True at First Light

by Ernest Hemingway

  “Two of your people are outside with the shooting lorry,” the Interpreter said as he came in.

  “Shooting brake,” I said and went out to motion Mthuka in. He came in his check shirt; tall and stooped and long lipped with the beautiful Kamba arrow scars on his cheeks. He saluted Mrs. Singh behind the counter where the bolts of cloth, beads, medicines and novelty goods were and looked at her appreciatively. His grandfather had been a cannibal and his father was Keiti and he was fifty-five at least. Mr. Singh gave him one of the cold quarts of beer and handed me mine, which had been corked up. He drank a third of his and said, “I’ll take it out to Mwengi.”

  “No. We have a cold one for him too.”

  “I’ll take this out now and we will keep watch.”

  “There are two left,” Mr. Singh said. Mthuka nodded.

  “Give the Interpreter an Orange Crush,” I said.

  Holding his soft drink the Interpreter said, “Before your friends the Masai return may I ask a few questions, sir?”

  “What are the questions?”

  “Sir, how many aircraft do you have?”

  “Eight.”

  “You must be one of the richest men in the world.”

  “I am,” I said modestly.

  “Why then, sir, do you come here to do the work of a Game Ranger?”

  “Why do some go to Mecca? Why does any man go anywhere? Why would you go to Rome?”

  “I am not of the Catholic faith. I would not go to Rome.”

  “I thought you were not of that faith from the shoes.”

  “We have many things in common with the Catholic faith but we do not worship images.”

  “Too bad. There are many great images.”

  “I would like to be a Game Scout and have employment with you, sir, or with the Bwana Game.”

  Just then the Masai elders returned bringing with them two new comrades. I had never met them but my oldest friend among the elders told me that they had many problems with lions who not only carried cattle out of the Bomas but donkeys, morani, totos, women and goats. They would like for Miss Mary and me to come and liberate them from this terror. All these Masai were quite drunk by now and one was a little inclined to be rude.

  We had known many fine Masai and great ones and unspoiled Masai but drinking was foreign to Masai as it was natural to Wakamba and they disintegrated under it and some of the elders could remember when they were a great ruling tribe of warriors and raiders instead of a syphilis-ridden, anthropological, cattle-worshipping curiosity. This new comrade elder was drunk at eleven o’clock in the morning and rude drunk. That was apparent from his first question and I decided to use the Interpreter to make a formal distance between us and also, since the five elders were carrying spears of Morani length, which showed bad tribal discipline, it was almost certain that the Interpreter would be speared first since it was he who would utter the provoking words if there should be such words uttered. If there was an argument with five drunken, spear-carrying Masai in the small front room of a general store one was certain oneself of being speared. But the presence of the Interpreter meant that you had a chance to get three of your drunken friends with the pistol instead of one or possibly two. I moved the holster around so it lay on the front of the leg, was pleased that it was buckled down and tripped the buckle on the strap with my little finger.

  “Interpret, Big Shoes,” I said. “Interpret accurately.”

  “He here says, sir, that he has heard that one of your wives, he said women, has killed a lion and that he wonders if in your tribe the killing of lions is left to the women.”

  “Tell the great chief whom I have never met that in my tribe we sometimes leave the killing of lions to women as in his tribe he leaves to the young warriors the drinking of Golden Jeep sherry. There are young warriors who spend their time drinking and have never killed a lion.”

  The Interpreter was sweating hard at this moment and things were not getting better. The Masai, who was a good-looking old man of possibly my own age or possibly older, spoke and the Interpreter said, “He here says, sir, that if you had wished to be polite and to talk as one chief to another you would have learned his language so that you and he could talk together as man to man.”

  It was over now and cheap enough so I said, “Say to this chief who I have not known until now that I am ashamed not to have learned his language properly. It has been my duty to hunt lions. The wife I have brought here has the duty to hunt lions. She has killed yesterday and there are two more bottles of cold beer here which I was reserving for my people but I will drink one of them with this chief and with him only and Mr. Singh will provide wine for all other chiefs.”

