The Travelling Vet

by Jonathan Cranston

  His words were reassuring and logically he was absolutely right. I couldn’t wish for a better situation to learn from, and it was as safe and as non-pressurized an environment as I could have wished for … but my heart was still pounding. I would be totally exposed: Jacques, Laura, Cobus, fourteen students and most of the capture team would all be relying on me. Everyone would witness any mistake I made, the fear could be paralysing, but this opportunity had presented itself and I was going to grab it with both hands. ‘When we give ourselves permission to fail,’ I remembered reading somewhere, ‘we at the same time give ourselves permission to excel.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d love to do it,’ I said now.

  Back at the lodge, I was deep in thought as I ate my burger listening to the hive of chatter all around. Rumours were spreading among the students that they might get a ride in the helicopter if there was time after the capture. Great, I thought. Now I’d have a group of disappointed students to deal with on top of everything else if it all went wrong.

  It was stepping into the complete unknown that I always found daunting. I remembered the utter fear of my first bungee jump, and the first time I dived onto a crocodile to restrain it, but the buzz afterwards, and the transformation of having those experiences in my memory bank, had always made the initial fear totally worth enduring. So I knew that whatever happened, in a few hours’ time I would be richer for the experience, and that thought added to my motivation.

  I was snapped out of my thoughts by the familiar humming sound, and within minutes the helicopter was circling above us, no more than 100 feet up. Seconds later, Jacques landed on the feeding ground in a plume of dust. No matter how many times I had seen this sight before, I always marvelled at it: helicopters truly were the ultimate mode of transport.

  The engine cut, the propellers slowed and the dust settled, revealing the R44 helicopter. Taking off his headset and clipping it onto the rack above his head, Jacques opened the door and stepped out, greeting Cobus with a broad grin and firm handshake. Turning to me, Cobus introduced us.

  ‘I thought we’d let Jonathan have a go today,’ he said.

  ‘Fine, no problem.’

  And with the unspoken understanding that comes from years of working together, they both turned back to the helicopter, removing the four doors and the two jerry cans of extra fuel, placing them by a bush a short distance away.

  I headed back to my bakkie to organize myself and gather my equipment. I’d made up a couple of darts that morning and had collected Cobus’s, so I had four darts for three zebras. I wasn’t too confident that would be enough, but Cobus reassured me, adding that it would be easy to land and make up some more should the need arise. The usual procedure was to make up more darts in the helicopter as required, but this would probably be one step too far for my first outing, and I didn’t protest.

  With my Dan-Inject CO2 dart gun and container of four darts in hand, I returned to the helicopter where the students had gathered. Borrowing the dart gun from me to demonstrate, Cobus talked through the basic elements of technique, position and safety. Only use the lap strap of the three-point seatbelt so your movement won’t be restricted. Your right foot should rest on the skid, so you are halfway out of the helicopter, and your left foot should lock under the pilot’s seat to maintain balance. Always point the gun out of the helicopter, facing away and down; wait for the pilot’s command to get into the shooting position; aim to shoot in front of the helicopter to minimize the effect of the downdraught on the dart …

  I tried to take it all in, to make a mental note of everything, so that I could play it back to myself as a coaching tool when aboard the helicopter. And then a wave of nausea suddenly engulfed me. What if I accidentally did something stupid and put Jacques’s life in danger? He had been flying for over twenty-seven years and never crashed. He alone serviced his helicopters, and knew every nut, bolt and screw. He could control everything about his aircraft – except me. It showed his immense trust in Cobus, I thought, to allow a complete stranger into the helicopter with a dart gun loaded with Etorphine.

  Explanations done, Cobus took the students over to the vehicles to get them set up, leaving me with Jacques. I climbed into the helicopter, positioning myself as Cobus had done just moments before. I wasn’t quite as tall as him, so with my foot on the skid I was more out of the helicopter than in. I double-checked the seatbelt; it looked secure enough. Having done an external check around the helicopter, Jacques climbed into his seat. He was always punctilious about his checks. Working in a profession where the average life expectancy was six years, I could see why. He motioned to me to put my headset on as he did the same. Suddenly the outside world went quiet.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Jacques’s voice sounded as though it was in my head.

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘All good? Are you happy?’

  ‘Yup, strapped in and set.’

  ‘Great! Just so you know, we can talk freely through this. They can’t hear us on the ground, but I can communicate with them on a different frequency. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Got it, thanks.’

  ‘So it’s your first time darting from the helicopter? It’ll take a bit of getting used to, but I’ll talk you through it. We’ll go up and find the groups and then I’ll work out which one to dart. From there it’s all about following them, anticipating their movements and looking at the terrain ahead for the best place to dart them. I’ll tell you when to load, when to get ready, when to take the safety off, and then it’s over to you.’

  ‘OK, that sounds good. How do you anticipate their movements?’

  ‘All animals have tracks and paths that they use. These are often invisible from the ground, but they are clear as day in the air, so you follow those, but it’s also a matter of experience, knowing how different animals move. Flying’s the easy part!’

  I’d seen these guys in action from the ground and it was always impressive, but I knew I was now about to witness Jacques’s skill on a whole other level.

