Jock of the Bushveld

by Percy Fitzpatrick

  What Jock was doing during that time I do not know. It was all such a whirl of excitement and confusion that there are only a few clear impressions left on my mind. One is of a buck coming through the air right at me, jumping over the backs of two others racing across my front. I can see now the sudden wriggle of its body and the look of terror in its eyes when it saw me and realised that it was going to land almost at my feet. I tried to jump aside, but it was not necessary: with one touch on the ground it shot slantingly past me like a ricochet bullet. Another picture that always comes back is that of a splendid ram clearing the first of the dense thorn-bushes that were to have been my cover in the stalking. He flew over it outlined against the sky in the easiest, most graceful and most perfect curve imaginable. It came back to me afterwards that he was eight or ten yards from me, and yet I had to look up into the sky to see his white chest and gracefully gathered feet as he cleared the thorn-bush like a soaring bird.

  One shot, out of three or four fired in desperation as they were melting away, hit something; the unmistakable thud of the bullet told me so. That time it was the real thing, and when you hear the real thing you cannot mistake it. The wounded animal went off with the rest and I followed, with Jock ahead of me hot on the trail. A hundred yards further on where Jock with his nose to the ground had raced along between some low stones and a marula tree I came to a stop – bush all round me, not a living thing in sight and all as silent as the grave. On one of the smooth hot stones there was a big drop of blood, and a few yards on I found a couple more. Here and there along the spoor there were smears on the long yellow grass, and it was clear enough, judging by the height of the bloodmarks from the ground, that the impala was wounded in the body – probably far back, as there were no frothy bubbles to show a lung shot. I knew that it would be a long chase unless Jock could head the buck off and bay it; but unless he could do this at once, he was so silent in his work that there was little chance of finding him. The trail became more and more difficult to follow; the blood was less frequent, and the hot sun dried it so quickly, that it was more than I could do to pick it out from the red streaks on the grass and many coloured leaves. So I gave it up and sat down to smoke and wait.

  Half an hour passed, and still no Jock. Then I wandered about whistling and calling for him – calling until the sound of my own voice became quite uncanny, the only sound in an immense silence. Two hours passed in useless calling and listening, searching and waiting, and then I gave it up altogether and made back for the waggons, trying to hope against my real conviction that Jock had struck the road somewhere and had followed it to the outspan, instead of coming back on his own trail through the bush to me.

  But there was no Jock at the waggons; and my heart sank, although I was not surprised. It was nearly four hours since he had disappeared, and it was as sure as anything could be that something extraordinary must have happened or he would have come back to me long before this. No one at the waggons had seen him since we started out together; and there was nothing to be done but to wait and see what would happen. It was perfectly useless to look for him: if alive and well, he was better able to find his way than the best tracker that ever lived; if dead or injured and unable to move, there was not one chance in a million of finding him.

  There was only one kaffir whom Jock would take any notice of or would allow to touch him – a great big Zulu named Jim Makokel’. Jim was one of the real fighting Zulu breed; and the pride he took in Jock, and the sort of partnership that he claimed in tastes, disposition and exploits, began the day Jock fought the table leg and grew stronger and stronger to the end. Jim became Jock’s devoted champion and more than once, as will be seen, showed that he would face man or beast to stand by him when he needed help.

  This day when I returned to the waggons Jim was sitting with the other drivers in the group round the big pot of porridge. I saw him give one quick look my way and heard him say sharply to the others, ‘Where is the dog? Where is Jock?’ He stood there looking at me with a big wooden spoon full of porridge stopped on the way to his mouth. In a few minutes they all knew what had happened; the other boys took it calmly, saying composedly that the dog would find his way back. But Jim was not calm: it was not his nature. At one moment he would agree with them, swamping them with a flood of reasons why Jock, the best dog in the world, would be sure to come back; and the next – hot with restless excitement – would picture all that the dog might have been doing and all that he might still have to face, and then break off to proclaim loudly that everyone ought to go out and hunt for him. Jim was not practical or reasonable – he was too excitable for that; but he was very loyal, and it was his way to show his feelings by doing something – generally and preferably by fighting someone. Knowing only too well how useless it would be to search for Jock, I lay down under the waggon to rest and wait.

