Back in early February, we did the memorial game for Gareth, our club friend who tragically died on Boxing day last year. In memoriam
He so wanted to do another Safari game, to which end I had invested in some animals to extend Phil's lovely collection. Sadly, I only finished basing them almost to the hour when Gareth passed away.
So, we did this in his memory, Its a while being posted, but Phil wanted to get the write up just right....so over to Phil!...
(Phil is the one kicking the invisible football!)
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Chapter 3.
I remember we made an uncharacteristically subdued little group, standing on the rough timber wharf of Randini
Of late, our circle of acquaintance had been greatly enlivened by the occasional visits of a young chap whose pater held the diocese at Dorke’s Rift. On his most recent trip upriver, it came out in conversation that our young friend had never been out on safari. Of course, we protested, this would not do at all, and must be remedied forthwith. Over the course of the weeks, drunken promises became sober plans, arrangements were made and dates were set.
However, the long-prowed makoro which glided out of the mist that appointed morning bore no trace of our friend – only a sombre ferryman who wordlessly handed us a note:
“Fate has intervened, and I am called away. Bound for parts unknown – wish me luck!”
We asked the venerable boatman to elaborate, but no dialect in our repertoire elicited any spoken response. He merely gestured downstream, as if the quietly flowing river held some answer. I gave the ferryman a coin for his trouble, and we watched him and his craft fade into the distance.
Despite the breezy tone of the note, we couldn't help but harbour some doubt. Our friend had not been in the best of health, although it goes without saying that he bore his troubles so lightly you wouldn't have guessed. O’Balsam dutifully produced one of his hip flasks (left hip, the good stuff) and we greeted the golden African dawn with a toast to our absent friend – an adventurous young chap, bound for parts unknown.
So there we were – O’Balsam, still gently swaying from last night’s wretched degeneracy – the flinty-eyed Van Leerdammer, as inscrutable as ever - and your faithful correspondent. It wouldn't have been easy to summarize my emotions at that moment, but not being French or some sort of flouncing nancy-boy, I didn't try.
We had a safari ready to depart, a magnificent sunlit vista ahead of us and whatever our worries, we were sure to feel better once we’d shot something!
The architect of this, our most ambitious folly to date, was that irascible Boer, Toastie Van Leerdammer. He had promised to guide us to a location unknown to all but himself. The best clue as to the distances involved was that he himself insisted on travelling astride a mule – a leathery, sway-backed creature which looked as if an amorous wildebeest had made merry in the holding pen of a glue factory. I told him straight out that I doubted the benefits of such an ill-tempered and uncomfortable mount and he replied that if everything went to hell in a handbasket, mule made better eating than one of the porters. Given the amount of expeditions Van Leerdammer had returned from as sole survivor, I did not question further. Leading the mule and carrying the Boer’s well-used ’91 Mauser was a remarkably blue-eyed Masai lad, all of ten years old, with a commendable grasp of Afrikaans. (You know, conventional wisdom says the Boer have a harsh view of the native peoples, but Van Leerdammer positively doted on that young chap.)
Misadventure and sheer dumb luck had by now transformed Albert O’Balsam into a half-way decent safari manager, and he had learnt that it paid to engage a better class of askari. This meant that our little column was protected by a handful of competent fellows with breech-loaders, who could be left alone for five minutes without wandering off. In the past, I had been as amused as anyone by the sight of O’Balsam, crimson-faced and sweating, running around herding the bearers like a human sheepdog while swearing fluently in English, Gaelic and Swahili.
I myself was glad to see the back of Randini for a while – in the midst, as it was, of its annual baboon infestation, when I – like anyone who could handle a gun without blowing their own toes off – could expect incessant knocks on the door from (a) people wanting me to deal with some godawful baboon-related situation or (b) baboons who’d got the hang of knocking on doors.
I shall spare the reader the details of our week-long march, save to say that under Van Leerdammer’s guidance and O’Balsam’s new-found organizational competence we made excellent progress, pausing only briefly to shoot for the pot.
Not my cup of tea at all.
