January, 1940
(In which we read about Hercule buying animals to stock Palm Deux, a most curious occupation for our hero, who prefers hunting; Monsieur V-C orders a fence to be built around Palm Deux; Hercule meets two American hunters; a caracal turns up unexpectedly; Mohammed gets into a fight with some of the French farmers in Belleville; Monsieur V-C brings a woman to Palm Deux.)
Belleville
16 January 1940
13 (1121 lbs.)
I must find some animals. I haven’t been told why. Monsieur V-C has only instructed me to collect as many as I can. The single condition is that there must be a variety of them, male and female, big and small. Mohammed carries on at Palm Deux without me.
What are the animals for? My guess is for hunting. People back home might laugh, say it’s a bizarre notion to put together a hunting ground in Africa. But much stranger ideas have been brought to this continent; the traders I meet, they will import and export anything, no matter how bizarre – perfumes even. “But, Hercule,” I can hear you say, “this is different. Why create what you already have? A hunting place in Africa? There are already enough lions in the streets to shoot.” If only there were. If only I could show you Palm Deux, where I see only one species.
Rather than being a bizarre notion, a hunting ground is a very good one. Monsieur V-C, though he no longer shoots, can entertain his guests for the weekends. The sous-chef in Daloa likes to hunt. And I myself would not mind the chance to go after something new, something other than elephant.
It must be for the animals that I have also been told to mark off a large area north and east of the villa. The fence around it is being erected by a man from Touba who, we heard from Monsieur Singh the accountant, happens to have six miles of barbed wire at his disposal. That is typical in Africa. You find what you least expect in the most obscure of places. A man could as easily arrive here with a ton of truck parts, even though there are hardly any trucks, and then he’d just as easily, just as inexplicably find a place to sell them. It is a maxim I hope holds true tomorrow, when the native hunters return from searching for me.
My first day looking for animals in Belleville was not auspicious, the following three hardly better. The Senegalese traders in the market sent their children to me with mangy dogs, snakes, birds, agouti with their front teeth knocked out, and small antelope, their legs broken or body parts missing. There were also two baby crocodiles on offer. What was I supposed to do with crippled, dying and man-eating animals, or birds that will fly away, I asked them. They think I want to eat them. So, whether lame, dead, dangerous or on the wing, what difference does it make? Their prices are ridiculous, too.
By yesterday I began to set my sights lower, much lower, like the engineer who had once hoped to design a canal but now has to be content with making a coconut plantation safe from intruders. When I left Palm Deux, I was thinking in terms of rhino, buffalo, maybe a large cat or two. So far, though, I have only obtained a menagerie of three, all of them small.
A trader driving down from Odienne, near Kong, with a truckload of salt had with him a young gerenuk, a honey badger, and a banded mongoose. While he and I talked, the Senegalese hung about. They saw my interest in anything young and unhurt, even though I’d already explained what I wanted. Seeing the animals in the flesh made a difference somehow. They poked sticks through the cages, as if that helped them gauge the product’s value, then consulted among themselves. Afterward, they went to offer cigarettes to a group of Kwa hunters who were in town to buy supplies. I’m sure they were being employed to find me something.
* * *
26 January
My patience is wearing out. I drive back and forth to see useless things, everyone insisting they’ve got some ‘treasure’ of a creature for me. The men at the Noix pass snide remarks about how I used to be a shooter, but now I collect rodents. Even though I have only bought a fraction of the animals Monsieur V-C expects, I will return to Palm Deux tomorrow. I doubt whether a month would be long enough. Dogs I could have aplenty. So far, I have barely more than a dozen animals, most of them puny. The manager of the auberge complains about the smell and noises they make outside his back door.
Some of the animals do not even come from around here but from inland, from more arid country. The natives arrive with their merchandise tied up by the legs and carried, or pulled by a leash of some sort. They tell me whatever they think I want to hear. When I ask if a creature comes from the forest, they nod. For savanna, they nod too. Seeing Belleville lies just inside the forest before the beginning of the Sahel, it could be either. I only hope all my purchases will survive in the jungle.
I know little about the animals except what the trader from Odienne told me before he left. He seemed to be an expert of sorts, at least about animals. I will jot down a few notes.
