by Tom Cain
When Lobengula finally met his match he was still enough of a warrior to preserve his own life. But death in battle might have been a more noble end than the half-life to which he was condemned, wandering the bush, searching for carrion or particularly young or weak prey animals that he could bring down swiftly before exhaustion overtook him. But the shortage of food that affected the human population soon transferred itself to the animal population. Though the wardens of the reserve did their best to deter poachers, still the desperation of the people was so great that many of the wildebeest, bucks and even zebras were killed for their meat. And, in the end, unpaid and hungry, the wardens themselves joined the slaughter.
Every creature killed by human predators was one less for the animal ones. The lions grew hungry. Mothers could no longer provide for their cubs. And solitary males like Lobengula felt their muscles waste and their ribs press against their fur as starvation gnawed at their guts. But even a mangy, ageing Lobengula was still a very large, dangerous beast. He was also becoming more bad-tempered by the day; an angry, embittered old man with a grudge against his world.
Tonight he had been roaring his displeasure and frustration as he paced the bush, looking for something, anything, to eat but finding not a scrap. Now he was tired and hungrier than ever. So he lay down, as cats of all sizes will do, exactly where he pleased. And, like any other cat, once he had found his spot, he had absolutely no intention of moving from it.
93
For fifteen minutes the Land Rover made steady progress over relatively flat, open terrain. From time to time they came across game: a giraffe, some warthogs, even a female rhino and her calf. All made way for the car, disappearing into the bush at the sound of its engine and the smell of its exhaust. Carver was driving without lights so as not to give away his position, a skill he’d first been taught in the SBS. But for all his training, even the most docile bush country was still littered with hazards: potholes, boulders, tree-roots and thickets of tangled, thorn-bearing undergrowth. It was far better to temper his impatience, keep his speed down and stay out of trouble than risk going too fast and suffer an accident. Yet he knew it was just a matter of time before some kind of pursuit came after them and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed to resist the temptation to press the pedal to the floor.
Three miles from the border, the land began to rise towards a low range of hills. Now the going became rougher. The soil was thinner with many more boulders to be avoided. The Land Rover’s four-wheel-drive and low gearbox ratio came into their own as Carver let it roll down the precipitous bank of a dried-up river-bed and then up the other side. His pace slowed still further as the car made its way through tight gullies, the tyres fighting for purchase on narrow trails that fell away into ditches and ravines. What had been a straight line across country became a twisting course around blind corners and over humps in the landscape that gave no clue as to what lay on the other side.
Justus did his best to recall what lay in store for them, as did Zalika. But a long time had gone by since either of them had lived or worked on the Stratten Reserve, and their task was made no easier by the night, even if a three-quarter moon shone from the cloudless sky and the stars burned in the heavens as bright pinpricks of billion-year-old light.
From time to time, Carver stopped the car and they listened for any sound of pursuit. Then, clutching his own rifle for security, Justus got out and tentatively walked on ahead, scouting out the way before returning to report his findings to Carver. As he stood outside the Land Rover, talking in a low, barely audible voice to Carver in the driver’s seat, his reports were always calm and measured, expert assessments of the challenges they faced.
They were so close to the border now, just another few minutes’ drive. The tension was still acute, the fear of capture ever-present. Now, though, for the first time, there was real hope, too. Carver had let himself imagine the beer that Parkes had waiting for him. Justus could almost feel the joy that would come when he held his children in his arms again.
But then, on his fifth sortie, when they were traversing a hillside along a narrow ledge, a rockface rising to the left of them, the slope falling steeply away to the right, Justus returned at a sprint, looking behind him as he ran. In his haste, he did not see the small hole in the trail ahead of him. His foot turned on the side of the hole, twisting his ankle and sending Justus crashing to the ground. In an instant he was up again, grimacing as he got to his feet and hobbling the last few steps to the car. He pulled open the passenger door, leapt up into his seat, the effort making him cry out in pain, and slammed it shut again before gasping a single, breathless word: ‘Lion!’
