The Pan Book of Horror Stories

SERENADE FOR BABOONS Noel Langley

The doctor was a chubby, benign little man who had taken his degree in Edinburgh, married, become old-fashioned, and come to South Africa because he had been told that the practices were not overcrowded as they were in Glasgow, and patients were less inclined to demand newfangled gadgets and fancy remedies for ordinary ailments.

“I am a practical, down-to-earth doctor,” he chose to say, “and I don’t believe in anything that isn’t practical and down-to-earth. A stomachache is a stomachache, and the gripes is the gripes: and imagination is the enemy of man.”

He said this to a fellow traveller on the Union Castle boat on his way to Cape Town, and the fellow traveller had answered: “Then I hope you’re wise in going to South Africa.”

“I hope so!” said the Doctor, with feeling, who had spent his last capital on his tickets. “I was told there was plenty of room for a competent man!”

“That I wouldn’t deny,” agreed the fellow traveller. “It’s the imagination that may give you trouble. The rural folks are superstitious, you know.”

“I’m sure I can cure them of that!” said the Doctor in mild relief. “May it be the least of my problems.”

It proved to be the greatest, however; for when he eventually bought a country practice in a village of tin shanties at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains, he found his patients hard to woo. They were rugged and taciturn and still resentful of an English accent. When they came to him with the stomachache, expecting to have it called a romantic ailment and to be made much of, his airy pooh pooh and his casual prescriptions of sodium bicarbonate, instead of reassuring them, sent them away discontented.

One day the Doctor learned that an ancient Hottentot witchdoctor called M‘Pini was doing better business with the local farmers than he was, and it struck his professional pride in a vulnerable spot. He tried to register a complaint with the Mounted Police when they made their rounds of the district, and he tried to enlist the moral support of Mr Coetze, the local minister; but in both cases he met with polite evasion. He complained indignantly to his wife, a discreet and reserved Scotch woman who kept her place. “They believe in witchcraft!” he said. “That shrivelled little savage gives them the entrails of animals and burns feathers! I shall fight this out, Agnes, on principle rather than as competition!”

“I was talking with Mrs Naude,” said his wife, referring to the wife of the storekeeper. “She said you’d do well to tolerate the local feeling a wee bitty more than you do. It’d be quicker, she was saying, for you to come round to their way of thinking than to wait for them to come round to yours.”

“I would sooner,” decreed the Doctor from the bottom of his heart, “become a savage myself.”

But it did not help to pay his bills, and when their income was almost gone, she spoke to him again about it.

“A little deception,” said the good woman, “need hurt nobody’s conscience when it’s in the cause of good. Just a little mumbo-jumbo with their cough medicine is all they want, and pretty names on the labels; and you’d put that Hottentot out of business; and come now, Jamie, how could it hurt you?”

“I’ll make no concessions to superstitious folk who should know better,” he said doggedly. “They’ll come round to my way of thinking, or we’ll stay as we are.”

“I’m having to borrow from the storekeeper,” his wife pointed out.

“I cured him of the toothache,” said her husband, “long before the witchdoctor rubbed hippopotamus fat on his silly head; we owe him nothing.”

“I’d like to convince him,” said his wife sadly.

By now the hostility between the Doctor and the witchdoctor M‘Pini was openly recognized. If they passed each other on the dirt roads, it was all the Doctor could do to control himself, but he knew there was nothing to gain by antagonizing the locals further, so he held his peace; though by now he believed fanatically that he stood for the principles of enlightenment and was prepared to die for them.

That he would have is certain, for he still had to eat; but in his hour of need, Fate sent him a client who hated witchdoctors as much as he did. He was a farmer from the wilds of the mountains, called Hoareb, and despite his unprepossessing shape, the Doctor could have wept with joy when he came to his house to have a wound in his arm dressed, and paid his money, and went away again without more than ten words being exchanged between them.

“There goes a patient after my own heart,” said the Doctor, even though there wasn’t a man in the village who didn’t hate the sight of Hoareb and give him a wide berth when they saw him coming; slouching along with his huge shoulders stooped forward, and his cold beady eyes sunk so far back into his head that his eyebrows seemed to hang over black pits, and his tight-shut mouth that looked like a badly healed scar across his face. He never stayed longer than necessity kept him, and never came in from his farm up in the mountains more often than he could help.

Some of them put his age at sixty, others at forty, and one or two insisted that he had been up in his farm on the mountains since the Lord put the mountains there, and there he would always be, with his slouching shoulders and snake’s eyes, until the Lord sent the mountains to dust on Judgment Day, and plunged Hoareb into everlasting fire.

