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23 - Jock of the Bushveld by Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick · Jock of the Bushveld

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Speaker 1: Twenty two The Old Crocodile. We reached the Crocodile River
0:04
Speaker 1: Drift on a Sunday morning after a particularly dry and
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Speaker 1: dusty night track. Wanting a wash did not on such
0:11
Speaker 1: occasion mean a mild inclination for a luxury. It meant
0:15
Speaker 1: that washing was badly needed. The dust lay inches deep
0:19
Speaker 1: on the one worn felt road, and the long strings
0:23
Speaker 1: of oxen toiling along kicked up suffocating clouds of fine
0:27
Speaker 1: dust which there was seldom any breeze to carry off.
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Speaker 1: It powdered white, man and black to an equal level
0:34
Speaker 1: of yellowy red. The wagons were a couple of hundred
0:37
Speaker 1: yards from the river, and taking a complete change, I
0:41
Speaker 1: went off for a real clean up. We generally managed
0:45
Speaker 1: to get in a couple of baths at the rivers
0:47
Speaker 1: real swims, but that was only done in the regular drifts,
0:50
Speaker 1: and when there were people about or wagons crossing. In
0:53
Speaker 1: such conditions, crocodiles rarely appeared. They preferred solitude and silence.
0:59
Speaker 1: The swims were very delightful, but somewhat different from ordinary bathes. However,
1:03
Speaker 1: a moat may have been the risk of meeting a
1:05
Speaker 1: crocodile when you dived, or of being grabbed by one
1:09
Speaker 1: as you swam. The idea was always there, and it
1:12
Speaker 1: made it more interesting being a load that day, I
1:16
Speaker 1: had no intention of having a swim, or of going
1:19
Speaker 1: into the open river, and I took a little trouble
1:21
Speaker 1: to pick a suitable pool with a rock on which
1:24
Speaker 1: to stand and dress. The water was clear, and I
1:27
Speaker 1: could see the bottom of the pool. It was quite shallow,
1:31
Speaker 1: three feet deep at most, made by a scour in
1:34
Speaker 1: the sandy bed, and divided from the main stream by
1:37
Speaker 1: a narrow spit of sand a couple of yards wide
1:41
Speaker 1: and twenty long. At the top end of the sand
1:44
Speaker 1: spit was a flat rock my dressing table. After a
1:49
Speaker 1: dip in the pool, I stood on the sand spit
1:51
Speaker 1: to scrub off the brown dust, keeping one unsoaped eye
1:56
Speaker 1: roving round for intrusive crocodiles, and the loaded rifle beside me.
2:02
Speaker 1: The brute slide out so silently and unexpectedly that, in
2:06
Speaker 1: that exposed position, with water all round, one could not
2:10
Speaker 1: afford to turn one's back on any quarter for long.
2:14
Speaker 1: There is something laughable. It seemed faintly humorous even then,
2:19
Speaker 1: in the idea of a naked man hastily washing soap
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Speaker 1: out of his eyes and squeezing away the water to
2:25
Speaker 1: take a hurried look behind him, and then, after careful survey,
2:29
Speaker 1: doing an altogether dous just as hastily blowing and spluttering
2:34
Speaker 1: all the time like a boy after his first dive.
2:39
Speaker 1: The bath was successful and ended without incident, not a
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Speaker 1: sign of a crocodile the whole time. Breakfast was ready
2:46
Speaker 1: when I reached the wagons, and, feeling very fit and clean,
2:49
Speaker 1: in a fresh flannel shirt and white moleskins, I sat
2:53
Speaker 1: down to it. Jim Machachel brought the kettle of coffee
2:56
Speaker 1: from the fire and was in the act of pouring
2:59
Speaker 1: some into a big mug when he stopped with a
3:02
Speaker 1: grunt of surprise, and looking towards the river, called out sharply,
3:06
Speaker 1: what is it? One of the herd boys was coming
3:10
Speaker 1: at a trot towards us, and the drivers, thinking something
3:14
Speaker 1: had happened to the oxen, called a question to him.
