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- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
Trained as a vet in Edinburgh, Hugh Cran set off to Kenya and spent the next 50 years at the sharp end, treating cattle of Maasai herdsmen, wild animals, horses and pets of ex-pats and the military, the government and everyone in-between. Travelling miles on rough roads, performing impromptu surgery by torchlight and with dirty water, Hugh fell in love with the chaotic life and the colourful people he worked for, from dawn to dusk, seven days a week.
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‘Dedicated to the memory of Kim, and to all friends, black, white and brown, in Africa, and beyond’
Contents
Doctor’s Orders
‘Right, Mr Cran, I’ll operate tomorrow.’
Professor Renato Ruberti knew his onions. He had all but diagnosed my problem by phone and it only required confirmation by CT scan to prove he was right.
‘You’ve got a massive chronic post-traumatic subdural hygroma, fluid has collected between the skull and the brain. I have to do a craniotomy and drain it off. If this had gone on any longer you would have started blacking out, or you might have suffered brain damage.’
Being a vet in private practice in Kenya, I knew what he was talking about. Two months previously I had been involved in a car accident and this was the result.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘Thanks very much. Soonest done, soonest mended, eh?’
‘Indeed. Right, get yourself checked in and I’ll see you in the morning.’
Chapter One
Road Rage
29th October 1991
The bay gelding was big, very big. About seventeen hands, I estimated. I raised the heavy rasp. The syce grasped the horse’s tongue and held it to one side of the mouth. Behind me stood my African assistant Moses. My arms and shoulders were aching. I had just rasped the teeth of twelve horses at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. Above us loomed the great jagged mountain which dominated the whole area, and after which the club was named.
This was the last horse. A baker’s dozen. Number thirteen. Was that unlucky? The horse’s name was Viper. There was a brass plate to that effect on the stable door. I had noticed that as we pushed our way in.
I would have preferred a nice friendly name, like Topper or Dobbin. The reptilian overtones of Viper were not friendly.
The syce gave me due warning. ‘This horse,’ he said, ‘eh, he is kali (fierce), kama nyoka!’(like a snake!) ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘There’s always one.’
‘Right, Viper,’ I said, in my most soothing tones, ‘open your mouth like a good boy and let’s get this job finished.’
Viper was having none of it. As soon as I introduced the rasp into his mouth he seized it with his huge yellow teeth and shook his 6massive head, worrying it like a terrier with a rat. I held on grimly while Viper did his best to bisect the titanium rasp, grinding it noisily between his enormous molars.
‘Moses,’ I said, ‘get me the twitch from the car.’
Our attempts to attach the twitch to Viper’s nose were met with an infantile exhibition of petulant equine outrage. Viper reared, grunted and struck out with his fore hooves. He jumped up and down like a demented kangaroo. He lashed out with his hind legs. The trouble was that Viper was no infant, but a fully-fledged adult, albeit a castrato. After one iron-shod hoof almost de-eared me I decided that it was time to resort to drugs.
I prepared a Viper-stunning syringe-full of Xylazine, guaranteed to bring the strongest charger to his knees. By the time I returned to the scene of the fray, another syce, alerted by the sounds of Viper’s uncooperative behaviour, had arrived at the stable door. I welcomed arap Ruto, a lean, sharp-eyed, vigorous man of about 40, shaking his dry, leathery hand.
‘Jambo, daktari, he said. ‘Leave him to me. I know how to handle him.’
Very quietly he pushed open the stable door and stepped inside. Viper snorted. Arap Ruto paid no attention. ‘Wacha kichwa,’ he said to the other syce. ‘Leave his head.’ The syce dropped the head rope. Arap Ruto turned his back on Viper and sat down, cross legged, on the stable floor. Viper snorted again. Then he fell silent, staring at the small figure, squatting motionless before him. He moved closer, lowered his head and sniffed at arap Ruto’s shaven ebony poll. Arap Ruto lowered hishead, as though in prayer, then slowly raised his right hand. Viper nuzzled the black fingers and mouthed the pink palm. Arap Ruto gently rubbed the horse’s muzzle.
We stood silently watching and, as we watched, arap Ruto, like an uncoiling spring, rose gently to his feet, still with his back to the horse. With infinite patience he pivoted on the balls of his feet, rotating until he was facing the horse. He blew into Viper’s nostrils, rubbed the muscular neck and laid his own sinewy arm across the thick, black mane.
7Viper stood motionless, breathing stilled, head drooping.
Arap Ruto spoke: ‘Come,’ he said, ‘you can inject him with the tranquilizer now. He will be fine.’
And so he was. A slight shiver as I pushed the needle into his raised jugular vein, but that was all.
Fifteen minutes later I was cleaning my rasps and shaking arap Ruto by the hand as I prepared to depart and embark on the 120 mile return drive to Nakuru, in the Rift Valley, where I was based.
Late afternoon clouds were obscuring the mountain as we departed the hallowed precincts of the Club. A uniformed askari saluted smartly as we drove through the massive wrought iron gates and down the hill and back into the real world.
About a month previously I had had a go of one of those intestinal maladies which periodically afflict those foolish or unfortunate individuals who live in the tropics. I took myself to Nairobi to get myself checked out. The medico, grizzled and stooped from years of peering at suffering humanity, diagnosed a combination of giardia and a surfeit of roundworms.
For some reason he seemed to think that the stress of driving might have been a contributory factor and advised that on long journeys I get my assistant, the faithful Moses, to share the load.
Accordingly, as this was a long journey, I took the sage sawbones at his word and asked Moses to take the wheel for the first stretch, which was all tarmac. After about 20 miles there was a right turn onto a dirt road leading to the august Aberdare Country Club, the township of Mweiga and the main road to Nakuru. At this point I would resume command.
I sat in the back of my Peugeot 504 saloon, on the left side, trying to read an improving, if incredibly boring, veterinary journal. The scientific jargon had its effect. I nodded off. I came to as we passed a lorry heavily laden with timber. Before us was a long hill, near the bottom of which the near moribund railway line from Nairobi to Nanyuki crossed the road. There was no level crossing, but, as the number of trains plying this route had dwindled almost to vanishing point, the risk of an unequal collision was minimal. On 8the right stood a match factory and a little further on, also on the right, was our turn off to the Aberdare Country Club, Mweiga and home.
