"You tell them why," he said.
"Why what, dear?"
"Why nothing."
She didn't drink so much, now,
since she had him. But if he lived
he would never write about her, he
knew that now. Nor about any of
them. The rich were dull and they
drank too much, or they played too
much backgammon. They were dull
and they were repetitious. He
remembered poor Julian and his
romantic awe of them and how he
had started a story once that
began, "The very rich are different
from you and me." And how some
one had said to Julian, Yes, they
have more money. But that was not
humorous to Julian. He thought they
were a special glamourous race
and when he found they weren't it
wrecked him just as much as any
other thing that wrecked him.
He had been contemptuous of those
who wrecked. You did not have to
like it because you understood it.
He could beat anything, he thought,
because no thing could hurt him if
he did not care.
All right. Now he would not care
for death. One thing he had always
dreaded was the pain. He could
stand pain as well as any man,
until it went on too long, and wore
him out, but here he had something
that had hurt frightfully and just
when he had felt it breaking him,
the pain had stopped.
He remembered long ago when
Williamson, the bombing officer, had
been hit by a stick bomb some one in
a German patrol had thrown as he
was coming in through the wire that
night and, screaming, had begged
every one to kill him. He was a fat
man, very brave, and a good officer,
although addicted to fantastic shows.
But that night he was caught in the
wire, with a flare lighting him up and
his bowels spilled out into the wire,
so when they brought him in, alive,
they had to cut him loose. Shoot me,
Harry. For Christ sake shoot me.
They had had an argument one time
about our Lord never sending you
anything you could not bear and
some one's theory had been that
meant that at a certain time the pain
passed you out automatically. But he
had always remembered Williamson,
that night. Nothing passed out
Williamson until he gave him all his
morphine tablets that he had always
saved to use himself and then they
did not work right away.
Still this now, that he had, was
very easy; and if it was no worse
as it went on there was nothing to
worry about. Except that he would
rather be in better company.
He thought a little about the
company that he would like to
have.
No, he thought, when everything you
do, you do too long, and do too
late, you can't expect to find the
people still there. The people all
are gone. The party's over and you
are with your hostess now.
I'm getting as bored with dying as
with everything else, he thought.
"It's a bore," he said out loud.
"What is, my dear?"
"Anything you do too bloody long."
He looked at her face between him
and the fire. She was leaning back
in the chair and the firelight shone
on her pleasantly lined face and
he could see that she was sleepy.
He heard the hyena make a noise
just outside the range of the fire.
"I've been writing," he said. "But I
got tired."
"Do you think you will be able to
sleep?"
"Pretty sure. Why don't you turn
in?"
"I like to sit here with you."
"Do you feel anything strange?" he
asked her.
"No. Just a little sleepy."
"I do," he said.
He had just felt death come by
again.
"You know the only thing I've never
lost is curiosity," he said to her.
"You've never lost anything. You're
the most complete man I've ever
known."
"Christ," he said. "How little a
woman knows. What is that? Your
intuition?"
Because, just then, death had come
and rested its head on the foot of
the cot and he could smell its
breath.
"Never believe any of that about a
scythe and a skull," he told her. "It
can be two bicycle policemen as
easily, or be a bird. Or it can have
a wide snout like a hyena."
It had moved up on him now, but it
had no shape any more. It simply
occupied space.
"Tell it to go away."
It did not go away but moved a
little closer.
"You've got a hell of a breath," he
told it. "You stinking bastard."
It moved up closer to him still and
now he could not speak to it, and
when it saw he could not speak it
came a little closer, and now he
tried to send it away without
speaking, but it moved in on him so
its weight was all upon his chest,
and while it crouched there and he
could not move or speak, he heard
the woman say, "Bwana is asleep
now. Take the cot up very gently
and carry it into the tent."
He could not speak to tell her to
make it go away and it crouched
now, heavier, so he could not
breathe. And then, while they lifted
the cot, suddenly it was all right
and the weight went from his chest.
