by Peter Rimmer
“Doing what? All we are trained to do is kill people. So far as I know there isn’t a war going on in Africa.”
“There’s always a war going on somewhere.”
* * *
In the end, they packed up everything themselves. Alfred was quite useless, trembling without control… With the three packhorses carrying the paraphernalia of amateur prospectors ready to travel, they pushed Alfred up on to his horse. It was two o’clock in the afternoon when they began the long journey to Elephant Walk. Ralph had looked at his watch to check the time. He was whistling a tune. One of the songs they had sung in the troopship crossing the English Channel when they went home, without Malcolm Scott, at the end of the war in France. When they thought the world would be their oyster before the reality of so many demobbed men looking for civilian jobs became apparent.
The bush was dry in June. There had been no rain since the end of April. The tall elephant grass was brown and brushed the bellies of the horses as they followed the tracks they had made on their journey north-west from Salisbury a month earlier. Nothing had grown without rain. Some of their tracks were scuffed by animals. There was no visible sign of man cutting their tracks. The wind had blown dust over the marks of the hard earth cut by the metal horseshoes. Since arriving in Rhodesia at the end of the rainy season, they had learnt to follow their own tracks and to read the stars to stop themselves going round in circles… There were no landmarks. Bush. Trees, not very tall and mostly leafless. Great round granite rocks with bald heads the size of an ocean liner. And grass. Tall grass hiding the teeming herds of animals most of the time. The smaller animals. They could see the elephant moving through the bush eating leaves from the tops of the trees with their trunks, pulling off the few succulent ones. Bringing them down into their mouths. Tons of fodder every day. The elephant ignoring the yellow and black spotted giraffe, the beautiful camels of the African bush.
They rode on all afternoon, making camp at dusk. They had to help Alfred down from his horse. He was jabbering away to them again in his own language.
“It was a great, red snapping snake. It chased me into the cave. Jumping up into the air and making a terrible noise. Not a snake of this world. Another message from the ancestors… We die now.”
The two Englishman, unable to understand a word of the Shona, ignored him. Alfred was gibbering. His mind unhinged. If they could talk to him, it would help but they couldn’t. Luckily for Alfred, Ralph kept the red silk scarf in his pocket. Had he pulled it out like a magician it would have likely stopped the man’s heart, killing him on the spot. Alfred was that obsessed with Harry Brigandshaw’s silk scarf. The empty navy cut tobacco tin with a spanner inside making all the noise.
They both gave him a pat on the shoulder, sat him on a fallen tree trunk and went about preparing their camp for the night. Bringing in firewood and clearing a large enough area of dry grass to make the fire and not set the bush alight.
The light went quickly. The crickets sang in the tall grass and from up in the trees. Their world shrank, becoming smaller with only the pool of light around the flickering fire. As they chewed the cold venison they had brought with them, they could hear animals all round their camp. Alfred ate some of the meat. They hoped he would sleep and feel better in the morning. At least he had stopped gibbering. They were worried about the man they had hired in Salisbury to show them through the African bush.
* * *
There had been a kill not far away from the camp. The hyena were loud and cautious. A wild dog barked and sent shivers down their spines. The scavengers were getting to eat from the kill.
“The lion have eaten,” said Keppel. “They won’t bother us now. Don’t sleep too well. We’ll have to keep the fire up ourselves. Poor old Alfred. Aircraft almost frightened him to death.”
“It would you if you’d never seen machinery before… What a place to live. Africa. Man living with the animals without all the rubbish of civilisation. Makes you think. Does a man need any more than this to be happy?”
“Just make sure we don’t make someone their dinner by letting the fire go out. A hyena can bite right through your leg. Take it right off.”
“Shut up, Keppel… You want some more cold meat?”
“The tea is ready.”
The sparks from the fire lifted up under the branches of the trees where they had camped. Away from the fire and the soft sparks rising in the heat of the fire, danced fireflies. Small red eyes flitting around in the dark of the bush. Noiseless.
