Jock of the Bushveld

by Percy Fitzpatrick

  I shouted at Jock to come back, just as one murmurs good day to a passing friend in the din of traffic – from force of habit: of course, he could hear nothing. It was his first and only go at a sable; he knew nothing of the terrible horns and the deadly scythe-like sweep that makes the wounded sable so dangerous – even the lioness had fought shy of them – and great as was my faith in him, the risk in this case was not one I would have taken. There was nothing to do but follow. A quarter of a mile on I drew closer up and found them standing face to face among the thorns. It was the first of three or four stands; the sable, with a watchful eye on me, always moved on as I drew near enough to shoot. The beautiful black and white bull stood facing his little red enemy and the fence and play of feint and thrust, guard and dodge, was wonderful to see. Not once did either touch the other; at Jock’s least movement the sable’s head would go down with his nose in his chest and the magnificent horns arched forward and poised so as to strike either right or left, and if Jock feinted a rush either way the scythe-sweep came with lightning quickness, covering more than half a circle and carrying the gleaming points with a swing right over the sable’s own back. Then he would advance slowly and menacingly, with horns well forward ready to strike and eyes blazing through his eyebrows, driving Jock before him.

  There were three or four of these encounters in which I could take no hand: the distance, the intervening thorns and grass, and the quickness of their movements, made a safe shot impossible; and there was always the risk of hitting Jock, for a hard run does not make for good shooting. Each time as the sable drove him back there would be a short vicious rush suddenly following the first deliberate advance, and as Jock scrambled back out of the way the bull would swing round with incredible quickness and be off full gallop in another direction. Evidently the final rush was a manoeuvre to get Jock clear of his heels and flanks as he started, and thus secure a lead for the next run.

  Since the day he was kicked by the kudu cow, Jock had never tackled an unbroken hindleg; a dangling one he never missed; but the lesson of the flying heels had been too severe to be forgotten, and he never made that mistake again. In this chase I saw him time after time try at the sable’s flanks and run up abreast of his shoulder and make flying leaps at the throat; but he never got in front where the horns could reach him, and although he passed and repassed behind to try on the other side when he had failed at the one, and looked up eagerly at the hindlegs as he passed them, he made no attempt at them.

  It must have been at the fourth or fifth stand that Jock got through the guard at last. The sable was badly wounded in the body and doubtless strength was failing, but there was little evidence of this yet. In the pauses Jock’s tongue shot and slithered about, a glittering red streak, but after short spells of panting, his head would shut up with a snap like a steel trap and his face set with that look of invincible resolution which it got in part from the pursed up mouth and in part from the intensity of the beady black brown eyes: he was good for hours of this sort of work.

  This time the sable drove him back towards a big thorn-tree. It may have been done without design, or it may have been done with the idea of pinning him up against the trunk. But Jock was not to be caught that way; in a fight he took in the whole field, behind as well as in front – as he had shown the night the second wild dog tackled him. On his side, too, there may or may not have been design in backing towards the tree; who knows? I thought that he scored, not by a manoeuvre, but simply because of his unrelaxing watchfulness and his resolute unhesitating courage. He seemed to know instinctively that the jump aside, so safe with the straight charging animals, was no game to play against the side sweep of a sable’s horns, and at each charge of the enemy he had scrambled back out of range without the least pretence of taking liberties.

  This time the sable drove him steadily back towards the tree, but in the last step, just as the bull made his rush, Jock jumped past the tree and, instead of scrambling back out of reach as before, dodged round and was in the rear of the buck before it could turn on him. There were no flying heels to fear then, and without an instant’s hesitation he fastened on one of the hindlegs above the hock. With a snort of rage and indignation the sable spun round and round, kicking and plunging wildly and making vicious sweeps with his horns; but Jock, although swung about and shaken like a rat, was out of reach, and kept his grip. It was a quick and furious struggle, in which I was altogether forgotten, and as one more desperate plunge brought the bull down in a struggling kicking heap with Jock completely hidden under him, I ran up and ended the fight.

  It always took him some time to calm down after these tussles: he became so wound up by the excitement of the struggle that time was needed to run down again, so to say. While I was busy on the double precaution of fixing up a scare for the aasvoels and cutting grass and branches to cover the buck, Jock moved restlessly round the sable, ever ready to pounce on him again at the least sign of life. The slithering tongue and wide-open mouth looked like a big red gash splitting his head in two; he was so blown, his breath came and went like the puffing of a diminutive steam engine at full speed, and his eyes with all the wickedness of fight – but none of the watchfulness – gone out of them, flickered incessantly from the buck to me: one sign from either would have been enough! It was the same old scene, the same old performance that I had watched scores of times; but it never grew stale or failed to draw a laugh, a word of cheer and pat of affection; and from him there came always the same response, the friendly wagging of that stumpy tail, a splashy lick, a soft upward look and a wider split of the mouth that was a laugh as plain as if one heard it. But that was only an interruption – a few seconds’ distraction: it did not put him off or satisfy him that all was well. His attention went back to the buck and the everlasting footwork went on again. With his front to the fallen enemy and his forelegs well apart, he kept ever on the move forwards and backwards, in quick steps of a few inches each, and at the same time edging round in his zigzag circle, making a track round the buck like a weather chart with the glass at ‘Changeable’.

