We saw them walk across the open, a big bulky figure in a faded corduroy coat and a very small one in trousers, grey khaki jacket, boots, and a big hat, and then disappear as they crouched in a point of dried reeds before we started. But as we went out to reach the edge of the stream we soon saw the plan was no good. Even watching carefully for the firmest footing you sunk down in the cool mud to the knees, and, as it became less mucky and there were more hummocks broken by water, sometimes I went in to the waist. The ducks and geese flew up out of range and after the first flock had swung across toward where the others were hidden in the reeds and we heard the sharp, small, double report of P.O.M.’s 28-gauge and saw the ducks wheel off and go out toward the lake, the other scattered flocks and the geese all went toward the open water. A flock of dark ibises, looking, with their dipped bills, like great curlews, flew over from the marsh on the side of the stream where Karl was and circled high above us before they went back into the reeds. All through the bog were snipe and black and white godwits and finally, not being able to get within range of the ducks, I began to shoot snipe to M’Cola’s great disgust. We followed the marsh out and then I crossed another stream, shoulder high, holding my gun and shooting coat with shells in the pocket above my head and finally trying to work toward where P.O.M. and Pop were, found a deep flowing stream where teal were flying, and killed three. It was nearly dark now and I found Pop and P.O.M. on the far bank of this stream at the edge of the dried lake bed. It all looked too deep to wade and the bottom was soft but finally I found a heavily worn hippo trail that went into the stream and treading on this, the bottom fairly firm under foot, I made it, the water coming just under my armpits. As I came out on the grass and stood dripping a flock of teal came over very fast, and, crouching to shoot in the dusk at the same time Pop did, we cut down three that fell hard in a long slant ahead in the tall grass. We hunted carefully and found them all. Their speed had carried them much farther than we expected and then, almost dark now, we started for the car across the grey dried mud of the lake bed, me soaked and my boots squashing water, P.O.M. pleased with the ducks, the first we’d had since the Serengetti, we all remembering how marvellous they were to eat, and ahead we could see the car looking very small and beyond it a stretch of flat, baked mud and then the grassy savannah and the forest.
Next day we came in from the zebra business grey and sweat-caked with dust that the car raised and the wind blew over us on the way home across the plain. P.O.M. and Pop had not gone out, there was nothing for them to do and no need for them to eat that dust, and Karl and I out on the plain in the too much sun and dust had gone through one of those rows that starts like this, ‘What was the matter?’
‘They were too far.’
‘Not at the start.’
‘They were too far, I tell you.’
‘They get hard if you don’t take them.’
‘You shoot them.’
‘I’ve got enough. We only want twelve hides altogether. You go ahead.’
Then someone, angry, shooting too fast to show he was being asked to shoot too fast, getting up from behind the ant hill and turning away in disgust, walking towards his partner, who says, smugly, ‘What’s the matter with them?’
‘They’re too damned far, I tell you,’ desperately.
The smug one, complacently, ‘Look at them’.
The zebra that had galloped off had seen the approaching lorry of the skinners and had circled and were standing now, broadside, in easy range.
The one looks, says nothing, too angry now to shoot. Then says, ‘Go ahead. Shoot’.