Torn Trousers: A True Story of Courage and Adventure: How a Couple Sacrificed Everything to Escape to Paradise

by Andrew St. Pierre White

  “Sounds like he’s onto something,” I said, grinning at the ingenuity of some people.

  “No, Rra, don’t joke. When they get sick, he gives them enemas. Always the pipe up the bum. It doesn’t matter if you have a headache or a broken leg, everyone gets the pipe.”

  Camp Tau seemed to have an unlimited supply of weirdoes. You honestly couldn’t make this stuff up. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Why does Morag want to take him on her trip?”

  “He can cook. That’s why all Tau Camp managers put up with Sam’s trouble. And, believe me, he’s trouble. But we keep him on for times like this, when we have a CIM.”

  My heart sank. “Thanks for the info.”

  “There’s more, Rra. Morag told Robert she also wants him to go on the trip when the Canadians come.”

  This was just plain malicious. Matanta was scheduled to go on leave during that week, and I knew Gwynn would never agree to cancel his holiday. But if Robert went with Morag, what choice would she have? This could only lead to a full-blown confrontation between Gwynn and Morag.

  “Gwynn knows this?” I asked with some trepidation.

  “She does, now that I’ve told her. So you can guess why she’s so pissed off with Morag. She says she’s going to tell Morag to go to hell. And to stay there. For a long time.”

  “That’s only if she beats me to it.” I turned to leave the kitchen, but Matanta grabbed my arm. “Rra, let Robert go with Morag. I’m happy to work to help you and Gwynn.”

  “But you’ve worked seven days a week for three months now,” I protested. “It’s not fair to ask you to do more.”

  “Andrew Rra, when was life ever fair? I’m Torn Trousers—a survivor. Just like you and Gwynn. So let Morag play her games, but we’ll stand strong. Our team.” I started to say how grateful I was for his support, when his mouth split into a lecherous grin. “And, Rra, about Gwynn…I understand women. My advice is that you do everything Morag asks—for today. But tonight, it’s Gwynn’s turn. You must make love to your wife.”

  Make love to my wife? Did Matanta have any idea how exhausted Gwynn and I were come bedtime? He might be a survivor who went at every girl he saw with the cheerful abandon of a spring rabbit, but I had a few years on him—at last three— and come bedtime, I was shattered with tiredness.

  Sanguine as anything, he continued, “And I promise you, when Morag gets back things will be different. Gwynn will be in charge here, and everyone will know it. No one will dare go behind her back to make deals with Morag again.”

  I was about to point out that, while I agreed in principle, the practice might be more tricky, but Matanta wasn’t finished. “And when Morag gets back, you must help her start her guide school. If she still wants to get into your trousers after that, then you know for sure she really does want you.”

  “The guide school, fine. But I’d rather saw my own head off than let her anywhere near my trousers.” Wearily, I took up the cooking pots he held out to me and headed for the door.

  Before I stepped out into the bright sunshine, he said, “So Rra, don’t forget. Tonight you and Gwynn mess the sheets.”

  * * *

  Maybe it was because I planned a romantic liaison with my wife, but dinner dragged. By eleven o’clock, I was exhausted, largely from making small talk with dull people.

  I stood up. “Who would like to learn something about the southern skies?”

  There was unanimous approval from our northern hemisphere guests. Thrilled with the response, I mustered my energy, bounded to reception and grabbed a handful of Maglites. When I returned, the guests were donning pullovers against the evening chill. I handed everyone a torch, and then, like the Pied Piper trailing guests, headed for the runway.

  “This is brilliant,” Gwynn whispered, walking next to me. “I think I know exactly what you are planning.”

  “Not all of it.” I smirked, thinking of my plans to tumble her.

  On the runway, I asked everyone to switch off their torches to get eyes attuned to the dark. I sucked in the sweet air, heavy with the tang of wild sage. Croaking reed frogs played in harmony around us, while in the trees, a lone Scops owl called its dainty chirp. Above us, a billion ancient embers glowed, the Milky Way defined in all its dusty splendour.

  “I swear I can hear the stars,” one of the guests whispered. “I read somewhere that there are some places on Earth where they actually hum.”

