Free 1972 - A Story Like the Wind by Laurens Van Der Post, Prefers to remain anonymous Page A

bush.
    Ordering Hintza to mount guard over the unconscious man, he quickly found the stout, straight dead branch of an assegai wood tree. He hurried back to look among the stones, which there, so close to the hills, were abundant. He selected two very large ones and carried them back to the trap. He wedged the jaws of the trap securely between them so that they could not shift when he started his levering and so further injure the mangled leg. Placing the end of the wood firmly underneath a jagged ledge of rock which protruded over the track just where the trap had been set, he pressed down on the spring with all his thirteen-year-old strength and weight. The spring flattened out far more easily than he had expected and in the midst of his relief he had time for a fleeting feeling of gratitude that his father had insisted on teaching him the science of Archimedes which had been his least favourite subject of study. More, he found that once the spring was suppressed he could keep it down by holding the wooden lever firmly in position with his right hand alone. Doing this, and as an extra precaution adding his own weight to the pressure on the spring by sitting sideways on the lever, he gently lifted the leg clear of the spring.
    He had hardly done so when the wooden lever, tough as it was, snapped with the strain like a pistol shot. He had to leap clear to escape being caught himself in the jaws of the trap. They shut with a clang so loud that he was afraid it would be heard at the milking sheds a mile or so away.
    The leg of the still unconscious man was fearfully gashed; the wound wide open. It looked almost as if it had been caused by a leopard, no doubt because of the- night-long struggle of the Bushman, tugging to get his leg out of the grip of the saw-like teeth. To his dismay the wound, the veins no longer restricted by pressures of the trap, started immediately to bleed badly again. Happily, François knew that a vital artery could not have been cut because if so, the man would have long since bled to death. His greatest fear was that the leg might be broken. He felt it all over as gently as he could and was profoundly relieved that injured as it might be in flesh, sinew and muscle, the bones themselves miraculously had not been fractured.
    It was a significant illustration of how deep Koba’s picture of her people lay in his imagination that despite concentrating on his examination of the wound, he could not help marvelling at the shape of the injured leg. What a lovely muscular calf it had!
    What delicate, slender ankles like those of the tssessebe , the fastest antelope in Africa whose name, given of course by the Bushmen, conveys the sound of the wind created by its own speed whistling through its shining coat of titian hair. And how small and well-shaped were the feet! It was almost as if he could hear in the midst of his urgent preoccupations the voice of old Koba in his ear saying: ‘You see, as I have always told you, you will know the true men of my people by the smallness of their hands and feet and the beauty of their legs. He is one of my own—help him as I helped you!’
    However, the problem was too pressing to leave time for pursuing the luxuries of imagination. The terrible wound was bleeding far too much for any further delay. Somehow he had to stop it and use all the first-aid knowledge that everyone at Hunter’s Drift, in a world without doctors, learned from early childhood. He thought at once of the handkerchief in his pocket, the red cotton kerchief he wore round his neck in the early hours of the morning and evening, and the white woollen vest underneath his bush shirt. Discarding his shirt, he pulled off the vest, made a soft pad out of it and placed it around the wound, tied his own handkerchief and kerchief together and used them to wind around the pad firmly enough to keep it in position for the time being.
    He had hardly done this when the man opened his eyes to speak again in a blurred,