The Whistling Thorn

by Isobel Chace

  'Back to the village where you were last night.'

  Annot lifted her eyebrows at that, but she said nothing. 'Look over there!' she exclaimed instead. 'Isn't that a lion?'

  As they came closer, they saw it was three lions, crouching down, their muscles tensed, in the long grass. A little further over was a herd of wildebeeste, blissfully unaware of the danger that awaited them.

  'If we wait, we may see them make their kill,' said Annot, 'though it won't be easy on a day like this. When they run their feet will slip in the mud.'

  The lions were all young, their manes no more than a few sprouting hairs on the backs of their necks, but they were as cunning as many of their elders. One moved forward, deliberately allowing himself to be seen, and pushed the herd over the spot where his two brothers were hidden. After that the chase was really joined. They chose an old male on the edge of herd, and Annot watched the gnu fall

  with a sense of loss. If it had kept its feet, it might have stood a chance, for a wildebeeste is much faster and can travel much further than any lion. But once brought down, the animal scarcely struggled at all, and the third lion joined the group, grunting his satisfaction at the meal ahead of them.

  The reserve seemed full of lions that day, all of them hungry and looking for food.

  'Shall we follow that lioness?' Norman suggested, his appetite whetted by the kill they had already seen.

  'Not there!' Annot shrieked out.

  But she was too late. Norman spun the minibus off the main track, taking off at a highly dangerous speed round a clump of thorn bushes. They came to a slithering stop a few yards further on, their wheels buried well up to the axles.

  'That's done it!' he said glumly. 'Now what are we going to do?'

  Annot looked straight ahead of her and took a deep breath. 'We push,' she decided. 'We push until we're tired, and then we push some more. In between whiles we can cut down brush and put it under the wheels. Okay?'

  'Okay,' said Norman. 'But we're mighty close to those lions, and they're hungry.'

  'We can always get back into the van,' she said.

  It was hard work jacking up the minibus and filling the holes the wheels had made with brushwood. It was made harder still by the hopelessness of the task. When the lions came close enough to be seen at intervals and heard all the time, Annot gave in to Norman's demands and agreed to get back into the Volkswagen while they thought things over. She was tired and muddy and more than a little dispirited by their plight.

  It was she who heard the engine of the approaching vehicle long before Norman did. She was hardly surprised

  at all when the Range Rover drew up at the edge of the bog and James stepped out into their muddy tracks. All she felt was an unbounded relief.

  Norman flung his arms round her and kissed her cheek. 'Sir Galahad to the rescue!' he cried out. 'And not a moment too soon!'

  But James had eyes only for Annot. He swept her out of Norman's reach and lifted her clear from the Volkswagen, an arm beneath her knees and another round her back.

  `You still haven't got it right, little Annot,' he rebuked her gently. 'You're engaged to be my woman and it's time you began to behave as such! Have you got it now?'

  He bundled her, none too gently, into the Range Rover, seating her almost on top of an equally surprised man who at first was a stranger to her.

  'Annot?' the stranger said uncertainly

  'Jeremy! Oh, Jeremy!' she repeated, and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LUCKILY, it had stopped raining.

  'Oh, Jeremy, I was beginning to think I'd never see you again!'

  Annot's uncle looked surprised. `No danger of that! How did you find out I'd decided to go off by myself for a while anyway?'

  Annot just looked at him, her loyalties split. She couldn't remember wanting to put someone else's feelings before Jeremy's before. 'But why, Jeremy?' she asked. 'Why did you do it?'

  He shrugged thin shoulders. 'My independence was threatened. Yes, you might say it was that. I like to be my own man, and I had to show someone I couldn't be bought, no matter how attractive the lure that was set for me.'

  `You mean someone wanted to marry you?' Annot exclaimed.

  Jeremy's smile was wry. 'Is that so impossible?'

  'No, of course not,' Annot recovered herself, 'only somehow I'd never thought of you marrying. I don't know why not.'