I put down my stultifying periodical, removed my spectacles, and prepared to unclip my seat belt in preparation to getting back behind the wheel.
Moses turned right.
There was an ear-splitting bang, the car was propelled brutally backwards, and we were now 200 yards beyond our turn off point, facing the way we had come, and behind us, in the ditch, was a lorry, minus a front wheel. Visibility was minimal. For a moment I thought I was partially blind, but it was just dormant dust and debris from within the car, stirred violently into action by the impact, which was clouding my vision.
I shook my head. I felt my limbs. All appeared to be intact.
‘Moses!’ I asked. ‘Moses! What happened?’
He remained silent, crouched behind the wheel.
I opened my door and stepped out onto the tarmac.
People, peasants from their fields, came running towards the car. There seemed to be an awful lot of them, until I realized I was seeing double. I shook my head again and things stabilized. I stood my ground. I knew that if I didn’t the car was liable to be looted. Car accident victims were an easy prey, frequently robbed and stripped of all their possessions as they lay bleeding and insensible. The dead were the most vulnerable, with watches and rings torn from stiffening wrists and fingers, necklaces yanked from lifeless throats, even shoes prised from feet that would walk no more. Seeing that I was neither unconscious nor dead the mob slowed, then stopped, staring at me. I wondered why, until I glanced at an unbroken car window and saw a reflection of myself – hair like a tornadoed haystack, face bloodied and eyes glaring. I frightened myself.
The left side of the car, from which I had emerged, appeared to be intact. But the right side, which had borne the brunt of the broadside collision, was mangled beyond repair. Both doors were crushed, the rear right suspension was collapsed and the tyre burst – split open like 9an over-ripe pawpaw – and the boot was concertinaed. The right rear window was broken and it was the blast of shattered glass from this which had peppered my face.
As I stood surveying the wreckage, a car driven by Africans drew up. They offered to take Moses to Nyeri Hospital, which was not far distant. Moses was a Kikuyu and Nyeri was his home town so this was fortuitous. He still sat dazed and wordless. I knew that no ambulance was likely to turn up, so I agreed. He was lifted from his seat, placed in the car and off he went.
Had he been struck dumb and speechless by the shock of the impact? Or, was he overcome by guilt, knowing that he had neither looked in his mirror, nor indicated his intention to turn right? I had no time to ponder on these possibilities. I was more concerned about defending the contents of my stricken steed. As I turned to see a woman trot down the road with my gum boots under one arm and a brace of towels under the other, out of the corner of my eye I saw a man lean into the car and remove the cigarette lighter from the dashboard. Another gent, wearing a black bomber jacket and a natty trilby, produced a screwdriver from his pocket and set to unscrewing one of the wing mirrors. As he bent to his task, a tourist Land Rover, driven by a uniformed chauffeur, drew up. The mob scattered as the vehicle stopped and the occupants emerged.
They were a French couple returning to Nairobi from the Samburu Game Reserve.
Exclamations of horror as they viewed the scene. ‘Ooh la la! Mon Dieu! Sacre bleu! Votre pauvre visage! Il est couvert de sang! Et votre auto! Une bonne Peugeot, n’est-ce pas? Elle est morte! Finis, je croix!’ ‘Et le camion la bas….’ I had forgotten about the lorry. I looked and saw the lorry driver sitting disconsolately beside his vehicle, a solitary and forlorn figure. A lorry laden with heavy timber had little to offer the opportunistic scavenger.
I looked back up the long hill, looking for skid marks. There were none. So had the lorry driver been free-wheeling down the hill, minus his servo-assisted brakes, in order to save fuel? Then, when Moses had suddenly made his indicator-less turn, the lorry, without effective 10brakes, had ploughed into us amidships. Both individuals would deny it, but this was the undoubted truth.
The large chauffeur, imposing in his black, brass-buttoned jacket, had found a large stick and was laying into the circling sharks and jackals. His name, according to the tag on his lapel, was Oluoch, indicating that he was an uncircumcised Jaluo, and by default no friend of the circumcised Kikuyu, scuttling out of range of his whirling baton.
I asked the French couple if they would report the accident to Kiganjo Police Station, a few miles further down the road, and to phone my wife, Berna, in Nakuru, informing her that, although the car was a wreck, I was not. This they promised to do. Indeed, they did more. They returned to tell me that they had got through, and that Berna was on her way to pick me up. This would take about three hours.
As the tricolour and the entente cordiale departed towards Nairobi, so it was replaced by the red, green, black and white of the less than cordial Kenya police, arrived to apportion blame, and, if possible, derive benefit from other’s misfortune. They were soon followed by a break-down truck, come to drag away the mortal remains of my car to the police station.
I hastened to remove my things – boxes of drugs, surgical instruments, tools, spare wheels – before they vanished, never to be seen again. By the time the gendarmerie had taken their measurements, examined my car and taken my statement, I had piled my chattels onto the verge. I said farewell to my Peugeot as it was jacked up and towed away. The police departed whence they came and I was left, feeling like the last man standing at Isandlwana, with the menacing impis closing in for the final assegai thrust.
The crowd edged closer, hungrily eyeing the tools of my trade.
‘Any moment now,’ I thought.
The noise of a vehicle. I looked up. A pick-up had stopped at the junction, coming from the direction of the Aberdare Country Club. A European was at behind the wheel. I recognized him. It was a friend, Mervyn Ward. I waved. He waved and drove over. The crowd drew back, muttering.
11‘Problem?’ asked Mervyn.
I explained the situation.
‘Right,’ said Mervyn, ‘let’s get your stuff into the back of the pick-up and I’ll drive you to the club.’
Cheated of their prey, the mob dispersed. Like hyenas bold enough to attack a lone buffalo, they retreated when another arrived on the scene.
We rattled along the rocky road to the club.
‘Glad you came along when you did, Mervyn,’ I said, ‘or I don’t know what might have happened.’
