Читать книгу To hell and gone - C. Johan Bakkes - Страница 18

Justice always prevails

“Bruce, don’t you think it’s time for bed?” The words came softly, guardedly, from one of the tents.

We had built a huge fire. Piet and I gave each other knowing glances. There were two reasons why Bruce, seated at the fire with us, could not go to bed at that moment. Firstly, he was so smashed that he could not get up. Secondly, a pack of hyenas were snuffling around in the space between the fire and the tents . . .

I had known Bruce longer than I knew Piet, my safari partner. In fact, Bruce and I had studied together – the hard way. He was an attorney’s clerk, and I worked for a firm of auditors. In the evenings we studied extramurally at Tukkies, trying to get our papers. There was really no time for play – it was working and swotting, working and swotting. “But one day . . .” the two of us had vowed. When we did manage to break away a little, it was difficult. He was married and I was trying to court my girl. Eventually his marriage bit the dust, while I was still trying to court my girl.

Piet and I, armed with spades and burning embers, were trying to keep the hyenas away from the tents. We realised it was going to be a struggle to get Bruce to his tent. All the clients were in bed; he was the only one who had stubbornly refused to retire to the apparent safety of the tent he shared with Ina.

Ina, pretty as a picture and stylish, who had rescued him from the chaos of our survivor’s existence of those days. Established in her profession, she gently put him back on track. Perhaps Bruce had been reluctant to expose Ina to our unnatural lifestyle, because I never really got to know her. Until the day that I had said: “I’m taking a group of clients to Botswana. Do you want to come along?”

We had finished our studies. Professionally qualified, each had gone his own way. My career had unravelled. The bush had always attracted me. Induku Safaris was an excuse for Piet and me to venture into the wild. We preferred doing it the hard way. Open trucks, tents, clients who cooked for themselves and helped pitch camp. If we got stuck, or had a flat tyre, everyone pitched in. “Africa is not for sissies,” was our motto. That was why I was somewhat surprised to see Ina at our departure, clad in a loose-fitting white trouser suit, high heels, straw hat and scarf, and dragging along a trolley case.

“Bliksem, Bruce,” I pulled him aside. “Did you at least pack some goggles for her? I told you you’d be spending most of the trip on the back of an open Bedford, didn’t I?”

He produced some welding goggles that looked like a glass diving mask, with a dark section that could be tipped up.

“This is mine. I told her we would be travelling with air conditioning and sleeping in luxury lodges – otherwise she’d never have agreed to come.”

I just shook my head. There were thirty people in our group, and in the end she was his responsibility, I hoped.

One truck broke down just before we reached Vaalwater and it was late at night when the exhausted convoy came to a halt at the closed Groblersbrug border post. Tents were pitched on the grass between the policemen’s lavatories.

Ina didn’t say a word.

The next morning she emerged from their two-man tent, dressed in sparkling white. Beautifully turned out. A Vogue cover girl, I thought. Bruce himself was wearing white overalls, the welding mask perched on his head as if he was some kind of First World War pilot. Liquor was not included in our rates, and at Sherwood Ranch, just across the border, Bruce bought six crates of beer.

Ina didn’t say a word.

At Nata water pressure was a problem and washing facilities were limited, but in the morning Ina came out to greet the new day, immaculately dressed in yet another new outfit. The welding mask now had a permanent place on top of Bruce’s head. Clad in his overalls, he started taking his liquid refreshments early in the day.

Ina didn’t say a word.

On the back of the Bedford the white overalls turned brown, while Ina gazed into the bushes, her hand clutching her straw hat. As Bruce grew dirtier and drunker, Ina seemed to become prettier and more chic. Bruce drank with a vengeance – it was as if he wanted to drown all the suffering of the past. And the welding mask was permanently on his forehead, the dark section tipped up like the antenna of an insect.

And Ina didn’t say a word.

The Savuti is known for its elephants that come marauding through the camps in search of oranges and water that careless tourists have fed them in the past. A bigger problem, however, was the nightly visits of hyenas. During previous trips they had carried off the clients’ leather bags and bitten holes in cool boxes. That was why, when everyone had anxiously retired to bed, Piet and I were on guard – and of course there was Bruce.

“Bruce, don’t you think it’s time for bed?” Ina’s voice came from the tent. As if for the first time she wanted to say that enough was enough. I heard the fear and uncertainty in her voice and chased off the scavengers, while Piet helped Bruce to his feet. Like a sack of potatoes we bundled him into the tent.

It became a long night for Piet and me. Wood on the fire, driving away the hyenas, dozing off, coffee. Finally first light. In the dawn hours we took a nap beside the fire. Then a blood-curdling scream . . .

“Ag, jirre, help! I’m blind!”

A deathly silence fell. Piet and I struggled to our feet, half dazed. Outside the tent stood Ina, wearing sandals, a sarong draped loosely around her waist, her hair in a carefree bun – ready for the day.

“Oh, shut up, Bruce! Your welding mask has fallen over your eyes,” Ina said as she took her place on the back of the Bedford.

Bruce never drank again.