Love, Life, and Elephants

by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

  The water project, both planned and designed by David, was important to bring a large stretch of once waterless country into production, the aim being to relieve the impact of the elephants’ browsing on the river’s vegetation so that the rhinos in the area had more food and water. The recent death of over 300 black rhinos had been attributed by many to ‘elephant damage’, but as sizeable numbers remained, David concluded that the recent catastrophe might simply be due to an over-population of territorial black rhino along this particular stretch of the river. The engineering was challenging, since it entailed diverting the river at a point near Thabangunji where it was swift-flowing and took a sharp bend. There, a concrete wall had to be built against a bank to which the pumps could be anchored. The construction of the large circular holding tank at the very top of the Yatta Plateau – the idea being that the pumps would feed water to the tank, which would in turn feed the water out to waterholes or depressions on the other side of the river that had no surface water but good pasture – was also no easy matter, for all the building materials had to be manually hauled up the rugged steep sides of the escarpment in punishing temperatures of over 35 degrees, and since work was happening at both sites, David underwent a good deal of enforced exercise going up and down in order to be present at both. I supervised the cooking for the team back in camp, where I had an opportunity to observe the curious symbiosis between birds and crocodiles, the birds picking the crocodiles’ teeth clean, sometimes even venturing right inside open jaws that could have swallowed them whole with just one snap.

  As the onset of the rains became more imminent, it became a race against time to get the work at the pumping station done before the river flooded. Generators that would eventually power the pumps were wired up to provide floodlighting so that the men could work in shifts around the clock, David leading by example and working long into the night. Meanwhile, my work was cut out for me, having to ferry meals from the camp to the construction site several miles away. Arriving at the site, I would rest beneath the shade of a huge baobab festooned with the untidy nests of a noisy flock of buffalo weavers. The tree was a hub of constant activity and chatter, the nests buzzing with life. Clustered along the branches, the birds had carefully laid barricades of thorns to deter arboreal snakes. It was easy to become absorbed in the hustle and bustle of buffalo weaver life, watching the little black males with their bright white shoulder flecks reinforcing the nests by jabbing in twigs and grass stems, while others popped in and out with offerings of food for the young.

  One morning, I spotted two tiny bald chicks covered in a few prickly feather buds, all head and gape, squeaking feebly. They had fallen out of their nests and as I stroked them tenderly in my palm, one of them went limp and died. I knew the other would follow if I didn’t do something about it, so I consulted David, who immediately asked one of his workmen, a proficient baobab climber, to take the chick back up. Cutting each foothold with an axe as he went, in no time at all he managed to pop the chick back in the nest, but as he began his descent, the chick rolled out and fluttered down again. Fortunately, I managed to break its fall by catching it in the folds of my dress.

  ‘You’ve got your work cut out now,’ laughed David, and I soon found out that he was right. ‘Hopgrogging’, as it became known, instantly became a full-time preoccupation for me in between the meal runs. From dawn to dusk I was at it, armed with a long whippy stick, stalking every grasshopper in sight and then decapitating it before stuffing it into a jam jar. We named the tiny chick ‘Gregory Peck’ and he thrived, growing quickly and soon recognizing his name, answering the Peck part with a loud squawk.

  Eventually the day arrived when the concrete wall in the river was keyed to the rock of the riverbank and the pumps could be installed at the Thabangunji site. This was not a moment too soon, as two days later the river became noisier and began to rise, swelled by rain up-country. Tsavo remained parched and unspeakably hot, as though it would never ever rain here again, but the expression on the faces around me became increasingly anxious as the river level rose to the point where the newly laid concrete was no longer visible. The fear was that weeks of hard work might be lost should the cement not have time to harden and simply get washed away.

  And then, one night, the wind dropped and the air was still. The stars disappeared behind a dark black curtain lit by flashes of forked lightning, thunder boomed, and we could hear the hiss of the coals as the rain began to fall, dousing the flames and sending up wisps of smoke. The whole camp remained seated round the dying embers of the campfire, enjoying the cool luxury of the rain and the refreshing scent of the newly dampened earth, but as the raindrops gathered momentum and turned into a steady downpour, we were forced to retreat to the mess tent. David turned on the radio and against the backdrop of thunder we picked out the news that the main railway bridge across the Athi upstream had been swept away and that there was every indication that more torrential rain was on the way.

  ‘I think we should move the camp to higher ground,’ said David, ‘right now, before the river rises.’ So, in the midst of a blinding rainstorm, we set about dismantling the camp, hurling drenched canvas that weighed a ton on to the back of the Land Rover and ferrying it to higher ground just below the Yatta escarpment. There we took shelter in the hurriedly erected mess tent, chaos prevailing as everyone groped around in the light of a feeble torch trying to locate their belongings and heaving up the sagging canvas of the roof to release a cascade of watery mud down the sides. Finally, having excavated a clearing in the midst of all the kit, we curled up in the middle, wet and weary, but elated that substantial rain was falling in Tsavo, which was always cause for celebration, even though the timing could have been better! I cradled a shivering Gregory Peck to my chest, anxious about Old Spice, who had sequestered himself that morning somewhere on the banks of the river, where he would be very much at risk of being swept away. The roar of the river grew louder as the night progressed, and when I finally fell into a fitful sleep I dreamed of Malindi and the sound of the surf at high tide. By the time a watery dawn lit the sky, the rain had stopped and we stepped out to view a transformed landscape. The river was a chocolate torrent swirling angrily over where our tents had stood just hours before, already lapping halfway up the palm-fruited duoms and acacias, many of which had been uprooted and swept away. Fortunately the men discovered that their wall had withstood the might of the flooded river.

