“Good. Let’s go and get it.”
We started out, finally, to get the tree. Keiti was with us and we had shovels, pangas, sacking for the roots of the tree, large guns and small guns in the rack across the back of the front seat and I had told Ngui to bring four bottles of beer for us and two of Coca-Cola for the Moslems. We were clearly out to accomplish and except for the nature of the tree, which would make an elephant drunk for two days if he ever ate it, we were out to accomplish something so fine and so blameless that I might write about it for some religious publication.
We were all on our good behavior and we noted tracks without commenting on them. We read the record of what had crossed the road that night. And I watched sand grouse flighting in long wavering wisps to the water beyond the salt flats and Ngui watched them too. But we did not comment. We were hunters but this morning we were working for the Forestry Department of our Lord, the Baby Jesus.
Actually we were working for Miss Mary so we felt a great shifting in our allegiance. We were all mercenaries and it was clearly understood that Miss Mary was not a missionary. She was not even under Christian orders; she did not have to go to church as other Memsahibs did and this business of the tree was her shauri as the lion had been.
We went into the deep green and yellow-trunked forest by our old road that had become overgrown with grass and weeds since we had been over it last, coming out in the glade where the silver-leafed trees grew. Ngui and I made a circle, he one way and I the other, to check if this rhino and her calf were in the bush. We found nothing but some impala and I found the track of a very big leopard. He had been hunting along the edge of the swamp. I measured the pug marks with my hand and we went back to join the tree diggers.
We decided that only so many could dig at a time and since Keiti and Miss Mary were both issuing orders, we went over to the edge of the big trees and sat down and Ngui offered me his snuff box. We both took snuff and watched the forestry experts at their work. They were all working very hard except Keiti and Miss Mary. It looked to us as though the tree would never fit into the back of the hunting car but when they finally had it dug out it was obvious it would and that it was time for us to go over and help with the loading. The tree was very spiky and not easy to load but we all got it in finally. Sacks wet down with water were placed over the roots and it was lashed in, about half its length projecting from the rear of the car.
“We can’t go back the same way we came,” Miss Mary said. “It will break the tree in those turns.”
“We’ll go by a new way.”
“Can the car get through?”
“Sure.”
Along this way through the forest we hit the tracks of four elephants and there was fresh dung. But the tracks were to the south of us. They were good-sized bulls.
I had been carrying the big gun between my knees because Ngui and Mthuka and I had all seen these tracks where they crossed the north road on our way in. They might have crossed over from the stream that ran into the Chulu swamp.
“All clear now to campi,” I said to Miss Mary.
“That’s good,” she said. “Now we’ll get the tree up in good shape.”
At camp Ngui and Mthuka and I hung back and let volunteers and enthusiasts dig the hole for the tree. Mthuka drove the car over out of the shade when the hole was dug and the tree was unloaded and planted and looked very pretty and gay in front of the tent.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Miss Mary said. And I agreed that it was.
“Thank you for bringing us home such a nice way and for not worrying anybody about the elephants.”
“They wouldn’t stop there. They have to go south to have good cover and feed. They wouldn’t have bothered us.”
“You and Ngui were smart about them.”
“They are those bulls we saw from the aircraft. They were smart. We weren’t smart.”
“Where will they go now?”
“They might feed a while in the forest by the upper marsh. Then they’ll cross the road at night and get up into that country toward Amboseli which the elephant use.”
“I must go and see they finish properly.”
“I’m going up the road.”
“Your fiancée is over under the tree with her chaperone.”
“I know. She brought us some mealies. I’m going to give her a ride home.”
“Wouldn’t she like to come and see the tree?”
“I don’t think she would understand.”
“Stay at the Shamba for lunch, if you like.”
“I haven’t been asked,” I said.
“Then you’ll be back for lunch?”
“Before.”