Elephants
flinch although my heart was pounding in fear and I longed to be in a London Flat, and had a doctor read my pulse he would have given me 30 seconds to live. Anyway I was saved and the herd stampeded into the bush into a patch of trees out of sight and up wind and I was relieved except that suddenly a young bull suddenly 30 yards away turned around and came back. He was in a filthy temper and looking at him closely I noticed that one of his tusks was freshly broken off and the nerve exposed which must have been very painful akin to severe toothache. He came for me head on and I did not want to shoot because a head shot with a .303 would not have been any use anyway and would not have stopped him, and being only a youngster there was no ivory on him anyway. However I would have in an emergency shot at his foot to warn him off, but in any case he suddenly paused about 7 yards away. He then very slowly advanced towards me one slow pace at a time hesitating after each pace, and I immediately realised that this was no blind charge and that that his brain was working the situation out. So I felt slightly better and knew that if I kept my nerve he probably would not crush me. He advanced onwards very slowly ever closer and closer with his trunk swaying gracefully above his head. At last 3 yards away he finally stopped and extended his trunk, opened his ears fully wide and then stretched his trunk that last little bit towards my face till its tip was only about a foot or so away as he sniffed up the situation. I remained absolutely motionless keeping my nerve….then suddenly without any warning he blew a snort of air right into my face as though one of contempt or disgust, wheeled around and ran off to join the rest of the herd. I sat down lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into my lungs at the relief of a tricky situation. The wind changed slightly again and now the scent of my cigarette was blowing towards them and they stampeded away into the distance madly for the final occasion.
I do not know quite why but this last encounter had really scared me and I took about a quarter of an hour to recover, meet up with my trackers who appreciated my guts, but would not let me follow the herd again!
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A DAYS HUNTING: I will try and describe a day’s hunting in the Bush. I woke at 5 am to be greeted by my Grecian looking cookboy with a welcome cup of tea. Quickly I dressed did my toilet and ate a big bowl of maize porridge, put in my pocket a 6” strip of biltong called out to Mchacha and Timothy to hurry and hit the trail. It was by now first light and as we went about half a mile beyond the village we picked up fresh tracks of obviously a very large elephant that had crossed the path. We followed these for about a mile twards the Msangile River where he had watered and crossed. Keeping a very wary eye for any signs of crocodiles we waded and picked up the spoor on the other side. By now it was full dawn with the bush coming to life and birds singing and screeching in the bright cool of the day .We followed that trail walking really fast for hours and on the way passed through the most wonderful game country with Hartebeste really close and then later a herd of Kudu in the bushes, one of which was a magnificent Bull who stood like a sentinel looking towards us in the forest glade, his noble head held high and proud with great spiral horns that must have been about 7 foot above the ground. Shortly after there was a herd of water buck that just looked at us a bit doubtful but unafraid and this was followed by graceful impala leaping on either side of us. Later that morning as it warmed up we came across a herd of eight Roan Antelope who stamped and pawed the ground with their feet undecided as to whether to run or stay. By now at about 11o’clock we had covered a gigantic circle and we were not far from where we had originally set out as the elephant had crossed our tracks behind us. If only we had set out about half an hour