It was in the very depths of the forest that our attention was drawn to a sinuous motion in the undergrowth.
It was almost as if the serpent understood heavily-accented English. It coiled to strike, jaws stretched wide… just in time to receive a generous handful of buck-and-ball, right through the brainpan. Never doubted it for a moment, of course!.
He explained that he had first taken refuge there during the dark days of ‘01-‘02. Now, Toastie did have something of a reputation as a ‘Bitter-ender’, but the way he told it he, and many like him, had been in an impossible situation. He’d no strong feelings one way or the other towards either British rule or
One day, he crossed paths with a Samburu raiding party intent on carrying off a young Masai woman. Some brisk work with his Mauser left him with a bruised shoulder, a handful of pacified Samburu, and a rescued captive who, in her gratitude, had led him to this secluded spot.
A sluggish creek watered the vale, so shallow it failed to cover the scaly backs of numerous basking crocodiles. On either side, gently sloping grassland was thickly covered with antelope, wildebeest and zebra.
Van Leerdammer explained that because the depression was so low-lying, there was always ground water, and so there was always game, even in the dry season. It was here he’d seen out the end of hostilities, in bucolic seclusion with his paramour, until she’d left him for a passing herdsman who had, Van Leerdammer admitted, enough cattle to turn any right-thinking Masai maiden’s head.
Taking my Westley-Richards .470 double rifle, I edged slowly to the treeline.
As mistakes go, I would rank this second only to opening the front door to a troupe of baboons.
Taking advantage of the treeline’s shade whilst stuffing half a tree in his cake-hole was a splendid young adult bull elephant. Now, there are those who favour a sociable luncheon, with company dropping in and so forth. And there are those who set great store on dining privately and without interruption. Evidently jumbo was of the latter persuasion, because the sight of a law-abiding Englishman minding his own heavily-armed business set him off good and proper. He came at me like a coal-wagon down a steep flight of stairs (Vienna
More fool him, I thought, and emptied my second barrel through his right eye. There was no mistaking the effect this time, and he toppled over like a portly duchess off a hotel balcony. (also
“Hang about…” (I hear you protest) “Didn’t exactly the same thing happen last time out? Pull the other one, Sterling
Well, it’s gospel. I couldn’t fault anyone for finding their credence stretched, but there it is: for the second trip running, your humble correspondent found himself the intended filling in a pachyderm sandwich. I swear, if I only ever shot animals which attacked me, I’d still come back with plenty to show for it. On this occasion, the combined musketry of the safari had felled the charging rhino no more than an arm’s length from me. All I knew of the matter was a blast of hot breath on the back of my neck. Hello, I thought, it’s Toastie’s Masai strumpet. (Tropical heat and tales of romantic interlude do a heady mixture make!)
With both beasts dispatched, you’d think I’d earned at least a moment’s repose to collect myself. But cries of consternation from the bearers signalled that such was not to be the case. O’Balsam had set them to removing the ivory from the fallen tusker, but the boys had discovered to their alarm, that a hunting party of lions had spotted the carcass, and decided to contest ownership!
It is at this point that the sensible-minded reader who has, after all, picked up an account of big-game hunting in Africa , would have every right to expect an erudite passage on that very subject. And believe me, as a keen exponent of big-game hunting in Africa, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to write such an account, going into extensive detail on such topics as stalking techniques, windage and elevation, the correct use of a drop-cloth and the relative merits of the cock-on-opening as opposed to the cock-on-closing bolt action mechanisms....
Suffice to say, I bagged a zebra with a single well aimed shot!
I directed O’Balsam to get the bearers safely out of sight, and to establish a firing line on the edge of the jungle. He hopped to it “all Sir Garnet”, and it occurred to me – not for the first time – that one of his Majesty’s regiments somewhere had gap in the ranks and a name (probably false) listed as Absent, Without Leave.
Coming into view over the crest of the depression was a section of our local champions of the Pax Britannica: the Randini & District Mounted Constabulary.
