by Peter Rimmer
"My, it's grand to be alive," he said to the donkeys as he passed.
On the big island across the thirty feet of clear river water, Barend Oosthuizen was preparing the morning shoot for his German clients, among them Lieutenant von Stratten of the German Imperial Army, the man who had met Barend on the Skeleton Coast, and been gone in the morning without saying goodbye. The smell of coffee, that surprisingly would shortly find its way into the nostrils of the ninth Earl of Pembridgemoor causing him concern about his mind, was strong. There were ten of them camped on the island, four white men and six black men, the blacks having carried the guns and equipment for so many miles in the heat. The bearers were huddled together ten yards away from the white man's camp, and to Barend's trained eye they were more excited than they should be, talking in a language Barend suspected was spoken by less than ten thousand people in the world. Barend had been unable to draw from them their tribe name or the name of their language. One of them, the leader, who had worked in the mines in Johannesburg, spoke enough Afrikaans to take and relay orders to the rest of them. Barend had found him at the small trading post at Maun where the swamps began and the stray tourists looked for guides to take them hunting in the great Okavango Delta. The surprise had been meeting von Stratten again, which had been little surprise to the German. Having put up his shingle as a white hunter, the word had spread quicker than Barend could ever have imagined. From Portuguese West Africa to Portuguese East Africa, through all the British colonies of Central Africa, wherever the business of hunting animals was done for the white man's pleasure, many of the white hunters and their trackers heard that Tinus Oosthuizen's son had become a hunter like his father. At night round the campfires, there was little to talk about but shooting elephant or lion and retelling the legends of the old white hunters, blown out of all proportion by so much repetition over so many years.
Unlike Peregrine, who had walked his donkeys along the old hunters paths and through the drifts that sank his big iron wheels under water, flooding the bottom of the wagon and drowning some of the bugs, the German's party, having lured Barend in Maun, had driven as far into the delta as possible, before leaving the big army trucks with their drivers to be fetched on the way back.
Barend had noticed the excited chattering among the black men soon after he had hired six makoris with local oarsmen to take them up the reed lined rivers that marked the swamps to look for elephant. The locals, the previous night, had made camp next to the river and their canoes, not wishing to join the hunting party. Barend was certain the blacks were not telling him something and he wanted to know what it was. With a mug of hot coffee wrapped inside the palm of his big right hand, he went down to join his employees by the river. When they saw him coming the blacks stopped talking immediately, every one of them looking sheepish. In all of their eyes, Barend saw the signs of fear, causing his hackles to rise at the hidden danger. He stood for a long time looking down at them crouched on their haunches, silent, averting their eyes. To them he was a huge blonde, hairy, slate green-eyed monster drinking a strange smelling liquid, the name of which they were unable to pronounce.
Having finished his coffee slowly, to maximise the intimidation, Barend, with the tin mug now in his left hand, walked slowly to the group, and one-handed, gripped the one-time gold miner by his shirt front and jerked him to his feet. Behind, the Germans looked up to see what was happening. Barend stared into the eyes of the frightened black man for a long minute before he spoke to him in Afrikaans, a language none of the others understood.
Barend smiled sweetly and waited, having asked his question.
"They frightened of ghosts," said the black man. "The people in the makori say since you arrived at Maun the Great Elephant seen many times. They think dead father sent you the Great Elephant to kill but they say the Great Elephant kill you way it killed Baas Brigandshaw."
"And where is this Great Elephant?" asked Barend mockingly, inwardly surprised at the accuracy and travelling distance of the bush telegraph which had spread the death of Sebastian Brigandshaw.
"On island, Baas. It was last seen two days ago on island."
"Then that's good. My clients will be pleased. We will kill the Great Elephant and my German friends will become part of the great legend. Don't be afraid. It is only an elephant."
"Those men back at makori say elephant kill all of us."
"But I will shoot the Great Elephant if my clients fail."
"But you can't kill the Great Elephant. No one can. It is a spirit."
"Then if it is only a ghost it can't kill any of us."
"That is not true, Baas. A ghost can kill who it likes."
"Then why do you stay with me?"
"We more frightened of being left alone in the swamps."
"But you all know the swamps."
"No, Baas."
"But you said they all knew the swamps better than their mothers."
"I lied, Baas. We were hungry. We want a job. Now we say the Great Elephant ghost kill us or the lions eat us. We think elephant kill us more quickly. We stay with you."
"So you've never been in the swamps before?"
"No, Baas. I come from Johannesburg."
"Why did you leave Johannesburg?"
"That is a long story."
"Yes, I'm sure it is. Did you kill another man or steal his wife?" he said sarcastically.
"Both, Baas. But the man, he was going to kill me."
"Have any of the others been in the swamps before?"
"No, Baas. They too come from Johannesburg. They are my brothers."
"You have the same mothers and fathers?"
"No, Baas. We are brothers."
"If you knew the Great Elephant was on this island, why did you let the oarsmen bring us here?"
"The Great Elephant is on all the islands."
The belly laugh, made first by tension, swelled up in Barend and burst in loud guffaws. Shaking his head he walked back to the Germans.
"What was all that about?" asked von Stratten in English.