3:17
Speaker 1: He did not answer until he reached them, and even
3:20
Speaker 1: then spoke in so quiet a tone that I could
3:23
Speaker 1: not catch what he said. But Jim, putting down the kettle,
3:27
Speaker 1: ran to his wagon and grabbing his sticks and Asseguyes
3:31
Speaker 1: called to me in a husky shouting whisper, which imperfectly
3:35
Speaker 1: describes Jim's way of relieving his feelings without making the
3:39
Speaker 1: whole world echo in quenyaan course, in Quenyumkulu, big crocodile,
3:46
Speaker 1: cruet crocodile bars. Then, abandoning his excited polyglot, he gabbled
3:52
Speaker 1: off in pure Zulu at an incredible speed, a long
3:55
Speaker 1: account of the big crocodile. It had carried off four
3:59
Speaker 1: boys going to the goldfields that year. It had taken
4:02
Speaker 1: a woman and a baby from the crown nearby, but
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Speaker 1: a white man had beaten it off with a bucket.
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Speaker 1: It had taken all the dogs, and even calves and
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Speaker 1: goats at the drinking place. And goodness knows how much more.
4:14
Speaker 1: How Jim got his news and when he made his
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Speaker 1: friends were puzzles never solved. Hunting stories like traveler's tales
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Speaker 1: are proverbially dangerous to reputations, however literally true there may be,
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Speaker 1: and this is necessarily so, partly because only exceptional things
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Speaker 1: are worth telling, and partly because the conditions of the
4:36
Speaker 1: country or the life referred to are unfamiliar and cannot
4:39
Speaker 1: be grasped. It is a depressing but accepted fact that
4:44
Speaker 1: the ideal lurid, and I suppose convincing pictures of wildlife
4:48
Speaker 1: are done in London, where the author is unhampered by
4:52
Speaker 1: fact or experience. Stick to the impossible and you will
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Speaker 1: be believed. Keep clear of fact and common and you
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Speaker 1: cannot be checked. Such was the cynical advice given many
5:05
Speaker 1: years ago by one who had bought his experience in
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Speaker 1: childhood and could not forget it. Sent home as a
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Speaker 1: small boy from a mission station in Zululand to be
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Speaker 1: educated by his grandparents, he found the demands for marvels
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Speaker 1: among his simple country relatives so great that his small
5:23
Speaker 1: experience of snakes and wild animals was soon used up.
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Speaker 1: But the eager suggestive questions of the good people, young
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Speaker 1: and old led him on, and he shyly crossed the border.
5:34
Speaker 1: The fields of fancy were fair and free, there were
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Speaker 1: no fences there, and he stepped out gaily into the
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Speaker 1: little people's country, the land of let's pretend here he
5:45
Speaker 1: became very popular. One day, however, whilst looking at the cows,
5:50
Speaker 1: he remarked that in Zululand a cow would not yield
5:53
Speaker 1: her milk unless the calf stood by the old farmer
5:57
Speaker 1: stopped in his walk, gave him once sae suspicious look
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Speaker 1: and ask coldly, what do they do when a calf
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Speaker 1: is killed or dies? They never kill the calves there,
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Speaker 1: the boy answered, but once when one died, father stuffed
6:13
Speaker 1: the skin with grass and showed it to the cow,
6:15
Speaker 1: because they said that would do. The old man, red
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Speaker 1: with anger, took the boy to his room, saying that
6:23
Speaker 1: as long as he spoke of the lions, tigers and
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Speaker 1: snakes that he knew about, they believed him. But when
6:28
Speaker 1: it came to farming, no downright lying he would not have,
6:33
Speaker 1: and there was nothing for it but luraping. It was
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Speaker 1: the only piece of solid truth they had allowed me
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Speaker 1: to tell for months, he added, thoughtfully, and I got
6:43
Speaker 1: a first class hiding for it. And was there no
6:46
Speaker 1: one who doubted Ducialu and Stanley and others. Did no
6:50
Speaker 1: one question Gordon's cunning's story of the herd of elephants
6:54
Speaker 1: caught and killed in a little cluef and did not
6:56
Speaker 1: we of Barberton, many years later locate the spot by
7:00
Speaker 1: the enormous pile of bones, and named it Elephant's Cliff.