  'You'd expected me to go on being the ideal playmate for ever?' he suggested. 'Unfortunately the lady in question has forgotten how to play. The goal is money, and unnecessary little luxuries all the way—'

  Annot laughed. This was indeed the uncle she had always remembered. `So you had to prove you could do without any of them? It wasn't very sensible, Jerry. How many magazines will be willing to employ you now?'

  `Oh, that! It's all in the bag, my dear. I still have a few

  weeks to deliver the finished article. I'll do it easily!'

  `Thanks to Mother,' Annot told him. 'She had me out here finishing your job for you before I could tuna round! Though it was James who went up in the balloon and took most of the photos. They're super!'

  Jeremy bristled indignantly. `So are mine! It was kindly meant, no doubt, but if you think I'm going to use the snaps of any amateurs, you're wrong there! I'll do my own thing and I'll do it my way. I always have and I always will!'

  Annot squared up to him, and any onlooker would have seen a strong family likeness between them which wasn't always so apparent. 'I'm not an amateur!' she declared. 'I'm probably better qualified than you are! And as for James'—her voice softened unconsciously —James is better than both of us!'

  `A highly partial view, if I may say so, young lady,' her uncle sniffed 'You never did have the least discernment where your affections are involved!'

  `Possibly not—where you're concerned!'

  'Oh, Annot, what the hell do you think I've been doing all these weeks but taking photos and making my fortune out of them too? Don't take on so!'

  `But he went to so much trouble! And—and expense!' She felt cold inside when she thought of the cost of the balloon. 'We—I'll never be able to repay him!'

  'I expect you'll think of a way,' her uncle said comfortably. 'I can't feel much sorrow for the downtrodden James, you know. The fellow always has the best of everything, and he delivers a moral lecture with every handout. I can't think why I have anything to do with him!'

  Annot turned on him in a fury. 'That's altogether too much!' she berated him. 'Where would you be without him? Where would your dog be?'

  'My dog?'

  `Isn't Sijui your dog?'

  Jeremy looked amused. 'I suppose he is—in a way. But he chose to live with James years ago. Even a dog can sell out for a higher standard of living.'

  `If that but on James' land was the best you could offer him, I'm not surprised!'

  `Ah, that—well, yes, I had my reasons for that.' He looked curiously at his niece. 'Are you .on your own down here with James?' he inquired.

  'No,' she said, still seething at his ingratitude. 'Mrs Drummond and her daughter came too.'

  `To help find me?'

  'To chaperon me ! '

  Jeremy raised his eyebrows. 'From James?'

  Annot's anger changed to an all-pervading embarrassment that tied her tongue in knots and made her bitterly conscious that she hadn't made a very good job of turning her feelings for James into other, safer channels.

  `So that's the way the land lies, is it?' Jeremy mocked her. 'And what has the lovely Judith to say to that?'

  'She's been very kind to me.'

  'Has she, though? That's interesting. And Dorcas?'

  'Dorcas? She's as undiscriminating as I was! She talks about you all the time and worships the ground you walk on!'

  'Good,' said Jeremy, 'I'm fond of her too.'

  'Much good that will do her! Annot snapped back at him.

  'Well, it might,' he said.

  Annot sniffed disparagingly. She couldn't reme
mber having quarrelled with Jeremy before, but she felt like it now. He was being quite insufferable! In the distance a lion made the choking sound that warned his quarry he was hunting, and she felt a renewed concern for the three men who were trying to dig the minibus out of the mud.

  'You can't even do anything to help now!' she muttered. 'And to think I never realised before how selfish you are!'

  Her uncle smiled wickedly. 'It looks as though your beloved James has all the help he can be doing with, but if you think he needs more I'm not stopping you from offering your services!'

  By way of answer, Annot opened the door beside her and stepped out of the Range Rover. James looked up at once, gave a quick instruction to Okumu who was manning the jack, and came wading through the mud towards her.

  `Got over the shock of finding him alive and well?' he asked, gesturing towards Jeremy's thin frame.

  `He's bone selfish!' she burst out.

  `A trifle eccentric,' James corrected her. 'Didn't you know that?'

  `Doesn't he ever think of anyone else?'

  `Not in my experience,' he commented `Does it matter, love?'

