Chirundu Tales - Part 2

CHIRUNDU TALES  Part 2

Elephants were more of a nuisance than a danger to us but needless to say, there was one exception.  Our African field technicians were trained at the Rukomechi Research Station about 50 miles away near the escarpment. The station had previously been a Catholic Mission before the valley was vacated due to the presence of Sleeping Sickness and was taken over by the government Tsetse Department as a research facility.  There were a lot of elephants in the area so the trainees were accustomed to them by the time they completed their courses there.

Back on our station, a technician reported that a particular elephant had chased him and his assistant on two separate occasions so I reported the matter to the wildlife department. Boyd Reese sent “Tinky” Haslem, an experienced ranger, down to deal with the offender but he and I scoured the area for several hours and came up with nothing.  Things seemed to be OK for a few days after that but the technician again reported being harassed.  In the meantime I heard that a crop raiding elephant had been wounded on the sugar estate and never found. I therefore reported the matter to George, the man who had wounded the elephant, and together with one of his colleagues, Roy, we returned to the area and despite finding several elephants George could not positively identify the offender.

We were on our way back to our vehicles when we flushed a flock of guinea fowl that flew up into a nearby tree. George, who was always up for a bit of fun, took a shot with his .416 Rigby. The birds did not fly so Roy and I each had a shot with our .458 Magnums and were rewarded with a lot of feathers! As we were about to continue on our way, we heard some heavy rustling nearby so George went to have a look whilst Roy and I relaxed and lit up cigarettes.  No sooner had we done so than George yelled a warning that this elephant appeared aggressive.  We ran towards George and as we came level with him, I caught site of the elephant charging to my left. The ‘Jesse’ bush was too thick to offer me a clear shot but within a couple of seconds the other two magnums were fired and the elephant went down.

It transpired that George was standing at the edge of a small clearing (12 paces across) when the animal charged. Roy by then was next to him so they both fired at the same time.  The elephant dropped dead a mere 4 paces away from them!

From what we could see there was only one hole in the animal’s forehead, obviously the brain shot that killed it.  We extracted the bullet which was a .416 calibre.  We never did find out what happened to Roy’s bullet!  The elephant, a young bull, was very emaciated and presumably very sick, which could have been the cause of his bad temper.  I photographed the poor chap and wrote “Occupational Hazard” on the back. I still have the photo, 45 years on!

My biggest problem initially was the activities of a very wily hyena.  Whilst living in a tent, with no refrigeration, I bought fresh beef as often as I could.  I usually ate it the same day but occasionally I would keep it overnight which is when my troubles began.  On the first occasion the meat was placed between two aluminium plates on a table at the open end of my tent.  The next morning I found my plates, complete with teeth marks, a few meters away.  I then decided to put the meat on top of my water filter which was on the table.  That didn’t work so I moved the table to the closed end of the tent but that didn’t work either.  The sneaky devil walked around my bed, put his front paws on the table and quietly removed the meat.  I tried setting a trip wire with tin cans to wake me up but he managed to avoid it and staying awake was not an option as he never came near.  Eventually I gave up and stuck to eating the meat the same day as I got it.

Some time later however, he exposed himself early one morning and I took a snap shot with the .458. I missed, but the bang must have frightened the daylights out of him as he never came back.

The only other problem we had was snakes during the summer months.  As the Africans were terrified of them I never wasted time catching and releasing them, well away from camp, except for pythons. Any venomous snake was quickly dispatched as an untreated bite could possibly have been fatal in view of our location. In my late teens along with an old school friend, we started catching snakes and selling them to a local snake park but a bite from a Puff Adder convinced me that it was not the best of pastimes.  The money we were paid for the snakes sometimes exceeded our salaries but after a week in hospital where I was in a coma for a day and several days of intense pain followed by a fairly protracted recovery period when I suffered further pain and severe skin rashes I decided to give snakes a wide berth.   I always kept a snake bite kit handy with a good supply of serum.

