A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson Read Free Book Online Page A

right,’ said Mr
     Patel. ‘There’s been a plan before the management committee to turn the old
     darkroom into a computer centre for nearly a year now, but most of the members think a
     megabyte is what you get from a large mosquito and hard disks come with old
     age.’
    ‘Then you need to get some younger
     members, right?These old saggy armchairs and that moth-eaten lion by
     the front door – not exactly hip, know what I mean? Not exactly twenty-first
     century.’
    Tiger Singh looked around him.
    ‘I’m sure you’re right,
     Harry, though we can’t get rid of the lion. Club mascot, you know. Guards the
     door. Keeps the club safe. Isn’t that right, Malik?’
    ‘That’s right, Tiger. And so far
     it’s never shirked a day’s duty.’
    ‘Apart from that time it
     disappeared,’ said Mr Patel.
    ‘Ah yes.’ Mr Malik smiled.
     ‘But it didn’t really disappear – just went out to get some fresh
     air.’
    ‘Our friends are referring to an
     incident a few years ago,’ said the Tiger to a mystified Harry Khan, ‘when
     the lion was found on the club roof. No one ever found out how it got there but Sanjay
     and Bobby Bashu were strong suspects. Anyway, hope to see you here again, Harry. In
     fact, there’s that debate on tomorrow night. Would you be interested in
     –?’
    ‘That guy you were talking about?
     Sorry, guys, dead white males are not my scene. Besides, I’ve got a dinner
     date.’
    Harry Khan racked his cue and with a wave of
     his hand and a white, white smile bid them all a good night. Pausing on his way through
     the front door only to pat the head of the stuffed lion, he climbed into a shiny new red
     Mercedes CLK cabriolet and departed the car park of the Asadi Club in a small shower of
     dust and gravel.
    Inhabitants of Chicago may be familiar with
     the ‘Maneaters of Tsavo’, whose stuffed and snarling forms haveso long bewitched children and bemused parents visiting the Field
     Museum of Natural History. The story of these two Kenyan lions goes back to the late
     1890s when the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria was being built. The tracks had
     reached nearly halfway to Nairobi when Railway Superintendent Lieutenant-Colonel J. H.
     Patterson, DSO, began noticing an increase in absenteeism among the Indian labourers.
     Not known for his enlightened attitude towards his employees, at first he didn’t
     believe the stories the workers told him about screams in the night and blood on the
     tent flaps. No, he thought, damned coolies were probably sneaking off down the line to
     open another grocer’s shop in Mombasa. But when they brought him a dusty sandal
     which still contained the foot of its wearer, he realized that something must be done.
     What happened next you can read about in the lieutenant-colonel’s best-selling
     1907 memoir
The Maneaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures
. In a
     later chapter of the same book you can read about another maneater – the so-called Kima
     Killer.
    On the 4th of June 1900, Superintendent C.
     H. Ryall of the Nairobi Railway Police received a telegram that had been sent up the
     line from Kima railway station, not far from Tsavo. ‘Lion fighting with
     station,’ it read. ‘Send urgent succour.’ Eager for some sport, Ryall
     ordered that his personal carriage be attached to the next down train and set off,
     accompanied by two friends. On arriving at the station he arranged that the carriage be
     left in a siding overnight. He and his companions, well armed with heavy rifles, would
     take it in turns to stay awake and keep watch from within. But perhaps the night was too
     hot – or thewhisky too strong – because during his watch Ryall dropped
     off to sleep with the sliding door still wide open. No one in the carriage saw the gleam
     of yellow eyes in the moonlight; no one heard the pad of four soft paws.
    Because the track where the carriage was
     parked was not well ballasted, the carriage had ended up