Assegai

by Wilbur Smith

  Kermit’s face fell. ‘You got a lion?’

  ‘Yep!’ the President affirmed, still smiling. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Kermit saw a party of bearers coming down the trail through the trees. They were carrying a tan body slung on a pole between them. They dumped their burden next to the taxidermy tent, and three of the Smithsonian scientists came out to view the day’s bag. They cut the ropes that bound the paws of the lion to the pole, and stretched the carcass on the ground to measure and photograph it.

  Kermit laughed with relief. Even he, who knew little about them, could see that this was an immature lioness. ‘Hey, Dad!’ He chuckled as he turned to his father. ‘If you call that a real lion, I might as well call myself the President of the United States of America. She’s a baby.’

  ‘You’re right, son,’ his father agreed, still smiling smugly. ‘Poor little sweetheart, I had to shoot her. She wouldn’t let us get close to the body of her mate. She guarded it ferociously. At least we can have her mounted as part of a family group in one of the showcases in the African Hall at the museum. What do you think?’ He directed the question at George Lemmon, the chief of the team of scientists.

  ‘We’re delighted to have her, sir. She’s a fine specimen. Her hide is unblemished, it still has the immature spotting of a cub, and her teeth are perfect.’

  The President looked back over his shoulder and remarked comfortably, ‘Oh, good! They’re bringing the male in now.’ Another team of bearers was just emerging from the forest. Four were staggering under the weight of the huge body they were carrying.

  ‘Good gracious! That looks like a very fine lion to me.’ Frederick Selous had come from his tent in his shirtsleeves, carrying his sketchpad. ‘We must make sure that those fellows handle it carefully. It would never do to have the skin abraded or damaged.’

  The bearers came up with the lion swinging on the pole to the rhythm of their trot. They lowered it gently to the ground beside the lioness. Sammy Edwards, the head taxidermist, stretched it out carefully and ran his measuring tape from the tip of its onyx-black nose to the black tuft at the end of its tail. ‘Nine feet one inch.’ He looked up at the President. ‘That’s a great lion, sir, the largest I’ve ever had a tape on.’

  After dinner that evening Kermit came to Leon’s tent. He brought with him a silver hip flask of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. They turned the lamp low, sat in the canvas chairs under the mosquito net and kept their voices to a whisper.

  ‘Andrew Fagan was the guest of honour this evening,’ Kermit told Leon. In response to Kermit’s invitation Fagan had arrived in camp during the afternoon. ‘He got on well with my father. The old man enjoyed having a new audience.’

  They were silent for a few minutes, then Kermit went on, ‘I don’t grudge it to my father. He’s as keen as any of us to get good trophies, and he works like a man half his age. You weren’t there, of course, but I can tell you that he did rather overdo it at dinner tonight. He didn’t actually boast or gloat over me but he came damned close. Of course Fagan was lapping it all up.’

  Leon studied the amber liquid in his glass and murmured sympathetically in agreement.

  ‘I mean it was a good lion, a fine lion, but it wasn’t the best lion anyone in Africa has ever taken, was it?’ Kermit asked earnestly.

  ‘You’re absolutely right. It was a very big-bodied lion, but its mane was a ruff. It wasn’t much bigger than a lady’s ostrich-feather boa,’ Leon assured him, and Kermit burst out laughing, then checked himself with a hand over his mouth. They were more than a hundred yards from the President’s tent, but the great man expected silence in camp after lights out.

  ‘A lady’s boa,’ Kermit repeated delightedly, then made an attempt at a feminine falsetto, ‘Are we off to the ballet, my darlings?’ They savoured the joke for a while and pulled at the Jack Daniel’s.

  Then Kermit said, ‘Sometimes I almost hate my father. Does that make me evil?’

  ‘No, it makes you human.’

  ‘Tell me honestly, Leon, what did you really think of that lion?’

  ‘We can beat it.’

  ‘Do you think so? Do you honestly think so?’

  ‘Your father’s lion hasn’t a single black hair in its boa. Not one,’ he said, and Kermit had to smother another burst of laughter at the word ‘boa’. The Jack Daniel’s was warming his belly and lifting his spirits.

  When his friend had controlled his mirth, Leon repeated, ‘We can beat it. We can get a bigger and blacker lion. Manyoro and Loikot are Masai. They have a special affinity with the big cats. They say we can do better, and I believe them.’

