The Ivory Trail

by Talbot Mundy

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE SONG OF THE ELEPHANTS

  Who is as heavy as we, or as strong? Ho! but we trample the shambas down! Saw ye a swath where the trash lay long And tall trees flat like a harvest mown? That was the path we shore in haste (Judge, is it easy to find, and wide!) Ripping the branch and bough to waste Like rocks shot loose from a mountain side! Therefore hear us:

  (All together, stamping steadily In time.)

  'Twas we who lonely echoes woke To copy the crash of the trees we broke! Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke Shall humble the will of the Ivory Folk!

  Once we were monarchs from sky to sky, Many were we and the men were few; Then we would go to the Place to die-- Elephant tombs* that the oldest knew,-- Old as the trees when the prime is past, Lords unchallenged of vale and plain, Grazing aloof and alone at last To lie where the oldest had always lain. So we sing of it:

  -----------------------------* The legendary place that every Ivory hunter hopes some day to stumbleon, where elephants are said to have gone away to die of old age, andwhere there should therefore be almost unimaginable wealth of ivory.The legend, itself as old as African speech, is probably due to therarity of remains of elephants that have died a natural death.------------------------------

  (All together, swinging from side to side in time, and tossing trunks.)

  'Twas we who lonely echoes woke To copy the crash of the trees we broke! Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke Shall govern the strength of the Ivory Folk!

  Still we are monarchs! Our strength and weight Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! But the glory of smashing is lost of late, We raid less eagerly now than then, For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, The guns be many, the men be more; We fidget with pickets before and behind, Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. Yet, hear us sing:

  (All together, ears up and trunks extended.)

  'Twas we who lonely echoes woke To copy the crash of the trees we broke! Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke Have lessened the rage of the Ivory Folk!

  Still we are monarchs of field and stream! None is as strong or as heavy as we! We scent--we swerve--we come--we scream-- And the men are as mud 'neath tusk and knee! But we go no more to the Place to die, For the blacks head off and the guns pursue; Bleaching our scattered rib-bones lie, And men be many, and we be few. Nevertheless:

  (All together, trunks up-thrown, ears extended, and stamping in slowtime with the fore-feet.)

  'Twas we who lonely echoes woke To copy the crash of the trees we broke! Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke Shall humble the pride of the Ivory Folk!

  We had laughed at Fred's suggestion that Schillingschen might haveammunition cached away. Fred had sneered at my guess that the Germanmight ride donkey-back and not be so easily left behind. Now theprobability of both suggestions seemed to stiffen into reality.

  Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not faraway behind us, always had more of them. He seemed, too, to loseinterest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get awayfrom him toward the mountain. If he was really crazy, as his tremblingboys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothinghe was shooting remarkably little. On the contrary, if he was sane,and shooting for the pot, he must have acquired a big following in somemysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlassbruised his eyes. He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots,about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly longcolumn of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs ofvillages. It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition,unless he had donkeys or porters.

  Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been.There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than athousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles. Therewere villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants cameand begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us theirtrampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations. Theyoffered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, andseveral times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together inan effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way.

  But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots frombehind us put the brutes to flight. It became uncanny--as ifSchillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when hisnoise would work most harm. Our fool boys told the local natives thata madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased,even from those who had suffered most from the elephants. We began tobe regarded as mad ourselves. Efforts to get natives to go scouting towatch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blankrefusal. Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that hadsuffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitantsall fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column.

  We followed the herd. Its track was wide, and easier than the windingnative foot-paths; and we were willing enough to jettison loads oftrade-goods if only we could replace them with tusks. The chase led uptoward Elgon, over the shoulder of an outlying spur, and upward towardthe mountain's eastern slopes.

  As long as we kept in the wake of the herd the going presented nodifficulties. We knew by the state of the tracks and the dung that theherd was never far ahead. Frequently we heard them crashing throughtrees in front of us. Yet whenever we came so close as to hope for aview, and a shot at a tusker, invariably a regular fusillade from theeastward to our rear would start the herd stampeding with a din likeall the avalanches.

  Streams by the dozen flowed down from the mountain's sides, their bankscrushed into bog where the elephants had crossed. Our donkeys grewused to being tied by the head in line and hauled across (for in commonwith all herds of donkeys, there were a few of them that swam readily,and many that either could not or refused). The flies in the wake ofthe elephants were worse than the tetse that haunted the shore ofNyanza.

  We had no trouble now from our boys. We could even let the Baganda'shands loose. They feared the cannibals of the higher slopes, but weremuch more afraid of the madman to our right rear. Our difficulty layin compelling them to keep a course sufficiently to eastward, and incalling a halt each day before men and animals were too utterly tiredout. Yet for all their hurry, we did not gain on the man who made themso afraid.

