“They will not come here.”
“Why not?”
“I think what I would do if I were Mau Mau. I would not come here.”
“But you are a Mzee and an intelligent man. These are Mau Mau.”
“All Mau Mau are not stupid,” he said. “And these are Wakamba.”
“I agree,” I said. “But these were all caught when they went to the Reserve as missionaries for Mau Mau. Why were they caught?”
“Because they got drunk and bragged how great they were.”
“Yes. And if they come here where there is a Kamba Shamba they will want drink. They will need food and they will need more than anything drink if they are the same people who were taken prisoner from drinking.”
“They will not be the same now. They have escaped from prison.”
“They will go where there is drink.”
“Probably. But they will not come here. They are Wakamba.”
“I must take measures.”
“Yes.”
“I will let you know my decision. Is everything in order in the camp? Is there any sickness? Have you any problems?”
“Everything is in order. I have no problems. The camp is happy.”
“What about meat?”
“We will need meat tonight.”
“Wildebeest?”
He shook his head slowly and smiled the cleft smile.
“Many cannot eat it.”
“How many can eat it?”
“Nine.”
“What can the others eat?”
“Impala mzuri.”
“There are too many impala here and I have two more,” I said. “I will have the meat for tonight. But I wish it killed when the sun is going down so it will chill in the cold from the Mountain in the night. I wish the meat wrapped in cheesecloth so that the flies will not spoil it. We are guests here and I am responsible. We must waste nothing. How long would it take them to come from Machakos?”
“Three days. But they will not come here.”
“Ask the cook please to make me breakfast.”
I walked back to the dining tent and sat at the table and took a book from one of the improvised bookshelves made from empty wooden boxes. It was the year there were so many books about people who had escaped from prison camps in Germany and this book was an escape book. I put it back and drew another one. This was called The Last Resorts, and I thought it would be more diverting.
As I opened the book to the chapter on Bar Harbor I heard a motor car coming very fast and then looking out through the open back of the tent I saw it was the police Land Rover coming at full speed through the lines, raising a cloud of dust that blew over everything, including the laundry. The open motor car pulled up to a dirt track racing stop alongside the tent. The young police officer came in, saluted smartly and put out his hand. He was a tall fair boy with an unpromising face.
“Good morning, Bwana,” he said and removed his uniform cap.
“Have some breakfast?”
“No time, Bwana.”
“What’s the matter?”
“The balloon’s gone up, Bwana. We’re for it now. Fourteen of them, Bwana. Fourteen of the most desperate type.”
“Armed?”
“To the teeth, Bwana.”
“These the lot that escaped from Machakos?”
“Yes. How did you hear about that?”
“Game Scout brought the word in this morning.”
“Governor,” he said, this was a fatherly term that he employed and had no relation to the title of one who governs a colony. “We must coordinate our effort again.”
“I am at your service.”
“How would you go about it, governor? The combined operation?”
“It’s your shauri. I’m only acting Game here.”
“Be a good chap, governor. Help a bloke out. You and Bwana Game helped me out before. In these times we must all play the game together. Play it up to the hilt.”
“Quite,” I said. “But I’m not a policeman.”
“You’re acting bloody Game though. We cooperate. What would you do, governor? I’ll cooperate to the hilt.”
“I’ll make a screen,” I said.
“Could I have a glass of beer?” he asked.
“Pour a bottle and I’ll split it with you.”
“My throat’s dry from the dust.”
“Next time don’t get it all over our fucking laundry,” I said.
“Sorry, governor. Couldn’t be sorrier. But I was preoccupied with our problem and I thought it had rained.”
“Day before yesterday. Dry now.”
“Go ahead, governor. So you’ll put out a screen.”
“Yes,” I said. “There’s a Kamba Shamba here.”
“I had no idea of that. Does the D.C. know?”
“Yes,” I said. “There are, in all, four Shambas where beer is made.”
“That’s illegal.”
“Yes, but you’ll find they frequently do it in Africa. I propose to put a man in each of these Shambas. If any of these characters show up he’ll let me know and I’ll close in on the Shamba and we’ll take them.”
“Dead or alive,” he said.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely, governor. These are desperate types.”
“We ought to check on it.”
“No need, governor. Word of honor. But how will you get word from the Shamba to you here?”
“In anticipation of this type of thing we’ve organized a form of Women’s Auxiliary Corps. They’re frightfully efficient.”
“Good show. I’m glad you laid that on. Is it widely extended?”
“Quite. Frightfully keen girl at the head of it. True underground type.”
“Could I meet her sometime?”
“Be a bit tricky with you in uniform. I’ll think about it though.”
“Underground,” he said. “I always thought it just my dish. The underground.”
“Could be,” I said. “We can get some old parachutes down and practice after this show is over.”
“Can you gen it out just a little more, governor. We have the screen now. The screen sounds like the thing. But there’s more.”
“I keep the balance of my force here in hand but absolutely mobile to move on any sensitive parts of the screen. You go back to the Boma now and put yourself in a state of defense. Then I suggest that you lay on a roadblock in daylight on the turn of the road at about mile ten from here. Take it off on your speedometer. I suggest you move this roadblock at night down to where the road comes out of the swamp. Do you remember where we went after the baboons?”
