by Jan Andersen
“I suppose so,” she said uncertainly. “I honestly don’t know. There’s been so much for me to learn and keep track of that every day I realise I know less and less about citrus growing.
“Well,” he said sympathetically, “If it’s any comfort to you, it’s taken my father a lifetime. Still, that’s changing the subject. You ought to have a stiff word with Louw. It doesn’t sound as if he’s taking his job very responsibly now that your father isn’t there to keep an eye on him.”
Tracy was silent, half wanting to agree with him, but feeling that a degree of loyalty to her manager was called for. Above all, she must try to keep any antagonism towards Roger to herself. She remembered how he had acted over the leopard, and that helped.
They walked back to the main part of the camp where she changed and went to join Alex on the broad terrace behind the restaurant. She looked up at the big thatched building, at the waiters in crisp white coats bringing trays of iced drinks and remarked, “I can’t get over how civilized it all is. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t anything like this!”
He laughed, and again she noticed—and liked—the way his eyes crinkled so deeply at the corners. “You’re seeing what all the tourists see, one of the two biggest rest camps in the Park. But don’t forget there are around eight thousand square miles of country that’s completely wild. And the animals are wild, don’t forget that too. Tomorrow we shall travel for hours and not see a single soul—but we’ll see a lot of game. I don’t think you’ll be saying then how civilized it all is.” He paused and looked at her. “Will you mind that?”
Did he mean not seeing a single soul, or seeing a lot of animals? Whichever it was she didn’t mind one little bit. “No,” she said. “I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
After dinner, which they had in the restaurant, with one or two of the other staff who were charming to her and teased Alex unmercifully, asking him if he wanted company tomorrow, or if she were more afraid of him or the lions, they strolled for a while round the camp trying to catch what little breeze was blowing from the river, then Alex insisted she should go to bed.
“I have to leave you anyway and collect my gear together. You may not think you’re tired, but the climate and altitude is very different here from White River and tomorrow’s going to be a tough day. One of the boys will wake you at five with some coffee and I’ll be along with the track just before five-thirty. Do you think you can be ready?”
“I’ll be ready,” she assured him. “I’ll be too worried in case you leave without me.”.
He touched her hand. “Good night, Tracy, sleep well.”
The knock at her door and the unfamiliar voice calling, “It’s five o’clock, missie,” came in the middle of a dream where a huge leopard was cheerfully eating his way through her whole orange crop and while she was standing impotently by, Roger was giving laughing encouragement to the animal.
The coffee woke her completely and the large fresh peach refreshed her, and by the time she had splashed cold water on her face she felt ready for the long trip ahead. She dressed in cotton slacks, canvas shoes and a loose blouse, repacked her few possession in the holdall and went outside to wait for Alex.
The first light of dawn was crossing the eastern sky and for a couple of brief hours the air was cool and fresh filled with strange, unfamiliar scents.
Just before the half-hour the lights of the truck swung up towards her rondavel. Alex helped her and swung her bag to the back, which seemed to be filled with every imaginable kind of equipment and tucked in one corner a dark grinning face which Alex told her belonged to Abraham, his most able, elderly and dunderheaded assistant. This sally, which was obviously expected, was greeted with a great shout of delighted laughter.
The great iron gates of the camp were swung open for them—half an hour before the normal time, Alex told her—and they drove out, scattering a sleepy group of impala into their prodigious frightened leaps towards the safety of the bush.
Within minutes the sky lightened and Tracy could almost feel the bush begin to waken as the first joyful cries of the birds echoed across the trees. Alex picked out for her the booming of the ground hornbill and the lilting call of the bush partridge.
“This is the time,” he told her, “when there’s the best chance of all of seeing game. Before the heat of the day comes down and sends them all off to rest and shade and when they’re out searching for food. Abraham has eyes in the back of his head. When he says ‘look’ you look.”
At that moment from the back Abraham said, “Missie, left, zebra.” And about half a dozen strolled from a clump of trees across an open space, their stripes showing up like livid lines of paint.
“But they barely seem real,” said Tracy. “It’s as though someone had come along and painted the camouflage too brightly. Don’t they mind the cars?”
“All the animals in the Park are used to cars, they tend to ignore them unless you get too close, then the engines scare them a bit. It’s humans out of cars they’re not used to.”
“Does that mean you never get out of your truck?”
“Good lord, no, we have to do an awful lot on foot. But we know what we’re looking for and when to be wary. We don’t go blundering into unknown country without taking precautions. And we don’t go singly. I’ve got twenty native rangers in my charge and most of them get about on bicycles.” He started the truck again. “We’re heading due north now and we’ll stop at one of my pals for breakfast. You’ll see then what it’s like to be isolated.”
A little later they turned off the wide road on to a narrow one running alongside the river. Its thick brown waters lay still and calm, its edges blocked by trailing vegetation. A monkey ran shrieking alongside them as Alex said, “I brought you this way because it’s one of the best places in the southern part of the Park to see the odd elephant—and,” he grinned, “I’ve never yet known a tourist who didn’t want to see elephant and lion above all else!”
