DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM
"Throughout Somaliland, among a race famous for their fearlessness, the
name of Djama Aout is held a synonym for reckless courage. He did the
bravest deed I ever saw, a deed heroic in its purpose, ferociously sage
in its execution; the deed of a man bred of a race that knew no
longer-range weapon than an assegai, trained from youth to fight and
kill at arm's length or in hand grapple; a deed that, incidentally,
saved my life."
The speaker was C. W. L. Bulpett, himself well qualified by personal
experience to sit in judgment, as Court of Last Resort, on any act of
courage; a man who, at forty, without training and on a heavy wager
that he could not walk a mile, run a mile, and ride a mile, all in
sixteen and a half minutes, finished the three miles in sixteen minutes
and seven seconds; a man who, midway of a dinner at Greenwich, bet that
he could swim the half-mile across the Thames and back in his evening
clothes before the coffee was served, and did it; and who has crossed
Africa from Khartoom to the Red Sea.
If more were needed to prove Mr. Bulpett's past-mastership in
hardihood, it is perhaps sufficient to mention that he voluntarily got
himself in the fix that needed Djama Aout's aid, although in telling
the story he did not convey the impression that his own part in it was
more than secondary and inconsequential.
"We were big-game hunting, lion and rhino preferred, along the border
of Somaliland," he continued. "Besides the pony and camel men, we had
four Somali _shikaris_, trained trackers, who knew the habits of beasts
and read their tracks and signs like a book; men of a breed whose women
will not give themselves as wives except to men who have scored kills
of both royal game and men.
"_Sahib_ McMillan's personal _shikari_ was DJama Aout; mine, Abdi
Dereh. At the time of this incident the _Sahib_ had several lions to
his credit, while I yet had none. So the _Sahib_ kindly declared that,
however and by whomsoever jumped, the try at the next lion should be
mine. The section we were in was the usual 'lion country' of East
Africa, wide stretches of dry, level plain with occasional low rolling
hills, thinly timbered everywhere with the thorny mimosa, most of it
low bush, some grown to small trees twenty or thirty feet in height.
"To cover a wider range of shooting, we one day decided to divide the
camp, and I moved off about four miles and pitched my tent on a low
hill, which left the old camp in clear view across the plain. Early
the next morning I went out after eland and had an excellent morning's
sport. Returned to camp shortly after noon, tired and dusty, I took a
bath, got into pajamas and slippers, had my luncheon, and was sitting
comfortably smoking within my tent, when one of my men hurried in to
say a messenger was coming on a pony at top speed. Presently he
arrived, with word from the _Sahib_ that he had a big male lion at bay
in a thicket bordering the river and urging me to hurry to him.
"This my first chance at lion, I seized my rifle, mounted a pony,
without stopping to dress, and, followed by Abdi Dereh and another
_shikari_, dashed away behind the messenger at my pony's best pace.
Arrived, I found the _Sahib_ and about a dozen men, _shikaris_ and pony
men, surrounding a dense mimosa thicket no more than thirty or forty
yards in diameter. Nigh two-thirds of its circumference was bounded by
a bend of a deep stream the lion was not likely to try to cross, which
left a comparatively narrow front to guard against a charge.
"'Here you are, Don Carlos!' called the _Sahib_, as I jumped off my
pony. 'Here's your lion in the bush. Up to you to get him out. Djama
Aout and the rest will stay to help you while I go back and move the
caravan to a new camp-site. No suggestion to make, except I scarcely
think I'd go in the bush after him; too thick to see ten feet ahead of
you,' and away he rode toward his camp.
"The situation was simple, even to a novice at the game of
lion-shooting. With my line of shouting men forced to range themselves
across the narrow land front of the thicket and no chance of his exit
on the river front, only two lines of strategy remained: it was either
fire the bush and drive him out upon us or enter the bush on hands and
knees and creep about till I sighted him. The latter was well-nigh
suicidal, for it was absolutely sure he would scent, hear, and locate
me before I could see him, and thus would be almost complete master of
the situation. Naturally, therefore, I first had the bush fired, as
near to windward as the bend of the river permitted, and took a stand
covering his probable line of exit from the thicket. But it was a
failure--not enough dead wood to carry the fire through the bush and it
soon flickered and died out. Thus nothing remained but the last
alternative, and I took it.
