The Daughters of the Darkness

by Luke Phillips

  “Wow, another Land Rover. At least it’s a different colour from the one we have at home,” Catherine answered, seemingly unimpressed.

  “Seeing as you’re going to be driving her back to camp, why don’t you take her to the end of the runway and back to get a feel of her?” Thomas suggested, still smiling.

  Catherine climbed up into the open cabin of the Big Cat. She shook her head and rolled her eyes as Thomas and Jelani watched her in silence. She turned the key and focused her gaze towards the end of the runway some 600 yards away. Without hesitating, she floored the accelerator and the tyres bit into the dry ground, tearing her away from the two watching men in an instant. She swung the car out to the side, clearing Jelani’s parked Land Rover by a few inches and drifting out onto the strip, her quick and seamless gear changes answered by a happy roar from the engine and the rising chirr of the supercharger. She raced down the runway, a ragged cut in the scrub that ended in a thick mire of acacia trees and thorn bushes. They loomed closer as she thundered towards them, but she held her nerve, determined to show Thomas up. She lifted off the accelerator and let the car slow a little before yanking the wheel hard to the right and pulling the handbrake. The Big Cat seemed to pirouette on the spot, its sliding bulk sending a spray of fine rust coloured dust up into the air as she straightened up for the return run, gunning the engine again as she did so. As she built her speed up, she aimed squarely at Thomas and Jelani, who were leaning up against the other Land Rover in the distance. At the last moment, she floored the brake, locking up the wheels into a juddering halt that sent Thomas and Jelani diving for cover. She casually climbed out of the cab as the dust settled, leaning up against the car. She looked extremely smug as Thomas picked himself up and dusted off his hands.

  “The Big Cat, so called because of the supercharged Jaguar engine. I have been watching the show remember,” she smirked.

  “My friend, I like her,” Jelaini laughed, slapping Thomas heartily on the back.

  “So do I, most of the time,” Thomas replied.

  “Go and get your other toy, I know you want to,” suggested Catherine.

  “Well, if you insist,” Thomas said with a mock shrug.

  He disappeared up the ramp again, pulling the cover off the last bit of kit left on the plane. He threw his leg over the coffee coloured fuel tank and took a seat on the tan, weathered, single-seat leather saddle. The coiled suspension rods bowed with the pressure. With a heavy kick, the four-stroke twin engine started, and he revved it a few times with a flick of his wrist to warm it up. It was a Triumph Bonneville; one his father had built and modified into a scrambler when he’d retired. The chunky, knurled Continental tyres were perfect for the unforgiving tracks and off-road demands of the Tsavo savannah, as were the raised exhaust, reinforced frame and skid plate. He gave the throttle a little flurry as he left the ramp, spinning the bike round before heading back over to Catherine and Jelani.

  His dad had always ridden bikes, but Thomas had never really trusted himself on them. That hadn’t stopped him getting his license and owning the odd one or two, but he rarely took them out, and it had been a little while since he’d been on one. But the bike felt steady and comfortable, and he felt confident enough within the limits of the four-stroke.

  “Just remember, if you come off that thing and it doesn’t kill you, I will,” Catherine warned.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Thomas replied.

  Jelani, Catherine and Thomas helped the men finish packing up the cars. The two Land Rovers took the bulk of the equipment, with the ATVs taking the smaller packs. Thomas slung the canvas rucksack that he had carried throughout the flight onto his back. It contained the documents Hali had given him, a few bottles of water and his personal identification, as well as a little bit of money.

  “It’s just over ten miles to camp,” Jelani explained. “It will take us about half an hour to get there.”

  “Let’s get the show on the road,” Thomas grinned.

  He climbed back onto the bike as the cars and ATVs started off, catching Catherine’s wry smile as she glanced back at him. She seemed to be feeling better, and he was glad she was enjoying herself. He gave a quick wave to the pilots, who he knew were heading back to the Ramstein Air Force base in Germany. Neither he nor they knew when they would be back, only that it would be when the job was done. The thought cooled his excitement as he kick-started the bike and tore off after the little convoy.