“Master, Master,” Abraham interrupted him, shaking his shoulder. “Listen, Master!”
Alex drew in to the side of the road and switched off the engine. Tracy could hear a thumping, booming noise ... and yet it was not quite like that.
“My God, Abraham,” he said excitedly, “we’re going to be lucky. Tracy, just watch from the front window and you’ll see a sight that you’ll never forget.”
The distant noise came nearer as though an army was on the march, trampling undergrowth and sending trees crashing to the ground. It was an eerie, frightening sound that echoed all around them.
Then, about twenty yards ahead of them, the first elephant crossed the road towards the river, its great grey body moving in a steady, purposeful, almost graceful movement. It was followed by another and another and still another until the long grey stream disappeared into the distance, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Thorn trees cracked beneath them, as a twig might have done under a human foot. Larger trees creaked as the weight of bodies thrust them aside. And still the herd marched on. Tracy counted fifty, then she gave up. She found she was holding her breath in a queer mixture of terror and excitement, but she also found she was gripping Alex’s hand as if she never wanted to let it go.
CHAPTER SIX
AS the sounds of the herd died away across the river Alex and Tracy sat on, hands clasped as though they were afraid of destroying this moment of intimacy.
At last he turned and looked at her. “It’s funny, but the moment I saw you at the station in Pretoria I knew you were going to be someone special.”
She smiled, a little too afraid of her own emotions to answer.
It was Abraham, leaning forward to speak to Alex, who shattered the moment. “Master, I think I forgot to bring the extra rope you asked for...”
“Oh, forget it, Abraham,” Alex snapped, and drew away from Tracy to start the car. “We’d better get on or we shall miss our breakfast.”
For quite a while no one spoke, then Tracy broke the silen
ce. “How often do you see a herd of elephants like this?”
“Rarely one of that size these days, particularly at this time of year. How many did you count, Abraham?”
“Eighty-two, Master.”
“I made it eighty-three, but you’re probably right, you old scoundrel. He can count animals better than any one else in the Park, but ask him to count anything else and he’ll run a mile.”
Abraham merely grinned good-naturedly.
About an hour later they turned off the road to a small bungalow set back in the bush and surrounded by an insubstantial wire fence. As the truck stopped a small boy rushed out and threw himself at Alex, “Uncle Alex, Uncle Alex, guess what I’ve got!”
Alex lifted him on to his shoulders. “Let me see, you’ve got an elephant.”
“Don’t be silly, it’s too big.”
“Then you’ve got a lion.”
“He might scratch me,” came back the scornful reply.
“Then you tell me.”
“I’ve got a bambi!” The little voice was shrill with excitement.
“Well, we’ll go and see it as soon as I’ve said hello to your mum and dad.”
A plump, jolly-looking girl was waiting on the steps beside a lanky young bearded man who slapped Alex across the shoulders and asked him where the hell he’d been hiding all this time, adding, “But more important, where have you been hiding this little beauty?”
Tracy blushed and laughed, growing used to the teasing comradeship of the Reserve. She was introduced to Sally and Pieter Vorster but not allowed into the house until she and Alex had been taken to see ‘Bambi,’ a friendly half-grown buck with huge startled eyes. Pieter explained that its mother had abandoned it because of a deformed leg and it had found its way to the house and now seemed quite happy to potter about the enclosure.
Pieter said, “Young Ian knows that when it’s grown up Bambi might want to go back to its friends, so soon we’ll start to encourage it to go out and fend for itself.” Ian nodded, but did not seem too happy with the idea.
Tracy learned that the Vorsters were well known in the Reserve for rescuing some of the smaller animals that needed protection. Sometimes they almost ran a small zoo, but never did they keep an animal any longer than was absolutely necessary. Otherwise, they explained, it would grow too timid to face its natural environment and would succumb to a larger beast immediately.
Over a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs, which Tracy found herself surprisingly ready for, she asked about Ian. “Aren’t you afraid for his safety out here?”
Sally chuckled. “He’s safer here than in a big city where he could get run over if he crossed the road. He knows what dangers there are out in the bush and that he must never go out alone. He’s been with his father and seen a lion pounce on a smaller animal. We’ve taught him gradually about the way life goes on here. He’s just five now and wants only to be a ranger when he grows up. But it will be school soon. He’ll join the other children of the Reserve for lessons until he’s about seven, then it will be proper school outside.”
They lingered over breakfast, but soon Alex said it was time to press on since he had a fair amount of work to get through. Tracy had learned that this was a slightly unusual trip for him. He was in fact in charge of a section of the Reserve measuring about a hundred square miles, and he was now going out of his area, because of a temporary shortage of staff, to check mainly on water supplies in the north. Messages had also been reaching headquarters that poachers had been making an unusual nuisance of themselves and damaging the windmills, on which the Reserve was dependent for much of its water supply.
