by Peter Rimmer
The rest of the story Benny had found out on his own, trolling the bars frequented by Wally. Wally, happy in the comfort of preparing for the big safari, easily told Benny the names of his old haunts. Even the names of some of the drunks he drank with. Two of the drunks had known Wally up north in the bush. Both separately said Wally was a braggart and a teller of tall stories, usually about himself. They said he could shoot the eye out of a leopard at one hundred yards, and that he had learned about the bush the hard way, by his mistakes. In the bush, sober, Wally was a man they both respected.
Coupled with the fact the man had no chin, drooping wet eyes like a spaniel, and had lost his wife in six months, Benny knew there would be no competition. Benny had always been careful never to introduce competition, even in his businesses. And to go into the bush without a skilled guide would have been plain stupid. Having mentally undressed Tina three times while smiling at her, Benny finally closed his eyes. He had been glad his guide was only a cuckold, not a murderer.
Having been a stray dog most of his life, Benny liked to help others in the same predicament. In his younger days he could have done with the help himself.
Wally Bowes-Leggatt had lost his illusions many years ago. Being the son of a famous British general had taken him only so far and after that he was meant to do it on his own. He knew better than anyone else in his life that he looked like a dog, which was why he kept his hair long, and his big floppy ears well covered. The commission in his father's regiment when he was nineteen years old had been little more than a formality. The colonel of the regiment had served under his father. Prudence was a girl he had met on a hike in the Lake District soon after he received his commission. To his surprise he had passed out in the top half of his officer's course and his confidence must have shown. She was the second daughter of a schoolmaster with limited prospects and took to Wally from the start of the three-day walk that had been arranged by the local churchwarden. Foolish in his youth, he had not realised she was dazzled by the general's son, not the son, even though Prudence never met his father until a month before the wedding. Prudence swept Wally off his feet and into the church in ten weeks and Wally thought himself the luckiest man in the world. With a solid, pretty wife, that senior officers liked to be flattered by, there was no reason he could not make himself a good career in the army. At mess functions when the wives were invited, Prudence was always surrounded by men, and always deferred to the senior officers. Wally was happy to stand on the fringe and bask in her glory. 'You're a lucky chap, Bowes-Leggatt', was a constant refrain. If he had known she had the same effect on men as Tina Pringle, he would have kept a closer eye on his wife. He should have kept his eyes open, but at twenty, a very young twenty, he had no idea what was going on. To him, a wife who did not want to sleep with her husband after the first try or two was normal. Wally thought she must have been pregnant. Anyway, he was not a very physical man when it came to women. If Prudence had not chased him right off his feet he would have remained a bachelor, enjoying the male camaraderie of his fellow officers in one outpost of the Empire after another. The army suited him. It gave him a home. A patient, meticulous man, he was good at his job, and even though he looked like a dog, the men looked up to him for himself. Like all men married to unfaithful wives, Wally was the last to hear of it. He did find Captain Craig on top of Prudence. And both were naked. Wally did have a gun in his hand and he was one of the best pistol shots in the regiment. But he did not shoot his wife as he told everyone in Africa. As he should have done. The next day he resigned his commission. The colonel cashiered Craig. Prudence went home to her schoolmaster father.
When he had gone home that fateful night to his married quarters, he had taken back a fellow officer for a late drink after they had checked the regiment stores. There was no way of keeping the story quiet. The general, his father, had got him out of the country fast.
"A man who can't keep his wife under control is not a man. Get out. Stay out. And don't ever come back to England or darken my door. You have made a fool of me, Walter. Making a fool of yourself is your business. Making a fool of me is mine. God damn you boy, the whole regiment is laughing at me."
