An Elephant Bull Called Elizabeth and Other Short Stories from Africa

David

It was a deep sleep that I awoke from. There was a voice, both persistent and urgent. I heard the words but could not, at first, decipher them. They made no sense.

'The lions have eaten David'

'What?'

'The lions have eaten David' repeated the voice

I had only met David once. A young English lad on his gap year, you could not say that I knew him in any real sense. By all accounts he was a cheerful presence in camp, willing to put his back into it and can only have had an adventurous spirit, choosing, as he had done, to take a gap year and work for a safari company in a remote wilderness. The company that he worked for was Ivan Carter Safaris (ICS), though 'worked' is probably the wrong description. He did whatever was needed to help and his renumeration was food and board with a chance to see Zimbabwe's National Parks. ICS was a mobile operator, they would book a National Park's camp site for their guests then proceed to set up a tented camp with all the essentials; a large dining room, walk in accommodation with proper beds complete with ensuite bucket shower and a loo; all of it complimented by first class food miraculously produced in the most basic of kitchens and a private guide to show them Zimbabwe's spectacular wildlife. The camp would stay up for the duration of the guests visit and then be taken down and moved to the next site for the next booking. There was a lot a strong young lad could do to help out with such an operation.

It was around two o'clock or so in the morning that I was being woken and it was the ICS guide's voice, urgent but surprisingly calm, issuing from the dark through the mesh window of my abode on Spurwing Island, just off the shores of Matusadona National Park.

The words were sinking in. So few words, such huge import. Assured by my query that I was now awake, the voice instructed me to dress and make it over to Andy Webb's house. Andy was my boss and owner of Spurwing Safaris, the guide in question had been working with us until a short while before this all took place; we knew him well and respected his skills as a guide. I will not mention his name, decisions were made after the event, mainly in dealing with the media, that were in retrospect a mistake; the result of this was a totally undeserved vilification of this person in the world media leading to very real repercussions in his own life.

Arriving at the Webb's the atmosphere was subdued, the conversation muted; despite being awake there was a surreal feeling that would stay with me until the hard light of day, and the realities that it bought, dispelled it. The details of the incident were stark and uncomplicated.

After the evening meal everyone had retired to bed. For the guests this was to their full size safari tents, for the kitchen staff this was a matter of spreading out their bed rolls and setting up mosquito nets outside the kitchen tent, for the guide and David this meant crawling into their individual little pup tents, set a little back from the rest of the camp and more or less in the middle of the crescent shape created by the guest, dining-room and kitchen tents.

David left the zip of his tent undone to allow in more air given the heat of the night, the guide queried this but was not too concerned with David's insistence that he preferred to do it that way. It was common practice amongst some guides and national parks personal to sleep outside when temperatures were high as there was no known issues in Matusadona. Had this same conversation taken place in Mana Pools the guide might have over-ridden David's wish to let in a little more air. In Mana Pools the hyena have, on occasion bitten, and attempted to make off with, humans sleeping out under the stars, therefore it is common practice there to ensure you are properly buttoned up for the night. I have both slept out under the stars with nothing around me in Matusadona and slept out in Mana Pools where I would heed advice and surround myself with a ring of chairs from the dining room or simply accept the discomfort and sleep in a zipped up pup tent.