by Desmond Cory
The first voice he heard was that of a woman; its tone, he thought, was not particularly attractive. She spoke English, but with a certain flatness and lack of emphasis that made the consonants ugly. It took Johnny several moments to place the accent as Dutch or Afrikaans; however, she seemed to be speaking at some length.
“… I think it a great mistake. I see that it was desirable to acquire the boat, for what it’s worth; but it should have been chartered outright. Then this Fedora man could have waited here for our return. As it is, he’s in a strong position and I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t try to take advantage of it.”
“I don’t know that I follow you.” The deeper masculine rumble was unquestionably van Kuyp. “We’ve come to a clear financial agreement—”
“I’m not talking about finance, Van. Surely you must see that as the boat is his property, he’ll probably assume that he’s in charge of it still?”
“I don’t know that I’ve any objection. After all, we made a nice mess of the last one, didn’t we? I’m afraid Bomota isn’t as hot a helmsman as he claims to be.”
“That’s not the point,” said the woman decisively. “If Fedora runs the boat, sooner or later he’s going to think he’s running the Expedition. He’ll start taking liberties. And a crowd like this can’t have more than one leader; it’s simply fatal. This is Africa.”
There was a pause; a shout from the circling dancers a hundred yards away; then the twitter of the crickets again. A shadow moved on the wall of the tent as van Kuyp leaned backwards.
“I don’t reckon there’ll be any trouble of that sort. He seems quite a nice young guy; what I’d call well spoken.”
“I don’t doubt he went to an English public school.” The woman’s voice at last betrayed emotion; a kind of furious scorn. “I happen to know the type, that’s all. We get them all in Africa; all the smart young boys who make England too hot to hold them. And no white man’s travelling up the Ubangi on honest business, believe you me.”
“But he says he’s after white gorilla.”
“That’s the hell of a likely story. He’s probably on the run from the West Coast, and trying to get to Kenya the hard way. Or else he’s ivory poaching. Is that the sort of fellow you want to get mixed up with?”
“He can hardly be after ivory.” This was another man’s voice, slow and reflective. “This isn’t tusker country, Maddy; not this soon after the rains.”
“And I don’t think you’re being altogether fair to this guy. Why, you haven’t even seen him yet.”
“I have. I saw him talking to Raven, down by the river. He wears a little toy pistol, to convince himself he’s tough. He probably goes to bed in it at night.”
“There’s only one way for you to make sure of that,” said the other man, and laughed quietly.
“Shut up, Otto. That’s the kind of talk I don’t want to hear.”
Johnny reflected that little Miss Schneider could sound quite vindictive, when she tried. His fingers toyed reflectively with the smooth butt of the Colt; he listened with increasing interest. “… But that’s another thing. I feel safe enough with your crowd, Van; otherwise I shouldn’t have come. But if any Goddamned Englishman makes a pass at me he’s going to end up as croc meat, and don’t think I’m joking.”
“You don’t want to take too much notice of my sister,” said the third man, who seemed amused at this declaration. “She can’t get over this idea that she’s Heaven’s gift to males. And she doesn’t like the English much – That’s all there is to it, Van.”
“All right, then. Forget it.” The tent pole creaked slightly. “If you won’t take a warning, you won’t. But you’ll be sorry.”
“Now say, Miss Schneider, I’ll certainly watch this guy—”
“You make me sick,” said the honey-tongued Miss Schneider. “Sick and damned hot. I’m going out to smoke a cigarette.”
The canvas bulged and rustled. Johnny retreated ten paces into the darkness and stood knee deep in the grass. The tent was between him and the glow of the fire; while he himself was now invisible against the background of the jungle. The girl came out crouching, and then straightened up; Johnny, watching, bit his lower lip. For six months he had seen no women but those of the bush, whose standards of beauty are – to western eyes – unexacting; and he had almost forgotten that smoothness of feminine contour that comes only with the wearing of modelled clothes. This girl was tall and slender and dressed in brown cotton pyjamas; her figure, in outline against the firelight, had the delicate grace of an antelope’s. Johnny saw the breasts tilted firmly against the thin material, and he wiped his chin with a hand to which a certain unsteadiness had returned.