  The Interpreter said this and the Masai came forward and shook hands. I buttoned the strap on the holster and patted the gun back against my thigh where it belonged.

  “An Orange Crush for the Interpreter,” I said to Mr. Singh.

  The Interpreter took it but the Masai who had wanted trouble spoke to him earnestly and confidentially. The Interpreter took one swallow of his soft drink to clear his throat and said to me, “This chief here asks in absolute confidence how much you paid for this wife who kills lions. He says that such a wife for breeding could be as valuable as a great bull.”

  “Tell the chief, who I see is a man of great intelligence, that I paid two small airplanes and one larger airplane and one hundred head of cattle for this wife.”

  The Masai elder and I drank together and then he spoke to me again rapidly and seriously. “He says that is a great price to pay for any wife and no woman could be worth that. He said you spoke of cattle. Were they cows or were there bulls too?”

  I explained that the ndege were not new aircraft but had been used in war. The cattle I said were all cows.

  The old Masai said this was more understandable but no woman could be worth that much money.

  I agreed that it was a high price but that the wife had been worth it. Now, I said, it was necessary for me to return to the camp. I ordered another round of the wine and left the big beer bottle with the elder. We had drunk from glasses and I set my glass top down on the counter. He urged me to take another glass and I poured one half full and drained it. We shook hands and I smelled the leather and smoke and dried dung and sweat smell that is not unpleasant and I went out into the sharp light of the road with the hunting car half shaded by the leaves. Mr. Singh had five cases of beer in the back of the car and his boy brought out the last cold bottle wrapped in a newspaper. He had figured the beer and the bottle of wine for the Masai on a pad of paper and I paid him and gave the Interpreter a five-shilling note.

  “I would prefer employment, sir.”

  “I cannot give you employment except as an interpreter. This has been given and paid for.”

  “I would like to come with you as an interpreter.”

  “Would you interpret between me and the animals?”

  “I could learn, sir. I speak Swahili, Masai, Chagga and of course English as you see.”

  “Do you speak Kamba?”

  “No, sir.”

  “We speak Kamba.”

  “I could learn it easily, sir. I could tutor you to speak proper Swahili and you could teach me hunting and the language of animals. Do not be prejudiced against me because I am a Christian. It was my parents who sent me to the Mission School.”

  “Did you not like the Mission School? Remember God is listening. He hears your every word.”

  “No, sir. I hated the Mission School. I am a Christian through instruction and ignorance.”

  “We will take you out hunting sometime. But you will have to come barefoot and in shorts.”

  “I hate my shoes, sir. I must wear them because of Bwana McCrea. If it were reported to him that I was without my shoes or that I had been with you in Mr. Singh’s I would be punished. Even if I had only drunk Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is the first step Bwana McCrea says.”

  “We will take you to hunt sometime. But you are not from a hunting tribe. What go
od will it do? You will be frightened and you will be unhappy.”

  “Sir, if you keep me in your mind I will prove myself to you. With this five shillings I will make a down payment on a spear at Benji’s store. I will walk at night without the shoes to toughen my feet as those of a hunter’s are. If you ask me for a proof I will make a proof.”

  “You are a good boy but I do not wish to interfere with your religion and I have nothing to offer you.”

  “I will make you a proof,” he said.

  “Kwisha,” I said. Then to Mthuka, “Kwenda na duka.”

