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Authors: Lawrence Anthony,Graham Spence

The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild (10 page)

BOOK: The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild
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I had been set up. Totally fooled.
However, not only had we been grotesquely betrayed, but – more importantly – the elephants were now in danger.
‘David,’ I said, pulling him aside. ‘I need to talk to you.’
We climbed into the Land Rover and I fired the engine. I was fuming, not just at the Ovambos, but at myself for being so gullible. I had been taken in like a naive child.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked David.
‘The problem? The damn Ovambo game rangers. That’s the problem.’
‘Bloody idiots. They shouldn’t have missed that tree. I mean, how dumb is that?’
‘No,’ I shook my head vigorously as I drove off. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s the poaching. The Ovambos – they’re our poachers. They’re not rangers at all. They’re the bloody poachers.’
There was a stunned silence.
‘You’re kidding me,’ said David. ‘Nah … ?’
‘It’s them all right.’ Red with anger, I listed all the evidence, from the wires on the wrong side of the
boma
poles to what Ngwenya had just told me.
David’s face hardened as he took it all in. He, more than anyone else, had been at the frontline of the clashes with poachers.
He sat still, fists clenched. Then he said quietly, ‘Turn around, boss. I need to have a chat with them about a few things.’
David’s nickname in Zulu was
Escoro
, which means boxer, or fighter. Well-built, fit and unafraid, he had a
reputation as someone you didn’t mess with. He now had his sights set firmly on the Ovambos.
‘Uh-uh.’ I refused. ‘I understand you’re pissed off. I feel the same, but we have to do this cleverly. This is our biggest opportunity to smash this damn poaching ring once and for all. They can’t know we’re on to them.’
David looked at me, unconvinced.
‘We’ve got to pretend everything’s OK until we get all the evidence,’ I continued. ‘Otherwise we’ll blow it. At the moment all we’ve got is hearsay and they will just deny everything.’
‘OK,’ he said with some effort. ‘But when it’s over we are going to have a little chat.’
‘That’s up to you. But until then we can’t let the guards out of sight, even for a minute. We’ve got to get two of our best rangers up to their house permanently. Get Ngwenya to brief them so they know what’s going on. I want them living and working with the Ovambos twenty-four hours a day and reporting their every move. That’ll stop them doing any further shooting and buy us time.’
‘Done, boss,’ said David and a slow, wicked grin started to spread. ‘Ndonga is also going to be seeing a lot more of me. I will be his new best friend, starting tonight.’
The next morning we were out early to see what the elephants were doing. After a couple of hours bouncing around in dense bush we found them grazing in the middle of the reserve, about as far from the fence as you could get. Mnumzane was a hundred yards or so from the main group, stripping leaves from a small acacia. We eased forward until we were close enough to see them clearly and I did a head count. Seven – all there, engulfed by long grass and succulent trees and stuffing their mouths like kids at a birthday party. With nearly double the rainfall, which meant double the food yield of their previous home, Thula Thula truly was a pachyderm paradise. I knew Nana, the most astute of matriarchs,
would not fail to notice this rich bounty, especially after a dry Mpumalanga winter and the confines of the
boma
.
The tranquillity of the scene made it all worthwhile. After all the stress, drama, danger and frustration this hugely aggressive herd seemed at last serene in their new home. At least for the moment.
‘They’re exploring, and they like what they see,’ said David. ‘This must be better than anything they’ve known before.’
I nodded. Maybe, just maybe, our gamble in letting them out of the
boma
early had paid off.
We drove back up to the house where Françoise greeted us with a trencherman’s breakfast of
boerewors
– spicy Afrikaner sausage – bacon, eggs, tomatoes and toast, and mug after mug of home-made coffee. Bijou, Françoise’s little Maltese poodle, and Penny, the bull terrier, were with her and I always chortled at the contrast between her two dogs – both snow-white but one fluffy and soft, the other muscular and hard. Penny’s loyalty was infinite. Thula Thula was her home and as self-appointed protector of the realm she guarded it with her life.
