Peter didn’t have to be told how serious the problem was and unhesitatingly agreed to help. While he got his chopper ready, we continued the chase on foot. But we had barely infiltrated the acacia jungle when our Ovambo game guards, staring at what appeared to me to be a flinty patch of dirt,shook their heads. After some deliberation, they proclaimed the elephants had turned back.
I had inherited the Ovambos from the previous owner, who thought highly of them. There are thousands of Ovambos in Zululand today, many of whom had fought in the South African Army during the apartheid wars. They’re mostly employed in the security industry and are valued for courage and weapon skills. They seldom socialized with my Zulu staff.
Ndonga had told me his team were expert trackers, which was why we were used them now.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked the head tracker.
He nodded and pointed towards Thula Thula. ‘They have turned. They are going that way.’
This was news I was desperate to hear. Perhaps they would voluntarily return to the reserve. I grinned and slapped David on the back as we headed back through the bush towards home.
However, after twenty minutes of some of the toughest going I have ever experienced, I began to have doubts. Sweat was cascading down my face as I called over the chief tracker.
‘The elephants are not here. There is no spoor, no dung and no broken branches. No signs at all.’
He shook his head, as if patiently consulting with a child, and pointed ahead. ‘They are there.’
Against my better judgement we carried on a bit further and then I had had enough. There was something wrong here. It was obvious there were no elephants around. An elephant, due to its massive size and strength, does not need to be furtive. It leaves very clear tracks, piles of dung and snapped branches. It has no enemies apart from man, thus stealth is not in its nature.
Also, every indication was that they were headingtowards their previous home. Why would they suddenly backtrack now?
I called David, Ngwenya and Bheki and told the Ovambos they were wrong; we were returning to the original tracks. The Ovambos shrugged but made no move to join us. I was too wrapped up in the intensity of the chase to think much about that at the time.
An hour later we picked up the spoor again – fresh and heading in completely the opposite direction. Why had the Ovambos chosen the wrong route? Had they deliberately led me the wrong way? Surely not … I could only surmise that they were scared of stumbling without warning upon the elephants in the wild terrain. There was no denying this was dangerous work.
In fact, a few years back in Zimbabwe, an experienced elephant hunter had been killed on a safari doing exactly what we were doing – tracking elephant in thick bush. Following what he thought to be a lone bull, he suddenly discovered that he had walked slap into the middle of a herd spread out in the heavy undergrowth. The first sign of this comes when one realizes in horror that there are elephants behind, that you walked right passed them without noticing. They had turned the tables and the enraged animals came at the hunter and his trackers. Completely surrounded, he and his men had no chance. They died grisly deaths.
We kept in radio contact with Peter who flew tight search grids over the bush ahead while John Tinley, a KZN Wildlife ranger from our neighbouring reserve called Fundimvelo, visited nearby settlements asking headmen if any of their people had seen the herd. The answer was negative, which was good news. Our biggest concern was that the animals would wander into a village and stomp thatched huts into floor mats or, worse, kill people.
Hot and scratched, shirts dark with sweat and nervesjangling, we kept moving, every now and again finding signs confirming we were on the right track. I reckoned we were at least two hours behind, but who knows – they could have been just ahead, waiting in ambush as the Zimbabwean herd had for the hunter. That fear was always with us. More than once we froze, hearts in our mouths as a kudu or bush-buck burst from its hiding place in a crackle of snapping sticks, often barely yards away so thick was the bush. It really was dangerous work and I could feel tensions starting to surface as we became more and more irritable.
Although progress was torturous, it was impossible to move faster. Thorns parted as one man squeezed through a gap and then snapped back like a hornet at the man behind.
What I was banking on was the animals stopping at a watering hole to rest, allowing us to catch up precious miles. A factor in our favour was that they had Nana’s two-year-old son, who we called Mandla, in tow. We named him Mandla, the Zulu word for ‘power’ in honour of his incredible stamina in staying with the herd during the long chase. He would slow them down significantly. Or so I hoped.
Eventually after a long, hot, thirsty and frustratingly empty day, the sun dipped below the horizon, and we stopped. Nobody looks for elephant stumbling around a thorn jungle at night. Tracking the animals in the thick stuff during daylight is bad enough; in the dark it’s suicide.
Reluctantly I called off the search and Peter agreed to fly again the next day.
We arrived home bedraggled and despondent and flopped onto the lawn in front of the house. Françoise came out and took over, issuing instructions for food and handing out ice-cold beers.
We were exhausted. But a hearty meal followed by a soaking