7:05
Speaker 1: There are two crocodile incidents well known to those whose
7:08
Speaker 1: time has now made old hands, but believed by no
7:12
Speaker 1: one else, even in the day of their happening. They
7:15
Speaker 1: divided men into believers and unbelievers. The one was of
7:20
Speaker 1: mad Owen, only mad because utterly reckless, riding through Cammarti
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Speaker 1: Drift one moonlight night, alone and unarmed, who riding found
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Speaker 1: his horse brought to a stop. Plunging, kicking, and struggling
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Speaker 1: on the sand bank in mid stream, where the water
7:36
Speaker 1: was not waist deep. Owen, looking back, saw that a
7:39
Speaker 1: crocodile had his horse by the leg. All he had
7:43
Speaker 1: was a leaded hunting crop. But jumping into the water,
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Speaker 1: he laid on so vigorously that the crocodile made off,
7:49
Speaker 1: and Owen remounted and rode out. There are many who
7:54
Speaker 1: say it is not true, that it cannot be true,
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Speaker 1: for no man would do it. But there are others
8:00
Speaker 1: who have an open mind because they knew Owen. Mad Owen,
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Speaker 1: who for a wager bandaged his horse's eyes and galloped
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Speaker 1: him over a twenty foot bank headlong into the jew's
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Speaker 1: hole in Leedenberg. Owen, who, when driving four young horses
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Speaker 1: in a cape cart, flung the reins away and whipped
8:18
Speaker 1: up the team bellowing with laughter because his nervous companion
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Speaker 1: said he had never been upset and did not want
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Speaker 1: to be Owen who, but too many things rise up
8:29
Speaker 1: that earned him his title and blow the impossible to
8:32
Speaker 1: the winds. Mad Owen deserves a book to himself. But
8:37
Speaker 1: here is my little testimony on his behalf given shameface
8:41
Speaker 1: at the thought of how he would roar to think
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Speaker 1: it needed. I crossed that same drift one evening, and
8:47
Speaker 1: on riding up the bank to Furley's store, saw a
8:50
Speaker 1: horse standing in a dejected attitude, with one hind leg,
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Speaker 1: clothed in trousers made of sacking and held up by
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Speaker 1: a suspender ingeniously fastened across the back. During the evening,
9:02
Speaker 1: something reminded me of the horse, and I asked a question,
9:06
Speaker 1: and at the end of Furley's answer was they say
9:09
Speaker 1: it's all a yarn about horsewhip and a crocodile. All
9:12
Speaker 1: we know is that one night a week ago he
9:15
Speaker 1: turned up here dripping wet, and after having a drink,
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Speaker 1: told us the yarn. He had the leaded hunting crop
9:22
Speaker 1: in his hand, and that's the horse he was riding.
9:25
Speaker 1: You can make what you like of it. We've been
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Speaker 1: doctoring the horse ever since, but I doubt if it
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Speaker 1: will pull through. I have no doubt about the incident.
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Speaker 1: Owen did not invent, he had no need to, and
9:38
Speaker 1: Furley himself was no mean judge of crocodiles and men.
9:41
Speaker 1: Furley kept a ferry boat for the use of natives
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Speaker 1: and others. When the river was up at half a
9:47
Speaker 1: crown a trip. The business ran itself and went strong
9:50
Speaker 1: during the summer floods, but in winter, when the river
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Speaker 1: was low and fordable, it needed pushing, and then Furley's boatman,
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Speaker 1: an intelligent native, would loiter about the drift and interest
10:01
Speaker 1: travelers in his crocodile stories, and if they proved over
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Speaker 1: confident or skeptical, would maneuver them a little way down
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Speaker 1: the stream, where from the bank they would usually see
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Speaker 1: a big crocodile sunning himself on the sand spit below
10:14
Speaker 1: the drift. The boys always took the boat. One day,
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Speaker 1: some police entered the store and joyously announced that they
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Speaker 1: had got him, bagged the old villain at last, and
10:25
Speaker 1: Furley dropped on a sack of mealies groaning out glory boys.
