By-Line Ernest Hemingway

by Ernest Hemingway

  I believe that is one reason why people when they know they are crashing observe all such details so thoroughly. I believe that the details are observed in the mind with as great an intensity as the means of self-preservation. This is natural since any means of self-preservation which was not absolutely ethical would be detected in the interrogation and so you are doing three things.

  One, you are trying to stay alive in order to keep all passengers alive, thus avoiding what are classified as “fatal crashes.” The fatal crash is viewed very badly and all efforts are made to avoid it.

  The second thing you are doing is to attempt to perform this in a completely ethical manner; that is, according to your own ethics.

  The third thing you are doing when you crash is to do it so it will look good to the insurance company.

  To have it look good to the insurance company, you must make this sort of triple play with extreme speed and accuracy and later must remember everything including in larger aircraft such things as propeller pitch. We had excellent photographs which would have borne out all our statements, but unfortunately these burned in the crash of the second aircraft. It was therefore a question of a long, both exhaustive and exhausting test of one’s veracity and technical knowledge.

  • • •

  No one knew for several days whether he had passed this test. The Inquisitors were always kind and gentle when interrogating, as is the tradition of Scotland Yard; but on about the third day of interrogation, we began to note a certain note of cordiality rather than the regulation politeness.

  After the preliminary inquiry, we met the press, rather, I met them while Miss Mary went to her room for a needed rest. I felt an urgent need to rest also but attempted to give the reporters a clear account of the two crashes with certain possibly interesting details. I reserved the details that you have been reading. At the time, I did not wish to ever write anything about the two crashes but since then I have read so many absurd accounts in our various obituaries, especially in the foreign press, that I thought it would be best to give a true and accurate account.

  It was interesting while talking to the press to note that there were two of each of them where only one stood and it was odd to be talking and occasionally not hear the sound of one’s own voice. It is a great relief sometimes not to hear the sound of one’s own voice if one is the talkative rather than the strong, silent type. However, not hearing the sound of my voice made it much simpler to talk to people that I had not previously met.

  Roy Marsh had proceeded by aircraft to Nairobi to report to his company and be inquisited a little more. He returned to Entebbe with a Cessna 170, the older brother of the 180 we had left behind at Murchison Falls. In the meantime, and almost immediately after we arrived in Entebbe, my middle son Patrick arrived, having chartered a plane in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and flown by way of Mwanza. He arrived as fast as any man could and had with him 14,000 shillings. This is the first time any son of mine has ever arrived without being broke or, if you did not hear from him, asking you to either get him back into the Army or get him out of jail. He thus to me becomes the hero of this story just as Miss Mary is the one and only heroine. Roy Marsh occupied the top hero billing until the arrival of Patrick with the 14,000 shillings.

  Quickly reducing Patrick’s capital, Roy Marsh and I took off in the Cessna for Nairobi to face the Inquisitors and left Patrick to care for Miss Mary and bring her with him on the regular airline. In Nairobi, we were very well received and met a number of extremely nice people.

  It was at this point that I commenced that strange vice which I believe could become extremely destructive to one’s general equilibrium and cause one, perhaps, to lose one’s status as a completely well-adjusted person. I had always run as an adjusted person though various tinhorn biographers had attempted to prove otherwise.

  This strange vice was the reading of one’s own obituaries. Most of the obituaries I could never have written nearly as well myself. There were certain inaccuracies and many good things were said which were in no way deserved. There were, however, some rather glaring inaccuracies in the account of my unfortunate death. One in the German press stated that I had attempted to land the aircraft myself on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, which we call “Kibo.” It seems that I was landing this aircraft accompanied by Miss Mary in an effort to approach the carcass of a dead leopard about which I had written a story in 1934. This story was called The Snows of Kilimanjaro and was made into a motion picture which I unfortunately was not able to sit through so I cannot tell you how it came out. Perhaps the end was that I crashed an aircraft accompanied by Miss Mary at the extreme summit of this peak, which is 19,565 or 19,567 feet high entirely according to which surveyor you believe. Maybe it rises and falls.

  During our tour of duty in the Laitokitok area which is on the slopes of this mountain, we had frequently flown over its flanks perhaps as high as 15,000 feet. I would have no wish, under any circumstances, to put down a Cessna 180 on the extreme summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in my “constant efforts to court death.” In the first place, it would be difficult to get the Cessna up there, impossible to put her down, and there would be a long walk home to Laitokitok.

  It is much easier to walk downhill on this mountain than uphill. I had proved that assertion through having to walk some 15 miles downhill in pursuit—at one time, close pursuit—of a lion which was bothering local characters. The pursuit was most pleasant and the lion escaped. The only tragic part of this story, unlike most of the thrilling details one hears about the King of Beasts, is that we were then forced to walk 15 miles back uphill to the point from which we started. This puts you in excellent shape but in no sense resembles a few hands of canasta after dinner, especially if you have been sweating heavily, have no raincoat, and it starts to rain. However, in Laitokitok, I rubbed myself down with Messrs. Gordon’s excellent product, purchased a shirt of the type which is stocked in the dukka (Hindu store) and sold to the local Christian converts of Laitokitok, who seem to me a uniformly worthless lot and who stood around on the corner of the street of Laitokitok wearing large tight shoes and dressed in European clothes while other people were comfortably dressed, able to lean on their spears and were either barefoot or wore comfortable sandals.