  Elephants, once thoroughly scared, will run away forever. Our boysopenly praised the herd in front for its speed and stamina, hoping itwould continue on its course and oblige us to keep the madman with therifle at a safe distance to our rear. But it seemed he had an easierline than we, or else his frenzy gave him seven-league boots, for heeven began to gain on us, keeping along our right flank at a distanceof several miles, and driving us nearly mad in the frantic effort tokeep our column from turning and running away to the westward. If wehad relaxed our vigilance for a moment they would have broken line andfled.

  It was old volcanic country we were marching through, densely wooded,virgin forest for the most part, with earth so warm at times that itwas not easy to believe the crater of Elgon quite extinct. Even atthat low level we came on blow-holes nearly filled in with dirt andtrash, serving as fine caves for beasts of prey. We went into one forabout three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing, and wouldhave camped in it but for the stink. It smelt like a place where theegg of original sin had turned rotten. Fred said that was sulphur,with the air of a man who would like it believed that he knew.

  At last the enemy must have made a night march, for he passed us, andthe following dawn we heard him shooting to our right in front. Thatmorning it was simply impossible to make the boys break camp. Theyswore that the ghost of Schillingschen had gone in league with theelephants to destroy us, and they preferred to be s
hot by us ratherthan murdered by witchcraft.

  Beyond doubt they would have bolted and left us had that camp not beenan almost perfect one, on rising ground with two great wings of rockalmost enclosing it, and a singing brook galloping through the midst.There was only one gap by which elephant or man could enter (unlessthey should fall from the sky), and they closed that by rolling rocksand dragging up trunks of trees.

  After a useless argument, during which we all lost our tempers and theywere reduced to the verge of panic, we decided to leave them there incharge of Brown and those porters, except Kazimoto, who had rifles.The armed men promised faithfully to die beside Brown in the only placeof exit rather than permit a man to pass out; and the rest all agreedit would be right to shoot them if they attempted to desert; but weleft the camp together--Fred, Will, I, and Kazimoto, with Will'spersonal servant and mine bringing up the rear--wondering whether weshould ever see any member or part of the outfit again. It felt likegoing to a funeral--or rather from it--more than likely Brown's.

  Kazimoto and the other two should have been carrying spare rifles; butBrown had refused to remain behind unless we left him all but the oneapiece we absolutely needed. We took the boys more from habit than forany use they were likely to be; and my boy and Will's bolted back tothe camp almost before we were out of sight of it, Kazimoto begging usto shoot them in the back for cowards.

  "Huh!" he grunted. "They are afraid of death. Teach them what deathis!"

  We heard Brown challenge them as they approached the camp, and hoped hethrashed them soundly. But it turned out he did not. He himself hadgrown afraid; for the fear of a crowd is contagious, and spreadsnearly as readily from black to white as from white to black. He brokeopen a chop-box and consoled himself with whisky.

  Forcing our way through vegetation that crowded around a spur ofvolcanic rock, it soon became evident that the whole of the huge herdwas breakfasting not far in front of us, tearing off limbs of trees,and crashing about as if noise were the only object. We climbed andattempted to look down on them, only to discover that the part of theforest where we were consisted of a narrow belt, with a mile-wide openspace beyond it between us and the elephants. The wind was from themtoward us, but that did not wholly account for the amount of noise thatreached us. It was the fact that the herd was twice as big as weimagined. There were elephants in every direction. We could see andhear branches breaking with reports like cannon-fire.

  Kazimoto was as steady as an old soldier, a great grin spreading acrosshis ugly honest face, and his eyes alight with enthusiasm. This wasthe profession he had followed when he was Courtney's gun-bearer, andhe kept close to Fred with a handful of cartridges ready to pass tohim, whispering wise counsel.

  "Get close to them, bwana! Go close! Go close! Wind coming ourway--smell coming our way--noise coming our way--elephant very busyeating--no hurry! No long shooting! Go right up close!"

  It was easier said than done. The elephants had spread broadcastthrough the forest, and there was no longer one well-defined swath tofollow, but a very great number of twisting narrow alleys throughelastic undergrowth between great unyielding trees. We had toseparate, to gain any advantage from our number, so that we emergedinto the open more than a hundred yards apart, with Fred at the farleft and Will in the center. Fred, with Kazimoto close at his heels,was more than fifty yards in front of either of us.

  And crossing that mile of open land was no simple business. It was amass of rocks and tree-roots, burned over in some swift-running forestfire and not yet reseeded, nor yet rotted down. There were windingways all across it by the dozen that the elephants, with their greaterheight and better woodcraft, could follow on the run, but great stumpsand rocks higher than a man's head (that from a distance had lookedlike level land) blocked all vision and made progress mostly guesswork.

