The three bearers squatted on their heels behind us, their fierce eyes
staring straight ahead, seeing with the naked eye what we were finding
with six-power glasses.
We turned to descend the hill. In the very centre of the deep shade of
a clump of trees, I saw the gleam of a waterbuck's horns. While I was
telling of this, the beast stepped from his concealment, trotted a short
distance upstream and turned to climb a little ridge parallel to that
by which we were descending. About halfway up he stopped, staring in
our direction, his head erect, the slight ruff under his neck standing
forward. He was a good four hundred yards away. B., who wanted him,
decided the shot too chancy. He and F. slipped backward until they had
gained the cover of the little ridge, then hastened down the bed of
the ravine. Their purpose was to follow the course already taken by the
waterbuck until they should have sneaked within better range. In the
meantime I and the gunbearers sat down in full view of the buck. This
was to keep his attention distracted.
We sat there a long time. The buck never moved but continued to stare
at what evidently puzzled him. Time passes very slowly in such
circumstances, and it seemed incredible that the beast should continue
much longer to hold his fixed attitude. Nevertheless B. and F. were
working hard. We caught glimpses of them occasionally slipping from bush
to bush. Finally B. knelt and levelled his rifle. At once I turned my
glasses on the buck. Before the sound of the rifle had reached me, I saw
him start convulsively, then make off at the tearing run that indicates
a heart hit. A moment later the crack of the rifle and the dull plunk of
the hitting bullet struck my ear.
We tracked him fifty yards to where he lay dead. He was a fine trophy,
and we at once set the boys to preparing it and taking the meat. In the
meantime we sauntered down to look at the stream. It was a small
rapid affair, but in heavy papyrus, with sparse trees, and occasional
thickets, and dry hard banks. The papyrus should make a good lurking
place for almost anything; but the few points of access to the water
failed to show many interesting tracks. Nevertheless we decided to
explore a short distance.
For an hour we walked among high thornbushes, over baking hot earth. We
saw two or three dik-dik and one of the giraffes. At that time it had
become very hot, and the sun was bearing down on us as with the weight
of a heavy hand. The air had the scorching, blasting quality of an
opened furnace door. Our mouths were getting dry and sticky in that
peculiar stage of thirst on which no luke-warm canteen water in
necessarily limited quantity has any effect. So we turned back, picked
up the men with the waterbuck, and plodded on down the little stream,
or, rather, on the red-hot dry valley bottom outside the stream's
course, to where the syces were waiting with our horses. We mounted with
great thankfulness. It was now eleven o'clock, and we considered our day
as finished.
The best way for a distance seemed to follow the course of the tributary
stream to its point of junction with our river. We rode along, rather
relaxed in the suffocating heat. F. was nearest the stream. At one point
it freed itself of trees and brush and ran clear, save for low papyrus,
ten feet down below a steep eroded bank. F. looked over and uttered a
startled exclamation. I spurred my horse forward to see.
Below us, about fifteen yards away, was the carcass of a waterbuck half
hidden in the foot-high grass. A lion and two lionesses stood upon it,
staring up at us with great yellow eyes. That picture is a very vivid
one in my memory, for those were the first wild lions I had ever seen.
My most lively impression was of their unexpected size. They seemed to
bulk fully a third larger than my expectation.
The magnificent beasts stood only long enough to see clearly what had
disturbed them, then turned, and in two bounds had gained the shelter of
the thicket.
Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your guns.
You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea, and
is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of whatever
nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that in such a
climate a man should do only necessary physical work, and that a
good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so quickly and in so
convenient a position that you will lose no time. I acknowledge the
gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at this, but I do deny that there
is no loss of time. The instant of distracted attention while receiving
a weapon, the necessity of recollecting the nervous correlations
after the transfer, very often mark just the difference between a sure
instinctive snapshot and a lost opportunity. It reasons that the man
with the rifle in his hand reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get
his weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, HE must first react
to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and THEN, and not
until then, may go on from where the other man began. As for physical
labour in the tropics: if a grown man cannot without discomfort or evil
effects carry an eight-pound rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all.
In a long Western experience I have learned never to be separated from
my weapon; and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved
me a good number of chances.
