Tusker

by Dougie Arnold

  Harry eased Bluebird gently down the main track, not even bothering to put the lights on. He fumbled under the dash board just to check that the hand held radio was there and then turning left out of the main entrance, headed east, navigating easily in the somewhat eerie, silver light.

  The drive was uneventful. Every so often he cut the engine and they just sat and listened. Off in the distance they could hear the distinctive whooping call of spotted hyenas but sound travelled so well at night that they were probably well over a mile away.

  Then as they levelled out onto a less rocky area where the track became dustier Ana caught the smallest of movements out of her right-hand eye.

  “Harry stop here will you, I am sure something has just gone behind that termite mound but I only glanced a movement, I’ve no idea what it is.”

  They waited patiently but whatever it was didn’t reappear. Ana was just about to tell him to move on, convinced that she must have been mistaken when from round the back came the strangest of shapes.

  They were both transfixed. What they were looking at was something that seemed as though it belonged to a prehistoric age. It had a long snout almost like that of a thin pig and extremely large ears that would have made any rabbit jealous, together with a tail almost like that of a small kangaroo.

  “I can’t believe our luck; we’re looking at an aardvark. I have seen photos of them but never one in real life, despite having passed this mound dozens of times. Bethwell told me something about them and obviously being solitary and nocturnal makes them difficult to spot. It must be searching for termites, its favourite food. Apparently they are amazing diggers and make many of the holes and burrows that other animals use, so without really knowing it they are doing a great service. Luckily for them they spend so much time in the earth that their bodies are almost always covered in a brown dust which means they leave very little scent, quite handy when you would make a tasty meal for lions or leopards. And talking of eating, these guys can get through up to fifty thousand termites in a single night. He is probably looking for his final course before bed time.”

  They sat transfixed for a while watching this secretive creature nuzzling into the base of the mound.

  “Surely the termites have got something to say about this Harry?”

  “They do get lots of bites which is hardly surprising but their skin is so tough that it’s only a slight irritation. Wish I could say the same about mosquitoes and me!”

  Leaving the aardvark to enjoy his meal in peace they drove on. Although they didn’t speak of it both secretly hoped that if they came across some elephants it would be their favourite family.

  After a further forty minutes they had seen nothing of real interest when suddenly on rounding a bend there right in front of them was a pair of young lions. Harry pulled to a halt and cut the engine.

  “Wow what a piece of luck to find them up and about so early.”

  As they watched the larger of the two kept putting his head to the ground and scratched at his neck.

  “I know I haven’t seen that many lion Harry but the one on the right seems to be behaving very oddly.”

  “I agree, let’s take a closer look.” He reached into the door pocket and took out a pair of rather battered binoculars. Even without Bluebird’s lights on he still got a remarkably clear image as he fine-tuned them, rotating the small circle on the eye lens.”

  “Oh my God, I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t believe what Harry? Let me have a look.”

  “Round his neck, tell me what you see?”

  Ana peered at the silver lion and immediately saw what had concerned Harry. “It looks like a wire. I would have said rope but there is about two feet sticking out rigidly at right angles. Poor thing now I understand his strange movements, he is trying to get it off.”

  “He will have no chance of that I’m afraid,” said Harry. “My bet is that that is no ordinary wire but an animal snare. It’s just like a hangman’s noose, the more he pulls on it the tighter it becomes. I am sure those dark patches we can see under the straggly young mane will be blood.”

  “He will be in agony. We must do something,” said Ana, feeling the helplessness of her statement almost as she said it.

  “There is nothing you or I can do for him right now. He is a dangerous wild animal in pain, we can’t possibly approach him. Our only chance is to get Jim here as soon as possible. I know he has a special dart gun and if the lion can be tranquilised then we would have a reasonable chance of cutting that snare off. Try the camp on the radio, the early birds are bound to be up by now.”

  Ana grabbed the radio, “Uwingoni camp this is Bluebird, do you read me?” She sat drumming her fingers impatiently on the set. “Uwingoni, come in please.”

  “Don’t be too impatient, it’s still ridiculously early.”

  “I know, I know but…”

  “Bluebird this is Uwingoni. What’s up I have just put the first coffee of the day on the stove.”

  “Oh Jim I can’t believe it’s you. Look we have a young lion on the track right in front of us and he’s in a bad way. He’s got a wire snare round his neck that he’s been trying to get off. Please can you come down and help him. There is nothing we can do except watch, which is dreadful.”

  “OK, Ana just slow down a bit.” His calm, unhurried voice helped them both to focus.

  “I need an accurate idea of where you are now and more importantly, as much as possible, you will need to follow the lion from a sensible distance. He is unlikely to stay in the same spot unless his injuries are severe. In the meantime I’ll look out my bush vet’s kit and my dart gun and be with you as soon as I possibly can.”

  “Thanks Jim. We will do our best to stay close. What luck we came round the corner when we did. I can’t imagine what sort of an end he would have met otherwise.”

  “We will do what we can Ana but sadly there is no guarantee that he will recover. It depends on how deep his neck wound is. Anyway enough chat, I need to get cracking.”