The Doctor, however, thought of him with pride and satisfaction. He had had to make no concessions to him and he had gone away satisfied with the Doctor’s work. He was the model patient, and the exoneration of the Doctor’s rigid principles.

A few days later, as if in substantiation of this, Hoareb came back. He rode unhurriedly through the village, reined his horse up in front of the Doctor’s cottage, and banged at the door until he broke the brass knocker the Doctor’s wife had brought all the way from Edinburgh. The Doctor was in his bath, but climbed out, sopping wet, and hurried down in his towel to save the door from bursting off its hinges, while his wife hid herself in the kitchen. He unlatched the door and Hoareb nearly threw him on his back thrusting his way into the hall without waiting invitation. “My friend is ill,” he said without preamble. “I think perhaps dying. You had better come. Now.”

“As soon as I can,” the Doctor assured him.

“Now,” repeated Hoareb.

“I’ll have to dress,” the Doctor pointed out, “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” He left Hoareb in the hall and scuttled back upstairs to dress, delighted beyond words, and stiff with pride and assurance. He was into his clothes and had his bag packed, back into the hall, in just under ten minutes. Hoareb was standing where he left him, staring into nothing.

“My horse. Won’t take me a minute,” said the Doctor, and ran round to the stable. He had two horses so that one was always saddled in readiness. He strapped his bag to the saddle, and cantered back to the high street.

Hoareb was mounted, waiting.

As soon as the Doctor appeared he swung his horse round and set off on the forty-seven miles without a word, and the Doctor fell behind obediently. The village watched them go, and speculation ran high.

The whole of the journey was conducted in silence. After twenty miles the Doctor’s elation abated a little, for as they left the flat veld and began climbing the pass up into the Drakensberg, a strong sense of loneliness came over him and Hoareb’s back seemed to grow larger and more ominous. A hundred and one stories of Hoareb’s rages, his insane attacks on his natives, his utter secrecy in all he did, came flooding back, though he cast them sternly from his mind, concentrating on the duties of his profession, and thought of the friend—‘perhaps dying’, Hoareb had said.

They entered the bush growing round the foothills, and when the sunlight was shut out by the squat trees, his nerves began to show the first signs of strain. The path was steep and slippery with moss. Loose pebbles broke away under the horses’ feet and made them stumble. Branches whipped him across the face and flicked his ears painfully. Occasionally animals, frightened by their noise, rustled away under the bushes with a suddenness that brought his heart into his mouth, but Hoareb continued on his way stolidly, never once turning in his saddle to see whether the Doctor was still following.

Africa at her wildest lay round them. They passed a small waterfall and a pool where evil little arrow-heads cut the water, and larger snakes lay curled beside its edge. Farther on they came to a headless waterbuck at the side of the path, and here Hoareb reined up and pointed to it with a twisted finger.

“Baboons done it,” he said, and his face twisted with anger. “Baboons.” It came through his teeth with vitriolic intensity. “Baboons done it. Cursed of God!” His eyes were pinpoints of fanatical hatred. “I tear their heads off, like they done that, you hear? Like they tear that head off, I tear theirs! Cursed of God! Cursed of God!” His gaze met the Doctor’s, and the Doctor looked away, discomfited. “You think I’m afraid of them, maybe? Me, afraid of baboons, the spawn of Satan? They think I’m afraid of them, too, but every one I shall kill, by tearing off the head, like that buck, you hear? I not afraid!” He suddenly stood up in his stirrups and shouted at the top of his terrific voice: “Do you hear? Cursed of God! I not afraid! I not afraid! Do you hear?”

The echoes came thundering back from all round them, and when they had died away he waited for a few seconds, straining for something he didn’t want to hear.

The Doctor held his breath, and felt that the whole of the wildness about them hung in silent suspense, waiting with them. The seconds trickled by, and then Hoareb suddenly threw his head back and bellowed with laughter, a hoarse laughter more removed from humour than anything the Doctor had ever heard. His horse shied sideways with fear and he held it to the path with difficulty. Hoareb laughed again, stopped suddenly, spat at the dead waterbuck, and brought his heels down into his horse’s ribs with a vicious kick, then continued along the path, sinking back into morose silence, and gazing in front of him.

Another hour’s riding through the gloom of the bush brought them into a clearing where the outbuildings of the farm stood. They were ordinary wattle and tin sheds, daubed with mud and well kept, reassuringly conventional in layout, and yet looking slyly wrong in every line and corner. A few hens were scratching at the rubbish heap, and from somewhere came the sound of a dog howling, but there was no sign of a human being anywhere in sight.