‘Where?’ Carver asked.
‘Just around the corner, in the middle of the path. He is asleep. I don’t think I woke him.’
‘Then we’d better do it.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t be daft. He’ll soon wake up and get the hell out of there when he sees a bloody great lump of metal lumbering towards him.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Zalika. ‘Lions aren’t like other animals. They don’t move just because they see us coming.’
‘We’ll just have to make him move, then, won’t we?’
The mutters of protest from the other two were drowned out as Carver started up the engine and moved the Land Rover forward. Its tyres crunched over dust and pebbles as it slowly drove round the corner. And there, exactly as Justus had promised, lay a very large, very sleepy lion.
94
Lobengula had encountered his first truck when he was still a cub. Over the years he had become accustomed to these loud, smelly objects and had learned that they offered neither a threat to him nor a meal. He was, therefore, entirely indifferent to their presence. So now, when the noise of the Land Rover’s engine woke him, he reluctantly opened his eyes, glowered at the vehicle approaching him, then rested his head back down on his huge paws.
The metal machine came closer to him, so close that he could almost reach out his claws and strike it. This time when he raised his head, Lobengula’s stare was a lot angrier and he gave a low, grumbling growl of disapproval. Then, determined not to budge, he lowered his head again.
‘Why don’t you give it a blast of the horn?’ asked Zalika.
Carver almost thought he could hear a teasing tone in her voice, a return to her old, combative spirit. But then he recalled all the times during the drive when she had turned in her seat, looking anxiously out of the rear window to see if anyone was on her trail. Whatever front she might put on, Zalika was all too aware of the danger they were still in.
‘Can’t risk it,’ he said. ‘If there’s anyone out there, they’d hear it. Maybe we could shoot it.’
‘You should only shoot a lion if you can kill it there and then,’ said Justus. ‘And if you kill this lion right here, you will then have to move its body.’
‘That means getting a chain round it, using the winch – we haven’t got time for all that,’ Carver said. ‘The hell with this.’
He revved the engine then slowly inched the car forward. Surely the lion would move once it felt the press of steel on its body.
Lobengula moved. He scrabbled backwards, got to his feet, gave an irritable shake of his mane and then, standing four square in the Land Rover’s path, he growled again, a shorter, more clipped sound, almost a bark. It was his equivalent of a warning shot across the bows. The next time he’d really roar. And if that didn’t remove this nuisance from his life, he’d have to start fighting.
Carver rolled his eyes and looked up at the roof of the car. ‘Jesus wept.’
‘There was another path, a couple of hundred metres back, pointing down the hill. Maybe we could try that,’ Zalika suggested.
‘Anything’s better than pissing about here,’ said Carver, pulling at his seat-belt. ‘Strap in tight.’
The lion wasn’t the only male losing his temper. The tension and impatience Carver had suppressed so efficiently for the
past forty minutes burst through his tightly stretched composure. He wrenched the gear-stick into reverse, turned in his seat to look through the rear window and kicked the accelerator hard.
The Land Rover shot backwards. Carver turned the steering wheel hard to get back round the corner. Too hard: the rear corner of the car collided with the sheer rock on the upward side of the hill. Carver overcompensated as he pulled the wheel the other way.
‘Watch out!’ Zalika yelled.
But it was too late. One of the rear tyres had lost its footing on the edge of the road. Carver slammed on the brakes, but the Land Rover was out of control, skidding sideways and backwards over the edge, crashing on to its side and sliding twenty feet down the hill until it collided roof-first with the base of a tree and came to a crashing halt.
Carver turned off the engine, and as a cloud of smoke and dust drifted away on the breeze, silence returned to the hillside. The tree had punched a great trough in the roof of the Land Rover. All the windows down the driver’s side of the car were smashed and the interior of the car was scattered with safety glass. The three people inside were hanging sideways in their chairs, suspended from their seat-belts.
