A Pride of Lions

by Isobel Chace

  Johnny was unnaturally cheerful once we had got into the air.

  “Do you want to make a small diversion?” he asked me over the intercom. “We could take a look along the river and see if we can spot any more lions coming in.”

  “All right,” I said without enthusiasm.

  He banked sharply. It did something dreadful to my stomach. I concentrated hard on keeping my body and soul together, with my eyes shut fast. My earphones clicked, or it could have been my ears, and then Johnny’s voice came again.

  “Hey! Clare, take a look over there!”

  “Where?” I asked sharply. My stomach no longer seemed to matter to me. I stared out of the window, but I could see nothing but brush and an occasional animal taking shelter from the heat.

  “Bloody poachers!” exclaimed Johnny.

  "What?” I exploded, intensely excited.

  “Sorry! Poachers! Look at ’em! They’ve got something too! Hold on, Clare, I’m going down to look!”

  He put the nose down and we dropped down out of the sky, buzzing the practically naked group of men below us. One of them threw a spear at us, a pathetic attempt to make us go away. The rest of them scattered, running here and there to escape us.

  “I’ll have to go back to Aruba,” Johnny said clearly. “Hugo will have to know about this.”

  I blinked. “But the elephant is still alive,” I gasped.

  Johnny snorted angrily. “Butchers! I’ll see them caught if it’s the last thing I do!”

  We banked sharply upwards and I had to twist my head to see the writhing elephant that the poachers had brought down but had not managed to finish off. It had the most enormous tusks of any that I had ever seen. A huge beast—he must have stood a good twenty feet high at the shoulder—he trumpeted in agony.

  “If I had a gun!” said Johnny sharply.

  “I feel a bit murderous myself,” I replied, marvelling that I should sound so calm.

  A second later we were falling out of the sky again. The scattered poachers were feeling braver and they stood in a line, defying us as we hurtled towards them.

  “It’s no good,” Johnny said reluctantly. “I’ll radio Hugo and tell him to be ready for us.”

  It was a nightmare flight back to Aruba. Johnny threw the plane through the air, making me feel decidedly sick. His face was tense and bitter as we came in to land, and there, almost to my surprise, Hugo stood waiting for us. It seemed to me that we had barely landed before we had taken off again, a grimfaced Hugo and a couple of rifles vying with my shins for the totally inadequate leg-room in front of our shared narrow seat.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JOHNNY set the plane down not far from the dying elephant. Hugo dropped down on to the ground and turned to reach up for the heavier of the two rifles.

  “I’ll have to put the beast out of its misery,” he said darkly. The trumpeting cries of the dying elephant were almost unbearable to all of us.

  I watched him load the rifle with a sinking feeling. How could people be so cruel as to murder this massive animal for its ivory? I could have wept. An elephant will live for sixty years, and there are few enough left, God knows, and yet it only took a second to bring down such an animal. How could they?

  Hugo walked away from the aircraft towards the elephant. I grabbed the other rifle and jumped down on to the ground behind him. Without turning his head he reached out his spare hand to me and drew me close in behind him.

  “You won’t like this,” was all he said.

  “But it has to be done,” I consoled him.

  He stood stock still, some yards away from the elephant. The muscles in his neck stood out as he raised the rifle. Carefully, he took aim. He knew exactly what he was doing. The shot cracked through the air and smacked into the elephant. There was a long, last sigh of breath and then there was nothing but a great mountain of flesh. Hugo took a few cautious steps towards the dead animal, making sure that it was indeed dead. I followed at an even more cautious distance, marvelling that any animal could be so big. It was quite as big as some of the African houses that spread throughout the country.

  “They’ll come back for the ivory, we’ll catch them then,” Hugo said in an unnaturally calm voice.

  I gritted my teeth together. There was a great gash on the elephant’s shoulder where a spear had hit home. There was another behind the great beast’s ear which was already covered with flies.

  “They’ll see the aeroplane,” I argued.

  Hugo looked at me. “Johnny will have to go on to the camp.

  The lions won’t wait—even for poachers.”