There was no doubt about this one at all. A woman like that meant trouble. She would have meant trouble in Paris or London or New York; let alone in Africa, where not every fever is caused by a germ in the bloodstream. In Africa, women can put germs in men’s brains.
Johnny stood still in the shadow of the jungle, watching her walk away towards the river. The throb of the drums followed her lustfully, until the gleam of her fair hair had disappeared. Johnny emerged and made his own way back to his tent, still rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He didn’t want trouble. Van Kuyp might have no regrets about his decision; Johnny already had plenty.
3
NEXT DAY at dawn, they started up the river.
Van Kuyp had worked out a complicated order of progress, rather like a Coronation procession. Raikes and Schneider led the way in the first dug-out canoe, with Banfield and the girl in the second; the first canoe was paddled by the Masai and the second by a dozen conscripted Bushmen. This segregation of the tribes was Demetrius’ idea; he thought it likely that the paddlers would do more satisfactory work if the suggestion of inter-tribal rivalry were introduced. Johnny privately feared that this rivalry might be taken a stage too far and might lead to sundry carvings with hatchets; but there would at least be no squabblings in the boats.
The Circe followed behind with a complement of seven: Johnny, Demetrius, van Kuyp, Raven, Johnny’s two wood boys and Otto Schneider’s gun bearer, a Krooboy with the unlikely name of Snort. It had been decided that the three white men and Demetrius should alternate with the others in the use of the canoes; van Kuyp’s original suggestion had been that Johnny should remain with the Circe permanently, but Johnny had expressed a wish to take his turn with the paddlers – sincerely enough, for he had grown tired of the little steamer’s ceaseless tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck and was looking forward to a silent passage through the water, to the sight of brown muscles rippling in harmony and the sound of the paddlers’ monotonous chanting. Van Kuyp had agreed willingly enough, and had glanced triumphantly towards Madrid; who, however, had remained unimpressed.
She was still trouble, though, thought Johnny; even in the uncomplimentary light of dawn, when thick shrouds of mist rose eerily from the river and clung clammily to the reeds. Even dressed as she was in a high-necked shirt and loose fitting flannel trousers; even without a touch of make-up on the freshly-scrubbed tan of her face. Her boots slithered squelchily on the wet mud as she came across to join the waiting party; almost slipping, as she turned to gesticulate towards the sleepy-eyed boys carrying her tent and personal gear. Van Kuyp introduced her to Johnny; she did not look at him until after she had shaken hands, when a sudden cold blue glare raked his face before resting contemptuously on the holster at his hip. Johnny shook his head sadly as she moved away. He looked towards Demetrius, whose sad eyes were apparently focused on a point hidden by the morning fog, and he made a small gesture; Demetrius saw it, and grinned. Very few gestures were lost upon Demetrius.
There was now only Schneider to arrive. He broke through the mists less than a minute later, shouldering his folded tent and with the long barrel of a high-velocity rifle peering from under his arm; the woolly-haired Snort walked beside him, carrying a bulging rucksack. Schneider dumped his pack beside the moored canoe and came swinging across to the wooding; a slight figure,
incredibly like his sister in feature and in smoothness of movement, but with wide shoulders and a frame built to a specification of wiry strength and endurance. He shook Johnny’s hand with a non-committal nod; his fingers were dry and firm, as his sister’s had been, but with plenty of power behind even a casual grip. He had the cool, level stare of a natural hunter. Johnny rather liked the look of him.