Alfred went to sleep, curled up next to the fire. Ralph covered him with a blanket. The night cold had begun to grip the side of their bodies away from the fire.
“What are we going to do?” asked Keppel.
“I have absolutely no idea… Let the gods decide. We’re young.”
* * *
They rode off after breakfast with Alfred managing to climb on to his own horse. He was still muttering to himself. They hoped someone on Elephant Walk would translate for them the Shona so they knew what he was talking about. There had to be more than an aircraft in the sky. The fear in the black man’s eyes was palpable.
By mid-morning, they were in savannah. The grass came up to their knees. They rode through a sea of grass, gently blowing in the morning wind. They could hear the tsetse fly following as they rode. When the fly bit them through their khaki shirts it was like a red-hot needle in their flesh. Their wide-brimmed bush hats kept the sun from their eyes, the sweatband soaked black with sweat. They rode in riding breeches with thick leather puttees that covered from the top of their leather boots to their knees. The blue sky was lightly patterned with soft white clouds as far as the hills to the north that ended at the Zambezi escarpment where they had come from. Alfred was riding again in front, as was his job. Out of the sea of swaying brown grass, a lion’s head came up ten yards to the side of them making the lead horse bolt with Alfred trying to keep in the saddle. The male lion with its long black mane turned to look at the fleeing horseman. The lion did not move. It turned to look at Keppel and Ralph who had pulled up their horses and taken their rifles from the bucket holsters in front of their right knees. The three packhorses had stopped frozen. The horses were neighing in fear. Alfred was a hundred yards in front of them. At full gallop and still in the saddle.
A lioness stood up in the grass and looked at Ralph with cold, yellow eyes half closed against the direct rays of the morning sun. All around them lions stood up from the midst of the tall grass showing their big heads above the sea of grass. Many of them were only cubs. The packhorses were too frightened to bolt, shivering up and down their sides. All the lions were looking at them. Ralph and Keppel were in the middle of a large pride that had been sleeping in the grass. The black-maned lion yawned and disappeared. As quickly as they had risen to have a look at the interruption, the big cats disappeared back into the grass.
Ralph had the three packhorses on one long line and gently pulled them forward. They moved through the grass expecting to trample on a sleeping lion. Slowly. Guns at the ready. Searching all around. Adrenaline pumping. Fear sweating the backs of their shirts.
Slowly they moved away from the hidden danger.
* * *
Ten minutes later, they looked back at where they had been. There was no sign of the pride of lion. In front, there was no sign of Alfred. The horse had bolted out of the savannah. Out of their sight. Into the trees that were mostly msasa. Small with spreading canopies that looked like tabletops from a distance. A large bird was sitting on top of one of the trees using its wings to keep its balance.
“Poor old Alfred,” said Ralph. “Just not his week.”
“You think he fell off?”
“We’ll soon find out. That horse cut a swathe through the grass even my mother could follow… We were lucky. They were sleeping off an earlier dinner… How many did you see?” Ralph wanted to laugh now the danger was over.
“Fifteen, twenty. I didn’t count.”
“The horse will be
blown. We’ll have to camp when we find him. How long do you think that invitation will last?” Ralph had taken off his sweat-stained bush hat and was wiping his forehead with the back of his right hand. Then he drank from a water bottle, his old army water bottle that he kept on his hip. The water tasted cool.
It took them three hours to find Alfred’s blown horse. Alfred was grinning at them, showing two rows of perfectly white teeth.
“Lion,” he said. “Shumba.”
They all laughed together from the relief. As much as at finding each other again from being far away from the pride of lion.
The bolting horse had finally stopped on the banks of a small river. It was a perfect spot to camp with tall shade trees on the banks. A troop of vervet monkeys were watching them, their faces peering around the protection of the green leaves. Small round faces with perfect black markings. Every time they pulled back their faces from the canopy of the trees, they thought they were hidden, leaving their long grey tails plain as pikestaffs. All the trees had their roots in the river.
