by Wilbur Smith
‘David, what is it?’ Debra pleaded with him, and as he worked he explained it in a few terse Hebrew sentences.
‘Get in,’ he told her and she clambered into the passenger seat of the Land-Rover. He laid the injured Labrador in her lap, and ran around to the driver’s seat.
Akkers was back at the doorway of his shop, standing with his thumbs hooked into his braces, and he was laughing. The false teeth clucked in the open mouth as he laughed, rocking back and forth on his heels.
On its kennel the baboons shrieked and cavorted, sharing its master’s mirth.
‘Hey, Mr Morgan,’ Akkers giggled, ‘don’t forget your nails!’
David swung round to face him, his face felt tight and hot, the cicatrice that covered his cheeks and forehead were inflamed and the dark blue eyes blazed with a terrible anger. He started up the steps. His mouth was a pale hard slit, and his fists were clenched at his sides.
Akkers stepped backwards swiftly and reached behind the shop counter. He lifted out an old double-barrelled shotgun, and cocked both hammers with a sweep of his thick bony thumb.
‘Self defence, Mr Morgan, with witnesses,’ he giggled with sadistic relish. ‘Come one step closer and we will get a look at your guts also.’
David paused at the top of the steps, and the gun – held in one huge fist – pointed at his belly.
‘David, hurry – oh, please hurry,’ Debra called anxiously from the Land-Rover, with the weak squirming body of the pup in her lap.
‘We’ll meet again.’ David’s anger had thickened his tongue.
‘That will be fun,’ said Akkers, and David turned away and ran down the steps.
Akkers watched the Land-Rover pull away and swing into the road in a cloud of dust, before he set the shotgun aside. He went out into the sunlight, and the baboon scrambled down from its pole and rushed to meet him. It jumped up on to his hip and clung to him like a child.
Akkers took a boiled sweet from his pocket and placed it tenderly between the terrible yellow fangs.
‘You lovely old thing,’ he chuckled, scratching the high cranium with its thick cap of grey fur and the baboon squinted up at his face with narrow brown eyes, chattering softly.
Despite the rough surface, David covered the thirty miles back to Jabulani in twenty-five minutes. He skidded the vehicle to a halt beside the hangar, and ran with the pup in his arms to the aircraft.
During the flight Debra nursed him gently in her lap, and her skirts were sodden with his dark blood. The pup had quieted, and except for an occasional whimper now lay still. Over the W/T David arranged for a car to meet them at Nelspruit airfield and forty-five minutes after take-off they had Zulu on the theatre table in the veterinary surgeon’s clinic.
The veterinary surgeon worked with complete concentration for over two hours at repairing the torn entrails and suturing the layers of abdominal muscle.
The pup was so critically injured, and infection was such a real danger, that they dared not return to Jabulani until it had passed. Five days later, when they flew home with Zulu still weak and heavily strapped but out of danger, David altered his flight path to bring them in over the trading store at Bandolier Hill.
The iron roof shone like a mirror in the sun, and David felt his anger very cold and hard and determined.
‘The man is a threat to us,’ he said aloud. ‘A real threat to each of us, and to what we are trying to build at Jabulani.’
Debra nodded her agreement, stroking the pup’s head and not trusting herself to speak. Her own anger was as fierce as David’s.’
‘I’m going to get him,’ he said softly, and he heard the Brig’s voice in his memory.
‘The only excuse for violence is to protect what is rightfully yours.’
He banked steeply away and lined up for his approach to the landing-strip at Jabulani.
Conrad Berg called again to sample the Old Buck gin, and to tell David that his application to have Jabulani declared a private nature reserve had been approved by the Board and that the necessary documentation would soon be ready for signature.
‘Do you want me to pull the fence out now?’
‘No,’ David answered grimly. ‘Let it stand. I don’t want Akkers frightened off.’
