Summery

The war began in September 1939. Every man started to prepare themselves. And in East Africa, in Kenya Colony, there was a young man who was a white hunter, who loved plains. He wanted to be a pilot for the RAF. They took him in and he began his training. When he was nearly finished with his training he got an assignment to learn spins and stall-turns, instead he flew off to look at wild animals. On the way he saw a Sable antelope, these are rare animals so he flied closer to look at them. When he was very close to the Sable antelope he looked out on his right side, but when he looked out he didn’t see the giraffe on the other side. He hit the giraffe’s head with his wing and struck the neck of the giraffe just below the head. There was damage to the wing, but he managed to get back to the airport.

After six weeks he was allowed to fly again now he was going to make his first solo cross-country flight, and he flew off from Nairobi to a place called Eldoret, which is a little town eight thousand feet up in the Highlands. But then he was unlucky again. This time he had engine failure on the way and had to make an emergency landing without damaging the aircraft. He landed close to a little shack where an old man lived. He lived with the old man for two days and two nights, and the old man told him a strange story under his stay.

Once upon a time there was an old man living with his younger friend Judson. The only animals they had was a cow and a dog. Judson helped the old man with the animals but one day Judson took the dog’s life. “Why did you kill my dog!?” the old man said. “I can’t take noises like that, licking, licking and licking. I tried to make him stop, but he wouldn’t!” said Judson. The old man didn’t do anything about Judson, but he made him work a little bit harder. Judson wouldn’t stand the noise the cow made either, but the old man told Judson to leave the cow alone. One of Judson’s jobs was to milk the cow, but one morning there wasn’t any milk left. The old man accused Judson for steeling the milk, but he denied it. Judson said that it must be one of the Natives who stole the milk. The old man couldn’t accuse Judson when he didn’t really know who the thief was, so he stands guard at the night. At the night he is watching the cow all night, and when it is full moon he can see the cow very sharply. Suddenly he sees a black Mamba snake approaching the cow. The snake comes closer and closer the old man raises his gun but doesn’t shoot. When the snake is right behind the cow it raise its body and starts to drink from one of the cow tits. The cow didn’t react to the snake, it just kept eating. The old man watched the snake drinking for half an hour. After 30 minutes the snake went back to the jungle. The old man wondered why the cow didn’t react to the Black Mamba. Why did it just kept eating? When Judson woke up he walked straight to the cow, but it was empty. The same happened the next night, and the old man watched the Black Mamba take his milk.

Next night the old man said to Judson that it was a Native kid who was steeling the milk and that Judson had to stand guard. When the night came Judson stood guard behind the cow. The only thing Judson could focus on was the noise from the cow while it was eating. He couldn’t bear it. The old man was sitting in his window with his shotgun waiting for the Black Mamba to approach. When the night came the Black Mamba was gliding thorough the wet grass and was going for the cow. When it was so close to the cow and almost starting to drink, Judson came behind it to take it. Judson thought that it was a kid when he jumped over it, but found out that it was a snake real quickly. The Black Mamba took a bite of Judson and killed him on the spot. The old man didn’t do anything, and the Mamba snake just kept drinking from the thick tits. Then the old man said quietly: “You can have his share. We don’t mind you having his share.” And as he spoke he glanced back and saw again the black body of the Mamba curving upward from the ground, joining with the belly of the cow. “Yes” he said, “we don’t mind you having his share.”

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