10:29
Speaker 1: The fairies ruined, why I've preserved him for years. The
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Speaker 1: other crocodile incident concerns Lying Tom, Brave, merry faced, blue
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Speaker 1: eyed Tom, bubbling with good humor, overflowing with kindness, and
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Speaker 1: full of the wildest yarns, always good and amusing, but
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Speaker 1: so steep that they made the most case hardened draw
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Speaker 1: a long breath. The name Lying Tom was understood and
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Speaker 1: accepted by every one in the place, barring Tom himself,
11:00
Speaker 1: for oddly enough, there was another Tom of the same surname,
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Speaker 1: but no relation. And once, when his name cropped up,
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Speaker 1: I heard the real Simon pure refer to him as
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Speaker 1: my namesake, the chap they call Lying Tom. To the
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Speaker 1: day of his death, Tom believed that it was the
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Speaker 1: other Tom who was esteemed. The lyre Tom was a
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Speaker 1: prospector who came in occasionally for supplies or licenses. And
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Speaker 1: there came a day when Barberton was convulsed by Lying
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Speaker 1: Tom's latest. He had been walking along the bank of
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Speaker 1: the Crocodile River, and on hearing screams, ran down just
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Speaker 1: in time to see a catflewoman with a child on
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Speaker 1: her back, dragged off through the shallow water by a crocodile.
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Speaker 1: Tom ran into help. I kicked the dashed thing on
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Speaker 1: the head and in the eyes, he said, and punched
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Speaker 1: at ribs, and then grabbed the bucket that the woman
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Speaker 1: had in her hand and hammered the blame thing over
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Speaker 1: the head till it let go. By jimmiey boys, the
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Speaker 1: woman was in a mess. Never saw any one in
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Speaker 1: such a fright. Poor Tom suffered from consumption in the
12:01
Speaker 1: throat and talked in husky jerks, broken by coughs and laughter.
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Speaker 1: Is there one among them who knew him who did
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Speaker 1: not remember the breezy cheeriness, the indomitable pluck, the merry
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Speaker 1: blue eyes so limpidly clear, the expressive bushy eyebrows, and
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Speaker 1: the teeth too perfect to be wasted on a man,
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Speaker 1: And even flashing with his unfailing smiles, Tom would end
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Speaker 1: up with niggers. Say I was to CARTI asked for
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Speaker 1: some of my medicine, blamed niggers, got no pluck would
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Speaker 1: have let the woman go. Of course, this story went
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Speaker 1: the rounds as Tom's latest and best. But one day
12:40
Speaker 1: we turned up in Barbiton to deliver our loads, and
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Speaker 1: that evening a whisper went about, and men with faces
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Speaker 1: humorously puzzled, looked at one another and said, lying. Tom's
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Speaker 1: a fraud. The crocodile story is true. For our party,
12:55
Speaker 1: shooting guinea fowl in the kaffeland along the river, came
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Speaker 1: upon a crow where their sat a woman with her
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Speaker 1: arm so scarred and marked that we could not but
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Speaker 1: ask what had caused it. There was no difference in
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Speaker 1: the stories except that the Kaffirs, after saying that the
13:10
Speaker 1: white men had kicked the crocodile and beat it with
13:12
Speaker 1: the bucket, added and he kicked and beat with the
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Speaker 1: bucket the two men who were there, saying that they
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Speaker 1: were not men but dogs, who would not go in
13:20
Speaker 1: and help the woman. But he was bewitched. The crocodile
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Speaker 1: would not touch him. Some of Tom's stories were truly incredible,
13:29
Speaker 1: but not those in which he figured to advantage. He
13:32
Speaker 1: was too brave a man to have consciously gained credit
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Speaker 1: he did not deserve. He died slowly, starved to death
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Speaker 1: by the cruel disease. The brave, kindly, cheery spirits, smiling,
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Speaker 1: unbeaten to the end. That was what Jim referred to
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Speaker 1: when he called me to kill the murderer of women
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Speaker 1: and children. It pleased him and others to say that
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Speaker 1: it was the same crocodile, and I believe it was.
13:56
Speaker 1: The locality was the same, and the crow boys said
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Speaker 1: that it was the old place from which all the
14:01
Speaker 1: murderous raids had been made, and that was all we knew.
14:06
Speaker 1: I took the rifle and went up with the herd boy.