 
‘Please tell Phineas I want to see him.’
Ngwenya shifted uncomfortably He knew what was coming.
‘
Manje?
’ Now, he asked.
‘Yes, now.’
Ngwenya moved reluctantly to the door and then turned back to face me. ‘We must be very careful Mkhulu. If the Ovambos hear we are talking to him they could kill him. These men have killed before. They are
tsotsis
, thugs of the worst kind and people in the village are very frightened of them.’
‘That’s why the village will help us when we go to the police,’ I replied.
Phineas was the gate guard who had been used to skin the slaughtered animals. He was a simple, sickly young man, having long been afflicted by Aids, the scourge of modern Africa. On the streets the slang for Aids was ‘slow puncture’, a particularly apt description of how the disease gradually saps one’s life and frail Phineas was no exception. We had moved him from the labour team to far less demanding gate duties to ease his day.
I was gambling that he would side with us and become a key witness. All I needed was the correct approach.
Phineas arrived and as is customary in rural Zululand, he came in without knocking. Crouching low, he moved across the room and then sat down without being asked. He averted his eyes and stared at the floor, which is considered good manners.
‘
Yehbo
, Phineas,’ I greeted him.
‘
Sawubona
, Mkhulu,’ he replied without looking up.
Instead of first politely discussing one’s health or the weather, again customary in rural Zululand, I went straight for the jugular.
‘Phineas, I hear that you have been tricked into skining animals that the Ovambos have stolen.’
The effect was instant. Phineas glanced around wildly, as if looking for an escape route. Then his sickly pallor turned even more ashen as his breath laboured out in wheezes, no doubt cursing his bad luck. If he had known what this meeting was about he would have headed for the hills and never returned. Now he was trapped.
‘Come, Phineas,’ I said, pressing the obvious advantage of surprise. ‘Everybody knows what has happened and I don’t want to hand you over to the police. Jail will be a bad place for you. I am offering you the chance to help us.’
His head slumped on his chest. Then, without warning, he started sobbing. Even though I knew that Aids had crippled his immune system, ravaging his physical and mental
health, I was taken aback at how quickly he broke and my heart went out to him. No doubt his conscience had also been preying brutally on his weakened state of mind.
‘Ndonga promised me money,’ he said, voice quavering. ‘Then he did not pay me.’
‘You told me the truth, thank you,’ I said. ‘But you will have to make a full confession to the police. If you do this, not only will you be protected from the Ovambos, but you will also keep your job.’
‘I will do what you ask,’ he said rubbing his eyes. ‘I am sorry, Mkhulu.’
He then gave me full details of the poaching ring, exactly how many animals and what species they had shot as well as times and dates. I was astounded at the scale of the operation. These bastards had slaughtered at least a hundred animals – which translates into several tons of meat, and thousands of dollars of profit.
I now had my first witness. We spent the rest of the day piecing together information, interviewing other staff fingered by Phineas, collecting facts, and taking more statements until we felt we had a case. But I decided to stew on it all for a while and see what other stories emerged over the next few days.
In the meantime my rangers were busy moving into quarters next to the Ovambos while David was Ndonga’s ‘new best friend’, constantly shadowing him and seriously curtailing any poaching activities. I also started calling Ndonga over the radio at all hours, day and night, asking where the Ovambos were, setting meetings in the bush and making surprise visits to their house.
The tension was starting to tell. Ndonga didn’t suspect we knew anything but he was as jumpy as hell, never knowing what was coming next. Whenever the Ovambos went out in a group, my rangers would radio me and we would drive up to them from nowhere, exchanging pleasantries and just
hanging out. The confusion on their faces was almost comic. The main thing was that they be given no opportunity to poach.
Oblivious to all this human intrigue, Nana and her family appeared to be settling in well and I decided to spend a morning watching them, just to see for myself.
