The tall gaunt figure of the dominie almost filled the kitchen doorway, but at the level of his waist Sarah"s small face peered around him, in the light of the Petromax it was white as bone china and glistened with her tears.
Four men were waiting for them at the rendezvous. During the desperate years when they had fought together in guerilla commando, it had been necessary for every man to know the rea.s.sembly points. When cut up and separated in the running battles against the Union troops, they had scattered away into the veld and days later come together at one of the safe places.
There was always water at these a.s.sembly points, a seep in the rocky crevice of a hillside, a Bushman well or a dry riverbed where they could dig for the precious stuff. The a.s.sembly points were always sited with an all-round view so that a following enemy could never take them by surprise.
In addition, there was always grazing nearby for the horses and shelter for the men, and they had laid down caches of supplies at these places.
The rendezvous that Lothar had chosen for this meeting had an additional advantage. It was in the hills only a few miles north of the homestead of a prosperous German cattle-rancher, a good friend of Lothar"s family, a sympathizer who could be relied upon to tolerate their presence on his lands.
Lothar entered the hills along the dried watercourse that twisted through them like a maimed puffadder. He walked in the open so that the waiting men could see him from afar, and they were still two miles from the rendezvous when a tiny figure appeared on the rocky crest ahead of them, wind-milling his arms in welcome. He was quickly joined by the other three and then they came running down the rough hillside to meet Lothar"s party in the river-bed.
Leading them was Vark Jan", or Pig John", the old Khoisan warrior with his yellow wrinkled features that bespoke his mixed lineage of Nama and Berg-dama and, so he boasted, of even the true Bushman. Allegedly, his grandmother had been a Bushman slave captured by the Boers in one of the last great slave raids of the previous century. But then he was a famous har and opinion was divided as to the truth of this claim. He was followed closely by Klein Boy, Swart Hendrick"s b.a.s.t.a.r.d son by a Herero mother.
He came directly to his father and greeted him with the traditional deferential clapping of hands. He was as tall and as powerfully built as Hendrick himself, but with the finer features and slanted eyes of his mother, and his skin was not as dark. Like wild honey it changed colour as the sunlight played upon it. These two had worked on the trawlers at Walvis Bay, and Hendrick had sent them ahead to find the other men they needed and bring them to the rendezvous.
Lothar turned to these men now. It was twelve years since last he had seen them. He remembered them as wild fighting men, his hunting dogs, he had called them with affection and total lack of trust. For like wild dogs they would have turned and savaged him at the first sign of weakness.
Now he greeted them by their old noms de guerre. Legs", the Ovambo with legs like a stork and Buffalo", who carried his head hunched on his thick neck like that animal. They clasped hands, then wrists and then hands again in the ritual greeting of the band reserved for special occasions, as after long separation or a successful foray, and Lothar studied them and saw how twelve years and easy living had altered them. They were fat and soft and middle-aged but, he consoled himself, the tasks he had for them were not demanding.
So! He grinned at them. We have pulled you off the fat bellies of your wives, and away from your beer-pots. And they roared with laughter.
We came the same minute that Klein Boy and Pig John spoke your name to us, they a.s.sured him.
Of course, you came only because of the love and loyalty you bear me, Lothar"s sarcasm was biting, the way the vulture and the jackal come for love of the dead, not of the feast. They roared again. How they had missed the whip of his tongue.
Pig John did mention gold, the Buffalo admitted, between sobs of laughter. And Klein Boy whispered that there might be fighting again. It is sad, but a man of my age can pleasure his wives only once or twice a day, but he can fight and enjoy old companions and plunder day and night without end, and the loyalty we bear you is wide as the Kalahari, Stork Legs said, and they hooted with laughter and beat each other upon the back.
Still rumbling with occasional laughter, the group left the riverbed and climbed up to the old rendezvous point. It was a low overhanging shelf of rock, the roof blackened with the soot of countless campfires and the rear wall decorated with the ochre-coloured designs and drawings of the little yellow Bushmen who, before them, had used this shelter down the ages. From the entrance of the shelter there was a sweeping view out across the shimmering plains. It would be almost impossible to approach the hilltop undetected.