There was not much conversation; nobody felt very talkative, at that hour of the morning. The Expedition was ready to resume its journey; only certain formalities remained – notably the “dashing” of the headman with various gifts suitable to his exalted rank. Van Kuyp performed this necessary function with the efficiency of long practise, and retired to the boat amidst a chorus of admiring grunts from the assembled Bushmen. The two wood boys were already aboard, plying their tasks with energy; the Circe was visibly getting up steam. The paddlers filed down to their waiting canoes; the village mundo mugo, a trifle bleary-eyed after his last night’s feat of obstetric surgery but fortunately wearing a devil mask, pranced unwieldily down to the wooding and drew, with his symbolical spear, the outline of a buffalo in the mud. His timing was almost perfect; as he completed his spirited sketch, the sun shot its first fierce smoky ray over the eastern horizon. The witch doctor instantly slaughtered the buffalo with much fierce stabbings and crouchings, to the accompaniment of loud shouts from the excited populace. The Circe emitted a triumphant hoot of steam that nearly drove the village into panic, and began to thresh her way out into the broad waters of the Ubangi amidst scenes of wild enthusiasm from the shore. It was a rousing send-off; moreover, the Expedition had the assurance of fine weather for their journey and the benign assistance of the Buffalo God in their hunting trips. “Though they might have picked,” van Kuyp said, “something a darn sight smaller. And preferably without horns.”
“It probably works for other animals as well,” said Johnny amicably.
The Circe’s passengers distributed themselves on the deck chairs that cramped up the afterdeck; for van Kuyp had added two more to the original complement. Demetrius had taken the wheel; Snort was crouched lugubriously in the bows, watching out for sandbanks; the two wood boys were still sweating away down in the boat’s cabin. As the Circe turned her nose upriver, the grey wraiths of the mist shuddered and parted, striving to escape from the eager heat of the sun; the banks appeared to either side as heaving masses of struggling green. The Expedition’s original boat lay sadly at her moorings, listing dangerously to port; left to the mercies of Bomoto and his heavy handed repair crew, she appeared to feel her position acutely.
They had left her well behind by the time the sun had levered itself clear of the dark horizon; the detail of the banks was clear, and the haze of the jungle was rising as a solid wall to the sky. Johnny felt the tingle of the sun at the base of his throat and sat back in his chair, tilting his topee forwards; in the chair to his right, Raven had gone contentedly to sleep. To his left, van Kuyp was busily jotting down notes in an enormous leather-covered diary. Johnny closed his eyes.
“Say, Mr. Fedora. D’you have any great objection to doing a spell on watch at night?”
Van Kuyp had looked up from his notebook and was thoughtfully sucking the top of his fountain pen. “Why, no,” said Johnny. “Is that the usual routine?”
“Yes. We all take a turn at it, you see, in two-hour watches. This is dangerous country, after all, and we like to have somebody keeping an eye open; apart from that, we have to look out for our stores or the natives’ll pinch ’em. If you could do a watch tonight, it’d make things a whole lot easier; the times work out difficult, otherwise.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
“Fine,” said van Kuyp. “Then I’ll give you the last spell, from three to five in the morning.” He wrote industriously in his book. “The thing’s a cinch, really. All you have to do is sit right here on deck with a gun in your lap and yell out at any sign of trouble.” He slapped the book shut. “Well, that’s a weight off my mind. That fixes our new routine.”
“You stick to routine pretty closely, I suppose?”
“Sure. You have to, on a trip like this.” Van Kuyp glanced down at his wrist-watch. “I’m reckoning on a six-hour trek every morning, from six o’clock to noon. I suppose this … this excellent little boat of yours can run six hours without refuelling?”
“Oh, comfortably.”
“That’s all right, then. Around noon we have a three-hour lie-up for the heat of the day; we can get the wood in then, and stack it, and have morning chop, and then have time for a quick siesta, if we’re lucky. After that, we have another three hours on the river from three to six.”
“Only till six. That leaves a whole lot of daylight.”
“Sure. But we need a good deal. Otto Schneider has to go out and kill some food for us before sundown; and we have to get the tents pitched. Then Raven here likes to—”
“You pitch camp every night?” said Johnny, surprised.
“Oh well, yes. We reckon it’s safer. Less risk of fever and, besides, there are plenty of leopards hanging about who don’t mind taking a bite at you. Again, it cuts down the chances for the natives to get in amongst our personal gear … Have you been sleeping in the open?”
“I’ve always slept on the boat.”
“I see. Well, you can go on doing that if you like, though I doubt if there’s room now – with all our stores in the cabin.”
“No, I’ll do the same as everybody else.”
“What d’you think about the schedule in general,” asked van Kuyp. There seemed to be a slight wariness about his attitude this morning; Johnny guessed that Madrid’s warnings had, after all, made a certain impression upon him. “Care to suggest any changes?”