  The landscape was an entanglement of parched, red rocky outcrops, densely wooded thickets, jagged river gorges and clear open savannah punctured and potted by dark volcanic escarpments. The air was hot and dry, and the dust it carried sucked the moisture from Thomas’s throat and mouth. He felt alive and excited for the first time in the long twenty-four hours they had been travelling, the sensory overload seeping into him all at once. He opened up the throttle of the bike, quickly catching up with the ATVs and passing them to coast alongside Catherine in the Big Cat. She caught his eye through the open window and with an upward nod, directed his gaze to the scrub alongside the track to their right. A Rothschild’s giraffe and her calf were moving away from them, the orange and chocolate colour of their patterned hides blending perfectly into the Tsavo landscape.

  Thomas kept the bike alongside Catherine, enamoured by the look of wonder on her face. Her brilliant turquoise eyes sparkled with excitement as flurries of grassland pipits and golden palm weavers burst from the scrub to feast on the insects the vehicles flushed from the track. She slowed down to watch a white browed coucal flap off from its perch on a thorn bush, smiling happily as the crimson-eyed cuckoo babbled its objections at being disturbed. He sighed with relief, glad that she was happy to be in Africa.

  The convoy bumped and trundled along the track, eventually leaving it altogether as Jelani led them along the crest of a ridgeline that ran alongside a wide river. Thomas could see that the trail culminated in a large flat kopje, a table-like rock grouping sticking up out of the landscape. Just on the other side of the rock formation he could make out the sand coloured canvas and fabric of the tents and structures. As they drew closer, he could see they had been reinforced with wooden sides and doors, adding to their luxury and security. Each had permanent floors built of thick, planed slabs of acacia.

  “Looks a little more luxurious than what we had back in the day,” Thomas exclaimed, pulling up next to Jelani’s open topped Land Rover.

  “Welcome to Anga ya Amani. The name means peace and sky. It was abandoned about a year ago,” explained Jelani. “It’s a beautiful location, but hard to get to, and it’s harder to convince the tourists to stray from the National Parks in the current climate. On the bright side, it was a bargain,” he smiled.

  Thomas smiled back understandingly. Jelani couldn’t resist a good deal, and was a formidable negotiator. Watching him at work in a market, going stall to stall and refusing to take anything but the best produce at the best price was something he remembered fondly. He could only imagine Jelani would have been just as tenacious in the acquisition of the camp.

  Jelani directed Catherine to park next to a tent in the centre of three.

  “This one’s yours,” he declared to them both.

  The tent was fronted by a large deck that housed a woven rattan sofa to one side, and a matching dining table and chairs to the other. It had a large, enclosed porch, entered through a pair of wide, glass-panelled, wooden framed doors. A pair of canvas flaps then opened into the main chamber of the tent, a smooth acacia trunk at its centre acting as the totem and support for the structure. Thomas was glad to see the thin gauze of mosquito nets covering the openings at the top and along the sides.

  “I’ll give you the tour,” suggested Jelani, as Catherine climbed out of the Big Cat and stretched, giving Thomas a mischievous and happy smile as she joined them.

  Thomas took her hand as they followed Jelani. He noticed the other two tents were similarly appointed.

  “These three tents are for you, your Miss Keelson, and O
’Connell should he actually turn up,” Jelani explained.

  “Who’s O’Connell?” Catherine asked.

  “The Irish bum who’s good with a gun,” chimed Jelani and Thomas together, laughing.

  “He’s a hunter and tracker. A good one,” Thomas added, still chuckling. “He has trained some of the best capture and conservation teams all over the world. I asked him to join us when the government hired us to look at tracking down cats in the UK, but he told me it would be a conflict of interests. I don’t think he approved. He used to help us out from time to time, especially in Tanzania.”

  “He’s coming from Tanzania?” Catherine asked, surprised.

  “He’s a good friend,” Jelani admitted. “That said, Tanzania is only about eighty miles south of here. You have come a great deal further.”

