by Isobel Chace
The doctor came and went early, pronouncing that the wound in my arm had completely stopped bleeding and was already beginning to heal.
“It won’t be any hardship to you to sit around here for a day, will it?” he teased me. “Tomorrow, we shall see about your going back to camp!”
I thanked him, well pleased with his prescription. I had never been anywhere more beautiful than this fantastic hotel and I was more than content to sit on one of the comfortable chairs, under cover and yet in the open, much like being on a terrace, watching the olive baboons climbing up and down the rock face just below us, playing with their young, and grooming one another with that intensity of purpose they share with all the monkey family.
Katundi came in with Janice to have a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning. We fell naturally into speaking Swahili because of his presence, which put Janice at a disadvantage, for
she didn’t speak it at all well.
“You look better, mama,’’ Katundi told me.
I grinned at him. “I feel better! It will be quite a come down to go back to work tomorrow!”
Katundi’s eyes glowed. He was well aware that he too was getting a holiday out of my misadventure. “It would be perfect if the Bwana were here,” he said slyly.
“That’s part of the rest cure!” I retorted.
But nothing would persuade Katundi that I was serious. “Have you seen many animals today?” he asked me, jerking his head towards the waterholes below us.
“There was a hartebeeste just now,” I said. “And warthogs galore, and the baboons that seem to live here.”
“Last night some rhino came,” he told me.
I leaned forward, interested. “Perhaps they will again tonight!”
He gave the long grunt that all Africans use to show that they are still in the conversation even if they have nothing at that particular moment to say. And I answered it with my own “Ayeeh,” as was only polite.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Janice.
“Look!” Katundi breathed, his eyes widening. “Look, now!”
“What is it?” I asked him carelessly, turning to where he pointed.
“Duma!" he exclaimed.
“It’s a leopard!” Janice shrieked, jumping up and down in her chair.
“It’s a cheetah,” I said slowly. “It’s too big to be a leopard. Isn’t it splendid?”
“I envy it its coat!” Janice murmured.
There was a short, horrified silence. “How could you?” I demanded hotly. “How could you?”
“Easily,” Janice assured me, laughing. “Be honest! Wouldn’t you love to have a coat like that?”
“No!” I said shortly.
“You’re too good to be true!” she retorted sharply.
“I’m not!” I stormed back, equally angry. I could have wept with sheer indignation on the animals’ behalf. “It’s because of you that they’re dying out!”
“Hardly me personally,” she said reasonably. “I couldn’t afford so much as a fur stole!”
“Good!”
Janice gave me a curious look. “I can’t think why you get so steamed up about it,” she remarked. “I should think this country must have made a good thing from selling skins to the markets of the world.”
“How can you say so? Only the poachers make any money! It would be a tragedy if these animals were to cease to exist! Who would come to a place like this then?”
“Other countries find other reasons for tourists,” Janice argued.
“But tourism is the second largest feature of the whole economy here,” I pointed out. “What else would they come for?”
But Janice was already bored by the whole conversation. “What earns the most money?” she asked with a total lack of interest.
“Coffee,” I said.
Katundi handed me the binoculars he had been using. “Look!” he begged me. “I have never seen a larger or a better marked cheetah than this one!”
I trained the lens in on the cheetah, marvelling at the way its shoulders swelled as it leaned forward to drink. All cats have much the same movements when they move, but with the bigger cats their feline grace seems the more remarkable. Not that the cheetah is a true cat in every way. They alone are unable to retract their claws, but have paws more like a dog’s. It is this that gives them their speed, for they are the fastest of all animals and can go for short periods as fast as sixty miles an hour.
The cheetah looked from left to right, stared up at the Lodge for a long moment, so that through the binoculars it looked as if it were looking straight at me, and then disappeared into the brush. So good was the camouflage of its spots that almost immediately I lost sight of it, and the rest of the animal world, that had been holding their breath while it had been there, came back to life in a sudden cacophony of sound.
At dinner that evening there was a cool breeze blowing in from the plains. It was heavy with the smell of elephant and I knew that they were very close to us. The four-ton animals came and went, making way for the two-ton rhinos who followed them closely. These were the black rhino, with their prehensile upper lip. Watching them in the lights from the hotel, I was interested to see confirmed what I had been told in the stories of my childhood, that the rhinoceros will break up his own dung and, if short of certain minerals, will even eat it. The Africans in Kenya say that it is out of respect for the elephants who resent finding dung as large as their own on the ground. Further south, they say that the rhino is always searching for the precious needle, given him by the gods to sew his armoured skin together, and long since lost.
That night I had a bath. It was bliss. After it, I slept like a log all night.
The jolting of the Landcruiser over the rough ground didn’t do my arm any good at all. Katundi drove as carefully as he could, easing right down when we came to the places where the rains had washed away the surfacing of the roughly made roads, leaving only the hardcore underneath and a mass of tangled weeds taking their short opportunity for life.