  ‘Oh, one final thing. Make sure you keep that gun well away from the skid. If the dart accidentally hits it, the drug will spray into my face. If that happens I’ll be taking you to 5,000 feet, by which time I’ll be unconscious, so it’ll be your problem!’ His laugh had an air of defiance about it, and I knew he wasn’t joking.

  Best not hit the skid, then, I thought, nervously pointing the gun further away outside the helicopter.

  ‘Helicopter to ground crew, do you read, over?’

  ‘Hearing you loud and clear,’ came Cobus’s slightly crackly reply across the radio.

  ‘OK, let’s get this bird in the air!’

  Jacques was already flicking switches, and then with a sudden roar, the engine started, the slow revolutions of the propellers quickly picked up, and with a slight jerk we lifted off, hovering momentarily a couple of feet off the ground before we rose into the air, banking away to the right. It was hugely exhilarating. I felt like the ultimate action hero.

  Settling at a couple of hundred feet in the air, we headed for the front gate to start a systematic sweep of the farm. Although I knew the terrain fairly well, it now appeared completely alien and unfamiliar, and I quickly lost my bearings.

  ‘There are some of the tracks I was talking about,’ Jacques said, pointing out of the helicopter to the right.

  He was right: they were as clear as day, well-defined paths through the scrubland, yet barely visible from the ground.

  A herd of impalas were the first animals we saw, and then two giraffes browsing at the top branches of a mimosa tree, none of which took any notice of us. Over the rocky terrain on the far side of the farm we found the wildebeest and blesboks. Looking far across to the right, I could see all the students gathered around the bakkies and trailers on the feeding ground, their eyes fixed on us, oblivious to the ostrich that suddenly darted across the road to their left. It was an amazing perspective.

  Within minutes we were at the top boundary of the farm – a
distance that would have taken over an hour on foot. It was there that we got our first sighting of one of the zebra groups. There were seven animals in all, in thick bush at the top of a rocky hill and completely inaccessible by car. This was clearly one of their secret hiding places.

  ‘We have a visual,’ Jacques reported back. ‘I’ll bring them out into the open for darting. Stand by. Over.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Cobus replied.

  Looking back towards the feeding ground, I could see a frenzy of activity as they loaded up into the two bakkies in preparation. My heart started to pound. The sightseeing tour was over, and it would soon be over to me.

  ‘I’ll bring them down into the open,’ he said to me. ‘Do you see the second from the back? That’s a young stallion, I think we’ll go for him first.’

  I marvelled at his skill. The vegetation was quite thick, so even from the air they were difficult to see. I could see one that looked quite large so I assumed she was a pregnant female, but as to sexing the rest I was at a complete loss. Flying over them and turning back, Jacques came in low, till he was about 50 feet above them, to direct them down the rocky hill. The proximity of the unfamiliar air attack was enough to set them moving.

  ‘Can you see the path they’re following? This isn’t the first time they’ve been up here.’ I saw how the path zigzagged from side to side down the rocky embankment. ‘You’d never take a shot in this situation.’ He slowed the helicopter behind them, all the time watching them and assessing the terrain ahead. ‘They’re constantly changing direction,’ he went on. ‘The ideal shot is a path that takes them straight and on an incline so their speed is slowed and you can come in straight behind them. We don’t always get that, but we will today. When they come out of the brush they’ll turn left and then head off to that bottom field over there.’ He pointed at an open expanse of grassland separated by half a dozen large bushes. ‘Then I’ll bring us back round the other side of them and they’ll be heading in single file up the hill – so that will be your shot. You can load a dart now. But keep the safety on.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’ It dawned on me that, as we had been flying, he had been carefully studying the terrain, creating a detailed map in his mind of every track and path. He was reading the landscape like I would an Ordnance Survey map, but instead of roads, footpaths and bridal ways, he was seeing impala routes, zebra paths and giraffe tracks. It was a skill I could barely fathom.

  Keeping the Dan-Inject well out of the helicopter, I unscrewed the locking mechanism and loaded the dart into the barrel. Screwing the pin back in to seal it, I double-checked the safety was on and then pressurized the chamber. Cobus had said three bars should be right for the distance, so pushing the tap forward I watched the gauge creep up to three. The relatively low pressure meant I’d be darting at a distance of less than 10 metres.

  By the time I’d got myself set, the zebras, having followed the exact path Jacques had predicted, were now in the open field. Jacques hung back to let them momentarily settle and regroup.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

  ‘Loaded and pressurized with the safety on.’

  ‘Great. Can you see which one we want? Second from the back on the left-hand side.’

  ‘I’ve got him.’

  ‘With any luck he’ll stay at the back as they round that far bush to head up the hill. Then you can take the safety off. I’ll come in low. Then take the shot when you’re ready. Don’t rush it, but don’t hang around. After 50 metres they’ll bank off to the left over the hill into scrub.’

  With that, he came in low, banking to the right over the large pregnant female who was the last in the group. It was a clever manoeuvre because she took off slightly ahead of the young stallion, which left him at the back as the group headed away from us.

  ‘So it’s the one at the back,’ he added.