  When David came back from the construction site in the late afternoon we went off in search of Old Spice. Our old campsite was now just part of the river itself, but we walked along the water’s edge calling out for him as loudly as we could over the noise of the water, imitating his clucking sounds. Darkness set in and by torchlight we picked up plenty of pairs of eyes glowing like embers in the dark, some red – predators – and some green – herbivores – but none that belonged to Old Spice.

  As we made our way back to camp, I heard the pattering of feet behind us and lo and behold, there he was. The joy of this reunion was mutual – he purred and nuzzled and we took it in turns to carry him to our new home. There, I rummaged around to find the all-important aftershave, and from then on, he returned at dusk as usual to be anointed and have a cuddle before hurrying off into the night. Now that the rains had come, there were interesting puddles to inspect and a regular nocturnal banquet of insects that crash-landed around the light we had erected outside the mess tent.

  Meanwhile, the rain continued unabated up-country, making 1961 a truly memorable year. Wild flowers sprang up as if from nowhere – delicately scented snowdrops, tiny blue and white African violets and the pure white convolvulus creeper. Butterflies fluttered around the flowers and gathered at moist elephant dung-balls. During the daily ‘hopgrogging’ chore I would pick a pretty bunch of wild flowers for the mess tent, and often when I went to bed I would find a beautiful orchid-like delonix blossom on my pillow, as a token of David’s love.

  We were sandwiched between two flooded rivers, the Galana
and the Tiva, responsible for sixty workmen and cut off from base. A runway was cleared nearby so that supplies could be ferried in by air and sick men taken out if necessary. In many places the river had widened its course by 100 yards or more, and the roar of the water was punctuated by loud crashes as huge trees fell, adding to the unbelievable amount of debris that was already being carried down the swollen torrent. Many of the baboons roosting in trees along the riverbanks at night were being swept away when the trees went down, and we also saw the carcasses of livestock that must have come from beyond the boundaries of the Park.

  It was essential to maintain contact with the south bank of the river so that supplies of food and fuel could be ferried across to us. Eventually a cable was dragged and anchored across the river, providing a lifeline to civilization and enabling supplies to be winched across. It wasn’t exactly a safe means of transport while the river remained in spate; it was far too risky to ferry the workmen across, many of whom could not even swim, so there was nothing for it but to sit it out and wait for the river to subside. However, now that cement and supplies could reach us, work was able to continue, and for three more months, while the Lugard’s Fall causeway was flooded, we lived in our little camp beneath the Yatta Plateau. David kept in radio communication with both the Nairobi Headquarters and Park HQ at Voi and I must admit that I rather enjoyed being away from the usual demands on his time. I wrote long letters to Jill, the musings of a marooned mother!

  Old Spice had pretty much grown up in camp and by now was spending more time away from us, ever more secretive and increasingly independent. Sometimes we didn’t see him for days at a time, and then he would reappear in our tent in the dead of night. Gregory Peck had, by contrast, turned out to be gregarious and outgoing, sitting on my shoulder as I went about my daily chores. He even participated in the grasshopper hunts, hopping alongside me and quivering with excitement whenever we nailed the quarry. One morning I was carrying him on my hand when he started exercising his wings, flapping them frantically, and the next moment he was airborne, swooping downwards at first and then gaining height and fluttering unsteadily to the top of a tall acacia where I could just make him out at the very top, a long way up for a maiden flight. I called him and he replied with his usual cheep after the Peck, but he appeared to lack the confidence to come down. Just as I was steeling myself to accept that this could be the parting of the ways, he fluttered from his perch and landed squarely on my shoulder, to be rewarded by the fattest grasshopper in the tin.

  Gregory Peck was happiest when embroiled in a great deal of activity, so we decided that it was time to introduce him to the car, a trip north to the Tiva having been planned to assess the damage caused by floods there. Rain had transformed the northern area of the Park. Grass was now waist high, the road barely visible. It was as though we were driving through a field of wheat, and every now and then we had to stop to remove the grass seeds that choked the radiator grille and caused the temperature gauge to reach boiling point. We passed several healthy-looking rhinos who trotted off with a spring in their step, tails held high – a treat to see them thus, after the die-off of the previous drought year. When we reached the Tiva, we could see that the devastation was severe – great trees uprooted, lying amid piles of driftwood on both banks of the river, the crossing at Makoka blocked by enormous sand bars as high as a house. One look told us that the blind at Kathamulla must surely have been demolished.

