West With the Night

by Beryl Markham

  And come he did. None of us quite knew from where, but in the midst of the bedlam the grass in front of Arab Maina parted as if cleaved by a scythe, and a large boar, blind with rage, plunged from it straight at the Murani.

  If Buller had not run ahead after his own quarry, things might have happened differently. As it was, there was more amusement than tragedy in what did happen.

  The boar was larger than average, and the bigger they are the tougher they are. Their hides are tough as boot-leather and nothing less than a spear thrust in a vital part will stop them.

  Arab Maina was ready and waiting. The boar lunged, the Murani sidestepped, the spear flashed — and the boar was gone. But not alone. Behind him, spitting the flying dust, swearing in Nandi and in Swahili, ran Arab Maina assisted by two of his mongrels — all of them following, with their eyes and their legs, the drunkenly swaying shaft of Arab Maina’s spear, its point lodged fast and solid between the shoulders of the boar.

  Arab Kosky and I began to follow, but we couldn’t laugh and run at the same time, so we stopped running and watched. In less than a minute the dogs, the man, and the warthog had found the horizon and disappeared behind it like four fabulous characters in search of Æsop.

  We turned and trotted in the direction Buller had taken, listening to his deep, excited barks which came at regular intervals. After covering about three miles, we found him at the side of a large hole where he had run his warthog to ground.

  Buller stood gazing at the dusty opening in silence, as if hoping the warthog would be such a fool as to think that since there were no more barks, there was no more dog. But the warthog was not taken in. He would emerge in his own good time, and he knew as well as Buller did that no dog would enter an occupied pig-hole and expect to come out alive.

  ‘That’s a good boy, Buller!’ As usual, I was relieved to find him still unhurt, but the moment I spoke, he broke his strategic silence and demanded, with much tail-wagging and a series of whining barks, that the warthog be roused from his den and be brought to battle.

  More than once every inch of Buller’s body had been ripped open in deep, ugly gashes on such pig-hunts, but at least he had lately learned not to go for the boar’s head which, in the end, is fatal for any dog. Until now I had always managed to reach the scene of conflict in time to spear the warthog. But I might not always be so lucky.

  I moved carefully to the back of the opening while Arab Kosky stood far to one side.

  ‘If only we had some paper to rustle down the hole, Kosky …’

  The Murani shrugged. ‘We will have to try other tricks, Lakweit.’

  It seems silly, and perhaps it is, but very often, after every other method had failed, we had enticed warthogs into the open, long before they were quite ready to attack, simply by rustling a scrap of paper over the entrance of their holes. It was not always easy to get so limited an article as paper in East Africa at that time, but when we had it, it always worked. I haven’t any idea of why it worked. Poking a stick through the hole never did, nor shouting into it, nor even using smoke. To the warthog, I think, the paper made a sound that was clearly insulting — comparable perhaps to what is known here and there nowadays as a Bronx cheer.

  But we had no paper. We tried everything else without the least success, and decided finally, in the face of Buller’s contempt, to give it up and find out what had happened to Arab Maina on his quest for the vanished spear.

  We were leaving the scene of our mutual discouragement when Arab Kosky’s curiosity overcame his natural caution. He bent down in front of the dark hole and the warthog came out.

  It was more like an explosion than an attack by a wild pig. I could see nothing through the thick burst of dust except extremities — the tail of the boar, the feet of Arab Kosky, the ears of Buller, and the end of a spear.

  My own spear was useless in my hands. I might thrust at the warthog only to strike the dog or the Murani. It was an unholy tangle with no end, no beginning, and no opening. It lasted five seconds. Then the warthog shot from the tumbling mass like a clod from a whirlwind and disappeared through a corridor of anthills with Buller just behind slashing at the fleeing grey rump.

  I turned to Arab Kosky. He sat on the ground in a puddle of his own blood, his right thigh cut through as if it had been hacked with a sword. He pressed a fold of his shuka against the wound and stood up. Buller’s bark grew fainter, echoing through the forest of anthills. The boar had won the first battle — and might win the second, unless I hurried.

  ‘Can you walk, Kosky? I must follow Buller. He may get killed.’

  The Murani smiled without mirth. ‘Of course, Lakweit! This is nothing — except reward for my foolishness. I will go back to the singiri slowly and have it attended to. It is best that you lose no time and follow Buller. Already the sun is sinking. Go now, and run quickly!’

  I clasped the round shaft of the spear tight in my hand and ran with all my strength. For me — because I was still a child — this was a heart-sinking experience. So many thoughts flashed through my mind. Would my strength hold out long enough to save Buller from the tusks of the boar? What had become of Arab Maina, and why had I ever left him? How would poor Kosky get home? Would he bleed too badly on the way?

  I ran on and on, following the barely audible bark of Buller, and the few drops of blood clinging at intervals to the stalks of grass or soaking into the absorbent earth. It was either Buller’s blood or the warthog’s. Most likely it was both.

  ‘Ah-yey, if I could only run a little faster!’

