Hold My Hand I'm Dying

by John Gordon Davis

  He broke the surface, thrashing the water wildly, twenty feet from the boat and towards mid-stream. Dizzy, water-logged heaviness, a lamp flashing upstream, dreadful fear of the crocodiles. He struck out wildly for the boat. He could see the lamp trained on him through his splashing, then dully he heard the rifle cracking out over him, crack crack crack crack. He struck on frantically, dizzily, numbed by shock and exhausted by fear. He felt the current working against him, his clothes, his sandshoes weighting him. Crack, the rifle was going again, the lamp was momentarily off him. He was gaining on the water, the boat was only ten feet from him. It was rocking wildly. Then a wild shout, a scream of anger or terror or both, a large black shape plunging into the water next to him. Something grabbed him, wrenched at the tunic on his back, an arm silhouetted upraised against the stars, an axe coming down furiously. He was picked up out of the water by his waist and flung over the side of the boat. Then his legs were tipped after him and he fell into a heap. He scrambled up frantically, the boat was rocking violently, and the black man clambered over the side.

  They sat in panting trembling silence, their heads hanging down, the water running off them, steadying up in the darkness. One hunting lamp lay in the bottom of the boat, its light stifled by a sack. From the bottom of the river twenty feet away the other lamp threw up a ghostly, twisting muddy glow. Mahoney lifted his throbbing breathless head and he thought he saw a long shadow flit under the water against the glow and he shuddered.

  ‘Where are your cigarettes, Ndhlovu? I’ll buy a thousand in Kariba.’

  ‘In the front, Nkosi.’

  Mahoney moved shakily up the boat and found Samson’s packet of Star cigarettes. He lit two and passed Samson one. The black man lifted his head and Mahoney saw his hands were trembling too. He sat down opposite him.

  ‘You are a brave man, Ndhlovu.’

  Samson shook his head.

  ‘But I wish you would clean your gun.’

  Samson shook his head again. He talked to his feet. His chest was heaving. ‘It is my fault, Nkosi. I saw the barrel was clogged with wet sand and I meant to clean it and then I forgot. If you had not given me your rifle by mistake it would have been me in the river.’

  ‘Forget it, Ndhlovu.’

  Mahoney shuddered again. He wondered whether he would have had the guts to go in after Samson. Adrenalin is a funny thing. Flooded with it suddenly, acting on impulse a man is capable of great bravery. Give him a moment to consider, and he may be a craven coward. But Samson Ndhlovu had stood in the boat sniping crocodiles, taking the whole scene in, having the time to consider, and yet he went in.

  ‘What was happening? Why did you have to come in?’

  Samson spoke with his shoulders hunched, talking to the ribs of the boat, still shaking.

  ‘The Nkosi was about to become a crocodile’s skoff.’

  He pulled on his cigarette and in the glow Mahoney could see his heart still knocking against his black chest. ‘There were two behind you, they came from over there,’ he indicated with his hand the reeds behind them, i was shooting at them, but I was too excited and I was missing. I think I got some in the end. Then the Nkosi was a few yards from the boat and a crocodile came from mid-stream. My bullets were finished and I jumped in the water with the axe and hit him in the snout,’ Samson snorted. ‘I think he is dead, soon.’

  Mahoney shook his head in the darkness.

  ‘Do you wish to know something, Ndhlovu?’

  ‘What, Nkosi?’

  ‘I am declaring a holiday. We are going to Kariba. And I personally am going to see you get roaring drunk, then I’ll bail you out of gaol and pay your fine myself. Come to think of it, I may get a little drunk myself.’

  Samson laughed.

  ‘When Nkosi?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve skinned these crocodiles and any more we shoot tonight. Maybe even tomorrow.’

  They finished their cigarettes and then Mahoney picked up the hunting lamp. It was nearing dawn before they returned to camp downstream with four crocodiles in tow.

  The crocodile that got Samson Ndhlovu came up over a ledge in the riverbed as the black man stood up to his calves in water on the beach, washing the dirt off his hands. Mahoney was forty yards away in the bush, looking for firewood. The crocodile wriggled up from the depths in a flurry of mud-puffs. Samson saw the dark form darting up at him in the dawn light only as its yellow jaws snapped over his leg. There was a mighty thrash of the crocodile in the water as it jerked backwards, shaking its head. Samson was wrenched off his feet backwards, he gave one guttural scream. Then he was out in deep water and the crocodile pulled him under.

