The Hundred Days (25 page)

‘They all look much the same to me,’ said Jacob.
‘Huge dark creatures sailing round and round.’

‘The bearded vulture is the one on the far right-hand
side of the round,’ said Stephen. ‘See, he scratches his head. In Spanish he is
called the bone-breaker.’

‘You have an unfair advantage with your
perspectiveglass.’

 ‘He is
considering. Yes, yes. He loses height. He drops, he drops!’

And indeed the great bird settled among the
scattered bones beneath the stakes, pulled some bare ribs aside, seized a
battered sacrum, grasped it in its powerful claws and took off with a leap,
wings beating strongly, with the clear intent of dropping it from a great
height onto a rock. But he was not fairly airborne before the two black
vultures were upon him, one striking his back and the other brushing across his
face. The sacrum dropped into an impenetrable thicket, hopelessly and entirely
lost.

‘That is perfectly typical of your black vulture:
greedy, precipitate, grasping,’ cried Stephen. ‘And stupid.
A bird with as much sense as a pea-hen would have hit him fifty feet up, and a
handy mate would have caught the bone in mid-air.’

Ibrahim understood not a word, but he did catch
Stephen’s disappointment and frustration, and pointing away and away to the
north-east he showed another highcircling flight a great way off. Jacob
translated: ‘He says there are two or three score mothers of filth over there,
waiting for the Dey’s men to finish skinning what he shot yesterday evening:
but first he will show you the Shatt, which has countless red birds on it. We
are obliged to go down that way, along the edge of the lake and so up the
river-bank, partly because the direct slopes are very severe, and partly to
avoid disturbing the deer, wild boars, lions and leopards which the Dey
preserves entirely for himself.’

‘Would a devout Muslim eat wild boar?’ asked
Stephen as they rode on.

‘Oh dear me, yes,’ said Jacob. ‘The Beni Mzab have
no hesitation whatsoever in eating him: many the exquisite civet de sanglier
have I eaten among them. But he must be wild, you know, wild and hairy,
otherwise he would certainly be unclean. And for that matter they do not
observe Ramadan, either, or...’

 ‘There is a Barbary falcon!’ cried Stephen.

‘Very well,’ said Jacob, not quite pleased at
having his account of the Beni Mzab neglected for the sake of a bird; and not
at all pleased either by the way his saddle kept pinching the inside of his
thighs.

They rode for a while in silence, always going
downhill, which aggravated Jacob’s discomfort. But abruptly Ibrahim stopped,
and with one finger to his lips, pointed silently at two fresh round footprints
on the muddy edge. He whispered into Jacob’s ear; and Jacob, leaning over to
Stephen, murmured, ‘Leopard.’

And there indeed he was, the lovely spotted
creature, sprawling insolently along a horizontal mossy branch: he watched them
with a fine unconcern for quite a time, but when Stephen made a motion, a very
cautious motion, towards his telescope, the leopard slipped off his branch on
the far side without a sound, and wholly vanished.

On: and now that the slope was easier by far
Jacob’s saddle hurt him less: his good humour returned, at least in part.

Yet he could still say, ‘My dear colleague, you may
think me crass, but where birds, beasts and flowers are concerned all I mind
about is are they dangerous, are they useful, are they good to eat.’

‘My dear colleague,’ cried Stephen, ‘I do most
sincerely ask your pardon. I fear I must have been an everlasting bore.’

‘Not at all,’ said Jacob, ashamed of himself. And away on the left hand, at a distance they could
not determine, a lion uttered what might be called a roar - a very deep lowing
repeated four or perhaps five times before dying away - which gave the
impression not indeed of menace, but of enormous power.

‘That is what I mean,’ said Jacob, after a moment’s
silence. ‘I like to know about him, rather than a curious and possibly
nondescript nuthatch.’

The ground was now levelling, and shortly after
this they wound through a grove of high, well-grown tamarisks to the shore of
the lake. And when they had pushed through the last of this screen there before
them, quite close to, were countless flamingos, most of them up to their knees
in the water with their long-necked heads deeply immerged, but others staring
about or gossiping with a sound like geese. Those within twenty yards of the
horsemen rose into the air with a most glorious show of black and above all scarlet,
and flew, heads and legs stretched out, to the middle. Those that remained -
the majority - carried on sieving nourishment from the Shatt. Stephen was
entranced. With his glass, far over, he made out the mounds of their
innumerable nests, raised mounds of mud sometimes with sitting bird, and a
crowd of awkward, long-legged, pale fledglings. He also saw some crested coots
and a cruising marsh-harrier - a hen bird - and a few egrets; but he was
uneasily aware of having prated away interminably about his treecreeper earlier
in the day, and now he said no more.