The four first-corners had already opened the cache. It had been hidden in a cleft of rock further down the side of the hill, and the entrance closed with boulders and plastered over with clay from the riverbank. The contents had survived the years better than Lothar had expected. Of course, the canned food and the ammunition cases had all been sealed, while the Mauser rifles were packed in thick yellow grease and wrapped in grease-paper. They were in perfect condition. Even most of the spare saddlery and clothing had been preserved by the desert"s dry air.
They feasted on fried bully beef and toasted ship"s biscuit, food they had once hated for its monotony but now was delicious and evocative of countless other meals, back in those desperate days rendered attractive by the pa.s.sage of the years.
After they had eaten they picked over the saddlery and boots and clothing, rejecting those items damaged by insects and rodents or dried out like parchment, cannibalizing and re-st.i.tching and polishing with dubbin until they had equipment and arms for all of them.
While they worked Lothar considered that there were dozens of these caches, scattered through the wilderness, while in the north at the secret coastal base from which he had refuelled and re-equipped the German U-boats there must still be thousands of pounds worth of stores. Until now it had never occurred to him to raid them for his own account,, somehow they had always been in patriotic trust.
He felt the p.r.i.c.kle of temptation: Perhaps if I chartered a boat at Walvis and sailed up the coast, But then with a sudden chill he remembered that he would never see Walvis Bay or this land again. There would be no return after they had done what they were setting out to do.
He jumped to his feet and strode to the entrance of the rock shelter. As he stared out across the dun and heat-shot plain with its dotted camel-thorn trees, he felt a premonition of terrible suffering and unhappiness.
Could I ever be happy elsewhere? he wondered. Away from this harsh and beautiful land? His resolve wavered. He turned and saw Manfred watching him with a troubled frown. Can I make this decision for my son? He stared back at the boy. Can I condemn him to the life of an exile? He thrust the doubts aside with an effort, shaking them off with a shudder like a horse driving the stinging flies from its hide, and called Manfred to him. He led him away from the shelter, and when they were out of earshot of the others told him what lay ahead of them, speaking to him as an equal.
All we have worked for has been stolen from us, Manie, not in the sight of the law but in the sight of G.o.d and natural justice. The Bible gives us redress against those who have deceived or cheated us, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We will take back what has been stolen from us.
But, Manie, the English law will look upon us as criminals.
We will have to fly, to run and hide, and they will hunt us like wild animals. We will survive only by our courage and our wits. Manfred stiffed eagerly, watching his father"s face with bright eager eyes. it all sounded romantic and exciting and he was proud of his father"s trust in discussing such adult matters with him.
We will go north. There is good farming land in Tanganyika and Nyasaland and Kenya. Many of our own Volk have already gone there. Of course, we will have to change our name, and we can never return here, but we will make a fine new life in a new land. Never come back? Manfred"s expression changed. But what about Sarah? Lothar ignored the question. Perhaps we will buy a beautiful coffee shamba in Nyasaland or on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro. There are still great herds of wild game upon the plains of Serengeti, and we will hunt and farm., Manfred listened dutifully but his expression had dulled.
How could he say it? How could he tell his father: Pa! I don"t want to go to a strange land. I want to stay here. ?
He lay awake long after the others were snoring and the camp-fire had burned down to a red smear of embers, and he thought about Sarah, remembering the pale pixie face smeared with tears and the hot thin little body under the blanket beside him: She is the only friend I"ve ever had. He was jerked back to reality by a strange and disturbing sound. It came from the plain below them but it seemed that distance could not take the fierce edge from the din.
His father coughed softly and sat up, letting his blanket fall to his waist. The awful sound came again, rising to an impossible crescendo and then dying away in a series of deep grunts, the death rattle of a strangling monster.
What is it, Pa? The hair at the back of Manfred"s neck had risen and p.r.i.c.kled as though to the touch of a nettle.
They say even the bravest of men is afraid the first time he hears that sound, his father told him softly. That is the hunting roar of a hungry Kalahari lion, my son. In the dawn when they climbed down the hillside and reached the plain, Lothar, who was leading, stopped abruptly and beckoned Manfred to his side.
You have heard his voice, now here is the track of his feet. He stooped and touched one of the pad marks, the size of a dinner plate, that was pressed deeply into the soft yellow earth.