‘They’d have cleaned you out, man, that’s what,’ he replied. ‘Those Kukes there are a bad lot. Those bastards would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes and the air out of your tyres if they could sell it. I’m always glad when I’m away from there and nearer Nanyuki. But hell, we’d better get you cleaned up before your missus sees you. You look a right old mess – bloody face, hair full of dust and eyes like piss holes in the snow.’
‘I’m fine. Just the odd scratch. I didn’t hit anything. I’ll be fine’
We reached the club at about 6.30pm.
As we drove in from one direction, so Berna, accompanied by two of our daughters, Sophie and Kim, drove in from the other.
More cries of alarm – contralto, treble and soprano.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘A little water clears us of this deed!’
And so it did. I had a Coke, we left a little after 7pm, in the dark, and by 9.45pm we were home.
Chapter Two
Gin and Gonads
The weeks following the accident were not restful.
For much of this time I was without the services of my Man Friday, assistant Moses, who had suffered bruised ribs and whiplash injury to his neck. If the lorry driver had not swerved at the last moment, thereby hitting the rear side of the car, instead of the front, Moses would almost certainly have been killed, or at the very least, seriously injured. When he did eventually reappear, he was unable to do much more than creep around like a geriatric tortoise, neck encased in an orthopaedic support.
I felt sorry for him. I would have felt rather more sorry if he had shown any inkling of remorse or regret for what had happened. But he never, ever, expressed any concern for the loss of my vehicle, nor for the major resulting inconvenience. It all smacked of suppressed feelings of guilt.
Meanwhile the work of the practice had to continue, come what may.
Things could not be held up by a mere traffic accident. Nor that shortly before that accident we had sold our gas-guzzling, three gear, Toyota Land Cruiser and were now down to one vehicle, whereas previously we had three – one practice Peugeot 504, another 504 for 13Berna, and the Toyota for safaris and emergencies. No indeed.
Three vehicles sounds extravagant, but with both parents working, with no available safe public transport, living miles from the nearest town and having to ferry children 40 miles to school, possessing more than one car was less of an extravagance than a necessity. Rona, our first born, was aged seven, and a weekly boarder at St. Mungo’s Preparatory School, an hour and a half drive away on the bracing heights of the Rift Valley, near Molo.
St. Mungo’s was the polar opposite to Dotheboys Hall. It was a caring, ecclesiastical sort of place, and many of the teachers were of a missionary bent. The head was no Wackford Squeers. He was a quiet-spoken chap, who never raised his voice and who preached in chapel on Sundays. This was all well and good, but it allowed strong personalities and natural gang leaders, like Rona, free rein. More than one young, idealistic teacher was brought to the edge of a nervous breakdown by Rona and her team, whose cunning, low key tactics were so subtle that their luckless victims were only dimly aware that they were being targeted by a junior Moriarty.
Sophie, our number two, when she duly arrived at the school, adopted the role of the mild innocent, assuming a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth attitude which left teachers baffled and confused.
Kim, the youngest, who seemed to know the answers to most questions before they were even asked, regarded many of her teachers with barely concealed scorn. Those who failed to meet her own exemplary standards were given the cool, blue-eyed, withering, drop-dead look, a look which left many apprehensive and on edge. One head went so far as to say that he had nightmares about coming back to the school as a junior teacher and finding to his dismay and horror that Kim was in charge as the new head.
But all three did well, amassing prizes and emerging with the wherewithal to move on to further spheres of higher education.
All this lay in the future. In the meantime I grappled with the aftermath of the accident.
While Berna ran her own small private school for infants, including Sophie and Kim, I was run off my feet dealing with 14a multitude of problems, not all animal related. As Honorary Correspondent for the British High Commission in Nairobi, an unpaid sinecure, I was expected to deal with any difficulties involving British Citizens in my area – an area extending from Mau Narok, 30 miles to the south, to the Ethiopian border, several hundred miles to the north.
And the problems were not slow in coming. An Ancient Briton, called Herbert Allen, took up a great deal of my time. Destitute, bed ridden, with heart problems, he seemed to appear out of nowhere. He told me that he had worked for many years in Uganda, had fallen on hard times, his heart began to give up the struggle, here he was and could I help him? I did, exceeding both his and my wildest expectations, and more importantly from her point of view, those of his African lady companion. By dint of making innumerable phone calls, and writing countless letters, I obtained for him not only a monthly stipend and rent payments from the British Legion and the East African Women’s League, but also a British old age pension, despite the fact, that as far as I could ascertain, he had made zero contributions. Herbert’s co-hab was over the moon with avaricious joy. She made a point of coming to the surgery on an almost daily basis, usually when I was in the midst of a particularly tricky diagnostic challenge, seeking, and demanding, information on the next financial instalment.
Eventually, with Mr Allen’s ticker beginning its terminal countdown, I arranged for him to be moved to the Cottage Hospital at Nanyuki, hard by the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. Here he lived out his last few months in more comfort that he had known in years, before being called to the Final Reckoning. But not before he had made an Honest Woman of his dusky companion, who, as the sorrowing widow of a British Citizen, promptly applied for, and was granted, permission to settle in the Mother Country, to which favoured isle her extended family soon followed, there to batten on the largesse of a state, to which neither her death-bed husband, nor she, had contributed a penny.
15Coincidence! Is there a rational explanation to the phenomenon, or was it a random throw of Fate’s dice that decreed that Felicity Drudge’s pet giant rat and the Stock Theft Unit’s prize colt should both suffer testicular trauma on the same day?
The Stock Theft Unit beat Mrs. Drudge to the phone.
‘Harro? Dr Cran? Inspector Kiptanui here.’ Ah, Inspector Kiptanui, former star of the show jumping arena, whose bright comet blazed briefly across the fickle world of dressage, cross-country and three day events. Then he was slim, naturally dark and very handsome. A veritable African centaur, his proud entry into the ring caused many a female heart to go pit-a-pat. Now, instead of the saddle, he spent most of his time in his padded swivel office chair and it showed. The buttons of his uniform strained to contain his swelling paunch, below his moon face his triple chins flowed over his collar and at the back of his head there was a crease like a tectonic continental crack.
