A Pride of Lions (3 page)

Mr. Canning smiled and thanked him. “We’ll go and take a look while we’re having lunch,” he said.

And so it was on a note of some excitement that we entered the Park, driving at a great pace down the freshly cleared dirt track towards Aruba.

CHAPTER TWO

The rains from the coast had not yet reached Tsavo. Dust clung to the leaves of the plants which were themselves burned brown by the relentless sun. Behind us, as we travelled along the road, a cloud of dust billowed out adding a thick coating that lay over everything. Above was the fiery globe of the sun, beating down on the canvas and metal roof of the Landcruiser. There was no wind at all.

Travelling along the road, there were few animals to be seen. The heat had driven them to find what shade they could. Thin elephants, red with dust, huddled together under the shade of a tree, flapping their large ears to fan their neighbours and to keep the insects away, but otherwise I saw nothing more than the occasional buck fleeing away from the approaching vehicle.

I wound down the window beside me as far as it would go, enjoying the hot wind generated by the movement of the car.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Mr. Canning.

“I’m afraid it’s a sticky kind of day,” he answered. “I’d like to tell you that it will be cooler at Aruba when we stop for lunch, but I’m afraid it won’t be!”

I smiled reluctantly. “It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly.

“I imagine the rain is on its way,” he went on. “Sometimes one can almost feel the clouds gathering.”

He was right when he said it would be no cooler at Aruba. The roads in Tsavo have beautifully made roundabouts at all the intersections, on which are written the various places of interest and the mileage from where one is. At one of these, we turned off on to a different road and came immediately to the artificial lake with its well built dam and the permanent camping site that is available to visitors. We rattled our way across the cattle barrier that effectively kept the wild animals out of the enclosure and came to a stop under a tall, spreading tree.

“Would you like to go and sit in the shade?” Mr. Canning suggested. “I’ll bring the lunches over.”

I went over to where he had pointed, where a lattice-roofed verandah hung on to the side of the main building, where there was a shop, some toilets, and an office where one could hire bedding if one was staying the night. There was a table and a few chairs carefully placed to be in the maximum shade from the creepers that spread over the lattice work. It was a charming place. At one time a few mud huts had provided the only shelter, but these had now been taken away and replaced by square brick shelters that provided everything the camper could possibly need. Beyond lay the lake where the animals came in every evening to drink. I screwed up my eyes to see if

there was anything there now, but only a few wart-hogs were dashing hither and thither, their tails raised high over their backs. Of the lions there was no sign.

Mr. Canning strolled over to the edge of the compound, his hands in his pockets. For a long moment he stared out across the lake, then he turned and came slowly back to the Landcruiser and brought the two lunch-boxes over to where I was sitting.

“Are they there?” I asked him.

He looked at me almost sternly. “I think so,” he grunted. “I’ll take a closer look in a minute.”

I was pleased. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than a couple of lions at one time,” I confided. “I can hardly wait!”

“You’d better get your camera ready!” he snorted.

I wasn’t in the least put out. “It may be every day to you, living here,” I retorted, “but for me it’s a whole new world!”

He opened his lunch-box, flicking back the lid with his forefinger and studying the contents with all the gravity of a judge. “With Harry deJong as your father?” he drawled.

I nearly dropped the egg I was eating. “He’s a farmer,” I burst out.

“I know,” he said calmly.

“Well then,” I went on, “cattle and sheep are about the only animals he knows anything about.”

“That’s all you know!” Mr. Canning told me. I waited for him to go on, but he merely sat there, eating his sandwiches with an abstracted air.

“So?” I prompted him.

He was plainly surprised by my interest. “It was some story that someone once told me,” he said mildly. “I remembered the name, that’s all.”

“That’s all!”
I repeated. “Mr. Canning—”

‘You’d better call me Hugo,” he grinned at me.

I swallowed. “Don’t you know that you’ve had Kate and me at fever pitch of curiosity ever since you first asked me if Harry deJong is my father?”

He looked amused. “Of course,” he answered calmly. “Well, then?”

“It probably happened before you were born,” he teased me. He laughed openly at the mutinous expression on my face. “I should have thought you would have known! It was when all the farmers were driving all the wild animals off their land up your way. It was Harry deJong who realised that it was the elephants who made the drinking places for all the other animals in dry weather. They chum up the dry river beds, making waterholes. Without them, he would have had to lay on water for all his cattle. So he took a couple of men with him and turned a small herd of elephants back on to his farm at the foot of the escarpment. It was one of the first examples of practical ecology I ever heard about.”

I couldn’t help wondering why it was that I had never heard about it, but I had never heard my father even mention such an adventure.

“Was that really enough to change your mind about me?” I asked, astonished.

“Not entirely,” he said in a voice that brooked no further questions. He picked up his field-glasses, leaned back in his chair, and casually observed the dam behind the lake. “They’re there all right,” he said at last. “Want to have a look?”

I accepted the binoculars eagerly, wondering at my own excitement. I had to adjust the lens to fit my eyes, but as the vision cleared I caught sight of something moving and leaned forward with a small gasp of emotion. “There are
lots
of them!” I exclaimed.

“Mmm. We’ll find out exactly how many afterwards.”

“I don’t believe there can be as many as twelve, though,” I observed.

Hugo shrugged. “You can’t possibly tell from here,” he rebuked me. “Hurry up and finish your lunch. I want to get going.”

I swallowed down the last of the cake from my box and began to peel the small orange that was still inside. The thin skin was bright green and there were almost as many pips as there was fruit inside, but it was sweet and full of flavour and I had no intention of hurrying over my enjoyment of it.