14:08
Speaker 1: Jim followed close behind, walking on his toes with the
14:12
Speaker 1: wolsey springy movements of an ostrich eager to get ahead,
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Speaker 1: and repeatedly silenced and driven back by me. In the
14:19
Speaker 1: few hundred yards walked to the river. A queer premonitory
14:23
Speaker 1: feeling came over me as I saw we were making
14:26
Speaker 1: straight for the bathing pool. But before reaching the bank,
14:29
Speaker 1: the herd boy squatted down, indicating that somewhere in front
14:33
Speaker 1: and below us the enemy would be found. An easy
14:36
Speaker 1: crawl brought me to the river bank, and sure enough,
14:39
Speaker 1: on the very spot where I had stood to wash,
14:42
Speaker 1: only fifty yards from us, there was an enormous crocodile.
14:47
Speaker 1: He was lying along the sand spit with his full
14:50
Speaker 1: length exposed to me. Such a shot would have been
14:53
Speaker 1: a moral certainty, but as I brought the rifle slowly up,
14:57
Speaker 1: it may have glinted in the sun, or perhaps the
14:59
Speaker 1: crocodile had been watching us all the time, for with
15:02
Speaker 1: one easy turn and no splatter at all, he slid
15:06
Speaker 1: into the river and was gone. It was very disgusting,
15:11
Speaker 1: and I pitched into Jim and the other boys behind
15:13
Speaker 1: me for having made a noise and shown themselves. But
15:16
Speaker 1: they were all still squatting when I reached them and vowed.
15:20
Speaker 1: They had not moved nor spoken. We had already turned
15:23
Speaker 1: to go when they came a distant call from beyond
15:26
Speaker 1: the river. To me, it was merely a kaffir's voice
15:29
Speaker 1: and a sound quite meaningless, but to the boy's trained
15:32
Speaker 1: ears it spoke clearly. Jim pressed me downwards and we
15:37
Speaker 1: all squatted again. He is coming out on another sand bank,
15:42
Speaker 1: Jim explained again. I called to the bank and lay
15:46
Speaker 1: flat with the rifle ready. There was another sand streak
15:49
Speaker 1: a hundred yards out in the stream, with two outcroppings
15:52
Speaker 1: of black rock at the upper end of it. There
15:55
Speaker 1: were rocks right enough, for I had examined them carefully
15:58
Speaker 1: when bathing. This was the only other sand bank in sight.
16:03
Speaker 1: It was higher than it appeared to be from a
16:05
Speaker 1: distant and the crocodile, whilst hidden from us, was visible
16:08
Speaker 1: to the natives on the opposite bank as it lay
16:11
Speaker 1: in the shallow water and emerged inch by inch to
16:14
Speaker 1: resume its morning sun bath. The crocodile was so slow
16:19
Speaker 1: in showing up that I quite thought it had been
16:21
Speaker 1: scared off again, and I turned to examine other objects
16:25
Speaker 1: and spots up and down the stream, but presently glancing
16:29
Speaker 1: back at the bank again, I saw what appeared to
16:32
Speaker 1: be a third rock, no bigger than a loaf of bread.
16:35
Speaker 1: This object I watched until my eyes ached and swam.
16:39
Speaker 1: It was the only possible crocodile. Yet it was so small,
16:43
Speaker 1: so motionless, so permanent looking, it seemed absurd to doubt
16:48
Speaker 1: that it really was a stone which had passed unnoticed before.
