wall of some monumental medieval fortress and lichen had painted on it a patchwork of many colours. Then, unexpectedly, the Butterfly came level with a break in the wall, a vertical chimney of rock, splitting the cliff from the summit right down to the scree slope at the foot of the mountain. Over the lip of the cliff at the top of the chimney spilled a bright cascade of water, a stream that drained the rain-sodden table land above and fell in undulating lacy curtains down the moss-blackened stone. As they passed, the wind blew eddies of fine spray into their faces. It dewed their goggles, and was cold as snowflakes on their cheeks.
The waterfall fell several hundred feet into the pool at the base of the cliff. The sun’s rays did not reach into that dark and mysterious gorge: it was filled with shadow that turned the pool black as an inkwell. It was so perfectly circular that it might have been built by ancient Roman or Egyptian architects. They were only able to gaze on this grand sight for a few short seconds before the Butterfly had sped past it; the rock flue seemed to close behind them with the finality of a massive cathedral door, shutting from view all trace of the waterfall.
When they flew out of the shadow of the mountain, the sun was already turning red as it passed through the haze of dust and smoke that hung low to the horizon. Leon gazed out over the purple plain, searching for his first glimpse of the hunting camp. At last, far ahead, he picked out the silver sausage of the windsock that marked the airstrip floating at the peak of its mast. He signed to Graf Otto to turn towards it, and soon they could make out the cluster of canvas and newly thatched roofs of what Leon had named Percy’s Camp. Just behind it stood a small kopje, no more than a few hundred feet high but visible for many miles.
Graf Otto circled the camp to check the wind direction and the orientation of the landing strip. As they banked around on the far side of his camp, Leon looked down the wing on to a dense, seemingly impenetrable wilderness of hookthorn bushes. It stretched for many miles, and in its midst he spotted another cluster of those dark shapes. By their bulk he knew at once that they were buffalo bulls, three old bachelors. One thing was certain, and that was that those old recluses would be cantankerous and highly dangerous. When they raised their heads and stared malevolently up at the aircraft, Leon evaluated them quickly, then muttered to himself, ‘Not a decent head among them. They’re all wearing yarmulkas.’ It was an irreverent reference to the Jewish prayer cap, used by the old hunters to describe a pair of buffalo horns so old and worn away that the points had gone, leaving only a skullcap of horn.
As Graf Otto touched down and let the Butterfly run out to the far end of the strip, they saw a cloud of dust tearing down the rutted track from the camp. A truck clattered into view with Hennie du Rand at the wheel, Manyoro and Loikot perched standing in the back.
‘So sorry, boss!’ Hennie greeted Leon, when he came down the ladder from the cockpit. ‘We were not expecting you to arrive for another few weeks at least. You’ve taken us by surprise.’ He was visibly flustered.
‘I’m as surprised to be here as you are to see me. The Graf works to his own timetable. Is there food and liquor in camp?’
‘Ja!’ Hennie nodded. ‘Max brought plenty from Tandala.’
‘Is there hot water in the shower? Are the beds made up, and is there paper in the thunderbox?’
‘There will be before you can ask again,’ Hennie promised.
‘Then we shall be all right. The Graf’s family motto is “Durabo”, I shall survive. We’ll put it to the test this evening,’ Leon said, and turned to Graf Otto as he came down the ladder.
‘I’m pleased to be able to tell you that all is in readiness for you, sir,’ he lied blithely, and led the couple to their quarters.
Somehow Hennie and his chef had performed a miracle of improvisation. They had put together a passable meal from the crates of provisions Max had brought from Tandala, and Leon waited for his guests in the mess tent. When Eva entered, he gaped at the vision she presented. It was the first time he had seen a beautiful woman in culottes, a most daring and avant-garde fashion that had not yet reached the colonies. Although they were cut full in the legs and seat, he could visualize what must lie beneath the fine material. He tore his eyes off her just before Graf Otto came in behind her.
Hennie had cooled a few cases of Meerbach Eisbock lager in the canvas wet-bags. This was a beer that had won innumerable gold medals at the annual Munich Oktober Bierfests. It was the product of a large Bavarian brewery that made up a small part of the Meerbach manufacturing empire. His own best customer, the Graf drank nearly half a gallon of it to whet his appetite before dinner was served.
When he took his seat at the head of the table, he changed his tipple from lager to Burgundy, a notable Romanée Conti 1896, which he had personally selected from his cellars at Wieskirche. It went perfectly with the hors d’oeuvre of gerenuk liver pâté and the entrée of wild duck breasts on slices of fried foie gras. Graf Otto rounded off the meal with a few glasses of a fifty-year-old port and a Montecristo cigar from Havana.
He drew on the cigar and sighed with pleasure as he leaned back in his chair and eased his belt by a few notches. ‘Courtney, you saw those buffalo we flew over while we were coming in to land, ja?’
‘I did, sir.’
‘They were in thick cover, nein?’
‘They were, very thick. But not one is worth the price of a cartridge.’
‘Ah, so, would they not be dangerous, then?’
‘They would be very dangerous. Even more so if they were wounded,’ Leon conceded, ‘but-’
Graf Otto cut him off. ‘But is a word I do not like very much, Courtney.’ His mood had altered instantly and dramatically. ‘Usually it is a signal that somebody is about to make an excuse to disobey me.’ He scowled and the duelling scar across his cheek changed from glassy white to rose pink.
Leon had not yet learned that this was a danger sign. He went on regardless:
‘I was just going to say that-’
‘I have no great interest in what you were going to say, Courtney. I would rather you listened to what I have to say.’
Leon flushed at the rebuke, but then he saw Eva, who was sitting out of Graf Otto’s direct line of sight, purse her lips and shake her head almost imperceptibly. He drew a deep breath and, with an effort, took heed of her warning. ‘You wish to hunt those bulls, sir?’
‘Ah, Courtney, you are not such a Dummkopf as you often appear to be!’ He laughed as he switched back into geniality. ‘Yes, indeed, I wish to shoot those bulls. I will give you an opportunity to show me how dangerous they truly are, ja?’
‘I did not bring my rifle from Tandala.’
‘You do not need it. I am the one who will do the shooting.’
‘You wish me to accompany you unarmed?’
‘Is the sauce too rich for your stomach, Courtney? If so, you may remain in bed tomorrow or under it. Wherever you feel warmest and safest.’
‘When you hunt, I shall be at your side.’
‘I am pleased that we understand each other. It makes everything simpler, does it not?’ He drew on his cigar until the tip glowed brightly, then blew a perfect smoke-ring that rolled across the table towards Leon’s face. Leon poked a finger through its centre and broke it before it reached him.
Eva intervened smoothly to quench the rising flames of their tempers. ‘Otto, what was that beautiful flat-topped mountain you flew us over this afternoon?’
‘Tell us about it, Courtney,’ he commanded.
‘It is called Lonsonyo Mountain, a sacred site to the Masai, and the home of one of their most powerful spiritual leaders. She is a seer who is able to divine the future with amazing accuracy.’ Leon did not look in Eva’s direction as he replied.