  A little way back from the grouping of three tents, Jelani showed them the two separate bath huts. They were relatively simple, with woven screen walls and open panels between the A-frame of the roof. Each contained a toilet, bath, basin, and a shower tiled and lined with polished slabs of the black volcanic rock the camp sat upon.

  “Our water comes from a volcanic spring, so we have a plentiful supply,” Jelani continued. “The tanks are refreshed automatically overnight and are just behind the huts.”

  “It’s a lovely setup,” Thomas remarked. “One of the nicest camps I’ve ever operated out of that’s for sure.”

  “Thank you,” Jelani replied with quiet pride. “The kitchen and food stores are also behind here; it just means there is still some space between them and the accommodation if anything other than us gets hungry.”

  They walked back through to the three main tents, which opened out onto the top of the kopje. Some weathered wooden chairs sat at its centre, around a large stone encircled fire pit where one of Jelani’s men stacked logs for burning. The kopje was raised high above the river below, giving them beautiful views through the gorge on both sides. The braying call of a hippo echoed in the distance and Catherine’s eyes lit up at the noise.

  “We have both hippo and crocodile in the river, so I don’t recommend swimming, but we have the high ground here and most of the wildlife skirts round us on their way to drink at the pool a little way down. You can just see it from the top here, and very easily through a scope or binoculars,” Jelani explained.

  Thomas and Catherine followed him as he led the way along a path to another grouping of tents. These were a little smaller and seemed more functional.

  “This is where your crew and mine will be based. My tent is also here.” Jelani said. “I’ve also set up a firing range on the other side there so you can test your weapons before heading out.”

  “That’s thoughtful, thanks,” Thomas acknowledged. Testing weapons after a flight was a good habit to get into, allowing a hunter to make changes to scopes and sights as required before heading out into the field. He was impressed Jelani had remembered such a detail.

  Thomas walked back through the camp, surveying it as he went. When they reached the kopje again, he called over two of Jelani’s men to them. He sent them over to a pile of cases, where they extracted a collapsed frame of metal and carbon fibre. They quickly unfolded it and started assembling the loose parts. When they had finished, Catherine and Jelani could see it made up an open framed gun rack, with a top shelf attached for hand guns.

  “I had this custom made,” Thomas explained. “I know the setting is beautiful and we’re all rather in awe at the moment, but we need to remember we’re here for a reason and this is man-eater country. I want a couple of guns on the rack at all times and within easy reach, just in case.”

  “Thanks, think I just came back to Earth with a thud,” Catherine sighed. “Do you mind if I go and start to unpack, I’m not going to last much longer.”

  “Mansa,” cried Jelani, calling the man who had been stacking the firewood earlier over to him. “Mansa, please help Ms. Tyler with her bags, and then draw her a bath.”

  The thin but muscular man had short cropped greying hair and dark bronze coloured skin. His eyes were grey too, but shone kindly at Catherine.

  “Mansa is in charge of looking after our guests at Anga ya Amani, and our splendid cook. He will make sure you have everything you need,” Jelani said.

  “Thank you, a bath would be lovely,” Catherine said with relief. She followed Mansa away towards the tents.

  Thomas and Jelani busied themselves setting up the rest of the camp exactly as they wanted it. The vehicles were re-parked at the head of the trail after they had been unpacked, ready and pointing back out into the savannah. Thomas set up a string of motion detectors and lights along the corridor between the main tents and the crew camp, connecting them to power leads that snaked back to the main generator. The men helped erect a gazebo and lined it with bench tables to act as an equipment tent. They then carried a larger folding table to its front. Thomas checked and opened each case, directing the men who carried them to the equipment tent or the gun rack depending on contents.

  He walked over to the equipment tent and opened a small case on the floor. It contained a set of Thermoteknix Ticam 750 thermal imaging binoculars. Made with military grade software and boasting lenses capable of pinpointing a man over a mile away, he put them down on the table, ready for use come twilight.