The honey badger and the banded mongoose hiss perpetually, which makes it even harder to tell them apart. The badger has claws that remind me of a bear I once shot near Grenoble.
The sable is by far the most expensive item so far, and it is the very first of its kind I have seen up close that is not dead and already skinned.
I bought two blue duikers. I could have done with only one, but I need the numbers.
My biggest acquisition so far is a young giraffe. It was brought in by a planteur who said it appeared in his garden one day and ate only his exotic trees, as if it knew which ones were the most valuable. His wife wouldn’t let him shoot it. When she found out that someone in Belleville was gathering animals – “for a zoo,” she had heard – she agreed to let it go. I told him that I’m no zookeeper, but he did not mind. “You can stuff it and use it as a hatstand, for all I care,” he said, then left.
The bongo, meanwhile, has a body too big for its short legs. Small horns between wide ears, wonderful markings. It is chestnut with broad stripes across its back and light dots on its cheeks that resemble big tears. The gerenuk, by comparison, is slight, weighs less than a tusk from an elephant.
The bushpig I got from a woman who was taking bananas to market. Though the pig has quite vicious teeth in its lower jaw, it is a pitiful double for the boar we used to hunt in the Luberon. It seems unusually tame, as if until now it had been a pet in someone’s home. It behaved quite sociably while the owner was around, wheezing and blowing. Since she left, however, it has stood with its head in a corner.
There are several other animals I haven’t seen yet. I will pick them up on the road back to Palm Deux tomorrow morning: an oryx, a clawless otter and a bushbaby. Oh yes, and a kob.
––––––––––––––––
It is shortly before I return home, but I add this quickly. Late last night, I was taken to the native quarter by an odious Malian who insisted I accompany him. He wouldn’t leave until I did so. The creature he had captured, he told me, was too dangerous to transport by himself. How many times haven’t I heard that before, only to discover that what’s being sold is something useless, like a monkey. But something made me go with him, and I’m glad I did. When I saw the animal, I did not hesitate to buy it. It is a cat, a caracal. I didn’t even quarrel about the exorbitant price. My problem now is how to get it back to Palm Deux and where to put it. To be safe, I will make a special trip back to Belleville to fetch it. This animal alone makes my days of waiting here a success.
* * *
Palm Deux
30 January
6 (517 lbs.)
The fence around the hunting ground is not quite finished yet, but we have nevertheless freed some of the animals. I cannot keep them caged forever, and the giraffe’s rattan harness wouldn’t have held for very much longer. Monsieur V-C has gone off somewhere again and has left no word of his whereabouts, which I find odd. He seemed quite urgent about me getting the animals into the enclosure before the end of the month, and yet he is not here to witness its progress. I assume he has gone to La Cité once more to see about his stores and his boat. I have asked Yaaba, his maid, to feed the animals that are still caged. I hope she doesn’t misinterpret me and eat them instead.
* * *
Belleville
31 January
The light in my room at the auberge is weak, hardly enough with which to see what I am writing, but I have nothing else to do. I left my book behind, Kittenberger’s memoirs of hunting in East Africa. The noise coming from the Noix across the road makes it hard to sleep, even though I am exhausted from a day full of shopping. And it wasn’t for animals this time.
A truck arrived from the coast a few days ago, which means that both general stores are fuller now than they have been since the war began. Settlements in the interior like ours are always the last to get what little new merchandise is available, so everyone had their wallets out.
I bought some ammunition (Kynoch mostly, as well as a carton of Terks & Rubey) and a sight for my Westley Richards. I saw several catalogs, a bit dated perhaps, but very welcome when you haven’t seen one for so long. The latest Winchester is marvelous. How far they’ve come since the .405 Roosevelt used; with this one he would have had no excuse for not hitting the wildebeest center forehead every time. There are new models from Newton, and from Wheler and Griffin too. Vickers has come out with a beauty of less than eight pounds. I heard some of the men rave about the Mannlicher-Schoenauer 9.5mm, mostly because it’s cheap and you can get a scope fitted for half of what we’re used to paying. The revolving magazine is a bonus, I admit, but not particularly useful in dense jungle. I would rather go for something smaller, even a 9.3mm Mauser – and I’m not even partial to Mausers.