In Africa he had felt at home. There were other Englishmen in the same predicament. Disgraced, one way or the other. He had taken to the bush and nearly got himself eaten by a lion, only killing the beast in the end with his revolver, the wounded lion right on top of him. He had fired the rifle for the head and not the heart. Quickly he had grown to respect the African bush. Any wild animal was dangerous. A honey badger the size of a dog could kill a buffalo, the animal in the bush said to be the most dangerous to man. And in town, when his cheque came in, the cheque from his mother, not his father, he had taken to drinking with drifters and telling them the story of his life. How he shot his wife. Why he was not in the war.
Why the American had taken to him he had no idea. But it suited him for the moment. His cheque was not due for another two months and he never looked a gift horse in the mouth.
"I've heard about you Pringle," he said to break the ice. The American seemed to have gone to sleep and like all women, the girl was not interested in looking at Wally Bowes-Leggatt. "Serendipity Mining and Explosives. Your shares came out when I just received a cheque from Mater. Bought a hundred shares. Had to sell them again. Doubled my money. Thanks, old boy. You must be a very clever man."
Strangely, looking sideways at the man next to him in a new light, Albert thought he meant what he said. Instead of saying something depreciating he put out his hand.
"Thank you. We are going to be friends, Wally, isn't it? I'm Albert. A bit soon maybe for Christian names but do you mind? I come from the lower classes."
"Out here that doesn't mean a thing. We're all Englishmen."
"Not all of us," said Benny Lightfoot, without opening his eyes.
They reached the big river twelve days later. Benny thought he was losing his touch. More than once he had manoeuvred Tina away from the crowd and had yet to even get a hand on her bust, let alone more vital parts. What was going to be a long, slow seduction was becoming tedious.
They had spent the first night in Meikles Hotel. The next day Wally had gone off and come back with a wagon, a string of saddled horses, and six grinning black men, whose teeth shone whiter than anything Benny had seen before in his life. It was the contrast of the coal-black skins and the perfectly white teeth.
By ten o'clock they were on the road out of Salisbury heading north-west. A mile or so out of town, Benny saw a sign to the right which said Elephant Walk and wondered what it meant. No one else commented on the sign. Their road was just a track and more than once Benny watched Wally take their position from the sun. The earth was as dry as a bone, the sky a perfect blue, with tufted white clouds, high and stationary in the sky, throwing shadow patterns on the dry brown bush, the small hills and outcrops of rocks the size of small mountains, some balanced one on the other, their cantilever weights stopping them crashing to the ground. The rich red soil sprouted grass which came up to the top of Benny's riding boots, even as he rode high in the saddle.
By the time they camped the first night there was game on both sides of them, herds of buck and antelope, that Wally named as they first appeared, grazing the vast expanse of the bush. The first rifle shot was Wally shooting a young, female kudu that had looked up with big bat ears, and big frightened eyes, from behind a thorn bush, where she had been delicately picking off green shoots, without pricking herself on the thorns. It was a good clean shot and made Benny sad, sadder than it should have done. For a brief moment, he would have turned the party around, but they had come so far from Johannesburg, and it was a safari. The poor animal tasted better than any American beef. The party had to eat. Wally had handed him the heart of the kudu, roasted in the coals, and Benny said a silent prayer for the beast's soul and thanked him for his supper, glad the others could not read his sentimental mind.
The great plains around his home in Mi
ssouri were beautiful, but as the hunting party penetrated deeper into nowhere, Benny was sure he had never seen anything like it before. He knew then he wanted to come back.
At night Wally checked their position from the stars, reading the south line of the Southern Cross. The first night out of Salisbury they heard the lion roar. By the time they reached the south bank of the Zambezi River, the seduction of Tina Pringle was some way back in his mind. Benny Lightfoot knew he had himself been seduced by the African bush.
They were going to stay a week beside the big river and made a good camp on a high piece of ground. After days of eating meat, the river bream ate well. Despite the original idea of hunting for trophy heads, Benny said he only wanted to shoot and catch what they would eat. Tina gave him a real smile and he felt good inside that had nothing to do with his hormones. Wally Bowes-Leggatt was the perfect guide, and the boys, as they were called, which was nonsense to Benny as they were all men, were equally enjoying their paid journey into the bush, chatting away to each other nineteen to the dozen. To think that nations were slaughtering each other thousands of miles away was impossible to comprehend in the omnipotence of the African bush.