After they crossed the boundary between south and north they did not see another car, but the game was plentiful. Within minutes, Tracy was just as blasé as Alex said she would be over the vast herds of impala that bounded across the veld. But she soon grew used to the sight of other animals, zebras racing alongside the truck in a vain effort to overtake it, hundreds of blue wildebeeste grazing peacefully, who did not even look up as they passed, but Tracy’s favourite—like Alex’s—was without doubt the giraffe. She loved catching glimpses of them amongst the taller trees at the side of the road, chewing peacefully at the tender shoots, their huge liquid eyes watchful and gentle, and their strange rolling gait when they wanted to gather speed.
Once, when Alex had to stop and repair a broken windmill, she was able to sit at the water’s edge and watch first a herd of buffalo come and drink, then later a pack of wild dogs, with their black, white and mustard markings and bushy tails that reminded her of wolves.
She was studying these when Alex came back to the truck for some more tools. He leant on the window and followed the line of her gaze. “I suppose you’re thinking they’re rather beautiful?”
“Perhaps not beautiful, but unusual, with those colours.”
“Well, let me tell you, they’re just about the most vicious creatures in the Reserve, they’re also the strongest and the bravest They always hunt in packs, and once they’ve chosen their victim, they can just go on until they wear it down. Sometimes they get near and grab a mouthful of flesh, then drop back, then another will come forward until the poor beast is exhausted from pain and loss of blood...”
“Don’t!” Tracy shuddered. “I can’t bear it.”
“The laws of the jungle can sometimes be relentless. Look,” he pointed, “the leader has seen something; now they’ll be off, but they don’t hunt much in the middle of the day.” He looked suddenly anxious. “I keep forgetting, this is my life ... I keep talking about it. You’re not bored, are you?”
“Bored? Oh, Alex, no, I’m having a marvellous time.”
“I’m glad,” he said rather shyly. “I’ve never brought a girl on a trip like this. It’s getting hot now, I’m afraid you might get very uncomfortable.”
“It will be worth it,” she answered sturdily.
They stopped for lunch at a small camp that was closed, except for a couple of African rangers, but there was shade and water there, so they were able to set out again rested and refreshed.
For the rest of the afternoon they drove on, but not covering many miles because Alex had to make frequent stops. Again and again he and Abraham checked the water holes and came back to the truck, making anxious notes.
“Water’s getting too scarce round here,” he told her, “and that last pan is impossibly situated, surrounded by rocks like that. Even an elephant would have difficulty in reaching it. The trouble is,” he screwed his eyes up against the sun’s glare, “it’s been too dry a season, we’re never going to be able to cope with all the water that’s needed up here. Still, that’s Marais’s headache once he gets back from leave. All I have to do is to put in a report.”
As they turned the next corner, all at the same instant came a shout from Abraham, an exclamation from Alex and a squeal of brakes as he threw the truck to a sudden halt.
“Wait here,” he commanded her, as he and Abraham leapt from the truck and raced across the road. It took her all that time to see the two Africans running off into the bush. But they had a fair start and it did not look as if Alex would catch up with them. He had snatched up his gun as he left and a few minutes later she heard a shot, but the two men did not appear.
She waited nervously, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, hoping it was Alex’s gun that had been fired.
There was not a sound, but something—she did not know what—made her suddenly prickle all over and she turned her head very slightly to the left towards the open window.
Somehow she managed to smother the gasp. Within two feet of the truck strolled a lion, with a beautiful tawny coat that she could almost have reached out and stroked. And even as she looked, awed rather than afraid, it moved even closer and casually rubbed itself against the wheels.
She dared not move—even to close the window—yet the urge to reach out and touch the magnificent animal was almost irresistible.
Suddenly the danger struck her—not to herself, but to Al
ex and Abraham. They must approach the truck from the opposite side and could not possibly see the lion unless it moved. She would have to do something—but what? she wondered frantically.
For a few seconds more she sat frozen to her seat, then gradually started to inch over to the opposite side of the truck until she was in the driver’s seat. For a moment she was tempted to start the engine and head in the direction of the two men, but they could easily have circled back and would miss the truck.
That was exactly how it worked out. She stared into the bush, examining every patch of shadow, every tree for some movement, until her eyes were watering, then finally she saw Alex emerge into the sunlight only about ten yards in front of the truck.
She held up both her hands, shaking her head and signalling him to go back. He did not understand what she was trying to say, but at least he stopped, wary of some kind of danger. She pointed to the far wheel of the truck and he remained immobile, staring, and even managed to signal Abraham into stillness as he emerged from behind him.
Then casually, indolently the lion strolled into her vision again, coming to the front of the truck and stopping, puzzled at the strange scent. No one moved. Then the lion turned its head and could not have failed to spot the two men, now within ten yards of it, but he merely padded on down the road for a while, then flopped in the shade of a thorn tree. Quietly, steadily, the two men crossed the road and got back into the truck.