  I must not stop for a minute. My muscles begin to ache, my legs bleed from the ‘wait-a-bit’ thorns and the blades of elephant grass. My hand, wet with perspiration, slips on the handle of my spear. I stumble, recover, and run on as the sound of Buller’s bark grows louder, closer, then fades again.

  The sun is going and shadows lay like broad hurdles across my path. Nothing is of any importance to me except my dog. The boar is not retreating; he is leading Buller away from me, away from my help.

  The blood spoor grows thicker and there is more of it. Buller’s bark is weak and irregular, but a little nearer. There are trees now jutting from the plain, large, solitary, and silent.

  The barking stops and there is nothing but the blood to follow. How can there be so much blood? Breathless and running still, I peer ahead into the changing light and see something move in a patch of turf under a flat-topped thorn tree.

  I stop and wait. It moves again and takes colour — black and white and splattered with red. It is silent, but it moves. It is Buller.

  I need neither breath nor muscles to cover the few hundred yards to the thorn tree. I am suddenly there, under its branches, standing in a welter of blood. The warthog, as large as any I have ever seen, six times as large as Buller, sits exhausted on his haunches while the dog rips at its belly.

  The old boar sees me, another enemy, and charges once more with magnificent courage, and I sidestep and plunge my spear to his heart. He falls forward, scraping the earth with his great tusks, and lies still. I leave the spear in his body, turn to Buller, and feel tears starting to my eyes.

  The dog is torn open like a slaughtered sheep. His right side is a valley of exposed flesh from the root of his tail to his head, and his ribs show almost white, like the fingers of a hand smeared with blood. He looks at the warthog, then at me beside him on my knees, and lets his head fall into my arms. He needs water, but there is no water anywhere, not within miles.

  ‘Ah-yey! Buller, my poor, foolish Buller!’

  He licks my hand, and I think he knows I can do nothing, but forgives me for it. I cannot leave him because the light is almost gone now and there are leopards that prowl at night, and hyenas that attack only the wounded and helpless.

  ‘If only he lives through the night! If only he lives through the night!’

  There is a hyena on a near hill who laughs at that, but it is a coward’s laugh. I sit with Buller and the dead boar under the thorn tree and watch the da
rk come closer.

  The world grows bigger as the light leaves it. There are no boundaries and no landmarks. The trees and the rocks and the anthills begin to disappear, one by one, whisked away under the magical cloak of evening, I stroke the dog’s head and try to close my eyes, but of course I cannot. Something moves in the tall grass, making a sound like the swish of a woman’s skirt. The dog stirs feebly and the hyena on the hill laughs again.

  I let Buller’s head rest on the turf, stand up, and pull my spear from the body of the boar. Somewhere to the left there is a sound, but I do not recognize it and I can see only dim shapes that are motionless.

  I lean for a moment on my spear peering outward at what is nothing, and then turn toward my thorn tree.

  ‘Are you here, Lakwani?’

  Arab Maina’s voice is cool as water on shaded rocks.

  ‘I am here, Maina.’

  He is tall and naked and very dark beside me. His shuka is tied around his left forearm to allow his body freedom to run.

  ‘You are alone, and you have suffered, my child.’

  ‘I am all right, Maina, but I fear for Buller. I think he may die.’

  Arab Maina kneels on the earth and runs his hands over Buller’s body. ‘He is badly hurt, Lakwani — very badly hurt — but do not grieve too much. I think your spear has saved him from death, and God will reward you for that. When the moon shines at midnight, we will carry him home.’

  ‘I am so happy that you have come, Maina.’

  ‘How is it Kosky dared to leave you alone? He has betrayed the trust I had in him!’

  ‘Do not be angry with Kosky. He is badly hurt. His thigh was ripped by the warthog.’

  ‘He is no child, Lakweit. He is a Murani, and he should have been more careful, knowing I was not there. After I recovered my spear, I turned back to find you. I followed the blood on the grass for miles — and then I followed Buller’s barking. If the direction of the wind had been wrong, you would still be alone. Kosky has the brains of the one-eyed hare!’

  ‘Ah-yey! What does it matter now, Maina? You are here, and I am not alone. But I am very cold.’

  ‘Lakwani, lie down and rest. I will keep watch until it is light enough for us to go. You are very tired. Your face has become thin.’

  He cuts handfuls of grass with his sword and makes a pillow, and I lie down, clasping Buller in my arms. The dog is unconscious now and bleeding badly. His blood trickles over my khaki shorts and my thighs.

  The distant roar of a waking lion rolls against the stillness of the night, and we listen. It is the voice of Africa bringing memories that do not exist in our minds or in our hearts — perhaps not even in our blood. It is out of time, but it is there, and it spans a chasm whose other side we cannot see.

  A ripple of lightning plays across the horizon.

  ‘I think there will be a storm tonight, Maina.’

  Arab Maina reaches out in the darkness and puts his hand on my forehead. ‘Relax, Lakwani, and I will tell you an amusing fable about the cunning little Hare.’