An old maanhaar, a solitary, old, maned male. Lothar traced the outline of the spoor. Manfred would see him do that often in the months ahead, always touching the sign as though to draw out its secrets through his fingertips. See how his pads are worn smooth, and how he walks with his weight back towards his ankles. He favours his right fore, a cripple. He will find a meal hard to take, perhaps that is why he keeps close to the ranch. Cattle are easier to kill than wild game. Lothar reached out and plucked something from the lowest branch of thorns. Here, Manie, he placed a small tuft of coa.r.s.e red-gold hair in Manfred"s palm. There is a tress of his mane he left for you. Then he stood up and stepped over the spoor. He led them on down into the broad saucer of land, watered by a string of natural artesian springs, where the gra.s.s grew thick and green and high as their knees, and they pa.s.sed the first herds of cattle, humpbacked and with dewlaps that almost brushed the earth, their coats shiny in the early sunlight.
The homestead of the ranch stood on the higher ground beyond the wells, in a plantation of exotic date palms imported from Egypt. It was an old colonial German fort, a legacy from the Herero war of 1904 when the whole territory had erupted in rebellion against the excesses of German colonization. Even the Bondel swarts and Namas had joined the Herero tribe and it had taken 20,000 white troops and an expenditure of Y,60 million to quell the rebellion. Added to the cost, in the final accounting, were the 2,500 German officers and men killed and the 70,000 men, women and children of the Herero people shot, burned and starved to death. This casualty list const.i.tuted almost precisely seventy percent of the entire tribe.
The homestead had originally been a frontier fort, built to hold off the Herero regiments. Its thick whitewashed outer walls were crenellated and even the central tower was furnished with battlements and a flagstaff upon which the German imperial eagle still defiantly flew.
The count saw them from afar, coming down the dusty road past the springs, and sent out a trap to bring them in.
He was of Lothar"s mother"s generation, but still tall and lean and straight. A white duelling scar puckered the corner of his mouth and his manners were old-fashioned and formal. He sent Swart Hendrick to quarters in the servants wing and then led Lothar and Manfred through to the cool dark central hall where the countess had black bottles of good German beer and jugs of homemade ginger beer already set out for them.
Their clothes were whisked away by the servants while they bathed, and were returned within an hour, laundered and ironed, their boots polished until they gleamed. For dinner there was a baron of tender beef from the estate, running with its own fragrant juices, and marvelous Rhine wines to wash it down. To Manfred"s unqualified delight, this was followed by a dozen various tarts and puddings and trifles, while for Lothar the greater treat was the civilized discourse of his host and hostess. It was a deep pleasure to discuss books and music, and to listen to the precise and beautifully enunciated German of his hosts.
When Manfred could eat not another spoonful, and had to use both hands to cover his yawns, one of the Herero serving maids led him away to his room, and the count poured schnapps for Lothar and brought a box of Havanas for his approval while his wife fussed over the silver coffee pot.
When his cigar was drawing evenly the count told Lothar: I received the letter you sent me from Windhoek, and I was most distressed to hear of your misfortune. Times are very difficult for all of us. He polished his monocle upon his sleeve before s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it back into his eye and focusing it upon Lothar again. Your sainted mother was a fine lady.
There is nothing that I would not do for her son. He paused and drew upon the Havana, smiled thinly at the flavour and then said, "However Lothar"s spirits dropped at that word, always the harbinger of denial and disappointment.
However, not two weeks before I received your letter the purchasing officer for the army remount department came out to the ranch and I sold him all our excess animals. I have retained only sufficient for our own needs. Though Lothar had seen at least forty fine horses in the herd grazing on the young pasture that grew around the ranch, he merely nodded in understanding.
Of course, I have a pair of excellent mules, big, strong beasts, that I could let you have at a nominal price, say fifty pounds. The pair? Lothar asked deferentially.
