Half an hour passed. The ponies nibbled the occasional brown spears that masqueraded as grass, and we sat down, and said things. One of the hunters got up a guda tree to help investigations, and we played: “Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anybody coming?” until we were tired of it, and the man not being particularly agile missed his footing and fell with a plop to the ground. After he realised he still lived we had to listen to his complaints, which embraced everything from petitions to Allah, allusions to Kismet, to ordinary swear words consigning the tree and the bruises to altogether impossible places. It grew bitterly cold. A breeze sprang up and dashed the sand in little sprays about us. Then it got colder still, and darker; presently night would fall and find us unprepared. We guarded the ponies, and the men with nothing but a couple of shikar knives, cut thorn hurriedly, and we could not cry, “Hold, enough!” until a goodly pile had been collected. We started a fire then and sat about it holding the ponies by us. A comical group. The fire warmed us in front, but oh, the cold where the fire was not. I kept turning round and round like a meat-jack. We sat on like this in great discomfort until twelve o’clock. We had on drill jackets, so were very coldly clad. Then—a shot on the silence, cracking suddenly like ice splitting on a frozen lake. Crack again. We replied; and after a waste of cartridges on either side a dark mass loomed on our limited horizon, and the camel-men called words of endearment to the lost hunters. We were huffy enough to have dismissed the whole caravan and left ourselves stranded, but feigned to be propitiated by stories of how they lost their way and the compass, for a Somali will lose, as he can break, anything. The sight of our tents being erected and the prospect of bed and warmth mollified us as nothing else could have done, and we turned in as soon as the cook produced some soup. The men had to collect wood in the dark—a thing they hate. It was all a gross piece of bad management on the part of Clarence. Even Homer nods.
As a result of the exposure Cecily contracted rheumatism of some inflammatory description. We called it rheumatism for want of a better name, but her illness most coincided with something discussed in our medical work—our vade mecum—and most unfortunately the page was lost and the name of the complaint, as luck would have it, was on it.
We decided it must be rheumatism and treated it accordingly. The right arm was rendered quite useless, and it was agony for the poor girl to do more than crawl about. It was a most irritating affair for her and ever so disappointing. The best sport of the trip was now at hand. We were in the rhino country, and at breakfast next morning a Somali hunter rode in—it is marvellous the way in which these people track caravans and then seem to drop in from nowhere—and he brought news, great news for us. Clarence introduced the man, a fine upstanding Berserk, who gazed in bewilderment at the new type of sporting sahib. A rhinoceros was in the vicinity, that much we elicited, that much, and enough too. A flowing tobe was the reward for these tidings of great joy.
Leaving Clarence to glean all particulars, I rushed to Cecily’s tent to see if she would require me to remain in camp with her. She said, nobly, “Of course not.” Truth to tell, I don’t think I could have done it had she asked me to.
I was so overjoyed and excited that I saw to the condition of my rifle ten times over.
The only animal a Somali really fears is the rhinoceros. His charge, though so blundering, is so terrific; and though he has not the cunning of the elephant, in fact hardly any finesse at all, the native mind knows it is safer to take no chances. I learnt by after experience that a rhinoceros is, indeed, a very big thing to tackle; that his immense bulk is no deterrent to nimbleness, that his lumbering, bull-like charge is not the most he can do, for if needs be he can turn and double with agility.
As soon as possible after hearing the great news we prepared to try our luck. The country here was of the densest description, and Clarence’s idea was to make a detour south, by way of some water-holes, where we might come on tracks of more rhino. He said the one we had heard of would probably by now be far away, and, as we were right in the Ogaden, there was every possibility of our picking up fresh rhino spoor for ourselves almost immediately. We got ready quite a little expedition, and I detailed a camel to carry my requirements in case we thought it better to stay out all night, and with Clarence, the Baron, a syce, and two camel men my retinue was sufficiently imposing. Danger from the Ogaden Somalis never presented itself to me as a very real thing, in spite of certain lurid tales we had heard and read. Although we penetrated the country from end to end, the few tribes we met gave us no anxiety save that of the off-chance that we might catch some disease from them. They are very prone to small-pox, and go on walking about with it, giving it to all and sundry, when most people would be isolated.
But to return to that joint of mutton we sat down to. I took a whole armoury along with me, but had quite selected my 12-bore as the rifle for the job. I said good-bye to poor disappointed Cecily, thinking how lucky I was to be well and able to set off on this the greatest adventure of all my life. I little thought I was nearing one of its tragedies. As I rode along I felt light-hearted enough to sing. Even the woeful going and the consequent delays did not seriously vex me. The sandy plateaus presently changed to the most impossible thorn, and it became apparent we could get the encumbered camel no farther. The creature could not struggle on through such dense jungle, neither could the ponies. I would hear of no going back, and there was no going round, so I instructed the small caravan to await my reappearance under pain of all sorts of penalties whilst “the Baron,” myself, and Clarence pushed and crawled our way in a direction where we confidently hoped to come on rhino.
I simply held my breath, took a header into the sea of bush before us, and with the ubiquitous Clarence ever and anon carving out a rough path for me with his hunting knife, held on the way.
The heat was appalling. I can truthfully say I never was so hot in all my life. After about an hour of this, we all suddenly came upon a distinct passage through the jungle, running at right angles, a passage that could hardly be called one, still the way was easier, and it was apparent that, though the brushwood had closed together again more or less, some mighty creatures had passed along. But which way? Spooring was impossible, the broken thorns could not solve the puzzle. We must chance it. Clarence was for the left. I advocated the right. Something made me choose so; but oh, how devoutly afterwards I wished I had taken the man’s way and not mine own. It was not easy going now, but child’s play to what we endured at first. On and on, very, very slowly; and at last the heavy country broke up somewhat and we could see the sandy ground in patches once more. A space and then—rhino spoor! New, never-to-be-forgotten, I stooped down and examined it carefully. It was very distinct considering the dry nature of the ground. I ascribed this to his immense weight. I measured the imprint, and found it came out at nine and three-quarters long by eight and three-quarter inches broad. A rhino causes no havoc to the thorn bushes as he travels bar the injury of his passage. Unlike the elephant, he does not stop and eat all along the way. He waits until settled in some cherished feeding ground.