I had just finished a well-earned cup of tea, and was sitting on the top step in the late sunlight trying to teach an incredibly stupid baby squirrel how to suck milk from a blob of cotton wool on the end of a match stick. Pausing for a moment in this nerve-racking work, I saw a fat and elderly woman waddling down the road. She was wearing the briefest of loin-cloths, and was smoking a long, slender black pipe. On top of her grey, cropped hair was perched a tiny calabash. When she reached the bottom step, she knocked out her pipe and hung it carefully from the cord round her ample waist, before starting to climb towards the veranda,
'I see ya, Mammy,' I called.
She stopped and grinned up at me.
'I see ya, Masa,' she replied, and then continued to heave her body from step to step, panting and wheezing with the exertion. When she reached me, she placed the calabash at my feet, and then leant her bulk against the wall, gasping for breath.
' You done tire, Mammy ? ' I asked.
'Wah! Masa, I get fat too much,' she explained.
'Fat!' I said in shocked tones; 'you no get fat, Mammy. You no get fat pass me.'
She chuckled richly, and her gigantic body quivered.
'No, Masa, you go fun with me.'
'No, Mamrny, I speak true, you be small woman.'
She fell back against the wall, convulsed with laughter at the thought of being called a small woman, her vast stomach and breasts heaving. Presently, when she had recovered from the joke, she gestured at the calabash.
'I done bring beef for you, Masa.'
'Na what kind of beef?'
'Na snake, Masa.'
I unplugged the calabash and peered inside. Coiled up in the bottom was a thin, brown snake about eight inches long. I recognized it as a typhlops, a species of blind snake which spends its life burrowing underground. It resembles the English slow-worm in appearance, and is quite harmless. I already had a box full of these reptiles, but I liked my fat girl friend so much that I did not want to disappoint her by refusing it.
'How much you want for dis beef, Mammy?' I asked.
' Eh, Masago pay me how 'e tink.'
' Snake no get wound? '
'No, Masa, at all.'
I turned the calabash upside down and the snake fell out on to the smooth concrete. The woman moved to the other end of the veranda with a speed that was amazing for one so huge.
''E go bite you Masa,' she called warningly.
Jacob, who had appeared to see what was going on, gave the woman a withering look at this remark.
'You no savvay Masa no get fear for dis ting?' he asked.' Masa get special juju so dis kind of snake no go chop 'e.'
'Ah, na so?' said the woman.
I leant forward and picked up the typhlops in my hand, so that I could examine it closely to make sure it was unhurt. I gripped its body gently between my thumb and forefinger, and it twisted itself round my finger. As I looked at it, I noticed a curious thing: it possessed a pair of large and glittering eyes, a thing which no typhlops ever possessed. Foolishly, rather startled by my discovery, I still held the reptile loosely in my hand, and spoke to Jacob.
'Jacob, look, dis snake 'e get eye,' I said.
As I spoke, I suddenly realized that I was holding loosely in my hand not a harmless typhlops but some unidentified snake of unknown potentialities. Before I could open my hand and drop it, the snake twisted round smoothly and buried a fang in the ball of my thumb.
Off-hand I can never remember receiving quite such a shock. The bite itself was nothing – like the prick of a pin, followed by a slight burning sensation, rather similar to a wasp sting. I dropped the snake with alacrity, and squeezed my thumb as hard as I could, so that the blood oozed out of the wound, and as I squeezed I remembered three things. First, there was no snake-bite serum in the Cameroons; secondly, the nearest doctor was some thirty miles away; thirdly, I had no means of getting to him. These thoughts did not make me feel any happier, and I sucked vigorously at the bite, still holding the base of my thumb as tightly as I could. Looking about, I found that Jacob had vanished, and I was just about to utter a roar of rage, when he came scurrying back on to the veranda, carrying in one hand a razor blade, and in the other a couple of ties. Under my frenzied directions, he tied the latter round my wrist and forearm as tightly as he could, and then, with a curious gesture, he handed me the razor blade.
I had never realized before quite how much determination it requires to slash yourself with a razor blade, nor had I realized quite how sharp a razor blade could be. After an awful moment's hesitation, I slashed at my hand, and then found I had given myself a nasty and unnecessary cut about half an inch away from the bite, in a place where it could be of no possible use.
I tried again, with much the same result, and I thought gloomily that if I did not die of the bite, I would probably bleed to death as a result of my own first aid. I thought vindictively of all those books I had read that gave tips on how to deal with snake-bite. All of them, without exception, told you how to make an incision across the bite to the full depth of the fang punctures. It's easy enough to write that sort of thing, but it is quite a different matter to put it into practice successfully when the thumb you are slitting open is your own. There was only one thing to be done, unless I wanted to go on hacking my hand about in the hope of hitting the bite sooner or later. I placed the blade carefully on the ball of my thumb and, gritting my teeth, I pressed and pulled as hard as I could. This was successful, and the blood flowed freely in all directions. The next thing to do, I remembered, was to use permanganate of potash, so I sprinkled some crystals into the gaping wound, and wrapped my hand in a clean handkerchief. By now my hand, wrist, and the glands in my armpit were considerably swollen, and I was getting shooting pains in my thumb, though whether this was due to the bite or to my surgery, I could not tell.
'Masa go for doctor?' asked Jacob, staring at my hand.
'How I go for doctor,' I asked irritably; 'we no get car for dis place. You tink sometimes I go walk? '
'Masa go ask de Fonfor'e kitcar,' suggested Jacob.
'Kitcar?' I repeated, hope dawning,' de Fon get kitcar?'
'Yes, sah.'
' Go ask him den… one time.'
Jacob galloped down the steps and across the great courtyard, while I paced up and down on the balcony. Suddenly I remembered that in my bedroom reposed a large and untouched bottle of French brandy, and I sped inside in search of it. I had just managed to pull out the cork when I recalled that all the books on snake-bite were adamant when it came to the point of spirits. On no account, they all stated, must spirits be taken by anyone suffering from snake-bite; apparently they accelerated the heart action and did all sorts of other strange things to you. For a moment I paused, the bottle clutched in one hand; then I decided that if I were going to die I might as well die happy, and I raised the bottle and drank. Warmed and encouraged, I trotted out on to the veranda again, carrying the bottle with me.
A large crowd of people, headed by Jacob and the Fon, were hurrying across the courtyard. They went over to a big hut, and the Fon threw open the door and the crowd poured inside, to reappear almost immediately pushing in front of them an ancient and battered kitcar. They trundled this out through the archway and into the road, and there the Fon left them and hurried up the steps followed by Jacob.
' My friend,' gasped the Fon,'na bad palaver dis !'
'Na so,' I admitted.
'Your boy done tell me you no get European medicine for dis kind of bite. Na so?'
'Yes, na so. Sometime doctor done get medicine, I no savvay."
'By God power 'e go give you medicine,' said the Fon piously.
'You go drink with me?' I asked, waving the bottle of brandy.
'Yes, yes,' said the Fon, brightening, 'we go drink. Drink na good medicine for dis kind of ting.'