After about an hour’s drive I found them shading themselves under a sprawling giant fig right next to the river. It was still early, but already the mercury had rocketed to almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I stopped the Land Rover, crept forward and settled down under a leafy marula tree about fifty yards downwind. They stood motionless but for the gentle flapping of their ears, cooling themselves as best they could. Elephant ears are the size of a hefty woman’s skirt and act as a natural air conditioner. Behind each massive flap of cartilage is a roadmap of veins that pumps gallons of blood just beneath the skin and gentle fanning cools the corpuscles, which in turn lowers the body temperature.
Mnumzane was about twenty yards nearer to me than the rest and sensed my presence. He moved closer and watched from a comfortable but wary distance, then continued grazing, glancing up every now and again. It seemed he preferred my company to that of the herd and made no effort to raise the alarm.
He was a superb specimen, well proportioned with strong tusks. He would soon grow into a great bull, lord of all he surveyed. But at the moment he was a confused and lost teenager, still aching from the death of his mother.
In the background Nana found a succulent young paper-bark acacia tree and decided it was ideal for a family lunch. She pushed gently, testing the tree’s strength, and then adjusted her angle; put her head down and with a push-relax-push motion worked up massive momentum. The tree
rocked violently and as it swayed at the very end of its tether she gave a final shove and it came splintering down.
The rest of the herd ambled across to join in the feast. If there is one thing that elephants have, it’s time, large dollops of endless time spent without having to commute to offices like less-privileged mortals. Even when a juicy bush banquet is on offer, they don’t rush.
The sound of the tree crashing stilled the bush for a few moments and I noticed a nearby family of nyala prick up their ears. The bull scented the air, knowing instinctively what had happened. Once the elephants moved off, he and his harem would also be able to gorge on the felled acacia’s juicy top leaves that they would never otherwise be able to reach. In fact, during dry winters when grazing is poor herds of antelope often shadow elephants for days waiting for the matriarch to bulldoze a tree down.
The noise also alarmed a
leguaan
, a large African monitor lizard that had been raiding birds’ nests up in a red-flowered weeping
boerbeen
tree overhanging the river. Startled, the four-foot-long, black-grey reptile sprang off a high branch, twisting through the air and belly-flopping into the river.
At my feet Max heard the splash and thinking the reptile was a snake, was off like a shot into the reeds before I could grab him. Splashing about in crocodile territory was suicidal for even large animals, let alone a dog, and when he came out shaking his dripping torso like a sprinkler, I tersely reprimanded him. Try as I may, I was unable to wean him off his snake fetish.
None of this perturbed the elephants. Nana, Nandi and Mandla stood on one side of the fallen tree with Frankie, Marula and Mabula on the other, methodically converting leaves and bark into edible mulch with the most powerful molars in the animal kingdom. Although they were now one family, each group was the remnant of a much larger herd
that had been cruelly whittled by sales and execution. They still sometimes instinctively bunched in their original two groups.
A draught eddied through the saplings and cosseted my back. The wind was edging to the south. When I had arrived I was downwind, but with the subtle shift I now had to move fast.
As I stood I saw the tip of Nana’s trunk suddenly angle and swivel towards me, snatching a trace of scent. She then stood back and, lifting her trunk to verify the odour, turned to face in my direction.
Collecting my binoculars and water bottle I climbed into the Land Rover with Max just as she started advancing towards me, the rest of the herd falling in behind her. There was plenty of time to drive off, but I was intrigued by the fact that she was actually heading my way. Normally she would have hurriedly herded her family in the opposite direction.
I manoeuvred the Land Rover into a good getaway position, steeled my nerves and waited. At the last moment, just yards away from me, she changed direction ever so slightly and walked past the vehicle, followed by her family who each turned to stare as they passed. Frankie, who was bringing up the rear, splayed her ears and gave an aggressive shake of her head towards me.
BOOK: The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild
3.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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