Mark of the Lion

by Suzanne Arruda

  Jade glowered at her former ambulance corps comrade. Beverly looked away from that formidable stare but didn’t apologize.

  “I must be getting used to it,” suggested Madeline. “I don’t smell anything now.”

  “It’s worn off the belt and boots,” Jade explained.

  “But not the hat,” added Beverly. “Ah, well, I suppose in this environment, Simba Jike will blend right in with the elephants, rhinos, and other wild beasties at that.”

  “If you’re going to continue in this vein,” said Jade, “I’ll just go see about our gear.” She pivoted and strode back to the station. Her friends followed hot on her heels.

  Jade ignored them and found Roger talking with Harry and an old wiry African native dressed in khaki shorts and a red blanket. They spoke in some clipped dialect that sounded to Jade like the language Ruta spoke. Most likely Maasai. Harry saw her first, touched his hat brim in greeting, and walked off behind the station house.

  Jade thanked him inwardly for having enough gentlemanly notions to avoid embarrassing scenes in front of her friends. She knew from their dance at the Muthaiga that he wanted her, and she half feared that he’d continue his pursuit out here. Jade smiled. Half feared. That meant that she half hoped, too. Chalk that one up to feminine vanity.

  Roger spotted her, nodded, and dismissed the African. Jade stepped forward. “Good morning, Mr. Forster.” She pointed to the retreating figure. “Who’s that man?”

  Roger’s nose wrinkled and he stepped back a couple of paces. “That is our tracker, Memba Sasa. I’ve worked with him before.”

  “Very good. Where are all the porters? I haven’t seen very many here.”

  Roger’s lips straightened into a rigid line like those of a schoolboy who resents being questioned. “I sent the regular porters ahead with an oxcart the morning after we arrived. As soon as everyone eats, we’ll load up the cars and drive west, Miss del Cameron. We’ll catch up to them in no time with the motorcars.”

  “Cars?” asked Jade. “I thought you only used oxcarts on safaris.”

  Roger pursed his lips with a look of mounting impatience and shuffled his boots in the dust. “I sent one with the porters to carry the supplies, water barrels, and extra petrol, but I thought we would try something more modern this time. Ox can be a bloo—excuse me, a nuisance in this type of country. Too many lions about. The next thing you know, your transportation is being digested somewhere in the scrub. I had the cars brought up from a man in Mombasa. Box bodies made like lorries actually. And,” he added with the slightest hint of a relaxed smile, “they’re American like yourself, Miss del Cameron.”

  Jade arched one brow as a question and waited for the answer.

  “A Dodge and a Ford,” said Roger.

  Beverly overheard the last part and groaned. “Am I never going to see you drive something more suitable than an old Ford flivver, Jade?”

  Roger looked from one lady to the other in confusion. “Well, I hardly think she will be driving, Lady Dunbury—”

  “Oh, just try to keep her from behind the wheel, Mr. Forster.” She shook her blond head in disgust. “Come along, Madeline. Let’s find some breakfast. Maybe an impala fell into the pot. I am absolutely famished.”

  Roger watched them leave and shifted his boots again as he tried to determine the best course of action now. Jade read something akin to annoyance in his body movements. She decided he probably felt his authority was challenged and tried to put him at ease.

  “Mr. Forster, please excuse my friend. It’s true, I am a very experienced driver. I drove a Ford along the front lines during the war. So, if you’ll accept my offer, I’ll be more than happy to help. But, of course, that is your decision. You and Harry are in charge.”

  A faint smile resembling a sneer showed on Roger’s face. Honestly, thought Jade, no wonder he lost Leticia. The man was surly bordering on irascible.

  “I’ll pass your offer along to Harry,” he said. “Remember, he’s actually first in charge on this hunt. This opportunity is his way of helping me stay a half step ahead of the bank and the overdrafts. But you really must get some breakfast now before the porridge gets cold. I’m afraid it’s all we know how to make ourselves. I sent the cook ahead, too.”

