Storms Over Africa (2 page)

The villagers looked at each other and nodded. ‘Yes,' they said, ‘only two rangers will make it easier. But we have no guns,' they added craftily, their natural inclination to barter rising.

The Indian had anticipated this. Normally he would have argued but his customer in Harare wanted a lot of ivory quickly and so he had come to the village with a quantity of AK47s—relics, no doubt, from the War of Independence. These he had acquired in a ‘no
questions asked' trade for cash with a high-ranking government official. He was prepared to give them to the villagers since the ivory deal was going to make him a rich man. The villagers clapped their hands in appreciation when they saw the weapons.

‘These will kill a lot of elephants,' they said. ‘There will be much work for us to do to get the ivory.'

‘You will be well paid.' The Indian trader mentioned a figure which was half that he had quoted his customer but was much more than they usually received for poached ivory.

‘It is so,' the villagers said. ‘For this money, and with these guns, we will get you many tusks.'

The deal was struck. The Indian left, telling the people in the village he would be back in two weeks with a truck large enough to carry the tusks. The men of the small village sat around the fire for a long time afterwards, talking of the fine deal they had made and all the good things they would be able to afford with the money. As the night wore on and the home-brewed beer fired their imaginations, it was agreed that, in order to give themselves time, the two remaining game rangers would have to be killed. This decision troubled them not at all since the men in question were of a different tribe.

The adolescent calf wrapped her trunk around the branch, snapped it off, shifted its position deftly and fed, slowly and with great enjoyment, on the tender leaves. She was eleven years old and just entering puberty. In another year she would probably be ready to mate, carrying her baby for nearly two years before giving birth. The matriarch, her grandmother, had died of old age the previous year and her place had been taken by another female of considerable years and experience. This new matriarch, an aunt of the calf, displayed none of the hatred of visitors shown by her predecessor and so their family became a favourite one for the rangers to take tourists to see. Consequently, the already half-tame group became even more used to humans.

Constant rumblings from other members of her unit kept her in touch with them and, when the matriarch turned to go to the river, the rest of the herd followed, led either by the rumbling conversation or by an instinct so primitive that humans, if they ever had a similar one, had squandered it a thousand years ago.

The sun crouched, bright orange and huge, on the horizon. The day's heat was abating somewhat and a cooling dip in the water—some splashing and spraying and girlish squealing, some mud wallowing and a long drink—was just the thing the calf needed. A
slight breeze was eddying around, bringing with it the occasional scent of humans. When she felt this, the matriarch flapped her ears in mild disapproval but kept walking.

They reached the grassy banks of the river. One thirsty two-year-old ran squealing down the path towards the water, his mother and older sister close behind him. The rest of the herd stood patiently waiting their turn to move down the sandy path. Then all hell broke loose.

The poachers, due partly to their great fear of the destructive power of an enraged elephant but mainly to their delight at the deadliness of their Kalashnikovs, went into overkill mode. Safe from harm in the trees, the poachers literally shot the herd to pieces. Bits of bone and flesh, skin and tusk, flecks of blood and gore flapped and flew around like demented flies. Great ropes of blood spurted from severed arteries. The terrified screams of these gentle giants were drowned out by the repeated rapping of the guns. Toppled elephants lay dying, twitching, bleeding, broken and uncomprehending in and out of the river. The pale blue water turned an ugly reddish brown.

Of the sixteen elephants in the family, only six carried ivory of a marketable size. Of those twelve tusks, three escaped injury of any sort, four were slightly damaged and the rest were
shot to bits. The two-year-old who had run ahead to get to the water first lay on his side, squealing with fright and pain. The poachers ignored him. It took him three hours to die.

The eleven-year-old female calf had three broken legs from the smashing impact of the bullets. She had to lie on the river bank and listen to the wet smacking sound of the axes and
pangas
cutting into members of her family to get at their tusks. One of the men approached her and looked at her undersized tusks with disgust. In irritation he swung his axe at her head, cleaving a 5-centimetre gap in her skull. So great was her pain from the bullet wounds she barely noticed.