  However, the latter half-mile was more like level going--I emerged frombetween two boulders, wondering whether I could ever find my way backagain, and envied Fred, who had found a better track and had the leadof me now by several hundred yards. Will was as far behind him as I,but had gone over more to the left, leaving me--feeling remarkablylonely--away in the rear to the right.

  Kazimoto followed Fred so closely, stooping low behind him, that thetwo looked like some strange four-legged beast. They were headed forthe forest in front of them at a great pace, increasing their lead fromWill, who, like me, was more or less winded. I stooped at a pool toscoop up water and splash my face and neck. When I looked up a momentlater I could see none of them.

  At that instant, when I could actually smell the great brutes crashingin the forest, unseen within a hundred yards of me, and would havegiven all I had or hoped for just to have a friend within speakingdistance, a shot rang out in the forest ahead, and rattled from tree totree like the echo of a skirmish. It was not from Fred's gun, orWill's. It was the phantom rifleman at work again.Schillingschen--Schillingschen's ghost--or whoever he was, he could nothave timed his fusillade better for our undoing. The first shot wasfollowed by six more in swift succession. And then chaos broke loose.

  Toward where I stood, from every angle to my front, the whole herdstampeded. No human being could have guessed their number. The forestawoke with a battle-din of falling trees and crashing undergrowth,split apart by the trumpeting of angry bulls and the screams of cowssummoning their young ones. The earth shook under the weight of theirtremendous rout. I heard Fred's rifle ring out three times far to myleft--then Will's a rifle nearer to me; and at that the herd swungtoward its own left, and the whole lot of them came full-pelt, blind,screaming, frantic, straight for me.

  There was no turning them now. None but the very farthest on the flankcould have turned, given sense enough left to do it. It was a flood ofmaddened monsters, crazed with fear, pent by their own numbers, forcedforward by the crowd behind, that invited me to dam them if I could!As they burst into the open, more shots rang out in the forest to lendtheir fury wings!

  I glanced behind, to right and left, but there was no escape, I hadcome too far into the open to retreat! There were big rocks to therear to have scrambled on, but there was no time. There was one bigrock in front of me that divided their course about in halves; to passit they must open up, although they would almost surely close again. Itook my stand in line with that, as a man on trial for life takesrefuge behind an unestablishable alibi.

  They talk glibly about men's whole lives passing in review before themin the instant of a crisis. That may be. That was a crisis, and I sawelephants--elephants! I remembered some of what Courtney had toldus--some of the mad yarns Coutlass spun when liquor and the camp-firemade him boastful. All the advice I ever heard; all my previousimaginings of what I should do when such a time came, seemed to becondensed into one concrete demand--shoot, shoot, shoot, and keep onshooting! Yet my finger, bent around the trigger, absolutely would notact!

  The oncoming gray wave of brutes split apart at the rock, as it mustdo, some of them screaming as they crashed into it breast on and werecrushed by the crowd behind. In the van of the right-hand wing,brushing the rock with his shoulder, charged an enormous bull withtusks so large that the heavier had weighed down his head to apermanent rakish angle. He caught sight of me--trumpeted like a sirenin the Channel fog--and came at me with raised ears and trunkoutstretched. I heard shooting to the left, and more shots from theforest, where the very active ghost or madman was keeping up a battleof his own. I felt the fear, that turns a man's very heart to ice,grip hold of me--felt as if nothing mattered--imagined the wholeuniverse a sea of charging elephants--accepted the inevitable--andsuddenly received my manhood back again! My forefinger acted! I firedpoint-blank down the throat of the charging bull. And it seemed tohave no more effect on him than a pea-shooter has on a railroad train!

  I had left Schillingschen's heavy-bored elephant gun behind with Brown,considering it too cumbersome, and was using a Mauser with flat-nosedbullets. I fired four shots as fast as I could pump them from themaga
zine straight down the monster's hot red throat; and he continuedto come on as if I had not touched him, hard-pressed on either flank bybulls nearly as big as he.

  Perhaps the reason why my past history did not flash review was that mytime was not yet come! I continued to see elephant--nothing butelephant!--little bloodshot eyes aflame with frenzy--great tusksupthrown--a trunk upraised to brain me--huge flat feet that raged totread me down and knead me into purple mud! I kept the last shot witha coolness I believe was really numbness--then felt his hot breath likea blast on my face, and let him have it, straight down the throat again!

