Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘The wind?’ he breathed to Manyoro. ‘How is the wind?’ Manyoro scooped up another handful of earth and dribbled it through his fingers. Then he dusted his hand on his leg and made a sign that was as clear as any words. ‘No wind. Nothing.’

Leon broke open the barrels of his rifle and removed the fat brass cartridges from the breeches one at a time. He examined them for blemishes and polished them on his shirt before he slipped them back into place. He snapped the barrels shut and tucked the butt of the loaded rifle under his right armpit. Then he nodded to Manyoro, and as they moved forward, Leon took the lead. He angled towards the bull until the tree-trunk covered his approach, then turned straight towards it.

The tree blocked out the bull’s head but his body protruded on one side of it, while the curve of the nearest tusk stuck out beyond the other. A shaft of sunlight pierced the canopy of leaves above his head and struck the ivory like the beam of a limelight. Closer still, and Leon heard the animal’s belly rumble like distant thunder. He moved in steadily upon him, setting down each footstep with exaggerated care. Now he held the heavy rifle at the ready position across his chest.

The Holland was essentially a short-range weapon. He had fired several shots at a target before he had set out from Tandala Camp, and had discovered that the twin barrels were regulated to shoot to the same point of aim at precisely thirty yards. At any greater distance, the bullets would spread out unpredictably. He knew that to be completely certain of his shot he had to get closer than that. He wanted to reach the trunk of the nut tree and fire from behind its cover. Now he was so close that he could see the oxpeckers scrambling around on the elephant’s wrinkled grey skin. There were five or six of the slender little yellow birds, balancing themselves with their tails as they foraged with their sharp red beaks in the creases of the skin for ticks, blind flies and other blood-sucking insects. One crept into the ear and the bull flapped loudly to warn it away from the sensitive parts deep inside. Other birds hung upside-down under his belly or in his crotch, pecking busily at the sagging folds of grey skin. Then, suddenly, they became aware of Leon’s approach and ran up the bull’s flanks to stand in a line along his spine, staring with glittering eyes at the intruder.

Manyoro tried to warn Leon of what was about to happen but he dared not speak, and Leon was so intent on his stalk that he did not see the desperate hand signals behind him. He was still a dozen paces from the bole of the ngong tree when the row of oxpeckers on the bull’s back exploded into flight, uttered their frenzied twittering alarm call. It was a warning that the beast understood well, for the birds were not only his grooms but also his sentinels.

From comfortable somnolence he plunged forward, reaching his top speed in half a dozen strides. He had no idea where the danger lay, but he trusted the birds and simply ran in the direction he was facing. He was heading at a thirty-degree angle away from Leon. For a second Leon was stunned by the speed and agility of the massive creature. Then he raced forward in pursuit, aiming to get ahead of the bull before he could get clear away. For a short distance he gained ground, closing to just under the critical thirty-yard range. He fastened his eyes on the bull’s head. The wide sails of the ears were cocked back so Leon could see the long, vertical slit of the earhole. But the head nodded violently and rolled from side to side with each stride. The oxpeckers were shrilling, and behind Leon, the two Masai shouted unintelligibly. All around there was movement and wild confusion and the bull pulled rapidly away. Within a few more strides he would be out of range.

Leon slammed to a halt. All his vision and attention were concentrated on the long slit of the earhole in the centre of the swinging and swaying head. The rifle came up to his shoulder and he looked over the barrels, hardly seeing them, so intense was his concentration. Time and movement seemed to slow into a dreamlike unreality. His vision was as sharp as a diamond drill. He saw beyond the moving wall of grey skin and the spreading ears. He saw the brain. It was an extraordinary sensation – Percy Phillips had called it the hunter’s eye. With the hunter’s eye he could see through skin and bone, and descry the exact position of the brain. It was the size of a football, set low behind the line of the earhole.

The rifle crashed, and even in the sunlight he saw the flame spurt from the muzzle. He was startled. He had not been aware of touching the trigger. He hardly felt the recoil of five thousand foot-pounds of energy kicking back into his shoulder. His vision was not deflected by it: he saw the bullet strike two inches behind the earhole, precisely where he knew it should go. He saw the bull’s nearest eye blink shut, heard the heavy bullet strike bone with a sound like a woodman’s axe swung against a hardwood tree. With his new gift of the hunter’s eye he could imagine the bullet ploughing through bone and tissue, tearing into the brain.

The bull threw back his head, long tusks pointing for an instant at the sky. Then his front legs folded under him and he collapsed heavily into a kneeling position. The force of the impact sent up a cloud of dust and made the ground tremble beneath Leon’s feet. The elephant lay on his folded front legs as though waiting to be mounted by a mahout, head supported by the curves of the tusks, sightless eyes wide open. The tail flicked once, then all was still. The echoes of gunfire rang in Leon’s head, but all around was a deep hush.

‘It’s the dead elephant that kills you.’ He heard Percy’s warning in his memory. ‘Always put in the coup de grâce .’ Leon raised the rifle again and aimed for the crease in the bull’s armpit. Again the rifle boomed. The beast never so much as twitched as the second bullet drove through its heart.

Leon walked forward slowly and reached out to touch the staring amber eye with a fingertip. It did not blink. His legs felt as soft and limp as boiled spaghetti. He sank down, leaned his back against the elephant’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He felt nothing. He was empty inside. He felt no sense of triumph or elation, no remorse or sorrow for the death of such a magnificent creature. All that would come later. Now there was only the aching emptiness, as though he had just made love to a beautiful woman.

Leon sent Manyoro and Loikot off to some distant villages outside the boundaries of Masailand. Their task was to recruit porters to carry the ivory to the railway. They had to be from some tribe other than Masai, for the morani would not stoop to such menial employment. Leon and Ishmael camped for the following five days at a discreet distance upwind from the putrefying carcass, its belly swelling with gas. They guarded the tusks while they waited for them to loosen with rot in their bone canals.

The nights were raucous as the scavengers gathered. Jackals yipped and packs of hyena giggled, shrieked and squabbled among themselves. On the third night the lions arrived and added their imperial roaring to the general cacophony. Ishmael spent the hours of darkness perched in the top branches of one of the ngong trees, reciting verses from the Koran in Kiswahili and calling on Allah for protection from these demons.

On the sixth day Manyoro and Loikot returned, followed by a gang of stalwart Luo porters whom Manyoro had hired for ten shillings.

‘Ten shillings a day each?’ Leon was aghast at such profligacy. Ten shillings was almost the sum of his worldly wealth.

‘Nay, Bwana, for all of them.’

‘Ten shillings a day for all six?’ Leon was only slightly mollified.