At weekends, my African staff had a couple of barrels of their traditional beer that were brewed on site. There was usually a lot of drum beating, singing and shouting, not to mention the odd fight that was normally forgotten by Monday morning but late one Sunday night I was visited by a drunken trio.  It appeared that they had been drinking in one of their huts when a fellow called Ambrose went out into the night to relieve himself. In the process he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left big toe and immediately thought it was a snake bite.  He panicked and kicked up a fuss so his drinking buddies brought him to me.

I examined his toe by the light of a hurricane lamp held by Helen, my wife, and sure enough there were two spots of blood which appeared to confirm his story.  I immediately set about injecting him with serum based on my own experience.  He was then dispatched to a mission hospital at Chirundu with a letter detailing the type of serum used, where I had injected it and how much I had administered at each site.  Some hours later the vehicle returned with Ambrose on board and a letter from the mission doctor.   She was very complimentary about what I had done but felt that Ambrose would be fine as she had removed the two thorns from his toe!

Tsetse flies were a nuisance if one ventured out of the HQ clearing and in particular when crossing river or stream beds where the bush was generally thicker. Sleeping sickness was a constant threat and in the first year we lost one African employee who was wrongly diagnosed as having malaria.   After that we had all our employees and ourselves tested as soon as they displayed any of the symptoms of malaria. Another annoying pest was the scorpion and I for one was stung many times.  The most memorable sting was in the middle of the night.

 In those days the first terrorists were sneaking across the river so we had several watchdogs that had the run of the house as we never closed any doors.  The idea behind that was that if we were attacked we could run straight outside or jump through one of the windows, whichever might seem appropriate. In the middle of the night, one of the dogs that were sleeping next to the bed, let out an almighty howl and started running around the room squealing.  Suddenly aroused from a deep sleep, I was not in the best of moods so I jumped out of bed cursing and ready to kill the dog.  As I did so, I trod on a scorpion which stung me under my foot and so I was also howling with pain.  Helen on the other hand couldn’t contain her laughter and said I shouldn’t curse the dog as the scorpion obviously got him first.  No sympathy from her!  Needless to say, I did not sleep again that night.

On the brighter side, life was all the more enjoyable due to the close proximity of the river. Famous for its wildlife and fishing, it provided us with a broad spectrum of entertainment.  Not long after I first arrived in the valley I bought a rather scruffy old 12 foot wooden boat with an antiquated 20hp Mercury engine for £100.  As primitive as it was, it gave us a lot of fun.

The fishing was excellent and we were able to pursue a wide range of species that were caught for both sport and the table.  The easiest edible fish to catch were the Bottlenose and Cornish Jack as the river bank on the station site was mostly rocky.  To catch bream we had to go further afield and find shallow areas or pools that had reeds.  For sport, we went after the famous Tiger fish and Vundu.  The fishing also attracted a lot of enthusiasts from the cities which was a mixed blessing!

Visitors were, for the most part, welcome but there were some exceptions. The idyllic location was a magnet to the bush starved “Townies” and we were happy to see and entertain our friends, but friends of friends did, from time to time, arrive unannounced and introduce themselves as friends of X&Y and expect our hospitality. After a few of those types of visits we became less hospitable to strangers.

  Initially the only accommodation we could offer our visitors was a small prefab rondavel which was totally inadequate for a family of more than two people so I built a large thatched roofed “den” which served us as a sort of cool living room as well as a guest room for surplus visitors.  I also cleared an area at the rear of the house, under some shady acacia trees, as a camp site with a water supply and a “long drop” toilet.  This proved to be very popular but it amazed us how ill equipped some of the visitors were.  On occasions, even before the campers had settled in they would come to the house and, as they did on one occasion, ask if we had any ice and limes for their gin and tonics!  A popular request was for cooking oil as well as flour, kerosene, candles and even bread which we made ourselves in an old Dover Stove.  It appeared that many of them had little or no knowledge of life in an isolated location and very few thought to bring us the rare luxury of a newspaper.  The saying goes, “All our visitors give us pleasure, some when they arrive and others when they leave”.  So it was with us!