Green Hills of Africa Read online

trying to help me out.

  'Let's all have a gimlet,' I said.

  'I never drink,' Kandisky said. 'I will go to the lorry and fetch some

  fresh butter for lunch. It is fresh from Kandoa, unsalted. Very good.

  To-night we will have a special dish of Viennese dessert. My cook has

  learned to make it very well.'

  He went off and my wife said: 'You were getting awfully profound. What

  was that about all these women?'

  'What women?'

  'When you were talking about women.'

  'The hell with them,' I said. 'Those are the ones you get involved with

  when you're drunk.'

  'So that's what you do.'

  'No.'

  'I don't get involved with people when I'm drunk.'

  'Come, come,' said Pop. 'We're none of us ever drunk. My God, that man

  can talk.'

  'He didn't have a chance to talk after B'wana M'Kumba started.'

  'I did have verbal dysentery,' I said.

  'What about his lorry? Can we tow it in without ruining ours?'

  'I think so,' Pop said. 'When ours comes back from Handeni.'

  At lunch under the green fly of the dining-tent, in the shade of a big

  tree, the wind blowing, the fresh butter much admired, Grant's gazelle

  chops, mashed potatoes, green corn, and then mixed fruit for dessert,

  Kandisky told us why the East Indians were taking the country over.

  'You see, during the war they sent the Indian troops to fight here. To

  keep them out of India because they feared another mutiny. They promised the

  Aga Khan that because they fought in Africa, Indians could come freely to

  settle and for business afterwards. They cannot break that promise and now

  the Indians have taken the country over from the Europeans. They live on

  nothing and they send all the money back to India. When they have made

  enough to go home they leave, bringing out their poor relations to take over

  from them and continue to exploit the country.'

  Pop said nothing. He would not argue with a guest at table.

  'It is the Aga Khan,' Kandisky said. 'You are an American. You know

  nothing of these combinations.'

  'Were you with Von Lettow?' Pop asked him. 'From the start,' Kandisky

  said. 'Until the end.'

  'He was a great fighter,' Pop said. 'I have great admiration for him.'

  'You fought?' Kandisky asked.

  'Yes.'

  'I do not care for Lettow,' Kandisky said. 'He fought, yes. No one ever

  better. When we wanted quinine he would order it captured. All supplies the

  same. But afterwards he cared nothing for his men. After the war I am in

  Germany. I go to see about indemnification for my property. "You are an

  Austrian," they say. "You must go through Austrian channels." So I go to

  Austria. "But why did you fight?" they ask me. "You cannot hold us

  responsible. Suppose you go to fight in China. That is your own affair. We

  cannot do anything for you."

  ' "But I went as a patriot," I say, very foolishly. "I fight where I

  can because I am an Austrian and I know my duty." "Yes," they say. "That is

  very beautiful. But you cannot hold us responsible for your noble

  sentiments." So they passed me from one to the other and nothing. Still I

  love the country very much. I have lost everything here but I have more than

  anyone has in Europe. To me it is always interesting. The natives and the

  language. I have many books of notes on them. Then too, in reality, I am a

  king here. It is very pleasant. Waking in the morning I extend one foot and

  the boy places the sock on it. When I am ready I extend the other foot and

  he adjusts the other sock. I step from under the mosquito bar into my

  drawers which are held for me. Don't you think that is very marvellous?'

  'It's marvellous.'

  'When you come back another time we must take a safari to study the

  natives. And shoot nothing, or only to eat. Look, I will show you a dance

  and sing a song.'

  Crouched, elbows lifting and falling, knees humping, he shuffled around

  the table, singing. Undoubtedly it was very fine.

  'That is only one of a thousand,' he said. 'Now I must go for a time.

  You will be sleeping.'

  'There's no hurry. Stay around.'

  'No. Surely you will be sleeping. I also. I will take the butter to

  keep it cool.'

  'We'll see you at supper,' Pop said.

  'Now you must sleep. Good-bye.'

  After he was gone, Pop said: 'I wouldn't believe all that about the Aga

  Khan, you know.'

  'It sounded pretty good.'

