Jock was lost twice: that is to say, he was lost to me, and, as I
thought, for ever. It came about both times through his following up
wounded animals and leaving me behind, and happened in the days when our
hunting was all done on foot; when I could afford a horse and could keep
pace with him that difficulty did not trouble us. The experience with
the impala had made me very careful not to let him go unless I felt sure
that the game was hard hit and that he would be able to pull it down or
bay it. But it is not always easy to judge that. A broken leg shows at
once; but a body shot is very difficult to place, and animals shot
through the lungs, and even through the lower part of the heart, often
go away at a cracking pace and are out of sight in no time, perhaps to
keep it up for miles, perhaps to drop dead within a few minutes.
After that day with the impala we had many good days together and many
hard ones: we had our disappointments, but we had our triumphs; and we
were both getting to know our way about by degrees. Buck of many kinds
had fallen to us; but so far as I was concerned there was one
disappointment that was not to be forgotten. The picture of that koodoo
bull as he appeared for the last time looking over the ant-heap the day
we were lost was always before me. I could not hear the name or see the
spoor of koodoo without a pang of regret and the thought that never
again would such a chance occur. Koodoo, like other kinds of game, were
not to be found everywhere; they favoured some localities more than
others, and when we passed through their known haunts chances of smaller
game were often neglected in the hope of coming across the koodoo.
I could not give up whole days to hunting--for we had to keep moving
along with the waggons all the time--or it would have been easy enough
in many parts to locate the koodoo and make sure of getting a good bag.
As it was, on three or four occasions we did come across them, and once
I got a running shot, but missed. This was not needed to keep my
interest in them alive, but it made me keener than ever. Day by day I
went out always hoping to get my chance, and when at last the chance did
come it was quite in accordance with the experience of many others that
it was not in the least expected.
The great charm of Bushveld hunting is its variety: you never know what
will turn up next--the only certainty being that it will not be what you
are expecting.
The herd boy came noon to say that there buck feeding among the oxen
only a couple of hundred yards away. He had been quite close to it, he
said, and it was very tame. Game, so readily alarmed by the sight of
white men, will often take no notice of natives, allowing them to
approach to very close quarters. They are also easily stalked under
cover of cattle or horses, and much more readily approached on horseback
than on foot. The presence of other animals seems to give them
confidence or to excite mild curiosity without alarm, and thus distract
attention from the man. In this case the bonny little red-brown fellow
was not a bit scared; he maintained his presence of mind admirably; from
time to time he turned his head our way and, with his large but shapely
and most sensitive ears thrown forward examined us frankly while he
moved slightly one way or another so as to keep under cover of the oxen
and busily continue his browsing.
In and out among some seventy head of cattle we played hide-and-seek for
quite a while--I not daring to fire for fear of hitting one of the
bullocks--until at last he found himself manoeuvred out of the troop;
and then without giving me a chance he was off into the bush in a few
frisky skips. I followed quietly, knowing that as he was on the feed
and not scared he would not go far.
Moving along silently under good cover I reached a thick scrubby bush
and peered over the top of it to search the grass under the surrounding
thorn-trees for the little red-brown form. I was looking about low down
in the russety grass--for he was only about twice the size of Jock, and
not easy to spot--when a movement on a higher level caught my eye. It
was just the flip of a fly-tickled ear; but it was a movement where all
else was still, and instantly the form of a koodoo cow appeared before
me as a picture is thrown on a screen by a magic-lantern. There it
stood within fifty yards, the soft grey-and-white looking still softer
in the shadow of the thorns, but as clear to me--and as still--as a
figure carved in stone. The stem of a mimosa hid the shoulders, but all
the rest was plainly visible as it stood there utterly unconscious of
danger. The tree made a dead shot almost impossible, but the risk of
trying for another position was too great, and I fired. The thud of the
bullet and the tremendous bound of the koodoo straight up in the air
told that the shot had gone home; but these things were for a time
forgotten in the surprise that followed. At the sound of the shot
twenty other koodoo jumped into life and sight before me. The one I had
seen and shot was but one of a herd all dozing peacefully in the shade,
and strangest of all, it was the one that was farthest from me. To the
right and left of this one, at distances from fifteen to thirty yards
from me, the magnificent creatures had been standing, and I had not seen
them; it was the flicker of this one's ear alone that had caught my eye.
My bewilderment was complete when I saw the big bull of the herd start
off twenty yards on my right front pass away like a streak in a few
sweep-strides. It was a matter of seconds and they were all out of
sight--all except the wounded one, which had turned off from the others.
For all the flurry and confusion I had not lost sight of her, and
noting her tucked-up appearance and shortened strides set Jock on her
trail, believing that she would be down in a few minutes.
It is not necessary to go over it all again: it was much the same as the
impala chase. I came back tired, disappointed and beaten, and without
Jock. It was only after darkness set in that things began to look
serious. When it came to midnight, with the camp wrapped in silence and
in sleep, and there was still no sign of Jock, things looked very black
indeed.
I heard his panting breath before it was possible to see anything. It
was past one o'clock when he returned.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As we had missed the night trek to wait for Jock I decided to stay on
where we were until the next evening and to have another try for the
wounded koodoo, with the chance of coming across the troop again.
By daybreak Jock did not seem much the worse for his night's
adventures--whatever they were. There were no marks of blood on him
this time; there were some scratches which might have been caused by
thorns during the chase, and odd-looking grazes on both hind quarters
near the hip-bones, as though he had been roughly gravelled there. He
seemed a little stiff, and flinched when I pressed his sides and
muscles, but he was as game as ever when he saw the rifle taken down.