‘Yes, inspector, what’s the problem?’ I inquired. ‘It’s Imotep.’ ‘Imotep?’ ‘Yes Imotep, our best young stallion. He tried to mount one of our mares and she kicked him and one of his testicles is damaged. Doesn’t look too good. Can you come?’
The Stock Theft Unit’s head quarters was at Gilgil, about 30 miles away. I jumped into the 504 and sped to the scene of the crime. As I swerved to avoid an aberrant donkey strolling across the highway I mused on the choice of name for the stallion. Obviously the powers that be at the Stock Theft Unit had been watching too many episodes of The Mummy. But some films have that effect on people. The Jensens at Kampi ya Moto, for example. Their children must have been born when Dr Zhivago was all the rage and names with a Russian whiff were vogue. Otherwise why would they have chosen to bestow the names Ivan and Tanya on their son and daughter?
I was now abreast of Lake Elementaita, its blue waters shimmering in the sun. Drifts of white pelicans were circling, spiralling upwards on the thermals rising from the shoreline flats. A rim of pink at the water’s edge showed where greater flamingos were feeding in the soupy, algae-rich water. On the other side of the lake strange volcanic cones peppered the plain, while in the background rose the dark 16outline of the Mau Escarpment, formerly thickly forested, now thickly sown with a multitude of corrugated iron shacks, the forest gone, along with the shy bushbuck, the sad faced colobus monkeys and the elusive Dorobo hunters.
The road swerved past the Kariandusi Prehistoric Site and the nearby diatomite factory, spewing out white smoke as it rendered down the remains of the hard-shelled microscopic algae to soft abrasive siliceous powder. Then it was down and across a small stream, past the rustic Church of Good Will on the left and up a small rocky escarpment. A troop of baboons sat on boulders beside the road, eyeing the passing traffic, waiting for some vehicular vandal to throw an empty milk tetrapak or crisp packet out of a window. The prize would be seized and borne away for close inspection and any remnants of contents consumed. The unlovely township of Gilgil lay on top of the escarpment. An army barracks, a bank or two, breeze block buildings, a neglected railway station, a row of dukas, a police station, and one thanked one’s lucky stars not to live there. The Stock Theft Unit lay a few miles outside Gilgil. The Unit comprised many horses and a few camels. These in the past had been used in the pursuit and apprehension of cattle rustlers. With the advent of mechanization this role became subservient to nominal appearances in agricultural shows and in crowd control at times of periodic unrest.
An askari opened the gate and I rumbled down the hill to the stables on the other side of a small river. A jodhpured askari directed me to a stable. I stopped the car and stepped out. A trail of drops of blood on the concrete led to the stable door. I looked at the askari and raised my eyebrows. He opened the door. A grey colt stood in the centre of the stable. Both hind legs were soaked in blood, which was dripping from his right testicle which was partially exposed and hanging from a ragged hole in the scrotum.
Two more men had appeared. I turned to them. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘We’ve got to take him out and knock him out. That testicle has had it. It looks ruptured to me. We’ve got to remove it before he loses any more blood. With a bit of luck the other one will be OK.’
17‘I sincerely hope so,’ said a voice behind me. I turned. It was Inspector Kiptanui, rather larger than I remembered him. Normally his round face was wreathed in smiles. He wasn’t smiling now. ‘This is our best young stallion, cost us a fortune and if the other testicle goes then he’s a dead loss to us.’
I had to be careful. The horse had lost a lot of blood and he was also apprehensive and nervous. How would he react to the anaesthetic? Well, there was only one way to find out.
I asked for a bale of hay, prepared my instruments, including plenty of artery forceps and catgut and laid the lot on a clean towel.
‘Right, chaps,’ I said, ‘hold up his head while I slip this dose of Xylazine into his jugular.’ Slowly, slowly, draw back on the syringe, take your time, he’s lost a lot of blood, watch his reaction, check your watch, do this over two minutes. Giving an injection over two minutes seems to take forever. But at the end of two minutes the stallion’s head was down by his knees, his hind legs were crossed and he was staggering to one side.
Now for the ketamine. A computed bolus, also given into the jugular. Doing this job under sedation alone was not an option. If things went wrong I, and the horse, would be up the creek. And being bent double below a horse’s hind legs for half an hour did not appeal.
The ketamine had to be given as a job lot, not trickled in slowly as was the case with the xylazine. In it went. I stood back and waited for the reaction. The stallion stood to all intents unmoved, blood still dripping in an unceasing stream from his groin. At my side Kiptanui also watched in an ominous silence. Come on, come on! Is it never going to work? Then Imotep swayed slowly to his right and collapsed onto his side. I dragged the bale across and investigated the damage. The right gonad had to all intents and purposes been bisected and the two parts were connected by a merest thread. Half was hanging outside the scrotum and the other half was still inside. So a modicum of care would be required in order to remove the lot and not leave remnants behind. I swabbed the area and with scissors carefully enlarged the hole caused by the mare’s hoof. Blood was still running from the area. It was like working at the bottom of an 18inkwell. Kiptanui hovering at my shoulder spoke. ‘Dr Cran, is he still breathing?’ I looked up, and looked at Imotep’s chest. Sure enough there was no movement. Nothing. My heart sank. Had I killed him? But I also knew that the xylazine/ketamine combo sometimes caused long unnerving periods of apnoea, when the patient appeared to hold his breath for worryingly long periods of time and when the surgeon at one end would anxiously enquire of his assistant at the other whether the patient was still breathing at his end. After what seemed like an age Imotep took a deep breath. I did the same and continued with my investigation.