The right side of Carver’s head had smashed against the side of the car as it fell. It ached, and there was blood dripping from his forehead into one eye. Aside from that he felt bruised and shaken but otherwise in one piece. There were no broken bones, so far as he could tell.
‘You guys all right?’ he asked.
There were grunts of assent from Justus, who was hanging immediately above him, and Zalika in the rear.
And then she said, ‘Now what?’
As the Land Rover reversed away from him, Lobengula’s first instinct had been to get back to sleep. He was just about to slump back down on the ground when a scent came to him, one that had previously been masked by the stench of the exhaust: the smell of human being.
Lobengula had never been a man-eater. For the great majority of his life he had never needed to be. There had been plenty of game on the reserve and plenty of willing females to hunt it on his behalf. Now, though, times had changed. Humans might be unfamiliar prey, but they smelled edible, just the same. And Lobengula was very, very hungry.
Filled with the curiosity natural to his kind, he padded along the trail and down the hillside towards the ruined car.
95
Carver was busy working out the best way of getting out of the Land Rover. It was a right-hand-drive vehicle, so the door on his side was now pressed against the ground. There was a fist-sized hole in the windscreen directly in front of him and the rest of the glass was so cracked that one good kick would get rid of it. First, though, he had to find a way of delivering that kick, which would mean unstrapping himself and freeing his legs from the well in front of the driver’s seat. Justus would have the easier way out if he could somehow open the passenger-side window or door and scramble up through that. Zalika would be able to do the same at the back.
Somehow, though, Carver felt that he should be the first one out of the vehicle. He was painfully aware that anyone for miles around would have heard the sound of the crash – a crash that was entirely his fault. He had got them into this mess. Time he started getting them out of it.
Justus, however, had other ideas. He was wriggling in his seat, trying to reach the handle that would wind down his window. He finally got hold of it and started turning it as fast as he could.
Then a low, purring growl reverberated round the inside of the Land Rover. Suddenly Justus began working the handle the other way. The lion was just outside. They could hear it snuffling at the upturned car, pawing the ground.
‘Oh God, oh God … come on …’ he muttered as Zalika shrieked, ‘For God’s sake, close that fucking window!’
Just then there was a thud up above him. The lion had jumped up and was now pacing along the overturned bodywork and peering in through the windows.
Zalika screamed. She unclipped her harness and fell down to the bottom of the car, away from the marauding animal. Justus lowered himself more carefully and crouched down next to Carver.
By now, Carver had drawn the pistol that Parkes had given him and pointed it up at the side of the car. ‘Watch out,’ he said. ‘Fire in the hole.’
He punched half-a-dozen holes in the side of the car as he fired at where the great cat was standing. From outside came a squeal of pain. The lion half-jumped, half-fell down to the ground, gave another agonized grunt, then disappeared into the night.
For an entire minute, no one moved. But there were no more sounds from outside. No sign of the animal’s return.
‘Right,’ said Carver. ‘Time to go.’
‘But the lion is still out there,’ Justus protested. ‘And as long as it is alive it is dangerous.’
‘Yeah, the lion and Moses Mabeki. He’s out there somewhere, too, and I’m not waiting for him to find us.’
‘He might not find us,’ said Zalika. ‘Why don’t we wait a bit longer, just to make sure the lion has really gone away?’
Carver was about to reply when he stopped, tilted his head to one side and whispered, ‘Listen.’
The only sound to be heard in the Land Rover was very faint, but unmistakable: a helicopter, still a fair way off but getting closer all the time.
‘Right, that does it,’ said Carver. ‘I don’t care how many lions are prowling around outside, we’re getting out of here.’
