By-Line Ernest Hemingway

by Ernest Hemingway

  Miss Mary was sleeping well on the straw. We had covered her with my coat and my raincoat since we believed her to be in a state of shock, which she would well be entitled to be in. I was lying beside her from time to time but most of the time huddled over the fire with Roy who was sleeping in a light open shirt and shorts. We had no means of ascertaining the temperature but I am sure it was quite low as I have never been colder.

  I was very much better off than Roy, however, since I had a fairly intact flannel shirt and also trousers. We had not thought we were going to be on an extended flight so we were lightly clad, since in Africa it is usually warm in an aircraft. Our conversation about the water tin was interrupted by a male elephant with quite big ivory who appeared at a distance of about 20 yards. He was evidently making his way up the elephant path to graze along the ridge when he stopped to investigate our fire. He spread his ears wide. They looked to me to be about 60 feet wide but I know from seeing elephants in the daytime that they attain no such dimensions.

  He raised his trunk which appeared to me to be several hundred feet long but I also know that such dimensions are impossible. He then uttered a very strange squealing noise and gave every sign of attempting to join our group. Roy and I maintained a rigid silence, including stopping of breath, and hoped, sincerely, that the elephant would decide to proceed upon his own business.

  • • •

  This he decided to do. During the night, visits from curious elephants were more or less routine but the only defensive measures taken against these large beasts, who, incidently, can assume imposing proportions in the moonlight, were to maintain strict silence and to hold and rehold any sound of breathing which might be offensive to these elephants who were, really, our hosts. Anyone who broke this attempt at complete silence in the presence of our hosts the elephants was remonstrated with as gently as possible. Miss Mary passed an excellent night and while she was in considerable pain in the morning she was extremely cheerful, asked what there was for breakfast, was surprised that tea had not been served, and consumed an unrationed apple.

  Roy had already left at daylight to obtain water from the Murchison Falls which in the crash of their falling water had prevented us from hearing any sound of aircraft which undoubtedly were searching the area. Several times, I thought I heard aircraft and at least once I was sure I had, but the sound of the falls, which was wind-borne toward us and varied with the intensity of the wind, made it impossible to be sure.

  During the morning while Roy was away, I maintained a signal fire to show our location to any passing aircraft and in the course of this it was necessary to search for dead wood. We burned live wood, breaking the branches off and putting them on the fire to maintain smoke. It was necessary however to get good-sized pieces of dead wood to maintain the fire. At one time, it was impossible to do this because every time you broke off a branch of dead wood you would be challenged by an elephant. However, with the use of collected twigs which were put in a pile as a source of replenishment for the fire and roots which were pulled out from the immediate vicinity of the camp, we maintained a good fire and kept up sufficient smoke.

  Unfortunately, we were in competition with several large brush fires of such an extent that one of our party had confused one with the rising of the moon. At this point, I had a rare moment, I hope, of irascibility and remarked, “The beloved moon would rise in such and such a direction over that ridge or it was not our moon.”

  • • •

  On one of these early-morning trips in search of wood, I had finally been able to get approximately 50 yards to the left of where we were camped, considering that we were facing down the ridge toward the river. The elephants were protesting any effort to obtain wood. They were browsing on the green brush and the crack of breaking dry wood annoyed them. However, by working very carefully with the wind in our favor, I had reached a tree which had very promising dry branches. At this point, hearing an elephant protesting when I broke a branch off the tree, I looked toward the sound of the protest and saw a white launch proceeding up stream on the river. During the course of this safari, we had many times seen mirages when the sun got high, and at the sight of this launch I thought first that I must check my eyesight. I called Miss Mary and told her that a launch was coming up the river. The launch by this time had disappeared behind a point. Miss Mary doubted my veracity, but in a most friendly way. I took her to the limit of the point of security against the elephants who were still talking and the launch emerged from behind the point.

  It was a very beautiful launch, fairly old-fashioned in lines, and we later found that it was the vessel which had been used in the motion picture called The African Queen, which starred two intrepid African characters called Katharine Hepburn, who has my great admiration, and Humphrey Bogart, whom I have never yet seen at bat in real life. He, however, was most convincing in this motion picture and I regarded the sight of this launch as a most pleasurable experience.

  We signaled to the launch which was making a trip which might have been made only once a month, and therefore was a most fortuitous arrival, and a group of characters commenced the arduous journey up the ridge. These characters were all Africans, one of them being of extraordinary stature, and I tried to direct their ascent in a manner in which they would not encounter the elephants. This was accomplished by keeping them on the western side of the draw.

  The elephants, scenting so many people, withdrew to the vicinity of the crashed aircraft. At this point, from my observation, they seemed to disperse. They had made a complete reconnaissance of the aircraft which was later verified by a BOAC pilot, Capt. R. C. Jude, who had flown over the aircraft, and they seemed to regard the aircraft in some way as their property. Since they did no damage to it, perhaps they regarded it as their guest, much as they appeared to look on us.

  Mrs. Hemingway descended from the camp with our visiting friends from the S.S. Murchison, alleged African Queen; one of the characters carried a large-caliber rifle and had the look of an extremely competent character. I thought Miss Mary was in good hands.