The most important thing was to stop the bleeding – arrest the haemorrhage as the text books would have it. ‘Moses,’ I said, ‘Can you bring…’ But of course there was no Moses. I reached over and grabbed the largest pair of artery forceps I could see. The spermatic artery must have been torn. I had to find the bleeding end and clamp it off, or Imotep was going to pretty soon exsanguinate, in other words bleed to death. I extended the incision. I had to see what I was doing. I shoved in a wad of cotton wool and when I removed it I caught a glimpse of the responsible spouter and clamped the artery forceps onto it. Normally when castrating a colt I would have clamped an emasculator round the spermatic cord crushing all the blood vessels therein. In the present situation that was impossible and getting a ligature onto the artery looked equally unlikely. The alternative was to leave the artery forceps attached for 24 hours to enable clotting to take place. ‘OK, Inspector,’ I said, ‘I’m going to remove the remains of this testicle, leave the artery forceps in situ for 24 hours, and come back tomorrow and take them off. The other testicle looks fine so he should be all right as a breeder. Shit!....’ Imotep lashed out with a hind leg. One moment he appeared to be slipping away, the next he was trying to get up. I grabbed the bottle of Ketamine and gave him a half dose into his jugular.
Imotep was sweating. So was I. I stood up to rest my back and wait for the second shot to take effect, before returning to the fray. Finally, satisfied that the ravaged gonad had been removed in its entirety and that all bleeding had stopped, I cleaned the area, gave an injection 19of tetanus antitoxin and antibiotic and waited for Imotep to recover from the anaesthetic.
When you top up an anaesthetic it inevitably delays the recovery period. But at long last the stallion staggered to his feet. I checked the wound, the artery forceps were still in place and I was able to leave with a relatively clear conscience.
As I turned the corner into Club Lane, in which my surgery was sited, I saw a grey Renault Roho parked opposite the door. The word lane suggests something leafy, rural and tranquil, where the refugee from life’s strife may find peace and solace. Club Lane may have been like that 30 years previously. Now it was a pandemonium of hawkers, beggars, motor bikes, mendicants, pedestrians, wandering musicians and pedlars selling mounds of everything from second hand brassieres to heaps of battered, sad looking teddy bears. There was little peace and tranquillity to be found here. I recognized the Renault as one belonging to Felicity Drudge. Felicity was not my favourite person and I was almost tempted to drive on past, in the hope that she might be gone when I returned. She was the sort of person who liked to think that she knew everything, gave no credit to anyone and was quite devoid of humour. This would have been bad enough if she had been a raving beauty, but she was not. Far from it. At some time in her distant past Felicity had been a paramedic in the British army and she never hesitated to let you know it.
Felicity Drudge was a walking advertisement on what happens to you if you have been on a daily diet of beer and cigarettes for 40 years, and don’t wear a hat. She coughed incessantly, her face was a mass of wrinkles, with the texture of a much used washboard, she was pencil thin, with legs and arms resembling twigs of blackened teak and whatever sex appeal she once might have had, had long since withered on the vine. She was only 50 but looked about 80. Physically she was one of the least attractive women I had ever met.
I parked the car and pushed open the swing door into the surgery. Felicity rose to meet me. ‘Ah, Hugh,’ she shrilled, ‘you’re back – at last. I’ve been waiting here for hours and hours for you. What on earth were you doing at Gilgil that took you so long?’ None of your bloody business, 20I thought. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I was doing a hemi-castration of a colt. Not a swift job and Gilgil is not exactly round the corner.’ ‘Nonsense,’ she barked, ‘I can drive there in twenty minutes.’ ‘How can I help you,’ I said, trying to remain calm. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my Goan receptionist, Miss. D’Souza, trying to conceal a smirk.
‘It’s Oscar, our tame giant rat. He’s been in a fight with a wild rat and, well, one of his, er, testicles is not quite right.’ I thought – isn’t it just like Felicity to have a rat, weighing two kilograms, as a pet.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘It’s been a bad ball day today!’ Felicity seemed to regard such levity as ill placed. Her thin lips pursed until they resembled the patient’s puckered fundament.
‘Right then,’ I said, ‘let’s have a look at the damage.’
Felicity turned Oscar onto his back. ‘Gosh!’ I exclaimed, ‘almost a carbon copy of the horse at Gilgil. What an amazing coincidence!’ Just like the colt, one testicle was exposed and lacerated, while the adjacent area had been rent and torn by the opponent’s teeth.
Felicity was less interested in coincidences than in what I was going to do to repair the damage to Oscar’s vitals.
I did some rapid thinking. The xylazine/ketamine combo worked well enough in cats and dogs and it was safe. I had used it in non-domestic species including lions. It was time to put it to the test on Oscar.
With a confidence I did not entirely feel I turned to Felicity. ‘I’m going to give Oscar an anaesthetic, remove that ravaged gonad and repair the other damage. With a bit of luck his manhood should be unimpaired. Like a twin-engined plane he can easily function on one.’
Felicity had a nose rather similar to that of a dik dik. In other words it was more of a trunk than a nose and it had a peculiar ability to twitch from side to side when the owner was agitated. Felicity was agitated now. ‘Very well, but I want to stay and watch. I have had medical training as you know and if I had the drugs I would have dealt with this myself. As it is I suppose I will have to pay you to do something I could easily have done myself.’
Felicity’s efforts to treat her animals had not been an unalloyed success. On more than one occasion I had had to re-suture wounds, 21re-treat mis-diagnosed illnesses and euthanase those unfortunates botched beyond redemption.
So I kept my peace and said nothing, knowing full well that if anything went wrong I would never hear the end of it. I decided to use the canine dosage, on the premise that the creature had more in common with a small dog than a cat. The dose was very small and the needle very fine, but Oscar did not appreciate being injected and gave his mistress a sharp nip as the needle went in.
Felicity uttered an unladylike word and her nose twitched sharply to the left.
Ten minutes later Oscar was out for the count.
In order to see more clearly what I had to do I donned my loupe, a sort of magnifying glass strapped to my head. Now what I was seeing looked almost as big as that of the colt at Gilgil. Luckily there was no bleeding and my task was that much easier. In no time I had removed the exposed testicle, cleaned the wounds and inserted the required stitches. I gave Oscar an injection of antibiotic and stood up.