  Jade joined the others for a bowl of hot oatmeal, something she enjoyed about as much as moldy bread and tea. Thank heavens someone had made coffee. She poured a little on the oatmeal and stirred it around. Better, she thought. At least it added some flavor. Madeline, Avery, and Harry looked amused, Roger shocked. Beverly pretended she didn’t see.

  Breakfast over, one native man scoured the pot with sand, and the other stowed the gear into the motorcars. The cars looked like mutt dogs put together out of various parts. Like mutts, they were hardier for the mixture. Both the Dodge and the Ford owned only a little of their original chassis after the transition to box-bodied cars. Wooden slats had been hammered together and held in place with bolts and wire to make the sides. Wire netting, roofing felt, and rolls of canvas made the vehicle relatively rain resistant and created places along the exterior from which to hang assorted baggage and cans of water. Makeshift benches had replaced the seats, so the vehicles held more passengers than would otherwise be possible, although far less comfortably. As Roger said, they resembled lorries or ambulances more than pleasure cars.

  Harry delegated bodies to the vehicles. “Roger, you travel in the Ford with our eager and hardy guests. I’ll take Memba Sasa, Colridge’s man, and the other two men in the Dodge.”

  “I should warn you, Mr. Hascombe,” said Beverly. “Our American friend here will fight you or Mr. Forster for the wheel. She’s like a fire horse that way. Can’t be kept out of the run. Especially if there’s a flivver involved.”

  Harry regarded Beverly with a look of confusion on his handsome face. She simply gathered up her new felt hat and climbed into the Ford with her husband’s assistance. Avery next helped Madeline into the bench seat, then waited for Jade.

  “Where’s that blasted gypsy?” he muttered.

  “She’s photographing us, my love. Smile pleasantly, please, or all the world will see you scowl in some magazine. Mr. Forster,” Beverly added, “pose for future publicity.”

  Roger was busy tying a satchel onto the wire-and-wood frame. He looked up, saw Jade with her Graflex, and jauntily posed by leaning against the Ford’s hood. Jade finished her shot, packed up her camera, and trotted to the car. She waved away Avery’s chivalrous offer of aid and neatly sprang up and into the passenger’s side of the front seat next to Roger. One of the remaining native Africans cranked the machine and it sputtered to life just as Roger sneezed loudly.

  Jade pretended not to notice while Roger nervously adjusted the magneto and fidgeted with the side lever. Whether he was in charge or not, she was about to push him aside and show him how it was done when Beverly rescued Roger by calling Jade’s attention to the stationmaster’s house.

  “Look, Jade. Who’s that little man with that horrid-looking implement in his hand?”

  Jade saw a small turbaned man wielding what looked like a medieval battle-ax painted bright green. In that moment, Roger managed to find low gear, and the car lurched forward.

  “Did I just see what I thought I saw?” Jade asked.

  “That’s the stationmaster,” said Roger. “Curious man. Carries that grotesque ax around all the time. Claims there are very bad men around here. When they see his ax, they decide that he, too, is a very bad man and leave him alone.” Roger shrugged. “Daresay it works. He’s alive at any rate.” He rubbed his nose with his sleeve and tried unsuccessfully to hold back another sneeze. “Miss del Cameron, I must ask you to remove that hat. I’m afraid whatever is on it is making me sneeze.”

  Jade took off her hat and pushed it into a crevice under the seat. “I’m sorry.”

  Roger rubbed his nose. “Horrid-smelling stuff. I’m surprised that you tolerate it.” He pointed to the canvas covering. “The canopy will protect you from the sun.”
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  Jade sighed. “I love this country. It reminds me so much of home.”

  “You have men carrying battle-axes around at home?” asked Madeline from behind.

  “Well, metaphorically speaking, yes. My father has one horse wrangler who never goes anywhere without this old, rusty bayonet from the Civil War. Claims it’s the best guarantee against rattlesnakes. But we have counterparts to many of the people I’ve seen in Africa. Lord Colridge, from what I hear, used to ride down the streets of Nairobi and shoot out the streetlights.”

  Jade looked across to Roger for confirmation. He nodded and she continued. “There’s a town called Cimarron near our ranch. The hotel has more bullet holes in the ceiling than I’d care to patch, and we have some wealthy landowners who are notorious for their wild escapades, too.”