  ‘Silly old fusser! Can’t you see he’s finished?’ He could not hear anything, but the responsive wag showed that he knew I was talking to him; and, dodging the piece of bark I threw at him, he resumed his ridiculous round.

  I was still laughing at him, when he stopped and turning sharply round made a snap at his side; and a few seconds later he did it again. Then there was a thin sing of insect wings; and I knew that the tsetse fly were on us.

  The only thought then was for Jock, who was still working busily round the sable. For some minutes I sat with him between my legs, wisping away the flies with a small branch and wondering what to do. It soon became clear that there was nothing to be gained by waiting: instead of passing away the fly became more numerous, and there was not a moment’s peace or comfort to be had, for they were tackling me on the neck, arms and legs, where the thorn-ripped pants left them bare to the knees; so, slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I picked Jock up, greatly to his discomfort, and carried him off in my arms at the best pace possible under the circumstances. Half a mile of that was enough, however: the weight, the awkwardness of the position, the effort to screen him, and the difficulty of picking my way in very rough country at the same time, were too much for me. A tumble into a grass-hidden hole laid us both out sprawling. I sat down again to rest and think, swishing the flies off as before.

  Then an idea came which, in spite of all the anxiety, made me laugh, and ended in putting poor old Jock in quite the most undignified and ridiculous plight he had known since the days of his puppyhood when his head stuck in the bullybeef tin or the hen pecked him on the nose. I ripped off as much of my shirt as was not needed to protect me against the flies and, making holes in it for his legs and tail, fitted him out with a homemade suit in about five minutes. Time was everything: it was impossible to run with him in my arms, but we could run together until we got out of the fly belt, and there was not much risk of being bitten as
long as we kept up the running in the long grass.

  It was a long spell, and what with the rough country and the uncontrollable laughter at the sight of Jock, I was pretty well done by the time we were safely out of the ‘fly’. We pulled up when the country began to fall away sharply towards the river and there, to Jock’s evident satisfaction, I took off his suit – by that time very much tattered and awry.

  It was there, lying between two rocks in the shade of a marula tree, that I got one of those chances to see game at close quarters of which most men only hear or dream. There were no snapshot cameras then!

  We had been lying there it may be for half and hour or more, Jock asleep and I spread out on my back, when a distinct but slight click, as of a hoof against a stone, made me turn quietly over on my side and listen. The rock beside me was about four feet high, and on the other side of it a buck of some kind, and a big one too, was walking with easy stride towards the river. Every footstep was perfectly clear; the walk was firm and confident: evidently there was not the least suspicion of danger. It was only a matter of yards between us, and what little breeze there was drifted across his course towards me, as he too made for the river, holding a course parallel with the two long rocks between which we were lying. The footsteps came abreast of us and then stopped, just as I was expecting him to walk on past the rock and down the hill in front of me. The sudden halt seemed to mean that some warning instinct had arrested him, or some least taint upon the pure air softly eddying between the rocks had reached him. I could hear his sniffs and pictured him looking about, silent but alarmed, before deciding which way to make his rush.

  I raised myself by inches, close to the rock, until I could see over it. A magnificent waterbuck bull, full-grown and in perfect coat and condition, was standing less than five yards away and a little to the right, having already passed me when he came to a stop. He was so close that I could see the waves and partings in his heavy coat; the rise and fall in his flanks as he breathed; the ruff on his shaggy bearded throat, that gave such an air of grandeur to the head; the noble carriage as, with head held high and slightly turned to windward, he sniffed the breeze from the valley, the nostrils, mobile and sensitive, searching for the least hint of danger; and the eye, large and full and soft, luminous with watchful intelligence, and yet mild and calm – so free was it from all trace of a disturbing thought. And yet I was so close, it seemed almost possible to reach out and touch him. There was no thought of shooting: it was a moment of supreme enjoyment. Just to watch him: that was enough.

  In a little while he seemed satisfied that all was well, and with head thrown slightly forward and the sure clean tread of his kind, he took his line unhesitatingly down the hill. As he neared the thicker bush twenty yards away a sudden impulse made me give a shout. In a single bound he was lost among the trees, and the clattering of loose stones and the crackle of sticks in his path had ceased before the cold shiver down the back, which my spell-breaking shout provoked, had passed away. When I turned round Jock was still asleep: little incidents like that brought his deafness home.

  It was our last day’s hunting together; and I went back to the dreary round of hard, hopeless, useless struggle and daily loss.

