St John’s Wood

With nothing else to do after our homework that Saturday afternoon, John suggested that we go hunting. I was all for it. We were staying with an uncle at the time. I was eleven years old. John must have been fourteen. We were both in our final class. He was a keen hunter, familiar with the ways of dogs. I was as good as a neophyte. He had often told me how he used to hunt antelopes and alligators and monitor lizards with his dogs in the deep bush at Odioma, his mother’s village, if he wasn’t fishing on the high seas. I thought that was heroic, and wondered when I would be such a hero.

But how do we get the dogs? We were only schoolboys, and this was not Odioma. This was Brass. Not to worry, he said. He had arranged for two dogs that often kept the neighbourhood sleepless with their ceaseless barking at night. From one neighbour, he borrowed an old muscular German Shepherd called Lion, a tired looking fellow with rheumy eyes who seemed particularly bored with himself all day long, and was often to be seen dozing in the noonday heat. From another neighbour, he borrowed a younger fleet-footed Alsatian known by the name of America, who never failed to demonstrate just how athletic he could be even when there was no competitive event in sight.

We changed into casual clothes and canvas shoes, and gave no indication of what we were up to. While our guardian enjoyed a well-deserved siesta, we sneaked out. With a few catcalls and some whistling, John cornered America, and the canine bounded towards him, wagging his tail. Lion took much longer to persuade from his resting place, his tongue hanging loose in the heat like a pink flag drying in the sun. He dragged himself up reluctantly, yawning, shook himself free of dust, and dug his teeth into some itchy patch of his black, hairy body.

We were soon trotting along a sandy path, the dogs leading the way, away from the market by the beach where buyers and sellers conducted an endless bargain among stalls made out of sticks and raffia palm, wood and zinc. A mild wind blew inland from the Atlantic, coaxing a regular carpet of waves that broke on the shoreline, bringing to our nostrils the cod-liver smell of fish at the salty waterfront.

The path, lined with mango and coconut trees on both sides, led to a wooden bridge just before the Consulate where Taubman Goldie’s men once lived like lords in a zinc edifice with a red concave roof that could be seen for miles around. We crossed the narrow canal, and headed for the only tarred road that had recently been constructed by the oil exploring company, Agip, which had established base at the coastal town.

Lion picked up pace, panting and evidently grateful for a chance to exercise his old bones. At the foot of every other tree along our way, the dogs took turns to leave a jet of urine that never seemed to be exhausted, raising their hind legs in a dramatic show of shamelessness.

“Why do they do that?” I wondered.

“They are leaving tell-tale marks to remind them of our route,” said John.

I was panting harder than the dogs, conscious of a life-time adventure. Within the hour, we had left Brass behind, taking the road out of the colonial consulate area, and heading deeper into the tropical recesses of the rainforest. Lion, a more experienced hunter, was now sure that he was out for a familiar sport. But America was by far more excited. He was the hunter to watch as he gamboled ahead of us, yelping, trotting back and forth to consult with the elder dog, his brown tail restless.

The path became harder to find as we tore through the undergrowth, the dogs finding their way easily, announcing their homecoming with repeated volleys of manful barking that resounded in the woods. Overhead, the sun beamed a scattered trail of rays through the heavy canopy of leaves in the tall deciduous trees.

We must have gone a little over two miles into the heart of the woods when, Lion, now fully gripped by the hunting fever, stopped suddenly and raised his wet nose in the humid air, like an antenna in search of signals. America took the cue, wagging his tail, tongue hanging out, nimble in his movements. John paused in his tracks, and I came to an ambling stop behind him.

A slight movement among the brambles ahead of us, a shudder of leaves, and America rushed forward. But Lion skipped ahead of him, leaping over a muddy patch with such agility and grace that I wondered if this was the same lazy dog that used to lie about the courtyard, messing up the doorsteps with his poo. The barking from him had intensified in tone and volume, sometimes as deep as a roar, and America’s growl was like the whining of a puppy in comparison.

John broke out with imprecations, running after the dogs, rallying them with a holler that I could only interpret as a hunter’s call to action.

“Keish! Keish! Keish!”

I bounded after him, hot on his heels, repeating the war cry as if I had been saying this all the days of my life.

“Keish! Keish! Keish!”

For what could have been a spell of ten minutes, we lost sight of the dogs, and only their furious barking rebounded through the woods. I tripped on a fallen branch along the forest path, crashed to the ground, and scrambled to my feet. Before I could catch my breath, Lion reappeared, a fierce and ugly look on his face. America, crest-fallen, followed like a good and eager student.

“Why is Lion looking so angry and unhappy?”

“He just missed an antelope.”

America, apparently, had stampeded the animal too quickly, and Lion would have none of such disruption. He was cross with the tactlessness of the younger dog, and his growl took on a truly menacing aspect. I clung to John’s arm, ducking behind him, until the rumble subsided. America sidled up to Lion, as if to give his apologies, his tail restless with contrition. The older dog soon calmed down, took it all in his strides, and led us deeper into the woods at a more reasonable pace.

