The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild (22 page)

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Authors: Lawrence Anthony,Graham Spence

BOOK: The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild
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This time Nana didn’t wait. She kept going towards the river and just as I thought we would have to close the
boma
for the night, ET backtracked to the gate and was gone, her trunk twitching just inches off the ground as she chased after the herd’s scent in a gaiting run.
We switched off power to the
boma
fences and packed up. Half an hour later as we were driving home we saw them moving away across the open savannah. They were still in single file but already the pecking order had been established. ET was second-last, holding the tail of the elephant in front with Mnumzane behind her. He was resting his trunk on her back as they moved along. Comforting her.
Walt Disney himself could not have scripted a better ending.
Françoise named our new boutique hotel the Elephant Safari Lodge and threw herself into making a success of it. To keep the bush atmosphere she limited accommodation to just eight luxury rooms spread out around a large thatched lodge on the banks of the Nseleni River. Most courageously she refused to bring in professional help, preferring instead to train Zulus from the next-door village for all positions. The Franco – Zulu communication challenges that ensued provided daily entertainment for David, Brendan and me.
‘No TV, no newspapers, no cellphones,’ she insisted, ‘this must be a natural wilderness experience, an antidote to city life.’ And it was, complimented by the fine food which she produced and presented with all her inherent flair. I balanced this against the knowledge that if I hadn’t met Françoise, the guests would probably be sitting on log stumps around a fire with a sausage on a stick and using a bush toilet.
The lodge changed everything for both of us. It was a long day, starting with the early morning game drive and ending only when the last guest went to bed. I quickly learned that in today’s world, if you want to survive as a conservationist, you had better learn all about wines and how to mix a good Martini.
All the while I knew the cattle cabal was still lurking in the background trying to disrupt the Royal Zulu game-reserve
project, but being busy with the introduction of ET into the herd, I couldn’t give it much thought.
Then my mother phoned from her office in Empangeni, her voice scratchy with worry. The Security Police had contacted her, trying to get hold of me, and the news they gave her was enough to terrify any mum. Police informers had infiltrated the homestead of a powerful local
induna
of an adjoining tribe who controlled an area to the east of Thula Thula and had learnt that assassins had been hired to kill me.
It had to be the cabal. In fact, according to police information, the rogue
induna
had openly said that if I was bumped off, he and his followers would be able to seize the tribal trust land. Even though it legally belonged to five different clans and I was just the coordinator of the project, they believed that without me involved they could then stake their own claim and torpedo the project. The scenario was reminiscent of the circumstances which led to the murder of conservationist George Adamson of
Born Free
fame in Kenya many years ago. He was killed by tribesmen who wanted the Kora reserve, where he worked with lions, to be cattle land.
The police even had the names of the assassins, but said they could not act as their information was only hearsay. However, it came from sufficiently reliable sources to be credible, hence the warning.
I know, and love, Zulu culture. It’s part of my daily life. But I also know that if a person does not confront a problem instantly, it can balloon out of all proportion. Fierce blood feuds still flourish today for reasons no one remembers. There was no way around it; this threat had to be confronted head-on, and quickly. I had to pay the
induna
an early visit.
A good friend and extremely courageous old man, Obie
Mthethwa, deemed it was too dangerous for me to go to the headman’s kraal alone and volunteered to accompany me. Obie was a senior councillor to the Mthethwa clan, one of the most powerful Zulu tribes and well respected in the area. He and I had become good friends over the years and his presence would be invaluable.
I told Obie the names of the assassins fingered by the police. He knew them by reputation. ‘
Tsotsis
,’ he said spitting on the ground, using the Zulu pejorative for thugs. That afternoon we drove over rutted tracks deep into rural Zululand to the headman’s home.
It was a picturesque village with traditional round thatched huts neatly set out on top of a hill. People were finishing their daily chores, herd boys bringing in cattle, mothers calling in children, everyone preparing for the night. The smell of the evening meals wafted across the village.
We were made to wait almost an hour and it was dark before being summoned into the kraal. This was an ominous sign and I took much comfort from the fact that Obie was with me. Then we were escorted to the
isishayamteto
, the largest thatch and clay hut, traditionally used for important business.
Shadows pulsed on the walls from a single candle flame which illuminated the room’s simple furnishings, a table and a few flimsy wooden chairs. I noticed immediately the
induna
was alone. This was extremely unusual as advisers or councillors always accompanied him. We had seen some of them outside while we waited.