The koodoo had been shot through the body, and even without being run to
death by Jock must have died in the night, or have lain down and become
too cold and stiff to move. If not discovered by wild animals there was
a good chance of finding it untouched in the early morning; but after
sunrise every minute's delay meant fresh risk from the aasvogels. There
is very little which, if left uncovered, will escape their eyes. You
may leave your buck for help to bring the meat in, certain from the most
careful scrutiny that there is not one of these creatures in sight, and
return in half an hour to find nothing but a few bones, the horns and
hoofs, a rag of skin, and a group of disgusting gorged vultures
squatting on a patch of ground all smeared, torn and feather-strewn from
their voracious struggles.
In the winter sky unrelieved by the least fleck of cloud--a dome of
spotless polished steel--nothing, you would think, can move unseen. Yet
they are there. In the early morning, from their white-splashed eeries
on some distant mountain they slide off like a launching ship into their
sea of blue, and, striking the currents of the upper air, sweep round
and upwards in immense circles, their huge motionless wings carrying
them higher and higher until they are lost to human sight. Lie on your
back in some dense shade where no side-lights strike in, but where an
opening above forms a sort of natural telescope to the sky, and you may
see tiny specks where nothing could be seen before. Take your
field-glasses: the specks are vultures circling up on high! Look again,
and far, far above you will see still other specks; and for aught you
know, there may be others still beyond. How high are they? And what
can they see from there? Who knows? But this is sure, that within a
few minutes scores will come swooping down in great spiral rushes where
not one was visible before. My own belief is that they watch each
other, tier above tier away into the limitless heavens--watching
jealously, as hungry dogs do, for the least suspicious sign--to swoop
down and share the spoil.
In the dewy cool of the morning we soon reached the place where Jock had
left me behind the evening before; and from that on he led the way. It
was much slower work then; as far as I was concerned, there was nothing
to guide me, and it was impossible to know what he was after. Did he
understand that it was not fresh game but the wounded koodoo that I
wanted? And, if so, was he following the scent of the old chase or
merely what he might remember of the way he had gone? It seemed
impossible that scent could lie in that dry country for twelve hours;
yet it was clearly nose more than eyes that guided him. He went ahead
soberly and steadily, and once when he stopped completely, to sniff at a
particular tuft of grass, I found out what was helping him. The grass
was well streaked with blood: quite dry, it is true; still it was blood.
A mile or so on we checked again where the grass was trampled and the
ground scored with spoor. The heavy spoor was all in a ring four or
five yards in diameter; outside this the grass was also flattened, and
there I found a dog's footprints. But it had no further interest for
Jock; while I was examining it he picked up the trail and trotted on.
We came upon four or five other rings where they had fought. The last
of these was curiously divided by a fallen tree, and it puzzled me to
guess how they could have made a circle with a good-sized trunk some two
feet high intersecting it. I examined the dead tree and found a big
smear of blood and a lot of coarse greyish hair on it. Evidently the
koodoo had backed against it whilst facing Jock and had fallen over it,
renewing the fight on the other side. There were also some golden hairs
sticking on the stumpy end of a broken branch, which may have had
something to do with Jock's scraped sides.
Then for a matter of a hundred yards or more it looked as if they had
fought and tumbled all the way. Jock was some distance ahead of me,
trotting along quietly, when I saw him look up, give that rare growling
bark of his--one of suppressed but real fury--lower his head, and
charge. Then came heavy flapping and scrambling and the wind of huge
wings, as twenty or thirty great lumbering aasvogels flopped along the
ground with Jock dashing furiously about among them--taking flying leaps
at them as they rose, and his jaws snapping like rat-traps as he missed
them.
On a little open flat of hard-baked sand lay the stripped frame of the
koodoo: the head and leg-bones were missing; meat-stripped fragments
were scattered all about; fifty yards away among some bushes Jock found
the head; and still further afield were remains of skin and thigh-bones
crushed almost beyond recognition.
No aasvogel had done this: it was hyenas' work. The high-shouldered
slinking brute, with jaws like a stone-crusher, alone cracks bones like
those and bigger ones which even the lion cannot tackle. I walked back
a little way and found the scene of the last stand, all harrowed bare;
but there was no spoor of koodoo or of Jock to be seen there--only
prints innumerable of wild dogs, hyenas and jackals, and some traces of
where the carcase, no doubt already half-eaten, had been dragged by them
in the effort to tear it asunder.
Jock had several times shown that he strongly objected to any
interference with his quarry; other dogs, kaffirs, and even white men,
had suffered or been badly scared for rashly laying hands on what he had
pulled down. Without any doubt he had expected to find the koodoo there
and had dealt with the aasvogels as trespassers; otherwise he would not
have tackled them without word from me. It was also sure that until
past midnight he had been there with the koodoo, watching or fighting.
Then when had the hyenas and wild dogs come? That was the question I
would have given much to have had answered. But only Jock knew that!
I looked at him. The mane on his neck and shoulders which had risen at
the sight of the vultures was not flat yet; he was sniffing about slowly
and carefully on the spoor of the hyenas and wild dogs; and he looked
`fight' all over. But what it all meant was beyond me; I could only
guess--just as you will--what had happened out in the silent ghostly
bush that night.