But just as suddenly as the first time, he stopped in his tracks and hesitated for quite a thoughtful while that I was led to ask what he could be doing this time. John studied the countenance of Lion, the attentive ears, the twitching nose, the bared smile, the hanging tongue, the dithering around like a warlord marking time before advancing into the next battle. I waited, unwilling to miss any single move.

“Maduabebe eteli saba yo bo,” said John to me in the language of Eden. I felt a chill in the hot sun when he said that. It was the first time we entered the forest that a serpent would cross our path. It was also the first time I got to know that dogs could smell a snake from a distance.

“Obi eteli mi saba yo?”

“Inyo.”

“Tio re gho o emi?”

“Orio ri. Nte, bei papabio obi gha o. Maduabebe bodu o.”

“Obi o, Maduabebe o, bote wa o pise.”

John pointed in the direction of the double-tongued beast, slithering over a fallen branch, a python dragging his entire train of colours through the undergrowth. We cast around for heavy sticks, and turned just in time to espy the serpent heading for its secret bunker. I aimed a sizeable stone at it – Maduabebe or Obi, whatever it’s called – flinging the weapon with all the heavenly force I could muster. I did not miss. The stone landed on the knuckle head of Maduabebe, and crushed it.

John moved swiftly and brought down a log of wood hard on the writhing length of the snake. As one man, we picked up heavier logs and frantically brought them down harder on the creepy creature, one after the other, like a pair of pestles pounding paste in a mortar. Satisfied that the beast was dead, I stepped forward and brought my right heel down upon the knuckle head – one, two, three! – just to be sure. Then we turned attention to the howling dogs. The coast was clear.

America seemed anxious to impress Lion, taking precaution to watch out for Lion’s moods to be able to tell when to stop prancing about and when to advance. That time came soon enough. We had walked over a mile since our encounter with the double tongue, flicking its way to its deserved death. In the eerie silence of our watchfulness, we saw a swift movement ahead of us.

A rustle of leaves to the far right spoke of a prey waiting to be hunted down. Every nerve and every muscle on the two dogs tightened visibly as they primed themselves to spring forward. This time, Lion took the lead. But rather than rush in the direction of the sound, the old hunting dog dashed to the left, America bringing up the rear with a series of frantic barks. John’s voice broke out almost at the same time as the dogs sprang into action, and I knew what to do.

“Keish! Keish! Keish!” I cried along with great enthusiasm, my torn shirt flapping about me. In my excitement, I did not feel my skin tear from the thorns that stuck out along the virgin path defined by the sure-footed advance of the dogs. The growl from Lion took on a new meaning when we broke through the thicket and found him wrestling a hefty crocodile monitor in an open ring littered with leaves, overlooking the marshy edge of a mangrove bank. Lion had the neck of the huge reptile between his jaws, swinging it from side to side against his own body so powerfully that we could tell at what point the neck of the creature snapped.

America, seeing such a spectacle for the first time, kept a safe distance outside the ring of contest, his serial barking as vociferous as vuvuzelas from cheering fans in a football stadium. The old hunting dog flung his prey to the ground in one deft move. The creature, dazed, had barely made a a few frightened crawls when Lion lunged at it again, taking its spine between his teeth. The smell of blood from the dying animal seemed to incense the hunter even more. It was all John could do to wrest the broken monitor from the bloody mouth of Lion whose eyes burned with the rage of the moment.

I was too perplexed to move, shocked at the transformation that had come over Lion in the heat of battle. Not to be outdone, America advanced just then to repeat the heroic antics of his boss, but only after the monitor lay lifeless, its eyes glazed in death, its back tattered from the vicious marks of its attacker. Given the volume of the barking from both dogs, I was sure that no other prey would lie in wait, and I was unwilling to watch that spectacle any longer.

It was fully dark by the time we trudged out of the woods, Lion still making the occasional thrust at the animal as it swung from John’s upraised arm. We arrived home and displayed our prize proudly. Neighbours gathered round as word spread quickly that the two lost boys and the two lost dogs had actually gone hunting and had something to show for it.

The two dog owners dutifully butchered the crocodile monitor into three unequal parts, and gave us our raw share. If our uncle was angry that we had stayed out late, and that we did not tell him of our mission, the fresh meat in the kitchen pleaded forgiveness for our stubborn oversight. We took a hot bath, scrubbing off the mud and bloodstains from our bodies and soaking what was left of our clothes, as we recalled the gruelling drama in the woods.

After we had eaten dinner and retired to our mats, still basking in the afterglow of our adventure, I popped the questions on my mind:

“Why did Lion dash to the left when the animal was on the right?”

“That’s because crocodile monitors and alligators are deaf in the right ear, and have a habit of running to the left when frightened.”

That left me puzzled. How did John know that?

“What’s the meaning of keish?”

“Oh, that‘s the hunter’s way of saying: Catch! Catch! Catch!”

I shut my eyes and promptly fell into a deep sleep.