"And they call that civilisation," Benny had drawled, that first night on the banks of the river, thinking of the slaughter far away. No one replied. Wally understood.
With the fire down, there was layer upon layer of stars in the heaven, the splash of the Milky Way almost close enough to touch. Only when a leopard coughed behind them somewhere in the bush, away from the tall river trees, did Wally signal one of the black men to stoke the fire, sending sparks flying up to the stars, dancing through the canopy of the tall trees that covered their camp. After they had gone to bed, Benny woke each time someone stoked the fire. In the morning it was cold.
Tina had read the sign to Elephant Walk. In Johannesburg, where the lights were often dim, and good clothes made an old man's body look better than it was, Tina had been happy to play with Benny Lightfoot. In the bush he was an old man and there was no way of changing it. The sight of him taking an early morning swim in the river, with Wally on a rock, standing shotgun against the crocodiles, made her laugh. His thighs were thin like sticks. He was swimming in a long pair of shorts. His knees were knobbly, and the little floppy belly rather sad, as it wobbled above the leather belt that kept up the shorts. She wanted to laugh out loud and had to put a hand over her face, making a choking sound. Benny turned round from the water just at the wrong moment and they caught each other's eyes. Having first been annoyed by her brother, she was now happy he was there, stuck as they were in the middle of nowhere. Twice they had seen villagers on their journey out of Salisbury and then no sign of human habitation. She wondered why. Wally, the poor thing that looked like a shaggy goat, with sloppy big eyes that followed her everywhere she moved, was good at finding his way in the bush but fending off the old voyeur would be another thing. For the rest of her life she would never again put herself at a man's mercy, no matter how much money he had in the bank. Looking at the old man climbing out of the water made her feel sick. She much preferred to be surrounded by lots of men, all vying for her attention. There was safety in numbers. She could play them all without fear of retribution. She would have to think before she did things next time.
The water dripping off the old body looked obscene. She got up from where she was sitting on the ground and climbed into the wagon. The sooner they all went home the better. Straight back to Johannesburg. If there wasn't a war going on, straight home to England. A flash with a face passed through her mind. It was Barnaby St Clair. For the first time since they had been forced apart, she missed him. Life had been a lot less complicated when they were kids, before that first time in the horsebox down at Swanage. Or was it Poole, she asked herself. So much in her life was sliding together, men and more men. Rows of them. All smelling her heat. Playing with them in more ways than one.
Getting out of the wagon with a handkerchief, she wondered how it would all end. Taking the bull by the proverbial horns, which Tina thought in her mind was appropriate with so many wild animals all over the place, she walked across to Benny with a pre-made smile on her face. He was dressed again which made it easier. Long, lightweight khaki trousers and a blue shirt that hid his pot belly. He had combed his hair carefully again to hide the bald patch on his pate. Wally was still on his rock with the rifle, staring down the river. Her brother was reading a book. The blacks were in a group off to themselves.
"Did you have a nice swim Benny?"
"Very nice, thank you. Never swam a river full of crocodiles before."
They were being so damn polite to each other she could scream. Surely he could see they were going nowhere together.
"Did you see a sign on the road just out of Salisbury that read Elephant Walk?" she asked.
"Sure. What does it mean? The walk for the elephants or elephants please walk?"
"Something like that originally. Wally told me. Every twenty or thirty years the elephants do a great migration. And they always take the same route. An early hunter who stayed to farm saw the migration going through his land and called his farm Elephant Walk. We know the family. Or Bert does. You want to go visit, Benny? You're not shootin' for horns or heads. It's nice here but a bit lonely. What you say, luv? We pack up an' go visiting. The worst they can do is give us a cup of tea and tell us to bugger off."
"Hey, Wally," shouted Benny, "get off your rock. We're going back to make a visit."
