Storms Over Africa

by Beverley Harper

  Beverley Harper died of cancer on 9 August 2002. She rests at peace in the Africa she so loved.

  Her ashes lie by the Boteti River in Botswana, below a lodge called Leroo-la-Tau. It means Footprints of Lion.

  It is a special place.

  This simple plaque marks her passing:

  Also by Beverley Harper

  Storms Over Africa

  Edge of the Rain

  Echo of an Angry God

  People of Heaven

  The Forgotten Sea

  Jackal’s Dance

  Shadows in the Grass

  Footprints of Lion

  STORMS

  OVER

  AFRICA

  BEVERLEY HARPER

  First published 1996 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited 1 Market Street, Sydney

  Reprinted 1997, 1998 (three times), 1999 (twice), 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008

  Copyright © Beverley Harper 1996

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  cataloguing-in-publication data:

  Harper, Beverley.

  Storms over Africa.

  ISBN 9780330355780

  I. Title.

  A823.3

  Typeset in 11/12½pt Sabon by Post Typesetters Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2010 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd 1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  Copyright © Beverley Harper 1996

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  Storms over Africa

  Beverley Harper

  Adobe eReader format

  978-1-74262-681-9

  EPub format

  978-1-74262-683-3

  Mobipocket format

  978-1-74262-682-6

  Online format

  978-1-74262-680-2

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  This book is for Robert, Piers, Miles and Adam

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  She was a lovely baby. The family, when they were introduced two days after her birth, were generally pleased with her, laying their trunks lightly on her head by way of greeting. Weighing in at 130 kilograms, she was a little unsteady on her feet for a couple of days, so had a tendency to flop down at unexpected times. When this happened, either her mother, her older sister or her grandmother was quick to assist, prodding gently with their forefeet or nudging with their long and sensitive trunks until she was able to scramble up.

  Her grandmother was the matriarch of the small group of elephants which consisted of five fully grown females, a bull, four teenagers, three younger offspring and three babies. As the latest addition to the family, they all watched her carefully. If she strayed too far from her mother’s side there was always someone to herd her gently back. At first she rarely strayed. She remained in almost constant physical contact with her mother and would spend long periods simply leaning on her. The feel of that familiar warm bulk was of great comfort and reassurance. If her mother was otherwise occupied, her older sister did just as well.

  At around six months she began to develop her independence. In fact, she became quite annoyingly brash, although the adults tolerated her behaviour, not seeming to mind her clambering over their backs while they were trying to sleep, or shoving and pushing as she tested her strength against older members of the family. When she charged birds and leaves at a full, galloping run, or simply hurtled energetically around in circles, achieving nothing more than raising the dust, her family reacted with amused indulgence. Her boundless energy and restless inquisitiveness were normal phases of development and the adults let her get on with it. However, they were ever vigilant and if real danger threatened she was instantly pulled into the centre of the larger elephants with all the other calves.

  While she was quite steady on her feet after the first couple of days of life, learning to manage her trunk was another matter. It took over a year for her to master all the uses of this flexible limb, which was a cross between an arm, a nose and lips. At first, when she drank she would kneel in the water, holding her trunk in the air and drinking with her mouth. When she did start to use her trunk for drinking she got more sand than water in it, which caused her such irritation that she would blow it out furiously, spraying the others. They ignored this; her trunk was her own business and she would have to learn how to use it for herself.

  She met many other elephants outside her own family. Some were related, others friends, and still others no more than passing acquaintances. Communication was via a series of rumblings and by touch, and she quickly learned to recognise her own family.

  At two-and-a-half the hard tips of her permanent tusks appeared, and shortly after that, the weaning process began—although she would still suckle for anything up to another five years.

  Her life was contented, a constant round of eating, drinking, playing and sleeping. Having been born in a game reserve, she had no particular fear of humans and their strange noisy vehicles, simply the inbuilt distrust which was common in all things wild. However, some members of her family, particularly her grandmother, harboured an intense hatred of humans and never missed an opportunity to show it. Her grandmother had a reputation among the park rangers for her fierce mock charges and displays of temper.