It was a beautiful place where they camped. Within five minutes, Keppel had caught a five-pound fish. Freshwater bream. It was the best food they had eaten since making their permanent camp in the cave on top of the escarpment back in February. Keppel had scaled the fish. They cooked it whole over the coals of the fire, and then placed it on their one tin plate. Eating under the tree with the monkeys, the three men sat cross-legged around the dish. They broke into the white flesh of the fish with their fingers. They ate slowly, luxuriously, until they were full. Then they lay back in the shade of the tall tree and went to sleep away from the noonday sun.
When they woke, the monkeys had gone. The tree above them was empty. Buck were drinking from the river on the opposite bank. Waterbuck. The buck saw the waking men and ran back into the safety of the thorn bush.
They stayed the night on the bank of the river and crossed in the morning. The water came up to the bellies of the horses as they crossed. They had fired shots into the water to make a path away from the crocodiles that watched them from a small island in the stream. The crocodiles had big eyes but did not move into the water. All three of them had their guns at the ready to protect themselves with the packhorses in the middle of the small cavalcade.
* * *
Two days later, navigating the savannah like a sailor far out on the great oceans of the world, they joined the wagon-rutted road that had been cut for fifty miles out of Salisbury by the Southern Rhodesian government to open up the country to the north. Only once had they passed an African village. Rondavels with thinly thatched roofs. Long-legged chickens. Black pigs that ate human faeces and kept the area around the huts clean of disease. Near the village were stalks of old maize stands. The village was on another small river. Near the river were patches of pumpkin with thorn bush fences to keep out the pigs and wild animals. Later, they saw a herd of long-horned cattle that belonged to the village being tended to by two small naked and very thin boys. They both ignored the greeting from Alfred. Just stared. Ralph wondered what had happened to the rest of the people, as the village had been empty. Not even an emaciated dog had been seen in another village on their journey north out of Salisbury at the end of the rainy season. It was as though the whole of that part of Africa had been cleansed of people. Ralph wondered about it more than once. Was it war or disease? If the English wanted to farm in that part of Africa, there would be little labour to employ. Even the cattle with the small boys had been skin and bones. Walking skeletons.
The following day they found a sign that read ‘Elephant Walk’ and turned off the government road that led to nowhere. Later, they found out the new government of Charles Coghlan was to open up the empty land to European settlement. The problem was the tsetse fly that killed people and cattle and fed off the game that was immune to the deadly sickness. To settle the area would mean shooting out the game to eradicate the problem, a task beyond the new government. Africa had a way of protecting its solitude; Ralph was to find out in years to come. Nature always prevailed. Always had a new disease to keep the population of man under control. To stop the bush from being overgrazed by man and beast.
A good, well-worn track led off the road, marked by vehicle wheels along with the ruts of the old wagon wheels. The earth was a strange red. The red dust soon covered them all.
Out of nowhere came an avenue of jacaranda trees. The trees were many years old. At the end of the line of jacaranda were farm buildings and one huge shed next to a well-kept airstrip. They could see the tailpiece of the Handley Page through the open door of the hangar. There were people everywhere going about their business. The buildings were solid and well kept. Between the buildings were lawns. On the lawns were farm equipment newly painted. Standing in neat rows. Ploughs. Discers. Ridgers. Some pieces of equipment Ralph had never seen before.
A white man dressed in cotton trousers, open-necked shirt, bush shoes and a large hat, came out of one of the smaller buildings as their horses threaded their way through the tobacco barns that rose high on both sides of them, tall chimneys rising up on the sides of the blocks of brick barns to thirty feet above their heads. There were fires at the base of the barns, round, brick-made fires long enough to burn the trunk of a tree. Next to the fires were stacks of trees ready for the next year’s tobacco season.
The man was well built, his face turned mahogany by the African sun, and in his mid-thirties. There was not an ounce of fat on his body. His shirt hung like a rag from the back of his trousers. The smiling eyes looking at the travellers were green marbled with grey flecks. Ralph had a way of telling a man from his eyes. The man was a little short of six-foot, his hands covered in black grease and old oil. He was trying to clean them with a dirty rag that was spreading the grease up his arms.