96
Moses Mabeki was up at the front of the helicopter in the co-pilot’s seat, his eyes focused on the ever-moving pool of light created by the searchlight as it swept across the ground just a couple of hundred feet below. They were passing over hillier country now, where the shadows cast by the broken landscape made it harder than ever to see anything down below. His frustration was mounting. The border with South Africa was barely a mile away now. There was a very real possibility that Carver had eluded him and, just as bad, taken the Stratten girl beyond his reach. He was almost at the point where he would have to admit defeat.
And then something caught his eye. At first, he could not say exactly what it was, just an anomaly in the landscape. He tapped the pilot on his shoulder. ‘Go back,’ he said, pointing down at the ground behind them. ‘I saw something.’
The pilot brought the chopper round through a one-eighty turn and retraced their course, more slowly now.
‘There!’ said Mabeki triumphantly, pointing down at the ground where the abandoned Land Rover lay. ‘I knew it! Get us down. As close to that car as possible.’
Barely a minute later, Mabeki was standing at the crash site, running his hands over the punctured flank of the Land Rover, contemplating the significance of shots fired from inside the car and wondering where the blood coagulating in drips and smears across the metal had come from.
‘Lion,’ said one of his men. ‘Big lion. See here.’
He flashed a torch at paw-prints the size of a large dinner-plate pressed into the earth around the car.
For a moment, Mabeki was nervous. ‘Lion? Where did it go?’
The man looked down at the prints and the drops of blood scattered among them. Then he pointed away down the hillside, to the northwest. ‘That way,’ he said.
‘And the people in the car?’
The man spent a few seconds examining the side of the hill before returning to Mabeki. ‘That way.’
He was pointing back up the hill, towards the trail that ran about twenty feet above their heads. Towards the South African border.
‘Excellent,’ said Mabeki. ‘Then let us follow them at once.’
Lobengula had indeed walked away to the northwest, but had not gone very far before lying down to ease the pain of his wounds, his huge frame melting invisibly into the undergrowth. In full sunlight, even an experienced tracker would have had a hard time spotting him. At night it was impossible.
The rounds fired by the M11 pistol would not have been recommended for the job by any reputable lion-hunter, and their traje
ctory had been impeded by the metal barrier through which they had flown, distorting their shape en route, before three of them hit Lobengula. So none of his wounds was fatal; not immediately so, at any rate. He had one round caught between two ribs, both of which were cracked as a result. Another had punctured his lower intestine. The third had worked its way into the muscle of his upper left hind leg, which he was now attempting to lick better. He was in severe pain, which increased with every breath or stride that he took.
But Lobengula had been a fighter all his life. This was not the first time he had been wounded. Countless claws had drawn blood from his flesh before now, but none of them had finished him. And he was not finished yet. Slowly, wincing with pain, he pulled himself to his feet and went on his way again.
97
Carver was working out the odds. They were not far from the border now, as little as half a mile, maybe. All three of them were armed: Carver and Justus with their M4s and Zalika with Carver’s pistol, which he had reloaded with a fresh magazine. But the going was getting tougher and their pace was slowed by the injury to Justus’s ankle. He had found a sturdy length of fallen branch to use as an impromptu crutch and was not making the slightest sound of complaint. But Carver only had to look at the sweat bathing his face and the silent gasps and screwed-up eyes when he took an especially agonizing step to know that Justus was in trouble. The helicopter had landed barely three minutes after they had left the Land Rover. It would take Mabeki a while, a very short while, to work out what had happened and pick up their trail. But after that, he and his men would surely be moving at a faster pace. Somehow, Carver had to buy them some time.
They had been walking through a thicket of trees and bushes. At its far end, they emerged into a small open space, perhaps thirty feet across, that stood at the foot of a low cliff. Straight ahead of them, the cliff was bisected by a narrow gully that cut into the rock, rising as it went. At the base of the cliff, by the mouth of the gully, lay a scattered pile of large boulders – the result, presumably, of some long-ago rock fall. They made a perfect defensive position. This, Carver decided, was where he would make his stand.