The hyenas found her later that night, attracted by the heady scent of blood. They ate her alive. She was eleven years old. She should have lived for another seventy years.

One hundred and eighty-seven elephants and two game rangers died in the park that night. The following night another ninety-two elephants died. Of the 279 elephants who died, only seventy-three had tusks of a reasonable, marketable size. Of those seventy-three sets of tusks, more than half had been decimated by the repeated fire of the AK47s. It was later estimated that 244 elephants either had no ivory worth dying for or that the very reason for their death had been shot to pieces. Two hundred and forty-four elephants
died for no reason other than they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, all in the name of profit.

Miraculously, Bloomer Ears escaped. At the first sound of the guns he had been about to run ahead of his family to the river. Having worked up a fast pace already, Bloomer Ears shied off the track and fled into the forest, while the rest of his family milled in confusion and became easy targets for the men in the trees. Trembling and afraid, Bloomer Ears was forced to listen to his family and friends being slaughtered.

The destruction of the elephants at the river was witnessed by one other. A man whose farm shared a common border with the game reserve. There were no fences between the two properties and he was in the reserve looking for some cattle which had strayed. On foot, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, he was on the other side of the river. He had seen the elephants making their stately way to the water and had stopped to admire them. They were beautiful against a backdrop of orange sunset, unhurriedly huge, wild yet gentle, indisputably African. Then the shooting started. Hiding behind some boulders, he watched in horror as the slaughter began. There was nothing he could do. And when the men came out of the trees to hack out the ivory tusks, he realised there would never be anything he
could do. Some of them were his men. Men he worked with, shoulder to shoulder, on his farm. Men he respected and loved. Men who carried with them his own guilty secret, his own secret shame. The man turned away from the gory scene, ashen-faced and sweating. His stomach heaved and he leaned over a boulder and vomited. And as he did, he knew he was as guilty as those men on the other side of the river.

The departure lounge at Harare International Airport was chaotic, a ceaseless flow of sweating bodies. Harried airport officials vied for floor space alongside passengers trying to check their baggage onto the London flight. Family and friends saying farewell further clogged the limited space. Some people had spilled into the Arrivals hall in order to say goodbye but, because the London flight came in, changed crew and turned around for the return journey within ninety minutes, this lounge was starting to fill with people there to meet the incoming flight. As always, the imminent arrival of an overseas flight had drawn a large crowd of sightseers who mingled aimlessly in the already packed airport, getting in everyone's way. For these people, the closest they could come to an aeroplane flight was being in the airport when the big planes arrived and they treated this event as a great source of entertainment.

In the seething mass one man managed to
stand aloof. He was at the back of the crowd, half turned from the wall, leaning against it with his left shoulder, one leg tucked comfortably in front of the other. His left hand was placed loosely in the pocket of his jacket, four fingers inside and the thumb outside. He held a cigarette between thumb and index finger of his right hand and took slow, appreciative puffs, blowing the smoke upwards with leisurely enjoyment. His hat, a faded and dusty slouch made from kudu skin, was pulled down so the brim was just level with his eyes. His trousers, shirt and jacket were khaki drill, softened by wear and many washings.

Richard Dunn took a last drag on his cigarette before flicking it casually towards the sand filled metal ashtray about two metres from where he stood. He nodded with satisfaction when the stub landed perfectly in the centre of the vessel.

By tilting his head back slightly he was able to observe the tide of humanity as it ebbed and flowed around him. When he lowered his head he could shut it out, closing his mind to its noise as easily as he excommunicated the sight of it. The brim of his hat was his shutter, opening and closing with the merest movement of his head. He liked the control it gave him.

He glanced up briefly at the clock over the exit door. Richard never wore a watch. A
watch dulled his ability to tell the time by the position of the sun. Unless he was indoors, his calculations were never more than five minutes out. Looking at the clock he was irritated to see that David's flight was already ten minutes late, despite the display on the Arrivals screen stating it was on time.