Each, said the count firmly. As to the other suggestion in you r letter, I make it a firm rule never to lend money to a friend. That way one avoids losing both friend and money. Lothar let that slide by, and instead returned to the count"s earlier remarks. The army remount officer, he has been buying horses from all the estates in the district! I understand he has purchased almost a hundred. The count showed relief at Lothar"s gentlemanly acceptance of his refusal. All excellent animals. He was interested only in the best, desert-hardened and salted against the horse-sickness. And he has shipped them south on the railway, I expect! Not yet, the count shook his head. or he had not done so when last I heard. He is holding them on the pool of the Swakop river on the far side of the town, resting them and letting them build up their strength for the rail journey. I heard that he plans to send them down the line when he has a hundred and fifty altogether. They left the fort the following morning after a gargantuan breakfast of sausage and prepared meats and eggs, all three of them riding up on the broad back of the grey mule for which Lothar had finally paid twenty pounds with the head halter thrown in to sweeten the bargain.
How were the servants quarters at the fort? Lothar asked.
Slave quarters, not servants quarters, Hendrick corrected him. "in them a man could starve to death or, from what I heard, be flogged to death by the count. Hendrick sighed.
If it had not been for the generosity and good nature of the youngest of the Hereto maids, Lothar nudged him sharply in the ribs and shot a warning glance towards Manfred, and Hendrick went on smoothly.
So do we all escape on one sway-backed ancient mule, he observed.
They will never catch us on this gazelle-swift creature. He slapped the fat rump and the mule maintained its easy swaying gait, its hooves plopping in the dust.
We are going to use him for hunting, Lothar told him, and grinned at Hendrick"s perplexed frown.
Back at the rock shelter, Lothar worked quickly, making up twelve pack-saddles of ammunition, food and equipment.
When they were lashed and loaded, he laid them out at the entrance of the shelter.
Well, Hendrick grinned. We"ve got the saddles. All we need are the horses. We should leave a guard here. Lothar ignored him, But we"ll need every man with us. He gave the money to Pig John, the least untrustworthy of the gang.
Five pounds is enough to buy a bathtub full of Cape Smoke, he pointed out, and a gla.s.sful of it will kill a bull buffalo. But remember this, Pig John, if you are too drunk to stay in the saddle when we ride, I"ll not leave you for the police to question. I"ll leave you with a bullet in the head. I give you my oath on it. Pig John tucked the banknote into the sweatband of his slouch hat. Not a drop of it will touch my lips, he whined ingratiatingly. The baas knows he can trust me with liquor and women and money. It was almost twenty miles back to the town of Okahandja and Pig John set out immediately to be there well in advance of Lothar"s arrival. The rest of the party, with Manfred leading the mule, climbed down the hillside.
There had been no wind since the previous day, so the lion"s tracks were still clearly etched and uneroded, even in that loose soil.
The hunters, all armed with the new Mausers, and with bandoliers of ammunition belted over their shoulders, spread out in a fan across the lion spoor and went away at a trot.
Manfred had been warned by his father to keep well back, and with the memories of the beast"s wild roarings still in his ears, was pleased to amble along at the mule"s slow plod.
The hunters were out of sight ahead, but they had marked their trail for him with broken branches and blazes on the trunks of the camel-Thorn trees so he had no difficulty following.
Within an hour they found the spot at which the old red torn had killed one of the count"s heifers. He had stayed on the carca.s.s until he had consumed everything but the head and hooves and larger bones. But even from these he had licked the flesh as proof of his hunger and restricted hunting prowess.
Quickly Lothar and Hendrick cast forward in a circle around the trampled area of the kill and almost immediately cut the outgoing spoor.
He left not more than a few hours ago, Lothar estimated, and then as one of the gra.s.s stalks trodden down by the big cat"s paws, slowly rose and straightened of its own accord, he amended his guess. Less than half an hour, he might have heard us coming up. No. Hendrick touched the spoor with the long peeled twig he carried. He has gone on at a walk. He isn"t worried, he hasn"t heard us. He is full of meat and will go now to the nearest water. He"s going south. Lothar squinted against the sun to check the run of the spoor. Probably heading for the river and that will take him closer to the town, which suits us very well. He reslung the Mauser on his shoulder and signalled his men to stay in extended order. They went on up the low rise of a consolidated dune and before they reached the top the lion broke, flushing from the cover of a low clump of scrub directly ahead of them, and went away from them across the open ground at an extended catlike run. But his belly, gorged with meat, swung weightily at each stride as though he were heavily pregnant.