  Mahoney heard the scream. He ran back to the campsite with the axe, crashing through the bush. He got to the beach and he searched the river in the half light but he could see nothing. He ran for the hunting lamp and his rifle. Panting, he shone the lamp over the water. He saw only the steady flow of the river. He saw a crocodile slither along the opposite bank and he fired quickly at it but he missed. Then he played the torch around the water’s edge of the beach and he blanched. Of the lumps of crocodile flesh and monkeys they had dumped in the corner only one monkey remained. There were dragmarks leading into the water and the claw and slithermarks of crocodiles.

  ‘You idiot! The place must be alive with crocs by now!’

  He threw back his head.

  ‘Samson!’ he bellowed. ‘Samson!’

  He plunged out to the boat and he grabbed the twelve bore. He broke the breach frantically arid rammed two cartridges in. He looked around for a piece of cloth then he gripped the lapel of his shirt and ripped a strip off it. Whimpering, he wrapped the cloth round the two triggers and pulled back the hammers. Then, blindly, he rammed the barrels under the water and held the butt away from his side and he turned his face away and jerked the cloth round the triggers. There was a mighty bang and the shotgun leapt in the air, twisted and shattered, and the river shook and Mahoney was thrown on his back.

  He scrambled up and ran back to the boat and started the engine.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A crocodile does not chew. It can only snap its giant jaws and break off and swallow. Accordingly, it does not eat big lumps of fresh meat. A crocodile catches you and it pulls you under the water and it holds you there while you struggle and it drowns you, then it drags you to its den and it leaves you there, waiting for you to rot. When you are good and rotten it breaks pieces off you and sucks and swallows the flesh and bone down.

  A crocodile’s den is a fearful place. It stinks and it is full of bones and it is dark. A crocodile makes a cave for himself in the river-bank, sometimes under a rocky ledge, sometimes a cavern hollowed out in the earth, with a tunnel leading to it. The den is above the water, but often the tunnel is not. Sometimes a crocodile makes a mistake: it does not completely drown you and it drags you to its den while there is still some life in you. You may come round, and find yourself in the dreadful place. The crocodile guards its den well against other crocodiles, and when it returns and discovers that you are not quite dead it drags you back through the tunnel into the water again and holds you at the bottom and makes a good job of it.

  The impact of the double blast of the shotgun rattled the crocodile that caught Samson Ndhlovu. It wrestled with the struggling man at the bottom of the muddy water, gripping his foot fiercely and shaking its hideous head from side to side furiously, like a dog shakes a rabbit. The struggles of the man were growing weaker and the crocodile shook him once more and writhed backwards across the riverbed and it found its tunnel under the heap of rocks and dragged Samson Ndhlovu deep into its stinking den. It lay beside him, panting, its scaly ribcage and belly going in and out, its head lifted up and motionless, listening to the faraway bombardment of the water. Then it crawled slowly back out to the tunnel and lay in its mouth with its nostrils and nose poking through the reeds of the water beyond, watching.

  Mahoney ended his bombardment when he ran out of ammunition in the boat. He sped back to
his camp and got more for his .303 and the .22. He knew the habits of crocodiles with the loathing intimacy with which a man studies the habits of the arch enemy and he knew that Samson was lying in some hateful den somewhere nearby right now, waiting to rot. He thought he was dead but he knew that with the noise and percussion of his bombardment there was a chance that there was still life in him, provided he had not killed the man himself. The dawn had broken and Mahoney climbed back into the boat and he set out down the banks slowly, poking out into the reeds with his long grappling gaff. Just what he was going to do if he saw the signs of a den he did not know, but he was going to look. The crocodile retreated further back into its den when it observed the coming disturbance. Then it crawled out of the tunnel and swam under the water, away, until the disturbance passed. For over an hour Mahoney thrashed around amongst the reed banks, his gaff beating the reeds and his propeller churning the water. Then he returned to his camp and sat down in the morning sunshine at the fire and hung his head. He was shaking from tension and fatigue. He was flooded with relief that he was alive, he shuddered at the thought of Samson’s fate. The temptation to fall back in the sand and quiver in the sun was almost overwhelming, but he forced himself to sit up and stay alert, though he did not know what purpose it would serve. He took his .303 and went to the top of the high rock where he commanded a view of the river, and he sat down.

