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

crest the hill and then turn onto another track that would at least take us out of the path of the raging monster. We didn’t even have time to load up the dead buck.

David made the top with the flames minutes behind and the men in the back cheered wildly. But I feared their jubilation was premature. The awful reality was that we were still trapped. There was no road out; the towers of flames were rampant on both sides, about to engulf us within minutes and for the first time I felt panic slithering into my thoughts.

‘Where to?’ yelled David. ‘Hurry or else we’ve had it!’

Then in a flash I realized what we had to do. Nana had shown the way.

‘Croc Pools!’ I shouted back. ‘If Nana thinks it’s safe enough for the herd it’ll be safe enough for us.’

Somehow amid the acrid blinding smoke David found the turn-off and ten bumpy minutes later we rounded the corner at the pools just as Nana was shepherding the last of her charges into deeper water. She and Frankie were standing at the edge of the dam in the shallows with babies Mvula and Ilanga, making sure the others were safe.

Nana looked up at us, and only then did I understand why they were there. It was not just because of the water; the veldt around every game reserve dam is always overgrazed and consequently there was little fuel for the fire to consume in a thirty yard radius.

‘Clever, clever girl,’ I thought. In our haste even we hadn’t thought of Croc Pools, let alone the natural safety barrier.

We drove to the opposite side, manoeuvred the Land Rover into a bare spot as close to the Pools as we could, splashed water over it to cool it down and then waded kneedeep into the pool. The coolness and relief was exquisite.

There is a good reason why this particular stretch is called Croc Pools and I looked around hurriedly. There in the reed beds to our left were two huge crocodiles lying still in the shallows, watching through hooded reptilian eyes. Fortunately because of the drama of the fire their major concern was survival, the last thing on their minds was lunch. We would be fine where we were. For good measure, though, I reached down and grabbed Max’s collar tightly. He was filthy with ash so I quickly washed him, which would also protect him against the approaching fireball.

And there we were, a herd of elephants, two huge crocodiles, a dog and a bedraggled sweaty group of men united by the most basic instinct of all – survival.

As Hades itself approached we watched yellow-billed kites soaring and swooping down on seared insects fleeing the flames, while flocks of glossy starlings darted in and outof the smoke doing the same. Two large monitor lizards came hurtling out of the bush and splashed headlong into the water next to us. Then a herd of zebra came galloping out of the fumes and stopped. The stallion sniffed the air before changing direction and speeding off with his family. They knew exactly where they were going – they would outpace the fire.

The thick smoke poured from the burning bush over us, obliterating the sun and we stood together in the surreal murk of midday twilight, broken only by the flaming orange and red of the biggest inferno I have ever seen.

Then it was on us, the heat sizzling and hissing across the water. Yet in that intense theatre I became aware of something transcending the din and fury and chaos. I felt Nana’s stomach rumblings roll across the water, a dominating, calming presence. There she stood, towering over the dam, shielding the babies with her body and spraying water over herself. I found myself doing the same, scooping water over my head as if I had joined the herd.

And then the sizzling abyss swept past and the sun broke bleakly through the murk and mayhem. We stared out at the blackened apocalyptic landscape, gulping air into smoke-seared lungs. We had made it, thanks to Nana. She had saved us all. How she drew us to Croc Pools was something I was to gain more insight into later.

Suddenly the radio came alive. ‘David, David, David! Come in! Where the hell are you guys? I’ve got big problems here, I need men fast.’

It was Brendan.

‘We’re on our way!’ yelled David as we scrambled for the Land Rover. ‘Hold on for fifteen minutes. We’ll be there.’

‘The fire’s jumped our boundary,’ shouted a soot-blackened Brendan as we arrived. ‘It’s gone over into the next farm trapping a troop of baboons. They came out of the bushscreaming, burning alive. It was terrible. At least six or seven are dead.’

He wiped a grimy paw over his bloodshot eyes. ‘It’s those bloody chromolaena weeds. They burn so hot nothing can stop them and the farm next to us had hundreds of acres of that alien rubbish growing thick and wild on their land between us and their sugar cane. The fire’s right in the middle of the cane now. No doubt they’ll blame us for it.’ Chromolaena odorata is particularly bad in a fire as it has a high oil content and as each bush takes light it burns in a bright fireball destroying trees and bushes close by.

The ever-shifting gusts at last switched favourably and using that to our advantage Brendan got a last gasp back-burn going and I watched, throat in mouth, as his little fires gobbled up the bush in front of the flaring wall, starving the advancing blaze.

Now we were able to respond to the incessant calls for help on the other side of the reserve where all the remaining staff had gathered in a last-ditch Alamo-style stand to protect the lodge and houses.

Exhausted to our bones, there we confronted another wall of fire, and it was then I saw the most amazing sight. Driving along a remote road going straight towards the oncoming fire was a car