  `I don't know. He can jolly well help you now, though!' Her indignation with her uncle boiled over into hot, angry words. 'He's not even grateful! You went to all that trouble for him and he can't even be bothered to say thank you!' '

  Jeremy stepped out of the Range Rover. `What have I got to say thank you for?' he asked mildly. 'I didn't ask you to come rushing out here in the first place. Your mother was always given to panicking over her little brother, but you used to be more discerning, Annot my darling. Whatever made you give in to her?'

  `Surprising as it seems now, I too was worried about you!' she retorted

  `That a niece of mine—' he began.

  `Careful,' James warned him. 'She may be your niece, but she's also engaged to me!'

  `Engaged? Now fancy that!' Jeremy drawled, his eyes on Annot's face.

  'Not properly,' Annot denied. 'I haven't even got a ring!' She held out her bare hand. 'See?'

  The look in James' eyes should have been warning enough, but she decided to ignore it. She hadn't got a ring— nor was he likely to give her one! Her look was as defiant as his was dangerous.

  'Not very sensible, is she?' Jeremy remarked.

  'Not very,' James agreed. 'I can't think whatever made you think her quick on the uptake! '

  'She's like her mother,' Jeremy decided. 'Loyal to a fault, and quite determined that all her ugly ducklings, are swans in disguise. If I'd had a greater say in her education, she would soon have found out that it's far better to love people, warts and all, than constantly face disillusionment over traits they can't help!'

  'But I'm not like that at all!' Annot protested.

  , 'Now there I agree with her,' James put in. 'I haven't remarked her loyalty at all.'

  'How dare you?' Annot stormed at him. 'Oh, how can you? What is this, anyway, a conspiracy between you to put me in my place?'

  ' 'I hadn't thought of that, but it's a tempting idea,' James agreed promptly. 'You can start doing penance by helping me dismantle that dead tree over there. That'll take some of the steam out of you!'

  Annot took the panga from him, longing to use the flat of the blade on him before she used it on the tree. 'I think you're beastly, both of you!' she scowled at them.

  'I'm sure you do,' James comforted her, then put a possessive arm around her waist and pointed her towards the tree. 'Let's have some action, sweetheart. The sooner we get the minibus back on the road, the sooner you can have a nice long chat with your uncle and get things sorted out with him.' He grinned slowly. 'At least I ought to be able

  to trust you not to flirt with Jeremy,' he added with deliberate malice.

  `Indeed?' she said in frozen tones. 'You can flirt with impunity, of course?'

  `With you, any time!' His eyes were dark and intimate. 'Any time at all! Are you going to deny it?'

  The honey in his voice made her heart somersault within her. She could scarcely breathe for wanting him to say something more in the same tones, something kind and affectionate—more, something that would tell her he was a little bit in love with her too.

  `I don't flirt!' she said in stifled tones.

  He chuckled, holding her close up against him. 'Not with Fritz? Not with Norman? Not even with me?'

  She brandished the panga in her hand. 'James, please don't,' she begged him, `I don't like it when you tease me!'

  His eyes narrowed. 'I wonder why not,' he said.

  It was hard work getting to the tree. At each step her foot sank some six inches into the mud pulling at her boots, and she was glad of James' helping hand more than once before they at last reached the silvered remnant of what had once been a fair-sized tree. In the distance, the lions coughed and growled, and Annot shivered with real fear.

  `Shouldn't we light a fire?' she asked.

  `They're further away than you think. Cheer up, sweetheart, we'll get it out this time!'

  But Annot refused to be comforted. 'Earlier, we saw them once or twice,' she said on a shudder. 'Why don't we haul the Volkswagen out with the Range Rover?'

  `Because the line would break if we can't give the wheels something to bite on. We'll build them up on a platform of hard timber and, with any luck, she'll come out like the plug out of a bath.'

  Annot took a wild swipe at the dead tree, her eyes filling

  with weak-minded tears. 'I'm afraid!' she declared violently.

  'Of the lions, or me?'

  The panga was wedged so hard in the wood she couldn't get it out again. She wiggled at it in vain, finally conceding defeat and giving up her place to James, who naturally pulled it out with a minimum of fuss.

