A Pride of Lions (13 page)

“Oh yes!” he answered. “Mr. Canning did a good job. It’s a nice clean wound that won’t take long to heal. Miss deJong is young and healthy—”

“And cross?” Janice drawled. “You don’t want to pay any attention to her, doctor. Mr. Canning is more than kind to both of us. He couldn’t be kinder if we were his sisters!”

Seeing the surprised look on the doctor’s face, I could have killed her there and then, but there was nothing to do except grin and bear the sudden look of solicitude the doctor gave me. I could almost hear him thinking,
So it’s like that!

“Speak for yourself!” I growled at Janice. “I can very well do without Mr. Canning’s
brotherly
concern!”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Clare!” she exclaimed.

I blushed. “I think I’m going to sleep,” I said defensively. “Goodnight, all.”

The doctor patted my hand comfortingly. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said tactfully. “I’m sure Miss Kemp will have some food sent up to you if you’re hungry. Goodnight.”

I was more than hungry, I was starving! I remembered with a new sense of grievance that I had had nothing more than a Fanta since breakfast time.

“Oh, Janice, could you?” I asked her, as soon as the doctor had gone. “Do you mind going in to the dining room on your own?” I added. “I could get up and come with you, if you like?” “I don’t like!” she flashed back. “If you think I want your putty-coloured face looking at me over the dinner table—” She broke off. “Oh,
Clare!
Hugo Canning will hurt you badly if you let him! ”

I nodded gravely. “I know,” I admitted wearily.

“Well then?” she prompted me.

“Well nothing!” I said flatly. “Nothing looks particularly well to me just now!”

“Are you in
love
with Hugo?” she asked me gently.

I shrugged, and winced away from the pain in my arm. “Does it matter?”

Tears welled up into her eyes. “I feel sorry for you!” she exclaimed. “I know how unkind Hugo can be! Especially when he knows he has an advantage over one. Oh,
Clare
! He doesn’t care how miserable he makes one feel!”

I stared at her. “Probably not,” I said dryly.

“Believe me,” she said, “I
know!”

I wondered if she really did. I shrugged again and uttered a yelp of pain. I never learn anything easily.

“Janice, I’m
starving,”
I said as casually as I could.
“Please,
could you go and eat?”

“Oh, all right,” she said ungraciously. “But I do think someone ought to warn you—”

“Everybody
has warned me,” I told her in a voice I scarcely recognised as my own. “Kate Freeman warned me, you warned me, even Katundi, in his own way, warned me! I just wish you’d all leave me alone!”

Janice looked hurt. “Very well, if that’s what you want, but don’t blame me when you get hurt!”

“I won’t,” I promised.
“If
I get hurt.”

She gave me a look that withered the small burgeoning hope that had been within me ever since Hugo had kissed me. “You’re a nice girl, Clare—”

“And Hugo isn’t nice?”

She hesitated. “I wouldn’t say that ” she said at last. “But it isn’t the first description of him that comes to my mind!” She shut the door with a sharp click behind her and I sighed with relief at her going. I felt decidedly ill and sore, and
wretched! Nice
wasn’t the first description of Hugo that came

to my mind either. I could think of others that made my heart thump and took my breath away. The blood of my ancestors had often been at war in my veins, but now both Boer and English clamoured to be heard and to answer Hugo’s lightest touch. It was a humiliation that I wasn’t prepared to tolerate. I’d show him, I thought with gritted teeth. I’d show him! I was every bit as free as he! And every bit as proud! If he could kiss and walk away, why, so could I! And if I had any doubts about the matter, I’d never, never let him see. In a long history, no deJong had ever been accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy!

There was no sign of the enemy the next day. It was, on the contrary, a very happy day, and I was pleased to discover that my worst fears had not been realised: I was still able to enjoy all sorts of things without any memory of Hugo even crossing my mind.

To begin with, it was a lovely day. The sunshine came slowly, dispelling the grey clouds of the night with slanting pillars of light that diffused into full sunlight, leaving only the white, fluffy clouds that were always hanging round the horizon or chasing one another in the thermal winds that came and went across the plains.

The doctor came and went early, pronouncing that the wound in my arm had completely stopped bleeding and was already beginning to heal.

“It won’t be any hardship to you to sit around here for a day, will it?” he teased me. “Tomorrow, we shall see about your going back to camp!”

I thanked him, well pleased with his prescription. I had never been anywhere more beautiful than this fantastic hotel and I was more than content to sit on one of the comfortable chairs, under cover and yet in the open, much like being on a terrace, watching the olive baboons climbing up and down the rock face just below us, playing with their young, and grooming one another with that intensity of purpose they share with all the monkey family.

Katundi came in with Janice to have a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning. We fell naturally into speaking Swahili because of his presence, which put Janice at a disadvantage, for

she didn’t speak it at all well.

“You look better,
mama,’’
Katundi told me.

I grinned at him. “I feel better! It will be quite a come down to go back to work tomorrow!”

Katundi’s eyes glowed. He was well aware that he too was getting a holiday out of my misadventure. “It would be perfect if the Bwana were here,” he said slyly.

“That’s part of the rest cure!” I retorted.

But nothing would persuade Katundi that I was serious. “Have you seen many animals today?” he asked me, jerking his head towards the waterholes below us.

“There was a hartebeeste just now,” I said. “And warthogs galore, and the baboons that seem to live here.”

“Last night some rhino came,” he told me.

I leaned forward, interested. “Perhaps they will again tonight!”