  ‘Tell me how we’re going to do it.’ Kermit gazed solemnly into his face.

  ‘We’ll make up a flying column and ride ahead of the main safari into the country beyond Masailand, where the lions haven’t been picked over for the last thousand years by the morani. We can move many times faster than the rest of them because they’re limited to the pace of the porters. In a few days we can have a lead of a hundred miles or more. When does the President plan to move on north, do you know?’

  ‘My father told us at dinner tonight that he plans to stay here for a while. It seems that a few days ago the local guides led him and Mr Selous to a large swamp about twenty miles east of here. Near it they found a set of tracks that Mr Selous believes may be those of a male sitatunga antelope, but they were larger than the species he himself discovered in 1881 in the Okavango delta. That one is named after him, Limnotragus selousi. He’s convinced my father that this may be an entirely new sub-species. To my father the opportunity of discovering a species previously unknown to science is irresistible. He dreams of a sitatunga named Limnotragus roosevelti. He would sacrifice his first-born for that.’ He grinned. ‘I expect he’ll want to hang around here until he finds this buck or convinces himself it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘I can understand his interest. What do you know about the sitatunga?’

  ‘Not much,’ Kermit admitted.

  ‘It’s a fascinating creature, very rare and elusive. It’s the only truly aquatic antelope. Its hoofs are so long and splayed that on land it can barely walk, but in deep mud or water it’s as agile as a catfish. When threatened it ducks under the surface and can remain submerged for hours with only the tips of its nostrils above the water.’

  ‘Hell, I’d love to get one of those,’ Kermit said.

  ‘You can’t have everything, chum. Lion or sitatunga, it’s your choice.’ Leon did not wait for a reply. ‘The President’s plans suit us well enough. We can leave them to it and ride on the day after tomorrow. Now, do you suppose there may be another noggin lingering at the bottom of that flask of yours? If there is, I don’t think we should let it go to waste, do you?’

  They spent the following day hastily assembling the personnel and equipment for their flying column. They picked out a string of six ponies, and three pack mules. Then, with the high spirits of schoolboys escaping the surveillance of their headmaster, they rode northwards.

  In the late afternoon of the third day they were following the course of a small unnamed river when there was a shout from the Masai trackers, who were a hundred yards ahead. They gesticulated and pointed at a swift feline shape that had broken out of a patch of scrub and was darting away across the open floodplain, heading for the cover of the thicker forest beyond.

  ‘What is it?’ Kermit rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his hat.

  ‘Leopard,’ Leon told him. ‘A big tom.’

  ‘It has no spots,’ Kermit protested.

  ‘You can’t see them at this distance.’

  ‘Can I ride him down?’

  ‘Gunfire won’t disturb any lions that hear it,’ Leon assured him, ‘not like elephant. They have the curiosity of cats. A few shots might even attract them.’ Kermit needed to hear no more. He let out a wild cowboy yell and, with his hat, urged his mount into a mad gallop, at the same time drawing Big Medicine from her boot under his right knee and brandishing it over his he
ad.

  ‘Here we go again, folks.’ Leon laughed. ‘Another stealthy, carefully planned stalk with Sir Quick Bullet.’ He kicked his own horse into a gallop, and raced in pursuit. The leopard heard the commotion, stopped and sat on his haunches, gazing back in astonishment. Then he realized how precarious his situation was, whipped around and raced away, stretching out with each bound, long, sleek and graceful.

  ‘Yee-ha! Up and at him!’ Kermit howled, and even Leon was infected by the excitement of the headlong charge.

  ‘View halloo! Gone away!’ He gave the old fox-hunting cry and lay flat along his pony’s neck, pushing him hard, both hands on the reins. The rush of the wind in his face was intoxicating. Abandoning all restraint they raced each other across the plain.

