It was one of the most frightful things I’ve ever had to do. We had only been with Ken – a big, happy, tough, kindly man – a few brief months before. He was one of the few, the new breed of rancher/wardens who would lead the way in the preservation of wildlife against well-armed gangs of poachers. Others after him turned a blind eye. But for now there were family to inform in Nairobi, the radio was crackling and fading, everyone was shouting and repeating back fragments of messages, and other people were trying to barge in as they couldn’t hear anyone else on the frequency. It was awful. When it was all over and I’d told everyone I had been asked to, George and I had a silent drink to Ken and tried not to think of our own vulnerability.
It emerged that Ken had chased some poachers after he had come across a herd of slaughtered elephant on the ranch. One poacher had stayed behind and shot Ken in the stomach as he set off in pursuit. It was a terrible way for a brave man to die. Ken’s death was yet another example of how the country was buckling under pressure from its northerly neighbour. The Northern Frontier District and the Ukambani region of Kenya were already destabilized by the poaching gangs and they were now threatening the rest of the country. The government had been trying to sweep the problem under the carpet but the problem was bigger than the carpet. Just a few days after Ken’s death, Game Department pilot Wazir Ali’s plane was hit by poachers in Tsavo, bordering Galana. Young rangers were being killed weekly – giving their lives to save the elephants. Vast swathes of the country were becoming inaccessible and the Somalis had long ago formed a bridgehead south of the accepted geographical Tana river dividing line. I still had to make supply trips to Garissa every three weeks or so and they were becoming increasingly hairy. It wasn’t just us under threat: the army and police were always tearing about the place, trying to take the fight to the poachers but, with little support from Headquarters, they too were fighting a losing battle. Philip Kilonzo – the deputy head of police in Garissa – said that he was happy to provide me with an escort to Kora. ’But who would escort the escort back?’ he asked, shortly before he was transferred.
Even with the threat of ambush, going to Garissa was always fun. I usually took Erigumsa along to help with any breakdowns or punctures on the way because the only thing that was certain about a trip to Garissa was that it would never be eventless. The road was so rough that bits always fell off the car, yet more so because we had to keep the speed up in order to get there and back in a day. As the months went by and the poachers became more daring, speed became even more crucial: a speeding car provides a harder target. Luckily there was almost no traffic: if you met someone, you didn’t just wave, you stopped for a chat and a drink. Once I had a car full of people and was hurtling along the sandy track when I hit a rock and the radiator fell out of the Land Rover. It took all our ingenuity to get it back into working order. I tapped a frankincense tree for some of the thick gooey incense, then heated it on a spade and used it to plug the radiator’s holes. Erigumsa braved the crocodiles to get some water from the river two miles away to refill the radiator and we made rope out of strips of bark to tie the thing back into the engine compartment. We were late into Garissa but we made it.
The first thing I would do on arrival in Garissa was to stop for a drink at Mathenge’s Bar just before the bridge on the way into town. An old-style shebeen on the edge of the river, its toilets and short-time rooms were always falling into the muddy waters below as the torrent eroded the foundations. The bridge was a magnificent structure, always guarded by a collection of police and soldiers from the nearby camps. I knew almost all of them by name. The town was on the other side of the bridge, dwarfed by it – just three streets, a couple of mosques and a petrol station, all there because this was the only bridge for hundreds of miles. A frontier town indeed, and one in which I have always felt at home.
My first stop after the bar would be Fahim Bayusuf’s house. A real wheeler-dealer, Fahim was a Kenyan Arab with fingers in many pies. From his small office behind the counter of his hardware shop, he would send minions in all directions, looking for parts for the cars, pipes, tools or anything else on my shopping list, which would then be delivered back to his shop. The Bayusufs now own one of the biggest trucking companies in East Africa. While we waited for things to arrive, Fahim’s mother would feed me up in the knowledge that I would need a full stomach as a foundation for my day’s drinking. I had many wonderful breakfasts there of tea, deep-fried doughnuts and whatever fruit was available before I started the day’s meetings.
I found a typical shopping list of the period just the other day:
sugar
30.06 ammo
1 case tinned carrots
drill bits
sardines
1 snake-bite serum
1 tin Cape gooseberries
whisky
orange squash
corned beef
Ours was not a luxurious life!
After breakfast with the Bayusufs I would do the rounds of the tiny but throbbing town. I always visited the police and army messes, greeted Philip Kilonzo at the police station, and went to see if there was anything to learn at the Game Department office. Usually I called in at the police workshop to scrounge a part or two for the cars. There were many other small shops where I would receive a welcome as warm as that from Fahim’s family but none looked after me so well as the Bayusufs. Every now and then I would nip into the bar by the bridge for a sharpener until all my errands were finished. I would often have to leave orders with Fahim for things to be collected at the next resupply. Amazingly they would appear before our return from camp, delivered by bus or brought up by a friend in a pickup.