‘Ja,’ Conrad agreed heavily. ‘We have got to get him.’ He called Zulu to him and examined the scar that was ridged and shaped like forked lightning across the pup’s belly. The bastard,’ he muttered, and then glanced guiltily at Debra. ‘Sorry, Mrs Morgan.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Mr Berg,’ she said softly, and Zulu watched her lips attentively when she spoke – his head cocked to one side.
Like all young things, he had healed cleanly and quickly.
The marula grove that ran thickly along the base of the hills about the String of Pearls came into flower.
The boles were straight and sturdy, each crowned with a fully rounded, many-branched head of dense foliage, and the red flowers made a royal show.
Almost daily David and Debra would wander together through the groves, down the rude track to the pools, and Zulu regained his strength on these leisurely strolls which always culminated in a swim and a lusty shaking off of water droplets, usually on to the nearest bystander.
Then the green plum-shaped fruits that covered the female marulas thickly began to turn yellow as they ripened, and their yeasty smell was heavy on the warm evening breeze.
The herd came up from the Sabi, forsaking the lush reed beds for the promise of the marula harvest. They were led by two old bulls, who for forty years had made the annual pilgrimage to the String of Pearls, and there were fifteen breeding cows with calves running at heel and as many adolescents.
They moved up slowly from the south, feeding spread out, sailing like ghostly grey galleons through the open bush, overloaded bellies rumbling. Occasionally a tall tree would catch the attention of one of the bulls and he would place his forehead upon the thick trunk and, swaying rhythmically as he built up momentum, he would strain suddenly and bring it crackling and crashing down. A few mouthfuls of the tender tip leaves would satisfy him, or he might strip the bark and stuff it untidily into his mouth before moving on northwards.
When they reached Conrad Berg’s fence the two bulls moved forward and examined it, standing shoulder to shoulder as though in consultation, fanning their great grey ears, and every few minutes picking up a large pinch of sand in their trunks to throw over their own backs against the worrisome attention of the stinging flies.
In forty years they had travelled, and knew exactly all the boundaries of their reserve. As they stood there contemplating the game fence, it was as though they were fully aware that its destruction would be a criminal act, and injurious to their reputations and good standing.
Conrad Berg was deadly serious when he discussed ‘his’ elephants’ sense of right and wrong with David. He spoke of them like schoolboys who had to be placed on good behaviour, and disciplined when they transgressed. Discipline might take the form of driving, darting with drugs, or formal execution with a heavy rifle. This ultimate punishment was reserved for the incorrigibles who raided cultivated crops, chased motor-cars or otherwise endangered human life.
Sorely tempted, the two old bulls left the fence and ambled back to the breeding herd that waited patiently for their decision amongst the thorn trees. For three days the herd drifted back and forth along the fence, feeding and resting and waiting – then suddenly the wind turned westerly and it came to them laden with the thick, cloyingly sweet smell of the marula berries.
David parked the Land-Rover on the fire-break road and laughed with delight.
‘So much for Connie’s fence!’
For reasons of pachyderm prestige, or perhaps merely for the mischievous delight of destruction, no adult elephant would accept the breach made by another.
Each of them had selected his own fence pole, hard wood uprights embedded in concrete, and had effortlessly snapped it off level with the ground. Over a length of a mile th
e fence was flattened, and the wire mesh lay across the firebreak.
Each élephant had used his broken pole like a tightrope, to avoid treading on the sharp points of the barbed wire. Then once across the fence they had streamed in a tight bunch down to the pools to spend a night in feasting, an elephantine gorge on the yellow berries, which ended at dawn when they had bunched up into close order and dashed back across the ruined fence into the safety of the Park – perhaps pursued by guilt and remorse and hoping that Conrad Berg would lay the blame on some other herd.
However, the downed fence provided ready access for many others who had long hankered after the sweet untouched grazing and deep water holes.
Ugly little blue wildebeest with monstrous heads, absurdly warlike manes and curved horns in imitation of the mighty buffalo. Clowns of the bush, they capered with glee and chased each other in circles. Their companions the zebra were more dignified, ignoring their antics, and trotted in businesslike fashion down to the pools. Their rumps were striped and glossy and plump, their heads up and ears pricked.
