by Peter Rimmer
Will wanted to say thank you, but nothing came out of his mouth. He turned away from the big man as tears of joy and sorrow flowed gently down his cheeks. He stood for a moment looking out over the endless bush of Africa, then wiped away the brief tears and went to the freezer and cracked open the ice.
2
The permanent building at the camp was fifty kilometres down the river from Mongu and by the end of March, a week before the party of Americans were due to fly in from Salisbury en route from New York, the rains had stopped and the floodwaters of the Zambezi were slowly returning to the river. The two weeks of intense training had given Will a new and healthy respect for the African bush.
The three trackers had been renamed by Hannes Potgieter to make his life easy. In order of seniority earned by their knowledge in the wilds, they were called Sixpence, Fourpence and Onepenny, or Six, Four and One in an emergency.
The learning day began for Will the moment he stepped out of his sleeping hut to pinpoint the Goliath heron. The bird, whose snake-like head stood above stalk-like legs a metre and a half from the ground, hated Will with a dedicated passion. The third day the bird had stalked Will, one silent, stealthy foot at a time, the snake-like long neck with the small head and pointed beak waiting its chance for Will to wash his face under the tap, delicious cold river water from the header tank, and then the bird struck at his bent behind, nipping him hard on the right buttock, drawing blood and making Will howl with pain. Will had been naked apart from his underpants. The tame impala ram ran away with the goat and the two Egyptian geese honked in alarm.
“Cheeky little bugger,” called Hannes as Will disappeared back into his hut to tend his wound.
The gentle rabbits and seagulls of Langton Manor were as far away as the moon.
The two Land Rovers were needed for the journey to Mongu as the Americans were four in the party.
“Two hunters and two what they call wives,” explained Hannes. “The men are mostly overweight and the ‘wives’ twenty years younger and the macho hunting trip is to show off their masculinity. People have some strange ways of chasing women, kerel.”
“Hannes, you asked me if I could drive but not if I had a licence. I don’t.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you a licence in Mongu. That policeman owes me a favour.”
The road to Mongu was a game track in and around the tall mopani trees, the track enlarged by the wheels of the Land Rover over the years. The track was wet in many places and they ground through in four-wheel drive, reaching Mongu an hour before the plane was due to arrive. Mongu was the nearest thing to a frontier town Will had ever seen, consisting of the residency, magistrates’ court, hospital, the club, police station and a motley crew of bungalows for the seventy British who administered an area larger than Wales. The two Land Rovers drew up at the police station, side by side, covered in dust and mud, with high, game-viewing seats at the back waiting for the passengers.
“Wait here, Englishman,” said Hannes and disappeared into the small police station.
Will waited in trepidation, thinking of his driving test, while he inspected the short, single, one-lane tarred road of Mongu.
A man in an immaculate uniform with a black leather Sam Browne and black leather swagger stick, his peaked hat straight as an arrow, walked down the path from the police station, his clear blue eyes fixed on Will sitting in the open Land Rover. The man stopped and looked at him in silence.
“Are you William Langton?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Will in quick reaction to the tone of authority.
“Did you just drive thirty miles through the bush from Mr Potgieter’s camp?”
“Yes, sir.”
“May I see your driving licence?” The policeman’s face did not flicker and the inside of Will’s stomach dropped on the floor.
“I don’t,” Will began to stammer, feeling lost in a wilderness.
“You don’t have a licence?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you had better accompany me to the station.”
“Yes, sir.”
The policeman kept a straight face all the way back down the path and into his office where Hannes was sitting behind the policeman’s desk, his bulk flowing out of the chair.
“This what you looking for, kerel?” and Hannes threw a new driving licence on the table. “When you get to Salisbury, whenever, you get a photograph and stick it in the book.”
“But I haven’t taken a test,” said Will, ever more bewildered.
“Hannes says you drive well for an Englishman,” said the policeman with a slight West Country burr. “Better than Onepenny.”
Then the two older men burst out laughing. Will picked up the licence and put it in his pocket. Things were definitely different in Africa.
The Mongu aerodrome consisted of a flat piece of ground free of trees, a windsock and what looked like a hut to Will side by side with a petrol tank marked high octane aviation fuel. There was a small herd of buffalo and a large herd of impala grazing on the airfield.
They were greeted at the hut by a young man not much older than Will who informed them the Americans were delayed and arriving the following afternoon, and since apart from the weekly run from Lusaka via Salisbury there was nothing for them to do, they should all go to the club.
“You can stay in my bungalow tonight… We look after our few customers,” he said, seeing Will’s surprise at the offer. “Airport manager for Central African Airways at Mongu is a job of considerable responsibility. My name’s Laurie Hall.”
“Will Langton.”
“How do you do, old boy. Just got out here?”
“Less than a month.”
“How’d you find Hannes?”
“On the train in Beira.”
“Lucky man. This man has more influence in Barotseland than his nibs the resident commissioner. Probably has more influence than the prime minister himself… His power comes from the chief. That’s his secret. Despite what we British think to the contrary, the paramount chief still runs Barotseland. Oh, there’s a wedding on here tomorrow. One of the rangers is marrying a girl from Pretoria. The resident commissioner has declared a public holiday but I’ll be here to greet your Americans. You’re both invited to the wedding, of course.”
