Man Eater

by Justin D'Ath

  EXTREME

  ADVENTURES

  MAN

  EATER

  ‘Olki, is it true that leopards sleep during the day?’

  ‘Most times,’ he said softly.

  We had stopped beneath a tree with fruit that resembled enormous

  grey sausages dangling on long string-like stems. I looked

  nervously right and left. ‘What do you mean – most times?’

  ‘If he hungry,’ Olki whispered, ‘leopard do not sleep.’

  Splat! Something warm and wet landed on my forehead. It felt like

  a large drop of water. I reached up and wiped it away.

  The smear on my hand was bright red – the colour of blood…

  Puffin Books

  Also by Justin D’Ath

  Extreme Adventures:

  (Can be read in any order)

  Crocodile Attack

  Bushfire Rescue

  Shark Bait

  Scorpion Sting

  Spider Bite

  Coming soon: Killer Whale

  The Skyflower

  Infamous

  Astrid Spark, Fixologist

  Echidna Mania

  Koala Fever

  Why did the Chykkan cross the Galaxy?

  EXTREME

  ADVENTURES

  MAN

  EATER

  JUSTIN D’ATH

  Puffin Book

  For my brother Bill, who introduced me

  to the world of the Jungle Books

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2007

  Text copyright © Justin D’Ath, 2007

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,

  no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval

  system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both

  the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  ISBN: 978-1-74228-211-4

  puffin.com.au

  1

  DEEP TROUBLE

  There was a low trembly rumble, like the sound of distant thunder.

  Or like a diesel engine starting up.

  Oh no! The bus was going without me!

  I quickly adjusted my clothing and stepped out from behind the fig tree where I’d gone for privacy. And stopped in my tracks.

  Shishkebab!

  The baby elephant looked startled, too. I guess it had never come face to face with a human before. Only three metres separated us. It flapped its oversized ears and lifted its stubby, pink-tipped trunk in my direction.

  Please don’t trumpet, I prayed.

  Because the calf wasn’t alone. Another elephant stood in the thornbushes behind it. The calf’s mother. She was massive. As big as a dump truck. With tusks longer than my arms. It was a miracle she hadn’t seen me – I was standing in plain view. She was busily picking up fallen figs with her long nimble trunk and lifting them one by one to her mouth.

  Instead of sounding the alarm, the calf tested the air for my scent. I backed away slowly, keeping a wary eye on the mother, then slid around the tree and flattened myself against its lumpy grey bark. But the calf followed me. It began sniffing me all over like a curious puppy.

  But here’s the difference: puppies don’t weigh a hundred and fifty kilos, and their mothers aren’t liable to pulverise any living thing that comes within twenty metres of their calves. I was zero metres from this calf!

  ‘Buzz off!’ I whispered, pushing its fat little trunk away.

  Then I heard the rumbling noise again and a huge grey shape – like a moving wall – passed slowly across a gap in a hedge of thornbushes. More rumbling came from my right. now I knew what was causing it – elephants. Everywhere I looked, I saw patches of wrinkly grey skin through the head-high undergrowth. It didn’t seem real. Thirty-six hours ago I’d been sitting at our kitchen table back home in Australia, writing a speech about saving bilbies. now here I was in a remote corner of eastern Africa, surrounded by wild elephants!

  And one was head-butting me. The calf was only being curious, but it was as big as a Shetland pony and nearly breaking my ribs. I placed both hands on its broad, leathery forehead and pushed with all my might. The calf seemed to think it was a game. It leaned against my hands and pushed the other way.

  That was when the real diesel engine started up. I’d come to Tanzania to represent Australia at the first ever International Youth for Wildlife Conference. The bus that was taking me to Marusha (where I had to give my speech the following day) had made a five-minute toilet stop in the middle of a game reserve. now the bus was ready to leave and I couldn’t go back to it. The baby elephant had me trapped. I wanted to call for help, but that would have alerted the other elephants to my presence. If the calf’s mother found me having a pushing contest with her baby, I was history.

  The bus driver sounded the horn. It was one of those trick horns that played a tune – five shrill notes that repeated three times. A noise that had no place in the African bush. It startled the elephants. Sticks snapped, leaves rustled, the ground trembled. All around me, huge grey forms went swaying off through the trees.

  The calf seemed confused. It backed away from me and turned around, raising its trunk above its head in a fat, grey question mark.

  ‘Go after them,’ I said, giving it a slap on the rump. ‘Your mum – ’

  I was about to say Your mum went that-a-way, when an ear-splitting shriek silenced me. It was louder than the bus’s musical horn. But unlike the horn, this noise did belong in the African bush.

  It was the sound of an elephant trumpeting.