Where were they now? What was it he didn’t want them to hear?
Then, as is Zulu protocol, we began asking about each other’s health, the health of immediate families, and the weather. While all this was going on, I manoeuvred the back of my chair against the wall so no one could sneak
behind me. I wanted to face whatever danger came at me head-first.
Eventually the
induna
asked the nature of our visit. Speaking in Zulu, I explained that the police had told me there was a contract out on my life and the hitmen hired to do the killing came from the
induna
’s tribe.
‘
Hau!
’ he exclaimed. ‘It cannot be my people. They hold you in esteem, Mkhulu. You are the man who is going to bring them jobs with the new game reserve. Why would my people want to kill you?’
‘I know that is true. But the police say their information is also true. They say it is not all of your people that want to kill me – just a gang of
tsotsis
. They believe that if they kill me, they can grab the land for themselves.’ I paused for an instant and stared directly at him. ‘But we both know that it is not my land. It belongs to other tribes as well, and killing me will not make it someone else’s land.’
Again the headman appeared astonished and I was starting to wonder if perhaps the police information was off-target. He was either innocent or a virtuoso liar.
At that moment we heard a car pull up outside, followed by the traditional shout of identification. About ten minutes later four men walked in. They had come to report to their
induna
. He told them to sit and they squatted on the floor on their haunches, keeping their heads lower than their boss’s as a token of respect.
As they settled down Obie grabbed my arm and whispered in English: ‘These are the killers – these are the
tsotsis
whose names the police gave us.’
At first they did not recognize Obie and me in the dim light. But as their eyes grew accustomed to the shadows the sudden startled looks on their faces betrayed them.
I was wearing a bulky bush jacket and in my pocket was a cocked 9-mm pistol. My hand slid around the butt. I
gently thumbed off the safety catch and pointed it through the jacket straight at the closest man’s belly.
Obie leaned forward, grabbed my arm hard again and whispered, ‘This is very dangerous. We have to get out. Now!’
But there was no way out. I looked directly at the
induna
, hand tight on my gun.
‘The police have given me the names of the men out to kill me. Those names are the same as these four men.’ I pointed at them with my free hand. ‘Does that mean you know what the police are speaking about?’
The contract killers sprang up and started shouting at me. ‘You lie – you have no business here!’
I jumped up to face them, keeping a firm grip on the pistol. Obie also stood up, squared his shoulders and glared at the assassins.
‘
Thula msindu
– stop this noise!’ he commanded with iron authority. ‘This is the
induna
’s house. He must speak – not you. You must show respect.’
The
induna
gestured at us all to sit down.
‘Mhkulu, I do not know where you get these stories from. I do not know why the police are lying about me. I do not know anything of what you say. All I know is that there is no killing list with your name on. Anyone who says so is a liar.’
The words were smooth, but there was no doubt his attitude had radically changed. He was now in full retreat, indirectly accusing me of calling him a liar – a heinous slur in Zulu culture.
‘Then why is it that these men walk so easily into your house?’ I persisted. ‘Does this not seem suspicious?’
There was no answer.
‘And what’s more,’ I added, ‘the police know I have come to talk to you. My visit here has been fully reported to them
and they await our return. If Obie Mthethwa or I do not get back home this night, they will know what happened here. They will find you and you will suffer the full consequences of your actions.’
Again, the
induna
did not reply.
I knew it was unlikely I would be able to shoot my way out, but I certainly would take a couple of these cut-throats with me in the attempt. Perhaps that would also give Obie a chance to make a break for it.
I focused on the candle, just a stride away on the floor. If anything started I planned to kick it over and plunge the room into darkness. The
induna
was also looking at the candle, no doubt harbouring the exact same thoughts. He then looked at me.
We both knew why.
The
induna
broke his stare first. I could see he was now unnerved – particularly as he now believed that the police knew we were at his kraal. He had been completely caught out by the arrival of the assassins and the fact that we knew who they were. All his earlier denials were now obvious lies.
The contract killers looked at their boss, unsure of what to do. The four of them could easily overpower us, but as experienced gunmen, they also could tell I had a primed pistol underneath my jacket. If they went for their guns, I would get the first shot off, straight at the nearest man. It was now up to their boss what he wanted to do.
The stand-off was tense and silent. Nobody moved.
I finally provided the
induna
with a way out.