  My spirits lifted dramatically. I clutched the rifle I was holding closer to me. “I shall have to stay, won’t I?” I said.

  Hugo’s face was completely enigmatic. He might have been playing poker. “Can you shoot that thing?” he asked.

  I nodded. I didn’t want to actually tell a lie and the truth of the matter was that I wasn’t at all sure.

  “Good,” he said.

  I felt decidedly weak at the knees. I could hardly believe that I was to stay after all, that I didn’t have to go back to camp. It was indeed good! Hugo walked back to the aeroplane.

  “We’ll have to wait here,” he called up to Johnny. “Hang on a second, I’m coming aboard to collect a few garments and any food you have.”

  “I haven’t got much,” Johnny answered.

  Hugo made a face. “I should have brought some supplies with me. Never mind, some askaris will be coming as soon as they can get the transport organised. Get back to the camp as fast as you can, Johnny. We’ll need the gear first thing in the morning. We should have coped with these fellows all right by then.”

  Johnny gave him the thumbs-up signal to show that he had understood. I watched Hugo clamber on board. He threw out a couple of heavy coats, a Red Cross box, and a packet of American rusks that Johnny took with him wherever he went. A minute later his head appeared.

  “Here, catch!” he called to me.

  I reached up and accepted the cold box. It was quite heavy and was therefore gratifyingly full of cold drinks. It gave me great confidence to know that whatever else might happen, at least we wouldn’t go thirsty.

  Hugo came down out of the plane again. Johnny roared the engines while we hurried away to a safe distance. The plane shook violently, shot forward, and took off in a cloud of red dust. When it had gone out of sight, we were completely alone in an empty world.

  Hugo looked about us. “I think that tree will do—”

  I looked where he was pointing. If there was one thing I hated, it was climbing trees! “Up that?” I said faintly.

  Hugo grinned. “I’ll look after you!” he promised.

  It was, after all, not a very difficult tree to climb. It had convenient, sticky-out branches that allowed me to get right up amongst the new green leaves at the top. It was another matter to find a comfortable perch for myself when I was there, but I did the best I could, rolling up one of the coats as a makeshift cushion.

  Hugo made a complete circular tour of the tree, bidding me hide the cold box better and making one or two adjustments to his own hiding place before he climbed up into it.

  “Not bad,” he said, as he wedged himself firmly into position. “Let’s hope they’re not too long. I have a feeling that we shall get cramp if we’re here for the night.”

  I prised open the cold box. “Have a beer?” I suggested.

  He accepted a Tusker lager, opening it with a gadget attached to the knife he wore at his belt. “What are you having?” he asked.

  I giggled. There was something quite idiotic about our position, miles from anywhere, lying in wait for dangerous men, sitting in a tree and swigging beer.

  “I don’t like beer much,” I said. “I think I’ll have a Fanta.” I passed a bottle of fizzy orange over for him to open it. It was deliciously cool to drink, sliding down my throat. I was beginning to enjoy myself.

  “Where did you learn to shoot?” Hugo asked me. “Did
your father teach you?”

  I squinted down to the rifle I was looking after. “I suppose,” I said, “that if anyone taught me, it was Martin—”

  “Oh!” said Hugo.

  “It was self-defence!” I said hotly. “Kate turned out to be a natural shot and that put all the Freeman men on the defensive. Martin used to spend hours practising every day!” “And you with him?” Hugo suggested sweetly.

  I blushed. “Not exactly,” I said.

  He gave me a mocking glance. “What were you doing then?”

  “Well,” I began, “to be quite honest, I’m not much good with any gun—”

  “Now she tells me!”

  “So,” I continued bravely, “nobody was prepared to waste much ammunition on me.”

  “In fact,” Hugo said witheringly, “you don’t know how to fire the thing?”

  “Oh yes!” I assured him eagerly. “You point it and then you pull the trigger!”

  He closed his eyes in horror. “You squeeze the trigger! Very gently! And without shutting your eyes!”

  “Well, I expect I can do that too!”

  “My dear girl, I shouldn’t expect anything of the sort!”

