Whatever You Do, Don't Run Read online

  I could tell by the way he said it that he considered himself somewhat magnanimous to not be specific about the prey. I wanted to explain that when he watched a documentary, the half hour of footage he saw probably took more than a year to film, that the makers of it spent every waking hour and more in the bush, enduring months of tedium for the one gory moment of triumph—but unfortunately my Japanese isn’t that good.

  “We’ll see,” I said instead, and we started making our way to the camp. Along the rough track that led back to camp, we saw our first animals, and after their reaction I was forced to explain the fundamental thing that guides hate most to have to explain.

  “How’s your group?” my friend Lloyd, the manager, asked once we were in the camp.

  “I had to tell them the basics,” I said.

  “No!”

  “True.”

  “In English or Japanese?”

  “Bit of both. Most of it in Japanese, the swear words in English.”

  Lloyd pondered this. “Are you sure they understood?”

  “I think so, yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Because one of them is on the deck throwing bread to a warthog.”

  “Shit,” I said, and went off to repeat the speech I had already made in the vehicle after the group had leapt from the vehicle en masse. The exodus occurred because we had seen some impala, which had scattered in panic at the marauders. These were not zoo animals, I explained. They were wild. We didn’t feed them, stroke them or stand next to them for photographs. In fact all we did was watch them live and die. I was, in fact, thankful for the little incident and that the first thing we had seen had been an antelope herd. If we’d encountered an elephant, it might have made my point for me, but with a lot less delicacy. This happy fantasy sustained me while I reiterated my point to the young lady who was lobbing crusts at the bemused but not ungrateful pig.

  The game drives proceeded relatively well during their stay, though Spiirubaagu insisted on giving stage directions to every animal we saw and grew increasingly frustrated at their inability to understand him. One species had him particularly vexed.

  For some reason that no behaviourist has ever explained, zebras are the most notorious bum flashers. You can guarantee every time you are ready to take their photo that they will turn and show off their striped derriere. After perhaps the thirtieth such time that Spiirubaagu had faced such an indignity, he shouted at the zebra to stand still.

  “These animals only speak Setswana,” I said facetiously. “Ask the staff to teach you some.” Later that evening I saw him in earnest conversation with Mollen, our barman, who spoke limited English and to the best of my knowledge spoke not a word of Japanese.

  “Yes!” I would hear the ever-cheerful Mollen say periodically. “This is Botswana!”

  Clearly they had a communication breakdown, because while I listened for and looked forward to hearing Japanese-accented Setswana commands given to the animals, I never heard one. Spiirubaagu did use some of the rare Japanese expletives, though. (It is a language almost devoid of swear words, and it is only with great creativity that you can insult as foully as is possible in English.) His tirade was directed at a giraffe, one of the few animals that had actually appeared to follow his directions. Briefly anyway.

  The giraffe had been feeding on a tall acacia tree, his head buried deep in the thorny branches, rendering him unphotographable. When he was done, it would seem most likely that he would head deeper into the thicket of trees to feed some more, rather than the more aesthetically pleasing option of crossing the open plain behind him.

  “Come out,” Spiirubaagu commanded.

  Miraculously, the giraffe did. It made its stately way for two of its long swinging paces, then stopped to face us. A million-dollar-a-day supermodel couldn’t have posed more splendidly.

  Then again, the supermodel probably wouldn’t start to openly urinate either, which is what the giraffe did. The stream came thick and gooey, and I explained to the group that giraffes are at their most vulnerable to lions when they lean down to drink, so they do everything they can to conserve water—including a biological process that leaves their piss thick and honeylike.

  The incensed Spiirubaagu was shouting at the giraffe (another thing I had repeatedly asked the group not to do was call out to the animals, but this was too amusing for me to stop him), “Stop pissing! Stupid animal! Can’t you see I’m trying to take your photo!”