(It should be noted that this august body does not possess a single horse, and –outside of suspiciously inexpensive meat rations - never has. Rumour has it that they came by their equestrian nomenclature in an attempt to secure enough funding to establish a cavalry battalion, actually establishing an infantry battalion, and looking all innocent when the District Commissioner enquired as to the whereabouts of the monetary difference between the two. I’m not complaining. I was once down on their books as ‘Vetinary Officer, reserve’ at a stipend of two guineas per annum, and may still be so, as far as I know. )
The askaris paused in their flight, and performed a fair approximation of an open-order firing line facing back the way they’d come, giving fire as a second section retreated through their ranks. They repeated the process, while behind them the skyline darkened with a dense crowd of charging native spearmen! Their ostrich-feathered headdresses marked them as Samburu warriors in full fighting rig. The reputation of the Samburu is overshadowed by their more famous neighbours, the Masai – but out on the frontier they’re known to be almost as tough and a good deal less predictable! Anyway, even if they’d been the Cheltenham Ladies Temperance Association, there were more than enough of the beggars to overwhelm the retreating askaris.
Quite apart from anything else, he was one of those chaps who has a surname for a Christian name, and a Christian name for a surname. For some reason, this always gets my back up – just one of those things.
Anyway, to return to the course of events: Van Leerdammer volunteered to intercept Percy and guide him to our positions. I agreed, warning the Boer to be careful the damn’ fool didn't shoot him by accident, and headed for the treeline myself.
As we took stock and dressed the ranks, Toastie came in at
the trot, wearing an expression dangerously close to an actual smile. Iaske
O’balsam if he’d ever been a sergeant, and he said; “Sev’ral toimes, Sor,
sev’ral toimes.” I told him he’d done a bang-up job, and he replied; “Sure,
‘twas easy as teachin’ baboons tae knock on doors, Sor”.
Percy expanded on his explanation: it transpired that a
Samburu hunting party, formed to rid the Um Bongo river valley of a
particularly large and troublesome pride of lions, had located their quarry and
were engaged in the hunt, when they were, it is alleged, ambushed without
provocation by white hunters.
Well. Here’s the
thing, gentle reader. This was not the first time I had inadvertently started a
war*. Well, perhaps it was the first
time I’d inadvertently started a war,
since I was being paid for the whole Ashanti
Being IN a war, however – a war which nobody suspects you
of starting, with nobody looking at you funny like it’s all your fault and
reading you the riot act – that’s another case of yam gin entirely. Life under canvas, reveille at six, a good
sharp skirmish, and home for tea and medals.
Beats clearing soapy baboons out of Chandi Patel’s bath-house at two-bob
per monkey, that’s for sure. And you’re off to a flyer if you’re the Man Who
Saved the Lost Patrol, what?
(Although, when I said this, Percy piped up that the
patrol wasn’t technically ‘lost’ on account of how he knew exactly where they
were, which just goes to show that in addition to having a stupid name, the
man’s got no sense of poetry, dammit.)
So back it was to blush modestly at the attention, with
the prospect of a good bloody war in the offing, and the less said about the
circumstances the better. Advice for life, that is.
Strangest thing, though; the youngster whose intention to
go on safari started this whole adventure? Years later, I heard from old
Raymond (who became something called an ‘Air Commodore’ whatever that is, in
the Big Show) that our young friend was last seen flying a Sopwith Camel over Flanders in
’17.
You can’t keep a good man down.
*Publishers note:
this statement has given rise to much debate among historians of the early 20th
century. It is beyond the remit of this publication to even begin to unravel
the tangled threads of competing theories concerning to what extent Moustache
was responsible – if that is indeed the appropriate term – for exactly what
hostilities. However, the following should be borne in mind when considering
the Colonel’s choice of words:
1:Technicality:
the ‘Pioneer Column’ debacle wasn’t generally referred to as a ‘War’.
2: Moustache was writing
in 1912, long before the extent of his involvement in the Malaboch War had come
to light.
3: Given that his
part in the affair occurred whilst, by his own admission, ‘magnificently
drunk’, it is unlikely Moustache ever realised the role he played in the
Bambatha Rebellion.
