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

down. Inch by inch he edged them around until they were finally facing Thula Thula. Then he got them moving, herding them from above, deftly manoeuvring his machine like a flying sheepdog.
    I started to breathe easier, daring to believe everything was going to be all right. Back at Thula Thula workers had spent the day mending the ruined fences, both at the boma and the border, and they radioed me to say everything was ready. We would still have to cut open a section of fence to drive them through, but we wouldn’t know where to cut until they arrived.
    Finally after hours of tense aerial herding, we saw the helicopter hovering low on the far horizon. They were going to make it. I gave instructions to the fence team to drop a wide section of the fence to provide instant access into the reserve and prayed the frazzled matriarch would go straight in.
    Then I caught sight of her for the first time, pushing slowly through the bush just below the thundering helicopter. All I could make out was just the tips of her ears and the hump on her back, but it was the most welcome thing I have ever seen.
    Soon they all came into view, plodding on until they were
at the road. Just a tantalizing fifteen yards from the lowered fence, Nana tested the air with her trunk and halted.
    The mood suddenly changed. From fatigued acceptance, the herd now was charged with defiance. Nana trumpeted her belligerence and drew her family up in the classical defensive position, bottoms together facing outwards like the spokes of a wheel and they held their ground with grim determination. Peter continuously buzzed them … goading them to make that last little sprint into the reserve. But to no avail.
    Seeing he was getting nowhere Peter peeled off and put the helicopter down. Leaving the motor running he sprinted over to me.
    ‘I don’t like to do this,’ he said, ‘but the only thing left is to go up and fire shots behind them. Force them to move forward. Can I borrow your gun?’
    ‘No, I don’t like it …’
    ‘Lawrence,’ Peter interrupted, ‘we have spent a lot of time on this and I can’t come back tomorrow. It’s now or never. You decide.’
    Gunfire was last thing I wanted. It meant more shooting around the already traumatized creatures, causing more distress.
    But Peter was right; I had run out of alternatives. I unholstered my 9-mm CZ pistol, checked that the 13-shot magazine was full, and handed it to him.
    He took it without a word, lifted off and hovering just behind the animals he started firing rapid shots into the ground.
    Crack, crack, crack … the shots rang out, again and again and again.
    He might as well have used spitballs. Nothing would move them. This was where they were going to make their stand. They were saying no more. It was something I understood with absolute clarity; a line in the sand.
    Dusk fell, and in the glow of the strengthening stars I could see the murky shapes of the elephants still holding firm with iron defiance.
    I felt sick with despair. We had been so close to pulling it off. Peter banked and flew off radioing that it was too dark for him to land without lights and he would drop my gun off at Thula Thula.
    Realizing their ‘persecutor’ had left, Nana turned her bone-tired family around and they melted into the thick bush.
    I groaned. Now we would have to do it all again the next day.

chapter five
    Once again I was up before my 4 a.m. alarm rang, gulping down coffee strong enough to float a bullet, desperate to get going. It hadn’t been a good night.
    David and the trackers were standing by and as the first shards of pink dawn pierced the darkness we picked up the spoor from where Nana and her family had made their determined stand against the helicopter last night. The tracks again pointed north towards the Umfolozi game reserve and we followed their new path through the thorny thickets, going as fast as we dared.
    By now it was obvious we had some very agitated, unpredictable wild elephants