“Never forget it, Bwana.”
“There, if you have any trouble I will be in touch with you. Be awfully careful about shooting people up at night. There’s a lot of traffic comes through there.”
“There’s supposed to be none.”
“There is though. If I were you I would post three signs outside the three dukas that the curfew is to be enforced absolutely on the roads. It could save you some trouble.”
“Can you give me any people, Bwana?”
“Not unless the situation deteriorates. Remember I’m screening for you. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll send a chit by you that you can telephone through Ngong and I’ll get the plane down. I need her for something else anyway.”
“Right, Bwana. Would there be any chance I could fly with you?”
“I think not,” I said. “You’re needed on the ground.”
I wrote the chit asking for the plane anytime after lunch tomorrow to bring mail and papers from Nairobi and put in two hours flying here.
“You’d better get along up to the Boma,” I said. “And please, kid, never come into camp in that cowboy style. It puts the dust on the food, in the men’s tents and on the laundry.”
“Couldn’t be sorrier, governor. It’ll never happen again. And thanks for helping me staff things out.”
“Maybe I’ll see you in town this afterno
on.”
“Good show.”
He drained his beer, saluted and went out and commenced to shout for his driver.
Mary came into the tent looking morning fresh and shining. “Wasn’t that the boy from the police? What kind of trouble is it?”
I told her about the gang breaking out of the jail in Machakos and the rest of it. She was properly unimpressed.
As we ate breakfast she asked, “Don’t you think it is awfully expensive to get the plane down now?”
“I have to have that mail from Nairobi and any cables. We need to check on the buff to get those pictures. They’re definitely not in the swamp now. We ought to know what’s going on toward the Chulus and I can make good use of her on this nonsense.”
“I can’t go back with her to Nairobi now to get the things for Christmas because I haven’t got the lion.”
“I’ve a hunch we are going to get the lion if we take it easy and rest him and rest you. Arap Meina said he was coming down this way.”
“I don’t need any rest,” she said. “That’s not fair to say.”
“OK. I want to let him get confident and make a mistake.”
“I wish he would.”
About four o’clock I called for Ngui and when he came told him to get Charo and the rifles and a shotgun and tell Mthuka to bring up the hunting car. Mary was writing letters and I told her I had asked for the car and then Charo and Ngui came and pulled the guns in their full length cases out from under the cots and Ngui assembled the big .577. They were finding shells and counting them and checking on solids for the Springfield and the Mannlicher. It was the first of the fine movements of the hunt.
“What are we going to hunt?”
“We have to get the meat. We’ll try an experiment Pop and I were talking about for practice for the lion. I want you to kill a wildebeest at twenty yards. You and Charo stalk him.”
“I don’t know if we can ever get that close.”
“You’ll get up. Don’t wear your sweater. Take it and put it on if it gets cool coming home. And roll up your sleeves now if you’re going to roll them up. Please, honey.”
Miss Mary had a habit, just before she was going to shoot, of rolling up the right sleeve of her bush jacket. Maybe it was only turning back the cuff. But it would frighten an animal at a hundred yards and over.
“You know I don’t do that anymore.”
“Good. The reason I mentioned the sweater is because it might make the rifle stock too long for you.”
“All right. But what if it’s cold in the morning when we find the lion?”
“I only want to see how you shoot without it. To see what difference it makes.”
“Everybody’s always experimenting with me. Why can’t I just go out and shoot and kill cleanly?”
“You can, honey. You’re going to now.”
We rode out past the airstrip. Ahead on our right was the broken park country and in one meadow I saw two groups of wildebeest feeding and an old bull lying down not far from a clump of trees. I nodded at him to Mthuka, who had already seen him, and motioned with my hand for us to circle widely to the left and then back where we could not be seen behind the trees.
I signaled to Mthuka to stop the car and Mary got out and Charo after her carrying a pair of field glasses. Mary had her 6.5 Mannlicher and when she was on the ground she lifted the bolt, pulled it back, shoved it forward and saw that the cartridge went into the chamber, turned it down and then moved the safety lever over.
“Now what am I to do?”
“You saw the old bull lying down?”
“Yes. I saw two other bulls in the bunches.”
“You and Charo see how close you can get to that old bull. The wind is right and you ought to be able to get up to the trees. Do you see the patch?”
The old bull wildebeest lay there, black and strange looking with his huge head, down-curved, widespread horns and savage-looking mane. Charo and Mary were getting closer to the clump of trees now and the wildebeest stood up. He looked even stranger now and in the light he looked very black. He had not seen Mary and Charo and he stood broadside to them and looking toward us. I thought what a fine and strange-looking animal he was and that we took them too much for granted because we saw them every day. He was not a noble-looking animal but he was a most extraordinary looking beast and I was delighted to watch him and watch the slow, bent double approach of Charo and Mary.
