Hunting in the Bush & Taking people into the bush.
covered in dense horny layers almost impenetrable to a shot. So after this we took careful precautions. We always looked for a convenient tree that was easily and quickly climbable in the event of trouble. So we had a theme song which went up and down the scale:
“Buffalo Charges….up the tree, up the tree….up, up and up
Buffalo Passes down the tree, down, down down”
It is quite a point to joke about these things, but they can be really vicious. One day Mike and I had a man turn up who wanted a really big buffalo head which we decided to shoot for him. We took our boys and spoored the buffalo, following the tracks and eventually at about 10 o’clock in the morning we came upon 5 old bulls, all were massive that were by themselves apart from the main herd. One was sitting whilst the other four were standing . We thought that we would take the one that was sitting first. Now I told everyone carefully beforehand that if the charge, to aim and shoot the leader, and whatever you do not run away. The reason being that if we all shoot the leader, and they keep on charging, the next one will drop just in front of us and then the others will have to go on either side and we will probably get away with it. Apart from that if you shoot the leader the others often will go off in any case and there is no further worry and you do not have to shoot any more. This is routine hunting technique which has to be carefully explained. Well we shot the one lying down and the others promptly charged straight at us. We shot the second as planned and then the man who we had with us lost his nerve and ran off. Now we had three left and a man goodness knows where in real danger, so we shot the third who dropped dead, but the second one though hard hit had gone in the grass, so we decided to follow the wounded animal and finish him off. We approached the tree under which they were in the first place beyond which was some very high ground and where this second one had disappeared. I climbed the tree and could see grass waving about 10 yards away. The grass was very tall and dense about 8 - 10ft high and and it was moving through him swishing his tail or moving his head, and I did not want to risk going into such thick grass until I could catch a glimpse of him. But it was of no avail so I decided try anyway, and slipped myself down from the tree. As I reached the ground the leaves and twigs crackled and I could hear him move towards me, but still could not see a thing, but I knew that he was getting ready to make a sudden charge. So I went back up the tree. I heard a snort and some more movement as he readied himself. He was obviously quite badly hit but not so bad that he still could not give a good account of himself and kill us. We waited and eventually all was peace and quiet and the grass stopped moving and from his heavy breathing we knew he was on his last legs. So we approached him rifles at the ready, he had been hit in the lungs and died as we reached him. This is the sort of experience one has with buffalo You only want one but they charge dangerously and end up taking three. The boys worked on the carcasses and we had plenty of food for them now for immediate eating and for drying into biltong. More experienced hunters are killed by buffalo than by any other animal, because they are big, dangerous and you never quite know how they will behave. To stop a buffalo in full charge is extremely difficult, because his brain is so well protected and he will still carry on and kill you even if badly wounded.
On another occasion as we were approaching Lake Rukwa. We came upon a herd of buffalo that formed themselves into a half moon in front of our land rover across our path. I fired shot after shot from a .95 over their heads to move them but they would not budge an inch. They put their bulls in front with the cows and calves