07 Elephant Adventure

Elephant Adventure

By Willard Price

The great bull elephant blocked the path.

The boys climbing the steep trail had thought at first that a cloud had covered the sun.

They looked up to find that it was not a cloud that had darkened the sky. It was the black bulk of the largest elephant they had ever seen.

The beast was as surprised as they were. He stopped short and blinked down at them, rumbling angrily, stretching his trunk forward to catch their scent.

His ears had been folded against bis shoulders. Now they opened like two enormous umbrellas. They stood out on either side of his fine head as big as table tops. la fact if you made dining tables out of them, eight people could sit at each. Hal estimated their total span, tip to tip, at a good fourteen feet, The beast’s deadly tusks, flashing white in the sun, were six feet long.

It was like Hal Hunt to start measuring at a moment like this. His younger brother, Roger, was not so cool.

‘Let’s get out of here.’ he suggested.

‘Where to?’ The path was solidly walled on both sides by thick brush.

‘Back where we came from,’ Roger said.

‘Won’t do any good to run. Then he’d be sure to charge. He can move down this path faster than we can. We’d only get squashed under six tons of elephant - no, closer to seven tons.’

‘Will you cut out your figuring.’ Roger retorted’ ‘and do something?’

The bull threw up his trunk and let out a scream that sent the chills up and down the spine and started every bird and monkey within earshot screeching and chattering.

Hal glanced behind. All his black safari boys were huddled in a terrified group fifty feet down trail. All but one. Joro, Hal’s chief tracker, stood at his elbow.

In his hands was an elephant gun. He offered it to Hal.

Hal shook his head.

‘Let’s try to take him alive.’

Joro grinned. He had plenty of courage himself and admired it in others. But to take the bull alive their first job was to stay alive themselves.

They dared not go forward, they dared not go back’ and the dense growth that has made the Mountains of the Moon famous closed in on both sides. They might hack their way through it if given time, but it was plain that the great bull would not give them time.

They would cheerfully have dropped through the earth if there had been a hole. There was not.

The only other way was up. To escape in that direction was impossible.

Or was it? It took Roger’s quick mind to realize that it could be done.

The lianas.’ he cried. They dangled from the branches of every great tree. The equatorial forest was laced with these vines, and their drooping loops, as stout as ships’ cables, swung over the path.

‘If we could just reach one of those.’

‘On my shoulders,’ Hal commanded. Roger scrambled up his brother’s back, caught a swinging liana and hauled himself aloft. The bull was taken by surprise. He peered in astonishment at these strange gymnastics.

‘Quick,’ Hal ordered, speaking to Joro. ‘Vp’

Joro would have preferred to have his master go first, but there was no time to argue. He slipped his gun into the back straps, and went up, using Hal as ft ladder.

The bull was trumpeting savagely and beginning to advance. Joro twisted his foot in a liana loop and hung head downward, stretching a hand to Hal. Hal seized it and was hauled up.

But the bull did not wait to admire this athletic stunt He got into the act, and fast Hal felt a blast of hot air up his trouser legs as the beast trumpeted directly beneath him. The boy’s ankle was gripped by something soft and strong - the tip of the elephant’s trunk.

Joro pulled up, the elephant pulled down. Hal stood a good chance of being torn apart in the middle. Even in that painful moment he saw the funny side of it He felt himself stretching like a rubber band.

I’ll be eight feet tall after this, he thought

But he knew he would not live to be eight feet tall, nor even his usual six, if the elephant’s trunk proved stronger than Joro’s arm. Once dragged to the ground, he would either be savagely gored by those sharp tusks, or trampled under huge feet with six - or was it seven? -tons of pressure upon them.

His men came running up the trail, shouting, beating pans, trying to attract the elephant’s attention. The bull screamed back at them.

It was a strange sound to come from so huge a beast One might expect a roar, not a scream. According to his size, an elephant should thunder like a dozen lions. Instead he screams like an angry woman. A very angry woman. Despite its high note, there is so much rage in that scream, it’s enough to make one’s blood run cold.

So he screamed at the pan-banging safari boys, but he was not to be turned from his purpose.

‘One job at a time,’ he seemed to say. ‘Ill take care of you later.’ He kept his grip on Hal’s foot, and pulled

Hal felt something slip above him. The liana that supported Joro had begun to give way. Here was a new danger. If the vine fell, both Hal Hunt and his tracker would end their safari under those terrible feet ‘Let me go,’ Hal shouted. ‘Loosen up I tell you.’ For once, Joro did not obey orders. His hold tightened on Hal’s wrist.

Something else began to slip. Hal’s heavy hunting boot strained at its moorings. It was more than ankle-high as protection against snake-bite, and it was laced clear to the top. Either Hal had neglected to lace it tightly that morning, or a lace had snapped under the pull of the trunk wrapped around it - anyhow, Hal was about to lose it

He had taken great pride in these stout boots, but just now he could think of nothing that would give him more pleasure than to lose one to his tormentor. He tried to contract his foot to let it come off more easily.

It held fast at the heel. Wrenching from side to side eased it a little lower. The laces relaxed. With a final twist Hal pulled his foot free.

Joro hauled him within reach of the liana, and they both climbed well out of range of the black snake-like trunk.

The elephant attacked the boot. Perhaps he thought it to be a living part of his enemy. He vented his fury upon it, flung it on the ground, stabbed it repeatedly with his tusks, tossed it into his mouth and ground it between molars as big as sledge-hammers, spat it out, trampled it on the stones so roughly that it got ten years’ wear in ten seconds.

The seams gave way, the sole broke loose. The stabbing, tearing, flattening went on until nothing was left but a’ leather rag that no one could possibly imagine had ever been a boot

Then he buried it

The boys had often heard of this act but had never before seen it. After an elephant has slaughtered his enemy and is quite sure it is dead, he covers the remains with brush.

