When we returned to camp he deposited my water bottle
and camera, seized the cleaning implements, and departed to his
own campfire. In the field he pointed out game that I did not
see, and waited imperturbably the result of my shot.
As I before stated, the result of that shot for the first five
days was very apt to be nil. This, at the time, puzzled and
grieved me a lot. Occasionally I looked at Memba Sasa to catch
some sign of sympathy, disgust, contempt, or-rarely-triumph at a
lucky shot. Nothing. He gently but firmly took away my rifle,
reloaded it, and handed it back; then waited respectfully for my
next move. He knew no English, and I no Swahili.
But as time went on this attitude changed. I was armed with the
new Springfield rifle, a weapon with 2,700 feet velocity, and
with a marvellously flat trajectory. This commanding advantage,
combined with a very long familiarity with firearms, enabled me
to do some fairish shooting, after the strangeness of these new
conditions had been mastered. Memba Sasa began to take a dawning
interest in me as a possible source of pride. We began to develop
between us a means of communication. I set myself deliberately to
learn his language, and after he had cautiously determined that I
really meant it, he took the greatest pains-always gravely-to
teach me. A more human feeling sprang up between us.
But we had still the final test to undergo-that of danger and
the tight corner.
In close quarters the gunbearer has the hardest job in the world.
I have the most profound respect for his absolute courage. Even
to a man armed and privileged to shoot and defend himself, a
charging lion is an awesome thing, requiring a certain amount of
coolness and resolution to face effectively. Think of the
gunbearer at his elbow, depending not on himself but on the
courage and coolness of another. He cannot do one solitary thing
to defend himself. To bolt for the safety of a tree is to beg the
question completely, to brand himself as a shenzi forever; to
fire a gun in any circumstances is to beg the question also, for
the white man must be able to depend absolutely on his second gun
in an emergency. Those things are outside consideration, even,
of any respectable gunbearer. In addition, he must keep cool. He
must see clearly in the thickest excitement; must be ready
unobtrusively to pass up the second gun in the position most
convenient for immediate use, to seize the other and to perform
the finicky task of reloading correctly while some rampageous
beast is raising particular thunder a few yards away. All this in
absolute dependence on the ability of his bwana to deal with the
situation. I can confess very truly that once or twice that
little unobtrusive touch of Memba Sasa crouched close to my elbow
steadied me with the thought of how little right I-with a rifle
in my hand-had to be scared. And the best compliment I ever
received I overheard by chance. I had wounded a lion when out by
myself, and had returned to camp for a heavier rifle and for
Memba Sasa to do the trailing. From my tent I overheard the
following conversation between Memba Sasa and the cook:
"The grass is high," said the cook. "Are you not afraid to go
after a wounded lion with only one white man?"
"My one white man is enough," replied Memba Sasa.
It is a quality of courage that I must confess would be quite
beyond me-to depend entirely on the other fellow, and not at all
on myself. This courage is always remarkable to me, even in the
case of the gunbearer who knows all about the man whose heels he
follows. But consider that of the gunbearer's first experience
with a stranger. The former has no idea of how the white man will
act; whether he will get nervous, get actually panicky, lose his
shooting ability, and generally mess things up. Nevertheless, he
follows his master in, and he stands by. If the hunter fails, the
gunbearer will probably die. To me it is rather fine: for he does
it, not from the personal affection and loyalty which will carry
men far, but from a sheer sense of duty and pride of caste. The
quiet pride of the really good men, like Memba Sasa, is easy to
understand.
And the records are full of stories of the white man who has not
made good: of the coward who bolts, leaving his black man to take
the brunt of it, or who sticks but loses his head. Each new
employer must be very closely and interestedly scrutinized. In
the light of subsequent experience, I can no longer wonder at
Memba Sasa's first detached and impersonal attitude.
As time went on, however, and we grew to know each other better,
this attitude entirely changed. At first the change consisted
merely in dropping the disinterested pose as respects game. For
it was a pose. Memba Sasa was most keenly interested in game
whenever it was an object of pursuit. It did not matter how
common the particular species might be: if we wanted it, Memba
Sasa would look upon it with eager ferocity; and if we did not
want it, he paid no attention to it at all. When we started in
the morning, or in the relaxation of our return at night, I would
mention casually a few of the things that might prove acceptable.
"To-morrow we want kongoni for boys' meat, or zebra; and some
meat for masters-Tommy, impala, oribi," and Memba Sasa knew as
well as I did what we needed to fill out our trophy collection.
When he caught sight of one of these animals his whole
countenance changed.
