Love, Life, and Elephants

by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

  David and I set our wedding date for late October, opting to get married in Mombasa, by the sea. I chose a modest navy and white polka-dot dress with a broad white collar. It fitted very snugly over my eighteen-inch waist, and the frilly stiffened petticoat hid the family bum well. A few days before the wedding, we went to the up-market Oceanic Hotel overlooking Mombasa harbour, where the sea gleamed a mixture of sapphire, viridian and jade and the famous giant baobabs, said to be the largest in the world, stood sentinel to the harbour entrance. This unusual group of baobabs had always fascinated me, as these particular trees did not grow gregariously. It was said that a baobab pod had been buried with every Portuguese soldier that died during the Portuguese occupation between 1500 and 1720, and there was a long-held superstition that djinns from the spirit world inhabited each tree and that during the construction of the railway the workers could not be persuaded to chop any down, something that halted work for months. Finally, a wily Scot devised a solution – the djinn must be given notice to quit in Arabic, since djinns didn’t respond to instructions in English. This was duly done, and after a suitable period of time to allow the djinn to arrange alternative accommodation, the Scotsman dealt the first blow to the tree with no sinister repercussions.

  On arrival at the hotel it came as an unexpected but very pleasant surprise to find Granny Chart waiting. We had a noisy dinner that evening – David and Peter arriving from Voi to join only my very close family. I had arrived by train from Nairobi that morning, and seeing David set all the butterflies dancing inside me all over again. We managed to escape to the beach for some brief moments alone. Taking me in his arms, he held me close and as the breeze wafted across the ocean, I breathed in the exotic jasmine-scented ylang-ylang from the garden of the hotel, which also grew in David’s garden at home. I knew that the scent of this plant would bring back that moment for the rest of my life. I was intensely happy.

  And so it was that at 11 a.m on 20 October 1960 I became Daphne Sheldrick. Over a simple band of platinum ringed with gold, David slipped a beautiful ring of sapphires and diamonds that had been his mother’s. Later, at the hotel, the champagne corks popped as Peter – our best man – delivered a witty speech to which David replied, and everyone toasted our future happiness. It was a joyful, private family occasion. My parents had kindly offered to look after Jill for a week while David and I went on honeymoon, but first we had to get back to the Voi Hotel for a Saturday night wedding celebration organized by the regular Saturday night residents. There we were greeted by a crowd of familiar faces, plus a surprise guard of honour mounted by the rangers. The party was pretty raucous, something that I could have done without on my wedding night. We got home in the early hours of the morning, the familiar garden bathed in moonlight as we walked hand in hand towards the front steps of the house. David lifted me into his arms and smothered me in kisses as he climbed the stairs to the verandah. At last we were free of guilt, and what followed will remain with me for ever. I awoke in the morning to sunshine streaming in through the window, to find a red rose plucked from the garden placed beside my head on the pillow. No bride could have had a more romantic introduction to marriage.

  I already knew my new home well. It was spacious and lovely, built of concrete blocks painted white, with a red tiled roof, and it reflected all David’s careful attention to detail. A long broad front verandah opened through glass doors at each end into the two main bedrooms and in the centre into another large airy room, separated midway by a red curtain into the lounge and dining area. Large windows back and front ensured a cooling through breeze to ease the intense Tsavo heat. At the other end of the house the dining room was linked to a well-equipped kitchen, protected by weld mesh on its open side. It must have been puzzling for Frederick, the cook, and other members of the household to find Bwana Bill’s former wife metamorphosed into the lady of the house and David’s wife. But on that first morning Frederick, who was tiny and frail, clasped my hand and welcomed me with open friendliness. Together we made David his favourite late breakfast – a hot curry with an egg on top.