Why, no one can say. Who can tell what goes on in his mind?

The elephant is an animal of mixed emotions. He is capable of the wildest fury and the greatest gentleness. He can be generous or jealous, playful or grave, shy or bold, terrific or tender.

He may pay no attention to you as you pass by. But if you block his path, look out He won’t stand for that Along African roads you see the warning sign:

ELEPHANTS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY.

Any other animal may step aside - not so the elephant. He knows his own strength. Why should he give way to anybody or anything?

He is the most powerful mass of muscle on earth. And he has the dignity of a king. Humans look very small to him - even a human in a big car or truck. A blast on the horn does not scare him. Instead, it annoys him, and invites a charge that may mean the end of both human and truck.

And as for a human on foot, he is a mere insect to be swatted as we would swat a mosquito.

But after swatting the animal or man that has opposed him, it may be that his anger turns to pity, and he generously gives his dead enemy a decent burial.

Whatever the reason, he does frequently bury his victim, and now the mountain giant tore out quantities of four-foot-high moss that walled in the path, and did not rest until he had completely covered the sad remains of Hal’s boot

‘He’ll probably go off now,’ Roger said, ‘and leave us alone.’

Hal was doubtful ‘I don’t think so. You know they say an elephant never forgets. You can be sure he hasn’t forgotten us. Anyhow, we don’t want him to go off. We must try to get him.’

Roger stared. ‘You’re out of your head. How could we possibly…’

‘Hang on! ‘ Hal interrupted. ‘Here he comes.’

The bull had not forgotten them. He looked up and came straight for the tree into whose branches they had climbed.

‘Let him come,’ Roger laughed. ‘He can’t get us here. Never heard of an elephant climbing a tree.’

‘He doesn’t need to climb it He’ll just push it over.’

That was a new and unpleasant thought Roger had seen whole forests laid flat by rampaging elephants. Unable to reach the tender green leaves that grew on top, they butted the trees down.

‘But this tree is too big for him.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it It’s a mopani. Shallow roots. Stick tight!’

Crash!

The great forehead with six or seven tons behind it struck the tree twelve feet above the ground.

The tree shivered like an aspen, and a vervet monkey fell screaming from the upper branches. The bull planted his right forefoot against the trunk and pushed. The tree groaned but remained upright Again and again he attacked with forehead and foot

He stopped to think things over. Then he dug his tusks into the ground and pulled up roots. More digging, and up came more roots.

In the meantime, Hal was not idle.

Toto,’ he called. ‘The chain!’

The men knew what to do. An elephant is not lassoed like a buffalo or rhino over the head. The trunk and tusks are in the way. A loop of rope or chain is slipped over a rear foot - if and when he raises his foot

The giant moss had been levelled to the ground by the great feet as if by a steam roller. Over this new path, the men, under Toto’s direction, were able to approach the heels of the busy bull. There they waited their chance.

The elephant was butting the tree again, but now with more effect Its roots broken, the tree swayed dangerously every time it was struck.

The monkeys had long since leaped to other trees. Hal, Roger, and Joro would gladly have done the same, if they could - but they were not monkeys. All they could do was to cling fast and hope they would not be pinned beneath the tree if it fell.

One end of the chain had been fastened around a huge rock-The other end, made into a loop, was placed by the men just behind the elephant’s right rear foot. The beast, attacking the tree, was shuffling forward and backward. Surely at some moment he would step into the loop.

The men crowded close behind the elephant Too close, Hal thought If the animal should wheel round upon them, somebody would be killed.

‘Better unlimber your gun,’ he said to Joro. ‘But don’t use it unless you have to.’ Joro swung his heavy double-barrel .500 into position. ‘Let me have it’ said Roger.

Joro looked at Hal. Hal shook his head. This was no gun for a thirteen-year-old.

‘Oh, come on, Hal,’ pleaded Roger eagerly. Not that he wished to kill elephants, nor anything else. But if this one had to be shot he wanted to do it ‘I’ve handled that gun before. I can knock over a sardine tin at two hundred yards. Do you think I can’t hit an animal as big as a house?’

Hal smiled. He gave Joro a nod and Joro passed the big gun over to Roger. The boy had some trouble balancing it and himself on the branch of a shaking tree.

Suddenly it happened, just as Hal had feared. The elephant annoyed by the chattering of the men behind him, turned his head and fixed them with an angry red eye. Then he whirled about and charged. The men scattered like leaves before the wind. At the same instant came the explosion of the -500.

The elephant’s legs buckled and he sank to the earth without a sound.

Roger Hunt also was on his way to the earth. The wobbling tree and the kick-back of the big gun were too much for him. Down he went, and if there had been a rock beneath him it might have been badly spattered with his brains.

But he had the luck of the Hunts. On the ground ready to receive him was a mattress four feet thick. It was the giant moss that grows nowhere else on earth so high as in these mountains.

Deep into it he went Then its thousands of fibres like steel springs tossed him up again. Twice more he bounced before he lay still, breathing hard, scarcely daring to look for fear he would see the elephant towering above him.

When he did look, he saw the great black hulk lying on its side, the men crowding around it Hal and Joro clambering down out of the tree.

Roger struggled out of the moss and stood by his victim. He looked at it as David must have looked at the dead Goliath.

‘Did I really do that?’

Yet he was not proud. Anyone can pull a trigger, he thought. He and his friends had failed to do what they had set out to do - take the great beast alive,

Hal was examining a rusty spearpoint in the beast’s shoulder. The wound was festering.

That’s one thing that made him so irritable,’ he said. ‘It must have given him a lot of pain.’