Binstead's Safari Read Online Free

Nicholas Fairchild; he might have been in his late twenties or early thirties but seemed younger, like a college athlete. Ian referred to him as his partner.
    They talked about clothes, firearms, licences andrecording equipment. Ian walked over to a map on the wall and drew his right hand across it. Stan thought about the projected route for a moment, then tapped his finger over three different places.
    Millie studied the photographs on the walls and gazed at the one large animal head in the room, up above the lintel: a buffalo, with the horns that began on the middle of its forehead, like an old-fashioned haircut parted in the centre or a low-fitting matador’s hat. Nicholas followed her eyes. “They’re the worst,” he said.
    “I can imagine. It looks huge.”
    “That’s not important. It’s the fact that the boss makes him almost invulnerable, and they won’t give in. Most beasts will let one alone. Buff goes out of his way to hunt you down. Nasty.”
    She made a face, commiserating.
    “Are you shooting?” he asked.
    “Not me. I’m just coming along for the ride. Trying not to get in anybody’s way.”
    “Jolly good.”
    Even in London, Millie hadn’t met anyone who said, “Jolly good.” She was delighted.
    They looked through stores, went wandering around the streets and were measured for their clothes. This time, Stan didn’t seem to mind the shopping. They also tried out different kinds of rifles and shotguns.
    “Not for my wife,” he said.
    “No?” Ian looked disappointed. “You’re not going to shoot at all?”
    Millie said, “I don’t know how.”
    “We’ll soon teach you. All part of the service.”
    “Fine. Then I’ll take whatever gun fits.”
    Ian laughed.
    “You aren’t serious?” Stan asked.
    She said, “Well, I think it’s always nice to be on the safe side, like knowing how to drive a car, or swim. You never know when you may need to. As far as the shooting goes, I wouldn’t want to kill anything I wasn’t going to eat, and actually I’m so squeamish I’d rather let somebody else do it, but I really would just like to know how.”
    “Target practice isn’t any good,” Stan told her. “If you’re ever going to shoot anything, it’s going to be moving.”
    “I’ll leave it all up to Mr Foster,” she said, turning to him. “You’re the expert.”
    “Right you are. We’ll start tomorrow. Come out to the farm for lunch and we’ll see what we can do.”
    *
    There was some hitch in the preparations for the safari, but it was the fault of other people. The original plan had been to organize a large, double safari; Ian would take charge of the Binsteads and Nicholas would be working with a couple named Whiteacre, who were monstrously rich and intended to do a lot of serious hunting while travelling slowly or stationed in one place for many weeks at a time. The Whiteacres were going to be accompanied by great amounts of luxury equipment and their main site could serve as a base camp for other hunters, especially for someone like Stan, who wanted to visit distant villages lying among parts of the country poor in game. Now the Whiteacres were cabling that they thought they might postpone the date, or maybe not, or perhaps a friend or two might be coming with them. Ian wanted to give them a couple of days and then divide the safari in two. Everyone could join up later and there would be no difference in themoney. Stan’s position would be the same; with the university’s help, he was now semi-official. The costs were taken care of. He paid the extras, of course, but he was hoping to get a book out of the expedition, and that would even up his expenses afterwards.
    The gist of the book was already down on paper. It was a theory about mythic character and its relation to the society that gives rise to it. He was especially interested in the changes the central personality underwent as different generations of storytellers shaped the incidents in their hero’s