Cecily had a great gash on her wrist, caused, I fancy, by some sharp flint stone, and the blood was running down her rifle as she held it at the trail. She was too excited to speak, and there was no calming her down. She really seemed like a person in a dream. I announced to her solemnly it was to be our last rhino shoot. The tension relaxed then, and she laughed at my serious face.
A series of whistles brought up the hunters, and the last phase began. Cecily and I set off to find our ponies, and, full of elation, made for camp and tea. We had tea at all hours of the day, finding it the most refreshing of anything, and I don’t really think it affected our nerves one scrap.
It was rather late when our men reached camp, laden with treasure. They brought the rhino’s feet, his tail, his head, and some of his skin. There was no reason why they should not have brought it all. It comes off quite easily. They said they had not time, as they feared being bushed, or that lions would be attracted to the spot by the smell of blood. The skin is very valuable to the Somalis for shields, and many other purposes, and we rather thought it was a put up business to secure half the rhino hide for themselves. We thought of going back then and there and seeing the thing finished, but Clarence said it was such a long way off, the result would be we would all assuredly be caught out in the bush at night. I suppose he was right. They had us fairly.
The Somalis don’t care for eating rhino, and I cannot say the flesh looks very inviting, but we got the chef to make us some soup of the tail, which you hear so well spoken of by all travellers. I do not think our opinion can be considered a fair one. It would have been a better soup had we made it ourselves. Our cook could not cook anything properly, and the tail and taste of it, if there had been either in the pan at any time, was drowned in a waste of water.
Before the great pachyderm began to be dismembered we measured him, and his waist, or where his waist should be if he had one, was by the tape, seven feet three inches. I don’t know what a fashionable belle rhinoceros would think of that. In length he was a shade over ten feet, but this was not a very large animal as they go. We set to work helping to stretch and clean and saltpetre. The anterior horn was much blunted at the tip, the result of some accident or wear and tear of some kind, so that it lost half an inch or so in length. But eleven inches looks formidable enough, on such a fearsome head. The eyes are ridiculously small in a rhino. I think to such altogether inadequate optics much of the bad sight put down to the rhino must be ascribed. One would hardly think every single animal of this variety starts its career with bad sight, but that is what every hunter tells you. Go nap every time on the non-seeing powers of your enemy if he happens to be a rhinoceros if you like, but see there is a tree to get behind before you begin. This is advice from myself.
Next day was a poor one as far as sport was concerned. We were very stiff with so much crawling, though at the time we had not noticed it. We sent off a few men to retrieve the rest of the hide from the remains of the rhino, and when the camp was quiet we investigated the trophies, and overhauled them carefully. Some of them cried aloud in their agony for attention. The skin of the last killed lion was beginning to lose some hair in parts. And this was because, when we undid it and looked behind, great lumps of flesh still adhered, making it impossible for the preservatives to do any curing. It took us a long time to set this right, and we rubbed alum in as hard as we could on the inside. Of course, if the skinning is not carefully done, the chances are the trophy will have to be thrown away. I don’t know how we should have taken a catastrophe of such magnitude.
The men returned to say the skin of the rhino was not to be found. I don’t suppose they had even been to the spot. I am confident they had, in some mysterious way, managed to let their friends know a wealth of shields were to be had for the taking. There was nothing left of our huge friend of the day before, so the men said. Wild beasts had eaten him.
Later, I heard a great shouting in camp and calls for us, and answering in person, I saw Clarence seated on a pony, proudly displaying and offering to me a baby oryx, which he had in front of him. We lifted the mite down, holding it, all struggling, firmly. It was terror-stricken, poor wee thing. I tried to stroke its satin coat, but it only started and looked at me with frightened piteous beseeching eyes. Clarence meant well, but oh, I would a thousand times he had left the kid with its mother. And then a thought struck me. How had he come by this fleet thing? May be killed the doe and then ridden the baby down. Instantly I put it to him. I know I frowned. But he disarmed me by saying the matter was not as I thought, and the mother was alive, unharmed; that he had ridden them down until the little oryx, spent, had to drop, and the mother fled away in fear before his threatening gestures.
I consulted with Cecily, and we came to the conclusion that if we wanted to please Clarence there was nothing for it but to keep the buck, but after mixing it some condensed milk, which we gave it in a bottle with a bit of rubber tubing on the neck, we realised that to retain our little guest meant our going without milk in our tea for weeks. Camel milk was not available, and the baby could not eat. I was thankful of a reasonable excuse to offer Clarence, and he saw the sense of it. I longed to restore the tiny creature to its mother, and Clarence said if we took it back to the place from whence it came the doe would assuredly find it.
We decided to try this, but to secrete ourselves, and cover the baby buck with our protecting rifles. Otherwise, it was quite on the cards that a lion or leopard would make off with it ere its mother could retrieve it. In any case, I should imagine a violent death awaited it. It was so very youthful and easily stalked. I took the timorous creature across my saddle, it seemed all struggling legs and arms, and with Clarence for guide made for the place, some two miles off, where he first started the oryx. I confess I still had my doubts as to his tale and its veracity, but in this I wronged our shikari.