The five-hour drive back to Kora was always a grind after a long day in Garissa, but as we got closer to home, the soporific effect of the beer would wear off and the occasional glimpses of the river become more familiar. For most of the way, the road follows the Tana but the thickness of the riverine forest hides it from view. Nothing, however, can hide the three soaring inselbergs that rise above the camp at Kora – Kora Rock, Christian’s Rock and Kora Tit make an exciting target, particularly as you drive the final few miles. Approaching cars can be heard from miles away so the big chain-link gates used to swing open as we arrived home to be greeted by the hornbills, the ravens and the mongooses. George would have a cold drink ready for me, Hamisi the cook would be stirring something disgusting over the fire, and the lions would be pacing the fence, waiting for me to exit the little gate in front of the mess and greet them formally. It was always great to be home.
We would never have lasted so long without the help of our many friends and as ever it remained the unlikely people that helped us. The British Army, for example, were invaluable. The commander at the time was a Colonel Chris Lawrence, whom I had met one day while visiting some army friends at Kahawa barracks. He had been rather interested in what I was doing in their spare-parts store. Chris was in charge of all army training in Kenya and used to send up teams of men to overhaul our equipment and service the Land Rovers – great training for them and a wonderful gift to us. We showed them a good time and they got to see the lions and experience our life in the wilds by way of recompense, but it wasn’t a fair deal. We were extraordinarily lucky. It made a huge difference to have proper Land Rover mechanics working on our equipment, particularly as all of it was well past its sell-by date.
Father Nicky Hennitty should have despised us as godless heathens but instead he went out of his way to help us long before he became the firm friend that he is today. Nicky occasionally arrived at camp with truckloads of adoring nuns, all of whom referred to him as ’The Man’. Amazed by my long hair, they called me ’Jesus Christ Superstar’. It was quite as bizarre as it sounds.
In the middle of 1977 George had to go to Nairobi for an operation, which meant I had to look after the lions on my own. Always a crushing responsibility, it was even harder now that we had four different groups. George was integral to what made Kora special, and when he
wasn’t there, the things that we enjoyed doing together soon became hard work. With George, walking the cubs was exciting and fun, but on my own, it was extremely stressful as I had to keep an eye on them at all times or I would be up all night searching for them with no one to watch my back. George felt this responsibility much less than I did: they were his lions and he knew what was best for them. I had to decide what was best for them and anticipate what George would want for them. The stress was not from the animals themselves but from the worry of ’What if I lose one while he’s away?’ Suleiman and Sheba were still causing problems, and while George was away I had to keep them firmly under control. Growlie had come back with her cubs and taken an instant dislike to the newcomers; Jojo and Kaunda were terrified of them. When I wasn’t there, George had to keep Suleiman and Sheba locked up for long periods. It took a lot of physical strength to manage them so I tried not to be away, except for the briefest of trips.
One such trip took place when George had returned from convalescing after his operation. I headed off to Nairobi for two days, warning him that he shouldn’t let Suleiman and Sheba out of their holding cage. I had decided that the only solution to the problem was to set up a satellite camp where we could prepare the newcomers for release without disturbing the progress of the other groups. I had not thought it through properly, though, and needed to sell the idea to George before we did anything. For the time being, I told George as I left, he shouldn’t let them out at all. He didn’t listen.
The morning after I reached Nairobi, Lindsay received a call from Kampi ya Simba asking her to send the Flying Doctors: George had been mauled by a lion. Their chief pilot, Jim Heather- Hayes, offered to take me with him so it was just a few hours after the attack that I arrived back at camp. We found a badly shaken George sitting on his bed, looking all of his seventy-one years. He was covered in claw and bite marks and had lost a lot of blood.
‘Why did you let them out?’ I asked.
George just burst into tears. The shock of seeing him cry was much worse than seeing him hurt.
When I arrived back at Kampi ya Simba, having put George on the plane, I went to my normal seat. It was only when I looked at his empty chair that I saw he had left a letter for me on his typewriter. It explained in calm and measured detail what had happened. Ken Smith and a friend had been in camp the day before and George had let the lions out to show Ken how well the programme was working!
While I was fending off Sheba, Suleiman got behind me and jumped on my back, siezing hold of my neck in his jaws. I tried to whack him with my stick, but this made him angry and he started to growl, dig in his claws and close his jaws. Thought this was the end! could feel his teeth going in. Pulled out my revolver and fired two shots in the air. This had no effect. In sheer desperation, I reached over my shoulder and pulled the trigger. Immediately Suleiman let go, uttering a slight grunt. And ran off a few yards to where Sheba was sitting, a little above me. Thought it best to get out as quickly as possible, before I started to feel groggy. I was bleeding quite a lot. Got to the car and drove back to camp. Fortunately, Terence had just returned. Sheba started to follow me down the hill as I returned to the car, but then decided to return to Suleiman. I have no idea how badly Suleiman is hurt. He was sitting up when I left. The place where I left him is about twenty yards above the top end of the rock bar and slightly to the left going up. If you go to look for Suleiman and find him still there, it means he is badly injured, when it might be best to finish him off. If only slightly injured, I think he will come back to camp with Sheba. Without my revolver, Suleiman would have surely killed me.
