Jock of the Bushveld Page 5

  We walked with the sun – that is towards the west – so that the light would show up the game and be in their eyes, making it more difficult for them to see us. We watched a little red stembuck get up from his form, shake the dew from his coat, stretch himself and then pick his way daintily through the wet grass, nibbling here and there as he went. Rocky did not fire; he wanted something better.

  After the sun had risen, flooding the whole country with golden light and, while the dew lasted, making it glisten like a bespangled transformation scene, we came on a patch of old long grass and, parted by some twenty years, walked through it abreast. There was a wild rush from under my feet, a yellowish body dashed through the grass and I got out in time to see a rietbuck ram cantering away. Then Rocky, beside me, gave a shrill whistle; the buck stopped, side on, looked back at us and Rocky dropped it where it stood. Instantly following the shot there was another rush on our left, and before the second rietbuck had gone thirty yards Rocky toppled it over in its tracks. From the whistle to the second shot it was all done in about ten seconds. To me it looked like magic. I could only gasp.

  We cleaned the bucks and hid them in a bush. There was meat enough for the camp then and I thought we would return at once for the boys to carry it; but Rocky, after a moment’s glance round, shouldered his rifle and moved on. I followed, asking no questions. We had been gone only a few minutes when to my great astonishment he stopped and, pointing straight in front, asked: ‘What ‘ud you put up for that stump?’

  I looked hard and answered confidently, ‘Two hundred!’

  ‘Step it!’ was his reply.

  I paced the distance; it was eighty-two yards.

  It was very bewildering; but he helped me out a bit with, ‘Bush telescopes, Sonny!’

  ‘You mean it magnifies them?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘No! Magnifies the distance, like lookin’ down an avenue! Gun barr’l looks a mile long when you put yer eye to it! Open flats brings ’em closer; and ‘cross water or a gully seems like you kin put yer hand on ‘em!’

  ‘I would have missed – by feet – that time, Rocky!’

  ‘You kin take it fer a start. Halve the distance and aim low!’

  ‘Aim low, as well?’

  ‘Thar’s allus somethin’ low: legs, an’ ground to show what you done! But thar’s no outers marked on the sky!’

  Once, as we walked along, he paused to look at some freshly overturned ground, and dropped the one word, ‘Pig.’ We turned then to the right and presently came upon some vlei ground densely covered with tall green reeds. He slowed down as we approached; I tiptoed in sympathy; and when only a few yards off he stopped and beckoned me on, and as I came abreast he raised his hand in warning and pointed into the reeds. There was a curious subdued sort of murmur of many deep voices. It conveys no idea of the fact to say they were grunts. They were softened out of all recognition: there is only one word for it, they sounded ‘confidential’. Then as we listened I could make out the soft silky rustling of the rich undergrowth, and presently could follow, by the quivering and waving of odd reeds, the movements of the animals themselves. They were only a few yards from us – the nearest four or five; they were busy and contented; and it was obvious they were utterly unconscious of our presence. As we peered down to the reeds from our greater height it seemed that we could see the ground and that not so much as a rat could have passed unnoticed. Yet we saw nothing!

  And then, without the slightest sign, cause or warning that I could detect, in one instant every sound ceased. I watched the reeds like a cat on the pounce: never a stir or sign or sound: they had vanished. I turned to Rocky: he was standing at ease, and there was the faintest look of amusement in his eyes.

  ‘They must be there; they can’t have got away!’ It was a sort of indignant protest against his evident ‘chucking it’; but it was full of doubt all the same.

  ‘Try!’ he said, and I jumped into the reeds straight away. The under-foliage, it is true, was thicker and deeper than it had looked; but for all that it was like a conjuring trick – they were not there! I waded through a hundred yards or more of the narrow belt – it was not more than twenty yards wide anywhere – but the place was deserted. It struck me then that if they could dodge us at five to ten yards while we were watching from the bank and they did not know it – well, I ‘chucked it’ too. Rocky was standing in the same place with the same faint look of friendly amusement when I got back, wet and muddy.

