Behind him would sneak a
very hang-dog boy. Memba Sasa marched straight up to me, faced
right, and drew one side, his silence sparkling with honest
indignation.
"Just look at THAT!" his attitude seemed to say, "Could you
believe such human depravity possible? And against OUR authority?"
He always stood, quite rigid, waiting for me to speak.
"Well, Memba Sasa?" I would inquire, after I had enjoyed the show
a little.
In a few restrained words he put the case before me, always
briefly, always with a scornful dignity. This shenzi has done
so-and-so.
We will suppose the case fairly serious. I listened to the man's
story, if necessary called a few witnesses, delivered judgment.
All the while Memba Sasa stood at rigid attention, fairly
bristling virtue, like the good dog standing by at the punishment
of the bad dogs. And in his attitude was a subtle triumph, as one
would say: "You see! Fool with my bwana, will you! Just let
anybody try to get funny with US!" Judgment pronounced-we have
supposed the case serious, you remember-Memba Sasa himself
applied the lash. I think he really enjoyed that; but it was a
restrained joy. The whip descended deliberately, without
excitement.
The man's devotion in unusual circumstances was beyond praise.
Danger or excitement incite a sort of loyalty in any good man;
but humdrum, disagreeable difficulty is a different matter.
One day we marched over a country of thorn-scrub desert. Since
two days we had been cut loose from water, and had been depending
on a small amount carried in zinc drums. Now our only reasons for
faring were a conical hill, over the horizon, and the knowledge
of a river somewhere beyond. How far beyond, or in what
direction, we did not know. We had thirty men with us, a more or
less ragtag lot, picked up anyhow in the bazaars. They were soft,
ill-disciplined and uncertain. For five or six hours they marched
well enough. Then the sun began to get very hot, and some of them
began to straggle. They had, of course, no intention of
deserting, for their only hope of surviving lay in staying with
us; but their loads had become heavy, and they took too many
rests. We put a good man behind, but without much avail. In open
country a safari can be permitted to straggle over miles, for
always it can keep in touch by sight; but in this thorn-scrub
desert, that looks all alike, a man fifty yards out of sight is
fifty yards lost. We would march fifteen or twenty minutes, then
sit down to wait until the rearmost men had straggled in, perhaps
a half hour later. And we did not dare move on until the tale of
our thirty was complete.