They rode past the sheds and, turning a clump of wild mimosa, came upon the farmhouse, still and deserted. The howling of the dog grew clearer, it rose mournfully in the stillness, wavered, and sank into a low whine, and then rose again more insistently than before.

Hoareb brought his horse up to the steps of the verandah, let the reins drag, and waited for the Doctor to dismount without speaking, a leather whip thumping against his leg. The Doctor swung off his horse, undid his bag, and came up to the steps. Hoareb jerked his head over his shoulder.

“Hear dog?” he said. “Maybe you come too late.”

“Where is she?” the Doctor asked.

Hoareb turned and went into the house, and he followed unhappily. There was a dank stuffy smell of animals in the dark room, but not of animals the Doctor knew or recognized. As his eyes grew used to the gloom he found himself in a poorly furnished dining room with the remains of a meal still on the table. One of the chairs had been broken and the pieces lay scattered across the floor. In a corner something moved, and he turned with defensive speed to face it. Two children were crouching against the wall, their eyes wide with fear, and as he looked at them, a strange feeling of uncertainty crept over him. There was something more than imbecility in the eyes gazing into his. His mind flew back to animals again, and he remembered a sick Gibbon monkey he had once tried to save from dying. It had cried like a human being. The children were about twelve or fourteen, a boy and a girl, dark skinned. He made a movement towards them, and they shrank farther back against the wall. An almost inaudible whimper of terror came from the girl, and he drew back in distress. Hoareb from the other end of the room broke the silence.

“Baboons!” he said. “A fine couple, do you hear?” He came across and stood towering over them, then uncurled the whip and flicked it lightly. The girl began a poor sickly scream that quavered into nothing, and he laughed. “Baboons; do you hear? Look how they fear me! I have only to raise my foot and they squeal. Do you see how they fear me? And you think I am afraid of baboons!” He laughed again, and the whip cracked. “Out! Out of here! Cursed of God!” he shouted with sudden rage. “Back to your filth!”

The two children fled, stumbling in their panic, and he followed them to the door. The boy missed his footing and fell to the ground, cutting his head on the stones. The girl paused, gasping with fright, and helped him scramble to his feet with the blood pouring from his face, and together they disappeared behind the mimosa trees.

The dog, which had been silent for a while, raised its voice again in a long-drawn howl that brought the hair up on the Doctor’s neck. Hoareb shouted thickly, and it stopped. He coiled the whip and came back into the room.

“There,” he said, and opened a door that had been hidden by a curtain of sacking. “Had an accident. I think perhaps she will die.”

The Doctor entered first, and stood stockstill for a moment. On a bed by the window lay a middle-aged Zulu woman, covered by a blanket. He crossed the room swiftly and bent over her. Her lower jaw had been crushed and hung at an ugly angle. The blanket was soaked in blood. He moved it slightly and uncovered a gash across her shoulder. He turned his head and saw Hoareb still standing in the door, watching expressionlessly.

“What do you expect me to do?” the Doctor asked with an effort. “This woman’s dying.”

Hoareb nodded. “Accident,” he said.

The Doctor remembered the broken chair. “It’s a case for the police and the coroner,” he said, “not a doctor.”

Hoareb moved slowly across to the bed.

“The police not come here,” he said heavily. “If she dies, I bury her.”

“You can’t do that,” the Doctor said briskly, though it took courage; and then heard a faint scratching behind him, and turned.

There was a fourth person in the room.

He sat squatting over in a corner; a little wizened, dark shape; older than time, watching them intently.

The Doctor started back, instinctively afraid.

“Who’s that?” he asked nervously.

Hoareb followed his glance, and when he saw the little man, he went suddenly mad. He swung his whip in the air with a roar and lunged forward. The Doctor managed to catch his arm in time, and while the whip was still quivering in mid-air, the corner was suddenly empty.

Hoareb stood breathing unevenly, stooped forward and trembling, and then blundered wildly about the room, slashing out at the shadows.

The Doctor had drawn back, for in that moment he had recognized the little witchdoctor, M‘Pini, and his rage was as ungovernable as Hoareb’s, shuddering through him and making him weak.

The woman on the bed opened her eyes and lay watching them dispassionately, the glaze of death upon her. Hoareb suddenly paused in his crazy search and turned on her wildly.

“You brought him here!” he said thickly. “You brought witchdoctors into my house!”

