Death in the Long Grass

by Peter Hathaway Capstick

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  Ever since the first of our hairy-chested ancestors pit-trapped a mammoth, elephant hunting has been an apogee of dangerous sport. Shaka, the mighty Zulu conqueror who placed most of southern Africa under his heel in the nineteenth century, frequently amused himself by ambushing and hamstringing elephants on narrow mountain paths. From what we know he personally chopped away at quite a few of these monsters with nothing but a special axe made for the purpose. Farther north some Arab tribes used to practice the same sort of suicidal madness a few hundred years ago, hunting on horseback in two-man teams. One man would drop off his partner with a long sword behind the elephant while he rode to the front to distract the animal. When, and if, the hamstringer did his work, his pal would pick him up and ride out of danger. Theoretically, that is. Having been within waltzing distance of a couple of thousand elephants myself, I have no doubt that quite a few Arab sports made it to Paradise a hair ahead of schedule.

  Africa, to a great degree, was opened up by the professional elephant hunters, as colorful and independent a group as ever entered a wilderness. In the last century and early in this one, a man with a good rifle, some capital for a safari, and an overabundance of guts could make his fortune in a few seasons—provided, of course, he didn’t die of disease, crocs, snakebite, cannibals, treachery from his own bearers, heat, cold, starvation, thirst, or boredom, to mention a few specialties of the house awaiting the unlucky or unwary in early Africa. However, despite the long list of more exotic ends that an ivory hunter could achieve, he was more likely to fall victim to an overdose of elephant than anything else.

  A very few, like the supertough little Scot, W. D. M. “Karamoja” Bell, named after the Karamajong region of Uganda where he hunted, killed a couple of trainloads of ivory with rifles even lighter than many used today for deer in America, never getting so much as a hangnail in the bundu. Nonetheless, old jumbo caught up with most. In reading the old journals, the most amazing aspect of the profession was not how many practitioners were killed, but how many lived through maulings that would make a survivor of Custer’s Indiscretion look like a piker.

  Arthur Neumann, one of the fraternity, was pounded and gored for an incredible fifteen minutes by a wounded bull that, among other substantial modifications to Neumann’s person, actually shoved a tusk through his upper arm, between the bicep and the bone. If you consider that this was forty years before penicillin and that he was several hundred miles into unexplored bush with only his native mule drivers, you get the flavor of what kind of fix Neumann was in. Heaven only knows how or why he lived, but he did—at least long enough to retire a wealthy man in England. Dozens of other hunters were gored, stamped, and tossed, tramped and hammered by bulls that didn’t die on schedule, pointing up the high cost of ivory. One, George Rushby, the same fellow that eliminated the Njombe man-eating lions, was thrown fifty feet—five stories—through the air by a wounded elephant. Picking himself up, he limped back to his rifle and killed the bull with one shot. That takes a sense of humor.

  Every year during the rains ivory hunters used to have little get-togethers that have been compared to the rendezvous of the American Mountain Men. The object of those hoedowns was to share the news and find out how many of the brethren had gone west during the past season. It has been said that it was possible to get stinking, motherless drunk at such affairs by having just one belt to the memory of each hunter who had zigged when he should have zagged during the past few months.

  The strain of elephant hunting in the heavy bush and long grass was enough to wear down even the gutsiest of the pros after a while. Many good ivory hunters lost their lives along with their nerves when just one tembo too many came thundering down on them. A typical case was that of Billy Pickering, who shot one of the best tuskers on record, almost 200 pounds of ivory on each side. The very next day after his triumph, he drew a bead on another bull, which charged him after a shift in the wind. His gunbearer later reported that although Pickering raised and aimed the rifle, he seemed paralyzed and did not fire as the elephant barreled down on him. Pickering must have known what fate had up her sleeve for him since he never even tried to run. For openers, the bull literally ripped Billy’s head from his body, pitching it quite a respectable distance away in the bush, where it was later found by a fellow hunter named Clarke, sent to scoop up the remains. Strangely, Clarke, who was an old hand himself, had a similar thing happen to him a short while later. He was about to ventilate a nice bull from a canoe, a relatively safe position, but he could not force his finger to press the trigger. Although the bull never saw him and did not charge, that afternoon wrapped up Clarke’s hunting career. He never fired another shot.

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  I have often pondered, on a time-elapsed basis, if I have spent more time running from or after elephants. In an area as thickly populated with jumbo as Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, chance encounters at close quarters with elephants are an everyday affair, and getting chased is one of the greatest and most frequent hazards of safari life. Although elephants do not see well, they can hear you clear your throat at half a mile and sniff you from twice that far. I know their powers of scent for a fact, having once been more than a mile from three tuskers drinking at the river, with the wind at my back. Roughly calculating how long it would take for my scent to drift that far, I sat down and waited. Sure enough, right on schedule all three bulls stopped drinking, lifted their trunks, and lit out. The only way to avoid groups of angry or disturbed elephants is to “cut the wind” on them, always keeping the prevalent breeze blowing from them to you. This is not as simple as it sounds, especially when the wind is eddying and shifting, and a protracted game of hide and seek with a large, displeased herd is not the sort of experience that fades with the passage of years.