Shocked, sore, weakened by blood loss and knowing there was infection and exquisite pain to come, George had sat and written to me, detailing exactly where I should go to put Suleiman out of his misery. As always his first concern was for the lions. Shortly after he had finished the letter, however, Suleiman and Sheba had come back to camp. George straightened his shoulders, got his head in gear and walked out from behind the wire. He managed to lure the lions back into their holding cage with some meat from the fridge. His extraordinary display of bravery allowed Suleiman and Sheba to live another day and encouraged me to address the problem.
The immediate situation was that we had two quite big lions prowling the holding cage, one of which was wounded. I sat and looked at them for a while, mustering the courage to go in there. They seemed calm enough but they had given us all a fright and I was a little nervous, to say the least. I knocked back a couple of stiff gins, grabbed a bucket of water and walked into the cage. The two lions greeted me as always and behaved as if nothing had happened. Suleiman even let me feel where the bullet had entered under the skin on his shoulders; just as with the one fired by Ken Clarke it seemed to have missed muscle and lodged in fat beneath the skin. I left it where it was.
George came back to camp a few weeks later, recovered but still weak. It was apparent to us both that we couldn’t leave Suleiman and Sheba locked up in the holding cage and if we let them out they would continue to be attacked by the older groups. Oscar, Kora and Daniel tended to ignore them but Arusha and Growlie hated them and beat them up badly whenever they had the chance. We were loath to think what would happen if Blackantan, a new wild lion who was sleeping his way through the pride, came across either Sheba or Suleiman on their own. Eventually we built them a small holding cage five miles from Kampi ya Simba in the upper reaches of Giraffe Lugga. The other lions were not so threatened by them now they were away from the main camp and they immediately started to thrive. Suleiman, however, continued to be a concern.
Suleiman and Sheba were not my only anxiety. George had been away a great deal throughout the whole of I977 and I had been left to cope alone with the ever-growing number of lions. Only a few of them were particularly difficult; the problem was that rearing one lion is a two-man job, and by this time we had four big groups to look after. Leakey and Freddie had crossed the Tana together in early 1976 but Arusha was still thriving and had just produced two cubs, which she showed to us when they still had blue eyes. Gigi had produced a litter with Blackantan, as had Growlie with Daniel. Kaunda and Jojo were becoming increasingly independent, and so were Suleiman and Sheba.
The stress of looking after all the lions, or maybe just being on my own, had turned me increasingly towards the bottle and I knew I’d been drinking too much. After I had made many transgressions, my girlfriend Lindsay had almost dumped me and I was seldom able to leave camp for fear that George wouldn’t be able to manage. It was an unfounded and ill-aimed fear. It was me who was unable to cope, and in March 1978 matters came to a head. I had a raging row with Hamisi, our cook, who was vigorously and rightly defended by George. George and I had our first ever angry words. I stormed out of camp and went AWOL.
To this day I can’t remember what I did but I know I went on a hyperactive safari all over Kenya – upcountry, the coast, the deserts. The photographer Peter Beard told me later that I spent two weeks with him in Tsavo. I have no memory of it at all. By the end of four months I was burning the candle at both ends and had nowhere left to go. I had no money, I had fallen out with half of my friends, I had nothing to do. And Lindsay had had enough of me. I was desperate to get back to Kora but too proud to ask. When Kitch Morson – one of George’s oldest friends – came and saw me, bringing a note from George, I almost kissed him. I’ll never know how it was all worked out but I’m sure there was some sort of intervention. Did George’s friends think he needed help? Did George think I needed help? Or did everyone think we both needed help? Whatever happened, it was done so that neither of us lost face and could get back to doing what we loved most. Kitch said he had just been to Kora and was shocked at what a state the camp was in. The staff were demoralized, he said, the lions were too much for George and the cars were falling to pieces. George’s note came as close to saying, ’Please come back,’ as it ever would, and I needed no extra encouragement. I rounded up a couple of mechanics and headed for Kora immediately.
‘Harrumph,’ said Terence.
My absence was never mentioned and life continued as before. It was great to be home.
All the lions were a little surprised that I had been away but recognized me straight away and greeted me as before. There was sad news, though. Suleiman had been killed by a hippo while I had been away and Sheba had been left on her own. This situation, however, had righted itself: Kaunda had crossed the Tana and not been seen for some months, allowing Sheba and Jojo to become friends. We were concerned for Kaunda but relieved that things had worked out for Sheba. She had been so fond of her brother that when he had died she had led George to the spot, watched him bury Suleiman, then sat on the grave for days, refusing to leave him alone. Tricky bugger he may have been, but there must have been something about Suleiman to inspire such devotion from his sister.
I threw myself back into work. All the vehicles had been driven into the ground and needed major repair work – the Land Rover that we used to fetch water from the Tana could scarcely make it up the hill any more. The fridges had deteriorated and a monitor lizard had made its nest in my hut. I worked incredibly hard, cut back on my drinking and went for long walks with George and the lions. I was back to fitness within weeks and not long after that everything at Kampi ya Simba was working as it should.
Born Wild Page 12
