‘Nay, Bwana. It is for all six to carry the tusks to the railway, no matter how many days it takes.’
‘Manyoro, your mother should be proud of you,’ Leon told him with relief. ‘I certainly am.’ He led the porters to where the remains of the carcass lay. Only the great bones and the hide had not been dragged away and devoured by the scavengers. The head was still propped upright by the two curves of ivory. Leon looped a length of bark rope around one of the tusks and the Luo porters sang a work chant as they heaved on the line. The butt end of the tusk, which had been buried in the skull, slid out of its canal with little resistance. Until then almost half its length had been hidden and now the true dimensions were revealed for the first time. When they laid the two tusks side by side on a bed of fresh green leaves Leon was amazed by their length and lovely symmetry. Once again he used the barrels of his rifle as a gauge to measure them. The longest of the two was a hand’s breadth over eleven feet and the lesser was almost exactly eleven feet.
Under Manyoro’s direction the Luo cut two long poles of acacia wood and strapped each tusk to one. With a porter at each end they lifted the poles and started towards the railway, the remainder of the team trotting behind them, ready to spell them as they tired.
Leon was no longer entitled to a military travel pass, so on the steepest stretch of the railway, where it climbed up the escarpment from the floor of the Rift Valley, they waited for the night train from Lake Victoria. Here, even the double team of locomotives was reduced to walking speed. Under cover of darkness they ran along-side one of the goods trucks until they could catch hold of the steel ladder and clamber onto the roof. The Luo porters passed the tusks and Ishmael’s bundle up to them. Leon tossed a canvas purse of shillings down to the headman and the porters shouted thanks and farewells until they were left in the darkness behind the guard’s van. The locomotives puffed gamely to the top of the escarpment. The truck on which they were perched was filled with baskets of dried fish from the lake, but as the train picked up speed the stink was wafted away.
It was still dark when they dropped the tusks and their baggage over the side of the truck and jumped from the rolling train as it slowed before steaming into Nairobi station.
Percy Phillips was eating his breakfast in the mess tent when they staggered into Tandala Camp, bowed under the weight of the tusks.
‘Upon my soul!’ he spluttered into his coffee, and knocked over his chair as he sprang to his feet. ‘Those aren’t yours, are they?’
‘One is.’ Leon kept a straight face. ‘Unfortunately, sir, the other is yours.’
‘Take them to the beam scale. Let’s see what we have here,’ Percy ordered.
The entire staff of the camp trooped after them to the skinning shed and gathered around the scale as Leon lifted the smaller tusk into the sling.
‘One hundred and twenty-eight pounds,’ said Percy, noncommittally. ‘Now let’s try the other.’
Leon hoisted the second into the sling and Percy blinked. ‘One hundred and thirty-eight.’ His voice cracked just a little. It was the largest tusk that had ever been brought into Tandala Camp. However, he could think of no good reason why the youngster should be told so. Don’t want him to get too big for his boots, he thought, as he scratched his beard. Then he said to Manyoro, ‘Put both tusks into the truck.’ At last he looked at Leon and his eyes twinkled. ‘All right, young fella, you can drive me in to the club. I’m about to buy you a drink.’
As the vehicle bounced and rattled over the track, Percy had to raise his voice to be heard above the racket of the engine. ‘Rightyho! Tell me all about it. Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out. How many shots did it take you to put him down?’
‘That isn’t the beginning, sir,’ Leon reminded him.
‘It will do as a starting point. You can work backwards from there. How many shots?’
‘One brain shot. And then I remembered your advice and put in a finisher when he was down.’