  The nose of Leon’s pony was creeping up to the level of Kermit’s boot. He looked back under his own armpit, saw Leon gaining, slapped his hat against his mount’s neck and banged his heels into its flanks. ‘Let’s move!’ he urged it. ‘Come on, baby. Get the lead out!’ At that moment his horse stepped in a suricate hole. Its right fore snapped, with a sound like a whiplash, and it went down as though it had been shot through the brain. Kermit was thrown high and clear. He hit the ground with his shoulder and the side of his face. His rifle flew from his hand and he rolled like a ball under the pounding hoofs of Leon’s horse. Leon pulled the mare’s head around and they just managed to avoid stepping on Kermit. She responded to the pressure of reins, bit and spur, tossing her head violently. They rode back to the downed rider. Kermit’s horse was struggling to rise but its foreleg was fractured clean through just above the fetlock joint, the hoof dangling loosely. Kermit was lying still, stretched out on the hard earth.

  He’s killed himself. God! What am I going to tell the President? Leon agonized, as he kicked his feet out of the stirrups. He threw his right leg over his horse’s neck and dropped to the ground. He ran to Kermit, but by the time he reached him his friend was sitting up groggily. The skin had been scoured from the left side of his face, his eyebrow was torn half off, and hung over his eye in a loose flap, and the eye itself was bunged up with dust.

  ‘Mistake!’ he mumbled, and spat out a mouthful of blood and mud. ‘That was a big mistake!’

  Leon laughed with relief. ‘You trying to tell me it wasn’t deliberate? I thought you did it just to impress me.’

  Kermit ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. ‘No teeth missing,’ he announced, speaking as though his palate was cleft.

  ‘Luckily you fell on your head or you might have damaged yourself.’ Leon knelt beside him, took his head between both hands and turned it from side to side, examining the eye. ‘Try not to blink like that, or grit will scratch the eyeball.’

  ‘Easily enough said. How about “try not to breathe” as your next stupid instruction?’

  Ishmael galloped up on his mule and handed Leon a waterbag.

  ‘Hold his eye open, Ishmael,’ Leon ordered, then poured water into it, sluicing out most of the mud. Then he handed the bag to Kermit. ‘Rinse your mouth and wash your face.’ The two Masai were squatting close at hand where they could have a good view of the proceedings, which they were discussing with relish. ‘Will you two hyenas stop gloating, and set up the pup tent, then lay out Popoo Hima’s blanket roll. I want to get him out of the sun.’

  While they helped Kermit into the little tent, Leon drew the big Holland from its boot on his saddle and shot the maimed horse. He made it seem cold and clinical, but his empathy with horses was intense, and even though it was a mercy killing, it tore at his conscience.

  ‘Get the saddle and tack off that poor creature,’ he told Manyoro, as he ejected the empty brass cartridge case and slipped the rifle back into its sheath. He hurried to the little tent and stooped through the entrance. ‘Where’s Big Medicine?’ Kermit demanded, and tried to get up.

  Leon pushed him down. ‘I’ll send Manyoro to find it.’ He raised his voice: ‘Manyoro! Bring the bwana’s bunduki.’ Then he held a finger in front of Kermit’s eyes. ‘Watch it.’ He moved it slowly from side to side, then nodded, satisfied. ‘Despite your best efforts, it doesn’t seem that you’ve managed to concuss yourself, thank God. Now let’s take a look at the place where your left eyebrow was once attached to your face.’ He examined the damage closely. ‘I’m going to have to put in a few stitches.’

  Kermit looked alarmed. ‘What do you know about stitching people up?’

  ‘I’ve stitched up plenty of horses and dogs.’

  ‘I ain’t no horse or dog.’

  ‘No, those animals are pretty smart.’ To Ishmael he said, ‘Fetch your sewing kit.’

  At that moment Manyoro appeared in the entrance, his expression mournful. He held a separate piece of the Winchester in each hand. ‘She is broken,’ he said in Kiswahili.

  Kermit grabbed the shattered pieces from him. ‘Oh, hell and damnation!’ he moaned. The butt stock had snapped at the neck of the pistol grip and the front sight had been knocked off. It was obvious that the rifle could not be fired. Kermit cradled it as though it were a sick child. ‘What am I going to do?’ He looked at Leon pitifully. ‘Can you repair it?’

  ‘Yes, but not until we get back to camp and I can find my tool-kit. I’ll have to bind that butt with the green skin of an elephant’s ear. When it dries, it’ll be hard as iron and better than new.’

  ‘What about the front sight?’

  ‘If we can’t find the original, I’ll hand-file one from a piece of metal and solder it in place.’

  ‘How long will all that take?’

