Green Hills of Africa

pulling out and trying the new country toward Handeni where none of us had

  ever been.

  'Let's go then,' Pop said.

  It seemed this new country was a gift. Kudu came out into the open and

  you sat and waited for the more enormous ones and selecting a suitable head,

  blasted him over. Then there were sable and we agreed that whoever killed

  the first kudu should move on in the sable country.

  I was beginning to feel awfully good and Karl was very cheerful at the

  prospect of this new miraculous country where they were so unsophisticated

  that it was really a shame to topple them over.

  We left, soon after daylight, ahead of the outfit, who were to strike

  camp and follow in the two lorries. We stopped in Babati at the little hotel

  overlooking the lake and bought some more Pan-Yan pickles and had some cold

  beer. Then we started south on the Cape to Cairo road, here well graded,

  smooth, and carefully cut through wooded hills overlooking the long yellow

  stretch of plains of the Masai Steppes, down and through farming country,

  where the dried-breasted old women and the shrunken-flanked, hollow-ribbed

  old men hoed in the cornfields, through miles and dusty miles of this, and

  then into a valley of sun-baked, eroded land where the soil was blowing away

  in clouds as you looked, into the tree-shaded, pretty, whitewashed, German

  model-garrison town of Kandoa-Irangi.

  We left M'Cola at the crossroads to hold up our lorries when they came,

  put the car into some shade and visited the military cemetery. We intended

  to call on the D.O. but they were at lunch, and we did not want to bother

  them, so after the military cemetery, which was a pleasant, clean, well-kept

  place and as good as another to be dead in, we had some beer under a tree in

  shade that seemed liquid cool after the white glare of a sun that you could

  feel the weight of on your neck and shoulders, started the car and went out

  to the crossroads to pick up the lorries and head to the east into the new

  country.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was a new country to us but it had the marks of the oldest countries

  The road was a track over shelves of solid rock, worn by the feet of the

  caravans and the cattle, and it rose in the boulder-strewn un-roadhness

  through a double line of trees and into the hills. The country was so much

  like Aragon that I could not believe that we were not in Spain until,

  instead of mules with saddle bags, we met a dozen natives bare-legged and

  bareheaded dressed in white cotton cloth they wore gathered over the

  shoulder like a toga, but when they had passed, the high trees beside the

  track over those rocks was Spam and I had followed this same route forged on

  ahead and following close behind a horse one time watching the horror of the

  flies scuttling around his crupper They were the same camel flies we found

  here on the lions. In Spain if one got inside your shirt you had to get the

  shirt off to kill him. He'd go inside the neckband, down the back, around

  and under one arm, make for the navel and the belly band, and if you did not

  get him he would move with such intelligence and speed that, scuttling flat

  and uncrushable he would make you undress completely to kill him That day of

  watching the camel flies working under the horse's tail, having had them

  myself, gave me more horror than anything I could remember except one time

  in a hospital with my right arm broken off short between the elbow and the

  shoulder, the back of the hand having hung down against my back, the points

  of the bone having cut up the flesh of the biceps until it finally rotted,

  swelled, burst, and sloughed off in pus. Alone with the pain in the night in

  the fifth week of not sleeping I thought suddenly how a bull elk must feel

  if you break a shoulder and he gets away and in that night I lay and felt it

  all, the whole thing as it would happen from the shock of the bullet to the

  end of the business and, being a little out of my head, thought perhaps what

  I was going through was a punishment for all hunters. Then, getting well,

  decided if it was a punishment I had paid it and at least I knew what I was

  doing. I did nothing that had not been done to me. I had been shot and I had

  been crippled and gotten away. I expected, always, to be killed by one thing

  or another and I, truly, did not mind that any more. Since I still loved to

  hunt I resolved that I would only shoot as long as I could kill cleanly and

  as soon as I lost that ability I would stop.

  If you serve time for society, democracy, and the other things quite

  young, and declining any further enlistment make yourself responsible only

  to yourself, you exchange the pleasant, comforting stench of comrades for

  something you can never feel in any other way than by yourself. That

  something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you

  write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in

  that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the

  subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely, or

  when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and

  yet you know, truly, that it is as important and has always been as

  important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you

  are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with,

  knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before

  man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy

  island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out

  about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value

  because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after

  the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the

  Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the

  martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as

  the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-coloured, white-flecked,

  ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue

  water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the

  load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the

  flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes,

  seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn

  leaves of a student's exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional

  rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat, all this well shepherded by the boats

  of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as

  interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians, they have the

  viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day

  when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it

  is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled

  out the scow; and the palm. fronds of our victories, the
worn light bulbs of

  our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no

  significance against one single, lasting thing -- the stream.