Mary was at the edge of the trees where she could shoot now and we watched Charo kneel and Mary raise her rifle and lower her head. We heard the shot and the sound of the bullet striking bone almost at the same time and saw the black form of the old bull raise up in the air and fall heavily on his side. The other wildebeest burst into a bounding gallop and we roared toward Mary and Charo and the black hump in the meadow. Mary and Charo were standing close to the wildebeest when we all piled out of the hunting car. Charo was very happy and had his knife out. Everyone was saying, “Piga mzuri. Piga mzuri sana, Memsahib. Mzuri, mzuri, sana.”
I put my arm around her and said, “It was a beautiful shot, kitten, and a fine stalk. Now shoot him just at the base of the left ear for kindness.”
“Shouldn’t I shoot him in the forehead?”
“No, please. Just at the base of the ear.”
She waved everyone back, turned the safety bolt over, raised the rifle, checked it properly, took a deep breath, expelled it, put her weight on her left front foot and fired a shot that made a small hole at the exact juncture of the base of the left ear and the skull. The wildebeest’s front legs relaxed slowly and his head turned very gently. He had a certain dignity in death and I put my arm around Mary and turned her away so she would not see Charo slip the knife into the sticking place which would make the old bull legal meat for all Mohammedans.
“Aren’t you happy I got so close to him and killed him clean and good and just how I was supposed to? Aren’t you a little bit proud of your kitten?”
“You were wonderful. You got up to him beautifully and you killed him dead with one shot and he never knew what happened nor suffered at all.”
“I must say he looked awfully big and, honey, he even looked fierce.”
“Kitten, you go and sit in the car and have a drink from the Jinny flask. I’ll help them load him in the back.”
“Come and have a drink with me. I’ve just fed eighteen people with my rifle and I love you and I want to have a drink. Didn’t Charo and I get up close?”
“You got up beautifully. You couldn’t have done better.”
The Jinny flask was in one pocket of the old Spanish double cartridge pouches. It was a pint bottle of Gordon’s we had bought at Sultan Hamud and it was named after another old famous silver flask that had finally opened its seams at too many thousand feet during a war and had caused me to believe for a moment that I had been hit in the buttocks. The old Jinny flask had never repaired properly but we had named this squat pint bottle for the old tall hip-fitting flask that bore the name of a girl on its silver screw top and bore no names of the fights where it had been present nor any names of those who had drunk from it and now were dead. The battles and the names would have covered both sides of the old Jinny flask if they had been engraved in modest size. But this new and unspectacular Jinny flask had close to tribal status.
Mary drank from it and I drank from it and Mary said, “You know, Africa is the only place where straight gin doesn’t taste any stronger than water.”
“A little bit.”
“Oh, I meant it figuratively. I’ll take another one if I may.”
The gin did taste very good and clean and pleasantly warming and happy making and to me, not like water at all. I handed the water bag to Mary and she took a long drink and said, “Water’s lovely too. It isn’t fair to compare them.”
I left her holding the Jinny flask and went to the back of the car where the tailgate was down to help hoist the wildebeest in. We hoisted him in entire to save time and so that those that liked tripe could tak
e their pieces when he would be dressed out at camp. Hoisted and pushed in he had no dignity and lay there glassy eyed and big bellied, his head at an absurd angle, his gray tongue protruding, like a hanged man. Ngui, who with Mthuka had done the heaviest lifting, put his finger in the bullet hole which was just above the shoulder. I nodded and we pushed the tailgate up and made it fast and I borrowed the water bag from Mary to wash my hands.
“Please take a drink, Papa,” she said. “What are you looking gloomy about?”
“I’m not gloomy. But let me have a drink. Do you want to shoot next? We have to get a Tommy or an impala for Keiti, Charo, Mwindi, you and me.”
“I’d like to get an impala. But I don’t want to shoot anymore today. Please, I’d rather not. I don’t want to spoil it. I’m shooting just where I want to now.”
“Where did you hold on him, kitten?” I said, hating to ask the question. I was taking a drink while I asked it to make it very easy and not too casual.
“Right on the center of his shoulder. Dead in the center. You saw the hole.”
There had been a big drop of blood that had rolled down from the tiny hole high in the spine, that had rolled down to the center of the shoulder and stopped there. I had seen it when the strange, black antelope lay there in the grass with the front part of him still alive, but quiet, and the after part quite dead.
“Good, kitten,” I said.
“I’ll take the Jinny flask,” Mary said. “I don’t have to shoot anymore. I’m so happy that I shot him so that it pleased you. I wish Pop had been here too.”
But Pop was not here and, at point-blank range, she had shot fourteen inches higher than she had aimed, killing the beast with a perfect high spinal shot. So a certain problem still existed.
We were going up through the park country now straight into the wind and the sun at our back. Ahead I saw the square white patches on the buttocks of the Grant’s gazelles and the flicking tails of the Thomson’s gazelles as they grazed ahead of us, bounding off as the car came close. Ngui knew what it was all about and so did Charo. Ngui turned back to Charo and said, “Jinny flask.”
Charo handed it over the seat back between the upended big gun and the shotgun in their clamps. Ngui unscrewed the top and handed it to me. I took a drink and it tasted nothing like water. I could never drink when we hunted lion with Mary because of the responsibility but the gin would loosen me up and we had all tightened up after the wildebeest except the porter who was happy and proud. Miss Mary was happy and proud too.
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