"He was telling me a joke."
"It must have been a good one. This island is thick with bush and trees. You think we'll see anything to shoot? My colonel wants to take home to Frankfurt a big pair of elephant tusks. And tonight, when we come back to camp with our trophy he wants to talk to you."
"I can't speak German."
"My colonel speaks English."
There was no shoreline to most of the island, the trees growing out over the water in tangled roots thicker than Barend's arm. Like his father before him, Barend never believed in coincidence. When the man he had met on the Skeleton Coast appeared at Maun, Barend was sure the man had a reason other than killing wild animals. The man was too smug. Too sure of himself. A man on the brink of great things justly deserved. Barend would have turned down the client had he any nerve. Despite the shingle on the front of his small hut on the side of the side of the only dusty road in Maun, he had not received a commission and was about to go on his endless wagon journey. He had the idea to go to Kimberley and the big diamond mine to find out if the seven stones hidden in the soft leather belt strapped around his stomach were really diamonds. Some of the hatred for the English had seeped out of his mind. All the wandering had been pointless. He was getting nowhere going around in circles. The German money, despite the prospect of an ulterior motive, would take him to Kimberley, and if the diamonds were real he would sell them on the illicit market and go home. He was not as tough as he thought he was. He had never before experienced the strange feeling that lately kept returning to his mind, a feeling that spread to a physical sickness in his stomach, and that only went away when he allowed himself to think of his mother, Madge, Katinka, and Elephant Walk. After nine years alone, Barend was finally homesick.
Thinking it better to leave the bearers in the small clearing where they had camped for the night, Barend led the Germans down the one path between hundred-foot high trees in search of an el
ephant, trying to remember all the knowledge his father had taught him when he was a boy. Within two hundred yards they were swallowed by the trees, Barend consciously taking sight of the sun so he could lead them back to camp. He would not have been the first white hunter to go into the swamps and never come out again.
Peregrine the ninth had been worried all morning. Smelling freshly made coffee in the swamps was a sure sign of dementia. Instead of his body giving out at seventy years of age, his heart stopping, his kidneys gracefully giving up the years of abuse in his youth, his mind was going. He told himself in quiet despair, 'I'm going crackers'. And when Clary looked up from chewing the grass, he knew he had spoken out loud. The possibilities he decided were twofold. If he was going crackers he would lose himself in the bush. But if his mind went he would not know what was happening so it wouldn't matter. Not sure there wasn't a fallacy in his thinking, he had eaten his stick of dried venison, congratulating his teeth on their ability to still chew the biltong, as it was called by the Afrikaners he sometimes met on his travels, and made himself a rare pipe from his limited supply of tobacco. If he was going crackers he had better enjoy the smoke before he had no idea what he was doing. Back under the fig tree, and with the taste of tobacco deep in his lungs, he began to enjoy his morning. The idea of eating a nice large river bream appealed to him. He never ate lunch. Two meals were enough for an old man. He would find a spot between the tall reeds from where he could cast his line in the water and still keep an eye out for crocodiles. Crocodiles and snakes were still his pet aversions, even after so many years in the bush. The bugs in his bedclothes worried him not at all, they were part of life, but he always checked his bedding for snakes when he went to bed, especially in winter when they had a bad habit of climbing straightaway into the warm spot when he got up in the morning and spending the rest of the day. Once one had got in with him when he was asleep which caused a ruckus in the middle of the night that had the donkeys bolting into the bush.
With the pipe finished and propped against a root of the fig tree, his mind pleasantly thinking of fish for supper, the donkeys happy on their own grazing next to the wagon, Peregrine the ninth fell asleep.
The sun was vertically above them when they came out of the trees into tall grass as high as their armpits. The Germans were sweating in the heat, their guns heavy on their shoulders. Thirty yards through the elephant grass, brown at the top despite so much water underground, the river circled the mile long island, the stretch in front of them blocked at the back and both sides by the giant trees of the forest. The open land sprinkled with small, flat-topped trees. They could all hear a wallowing noise coming from a patch of trees next to the river. The wallowing and slosh of water went on for some time while they waited motionless, their guns, .37 Mausers, off their shoulders, with a bullet pushed into every breach, the safety catches pushed forward, ready for whatever it was wallowing in the water. Barend recognised the ears above the height of the trees and watched the trunk ride up and curl to spurt water on the back of the elephant hidden by the trees; its feet still in the river. Barend shivered with fear, the first time in his life the ghost of the Great Elephant was eighty yards in front of him, and from the sound of the cascading water falling into water, the animal was coming out of the river. First, the top of the great head and tusks appeared above the trees at tree top height. Then the elephant rested them on the earth while it took in the heads and shoulders of the five men looking at him in awe. The ears flapped once, slowly, and then again fast. The tusks came off the ground. The ears flapped with claps of thunderous sound and the trunk went up in the air, showing the red, gaping mouth.
"He's going to charge," said Barend quickly. "On the count of three we all fire at the heart at the same time; the colonel wins the trophy."
Four trained soldiers and Barend brought their guns to their shoulders as the elephant charged, the animal quickly picking up speed, trumpeting, great ears flapping, the ground shaking under the platter-sized pads of the feet.
