She almost laughed out loud with relief. “I know,” she said. “I was afraid.”
“You were a fool to come so close.”
“I know.” Beryl stared at the ground. “It was stupid. Please forgive me.”
“But…” he went on. “It was something a warrior would do.”
Beryl burst into tears of relief and gratitude. Tepli shook his head irritably at her weakness. Only then did he seem to notice the gashes on his chest. He prodded them with the tip of a finger and cursed. He saw his spear in Beryl’s hands and reclaimed it with a scowl.
“Eele, eele!” The other warriors finally returned. Their faces fell when they saw the lion was already dead. Tepli told the others that the white girl had helped to fight the lion.
Later, the warriors cut off the lion’s ears and paws. One murani came over to Arap Maina and shoved the ears onto the tip of his spear. Another warrior brought a paw to Tepli’s spear, and two more brought a paw to push onto Beryl’s small spear. The remaining warriors slit open the beast’s belly and began to cut away its fat.
Beryl squatted beside Arap Maina, where he was resting against a tree trunk. “Arap Maina, what are they doing?”
“Lion’s fat is good for our wounds. They will bring it to the tribe’s healer.”
Beryl glanced guiltily at Arap Maina’s wounded shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t obey you. I wanted to help.”
“I know.”
“I never meant for you or Tepli to be hurt!”
“Of course not. But let me tell you this. A warrior does not run from battle. As you did not run. The lion is dead. We are alive. A good day’s hunt.”
“But your shoulder…Tepli’s chest.”
“Beru, being bitten or clawed is no tragedy for a murani. Our scars are proof that we were in the battle. Ask the others—they wish they were in our place.”
Beryl watched the men who had finished bandaging Tepli and were now skinning the lion. The warriors chanted in praise of the three who faced the lion, but there was envy in their singing.
“Beru, you did well,” said Arap Maina.
“So today I am a murani?” she asked hopefully.
He laughed, and choosing his words carefully, he replied, “As much as a white girl can ever be a murani, you are one today.”
Tired as she was, Beryl had no trouble keeping the slower pace the warriors set on the way home. As they walked, she dropped back to ask Arap Maina one last question.
“Why did you shout your name before you stabbed the lion?”
“It is the murani way. We claim the kill so no other warrior can take away the glory.”
“But you were facing the lion alone. No one else could have claimed it.”
“Beru, in that moment, between me and the lion, he needed to hear the name of the man who would kill him. And I needed to remember that I fought not only for myself, but for the honor of my tribe.”
Clutching her lion’s paw, Beryl repeated as if it were an oath, “I fought for the honor of my tribe.”
LOCATION: Abingdon, England
DATE: 05:00 P.M. GMT, 4 September, 1936
I climb into the cockpit of The Messenger. She’s a four-seater, built to be light and fast. But today she’s weighted down with nineteen hundred pounds of fuel: tanks in the wings, in the center body, next to me, and behind me where the passenger seats should be. There’s hardly room for my provisions and my maps.
I latch the door and look out down the long military runway. A civilian runway won’t give me enough distance to get the heavy plane off the ground.
I call out, “Switches on…Contact.”
My mechanic swings the propeller.
After a heartbeat of silence, the engine roars to life. I push the throttle forward and the airplane hesitates. She’s too heavy. The Messenger is rebellious and surly. Well, I’ve had more than one reluctant horse under me. I coax it forward. Sullenly, she yields to persuasion.
I won’t circle on the runway: I dare not waste a drop of fuel. I head straight west. She goes faster and faster.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Lift!”
And she does. Scant seconds before I run out of tarmac, the nose goes up and the tail drops. I just clear the trees, but what more do I need?
In my triumph, I shout, “Eele! Eele! Beryl!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WARTHOGS AREN’T VERY DANGEROUS,” TEPLI SAID. “UNLESS THEY are cornered.” Tepli, who was recovering well from his wounds, had consented to bring Beryl and Kibii hunting. Kibii was pleased enough that Beryl hoped he might soon forgive her for the lion hunt.
Beryl and Kibii craned their necks to see the particular warthog they had just cornered. It had backed into the cave on the side of the hill, so its sharp tusks were facing his attackers.
“We must lure him out,” Tepli said.
“How?” Beryl asked.
“I know,” shouted Kibii excitedly. “My father has told me. Beru, do you have any paper?”
She reached into the wide pockets of her khaki shorts and pulled out a note from her father regarding the care of his horses while he was away. Tepli directed them to stand on each side of the hole while he stood in front and crumpled the paper loudly.
“Why is he doing that?” whispered Beryl to Kibii from their position flanking the cave.
“It drives the beast crazy. My father says it is the only useful thing the white man has brought to Africa.” His nostrils flared, a sign that he was embarrassed. “Oh, Beru, I’m sorry.”
