The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony (the ebook reader txt) 📕

I knew they carried a rifle and whispered strict instructions into the radio that despite how bad everything looked, under absolutely no circumstances was Mnumzane to be shot. They must just wait until he left.

But he wouldn’t leave. Each time he came to the vehicle, one of the guests would panic and frantically climb over chairs to the opposite side of the Landy station wagon. This was prompting his interest and he would walk round and bump the vehicle making the poor man scramble back again. It was horrifying lying there absolutely helpless in the dark with this giant stomping around outside hitting the vehicle. Every now and then I would call out to him and he would come around to my side and stand quietly for a while, and then go back and continue worrying the guest. On top ofthat he kept circling our upturned vehicle, chasing off the rangers coming to our aid.

Then as I started to despair, I heard the ranger anxiously calling out on the radio, ‘The herd is here, the whole herd is here … They’re coming straight towards you. Oh my God, they’re going to your Landy, what must we do? Over.’

‘Nothing,’ I replied, relieved. ‘Just wait.’

This was good news, not bad as the ranger thought. Leaning forward out of the vehicle I could just see Nana and Frankie followed by the herd and I called out to them repeatedly.

But unusually they ignored me completely. Without breaking stride, they walked right past us and then, to my astonishment, surrounded Mnumzane, jostling him away from us. He could easily have butted them off – he certainly had the strength – but amazingly he didn’t. From my cramped horizontal position on the ground I could hear their stomachs rumbling. I have no idea what the communications were, but moments later Mnumzane stopped his aggressive vigil over the wrecked Land Rover and left with them.

When they were about fifty yards away the rangers sped up, climbed on top of the Land Rover and pulled us out via the smashed side windows, one by one. Thankfully, incredibly, no one was hurt.

As we drove off I watched the elephants walking with Mnumzane, the undisputed dominant bull, submissively in tow. Given that adult bulls are loners, it was most unusual to see him herding with them. I had no doubt Nana understood what was going on and that she and Frankie had intervened to get him away. Not only for our good but for his. She had probably saved our lives.

But as we passed by some forty yards off, Mnumzane lifted his head sharply and took some angry steps towards us. That he again showed aggression towards the safariLand Rover concerned me infinitely more than my wrecked vehicle. I had a big problem on my hands.

Back at the lodge Françoise gave me a fierce hug and ushered the guests to the bar. One, a lifelong teetotaller, gulped down three double whiskies before uttering a word.

Despite the drama, no one had a scratch.

My brand-new Land Rover was not so fortunate. The bemused insurance company took one look at the wreck and assigned it to the scrapheap. They had never before paid out a claim for an ‘elephant incident’.

chapter forty

Our traumatic escape had me going in a dozen different directions trying to figure out what to do. Predictably the ‘I told you so’ brigade kicked off with a vengeance with some wildlife experts saying that Mnumzane should be put down immediately; that he was an accident waiting to happen; and that if I didn’t do it now, someone was going to get killed.

Once again I rose to his defence and justified the series of events, saying that all he had done was come to my vehicle as he had done hundreds of times before. He had then become confused by strange voices shouting and being in musth he had lost it when the Landy suddenly reversed and hit his tusk. The proof was as soon as he heard my voice he stopped his craziness and actually came to me, pulling out the windscreen fragments and snuffling his trunk over me to check if I was OK.

I refused to shoot him and instead started to put into place other measures to ensure his and everyone else’s safety. The rangers were experienced enough to take care of themselves. It was the lodge staff driving back and forth that concerned me, so we cleared out every inch of bush and shrubbery for thirty yards on each side of all roads between the house and the lodge. Now if he was anywhere near the track he could be seen from a long way off. At night I had aranger drive well ahead of any staff vehicle with a spotlight to check if he was around.

But there was no need as he had gone deep into the bush alone and stayed there, almost as if atoning for his outburst.

The herd, on the other hand, were just being wild elephants, doing things that contented elephants do such as pulling down whole trees for grazing, wallowing in mudbaths and providing great game viewing. Even ET had settled down and I took solace from this success. After a few weeks of no trouble I dared to start thinking that Mnumzane had learned something from the incident and could be saved.

Then early one morning I was radioed by a safari drive ranger to say that he had a breakdown and had left the Land Rover in the bush to go and get parts. When he returned, the vehicle had been smashed off the road and overturned.

‘Stay right there,’ I radioed back with a deep sense of foreboding. ‘I’m on my way.’

But even before I got there, I knew what had happened. Mnumzane’s spoor was all over the place. He had found the stationary vehicle and destroyed it, flipping it upside down and smashing it off the road. Despondently I surveyed the damage.

A safari Land Rover