  I particularly recall a single day in the Luawata area of the Luangwa Valley in 1969 that is as fresh in my mind as if it had happened this morning. I was hunting with Dr. Marco Ugoletti, an Italian physician from Bologna, who had brought along a reporter from one of the Italian “slick” magazines for a series of articles on African hunting and safari life. A local tribesman had come into camp and reported to me that there was a good bull in a large herd some ten miles from camp, along the Munyamadzi River. Normally, I would disregard such information because Africans, if you ask them, will tell you there is a huge bull with teeth like telephone poles just over the next hill. Their reasoning is that, who knows, there just might be a tusker, and if a crazy white man kills it, then they are in for a reward for the information. Really good ivory is rarely found in herds, which are mostly composed of cows and calves (the former always acting as leaders). Still, I had gotten reliable information from this man before and decided to investigate.

  Because of the terrain, we left the hunting car about five miles from the last reported position and approached on foot, arriving at the Munyamadzi about midday. To my astonishment there were two herds of elephant on a wide plain along the river, totaling perhaps a hundred animals, a very substantial gathering for that part of Africa. Glassing them carefully, I spotted a single big bull mixed in with the rest, a fine tusker with a left tooth that had to go eighty pounds. The right was broken off a foot shorter than its mate but would still probably weigh seventy pounds or so. I have no idea to this day what he was doing in a herd like that, but times being what they are, if a bull with eighty pounds on one side can be found, you had better forget the shopping list and take him while you can.

  It was an interesting and tricky tactical situation. The herd was a quarter-mile away across completely open ground, quite the opposite of normal shooting conditions. Our approach would have to be very cute, or we would become the center of attention of a lot of angry elephants. The problem was compounded by the pockmarked character of the ground, typical of the dry-season condition of the area. During the rains herds of elephants coming to water along the riverine zone sink two feet or more into the gummy, black soil with each step, creating a terrain like a lunar landscape. W
hen the dry, cool winter comes, these depressions harden to rocklike consistency until they are almost impossible to walk over, balanced on the rims, without breaking an ankle.

  I lit a cigarette to check the wind. Then, after I instructed my six other men to head for cover—they never had to be told twice—Marco, Paolo, Silent, and I huddled closely together in a sort of rugby scrum to give the appearance of a single large animal and started toward the herd. We stopped often to check the position of the big bull since he appeared to be drifting through the loafing herd. At thirty-five yards an old cow swung our way, studying our composite form suspiciously, her trunk waving like the rope trick performed with a steamship hawser. We froze long minutes before she turned away, satisfied that we were a rhino. At that moment the bull appeared at the edge of the herd, offering an open shoulder shot. I patted my own side to signify that Marco should take him in the heart with his .458 Winchester caliber over/under Austrian double rifle. I saw his hair fly with the kick, the 500-grain slugs thumping just over the animal’s heart, certain to take out the big plumbing over the organ.

  There was a silence of a half-second of stunned disbelief from the herd, and the world literally went mad. There’s not much point in describing the scene because the typewriter hasn’t been invented that can adequately portray what it’s like to be next to a hundred furious elephants at close range with no place to hide. Shoving Marco, whose rifle had frozen its action, and Paolo at Silent, I suggested that they begin the process of placing at least two zip codes between themselves and the elephants while I brought up the rear at flank speed. I was about to wheeze a breath of relief upon completing a hundred yards through the pockmarks when the naiad airs pulled a switch on us. The wind changed abruptly 180 degrees and here came the elephants, two by two. With a communal grace that would make the Bolshoi ballerinas blush, we took off crosswind, hopping over those craters in a state of classic motivation, like O. J. Simpson taking the tire drill.

  We got away with it. Almost. At the edge of the plain, after 300 more yards of wind-sprint, lateral Arabesques, we collapsed and looked back at the herd, which was howling in frustration at losing our scent. At that point a very interesting thing happened. They all bunched up for a minute or more, making whatever you would like to call elephant conversation, then began to fan out from a central position. It was, I am convinced, a mutually agreed-upon decision to hunt us down in organized fashion, despite the wind. I may save a lot of printer’s ink telling you that they very nearly did just that, forcing us to dodge and run for an hour and a half before we lost them completely. From a treetop I could see that the old bull was down, surrounded by his retinue who hung around until two o’clock. When they were well gone, we sneaked back out and inspected the ivory, which, if anything, was even better than I had hoped.

  Reasoning that the clients were hot and thirsty as well as a touch jumpy from the experience, I gave them my driver to guide them to the car and take them back to camp while I covered my skinners and trackers as they began the long, precise business of chopping out the ivory. After five or six days of warm weather tusks may be pulled free without chopping, but I was apprehensive about leaving a pair of beauties like this for someone to stumble upon. Wolfing a strip of biltong, I instructed the driver to return, after dropping off the clients, to a point close to the carcass to pick us up.

