Love, Life, and Elephants

by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

  Much of Bill’s work entailed short nocturnal sorties into the neighbouring tribal lands, but there were also more prolonged absences when the operations took him and his team deep into the Aberdare forests and up into the moorlands. It was here that the Mau Mau gangs were most elusive, and here that Bill and his men spent a good deal of their time in pursuit, often crawling about blindly on all fours, drenched to the skin, scratched and bleeding, nerves taut as they anticipated a Mau Mau ambush or an attack from a wild animal. As the bombing of suspected hideouts – using Lancaster bombers from the Second World War – by the security forces gained momentum, the unfortunate animals of the Aberdares became increasingly crazed with fear, many of them wounded by flying shrapnel, charging at anything that moved and becoming even more dangerous. At the mere drone of a Lancaster bomber, the smaller forest dwellers such as bushbuck and suni dashed around aimlessly through the undergrowth, not knowing where to hide for safety, and the monkeys leapt terrified from tree to tree, huddling together for comfort.

  The Mau Mau gangs based themselves in cleverly hidden hideouts, some of which were elaborate constructions of bamboo, furnished with log stools and beds of animal hide, usually with several exits for a quick getaway. Many even had piped water flowing from springs and streams through chains of hollowed bamboo stems. Other hideouts were simply dug-out bushes covered with hide, and yet others, known as dakkis, were built underground, with entrances so well hidden from the inside that they were almost invisible from outside – just a tiny tell-tale hole the size of a penny left for air. Finding the hideouts required expertise that took some practice for Bill to master. He told me how he disguised his tracks by putting all his weight on one side of his foot so that no toe or heel mark showed, and how, as he tracked through the forest, he could use a stick to thread together disturbed vegetation.

  It was often possible to detect the presence of a hideout by the smell of animal hide. The Mau Mau wore skins: hats for a general, armbands and pelts for his lieutenants. Under-jackets were usually made from the soft pelts of small forest animals such as tree hyrax, squirrel or tiny suni antelope, the fur worn near the skin for warmth, while the hides of larger animals such as elands and bushbuck provided the outer clothing. I was appalled by the toll taken on these animals – a single under-jacket was made up of thirty to forty hyrax or suni pelts, not to mention the huge karosses – skins with the hair left on – that were used in place of blankets at night and which entailed over 100 pelts.

  Infiltrating these gangs was highly dangerous work and I had no illusions about the threat to Bill’s life. It didn’t help that he and Francis were absolutely determined to be the ones to capture the most famous of the Mau Mau generals, one of whom was Dedan Kimathi. His was a household name, symbolic of the Mau Mau struggle for freedom, determined to deal with loyalists whom he regarded as traitors to the Mau Mau cause. He was cunning and elusive, endowed with an amazing capacity to remain at large in spite of everything pitted against him. I was hugely relieved every time Bill returned home safely.

  Just after our first wedding anniversary, I realized I was pregnant. I was twenty. The thought of having a child of my own seemed so surreal that at first I could hardly believe it. And while morning sickness and an increasing girth brought the reality home to me, I was terrified not only at the thought of going through the agony of labour but at the daunting prospect of becoming a mother myself before my twenty-first birthday. At times, I wished I could turn the clock back and revert to the carefree and independent life of all my friends. Instead, I reflected grimly, I was this generation’s pioneer – the first to get married and the first to have a baby. Secretly, too, I was worried about the fact that my marriage, and sex in particular, fell far short of my girlhood expectations, that all the love stories I had read hinted at an ecstasy which seemed to have escaped me and which I had yet to experience.

  In January 1955, towards the end of my pregnancy, Bill took me back to the farm for a break. I longed for the reassurance of my mother as my time approached. On the way to Gilgil, Bill had to call on a splinter group of his unit in Ol Kalou to report on some operational activities. Bill was always late and typically it had taken all day to get going. I was already edgy, for this particular area was a hotbed of Mau Mau activity, particularly at night, when forest gangs left their stronghold under cover of darkness to strike terror. Night falls rapidly in the tropics, and soon Bill had to switch on the headlights of the car. Uncharacteristically, I was overcome by an acute sense of foreboding, barely able to speak, staring at the road verges to detect any hint of danger. After several miles that appeared endless, the rutted murram track curved sharply towards a small stream, so Bill had to slow right down in order to negotiate the rickety wooden bridge. It was just as we were accelerating up the other side that we could detect dark shadows on the embankment.