  ‘Pigs is like that,’ he said, ‘same as elephants – jus’ disappears!’

  We went on again, and a quarter of an hour later, it may be, Rocky stopped, subsided to a sitting position, beckoned to me and pointed with his levelled rifle in front. It was a couple of minutes before he could get me to see the stembuck standing in the shade of a thorn-tree. I would never have seen it but for his whisper to look for something moving: that gave it to me; I saw the movement of the head as it cropped.

  ‘High: right!’ was Rocky’s comment, as the bullet ripped the bark off a tree and the startled stembuck raced away. In the excitement I had forgotten his advice already!

  But there was no time to feel sick and disgusted; the buck, puzzled by the report on one side and the smash on the tree on the other, half-circled us and stopped to look back. Rocky laid his hand on my shoulder: ‘Take your time, Sonny!’ he said. ‘Aim low; an’ don’t pull! Squeeze!’ And at last I got it.

  We had our breakfast there – the liver roasted on the coals, and a couple of ‘dough-boys’, with the unexpected addition of a bottle of cold tea, weak and unsweetened, produced from Rocky’s knapsack! We stayed there a couple of hours and that is the only time he really opened out. I understood then – at last – that of his deliberate kindliness he had come out that morning meaning to make a happy day of it for a youngster; and he did it.

  He had the knack of getting at the heart of things and putting it all in the fewest words. He spoke in the same slow grave way, with habitual economy of breath and words; and yet the pictures were living and real, and each incident complete. I seemed to get from him that morning all there was to know of the hunting in two great continents – Grizzlies and other ‘bar’, Moose and Wapiti, hunted in the snows of the North West; Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino, Lions and scores more, in the sweltering heat of Africa!

  That was a happy day!

  When I woke up next morning Rocky was fitting the packs on his donkeys. I was a little puzzled, wondering at first if he was testing the saddles, for he had said nothing about moving on; but when he joined us at breakfast the donkeys stood packed ready to start. Then Robbie asked: ‘Going to make a move, Rocky?’

  ‘Yes! Reckon I’ll git!’ he answered quietly.

  I ate in silence, thinking of what he was to face: many hundreds of miles – perhaps a thousand or two; many, many months – maybe a year or two; wild country, wild tribes and wild beasts; floods and fever; accident, hunger and disease; and alone!

  When we had finished breakfast he rinsed out his beaker and hung it on one of the packs, slung his rifle over his shoulder and, picking up his long assegai-wood walking stick, tapped the donkeys lightly to turn them into the kaffir footpath that led away north. They jogged on into place in single file.

  Rocky paused a second before following, turned one brief grave glance on us and said: ‘Well. So long!’

  He never came back!

  Jess

  Good dogs were not easy to get; I had tried hard enough for one before starting, but without success. Even unborn puppies had jealous prospective owners waiting to claim them.

  There is always plenty of room at the top of the tree, and good hunting dogs were as rare as good men, good horses and good front-oxen. A lot of qualities are needed in the make-up of a good hunting dog: size, strength, quickness, scent, sense and speed – and plenty of courage. They are very very difficult to get; but even small dogs are useful, and many a fine feat stands to the credit of little terriers in guarding camps at night and in standing off wounded an
imals that meant mischief.

  Dennison was saved from a wounded lioness by his two fox terriers. He had gone out to shoot bush-pheasants and came unexpectedly on a lioness playing with her cubs: the cubs hid in the grass, but she stood up at bay to protect them, and he, forgetting that he had taken the big ‘looper’ cartridges from his gun and reloaded with No 6, fired. The shot only maddened her and she charged; but the two dogs dashed at her, one at each side, barking, snapping and yelling, rushing in and jumping back so fast and furiously that they flustered her. Leaving the man for the moment, she turned on them, dabbing viciously with her huge paws, first at one, then at the other; quick as lightning she struck right and left as a kitten will at a twirled string; but they kept out of reach. It only lasted seconds, but that was long enough for the man to reload and shoot the lioness through the heart.