At any rate, we all flung ourselves off our horses. I, having my
rifle in my hand, managed to throw a shot after the biggest lion as he
vanished. It was a snap at nothing, and missed. Then in an opening on
the edge a hundred yards away appeared one of the lionesses. She was
trotting slowly, and on her I had time to draw a hasty aim. At the shot
she bounded high in the air, fell, rolled over, and was up and into the
thicket before I had much more than time to pump up another shell from
the magazine. Memba Sasa in his eagerness got in the way-the first and
last time he ever made a mistake in the field.
By this time the others had got hold of their weapons. We fronted the
blank face of the thicket.
The wounded animal would stand a little waiting. We made a wide circle
to the other side of the stream. There we quickly picked up the trail of
the two uninjured beasts. They had headed directly over the hill, where
we speedily lost all trace of them on the flint-like surface of the
ground. We saw a big pack of baboons in the only likely direction for
a lion to go. Being thus thrown back on a choice of a hundred other
unlikely directions, we gave up that slim chance and returned to the
thicket.
This proved to be a very dense piece of cover. Above the height of the
waist the interlocking branches would absolutely prevent any progress,
but by stooping low we could see dimly among the simpler main stems to
a distance of perhaps fifteen or twenty feet. This combination at once
afforded the wounded lioness plenty of cover in which to hide, plenty of
room in which to charge home, and placed us under the disadvantage of a
crouched or crawling attitude with limited vision. We talked the matter
over very thoroughly. There was only one way to get that lioness out;
and that was to go after her. The job of going after her needed some
planning. The lion is cunning and exceeding fierce. A flank attack, once
we were in the thicket, was as much to be expected as a frontal charge.
We advanced to the thicket's edge with many precautions. To our relief
we found she had left us a definite trail. B. and I kneeling took up
positions on either side, our rifles ready. F. and Simba crawled by
inches eight or ten feet inside the thicket. Then, having executed this
manoeuvre safely, B. moved up to protect our rear while I, with Memba
Sasa, slid down to join F.
From this point we moved forward alternately. I would crouch, all
alert, my rifle ready, while F. slipped by me and a few feet ahead. Then
he get organized for battle while I passed him. Memba Sasa and Simba,
game as badgers, their fine eyes gleaming with excitement, their
faces shining, crept along at the rear. B. knelt outside the thicket,
straining his eyes for the slightest movement either side of the line of
our advance. Often these wily animals will sneak back in a half circle
to attack their pursuers from behind. Two or three of the bolder porters
crouched alongside B., peering eagerly. The rest had quite properly
retired to the safe distance where the horses stood.
We progressed very, very slowly. Every splash of light or mottled
shadow, every clump of bush stems, every fallen log had to be examined,
and then examined again. And how we did strain our eyes in a vain
attempt to penetrate the half lights, the duskinesses of the closed-in
thicket not over fifteen feet away! And then the movement forward of two
feet would bring into our field of vision an entirely new set of tiny
vistas and possible lurking places.
Speaking for myself, I was keyed up to a tremendous tension. I stared
until my eyes ached; every muscle and nerve was taut. Everything
depended on seeing the beast promptly, and firing quickly. With the
manifest advantage of being able to see us, she would spring to battle
fully prepared. A yellow flash and a quick shot seemed about to size up
that situation. Every few moments, I remember, I surreptitiously
held out my hand to see if the constantly growing excitement and the
long-continued strain had affected its steadiness.
The combination of heat and nervous strain was very exhausting. The
sweat poured from me; and as F. passed me I saw the great drops standing
out on his face. My tongue got dry, my breath came laboriously. Finally
I began to wonder whether physically I should be able to hold out. We
had been crawling, it seemed, for hours. I dared not look back, but we
must have come a good quarter mile. Finally F. stopped.
“I'm all in for water,” he gasped in a whisper.
Somehow that confession made me feel a lot better. I had thought that
I was the only one. Cautiously we settled back on our heels. Memba Sasa
and Simba wiped the sweat from their faces. It seemed that they too had
found the work severe. That cheered me up still more.
Simba grinned at us, and, worming his way backward with the sinuousity
of a snake, he disappeared in the direction from which we had come.
F. cursed after him in a whisper both for departing and for taking the
risk. But in a moment he had returned carrying two canteens of blessed
water. We took a drink most gratefully.
I glanced at my watch. It was just under two hours since I had fired
my shot. I looked back. My supposed quarter mile had shrunk to not over
fifty feet!