He gave the long grunt that all Africans use to show that they are still in the conversation even if they have nothing at that particular moment to say. And I answered it with my own “Ayeeh,” as was only polite.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Janice.

“Look!” Katundi breathed, his eyes widening. “Look, now!”

“What is it?” I asked him carelessly, turning to where he pointed.

“Duma!"
he exclaimed.

“It’s a leopard!” Janice shrieked, jumping up and down in her chair.

“It’s a cheetah,” I said slowly. “It’s too big to be a leopard. Isn’t it splendid?”

“I envy it its coat!” Janice murmured.

There was a short, horrified silence. “How could you?” I demanded hotly. “How could you?”

“Easily,” Janice assured me, laughing. “Be honest! Wouldn’t you love to have a coat like that?”

“No!” I said shortly.

“You’re too good to be true!” she retorted sharply.

“I’m not!” I stormed back, equally angry. I could have wept with sheer indignation on the animals’ behalf. “It’s because of you that they’re dying out!”

“Hardly me personally,” she said reasonably. “I couldn’t afford so much as a fur stole!”

“Good!”

Janice gave me a curious look. “I can’t think why you get so steamed up about it,” she remarked. “I should think this country must have made a good thing from selling skins to the markets of the world.”

“How can you say so? Only the poachers make any money! It would be a tragedy if these animals were to cease to exist! Who would come to a place like this then?”

“Other countries find other reasons for tourists,” Janice argued.

“But tourism is the second largest feature of the whole economy here,” I pointed out. “What else would they come for?”

But Janice was already bored by the whole conversation. “What earns the most money?” she asked with a total lack of interest.

“Coffee,” I said.

Katundi handed me the binoculars he had been using. “Look!” he begged me. “I have never seen a larger or a better marked cheetah than this one!”

I trained the lens in on the cheetah, marvelling at the way its shoulders swelled as it leaned forward to drink. All cats have much the same movements when they move, but with the bigger cats their feline grace seems the more remarkable. Not that the cheetah is a true cat in every way. They alone are unable to retract their claws, but have paws more like a dog’s. It is this that gives them their speed, for they are the fastest of all animals and can go for short periods as fast as sixty miles an hour.

The cheetah looked from left to right, stared up at the Lodge for a long moment, so that through the binoculars it looked as if it were looking straight at me, and then disappeared into the brush. So good was the camouflage of its spots that almost immediately I lost sight of it, and the rest of the animal world, that had been holding their breath while it had been there, came back to life in a sudden cacophony of sound.

At dinner that evening there was a cool breeze blowing in from the plains. It was heavy with the smell of elephant and I knew that they were very close to us. The four-ton animals came and went, making way for the two-ton rhinos who followed them closely. These were the black rhino, with their prehensile upper lip. Watching them in the lights from the hotel, I was interested to see confirmed what I had been told in the stories of my childhood, that the rhinoceros will break up his own dung and, if short of certain minerals, will even eat it. The Africans in Kenya say that it is out of respect for the elephants who resent finding dung as large as their own on the ground. Further south, they say that the rhino is always searching for the precious needle, given him by the gods to sew his armoured skin together, and long since lost.

That night I had a bath. It was bliss. After it, I slept like a log all night.

The jolting of the Landcruiser over the rough ground didn’t do my arm any good at all. Katundi drove as carefully as he could, easing right down when we came to the places where the rains had washed away the surfacing of the roughly made roads, leaving only the hardcore underneath and a mass of tangled weeds taking their short opportunity for life.

The dikdiks fled from before our path, leaping into the bush, their shy faces peering over their shoulders at us from the safety of the undergrowth. Otherwise there were few animals to be seen. I allowed my eyes to comb the land all about us, but there was little to see, except the silver wrecks of the elephant-mauled trees and the red termite heaps that spread over the area like a rash.

It was a relief when we reached the short track of good road before we re-entered the Park and made our way to the camp. It was queer that it had become so dear and familiar to me when it was only a few days since I had first seen it. Now, despite an aching arm and the weary consciousness that my job was to help Mr. Doffnang and not to catch poachers, it seemed like home.

The whole camp had come along the bank of the river to greet us. They stood and watched as we slithered into the water and crossed by the devious path that would allow the vehicle to find enough grip to press forward through the brown, muddy waters. There was a faint cheer of satisfaction as we gained the other side, muted as their black faces watched mine closely to see if I were still feeling any pain. In their midst stood Mr. Doffnang, his round flat face as cheerful as theirs.

“Are you well,
meisje
?”

I smiled at him. “Well enough,” I said. But I could not deceive him. The long drive had hurt me more than I knew. My face was grey, where it had not been reddened by the dust, and there were dark circles beneath my eyes.

“It seems to me that they have not been looking after you,” he said crossly.

“Everyone was very kind,” I insisted.

His blue eyes flashed in Janice’s direction.
“She
was kind?” he mocked.

“Very kind!” I snapped back.

He looked surprised. “She was? She wasn’t pleased that Hugo should take you with him. You know that?”

“
Ja
,” I said briefly.

“Then why should she be kind—?”

Unwilling to continue this conversation, I changed the subject abruptly. “Have you managed to do anything about the road?” I asked him.

He nodded slowly. “We’ve made good progress today,” he said. He gave me a peculiar look. “I think you should go straight to your bed,” he suggested.

It was an attractive idea. Janice came to my tent and changed the dressings for me. Her hands were surprisingly gentle and efficient, just as she had been all along.

“What was the Dutchman saying about me?” she asked, as she re-bandaged my arm.