  Thomas smiled, listening to the laughter of the men as they worked. The clatter of pots from the kitchen and other sounds of a camp being set to work floated up into the hot afternoon air. He felt relaxed, as if he had come home. It was a curious sensation. He knew he was here for a purpose, and that this was where Amanda had died. He felt conflicted, his whole being warmed and welcomed by the African sun whilst cold memories tugged at his conscience, challenging his happiness. His smile faded.

  He looked up and watched a little family flock of speckled mousebirds pick their way through the top branches of a nearby tree. Their excited, repeated chirps were a sound he knew well, being a relatively common bird of Kenya. He watched them fly off, darting over Catherine’s head as she emerged from the tent. She was wearing a pair of white linen shorts and a lightweight, navy blouse. Tufts of her red hair peaked out from underneath the white straw Panama hat she wore, complementing its copper coloured trim and bow. She looked beautiful, as if she had been on safari every day of her life. He walked over to her, his smile returning.

  “Wow, you look good,” whispered Thomas as he embraced her.

  “Why thank you kind sir,” she cooed, slipping her hand around his waist as they began to walk together.

  “Fancy some range shooting to get used to the feel of a gun again?” he suggested.

  “Yes, if it gets it out of the way. I know you want to play with your toys,” she laughed, “Mansa said dinner would be a while.”

  “That reminds me, I should probably do a little scouting for game later, if we’re going to keep the camp in meat.”

  “Can’t we just go the supermarket?” she half-joked.

  He could see she wasn’t completely at ease with shooting game, even if it was for food. He had come to terms with it, but it still wasn’t necessarily something he enjoyed.

  “I know it’s not ideal circumstances, but it’s just not practical in the long term. The meat will also need to hang for a little while too, so it’s best to get it out of the way,” he explained softly.

  “I’m not a hypocrite or anything,” she winced, “I’m sure I’ll tuck in and find it delicious. I’m just not used to it.”

  “I know,” he said, shrugging. “Neither am I. But look at it this way, we’re very restricted to what we can shoot, only very numerous and pest species like the pigs. And we’ll keep it to a minimum, okay?”

  “I trust you,” she said, “but you know me, I had to say something.”

  “It’s true, you do talk a lot,” Thomas said with a mischievous smile.

  She nudged him playfully in the ribs.

  “Like all your best jokes, that’s one of mine,” she laughed.

>   They stopped by the gun rack, now adorned with weaponry. Thomas’s Holland & Holland .465 rifle sat at the far right, a Leica scope already attached to it. Next to that was a William Evans St James over-and-under 20 bore shotgun, which he intended to shoot game birds with. Its neighbour was a more powerful 12 bore side-by-side game gun by Purdey. The rack was well designed, with an ammo shelf sitting at the back, where boxes of cartridges sat behind each gun accordingly.

  “Believe it or not, this isn’t everything we have, but I want our shotguns and rifles to hand if we need them,” he explained.

  “It’s a little unnerving if what Hali said about the lions attacking that camp is true,” she said, “and when you say ours?”

  “These two are for you,” he replied, gesturing to the other end of the rack.

  There were two guns purposely placed at the far left, a shotgun and a rifle. Thomas watched her pick up the shotgun, a Beretta Diamond Pigeon 20 bore.

  “Is it wrong that I find that quite sexy,” he said as she opened the barrels and posed with it hung over her arm.

  “Getting on my bad side could definitely be more dangerous for you here,” she laughed.

  “When isn’t it?” he replied.

  She put it back down on the rack and picked up the rifle.

  “That’s the one you’ll need when you mean business,” Thomas explained. “It’s a Marlin guide gun, and it fires 45-70 rounds. It should put down anything you fire it at, but it’s light and short too.”

  “What are you trying to say,” she quipped, raising an eyebrow.

  “That you can handle it, and that’s all,” Thomas replied, holding up his hands. “It’s a powerful gun, but it’s lever action, so you’ll need to practice.”

  “I even like the colour,” she smiled, admiring the silver Leupold scout scope that matched the stainless-steel finish and the black and grey stock.