As we arrived, the tree was creaking wildly on its roots and Nana gave a mighty heave. With a rending ‘crack’ the trunk splintered down onto the barrier, collapsing the poles and snapping the current, causing an almighty short circuit. Forsaking caution I rushed up and snatched at the wires to see if they were still live. As I feared, the fence was dead. And with the herd almost on top of us, we had a real problem.
‘No, Nana, don’t do it!’ I yelled with only a tangle of dead wires and flattened poles between us. My voice was raspy with desperation. ‘Don’t do it!’
Fortunately the frenetic clicking and snapping as the wires shorted had spooked her and she took a hasty step backwards. But for how long?
Thank God the electrician was there and as I pleaded with the agitated animals he and David got to work. With Nana, Frankie and the youngsters barely ten yards away, they calmly untangled the bird’s nest of wires, chopped the tree free, reconnected the cable, straightened the poles and got the power going again.
While all this was happening, I continued speaking directly to Nana as I had in the boma, using her name often and repeating again and again that this was her home.
She looked at me and for at least ten minutes we held eye contact as I kept talking.
Suddenly, as if baffled by what all the fuss was about, she turned and backtracked into the bush. The others followed and we exhaled with relief.
It was only then that I realized I hadn’t even considered picking up a rifle in case everything went amiss. My relationship with the herd had certainly changed for the better.
However, something else caught my attention during the commotion, something more sinister. It was the Ovambos. As the tree had come down, to a man they had bolted like startled rabbits. This was strange, I thought. These much vaunted rangers were actually petrified of elephants, not quite what you would expect from experienced men of the bush.
Then it flashed. It was as if I was seeing clearly for the first time. A fog had miraculously lifted. Despite their braggadocio, these men were not game rangers at all. They never had been. They were soldiers who could shoot straight, but otherwise knew precious little about conservation. They were now out of their element. I had always wondered why the Ovambos, who were supposed to be top-drawer trackers, had led us the wrong way during the original breakout. Now I knew.
Any remaining niggles of doubt in my mind dissipated. It was suddenly as obvious as the sun beating down on us. The guards were indeed the poachers, just as Ngwenya had said. They were the ones who had been plaguing the reserve for the past year, decimating the buck population. The last thing they wanted was a herd of wild elephants on Thula Thula.
Having no experience with elephants, let alone this unpredictable herd, they realized that with angry jumbos around their poaching racket would be ruined. The reason wassimple. Most poaching is done in the dark and one would have to be a brave – or monumentally foolish – man to trample around in the bush at night with this temperamental herd on the loose. It would be suicide. They desperately needed to engineer another escape so their lucrative sideline could continue.
Even though the evidence was completely circumstantial, the jigsaw pieces started fitting together. I suddenly remembered Bheki telling me a ‘gun had spoken’ at the boma on the night the elephants first escaped. Could someone have deliberately fired those shots to panic the herd and prompt a frenzied stampede?
This also explained why the fence wires had initially been strung on the wrong side of the boma poles. And of course there was no leopard at the cottage earlier this morning. I would bet the farm that they had been butchering illegally slaughtered animals and my unexpected arrival had almost caught them red-handed – literally. Ndonga had to distract me while they hurriedly hid the evidence. That’s why the game guard had come out from the back of the house wiping off his hands: they had been covered with blood.
And what about the tree that had been left standing right at the fence? That was probably the most obvious clue of all. It was far too coincidental not to have been deliberate.
I had been set up. Totally fooled.
However, not only had we been grotesquely betrayed, but – more importantly – the elephants were now in danger.
‘David,’ I said, pulling him aside. ‘I need to talk to you.’
chapter eleven
We climbed into the Land Rover and I fired the engine. I was fuming, not just at the Ovambos, but at myself for being so gullible. I had been taken in like a naive child.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked David.
‘The problem? The damn Ovambo game rangers. That’s the problem.’
‘Bloody idiots. They shouldn’t have missed that tree. I mean, how dumb is that?’
‘No,’ I shook my head vigorously as I drove off. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s the poaching. The Ovambos – they’re our poachers. They’re not rangers at all. They’re the bloody poachers.’
There was a stunned silence.
‘You’re kidding me,’ said David. ‘Nah … ?’
‘It’s them all right.’ Red with anger, I listed all the evidence, from the wires on the wrong side of the boma poles to what Ngwenya had just told me.
David’s face hardened as he took it all in. He, more than anyone else, had been at the frontline of the clashes with poachers.
He sat still, fists clenched. Then he said quietly, ‘Turn around, boss. I need to have a chat with them about a few things.’
David’s nickname in Zulu was Escoro, which means boxer, or fighter. Well-built, fit and unafraid, he had areputation as someone you didn’t mess with. He now