The whip fell across her body, and the Doctor’s mind cleared itself of its momentary fury. He caught Hoareb’s arm before the whip fell again, and wrenched it out of his hand.

“Are you mad?” he shouted breathlessly. “Get out of here and leave her to die in peace!”

For a moment he thought Hoareb was going to fall upon him barehanded; but instead, he backed slowly to the door, his eyes shrunk to insane pin-points.

“She brought witchdoctors into my house,” he mumbled dully. “Cursed of God!” He leant against the doorpost, struggling with his breath. “Because I beat her, she brought witchdoctors to kill me!”

“Get out of here!” said the Doctor steadily, realizing that the man was insane with fright and not anger, and handed him back the whip.

Hoareb stood a second undecided, then with a heavy shambling gait he disappeared through the door, and the Doctor heard him cross the dining room and go down the steps of the verandah, swearing incoherently.

The woman on the bed stirred, and he came back to her. She was looking up at him and trying to speak. He shook his head gently, but the torn muscles about her jaw still quivered, and he bent closer.

“They come. They come,” she whispered, and pointed weakly towards the window, “look!”

He raised his head and, hearing nothing, slowly moved to the window; and then he stood frozen, unable to take in what he saw outside. The dark had fallen, but he could see, in the centre of the clearing, the motionless figure of Hoareb; his eyes straining out of his head and bright with horror.

Round him in a still, shadowy half circle; between him and the undergrowth; sat fifty or sixty baboons, sitting as the little man had sat, watching him intently.

No one—no thing—moved.

How long the Doctor stood watching, he did not know. It seemed endless waiting, while outside nothing moved nor made a sound. They could all have been stuffed figures in a ghoulish charade; Hoareb standing there staring; the baboons in their half circle watching him. Even the air was still, even the earth about them seemed to be locked in a moment of time.

A trickle of foam ran down Hoareb’s chin. He raised his hand automatically and wiped it away. Then he began to look round him, slowly, as if he were counting them.

But he never moved, and the baboons sat watching him as if they were carved from stone.

The Doctor could hear his own watch ticking like a muffled sledgehammer in his waistcoat pocket.

Then the chant began—a thin, shining trail of sound that came from nowhere and everywhere; too faint to catch, too loud to shut out of the brain; with no rhythm or beat, no tune, no words. It was the noise of the innocent crying for revenge against the wicked, and Hoareb knew it for that, for he made a blind, groping step towards the house. He had not moved a foot when, as if by magic, the half circle completed itself.

The baboons came from nowhere.

One moment there was a clear track back to the house; the next he was surrounded by them, and stood with his body sagging, glaring at them. They sat squatting in the dust, watching him intently; and still the chant went on, without pause, like the drone of flies against a window or water through dry reeds.

He was shuddering now, and his breath was beginning to come in jerky sobs that shook his body. For a second his frantic gaze met the Doctor’s and the Doctor’s spine crawled; but he stood where he was, unable to help.

Then the chant changed; subtly and inexplicably; and with one liquid movement the baboons closed in until they were half as near again.

Hoareb began to gibber, but still he stood, transfixed, while the circle of baboons sat motionless; watching him still, and the chant continued on and on monotonously. Then he began to laugh.

He began to laugh, low at first, a queer broken chuckle, then it grew to a discordant clatter of hysteria, rolling and echoing back in distorted keys.

The Doctor stood watching, paralysed, until a noise from the bed made him turn his head. The woman had raised her arm above her head. As she did so, the chant gathered strength; becoming shriller and more insistent. He glanced back out of the window, and saw they were still as they were, save that the baboons seemed to be crouching to spring, rather than squatting; awaiting an order. And then he heard the woman’s arm drop and swing lifeless over the side of the bed, and on that second, with one movement, they sprang, and Hoareb’s scream was cut short in his throat.

When the Doctor uncovered his eyes and looked through the window again, the clearing was empty save for the leather whip, which lay where it had fallen.

As the Doctor looked, the little witchdoctor came from behind the mimosa trees and picked it up.

Then he advanced to below the window and raised his hand respectfully. “Perhaps the Master should return home,” he suggested politely in Zulu. “There is little left for him to do here.”

“I will,” said the Doctor limply, and fainted flat on his face.

It was midnight by the time he had made his report to the police and reached his house, and his wife was still waiting supper. When she saw his face, however, she gave a wail of anxiety and hurried towards him.

“Jamie!” she cried. “Are you ill? Indeed you are! What shall I get you for it?”

He shook his head weakly.

“There’s nothing I need, Agnes,” he said with an unfamiliar meekness. “I’ve just seen a doctor.”