  'Of course he feels badly,' Pop said. 'Who wouldn't. Von Lettow was a

  hell of a man.'

  'He's very intelligent,' my wife said. 'He talks wonderfully about the

  natives. But he's bitter about American women.'

  'So am I,' said Pop. 'He's a good man. You better get some shut-eye.

  You'll need to start about three-thirty.'

  'Have them call me.'

  Molo raised the back of the tent, propping it with sticks, so the wind

  blew through and I went to sleep reading, the wind coming in cool and fresh

  under the heated canvas.

  When I woke it was time to go. There were rain clouds in the sky and it

  was very hot. They had packed some tinned fruit, a five-pound piece of roast

  meat, bread, tea, a tea pot, and some tinned milk in a whisky box with four

  bottles of beer. There was a canvas water bag and a ground cloth to use as a

  tent. M'Cola was taking the big gun out to the car.

  'There's no hurry about getting back,' Pop said. 'We'll look for you

  when we see you.'

  'All right.'

  'We'll send the lorry to haul that sportsman into Handeni. He's sending

  his men ahead walking.'

  'You're sure the lorry can stand it? Don't do it because he's a friend

  of mine.'

  'Have to get him out. The lorry will be in to-night.'

  'The Memsahib's still asleep,' I said. 'Maybe she can get out for a

  walk and shoot some guineas?'

  'I'm here,' she said. 'Don't worry about us. {Oh}, I hope you get

  them.'

  'Don't send out to look for us along the road until day after

  to-morrow,' I said. 'If there's a good chance we'll stay.'

  'Good luck.'

  'Good luck, sweet. Good-bye, Mr. J. P.'

  CHAPTER TWO

  We were out from under the shade of camp and along the sandy river of a

  road, driving into the western sun, the bush thick to the edge of the sand,

  solid as a thicket, the little hills rising above it, and all along the road

  we passed groups of people making their way to the westward. Some were naked

  except for a greasy cloth knotted over one shoulder, and carried bows and

  sealed quivers of arrows. Others carried spears. The wealthy carried

  umbrellas and wore draped white cloth and their women walked behind them,

  with their pots and pans. Bundles and loads of skins were scattered along

  ahead on the heads of other natives.
All were travelling away from the

  famine. And in the heat, my feet out over the side of the car to keep them

  away from the heat of the engine, hat low over the eyes against the sun,

  watching the road, the people, and all clearings in the bush for game, we

  drove to the westward.

  Once we saw three lesser kudu cows in an open place of broken bush.

  Grey, big bellied, long necked, small headed, and with big ears, they moved

  quickly into the woods and were gone. We left the car and tracked them but

  there was no bull track.

  A little beyond there a flock of guineas quick-legged across the road

  running steady-headed with the motion of trotters. As I jumped from the car

  and sprinted after them they rocketed up, their legs tucked close beneath

  them, heavy-bodied, short wings drumming, cackling, to go over the trees

  ahead. I dropped two that thumped hard when they fell and as they lay, wings

  beating, Abdullah cut their heads off so they would be legal eating. He put

  them in the car where M'Cola sat laughing; his old man's healthy laugh, his

  making-fun-of-me laugh, his bird-shooting laugh that dated from a streak of

  raging misses one time that had delighted him. Now when I killed, it was a

  joke, as when we shot a hyena, the funniest joke of all. He laughed always

  to see the birds tumble and when I missed he roared and shook his head again

  and again.

  'Ask him what the hell he's laughing about?' I asked Pop once.

  'At B'wana,' M'Cola said, and shook his head, 'at the little birds.'

  'He thinks you're funny,' Pop said.

  'Goddam it. I am funny. But the hell with him.'

  'He thinks you're very funny,' Pop said. 'Now the Memsahib and I would

  never laugh.'

  'Shoot them. yourself.'

  'No, you're the bird shot. The self-confessed bird shot,' she said.

  So bird shooting became this marvellous joke. If I killed, the joke was

  on. the birds and M'Cola would shake his head and laugh and make his hands

  go round and round to show how the bird turned over in the air. And if I

  missed, I was the clown of the piece and he would look at me and shake with

  laughing. Only the hyenas were funnier.