  ‘I see him.’

  The zebras followed the exact path Jacques had predicted the first time, and as they turned up the hill past the last bush, they were cantering in single file. Jacques brought the helicopter low in behind the last one till we were no more than 10 metres off the ground. I brought the gun up to my shoulder and found the zebra through the scope. I tried to steady it, fighting my nerves and pounding heart. I clicked off the safety, focused in on the zebra’s rump and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. I tried to refocus for another shot, but it was too late now. The moment had gone. Jacques pulled up and banked to the left as the zebras broke in the same direction and disappeared into thicker bush. I cursed. I had had the perfect shot but the gun had misfired.

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ I said weakly to Jacques, half apologetically and half confused.

  ‘What pressure did you set?’ he asked.

  ‘Cobus said three bars so I went with that.’

  ‘Go with four.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yeah, you dropped well short, the dart caught the downdraught.’

  ‘You mean it actually fired? I didn’t feel anything or see the dart, so I thought it had misfired.’

  ‘No, no, you fired, it just dropped short.’

  I was speechless; I didn’t know what to think. It was the strangest sensation. In the hundreds of times I’d previously pulled a trigger, I’d always known whether the weapon had fired, but on this occasion I’d felt nothing. Obviously the helicopter cut out the sound, but I hadn’t seen the dart either. I was absolutely convinced the Dan-Inject had failed to fire, but when I checked the barrel Jacques was right: no dart.

  My inexperience had caused me to miss, and that couldn’t be helped; it was part of the learning exercise – but I still felt foolish and embarrassed, acutely aware of the limited number of times I could afford to miss. But I had to put it behind me and move on.

  Having banked over the thick bushes where the zebras had taken temporary cover, Jacques was now studying the new terrain. I tried to do the same, to see if any of his skills were rubbing off on me, and think through the next plan of attack. Beyond these bushes the ground dropped away, eventually joining one of the vehicle tracks that followed the ridge through the middle of the farm. On the far side of this track the landscape again opened up into fields, although this time there were acacia trees scattered throughout the open space.

  ‘I’ll bring them onto this track and then they’ll head for the open field,’ Jacques told me. ‘But the trees will divide them so they won’t be in single file. You’ll have to be quick with the shot because I’ll be coming in between the trees, so don’t get distracted by them. Focus on the one you’re going for and stick with it. If you change your mind you’ll miss, I guarantee it. There are two in this group that we could take – that young stallion, and there’s a young mare that doesn’t look pregnant.’

  ‘OK.’ I processed everything he said, accepting it all without question. I had no idea how he could identify their age and sex from an aerial view, but I was sure he was right.

  Circling over the zebras was enough to encourage them out of their temporary shelter and down onto the track. I reloaded quickly and got myself into position, unsure of how much time I had. Once again the zebras behaved as hoped: splitting around a tree into two groups, three of them sped to the left, and four to the right. When they re-emerged, I had struggled to identify the ones we wanted and was totally confused. Jacques was not: he stuck with the group of four.

  ‘Are you loaded? The back right one is the young mare, I’d go for her. Don’t hesitate.’

  He dropped in low again, this time with the helicopter slightly banked to the right to avoid one of the taller trees, and I could see our shadow approaching fast from the ground below. This meant that we were drawing in on the zebras at a slightly oblique angle, so I realized my target this time was the thigh and not the rump. I focused through the scope as I took the safety off and without a second thought fired.

  This time I could follow the trajectory of the dart, and to my utter frustration and distress, watched, as if in
slow motion, it brush the back of her tail and disappear into the grass. I hadn’t factored in the different approach and had failed to give enough lead to compensate for her forward movement. I closed my eyes as I rocked back into the seat, instantly re-running the miss through my mind.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said feebly.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, everyone has to start somewhere. Besides, it was a difficult shot.’ His words were kind and comforting, but I couldn’t help feeling he must be getting frustrated. I wondered how many attempts I would get before I was gently asked to step down. Damn it, I was sure as hell going to get the next one.

  ‘I think we’ll leave this group and find the others,’ said Jacques when he’d relayed my miss to Cobus. ‘We’ve chased these guys for a bit, so it’s time to give them a break.’

  We headed back down towards the main farm entrance and almost instantly saw the other group to the left of us at the lower watering hole. At 200 feet we were no initial threat to them so they paid us no attention. Jacques flew a large circle over the five zebras to assess the topography and the best direction to send them. Although a dozen trees surrounded the watering hole, beyond it lay 200 metres of grassland in every direction. Beyond that to the left were the lodges, and below them the workers’ houses, so we would have to direct them back the way we had come.

  ‘There could be two quick shots here,’ Jacques noted. ‘They’ll be in single file along the path leading away from the watering hole – that’ll be your first opportunity. Then they’ll briefly disappear into the thick bush beyond, but on the other side the ground is very rocky and open and then they’ll have a steep ascent up onto the plateau, which will slow them down, allowing you your second shot. Just follow down their back and aim two-thirds of the way down. The speed they’ll be moving at will mean you’ll hit their rump, but if you’re a bit further forward it’ll just go into their back muscle.’