by Peter Rimmer
“And I’m not a great singer anymore?”
“You’re not rich anymore. That’s the difference. I don’t have to compete with your wealth. You said your career was dead in London. Here you can sing and we can be married and when the war is over, we’ll buy that tract of land downstream from Chirundu and run a famous safari camp where all your old fans can come and do penance at the feet of Shelley Lane. You love the bush and the animals. I talked to my CO, Ant Scott, about buying that land and he said that if Will was not interested, he’d put in some money and after the war I could show him how to run a safari camp. I still have a list of Hannes Potgieter’s old hunting clients who wanted to shoot game with a gun and not a camera. Let’s have a drink and talk, and tomorrow go to the magistrates’ court and find out how we get married the simplest way possible. Bretts will give you a three months’ contract and there are clubs in Bulawayo and Umtali: the war takes me all over the place so it doesn’t matter where you are singing.”
“How long’s the war going to last, Laurie?”
“Until we win.”
By lunchtime the following day all the arrangements had been made and Ant Scott and Mike Barrow had agreed to be witnesses at the registry office ceremony. In the excitement, even Shelley Lane forgot Will Langton sitting in their room on Second Street waiting for her to come home. Only the next day, after a boisterous engagement party at Meikles Hotel, did Shelley ask Laurie to have a note sent to Will telling him what was happening.
Soon after the note was delivered, and five hours before the ceremony was to have taken place in the magistrates’ office, Ant Scott received the order recalling his unit. A large force of ZANLA guerrillas owing allegiance to Robert Mugabe had infiltrated across the Zambezi River from Mozambique in the exact area Will had contemplated his safari camp.
As Will’s aircraft touched down safely at Heathrow airport in London, Laurie and Mike Barrow were riding side by side into the bush at Mana Pools. The Horse Scouts’ orders were to cut the spoor of the guerrilla incursion, find its direction and report by radio to an army base behind the Makuti Hotel at the top of the Zambezi escarpment where the helicopters were waiting with sticks from the RLI, the Rhodesian Light Infantry, waiting to destroy the invaders.
In Salisbury, Shelley Lane sat back in the small bachelor flat in Baker Avenue and wondered what had happened to her life so suddenly. That night she sang again at Bretts to wild applause.
Three nights later Laurie Hall had still not cut the spoor of the Chinese communist-backed army. There was an hour before the light would go and they were starting to look for a place to spend the night. The mopani forest was thick and the screech from the pools, still wet from the rains, was the dominant force over the bush.
“You know what,” said Mike Barrow, riding behind Laurie Hall. “We have the sexiest frogs in the world. Just stop and listen to what they say.”
“Our job isn’t listening to the mating calls of African frogs.”
“That’s my point, Laurie. Just listen to them. Thousands upon thousands of them and all the males are calling Fuck-me, Fuck-me, and all the females are saying Thank-you, Thank-you.”
“You’ve got a one-track mind, young Mike.”
“Probably. But can you hear what they are saying?”
“Now you mention it.”
Walking slowly, the horses moved on between the tall trees. The sun was down behind the trees, sending shadows. Birds called to each other to say where they were going to be in the coming night. Between the trees and the dappling shadows to Laurie’s left a shape moved and was gone into the undergrowth that covered an anthill.
“Leopard,” said Laurie. “Don’t often see them. Usually come out when it’s dark. You see him, Mike?”
“No. You sure it was a leopard?”
“Never sure of anything in this kind of light. Dusk is the best time for predators. They can see their prey without being seen. Why the leopard has spots. The pattern the leaves make from the late sun provides perfect camouflage. Every animal has evolved with a means for survival. When the camouflage of the leopard’s spots no longer works, he’ll become extinct.”
“That can’t happen,” said Mike.
“It can when man cuts down the trees.”
“Ah, I see what you mean. But a leopard has no enemies.”
“Oh yes he has. Man. Spoilt women like fur coats. And when man has killed off all his fellow creatures in the rush to get rich, he’ll die of boredom and sorrow.”
