by Peter Tonkin
It was not until they were close to the eastern border that they saw the first gleam of surface water. ‘Here we are,’ said Robert and the Cessna began to settle. ‘That thicker forest up ahead is the beginning of a forest which stretches into Congo Libre. This is the wildest country Mau has except for some of the jungle up on the ridge in the high country and it has always supported a fair number of wild N’Kuru - those of the tribe who wanted nothing to do even with Julius Karanga. It’s always been dangerous out here. It’s where the N’Kuru Lions made their base before they were destroyed and sent away to Angola and Congo Libre to lick their wounds and learn about communism. Ironic really, that the least civilised part of the country should be the most self-sufficient now. But to be fair, it had help.’
The vegetation - it was thick thorn bush, with increasing forest cover - fell back to reveal a wide, shallow lake. The Cessna went down near the water only to bank away sharply as flamingoes exploded into the air. Ann’s heart skipped at their beauty. This was the Africa she had dreamed of. ‘That’s proper bush down there,’ said Robert, sounding almost proud. ‘Impala, sassaby, kudu, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, the lot. In Mau they call it the outback and this is all that’s left of it.’ As if to prove his words a family of waterbuck flew from the water’s edge to the shelter of the trees, away from the sound of the engine.
The Cessna skipped across the trees and a flat landing strip abruptly opened out beneath them. At the far end were some huts, outside which a battered Land Rover was sitting.
‘The lake is the heart of it and it doesn’t compare with the Masai Mara or any of the others, but this was going to be Mau’s great gift to conservation.’
The wheels touched the red earth of the runway.
‘Welcome to the Dr Julius Karanga Game Reserve.’
He throttled back.
‘There’s somebody there,’ she almost shouted.
‘I know. He’s come to meet us.’
‘How does he know we’re here? You didn’t use the radio.’
‘He heard the engine. It’s an uncommon sound out here, nowadays.’
The man who was waiting for them was a slight white man who wore a wide-brimmed bush hat turned up at one side and the uniform of bush shirt and shorts, long socks and desert boots which went with it. He wore a double holster like a cowboy, with two businesslike handguns protruding convenient to his hands. He had been carrying a powerful-looking rifle under his right arm and it was not until he recognised Robert that he hefted it up and slid it through the Land Rover’s window. Then he was striding towards them, hand held out.
‘Welcome, Robert. Glad you could come.’
‘This is Harry Parkinson. Harry, Ann Cable the journalist.’
His palm was dry, like snakeskin; his grip of handshake brief and crushing.
His ‘How d’you do?’ was very English indeed. His face was deeply tanned and lined, the wrinkles round his eyes deep and pale-floored; the nose red and webbed with veins. The pale eyes were given brightness by the contrast and the clipped moustache given depth and whiteness. His teeth were yellow and false, too big for his thin-lipped mouth.
‘We’re hoping to bring her film crew out here later in the week.’ Robert’s tone of voice changed as he spoke and Ann suddenly realised that some unspoken message had passed between the men. They turned and crossed towards the Land Rover. ‘You have a problem with that?’
‘I don’t know, Robert. Miss Cable, would you mind sitting in the back? Just climb aboard.’
The two men lingered outside the battered vehicle as she settled herself onto the cracked and dusty leather of the long bench seat. It was hotter out here than it had been in Mawanga, but the heat was dry and less oppressive. Her mind was aching to wander away into the romance of the jungle but her ears were too well aware of the hurried conversation going on between the men.
‘I think we ought to get the Cessna fuelled up and rolled over by the hut out of harm’s way.’
‘OK, Harry. If you think so. Any reason why old Chobe can’t do it as usual?’
‘Chobe’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Vanished. Disappeared. Last night, after I talked to you. Well, he may have gone earlier but I didn’t know about it until I came down here to warn him to look out for you today.’
During this speech, the Englishman’s voice faded. The pair of them were moving away. Ann glanced out and saw them walking purposefully towards the nearest hut. Their voices faded until they were swallowed by the bush sounds which filled the wavering air, sounds she had dreamed of hearing throughout her youth. They had filled her limitless dreams fostered on the fantasies of Tarzan and Mogambo, of the Hollywood movies on which her father had worked before he died.
And now she was hearing them for real, every well-remembered nameless film-soundtrack chirrup, whistle, cough, song and snarl. It was midday and hot; there was nothing hunting now, she knew, just the bustle of the bush going about its business. Then, loud enough to make her jump, came a whinny and the blowing sound of a horse seeking attention. Her eyes sprang open - she hadn’t realised they were closed.