  This was the most interesting thing to come out of her mouth in two days. But instead of breaking the reverent silence that followed her comment, everyone—including me—tried to hear the unhearable. After a minute, someone shuffled, breaking the mood. It was my signal to launch into my lecture.

  “There we have the Southern Cross,” I said, pointing to the magnificent constellation and its two pointer stars.

  It took a moment for everyone to locate it. Then, to a chorus of oohs and aahs, I complicated matters by pointing out the False and Diamond crosses, often confused with the Southern Cross. Warming to my task despite my exhaustion, I even gave the Coal Sack, a small area within the Southern Cross, where the sky seems devoid of all light, a mention. My story told, I stood back to watch if my plan for getting these pesky people to bed would work.

  I smiled as the first guest yawned. Then another. Suddenly, they were all saying goodnight.

  As the last couple ambled from the runway toward their beds, Gwynn leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You’re a genius. Masterful. I swear, I thought they were going to stay up all night, and I kept drifting off. It was just a matter of time before I started snoring.”

  “Can’t have that. You sound like a steam train in full snore.”

  Before she could hit me, wrecking the romantic mood before it even got started, I grabbed her arm and steered her back into camp to refill the bar fridge. Even though I’d levelled it with my new spirit level, the fridge only worked a little better. Clearly, more tweaking was required.

  After locking the pantry, (still no materials to build a hyena proof door had been delivered), we headed for bed. My prayers shot heavenward that we’d find Woodie happy and safe, so we didn’t have to spend half an hour looking for her. I was just too exhausted for that.

  My prayer was answered. I let Gwynn cuddle the cat for a minute, and then, although bone tired, put my arm around her, pulling her close. Face nestled in her neck, I managed to murmur, “I want you.”

  When Gwynn said nothing, I nuzzled harder, cursing Matanta and his stupid plan.

  I could feel she was somewhat surprised, but not necessarily displeased with my advances. My heart managed a little skip. If I played my cards right, I could get my conjugal duty done, and be fast asleep before I actually passed out. I pulled her towards the bed and slipped with her under the mosquito net.

  Oh man! Did my pillow ever look inviting!

  But, I steeled myself and kissed my wife, a long deep kiss that, in the days before working the long hours of a camp manager, would have been a prelude to a night of lovemaking.

  Gwynn kissed me back with, I must admit, a little less enthusiasm than normal.

  I put it down to tiredness.

  It was then that I remembered the radio.

  Wanting to cry, I broke away from her and said, “The radio? Is it off?”

  “Yes,” she mumbled, but I could see she was trying to cover up that she was already half asleep.

  “Not the HF, the VHF. I saw the green light after supper, unless you switched it off?” It was the critical radio we needed for our Maun communication.

  Gwynn shook her head, muttering through a yawn, “Joan will kill us if we have no radio contact tomorrow.”

  Body feeling like lead, I said, “I guess we have to go back down to reception to check it.”

  “Be careful,” Gwynn replied.

  “Is that your way of telling me I’m going alone?”

  “Well done.”

  Talk about betrayal! Sighing like a mournful wind on a drab day, I picked up my Maglite a
nd walking stick. Then, remembering my quest, I added, in my best sultry voice, “Wait for me. I’ll be back before you know I’ve gone.”

  I stepped outside. The bed creaked as Gwynn launched herself onto the mattress. I guessed I should make this trip to reception snappy. I set off at a fast trot. The darkness was thick, the air still, and the night noises dim and distant as I made my way through the sleeping camp. At the end of the path, I could just make out the radio’s gleaming green on-light. It hadn’t been a wasted trip. I sped up. Mere steps away from reception, I heard a scuffle to my left.

  An animal?

  Not noisy enough to be a hippo, but too noisy for a genet.

  I swung the torch around to investigate.

  There, standing in the yellow light, no more than two yards away from me, was the hyena.

  I sucked in a breath. All I could think was how huge the bloody thing was. Its head stood easily as tall as my waist. Although my body betrayed me by freezing solid, strangely, I wasn’t afraid. Perhaps it was exhaustion taking the edge off my emotions.

