TWO ON SAFARI

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 84, 10 April 1937, Page 10 (Supplement)

TWO ON SAFARI

By GEORGE AGNEW CHAMBERLAIN

CHAPTER XV.—(Continued)

When Swayback was brought around the last of the loads had already disappeared up the trail, and she found herself alone with Ballard. She stole a glance at him as they rode at a shambling trot through the steadily deepening sand. He seemed oblivious of her and her mood, intent on some goal beyond her vision. Determined not to be the first to speak, she sat in silence, but gradually she perceived that what held his attention was some test of endurance which loomed high above any trifling contest between his will and hers. She sank into an apathy which was soon to develop into the cumulative agony of a treadmill. All that day and the next she suffered as she had not known body and mind could suffer and still keep going. Sand and more sand, interminable sand, fine as flour, seizing upon the sun's rays, intensifying them and flinging them back like the blast from a monster oven eyes and face. No shade; only the wire-like branches of wait-a-bit thorn trees, dark in the distance, cruelly disappointing upon approach, violently tenacious once they had set their claws. Her eyes sank deeper and deeper into her aching head; she drank greedily whenever water was offered, but could not eat. Ballard appeared merciless: she hated him with a burning hatred so intense it took the place of courage. But such courage, go«l for a burst of speed, has no staying quality. On the second afternoon, reeling, she deliberately let heraelf go, taking a long header into the sand as joyfully as if she were plunging into water. The helmet, having saved her face from a scratching, rolled off into the bush. Ballard did not dismount, he merely shouted an order. Ali and the captaz came at a run; they stooped, seized her by waist and ankles and swung her over the drooping head of teh grey to a seat on the pommel. Ballard held her in his arms, the left across her back, the right under her knees. Her head sank against his shoulder. From far away, from the outermost edge of consciousness, she heard him say: "It's a dirty deal, Jo; but we've simply got to get through." But his thoughts were scarcely with her; they were anchored in the visit to Ibn-ben-Dur. That interview stood for a wall, a division between the prosaic world of the stolid Britishers at Machiche and Delagoa Bay and the spider's web of the world of intrigue. Somehow Ibn had promptly brought to mind certain denizens of Red Lion Square. Not that there was any alliance between them —far from it. But their brains worked along similar lines. Race hadn't anything to do with it. Say you divided, humanity into two picture puzzles. Kennicott, Macintosh and their ilk would fit into one frame, while Ibn, Grat, Menck and Furman, along with Andy Fox for good measure, would take their place in the other.

Then what about himself? For the time being he was outside both pictures, self-charged with fitting the pieces together. I Ibn had not given him all he needed in the way of information, and yet had been able to cast a broad light over recent events, deep in the hinterland, of great specific interest. True, not once could he be brought to focus the beam and say with certainty, "This is your man." But that was only natural. Since no order had ever come to the banian in writing, only by word of mouth, how could he recognise the name of Morland, or as his ears would hear it, Molande? If Ibn had painted anything approaching a true picture, no Englishman could be expected to identify it, give it an English name.

CHAPTER XVI. Burning Hate. A weight, quite independent of the fatigue of the journey and the burden in his arms, began to drag down Ballard's shoulders as he felt driven to accept the fact that the Honourable Laurence Morland must be of the scum of the earth. There are a very few things a white man, provided with funds and the leader .of his own safari, cannot do in Africa.

First and foremost he must not shoot female game, secondly he may not kill human beings, thirdly he must pay for what he takes. In contrast, the range of what he can do verges on the illimitable. The intricate taboos of the African do not bind him and out of sight of the eye of his own kind—greatest of all restraining moral forces—he traverses a no-man's-land wiped clean of inhibitions.

With Morland it seemed to have taken the form of establishing him as a scourge second only to the fabled bandits of the Drakensberg passes. Though at first he had stolen no goods, he had been shrewd enough to steal an idea from some book he had read which wiped out for the time being all need for stealing anything else. What could be easier than buying a dozen wives at two pounds ten apiece?

