‘Mama!’ M’Cola shouted. Then another long stream. Then ‘Mama! Mama!’
Through the dark came all the porters, the cook, the skinner, the boys, and the headman.
‘Mama!’ M’Cola shouted. ‘Mama {piga Simba.’}
The boys came dancing, crowing, and beating time and chanting something from down in their chests that started like a cough and sounded like {‘Hey la Mama! Hay la Mama! Hey la Mama!’}
The rolling-eyed skinner picked P.O.M. up, the big cook and the boys held her, and the others pressing forward to lift and if not to lift to touch and hold, they danced and sang through the dark around the fire and to our tent.
{‘Hey la Mama! huh! huh! huh! Hay la Mama! huh! huh! huh!’} they sang the lion dance with that deep, lion asthmatic cough in it. Then at the tent they put her down and everyone, very shyly, shook hands, the boys saying {‘m’uzuri, Memsahib,”} and M’Cola and the porters all saying {”m’uzuri}, Mama’ with much feeling in the accenting of the word ‘Mama’.
Afterwards in the chairs in front of the fire, sitting with the drinks, Pop said, ‘You shot it. M’Cola would kill anyone who said you didn’t.’
‘You know, I feel as though I did shoot it,’ P.O.M. said. ‘I don’t believe I’d be able to stand it if I really had shot it. I’d be too proud. Isn’t triumph marvellous?’
‘Good old Mama,’ Karl said.
‘I believe you did shoot him,’ I said.
‘Oh, let’s not go into that,’ P.O.M. said. ‘I feel so wonderful about just being supposed to have killed him. You know people never used to carry me on their shoulders much at home.’
‘No one knows how to behave in America,’ Pop said. ‘Most uncivilized.’
‘We’ll carry you in Key West,’ Karl said. ‘Poor old Mama.’
‘Let’s not talk about it,’ P.O.M. said. ‘I like it too much. Shouldn’t I maybe distribute largess?’
‘They didn’t do it for that,’ Pop said. ‘But it is all right to give something to celebrate.’
‘Oh, I want to give them all a great deal of money,’ P.O.M. said. ‘Isn’t triumph simply marvellous?’
‘Good old Mama,’ I said. ‘You killed him.’
‘No, I didn’t. Don’t lie to me. Just let me enjoy my triumph.’
Anyway M’Cola did not trust me for a long time. Until P.O.M.’s licence ran out, she was his favourite and we were simply a lot of people who interfered and kept Mama from shooting things. Once her licence was out and she was no longer shooting, she dropped back into non-combatant status with him and as we began to hunt kudu and Pop stayed in camp and sent us out alone with the trackers, Karl with Charo and M’Cola and I together, M’Cola dropped Pop visibly in his estimation. It was only temporary of course. He was Pop’s man and I believe his working estimations were only from day to day and required an unbroken series of events to have any meaning. But something had happened between us.
PART II PURSUIT REMEMBERED
CHAPTER ONE
It dated back to the time of Droopy, after I had come back from being ill in Nairobi and we had gone on a foot safari to hunt rhino in the forest. Droopy was a real savage with lids to his eyes that nearly covered them, handsome, with a great deal of style, a fine hunter and a beautiful tracker. He was about thirty-five, I should think, and wore only a piece of cloth knotted over one shoulder, and a fez that some hunter had given him. He always carried a spear. M’Cola wore an old U. S. Army khaki tunic, complete with buttons, that had originally been brought out for Droopy, who had been away somewhere and had missed getting it. Twice Pop had brought it out for Droopy and finally M’Cola had said, ‘Give it to me’.
Pop had let him have it and M’Cola had worn it ever since. It, a pair of shorts, his fuzzy wool curler’s cap, and a knitted army sweater he wore when washing the tunic, were the only garments I ever saw on the old man until he took my bird-shooting coat. For shoes he used sandals cut from old motor-car tyres. He had slim, handsome legs with well-turned ankles on the style of Babe Ruth’s and I remember how surprised I was the first time I saw him with the tunic off and noticed how old his upper body was. It had that aged look you see in photographs of Jeffries and Sharkey posing thirty years after, the ugly, old-man biceps and the fallen pectoral muscles.