  After half an hour of this Jim could restrain himself no longer. He came over to where I lay and, with a look of severe disapproval and barely controlled indignation, asked me for a gun, saying that he himself meant to go out and look for Jock. It would be nearer the mark to say that he demanded a gun. He was so genuinely anxious and so indignant at what he considered my indifference that it was impossible to be angry; and I let him talk away to me and at me in his exciting bullying way. He would take no answer and listen to no reason; so finally to keep him quiet I gave him the shotgun, and off he went, muttering his opinions of everyone else – a great springy striding picture of fierce resolution.

  He came back nearly three hours later, silent, morose, hot and dusty. He put the gun down beside me without a word – just a click of disgust; and as he strode across to his waggon, called roughly to one of the drivers for the drinking water. Lifting the bucket to his mouth he drank like an ox and slammed it down again without a word of thanks; then sat down in the shade of the waggon, filled his pipe and smoked in silence.

  The trekking hour came and passed; but we did not move. The sun went down, and in the quiet of the evening we heard the first jackal’s yapping – the first warning of the night. There were still lions and tigers in those parts, and any number of hyenas and wild dogs, and the darker it grew and the more I thought of it, the more hopeless seemed Jock’s chance of getting through a night in the bush trying to work his way back to the waggons.

  It was almost dark when I was startled by a yell from Jim Makokel’, and looking round saw him bound out into the road shouting, ‘He has come, he has come! What did I tell you?’ He ran out to Jock, stooping to pat and talk to him, and then in a lower voice and with growing excitement went on rapidly, ‘See the blood! See it! He has fought: he has killed! Dog of all dogs! Jock, Jock!’ and his savage song of triumph broke off in a burst of rough tenderness, and he called the dog’s name five or six times with every note of affection and welcome in his deep voice. Jock took no notice of Jim’s dancing out to meet him, nor of his shouts, endearments and antics; slowing his tired trot down to a walk, he came straight on to me, flickered his ears a bit, wagged his tail cordially and gave my hand a splashy lick as I patted him. Then he turned round in the direction he had just come from, looked steadily out, cocked his ears well up and moved his tail slowly from side to side. For the next half hour or so he kept repeating this action every few minutes; but even without that I knew that it had been no wild goose chase, and that miles away in the bush there was something lying dead which he could show me if I would but follow him back again to see.

  What had happened in the eight hours since he had dashed off in pursuit can only be guessed. That he had pulled down the impala and killed it seemed certain – and what a chase and what a fight it must have been to take all that time! The buck could not have been so badly wounded in the body as to be disabled or it would have died in far less time than that: then, what a fight it must have been to kill an animal six or eight times his own weight and armed with such horns and hoofs! But was it only the impala? Or had the hyenas and wild dogs followed up the trail, as they so often do, and did
Jock have to fight his way through them too?

  He was hollow flanked and empty, parched with thirst and so blown that his breath still caught in suffocating chokes. He was covered with blood and sand; his beautiful golden coat was dark and stained; his white front had disappeared; and there on his chest and throat, on his jaws and ears, down his front legs even to the toes, the blood was caked on him – mostly black and dried but some still red and sticky. He was a little lame in one foreleg, but there was no cut or swelling to show the cause. There was only one mark to be seen: over his right eye there was a bluish line where the hair had been shaved off clean, leaving the skin smooth and unbroken. What did it? Was it horn, hoof, tooth or – what? Only Jock knew.

  Hovering round and over me, pacing backwards and forwards between the waggons like a caged animal, Jim, growing more and more excited, filled the air with his talk, his shouts and savage song. Wanting to help, but always in the way, ordering and thrusting the other boys here and there, he worked himself up into a wild frenzy: it was the Zulu fighting blood on fire and he ‘saw red’ everywhere.