  Also fearless, the hyena looked directly at me. And then it moved forward, threat in every step. Just as textbooks said one should do in an animal charge, I yelled a deep-throated scream, and then swung the torch around to my face. With my other hand, I waved my stick high in the air. Unfortunately, the torch blinded me. Now, the first nips of fear bit into me—the hyena could see me, but I couldn’t see it. The whole idea was intolerable, so I swung the torch back at the hyena.

  The path in front of me was empty. The hyena had scarpered. The sound of crashing in the undergrowth was all that remained to prove that I’d almost been eaten by a monster-sized predator.

  My heart started pounding so fast, I worried I was having a heart attack. It took me about five minutes before I calmed down enough to walk the last few paces to the radio. Even then, I had to wait for my hands to stop trembling before I could switch it off. I staggered back to tell Gwynn that I’d just scared off the scariest beast I’d ever seen.

  She lay on top of the bed waiting for me. Woodie curled up beside her.

  Then I heard her snores.

  How the cat slept through it, I would never know.

  I smiled down at my lover, unable to bring myself to wake her—and that, to me at least, was the truest declaration of my love.

  After covering her and Woodie with the sheet, I stood wondering what to do. A bucket load of adrenalin still coursed through me. Sleep had fled. There seemed nothing else for it but to sit in my lounge, waiting for sanity to return.

  So much for my promise to Matanta to mess the sheets.

  Chapter 33

  There was a commotion going on in the kitchen, but not the usual friendly banter that accompanied early morning activities. Today, an unfamiliar voice, harsh and acrimonious, cut above all the others. I went to investigate.

  A tall, scrawny stranger, wearing the familiar khaki guide uniform, stood in the centre of the room. He was arguing with Kekgebele, who should have been cleaning up the chaos wrought overnight by the hyena.

  After scaring the life from Andrew—or so he had told me this morning when I awoke— the blasted animal had returned during the night to ravage the kitchen. If that wasn’t insult enough, despite Hazel’s warning, the baboons had snuck in this morning, too. The day was shaping up to be all kinds of horrible.

  My attention was drawn back to Kekgebele and the interloper. If Kekgebele radiated a quiet serenity, then this man pulsed with a dissatisfied arrogance, as if the world owed him something. I stepped into the middle. “We haven’t met. I’m Gwynn, the manager. And you are?”

  “Sam. Morag sent for me. I’m cooking for her CIM.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood, all my senses shouting at me that Sam was not someone I could trust. That surprised me. Although I’d run into a few troubles with Morag and Lesego—okay, and Robert—I usually got along well with people. Also, I generally wasn’t prone to rash judgments, but something about Sam was decidedly off. I needed to find out more. “You have a problem with Kekgebele?”

  “Em, Mma. He won’t make me tea.”

  My mouth gapped. “Tea?”

  “Em, Mma. How am I supposed to go to work without tea?”

  I waved my hands at the baboon faeces strewn over the counters and floor. “Maybe you do what all the other guides do—you have your early morning tea at home. Then, when you get back from taking the guests out, you have more tea with your breakfast. Or, in your case, today you drink tea when Morag says you can.” They were leaving for their CIM recon today. Good riddance to both of them.

  Sam threw up his hands. “Matata, Mma. Matata. This cannot work.”

  “Well, it’s going to have to,” a sharp voice said. I turned to see Matanta standing in the kitchen doorway. He glowered at Sam. “With the hyena and baboons, there’s no room in here for guides as well.”

  Like a viper, Sam whipped round to face Matanta. “Are you saying us guides are like baboons? I will tell everyone you said that, and there will be trouble. You wait and see, Matanta.”

  Sam started for the door, but I grabbed his arm. “Stop! What Matanta means is that there is no room in here for anyone but the kitchen staff.” I gestured to the chaos and filth. “The staff have big cleaning to do, and then they have to cook breakfast for the lekgoa.”

  Sam seemed to consider what I was saying, but there was no way of gauging what he was thinking. He clicked his tongue and stalked out. Something told me we hadn’t heard the last of Sam and his tea. Trust Morag to inflict someone like him on me.

  I wasn’t feeling very charitable an hour later when I joined her at the bay for her great send off. With only an inch of freeboard to spare, three mekoro, heavily laden with camping gear, stood ready for her adventure. Despite my anger, I watched in awe at the pure romance as the guides poled her and her small flotilla out into the river.