“Not to worry. He’s probably right. I don’t like the sound of composition paper either.”
Sure enough, the warthog quivered with rage until it could bear the noise no longer and attacked. Beryl and Kibii were ready with their spears, behind and above the beast. They thrust their blades in the fold of skin behind its neck, killing it instantly.
As they returned home, Kibii and Beryl chattered happily. It had been a successful hunt; not as dangerous as going after a lion, but still exciting. As Green Hills Farm came into view, Beryl remembered what she had managed to forget during the hunt.
“Has Mehru forgiven me for going on the lion hunt?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
“But you have…yes?”
Kibii didn’t answer.
“Kibii, you know why I had to do it. I won’t get another chance.” She sighed. “Today was probably my last hunt.”
“Why?” Kibii asked, almost in spite of himself.
“My father will be back any day now. Have you forgotten that he went to Nairobi to find me a governess?”
“A governess?” Cocking his head to one side, Kibii stumbled on the unfamiliar word. “What is that?”
“It’s not a thing, it’s a person.” Beryl gave him a baleful look. “Only white children have them. A teacher who will lock me inside and make me learn to read and do my numbers.”
Kibii focused on the essential problem. “If you are locked up with books, how will you train with me?”
“I won’t be able to.” Throwing her plaited hair over her shoulder, she dislodged a shower of dirt and bits of leaves. “I’ll be strapped into a dress and tied to a desk!”
“Then I shall go hunting without you,” Kibii said with a shrug. “It is what you would do.”
They had reached the path to Kibii’s village. He said farewell, and Beryl continued to her hut. She stopped dead at the door. At her feet lay a limp bundle of fur—a hare. She nudged it with a toe to turn it over. She drew a sharp, horrified breath.
The animal’s eyes and tender skin around its nose had been gnawed away, chunk by chunk. The underside of the hare was covered with crawling black ants.
“Siafu!” she hissed. Beryl had seen many frightening things, but nothing scared her like the siafu. When she woke sweating in the night, her heart beating fast, it was because the ants had invaded her nightmares. The black warrior ants lived only to swarm over living creatures and eat away their soft spots. A small contingent, an advance guard perhaps, left
the hare to march purposefully toward Beryl’s bare foot. She jumped up and down to scare them.
“Ah, siafu.” A deep voice startled her. It was Arap Maina, looking down at the hare. He used a pitchfork to spear the carcass and toss it onto a heap of rubbish for burning.
“I hate them!” Beryl said, struggling to keep her voice even.
“Beru, answer me this. What does it mean when you see siafu?”
“Are they a bad omen?” The Nandi saw omens in everything.
Arap Maina shook his head with a small smile. “On the contrary; siafu mean the rains are coming. But if it is an omen you want, your father has come back safely.”
As Beryl ran to the main house, she wondered briefly why Arap Maina had been smiling. But the thought was quickly replaced by the more important question: What would the governess be like? In her usual headlong rush, she plunged into the living room.
“Daddy!” she said breathlessly. “When did you…“ Her voice trailed off as she saw what he held in his hands.
He was examining the skinned head of a lion. The rest of its fur was spread across his desk. The lion’s noble brow mocked her, despite its missing ears.
“Why would Arap Maina give me this valuable skin?” the Captain asked grimly.
Beryl held out her hands and shrugged.
The Captain didn’t need her to answer. “‘A remembrance of Beryl’s first lion hunt,’ Arap Maina said. He expected me to be pleased. In fact, he expected me to know all about it.”
He waited, impatient with her silence. Finally, he banged his fist on the desk. Even muffled by the lion skin, the sound threatened worse to come. “What do you have to say for yourself?” His voice was sharp, like a commander on the parade field.
“You said I could train with the Nandi, Daddy,” she said, locking her knees to keep them from trembling.
“Did I say you could go kill a lion?” he shouted.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “I didn’t actually kill that lion, Daddy.”
“Beryl Clutterbuck, I didn’t think you did. And you knew perfectly well that I never would have allowed you to go lion hunting.”
“I knew if you brought back a governess, I might never get another chance. So I asked Arap Maina, and he let me go.”
The Captain pinched the bridge of his nose. “Emma was right,” he muttered. To Beryl, he said, “Don’t you realize that you could have been maimed or even killed?”
“But I wasn’t, Daddy. Arap Maina said I did well!”
“He told me that, too.”
Beryl breathed easier; the pride in her father’s voice was impossible to miss.
“He said I was brave to rush in after he had been hurt.” His attention quickened, and she realized she had misstepped.
“Arap Maina was hurt? Protecting you?” He fixed her with a steely glance. “And now I’ll pay for that, because he won’t be able to work on the farm.”
“He wasn’t hurt badly. He didn’t even cry.”