  I called for water. ‘Water!’ roared Jim, ‘bring water’; and glaring found he made a spring – stick in hand – at the nearest kaffir. The boy fled in terror, with Jim after him for a few paces, and brought a bucket of water. Jim snatched it from him and with a resounding thump on the ribs sent the unlucky kaffir sprawling on the ground. Jock took the water in great gulpy bites broken by pauses to get his breath again; and Jim paced up and down – talking, talking, talking! Talking to me, to the others, to the kaffirs, to Jock, to the world at large, to the heavens and to the dead. His eyes glared like a wild beast’s and gradually little seams of froth gathered in the corners of his mouth as he poured out his cataract of words, telling of all Jock had done and might have done and would yet do; comparing him with the fighting heroes of his own race and wandering off into vivid recitals of single episodes and great battles; seizing his sticks, shouting his war cries and going through all the mimicry of fight with the wild frenzy of one possessed. Time after time I called him, and tried to quiet him; but he was beyond control.

  Once before he had broken out like this. I had asked him something about the Zulu war, and that had started a flood of memories and excitement. In the midst of some description I asked why they killed the children; and he turned his glaring eyes on me and said, ‘Inkos, you are my Inkos; but you are white. If we fight tomorrow, I will kill you. You are good to me, you have saved me; but if our king says Kill! we kill! We see red; we kill all that lives. I must kill you, your wife, your mother, your children, your horses, your oxen, your dog, the fowls that run with the waggons – all that lives I kill. The blood must run.’ And I believed him, for that was the Zulu fighting spirit. So this time I knew it was useless to order or to talk: he was beyond control, and the fit must run its course.

  The night closed in and there was quiet once more. The flames of the campfires had died down; the big thorn logs had burnt into glowing coals like the pink crisp hearts of giant watermelons; Jock lay sleeping, tired out, but even in his sleep came little spells of panting now and then, like the aftersobs of a child that had cried itself to sleep; we lay rolled in our blankets and no sound came from where the kaffirs slept. But Jim – only Jim – sat on his rough three-legged stool, elbows on knees and hands clasped together, staring intently into the coals. The fit worked slowly off and his excitement died gradually away; now and then there was a fresh burst, but always milder and at longer intervals, as you may see it in a dying fire or at the end of a great storm; slowly but surely he subsided until at last there were only occasional mutterings of ‘Ow, Jock!’ followed by the Zulu click, the expressive shake of the head and that appreciative half grunt, half chuckle by which they pay tribute to what seems truly wonderful. He wanted no sleep that night: he sat on, waiting for the morning trek, staring into the red coals and thinking of the bygone glories of his race in the days of the mighty Shaka.

  That was Jim, when the fit was on him – transported by some trifling and unforeseen incident from the humdrum of the road to the life he once had lived with splendid recklessness.

  Jock’s Night Out

  Jock was lost twice: that is to say he was lost to me and, as I thought, for ever. It came about both times through his following up wounded animals and leaving me behind, and happened in the days when our hunting was all done on foot; when I could afford a horse and could keep pace with him that difficulty did not trouble us. The experience with the impala had made me very careful not to let him go unless I felt sure that the game was hard hit and that he would be able to pull it down or bay it. But it is not always easy to judge that. A broken leg shows at once; but a body shot is very difficult to place, and animals shot through the lungs, and even through the lower parts of the heart, often go away at a cracking pace and are out of sight in no time, perhaps to keep it up for miles, perhaps to drop dead within a few minutes.