After resting a few moments longer, we again took up our systematic
advance. We made perhaps another fifty feet. We were ascending a very
gentle slope. F. was for the moment ahead. Right before us the lion
growled; a deep rumbling like the end of a great thunder roll, fathoms
and fathoms deep, with the inner subterranean vibrations of a heavy
train of cars passing a man inside a sealed building. At the same moment
over F.'s shoulder I saw a huge yellow head rise up, the round eyes
flashing anger, the small black-tipped ears laid back, the great fangs
snarling. The beast was not over twelve feet distant. F. immediately
fired. His shot, hitting an intervening twig, went wild. With the utmost
coolness he immediately pulled the other trigger of his double barrel.
The cartridge snapped.
“If you will kindly stoop down-” said I, in what I now remember to be
rather an exaggeratedly polite tone. As F.'s head disappeared, I placed
the little gold bead of my 405 Winchester where I thought it would do
the most good, and pulled trigger. She rolled over dead.
The whole affair had begun and finished with unbelievable swiftness.
From the growl to the fatal shot I don't suppose four seconds elapsed,
for our various actions had followed one another with the speed of the
instinctive. The lioness had growled at our approach, had raised her
head to charge, and had received her deathblow before she had released
her muscles in the spring. There had been no time to get frightened.
We sat back for a second. A brown hand reached over my shoulder.
“Mizouri-mizouri sana!” cried Memba Sasa joyously. I shook the hand.
“Good business!” said F. “Congratulate you on your first lion.”
We then remembered B., and shouted to him that all was over. He and the
other men wriggled in to where we were lying. He made this distance in
about fifteen seconds. It had taken us nearly an hour.
We had the lioness dragged out into the open. She was not an especially
large beast, as compared to most of the others I killed later, but at
that time she looked to me about as big as they made them. As a matter
of fact she was quite big enough, for she stood three feet two inches
at the shoulder-measure that against the wall-and was seven feet and
six inches in length. My first bullet had hit her leg, and the last had
reached her heart.
Every one shook me by the hand. The gunbearers squatted about the
carcass, skilfully removing the skin to an undertone of curious crooning
that every few moments broke out into one or two bars of a chant. As the
body was uncovered, the men crouched about to cut off little pieces of
fat. These they rubbed on their foreheads and over their chests, to make
them brave, they said, and cunning, like the lion.
We remounted and took up our interrupted journey to camp. It was
a little after two, and the heat was at its worst. We rode rather
sleepily, for the reaction from the high tension of excitement had set
in. Behind us marched the three gunbearers, all abreast, very military
and proud. Then came the porters in single file, the one carrying the
folded lion skin leading the way; those bearing the waterbuck trophy
and meat bringing up the rear. They kept up an undertone of humming in
a minor key; occasionally breaking into a short musical phrase in full
voice.
We rode an hour. The camp looked very cool and inviting under its wide
high trees, with the river slipping by around the islands of papyrus. A
number of black heads bobbed about in the shallows. The small fires sent
up little wisps of smoke. Around them our boys sprawled, playing simple
games, mending, talking, roasting meat. Their tiny white tents gleamed
pleasantly among the cool shadows.
I had thought of riding nonchalantly up to our own tents, of dismounting
with a careless word of greeting--
“Oh, yes,” I would say, “we did have a good enough day. Pretty hot. Roy
got a fine waterbuck. Yes, I got a lion.” (Tableau on part of Billy.)
But Memba Sasa used up all the nonchalance there was. As we entered camp
he remarked casually to the nearest man.
“Bwana na piga simba-the master has killed a lion.”
The man leaped to his feet.
“Simba! simba! simba!” he yelled. “Na piga simba!”
Every one in camp also leaped to his feet, taking up the cry. From the
water it was echoed as the bathers scrambled ashore. The camp broke into
pandemonium. We were surrounded by a dense struggling mass of men. They
reached up scores of black hands to grasp my own; they seized from me
everything portable and bore it in triumph before me-my water bottle,
my rifle, my camera, my whip, my field glasses, even my hat, everything
that was detachable. Those on the outside danced and lifted up their
voices in song, improvised for the most part, and in honor of the day's
work. In a vast swirling, laughing, shouting, triumphant mob we swept
through the camp to where Billy-by now not very much surprised-was
waiting to get the official news. By the measure of this extravagant joy
could we gauge what the killing of a lion means to these people who have
always lived under the dread of his rule.