The dikdiks fled from before our path, leaping into the bush, their shy faces peering over their shoulders at us from the safety of the undergrowth. Otherwise there were few animals to be seen. I allowed my eyes to comb the land all about us, but there was little to see, except the silver wrecks of the elephant-mauled trees and the red termite heaps that spread over the area like a rash.
It was a relief when we reached the short track of good road before we re-entered the Park and made our way to the camp. It was queer that it had become so dear and familiar to me when it was only a few days since I had first seen it. Now, despite an aching arm and the weary consciousness that my job was to help Mr. Doffnang and not to catch poachers, it seemed like home.
The whole camp had come along the bank of the river to greet us. They stood and watched as we slithered into the water and crossed by the devious path that would allow the vehicle to find enough grip to press forward through the brown, muddy waters. There was a faint cheer of satisfaction as we gained the other side, muted as their black faces watched mine closely to see if I were still feeling any pain. In their midst stood Mr. Doffnang, his round flat face as cheerful as theirs.
“Are you well, meisje?”
I smiled at him. “Well enough,” I said. But I could not deceive him. The long drive had hurt me more than I knew. My face was grey, where it had not been reddened by the dust, and there were dark circles beneath my eyes.
“It seems to me that they have not been looking after you,” he said crossly.
“Everyone was very kind,” I insisted.
His blue eyes flashed in Janice’s direction. “She was kind?” he mocked.
“Very kind!” I snapped back.
He looked surprised. “She was? She wasn’t pleased that Hugo should take you with him. You know that?”
“Ja,” I said briefly.
“Then why should she be kind—?”
Unwilling to continue this conversation, I changed the subject abruptly. “Have
you managed to do anything about the road?” I asked him.
He nodded slowly. “We’ve made good progress today,” he said. He gave me a peculiar look. “I think you should go straight to your bed,” he suggested.
It was an attractive idea. Janice came to my tent and changed the dressings for me. Her hands were surprisingly gentle and efficient, just as she had been all along.
“What was the Dutchman saying about me?” she asked, as she re-bandaged my arm.
“I was telling him you had been kind to me,” I turned her question.
She made a face at me. “And he didn’t believe you?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I demurred.
“Just as well,” she said lightly. “You’re a rotten liar, Clare deJong! Don’t mind me, tell the truth!”
“We-ell,” I began, “Hans Doffnang is a puritan—”
“And I’m not?”
I looked up at her almost timidly. “I don’t think so,” I said.
“Poor Hans,” she said.
I was glad when she had gone. The iron bedstead creaked horribly as I got into it, but it was still good to be home. I tried the radio for a while, but there was little to be heard in either English or Swahili. I was disappointed, for I had hoped to hear what had happened to the poachers. The Voice of Kenya was silent on the subject, however, and there was nothing else in the news that really interested me. It was a relief when Katundi brought my evening meal, making sure that I ate every bite of it.
“The Bwana is on the radio now,” he told me.
My heart made a dramatic dive within me. “Oh?” I said with studied indifference.
“They have captured the Mzee lion and driven the others away. They are bringing the Mzee here to let him loose. It is far from Aruba—” He shook his head doubtfully.
“Far enough?” I asked him.
“I couldn’t say, mama. The Mzee has the wisdom of his blood.”
I chuckled. “And Hugo?”
“The Bwana too,” he agreed with an answering gleam. “But it is the Mzee who has roamed free in these lands all his life. He will answer the call of his kind. The hunting of the whole pride depends on him. It is his skill that makes the pride successful. The other lions look to him and he feels the responsibility. It will not be easy to make him go here when he wants to go there!”
I thought about this for a while, pushing a piece of potato about my plate.
“When will they be home?” I asked at last.
“They will be here tomorrow. They must take the Mzee to the waterhole in the evening. He is not a woman to accept his food at a man’s hands. He must catch his own.”
I thought it was the lioness who made the killing,” I objected, nettled.
Katundi nodded. “But it is he that drives the food to her feet.”
When he was gone, I settled down to sleep. I turned off the light so that there was only the glow of the hurricane lamp outside to break up the darkness. But I could not sleep. I was still awake when the electricity went off all over the camp. The noises of the night had their own drama and on any other night I shouldn’t have minded lying awake and listening to them, the heartbeat of Africa. But that night I could only think of Hugo and the menacing lion. When I did sleep, I dreamed that they were stalking one another through the darkness— and I couldn’t be sure that it would be Hugo who would win. When I awoke, I was exhausted and cross, but the night was over and there was nothing else for it but to get up and begin the day.
It was astonishing the amount of work they had done on the site in the two days I had been away.
I had been expecting to find it much as I had left it, but it had been transformed. The road to the top had been completely levelled and drained and was already in use. On the site itself, the foundations had at last been finished and the first of the concrete was being mixed, ready to pour it into the deep trenches provided. There was some doubt as to the wisdom of doing too much until the rains were over, but Hans Doffnang had rigged up a cover over the trenches and the work was going speedily ahead. It almost seemed as if I were not needed by any of them. They had managed extraordinarily well without me.