‘I am not calling you a liar. Maybe the police are, but that is a matter between you and them. All I want is your word of honour that I am in no danger from any man of your tribe – any man who answers to you.’
He quickly agreed, grabbing the escape line with both hands. He gave his assurance that I would not be harmed by any of his people, stressing again that there was no hit list.
That was all I needed. The main aim of the meeting had been achieved. The
induna
would be a fool to go back on his word of honour. He also knew he would be the prime suspect if anything happened to me – whether he was guilty or not.
As a parting shot I said our discussion would also be reported to
Nkosi
at the next council meeting. We then left. When we got in the car, Obie let out a large ‘whoosh’ of breath. We had just stared death in the face, and I looked at the old man with gratitude and respect. He had the courage of a lion and had put his life on the line for the purest motive of all – friendship.
Driving home through the dark, Obie – a natural raconteur – recounted the story over and again in the minutest detail, mimicking accents and actions with deadly accuracy. I laughed delightedly, adrenalin still fizzing with the manic relief of survival. I knew Obie would memorize the story and it would be told and retold around the night fires of his kraal, woven into the rich fabric of his tribe’s folklore: of how we had called the bluff of one of the most powerful headmen and his
tsotsis
in the area – and lived to tell the tale.
With that, the cabal was now in full retreat. They knew the police had infiltrated them; that there was an informer in their midst. I also had assurance from one of their leaders that I would not be harmed. It remained to see whether he would keep his word.
I was keen to see how ET was settling in with her new family and spent as much time as I could out in the bush near them.
However, it didn’t take long to experience the consequence of her inclusion. While Nana and Frankie were as content as always with me in the vicinity, ET went ballistic if I came near, especially if I climbed out of the Land Rover. She just couldn’t believe that her matriarch was permitting a human – evil incarnate in her mind – to get close and she quivered on full alert, ready to charge at a moment’s notice. This meant that I had to be as unobtrusive as possible. She may be a youngster, but she still weighed a couple of tons and was more powerful than a human could imagine, and I wasn’t sure what Nana or Frankie’s reaction would be if she attacked. This was uncharted territory for me, so there was nothing to do except be patient and let ET’s malevolence dissipate.
On the plus side, she may have been mad as a snake at me, but she was absolutely ecstatic with her new family. And to see this previously depressed creature joyously bonding with the other youngsters, pushing, pulling and playing with all the physicality that elephants so enjoy, was simply phenomenal.
Mnumzane was still on the periphery, being shooed off if he got too close, and somewhat bemusedly watching the
newcomer being accepted. I reckon I was his best friend – albeit by default – and whenever I drove past he would trumpet and chase after me. I always stopped, and he would then block the road, trapping me for as long as possible as he browsed around the Land Rover. I loved our ‘chats’ together but this didn’t disguise his loneliness or unease. His newfound relationship with me, however expedient, was not natural and concerned me a little. Elephant bulls are always pushed out of the herd at puberty, and eventually they get over the rejection and join a loose affiliation with other bachelors.
However, we didn’t have other bachelors, and to bring in a dominant bull to provide Mnumzane with a father figure was not something KZN Wildlife would consider. New rules set by KZN Wildlife demanded a larger reserve for elephant bulls, and it would have to wait for the Royal Zulu project to come to fruition. Mnumzane was thus stuck in no man’s land living partly on his own and partly on the fringes of the herd.
One day, he was grazing a few yards off when I got an ominous radio call from the lodge. Penny our bull terrier was missing. She loved hanging out at the lodge where she was spoiled rotten by guests and we brought her down from the house most days. She relished swimming in the water-hole on the riverbank just in front of the lodge and would leap in regularly to cool off. As I have said before, her devotion to us and Françoise in particular was absolute. She was short for her breed but had the courage and character of a Titan.
I have always loved bull and Staffordshire terriers. They are the most tolerant, loving, friendly dogs imaginable, and you get a power keg of protection thrown in as a bonus. Unfortunately they don’t like other dogs much and you have to watch that, but they can be taught and are more than worth the effort.
With Max at my heels I searched around the lodge, periodically yelling Penny’s name. She normally reacted to my whistle, bursting out of the bush with a tail doing windmill facsimiles. But today there was only silence and I feared the worst. A dog AWOL on a game reserve usually meant one of two things: a leopard or a poacher’s snare, where the poor animal would die a horrible, lingering death if not found in time. I forced the images out of my mind and walked through the bush in ever-widening circles carefully searching for her spoor. Nothing at all.