Felicity spoke. ‘Well, that wasn’t much was it? I could have done that if I had had the drugs. Now I suppose you’re going to charge me a massive bill.’ I looked at her. Her nose gave a convulsive twitch to the right. ‘Massive?’ I said. ‘The correct adjective is reasonable. Now I suggest you leave Oscar with me for an hour or so to monitor his recovery from the anaesthetic while you go to the bank and draw out the sum which the lovely Miss D’Souza will request you to pay.’ Felicity’s jaw dropped. She spun on her heel and marched out, swinging her handbag like a sling shot. Not for the first time, I reminded myself that ‘the female of the species is more deadly than the male.’ Forewarned is forearmed.
By the time Felicity returned, Oscar was awake and his owner had calmed down. She paid her bill.
Next day I drove back to Gilgil and removed the artery forceps from Imotep’s scrotum. He made an uneventful recovery and went on to sire many foals.
22About two weeks after the accident I became aware of a hissing in my left ear. I consulted a local medico, one Dr Gokani, giving him the whole history of the incident. Thinking that it might be caused by the Deep Heat spray with which I had applied to my various aches he suggested that I stop using it. I did. The hissing continued.
Moses was advised by his medical attendant to take ten days off work. As he was, in his present predicament, unable to assist me in any material fashion, I gave permission gladly.
The hunt for another vehicle continued, as did the flow of work. A horse kicked in the face, resulting in a damaged frontal sinus. Bitches to spay. Cattle with bloat. Dogs with tick fever. Dogs bitten by puff adders. Cows to pregnancy test. Pups with parvovirus disease. Lame horses.
A message from the British High Commission in Nairobi. Would we arrange a lunch reception for 150 people, please, at our house? On the 24th of November. At twelve noon. ‘The 24th of November?’ I repeated, mentally working out how soon that was. Berna’s mother, Eve, I knew, was coming to Kenya on the 25th. Good timing. ‘Yes’ the voice continued, ‘but we’ll bring all the spirits and wine and send out the invitations. All you’ll have to do is to contact a caterer to supply a variety of attractive foodstuffs, bring chairs and tables, ensure there are enough plates and glasses, several crates of beer and soft drinks, beer mugs, hay bales, ice, sunshades, marquee, awnings and oh, don’t forget a few teetotal waiters. I’m told that you hosted an evening reception for our previous High Commissioner, Sir John Johnson, and by the end of it all the waiters were reeling drunk and several guests were little better. One chap even tried to pinch a bottle of Chivas Regal. We don’t want a repetition, do we?’ Before I had time to reply, I heard a click as the diplomatic phone was put down. I was about to say something undiplomatic, when the phone rang again. It was the man from the High Comm again. ‘Sorry, old chap, forgot to tell you. All the replies will be coming to your post office box number. What did you say it was?’ I hadn’t, but I told him. Box 958.
A few days later we received an invitation to a Reception to be hosted by His Excellency the British High Commissioner to be held 23at the residence of Mr and Mrs. H R Cran. How nice, we thought. Please reply to – wait a minute – PO Box 758, Nakuru! What the renter of PO Box 758 thought of all those replies to His Excellency is not recorded.
A visit to an ear, nose and throat specialist in Nairobi re the hissing auricle brought temporary relief. I reeled out the whole rigmarole again and Dr D’Cruz prescribed a course of drugs which seemed to work while I took them. When I stopped the hissing returned.
The day of the reception dawned wet, cold and overcast. The day before there had been a massive hailstorm and the marquee erected in the garden was almost blown down. The meteorological omens did not look good. The grass was waterlogged. The bales were soggy. ‘Let’s hope they bring plenty of booze to narcotize the guests,’ I said to Berna. ‘You haven’t forgotten that my mother arrives tomorrow,’ she said. I hadn’t. ‘I’ve arranged to stay with the deputy consul at her house at Lavington in Nairobi. I’ll drive down with Sophie and Kim after the party and collect her tomorrow.’ ‘Chris Orme-Smith is coming to the party,’ I said, ‘and has offered us his Suzuki until we manage to get another car.’ ‘Wonderful!’ ‘Well, if Murphy’s Law holds, as I expect it will, someone is bound to phone up when you have left and without a car, I’m snookered.’
The diplomatic entourage duly arrived bearing the essential wine, whisky and gin. At noon the first of the invitees arrived and within a very short time we had 150 people benefiting from Her Majesty’s government’s largesse. I had warned people that there would be a cut-off time when the noble party would depart for Nairobi taking away the vital spirits so carpe diem should be the watch word. I had been at Queen’s Birthday bashes in Nairobi and when the cut-off time arrived the band would play God Save the Queen ad infinitum until the penny dropped and the last few of the hard core staggered away.
The rain held off, the food was deemed to be excellent, the drinks were unlimited and the High Commissioner thought we were all jolly fine chaps. The barmen, including myself, remained visibly sober, and, apart from the fact that our lawn had received one mortal blow after another as vehicles had churned across it, all seemed to be in order.
24At 2-30 the phone rang. It was from the Gilgil Polo Ground. A horse had colic. It was bad, very bad, and could I come asap. ‘Shit!’ I thought as I put the phone down and returned to my post behind the bar. ‘Another gin and tonic, madam? Certainly. And you sir? Two large Tuskers. There you go.’ A low-slung saloon, bedaubed with mud, was coming up the drive. A late arrival? Nothing unusual in that. I frequently arrived at parties, wedding and receptions as the first guests were leaving. We were busy people in Kenya and to arrive bang on time was regarded as unmannerly, indeed as a sign of social desperation.
Out of the car emerged Jill Evans of Rumuruti, some 85 miles to the north. In her arms she bore a dachshund and as she approached it became evident that it was a female and in advanced pregnancy. ‘Hello Hugh,’ said Jill, ‘so sorry to barge in like this. I see you’re having a bit of a thrash.’ I wondered where the High Commissioner was. Then I saw him, talking to Chris Orme-Smith, glass in hand, head back and laughing like a kookaburra. That’s all right then. I must remember to see Chris about his Suzuki I thought.
