‘Get the saddle and tack off that poor creature,’ he told Manyoro, as he ejected the empty brass cartridge case and slipped the rifle back into its sheath. He hurried to the little tent and stooped through the entrance. ‘Where’s Big Medicine?’ Kermit demanded, and tried to get up.
Leon pushed him down. ‘I’ll send Manyoro to find it.’ He raised his voice: ‘Manyoro! Bring the
Kermit looked alarmed. ‘What do you know about stitching people up?’
‘I’ve stitched up plenty of horses and dogs.’
‘I ain’t no horse or dog.’
‘No, those animals are pretty smart.’ To Ishmael he said, ‘Fetch your sewing kit.’
At that moment Manyoro appeared in the entrance, his expression mournful. He held a separate piece of the Winchester in each hand. ‘She is broken,’ he said in Kiswahili.
Kermit grabbed the shattered pieces from him. ‘Oh, hell and damnation!’ he moaned. The butt stock had snapped at the neck of the pistol grip and the front sight had been knocked off. It was obvious that the rifle could not be fired. Kermit cradled it as though it were a sick child. ‘What am I going to do?’ He looked at Leon pitifully. ‘Can you repair it?’
‘Yes, but not until we get back to camp and I can find my tool-kit. I’ll have to bind that butt with the green skin of an elephant’s ear. When it dries, it’ll be hard as iron and better than new.’
‘What about the front sight?’
‘If we can’t find the original, I’ll hand-file one from a piece of metal and solder it in place.’
‘How long will all that take?’
‘A week or so.’ He saw Kermit’s stricken expression and tried to pull the punch a little. ‘Maybe a bit less. Depends how soon we can find a fresh elephant ear and how quickly it dries. Now, keep still while I sew you up.’
Kermit was in such distress that he seemed inured to the primitive surgery Leon inflicted. First he washed the wound with a diluted solution of iodine, then got busy with needle and thread. Either procedure was more than enough to make a strong man weep, but Kermit seemed more concerned with Big Medicine than his own suffering.
‘What am I going to shoot with in the meantime?’ he lamented, still holding the rifle.
‘Luckily I brought my old service .303 Enfield as a back-up.’ Leon ran the needle through a flap of skin.
Kermit grimaced but clung to the subject doggedly. ‘That’s a pop gun.’ He sounded affronted. ‘It may be fine for Tommy, impala or even human beings, but it’s much too light for lion!’
‘If you get in close and put the bullet in the right place, it’ll do the job.’
‘Close? I know what that means to you! You want me to stick the barrel in the bloody cat’s earhole.’
‘Very well, you go ahead in your usual style and blaze away at half a mile. But I don’t think that’ll work.’
Kermit thought about it for a while, but he didn’t seem overjoyed with the idea. ‘How about you lend me that big old Holland of yours?’
‘I love you like my own brother, but I’d rather lend you my little sister for the night.’
‘Have you got a little sister?’ Kermit asked, with sudden interest. ‘Is she pretty?’
‘I don’t have a sister,’ Leon lied, anxious to protect his siblings from Kermit’s attentions, ‘and I’m not going to lend you my rifle.’
‘Well, I don’t want your pathetic little .303,’ Kermit said petulantly.
‘Good! Then I suggest you ask Manyoro to lend you his spear.’
Manyoro grinned expectantly at the mention of his name.
Kermit shook his head and gave him the sum total of his Kiswahili: ‘
In the morning Kermit’s eye was swollen and closed, and his torso was decorated with a few spectacular bruises. Fortunately the damage was to his left eye, so his shooting eye was still clear. Leon blazed the bark of a fever tree to give him a target at sixty paces, then handed him the .303. ‘At that range she’ll throw an inch high, so hold the pip of the foresight just a touch under,’ he advised. Kermit fired two shots, and they bracketed the mark, a finger’s breadth apart.
‘Wow! Not bad for a beginner.’ Kermit had impressed himself. He cheered up visibly.
‘Pretty darned good even for a marksman like Popoo Hima,’ Leon agreed. ‘But just remember, don’t shoot at anything that’s over the horizon.’
Kermit did not acknowledge the pleasantry. ‘Let’s go find a lion,’ he said.
They camped that evening beside a small waterhole, which still contained water from the last rains. They rolled into their blankets as soon as they had eaten, and both men were asleep within minutes.