“You got my message. Well done. Can’t shake hands. Covered in engine oil. Bloody tractor’s blown a gasket. You’re just in time for lunch. My name’s Harry Brigandshaw. Come and meet my wife down at the compound. My man over there is Tembo and he’ll look after your man along with the horses.”
“This is yours,” said Ralph taking the red silk scarf out of his pocket. “My name’s Ralph Madgwick. My friend is Keppel Howland.”
“Thanks. Flew with me right through the war… What’s wrong with your man? He looked terrified. Oh, well nothing Tembo can’t cure. He’s a magician. We’ll walk. The houses are half a mile from here. The gardens run down to the Mazoe River. What on earth were you chaps doing up there on the escarpment? Saw the smoke from your fire. Couldn’t believe my eyes and neither could my nephew.”
“We shot a brace of duck at a river on the way here,” said Ralph, handing them over.
“Jolly good.” Harry gave the birds to Tembo. “He’ll pluck and gut or get one of the other chaps to do the work.”
“This place is well established.”
“The oldest farm in Mashonaland so my father said. He was the white hunter, Sebastian Brigandshaw. Fact is we were here before the column hoisted the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury in September 1890. General Oosthuizen was my father’s mentor and partner. That was his grandson and my nephew you probably saw. Young Tinus loves my aircraft. Strap him in so he can stand up in the rear cockpit but not climb out. He’s six going on seven. I’ll teach him to fly when he’s older… How about a cold beer?”
The man they had first seen in flying helmet and goggles walked beside them. Another white man was standing in an open-sided tractor shed. A black man’s feet stuck out from under the front of the tractor. Another black man was sitting up on the metal bucket seat pulling a lever on the steering column up and down to intermittently rev the engine.
“It’s off-season,” Harry explained following their gaze. “Maintenance time. Everything on the farm has to be working properly before the new season starts next month. The ploughing and discing. Remaking the contours so the rains don’t run off with my topsoil. Farming in Africa is a permanent challenge. Too much rain and then too little. Just as bad. M
y ambition is to dam the Mazoe River so I can put water on every inch of the farm without staring at the heavens. Cut out half the weather problem. This is a tobacco farm. The maize and cattle take second place when it comes to making money. We sell to the British American Tobacco Company. Jim Bowman over there is the assistant to my grandfather who runs the tobacco. Grandfather has a cousin in Virginia who sent in the first seed and a rundown on growing flue-cured tobacco. I’ve been away in England on family business for a year. We own Colonial Shipping. Why I have the aircraft to fly me to Beira in Mozambique and Cape Town in South Africa. Talk to the ships’ captains. Only way I can spend time in the bush and keep my sanity. I don’t like the City life. Jim’s from Liverpool. They gave him a commission in the field during the war. Quite a hero our Jim. Lucky to have him. You look too young to have been in the war.”
“We lied about our age. Our best friend from school was killed. He was seventeen.”
“I’m sorry… Army?”
“Yes.”
“We had an easy war in the Flying Corps. My younger brother George was killed in the army. Why I went over. Revenge… Silly, really. They were just the same as us. Young men. Not so young men like me… Why do we always end up wanting to kill each other…? Can you hear that wailing sound? That’s my son Anthony. He was born two weeks ago with a first-class pair of lungs. They say children who yell in the cot are going to give the world a lot of trouble. I hope not… Look out! Here come the dogs. They are Rhodesian ridgebacks. A bitch and two dogs.”
The dogs had run out from a group of houses that Ralph could see between the trees. The dogs were patted in turn by Harry Brigandshaw and ran back to the houses not even looking at the new arrivals.
Turning back, Keppel could see Alfred and the black man Harry Brigandshaw had called Tembo walking towards what Keppel thought were the farm stables. Next to the stables in a field, he could see a pair of giraffe.