  As we sat together enjoying our first breakfast as husband and wife, David told me that there were some matters – involving Piglet and some sheep – that needed sorting out before we left for our honeymoon at Lake Manyara, in what was still Tanganyika. I had to laugh when I realized that Piglet – a mischievous orphaned bush pig – was causing such mayhem. He had been left with David by ‘Chickweed’ Parker, and at first this tiny squeaker appeared wickedly endearing, attaching himself to the legs of anyone who went past him. He had recently ingratiated himself into Fatuma’s affections, not in the least bit shared by Samson. Periodically Piglet would dash out from beneath her legs to nip the heels of Samson, then dart back again to shelter beneath Fatuma before Samson could swipe at him with his trunk. Because of Piglet, the elephants were becoming increasingly neurotic and the elephant attendant had come to David early that morning, pleading with him to help sort this out once and for all.

  Another hindrance to our departure was the arrival of six fat sheep, sent to us as a wedding present from the Orma pastoralists who lived on Tsavo’s north-eastern boundary. The sheep had been housed in the empty stable next door to Samson, who clearly resented the intrusion and late at night had exploded out of his stable, demolishing the door and reducing the stable that housed the sheep to a pile of rubble. Two of the sheep had been eaten by a leopard but the rest had managed to survive the night. Before finally leaving for Lake Manyara, David had to organize the repairs to the stable and give instructions for the sheep to be housed elsewhere. Thankfully we did manage to leave for our honeymoon later that day.

  This introduction to married life with David was just a taste of what would become part of every future day, each spiced by the unexpected and the unforeseen, so much so that we were rarely able to enjoy a quiet meal together without some form of interruption, whatever the hour. Notwithstanding, nothing could diminish my sense of inner peace and tranquillity, or the happiness of being married to such an astonishingly wonderful man. Every day married to David was a honeymoon.

  8. Love and Orphans

  ‘Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.’

  – Albert Einstein (1870–1955)

  Aged twenty-six, I settled into a period of great happiness, married to the man I loved passionately and who was my perfect soulmate. Our honeymoon in Lake Manyara National Park was blissfully romantic. David was such an intuitive interpreter of all that was taking place, and we spent hours watching the animals as they went about their daily lives. He opened my eyes to the body language of the wild animals – the meaning of different stances and nuances. All these years later, I can still feel his presence as we sat close to each other, still and quiet and uninterrupted. Our body language told the story of love throughout our married life.

  I did not want the week to end, but the sands of time never stand still and all too soon it was time to go home. I had missed Jill hugely, and was looking forward to picking her up from my parents. As it turned out, I was glad she was not in Tsavo, for there was news that would have upset her – Fatuma and Kanderi had gone. Piglet’s recent departure – the Warden of Nairobi National Park had kindly offered to look after him – had plunged Fatuma into inconsolable grief, and soon afterwards she and Kanderi had joined up with a wild herd and had not been seen since. Fatuma was Jill’s favourite and Kanderi such an impish elephant, who made us laugh at his antics. At least he was old enough to survive out there in the wild.

  Sensing my sadness, David gently reminded me that every wild orphan was ‘on loan’ and could never ‘belong’ to us. We were merely custodians for the period that they were dependent and needed our help, but after that their place and quality of life lay not in semi-captivity for the benefit of humans, but with their wild kin. The fact that Fatuma and Kanderi had graduated from our care to become wild elephants again was a caus
e for celebration, irrespective of how much we humans would miss them. Of course, I knew this from way back when Bushy had left me, but any parting from a loved one is emotional. I thought carefully about how I would tell my little daughter when we were reunited.

  At least Jill would be able to find some consolation in ‘Rufus’, a newly-born rhino calf that Dennis Kearney, the new Assistant Warden, had found one dawn outside my old home. There had been no sign of the mother, but a search party later came across the spot where she had given birth, so it was assumed that she had taken fright and abandoned the calf when people had begun to appear in the morning. For the time being Dennis and his wife were happy to raise this newly orphaned rhino alongside three recently arrived buffalo orphans. When I told Jill about Fatuma, she looked at me gravely, saying: ‘That’s OK, Mummy. She will help look after other baby elephants now and have lots of new friends.’ At five, she was already far more astute than I had been at that age.