  So, in the front seat, thinking of the sea and of the country, in a

  little while we ran out of Aragon and down to the bank of a sand river, half

  a mile wide, of golden-coloured sand, shored by green trees and broken by

  islands of timber and in this river the water is underneath the sand and the

  game comes down at night and digs in the sand with sharp-pointed hoofs and

  water flows in and they drink. We cross this river and by now it was getting

  to be afternoon and we passed many people on the road who were leaving the

  country ahead where there was a famine and there were small trees and close

  brush now beside the road, and then it commenced to climb and we came into

  some blue hills, old, worn, wooded hills with trees like beeches and

  clusters of huts with fire smoking and cattle home driven, flocks of sheep

  and goats and patches of corn and I said to P.O.M., 'It's like Galicia'.

  'Exactly,' she said. 'We've been through three provinces of Spain

  to-day.'

  'Is it really?' Pop asked.

  'There's no difference,' I said. 'Only the buildings. It was like

  Navarre in Droopy's country too. The limestone outcropping in the same way,

  the way the land lies, the trees along the watercourses and the springs.'

  'It's damned strange how you can love a country' Pop said.

  'You two are very profound fellows,' P.O.M. said. 'But where are we

  going to camp?'

  'Here,' said Pop. 'As well as any place. We'll just find some water.'

  We camped under some trees near three big wells where native women came

  for water and, after drawing lots for location, Karl and I hunted in the

  dusk around two of the hills across the road above the native village.

  'It's all kudu country,' Pop said. 'You're liable to jump one

  anywhere.'

  But we saw nothing but some Masai cattle in the timber and came home,

  in the dark, glad of the walk after a day in the car, to find camp up, Pop

  and P.O.M. in pyjamas by the fire, and Karl not yet in.

  He came in, furious for some reason, no kudu possibly, pale, and gaunt

  looking and speaking to nobody.

  Later, at the fire, he asked me where we had gone and I said we had

  hunted around our hill until our guide had heard them; then cut up to the

  top of the hill, down, and across country to camp.

  'What do you mean, heard us?'

  'He said he heard you. So did M'Cola.'

  'I thought we drew lots for where we would hunt.'

  'We did,' I said. 'But we didn't know we had gotten around to your side

  until we heard you.'

  'Did {you} hear us?'

  'I heard something,' I said. 'And when I put my hand up to my ear to

  listen the guide said something to M'Cola and M'Cola said, "B'wana". I said,

  "What B'wana?" and he said, "B'wana Kabor". That's you. So we figured we'd

  come to our limit and went up to the top and came back.'

  He said nothing and looked very angry.

  'Don't get sore about it,' I said.

  'I'm not sore. I'm tired,' he said. I could believe it because of all

  people no one can be gentler, more understanding, more self-sacrificing,

  than Karl, but the kudu had become an obsession to him and he was not

  himself, nor anything like himself.

  'He better get one pretty quick,' P.O.M. said when he had gone into his

  tent to bathe.

  'Did you cut in on his country?' Pop asked me.

  'Hell, no,' I said.

  'He'll get one where we're going,' Pop said. 'He'll probably get a

  fifty-incher. '

  'All the better,' I said. 'But by God, I want to get one too.'

  'You will, Old Timer,' Pop said. 'I haven't a thought but what you

  will.'

  'What the hell! We've got ten days.'

  'We'll get sable too, you'll see. Once our luck starts to run.'

  'How long have you ever had them hunt them in a good country?'

  'Three weeks and leave without seeing one. And I've had them get them

  the first half day. It's still hunting, the way you hunt a big buck at

  home.'

  'I love it,' I said. 'But I don't want that guy to beat me. Pop, he's

  got the best buff, the best rhino, the best water-buck . . .'

  'You beat him on oryx,' Pop said.

  'What's an oryx?'

  'He'll look damned handsome when you get him home.'

  'I'm just kidding.'

  'You beat him on impalla, on eland. You've got a first-rate bushbuck.

  Your leopard's as good as his. But he'll beat you on anything where there's

  luck. He's got damned wonderful luck and he's a good lad. I think he's off

  his feed a little.'

  'You know how fond I am of him. I like him as well as I like anyone.

  But I want to see him have a good time. It's no fun to hunt if we get that

  way about it.'

  'You'll see. He'll get a kudu at this next camp and he'll be on top of

  the wave.'

  'I'm just a crabby bastard,' I said.

  'Of course you are,' said Pop. 'But why not have a drink?'

  'Right,' I said.

  Karl came out, quiet, friendly, gentle, and understandingly delicate.

  'It will be fine when we get to that new country,' he said.

  'It will be swell,' I said.

  'Tell me what it's like, Mr. Phillips,' he said to Pop.

  'I don't know,' said Pop. 'But they say it's very pleasant hunting.

  They're supposed to feed right out in the open. That old Dutchman claims

  there are some remarkable heads.'

  'I hope you get a sixty-incher, kid,' Karl said to me.