It was long range, but the Mausers whip-cracked all along the line as they opened up on the running beast. Dust spurted wide and beyond him. All Lothar"s men except Hendrick were appalling marksmen. He could never convince them that the speed of the bullet was not directly proportional to the force with which one pulled the trigger, or break them of the habit of tightly closing their eyes as they ejected the bullet from the barrel with all their strength.
Lothar saw his own first shot kick dust from beneath the lion"s belly. He had misjudged the range, always a problem over open desert terrain. He worked the bolt of the Mauser without taking the b.u.t.t from his shoulder and lifted his aim until the pip of the foresight rode just above the beast"s s.h.a.ggy flowing red mane.
The lion checked to the next shot, breaking his stride, swinging his great head around to snap at his flank where it had stung him, and the sound of the jacketed bullet slapping into his flesh carried clearly to the line of hunters. Then the bon flattened once more into his gallop, ears back, growling with pain and outrage as he vanished over the rise.
He won"t go far! Hendrick waved the line of hunters forward.
The lion is a sprinter. He can only maintain that blazing gallop over a very short distance before he is forced back into a trot. If you press him further, he will usually turn and come back at you.
Lothar, Hendrick and Klein Boy, the strongest and fittest of them, pulled ahead of the line.
Blood! Hendrick shouted as they reached the spot where the lion had taken Lothar"s bullet. Lung blood! The splashes of crimson were frothy with the wind of the ruptured lungs.
They raced along the b.l.o.o.d.y spoor.
Pasop! Lothar called as they reached the rise over which the beast had disappeared. Look out! He"ll be lying in wait for us, And at the warning the lion charged back at them.
He had been lying in a patch of sansevieria just beyond the crest, flattened against the earth with his ears laid back upon his skull. But the moment Lothar led them over the crest, he launched himself at him from a distance of only fifty feet.
The lion kept low to the ground, with his ears still back so that his forehead was flat and broad as that of an adder and his eyes were a bright implacable yellow. His gingery red mane was fully erect, increasing his bulk until he appeared monstrous, and such a blast of sound came out of those gaping fang-lined jaws that Lothar flinched and was an instant slow on the shot. As the b.u.t.t of the Mauser touched his shoulder, the lion rose from the ground in front of him, filling all his vision and the blood from his torn lungs blew in a pink cloud and spattered into Lothar"s face.
His instinct was to fire as swiftly as possible into the enormous s.h.a.ggy bulk of the lion as it towered over him on its hind-legs, but he forced himself to shift his aim. A shot in the chest or neck would not stop the beast from killing him, the Mauser bullet was light, designed for men not great game, and that first bullet would have desensitized the lion"s nervous system and flooded his system with adrenaline The brain shot was the only one which would stop him at such close quarters.
Lothar shot him on the point of his muzzle, between the flared pink pits of his nostrils, and the bullet tore up between the cat"s eyes, through the b.u.t.ter-yellow brain in its bony casket and out through the back of his skull, but still the lion was driven on by the momentum of its charge. The huge muscular body slammed into Lothar"s chest, and the rifle cartwheeled from his hands as he was hurled backwards to hit the earth with his shoulder and the side of his head.
Hendrick dragged him into a sitting position and wiped the sand from his mouth and nostrils with his bare hands, and then the alarm faded from his eyes and he grinned as Lothar struck his hands away weakly.
You are getting old and slow, Baas, Hendrick laughed.
Get me up before Manie sees me, Lothar ordered him, and Hendrick put a shoulder under him and hoisted him.
He swayed on his feet, leaning heavily on Hendrick, holding the side of his head where it had struck but already he was giving orders.
Klein Boy! Legs! Go back and hold the mule before it smells the lion and bolts with Manie! He pulled away from Hendrick and crossed unsteadily to the lion"s carca.s.s. It lay on its side and already the flies were gathering on the shattered head. We"ll need every man and a bit of luck to get him loaded. Even though the cat was old and lean and out of condition, scarred by years of hunting in thorn veld and his coat dull and s.h.a.ggy, yet his belly was crammed with beef and he would weigh four hundred pounds or more. Lothar picked his rifle out of the sand and wiped it down carefully, then he propped it against the carca.s.s and hurried back over the ridge, still limping from the fall and ma.s.saging his neck and temple.