  'I don't know what anyone wants any longer!' she ex-- claimed violently.

  He smiled at her over his shoulder. 'Stick to what you want yourself, sweetheart.'

  But she wasn't even listening. 'What do you want?' she demanded.

  He handed her a V-shaped branch and set her off on her way back to the minibus. 'That would be telling! You concentrate on the scorpions that might be hidden in that dead wood and leave the rest of the worrying to me. I'm getting used to it,' he added on an indulgent note, 'I'm even getting to like it!'

  It was a perilous journey back to the Volkswagen, and Okumu took the heavy log from her and jammed it into the hole under the offside rear wheel. Annot noticed that he, too, kept looking all round them with wary eyes and she knew he was as nervous of the approaching lions as she was.

  'How close are they?' she asked him

  His answer was a laugh. 'Wove chunga simba!' he commanded her. 'You look out for the lions while we work, yes?'

  She thought her uncle could do that—his contribution had been a great fat zero so far. 'Jeremy, it's your turn to wind up the jack!' she called out to him. 'Norman is going to help me push, and Okumu is tired.'

  Her uncle was surprisingly adept with the jack. He balanced it on a small piece of hard wood and had the minibus

  balanced high over the onside hole in a matter of minutes. Between brushing down his shirt and trousers and cleaning the mud off his shoes, he helped James to pack the hole and lowered the 'van again, maintaining his aloof, disapproving expression till the last.

  'We'd better have Annot in the driving seat,' he said when he had finished, 'I'd say her head's aching too much for her to put her back into pushing anything. I nearly died myself when she keeled over last night!' He patted Annot on the back. 'Lucky you were wearing your Masai baubles, niece of mine. Perhaps you're more discriminating than I thought!'

  She stared at him. 'You were there!' she accused him.

  'It was unfortunate you saw me,' he answered, 'I wasn't ready to come home yet, but James told me something that made me change my mind. Can you get in by yourself, or shall I give you a hand?'

  'I can manage,' she said coldly, and then, with a real sense of loss, 'I left my bead collars behind at the manyatta. Someone must have taken t
hem off when I was unconscious.'

  'I did,' Jeremy said. `Okumu has them somewhere for you.' A smile crept up into his eyes. 'They were very much admired by the local ladies!'

  Annot looked away. He was so much his old familiar self that her bad temper with him was in danger of being undermined. 'James gave them to me,' she said without thought. 'I wouldn't want to lose them'

  `Ah yes, James,' he murmured. 'If I didn't say it before, you're very welcome, niece of mine.' He looked away from her. 'Did Judith make you welcome too?'

  'Yes, she did, though she couldn't have liked it much. Dorcas says she was quite serious about marrying James. Perhaps she still is.'

  'She can hardly marry your fiancé, pet—unless you hand him to her on a plate?'

  Annot almost laughed. 'Me? Can you imagine James sitting down under that?' Her amusement died. 'I can't think why he did it. We didn't have to pretend to be engaged at all that I can see. It's made things very difficult!'

  Her uncle slammed the door on her. 'I shouldn't worry yourself. Things have a way of sorting themselves out. Can you find reverse all right?'

  Annot slammed the gear-lever into the reverse position. The pedals were much larger than those she was accustomed to—these would have looked at home in a full-sized bus. 'How will I know when you're ready?' she asked.

  `You'll know!' he shouted back.

  James was at the wheel of the Range Rover; she could see his intent face in the driving mirror. She indulged herself by watching him unseen for the next few minutes, glad that he would never know how poverty-stricken she was where he was concerned, that such little moments should mean so much to her. Then to her consternation he looked straight at her and smiled. Had he known all the time? She managed a small smile in return, feeling lost and lonely. He held up his thumb to her and pointed towards the rear. They were off!

  Annot did exactly as she had been told, revving the engine and letting out the clutch in jerks to give the wheels a better chance of jumping backwards over the branches of wood. She was more successful than she had hoped. The minibus zoomed over the track and practically backed into the Range Rover. They hadn't needed the line at all!