by Peter Knyte
‘It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, it always fascinates me, whether over land or sea, forest, mountain or moor, it never seems to set the same way twice. Yet somehow here in Africa where the horizon stretches so far…’
With these words his gaze had drifted back to the west and the last fraction of crimson disk as it slid into the quenching bank of distant cloud.
As though released from a trance he turned back to me with an apology for his dramatic air, and offered me his name and his hand. ‘Robert Marlow, at your service.’
Moving inside from the now dark evening he explained that the reception had told him of my arrival, and that I was travelling with just a guide and a couple of servants. As such he’d come straight over to make sure I didn’t go in to dine before he’d had the opportunity of inviting me to join his own small group for the evening.
As we moved through the reception it was immediately apparent that the group were well accustomed to their own mutual habits, as everyone who I’d seen ride in had now moved through into the bar area for a drink before changing. Anticipating this, Marlow lead me straight to them, stopping only briefly in the doorway to introduce me to his companions.
‘My friends! We have with us another visitor from England, Mr George Whitaker. Who has kindly agreed to join us for dinner this evening, so please make him feel at home.’
‘It is a wonder there are any Englishmen left in England, there are so many of you in Kenya alone!’ piped up one obviously Gallic member of the group.
‘This is Jean Louis de Gris, our resident artist and philosopher,’ replied Marlow, ‘… and possibly one of the worst shots in the whole of Africa!’
‘Ah, do not listen m’sieur Whitaker, it is Mr Marlow himself, who has to wait until the quarry is almost upon him before he shoots.’
There was much good-natured laughter at this, and then as conversations came to a natural close, two or three individuals would disappear briefly, to return a few minutes later changed and refreshed for dinner.
And so it was, being already changed, that I at least briefly got to meet everyone as the group gradually dwindled and then swelled again ready for dinner.
Dinner itself was a very good-natured affair. Polite yet informal, during which the conversation split and fragmented a hundred times, only to be re-united with the advent of a popular topic. I was politely quizzed about my background and tastes, and in my turn I questioned and observed the members that made up this sociable and welcoming group.
I discovered that they had mostly been on tour together for the past three years, and had gradually come together through chance encounter, but had stayed together through mutual interest. They had wandered around Africa, at times only a few hours separating them from myself, in search of life and sport and spectacle. Occasionally individuals would leave for a while to re-join later. Their company reminding me greatly of my time at Cambridge, or what it would have been like in such surroundings, before my father’s waning health had obliged me to abandon my studies.
The only permanent members of the group seemed to be Jean, Marlow, a slightly older and eccentric American called Harrison Sutherland, and an Italian about my own age called Luke Cassanelli, all of whom had met through a mutual friend in London.
Jean and Harry were clearly the older and most settled members of the group, with each regularly poking good natured fun at the other.
While he hid it well with his jovial manner, there was something about the well-dressed Frenchman that made me think he must have been in the army at some point.
In contrast both Marlow and Harry couldn’t be less military in their aspect. Harry, while taller and broader, had the unmistakably round shouldered build of the habitual academic, while Marlow sported the relaxed poise and grace of the natural athlete.
As the evening wore on we relaxed again in the bar with Brandy and cigars. Marlow began to question me upon my immediate plans, and hearing that I was travelling inland to see the southern end of Lake Victoria and the spectacular Bismarck rocks, he suggested I delay my visit for a few days and join them on their hunt for a man-eating lion. Apparently it had recently killed a young man from a nearby village, thus becoming a monster that would almost certainly attack people again. Many tribesmen and locals had already gone to hunt the beast, but after a week without success, they were now beginning to give up the search to return to their farms and villages, presuming the animal to have moved off.
‘We know it must be a rogue,’ said Marlow, ‘as male lions never go out to hunt unless they’re no longer in a pride. We also know from a couple of eyewitnesses that it’s far from being a grizzled old beast, typical of the usual rogue. So it’s probably been ousted from its pride for some temporary infirmity, from which it unusually seems to have recovered.’
‘Yes, but what makes you think it’s still in the area,’ I asked.
‘Well, it’s nothing definite, more a general feeling for the type of animal. If it were just an old male, past its prime and evicted from its pride by a young buck, then I think we’d have seen it move by now. These animals soon lose their strength outside the pride, they get harassed by animals that would normally give them a wide berth and are forced to move on from their resting place or their kill before they’re ready.
‘This lion is different, if it is still in its prime, then it can probably hang on to both its kills and its resting places. And once a big male lion has had a belly full of meat, it can lie back and rest for over a week before it really needs to eat again. As you probably know it’s the females that usually do all the work, so unless it’s already adapted it’ll rest until it really gets hungry.’
I had known this already, and on reflection could see Marlow’s point, but how would one go about hunting such an animal? Spotting a pride on the savannah was one thing, but a solitary animal, that was another thing altogether.