  Highly humorous was the hyena obscenely loping, full belly dragging, at

  daylight on the plain, who, shot from the stern, skittered on into speed to

  tumble end over end. Mirth provoking was the hyena that stopped out of range

  by an alkali lake to look back and, hit in the chest, went over on his back,

  his four feet and his full belly in the air. Nothing could be more jolly

  than the hyena coming suddenly wedge-headed and stinking out of high grass

  by a {donga}, hit at ten yards, who raced his tail in three narrowing,

  scampering circles until he died.

  It was funny to M'Cola to see a hyena shot at close range. There was

  that comic slap of the bullet and the hyena's agitated surprise to find

  death inside of him. It was funnier to see a hyena shot at a great distance,

  in the heat shimmer of the plain, to see him go over backwards, to see him

  start that frantic circle, to see that electric speed that meant that he was

  racing the little nickeled death inside him. But the great joke of all, the

  thing M'Cola waved his hands across his face about, and turned away and

  shook his head and laughed, ashamed even of the hyena, the pinnacle of

  hyenic humour, was the hyena, the classic hyena, that hit too far back while

  running, would circle madly, snapping and tearing at himself until he pulled

  his own intestines out, and then stood there, jerking them out and eating

  them with relish.

  {'Fisi,'} M'Cola would say and shake his head in delighted sorrow at

  there being such an awful beast. Fisi, the hyena, hermaphroditic,

  self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer,

  potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler,

  camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion

  leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain, looking back,

  mongrel dog-smart in the face; whack from the little Mannlicher and then the

  horrid circle starting. 'Fisi,' M'Cola laughed, ashamed of him, shaking his

  bald black head. 'Fisi. Eats himself. Fisi.'

  The hyena was a dirty joke but bird shooting was a clean joke. My

  whisky was a clean joke. There were many variations of that joke. Some we

  come to later. The Mohammedans and all religions were a joke. A joke on all

  the people who had them. Charo, the other gun bearer, was short, very

  serious and highly religious. All Ramadan he never swallowed his saliva

  until sunset and when the sun was almost down I'd see him watching

  nervously. He had a bottle with him of some sort of tea and he would finger

  it and watch the sun and I would see M'Cola watching him and pretending not

  to see. This was not outrightly funny to him. This was something that he

  could not laugh about openly but that he felt superior to and wondered at

  the silliness of it. The Mohammedan religion was very fashionable and all

  the higher social grades among the boys were Mohammedans. It was something

  that gave caste, something to believe in, something fashionable and

  god-giving to suffer a little for each year, something that made you

  superior to other people, something that gave you more complicated habits of

  eating, something that I understood and M'Cola did not understand, nor care

  about, and he watched Charo watch for the sun to set with that blank look on

  his face that it put on about all things that he was not a part of. Charo

  was deadly thirsty and truly devout and the sun set very slowly. I looked at

  it, red over the trees, nudged him and he grinned. M'Cola offered me the

  water bottle solemnly. I shook my head and Charo grinned again. M'Cola

  looked blank. Then the sun was down and Charo had the bottle tilted up, his

  Adam's apple rising and falling greedily and M'Cola looking at him and then

  looking away.

  In the early days, before we became good friends, he did not trust me

  at all. When anything came up he went into this blankness. I liked Charo

  much better then. We understood each other on the question of religion and

  Charo admired my shooting and always shook hands and smiled when we had

  killed anything particularly good. This was flattering and pleasing. M'Cola

  looked on all this early shooting as a series of lucky accidents. We were

  supposed to shoot. We had not yet shot anything that amounted to anything

  and he was not really my gun bearer. He was Mr. Jackson Phillip's gun bearer

  and he had been loaned to me. I meant nothing to him. He did not like me nor

  dislike me. He was politely contemptuous of Karl. Who he liked was Mama.

