A Pride of Lions (2 page)

“Well, I do,” I said sourly.

“Then that’s all that matters,” he said. ‘You can drive to Tsavo with me tomorrow. Mr. Doffnang is already there—” he grinned suddenly— “going slowly mad because no one understands a word he is saying to them!”

After that, Mr. Canning turned all his attention and, I have to admit it, his considerable charm, on to Kate, leaving me to my own devices and to eat my dinner in almost complete silence. If I had not disliked him so much, I might have found much of his conversation extremely interesting, as Kate did, but I was still burning with rage at his casual treatment of my qualifications to do the job I had been approved for. True, it was only an hour’s flight from Nairobi to Malindi, but I never would have come if it had not been for him, and he could have asked me quite well over the telephone whether I spoke Dutch or not. Not that I was prepared to grant that it was any of his business in the first place!

We had reached the pudding course before he spoke to me again. He had been turning the name deJong over in his mind and he suddenly realised that he had heard of my father.

“Harry deJong!” he exclaimed.

I bridled. “What of it?” I said.

“Are you Harry deJong’s daughter?” he rapped out.

I nodded mutely. What now? I wondered.

For the first time he looked at me with real interest. He smiled warmly at me, his eyes lighting up in a way that was oddly attractive. “Then you’ll be very welcome in Tsavo whether you speak Dutch or not—”

“Indeed?” I said coldly.

His smile did not falter. “Yes, indeed,” he said.

Kate was as puzzled as I was. “Why don’t you ask him?” she suggested.

I blenched. “Mr. Canning?” I swallowed.

“No, silly, your father!”

I thought about it. “I’ll ask him when next I write,” I said mildly. “Though I’m quite sure that he doesn’t know Mr. Canning from a hole in the wall! He’d have said so! I’m sure he would have mentioned it even if they had only met!”

Kate looked non-committal. “It’s odd,” she said at last. “Very odd! But I shouldn’t let it worry you, my dear. You’ll hardly see the man when you get to Tsavo—you’ll both be far too busy. I should leave it at that!”

I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter, so I did my best to forget it. This was made quite easy for me, for no sooner had I adjusted to the air-conditioning, which made a noise remarkably like the interior of a jet aeroplane, than Kate came in to my room, full of the conversation she had just had with her husband on the telephone.

“Clare, my love, he says I can go home!” she triumphed. “Oh, you don’t know how much I’ve missed him!”

I grinned. “I can guess,” I said.

She had the grace to look a trifle embarrassed. “My mother is home again and he had to agree that she was much the best person to see me through—she saw me through all the others, after all!”

From where I was lying, I could see her shape clearly outlined against the rough white wall. ‘You’ll be lucky if you get home in time!” I observed frankly.

She smiled down at herself, well satisfied with her condition. “You wait!” she gloated. “When it’s your turn, I’ll come and make rude remarks to you and you won’t care a bit!”

“Hadn’t I better find a husband first?” I suggested mildly.

Kate smiled placidly. "Perhaps this Dutchman—” she began.

“No!” I cut her off sharply.

She started and looked at me curiously. “What’s the matter with him?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Have you ever been to Holland?” I asked her. She shook her head. “It’s so small!” I rushed on. “It has everything, and the people are wonderful, but it isn’t Africa.”

“And Africa has your heart?”

I nodded. In my mind’s eye I could see the vast open spaces, the mountains, the wide rivers, the forests, the multitudes of animals, all the things that made up that intangible something that I had been born and bred to. What man could compete with that?

“That’s why I’m going to Tsavo,” I said. My voice trembled and I steadied it only with effort. “I can’t explain,” I said, “but even in Nairobi I felt half stifled. But Tsavo is the largest National Park in the world. There are miles and miles of beautiful nothingness and the animals walk free and go wherever they will! It’s a place to dream about!”

I think perhaps Kate did understand a little. She was silent for a long moment and then she said: “Oh well, rather you than me!”