  Once again, the giraffe appeared to listen. After a last few stringy gloops, it stood magnificently posed for just a moment, with the glorious green backdrop of the Okavango framing it. Then too quickly for Spiirubaagu to gather his wits and focus, the giraffe promptly stepped back into the acacias and walked away.

  On our last drive together, we had set out for a particularly beautiful part of the Okavango, where huge herds of antelope could be found on a permanently green plain. I was always open to disruption to my plans, because if we didn’t reach a destination it could only mean that we had found something better to look at.

  So it was with no disappointment that I saw fresh lion tracks on the dirt road we were using. With no thought as to how hypocritical it might look, I stepped out of the vehicle to take a better look. (Guides do this all the time: insist it is way too dangerous for anyone else to get out of the car, or even stand up in it, then stroll around themselves as if their khaki uniform makes them invulnerable.) The tracks were really fresh.

  “Very new, only a few minutes old,” I told the group, following the tracks a little farther along the soft dust of the road. “It’s an adult female. No, two adult females.” I knew these lions. We were in the territory of Martina’s Pride, a small group of only two adults (in which one of the females was unusually large and even more bizarrely had a scraggly mane). I suspected that the nonhairy female had given birth to cubs recently, so I was excited that we might see them.

  To make sure that the lions hadn’t just crossed the road and moved into the thick bush on my left, I walked a little farther, not thinking of how much I was isolating myself from the vehicle. I was hoping that the lions would be somewhere on the plains to my right, where it would be easier to spot them.

  “Hey!” I shouted back to the eager faces who were peering over the back of the open-topped Land Rover. “There’re tracks for little cubs here!” I took a few more steps.

  “It looks like the cubs went this way,” I pointed into the bush. “And the adults went this way,” I said, aiming my other arm out toward a complex of termite mounds. Then, still in the cruciform position, I spoke, this time only to myself.

  “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” and at the fourth stupid, they came at me.

  When you are training to be a guide, you learn that the African bush is a much safer place than you might imagine. Once you have learned a few rules, you are less likely to get injured than a person in the city who faces traffic every day. Dealing with the dangerous animals becomes something as habitual as looking both ways when you cross a road.

  What you also learn is that there are things you can do in the bush that are like crossing a busy road with your eyes shut and ears blocked. The first thing they teach you as a guide is that you never get between a lion and her cubs. It’s the second thing they teach you as well, just to reinforce it, and usually they reiterate it a third time for good measure.

  I’d just forgotten to look both ways, and Martina and her sister, who I had seen ripping other animals to pieces on a number of occasions, were coming at me.

  I felt naked and cold, despite the desert sun. I let the training that I had not forgotten take over. My arms were already raised, which had the advantage of making me look bigger. I turned to the lions, front on, showing that I had forward-facing eyes, like them and all other predators. This is meant to make them hesitate. I tried to roar, but as always happened to me in these circumstances what came out was more of a pathetic whimper.

  They weren’t coming in a straight line at me, but were bouncing stiff
-legged from side to side, getting incrementally closer. This, the books tell you, is an almost sure sign of a mock charge, and the lions will probably stop before they get to you and will then back off.

  The knowledge that the lions weren’t sure yet that they were going to kill me was little comfort, and I was barely relieved when they stopped about twenty feet from me. They backed slowly away, the ridge of fur along their spine erect, their faces twisted into snarls, and low growls emanating and filling the air, seeming to come from every direction at once.

  I took a step back.

  They came again, bouncing once more from side to side, stopping closer to me than the time before. Again, the roar I gave was less than threatening. They backed away, bellies low to the ground, their focus as unwaveringly on me as mine was on them. When they stopped, tails twitching, I took a step back again. They charged.

  Three times they came at me, their bouncing run impossible to track—yellow fur and a fury of teeth—as they homed in. The fourth time they backed off, I stepped back again, getting another pace closer to the safety of the vehicle. This time when they came, they came straight.

  This is it, I thought, and gave maybe the only roar that I have ever managed that had some menace in it. They didn’t slow, and it took only a second before they were at me.