At the end of the makeshift landing field, where the cleared grass came closest to the trees, was a substantial fence. Over this, for all the world like a pet pony in a field, a zebra had pushed its head. She opened the door and climbed to the ground. The zebra watched her as she walked towards it. She had only seen zebra in pictures and zoos. What struck her about it most forcibly was the fact that it was not black and white. The red dust from the plains had coloured it so that it was striped red and umber - no, not striped, shadowed. Almost dappled. She bent and pulled up a handful of grass, offering it. The delicate nostrils flared. The velvet lips parted to reveal strong yellow teeth.
‘Come on then, my beauty,’ she purred, moving slowly forward.
But then the men behind her started up a wheezing, clanking old hand pump and the zebra’s brown eyes widened with surprise and fear. Its long head jerked back over the fence and it galloped away. Immediately, a whole section of the grassland was in motion too and she realised that what had seemed to be a dusty, dappled field had been a grazing herd. Entranced, she stood and watched. They only moved a couple of hundred metres then they stopped and began to feed again. The dust of their movement billowed and settled, adding to their russet camouflage. The panorama before her seemed slowly to widen as she looked around, taking it all in. In the far distance away to her left, the thunderous line of the tectonic cliff folded into a series of tawny hills which she knew were in fact across the border in the neighbouring state of Congo Libre. Then, from the feet of the hills, as tawny as they were, as though the whole landscape was the flank of a lion, stretched the grassland where the zebra were feeding. On the right, however, the grass became thorn scrub and the tall bushes soon became the trees she knew were gathered round the lake they had flown across.
How she ached to climb the fence and explore. But she knew how foolish such an act would be. All she knew about her current environment was what she had read in the works of Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hemingway, Robert Ruark, James S. Rand and Wilbur Smith. However accurate these men had been in their portrayals of Africa, she knew that reading about it was never the same as being out in it. So she stood and strained her eyes, hoping, praying, to see the most coveted prize of all, the tall, lean, long-legged, high-shouldered, wide-eared tuskers of the African plains. She had seen Indian elephants in circuses and zoos, and the squat, square, reliable pachyderms had made her ache to see their great wild African cousins.
The clatter made by the men putting the pump away called her back to herself and by the time they returned to the Land Rover she was sitting back on the seat in the rear. ‘Where first?’ she asked.
‘My place, I think,’ said Harry. As he drove, he talked, giving her an unsolicited interview which she would have found even more interesting if he had not kept looking back over his shoulder at her while he hurled the Land Rover along the red dirt
tracks at what seemed like breakneck speed.
‘I’ve been here since the eighties. Helped to set the place up, you see. Stayed on to keep an eye on things even though it’s all gone to rack and ruin. Just a game warden really, but I’m responsible for the better part of ten thousand square miles of assorted desert, bush and scrub. Everywhere south and east to the Blood River, which is the closest we have to a border with Congo Libre, and everywhere north to the escarpment. It’s not all game reserve, of course. A lot of N’Kuru farmland, a couple of towns - real towns with buildings - and half a dozen villages. The N’Kuru Lion lands. The N’Kuru tribal homeland. Almost a magic place. Incredibly important in their religion. I and my askaris are the only law there is, really. Parkinson’s Law, we call it. Prime Minister Mumboto seems happy enough to let me look after things. He doesn’t want that bastard General of Police Nimrod Chala and his Kyoga sadists down here pillaging and looting. Nor Major General Moses M’Diid, the acting President’s brother, with his tank regiment either for that matter. Though both of them would give anything to get their hands on it. If the farmland N’Kuru are on the move because of the drought, the only chance the government have of keeping the lid on things is if the bush N’Kuru stay on their homeland here. Which is why I told Robert I was worried. Something’s up. Something not very nice. And that is why you’re here, Miss Cable. Robert says you can get some publicity drummed up. International observers, press corps, stuff like that.’
‘When you say “keep the lid on things”, what do you think will happen if the lid comes off?’
‘Civil war, plain and simple. Kyoga against N’Kuru with clubs and stones in the countryside until the Lions call in their friends from Congo Libre; and the army versus the police in the city, Moses M’Diid versus Nimrod Chala. The same as is happening in Rwanda and Somalia, the Vietnam of Africa. The Bosnia of the Dark Continent.’
‘And the United Nations in the middle of it,’ began Robert.
‘The same as Kigali, Mogadishu and Sarajevo,’ completed Harry grimly.
‘And all the others,’ added Ann, beginning to understand their desperation, and to feel all too keenly how inadequately she could answer their cry for help. She couldn’t get the lid off a jelly jar, let alone off this.
~ * ~
If Harry Parkinson wore a pair of guns like a cowboy, his long, low, wooden headquarters building was like a ranch house on the Kansas plains. There was a picket fence round it with an empty guard hut and a wide, five-barred gate. ‘It’s electrified now,’ Harry told her as Robert opened the gate, let them roll through and then closed it behind them. ‘Looks like old-fashioned crap but it’s state of the art. I had it done when the Lions came back, but oddly enough they’ve never bothered me. Or my men. It’s the poachers we have to worry about. The ones that come over the Blood River after the tuskers and the rhinos.’