  'You'll get a sixty-incher.'

  'No,' said Karl. 'Don't kid me. I'll be happy with any kudu.'

  'You'll probably get a hell of a one,' Pop said.

  'Don't kid me,' Karl said. 'I know how lucky I've been. I would be

  happy with any kudu. Any bull at all.'

  He was very gentle and he could tell what was in your mind, forgive you

  for it, and understand it.

  'Good old Karl,' I said, warmed with whisky, understanding, and

  sentiment.

  'We're having a swell time, aren't we?' Karl said. 'Where's poor old

  Mama?'

  'I'm here,' said P.O.M. from the shadow. 'I'm one of those quiet

  people.'

  'By God if you're not,' Pop said. 'But you can puncture the old man

  quick enough when he gets started.'

  'That's what makes a woman a universal favourite,' P.O.M. told him.

  'Give me another compliment, Mr. J.'

  'By God, you're brave as a little terrier.' Pop and I had both been

  drinking, it seemed.

  'That's lovely.' P.O.M. sat far back in her chair, holding her hands

  clasped around her mosquito boots. I looked at her, seeing her quilted blue

  robe in the firelight now, and the light on her black hair. 'I love it when

  you all reach the little terrier stage.
Then I know the war can't be far

  away. Were either of you gentlemen in the war by any chance?'

  'Not me,' said Pop. 'Your husband, one of the bravest bastards that

  ever lived, an extraordinary wing shot and an excellent tracker.'

  'Now he's drunk, we get the truth,' I said.

  'Let's eat,' said P.O.M. 'I'm really frightfully hungry.'

  We were out in the car at daylight, out on to the road and beyond the

  village and, passing through a stretch of heavy bush, we came to the edge of

  a plain, still misty before the sunrise, where we could see, a long way off,

  eland feeding, looking huge and grey in the early morning light. We stopped

  the car at the edge of the bush and getting out and sitting down with the

  glasses saw there was a herd of kongoni scattered between us and the eland

  and with the kongoni a single bull oryx, like a fat, plum-coloured, Masai

  donkey with marvellous long, black, straight, back-slanting horns that

  showed each time he lifted his head from feeding.

  'You want to go after him?' I asked Karl.

  'No. You go on.'

  I knew he hated to make a stalk and to shoot in front of people and so

  I said, 'All right'. Also I wanted to shoot, selfishly, and Karl was

  unselfish. We wanted meat badly.

  I walked along the road, not looking toward the game, trying to look

  casual, holding the rifle slung straight up and down from the left shoulder

  away from the game. They seemed to pay no attention but fed away steadily. I

  knew that if I moved toward them they would at once move off out of range

  so, when from the tail of my eye I saw the oryx drop his head to feed again,

  and, the shot looking possible, I sat down, slipped my arm through the sling

  and as he looked up and started to move off, quartering away, I held for the

  top of his back and squeezed off. You do not hear the noise of the shot on

  game but the slap of the bullet sounded as he started running across and to

  the right, the whole plain backgrounding into moving animals against the

  rise of the sun, the rocking-horse canter of the long-legged, grotesque

  kongoni, the heavy swinging trot into gallop of the eland, and another oryx

  I had not seen before running with the kongoni. This sudden life and panic

  all made background for the one I wanted, now trotting, three-quartering

  away, his horns held high now and I stood to shoot running, got on him, the

  whole animal miniatured in the aperture and I held above his shoulders,

  swung ahead and squeezed and he was down, kicking, before the crack of the

  bullet striking bone came back. It was a very long and even more lucky shot

  that broke a hind leg.

  I ran toward him, then slowed to walk up carefully, in order not to be

  blown if he jumped and ran; but he was down for good. He had gone down so

  suddenly and the bullet had made such a crack as it landed that I was afraid

  I had hit him on the horns but when I reached him he was dead from the first

  shot behind the shoulders high up in the back and I saw it was cutting the

  lee from under him that brought him down. They all came up and Charo stuck

  him to make him legal meat.

  'Where did you hold on him the second time?' Karl asked.

  'Nowhere. A touch above and quite a way ahead and swung with him.'

  'It was very pretty,' Dan said.

  'By evening,' Pop said, 'he'll tell us that he broke that off leg on

  purpose. That's one of his favourite shots, you know. Did you ever hear him

  explain it?'

  While M'Cola was skinning the head out and Charo was butchering out the

  meat, a long, thin Masai with a spear came up, said good morning, and stood,

  on one leg, watching the skinning. He spoke to me at some length, and I

  called to Pop. The Masai repeated it to Pop.

  'He wants to know if you are going to shoot something else,' Pop said.

  'He would like some hides but he doesn't care about oryx hide. It is almost

  worthless, he says. He wonders if you would like to shoot a couple of

  kongoni or an eland. He likes those hides.'

  'Tell him on our way back.'