"Where are we going?" drawled Wally, taking his eyes off a pair of fish eagles, motionless on the stump of a dead tree, looking hawk-eyed into the brown slow flow of the river, fishing. He would have liked to have sat with them all day.
"Elephant Walk."
"Harry Brigandshaw?"
"Have you met him, Wally?"
"Yes, briefly, and I know all about the family. His father was a legend in these parts. One of the first hunters with Selous and Hartley. He ran away from England. Or was shipped out by his father… We can pay them a visit. Albert met Harry once, so he said. Sebastian Brigandshaw's wife is still alive. Harry's mother. Mrs Brigandshaw would be about your age."
Wally, having missed the entire point of the safari had put his foot in his mouth. Benny smiled to himself. At least the man was honest. Maybe his days seducing young girls should be over.
"Sounds a good idea," said Albert, joining the conversation. He wanted to get back to Johannesburg. To the explosive factory. There was a war going on. If he was still in England they would be sending him to France. Like many other Englishman in Africa, he was beginning to feel guilty. He was getting the same feeling that sent his brother back from Australia.
Within half an hour, they had struck camp. Going back was easy. They followed the path crushed by the iron wagon wheels.
That night, there was pandemonium when Wally woke next to the dead fire. There was no moon and cloud had covered the stars. One of the black men had been taken in his sleep by a lion, pulled from under his blanket screaming out the last of his life. Wally had a gun out but it was too dark to see. The lion was running fast. The screams running away with him into the night. Horrified, all they could do was stand and listen. They heard the last, terrible cry for life and then the depth of silence.
The next day there was cat spoor all around their camp. Lion and lionesses. Wally blamed himself. For once the fire had been allowed to burn out. Away from the river they had let down their guard and one of them was dead. They tracked the kill all morning, following the trail of human blood that ended with a pride of lions. The big, black-maned father, three lionesses and seven cubs. One of the cubs was chewing on a human hand.
"Let them be," said Benny. "It is the way of life. The cubs had to be fed."
The Purdey fired three times, the first shot killing the male. Systematically Wally shot down the pride, hunting them to the death on horseback with the help of the blacks. When they were satisfied, they rode back to where Benny stood. Albert ha
d stayed in the fateful camp with Tina.
"I told you not to do that," said Benny. He was seething with anger.
"Oh, it's not as easy as that, old boy. These chaps look up to us. They wanted revenge. Their friend will rise to the spirit world to his ancestors. But most important those lions won't stake out a native village and eat the villagers one by one. The father was teaching his cubs. As he should have been. But we don't want them growing up with bad manners, old boy. You want us to skin the carcasses?"
"Leave the poor things where they are. I feel bad enough as it is."
"Now that is a waste. You wanted to go on safari. You found me in a bar. This is real life. The real jungle. I made a mistake with the fire and will have Jackson on my conscience all my life. I wonder where he came from? What was his real name? None of the others seem to know. No, Mr Lightfoot. We're going to skin those lions and take them home. Maybe next time I won't make such a stupid bloody mistake."
At the top of the escarpment the next day, Benny Lightfoot looked back over the Zambezi Valley, the trees looking smaller and smaller as his gaze ran down to the valley floor. From their height the grazing animals were barely visible. There were white fluffy clouds over the distant river. The clouds were motionless, as were their shadows on the valley floor. The trail had wound up for hours, the six oxen pulling the wagon. Jackson's horse was tied to the back of the wagon on a long lead, the saddle inside next to the wrapped skins of the lions. The heads still attached to the skins. Wally had covered them with a tarpaulin to keep off the flies.
After ten minutes they rode on, following the old track of their wagon wheels. No one was talking, the blacks quiet next to the riderless horse. Some ten miles away a bush fire was hazing that part of the valley. Benny could smell the wood smoke on the wind. Tina was riding next to her brother and Wally was off alone in one of his silent moods. For him the safari was over. Another piece of his life come to an end.