  The young calf had watched the matriarch charge some of the park vehicles, and one day took it upon herself to stir up a pot of trouble on her own. An open Land Rover, carrying a driver, a ranger and two guests to the park, was stopped some distance away from where the family of
elephants browsed in a thinly wooded forest. Having first checked to make certain her grandmother was not planning one of her own spectacular charges, the calf announced her intention with a shrill trumpeting scream and some slightly uncoordinated ear flapping. When she had everyone’s complete attention, she tucked up her trunk, jutted out her 8 centimetres of tusk, and charged.

  Instead of beating a prudent retreat as it did when her grandmother displayed some bad humour, the Land Rover sat still and let her come. Perplexed, she pulled up to a dusty stop some ten paces away, weaved back and forth, swung her feet, screamed again, waved her trunk, flapped her ears and—quite suddenly—lost her nerve and ran, squealing, her tail held high in the air, back to the safety of her family. From that day on she left the business of making threatening displays to others.

  Once or twice a day the family made its way to the river to drink, bathe and frolic in the water, then emerge, dripping wet, and throw dust over themselves. It was her favourite time of day. There was always a chance of meeting other young elephants from different family groups and, since there was no rivalry between families, she could play and wallow in the water and spray others to her heart’s content. She was particularly fond of a young bull, several years her senior. He had snagged his right ear on a sharp thorn when he was a baby and, in his frenzy to escape the stinging intrusion of the 13 centimetre, hard-as-steel spike, he had shaken his head so violently that his wildly flapping left ear became similarly impaled. The only way out was backwards and, jerking angrily back, the soft baby tissue in both ears had torn as easily as paper. The injuries healed on either side of the lacerations and, as he grew older, the game wardens took to calling him ‘Bloomer Ears’ because both resembled old-fashioned ladies’ bloomers hanging on a washing line. Bloomer Ears was distantly related to her own family and the two of them would play for hours until one of their mothers told them it was time to leave.

  The first eleven years of this young lady’s life passed uneventfully, happily, in the warmth and security of her family unit, protected in the game reserve. Unless there was a serious drought, floods or bushfires, her future looked assured. But no-one had reckoned on how cunning humans had become in order to supply the lucrative commodity of ivory to a world not yet fully committed to the preservation of wildlife . . .

  Just outside the game reserve was a village, and to this village the Indian trader came. He was the middleman, he said. He represented the white baas who would pay well for ivory.

  ‘Ah, but,’ the villagers replied, ‘there are no elephants around here.’

  ‘The game reserve is full of elephants,’ the Indian trader argued.

  ‘Eeeiii,’ they laughed at him, ‘but the rangers have guns to shoot the poachers. It is too dangerous.’

  ‘That is true,’ the Indian agreed. ‘But I happen to know that, exactly two weeks from this night, all the rangers but two will be attending a conference in Harare. They will be away two days and two nights. This is a big park. Two rangers cannot possibly look after it all.’

  The villagers looked at each other and nodded. ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘only two rangers will make it easier. But we have no guns,’ they added craftily, their natural inclination to barter rising.

  The Indian had anticipated this. Normally he would have argued but his customer in Harare wanted a lot of ivory quickly and so he had come to the village with a quantity of AK47s—relics, no doubt, from the War of Independence. These he had acquired in a ‘no questions asked’ trade for cash with a high-ranking government official. He was prepared to give them to the villagers since the ivory deal was going to make him a rich man. The villagers clapped their hands in appreciation when they saw the weapons.

  ‘These will kill a lot of elephants,’ they said. ‘There will be much work for us to do to get the ivory.’

  ‘You will be well paid.’ The Indian trader mentioned a figure which was half that he had quoted his customer but was much more than they usually received for poached ivory.

  ‘It is so,’ the villagers said. ‘For this money, and with these guns, we will get you many tusks.’

  The deal was struck. The Indian left, telling the people in the village he would be back in two weeks with a truck large enough to carry the tusks. The men of the small village sat around the fire for a long time afterwards, talking of the fine deal they had made and all the good things they would be able to afford with the money. As the night wore on and the home-brewed beer fired their imaginations, it was agreed that, in order to give themselves time, the two remaining game rangers would have to be killed. This decision troubled them not at all since the men in question were of a different tribe.