  In the duka it was very crowded with Masai shopping and watching others who were buying. The women stared at you boldly from head to foot and the young warriors with their heavy ochered pigtails and bangs were insolent and cheerful. Masai smell good and the women have cold hands and when their hand is in yours they never remove it but delight in the warmth of your palm and explore it happily without movement. Benji’s was a cheerful busy place like an Indian trading post at home on a Saturday afternoon or a monthly payoff day. Keiti had found good posho and all the Coca-Cola and soft drinks that were needed for the Ngoma and he was ordering a few unnecessary items from high shelves so that he could watch the lovely and intelligent Indian girl, who was in love with G.C. from a great distance and who we all admired and would have been in love with if it were not useless, reaching them down and bringing them to him. This was the first time that I had seen how Keiti loved to watch this girl and I was happy that it gave us a faint advantage over him. She spoke to me in her lovely voice and asked about Miss Mary and said how happy she was about the lion and while I took great pleasure in seeing her and hearing her voice and in our shaking hands I could not help seeing how far gone Keiti was. It was only then I noticed how smart and fresh and well pressed his clothes were and that he was wearing his best safari uniform and his good turban.

  The people from the duka aided by Mthuka started taking the sacks of meal and the cases of soft drinks out and I paid the bill and bought a half dozen whistles for the Ngoma. Then, since the duka was shorthanded, I went out to guard the rifle while Keiti helped with the cases. I would have been glad to help with the loading but it was not considered seemly. When we were alone hunting we always worked together but in town and in public it would have been misunderstood so I sat in the front seat with the rifle between my legs and heard the petitions of the Masai who wanted to ride down the Mountain with us. The Chevrolet truck chassis on which the hunting car body had been built had good brakes but with the load we had we could not carry more than about six extra people. I had seen days of a dozen or more. But it was too dangerous on the curves, which sometimes made the Masai women sick. We never carried warriors down the Mountain road although we often picked them up coming up. At first there had been some bitterness about this but now it was an accepted practice and men we had carried up would explain it to the others.

  Finally we had everything stowed and four women with their bags, bundles, gourds and mixed loads were in the back, three more sat on the second seat with Keiti at the right of them, and myself, Mwengi and Mthuka in front. We started off with the Masai waving and I opened the cold bottle of beer still wrapped in the newspapers and offered it to Mwengi. He motioned for me to drink and sank lower in the seat to be out of sight of Keiti. I drank and handed it to him and he drank deep using the side of his mouth to not tip the big quart bottle into sight. He handed it back to me and I offered it to Mthuka.

  “Later,” he said.

  “When a woman is sick,” Mwengi said.

  Mthuka was driving very carefully getting the feel of his load on the steep dropping turns. Usually there would have been a Masai woman between Mthuka and me; one we knew was proof against roadsickness and two more being tested out between Ngui and Mwengi in the second seat. Now we all felt three women were being wasted on Keiti. One of them was a famous beauty who was as tall as I was, built wonderfully, and with the coldest and most insistent hands I had ever known. She usually sat between Mthuka and me on the front seat and she held my hand and courted Mthuka lightly and purposefully with her other hand while she looked at us both and laughed when there were reactions to her courtship. She was very classically beautiful with a lovely skin and she was quite shameless. I knew that both Ngui and Mthuka gave her their favors. She was curious about me and loved to provoke visible reactions and when we dropped her off to go to her Manyatta someone almost always dropped off with her too and made their way to camp later by foot.

  But today we were riding down the road looking out on all our own country and Mthuka could not even have any beer because of Keiti his father sitting directly behind him and I was thinking about morality and drinking beer with Mwengi; we having torn a mark in the paper covering the bottle to mark the place below which the beer all belonged to Mthuka. According to basic morality it was perfectly all right for two of my best friends to go with this Masai woman but if I did so while I was on probation as a mkamba and while Debba and I felt seriously about each other it would have proved me to be irresponsible and profligate and not a serious man. On the other hand if I had not responded, visibly, when in unsought contact or when incited it would have been very bad all around. These simple studies in our tribal moeurs always made the trips to Laitokitok pleasant and instructive but sometimes, until you understood them, they could have been frustrating and puzzling except that you knew that if you wished to be a good mkamba it was necessary never to be frustrated and to never admit that you were puzzled.

  Finally they called out from the back of the car that a woman was sick and I signaled to Mthuka to stop the car. We knew Keiti would take advantage of this halt to go into the brush and urinate so when he did with great dignity and casualness I passed the quart of beer to Mthuka and he drank his share rapidly leaving the rest for Mwengi and me.