16:53
Speaker 1: As I watched unblinkingly, it seemed to grow bigger and
16:56
Speaker 1: again contract with regular swing, as if it swelled and
17:00
Speaker 1: shrank with breathing. And, knowing that it must nearly be
17:03
Speaker 1: an optical delusion caused by staring too long, I shut
17:07
Speaker 1: my eyes for a minute. The effect was excellent. The
17:11
Speaker 1: rock was much bigger, and after that it was easy
17:14
Speaker 1: to lie still and wait for the cunning old reptile
17:17
Speaker 1: to show himself. It took half an hour of this
17:20
Speaker 1: cautious maneuvering and edging on the part of the crocodile,
17:24
Speaker 1: before he was comfortably settled on the sand, with the
17:27
Speaker 1: sun warming all his back. In the meantime, the wagon
17:31
Speaker 1: boys behind me had not stirred. On the opposite side
17:34
Speaker 1: of the river, Kappas from the neighboring Kraal had gathered
17:38
Speaker 1: to a number of thirty or forty men, women and children,
17:41
Speaker 1: and they stood loosely grouped instinctively, still silent and watchful,
17:46
Speaker 1: like a little scattered herd of deer. All on both
17:50
Speaker 1: sides were watching me and waiting for the shot. It
17:53
Speaker 1: seemed useless to delay longer. The whole length of the
17:56
Speaker 1: body was showing, but it looked so wanting in thickness,
18:00
Speaker 1: so shallow in fact, that it was evident the crocodile
18:03
Speaker 1: was lying not on top, but on the other slope
18:06
Speaker 1: of the sand spit, and probably not more than six
18:09
Speaker 1: or eight inches in depth of body was visible. It
18:12
Speaker 1: was little enough to aim at, and the bullet seemed
18:15
Speaker 1: to strike the top of the bank, first sending up
18:17
Speaker 1: a column of sand, and then probably knocked all out
18:20
Speaker 1: of shape plowed into the body with a tremendous thump.
18:25
Speaker 1: The crocodile threw a back somersault, that is, it seemed
18:28
Speaker 1: to rear up on its tail and spring backwards. The
18:31
Speaker 1: jaws divided into a huge fork as for a second
18:36
Speaker 1: it stood up on end, and it let out an
18:38
Speaker 1: enraged roar, seemingly aimed at the heavens. It was a
18:43
Speaker 1: very sudden and dramatic effect following on the long silence.
18:47
Speaker 1: Then the whole world seemed to burst into indescribable turmoil.
18:52
Speaker 1: Shouts and yells burst out on all sides. The Kaffirs
18:56
Speaker 1: rushed down to the banks, the men armed with sticks
18:59
Speaker 1: and asseguyes, and the woman and children with nothing more
19:01
Speaker 1: formidable than their voices. The crocodile was alive, very much alive,
19:06
Speaker 1: and in the water. The wagon boys, headed by Jim,
19:10
Speaker 1: were all round me and all yelling out together what
19:12
Speaker 1: should or should not be done? And what would happen
19:15
Speaker 1: if we did or did not do it? It was babel
19:18
Speaker 1: and bedlam let loose. With the first plunge, the crocodile disappeared,
19:23
Speaker 1: but it came up again ten yards away, thrashing the
19:26
Speaker 1: water into foam and going up stream like a paddle boat,
19:30
Speaker 1: going reeling, roaring mad if one can imagine such a thing.
19:35
Speaker 1: I had another shot at him the instant he reappeared,
19:38
Speaker 1: but one could neither see nor hear where it struck.
19:42
Speaker 1: And again and again I fired whenever he showed up
19:44
Speaker 1: for a second he appeared to be shot through the
19:47
Speaker 1: lungs at any rate. The Kaffirs on the other bank,
19:50
Speaker 1: who were then quite close enough to see, said that
19:53
Speaker 1: it was so. The wagon boys had run down the
19:56
Speaker 1: bank out on to the first sand spit, and I
19:59
Speaker 1: followed them, shouting to the kaffirs opposite to get out
20:02
Speaker 1: of the line of fire, as I could no longer
20:04
Speaker 1: shoot without risk of hitting them. The crocodile, after his
20:08
Speaker 1: first straight dash up stream, had tacked about in all
20:12
Speaker 1: directions during the next few minutes, disappeared for short spells
20:16
Speaker 1: and plunging out again in unexpected places. One of these
20:20
Speaker 1: sudden reappearances brought him once more abreast and quite near
20:24
Speaker 1: to us and Jim. With a fierce yell, and with
20:28
Speaker 1: his Assegai held high in his right hand, dashed into
20:32
Speaker 1: the water, going through the shallows in wild leaps. I
20:36
Speaker 1: called to him to come back, but against his yells
20:39
Speaker 1: and the excited shouts of the ever increasing crowd. My
20:42
Speaker 1: voice could not live, and Jim, mad with excitement, went
20:46
Speaker 1: on twenty yards out where increasing depth steadied him. He
20:51
Speaker 1: turned for a moment, and, seeing himself alone in the water,
20:55
Speaker 1: called to me with eager confidence, Come on, Bass. It
20:59
Speaker 1: had never a kurds me that any one would be
21:01
Speaker 1: such an idiot to go into water after a wounded crocodile.
