T H E C O V E N A N T E R
breaking out into the open bush and plains knew what the danger was Bundara, the
below the forest edge. We were now being Bren gunner was already fifteen feet off the
ordered to conduct a ‘sweep’ in a single line ground, nestled in the ford of an absolutely
abreast with a hundred men across a front smooth tree - still holding his Bren gun!
of fifteen hundred yards, against a gang
Soon, startled by something, the rhino
with a rumoured strength of one hundred
charged off down the trail, through the
through an area famed throughout Africa
bush and disappeared and we set off, Peter
for the abundance of its wildlife, all of it
still trophyless, for the last two hundred
presently seething with annoyance at being
yards towards the ambushes as we led,
hemmed in for the last four weeks!
white faces to the fore and making plenty
Spread evenly across the line of advance
of noise to give them plenty of warning,
the troops would have been fifteen yards
out into the sunlight and the welcoming
apart. In thick bush at five yards you can’t
open fields.
see anything. We felt that at best we would
I never did go back to Treetops nor,
see nothing and , at worst, people might
subsequently, have I been back to Kenya,
start shooting each other. We decided on
but the images of that magical majestic
patrols of four which would move along
country, among them that of the tree-
the edges of the game trails.
bound Bundara with his Bren gun remain
At the signal we set off. Apart from
forever clear and vivid.
occasional angry-animal-crashing-through-
bush noises ahead of us all was still. Away
G.F.
to both flanks we heard an odd burst of
fire from time to time. After an hour and South of the Border
a bit my patrol came out into the Treetops
“The Lost Consonant of England”
salt-lick clearing just as my fellow platoon
commander and his patrol broke cover one
‘America and Britain’ said George Bernard
hundred yards away to our left across the
Shaw ‘are two great countries divided by a
pool. We circled it and both teams sat down
common language’ and he was absolutely
under the burnt-out Hotel high above us.
right. For me, however, the division is
After a break we decided to stay in
much nearer to home, and although I have
each others view for the last few hundred
yards to the forest edge and moved down
lived in Southern England for yehs and
the trail with thick bush on either side.
yehs (translation - a very long time) I still
Suddenly the point man stopped; so, too,
find regional accents endlessly fascinating,
did everyone else. Fieldcraft, forest-style
not least because many of the folk in
was second nature to these fellows and
South East England, while regarding Scots
there was absolutely no sound as they all
and many others as almost unintelligible,
dropped to positions of all-round defence
consider that they themselves do not have
almost instinctively.
an accent at all.
The point-man signalled and Peter, my
Fed by television on a diet of Taggart
colleague and I crept forward. He pointed.
(‘there’s been another murrdurr’) and
There less than ten yards ahead of us in
Andy Gray on Sky Sports, who can make
the poor light of the narrow trail with its
the objective of football (‘tae sco-ur a
close canopy of high trees were the double
go-ull’) into six syllables, they can be
horns of a huge black rhinoceros sticking
forgiven for finding the accent quaint and
out across our path as the rhino browsed
sometimes extreme. Recently I overheard
waiting.
someone in Glasgow talking about ‘the
We had seen nothing, ‘bumped’ nothing,
jookie embra’, who turned out the be the
shot nothing. I had got my patrol trophy
Queen’s husband, - an expression that falls
three days before when we shot the mad
easily upon another Glasgow ear but could
rhino. This was a beauty and it could be bewilder a stranger!
his. Still in absolute silence Peter signalled The division by accents is not, of course,
for the Bren gun. Our chaps were good and just a north-south divide, since every part
normally responded immediately, but no of Britain has its own eccentricities - A
Bren gun or gunner appeared. while back I was in Dorset (pronounced
We looked round. The Askaris were Dahrsit) and looking, in a pub in Portland
shaking in silent mirth. Naturally they all Bill, for the words, or failing that, the
coy little pictures of top hats and ladies
- bonnets which indicate the Ladies and
Gents, I found only a six letter sign on an
51
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