In the Noix, I met a hunter from Philadelphia who rolls his own nitro express shells. Quite mad, clearly. He went on about muzzle velocities, bullet grains, and ton-pressures. He obviously goes by the book. He carried on at length about open versus aperture sights and whether U or V heads blur the bead. What interested me more was that just before the war broke out, he employed Weltenham to build him a special light double .375 with a 25-inch barrel, all weighing less than nine pounds. Using a Zeiss 2-1/2-power hunting scope, he has shot almost everything that moves, bear in Canada, elk, tiger in India, drill sheep, ovis ammon, and even ibex in Nepal.
Because of the war he has been forced to hunt in Africa, although he’s not impressed with what he has seen so far. He has been in the French Congo for the last few months, where he shot gorilla, forest buffalo, and, his favorite, a giant forest hog. His major feat was killing two buffalo with one shot, the full-patch slug going through the male’s forehead, passing out the rear and hitting its companion in the neck. At least that is what he claimed – and, it has to be said, he made his assertions that only after he’d had several stiff drinks.
His partner sat by him without saying a word, only nodding. What a pair they made. The one talked endlessly, while the other was so short-sighted that he carries a pair of prismatics with him at all times when he hunts. Six-strength, mind you! He will only shoot after his tracker has pointed him and his rifle in the direction of his prey. Can you imagine the damage he must cause?
–––––––––––––––––
I write this much later. It is dead quiet outside, not a sound coming from the Noix, but my heart is still racing so fast that I find it impossible to sleep. I hope that Mohammed is not badly hurt.
I have not fully pieced together what happened yet, but it seems the trouble began earlier in the evening, when a group of natives gathered on the Rue Gambetta to protest against the head tax. Their leader was a Liberian preacher, a follower of the Christian preacher named Harris, who claims to be the natives’ Redeemer. But tonight they were more interested in politics than religion.
About fifty of them marched until they were in front of the Noix, where they very unwisely came to a halt. It was there that members of the administration and the conservative Syndicat Agricole were gathered. If the natives wanted to antagonize them, they could not have chosen a better moment or a more irritable group.
It was the gunshot that caught my attention first. Even though there are always guns at the Noix, one seldom goes off. And when this one did, I immediately knew it was not intended for a wild animal or an elephant that might have strayed into town. If there can be a difference between the sound made by a bullet meant for a human and one for an animal, then I heard it.
Once I had rushed downstairs and onto the street, I could not see anyone hurt, at least not by the bullet. Several of the planteurs were pushing their way through the natives, who remained passive the whole time, more intent on clutching their placards and shouting “Citoyens nous!” The Liberian tried to keep the natives and the petits blancs apart, but he was pushed to the ground.
“Go back to Monrovia, nigger!” someone called out.
One of the farmers, on recognizing a native as one of his own, went after him with a stick and chased him all the way back to the Rue Gambetta. The white people who were still at their tables in front of the Noix were amused, as if this was a little Friday night entertainment being staged for them. They laughed even harder when a particularly drunk planteur began shouting at one of the native women. His finger waving more than wagging, he sounded like a father reprimanding his daughter for staying out too late, not a master his worker for demonstrating. She was obviously his mousso, and he wasn’t going to tolerate her being there. When she eventually took off down the road, she screamed back at him over her shoulder. By that stage the Noix was in fits of laughter.
I was standing off to the side, in a doorway of the apothecary. I did not want to get involved. Even though I don’t like the petits blancs, least of all the planteurs, this is more their country than mine. I haven’t come here for the same reason as them. They have made this place their home, bringing their wives and families with them. I am a shooter and all alone, biding my time until work on Vridi starts again. Or until I can go fight in Europe. At least that’s what I thought until, amidst all the rioting natives, I saw Mohammed.
The leader of the planteurs, a fat, obnoxious man named Rudolph Valery, had grabbed a native girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. He made lewd gestures, and his cohorts spurred him on. Seeing this, one of the natives forced his way between Valery and the girl. Though the light was bad and the people were constantly shifting, it took only a few seconds for me to recognize the native as Mohammed.