  And then terror struck. A terrifyingly loud sound erupted and in the arc of the headlamps we could see crazed, menacing figures, clad in skins, coming towards us in a great swirl of anger and noise. Some were wielding pangas, some were hurling enormous boulders and others were firing at us from point blank range, barrels vomiting flashes of fire, bullets – and boulders – hitting the car with alarming force. At the time the noise felt remote, as if coming from a faraway place, and even the torrent of missiles seemed unreal. It was as if time stood still and I was watching from afar. Oddly, I felt no sense of panic, although I knew of course that we were facing very grave danger. Something shut down in me and I was unmoving. Bill, however, was used to this. He shoved my head down below the dashboard, snatched his Luger pistol, revved the car into full throttle, and, in an incredible feat of driving, hurled the car headlong at the barricade ahead, firing at our assailants out of the car windows. The car bounced and lurched and crunched over the obstacles in its path, hesitating for a heart-stopping moment against a huge boulder, wheels spinning without traction, and then, thankfully, toppling off to hurtle on through, carried clear of the road block by sheer momentum.

  At this moment, to me Bill was like a hero in a Western movie, shooting as he drove, remaining calm and collected, courage coming to the fore to save our lives and that of our unborn child. The baby stirred inside me, shaking me out of my paralysis, adrenalin now pumping through my body. Bill took my hand and held it tight, driving to report the incident at the Ol Kalou police station. There the police pointed out a bullet in the top of the car window frame, a fraction of an inch from where Bill’s head would have been, making me realize just how close to death we had come. I thanked God for Bill’s courage and later, in the warmth of my parents’ home, my mother wrapped my trembling frame in a blanket as I collapsed in a flood of tears back in the room that smelled of roses. These were tears of profound relief that we were all safe.

  Our daughter, Gillian Sala Ellen, was born on 26 January 1955, two weeks late and in perfect health. I remember longing to be left alone – like the animals – to get on with it, free of distraction, interruption and instruction. We chose her name with a great deal of thought – Gillian because we liked it, as well as its shortened form Jill, by which she quickly became known; Sala because it was the name of a small conical hill within Tsavo as well as the Mliangulu word for the oryx antelope, and Ellen after both Granny Webb and Granny Chart. My sister Sheila was none too pleased because apparently she had earmarked the name Jill for her firstborn. She had finally married Jim Wren, her boyfriend of our YWCA days, and I had been too pregnant to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. Actually her first child turned out to be a boy, so she couldn’t have used the name Jill anyway.

  I found it difficult to adapt to motherhood: breasts swollen, sore and tight with milk, despair at my flabby tummy, endless sleepless nights, and envy at the freedom of everyone else around me. Trying to feed Jill was a relentless struggle, for she seemed to lack the ability to suckle, which convinced me that there must be something wrong with her. It was my mother who talked gently to me, emphasizing the rich blessing of children and how l
ucky Jill and I were to be here at all, and she pointed out that it had been my choice to get married young. Chastened and contrite at my selfish immaturity and having been reassured by a doctor that there was nothing at all wrong with Jill, I worked through my anguish. ‘Children bring love with them,’ said my mother and I soon found this to be true. The bond that emerged was strong and enduring, with us both for life.

  By the mid 1950s, the state of emergency was drawing to an end. It was estimated that only about 1,500 hardcore Mau Mau activists were still at large in the Aberdare forests, and since the ‘mopping up’ operations would be the responsibility of the police, Bill was able to return to civilian life. He was disappointed not to have been able to capture the elusive Dedan Kimathi, but the skills he had honed in the forest would stay with him, useful in hunting down the wildlife poachers who were rife in what was now Tsavo National Park. His boss, David Sheldrick, was eagerly anticipating Bill’s return to the Park. I was apprehensive at the thought of my baby having to grow up in an area teeming with malaria, scorpions, hairy bird-eating spiders, deadly snakes and scores of other biting and stinging hazards. I knew also that the logistics of running a home would be challenging; I would have to order many fresh provisions not available at the Indian dukas in Voi from Nairobi, which would have to come by train and be collected from the ‘local’ station on a weekly basis.