But Jacob turned a beaming face towards him and
cried, ‘If that unspeakably glorious spectacle is ornithology, then I am an
ornithologist. I had no idea that such splendour existed. You must tell me
much, much more.’

Ibrahim asked Jacob whether the gentleman had seen
the red birds; and when this was relayed, Stephen smiled at the youth, made
appropriate gestures, and after some fumbling produced one of the few guineas
he kept in a waistcoat pocket.

When Stephen had finished his disquisition on the
anatomy of the flamingo’s bill, on the intricate processes that enabled the
bird to gain its living - its very exact requirements where salinity and
temperature were concerned - its apparent neglect of its offspring, herded in
groups looked after and fed by the entire community - the need for much more
work, for much more information, exact information - when he had finished,
Ibrahim came closer and spoke to Jacob, pointing towards the head of the lake
with great earnestness.

‘He says that if we do not mind making a rather
muddy detour he will show you a sight that you will appreciate: he very rightly
looks upon you as a creature of a finer essence.’

‘Long may he live. Let us
by all means see his sight.’

Its probable nature became evident as they
approached the part of the lake where it received the river, a little delta of
mud and sand that retained footmarks with admirable clarity on either side: and
footmarks there were in extraordinary numbers, this being so convenient a
fresh-water drinking place - jackals, deer of various sizes, hyenas, leopards,
a single bear, but above all those of lions, large and even very large tracks
from different directions all converging towards the deep pool where the stream
ran fast between bare rocky sides to plunge into the Shatt. Here the tracks
were almost wholly lions’, in great profusion, mingling and crossing.

‘Ibrahim says that on some evenings the lions from
our side of the river come down here to drink and to meet the lions from the
other side, those that live in the plain country southwards. And when they are
all assembled, each side roars at the other: all of one side, then all of the
other. He has watched them from that tree. He says it is extraordinarily
moving.’

‘I can well believe it,’ said Stephen. ‘About how many lions a side?’

‘Sometimes as many as
eight.’

‘Lionesses too?’

‘No, no, no. Dear me, no,’ said Jacob. Ibrahim
shook his head with great disapproval, but then spoke for some minutes. ‘He says
that sometimes a strange lioness, a lioness from away, comes roving into our
part: the lionesses from here will join and attack her, roaring very like the
true lions. And he says we should hurry: we are late already, which the Dey
cannot bear.’

They regained the path, and as they rode Stephen
observed, ‘So that is what the Vizier meant by le club des lions. I presume
lions do not climb trees, but I should be obliged if you would confirm it with
this amiable youth.’

‘He confirms it. Leopard, yes: lions, no.’

‘Then I believe I must see this club, if time can
possibly be found.’

There seemed to be time and to spare in the Dey’s
hunting camp, a number of small tents tucked into an unexpected and almost
invisible deli some way from the river-bank and the natural road along the
stream, the highway for all the creatures of the region. There were different
human paths leading from it to the camp, one for each day of the week, so that
the place should not become too notorious; and today being Tuesday, Ibrahim led
them up through a stand of oaks, where in spite of the presence of men no great
way off, wild boars had been ploughing the ground for acorns and tubers over a
stretch of between fifteen and twenty acres so that it looked like a well
pioughed and harrowed field.

At the guarded descent into the dell Ibrahim showed
his pass again and they were led to a tent with a small heap of rugs in it, the
topmost being of an enchanting diapered pattern whose colours glowed like
jewels when the sun touched them.

Amos Jacob and Stephen passed their time discussing
chronic diseases they had personally encountered and the measures they had
taken to alleviate them at least in some degree, with estimates of their
success, usually very slight or even non-existent, but on one or two occasions
most gratifying and spectacular. They were deep in two extraordinary,
unaccountable and lasting cases of remission in phthisis and tetraplegia when
the chief huntsman came to say that Omar Pasha would now receive them.

