What's his name? Akkers. Johan Akkers, Jane gave her assistance, the
Old Buck was making her slightly owl-eyed, and she was having a little
difficulty with her enunciation.
How are we going to get him! David mused. There isn't anything left on
Tabulani to tempt him, the few kudu we have got are so wild, it wouldn't
be worth the effort. No, you haven't got anything to tempt him right
now, but about the middle of September More like the first week in
September, Jane said firmly with strings of hair starting to hang down
her temples. - the first week in September the morula trees down by your
pools will come into fruit, and my elephants are going to visit you. The
one thing they just can't resist is morula berries, and they are going
to flatten my fence to get at them. Before I can repair it a lot of
other game are going to follow the jumbo over to your side.
You can lay any type of odds you like that our friend Akkers is oiling
his guns and drooling at the mouth right this minute. He will know
within an hour when the fence goes. 'This time he may get a surprise.
'Let's hope so. I think- David said softly - that we might run down to
Bandolier Hill tomorrow to have a look at this gentleman. 'One thing is
for sure, said Jane Berg indistinctly, a gentleman, he is not.
The road down to Bandolier Hill was heavily corrugated and thick with
white dust that rose in a banner behind the Land-Rover and hung in the
air long after they had passed. The hill was rounded and thickly
timbered and stood over the main metalled highway.
The trading post was four or five hundred yards from the road junction,
set back amidst a grove of mango trees with their deep green and
glistening foliage. It was a type found all over Africa, an unlovely
building of mud brick with a naked corrugated iron roof, the walls
plastered thickly with posters advertising goods from tea t o flashlight
batteries.
David parked the Land-Rover in the dusty yard beneath the raised stoop.
There was a faded sign above the front steps:
Bandolier Hill General Dealers.
At the side of the building was parked an old green Ford one-ton truck
with local licence plates. In the shade of the stoop squatted a dozen
or so potential customers, African women from the tribal area, dressed
in long cotton print dresses, timeless in their patience and their
expressions showing no curiosity about the occupants of the Land-Rover.
One of the women was suckling her infant with an enormously elongated
breast that allowed the child to stand beside her and watch the
newcomers without removing the puckered black nipple from his mouth.
Set in the centre of the yard was a thick straight pole, fifteen feet
tall, and on top of the pole was a wooden structure like a dog kennel.
David exclaimed as from the kennel emerged a big brown furry animal. it
descended the pole in one swift falling action, seemingly at lightly as
a bird, and the chain that was fastened to the pole at one end was, at
the other, buckled about the animal's waist by a thick leather strap.
It's one of the biggest old bull baboons I've ever seen. Quickly he
described it to Debra, as the baboon moved out to the chain's limit, and
knuckled the ground as he made a leisurely circle about his pole, the
chain clinking as it swung behind him. It was an arrogant display, and
