The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild Lawrence Anthony (speld decodable readers txt) 📖

‘David, get out! Now! Cut the power! Cut the power! Now! Now! She’s coming!’ I yelled.

But the message didn’t get through to the rangers at the energizer. The drama of the charge had mesmerized the radioman next to me. He froze, completely stupefied by the dreadfully magnificent sight of an elephant in full charge.

David was trapped with Frankie hurtling at him like a rocket. He clambered wildly over the felled tree, grabbing at the fence as five tons of enraged elephant thundered up at impossible speed. He only had seconds to escape.

With my heart in my boots I swore and took aim. I knew it was too late – everything had gone horrible wrong. I would put a bullet in Frankie’s brain but she was speeding at over thirty miles an hour and, dead or alive, her momentum would smash into David and he would be pulverized. No creature alive can survive being hit by an elephant.

My trigger finger tightened – and in the microsecond that I was about to squeeze I heard the foulest language you could imagine.

It was David, right next to me, cursing the radioman who hadn’t relayed the ‘cut power’ message. I jerked the rifle up as Frankie broke off and belted past us, trunk high, ears flared, turning tightly to avoid the wires.

Slowly I lowered the rifle and stared at David, dumbstruck. He had just scaled an eight-foot-high electrical fence. If he was shaking, it was with anger – not an overdose of electrons.

I know plenty of stories of people doing impossible things in dangerous situations, but 8,000 volts will smack you flat on your back no matter how much adrenalin is pumping. It’s got enough juice to stop a multi-ton creature – you don’t get bigger league than that.

Yet David had done it. Against infinitesimal odds, it seems he somehow missed touching all four of the prominent live wires in his frantic scramble for safety. How, we don’t know. And neither does he.

But one thing is certain: if David had been hurled backwards by the shock, Frankie would have been onto him, whether I killed her or not. She was too close and too fast. Nothing would have saved him.

As soon as everyone calmed down, David insisted on climbing back into the boma and finishing the job. I looked at him with total admiration; this young man had real cojones.

Frankie and the rest of the herd were again distracted by food at the far side, and David once more scaled the fence. But not before warning the radioman that if he messed up again, he would personally kill him.

‘But you’ll be dead,’ said one ranger.

David led the booming laughter.

chapter eight

Leaving two rangers at the boma, David and I drove up to the main house for a much-needed break and a cold beer – not necessarily in that order. We were chatting on the front lawn when something suddenly seemed out of place. Something wasn’t right.

It was my favourite fig tree. All its leaves were wilting. I strode across for a closer look and saw it was dying. Shocked, I called David over. There were no signs of disease, rot or any other external problems. It looked like it had simply given up.

‘Magnificent trees like this don’t just die,’ I said, dismayed. ‘What’s happened?’

David prodded the trunk. ‘I don’t know. But remember – the psychic did exorcize an evil spirit from it,’ he said with a wry grin.

I’m about as non-superstitious as you can get but even so, something shivered down my spine as we walked back to the house.

In the Zululand bush, the supernatural is as much a part of life as breathing. That’s just the way Africa is. I remember years back, long before I acquired Thula Thula, I was rushing a Zulu to hospital after he had been bitten by a puff adder in a nearby village. The bite was potentially lethal but that did not concern him. What he was really worried about was that he believed it was not a coincidence. In his mindthe snake was actually inhabited by a spirit sent to punish him for some transgression. Fortunately we got him to the hospital in time and he survived.

‘So you reckon the tree’s been killed by an evil spirit?’ David interrupted my thoughts as we walked back to the house. He was chuckling, no doubt planning to milk this psychic stuff for all it was worth.

I laughed. ‘This is Africa,’ I said, and then heard Françoise scream.

She came running towards us.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

‘Snake … big one! On the stove, in the kitchen.’

‘What happened?’

She had been cooking pasta when a rat suddenly jumped out of the air-vents above the stove and landed on a pot next to her. A split second later a grey blur streaked down, whipped itself around the bar on top of the stove and sank its toxic fangs into the mesmerized rodent in one lightning hit. Françoise, who had never seen a snake that close before, dropped the spatula and bolted.

I ran to the kitchen to see the snake gliding fast towards me, heading for the lounge. It was a Mozambican spitting cobra, known locally as an mfezi. Despite what Françoise had said, it was average size – about four feet long. But mfezis have certainly earned their reputation of being second only to mambas as the most dangerous snakes in Africa. A bite is fatal if untreated, although spitting is their main form of defence and when they do so they unleash copious amounts of venom from virtually any position.

It was heading in Françoise’s direction, so I rushed to get a broom to catch it. I have a strict rule that no snake is killed on Thula Thula unless the situation is life-threatening. If they’re in the house, we capture and put them back into the bush. I have learned that with a cobra, this is