  He begins very slowly and softly, ‘ The Hare was a thief … In the night he came to the manyatta … He lied to the Cow, and told her that her Calf would die if she moved … Then he stood up on his hind legs and began sucking the milk from the Cow’s milk bag … The other …’

  But I am asleep.

  VIII

  And We be Playmates, Thou and I

  BULLER WAS BROUGHT HOME by moonlight. For a long time he lay still, seeing nothing but the earthen floor in front of his paws, until at last he could lift his head a little, and then he could walk. One day he sniffed at my spear, dipped in its sheath of black ostrich feathers, and waggled his forever expectant tail. But that was after the world had changed, and there was no more boar-hunting.

  The world had changed without any reason that I could see. My father’s face had become more grave than it had ever been before, and the voices of the men he spoke with were sombre. There was a lot of head-shaking and talk about gloomy, schoolbookish places that had nothing to do with Africa.

  A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili or in English, and, because of this shooting, whole countries were at war. It seemed a laborious method of retribution, but that was the way it was being done. So, by nineteen-fifteen, the lights had not only gone out ‘all over Europe,’ but many of what few windows there were had begun darkening in East Africa.

  War was different in the hinterland. It was a war of men rather than of weapons; tanks, planes, gas masks, and guns that threw shells twenty miles remained things of the future even after they were elsewhere blended with the past.

  The Protectorate fought a frontier war with frontier weapons; it was still dressed in frontier clothes.

  Boers, Somalis, Nandi, Kikuyu, Kavirondo, and settlers of all nationalities went to battle, when the Empire called, in what they had on their backs when they left the plough, the singiri, or the forest. They rode mules or they walked. They carried guns if they had guns — some brought nothing more lethal than bush knives. They converged on Nairobi and stood in the streets or gathered before Nairobi House, looking at best like revolutionists, but not like soldiers of the Crown.

  They wore hats, bandannas, jackets of home-cured hide, shukas, shorts, boots or no boots, and it didn’t matter. Altogether it made a uniform — not for a man, but for a body of men. Each contributed to the distinguished style and colour of a regiment that had had its predecessors once in America, but had not, in this war, a counterpart.

  They had come to fight, and they stayed and fought — some because they could read and understand what they read, some because they had listened to other men, and some because they were told that this, in the name of civilization — a White Man’s God more tangible than most — was their new duty.

  I never heard the ruffle of drums in those days or saw many flags dragging precise platoons behind them. I saw men leave their work at the mills, and there were teams of oxen on the farm without their masters.

  The farm lived, but its voice was a whisper. It produced, but not with the lusty ease it had before. There was less gusto, but Kibii and I did what children do when there are things abroad too big to understand; we stayed close to each other and played games that made no noise.

  Kibii was a little Nandi boy, younger than I, but we had many things in common. We gained a bond that was forged in the war and which we would have done without; but for me, years later in another hemisphere, it exists yet, as it must for him — still in Africa.

  A messenger came to the farm with a story to tell. It was not a story that meant much as stories went in those days. It was about how the war progressed in German East Africa and about a tall young man who was killed in it.

  I suppose he was no taller than most who were killed there and no better. It was an ordinary story, but Kibii and I, who knew him well, thought there was no story like it, or one as sad, and we think so now.

  The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all.

  But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. He believed in duty and in the kind of justice that he knew, and in all the things that were of the earth — like the voice of the forest, the right of a lion to kill a buck, the right of a buck to eat grass, and the right of a man to fight. He believed in many wives, young as he was, and in the telling of stories by the shade of the singiri.

  He took the gun and held it the way they had told him to hold it, and walked where they told him to walk, smiling a little and looking for another man to fight.

  He was shot and killed by the other man, who also believed in duty, and he was buried where he fell. It was so simple and so unimportant.

  But of course it meant something to Kibii and me, because the tall you
ng man was Kibii’s father and my most special friend. Arab Maina died on the field of action in the service of the King. But some said it was because he had forsaken his spear.

  ‘When I am circumcised and become a Murani,’ Kibii said, ‘and drink blood and curdled milk like a man, instead of ugali and nettles, like a woman, I will find whoever it was that killed my father and put my spear in his heart.’

  ‘You are very selfish, Kibii,’ I said. ‘I can jump as high as you can, and play all our games just as well. I can throw a spear almost as far. We will find him together and put both our spears in his heart.’

  The days that marked the war went on like the ticking of a clock that had no face and showed no time. After a while it was difficult to remember what it had been like before, or the remembrance had been brought to mind so often that it was tarnished and dull, like a trinket not worth looking at. Kibii and I began living again, from hour to hour.

  He still spoke of his forthcoming circumcision as one might speak of the prospect of being born again — better born and with brand-new hopes. ‘When I am a Murani …’ he would boast. But when he said it he always looked smaller than he really was, closer still to a little boy than to a man.

  So, while he waited for his new birth and I, being only a girl, just waited to grow up, we played our old games and took increasing interest in the work with the horses my father had assigned to us.

  The games we played were Nandi games because I knew no others and there was no white child, except myself, anywhere near Njoro, though there may have been some Boer children in the small colony about two hundred miles away on the Uasin Gishu Plateau.