Hugo watched me with increasing impatience. I pretended not to notice, but it wasn’t easy, for I was aware of his every movement. He was that kind of man. When at last I had finished, he was already on his feet, pulling the safari hat he wore down over his eyes against the glare. I plonked my own cloth hat on the back of my head and retreated behind enormous dark glasses that I had bought in a highly fashionable boutique in Nairobi.

“My word!” said Hugo.

I grinned. “They’re the last word, aren’t they?” I said.

“The bitter end!” he retorted.

Undismayed, I screwed up the now empty lunch-boxes and stowed them away in the trash bin. A blue-necked lizard froze on the wall beside me. I looked at it with interest, noting the green, gold, and bright yellow colouring that marked its back. Then, with a sudden scurry, it was gone. I could feel Hugo’s eyes on the back of my neck and, with a sigh, I made my way back to the Landcruiser and climbed into the front seat.

“Ready?” Hugo asked with a touch of sarcasm.

I maintained a dignified silence, which was ruined only by the fact that he didn’t appear to notice. We started off with a sudden jolt and my dark glasses slipped down my nose. I thought that Hugo smiled, but if he did, he quickly suppressed it, and I busied myself with waving goodbye to the three or four wardens who sat gossiping in the shade. They waved lazily back, hardly moving a muscle.

“Why didn’t you ask them about the lions?” I asked suddenly.

He looked a trifle embarrassed. “I thought we might as well have a look for ourselves,” he muttered.

I thought about it for a moment. “Good idea!” I said.

We exchanged triumphant glances and I thought with a sense of shock, This is Hugo Canning! But I didn’t freeze with fright as I would have done that morning and I was quite worried that I didn’t. If things went on like this, I would end up by
liking
Hugo.

He drove straight down to the lake. The family of warthogs moved away in a flurry of indignation, slipping and sliding through the mud. A dead buffalo had been dragged half into the water, the stink from its decaying body filling the air.

“Did the lions do that?” I asked, awed. It was the first time I had ever been only a few feet away from a buffalo and I was disconcerted by its size. From a distance they looked so very like the domestic cattle they are so like, except for the thick spread of their horns across their foreheads, that I had imagined them to be very much the same size. But this beast was enormous.

Hugo cast an indifferent look over the stinking carcass. “It was killed by lions all right,” he confirmed.

“Oh,” I muttered inadequately.

“What’s the matter? Shocked?” he pressed me.

“N-no,” I said. But I was not so sure. There was something shocking about the death of the great beast, brought low by what must have been a savage attack and a rather horrid end.

“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he comforted me. “Things that are natural seldom are. We had a warden who was taken by a lion and who later escaped. He said he wasn’t even frightened at the time. He felt quite indifferent—”

“I don’t believe it!” I burst out.

“You can,” he assured me. “The warden in question is a truthful man.”

There is no arguing in the face of certainty, so I swallowed my doubts and turned my attention to other matters. There is a certain distinction in being the first to spot any animal for which one is looking, and I was determined that, as far as these lions were concerned, it would be I who saw them first.

I was not disappointed. As my eyes swept the green belt that surrounded the dam, a lioness stretched herself lazily and flopped down again in the shade of her chosen tree.

“There!” I exclaimed with barely concealed excitement.

Hugo’s quick eyes followed where I was pointing. “One, two, three of them there. Can you see any more? I think we’d better go closer. Hold on!”

Despite the warning I had difficulty in holding on to my seat as we lurched off the track and mounted the wall of the dam itself, so that we could look down on the family of lions below.

They were sleepy in the hot sun and quite uninterested in anything that we might do. Panting, to keep themselves cool, they watched us blandly through eyes that were really very like my own. Several of the still-spotted kittens were idly playing with each others’ paws a little way away from their proud parents. At our first rough count there were about five kittens and three lionesses in the group, but there were no males to be seen.

Hugo revved the engine and we crept forward a few feet. The lions flicked their ears and stared, but made no motion to move away from us.

“There’s one!” Hugo said suddenly and we careered along the top of the dam for another few yards, coming to an abrupt stop about ten feet away from the largest, most beautiful male lion I had ever seen. He lay, stretched out, beneath a scrubby tree, his head lifted slightly by a soft tuft of grass. He didn’t even bother to look up at our approach. It was the king who slept and it felt very like
lese-majeste
even to be watching him.

Hugo emitted a low whistle of admiration. “That’s him!” he whispered. “No wonder his pride is a large one!”

“He is rather splendid,” I agreed.

“His own kind seem to think so anyway,” Hugo said, rather smugly, I thought. He began to count again in earnest, a look of concern crossing his face. “I make it twelve in all,” he said at last.

I nodded. “Twelve,” I agreed. “But that isn’t overlarge, is it?” I added anxiously.

“I’d prefer it if there were only seven of them,” he answered lightly. “Oh well, we don’t have to worry about it now. Let’s be getting on!”

He turned the Landcruiser in a single sweep and we drove back, past the lake, away from Aruba and towards Voi. With the end of the excitement of seeing the lions, the heat seemed to come back in waves of increasing intensity. I would have liked to have slept, but the motion of the car made this impossible. The road was endless and we would never get there, I thought. But then, quite suddenly, we came to another park gate and Hugo brought the Landcruiser to a stop and leaped out of his seat to greet the
askari
in charge. A few seconds later, we had left the Reserve and were travelling fast along the metal road that runs all the way from Mombasa to Nairobi.

“Where are we going?” I asked indignantly, cross that I had not been consulted over what I took to be a change in our plans.

“It’s quicker this way,” he said, unperturbed.