“You’ve been in the bush too long.”
“Probably. Maybe not. You know, young Mike, I could have lived here before the white man brought in his guns and his problems. Parked off by the pools with game in abundance. Fish further back in the big river. Never really feeling cold. No one coveting my minuscule possessions. Must have been bloody marvellous.”
“Since you got engaged, you’ve become a romantic.”
“It’s rather nice… Think we had better stop over there for the night. No fires.”
“What about the leopard?”
“He won’t bother us. Too much food around.”
“Over there, then. I’m hungry. What’s the matter, Laurie?”
“Why have all your frogs stopped being sexy?”
The frogs, as one, had gone silent.
“Even the birds aren’t calling,” whispered Laurie. “We’ll get behind the anthill with the leopard.”
“Why?”
“Muffle the horses, Mike. Do it quickly but don’t make a noise.”
With the metal part of the harness wrapped in cloth, Laurie led the animals on foot to behind the anthill. Where the sun had gone down, the sky was crimson red and still the frogs were silent.
The light went ten minutes after they took up a position behind the undergrowth that had fed on the nitrogen in the anthill. The well-schooled horses stood motionless in the beginning of the night. First the stars showed through the tree canopy above their heads. An hour later, a half-moon rose from behind the trees and bathed the bush in a pale light. Twice they heard the guerrillas talking and each time the frogs stopped their chorus. The infiltrators had made camp for the night. Cleverly, and instead of pushing inland after crossing the Zambezi, they had stayed in the thick bush. Laurie felt the taste of bile in his throat: for the first time in his experience, the guerrillas knew what they were doing.
When the wind changed and blew into their faces over the anthill, they both smelt the leopard lying up in the thicket on top of the small hillock. All night long they waited, taking it in turns to sleep and eating the dried meat from their saddlebags, drinking from the water bottles on their belts.
In the first light of dawn, Laurie moved forward. The horses stayed tethered. The light was paling behind the ZANLA camp. Moving with every skill Laurie had learnt at Mongu, they reached the camp with the dawn. Six men were preparing to move out through the thick forest.
Together they each threw a grenade. When the bombs exploded they opened single-shot fire. One guerrilla returned fire before being shot dead by Laurie Hall.
Ten minutes later the cicadas were singing in the long, dry grass.
Every night when Shelley appeared at Bretts the nightclub was full of people trying to forget the bush war. The feeling of wellbeing stopped her drinking before and during her performance. She was content with herself.
After three weeks and with mild surprise she noted her period had not shown on time: the return to singing and her pending marriage had created a change in her metabolism. Every day she expected Laurie to return from the bush and every night she sang harder, trying to draw him back from the danger. There was no word and the soldiers she spoke to said more than once they had stayed on patrol for three months at a time and that the worst attacks came from mosquitoes and tsetse fly. Patrolling the bush was boring and rarely did the two sides ever make contact. The bush was vast and the people few.
After five weeks Shelley was aware that something was happening to her body; the fact dawned with
the morning nausea. Asking the club owner for the name of a doctor, the truth was confirmed. She was pregnant. For the first time in her life she was pregnant.
If she told Will Langton, far away in London or Dorset or wherever she had sent him without saying goodbye, he would laugh down the phone. After five years together he would have every right to disclaim any responsibility. If she told Laurie Hall, he would know very well he was not the father. His romantic ideal of celibacy before their marriage would be the cause of it never taking place.
Two days after the doctor’s confirmation, Laurie came back from Mana Pools in high spirits. The incursion had been ruthlessly crushed, the helicopter gunships destroying the bands of guerrillas whenever they were found by the ground forces. Away from the thick mopani forests close to the river, the bush was open grassland with intermittent trees. The airborne machine guns chased the running figures down in the long grass: without air-to-ground missiles there was no response.