Conrad Berg met David at the remains of his fence, climbing out of his own truck and picking his way carefully over the wire. Sam, the African ranger, followed him.
Conrad shook his head as he surveyed the destruction, chuckling ruefully.
‘It’s old Mahommed and his pal One-Eye, I’d know that spoor anywhere. They just couldn’t help themselves – the bastards—’ He glanced quickly at Debra in the Land-Rover.
‘That’s perfectly all right, Mr Berg,’ she forestalled his apology.
Sam had been casting back and forth along the soft break road and now he came to where they stood.
‘Hello, Sam,’ David greeted him. It had taken a lot of persuasion to get Sam to accept that this terribly disfigured face belonged to the young nkosi David who he had taught to track, and shoot and rob a wild beehive without destroying the bees.
Sam saluted David with a flourish. He took his uniform very seriously and conducted himself like a guardsman now. It was difficult to tell his age, for he had the broad smooth moonface of the Nguni – the aristocratic warrior tribes of Africa – but there was a frosting of purest white on the close-curled hair of his temples under the slouch hat, and David knew he had worked at Jabulani for forty years before leaving. The man must be approaching sixty years of age.
Quickly he made his report to Conrad, describing the animals and the numbers which had crossed into Jabulani.
‘There is also a herd of buffalo, forty-three of them.’ Sam spoke in simple Zulu that David could still follow. ‘They are the ones who drank before Ripape Dam near Hlangulene.’
‘That will bring Akkers running – the sirloin of a young buffalo makes the finest biltong there is,’ Conrad observed dryly.
‘How long will it be before he knows the fence is down?’ David asked, and Conrad fell into a long rapid-fire discussion with Sam that lost David after the first few sentences. However, Conrad translated at the end.
‘Sam says he knows already, all your servants and their wives buy at his store and he pays them for that sort of information. It turns out that there is bad blood between Sam and Akkers. Sam suspects him of arranging to have him beaten, on a lonely road on a dark night. Sam was in hospital three months – he also accused Akkers of having his hut fired to drive him off Jabulani.’
‘It adds up, doesn’t it?’ David agreed.
‘Old Sam is dead keen to help us grab Akkers – and he has a plan of action all worked out.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Well, as long as you are in residence at Jabulani Akkers is going to restrict his activities to night poaching with a killing lamp. He knows every trick there is and we will never get him.’
‘Sor?’
‘You must tell your servants that you are leaving for two weeks, going to Cape Town on business. Akkers will know as soon as you leave and he will believe he has the whole of Jabulani to himself—’ For an hour more they discussed the details of the plan, then they shook hands and parted.
As they drove back to the homestead they emerged from the open forest into one of the glades of tall grass, and David saw the brilliant white egrets floating like snowflakes over the swaying tops of golden grass.
‘Something in there,’ he said and cut the engine. They waited quietly until David saw the movement in the grass, the opening and closing at the passage of heavy bodies. Then three egrets, sitting in row, moved slowly towards him, borne on the back of a concealed beast as it grazed steadily forward.
‘Ah, the buffalo!’ David exclaimed as the first of them appeared, a great black bovine shape. It stopped as it saw the Land-Rover on the edge of the trees and it regarded them intently from beneath the wide spread of its homs, with its muzzle lifted high. It showed no alarm for these were Park animals, almost as tame as domestic cattle.
Gradually the rest of the herd emerged from the tall grass. Each in turn scrutinized the vehicle and then resumed feeding once more. There were forty-three of them, as Sam had predicted, and amongst them were some fine old bulls standing five and a half feet tall at the shoulder and weighing little less than 2,000 lb. Their horns were massively bossed, meeting in the centre of the head and curving downwards and up to blunt points, with a rugged surface that became polished black at the tips.