‘We also know a rogue lion similar to this one has been reported moving up from the south,’ continued Marlow, ‘where it’s thought responsible for the deaths of several domestic cattle. Now if this is the same animal, then these reports indicate it’s in no hurry to move on from a good hunting ground. In one case it stayed in the same area for nearly two months before the local farmers managed to make their livestock too difficult to get at. So if it’s here, there’s a good chance it’ll stick around until something forces it to move.’
I had to concede the possibility of what was being said, and as such agreed to stay around for a while in order to help out with the hunt.
I didn’t have to wait long. After retiring for the evening it seemed as though my eyes had closed for no more than a moment when I was woken by Jean hammering on the door and telling me to get dressed quickly, the lion had been spotted.
Apparently during that very evening, the beast had stirred, killing a calf and its mother, and seriously wounding the farmer who’d stumbled across the creature after it had fed.
I dressed immediately and reached the waiting Jean at a run. As we mounted the horses in the early morning light he told me that the others had been gone for only a few minutes, but that they’d set off at a furious pace. As we followed, he also told me several members of the group had continued to talk after I’d retired, and that Marlow had admitted his growing dissatisfaction with hunting, or more specifically the high-powered long-range hunting. Jean openly voiced his concern, informing me that Marlow had on more than one occasion allowed his prey to get dangerously close in order to enhance the thrill.
‘It can only be a matter of time,’ he said, ‘before such risks end in disaster.’
Coming across a farmer we discovered that in our haste we’d gone slightly off course, and to our dismay, added half an hour to Marlow’s lead. By riding far less carefully than the terrain demanded we managed to reduce this by a little, but by the time we arrived at the scene we knew we were probably already too late.
Directed by a couple of servants left behind by the group, we arrived over the crest of a low hi
ll, slightly to the side of where the main group must have discovered and then driven the lion. As we looked on we saw Marlow some three hundred yards ahead standing over the body of a large lion. As we approached we could see he’d removed his jacket and holster and left them a short distance away with his rifle, choosing to face the beast instead with a sword!
His right sleeve was ripped off at the elbow, with the torn fragment hanging from his wrist by the cuff. Gradually turning black by a steady flow of blood from a deep gash in his forearm.
As we came alongside, I could see the blade from his swordstick had entered deep into the animals throat and probably become lodged in the spine, severing the Carotid artery and quite possibly the spinal cord in one blow, killing the beast instantly. There was a low cloud of dust around the pair, but as it settled I could see a pool of dark blood spreading out from the animal and around Marlow’s feet.
I remember noticing as he stepped forward to pull his blade free, how that dark pool of African life stopped spreading as the beasts heart pumped its last, and an instant later was absorbed into the parched earth.
Removing the blade seemed to break the spell for as Marlow turned back toward us, Nunn the other American unleashed such a torrent of oaths and curses at the foolishness of the stunt, closely followed by several of the others with opinions ranging from Nunn’s to utter amazement. Jean who was beside me was silent, just looking at his friend with an expression I can only describe as one akin to sorrow. Eventually someone remembered Marlow’s arm and managed to bandage it and get the bleeding to stop, but it did nothing to quell the barrage of comments.
Somehow we managed to make our way back to the lodge, amongst the grumbling and griping which didn’t stop for a moment. It was still only late morning, but already the day was promising to be stifling, so whilst the others were distracted, I took the opportunity to slip away and visit one of the villages my father had briefly stopped in. It was a largely fruitless exercise, like several of the other villages I’d visited, but I’d almost succeeded in putting the morning’s events out of my head, until I came within sight of the lodge again. I swear I could detect the change in atmosphere from quarter of a mile away, and it just got worse as I got closer.
Dinner that evening was absolutely wretched, with long bouts of silence followed by half-hearted attempts at conversation. I passed on desert altogether, and would have done the same with the main course too if I felt I could have done so without appearing to be rude. Somehow it all seemed to coincide with my feelings of guilt at being away from home for so long, Once again I felt like I was being reminded that life was a serious matter and I was just avoiding my responsibilities.
CHAPTER 2 – CATHEDRAL OF STARS
The next few days were a sombre affair with much of the camaraderie I’d seen on the first evening being replaced by short tempers and stand offish-ness. The only topic of conversation was of course Marlow and the lion, and anyone trying to avoid it was sought out and quizzed or questioned and then preached at. Marlow himself was no exception, and several times I was aware of him being taken aside for a ‘serious talk’ by different members of the group. At one point there was even talk of calling a priest for him.
Then they began to drift away. One’s and two’s at first. Nunn just disappeared, packed his things and left before anyone even awoke, no message or even so much as a note. Another couple including a young Yorkshireman left the same day. Both stayed to say goodbye and then left with long faces and many apologies.
After another two days over half the group had gone and we were down to seven of us. Marlow, Jean, Harry and Luke, as well as Peter McAndrews from Edinburgh and another Italian Silvio Jesuino from Florence.
I can’t explain why I stayed, especially with my other commitments nagging at the back of my mind. Perhaps not having seen the actual act made it less real or, more alarmingly, perhaps of all the people there I could almost understand why Marlow had done it, and what it must have felt like to face such a beast without a rifle.