This simple manoeuvre amounted to a stroke of genius, for immediately he must have become enlarged in the native mind as a man of great wealth, paramount head of a family and presumptive founder of a new tribe. The prerogatives were endless, but overshadowing all others was the immediate accretion of labour and followers in abundance.' Marriage wiped out pay; his women must engage in every form of basic labour for him for nothing. By ritual their relatives became his retainers. Out of them he could pick his retinue at random—porters, guides, gun-bearers, trackers and couriers—in exchange for the casual game that fell to his gun. What need he buy? Cartridges and the renewal of his shooting license—nothing else.

Out of the meagre entries In Ibn'a ledger a strange hegira had taken form. The renegade Englishman had not entered through Inhambane after all; he had come in by way of Bazaruto Island, crossed to the headwaters of the Shangani and thence downstream to its junction with the Limpopo. There something crucial must have happened; either eome disappointment had unseated his remaining reason, or the last vestige of inherited decency had crumbled under half a dozen varieties of pressure. Rotted by native drink and native women, perhaps led on by an illusion of omnipotence coupled with the urge of a drained purse, he had crossed the fatal line between debauch and baL ry.

From that moment he was doomed. He had turned' back, headed north-west, leaving behind him a broad trail of pillage and rapine. For a while the tribes he harried would be terrified because he was white, for a while the lax authorities would put off pursuit, unbelieving or so lazy the}' were willing to let the next man do it. But in the'end, a price on his head, he would surely die.

Such was the picture that had risen like a wall in Ballard's path. It forced him to scrap everything that had gone before and make a new start. It explained why he, no less than Josephine, had been grateful for the strain "of action which had prevented their coming to grips over her reaction to Laurence Morland's name. As far as he was concerned it had postponed the moment of decision. But now, with night falling and the big grey horse lagging behind through carrying double, that moment was upon him. Out «if bravado or shame or blind craving for adventure he had embarked on a torrent in the spirit of & boy going to a picnic. Without bothering to check up on the Honourable Laurence Morland he had vaguely pictured himself as a hero on the way to prevent a murder. Josephine stirred in his arms, snatching his thoughts into another channel whose rushing waters were scarcely less troubled. That trick he had played on her in Ibn-ben-Dur's scented hack room —he had not planned it, it had just happened. Aware of the tensity in her pose, upon mere impulse and more to amuse himself than with any intention of betraying her, he had interjected Morland's name. In his own manner, Ibn was honest. The name meant nothing to him; he said so and had stuck to it. But with Josephine, how different! He ioolced down at her bare head, fallen against his left shoulder, her face hidden. So here was the connecting link, the key to her little mystery—Laurence Morland. His brows, already clouded with anxiety, gathered in a tight knot. How had she known of his own destination. He revived his memories of Red 2. ion Square, mentally ticking off Lord Morland, his white-headed chauffeur and the three members of the firm, but no sooner did he conjure a vision of the goggleeyed clerk than he was conscious of light in darkness; William Jones, despairingly cracking all his gangling joints—rushing up and down between the exit to Southampton Row and the street leading to Lincoln's Inn Fields, panic-stricken. Then the arrival of the the face glimpsed within, a few hurriedly spoken words, the old man abruptly calmed. Ballard let go a whistling breath; the. face glimpsed in a taxi—Josephine! He felt proud of himself, almost wished that Andy Fox might have been present to give him a grudging ndd of approval. For the moment he did not bother with the whys and the wherefores. Why had the old clerk risked and lost his job for a few minutes 'talk with a young girl above his class? What had' been said to make her linger only until she got an identifying eyeful of himself— Ballard Mallorv —and then go tearing away before he had a chance to balance the scales ?

She moved again. This time, half smothered from drooping against his shoulder, her whole body tensed. She threw back her head and drew a Ion" revivifying breath. He thought she must be awake, but. studying her upturned face, he saw he was wron<*. even though her eyes were not quite Closed. Scarcely thinking what he did, he stooped and brushed her lips. For an instant they were warm against his, then cold. He straightened; she was awake, regarding him consciously through half-opened eyes. "Why did you do'that?" she asked, with a self-possession which made him feel as foolish as a boy caught in a melon patch.