  Many of these latter citizens, the spear-carrying variety, became fairly intimate friends. I joined an elderly chief of the Masai Tribe, for whom we had killed a lion which had been bothering the cattle, in splitting a bottle of Tusker beer which he offered me. Although we were a part of the Law West of the Pecos, I saw no reason not to join an elderly chief that one knew quite well in a couple of glasses of beer since he was a man of great authority in his district and, if I refused to drink with him, which could be making a grave breach of etiquette, he might drink instead some of the inferior beer produced on some of the neighbouring shambas.

  Some of this beer is excellent and I have often sampled it. It is much healthier for those Masai who, unfortunately, have taken up the habit of drinking due to their wealth and the inactivity of the men, who do not now kill the marauding lion nor engage in war. The warriors have generally, in this area, become addicted to a beverage manufactured in South Africa and shipped into the colony, which is known as Golden Jeep sherry. This is a beverage that I would always be forced to refuse no matter by whom it was offered. As a moral force in the Masai country, I have attempted to discourage the consumption of this beverage at any cost except drinking it.

  The chief and I were shortly joined by three other tribal leaders and started discussing lion hunting in general, and the lion hunt of that day on which several warriors (Morani) had been initiated into this science or sport, which is infinitely more pleasurable if the lion is chased out of the country rather than makes his bid.

  I had ascertained, with the aid of my own trackers who were on the left flank, and the best tracker of the game scouts, an old ivory poacher, Arab Minor, called by his intimates Mehna, who was expiating a fairly grave sin which he had comm
itted, what direction the lion was pursuing. We were all fairly relieved that Arab Minor was expiating this sin, which involved the consumption of Golden Jeep, by being given the honor of taking the center and staying on the track, which he was to follow as rapidly as possible while we flanked on the left. We were then to pick up the track if it turned or take the lion if he came in Arab Minor’s direction. If he came in Arab Minor’s direction we would kill him if it were humanly possible.

  Arab Minor would also attempt to kill him whenever he saw him. With me were the three best Wakamba trackers, one with a 12-gauge shotgun, one with my big gun, the .577, one with a spear. I was carrying the Springfield 30-06 with six 220-grain Silvertip rounds. We had given the right flank to a young police officer six months out from England who had not previously hunted lion and he had with him the local Masai who were also taking up lion hunting for the first time.

  • • •

  For our sins, but not with evil intention, rather in the spirit of good clean fun, we hoped the lion would break to the right. He neither broke to the right nor broke to the left but continued on his way until Mehna and my people knew he had gone clean out of the country. At one time, we were quite close to him but he had been lying down and had rested. He then picked up speed, or, as I would say in Ndege or aircraft parlance, he poured on the coal. We determined this by the sudden depth of the tracks and the length of the bounds. He then settled into a steady trot. We followed him over a ridge, climbed the ridge and saw that there was no sight of him. We then sent Mehna, and he picked up the lion’s tracks and returned to say that he was still going at speed and moving out of the country. The mission accomplished, we returned up the hill.

  This hill was one which Earl Theisen, our photographer at the start of the expedition, finding difficulty with the word Kilimanjaro and forgetting the word Kibo, always referred to as “that big hill Papa made all his money from.” On the way back up the slope of the big hill, the Masai suddenly became very lion-conscious. They would suddenly shout, “He’s in there! He’s in there!”

  I, being rained on while sweating, was irascible, not as irascible as Miss Mary can get when she wishes to go into true irascibility with a fool, but still irascible. I would say, “Well, then, my beautiful Morani, why don’t you go in and drive him out?”

  The Masai would consult among themselves, with the Wakamba all laughing but trying not to let the Masai see them. Arab Minor, having expiated, was in an excellent mood. Knowing the lion was not there and wishing to acquire a reputation for fearlessness, I would take the spear of one of the Masai and go in and thresh the bushes and speak insultingly to Mr. or Mrs. Simba as if they were present. Of course they were not present, but after about twelve of these “That’s where he is, he’s in there” incidents, I began to wonder if perhaps there might not be a lion somewhere that we had not seen, in which case considerable activity would have resulted. So I then said, “Let us proceed to Laitokitok where the Wakamba can slake their thirst and the Masai can quaff a little mixed milk and blood.”

  I knew of course that they would hit the Golden Jeep sherry but having been irascible I now wished to be polite, so we proceeded to Laitokitok and that was the end of that lion hunt.

  In the reading of our obituaries, it was incidents like that which came into my mind and I thought that perhaps a true account of the two crashes and how one felt before, during and after might be justified.

  If the German obituaries were romantic and full of Götter-dämmerung although extremely laudatory, the Italian obituaries passed them in many aspects. There were appreciations of us by people who described themselves as our only true and intimate friends and who knew the innermost contents of my heart.