21:06
Speaker 1: There was no need to finish off this one, for
21:08
Speaker 1: it was bound to die, and no one wanted the
21:11
Speaker 1: meat or skin. Who then would be so mad as
21:14
Speaker 1: to think of such a thing? Five minutes earlier I
21:17
Speaker 1: would have answered very confidently for myself. But there are
21:20
Speaker 1: times when one cannot afford to be sensible. There was
21:23
Speaker 1: a world of unconscious irony in Jim's choice of words.
21:27
Speaker 1: Come on and bass, the boy giving the lead to
21:32
Speaker 1: his master was too much for me, and in I went.
21:36
Speaker 1: I cannot say that there was much enjoyment in it
21:38
Speaker 1: for the first few moments, not until the excitement took
21:42
Speaker 1: hold and all else was forgotten. The first thing that
21:45
Speaker 1: struck me was that in the deep water my rifle
21:48
Speaker 1: was worth no more than a walking stick, and not
21:51
Speaker 1: nearly as useful as an assagai. But what drove this
21:55
Speaker 1: and many other thoughts from my mind. In a second
21:58
Speaker 1: was the appearance of Jock on this stage, and his
22:01
Speaker 1: sudden jump into the leading place. In the first confusion,
22:05
Speaker 1: he had passed unnoticed, probably at my heels as usual,
22:09
Speaker 1: but the instant I answered Jim's challenge by jumping into
22:12
Speaker 1: the water. He gave one whimpering yelp of excitement and
22:16
Speaker 1: plunged in two, and in a few seconds he had
22:18
Speaker 1: out distanced us all and was leading straight for the crocodile.
22:23
Speaker 1: I shouted at him, of course, in vain. He heard nothing,
22:26
Speaker 1: and Jim and I plunged and struggled along to head
22:29
Speaker 1: the dog off. As the crocodile came up, Jock went
22:33
Speaker 1: straight for him, his eyes gleaming, his shoulders up, his
22:36
Speaker 1: nose out, his neck stretched to the utmost in his eagerness,
22:40
Speaker 1: and he plowed along, straining every muscle to catch up.
22:44
Speaker 1: When the crocodile went under, he slackened and looked anxiously about,
22:48
Speaker 1: but each fresh rise was greeted by the whimpering yelps
22:51
Speaker 1: of intense suppressed excitement. As he fairly hoisted himself out
22:56
Speaker 1: of the water with the vigor of his swimming. The
22:59
Speaker 1: water was now breast high for us, and we were
23:01
Speaker 1: far out in the stream, beyond the sandspit where the
23:04
Speaker 1: crocodile had lain, when the kaffirs on the bank got
23:08
Speaker 1: their first chance, and a flight of assaguise went at
23:11
Speaker 1: the enemy. As he rose. Several struck and two remained
23:15
Speaker 1: in him. He rose again a few yards from Jim,
23:18
Speaker 1: and that sportsman let fly one that struck well home. Jock,
23:22
Speaker 1: who had been toiling close behind for some time and
23:25
Speaker 1: gaining slowly, was not five yards off. Then. The floundering
23:30
Speaker 1: and lashing of the crocodile were bewildering, but on he went,
23:34
Speaker 1: as grimly and eagerly as ever. I fired again, not
23:39
Speaker 1: more than eight yards away, but the water was then
23:42
Speaker 1: up to my arms, and it was impossible to pick
23:44
Speaker 1: a vital part. The brain and neck were the only
23:47
Speaker 1: spots to finish him, but one could see nothing beyond
23:50
Speaker 1: a great upheaval of water and clouds of spray and
23:53
Speaker 1: blood stained foam. The crocodile turned from the shot and
23:57
Speaker 1: dived up stream, heading straight for the din. Of yelling
24:02
Speaker 1: voices stopped instantly as the huge, open mouthed thing plunged
24:06
Speaker 1: towards the dog, and for one sick, horrified moment I
24:10
Speaker 1: stood and watched helpless. Had the crocodile risen in front
24:15
