When the Lion Feeds

A screenplay by André Pieterse and Stanley Price
An adaptation of the novel by Wilbur Smith

May 2002

This screenplay is an adaptation of the famous best-selling novel, When the Lion Feeds, by the internationally acclaimed South African author Wilbur Smith. The essence of this action-packed and dramatic book is faithfully represented in the screenplay.

Part 1

The story starts on the Courtney family farm Eden Kraal in the wild country of Natal, South Africa in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century. The hero Sean Courtney is seen shooting a marauding lion, but then trips and accidentally shoots his younger brother Garry in the leg. The trauma causes Garry’s leg to be amputated and he has to learn to cope with a wooden leg which Sean made for him.

Having survived that ordeal, young Sean finds himself left to run the family farm when his father James, commander of the local militia, is called to a military briefing in Pietermaritzburg due to an impending tribal Zulu uprising in Natal.

In their father's absence, Sean and Garry have the task of dipping the farm's cattle. At a crucial stage in the process, Sean leaves the dipping to Garry. While Sean goes to round up the last of the herd, he encounters young Anna Smith swimming naked in a forest pool. He joins her and a love scene follows which marks the start of their romantic relationship.

Meanwhile, a disaster occurs where the embittered Garry - who loves Anna and has seen her horse tethered with Sean's near the pool - is dipping the cattle. Garry inadvertently mixes the dip chemicals too strongly, causing the death of a substantial number of James Courtney’s prized cattle. Sean later voluntarily takes the blame for this when his father returns from Pietermaritzburg.

Soon thereafter, Sean goes with his father and the local militia to quell the Zulu uprising. The expedition ends in catastrophe when all except Sean are killed at the infamous Battle of Isandhlwana. Sean miraculously escapes on foot with the help of Mbejane, a Zulu who is an unwanted son of the Zulu king Cetshwayo. After several weeks, Sean is assumed dead along with his father. In the aftermath, the distressed Anna consents to marry Garry. The two of them go by ship to Cape Town for their honeymoon, but it is clear that for Anna, it is a marriage of convenience.

When Sean unexpectedly returns as if from the dead, Garry is faced with Anna's love for the father of her child. Distraught beyond redemption by rage and feelings of impotence, Garry commits suicide. Sean, feeling guilty about his brother's death and partly blaming Anna for it, leaves his widowed mother and Anna to run the farm and goes to join the 1880's gold rush in Johannesburg.

In Johannesburg, Sean becomes involved in a bar fight in which he is assisted by Duff Newton. The two become friends and together enter into a contract with a beautiful widowed hotel owner, Candy Pierotti, with the aim of exploiting a gold prospecting claim that Candy had inherited from her husband.

Part 2

To achieve this, the rascal Duff has a calculated affair with Candy. However, the new-found riches are neither gained nor retained without dramatic fighting in which Sean is joined by Mbejane and other Zulus who have come to Johannesburg in search of work.

Meanwhile, hardship on the farm Eden Kraal forces Anna to travel to Johannesburg to seek help from Sean. He is delighted to see her and he writes her a cheque. At that moment, Candy waltzes into Sean's office and animatedly speaks to Sean about her upcoming wedding arrangements. Anna leaves town, thinking that Sean is about to get married.

Duff eventually fails to turn up at his wedding with Candy and absconds. The slighted Candy sells her claim to Hartley, an enemy of Duff and, after a last fling with Sean to "settle an old score", she sets off to see the world and leaves Sean a substantial sum.

Sean surmises that Duff has gone ivory hunting and tracks him down with the help of Mbejane. Sean clobbers Duff for his impropriety toward Candy, after which Sean and Duff are reconciled. The ivory hunt ends when Duff contracts rabies from the bite of a hyena, and after much drama, Sean has to shoot Duff to end his agony.

Sean returns with Mbejane to the Courtney farm to find that his mother had died and that Anna is being courted by Lionel Bradshaw whom she had met on her honeymoon sea voyage with Garry. Sean is delighted to find that his young son Dirk has grown to be a fine young man. Sean does not pursue Anna, but Anna's love for Sean has clearly not waned. On the first night of Sean's return to the farm, the inebriated Bradshaw attempts to rape Anna after she had repeatedly rebuffed his advances. Alerted by the watchful Mbejane, Sean clobbers Bradshaw who flees off on horseback into the night. Sean then responds to Anna's love and they are reconciled, finally together after years of much hardship and personal growth.

The Courtney saga continues in two further novels written by Wilbur Smith - The Sound of Thunder and A Sparrow Falls.