  Gregory became a seasoned traveller, accompanying us everywhere we went, perched on David’s shoulder. Occasionally he would be blown off and out of the window, so we would have to pull up and wait for him to catch up with us. On one occasion we inadvertently chose to take a break beneath a noisy colony of buffalo weavers, and I was interested to see how Gregory would react to his own kind. Surprisingly he merely ignored them, and David explained that birds raised by humans tended to imprint to such an extent that they might never recognize their own kind again. Certainly Gregory’s rendering of a buffalo weaver’s sound was not quite as it should be, more just a raucous squawk. However, he seemed happy enough with it, announcing each new dawn with that lusty screech.

  Back down south, the Athi River eventually abated. I was by now anxious to get back for Jill, who would be returning from school for the Christmas holidays. However, at the causeway the approaches had been completely swept away, with just a yawning chasm between the concrete and the bank, the river having extended its width by some 300 yards. David waded in to assess whether there was any chance of getting a vehicle across but decided that it was out of the question. There was no alternative but to risk a crossing in the Aruba dinghy before more rain up-country swelled the river again. I packed an angry Old Spice and a flustered Gregory Peck into their boxes, said goodbye to the people with whom I had shared this peculiar time, strapped myself into a lifejacket and headed for the river. We set off in the dinghy, not without trepidation, for I was very aware that should the boat tip up, I would not be able to save either Gregory or Old Spice in their respective boxes. I was relieved when we all landed safely on the other side without mishap. David remained behind to repair the Galana causeway so that the bulk of the equipment and staff could follow by road. I couldn’t wait to see Jill along with the rest of my family, who planned to spend Christmas with us.

  The three months stranded in camp had been an adventure, time suspended from the hustle and bustle of Park HQ. Little did I know how busy it was all going to get on our return.

  9. Settled

  ‘The monstrous sophism that beasts are pure unfeeling machines, and do not reason, scarcely requires a confutation.’

  – Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  During our three months away, our elephants, rhinos and buffalo calves had grown in numbers and become unlikely companions. Back at home David had recently constructed a lion-proof stockade for all the orphans, and at first Samson and Aruba had been dubious about the newcomers, mock-charging the little buffaloes with alarming regularity. Rufus the rhino was indifferent to their demonstrations, and oddly this seemed to reassure the elephants as they began to bond with their new cohabitants. Within a week or two, our little herd of assorted animals – now known as the big orphan group – became remarkably close, travelling everywhere together, delighting any visitors that came across them in the Park.

  In no time at all Gregory Peck mastered the geography of the Headquarters. He slept in our bedroom, and each morning, on hearing the dawn chorus, his little eyes popped wide open. Shaking out his feathers, which were gradually becoming mottled with black, he walked to the entrance of his box, looked around for David and me and fluttered straight down on to our bed, making sure that we woke up by pecking our eyelids. When satisfied, he squeezed through the grid on our window, disappearing outside to join in the singing. He never went far. As soon as we sat down to breakfast, he would reappear, inspect the contents of our plates, grab whatever he fancied and fly off. Having eaten his stolen token, he then flew back into our room, eternally hopeful that I had left my powder puff on the dressing table. Ever since arriving at the house, he had been hell-bent on adding it to one of his interminable nests, messy entanglements under construction all over the place. At least I didn’t have a beehive hairdo, fashionable at the time, as did one visitor who had to endure twigs and sticks being stuck into her lacquered mop.

  I was extremely proud of my new home and appreciated it all the more after living in a tent for three months. Before breakfast, I liked to spend a few quiet moments cutting flowers from the garden, eager to emulate my mother, who had always filled our home with sweet-smelling floral scents. So, it seemed, did Gregory. As soon as my secateurs were out, he would interrupt whatever he was doing, balance himself on my shoulder and chirp away as I cut the blossoms. Never one to just watch, he would make a determined effort to join in, gripping a stem firmly in his beak and hurling himself backwards with all his might. Invariably the stem sprang back but Gregory refused to let go, hanging on for dear life, usually
ending up hoisted clean off the ground. With each attempt, his mounting frustration – furious squawking and ruffled feathers – meant I had to lend him a hand, but Gregory was an independent little buffalo weaver, preferring to do things for himself. It wasn’t long before he realized that once the flowers had been carefully arranged in a vase and placed in the living room, they were there for the taking. He also understood that disruption to my flower arrangement was not popular, so he would wait until my back was turned, dart in, pull them out one by one and scatter them all over the floor, only absconding with one in his beak when I chased him away.

  Gregory was an amazing little bird, my companion at virtually all times of the day. He was the first to report for duty as the day’s working activities gathered momentum. After mischievously disrupting my flower arrangement, he headed straight for the office, where he set about picking up the letters and pencils from David’s desk, his eyes shining in delight as he dropped each one on to the floor. Next, with a document or two in his beak, he flew off to the workshop to see if the concrete mixer was in operation. This was one of his priority nest sites, so he dropped off any twigs or documents he had on him and then hopped over to the tool shed, where he busied himself with nest-building, shrieking happily at the top of his voice in competition with the giant diesel engine that powered the electrical appliances. Being a buffalo weaver, I suppose he equated noise with nest-building, the most important activity to a colony of his kin, who would all chatter away together as they made their homes in the same tree.