I eventually gave up, turned around and made my way down to the waterhole where suddenly I saw fresh spoor. I followed her tracks down into the riverbed and then some way upstream past some deep green pools. I shuddered, goosebumps on my arm.
The Afrikaners have a saying ‘’
n hond se gedgate
’, which literally translated means ‘a dog’s thought’ or gut feeling, that innate sense of premonition that all humans have in greater or lesser degrees. Looking at those sinister pools I felt something was wrong and I involuntarily reached down for Max’s collar.
Then I saw it. With its knobby grey-green armour-plating barely detectable in the wind-rustled reeds, lay an absolute monster of crocodile. A flash of white caught my eye and just a few yards from it, lying motionless in a still backwater, was Penny. My heart sank into my boots. She had been snatched and drowned.
The crocodile was resting, about to submerge the corpse into its lair where it would decay. Despite its fearsome fangs, a crocodile cannot chew and unless there are two to tear a kill apart, a lone crocodile has to let its prey decompose into soft-rotted chunks before it can ingest it.
There was no way I was going to leave my loyal dog there. I edged closer. Crocodiles don’t like loud noises; they like being surprised even less. I crept forward and when I
was barely fifteen yards away, I jumped up, screamed and clapped my hands. With a whoosh of its huge tail it was gone.
I waited until it resurfaced some way downriver and then waded into the pool to retrieve Penny’s body. Shocked and saddened, I carried her back up to the lodge and laid her gently on the lawn. Max, who had followed closely, pushed forward and sat silently next to her lifeless body.
Biyela and I buried her under a beautiful spreading buffalo thorn, the legendary
umphafa
tree which Zulus associate with the spirit world. It was just the two us. Brendan, who loved Penny, was on the other side of the reserve. Françoise was too tearful to come down.
‘She liked to swim too much,’ said Biyela as he laid his spade down. ‘The crocodile was waiting for her.’
Knowing Penny, I wasn’t so sure Biyela was right. Penny may have been domesticated, but she was still savvy to the bush. I couldn’t see any croc stalking her. She was quick, smart and possessed survival senses long distilled out of desk-bound humans. Her death niggled at me; I really wanted to know what had happened.
The next day I went down to where we suspected she had been snatched and started unravelling the tracks, trying to fathom what actually took place. Reading signs of the wild is a dying art which few today have mastered. But I had learned something of it over the years, so I decided I’d stay at the river and turn over every piece of bush testimonial until the mystery was solved.
First checking that the monster crocodile wasn’t around, I settled down on a rock and studied the evidence with silent stoicism, trying to get the bush to talk to me. Penny’s tracks showed she had been pacing the riverbank. By the length of her stride, the scuff marks of her paws and the short turns executed indicated she was moving quickly and obviously excited. But the tracks were not at the water’s edge; she was
a few yards up the bank, relatively safe with her turn of speed from any hungry crocodile. There was only one place where she actually went down to the water, possibly to take a drink.
Then I left the rock and walking carefully so as not to disturb the signs, picked up the crocodile’s four-footed tracks from where it emerged on the bank, moving up towards the lodge to where it turned and slithered back into the water. Interestingly, Penny’s tracks were a couple of yards above. She had seen it come out and had been stalking it, probably worrying it as it lumbered along the bank. This ruled out any surprise attack on her.
So I went back and carefully studied Penny’s tracks at the only place where they led to the water’s edge – initially where I thought she had gone in for a drink. Something didn’t gel.
There were no signs of a struggle. And even more crucially there were no signs of the croc beaching itself in an attack, and no drag marks, not even in the mud under the water. Once a croc’s jaws snap shut it’s an inexorable slide to the water, an awful one-way ticket to hell which had to leave stark tracks of the victim’s frantic struggle. Especially in this still pool.
Yet Penny’s tracks indicated the exact opposite. Her footprints clearly showed that the sand had been scuffed backwards; that she had been charging into the river. It didn’t make any sense at all.
And then it came to me. She hadn’t gone to the river for a drink and been attacked by the crocodile. In fact, the exact opposite: the attack had happened the other way round. The croc hadn’t gone for Penny at all. My mad, insane, beautiful dog had instead attacked the crocodile. She had deliberately rushed into the water and taken on a killing machine twenty times her size. Bush signs do not lie.