“But I don’t even know the people,” began Will.
“What on earth has that to do with it? You’re British, aren’t you?”
Leaving the door to the only airport building wide open, Laurie Hall climbed into the passenger seat of Will’s Land Rover and folded his arms.
“Follow Hannes. Knows his way to the club rather well.”
“What about the animals when the planes land?” asked Will, looking across the runway.
“Either my lads chase them off or the pilot buzzes the runway a few times. Tomorrow he’ll have to buzz them off.”
“The public holiday?”
“Applies to everyone, of course. British fair play. Can’t be two sets of rules, now can there?… You enjoying Africa all right?”
“Very much.”
“That’s good then. Don’t miss England myself one bit. Long live the empire.”
“The rules of this club are pretty simple,” explained Laurie Hall when they drew up outside the Mongu Club. “Every resident Britisher is obliged to join and any visiting Britisher is an honorary member. The third rule states that the club shall stay open provided two members are capable of standing. To my knowledge the club has never closed.”
“Do you know any of the missionaries?”
“Most of them.”
“A brother of mine is out here.”
“Don’t know any Langtons.”
“My father adopted him during the war. Hilary’s father was Dad’s tail gunner and his mother was killed in an air raid. Hilary Bains. London Missionary Society.”
“No one’s heard of him for months. His area was inundated during the floods so it’s not surprising. Take a bit more sunshine to dry out that road.
Met him when he flew in the first time. Nice enough chap for a missionary… You and I’d better go and drink on our own while Hannes works his way around the club. Everyone will like to buy him a drink. Now, what are you doing in Barotseland?”
“Well, Hilary I suppose… You might say I ran away from England.”
“Don’t we all. Now what will you drink?”
“Gin and tonic.”
“That’s the stuff… Hannes teaching you to drink? You have to drink in Africa. Not much else to do. We get a film shown every four months in the African beer hall, one of the few places with a generator. Another excuse to drink, really, as the damn projector breaks down and then they have to keep changing the reels… The only time you see a woman is on trips back to Salisbury and the competition’s pretty steep… Cheers, old boy.”
“Cheers…and thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
When the twin-engined de Havilland Dragon Rapide was due to land, Will was given the job of clearing the runway. For all intents and purposes he was still drunk, though he did remember enjoying himself in the club. Despite many enquiries, no one had heard of Hilary since the first inundation and no one seemed that interested in the missionary anyway. Will would have liked to try to find the mission but drinks in the club and then supper and then drinks in the club until the early morning had prevented a dash down the road.
“Don’t get out of your Land Rover,” Hannes had warned at the airport.
The twenty-minute chase up and down the runway honking his horn at the animals was a lot of fun and he retreated back to the airport building as the biplane came in to land. Puffs of dust spurted three times as the aircraft bounced and then ran the length of the bush runway before turning and coming to where they were waiting beside the Land Rovers.
“Great night. Thanks for looking after us, Laurie,” said Hannes.
“My pleasure.”
“You come downriver when you want to shoot crocs, kerel… Slim’s still getting a good price?”
“Well, yes… Can’t live on a CAA salary,” and he winked at Will.
As Hannes walked with Will out to the stationary aeroplane where the pilot had opened the door, Hannes looked back at Laurie and waved. “Runs his own cargo business on the quiet. Planes are mostly empty when they go back and the pilots stay with Laurie.”
“I think the English call it using their initiative,” said Will and turned back to the aeroplane to see two young women out of Vogue magazine step onto the runway.
“The ‘wives’,” explained Hannes.
“Wow,” said Will. Despite his vow never to look at another woman in his life, Will found his young hormones dancing in the sun.
By the third evening of the American safari, with Hannes, Onepenny and Sixpence in the bush with the two American hunters shooting for trophies, Will knew the ‘wives’ had come to Africa for another kind of trophy and he was the target. The weeks of hard living on the boat from England, the struggle upriver, three weeks of intensive training in the African bush with Hannes and the tropical sun had his thin body harder than it had ever been before: the boy had turned into a man. His soft warm violet eyes contrasted the rich brown of his suntanned body. Mostly he had worn shoes and shorts and nothing else and the rapacious New York ladies, straight out of winter, were hungry for a healthy young body even if he was only a learner ‘white hunter’. Back home in America the ‘learner’ would be dropped and his age increased by ten years when they boasted to their friends. Hank and Chuck would by then be back with their real wives displaying the stuffed heads of buffalo and antelope.
Will was completely out of his depth.
Polly was the blonde’s name and Cherry, appropriately, the redhead. Looked at closer, after the first flush of excitement off the plane, they were, as Will’s mother would have said, mutton dressed as lamb. Even then they were twenty years younger than Hank and Chuck who, Will found out later, had sat in the bush camp under the good shade of a tree with the whisky and told Hannes and the trackers to go out and shoot ‘their’ trophies. Unfortunately for Will it took five days for Hannes to carry out the order and Will was at his wits’ end. Byron would have told him to lie back and enjoy the experience but Byron was not around.