  The evening we killed the first lion it was dark when we came in sight

  of camp. The killing of the lion had been confused and unsatisfactory. It

  was agreed beforehand that P.O.M. should have the first shot but since it

  was the first lion any of us had ev
er shot at, and it was very late in the

  day, really too late to take the lion on, once he was hit we were to make a

  dogfight of it and anyone was free to get him. This was a good plan as it

  was nearly sundown and if the lion got into cover, wounded, it would be too

  dark to do anything about it without a mess. I remember seeing the lion

  looking yellow and heavy-headed and enormous against a scrubby looking tree

  in a patch of orchard bush and P.O.M. kneeling to shoot and wanting to tell

  her to sit down and make sure of him. Then there was the short-barrelled

  explosion of the Mannlicher and the lion was going to the left on a run, a

  strange, heavy-shouldered, foot-swinging, cat run. I hit him with the

  Springfield and he went down and spun over and I shot again, too quickly,

  and threw a cloud of dirt over him. But there he was, stretched out, on his

  belly, and, with the sun just over the top of the trees, and the grass very

  green, we walked up on him like a posse, or a gang of Black and Tans, guns

  ready and cocked, not knowing whether he was stunned or dead. When we were

  close M'Cola threw a stone at him. It hit him in the flank and from the way

  it hit you could tell he was a dead animal. I was sure P.O.M. had hit him

  but there was only one bullet hole, well back, just below the spine and

  ranging forward to come to the surface under the skin of the chest. You

  could feel the bullet under the skin and M'Cola made a slit and cut it out.

  It was a 220-grain solid bullet from the Springfield and it had raked him,

  going through lungs and heart.

  I was so surprised by the way he had rolled over dead from the shot

  after we had been prepared for a charge, for heroics, and for drama, that I

  felt more let down than pleased. It was our first lion and we were very

  ignorant and this was not what we had paid to see. Charo and M'Cola both

  shook P.O.M.'s hand and then Charo came over and shook hands with me.

  'Good shot, B'wana,' he said in Swahili. {'Piga m'uzuri.'}

  'Did you shoot, Karl?' I asked.

  'No. I was just going to when you shot.'

  'You didn't shoot him, Pop?'

  'No. You'd have heard it.' He opened the breech and took out the two

  big 450 No. 2's.

  'I'm sure I missed him,' P.O.M. said.

  'I was sure you hit him.. I still think you hit him,' I said.

  'Mama hit,' M'Cola said.

  'Where?' Charo asked.

  'Hit,' said M'Cola. 'Hit.'

  'You rolled him over,' Pop said to me. 'God, he went over like a

  rabbit.'

  'I couldn't believe it.'

  'Mama {piga,'} M'Cola said. {''Piga Simba.'}

  As we saw the camp fire in the dark ahead of us, coming in that night,

  M'Cola suddenly commenced to shout a stream of high-pitched, rapid, singing

  words in Wakamba ending in the word {'Simb}a{'}. Someone at the camp shouted

  back one word. D 47

  'Mama!' M'Cola shouted. Then another long stream. Then 'Mama! Mama!'

  Through the dark came all the porters, the cook, the skinner, the boys,

  and the headman.

  'Mama!' M'Cola shouted. 'Mama {piga Simba.'}

  The boys came dancing, crowing, and beating time and chanting something

  from down in their chests that started like a cough and sounded like {'Hey

  la Mama! Hay la Mama! Hey la Mama!'}

  The rolling-eyed skinner picked P.O.M. up, the big cook and the boys

  held her, and the others pressing forward to lift and if not to lift to

  touch and hold, they danced and sang through the dark around the fire and to

  our tent.

  {'Hey la Mama! huh! huh! huh! Hay la Mama! huh! huh! huh!'} they sang

  the lion dance with that deep, lion asthmatic cough in it. Then at the tent

  they put her down and everyone, very shyly, shook hands, the boys saying

  {'m'uzuri, Memsahib,''} and M'Cola and the porters all saying {''m'uzuri},

  Mama' with much feeling in the accenting of the word 'Mama'.

  Afterwards in the chairs in front of the fire, sitting with the drinks,

  Pop said, 'You shot it. M'Cola would kill anyone who said you didn't.'

  'You know, I feel as though I did shoot it,' P.O.M. said. 'I don't