“Of course he didn’t, Beryl.” The Captain looked down at the hide on his desk, his hand absently stroking the rough fur. “The Nandi train from boyhood to not react to pain. It’s part of their rituals.”
Beryl jumped in, eager to show her father how much she had learned. “I know all about it. The boy gets soaked with cold water. Then the boy’s family chants, you know, to encourage him. They shout things like ‘Don’t flinch!,’ ‘Don’t be a coward!,’ and ‘Make the cut sharp.’ Then the ol-oboini, he’s the elder, takes a sharp knife and cuts the boy…down there.” Beryl gestured to below her father’s waist. He pinched his nose harder, but his mouth twitched with laughter.
“Clutt!” Beryl looked up to see Emma standing in the doorway, her hands on Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur’s eyes were wide as saucers, and his hands were pulling at his trousers. Emma’s face was pale. In a tight voice, she asked, “How in God’s name can you let her know such things?”
“Daddy, I’ve never seen the ceremony,” she assured him. “Girls aren’t allowed.”
Emma ignored Beryl, speaking only to the Captain. “What will Miss Le May think?”
Only then did Beryl see the stranger hovering behind Emma and Arthur. She was tall and broad-shouldered, with red hair and freckles. She wore a starched white cotton dress, now limp in the afternoon heat, and laced-up boots like Emma’s. But her pock-marked face wasn’t nearly as pretty as Emma’s.
Beryl felt like a gazelle at the watering hole once a predator has come. Every instinct screamed, “Run!”
Flustered, Emma performed the introductions. “Beryl, this is Miss Le May. She will be your teacher.”
“How do you do?” Miss Le May’s voice was very proper. She said “How” very deliberately, as though she had to concentrate.
Beryl looked down at the floor and said nothing. Sighing, the Captain abandoned the lion skin and moved behind Beryl. He pressed his strong fingers into her shoulder blades.
“Howdoyoudo?” she mumbled, trying not to wince at his painful squeeze.
The Captain pulled out his watch to check the time. “Excellent,” he pronounced, as he turned to leave the room. “Now I can concentrate on getting my mills up and running.”
Running away is more like it, Beryl thought. From Emma’s sour expression, Beryl suspected that she was thinking the same thing.
LOCATION: Eight thousand feet over the North Atlantic
DATE: 07:10 P.M. GMT, 4 September, 1936
My little Messenger stinks of petrol. Eight thousand feet above the sea, tossed about by the North Atlantic winds, I wonder what makes me think this tin box can make it across the wide ocean. I think back to all those hours poring over blueprints and calculations. My engineers say the plane will fly because the mathematics prove it.
When I was a child, my father hired a governess to teach me arithmetic and multiplication. I didn’t see the point. I’ve always trusted my instincts over the mathematics. I’ll fly, not because of numbers scribbled on a piece of paper, but because I think I can.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CLASSES STARTED THE NEXT MORNING IN THE MAIN ROOM OF the Captain’s house. The atmosphere resembled the stillness before a storm. Captain Clutterbuck was out on the farm. Emma and Arthur also made themselves scarce.
Miss Le May placed a stack of yellow books on the table. “I’m prepared for my duties,” she began brightly. “I’ve brought the Crown Readers, the Fundamentals of English Grammar, and Exercises in Practical Arithmetic. I’ve been told they’re the correct texts.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a teacher?” Beryl asked suspiciously.
Miss Le May pinched her full lips together. “I can read and write—apparently that’s more than you can do. Each morning we will do reading, and in the afternoon mathematics.”
Narrowing her eyes, Beryl said, “Early mornings won’t work. My father needs me to ride out every morning at six.”
“Where are you riding out to? What about your schooling?”
“Riding out means to exercise the horses,” Beryl explained in a scornful voice. “They’re racing horses—not just anyone can ride them.”
“You can come here after you’ve finished.” Miss Le May’s smile was not quite as bright. “I can see we both have a lot to learn from each other.”
“I doubt it,” said Beryl under her breath.
Miss Le May went on, “We will start with the alphabet. A, B, C, D…”
“E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Zed.” Beryl rattled off the rest of the alphabet in one breath. She had the satisfaction of seeing the surprise on Miss Le May’s face.
“Your mother said that…”
“She’s not my mother!” Beryl interrupted. “She’s not married to my father, and she never will be.”
Miss Le May cleared her throat nervously. “Emma, then. She led me to believe that you knew nothing.”
“Maybe it’s Emma who doesn’t know nothing,” Beryl said crudely.
“Emma doesn’t
know anything,” Miss Le May corrected.
Beryl giggled. Miss Le May didn’t see what was funny.
“Does that mean you can read, too?” Miss Le May had an eager look on her face.
Beryl shrugged.
“Read this aloud.” Miss Le May shoved one of her Crown Readers at Beryl.
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