I laughed. “It’s sheer bliss!” I insisted. I hesitated. “I’m glad you’re going home to Luke,” I added awkwardly.

It was her turn to be amused. “That’s certainly bliss for me!” she agreed. She got up awkwardly from her seat on the spare bed, and smiled at me very gently. “Goodnight, Clare,” she said. “And good luck!”

When she had gone, I thought about the days that were to come and hugged myself with glee. Not even Hugo Canning could spoil my pleasure in my new job. At last I was to be a part of Africa and share in the great heartbeat of the unspoilt land. It was a bit much to imagine that I should tread on soil where no man had ever trod before, but here at least no man had ploughed it, planted it, or harvested it. Here the animals, the first inhabitants, still roamed free.

It rained in the night. Because of the air-conditioning I had no idea of it until my early morning tea arrived sharp at seven o’clock. Then I slipped out of bed and stared disapprovingly at the dripping trees under a lowering, steamy sky. There was no breeze at all anywhere. I sighed, turning away from the window. It was going to be a hot, sticky day and just when I had hoped that there would be nothing to make me feel more prickly than I need be in the company of Hugo Canning.

I drank my tea slowly, mentally reviewing all that I knew of my new job. I had only visited Tsavo National Park once before. My father had taken me as a treat for passing all my exams. We had stayed at the Killaguni Lodge in Tsavo West. I remembered it well and the restaurant that is placed on the verandah overlooking the artificially made drinking areas and salt-licks. I had only to shut my eyes and I could see again the elephants coming in to drink at dusk, their huge shapes looking even bigger in the gloaming. The braver ones had come right to the edge of the verandah, waving their restless trunks across the low stone wall that was the only barrier that kept them out. Cameras had flashed and one bull elephant had trumpeted his displeasure. And then they had gone, pushing their young into the centre of a group of females for safety.

I could wish that my father was with me now as his name seemed to have some magic for Hugo Canning! But my father was busy with his own affairs. He had his farm to run and his own interests. His daughter was going to have to do as well as she could without him!

When I had finished the tea, I dressed myself in khaki trousers and an olive-coloured shirt with long sleeves, that I rolled up to just above the elbows. I thought the colour suited my well-tanned skin and sun-bleached fair hair, for my eyes had much of the same colour; they were sometimes green and sometimes brown and, sometimes, when I was in a rage, they would shine yellow like a cat’s. The eyes of a lion, my parents had laughingly told me, and I had not minded their teasing, for I had been rather proud of the fact.

The full force of the sticky heat of the day met me at the doorway of my room. I hurried down the steps and into the dining room, aware that a trickle of sweat was already sliding uncomfortably down between my shoulder blades. One or two of my fellow guests at the hotel smiled at me as I walked to my table. Of Mr. Canning there was no sign.

I helped myself to some pawpaw from the central table that was laden with fruit juices, slices of pawpaw, pineapple, mangoes, and practically every other fruit one can think of. I was just squeezing some lemon juice over the bright orange flesh of the fruit when Mr. Canning came in. He looked at me with something like approval and sat down opposite me at the same table.

“I put Kate on the early plane,” he said. “I gather Luke is meeting her in Nairobi.”

“I can’t think why he sent her down to the coast in the first place,” I answered. “They’re miserable whenever they’re separated!”

Hugo Canning grinned, “That’s how it ought to be!”

For some reason, I could feel myself blushing. “What time do you want to leave?” I asked him, to change the subject.

He glanced down at his watch. “In about half an hour? Can you be ready by then?”

I said I could be. I hadn’t even begun to pack my things and I still had my bill to pay, but nothing would have induced me to keep Hugo Canning waiting. It was a mad race to be in the hotel foyer on time. The heat was terrific and the sweat poured down my face and little rivulets under my shirt. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out, but there was no sign of the reviving breeze that normally comes in off the sea to make life bearable. By the time I had arrived, breathless, at the reception desk, I was hotter than I ever hope to be again in my life, and the cool amusement of the patiently waiting Mr. Canning did nothing to endear him to me.

