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

hearing and yelled at Brett, who had just appeared from his room carrying a suitcase as if he was going on holiday, to hurry.

I then took a deep breath, the last thing I wanted to do was panic the kid. ‘Brett,’ I said quietly. ‘Please don’t run as it will only increase your heart rate and spread the venom. This is a mamba. OK? Show me the bite.’

He gave me his hand and there on the finger was the fang wound. I exhaled with relief. Just one puncture.

‘Did it hook into you?’ I asked.

‘No. It just struck at me and moved off, but my finger is getting as sore as hell.’

With no purchase to inject venom and only one fang in one finger Brett might – maybe just – have a chance.

‘Are your hands tingling?’

‘Yes, strange you should say that. So are my toes.’

Tingling in the extremities are the first symptoms of a mamba bite, a sure sign that venom was in his system.

‘That’s from the bite. You must go right now. Just slow everything down – your breathing – everything down.’

I then turned to the driver. ‘Go like hell,’ I hissed, making sure Brett couldn’t hear me. He nodded and sped off.

I looked at my watch, six precious minutes had passedsince the bite and we had no way of knowing how much venom was in his body. If it was anything more than just a scratch we had to accept that he would be dead before they got halfway to town. I put the horrible thought of the phone call I’d have to make to his family out of my mind.

‘What happened?’ I asked Bheki.

‘Ayish, that young man doesn’t listen. We were here when we saw the mamba in there.’ He pointed to the small courtyard behind our bedroom window.

I stared at the courtyard, the same one where Biyela had seen a snake earlier that week and it suddenly dawned what had happened. There were two snakes that day. Biyela had been absolutely right. It was indeed a mamba he had seen going in to the courtyard. It must have came face to face with the mfezi, which then bolted out of the courtyard and climbed into our window to get away, straight into the growls of ‘brave’ Bijou. The mamba had been operating from the courtyard ever since.

‘Yehbo,’ said Biyela who was standing next to Bheki, as if reading my thoughts. ‘It was a mamba I saw, not an mfezi. We became confused.’

‘And then?’

‘Brett took a broom to the mamba. I told him this snake was too dangerous and that you only use the broom for mfezi but he did not listen. I tried to stop him but it was too late and the mamba bit him. Now maybe he will die.’

‘Who shot the mamba?’

‘I did. It was very angry and moving everywhere.’

‘Well done.’

Ten minutes later I picked up my cellphone and dialled the driver.

‘How’s Brett?’

‘Sweating and salivating. But he’s still coherent and it’s not far to the hospital. I’m just about flying at this speed.’

‘OK, let us know when the doctor is with him.’

As bad as it sounded, I knew from that rudimentary diagnosis that Brett had a slim chance. He was in for a rough ride, but if the bite had been lethal he would have already started vomiting and losing muscle control, the final fatal symptoms.

Ten minutes later we heard from the driver that they had arrived at the hospital. Brett was rushed into intensive care and stayed there for two days fighting for his life. And it wasn’t even a bite, just a fang fractionally nicking a finger.

We have often seen mambas since that incident, all of them just carrying on with their lives but that bite will go down as our only snake crisis in over half a century. And it’s a story the trainees will never forget.

chapter thirty-five

Nana’s oldest daughter Nandi’s swollen stomach was attracting a lot of finger-pointing.

Named after King Shaka’s influential mother, Nandi – which means ‘good and nice’ – had stamped her own definitive temperament on the herd: dignified, confident and alert. As a teenager, she had been with the herd in the famous breakout the day after they arrived at Thula Thula, and had now blossomed into a twenty-two-year-old adult. She was inheriting from Nana the hallmarks of a potential matriarch. And she was very pregnant.

The father, of course, was Mnumzane and with Nandi ballooning like a keg we were expecting a big healthy baby. The whole of Thula Thula was waiting for the good news.

Johnny, a likeable new ranger, was first on the scene when it happened. Blonde, good-looking in a boyish way, he had recently joined us and his easy smile made him popular with the staff. He radioed me and, surprisingly, didn’t sound that happy. ‘We’ve just found Nandi down near the river but we can’t see the baby properly. The herd’s gathered around and won’t let us anywhere near her. They’re acting most peculiarly.’

‘Where are you exactly?’ I asked, heading for the door and taking the portable radio with me.

‘Just before the first river crossing on the lodge road.Take the back route otherwise you won’t get past the elephants.’

It was mid-morning and the sun was already blistering down. The mercury was topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit and soaring as I leaned over and groped for my cap on the Land Rover’s floor. Being fair-skinned, I had learned the hard way to watch myself in the merciless African sun. Max sat in the passenger’s seat, head out the window, tongue out lapping at the passing scents.

I found Johnny and Brendan easily enough. Just as Johnny had said, fifty yards away stood the herd gathered in an unusually tightly knit group.

‘What’s going on?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Johnny. ‘We can’t get close enough to see anything. But they’ve been there for a while now.’

I walked off into the bush, keeping my distance, trying to find a spot from where I could get a peek through the obviously