The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony, Graham Spence Read Free Book Online

ice-cold beers.
    We were exhausted. But a hearty meal followed by a soaking hot bath does wonders for morale, and an hour
later I wandered out onto the open verandah, sitting beneath the stars, trying to make sense of it all.
    My Staffordshire bull terrier Max followed me. He was a magnificent specimen of the breed, forty pounds of brawn and muscle. I had got him as a just-weaned puppy and from that first moment he had tottered after me with unconditional devotion. His pedigree name was Boehringer of Alfa Laval, but Max suited him just fine. He would have been a trophy winner at shows except for one physical flaw: he had only one testicle. Which I thought was ironic – Max had more cojones than any creature I knew, man or beast. He was absolutely fearless.
    And yet, he was an absolute pushover with children, who could pull his ears and poke his eyes and get nothing but a sloppy lick in return.
    Max flopped at my feet, tail thumping on the floor. He seemed to sense my dismay, nudging me with his wet nose.
    Stroking his broad head, I mulled over the day. What had possessed the herd to smash through two electrified fences? Why had the Ovambos made such a careless mistake with their tracking? Why had they then abandoned the search?
    There was something that didn’t gel; some piece missing from the jigsaw.
    Max’s low growl jerked me out of my thoughts. I looked down. He was fully alert, head up, ears half-cocked, staring into the dark.
    Then a soft voice called out: ‘Mkhulu.’
    Mkhulu was my Zulu name. It literally means ‘grandfather’, but not in the limited Western sense. Zulus venerate maturity and to refer to someone as an Mkhulu was a compliment.
    I glanced up and recognized the shadowy figure squatting on his haunches a few yards away. It was Bheki.
    ‘ Sawubona ,’ I said, giving the traditional greeting. I see you.
    ‘ Yehbo .’ Yes, he nodded and paused for a while, as if pondering what to say next.
    ‘Mkhulu, there is a mystery here. People are making trouble,’ he said, his tone conspiratorial. ‘They are making big trouble.’
    ‘ Kanjane? ’ How so?
    ‘A gun spoke next to the boma last night,’ he continued, aware that he now had my full attention, ‘and the elephants were shouting and calling.’
    He stood up briefly and raised his arms, mimicking an elephant’s trunk. ‘They were crazy, maybe one was even shot.’
    ‘ Hau! ’ I used the Zulu exclamation for surprise. ‘But how do you know such important things?’
    ‘I was there,’ he replied. ‘I know the elephants are valuable, so I stayed near to the boma last night, watching. I don’t trust the amagweragwer. ’ The word meant ‘foreigners’, but I knew he was referring to the Ovambo guards.
    ‘Then the big females came together and pushed a tree onto the fence. There was much force and it fell hard and broke the fence and they went out, they were running. I was afraid because they came close past me.’
    ‘ Ngempela? ’ Really?
    ‘ Ngempela .’ It is true.
    ‘Thank you very much,’ I replied. ‘You have done well.’
    Satisfied that his message had been delivered, he stood up and stepped back into the darkness.
    I exhaled loudly. Now that would explain a lot, I thought, my mind racing. A poacher shooting next to the boma unaware of the elephants’ presence would certainly have put the jitters into the herd, particularly as their previous matriarch and baby had been shot barely forty-eight hours ago.
    But much as I liked Bheki, I had to treat his suspicions about the Ovambo guards with caution. Tribal animosity in Africa often runs deep and I knew there was little love lost
between the Zulus and the Namibians. There was a possibility that the indigenous staff may use the confusion surrounding the escape to implicate the Ovambos so locals could get their jobs.
    However, Bheki had certainly provided food for thought.
     
    As dawn glimmered we drove to where we had left off yesterday and saw Peter’s helicopter coming in