  I knew too that she would be captivated by a very different orphan that had been brought in by one of the rangers – a bedraggled little mongoose that had clearly suffered a painful head injury. I remembered Ricky-Ticky-Tavey of my childhood days and just how endearing members of the mongoose family were. While this tiny creature could now fit into the palm of my hand, as a banded mongoose he would grow to be about half the size of a cat, a lot larger than Ricky-Ticky-Tavey, who had been no bigger than a large rat. Covered in brown grizzled fur with thin black bands over his back, we named him ‘Higglety’ because he moved in a ‘higglety-pigglety’ fashion.

  In time, Higglety made a full recovery from his head wound, though it was several weeks before he was able to stand without toppling over and thereafter retained a slightly lopsided look, holding his head at a jaunty angle. He was clever and fearless, with an insatiable curiosity, and when displeased made his feelings known by erecting the hairs on his tail like a bottlebrush. We always knew where he was by the characteristic birdlike ‘peep’ of mongooses, and the only time he was silent was when he was fast asleep. At mealtimes he bustled up, sat on his hind legs with his little black nose twitching to savour what might be on offer, jumped up on to a lap and for the rest of the meal laid his little paws on the table, every now and then hooking a morsel off a plate. Being mainly carnivorous, insects and meat were his staples but unusually Higglety became obsessed by cheese, so much so that the mere mention of the word brought him scampering along, growling in anticipation.

  Higglety quickly became so attached to us – as we to him – that soon after his arrival he came with us to Ndiandaza, on the lower reaches of the Tiva River, in the northern area of the Park where David was supervising the construction of a borehole. It was urgent to provide a source of water that would open up a vast stretch of country during the dry season and also enable the Field Force anti-poaching patrols to operate further afield. A contracted drilling rig had already begun work on this project and now we were set to follow. Along the way, we passed Rudolf, the old rhino who still lived in the Mopea Gap just across the causeway at Lugard’s Falls, relieved to find him still alive and in good shape, but a while later we witnessed a pack of African hunting dogs tearing chunks of twitching flesh from the belly of a living impala. Jill and I were distraught because the impala was literally being eaten alive, but David was consoling, telling us that at such times the animal is in deep shock and feels nothing, since the brain releases endomorphins, substances to numb the nerves and extinguish all feeling. He told us how he had seen soldiers suffer terrible injuries during the war and that they sometimes had not even known they had been wounded until they noticed blood. The pain came much later. In the future I would experience this myself and understand the truth and wisdom of his words.

  It was surreal to be in the northern region, this time as the legitimate wife of David. It evoked memories of an aching longing for things that then I had believed could never be. I was now able to indulge myself, bringing feminine touches to our camp – a little vase of wild flowers on the dining table, the bedlinen turned back at night – and with the help of Frederick provide the dishes David enjoyed, accompanied by freshly baked bread and cakes. Great-Uncle Will’s cast-iron kettle was always on the go for much-needed tea for the team.

  Our camp was pitched close to the scene of the drill and the Rakoub Camel Section of the Field Force, a recent innovation at a point when as yet we had no access to an aircraft. The object was to enable the rangers to become much more mobile and operate further afield, since camels could carry a supply of water. The camels appeared to be a disgruntled and temperamental lot who lay down with bad grace to have their loads strapped on to their backs, groaning and roaring in protest. Apparently this was nothing compared to the noise they made when given their regular injections against the dreaded tsetse disease of trypanosomiasis. When not on patrol, they were kept in a thorn enclosure that Higglety was quick to discover and he instantly became fascinated by these noisy ‘ships of the desert’. Every morning he dashed across the open plain to be with them, risking being scooped up by a bird of prey. Thankfully, however, he survived such hazards and was happy to spend the rest of the day scrabbling in the thornbush fence, fascinated by his new friends.

