The Elephants Up the Ante

It was a fairly normal night last night, except for the fact it was raining and therefore fairly miserable.  Hennie and I were doing an observation post (OP), but in a fairly relaxed way as it would be unlikely any poachers would come out in the rain, so we had set up a shelter at the OP location and at the firm base to stay as dry as possible.  Anyway, Hennie wakes me for my shift at 2100 hr and there is an elephant bashing around about 200 m away.  Over the next hour or so it slowly moves away and I relax a bit just trying to stay warm and dry.  Because it’s a bit noisy with the wind and the drops from the trees (it had stopped actually raining recently), I couldn’t hear a lot.  All of sudden an elephant walks up the road, appearing about 5 m in front of me!

Now being experienced at this I freeze, anticipating the elephant will walk past, when he turns, looks straight at me, puts out his ears and shakes his head (a warning sign that he is about to charge).  So I say f@#k this and I roll out of the shelter away from the elephant and take off into the bush with the elephant close behind.  Anyway, after about 3 hours (really 3 minutes) of playing hide and seek in and around trees and bushes, the elephant stops charging and stands there about 20 m away looking in my direction, but unable to see me.  Being a good friend I was concerned about Hennie who had been asleep in the firm base, which was the direction that the elephant was now turning towards.  I figure if I make a noise the elephant will follow me and move away from Hennie, so I shout out “Hennie, the elephants near you but I will lead it away”, I then take off running south parallel to the road to draw the elephant off.  I had assumed that a rampaging elephant would have woken Hennie, and I didn’t expect a response from him which would draw the elephant closer to him.  So here I am running through the bush, dodging around trees and thorns, having the time of my life, when all of a sudden about ten metres in front of me two more elephants appear!  My plan had been working well up until this stage!

OK, elephant behind, two elephants in front, Hennie off to my left, time to turn right.  So I bolt across the road, hurtle an electric fence (yes I can still do that at my age if I am being chased by an elephant), and dodge around the corner of a building.  I will be safe now as elephants don’t like electric fences.  The next thing I know, my radio squawks to life and Hennie in a whisper says “there is an elephant about 5 m away from me”.  No shit, thanks Hennie!  So I respond there is a “whole herd of elephants all around us, but don’t worry I am safe”.  Hennie had managed to sleep through all of the preceding events.  As if this wasn’t enough it then started raining again.

By this stage things had gone quiet and I started thinking about my sleeping bag which I may have dragged out of the shelter with me when I rolled, and it was probably now lying in the rain. A dilemma, what is worse, being killed by an elephant or having a wet sleeping bag?  Naturally having a wet sleeping is worse.  So I quietly climb over the electric fence and stealthily make may way across the road towards my sleeping bag, being very alert the whole time.  Suddenly, an elephant charges down the road about 10 m away, so I do a 180 run back across the road and hurtle the electric fence for the second time that night.  So I am standing there in the rain, watching my sleeping bag get wetter and wetter while the elephant stands between it and me shaking his head as if saying “bad luck Gary, you are going to have a wet sleeping bag tonight”.

After about 10 minutes the herd finally wanders off and I can go and rescue my sleeping bag.  I then move back to see if Hennie had been turned into a pancake, and find him quite happily ensconced in his dry sleeping bag, under the shelter in the firm base.  The rest of the night was extremely quiet but I am sure the elephants went away satisfied that they won that round.  Just another routine night’s work in the life of an anti-poaching ranger.