Speaker 1: of Jock, that would have been the end. One snap
24:18
Speaker 1: would have done it. But had passed clear underneath him,
24:22
Speaker 1: and coming up just beyond him, the great lashing tail
24:25
Speaker 1: sent the dog up with a column of water a
24:28
Speaker 1: couple of feet in the air. He did as he
24:30
Speaker 1: had done when the Koodoo bull tossed him. His head
24:33
Speaker 1: was round straining to get at the crocodile before he
24:36
Speaker 1: was able to turn his body in the water, and
24:39
Speaker 1: the silence was broken by a yell of wild delight
24:42
Speaker 1: and approval from the bank before us. The water was
24:45
Speaker 1: too deep and the stream too strong to stand in. Jim,
24:49
Speaker 1: in his eagerness, had gone in shoulder high, and my rifle,
24:52
Speaker 1: when aimed, only just cleared the water. The crocodile was
24:56
Speaker 1: the mark for more asserguise from the bank as a
24:58
Speaker 1: charged upstream again with Jock tailing behind, and it was
25:02
Speaker 1: then easy enough to follow its movements by the shafts
25:06
Speaker 1: that were never all submerged. The struggles became perceptibly weaker,
25:10
Speaker 1: and as it turned again to go with the stream,
25:13
Speaker 1: every effort was concentrated on killing and landing it before
25:17
Speaker 1: it reached the rocks and rapids. I moved back for
25:21
Speaker 1: higher ground, and, finding that the bed shelved up rapidly
25:24
Speaker 1: down stream, made for a position where there would be
25:27
Speaker 1: enough elevation to put in a brain shot. The water
25:31
Speaker 1: was not more than waist high then, and as the
25:34
Speaker 1: crocodile came rolling and thrashing down, I waited for his
25:38
Speaker 1: head to show up clearly. My right foot touched a
25:41
Speaker 1: sloping rock which rose almost to the surface of the water,
25:45
Speaker 1: close above the raffids, and anxious to get to the
25:48
Speaker 1: best possible position for the last shot, I took my
25:51
Speaker 1: stand there. The rock was the ordinary shelving bed rock,
25:55
Speaker 1: up tilted at an easy angle and cut off sheer
25:58
Speaker 1: on the exposed side, and the wave in the current
26:01
Speaker 1: would have shown this to any one not wholly occupied
26:04
Speaker 1: with other things. But I had eyes for nothing except
26:07
Speaker 1: the crocodile, which was then less than a dozen yards off,
26:11
Speaker 1: And in my anxiety to secure a firm footing for
26:14
Speaker 1: the shot, I moved the right foot again a few
26:18
Speaker 1: inches over the edge of the rock. The result was
26:21
Speaker 1: a complete spill, as if one unthinkingly stepped backwards off
26:26
Speaker 1: a diving board. I disappeared in deep water, with the
26:30
Speaker 1: knowledge that the crocodile would join me there in a
26:32
Speaker 1: few seconds. One never knows how these things are done
26:36
Speaker 1: or how long they take. I was back on the
26:38
Speaker 1: rock without the rifle and had the water out of
26:41
Speaker 1: my eyes in time to see the crocodile roll helplessly
26:45
Speaker 1: by six feet away, with Jock behind making excited but
26:49
Speaker 1: ridiculously futile attempts to get hold of the tail. Jim, swimming,
26:54
Speaker 1: plunging and blowing like a maddened hippo, formed the tail
26:58
Speaker 1: of the procession, which was headed by my water logged hat,
27:02
Speaker 1: floating heavily a yard or so in front of the crocodile,
27:06
Speaker 1: while a crowd of yelling niggers under the generalship of
27:09
Speaker 1: Jim were landing the crocodile. I had time to do
27:12
Speaker 1: some diving and managed to fish out my rifle. My
27:15
Speaker 1: Sunday change was wasted, but we got the old crocodile,
27:20
Speaker 1: and that was something after all. End of Chapter twenty
27:25
Speaker 1: two