‘Why is it called the Blood River?’
‘Not as grim as it sounds. About the only place in this neck of the woods which isn’t. Right, Robert? No, it was called that because of the mud. It used to run red because of the red soil. When it ran. It’s just a dry valley now and little commandos from the Congo Libre army pop across it in the dead of night to come after our ivory and rhino horn. Bastards.’
They pulled up in a storm of red dust and the three piled out together and went up the three long wooden steps onto the veranda.
‘A-TEN-SHUN!’ bellowed Harry as they entered through the door into what was obviously the main operations room. But nobody was there to obey his order. The big radio stood switched on but unmanned. The chair and tables all around the big room were scattered with open magazines and burdened with half-consumed cups of coffee. Cushions still bore the imprints of bodies. But there was nobody there at all. The three new arrivals stood, frozen by the strangeness of the room. The door swung behind them as though there was a wind but there was no wind.
A tiny lizard scuttled up the wall and through the ceiling boards.
‘Now this is bloody odd,’ said Harry Parkinson. Unconsciously, he eased his pistols in their holsters and Ann noted that she could see not the pearl handles of Colt revolvers she had half expected but the square, moulded, composite grips of modern, state of the art automatic handguns. She felt reassured, somehow.
‘SHOP!’ bellowed Harry.
Absolute silence by way of reply.
‘There are, what, five rooms upstairs?’ asked Robert.
‘This room and kitchen down here. My quarters upstairs - lounge, dining room, two bedrooms and bathroom.’
‘We’d better have a look.’
‘You wait here. I’ll look.’
He was gone, out through the still open door.
‘Most likely a panic call over the radio,’ said Robert cheerfully. ‘Poachers or something like that. The askaris are supposed to leave someone to report if they get called out. They can’t always find a volunteer to wait behind. They’re all very keen.’
A floorboard above their heads creaked. A tiny cloud of dust filtered down through the still hot air. The lizard scuttled out, saw them and froze.
‘It’s more than that and you know it. What you were saying about the lid coming off. Do you think it has?’
He looked down at her. Their eyes met. Suddenly she was angry. At the situation. At her fear. At herself. At him. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know I’m naive. I know I’m out of my depth. But I’m not some subnormal infant, and I’m good at my job. Tell me the truth, for God’s sake. Stop trying to mother me!’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, apparently capitulating. ‘Harry and his askaris are a great team. Thirteen men. One mind. They need it sometimes, I can tell you. Ten thousand square miles and they’re the only law. I’ve never known them all to go off like this before. Only something very big indeed would have made them vanish without even a message.’
‘The same sort of thing as would have made Chobe at the landing strip desert his post as well?’
‘I guess so, but he went last night. They went today. While Harry was picking us up.’
Harry reappeared framed in the doorway. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not a hide or a hair. They took the lorry, though. Easy enough to track. Let’s go.’
Robert frowned. ‘Maybe I should take Miss Cable back.’
‘If they’ve gone near the airstrip, ask me again. If not, you walk. Your choice. I’m going after my men.’
Ann had opened her mouth to protest at Robert’s suggestion but Harry’s answer suited her. ‘I’m going with Mr Parkinson,’ she said. ‘I just need to use the john first.’
‘Can you shoot?’ asked Robert five minutes later. They were in motion as he asked the question, following Harry to the Land Rover.
‘Shoot what?’ she asked as she followed, thinking he was perhaps asking about marksmanship or hunting.
‘This,’ he said, pointing to the rifle in its clip above the windshield.
‘What at?’ she asked, settling into the back seat.
‘At anyone who looks as though he’s coming after you,’ said Harry and he fired up the engine.
It took a moment for her to realise he had said ‘anyone’ and for the first time since the shower she went cold all over.
This time it was Harry who swung down to let them out of the gate. He checked in the guard hut and looked at the red dirt of the road.
‘Thought so,’ he said when he climbed back in. ‘They’ve gone up to the villages.’
He drove on, relatively slowly, talking again as he went. But this time he did not keep glancing back over his shoulder as he spoke.
‘All my askaris are N’Kuru. When I came here I was told the N’Kuru were lazy, arrogant and bolshie and the Kyoga were intelligent, trustworthy, hard-working chaps. That’s not been my experience at all. Quite the reverse, in fact. I’m much happier working with the N’Kuru, especially out here on their land.
‘There are three N’Kuru villages between here and the Blood River. They’ve remained more or less unchanged for sev
eral reasons. Firstly, they are the last viable villages able to provide for themselves in the old, traditional ways. Secondly, they were preserved as part of the game reserve. Finally, they bear a cultural importance to the N’Kuru people. The Heart of the Homeland, or some such. The N’Kuru phrase is impossible to translate exactly.’