  They sat in silence watching the young lion in front of them, the only intrusion being the sound of some crickets warming themselves up in the chill. He made no attempt to run away but instead simply lay down on the side of the track, looking directly at them.

  “Look at those yellow eyes Harry, it is almost as though they are pleading for help.”

  The early rays of the sun had just crept above the rocky horizon and now they could see the lion in greater detail. He was too young to have much of a mane but their early thoughts were confirmed in the light.

  “Look under his throat Ana, it’s covered in blood and he seems so thin. There is no way he would be able to hunt like this, he must literally be starving.”

  The other young lion moved off into the rocks a few hundred meters away and lay down watching. His sandy coat camouflaging him in such a way that, had they not been watching him, they would hardly have known he was there.

  “I imagine they will be brothers and that’s a strong bond between young lions, not just for company but for hunting together,” said Harry. “He will have even more interest in what happens than us.”

  The sun continued to rise in the sky with the morning chorus from the birds accompanying it, but no other animals came their way.

  After some forty minutes they were suddenly aware of the throb of a diesel engine drawing closer. The young lion lifted his head slowly but made no effort to move as the Land Cruiser appeared down the track behind them. Jim was at the wheel and had brought Kilifi with him. They drew up alongside Bluebird but didn’t get out, exchanging conversation as they assessed the situation.

  “Is this where you first saw him?” asked Jim.

  “Yes, Ana and I were surprised that he made no effort to move away from us. It is almost as though he doesn’t see us as a threat.”

  “Or he is literally on his last legs. Look at his ribs sticking out, poor fellow can’t have eaten for days.”

  “I see his brother has stayed
to keep him company,” remarked Kilifi. “By the look of it I don’t think he will be a danger to us.”

  “How on earth did you even spot him?” asked Ana. “I even made a note of exactly which rocks he was behind but I can’t see him now. Kilifi just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Give yourself another five years in the bush, Ana then you will notice more than you could think possible. Now let’s get on with trying to help this young chap. Have you got the spare darts, Kilifi, just in case I miss first time?”

  He brought out a container with the darts and opened it carefully on his lap.

  “What I am going to fire,” said Jim, “is really a syringe which has an immobilising drug in it and a hypodermic needle at its tip, not much different from what you would find at your doctors. However the rest of it is quite clever. It has a tailpiece that keeps it on track in the air, a bit like a shuttlecock in badminton I suppose. Then right at the back is a steel ball so that when it strikes the animal the impact pushes the syringe plunger and so injects the sedative drug into the animal.”

  He picked up the tranquilliser gun and carefully loaded it. “You see this is much more like an air rifle than anything else and the gas in this canister by the trigger it what really helps to propel the dart. Some people use a crossbow but I much prefer this. Now let’s see whether I am still a reasonable shot. Assuming it does hit home we will still probably have to wait half an hour for the drug to take effect.”

  Jim raised the gun to his shoulder and squinted down barrel, lining up the front and back sights with the lion’s rear haunch. Breathing in to make himself as still as possible he gently squeezed the trigger. The dart fizzed out, imbedding itself exactly where he had aimed.

  The lion was instantly on his feet, trying his best to look behind at the pink feathered dart in his flank. He moved off as quickly as he could into the light bush at the side of the track but even that sudden movement seemed to have exhausted him. He lay down in the shade of a large rock, trying to see what had stung him but unable to move his neck properly.

  “Now all we have to do is wait for the drug to take effect. The plus of him being weakened is that it looks like we will not have to track him. If we are lucky he will just stay there. Sometimes after using the gun we have had to walk almost a couple of miles, following at a safe distance but often over really difficult terrain.”

  “Watch out,” warned Kilifi, “here comes his brother.”

  The others had rather forgotten about him and everyone’s focus changed direction. He moved cautiously down from his hiding place, his head swaying gently, small puffs of dust rising from the dry ground as his large paws hit the surface.

  When he reached his brother he sniffed around then nuzzled him gently and lay down by his side.

  “Oh my goodness, that is so moving,” said Ana. “He can obviously sense something is not right, other than the snare I mean. It looks like more than just protection; it almost as though he feels he simply needs to be there for him.”

  “I agree,” replied Jim. “But obviously this will be a problem for us unless he goes back up the hillside. Even having him relatively close certainly increases the danger for us.” He checked his watch. “Another ten minutes and the tranquiliser will have done its job.”

  As Kilifi got out of the Land Cruiser, rifle in hand the other lion moved away much more quickly than expected, returning to his original look out spot behind the rocks. Nevertheless, Kilifi needed to keep a close eye on him and if necessary fire a warning shot to scare him away.

  “If you are both happy to come with me it would help. Three pairs of hands are better than one but I quite understand if you would rather stay in the vehicle.”

  “I don’t think either of us would want to miss out on helping all we can,” said Harry.

  “Right in that case can you bring that special toolkit in the back with those long-handled bolt cutters on the top? Ana there is a blue bag there too with a white cross on the side which has got all my emergency vet kit in. Both of you wait here to start with though, while I check out that the sedative has worked.