  There was only the one dog in our camp; and she was not an attractive one. She was a bull terrier with a dull brindled coat – black and grey in shadowy stripes. She had small cross-looking eyes and uncertain always moving ears; she was bad-tempered and most unsociable; but she was as faithful and as brave a dog as ever lived. She never barked; never howled when beaten for biting strangers or kaffirs or going for the cattle; she was very silent, very savage and very quick. She belonged to my friend Ted and never left his side, day or night. Her name was Jess.

  Jess was not a favourite, but everybody respected her, partly because you knew she would not stand any nonsense – no pushing, patting or punishment, and very little talking to – and partly because she was so faithful and plucky. She was not a hunting dog, but on several occasions had helped to pull down wounded game; she had no knowledge or skill, and was only fierce and brave, and there was always the risk that she would be killed. She would listen to Ted, but to no one else; one of us might have shouted his lungs out, but it would not have stopped her from giving chase the moment she saw anything and keeping on till she was too dead beat to move any further.

  The first time I saw Jess we were having dinner and I gave her a bone – putting it down close to her and saying, ‘Here, good dog!’ As she did not even look at it, I moved it right under her nose. She gave a low growl, and her little eyes turned on me for just one look as she got up and walked away.

  There was a snigger of laughter from some of the others but nobody said anything, and it seemed wiser to ask no questions just then. Afterwards, when we were alone, one of them told me Ted had trained her not to feed from anyone else, adding, ‘You must not feed another man’s dog; a dog has only one master!’

  We respected Jess greatly; but no one knew quite how much we respected her until the memorable day near Ship Mountain.

  We had rested through the heat of the day under a big tree on the bank of a little stream; it was the tree under which Soltke prayed and died. About sundown, just before we were ready to start, some other waggons passed and Ted, knowing the owner, went on with him, intending to rejoin us at the next outspan. As he jumped on to the passing waggon he called to Jess and she ran out of a patch of soft grass under one of the big trees behind our waggons. She answered his call instantly, but when she saw him moving off on the other waggon she sat down in the road and watched him anxiously for some seconds, then ran on a few steps in her curious quick silent way and again stopped, giving swift glances alternately towards Ted and towards us. Ted remarked laughingly that she evidently thought he had made a mistake by getting on to the wrong waggon, and that she would follow presently.

  After he had disappeared she ran back to her patch of grass and lay down, but in a few minutes she was back again squatting in the road looking with that same anxious worried expression after her master. Thus she went to and fro for the quarter of an hour it took us to inspan, and each time she passed we could hear a faint anxious little whine.

  The oxen were inspanned and the last odd things were being put up when one of the boys came to say that he could not get the guns and water-barrel because Jess would not let him near them. There was something the matter with the dog, he said; he thought she was mad.

  Knowing how Jess hated kaffirs, we laughed at the notion and went for the things ourselves. As we came within five yards of the tree where we had left the guns there was a rustle in the grass and Jess came out with her swift silent run, appearing as unexpectedly as a snake does, and with some odd suggestion of a snake in her look and attitude. Her head, body and tail were in a dead line, and she was crouching slightly as for a spring; her ears were laid flat back, her lips twitching constantly, showing the strong white teeth, and her cross wicked eyes had such a look of remorseless cruelty in them that we stopped as if we had been turned to stone. She never moved a muscle or made a sound, but kept those eyes steadily fixed on us. We moved back a pace or two and began to coax and wheedle her; but it was no good; she never moved or made a sound, and the unblinking look remained. For a minute we stood our ground, and then the hair on her back and shoulders began very slowly to stand up. That was enough: we cleared off. It was a mighty uncanny appearance.

  Then another tried his hand; but it was just the same. No one could do anything with her; no one could get near the guns or the water-barrel; as soon as we returned for a fresh attempt she reappeared in the same place and in the same way.

  The position was too ridiculous and we were at our wits’ end, for Jess held the camp. The kaffirs declared the dog was mad, and we began to have very uncomfortable suspicions that they were right; but we decided to make a last attempt and, surrounding the place, approached from all sides. But the suddenness with which she appeared before we got into position so demoralised the kaffirs that they bolted, and we gave it up, owning ourselves beaten. We turned to watch her as she ran back for the last time, and as she disappeared in the grass we heard distinctly the cry of a very young puppy. Then the secret of Jess’s madness was out.

