We both knew it and there was nothing to do about it and he covered the car and I walked over to the tent.
“Was the Shamba in good shape?” Miss Mary asked.
“It’s fine. It’s a little cold and rough.”
“Is there anything I can do for anyone there?”
You good lovely kind kitten, I thought and I said, “No. I think everything is fine. I’m going to get a medicine chest for the Widow and teach her to use it. It’s awful for the kids’ eyes not to be cared for when they’re Wakamba.”
“If they are anybody,” Miss Mary said.
“I’m going out to talk to Arap Meina. Would you please ask Mwindi to call me when the bath is ready?”
Arap Meina did not think that the lion would kill that night. I told him he had looked very heavy when he had gone off into the forest that morning. He doubted if the lionesses would kill that night either although they might and the lion might join them. I asked him if I should have made a kill and tied it up or covered it with brush to try to hold the lion. He said the lion was much too intelligent.
A large part of time in Africa is spent in talk. Where people are illiterate this is always true. Once you start the hunt hardly a word is spoken. You all understand each other and in hot weather your tongue is stuck dry in your mouth. But in planning a hunt in the evening there is usually much talking and it is quite rare that things come off as they are planned; especially if the planning is too complicated.
Later, when we were both in bed that night the lion proved us all to be wrong. We heard him roar to the north of the field where we had made the airstrip. Then he moved off roaring from time to time. Then another and less impressive lion roared several times. Then it was quiet for a long time. After that we heard the hyenas and from the way they called and from the high quavering laughing noise they made I was sure some lion had killed. After that there was the noise of lions fighting. This quieted down and the hyenas started to howl and laugh.
“You and Arap Meina said it was going to be a quiet night,” Mary said very sleepily.
“Somebody killed something,” I said.
“You and Arap Meina tell each other about it in the morning. I have to go to sleep now to get up early. I want to sleep well so I won’t be cross.”
7
I SAT DOWN to the eggs and bacon, the toast, coffee and jam. Mary was on her second cup of coffee and seemed quite happy. “Are we really getting anywhere?”
“Yes.”
“But he outsmarts us every morning and he can keep it up forever.”
“No he can’t. We’re going to start to move him a little too far out and he’ll make a mistake and you’ll kill him.”
That afternoon after lunch we did baboon control. We were supposed to keep the population of baboons down to protect the Shambas but we had been doing it in a rather stupid way trying to catch the bands in the open and fire on them as they made for the shelter of the forest. In order neither to sadden nor enrage baboon lovers I will give no details. We were not charged by the ferocious beasts and their formidable canine teeth by the time I reached them were stilled in death. When we got back to camp with the four disgusting corpses G.C. had already arrived.
He was muddy and he looked tired but happy.
“Good afternoon, General,” he said. He looked into the back of the hunting car and smiled. “Babooning I see. Two brace. A splendid bag. Going to have them set up by Roland Ward?”
“I’d thought of a group mounting, G.C., with you and me in the center.”
“How are you, Papa, and how is Miss Mary?”
“Isn’t she here?”
“No. They said she’d gone for a walk with Charo.”
“She’s fine. The lion’s been a little on her mind. But her morale is good.”
“Mine’s low,” G.C. said. “Should we have a drink?”
“I love a drink after babooning.”
“We’re going in for big-time babooning on a large scale,” G.C. said. He took off his beret and then reached into his tunic pocket and brought out a buff envelope. “Read this and memorize our role.”
He called to Nguili to bring drinks and I read the operation orders.
“This makes good sense,” I said. I read it on skipping, temporarily, the parts that had nothing to do with us and that I would have to check on the map, looking for where we came in.
“It does make sense,” G.C. said. “My morale’s not low because of it. It’s what’s holding my morale up.”
“What’s the matter with your morale? Moral problems?”
“No. Problems of conduct.”
“You must have been a wonderful problem child. You have more damned problems than a character in Henry James.”
“Make it Hamlet,” G.C. said. “And I wasn’t a problem child. I was a very happy and attractive child, only slightly too fat.”
“Mary was wishing you were back only this noon.”
“Sensible girl,” G.C. said.
We saw them then coming across the new bright green grass of the meadow; the same size, Charo as black as a man could be, wearing his old soiled turban and a blue coat, Mary bright blond in the sun, her green shooting clothes dark against the bright green of the grass. They were talking happily and Charo was carrying Mary’s rifle and her big bird book. Together they always looked like a numero from the old Cirque Médrano.
G.C. came out from washing up without a shirt on. His whiteness contrasted with the rose brown of his face and neck.
“Look at them,” he said. “What a lovely pair.”
“Imagine running into them if you’d never seen them before.”
“The grass will be over their heads in a week’s time. It’s nearly to their knees now.”
“Don’t criticize the grass. It’s only three days old.”
“Hi, Miss Mary,” G.C. called. “What have you two been up to?”
Mary drew herself up very proudly.
“I killed a wildebeest.”
“And who gave you permission to do that?”
“Charo. Charo said to kill him. He had a broken leg. Really badly broken.”
Charo shifted the big book to his other hand and flopped his arm to show how the leg had been.
“We thought you would want a bait,” Mary said. “You did, didn’t you? He’s close to the road. We heard you come by afterwards, G.C. But we couldn’t see you.”
“You did quite right to kill him and we did need a bait. But what were you doing hunting alone?”
“I wasn’t. I was identifying birds and I have my list. Charo wouldn’t take me where there were any bad beasts. Then I saw the wildebeest and he was standing looking so sad and his leg looked awful with the bone sticking out. Charo said to kill him and I did.”
“Memsahib piga. Kufa!”
“Shot him right behind the ear.”
“Piga! Kufa!” Charo said and he and Miss Mary looked at each other proudly.
“It’s the first time I ever had the responsibility of killing without you or Papa or Pop along.”
“May I kiss you, Miss Mary?” G.C. asked.
“You certainly may. But I’m awfully sweaty.”
They kissed and then we kissed and Mary said, “I’d like to kiss Charo too but I know I shouldn’t. Do you know the impala barked at me just as though they were dogs. Nothing is afraid of Charo and me.”
She shook hands with Charo and he took her book and her rifle over to our tent. “I’d better go and wash too. Thank you for being so nice about my shooting the beast.”
“We’ll send the truck for him and then put him out where he should be.”
I went over to our tent and G.C. went to his tent to dress. Mary was washing with the safari soap and changing her shirt and smelling her fresh shirt that had been washed with a different soap and dried in the sun. We each liked to watch the other bathe but I never watched her when G.C. was around because it could be sort of hard on him. I was sitting on a chair in front of the tent reading and she came over and put her arms around my neck.