Blood Diamond Chapter 9

The beast gave a deafening bellow and rose up on its hind legs as the first men drew near. One of the boys drew back his arm and flung his spear. It buried itself, deep enough to hide the metal spearhead, in the grey flank of the creature. It bellowed again, louder, in anger and pain. There were other spears flying now, some bouncing off trees and branches, others finding their mark. The sides of the creature were streaking with bright red blood. Some of the attackers, the braver among them, the more foolish, did not throw their spears but ran close to the sides of the animal, trying to reach a position from which to drive the deadly, sharpened head into the throat or belly of the beast.

It was fatal. The animal turned its head toward the nearest and stampeded forward, knocking the slight figure to the ground. The huge flattened feet rose and fell, trampling and trampling until the boy was a bloody smear on the earth. The swinging trunk struck another sideways, lifting him from the ground by the force of it, flinging him through the air. His body broke against a tree-trunk with a terrible cracking sound and slumped to the floor and moved no more.

Two more youngsters were gored and trampled like the first. Daniel watched in horror as the boys danced back, fled for cover, but kept returning, kept surging back to the unequal fray with the monster, drawn back by the funeral call of honour and manhood. They had no chance against this monster, with just their puny spears and the pathetic strength of their limbs, but they did not hesitate. The King watched it all impassively, his face like a wooden carving, and Daniel remembered that he had seen this same scene many, many times before.

And then, as though suddenly tiring of the carnage, the King reached behind him and brought around the drum that had bounced against his back these hours past. With a tangible sense of ceremony and solemnity, he began beating on the cowhide – loud, hard, rhythmic strokes that boomed and echoed through the trees - and he set up a low, insistent keening that seemed to come echoing from the cavity of his chest. 

Boum! Boum! Boum! Boum!

Taken together, the sound was overwhelming. The great beast swung toward it, its small black eyes rolling fearfully. Then it seemed to shake its head and turn and crash away from the noise, through the low overhang of trees. There were now four initiates still standing, one with an arm hanging uselessly at his side, and with a roar of renewed vigour they set off in pursuit. The King jogged forward after them, beating the inscrutable rhythms, and Daniel hastened in his wake.

Boum! Boum! Boum! Boum!

The sound seemed to drive the creature before them - the boys with spears were little more than irritations in its flank as it blundered onward, disoriented, maddened. The sound swirled and boomed, mixing with the crazed cries of the beast. Daniel saw it thundering ahead of them, half turning to resume its battle but, spooked by the noise into turning again, blundering blindly toward a screen of green foliage. Then, one fresh-thrust spear still dangling like a quill from its hindquarters, the beast charged into that wall of greenery … and disappeared.

The boys rushed to the site and gave up a great cheer. The King ceased pounding the drum and he and Daniel ran across the difficult ground to catch them up. They reached the spot and Daniel found he was standing on the edge of a sudden precipice – concealed by the greenery, the ground fell away sheer over a rocky lip. Down below they saw the great grey bulk of the dalovu, lying still in a sandy defile, dead in the long, tumbling rush of the fall. The boys’ cries sounded of deliverance and wonderment. Daniel turned to the King. The King’s face was impassive and emotionless, and in that moment Daniel realised that he had lived through this moment over and again, perhaps at this very place, this very spot on the hidden gorge.

He realised that the King must know this terrain like the inside of his own hand, that all of this was part of the repetitive, unending cycle of initiation. It saddened Daniel to think of the brave young men lying broken in the forest behind them, and the brave young men of all the years before this. If he wanted to, the King could have started each hunt with the ritual drum, could have spared them that desperate fight, spared the pain and the death. It seemed cruel, senseless.

But then he looked at the faces of the surviving, and he saw a new light suffusing their cheeks – not merely pride and passion, but something else, something deeper. You could not call them boys anymore. The experience of combat in that green underworld, of conquering their terrors and standing beside one another, and then, above all, of surviving – these were experiences that changed them in a moment. And Daniel realised for the first time, realised because he had the evidence of the change in his own eyes, what it meant to these boys to become Annuba men, and he saw what it was that made their small tribe so feared through the wild areas in which they roamed.

Daniel was thinking these thoughts when suddenly there was an almighty roar, an angry, furious, murderous sound, and Daniel wheeled to see – breaking through the green dappled dimness of the forest - another creature, another dalovu, like a demon straight from hell, trunk held high and ears splayed, charging like hot fury toward them.

Copyright Rannulph Moore

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Ranulph Moore describes himself as an explorer, who became a writer to purge himself of the adventures that were crowding his life. He says he has seen it all, in a life spent observing the lives of others.
He will travel anywhere – as long as he can make a decent cup of tea and launder a linen jacket. He describes Africa as one of his great loves. He has spent time in every country on the continent.
If he can’t find a good champagne, he has been known to resort to gin. He has homes in Paris, Jura and Cape Town. At present, he lives in Madagascar, where he is researching his latest book.
Read an interview with Rannulph Moore.