There was Will and there was Fourpence who was giving him no help whatsoever, leaving him alone with the women at every opportunity. After cooking the supper on the outside boma with the roar of lions the other side of the thorn and sisal enclosure, Fourpence was off into his hut not even disguising his smirk. He had done his job for the day and now it was up to the young boss. Had there been a telephone, Will would have called up Laurie Hall for some help.
The ‘wives’ knew exactly what they were doing and played Will as any cat will play a mouse. Late on the third evening they spiked his drink but the Langton head for alcohol together with the weeks of whisky training let him escape into his sleeping hut where he piled all the furniture behind the door and for the second time in a month passed out face down on the bed fully clothed.
The fourth night they were all over him up on the deck before he could escape to his hut, Polly whispering into his ear that the roar of a lion made her horny. Using the last bit of his wits, clutching at the last straw, Will explained he had picked up syphilis in Port Said on his way out from England and before either of the ‘wives’ could recover he was out and in his hut but with the furniture hard up against the door.
The next night, the ‘big-game hunters’ came back in time to save Will’s virginity. Will listened in trepidation from the safety of his sleeping hut to the Americans making whoopee. It was either Polly or Cherry who called out loudly to the African night that she was coming time and again, and Cherry or Polly who screamed every ten minutes. Even the lone hyena outside the enclosure stopped baying at the moon. Finally, from sheer exhaustion, Will went to sleep.
At breakfast, Hank and Chuck looked very satisfied with themselves and gave Will five hundred dollars for looking after the ‘wives’. With the bloody animal heads in the back of the second Land Rover heading for the taxidermist in Salisbury, Will watched his first hunting party disappear off down the track with Fourpence driving the second vehicle and Will looking at the pile of American ten-dollar bills in his hand with genuine astonishment.
When Hannes came back with Fourpence that evening only the thick bushy beard hid the grin on his face and Will was too embarrassed to bring up the subject.
“How much did they give you, Englishman?”
“Five hundred dollars… Why, Hannes?”
The big man had his back to Will at the bar, unable to answer or pour his whisky into a glass: the huge shoulders were heaving with suppressed laughter. Will began to laugh, and Fourpence downstairs, all three were laughing hysterically.
They put Hilary Bains on an improvised stretcher over the game-viewing seats of the Land Rover and drove him to the Mongu airfield. The five-foot-ten man of almost twenty-two weighed less than one hundred pounds. His face was gaunt, sunken; yellow cheeks framed a long sharp nose of skin and bone.
After some difficulty in finding the mission school and clinic, the track having been washed out during the inundation, they found the skeleton trying to tend his flock propped up on a door frame the old African had taken from the school. The conditions were appalling.
The doctor at Mongu hospital looked at Hilary and shook his head. “Most likely more than one tropical disease. Get him to the Salisbury General. They have the equipment and specialised knowledge.”
Laurie Hall called up a hospital plane against the five hundred US dollars Will had been given by Hank. Will and Hilary flew to Salisbury Airport where Hilary was taken to hospital. He had slept most of the way under sedation and was met by a father of the London Missionary Society.
“Don’t worry, young man. He’s now in the hands of God.”
“I’ll see my brother to the hospital, thank you. I want to know what is wrong with him.” The priest looked condescending and let him ride in the mission
car that rattled to the hospital, Hilary propped up by Will in the uncomfortable back seat.
Only the following morning, having slept fitfully on a bench in the hospital reception, was Will given the diagnosis.
“Malnutrition, Mr Langton. Starvation actually. Left him wide open for malaria despite the prophylaxis tablets he was taking. Most men would have died. Something like this restores a man’s faith in his God. I am going to keep your brother here for at least two weeks and meantime write a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Whatever those people are doing at Lambeth Palace they should know not to leave a young lad in the middle of nowhere with no backup whatsoever. If they don’t look after their own properly how can they look after others? Total bloody cock-up.”
On the second day, with the flight to Mongu via Lusaka scheduled for the following morning, Hilary was sitting up in the hospital bed, gaunt but cheerful. They had talked for half an hour.
“You Langtons keep saving my life. Tell me about the family.”
“Mother’s fine. Nothing ever seems to get the better of my mother. Dad still has his nightmares. Hilary, Granda is dying, cancer. He sends you his love as do the others… Byron is up to something he won’t tell the family and Mother thinks it’s crooked. She says he’ll either get rich or land in jail.”
“Byron will never land in jail. He is far too smart… And Josephine?”
“Bitter…she’s so bitter. Hates anyone with money. Despises anyone who has made a success of their lives, saying they are exploiting the masses. Never has a boyfriend after that Pole or German or whatever he was she brought down that Christmas. Byron says just leave her alone to work out her own problems… Randolph’s all right. He married Anna but you know that.”
“Letters don’t reach my little mission. I’m glad for Randolph and hope they both will be very happy… Now, Will, what are you going to do with your life?”