An Air Zimbabwe ground hostess spotted him, smiled and waved. When she received no acknowledgement she shrugged and went about her business. She knew she had not been snubbed. He simply had not seen her. She glanced in Richard's direction every few minutes, hoping to catch his attention. From experience, she knew that those eyes, now shielded by his hat, could flare with carnal desire. The memory sent a shiver through her.

She wondered, not for the first time, how old he was. High cheekbones and a fine straight nose had his skin stretched taut over his cheeks. Tiny lines around his eyes and mouth added character. Thick black eyebrows and a black moustache settled comfortably against the deep tan of his skin. His black hair was thick and curly, tinged ever so slightly with grey flecks. He was in good physical shape, his hard flat stomach showing no sign of his love of good food and imported scotch. The ground hostess decided he looked to be in his middle forties, although she knew he had the stamina of a much younger man.

Unaware of this scrutiny, Richard was thinking about last night's disaster, the most recent in a long line of calamitous family events. As usual, it left him wondering if his life might have been better had he never met Kathy, his wife of nineteen years. She had died five years ago, leaving him to bring up a headstrong, wild and spoiled daughter of seventeen and a shy and gentle son of twelve. On those few occasions he remembered his wife without aching empty loneliness, Richard was tempted to believe that Kathy had died just to spite him.

Absently, he ran his fingers over his moustache which he had grown to hide a scar. He grinned when he remembered the incident. Kathy, her beautiful blue eyes still filmy with sleep, her long blonde hair in disarray, flowing in glorious golden abandon over her shoulders, her thin nightdress not doing much to hide the soft, feminine lines of her body. She stood, hands on hips, glaring at her husband who was swaying and grinning at her in drunken happiness.

‘Hello, my beautiful heart, my beloved darling.' The alcohol had given free rein to the rather poor romantic in him. ‘You are looking very fetching this morning, my love.'

Kathy snorted.

‘What are you doing up at this hour, love of my life?' He took a stumbling step towards her.

Kathy backed up. She didn't look much like the loving and gentle girl he had married.

‘And just where the hell have you been all night?' Her anger hardened the normal soft burr of her Edinburgh accent. ‘Who's the lucky girl this time?'

‘Ah now Kathy, darling . . .'

He tried to tell her it was a night out with the boys, a bit of harmless boisterousness kicking up their heels in Harare, but he was in no shape to explain and he felt his eyes refusing to meet the hostile glare of his wife.

Several planks of wood were leaning against the wall of the house. If Richard had been able to meet his wife's eyes he might have seen the plank she swung at him coming. He was knocked out cold.

When he came round he thought he was drowning in a sea of red grass. It took him some moments to realise that Kathy was holding him, her hair streaming over his face, its redness the result of his blood which sprayed from the gash in his mouth. She was crying and begging his forgiveness.

Amusement, anger and protestations of innocence all strived for supremacy within him. Desire triumphed over everything. Ignoring the pain of a lip cut through and several loose teeth, and despite Kathy's protests of, ‘but Richard, the servants', Richard Dunn made love to her on the bare boards of the
verandah, the dawn chorus of wood doves—piet-my-vrou, grey loerie and weaverbirds—drowned out by the soft love cries of his wife.

The memory of Kathy disturbed him. The knowledge that he had often hurt her had caused pangs of regret while she was alive but, after her death, he wished that more than anything else he had been more considerate, shown more affection. Kathy had known other women were attracted to her husband. She'd believed that his occasional forays into the hotels of Harare, usually after attending the cattle sales and in the company of other farmers, involved women. And it was true, other women had been involved but not in the way his wife thought. Richard had gone to cut loose, to relax and get away from the daily toil of farming. To get a little drunk with other farmers—male and female—he only saw once or twice a year. To swap stories, experiences, triumphs and failures. To be in the company of someone other than his own family.