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

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.

Bijou lay still on the ground, little bigger than a crumpled white handkerchief and David’s heart stopped. He knew his life was worth peanuts if he had to tell Françoise that Bijou had been killed on his watch.

Frantically chasing the bull away, David rushed over and picked the poodle up, checking for wounds. There were none, not even a splotch of blood. She’s had a heart attack, he thought … then slowly she wriggled back to life. Bijou had simply fainted from fright as the horns pierced theground on either side, missing by fractions. Today, Bijou still struts imperiously indoors but doesn’t go outside much any more.

However, the numerous nyala grazing literally outside our bedrooms reminded me that we had a surplus of these magnificent antelope on the reserve and I decided we should sell about thirty off to other reserves for breeding purposes.

A phone call later and a game-capture specialist was on Thula Thula darting the animals, which we placed in a boma with plenty of fresh water and alfalfa until we had reached the sell-off quota. We would then load them into the customized van and he would deliver them to the buyer.

Brendan was overseeing the capture and radioed to say we had our quota and the van would be leaving the next morning. It had been a long day. I was tired and looking forward to an early night. Thus I was surprised to be woken by a radio call from Brendan at 11 p.m. ‘You’d better come down. The most amazing thing has just happened.’

I cursed, pulled on some clothes and drove down to where Brendan and the team were waiting. The first thing I noticed was that the door to the boma was open.

‘Where’re the nyala? Surely you didn’t load at night!’

I turned to the game-capture man who was standing with his staff staring at the open door. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.

‘You’re not going to believe what happened,’ he said.

‘Try me!’ My patience was somewhat aggravated by lack of sleep.

‘We were sitting by the boma, just chatting,’ he said, ‘when we heard the elephants come. A couple of minutes later Nana led the herd into the clearing and so we moved right off – some quicker than others,’ he grinned, looking at Brendan. ‘We thought she had smelled the alfalfa. We had twelve buck inside and we were worried what would happento them if the boma was flattened by the herd going crazy for the food.

‘Then the herd stopped, as if on instruction. Nana walked alone to the boma. Just as we thought she would smash through the fence, she stopped at the gate. It wasn’t locked because the clasps were folded and were secure enough. She started fiddling with the clasps and got one open, then the other, and then pulled open the door. We couldn’t believe it, she actually opened the damn door!’

He looked around as the others nodded.

‘Then instead of going for the alfalfa, which we thought was her whole mission, she stood back and waited. After a few seconds a nyala came out, then another, and before we knew it they had all found the gap and were gone.

‘The weirdest thing is that as the last one fled, Nana just walked off and the others followed. They didn’t even go for the alfalfa – a pile of prime chow and they just ignored it.’

I looked at him, smiling. ‘Okaaaay. So what you’re saying is that the elephants felt sorry for the poor old nyala. They came across the reserve just to release them out of the goodness of their hearts. Because they had nothing better to do. Good try. Now … what really happened?’

‘I swear to God that’s exactly what happened. Ask the others.’ And with that they all started jabbering away simultaneously, backing up him and outdoing one another in verifying the story.

It took me a bit of time to digest it but there was no doubt they were telling the truth. There were elephant tracks all around the boma and Nana had thoughtfully dumped a steaming pile at the gate as a smoking gun. The lock clasps were also all smothered in trunk slime.

How or why this occurred remains a mystery for some, but it’s a mystery