  My insides turned to jelly. I’d been wrong about the mother elephant: she hadn’t run off with the others. She was only five metres away. Looking directly at me. And she didn’t look happy. not only had she caught me with her baby, but she’d seen me smack it on the backside.

  I was in deep trouble.

  2

  WHOMP! THUMP! CRUNCH!

  WHAM! THWACK!

  The mother elephant tossed her huge head, flapped her ears like two car doors, and shot a blast of air through her trunk that blew down a shower of figs from the tree above us.

  Then she charged.

  She was unbelievably fast. I only got halfway around the fig tree before – WHOMP! – a mighty blow from her trunk knocked me off my feet.

  I hit the ground rolling. It was lucky I did, because an
enormous white tusk rammed into the earth exactly where I’d landed. A second one buried itself next to my hip. The elephant loomed above me, blocking out the sky. I raised both hands to protect myself, but it was like trying to hold up a falling building.

  THUMP!

  Everything went dark. The elephant’s huge bristly head pressed against my face and chest and stomach, grinding violently from side to side. She was trying to crush me, but it wasn’t working. Two massive roots sloped down from the tree trunk, one on either side of me, preventing my four-tonne assailant from pressing all the way down. But she had me pinned. The only thing I could move was my right leg. I kicked upwards. My foot hit something soft. The elephant let out a shriek of rage and wrenched her tusks free, tearing up two huge clods of earth. Dust filled the air with a dense red fog. For a moment I couldn’t see anything. Nor could the elephant. She slammed her head back down – CRUNCH! – but I was no longer there. I was commando crawling along the ground underneath the grey ceiling of her belly, my eyes fixed on the hazy wedge of daylight between her back legs.

  She was smart. Before I could crawl out from under her, she shuffled backwards and sideways, trying to trample me. Her feet were like pile-drivers. The ground shook. It was an elephant earthquake, nine on the Richter scale. I twisted and rolled to avoid her huge stomping feet. Dust billowed. It was hard to see. A foot the size of a tree stump came swinging towards me. It grazed my back, pinning the tail of my Youth for Wildlife shirt to the ground. fabric ripped. I wrenched myself free and bumped into another foot. Luckily this one was going up, not down. I wriggled the other way. Another foot came slamming down. I flung myself sideways.

  A few metres to my right was a dense tangle of thornbushes. It looked prickly and nearly impenetrable, but it was my only chance of escape. I scrambled upright and made a break for it, but the elephant was too quick. She pivoted her rear end like a jack-knifing semitrailer, knocking me off balance. I grabbed her tail to stop myself falling, then hung on for my life as she whirled around after me. My feet left the ground and I spun in a huge circle. The elephant couldn’t quite reach me with her extended trunk. She turned faster and faster, trying to catch up. It must have looked comical – the elephant spinning around with me swinging from her tail – but there was nothing funny about it. If I let go, I was dead.

  WHAM!

  Everything stopped. I found myself surrounded by leaves and prickles and vines.

  Where was I?

  Something moved underneath me. I swivelled my head around.

  Holy guacamole! I was lying spread-eagled on top of the baby elephant.

  It struggled to its feet in a tangle of undergrowth, lifting me up, too. I realised what had happened: I’d lost my grip on the mother’s tail and slammed into her calf. The collision had sent us both crashing into the thornbushes.

  So where’s the mother? asked a little voice in my head.

  A massive shadow fell over me.

  THWACK!

  3

  THE MEANEST ANIMAL IN

  THE WORLD

  Twenty centimetres to the left and the tusk would have passed clean through my chest and out the other side. But the mother elephant was dizzy from chasing her tail and her aim was off. Instead of turning me into a human kebab, the side of her left tusk struck me a glancing blow to the shoulder, toppling me off the calf’s back. I landed next to its feet and crouched there, not moving. The calf was trapped between me and its mother and all around us was a wall of undergrowth, higher than the calf’s back and woven together with prickly vines. As long as I stayed where I was, the mother couldn’t get me.

  Wrong. I’d forgotten about her trunk. Whuff, whuff, snuffle. A big wet suction pump went sliding across my back, searching for something to grab onto. Desperately I wriggled right under the calf, squeezing into the small gap between its four stubby legs and soft round belly. Now the mother couldn’t get her trunk around me. But her calf could. Reaching between its front legs, it tried grabbing me by the neck. I pressed my chin against my chest to protect my throat. But the calf slid its trunk inside my shirt collar. Bunching the fabric together in a big tight knot, it started pulling. It was only a baby, but it was a BIG baby. And strong. The shirt tightened around my neck like a hangman’s noose. I couldn’t breathe.

  Frantically I began ripping the buttons undone. It was either take my shirt off or be strangled. But this opened me up to another line of attack. As I dragged one of my arms out of its shirt sleeve, the mother elephant got me by the elbow. And started pulling.