  We had to send for Ted, and when he returned a couple of hours later Jess met him out on the road in the dark where she had been watching half the time ever since he left. She jumped up at his chest giving a long tremulous whimper of welcome, and then ran ahead straight to the nest in the grass.

  He took a lantern and we followed, but not too close. When he knelt down to look at the puppies, she stood over them and pushed herself in between him and them; when he put out a hand to touch them, she pushed it away with her nose, whining softly in protest and trembling with excitement – you could see she would not bite, but she hated him to touch her puppies. Finally, when he picked one up she gave a low cry and caught his wrist gently, but held it.

  That was Jess, the mother of Jock!

  The Pick of the Puppies

  There were six puppies, and as the waggons were empty we fixed up a roomy nest in one of them for Jess and her family. There was no trouble with Jess; nobody interfered with her, and she interfered with nobody. The boys kept clear of her; but we used to take a look at her and the puppies as we walked along with the waggons; so by degrees she got to know that we would not harm them, and she no longer wanted to eat us alive if we went near and talked to her.

  Five of the puppies were fat strong yellow little chaps with dark muzzles – just like their father, as Ted said; and their father was an imported dog, and was always spoken of as the best dog of the breed that had ever been in the country. I never saw him, so I do not really know what he was like – perhaps he was not a yellow dog at all; but, whatever he was, he had at that time a great reputation because he was ‘imported’, and there were not half a dozen imported dogs in the whole of the Transvaal then. Many people used to ask what breed the puppies were – I suppose it was because poor cross faithful old Jess was not much to look at, and because no one had a very high opinion of yellow dogs in general, and nobody seemed to remember any famous yellow bull terriers. They used to smile in a queer way when they asked the question, as if they were going to get off a joke; but when we answered ‘Just like their father – Buchanan’s imported dog,’ the smile disappeared, and they would give a whistle of sur
prise and say ‘By Jove!’ and immediately begin to examine the five yellow puppies, remark upon their ears and noses and legs, and praise them up until we were all as proud as if they had belonged to us.

  Jess looked after her puppies and knew nothing about the remarks that were made, so they did not worry her, but I often looked at the faithful old thing with her dark brindled face, cross-looking eyes and always moving ears, and thought it jolly hard lines that nobody had a good word for her; it seemed rough on her that everyone should be glad there was only one puppy at all like the mother – the sixth one, a poor miserable little rat of a thing about half the size of the others. He was not yellow like them, nor dark brindled like Jess, but a sort of dirty pale half-and-half colour with some dark faint wavy lines all over him, as if he had tried to be brindled and failed; and he had a dark sharp wizened little muzzle that looked shrivelled up with age.

  Most of the fellows said it would be a good thing to drown the odd one because he spoilt the litter and made them look as though they were not really thoroughbred and because he was such a miserable little rat that he was not worth saving anyhow; but in the end he was allowed to live. I believe no one fancied the job of taking one of Jess’s puppies away from her; moreover, as any dog was better than none, I had offered to take him rather than let him be drowned. Ted had old friends to whom he had already promised the pick of the puppies, so when I came along it was too late, and all he could promise me was that if there should be one over I might have it.

  As they grew older and were able to crawl about they were taken off the waggons when we outspanned and put on the ground. Jess got to understand this at once, and she used to watch us quite quietly as we took them in our hands to put them down or lift them back again. When they were two or three weeks old a man came to the waggons who talked a great deal about dogs, and appeared to know what had to be done. He said that the puppies’ tails ought to be docked, and that a bull terrier would be no class at all with a long tail, but you should on no account clip his ears. I thought he was speaking of fox terriers, and that with bull terriers the position was the other way round, at that time; but as he said it was ‘the thing’ in England, and nobody contradicted him, I shut up. We found out afterwards that he had made a mistake; but it was too late then, and Jess’s puppies started life as bull terriers up to date, with long ears and short tails.