  I remained at the camp to await Roy Marsh to whom I had given rendezvous. He was returning to the camp after obtaining water from Murchison Falls which we all regarded as a very interesting waterfall. After sighting the S.S. Murchison, and seeing that Miss Mary was safely embarked, I made a decision to open the Grand MacNish and make a scotch and water with the now unrationed water which was the distilled water for the battery of the plane and which was now, I considered, eminently expendable. The only difficulty in preparing this beverage was the lack of any glass or other receptacle. I therefore commenced to drink, hurriedly, a bottle of the Carlsberg beer in which, when it was empty, I planned to make a mixture of the Grand MacNish and water.

  This operation was interrupted by the arrival of a group of elephants. No one of these elephants appeared to have any hostile intentions, except one which evidently had some memories of this old poacher’s site. Perhaps she had lost a lover or a husband there, at any rate she was definitely hostile. She extended her ears to their full extent and approached. I took immediate evasive action by scrambling on hands and feet up the steep rock on which we had planned to make the local variation of Custer’s last stand with Miss Mary.

  Roy and I had planned to propel Miss Mary manually up this rock in case the elephant approached beyond the bounds of normal approach by elephants. This elephant, for some extraordinary reason, since we had been in no way molesting elephants, seemed to have taken a great dislike to me, myself, personally. She attempted to ascend the incline below the rock. Since the rock had been selected for the defense of Miss Mary, and therefore was as secure as any such rock can be, I selected a number of slabs or pieces of rock and, although I am a right-handed pitcher, commenced to throw them at her with the left hand. The right had temporarily been immobilized by a dislocation of the elbow and the shoulder. The elephant was extremely noisy in her protest at my having taken a position on this rock.

  When you are t
hrowing from the left side at the eyes of an elephant you hit the right eye if you throw a strike. I threw one strike at this elephant and then two balls. The elephant maintained an aggressive attitude and raised her trunk to what I considered an exaggerated attitude since it was very nearly touching my person; a thing about which I am extremely sensitive; and especially with the elephant. This elephant seemed to be attempting to make contact which I consider was, in the highest traditions of whatever service to which I belonged, highly undesirable. The trunk of the elephant seemed at extremely close range a rather formidable object and the thing that I noticed about it most was that there was a strong odor from the tip and that the nose of the trunk was definitely pink on the inside. It also had a curious folding arrangement on the end. I wished I were back in the Kimana Swamp with the gentle cobra. The eyes of the elephant are small, but I tried for the right eye again and missed it. I threw a strike on the left eye and when this seemed to make slight impression on the elephant, who had not ceased speaking in what seemed uncivil tones, I was able to obtain a direct hit on the mouth.

  I will omit the dialogue between the elephant and myself but it was conducted, I am sure, on both sides in a rather unpleasant fashion. I can recall stating to the elephant, “Debark, you unspeakable elephant, before you are called upon to take the consequences.” The elephant replied in her own language which by this time I was commencing to have a small knowledge of.

  I then said, “Elephant, you die.” This was a phrase which I have read in correspondents’ reports of what happened with the Japanese in the late Pacific hostilities and since I was in no position to cause the death of an elephant it was much the same as the Japanese who being in no position to defend himself probably uttered the statement first.

  • • •

  The elephant maintained her position of, should we say, potential malevolence. Seeing that words and speeches had practically no effect on the elephant, I resumed the throwing of slates and rocks. As anyone knows, a right-handed pitcher, of which I was one of the worst, is not qualified to pitch with his left hand, but I succeeded in getting the elephant in the mouth one out of three times that she raised her trunk and addressed me in an impolite manner.

  Finally, she broke off the action and rejoined the other elephants, no one of which seemed particularly interested, although they talked a good deal among themselves and several bulls had their ears spread and seemed ready to participate in case their female champion should not gain the decision. Elephants are extremely nice people and I think that this elephant who misbehaved had probably been either ill bred or at some time mistreated. It is difficult to know exactly how an elephant feels about a human being since a good number of them have been wounded in the past by unskillful or careless people. One that I know of, when killed while we were in Southern Tanganyika, had fourteen different wounds with the projectiles embedded in the flesh when his tusks were removed and the carcass butchered.

  The man who killed him waited through the butchery to find out if possible the cause of the elephant’s temper. Evidently the elephant, an admirable beast who, however, can become dangerous, had become irascible through the lodging of these various projectiles in his flesh, bone and marrow; two were lodged in his skull. One could consider this to be sufficient provocation for any beast to suffer a slight loss of good temper. I do not know what had happened to this cow but it is possible that she had suffered the loss of some member of her family at the spot at which she took a dislike to me.

  After the departure of the elephants who went on up the ridge, I walked down to the aircraft and from the aircraft joined Miss Mary on board the S.S. Murchison. There was a charming party on board, consisting of a couple who were celebrating their golden wedding and their son-in-law and daughter and a young grandson named Ian. We photographed the plane for evidence after the crash and then built a back fire in order that the Cessna would not be damaged by any of the bush fires which were burning at the time.