  “What about Neville and me?” asked Madeline. “Who are our counterparts?”

  Jade rested her left leg from the knee up on the seat and turned around. “The farmers and ranchers who moved west searching for space and opportunities.”

  “I came to Africa because Neville made me. He’s never told me why he left England.”

  “And what about yourself?” asked Roger. “I should think you’re rather unusual.”

  Beverly spoke up before Jade could answer. “You won’t find Jade’s counterpart anywhere. She’s an enigma, part adventuress, part wildlife. And,” Bev added, “the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Shut up, Bev,” growled Jade. “Everyone in the outfit was brave.”

  “True,” agreed Beverly, “excepting Jane the Pain. She was a ‘seeing Francer.’ That means,” she explained to Madeline, “that she only joined up to see Paris and marry an officer.”

  “Unlike you, my love, who had to settle for an ordinary pilot,” said Avery.

  Everyone but Roger chuckled, and Avery pressed Madeline for information about growing coffee. The noisy engine made conversation between the front and back difficult. Mr. Forster made no more attempt at communication so Jade turned her attention to Tsavo’s expansive grasslands. To her left was a green belt of trees marking the river’s course. Rounded hills and rocky buttes dotted the landscape of golden grass and prickly thornbushes. Patches of reddish-pink dirt showed where animals had wallowed and exposed the laterite soil. So this is the country of the famed man-eaters. Colonel Patterson himself might have walked through here tracking the killers. Roger’s voice roused her from her daydream.

  “I said, are there people like myself in America?” asked Roger.

  “Well, there’s me, if you mean people actually born on the frontier, Mr. Forster. At least, I was told you were born in Africa.”

  “Yes, I was. Even with a brief run in the war, I’ve never been away.”

  Jade was surprised that the usually sullen young man was making an effort to be friendly. She took advantage of it. “May I ask where?”

  “Where I was born or where I served?”

  She shrugged. “Both actually.”

  “Not sure where I was born. Father was a prospector who died before I was born, but Mother married a likely chap willing to take on the role of parent to another man’s child. My stepfather had a farm outside Mombasa. I even went to school there. Boarded until I was sixteen.” He paused and circumvented a particularly large ditch.

  “Do your parents still live there?” asked Jade.

  “No. They died of blackwater. I sold the farm and tried to make a go elsewhere with ostriches. Bought a farm already in the making when some chap wanted to move on.” He shook his head. “Course, hell had just broken out in Europe anyway.”

  Roger snorted in disgust. “The man probably saw the handwriting on the wall and saw a green, young fool ripe for picking.” He stabbed his chest with his thumb and created a small cloud of red dust. “Me! I daresay you’ve heard how that went. Next I tried raising cattle, but they were all put down due to an unwarranted anthrax scare. Right now I owe so much money to the bank, here I am, making a go at safaris to stay one step ahead of the creditors.”

  He slowed as the car’s left side dipped into a shallow wallow that had been hidden by the grasses. “Funny thing, really,” he continued after maneuvering the ditch. “The motorcar was a death knell to feather hats. But here I am using one—the car, that is. You might say it’s been a curse and a boon for me.”

  “You’re resilient,” said Jade in summation. “But if you served during the war, you hardly had a chance to make your ranch work.”

  Roger shrugged. “I didn’t see the sort of action other blokes did. Since I knew the country so well and spoke several native languages, the war office put me to work running transport and things such as that. Not very exotic or exciting. Spent a lot of time in Nairobi.”

  “Not everyone can be a general,” offered Jade.

  “No,” he said. He concentrated on maneuvering around a patch of wait-a-bit thorns and bit his lower lip in concentration. Behind her, Jade heard Madeline and Beverly laugh uproariously over something that Avery had said.

  Jade waited for Roger to work through his thoughts and was rewarded with further revelations. “I often thought I should have been a pilot, though. Not that I can fly or anything,” he added as he cast a sideways glance at her. “It’s just that my initials fit the job so well.”

  “Oh? How’s that?”

  “R.A.F. Just like Royal Air Force. My full name is Roger Abel Forster.”