  He screamed--stopped--quivered right over me--toppled from theknees--and fell like a landslide, pushed forward as he tumbled by theweight behind, and held from rolling sidewise by the living tide oneither flank. I tried to spring back, but his falling trunk struck meto earth. On either side of me a huge tusk drove into the ground, andI lay still between them, as safe as if in bed, while the herd crashedpast to right and left for so many minutes that it seemed all theuniverse was elephants--bulls, cows and calves all trumpeting in maddesire to get away--away--anywhere at all so be it was not where theythen were.

  Blood poured on me from the dead brute's throat--warm, slippery, stickystuff; but I lay still. I did not move when the crashing had all goneby, but lay looking up at the monster that had willed his worst and,seeking to slay, had saved me. Those are the moments when young mensummon all their calf-philosophy. I wondered what the difference wasbetween that brute and me, that I should be justified in slaying; thatI should be congratulated; that I should have been pitied, had thetouch-and-go reversed itself and he killed me. I knew there was adifference that had nothing to do with shape, or weight, or size, but Icould not give it a name or lay my finger on it.

  My reverie, or reaction, or whatever it was, was broken by Fred'svoice, flustered and out of breath, coming nearer at a great pace.

  "I tell you the poor chap's dead as a door-nail! He's under that greatbull, I tell you! He's simply been charged and flattened out! What adog I was--what a green-horn--what a careless, fat-headed tomfool toleave him alone like that! He was the least experienced of all of us,and we let him take the full brunt of a charging herd! We ought to behung, drawn and quartered! I shall never forgive myself! As for you,Will, it wasn't half as much your fault as mine! You were followingme. You expected me to give the orders, and I ought to have called ahalt away back there until we were all three in touch! I'll neverforgive myself--never!"

  I crawled out then from between the tusks, and shook myself, much moredazed than I expected, and full of an unaccountable desire to vomit.

  "Damn your soul!" Fred fairly yelled at me. "What the hell d'you meanby startling me in that way! Why aren't you dead? Look out! What'sthe matter with the man? The poor chap's hurt--I knew he was!"

  But that inexplicable desire to empty all I had inside me out on to thetrampled ground could no longer be resisted, that was all. Theaftermath of deadly fear is fear's corollary. Each bears fruit afterits kind.

  To my one tusker Will and Fred had brought down five and sixrespectively. That made twenty-three tusks, for one was an enormous"singleton." We sent Kazimoto back alone to try to persuade some ofour porters to come and chop out the ivory with axes, bidding himpromise them all the hearts, and as many tail-hairs as they chose topull out to keep witches away with. Then, since my sickness passedpresently and left me steady on my legs, Fred made a proposal that wejumped at.

  "Let's go and lay Schillingschen's ghost! If that was Schillingschenshooting in the forest, we've a little account with him! If it wasn'tI want to know it! Come along!"

  We advanced into the forest and toiled up-hill along the tracks thestampeding elephants had made, amid flies indescribable, and almostintolerable heat. The blood on my clothing made me a veritablefeeding-place of flies, until I threw most of it off, and then began tosuffer in addition from bites I could not feel before, and from thesharp points of beckoning undergrowth. My bare legs began to bleedfrom scratches, and the flies swooped anew on those, and clung as ifthey grew there.

  Will climbed a huge tree, at imminent risk of pythons and rottenbranches, and descried open country on our right front. We made forit, I walking last to take advantage of the others' wake, and aftermore than an hour of most prodigious effort we emerged on rolling rockycountry under a ledge that overhung a thousand feet sheer above us onthe side of Elgon. To our right was all green grass, sloping away fromus.

  There was a camp half a mile away pitched on the edge of the forest--awhite man's tent--a mule--meat hanging to dry in the wind under abranch--two tents for natives--and a pile of bags and boxes orderlyarranged. We could see a man sitting under a big tent awning. He wasreading, or writing, or something of that kind. He was certainly notSchillingschen. We hurried. Fred presently broke into a run; then,half-ashamed, checked himself and waited for me, who was beyond running.

  When we came quite close we saw that the man was playing chess all byhimself with a folding board open on his knees. He did not look up,although by that time he surely should have heard us. Fred began towalk quietly, signaling to the camp hangers-on to say nothing. Wefollowed him silently in Indian file. As he came near the awning Fredtip-toed, and I felt like giggling, or yelling--like doing anythingridiculous.

  He who played chess yawned suddenly, and closed the chess-board with asnap. He got up lazily, smiled, stretched himself like a greatgood-looking cat, faced Fred, and laughed outright.

  "Glad to see you all! Did you get many elephants?" he asked.

  "Monty, you old pirate--I knew it was you!" said Fred, holding a handout.

  Monty took it, and forced him into the chair he had just vacated.

  "You damned old liar!" he said, nodding approvingly.