There are those who will say Penny was little more than
a dumb dog. I strongly disagree. I believe Penny saw a crocodile, recognized a threat and in her mind she was guarding our territory. With the limitless, impossible courage of her breed, she willingly gave her life to protect all that was important to her, all that she loved. In the same way that Max would soundlessly attack a spitting cobra, Penny went to her death doing what she considered her duty. Penny had perished in her own version of the Alamo or Thermopylae.
She was one of the finest and bravest creatures I have known.
Things, good or bad, never seem to happen singularly for me. They always come in triplicate.
Soon after losing Penny, Max was at the lodge dozing on the patio when he sat up sharply, sniffing the air. His nose followed the drift of the unfamiliar scent and quickly found its source. It was a bushpig, a hulking boar making his way rapidly across the lawn towards the lodge.
A bushpig is about two- to three-feet high, roughly the same size as a warthog and to the untrained eye the two are easily confused. But that’s where the similarities end. A warthog has semicircular tusks and frightens easily. A bushpig is feral to its core and should be avoided at all costs in the wild. It’s a real fighter, weighing up to 140 pounds and uses its lower incisor teeth with devastating effect on any creature that underestimates it.
Max didn’t know about that. There was an intruder in his territory and the wiry hair on his back sprung up. Characteristically, he did not bark and at a sprint he cut the boar off, forcing it to confront this unusual threat. I say unusual because even a couple of hungry hyenas will avoid taking on a healthy adult bushpig.
In the wild there is no such thing as an idle threat, and stand-offs usually end with one animal tactically retreating so that ‘face’ is saved all round. There is no medical care in
the bush and animals instinctively know that even a scratch can prove fatal if infected. Thus unlike humans who square up over something as flimsy as road rage, animals fight only as an absolute last resort. In this case there was no need for combat as neither could nor wanted to eat the other, and the bushpig was only a temporary trespasser. There was no need to take it further.
But they did. The big boar held his ground, refusing to back off and Max took up the challenge and began circling, looking for an opening. Then the boar did a little mock charge, and that was that. The fighting genes of Max’s terrier forebears kicked in and he smashed into the big pig in a silent full-blooded charge. I was at the main house at the time, but fortunately David was nearby. Realizing the terrible danger Max was in, forgot his own safety and ran at them screaming.
Too late. The boar swivelled and rammed his shovel-shaped head under Max’s gut, hoisting him high into the air. As Max toppled over the boar was on him, slashing with dagger-like incisors at his soft underbelly.
Max scrambled up and came at him again, fast and furious, but the boar, using his superior bulk bowled him over once more, hacking with lethal accuracy as Max rolled, desperately trying to regain his footing.
They parted briefly, the pig standing firm with Max, his pelt now slick with blood, circling warily, again looking for an opening. Both were completely oblivious to David’s yelling.
Once again Max propelled himself forward and after another vicious melee the bushpig, unaccustomed to such determination from an obviously smaller opponent, retreated into the bush.
Seconds later Max proudly trotted back to David, ignoring the fact that his stomach had been gutted and his entrails were hanging out in ropes.
‘Max, you’re a complete bloody mess,’ said David, shocked rigid. He picked the dog up, making sure the slithering intestines followed, and sprinted to the Land Rover. He didn’t ease his foot once in the twenty miles to Empangeni, slamming on the brakes only at the surgery. The vet said it was touch-and-go when he began operating.
I visited Max regularly and a few days later he was back at Thula Thula, tail thumping away. Except for a fence of stitches in his stomach, he looked no worse for wear.
Incredibly, a few days later the third incident with our dogs occurred. This time it was Bijou, Françoise’s little princess, who got herself into trouble. As I said earlier, Bijou defines the word ‘pampered’. She prefers carpets to grass, and will not – or cannot – sleep on the floor. At Françoise’s insistence, she only drinks bottled water (‘still or sparkling?’ the rangers mock when getting her a drink).
I say this only to emphasize how absurd it was for this cosseted mutt to decided to ‘attack’ a full-grown nyala bull grazing on the lawn close to the lodge’s front door. Bijou, who stands an impressive six inches at the shoulder, rushed at the massive buck, yapping for all she was worth. David watched, laughing.
He suddenly choked on his guffaw … in an instant the tiny Maltese was too close; in fact, fatally close. Before David could intervene the bull lifted his head and in a blur rammed its long horns down on her.

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