  I grinned. “There’s no need to be unkind,” I reproved him. “Doubtless, when I’m frightened enough I shall be capable of anything!”

  “Doubtless!” he groaned. “I only hope you can restrain yourself from shooting me!”

  “I’ll do my best,” I reassured him kindly. “Anyway, I’m sure you’re more than able to defend yourself. Your rifle is bigger than mine!”

  He groaned again. “Have you never seen a .416 rifle?”

  “No,” I admitted, “I don’t think I ever have. Is that what you used on the elephant? I suppose it would make rather a mess of a man.”

  He finished the last of his beer and disposed of the bottle in a convenient hole in the tree.

  “The idea,” he said gently, “is not to murder these ignorant butchers, but to arrest them and train them to better things.”

  I raised my chin, quite prepared to argue the point. “They murdered that elephant,” I said.

  “Granted, my love. But the guilty men are sitting safely on the coast, making all the money.”

  Enchanted by this form of address, I was silent. I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. If the poachers were waiting for the cover of darkness before they came back to the scene of the crime, we were in for a long wait and my legs, from the knees downwards, had already gone to sleep. But nothing would have induced me

  to complain about our position. Hugo, I thought, had enough to put up with without having a moaning female companion as well.

  It is possible to see further in the evening light. The glare is less hurtful to the eyes, and a warm, golden glow takes possession of the land. From my perch in the tree, I thought I could see about twenty-five miles, perhaps more, in any given direction and, wherever I could see, I could see the trees felled and stripped of their bark by the elephants. It could only be a matter of time before they ate themselves out of their own home. I said as much to Hugo.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “It began with the railway, so they say. The elephants helped themselves at night to the water that was kept beside the lines for the steam engines. This meant that they didn’t have to migrate to other feeding grounds to find water. The worst of it is that we’ve made matters worse by creating all these artificial water-holes in Tsavo. The land never gets a rest.”

  “So what’s the answer?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. We may have to close down the water-holes at certain times of the year to force the elephants out of the park. It might help, but it certainly wouldn’t if they all get killed the moment they go outside. That’s why your father’s attitude, and other farmers like him, is so hopeful to their future.”

  I smiled and stretched my aching limbs. ‘You’d like my father,” I said.

  “Would I?” He sounded amused.

  “I think so. On the surface he has more in common with Mr. Doffnang, but underneath he has more in common with you.”

  Hugo grunted. “I’m intrigued,” he said.

  I wondered if it would be greedy to help myself to another cold drink and decided that it would. “On the surface,” I said with love, “he has a deep distrust of anything attractive, but he has flashes of brilliance which he thinks are obvious to anyone. Only you can’t be sure which things he will mistrust and which he will welcome. But underneath—” I hesitated, considering the problem. “Underneath he is a part of all Africa. He says that anything natural can’t be wrong, that all we need is space to live and the ground under our feet. He should have had sons, like the Boer that he is, but he only had me.”

  “And you think I’m like that?” Hugo put in.

  I blushed. I had forgotten that I had made the comparison. “A bit,” I said. ‘You’re part of Africa too.”

  He gave me a surprised, flattered look. “I certainly ought to have lusty sons around me at this moment, instead of only you!” he teased me.

  I looked away, hotly embarrassed. “You’ll have to get married first.”

  His laughter rang out across the empty land. “So I will! But raw Africa is harder on a woman than it is on a man—”

  “The dominant male?” I murmured.

  “Not exactly. But it isn’t like living in Nairobi or Mombasa, is it?”

  I chuckled, “Praise be for that!”

  He gave me a quick look of interest but said nothing. The time could not have gone slower. I tried swinging my legs and was rewarded by the sharp prick of pins and needles in my feet. At last the light was beginning to fade and an orange glow had seized the sky, broken only by the silhouettes of the surrounding vegetation.

  The vultures still circled over the dead elephant and other scavengers, led by a pack of hyenas, began to move in. Otherwise we had no visitors beyond a single rhinoceros who was feeding on the tasty thorn trees below. The grinding of his teeth on the thorns was clearly audible, but he was far too myopic to spot us. Only when he moved down-wind did he scent that there was something strange about our tree. He came charging up to within a few feet of us and then stopped, pawing the ground in front of him. He was uncertain now and relying on his senses of smell and hearing to help him overcome the handicap of his nearly blind eyes. He stormed away, sniffed | he air, his ears twitching, then charged back again towards the tree.