  “Drink it before it gets hot.”

  The car loaded up again and with three unloadings we were relieved of our passengers and across the stream and going through the park country toward camp. We saw a herd of impala crossing through the woods and I got out of the car with Keiti to head them off. They looked red against the heavy green and a young buck looked back as I whistled almost silently. I held my breath, squeezed the trigger softly, and broke his neck and Keiti ran toward him to halal as the others leaped and jumped floatingly into the cover.

  I did not go up with Keiti to see him halal so it was a question of his own conscience and I knew his conscience was not as rigid as Charo’s. But I did not want to lose the buck for the Mohammedans any more than I had wanted to shoot the meat up so I walked forward slowly over the springy grass and when I came up he had cut the impala’s throat and was smiling.

  “Piga mzuri,” he said.

  “Why not?” I said. “Uchawi.”

  “Hapana uchawi. Piga mzuri sana.”

  10

  THERE WERE PEOPLE all under the trees and out behind the lines, the women with their lovely brown heads and faces in their bright cloth top covers and beautiful wide bead collars and bracelets. The big drum had been brought down from the Shamba and the Game Scouts had three other drums. It was early yet but the Ngoma was starting to take shape. We rode past the people and the preparations and stopped in the shade and the women got out and children came running to see the animals unloaded. I handed the rifle to Ngui to clean and walked over to the mess tent. The wind was blowing quite hard from the Mountain now and the mess tent was cool and pleasant.

  “You took all our cold beer,” Miss Mary said. She looked much better and more rested.

  “I brought one bottle back. It’s coming in the bag. How are you, honey?”

  “G.C. and I are much better. We didn’t find your bullet. Only G.C.’s. My lion looks so noble and beautiful when he is white and naked. He’s dignified again as when he was alive. Did you have fun at Laitokitok?”

  “Yes. We did all the errands.”

  “Make him welcome, Miss Mary,” G.C. said. “Show him around and see that he’s
comfortable. You’ve seen an Ngoma before haven’t you my good man?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “And we have them in my own country too. We are all very fond of them.”

  “Is that what they call baseball in America? I always thought that was a form of rounders.”

  “At home, sir, our Ngomas are a sort of Harvest Festival with folk dancing. It’s rather like your cricket, I believe.”

  “Quite,” said G.C. “But this Ngoma is something new. It’s going to be danced entirely by natives.”

  “What fun, sir,” I said. “May I accompany Miss Mary as you call this charming young lady to the Ngoma?”

  “I’ve been spoken for,” Miss Mary said. “I’m going to the Ngoma with Mr. Chungo of the Game Scouts Department.”

  “The hell you are Miss Mary,” G.C. said.

  “Is Mr. Chungo that very well built young man with the mustache and shorts on who was fixing ostrich plumes onto his head, sir?”

  “He looked a very good sort, sir. Is he one of your colleagues in the Game Scouts Department? I must say, sir, you have a magnificent body of men.”

  “I am in love with Mr. Chungo and he is my hero,” Miss Mary said. “He told me that you were a liar and had never hit the lion at all. He said all the boys know you are a liar and Ngui and some of the others only pretend to be friends of yours because you give them presents all the time and have no discipline. He said look how Ngui had broken your best knife that you paid so much money for in Paris that day when you came home drunk.”

  “Yes. Yes,” I said. “I do remember seeing old Chungo in Paris. Yes. Yes. I remember. Yes. Yes.”

  “No. No,” G.C. said absentmindedly. “No. No. Not Mr. Chungo. He’s not a member.”

  “Yes. Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid he is, sir.”

  “Mr. Chungo told me another interesting thing too. He told me that you had been using Kamba arrow poisoning on your solids and that Ngui makes it for you and that all this risasi moja business of one shot kills is the effect of the arrow poisoning. He offered to show me how fast the arrow poisoning would run up a stream of blood dripping from his own leg.”