  Since I myself have no idea of the innermost contents of my heart and would not trust it for a minute if I did, some of these obituaries came as a surprise. Actually in regard to the innermost contents of my heart, probably a most foul place, I would rather have a good cardiograph report. However, I was touched deeply by the friendship that was displayed.

  We love Italy very much and more than that we love many individual Italians. Maybe too many individual Italians. None of those we truly loved wrote obituaries. They were instead, I believe, at Mass and many old friends would not believe that we were dead unless they saw the bodies.

  The British papers I know about only through a cutting which was sent to me by a friend, and opinions seemed to be quite mixed.

  What gave one most pleasure was to read in some papers, not the Times nor the Observer nor the Guardian, descriptions of one’s habits and character and the exact circumstances under which one’s death was achieved. Some of these were the work of great imaginative writers. We resolved to attempt to live up to them at some future date.

  In all obituaries, or almost all, it was emphasized that I had sought death all my life. Can one imagine that if a man sought death all of his life he could not have found her before the age of 54? It is one thing to be in the proximity of death, to know more or less what she is, and it is quite another thing to seek her. She is the most easy thing to find that I know of. You can find her through a minor carelessness on a road with heavy traffic, you could find her in a full bottle of Seconal, you could find her with any type of razor blade; you could find her in your own bathtub or you could find her by not being battle-wise. There are so many ways of finding her that it is stupid to enumerate them.

  If you have spent your life avoiding death as cagily as possible but, on the other hand taking no backchat from her and studying her as you would a beautiful harlot who could put you soundly to sleep forever with no problems and no necessity to work, you could be said to have studied her but you have not sought her. Because you know among one or two other things that if you sought her you would possess her and from her reputation you know that she would present you with an incurable disease. So much for the constant pursuit of death.

  It is a facile theory to hold though and I can see when someone has to write an obituary in a hurry it would be a quick solution to a complicated subject. The most complicated subject that I know, since I am a man, is a man’s life. I am sure that a woman’s life is most complicated if she has any ethics. Lately, these have seemed, from my reading of the newspapers, a fairly lost commodity, but I know that they still exist in the people who do not spend their time in the newspapers nor in the acquiring of alimony, and I have always considered that it was easy to be a man compared to being a woman who lives by as rigid standards as men live by. No one of us lives by as rigid standards nor has as good ethics as we planned but an attempt is made.

  At this point, I went to sleep and had a dream. Fortunately, I dream a great deal and the night is almost as much fun as the day. They are all nocturnal dreams, for so far I have never daydreamed, being too busy observing or having fun, and latterly reading my obituaries, a new and attractive vice.

  • • •

  In my nocturnal dreams, when they are not the bad kind that you get after a war where other people are killed sometimes by your fault, I am nearly always a very gay and witty person faintly addicted to the more obvious types of heroism and, with all, a most attractive type. In my nocturnal dreams, I am always between 25 or 30 years old, I am irresistible to women, dogs and, on one recent occasion, to a very beautiful lioness.

  In the dream, this lioness, who became my fiancée, was one of the most delightful creatures that I have ever dreamt about. She had some of the characteristics of Miss Mary and she could become irascible. On one occasion, I recall she did an extremely perilous act. Perilous to me, that is. When I recalled the dream to Miss Mary and Denis Zaphiro at breakfast, they appeared to be appreciative of the dream, but they seemed slightly shocked. Denis invited me to share a bottle of beer with him, a thing that I almost never do at breakfast, and I sat drinking this beer and remembering with great pleasure the night I had spent with the beautiful lioness.

  One of the aspects of this dream that I remember was that the lioness was killing game for me ex
actly as she would for a male of her own species; but instead of our having to devour the meat raw, she cooked it in a most appetizing manner. She used only butter for basting the impala chops. She braised the tenderloin and served it, on the grass, in a manner worthy of the Ritz in Paris. She asked me if I wanted any vegetables, and knowing that she herself was completely nonherbivorous, I refused in order to be polite. In any case, there were no vegetables.

  • • •

  This is the type of dream which I have more or less habitually so perhaps you can understand, and Freudian scholars may interpret, the following dream, which was an odd dream indeed, but my brain being in this damaged condition, I was not responsible. It was quite strange and I can remember one of the dislocated sides of my brain being surprised at the language of the characters.

  In this dream, I was out, barefoot, on a moonlight night with my best and second-best spear hunting the wild-dog pack. They only hunt at first light and at dusk though they will trail through the day. But at night, they pack in together, under a tree usually, and sometimes you can get one with the spear and you might get two.

  In the dream, and a few nights before in real life, I had made a very careful approach, barefoot, and bagged, or rather killed, one out of the pack of vermin. Then in the dream, I saw the Honorable Senator standing in the moonlight with his spear. I recognized him from his photographs in a news magazine.

  “Hi, Senator,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “What are you after?” the Senator asked sternly.

  “Wild dogs,” I said cheerfully, just having got a wild dog.

  “I am after subversives,” the Senator replied.

  “Get many?” I asked.

  “Thousands,” he said. “Have you seen Cohn and Schine?”

  “No,” I answered. “Maybe they are up at Laitokitok. That’s where you can get the good Golden Jeep sherry.”