The mule with Manfred perched on his back was coming towards him, and Lothar broke into a run.
Did you get him, Pa? Manfred yelled excitedly. He had heard the firing.
Yes. Lothar yanked him down from the mule"s back. He"s lying just beyond the rise. Lothar checked the mule"s head halter. It was new and strong, but he clipped an extra length of rope on to the iron chin ring and put two men on each rope. Then carefully he blindfolded the mule with a strip of canvas.
All right. Let"s see how he takes it. The men on the head halter dragged on it with their concerted weight, but the mule dug in his hooves, mutinying against the blindfold, and would not budge.
Lothar went round behind him, taking care to keep out of the way of his back hooves, and twisted the mule"s tail.
Still the animal stood like a rock. Lothar leaned over and bit him at the root of the tail, sinking his teeth into the soft tender skin, and the mule let fly with both back hooves in a head-high kick.
Lothar bit him again, and he capitulated and trotted forward towards the ridge, but as he reached it the light breeze shifted and the mule filled both nostrils with the fresh hot smell of lion.
The scent of lion has a remarkable effect on all other animals, domestic or wild, even on exotics from an environment where it is impossible that either they or even their remote ancestors could possibly ever have had contact with a lion.
Lothar"s father had always selected his hunting dogs by offering the litter of puppies a green wet lion skin to sniff.
Most of the pups would howl with terror and stumble away with their tails tucked up between their hind legs. A very few pups, not more than one in twenty, nearly always b.i.t.c.hes would stand, albeit with every hair on their bodies erect and small growls shaking them from tail to tip of quivering nostrils. These were the dogs he kept.
Now the mule smelt the lion and went berserk. The men on the head ropes were hauled off their feet as it reared and whinnied, and Lothar ducked out from under its lashing hooves. Then it burst into a ponderous gallop and dragged the four handlers, stumbling and falling and shouting, half a mile over thorn scrub and through deep waterworn dongas, before at last it stopped in a cloud of its own dust, sweating and trembling, its flanks heaving with terror.
They dragged him back again, the blindfold firmly in place, but the moment he smelled the carca.s.s again the entire performance was repeated, though this time he only managed a gallop of a few hundred yards before exhaustion and the weight of four men brought him up short.
Twice more they led him back to the dead lion and twice more he bolted, each time for a shorter distance, but finally he stood, trembling in all four legs, and sweating with terror and fatigue as they lifted the carca.s.s onto his back and tried to lash the lion"s paws under his chest. That was too much.
Another copious flood of nervous sweat drenched the mule"s body, and he reared and bucked and kicked until the carca.s.s slid off his back in a heap.
They wore him down, and after an hour of struggling, the mule stood at last, shaking piteously and blowing like a blacksmith"s bellows, but with the dead lion securely lashed upon his back.
When Lothar took the lead rope and tugged upon it, the mule stumbled along meekly behind him, following him down towards the bend in the river.
From the top of one of the low wooded koppies Lothar looked down across the Swakop river to the roofs and the church spire of the village beyond. The Swakop made a wide bend, and in the elbow directly below there were three small green pools hemmed in with yellow sandbanks. The river flowed only in the rieperioer rain.
They were watering the horses at the pools, bringing them down from the stockades of thorn branches on the bank to drink before closing them in for the night. The count had been right, the army buyers had chosen the best. Lothar watched them avariciously through his binoculars. Desert bred, they were powerful animals, full of vigour as they frolicked and milled at the edge of the pool or rolled in the sand with their legs kicking in the air.
Lothar switched his attention to the drovers, and counted five of them, all coloured troopers in casual khaki uniform, and he looked for white officers in vain.
They could be in camp, he muttered and focused the gla.s.ses on the cl.u.s.ter of brown army tents beyond the horse stockades.
There was a low whistle from behind him, and when he looked over his shoulder, Hendrick was signalling from the foot of the kopje. Lothar slid off the skyline and then scrambled down the slope. The mule, his blood-soaked burden still on his back, was tethered in the shade. He had become almost resigned to it, though every now and again he gave a spontaneous shudder and shifted his weight nervously. The men were lying under the spa.r.s.e branches of the thorn trees, eating bully out of the cans and Pig John stood up as Lothar reached him.