  That was when I heard the strange rattling noise.

  I didn’t take much notice at first because I had a two-way struggle on my hands – one to free myself from the shirt before the calf strangled me, the other to free my elbow from the mother’s trunk before she dislocated my arm.

  The rattling noise changed pitch and grew louder. And the air filled with a truly disgusting stink.

  The calf let go of my shirt and gave a frightened squeal. This was too much for the mother elephant; she released my arm and began running her trunk all over her baby, trying to find out what was wrong. I raised my head.

  One metre away, framed in the arch of the calf’s front legs, crouched the weirdest-looking animal I’d ever seen. At first I thought it was a skunk. That would account for the stink. The colour was right, too – black and white – but this animal seemed bigger than the skunks I’d seen on TV. It looked a like a cross between a ferret and a Tasmanian devil, only it was bigger than a ferret and uglier than a devil. It had no ears, just holes in the sides of its head like a lizard. And it looked mean. When it saw me watching, the mystery creature wrinkled its scarred black nose and bared its teeth. They were long and pointed like a crocodile’s. Then it made the rattling noise I’d heard earlier – its way of growling, I guess – and darted towards me.

  It was a honey badger, I’ve found out since. They are the meanest animals in the world. Even though they’re no bigger than corgis, honey badgers have been known to chase lions from their kills. They even attack animals as large as Cape buffalos, creeping up when they’re asleep and biting an artery so they bleed to death. They’re not afraid of anything. not even elephants.

  They should be. Elephants aren’t afraid of anything either – especially not mother elephants whose calves are in danger – and they have a size advantage. The honey badger had made a mistake. It had threatened the baby elephant (and me) when the mother was standing right next to us. Maybe it hadn’t realised the mother was there. It soon found out.

  When the honey badger began its rush forward, the mother elephant saw the movement. Her trunk came flying down like a giant lasso. It curled around the honey badger and flung it high into the air. for a moment there was silence, then something thumped back to earth about fifteen metres away. Above me, the mother elephant trumpeted in victory.

  Still crouched under her baby, I dragged my shirt all the way off. There wasn’t a moment to lose. I was next on the mother’s hit list. The honey badger had bought me some time, but no more than a few seconds.

  I had just tied the shirt’s sleeves together when the big elephant’s trunk came looking for me again. This time I made no attempt to get out of the way. I looped the loosely knotted shirt around the tip of her trunk and pulled the sleeves as tight as I could. The noose snapped closed. Gotcha!

  The elephant bellowed in surprise. Or tried to. But my shirt was knotted around her trunk like a tourniquet, constricting her nostrils and blocking the flow of air. All that came out was a wheezing raspberry sound.

  She went totally psycho. Her trunk, with my Youth for Wildlife shirt attached, disappeared from view. Bushes crunched, dust flew, the ground shook. It was like a tornado, an earthquake and an avalanche all at once as the enraged elephant went crashing off into the distance, wheezing and honking and blowing giant raspberries. free to move at last, her calf reversed away from me, spun round and went trotting out of the thornbushes after its mother.

  I went in the other direction
. Rather than leave the safety of the thornbushes, I burrowed my way further in. It was easier than I expected. Where the honey badger had first appeared, there was a small arched opening between the stems of two bushes. I later found out it was the mouth of a secret tunnel through the undergrowth used by small animals like honey badgers, hyraxes and mongooses. That’s probably why the honey badger had threatened the baby elephant and me. We were blocking its path, and honey badgers don’t back down.

  The tunnel was a tight fit and very prickly against my bare back. But prickles were the least of my worries as I dragged myself along on my belly and elbows, moving deeper and deeper into the thicket. My idea was to stop somewhere near the middle and hope the mother elephant didn’t come looking for me once she got the shirt off her trunk. It was a good idea, but I didn’t get to put it into practise. Because there was another creature in the thorn thicket that afternoon. Something much more scary than a honey badger.

  And it was coming along the tunnel in the other direction.

  4

  STAY OUT OF MY WAY, DUDE!

  I don’t know what it is about me and snakes. Wherever I go – the flood plains of the northern Territory, the new South Wales high country, the Great Barrier Reef – I seem to run into them. So when I came face to face with one in the middle of the thornbushes in Tanzania, Africa, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I nearly jumped out of my skin. Because I’d never seen a live cobra before, and they’re scary. Especially up close. This one was less than two metres away. Its head was raised, its hood was spread, and its little black eyes seemed to bore right into mine.

  It was blocking the tunnel. There was nowhere to go except forwards or backwards. I could hear the elephant behind me. She was trumpeting now (she must have got my shirt off her trunk) and it sounded like she was coming in my direction. There was nothing I could do except keep burrowing forward.