  There was much wild activity around the camp to keep Jill and me busy. Every morning at eight, flocks of sand grouse swooped in to drink at a shallow puddle near the rig. Their timing was so precise that we could accurately adjust our watches by their arrival. They came from far and wide, leaving their tiny speckled eggs or fluffy baby chicklets exposed on the bare baking ground, banking entirely on the chicks’ camouflage for them to survive. Only the male birds were equipped with the special quill feathers capable of holding the water that had to be carried back to the flightless young, sometimes over great distances. As soon as their father landed the babies would suckle his feathers to get the moisture they needed. Curiously these water quill feathers were absent in the female birds, so if some mishap befell the male, the tiny chicks were doomed to die a miserable death of thirst. This troubled me greatly, knowing full well how sand grouse were slaughtered in droves by shotgun-wielding ‘hunters’ for sport. I found it shocking that people could derive pleasure from killing a tiny bird, or any living creature for that matter, but the killing of sand grouse was particularly abhorrent in view of the vulnerability of the tiny chicks that had to battle so hard to survive under such harsh and adverse conditions.

  We also became intrigued by a female hornbill who, entombed in a tall acacia tree, was wholly dependent on her mate to feed her while she was sealed inside naked until she grew another feathered dress. The proximity of the nest to the drilling rig placed her mate in a quandary. He was understandably frightened of bringing food and could be seen hopping around trying to pluck up the necessary courage to approach his nest, so for the first few days Jill and I relieved him of this responsibility and offered Mrs Hornbill juicy grasshoppers, which she gobbled down with relish. However, her mate soon took over from us, sailing down in spite of the thumping of the rig to push a titbit into the nest for his wife. The Peter’s gazelles also plucked up courage to come and feed on the nutritious twisted pods that rained down from the Acacia tortilis trees shading our tent. Because of them the antelopes of Tsavo were usually in better condition during the dry season than in the wet, their coats sleek and shiny and their bodies lithe and well-covered. The superb starlings also became tame, enjoying the breadcrumbs we threw down for them each day and splashing about in the hollowed-out stone that served as a birdbath just outside the mess tent. They hopped around screeching rudely at Higglety, trusting and unafraid, and Jill loved looking at the starlings’ iridescent breasts, which, in the bright sunlight, took on all the colours of the rainbow.

  At last the day came when the rig struck water at a depth of 170 feet, and there was great rejoicing in the whole camp. We all went along to see the first water being heaved up from the bowels of the earth, and sampled it as we waited impatiently for the results of the test pumping that would
reveal the quantity the hole could yield. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as much as we had hoped, but we were relieved that a supply had at least now been secured. When the rig hauled up a bucket of dark grey mud, David said, ‘How about a celebratory mud pack, Daph?’ I laughed: ‘Well, it does the elephants no harm, so why not!’ and much to the amusement of the workers, David then set about plastering my face with the grey ooze from the depths of Tsavo. Soon it hardened into clay and it occurred to me that rather than easing my wrinkles, it would probably create a few more, but it felt good and after all, here I was – the first woman to have a mud mask from the first borehole in Tsavo East. It took time to peel it all off, and I doubt that anyone has had a Tsavo mudpack since.

  The mood was buoyant in the camp that evening but over the noisy chatter came an extraordinary sound of a distant booming, rather like a muffled explosion. We were puzzled, for there were no humans around for hundreds of miles. Within a couple of minutes one of the Samburu rangers came running up to us exclaiming, ‘Elgubu, Elgubu!’ and announced that this was the sound made by the yellow-legged Kori bustard bird as it predicted exceptionally heavy rain. He told us that when his people heard this sound, they would begin to move their cattle into the area, knowing surely that there would soon be fresh grazing for their herds, and he added that the bird was never wrong. It was difficult to believe that this sound could emanate from a bird, even one as large as a Kori bustard, which was, after all, the largest bird with the ability of flight. Curiosity soon got the better of us and David suggested we went to investigate. Sure enough, some distance away was a Kori bustard, puffing out his grey-white fluffy chest as he thundered his rain song to the heavens.