  On the S.S. Murchison, we found that the son-in-law of the golden-wedding couple was Mr. McAdam, an excellent surgeon of the Protectorate. He examined Miss Mary and found that she had two broken ribs but was otherwise in quite good condition, having recovered rapidly from the shock.

  When Roy Marsh came aboard the Murchison, and the members of the party who had gone to view the Murchison Falls returned, we slipped the lines, lifted the single anchor and started down the river for Lake Albert with Butiaba as our eventual destination. It was lovely being aboard the launch which was clean, well run and had an excellent refrigerator containing Tusker beer and several brands of ale.

  No hard liquor was served, but a bottle of Gordon’s gin was obtainable from the Hindu in charge of the launch who sold it for what I considered and he admitted to be a rather exorbitant sum. Under the terms of his charter, he could dispense this beverage by the drink at a fairly reasonable amount, but in Africa the average drink which is dispensed is of such a minute size that it has no comparison to the drink one pours on safari. However, still having our money in our possession at this time, we obtained a bottle of this gin which I held in reserve in case there should be any necessity for its use.

  I had with us two bunches of bananas. One was exactly right and the other was slightly overripe. These had constituted our principal reserve when we were expecting to spend some time in the Murchison Falls area.

  The trip down the river was truly delightful. On both sides of the river, you could see large male hippo and female hippo with their young and there were many crocodiles. We were also able, as we descended the river on the left bank, to observe various elephants which I had come to know personally. It was a pleasure to toast these elephants and to drink to their health in Tusker beer, the first cold beer we had tasted in some time. It was nice to see that the crocodiles had not been disturbed by the crash of the Cessna 180 and still remained on the banks and under the trees with their heads pointing toward the banks. This seemed to impress Roy Marsh whose duty it had been to obtain water from the bank of the river. The maximum number of crocodiles I counted was seventeen in one group. We saw, perhaps, five hundred.

  All along the river, we encountered elephants, both solitary and in groups of six to twenty. Due to the drought which has dominated a large part of Africa for the last two years, this was probably one of the greatest concentrations of game along a water course there has ever been. Ordinarily, game are suspicious of a water course and prefer to take their water in any casual source where it may have accumulated in the rains; but due to the grass fires which were raging, the game had been concentrated along the river. They all seemed to be extremely amicable among themselves and the only incident that we saw of any being killed was the hippo which I have already mentioned.

  The river empties into Lake Albert and after that it is a rather gray expanse of water but there are many birds and you can see fish rising. The launch makes about seven knots at her best and so it is possible to observe the water and the distant shore line closely. There are concentrations of lake birds, pelicans, terns and considerable flights of duck, mostly teal and what we call puddle ducks.

  We were very happy on the boat and Miss Mary, after her examination, was offered the use of the bath which belonged to the golden-wedding couple. She had a good bath, rest and sleep and Roy Marsh also took a well-deserved nap while Mr. McAdam and myself discussed things in general. We came into Butiaba which is a small and rather unimpressive village on the lake shore and offers no form of accommodation except possibly a hotel for what is referred to in the Protectorate as Asiatics.

  The commander of the ship was an Asiatic and had long hairs growing out of both ears. For some reason, possibly tribal, which we always respect, he had never cut these hairs and they had attained a length which was, if not enviable, certainly extraordinary. One might even say that they bristled like a hedge and gave him, possibly, his only true distinction. They grew not only from inside his ears but also from the edges of the lobes. He had demanded as a fee for carry
ing us, Shs. 100/—a head. Since Mr. (you call a surgeon who has attended a university in the present British language Mr. rather than Dr.) McAdam had paid for the charter and considered rescued characters could ride on a ship free at his invitation, he protested this charge.

  Being conversant with maritime law, and knowing that the master of the ship was well within his rights even though an exaggerated amount of hair protruded from his ears, I paid this charge and Mr. McAdam made formal protest in writing. I explained to Mr. McAdam over a bottle of Tusker that you always paid these charges and then recovered them when you were in the right. This was subsequently proved true by the receipt of a checque for Shs.300/—from the East African Railways and Harbours, an eminently just institution which employed the skipper with the slight overgrowth of hair in and on his ears.

  • • •

  At Butiaba, we had the choice of spending the night on the Murchison, which I thought would not be too attractive to Miss Mary since a small vessel moored alongside a quay with her sleeping accommodation below offers little ventilation, or going by motor car to Masindi. We decided to go by motor car to Masindi. However, we met a pilot who had been searching for us all day and who was anxious to take us and our effects direct to Entebbe. He had refueled his plane, a de Havilland Rapide, and was ready to take off. My own reaction would be to proceed to Masindi which we eventually did, by motor transport.

  However, when one is invited to go upstairs in our set, known as the Fast International Sporting House Set, the suggestion is almost in the nature of a command. Capt. Reginald Cartwright, the pilot of the aircraft, made a rapid reconnaissance of the airstrip in a truck or, as we say here, a lorry. It was impossible to observe his progress on this reconnaissance due to the amount of dust raised. To me the landing strip appeared rather like the red hills of South Dakota and appeared to have large ridges shaped like a washboard along what we had to consider as the airstrip.