  How I would fit into the rather wild local community of which I had heard so much from Bill was another consideration – not least Bill’s rather intimidating boss. I had only met David Sheldrick once, four years earlier when I was seventeen, and had not exactly made a good impression. It was my first time in Tsavo East and Bill had taken me to Mudanda Rock, a magnificent vantage point from where we could see herds of elephants drinking, socializing and playing in the pool beneath a huge outcropping of basement rock. On that particular day, not only were there literally hundreds of elephants to entertain us but there was also a film crew, busy shooting scenes for the movie Where No Vultures Fly. David was with the stars, Anthony Steele and Dinah Sheridan, and as our party clambered up the rock, he signalled to us that filming was in progress and we must be as silent as possible. We crept up, settled ourselves at a discreet distance and soon became engrossed in the scenes below. Bill, who could never get through an afternoon without a cup of tea, had brought a saucepan and, without me noticing, had plonked it down beside me. Swinging round to point out something of interest, I inadvertently sent the pan clattering noisily down the rock face; as it gained momentum, the sound could be heard for miles around until, with a final splash, it plopped into the pool below.

  There was an immediate and deafening hush as every single elephant froze, fanned out its ears in alarm and then, en masse, fled in panic. So rapidly did they disappear that it was difficult to believe that their presence merely seconds before had not been an illusion; that so many elephants could vanish so silently, leaving just a soft cloud of red dust hanging in the air. The crew stopped filming, the actors stopped acting and time seemed to stand still as everyone looked up at me in disbelief. I was mortified.

  David made his way over to us and Bill introduced our party to him, finally muttering in a guilty tone, ‘And, er, this is Daphne.’ I looked up in embarrassed confusion as David held his hand out in greeting. He was tall, and in his eyes of deepest blue there was a mixture of interest and amusement; eyes that were fringed by long thick lashes that would be the envy of any girl. His handshake was strong and his legs shapely, the shoes he wore, chupli bush sandals. His bush jacket was tailored to fit his figure, and around him there was an unmistakable air of authority that was invisible but powerful.

  And now here I was aged twenty-one, married and a mother. I had matured in many ways, and yet on arrival at the newly completed Park Headquarters at the foot of Mazinga Hill I found myself tongue-tied and awkward as David emerged to greet me. Taking charge of Jill in her carrycot, he escorted me into his new home, saying that we were to be his guests until our own house had been redecorated. This had not been done in advance because he felt that the colour choice and finishing touches should be mine. As I went to unpack and settle Jill in the guest wing at the end of a long open verandah, he took Bill off to show him the many changes to the Headquarters during his four-year absence. I was surprised that David’s wife, Diana, was nowhere to be seen because I was interested to meet her, but later Bill told me that not all the changes were to do with the infrastructure of the Park. David and his wife had apparently recently separated and she had taken with her their two young children.

  At dinner that evening, David and Bill mulled over the problems facing Tsavo. I had not really considered the daunting logistics of trying to gain control of such vast and unchartered territory, of creating the necessary infrastructure for a park covering 8,000 square miles, an area the size of Wales, Israel or Michigan State. Tsavo was by far the largest Park in Kenya, the most remote, the most unknown, the most untouched – uninhabited, shunned by all except the ruthless bands of professional poachers in pursuit of ivory and rhino horn. No other Park in the country was as fraught with such obstacles, and yet, David told us, he had to fight furiously for a reasonable portion of funds for its development. In essence, Tsavo was the only sizeable chunk of country that the colonial Government could afford to set aside for wildlife without conflicting with human land claims, and yet it was being treated as the Cinderella of the system. He was firm and passionate as he spoke of the urgent need to strike at the heart of the poachers, to eradicate the terrible toll taken of the breeding herds of elephants for their ivory, and of the rhinos for their horn. He catalogued the appalling loss of wildlife he and his colleagues had uncovered. ‘If we do not put an end to this menace, there will be nothing left worth preserving,’ he said.

