Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘Hell, I’d love to get one of those,’ Kermit said.

‘You can’t have everything, chum. Lion or sitatunga, it’s your choice.’ Leon did not wait for a reply. ‘The President’s plans suit us well enough. We can leave them to it and ride on the day after tomorrow. Now, do you suppose there may be another noggin lingering at the bottom of that flask of yours? If there is, I don’t think we should let it go to waste, do you?’

They spent the following day hastily assembling the personnel and equipment for their flying column. They picked out a string of six ponies, and three pack mules. Then, with the high spirits of schoolboys escaping the surveillance of their headmaster, they rode northwards.

In the late afternoon of the third day they were following the course of a small unnamed river when there was a shout from the Masai trackers, who were a hundred yards ahead. They gesticulated and pointed at a swift feline shape that had broken out of a patch of scrub and was darting away across the open floodplain, heading for the cover of the thicker forest beyond.

‘What is it?’ Kermit rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his hat.

‘Leopard,’ Leon told him. ‘A big tom.’

‘It has no spots,’ Kermit protested.

‘You can’t see them at this distance.’

‘Can I ride him down?’

‘Gunfire won’t disturb any lions that hear it,’ Leon assured him, ‘not like elephant. They have the curiosity of cats. A few shots might even attract them.’ Kermit needed to hear no more. He let out a wild cowboy yell and, with his hat, urged his mount into a mad gallop, at the same time drawing Big Medicine from her boot under his right knee and brandishing it over his head.

‘Here we go again, folks.’ Leon laughed. ‘Another stealthy, carefully planned stalk with Sir Quick Bullet.’ He kicked his own horse into a gallop, and raced in pursuit. The leopard heard the commotion, stopped and sat on his haunches, gazing back in astonishment. Then he realized how precarious his situation was, whipped around and raced away, stretching out with each bound, long, sleek and graceful.

‘Yee-ha! Up and at him!’ Kermit howled, and even Leon was infected by the excitement of the headlong charge.

‘View halloo! Gone away!’ He gave the old fox-hunting cry and lay flat along his pony’s neck, pushing him hard, both hands on the reins. The rush of the wind in his face was intoxicating. Abandoning all restraint they raced each other across the plain.

The nose of Leon’s pony was creeping up to the level of Kermit’s boot. He looked back under his own armpit, saw Leon gaining, slapped his hat against his mount’s neck and banged his heels into its flanks. ‘Let’s move!’ he urged it. ‘Come on, baby. Get the lead out!’ At that moment his horse stepped in a suricate hole. Its right fore snapped, with a sound like a whiplash, and it went down as though it had been shot through the brain. Kermit was thrown high and clear. He hit the ground with his shoulder and the side of his face. His rifle flew from his hand and he rolled like a ball under the pounding hoofs of Leon’s horse. Leon pulled the mare’s head around and they just managed to avoid stepping on Kermit. She responded to the pressure of reins, bit and spur, tossing her head violently. They rode back to the downed rider. Kermit’s horse was struggling to rise but its foreleg was fractured clean through just above the fetlock joint, the hoof dangling loosely. Kermit was lying still, stretched out on the hard earth.

He’s killed himself. God! What am I going to tell the President? Leon agonized, as he kicked his feet out of the stirrups. He threw his right leg over his horse’s neck and dropped to the ground. He ran to Kermit, but by the time he reached him his friend was sitting up groggily. The skin had been scoured from the left side of his face, his eyebrow was torn half off, and hung over his eye in a loose flap, and the eye itself was bunged up with dust.

‘Mistake!’ he mumbled, and spat out a mouthful of blood and mud. ‘That was a big mistake!’

Leon laughed with relief. ‘You trying to tell me it wasn’t deliberate? I thought you did it just to impress me.’

Kermit ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. ‘No teeth missing,’ he announced, speaking as though his palate was cleft.

‘Luckily you fell on your head or you might have damaged yourself.’ Leon knelt beside him, took his head between both hands and turned it from side to side, examining the eye. ‘Try not to blink like that, or grit will scratch the eyeball.’

‘Easily enough said. How about “try not to breathe” as your next stupid instruction?’

Ishmael galloped up on his mule and handed Leon a waterbag.

‘Hold his eye open, Ishmael,’ Leon ordered, then poured water into it, sluicing out most of the mud. Then he handed the bag to Kermit. ‘Rinse your mouth and wash your face.’ The two Masai were squatting close at hand where they could have a good view of the proceedings, which they were discussing with relish. ‘Will you two hyenas stop gloating, and set up the pup tent, then lay out Popoo Hima’s blanket roll. I want to get him out of the sun.’

While they helped Kermit into the little tent, Leon drew the big Holland from its boot on his saddle and shot the maimed horse. He made it seem cold and clinical, but his empathy with horses was intense, and even though it was a mercy killing, it tore at his conscience.

‘Get the saddle and tack off that poor creature,’ he told Manyoro, as he ejected the empty brass cartridge case and slipped the rifle back into its sheath. He hurried to the little tent and stooped through the entrance. ‘Where’s Big Medicine?’ Kermit demanded, and tried to get up.

Leon pushed him down. ‘I’ll send Manyoro to find it.’ He raised his voice: ‘Manyoro! Bring the bwana ’s bunduki .’ Then he held a finger in front of Kermit’s eyes. ‘Watch it.’ He moved it slowly from side to side, then nodded, satisfied. ‘Despite your best efforts, it doesn’t seem that you’ve managed to concuss yourself, thank God. Now let’s take a look at the place where your left eyebrow was once attached to your face.’ He examined the damage closely. ‘I’m going to have to put in a few stitches.’

Kermit looked alarmed. ‘What do you know about stitching people up?’

‘I’ve stitched up plenty of horses and dogs.’

‘I ain’t no horse or dog.’

‘No, those animals are pretty smart.’ To Ishmael he said, ‘Fetch your sewing kit.’

At that moment Manyoro appeared in the entrance, his expression mournful. He held a separate piece of the Winchester in each hand. ‘She is broken,’ he said in Kiswahili.

Kermit grabbed the shattered pieces from him. ‘Oh, hell and damnation!’ he moaned. The butt stock had snapped at the neck of the pistol grip and the front sight had been knocked off. It was obvious that the rifle could not be fired. Kermit cradled it as though it were a sick child. ‘What am I going to do?’ He looked at Leon pitifully. ‘Can you repair it?’

‘Yes, but not until we get back to camp and I can find my tool-kit. I’ll have to bind that butt with the green skin of an elephant’s ear. When it dries, it’ll be hard as iron and better than new.’

‘What about the front sight?’

‘If we can’t find the original, I’ll hand-file one from a piece of metal and solder it in place.’

‘How long will all that take?’

‘A week or so.’ He saw Kermit’s stricken expression and tried to pull the punch a little. ‘Maybe a bit less. Depends how soon we can find a fresh elephant ear and how quickly it dries. Now, keep still while I sew you up.’

Kermit was in such distress that he seemed inured to the primitive surgery Leon inflicted. First he washed the wound with a diluted solution of iodine, then got busy with needle and thread. Either procedure was more than enough to make a strong man weep, but Kermit seemed more concerned with Big Medicine than his own suffering.