He had a Toyoto Landcruiser, a tough-looking vehicle that bore the dents and scratches of a good many rides through the bush. Mr. Canning threw our baggage into one of the rear seats and me into the seat beside him.

“You’d better hang on,” he bade me. “As soon as we get out of Malindi we get to a murram surface and with all this rain we’re bound to slip around a bit.”

That, I thought, was the understatement of the day. Mr. Canning eased the Landcruiser into gear and we waved goodbye to the cheerful receptionist whose black face peered out at us through the open door. The road to Mombasa was now quite good, but we turned off almost immediately, going through some of the nearby villages with their unique houses ornamented with pieces of pottery and broken stones, stuck into the mud facing. People and animals swarmed round the market stalls, a bright chaos of colour and sound, that melted away before the oncoming vehicle.

The road fell to pieces soon after that. The red murram clay is excellent as a cheap surface material when it is dry, as it is for the majority of the time, but come the rains and it is just like driving over oil. Mr. Canning managed a great deal better than I should have done. As we slithered from side to side of the road, he pulled us neatly back into the centre without any apparent effort, keeping up a flow of small talk all the time as he did so.

We drove through fruit plantations, mangoes, oranges and lemons, and some cotton fields, and then through thickly wooded scrub that dies away into dry, silver thorn bushes, where some tall giraffes made their stately way across the road just ahead of us. About three hours after we had left Malindi we came to the first entrance to the Tsavo National Park and the
askari
in charge came running out to meet us.

He knew Mr. Canning well, as did all the game park wardens. Ramming his French-type
kepi
on to his head, he saluted smartly and invited us into his office. Mr. Canning went round to the back of the Landcruiser and opened a bottle of fizzy orangeade for all of us and we stood, leaning against the decorative wrought-iron rhinoceroses on the gates while we drank it. It was deliciously cool, straight out of the ice-box, and some of the heat and weariness from the long drive fell from me as I listened to the two men gossiping about the latest movements inside the Park.

“Are you going to Aruba?” the
askari
asked Mr. Canning.

“I thought we might stop off there for lunch,” he answered.

The African shook his head sadly. “They say the Hons have moved there and that they are hungry,” he said.

Mr. Canning was immediately interested. “How many?” he demanded.

But the
askari
didn’t know. He had heard that there were as many as twelve, and some said even more. “It is the Old Man amongst them. This one is not content with a few wives to hunt for him.”

“But surely, if he’s old—” I said.

Hugo Canning laughed. “It’s the old story of the dominant male!” he teased me. “This one has the cunning of all his kind. I saw him once, a handsome beast, unscarred by any battles. Even the other males are moving in under his protection, bringing their families to feed their young properly, and then we shall have trouble.”

“But the more there are in a pride, surely the more there are to go hunting?” I suggested.

“That’s true, up to a point,” he agreed. “The lion pride is the best adapted hunting system there is in the animal world. It’s run by the male, who usually hunts in the centre of the line, making the females hunt the animals across him. From that position, he can organise everything that’s going on. But he rarely kills himself. He leaves that to the female. But as soon as the prey is dead, it’s he who eats first, then the other males, then the females, and last of all the young. When the pride gets too big, by the time the adults have fed there’s nothing left for the young and they starve to death. No fully gorged adult is going to kill again, even for her own kittens.”

I knew that such dominance was necessary in the lion’s social life, but my heart bled for the hungry young that came last to the feast.

“And is twelve too many?” I asked quickly.

“It can be,” he said.

The
askari
finished his orangeade with a flourish and opened the gates to let the Landcruiser through. “You will find them by the Aruba dam,” he said certainly. “Yesterday there was a dead buffalo in the water, killed by lions, and Dedan has seen their spore nearby. He told me, when he came for your letters.”