‘I don’t know. We didn’t count. Five or six, I guess.’
‘Five, I think,’ said Dan.
Poor Karl, faced by these three sad-faced congratulators, was beginning to feel his pleasure in the rhino drained away from him.
‘We got one too,’ said P.O.M.
‘That’s fine,’ said Karl. ‘Is he bigger than this one?’
‘Hell, no. He’s a lousy runt.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Karl said. He meant it, simply and truly.
‘What the hell have you got to be sorry about with a rhino like that? He’s a beauty. Let me get the camera and take some pictures of him.’
I went after the camera. P.O.M. took me by the arm and walked close beside me.
‘Papa, please try to act like a human being,’ she said. ‘Poor Karl. You’re making him feel dreadfully.’
‘I know it,’ I said. ‘I’m trying not to act that way.’
There was Pop. He shook his head. ‘I never felt more of a four-letter man,’ he said. ‘But it was like a kick in the stomach. I’m really delighted, of course.’
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘I’d rather have him beat me. You know that. Truly. But why couldn’t he just get a good one, two or three inches longer? Why did he have to get one that makes mine ridiculous? It just makes ours silly.’
‘You can always remember that shot.’
‘To hell with that shot. That bloody fluke. God, what a beautiful rhino.’
‘Come on, let’s pull ourselves together and try to act like white people with him.’
‘We were {awful,’} P.O.M. said.
‘I know it,’ I said. ‘And all the time I was trying to be jolly. You {know} I’m delighted he has it.’
‘You were certainly jolly. Both of you,’ P.O.M. said.
‘But did you see M’Cola,’ Pop asked. M’Cola had looked at the rhino dismally, shaken his head and walked away.
‘He’s a wonderful rhino,’ P.O.M. said. ‘We must act decently and make Karl feel good.’
But it was too late. We could not make Karl feel good and for a long time we could not feel good ourselves. The porters came into camp with the loads and we could see them all, and all of our outfit, go over to where the rhino head lay in the shade. They were all very quiet. Only the skinner was delighted to see such a rhino head in camp.
‘M’uzuri sana,’ he said to me. And measured the horn with shiftings of his widespread hand. ‘Kubwa sana!’
‘N’Dio. M’uzuri sana,’ I agreed.
‘B’wana Kabor shoot him?’
‘Yes.’
‘M’uzuri sana.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘M’uzuri sana.’
The skinner was the only gent in the outfit. We had tried, in all the shoot, never to be competitive. Karl and
I had each tried to give the other the better chance on everything that came up. I was, truly, very fond of him and he was entirely unselfish and altogether self-sacrificing. I knew I could outshoot him and I could always outwalk him and, steadily, he got trophies that made mine dwarfs in comparison. He had done some of the worst shooting at game I had ever seen and I had shot badly twice on the trip, at that grant and at a bustard once on the plain, still he beat me on all the tangible things we had to show. For a while we had joked about it and I knew everything would even up. But it didn’t even up. Now, on this rhino hunt, I had taken the first crack at the country. We had sent him after meat while we had gone into a new country. We had not treated him badly, but we had not treated him too well, and still he had beaten me. Not only beaten, beaten was all right. He had made my rhino look so small that I could never keep him in the same small town where we lived. He had wiped him out. I had the shot I had made on him to remember and nothing could take that away except that it was so bloody marvellous I knew I would wonder, sooner or later, if it was not really a fluke in spite of my unholy self-confidence. Old Karl had put it on us all right with that rhino. He was in his tent now, writing a letter.