Free The Magic Christian by Terry Southern Page B

Grand liked to quip. “She’ll stop anything on this continent.”
    Ordinarily used by the French Army as an artillery fieldpiece, the big gun, stripped of all but its barrel, chamber, and firing mechanism, still weighed well over a hundred and fifty pounds.
    “She’ll stop anything that moves,” Guy would say, “ —including a surfaced whale.”
    Grand had three natives carry the giant gun, while he, wearing a huge cushion-device around his stomach and a pith helmet so enormous that half his face was concealed beneath it, sauntered jauntily alongside, speaking knowledgeably to other members of the party about every aspect of firearms and big-game hunting.
    “A spot of bother in Kenya bush the other day,” he would say,” the big cat took two of our best boys.” Then he would give his monstrous weapon an affectionate pat and add knowingly, “—the cat changed her tune when she’d had a taste of the old seventy-five! Yessir, this baby carries a real wallop, you can bet your life on that!”
    About once an hour, Grand would stop and dramatically raise his hand, bringing the entire safari to a halt, while he and one of his trusty natives (heretofore known as the “best guide in Central Africa”) would sniff the air, nostrils flared and quivering, eyes a bit wild.
    “There’s cat in the bush,” Guy would say tersely, and while the rest of the party looked on in pure amazement, Grand, big helmet completely obscuring his sight, would take up the huge gun and, staggering under its weight, brace it against the great cushion at his stomach, and blindly fire one of the mammoth shells into the bush, blasting a wide swath through the tall grass and felling trees as though they were stalks of corn. The recoil of the weapon would fling Grand about forty feet backwards through the air where he would land in a heap, apparently unconscious.
    “The baby packs a man-sized recoil,” Guy would say later. “The Mannlicher, of course, is nothing more than a toy.”
    Due to the extreme noise produced by the discharge of the 75, any actual game in the area was several miles away by the time the reverberations were stilled—so that these safaris would often go from start to finish without ever firing a shot, other than the occasional big boom from Grand’s 75.
    African hunting expeditions are serious and expensive affairs, and this kind of tomfoolery cost Grand a pretty penny. It did provide another amusing page for his memory book though—and the old native guides seemed to enjoy it as well.

XV
    “H OLD ON, HERE’S a bit of news,” said Guy then, suddenly brightening in his big chair and smartly slapping the newspaper spread across his lap. The banner read:
    PRESIDENT ASKS NATION FOR FAITH
    IN GIANT SPACE PROGRAM
    Jackass Payload Promised
    He read it aloud in sonorous tones, but Ginger pooh-poohed the claim.
    “Probably one of these teeny-weeny Mexican burros!” she cried. “Jackass indeed!” She was a notorious foe of the administration.
    “I wouldn’t underestimate our Mister Uncle Sambo if I were you,” cautioned Guy, raising a rather arch look for Ginger and the others.
    “Why those Mexican burros are no bigger than a minute!” Ginger insisted.
    “Ginger’s right,” put in Agnes sharply, donning her spectacles—as she almost invariably did when taking political issue with Guy—to peer down at him then over the top of them, her face pinched and testy. “It would make a good deal more sense to send that great ninny up into space!” She flung back her head in a veritable cackle of delight at the idea. “I say blast that whole pack of ninnies right out into fartherest outer space!”
    Grand laid his paper aside.
    “I don’t think I’m an intolerant person,” he said quietly, but with considerable feeling, as he rose to his feet, “nor one of hasty opinion—but, in times like these, when the very mettle of this nation is in the crucible, I say that brand of talk is not far short of damnable