  It was nearly dark when we finished the task and I realized that there was still no sign of my car. At last light I saw Teapot, the driver, loping across the plain from the other side, a bedraggled, thorn-torn man if I had ever seen one. Shuffling his big, bare feet in the dirt, he told me he had run into the herd again, outrun them despite hot pursuit, only to hang the car up by the chasis in a gully in such a manner that none of the wheels would touch the ground. He tried his best to free it, but the increasing sound of the approaching herd had forced him to run for his life. I debated whether to wait for morning to see about the car but decided that we had better go straight away and hope for the best.

  Twilight was just a golden smear in the west when we started off, plotting a course around a pair of large bush fires that are common in the dry season. These are fast, spectacular blazes that, although some would disagree, I believe generally benefit the bush and grasses by removing the dead matter and fertilizing the new with ashes, yet not doing serious damage to living trees and game. The world, as seen upwind of a burning peninsula, was eerie, blood red from the glow of the flames, and the air was punctuated by the popping of exploding grass stems that sounded like a distant fire fight. I was wandering casually along when I felt Silent’s hand grab my shoulder and shove me to the right. Surprised, I swung around and looked straight up at a group of elephants bursting from cover mere yards away, headed right at us, black hulks against the glow. More by instinct than anything else, we ran almost at them, passing only a few feet from their right flanks, close enough so that I easily could have touched the last one with my hand. In a second the night swallowed them up, spooky in their awful silence. Whether because of the smoke in the air preventing them from catching wind of us or just the masking darkness, they had missed us. That’s just as well because at that range, had they noticed us, I doubt that I would be writing this now.

  The hunting car was in a magnificent state of uselessness. Deeply wedged into a sandy draw, it had been tusked completely through the radiator as well as penetrated through the body metal five times. I wondered why it wasn’t worse, then realized that in its awkward position, the elephants couldn’t crush it with their feet. By the signs only two cows had found it and attacked the human scent, then retreated. Still, it was a long walk back to camp and a week before it could be repaired.

  Elephants do not like cars, especially at close quarters. In most parts of south-central Africa, a man gets from one hunting area to another over a series of tracks cut before the season, sometimes by hand, sometimes by tractor. Most of these permit the dizzy speed of about six miles per hour for reasonable comfort; at ten miles per hour, the ride is not unlike one in a paint mixer. Since the least rocky terrain is usually near the rivers, at least in Zambia, of necessity these tracks run through huge patches of chokingly thick bush that permit little visibility forward and to the sides. One chum of mine, in a hurry at dusk, actually hit a cow elephant across the back of her hind legs, which forced her to sit down on the bonnet of the car. Fortunately for my friend, she was as surprised as he was, and, after blowing both front tires and crushing the forward body work and suspension, she took off through the darkness.

  Another morning, the late Peter Hankin and I were riding together with his safari crew as he showed me around a new area I would be taking over. As we bounced along an especially bad stretch of track, across a streamlet, the men in back of his pickup Land Rover began shouting and pounding us on the back. We looked around and were horrified to see a one-tusk bull jumbo bearing down on us like we were standing still. He was about thirty yards behind the car and rolling along at nearly twenty miles per hour, while we were forced to crawl along at eight. Obviously, it would not be long before we met. Hankin downshifted and yelled for the men to hang on, then slammed the accelerator to the floor. I was almost thrown out twice before we had covered a few car lengths over the pot-holed path, despite a death grip on the dashboard “Jesus” bar. Two of Peter’s men were not so lucky. When we hit the edge of an antbearhole, the Rover disappeared from beneath them and they landed in the road, smack in front of the bull. There was no way we could help; both guns were cased and there was no time to get them out and loaded. As we watched helplessly, both men sprang up and dashed in opposite directions just as the elephant was almost on them. The bull pulled up in confusion, uncertain whether to take after one of them or keep chasing the car. The blacks were gone in a twinkling and we had gained a few precious yards to a smoother part of the road. When we were sure we had enough room to maneuver, we began to shout and blow the horn until the animal took after us again and we were able to lose him. Both men turned up, stark naked,
a few hours later, having shed their clothes to slip through the bush easier. I never saw that elephant again, although we went back to look for him and lost his spoor in a rocky area. An animal matching the description of this one tusker was later killed in the game reserve after being labeled a chronic car chaser, considered a very negative reaction to the public by the Tourist Board.

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  Unquestionably, the most controversial single issue ever raised about African hunting is the question of which animal is the most dangerous game besides the over-excited client. The choice is usually made from an individual’s personal experience with the species that came closest to helping him cash in his chips. As a personal sentiment I am very democratic, being scared blue of anything that bites, even though I have probably come as close to the Big Tax Shelter in the Sky with elephants as with any other animal because so much of my hunting experience centered around them. In any case the matter has never been settled (and probably never will be) because there are so many factors to be considered. Take terrain. Lion hunting as it was done in the old days on Kenya’s Athi Plains, wide-open, low-grass tableland, is nothing like tiptoeing through the high grass after a gut-shot feline in Botswana’s Okavango Swamp. The contour of the terrain affects all hunting of dangerous game, the degree of danger being dependent upon individual circumstances. The thing to remember is that all big game are very good at killing you if you give them even a fraction of a chance.