‘What’s the problem, Jill?’ I said. ‘It’s Panya,’ she replied. (Panya is Swahili for rat) ‘She’s being trying to have pups since last night without success.’ ‘Right, bring her into the kitchen and let’s have a look at her.’ Panya’s belly was so heavy that it almost touched the floor, which is where I examined her, in the chaos of the kitchen. ‘She’s got uterine inertia,’ I told Jill, ‘the cervix is open, but the uterine muscle is stretched so much it’s almost incapable of contracting. I’ll give her a shot of oxytocin and hope that that will do the trick. If not we may have to do a Caesar.’ ‘I hope not,’ said a voice. It was the High Commissioner. ‘Sorry, I have to fly. A Minister is flying in from London and I have to meet the plane. No rest for the wicked what! Thank you for everything.’ And he was gone. As his underlings entered to collect all the undrunk bottles, opened and unopened, I gave Panya her injection.
I heaved myself to my feet and realized that I had had nothing to eat. Too late! The table was bare. People seemed reluctant to leave but I had work to do and Berna had to get to Nairobi.
25Chris Orme-Smith’s Suzuki was small, yellow, very metallic and very box-like. ‘There you are,’ said Chris, ‘don’t break the speed limit now!’ The vehicle’s top speed was little more than 40mph. Behind his sardonic exterior Chris had a heart of gold. With his high cheek bones, dark swept-back hair and his red-brown complexion he resembled a detribalized North American Indian. He lived with his wife Teresa, two daughters and a son at Rongai at the foot of Mt. Loldiani. We had spent many holidays at their delightful coast house at Vipingo, north of Mombasa.
Telling Jill to join the party and that I would be back in an hour or so, depending on how fast the Suzuki went, I loaded up, said goodbye to Berna and set off for Gilgil.
To say that the vehicle was uncomfortable would be a gross understatement. I suppose it did have springs and shock absorbers. It just felt as though there were none. Every time the Suzuki hit an irregularity in the road it leapt into the air like a startled impala, and came down with a crash like a lead balloon. This was bad enough on the tarmac but when I hit the murram and the rocks and the potholes I was thankful that I was insured for things like spinal surgery and pelvic replacement. But I was motoring and moving, that was the important thing and for that I had to thank Chris, who, like so many up-country residents, had come up trumps.
The horse, a bay polo pony, was in a bad way. He was pouring with sweat and continually pawing the ground with a fore hoof. Abrasions above his eyes showed where he had rolled on the ground in his agony. His heart rate was 85 beats per minute, his conjunctival colour was a horrid reddish purple, and his capillary refill time had lengthened from a normal two seconds to a life-threatening six. I sounded his abdomen. An ominous silence. I passed a stomach tube up his left nostril. I lowered the tube and two litres of sour smelling fluid drained out. I soaped my arm and did a rectal examination. The tract was dry and tacky and I could feel tense distended loops of intestine. The wretched animal groaned as I palpated them.
The horse’s owner stood nervously at my elbow. He was new to polo and this was his best horse. He was young and pale and a dark 26lick of hair fell over his forehead. I turned to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘this is bad, very bad. From his symptoms he has got an intestinal catastrophe, probably torsion of the small intestine, perhaps an intussusception or possibly a rupture of the stomach. Either way the outlook is very grave, probably hopeless.’ ‘Can anything be done?’ he asked. ‘We can give him xylazine to sedate him and relieve the pain, give an antispasmodic to try to lessen abnormal gut activity, and give drugs to counteract the inevitable toxaemia which occurs in these cases, but….’ ‘Please try,’ he said. ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘we’ll try, but if there is no improvement by first light the only humane answer is euthanasia.’ He gulped and nodded. The xylazine worked quickly. The horse’s head drooped and he no longer pawed the ground. His heart rate decreased to 70 beats per minute and he stood quietly. But I feared the worst, although as always hoping for the best, remembering another horse with colic, writhing in agony and with a heart rate of 120. That horse had recovered.
As I drove home I recalled yet another horse showing signs of extreme ungovernable colic. Drugs had no effect and so I shot the horse. A post mortem revealed no cause for the colic. Mind churning, I reached home. A few revellers still remained, slumped on the verandah in various stages of inebriation. ‘Harro, Hugh,’ shaid one, ‘well, how did it go then?’ accompanied by a loud hiccup. ‘Bloody awful,’ I said, ‘where’s Jill?’ I was in no mood for conversation. ‘She’s in the lounge with her bitch and shree puppies.’ Thank God for that, I thought. And so she was. Mother and babies all fit and well. After I had examined them and confirmed that there were no more pups remaining within Panya, Jill departed, not to distant Rumuruti, but to relations at Rongai.
The polo pony died during the night. I did a post mortem and found a complete torsion of the small intestine, whose inner surface resembled black velvet.
Chapter Three
Brain Drain
Many Kenyans, especially Kikuyus, experience difficulty in differentiating the letter L from the letter R. The Njoro River becomes the Njoro Liver, ‘hello my friend’ transmutes into ‘harro my flend,’ and so on.
I was spaying a bitch one afternoon when attractive blonde and buxom Australian Heidi Rust came into the surgery. My door was partially open as my regular receptionist, Miss D’Souza, was away and her place was being taken by Kikuyu odd job man Bernard, whose social skills were not of a high order. As I carefully lifted the left ovary out of the abdomen I heard Heidi ask Bernard for worm tablets for her dogs. Bernard’s English was limited. ‘Bwana doing opelation,’ he said, ‘prease can you give name and will ret him know.’ I clamped off the ovary and prepared to ligate the associated blood vessels. ‘OK,’ said Heidi, ‘my name is Rust. The doctor will know who I am. Write that down.’ There was a pregnant pause. Then.. ‘No no no! The name is Rust! Not Lust! Do you understand?’ ‘Ah, Lust, rook, I have litten.’ ‘Yes and you have written Lust! Rook, I mean look, let me do it! R.U.S.T.’ ‘Ah yes,’ said Bernard, ‘Lust, just as I wlote.’ There was an Antipodean expostulation, the scrape of high heels, the bang of the swing door as it was burst open and Heidi was gone.