  The next morning, I awoke to the dawn chorus of the little francolins, so reminiscent of the camp at Selengai, and looking out of the window I watched a young bushbuck feasting on the flowers in David’s terraced garden. Two little elephants, their ears out like dinner plates, trunk-wrestled in play, and I was instantly uplifted, ready to embrace my new life. Later, I learned that the bushbuck was a wild orphan whom David had named Bushey and that the elephants were the famous Samson and Fatuma, the first orphaned calves we in Kenya knew of outside those held in far-off zoos. These two featured in a weekly column of the East African Standard and were already household names. At breakfast I asked David about their rescue and how he had set about ‘taming’ them. Samson, a two-year-old bull, had presented the greatest challenge. David had actually got into the stable with him, and every time Samson charged, David punched him on the trunk, forcing him to retreat into the far corner. David then talked to him gently, holding out a peace offering before warding off another charge. Eventually, having been chastised so often for aggression, Samson began to recognize that it did not pay and that the odd creature facing him could not be easily intimidated. By that same afternoon he had calmed down completely, to the extent that he could be easily handled, and from that moment on a special affinity existed between David and this elephant. Fatuma, the female, had recently been attacked by a lion and she had allowed him to clean and treat her wounds, bravely enduring the discomfort because she understood that he was helping her.

  Listening to David talk with such compassion and depth of understanding about his two elephants impressed me greatly. I could not help being surprised by such sensitivity in so forceful a character, for this was a rare quality in men of his time, who tended to view wild animals dispassionately. During David’s professional hunting days he had obviously done his fair share of killing, but I sensed that he derived no pleasure from taking an animal’s life. He had an unusual reverence for life as well as a deep empathy for animals. I also sensed that there was much I could learn from this man, particularly about elephants, and the way he spoke about Samson and Fatuma made me decide that I wanted to begin right away.

  More immediately, however, I was eager to see our new home and tour the Headq
uarters, which was a hive of activity: carpenters turning out rustic cedar signposts and furniture for the houses; a huge hydraulic press which David sometimes diverted from its normal purpose to produce ‘pilipili hoho’ – the fiery chilli sauce that accompanied every meal in his home and would soon set my tongue on fire; a mechanical workshop equipped with everything needed to repair the Park’s fleet of vehicles and heavy machinery; an enormous lathe which only he could operate, with which he transformed bits of scrap iron into bolts, shafts and spares. David had trained up the Park’s artisans and its entire workforce himself, most importantly the rangers, whose duty it was to bring the illegal poaching of elephant and rhino under control and provide security for the animals.

  At first sight, my new home was alarming – immediately below the front doorstep was a towering red-earth anthill, providing an ideal refuge for snakes and other creepy-crawlers and surrounded by impenetrable sanseveria, the wild sisal. Behind that grew intermin able commiphoras, deciduous arid, shallow-rooted trees with contorted boughs and sharp spikes and thickets that no doubt sheltered buffalo, elephants and the dreaded Tsavo man-eating lions. The house itself was simple and stark, but it was the absence of any semblance of a garden that distressed me most. I turned away, not wanting to embarrass our host, but David said quietly: ‘Don’t worry, Daphne. This can all be transformed.’

  And he was as good as his word – the next day a tractor was sent to level the anthill and clear the bush, the masons began to stone-wall newly created terraces, the carpenters installed shelving and the painters put the finishing touches to the walls in the cream colour I had chosen. Over the next few weeks, in between tending to an unusually fractious Jill, who was getting used to the heat, I made curtains and unpacked. David sent round a gardener to plant up the lawn on the top terrace and he himself came to supervise the installation of a birdbath, which became one of the beautiful features of my new garden. When I felt everything was ship-shape, Bill and I invited David for supper. He looked around the living room and smiled: ‘Happier now?’ I assured him that I was, adding, ‘I am going to love living in Tsavo.’ He looked at me searchingly and then said, very quietly, ‘I certainly hope so. My wife hated it with a passion.’