Normally he is a silent man, the last person I would expect to find in the center of a riot, particularly this one. Needless to say, his action further angered the planteurs, several of whom circled him and began prodding and taunting him. Although I have never been in a situation like this before, my immediate reaction was to act the same way I do when I hunt – to set my sights on the leader of the pack. I headed for Valery, a bullheaded man even at the most peaceful of times. I have seen the way he acts in the Noix or when he chairs meetings of the Syndicat Agricole, and I couldn’t imagine him giving in without a fight.
By the time I reached the crowd, Valery had slapped Mohammed several times already, although he was too drunk to cause any serious injury. Soon he held Mohammed in his grasp. Mohammed could have struck back, but he didn’t. No one was hurt yet, but there was a carelessness in Valery I did not trust. I pushed my way toward the two of them.
On seeing me, the planteurs called out my name. “Hercule!” It sounded like a war cry. They believed I had come to join them, to assist them. They respect me because of my height, because I worked on Vridi. Any other man who did not drink with them every night at the Noix would be a source of ridicule. Because of my size, they also mistake me for a fighter. When they realized I had come not to support them but to try and break up the fight, they became belligerent once more. Still, they let me through.
Once I had reached Mohammed, I paid him no attention, acted as if I didn’t know him, had not seen the blood on his face. Much as I hated it, I had to appear indifferent. I could not let on that we shoot together. No one recognized him as one of my men, and I had to exploit the fact that all natives look alike to us, as I suspect we do to them.
I tried to keep my voice even, make light of the heated situation. “Come now, Valery,” I joked. “Can’t you see that this is a Friday night rally? The natives just got carried away.” I looked over to the preacher, who nodded unconvincingly. He himself had been caught off guard by the sudden violence.
Valery held on to Mohammed. He was not going to give up easily. I went for his weakest spot – the same way that when I’m up against an elephant, I aim for the medulla oblongata. In someone like Valery, it is his fierce sense of nationalism. I lowered my voice in order to address only him. “Think of le patrie. A country at war can hardly afford this kind of trouble. These are French subjects you’re assaulting. What if one of Hitler’s agents was to see us, citizens and subjects, fighting among ourselves? What kind of nation are we?”
The planteurs waited for their leader. The natives stood still. I don’t know how long I faced Valery. His intransigence and his gross size (even his eyes are obese) reminded me of the bushpig I had bought – and right now his head was similarly stuck in a corner, and he was unwilling to move. From this point on the situation became less like a true hunt. I had no experience to guide me, no double-bore, no magazine with extra bullets to shoot. I simply had to wait. When you hunt, the waiting is invigorating. This, by contrast, was long and excruciating.
Eventually Valery shifted, grunted a curse and gave Mohammed a last shove. He shouted “Vive la France!” and then spat on the ground in front of Mohammed. Even though he might not have intended it, the gob also landed at my feet. The other men, as I’d expected, grumbled halfheartedly and then followed him. The natives suddenly shouted “Vive la France!” too, which almost stirred up the fight all over again. The preacher quickly hustled them off down the street.
Mohammed never said a word to me, and there was blood all over the new tunic I had bought for him earlier in the day. He left comforting the young girl who had caused all the trouble. She could have been his daughter, although he held her as close as he might his own woman.
After all this commotion, I hope he remembers to meet me in the morning. There are only a few hours remaining till we leave. What with all that has happened, I have almost forgotten the reason we came to Belleville: to pick up the caracal.
* * *
Palm Deux
15 February
20 (1516 lbs.)
The sly old devil, he has just left my quarters. Monsieur V-C went to the coast not to see how his businesses and boat are doing, and to spend evenings with the Commandant, but to get married. I have not seen her yet, but I can only imagine what she’s like. There are no beauties in this part of the world, even fewer women who are single, so I wonder what he landed up with. Could she be huge and dour, like the maid Yaaba? I wouldn’t be surprised if she is. But his mood has altered for the better. He seems quite ecstatic, in fact. I also think I heard a new kind of music on his porch tonight. For that change alone I should be grateful. He brought a bottle of Moët to my quarters as a gift. I couldn’t help wonder what he was doing in my room if he had a new bride waiting. Could she be that awful? The villa lies just across the lawn, so I will meet her soon.
Please register or log in to comment