My confidence was slightly restored by Mr. Doffnang’s visible relief at finding me on the site.
“We have done good work, ja?” he gloated. “But now we need to get down to making better arrangements for the gangs of workers. Will you call all the foremen to come and see me at lunchtime? Then we can make good plans for the next stage.”
It was good to be working again. The meeting went remarkably well, despite certain tribal difficulties that no one would admit to, and we went a long way towards ironing out a number of difficulties in organising the labour and sorting out which gang would do what when the actual building began.
But by four o’clock I had had enough. My arm ached abysmally and I was more tired than I liked. It was not the normal, healthy physical fatigue that I was accustomed to, albeit not often, but a prickly tiredness caused by lack of sleep and a constant, nagging sense of unhappiness. So when the whistle went, I was the first one to start off down the steep path towards the camp, even though I knew that Hans Doffnang would have liked me to have stayed on while he walked round the site, examining the work of the day.
Karibu was waiting for me under the baobab tree. She trumpeted her glee the instant she set eyes on me, advancing at a smart trot that had me sidestepping back and forth across the path, hoping to escape her. But Karibu was in no mood to stand any nonsense. She had missed me while I had been away and with unerring instinct she knew immediately that I had been hurt in some way. Her trunk fondled the back of my neck, her breath blowing down my back. She was very gentle. In no time at all she had caught a whiff of the disinfectant on my arm and she rumbled her alarm while she carefully examined every inch of my head and limbs.
“It’s all right, Karibu,” I whispered in her ear. “Hugo was with me.”
Her ears flapped back and forth at his name. There was no doubt that she was deeply upset. I put my hand on the base of her ear and gave it a gentle tug.
“Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s walk along the river.”
So brave I had become! I hardly noticed the crocodiles along the bank and it never even occurred to me that I would be in danger from anything else. With Karibu plodding along behind me, I felt completely safe.
It was partly by chance, therefore, that I was down by the ford when Hugo arrived home. Karibu heard the motor of the Landcruiser long before I did. She pawed at the ground and flapped her ears, bellowing a greeting at the top of her lungs. She was answered by the indistinct, defiant roar of a single lion.
The noise was exciting. I could feel it in my flesh, so animal was my own reaction to their cries. And then I saw the Landcruiser coming towards us and I was jumping up and down and waving my arms in the air, just like a schoolgirl who had waited all night for a glimpse of her favourite pop star.
The Landcruiser dipped and skidded its way across the river, responding to every touch of Hugo’s capable hands. Then at last, with a final roar of the engine, the vehicle mounted the bank and came to a halt beside me.
I was bitterly aware of the last time I had seen him. I could almost feel his lips on mine, just as if there had been no intervening time between then and now.
“Have you brought Mzee with you?” I asked, only for something to say, for I could see the great lion, caged but hardly defeated, in the Landcruiser that was coming along behind.
Hugo smiled. He looked amused. “I’m going to take him to the waterhole on the other side of Chui plateau and release him there. Do you want to come?”
I nodded quickly, before he could change his mind. “Are you going straight away?”
He grinned. “I don’t like to see him caged,” he said.
I could understand that. I hurried into the seat beside him after giving Karibu a quick pat and a push, hoping that she would go back to the camp. But the elephant had other ideas. She was not going to allow me to get
away from her again. Hugo let in the clutch and the vehicle moved slowly forward.
“I’m afraid she’ll come with us,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter,” he reassured me. “If she gets tired, she’ll go home.”
The second Landcruiser gained the bank and followed us at a discreet distance as we encircled the rocky outcrop on which the new hotel was being built. Mzee paced up and down the narrow confines of his cage, but he made little attempt to escape. Perhaps he had already discovered that he had no chance of getting away from his captors until they chose to release him.
“How are you going to let him go?” I asked. I was already
bothered by his brooding presence in the vehicle behind us.
“We’ll put the vehicles down wind of the waterhole, open the cage, and sit tight until he’s far enough away not to bother us.” ‘You make it sound so simple!” I sighed. “But won’t he remember?”
Hugo nodded grimly. “He’ll remember,” he agreed.
I didn’t like to press the point. I sat in silence while we went on in convoy to the waterhole. Karibu was still following us, more anxious than ever for my safety. She, at least, would come to no harm, I thought, for no lion would attack an elephant unless it was very small and without the protection of the herd. Karibu, on the contrary, was getting quite big.
We stopped about a hundred yards away from the waterhole. Hugo tested the wind and directed the exact spot where the vehicles were to stand. Then he gave a signal and the driver of the second vehicle pulled a cord that opened up the cage in the back.
For a long moment Mzee stood without moving, his amber eyes, which were so like mine, staring out across the great plain in front of him. Then, with one bound, he was out of the cage and down on the ground. He never gave us so much as a backward look, but with quiet dignity he walked away from us and into freedom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