They found the Dey in a fairly high state of grease
and good humour. Stephen bowed and said, ‘May I present His Britannic Majesty’s
government’s greetings and good wishes to His Highness Omar Pasha?’

Jacob translated, but in Stephen’s opinion not
quite literally, since the name of God occurred several times.

Omar rose, bowed - they all bowed - and said he was
most gratified by his English cousin’s friendly message, the first he had
received from a European ruler: he desired them to sit down and called for
coffee and a hookah. ‘I have just succeeded in putting these together,’ he
said, observing that Stephen’s eye was keenly turned upon a beautiful pair of
guns, of double-barrelled, rifled guns. ‘I took the plates off to look at the
sear, but for a great while I was puzzled to get them and the sear-spring back
again. However, with God’s help it is done now, ha ha! Blessed be the Name of
God.’ Jacob made the ritual response and Stephen a murmur: the Pasha looked so
pleased at his success that Stephen asked whether he might look at the nearer
gun.

‘By all means,’ said the Dey, and put it into his
hands. The gun was much lighter than Stephen had expected, and it came up to
his shoulder almost like a fowling-piece, a pretty solid fowling-piece for duck
or geese. ‘You are accustomed to guns, I find?’ said the Dey, smiling.

‘Indeed I am, sir,’ replied Stephen. ‘I have shot
many and many a creature with them, partly for sport and partly for study.’

The coffee and the pipe came in; and after a
longish pause in which they smoked and drank, Stephen said, ‘I do not believe I
have ever had better nor more welcome coffee: but now, sir, with your
permission I will deliver the message that His Majesty’s Ministry has entrusted
to me. It has come to their knowledge that several numerous Shiite brotherhoods
and confederacies along the Adriatic and lonian coast and inland to Serbia who support Bonaparte .

‘Bonaparte, that son of a dog,’ said the Dey, his
face clouding with anger and taking on a very wicked look.

‘... have combined to
intervene in his favour by doing all they can...’ Stephen carried on, although
he knew that he had lost the Dey’s attention and that he was irritating him.

‘Your master must have some very weak advisers,’
said the Dey when Stephen came to an end, ‘very weak, if they can believe that
after his Royal Navy has so banged and battered Bonaparte’s friends in the
Adriatic. I love the Royal Navy: I knew Sir Smith at Acre... but I leave all these
things to my Vizier: he understands politics. For my part I understand
soldiers: soldiers and their fate. And I know that this Bonaparte must fall.
Whether there is any truth in this alleged plot and whether it succeeds or
fails is of no consequence: this Bonaparte must fall. It is written. He has
gone beyond what is allowed and he must therefore necessarily fall: it is
written.’ He jerked his head and muttered, looking intensely disagreeable; but
presently his eye fell on the guns once more, and with a far more amiable
expression he said, ‘So you are interested in animals, sir, in the hunting and
study of animals?’

‘Very much so indeed, sir.’

‘Then should you like to hunt a lion with me? I
mean to lie in wait for one tomorrow evening.’

‘I should like it of all things, sir; but I have
not so much as a fowling-piece with me.’

‘As for that, you may choose either of these and
grow used to it, shooting all-through the afternoon - there is no want of
powder and shot in this camp, I do assure you - and then in the evening, with
your gun still warm and supple, we will walk along the river-bank in blood-soaked
shoes.’

‘Blood-soaked shoes, Pasha?’

‘Why, yes: did you not know that blood - swine’s
blood, deer’s blood - does away with human scent? Along the bank until we are
under Ibn Haukal’s crag: a few feet up this crag there is a hollow called Ibn
Haukal’s cave, since he meditated there for a while during his travels: it is
large enough for two men and it is somewhat hidden by tall grass and plants
hanging from above. Some way farther up the stream, in the same kind of rock,
there is a much larger and deeper cave where this lion Mahmud and his mate have
their young. Although the cubs are quite large by now he still feeds them and
of course his lioness; and it is his custom to walk down to the stream to some
scattered bushes near a common watering-place and there to wait for a boar or a
deer or whatever offers - last year he took one of my men who was trapping
porcupines. I mean to wait for him on his way home, since he carries his prey
hanging to the left. This allows one to shoot him behind the right ear and
perhaps to kill him with the first shot. We shall, God willing, have the
kindest moon for both his journeys.’