Johnny shook his head.
“Oh,” said van Kuyp, and relapsed into silence.
The paddle wheels of the Circe drove rhythmically into the water, pushing the boat steadily onwards into the eye of the sun. Johnny was no longer sleepy; his gaze wandered casually from bank to bank, while he manipulated tobacco and cigarette papers. “How soon will we reach the Kob’ei,” he asked, “travelling at this rate?”
Van Kuyp shrugged. “I’d know that,” he said, “if I knew how far we had to go. It’s about nine days’ march by land, they say; so we ought to do it in five or six. But Madrid says the Bushmen themselves aren’t any too sure.”
“Why does everyone call her Madrid?”
“It’s her real name. Guess she was born there, or something.”
“Maybe her mother was a matador.”
Van Kuyp chuckled. “Well, maybe I ought to warn you about her. You don’t want to take her too serious. She just isn’t keen on the English. Well, I don’t know that she likes men at all; but Englishmen the least. She comes from the south-west, and I reckon they’re still fighting the Boer War down there.”
Raven moved uneasily on his deck chair, and pushed his red neckerchief farther back from his forehead. “I can’t think,” he said testily, opening a red-rimmed eye, “why you brought that girl along at all. A bloody-minded little bitch, if you ask my opinion.”
“One ought to make allowances, Professor. She’s a darned good interpreter, you’ll have to allow.”
“There were plenty of other applicants,” said Raven testily. “And why on earth … Oh well. You know my opinions on the subject.”
“Her references were excellent, as I’ve told you. And besides, that brother of hers is a first-class hunter; we’re lucky to have him.”
“You damned squareheads always stick together.”
“Now I resent that,” said van Kuyp angrily. Raven grunted and closed his eyes again; the discussion was apparently concluded. Johnny blinked nervously from one man to the other; Raikes, he felt, obviously had liberal views on what constituted an argument.
Van Kuyp, however, seemed content to let matters rest. “Of course,” he said, turning to Johnny and lowering his voice, “some of us are kind of old fashioned in their views. Don
’t worry about it. If you just behave natural to Miss Schneider, you’ll find she’s perfectly human.”
“Treat her just like anyone else, eh?”
“Sure. The one rule we’ve decided to make is that no one goes into her tent alone. That’s so that none of the native boys get the wrong idea.” Van Kuyp cracked his knuckles with some show of embarrassment. “Except, of course, when she’s ill Dr. Raikes can attend her professionally.”
“I wish her brother would attend her professionally,” said Raven, without opening his eyes. “They tell me he’s a pretty good shot.”
Van Kuyp looked at him and then at Johnny, but decided to add nothing further. Conversation languished. The drone of the paddlers’ chanting drifted backwards through the shimmering air.
They had been travelling upriver for little more than half an hour and the sun was still low; but already the weight of the heat was something tangible. The temperature was somewhere in the low eighties, and rising minute by minute. It offered little incitement for small talk.
Johnny sat back in his chair and watched the scene that he had watched before for so many days. The brown river pouring its strength sullenly westwards, its farther reaches touched to glory by the angling rays of the sun; to either side, the green low lying fecundity of the jungle. The trees and the scrub, the bright poisonous creepers, the great patches of elephant’s ear and the hairy trailers of rattan; all seemed to be rioting together in a shameless orgy of fertility; deep in the black earth the seeds of evil were swelling, bursting, shooting forth tendrils, clutching at the trunks of the massive trees that stood intertwined in a permanent act of coition. The whole jungle was a vast, crawling parasite; every leaf, every bough was alive and seeking life; while in its dark moistnesses great metal-coloured insects battled and hummed and clung to one another. It was the stinking world of the giant vegetable, a world where life rose from death and corruption, a world where death came from the swinging suckers that fumbled and snatched and settled. Beneath it all was the earth, the still rich earth, composed of the sediment of other jungles that had been there before; of trees that had fallen while the world was being made and of leaves that had ripened and rotted under the rays of a young and lusty sun. So on through aeons of yawning time to the present moment; so on till the sun was dying and man forgotten and all his cities dust.