  ‘A week or so.’ He saw Kermit’s stricken expression and tried to pull the punch a little. ‘Maybe a bit less. Depends how soon we can find a fresh elephant ear and how quickly it dries. Now, keep still while I sew you up.’

  Kermit was in such distress that he seemed inured to the primitive surgery Leon inflicted. First he washed the wound with a diluted solution of iodine, then got busy with needle and thread. Either procedure was more than enough to make a strong man weep, but Kermit seemed more concerned with Big Medicine than his own suffering.

  ‘What am I going to shoot with in the meantime?’ he lamented, still holding the rifle.

  ‘Luckily I brought my old service.303 Enfield as a back-up.’ Leon ran the needle through a flap of skin.

  Kermit grimaced but clung to the subject doggedly. ‘That’s a pop gun.’ He sounded affronted. ‘It may be fine for Tommy, impala or even human beings, but it’s much too light for lion!’

  ‘If you get in close and put the bullet in the right place, it’ll do the job.’

  ‘Close? I know what that means to you! You want me to stick the barrel in the bloody cat’s earhole.’

  ‘Very well, you go ahead in your usual style and blaze away at half a mile. But I don’t think that’ll work.’

  Kermit thought about it for a while, but he didn’t seem overjoyed with the idea. ‘How about you lend me that big old Holland of yours?’

  ‘I love you like my own brother, but I’d rather lend you my little sister for the night.’

  ‘Have you got a little sister?’ Kermit asked, with sudden interest. ‘Is she pretty?’

  ‘I don’t have a sister,’ Leon lied, anxious to protect his siblings from Kermit’s attentions, ‘and I’m not going to lend you my rifle.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want your pathetic little.303,’ Kermit said petulantly.

  ‘Good! Then I suggest you ask Manyoro to lend you his spear.’

  Manyoro grinned expectantly at the mention of his name.

  Kermit shook his head and gave him the sum total of his Kiswahili: ‘Mazuri sana, Manyoro. Hakuna matatu! Very good, Manyoro. Don’t worry.’ The Masai looked disappointed, and Kermit turned back to Leon. ‘Okay, pal. I’ll try a few shots with your pop gun.’

  In the morning Kermit’s eye was swollen and closed, and his torso was decorated with a few spectacular bruises. Fortunately the damage was to his left eye, so his shooting eye was still clear. Leon blaz
ed the bark of a fever tree to give him a target at sixty paces, then handed him the.303. ‘At that range she’ll throw an inch high, so hold the pip of the foresight just a touch under,’ he advised. Kermit fired two shots, and they bracketed the mark, a finger’s breadth apart.

  ‘Wow! Not bad for a beginner.’ Kermit had impressed himself. He cheered up visibly.

  ‘Pretty darned good even for a marksman like Popoo Hima,’ Leon agreed. ‘But just remember, don’t shoot at anything that’s over the horizon.’

  Kermit did not acknowledge the pleasantry. ‘Let’s go find a lion,’ he said.

  They camped that evening beside a small waterhole, which still contained water from the last rains. They rolled into their blankets as soon as they had eaten, and both men were asleep within minutes.

  In the wee hours Leon shook Kermit awake. He sat up groggily. ‘What’s happening? What time is it?’

  ‘Don’t worry about the time, just listen,’ Leon told him.

  Kermit looked around and saw that the two Masai and Ishmael were sitting by the fire. They had fed it with wood chips and the flames danced brightly. Their faces were intent and rapt. They were listening. The silence drew out for many minutes.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Kermit demanded.

  ‘Patience! Just keep your ears open,’ Leon chided him. Suddenly the night was filled with sound, a mighty bass booming, rising and falling, like waves driven by a hurricane. It made the skin tingle and the hair rise along the forearms and up the back of the neck. Kermit threw aside his blanket and sprang to his feet. The sound died away in a series of sobbing grunts. The silence afterwards seemed to grip every man and beast in creation.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Kermit gasped.

  ‘A lion. A big dominant male lion proclaiming his kingdom,’ Leon told him quietly. Manyoro added something in Maa, then he and Loikot laughed at the joke.

  ‘What did he say?’ Kermit demanded.

  ‘He said that even the bravest man is twice frightened by a lion. The first time when he hears his roar, the second and last time when he meets the beast face to face.’