  Samson Ndhlovu had been a hunter. He had hunted buck and elephant and even crocodiles as a youth with spear and snare and axe. He knew the ways of the wild better than Mahoney. He knew how to smell out a crocodile’s lair and he had more than once flushed a crocodile out of one. He had the African hunter’s patience to sit dead still in the reeds for hours and watch and wait, which few Irishmen have, and which Mahoney certainly did not have. Samson Ndhlovu knew about crocodiles’ lairs and he had been a miner and he knew what it was to be imprisoned in a hole in the ground with the rock just above his head. Samson knew where he was when he came round in the crocodile’s lair and he was filled with the silent sickened scream of horror. The first thing Samson Ndhlovu knew was the blockage in his throat and nose as he coughed and dribbled. He coughed it up into his mouth and it ran over his lips, then he sucked in the fetid air of the den and he coughed again and sucked again, the thick stink of old rotting death and bones and mud and faeces in the darkness. The air was thick and black and wet and sharp and he coughed and sucked and coughed and sucked. He lay on his stomach in the black grotto, his body heaving, his lips in the mud coughing up the slime, and froth dribbling out his mouth. Then slowly he came round, blinking and coughing and heaving and at last he lifted his head. He saw only a patch of dirty grey light at first. Then his eyes cleared and he could make out the outline of the entrance to the tunnel and the watery crescent of light shining through the reeds. When he realised where he was, he made a stifled gargling noise in his throat. He jerked his body forward.

  Then he felt the pain in his leg, his whole right leg up to his groin, the aching throb of lacerated muscles and bruised bone turning septic in the rotten mud, the heavy aching paralysis, and the further spasm of fear, of helplessness. He twisted over and pushed himself up on to his elbow slowly and ran his fingers down his leg. He winced as his fingers dipped into raw wet flesh. He tried to bend his leg and it hurt.

  Samson looked up above, dizzily, and his heart leaped. He saw a chink of light shining in from the ceiling. He felt upwards excitedly but his hand touched nothing. He stretched his right hand out sideways and touched nothing. He dropped it in the mud beside him and he had a thrill of horror. He touched something wet and hard and there was hair on it. He jerked his hand away. He felt sideways and he touched rock.

  He ran his hand up the rock then he got grunting on to his good knee and felt upwards. The rock sloped evenly at an angle over him. He leaned against it and got on to his good foot, and now his right leg throbbed very badly. He clenched his teeth in the blackness and he tried to straighten up and he banged his head on the rock. He knelt half bent and felt above him. He felt the other side of it and he touched sloping rock also. And Samson knew he was in a small cave made between the sides of two big rocks resting against each other.

  ‘Nkosi!’ he screamed but it was only a croak and the sound fell back into the chamber. ‘Nkosi, Nkosi,’ but the sound only filled the chamber and he began to cough and choke as he sucked in the stink. He coughed and coughed and he dropped to his knees, the nausea and the fear making him vomit. He retched and retched but nothing came tip but a little slime. And the more he retched the more he sucked in the air and retched more, until he was weak and dizzy. Then he lay down, shuddering, in the rotten mud and in his own slime, trying to filter the stink by cupping his hand over his mouth and nose.

  The only way out was down the tunnel through the water, into the reeds and into the river. And what lurked there? And once in the water? How deep was the water and how strongly did it flow, and how accessible was the bank? He had only seen this part of the river in darkness by lamplight, he did not know where he was, not even what bank he was on, nor how long he had been there, nor whether the Nkosi was still around. He only knew it was daylight outside.

  Samson put his hand to his hip and felt for his bushknife. It was there in its sheath, the stout steel tyre lever he had sharpened and to which he had added his handle of motorcar tyre. The tunnel was ten feet long and at the lowest part of it his whole body would have to go under water. He took the knife out of its sheath. He held it in his fist, the long blade pointing upwards. He made a move to crawl to the tunnel, then he stopped. He half turned in the darkness and gingerly stretched his hand out to the left again. He felt horrible wet and slimy things, and things that gave to his touch like dough. He felt bones, and he picked them up, but none of them were any good. Then his hand touched a stone, a smooth round river stone, he tugged at it and it came out of the mud with a suck. Samson whimpered as he dragged it over to him. He took a grip on it in his left hand. It was too big for him to hold with comfort. He held the knife up in his right hand and he began to wriggle forward to the slimy tunnel on his elbows and stomach.