  They ran straight past, close enough for me to reach out a hand and touch them, before I could even register that they weren’t going to hit me. All that was left was a hole in the bush they had plunged through and their pungent odour as they had headed for the cubs they had been protecting.

  I wanted to sit down, but I did the right thing and continued slowly, shakily, backing away. At the vehicle I finally turned. Somehow all seven of the Japanese had squeezed onto the seat at the back of the vehicle (which is designed for three) to lean over and watch. Spiirubaagu had his video camera hanging loosely in his hand, lens cap on, a look of displeasure on his face.

  As I staggered into my seat, wanting to cry, wanting to puke, wanting to laugh and scream, he spoke.

  “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t able to get that the first time. Would you mind doing it again?”

  Bale and the Snake

  Of all the workers building Duba Camp, Bale was the only one causing any trouble. His name was pronounced in two separate syllables, and many times throughout the day you could hear one of the foremen shout, “Ba-le! What are you doing!?”

  “Nothing,” Bale would reply, quite honestly.

  If it was pointed out that this was a problem, as he wasn’t being paid to do nothing, he would shrug, smile, and say, “Okay.” As if to say, that’s your problem, not mine—which left the foremen with a quandary. There were few jobs they trusted Bale to do that he wouldn’t stuff up. In the crew of workers, there were skilled woodcarvers making decorations, skilled carpenters building decks, skilled labourers putting up the huge tents for the guests to sleep in, and Bale, who was skilled only at avoiding work.

  Despite this, I liked him. He laughed easily and honestly and was brazen in asking for money when he already owed me a fortune, an unusual bravery that for reasons unknown I found admirable. Another trick of his was to ask me for cigarettes every day, even though I don’t smoke.

  “I don’t smoke, Bale,” I would say, beginning the ritual.

  “Then buy me a cigarette,” he would smile.

  “They’re bad for you. Go and do some work.”

  “Work. Maybe it is bad for me too.” And he would saunter off, seeking a shady tree where he might go undisturbed for hours. Since I was not involved directly in the construction, it was harder for me to dislike him than it was for the builders.

  I was taking over as manager of the camp when it opened, and by the predictions of the builders the camp would not be ready. We were also low on stock of things the camp would need to function, such as cooking pots and beds. Gavin and Attie, the two builders, were commandeering every flight and filling it with building material, and I was starting to stress that not only would the first guests have no rooms to sleep in, but no food to eat either. I walked to the dry-goods storeroom to check the stocks of flour, and I trod on a snake.

  “Buggershitpisswee!” I shouted as I jumped back and dropped to a boxing stance. I don’t know boxing, and it wouldn’t work against snakes, but it always makes me feel better after a fright to look like I’m ready for anything.

  My martial ineptitude was not a factor in this instance, though. The snake was dead. It was not my boot that had caused it either, but something bigger and heavier. By the look of the mangled body, it had been smashed, repeatedly and cruelly. In the corner of the storeroom was a brick, and I suspected it to be the murder weapon.

  “Damn, bro, that’s cruel,” said a voice behind me, startlingly close. I spun and went into my boxing pose again. This was just as ineffective against the man who stood in front of me as it would be with the snake, because he was one of those characters who had done a bit of everything in his life, including a stint as a Thai boxer. His name was Anthony, and he was in camp helping with the building.

  I came out of my squat and dropped my hands, which he had politely not commented on, and said, “Yeah, this is the third one I’ve found. I’m calling a staff meeting.”

  Anthony looked at the snake and said, “Not even poisonous.” I knew, as did he, that that didn’t matter to the staff. Most Africans distrust and are fearful of every snake, no matter its size or toxicity.

  I got on well with the staff at Duba, because I only lose my temper once a year and am able to treat most things as a joke. The only thing that ever gets me riled is cruelty. It makes my jaw clench and a blood red veil drop over my eyes. But the worst thing is that the filter between my brain and mouth disappears, and I say things that cannot be taken back.