  Casting aside my envy, I turned to hug Andrew—the Chief everyone was talking about, who’d singlehandedly driven the hyena out the camp. For all that his fame had spread far and wide this morning, my hero looked terrible. A drawn face highlighted his red-rimmed eyes. “Maybe one day it will be us,” I consoled.

  “As if we’d ever be so lucky.”

  He turned towards reception, but I grabbed his arm. “Go sleep. I’ll handle everything.”

  “Have you seen my maintenance list?” Quite unnecessarily, given Andrew’s irritating diligence, Sean had arrived unannounced a second time to check up on the progress of the maintenance effort. Apart from the spirit level, he hadn’t loaded his plane with much needed maintenance supplies. My husband was feeling the stress. What really annoyed, though, was Sean’s total lack of feedback on a job well done. It went a long way in explaining why all his management were so grumpy. Being under appreciated can do that to a person.

  I decided to sow some cheer. “Well, if it’s not going anywhere, then it’ll keep until tomorrow. Go and chill.”

  “I wish. But I heard a couple of the guests moaning about warm beers, so I’d better go and give the fridge some love.” He stumbled to the bar. “And then there’s still The Cupboard to fix.”

  Unable to deflect him, I went to my favourite place in the whole of the Okavango.

  The kitchen.

  Matanta was waiting for me with an expectant air. He grinned, and then asked, almost coyly, “So, Mma, how was your evening?”

  “Boring.” I opened The Cupboard, winced at the smell, and wrote chicken on my dinner menu.

  “Boring?” Matanta repeated, sounding surprised. “But Andrew…he’s not…boring?”

  “No, but the guests are.”

  “Em,” Matanta said, as if that explained everything. “But after that?”

  “I don’t remember.” I pinned my menu up on the board.

  “You don’t remember?” Now he sounded totally perplexed, and I wondered what was going on. He’d never expressed this much interest in my personal life before.

  “I was sleepi
ng,” I said, eyeing him warily. “Andrew is the one who had all the fun chasing away the hyena.”

  “Crap.”

  Surprised—Matanta had never sworn in front of me before, at least not in English—I turned to face him. A scowl marred his usually handsome face. “Mma, that hyena has now crossed the line. It’s time we did something about it.”

  “Just the hyena?” I laughed. “What about the baboons?”

  “Okay, the baboons, too. But, eish, that hyena has to go. Now.”

  I leaned against the counter. “All suggestions gratefully received.”

  Matanta plucked thoughtfully at the straggly stubble on his chin. Then he declared, “We must send a letter to the Wildlife Department, telling them we need a permit to shoot some troublesome baboons. Maybe two. That will shock the rest of the troop enough that they’ll give us some peace for a while. Then we must drag the dead baboons down to Scops. That way the hyena will follow the trail—and she’ll become Kyle and Milly’s problem.”

  She? The reference to Morag as the hyena was clear. I snorted a laugh. “Maybe the problem will go away on its own, now we have a CIM happening. Like it did the night Sean was here. The hyena was nowhere to be found.”

  Matanta grinned, clearly understanding my veiled reference to Morag’s reluctance to morph into a hyena when the boss was around. Then his smile vanished. “But the CIM has to come back.”

  “True.” I frowned. I could joke as much as I liked about Morag, but I already dreaded her return. I changed the subject. “You really think the Wildlife Department will agree to shooting baboons? And what about Kyle and Milly? We’re trying to make friends with them.”

  “Okay,” Matanta conceded grumpily, “so we take the baboons somewhere else then. But if we don’t try with Wildlife we’ll never know, will we?”

  “And if we decide to do this crazy plan of yours, how do we get the letter to Wildlife?”

  “Thekiso can take it. They have a camp not far from here, up river. And it would be good if we go soon, because they’ll be visiting any day now to collect the park entrance fees.” Noga Island fell just outside the Moremi Game Reserve, but the moment a mokoro entered the river, it crossed the border into the park. As part of their nightly tariff, each guest paid a park entrance fee. Once a month, the Wildlife officials visited camp to collect the loot.