Laurie’s troop had arrived back in the club while she was singing, all of them high from the danger. By the time the evening was over and they were back alone in the Baker Avenue flat they made love, Laurie Hall, sick from the killing, burying his horror in the primal instinct to create new life. For two hours they made love in a fury of fear. By morning Shelley had nothing to say, hoping premature births were more prevalent in the tropics than in the wet and cold of England.
The marriage took place on the Thursday, the reception was planned in Meikles Hotel. Ant Scott gave Laurie ten days’ leave and the nightclub suspended her contract for a week; the publicity caused by her marriage more than compensated the club. Laurie Hall, the white hunter, had married the world-famous singer and newspapers across the world, many of which had thought she had died from alcoholism, featured the romance.
In London, Byron Langton, owner of the copyright to Shelley’s music, used the marriage as an excuse to release her records and sell the copyright to another singer. All the newspapers made a major story out of her successful fight with alcoholism, carefully avoiding the fact that Laurie Hall was serving in the rebel Rhodesian army. Somehow the marriage, according to the Daily Garnet, took place in Gaborone in Botswana.
Will Langton read the story in one of his brother’s newspapers. Three days later he went to the post office in Langton Matravers and sent them a cable at Bretts nightclub. He was probably the only person in England who knew the African nightclub applauding the singer’s return to the stage was in Rhodesia and not Botswana. His brother, as always, had slightly twisted the truth.
When Shelley returned to Salisbury from her honeymoon at the Victoria Falls, she read the words of congratulation.
For two days Laurie watched his wife sing from where he sat at the front table in Bretts. He was still surprised and pleased at her unwillingness to drink alcohol.
“Now I have something real to live for, why must I drink?” she told him.
“Ant, myself and young Mike have put in an offer for an old banana plantation thirty miles downriver from Chirundu. My wedding present. They’ve agreed I can pay off my share after the war when Hall’s Safari Camp is making money. We’ll make it rival Treetops in Kenya. All the celebrities in the world will flock to the Zambezi to see the animals and hear you sing. Young Mike’s father has money which is really the luck of it all. You know, lover, when things start going really right in life you can’t go wrong. You think Will Langton will forgive us and pay a visit?”
“I’m not sure about that one. Despite the cable he must feel awful. I wonder if he’s found himself a job?”
“The Langtons have money.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I’ve got to go back on duty tomorrow.”
“You will be careful?”
“More careful than ever in my life. What we must do now is have some children.”
“With your performance I’d be surprised if I’m not already pregnant. I stopped taking the pill.”
“Have you ever seen a man more happy?”
The patrol had brought them onto land that would soon be theirs. The old banana trees were tatty, and any fruit had long been eaten by monkeys. The cottage next to the pump house had been destroyed in a guerrilla night attack, killing the farmer and his wife. Ant Scott had negotiated the purchase from the deceased estate. The five-foot diameter flywheel in the pump house had withstood the guerrilla attack and Mike Barrow was sure the pump could be made to work again.
“Those old engines are indestructible,” said Mike. “Can use it to pump water to a swimming pool and the lawns we’ll spread around the camp. Upmarket. Rich people like cut grass even in the middle of the bush. Makes them feel secure. Are we going to do anything with the banana trees?”
“Transport’s the problem,” said Laurie. “Too far from Salisbury. South Africa is a whole world away. Bananas are bulky. Probably let them rot. Let’s camp further down the river, I fancy fresh meat. Haven’t seen a sign of the terrs. Ant was saying ZANLA lost three hundred plus in that last attack.”
“You think they’ll give up?”
“Everyone gives up in the end. Keep your eyes on the thick riverine bush for kudu. Buggers are difficult to see, they blend in so well. The wind’s in our face. A bloody big fire and venison.”
“You think the dummy camp site by the fire will work again?” asked Mike.