«r t u nt know " sle muttered lnmelv. I—l thought you were asleep." Hastily to correct himself. "I mean—" "Of couuse that would make it all right,'" she interrupted. "Anything vou can steal while somebody's unconscious— With one continuous movement he raised her until she sat erect, drew her close and stopped her mouth with his. He kissed her roughly, then drew awav. hurled back not by any action of hers, but by his own astonishment. A weakness came over him so genuine ne almost let her fall, and the instinct of selfpreservation alone made her reach up quickly to seize his shoulders. For a moment they were staring into each others eyes by the light of the stars, he as confused as she seemed cool The weary horse plodded on. and came to a stop within a sudden radius of brilliance. All s voice sounded from close at band, waking him from his trance, summoning him back to a forgotten austerity. ° Tea ready, master." • • • «

When she awoke on the following morning Josephine had only a va<me recollection of having been persuaded— almost forced—to drink, bathe and eat before she went to bed. Consequently she stepped out to a scene which filled her with amazement. Gone was the nightmare of sand, wait-a-bit and cactus, while out of straggling disorder had sprung astonishing unity. Within the black shade cast by two huge cashews the camp had been set, her tent and Ballard« side by side. On her right stood the great fly, spread for a dininroom; on her left, the slanting tarpaulin of the kitchen, flanked by Jocko's boxes and his fireplace. Behind her, in a wide circle, the outposts of smouldering fires, each with its crouching group of carriers, sent up thin spirals of smoke witmn the surrounding forest. Straight ahead, just beyond the rim of shade! a sudden dip— the beginning or the end of the lovely valley of the Inhasune— earned her eyes away and away. A surge of well-being flooded her veins. »he drew a long, quivering breath, locked her hands behind her head, stretched and yawned. From his seat at the breakfast table Ballard turned to look at her and smiled. The boyish figure, clothed only in pyjamas of dark blue, tantalisingly open at the throat and with their trouser legs thrust into mosquito boots, somehow put him at his ease. Abdui stepped toward her, holding a basin in his two hands and a towel over his arm. She straddled her feet, stooped and sank her whole face into cool, clear water. She splashed, rumpled her hair and went to work on eyes, ears and neck.

"Go easy!" called Ballard. "You're not taking a bath —that comes only at night."

Nlie threw up her head, showering him with far-flung drops; her face and her eyes shone, "tireat stuff —water!" she gasped from behind the towel.

"Sure," said Ballard, "but why soak me and your pyjamas?"

"What does it matter?" she answered, striding toward him more like a boy than ever. "I'm hungry—awfully hungry. What have you got?" "Prunes, ham and eggs, biscuits and coffee. What will you have?" "All of them."

Mallory detested camp stools as he did all inventions of discomfort; instead his equipment consisted of collapsible chairs with straps for arms. In one of these Josephine now sat, her elbows planted expectantly upon the clean cloth of the table. She watched him finish the last of his coffee.

"You do yourself rather well, don't you? Good food, nice dishes, shiny tableware and clean linen," she said. "Not linen," lie corrected, "it's cotton." "Well, cotton, then. Anyway—this sort of thing—it isn't what I expected." not? The man who doesn't make himself as comfortable on safari as he would be at home is either lazv, stupid or a bungling greenhorn." _ Her breakfast began to arrive; in silence she dispatched it, course after course, came to her second cup of coffee and accepted a cigarette. "When do we have to move from this lovely placer" she asked. "I don't know yet," he answered; I m waiting for definite news. She frowned, started to say something, then changed her mind. "It's day now," she reminded him. "You ought to be working." "Don't worry. I'll get to it in time." "What work?" "Oh, there's plentv to do. Stock the larder, for instance. "You mean shoot something?" "There you go again with that nonsense," he said impatiently. "Whioh do you want to have die—the game or our safari ? A gang like this requires a ton of meat a week." about the rice we brought ?" "You're like all people who ride a humanitarian hobby; it makes them either dumb or blind. If you'd think a bit you'd realise the rice is only for emergency—rations for exactly four days." "According to you," she interjected quickly, "without a gun every native would starve." "I withdraw the word dumb," said Ballard respectfully, "but there's an answer to your clever question. Since a safari isn't a fixed village, it ha& only two ways to live: replacement* from neighbouring kraals, or game. Of the two, game is generally the easier and always a lot cheaper. In our case it happens to be obligatory." (To be continued Saturday next.)