“I think I have it figured out.”
“So did I. But don’t take her to any twenty yards on lion.”
It was more than twenty years before that Pop and I had first sat together by a fire or the ashes of a fire and talked about the theory and practice of shooting dangerous game. He disliked and distrusted the target range or woodchuck hunter type.
“Hit a golf ball off the caddy’s head at a mile,” he said. “Wooden or steel caddy of course. Not a live caddy. Never miss until they have to shoot a really great kudu at twenty yards. Then couldn’t hit the mountainside. Bloody gun waving around the great shooter shaking until I was shaking myself.” He drew on his pipe. “Never trust any man until you’ve seen him shoot at something dangerous or that he wants really badly at fifty yards or under. Never buy him until you’ve seen him shoot at twenty. The short distance uncovers what’s inside of them. The worthless ones will always miss or gut shoot at the range we get to so we can’t miss.”
I was thinking about this and happily about the old days and how fine this whole trip had been and how awful it would be if Pop and I would never be out together again when Arap Meina came up to the fire and saluted. He always saluted very solemnly but his smile started to come out as his hand came down.
“Good morning, Meina,” I said.
“Jambo, Bwana. The big lion killed as they said at the Manyatta. He dragged the cow a long way into thick brush. He did not return to the kill after he had eaten but went in the direction of the swamp for water.”
“The lion with the scarred paw?”
“Yes, Bwana. He should come down now.”
“Good. Is there other news?”
“They say that the Mau Mau who were imprisoned at Machakos have broken out of jail and are coming this way.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Who says?”
“A Masai I met on the road. He had ridden in the lorry of a Hindu trader. He did not know which duka.”
“Get something to eat. I will need to speak to you later.”
“Ndio, Bwana,” he said and saluted. His rifle shone in the morning sunlight. He had changed to a fresh uniform at the Shamba and he looked very smart and he looked very pleased. He had two happy pieces of news. He was a hunter and now we would have hunting.
I thought I better go over to the tent and see if Miss Mary was awake. If she was still sleeping, all the better.
Miss Mary was awake but not all the way awake. If she had left a definite call to be wakened at a half past four or five she woke fast and efficiently and impatient with all delay. But this morning she woke slowly.
“What’s the matter,” she asked sleepily. “Why didn’t anybody call me? The sun’s up. What’s the matter?”
“It wasn’t the big lion, honey. So I let you sleep.”
“How do you know it wasn’t the big lion?”
“Ngui checked.”
“What about the big lion?”
“He isn’t down yet.”
“How do you know that?”
“Arap Meina came in.”
“Are you going out to check on the buff?”
“No. I’m going to leave everything alone. We’ve got a little trouble of some sort.”
“Can I help you?”
“No, honey. You sleep some more.”
“I think I will for a little while if you don’t need me. I’ve been having the most wonderful dreams.”
“See if you can get back into them. You call for chakula when you’re ready.”
“I’ll sleep just a little more,” she said. “They’re really wonderful dreams.”
I reached under my blanket and found my pistol on the belt with the sling strap hanging from the holster. I washed in the bowl, rinsed my eyes with boric acid solution, combed my hair with a towel, it was now clipped so short that neither brush nor comb were needed, and dressed and shoved my right foot through the leg strap on the pistol, pulled it up and buckled the pistol belt. In the old days we never carried pistols but now you put the pistol on as naturally as you buttoned the flap of your trousers. I carried two extra clips in a small plastic bag in the right-hand pocket of my bush jacket and carried the extra ammunition in a screw top, wide-mouth medicine bottle which had held liver capsules. This bottle had held fifty red-and-white capsules and now held sixty-five rounds of hollow points. Ngui carried one and I another.
Everyone loved the pistol because it could hit guinea fowl, lesser bustard, jackals, which carried rabies, and it could kill hyenas. Ngui and Mthuka loved it because it would make little sharp barks like a dog yapping and puffs of dust would appear ahead of the squat-running hyena then there would be the plunk, plunk, plunk, and the hyena would slow his gallop and start to circle. Ngui would hand me a full clip he had taken from my pocket and I would shove it in and then there would be another dust puff, then a plunk, plunk, and the hyena would roll over with his legs in the air.
I walked out to the lines to speak to Keiti about the developments. I asked him to come where we could speak alone and he stood at ease looking old and wise and cynical and partly doubting and partly amused.
“I do not believe they would come here,” he said. “They are Wakamba Mau Mau. They are not so stupid. They will hear that we are here.”
“My only problem is if they come here. If they come here where will they go?”
“They will not come here.”
“Why not?”
“I think what I would do if I were Mau Mau. I would not come here.”
“But you are a Mzee and an intelligent man. These are Mau Mau.”
“All Mau Mau are not stupid,” he said. “And these are Wakamba.”
“I agree,” I said. “But these were all caught when they went to the Reserve as missionaries for Mau Mau. Why were they caught?”
“Because they got drunk and bragged how great they were.”
“Yes. And if they come here where there is a Kamba Shamba they will want drink. They will need food and they will need more than anything drink if they are the same people who were taken prisoner from drinking.”
“They will not be the same now. They have escaped from prison.”
“They will go where there is drink.”
“Probably. But they will not come here. They are Wakamba.”
“I must take measures.”
“Yes.”
“I will let you know my decision. Is everything in order in the camp? Is there any sickness? Have you any problems?”
“Everything is in order. I have no problems. The camp is happy.”
“What about meat?”
“We will need meat tonight.”
“Wildebeest?”
He shook his head slowly and smiled the cleft smile.
“Many cannot eat it.”
“How many can eat it?”
“Nine.”
“What can the others eat?”
“Impala mzuri.”
“There are too many impala here and I have two more,” I said. “I will have the meat for tonight. But I wish it killed when the sun is going down so it will chill in the cold from the Mountain in the night. I wish the meat wrapped in cheesecloth so that the flies will not spoil it. We are guests here and I am responsible. We must waste nothing. How long would it take them to come from Machakos?”
“Three days. But they will not come here.”
“Ask the cook please to make me breakfast.”
I walked back to the dining tent and sat at the table and took a book from one of the improvised bookshelves made from empty wooden boxes. It was the year there were so many books about people who had escaped from prison camps in Germany and this book was an escape book. I put it back and drew another one. This was called The Last Resorts, and I thought it would be more diverting.
As I opened the book to the chapter on Bar Harbor I heard a motor car coming very fast and then looking out through the open back of the tent I saw it was the police Land Rover coming at full speed through the lines, raising a cloud of dust that blew over everything, including the laundry. The open motor car pulled up to a dirt track racing stop alongside the tent. The young police officer came in, saluted smartly and put out his hand. He was a tall fair boy with an unpromising face.