"One. Two. Three. Fire!" called Barend and four heavy calibre bullets hit the elephant, not even changing the animal's stride.
Barend had deliberately not fired, to give his clients the kill. The raging, wounded beast was charging straight for the German colonel. Barend, his brain cold as ice, took aim for the brain, the more difficult shot, and fired, dropping the animal dead in its tracks, ten yards in front of the German, breaking one of the tusks as it fell. The colonel was swearing profusely in German as the old elephant looked at Barend through dead eyes. He turned away from his clients, bent below the height of the elephant grass and retched and retched, tearing at the innards of his stomach. When he stood up again he was crying and the colonel was standing on top of the dead elephant, von Stratten taking his picture.
"We'll send the bearers for the tusks when we reach the makoris," said Barend. "This hunt is over."
No one was taking any notice of him.
Peregrine had woken with the volley of four shots, certain he had not been dreaming. The donkeys had taken no notice. Birds were arising from the canopy of the dense forest and the black-headed heron was making slow haste with heavy wings. Then came the lone shot and Peregrine felt a flood of relief that started in his stomach and dissipated in his brain.
"You silly old bug. It was coffee." Then he scowled. Once again the world of people had caught up with him. The idea of the fish on the fire for supper was no longer attractive. The gunshots, the coffee smells were intrusions. The afternoon found him irritated. He liked it better when his hermit's world was left alone.
The next day with the dawn he packed a few things in the wagon and this time remembered to hang his bedding and mattress from the roof of the wagon. With the donkeys in harness and a piece of biltong in the cheek of his mouth, he headed out of the swamps across the shallow river. The heron watched him without taking to flight. Even in a few days they had grown used to each other.
The colonel had come to the point the following afternoon. The elephant tusks, including the one with the broken tip, were safely in the German military truck after the bearers had hacked them out of the carcass of the dead elephant. The oarsmen had been paid, the new bush story was already going from mouth to mouth, spreading like the ripples from a stone thrown into a silent pond. The Great Elephant was dead. Whether it was the one spoken of so many years before by his father was a point in question to Barend. If it was not the one that had killed Uncle Sebastian it did not matter either. All the hatred had drained out of him. Never again would he shoot an elephant unless to protect himself. His days as a hunter finished in the dead eyes of the biggest animal he had ever seen, dead at his feet for no reason Barend could understand.
The colonel had gone on about a great war the Germans were going to bring on the English. But all Barend could see was a great elephant dead, the ears not moving, the trumpet silent, the years of life shot out of him for man's sport. The colonel was talking about meetings with the old Boer generals that had fought the British with his father and now wanted to fight them again. De Wet, Beyers, Kemp, Maritz; how old man De la Rey would have joined the rebellion if he had not been accidentally shot dead. But all the anger had gone out of him and he listened with half his mind.
"When the time comes you will join us, Oosthuizen?"
"Join us?"
"Against the British. When we invade South Africa and make it a republic again."
"With allegiance to Germany?"
"Of course."
"What will be the difference?"
"You will have your republic again."
"But under German hegemony."
"Germany will then lead the world. You will join us, no?"
"Of course, Colonel."
"The young Afrikaners will follow the son of General Oosthuizen." The colonel was pleased. "I'm glad. Good. Very good… It was good hunting. We shall meet again."
"I hope so," said Barend wishing the opposite.
When the two Germa
n trucks drove out of Maun the following day Barend smiled at the irony of life. Satisfied he had enough money to reach Kimberly he went inside his small rented hut and began the preparation for his departure the next day. The bearers had said they wanted to stay in Maun now they were local heroes. They had been part of the killing of the spirit of the Great Elephant. Everyone was safe again.
Peregrine had the beginnings of a whisky thirst and wondered who he could prevail upon to buy him a drink. It was early in the following morning, Peregrine having travelled through the night, finding it easier to navigate his way around the bush by reading the stars; the moon had been good but not too bright to dull the pointer star of the Southern Cross. With the sound of waking birds and the slow clop of the donkeys' hooves, he made his way towards a small cluster of dust covered buildings that was Maun.
The Duck Inn was on the far side of the only street, and one of Peregrine's favourite places in the world, though the word 'inn' was a misnomer, as all old Frikkie had put up was an open shed on three sides, with a small room attached to the only wall with its back to the road, so he could lock up his stash of booze. During the rains, it became rather muddy but no one seemed to care. Frikkie opened for business with the first customer and closed for business when the last went home. No one had ever seen him sober and no one had ever seen him drunk.
As the donkeys drew Peregrine's wagon towards the first of what might be called a building, the whisky thirst grew stronger and by the time the wagon with Peregrine on the box drew alongside Barend's small hut with the new shingle that was about to be taken down, the thirst was raging.
He had heard the name Barend Oosthuizen over the years, especially from young Madge Brigandshaw, and clutching at any straw that might bring him a drink, Peregrine stopped Clary and Jess right outside the hut and studied the shingle further. The donkeys were quite happy to stand still in the middle of the road. Far down the dirt track, Peregrine could clearly see the object of his desire, the sign 'Duck Inn' being the biggest sign in Maun.