  One day, a calm cloudless day, there came without warning a tremendous booming roar that left the air vibrating and seemed to shake the very earth, as a thousand echoes called and answered from hill to hill down the long valley. There was nothing to explain it; the kaffirs turned a sickly grey and appealed to me; but I could give them no explanation – it was something beyond my ken – and they seemed to think it an evil omen of still greater ill luck. But, as it turned out, the luck was not all bad: some days passed before the mystery was solved, and then we came to where Coombes, with whom a week earlier I had tried – and failed – to keep pace, had been blown to pieces with his boys, waggons, oxen and three tons of dynamite: there was no fragment of waggon bigger than one’s hand; and the trees all around were barked on one side. We turned out to avoid the huge hole in the drift, and passed on.

  There were only twenty oxen left when we reached the drift below Fig Tree. The water was nearly breast-high and we carried three-fourths of the loads through on our heads, case by case, to make the pull as easy as possible for the oxen, as they could only crawl then. We got one waggon through with some difficulty, but at nightfall the second was still in the river; we had carried out everything removable, even to the bucksails. But the weakened bullocks could not move the empty waggon.

  The thunderclouds were piling up ahead, and distant lightning gave warning of a storm away up river; so we wound the trek-chain round a big tree on the bank, to anchor the waggon in case of flood, and reeling from work and weariness, too tired to think of food, I flung myself down in my blankets under the other waggon which was outspanned where we had stopped it in the double-rutted veld road, and settling comfortably into the sandy furrow cut by many wheels, was ‘dead to the world’ in a few minutes.

  Near midnight the storm awoke me and a curious coldness about the neck and shoulders made me turn over to pull the blankets up. The road had served as a storm water drain, converting the two wheel furrows into running streams and I, rolled in my blankets, had dammed up one of them. The prompt flow of the released water as soon as I turned over told plainly what had happened. I looked out at the driving rain and the glistening earth, as shown up by constant flashes of lightning: it was a world of rain and spray and running water. It seemed that there was neither hope nor mercy anywhere; I was too tired to care, and dropping back into the trough, slept the night out in the water.

  In the morning we found the waggon still in the drift, although partly hidden by the flood, but the force of the stream had half floated and half forced it round on to higher ground; only the anchoring chain had saved it. We had to wait some hours for the river to run down, and then to my relief the rested but staggering oxen pulled it out at the first attempt.

  Rooiland, the light red ox with blazing yellow eyes and topped horns, fierce and untameable to the end, was in the lead then. I saw him as he took the strain in that last pull, and it was pitiful to see the restless eager spirit fighting against the failing strength: he looked desperate. The thought seems fanciful – about a dumb animal – and perhaps it is; but what happened just afterwards makes it still vivid and fitted in very curiously with the superstitious notions of the boys. We outspanned in order to repack the loads and Rooiland, who as front ox was the last to be released, stood for a few moments alone while the rest of the cattle moved away; then turning his back on them he gave a couple of low moaning bellows and walked down the road back to the drift again. I had no doubt it was to drink; but the boys stopped their work and watched him curiously, and some remarks passed which were inaudible to me. As the ox disappeared down the slope into the drift, Jim called to his leader to bring him back, and then turning to me, added with his usual positiveness, ‘Rooiland is mad. Umtagati! Bewitched! He is looking for the dead ones. He is going to die today!’

  The boy came back presently – alone. When he reached the drift, he said, Rooiland was standing breast-high in the river, and then in a moment, whether by step or slip, he was into the flood and swept away. The leader’s account was received by the others in absolute silence: a little tightening of the jaws and a little brightening of the eyes, perhaps, were all I could detect. They were saturated with superstition, and as pagan fatalists they accepted the position without a word. I suggested to Jim that it was nothing but a return of Rooiland’s old straying habit and probed him with questions, but could get nothing out of him; finally he walked off with an expressive shake of the head and the repetition of his former remark, without a shade of triumph, surprise or excitement in his voice: ‘He is looking for the dead ones!’

  We were out of the fly then, and the next day we reached Fig Tree.

  That was the end of the last trek. Only three oxen reached Barberton, and they died within the week: the ruin was complete.

  Our Various Way
s

  When the trip was squared off and the boys paid, there was nothing left. Jim went home with waggons returning to Spitzkop: once more – for the last time – grievously hurt in dignity because his money was handed to my friend the owner of the waggons to be paid out to him when he reached his kraal; but his gloomy resentment melted as I handed over to him things for which there was no further need.

  The waggons moved off, and Jim with them; but twice he broke back again to dance and shout his gratitude; for it was wealth to him to have the riems and voorslag, the odd yokes and strops and waggon tools, the baking pot and pan and billies; and they were little to me when all else was gone. And Jim, with all his faults, had earned some title to remembrance for his loyalty. My way had been his way; and the hardest day had never been too hard for him. He had seen it all through to the finish, without a grumble and without a shirk.

  His last shout, like the bellow of a bull, was an uproarious goodbye to Jock. And Jock seemed to know it was something of an occasion for, as he stood before me looking down the road at the receding waggons and the dancing figure of Jim, his ears were cocked, his head was tilted a little sideways and his tail stirred gently. It was at least a friendly nod in return!