It was morning and had been
morning for some time and he
heard the plane. It showed very
tiny and then made a wide circle
and the boys ran out and lit the
fires, using kerosene, and piled on
grass so there were two big
smudges at each end of the level
place and the morning breeze blew
them toward the camp and the
plane circled twice more, low this
time, and then glided down and
levelled off and landed smoothly
and, coming walking toward him,
was old Compton in slacks, a tweed
jacket and a brown felt hat.
"What's the matter, old cock?"
Compton said.
"Bad leg," he told him. "Will you
have some breakfast?"
"Thanks. I'll just have some tea. It's
the Puss Moth you know. I won't be
able to take the Memsahib. There's
only room for one. Your lorry is on
the way."
Helen had taken Compton aside
and was speaking to him. Compton
came back more cheery than ever.
"We'll get you right in," he said. "I'll
be back for the Mem. Now I'm
afraid I'll have to stop at Arusha
to refuel. We'd better get going."
"What about the tea?"
"I don't really care about it, you
know."
The boys had picked up the cot
and carried it around the green
tents and down along the rock and
out onto the plain and along past
the smudges that were burning
brightly now, the grass all
consumed, and the wind fanning
the fire, to the little plane. It was
difficult getting him in, but once in
he lay back in the leather seat,
and the leg was stuck straight out
to one side of the seat where
Compton sat. Compton started the
motor and got in. He waved to
Helen and to the boys and, as the
clatter moved into the old familiar
roar, they swung around with
Compie watching for warthog holes
and roared, bumping, along the
stretch between the fires and with
the last bump rose and he saw
them all standing below, waving,
and the camp beside the hill,
flattening now, and the plain
spreading, clumps of trees, and the
bush flattening, while the game
trails ran now smoothly to the dry
waterholes, and there was a new
water that he had never known of.
The zebra, small rounded backs
now, and the wildebeeste, big-
headed dots seeming to climb as
they moved in long fingers across
the plain, now scattering as the
shadow came toward them, they
were tiny now, and the movement
had no gallop, and the plain as
far as you could see, gray-yellow
now and ahead old Compie's tweed
back and the brown felt hat. Then
they were over the first hills and
the wildebeeste were trailing up
them, and then they were over
mountains with sudden depths of
green-rising forest and the solid
bamboo slopes, and then the heavy
forest again, sculptured into peaks
and hollows until they crossed, and
hills sloped down and then another
plain, hot now, and purple brown,
bumpy with heat and Compie
looking back to see how he was
riding. Then there were other
mountains dark ahead.
And then instead of going on to
Arusha they turned left, he
evidently figured that they had the
gas, and looking down he saw a
pink sifting cloud, moving over the
ground, and in the air, like the
first snow in at ii blizzard, that
comes from nowhere, and he knew
the locusts were coming, up from
the South. Then they began to climb
and they were going to the East it
seemed, and then it darkened and
they were in a storm, the rain so
thick it seemed like flying through
a waterfall, and then they were out
and Compie turned his head and
grinned and pointed and there,
ahead, all he could see, as wide as
all the world, great, high, and
unbelievably white in the sun, was
the square top of Kilimanjaro. And
then he knew that there was where
he was going.
Just then the hyena stopped
whimpering in the night and
started to make a strange, human,
almost crying sound. The woman
heard it and, stirred uneasily. She
did not wake. In her dream she
was at the house on Long Island
and it was the night before her
daughter's debut. Somehow her
father was there and he had been
very rude. Then the noise the hyena
made was so loud she woke and for
a moment she did not know where
she was and she was very afraid.
Then she took the flashlight and
shone it on the other cot that they
had carried in after Harry had
gone to sleep. She could see his
bulk under the mosquito bar but
somehow he had gotten his leg out
and it hung down alongside the cot.
The dressings had all come down
and she could not look at it.
"Molo," she called, "Molo! Molo!"
Then she said, "Harry, Harry!"
Then her voice rising, "Harry!
Please. Oh Harry!"
There was no answer and she
could not hear him breathing.
Outside the tent the hyena made
the same strange noise that had
awakened her. But she did not
hear him for the beating of her
heart.