  The adolescent calf wrapped her trunk around the branch, snapped it off, shifted its position deftly and fed, slowly and with great enjoyment, on the tender leaves. She was eleven years old and just entering puberty. In another year she would probably be ready to mate, carrying her baby for nearly two years before giving birth. The matriarch, her grandmother, had died of old age the previous year and her place had been taken by another female of considerable years and experience. This new matriarch, an aunt of the calf, displayed none of the hatred of visitors shown by her predecessor and so their family became a favourite one for the rangers to take tourists to see. Consequently, the already half-tame group became even more used to humans.

  Constant rumblings from other members of her unit kept her in touch with them and, when the matriarch turned to go to the river, the rest of the herd followed, led either by the rumbling conversation or by an instinct so primitive that humans, if they ever had a similar one, had squandered it a thousand years ago.

  The sun crouched, bright orange and huge, on the horizon. The day’s heat was abating somewhat and a cooling dip in the water—some splashing and spraying and girlish squealing, some mud wallowing and a long drink—was just the thing the calf needed. A slight breeze was eddying around, bringing with it the occasional scent of humans. When she felt this, the matriarch flapped her ears in mild disapproval but kept walking.

  They reached the grassy banks of the river. One thirsty two-year-old ran squealing down the path towards the water, his mother and older sister close behind him. The rest of the herd stood patiently waiting their turn to move down the sandy path. Then all hell broke loose.

  The poachers, due partly to their great fear of the destructive power of an enraged elephant but mainly to their delight at the deadliness of their Kalashnikovs, went into overkill mode. Safe from harm in the trees, the poachers literally shot the herd to pieces. Bits of bone and flesh, skin and tusk, flecks of blood and gore flapped and flew around like demented flies. Great ropes of blood spurted from severed arteries. The terrified screams of these gentle giants were drowned out by the repeated rapping of the guns. Toppled elephants lay dying, twitching, bleeding, broken and uncomprehending in and out of the river. The pale blue water turned an ugly reddish brown.

  Of the sixteen elephants in the family, only six carried ivory of a marketable size. Of those twelve tusks, three escaped injury of any sort, four were slightly damaged and the rest were shot to bits. The two-year-old who had run ahead to get to the water first lay on his side, squealing with fright and pain. The poachers ignored him. It took him three hours to die.

  The eleven-year-old female calf had three broken legs from the smashing impact of the bullets. She had to lie on the river bank and listen to the wet smacking sound of the axes and pangas cutting into members of her family to get at their tusks. One of the men approached her and looked at her undersized tusks with disgust. In irritation he swung his axe at her head, cleaving a 5-centimetre gap in her skull. So great was her pain from the bullet wounds she barely noticed.

  The hyenas found her later that night, attracted by the heady scent of blood. They ate her alive. She was eleven years old. She should have lived for another seventy years.

  One hundred and eighty-seven elephants and two game rangers died in the park that night. The following night another ninety-two
elephants died. Of the 279 elephants who died, only seventy-three had tusks of a reasonable, marketable size. Of those seventy-three sets of tusks, more than half had been decimated by the repeated fire of the AK47s. It was later estimated that 244 elephants either had no ivory worth dying for or that the very reason for their death had been shot to pieces. Two hundred and forty-four elephants died for no reason other than they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, all in the name of profit.

  Miraculously, Bloomer Ears escaped. At the first sound of the guns he had been about to run ahead of his family to the river. Having worked up a fast pace already, Bloomer Ears shied off the track and fled into the forest, while the rest of his family milled in confusion and became easy targets for the men in the trees. Trembling and afraid, Bloomer Ears was forced to listen to his family and friends being slaughtered.

  The destruction of the elephants at the river was witnessed by one other. A man whose farm shared a common border with the game reserve. There were no fences between the two properties and he was in the reserve looking for some cattle which had strayed. On foot, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, he was on the other side of the river. He had seen the elephants making their stately way to the water and had stopped to admire them. They were beautiful against a backdrop of orange sunset, unhurriedly huge, wild yet gentle, indisputably African. Then the shooting started. Hiding behind some boulders, he watched in horror as the slaughter began. There was nothing he could do. And when the men came out of the trees to hack out the ivory tusks, he realised there would never be anything he could do. Some of them were his men. Men he worked with, shoulder to shoulder, on his farm. Men he respected and loved. Men who carried with them his own guilty secret, his own secret shame. The man turned away from the gory scene, ashen-faced and sweating. His stomach heaved and he leaned over a boulder and vomited. And as he did, he knew he was as guilty as those men on the other side of the river.