28Breathing deeply I continued with the operation. After I had finished I phoned Heidi to apologise. In a way one had to give Bernard the benefit of the doubt. Heidi was so attractive and eye catching that my minion’s clanger was not so inappropriate.
As I replaced the receiver a sudden spasm of pain stabbed my left temple, and was gone, leaving my left ear to hiss as before.
Berna’s mother had now arrived, to participate in the daily trials which afflict all those who dwell south of the Mediterranean littoral – the regular power failures, the sudden and unexplained lack of water in the taps, the influx of flies, bees, ants and mosquitoes, the routine crash of smashed crockery in the kitchen. Fortunately she had spent time in Egypt and Tanzania during her matrimonial career and was to a certain extent acclimatized to such vicissitudes.
What she wasn’t used to was the almost casual way that Death removed members of society on an almost daily basis. In Tanzania, thieves and villains were almost apologetic for their crimes. Not so in Kenya, where gratuitous violence was the norm. Our good friend, Hobo Swift, talented artist and farmer, was brutally attacked for no apparent reason while working in his studio. Hacked with an axe, slashed with a panga, losing an eye, part of his nose, cut on his head, neck and hands, I received a frantic call from Hobo’s servant to say that he had collapsed. I phoned AMREF, the Flying Doctors. Hobo was flown to Nairobi and rushed to the theatre and into intensive care. He died two weeks later.
Another call from the High Commission. No parties this time. A British tourist had been found comatose in his hotel room, dying 20 minutes after admission to hospital. My services were required. A combination of anti-depressant tablets and vodka was the cause of death. On the 6th of November he had been given 90 tablets. When he was found on the 3rd of December there were only two left. The diagnosis was the easy part. Moving the body to the mortuary, dealing with the police, collecting the belongings, liaising with the funeral ‘directors’, was the difficult part.
Then there was the evening when a tourist truck overturned near the Elementaita turn-off. A mixed bag of Brits, Aussies, 29Americans and Kiwis, they had sustained a wide variety of injuries – a broken patella, broken vertebrae, a dislocated shoulder, lacerations, a torn ear – and the patients were scattered among several different hospitals. So we did our evening rounds, phoned the High Commission, contacted the tour company, phoned relatives, arranged for the injured to be transferred to Nairobi and did our best to make them feel that we cared for their welfare and that they were not alone. Apart from us, no one, least of all from the embassies, visited them in hospital, either in Nakuru or Nairobi. So our appearance was received with touching gratitude. One American girl with a fractured patella, when we told her who we were, sobbed ‘Oh, thank God for the British!’ We wished we could have said the same for the British consul, whose main response was to tick Berna off for phoning the UK-based mother of one girl to tell her that her daughter was coming home.
Berna’s widowed mother, Eve, hailed from Northern Ireland, and possessed the accent and couthie character peculiar to that valiant province. Having spent much of her expatriate life au bord de la mer, in Alexandria and in Dar-es-Salaam, Eve was keen to spend some time at the water’s edge and definitely not amid the terrors of the bush. So we drove to Msambweni on the south coast and spent a few soporific days amid the palms and mango trees, inhaling the warm, dense atmosphere and making desultory excursions to immerse ourselves in the Indian Ocean. The kids loved it. On our return we collected Berna’s sister, Gerry, from the airport. Gerry, like her mama, was not a fan of Wild Africa. But both seemed to be drawn to water and Eve, having sampled the salt, now wished to cast her eyes on the fresh, in the form of Lake Victoria. The search for a replacement for my deceased 504 finally bore fruit in the form of a second-hand Peugeot 505 station wagon, an impressive seven seater, with a cast iron bonnet, the raising of which could only be achieved by strong men and determined women. We tossed for it. Berna won and I took over her somewhat smaller car.
The hissing in my ears continued unabated. But there was work to be done, not to be postponed by mere auricular irritants. Horses with 30colic, dogs with tick fever, a cat whose leg required amputation – in the owner’s garden of all places – cows stuck calving, bitches to spay, mares to pregnancy test.
Things were no less eventful in the country at large – a tour leader taken by a crocodile in Lake Rudolf, British tourists attacked in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve, eight German visitors killed when their plane hit a vulture, a horrific bus accident killing 23 passengers and injuring many more, a clash between police and political demonstrators involving the use of tear gas and live ammunition. Situation normal, I informed my disbelieving mother-in-law.
Christmas came and went. Now I had headaches and partial deafness. I consulted Dr D’Cruz in Nairobi, who shone powerful lights down my ears and found nothing of consequence. Then there was eminent surgeon Mr D’Cunha of Nakuru who said my eustachian tubes were infected and prescribed various antibiotics. None had any beneficial effect.
It was time for our trip to the Great Lake. Mother-in-law was excited. Our goal was Mbita Point, opposite Rusinga Island, birthplace of the charismatic politician Tom Mboya, gunned down in Nairobi in 1969, one of several such in Kenya who met, and continue to meet, violent ends. We rose betimes and were on the road by 7am. It was fortunate that we were travelling in the new seven seater. We were seven, and had we been crammed into the Peugeot saloon, infantile and in-law friction would have been the inevitable result.
Our route took us through the tea estates of Kericho, past the neat, hedged homesteads of the Kipsigis and into the territory of the Kisii, where it seemed that every square inch of the lush green land was farmed and occupied. The seemingly endless approaches and exits to the town were blighted by an interminable succession of humps, designed to slow speeding drivers and to drive Irish mothers-in-law into fits of high pitched whoopings of distress as the car lurched over the umpteenth obstacle. The road wound downwards to Luo-land and to the somewhat ominously named Homa Bay – Fever Bay – a charmless conglomeration of characterless buildings and dusty streets, lined with fly-blown kiosks and breeze block dukas.
31We were now close to the Lake. We could feel its massive presence. It was hot and humid. I felt hot and humid, head muzzy, ears singing, pain behind the eyes. The land was dry and sere, the maize withered and drooping. Small humped cattle driven by tall, black, gap-toothed Luos wandered along the road, which was no longer tarmac, but rutted murram. Pipe-smoking women squatted by the roadside beside mounds of bananas, sugar cane, mangos and pineapples.
