He pillowed the unconscious girl's head against the warm carcass of the lion, then jumped to catch the lowest mopani branch. He drew himself bodily upwards and swung one leg over the branch. He climbed swiftly up to the suspended bundle, and found it was a rawhide satchel.
He unhooked the straps and lowered it until he could peer into the opening.
A small, indignant face scowled up at him, and as it saw him it flushed and yelled with fright.
The memory of Lothar's own son assailed him so suddenly and bitterly that he winced and swayed on the high branch, and then drew the kicking, yelling child more securely against his own body and smiled, a painful, lopsided smile.
That is a big voice for a small man, he whispered huskily. it never occurred to him that it might be a girl that arrogant anger could only be male.
It was easier to shift his camp to the mopani tree under which Centaine lay, than move her to the camp. He had to carry the child with him, but he managed it in less than twenty minutes. He was fearful every minute that he left the helpless mother alone, and vastly relieved when he led the pack horse back to where she lay. Centaine was still unconscious, and the child he carried had soiled itself and was ravenous with hunger.
He wiped off the boy's small pink bottom with a handful of dry grass, remembering how he had performed the same service for his own son, and then placed him under the greatcoat where he could reach his unconscious mother's breast.
Then he set a canteen of water on a small fire and dropped the curved sacking needle and a Thank of white cotton thread from his canvas housewife into the boiling water to sterilize. He washed his own hands in a mug of hot water and carbolic soap, emptied the mug, refilled it and began to scrub out the deep tears in the girl's calf.
The water was painfully hot, and he lathered carbolic soap and forced his finger to the bottom of each wound, poured hot water into it, and then washed it out again and again.
Centaine moaned and thrashed about weakly, but he held her down and scrubbed grimly at the fearful lacerations. At last, not truly satisfied, but certain that if he persisted in his rough cleansing he would do irreparable damage to delicate tissue, he went to his saddle-bag and fetched a whisky bottle which he had carried with him for four years. It had been given to him by the German Lutheran missionary doctor who had nursed him through the wounds he had received during the campaign against Smuts and Botha's invasion. It may save your life one day, the doctor had told him. The handwritten label was illegible now, Acriflavin'- with an effort he remembered the name, and the dark yellow-brown liquid had evaporated to half its volume.
He poured it into the open wounds and worked it in with his forefinger, making certain that it reached the bottom of each deep cut. He used the last drops from the bottle on the rent in Centaine's scalp.
He fished the needle and cotton from the boiling canteen. With the girl's leg in his lap, he took a deep breath. Thank the Lord she's unconscious, and he held the lips of raw flesh together and worked the point of the needle through them.
It took him nearly two hours to sew the meat of her tattered calf together again, and his stitches were crude but effective, the work of a sailmaker rather than a surgeon, He used strips from one of his clean shirts to bind up the leg, but as he worked he knew that despite his best efforts, infection was almost certain. He transferred his attention to her scalp. Three stitches were sufficient to close that wound, and afterwards the nervous strain of the last hours swamped him, and he felt shaken and exhausted.
it took an effort of will to begin work on the litter. He skinned out the carcass of the lion, and strung the wet hide between two long limber mopani saplings with the fur side uppermost. The horses shied and fidgeted at the rank smell of lion, but he gentled them and fitted the straight poles of the drag litter on to the pack horse, then tenderly lifted Centaine's limp body, wrapped in the greatcoat, into the litter and strapped her securely with strips of mopani bark.
Carrying the now sleeping child in the satchel and leading the pack horse with the litter sliding along behind it, he set off at a walk towards the wagons. He calculated that it was a full day's march, and it was now long past noon, but he could not force the pace without risk of injuring the girl in the litter.
A little before sundown, Shasa woke and howled like a hungry wolf. Lothar hobbled the horses and took him to his mother. Within minutes Shasa was howling with frustration and kicking under the flap of the greatcoat, presenting Lothar with a difficult decision.
It's for the child, and she will never know, he decided.
He lifted the flap of the greatcoat, and hesitated again before touching her so intimately.
Forgive me, please, he apologized to the unconscious girl, and took her barest breast in his hand. The weight and the heat and velvet feel of it was a shock in his loins, but he tried to ignore it. He pressed and kneaded, with Shasa blustering and mouthing furiously at his hand, and then rocked back on his heels and covered Centaine with the coat.
Now, what the hell do we do, boy? Your mother's lost her milk. He picked Shasa up. No, don't try me, my friend, this is another dry house, I'm afraid. We'll have to camp here while I go shopping. He cut thorn branches and dragged them into a circular laager to keep out hyena or other predators and built a large fire in the centre.
You'll have to come with me, he said to the querulous infant, and strapping the canvas bag across his shoulder, he rode out on his hunting horse.
He found a herd of zebra around the next bluff of the mountain. Using his horse as a screen, he worked to within easy rifle-shot of the herd and picked out a mare with a young foal at her side. He hit her cleanly in the head and she dropped instantly. When he walked up to the dead zebra, the foal ran only a few yards, and then circled back.
Sorry, old fellow, Lothar said to it. The orphan would have no chance of survival and the bullet he gave it in the head was swift mercy.
Lothar knelt beside the dead mare and pulled back her top leg to expose the swollen black udders. He was able to draw half a canteen of warm milk from her. It was rich and topped with thick yellow cream. He diluted it with an equal quantity o warm water and soaked a folded square of cotton torn from his shirt into the mixture.
Shasa spluttered and kicked and turned his head away, but Lothar persisted. This is the only item on the menu Suddenly Shasa learned the trick of it. Milk dribbled down his chin, but some of it went down his throat, and he yelled impatiently every time Lothar pulled the wad of shirt out of his mouth to resoak it.
