Tribute to two old-timers

I shifted uneasily in my camp chair and stole a sideways glance at the old-timer sitting beside me. This man is my uncle, Rob Acutt, and I owe him plenty. – BY SIMON ACUTT

 

Memories came flooding back to me of how he mentored me in my youth, instilling in me a love of the chase and a deep attachment to the hunt. Sparrow shooting with air rifles led to monkeys and, on a never-to-be-forgotten day with the .22, a duiker fell to me after a long stalk. What boy could forget that?

A blesbuck I took on my own was another milestone, and before long eland were my prey. All this before I started shaving, and usually Rob was there for me. More than one carton of ammunition passed slyly through his hands to me, in spite of my father’s protestations of “Don’t spoil the boy.”

When I had graduated through the procession of firearms country boys know, he gifted me his 9.5mm Mannlicher, a rifle he used to handle like an extension of himself.

My pig rifle I called it, referring to the many bushpig I had dispatched with it. And then, only a few years ago, he delivered his original .375 Holland & Holland to me as if he was parting with his arm, so dear to him it was. He realised his days of big game hunting were over and wanted me to have it. I will always know what that rifle means to him and to me, the same.

 

WAITING FOR A BUSHBUCK RAM

It was a warm afternoon and he could be forgiven for dozing off as we sat in silence awaiting a particular bushbuck ram. Periodically the oppressive silence of the forest was split by a francolin’s screech, and across the flats a flight of hadedas announced their homeward journey. Time stood still.

It was late afternoon in that golden, autumnal time of year before the first frost, and our attention was focused on an open glade 180m away.

We had been there for an hour before he spoke. Not moving his eyes from the shallow valley below us, he said to me in his gravelly whisper, “Do you still think he’ll come?”

I was beginning to doubt it myself so I hesitated before answering, knowing full well that this was his last hunt. I wanted to keep his hopes up, but in truth, we both felt our chances were sinking as fast as the sun when the evening closes in.

Uncle Rob had felt the walk in. His back hurt and his legs refused to respond to anything more than a shuffle. Proof that such happens to the best of us.

A mind which had been razor sharp, fitting for the successful businessman he was, now found itself in a different place. He had lived a life filled to the brim and his bucket list was ticked multiple times over. His buffalo hunting days in the Zambezi Valley were over.

I knew it, he knew it, and it had been his wish for ‘just one last hunt’ which had brought us to this point. That it involved me, made it all that much more special.

“I began on bushbuck,” he told me, “and I’d like to end on bushbuck. And if I don’t get him,” he added, “…hats off to the bushbuck. I won’t try again.” I had to find a bushbuck for him.

During the past five years I had caught the occasional glimpse of an almost black old ram which had set up home on the hill above the maize lands. Using a forested section in which to base up, he would venture out to warm his flesh on cold winter mornings.

I would sometimes spy him standing motionless beside a dense copse of ouhout, his white clergyman’s collar the giveaway against his dark hide as he enjoyed the sun’s rays. I felt I had come to know him. His noticeable limp from a snare or a beating he had taken from a challenger, invariably identified himself to me as he moved towards the stream or crossed the track ahead of me on the occasions that I traversed his area.

That hillside, the stream and the bush which formed its fringe, and the few shallow valleys creasing the slope was the extent of his range. He was part of the farm. He wasn’t about to move. Not now. Old-timers don’t take to change.

He still carried his twisted stabbing spears on his head, one worn down an inch and splintered with use, and the dark coat on his thinning neck and shoulders was patchy and bald of hair in places. His joints ached and he moved slowly in that mincing, tip-toeing way that bushbuck do.

With a dozen years behind him, his days were numbered and the coming winter would probably see his end. He was the bushbuck I had marked out for Rob and now I found myself arranging a meeting between the two old-timers.

Rob was looking at me and I remembered he was waiting for my answer. “Stay here,” I told him. “We still have time. Let me go and check that spot I showed you earlier. He may be there. And if he appears while I’m away, you know what to do.”

 

Leaving him on his camp chair, hunched over his rifle and peering through his scope at the clearing ahead of him, I quietly stood up and moved back into the gloom of the trees behind our position. Earlier that day I had carried a sturdy small table to our little hide where Rob now sat. Two camp chairs, a sandbag and a few leafy branches positioned in front, finished off the rough blind and made it a hide where he could rest comfortably while he waited.

I walked quietly along a thin path taking me seventy metres to a rocky crest overlooking another clearing but, facing west this time, an almost-setting sun made for difficult shooting. I wriggled into position and glassed the open area across a gulley, revealing little. And then, just as I was about to lower my binoculars, I picked up a splash of white against a rock outcrop.

There, momentarily betrayed by his pale neck collar, and standing almost invisible in the cool gloom of the granite, was the bushbuck we were seeking. As I remained glued to his form, he moved to round the low overhang and, with a limping step shifted half into the light. That was him alright. Unhurried, unaware, he stood there. But how was I to get Rob to him?

THE OLD-TIMER’S CHANCE

Arriving back at the blind I told Rob I’d found the bushbuck and that he was waiting a short distance away. Relieving Rob of his rifle and getting him awkwardly to his feet, I gestured for him to follow. My mind was telling me…don’t blow it, this is the chance you’ve been waiting for.

Stepping off, I turned frequently, my finger over my lips to urge silence and care. Stopping several times, it was slow, but Rob was moving as fast as he could. Along the path, through the pine thicket to the crest from where I’d seen the ram.

Then, with an open palm showing Rob to stay, I took off my jacket, folded it several times and wriggled forward to the crest. The old ram was still there, now fully in the open and standing still, as if in thought. About 160 metres. I carefully slid two loose rocks together and placed my jacket between them to give a raised stand and laid the rifle on top of it. Now to get Rob into position as time and light began to run out.

He was no longer shielding his eyes. The valley was now bathed in that soft light which lasts for a short time after the sun has set. I turned from my lying position to see him standing with a confused expression on his face as if awaiting instructions. Using my hand to motion downwards he winced noticeably with pain as he ponderously inched his body towards the ground.

Then, on all fours he began to edge his way forward, one limb at a time, over the damp grass towards the crest. On reaching it he moved his rifle into position and I watched as he stared, unseeingly, into the distance. Puzzled, he turned his head towards me and I nodded and pointed to the glade. Seconds ticked by in silence before I heard him expel a breath accompanied by an “Ahaaa,” as he suddenly recognised the form of the bushbuck.

The old animal was still looking away, still unmoving, but offering a square-on shoulder shot. Now was the moment. The old man slowly slid the safety forward and hunched into the stock, blinked and brought his eye to the scope. Here were two old-timers squaring up for the last encounter.

 

Both aged, both spent, both having achieved much in their lives. But for now, I thought, the odds favour the bushbuck. I remember the gloom descending fast on the old-timer behind the rifle, his head moving as he tried to get a sight picture. Poor light, and the scope cross-hairs were becoming indistinct. “Slowly Rob,” I whispered but I wanted to shout, “Shoot man, Shoot!” My heart thumped in my chest, my frustration about to ruin the last shot the old man would ever take. The suspense was unbearable.

 

I see it in my mind’s eye now. The bushbuck turns his head, sensing something, and the shot rings out. The thump signals a hit and I watch through my binoculars as the old buck hunches, his spine arching slightly, staggers a few steps and falls to the ground.

Then with the shot still ringing, I look at the old man behind the rifle and he is looking down with his head resting on the stock, unmoving. Ever so slowly, he raises his head just an inch and I see he has a small smile creasing his face. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “But I’m sorry for him.”

(This article was published in the July 2021 edition of ManMAGNUM.)

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