  The tunnel was low and small. The floor was wet and slimy and muddy. The air was better: Samson pulled great pants of it into his body, it smelt like glorious fresh air. Never, never again would he worry about beer if only he could have air like this, always. He wriggled his head and shoulders into the mouth of the tunnel, panting and wriggling and pushing with his good foot and knee. His bad leg worked too, and the gashes scraped over the floor of the grotto and his leg throbbed, but Samson hardly felt it.

  He wriggled down the tunnel, grunting and panting, his teeth clenched and his face screwed up, the mud clinging to him. His shoulders, then his back, then his buttocks were in the tunnel. The tunnel was very long. He was getting there, he was almost within reach of the murky water that lay at the exit, his knife and his stone going before him. Then the water of the tunnel was suddenly ruffled, and the light was shaken up. Then the tunnel was full of a great rush of a splash then a loud sucking squelch. The crocodile stood poised in its tunnel. Head up, jaws slightly open, fat scaly belly panting, water dripping off it. It blocked the tunnel, cut off the light, leaving only enough to throw up its black horny silhouette. Poised, its monster’s nerves tight at the life in its den. Black creature and black man lay poised in the tunnel, both poised, one terrified, one outraged. The monster hissed, he saw its dark shape at the mouth of the dreadful grotto. Scream, scream, scream in terror, faint, cringe up and die. He screamed the scream of a savage at bay, hating and terrified, terror turned to reckless wrath. He screamed at the dreadful black silhouette in the tunnel before him and the scream filled the tunnel, he screamed and the monster jerked, he screamed and he lashed out, knife in fist jabbing upwards into the blackness, eyes closed in scream, knife jabbing up, scream and the stone beating forward like a club, scream and the knife and the stone flailing and beating the black silhouette, grunting and screaming and splashing and flailing. He scream
ed and jabbed and lunged and beat. He screamed and beat and lunged long after the startled splash and the light came winking and dancing back into the tunnel. His own scream drowned out even the crack crack crack of the rifle.

  Then he lay panting in the passage and the silhouette was no longer before him. Then he was whimpering and crying as he scrambled down to the water, his rock and his knife still in his aching arms. Then he was in the water with a gasp for breath like a crying child being ducked, then he was clawing at the mud and reeds with his knife under the water, his legs kicking rock and mud, he was crawling through the reeds, then the crack, crack, crack, crack of the rifle exploding all about him and the bullets smacking the water, then he was on his legs, slipping and sliding and gasping and grasping and scrambling and still the rifle was cracking out. Then he was crawling and scrambling and heaving himself up out of the water, pulling on the reeds and the reeds cutting his hands and spiking into his flesh and into his wounds and digging into his feet and still the rifle was going crack, crack, crack in his ears. Then he was on the mud bank and there was a firm soil under his feet and he scrambled up and up and he ran up the bank and over the top of it and he collapsed. He did not even hear the roar of the engine starting.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The water spread a lot in the next three months. It crept up the jungle slopes of the escarpment, it ran over the tops of the hills that had become islands, it pushed out and up and it ran around new hills and made more islands. North and south and west the great lake spread through the great valley like a fattening octopus.

  It looked like a great blue octopus from the air, Suzanna de Villiers thought. She rested her chin on her thin knuckle and looked down through her window with steady heavy blue eyes. They looked like bedroom-eyes to the man sitting next to her, and he decided he was going to stick close to her during the day’s tour over the dam workings and especially at the braaivleis the travel agents were putting on for them tonight, as part of their ten guineas worth. She looked a hot number. With a little grog inside her she would drop that aloof frigid air. And he would have two hours to work on her during the flight home to Bulawayo. And arriving at Bulawayo at two a.m. in the morning? Well, well, well, seven kinds of opportunities. And those titties heaving gently as she stared out of the window—