As soon as the last of the those leaving had gone, a semblance of the old atmosphere returned, and at dinner that evening, four days after the hunt, the conversation was once again light and entertaining. It was obvious there was much being left unsaid, and eventually the darker aspects of our thoughts began to be voiced.
Harry, almost apologetically, started us off.
‘You know, I don’t think I could ever go back to my old life. I’ve got friends and family that I’d sorely like to see again, and for a while I know I could enjoy their company, as well as the woods and the fishing, especially in the fall. You folks would just love New England in the fall, there’s more shades of red and gold than a person can count, and the entire place smells of apples and berries. I dare say there may even be a few ladies who wouldn’t mind listening to a tall tale or two of far off lands. But I know after a couple of months the routine would begin to get to me. I’d start thinking about Africa or India, and then about what I was or wasn’t going to do with my life. Not that I know what that is yet, just that I’ve got to keep on looking… If it takes me the rest of my life, that’s the one thing I do know!’.
There was a lull for a moment or two, with a few murmurs of agreement, and then Marlow continued:
‘My friends,’ he began, resignation written in every line of his face, ‘I think we all knew this time was coming. As I’ve said to some of you before, the hunt for me has lost its appeal. You’ve all seen the… foolhardy attempts I’ve made to try and recapture some of the meaning or challenge, but I understand now how that isn’t possible, and no amount of risk taking or gambling with my life is ever going to have meaning.
‘But having said that, I’ve got to keep looking for something. I realise it may sound fanciful or foolish, and perhaps even naïve in its sentiment. But I honestly feel that we’ve just been practising or playing at life, and the time has come to live in a fuller sense. Like Harry, I don’t know what that is yet, I just know it’s time to figure it out.’
As I listened to these new found friends of mine discussing this issue, and trying to understand one another better,. I thought I was perhaps a little ahead of them in reaching these conclusions. I’d left England with the half formed idea of retracing my father’s footsteps across Africa, but I’d known even then that what I was seeking wasn’t a greater insight into my father, but a greater insight into myself.
Jean who’d been silent up until now, leant forward to refill his glass, but in such a typically expansive and Gallic manner, that I couldn’t help but smile in anticipation of what he was about to say.
‘Well I am not sure I can quite believe what I am hearing! My friends who I thought all so cheerful and content in their sojourn around Africa, I discover are all miserable, and bored of their privileged lives. You will all be telling me next that you have seen the light of true socialism and wish nothing more than to spend your time toiling on the land and eating raw vegetables!’
‘And to think, some people suggest sarcasm is a lower form of whit.’ interjected Peter with a wry grin from the other side of the table.
‘It is either that…’ continued Jean unperturbed. ‘or you are all about to tell me you wish to find the true meaning of life. And, that you are prepared to spend the rest of your lives traversing far-flung, exotic and no doubt highly attractive areas of this planet in order to do so. Such sacrifice mes amies! Such sacrifice.’
‘You perhaps have a better idea Jean?’ asked Marlow with just hint of pique in his voice.
‘Ah Robert! You have found me out, I do not. But that is not the same as thinking your idea either possible or in any way credible. It is simply not possible for a man to discover these things, they are … too big. The best we can do is to decide; what we shall do, from what we can do. The rest we must leave to history or the next life.’
‘We will all meet our maker soon enough I think.’ suggested Silvio amiably. ‘Maybe such a question can wait until then?’
‘Gentlemen!�
� replied Marlow holding up his hands in mock surrender, ‘I realise this is a difficult question, but to not ask it merely because of its size, or the trouble we think we may face in trying to find an answer, that can only be an excuse, surely?’
‘Robert, it is not just a question of . . .’ began Jean, only to stop abruptly and turn his head to listen.
It was very faint at first, but as we all sat and listened the sound of distant drums began to grow stronger then weaker, fading in and out of the night-time air. As one we moved to the door and out onto the western veranda. It was dark out now, a sliver of moon and the clear arc of stars the only illumination across the entire Serengeti. Several of the lodge staff and guides were already outside, listening intently to the sound.
‘The talking drums,’ muttered someone behind me as the sound once more faded out. I noticed Mkize the Kikuyu guide I’d hired in Nyrobi standing nearby. Not knowing how long I was going to be staying I’d asked him to stay around for a few days on the off chance I wanted to continue my journey. I quietly called to him and asked him what the drums were saying. He hesitated, obviously struggling to interpret at first, but waiting patiently while he listened, he eventually managed to translate.
‘An elder comes,’ he began, ‘…a chief of many villages. He brings the… dream to the Singing Stones.’
We stood listening for a while longer, unsure if these ethereal sounds would convey anything more, and then as those more knowledgeable than ourselves disappeared back to what they were doing, we also moved back inside.
Whatever they meant, the subject offered a very tempting distraction, and whether consciously or not, when we returned to the dining room where we’d been sat, everybody was pre-occupied with the drums and what this strangely cryptic message and means of communication could mean.