  The staff watched me quietly at the meeting. They could tell I was angry by the pulsing vein in my forehead and the audible grinding of my teeth.

  “Who’s killing snakes?!” I demanded shrilly. No answer. “Come on! Who killed the snake in the storeroom?” Their blank stares infuriated me. I scanned the assembled group for a guilty look, but they remained impassive. Only Bale showed any emotion. He was grinning, as he did whenever he wasn’t snoring.

  Anthony saw I was about to lose it and say something stupid, so he stepped in. “Guys, if any of you see a snake, don’t kill it. Come and get me. I’ll catch it and drive it out into the bush for four miles. No snake has a territory bigger than that, so it won’t be able to find its way back.”

  The staff started nodding, but I was still angry. “Yeah, and if I catch anyone killing a snake, or any animal, I’ll drive them four miles into the bush and see if they make it back.” I was given the contemptuous stares I deserved, and the staff wandered off.

  Two weeks later, one staff member took Anthony up on his offer and we drove a furious Egyptian cobra four miles into the bush and dumped it out of the burlap sack we had carried it in. The staff members were happy to be taken seriously, and I found no more dead snakes.

  I wouldn’t have had time to do anything about them anyway. Unseasonable rain had pushed the building schedule back, and guests were about to start flying in. Tents were only half built, the main area leaked, and the furthermost tents still didn’t have a path to them. Everyone in camp was busy in a frenzy of activity. The laundry ladies who normally washed and ironed the clothes of the tourists were swinging hammers, the kitchen staff were cutting dead trees into logs to mark out the pathways, the guides were stocking the bar, I was digging holes, and Bale was walking between each group, offering commentary but no assistance.

  Gavin and Attie had threatened to fire him on numerous occasions, but they knew Botswana’s labour laws don’t allow dismissal due to laziness. Unless he took too many sick days or was caught stealing, we were stuck with him. On the day the first guests were flying in, a spurt of energy pushed us all to finish the last few tents, patch the leaks and have ice-cold drinks in time for their arrival. Bale had been given the incomparab
ly simple job of laying straight poles on each side of the pathways. Even this seemed too much for him, because I found him strolling toward me, tunelessly whistling, with a big smile.

  “I can’t work!” he told me proudly.

  “Yes, Bale, I know that, but specifically, this time, why?” My patience was thin, and for once I wasn’t amused by his boldness.

  “There’s a big nyooka beside the path.” Nyooka is the Setswana word for snake. “I can’t work,” he added again.

  “What sort of nyooka, Bale?” I imagined a mamba, cobra or possibly a python.

  “A big one!”

  It wasn’t as specific as I would have liked.

  I followed him down the unbordered and dusty path, and under an acacia bush was a python. It had a broad head and dark markings, like an older python does, but I could see its tail and overall it didn’t look that big. I’d sworn off picking up snakes, because I had learned the hard way that I wasn’t very good at it. But the temperature was cool, I imagined the snake would be sluggish, and it wasn’t that big a python.

  I grabbed it behind the head with my left hand and lunged for the tail with my right, grabbing it above the place any faeces would come from if it ejected some (another lesson I had learned the hard way). I stood upright and knew my mistake. The python had been sitting in a hole, and while I had both ends, there was a lot more to its middle than I had foreseen.

  The snake’s mouth opened, showing the curved and jagged daggers of its teeth.

  “Now you’ll die,” said Bale, without a hint of remorse. “It’s poison.”

  I didn’t answer. I just wondered how I was going to put it down without getting bitten. It was more than ten feet long and apparently quite unhappy with me. It writhed in my hands, and it took all of my recently acquired builder’s muscle to contain it. It made a loop of its body, which slid onto my right hand, covering its tail. It defecated, and the stink was overwhelming. There is something about a six-month digestive process that really gets a pong going. It threw another coil, and my arm started to get weighed down.