  After that day with the impala we had many good days together and many hard ones: we had our disappointments, but we had our triumphs; and we were both getting to know our way about by degrees. Buck of many kinds had fallen to us; but so far as I was concerned there was one disappointment that was not to be forgotten. The picture of that kudu bull as he appeared for the last time looking over the ant heap the day we were lost was always before me. I could not hear the name or see the spoor of kudu without a pang of regret and the thought that never again would such a chance occur. Kudu, like other kinds of game, were not to be found everywhere: they favoured some localities more than others, and when we passed through their known haunts chances of smaller game were often neglected in the hope of coming across the kudu.

  I could not give up whole days to hunting – for we had to keep moving along with the waggons all the time – or it would have been easy enough in many parts to locate the kudu and make sure of getting a good bag. As it was, on three or four occasions we did come across them, and once I got a running shot, but missed. This was not needed to keep my interest in them alive, but it made me keener than ever. Day by day I went out always hoping to get my chance, and when at last the chance did come it was quite in accordance with the experience of many others that it was not in the least expected.

  The great charm of Bushveld hunting is its variety: you never know what will turn up next – the only certainty being that it will not be what you are expecting.

  The herdboy came in one afternoon to say that there was a stembuck feeding among the oxen only a couple of hundred yards away. He had been quite close to it, he said, and it was very tame. Game, so readily alarmed by the sight of white men, will often take no notice of natives, allowing them to approach to very close quarters. They are also easily stalked under cover of cattle or horses, and much more readily approached on horseback than on foot. The presence of other animals seems to give them confidence or to excite mild curiosity without alarm, and thus distract attention from the man. In this case the bonny little red-brown fellow was not a bit scared; he maintained his presence of mind admirably; from time to time he turned his head our way, with his large but shapely and most sensitive ears thrown forward, examined us frankly while he moved slightly one way or another so as to keep under cover of the oxen and busily continue his browsing.

  In and out among some seventy head of cattle we played hide and seek for quite a while – I not daring to fire for fear of hitting one of the bullocks – until at last he found himself manoeuvred out of the troop; and then without giving me a chance he was off into the bush in a few frisky skips. I followed quietly, knowing that, as he was on the feed and not scared, he would not go far.

  Moving along silently under good cover I reached a thick scrubby bush and peered over the top of it to search the grass under the surrounding thorn-trees for the little red-brown form. I was looking about low down in the russety grass – for he was only about twice the size of Jock, and not easy to spot – when a movement on a higher level caught my eye. It was just the flip of a f
ly tickled ear; but it was a movement where all else was still, and instantly the form of a kudu cow appeared before me as a picture is thrown on a screen by a magic lantern. There it stood within fifty yards, the soft grey and white looking still softer in the shadow of the thorns, but as clear to me – and as still – as a figure carved in stone. The stem of a mimosa hid the shoulders, but all the rest was plainly visible as it stood there utterly unconscious of danger. The tree made a dead shot almost impossible, but the risk of trying for another position was too great, and I fired. The thud of the bullet and the tremendous bound of the kudu straight up in the air told that the shot had gone home; but these things were for a time forgotten in the surprise that followed. At the sound of the shot twenty other kudu jumped into life and sight before me. The one I had seen and shot was but one of a herd all dozing peacefully in the shade, and strangest of all, it was the one that was furthest from me. To the right and left of this one, at distances from fifteen to thirty yards from me, the magnificent creatures had been standing, and I had not seen them; it was the flicker of this one’s ear alone that had caught my eye. My bewilderment was complete when I saw the big bull of the herd start off twenty yards on my right front and pass away like a streak in a few sweeping strides. It was a matter of seconds only, and they were all out of sight – all except the wounded one, which had turned off from the others. For all the flurry and confusion I had not lost sight of her, and noting her tucked up appearance and shortened strides set Jock on her trail, believing that she would be down in a few minutes.

  It is not necessary to go over it all again. It was much the same as the impala chase. I came back tired, disappointed and beaten, and without Jock. It was only after darkness set in that things began to look serious. When it came to midnight, with the camp wrapped in silence and in sleep, and there was still no sign of Jock, things looked very black indeed.