Crawling over their heavy trunks and thick short legs were numbers of ox-peckers, dull-plumaged birds with scarlet beaks and blight beady eyes. Sometimes head down they scavenged for the ticks and other blood-sucking body vermin in the folds of skin between the limbs. Occasionally one of the huge beasts would snort and leap, shaking and swishing its tail, as a sharp beak pried into a delicate portion of its anatomy, under the tail or around the heavy dangling black scrotum. The birds fluttered up with hissing cries, waited for the buffalo to calm down and then settled again to their scurrying and searching.
David photographed the herd until the light failed, and they drove home in the dark.
Before dinner David opened a bottle of wine and they drank it together on the stoep, sitting close and listening to the night sounds of the bush – the cries of the night birds, the tap of flying insects against the wire screen and the other secret scurrying and rustling of small animals.
‘Do you remember once I told you that you were spoiled, and not very good marriage material?’ Debra asked softly, nestling her dark head against his shoulder.
‘I’ll never forget it.’
‘I’d like to withdraw that remark formally,’ she went on, and he moved her gently away so that he could study her face. Sensing his eyes upon her she smiled, that shy little smile of hers. ‘I fell in love with a little boy, a spoiled little boy, who thought only of fast cars and the nearest skirt—’ she said, ‘– but now I have a man, a grown man,’ she smiled again, ‘and I like it better this way.’
He drew her back to him and kissed her, their lips melded in a lingering embrace before she sighed happily and laid her head back upon his shoulder. They were silent for a while before Debra spoke again.
‘These wild animals – that mean so much to you—’
‘Yes?’ he encouraged her.
‘I am beginning to understand. Although I have never seen them, they are becoming important to me also.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘David, this place of ours – it’s so peaceful, so perfect. It’s a little Eden before the fall.’
‘We will make it so,’ he promised, but in the night the gunfire woke him. He rose quickly, leaving her lying warm and quietly sleeping, and he went out on the stoop.
It came again, faintly on the still night, distance muting it to a small unwarlike popping. He felt his anger stirring again, as he imagined the long white shaft of the killing lamp, questing relentlessly through the forest until it settled suddenly upon the puzzled animal, holding it mesmerized in the beam, the blinded eyes glowing like jewels, making a perfect aiming point in the field of the telescopic rifle sight.
Then suddenly the r
ifle blast, shocking in the silence, and the long licking flame of the muzzle flash. The beautiful head snapping back at the punch of the bullet and the soft thump of the falling body on the hard earth, the last spasmodic kicking of hooves and again the silence.
He knew it was useless to attempt pursuit now, the gunman would have an accomplice in the hills above them ready to flash a warning if any of the homestead lights came on, or if an auto engine whirred into life. Then the killing lamp would be doused and the poacher would creep away. David would search the midnight expanse of Jabulani in vain. His quarry was cunning and experienced in his craft of killing, and would only be taken by greater cunning.
David could not sleep again. He lay awake beside Debra, and listened to her soft breathing – and at intervals to the distant rifle fire. The game was tame and easily approached, innocent after the safety of the Park. It would run only a short distance after each shot, and then it would stand again staring without comprehension at the mysterious and dazzling light that floated towards it out of the darkness.
David’s anger burned on through the night, and in the dawn the vultures were up. Black specks against the pink dawn sky, they appeared in ever-increasing numbers, sailing high on wide pinions, tracing wide swinging circles before beginning to drop towards the earth.
David telephoned Conrad Berg at Skukuza Camp, then he and Debra and the dog climbed into the Land-Rover, warmly dressed against the dawn chill. They followed the descent of the birds to where the poacher had come on the buffalo herd.
As they approached the first carcass, the animal scavengers scattered – slope-backed hyena cantering away into the trees, hideous and cowardly, looking back over their misshapen shoulders, grinning apologetically – little red jackal with silvery backs and alert ears, trotting to a respectful distance before standing and staring back anxiously.
The vultures were less timid, seething like fat brown maggots over the carcass as they squawled and squabbled, fouling everything with their stinking droppings and loose feathers, leaving the kill only when the Land-Rover was very close and then flapping heavily up into the trees to crouch there grotesquely with their bald scaly heads outthrust.