  Excitement, nervousness, and disbelief rolled down Jade’s back in miniature tremors. For a minute she sat mute and motionless. Finally her hand moved in slow motion with a will of its own to the ring at her chest. She clutched it through the heavy shirt. Her brain retreated back to France, to David’s marriage proposal and her laughing rejection. She could almost smell the engine grease on his coveralls as he leaned towards her. That image faded into his broken body in her arms, and his rasping voice asking her to find his brother and what had happened to his father. Beverly’s soprano shout broke through the trance.

  “Look, pink elephants. I must be tipsy.”

  Roger explained that the elephants took dust baths and coated themselves with the faded red soil of Tsavo. His words sounded distant, as though Jade heard only an echo. The foreground of her thoughts was entirely occupied with one word: Abel.

  CHAPTER 19

  “The Big Four! Lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, and rhinoceros. No one argues that these are the four most deadly big-game sporting animals in Africa. Hunters only disagree as to their individual ranking.”

  —The Traveler

  JADE DESPERATELY WANTED TO QUESTION ROGER further, but the landscape prevented it. The two vehicles jolted over the rough terrain and heaved their occupants about like rag dolls. If the cars ever possessed springs, they had long since died of exhaustion. Jade landed with a thud on the hard seat. The shock slammed up her spine, and she vowed to personally kick the man who’d let this car’s underbelly fall into such disrepair. Thank heavens the canvas top was at least soft on the head.

  Jade could think of two advantages to traveling in these instruments of torture. Comfort was not one of them. They did save time, and the fifteen- to twenty-mile-per-hour speed generated a minuscule but most welcome breeze. To say that Tsavo was hot was like saying hell was a trifle warm. Unfortunately, the cars also stirred up red dust, which stuck to every exposed part of their sweaty hides and congealed into a gummy, pink paste, covering them as it did the elephants.

  “Let’s hurry up and shoot something so we can all go home,” whined Beverly. “As wretched as I feel right now, it might just as well be me.”

  “As lovely as you are, dearest,” said Avery, “I really don’t care to have your head staring down at me in my study. I would rather have a lion or a rhinoceros brooding over me instead.”

  “Your husband sounds exactly like Neville,” said Madeline. “Doesn’t he, Jade?”

  Jade was too preoccupied with keeping her tailbone from slamming up into her skull, and with Roger’s last remark, to attend to the
banter behind her.

  “Jade,” said Beverly, “wake up and answer Madeline.”

  “I’m sorry. What did she say?”

  “They were speaking of how charming and handsome both Neville Thompson and myself are,” said Avery. “You were asked to agree.”

  “Jade,” said Beverly, “fetch that little book of yours and look up the Swahili for ‘bilgewater.’ ”

  “Anything for you, Beverly,” said Jade. She reached into the canvas bag and pulled the Swahili language lessons out from under the Graflex. “Bilge, bilge, b, b, b. Sorry, I don’t find ‘bilgewater’ but I did find ‘bloody fool.’ That’s pumbafu.”

  Avery grumbled a low warning behind her. “If either you or my dear wife calls me Bwana Pumbafu, I shall be forced to do something drastic. Perhaps not in our present circumstances, but later. I promise you on my honor as a member of Parliament.”

  Beverly giggled, something Jade didn’t remember her ever doing before her marriage, and suggested that Jade search out something noble to call Avery. Jade turned several pages and was struck by what looked like the word “pili.” She started to look more closely when the Ford thwacked either a rock or a sleeping warthog and jolted the book out of her hands. She gripped the side for stability and decided this wasn’t the most opportune condition for reading. Later!

  “Leave it to the Africans,” yelled Jade. “They’ll give him a name soon enough.”

  “How far are we, ouch, driving, Mr. Forster?” Madeline called from the back.

  “We should cover about fifty to sixty miles, depending on how far the porters got. They have over a three-day head start, you know. That will serve as a base camp from which to work.” Roger patted the steering wheel. “The motorcar is going to revolutionize safaris.”

  “I say, I should think an aeroplane would be handy as well,” commented Avery. “What do you think, Beverly? Should we bring one to the colony and go into the safari business?”