Wilbur Smith - Assegai

‘I will not have a bunduki today. But no matter. Kichwa Muzuru shoots like a wizard.’

Manyoro looked at him askance. ‘And if someone knocks over the beer pot, M’bogo, what then?’

‘Then, Manyoro, I will poke the buffalo in the eye with this.’ Leon hefted a heavy stick he had picked up from beside the track.

‘That is not a weapon. It is not even a good louse-scratcher. Here.’ Manyoro reversed one of his two stabbing spears, and handed it butt first to Leon. ‘A real weapon for you to carry.’

It was a lovely blade, three foot long and sharpened along both edges. Leon tested it on his forearm. It shaved the hairs as cleanly and effortlessly as his straight razor would have done. ‘Thank you, my brother, but I hope I shall not need to use it. Take the spoor again, Manyoro, but be ready to run if Kichwa Muzuru kicks over the beer pot!’

Leon left them and went back to the hunting car where Graf Otto was taking his rifle out of its leather slip case. Leon felt a little easier when he saw that it was a large-calibre double-barrelled weapon, probably a continental 10.75mm. It had more than enough knock-down power to deal effectively with a buffalo.

‘So, Courtney, are you ready for a little sport?’ Graf Otto asked, as Leon came up to him. He had an unlit cigar between his lips and a loden hunting hat pushed to the back of his head. He was loading steel-jacketed cartridges into the open magazine of the rifle.

‘I hope you’re not planning on having too much fun, sir, but, yes, I’m ready.’

‘I see that you are.’ He grinned at the spear in Leon’s hand. ‘Are you hunting rabbits or buffalo with that?’

‘If you stick it into the right place it will do the job.’

‘I make you a little promise, Courtney. If you kill a buffalo with that I will teach you to fly an aeroplane.’

‘I’m overwhelmed by your magnanimity, sir.’ Leon bowed slightly. ‘Will you please ask Fräulein von Wellberg to remain in the car until we return? These animals are unpredictable, and once the first shot is fired, anything might happen.’

He removed the cigar from his mouth to address Eva. ‘Will you be a good girl today, meine Schatze , and do as our young friend asks?’

‘Aren’t I always a good girl, Otto?’ she asked, but something in her eyes negated the sugary response.

He replaced the cigar in his mouth and handed her his silver Vesta case. She flipped open the lid and shook out a red-tipped match, struck it against the sole of her boot, and when it flared, she held it at arm’s length to burn off the sulphur smoke, then applied the flame to the tip of the cigar. Graf Otto was watching Leon’s eyes as he puffed at the Cohiba. Leon knew that this little demonstration of domination and subservience was probably for his benefit. The other man was not unobservant: he must be able to sense the emotional thunder in the air and was marking his thrall over Eva. Leon kept his expression neutral.

Then Eva intervened again softly: ‘Please be careful, Otto. I would not know what to do without you.’

Leon wondered if she was protecting him from the Graf’s jealous anger. If that was her motive, it worked well.

Graf Otto chuckled. ‘Worry for the buffalo, not for me.’ He shouldered the rifle and, without another word, followed the Masai into the thorn thicket. Leon fell in behind him, and they went forward quietly.

Once the three bulls were in heavy cover they had spread out to feed and their tracks meandered back and forth. It would have been only too easy while following one to run straight into another of the trio, so they moved slowly, checking the way ahead after every few paces. They had taken no more than a hundred when they heard the crackle of breaking twigs, followed by a soft snort nearby. Manyoro held up a hand, the signal to stand still and be quiet. There was silence for a full minute, which seemed much longer, then the rustle of vegetation. Something large was pushing its way through the thorn, coming directly towards them. Leon touched Graf Otto’s arm, and he slipped the rifle from his shoulder and held it at high port across his chest.

Suddenly the wall of thorn bush parted directly ahead and the head and shoulders of a buffalo pushed through the opening. It was a scarred and battered old creature, one horn broken off to a jagged stump, the other almost worn away by constant sharpening against tree-trunks and termite mounds. The neck was scrawny and bald in patches. The nearest eye was white and glassy, completely blinded by fly-borne ophthalmia. At first it did not see them. For a while it stood and chewed at a clump of grass, loose straws and strings of saliva hanging from the corners of its mouth. It shook its head to drive away the little black flies that crawled around the lids of the blind eye, swarming to drink the yellow pus that dribbled down the buffalo’s cheek.

Poor old blighter, Leon thought. A bullet in the head will be a real kindness. He touched Graf Otto’s shoulder. ‘Do it,’ he whispered, and braced himself for the shot. But nothing could have prepared him for what followed.

Otto threw back his head and let out a wild shout: ‘Come, then! Show us how dangerous you can be.’ He fired a shot over the buffalo’s head. The bull recoiled violently and spun to face them. It stared at them through its one good eye, then let out a loud snort of consternation and wheeled away. Bursting into a full gallop, it fled straight back into the thorn palisade. At the moment before it disappeared Graf Otto fired again.

Leon saw dust fly from the top of the buffalo’s haunch, a hand’s breadth to the left of the knotty vertebrae of the spine that showed through the scarred grey hide. He stared after the fleeing bull with dismay. ‘You wounded him deliberately!’ he accused, in a tone of utter disbelief.

‘ Jawohl! Of course. You said they needed to be wounded if we wanted some sport. Well, now it is wounded, and I am going to tickle up the other two as well!’ Before Leon could recover from the shock, Graf Otto let out another savage war-cry and took off in pursuit of the stricken animal. The two Masai were as stunned as Leon, and the three stood in a bewildered group, staring after the German.

‘He is mad!’ Loikot said, in awed tones.

‘Yes,’ said Leon, grimly. ‘He is. Listen to him.’

There was uproar in the scrub just ahead: the drumming of many hoofs and the breaking of branches, snorts of anger and alarm, the detonation of rifle shots and the whump!, whump! of heavy bullets striking flesh and bone. Leon realized that Graf Otto was shooting at all three bulls, not to kill but to wound. He swung around to the Masai. ‘There is nothing more you can do here. Kichwa Muzuru has smashed the beer pot into a hundred pieces. Go back to the car,’ he ordered. ‘Take care of the memsahib.’

‘M’bogo, that is a great stupidity. We go forward together or not at all.’

There was another shot, and this one was followed by the death bellow of one bull. At least one was down, Leon thought, but there were two more to go. There was neither time nor latitude for argument. ‘Come on, then,’ Leon snapped. They ran forward, and came upon Graf Otto standing at the edge of a small opening in the thorn. At his feet lay the carcass of a dead bull. Its back legs were still kicking convulsively in its death throes. The beast must have charged at him as he stepped into the clearing. He had dropped it with a bullet through the brain.

‘You were wrong, Courtney. They are not so dangerous,’ he remarked coolly, as he slid another round of ammunition into the breech of the rifle.

‘How many others have you wounded?’ Leon barked.

‘Both of them, of course. Don’t worry. You may still have a chance to learn to fly an aeroplane.’