  Jim moved cautiously towards the lion that remained motionless except for the rise and fall of his all too bony rib cage. He glanced across at Kilifi, standing under the shade of a tree, rifle in hand, who gave the thumbs up. “You two can come over now. With luck we will have about thirty minutes before the drug starts to lose its effectiveness but obviously we don’t want anything sudden causing him to come round quickly.”

  Jim delved into his rucksack. “These are earplugs, might seem daft but if Kilifi had to use his rifle, for instance, that could have a dramatic effect on our patient.”

  Fortunately the lion was lying with his paws stretched out in front of him and his head resting on them in an upright position. His ears were rounded with quite shaggy fur and still sat proudly on his head.

  Jim slipped the two extra large orange earplugs in place, pushing them down gently into the openings. “They are so remarkable when you are close up. By evolving rounded ears rather than pointed ones there is far less chance of them being noticed when they are hunting. You can see the colour almost matches the grass they are in too.”

  “I had never really noticed they had black fur on the back of their ears,” remarked Ana.

  “Even cleverer as the markings on each lion are different. You see when they are hunting in a pack the less experienced ones will nearly always be behind the leaders and they will be able to recognise the black markings in the long grass and know exactly who they are following. Anyway don’t let me drone on, we’ve got work to do.”

  He placed a large cloth over the lion’s eyes and then set about examining the snare. “You can see how heavy duty this wire is; he had no chance of getting this off by himself. However, in all this he has had one piece of luck. If you look at the rigid piece sticking out to the side you will see that has a smaller noose on it. That would have held a large wooden stake that would have been driven into the ground. My feeling is that because this wire is rusty the snare might well have been there for a long time and the wood probably rotted somewhat or got damaged by termites. When it ensnared his head and he fought to get free the stake would have broken and as he didn’t have to pull repeatedly it might not have tightened as much as it could have done.”

  Jim felt carefully round the lion’s neck, looking for an area where he could use the heavy duty cutters that would be needed to get through the snare.

  “I am going to try underneath where the skin in his throat is not quite so tight. Harry can you see whether you can move some of this blood-matted fur out of the way?”

  Harry bent down and tried his best but it was far from easy. The blood was thick but dried and there was red earth in there too. “The good news is that it doesn’t seem to be bleeding at the moment but there must be dirt and muck in the wound.”

  “Here why don’t you try these scissors I have just found at the bottom of the medibag.”

  “Thanks Ana they look like they might do the job.” Carefully he sniped away the worst of it, exposing a line of angry looking pink flesh but remarkably right at the base, just as Jim had suggested there was a tiny bit of movement between the flesh and the wire.

  “That’s made a big difference, thanks Harry. Now comes the tricky bit. If you can get above his head, put your hands underneath his chin and pull upwards I think I’ll be able to see just enough of the wire to cut it, but be as still as you can. The last thing I want to do is cut some major vein in his neck.”

  Harry could feel the sweat dripping down his nose, the lion’s head was far heavier than he had expected. He pulled gently but firmly and as he did so Jim searched for the best place to try to cut the wire.

  “Move your right hand round a bit Harry. Perfect. Try to hold it right there. I might nick him a bit but I don’t think I’ll do much damage.”

  As carefully as he could he got the long-handled cutters round the wire.

  “Right here goes.” At first
the wire didn’t respond and Jim increased the pressure until he was pretty much using all his strength. Then without warning there was a sudden twang as he cut through and the tension on the wire was broken. Gently he pulled it away.

  “I think we are in luck. There is quite a long cut but it is not nearly as deep as I’d feared. Ana can you please pass me some sterile wipes. I am not going to attempt to put stitches in it. I’ll just have a go at cleaning it up as well as I can.”

  Harry continued to hold the lion’s head while Jim worked his way round the whole extent of the neck. As he cleaned each section he sprayed a pink liquid that further sterilised the wound.

  “Thanks Harry. You can let go now. Almost done. I am just going to give him an antibiotic jab and then an antidote to bring him round again. Although it doesn’t work straight away, will you collect everything up now and put it back in the Land Cruiser. Then you can return to Bluebird and we can watch to see if he seems OK.”

  As they sat back in the cab Ana held the snare in her hand. “What sort of people put things like this out for animals? This really is a war we are fighting.”

  “Too true. When you look at what is happening to wildlife across the world I sometimes feel the tide of greed will just overwhelm those standing against it. But you know every day there will also be hundreds of small victories like this one. In themselves they might not seem that much but put them all together and it’s a different story. I like to believe in the power of good.”

  “You’re right Harry. I know we must take all the positives that life throws our way.”

  Jim was at their window. “The antidote should kick in pretty quickly but he will certainly feel a little groggy for a while. I know we’ve all got things to do but I want to stay here until I feel he’s going to be all right.”

  “Oh, us too,” said Ana. “I almost feel like we are watching a member of our family come round after an operation.”

  Kilifi came back down from the hillside and the four of them sat in their vehicles, and watched as the young lion began to stir.