"Dropping on hands and knees, I began to creep into the thicket. Soon
my hands were bleeding from the dry mimosa thorns littering the ground,
my back from the thorny boughs arching low above me. For some distance
I could see no more than the length of my rifle before me or to right
or left. Presently, when near the centre of the brush patch, Abdi
Dereh next behind me, a second _shikari_ behind him, and Djama Aout
bringing up the rear, I caught a glimpse of the lion's hind quarters
and tail, scarcely six feet ahead of me.
"I fired at once, most imprudently, for the exposure could not possibly
afford a fatal shot. Instantly after the shot, the lion circled the
dense clump immediately in front of me and charged me through a narrow
opening. As he came, I gave him my second barrel from the hip--no time
to aim--and in trying to spring aside out of his path, slipped in my
loose slippers and fell flat on my back.
"Later we learned that my first shot had torn through his loins and my
second had struck between neck and shoulder and ranged the entire
length of his body. But even the terrible shock of two great .450
cordite-driven balls did not serve to stop him, and the very moment I
hit the ground he lit diagonally across my body, his belly pressing
mine, his hot breath burning my cheek, his fierce eyes glaring into
mine.
"Though it seemed an age, the rest was a matter of seconds. Abdi
Dereh, my rifle-bearer, was in the act of shoving the gun muzzle
against the lion's ribs for a shot through the heart, when a shot from
without the bush--we never learned by whom fired, probably by one of
the pony men--broke his arm and knocked him flat. Then the second
_shikari_ sprang forward and bent to pick up the gun, when one stroke
of the lion's great fore paw tore away most of the flesh from one side
of his head and face, and laid him senseless.
"Freed for an instant from the attacks of my men, the lion turned to
the prey held helpless beneath him, and with a fierce roar, was in the
very act of advancing his cavernous mouth and gleaming fangs to seize
me by the head, when in jumped Djama Aout to my succor. His only
weapon was the _Sahib's_ .38 Smith & Wesson self-cocking six-shooter.
His was the quickest piece of sound thinking, shrewd acting, and
desperate valor conceivable. I was staring death in the face--he knew
it at a glance. Just within those enormous jaws, and all would be over
with me. The light charge of the pistol, however placed, would be
little more than a flea-bite on a monster already ripped laterally and
longitudinally through and through by two great .450 cordite shells.
Indeed the lion was not even gasping from his wounds; his great heart
was beating strong and steady against mine. Of what avail a little
pistol-ball, or six of them?
"All this must have raced through Djama Aout's brain in a second, in
the very second _Shikari_ Number Two was falling under the lion's blow.
In another second he conceived a plan, absolutely the only one that
possibly could have saved me.
"Just at the instant the lion turned and opened his jaws to seize and
crush my head, forward sprang Djama Aout; within the lion's jaws and
into his great yawning mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and
forearm, and, though the hard-driven teeth crunched cruelly through
sinews and into bone, steadily pulled the trigger till the pistol's six
loads were discharged down the lion's very throat!
"Shrinking from the shock of the shots, the lion released Djama Aout's
mangled arm and freed me of his weight. Unhurt, even unscratched by
the lion, I quickly swung myself up into the biggest mimosa near, a
poor four feet from the ground, within easy reach of our enemy if he
had not been too sick of his wounds to leap at me.
"Having fallen from the pain and shock of his wounded arm, Djama Aout
rose, backed off a little distance, and stood at bay, the pistol
clubbed in his left hand.
"While apparently sick unto death, the lion might muster strength for a
last attack, so I called to Marlow, who, under orders, had waited
without the thicket, bearing an elephant gun. Ignorant of whether or
not the lion was even wounded, in the brave boy came, crept in range
and fired a great eight-bore ball fair through the lion's heart.
"It was only a few hours until, working with knife and tweezers, the
_Sahib_ had all the mimosa thorns dug out of my back and legs, but it
was many months before Djama Aout recovered partial use of his good
right arm, and it may very well be generations before the story of his
heroic deed ceases to be sung in Somali villages."