“Probably not. No, when we’ve eaten we’ll push off further downriver. There’ll be a good moon tonight… Another hour before dusk. The kudu’ll be around in the bushes waiting to go down to the water when it’s safe. Make ourselves some more biltong. Livers and kidneys for breakfast… A man can make himself hungry thinking about food like that. All we need is the redcurrant jam and new-picked peas and we’d feast like kings. That’s how it will be in our safari camp. Buffalo kidneys for breakfast and kudu steak for supper. Get a few tame cats to come in each night for the leftover carcass. The Americans and Germans will talk about their Hall Safari for the rest of their lives. I’m going to make a recording of all the night sounds so when they wake at night they’ll know what they are hearing. People like to know what’s going on. There are some very rich people in this world and all I want is a little part of their money. Probably bore their friends stiff back home but every time they tell the tale they’ll be getting a little bit more for the money they gave to us, young Mike. You can only make money in this world with a clear conscience if you give as good as you get. Now, are you looking for kudu or are you not?”
“Oh yes, I am looking. Top of a horse is a fine place to look for them. Heard that said in a film but they were talking about Indians and you can’t eat Indians… How many people are we going to have on camp?”
“No more than eight and not less than four. Fifteen hundred US dollars a day. Minimum ten days. They buy their own game licences. We’ll give them four animals, from ten days with at least one buff’. We’ll need some trackers. Just maybe I can find the three we had at base camp.”
“Over to your left is a young female kudu,” said Mike. “Her big round ears gave her away. You see where I’m looking?”
“Good eyes, young Mike. Got her now. Hold my reins. I want to be on the ground for a clean kill. You know something, I’m turning forty on the 29th March next year and I can still count a herd of springbok a kilometre away? Give me your range on that kudu.”
“Three hundred metres.”
“My estimate.”
Strapped to the rump of his horse in a leather saddle holster was a .375 Brno with a telescopic sight. The FN assault rifle was taken off Laurie’s shoulder from a strap and leant against the stump of a tree that had been pushed over by an elephant. Very carefully, Laurie prepared the Brno and took up a shooting position. Drawing his breath evenly, Laurie squeezed the trigger, aiming at the kudu’s chest. The crack of the gunshot was followed by the animal running out of the bushes into full view before crashing to the ground, shot through the heart.
“The modern gun and telescope make it too easy,�
� said Laurie, sadly. “The early Boers used muzzleloaders. Now, that would have been shooting. This is slaughter for the pot. Take me an hour to butcher that beast, meantime you can make the fire.”
The bloodied meat was hung in a tree near the fire to drip the last of the blood. Later, Laurie would pack the meat into their saddlebags when they moved away from the beacon of their fire that could be seen from high ground in Zambia, from where the ZIPRA guerrillas of Joshua Nkomo operated, backed by the Russians. Another fifty miles downriver was ZANLA territory, infiltrated from Mozambique.
Laurie had cut four good steaks from the rump and was showing them to Mike when Laurie’s horse took the first whiff of lion from across the Zambezi River in Zambia. The horse jerked back from the horrors of the pungent smell and knocked the steaks from Laurie’s hands onto the ground. The light was going and the flare of crimson was vivid towards the river where the water flowed on in its endless journey to the sea. The Zambezi was seventy metres from the fire made ready for the meat, the coals hot and glowing. Mike helped pick up the meat covered in dirt.
“I’ll dunk them in the river,” said Laurie, philosophically. “You always have to wait for the best things in life.”
“Use my water bottle,” said Mike.
“The river, young Mike. I feel like walking to the river. Look at that sunset. You never see sunsets like that anywhere else in the world. Every shade of red and orange with duck-egg blue between the flaming clouds… I think I’ll become a poet.”
“Take your FN,” said Mike, handing him the gun.
“Hang it over my shoulder so I can carry the meat. Back in less than five minutes.”
With Shelley Lane’s song from her Zambezi album singing in his mind, Laurie began the short walk to the water. Behind the tall trees that followed the course of the river the rich sunset was shooting lines of colour off the clouds. The smell of wild sage was strong, and the frogs were deafening in their symphony of sex and reproduction, each frog recognising its potential partner amid the cacophony of sound. Laurie followed the track made by the game which took him to the great African river.