  “Damn,” said Hugo. “If anyone is watching, he’ll give our position away.”

  Although he had spoken in a whisper, the rhinoceros had heard him. He drove his horn into the tree and retired angrily to a discreet distance. Then his contempt for us overcame his prudence. He turned his back on the tree and expelled a powerful jet of urine over the base of the tree from about twelve feet away. This done, he trotted off into the bush, apparently well content that we were of no immediate danger to him.

  Hugo and I gave a sigh of relief. It was now practically dark. Only a faint light over the western horizon showed where the sun had set. The strange sounds of the night had already started. A bush-baby’s eerie cry rang out quite close by, nearly dislodging me from my perch. I could feel my pulse beating madly and the odd pricking sensation on the back of my hands that fright produces.

  “Hush!” Hugo whispered harshly.

  I listened more frantically to the sounds all about us, wondering what he could have heard. The butt of the rifle rested comfortably in my groin and it occurred to me that I had no idea whether it was loaded or not. It was too late to ask Hugo though, for now I too could hear some muffled footsteps coming towards us, signalled by the call of an owl that was too perfect to be real.

  I sat up sharply, suddenly cold. Now that the moment had come, I wished myself anywhere but where I was. I was frightened! I stared out into the darkness, knowing that the poachers were coming closer, but quite unable to see anything at all. They would see us more easily, I thought, for our
skins were white. The tree seemed a very fragile protection against their sharp eyes.

  Hugo was apparently unmoved. There was no movement at all from his side of the tree, but I knew his eyes were fixed on the dead hulk of the elephant, waiting, waiting for what? They were there! I knew they were there, so why didn’t he do something? Was he going to go on waiting until they had seized the ivory and departed?

  It seemed not. His muscles were tensed as hard as the tree in which he sat. Then slowly, very, very slowly, he took a strong grip on the bough in front of him and, completely silently, dropped down on to the ground below.

  If I had been frightened before, I was now scared stiff. I hugged my rifle to me, fondly imagining that I was going to give

  Hugo some kind of cover as he moved forward. But he didn’t move at all. Beyond him, I too could see the corpse of the elephant. I could smell it too. The strong smell of elephant mixed with the already rotting flesh where the flies had been at work round the wounds that the poachers’ spears had made in the thick grey skin.

  Then, from nowhere, came the poachers. They walked steadily in a line, one behind the other, dressed in torn shorts and singlets, a few with a blanket tied at the corners around their shoulders. They were armed with the weapons of a former age: bows and arrows; long-bladed spears; and the all-purpose machete, used for digging, fighting or gardening, the panga. Hugo was undoubtedly right. The guilty men were the rich ones, making all the money while they sat on the coast, secure behind their cover of genuine businesses that hid their remorseless greed. These were the fools, dazzled by the colour of the coins they would never see, exploited as surely as the poor animals they murdered.

  The men stopped a few yards away from the elephant. There was a moment’s discussion as they noticed the circle of hyenas, snarling dares at each other to close in on the dead beast, but united in resisting any attempt by the poachers to take their meal away from them. Hyenas look so cowardly—they are often mistaken for such, but they have unlooked-for depths when they are attacked and it was clear that the poachers were unwilling to tangle with them.

  The endless African discussion went on and on. The rise and fall of their voices was a natural part of their way of doing things. All would be heard. All would give lengthy advice as to what they should do. They would begin with the youngest amongst them and end with the eldest before any decision would be made. This, I thought, was my opportunity to follow Hugo down on to the ground. Gently, I rocked backwards and forwards, hoping to restore the circulation to my legs. I was not as neat as Hugo had been, but somehow I scrambled down on to the ground, still clutching the rifle to me. My foot scraped against the bark of the tree, but none of the poachers even looked round. Hugo did, though. He made a quick gesture for me to come up behind him.